How do these accounts get manually approved? I always thought the manual approval process was eyeballing a long list of accounts and picking obvious scammed ones out. But how would a list of zhiyinXXX, routingXXX, and prefixXXX pages long get past it?
Furthermore, if Steemit Inc doesn't diligently remove delegation from these accounts, and other groups of spam accounts it encourages the abusers to abuse more.
There are groups of accounts like this that are solely being used to spam the blockchain for penny votes that can add up to tens or hundreds of dollars. But they shit all over the blockchain and the nodes that make up the network to do it. Spammers like this are partially responsible for the inflated network utilization, compared to how it would be if it was just legitimate users.
This spam leads to prohibitive resource use, which has a significant negative impact on existing services and adds barriers to entry for new ones. For example, Poloniex's wallet is still down and I struggle to think why besides the resource requirements for a Steem node.
Growth is imperative but the drag from this kind of thing can keep Steem from flying higher. It is an issue which I have personally raised on multiple occasions and I still don't think it's taken seriously enough. The approval of obvious groups of accounts like this is a prime example.
Ultimately Steem's health is up to all of its users, not just Steemit Inc. @Patrice and the @Spaminator team have been doing an amazing job for the Steem ecosystem in counteracting this type of costly spam.
However, if Steemit Inc creates spam botnets it is important they take the job of undelegation seriously, to mitigate the damage to the network. It's also more important to do things to prevent the creation of new accounts for botnets.
You said this much nicer than I would have. But...
STINC is obviously the problem, they have claimed that they have solutions for onboarding (a claim that they made almost a year ago), and here we are with the same issues and the continued incompetence a year later.
Just like they created a worse blogging/interaction/reward allocation environment with their completely misguided/ignorant hard forks last spring, they have yielded terrible results regarding account creation and delegation for exploiters and spam networks. And just as they’ve done with their hard forks, they’re completely ignoring the consequences of their actions and the calls from those who see the train wreck in progress.
Also, as you pointed out - the fact that they allegedly have a “manual” approval process makes this even worse, as these are obviously exploits/spammers. This just reinforces the fact that they are incompetent and/or indifferent about both their decisions and the consequences, which does nothing but discourage investment and decrease confidence in their so-called “leadership role” on the blockchain.
It really is a shame that these clowns control such a large stake in all of this. It’s a great disservice to both the blockchain and anyone invested in it. But expecting things to change would be insane at this point. I’m just hoping that STINC is able to fully divest before the damage is irreparable. Though I’m not confident that we haven’t already reached the tipping point.
I expect the underlying problem is not just STINC. I expected the problem to arise in the game theory of a consortium blockchain combined with a flawed rewards model.
I warned the Steem community of this inevitable game theory outcome more than once since 2016:
The debasement of SP holders is not a complete picture of who pays, because the game theory for rewards indicates that perhaps hypothetically deviant whales could in theory offset any debasement and increase their share of the money supply. Although I haven’t developed a precise model, it appears that the more SP stake a holder controls, then proportionally some non-linear less debasement. Meaning I posit that the system appears to hypothetically economically favor concentration of the wealth to those who already concentrate the wealth in the deviant scenario.
There’s a solution to the game theory problem, but not with the current model. And the vested interests here will never change the existing model.
Actually this problem at the generative essence abstract level is just another power vacuum paradigm. Those who are the most ruthless always win the battle for the void in the power vacuum.
I expect the underlying problem is not just STINC.
Then your expectations are completely off-base. These accounts are being created at no cost to the exploiters by STINC. The approval of these large bot-nets and the delegated SP given to them comes directly from STINC. These exploiters are exploiting one of the (apparently) automated sign-up systems being run by STINC. They aren't exploiting the blockchain account creation protocols that would otherwise require them to fund the creation of their own bot-nets.
It isn't a blockchain problem. It's an incompetence-inside-the-halls-of-STINC problem...as usual.
Thanks for replying. I appreciate corrections and discussion.
My thesis is at a game theory meta level above the level you are referring to. You are looking at symptoms. I am referring to the root genesis of the problem.
What I am saying is that some vested interests are allowing that to happen and making sure it is allowed to continue to happen. Because of course they are profiting on it anonymously whilst employing their power within the consortium to prevent any fix from occurring.
This is always how the the-powers-that-be operate behind the curtain. This was explained years ago to the DPoS crowd but of course they refuse to listen:
Blaming it on incompetence is also sort of an incompetence. Some folks are feigning incompetence to fool the incompetent who do not look at the game theory of how political vacuums behave in the real world.
If you can somehow pressure them to fix STINC, they’ll come up with another scheme to extract the value out of the system. Because “they” control it. It’s pointless for me to investigate who “they” are, because they will not give up their control. Are they committing a crime?
