Amazon Whistle Blower: How to Get Away with Posting Amazon Fake Reviews [pdf] | Hacker News Reader

Amazon Whistle Blower: How to Get Away with Posting Amazon Fake Reviews [pdf]

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12 pointsseanmieles18 comments

"Amazon does check your [...] MAC address"

How, perchance, does Amazon manage _that_ feat, exactly?

That would be pretty damned impressive. I ran into that line and stopped reading, but the thrust of this is that there are fake reviews on the Internet. Who knew.

The real mystery is...how does something like this wind up on the front page of HN?

"The real mystery is...how does something like this wind up on the front page of HN?"

Why are you dismissing this as HN-unworthy news?

Amazon is well known for their sophisticated internal monitoring systems. They often will take down reviews if they are fake and generated from the same IP or MAC addresses. The point of this article is that a band of sellers have managed to hack the Amazon iron curtain and how they did it is the $64000 question. It is not about saying "this is nothing new" -- it is about being curious about "how is this being exploited (i.e. hacked) and taken advantage of and why is this being allowed to persist given the almighty Amazon resources and their goal to make it a safe marketplace".

MAC address - always wondered how they manage to grab the MAC address from the browser.

"Amazon does check your [...] MAC address" -- this is well known -- but still does not explain how these sellers are getting away with submitting fake reviews en masse.

I think you're getting confused. MAC addresses aren't passed up-stream (in IPv4). There are many ways for websites to uniquely identify users. A MAC address isn't one of them.

You are wrong. They are passed up. Can't send you the screen shot at this moment - but trust me... I have inspected the URL and it includes the mac address - for real, no lie. Anyone who knows how to do this please share.

The above commenter was saying that there is no way to find a user's MAC address by looking at their IP packets alone. MAC addresses are used by link layer protocols (ethernet), but an IP address is used for identification in higher levels. In short, your router knows your MAC address, but Amazon.com only knows your IP. If any website on the internet could get your MAC address that would be very troubling, because a well-behaved MAC address is a quasi-unique identifier for your network hardware.

This is only possible if there is software installed on the machine that is collecting the MAC address and sending it (browsers don't do this). You are likely confusing a MAC address with a unique (random) identifier assigned to your browser by Amazon.

Dude, it is the mac address they grab.

I ran ifconfig en1 | grep ether and the mac address showed up on my URL omnibar when I firebugged it.

I've even noticed this happening at Starbucks whenever you use their WiFi - they will sniff your MAC address and it shows up in the URL omnibar when you agree to the WiFi terms.

Will the real hackers please chime in on how this (grabbing MAC address) can be achieved...

Yes, this happens at Starbucks because your MAC address is captured when you connect to their wifi network (this happens on virtually any captive portal, not hard). I, for one, cannot find my MAC address in a long list of history because it is simply not passed via web requests.

You can get the MAC address of anyone who is connected to the same network - but that's it.

Amazon just needs to sustain a cookie in between times that they do have a chance to collect your MAC address. I wouldn't be surprised if certain plugins could detect it, like flash or amazon streaming plugins. Also, kindle on your home network could grab it.

I don't think Flash has that ability, but Java can if you accept the numerous prompts you'll get...

Was just reading this interesting article and mentioned it to my girlfriend. She said this was old news and told me about a shampoo with seemingly bogus reviews. So I did some digging... Seems like there were some voting rings on this product too. Or maybe all three of these people just happened to be reviewing both Argan Oil Shampoos and iPhone 5 Battery Replacement's:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A36TZR6GRB6F0Q/r...

and

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A8YI1C83DWXF5/re...

and

http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/AE5R00L7R0AF5/re...

I don't get it, if they are frequently bought together, doesn't that mean people who buy it together will review both?

A detailed report showing the trail of how sellers are colluding to trick and game the Amazon review system in a nefarious and deceitful ways. Buyer beware...

My question is how are these sellers getting away with it?? Open to discussion and enlightment.

This isn't exactly news and belongs on reddit under one of their conspiracy forums.. Amazon has quite a few number of people working to stop this type of stuff. If you want to help I'd shoot them this link.

Some people may be 'product testers', take a look at the person "Mystic Reviewers". She is a real person, her pics in her reviews match her facebook page. She works at a reputation management company in San Fran and only has done 5 star reviews.

@gonzi I think your comments are a bit cynical. I don't think this sort of stuff is common knowledge. If it is true that there is a ring of sellers, this is really highly coordinated, dare I say almost organized ecommerce crime. I for one, certainly would like to know these sellers get away with it. I think it is appropriate to get Hacker News community to weigh in on how it might be achieved.

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