✍️ The Priest and The Contest-Monkey - Episode 2: The Accountant
I hadn't planned upon writing Episode 2 quite so soon after Episode 1 but having spent all morning investigating and watching this shit, I wanted to share it with you before I forget anything!
The Priest and The Contest-Monkey
It's with these 2 that I'd planned to analyse today - simply watching their activities follow on from each other, further confirming yesterday's theory that they're the same person.
This time, only The Contest-Monkey was active at 1am - not doing much, just setting their notifications as read.
Activity started at around 5am. The Priest isn't one for getting a good night's sleep - time is money after all and time asleep is time that could be spent entering a contest with another profile. So an early start, The Contest-Monkey setting their notifications as read again before The Priest gets to work on a few votes and then awarding prizes for one of their contests.
I love it when The Priest announces contest results - it gives me 3 more users to investigate and this is when my plan for the day went sideways. But before going into detail, The Priest and The Content-Monkey worked hard until 9am when they both disappeared until after lunch. The Contest-Monkey entering another contest and both users desperate to set their notifications as "Read" as frequently as possible.
Lunch time was fun too. The Priest wrote another post and after a pause in activity, I predicted that The Contest-Monkey would "set as read" before they take a break. It's a great feeling when you can predict when a user you suspect of scamming will do something and get it right. It helps to confirm in your mind that you're not barking up the wrong tree.
👇 Image Edited from Source in Photoshop
The rest of the afternoon was dominated by The Priest. They entered another contest and then signed off by setting their notifications as Read. Obviously setting The Content-Monkey's as Read straight after and ensuring that The Content-Monkey thanks The Accountant for their contest prize...
Content-Monkey Wins a Prize!
It feels a little bit backward to celebrate Contest-Monkey winning a prize, awarded by The Accountant without introducing our new character. So I'll jump back to the point at which I said:
...this is when my plan for the day went sideways
The Accountant
When The Priest announced his winners, I already knew that 2nd place is the one that they like to use for their own accounts so this is where I started. I obviously looked into all 3, but the 2nd place winner gave me an instant hit and a name that I recognised. They'd Achieved Level 2 on my consolidated list of plagiarists, are an admin or moderator in 5 communities (just 1 of them in Tier 1 booming) and a Community Curator. So a slightly dodgy history but has clearly made good to reach a level of privilege and trust with the Steemit team.
And whilst we're on the Plagiarism topic, it appears that they were recently caught plagiarising a Hive contest which, let's be honest about it, would have been genius had they not been caught. A contest that they didn't need any brain power to create but more importantly, entries from honest Hive users that their fake profiles can enter with on Steemit.
For them, it's a shame they were too lazy to change enough of the content and was flagged as 40% plagiarised.
They are also the user that introduced The Priest to Steemit.
The Accountant became a person of interest due to their wallet sharing with the 2nd place prize winner. A genuine looking profile that I probably wouldn't have investigated further but something about the images seemed strange. The "selfies" would be used in multiple posts. As though the person writing the post didn't have a huge library of images so had to get the most out of what they have. And then the key to these scams - along with the constant scamming of the Newcomers' Community became incredibly obvious - they stay in touch with the people whose photos they've taken so that they can be sent occasional photos. The filenames gave it away. Those key letters in the image names - "WA".
A closer look at The Accountant and they're running multiple profiles. I won't give them all names because it's an identical model to The Priest. I've even established the order in which they cycle through the profiles. Setting "As Read", entering contests and thanking for comments, votes and prizes.
My favourite of the profiles though is one which entered a contest saying that their wedding day was one of the most memorable in their life and I quote "...that moment is special to me because each time I took a look at the album..." Strange that they used a stock wedding photo and when quizzed on why commented "Yes ma, i should have [used my own photos], but lost my previous phone."... 🤔 ... but what about the album??
The Accountant does of course run their own contests and as luck would have it, the winners were announced today too.
CORRECTION: The winners were announced a couple of days ago but the post was edited today which drew my attention to it.
Back Full Circle
2nd place goes to.... The Contest-Monkey.
After wasting most of my day figuring all of this out, it is clear that The Priest and The Accountant have devised this ingenious scam and are working together.
- They're both in positions of responsibility and are both entering as many contests, Steemit Engagement Challenges and receiving booming and steemcurator votes as they can possibly get away with.
- They can get images of real people sent to them via WhatsApp (presumably for a price), creating the illusion of real diary game posts to accompany the contest entries.
