[Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[maning sambale]

Hi,

Our team came across duplicated highways like this:
https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/144422919/.
Based on the latest changeset, this is probably due to the revertion
of the SEO spam.
We documented the issue here: https://github.com/mapbox/mapping/issues/310


> Reverting all these edits would probably create a lot of collateral
> damage. We could manually go through them and revert all that contain
> marketing speak, but even that would probably throw out a few babies
> with the bathwater here and there. If anyone has a recommendation... I
> noticed that typical SEO content tends to begin with the business name
> ("Waldo's Warts is a health spa overlooking the beautiful parking lot of
> ...") but that's probably not a hard-and-fast marker.
>
> With regard to blocking or deleting accounts: DWG usually blocks
> accounts only to stop someone from doing someting or to force them to
> read a message; hence we don't see much reason in blocking month-old
> accounts that will in all likelihood never be used again. Pure spam
> accounts (usually that's diary spam) can be deleted by the admins, but
> in these cases that would actually hide the traces of spammers, since
> the edits they made would now be by user "user_1234" instead of user
> "soandsohotel" and it would be more difficult to follow their actions
> through the web interface. So I can see the frustration of spam hunters
> when the spam account is not removed, but I don't think it would
> actually help.


-- 
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maning
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 06.07.2017 13:01, Mike N wrote:
>In the larger picture, what damage is being done to OSM by the 
> 'spam', once the correct and standard tags are being used? 

... and we can be reasonably sure that whoever said the business was at
this location, actually knew and not just guessed ;)

> I'd like to 
> have it clear that it's being reverted on the basis of being a stealth 
> import where the origin of the geolocation data is suspect, rather than 
> just having more words in the description tag than an average mapper 
> would include.

Yes. I think that if someone registers to add their own shop and is a
bit over-enthusiastic, that's totally forgivable, it's just when someone
offers this as a service to third parties that we'd like the SEO company
to be a partner who understands and respects OSM, and not someone who
treats us like another advertising dumping ground.

Bye
Frederik

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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Mike N]

On 7/6/2017 5:42 AM, Frederik Ramm wrote:

Reverting all these edits would probably create a lot of collateral
damage. We could manually go through them and revert all that contain
marketing speak, but even that would probably throw out a few babies
with the bathwater here and there.


  In the larger picture, what damage is being done to OSM by the 
'spam', once the correct and standard tags are being used?  I'd like to 
have it clear that it's being reverted on the basis of being a stealth 
import where the origin of the geolocation data is suspect, rather than 
just having more words in the description tag than an average mapper 
would include.


Some local business owners also include that sort of verbage when they 
add their own business.



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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 05.07.2017 23:05, Frederik Ramm wrote:
> I've done some numbers, maybe it helps.

The CSVs I uploaded were a bit difficult to process because of lack of
escaping. I've made a new one here

http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/one-trick-ponies.csv

To recap, this file contains all changesets - numerically ascending -
that are the only changeset of someone, and that contain only one edit,
and where the changeset comment is at least 50 characters long, and
where the object has at least one of the note/description/website tags.

This doesn't mean that all of them are spam (nor does it mean that
there's not other spam done by people who have more than one edit).

The file now not only contains the object type and object id of that one
edit, but also the version, as well as the *current* version of the
object (as of a few hours ago), allowing you to see whether the object
has changed meanwhile.

Additional columns list all the tags the object had when edited by the
one-edit-user. If the tag has meanwhile changed, then the column will
have a little "->" arrow with the new value (e.g. "name=John's Bitter
Beers->Paul's Beautiful Beverages").

I'll follow this up later with a small howto in case someone wants to
repeat my analyses with different parameters.

With my DWG hat on:

Reverting all these edits would probably create a lot of collateral
damage. We could manually go through them and revert all that contain
marketing speak, but even that would probably throw out a few babies
with the bathwater here and there. If anyone has a recommendation... I
noticed that typical SEO content tends to begin with the business name
("Waldo's Warts is a health spa overlooking the beautiful parking lot of
...") but that's probably not a hard-and-fast marker.

With regard to blocking or deleting accounts: DWG usually blocks
accounts only to stop someone from doing someting or to force them to
read a message; hence we don't see much reason in blocking month-old
accounts that will in all likelihood never be used again. Pure spam
accounts (usually that's diary spam) can be deleted by the admins, but
in these cases that would actually hide the traces of spammers, since
the edits they made would now be by user "user_1234" instead of user
"soandsohotel" and it would be more difficult to follow their actions
through the web interface. So I can see the frustration of spam hunters
when the spam account is not removed, but I don't think it would
actually help.

Bye
Frederik

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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Rory McCann]

On 06/07/17 04:42, John F. Eldredge wrote:
The "mechanical Turk" term is not an ethnic slur, but instead an 
allusion to a famous 18th-century chess-playing automaton, made to 
resemble the upper body of a man in traditional Turkish clothing, 
mounted on a cabinet. It was eventually revealed to be a fake automaton, 
operated by a man hidden inside. The modern term refers to a human 
working a repetitive job, because they are cheaper than developing a 
computer program to do the job.





Intent isn't magic. Different terms have different meanings in different
countries, partially due to different ethnic make ups and societies. Not
everywhere is like the USA. If this is insulting in some countries, then
be careful. :)

Rory


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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Clifford Snow]

I'm looking for input on doing a post on the Reddit/r/SEO subreddit
describing some of the damage done by a few and why adding their clients to
OSM won't help. What concerns me is that it will create
another TheSilphRoad where every Pokemon player wants to add fake water
features. Do you think it would be better to get the issue out in the open
or hope that obscurity prevails?

Clifford

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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[John F. Eldredge]

The "mechanical Turk" term is not an ethnic slur, but instead an allusion 
to a famous 18th-century chess-playing automaton, made to resemble the 
upper body of a man in traditional Turkish clothing, mounted on a cabinet. 
It was eventually revealed to be a fake automaton, operated by a man hidden 
inside. The modern term refers to a human working a repetitive job, because 
they are cheaper than developing a computer program to do the job.






