Why #introduceyourself can be a horrible idea
ATTENTION! FRAUD!
Today something really funny has happened in the #introduceyourself thread. First, I read an article by @dan himself: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@dan/quick-thought-on-steemit-catfish Well, sounds reasonably... in theory.
In practice I saw a post with this girl:
https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@aristova/hi-friends-my-name-is-sasha-and-i-new-here-i-m-model
(Source - her VK https://new.vk.com/id47928808)
It is now "deleted". But the North blockchain remembers. This post had been earning over $1000 until I posted the link to VK: https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@aristova/hi-friends-my-name-is-sasha-and-i-new-here-i-m-model#@sanbir/re-aristova-hi-friends-my-name-is-sasha-and-i-new-here-i-m-model-20160727t184146536z
This is exactly why I have never trusted "verification" pictures. There is a million ways to fake them. But the most awful truth is that an identity thief can even not fake anything and still get a ridiculous profit. One can BUY a photo or even a VIDEO of a girl holding the paper for cheap (say, $5). In Russia it is good money for a poor college student.
I ask @dan @ned and other whales to prevent this form of human trafficking from flourishing on Steemit.
More and more bots are being set up to catch these posts and I am doing some of it manually. Case in point a recent post shot up to over $1,000 within minutes but was exposed as a fraud and quickly voted town to nothin! Here it is https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@robertkim/hi-i-am-robert-kimbrough-nasa-astronaut-and-ex-us-army-officer-planning-to-literally-take-steem-to-space-to-international-space
It caught me off guard but luckily it was exposed.
As long as there is an incentive to do this kind of things, yes. Posts will keep coming. And few of them will be detected. I think the whales should be very careful when they vote. Without their votes, the payoffs will be insignificant.
There is nothing anybody can do about it really. The World Wide Web is still a Wild Wild West. Hack the Planet!
At least, they can stop or limit payments for introductions.
Thats the beauty of Blockchain technology you cant stop it, its decentralized. Read about Bitcoin, very similar technology.
They can. The decentralization is illusion when over 51 % belong to a group who can easily collude. Look at what happened to Ethereum.
what happen to Ethereum? its still running, just 2 of them now. People didnt want to fork and no one can stop them from using the older one.
Yes, but ETC is way cheaper then ETH. Essentially, ETH creators broke all the trust because of money.
The same is here. Everything is essentially controlled by this website - Steemit. Very few people will bother reading the blockchain. And hard forks are done regularly and easily.
@sanbir Excellent detective work :) I hope that such attempts will be caught by the community.
Is more stringent verification really needed? I find that social media communities are pretty good at validating content and as Steemit grows we'll get better at it too. Your example was found out pretty quickly with your help.
It was a pure luck. Only 1 picture was discoverable via Google Images. Imagine a girl from a rural area without a social media profile.
I agree. The task is too difficult.
some amounts are caps - more should be in this category split among voters :)
There is no way to stop it. We just have to trust people and hope that someone can spot fraud in time to get the post downvoted.
In the case of buying, there would be no way to detect. I have probably helped many scammers with this idea.
Brace yourself! A new market of female bodies is coming!
Correct.
Support my tag #hate
I don't hate girls. I hate scam. If a girl is adorable, she can profit from it. There is a social value in beauty.
But when a scammer is taking advantage of a girl's beauty, this is really bad.
Simply Great Information and Presentation
The people on steemit just have to be wary of things they upvote. If you find something is weird you can comment so that others can notice and think about it.
Thank you for doing your part to keep these cons in check,
btw, I was the first to flag that post, hoping stygmergy worked,
it did thanks to you. Great job sanbir