@the.masses account has been shut down :(
I am sad to report, that @the.masses project has been shut down.
@the.masses account was an experiment I started back in October. The idea behind the account was to share the private posting key with the entire community, and see how people would use the account. You can read about the experiment here.
A lot of interesting things have happened with the account over the past several months. Lots of people have used it to resteem their posts, to get exposure to a larger audience. Many people have also used it to upvote their own posts. Probably the most interesting part though was to see how people used it to communicate anonymously. Many people would use it to reply to things and express opinions that they would not feel comfortable saying using their 'main' account. A lot of 'drama' has come from the account, but there has been quite a bit of interesting material as well!
A few weeks ago, the account began to be used to flag a bunch of people. It was close to getting shut down, when @anyx stepped in and created a bot to counter the downvotes. (Thanks @anyx!!) Sadly, another person decided to start using the account for abusive purposes, and has been using it to post a lot of spam. There is no easy way to counter this, and it is annoying a lot of people - so unfortunately I have decided to shut the account down.
I am very sad for all the people that have enjoyed using the account, and watching what people do with it. It has been a really interesting experiment. Sorry that it had to end this way! It is very unfortunate that one bad apple has to spoil the whole bunch :(
Thank you everybody for your support on this project, and I hope everyone had fun!
It's not a failure. No experiment is. We just got a result.
and, I might add, exactly the result we might have expected. What we don't know is what would have happened if it had stayed alive just a bit longer... how long before the real spammer got bored and went away?
Interesting view :)
Geez.
I am reasonably certain the person responsible for this is @matrixdweller.
Can you publish a proof? I'm not against public shaming but it should be done properly.
A brief recent history of @matrixdweller:
They make a bot to respond to every post with the current price of STEEM in USD. The bot is changed to respond only when a post mentions matrixdweller, and then it is changed to respond to posts that mention Steem or Bitcoin. I find the bot comments at this point, and following a policy established long ago about auto-posting bots with irrelevant content, I add it to @cheetah's comment-only downvoting function temporarily until the bot was made more opt-in.
@matrixdweller begins to post rants about me and whales in response. Suddenly he takes an interest in ranting on the subject right after this unrelated comment downvoting. Seems disingenuous to me.
@matrixdweller's sockpuppet accounts @sarasgrace, @imarealboy777, @captainamerica, @godlike, @clarkwayne, @ashketchum, and @wholefoods begin comment spamming. Most are complaining about @berniesanders selling STEEM.
@imarealboy777's comments were this image:
As you would expect, all of these comment spammer accounts got downvoted into a negative rep, and while it can't be proven 100%, I'm reasonably certain @matrixdweller decided to switch his bot to use @the.masses which began commenting with the same image as @imarealboy777.
@matrixdweller may deny this but I would not believe him. He denied @imarealboy777 as his own alt when the resteems of his posts going back months combined with the timing of his sudden urge to comment spam tells a different story.
@matrixdweller started his Steem life as @jillstein2016 which got downvoted into a negative rep for similar toxic behavior a long time ago.
now wait just a durned minute here. There seems to be witch huntery afoot.
I thought talking about alt-accounts was verboten.
A) Take a look at the account pages
B) Take note of the timing of the comment spam from all of them
C) @matrixdweller has a history of his accounts spamming comments. See @smartguylabcoat
D)
E) "I STEEM on after whales, kill my accounts"
I did not look into it but looking at a variety of posts everyday, I could definitely see the progression of events.
So the key for the account has been changed ? What do you think would have happen otherwise ? Seems like the actual experiment wasn't fully let to happen.
