ClickSSL Astroturfing Social Media for Fake Legitimacy
Astroturfing is a serious problem. I wrote about it 2011, calling both astroturfing and plagiarism a threat to the Internet, "which shatter the fundamental ethics of journalism, such as truthfulness, objectivity, and accuracy". Even if a company pays an SEO company to do astroturfing for them, the damage is still pervasive, dishonest, and ultimately cheapens the services that they astroturf (in most cases, the social networks that the profiles are on). As infosec professionals, we should debunk these actors whenever we see them, and uphold the integrity of peer user reviews, which The Internet draws much of it's strength from.
Today, I want to talk about a company called ClickSSL, which I believe has been involved in pervasive astroturfing since 2010, to the point where some of the fake personas they have invented have almost become accepted 'experts' in the security community. This is wrong on so many levels, that I can not let it slide. So let's dig right into the details:
For starters, ClickSSL seems to have been around since 2009, which is likely true according to their whois records. According to their LinkedIn page, the company has between 51-200 employees, however if you look at all of the employees registered on LinkedIn, we only see three (3). So who are these three people? It is my hypothesis that they are all fake profiles being supported by hidden actors, that is to say, the people operating the accounts are not who their profiles claim they are. These three employees are Abel Wike, Jay Dan, and Sophie Perrone. Why is this wrong you ask (people use pseudonyms all the time)? Because when a company invents fake personas to inflate the quality and/or legitimacy of their goods and services, that is astroturfing.
We will start with Sophie Perrone, as she is quick one to debunk. According to her Facebook, she was born in Newark Delaware, graduated Newark College in 2006, (but on LinkedIn she lists University of Delaware?)..
Next, let's move on to Jay Dan, ClickSSL's CEO, CTO, or Marketing Manager (depending where you look). Jay Dan lives and works in the same place as Sophie, and surprisingly went to the same highschool and college as well. He was born Mar 11, 1983, joined Facebook on May 5th of 2009, started working as CEO June 1st of 2009, and immediately and almost exclusively since posts about ClickSSL. His profile picture is obviously photoshopped with all the edges sticking out of his neck, or in other places he uses the clipart photo of a 1930s mannequin. He also registers multiple accounts as the user ClickSSL with his own personal details.
I think the real jewel here is Abel Wike. She joined ClickSSL in 2009 and is the "Head of Fraud Prevention". Also working in Newark Deleware, interestingly though she went to college at Newark and Sherwood College, in the UK! She also registered a user account with her personal details as ClickSSL, and even more interesting she used some of the details of Jay Dan, Born Mar 11, 1983 and male. It get's better, you can actually see the evolution of Abel's photoshopped profile across multiple social media accounts, and she even names the first photo of her as "Lady-1 copy.jpg" on G+. Abel also has inspiring posts on using social media for SEO.
So that leads us to some more funny astroturfed profiles. I really like this one, Nill Smith, who both posts ClickSSL excessively to his personal social media accounts, and who registers as ClickSSL with personal details on multiple personal sites. These earlier accounts often make more mistakes, and we even see a noticeable decrease in mastery over the English language. Nill Smith even registers as SEO SSL on one site!
Finally, we run into a post by Irma Garrish, about ClickSSL, from 2010, where Irma registers her user as ClickElement. ClickElement then goes on to describe itself as "Link Building Company", and associated with KIPL. A scam site shows the contact of ClickElement.com as info@kipl.com, and the whois of kipl.com shows the registrant as one Rishi Modi of Kush Technologies. Further, an SEO link directory shows the owner of ClickElement as RishB Modi. So who is Rishi Modi? Apparently an SEO professional who's "perfect identity is that I’m a human being". I hope Mr. Modi knows that astroturfing should be considered black hat SEO, and violates most every EULA from the social networking sites these profiles were found on. And it's not just me who thinks all of the posts backing ClickSSL are shady. But don't worry, our friend Sophie Perrone assures us they are legitimate...
Finally, I used a mind map and some strong google-fu to put this all together. I invite your comments, and remind you that this is simply my own personal hypothesis!
