Accusation:
I was recently asked to look into the background of a flag-war being carried out on steemit.
The flagging was, as so often, sadly, only being carried out on the basis of personal views and ideological disagreements. That was really nothing that I would involve myself with.
But, in the dust stirred up by those steemians, exchanging their flags, there was something else, mostly unrelated, but without any ideological bias, definitely ill-intended:
Accounts impersonating young talents and earning rewards with stolen content.
The Findings:
Let's work our way up the ladder before we do the full reveal.
I'll start with some young pretty singers and songwriters from YouTube.
@daiki claims to be YouTube singer Tommi Rose and @gracetbg is supposed to be another YouTube user by the name of Lauren Kirk. @daiki and @gracetbg both opened their steemit accounts in June, within minutes of each other.
A week later @asterix opens her presence on steemit, claimingt to be Jessica Bitsura, yet another singer from YouTube.
If you've visited the steemit-profiles of these artists by now, you will have noticed, they all have a rather un-stereotypical interest in crypto-tokens, "NarwhalSprings coin", "Whaleshares" and the "eostalk forum".
I have contacted all three original artists via Facebook and/or email, but I have not heard back from them yet.
So why am I already throwing this around, accounts opening around the same time and pretty girls with an interest in "eostalk" certainly isn't exactly a crime. They haven't even earned much in rewards yet either!
Bear with me, and let's get to the center of this.
A few weeks before these singers made their debut on steemit, @walterz, just another guy who happens to also be interested in all these tokens and "eostalk", opened his account with steemit. He introduced himself as Alex from Indonesia, with an interest in food.
After posting about food for a while and with very limited success, he suddenly shifted focus and developed a passion for drawing about 2 months ago. His new passion seemed to resonate with the audience, he was incredibly talented right from the start, and actually started getting some good upvotes.
Unfortunately, the fun didn't last very long. Just a few posts later, @steemcleaners busted him for showcasing stolen content.
But Alex was a real renaissance-man, so he quickly looked for a new hobby, let's try some photography! Talented as he is, he became a master quite quickly and has in the meantime specialized in shooting macros of insects with a cellphone.
@walterz has been growing his audience, and he seems to have made good progress in the #whaleshares community, too. His latter posts are making fine rewards and everybody is happy about it.
Well... not exactly everybody!
Jerry Thomp from Instagram certainly isn't.
He was a little upset when I told him about his images being stolen by @walterz:
So there you have it: @walterz has been making his steemit career with plagiarized and stolen content!
And yes, he is the one who runs the accounts for our YouTube talents @daiki, @gracetbg and @asterix, too! So if the real them do eventually reply to my messages, I am already certain whet that answer is going to look like!
Of course, @walterz is running a few more accounts, too: @hansenhtb, @musicaz, @blitzkierg, @priscilacosta, but there's nothing special to see here.
Hold On,
is there's a genuine talent involved?
@walterz is also working through the account @aomine, another girl-singer, this time from Indonesia, who's calling herself Gracia Desnita.
Now Gracia definitely is a real person. She made some on-camera appearances for the steemit-open-mic contest and also involves herself in the #whaleshares community.
I must suspect that she's either the real person behind @walterz or (probably more likely) she's @walterz' girlfriend!
It's a pity if someone with possibly honest aspirations gets dragged into the mess of a cheater and plagiariser, but it wouldn't come as a surprise to me, Rene from Case 7.1 did also open an account for his girlfriend who had been using it genuinely.
yours,
Sherlock
List of accounts identified in this case:
@walterz, @hansenhtb, @musicaz, @daiki, @gracetbg, @aomine, @asterix, @blitzkierg, @priscilacosta
P.S.: I know, this post might come across as a bit sexist, but I believe that to be a major selling point of those fake accounts, so I left the undertone at that.
P.P.S: My 2ct downvote unfortunately doesn't do much against an account with 60 reputation, dear sea-mammals, please use your flags where you deem it neccessary! @walterz is a repeated plagiariser who has been flagged and warned before and who still carries on using stolen content on his blog under the pretense of being the original creator!
