Hi everyone,

I'm just excited about Stellar, and buying it early on. I'm also a software engineer, so if anyone has some cool ideas for things that could be built with a large stellar wallet, please let me know.

I'm especially interested in things Greg Brockman has been talking about lately, like this gateway, and making up his own currency: https://stripe.com/blog/bitcoin-the-stripe-perspective

    SandroG 1 hour ago
    
    I'm in touch with Stellar developers, and they confirmed
    that this individual is indeed gaming the system.

Response? Sounds like defamation.

I almost didn't even want to comment on this, but it really isn't a big deal. It looks like a screenshot taken out of context of someone who sent a private message asking someone to look at my account.

Are you gaming it or not?

He's not gaming it.

Then how did he come across 300+ individuals willing to sell him their entire account so quickly?

Mechanical Turk, I believe: https://twitter.com/thegdb/status/495656012343300097. There's a decent exchange rate: more than a dollar per account.

2 thoughts:

1) None of the accounts listed on the Mechanical Turk's HITs are pointing to everettforth

2) None of the accounts referenced in these HITs have a growing balance

It's 4000+ individuals not 300

Why did Stellar decide on using Facebook accounts to enforce the one account per person rule, instead of something better like mobile numbers? There are more people with cell phones than there are with Facebook accounts. Acquiring large batches of phone numbers to game the system is harder since it costs money and is more easily detectable.

Even if this guy isn't gaming the system with fake Facebook accounts, I'm sure others already are.

Facebook has nothing to do with this.

If everyone on Earth were given 5000 Stellars right now, how many people do you think would be willing to sell all of their Stellars for a beer?

It's basic economics.

Indirectly they are requiring mobile numbers because they require a verified Facebook account which means giving your phone number to Facebook for verification (at least for me, could be different for other countries).

EDIT: This actually doesn't work, but I thought I was being clever.

For those mentioning needing Facebook accounts. It looks like you don't need a Facebook account to game the reward system.

Assume a person has a main account (user1) with at least 1050 STR.

1. Create a New Account (user2)

2. Transfer 1050 STR from user1 -> user2

3. Transfer 1000 STR from user2 -> user1

4. Stellarfoundation makes 1000 STR deposit into user2

5. Send newly acquired 1000 STR from user2 -> user1

Starting balance: 1050 STR

Ending balance: 2000 STR

No, that doesn't actually work (just double checked to make sure). Would be a clever hole though :).

As soon as I signed up, I was thinking of this hole. So why doesn't it work? Is it that you are not permitted to transfer back the money?

Nah, just that the stellarfoundation bot checks that you're Facebook-authed before sending over your 1,000 stellar bonus.

You're right, I should have tried it first but didn't want to actually game the system.

Note, this particular user is willing to sell 100K stellars for $200.

Fun times watching a market being made in the early days.... https://forum.stellar.org/t/selling-100-000-stellars/716

Stellar itself seems to be scamming people:

"50% of the total will be distributed to people who sign up for an account."

Once you sign up for an account, you find out that you only receive stellars if you log in with Facebook ... if you want to build trust, you should be more transparent. You also need some way of including users who don't have Facebook (and/or Google) accounts.

Yeah, the plan is definitely to expand beyond Facebook in the medium term. It was just the fastest (though an imperfect) way of getting started and getting stellars into the hands of as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. See also https://www.stellar.org/faq/#_Why_do_I_need_to_authenticate_....

So when do you plan on doing this? I signed up in the hopes of receiving a distribution only to find I needed an aged Facebook account to claim it.

EverettForth's response: [How I Accumulated 2-Million Stellar in Less Than 24 Hours] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8126282

Everett's response is much appreciated. If I remember correctly, he asked mTurkers to create a Stellar account _without_ an identifiable account name so the transaction couldn't be easily backtracked. Also, he did not use his real name in mTurk and impersonated someone else. Not sure if his actions violated the ToS.

It was right for Everett to have come forward and disclose his means. His suggestions to improve the system are excellent. It will improve the Stellar system for everyone involved. Nevertheless, I believe that he should donate his balance to a charity. It will be an honorable thing to do.

Sandro

This is a new 100% premined cryptocurrency from the makers of ripple. Stripe has invested in this technology; so it already has some fiat backing behind the haul.

Whomever this is, and they are likely associated with the project as have an associated email, is gathering funds from the projects premined wallets for distribution. Like ripple, they are handing these out to people interested in the technology. I received part of the initial distribution of ripple by posting on the bitcoin forums. I encourage you to make an account, nothing to lose here; the initial distribution of the currency helps with its decentralization.

