Prusa has a real bot problem...
I am sure they are aware, and I know several of you are as well, but damn it the bots on these forums and on Printables are beyond obnoxious.
How they are allowed to make accounts, I don't know. But they do it. And somehow the back end even knows they are bots because when I get a reply from a bot, I don't get the forum e-mail that says I got a reply. And it's getting harder and harder to tell which ones are bots or not.
Printables is overrun with loading fraudulent models (mislabeled, mis-tagged and even misleading thumbnails), most of which I am convinced are just bots trying to farm Prusameters or something. A model of Mario is not "political" nor is a model of a tree "NSFW". Most of these models have next to no description in their upload and I can say for certain almost none of them are "original".
I really hope they get a handle on this soon. No one wants to be in a circular conversation with a droid.
Vehemently against AI. I've seen that film. It ends badly.
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
Not sure if this is releated, but it looks like some are trying to distribute malware via Printables.
https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/general-software-discussion/malware/#post-788247
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
Regarding malware - Prusa said on Discord they are aware of it and working on it.
See my GitHub and printables.com for some 3d stuff that you may like.
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
Really did not see such thing and on printables the crap keeps poping up... and some the payload urls are becoming active now.
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
After fetching decoding multiply payloads the final payload appears to be windows executable.
Not yet sure what it does, but running it through an online scanner results in:
https://pasteboard.co/j2GkxfPN635V.png
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
Adding images here seems hard?
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
since the 2 of you are bouncing between 2 threads, I will post my response over here. 🙂
Web devs were made aware of this over the weekend and will need to give them time (long holiday weekend over in the EU, so need to give them time for catch up) to look into this and see what is to be done. Your original reported post on printables was removed already
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
I would like to see a rule that requires any model to have a photo of an actual print as part of its profile. Makerworld recently introduced this and it has a done a lot to reduce AI slop. It has upset a lot of people however; mostly engineers who believe they don't need to actually print some simple part just to prove it works.
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
I do not think this would have prevented the scam. The posted "models" where clones of existing models, except posted from a fake account and with the files replaced with a "dummy" file and an instruction file that guided the user to try and use an online conversion tool to make the "dummy" file printable, which of course also was fake, and some more nasty tricks.
Photos of the original where also uploaded to these scam models, so it looked trustworthy at first.
I just hope no one got infected and that all the hard work by the scammers was in vain.
Thanks to Printables staff for cleaning up, very much appreciated.
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
I do not think this would have prevented the scam.
That's right. But the specific scam you came across is not what this thread was originally about. And for the broader issue of bot-generated, useless AI content, the photo requirement might help.
Next step for the spammers: Generate better "fake photos" using AI, which show the model on a slightly messy workbench with mediocre illumination. 🙄
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
Ok a couple of things.
I did bring up the case of the suspicious files and the developers looked at it and all problematic files and profiles have been removed. People can always use the "report" feature on printables to submit those models and profiles directly to the correct web developers to investigate and take action.
For the other matter as far as AI generated files, photos and related things. It is something that is being looked into as right now its not a easy process as there is no automatic features to apply without the use of AI in itself, and a manual verification does lengthen the process to submit designs. So its not a trivial matter nor is it a easy to fix matter, but it is under consideration 🙂
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
Ok a couple of things.
I did bring up the case of the suspicious files and the developers looked at it and all problematic files and profiles have been removed. People can always use the "report" feature on printables to submit those models and profiles directly to the correct web developers to investigate and take action.
For the other matter as far as AI generated files, photos and related things. It is something that is being looked into as right now its not a easy process as there is no automatic features to apply without the use of AI in itself, and a manual verification does lengthen the process to submit designs. So its not a trivial matter nor is it a easy to fix matter, but it is under consideration 🙂
Is there any update on this?
I've reported multiple accounts today, but with the amount that is coming in, its almost an day job to keep reporting them.
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
Most appear to be copyright infringements. I had one of my models duplicated, including photos, etc. & re-posted as original designs.
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
Most of the bot created accounts have a year at the end of their user names; like 1979, etc.
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
Yeah, they are just random cloning existing models but replacing the files with malware.
RE:
Prusa should try just turning off new accounts until the bot problem is fixed. You can keep ignoring it or you can actually do something about it.
But they wont do that. Will they?
Boy I hate AI and bots. Keep telling me how its just a tool and how we all have to get used to it... How its this great thing. The damage it will do in the hands of bad actors.... Foolish.
Vehemently against AI. I've seen that film. It ends badly.
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
It would seem straightforward enough to set up an automated agent which does some plausibility checks on newly submitted models: Does a Google search on Printables or Makerworld come up with the same text and/or pictures? Are the attached files actually .STL or .3MF files? I hear AI is getting pretty good at this agent thing...
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
I start to wonder, this has been going on for a while now and clearly Printables staff is loosing each round of the battle for now.
So what is most important... account creation (and allowing the scam) or existing users?
Not even a warning banner or similar has been put on the site, instead silently allowing the scammers to turn unfortunate Printables users machines into zombies (or what ever the purpose is).
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
Why haven't Prusa given a response yet on this? This is unacceptable.
RE: Prusa has a real bot problem...
I don't even care if they take my ability to log-in to Printables away. If I am honest, my models on Printables don't get traffic anyway. My models do better on Thingiverse and it's not even close.
But Prusa really needs to stop all uploads and possibly even downloads for at least the foreseeable future. But I bet those folk got laid off.
But I am sure there is a plan. Soon(tm).
I start to wonder, this has been going on for a while now and clearly Printables staff is loosing each round of the battle for now.
So what is most important... account creation (and allowing the scam) or existing users?Not even a warning banner or similar has been put on the site, instead silently allowing the scammers to turn unfortunate Printables users machines into zombies (or what ever the purpose is).
Vehemently against AI. I've seen that film. It ends badly.