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Strcat

30 August 2020

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Suspected sockpuppets

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Sock or Meat Puppets at CopperheadOS (and GrapheneOS - Pitchcurve only, so far)

According to Interaction report, all 5 have only CopperheadOS and Talk:CopperheadOS in common.[1]


Protection Note: On 4 August 2020‎ CopperheadOS was Protected for a week by Drmies.[2] and on 12 August 2020‎ it was Protected again for a month by Mr. Stradivarius. [3] These led to new users (as to be expected).

Motives: Spillover of off-wiki disputes between people behind GrapheneOS or CopperheadOS, as also suggested by Mr. Stradivarius at this DRN.

Voting: There has been no "voting." It remains to be seen if more than one will respond at the above DRN, or at this open RSN. There has been some support of each other at Talk:CopperheadOS.

FYI: I filed one previous other Sock Puppet Investigation, because of similar interactions at another similar (Android ROM or phone operating system) article.

Discussion:

  • Strcat is an alias used by Daniel Micay. This is not "outing" because at Wikipedia this edit summary says "remove libel about me from Copperhead accoujnt," and the edit removes a statement about Micay. Micay is known to use at least one other alias in other online activities. Micay has been a developer of Arch Linux, CopperheadOS and GrapheneOS. This is several years old, but Strcat edited the Arch Linux article many times, despite being an involved developer. They are aware of sockpuppetry concerns, and accused others of sockpuppetry.[4] Alias Strcat ceased editing as the others started.
  • Anupritaisno1 (Anuprita is no one) first edit summary was "Remove libel about Daniel micay, copperheados is closed source"

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11 August 2020 Accused IP editor of being "involved with copperheados." [6]

These are the same concerns just previously expressed by Strcat/Micay. Recently said they can "be an idiot when it comes to tech". [7], where previously they seemed wiki-smart using language like "same speech patterns," "marketing," "exactly the same speech as you," "a suspected sockpuppet IP," "COI" and "vandalism" (i.e. WP:PRECOCIOUS)[8][9]

The alias has been used several places on the Internet where other aliases are also used by Micay (Strcat, and another well-known-in-some-circles alias). The alias advocates for, supports, and promotes off-wiki for a ROM that is a spinoff or fork of GrapheneOS, which is a fork, restart, spinoff, or w/e you want to call it, of CopperheadOS. The alias discusses GrapheneOS and gives related advice in communications channels used by other Micay aliases.

"Protested too much" in response to a, at first, article Talk page general comment on COI, and later was supported by Pitchcurve.[10] Completely rejects (or laughs off) two COI warnings (one from me).[11]

Even if the alias is not actually being operated by Micay/Strcat, they are working together elsewhere and at wikipedia (i.e. meat puppets at least).

  • Pitchcurve: 14 August 2020 Immediately after account creation was able to create a Talk page archive (i.e. WP:PRECOCIOUS).[12]. How to say this without attacking (possibly) "wiki-noobs"...In my opinion, this alias seems obsessed with making CopperheadOS and GrapheneOS say what they wish, as though they are the owner of the Articles (as well as owner or previously co-owner of the ROMs development). Please let me know if diffs are needed, but I believe quick review of article and talk histories makes this obvious.

Adding another behavioral observation: Why would (only) Pitchcurve be SO insistent on including incorporation date, and spelling to make it easier for readers to "look up" info' in legal records and databases?[13] That phrase "look up" caught my attention, and it has been used three times in the Talk section: First by 69.158.183.116's last edit.[14] Second and third by Pitchcurve. Coincidence? Maybe. However, editing similarity and discussion transition between those editors (and IP GeoLocation in Toronto, where Copperhead is located) leads to inferring a connection between the IP, Pitchcurve, and CopperheadOS/GrapheneOS/Strcat/Micay. -- Yae4 (talk) 16:37, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Adding (forgot to include):
  • Autobotsrepair: It seemed odd for a new user to say, "this section is fragmenting the earlier discussions on sources. Could you please consider moving it..." and after explanation would persist and say "Might be a good idea to move this section below to maintain some chronology of related discussions." It seems (1) a toned down version of the (IMO) demanding writing by Pitchcurve, (2) Characteristic of someone who considers themself a "team leader" (such as Micay/Strcat), and (3) something a more experienced wiki-user (such as Strcat) might suggest (WP:PRECOCIOUS).[15][16]

This discussion with participation by me, Pitchcurve, and Autobotsrepair, gave me the feeling I was interacting with the same person using two different IDs. Both IDs insisting on particular language regarding "fork" or "variant," and ignoring what the cited source actually says. This gave me the sense I was discussing it with the same person who also had to "correct" the language of the author of the cited source (i.e. Micay/Strcat).

