Solution to fight Cheaters on link-sites
 

I thought of something that could help us fight cheaters on link-sites and TGP's. Might be an idea to get something going that a lot of sites cooperate on though. People can pay for a submitter pass. Not a lot, maybe even just a dollar or 5 dollars or something, but it means we have personal information of such a submitter on file. And a creditcard number. Once a submitter is caught cheating his account could be blocked. Of course all information on this person will stay on file to prevent him from submitting again.

I have the resources to set something like this up. And I also have the tendency to go for it, 'cause a lot of people have been trying to cheat their way in to a couple of dollars... Luckily my bot takes care of 'em ;-)

Anothing thing I have been thinking of is to get sponsors to work on this. Cheating on a link-site or TGP should be illegal. If people still do this the funds they made so far could be donated to charity (which could also be the pockets of the needing sponsor-owner). That way cheating would simply not be profitable. I talked to a lot of sponsors. They all agree on one thing: traffic generated by cheaters is not making any sales, only costing money and a lot of trouble from pissed of users who report to the sponsor, or the FTC. All in all giving that sponsor a pretty bad name. I'd love to see some cooperation going on regarding this.

There's not much my little efforts could do to help this matter, but I find it an intresting idea. Even a very good idea.

i think thats a great idea ! you get my creditcard asap hun :Graucho

Well, I don't operate the largest TGP www.voyeurzine.com but it is very successful and the main problem we experience is CHEATERS!

I have setup a PASSCODE system which generally means that 90% of the galleries posted at my site and from VERIFIED submitters.... to this day I have not had 1 instance of cheating....

I'm not sure that gallery submitters will subscribe to the idea that they need to show CC details upfront before submitting though.... Let's not forget that without gallery submitters we wouldn't have TGPS!

So, I guess what I am trying to say is that specific PASSCODE/PARTNER/AFFILIATE lists should suffice for TGP submissions - no need for CC subscriptions from the point of the submitters..... I really don't think anybody would buy into this model to be honest...

Terry
www.projectvoyeur.com
www.thetruevoyeur.com
www.voyeurzine.com

The pass idea works for me :)

Hun,

This was discussed before with cheaters and major sponsors.. I believe there is a legal issue with blackballing someone and restricting their right to earn income..

I think somone should consult an attorney in the USA before doing that.. otherwise sponsors could list cheaters and share the info with other sponsors.. and I believe some do.. but I think also it is technically illegal here in the USA.

Im sure one of the adult attorneys could answer this. I just seem to remember it being an issue.


Chris

if you store credit card info, it might be required now that that data be hosted behind a strong firewall. not sure if visa passed that restriction or not, but it was a rumor before...

just assign everyone a username/password, and have them give you a phone number. you call once and verify, good enough. if they fuck you over, post the # all over, or find out who owns the #.

Sounds good to me Hun... Where do I send my credit card information?

DH:glugglug

you would like me to give my CC info to 200 tgp guys over there? pardon my french, but have you gone insane?

Terry, I already have a system like that. All confirmed submissions. But still people cheat. Lately especially Russians (surprise, surprise).

The main reason I don't go ahead and set this up, but post it here first is what you are saying. My site exsists 'cause of gallery submitters. Now I will make it harder for people to submit. Maybe even creating a feeling with people that when they 'sign up' they would have a better chance of getting listed. So I'm trying to find out if there are enough people willing to try something like this. It will be one of the first projects where people's credit card's will INDEED be used for verification only ;-)

Anyway, the good have to suffer for the bad, no matter how you put it. That's why I'm trying to get something going that will work for all sites. Maybe people could upload their submit page to a system or something. That way gallery submitters would pay the least possible for verification. Chances of the honest submitters to get listed would increase as well...

The creditcard numbers are used for verification only, not to bill anybody. So the actual number doesn't have to be stored. There are checksums you can calculate which would be unique for every creditcard number but are impossible to generate the original creditcard number from. The checksum would be stored, not the original creditcard number.

