My views are my own. Not my employer's. Not Valve's. Not God's.

I AM NOT VALVE STAFF. I cannot restore your items. I cannot ban the cheater that just headshotted you. I have been asked this enough times that I am now legally required to bark at you for it. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with scammers =/= being able to return your stuff.

Puppyboy Virus VTuber. Cybersecurity professional by day, digital menace by existence. I have a degree, I have opinions, and I have absolutely zero obligation to explain either to you.

I stream. I do educational content on not being an idiot online. I write things. I do what interests me, and if that bothers you, you are more than welcome to touch grass at your own convenience.

Signing my profile is encouraged. Being a cheater, or defending one, is not. You can and will be shown the door, and I will enjoy doing it.

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Not by me. But statistically, somebody is trying.

Some little gremlin out there has made a fake version of my account to run scams on my behalf without my knowledge or consent, which is very rude of them and I would like them to know that personally. My personal recommendation is sodomy with a broom handle.

I do not:
- Accept random friend requests
- Take trade offers without context
- Gift you games, especially in the form of external links
- Send a trade first unless arranged beforehand

If somebody claiming to be me is doing any of the above, it is not me, it is a scammer, and you should block and report them before they get to the next person. Every report counts even if it does not result in an instant ban. You are doing a public service.

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I will not sugarcoat any of this because the people who need it most are the ones most likely to skim it.

Before anything else: Check SteamRep. Check backpack.tf. It takes less than two minutes. If you trade with somebody who is listed as a known scammer and they scam you, you have made a you problem, not a them problem. I will not be sympathetic. I will be educational, briefly, and then I will move on.

Things that are scams, in no particular order:

Somebody telling you your items are "flagged" or "duplicated" and that you need to move them to a safe account. Valve does not operate like this. They do not need your permission to check your inventory. They can delete your account from existence without sending you so much as a strongly worded email. The idea that they need you to personally relocate your items is, and I mean this affectionately, insane.

Somebody telling you to disable Steam Guard to complete a trade. No. Valve Support can handle that on their end if it is ever actually necessary. If a stranger on the internet is telling you to turn off your 2FA, they are not your friend and they do not have your best interests anywhere near their heart.

Somebody offering you something that sounds too good to be true. It is. Nobody on the internet is this generous for nothing. There is always a string. Find the string before you find out the hard way what it was attached to.

Free items via external links. Do not click. Do not confirm. Do not pass go.

Do not post your trade link publicly if you have anything worth protecting. Bots will scrape it. Impersonation accounts will use it to send you fake offers that look almost identical to legitimate ones. Only give it to services you have independently verified are legitimate. Marketplace.tf. Mannco.store. Not whatever your friend's cousin's alt account just DMed you.

OAuth is designed to be secure. It is not designed to protect you from yourself. "Sign in with Steam" on a site you cannot verify is legitimate is not a feature, it is a threat. Use your brain before you use your credentials.

Gambling sites rig their odds. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is a business model. Even the ones that do not steal your items outright are built to take your money slowly and make it feel like your fault. Do not.

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(unless you're trading. then look wherever you want lol)

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I stream, I post, and I make educational content about not being an idiot online. If any of that sounds like something you want more of, here is where to find it.

Website: https://asternullbyte.xyz

If you are a creator and want to work together, I have a collab page with everything you need to know before reaching out. Read it first. I can tell when people do not.
https://asternullbyte.xyz/collab