Remove STINC and the void in the power vacuum will be won by the most ruthless. This is the way politics and democracy always work.
It’s naive or disingenuous to say that a consortium blockchain design has nothing to do with this. It was explained 3 years ago (and even before that) that voting (for witness, rewards, etc) requires rule by oligarchy otherwise it diverges into chaotic disagreement (and Daniel Larimer is frankly incorrect and does not comprehend Byzantine Fault Tolerance):
I am appreciative of you raising the issue. I even resteemed this blog (first I ever resteemed) to my 1800+ followers. I am also sensitive to the need to have a system which is objective. But for me the outcome is “sigh, don’t people ever learn that politics of voting for a collective is a power vacuum”.
Obviously they are not only gaining SP from the signup bonus but also presumably by using these sockpuppets to upvote groupwise to game the NON-LINEAR rewards system, which is what my aforementioned blog from 2016 predicted would happen. That blog of mine had explained that a linear vote weighting would not be viable. And a non-linear one of course can be gamed by collusion.
P.S. I believe STINC knows the end of Steem isn’t that far from now and they must extract maximum value while they still can.
When you say vacuum, do you mean economic bubble that may pop or are bubbles and vacuums complete opposites and cannot be compared at all, allegorically?
Wish you did bet, would have won a fortune @reko. it's 2 months and no reply as to how this went under the radar. My friend has been stuck on 'awaiting approval' for over a month now. I check the email everyday, still nothing. and this is what i see. it's crazy.
I create at least a dozen accounts a week for legit content creators (usually journalists with a decent social media following) that have been waiting on their registration for weeks with no response. Seeing the faucet mass register obvious bot accounts is infuriating and makes me wonder why I bother. Fix this bullshit STINC.
One has to assume these are created via an automated signup process. If there is any manual checking involved then one or more people at Steemit Inc are totally incapable of doing their job and should be fired.
If this is automated then there appears to be no verification in place at all.
I am no coder but I do know that it would not be at all difficult to code in some level of basic checking to prevent this sort of abuse.
... check if NEW ACCOUNT NAME is like PREVIOUS ACCOUNT NAMES created in last 24 hours
... IF YES halt registration and send for manual inspections
I am sure a coded version of that would be not beyond the capabilities of the crack team of developers at Steemit Inc. I suspect even the Intern could handle this.
Otherwise the delegation ends. Automatic, but should give effective outcomes.
Even if they circle upvote, the circle eventually comes to an end, compared to real content creators. Relative rates don't match up, those kinds of things might be solutions?
Should get rid of a lot of the scammers and spammers.
Same here, my friend was awaiting approval for a month. In the end I bought her an account. Next day she got a letter that the request got approved. Another one waited for a week. Me? I got lucky to be approved in the same day, otherwise I might not ever come here.
I have created accounts for people who gave up waiting, but not nearly that many. Many never receive their account. The amount of serial spam accounts approved is infuriating. How Dart registered 21,000+ accounts through the Steemit faucet blows my mind.
If they just want inflated activity numbers to show to potential investors, and they know potential investors don't give a shit about actually looking deeper into things, then there would be very obvious reasons why they would let it go on for so long. 21000 accounts that are nearly guaranteed to vote and not go completely dead until the delegation is withdrawn and the creation SP is drained really boosts the figures considering the active userbase here is so small.
i have told my friends about steem and they got interested in joining the steem community, they have signup since January this year and they haven't got their account opened yet, some of them have lost that interest and some are still waiting for a miracle. something have to be done.
I think you are going in the right direction and it seems to me that in time over site of the developing block chain could be delegated using algorithms to coding teams based on past performance in areas of competency and ethics. Just a thought. I'm incredibly novice to this system and fairly new user. I can see a lot of potential for abuse, but also see potential that block chain can allow a system able to level the playing field in ways humanity has yet to experience. Transparent algorithms can be trusted where people cannot
Of course we should consider this possibility. When STEEM was at $5 that meant that each new account was allocated $75 worth of SP. So 100 accounts being approved for a bot operator, that is a worth of $750 SP.
With numbers like that of course there is going to be a motive for collision/corruption. That could even happen at the lowest levels for example a person getting paid minimum wage to approve accounts.
That's true. Now that spammers are all over Steemit it has become harder for minnows to establish in this platform. Most probably they also think the best (and sometimes only) way to succeed on Steemit is pay bots and spammers to upvote them, which in the first place should not be the case.
Bottomline: THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED, and ASAP in that matter.
a couple of weeks ago I started inspecting steemit from day 1. The reason this is not fixed is because it's meant to be this way. A small group ( maybe 1 company ) mined all the original steem using so many accounts it would take weeks of longer just to sort through them all.
