Steemit creates accounts for scammers... and nobody else?

pfunk (72) · 7 years ago (edited)

How do these accounts get manually approved? I always thought the manual approval process was eyeballing a long list of accounts and picking obvious scammed ones out. But how would a list of zhiyinXXX, routingXXX, and prefixXXX pages long get past it?

Furthermore, if Steemit Inc doesn't diligently remove delegation from these accounts, and other groups of spam accounts it encourages the abusers to abuse more.

There are groups of accounts like this that are solely being used to spam the blockchain for penny votes that can add up to tens or hundreds of dollars. But they shit all over the blockchain and the nodes that make up the network to do it. Spammers like this are partially responsible for the inflated network utilization, compared to how it would be if it was just legitimate users.

This spam leads to prohibitive resource use, which has a significant negative impact on existing services and adds barriers to entry for new ones. For example, Poloniex's wallet is still down and I struggle to think why besides the resource requirements for a Steem node.

Growth is imperative but the drag from this kind of thing can keep Steem from flying higher. It is an issue which I have personally raised on multiple occasions and I still don't think it's taken seriously enough. The approval of obvious groups of accounts like this is a prime example.

Ultimately Steem's health is up to all of its users, not just Steemit Inc. @Patrice and the @Spaminator team have been doing an amazing job for the Steem ecosystem in counteracting this type of costly spam.

However, if Steemit Inc creates spam botnets it is important they take the job of undelegation seriously, to mitigate the damage to the network. It's also more important to do things to prevent the creation of new accounts for botnets.

$18.35

ats-david (74) · 7 years ago

You said this much nicer than I would have. But...

STINC is obviously the problem, they have claimed that they have solutions for onboarding (a claim that they made almost a year ago), and here we are with the same issues and the continued incompetence a year later.

Just like they created a worse blogging/interaction/reward allocation environment with their completely misguided/ignorant hard forks last spring, they have yielded terrible results regarding account creation and delegation for exploiters and spam networks. And just as they’ve done with their hard forks, they’re completely ignoring the consequences of their actions and the calls from those who see the train wreck in progress.

Also, as you pointed out - the fact that they allegedly have a “manual” approval process makes this even worse, as these are obviously exploits/spammers. This just reinforces the fact that they are incompetent and/or indifferent about both their decisions and the consequences, which does nothing but discourage investment and decrease confidence in their so-called “leadership role” on the blockchain.

It really is a shame that these clowns control such a large stake in all of this. It’s a great disservice to both the blockchain and anyone invested in it. But expecting things to change would be insane at this point. I’m just hoping that STINC is able to fully divest before the damage is irreparable. Though I’m not confident that we haven’t already reached the tipping point.

$0.15

5 votes

Blog rewards CAN’T be widely distributed

anonymint (65) · 7 years ago (edited)

I expect the underlying problem is not just STINC. I expected the problem to arise in the game theory of a consortium blockchain combined with a flawed rewards model.

I warned the Steem community of this inevitable game theory outcome more than once since 2016:

Who pays for the blogging and curation rewards? (Part 2):

Who Actually Pays

The debasement of SP holders is not a complete picture of who pays, because the game theory for rewards indicates that perhaps hypothetically deviant whales could in theory offset any debasement and increase their share of the money supply. Although I haven’t developed a precise model, it appears that the more SP stake a holder controls, then proportionally some non-linear less debasement. Meaning I posit that the system appears to hypothetically economically favor concentration of the wealth to those who already concentrate the wealth in the deviant scenario.

“Consortium blockchains” (e.g. DPoS & Tendermint) can’t Internet scale

There’s a solution to the game theory problem, but not with the current model. And the vested interests here will never change the existing model.

Actually this problem at the generative essence abstract level is just another power vacuum paradigm. Those who are the most ruthless always win the battle for the void in the power vacuum.

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ats-david (74) · 7 years ago

I expect the underlying problem is not just STINC.

Then your expectations are completely off-base. These accounts are being created at no cost to the exploiters by STINC. The approval of these large bot-nets and the delegated SP given to them comes directly from STINC. These exploiters are exploiting one of the (apparently) automated sign-up systems being run by STINC. They aren't exploiting the blockchain account creation protocols that would otherwise require them to fund the creation of their own bot-nets.

It isn't a blockchain problem. It's an incompetence-inside-the-halls-of-STINC problem...as usual.

http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/#example-2-delegated-proof-of-stake-dpos

anonymint (65) · 7 years ago (edited)

Thanks for replying. I appreciate corrections and discussion.

My thesis is at a game theory meta level above the level you are referring to. You are looking at symptoms. I am referring to the root genesis of the problem.

What I am saying is that some vested interests are allowing that to happen and making sure it is allowed to continue to happen. Because of course they are profiting on it anonymously whilst employing their power within the consortium to prevent any fix from occurring.

This is always how the the-powers-that-be operate behind the curtain. This was explained years ago to the DPoS crowd but of course they refuse to listen:

Blaming it on incompetence is also sort of an incompetence. Some folks are feigning incompetence to fool the incompetent who do not look at the game theory of how political vacuums behave in the real world.

If you can somehow pressure them to fix STINC, they’ll come up with another scheme to extract the value out of the system. Because “they” control it. It’s pointless for me to investigate who “they” are, because they will not give up their control. Are they committing a crime?

Remove STINC and the void in the power vacuum will be won by the most ruthless. This is the way politics and democracy always work.

It’s naive or disingenuous to say that a consortium blockchain design has nothing to do with this. It was explained 3 years ago (and even before that) that voting (for witness, rewards, etc) requires rule by oligarchy otherwise it diverges into chaotic disagreement (and Daniel Larimer is frankly incorrect and does not comprehend Byzantine Fault Tolerance):

http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/#money-and-politics

I am appreciative of you raising the issue. I even resteemed this blog (first I ever resteemed) to my 1800+ followers. I am also sensitive to the need to have a system which is objective. But for me the outcome is “sigh, don’t people ever learn that politics of voting for a collective is a power vacuum”.

Obviously they are not only gaining SP from the signup bonus but also presumably by using these sockpuppets to upvote groupwise to game the NON-LINEAR rewards system, which is what my aforementioned blog from 2016 predicted would happen. That blog of mine had explained that a linear vote weighting would not be viable. And a non-linear one of course can be gamed by collusion.

_{P.S. I believe STINC knows the end of Steem isn’t that far from now and they must extract maximum value while they still can.}

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joeyarnoldvn (61) · 7 years ago

When you say vacuum, do you mean economic bubble that may pop or are bubbles and vacuums complete opposites and cannot be compared at all, allegorically?

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anonymint (65) · 7 years ago

Follow all the links you find in order to understand power vacuums.

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frankbacon (65) · 7 years ago

THANK YOU!

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tenpoundsterling (52) · 7 years ago

FORK! FORK! FORK! FORK!

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grey580 (61) · 5 years ago

!dramatoken

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grey580 (61) · 5 years ago

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dramatoken (62) · 5 years ago

Such drama, you've earned a DRAMA!

^{To view or trade DRAMA go to steem-engine.com.}

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reko (70) · 7 years ago

let me guess, they will answer with silence. Any bets?

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pangoli (69) · 7 years ago

Wish you did bet, would have won a fortune @reko. it's 2 months and no reply as to how this went under the radar. My friend has been stuck on 'awaiting approval' for over a month now. I check the email everyday, still nothing. and this is what i see. it's crazy.

lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

Amen.

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alomgirhoseain3 (29) · 7 years ago

Wow amazing very excited?

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ausbitbank (73) · 7 years ago

I create at least a dozen accounts a week for legit content creators (usually journalists with a decent social media following) that have been waiting on their registration for weeks with no response. Seeing the faucet mass register obvious bot accounts is infuriating and makes me wonder why I bother. Fix this bullshit STINC.

$7.88

pennsif (80) · 7 years ago

One has to assume these are created via an automated signup process. If there is any manual checking involved then one or more people at Steemit Inc are totally incapable of doing their job and should be fired.

If this is automated then there appears to be no verification in place at all.

I am no coder but I do know that it would not be at all difficult to code in some level of basic checking to prevent this sort of abuse.

... check if NEW ACCOUNT NAME is like PREVIOUS ACCOUNT NAMES created in last 24 hours
... IF YES halt registration and send for manual inspections

I am sure a coded version of that would be not beyond the capabilities of the crack team of developers at Steemit Inc. I suspect even the Intern could handle this.

