IP Location Database Check

Hi,

I did let run today the TrackDollar Database against an IP Location check. From now on I will do this once a month. Had to do a few major corrections. Wrong entries of bills were corrected to the zip code of IP Entry and deducted from the Track Points for one user.

Markus

I don't understand why someone would enter thousands of bills from an incorrect zip code. I wonder what her reasoning was for doing that?

One also has to wonder, considering the low hit rate, whether or not all of her serials are even valid. What do you think about that?

Admin wrote:Hi,

I did let run today the TrackDollar Database against an IP Location check. From now on I will do this once a month. Had to do a few major corrections. Wrong entries of bills were corrected to the zip code of IP Entry and deducted from the Track Points for one user.

Markus

sends2aaron wrote:I don't understand why someone would enter thousands of bills from an incorrect zip code. I wonder what her reasoning was for doing that?

One also has to wonder, considering the low hit rate, whether or not all of her serials are even valid. What do you think about that?

People have all kinds of motivations. Some are uneducated, some delusional, others only want to cause chaos and bring other people down.

If I were to make an educated guess, I'd say (c) and perhaps (b). If the person who entered bills outside their local IP/zip code ever returns here, I certainly hope that they respond to this thread.

I feel the person who did this is truly pathetic. There is no reason to do that on any tracking site. Why would someone make thousands of fake entries? Climbing to the top means absolutely nothing if it wasn't done honestly. I feel good about retaking my position in the national ranks. I am sorry to see that this happened a all. I have a hunch who it may be but I have no real proof. I will not be mentioning names.

Hi,

Yes I guess the hits are fake too. Will be deleted later, right now I am using them to test a new software (see below).

The good part out of this check: "The rest of us is for real" (sorry the routine checked everybody)
About the fake entries:
This is why I allowed the Multi Bill Entry Page only after entering at least 50 bills the normal way. It would be too easy to create fake entries.
Perhaps I should increase this limit, don't know.

However: Whoever wants to enter fake entries next has to be a little bit smarter. I am programming a kind of "Watchdog" software, because I guess it will happen again. This software will check Locations, Hit Patterns, Speed of Hits and Hits compared to the population in this county and flag warnings to the admin.

Markus

Admin wrote:Hi,

Yes I guess the hits are fake too. Will be deleted later, right now I am using them to test a new software (see below).

The good part out of this check: "The rest of us is for real" (sorry the routine checked everybody)
About the fake entries:
This is why I allowed the Multi Bill Entry Page only after entering at least 50 bills the normal way. It would be too easy to create fake entries.
Perhaps I should increase this limit, don't know.

However: Whoever wants to enter fake entries next has to be a little bit smarter. I am programming a kind of "Watchdog" software, because I guess it will happen again. This software will check Locations, Hit Patterns, Speed of Hits and Hits compared to the population in this county and flag warnings to the admin.

Markus

That is awesome. Hopefully fake entries are extremely rare on any tracking site. They should be. So many people think it is a waste of time to enter bills in a legit manner let alone thousands of fake ones. Should you increase the number of bills before a user gets the multi bill page? If problems continue you might have to. If it doesn't happen again we probably should be O.K. but that is just my opinion.

I think the limit should be set at 600 bills. Anyone entering >600 is probably serious enough about the hobby that he or she would know better than to create fake entries. If something like this happens again, maybe increase the minimum to 1000 bills. 50 is a pretty low number, in my opinion

Admin wrote:Hi,

About the fake entries:
This is why I allowed the Multi Bill Entry Page only after entering at least 50 bills the normal way. It would be too easy to create fake entries.
Perhaps I should increase this limit, don't know.

Markus

sends2aaron wrote:I think the limit should be set at 600 bills. Anyone entering >600 is probably serious enough about the hobby that he or she would know better than to create fake entries. If something like this happens again, maybe increase the minimum to 1000 bills. 50 is a pretty low number, in my opinion

For what it is worth, I agree. I would set the limit to 250 or 500. With the Bill Entry page allowing 20 bills at a time, it is pretty easy to enter 100's of bills pretty quickly.

I sometimes enter bills from a different local zipcode, perhaps by accident and perhaps because the bill is coming from or going to there. Is that a problem?

Alan From Rochester wrote:I sometimes enter bills from a different local zipcode, perhaps by accident and perhaps because the bill is coming from or going to there. Is that a problem?

The main issue in this thread was one of someone seemingly trolling and trying to shape entry patterns in a particular direction. With 800,000 bills in the system, the percentage impact of a few hundred bills from 5 years ago is pretty small.

This is awesome. Love what Markus has done. Keep up the great work!

So what I described is not as much of a shift? And these old questionable entries have been diluted by legit entries by now?

To answer the more pressing of your questions -- If I entered 500 bills as if I were in Paducah, KY while sitting here in the burbs of DC, it would make very little difference to the overall structure of the majority of entries of the site where folks enter from the zip where they currently are at the moment.

Now, I might become the "king of the bill entry hill" for Paducah, since it isn't too likely any of the active folks have entered 500 bills there. And I might get a bunch of hits in/near DC - instant travelers, upping my average distance per hit or some other stat. What I would not likely get are any hits in Paducah itself, since I didn't enter OR spend bills there.

This was the rage of the moment FIVE years ago, but in retrospect, it was probably much ado about nothing. In my view, if someone wants to skew the database, they are welcome to have fun with it, I'm not the owner here, I don't set the rules.