Auto vesting was used to feed several accounts that became the orginal whales plus many accounts that do show some activity. Many of these accounts have just been drained of all value. ( within a week or so), Now thanks to reading this post I see I continues today :-( Is there a private place to discuss this activity? and discuss corrective measures if possible at this point. Let me know.
Is there a private place to discuss this activity? and discuss corrective measures if possible at this point.
As for a private place, a few of my supporters discuss this in private using secure chat (Crypto.cat combined with another layer of encryption employing GPG). Because of the demands on my scarce available time, I don’t really want to open up that group to more participants unless you can offer some insight or assistance (that we don’t already have) to the project I am working on. I do not know of other private discussions. You might ask @smooth. He is not currently in our private group, but he is very well connected overall in this arena and afaics for the past 4 years his ethics are impeccable. He is also a Steem and Monero whale, as well as being one of the developers of Aeon and I believe he may have funded Busy.org so we have an alternative to the Steemit.com UI. So if you want to get something organized outside of our private group’s plans, he may be one of the guys to talk with.
I’m working on it. That link will lead you to other links to more discussion.
James Corbett allowed my comment regarding this issue at his page that publicized Steem recently. That is part of Corbett’s new series covering alternative social media platforms.
The only other place where I know this was discussed was at several Steem threads at Bitcointalk.org. But I am banned from that site. The main thread there was Steem pyramid revealed. You can find comments from my numerous past BCT accounts in that thread (my numerous attempts to evade the ban before I quit trying).
Note I’m not going to continue harping about this on Steem. I am busy on my project. It is up to you all to carry the torch of edification if you think it is helpful.
I'm happy to see that people are actively working on these issues. I'm not a techy but started following bread crumb trails by hand. It broke my heart what I found, but see talented people are on it.
Thanks for the speedy reply, I will follow from a distance and only step in further if I can offer something of value to the group. Together we stand divided we fall.
I feel so much better now.
Cheers
This thing need an attention. A little problem can be huge if this can get through. There are abusers everywhere and steemit is not excluded. Hope they can implement like 4 account per IP address or any problem solver. Thanks bringing this in our attention.
If you're a spammer, then changing IP address is like a piece of cake, and basically, with the current createAccount function built in on the Steem blockchain, you can create as many accounts as you want through couple lines of code if you have enough SP.
So the solution is not gonna be easy, it would involve in a big change of the blockchain design or we have to help the community altogether.
Actually 2FA would be the easy fix.
2FA aligns with the first rule of account creation.
Legitimate account creation that is. Where a mobile number is linked.
After that the internal account creation can simply limit the amount of accounts linked to each mobile device. There is no legitimate reason why anyone needs to have so many accounts on the same platform.
That is however, a sensible and intelligent way of combating the issue.
Such sense does not exist here. If someone isn't making money it's not going to work or even get implemented!
Agreed. The deeper issue here is: why impose limits on Steemit account creation and make onboarding harder for legit users, when current procedures fail at rooting out spammers.
IMO, the only thing that can be done is to remove limits on account creation and to target the incentives for spamming post-account creation, i.e. reduce rewards for spam and make it easier to report and penalise spammers.
Agreed. Accounts should be enabled immediately. It is the delegation that is a problem, not the accounts existence. If necessary, make the account wait for delegation, not creation.
The 4 account/IP address sounds like a great solution. At least it doesn't limit legit users who use the same PC. And it's true this needs attention and urgent fixing. There are people who are trying to resolve this issue though, but spammers move and propagate faster.
Agreed. Can you suggest solutions? We can put them altogether and meet halfway. This is one way we can help the Steemit community. But first, we need to provide a concrete possible solution to them.
Because of the technology behind it, the entire idea was decentralizing and freedom. The blockchain itself has very few if any rules. Preventing account creation isn't really a good thing either. Essentially each one is a wallet. And they require a loan or deposit to open an account. It's not bad for the price of Steem.
I think what needs to happen is at the interface level. There will always be people who build their own interfaces but for those who are doing so and community oriented- perhaps having a roundtable for them to share ideas, technology, blacklists, etc.— since most of the issues have to be handled at the interface level.
On interfaces willing to cooperate such as steemit, steepio, busy, esteem, faucet, etc. perhaps adding a similar username filter so usernames have to be significantly different when coming from the same IP or when registering in a similar time frame.
It may also be worth it to make multi-accounts created by existing users marked safe and be allowed delegation if they meet a certain criteria upon creation— recent positing activity, steem sincerity rank (human), rep 50+, no chetah flags, etc.