Please reach out to me on steemit.chat (@nextgencrypto)
Hey, you do realise that your self upvotes look very shady, right? You want to be under the spotlight from sherlock here as well?
Also, you also do realise that your self upvotes will not touch your reputation, because the rules of rep are that negative rep can't add rep to any account?
If the post or comment above is visible to you, it should be flagged. This account is linked to bad Steemian(!) @l0k1. Thank you for your cooperation.
Oh, look, you use the same exact bot script as ausbitbank's nogalert.
You have nothing to do with ausbitbank, at all, now do you?
The more connections you make to who you really are, the sooner the AFP is gonna be asking you some pointy questions.
If the post or comment above is visible to you, it should be flagged. This account is linked to bad Steemian(!) @l0k1. Thank you for your cooperation.
Interesting that you called us asking you to look up fake accounts with huge stake as looking into a flag war based on ideological differences and personal views... Good thing that you aren't the only one that can conduct investigations and we have dedicated plenty of resources into doing the research you refused to do that actually effects every person on the platform and, save for a few whales, does so in a very negative way. Be sure that you are not immune from this investigation as well.
I assume you are referring to the contact @patelincho was making with me a few posts back.
I must admit I don't really understand what you are complaining about above, but I know you were not happy about my reply and @patelincho seemed to be a bit angry even.
I do not know why you see me as an enemy of yours, though, just because I did not pick a side and did not involve myself in it.
Anyways, I do welcome your investigations!
Especially an account like mine deserves to be looked at with extra scrutiny!!!
The people we asked you to investigate are guilty of the same things that you are bringing to light in this post on a much grander scale which even a cursory glance at the accounts in question will show. I'm incredibly curious why you chose not to investigate them and call it "choosing a side" rather than investigate some serious abuse of the system here.
You dont had to pic a side .............. you had to investigate shady acounts with big stake in steemit . Isnt this your job here ? Intresting part is that you never pic on the real bad guys here ........................Its fine we can do our investigation alone ! Sometimes not take side is a clear sighn - RIGHT ?
I don't have a "job" here, I do what I feel is necessary.
Now after I didn't immediately jump to the conclusions you wanted me to make back then, you started accusing me of, well... I don't even really understand of what, of not being of your opinion?
Hmm using a tag - steemit-police .....................i do not acuse you , but SEEMS you investigate only things you want .
Yes, quite indeed that is how it works.
But I do look at the leads people give me. Back then, you and @jphenderson were flagged by @transisto and @newsflash. I did look into this and responded to you with:
What I was trying to tell you, is that I am not here to stop anyone from using their stake as they see fit.
Neither would I accuse you and @jphenderson for reciprocal upvoting, nor will I accuse @transisto for using his stake to remove those rewards that he does not like to see.
I asked you for an elaboration of the kind of "trolling and harassment" you mentioned, but instead you started accusing me to be on "their" side.
So please, if you see anything specific you want me to look into, I gladly will. But if you just want someone to look at an accounts dirty laundry in order to find something, you have to do that yourself.
I found a spam scam dealing with possible 100 accounts.
The Winter Soldier Living in STEEMit
After I made the post, that post got some of the same type of accounts doing upvotes. Talk about ironic. Anyway, clicking through the accounts, I somehow managed to end up on @ecoworld . An account created last year that tried to do a comment spam using numbers for each comment.
The ecoworld account is in the process of powering down.
I don't know how it is all connected. But, it would seem that there are a lot of accounts that are triggered by a code word in posts and they comment on those posts.
Keep up the good work, detective.
Yes, I am having this network (spanning at least 5000 accounts) on my desk as well.
Luckily, the income stream of this operation has been cut off by 95% percent already. These accounts are having trouble continuing comment-farming due to initiatives like @sadkitten and are moving over towards what I'd call curation-farming. A lot of people have been surprised to see waves of upvotes hitting their posts unexpectedly.
