Yesterday I got a 4th year anniversary badge, Happy Hive Birthday to myself!!!
I remember how tough it was being a newbie when I started, that's why I'm now all for helping newbies where I can. The purpose of today's post is to introduce five special Hive newbies to everyone. They've just joined this week and I think they deserve more exposure. It's quite a long posts, but if you're interested in Hive, it's worth reading to the end. So get your popcorns ready everyone!!!
INTRODUCING THE NEWBIES
First of all is @ingritmantero. She joined Hive on 14th June. According to her self introduction post she is "33 years old I have a boyfriend and no children yet. I have not married yet, I love cycling, mountaineering, skiing, reading, listening to great music, cooking, dancing, watching TV, sharing with my loved ones etc. " She signs off her post with a couple of emojis. How cute!
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
Next is @katrinakarakoba, she joined on 16th June. Karina is "35 years old, and I have no kids yet. I love exercising, yoga, meditation, and eating healthy. Quite a fitness girl. I always try to be on a diet or eat as healthy as possible." She and her adored husband (her words not mine) have been together for 8 years, married for 2. Karina definitely isn't English as she finishes her post by saying "I am leaving home from rosado to do some homework, to return later with you. Thank you very much for reading me or accepting my today's health." That's not something a native English speaker would say. Like @ingritmantero she also signs off her intro post with a couple of cute emojis.
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
Our third newbie @zanaparacova joined Hive on 17th June, and she is "39 years old. I have a beautiful daughter who is almost grown up. I love animals and I have almost a kennel at home. I have 3 dogs, two dogs and one dog. I also love black and white photography and gardening." I wonder, does she have 3 dogs, or six dogs? There's no mention of boyfriend or husband in her post, but she's very proud of her daughter "Many people think I'm her big sister, they never say I look like her mother. Because I look so much younger, almost her age. Casi de su dead." Oh look, there's a Spanish phrase which translate to almost his age, maybe she's Spanish!! She also signs off her post with a cute emoji, but just one, not two.
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
Next up is @ninatorkagrikova, she joined Hive on 18th June. She's "30 years old I'm a bit crazy, very playful and friendly in good times and in bad times I'm the devil himself. I don't think you will ever see me with a bad face or a bad word around here." She has a "beautiful mother, older sister" and a "beautiful king, owner of this queen for several years now, my great friend, my faithful companion..." No cute sign off emojis from her just this....
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
And the final newbie I want to present to you all is @jasminebalkow, she just joined on 20th June, that's yesterday as I write, the newest kid on the block. Her self intro post says "I am 30 years old, I am married to the best fisherman in the world. I am sporty and I love exotic animals, cats and dogs too." She also says "Training hard to be much more healthy than we already are this is my adored husband depending on how this is entered him as well." She's definitely not English as the writing is odd. Also, like @katrinakarakoba she calls her husband adored husband, what a coincidence. And oh look!! The cute emoji sign off at the end of the post is back again!!
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
SIMILARITIES BETWEEN ACCOUNTS
If you made it this far to my post, you may have noticed some similarities between these newbies backgrounds and their writing style. But that's not where the similarities ends. None of them follow anyone, and apart from @ingritmantero who made her first comment four days after she joined, none of the other have made a single comment.
The initial transactions on these accounts all follow the same pattern. They're all created by @blocktrades, and blocktrades transfer 2.1 Hive to each of them, except @ninatorkagrikova, she gets 4.1 Hive. These are the first two transactions on the account. The next two transactions are updating peakd. Then they update their profile image. Note the profile image file name, they all have the same naming format. Then they make a self introduction post. Ecency sends out their welcome message, followed by the account owner upvoting her own post. It's the same for all five accounts.
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
So what? You ask. Not a lot, on the face of it, other than the similarities are too much of a coincidence, and something smells off. Being a curator for Pinmapple and OCD makes me kinda extra sensitive to this sort of stuff.
REVEALING THEIR NATIONALITIES
All these account pretty much lay out their family life on the chain, but never mention which country they're from. But we find out more once they start posting.
Turns out @ingritmantero writes in Italian. That explains why her English is a bit odd, she's Italian. So I ask @phage93 a native Italian to take a look at her posts. His comment was "it is very poorly written, the punctuation is bad, and there are a lot of spelling errors. if it was written by an Italian it is most likely illiterate" That would have been my comment of the English version as well 😄
Next are @katrinakarakoba and @zanaparacova, I've already determined they're both not English. Turns out they post in Czech. I turn to @phortun, a Czech to help me out. He looked at a post from each of them, and reckons those are translated into Czech, as they say things that a native speaker wouldn't say, and includes a lot of nonsensical phrases. His conclusion is that they're definitely not Czechs.
