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Comment by throwaway527694 | Hacker News Reader

Did someone verify any of this?

If I recall correctly this `yoginth` is a known fraudster.

See: https://twitter.com/sindresorhus/status/1015873644377935874 or https://twitter.com/natfriedman/status/1059865722904440833

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Pretty sure it’s the same person from what I could find out from archive.org snapshots. I followed this trail:

- From the tweet you linked, it’s clear that they owned yoginth.ml

- Archive of the homepage links to a gitlab profile [1] which uses the same profile picture and style of writing as their current gitlab profile.

- The page linked to yoginth.ml, and subsequent snapshots of page show it changed to yoginth.com (the current domain).

Additionally, I noticed that they mentioned that they work at “DocsPen”. Quick google linked to a repository with years of history (evident from the migrations page), but everything committed in 2017. Looked up, and it’s essentially another unattributed copy of BookStackApp with licenses changed and s/BookStack/DocsPen.

Unfortunately, it seems its a case of naive plagiarism and not knowing what counts as fraud. I say this because there’s enough information to get their entire identity (I’m not gonna post a link to that) and it’s clearly a school kid who’s misguided enough. If OP reads this, I’d suggest them to reflect upon their actions, (or cover their tracks more carefully). Sooner or later, if authorities get involved it won’t be difficult for them (I just did archive.org search on my phone). I feel a bit more aware of this because I studied at Delhi University and I knew a few people who did/do similar things to get enough attention and build a resume.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20180213200624/https://gitlab.co...

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20190312041322/https://gitlab.co...

[3] https://github.com/DocsPen/DocsPen/tree/master/database/migr...

[4] https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack/tree/master/databa...

Yeah, Docspen was a copy of BookStack. Was a really awkward and difficult thing to handle as maintainer with BookStack being my first popular OS project. It was done very purposeful in an odd way. I remember that issues, filed by BookStack users, were being re-created on the docs pen repo by (potentially fake?) docspen maintainers with pretty much the same text.

Yoginth would then commonly create issues on the BookStack repo, many of which would be issues with DocsPen and not BookStack, and would email me asking to deploy new releases. I remember being at-a-loss of how to handle it, I raised my concerns [1] and asked for advice on reddit[2]. The docspen repo then suddenly moved to GitLab before being hidden. Yoginth then deleted all issues and comments made in the BookStack repo, or this may have been just part of a full account deletion.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20180130085921/https://github.co... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/7v7yl5/advice_n...

Interesting. I have a hunch that this all is an attempt to game Google Summer of Code to win sponsorship. I think the sponsors look for open source contributions, and they created all the copies, organisations etc. to make it seem like significant profile. It’s crazy that people would go to such lengths. Like you said, it’s very odd, and sloppy.

Hey, that is too old and I have done it without knowledge, it's my mistake and I apologized for all of them personally and publicly!

Here this app belongs to my college, it's my attendance and work is mine!

The first linked tweeter thread is from July 2018, the second is from November 2018. I don't classify that as "too old". And your article is dated October 25, 1028, so it's approximately the same period of time.

Also, your article is extremely similar to https://medium.com/@fs0c131y/how-i-found-the-database-of-the... (Oct 16, 2018)

That's the time I found the bug by the inspiration of "Elliot Alderson"

For example compare:

> Static Analysis

> From my phone, I exported the APK to my computer. I used the app called APK Export

> Play Store Link

> I used apktool to get the resources of the app.

> I used jadx to obtain the decompiled source code from the extracted DEX file.

> Now, I have everything I need.

----- with ------

> Static Analysis

> 1) From my phone, I exported the APK to my computer. You can use this app for example:

> [APK Export (Backup & Share) - Apps on Google Play]

> 2) An APK is a ZIP file, so I unzipped it and extracted the DEX file.

> 3) Thanks to jadx, I managed to obtain the decompiled source code from the extracted DEX file.

> 4) To finish, I used apktool to get the resources of the app.

> Now, I have everything I need.

You're still plagiarizing today:

https://gitlab.com/yo/hackathon-countdown/blob/master/js/ind...

is the same as

https://gist.github.com/iamkdev/6bcb79670f72ff346590#file-sc...

but you did not include his license.

The same is true for many other projects on your GitLab profile. Many of them are just snippets from Stackoverflow which you decided to turn into a repository with copyright in your name, for some reason.

I added now! https://gitlab.com/yo/hackathon-countdown/blob/master/LICENS... while exporting from codepen I can't find the license!

You've built an entire online presence by copying everything from other people's work - from your blog theme to your content "without knowing"?

Adorable.

Also, by briefly reading the docs on the "platform" you are trying to peddle, I'm getting fairly certain you also copied that as well, as it is too well written in comparison to the drivel on your blog.

In all fairness on that last point, if you're referring to his "Gitote" project, the author has stated here [0] that it was a fork of Gogs, and seems to have retained the proper copyright notices in the source files:

I agree it should probably have been given more prominent mention, but given the number of commits doesn't seem (at quick glance) to be a hasty "fork and rename".

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20137624 [1] https://gitlab.com/gitote/gitote/blob/master/gitote.go

It was accepted by the founder itself https://twitter.com/jc_unknwon/status/1066713466524848128

Please don't gang up on someone like this on HN. It's fine to challenge incorrect information, but not to aggressively humiliate them.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How does one plagiarize and attempt to profit off somebody else's work without knowing it?

It's ingenious to say you've apologized while at the same time saying you didn't knowingly do anything.

Even his other blog post are plagiarizing this Github Blog post.

GH: https://github.blog/2018-03-01-ddos-incident-report/

Yoginth: https://archive.is/EfMFq

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