Bitcoin Forum

What happened: FAKE TEAM - Appears to be using computer generated image

Scammers Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5137637.0
Ann archive (https://archive.is/AzDEO)

Website Link: https://botfoundry.io/
website archive (https://archive.is/7HBSQ)


It appears that they are using computer-generated images of the team.
We asked them to provide new images and they have not answered our request.
We decided to open a thread on this scam accusation section, maybe will push them to provide new images and a profile of the team members


https://i.imgur.com/QmOinxz.jpg https://i.imgur.com/aM8w3Hn.png
https://i.imgur.com/vGe8WXG.jpg https://i.imgur.com/BM3v4VT.png

Mark Ward - CEO = FAKE IMAGE

Craig Moore - Data Analyst = FAKE IMAGE


https://botfoundry.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/aaa.jpg
https://botfoundry.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/bb.jpg

So there's a computer program that generates fake people? Damn, it's pretty impressive, except for the hair portion. It should really be called Haire (TM), because it looks more like that spray on hair you see in late night infomercials than actual hair.

Let me ask you: what about the image being edited via Photoshop lets you know for sure it's a fake image? If youd rather not say here, I do understand, but I can't comprehend the next step scammers would take to counter your counterintelligence.

Yes, the kids got tired of playing with Shutterstock and now they found a new toy to play with - but the technology still at an early stage and it is easy to catch. Let them use it.
If you want to find more about let me know and I will send you a PM with some info about it.

We must stay always many steps ahead of them :)

Although it's not easy task to determine which photo is computer generated but look like they have done it. Since we have not yet discovered any tools to identify computer generated pictures, so there is no other way to prove expect asking team. If they not respond to questions then we might consider them edited or computer generated photo. Since OP already tagged so I will not bother to tag right now. Let them defend here and prove us wrong.

Good job once again OP, keep it up.

I've seen a lot better examples out of that image generator.

@ICOEthics, I don't think http://imageedited.com/ can serve as evidence in this case with fake images. It does not show anything of significance other than to point that image has been edited in Photoshop. Literally, 99% of images goes through some post-processing either being only adjusting brightness levels or some lite skin retouch.

I'd rather use https://29a.ch/photo-forensics/. There are some great filters in there.

The imageedited software is just to support that the images were altered - doesn't mean the image is fake- as you mentioned a lot of images goes through some processing, such cropping, adjusting lights, changing to bw, etc..(we are going to remove that "imageedited" part from our first post, so it doesnt confuse people.)  In this case there is evidence on the photo itself that they were generated. We are expecting the team to provide a new image of the team. (if they can) .

Thanks for sharing that website.

I've read about this technology last year and also someone later told me about it. Anyway, few articles:
https://bgr.com/2019/02/15/ai-face-generator-looks-100-percent-real/
https://mashable.com/article/website-ai-faces-gan-technology
https://www.lyrn.ai/2018/12/26/a-style-based-generator-architecture-for-generative-adversarial-networks/ (scroll down to video in comments)

Scary.

These guys don't even need a sophisticated software to do this scam, image generators exists in the web on several websites and results are pretty shocking than I expected because they really look like real humans and even the background is not faked out. These dudes can try hitting the refresh or generate button until they see a man with a suit or at least a "CEO-looking" person if they wanted to, in this way all our efforts on finding the real identity would be useless since that person doesn't exist in the first place. It seems like the next move is if we haven't seen other pictures of that guy in the web the only reasonable move is what ICOEthics has done and that's asking them personally for more pictures and other proof that the guy is a real person.



EDIT
@ICOEthics I have tagged them as well as I believe that they aren't real persons at all.

These photos are generated by artificial intelligence.  Try to generate a photo and you will see similar distortions in the background. This kind of "distortion" was almost on every photo I generated.


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That can be a way to detect but honestly after generating photos they can solve the issue of distortion by editing. This type of generating photos has been a new trick for scammers to make investors fool. Some generating photos are looking so real that its relatively hard to find any issues there.

Best we can do when any of these projects photo looks suspicious to us at that moment we can ask for another photo from them. I hope still there is no software which can generate the same photo again with another look.

That's what I was worried about, I have noticed that most of generated photo have a common mistake but I wasn't like to expose it. Because if its noticed by scammer then they will edit or modify picture.

If you look closer, the faces have so many distortions that editing them will take an enormous amount of time.  In addition, photoshopped pictures can already be recognized using the forensic tool. If there is the slightest suspicion, you can always ask for photos and live action of the team.

I'm not sure if posting links like that in the "open" does any good.

Pretty sure scammers read this type of topics as well. No need to give them any tips.

Photos might seem easy to detect now but once resized and slightly retouched...you won't be able to find shit. (just saying)

However, fraudsters will find it difficult to provide a second similar photo. And we should not hesitate to ask them about it. We, as potential investors, have the right to doubt, and they must provide us with all the evidence of the authenticity of their project.
You may have to make a temporary warning with a mark of trust in all projects for which we doubt the authenticity of the photos. And only after providing evidence — you can remove the tags.

They are getting smarter this time, but they thought they can get away with their deception, I only believe in ICO that does webinar and video conference, because so many so-called professionals on LinkedIn are faking their profile, would you believe as high 80% in service section you will see developers looking for people to be part of the team not considering or doing research if they are really experts.

We will see a lot more of these photos by this summer, like a swarm of mosquitoes...
Right now we can only ask for a second photo or video, etc, but as technology changes, and in the event that there is a possibility to generate the same photo with differnt angle, nobody will trust pictures anymore, and the only evidence accepted would be a video.


Scammers are also doing webinar and video conference, many of them are not afraid to put their face in a scam project. Look at this couple (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5120221.msg50299064#msg50299064)- not afraid at all.