Fake profiles

I got an email from abledating a day or so ago telling me they have just released a fake profile mod for their customers, at $200 a shot I might add, yeah right, money grabbing twonks.

Anyone seen a mod for Dolphin floating around, I know one exists because I've seen a few sites that are filled with fake profiles, don't seem to be able to track the mod down though!

What do you want FAKE profiles for ??

This certainly seems dishonest to me, and I agree that any webmaster who did this should seriously examine their own values, as this technology is clearly intended to deceive people.   I also know that people tend to believe what they see, so when then see a fake member photo the will likely beleive that is a real person.  Beyond the obvious ethical questions, however, is a practical one.  How on earth could you start with a bunch of fake profiles, and then transition it to a real community.  No one would be getting their pm's answered, and some people might figure out that some or all of the profiles are fake.  So I suppose some people would see all the fake profiles and register because they think it is an active community.  Then the dishonest webmaster would start deleting the fake accounts one by one I suppose, but this seems almost like more work then just being honest in the first place- as is often the case with these things.

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Rob

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p.s.  RevKF - I think I know the site you are talking about- the person who runs it demonstrated their dishonesty do me quite a while before we learned he had build a site with fake profiles.  When I first looked at that site, I could sense that something was wrong without really being able to put my finger on it.  Later, when it was revealed here that more than half of the profiles were fake, I wondered why I didn't see it in the first place.  There is no way to sugar coat it- that site may have georgeous technology, but it is outright fraud.  I'll take my ragtag, rather ugly and buggy implemenatation that is at least honest and has with real users - at least I can sleep at night.

Gimme an L

Gimme an A

Gimme an M

Gimme an E

What do you get?

(gasp! you're almost there!)

LAME!

I laugh when I see those fake profiles. You can tell. They all have that FAKE look. The worst part is when they have a forum and there's maybe 8 posts and they supposedly have 50k members. er yeah right LOL!

oh how lame people how lame. tsk tsk

Well, I think FRAUD might be a better word then LAME - but whatever.  I have a question though- are there really sites with that many fake profiles? - i.e. thousands?  Why do they do that?  Is it for advertising money or something?

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Rob

I'm not going to comment on the rights and wrongs of fake profiles. But I do object to it being referred to as fraud. Technically that may be one way of looking at it. But to purposefully go after another forum member with such strong language on what is supposed to be a support forum is not on. Caltrade you do seem to create some negative threads. Please be more positive and helpful. - my two cents worth. After all, Technoman was a pain.

Stuart

Stewart, I'm sorry you consider this "negative"- it seems to me that it is VASTLY more negative to trick and deceive people by putting up a site with fake profiles.  Could you tell me what you would consider to be an honest use of this technology?  That is not a baited question, I would really like to know.   It seems to me that, for example, if you are using fake profiles to trick people into thinking that a dating site has many attractive people in their area so that they pay a membership fee, then that is certainly fraud - in fact I think there have been lawsuits about this that prove it.  If the intent was to deceive advertisers into thinking that there is a large and active online community when there isn't, then that is also fraud.   The word "lame" may be more polite, but I don't think it quite captures the gravity of this situation.  I am willing to consider otherwise if you can show me some examples of the use of this technology that you consider to be honest.

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Rob

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I don't know who "Technoman" is- I couldn't find that name in a search- but I was careful not to name anyone here.  I can tell you though that for at least a few of the threads I have had here and on Expertzzz - the people I have bashed heads with the worst have since disappeared.   In a few of those cases I now think may have been too polite- as I subsequently learned that they had ripped people off rather badly.

Caltrade, this is a support forum. Take it into blogs if you feel the need to pick a debate. There are some legitimate reasons for a few (in my case two) fake profiles, One reason is to allow you to start a blog and or forum to get your genuine members involved. This is all a couple of members, myself included have done. Yet you have chosen to refer to us as fraudsters. Our websites are Free no money involved, that will change should our sites take off. Why is it Caltrade, you have to be so intolerant of the other forum members (read your past posts to see what I mean). Your choice of words always seem to be inflamatory when a more subtle term would be both more appropriate whilst achieving the same ends, but that does not appear to be your style.

