How certain people try to game Steemit... Will it work?

in steem •  8 years ago 

Steemit is getting quite popular (great!) as I can conclude from SteemStream.com So it's logical this attracts all kinds of people... People who want to make male make-up videos, people who try to hack, and.... people who try to game the system as i noticed tonight:

As I am currently updating the SteemStream.com application due to numerous requests of add-ons and functionalities... I noticed some abnormalities..

One new function will be to focus only certain types of transactions in the blockchain and filter out the rest. To test this I was watching only the 'money transactions' and here is a screenshot:

These automated alphabetically ordered names all get the same amount from Blocktrades (which has an API)...

To me it feels like this is (going to get) happening:

  1. Automatically transfer to quite a shitload of people a little bit of money...
  2. Start (auto)voting with that robot army of people on certain posts, to get them to float on top... and or trending / hot or active sections to get noticed by 'real people' and cause a network effect.

How do you feel about this? Curious also how founders of Steemit ( @dan, @ned) and other blockchain professors think this will work out

Ps. I also want to warn you that some other smartasses have registered "typo usernames" to popular BTC - Steem Exchange Platforms such as these users: polniex, polonix, ploniex, bitrex... Watch out when you transfer out of Steemit and be careful of typo's!
#steemit #steemitpolice #hack #gamethesystem #thematrix #blockchain

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  ·  8 years ago (edited)

We're going to see sophisticated gaming of the system emerge -- I mean we already have. Certain users gets 7-8 whale votes before anyone else votes, so they seem to be automatic -- this leads to their posts rocketing up and pushing into the $1,000's within half an hour and begets more voting as one would expect. There are strategies like having bots that comment the same thing for all newbie posts that are really helpful, but what if 10 people are doing that? Your site and @discombobulated 's addition tweak of the code are invaluable for analyzing the shenanigans of Steem. A good place to look to start copying what works.

My only fear is that some of these emergent strategies will wreck long term Steem value by juicing short term gains for whales or automatic posting strategies but not creating a diverse and interesting ecosystem on Steem. We'll see. Exciting to watch.

I made a post about it. What if they are selling their votes for bitcoin outside of steemit? I couldn't get an answer or find one yet.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@sephiroth/i-ve-been-wanting-to-get-an-answer-on-this-what-s-to-prevent-someone-from-selling-their-votes-what-if-a-whale-sells-their-usd100

I'm going to be watching all this very closely. Many of you have been reading my game theory series - this is exactly the sort of thing I'm going to be interesting it analyzing. Part 4 is out!

It's gonna be an absolute shit show where the top 1% has power over 30% of ALL the money, hmm when have we seen that before? Uhm, every single time? :)

Exactly this is allready going towards that and its only getting worse and worse everyday...

Keep it flowingz

I've seen this before and asked in Slack. Of what I think @ash or @pfunk said is (cant recall who exactly said it), they are sending money to new users for some giveaway they did.

You are doing good work here, roeland! We, as a community need to pay attention to this kind of behavior and discourage and tax this kind of unethical behavior.

Just because it's not illegal doesn't mean it's RIGHT.

Also, I have high hopes that, because blockchain is basically 100% transparent as more and more apps will use the data from the ledgers we'll see less and less "gaming" of the system especially because it's too easy to get caught, right?

My faith is strong, yet my doubts are at the door.

Hope for the best....

It's good to see people exposing this stuff

There are some very complex mechanisms at play here. It's easy to say steem is just giving away money, it can't work but it's really not so simple. I guess time will tell.

very interesting. I hope the team of steemit will have something against them. Hope they have some mechanics against it.

and upvote bots too
https://steemd.com/@curator

I noticed when I posted a blog post earlier that it was immediately upvoted by @bola and @solen. They both look like bots upvoting multiple new posts every minute. see https://steemd.com/@bola and https://steemd.com/@solen

Just found out about the steemd site today and it was useful when the main steemit website was having problems, plus its got tons of other great features.

Now I just need to find out what vests are ...

Great post, how do I attract a "whale-vote"; would that be an idea for a successful tutorial post??

whales are known to like to eat plankton. So, maybe have some of that and say "here, whaleeys, whaleeey, hereeeeee". Before you know it...BOOM!
Go on and catch that whale, you padawan ahab!!

I hope all will fall back in balance again soon . Not funny what's going on . really sad ! Protect your homes guys (wallets )

Great post! Lots of scammers out there I was thinking this to myself just yesterday that I wonder if there are some people who have 10 or 20 fake steemit accounts to vote on their own content to get it into the hot section of the website. Interesting

Naturally there are. Fake accounts and networks of friends upvoting each others content is to be expected and was expected . The question is can the creators of this platform clean this up before it's too late.

I'm as scrupulous a gent as one will come across and I considered making a second "fake" FB account in the event I had my account hacked and wanted to retrieve it in anticipation of the increased security feature mentioned by the creators of Steemit.com. Ultimately, I couldn't even do that due to the slippery slope of possibly upvoting my own content with my backup account.

I know there are plenty of people for whom this is not a problem and indeed is desirable. They have no issue with creating as many fake accounts as they can in order to take advantage of the system to make as much money as possible.

We shall see how this all plays out soon enough...

a noble upvote for a noble gent

Right back at ya! Thanks for the kind words. Wasn't expecting that. :smiley:

The bot wars have only just begun. Our future robot overlords will be both criminal and benevolent. They will fight each other, tech with tech. Competition will improve the ecosystem as we begin to develop digital morality. Could it be, within this volatile environment, Superintelligent AI is eventually born?

With the quality of highly paid posts that don't seem like having any value, it is evident that there is some foul play.

People always try to game everything and end up messing up up for the rest of us. Thanks for the diligence.

Informative. Thanx.

Good call out.. I've just been waiting to use Blocktrades to withdraw some Steem Dollars to Bitcoin.. SD loses value against SP or STEEM right?

Isnt the same guy who was offering high value SP accounts for sale not too long ago (as a matter of fact, it was right before the hack was discovered)

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Yeah same guy
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@blocktrades/limited-time-sale-high-steem-power-accounts-for-serious-investors-only
In fact, the exemplar account that he posted @ashleigh is the just-a-first-name format.
EDIT: I get it... hes not creating a voting bot army (well maybe he is, but thats not the overall point) hes cultivating medium to high power steem accounts to sell them