LocalBitcoins security updates and tips

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type="html">Bitcoin users are high value targets for cyber criminals. Thus LocalBitcoins is improving the site  security continuously to keep Bitcoin community safe. Please read in this blog how to secure your LocalBitcoins account and what LocalBitcoins team is doing to keep up the security.

Keep up your basic security

Here are some basic rules for securing your user account.

• Enable two-factor authentication, either by mobile app or paper codes. More than 99% of the attacks against you can be prevented with two-factor authentication. It takes only few minutes to set it up.
• Do not share your password across different websites.
• Do not publish your email address, associated with your LocalBitcoins account, on any website. Do not get involved transactions outside the LocalBitcoins site messaging, e.g. in Skype. The malicious users often use these channels to circumvent the security features present on LocalBitcoins.
• Do not use the website from a shared computers or devices, like ones in public internet cafes, as they may have keyloggers installed to steal your user credentials. 
• Always when logging in to the website, read the browser address bar and check that you are logging into https://localbitcoins.com and not a phishing domain. Make sure the spelling is localbitcoins.com exactly, as the phishers, especially email phisheres, often register domain names resembling localbitcoins.com domain name.
• If possible when accessing user accounts with Bitcoin wallets, do this from a dedicated computer you have reserved for financial tasks only. Do not use this computer for other tasks. Do not install third party software and browser addons you cannot trust 100%. This greatly reduces the risk of getting malware infection on the computer.  
• Keep most of Bitcoins safe offline in a cold wallet. We recommend specialized Bitcoin wallet applications like Electrum for this purpose.

New LocalBitcoins security features

We have rolled out some new user facing security features this week.

• You cannot use the same LocalBitcoins logged in session across different IP addresses. This prevents session hijacking attacks against LocalBitcoins users, but may also cause minor inconvenience for the legit users. This is especially case if you use LocalBitcoins on a mobile device where your IP address may change often.
• LocalBitcoins may interrupt your normal website actions in the case there is a chance that the action  might not be started by the legit user account owner. In this case you will get an email verification to ensure that it was you who really wanted to perform the action.

Some latest security threads affecting Bitcoin users

Here are some latest threads Bitcoin community has found targetting Bitcoin users. Keep your eyes open for these.

• Chrome extension stealing your Bitcoins by modifying the Bitcoin transaction receiving address secretly.
• Rooted iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) are subject to malware attacks which may also steal Bitcoins (though no evidence found yet).

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Posted in LocalBitcoins, security, updates

Blog Note: Check Older Posts For Updates

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During the last days some of the sites that we've reviewed here have had problems or changed the way they work. We keep track of these events, so when you find that something is wrong or isn't working as it should on a web you found through us, feel free to visit this awesome blog again and check whether those reviews have been updated!

Continue reading to see some of the latest changes we've noticed!

Did You Know That...

• Daily Bitcoins now gives you 10µ? per hour instead of 50µ? per hour?

• CoinAd is now having hosting problems, gives you every hour 10µ? less than one month ago, allows you to delay your payments and also pays you bitcoins for chatting?

• CoinTube doesn't give you bitcoins for watching videos anymore?

• NetLookup does give you a few free satoshis every day?

• GOXKEYGEN doesn't work anymore?

• Bitcoin Faucet now delays your payments until you have accumulated 0.01??

• Earn Free Bitcoins has a lack of advertisers?

• Bitcoin Get sometimes works?

Did you know all of the above? Uh? Did you? Did you?... Well, we knew it, and kept you updated on these changes! So again, come to us if you see something new on the webs we've reviewed (to confirm it) and leave a comment if we haven't realized yet of those changes!

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Posted in Check, Older, Posts, updates

Did Earn Free Bitcoins And GOXKEYGEN Stop Working? (2 updates)

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AppId is over the quota
During the last couple of days I haven't been able to get my daily dose of free bitcoins at the websites Earn Free Bitcoins and GOXKEYGEN. Are you having a similar problem? I wouldn't like to add these sites to my list of places that don't give out free bitcoins anymore...

Will they be back soon?

I have contacted the administrators of Earn Free Bitcoins to inform them of this issue. I don't know how to contact the owner of the GOXKEYGEN site... It might have been hacked. Update 1, 26/02/2013: The admin of Earn Free Bitcoins says he's got a lack of advertisers at the moment, but that this will change soon. Stay tuned! Update 2, 27/02/2013: Earn Free Bitcoins works again!

