That doesn't sound very decentralized and trustless. If I want to get scammed in this brave new world, shouldn't I be allowed to? Maybe I want to fund the Nigerian Prince's get-out-of-jail efforts.
You're allowed to, but if you intentionally get yourself scammed knowing full well, you don't get to demand your money back.
In the traditional banking and commerce system, if you get scammed on, say, ebay, they will refund you. If someone hacks into your online banking, the warranties set by your bank will refund you (to a point). If your bank goes tits up, the national bank will compensate you.
Yes you pay a fee, but it's insurance.
Anyway, your statement + the actual scam in question just reminds me of eve online, where the money doubling scam is old as balls. The funny thing is that the operators of the game allow it - nobody stole money from you, you gave it away. Some scams there are long hauls, people slowly working their way up in the ranks of a corporation before liquidating the assets and taking the money. Again, the company behind the game will do nothing because their systems have not been compromised - YOU gave the person access to the company wallet. It's funny.
Bitcoin is the same, you're responsible for your own actions, you don't pay an insurance fee, you bear all the risk yourself. If you give your BTC to an exchange and they get hacked, that's on you because you moved your money out of your own wallet. They may compensate you (or print their own money to do so), but they may not have to.
I am glad I am not the only one who saw this and immediately thought of Eve. I was always surprised at how many people got suckered into this scam on eve even after it was well known.
CCP's policy on allowing this type of grift is fair, if greed overtakes rational thinking then the 'victim' has no one to blame. Granted in this case they used trusted twitter users to trojan their scam, not sure that has happened on eve.
The block only affects people moving coins from an exchange account. Those coins are, in the final analysis, still controlled by the exchange. It doesn't affect anyone who is moving coins from an account they directly control (i.e. have the keys to).
How can you justify a statement like that? Anyone can control their transactions if they want as was just explained to you. If anything it is decentralization with extra steps.
In this context not at all. No one controls who you give physical cash to. If someone promises you magic beans in a bar and you give them $1000, no one stops you, just as when you control a balance, nothing stops you from sending it to any address you want. I'm not actually sure what part of this is not clear.