Or maybe they just don't care...

$2.07

11 votes

nameless-berk (60) · 7 years ago

You are correct, it should not even be a problem to discuss, so easy it is to fix. Yet, here we are.

$0.62

pennsif (80) · 7 years ago

👍 😞

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lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

"one or more people at Steemit Inc are totally incapable of doing their job and should be fired."

Or they are in on it.

Just pointing out the possibilities, for the sake of completeness.

pennsif (80) · 7 years ago

That would be worse still...

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I think we need new users to bid at the end of the month, via second price auctions, to keep their delegations.

tibra (58) · 7 years ago

Otherwise the delegation ends. Automatic, but should give effective outcomes.

Even if they circle upvote, the circle eventually comes to an end, compared to real content creators. Relative rates don't match up, those kinds of things might be solutions?

Should get rid of a lot of the scammers and spammers.

Thoughts?

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pennsif (80) · 7 years ago

Interesting idea...

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nameless-berk (60) · 7 years ago (edited)

Same here, my friend was awaiting approval for a month. In the end I bought her an account. Next day she got a letter that the request got approved. Another one waited for a week. Me? I got lucky to be approved in the same day, otherwise I might not ever come here.

$0.82

themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I have created accounts for people who gave up waiting, but not nearly that many. Many never receive their account. The amount of serial spam accounts approved is infuriating. How Dart registered 21,000+ accounts through the Steemit faucet blows my mind.

$0.69

9 votes

charitybot (63) · 7 years ago

If they just want inflated activity numbers to show to potential investors, and they know potential investors don't give a shit about actually looking deeper into things, then there would be very obvious reasons why they would let it go on for so long. 21000 accounts that are nearly guaranteed to vote and not go completely dead until the delegation is withdrawn and the creation SP is drained really boosts the figures considering the active userbase here is so small.

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I suspect that isn't the reason.

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sunlit7 (59) · 7 years ago

Well hold everybody in suspense and not tell us what you think the reason is. Is this a situation that you can't black list these registrants?

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strefanetu (54) · 7 years ago (edited)

I voted for you witnesses because I like your posts. Could you please rate this post and verify.... I think we all play for one goal. https://steemit.com/steemit/@marekkaminski/the-scheme-of-spammers-operation-carousel-of-voters-rape-steem-pool-plagiarism-spamming-my-silent-investigation

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hafis001 (32) · 7 years ago

i have told my friends about steem and they got interested in joining the steem community, they have signup since January this year and they haven't got their account opened yet, some of them have lost that interest and some are still waiting for a miracle. something have to be done.

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inventor16 (64) · 7 years ago (edited)

Create a separate team that supplies the hardfork code instead of relying on steeminc.

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puma737 (30) · 7 years ago

I think you are going in the right direction and it seems to me that in time over site of the developing block chain could be delegated using algorithms to coding teams based on past performance in areas of competency and ethics. Just a thought. I'm incredibly novice to this system and fairly new user. I can see a lot of potential for abuse, but also see potential that block chain can allow a system able to level the playing field in ways humanity has yet to experience. Transparent algorithms can be trusted where people cannot

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lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

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Reveal Comment

kirkins (66) · 7 years ago

wow I can't believe this is getting down-voted?!

Of course we should consider this possibility. When STEEM was at $5 that meant that each new account was allocated $75 worth of SP. So 100 accounts being approved for a bot operator, that is a worth of $750 SP.

With numbers like that of course there is going to be a motive for collision/corruption. That could even happen at the lowest levels for example a person getting paid minimum wage to approve accounts.

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bitmox (25) · 7 years ago

They took our jobs, der terk er Jerbb!

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alomgirhoseain3 (29) · 7 years ago

Hahaah hahahaah amazing

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frankbacon (65) · 7 years ago

AMEN!

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cryptokidd (61) · 7 years ago

This needs to be fixed asap. These are the type of things that leave a negative image on new users trying to figure the workings of steemit.

$5.29

12 votes

michelleast (50) · 7 years ago (edited)

That's true. Now that spammers are all over Steemit it has become harder for minnows to establish in this platform. Most probably they also think the best (and sometimes only) way to succeed on Steemit is pay bots and spammers to upvote them, which in the first place should not be the case.

Bottomline: THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED, and ASAP in that matter.

7 votes

anonymint (65) · 7 years ago

Sorry to say, it will never be fixed. This is an economics and game theory lesson that unfortunately most people are incapable of comprehending.

$0.25

codypanama (57) · 7 years ago

a couple of weeks ago I started inspecting steemit from day 1. The reason this is not fixed is because it's meant to be this way. A small group ( maybe 1 company ) mined all the original steem using so many accounts it would take weeks of longer just to sort through them all.
Auto vesting was used to feed several accounts that became the orginal whales plus many accounts that do show some activity. Many of these accounts have just been drained of all value. ( within a week or so), Now thanks to reading this post I see I continues today :-( Is there a private place to discuss this activity? and discuss corrective measures if possible at this point. Let me know.

$0.12

anonymint (65) · 7 years ago (edited)

@codypanama wrote:

Is there a private place to discuss this activity? and discuss corrective measures if possible at this point.

As for a private place, a few of my supporters discuss this in private using secure chat (Crypto.cat combined with another layer of encryption employing GPG). Because of the demands on my scarce available time, I don’t really want to open up that group to more participants unless you can offer some insight or assistance (that we don’t already have) to the project I am working on. I do not know of other private discussions. You might ask @smooth. He is not currently in our private group, but he is very well connected overall in this arena and afaics for the past 4 years his ethics are impeccable. He is also a Steem and Monero whale, as well as being one of the developers of Aeon and I believe he may have funded Busy.org so we have an alternative to the Steemit.com UI. So if you want to get something organized outside of our private group’s plans, he may be one of the guys to talk with.

I’m working on it. That link will lead you to other links to more discussion.

James Corbett allowed my comment regarding this issue at his page that publicized Steem recently. That is part of Corbett’s new series covering alternative social media platforms.

The only other place where I know this was discussed was at several Steem threads at Bitcointalk.org. But I am banned from that site. The main thread there was Steem pyramid revealed. You can find comments from my numerous past BCT accounts in that thread (my numerous attempts to evade the ban before I quit trying).

Note I’m not going to continue harping about this on Steem. I am busy on my project. It is up to you all to carry the torch of edification if you think it is helpful.

$0.27

codypanama (57) · 7 years ago

I'm happy to see that people are actively working on these issues. I'm not a techy but started following bread crumb trails by hand. It broke my heart what I found, but see talented people are on it.
Thanks for the speedy reply, I will follow from a distance and only step in further if I can offer something of value to the group. Together we stand divided we fall.
I feel so much better now.
Cheers

$0.06

nafestw (54) · 7 years ago

Couldn’t this be fixed right now, if the delegated STEEM Power was revoked? Shouldn’t be hard to detect those schemes and undelegate everything.

coinsnapper (25) · 7 years ago

I agree, STEEMIT will die if it is run by scammers and bots and not by people creating and liking real content!

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endless.drugs (65) · 7 years ago

Did you buy that Steem power mate? I am thinking on investing on it as soon as Ethereum rises a little...

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nayanmia (31) · 7 years ago

yes you are right man,

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alomgir0101 (6) · 7 years ago

I agree your comment

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reseller (74) · 7 years ago

Congrats, you made the @dtube #steemitminute for today!
Click the Image Below

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hiroyamagishi (68) · 7 years ago

This thing need an attention. A little problem can be huge if this can get through. There are abusers everywhere and steemit is not excluded. Hope they can implement like 4 account per IP address or any problem solver. Thanks bringing this in our attention.

$1.69

7 votes

antonsteemit (59) · 7 years ago

If you're a spammer, then changing IP address is like a piece of cake, and basically, with the current createAccount function built in on the Steem blockchain, you can create as many accounts as you want through couple lines of code if you have enough SP.
So the solution is not gonna be easy, it would involve in a big change of the blockchain design or we have to help the community altogether.

$1.01

4 votes

teknow (43) · 7 years ago

Actually 2FA would be the easy fix.
2FA aligns with the first rule of account creation.
Legitimate account creation that is. Where a mobile number is linked.

After that the internal account creation can simply limit the amount of accounts linked to each mobile device. There is no legitimate reason why anyone needs to have so many accounts on the same platform.