Steemit Inc remove its own corporate delegations when a rep hits -1
Or, simply stop Steemit Inc delegating to all new accounts. Require money. Hey, Medium does it.
Peer Review. Instead of a company reviewing the accounts, have a second role below WITNESS called Ambassadors who have the power to vote on new account approvals. And the people vote for Ambassadors like we vote for Witnesses.
Separate the downvote from the flag so that flagging abuse doesn't cost the community and make it universal on all platforms. Make an official downvote/thumbsdown button. And make the flag a reporting feature.
A report this post button on @steemplus@adsactly plugin would help immediately— if folks from steemcleaners, cheetah, etc. all wanted to get involved. Steemplus could make a seperate button almost immediately alerting various groups to spam.
Incentivize real content further.
Incentivize reporting spam (after separating it from the downvote)
I don't really know. :( I just wish I could introduce more people to the platform but it's frustrating. And it's an expectation jerk honestly.
great ideas here..Ambassadors - ending automatic SP delegation -both good ideas that would help to quicken the registration of legit users while preventing spammers from draining the system ...
Thinking outside the box here. Throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks really. I don't think ending all SP delegation is a good idea. I just think ending Steemit.com (and interfaces) from delegating SP is a good idea. As far as Ambassadors, I think how Utopian works is a good model also if they couldn't add a second role to the system.
Really great ideas @omitaylor. I most especially like and second your suggestions on peer review, separating downvote and flag, and the 'Report This Post' button. Will not say much but will tag @ned@steemitblog and two of the witnesses @timcliff@themarkymark hoping they'd notice.
Steemit requires unique mobile number while registration of account on which we receive OTP, but I guess spammers are abusing this system by making use of virtual mobile numbers too!
Well, this is my first comment and for what i read, you may be allowed to create as much as many accounts you are willing to pay for. That is what i understood, and that is on the game rules. During my first 5 minutes using the page i got 2 invitations from people who are following thousands and i wont call it a scam but just a lame way to fall in other corporate crap like FB.
the question is, who is the responsible for this negligence? If no one to blame, what can we do about it? It might benefit the rise of account users to attract more users, but this are all spam users.
I'm too much of a noob to comment something about this but thanks for sharing this info, this is crazy, I wasn't aware of that they could abuse this to that level, I mean 80 accounts? That's a little too much even for spammers. I know that there's a lot of people experiencing problems with the creation process, there's alot of asking me about the possible solutions at steemchat, I had a difficult time while trying to join too, Anyway, thanks for sharing this info, it's a subject to be taken in consideration.
These are all the whales. They are self-appointed hall monitors who have finally successfully killed off Steemit for the average person. They create bot upon bot for themselves, but prohibit others from doing it.
Sadly, this platform has become a blockchain joke. I really had such high hopes for this place.
Steemit Inc makes the accounts, this is all about bad actors abusing the Steem Faucet, some of them can be whales but I highly doubt it, there are much more efficient ways to abuse the system if you already have Steem Power (and thus a whale).
Ohh my, what's happening right now with Steemit. Our new community members struggle to make an account (can't even get emails after a month), and this thing happened.
I thought they're doing it manually? They should've known that!
How do these accounts get manually approved? I always thought the manual approval process was eyeballing a long list of accounts and picking obvious scammed ones out. But how would a list of zhiyinXXX, routingXXX, and prefixXXX pages long get past it?
Furthermore, if Steemit Inc doesn't diligently remove delegation from these accounts, and other groups of spam accounts it encourages the abusers to abuse more.
There are groups of accounts like this that are solely being used to spam the blockchain for penny votes that can add up to tens or hundreds of dollars. But they shit all over the blockchain and the nodes that make up the network to do it. Spammers like this are partially responsible for the inflated network utilization, compared to how it would be if it was just legitimate users.
This spam leads to prohibitive resource use, which has a significant negative impact on existing services and adds barriers to entry for new ones. For example, Poloniex's wallet is still down and I struggle to think why besides the resource requirements for a Steem node.
Growth is imperative but the drag from this kind of thing can keep Steem from flying higher. It is an issue which I have personally raised on multiple occasions and I still don't think it's taken seriously enough. The approval of obvious groups of accounts like this is a prime example.
Ultimately Steem's health is up to all of its users, not just Steemit Inc. @Patrice and the @Spaminator team have been doing an amazing job for the Steem ecosystem in counteracting this type of costly spam.
However, if Steemit Inc creates spam botnets it is important they take the job of undelegation seriously, to mitigate the damage to the network. It's also more important to do things to prevent the creation of new accounts for botnets.
You said this much nicer than I would have. But...