@ninatorkagrikova wrote one post after her self intro. She starts off her English version with "Hello, so begins our vacation, Day 3 of our vacation started with our first two hikes." What happened to Day 1 and 2? Anyway, she went hiking in Portugal, and she wrote in German!!! Time to enlist the help of my fellow pinmapple curator @lizanomadsoul who's German. Liz's verdict was pretty simple, not very good German, and she thinks its a fake account.
@jasminebalkow hasn't made another post yet, I wonder what country she's from...
WHO REALLY ARE THESE PEOPLE?
If these people aren't who they say they are, or aren't the nationality that they write in, does that means they are fake accounts? Why not post in their native language? Who are they? I turn to @rishi556 a techie to help me out. He said if the accounts are created by Blocktrades, you can trace the payments. Techies are really clever people, it only took him two ticks to find this information.
@ingritmantero was created by @giovannigovo, an Italian, makes senses as she posted in Italian, except an Italian says the post was poorly written
@katrinakarakoba, @zanaparacova and @jasminebalkow were all created by @tatyhomka, a Russian
And @ninatorkagrikova was created by @natbyk, another Russian
So what's the relationship between these three accounts that created the newbie accounts? No freakin idea apart from the fact that @natbyk has wallet transfer to @giovannigovo, and they all made large wallet transfers to @alessia85, another Italian 22 days ago. The rabbit holes goes deeper from here but I'm not going to dig into that.
WHO'S WHO
So far these 5 newbie accounts have raked in total over $100 payout. Not a massive amount, yet, but if you don't read the jumble mumble content in detail you might fall for it and continue to upvote them. I'm sure some people can come up with reasons to justify these anomalies and say we should support newbies, and may even say I'm being a bitch for not supporting them.
Well, you can make up your own mind on who's who.
Part of this post beneficairy is set to the above mentioned people who helped me to look into this. Thanks guys.
:)
🤝
Happy Hive Birthday and thanks for all the detective work you have been doing for us! It´s thanks to observant people like you that scammers and abusers have a hard time thriving here. They better go to Steem :)
Team work @phortun!! Couldn't have done it on my own, thank you for your and everyone's help!
I'm sure they'd have a much smoother journey over on Steem 😉
We need to be vigilant about accounts like this. We want 'influencer' types, but it's all too easy to steal some images. This is why people need to verify themselves.
Congrats on the Hiversary. I'll be up to five years pretty soon!
Now do I vote this post up or down given rancho has been visiting?
Have a !PIZZA anyway.
@livinguktaiwan! I sent you a slice of $PIZZA on behalf of @steevc.
Learn more about $PIZZA Token at hive.pizza (1/10)
Five years！ you're truly one of the small group of oldies around! Pizza will do, thanks 😁
Enjoy!
Hi @livinguktaiwan,
Thank you for participating in the #teamuk curated tag. We have upvoted your quality content.
For more information visit our discord https://discord.gg/8CVx2Am
Wow that is very interesting and disturbing. :(
I think it's just sad how much effort people go in to abuse Hive, why not just be yourself 😕
What's even more sad is that it's due to these people we can't afford to vote up good intro posts more due to the odds of it being one-timer intro posts like these.
Yeah it's sad and annoying these assholes do this. Part of the reason I stopped spending time in the intro section, so many don’t get past the first post or two, and lots of scammers.
Finding a good newbie is a bit like finding gold dust nowadays, but I think we shouldn't give up on them, the genuine ones needs all the support they can get. Let's hope bwe get more of them in future
There's always these bad apples that spoil it for every one else, its such a pity that we can't trust people anymore 😔
Oh and happy 4 years!
Thanks Sara!!
Let's start by wishing you a happy hive birthday.
I wansnt expecting the rest of the post. Those people certainly deserve more exposure.
Thanks @eroche!
As I said, I try to help newbies where I can 😅
Happy Anniversary dear @livinguktaiwan
Thanks @isabelpena !
Happy 4th!
Thanks! Feeling old now 😬
What I can say is that you are too smart a bitch to research those details. Wuaooo worst of all, I was fascinated with the summaries of the newbie stories.