That is however, a sensible and intelligent way of combating the issue.
Such sense does not exist here. If someone isn't making money it's not going to work or even get implemented!

$1.10

indigoocean (67) · 7 years ago

Okay, definitely following you now.

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wilfredn (51) · 7 years ago

Agreed. The deeper issue here is: why impose limits on Steemit account creation and make onboarding harder for legit users, when current procedures fail at rooting out spammers.

IMO, the only thing that can be done is to remove limits on account creation and to target the incentives for spamming post-account creation, i.e. reduce rewards for spam and make it easier to report and penalise spammers.

$0.09

antonchanning (59) · 7 years ago

Agreed. Accounts should be enabled immediately. It is the delegation that is a problem, not the accounts existence. If necessary, make the account wait for delegation, not creation.

tibra (58) · 7 years ago

Just made a post about this. Changing the costs and incentives.

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michelleast (50) · 7 years ago (edited)

The 4 account/IP address sounds like a great solution. At least it doesn't limit legit users who use the same PC. And it's true this needs attention and urgent fixing. There are people who are trying to resolve this issue though, but spammers move and propagate faster.

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

Won't work for dorms, buildings, large families, apartment buildings, etc.

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michelleast (50) · 7 years ago

Agreed. Can you suggest solutions? We can put them altogether and meet halfway. This is one way we can help the Steemit community. But first, we need to provide a concrete possible solution to them.

omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

Because of the technology behind it, the entire idea was decentralizing and freedom. The blockchain itself has very few if any rules. Preventing account creation isn't really a good thing either. Essentially each one is a wallet. And they require a loan or deposit to open an account. It's not bad for the price of Steem.

I think what needs to happen is at the interface level. There will always be people who build their own interfaces but for those who are doing so and community oriented- perhaps having a roundtable for them to share ideas, technology, blacklists, etc.— since most of the issues have to be handled at the interface level.

On interfaces willing to cooperate such as steemit, steepio, busy, esteem, faucet, etc. perhaps adding a similar username filter so usernames have to be significantly different when coming from the same IP or when registering in a similar time frame.

It may also be worth it to make multi-accounts created by existing users marked safe and be allowed delegation if they meet a certain criteria upon creation— recent positing activity, steem sincerity rank (human), rep 50+, no chetah flags, etc.

Steemit Inc remove its own corporate delegations when a rep hits -1

Or, simply stop Steemit Inc delegating to all new accounts. Require money. Hey, Medium does it.

Peer Review. Instead of a company reviewing the accounts, have a second role below WITNESS called Ambassadors who have the power to vote on new account approvals. And the people vote for Ambassadors like we vote for Witnesses.

Separate the downvote from the flag so that flagging abuse doesn't cost the community and make it universal on all platforms. Make an official downvote/thumbsdown button. And make the flag a reporting feature.

A report this post button on @steemplus @adsactly plugin would help immediately— if folks from steemcleaners, cheetah, etc. all wanted to get involved. Steemplus could make a seperate button almost immediately alerting various groups to spam.

Incentivize real content further.

Incentivize reporting spam (after separating it from the downvote)

I don't really know. :( I just wish I could introduce more people to the platform but it's frustrating. And it's an expectation jerk honestly.

$4.93

6 votes

jorlauski (58) · 7 years ago

great ideas here..Ambassadors - ending automatic SP delegation -both good ideas that would help to quicken the registration of legit users while preventing spammers from draining the system ...

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

Thinking outside the box here. Throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks really. I don't think ending all SP delegation is a good idea. I just think ending Steemit.com (and interfaces) from delegating SP is a good idea. As far as Ambassadors, I think how Utopian works is a good model also if they couldn't add a second role to the system.

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michelleast (50) · 7 years ago (edited)

Really great ideas @omitaylor. I most especially like and second your suggestions on peer review, separating downvote and flag, and the 'Report This Post' button. Will not say much but will tag @ned @steemitblog and two of the witnesses @timcliff @themarkymark hoping they'd notice.

Thank you so much for the contribution!

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Show 1 more reply

sunlit7 (59) · 7 years ago

Maybe your are on to something, steem has been going down, maybe someone on the inside is trying to artificially prop up the price.

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teknow (43) · 7 years ago

2FA.

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wilfredn (51) · 7 years ago

Unfortunately, that's not a good solution, because a lot of people share the same IP address. e.g. students living in student accommodation.

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michelleast (50) · 7 years ago

Agreed. So...do you have other solutions in mind? 🙂Maybe we could merge it altogether and meet halfway.

netscape101 (39) · 7 years ago

Some people use Tor to access steemit in countries where it is blocked in my opinion so this isn't a good idea.

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

And VPN's are very common even in America so I totally agree.

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netscape101 (39) · 7 years ago

I agree. Especially at work in big companies.

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gpalav (49) · 7 years ago

Steemit requires unique mobile number while registration of account on which we receive OTP, but I guess spammers are abusing this system by making use of virtual mobile numbers too!

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gibro (25) · 7 years ago (edited)

Well, this is my first comment and for what i read, you may be allowed to create as much as many accounts you are willing to pay for. That is what i understood, and that is on the game rules. During my first 5 minutes using the page i got 2 invitations from people who are following thousands and i wont call it a scam but just a lame way to fall in other corporate crap like FB.

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jademont (68) · 7 years ago

It is obviously abusing accounts. I hope the official bots can downvote all the upvotes from those accounts.

$1.35

cortexx (57) · 7 years ago

the question is, who is the responsible for this negligence? If no one to blame, what can we do about it? It might benefit the rise of account users to attract more users, but this are all spam users.

$1.29

kex (55) · 7 years ago (edited)

I'm too much of a noob to comment something about this but thanks for sharing this info, this is crazy, I wasn't aware of that they could abuse this to that level, I mean 80 accounts? That's a little too much even for spammers. I know that there's a lot of people experiencing problems with the creation process, there's alot of asking me about the possible solutions at steemchat, I had a difficult time while trying to join too, Anyway, thanks for sharing this info, it's a subject to be taken in consideration.

P.S

Loved the gif.

$1.20

joroderick (36) · 7 years ago

These are all the whales. They are self-appointed hall monitors who have finally successfully killed off Steemit for the average person. They create bot upon bot for themselves, but prohibit others from doing it.

Sadly, this platform has become a blockchain joke. I really had such high hopes for this place.

$1.11

themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

This has nothing to do with whales, these are likely regular people with technical skills or manpower exploiting a flawed system.

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joroderick (36) · 7 years ago

Then who is to blame since you have immediately ruled out the whales?

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago (edited)

Steemit Inc makes the accounts, this is all about bad actors abusing the Steem Faucet, some of them can be whales but I highly doubt it, there are much more efficient ways to abuse the system if you already have Steem Power (and thus a whale).

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joroderick (36) · 7 years ago

That's the thing with power, isn't it? It's never enough until it destroys everything.

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jassennessaj (71) · 7 years ago

Ohh my, what's happening right now with Steemit. Our new community members struggle to make an account (can't even get emails after a month), and this thing happened.

I thought they're doing it manually? They should've known that!

$1.03

brettcalloway (57) · 7 years ago

Thanks for calling this out. It’s something investors need to be aware of and those in control should do something about. Resteem

$0.60

4 votes

valikos (64) · 7 years ago

Totally agree with you we should to make something with this situation asap because is not so hard to write a macros on ZennoPoster registred 100+ day!

$0.52

wil1liam (52) · 7 years ago

I wonder why Steem needs so long to confirm every account.... If they simply checked the account name they would know that these are spam accounts but their still approving such accounts!

I would suggest using a script that searches for users with similar user names. If someone wants to create "XY2" after they already created "XY1" Steem would see that "XY1" already exists and then don't create the account because it is highly likely that this is a spam account.

$0.51

michelleast (50) · 7 years ago

To Steemit whales, witnesses, founder @ned and everyone that's spearheading Steemit, don't get us wrong: WE ARE VERY THANKFUL AND APPRECIATIVE OF THIS BEAUTIFUL COMMUNITY AND OPPORTUNITY TO BE RECOGNIZED WITH WHO WE ARE, WHAT WE DO, AND SOMETIMES GET PAID FOR IT. And for that, we are forever thankful to you for your time, wit and effort here on Steemit.

But... this is a SERIOUS ISSUE. It poses a big threat to Steemit, especially on its worth. This is sad, really really sad. 😔 And this might be too much on your plate, but this needs fixing. And if possible, ASAP.

