28 replies to this topic

[Meatman]

I am sure this will be a touchy subject, but I have a hard time in believing that some of these projects are getting a legitimate 500 to 1000 supports in a day or even a few hours. I think many people may be creating multiple accounts down the stretch just to hit the mark. This wouldn't be a hard thing to do if a project has a strong License backing it and 50 die hard fans are willing to make 10 bogus accounts just to run the count up.

[Dakar A]

Hmm... I had never thought of it that way. But, most of the projects that recently reached 10,000 had some sort of celebrity support (Winchester, Firefly, Minecraft) through Twitter or Facebook, and threrfore may have gotten useres who will support once and forget about Cuusoo, simply supporting to get their favorite movie or show to reveiw.

[Shadows]

There will always be some number of people, usually very small, who will abuse a system to get what they want. I'm sure that's true here, as well. I doubt it's many, and it's quite possible that measures are in place to prevent it, much as Youtube has measure to prevent view spamming, they allow a certain number of views (around 300), then all views after that must be from a unique IP and view the entire video.

I suspect Cuusoo just uses IP, and most people can't change their IP constantly. I guess it could be 1 dialup user with a lot of dedication, connecting and reconnecting and creating many, many accounts, but I doubt it.

[johnnyvgoode]

I reckon that Lego accounts for this, but I think that they probably believe that with the amount of fake votes that a project can get, if it gets 10,000 it still shows enough support.

Not that I'm too happy about recent developments.    Of all recent projects, I'm only glad about the DeLorean.

[JopieK]

Shadows, on 06 May 2012 - 05:16 PM, said:

There will always be some number of people, usually very small, who will abuse a system to get what they want. I'm sure that's true here, as well. I doubt it's many, and it's quite possible that measures are in place to prevent it, much as Youtube has measure to prevent view spamming, they allow a certain number of views (around 300), then all views after that must be from a unique IP and view the entire video.

I suspect Cuusoo just uses IP, and most people can't change their IP constantly. I guess it could be 1 dialup user with a lot of dedication, connecting and reconnecting and creating many, many accounts, but I doubt it.

But in schools they mostly also have one outgoing IP (using NAT) so it will be impossible to tie such a things to a single IP. Hurray for IPv6 but it isn't so far yet.

[Calanon]

It seems like a lot of effort to create 10,000 fake accounts just for that.

[Aanchir]

I think if people creating fake accounts to support Cuusoo projects were a problem then we wouldn't be seeing obvious reasons for surges in support for particular projects. As it is, many of the projects to gain support at an unusual rate do so right after a celebrity plugs the project either on TV or online, or when a major fansite for the franchise links to a project.

It's possible that there are people creating fake accounts on Cuusoo to gain more support, but I'd expect these to be more noobish users who don't end up actually making a difference rather than dedicated hackers who fully intend to rig the system. Moreover, I expect that the Cuusoo staff pay attention to whether projects are getting an unusual amount of support from a certain IP, especially when projects start to gain supporters rapidly. This could at some point pose a problem but as far as I can see it hasn't done so yet.

[Omicron]

Zelda gained a lot of votes when it was posted on Kotaku, Silconera, and IGN. Not to mention the other Zelda fansites and nerdy sites. You can gain 10,000 votes legitimately just from the first 3 sites alone.

Plus I been advertising it myself through my flickr, Twitter, and Facebook, which garnered several votes each.

I think you're just doubting the fanbase.

-Omi

[Meatman]

OK, I guess that I should have made my question a little clearer. I am talking about the Supports down the final stretch. Like when a Project spends 6 weeks getting to 9,000 supports and then that final day it gets 1,000. Now if the strong fan base already supported the project up to point, it is surprising that it can get the final 500 or 1,000 in a day or a few hours.

[Omicron]

Meatman, on 06 May 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:

OK, I guess that I should have made my question a little clearer. I am talking about the Supports down the final stretch. Like when a Project spends 6 weeks getting to 9,000 supports and then that final day it gets 1,000. Now if the strong fan base already supported the project up to point, it is surprising that it can get the final 500 or 1,000 in a day or a few hours.

That cuz, as Aanchir pointed out, it gets the support from a bigger supporter, and influx of support is common.

-Omi

[gotoAndLego]

In regards the EVE ship, the owners of the game put it on the login screen for a while so it was easy for 10k fans of the game to see the project and support it quickly.

[Haltiamieli]

Meatman, on 06 May 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:

OK, I guess that I should have made my question a little clearer. I am talking about the Supports down the final stretch. Like when a Project spends 6 weeks getting to 9,000 supports and then that final day it gets 1,000. Now if the strong fan base already supported the project up to point, it is surprising that it can get the final 500 or 1,000 in a day or a few hours.

I'm sure a part of this is also that it's part of the human psychology that we like to be on the "winning side". Closer the project gets to the 10.000 votes, easier it is to get votes from the doubting Thomases, who might not have bothered before. "Look how cool project, it needs 10.000 votes and it gets made! We can make it!" is definitely not as inspiring as "Look how cool project, it has already gotten 9.500 votes and only needs 500 votes more! Support while you still can!"

