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Large Youtubers Hide Ownership of CSGO Lottery Site

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I don't buy anyone saying it's a spoof.

The guy literally has been caught in lie after lie, scam after scam and - again - I'll make this point:

These assholes are too dumb to understand you don't do this kind of stupid shit, try to bribe or threaten people with A TEXT BASED DIGITAL FINGERPRINT like email or Skype - which seems to be a fucking calling card at this point.

Everything fits the M.O. These guys are idiots turn after turn.

It's actually baffling to witness :|
 
I don't buy anyone saying it's a spoof.

The guy literally has been caught in lie after lie, scam after scam and - again - I'll make this point:

These assholes are too dumb to understand you don't do this kind of stupid shit, try to bribe or threaten people with A TEXT BASED DIGITAL FINGERPRINT like email or Skype - which seems to be a fucking calling card at this point.

Everything fits the M.O. These guys are idiots turn after turn.

It's actually baffling to witness :|

Thing is, it's INCREDIBLY easy to fake an email like that. As evidence its value is zero. Zilch. Nada. It makes HTC seem kind of bad actually, at least when he doesn't seem to care. "I don't know if it's fake or not" isn't good enough, that's a very poor excuse and it's quite honestly a bad judgement to use it when you can't be sure it's legit.

Also disappointing to see HTC take the safe route and not publish the skype logs. There's absolutely no basis for tMartn to sue for anything.
 
Thing is, it's INCREDIBLY easy to fake an email like that. As evidence its value is zero. Zilch. Nada. It makes HTC seem kind of bad actually, at least when he doesn't seem to care. "I don't know if it's fake or not" isn't good enough, that's a very poor excuse and it's quite honestly a bad judgement to use it when you can't be sure it's legit.

Also disappointing to see HTC take the safe route and not publish the skype logs. There's absolutely no basis for tMartn to sue for anything.
Tmartn claimed Skype convo was a breach of a "contract" - not a word of that being faked from HTC.

This leads me to believe the email can be legit.

It certainly can't be, for sure. We can find out if he posts the header.

Right now it's 90:10 in HTCs favor. It's easy to fake an email but Tmartn is very haphazardly picking and choosing what he denies or not which doesn't make sense.

He has legit legal action if the email was faked. I doubt HTC would risk nuking himself unless he had the cash to back it up.
 

Coreda

Member
Thing is, it's INCREDIBLY easy to fake an email like that. As evidence its value is zero. Zilch. Nada. It makes HTC seem kind of bad actually, at least when he doesn't seem to care.

HTC mentioned he'll be posting the email header in the next video. I didn't take this as not caring, he mightn't have considered/known about it at first.

Hell, it would be more evidence one way or another than anyone else has for all the PMs, chat logs, and dialog screenshots posted so far allegedly from Martin in all the other videos. Which anyone could claim are trivially photoshopped.

Also disappointing to see HTC take the safe route and not publish the skype logs. There's absolutely no basis for tMartn to sue for anything.

Other Youtubers were claiming it could be grounds for a lawsuit. He was unsure and is basing his legal advice on a single Tweet from Ryan Morrison in response to Martin who claimed HTC said he would 'keep them confidential' and questioned whether it's breaking privacy laws. From the sound of it HTC is fine with publishing the logs but made the 7th video to explain the situation. I don't see what the big deal is, there's already enough heat on Martin in this case.
 
You'd think a guy that was running an illegal gambling ring, stealing money from minors in rigged roulettes, would be smart enough not to offer bribes?

Also, the TLS Gmail secure icon doesn't mean much. It means EITHER party is insecure. The sender OR receiver. It could mean HtC is using Google for Work on his own domain instead of a straight Gmail address.
https://support.google.com/a/answer/2520500?hl=en
It needs to be setup properly to work on custom domains.
 

Coreda

Member
Phil or whatever the fuck the clowns name is trying to chime in as if he's relevant.