If this continues, Steemit will become just another monkey business.

$0.49

anonymint (65) · 7 years ago

“@ned”? Do you also believe that any leader ever cares? Leaders are there to take the most they can for themselves and their mafia buddies. It has always been this way and always will be this way. It is a fact of political economics and game theory.

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mongoosely (52) · 7 years ago

Wow, I feel so unclean. I feel like I'm a part of some corruption syndicate. It took me months to get approved that I almost forgot that I signed up. Whenever there's easy money to be made, you'll always find unscrupulous people milking the system for their own greed.

Anyhow, I'm glad that I was accepted but all I need now is attention to my art from decent steemians

$0.41

13 votes

connorsmith (41) · 7 years ago

I know, this kind of activity really hurts the credibility of the Steem network. I am hoping that we can soon put an end to spammers, and start getting more real users on the network. Steemit is such an awesome platform, and there is so much potential here!

4 votes

mongoosely (52) · 7 years ago

I concur, @connorsmith! :D

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altportal (61) · 7 years ago

Following, upvoted. Maybe, I'll find something to resteem on your page.

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mongoosely (52) · 7 years ago

Thank you so much, @altportal, you're too kind. And indeed, I am following you. Steem on mate!

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michelleast (50) · 7 years ago

You got my attention @mongoosely. Thanks for being here. Following you now.

I know it sucks when you are expecting legit comments on your posts, but end up having some (or most) of them spamming you, or posting general comments. 😕 While some I disregard, mostly I don't hesitate to flag them, especially when they post spammy links that put your Steemit account to danger.

I hope this gets fixed real soon. It sucks.

Anyway, all the best and cheers! From your fellow artist over here 😊

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mongoosely (52) · 7 years ago

Thanx so much for your support @michelleast, my fellow artist! I din't know spammy links could put accounts at risk. But I too ignore them now.

Anyhow, I'm going to pop over and view your work. Have a great week!

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michelleast (50) · 7 years ago

You're welcome @mongoosely! Thank you as well! :) Have a great week too!

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andhovesyan (64) · 7 years ago

I got my steemit account created almost immediately, didn't even know there is such a problem. But seriously, it's not so hard that routing103 is a spam account, considering that routing100, routing101 and routing102 was registered recently :)

$0.28

https://steemit.com/greetersguild/@greetersguild/it-s-contest-time-ladies-and-gentlemen-we-are-giving-away-60-shares-to-steembasicincome-and-sbd-rewards-you-have-to-check-this

cryptkeeper17 (64) · 7 years ago (edited)

This is problem 1 and 1a for steemit. Until this gets solved everything else is just details. Some how there needs to be some skin the game for everyone that starts one. I would go as far as finding unique voting patterns and common voting patterns with some of these accounts. Accounts with this kind of activity need to be taken off. This activity could even be blatant to be caught to show how messed up that is. What the solution is I don't know though. I spend three months killing myself finding a great community following of a few hundred people and these 'people' go out and create 80 friends over night, of which can be mechanized to vote. This is where automated voting systems like steemauto need to have some way to catch this (maybe start automatically flagging each other, lol).
Freaking counterfeit steem, this kind of crap brought the market down in 2008, naked short selling, this would be its identical twin on steemit. I will stay tuned for your answers to this problem!

For anyone that would like to do the exact opposite of what these counterfeiters are doing to steemit there is a newbie event set up to help people who just created LEGITIMATE accounts...

I think we need new users to bid at the end of the month, via second price auctions, to keep their delegations.

tibra (58) · 7 years ago

@themarkymark Made a post today on this subject. You mentioned in Discord getting rid of Steemit, Inc. delegation, and I suggest there may be a way to avoid requiring users to possess btc to get steem to get an account, or know a user to make an account for them, yet still require every user to pay for their own account. Ending all these thousands of bad actor accounts.

Otherwise the delegation ends. Automatic, but should give effective outcomes.

Even if they circle upvote, the circle eventually comes to an end, compared to real content creators. Relative rates don't match up, those kinds of things might be solutions?

Should get rid of a lot of the scammers and spammers.

Thoughts?

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

The delegation is slowly removed after the 30 days anyway. In your post, you mention the ability to allow friends to make accounts. That already exists, anyone with a Steem account can make another account for 3 STEEM.

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tibra (58) · 7 years ago (edited)

The delegation appears to be only removed as you gain SP. I was at 0.1 in December, and it would remove delegation as I powered up. But the spam accounts do not power up.

How slowly otherwise is it removed? (It appeared to match my powering up.)

Regarding the 3 STEEM, I'm aware the ability exists for any account.

I understood your comment to mean Steemit, Inc. should not delegate and make free accounts for new users. That users should just pay to make accounts for other users. With the ability that is there. Either at their own expense or in exchange for other cryptos.

But that would significantly retard user adoption. If mainstream adoption for this specific platform is ever going to happen. For then a prospective but marginal user requires btc to get steem and requires fiat to btc transacting with all the requirements just to get a social account they are on the fence about, unless another account owner knows them and will pay for them.

The small delegations are also virtually useless at the moment. Perhaps what's better are larger delegations that expire rapidly. And to maintain the delegation some sort of honest valuation revealing bidding. Once the honest valuation is revealed by a second price auction, that information can be used productively. Say for a feedback.

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kiokizz (62) · 7 years ago

50+ of these accounts randomly up voted my post. It seems they are going for curation rewards.

They could at least be creative with their naming...

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danpaulson (62) · 7 years ago

The shit show gets a little shittier each day.

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makerhacks (66) · 7 years ago

And yet everyone would like more engagement and more real human readers from the top down ... kind of counter productive for the platform 😬

6 votes

wesakab (46) · 7 years ago

That's very true.

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gjones15 (52) · 7 years ago

Ha!! Classic "human behavior" say one thing, but do and mean another. People are full of shit... Which is why"Democracy" doesn't seem to work. It's a battle out there, guys... Knowledge is power!! The ones who can adapt to the new systems will flourish; all else.. well... not so sure. I wonder if this is just a "loophole" these people have found.. How are they creating them ? What do you mean "through the steemit faucet?? I know what a crypto faucet is, but don't get how they'd make an acct through it...

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friendly-fenix (59) · 7 years ago

I heard that anyone who downloads/operates a witness-node can just mass-create accounts on the STEEM-blockchain and somehow bypass Steemit.com? Is this true?

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blocktrades (74) · 7 years ago

Yes but the accounts must be funded. Steemit funds the ones it creates.

friendly-fenix (59) · 7 years ago

Okay.

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

You don't need a witness node, there are many ways to create accounts and these accounts would show up as created by a user (like how anonsteem does it) and not via @steem and they wouldn't have the free 15 SP delegation either, only the 3 STEEM used to create the account.

friendly-fenix (59) · 7 years ago

Hmm, okay, and what do you think about this?

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

An account is just 1 wallet. People tend to forget that because of the social aspect. If it were bitcoin, we make however many we want and we treat them mainly disposable. Lots of people use crypto wallets in scammy ways. For instance, with referrals. Like if coinbase offers 100 with the first 100 deposit and referral, I suppose someone smart enough could do something similar. Since there's no social aspect to the transactions, nobody cares.

We care more about this because it affects our own social user experience. If it didn't, I bet nobody would even care.

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friendly-fenix (59) · 7 years ago

@omitaylor
This is too weird, I need time to contemplate this, I feel a bit like a monkey trying to understand how to open up a tin-can right now... And you want me to understand how to make a bunch of tin-cans and fill them up with food and such... I will probably get there but hopefully I don't have to become a "developer" to be able to understand enough and to enjoy and benefit form this platform in a safe manner.

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

I think this platform is a good experiment but not really one that will be a happy place for most common folks. It's a jungle with smoke and mirrors making it look civilized. And everyone's money is at risk. Simply different personality types alone make it something sort of toxic. There's a lot of enablers, authoritarians, and control freaks trying to make it a horrible place and a lot of the same trying to make it a better place— and a lot of investors large and small caught in their crossfire of their crusades.

Bless us all. If I didn't like a little action I wouldn't be here LOLOLOLOL.

