Ask HN: What can I do to gain trust here? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What can I do to gain trust here?

8 pointsloupereira16 comments

What can I do to ensure the HN community that Webcam Blocker Pro is a legitimate program I developed and not a virus or malicious software?

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You're starting off by trying to prove a negative. (You're trying to prove that by using this product something wont happen).

Proving a negative is in many cases a fool's errand. In your particular case you're using a logical fallacy called "argumentum ad ignorantiam" (Asserting that something is true simply because it has not yet been proven false).

Anyone with a math background, a technical background, a law background, or or a formal-logic background will automatically feel uncomfortable with the kind of claims you're making. Though they may not be able to articulate why they don't trust you, I'd wager that's the underlying cause.

To gain trust, you'd need to restructure your offering, brand, and marketing efforts in a logically valid and sound way. Think about what you can prove logically; don't overstep or use hyperbole, and err on the side of conservative claims. Then people might warm up.

You bought an existing website and an existing product.

You scrapped to original software and re-created it. You don't appear to have done much to the website.

The website is toxic. It is full of signals of a poor quality product. I mentioned some of these in your other thread.

Doing a web search for the product returns a bunch of really suspicious links.

http://topdownloadebook.siterubix.com/download-webcam-blocke...

http://farmhousekitchen.us/blog/2014/08/20/webcam-blocker-pr...

http://www.cbengine.com/id/tg1264

These links are toxic and harm your reputation.

The clickbank stuff -the footer on the website especially- is weird and makes me trust the product less.

And then you make extraordinary claims that are not true.

I know that a single person working alone has not created software that is impossible for hackers or government agents to defeat.

You already got the necessary feedback in the thread which prompted this question: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8233318

Don't make claims that you can't justify.

The claim I am making and standby is that no one can access the webcam and microphone unless they know the password. My question is how does one gain trust and why all the negativity when no one has yet tried or tested the product and debunked my claim?

I think you're on the right track when you ask people to prove you wrong. If you offer a bug bounty, someone will pentest your product and you'll be quickly debunked. People are so negative because 1. This is HN, they're always negative, and 2. Because your claims are REALLY incredible if true, and you've offered little to no proof outside of "try it and see". If someone said, this computer program lets you go back in time, just try it and see, I wouldn't bother trying it. I'd say prove it.

There's negativity because you're making some pretty incredible claims, and you need to back them up with more than just "well you haven't tested it yet". If you're claiming that you can prevent government actors like the NSA from accessing the webcam and microphone without knowing the password, then you're in possession of some pretty serious crypto and you should be willing to talk about it. Tell people what you've done and why it works, instead of asking them to break it before they judge it.

Well, you can start by not harping on how people here DO NOT TRUST ME. I mean you are repeating the message you don't want people to have. Don't you see how counterproductive that is?

Also, geez, the other thread was 8 hours ago and this one was 3 hours ago. It takes more than 5 hours to "build trust" and establish good relationships with prospective customers.

I don't think anyone can give you the explanation in a nutshell. Building trust takes time and effort and problem solving. Yelling at people or whining at them about "why don't you like me?" or something only adds fuel to the fire.

I trust everyone until they give me a reason not to, that is my philosophy and my fault for assuming everyone else's.

Your problem is that you're making some absolutely incredible claims without any evidence to back them up. Prove to me that your product does what you're saying it does, and then maybe I'll trust you. How does it work? Why do you believe that your solution is effective? What guarantees do you provide?

At the end of the day, HN is full of very technically minded people, including security experts, programmers, and researchers. You're not going to be able to sell to these people without seriously backing up your claims.

I lost that episode, can you bring up to speed with OPs claims? Or share a link to the previous discussions?

You can check the OP's post history to find the discussion in question!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8233318

It's a bit confusing. Poster says it's a showHN, but then claims that the website and domain and software were bought from someone else, and that the original software was scrapped because it didn't work and was re-written from scratch.

The website made extraordinary claims but didn't do much to support those claims.

What if I was giving the product away for free? Would the reaction would have been different?

No, because nobody is complaining about the cost of the product and everybody is complaining about the unproven claims you're making.

Thank you everyone for all your valuable input and feedback.

Open the Source.-

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