On June 30, 2017 6:23:15 PM Frederik Ramm  wrote:


Hi,

On 06/30/2017 07:24 PM, Ian Dees wrote:

Every edit was made by a new/separate user account that only ever makes
one edit. In most cases, these edits are useful (it's someone adding a
business POI) but in some cases they add the details to the wrong piece
of geometry.


I see. We had a couple similar issues in the past, presumably from some
kind of SaaS SEO tool that will automatically sign up new accounts for
users of the tool. But we might also be dealing with "mechanical
turk"(*) type of human work.

These tools tend to get more sophisticated in flying under our
collective radar, but usually not sophisticated enough to get the
tagging quite right and avoid adding duplicate data.

The addition of advertising copy in the changeset comment is something
I've seen a lot (often duplicated or amended by a note or description tag).

I wonder if downloading a changeset planet and feeding all changeset
comments to some sort of Bayes filter could help identify more problems.

Bye
Frederik

(*) Where I live this term would be considered really offensive towards
those who do this kind of work but it seems to be the normal term in the US?

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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Clifford Snow]

Can we curtail the discussion on which country is responsible? It doesn't
seem to help move us forward to tackling the problem.

I've met with two different SEO companies looking to add their clients to
OSM. It appears they didn't want to go through the import process nor did
they start adding companies. That's the good news. One described how easy
it was to upload to Google, Foresquare, Yahoo, Bing, and Apple. Just need a
csv spreadsheet using the proper business classification for the business.
(Each of the search companies have different requirement for
classification.) The result is when you search for these companies
locations, they are often geocoded to the street since there isn't an exact
location.

SEO want to add their clients to OSM because they think it will increase
Page Ranking. I was told that OSM has a very high Authority rank which
means that their client webiste benefits from being on OSM. What they don't
realize is when we display their URL  a ref=nofollow tag which tells the
search engines not to count that link when determining Page Rank. As was
pointed out to me, since we make our data available to others, they many
not be following our nofollow policy.

The easy answer to stop SEO companies from spamming is to remove the
website URL tag. Of course that's not going to fly.

I suggest we encourage users of OSM data to also use the nofollow tag. If
you are using OSM data, check to see how the url is presented.

Clifford


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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Ethan Nelson]

Just to bring a little perspective from the DWG (but speaking in a personal 
capacity):


The issue of SEO groups adding information first came up at the beginning of 
2016. We were able to revert a lot of the data for a while in cooperation with 
vigilant users. Blocks are useless in these cases because you are playing 
whack-a-mole with new accounts. Additionally, I compiled a list of some of the 
users to check with sysadmins, and it turned out all the accounts had the email 
domain and IP address outside of the US. As a result, we added some 
countermeasures to try and stave off the issue. The main characteristics on 
these edits were each account being named after a business and adding only that 
business (including the 'Keywords' key in their tags). What made detecting 
these edits difficult at the time was mappers coming by and correcting the tags 
to be more "mainstream" (such as changing 'Keywords' to 'keywords' or 
'description').


Over time, though, the editors became smarter (attackers adapt to defenses) as 
they started to use "mainstream" tags instead of sore thumbs, register with 
emails that were not all the same, and register from different IP blocks. 
Without a clear connection, it was a matter of loose-leaf accusations against 
some company for accounts that blended in a little more. And I doubt the 
sysadmins would agree to block whole range of IP addresses.


Some of the edits shared a common thread and pointed towards an SEO company 
based in California. Over time, I have attempted to contact them. This has 
entailed sending emails to their support addresses (not only from my personal 
address but also from a DWG address), the CEO directly through their address on 
LinkedIn, filling out contact forms on their website, and tweeting them. In 
addition, I have tried to directly contact some of the businesses whose 
information was added to inquire who they hired for their online presence, 
website, and so on. Not a single response was received in any of these cases. 
And were I to try and call that company, I speculate I would not even be able 
to get a hold of anyone past level 1 support or sales.


Really, I can't say for certain this company is even responsible, so it's 
difficult to craft some official letter from e.g. the Board. It could be this 
company contracts out geoSEO work. And maybe even their contractor subcontracts 
it to yet another firm. Also, some of the examples show different 
characteristics than the first group I had brought up before (which I don't 
believe I ever saw add information to a street), so there could be more than 
one group at play here.


It is not the easiest task to automatically sort out legitimate businesses from 
SEO editors, so that means it will probably require manual screening of all new 
user accounts.

What's the solution? I don't know. That and vandalism detection are two million 
dollar questions (reward money not supplied).


Best,

Ethan aka FTA, speaking about his DWG experiences in a personal capacity

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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Denis Carriere]

Great research Frederik!

