Bitcoin Forum

Look what I just found (use Tor browser or VPN, don't expose your IP to this site): https://sembt.LINKBREAKERcom/thread-15254-1-12.html.
Now compare that to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5481114.0 (the OP looks like chatbot spam, but that's not the point).

That site pretends to be an active forum, but simply clones Bitcointalk! Their user images are probably AI generated.

PrivacyG turned into LynnWalter, pakhitheboss turned into 8564Jg, pooya87 turned into SBSBB and Edwin, hd49728 turned into steven136 and hugeblack turned into brandon58 :D

I can't remember exact links but I am sure this is not the first time we see someone cloning bitcointalk forum.
Looks like this specific clone was made in China, and maybe they wanted to create fake conversation mixed with their own posts.

You didn't say how they renamed you  ;)
I see they didn't included all boards and they added a lot of hearts with every action  :P

I visited that forum and noticed that all of the threads were created today. The boards on that forum are named differently, and I have noticed that they have changed names of almost each member of this forum.

They named me as 2Philip, 1miau as MortonAddison, Bitmover as AllenTennyson, and DdmrDdmr as DonahueChaplin. The one who created that forum might know about Bitcointalk or might be a member of this forum I guess.

They cloned Bitcointalk and maybe they are doing it to gain traffic. When they see enough website traffic, they will stop cloning Bitcointalk and sell their site to something else.

Their site will not be shut down if they clone exactly the Bitcointalk forum from topics, posts to usernames. Do anyone know possible reasons of using random usernames on that clone site?

[SCAM] fake Bitcointalk forum clone BitInfo.cc !!! (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5193535)
Duplicate of Bitcointalk. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5280111.0)

Only the images? I wouldn't be surprised if at least part of the text is too.


Any idea who am I there? I have visited the forum, but as the structure is different, they have not cloned thread by thread this forum, I do not just see myself there.


Well, I don't know, surely if I had done it I wouldn't sell it when it starts to work. I'm curious, since we already have movies made by AI in which the actors who appear are people who do not exist, and are made without scriptwriters or cameras or anything that is used to make a movie traditionally. Could such a forum be monetized? I mean if apart from the traffic there are also bots generating text with AI.

It appears they used the forum database to create their own content. The content is a little different and they have other sections that appear to be clones from other forums.


These usernames are random and vary depending on the topic. I searched for some topic and found that they changed the username several times.
Some forum codes seem broken here

I've seen them, but those were either fishing sites, or just full clones. This new one looks like it's trying to be a forum and uses "our" posts to make it look active.

I didn't find myself, but it looks like they didn't keep a fixed name for each user. The copied posts get a new random name.

Based on my research. sembt.com is owned by ggcoins.net


They're greedy since they only want to grow their own sites without giving any credit to other forum (Bitcointalk), that's why they create their own forum.

Whoever own ggcoins and sembt, f*ck you!

They have named you as AndrewMarshall, you can see it by opening this link (https://sembt.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=15364&highlight=The%2BHonduras%2BSpecial%2BZone%2Bofficially) just be sure to use a VPN or Tor or a web proxy in order to visit the link.  ;)

I am so disappointed; the website is down from my side. I was super curious!

I wanted to meet my Chinese own version.  ???

The website is not down. Use VPN or Tor if you are geoblocked. (You should use them anyway when visiting such sites.)

It was with my VPN, tried with different servers.

Working fine with Tor thank you!

Lol so my chinese double is named Alger

The same Bitcointalk account seems to have multiple names over there. I’ve see a single account here have a different name on each post it made within given thread over there.

I don’t know if all the images of faces that appear on the profiles within the site are made by the same software, but a lot of them include a watermark on the bottom right corner indicating "StyleGAN2 (Karras et al.)". Stylegan2 is a generative AI that constitutes a research project by nVidia (https://github.com/NVlabs), so that´s the software being used to generate the face type images. Non-face type images don’t seem to be using the said software, but rather are copied from stock images and/or social networks.

Great discovery, although i recall it's not first time it happens where that other clone do worse (by imitate Bitcointalk UI).


