Azavezel
(?)Community Member
Shade
Offline
- Posted: Thu, 20 Aug 2015 00:10:58 +0000
So as most of you know from that little notice, Gaia is currently looking into potentially adding Bitcoins as a currency to purchase Gaia Cash with.
Assuming a vast majority of you don't know, Bitcoins are digital currency through a service called Bitcoin that lets you substitute real money with the currency meant to be a reward for payment processing work in which users offer their computing power to verify and record payments into the public ledger. It can be "made" by a process called "mining", that creates more bitcoins and can be then either "sold" or traded along with other people. It's been gaining a lot of popularity as a replacement for credit charging, and starting to get major traction mainstream-wise until the bubble burst some time in 2014. However, you cannot get things like refunds or chargebacks, and the method of "mining" bitcoins seems innocent enough, until anonymous criminals start to come into play.
What makes this very dangerous? Well, the fact that any service that openly accepts bitcoins are prone to security issues pertaining with malware meant to turn your computer into a barely functional mining node, which causes significant performance issues as they'll bog you down to get as much out of you as possible. Phishers and Flash-based ads run the biggest risk of this being an issue, and both are very prevalent over Gaia. Where a phisher typically steals your gold and items and runs, now they can use their hijack sites to infect you with something that can lead to your computer's death.
Don't think you're safe because you use a Mac. Mac based trojans exist and are incredibly tricky to catch due to the fact that people think Mac's can't get viruses.
While I understand Gaia wants to increase options to purchase Gaia Cash without running to the bank and using your hard-earned money (or if you just plain can't due to unemployment/too young to work), this is a very, very dangerous line to toe in my opinion. Bitcoins have been trouble all throughout the internet, and them coming here scares the hell out of me. I don't want to have to constantly run NoScript on this website.
gaia_spoons gaia_spoons
What do you think about Bitcoin being a new way to purchase Gaia Cash?
Do you use Bitcoin? How have your experiences with it been?
What could Gaia use instead of Bitcoins and shady offers to generate the ability to get Gaia Cash?
Do you feel this is safe, or unsafe? Why?
Assuming a vast majority of you don't know, Bitcoins are digital currency through a service called Bitcoin that lets you substitute real money with the currency meant to be a reward for payment processing work in which users offer their computing power to verify and record payments into the public ledger. It can be "made" by a process called "mining", that creates more bitcoins and can be then either "sold" or traded along with other people. It's been gaining a lot of popularity as a replacement for credit charging, and starting to get major traction mainstream-wise until the bubble burst some time in 2014. However, you cannot get things like refunds or chargebacks, and the method of "mining" bitcoins seems innocent enough, until anonymous criminals start to come into play.
What makes this very dangerous? Well, the fact that any service that openly accepts bitcoins are prone to security issues pertaining with malware meant to turn your computer into a barely functional mining node, which causes significant performance issues as they'll bog you down to get as much out of you as possible. Phishers and Flash-based ads run the biggest risk of this being an issue, and both are very prevalent over Gaia. Where a phisher typically steals your gold and items and runs, now they can use their hijack sites to infect you with something that can lead to your computer's death.
Don't think you're safe because you use a Mac. Mac based trojans exist and are incredibly tricky to catch due to the fact that people think Mac's can't get viruses.
While I understand Gaia wants to increase options to purchase Gaia Cash without running to the bank and using your hard-earned money (or if you just plain can't due to unemployment/too young to work), this is a very, very dangerous line to toe in my opinion. Bitcoins have been trouble all throughout the internet, and them coming here scares the hell out of me. I don't want to have to constantly run NoScript on this website.
gaia_spoons gaia_spoons
What do you think about Bitcoin being a new way to purchase Gaia Cash?
Do you use Bitcoin? How have your experiences with it been?
What could Gaia use instead of Bitcoins and shady offers to generate the ability to get Gaia Cash?
Do you feel this is safe, or unsafe? Why?