To me, Autobotsrepair and Anupritaisno1 are WP:SIMNAME - same first letter, combination of short words, same length within +/- 1 character. -- Yae4 (talk) 23:59, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Behavioral similarities:

  • Terse or blank comments in edit summaries, particularly on Talk pages.
  • Edits in series of quick changes.
  • Long additions on talk pages, without providing links or quotes to back up statements. Strcat and Pitchcurve especially, similar for Anupritaisno1 and Autobotsrepair, though somewhat less verbose.
  • I'm right, you're wrong type approach, mostly but not exclusively.
  • Often doesn't indent responses on talk pages.
  • The obvious blank user pages, and aliases starting with A.
  • Similar revert first and often, discuss later approaches.


Adding (new) Capitalization: Strcat has been capitalized everywhere except where it was written all lower case by Autobotsrepair and Anupritaisno1. Everywhere I've seen Strcat use this alias, it has also been lowercase, including on wikipedia. It's a small (cough) point, but also another indicator. -- Yae4 (talk) 23:59, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Behavioral differences:

  • Every edit by Anupritaisno1 has "Tags: Mobile" edit.
  • Earliest edits by Autobotsrepair had "Tags: Mobile" then after 14 August do not.

Interactions Note: Interaction timelines show some particularly short (minutes) gaps between edits by Anupritaisno (mobile) and Pitchcurve (non-mobile).[17]

  • (Aside note) Taybella: Different on surface, but some similarites. Is the only new account that is not basically just a Single Purpose Account, but has also largely focused on CopperheadOS. First edit was a "citation needed" tag (i.e. WP:PRECOCIOUS).[18] Inactive for a few days.

Note for future reference, this new user is probably connected with "the other side" (pro-CopperheadOS.


Please let me know if any particular area above needs more supporting diffs and I'll provide them. Thanks. -- Yae4 (talk) 01:34, 30 August 2020 (UTC) Yae4 (talk) 01:34, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Adding (new): Technology: The operating system developer types recently flocking to CopperheadOS or GrapheneOS are likely capable of tunneling their Wikipedia editing sessions through servers used for development. Please keep this in mind while evaluating IP data.

WP:AGF: I am not trying to smear anyone or use this investigation as a tactic. If independent admins determine I was mistaken, then I will apologize. -- Yae4 (talk) 23:59, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by other users

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Accused parties may also comment/discuss in this section below. See Defending yourself against claims.


Hi I'll admit to a COI with glassrom which was a spinoff of grapheneos

I use the same name on all platforms and really this has gone too far

I'll get a few things straight I definitely have a COI when it comes to glassrom which is a spinoff of grapheneos. I merely take their code, make my changes and sell it to a company for profit. So yes I do have a COI indirectly when it comes to grapheneos

I have not coordinated any edits to Wikipedia with strcat. I can also prove to you that I am not strcat. Please see my user profile on XDA and github where I use the same username

I have always edited from a single IP: 86.105.51.194 and I am the owner of this IP. I can also prove to you that I have owned this IP for more than a year now and that none of the other people in the sock list have ever known or used this IP

I edited the article purely for my own interest and I will admit to that. I am sorry and I won't do it again — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anupritaisno1 (talk • contribs) 03:27, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Here are links to prove I'm a different person. https://forum.xda-developers.com/oneplus-7-pro/development/9-glassrom-t3987291/post80607629#post80607629 https://mobile.twitter.com/anupritaisno1?lang=en https://github.com/anupritaisno1


Hi everyone,

I am Autobotsrepair and I would like to state for the record that I am not a sockpuppet account as Yae4 would lead you to believe.

I am a new Wikipedia editor with an interest in STEM and a fan of the Las Vegas Raiders. Please review my edit history and-more importantly-my interactions with Yae4. I have never worked with strcat or anyone else on Wikipedia. My views are mine alone.

This investigation is retaliation from Yae4 aimed at smearing me because they had a conflict with my views in the talk section. Yae4 did not respond to my last statement and opened up this investigation shortly after. Autobotsrepair (talk) 21:03, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Autobotsrepair: (Rhetorical) What would be the proper response when faced with personal attacks (WP:ADHOMINEM) and Triggers/Signs such as (essentially) a Single Purpose Account and uncivil editing? Interested in STEM, OK. What about claiming expertise in terminology of Android development, and "operating systems and their technical specifications" like Strcat has?[19][20][21] -- Yae4 (talk) 14:48, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Hello, VenerableEntwhistle here. I became involved in the CopperheadOS article working on my copy editing and writing skills. I felt compelled to make a statement here, as it was a member of this group of users which aggressively accused me of everything they are now being investigated for. In multiple sections of the CopperheadOS Talk page [22], Pitchcurve accuses me of being the author of nearly every change made to the CopperheadOS article, which is truly exasperating. My mistake using the term vandalism initially may have precipitated their reaction. However their entire modus operandi seems to be to make accusations and act as sole authority on the trivia written in questionable links. Here are just a few that this user may or may not be responsible for, which I will be taking to WP:RSN: 

   https://androidworld.it/
   https://heise.de/
   https://piunikaweb.com/
   https://www.yugatech.com/
   https://golem.de/

These publishers seem to universally have very low standards for their articles. They single source information, and very obviously make no attempt to follow up on what they are given. Many of the articles repeat the others verbatim, or are weak translations of the same. As a new editor, I wrongly thought the appropriate response to such articles was to treat them as biased when used as citations and re-added some of the links I intend to have examined. I apologize if any of my mistakes editing the CopperheadOS article were inflammatory.