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friendly-fenix (59) · 7 years ago

It would be fun to be a whale, a glowing green toxic-whale... (or maybe NOT, I feel kind of shitty when STEEM/SBD's drops, I wonder how a whale feels, some might actually have put like their "life-savings" into this system)... =)

And there is always a bigger fish!

image source

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Show 2 more replies

omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

I don't know a whole lot about this stuff truth be told, I'm cramming and learning it fast and asking a bunch of hard questions because I've been considering getting further involved financially. I appreciate that you recognize my hard work learning it though.

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friendly-fenix (59) · 7 years ago

Yeah, it is a bit like a "russian doll", or an onion or a computer game there is always a next level...

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

@friendly-fenix Absozoobalootly

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friendly-fenix (59) · 7 years ago

(You where the one who told me about this @omitaylor!)

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

I did? I'm losing track of myself. Hahaha.

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miss-j (57) · 7 years ago

i wouldnt be surprised if it was some kind of insider scam, honestly.

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pfunk (72) · 7 years ago (edited)

If by 'insider' you mean Steemit Inc employee(s), they could attempt to enrich themselves in much more lucrative ways, but ultimately just about any attempt would cost them more than they've earned. Economically, it does not make sense for it to be an "inside job."

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miss-j (57) · 7 years ago (edited)

I guess that makes sense, but the same could be said for any business? Im not implying anything really, im just a natural conspiracy realist is all. lol

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https://steemit.com/steemit/@equ1l1br1um/dmania-owner-zombee-is-abusing-steemit-delegation-with-multiple-accounts-stealing-users-chances-of-getting-rewards-and-censors

miss-j (57) · 7 years ago (edited)

now, after a few weeks ive discovered there is quite a bit of fraud going on... this person opines the same- human greed is all the reason one needs, when asking why would someone risk money and reputation to cheat and scam?

i also feel that the more complicated a system is to know or learn, or how opaque a rewards system is, in this case algorithms, it opens itself up to abuse.

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lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

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Reveal Comment

https://steemit.com/steemit/@equ1l1br1um/dmania-owner-zombee-is-abusing-steemit-delegation-with-multiple-accounts-stealing-users-chances-of-getting-rewards-and-censors

miss-j (57) · 7 years ago

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

Interesting perspective

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miss-j (57) · 7 years ago

yeah, i am quite jaded. lol

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https://steemit.com/steemit/@equ1l1br1um/dmania-owner-zombee-is-abusing-steemit-delegation-with-multiple-accounts-stealing-users-chances-of-getting-rewards-and-censors

miss-j (57) · 7 years ago

interesting perspective, and jaded, yes... and true. (not steemit but dmania looks like) but still, "owners" just the same.

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badmusgreene (66) · 7 years ago

I wonder as well how they get away with it. I have got some friends yet to be approved.

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veerall (50) · 7 years ago

This will go on till steemit doesnt become legit. whales a removing personal grudges on people they dont like. reward raping is allowed. One cannot mess with a powerful whale even if he/she types a one liner. you are not allowed to speak the truth.

The whole flagging system is rubbish. Whats the difference between other Social Media sites and steemit? i no longer see any difference.

i dont flag people just coz i dont like them or didnot like their idea, i must have flagged maybe once or twice, that too whales, not minnows as i know they will losse everything.

Everyone is now using bots, including me, but if you compare my or some other good content to the some of the contents on trending page, there is somuch shit going on. The worst are the whales that dont give anyhting to the community, just once a while comment and keep flagging for personal vengeance. All they do is delegate and sit idle. there are many whales out there who post once in a month.

Bots need to first see the content. However as per making new acconts, one cannot do anyhting about it, as that allowed by FB too.

akdx (66) · 7 years ago

Most of the accounts on this platform are either of bots or the persons who have multiple accounts. Even a non technical person can understand that this is being done to siphon reward pool. This is nothing but sheer greed. at one hand these scammers and fake accounts are getting fast approval while on the other hand scrupulous and authentic users are getting fade up of continuous waiting. This is not good for the betterment of this platform. This must be stopped. Otherwise, this platform can survive no longer.

skypilot (70) · 7 years ago (edited)

I could not agree more. I raised this point over a year ago with a number of the folks at Steemit and was told there is nothing they could do because this is the nature of a decentralized platform such as this.

I never really understood that. When I first joined back in August of 2016 everyone had to do the "proof of life" photo holding a pic of them with a steemit sign. If they did not, the community would chastise them....

Now this almost never happens and nobody says anything. Also when did the use of voting bots become a thing. I have never understood this. Call me old fashion (because I actually am) but I am trying to develop an actual audience for my project and I want real people seeing my work, not a bunch of useless bots.

This is all very unfortunate in that many highly creative people have left steemit because of what it is becoming. It is too bad because the underlying concept is awesome and if everybody would play by the rules we all agreed to when we signed up then it would be very cool.

But to be fair, if no one is watching the store then.... well then this is what happens.

anonymint (65) · 7 years ago (edited)

That “decentralization” lie is a ruse or excuse provided so that STINC can cheat.

I remember you. I had commented on one of your first blogs and mentioned I was working on a replacement for Steem which would fix these problems.

$1.28

tenpoundsterling (52) · 7 years ago

Steem is still decentralized. Steem power is not.

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anonymint (65) · 7 years ago

Sorry but DPoS can’t be decentralized. Ditto Bitcoin and proof-of-work can’t be decentralized.

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tenpoundsterling (52) · 7 years ago

You are a liar. P-o-W is open to the public, people can choose to pull hashing power reducing the Transaction process to zero sum. As for Bitmain controlling 30% of the hashing power on SHA-256, that is just a symptom of corporate effort to validate transactions for the long term. There are people all around the world running nodes, these (lightning) nodes guarantee BTC's Decentralization of P-o-W. Please read up on the Difficulty Factor in which the Article neglects to acknowledge being the reason for intensifying hashing power rates of Blockchain Corporations. Nonetheless, miners or master node users make the choice to dedicate power.. no-one tells them to dedicate power to the chain they all choose to. This is how BTC is community driven, and Decentralized...

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anonymint (65) · 7 years ago (edited)

You apparently have no idea whom I am that you have just called a liar. That’s a scalding, unsubstantiated accusation, thus you have lost my mutual respect.

You do not seem to understand the research which I already linked for you. I will refer you to a recent discussion I had with @zoidsoft about that linked research.

I have debated guys like you many, many times already at bitcointalk.org and Medium. I am not going to allow you eat up my precious time with your stupendous ignorance. You’re entitled to believe what ever you want to believe.

That research stands on its own and orthogonal, regardless of the points below.

As for Bitmain controlling 30% of the hashing power on SHA-256, that is just a symptom of corporate effort to validate transactions for the long term.

What is more important is who controls Bitmain and every other ASIC mining hardware provider. Namely it is the very handful of fabs that can manufacture the 12 and 14 nm ASICs, and moreover the banksters who arranged the loans and investments for the fabs to be built. IOW, capitalists control Bitcoin, same as they have always controlled the central banks. Nothing has changed, except gullible fools like you believe it has.

Also you seem to forget that mining is anonymous. You have no way of knowing who is mining for which pool. Bitmain could control 70% of the hashrate and you wouldn’t even know it.

And then there is ASICBOOST which contrary to the nonsense from Gregory Maxwell which I refuted, can’t be detected. So that’s another 33% boost that can be turned off or on at will without detection.

these (lightning) nodes guarantee BTC's Decentralization of P-o-W

Lightning Networks is a Mt. Box centralization attack on Bitcoin. The user @‍iamnotback at that Reddit is myself.

master node users make the choice to dedicate power

Masternodes are the epitome of centralization and unfortunately I was the apparently the original instigator of the masternode concept.

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tenpoundsterling (52) · 7 years ago

Stating that nothing has changed, when entire industries are being disrupted is quite vain and is an understatement. Sure, Banking Cartels invest in everything that comes into existence. But they can't seem to understand the weight of all of their investments, the fabs were loaned to under the guise of Cloud Computing which turned out to be Blockchain automation. Your reddit post mentions IOU's in which you assume debt is involved in blockchain transactions, this is not the case because BTC is a debtless system. IOUs and Derivatives don't exist within the BTC Core functions. How is allowing for off-chain atomic swaps and consolidating micro-payments into blocks spread across decentralized nodes a bad thing? also your hyperlinks don't prove shit, but the fact that you get permabanhammered because you troll so fucking hard.