Stuart

I will post where and when I want- if you don't like it, then simply do not read my posts.  If Boonex moderators think that what I am saying is inappropriate, then they can  moderate or delete it.  In any event, this particular thread is specifically about "fake profiles" - so I have every right to express my opinions about it here. Personally I am grateful to Reverend KF for exposing this- it is something I didn't know about until now.
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Now I understand why you attacked me instead of just addressing the issue.  It is because you yourself are using this technology.  Why didn't you just say that in the first place? - clearly you don't feel all that comfortable about it.  Read my post carefully- I did not accuse you of being "a fraudster" - when I posted this I didn't even know you were doing it.  I gave two specific examples of where I do think the use of this technology would be considered fraud.  If no money is being solicited, then it is not likely that anyone would consider it to be fraud - but it is still clearly "intent to deceive" - that is what the technology is for- to trick people.  All I asked was for an example of an honest use of the technology- I couldn't think of any.  I suppose there are worse things than starting your site with phony profiles.  I just think you would be better served to get 10 or 20 of your friends registered to help you get started instead. It would be more honest, and your results would probably be far better.
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Rob

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Update - I would actually like to see some of these sites.  If there are people making fake communities with hundreds, or even thousands of fabricated profiles as melia indicated, then they can't be too shy about having their url's published.  If anyone knows of any please let us know.

Don't single me out for "attacking" Topher or being the reason he left this forum.    I responded to a post where he was complaining about Sammie and DasDawg, and demanding that he be given special treatment for posting advertising links.  He also went at it with Reverend KF who exposed the fake profile issue.  Topher made that post where everyone was expected to praise him, and it is not my problem if I made it so the praise was not unanimous - I did not ask for that veto power.  In any event, I did not attack him first- he attacked me on a thread well before that one.   All I did there was disagree with him- mildly- and he completely freaked out so I took it to private message - where I did not experience him as an honest person.   Contrary to your accusation, I was not "inflammatory" - I acted with restraint and did not post again on that thread- even though I had some real doubts- and questions about the mod he was proposing and would have liked to express my opinion - where for better or worse it could have been challenged.

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I did not bring up his name here - you did - and only someone who studies these forums closely would even know that he was being refered to as a side issue.  Reverend KF was the one first brought up the fake profile issue on that thread - which was appropriate but was long after I had said my piece and was done with that.  If you need to have a place to praise Topher you can now praise him all the time on his forum (complete with the fake profiles) and have all the drama you want there- but more praise and drama may be what the guy wants, but it isn't what he needs.

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You told me I had no right to express my opinion well before you disclosed that you are using this fake profile technology on your site.  In fact, you did two full post attacking me for being negative before you disclosed this.  That may have been a good way to change the topic here- but I responded on this thread specifically because I would like to know more about this phenomenom of fake profile sites, so I am not interested in your change of the topic back to Topher- I don't have time to waste on things like that.

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Back to the "fake profile" technology that this thread was supposed to be about:  I agree with Sammie - I consider any site that does this with any more that a small test bed of fabricated profiles to be dishonest, and quiet possibly fradulent.  I understand there are people on Expertzzz selling the technology to make these profiles, but I would be more interested in seeing the site that are using them, if anyone has those links.   Again, for the really big ones, I am wondering what the scam is.  Are they trying to trick advertisers?  Are they trying to trick people into joining dating sites?  It seems that anyone who got tricked an joined such a fake community would find out pretty quickly after joining that they have been duped.  What then?

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Rob

FYI - for anyone interested.  Here is the text of an out-of-court settlement with Yahoo Corporation - The result of being  accused in a class action lawsuit in California of posting fake profile to enhance their dating site.  Yahoo venemently denied the allegations, but there was never a question that had they done this - posted fake profiles, that it would have been fraud.   If you are using this technology to generate a test community that is fine, but if you are using it with "intent to deceive" than that quite possibly is fraud and you may want to consider what you are doing.