Hehehehehe, until I read the paragraph of all are created by @blocktrades.
I publish in Spanish my native language and sometimes in my own language I have spelling and writing flaws, but I take the risk of posting translations to avoid a job to the English speaking curator and expect a higher vote.
Back to the subject of your post, I congratulate you on your birthday in hive, it has been 4 years that bathed you with experience and Hivewatchers beware that you can take away the function.
Thank you for this post, full of surprise @livinguktaiwan
Thanks @soyunasantacruz!
Translating to English is fine, as ultimately English is still the dominate language. It's how the original post was written, we're not professional writers so there are bound to be grammar mistakes etc, but it's the content, on how random sentences are thrown together amd things don't make sense. You can tell even a native wouldn't write like that.
I shall leave the hard work to @hivewatchers 😁
😁😂👍
Happy 4th Anniversary @livinguktaiwan!!!
I'll check them out.
Thanks @silversaver888 !!
Hope there are no surprises when you're done reading
Happy anniversary. Hope that you will have many more productive and profitable years at Hive.
Thank you @positivesteem, let's hope Hive will grow for the better for all genuine users!
How crazy, you are such a detective.
By the way, happy anniversary!
I only had my suspicious originally, but luckily there were people I could turn to to validate my suspicions.
Thanks for your blessing!
Exactly, you did a good research
Well done, Detective @livinguktaiwan! 😊
And...
Cheers Traci!!
wow meaning my 4th is coming up soon!! I always remember cos i read your post cos we joined around the same time haha. Happy 4th bday!
I know, time flies doesn't it? Feeling old now 😂
Happy 4th Hiversary @livinguktaiwan and thank you for the warning!
Thanks Silver Bloggers. Luckily they're a bit young and haven't made it to Silver Bloggers yet!!
Happy 4th to you dear @livinguktaiwan. Wish you many more successful milestones.
It is sad to see how some are abusing the platform and because of them the genuine ones are also getting impacted. Very good research done and published for awareness.
Thanks @nainaztengra, it's really sad when we have to doubt newbies as they are the ones who help Hive grow, at least in numbers.
First of all Happy Hive Birthday 🙂
You're doing a fantastic job here and this post is one more proof of that hence my 100% upvote. We need more people with a mindset like yours.
Thanks @orestistrips, these abusers really tire me out sometimes. Luckily there quite a lot who are also very vigilant in Hive.
... and I thought you were promoting new peeps... just for a bit ;) The post got more cynical the further down I got!
Happy BDay!
Lol me too
Well, to be fair, I did promote them. I'm glad you made it to the end of the post 😂
Awesome detective work! I should enlist my wife to do this stuff she loves it lol. Sad that people like this just insist on ruining things for others!
Happy hive birthday as well! Just passed my third recently, time flies!
@galenkp looks like we won't be getting any responses from Katrina on her post of other posts, gonna drop alms down votes.
I dropped DV's too.
Thanks man!
If she got time, she can start from aleissa, like i said it takes you down another rabbit hole with all the wallet transactions. And these three accounts also paid to create other accounts so I'm sure there are more out there. It's a bit like watching detective thrillers investigating serial killer ls, the more you did, the more you find 👺
Happy 4th Birthday! Well done! I haven't seen this type of real investigative work done since haejin stole 100K from Whaleshares then grow to 1 million by self voting 10 times a day and Justin Sun's hostile takeover! Epic!
I missed that drama, but then I was never on Whaleshare!
The evidence still kept in the blockchain somewhere. Everyone forgot/kept hush hush about it to preserve reputation. Haejin used a bot to steal. There are many "interesting" people in crypto.
Happy Hive Birthday!
Very good detective work! You know, $100 might not be much in some countries but in others, it is a good amount to live on. Shame people exploit it like that.
They go into so much trouble for it, could have used their creativity and effort to be themselves
Wow you are like an internet sleuth. That's some awesome detective work right there. Im impressed! Great job. That's definitly some sketchy behavior happening right there.
I'm pretty sure there are more around, we'll never can catch them all. Some are very smart, and likely to be around and engaging with us 🤨
wonderful, big congrats to your 4 years that's awesome.