Today, I want to talk about a company called ClickSSL, which I believe has been involved in pervasive astroturfing since 2010, to the point where some of the fake personas they have invented have almost become accepted 'experts' in the security community. This is wrong on so many levels, that I can not let it slide. So let's dig right into the details:
For starters, ClickSSL seems to have been around since 2009, which is likely true according to their whois records. According to their LinkedIn page, the company has between 51-200 employees, however if you look at all of the employees registered on LinkedIn, we only see three (3). So who are these three people? It is my hypothesis that they are all fake profiles being supported by hidden actors, that is to say, the people operating the accounts are not who their profiles claim they are. These three employees are Abel Wike, Jay Dan, and Sophie Perrone. Why is this wrong you ask (people use pseudonyms all the time)? Because when a company invents fake personas to inflate the quality and/or legitimacy of their goods and services, that is astroturfing.
We will start with Sophie Perrone, as she is quick one to debunk. According to her Facebook, she was born in Newark Delaware, graduated Newark College in 2006, (but on LinkedIn she lists University of Delaware?)..
So she joins Facebook on June 4th, 2012 and uploads her first profile picture. A quick reverse image search of that photo reveals it being used by Sophie Perrone in several other social networks, but also of interest, it was uploaded as general clipart to a site called metaviper in 2007. If we do a google reverse image search on her current profile, we get tons of articles demonstrating how to use photoshop on the stock photo of Sophie Perrone. On Facebook, Sophie only has 85 friends, many of whom also look fake (SaraWright.US, who also works at ClickSSL according to her Facebook page). Also of intrest, her only friends who live in DE are also the other profiles that work at Click SSL. Finally many many many of her other social networking profiles exclusively brand her as the ClickSSL Online Marketing Manager, never as an individual, which seems very odd for typical social network use.
Next, let's move on to Jay Dan, ClickSSL's CEO, CTO, or Marketing Manager (depending where you look). Jay Dan lives and works in the same place as Sophie, and surprisingly went to the same highschool and college as well. He was born Mar 11, 1983, joined Facebook on May 5th of 2009, started working as CEO June 1st of 2009, and immediately and almost exclusively since posts about ClickSSL. His profile picture is obviously photoshopped with all the edges sticking out of his neck, or in other places he uses the clipart photo of a 1930s mannequin. He also registers multiple accounts as the user ClickSSL with his own personal details.
I think the real jewel here is Abel Wike. She joined ClickSSL in 2009 and is the "Head of Fraud Prevention". Also working in Newark Deleware, interestingly though she went to college at Newark and Sherwood College, in the UK! She also registered a user account with her personal details as ClickSSL, and even more interesting she used some of the details of Jay Dan, Born Mar 11, 1983 and male. It get's better, you can actually see the evolution of Abel's photoshopped profile across multiple social media accounts, and she even names the first photo of her as "Lady-1 copy.jpg" on G+. Abel also has inspiring posts on using social media for SEO.
So that leads us to some more funny astroturfed profiles. I really like this one, Nill Smith, who both posts ClickSSL excessively to his personal social media accounts, and who registers as ClickSSL with personal details on multiple personal sites. These earlier accounts often make more mistakes, and we even see a noticeable decrease in mastery over the English language. Nill Smith even registers as SEO SSL on one site!
Finally, we run into a post by Irma Garrish, about ClickSSL, from 2010, where Irma registers her user as ClickElement. ClickElement then goes on to describe itself as "Link Building Company", and associated with KIPL. A scam site shows the contact of ClickElement.com as info@kipl.com, and the whois of kipl.com shows the registrant as one Rishi Modi of Kush Technologies. Further, an SEO link directory shows the owner of ClickElement as RishB Modi. So who is Rishi Modi? Apparently an SEO professional who's "perfect identity is that I’m a human being". I hope Mr. Modi knows that astroturfing should be considered black hat SEO, and violates most every EULA from the social networking sites these profiles were found on. And it's not just me who thinks all of the posts backing ClickSSL are shady. But don't worry, our friend Sophie Perrone assures us they are legitimate...
Finally, I used a mind map and some strong google-fu to put this all together. I invite your comments, and remind you that this is simply my own personal hypothesis!
