Cryptoqueen: A woman scammed the world, then vanished
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Also I am not sure what "she stands out" even means. Is this a way of saying she's not white? That's not really a problem. In a ton of EMEA countries she'd blend right in.
People get killed for far less.
> The article speculates she's alive.
And I'm speculating she isn't.
> The Ignatov family seems involved in various frauds, so I wouldn't view her as an innocent woman who got in too deep. She knew what she as doing and has family connections.
I never said she did not know what she was doing.
> Also I am not sure what "she stands out" even means.
It means that there are tons of photographs of her and she may blend in in some places but even there a little bit of reward money will almost certainly turn her up unless she goes full Osama bin Laden and we all know how that ended. True, he had more powerful enemies but she also has less powerful friends than whole nations willing to help hiding her.
Hence my speculation she's no longer around.
Sincerely though, if not pop culture, what is this prediction based on?
What base rate information do you have about criminals who are extrajudicially executed? What information about who in the criminal underworld knows how much are you conditioning on in order to get a distribution that integrates out to >0.5 here, as opposed to >0.9, or <0.1?
Just based on what’s publicly accessible, it seems totally implausible even to put a educated guess on the odds of something like this.
Let's turn that around: how many hard core criminals do you know that end up living to a ripe old age? Even Bulger didn't make it and he tried real hard.
No, just that there is a fair chance.
> Your example of Bulger is bad, he was 89 at the time of his death, that's 10 years older than the avg European male's lifespan.
My point was: and yet he didn't make it. His end wasn't exactly peaceful by any stretch of the imagination and he was an outlier for living that long. He only managed because he laid low for a long time (16 years!), if not for that he'd have been killed in the same manner or worse long before.
Bulger is a bad example for only one reason: he turned information on the Mafia over to the authorities, which is a bit of a career limiting move for a criminal. Note that between his arrival in the penitentiary where he was murdered and his demise only a scant few hours passed.
But still, as you correctly state, he lived to 89, which is older than most and that's why he's exceptional, a hardened criminal, former gang leader able to live to that age is noteworthy.
There is nothing unique about this case, or any specific piece of evidence you can point to that indicates her death, other than a hunch. Bulger lasted 16 years laying low, why not her?
Note: Both are married to other people. And FBI arrested Armenta and made him an informant. Ruja moved into the apartment underneath him and had a hole drilled through the ceiling so she could spy on him talking with his wife. It was due to this that she discovered later that he was a mole! And within the month, she fled into oblivion.
I was told by former leaders that she definitely put a lot of money into bitcoin, herself. Yet, in 2015 she told her victims that they could have their "coins frozen" (novel idea on a "blockchain," I know) if they "promoted any other projects or coins." She said that it would be as if a Coca-Cola driver was seen drinking Pepsi on the job.
She was such a greedy bitch that she didn't allow her victims to even put money in any real crypto. She wanted ALL their investment.
AUDIO: https://soundcloud.com/innercitypress/onecoins-ruja-ignatova...
Presumably they also have some kind of pull with the main states in which they are based which prevents prosecution/examination.
Fortunately, that denial, a glorious work on its own, can be seen in cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:...
But 80% of the episodes deal with Ponzi schemes claiming unrealistic returns. Part of me feels bad for the people. The other part doesn't since they think they can get a 5% return a month. If you can do 5% a month wall street will toss trillions at you.
It is:) Over the years I have watched every episode and now have status of "All caught up" Hulu.
There’s one for movies called Radarr and one for music called Lidarr. I’ve found them less useful and don’t use them but it’s worth a try.
With jackett you can use the same interface as sonarr to an indexer. They are very similar in concepts too (radarr is based on sonarr).
The only truly missing feature is the ability to request a movie in another language. Radarr is strictly one language per movie.
I was surprised as It had been closed for a long time.
I had listened to the BBC podcast and was curious so I tried to enter.
It was locked and a lady came to open. There were a couple of people, maybe customers. There were books, CDs and other material.
I stayed two minutes and head to the exit. The door was locked and the lady came to open.
That's all.
It felt weird.
At least in Eastern Europe, it was going like this (translation): The "master scammer" created a platform for "wannabe scammers" to scam others. But the master is the master.
