11 ms·

Tell HN: There is a Scammer Amongst Us

333 points by lrm242 16y ago

On January 29th a HN user, 'jiganti', posted this: "Ask HN: I think I've been scammed - what now?" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157281) Starting in the evening of January 30th, posts began to appear on complaint forums with my name. These posts claim that I am a pedophile and that I have stolen money. These posts are false and I find it unsurprising that they began to appear after I provided information about the possible identity of jiganti's scammer. My name and phone number are easily Google-able, however, I provide it here in case anyone wishes to call me: Louis Marascio, 512-964-4569. I'm posting this because although jiganti's post fell off the front page, this story is not over. Other HN'ers and I dug up some information about the possible scammer in the original thread. Also, I believe jiganti might not be the only person who's been taken by this guy. Please read the post and thread in full. This sub-thread specifically discusses our findings: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2158590 Our most promising evidence is this: the responsible party is a single user that has at least three handles here on HN: pinksoda, sinkfloat, and BrianHolt. This has not been proven nor has it been denied, and I repeat the last sentence of my findings: I encourage the owner(s) of the HN accounts pinksoda, sinkfloat, and BrianHolt to speak up--and if I'm wrong I apologize. I re-urge you to read the post, the subsequent conversation, and the other linked-to Hacker News posts and make up your own mind. Hacker News is a tight-knit community, and if there is an unsavory character here who's using it as a way to find and exploit young entrepreneurs, then I feel we need to all be made aware of this. If a scammer does exist amongst us, let's all hope a little light will cause him to slither back into the hole he came from. It is important to note that 'mahmud' is mentioned in the first paragraph of the original post. mahmud IS NOT THE SCAMMER. The original poster lost his ability to edit the post before he could clear up what he meant. This is specifically discussed in this sub-thread on the post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157602

