Spammy accounts used for 'promotion' by bumping threads

[alani123]

It appears as though certain people have figured out how to game the system in bitcointalk. Low activity accounts are utilized to keep bumping threads with no limits and thus keeping many topics at the top with fake activity.

I had once observed that were being used to bump a thread promoting a phishing website were old account that had potentially been hacked. Here's that thread in question archived. As you can see, many of those accounts were created in 2015/2016 and have now been banned.

But this is also going on with newly created accounts. There are countless examples, sadly. I don't have examples to document every single one but for the purposes of this thread I'll be looking into one.
【ANN】  ETHEREUM VERGE 【ICO】【PRE-SALE】

Of notice:
Topic created by a new account.
Posted on June 11th
Already has around 50 pages of responses
Now let's see how the accounts responding to this thread look like. I will only be looking at 5 of them:

Name:    billybigblocks
Posts:    8
Activity:   8
Merit:   0
Position:    Newbie
Date Registered:    14-03-2018, 10:13:15

Name:    Lifehackersumit
Posts:    7
Activity:   7
Merit:   0
Position:    Newbie
Date Registered:    13-04-2018, 11:56:17

Name:    Estelle002
Posts:    3
Activity:   3
Merit:   0
Position:    Newbie
Date Registered:    03-05-2018, 08:49:10

Name:    CuongNguyen181196
Posts:    2
Activity:   2
Merit:   0
Position:    Newbie
Date Registered:    29-05-2018, 07:53:14

Name:    Noumanfiaz
Posts:    14
Activity:   14
Merit:   0
Position:    Newbie
Date Registered:    31-01-2018, 22:04:44

If you look into the profiles of those accounts, you'll see that almost all of their responses are incoherent, short oneliners that would fit in the context of almost any thread. Here's just one example. It appears as though many of those accounts were created specifically for the purpose of spam-bumpint to promote threads.

The example account I provided above has already responded to 3 threads with nonsensical messages, all of them under the token section. Links to those responses in the threads:


Links to the other two threads:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3595870.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4418531.0
This was as far as my documentation on the mater goes. Below you'll find my opinion on must be done.

I believe that this is a serious issue and that measures should be put in place to counter and discourage spam
Some thoughts on what could be done:

1. We start reporting threads to mods (Short term solution)
More recently I've started looking for spammy threads to report them. If more people would do this mods would be able to notice such cases more easily, delete the threads and purge the spammy accounts. But mods are already overwhelmed and removal isn't instant. This really doesn't solve the problem.

2. Limiting new accounts
Back in the day, bitcointalk was enforcing a newbie jail. New accounts would have to reach a post threshold to be able to post outside of it. This was until 2013 I think, but after the explosion of crypto's popularity it became increasingly hard to moderate such section and it was ultimately disabled.

But now with the explosion of ICOs, there is a lot of demand to project onto bitcointalk. The forum's inability to handle spam has results to many new projects utilizing blackhat solutions for promotion on bitcointalk, as it is one of the biggest hubs for cryptocurrency related discussion. An easy solution I could imagine would be to disable bumping from accounts below the Jr. Member rank. They would be able to respond but it wouldn't shoot the thread to the top. This way providing a powerful counter-incentive on creating new accounts to spam-bump. It would also limit the pool of accounts mods would have to get around banning.

3. Expanding on and improving Theymos' 'points of evil' system
I don't know how theymos would be able to achieve this, but potentially he could lend a hand with some hours and the experience of the epochtalk team?

On another note, I don't think that outright deleting threads is a good response to spam-bumps. This leaves open the possibility of competitors purposefully targeting a thread with spam to take it down. Moreover, legitimate responses to the thread also are deducted from the post count of those that made them, which is unfair towards quality forum members.

[1715100899]

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[Welsh]

1. We start reporting threads to mods (Short term solution)
More recently I've started looking for spammy threads to report them. If more people would do this mods would be able to notice such cases more easily, delete the threads and purge the spammy accounts. But mods are already overwhelmed and removal isn't instant. This really doesn't solve the problem.

