Inspired by @marekkaminski's great bit of investigation of a 'spam carousel' I decided to take a bit of a look at the operation he focused on, with the aim of coming up with some numbers. Specifically, I wanted to see how many accounts 'tard' was running in this ring. For full details of what was happening, follow the aforementioned link. tl;dr - this person set up a stack of accounts as a voting circle, powered them up a tiny bit, voted on each other's spammy posts, then powered them down back to the piggybank account - tard.
Anyway, @marekkaminski and I both wondered how many accounts this was utilising. I have an answer - quite a few!
I ran the @steemreports financial accounts summary report and downloaded the .csv file. This covers the period from when the account was created on 3 June 2017, up to a few days ago.
Filter by 'Withdrawal from Vesting (Power Down From Other Account)'
Eliminate duplicates, and check the total, what do we get?
4758!
That's a quite a few accounts, some of which have been powered down back to the piggybank more than once.
How many accounts has tard powered up since June last year?
7829.
I wouldn't count on my numbers being exact. (a) I'm not great with excel. (b) I was using excel. Still, it's clear that it's quite a few accounts involved in this - whatever is going on. At a glance, I'd say they have powered up about $5000, and powered down about $22,000. I'd love for someone to double-check this, to see if I'm anywhere near correct. (Given my lack of flair for arithmetic, I'd be happy to be close).
This is just one spam-upvoting ring. Given that there have been periods when these accounts were pretty active and would have figured in the totals that @penguinpablo reports, I wonder how many spam accounts are boosting certain totals.
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Sigh. Sometimes I hate steemit.
I'll try to post something less depressing tomorrow. In the interim, I'm going to be sending a bit of business in @steemcleaners' direction.
FYI - I've looked at this case about half a year ago:
Back then the farm had already earned roughly 80k STEEM
P.S.: They switched their hub account from @dart to @tard, I guess that shows they at least have some sense for humor?! Despicable!
Same MO - but are they the same people involved? Is there a clear link?
Either way, I don't think they're done yet, so we have a chance (if the right people take action) to stop them making off with any more cash than they have already.
Wow... that is insane. I wonder if Steemit needs to put in measures to prevent multi account creation? It's too easy to create accounts right now. It shouldn't be possible for one person to create thousands of accounts...
The irony being how hard it is for legit content creators to get their accounts activated unless they use one of the paid services or get someone like @ausbitbank to help them out.
Yes exactly. I keep hearing that the account creation process will be streamlined soon however haven't seen any progress on this front.
I can remember seeing the tard delegation pulls when I was doing some study into SP leases the other week. Sadly I just figured it was a sign of the times. I do wonder how many others are like this out there and how you would even find them.
Powered up five thousand and left with twenty two thousand?....some days I just wish I had the know how to be a crook. (jk)
At least $22,000 - they are powering up again, so I guess they are getting ready for another run...
How do you know when someone is powering up?
If an account's wallet shows that they are buying SP, then they are powering up. If a report like the one I ran shows that they are sending a little bit of SP to thousands of accounts, then you can bet they aren't just doing that for the fun of it.
I showed the scheme - the actions of spammers,
If one cheater with farm - is 0.5-1% - All registered accounts up to now .- How much we do not know yet?
Accounts are created ... in waves - in big groups.
Almost a million accounts have been created - of which - half of the inactive,
In this case 4-8k is the farm of one cheater. About 1-2% of all ... active (because these farms write something - spam) So steem stats are bit pomped...
What does all of this mean? I am guessing it means spammers are manipulating less than 5% of the pool right or a small percentage right? But I am hoping spam doesn't dominate the market of Steem. But I really do believe in capitalism, that better posts, comments, rise, profit, excel, spread, eventually, while spam does the opposite, generally, statistically, in the long-run, but that may take many years to happen or to continue. I try to promote good content on Steemit. I try to upvote what I like. I try not to flag or go after spam, bad stuff, things I do not like, etc. But I believe in freewill and in like a free market, it is better if each person is given that choice to upvote, to downvote, to do this, or to do that.
Spam is like dirt. Spam is like cancer. Spam is like rain. Spam is like dust. Spam is like a conflict. Spam is like a dirty room. Spam is kind of like evil. And what is spam for me may not be spam for you. So, it can be debated on what is spam and what is not spam. Spam, like a dirty room, is something that has to be cleaned up maybe again and again.
And spam, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, of the Oatmeal People haha. It depends on whether or not we define spam through objectivity or subjectivity.
I also think that the market - it can handle itself ... However - Steemit - it can somehow change the registration process - which will make it difficult to set up accounts - using machine. [longer time costs - lower profitability]
Making registration requirements tougher may make it more difficult for some people to join, to register, but you may be right that it is still better in the long-run and maybe we can help some of the real people who might be struggling to register assuming they are not lying and are not coming to do bad stuff maybe or assuming they are not going back in line to get more puppet accounts or whatever. We want to make registering easy enough but not too easy and not too hard maybe either. I think I do agree with what you are saying.
This needs more attention.
Funny title. But I sympathize or empathize. The concern is understood. It may be a problem. But what are our choices when dealing with spam, bots, free speech, hate speech, censorship, abuse, this thing, that thing, and other things? It is a scary world and people are trying to make money. Yeah, there are black markets out there offline and online. Prohibition didn't stop drugs, beer, sex, etc. On Steemit, the same thing maybe. But good work with the spread sheets.
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STOPMore detective work like this is needed. Comprehensive. Once we have a good clear picture then we can make decisions based on data.
Hopefully it only takes one
Any particular reason you flagged this post?
You just made yourself a target. Welcome to the party!!!!
And here was me thinking no one cared.
Because I flagshit.. I thought that was in the title.. maybe not.. Either way. I flag your type of shit hahahahahahaha