OoTheNigerian 16y ago
This BrianHolt dude is obviously NOT clean http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299094 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299094. Why did you not do basic research on who you were doing business with?
smoyer 16y ago
Clickable links: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2158590 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2158590 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157602 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157602
- unoti 16y ago
  Is there some kind of circle of trust established-- you know, good old fashioned key-signing plus vouching for people? 10 years ago I would have bet big money that by now people would have well-established cryptographic identities online, verified by a larger circle of trust. Does this exist, or is that a dated idea without a whole lot of merit? Or maybe that's what LinkedIn was supposed to be before it turned into something that to me feels much more impersonal and spammy.
  - smoyer 16y ago
    "Circle of Trust" ... tee hee, now that was a great movie
  - eof 16y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party
  - pyre 16y ago
    The only issue with the web-of-trust is that all it takes is trusting someone that turns out to be untrustworthy to bring it all down. Do you really think that the same people that click-through whatever dialogs popup without reading them (just because "it's in front of what I want to see" or "I just let it do whatever it wants to do so that I can get about my work") are going to properly evaluate their trust in someone before just signing away? People today are even less vigilant about the internet because loads of them have grown up with it, and won't learn the 'internet is dangerous' lesson until it bites them (the same with: "don't trust all your data to a single provider" and "always backup all of your data to multiple places, as well as off-site").
  - 16y ago
requinot59 16y ago
As a side note, news.ycombinator.com should really have HTTPS access. Passwords and cookies in clear HTTP are no good. Anyone here (should) knows it. Firesheep proves it. GMail and Zuckerberg suffered it. Just buy or get a free SSL certificate, and let nginx or stunnel handles SSL and proxies HTTP to/from Arc. Total cost, being pessimistic: 150$ for the certificate verification, and 2 hours to set-up the certs & nginx. I know, it's awesome, it's a custom Arc webserver and all, and good practices are for PHBs only, but still. For a "hacker" website, news.ycombinator.com is a shame regarding to privacy/security (see also: passwords stored as shasums (without even a salt), funny things like <img src="http://news.ycombinator.com/logout> http://news.ycombinator.com/logout>, outdated versions of software used [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=516122 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=516122], etc.)
- there 16y ago
  i'm sure the audience of this site is technically savvy enough to all be running modern browsers that recognize startcom as a valid CA (if not, consider it a valid barrier to entry), so it would be free and take just a few hours to receive an SSL certificate for this site. http://www.startssl.com/?app=1 http://www.startssl.com/?app=1
  - illumin8 16y ago
    Although I agree that having free SSL certificates is nice, I question whether it's actually a viable way to certify the authenticity of a site. Seriously, if you make it free, spammers will overrun it. Why should we trust free SSL certs? I think having a cost provides a certain barrier to entry that is good overall.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - dmm 16y ago
      StartSSL requires you to respond to an email sent to the address listed in the domain registration. That at least shows you have control of the domain. It also has certificates with greater levels of verification.
japherwocky 16y ago
can we get a tldr on this?
- barrkel 16y ago
  jiganti was scammed by X jiganti was helped by mahmud yesterday, lrm242 investigated X and turned up addresses (Chinese) etc. from DNS lrm242 is now being libelled on complaints forums, as of yesterday X appears to have several HN accounts: pinksoda, sinkfloat, and BrianHolt Vaguely interestingly, Totiboti (now auto-dead - you need to turn on showdead to see his posts) was warning about the guy repeatedly: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Totiboti http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Totiboti
  - fakelvis 16y ago
    I see a lot of upset and accusations without many facts from either side. Without the pertinent information being clearly presented (read: facts and facts only, no accusations), it seems that we can't make an informed decision on what is really going on. I'm happy to be corrected, and I am sorry that this has happened to you, but we must realize that there is a huge difference between a scam and a private business transaction that was conducted without proper due diligence that ended in one person feeling cheated. Which of these two has occurred here is difficult to tell with the facts being presented, and without us playing amateur detective. As raganwald said, "While anyone who invests money and gets nothing in return has my sympathy, I don't see the relevance of a private business transaction to HN." [1] I hope this gets sorted out for you, and please correct me if I'm wrong. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2163675 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2163675
  - pyre 16y ago
    It's of note that those comments were on a HN story that was posted by pinksoda, is hosted on sinkfloat.com, and has BrianHolt responding in the comments as the subject of the article. That alone seems to link them all together and make the whole thing fishy.
    - taylorbuley 16y ago
raganwald 16y ago
I read this post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157281 While anyone who invests money and gets nothing in return has my sympathy, I don't see the relevance of a private business transaction to HN. You will sometimes find someone plastering notices all over the city. These notices have a picture of someone and the warning not to date them because they are a lying, cheating low-life. Is this a public service intended to save other people from an unhappy fate? Or is it someone trying to get revenge by naming, blaming, and shaming someone else? Unless the "scamming" in question is happening on HN, such as someone spamming HN with fraudulent posts, I have trouble thinking this kind of thing meets the HN guidelines.
- lrm242 16y ago
  Hacker News is the specific means by which this scammer is finding his victims. That, specifically, is what makes this relevant, IMO.
  - raganwald 16y ago
    HN is not a match-making service for founders or consultants. If keeping track of the worst-of-the-worst is relevant, why not keep track of the best-of-the-best? Why don't we track business karma? Services for vetting people in business already exist, starting with LinkedIn and going on to other sites, many of which are specifically designed for web programmers to showcase their work and show off their reputation. The situation is unfortunate, but I still don't see it as HN business if one HN user decides to do business with another HN user and things don't work out well. HN is not responsible, we're a "common carrier" so-to-speak. p.s. JM2C, of course, carry on, I'll be over here coding...
    - pyre 16y ago
      How is HN not a common-carrier if its users decide to police themselves to a certain extent? This wasn't posted by 'HN Staff.'
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
coderdude 16y ago
It looks like you can add venaltech.com to the list of domains the guy is listed as the admin contact for. It doesn't look like that has been mentioned yet in any of the threads. Google that domain and you find a crap load of "reviews" on sites of questionable origin. A few of the domains of the sites that talk about it follow the pattern of *reviews.com so it looks like he probably paid some service to write them. You might be able to follow that trail.
lwat 16y ago
The internet is full of scammers and on any reasonably popular forum you'll find them. Let's not turn HN into witch hunting central.
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  But what am I going to do with my bonfire now? It's almost a whole year until I get to set it on Guy Fawkes night.
lrm242 16y ago
I'd like to add. If you've been taken by this guy but have felt intimidated or fearful to come forward, please email me. I have a strong suspicion that there are others, but I'm hopeful there are not. If the guy that took jiganti has scammed others, the more we know the better we are. If you don't want to go public with the information I understand, but please contact me. My email is my last name at gmail.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
rknight 16y ago
I'm a long time HN user, I created this account and a new e-mail only to provide some new information of identities that I found in the internet of pinksoda, after I give them to you I will not use this account again. I do realize that maybe it will be difficult to believe in a new user with these claims, but I do assure you that I'm here only to help, your linkedin profile list a domain, send me a mail from this domain (with the correct headers from the correct IP, I know that you use Google Apps in your domain) and I will answer with the links that I found, I do not kow if they will be of any help, but I think they provide trails for you, some of them are right here on HN, and these ones I think there's no problem in post here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299501 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299501 With BrianHolt saying about a past website of him, I do not know if he said the truth. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1320560 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1320560 I did not confirm this, but searching his name in Google will bring some of the links that I found, although not in the front page. The e-mail: XXX@gmail.com EDIT: I will try to give the links as early as possible. EDIT2: I gave the links and some trails for Louis, although I'm not sure if they will be useful, I will not use this account again and will only answer Louis in the e-mail. EDIT3: Smarter to remove the e-mail... a long day programming.