*~~*
*Denis Carriere*

On Wed, Jul 5, 2017 at 5:05 PM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> > These spam changes do not need that complexity to detect.
>
> I've done some numbers, maybe it helps.
>
> I counted all users that only ever commited one changeset with one edit
> inside. This number is 140352.
>
> Then I discarded those where the changeset comment was shorter than 50
> characters or where the content had been redacted long time ago, leaving
> me with 12173.
>
> Then I looked at the objects modified/created, and discarded all where
> the object had neither website, nor description, nor note tag. This left
> me with 3323 objects.
>
> Then I looked at the list and found a broad range of edits. Some, while
> having an advertising slant, seem a legit addition of someone's own
> business:
>
> user=Martin Merkur
> changeset=38362589
> comment=Our doors are always open.  Come and visit, taste our coffee,
> see what we do
> object=node 4103514010
> addr:city=Berlin;addr:housenumber=38;addr:postcode=
> 12435;addr:street=Elsenstraße;amenity=cafe;cuisine=coffee_
> shop;internet_access=no;name=passenger
> coffee;note=https://www.facebook.com/PassengerEspresso/;opening_
> hours=7:30-15:00
> Uhr;smoking=outside;website=passenger-coffee.de
>
> or
>
> user=otheryan
> changeset=13150739
> comment=Added in West Town Bikes as it is at the same address and has
> enough of its own activity that it needs to be recognized on the map.
> object=node 1585399965
> addr:housenumber=2459;addr:postcode=60622;addr:street=W
> Division;name=Ciclo Urbano/West Town
> Bikes;shop=bicycle;website=http://ciclourbanochicago.com/
>
> some look more SEO-y
>
> user=northcarolinahealth
> changeset=43324244
> comment=Updated Osborne Insurance Services at Raleigh, NC
> object=node 4474950186
> addr:city=Raleigh;addr:housenumber=5316;addr:postcode=27609;addr:state=NC;
> addr:street=Six
> Forks Road;hours=Mon-Fri
> :8.00AM-6.00PM;name=Osborne Insurance
> Services;phone=919-845-9955;suite=110;website=http://
> northcarolinahealth.org
>
> or
>
> user=blakemanhart
> changeset=43027180
> comment=Updated State Farm - Blake Manhart at Springfield, VA
> object=node 4456153164
> addr:city=Springfield;addr:housenumber=8322;addr:
> postcode=22152;addr:state=VA;addr:street=Traford
> Ln #B;name=State Farm -
> Blake Manhart;Owner=Blake
> Manhart;phone=703-992-9664;website=http://blakemanhart.com
>
> I had a look at trying to automatically match website and user name; 457
> of them actually contain the user name in the web site. but that is a
> too coarse check. I fear that it might be necessary to look through the
> rest manually to detect the dodgy ones.
>
> Of the 3323, 208 have a highway tag. But here it bites me that I took
> everything that had either note or description or website, because some
> of the edits with highway=* are legit and have a description/note where
> the newbie mapper explained what they did. 170 of the 208 do have a
> website tag, and finally, they *all* seem dodgy. (Interestingly it was
> not all ways - some highway=traffic_signals too!)
>
> I've run a revert on these 170 but the majority had already been fixed
> by others!
>
> That leaves us with a good 3115 objects to investigate. Many do clearly
> violate our "no advertising" rules but then again we don't want to bee
> to harsh with the cycle shop owner who maybe oversteps the line.
>
> I've put my interim results here
>
> http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/username-in-url.csv
>
> (for those where the username is in the URL) - do you think we should
> revert them all automatically? (Keep in mind many may have been reverted
> already - we'd only work on those where the spam version is still current.)
>
> and
>
> http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/other.csv
>
> for those where the username is not (fully) in the URL.
>
> Bye
> Frederik
>
> --
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>
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> These spam changes do not need that complexity to detect.

I've done some numbers, maybe it helps.

I counted all users that only ever commited one changeset with one edit
inside. This number is 140352.

Then I discarded those where the changeset comment was shorter than 50
characters or where the content had been redacted long time ago, leaving
me with 12173.

Then I looked at the objects modified/created, and discarded all where
the object had neither website, nor description, nor note tag. This left
me with 3323 objects.

Then I looked at the list and found a broad range of edits. Some, while
having an advertising slant, seem a legit addition of someone's own
business:

user=Martin Merkur
changeset=38362589
comment=Our doors are always open.  Come and visit, taste our coffee,
see what we do
object=node 4103514010
addr:city=Berlin;addr:housenumber=38;addr:postcode=12435;addr:street=Elsenstraße;amenity=cafe;cuisine=coffee_shop;internet_access=no;name=passenger
coffee;note=https://www.facebook.com/PassengerEspresso/;opening_hours=7:30-15:00
Uhr;smoking=outside;website=passenger-coffee.de

or

user=otheryan
changeset=13150739
comment=Added in West Town Bikes as it is at the same address and has
enough of its own activity that it needs to be recognized on the map.
object=node 1585399965
addr:housenumber=2459;addr:postcode=60622;addr:street=W
Division;name=Ciclo Urbano/West Town
Bikes;shop=bicycle;website=http://ciclourbanochicago.com/

some look more SEO-y

user=northcarolinahealth
changeset=43324244
comment=Updated Osborne Insurance Services at Raleigh, NC
object=node 4474950186
addr:city=Raleigh;addr:housenumber=5316;addr:postcode=27609;addr:state=NC;addr:street=Six
Forks Road;hours=Mon-Fri
:8.00AM-6.00PM;name=Osborne Insurance
Services;phone=919-845-9955;suite=110;website=http://northcarolinahealth.org

or

user=blakemanhart
changeset=43027180
comment=Updated State Farm - Blake Manhart at Springfield, VA
object=node 4456153164
addr:city=Springfield;addr:housenumber=8322;addr:postcode=22152;addr:state=VA;addr:street=Traford
Ln #B;name=State Farm -
Blake Manhart;Owner=Blake
Manhart;phone=703-992-9664;website=http://blakemanhart.com

I had a look at trying to automatically match website and user name; 457
of them actually contain the user name in the web site. but that is a
too coarse check. I fear that it might be necessary to look through the
rest manually to detect the dodgy ones.

Of the 3323, 208 have a highway tag. But here it bites me that I took
everything that had either note or description or website, because some
of the edits with highway=* are legit and have a description/note where
the newbie mapper explained what they did. 170 of the 208 do have a
website tag, and finally, they *all* seem dodgy. (Interestingly it was
not all ways - some highway=traffic_signals too!)

I've run a revert on these 170 but the majority had already been fixed
by others!

That leaves us with a good 3115 objects to investigate. Many do clearly
violate our "no advertising" rules but then again we don't want to bee
to harsh with the cycle shop owner who maybe oversteps the line.