Best,

VenerableEntwhistle (talk) 02:01, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's Yae4 that made the controversy section based on https://piunikaweb.com/ and added coverage of BlackBerry Priv criticism, not me. I'm not adding low quality sources simply based on press releases and other articles. You're accusing of me of what you have done yourself. You accuse me of being biased, but people should look through my edit history and the sources being used and they can see for themselves that I care a lot about the article being correct, comprehensive when it comes to everything notable/important based on coverage in the sources and leaving out irrelevant details like the former lead developer making a 'rather controversial' (according to a hook for an interview) tweet criticizing the BlackBerry Priv.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golem.de is a high quality source. https://www.golem.de/news/grapheneos-ein-gehaertetes-android-ohne-google-bitte-1912-145383.html is not at all what you say. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Heise is high quality source too.
You want these two German sources removed because they're among the highest quality sources used in the article and aren't simply based on Copperhead press releases like essentially every other post-split article. It's very easy to see through what's happening here.
Whoever is reviewing this needs to look at the edit history and these 2 German publishers / articles. They are anything but low quality. I did not use https://piunikaweb.com/ or https://www.yugatech.com/ as sources for anything. I am fully in support of removing https://piunikaweb.com/.
Look at what's actually happening between Yae4 and myself and you can see that the issue comes down to him wanting to remove information about the Alpha release despite a lot of coverage across various sites and it being part of high quality articles like the LWN one. The same goes for him wanting to remove existence / creation of the company even though the Ars article is about the company. Similarly, Yae4 is making changes to the rest of the history section where it becomes much less clear with lots of little inaccuracies and misleading statements.
The pre-existing knowledge that I have about CopperheadOS and GrapheneOS from following the project from early on does not stop me from basing my edits on the sources. I am based in Toronto and have gone to relevant events and followed the project from the beginning in 2014. So sure, I have a lot of insider knowledge, and that lets me understand what the articles are saying instead of inaccurately interpreting wording such as a site referring to RattlesnakeOS as a fork of AOSP and an alternative to CopperheadOS - not a fork of Copperhead - which is how Yae4 wrongly interpreted it and is a nice simple example of the conflicts between myself and him.
I don't have a narrative or bias to push. I don't have a side in it as you do. You've made it clear yourself that you have an active bias on the talk page and that you're anti-GrapheneOS and are actively promoting the Copperhead narrative instead of the neutral one. You should be stepping back and not being involved based on your own statement.
I want the article to be neutral and accurately cover the creation of the project, the Alpha / Beta releases, the existence of the company and the changes to licensing and source availability, along with source and binary release availability. This is all covered by proper sources and is the baseline for a minimal article with a minimal history section which is all it really should have based on the lack of notability for minor details like a month to month history of pricing and other minutiae added by Yae4.
I have followed the project from early on, and I'm based in Toronto so I've even attended some of the Toronto Crypto events, etc. where James Donaldson (rarely Daniel Micay) were present. So sure, I have insider knowledge, but I have not added or removed anything solely based on insider knowledge rather than what is in the sources. Being an expert on a topic does not make you inherently biased and does not mean you can't write content based on the sources. In fact, it puts you in a better position to interpret them.
If anything, I have a bias towards making a comprehensive and neutral article covering the conflict only the way high quality sources like those 2 German news sites cover it. I don't want any of the social media posts, press releases, blog posts (some masquerading as proper news articles / journalism) used as sources.
I follow both James Donaldson and Daniel Micay on Twitter and started editing here after James Donaldson talked about the article in the CopperheadOS Telegram channel (including his editing of it) and Daniel Micay made this post: https://twitter.com/DanielMicay/status/1290550236474216450. My goal was to help make a high quality, neutral article covering the topics fairly and not including a bunch of poorly sourced information and presenting claims from either side (yours and theirs) as if they are facts.
Knowing a lot about the topic and having communication with both James Donaldson and Daniel Micay does not make me unable to edit the article. I have even met both in real life including recently due to interest in the project. Both of them kept complaining about the Wikipedia article and I tried to have a go at making it neutral. I've gotten into a series of conflicts with Yae4 about little details, the style of the article and his interpretations of the sources. Please, to whoever reviews this, look at my edits and his edits. Do you really think that I am trying to push a POV here based on what I have actually done, including my edits to both articles and the extensive attempts to explain my edits on the talk page and come to a consensus on various things like stopping the fight between CopperheadOS and GrapheneOS biased editors about source available vs. closed source which was resolved by agreeing upon a term (proprietary). Pitchcurve (talk) 05:01, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]