333 points by lrm242 16y ago

OoTheNigerian 16y ago

This BrianHolt dude is obviously NOT clean http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299094 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299094. Why did you not do basic research on who you were doing business with?

smoyer 16y ago

Clickable links: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2158590 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2158590 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157602 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157602

unoti 16y ago
Is there some kind of circle of trust established-- you know, good old fashioned key-signing plus vouching for people? 10 years ago I would have bet big money that by now people would have well-established cryptographic identities online, verified by a larger circle of trust. Does this exist, or is that a dated idea without a whole lot of merit? Or maybe that's what LinkedIn was supposed to be before it turned into something that to me feels much more impersonal and spammy.
- smoyer 16y ago
  "Circle of Trust" ... tee hee, now that was a great movie
- eof 16y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_signing_party
- pyre 16y ago
  The only issue with the web-of-trust is that all it takes is trusting someone that turns out to be untrustworthy to bring it all down. Do you really think that the same people that click-through whatever dialogs popup without reading them (just because "it's in front of what I want to see" or "I just let it do whatever it wants to do so that I can get about my work") are going to properly evaluate their trust in someone before just signing away? People today are even less vigilant about the internet because loads of them have grown up with it, and won't learn the 'internet is dangerous' lesson until it bites them (the same with: "don't trust all your data to a single provider" and "always backup all of your data to multiple places, as well as off-site").
- 16y ago

requinot59 16y ago

As a side note, news.ycombinator.com should really have HTTPS access. Passwords and cookies in clear HTTP are no good. Anyone here (should) knows it. Firesheep proves it. GMail and Zuckerberg suffered it. Just buy or get a free SSL certificate, and let nginx or stunnel handles SSL and proxies HTTP to/from Arc. Total cost, being pessimistic: 150$ for the certificate verification, and 2 hours to set-up the certs & nginx. I know, it's awesome, it's a custom Arc webserver and all, and good practices are for PHBs only, but still. For a "hacker" website, news.ycombinator.com is a shame regarding to privacy/security (see also: passwords stored as shasums (without even a salt), funny things like <img src="http://news.ycombinator.com/logout> http://news.ycombinator.com/logout>, outdated versions of software used [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=516122 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=516122], etc.)

there 16y ago
i'm sure the audience of this site is technically savvy enough to all be running modern browsers that recognize startcom as a valid CA (if not, consider it a valid barrier to entry), so it would be free and take just a few hours to receive an SSL certificate for this site. http://www.startssl.com/?app=1 http://www.startssl.com/?app=1
- illumin8 16y ago
  Although I agree that having free SSL certificates is nice, I question whether it's actually a viable way to certify the authenticity of a site. Seriously, if you make it free, spammers will overrun it. Why should we trust free SSL certs? I think having a cost provides a certain barrier to entry that is good overall.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - dmm 16y ago
    StartSSL requires you to respond to an email sent to the address listed in the domain registration. That at least shows you have control of the domain. It also has certificates with greater levels of verification.

japherwocky 16y ago

can we get a tldr on this?