It didn't sound like he was merely questioning the legality of HTC's logs for his own channel's relevance tbh (though why this wasn't questioned of others' videos idk). Fwiw he has the guy who set up the fundraiser for h3h3productions when they were sued by Bold Guy recently over fair use, contributed $5k to it, and with the awareness raising reached over $100k which h3h3 then placed in a separate fund to also help other Youtubers.
 
Also disappointing to see HTC take the safe route and not publish the skype logs. There's absolutely no basis for tMartn to sue for anything.
HTC just said in his latest video that he's just holding off on posting the Skype chat until he gets some legal advice, not that he will not be posting it at all.

Been away from all of this for a while so could anyone give me some updates?

Are the Feds getting involved at all for any these cases? And have Faze Clan and PhantomLord been added to that lawsuit with Tmartn in it? When is the court date for that lawsuit?
 

RS4-

Member
It didn't sound like he was merely questioning the legality of HTC's logs for his own channel's relevance tbh (though why this wasn't questioned of others' videos idk). Fwiw he has the guy who set up the fundraiser for h3h3productions when they were sued by Bold Guy recently over fair use, contributed $5k to it, and with the awareness raising reached over $100k which h3h3 then placed in a separate fund to also help other Youtubers.

Oh,w ell then, I take back most of what I said lol. Thanks for enlightening me
 

RawNuts

Member
God i still roll over at this image.
image.php

Good doggy.
 
HTC mentioned he'll be posting the email header in the next video.

Well, if we can trace that data back to tmartn, then I have no problem agreeing that it truly was from him. I hope we can prove that he is scummy enough to offer hush money.

But people aren't doubting HtC because they're not on his side. He's doing great work, but a lot of that work was built on his own critical thinking, sifting through thrid party information along with the BS tmartn was trying to feed him and constructing a narrative by removing things that didn't make sense. I would hope that the people enjoying HtC's videos haven't lost the ability to think critically on their own, even when it comes to information put out there by HtC.

So that's why I worry about the validity of that email. When you read it, it just doesn't make sense.

1) we keep saying here that tmartn is a simple minded scammer who loves to just put everything out there on Skype without worrying about his digital fingerprints. So why did he include a vague, convoluted plan to accept a bribe by posting a video and tweet instead of a simple and private agreement response? If he has no problem clearly communicating a bribe via email, he shouldn't care about getting the acceptance via email. In fact, that could make a clear and possibly binding agreement, rather than a set of vague videos and tweets.

2) furthermore, why didn't he want him to respond at all via email? This was the immediate red flag when I first read the email. If an email is faked then of course you don't want the receiver to respond to the person's real email address because if he does then the scam just ends there, the real tmartn will respond from his real account with "$1,000??? WTF are you talking about??" So the troll wants what trolls want people to do- which is to make some sort of stupid or humiliating public statement (in a video or tweet).

3) also, do you mean to tell me that this one email is the only mention of the bribe ever?? So HtC never responded with "fuck off, I don't take bribes" and neither did he ever ask tmartn about it in their Skype conversations?? And on the other side, Tmartn never asked him his thoughts on taking payment after apparently getting no response at all? So it was just this one email very early on and it never came up in their conversations ever again? To me that is more proof the email is from a troll that just wanted to see if HtC would take the bait.

4) the threat of getting his channel deleted with the help of his friends "high up in YouTube" is definitely a lie, but it's such an obvious cheap scare tactic to appear all-powerful that it doesn't help the argument that the email is legit. It's the obvious scare tactic you would employ if you were impersonating a multi-million sub youtuber.

5) and lastly, I know some of you have said that it's improbable that a bribe would have been offered this early on when the video had such low views, but that's the same day tmartn uploaded his panicked rebuttal rant. And there is another possibility that this email isn't even from someone who's a tmartn fan, but from someone who just hates HtC.
 

Coreda

Member
I would hope that the people enjoying HtC's videos haven't lost the ability to think critically on their own, even when it comes to information put out there by HtC.