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aishaali (53) · 7 years ago

This is so frustrating and disappointing at the same time. I have been creating really good quality content, but couldn't get decent returns. I have seen so many posts with below average getting great rewards.
Steemit is not a fair platform for content creators. I am really disappointed and disheartened.
Steemit needs to eliminate the multiple accounts, if it needs to be taken seriously. Otherwise genuine quality content creators, like me, won't keep wasting their time and efforts , on Steemit, for nothing in return.

gduran (70) · 7 years ago (edited)

Perhaps having an already established account gives you a preferential treatment? Or maybe the people who validate accounts are corrupt and get a cut? Or maybe it is coincidence (this one is not likely)? Perhaps these people pay to have their accounts created quickly? Perhaps the validators are bots, and give bots preference over real people? Could be any reason, it also is not good for Steemit and even though hard fork 20 should fix the account creation for new users it will, I think, also make the creation of these spam bot accounts more prolific.

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herverisson (70) · 7 years ago

Wow... :-( That's crazy and outrageous...Everyday I check the Introduceyourself category and try to pick out some new guys who are introducing themselves thoroughly and in details, and its getting really tiresome with all those fake accounts :( hope it will get sorted out before it totally swamps the system

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gamersclassified (65) · 7 years ago (edited)

I do the same as well. Its becoming nearly impossible to tell what is real and what is not. The introducemyself tag is so critical to building the foundation of steemit and its rotting away because these fake accounts are getting created in the hundreds! Filtering through the intro posts to find a decent intro shouldn't be that hard but its becoming a problem of epic proportion now.

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rose98734 (64) · 7 years ago

Are they by-passing the steemit verification process and creating these accounts directly on the blockchain?

6 votes

themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

No, they are being fast passed by the Steemit Inc account creation process.

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wolfenlord (60) · 7 years ago

Because scammers are usually tech savvy, while regulare users are not... also, regular users are statistically lazy.

tntdabomb (62) · 7 years ago

I can attest to this lol

wolfenlord (60) · 7 years ago

Exactly. See? As a regular user, I´m so lazy I didn´t even take 2 seconds to spell check my last message! But I´m also tech savvy. I´m confused now, lol. :P

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steemfirst (50) · 7 years ago

This thing alone that you reveal is enough for you to be our witness. i know how i found it hard to join this platform as a result of delay in account creation .this require an urgent need to curb this easy spammy account creation or else this platform will turn to something else very soon .i strongly believe that approving spammy account will noway grow this noble platform but rather turns it into childish play.my dear steemit community , this is my view. thanks you all

5 votes

brianturner (67) · 7 years ago

I agree. This is excellent work

splendorhub (61) · 7 years ago

Yuup!

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tarekadam (67) · 7 years ago

This is unbelievable. As a long time Steemit user I don't want to realize it but it looks more and more that this platform is driving towards a wall if nothing changes very soon.

indigoocean (67) · 7 years ago

I'm developing the same concern, and I haven't even been on here that long. I quickly became a fan of the platform, but the bloom is off the rose.

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

I was speaking on this weeks ago in comments and on discord, as well as, when I first signed up. I have 5 friends right now still waiting at 2-3 weeks.

Morevover, it's not just that those spam accounts are signing up and paying for their stake— they're signing up with a delegation to the tune of 15SP each, so what's that... $30USD x 1000~.......?

And I can't even get my little sister on here after 3 whole weeks?

I've bought accounts for 2 dev projects, but I don't want to do that for other users (friends, family, etc.) and have my account attached as a multi-account to other people who I'm not responsible for. Plus many services ban multi-accounts from using their services. For instance, I can't BUY my sister an account because it will be attached to my username and then she can't join P.A.L. or use certain resteem bots.

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juliakponsford (70) · 7 years ago

Actually just to let you know that shouldn't be a problem for us at PAL, we don't really look at who created the accounts unless we see a lot of suspicious activity, like ten discord accounts all pointing votes at one account or other weirdness :) I can't speak for the resteem bots because I don't know how they work but most of them seem to have a lot of dead followers anyways from what I've heard.

$1.15

omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago (edited)

Okay thank you for the clarity @juliakponsford. I noticed a conversation in the help channel on PAL where the issue was multiaccounts. I don't mind onboarding my own friends and getting them set up (they can just give me the cash for their stake in person) but I don't want them to have any hassles as far as when they try to register with services and be linked to my account. I'm also concerned about being responsible or tied to their content. I don't think anyone I'd personally sign up would be a douchebag intentionally but you never know how people will use the platform. I could possibly keep a running list of accounts I've personally validated and signed up and keep an eye on them too. Kind of a hassle though lol. I hope the sign up process gets fixed. Especially because it's only hindering regular people from signing up.

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juliakponsford (70) · 7 years ago

Unfortunately those rules need to be in place because we have caught rings of up to 50 accounts who sign up for tons of discord accounts all to vote one account and we want to try to keep the upvotes as fairly distributed as we can. I really do hope steemit fixes this with the next hard fork, signing people up is a PITA!

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pfunk (72) · 7 years ago

Please ask your friends to seek help with their account approvals in the #help channel on https://steem.chat

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

@pfunk Is there someone they can tag to get attention there? I can have them specifically mention they were referred by me if that helps.

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pfunk (72) · 7 years ago

drakos handles most I believe, but asking in the channel will get the attention of someone who can help.

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solarwarrior (63) · 7 years ago

holy #+$%, are you f##§ kidding me?
if this is by intend allowed by the steemit crew we are all #§%###
I seriously do not get it.. makes no sense at all for nobody...

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zanoni (67) · 7 years ago

I think a statistic about the spamming accounts would be very, very nice, especially listed by countries they where created..
Promoting Steemit to the wrong people can bring riscs, too.
Not the masses of new users are important for Steemit, the quality of their work is what matters.
Resteemed... more people should think about that...

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zanoni (67) · 7 years ago

That's indeed a very big problem, my gf tried to sign up already one week ago now, but she have the patience to wait, other users will not wait for weeks.
Spammers have an easy way to join Steemit and if Steemit will not do something against it, it will be flooded by spammers and scammers and the value will go down more and more.
A real sad thing...
Have a good day

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dpl (56) · 7 years ago (edited)

I'll be damned!

I've been waiting 4 days now for account that I created for my girlfriend!

WTF is this!!!???

@themarkymark! Your are an Eagle man! Thanks for this post!

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pfunk (72) · 7 years ago

If after a week the account isn't still made, please ask for help in #help on https://steem.chat

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trickbrown (44) · 7 years ago

I have a friend who has been waiting 5 weeks for approval. I thought he lost the email or something, but now I see he's been getting bumped for more "important" people.

Thanks TheMarkyMark, this has been eye opening. :-\

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https://v2.steemconnect.com/accounts/create

themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

If he needs an account, you can create accounts here:

Just select 3 STEEM for the fee, 0 VESTS and will get an account immediately. Just need someone to sponsor the 3 STEEM creation fee.

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funbobby51 (59) · 7 years ago

I was hoping you would know the answers to those questions, seems like a hot mess.

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ismailadeel (31) · 7 years ago

Verry nice post big thumbs up and a resteem from my side for hard work and dedication

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https://steemit.com/steemit/@marekkaminski/the-scheme-of-spammers-operation-carousel-of-voters-rape-steem-pool-plagiarism-spamming-my-silent-investigation

marekkaminski (49) · 7 years ago

In some kind of replay: [scheme of spammers' operation]

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schlijk (36) · 7 years ago (edited)

As long as self-voting through alt-botaccounts and 'network'-bots is reigning, we are ALL (perhaps irreversably) being stolen from. Changes need to be made.

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wesakab (46) · 7 years ago

Phishing links from spammers and scammers is on the rise too. As people flag the old accounts, new ones are created to continue or carry on with the game of Phishing links. It's better if you one account with sister accounts that have some sort of scam to be rejected. Great post though! Thanks for the info.

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sumdas74 (40) · 7 years ago

it should be fixed as soon as possible. Spammer making thousand of account daily but on the other side real content creator cant open a account in 2/3 chance.
Really disapointed about it.

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cardboard (61) · 7 years ago

What the fuck steemit? This needs exposition, @tipU upvote this post with 3 sbd

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omitaylor (56) · 7 years ago

It needs fixing too. At least make it just as easy for regular users to signup- even if they don't get a delegation.

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dexterity207 (25) · 7 years ago

isn't that a little unfair to others? it should be fixed IMMEDIATELY, hope devs team can fix these soon.

