@pleasestop Asking Accounts to Delegate 100% of SP!!

in #delegation6 years ago

Important - Read This First

If you've received a reply from @steemitag (and probably an upvote), the steemconnect link in that comment will delegate all of your SP and your account will be completely locked. Let me simplify that even more.

If you follow the instructions from @steemitag your account will be completely locked and unusable!

Did I make that point clear enough?

As always, there's a story behind this, so let's jump in.

The first reply from @steemitag

I received a reply from @steemitag yesterday morning on a post from my primary account. If you look at comments by @steemitag you'll see it consistently replies shortly after a post is created, so it will be at the top of the page. Well, basically filling the entire page.

steemitag_comment.png

To start, this comment is absurdly oversized and horribly intrusive.

It vaguely talks about "our cause" and that you can earn "rewards" that you'll receive "in the form of dividends."

This is all perfectly clear and you understand exactly what they're doing, right? Well hold on, it gets better.

You'll see this link in the comment which is immediately followed with:

confirming your 100% SP delegation

Ok, they say it out loud at least. My opening made this point pretty clear, but we'll get back to this in a moment.

Since this link is outright dangerous and the reply overwhelmed my comments, I downvoted it.

downvote.png

I downvoted it from this account and from @duplitbot as well and from the three that was enough to hide it at the bottom of the page.

The second reply

I was literally dumbfounded when this account replied to another post of mine later in the day. As you'll see, I asked the account to change it so it's way smaller now.

You can read the entire dialog in that link, but it's somewhat lengthy so I'll cover the highlights. And sorry, it's still lengthy.

I basically outlined all the points I've made here and I got a reply from @haiyangdeperci, who apparently runs the @steemitag bot, saying many different things including this:

The message posted by @steemitag is as clear as it can be

Do you agree with this? After reading that comment from the image above can you tell me precisely what this bot does?

The commission that we take only serves to pay for the servers and associated cost.

Pfftt...that's nonsense. This is a simple comment/vote bot that can easily be run on a $5/month droplet at DigitalOcean.

This point I made sums it all up pretty well:

It is all the other unsuspecting accounts who may not realize what's going on that I'm worried about.

I also asked about these 'dividends' and basically demanded that those links were removed from every active comment from the @steemitag account.

I'm going to quote the reply to be as clear as possible.

I am replying to you during the weekend and even today, on Sunday, off hours

Oh wow, sorry to bother you on the weekend.

The message used to be very short but we have been accused of clendestine behaviour so we had to make our messages vivid and clear.

This is absolutely untrue. Since everything is recorded here forever I wrote a script to look at all of the comments for anything different and here is the entire list.

Why would you lie to me about this? Not that you had much credibility before, but you have absolutely none left now.

Last year, we were paying the dividends weekly or biweekly through Steem blockchain. This was ineffective for us, as the curation rewards go into SP which cannot be readily liquidated. Thus, we moved out of the Steem blockchain and utilize other ways.

Oh. My. God.

First, they trick you into delegating your entire stake to their account, but don't worry, they'll pay you air quotes 'dividends' "out of the Steem blockchain" in some way that is still not clear, but what is clear is that those transactions are not part of the immutable public ledger of the blockchain. Sorry, that's way too polite, those transactions are hidden. No. You can't look at them, stop asking.

How can you operate a project on the blockchain and then reject the entire premise upon which it is founded?

Please look at our recent client, @krystianos, who is still operating on blockchain. As you can see, it is possible to delegate to us and still do whatever one wants.

Yeah, let's look at this account.

krystianos.png

This gets tricky, so let me break it down. You'll see this.

9.8 + 5.2 - 9.8

What this means is the account has 9.8 SP, plus an additional 5.2 SP delegated to it from another account, minus the entire 9.8 SP that was delegated to @steemitag. This account is operational only because of that additional 5.2 SP delegation.

So no, it is not possible to "delegate to [steemitag] and still do whatever one wants" unless you have an additional delegation from a third account.

Here's the math on this

VESTS and SP

The blockchain can be tricky and there's a lot of technical details that are hard to fully understand so I'm going to try to make this truly clear and understandable. I did exactly what @steemitag is asking accounts to do, I delegated my entire stake away from yet another account that I manage.

First, let's be clear on what 'entire stake' means. Just go to steemd.com and look in the upper right hand corner and you'll see this:

12,834.882080 VESTS

These gets a little complex, but in the simplest terms VESTS are your SP. This is the value we use in delegations.