Typical ponzi scheme: everybody knew but they were hoping the get bigger sucker.
Or did every investor want a get rich quick sheme?
I remember when Bitcoin was cheap as hell I think it was $1 bought you 1,000 Bitcoins so I am no Bitcoin expert or I would be a billionaire. Yes I dream of having some on an old hard drive (I'm sure we all do).
Victims had mostly no tech background, whatsoever, and had been told that "decentralized" meant crime and anonymity, which they perceived as a bad thing which Onecoin's "centralized model" prevented.
They didn't know the usefulness or cruciality of even a block explorer.
So, for some, there were "fundamental reasons" for a cryptocurrency (sic) like Onecoin, in addition to the speculative nature of (real) cryptos, in general.
FWIW the podcast ends up being more of a critique of MLM schemes in general rather than Ruja Ignatova herself (although she is certainly a crook).
The last episode is also interesting as it highlights the motivations of the whistleblowers- these people are mostly speaking out against OneCoin because they are promoting competing sh*tcoin schemes rather than because of any objection in principle to the idea of marketing rubbish to vulnerable people.
See also "The strange religion of cryptocurrency", where the same journalist talks about OneCoin (and money in general) as a religion. Very interesting. https://audioboom.com/posts/7386285-the-strange-religion-of-...
Also, US lawyer Mark Scott was convicted earlier this week of money laundering for OneCoin: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50509299
Check out The Big Con by David Maurer
And if I can't understand how the other person benefits? I'm immediately suspicious.
This is the same issue for all other "scams", i. e. like some insurance-salespersons, which obviously sell overpriced or needless contracts, just to earn more money with their victims. Or car mechanics who tell the car owner the suspension arm needs to be replaced even if it's in perfect condition. It's always the same: some greedy, immoral people exploiting the inexperience or missing knowledge or other people.
That's a very interesting throwaway line; anyone know what those products are?
Ideally it would source from forums, reddit/HN/Digg and the like, comments directly under articles/blogs, Wikipedia talk pages, archives of newsgroups, mailing lists, Google groups and Yahoo groups, etc.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pushshift/comments/bcxguf/new_to_pu...
:D ... cringe-inducing to the point it could gag a maggot ...
"And now it starts blinking guys!" (because just BEFORE a block is solved the counter indicates "you're almost there" by blinking. LMFAO!!)
"GO! GO! GO! MINE!"
I guess greed makes some people really stupid?
I thought these companies only existed in movies... But obviously they got their inspiration somewhere.
(Yes 'they' can intentionally be read both ways)
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/09/crown_sterlin...
Robert Grant is listed as a: "Polymath and Expert in Sonic Geometry"
I love this stuff, look at all of the listed "experts" each with books published ("Sacred Cosmology of Ancient Egypt"). Humans are so weird.
That reads like it was generated by gpt-2.
It's describing an apparently faster way to identify prime numbers.
Looks pretty legit to me, but still, reading the website, there's something... not quite off, but still... quirky, in a way I can't put my finger on. :/
TL;DR, what do others think of this paper?
Followed that to attendee recordings of the talk, and was not disappointed.
All those faux-meaningful graphics, the 3D rendered vitruvian man, that the company is called ‘Crown Sterling’ and the logo is a metallic griffin, means that it’s likely that they’re at least 80% woo. Similar to a company that peddles pain relief patches which use the power of quantum harmonic energy to transmit healing bio-activated energy or whatever. Funnily enough, the people behind the former also sell the latter.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/was-bitcoin-created-by-this-inte...
Uh, why would this be illegal? Is flightaware illegal? Or the yacht tracking sites?
edit I just re-read your comment and realised I missed most of it somehow. It's late here, and you were spot on, sorry!
edit edit Also, It's an older code sir, but it checks out.
Only problem was, every single thing I mentioned above was complete nonsense. The cryptocurrency didn't actually exist, and despite having multiple "crypto experts", nobody really understood how a blockchain actually worked. I quit after I started to see what was really going on, though everything smelled fishy from the beginning.
There is an argument to be made here that someone who is that irresponsible, or frankly stupid, has only themselves to blame.
