Case 8: Stumbling over a few fake talents again
Accusation:
I was recently asked to look into the background of a flag-war being carried out on steemit.
The flagging was, as so often, sadly, only being carried out on the basis of personal views and ideological disagreements. That was really nothing that I would involve myself with.
But, in the dust stirred up by those steemians, exchanging their flags, there was something else, mostly unrelated, but without any ideological bias, definitely ill-intended:
Accounts impersonating young talents and earning rewards with stolen content.
The Findings:
Let's work our way up the ladder before we do the full reveal.
I'll start with some young pretty singers and songwriters from YouTube.
@daiki claims to be YouTube singer Tommi Rose and @gracetbg is supposed to be another YouTube user by the name of Lauren Kirk. @daiki and @gracetbg both opened their steemit accounts in June, within minutes of each other.
A week later @asterix opens her presence on steemit, claimingt to be Jessica Bitsura, yet another singer from YouTube.
If you've visited the steemit-profiles of these artists by now, you will have noticed, they all have a rather un-stereotypical interest in crypto-tokens, "NarwhalSprings coin", "Whaleshares" and the "eostalk forum".
I have contacted all three original artists via Facebook and/or email, but I have not heard back from them yet.
So why am I already throwing this around, accounts opening around the same time and pretty girls with an interest in "eostalk" certainly isn't exactly a crime. They haven't even earned much in rewards yet either!
Bear with me, and let's get to the center of this.
A few weeks before these singers made their debut on steemit, @walterz, just another guy who happens to also be interested in all these tokens and "eostalk", opened his account with steemit. He introduced himself as Alex from Indonesia, with an interest in food.
After posting about food for a while and with very limited success, he suddenly shifted focus and developed a passion for drawing about 2 months ago. His new passion seemed to resonate with the audience, he was incredibly talented right from the start, and actually started getting some good upvotes.
Unfortunately, the fun didn't last very long. Just a few posts later, @steemcleaners busted him for showcasing stolen content.
But Alex was a real renaissance-man, so he quickly looked for a new hobby, let's try some photography! Talented as he is, he became a master quite quickly and has in the meantime specialized in shooting macros of insects with a cellphone.
@walterz has been growing his audience, and he seems to have made good progress in the #whaleshares community, too. His latter posts are making fine rewards and everybody is happy about it.
Well... not exactly everybody!
Jerry Thomp from Instagram certainly isn't.
He was a little upset when I told him about his images being stolen by @walterz:
So there you have it: @walterz has been making his steemit career with plagiarized and stolen content!
And yes, he is the one who runs the accounts for our YouTube talents @daiki, @gracetbg and @asterix, too! So if the real them do eventually reply to my messages, I am already certain whet that answer is going to look like!
Of course, @walterz is running a few more accounts, too: @hansenhtb, @musicaz, @blitzkierg, @priscilacosta, but there's nothing special to see here.
Hold On,
is there's a genuine talent involved?
@walterz is also working through the account @aomine, another girl-singer, this time from Indonesia, who's calling herself Gracia Desnita.
Now Gracia definitely is a real person. She made some on-camera appearances for the steemit-open-mic contest and also involves herself in the #whaleshares community.
I must suspect that she's either the real person behind @walterz or (probably more likely) she's @walterz' girlfriend!
It's a pity if someone with possibly honest aspirations gets dragged into the mess of a cheater and plagiariser, but it wouldn't come as a surprise to me, Rene from Case 7.1 did also open an account for his girlfriend who had been using it genuinely.
yours,
Sherlock
List of accounts identified in this case:
@walterz, @hansenhtb, @musicaz, @daiki, @gracetbg, @aomine, @asterix, @blitzkierg, @priscilacosta
P.S.: I know, this post might come across as a bit sexist, but I believe that to be a major selling point of those fake accounts, so I left the undertone at that.
P.P.S: My 2ct downvote unfortunately doesn't do much against an account with 60 reputation, dear sea-mammals, please use your flags where you deem it neccessary! @walterz is a repeated plagiariser who has been flagged and warned before and who still carries on using stolen content on his blog under the pretense of being the original creator!
Interesting that you called us asking you to look up fake accounts with huge stake as looking into a flag war based on ideological differences and personal views... Good thing that you aren't the only one that can conduct investigations and we have dedicated plenty of resources into doing the research you refused to do that actually effects every person on the platform and, save for a few whales, does so in a very negative way. Be sure that you are not immune from this investigation as well.
I assume you are referring to the contact @patelincho was making with me a few posts back.
I must admit I don't really understand what you are complaining about above, but I know you were not happy about my reply and @patelincho seemed to be a bit angry even.
I do not know why you see me as an enemy of yours, though, just because I did not pick a side and did not involve myself in it.
Anyways, I do welcome your investigations!
Especially an account like mine deserves to be looked at with extra scrutiny!!!
The people we asked you to investigate are guilty of the same things that you are bringing to light in this post on a much grander scale which even a cursory glance at the accounts in question will show. I'm incredibly curious why you chose not to investigate them and call it "choosing a side" rather than investigate some serious abuse of the system here.
You dont had to pic a side .............. you had to investigate shady acounts with big stake in steemit . Isnt this your job here ? Intresting part is that you never pic on the real bad guys here ........................Its fine we can do our investigation alone ! Sometimes not take side is a clear sighn - RIGHT ?
