Rapid shitposting attack

[suchmoon]

Stumbled upon one shitposter churning out posts two minutes apart, reported their posts:
TheDonBuja (temp-banned?)

Now there is a bunch of others:
Kamilaz (temp-banned?)
benkhalil3
iwnlfr (temp-banned?)
aiguy (temp-banned)
etc

Edit - a few more found by LoyceV:
KimberlyCon (temp-banned?)
0nline (banned)

Found by GazetaBitcoin:
Lightz1337 (banned) [hf]
YikesAu (temp-banned?)
seocrush (banned)
nathanaelung (banned)
g2ingoin (banned)
daviebcoys (banned)
MarkoAlonso (banned)
fernquaker (banned)
arecoba20 (banned)

Found by TheBeardedBaby:
proscratcher (banned)

These are kind of spammy but perhaps not as egregious as the spammers above:
FYeah [hf]
Sakhill [hf]
FaceTehWind [hf]
aldanstep1 (banned)
LeDonna (banned)
PhoNam (banned)
Detrix

Not sure what's going on, perhaps actmyname is testing our vigilance (Edit: apologies to Timelord2067 for an inappropriate joke), or the mythical AI is finally here (one of the users is called "aiguy" LOL), or maybe just a bored shitposter trying to earn a merit through sheer volume. At any rate, reporting those posts individually seems like a massive waste of time for everyone involved so perhaps a mod or an admin could check patrol and nuke them, TYVM.


Edit
It turned out to be a (likely scammy) money-making "method" initiated on hackforums. Users marked with [hf] above are suspected to have posted in the hackforums thread but most of the listed users are likely participants of the scheme.

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[LoyceV]

I noticed them too:

This is new: 4 Newbies, 3 of them Copper Members, posting in the same topic in Project Development:

Haha! This one is so cool and useful too! Thanks alot, man!

I've never seen anything like that before, nice work

Thank you for sharing this, it is a really cool project. Have been looking for something like this for a while!

Pretty good script and useful for people who have their addresses stored in desktop, perrsonally for me its no use since I get new address for every transaction.

That last one made 59 posts within 1.5 hours after registration and modlog shows 19 deleted posts already.

I'm curious: what's their angle? The usual spammer doesn't pay for Copper Membership first, and this one looks like he created several paid accounts.

Copper Member Kamilaz made 250 posts since yesterday. But why?

On my Active users and top posters page they instantly stand out: several new users with more posts than anyone else. I was just considering creating a topic for it, but you beat me to it.

[btcltcdigger]

Off-topic seems to be a breeding ground for these new account farmers.
Maybe like Ivory Tower, off-topic should be locked for anyone with less than i dunno, 5 merit

[Upgrade00]

<snip>

This would result in spammers finding a new convenient board to spam, clogging up the rest of the forum, and putting more work load on mods/staffs.
Imo, it's better confined to the off topic section, every board already has its fair share of spam.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I reported six of aiguy's posts, which I believe were for necrobumping threads that were at least a couple of months old with shitposts.  I was starting to see that happening quite a bit, and it was annoying the hell out of me.

Not sure what's going on, perhaps actmyname is testing our vigilance, or the mythical AI is finally here (one of the users is called "aiguy" LOL)

I doubt this is actmyname's doing (though I would never rule that out), nor do I think skynet has become self-aware yet.  More likely these are morons trying to boost their post count with garbage posts.  I'm not sure why the necrobumping happened, though.  It's not like there aren't hundreds of threads that are still active that a shitposter could hide one of their "gems" in, where it wouldn't get reported and probably wouldn't even get noticed.

Edit:

It could be a test-run: AI writing messages on Bitcointalk.org.

Huh.  You could very well be right, though I'd say if these posts were AI-written they're failing miserably on the forum so far. 

Related to the list suchmoon posted, I've noticed that Polo7 and spy100 have been creating threads that are incredibly spammy.  I even reported this post by Polo7 in which he asks for a donation, which is borderline begging IMO.

[LoyceV]

nor do I think skynet has become self-aware yet.

It could be a test-run: AI writing messages on Bitcointalk.org.

Read this:

In my early experiments with GPT-3 I found that GPT-3’s predicted sentences, when published on the bitcointalk.org forum, attracted lots of positive attention from posters there, including suggestions that the system must have been intelligent (and/or sarcastic) and that it had found subtle patterns in their posts.
~
I chose bitcointalk.org as the target environment for my experiments for a variety of reasons: It is a popular forum with many types of posts and posters.
~
I posted about one interesting tech topic every day in May, alternating between using my own words and paraphrasing my previous post with GPT-3’s help. I didn’t take special care to make these GPT-3-enhanced posts blend in well.
~
I have a confession: I did not write the above article. ~ This article was fully written by GPT-3.