I am still working on connecting the dots about this one, I will post about it soon.
looking forward to your post, as we talked about :)
I have the same on one of my accounts, the bot master shifted from own comment upvotes to may random posts upvotes. As @sherlockholmes says kinda curation spam.
You can take a look into the extended history of @ecoworld here:
@sherlockholmes' Case 9: The @ecoworld conspiracy
Hei bro :
Official Acount Thomp
https://steemit.com/potography/@thompjerry/thomp-on-steemit-and-stolen-photo-by-walterz
Good to see the real you over here!
Bringing great and original content to the platform!
awesome, welcome <3
Thank you for being vigilant and exposing the corruption we have to deal with on this platform.
Thank you for standing up and demanding justice upon those who would abuse the system for their own selfish gains.
I appreciate your efforts.
Whaleshares appreciates your dedication and commitment to the well being of the steemit community and ecosystem.
It's people like you who give this platform a fighting chance to reach it's potential.
You are an inspiration and champion to us all.
Thank you for the support!
Upvoted, flagged a few of his posts, and resteemed.
tips hat
thank you very much for the support!
Keep up the good work. I hope @berniesanders and @steemservices do what they do best. I see @walterz has a good amount of upvotes for his recent content.
@sherlockholmes great job indeed...I referenced you and your great work in my latest post-thanks for the good job
A nice read. Thanks for the support!
you are welcome and thanks for the great job bud...hope you have seen the links via my blog post including the one from Jerry
Hey do you think this guy is legit?
https://steemit.com/@cryptopie
I saw this blog post and it made me skeptical.
You are not alone, this account has been brought to my attention several times now.
I have given it a quick screening that didn't raise any flags. That doesn't mean I can say it is legit, but it certainly doesn't show any obvious patterns of ill-intend.
I might look into it again with more time at my hands.
He is new and i think it might be legit.
https://steemit.com/steemit-help/@steemitph/the-human-behind-cryptopie-or-a-first-personal-encounter-with-another-steemian
Use this link if you want to give Sherlock's downvote some bite:
https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/delegateVestingShares?delegator=yourusernamehere&delegatee=sherlockholmes&vesting_shares=50000.000000%20VESTS
Just put your user name in where it calls for it, and to reverse it just put zeroes in where the vests go.
50,000 vests is about 24sp, so adjust accordingly.
If you put a 2 in front of the 5 you get about 121sp delegated.
Paste this link into a url bar, sign in, and viola!
Thanks to busy.org for hosting the tool.
your investigative work is amazing Sherlock. thanks for sharing this case
Wow! I don't know how someone can put so much effort in stealing. It's much easier to just be yourself and create. We were all born with creative ability, I believe. It's like he's being creative but in an evil way. Honestly I think he would find his voice and be original and successful just with the effort he or she puts into stealing. Crazy!
Indeed!
You are fucking AMAZING
Agreed
Hey, slightly off topic, and I don't know who else to ask about https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@sift666/i-am-new-to-steamit
this seems to be someone misrepresenting themselves as an adult model/actress... I could be wrong, but the last pic is of a lady with very obvious Ms-Paint writing across chest.
Yet another one of those!
I'll add it to my screening list, thanks!
thank YOU for doing what you do.
what about this : https://steemit.com/photography/@khairil/the-beauty-of-dragonflies-2017821t4455468z
,picture no 1 similar to this person instagram : https://www.instagram.com/p/BXms9peh1YW/?taken-by=ms_naturfotografie
and this : https://steemit.com/photography/@khairil/unique-insect-part-4-macrophotography-201788t1924652z
the original owner :https://plus.google.com/collection/8EPkPE
A good catch with quite a trail. Thanks for the pointer and doing the footwork finding the original works!
This one does require another look! I'll let you know soon!
here's another one : https://steemit.com/photography/@broaceh/best-macro-photography-my-colletions-today-2017729t2515549z
original work :http://www.vincentiusferdinand.com/macro/#.Wa4eqi4cXcs
his Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/Vincentius.ferdinand
Added to my backlog, thanks!
