4 ms·

One wonder what the point is of filing fake publications for somebody else. It could be that the magazine is scamming libraries? Or perhaps a vindictive colleag

One wonder what the point is of filing fake publications for somebody else. It could be that the magazine is scamming libraries? Or perhaps a vindictive colleague?

KqAmJQ7 4y ago
Reminds me of SEO link spam attacks on competing websites to get them banned by Google.
- ghaff 4y ago
  And it can look bad for the site or the person at first glance unless someone bothers to investigate--and instead they'll often just take their first impression, shrug, and move on. (Oh wasn't that the researcher who was somehow somehow involved in some plagiarism thing a few years back?)
Maken 4y ago
It is likely a predatory journal, and it needs to have a backlog of seemly legit papers authored by seemly prestigious authors.
JoachimS 4y ago
At least two possible reasons, all bad. 1. Steal, increase credibility for the article and the (assumed) real authors by attaching the name of a successful researcher with high credibility. People need to publish a number of papers to get their degree. Doing this may help them getting published easiser. A bit like also stealing the actual contents of the paper from an already published paper. 2. Destroy the credibility of a researcher by attaching their name to a paper that is falsified, plagiarized. My very unfounded guess is that it is more (1) than (2) at play here. But research in political science is probably more at risk to cause anger and enemies than say cosmology. Unless the research is related to dwarf planets or some such.
- bootsmann 4y ago
  But (1) would assume that there are multiple authors, no? The OP claims that she was the sole author of the article.
  - jhart99 4y ago
    In that case, I would offer 3. The journal is trying to boost their stats. One wonders how long they thought they could have gotten away with faking articles to fill a journal...
    - JoachimS 4y ago
      Good point, and not unheard of.
    - JoachimS 4y ago
      Also, looking at the article in question. It seems to suggest a policy of punishment as a solution to solving the issue of people, companies not following recycling rules: "the government should continue to closely monitor and punish violators of laws and regulations." So I'd like to add incentive (4): A way to seemingly have established researchers suggest punishment as accepted way of enforcement. Drive agenda, basically.
  - JoachimS 4y ago
    Ah, I missed that detail. Checking the actual article, and you are correct: https://www.internationalscholarsjournals.com/articles/impact-of-government-intervention-measures-on-recycling-of-wasteequipment-in-china-86363.html https://www.internationalscholarsjournals.com/articles/impac...
- foldr 4y ago
  > But research in political science is probably more at risk to cause anger and enemies than say cosmology. Ha! The iron rule of academia is that the lower the stakes, the more vicious the interpersonal conflicts :)
mablopoule 4y ago
Another possibility would be to prop-up a fake journal/conference cycle, which is used by some interest groups to publish and thus "validate" dishonest research which then goes toward their own business/political interests. Think "money laundering", but for scholarly credentials. There is a very interesting DEFCON talk[1] called "Inside the fake science factory" about this. [1] https://youtu.be/ras_VYgA77Q https://youtu.be/ras_VYgA77Q
invalidname 4y ago
I understand the original article that was plagiarized was quoted in the paper. Maybe the authors of that article wanted to bring attention to it and needed someone else to validate their work.
- readthenotes1 4y ago
  There are no references in the plagiarized article. It reads more like an editorial. (https://www.internationalscholarsjournals.com/articles/impact-of-government-intervention-measures-on-recycling-of-wasteequipment-in-china-86363.html https://www.internationalscholarsjournals.com/articles/impac...)
jstarfish 4y ago
I've actually seen this before, interestingly also involving specifically-African entities and a Russian native. As best I could tell, it was being exploited as a form of identity theft. I think it's what the kids informally call "skinwalking" (when they do it to each other on Instagram for likes or other social currency). Professionally, the scheme starts with finding a credible individual whose reputation you need to hijack, so a career researcher or someone that's been publishing papers for 20 years but nowadays is not as active. In this case, the impersonator emigrated to a new country and renamed himself on the naturalization paperwork so his name was identical to the target's (a former oil exec in this case-- let's call him Oily Man). At that point, you start pretending to be active in the target's domain. Start publishing papers as Oily Man. Start going to conferences as Oily Man and wearing your name badge conspicuously. People that only recognize the name will mistake you for the real one and strike up insider conversations-- and remember seeing "Oily Man" at the conference. People suspicious of you that know the real guy, you explain away as mistaken identity of two individuals who happen to work in the same space (there's no expectation of disambiguation; you had no choice in what your parents named you, right?). The result is that anybody that googles Oily Man finds a 20+ year work history, a bunch of papers "he's" currently written, and a bunch of conferences "he's" recently attended. You're basically finishing someone else's life story. Since the real Oily Man is retired/inactive, there's no chance of crossing paths with him, and since you're not claiming to be him, there's little consequence even if you do. It's everyone else's fault for conflating the two of you! There was a very specific purpose to this scheme that culminated in the impersonator using the target's identity (and others!) to secure a seat on a particular board to (I surmise) fraudulently cast votes on a particular subject, but I can't disclose the details of that.