This same system is commonly used for passwords. So there's no reverse algorithm. Even when someone would hack into the database he wouldn't get any useful information. So no, you won't have to give your creditcard information to a link-site, only to a billing party that can verify your card. I'm sure there's a billing company what will drop me an e-mail with an offer now ;-)

Hun, no doubt you are in the ultimate position to do this and I do not doubt that you could make this work...

Maybe it will take something this extreme to eradicate cheaters ( althought, no matter what you do there will always be cheaters, jut less of them )

Obviously only the BIGGEST and BEST tgp's will be able to do this and ultimately this model will filter down to the smaller TGP's....

In saying that, it would probably work for a site like www.thehun.com but never for a new site www.xxxtgp2002.com etc.....

You say you already have a PASSCODE system in place.... I would concentrate on doing more to those cheaters than you probably currently do.... PUBLISH NAMES, EMAIL ADDRESS, DOMAINS ETC ETC on a CHEATERS page @ thehun... I remember you did this with advertisers at one point...

As you know... 99.99% of TGP submitters do not cheat... why create a brand new infrastructure to catch or deter maybe 5 cheaters per week?... I think dealing with the cheaters retrospectively rather than pro-actively would work better..... and would ultimately be less labour intensive and more productive in the long run.

Think of all the TGP owners who could download a comprehensive cheater/blacklist from thehun on a daily basis?... we all would do it! - and give you OUR CC numbers ;-)

Terry

why wouldn't honest webmasters want to pay a dollar or even
5 dollars? Gallery builders are only thinking of making money.
In any normal business you have to invest some money in order
to make some money.

It's a 1 time fee per TGP right? It will weed out a lot of bad guys
which helps increase the good guys change of listing...and it will
save the TGP owners a lot of hassle hunting down cheaters.

I support this idea will defenitely want to use it and wouldn't mind
paying a one time fee to TGP's for verification purposes in order
to be known as a good guy.

DynaMite

you should see the cheater logs of a good spiderscript no matter
if it's a big or a small TGP 99.99% fair webmasters is very far from
reality. Again it would be one time fee per webmaster. Even for
the small tgps maybe even especially for the small ones...since
those are the ones that get cheated most.....usually they just
don't know.

DynaMite

It would be a one time fee for people willing to submit through a system like this. Maybe there could be a monthly fee or something for sites joining (wanting to use this to block cheaters), but I think that if submitters pay 1-5 USD that renevue would cover the bandwidth.

It should be a system where as many link-sites as possible could work with. Preferably at no, or a very low fee...

TheHun,

I believe the idea is exceptional. Not only with their information be stored, but being paysite owner and soon to be affliliate, i have tons of content that i'm sure people will steal and use on galleries. Or even promote other sponsor with my content.

One of the best advantages to this, is if a sponsor has proof that a gallery submitter is using their stolen content, there personal information is already on file.

This would make the cheater think twice about using unlicensed content and cheat. Obviously the other advantages you already mentioned.

I'm all for this. I also run a TGP and can see how this would benefit both TGP's and paysite owners...hell, this obviously would benefit content providers more then anyone.

I hope to see this system working one day. :thumbsup

Mike, good point indeed. Didn't even think of that. I will have my attorney check into the legal issues regarding that though.

This idea has been brought up a few months ago by Due. It could probably work under certain conditions, like if there was a submit pool that the submitter was submitting to and all the tgps involved got their galleries from that pool. As a submitter, there is no way I would give my credit card out to 200+ tgps, 50+ link lists separately even if I wasn't be charged.

Also, you have to define what is cheating, we all know the basic forms, redirecting, cp and stolen content. But there has to be a set group of rules in writing. Otherwise you start running into problems with people breaking a rule of a tgp and being labeled a cheater. There is a difference between cheating and breaking a tgp's rules. Both will get you blacklisted though. But what is acceptable at one tgp may not be accepted at another tgp. I've been blacklisted at one tgp because my url was too long! Sure it was against that tgp's rules, but does it warrant being put on a blacklist and labeled a cheater? It is a violation of that tgp's rules but accepted at 99% of the other tgps.

Now if you wanted to setup something like thehuntgpsubmits.com and set up your pass system and all the tgps that wanted to use the galleries submitted also had to subscribe to it and adhere to the same rules, then maybe it might work. That way with your name, The Hun, backing it there is some legitimacy to it.