Many people are already doing this. If you want to go down this rabbit hole then you could report thousands of posts per day. Threads should only be reported if they are offering an incentive to post, and there's evidence of it. Otherwise, competitors will eventually do fake bumps on their competition to get their thread removed.

2. Limiting new accounts
Back in the day, bitcointalk was enforcing a newbie jail. New accounts would have to reach a post threshold to be able to post outside of it. This was until 2013 I think, but after the explosion of crypto's popularity it became increasingly hard to moderate such section and it was ultimately disabled.

Restrictions in this case is probably the way to go about it. I think theymos has previously mentioned of offering a quiz to new accounts that specify whether they want to participate in Bitcoin discussion or earn from bounties etc. The latter option could be restricted to certain areas, but also have limitations on the account that prevent them from bumping threads. Their spam would still have to be removed, but it wouldn't be as much of a problem to other thread starters in the section. It would be hard to prevent this from being gamed, but the restrictions would be lifted at later ranks. Probably limit those who select the Bitcoin discussion route to the main sections, and they won't be able to post in the alt section. That's probably the only way to get them not to lie on the quiz.

But now with the explosion of ICOs, there is a lot of demand to project onto bitcointalk. The forum's inability to handle spam has results to many new projects utilizing blackhat solutions for promotion on bitcointalk, as it is one of the biggest hubs for cryptocurrency related discussion. An easy solution I could imagine would be to disable bumping from accounts below the Jr. Member rank. They would be able to respond but it wouldn't shoot the thread to the top. This way providing a powerful counter-incentive on creating new accounts to spam-bump. It would also limit the pool of accounts mods would have to get around banning.

Call me a mad man if you want, but I think if the community pulled together, and started reporting then it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Yeah, there's thousands of posts per day, but there's also thousands of members who could dedicate 10 minutes of their time to report it. Instead, they complain, and say there isn't enough moderators.

Preventing bumping from certain ranks is probably a decent idea which would help benefit the section, however the spam would still exist to get a false buzz for the coin/ICO. Plus, Jr Members are the ones that are regularly bumping to avoid detection in the patrol page. Member would likely be a better option, because it requires actually making good posts to get the rank. Therefore, only accounts that make good posts can bump threads.  

On another note, I don't think that outright deleting threads is a good response to spam-bumps. This leaves open the possibility of competitors purposefully targeting a thread with spam to take it down. Moreover, legitimate responses to the thread also are deducted from the post count of those that made them, which is unfair towards quality forum members.

It isn't. I've already mentioned one reason, however another reason is that airdrops, and promise of free coins or an exciting coin results in a lot of hype which unfortunately for us results in people posting low content to be part of the project. Not all of these messages are bumping intentionally.

This has been going on for months, and to probably combat this problem without taking extreme measures we'll likely have to combine a few things mentioned above. Something like preventing bumping from members who haven't earned over a certain merit threshold as well as getting together as a community, and reporting.

[TheBeardedBaby]

We are fighting this war for quite some time.
If you were here a few days ago / one week or two?/ you could have seen it for yourself - the bumping services in  action, they were posting for 3 seconds and deleting the comments. Theymos reacted quickly and the newbies couldn't delete their comments for 24 hours, it was quite a mess, but many bots were reported and banned.
You can see the video I made here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4378072

Don't worry, many people are reporting, so we gonna clean the forum

[digaran]

We need to reward good and long term reporters with something, there needs to be some sort of incentive for people to report, I'd say that we should also increase the numbers of moderators, without them there is no use for reporting.

Personally I am not interested in garbage coins and their scam ICOs, therefore I wont visit that section at all, I think altcoin section should be removed entirely, there is nothing there other than scam.

[bitart]

...
Don't worry, many people are reporting, so we gonna clean the forum

as the saying goes: the more the merrier

We need to reward good and long term reporters with something
....

Just don't offer merit for that, because all the bounty hunters would register new account for spam and they will report them with their 'old' account to get promoted....
Not an easy question...

[alani123]

I hope Theymos has seen the idea about removing 'bump powers' of low ranking members. I think it's a good solution that should be given some consideration.

[alani123]

God dammit, the example thread I had provided in the OP (now trashed) has been re-posted and is again being spammed. Those spammers are persistent. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4468662.0