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Other => Meta => Topic started by: ForgottenPassword on August 06, 2014, 07:20:10 PM



Title: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: ForgottenPassword on August 06, 2014, 07:20:10 PM
So... I'm sure most of you have spotted this guy who uses the name "Sol Adoni" posting here. He is using TONS of sockpuppet accounts and posting links to websites that he owns pretending he is not the owner in an attempt to spread FUD.

I'm too lazy to compile a definitive list of all of his websites and alts, but here is just a sample of the names he is posting under:

247bitcoinnewscom
elix
2147483647L
domaindealers
ibitunes
soladoni
dr. adoni
adoni
banque
ibitdeals
ipoopbtc
ibitdomains

There are WAY more, too many to keep track of.

Example of one of his threads:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=726993

So, is there any action the mods can take against this kind of thing? He is like Atlas on steroids right now except much more annoying. He is quite literally cluttering up the entire forum right now. If we start banning him at least he'll have to pay each time he makes an account and he'll probably stop then.

All the sockpuppetry is in vain anyways as you can clearly spot him. He often accidentally posts replies using the wrong account too.


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: hilariousandco on August 06, 2014, 08:04:04 PM
I think most of his accounts are banned. He's just obviously persistent.


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: ForgottenPassword on August 06, 2014, 08:11:50 PM
I think most of accounts are banned. He's just obviously persistent.

Each time he gets banned the IP range he was using gets more "evil" and he has to pay more BTC to make new accounts thanks to theymos' nifty system. If he's being banned, surely all the money he's spending on accounts isn't making the FUD campaigns worth it?


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: hilariousandco on August 06, 2014, 08:17:25 PM
You don't have to pay much, but he could just sign up with a new proxy address each time. Whatever his game is it doesn't look like banning him is going to stop him anytime soon, but hopefully hell get bored eventually.


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: Xch4ng3 on August 06, 2014, 08:18:48 PM
Quote
So, is there any action the mods can take against this kind of thing? He is like Atlas on steroids right now except much more annoying. He is quite literally cluttering up the entire forum right now. If we start banning him at least he'll have to pay each time he makes an account and he'll probably stop then.

I check for unread topics fairly often and I haven't seen much of him so I guess the good posts are obviously outweighing his, it's still an eyesore though.

Quote
Each time he gets banned the IP range he was using gets more "evil" and he has to pay more BTC to make new accounts thanks to theymos' nifty system. If he's being banned, surely all the money he's spending on accounts isn't making the FUD campaigns worth it?

AFAIK, it's using specific IP addresses to prevent users. Blocking an IP range, especially in a residential sense, wouldn't be helpful imho, too much room for error, maybe blocking IP ranges of datacentres.


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: ForgottenPassword on August 06, 2014, 08:20:15 PM
You don't have to pay much, but he could just sign up with a new proxy address each time. Whatever his game is it doesn't look like banning him is going to stop him anytime soon, but hopefully hell get bored eventually.

He'd have a hard time finding any proxies that aren't evil.

Yes maybe he will, but I think mods should ban and remove all his FUD threads each time. That should expedite the situation. From what I can tell most of his FUD threads are still there.

AFAIK, it's using specific IP addresses to prevent users. Blocking an IP range, especially in a residential sense, wouldn't be helpful imho, too much room for error, maybe blocking IP ranges of datacentres.

It doesn't block anything. It adds evil "points" to the IP and a smaller amount of evil "points" to every IP in the same range. The more evil your IP has when creating an account the more BTC you have to pay to sign up. Known proxies and Tor already have the max amount of evil too.


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: hilariousandco on August 06, 2014, 08:24:12 PM
I'm sure he's had a fair few accounts nuked already and new ones probably will be too. What is he actually trying to achieve? Just getting traffic to his sites and selling/promoting an ebook?


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: ForgottenPassword on August 06, 2014, 08:27:35 PM
I'm sure he's had a fair few accounts nuked already and new ones probably will be too. What is he actually trying to achieve? Just getting traffic to his sites and selling/promoting an ebook?

That mainly looks like it. Maybe he is also trying to "crash" the BTC price to get cheap BTC, lol. It looks that way. Maybe he has a mental disorder, thats the impression I get anyway. Multiple personality disorder maybe?  ;D


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: BadBear on August 07, 2014, 03:44:52 AM
Yeah most of those were banned already a couple weeks ago, he's just really persistent. He has a reputation for this type of behavior on many forums. He's nuttier than squirrel shit. Report him when you see it (add Adoni or SolAdoni in reason for report for more effectiveness).