I've put my interim results here

http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/username-in-url.csv

(for those where the username is in the URL) - do you think we should
revert them all automatically? (Keep in mind many may have been reverted
already - we'd only work on those where the spam version is still current.)

and

http://www.remote.org/frederik/tmp/other.csv

for those where the username is not (fully) in the URL.

Bye
Frederik

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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Simon Poole]

Just to put the whole thing into perspective: the current run rate of
SEO fake accounts in the US seems to be reasonably low. I counted 5 for
the last 7 days, that is roughly 2% of new mappers in the US during
those 7 days.




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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Simon Poole]

Am 05.07.2017 um 17:27 schrieb Greg Morgan:
>
>
> Am 01.07.2017 um 08:33 schrieb Simon Poole:
>
> ...given that we have a known US based SEO company that has created
> (literally) 1000s of such accounts (but with slightly less spammy
> edits), and "we" haven't taken any action, why should we in this case?

I suspect you are barking up the wrong tree, "we" includes everybody in
OSM, nobody seemed to be in the slightest upset about that when I
published the diary post and nobody seemed to be inclined to run after
the SEO  company in question.

>
> How do you know this is all coming from a US based Simon?  How does
> targeting US locations make it an US based company?  If it the same
> occurred in Europe, then I am sure you would have more care and
> concern than you are showing here.  Dude I often cringe when I reas
> what you write in email.
>

Because I manually checked a largish number of the companies (the
subjects of the ads) last year and they had a trivial tell tale
attribute that pointed (as in 100% sure) to an US based SEO company.
That doesn't imply that the accounts that triggered this thread (which
were created before we saw the big influx in 2016) are from an US
company and I didn't say anything of the sort. Just that we didn't go
after an identified non-offshore offender at the time, so there is no
point in suddenly getting upset now about others playing the same or
similar games.

The other point is that we haven't seen a similar increase in fake
accounts in Europe, not that we don't have SEO companies here, but they
seem to operate differently, and indeed a number of them have made
contact with the local OSM communities first before adding anything (and
some haven't). 


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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 07/05/2017 05:40 PM, Andy Townsend wrote:
> On 05/07/2017 16:27, Greg Morgan wrote:
>> I've seen the DWG go after real newbies because they are exited and
>> want to make a difference but make a few mistakes.
> 
> Have you got an example of that (offlist if it would be preferable)?

Yes, I would like to see that claim either substantiated or withdrawn
with an apology.

> A significant amount of my DWG time is spent trying to persuade mappers
> around the world to allow new users to make mistakes, which they
> inevitably will before they get the hang of things. I've certainly not
> seen "the DWG go after real newbies".

It does occasionally happen that the first thing an ambitious new
sign-up does is import a couple thousand nodes which will then swiftly
be reverted - but that's not "going after" someone, and I seriously
doubt that the freedom to sign up and import data without consultation
is what the community wants us to uphold.

Bye
Frederik

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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Rihards]

On 2017.07.05. 18:40, Andy Townsend wrote:
> On 05/07/2017 16:27, Greg Morgan wrote:
>> I've seen the DWG go after real newbies because they are exited and
>> want to make a difference but make a few mistakes.
> 
> Have you got an example of that (offlist if it would be preferable)?
> 
> A significant amount of my DWG time is spent trying to persuade mappers
> around the world to allow new users to make mistakes, which they
> inevitably will before they get the hang of things. I've certainly not
> seen "the DWG go after real newbies".

i would like to express great gratitude and admiration at how dwg has
been handling things for the last few years.
you guys are awesome in patience, attention to detail and overall
quality. thank you.

> Best Regards,
> 
> Andy-- 
 Rihards

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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Andy Townsend]

On 05/07/2017 16:27, Greg Morgan wrote:
I've seen the DWG go after real newbies because they are exited and 
want to make a difference but make a few mistakes.


Have you got an example of that (offlist if it would be preferable)?

A significant amount of my DWG time is spent trying to persuade mappers 
around the world to allow new users to make mistakes, which they 
inevitably will before they get the hang of things. I've certainly not 
seen "the DWG go after real newbies".


Best Regards,

Andy



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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Greg Morgan]

On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 10:23 AM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On 06/30/2017 06:21 PM, Clifford Snow wrote:
> > Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company
> > (SEO), have damaged a number of ways in the US.
>
> Was it not possible to determine the user accounts responsible and then
> have DWG revert all their contributions? Or did these accounts also
> contribute good data?
>


Back in April I did send an email to DWG. I also included the response with
the DWG name redacted[1].  Here's part of the problem.  I have identified
an account that is a spam account.  There is a pattern to these spam
edits.  If I do tell you that only bad things come from a single account
and I am not engaging in an edit war and if I tell you the way that was
altered was malicious, then to leave these spam accounts around, let's them
still win.  They have their account with the same data as in the tags.

Am 01.07.2017 um 08:33 schrieb Simon Poole:

...given that we have a known US based SEO company that has created
(literally) 1000s of such accounts (but with slightly less spammy edits),
and "we" haven't taken any action, why should we in this case?

How do you know this is all coming from a US based Simon?  How does
targeting US locations make it an US based company?  If it the same
occurred in Europe, then I am sure you would have more care and concern
than you are showing here.  Dude I often cringe when I reas what you write
in email.

The ChanlerAir is the more pernicious version of the problem. This pattern
changes a real OSM feature such as a road. OSM Change Set Analyser may be
useful here because they changed the street name.

In the second version of the problem[2], the change is subtle but uses some
of the same principles. LOL, I included the email that I sent to the Tax
firm.  You can email the OSM account and any of the firms involved but you
will not get a response.

