Accusation:
I was recently asked to look into the background of a flag-war being carried out on steemit.
The flagging was, as so often, sadly, only being carried out on the basis of personal views and ideological disagreements. That was really nothing that I would involve myself with.
But, in the dust stirred up by those steemians, exchanging their flags, there was something else, mostly unrelated, but without any ideological bias, definitely ill-intended:
Accounts impersonating young talents and earning rewards with stolen content.
The Findings:
Let's work our way up the ladder before we do the full reveal.
I'll start with some young pretty singers and songwriters from YouTube.
@daiki claims to be YouTube singer Tommi Rose and @gracetbg is supposed to be another YouTube user by the name of Lauren Kirk. @daiki and @gracetbg both opened their steemit accounts in June, within minutes of each other.
A week later @asterix opens her presence on steemit, claimingt to be Jessica Bitsura, yet another singer from YouTube.
If you've visited the steemit-profiles of these artists by now, you will have noticed, they all have a rather un-stereotypical interest in crypto-tokens, "NarwhalSprings coin", "Whaleshares" and the "eostalk forum".
I have contacted all three original artists via Facebook and/or email, but I have not heard back from them yet.
So why am I already throwing this around, accounts opening around the same time and pretty girls with an interest in "eostalk" certainly isn't exactly a crime. They haven't even earned much in rewards yet either!
Bear with me, and let's get to the center of this.
A few weeks before these singers made their debut on steemit, @walterz, just another guy who happens to also be interested in all these tokens and "eostalk", opened his account with steemit. He introduced himself as Alex from Indonesia, with an interest in food.
After posting about food for a while and with very limited success, he suddenly shifted focus and developed a passion for drawing about 2 months ago. His new passion seemed to resonate with the audience, he was incredibly talented right from the start, and actually started getting some good upvotes.
Unfortunately, the fun didn't last very long. Just a few posts later, @steemcleaners busted him for showcasing stolen content.
But Alex was a real renaissance-man, so he quickly looked for a new hobby, let's try some photography! Talented as he is, he became a master quite quickly and has in the meantime specialized in shooting macros of insects with a cellphone.
@walterz has been growing his audience, and he seems to have made good progress in the #whaleshares community, too. His latter posts are making fine rewards and everybody is happy about it.
Well... not exactly everybody!
Jerry Thomp from Instagram certainly isn't.
He was a little upset when I told him about his images being stolen by @walterz:
So there you have it: @walterz has been making his steemit career with plagiarized and stolen content!
And yes, he is the one who runs the accounts for our YouTube talents @daiki, @gracetbg and @asterix, too! So if the real them do eventually reply to my messages, I am already certain whet that answer is going to look like!
Of course, @walterz is running a few more accounts, too: @hansenhtb, @musicaz, @blitzkierg, @priscilacosta, but there's nothing special to see here.
Hold On,
is there's a genuine talent involved?
@walterz is also working through the account @aomine, another girl-singer, this time from Indonesia, who's calling herself Gracia Desnita.
Now Gracia definitely is a real person. She made some on-camera appearances for the steemit-open-mic contest and also involves herself in the #whaleshares community.
I must suspect that she's either the real person behind @walterz or (probably more likely) she's @walterz' girlfriend!
It's a pity if someone with possibly honest aspirations gets dragged into the mess of a cheater and plagiariser, but it wouldn't come as a surprise to me, Rene from Case 7.1 did also open an account for his girlfriend who had been using it genuinely.
yours,
Sherlock
List of accounts identified in this case:
@walterz, @hansenhtb, @musicaz, @daiki, @gracetbg, @aomine, @asterix, @blitzkierg, @priscilacosta
P.S.: I know, this post might come across as a bit sexist, but I believe that to be a major selling point of those fake accounts, so I left the undertone at that.
P.P.S: My 2ct downvote unfortunately doesn't do much against an account with 60 reputation, dear sea-mammals, please use your flags where you deem it neccessary! @walterz is a repeated plagiariser who has been flagged and warned before and who still carries on using stolen content on his blog under the pretense of being the original creator!