STINC is obviously the problem, they have claimed that they have solutions for onboarding (a claim that they made almost a year ago), and here we are with the same issues and the continued incompetence a year later.
Just like they created a worse blogging/interaction/reward allocation environment with their completely misguided/ignorant hard forks last spring, they have yielded terrible results regarding account creation and delegation for exploiters and spam networks. And just as they’ve done with their hard forks, they’re completely ignoring the consequences of their actions and the calls from those who see the train wreck in progress.
Also, as you pointed out - the fact that they allegedly have a “manual” approval process makes this even worse, as these are obviously exploits/spammers. This just reinforces the fact that they are incompetent and/or indifferent about both their decisions and the consequences, which does nothing but discourage investment and decrease confidence in their so-called “leadership role” on the blockchain.
It really is a shame that these clowns control such a large stake in all of this. It’s a great disservice to both the blockchain and anyone invested in it. But expecting things to change would be insane at this point. I’m just hoping that STINC is able to fully divest before the damage is irreparable. Though I’m not confident that we haven’t already reached the tipping point.
I expect the underlying problem is not just STINC. I expected the problem to arise in the game theory of a consortium blockchain combined with a flawed rewards model.
I warned the Steem community of this inevitable game theory outcome more than once since 2016:
Blog rewards CAN’T be widely distributed
Who pays for the blogging and curation rewards? (Part 2):
“Consortium blockchains” (e.g. DPoS & Tendermint) can’t Internet scale
There’s a solution to the game theory problem, but not with the current model. And the vested interests here will never change the existing model.
Actually this problem at the generative essence abstract level is just another power vacuum paradigm. Those who are the most ruthless always win the battle for the void in the power vacuum.
Then your expectations are completely off-base. These accounts are being created at no cost to the exploiters by STINC. The approval of these large bot-nets and the delegated SP given to them comes directly from STINC. These exploiters are exploiting one of the (apparently) automated sign-up systems being run by STINC. They aren't exploiting the blockchain account creation protocols that would otherwise require them to fund the creation of their own bot-nets.
It isn't a blockchain problem. It's an incompetence-inside-the-halls-of-STINC problem...as usual.
Thanks for replying. I appreciate corrections and discussion.
My thesis is at a game theory meta level above the level you are referring to. You are looking at symptoms. I am referring to the root genesis of the problem.
What I am saying is that some vested interests are allowing that to happen and making sure it is allowed to continue to happen. Because of course they are profiting on it anonymously whilst employing their power within the consortium to prevent any fix from occurring.
This is always how the the-powers-that-be operate behind the curtain. This was explained years ago to the DPoS crowd but of course they refuse to listen:
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/#example-2-delegated-proof-of-stake-dpos
Blaming it on incompetence is also sort of an incompetence. Some folks are feigning incompetence to fool the incompetent who do not look at the game theory of how political vacuums behave in the real world.
If you can somehow pressure them to fix STINC, they’ll come up with another scheme to extract the value out of the system. Because “they” control it. It’s pointless for me to investigate who “they” are, because they will not give up their control. Are they committing a crime?
Remove STINC and the void in the power vacuum will be won by the most ruthless. This is the way politics and democracy always work.
It’s naive or disingenuous to say that a consortium blockchain design has nothing to do with this. It was explained 3 years ago (and even before that) that voting (for witness, rewards, etc) requires rule by oligarchy otherwise it diverges into chaotic disagreement (and Daniel Larimer is frankly incorrect and does not comprehend Byzantine Fault Tolerance):
http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/#money-and-politics
I am appreciative of you raising the issue. I even resteemed this blog (first I ever resteemed) to my 1800+ followers. I am also sensitive to the need to have a system which is objective. But for me the outcome is “sigh, don’t people ever learn that politics of voting for a collective is a power vacuum”.
Obviously they are not only gaining SP from the signup bonus but also presumably by using these sockpuppets to upvote groupwise to game the NON-LINEAR rewards system, which is what my aforementioned blog from 2016 predicted would happen. That blog of mine had explained that a linear vote weighting would not be viable. And a non-linear one of course can be gamed by collusion.
P.S. I believe STINC knows the end of Steem isn’t that far from now and they must extract maximum value while they still can.
When you say vacuum, do you mean economic bubble that may pop or are bubbles and vacuums complete opposites and cannot be compared at all, allegorically?
Follow all the links you find in order to understand power vacuums.
THANK YOU!
FORK! FORK! FORK! FORK!
!dramatoken
Such drama, you've earned a DRAMA!
To view or trade
DRAMAgo to steem-engine.com.let me guess, they will answer with silence. Any bets?