Bayesian spam filters have been used for years to work on spam issues.
These spam changes do not need that complexity to detect.
 1.) The OSM account name has something to do with the change: Copper
Canyon Law LLC Tax Attorney
 2.) I cannot confirm this but I am guessing that the account name is the
same or similar to the email address used to setup the OSM account.
 3.) There is only one edit.
 4.) There may be a gravitar on the OSM account.  Think about it.  How many
newbies have a gravitar and make one edit?
 5.) Most of the time, The OSM account profile page, the change set text
and description tag all have the same business oriented marketing text.
The changeset text and the description tag look the same in the cases that
I have observed.
 6.) If there is a name tag, then it may be the same as the OSM user
account.  This is where the pernicious version of these changes can be
detected because the street name is changed.
 7.) The addr:.* tags are abbreviated.
 8.) The addr:state may not be the in the same location as where the edit
was made i.e. the location is AZ but addr:state is MD, WA, CA.  The rub
here is that most of the change set tools treat all of the US as one area
verses the need for multiple areas.  If I see a newbie make a change via
Pascal's tool,  I cannot tell if a new change in MD is correct or not
because I live thousand of miles away.
 9.) The actual change will have a full email address.  I have not seen
many newbies master that many tags on their first change.
10.) There will be a phone number.
11.) As stated already, there will be a description tag.  In my case, I use
description tags on relations but not in all cases.  The description tag
may be one of the key markers for this kind-of spam edit.
12.) There will be an email address.
13.) There may be a fax number.
14.) There will be a website.
15.) In the pattern of nodes that I present, I show that open areas and
strange locations are involved.  LOL we do a lot with our washes in Arizona
because we can put a golf course where the water runs infrequently.  We
will not put an Asian eatery nor a tax law firm by a flood control feature.



> Was it not possible to determine the user accounts responsible and then
> have DWG revert all their contributions? Or did these accounts also
> contribute good data?
>

This is where I think that the DWG needs an oversight board. I've seen
where the DWG will rollback good edits like the recent wikidata rollback
without community input.  I've had to cleanup these crappy reversions. I've
seen the DWG go after real newbies because they are exited and want to make
a difference but make a few mistakes. However, when there is a clear
pattern, the attitude is that the DWG all will not lift a hand.  That's the
perception that I have of the DWG.

By the way, Fred, I am not asking you to delete these nodes.  I have been
saving the examples for other mappers and perhaps a tool like OSM CA can
make a go of detecting these malicious edits.

Regards,
Greg

Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Simon Poole]

Am 01.07.2017 um 12:48 schrieb Walter Nordmann:

> hi simon,
>
>
> Am 01.07.2017 um 08:33 schrieb Simon Poole:
>>
>> I've already touched on this with the sys admins and saved refs to
>> the ones that I fixed. However it is unlikely that we will do any
>> thing with the information as the accounts are extremely unlikely to
>> be reused, and on the other hand, given that *we have a known US
>> based SEO company that has created (literally) 1000s of such
>> accounts* (but with slightly less spammy edits), and "we" haven't
>> taken any action, why should we in this case?
> what's about a captcha to disable automatic registration? and a
> confirmation mail, which is asking a variable question too?
>
n the case I was referring too, see
http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/SimonPoole/diary/40246 , we are fairly
sure that it is a sweatshop that is/was adding them. Outside of causing
issues for legitimate users, adding a captcha  is likely not to achieve
anything

Simon


> Regards
> walter aka wambacher
>
>
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Walter Nordmann]

hi simon,


Am 01.07.2017 um 08:33 schrieb Simon Poole:


I've already touched on this with the sys admins and saved refs to the 
ones that I fixed. However it is unlikely that we will do any thing 
with the information as the accounts are extremely unlikely to be 
reused, and on the other hand, given that *we have a known US based 
SEO company that has created (literally) 1000s of such accounts* (but 
with slightly less spammy edits), and "we" haven't taken any action, 
why should we in this case?
what's about a captcha to disable automatic registration? and a 
confirmation mail, which is asking a variable question too?


Regards
walter aka wambacher
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Simon Poole]

Am 01.07.2017 um 03:54 schrieb Clifford Snow:
> Simon,
> Thanks for looking at them. Fortunately there wasn't too many to fix
> mannually. Some of vandalism goes back 2 or 3 years if I recall
> correctly. I did check Canada thinking that they might have hit them
> as well, but other than some strange addresses on ways, it was clean.
>
> Ian Dees did fixed the remaining of the problems. 
>
> I plan to look at the original changesets to see if there is any clue
> which company was behind it. Do you know if I gave the systems admin
> people a list of user if they could check the email used to create the
> account belongs to one company?

I've already touched on this with the sys admins and saved refs to the
ones that I fixed. However it is unlikely that we will do any thing with
the information as the accounts are extremely unlikely to be reused, and
on the other hand, given that we have a known US based SEO company that
has created (literally) 1000s of such accounts (but with slightly less
spammy edits), and "we" haven't taken any action, why should we in this
case?

Simon

>
> On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 1:26 PM, Simon Poole  > wrote:
>
> I''m in the process of fixing a couple of these. and I couldn't
> help noticing that some of them can't simply be reverted because
> the TeleNav data team has added lane tagging on them 
>
> Simon
>
>
> Am 30.06.2017 um 18:21 schrieb Clifford Snow:
>> Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization
>> company (SEO), have damaged a number of ways in the US. Martijn
>> Van Exel pointed out the problem on Slack the other day. What
>> they did was to add their client to a street, often changing the
>> name of the street to the company.  Fortunately they made it easy
>> to find using overpass [1] by adding in the clients address,
>> phone number, source and website. The query looks for addresses
>> and websites on ways. 
>>
>> West of the Mississippi has been fixed. There are some false
>> positives when running the query, they are all park polygons with
>> both leisure=park and highway=pedestrian. The website url is of
>> the park.
>>
>> If someone would like to help clean up the rest of damage they
>> did, just run the overpass query for an area, state, county, etc.
>> to get a list of ways that match the query. From there just
>> select the way which will open OSM in another tab where you can
>> use your favorite editor to fix. Use the history feature or TIGER
>> data to get the correct road name. The addr:street they added may
>> not be anywhere near your way. 
>>
>> [1] http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/q5A
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Clifford
>>
>> -- 
>> @osm_seattle
>> osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us 
>> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>>
>>
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>
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Shawn K. Quinn]

On 06/30/2017 11:21 AM, Clifford Snow wrote:
> Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company
> (SEO), have damaged a number of ways in the US. Martijn Van Exel pointed
> out the problem on Slack the other day. What they did was to add their
> client to a street, often changing the name of the street to the
> company.  Fortunately they made it easy to find using overpass [1] by
> adding in the clients address, phone number, source and website. The
> query looks for addresses and websites on ways. 
[...]

