Massive account farmer?

[cellard]

I was replying in a thread and I found like an entire page of newbie accounts replying, and it seemed a bit too similar in style, basically the classic bitcointalk broken english goodness, but this is special because he didn't even bother making it less obvious, it seems he went full commando:

Satoshi nakamoto the anonymous name of the bicoin inventor. He has a wallet but is it belongs satoshi nakamoto. I have some  confusion about that but if I wrong then sorry for that.

Satoshi nakamoto the anonymous name of the bicoin inventor. He has a wallet but is it belongs satoshi nakamoto. I have some  confusion about that but if I wrong then sorry for that.

No, This news can't be true. Satoshi is the father of this technology and an expert economist can't do it. why he is selling so much Bitcoin right now when price is slightly low, not selling in the beginning of the year while price was so high. whatever, This is not the right time to sold Bitcoin.

I am getting this kind of news for a long time but it sounds like baseless rumor to me. Besides if he has this amount of Bitcoin I don’t think he would be able to sell with current price

I think this news has no base and probably fake. I have seen so many news about Satoshi Nakamato’s asset and huge amount of Bitcoin but got no proof about those. That’s why it looks fake to me

How it is possible! The father of Bitcoin making lose.why didn't he seel at the very begining of this year when price was so high. I cann't believe the informations.

This is insane. This is really a huge amount of money and I think no can beat this man with this amount of asset. If he sells his Bitcoin I think the price will be plummeted and the market will be drowned

I first welcome Satoshi, the father of Bitcoin technology. I think this news is fake.According to you, he is selling 111000 bitcoins whilst bitcoins price is low, why he didn't sell them beginning of this year when price was high. I don't believe this news.

After researching about the Bitcoin community members i can find a person name "Satoshi Nakamato"has huge wallet containing over $802 million.

The article is not clearly clarify that Nakamoto belong this wallet . It’s a good news that the wallet is active after long time. We can not surely that Nakamoto own this. It need prove to know the truth behind it.

we get to know or hear many news regrading this place,  it is not important that every single of them will be true so I would request the users to be smart enough about which decision you will like to believe and which one you should otherwise you will be confused and influenced

I heard they this news is fake, but what is actually the fact or the situation is we really don't know about this yet, do I would request the users to not to believe anything until you don't get to know about this from any valid sources

I am not sure about this news cause I have still get any confirmation from the valid sources but if he is doing this then there must be some logical reason behind this so we better keep patience till we don't able to know anything surely

I am tottaly confused about your post. And I am not sure but this wallet is not belongs satoshi. So can you make sense your post to me.

There is no evidence that Satoshi owns a wallet and there is no confidential base that's why i think this a fake news and not authentic. bitcoin future very good and probable.

This is probably a fake news But I'm not sure or there is no evidence that this wallet is owned by Satoshi. Although it is secret and its foundation is not yet confirmed. And if Satoshi is such a big owner of Bitcoin, then he will never sell it at this stage.

I do not really know  the real story or the news. I really can not think about this. If Satoshi is the real man who is the founder of Bitcoin then satoshi will not do anything like this.

I don't know is it real of fake. i think it will fake. but I don't know if what is the real truth this case is still under investigation. i want to know more about this.

There's nothing too wrong about the replies, it isn't that bad from a noob PoV that just joined the forum... it's just how ridiculous it is that its entire pages of what I suspect may be same person hardcore farming. I mean the first 2 replies are copy pasted lol.

[hilariousetc]

Nothing too wrong? They're pure shit spread over dozens of accounts, but that's bitcointalk for you. Ball is in theymos' court now if he wants to do something about it.

You missed these ones as well:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2313673     MarshMagpie     July 29, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2313625     CrashGangster July 29, 2018

They belong to a farmer who was farming hundreds of accounts and I've probably banned 50+. All his usernames were just two random words put together. He's now joined a ICO campaign on those two and god knows how many others. This is why Juniors and Newbies need their signature removing completely.

[AT101ET]

Clearly linked accounts. It’d be cool if the new forum software (whenever/if it is introduced) would have an in-built feature that automatically detects multiple accounts based on the writing style and IP address. Although the merit system aims to discourage such posts, the current and more practical way to stop it is through tagging the alt accounts. Well spotted though.

[hilariousetc]

Clearly linked accounts. It’d be cool if the new forum software (whenever/if it is introduced) would have an in-built feature that automatically detects multiple accounts based on the writing style and IP address. Although the merit system aims to discourage such posts, the current and more practical way to stop it is through tagging the alt accounts. Well spotted though.