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jbn (60) · 7 years ago

Ok who are these geniuses who are using their authoritative account name everytime they create a spam account by just increasing the number count in suffix?

I mean cmon, you have to be extremely lazy to have done that. At least if you wanna abuse the system, at least abuse it the right way..

Aside from this, this is extremely alarming.. really.. i dont know if there is a solution in place for that. Do you think that charging 3 steems for each account creation would help it?

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legioncommander (31) · 7 years ago

Ok who are these geniuses who are using their authoritative account name everytime they create a spam account by just increasing the number count in suffix?

And yet it works. Steemit, fix it please.

erikaflynn (61) · 7 years ago (edited)

Did you saw ~~Deepcrypto8~~ (Constructor) and his huge farm with thousands of sock-puppets and, damn... even supervisors for rule them all. His wallet is invisible on Steemit, but avaliable on Steemd.com.

It's not 30-50accounts but thousands, and they all received start capital (15 SP) from Steemit. And they all are used in a circle jerk, many of them started Power Down just after the registration. And yes, our lovely Steemit turned face to them, allowing to make a Power Down with any amount of SP.

Btw, it took me more than a 3 months to create an account for my husband. For this time he changed his priorities and his thought about this place. Really, why everything is so difficult for a simple user?

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago (edited)

That is a hot wallet for one of the exchanges. Bad name but it is legit.

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erikaflynn (61) · 7 years ago

Oh, sorry, Constructor, not Deepcrypto, I confused the names (he used this account to withdraw money). Constructor is real moneymaker

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

Yeah familiar with that network.

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focygray (54) · 7 years ago

I patiently waited for my account to be approved for almost a week. It is really corrupt practice having more than one account as an individual...

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

I'm fine with more than one account, it's the quality of content produced that is critical to me. In this case, it's 100's of accounts for the sole purpose of abusing the 15 SP delegation given for free from Steemit Inc upon account creation.

The Dart network has over 20K accounts that exploited this same loophole.

The question I want to be answered is how do these bulk accounts get approved, but legitimate users struggle to get approved inside of a week. You can see these accounts were approved within minutes of each other.

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isnochys (66) · 7 years ago

You can see these accounts were approved within minutes of each other.

Because they signed up within minutes of each other, I guess.
Automated systems, google voice or whatever those farmers are using these days

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themarkymark (78) · 7 years ago

They got approved within minutes, unknown how they were signed up but very likely is the case.

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legioncommander (31) · 7 years ago

Where I can read about The Dart Network?

And yes this!

The question I want to be answered is how do these bulk accounts get approved, but legitimate users struggle to get approved inside of a week. You can see these accounts were approved within minutes of each other.

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legioncommander (31) · 7 years ago

They were made just to spam! Ridiculous how Steemit allowed it.

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nayanmia (31) · 7 years ago

yes yes yes sir, your thinking is very very logical and right. I am agree with you. i like and love your article.
by the way, it is need badly to recovery this problem. I'm saying to Steemit please check this topics little seriously.

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nayanmia (31) · 7 years ago

I'm new but don't like to smap and scam and any illegal work.

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andimaulana92 (30) · 7 years ago

Very harmful to other steemian

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steevc (73) · 7 years ago

So much for checking new users :( Can Steemit withdraw their delegation from such accounts?

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iridion9 (37) · 7 years ago

withdraw is not enough we should ban them forever
So only good steemians will stay and roam this site.
and no spammers and fake people.

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steevc (73) · 7 years ago

Unfortunately you can easily ban an account once it's created. They should concentrate on getting good people on here

iridion9 (37) · 7 years ago

They need to improve the algorithm of the system.
by the way I'm a computer programmer too...

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steevc (73) · 7 years ago

Getting the right balance of control, fairness and freedom is not easy. They will never please everyone. The issue here is that they seem to be creating lots of potential bots. No idea why they would do that

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iridion9 (37) · 7 years ago

We need real human admins and moderators to kick the spammers and the bad guys...

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mclongman (43) · 7 years ago

@themarkymark thank you for calling the community attention to this issue hope they will look into it

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mindtrap (74) · 7 years ago (edited)

50 accounts - 30 accounts all voting each other,assuming the very same person....
i truly wonder how they do it and as a matter of fact so fast?
And as you said @themarkymark some users never get the confirmation mail at all....
Happened to a friend who eventually said:No thank you...i wont join
I really hope things to get better in that era because many are discouraged

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mclongman (43) · 7 years ago

I almost lost hope on creating an account in steemit..it took me weeks if not almost a month to get my account created...i would be happy if something good is done to correct this

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yoginiofoz (55) · 7 years ago

Nuts! They aren't even trying to hide the fact that they have multiple accounts! That's too bad for us who just enjoy this platform and love to give back to the community.

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alexpoyer (31) · 7 years ago

Muy cierto amigo @themarkymark, muchos de los que vamos llegando a esta plataforma nos registramos y la clave llega unos 15 días y hasta un mes después, y muchos con el deseo de conocer lo que vamos a encontrar en esta red, gracias por compartir, muy buen post.

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altportal (61) · 7 years ago

Hey, wherever there is the potential of free money, there will be scammers.
Ugh. They're not racking their brains trying to think of new content everyday. Thanks for the info... I think. : /

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miss-j (57) · 7 years ago

but why is steemit allowimg it? it took me well over a week for confirmation.

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sifat0a (0) · 7 years ago

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Reveal Comment

clubdefraces2018 (25) · 7 years ago

Hola amigo me puede ayudar con tu voto en mi página @clubdefraces

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t-flames (57) · 7 years ago

wow. this is really disheartening. i have been gathering a group of people offline, and sensitizing them and educating them about the need to be on steemit. and after all this while, the problem has been signing up and getting an account. i had to tell a few of them to send me their contents while i upload for them and send their payour dues to them. a whole lot of others have given up. most got their accounts verified but were not giben passwords. the ones that got passwords were told upon logging in that they had wrong passwords. i would have loved to deligate sp for a few of these guys to start them up but i dont even have up to that. all i just keep doing is to keep their passion up. i hope the steemit administration acts with the mind that steemit is making waves of impact, to put food on the tables of those who can't, to enlighten the minds of the ignoranct. in the past few days, what i've read from this platform, the people i have met, i never dreamt that such value could exist. and more people want to come and be a part of the greater success of this platform. Steemit shouldnt condone selfishenss at any cost. what makes this a block chain isnt just transperency, its hope and equity. i hope something is done about this.

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pfunk (72) · 7 years ago

Please ask your friends to visit #help on https://steem.chat and hopefully the issues can get figured out.

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endless.drugs (65) · 7 years ago

Great work man, this smells a bit fishy... That is a ridiculous number of spam accounts and I don't understand how bots can make so many accounts so quickly!

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cloudspyder (59) · 7 years ago

My friend has that problem. He signup steemit a month ago until now pending. Its been 38 days to be exact. Perhaps steemit inc supports spammer and the like. xD;

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pfunk (72) · 7 years ago

Please ask your friend to visit the #help channel at https://steem.chat

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simply-me (58) · 7 years ago

Thank you for bringing this to light. this should be fixed ASAP. I just bought more steem and I am new. I hope this is not going to cost me. I hope there is hope in steemit

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usman119 (61) · 7 years ago

Ohhh my GoD . How many spams here. And my account was verified after 1 month.

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onetin84 (62) · 7 years ago

I'm.. a bit shocked because i thought it is a highly manual process for new accounts like mentioned by devs. There is also a hint regarding the highly manual processing by @pkattera in the following video:

Watch @ned @sneak and @pkattera talk about the future of Steemit at the Austin meetup video by Ruwan Perera

What happens after HF20, even more spamming the network? If i see the tens and hundreds of same prefixes in names it must be easy to recognize such mass registering and stop it immediately.. but if someone checks that manually why that happens? What could be the reasons:

registering with the same prefixes again and again is allowed due a further authorization process for reasons like (accounts as service for someone)
simply overlooked, ignored due time constraints, carelessness
fraudulent behaviour by someone who participates within some scammer ring (i hope not!)

In this case 1. would mean whether some told lies and scams now or it is simply my fiction to do such authorization process. 2. is a very possible option because if there are hundreds and thousands of new users on the waiting list it is possible someone took some random samples and then started a registration script to automate the process.. which would be careless but not fraudulent. The 3. option is the worst because that is always possible with criminal energy.. but that's life and my question is:

Will HF20 take care of that, even if there are people try to circumvent protection mechanism..?

maybe even if they succeed get their scammer accounts is it possible to stop them behaviour dependend. I think it would be quite easy to detect these massive automatic upvote actions which are like ultra circle jerking.