I don't have a "job" here, I do what I feel is necessary.
Now after I didn't immediately jump to the conclusions you wanted me to make back then, you started accusing me of, well... I don't even really understand of what, of not being of your opinion?
Hmm using a tag - steemit-police .....................i do not acuse you , but SEEMS you investigate only things you want .
Yes, quite indeed that is how it works.
But I do look at the leads people give me. Back then, you and @jphenderson were flagged by @transisto and @newsflash. I did look into this and responded to you with:
What I was trying to tell you, is that I am not here to stop anyone from using their stake as they see fit.
Neither would I accuse you and @jphenderson for reciprocal upvoting, nor will I accuse @transisto for using his stake to remove those rewards that he does not like to see.
I asked you for an elaboration of the kind of "trolling and harassment" you mentioned, but instead you started accusing me to be on "their" side.
So please, if you see anything specific you want me to look into, I gladly will. But if you just want someone to look at an accounts dirty laundry in order to find something, you have to do that yourself.
I found a spam scam dealing with possible 100 accounts.
The Winter Soldier Living in STEEMit
After I made the post, that post got some of the same type of accounts doing upvotes. Talk about ironic. Anyway, clicking through the accounts, I somehow managed to end up on @ecoworld . An account created last year that tried to do a comment spam using numbers for each comment.
The ecoworld account is in the process of powering down.
I don't know how it is all connected. But, it would seem that there are a lot of accounts that are triggered by a code word in posts and they comment on those posts.
Keep up the good work, detective.
Yes, I am having this network (spanning at least 5000 accounts) on my desk as well.
Luckily, the income stream of this operation has been cut off by 95% percent already. These accounts are having trouble continuing comment-farming due to initiatives like @sadkitten and are moving over towards what I'd call curation-farming. A lot of people have been surprised to see waves of upvotes hitting their posts unexpectedly.
I am still working on connecting the dots about this one, I will post about it soon.
looking forward to your post, as we talked about :)
I have the same on one of my accounts, the bot master shifted from own comment upvotes to may random posts upvotes. As @sherlockholmes says kinda curation spam.
You can take a look into the extended history of @ecoworld here:
@sherlockholmes' Case 9: The @ecoworld conspiracy
Hei bro :
Official Acount Thomp
https://steemit.com/potography/@thompjerry/thomp-on-steemit-and-stolen-photo-by-walterz
Good to see the real you over here!
Bringing great and original content to the platform!
awesome, welcome <3
Thank you for being vigilant and exposing the corruption we have to deal with on this platform.
Thank you for standing up and demanding justice upon those who would abuse the system for their own selfish gains.
I appreciate your efforts.
Whaleshares appreciates your dedication and commitment to the well being of the steemit community and ecosystem.
It's people like you who give this platform a fighting chance to reach it's potential.
You are an inspiration and champion to us all.
Thank you for the support!
Upvoted, flagged a few of his posts, and resteemed.
tips hat
thank you very much for the support!
Keep up the good work. I hope @berniesanders and @steemservices do what they do best. I see @walterz has a good amount of upvotes for his recent content.
Wow! I don't know how someone can put so much effort in stealing. It's much easier to just be yourself and create. We were all born with creative ability, I believe. It's like he's being creative but in an evil way. Honestly I think he would find his voice and be original and successful just with the effort he or she puts into stealing. Crazy!
Indeed!
@sherlockholmes great job indeed...I referenced you and your great work in my latest post-thanks for the good job
A nice read. Thanks for the support!
you are welcome and thanks for the great job bud...hope you have seen the links via my blog post including the one from Jerry
Hey do you think this guy is legit?
https://steemit.com/@cryptopie
I saw this blog post and it made me skeptical.
You are not alone, this account has been brought to my attention several times now.
I have given it a quick screening that didn't raise any flags. That doesn't mean I can say it is legit, but it certainly doesn't show any obvious patterns of ill-intend.
I might look into it again with more time at my hands.
How can it not be a spammer? In the avatar he has a photo of a Filipina, and in its posts he uses photos of some poor deformed kid which he claims is himself.
Nuke him and be a bad guy!
I can not effect his reputation and hinder the visibility of his posts, since my rep is lower.
Spammers rarely retaliate because they dedicate their time, attention and steempower to trying to sqeeze as much as they can out of the reward pool.
Right now I am busy trying to keep emmakaur's (another impersonator) at bay, and to grow my own rep and steempower.
emmakaur is worse than shencoin, since shencoin at least seemed to have read what he commented about.
Still, I was on shencoin's award bearing posts like a fly on a hot POS.
Would love if you nuked his reward bearing posts.
Would be good for every honest poster here.
Edit: shit, cryptopie surpassed both of yours reps.
Now you can only try to nuke its awards. Hope someone brings berniesanders' squad into action on it.
This is why you should shoot first, and ask questions later. A flag has some time to be removed too.
He is new and i think it might be legit.
https://steemit.com/steemit-help/@steemitph/the-human-behind-cryptopie-or-a-first-personal-encounter-with-another-steemian
your investigative work is amazing Sherlock. thanks for sharing this case