This forum can already find alts based on IPs etc but only admins have access to that info, but I hope the new forum software does have more features like Browser Fingerprinting available to them. I've suggested this before but theymos seemed a little uncertain about it and said that he really didn't "want bitcointalk.org to be known as the #1 forum on the leading edge of de-anonymization technology". A lot of forums do actually already have these features anyway and if a new one is to be created then it should also at least be there and theymos can chose whether to use it or not and on a case by case basis. Designing a new forum software from scratch and not having this feature would be like creating a new phone that doesn't have GPS or something (sure, people could use it for bad, but it's also a very useful feature to have for obvious reasons). Whether theymos wants to actually use it or not or give access to other admins is another issue, but I think the feature should at least be there as opposed to not existing at all. It obviously shouldn't be abused but it would be a great tool in finding huge abuses such as farming and botting. Most people are smart enough to use different IPs for each account but they're likely not going to be using a different computer or browser for each one and that's where this is helpful.

Relevant post:

I've never heard of this either. Tor and VPNs are meant to protect you against this sort of stuff and I doubt even the CIA can find this info if you're smart enough (though I believe VPNs can accidentally leak your IP in some ways). What you might be thinking of is browser fingerprinting though which can be very useful to catch alts and just using a proxy won't help you (and I think this should be on the new forum). You might use a different IP for your accounts but you almost certainly won't be using a unique PC or browser for each of your alts and accounts could be collated and searched by them and cross referenced with other data etc.  

A year or two ago I was researching fingerprinting techniques that'd work against pretty much anyone with JavaScript enabled, and I found several promising leads on that front. But then it occurred to me that I don't really want bitcointalk.org to be known as the #1 forum on the leading edge of de-anonymization technology, so I stopped pursuing it seriously...

IMO The most interesting idea I had was that you could probably fingerprint based on latency even via Tor using long-term data collection. A Tor connection looks like:

Code:

User --- ISP --- Guard --- Mid --- Exit --- Server
      A       B         C       D        E

The latencies of connections A, B, and A+B are good fingerprint values; ISPs should have statistically-significant differences in latency to the server if the latency can be determined with enough accuracy. Latency will also uniquely vary over time; ie. latency will go up slightly when your ISP is busy, the schedule of which will be distinguishing. Additionally, Tor selects a handful of guards when it starts and then uses only those, so if you can figure out the complete list of guards, this fingerprints a long-term Tor session across sites and logins.

Connection E can be directly measured, as can A+B+C+D+E if JS is enabled. That alone may be enough for fingerprinting A+B if you collect data over a long period of time. You'd roughly model the random latency distribution of C+D across the entire Tor network (which is not that large and is predictable in several non-obvious ways); then since you have a whole bunch of A+B+C+D+E and E measurements, you can get a good idea of A+B.

You might be able to do even better by taking into account these facts: Tor changes to a new random Mid and Exit every 10 minutes, but it only affects new TCP connections. So you can usually control the timing exactly by opening TCP connections via JS. And it chooses a random Guard only from a small set, with that set being chosen only at the start of the long-term Tor session. So you might be able to get the guard identities (or a fingerprint of the guard identities) and info about the latencies by collecting latency data every 10 minutes via JS and looking at the clusters formed by the handful of different guards.

On a MITM attack, you can do even better. If you control both Mid and the server, then you know C, D, E, and the Guard identity. A+B is then trivial to calculate. There are only about 6000 Tor nodes, so if you only run one Tor non-exit node, you have something like a 1/6000 chance every 10 minutes to fingerprint the user this way. (That's a really rough estimate; the odds are better because you can exploit Tor behaviors like its IP-space diversity requirements, but worse because selection is not random, and is also based on things like seniority and bandwidth.) Additionally, if a user happens to choose your node as a guard when he starts his Tor session (so a smallish chance ~per day rather than per 10 minutes), then you can completely deanonymize him (ie. get his IP address) when he visits the site; this is a well-known attack which the NSA & friends are probably doing all the time on a very large scale.

[haiconthanlancon]

I see some people raising tens or even hundreds of accounts. But I do not understand what their purpose is? Maybe I'm a fool.

[hilariousetc]

I see some people raising tens or even hundreds of accounts. But I do not understand what their purpose is? Maybe I'm a fool.

Plenty of reasons, but mostly people farm them to claim bounties or join signature campaigns. Most people aren't going to get past Junior Member these days due to the Merit system so to maximise profits they farm numerous accounts to post their one liners over.