Hope we can minimize such things to a acceptable percentage for the sake of the community.

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booster (68) · 7 years ago

This post has received a 17.25 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @themarkymark.

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indigoocean (67) · 7 years ago

I'm seeing this quite late, but just stunned! I continue to have such split feelings about this platform, increasingly actually. I love so much of what I've found here, and the potential is incredible, but issues like this fundamental corruption just make it seem untenable. The question becomes, is there even a will to fix these things or is it simply a question of WHEN everything collapses in on itself? Very disheartening.

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natira (25) · 7 years ago

I feel so bad, why is this spam so easily?

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tsoul (28) · 7 years ago

Oh! My, issues like this needs to be addressed ASAP, it has a negative effect on new users

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themanwithnoname (64) · 7 years ago

I'm glad that I had to wait a full week to get my account approved just so whoever this is could get 200 of their accounts approved. You'd think someone at Steemit would catch on. Then again, maybe not.

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powerfulwonders (39) · 7 years ago

So this is an eye-opener. I had no idea that some were abusing the network like this. I took two weeks to get my one account approved. That's fine, I don't mind waiting. But heck, how on earth are these spammers getting dozens, hundreds of accounts approved and so quickly?

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kryptokoutek (25) · 7 years ago

WoW! Now I understand why it took so long to get my account approved. I´m a newbie here and I am kinda disappointed by this happening. I know it´s just a "beta", but still... I like the way it works here and hope that one day it will become very popular even among those who are not that much into blockchain technology and its uses.

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karinxxl (68) · 7 years ago

Holy crap this is bad ej!

It does make me wonder who approves these accounts? Automaticly or with bots?

These types of scams should be easy to pick out before approving Id say?

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donchate (49) · 7 years ago

If a "highly manual process" is approving 100s of numerical sequence bot accounts... where is the hope that they know what they're doing?

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lexcorp (48) · 7 years ago

Considering it took forever to get my account approved after 3 tries id say its really disappointing to see how some just stroll in here and have no intentions of creating legit content

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jumowa (65) · 7 years ago

I am still waiting for an account to be approved for memes. Applied in late 2017. It never went through. I then spent my own SP to create one but only after asking around how it works. Many users, especially those applying for an account, wont know this.

I suggest to get rid of the sp given out at the beginning and make it possible to open an account without sp. That way scammers wont be able to steel SP. Im no techy but there sure is a way

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idontgnu (50) · 7 years ago

What can a person possibly do? Is there any way to stop this type of abuse?

Manual approval of users is a long and arduous process that doesn't necessarily guarantee legitimate user account creation, but with the way things are going maybe there needs to be a governing body that manually sifts through spam accounts and bans/deletes them. Is that wrong? I don't believe it is when you see this type of account creation happening on the daily, but is it a realistic way of going about it?

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nofiat (58) · 7 years ago

What a great scam! I wish I'd thought of it myself before I fell in love with this platform. Sadly, I'm too far gone now and have gained too many
a scruple to stoop so low at this stage. Please fix this somehow!

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allcapsonezero (61) · 7 years ago

ridiculous... absolutely ridiculous.

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munawar87 (57) · 7 years ago

Very cool sanctions. Thanks for giving us any information including scam and spam .

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blunderstorm (25) · 7 years ago

This needs to be sorted somehow. This is scary. The platform will die if the system can be abused to easily.

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hetty-rowan (65) · 7 years ago

Very sad that a nice platform as steemit seems to be overtaken by spammers ... hope that this is gonna be fixed soon, IF it can be fixed. And I know for sure that this is the reason that quality content gets much less attention.

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loonyfool (51) · 7 years ago

Terrific post, that is really an issue ! Shameful that it happens on Steemit but well, I've kept saying we have to get rid of that kind of issue in order to overcome facebook one day ! Pity it is so contagious ! Steemit really doesn't deserve that kind of behavior. It's really worth far more.

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steemitqa (64) · 7 years ago

Most of these are Haejin fake supporters nothing to see here.
Its a racket being performed right before our eyes.

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scrawly (66) · 7 years ago

I have a lot of difficulties joining Steemit and waited longer than a month to be accepted, to see all these scammers got approved is demoralising.

Thank you for your good work.

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davemccoy (63) · 7 years ago

What is the answer? How does that happen? Who is in charge? How can we hold them accountable?

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codypanama (57) · 7 years ago

What a heartbreaker this is. This has been ongoing since day 1 when coins were mined! hiding them through an auto vesting process with endless accounts. ( see below )
auto vesting.jpg
Are there plans on fixing all issues and restarting under another name?
I see now the insatiable greed of the original creator's will never end. Just like an over bloated bloodsucker will not let go until the host is dead.
I believe in Cryptocurrency but how do we find honest startups to invest in?
Thanks for an informative but disheartening blog.
Together we stand, divided we fall.
Cheers

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doctorcrypto (59) · 7 years ago

Holy crap! That is a lot of gaming the system. Someone needs to get in there and clean up these farms. Craziness!

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n1rvana (37) · 7 years ago

@themarkymark nice research you have done and its fucking true.. Steemit team should take this post seriously and need to fix this problem asap.

Resteemed it

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steemlota (42) · 7 years ago (edited)

need to take immediate action to fix these problem otherwise it will be a negative sign for this platform . need to take step from very beginning to stop it before create any big problem.

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wizardave (59) · 7 years ago

I have 2 friends that signed up an account around the first of March. They have never received their signup email.

No clue what to tell them...
- Frustrating to say the least, especially after reading your post... @themarkymark

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pfunk (72) · 7 years ago

Ask them to visit the #help channel at https://steem.chat

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aoart (53) · 7 years ago (edited)

We're giving away a crypto collectible here soon, and the worry we have are these multiple user accounts snatching them all up. Not sure how we'll get around them. If we give away on reputation score then new legitimate users may miss out, but unfortunately we see this as the only best option.

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pfunk (72) · 7 years ago

I don't know how many of whatever it is you plan on giving away, but if it's not too many you could always check each account's posts and comments. Legitimate users are pretty easy to separate from non-legit, most of the time.

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aoart (53) · 7 years ago

We are giving away 10,000 unique pixel flowers. This is what we need to sort out first. We have to work out a way that's fair for all.

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cosmophobia (67) · 7 years ago

Why would a person create so many accounts?
1, To flag someones channel.
2, To boost someone channel.
There should be a limit to how many accounts a person can make.

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cirik (26) · 7 years ago

This post has received a 25.00% upvote from @cirik!

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katerinaramm (68) · 7 years ago (edited)

It is really a pity @themarkymark
Being here for almost 6 months now, I feel really sad it is happening
I have been seen people that want so much to join and keep waiting for their message or try hard to find out errors in logging in etc
Also messages like the below are very often :(
Does @steemitblog and @ned know?
Do they even care? Or is it a number of accounts trying hard to reach 1 million accounts? (but not caring about dead fish as they are definitely included in those numbers)

If you check the new post by @penguinpablo here you will see that in the previous 24h there have been more than 6500 new users!

Alas, how many of them will remain in the platform ?

Just a rhetorical question ......

_{_{p.s. If you are wondering why I am commenting now, but upvoted 4 days ago, it is because I was trying to find the time to :). Thankful to the multiple FF tabs!!!!}}

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dmilliz (68) · 7 years ago

I have introduced so many people to steemit and many have gave up as it has taken too long. Can't belive the spammers have so many accounts. Come on guys, this suppose to be the good place, don't turn it to the other ugly network:(

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brianphobos (70) · 7 years ago

Wow! I'm certainly blown away for sure. I lost a great account name that I tried to create through the process. The account got created but the e-mail never got sent or anything so it is just out there unused essentially.

It is odd that the scammers are able to dominate the process so easily.

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keppler (43) · 7 years ago

It is so simple accounts are in a que order and spammers are creating mass accounts. this should be banned by the developers. This would definitely harming good creators.

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iridion9 (37) · 7 years ago

Thank you for bringing this up.
Who are the admins and moderators assigned to kick these spammers?
This site has so many bugs and many works need to be done to improve this site. Are there programmers consistently improving this site?

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