[wp-forums] Coded user for sock puppetry

[Jan Dembowski]

On Wed, Jan 22, 2014 at 7:35 PM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:

> PROTIP: Monitor a few of the more "common" plugins reviews. Examples:
> Jetpack, the Tumblr Importer, anything "by WordPress.org".
>
> Frequently, I see a pattern of reviews to these plugins.
>
> 1. Worthless, 5 star, "worked great, every1 shuld use" type reviews.
> 2. New account making them has only 3-5 reviews, which are the only
> posts it has ever made.
> 3. One of these plugins it has reviewed is not like the others... one
> of these things just isn't the same...
>
> The idea is to hide the fake review in a tiny pool of seemingly legit
> reviews for plugins that get a lot of reviews already and which nobody
> would suspect as also being fake reviews..  I see it a lot on the
> Tumblr Importer, mostly, because those come up in my feed. But I've
> seen it on others as well. But the pattern continually repeats. The
> mail.ru domain seems to be common in those accounts as well.
>
> No pattern to the plugins that the faker is trying to build up though,
> that seems randomish.
>

I've been seeing that too. The fake mass reviews sets off the distant dog
whistle for me.


> Recommendation: Block account, delete all those false reviews. I find
> it about once or twice a week.
>

Gotcha. Will do going forward.

Thanks,

Jan Dembowski