EEVblog member needs your help

[Shock]

EEVblog member Radio Tech aka The Radio Shop (Buddy) recently entered the Caig product competition where the first prize is $1000. The Radio Shop was winning the competition and has 3K+ competition video views on youtube and 8K+ channel subscribers.

Until...

Another entrant with only 260 video views and less than 40 subscribers seems to be building himself the lion share of votes in the competition.

The competition ends in just under a couple of weeks so time is running out...
Lets see if we can help someone who genuinely uses the Caig products and is fostering goodwill in the electronics community.

If you want to help vote here ===> https://caig.com/video-contest-2018-entry/
View "The Radio Shop" video and click VOTE every 24HRs.

Edited.

[NivagSwerdna]

Are you suggesting cheating?  or is this just spam?

[Shock]

Are you suggesting cheating?  or is this just spam?

Buddy is about to be robbed of his prize. The other guy is doing about 100 per day now. His videos views spiked about 50 or so but then remained static.

Edited.

[Mr. Scram]

I'm saying someone else is probably cheating and Buddy is about to be robbed of his prize.
The other guy is padding his votes with about 100 per day now. His videos views spiked about 50 or so but then remained static.

I don't think mobilizing the community is the way to go. Report the issue to the organising party. Asking a bunch of people to vote because it's someone they know feels a bit cheaty too, even if it's not strictly cheating. This is why I don't like these popularity contests. They're rarely about the content.

[Shock]

I'm saying someone else is probably cheating and Buddy is about to be robbed of his prize.
The other guy is padding his votes with about 100 per day now. His videos views spiked about 50 or so but then remained static.

I don't think mobilizing the community is the way to go. Report the issue to the organising party. Asking a bunch of people to vote because it's someone they know feels a bit cheaty too, even if it's not strictly cheating. This is why I don't like these popularity contests. They're rarely about the content.

Buddy is a long time contributor to the forums and genuinely promoted their products (most people know Caig anyway). So I don't see how supporting a youtuber who puts out electronics content is wrong. I also contacted Caig but had trouble getting through to someone.

This is no different from supporting Daves videos which I do as well. If Dave was trying to win something again I'd support him, nothing cheating about it.

Edited.

[Mr. Scram]

If we leave it to the organizers there is a chance it won't be seen until it's too late. I wanted to bring it to others attention.

Buddy is a long time contributor to the forums and genuinely promoted their products (most people know Caig anyway). So I don't see how supporting a youtuber who puts out electronics content is wrong. I also contacted Caig but had trouble getting through to someone.

This is no different from supporting Daves videos which I do as well. If Dave was trying to win something again I'd support him, nothing cheating about it.

It's not exactly a fair competition when someone has a network of literally hundreds of thousands of people. Other people with equally good or even better entries won't stand a chance. I've seen people abusing company and even customer mailing lists for these kinds of contests too.

[station240]

Look closer at the page, in one corner is says "Powered by Woobox"
Sure enough, its an outsourced marketing campaigns/contests.
So the company providing the contest infrastructure, forgot to add an anti-cheat system.

[Shock]

Look closer at the page, in one corner is says "Powered by Woobox"
Sure enough, its an outsourced marketing campaigns/contests.
So the company providing the contest infrastructure, forgot to add an anti-cheat system.

Wouldn't be the first competition where people have cheated. The way they have set it up is a little flawed. The guy who is currently in the lead is also a "computer guy" so well yeah it would be interesting see his explanation on how he is getting the votes with little to no promotion of his video or entry.

Thanks all the people who are voting for The Radio Shop and Buddy btw.

[Berni]

With these sort of numbers one can probably just do it using a modem without a static IP. Its common for ADSL modems to get a new IP every time they connect and the pool of IPs tends to be pretty big.

So all you need to do is reboot the modem all day and every time it connects open the page and click the vote button and you can get 1000 votes per day no problem. For someone with programing knowledge likely not hard to automate.