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: eid on August 07, 2014, 06:50:52 AM
I'm sure he's had a fair few accounts nuked already and new ones probably will be too. What is he actually trying to achieve? Just getting traffic to his sites and selling/promoting an ebook?

Seems to me his first goal is to show everyone that he's an expert and everyone else is a moron. I guess he's also after riches. Apparently he once claimed Godhood, so that should give everyone a good idea of his personality type.

He really is very aggravating though  :D


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: Omniescient on August 07, 2014, 08:31:57 AM
You don't have to pay much, but he could just sign up with a new proxy address each time. Whatever his game is it doesn't look like banning him is going to stop him anytime soon, but hopefully hell get bored eventually.

what a game he used .
some like bored activity without mean anything .


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: some1 on August 08, 2014, 07:06:03 PM

AFAIK, it's using specific IP addresses to prevent users. Blocking an IP range, especially in a residential sense, wouldn't be helpful imho, too much room for error, maybe blocking IP ranges of datacentres.

It doesn't block anything. It adds evil "points" to the IP and a smaller amount of evil "points" to every IP in the same range. The more evil your IP has when creating an account the more BTC you have to pay to sign up. Known proxies and Tor already have the max amount of evil too.

It is a very smart approach! I would like so much to use it for one of my web sites...
Any chance to know more details about it?

Is there a public list of datacenter IPs vs residential IPs?


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: Rigon on August 09, 2014, 10:58:03 AM
I think is genious, you can promote urself on forum without paying members, but good thing that good ops dont do shady advertising like this.  then we wouldnt be making money off them.


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: rugrats on August 10, 2014, 03:36:37 AM
You don't have to pay much, but he could just sign up with a new proxy address each time. Whatever his game is it doesn't look like banning him is going to stop him anytime soon, but hopefully hell get bored eventually.

He'd have a hard time finding any proxies that aren't evil.

Yes maybe he will, but I think mods should ban and remove all his FUD threads each time. That should expedite the situation. From what I can tell most of his FUD threads are still there.

AFAIK, it's using specific IP addresses to prevent users. Blocking an IP range, especially in a residential sense, wouldn't be helpful imho, too much room for error, maybe blocking IP ranges of datacentres.

It doesn't block anything. It adds evil "points" to the IP and a smaller amount of evil "points" to every IP in the same range. The more evil your IP has when creating an account the more BTC you have to pay to sign up. Known proxies and Tor already have the max amount of evil too.

Not really. As I write this, I am on a free proxy - one of the thousands available for anyone.
Sometimes I switch IPs/countries between posts if the thread takes too long to load.
Spammers obviously have more practice at evading detection, so I have no doubt that Sol Adoni has a significantly larger pool of proxies to operate from.


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: eid on August 10, 2014, 06:31:04 AM
You don't have to pay much, but he could just sign up with a new proxy address each time. Whatever his game is it doesn't look like banning him is going to stop him anytime soon, but hopefully hell get bored eventually.

He'd have a hard time finding any proxies that aren't evil.

Yes maybe he will, but I think mods should ban and remove all his FUD threads each time. That should expedite the situation. From what I can tell most of his FUD threads are still there.

AFAIK, it's using specific IP addresses to prevent users. Blocking an IP range, especially in a residential sense, wouldn't be helpful imho, too much room for error, maybe blocking IP ranges of datacentres.

It doesn't block anything. It adds evil "points" to the IP and a smaller amount of evil "points" to every IP in the same range. The more evil your IP has when creating an account the more BTC you have to pay to sign up. Known proxies and Tor already have the max amount of evil too.



Not really. As I write this, I am on a free proxy - one of the thousands available for anyone.
Sometimes I switch IPs/countries between posts if the thread takes too long to load.
Spammers obviously have more practice at evading detection, so I have no doubt that Sol Adoni has a significantly larger pool of proxies to operate from.


It's only relevant when you create the account with the evil IP. I use a popular vpn but never have a problem posting.


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: ForgottenPassword on August 10, 2014, 11:08:07 AM
Yes you can post from whatever IP you like, it's the signup IP that matters.


Title: Re: Blatant sockpuppetry and self-promotion of own website using alt accounts
Post by: Normandoyle on August 11, 2014, 01:09:14 AM
Pretty sad to be honest...