Watch out for Scams in our AI Discords!

Introduction

Hey just chiming in here, this isn't some "JOIN MY DISCORD" for AI whatever posts - it's a real threat to everyone's discords, and I thought i'd shed some light on it for everyone. It's a crypto scam, and while Web3 and NFT's and crypto isn't always scammy: This issue is.

Safety Check First!

I won't be sharing the direct IMAGES for safety and clarity, but I can promise you i've seen enough of these scams to help target when and how they come around. And that even some of our most brightest in our community accidentally fall victim to these things.

How to Spot the Scam

Basically your first reference to call is: Is it 1-4 images, is it not a screenshot but a PHOTO of an X/twitter account and is it a mostly random account?

If you answered yes: Welcome to the club, that's the average if not most usual way i've seen this scam come about.

It comes with someone tagging "@everyone" and spamming the same 1-4 pics in like 10 different channels, bypassing any bot issue by figuring out that they do it in 10sec to 30 second to even ONE minute increments.

EDIT:

These pictures are shown of PHOTOGRAPHS not screenshots of the "Scam" -- which will be a random X/twitter profile. It'll say something about a crypto "GIFT" and it will be a similar profile they show each time. They're 90% of the time CDN based like cloudflare (from discord), imgur or otherwise. Directly previewing one on discord seems to be fine to grab the URL from them.

A lot of the time if they don't tag "@everyone" they'll also just spam the image one singular one at a time in every channel they can. One discord I moderate for did it in one singular channel with a random amount of letters.

I've directly grabbed the URL a few times from these and somehow there's no "VIRUS" that's attached directly from the URL. However...

Alternatives to the Scam

When this happens, and there's no VIRUS found via virus total on the URL itself of the hosted image: it's likely because the image has now been downloaded by an unsuspecting user. That user isn't stupid, they aren't dumb... They're likely downloading it to grab it and get a virus check on it.

Recently this means if it's NOT a random account, aka: burner account...

That it means there's a real user's account that got hacked, and is now part of the bot farm until they can get access to their account properly back. Recently THIS DID happen to a member of the AI community, and my only suggestion is when it's a non burner account: don't ban the member outright. Mute/quarantine until the situation is resolved.

How did this come about?

Well when a non-burner discord account takes that image set and downloads it likely for clarity to makes sure they can virus check or otherwise.. They become part of that bot farm, now I don't have proof of the "HOW" just the end result. This account in question won't be named because it's not their fault, it's not like the old "FART BUTTON" scams that installed a virus via your browser because you downloaded an EXE file.

When a non burner account gets thrown into the farm, it now directly DM's anyone it can find that is friends or in contact with that account.

While it may only catch 5-10 users out of 1000: this is the goal, it's not a "Lets catch everyone" it's a sneaky attack on the least amount. It's the digital whack-a-mole of AI discords. I mean apart from that there's always the job seeker scams, but those are harmless. (Yet annoying. I mean honestly, a discord of 200 people and you're asking for an AI job? lol.)

How do I keep my discord safe?

Well conventional bot strategies like dyno etc aren't a match for this, and even the most recent of scam type bots aren't cut out for it... So you're really just going to have to be mindful and play digital whack a mole.

These bot farm accounts join and then sit in major discords waiting for easy links to farm and just start en masse joining different ones. But not "EN MASSE" like a raid: quietly a few join over weeks and then it just takes 1-5 accounts across different discords.

The only way you can keep your community safe is: Ban hammer the ones you know are burner accounts, and check your members list. Your discord members list comes with a simple strategy: "Suspicious account activity", "Suspicious DM activity" etc. If you're an admin or mod: this is the ONE SIMPLE tool you can use to clean your members list and prevent other discords connected in your overall network from having a similar issue.

Sure you want your members list to look big because "Big PP Numbers" - but it's not about numbers: it's more about engagement. Having a discord full of scams, rather than discussions is just not cool. So if you're a large discord, or a small one: keep your membership list safe from as much harm as you can.

Don't panic, don't blink.
(I got you there on the pop culture refs.. god i'm getting old.)

And best of all: Have fun with your community, because a happy community is a thriving one.

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