Wish you did bet, would have won a fortune @reko. it's 2 months and no reply as to how this went under the radar. My friend has been stuck on 'awaiting approval' for over a month now. I check the email everyday, still nothing. and this is what i see. it's crazy.
Amen.
Wow amazing very excited?
I create at least a dozen accounts a week for legit content creators (usually journalists with a decent social media following) that have been waiting on their registration for weeks with no response. Seeing the faucet mass register obvious bot accounts is infuriating and makes me wonder why I bother. Fix this bullshit STINC.
One has to assume these are created via an automated signup process. If there is any manual checking involved then one or more people at Steemit Inc are totally incapable of doing their job and should be fired.
If this is automated then there appears to be no verification in place at all.
I am no coder but I do know that it would not be at all difficult to code in some level of basic checking to prevent this sort of abuse.
... check if NEW ACCOUNT NAME is like PREVIOUS ACCOUNT NAMES created in last 24 hours
... IF YES halt registration and send for manual inspections
I am sure a coded version of that would be not beyond the capabilities of the crack team of developers at Steemit Inc. I suspect even the Intern could handle this.
Or maybe they just don't care...
You are correct, it should not even be a problem to discuss, so easy it is to fix. Yet, here we are.
👍 😞
"one or more people at Steemit Inc are totally incapable of doing their job and should be fired."
Or they are in on it.
Just pointing out the possibilities, for the sake of completeness.
That would be worse still...
I think we need new users to bid at the end of the month, via second price auctions, to keep their delegations.
Otherwise the delegation ends. Automatic, but should give effective outcomes.
Even if they circle upvote, the circle eventually comes to an end, compared to real content creators. Relative rates don't match up, those kinds of things might be solutions?
Should get rid of a lot of the scammers and spammers.
Thoughts?
Interesting idea...
Same here, my friend was awaiting approval for a month. In the end I bought her an account. Next day she got a letter that the request got approved. Another one waited for a week. Me? I got lucky to be approved in the same day, otherwise I might not ever come here.
I have created accounts for people who gave up waiting, but not nearly that many. Many never receive their account. The amount of serial spam accounts approved is infuriating. How Dart registered 21,000+ accounts through the Steemit faucet blows my mind.
If they just want inflated activity numbers to show to potential investors, and they know potential investors don't give a shit about actually looking deeper into things, then there would be very obvious reasons why they would let it go on for so long. 21000 accounts that are nearly guaranteed to vote and not go completely dead until the delegation is withdrawn and the creation SP is drained really boosts the figures considering the active userbase here is so small.
I suspect that isn't the reason.
Well hold everybody in suspense and not tell us what you think the reason is. Is this a situation that you can't black list these registrants?
I voted for you witnesses because I like your posts. Could you please rate this post and verify.... I think we all play for one goal. https://steemit.com/steemit/@marekkaminski/the-scheme-of-spammers-operation-carousel-of-voters-rape-steem-pool-plagiarism-spamming-my-silent-investigation
i have told my friends about steem and they got interested in joining the steem community, they have signup since January this year and they haven't got their account opened yet, some of them have lost that interest and some are still waiting for a miracle. something have to be done.
Create a separate team that supplies the hardfork code instead of relying on steeminc.
I think you are going in the right direction and it seems to me that in time over site of the developing block chain could be delegated using algorithms to coding teams based on past performance in areas of competency and ethics. Just a thought. I'm incredibly novice to this system and fairly new user. I can see a lot of potential for abuse, but also see potential that block chain can allow a system able to level the playing field in ways humanity has yet to experience. Transparent algorithms can be trusted where people cannot
The most likely explanation starts to look like collusion with these bot nets.
Hanlon's razor is far over-used and far over-respected, just like Occam's.
wow I can't believe this is getting down-voted?!
Of course we should consider this possibility. When STEEM was at $5 that meant that each new account was allocated $75 worth of SP. So 100 accounts being approved for a bot operator, that is a worth of $750 SP.
With numbers like that of course there is going to be a motive for collision/corruption. That could even happen at the lowest levels for example a person getting paid minimum wage to approve accounts.
They took our jobs, der terk er Jerbb!
Hahaah hahahaah amazing
AMEN!
This needs to be fixed asap. These are the type of things that leave a negative image on new users trying to figure the workings of steemit.
That's true. Now that spammers are all over Steemit it has become harder for minnows to establish in this platform. Most probably they also think the best (and sometimes only) way to succeed on Steemit is pay bots and spammers to upvote them, which in the first place should not be the case.
Bottomline: THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED, and ASAP in that matter.
