Embattled Tesla CEO Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to ask Dogecoin blockchain startup creator Jackson Palmer to help him eliminate Ethereum scammers from the social media platform.
@ummjackson if you can help get rid of the annoying scam spammers, that would be much appreciated
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 17, 2018
Musk is referring to the ETH giveaway scams that, over the past several months, have flooded Twitter with spam messages on public figures’ feeds. The con is aimed at luring new users into sending in one Ethereum coin and getting two in return.
“If you DM me (your DMs aren’t open), I’ll send you the script – it’s short, simple and you just run it with cron somewhere,” Palmer responded to Musk.
“Update: Elon has the script. We had a good chat on how [Twitter CEO] Jack and the Twitter team should definitely automate and fix this problem on their end though,” he added.
Why Palmer?
Musk reached out to Palmer because the Dogecoin founder came out with a script in May that automatically blocks the ETH con artists who use the profile images of public figures.
Unhappy Twitter users and the loot?
The crypto community is not happy with Twitter and its development team due to its inability to solve the ETH giveaway scam.
Paler noted that the solution to the issue is relatively easy as it simply requires detecting and banning new Twitter accounts that use the same profile photos of existing accounts.
Scammers have stolen an estimated $4.3 million through Ethereum giveaway frauds, Bleeping Computer reported in June.
Bloom Co-Founder John Backus took Twitter’s side, saying the issue is much harder to resolve because many of those scammers have somehow manage to verify their accounts.
“Still a hard problem. I’ve seen a handful of giveaway scams where the scammer used a hacked Verified account so, when they change the profile pic to match the OP, it’s more believable because of the blue check,” Backus noted.
Musk in the spotlight
Elon Musk has been in the spotlight the past several months due to his issues within Tesla’s Board of Directors who believe he is no longer suited to lead the company. The problem was exacerbated after he smoked a marijuana cigarette during a video interview.
He also faces a lawsuit from Vernon Unsworth, the British diver who helped rescue the young football players that were trapped in a Thai cave. Musk accused the diver of being a paedophile in apparent response to Unsworth’s statement that Musk had sent a small submarine (which was not used) to rescue the boys as a publicity stunt.
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