Today I was greeted with an odd Gina notification:
Seeing my name mentioned by @rondon was a bit of a shock, so I went to investigate. As luck would have it, they copy/pasted a post of mine where I mention myself so I was able to find it immediately.
This led me to investigate further. Where did these accounts come from? Who is behind them? Looking at hiveblocks.com I found @esteemapp had created the account, and @gandalfthedark had delegated to it. Upon further inspection, that account delegated to a host of fake names resembling real steem users, such as @the-marky-mark, @roelanpd, @yabapmat, @someguy456, and so on.
There are about 77 accounts total, and after checking each one individually, I have found only 17 posts so far that have been made:
@monstersralph/steemmonsters-battle-vs-ferjart
@monstersralph/first-steemmonsters-battle-against-waltersan
@bestb00m/the-latest-us-state-of-missouri-reports-first-virus-case
@cannapals/pineapple-og-indica-sweet-and-relaxing-buzz
@mummamonza/my-20th-month-on-steem-was-a-month-of-milestones
@abh12345-sports/tribe-analysis-for-the-month-sportstalk
@berge1mirsenpai/unlock-a-big-gift-pack-from-partiko-dlw4dlbh
@cu1gin/a-look-at-the-various-markets-now
@steve-jhuggett/sunset-challenge-update-by-steve-j-huggett
@ch00girl/mmrl1db4a
@eliezer-floyd/ecce-homo
@dude0ntheweb/2557e33dfe83e8fcb1c449edcb3004aa-vimmtv
@appreciat0r/daily-quality-content-rewards-566
@t0ric0/resistance-is-futile
@rondon/hybrid-animal
@h0w0/first-post-on-hive-and-some-news-on-my-proposal
@rondon/town-hall-march-7-2020
I encourage everyone here to watch the accounts listed on:
https://hiveblocks.com/@gandalfthedark
and downvote any posts you see from them.
I guess I should be somewhat flattered to be imitated along with some of the most notable names on the platform, but not enough to put up with scammers. Please do some diligence when curating the new page, as I'm sure we'll be seeing more posts from people you might think you recognize. Check the reputation, if it's 25, then get suspicious and verify before voting on them.
EDIT: It looks like @appreciator has nuked all the accounts that have posted, and @hivecleaners has blacklisted them all, so hopefully they don't fool anyone into voting for them now. Keep an eye on that list, as there are still more that haven't posted and had a chance to get their rep nuked.
EDIT 2: If you want to find the extent of the group so far, check out @themarkymark's newest post:
@themarkymark/new-hive-spam-network
If you like what I do and want to support a backup witness dedicated to the HIVE blockchain, please vote for me on https://peakd.com/me/witnesses or by clicking here