Jan 08, 2020 08:00:00

What is the cause of the spoofing caused by spoofing accounts on book review sites?

By

master1305

The ' vandalism ' of persistently criticizing specific individuals or writing meaningless comments in the comment section on the website etc. is a big problem on the website ' Goodreads ' where you can share the impressions and ratings of the books you read It has become. For example, a science fiction writer Patrick S. Tomlinson has been subjected to a large-scale vandalism with an impersonation account using the name and photo of Tomlinson's friend without permission, and Mr. Tomlinson at Goodreads Unauthorized reviews continue to be posted on books.

Lax Security and Moderation at Goodreads Allows Trolls to Spoof People, Harass Authors | Jason Sanford on Patreon
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◆ Tampering with an impersonation account
Tom Linson's book, In The Black , has a review page with 65 ratings and 175 reviews at the time of writing. However, because “In The Black” is a pre-release book, it is unnatural to have many reviews posted on books that no one else should have.

'In The Black' was released on Goodreads around December 15, 2019, and received more than 10 star-rated reviews in just one day. Over the course of a month, hundreds of unauthorized reviews and postings on spoofed accounts have been repeated. Goodreads has performed reviews and deemed accounts deemed fraudulent, but has taken no specific action other than deletion, and has not eliminated the impersonation account.

Many spoofing accounts use the names and photos of friends and writers who follow Tomlinson's Twitter account, making it appear that Tomlinson's friends have rated the book as unrated. Although there are five star ratings in the reviews, some of the reviews that are highly rated have contents as if Tomlinson is raising the rating by self-made self-performance, and reviews of books and It is said that comments have been posted that suggest racism, sexism and homophobia that have nothing to do with it.

Photos and names of

Gareth L. Powell and Beth Kato , both authors like Tomlinson, have been abused to create spoof accounts. Powell said, 'I have spent a lot of time encouraging other authors and recommending books, but because of someone impersonating me to criticize the novel, Everything I went for was ruined. '

In response to the impersonation account behavior, Powell deleted the Goodreads account to avoid confusion. Kato also complained to Goodreads that the impersonation account was undergoing unauthorized review. However, a few days after Kato filed a complaint with Goodreads, more than ten accounts impersonating Kato made an unfair review of Tomlinson's book and could not stop the vandalism of the spoof account.

By

sergign

◆ Problems with Goodreads
Tomlinson says that the vandalism inside Goodreads was overheated because the security and terms of Goodreads at the time of writing the article could not prohibit vandalism. As an issue with Goodreads, Tomlinson points out how to create an account.

To create a new account with Goodreads, first enter your ID, password and email address. Goodreads will then send a confirmation email to the email address you entered, but the user can create an account without opening the confirmation email and review the book immediately. This means that if you enter an email address that does not exist or someone else's email address when creating an account, you will still be able to create an account.

Goodreads also created an account with an existing user name, so many accounts with the same name as Tomlinson's friend were duplicated. In addition, Goodreads has the ability to report fraudulent reviews, but has no way of reporting the account itself for spoofing or vandalism.

Major social media sites have countermeasures against security issues such as fraudulent accounts and vandalism through two- factor authentication , but at the time of writing the article, Goodreads did not respond to security improvements.

By Rawpixel

`` Goodreads should change the terms in response to vandalism, '' said Tomlinson, complaining to Goodreads, but there is no specific improvement and there will be no reduction in unfair reviews by account was.

Tomlinson says that Goodreads has many ways to control vandalism, including `` requiring the opening of confirmation emails when creating accounts '', `` adding a system that can report violations of unauthorized accounts '', `` pre-release or Goodreads is requesting a proposal such as 'Limiting reviews immediately after release to only trusted accounts.'

◆ Damage and purpose of vandalism
According to Tomlinson, vandalism at Goodreads and others began around September 2018. It was said that Tomlinson helped tampering with Reddit 's vandalism and copyright infringement issues and suspended thousands of Reddit accounts. Some Reddit users who regret Tomlinson's actions have frozen Tomlinson's Twitter account, posted unfair comments on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube channel and blog, and read Tomlinson's books on Goodreads and Amazon. And to make unfair reviews.

By tommyandone

Goodreads and Amazon's review section said that there was more than 200 reviews with one star for each book, and at the moment it seems that some books averaged less than 2 stars. Although the scan data in the review column was sent to Amazon to prove that many improper reviews were posted through the publisher and that most of the reviews were defamation, reviews and accounts by Amazon There was no response such as the deletion of.

Although Goodreads supports fraudulent reviews and account deletions, fraudulent reviews continue to grow, as slow response and lack of security can cause culprits to grow.

According to Tomlinson, it has been publicly stated that the purpose of those who persist in vandalism is 'to drive Tomlinson into suicide.' Tomlinson said, 'This is not the only vandalism that will happen. If they achieve their goals, they will surely begin to push other people.' Indicates a posture that does not yield.