Sorry to say, it will never be fixed. This is an economics and game theory lesson that unfortunately most people are incapable of comprehending.
a couple of weeks ago I started inspecting steemit from day 1. The reason this is not fixed is because it's meant to be this way. A small group ( maybe 1 company ) mined all the original steem using so many accounts it would take weeks of longer just to sort through them all.
Auto vesting was used to feed several accounts that became the orginal whales plus many accounts that do show some activity. Many of these accounts have just been drained of all value. ( within a week or so), Now thanks to reading this post I see I continues today :-( Is there a private place to discuss this activity? and discuss corrective measures if possible at this point. Let me know.
@codypanama wrote:
As for a private place, a few of my supporters discuss this in private using secure chat (Crypto.cat combined with another layer of encryption employing GPG). Because of the demands on my scarce available time, I don’t really want to open up that group to more participants unless you can offer some insight or assistance (that we don’t already have) to the project I am working on. I do not know of other private discussions. You might ask @smooth. He is not currently in our private group, but he is very well connected overall in this arena and afaics for the past 4 years his ethics are impeccable. He is also a Steem and Monero whale, as well as being one of the developers of Aeon and I believe he may have funded
Busy.orgso we have an alternative to theSteemit.comUI. So if you want to get something organized outside of our private group’s plans, he may be one of the guys to talk with.I’m working on it. That link will lead you to other links to more discussion.
James Corbett allowed my comment regarding this issue at his page that publicized Steem recently. That is part of Corbett’s new series covering alternative social media platforms.
The only other place where I know this was discussed was at several Steem threads at Bitcointalk.org. But I am banned from that site. The main thread there was Steem pyramid revealed. You can find comments from my numerous past BCT accounts in that thread (my numerous attempts to evade the ban before I quit trying).
Note I’m not going to continue harping about this on Steem. I am busy on my project. It is up to you all to carry the torch of edification if you think it is helpful.
I'm happy to see that people are actively working on these issues. I'm not a techy but started following bread crumb trails by hand. It broke my heart what I found, but see talented people are on it.
Thanks for the speedy reply, I will follow from a distance and only step in further if I can offer something of value to the group. Together we stand divided we fall.
I feel so much better now.
Cheers
Couldn’t this be fixed right now, if the delegated STEEM Power was revoked? Shouldn’t be hard to detect those schemes and undelegate everything.
I agree, STEEMIT will die if it is run by scammers and bots and not by people creating and liking real content!
Did you buy that Steem power mate? I am thinking on investing on it as soon as Ethereum rises a little...
yes you are right man,
I agree your comment
Click the Image Below
This thing need an attention. A little problem can be huge if this can get through. There are abusers everywhere and steemit is not excluded. Hope they can implement like 4 account per IP address or any problem solver. Thanks bringing this in our attention.
If you're a spammer, then changing IP address is like a piece of cake, and basically, with the current
createAccountfunction built in on the Steem blockchain, you can create as many accounts as you want through couple lines of code if you have enough SP.So the solution is not gonna be easy, it would involve in a big change of the blockchain design or we have to help the community altogether.
Actually 2FA would be the easy fix.
2FA aligns with the first rule of account creation.
Legitimate account creation that is. Where a mobile number is linked.
After that the internal account creation can simply limit the amount of accounts linked to each mobile device. There is no legitimate reason why anyone needs to have so many accounts on the same platform.
That is however, a sensible and intelligent way of combating the issue.
Such sense does not exist here. If someone isn't making money it's not going to work or even get implemented!
Okay, definitely following you now.
Agreed. The deeper issue here is: why impose limits on Steemit account creation and make onboarding harder for legit users, when current procedures fail at rooting out spammers.
IMO, the only thing that can be done is to remove limits on account creation and to target the incentives for spamming post-account creation, i.e. reduce rewards for spam and make it easier to report and penalise spammers.
Agreed. Accounts should be enabled immediately. It is the delegation that is a problem, not the accounts existence. If necessary, make the account wait for delegation, not creation.
Just made a post about this. Changing the costs and incentives.
The 4 account/IP address sounds like a great solution. At least it doesn't limit legit users who use the same PC. And it's true this needs attention and urgent fixing. There are people who are trying to resolve this issue though, but spammers move and propagate faster.
Won't work for dorms, buildings, large families, apartment buildings, etc.
Agreed. Can you suggest solutions? We can put them altogether and meet halfway. This is one way we can help the Steemit community. But first, we need to provide a concrete possible solution to them.
Because of the technology behind it, the entire idea was decentralizing and freedom. The blockchain itself has very few if any rules. Preventing account creation isn't really a good thing either. Essentially each one is a wallet. And they require a loan or deposit to open an account. It's not bad for the price of Steem.
