Hey Admin - did you know you have a bot running now every 2 mins?

#21

Non admin have less visibility.

You have two lists, total activity per period

https://community.soundcore.com/u

So e.g. sorted for most read last month, this shows more the active and lurkers who are interested (genuinely interested in Soundcore)

https://community.soundcore.com/u?order=posts_read&period=monthly

Then there members of groups, you can sort by account created or last seen and their last post

This is sorted for example for all members with Ginny In name and then last seen

https://community.soundcore.com/g/trust_level_0?desc=true&filter=Ginny&order=last_seen_at

Any competition or prize not based on judged talent is vulnerable to winning by people not remotely interested in Soundcore. Even the guess the Grammy awards can be scripted to submit to the Google Docs form each combination of possible results and with enough accounts make a guaranteed win.

You can minimise the wins to those interested by eliminating a winner without the signature of an interested person (been around a while and resd things, posted a few, etc).

We should avoid objecting to a noob winner as then is denying luck and so put up.an exclusion to new members who would become valuable.

So I’m more against the bots as the winner is not now and never will be interested and so takes and never gives back.

#22

If you export members lists to a spreadsheet and sort by name and then script (I’d use Linux AWK) how many repeating pattern, you can approximate how many multiple accounts made by bots (or a person who uses a username password pattern).

Correct, there’s not remotely 1M interested in Soundcore folks, e.g. how page scroll down here til you get someone not read anything the last month

https://community.soundcore.com/u?order=days_visited&period=monthly

I could invest time to copy paste and count lines but as a swag I’d say less than a thousand.

The level of skill to write a bot if directed for good purposes will easily earn more money than they’d get here as prizes. So my guess is the bot is accumulating many accounts to then sell them to someone who has bad intentions. Typically it’s to take down the community at a time for maximum effect. E.g. to harm a product launch.

1 Like
#23

Happy to help.

If you want advice then delete all accounts inactive for say 3 months as well as all obviously created by a script accounts.

If you don’t then as a mass collective force they can bring down the community, probably at the least convenient time.

Bots take skill, skill usually can earn more money than the prizes on offer, so it’s likely a bigger goal than cheating at competitions.

Amateurs who just create manually multiple accounts are the ones trying to get free stuff by getting more luck by multiple entries, they win prizes but aren’t as damaging as these thousands of bot accounts.

1 Like
#24

Many accounts is not useful for coupons, I don’t think as they use email address of the account, so don’t think you can share a coupon so can’t merge them to get a large discount?

Any sense of unfairness can undermine the good atmosphere. One way to neutralise is just publish all giveaway entries. Transparency helps with confidence.

1 Like
#25

I figured that as well. I was just saying in a not to well way is that if they did it for coupons, they could not get any coupons unless they scored level 4 so that they could get enough points to even get a coupon.

I agree that I do not think that it is not for giveaways either. As 1. they would have to use a lot accounts to win and 2. @Loz and @sean.L and they would know there was an influx of giveaway users.

It was a great catch. If I was @loz and @sean.L, I would provide this info to the other communities as well. Although they may be getting the flood of user now but it may be a situation in the future.

1 Like
#26

There is a type of person who has multiple accounts and just shares a thread in each every day to accumulate towards when something comes up in a giveaway. That’s a low tech method to increase chances. They may undermine fairness, but ultimately harmless.

The bot is the most pernicous concern, it can bring everything crashing down. They can post faster than you can suspend and so render community useless until you close it down. Personally I’d increase the complexity of account creation verification (not allow auth by google account for example) and delete all very-similar no-reads accounts and all inactive accounts, to purge as much as the bot has created. If a real person hasn’t read anything for months they are not going to be miffed to re-create account and find they must Captcha/other to prove a human.

If this is not done, a big fat “told you so” when the mass spam happens and community down for days.

The other community had a vulnerability, I reported it, suggested fix, was implemented and the issue reduced, there is a small other vulnerability, reported it.

#27

@The_Professor Can I feel safe here?
There is really about 1 million accounts here? It’s kind of absurd …
Probably several dozen people take part in the discussions …

1 Like
#28

You’ve not been here long and won at least twice in the weekly talent based.

It is perfectly safe, if you’ve been following what I wrote:

  • don’t identify yourself.
  • don’t use the same social media account for other purposes, have multiple and sandbox the one required (sic) for competitions and then ignore the spam it causes.

The real risk of bots is to Soundcore’s brand, not to you.

1 Like
#29

Yep the purge, kinda like blizzard does every 6 months.

Would be sound suggestion @the_professor

1 Like
#30

Thank you for all the good advice :slightly_smiling_face:!

2 Likes
#31

BBC News - NHS boss’s Twitter accounts hacked by PS5 scammers

Reminder: love of music and Soundcore should not be a path to regrets.

2 Likes
#32

I saw this thread early, and then didn’t look at it again. But I see your suspicions were confirmed on some level, and the giveaway was rerun. Well done.

2 Likes
#33

Wow, I didn’t check the giveaway, so they checked and picked another instead.

So glad we elevated to more checks.

Won now by a regular.

1 Like
#34

Good job and also by the admission to see your thread

#35

com-gif-maker

I see the admin has done nothing

Screenshot_20210402_121539
Screenshot_20210402_121539.jpg1600×2162 200 KB

Still making a new account every 2 minutes.

All from China

Screenshot_20210402_122546
Screenshot_20210402_122546.jpg461×565 23.2 KB

Are they from the same IP?

If the owner of these not accounts wanted to, as your ability to suspend a user is by account, they can spam here faster than they can be blocked so break the community. The only thing to stop them is to delete their accounts and don’t let the same IP create so many accounts.

If they are being funded by a Soundcore competitor, the ideal time for them to attack is when a major new product is released. Then the admin would likely be made to care.

1 Like
#36

Hey,

This has previously been passed over to the website team, so they are aware and currently looking into it.

We do care about you sharing this info :+1:

Appreciate it! :grinning:

#37

Good to know you care

Screenshot_20210406_190600
Screenshot_20210406_190600.jpg1592×2361 222 KB

They’re still at it. Seems they leave their script to run to make 50 new users at a time.

Polish_20210406_190229919

#38

Got to be careful - the horse might kick over your bucket there. And then the analogy gets weird.