If you look at comments from @steemitag and look at the steemconnect link included, then go to the steemd.com page for the accounts they are replying to, you'll see that the steemconnect link includes the exact same value that is displayed on the steemd page. To be clear, they are giving you a link to delegate your entire stake to them.

Delegating the entire stake

Again, check out steemd.com we'll see the total vests for this account.

total_vests.png

And we can see that as SP here.

deadwitnesses_starting_sp.png

I took the steemconnect link directly from their post, but replaced my account name and the vests amount and created this exact URL:

https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/delegateVestingShares?delegator=deadwitnesses&delegatee=pleasestop&vesting_shares=12834.882080%20VESTS

You'll see, the VESTS in the URL exactly matches the figure from steemd.com for my account.

And then, I delegated my entire stake, which is what @steemitag is asking accounts to do.

delegate_to_pleasestop.png

My account then had 0 SP.

deadwitnesses_after_delegation.png

But this is the most important line:

used 2.44kb of 0 bytes

The of 0 bytes tells us how much bandwidth this account has available, which is to say this account has zero bandwidth, which is to say, this account cannot do anything!

Removing your delegation is a blockchain operation, which requires bandwidth. But now you have none.

bandwidth_limit_exceeded.png

Yes, that's right. As soon as you delegate away your entire stake, you will not even have enough bandwidth to undelegate and take it back. And there is nothing that your account alone can do about it.

The only way to save your account is to get some SP, either buying STEEM or through a delegation from another account.

Obviously, I have another account so I tried delegating 'some' SP.

steemconnect_0.1.png

Clearly, 0.1 SP is not enough.

steemconnect_error.png

It took several tries but eventually I figured out that you need to delegate at least 1 SP.

1_sp.png

And once this account had some SP again, it was able to remove the delegation.

undelegate.png

The worst part is that it takes 7 days to get this delegation back in my account.

Whew. That was a lot of work, but hopefully this is clear enough to make the point that you should never delegate your entire stake to anyone.

What's next?

I had asked @haiyangdeperci to go back and remove the steemconnect links from every comment made by @steemitag and I didn't even receive a response on that point. Fair enough, since the links won't be removed I'll make sure everyone is aware.

I've written a script to watch for new comments from @steemitag and reply with this message:

WARNING! If you follow the instructions from @steemitag your account will be completely locked and unusable!
Take a look at this post for all the details and please consider using this link to send a small flag to discourage this behavior.

The flag is set to -15%, so nothing huge, but enough to make the point that these posts are unwanted.

I'm replying to @haiyangdeperci with a link to this post asking to remove the steemconnect link from all editable past comments and if this does not occur I will continue with my reply to these comments as well and possibly to every single comment ever made by @steemitag.

How can you help?

More than anything, I want this account to know how the community feels about this behavior.

If you read the Steem Whitepaper you'll see the crab analogy and regarding abuse it states:

It is sufficient to make the walls slippery and give the other crabs sufficient power to prevent others from escaping.

The metaphor here is that we use our voting power--our downvoting power--to let @steemitag know how we feel about this behavior. I had considered the idea of working to move the reputation all the way to zero, but I don't think that will be necessary. Just sending the message should be more than enough.

Go take a look at recent replies to find one from me and click the downvote link I include. Then, change the 'voter' in the URL to your account, and change the weight as desired. It's currently set to 15% so adjust up or down from there.

This is one of the crazier things I've seen so I want to do everything possible to stop this behavior.

This post is insanely long, so if you actually made it this far please share your thoughts!

Sort:  

Well done on raising awareness with this mate. I’ll help with flags on their comments where possible. I’ve seen these scammy comments before and thought they looked fishy.

His rep is down to 15; so that'll hurt his visibility in future.
I might leave a comment on his victim's posts so they get the notification/explanation, and a link to PM me on discord. It's easy enough to delegate a couple of SP each to anyone who is still around so the can lift the delegation.

Are you running the @pleasestop account, @mattclarke?

@mattclarke is a huge supporter of @pleasestop, but I'm actually the one running that account.

Oh snap, dude, this is awesome! Just realized you were at the Mpls meet up! Wasn't able to connect with you there all that much, but love what you're doing with this.

May I recommend a delegation bomb post to up your SP to combat this crap? I would be happy to start it off with a snippet of mine :)

Oh wow, I didn't even realize it! Though brief, I definitely remember talking with you both at dinner and at Dave & Busters.

And yeah, asking for delegations has been my plan all along, but I've been working on a TON of code around this and it's been going a little slower than I'd hope, but I'm actually quite close.

Now that you bring it up I'll make it a priority for this month so I'll definitely touch base then when I'm ready for those delegations.

Thank you for deadwitnesses too.