There's a common trope, the problem isn't [insert programming language like python or java] . It's the [programming lang] programmers. The same is true with blockchain. Very few people with reputations and skills wanna go into this field because of these scammers.
If social media use is required, create new accounts.
RyanAir has to be the most budget airline I’ve ever been on...
Great math-guy.. wonder where he got info on Gates wealth.
Anyways, even if she had managed to exit with a large stash of money, she'd still have to keep it out of reach from the government authorities, lawyers, etc. So even if she owned $1B momentarily, it wouldn't be of much worth to her if she (rightfully) lost it all again in 4 years plus interest. That's why criminals have such an extravagant lifestyle: they can't think long term because long term they might be in prison, killed by another criminal, etc. Same goes for rich people in authoritarian regimes: the moment they fall out of favour, their money is gone, so often they want to get it out of the country before the tides turn on them.
Arguably the world's economy is a Ponzi scheme anyway, but the people in control of it will do anything to keep the smoke-and-mirrors-show running.
It’s what all the crypto currency people completely misunderstand whenever they’re bringing the « every currency is a matter of trust ».
Indeed, ultimately paper is just paper, but the guarantees and legal bindings behind that paper are what makes it easier to grant « trust » and thus value.
A lot of the investment that got us here depended on people actually having some incentive not to bury their dollars in the ground.
In 1953 or so my parents rented their first house as newlyweds. For $10 per month. Minimum wage was 75 cents/hour. My parents definitely had a used car...
So 14 hours labor at minimum wage, paid the rent...compare that to today.
And moving back to the original point, the reason why homes capture a larger share of incomes than before is down to the supply of homes outstripping demand, not the loss of the gold standard. If the supply of dollars were fixed as deflationistas advocate, you wouldn't lose the market pressure on housing, just the wage increases and incentives for people already holding large pieces of the pie to invest in something riskier than housing...
One said $2449[0], one said $9573[1] and one said $16499[2] in chained 2012 dollars.
Computing the figures from the Census's 20th century data[3] supports the $2449 as the current-dollar figure.
[0] https://countryeconomy.com/gdp/usa?year=1953
[1] https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/GDP-...
[2] https://www.multpl.com/us-real-gdp-per-capita/table/by-year
[2] is inflation adjusted. Methodologies for that can vary quite a bit (other inflation adjustment sites give a value >$20K) but the result is a more meaningful comparison.
I have no idea what [1] is supposed to be, and they don't seem to be giving any sources or listing any methodology.
You are allowed to accept payments in different currencies, or even barter, but you can't require them.
It's only when the form of payment isn't specified, that dollars must accepted, by default.
If our contract was specifically for 1 BTC, it's legal to demand 1 BTC, and to otherwise sue for breach of contract.
After all, how else would a contract for currency exchange be enforced?
If you owed me 1 btc because I paid you 1.02 btc in dollars (2% transaction fee), it would make no sense to allow you to simply repay me with the equivalent of 1 btc in dollars, and consider that to be a settled debt.
And no - money has nothing to do with taxes and initially it was based on social agreement. Pacific stone coins weight tonns - some of the ones that are still in use physically do not exist anymore or are inaccessible in the bottom of ocean.
So from that viewpoint these cryptocurrencies all are like early monies - based on agreements and trust.
And ffs - people are weird these days - money is worth only when dealing with other people - taxes(earliest form of robbery) is not and wont be one of the reasons for money to exist. Goverment, that takes care for people and decide what they have to do and think don't need money to run society. Money is needed when independent people/souzerains deal with other people - slaves and children and sick/unsane dependant people and pet animals do not need money as they have no voice in these matters
These days, it is backed by debt. Money comes into existence in some federal bank/central bank out of thin air, and is then put into circulation by granting loans i.e. creating debt. So money was and is really an IOU. And governments guarantee that you will be able to collect on it, one way or another.
crypto on the other hand comes into existence either by proof of work (work that cannot be recovered and it lost forever and therefore worthless) or blind faith, with not even an IOU backing it.
That work secures all the transactions that came before it, it's certainly not worthless.
> with not even an IOU backing it.
That is not backing, it's just a promise that you'll get your faith-based paper back.