I'm not sure anyone is claiming we know for certain the legitimacy of the email but rather we're posting about the likelihood of a person of Martin's character writing such a bribe and threat and weighing that against facts like the unauthenticated graphic seen beside the email (which has been pointed out earlier isn't a sure sign it's actually spoofed).

Also, if this is a spoofed email it seems more likely it's from a fan than a troll doing it for lulz, as what would they really get from it?

1) I've seen these types of bribes/threats before, it's not convoluted and it's usually laughable. Threatening something or offering payment in return for taking down videos. h3h3 experienced something similar with SoFlo who sounded like a honest to god 14 year old in the emails.

2) This is indeed a red flag. HTC has already stated he's not sure if it's a legitimate email or spoofed, after he received various responses about it, which is why he'll be posting the email header for others to take a look at. It may be he wanted something swiftly to occur, or perhaps the sender didn't have access to the email address.

3) HTC describes contacting a mutual friend privately re Martin's threats. Not sure the email needed a response to prove its legitimacy. If you received it would you take it seriously? Also we haven't seen the Skype logs yet.

4) It's obviously a cheap threat but I wouldn't put it past Martin to make.

5) It's a good point. Though Martin didn't actually mention the source of the allegations in the response video or description. Would be good to know the exact timestamps of both the response video and email.
 
Well, if we can trace that data back to tmartn, then I have no problem agreeing that it truly was from him. I hope we can prove that he is scummy enough to offer hush money.

But people aren't doubting HtC because they're not on his side. He's doing great work, but a lot of that work was built on his own critical thinking, sifting through thrid party information along with the BS tmartn was trying to feed him and constructing a narrative by removing things that didn't make sense. I would hope that the people enjoying HtC's videos haven't lost the ability to think critically on their own, even when it comes to information put out there by HtC.

So that's why I worry about the validity of that email. When you read it, it just doesn't make sense.

1) we keep saying here that tmartn is a simple minded scammer who loves to just put everything out there on Skype without worrying about his digital fingerprints. So why did he include a vague, convoluted plan to accept a bribe by posting a video and tweet instead of a simple and private agreement response? If he has no problem clearly communicating a bribe via email, he shouldn't care about getting the acceptance via email. In fact, that could make a clear and possibly binding agreement, rather than a set of vague videos and tweets.

2) furthermore, why didn't he want him to respond at all via email? This was the immediate red flag when I first read the email. If an email is faked then of course you don't want the receiver to respond to the person's real email address because if he does then the scam just ends there, the real tmartn will respond from his real account with "$1,000??? WTF are you talking about??" So the troll wants what trolls want people to do- which is to make some sort of stupid or humiliating public statement (in a video or tweet).

3) also, do you mean to tell me that this one email is the only mention of the bribe ever?? So HtC never responded with "fuck off, I don't take bribes" and neither did he ever ask tmartn about it in their Skype conversations?? And on the other side, Tmartn never asked him his thoughts on taking payment after apparently getting no response at all? So it was just this one email very early on and it never came up in their conversations ever again? To me that is more proof the email is from a troll that just wanted to see if HtC would take the bait.

4) the threat of getting his channel deleted with the help of his friends "high up in YouTube" is definitely a lie, but it's such an obvious cheap scare tactic to appear all-powerful that it doesn't help the argument that the email is legit. It's the obvious scare tactic you would employ if you were impersonating a multi-million sub youtuber.

5) and lastly, I know some of you have said that it's improbable that a bribe would have been offered this early on when the video had such low views, but that's the same day tmartn uploaded his panicked rebuttal rant. And there is another possibility that this email isn't even from someone who's a tmartn fan, but from someone who just hates HtC.
I don't recall anyone saying it's 100% undeniably legit. Even I said it may not be.

What we do have to judge by is actions by BOTH parties.

I understand where you are coming from but right now the split based solely on the actions of both parties works in HtCs favor. If he faked it or its not real that would be a huge hit to HtCs credibility regardless if he knew it was fake or not.

We know Tmartn is a liar. We have very little reason to trust him.

Also, in a tweet he never refuted any of the Skype conversation as a fake and instead said HtC broke a contract with him by posting it - meaning at least that much was accurate.

