Influx of fake users

[Sean (@TheGilded)Moderator]

Fellow Aspirants,

We’ve recently be invaded by a force that I don’t yet fully understand. I’d invite you all to look at the forum’s membership list. It’s certainly been growing, likely in no small part due to our recruitment efforts. However, there is a pattern among many of their names. There are a significant amount of users that follow the pattern exhibited in the following profiles:

Jason Herndon
Sharyn Crane
Rudolph Beards
Velva Schmella

Note that all of their names follow the pattern of Firstname Lastname exactly. Their usernames are their full name with a random set of numbers at the end so that their usernames are always 14 characters long. They never log in, and never post.

I’ve posted 4 of them, but there are significantly more than that. I would invite any of these users to come and explain themselves here, but none have ever been active and my invitation would fall on deaf ears.

Finally, one of their names is eerily similar to a name from my past. I would invite all of you to sort through the activity page, sort by new users, and keep an eye on new false accounts being created, or sifting through the membership page to check for others that follow this pattern.

I don’t fully understand what their purpose is, but there is meaning behind their presence.

• This topic was modified 8 years, 6 months ago by  Sean (@TheGilded).

[Sean (@TheGilded)Moderator]

Notice that between this post and now, we’ve had another of these fake users join:

Jamaal Reiss

I’d invite @jamaalreiss320 to this topic but he, along with the rest of the accounts that follow this pattern, decided to create an account and then never use it so it would be impossible for him to see this.

[MelissaModerator]

What the hell, now their profiles don’t exist?

[_Michael GrayParticipant]

Could the influx of fake users have anything to do with Sentinel possibly? Just a thought…

[Sean (@TheGilded)Moderator]

Theoretically. But it’s be happening for weeks. Longer than Sentinel has been active. Unless they had plans in motion for a while now

[Addison BornParticipant]

Could also be spambots that haven’t been active yet? I know nothing is random here, but I know that same naming structure is used on other forums like this as well as Reddit, where they create an account that’s [firstinitial][lastname][3 to 5 numbers], and then wait for a bit until they’ve been a member long enough that they don’t raise any flags or have posting restrictions, and then start spamming. Especially now that the accounts seem to have been deleted?

Worth keeping an eye on, but thinking this might be Occam’s razor?

[ErinParticipant]

Like:
@meri8445744985
@ruharden349879
@rita39c1551415
@janetburrow912
@moshemellor417
@elenareber7971
@stella73678406
???

[Addison BornParticipant]

Those look like spambot accounts to me. But probably worth keeping an eye on?

[Author]

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