More great work. I love to see the community step in to deal with such people. Maybe we need a browser extension that tells us if the post we are viewing is by an account on verified blacklists. The vote selling services should not support the know bad accounts either
There are a few attempts at "verified" blacklist, but I feel obligated to always mention my concerns about the possibility of abusing such lists.
Whoever maintains them has some responsibility to deal with things like appeals. I'd be happy to pay something to support them
Yes, it will take quite some effort!
I still reject the idea of a single list though. The current "decentralized" approach of many lists managed by different individuals does make sense to me.
Maybe you could help getting something off the ground that collects those individual lists and makes them searchable, in return allowing for say, a browser extension that displays warning levels based on those lists next to usernames.
I'm in favour of multiple lists. Just need some way to make the data accessible. It should be used for guidance really. People can do their own checks if it indicates an account could be bad. It's just an idea for people to play with. I may look into implementation details when I have time
Sounds great, keep me in the loop if anything comes from this, will you?
Will do. I hope someone else will pick it up.
Thanks for sharing! I was following and liking his content! Can't believe it....
I am real :-)
Oh man I have to do a new intro post.... This fake profiles suck.
Good work detective!
I have actually looked at your account before. I can't recall details but you obviously came up clean.
upvoted and followed.
you should look into the @cartoontv scam
This lead has been added to my files. Thanks!
Sweet.
:D
Dude.
:D
Have you seen my spam?
no but im about to check it out.
:D
lol, I just noticed I had mistaken your comment to be a 1st level comment!
good answer though! haha
sorry for that, I am a bit sleep deprived!
haha
no problem.
:D
That's a good thing you are doing for the Steemit community.
Upvoted
and please let us know in your next post if we can help somehow.
@factz him too ?
no joke, I could say a lot on here but am refraining, did resteem ;)
Didn't show up in my investigations.
I'll take a look though, thanks for the pointer!
Keep up the great work!
There are some naughty people on Steemit and sadly other than the work you and a few others do nobody seems to be willing to take any action. I just hope you don't get discouraged at all the hard work you're doing while those higher up the food chain seem to be ignoring this problem. :-(
Plagiarisers and other assorted frauds beware. @sherlockholmes is coming for you!
@sherlockholmes To whom can I report this guy? Can you take care this? Just look his comments. Thanks. https://steemit.com/@completelyanon/comments
He is making comments to try to get in first for curation rewards, a lot of people have been doing this.
Classic spammer
That's difficult, selfvoting isn't exactly an offense. This would be an argument of ideology.
I'll see if there's anything else, thanks for the pointer.
I know it is not an offense, but only same comment all the time is spamming big time.
Absolutely! There's no question about that.
If you haven't done so, you can report that to @spaminator, if I don't find anything else there, I'll definitely do so when I'm done.
How can I report him to @spaminator? Steemit.chat, tag in comment?
Just post under #steemit-abuse on steemit.chat, that should get it into the right hands!
Someone give this brother an A for effort. This was quite some research. I only hear of plagiarism now impersonation? This ain't gonna end well.
He needs a @minnowbooster !!!
Yeah. True. Lol
This guy has some good upvotes on his post. Even @sweetsssj upvoted him. I send her a comment to remove her upvote. I hope that she does!!
I'm sure she will... The guy takes advantage of Steemians trust
She did!
I also notified all the other big upvoters including fuzzy, but from the looks of it his profile is already flagged enough and his payouts are all at zero. So that's good!
Nice job, and ur sherlock image is still better than mine so i dont understand whats the big deal...lol
To be honest, it does feel like you are trying to piggy-back on to something.
Also, spam reports don't have much to do with investigative work, so a detective in the banner doesn't even make much sense.
Of course, you are free to use that stock image like everyone else is, just trying to clarify that I'd like to disassociate myself from your work and I'd prefer if our posts were not as easily confused by their similarities in thumbnails.
I told you i am sorry..I changed all of them. and im not really piggy backing on anything..
Hey, it's all good, you didn't have to change all the backdating posts.
But I certainly appreciate you did so none the less!
I was not offended, nor did I want to tell you off, I was only sharing my concerns about possible mix-ups! Thanks for understanding!
