Online plagiarism... it can only get worse

As more and more people go online to look for content, more advertisers are also going online to capture their attention, and that means more advertising dollars, and more people competing for those dollars.

One way to get them is write articles and such for Hubpages or Squidoo, which are similar to blogs, but better organized, with more of a community. However, even in such communities, you will find content pirates who steal content from others, hoping for some of that advertising income.

And there are even auto-rewriters to "fix up" the pirated material so a simple plagiarism scanner won't catch it.

How to spot plagiarists, here or elsewhere

By kschang

How I found a plagiarist here on Hubpages

Just the other day, I was doing hub hopping, when I came across a printer review. I recognized the model, as the model is several years old, so I am surprised to see a review just appearing hours before. I was only going to rate up/down, but somehow the wording doesn't sound right for normal user's review. The printer is no longer made, yet the review sounds as if the printer was brand new. Furthermore, in a personal review, the reviewer talks about his or her experience with the printer, what s/he likes and dislikes. Yet this review doesn't say that. It actually compared the printer to two other printers, and even provided timed comparison for a standard test! (This printer took _______ long to complete the test, while printer B took ______ long...)
This sounds so suspicious, I decided to see if I can dig up some more information. I took some sentences randomly from the hub, put them in quotes, and plug them into Google. No match.
I then took the three brands of printer mentioned, plugged them into Google, plus "review", and voila, found a PC Magazine article review, that referred to the exact same three printers.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1970425,00.asp
I then started to compare a random paragraph... And found 90% match. Here's an excerpt from the PCMag.com review:

"On our business applications suite (timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software), the 1018's total time was 11 minutes 28 seconds, compared with roughly 8:50 for the Lexmark and Samsung printers. That's enough of a difference to be noticeable, but I wouldn't call it intolerable, and I'm pretty impatient about waiting for printers...."

Whereas the alleged plagiarist has a matching paragraph:

"On the commercial software suite (monitored with proper components and computer software), the 1018's overall time frame is eleven minutes twenty eight seconds, when compared with around 8:50 for a Lexmark and also Samsung printers. Which is enough of a variance to be notable, and fairly tolerable, in case you are concerned about printing speed. "

See the trick? major words have been substituted, but the sentence is virtually the same, and some details were taken out, but the sentences are a one-to-one match. Even the timed figures, 11:28, and 8:50 are exactly the same. Though the plagiarist substituted words for numbers, hoping to throw off exact-quote searches.
A quick check of the remainder confirms the suspicion: the entire hub was copied from the PCMag.com review, but reworded slightly.
The hub has been flagged for review. I've left a comment to give plagiarist notice, but the comment was denied, so it is clear that the plagiarist chose to ignore the warning.
UPDATE: the "offending" hub is no longer there. Apparently Hubpages takes this sort of plagiarism seriously.

Why plagiarize at all here?

First, I was puzzled. Hubpages is not school or work. I can understand if there is time pressure to produce some sort of work or school, so why would someone plagiarize an article just to pump up their hub count? Then I realized why: adsense earnings.
It is perfectly possible to earn month by writing hubs, and make money from adsense. There are several articles over at TheKeywordAcademy that explains how to. As this is not about that, I am not linking to it, but you can find it on Google easily. The point is, if you target the right keywords, you can make money through Hubpages and adsense. Due to Hubpage's size, a hub ranks higher than the same article published on a blog or such.
However, you need content, and the quickest way to put content on Hubpages is to steal them.
Yet, direct stealing is out, because there are plagiarism scanners out there. Yet most are only subject to random sentence searches, and computers are not very good in matching up stuff if you substitute a lot of stuff. Yet a person doing this is just, well, doh. So, yes, there is software to help with this sort of cheating. It's known as a "rewriter". I am NOT going to link to it, but they are out there. If you feed an existing article to it, it will pull information from the web, substitute exact words with generic words, replace words with synonyms, and other tricks, to produce an article that still reads okay, but will likely NOT trigger a plagiarism scanner, because it is not a straight copy and paste.
The hub referenced above is likely the result of a rewriter. 

So how *do* you spot a plagiarist?

Most of time, it would just be a "gut instinct", depending on your field of expertise.
I happen to be an IT expert. I know computers inside out, and most operating systems and peripherals. I also subscribed to PC magazine for many years. I also contribute many hubs, and write several blogs. Thus, I know what a personal hub should should sound like, and a professional review should sound like. The hub above sounded completely wrong. It wasn't something I can put a finger on first, but the more I read it, the more I realized it is NOT a personal review. A personal review would NOT have comparison with other printers, esp. timed, as well as other details.
This lead to further research, and discovery of the source.
Basically, the offense here is TOO MUCH detail, and the WRONG TYPES of details.
If you suspect that whatever you are reading is an auto-rewrite, you need to pick keywords from the article for research. The trick is picking the right ones. A rewriter is designed to defeat exact quote searches, but they cannot substitute keywords without destroying the article. So you have to use that against them. 
If it is a printer review, put in the brand name, plus "printer review".If you find the proper nouns, use them. I found "Lexmark", "Samsung", and "HP", so I put in those, plus "printer review", and out came the result I was looking for. You can do something similar for your own research.
The numbers are also a give-away, as would any details, like address, phone number, date reference, location names, and so on. Those cannot be changed without messing up the article.
Once you found the possible "donor", you then randomly pick a paragraph and commence matching manually.

