Clickbait

Hello,

I stumbled upon a weird clickbait article, take a look.

Every single bicentennial quarter was estimated to be worth $20 million! And that wasn't the only thing they listed. They named: S-mint, DDO, TDO, Ni-planchet, Ag-planchet, etc. All worth the same. Even funnier, they said that graded examples command a premium and they're worth….20 million. Yes, a giant premium of 0%. 

They also featured an AI generated photo of coins. (Note: After downloading I found the prompt, which was “dream about pennies”) This is why I believe that those websites are entirely AI generated.

I looked into the website. I found out that the articles written by this user (named 'admin') were written between May 16th and 26th, but over 90% of them were written between May 24th and 26th. Within the grand total of 90 articles, about 25 of them were written in one day! The articles were very long too, always a five minute read. But most of them talked about the same topic: bicentennial quarters worth atleast 10 million dollars! They also constantly reused photos, with atleast 10 of them featuring a generic bicentennial quarter. I doubt that a human would pump out 25 long articles in just one day, unless they were writing them for 24 hours.

After looking at the whole website I realised that the articles were all written by one and the same person! Admin was the only ‘journalist’ posting anything. I also find it interesting how none of the articles had any comments. (I was tempted to leave one, but they wanted my email. Probably to send me spam.)

They had an option to follow them on social media. When I checked it, it sent me back to their website. It looks like they just stole a ‘prompt’ for a website and forgot to fill in the necessary fields/links/connections.

I checked whether Google had any information about this website. Here's a screenshot of what they said:

Yes. A chinese food company is posting AI generated texts about coins. Despite being registered in 2015, the oldest article came from May 16th of this year!

Conclusion:

I think that this website was hacked. I doubt that a food company would suddenly post clickbait articles about coins. Here's what could've happened:

→website made

→an admin clicked on a malicious link

→website hacked

→content deleted (explaining the lack of it)

→connections deleted (explaining the ‘link loop' (the link diverting you back to their website)

→today

In hindsight, I think that this is kind of weird and a bit scary. It shows that websites are easy to hack and noone is safe. This wasn't the only one. Here are a few examples of different companies that were possibly hacked and posted those articles. (Profession/place/registration/first article/last article)

→Waffle company/Trinidad/2022/unknown/unknown)

→Nails and Spa/unknown/2021/recently/unknown)

Coincidentally, they both had:

→ The same layout

→same photo

→ exactly the same text 

→whenever something was posted, it was always only from an user named ‘admin’

Possibly hacked by the same person/group. But why? One reason might be this:

I think that this is very bad for coin shops. Instead of gaining long term customers, they get people trying to upsell them their generic quarters. This might create a chain reaction. People who believe in those articles won't get the money they expect, giving negative reviews. This might turn away potential customers who have valuable coins to sell, since the negative reviews always change a bit of the actual truth. And so forth, continuing. 

So, thank you for reading my small investigation and I wish you a good day! 

Sometimes one has to wonder what the plan even is here.

If the intent is to deceive, why? Any casual person who finds such a coin will very quickly find out it isn't worth $20M. So it'll only disapppoint them, and they probably weren't collectors anyway so it's not like it'd turn them off the hobby.

And anyone who has that kind of money to spare, or anyone who has spent any time on their hobby, will be so well read up on their hobby to know that the coin has been grossly overvalued & isn't going to buy it.

So it neither defrauds a buyer (into overpaying) or a seller (into under selling). 

Even if it's simply to discredit the owner of the hacked site, surely the best method would simply have their website redirect into an obvious dodgy website. Google will read that, realise it's dodgy, and push it down in their rankings. I.e. Destroy the SEO content makes it less desirable for Google so it makes the business harder to find.

Bizarre.

A Collector

Sometimes one has to wonder what the plan even is here.

 

If the intent is to deceive, why? Any casual person who finds such a coin will very quickly find out it isn't worth $20M. So it'll only disapppoint them, and they probably weren't collectors anyway so it's not like it'd turn them off the hobby.

 

And anyone who has that kind of money to spare, or anyone who has spent any time on their hobby, will be so well read up on their hobby to know that the coin has been grossly overvalued & isn't going to buy it.

 

So it neither defrauds a buyer (into overpaying) or a seller (into under selling). 

 

Even if it's simply to discredit the owner of the hacked site, surely the best method would simply have their website redirect into an obvious dodgy website. Google will read that, realise it's dodgy, and push it down in their rankings. I.e. Destroy the SEO content makes it less desirable for Google so it makes the business harder to find.

 

Bizarre.

Yes, the whole case is definitely weird. Here are a few of the other possible reasons:

→ SEO are a significant part of the modern internet landscape. Maybe they are trying to build up websites to gain popularity and eventually rebrand to something else.

→ It's possible that they gain money through clicks, so making a title incredibly obscure is a good way to achieve that. The more ridiculous, the better.

→ It's a testing ground for robots and AI. Maybe they are just testing its limits or abilities. They might've also left a comment field to see if people notice and comment.

I also noticed a small pattern. All the places that are posting these have been shut down permanently in a recent timeframe. Even more interesting is that clicking the link shown by Google maps leads to a different website, but with almost the same web address.

Update: (May 27th, 2024)

The website is still up and running, posting about 30 articles a day, all with almost the same title and image. Today I looked for some websites amd found something interesting but regarding other websites.

If you read my former post, this should feel familiar. Yes, the layout and colour scheme, another AI generated photo. Also posted by a user named ‘admin’. But the URL is completely different and the (former) topic of the site isn't the same. It's a ‘care centre’. But this time around, they had connections to other social media. I didn't log in though, I wouldn't be suprised if they harvested the passwords if I went through the website. And that's basically it as of now since there isn't anything new there.

Kind regards and have a good day!

AI is let loose on the world stage, immediately joins organized crime, commits fraud and legerdemain, and spreads calumny and discord with out the least shame.

Indeed shame has been left out of the program. 

i love the pictures of the AI imagined coins. It has no awareness that the letters and numbers are even of the same shape and placement. It reminds me of me learning to read and write at around 3 years old, making shapes with a pencil and wondering what the plan was…