Anytime!
check my page...their all changed
That image is great, and it is right on topic, making your posts super easy to be recognized... I think we are ending up with a classic win-win here ;)
Resteemed!
Hey sherlock,
first of, wow, really great find. I really appreciate your work, you really are making this platform more respected in its ability to self govern.
Is it possible to find you on steemit chat or on some discord servers? I will also try to send some more people over your blog posts later with my own post, you really deserve some more followers. :)
Thanks a lot!
steemit.chat is probably the easiest, you can find me under my original handle there: @sherlockholmes.
Great work @sherlockholmes . You are proving to be a real asset to the Steemit Community :)
Do you mind looking at some of the accounts which are coming up in my Unfollow Report almost daily? Unfollow Report is something which I started publishing daily almost a month ago. It's basically to highlight accounts which are trying to gain followers via shady tactics.
These accounts after gaining followers have now moved on to selling their Resteems!! resteem.com is just one example of this menace.
If you go through some of my reports, you will find a lot of repeat offenders..
Oh yes, I've seen that trend!
Thanks for the pointer, I had not seen your reports before. I'll take a look when I get there, my backlog is growing daily I'm afraid.
Sure, completely understandable. Give me a shout if you need some help with these
wow, good stuff and great investigation... detailed. Yes, there is an obvious selling point that is being taken advantage of.
This is really good detective work you have done, and I think there should be a community reward pool for performing this kind of service. I am truly annoyed by all the abuse that's going on, and as a struggling and honest Steemian I feel like they are basically ruining the system and making it harder for the average person like me to even get a foothold.
So thank you again and I certainly hope something will be done about this.
At least on his main account he has gotten all rewards flagged to zero. I consider this one a success.
Again: great work!
Have another upvote for support!
I sure do enjoy following your work, and I'm certainly glad you are so inclined to run this stuff down, although it is at the same time disappointing to see the extent of deception that some people are willing to go to.
Part of me wants to give grace to those that are in a desperate situation and find themselves doing things they would not otherwise stoop to, but you seem to have a talent for finding those that are just plain ole greedy. Well done.
I know where to go if I ever run across some shady looking activity.
https://steemit.com/steemit-health/@steemmaster/health-tips-six-foods-to-build-muscle
@sherlockholmes please check out the above account. They posted the same thing within a week of each other. That post has no source. They posted very dangerous info that i noticed back when i first joined in June that could be harmful to diabetics
They are regularly engaging in this behavior
I will take a look, thank you!
here's another one for you: https://steemit.com/scam/@travelingsoul/i-think-i-spotted-some-fake-accounts-by-davidding-self-upvoting-abuser
It seems resistance is growing! I'll take a look, thank you.
GOOD WORK
Thank you so much for your investigative services. This is a very important issue. I have been plagued with content theft on YouTube for years.
Well done! Upvoted Following
Cheers,
buckydurddle
Very interesting detective work as per usual.
Just curious. How did you know that the these accounts were all linked to the same person? Don't you need to get verified through a cell phone number that can only be used once?
Does this person have multiple #'s or use some other method?
Getting temporary phone numbers for sms-verifications is quite simple actually.
Just look at the last case, Rene did the same thing!
Proving the indisputable connection of all the above accounts goes a bit beyond the scope of this post, should the culrpit want to dispute my findings, I will gladly go the extra mile and make it visible to them.
Ahh okay, that's what I figured. I guess you don't need the number after verification unless maybe to recover your account...
And Ya i hear ya. Thanks for the response!
Very nice thank you .....follow and upvote please
Be more careful before you accused me as the owner of the account or his gf. I don't even know who the hell is him : )
Being in the same country doesn't mean we're the same person. Be careful of your wrong prediction, it may back to you. You'll earn for something you've done. Karma is real.
It's great you come here to discuss this!
would you care to elaborate the financial connections you have to @walterz then?
Also, you can find me on steemit.chat if you want to discuss this more directly.
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The names don't ring a bell, so I probably haven't seen them... I'll look into it, thanks!