There's very little reason to trust Tmartn at this point OTHER than "Welp, let's just wait and see if the email is real" as we shake our heads.

I'm not up or down on it but I certainly believe tmartn would send it.

You'd be surprised at the shit people email other people they don't know and have zero involvement with for absolutely no reason. As a gamedev, I'd show you all of the emails I get talking shit about a game we haven't releases yet - especially when we announced our game wasn't coming to X1. I took heat from internet fuckwads because I am the only programmer managing 2 platforms for launch and I don't want to stretch myself too thin. Considering Tmartn ran a gambling site aimed at children with ZERO oversight, thought he was king shit, a baller, blatantly lies and changes his story in his own videos, etc - I'm not putting his fuckwad mentality past anything to give him the benefit of the doubt. All we can do is lean towards one side and let this shit play out.
 

Audioboxer

Member
depending on how it's defined it's either rip valve in Australia or banning one of f2p's cornerstone monetization usages

Or at the very least microtransactions can only be used to buy something you know you are getting. Lock boxes and things alike can only be used in-game and must be able to be opened only via something else you earn in-game.

In other words the way it should be. Charging for a key for a RNG chance at something is a disgusting practice we should be weeding out of gaming. Gamers only go to show how fickle they are by championing their favourite companies for doing it under the banner of "omg guyz you can totally ignore it, stop complaining, leave company x alone". The masses of voices that echo that today in gaming is downright worrying, and shows many are willing to sell their brains critical thinking faculties in favour of being a "fanboy" of a company they like. Also referred to as I have my cake, I don't give a shit if others are affected syndrome. Blame the kids, blame the parents, and blame anything but the sleezy corporations and companies who actively employ economists to exploit gamers how they do.

If a company is hellbent on doing it it should end up an 18 rated game (regardless of if the game itself is child friendly) with a need for a gambling license/gambling regulation applied. If a company wants to make it's game F2P then that's the companies fucking choice. It's up to them to find a way to make money that isn't downright sleezy, exploitative and potentially illegal but currently flying under a grey area because "it's gaming related and our governments haven't caught up to regulating it better yet".

Thankfully all of this exploding is probably going to accelerate regulation and you only do yourself a disservice coming out of this feeling upset or bad for your favourite million/billionaire gaming companies finding it oh so rough that they can't continue as is. Like it or not Valve need this kick up the arse, as do Blizzard and many others. They are not your best friend and I can assure you will survive off their riches and continued riches just fine even if they have to behave differently in the coming years.
 

blastprocessor

The Amiga Brotherhood
Why would HTC fake an email? I'm more likely to believe HTC over Tmartn given the evidence he's produced so far. HTC is also in contact with the video game lawyer.
 
Yeah, I call BS on that email. Dude just wants to keep the controversy going because he has never been paid that much attention before.

Tmartn, is that you? This is the exact kind of shit that dick is retweeting.

You really think he would fake an email and put it in his YouTube video over Tmartn sending it or somebody spoofing the email?
 

rrs

Member
Thankfully all of this exploding is probably going to accelerate regulation and you only do yourself a disservice coming out of this feeling upset or bad for your favourite million/billionaire gaming companies finding it oh so rough that they can't continue as is. Like it or not Valve need this kick up the arse, as do Blizzard and many others. They are not your best friend and I can assure you will survive off their riches and continued riches just fine even if they have to behave differently in the coming years.
can you like, not assume I'm sucking corporate dick? I think such practices can go to hell but there's not enough me in the world.
 

Audioboxer

Member
can you like, not assume I'm sucking corporate dick? I think such practices can go to hell but there's not enough me in the world.

I know I quoted you but that was about Australia. The rest was just me ranting lol. Sorry I wasn't aiming it at you.
 
Or at the very least microtransactions can only be used to buy something you know you are getting. Lock boxes and things alike can only be used in-game and must be able to be opened only via something else you earn in-game.

In other words the way it should be. Charging for a key for a RNG chance at something is a disgusting practice we should be weeding out of gaming.