barrkel 16y ago
jiganti was scammed by X jiganti was helped by mahmud yesterday, lrm242 investigated X and turned up addresses (Chinese) etc. from DNS lrm242 is now being libelled on complaints forums, as of yesterday X appears to have several HN accounts: pinksoda, sinkfloat, and BrianHolt Vaguely interestingly, Totiboti (now auto-dead - you need to turn on showdead to see his posts) was warning about the guy repeatedly: http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Totiboti http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Totiboti
- fakelvis 16y ago
  I see a lot of upset and accusations without many facts from either side. Without the pertinent information being clearly presented (read: facts and facts only, no accusations), it seems that we can't make an informed decision on what is really going on. I'm happy to be corrected, and I am sorry that this has happened to you, but we must realize that there is a huge difference between a scam and a private business transaction that was conducted without proper due diligence that ended in one person feeling cheated. Which of these two has occurred here is difficult to tell with the facts being presented, and without us playing amateur detective. As raganwald said, "While anyone who invests money and gets nothing in return has my sympathy, I don't see the relevance of a private business transaction to HN." [1] I hope this gets sorted out for you, and please correct me if I'm wrong. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2163675 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2163675
- pyre 16y ago
  It's of note that those comments were on a HN story that was posted by pinksoda, is hosted on sinkfloat.com, and has BrianHolt responding in the comments as the subject of the article. That alone seems to link them all together and make the whole thing fishy.
  - taylorbuley 16y ago

raganwald 16y ago

I read this post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157281 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157281 While anyone who invests money and gets nothing in return has my sympathy, I don't see the relevance of a private business transaction to HN. You will sometimes find someone plastering notices all over the city. These notices have a picture of someone and the warning not to date them because they are a lying, cheating low-life. Is this a public service intended to save other people from an unhappy fate? Or is it someone trying to get revenge by naming, blaming, and shaming someone else? Unless the "scamming" in question is happening on HN, such as someone spamming HN with fraudulent posts, I have trouble thinking this kind of thing meets the HN guidelines.

lrm242 16y ago
Hacker News is the specific means by which this scammer is finding his victims. That, specifically, is what makes this relevant, IMO.
- raganwald 16y ago
  HN is not a match-making service for founders or consultants. If keeping track of the worst-of-the-worst is relevant, why not keep track of the best-of-the-best? Why don't we track business karma? Services for vetting people in business already exist, starting with LinkedIn and going on to other sites, many of which are specifically designed for web programmers to showcase their work and show off their reputation. The situation is unfortunate, but I still don't see it as HN business if one HN user decides to do business with another HN user and things don't work out well. HN is not responsible, we're a "common carrier" so-to-speak. p.s. JM2C, of course, carry on, I'll be over here coding...
  - pyre 16y ago
    How is HN not a common-carrier if its users decide to police themselves to a certain extent? This wasn't posted by 'HN Staff.'
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

coderdude 16y ago

It looks like you can add venaltech.com to the list of domains the guy is listed as the admin contact for. It doesn't look like that has been mentioned yet in any of the threads. Google that domain and you find a crap load of "reviews" on sites of questionable origin. A few of the domains of the sites that talk about it follow the pattern of *reviews.com so it looks like he probably paid some service to write them. You might be able to follow that trail.

lwat 16y ago

The internet is full of scammers and on any reasonably popular forum you'll find them. Let's not turn HN into witch hunting central.

electromagnetic 16y ago
But what am I going to do with my bonfire now? It's almost a whole year until I get to set it on Guy Fawkes night.

lrm242 16y ago

I'd like to add. If you've been taken by this guy but have felt intimidated or fearful to come forward, please email me. I have a strong suspicion that there are others, but I'm hopeful there are not. If the guy that took jiganti has scammed others, the more we know the better we are. If you don't want to go public with the information I understand, but please contact me. My email is my last name at gmail.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

rknight 16y ago

I'm a long time HN user, I created this account and a new e-mail only to provide some new information of identities that I found in the internet of pinksoda, after I give them to you I will not use this account again. I do realize that maybe it will be difficult to believe in a new user with these claims, but I do assure you that I'm here only to help, your linkedin profile list a domain, send me a mail from this domain (with the correct headers from the correct IP, I know that you use Google Apps in your domain) and I will answer with the links that I found, I do not kow if they will be of any help, but I think they provide trails for you, some of them are right here on HN, and these ones I think there's no problem in post here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299501 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1299501 With BrianHolt saying about a past website of him, I do not know if he said the truth. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1320560 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1320560 I did not confirm this, but searching his name in Google will bring some of the links that I found, although not in the front page. The e-mail: XXX@gmail.com EDIT: I will try to give the links as early as possible. EDIT2: I gave the links and some trails for Louis, although I'm not sure if they will be useful, I will not use this account again and will only answer Louis in the e-mail. EDIT3: Smarter to remove the e-mail... a long day programming.