Found some more of the ones I posted about above this morning:

You missed these ones as well:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2313673     MarshMagpie     July 29, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2313625     CrashGangster July 29, 2018 MODULE

They belong to a farmer who was farming hundreds of accounts and I've probably banned 50+. All his usernames were just two random words put together. He's now joined a ICO campaign on those two and god knows how many others. This is why Juniors and Newbies need their signature removing completely.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2312003 NervousWolf July 28, 2018 Blupass
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2313616 LuckyOctopus July 29, 2018 Blupass
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2311994 BumblingBee July 28, 2018 [ CINDX ]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2312156 GhostKnight July 28, 2018 Neluns
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2313673 MarshMagpie July 29, 2018 GABROTECH.io
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2312105 AmazingTiger July 28, 2018 MODULE
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2311965 ImpulseGhost July 28, 2018 GABROTECH.io
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2312161 SummerHamster July 28, 2018 MODULE
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2316030 ChainFish July 30, 2018 Blupass
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2312006 MidnightNugget July 28, 2018 ServAdvisor
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2306508 CanyonsBull July 25, 2018 GABROTECH.io
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2318642 InnocentDemon July 31, 2018 GABROTECH.io
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2312143 PureDefender July 28, 2018 Peoples Token
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2313732 WaterSeal July 29, 2018 [ CINDX ]
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2349683 MagicalSwan August 16, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2349667 DimHorse August 16, 2018

There will be dozens more of these. If you look through the threads they post in you'll be able to find more.

Possibly related or belong to another user:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2101975 RottenSteel May 10, 2018,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2110494 ShutterTeeth May 12, 2018,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2111315 LuckyHarriet May 13, 2018,

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1855538 MontagueEugene February 19, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1855520 RoryDennis February 19, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1935566 DonnieMitchel March 13, 2018,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1855545 FosterEgan February 19, 2018


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1666369 EvelynAriana January 11, 2018,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1646474 IsabellaSophia January 10, 2018

Posting back to back here:



Check their posts. All generic two liners from (mostly) Juniors because that's all they need to do to get paid and that's why Juniors and Newbies shouldn't be able to have signature. If they didn't then all the above behaviour and abuse would be severely curbed.

[cellard]

Nothing too wrong? They're pure shit spread over dozens of accounts, but that's bitcointalk for you. Ball is in theymos' court now if he wants to do something about it.

You missed these ones as well:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2313673     MarshMagpie     July 29, 2018
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2313625     CrashGangster July 29, 2018

They belong to a farmer who was farming hundreds of accounts and I've probably banned 50+. All his usernames were just two random words put together. He's now joined a ICO campaign on those two and god knows how many others. This is why Juniors and Newbies need their signature removing completely.

You may not have understood what I meant. I basically said that if it was just one account, the posts could be understandable in the context of a noob that just joined the forum and has no idea and is just learning, mixed with probably not native english. Not the end of the world.

The problem is of course this is just the same guy spamming with a million accounts. If anything, this proves that the merit system has not really stopped farmers motivation in continuing going at it.

I still believe more resources should be put into account recovery. Once that is sorted once and for all then put more resources in stopping these guys. For now just ban hammer these obvious dupes.

[Harlot]

You may be right as they based their argument around Satoshi Nakamoto being the founder of BTC but it is not enough to really to tag all of them as farmed accounts. The good thing is they are low ranking accounts which if they are really farmed accounts their value would be less compared to Sr. Members and above. Here we can see that the merit system is also stopping the advancement of this kinds of business as ranking up one account is hard to do what more if you are trying to rank up multiple accounts with your spammy plagiarized posts?

[AT101ET]

You may be right as they based their argument around Satoshi Nakamoto being the founder of BTC but it is not enough to really to tag all of them as farmed accounts. The good thing is they are low ranking accounts which if they are really farmed accounts their value would be less compared to Sr. Members and above. Here we can see that the merit system is also stopping the advancement of this kinds of business as ranking up one account is hard to do what more if you are trying to rank up multiple accounts with your spammy plagiarized posts?

It’s not solely those posts that are suspicious. Whilst those two have clearly been copied and pasted, theniverall wroting style with the others is pretty much the same. Even if the accounts are all tied together I’d be surprised if half of them weren’t (possibly more than one account farmer).

[Alone055]

~snip

Seems like the normal shit that happens mostly in spam megathreads. Every single Junior account owner, involved in a bounty, finds it to be an opportunity for them to increase their posts for the week when they see a thread like that. That mostly happens in Bitcoin Discussion, Economics and Altcoin Discussion boards, though other boards are hit by this wave too but not this much.

I see some people raising tens or even hundreds of accounts. But I do not understand what their purpose is? Maybe I'm a fool.

Before, when an account only needed activity points to rank up, people used to create many accounts in order to farm then to a higher rank and then sell them all to earn Bitcoins, but now when they need Merit to rank up, they simply create multiple accounts and join bounty campaigns with all of them to scrap tokens.

[cellard]

You may be right as they based their argument around Satoshi Nakamoto being the founder of BTC but it is not enough to really to tag all of them as farmed accounts. The good thing is they are low ranking accounts which if they are really farmed accounts their value would be less compared to Sr. Members and above. Here we can see that the merit system is also stopping the advancement of this kinds of business as ranking up one account is hard to do what more if you are trying to rank up multiple accounts with your spammy plagiarized posts?