This applies also to the people who run fansites etc. As the project gets closer to achieving the votes, it's more and more probable that it starts to get support and visibility from people both in and on the outside of the Lego fandom.

Edited by Haltiamieli, 06 May 2012 - 10:19 PM.

[Omicron]

Plus you need to consider the theme of venues these can be advertised on.

Compare the Western Modular with the Zelda project. The Western Modular is limited to where it can get news (in this case just a few Lego fansites).

With the Zelda one, it can be posted anywhere. In the last week it was posted in the Wii section of IGN. That is second best than the main Nintendo site. That is great coverage and helped get the last few thousand votes in.

Also:

Quote

Now if the strong fan base already supported the project up to point, it is surprising that it can get the final 500 or 1,000 in a day or a few hours.

I find it very laughable and somewhat rather insulting that you believe the strong, core fanbase only consists of a few thousand people. You should reconsider the numbers here. Because to be frank, there are still thousands of people are there who haven't and want to cast their votes in for that project.

-Omi

[Meatman]

Well it looks like hundreds of fake accounts were indeed used over at Cussoo to help someone gain a boost in support. Projects like this should just be pulled from Cuusoo if cheating occurs. I don't know why some regular person would go out of their way and create 100's of fake accounts to boost up someone else's model. If the creator wants to gain supports, then let him go about it the way that everyone else has to, not by deceiving the system.

Also supporting other projects is a good way to get other people to support yours.

[Haltiamieli]

Meatman, on 11 September 2012 - 12:03 AM, said:

I don't know why some regular person would go out of their way and create 100's of fake accounts to boost up someone else's model.

To wreck havoc in the system or possibly even in effort to defame a specific person, the project owner. The owner would have to have a lot of computer skills and zero intelligence to use so obviously fake accounts as get4w3, 4wrhyf, i7yitr43, retrghy3, gdtd45, 9jtfyxw, jyft64, iy8r7vhgy, dse45ehf, 3fo8fg, 342hfg, 97gt531, 8gher1, 2tu87, 39sdioy, 7gedw, 490fdfjlo, u6yfdx, yrsdtgw34, 83ghi, 98fcgd3rw, 45iku8, 765ghft, 6yro0, o8i43, r25vxf, ew543d, fewrwr3, 094es, e5gfse, 45yhewr, w4095d, ds342lo, 2qegftr89, 35loiuj, 398fhgf, 8ifgh, oedq-0, hui8ydr, 234fho9, sgr4r2, te3543f, wo893, 234fd9, tu7eu, 897ghy, kuy53o, 2qhy9, m3hjfl3, 2eqfs09, khjyf09, o98dgft, yui4r3d.... (the list is copied from a post by Brickster99 on the project comments, kudos to him for compiling it)

[Bilbo Baggins]

How do you know this project used fake accounts?

[Meatman]

If you read through the description, there seems to be quite a few people that have been tracking the users who have mysteriously been supporting it. I highly doubt that the creator was behind it because he is a very popular "Celebrity" builder.

[Faefrost]

Bilbo Baggins, on 11 September 2012 - 12:27 AM, said:

How do you know this project used fake accounts?

The CuuSoo admins actually had a post up on the project about it over the weekend, warning that they were aware it was going on, and not to be surprised when vote totals changed. That message is gone now. And about 500 votes removed.

It was obvious someone was using a bot of some sort. Those names are exactly the same sort of randomness that a gold spammer uses to spam advertisements in an MMO such as World of Warcraft. I'm sure it was easy to detect, the bot was probably using the same script in the comments field.

Edited by Faefrost, 11 September 2012 - 02:05 AM.

[AndyC]

Meatman, on 11 September 2012 - 12:03 AM, said:

Projects like this should just be pulled from Cuusoo if cheating occurs. I don't know why some regular person would go out of their way and create 100's of fake accounts to boost up someone else's model.

Most likely someone was testing a way of auto-generating "supporters", with the intention of later trying it out on their own project. Picking a project like Nathan's to see how effectively it would be picked up if done in small bursts (after all it's a project quite likely to gain support, so if they hadn't spotted it that would be a good indication that there was some scope for getting away with it).

I'd say it's pretty safe to say that Nathan himself didn't try cheat the system, he already has a very good relationship with TLG from his artwork anyway (in fact he could probably persuade TLG to release his model even without CuuSoo!)

Edited by AndyC, 11 September 2012 - 09:28 PM.

[Rez]

If people are using fake accounts to support things, get on Space Marines already!

[drdesignz]

Wow, that's unfortunate.  I'm glad the admins caught that and are able to prevent future voting manipulation.