Paypal used to pay people to make new accounts too!

The person here is not affiliated with the project. (That @stellar.org is their federated payment address, which is assigned to anyone who signs up for an account.)

We've talked with the user, and it sounds like this is not in fact a code bug. We've invited him to post more details in this thread, so hopefully you'll hear more soon.

Wow, I saw his post earlier on the Stellar subreddit and thought he was full of it, but would you look at that. Here's the post: http://www.reddit.com/r/thestellar/comments/2cebkm/selling_1...

Some people have been offering web consulting services in exchange for stellars, but no details yet on how this guy built his wealth.

I could have missed it, but didn't notice a disclosure on Stellar sign-up that usernames and balances would be discoverable this way.

Now we might see whether it's centralized.

They locked his forum thread temporarily and then decided against it. I wonder if they froze his account too.

What does this mean? Anyone care to explain?

Right now, stellars are being handed out at 5K, if you are willing to give them a facebook login. This person is acquiring 100K/stellars an hour, which equals 20 facebook logins/hour.

Why would this be hard to spoof? What's required here?

Multiple Facebook accounts and a quick script?

Let's just say, it's a fairly trivial exercise if you have access to a botnet.

It seems like you have to had the account for a while. But yeah, far from perfect protection regardless.

People with networks of fake accounts routinely set them up in advance & run simulated activity.

This is normally used for e.g. selling fake likes. It's taken as a given that you will have regular churn as accounts are detected, occasionally high spikes of turnover as fraud detection and safeguards change, that kind of stuff. Often the action of converting network behavior into currency activity is what burns accounts.

Given an alternative way of rapidly converting part of that network into a compelling quantity of USD, and the fact that you're routinely rotating accounts anyway...offering to pay money or money-equivalents for Facebook connections in an automated fashion is pretty much screaming for fraudsters to call in the biggest airstrike they can before you come to your senses.

Yeah, I'm well aware of that. I was answering the 'what's required' part.

Update: Done. No Worries. If you have no friends and need to complete the steps; willing to help by sending you back the stellars.

I'll send you stellar, you send me stellar. Let's complete their final step. Stellar username "oinam".

Based on all available documentation about Stellar, it is impossible to accrue so much Stellars so quickly, and so consistently, without somehow gaming the system. Anyone willing to prove me wrong?

What is stellar and how is this proof of anything?

A new cryptocurrency backed by Stripe. Yesterday's discussion thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8114901

Well, proof that someone has a lot of stellars.

He could be gaming the Facebook promotion, or buying them, or stealing them, or _____

You can only associate one Facebook profile to a Stellar account.

So if you have 20 Facebook accounts and it takes you 3 minutes per account, that's 100K Stellar/hr.

They can't be new facebook accounts, need to have been around for a while.

There are plenty of people in the black hat community with aged Facebook accounts that they're willing to sell.

And also there's the "click farms" where they have millions of fake profiles for selling likes and build followers.

Facebook estimates that between 5.5% and 11.2% of profiles are fake [0]. With 1.32 Billion user base that means that up to 134 Million user profiles are fake.

Someone is going to earn A LOT of stellars soon.

Talk about fair distribution... this has been a dumb move by the stellar team. Ethereum guys have been smarter in this one..

[0] http://thenextweb.com/facebook/2014/02/03/facebook-estimates...

What do you think botnets are for?

It means someone is making a ton of money =D

Can anyone suggest an accurate, neutral title? This one is outrageously over the top. There's no "proof" of anything here.

Submitters: gratuitous scandal-mongering is not ok on Hacker News.

Edit: the submitted title was "Proof that someone is gaming Stellar. Growing balance at 100K / hour"

Stellar Market Activity: user with more than 1million stellars

Thanks. That seems both accurate and neutral, so we'll take your suggestion.

I'm in touch with Stellar developers, and they confirmed that this individual is indeed gaming the system.

That is the definition of hearsay.

If you have evidence, post it and give it an accurate and neutral title. Until you do, the claim is groundless, and groundlessly accusing people is not ok. Ragebait titles aren't ok either.

Here is the exchange: https://www.dropbox.com/s/enh05r5xj85i2b7/Photo%20Aug%2002%2...

That wording, especially in an informal text message not necessarily crafted as an official statement, isn't a strong confirmation. It can be read more like, "we're investigating the person said to be gaming", rather than "we confirm that gaming is indeed happening with this particular person".

If anyone wants to complete the last step, if you send me the 1000 Stellars, I'll send 900 back. Username is Davv. The first person to do it will get 1000 back (since I need to do it too)