I used a boring title which does not catch attention in a period where people like to use emotional wordings. I am not trying to catch attention, nor make people angry against Coinkite. The discussion could have been classified in Bitcoin territory but I don't really want to generate resentment or write a rant so I selected lol.
Anyway. I just received an email from Coinkite. I purchased a Coldcard in 2021. My email address was supposed to be removed from their database... I used simplelogin, and the email I used was a proxy email I could have deleted. So it is not that I really care. But in principle, it means that deletion of customer information which was advertised was a lie. So I wanted to share this with others.
Since my purchase was old and I believed my personal info was deleted, I even thought initially it was a scam. but all the links are legit, and the domain name, mg.coinkite.com, used looks legit as well.
If what was advertised was not a complete lie, I guess they parsed logs from their servers, maybe asked all old contacts from a third-party, or maybe forgot to remove old data from an air-gapped disk. I understand. But then advertising we delete data from customers was still a lie.
Compared to others I am extremely neutral on hardware wallets, I love trying everything. I used Coldcard, Ledger nano s and x, Seedsigner, Blockstream wallets purchased version and DIY versions, Trezor, I used many hot wallets, I like to try new things. People make mistake, so sometimes money get lost, it's ok for me. Never recommended Coldcard anyway, I gave something else to friends or people I know (something not built by someone who loves spending time criticizing the seedsigner project).
People had some issues forgiving Ledger their data leak. But at least I don't think they advertised deleting customer data. And correct me if I am wrong but I think Shopify was responsible for this anyway. I didn't buy a Ledger directly from Ledger so was not affected anyway.
So... bottom line, Coinkite lied by stating they remove customer data. I am not angry. It is ok, I understand. But it was a lie. Lol.
I could not remember if it was half a year or less, but what the screenshot shows was exactly my reaction when I saw their email.
I totally understand they want to contact people, this is legitimate. I also totally understand they keep logs. And this is legitimate to think that warning potential users who didn't move their money was ethically a good act. But saying that they removed customer data was a lie. I even remember an email from a bot saying my data was removed (I didn't ask but totally fine by the way).
That's quite a mess. But I don't want to make people angry so lol.
Seems like maybe they preserved email addresses so users could login and check that Coinkite didn't have any other info?
source
I see... I checked the old group on Telegram I joined at the time. Dee said "We do destroy all customer data after 120 days". On their website it is written also "Remember to expect a “Your Data has been Blanked” email from Coinkite a few months after you interact with the store." (Source: https://blog.coinkite.com/paper-spam/)
And they defined personal data as "Personal information means information about an identifiable individual. This includes, for example, an individual’s name, home address, home phone number or e-mail address." (Source: https://coinkite.com/privacy)
So I guess this was more like political talk and "all customer data" didn't include "personal data" but only a specific subset of it.
It is quite convoluted.
https://twiiit.com/COLDCARDwallet/status/2083755664006894039
I saw on nostr NVK is deleting tweets. Is this true?
Yes he definitely deleted some old tweets.
one thing you can’t do in nostr haha
NIP-09 (also you can just wait for the relay to shut down, haha)
Wow! All that hubris now trying to hide it like a coward
https://twiiit.com/nvk/status/1288860345864527874
Looking again at your screenshot it might be appropriate to remember the song of the Monty Python movie Life of Brian, at the end when the Romans killed Jesus: "Always look at the bright side of life [whistles]"
Yes, can confirm. I received one too earlier today. It's legit.
Be prepared for a wave of phishing emails related to fund recovery.
__@_'-'
I didn't think about this one, good point. We may save time by deleting our email alias for Coinkite for those who used one.
one has to be a real pos to use this situation to target the victims for the next scam lmfao
welcome to society
Ugh you are right
I thought they didn't keep people's personal info and made a big song and dance about deleting it? I wonder if they still have shipping addresses in their database too?
I received an email too and I've never been a customer, never signed up for a mailing list... wonder if they bought a list or scraped.
Hahaha...
For the record, I got the email too.
i would be extremely sus of anything coming from anyone right now via email, thanks for reporting this though, prompt injections are a real thing stay safe
I am the very same. When the Q came out I was excited for all the features and couldn’t wait to get my hands on one.
I used to buy coinkite products every month. Big fan of their sat cards but after terrible entropy gaff, the poor public relations after the fact and now the email logging l the company just can’t get out of their own way!!
I’ll keep my block clock and use the rest of my sat cards I have and then just move on from their products as a whole.
No one Is infallible and a little humility goes a long way but it appears this company has no more good will. I would like to be wrong but this brand is toast for good.
I was a fan of their sat card too!
Taking about the Block clock, actually yesterday I discovered the forked version was being sold on the website of one of the seed signer store:
https://btc-hardware-solutions.square.site/product/btclock/23?cs=true&cst=custom
For the rest I am on the same page than you. I have stopped considering buying Coinkite products 1-2 years ago when I saw how disrespectful NVK was with the Seedsigner project. Ironically I checked yesterday seedsigner.org and it was redirecting to Bitcoin knots...
If anyone from Coinkite lurks here, let me remind you of the first law of the hole: if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.