During my investigations on bigger cases, I will usually come across some small fish, too. Obvious cases, barely worth mentioning, but to keep you entertained, i will present some of them to you as "Cookie Crumbs". Maybe you'd like to continue investigating them yourself?
Accusation:
- An anonymous tip claims @markcrilley is an impersonator
- @unexplained popped up on my screen while checking vk.com links
The Findings
are straight forward! It's just too obvious with those:
@markcrilley
This is a brand new account, he hasn't even earned more than a few cents, but the faking couldn't be any more obvious!
@markcrilley claims to be the steemit account of a somewhat well know comic artist Mark Crilley. The steemit profile even links to the official Youtube account with over 2.8mio subscribers.
In his posts, though, when he's not just showing some screenshots of Mark's Youtube videos, he's simply presenting stolen artworks from other real artists (such as izo-ink on deviantart).
Possibly a case of split personality disorder, more likely, though, yet another case of plagiarism and impersonation.
Some of his resteemed accounts do look interesting as well, but nothing immediately suspect and I have some bigger fish on the leash that I need to focus on, be my guest and dig deeper on those if you find it interesting!
@unexplained
This account claims to be a blog about "Luxury & Eroticism" by model "Adelina Petrova".
The content shared on this account is just copy-pasted stuff from around the internet. The photos of our sexy model Adelina however, are quite obviously stolen!
All the images belong to an abandoned vk.com profile of a woman named "Veronika Koval".
Now, her images have been stolen before, but maybe she's actually an escort girl, because that's where you'll also find her images: Links NSFW: dosugcity.in & relaxkharkiv.com
A deeper look at vk.com, does show her images have been used multiple times on many (blocked) accounts. The [Veronika Koval profile] does look genuine, though. She posted her images over the course of several years until she suddenly stopped in 2014.
Again, be vigilante, such scams are usually executed by bulk, there may be more to be found here.
What's next?
There are some bigger fish that I am trying to catch:
- there's a network of accounts, aged up to a year, that are lining their pockets in the #aceh community.
- there's a brand new farm of 4-digit-count spam-accounts farming the reward pool.
I'll report on those soon!
yours,
Sherlock
Have you witnessed similar things yourself?
Don't just ignore it and move on... do something, orlet me know!
I'm truly glad to see you have started using the #steemit-police tag, thank you for your amazing Idea and dedication to the Steemit community !
My pleasure!
@sherlockholmes please is it right to post news headlines from other sources as long as you credit where it came from?
It isn't wrong by definition, however repeatedly doing so without adding valuable input in your posts may be considered spam.
What I would be more worried about is the use of multiple accounts with seemingly genuine identities. raised eyebrows
Keep up the good work. I'll look out for dodgy dealings to report to you
wao! thats awesome finding
im gonna follow your all posts
if anyone feels like going to a "Solar Eclipse Watch Party"...(Its a free invite).. do read this
https://steemit.com/nature/@cutu/invitation-for-a-solar-eclipse-watch-party
@sherlockholmes
Thanks for the information. I will do my research.
If you require any assistant , please contact me @bullionstackers
Glad you're doing this @sherlockholmes, and glad to see you're working with some of the other anti-spam/plagiarism initiatives.
This is probably another "small potatoes" deal, but another impersonator. Pretty sure this is NOT the real Raven Riley (who's a fairly well-known porn star):
https://steemit.com/@ravenrillay
Thanks, I'll take a look!
You are Sherlock indeed :D :D :D Upvoted ;)
Interesting detective work. I'm starting to come across more and more scammy/plag accounts.
Wasn't sure what to do exactly besides report to steemcleaners.
I like your style.
Well, you have a 60+ reputation an almost 4k SP... I think you should think about doing some flagging yourself... leave them a comment why you did so and give them a chance to appeal.
But you do have some power with your stake and reputation, with power comes responsibility ;)
Good point. I've really been hesitant to flag. I don;t really understand the ramifications it has for the user.
Perhaps it's time for me to do my part though.
a flag is "just" a negative vote.
on the blockchain, all it does is removing reward shares from a post.
on the site steemit.com, it additionally affects the reputation score (that's NOT on the blockchain). Reputation will only be affected if the flagger's reputation is higher than that of the flagged account.
This does make it a bit pointless, for a small account to flag, but once you have some voting power and rep, you can use that.
It is important to flag plagiarism, for example, because that will prevent plagiarized posts of taking money out of the reward pool.
Other steemians will see the flag, and may think twice before giving a vote on something that doesn't deserve one.
Of course there is a huge debate about the ethical implications of flagging, but I'd say it is part of the game, and it is a feature for a reason!
Hey thanks for the in-depth explanation. I'll start taking action a bit more when necessary.
Keep up the good detective work. I really enjoyed reading your summary. It felt like a story somehow haha kinda entertaining the way you laid it all out methodically.
My pleasure. There will be more stories, you can count on that!
Nice hat, will you write about fiction too, or just cases on steemit....would love to read a few fictional cases....or maybe I will write about one or two for you.
No, I am only concerned about what's REALLY happening on steemit.
There will NEVER be any fictional stories posted by @sherlockholmes!
That's leading to some interesting discussions!
Very good! Thanks for the pointer!
Yes, it's sad to see all these personal vendettas being carried out with flagging and bots...
But that's a problem with the game rules and not a problem with flagging as a tool. There are many legitimate uses for a "downvote"!
The problem in these quarrels lies in 2 aspects (imho):
those are systemic issues that need to be discussed.
But that's nothing @sherlockholmes will pay much attention to, I am looking for genuine scammers and cheaters!
replacing flags with just "mute" will save everyone from vendettas =)
Just think about it
spam will still remain invisible after muting
no user can be downvoted till zero
there's already system of stimulation running, what's the point of penalty system? if user gets no upvotes, any spammer will eventually stop, am I right?
Spam in long-term, has only one point - to earn. In short term - just to annoy someone.
I do not agree!
Muted users can essentially continue doing their thing "invisibly". They will continue to abuse the reward pool, extracting money from the platform!
To stop illegitimate value extraction, flags are necessary!
The meaning of "illegitimate" may be up to dispute, and maybe subjective, but flags are a defense mechanism!
'edit': see my latest case for reference!
what will stop army of bots then?
50? 100? 500 bots come and flag you for 1%
and your post is doomed =)
this again is a problem in power distribution, not flagging as such!
slaves will always be slaves. Even if they build their own country, they still establish prisons and police for themselves =)
You know why Moses wandered in desert for 40 years? he was just waiting till slaves die and only truly free people are born and grow up