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game 9 · mod forensics (synthetic dataset, real ground truth)

Sockpuppet Sniffer

Ten accounts are under review. Some are bargain hunters. Some are one person with ten browsers. Each card shows three forensic charts — read them like a mod, flag each account SOCK or LEGIT, and get scored like a real classifier: precision, recall, F1.

The field manual (three tells)

  1. Lockstep bursts. Real humans vote when deals drop — evenings, scattered. Socks vote in the same hours as each other: look for 3+ extreme red burst hours striking together.
  2. Template parrots. Comments with similarity above 0.85 to the template aren't opinions, they're scripts.
  3. Born yesterday, posted 400 times. A two-week-old account at 12+ posts a day isn't enthusiastic — it's infrastructure.

Two or more tells firing = sock. One tell = probably just a keen human. Warning: a few accounts are wearing disguises — aged socks, hyperactive humans. The rule is a starting point; always compare burst charts across suspects before you ban. All ten accounts below are fictional — any resemblance to actual bargain hunters is coincidental.

Reviewed 0 / 10 Case random

Open the case file

Ten suspects. Three to four of them are sockpuppets. The dataset is synthetic but the ground truth is real — your F1 score is computed exactly like a classifier evaluation. No pressure.

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