Conclusion

Hubpages is a great little community that can be a good source of side income if you produce quality hubs. However, it can be ruined by some unscrupulous hub'ers who wish to pollute our community with their stolen goods.
If you run across a hub you believe to be pirated, or result of auto-rewrite, you should flag it, along with the suspected "donor article", and send it to hubpages admin for review. If you are not sure, post the hub in the forums and perhaps we can study it together.
Together, we can keep the hubs clean of pirates.

Solving the Somali pirate problem... forever

Image via Wikipedia

How to solve the Somali pirate problem

The problem cannot be solved with military alone. Pirates are willing to take the risk because the insurance companies are chicken and pay up too quickly in the past. However, they would as they have several reasons to...

1) each ship represents a significant investment for the owner
2) they don't want to be accused of being stingy with human lives
3) a few million dollars is nothing, they can just jack up the insurance rates for the other ships
4) compared to pirates in the Pacific, Somali pirates are downright PEACEFUL. Some ships are known to have completely disappeared and their crew gone, only to have the ship shown up a few years later, under new name, new paint, and new ownership, in the Pacific.

However, if you give them lots of carrots, they will demand even more. From a few ships the year before, to MAJOR escalation in 2008 and 2009, Somali pirates evidently decided that they can make even MORE money from piracy. That must be discouraged.

To fix the problem, you need to do a multiprong approach... You need to attack the SOURCE, both from the motives and the means. In other words, offer both a carrot, and a stick. Then you address the vulnerability of the ships to make the less susceptible.

First, you need to address the situation in Somalia... The government is usless. Ethiopian "peacekeepers" are gone. Due to Clinton's cowardice after "Black Hawk Down" we pretty much left Somalia to its fate, and now we're seeing the consequences. UN is not going to do anything useful. What needs to be done is provide some sort of economy to Somalia, to substitute for piracy. Education is for the long run, but what's for the short run? And how do prevent a backslide?

One short-term possibility is deputize the best group of the bunch as "Somalian Maritime Patrol". You pay his VILLAGE X amount of money if they chase away the OTHER PIRATES. The village will get money, but if any more ships get attacked, they get less. If they let too many through, the village gets nothing. Yes, they can divert some of their own money to pay off the other pirates, but the result is the same: less piracy.

The stick will basically harsh treatment of anyone caught as a pirate. However, there will be a one-time amnesty. However, in the future pirates will be killed ON SIGHT.

So how do you do harm to pirates? Several ways...

1) Send in some Q-ships... Basically cargo ships that are actually manned by military and armed with disguised weapons... AND jam the frequencies so the pirates won't be able to coordinate their moves. The interior is actually disguised and easily isolated (it's all a big trap).

The pirates will be extremely cautious when their brethrens stop coming back.

And you have to send in more than one, or else the pirates may figure out which ship it is and either attack it with overwhelming force (unlikely) or avoid it.

2) Send in unmanned drones, long duration such as Predator and so on and maintain patrol over ships in the area, with automatic warnings. If a ship can be warned, they may get a chance to increase speed and run for it, and at least call for help. The drones may even be armed.

Imagine this scenario...

Three speedboats are on approach to this freighter, under the cover of darkness.

When they pass the 5-mile radius mark from the ship, the drone that's monitoring the ship automatically alerted the on-duty operator.

Two automated hover drones take off from the freighter and head for the potentially attack force. Ship's captain is automatically alerted. Each are similar to the Cypher drone in GRAW, and are NOT armed. Instead, they are equipped with a small searchlight, loudspeakers, and noise-canceling microphones.

Upon reaching the leader of the unknown force, both will assume a retrograde. One will shine the spotlight on the lead boat, with loudspeakers issuing a challenge, such as:

"This is UN Navy. You are approaching UN protected ship. Stop and state your intentions. You have 30 seconds to comply."

The challenge will be issued in English and local dialects. The other drone will watch the enemy for hostile actions. Increase of speed, brandishing weapons, or etc, and the Predator hovering higher will unleash its Hellfire missiles, with one of the drones doing the laser illuminating.

Or you can use Firescout drones with a gunpod loaded with tracers, firing AHEAD of the boat.

"This is your final warning. Stop the vessel or turn away, else we will assume you are hostile, and lethal force will be used."

If the boats stop or turn away, they will not be pursued. If they choose to call the bluff, when one of their boats are lifted out of the water and disintegrate under the Hellfire they will change their mind.

3) Limit ships to shipping lanes, and form small convoys escorted by minor combatants, either frigates or even corvettes. This should allow combatants to protect several ships at once, and the drones can cover the rest.

4) Create a rapid response group out of hydrofoils and hovercrafts... something VERY fast basically. AND mobile gunship platforms, similar to the Nightstalkers used aganst the Iranian Boghammers.

The Pegasus hydrofoils should still be around... They are just big enough for a small LAMPS chopper, I think, and plenty for several drones. Add a floating base, something similar to an oil platform, and you should be able to control most of the area, along with existing NATO and UN forces.