[Faefrost]

Haltiamieli, on 11 September 2012 - 12:27 AM, said:

To wreck havoc in the system or possibly even in effort to defame a specific person, the project owner. The owner would have to have a lot of computer skills and zero intelligence to use so obviously fake accounts as get4w3, 4wrhyf, i7yitr43, retrghy3, gdtd45, 9jtfyxw, jyft64, iy8r7vhgy, dse45ehf, 3fo8fg, 342hfg, 97gt531, 8gher1, 2tu87, 39sdioy, 7gedw, 490fdfjlo, u6yfdx, yrsdtgw34, 83ghi, 98fcgd3rw, 45iku8, 765ghft, 6yro0, o8i43, r25vxf, ew543d, fewrwr3, 094es, e5gfse, 45yhewr, w4095d, ds342lo, 2qegftr89, 35loiuj, 398fhgf, 8ifgh, oedq-0, hui8ydr, 234fho9, sgr4r2, te3543f, wo893, 234fd9, tu7eu, 897ghy, kuy53o, 2qhy9, m3hjfl3, 2eqfs09, khjyf09, o98dgft, yui4r3d.... (the list is copied from a post by Brickster99 on the project comments, kudos to him for compiling it)

It's using an automated bot to randomly perform the task. Downloading and running these type of applications takes very little skill. Just guide it through the steps the first time and it will repeat them using a new random name each time. This is why many websites require e-mail verification to create an account and use those annoying Captchas.  (Oh look CuuSoo will be down for maintenance tomorrow. Probably to install a mechanism to prevent this sort of thing.) Just from what little we saw I would suspect that it was a fairly crude specimen of bot.

As far as who or why would someone do this?  Probably a well meaning but ethically challenged fan of Mr. Sawaya's art. It seems sort of too specific to be a random bot test, but at the same time not the sort of thing that the average Internet fan boy would target. Certainly not something the project creator would do or benefit from. He would get a better return just hanging a sign out at a museum display.

[1974]

Shadows, on 06 May 2012 - 05:16 PM, said:

I suspect Cuusoo just uses IP, and most people can't change their IP constantly.

One can just use a proxy like hidemyass.com, proxyforfree.com or whatever .. loads of them, really

Also, it's not hard to to make _millions_ of different emails seemingly to come from different IPs. There's loads of forums out learn about that and the software to boot

My predictions is that CUUSOO will amount to just about .. nothing. The stuff we'we seen so far is pretty boring

While I don't cruise CUUSOO, it's my understanding that a lot of the MOCs posted are in the licenced area and that is very difficult turf for TLG to enter

I feel a lot of people will get very dissapointed when TLG shuts the whole darn thing down (like the Universe thing)

Not to rain on anyones parade, that's just how I think it'll end  

[Hawkman]

Like everyone else, I'm sure there are "sock accounts" or fake accounts used to drive up numbers.

However, I will add that the Lego community seems to be one of the friendliest communities that I have posted on. Most people are very helpful, courteous, and positive about Lego - which is more than I can say for other collectible community forums and sites. With that said, I'd be surprised if there were alot of fake accounts because the Lego community (including beyond this site) seems better than that.

[drdesignz]

So, I thought I'd look into this just a little further and I am quite convinced manipulation is ongoing.  I started noticing a pattern for the same "Small YELLOW" project.

Below is my list of suspicious profiles, which all share the following things in common:

• All have a name that doesn't seem very unusual at a glance, which seems intentional since previously the false account names were very random and therefore very obvious
  
• All names start with a capital letter and all other letters are lowercase (a few have a number added to the end)
  
• All have a very random avatar having nothing to do with anything related to Lego
  
• None have created their own project
  
• All supported the project "Small YELLOW" within the last 24 hours
  
• All have supported one other random project (that's it, just these two projects)
  
• Check the activity feed for any of these profiles and it will be full of "Small YELLOW" supporters
  
• Not one has commented on the project "Small YELLOW"
  
• I could not find comments for any one of these profiles

Profiles:

• http://lego.cuusoo.c...ofile/Tobias905
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Babette
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Onaona
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.c...ofile/Kinsey718
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Mandel
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Georgiy
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Xochitl
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Zorion
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Tangia
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Peony
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Giona
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Yasmin
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Dobry
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Razo
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Alena
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Zakiya
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.c...rofile/Philemon
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Brent62
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Esarosa
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Paola
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Lonnie
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Verdi
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Janice
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.c...ile/Filbert0628
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Kaipo
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Neron
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.c...file/Veronica94
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Laleh
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Hibine
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Ramiro
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Axelle

These are less suspect, but share the majority of the common things above:

• http://lego.cuusoo.c...rofile/zdoepp11
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Palila
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Tania
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Cantara
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.com/profile/Osbert
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.c...le/c_nadine0829
  
• http://lego.cuusoo.c...rofile/Telly214

I think there may have been more similarities between these users, but it's way past my bedtime and I'm having a hard time thinking straight and staying awake.  Also, I stopped searching for profiles after only about twenty minutes.  It only took me that long to find these profiles.  Who knows how many more there are.  I'm going to email the admins and go straight to bed.