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4.5M Fake Stars in GitHub: Popularity Contests, Scams, and Malware [pdf]
- mentalgear 2y ago"StarScout, a scalable tool able to detect anomalous starring behaviors" can be found here: https://github.com/hehao98/StarScout https://github.com/hehao98/StarScout
- mentalgear 2y ago"We find that: (1) fake-star-related activities have rapidly surged since 2024; (2) the user profile characteristics of fake stargazers are not distinct from average GitHub users, but many of them have highly abnormal activity patterns; (3) the majority of fake stars are used to promote short-lived malware repositories masquerading as pirating software, game cheats, or cryptocurrency bots; (4) some repositories may have acquired fake stars for growth hacking"