I also suspect there's another user involved too - also in a position of power that I've previously caught for plagiarism. But it's also possible that they're an innocent bystander who curates and validates far too many of The Priest and The Accountant's team of parasites.
I hope that you've enjoyed Episode 2. The Accountant probably deserves their own mini-series and it's a miracle that they've still got so much responsibility and support, considering the amount of shit that's already stuck to them.
On some level though, it's genius and if it wasn't for the timeline of activity, there would be absolutely no hope of proving it. And once this mistake is corrected in their next scammer iteration, you won't be able to trust anybody.
We're not far off this already - The Newcomer Achievement Programme cannot prevent this scam and I'd guess at least 70% of all Achievement 1 posts use this scam method. Contest entries and the Steemit Engagement Challenge are already being targeted as are the Community Curators. I already find it impossible to identify any genuine new users who aren't another robot doing the same things - cheat the achievement programme, join a club, burn some STEEM, enter contests. Where are the new users bringing originality and creativity?
I digress. Episode 3 Coming Soon.
The story is so exciting. I'm eagerly awaiting "The Deputy" - someone from this gang who additionally acts anonymously in the 'Abuse Watchers' to eliminate competitors....
Did I say exciting? Actually, it's rather sad and boring.
Boring, because again and again scammers try something, often get away with it. Sometimes they are caught, driven away with great horror, forgotten - and re-registered and... boring.
Sad. You said yourself, you can't trust anyone then. I have hardly trusted anyone for a long time.
I don't open SEC-Wxy articles for a long time, I get sick when busybodies pin a "review" under there, but don't vote for the post. I get sick when I see all the servants working off chores. I even get sick when I see these suggested in curation reports.
The saddest part is answering your question:
"Where are the new users bringing originality and creativity?" There are none! If, definitely not doing achievements but in the right small communities. Hard to find those but often this is the first step to be sure this special user is a good one… 🤷♀️
And the elder ones?
Gone! Gone, or hidden, to produce similar crap ("it works for the others, too, doesn't it").
I told one of the Abuse Watchers last week to mind their own business after insisting that a suspicious newcomer should be validated. Whilst most of the Watchers that I know are good, there are some that are probably no better than The Priest and their cohort.
Luckily, there are a handful of resilient people who remain and keep me coming back. Most of them can be found in the comments, along with a few others. Occasionally, somebody new will join this trusted group but it has been a little while since this happened. It’d be far too easy to see bad everywhere again.
Ignorance is bliss 😊
TEAM MILLIONAIRE
Congratulations, your comment has been successfully curated by @o1eh at 10%.
... and then on the other side come new users or those who return after a long absence and want to make a fresh start: are received unfriendly, dismissive or simply ignorant. I - don't understand it. But I have been observing for some time. And more and more tend to blame the system, namely to ask the wrong questions....
Greetings - @weisser-rabe ;-))
... und dann kommen auf der anderen Seite neue User oder welche, die nach längerer Abwesenheit zurückkehren und einen Neuanfang wagen wollen: werden unfreundlich, ablehnend oder einfach ignorant empfangen. Ich - versteh's nicht. Aber ich beobachte seit einiger Zeit. Und neige immer mehr dazu, dem System die Schuld zu geben, nämlich die falschen Fragen zu stellen...
Grüße - @weisser-rabe ;-))
I stumbled across one old user who had this very problem. They've been on Steemit for a long time (longer than me) and have been struggling for rewards so they entered a Steemit Engagement Challenge (they liked the topic). They were told that their entry was invalid (I can't remember why) and that they need to get validated in the Newcomers' Community. Their account had been registered longer than the Newcomers' Community's has existed. The day I'm told that I can't do something because I haven't completed my Achievements (also requiring me to disclose my real world identity), that'll be the end for me.
I was probably thinking the same thing as you and would go so far as to suggest that these "hoops" are so off putting for genuine users that the only people willing to jump through them all are the scammers.
Happy to support good people in this situation if we find them...
https://steemit.com/hive-172186/@robenjo2001/what-is-my-fate-on-steemit-label-plagiarized-multiple-times-or-i-need-a-review-an-immediate-solution
https://steemit.com/hive-172186/@rohit3211/achievement-1-my-introduction-post-rohit3211-18-may-2023
👍🏼 The person I’m referencing was supported by WOX for a while, until he wrote a post complaining about lack of support other than the occasional “pity vote” (referring to the curation trail). So I’ve got little sympathy for this particular person!
THAT's the point!