This has been ongoing for a while. I honestly think calling it "SEO
damage" is charitable. This is hit-and-run vandalism done by people who
happen to be engaged in SEO as a business, and it needs to be handled
similarly to how we would normally handle vandalism.

-- 
Shawn K. Quinn 
http://www.rantroulette.com
http://www.skqrecordquest.com

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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Clifford Snow]

Simon,
Thanks for looking at them. Fortunately there wasn't too many to fix
mannually. Some of vandalism goes back 2 or 3 years if I recall correctly.
I did check Canada thinking that they might have hit them as well, but
other than some strange addresses on ways, it was clean.

Ian Dees did fixed the remaining of the problems.

I plan to look at the original changesets to see if there is any clue which
company was behind it. Do you know if I gave the systems admin people a
list of user if they could check the email used to create the account
belongs to one company?

On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 1:26 PM, Simon Poole  wrote:

> I''m in the process of fixing a couple of these. and I couldn't help
> noticing that some of them can't simply be reverted because the TeleNav
> data team has added lane tagging on them 
>
> Simon
>
> Am 30.06.2017 um 18:21 schrieb Clifford Snow:
>
> Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company (SEO),
> have damaged a number of ways in the US. Martijn Van Exel pointed out the
> problem on Slack the other day. What they did was to add their client to a
> street, often changing the name of the street to the company.  Fortunately
> they made it easy to find using overpass [1] by adding in the clients
> address, phone number, source and website. The query looks for addresses
> and websites on ways.
>
> West of the Mississippi has been fixed. There are some false positives
> when running the query, they are all park polygons with both leisure=park
> and highway=pedestrian. The website url is of the park.
>
> If someone would like to help clean up the rest of damage they did, just
> run the overpass query for an area, state, county, etc. to get a list of
> ways that match the query. From there just select the way which will open
> OSM in another tab where you can use your favorite editor to fix. Use the
> history feature or TIGER data to get the correct road name. The addr:street
> they added may not be anywhere near your way.
>
> [1] http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/q5A
>
> Thanks,
> Clifford
>
> --
> @osm_seattle
> osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>
>
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>
>
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 06/30/2017 07:24 PM, Ian Dees wrote:
> Every edit was made by a new/separate user account that only ever makes
> one edit. In most cases, these edits are useful (it's someone adding a
> business POI) but in some cases they add the details to the wrong piece
> of geometry.

I see. We had a couple similar issues in the past, presumably from some
kind of SaaS SEO tool that will automatically sign up new accounts for
users of the tool. But we might also be dealing with "mechanical
turk"(*) type of human work.

These tools tend to get more sophisticated in flying under our
collective radar, but usually not sophisticated enough to get the
tagging quite right and avoid adding duplicate data.

The addition of advertising copy in the changeset comment is something
I've seen a lot (often duplicated or amended by a note or description tag).

I wonder if downloading a changeset planet and feeding all changeset
comments to some sort of Bayes filter could help identify more problems.

Bye
Frederik

(*) Where I live this term would be considered really offensive towards
those who do this kind of work but it seems to be the normal term in the US?

-- 
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Tod Fitch]

> On Jun 30, 2017, at 2:06 PM, Simon Poole  wrote:
> 
> Am 30.06.2017 um 22:59 schrieb Ian Dees:
>> First of all, that's Mapbox's data team that made the changes since the SEO 
>> editor added junk, not Telenav,
> 
> Sorry, but making about a dozen edits on a road (including changing the 
> tagging) -without- raising an eyebrow about its tagging is not better than 
> spamming on purpose (in the end they jkust want to improve their life too, 
> why not give them some slack).
> 
> But you obviously believe that mindless mechanical editing is a good thing 
> ... more power to you is the only thing I can say to that.
> 

Getting way off topic. . .

Probably not a matter of “mindless mechanical editing” as much as paid editing 
vs amateur editing. In this case I will go with the antique meaning of amateur 
“one who does something because they love doing it”.

This will happen to some extent in any situation where relatively lowly paid 
people are making the edits: Unless the incentives are carefully created and 
managed there will be people doing the minimum they can get away with and still 
be paid. And if the incentives are poorly designed and managed the people who 
care and take the time to “do it right” will be called on the carpet for not 
being “productive”.

In my opinion, the typical amateur mapper’s goal is to create a perfect map 
(not possible but a nice goal). Even if their focus is on power lines or fire 
hydrants they will fix the obvious errors on unrelated things they find around 
the items they went in to add or fix. At least I find that for myself: When 
driving I might notice via OsmAnd that a road has no maxspeed tags. When I go 
in to fix that, I add or fix lanes, turn lanes, surface material, stop signs, 
traffic lights, adjacent service roads, parking, etc. So a simple edit of a 
single tag on a single highway segment can turn into a hour of reviewing notes, 
checking imagery, making updates/corrections. It is highly unlikely that a 
person who is being rated/paid/promoted on how soon they can get maxspeed (or 
turn:lanes) tags complete for an arbitrary box on the map will take the time to 
see if all the other things that make the map useful, even for their focus area 
of routing and route guidance, are up to the current standard.
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Simon Poole]

Am 30.06.2017 um 22:59 schrieb Ian Dees:
> First of all, that's Mapbox's data team that made the changes since
> the SEO editor added junk, not Telenav,

Sorry, but making about a dozen edits on a road (including changing the
tagging) -without- raising an eyebrow about its tagging is not better
than spamming on purpose (in the end they jkust want to improve their
life too, why not give them some slack).

