Cardano Stay Safe Content [UPDATED]

English Education
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Cardano Stay Safe Content

The worldwide web has been a source of information as early as 1993. While internet boasts an abundance of information, it also hosts bad actors carrying out illegal and malicious activities. From bank and inheritance letters, fake products, fraudsters to ransomware – you name it.

Cardano’s ‘bootstrap’ Byron era was deployed in October 2017. As an ecosystem and a community, we must be vigilant on the internet and take precautions.

Now with Shelley right around the corner we want to take this opportunity on us and release contents in which we describe what is the best way to stay safe and vigilant in our ecosystem.

How to stay safe?

Verifying integrity of websites and installers

What is a seed and why should i keep it safe?

Learn about different wallet types, their attack vectors and how to keep your ada safe

An overview with our official channels

Possible scam scenarios

Scenario #1: It’s too good to be true

The saying “If it’s too good to be true it probably is” basically sums up most of the content we share for members of our community to stay safe. This includes scenarios as ada giveaways, sending ada and receiving more back in return and stakepools or staking services who offer more in return than the protocol can achieve.

Scenario #2: You are asked for your recovery seed for staking or help with technical problems

We will never ask for your seed, never ever!

Scenario #3: A strange website is offering Cardano related software

Always be on the lookout for strange URLs, bad wording and filenames

Scenario #4: I am being contacted by an official and/or Ambassador out of the blue

We will never DM you without a reason offering help, services or downloads.

Scenario #5: Someone is offering me a third chance for the snapshot

There will be two snapshots; a dry-run which we had by now and a definitive one. Everyone saying otherwise is misleading you.

NOTE: This was from Byron to Shelly and is outdated now. Still a good example.

Scenario #6: An account that looks like one of our official people and/or entities is holding an ada giveaway

There will be no ada giveaways. The ada we have is to be used for community initiatives and investment in the protocol. There is no such thing as free lunch!

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Updated: Possible scam scenarios added.

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Is it possible to have the Cardano.org website updated with a section that warns new users and on said section have links to all official wallets or wallets that have been vetted?

There are TONS of fake wallets out there, most of them web wallets. Sure, most of us who are experienced know better, but we must be PROACTIVE in protecting new users by having them know this before they even buy any ADA tokens.

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I’ll see what I can do!

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One way to access Ada on https://adalite.io/ is by entering the seed words. Is that something they should not offer - or at least warn about?

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I believe the only thing the adalite team provides is a webwallet (of course with a lot of functions, though)

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Please help to inform the cardano users about this scammer on youtube. This is the youtube channel

Chris

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It’s been taken down already.

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I just got hit by the live interview with Charles Hopkinson scam. The new live video on YouTube. 5000 coins down not happy

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Sorry to hear that… can u share the link?

Cheers,

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Hi. Ada looks good

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Hello All!

Just wish I would have came across this site earlier. I was recently scammed from a YouTube “live” video that just happen to pop up in my feed. I should have used common sense, but somehow it escaped me. Long story short. I ended up sending all my holdings (valued over $200K (it was my intention to send a much smaller amount, but by the time I realized it was too late!) of ADA (I know, its embarrassing as I write this and I am still having heart palpitations when I think about how much was lost. I should have known better then act quickly). I am to blame and I wish I could take back the hands of time! How can we go about issuing a class action lawsuit against YouTube about these scams?

I do wish there could have been added an additional alert to the Daedalus Wallet regarding the Cardano Foundation’s warning about scamming and stating the organization will never ask for or solicit payment from any member/person. Something as simple as this would have made a big difference. And something as simple as this should be trivial to add when sending ADA using the Daedalus wallet.

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I also been scammed, on Monday same method as you
lost 14 000 ADA… I can not beleave that we can not retrace this guy… he put him self live on youtube build a web site and we have is blockchain address… I sure left trace somewhere…
I was thinking calling the FBI… I my opinion youtube have a certain responsability in all this,…
I can help you if you want to go further…

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Speeder, sorry to hear. What I would suggest… and this is what I have been advised by the FBI:

  1. File a report with the FBI

  2. File a report on https://www.ic3.gov/ and put as much details as you have or would like to share about the nature of the event and how it happened.

Make note of the wallet address you used to send funds from and to. Visit www.whois.com and if you have the hostname/web address of the site enter the domain name in the whois.com search bar at the top of the site. Hopefully this will provide information about the person or entity that registered the site. Likely they are linked to the scammer(s). The person in my case linked to the fake site picked up the phone and knew what was going on.

Also, you may want to consider filing a complaint with the hosting provider if you are up for it.

It is a real bummer and sad there are others that do not want to work and make an honest living!
People may say how did you fall for this scam? And I asked myself the same thing till this day! Looking back I should have known better, but prior to the scam I was watching any and all videos on Cardano – sometimes falling asleep while listening to Charles and other speak. I was all in and the next thing I knew YouTube presented a video and I seriously thought the Cardano Foundation was doing a live event! I am stilling having headaches and sleepless nights trying to come to grips with what just happened.

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Just wanted to add and this will be my last comment on this (I believe). Just watched Charles video on these scams.

I do not blame Charles nor do I blame anyone within the Cardano Foundation for what happened to me and the actions I took. While I did loose a large sum of money it was my own stupidity and I should have know better. I certainly should have known better! But I let greed get the best of me. I have already publicly shamed myself and there is nothing I can do about this situation after this fact, other than help bring awareness to others. I have to move on and will. I have my health, my life, my family and I will work smarter this time around ensuring to utilize all my resources.

From Rudyard Kepling:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

The Cardano Foundation and Charles Hoskinson are ahead of their time and I will be apart of this transformational change that is Cardano!

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When you can reflect with such elegance and knowledge, you’re on the way to being ‘fixed’.
Not losing focus on what is actually important in life is such a humbling lesson to share and hopefully helps others to not go through the same uncomfortable experience that you have.

My sincere best wishes to you and your family, keep moving forward Samuel :purple_heart:

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Scammer was live again today on YouTube. I flagged it, but it kept running. He’s collecting a lot of ADA. Could be North Korea for all we know.

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Scammer is live on youtube right now, apparently he renamed his old channel “GoaMusic” to “Cardano Live News” and deleted all his old videos.
Guy used to upload psytrance music, that’s why i was subbed to him.
He has some random community posts on his channel still advertising for music so that’s how you immediatly know this can’t be an official cardano channel.

update: channel has been suspended by youtube, seems the many reports did something afterall :slight_smile:

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Hi all,
Last night I got scammed. I watched a live telecast of the cardano foundation news few days ago which had a display of free giveaways. The person in the video seemed to be doing an interview with Charles hoskinson. At that time, I had no clue that was a fake video. I honestly thought the cardano foundation was doing the giveaway. I have been watching so many crypto news on youtube daily, it’s just hard to see how it was a faked video because the guy was asking charles questions and he seemed to be answering them perfectly, the video went on for almost an hour and half. Fast forward to last night, I saw a message popup on my telegram on a group ADA official news (which I never joined by my own capacity, but somehow I was already in the group) about the ADA giveaway and I decided to participate. They refered to a website called cardano-bonus.net. I decided to send all my hard earned ADA through my yoroi wallet to the address provided. I waited for the return of the ADA and it never happened. I lost 38,600 ADA. I reached out to the admins on the telegram group so that more people are made aware. I am new to the crypto market and I feel like I let down myself and my family. No body is to blame but me for my actions, but I wish youtube or cardano foundation did something to restrict this type of content from reaching the commoner out there. Again, the website was cardano-bonus.net. Please be careful and spread the word. Hope this helps someone.