Cheers Chris
Good sleuthing! It's just a shame that such sleuthing is necessary. I wish there were more genuine and honest people in this world. 😒
anyway, Congrats! on the four years! 😃
Yeah, I wish we can just trust people when they join. It becomes very unhealthy for everyone when there is no trust 🙁
First congrats on the 4 years being on chain. I love the old timers and all you have invested. So on to the fifth year.
For the rest, Not a bitch at all , you did great work. So much is going on, not all for the good as we can see so thanks for that research. We as hhym had one but is in the dv aswell now !
You guys at hhmy and The Terminal are doing great helping out newbies, many would be so lost without you 🏆
Oh my.. That was an incredible investigation, "Sherlock Holmes right here" a friend would say
btw happy 4th
😅Thanks
We just expect newbies to be genuine and themselves, dunno why it's so difficult for them ☹️
Happy 4th birthday! Wow, you did a great detective work, thank you so much for keeping us informed about these people!
You're welcome, anything to keep Hive healthy is worth doing
All scam accounts created by a thief "giovannigovo" have been blacklisted now:
alessia85
artemisha
giovannigovo
ingritmantero
larissasheltomk
natbyk
pankulet
Thanks @hivewatcher!
oh my... but I love how it's put in and would love to take this reference into my vocabulary.
😂, i found there is no end to this, the more you dig the more you find
I read it with intrest.
Super excited to see yow do you recognize the patterns -- its a high grade class.
personally, I wanted to drop my 5 cents about @tatyhomka, who you consider to be Russian
I can't say anything against it - judging by the Russian language of the texts, it was written by a "native speaker". I will not argue that this is not written but copied from somewhere and glued together ... no. Not exactly so. but! I do not see a living person, a narrator, a storyteller behind these texts, although she inserts suitable phrases and in every possible way wants to create such an impression. she mentions her husband, specific geographical places (all the time different!) ...
Here's what I see: she seems to understand what content gets successful support in the form of upvotes (sweet photos of a snowy Russian winter), and tries to milk them as much milk as possible, adds small pieces of poems to posts, intersperses them with reasoning and inserts of other text, like in a mixer - to make it difficult to identify the original elements from which the salad is built.
Why I am writing all this: I remember very well that in March I stumbled upon her several in #AmazingNature community, and examined them more closely than those who just look at "the beautiful pictures". And found that this content "smelled", I really found it sick.
Back in March she was writing posts every day - and then stopped, it was like a knife cut off! (maybe the point was that "beautiful winter photos" stolen from someone have run out? lol). all the money was withdrawn, and an empty shell was left, which (surprise!) does not post anything, and most likely will never do again.
can this be called a fake account? even if she had not withdrawn the money, the complete absence of reciprocal comments and, most importantly, the analysis of the content, lead me to this conclusion. who is the real person behind that, we will never know.
I did a good quick Google translate and it came up with Russian, but I understand some other former Soviet bloc countries also still use Russian? But then even Russian or any former Soviet bloc could still be fake.
Often when the photos are too good, there is something not right. I mean if they're a serious photographer you'd expect them to post and mingle with the pros on Hive, and if they're a professional themself, they normally have their own website.
I think tatyhomka was caught by Hivewatchers, that's why she stopped posting 😒
yes, thats the case, exactly. they may have another language as 'official', but the folks still used to use the Russian as well.
maybe; can this acc be found in Hivewatchers lists?
(I was half-joking, saying she run out of winter pics).
I'd say it in another way: when the photos are too good, you may expect all of them to be on the same level (plus-minus). otherwise... obviously some may be lended somewhere. ah. lets stop paying attention to this empty shell. 😕
Thankfully the posts have been all eliminated for rewards! Been checking it out every day or so to make sure and it's now thankfully finished lol. Solid work here!
Great teamwork by so many people, and thank you for helping to let others know.
I'm sure another group will appear soon 🙄
Nice work Mr. Holmes!
I read it about 3 times and now its starting pair up~~ :) I think you should reconsider your career to cybersecurity and I heard the department that takes care of money laundering basically triumphs all... your back tracking method to check relations, where funds move, finding flaws in the text.... daymn.... did I ever tell you you have great hair? :)
Do you think my nice hair will help with me getting a new job in cyberspace security? Without blowing my own trumpet, I think I will do pretty well 💃🤺
and with the trumpet~ career jumps into overdrive of Space~ the next frontier in cybersecurity. :)
But seriously that write up was some pretty amazing stuff. Remind me next time not to write faulty pinmaple posts in your community~~ they will get owned!!!!!