If I had to pay to prove that I was a legitimate submitter, I would at some point like to get listed at some of those tgps I was paying!

Do people actually bother to read threads? There was never any suggestion that a CC number would be given to any TGP. All that was ever suggested was that a billing company process a nominal fee to ensure that name/address details given are correct. Then you go on about paying to prove your a submitter - good grief. A fee of $1 or $5 really is just a nominal amount for verification. Your hardly paying any TGP as such for a listing. Try reading the other posts and understanding them!

As for the blacklisting thing - this would be my main area of concern as with Mikey. Many people will dish out a blacklist at the drop of a hat. If people are blacklisted it should be for cheating and not something silly like a typo or server going down for 20 mins. Unfortunately some people do currently blacklist for this.

The blacklisting thing would indeed be a problem. If it's for one site it would be easy. Even to open up the system for other sites but keep the administration up for one site would be a problem. Not everybody submits to all sites out there.

Easiest would be to make a set of options for a link-site joining in this system. They can have the option to blacklist people. And with certain reasons. They could tag an option to blacklist all people that are blacklisted elsewhere or they could decide to build their own list. So 'cheaters' could then be blocked from certain sites. I'm sure there's a system that could be made up for this...

Some excellent points raised in this discussion.... I am all in favor of weeding out the cheaters... They take the listings I might have possibly landed. Which in turn takes money out of my pocket.

A monthly credit card payment I think would be in order however I think there would have to be a governing body to regulate the system so good webmasters would not get banned for silly reasons. Maybe it should work on a point scale... The more mistakes you make the more points you lose and after a while you will be assessed with no points and be banned from the system. The more points you have, the more valuable you look to large TGP's that are looking for quality submitters.

All we need now is for someone to go ahead and create this system and get the ball rolling. To tell you the truth an operation like this could really be a profitable venture and well worth the start up captital invested.

Ie. You have 1,000 gallery submitters each paying $25 a month for access to the system.

Anyways I don't know if any of this stuff makes sense? It is 7:00am and I have to hit the sack. I will be very interested in reading this thread when I wake up to see more input.

DH

I hate to bring you guys down to reality, but the system will fail if nothing is billed to those cards. Russian kids will just start using credit card generators. Its a no-brainer.

Or how about if my server fucks up and the files need uploading once again? Thats going to take a few days to upload everything on my connection.

Ever thought about false accusations? For example, I accidentally delete something from the server. And yes, it happens. I didn't even realise it. I have a submitter pass for VoyeurZine and last week Terry mailed me because one of the galleries was redirecting to a sponsor. Turned out I'd accidentally deleted the file. Everything was fixed within 1 hour of sending the mail. But many people wouldn't even send the mail in the first place.

How about movie gallery makers that use cookies on their galleries, to prevent cheaters from hotlinking them? If a tgp owner doesn't have cookies enabled and clicks on the movie, they'll be sent to an error page. So the movie gallery maker gets shitlisted because he is trying to prevent cheaters from eating his bandwidth.

Although the Internet is pretty wild, many TGP owners seem to think that the Internet is the wild west. Take the owner of Babes4Free for example. That guy would blacklist you for filling out his submission form. How would you prevent assholes like that from ruining it for honest webmasters?

I assume that another aim of this system would be to make it fair for everyone. How would you deal with webmasters that don't have VISA or MASTERCARD, or whose cards would be rejected by the processor?

I have Switch card and processors like iBill and Jettis don't even recognise it.

Eliminating honest webmasters because their card is rejected, the processor doesn't recognise the card, and "such and such" means that it isn't a fair system.

Mike I'm with you on the blacklist point but again it's somebody else who didn't read the original suggestion. There never was a suggestion that nothing would be charged. A small, nominal fee would be processed by a 3rd party billing company to ensure that personal details matched the card. You could still cheat but only with stolen cards not generators.

I did read it Tipsy, I promise. :)

Also, taking the card numbers to generate a check digit may be a problem. Say you set the system up, using Jettis. No way would they ever hand the card number over, therefore generating a check digit would be impossible.