Meanwhile there are a lot more sites where you can increase your bitcoin balance for free! Check these out:

(Sorry, but today was a busy day for me and I couldn't write any reviews :-P)

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Posted in bitcoins, GOXKEYGEN, updates, Working

Get Bitcoins For Chatting At CoinAd (4 updates)

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Update 1, 04/03/2013: For the last 24 hours CoinAd has been inaccessible. It seems they have been hacked. I've sent @coinad a tweet to confirm this.

Update 2, 04/03/2013: Ten hours have passed and now it's back. Nobody knows what happened.

Update 3, 05/03/2013: It's broken again. I'll consider it fixed after it's up during three days in a row.

Yes, you are reading correctly. Since yesterday, CoinAd visitors who use the chat option are receiving bitcoins for doing so! Do you think it's too good to be true? Well, then look at this screenshot:

https://coinad.com/?m=chat

How To Proceed

• If you haven't got an account at CoinAd yet, create it. If you don't already know this site, check out our review.
• Log in with your account and click on the chat option at the top of the page. There's also a little link under the captcha:

+0.01mBTC FTW!

• Chat with the rest of people you'll find there. And I really mean it; don't spam or you'll get banned forever. Every time you send a message you'll have a 25% chance of earning 10µ?, which will be added to your CoinAd account. Update 07/03/2013: The chance has been increased to 35%!

When you get the prize, the text (+0.01mBTC) will appear after your message!

• These bitcoins are delayed until you decide to release them. After that you'll receive them in less than a day on your wallet.

40µ? for solving a captcha once per hour,

10µ? for chatting once every four messages!

Opportunity Review:

• Expected profit: 5/5. Assuming you don't spam and keep your rate of sending messages to, let's say, four per minute, you could earn up to 14400µ?. If you don't sleep. Woo!
• Convenience: 5/5. Chatting is easy. And fun. And interesting. Sometimes.
• Payment speed: 2/5. You'll receive your coins in less than a day after you release your delayed balance.
• Risk: 1/5. As getting the coins for your message is a random event, I guess there's always the possibility that you don't ever get +10µ?!
• Final Score: 9/10. If you are ever bored or want to relax doing something that doesn't require too much thinking, go to chat to CoinAd! You'll have fun and might get some bitcoins on the way!

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Posted in bitcoins, Chatting, CoinAd, updates

Site Review: AmazonBitcoins (2 updates)

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Do you buy at Amazon? Would you like to buy their stuff using Bitcoins? Now it's possible, thanks to a new Bitcoin service which launched yesterday: AmazonBitcoins!

http://amazonbitcoins.com/

My Experience With AmazonBitcoins


One of the administrators from AmazonBitcoins contacted me one week ago to see if I could review their new website. I accepted, as long as they sent me the necessary Bitcoins to test their service. I'm glad they trusted a crazy guy like me who calls himself "The Bitcoin Master" and sent some coins (Update 2, 25/02/2013) 0.9? my way! I'll tell you my experience using their service.

The first thing you'll see when you visit AmazonBitcoins is that the website is really clean and uncluttered; there's only the necessary amount of text needed to know what the site does and how it does it. It almost looks like an iPhone app inside your browser with that big "Get Started" blue button. If you press said button it will show you a dialog to register a new account:

Simple and infomative

When you introduce your data in the text fields and press the "Register" blue button you'll be given a personal AmazonBitcoins Bitcoin address to send the coins you'd like to exchange for Amazon gift cards. You may send as little as $1 (converted to bitcoins) to try out the service:

The "Copy to Clipboard" option is a nice detail

I sent them the 0.888? needed to buy a $25 Amazon gift card. Every time you visit the site this exchange prize is recalculated taking as a reference the one at Mt.Gox:

Transaction sent!

And in seconds I received this very professionally written email:

0.888? = $25.15? I guess the bitcoin exchange versus the dollar went

up while I was using this service!

After that, I only had to wait 13 minutes to receive my Amazon code on my inbox:

Excellent!

The service is really fast! Once you send them Bitcoins a new link will appear at the top of the AmazonBitcoins page with your order history. It will show you the status of your orders and the gift codes once they are processed:

This is my order history...

... And this is a sample order history where you can see two orders:

one pending and another complete

They also had a Live Chat where I had the chance to chat with Brian, one of the creators of the site! This is a great addition in case you have questions about the service. Brian is very helpful and nice as well:

Update 1, 25/02/2013: The Amazon gift code I received was redeemed by the AmazonBitcoins administrators, not by me.