[Shock]

With these sort of numbers one can probably just do it using a modem without a static IP. Its common for ADSL modems to get a new IP every time they connect and the pool of IPs tends to be pretty big.

So all you need to do is reboot the modem all day and every time it connects open the page and click the vote button and you can get 1000 votes per day no problem. For someone with programing knowledge likely not hard to automate.

If Buddy gets say another 200 votes (coming legitimately by social reach) in a 24hr period. Then this other guy suddenly jumps 300 votes to beat him, I'm no statistician but that is going to look fairly incriminating of someone vote padding.

There is only 130 votes in it at the moment with The Radio Shop (Buddy) on 1136 and gaining ground towards the 1266 lead.

[ogden]

With these sort of numbers one can probably just do it using a modem without a static IP. Its common for ADSL modems to get a new IP every time they connect and the pool of IPs tends to be pretty big.

What you say happens only on misconfigured ISP networks. Usually they tend to set "DHCP lease time/timeout" to 1 day or even longer - because don't want customer IP addresses wandering around. After all they have Big Brother responsibilities, you know...

[Muttley Snickers]

I remember when Carlos (rx8pilot) was in the running for a high end Keysight oscilloscope and there were concerns raised in relation to the other competitors numbers, so much so that Keysight ended up giving a scope to each of the finalists including Carlos, the forum members here all got behind him as well which helped immensely.

Similarly, as these two entrants are so far ahead of their nearest rivals and questions have now been raised in relation to possible vote fixing perhaps Caig/Deoxit should consider a similar option, that is if the final outcome is questionable then they should award a grand each or split the prize otherwise they might be scorned for a poorly managed competition. 

[EEVblog]

Are you suggesting cheating?  or is this just spam?

We've seen this happen several times before.

[bsfeechannel]

Cheating is really a no-no.

I voted (just once) for The Radio Shop guy because I like his videos in general and because his entry to the contest is the best (I watched the other videos too). He demonstrates how to use the product, so his video is worth watching regardless of the contest. Check it out:

https://caig.com/video-contest-2018-entry/

We can only wish him good luck and expect that Caig Laboratories be sensible enough to really choose the best contestant.

[Berni]

With these sort of numbers one can probably just do it using a modem without a static IP. Its common for ADSL modems to get a new IP every time they connect and the pool of IPs tends to be pretty big.

What you say happens only on misconfigured ISP networks. Usually they tend to set "DHCP lease time/timeout" to 1 day or even longer - because don't want customer IP addresses wandering around. After all they have Big Brother responsibilities, you know...

10 years ago when i still had ADSL it worked for 2 largest ISPs here in Slovenia where i had my internet. Every time i wanted a new IP i just had to reboot the modem.

In fact one of the ISPs even forced you to hop IPs because every 24h the IP lease would expire and it would give you a new different one rather than just extending your existing lease. Only reason i noticed it is because services that hold connections open have to reconnect when the IP changes. If you didn't like that you needed to pay extra to get a static IP.

EDIT: It could be to discourage hosting things on your connection, but not sure you would want to in the first place when your uplink is only 256Kbit

[rs20]

"Someone else is cheating so let's cheat as well to make it fair"

-- Lance Armstrong

[Shock]

Latest figures and Buddy is still behind and losing ground rapidly since I checked last night.

#1 1333 (+67)
#2 1185 (+49) Buddy, The Radio Shop
 
The difference was 130 now it's up to 148.

[Muttley Snickers]

There aren't any rules as far as I can see so we could probably run a muck if we wanted. I just looked again from a different computer and the link to the Woobox Official Rules at the bottom of the contest page is still completely blank. Are people required to sign up and log in before being able to view these official rules or something ?.   

Official Rules Page.   
https://woobox.com/c469kr/rules

[Shock]

There aren't any rules as far as I can see so we could probably run a muck if we wanted. I just looked again from a different computer and the link to the Woobox Official Rules at the bottom of the contest page is still completely blank. Are people required to sign up and log in before being able to view these official rules or something ?.   