Shit... there goes my bread....

That was more to the point ;)
However - that'd probably not be needed. If the card is verified with those details and a username/pass issued would the checksum thing actually be any use?

The Hun,

great idea but I have to agree with Mikey and Tipsy concerning the blacklisting rules. I would suggest only to blacklist gallery submitters for let's say CP, redirecting, using stolen content and obvious things like that. If all the TGPs want to have ALL their rules implemented in the system you would have to hire someone for administration...

However thanks for my listing in the top 20 today - this really convinced me to buy gallery spots :-)

If tgp owners could agree on more things besides that cheaters have to go, then maybe this could work.

I think you should also charge tgp owners for using this system as well. Tgps also benefit from this system.

It could possibly work if there was a centralized submission area. Tgps could pull the galleries they want from it and the ones that don't follow their rules they won't get, that way tgp submitters won't get screwed for some stupid rule on that particular tgp (example of a stupid rule - I was declined and told I risked blacklisting if I continued to submit galleries with the word "next" in it. It was not a "next" page link, it was text describing the girl in the gallery as a girl "next" door.)

The checksum thing is only used to block cards. If the billing company that is going to do the billing for this has ways of blocking cards then that is what can be used. People shouldn't be able to sign up more than once with one creditcard.

I'm sure I can come up with a system to check people. A site could store events of cheating, with a reason. Other link-sites should be able to either review those and blacklist the submitters as well or automatically blacklist submitters that are blacklisted by others. Also depending on the reason they're blacklisted. I might blacklist someone for adding a picturebanner, but someone else might not care about that. He could then automatically blacklist people I add to the list for adding consoles, but not the once I blacklist for adding picturebanners for instance...

Yep.... what he said!



Your BIG.... but not so big that you could pull off some crazy ass shit like that.

You're nuts.

Most of the regular posters to The Hun and other big TGP's would gladly pay a nominal fee if it helped reduce the amount of cheaters.

No matter how many posters refuse to participate, there would definitely be enough people who WOULD pay the fee to make this easily workable.

All that sounds good but what happens now to the wm who does submit a gallery ? Because he did pay does he get the right to get listed on the Hun ?
Hun you do list maybe 100 Gallery's a day what's with the rest ?
If you going to sart something like this then it has to be a neutral Name to keep the hoppe down to be listed on the Hun. However one advantage would be that even smaler TGP's could get HQ-Gallery's

What if I came out and said The Hun was cheating? Would you believe me? You would think I was on crack. Now if the Hun came out and said I was cheating, chances are you'd believe him.

So what is to stop someone from getting into this system and saying that someone else was cheating? What I mean is, there are webmasters that loathe each other and would take delight in screwing the other guy even without proof.

What is to prevent Joe Schmoe from saying so-and-so should be blacklisted? There are shitloads of tgps out there and new ones are made everyday. I have been submitting daily for 3 years, I make good galleries, the last thing I want is some new guy getting into the tgp business and ruining my rep because maybe he doesn't know what is accepted or not. He could say "this is a good idea, I want to participate" then see my gallery which has 15 thumbs and three banners and say Mikey should be blacklisted for constantly submitting galleries which don't conform to my rules. Which happen to be 16 pic minimum and 2 banners.

I had thought of this idea myself a while back, though I don't have a large TGP, or any TGP , so I never brought it up. It would definitely cut back on cheaters, and galleries posted - would be a bitch to setup though. And regarding the sponsors, I think they might abuse it - who says someone won't ban you because they don't like you? Or you go against one of their opinions on a message board?

Mikey, good post too, same thoughts I have.

Cheers,
Matt

spacedog jr.

:BangBang:

Why don´t you just blacklist the submitters sponsor links?
Like : http://www.sponsor.com?ref=xxx

The Hun - What about people getting multiple credit cards, under different names and such? I'm sure a lot of online cheaters wouldn't do this stuff in a local area, but I'm sure a lot would still be inclined to.

Cheers,
Matt

How does it benefit the submitter? It seems to me it benefits the tgp owner more. So instead of The Hun getting 2500 galleries a day, he gets maybe 1500. I guess my odds of getting listed increase a little bit.