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ROBERT ANTHONY v. YAHOO! INC., Case No.: C05 04175 RMW
(USDC, NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SAN JOSE DIVISION)

THIS NOTICE MAY AFFECT YOUR RIGHTS
PLEASE READ ALL OF IT CAREFULLY

ATTENTION: ALL PERSONS IN THE UNITED STATES WHO WERE PAID SUBSCRIBERS
TO YAHOO! PERSONALS BETWEEN OCTOBER 1, 2004 AND AUGUST 3, 2007

Dear Yahoo!, Inc. Customer,

This notice (the “Notice”) informs you of a proposed settlement of class action claims against Yahoo!, Inc. For the sake of brevity and clarity, Yahoo!, Inc. will be referred to for the remainder of this Notice simply as Yahoo! This Notice describes the proposed settlement and informs you of your potential rights as a settlement Class Member. You are being sent this Notice because you have been identified as a Yahoo! customer who paid to subscribe to Yahoo! Personals between October 1, 2004 and August 3, 2007. Yahoo! has agreed, under the terms of the Settlement, to provide you with the opportunity to submit a valid and timely Claim Form through which you may be eligible to receive monetary compensation as discussed below in Section 5.A.2.

READ THIS FIRST

1. WHY SHOULD I READ THIS?

This Notice, given pursuant to an Order of the Court dated August 3, 2007, describes a proposed settlement of a class action against Yahoo!, and you have been identified as a potential Class Member.

2. WHY DID I RECEIVE THIS NOTICE?

You received this Notice because a search of Yahoo!’s computer records indicates that you were a subscriber of Yahoo! Personals at some point between October 1, 2004 and August 3, 2007. This Notice provides a summary of the terms of the proposed settlement. It also explains the lawsuit, your potential legal rights under the Settlement, what benefits may be available to you under the Settlement, and how to get them.

3. WHAT IS A CLASS ACTION?

In a class action, one or more individuals or businesses, called Class Representatives (in this case, Robert Anthony) sue on behalf of others that have similar claims. All of these other individuals are members of the “class”. One court resolves the issues for all Class Members, except for those who exclude themselves from the Class. United States District Court Judge Ronald M. Whyte is in charge of this class action.

4. WHAT ARE THE CRITICAL DATES?

Event Date
The last date that your Claim Form must be postmarked if you wish to be eligible to possibly receive a payment under the terms of the Settlement. December 15, 2007
The last date to submit your written request to be excluded from the Settlement if you are not willing to be bound by it and do not want to be eligible to receive a payment. October 15, 2007
The last date to submit any written objection to the Settlement. October 15, 2007
The hearing on any objections and to give final approval to the Settlement. November 15, 2007

5. WHAT IS THIS CASE ABOUT?

On October 12, 2005, Robert Anthony (”Plaintiff”) filed suit against Yahoo!, Inc. (”Yahoo!”) in the United States District Court, Northern District of California. Plaintiff alleged various claims against Yahoo! (specifically, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, Florida statute §501.204 et seq.,fraud, and negligent misrepresentation), by virtue of his allegation that profiles posted for purposes other than dating appeared on the Yahoo! Personals website. Plaintiff brought suit on his own behalf and on behalf of all Yahoo! Personals paid subscribers in the United States since October 1, 2004. Plaintiff sought recovery of damages, various forms of equitable relief and attorneys’ fees and costs. Yahoo! has denied, and continues to deny any and all claims and allegations of wrongdoing asserted in the case and has substantial factual and legal defenses to all claims alleged in the case. Yahoo! has maintained and continues to maintain that it has acted in accordance with governing law. Nonetheless, the parties have concluded that further participation in the case would be protracted and expensive, and that it is desirable that the case be fully and finally settled in the manner and upon the terms set forth in this Notice and in the Parties’ Settlement Agreement.