Thanks, I appreciate the support!

I'm not, but I appreciate what he does.

Awesome, thanks so much for your help making it clear this is unwanted!

Awesome, thanks so much
For your help making it clear
This is unwanted!

                 - pleasestop


I'm a bot. I detect haiku.

Cute idea, but these comments add no value and harm the blockchain.

I'm glad we crossed paths early, because you need to stop. Immediately.

Please review my account to understand my work and reply here to open a dialogue.

Bastards. Newcomers will follow advice to always check that it's steemconnect.com in the URL, but that's not the problem.
Then people don't understand why they can't do anything, or ask any questions, and give up in frustration.
And its for such small amounts too. I can't think of a better way to slow adoption and hurt the ecosystem.

  • rolls up sleeves *

rolls up sleeves

I always appreciate your help Matt, thanks so much!!


Of the accounts > 15 SP there, only @vannaksaom and @arvydas are disabled.

Vannak is apparently active under the same name on a Steemit clone serey.io if someone wanted to contact him and offer him help in regaining his account. I'm a little skeptical of this site.

Arvydas is a fairly common given name in Lithuania, which makes things difficult. I found one on Twitter who mentioned Steem at one point and asked him if it was his. If he replies I'll help him get his account back.

I left vannaksaom a reply on his most recent steemit blog post, with my discord details, so he can hit me up there if he's still about.
Great teamwork :)

Seriously great work here, if any of these accounts does reply it's awesome that we have a real community here more than ready to step up and get them back on their feet.

Most of those are so old there's probably no use trying to find them and help them undelegate either. Bleh.

Yeah, I flagged him back into the cave he crawled out of, but they've probably mostly given up and left. Now he can self upvote with their delegated SP forever.

This is one of the times I really support what you do, @pleasestop... I like how they don't lie about it (much) though. They are honest about the %100 delegation, it's just that they KNOW most newcomers won't understand delegating everything is a huge problem.

Yeah, it definitely does seem to prey on the innocence of newcomers who don't understand the full impact of what is being asked. Thanks for your support!

I expect we will see a sorts of scams preying on the unwary. This blockchain stuff can get pretty technical. A crafty url can wreck your account. Be careful everyone

Well said, and thanks again for your continued support!

These accounts need to go to negative rep. Did a few flags now & I’ll resume tomorrow. Even the profile website link drops people into a delegation confirmation screen and I see no evidence of dividends or any contact that would have allowed the so called off chain payments. Total scam artist.

These accounts need to go to negative rep.

Total scam artist.

You said it perfectly.

Thanks for making a real impact here and for your continued support!

Scumbag scammers like this really grind my gears. Preying on the naivity of the inexperienced is a low act.

Preying on the naivity of the inexperienced is a low act.

About as low as it goes, really!

Thanks for the info. Still a newbie on here and am not up on all the ins and outs.

Glad it was helpful.

It’s also fun looking at just how well @steemitag is performing with its wonderful algorithm! .071 SP earned last week on roughly 800SP voting power. (Currently sitting unused at 100%... great strategy!)

I have roughly 6x their voting power, so if my curation performed the same I’d be at .42 SP rewards last week. I’m at 5.892, almost 15 times better performance. No algorithm, I just read stuff and vote on things I like. What a concept! This is all so full of B.S. it’s laughable.

It was obvious this account wasn't generating any value but this makes it perfectly clear.

Wow, a simple and logical approach works far better than, well, absolute BS. Who would've thought?

I just read a post about 100% SP yesterday. I thought of taking the risk because I don't have enough SP. Still, I didn't follow! Thanks for sharing this valuable piece of information.

I'm glad you didn't follow through, hopefully this can help everyone to understand the impact of this.

Everyone needs to read and analyze carefully to make the right choice!

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This post is insanely long

It was a long post, but also very helpful. Thanks for letting us know about this. I haven't really delegated to anything yet, but I know some people start early. If they don't know that they need SP to have bandwidth, they could get caught in this trap. Thanks for going to the effort of actually delegating and seeing how much SP it takes to get your account back.

This is one of those things I understood philosophically, but it makes it so much clearer to walk through the steps and show everyone exactly what happens. I hope this serves as a great example to show everyone the impact of delegation like this.

Thanks for a visual example of why having no SP locks your account. Most places asking for delegation say to leave 50 SP in. Is that because it takes you to a point where you're unlikely to run out of bandwidth?

Yeah, at 50 SP you should be generally good on bandwidth, though it's still possible to run out even with that much. Bandwidth has a lot of layers to it so it can be a little complicated to understand.