I think it's pretty obvious, this one looks like he didn't even realize he copy-pasted the same comment:

Satoshi nakamoto the anonymous name of the bicoin inventor. He has a wallet but is it belongs satoshi nakamoto. I have some  confusion about that but if I wrong then sorry for that.

Satoshi nakamoto the anonymous name of the bicoin inventor. He has a wallet but is it belongs satoshi nakamoto. I have some  confusion about that but if I wrong then sorry for that.

Theymos could look at IP's to see if they are all the same. I think this guy may not be bright enough to switch IP's between accounts to make it less obvious... given how obvious it at least seems on the surface just judging by posting styles.

~snip

Indeed. Perhaps the merit system motivates them even more than before to farm a bunch of accounts because they know that they will never reach an higher status, so they are taking an approach that's basically joining the lowest requirement campaigns and stacking up all the little rewards into something that's probably worth them for them in a 3rd world country.

[AT101ET]

Indeed. Perhaps the merit system motivates them even more than before to farm a bunch of accounts because they know that they will never reach an higher status, so they are taking an approach that's basically joining the lowest requirement campaigns and stacking up all the little rewards into something that's probably worth them for them in a 3rd world country.

I think that lots of users just aren't aware of the merit system and if they are, aren't fully aware of what it means for them (them being new users). It's the hope that they can grow the accounts and farm them for sig campaigns/sell on to others to participate in sig campaigns that incentivises them to farm. If they were fully aware of the merit system I think we'd actually see fewer account farmers as they'd realise that their efforts would be futile.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I think that lots of users just aren't aware of the merit system and if they are, aren't fully aware of what it means for them (them being new users).

Nah.  I think it's this:

they simply create multiple accounts and join bounty campaigns with all of them to scrap tokens.

My guess is that word of bitcointalk has and continues to spread around the poorest communities in the poorest areas of the world, and that word also includes information about the merit system.  Look at how much of a hot topic it is in Meta.  The fact that merit is required to rank up hasn't exactly escaped even the most illiterate of spammers, and I don't think newbies are really ignorant of it.  

This illustrates one of the most glaring problems this forum still has, that low-ranked members can still get paid for posting through these shitty bounties that include signature campaigns in them.  A single member will join a bounty and they have to spam on FB, Twitter, youtube, and maybe even in a blog and then on top of all that, they still have to spam on bitcointalk.  

Add to this the fact that many members don't have just one account but multiple (sometimes many), AND the fact that most of these fools can't write English to save their lives, and you can easily see why their posts are complete garbage.  They don't have the time, the talent, or the motivation to write anything worth reading.  That's why you get shitpost-mill cretins churning out what you see identified in the OP here.

Also, Speculation is another section that's becoming mostly spam.  I visit it occasionally, usually when the bitcoin price is swinging high or low, but I generally don't post there since very little in that section is of value, and I suspect most of the posts don't even get read.

[cellard]

Indeed. Perhaps the merit system motivates them even more than before to farm a bunch of accounts because they know that they will never reach an higher status, so they are taking an approach that's basically joining the lowest requirement campaigns and stacking up all the little rewards into something that's probably worth them for them in a 3rd world country.

I think that lots of users just aren't aware of the merit system and if they are, aren't fully aware of what it means for them (them being new users). It's the hope that they can grow the accounts and farm them for sig campaigns/sell on to others to participate in sig campaigns that incentivises them to farm. If they were fully aware of the merit system I think we'd actually see fewer account farmers as they'd realise that their efforts would be futile.

I guess they have looked at the campaign requirements before starting a big account farming operation and they have assumed that the effort to reward ratio is favorable for them. I don't think they so dumb to start farming a bunch of accounts without a clear goal in mind... who the hell would do that? they must have something to gain.

I haven't looked at what the requirements are currently for low paying campaigns but im sure there are some gigs out there that may not even require much merit. For instance the campaigns that will get you on board if you join their telegram, post on twitter and other social media related to the project.. they may not care about merit at all.

Trying to enforce rules on minimum requirement campaigns is not of my taste.. people should be free to require whatever they want as a manager. It's the mods duty to clean the most obvious spammers.

[haiconthanlancon]

Plenty of reasons, but mostly people farm them to claim bounties or join signature campaigns. Most people aren't going to get past Junior Member these days due to the Merit system so to maximise profits they farm numerous accounts to post their one liners over.

Before, when an account only needed activity points to rank up, people used to create many accounts in order to farm then to a higher rank and then sell them all to earn Bitcoins, but now when they need Merit to rank up, they simply create multiple accounts and join bounty campaigns with all of them to scrap tokens.

Thanks for letting me know. I hope Bitcointalk will take measures to limit those junk accounts