On top of that,
1. Article created ggcoins.net seems to be generated by AI and there are many article with similar topic (almost all article on it's homepage talks about hardware wallet in general). So i agree with @Poker Player that some thread/reply on sembt.com could be AI generated.
2. Some article i checked always links to sembt.com.

How crazy is that! On this forum I turned into Charles640 with a cat avatar (at least that's cool)

What do they want with that? some kind of experiment? apply scams? Or is it some password capture site? because a member here may go there and try to enter your password to try to access... (never doubt what a person is capable of)

It could be a way to optimize their search results in search engines or building something that looks somewhat like a legitimate website to steal information from those who visit it.

I doubt it's a phishing attempt, if it were, they would have used very similar url and everything else.

I guess this is what is called a grabber if I am not wrong. If I remember correctly, I have seen a lot of YouTube grabber scripts on the Masterland forum and I guess I have tried some of those scripts as well. I do not have coding knowledge, but I have tried to ready-mate scripts. I have seen a lot of people code grabber scripts of youtube, even porn websites, and news websites.

I haven't seen any forum scripts. What is the benefit of running such websites since all of those are just bots? If there is no genuine discussion and no one replies, I don't see what could be their benefits. Probably they are trying to get some traffic from google search to make some money from adnetworks! 

And they added a nice random AI generated profile images :P
They didn't cloned me also, so I guess we are not attractive enough for them ;)

I just found they cloned some of our local members Pmalek and FatFork, they became timothy617 and alex720.

Original posts:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5454670.msg62381063#msg62381063
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5454670.msg62401089#msg62401089

copy-pasted posts:

The forum uses Discuz theme




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discuz!

Exploring further

Domain Information
Domain: sembt.com
Registrar: Alibaba Cloud Computing (Beijing) Co., Ltd.
Registered On:2019-10-31  Expires On: 2024-10-31 Updated On: 2024-01-24
Name Servers: dns29.hichina.comdns30.hichina.com

Its China-based platform trying to compete with Bitcointalk, they started their operation just last month so expect a lot of cloning of topics

Not for nothing, but who could have guessed its country of origin?  No offense to any Chinese here who might not be in favor of counterfeiting, but....

There's no way I'm clicking on that link to check, but am I correct in assuming I haven't been cloned?  If not, I'm brokenhearted, I tell you.  Just brokenhearted.  Lol.

This fake forum sounds about 10 times worse than that shitty forum Yobit created a few years ago, where plagiarism from this site was rampant.  Cryptotalk.something I think it was?

Here's China again trying to copy something and trying to make it their own, this happened with Clash of Clans too back in 2022 if I recall correctly although they didn't need to copy the whole game, they want to move it to a different server so it's only Chinese players, I'm winging it here with the reason that China is copying Bitcointalk but I think they want to do the same thing as Clash of Clans, they want a Bitcointalk forum of their own but seeing how they're being conspicuous and that you need to use a VPN or Tor to browse their website, I feel like this is just something to scam other people that have no idea that this forum exists, a lot of things can be done in a clone website after all.

I don't think it's the Chinese government doing this, just someone who had "a great idea" to make money. It happens in many other countries too.

Where does the money for this "great idea" come from? Ads? I can't see any. (Or maybe that's because I have my adblocker on.)

This meme-format comes to mind:
Step 1: copy content.
Step 2: get visitors.
Step 3: ....
Step 4: Profit.

Now that I think about it: I'll remove the clickable link I created in this topic. They don't deserve a backlink.

Users might want to stear away from those fake forums entirely.

You may be able to mask your I.P. via Tor, but not details surrounding your browser, screen size and similar which would be linked to the profiles you visit while on that site (which would usually be your own user profile).

(And some of you have identified what the random profile name is you have been looking at that corresponds with your profile here).

Although off-topic: this is exactly what Tor browser helps prevent.

They should have given me the name Timmy instead of Timothy. Those who watched South Park back when it was worth it, they know who I am talking about.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/02/29/fnwhJ.jpeg