Incredibly exciting series. I saw your post this morning at work and already failed one assignment because I prioritized reading the post :)
I think it would be a good idea to take a break from running the Steemit Engagement Challenge. This would be a big disappointment for many cheaters. They would have to invent something else.
Sadly, there’s always something else to invent whilst rewards are available and Steemit tries new initiatives to help it grow. If the Steemit team were to disappear, they’d all move to “My Bangla Blog” (where many of them are already).
They key for me is comments - if somebody spends their time writing 5 or 6 considered and meaningful comments each day, then they’re adding value and are less likely to be spending their time on scams.
Fascinating to follow your latest series as always.
Is there a donkey and a wife called Mary involved in the story?
It sounds like the cast list is growing by the day...
Do we need Super Eagles Eyes to keep track of all that is going on in this country?
I’m glad you’re enjoying the tale 😊 Super Eagles eyes will definitely help with solving the puzzle.
I’m sure it won’t be long before I draw back the curtain, for you to see for certain, what I think I know. Then far, far away, somebody will be weeping.
But for now, you and the world must keep waiting whilst I’m hesitating
June Community Curators coming soon... 😕
Maybe this will ease the pain a little...
http://steemit.lovestoblog.com/TopCommenters/comments.php?communityAnalysis=curatorapplication
Initially, it lists the applicants with the most recent at the top (it takes all posts that use the curatorapplication hashtag from the date that you opened applications).
Then it looks at every author and all of their comments in the same period (i.e. since the day that you wrote your application until 1st June).
All comments shorter than 15 words are ignored (bear in mind that languages like Korean and Chinese won't count very well).
All other comments are awarded 1 point. (Other versions award more points for longer comments but many of these authors include those huge ratings tables so I removed this feature).
The applicants are then ordered by total points.
Clicking on the username will take you to another page that will give you all of the comments that were included in this score, so that you can validate their comments. The username at the top of this page is also a link to that users comments and I also include a link to my power-up (Club Status) tool.
It's obviously not everything that you'll take into account (especially as it'll be biased towards people assessing the Engagement Challenge) but you might find some use for it s🙂
It's currently configured for June's applications - if it's useful, I've just thought of a clever way that it could work every month.
TEAM MILLIONAIRE
Congratulations, your comment has been successfully curated by @o1eh at 10%.
Your favourite time of the month 😆
I’ve just had an idea that might help with that. Hopefully my old “Top Commenters” code can be adapted and the applicant list isn’t ridiculous!
Greetings friend @the-gorilla.
I find interesting the plot that you have developed regarding these characters, I think there are many riddles that we must go solving about those ghost souls that are circulating around there wanting to suck Steem taking advantage of the trust they give between communities.
I agree with you, most of the new users show signs of being little authentic, more conditions should be provided in achievement 1.
I will wait for the next episode to know a little more about this story.
If my suspicions are correct, then no matter what validation approach is used, the scammers can manipulate it. I’m certain that real people are now being paid to pose in a photo which also means that these real people have Facebook (and other social media) profile. These real people can also do a WhatsApp call if there’s the prospect of making money. They might even receive a portion of the profit by allowing their identity to be used in this way.
The only way to stop it is if their is nothing to gain - no rewards for completing achievements and no “badge” that other communities use as a “seal of approval”. The community can still exist, allowing newbies to be welcomed and guided but removing the “rewards game”.
I’d love to hear your thoughts - this feels like a good subject for a post at some point 😊
Cheaters will always look for ways to make believe their innocence, and will take offense at the suspicion of its authenticity, I usually put "KIV" on the label as a reference that it is not 100% reliable.
The truth is that, as we discover new cases, multi-account managers will adjust their strategies to want to escape unscathed, so experience and intuition will be necessary to continue identifying cases of cheating or briefcase accounts in the future.
It is very clear that the pattern of support that Steemit currently provides is a magnet for this type of circumstance.
Hello friend, I just read the whole post and I certainly agree with you, there are many people taking advantage of steemit and circumventing the measures that are in place to verify users, plagiarizing a contest is something I never thought they could do hehehe. But well, life is full of surprises.
I'm waiting for your 3rd episode hahaha. Greetings! 😁
That really was a schoolboy error. They obviously had too much going on.
I've discovered this morning that they still like to plagiarise. It's an upgrade on the entry level "copy and paste" but only to the level of a plagiarism detector not catching them!
good story
Thanks. Do you think they're making it too obvious by always awarding each other 1st prize?