Site Review:

• Service quality: 5/5. The website is clean and zen-like, the registration process is hassle-free and the information they give covers everything you need to know about the service. They've also got a FAQ.
• Convenience: 5/5. This is a great service for those who'd like to buy stuff from the Old World (where Bitcoin has not yet been widely adopted by every business). And especially for those who don't want to go through the process of registering on a market exchange (or can't [I'm looking at you Residence Certificate!]) to transform their Bitcoins into other currency. 
• Service speed: 4/5. The service is fast. It's not automatic, since they have to wait for some confirmations of your transaction to avoid the bad people who double spend their bitcoins. They are planning to let customers with a good payment history skip this waiting time and receive their gift codes as fast as possible.
• Risk: 0/5 1/5. None. The administrators are good, trustful people. Their service works very well and if you have questions you can contact them via Live Chat or email. Update 2, 25/02/2013: Read the comments.
• Final Score: 10/10. AmazonBitcoins works like a charm. You can now buy stuff at Amazon with your bitcoins faster than if you go through a market exchange to transform them into dollars or other Old World Currency. It's a service I'd recommend to anyone!

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Posted in AmazonBitcoins, Review, updates

Site Review: CoinVisitor (2 updates)

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AppId is over the quota
Update 1, 10/03/2013: CoinVisitor has been down for 24 hours. I sent them a tweet to ask the reason.

Update 2, 11/03/2013: CoinVisitor works again...

Let's have a look today at one more site that gives you free bitcoins for visiting websites. CoinVisitor follows a scheme a bit different from other similar places like BitVisitor, Earn Free Bitcoins or BitCoin4YOU:

http://coinvisitor.com/

How It Works:

• CoinVisitor gives you free bitcoins after you input your Bitcoin address, visit a website during a certain amount of time and solve an image captcha.
• You'll earn from 5µ? to 4500µ? every time you do this; most of the times it's 15µ? or 30µ?. However, after several websites you'll notice it'll say at the top of the page "Current visit value: FREE". When that happens, you'll get nothing if you continue visiting sites and solving captchas.

I only visit webs when the visit value is different to FREE...

This is almost a loss of time (keep reading)...

• There's a countdown at the upper left corner indicating the time you must be at each website; it could be 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds and I once was 300 seconds. When it reaches zero, an image captcha will load; in order to solve it, you'll have to select the image that doesn't belong to the set. Let's see some examples:

When this countdown ends, you'll solve an original captcha!

The wrong one here is the mushroom, because it can never have leaves

The wrong one here is the giraffe (or is it a llama?), because its background is white

The wrong one here is the elephant, because it's far bigger than the others

The wrong one here is the arrow, because it has no legs

The wrong ones here are the boats, because you can't use them for eating

• If you fail the image captcha, you'll have to enter a verbal captcha:

I though I had all the previous captchas right...

Grrrrr! Boring...

• When the current visit value is FREE you might get a prize after visiting many websites. You can redeem it by solving one more image captcha:

I WON A PRIZE!!!!

It's funny that they divide Bitcoins up to hundredths of satoshi...

Yeeeeeaaaahhh

• Your payments are delayed, but you may request a payout at any moment.

Best Strategy:

• Create a new Bitcoin address only to receive bitcoins from CoinVisitor. This way you can assure yourself that they are actually paying you.
• Bookmark the site. You only have to introduce your Bitcoin address once. The site will remember it for your future visits.
• When you get up, visit the site, watch the wesites it pushes to your browser and solve the captchas. Since there's no possibility to know whether there are new websites for you to check out, do this several times during the day. I personally do it when I get up, after lunch and right before going to sleep. When the visit value turns to FREE, leave the site. Don't try to go for prizes.
• You don't really have to browse the websites. You could have them on one tab of your browser while you wait for the countdown to end doing other things on other tabs. However, some sites contain good information, so don't dismiss them automatically.
• Request a payment whenever you like.

You've got to solve one more captcha to request your payment

I prefer not to request it until I've reached thousands of microbitcoins

Site Review:

• Expected profit: 3/5. Around 200µ? per day. Not much, but since you don't have to wait several minutes on each site...
• Convenience: 4/5. The image captchas are kind of fun to solve (at least when you first visit the site) and the wait times are low.
• Payment speed: 3/5. You'll receive your payment several hours after you order a payout.
• Risk: 0/5. None at all; this is a website that gives out free bitcoins.
• Final Score: 7/10. CoinVisitor uses image captchas and makes you wait very little on each page. Its rewards for doing so are also lower than on other sites, but it's so fast to get them that doing so is worth your time.