I don't see a problem with it. This type of business model has existed for a very long time in many other fields. Maybe we should ban card games like Magic as well, while we're at it? Because it's the exact same thing: you're paying for randomized goods.

The only problem and difference that exists here is the gambling aspect, and how ridiculously easy it has been enabled by Steam providing third parties methods of fetching and transferring those assets.
 
Congrats, you successfully baited me with your shit posting personal attacks. No longer gonna happen.

Well I haven't "baited" you and my posts to you certainly weren't "shit posting personal attacks". Unless you are Tmartn who I referred to as a dick, I have done neither of those things.

You said Honor the Call created and faked an email for attention over other options such as the email being spoofed or Tmartn sending it. I was asking why you think this is the case. You still haven't followed up about this, but instead chose to condescendingly suggest that I am "unable to wrap [my] head around" your opinion.

If you want to accuse HtC of faking emails for attention then fair enough, but don't get defensive when someone asks why you believe this to be more likely than the other options.
 
Well I haven't "baited" you and my posts to you certainly weren't "shit posting personal attacks". Unless you are Tmartn who I referred to as a dick, I have done neither of those things.

You said Honor the Call created and faked an email for attention over other options such as the email being spoofed or Tmartn sending it. I was asking why you think this is the case. You still haven't followed up about this, but instead chose to condescendingly suggest that I am "unable to wrap [my] head around" your opinion.

If you want to accuse HtC of faking emails for attention then fair enough, but don't get defensive when someone asks why you believe this to be more likely than the other options.

"hey, are you that scumbag pretending to be someone completely objective?"

"I was just trying to start a conversation"

Lol no, you don't get to personally attack someone and then pretend you're being a reasonable person asking for an explanation. You don't get to act like that and in the future I will try to not respond to people who act like you. It's not funny nor is it clever and it's insulting. So long.
 
"hey, are you that scumbag pretending to be someone completely objective?"

"I was just trying to start a conversation"

Lol no, you don't get to personally attack someone and then pretend you're being a reasonable person asking for an explanation. You don't get to act like that and in the future I will try to not respond to people who act like you. It's not funny nor is it clever and it's insulting. So long.

Ah. Still completely avoiding the question I asked in my very first to reply to you then.

You really think he would fake an email and put it in his YouTube video over Tmartn sending it or somebody spoofing the email?

If you don't want to elaborate on your pretty hefty accusation that HtC faked an email for attention then fine, but dismissing my posts as personal attacks when I did no such thing is ridiculous. I can understand how likening you to Tmartn might be considered an insult, but since he and his "fans" are the only ones accusing HtC of faking the email then it's not really that far off-base.
 

Audioboxer

Member
I don't see a problem with it. This type of business model has existed for a very long time in many other fields. Maybe we should ban card games like Magic as well, while we're at it? Because it's the exact same thing: you're paying for randomized goods.

The only problem and difference that exists here is the gambling aspect, and how ridiculously easy it has been enabled by Steam providing third parties methods of fetching and transferring those assets.

Difference with games is the murky digital ownership/license ownership.

With cards you actually own something and it isn't going to magically disappear the day the servers turn off.

Games are also doing it after you've already bought the game. Besides those that are F2P you don't buy cards and then have to pay more once you've opened the pack because some of them have padlocks on them.

In other words I get where people are coming from with trading cards but I honestly don't think it is 1:1 with videogames. Like it or not as well videogames are more popular and therefore have the bigger spotlight on them. Sometimes in life not everything gets the same amount of attention.
 

El-Suave

Member
Now that lawyers are involved, faking a compromising e-mail would be so incredibly stupid that I can't imagine that to be the case. I do agree HTC needs to back off a little though while still being vigilant, the case can't deliver news for two to three videos per week for eternity.
 
I think you guys are completely misunderstanding what we were previously discussing about the spoofed email.

Yes, there is a possibility that HtC faked the email himself, but I think many would agree with me in thinking that's incredibly unlikely. It's by far the most unlikely scenario here. Considering all the proof HtC has been forthcoming with when backing up his story.