A. The Proposed Settlement

Since filing the Action, Plaintiff, through Class Counsel, has conducted an investigation of the facts and has analyzed the relevant legal and factual issues. Class Counsel obtained substantial information about the nature and extent of Yahoo!’s challenged practices through this process.
Yahoo denied,




Although Yahoo! does not believe it has done anything wrong and continues to deny all claims and allegations of wrongdoing asserted in the case, Plaintiff and Yahoo! agreed to enter into a Settlement Agreement after an extensive exchange of information and vigorous arms-length negotiation. If approved by the Court, the Settlement Agreement will result in dismissal of this case and final resolution of all claims raised. Such dismissal will release Yahoo! from future liability for the acts and practices complained of. The settlement terms are described in full in a document known as the Settlement Agreement (hereinafter “Agreement”)1 . The Agreement is available for your inspection at the clerk’s office of the United States District Court, Northern District of California. The terms of the Settlement, in summary form, are as follows:

1. To the extent that they are not already in place, no later than 30 days after Final Approval of the Settlement, Yahoo! will take the following actions, which shall remain in force and effect for a period of two (2) years from the date of Final Approval of this Settlement by the Court:

(a) Yahoo! will maintain the “Report a Complaint” link on the profile detail pages appearing on the Yahoo! Personals website.
(b) Profiles that have been inactive for a period of 120 days shall be rendered unsearchable by Yahoo! and Yahoo! shall include this notification in its Additional Terms of Service relating to Yahoo! Personals.
(c) When a user of Yahoo! Personals cancels his or her subscription, a screen will be presented to the user giving the user the option to delete the profile, render the profile unsearchable or keep the profile active. If the user makes no selection, the profile will automatically be deactivated.
(d) Yahoo! will maintain mechanisms in place to detect duplicative photographs, abusive language and the revelation of improper personal information.
(e) Yahoo! will update its Additional Terms of Service relating to Yahoo! Personals to inform its users that that they may see profiles or other content which they feel were created by third parties, contrary to obligations in the applicable terms of services, guidelines and code of conduct, for purposes other than dating, including spam and commercial profiles.
(f) Yahoo! will modify its Additional Terms of Service relating to Yahoo! Personals to include disclosures regarding searchable Yahoo!-created test profiles, if any, that may be used when necessary to ensure service quality. The modifications will disclose how searchable test profiles, if any, are designated so that they are readily identifiable to users.
(g) Yahoo! may make additional changes to its site content, si

Ouch ouch ouch ouch, oh my god, you people do love to attack people here don't you, and you call people such as myself lame, that's harsh.

Just for your information, I would not use such a mod, I was trying to find out why abledating offered such a mod, I thought if one were available for Dolphin then it would be a normal thing. I found their contacting me about that mod distatsteful, our site has a grand total of 5 members, I don't mind if we have 5 members or 50 members, numbers are not an issue for us.

I am finding the behaviour of some members here to be very cruel, it is making me feel very nervous of coming here to seek help, that's not fair people, please stop bullying us when we ask for help, it's cruel and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

I don't believe Melia was calling you lame RevKF - she was calling this practice lame - i.e. she was agreeing with you.

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Rob

Gosh I do hope so Cal, seeing the way this topic has gone made my heart sink, I am a very nervous man by nature, I know many will say I have no place to be on a forum in that case, but I don't believe I should have my right to seek help taken away from me.

Thank you for your kind support there Cal, every time I come here I fear what I am going to find in my topics by way of responses, that just isn't fair is it.

Yes, she was agreeing with you - read the bottom of her post.  I've never found anything wrong with your questions here RevKF.   - I am glad you brought this issue up - I didn't know about it before you did.

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Rob

I think I should have made my starter post clearer really, I spend on average 16 hours per day working with graphics or getting phpBB3 sites up to scratch for people and it makes me really sleepy by the end of the day, most days I have so many different site configurations rattling around in my old brain pan that I do fail to make myself understood clearly at times, that's my fault and I aplogise for my failure there. I will try to be clearer here in the future.

Hi RevKF sorry about that. Cal is right, I was not calling you lame or trying to attack you. Sorry if it came across that way :(

What I wanted to say was that it is lame to mislead potential site members to think that the site their visiting is something it isn't. I know you need to seed a site but to go out and buy thousands of fake profiles is over the top. I can understand a dozen for testing purposes and ghost writing though.

Sorry if I offended you, that was not what I was trying to do.

I hope you understand.

I posted a reply yesterday, actually three.  Two were very distasteful, and I see Boonex deleted them all anyhow.  But as to see how I am always the center of someone's mind, and you people have no better of a life than to assume you even have a small understanding of me, I'm about to enlighten you.