I think what needs to happen is at the interface level. There will always be people who build their own interfaces but for those who are doing so and community oriented- perhaps having a roundtable for them to share ideas, technology, blacklists, etc.— since most of the issues have to be handled at the interface level.
On interfaces willing to cooperate such as steemit, steepio, busy, esteem, faucet, etc. perhaps adding a similar username filter so usernames have to be significantly different when coming from the same IP or when registering in a similar time frame.
It may also be worth it to make multi-accounts created by existing users marked safe and be allowed delegation if they meet a certain criteria upon creation— recent positing activity, steem sincerity rank (human), rep 50+, no chetah flags, etc.
Steemit Inc remove its own corporate delegations when a rep hits -1
Or, simply stop Steemit Inc delegating to all new accounts. Require money. Hey, Medium does it.
Peer Review. Instead of a company reviewing the accounts, have a second role below WITNESS called Ambassadors who have the power to vote on new account approvals. And the people vote for Ambassadors like we vote for Witnesses.
Separate the downvote from the flag so that flagging abuse doesn't cost the community and make it universal on all platforms. Make an official downvote/thumbsdown button. And make the flag a reporting feature.
A report this post button on @steemplus @adsactly plugin would help immediately— if folks from steemcleaners, cheetah, etc. all wanted to get involved. Steemplus could make a seperate button almost immediately alerting various groups to spam.
Incentivize real content further.
Incentivize reporting spam (after separating it from the downvote)
I don't really know. :( I just wish I could introduce more people to the platform but it's frustrating. And it's an expectation jerk honestly.
great ideas here..Ambassadors - ending automatic SP delegation -both good ideas that would help to quicken the registration of legit users while preventing spammers from draining the system ...
Thinking outside the box here. Throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks really. I don't think ending all SP delegation is a good idea. I just think ending Steemit.com (and interfaces) from delegating SP is a good idea. As far as Ambassadors, I think how Utopian works is a good model also if they couldn't add a second role to the system.
Really great ideas @omitaylor. I most especially like and second your suggestions on peer review, separating downvote and flag, and the 'Report This Post' button. Will not say much but will tag @ned @steemitblog and two of the witnesses @timcliff @themarkymark hoping they'd notice.
Thank you so much for the contribution!
Maybe your are on to something, steem has been going down, maybe someone on the inside is trying to artificially prop up the price.
2FA.
Unfortunately, that's not a good solution, because a lot of people share the same IP address. e.g. students living in student accommodation.
Agreed. So...do you have other solutions in mind? 🙂Maybe we could merge it altogether and meet halfway.
Some people use Tor to access steemit in countries where it is blocked in my opinion so this isn't a good idea.
And VPN's are very common even in America so I totally agree.
I agree. Especially at work in big companies.
Steemit requires unique mobile number while registration of account on which we receive OTP, but I guess spammers are abusing this system by making use of virtual mobile numbers too!
Well, this is my first comment and for what i read, you may be allowed to create as much as many accounts you are willing to pay for. That is what i understood, and that is on the game rules. During my first 5 minutes using the page i got 2 invitations from people who are following thousands and i wont call it a scam but just a lame way to fall in other corporate crap like FB.
It is obviously abusing accounts. I hope the official bots can downvote all the upvotes from those accounts.
the question is, who is the responsible for this negligence? If no one to blame, what can we do about it? It might benefit the rise of account users to attract more users, but this are all spam users.
I'm too much of a noob to comment something about this but thanks for sharing this info, this is crazy, I wasn't aware of that they could abuse this to that level, I mean 80 accounts? That's a little too much even for spammers. I know that there's a lot of people experiencing problems with the creation process, there's alot of asking me about the possible solutions at steemchat, I had a difficult time while trying to join too, Anyway, thanks for sharing this info, it's a subject to be taken in consideration.
P.S
Loved the gif.
These are all the whales. They are self-appointed hall monitors who have finally successfully killed off Steemit for the average person. They create bot upon bot for themselves, but prohibit others from doing it.
Sadly, this platform has become a blockchain joke. I really had such high hopes for this place.
This has nothing to do with whales, these are likely regular people with technical skills or manpower exploiting a flawed system.
Then who is to blame since you have immediately ruled out the whales?
Steemit Inc makes the accounts, this is all about bad actors abusing the Steem Faucet, some of them can be whales but I highly doubt it, there are much more efficient ways to abuse the system if you already have Steem Power (and thus a whale).
That's the thing with power, isn't it? It's never enough until it destroys everything.
Ohh my, what's happening right now with Steemit. Our new community members struggle to make an account (can't even get emails after a month), and this thing happened.
I thought they're doing it manually? They should've known that!
Thanks for calling this out. It’s something investors need to be aware of and those in control should do something about. Resteem