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Posted in CoinVisitor, Review, updates

Site Review: Free BTC PT (2 updates)

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This is a site that I found by chance, since it doesn't advertise itself anywhere. And it's also the one that can potentionally give you the largest amount of bitcoins every day. I call it "Free BTC PT":

http://free.btc.pt/

Let's clear something out first: I consider that a web gives out free bitcoins when it's a bitcoin faucet or when it asks you to do very simple tasks which require very little time to do. If the tasks require some considerable time, I won't consider the bitcoins are free anymore, since you are actually working to get them. Free BTC PT lets you choose what type of site it is: you can stay the whole day there watching videos, completing offers and solving captchas or you can visit a couple of times a day and do a couple of each every time. I personally leave the site open on a tab of my browser and sometimes check to see if there are videos to watch.


How It Works:

• Free BTC PT gives you four different ways to earn bitcoins after registering an account: watching videos, solving captchas, completing offers or simply visiting the site every hour.
• If you decide you want to watch videos, go to the Watching Videos section of the web. Wait until some videos appear and watch them until they are over to earn 150.01µ?. About 20% of the videos do not give you a reward for watching them though... Update 1, 08/03/2013: Now it's 100µ? for about half of the videos you watch. They update the reward as Bitcoin increases its value in the market. Update 2, 04/04/2013: Now it's 25µ? per video.

It works with Virool, just as CoinTube, but here they actually pay you

• If you want to solve captchas, go to Captcha Madness!. They'll give you one captcha, which could be verbal, an image or a description of a brand. Solve it to earn 1µ?. Request a new captcha on the page that loads after you submit your solution and repeat the process. There seems to be an endless amount of captchas for you to solve, so you may do this until you get mad!

Solve the captcha...

... Request another captcha and get mad as you earn microbitcoins!

• If you want to complete offers, go to Satoshi's Millions!. Here's where you can earn the most bitcoins for doing stuff, but I recommend you forget about these offers entirely. Most of them make you download viruses or annoying adware or make you subscribe to a service which costs you more than the value of the bitcoins you receive for doing so.

No matter how tempting they are, forget the offers

• If you leave the website open on your browser, it will give you 10µ? per hour. Update 2, 04/04/2013: Now it's 5µ?. Here you can see several of these payments on my Account Activity Log:

I haz Bitcoinz. Meow!

• If you want to withdraw your balance, go to their Withdrawal Center. You must have made at least 2500µ? to be able to withdraw. Update 2, 04/04/2013: Now it's 500µ?:

You should get the minimum to withdraw in a couple of days

Best Strategy:

• Create a new Bitcoin address only to receive bitcoins from Free BTC PT. This way you can assure yourself that they are actually paying you.
• Visit the site, create an account and leave it open forever. You'll earn 240 120µ? per day this way.
• If there are videos to watch, do so. You'll get paid when you've watched them until the last second. Some days there are a ton of videos and others there are very few to watch. That depends on how many advertisers Virool has.
• If you feel like solving captchas, go and do it. I personally only do this when I'm really tired; it's an easy task that you can do without thinking and that sometimes wakes you up. Solve them in two tabs at the same time so as you don't have to lose the time the pages take to load. I can solve 6 captchas per minute this way. This means I could earn up to 8640µ? per day this way. And end up mad in the way!
• Don't complete offers. The harm they might cause to your computer is not worthy of the bitcoins you'll get for doing so.
• Request a payment once a day or when you reach 2500500µ?. It's not good to leave unclaimed rewards sitting on the databases of websites you don't control untouched for too long. You only have to give them your bitcoin address once; they'll remember it for future withdrawals.

These three days I was away from keyboard around 8 hours in total. I needed some sleep...

Site Review:

• Expected profit: 5/5 4/5 3/5. Around 5000µ? per day if there are many videos to watch. Around 1000µ? otherwise. There's virtually no limit here though! Update 1, 08/03/2013: These numbers depend heavily on the videos that reward you for watching them. I guess they still can be achieved, but with the reduction to 100µ? per video it's more difficult than before. Update 2, 04/04/2013: The numbers keep going down as the price of Bitcoin goes up.
• Convenience: 3/5. The website has a weird design, but it works very well. It also has too many ads everywhere.
• Payment speed: 2/5. You'll receive your payment within 24 hours after you request one.
• Risk: 0/5. It's a website that gives you free bitcoins... Or that lets you earn bitcoins by doing simple tasks.
• Final Score: 7,5/10. Free BTC PT lets you earn a lot of bitcoins every day. More than in any other site I've stumbled upon. There's many factors that determine the amount you end up getting each day, so you should check it out and decide yourself whether it's worth your time.

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Posted in Review, updates