The ICO Orgy Has Come And Gone. Long Live the ICO.

A ne'er-do-well with a spotty credit history and a shady business running out of a communal office-share with no employees decides to attend the ICO crypto buying orgy to make himself rich quickly. He shows up at the orgy palace. There're a few bodies passed out on the floor. The sawdust on the floor is what used to be the furniture. It is mopping up the vomitus. A weary bartender is cleaning up. Our shady joneser looks around and has a puzzled look on his face. He turns to the barkeep and says "I've come for the orgy".
The barkeep replies, "Sorry, it's over. Everybody has been screwed."

I tell this story because it's true. My best friend is a medical doctor - Chief of Radiology. He checked in with me last week & asked how I was doing. I told him that I had a few blockchain projects on the go. He replied: ICO=SCAM. My friend is a sophisticated investor with a 7 figure portfolio and that's his perception of ICOs. I had to create a long missive on how I do participate in ICOs, but my primary business is enterprise, data-centric blockchains.

To make an ICO work these days, you have to target real investors, with real value in the niche that you operate. You need business substance. The other orgy is dead.

(originally appeared as a Linked In post: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-bodnar-57b635133/ )

Report ICO, Crypto and Other Scams

In the past few days, I have had LinkedIn connections report people who have conducted ICO scams, or shady characters on LinkedIn.  Some of them connect with me just to spam me.  I've had a connection and immediate request to process anonymous money transfers to the Cayman Islands.    A couple of us have  decided to create a reputation blockchain with query of scams, ICO fakes, charlatans, shady characters, pirates of the Caribbean, swindlers, carpetbaggers etc. If you come across egregious characters, ICOs or anything that gives our blockchain/crypto  industry a bad name, drop an email with particulars to DataPrivacy@mail.com.  Eventually there will be a website with a query input.  If there are no reputation issues, you will get a thumbs-up emoji (with the disclaimer that there are no adverse reports), and if there are reputation issues you will get up to 5 thumbs-down emojis.  Thanks in advance.  (If you would like to contribute a bit of Bitcoin to help the effort along, a wallet address is:   1NfcRwZac5XrYQLkNQtBa8WBpemYpqEiwU  )

Nigerian Scammers/Spammers Go Western

THE LATEST SPAM SCAM IN MY MAILBOX -- NIGERIANS GO WESTERN

Entrepreneurial Expansion Commission

Hide Details

From

"peec69investment@gmail.com" Richard Holmes

Dear Sir/Madam,


I write to you based on a request by an investor and his need for
investment/funding
in your country. My name is RICHARD HOLMES, a financial consultant with PLATINUM
ENTREPRENEURIAL EXPANSION COMMISSION, which is a reputable financial
services firm. My company most times represents the interests of very
wealthy investors. Due to the
sensitivity of the position they hold in their society and the
unstable investment
environment of their country, they evacuate majority of their funds
into more stable
economies and developed nations where they can get good yield for their money.
A Reserved Client, whom I had personally worked with a few years ago
with a proposal,
recently approached me.


What he request is an individual such as yourself, who will
be willing to receive money on his behalf abroad, and put it to good
use for a period
not exceeding 6 years for a start.
The client has offered these terms:


1. 5% commission paid to me and my foreign partner of the total funds
successfully
evacuated. The funds in question are over 250,000,000 USD (Two Hundred
And Fifty Million United States Dollars.)


2. The funds will be used by the foreign partner for six years as a
loan without any
interest. That is, you do not pay any interest on the money but you
give the client
50% of all profits after tax that accrued from the use of the funds.
If these terms are agreeable to you, kindly let me know and I will
provide you with
all necessary information and procedures involved.


All reply should be sent to this Email: peec69investment@yahoo.com for urgent
attendance.


Sincerely yours,
RICHARD HOLMES
Consultant Officer PEEC. Inc. London
Email: style="color: #2862c5; outline: 0px; text-decoration: underline;" ymailto="mailto:peec69investment@yahoo.com">peec69investment@yahoo.com


PS* The client is willing to make available the fund to your
possession and in your
country within 14days of confirmation of your capabilities.

Website Traffic Faking

There is a new trend in town, and its traffic faking. It happens two ways. The first traffic-faking scenario is when a website has Google Adsense on it, and Google pays per page impressions. The pay for click is pretty good, but Google has ways of detecting fraudulent clicks. However they pay a penny or two for a certain number of page views, and this is what traffic faking targets. It is relatively easy to spoof unique page views, but a heck of a lot harder to spoof the controls that Google puts in for fraudulent clicks. So this type of traffic-faking hits as many times per hour as programmed, and the pennies add up for page views.

The other type of traffic faker is aimed at people who check their web analytics. For example, I have a blog based on philosophy, and I noticed that I was getting referrals from an ad-laden website peddling tooth-whitening products. It appeared that they had a referring link to my blog. As it turns out, I went to the page, and there was no link. They generate traffic to their pages through sheer curiosity.

On another one of my blogs, a company selling colored toilet paper used a traffic faker. I usually go to their websites, and hit the contact button, and used terms related to lower anatomy and sphincter muscles, and tell them forcefully to stop traffic faking. I don't know if my scatological references really work, but it makes me feel better.

One would think that the smart people at Google would work out a traffic faking filter. I think that I will go and ask them to do so. I will let you know what they say.