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No one shed light on my site, my 'terms of use' have clearly, since June of 07. stated there are generated profiles.  This disclaimer and the profiles will be removed when I do launch official.  I have been building for over a year - almost ready, but I found out a very interesting problem with dolphin, and the reason I beleieve my last post was deleted.  Dolphin is problematic at high stress load.  Furthermore, red5 taps out at 1000 concurrent connections.  You have to know and begin to understand server balancing and red5 loads - memory requirements, and you really need to understand advanced mysql queries before your whole site locks up.  Dolphin can never be myspace in its current stage.  Dolphin can't grow half as large as boonex says.  Clustering is only good to balance high load on the concurrent connections of your site - but it doesn't deal with mysql and many other problems.  I discussed some of them previously, but, am no longer giving freely.

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A little under half of my  profiles are generated.  Not a false member base.  I mass delete, mass create.  I started at 400 and testing certain dolphin options.  They failed.  I reported it.  You got the fix.  I went to 750 - and, well - let's say it gets worse.  Now, I'm not talking about just having that many members, dolphin theoritically can handle infinite, but, certain services under dolphin, hang.  I have been slowly rewriting the friends, and boonex has also made changes now, but - previously, get 700 friend requests at one time and watch what happens.  Sound unreal?  No.  My myspace account has 10+k friends, and when I was using friend trains, was getting 100-900 a day.

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I moved upto 950 generated.  And found a weakness, and this time, kept it to myself.  Truthfully, boonex is selling you a dream.  Everyone wants a myspace.  Everyone wants a facebook.  It is possible.  Do you have the money to do it?  Do you have the resources?  Can you solve a simple problem when it arises?  Can you trace memory and cpu overloads and understand why they are occuring?  If you can't - and if your site does make it past infancy, I promise you will be shelling out the big money to Boonex.  They work that way - I know.

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Furthermore, my site isn't officially live.  It's there, and due to my activities on myspace have a couple hundred myspace users getting graphics and widgets codes from my site, a couple hundred friends, and another couple hundred who knows who they are.  But my generated profiles are for specific purpose, and is clearly stated in my content area of my terms of use.  I have $10,000 for advertising and am having payouts for certain point acheivements on my site.  You will know when it goes public, or I have a real launch, your google ads will be showing my site.  I opened it up to  dolphin 'modsters' because I like the company.  I hate this forum - for the reasons like this post - people really have no idea whats going on, or have any insight to anything, yet, come here and ask for help over and over.  Eventually that help will run dry, and you will be frustrated, and leave.  I've been here since Dol 5.3 - almost five years now.  And all the people who help eventually fade.  New batch arrives, then the life is too drained from them.  Boonex makes this forum to make their job easier, yet restricts simple links.  I am on digitalpoint and expertz-forum and have been for years, these are massive forums, and they allow links in their signatures.  No one is going to leave boonex because of my link, that is absurd, but, maybe find something else and other fun things for thier site.

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I have a list of dolphin exploits - cost me $1000 from breach security.  Mine are all fixed.  I get attempts daily to get hacked, I have a custom html scrubber, and watch my security logs closely.  I really don't think you know what you are getting into... it's nice to just throw up a site, have a couple hundred members and say - look, MY SITE.  I am in no way that person.  My goals are much larger.

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So, at the end of the day, when I launch - fully - my generated profiles will disappear, my terms of use will be modified, and I will do what I am good at - code.

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One last thing, and I think this is funny, ALOT of the big names here - ALOT OF THEM, have these 20,000 member fake databases.  You know how I know... I wrote the mysql injector for it.  Funny huh.

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Have a great day and one last thing, stop messaging me here - I am going to start copy and pasting them, so be it known, if you message me about any other member, I will post it from now on.  I for once agree with an enemy of mine, stop being cowards and tell these people how you feel without the secrecy of my mailbox.  I will not be called a liar again.

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Til the road ends and we meet on the crossroads,

Chris

Wow... all that and all I did was ask :-)

Glad to see all being active and nothing that needed deleting....

CyberXing

Well said Chris.