But you obviously believe that mindless mechanical editing is a good
thing ... more power to you is the only thing I can say to that.

Simon


>
> Second: please don't spread your negative attitude on the talk-us
> list. If you don't want to fix the map, then move on and leave it for
> someone else to fix. Don't complain about it. Or if you're going to
> point it out, at least try to use a positive, constructive voice
> rather than a hateful one.
>
> Thanks,
> Ian
>
> On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 4:43 PM, Simon Poole  > wrote:
>
> I would suggest that TeleNav fixes the mess they made here
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/402471851#map=18/34.18198/-118.39599
> 
> themselves.
>
>
> Am 30.06.2017 um 22:26 schrieb Simon Poole:
>>
>> I''m in the process of fixing a couple of these. and I couldn't
>> help noticing that some of them can't simply be reverted because
>> the TeleNav data team has added lane tagging on them 
>>
>> Simon
>>
>>
>> Am 30.06.2017 um 18:21 schrieb Clifford Snow:
>>> Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization
>>> company (SEO), have damaged a number of ways in the US. Martijn
>>> Van Exel pointed out the problem on Slack the other day. What
>>> they did was to add their client to a street, often changing the
>>> name of the street to the company.  Fortunately they made it
>>> easy to find using overpass [1] by adding in the clients
>>> address, phone number, source and website. The query looks for
>>> addresses and websites on ways. 
>>>
>>> West of the Mississippi has been fixed. There are some false
>>> positives when running the query, they are all park polygons
>>> with both leisure=park and highway=pedestrian. The website url
>>> is of the park.
>>>
>>> If someone would like to help clean up the rest of damage they
>>> did, just run the overpass query for an area, state, county,
>>> etc. to get a list of ways that match the query. From there just
>>> select the way which will open OSM in another tab where you can
>>> use your favorite editor to fix. Use the history feature or
>>> TIGER data to get the correct road name. The addr:street they
>>> added may not be anywhere near your way. 
>>>
>>> [1] http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/q5A
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Clifford
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> @osm_seattle
>>> osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us 
>>> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Ian Dees]

First of all, that's Mapbox's data team that made the changes since the SEO
editor added junk, not Telenav,

Second: please don't spread your negative attitude on the talk-us list. If
you don't want to fix the map, then move on and leave it for someone else
to fix. Don't complain about it. Or if you're going to point it out, at
least try to use a positive, constructive voice rather than a hateful one.

Thanks,
Ian

On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 4:43 PM, Simon Poole  wrote:

> I would suggest that TeleNav fixes the mess they made here
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/402471851#map=18/34.18198/-118.39599
> themselves.
>
> Am 30.06.2017 um 22:26 schrieb Simon Poole:
>
> I''m in the process of fixing a couple of these. and I couldn't help
> noticing that some of them can't simply be reverted because the TeleNav
> data team has added lane tagging on them 
>
> Simon
>
> Am 30.06.2017 um 18:21 schrieb Clifford Snow:
>
> Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company (SEO),
> have damaged a number of ways in the US. Martijn Van Exel pointed out the
> problem on Slack the other day. What they did was to add their client to a
> street, often changing the name of the street to the company.  Fortunately
> they made it easy to find using overpass [1] by adding in the clients
> address, phone number, source and website. The query looks for addresses
> and websites on ways.
>
> West of the Mississippi has been fixed. There are some false positives
> when running the query, they are all park polygons with both leisure=park
> and highway=pedestrian. The website url is of the park.
>
> If someone would like to help clean up the rest of damage they did, just
> run the overpass query for an area, state, county, etc. to get a list of
> ways that match the query. From there just select the way which will open
> OSM in another tab where you can use your favorite editor to fix. Use the
> history feature or TIGER data to get the correct road name. The addr:street
> they added may not be anywhere near your way.
>
> [1] http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/q5A
>
> Thanks,
> Clifford
>
> --
> @osm_seattle
> osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>
>
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Simon Poole]

I would suggest that TeleNav fixes the mess they made here
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/402471851#map=18/34.18198/-118.39599
themselves.


Am 30.06.2017 um 22:26 schrieb Simon Poole:
>
> I''m in the process of fixing a couple of these. and I couldn't help
> noticing that some of them can't simply be reverted because the
> TeleNav data team has added lane tagging on them 
>
> Simon
>
>
> Am 30.06.2017 um 18:21 schrieb Clifford Snow:
>> Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company
>> (SEO), have damaged a number of ways in the US. Martijn Van Exel
>> pointed out the problem on Slack the other day. What they did was to
>> add their client to a street, often changing the name of the street
>> to the company.  Fortunately they made it easy to find using overpass
>> [1] by adding in the clients address, phone number, source and
>> website. The query looks for addresses and websites on ways. 
>>
>> West of the Mississippi has been fixed. There are some false
>> positives when running the query, they are all park polygons with
>> both leisure=park and highway=pedestrian. The website url is of the park.
>>
>> If someone would like to help clean up the rest of damage they did,
>> just run the overpass query for an area, state, county, etc. to get a
>> list of ways that match the query. From there just select the way
>> which will open OSM in another tab where you can use your favorite
>> editor to fix. Use the history feature or TIGER data to get the
>> correct road name. The addr:street they added may not be anywhere
>> near your way. 
>>
>> [1] http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/q5A
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Clifford
>>
>> -- 
>> @osm_seattle
>> osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us 
>> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>>
>>
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Simon Poole]

A good example is "Box-n-Go Self Storage North" road in North Hollywood
(I believe it should really be Laurel Canyon Boulevard) I would suggest
TeleNav cleaning that up themselves.