I am based in Toronto, have followed CopperheadOS and the successor projects (the current CopperheadOS, GrapheneOS, RattlesnakeOS, hashbangos) very closely. I follow almost everyone involved across Twitter, Telegram, Matrix, etc. I have met James Donaldson and Daniel Micay in real life and communicated with both of them including recently. Having this insider knowledge does not mean I am biased, and my edits have been based on the references used. Since I know what has happened in detail, I don't make the same mistakes of misinterpreting what's stated in the sources or misrepresenting them. Yae4 considers that a weakness or some kind of biased but look at my edits. What bias do you see me pushing here? My conflict with Yae4 is about issues like whether the article should mention the Alpha release covered in a bunch of articles (because he disliked many of the sources individually, but it's clearly notable and there are high quality sources covering it) and similar issues such as how to write the rest of the history section. I saw the best approach as writing a basic summary of the history and then making sure there are references for everything - rather than making a mishmash of confusing facts and a mixed up, unclear timeline based on organically forming it from the bottom up. My edits are properly referenced and backed up by the sources. I have a fundamental, strong disagreement with Yae4 about how to go about making a high quality article. He seems to want to just take random assorted facts / statements from the articles and build a Wikipedia article out of that. I want to have minimal, sensible coverage of the major points in the history (as determined by what gets talked about / referenced the most - and the Alpha release and company are certainly heavily talked about especially early on when the topic barely had coverage).

Please look at my edits, and judge it based on what I have done, what the references say and what I have said in the edit summaries for those article edits and on the talk page. Also, I really don't understand the issue with writing only detailed edit summaries for articles, not talk pages where my own words explain it.

I use PIA (Private Internet Access) primarily with servers based in Toronto since it is local, along with smaller VPN projects for privacy activists. I cannot generally edit via the PIA servers so I switch over to a local shared VPN which looks like a home internet connection since they have a few servers open to people in the community.

It does not seem that experts on topics are welcome here or that the goal is to make high quality, accurate articles based on only high quality sources that are properly researched/investigated or that are authoritative themselves such as the Ontario government company database. I have a lot of experience with wiki editing but not WIKIPEDIA editing which Yae4 considers highly suspicious. It was not hard to make a talk page archive. I simply had to look at an existing page and copy that. You can see I actually screwed up since I tried to start numbering it at 0 and I have to move it to 1 and redirect it. That does not show that I have a lot of Wikipedia editing experience at all. In fact, if you look through my edits including my talk page posts, I think it's very apparently that I am new here. In fact, I have edited the Arch Wiki during a time where Daniel Micay (Strcat) was an administrator of it (he was never an Arch Linux developer, rather he was a Trusted User).

If I am not welcome here, then I will leave. I get the hint that I am not welcome and am presented as a sockpuppet or pushing bias because I really wanted to make a good article. Again, look at my edits.

I have encouraged others to edit the article instead of me continuing to try editing it, since I have not been able to work with Yae4. Pitchcurve (talk) 05:26, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See https://hacklab.to/about/ for more details about part of this Toronto community - and expect to have other editors who know about the topic showing up to edit the article that is well known to many people since it is a local open source project / company by people that are known about in the local community. Also people editing from the same space or the same VPN does not mean they are sockpuppets. In fact they probably often disagree and are the ones fighting with each other. Treating IP addresses as identifies is foolish. I can prove my real life identity.
Also, Anupritaisno1 (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) is an XDA developer from India who works on a ROM and I don't even understand why Autobotsrepair (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) is lumped in. They barely did anything and Anupritaisno1 (talk+ · tag · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · spi block · block log · CA · CheckUser(log) · investigate · cuwiki) + myself got what they did undone. They are really new and did not understand that they cannot be editing the article to "protect open source". I would not have written something like that in an edit summary. The accusations here are just ridiculous. By the way, since as far as I know both James and Daniel use PIA and other VPNs too, I would not be surprised if the 2 people at the heart of this conflict used some of the same Toronto PIA IPs. Simply ridiculous to go down the route of painting everyone at the same hackerspace, or using the same VPN hosted there / elsewhere as sockpuppets. Routing traffic via someone else's connection to protect your privacy is not indicative of being a sockpuppet especially when you're talking about a privacy community. Pitchcurve (talk) 05:47, 1 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Clerk, CheckUser, and/or patrolling admin comments

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