One wonder what the point is of filing fake publications for somebody else. It could be that the magazine is scamming libraries? Or perhaps a vindictive colleague?

KqAmJQ7 4y ago

Reminds me of SEO link spam attacks on competing websites to get them banned by Google.

ghaff 4y ago
And it can look bad for the site or the person at first glance unless someone bothers to investigate--and instead they'll often just take their first impression, shrug, and move on. (Oh wasn't that the researcher who was somehow somehow involved in some plagiarism thing a few years back?)

Maken 4y ago

It is likely a predatory journal, and it needs to have a backlog of seemly legit papers authored by seemly prestigious authors.

JoachimS 4y ago

At least two possible reasons, all bad. 1. Steal, increase credibility for the article and the (assumed) real authors by attaching the name of a successful researcher with high credibility. People need to publish a number of papers to get their degree. Doing this may help them getting published easiser. A bit like also stealing the actual contents of the paper from an already published paper. 2. Destroy the credibility of a researcher by attaching their name to a paper that is falsified, plagiarized. My very unfounded guess is that it is more (1) than (2) at play here. But research in political science is probably more at risk to cause anger and enemies than say cosmology. Unless the research is related to dwarf planets or some such.

bootsmann 4y ago
But (1) would assume that there are multiple authors, no? The OP claims that she was the sole author of the article.
- jhart99 4y ago
  In that case, I would offer 3. The journal is trying to boost their stats. One wonders how long they thought they could have gotten away with faking articles to fill a journal...
  - JoachimS 4y ago
    Good point, and not unheard of.
  - JoachimS 4y ago
    Also, looking at the article in question. It seems to suggest a policy of punishment as a solution to solving the issue of people, companies not following recycling rules: "the government should continue to closely monitor and punish violators of laws and regulations." So I'd like to add incentive (4): A way to seemingly have established researchers suggest punishment as accepted way of enforcement. Drive agenda, basically.
- JoachimS 4y ago
  Ah, I missed that detail. Checking the actual article, and you are correct: https://www.internationalscholarsjournals.com/articles/impact-of-government-intervention-measures-on-recycling-of-wasteequipment-in-china-86363.html https://www.internationalscholarsjournals.com/articles/impac...
foldr 4y ago
> But research in political science is probably more at risk to cause anger and enemies than say cosmology. Ha! The iron rule of academia is that the lower the stakes, the more vicious the interpersonal conflicts :)

mablopoule 4y ago

Another possibility would be to prop-up a fake journal/conference cycle, which is used by some interest groups to publish and thus "validate" dishonest research which then goes toward their own business/political interests. Think "money laundering", but for scholarly credentials. There is a very interesting DEFCON talk[1] called "Inside the fake science factory" about this. [1] https://youtu.be/ras_VYgA77Q https://youtu.be/ras_VYgA77Q

invalidname 4y ago

I understand the original article that was plagiarized was quoted in the paper. Maybe the authors of that article wanted to bring attention to it and needed someone else to validate their work.

readthenotes1 4y ago
There are no references in the plagiarized article. It reads more like an editorial. (https://www.internationalscholarsjournals.com/articles/impact-of-government-intervention-measures-on-recycling-of-wasteequipment-in-china-86363.html https://www.internationalscholarsjournals.com/articles/impac...)

jstarfish 4y ago

I've actually seen this before, interestingly also involving specifically-African entities and a Russian native. As best I could tell, it was being exploited as a form of identity theft. I think it's what the kids informally call "skinwalking" (when they do it to each other on Instagram for likes or other social currency). Professionally, the scheme starts with finding a credible individual whose reputation you need to hijack, so a career researcher or someone that's been publishing papers for 20 years but nowadays is not as active. In this case, the impersonator emigrated to a new country and renamed himself on the naturalization paperwork so his name was identical to the target's (a former oil exec in this case-- let's call him Oily Man). At that point, you start pretending to be active in the target's domain. Start publishing papers as Oily Man. Start going to conferences as Oily Man and wearing your name badge conspicuously. People that only recognize the name will mistake you for the real one and strike up insider conversations-- and remember seeing "Oily Man" at the conference. People suspicious of you that know the real guy, you explain away as mistaken identity of two individuals who happen to work in the same space (there's no expectation of disambiguation; you had no choice in what your parents named you, right?). The result is that anybody that googles Oily Man finds a 20+ year work history, a bunch of papers "he's" currently written, and a bunch of conferences "he's" recently attended. You're basically finishing someone else's life story. Since the real Oily Man is retired/inactive, there's no chance of crossing paths with him, and since you're not claiming to be him, there's little consequence even if you do. It's everyone else's fault for conflating the two of you! There was a very specific purpose to this scheme that culminated in the impersonator using the target's identity (and others!) to secure a seat on a particular board to (I surmise) fraudulently cast votes on a particular subject, but I can't disclose the details of that.