Official Rules Page.   
https://woobox.com/c469kr/rules

https://caig.com/video-contest-terms-conditions/
Not that I read them I just voted, it says you can vote every 24hrs.

Actually it says: "Videomakers and third parties may tell their customers, friends, and neighbors about the competition and direct them to our website." this makes sense as it is a social media type competition anyway.

I should be able to vote again sometime tonight.

[Mr. Scram]

That means the other guy may not be cheating. Mobilising people without them seeing the video is fair game. We don't know how large his network is.

[Shock]

If we could get Buddy a solid 200 legitimate votes in a short space of time then it forces the other persons hand.
But the gaps has widened now to 157. So unless people band behind The Radio Shop video (Buddy) and vote every 24hrs it's not going to happen.

About 10 more days to run, it ends on the 1st of October.

Edited.

[Radio Tech]

Thanks for bringing this up Shock.
It is most appreciated.

First of all there were two guys cheating. They were both removed the the contest. I will not mention any names.

As far as the rules you can vote every 24 hours on multiple networks. (Home IP, cellular device)

The guy that is ahead of me only started gaining votes a month a go. I contacted  Viva at Caigs Labs as I thought he may be another cheater..
Told me the guy has legit votes, He is an admin for a very large audio group on facebook. Over 44k followers.

I do not think I have a chance on that.

Buddy AKA The Radio Shop

[Shock]

The guy that is ahead of me only started gaining votes a month a go. I contacted  Viva at Caigs Labs as I thought he may be another cheater.. Told me the guy has legit votes, He is an admin for a very large audio group on facebook. Over 44k followers. I do not think I have a chance on that.

Thanks Buddy, glad I wasn't the only one who thought it was suspicious. That makes a little more sense, there were a few things that didn't add up especially how he was able to jump in votes so dramatically, several of his accounts show only handful of contacts.

[Radio Tech]

The guy that is ahead of me only started gaining votes a month a go. I contacted  Viva at Caigs Labs as I thought he may be another cheater.. Told me the guy has legit votes, He is an admin for a very large audio group on facebook. Over 44k followers. I do not think I have a chance on that.

Thanks Buddy, glad I wasn't the only one who thought it was suspicious. That makes a little more sense, there were a few things that didn't add up especially how he was able to jump in votes so dramatically, several of his accounts show only handful of contacts.

Yes it was strange to me as I saw two other guys jumped me quite fast at the beginning of the contest.  It was determined by Caigs staff that they were using IP proxies to cast votes.  SO CHEATING IS BEING MONITORED. When this guy jumped from the bottom to ahead of me I contacted them. That is when I found he had a very large group of followers on facebook.

As I do not do other social media I only have my video on YouTube and also in the other blog section of this forum.  In reality I feel pretty good on how well I have done in this contest,  that being the small YouTube channel that I am.

Lets also not forget Alan, w2aew is in the contest also sitting at 63 votes. I have even voted for him many times myself due to I rather see someone that contributes on the YouTube community to win instead of someone on a semi private network to win.

Anyway, it is all Dave Jones fault.    He is the one that really got me started in YouTube. And I thank him for that. Good on you mate 

[Shock]

Ok well here are the other interesting things I noticed.

I first wrote down his youtube views at 260 a few days back and then posted this thread.
His views have since grown to 371. I doubt if anyone is actually even watching his videos but us.

I discovered yesterday reading the faq it states:

"Upload your demonstration video using DeoxIT® on YouTube."
"Can I use any music in my video?" "No. You must have obtained and be able to prove that you have all the necessary rights to the music in your film. Creative commons licenses will not be accepted and do not prove that you have the rights to the music on your film."

Not only does his video not give any actual demonstration.
There is a mere 8 seconds of actual video in it, and it repeats twice.
There is also 23 seconds of music at end.

It would be interesting some internet sleuths could find out if the whole video was made up from others photos and video.