RE: [Steemit Etiquette] Using 95+ Bot Accounts to Upvote your own Content. Fair Game or Not Cool?

[recursive]

Yep, I do this openly with obvious accounts to garner attention to how stupid sybil attacks are currently, how stupid easy it is to make accounts and game the Hot section, and the vote count.

Fair enough, but it would be more effective to sybil a post that explains the problem rather than a random Cheetah related post. Some posts like an exploit report that would hang on the top of the ranking for weeks is sure to push the message unambiguously.

Comments

[anyx]

I tested at first, and then I tried to talk about sybils in my latest post. In retrospect I agree, I should have been more clear that I was trying to break things -- e.g. just make a single post about sybils and push that one (not just as one of the 3 topics in my last post).
The more attention we get the better, at least, so we can fix the problem. See smooth's response as well for some more insight and how to fix it.

[riensen]

See also this newly created a Bug Report.
There is an on-going discussion on how to fix this issue with the steem Devs: https://github.com/steemit/steem/issues/233

Both Hot and the Vote Count can be easily manipulated to make an article more visible and thus indirectly increase payout.
Using the API we can easily create hundred of accounts whenever a POW is found. In fact this behaviour is encouraged in order to mine continuously, or we are penalized. However when duplicate accounts are used to upvote content than it skyrockets in the Hot section. Also the vote count is misleading as it suggest that many low steem power users support the post although it is actually the same person.
The below image is a an example. It was upvoted with 150 Bot accounts and appears at the top of the Hot section although there is little payout associated with it.

[vegeta]

You're worse than Dr. Gero! The work is appreciated however to help prevent future Dr. Gero's on here.