When we said it could be faked, we meant that it just didn't come from tmartn at all and instead came from a troll impersonating tmartn and HtC thought it was real.
 

Audioboxer

Member
Was that him reacting to the kid who lost his battle with cancer? Because despite being famous, people do still have feelings.

Eeek, context makes this different. I retract my above snidey mark.

Using that situation to fake sympathy would actually make you genuinely evil. I'd even have to give the scumbag himself the benefit of the doubt on this one if what you said was true and its some fan who has passed. Not that he gave a shit about the fans he was robbing blind, but death is the end of someone for good.
 

Audioboxer

Member
I finally watched all the videos about this. amazing research.

It goes to show how utterly careless people can be on the internet and that it is not hard to do a little digging and discover soo much. You just need to know where to look.
 

RawNuts

Member
"hey, are you that scumbag pretending to be someone completely objective?"

"I was just trying to start a conversation"

Lol no, you don't get to personally attack someone and then pretend you're being a reasonable person asking for an explanation. You don't get to act like that and in the future I will try to not respond to people who act like you. It's not funny nor is it clever and it's insulting. So long.
Oh wow.
neogaf.gif

Also, HtC says there are threats made via Skype as well. I doubt that he would be dumb enough to purposefully fake any evidence now that lawyers and such are involved, just for YouTube views. It's wholly irrational and a weak argument. Claiming that the e-mail may be spoofed is a stronger argument to make.

Hope HtC is able to post the Skype logs eventually so we can see into this for ourselves.


EDIT: Looks like he did!
 

Audioboxer

Member
Oh wow.
neogaf.gif

Also, HtC says there are threats made via Skype as well. I doubt that he would be dumb enough to purposefully fake any evidence now that lawyers and such are involved, just for YouTube views. It's wholly irrational and a weak argument. Claiming that the e-mail may be spoofed is a stronger argument to make.

Hope HtC is able to post the Skype logs eventually so we can see into this for ourselves.


EDIT: Looks like he did!

So he has.

We better PM Mobius to make sure he's okay.
 

LiK

Member
Oh wow.
neogaf.gif

Also, HtC says there are threats made via Skype as well. I doubt that he would be dumb enough to purposefully fake any evidence now that lawyers and such are involved, just for YouTube views. It's wholly irrational and a weak argument. Claiming that the e-mail may be spoofed is a stronger argument to make.

Hope HtC is able to post the Skype logs eventually so we can see into this for ourselves.


EDIT: Looks like he did!

yea, just finished that. props to him for sharing it.
 

Gattsu25

Banned
Oh wow.
neogaf.gif

Also, HtC says there are threats made via Skype as well. I doubt that he would be dumb enough to purposefully fake any evidence now that lawyers and such are involved, just for YouTube views. It's wholly irrational and a weak argument. Claiming that the e-mail may be spoofed is a stronger argument to make.

Hope HtC is able to post the Skype logs eventually so we can see into this for ourselves.


EDIT: Looks like he did!

In that video he even indicates that csg lotto bets could be gamed :\ Tried to do it in a "but I don't have access to that" kinda way but still seemingly admitting that the rolls on the site could be modified/pre-determined.
 

RawNuts

Member
Tmartn's Skype messages read extremely manipulative; he keeps mentioning what a positive person he is and thankful for bringing his disclosure to light so that he looks like the good guy in the situation. I've had people speak to me like that before and it's easy to see through, but there is also a specific term that refers to this kind of manipulative speak that I can't think of at the moment. That is definitely what I'm seeing from him though.

Also worth noting how Tmartn wants him to agree to not share any of the conversation right up front. Tmartn seems to be the kind of person who thinks he can have control over everything by isolating and intimidating.

Tmartn's mention of how he understands that this situation must be boosting HtC's views is also disgusting; YouTube views aren't everything, Tmartn. It's like saying that HtC just wants to keep the controversy going because he has never been paid that much attention before.
 
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