An AI test-run would actually explain why someone would spend $100+ on Copper Memberships!

[Coyster]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2664193

This user alone has made about 64 posts today (mind you that the day is not over yet, so that number could still rise).

More likely these are morons trying to boost their post count with garbage posts.

@aiguy already has 271 posts, and that users post history shows he started posting on September 4, 2020 (only four days ago) I don't know if he deleted previous posts as the account was created last year, btw this case looks far more than filling their post count (which is already filled, lol), looks more to me like spamming brazenly without remorse and on purpose, which imo should get them nuked.

[hosseinimr93]

@aiguy already has 271 posts, and that users post history shows he started posting on September 4, 2020 (only four days ago) I don't know if he deleted previous posts as the account was created last year,

The account was inactive until September 4. According to Loyce.club, there is no post made by aiguy before September 04, 2020.
This user has made 282 posts so far. 6 of them have been deleted.

[suchmoon]

~

Detrix might be not part of that group, unless the "AI" speaks Romanian and has different velocity settings (fewer posts for that user).

TheDonBuja was the first one I noticed... 19 deleted posts was my attempt to clean it up. Added the other two to the OP.

[Harlot]

I don't see a benefit from what they are doing right now. If they are trying to earn a merit with "sheer volume" I think they won't get any as one-liners especially the ones without sense won't be attracting any merits in their way, quality is always more important compared to the quantity of posts you are making in the forum. These might just be newbies who think that they can still rank up just by activity alone or they are just persons who have a lot of time and wasting it on senseless post.

[NotATether]

I doubt this is actmyname's doing (though I would never rule that out), nor do I think skynet has become self-aware yet.

It can't be him, because I reported one of the accounts (0nline) for plagiarism in nearly all of their posts in the Technical Discussion board. That account is nuked now.

Also, I don't think he'd be willing to blow ~0.016BTC on a bunch of copper memberships for an experiment.

[Timelord2067]

Your proof @actmyname is behind these accounts is based on what exactly? (and you recon I make baseless accusations  ) Time to put up ...

[suchmoon]

aiguy has been temp-banned: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5274516

Edit: for some reason the ban appeal topic vanished and the appeal account seems to have been nuked, see LoyceV's archive here and here.

Your proof @actmyname is behind these accounts is based on what exactly? (and you recon I make baseless accusations   ) Time to put up ...

I apologize for failing to consider your inability to grasp the joke. I have modified the OP to make it clear.

[Timelord2067]

...

No proof offered.  Got it.

Fortunately I was able to archive your little "joke" for future reference.  Archive [1a], [1b]

Given how out of control the actual admin/mods are in deleting posts (especially ones about themselves) it's probably a good thing you don't have keys to the Forum otherwise we may never have had their alt's "I've been banned" posts to read.

[suchmoon]

~

I tried translating to Klingon, didn't help. No idea what you're talking about.

Do you have anything to contribute on the topic, e.g. find out who's sockpuppeting the spam accounts?

[Timelord2067]

~

I tried translating to Klingon, didn't help. No idea what you're talking about.

Do you have anything to contribute on the topic, e.g. find out who's sockpuppeting the spam accounts?

If you're inviting me to investigate, then sure I'll have a look for you.  I've just finished up this investigation https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2544574.msg55154010#msg55154010 perhaps you'd like to have a look at it first?

(this is LoyceV counting post #2118 / My post #6200 (that survive))

[suchmoon]

If you're inviting me to investigate, then sure I'll have a look for you.

You've invited yourself. I would prefer that you stayed out of my threads but free speech and all that shit so at least try to be on topic.

I've just finished up this investigation https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2544574.msg55154010#msg55154010 perhaps you'd like to have a look at it first?

I won't.

[LoyceV]

Detrix might be not part of that group,

It's not a Copper Member either, so doesn't fit in.

I think I found a few more, all Copper Members:
FYeah (created in 2017)
Sakhill (created 2 days ago)
FaceTehWind (created in 2016)

I only noticed those because they post a lot. There could be many more that are "hiding" by only making a few posts.

[GazetaBitcoin]

I also found two profiles with the same pattern:

- Lightz1337 - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2851193
- YikesAu - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2848953

Lightz1337 is not Copper Member indeed, but if you look at his posts, you'll see so many of them being posted just before / after a post of Kamilaz or aiguy. It may be connected to these accounts as well.

So what is this? A big farm of accounts sponsoring the forum by paying for Copper memberships at the price of spam?

[TheBeardedBaby]

If you going to maintain a list of those shitposters, I'm aslo throwing one, but got banned, anyway I think it's a parft of the same spamming crowd.
proscratcher https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2579564

Thanks to the LoyceVs lists those are easly exposed.