Am 30.06.2017 um 22:26 schrieb Simon Poole:
>
> I''m in the process of fixing a couple of these. and I couldn't help
> noticing that some of them can't simply be reverted because the
> TeleNav data team has added lane tagging on them 
>
> Simon
>
>
> Am 30.06.2017 um 18:21 schrieb Clifford Snow:
>> Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company
>> (SEO), have damaged a number of ways in the US. Martijn Van Exel
>> pointed out the problem on Slack the other day. What they did was to
>> add their client to a street, often changing the name of the street
>> to the company.  Fortunately they made it easy to find using overpass
>> [1] by adding in the clients address, phone number, source and
>> website. The query looks for addresses and websites on ways. 
>>
>> West of the Mississippi has been fixed. There are some false
>> positives when running the query, they are all park polygons with
>> both leisure=park and highway=pedestrian. The website url is of the park.
>>
>> If someone would like to help clean up the rest of damage they did,
>> just run the overpass query for an area, state, county, etc. to get a
>> list of ways that match the query. From there just select the way
>> which will open OSM in another tab where you can use your favorite
>> editor to fix. Use the history feature or TIGER data to get the
>> correct road name. The addr:street they added may not be anywhere
>> near your way. 
>>
>> [1] http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/q5A
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Clifford
>>
>> -- 
>> @osm_seattle
>> osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us 
>> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>>
>>
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Simon Poole]

I''m in the process of fixing a couple of these. and I couldn't help
noticing that some of them can't simply be reverted because the TeleNav
data team has added lane tagging on them 

Simon


Am 30.06.2017 um 18:21 schrieb Clifford Snow:
> Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company
> (SEO), have damaged a number of ways in the US. Martijn Van Exel
> pointed out the problem on Slack the other day. What they did was to
> add their client to a street, often changing the name of the street to
> the company.  Fortunately they made it easy to find using overpass [1]
> by adding in the clients address, phone number, source and website.
> The query looks for addresses and websites on ways. 
>
> West of the Mississippi has been fixed. There are some false positives
> when running the query, they are all park polygons with both
> leisure=park and highway=pedestrian. The website url is of the park.
>
> If someone would like to help clean up the rest of damage they did,
> just run the overpass query for an area, state, county, etc. to get a
> list of ways that match the query. From there just select the way
> which will open OSM in another tab where you can use your favorite
> editor to fix. Use the history feature or TIGER data to get the
> correct road name. The addr:street they added may not be anywhere near
> your way. 
>
> [1] http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/q5A
>
> Thanks,
> Clifford
>
> -- 
> @osm_seattle
> osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us 
> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>
>
> ___
> Talk-us mailing list
> Talk-us@openstreetmap.org
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Ian Dees]

On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 1:23 PM, Frederik Ramm  wrote:

> Hi,
>
> On 06/30/2017 06:21 PM, Clifford Snow wrote:
> > Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company
> > (SEO), have damaged a number of ways in the US.
>
> Was it not possible to determine the user accounts responsible and then
> have DWG revert all their contributions? Or did these accounts also
> contribute good data?


Every edit was made by a new/separate user account that only ever makes one
edit. In most cases, these edits are useful (it's someone adding a business
POI) but in some cases they add the details to the wrong piece of geometry.

Figuring out who is behind these edits and if the data is acceptable to add
to OSM is another matter.
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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

On 06/30/2017 06:21 PM, Clifford Snow wrote:
> Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company
> (SEO), have damaged a number of ways in the US.

Was it not possible to determine the user accounts responsible and then
have DWG revert all their contributions? Or did these accounts also
contribute good data?

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frede...@remote.org  ##  N49°00'09" E008°23'33"

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Re: [Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Ian Dees]

I fixed just about all of the problems east of the Mississippi.

It'd probably be worth doing a more in-depth analysis on these SEO edits at
some point. They all seem to add similar tags, use Sentence Case in user
names, and only have one edit.

On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 12:21 PM, Clifford Snow 
wrote:

> Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company (SEO),
> have damaged a number of ways in the US. Martijn Van Exel pointed out the
> problem on Slack the other day. What they did was to add their client to a
> street, often changing the name of the street to the company.  Fortunately
> they made it easy to find using overpass [1] by adding in the clients
> address, phone number, source and website. The query looks for addresses
> and websites on ways.
>
> West of the Mississippi has been fixed. There are some false positives
> when running the query, they are all park polygons with both leisure=park
> and highway=pedestrian. The website url is of the park.
>
> If someone would like to help clean up the rest of damage they did, just
> run the overpass query for an area, state, county, etc. to get a list of
> ways that match the query. From there just select the way which will open
> OSM in another tab where you can use your favorite editor to fix. Use the
> history feature or TIGER data to get the correct road name. The addr:street
> they added may not be anywhere near your way.
>
> [1] http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/q5A
>
> Thanks,
> Clifford
>
> --
> @osm_seattle
> osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
> OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
>
> ___
> Talk-us mailing list
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>
>
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[Talk-us] SEO Damage to OSM

[Clifford Snow]

Edits, from what appears to be a search engine optimization company (SEO),
have damaged a number of ways in the US. Martijn Van Exel pointed out the
problem on Slack the other day. What they did was to add their client to a
street, often changing the name of the street to the company.  Fortunately
they made it easy to find using overpass [1] by adding in the clients
address, phone number, source and website. The query looks for addresses
and websites on ways.

West of the Mississippi has been fixed. There are some false positives when
running the query, they are all park polygons with both leisure=park and
highway=pedestrian. The website url is of the park.

If someone would like to help clean up the rest of damage they did, just
run the overpass query for an area, state, county, etc. to get a list of
ways that match the query. From there just select the way which will open
OSM in another tab where you can use your favorite editor to fix. Use the
history feature or TIGER data to get the correct road name. The addr:street
they added may not be anywhere near your way.

[1] http://overpass-turbo.eu/s/q5A

Thanks,
Clifford

-- 
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osm_seattle.snowandsnow.us
OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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