[nested reply]
There is a disabled Steem command which can be used to challenge that someone using a posting authority on an account has access to the account's active key, more thoroughly indicating ownership. Here's the cli_wallet documentation on it:
It was disabled in the version 0.14 hardfork and hasn't been reenabled.
https://github.com/steemit/steem/releases/tag/v0.14.1
But if someone's posting auth is compromised (as the.masses' intentionally was, so that it could be used as an anonymous outlet), and the account begins to spam, downvotes can be used to reduce the account's reputation. Although the higher-rep-than-downvoter immunity function of reputation might make it difficult if a very high rep account had its posting key compromised. If the owner of the account is paying attention they can change the password of their account using Steemit and the posting key will change with it.
[nested reply]
What I mean is that @timcliff changed the posting key with his authority as its owner to a new posting key which isn't public. This is the transaction: https://steemd.com/tx/0e3bf7f6cf09927bac020431f7f84c9fc8da16c0
I'm trying to say that this will most likely happen often and there will be nobody to change that posting key. How does steem mitigate agaist this kind of attack ?
The posting key was public. It was changed by @timcliff (who created/owns the account) to a new, non-public key when it was being abused for comment spamming. Before all of this, @the.masses was used for its intended purpose, with mixed results, but never enough abuse for the public posting key to be revoked.
Do you know where I can read about that revocation aspect ? I've searched online and the whitepaper and can find anything about it.
His YouTube account clearly states that he is both matrixdweller and imarealboy777
Thanks @pfunk. I had gathered as much =/
I thought it went well, considering. It could've been a lot worse.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/03/24/microsofts-teen-girl-ai-turns-into-a-hitler-loving-sex-robot-wit/
lmao, yes. it could have been much worse :)
:)
Ah, RIP, the.masses
Aw, you didn't have to shut it down, I had that under control. :) I wrote a cute little script to publish a comment every 20 seconds so that the real spammer couldn't get a post in edgewise. Witness it in action here (you'll have to reveal it, since it was down voted to oblivion): https://steemit.com/spam/@the.masses/456123
The real spammer would have gotten bored after a while and gone away. :)
Oh, that part was you? lol. I thought the spammer was just trying to flood the network with garbage :)
I appreciate the effort to fix the account!
The comments were one of the main things that people liked to use the account for though. With it being blocked for the spammer, it would be blocked for the rest of the community too.. This also wasn't the only incident with it causing issues. (It was more the last nail in the coffin.)
I do think that this latest incident is a good indication that the account should be lay to rest.
Thanks a bunch for your support!
Haha, I just wanted to see if I could stop the actual spam. I couldn't think of a good way to do it other than to make unobtrusive spam. Still spam, but better spam. :)
Yeah, I think accounts with public posting keys are an interesting idea but will ultimately tend to being used for spam.
see my post in the other thread. there is a way to make it work.
https://steemit.com/@sigmajin/re-themasses-anybody-know-how-to-write-a-bot-to-delete-comments-by-this-account-20170127t134033986z
edit -- though im not sure if this would work at all with steemit.com to broadcast the one party signed transaction (or even to log in for that matter). That said, it would probably be really easy to make a web interface to broadcast the initial transaction no log in and the public posting key wif right in the function.
:)
reminds me of the time in jr high when one of the bad kids brought vodka in his water bottle... They banned water bottles... I was thirsty for 2 years cause of that jackass!
lol, yep
Phew, that's good. Then I don't have to flag it to oblivion...
I added it to my up-vote script ages ago and it was actually earning some good curation rewards while supporting some good content.
I always cringed when I seen it being used for controversial topics. I guess we all knew this day would come.
In my mind it is a measurement of how far we fallen as a whole.
RIP @the.masses
That's cool! Yeah, it really is too bad. I know so many people that were actually using the account for various things and having fun with it. I did see way more 'good' come out of the account than 'bad'. It's sad it had to end :(
I agree it was more good than bad, but it was always on my mind that the bad was just waiting to happen.
Honestly, I feel the same about a few other steemit features, once the masses gets involved what we have all seen as a positive can quickly turn negative. No pun intended :)
Steem on Tim, I know you took heat for this. I hope you learn from it :)
Agreed. Thanks :)