<strong>Alright, It's been a week</strong> since  my previous <a href="https://steemit.com/ausbitundercover/@ausbitbank/investigating-the-competition-part-1-mask-network-tldr-scam">post where I first introduced the ausbitundercover series</a> with its first investigation into steemits "competition". 

<strong>Time for a followup !</strong>
<center><img src="https://s13.postimg.org/6qoqmi8ev/undercover.gif"></center>
<center><strong>So .. how did it go ?</strong>

<em>To judge that we need a quick recap on what my goals are with this series:</em>

- <strong>My primary goal</strong> is to be able to get hands on experience with each platform, find their best features and then show how <a href="https://steemit.com/steem/@ausbitbank/how-steemit-can-shut-down-its-competition-with-some-small-modifications">we could implement those features in steemit</a>. 

- <strong>My secondary goal</strong> is to cause internal chaos for our competitors, make money in the process and put any funds I make back into steemit.

<center><h2>Goal 1: Investigate</h2></center>

<center><em>I have mixed feelings on this whole idea after seeing the response my article had on my first target.</em></center> 

<strong>I never intended to help promote the site</strong>, but it seems that even though I warned it was a scam right in the title we had a few steemians sign up anyway. The traffic on the network <strong>doubled</strong> overnight :(

Within no time we had a wild <a href="https://steemd.com/@masknetwork">developer</a> appear, and some interesting comments on <a href="https://steemit.com/ausbitundercover/@ausbitbank/investigating-the-competition-part-1-mask-network-tldr-scam">the original thread</a> from both the developer and others appearing to defend marks network. 

<strong>My words were taken out of context</strong> by the developer and a few users and reposted back on the other site, where the echo chamber voted it up and tried to suck up to the developer/whale. 

<strong>Its so frustrating</strong> when people misrepresent you completely, saying I think its a scam "because it uses php" or "because the scripting language is simple" and repeating other peoples bullshit <em>without ever reading my words for themselves</em>. 

<strong>I'll say it again</strong> - <em>these networks are a fascinating look at psychology and group-think</em>.

<strong>From this point</strong> I will only refer to competitors using nicknames (marksnetwork, gollum, etc) anybody that truly wants to see for themselves should be able to figure it out easily enough - but I don't want to ever accidentally promote the competition again and I'll make sure I only choose "bigger" targets in the future.

I wrote a little about some of the features I wanted to investigate in <a href="https://steemit.com/ausbitundercover/@ausbitbank/investigating-the-competition-part-1-mask-network-tldr-scam">my original post</a> , and while its not a complete list - there's nothing else that actually works worth mentioning.

Over the course of the last week I made a lot of different attempts to try out those features with little success due to bugs at every turn.

The main thing I was interested in learning more about was the "app market", but all attempts to register a new project failed with no error message or feedback - and nothing was ever registered to the blockchain. 

Without being able to see it in action or a way to break down *what it even does exactly* I've given up on getting useful information there.

<center><img src="http://imgur.com/kGLl2Db.gif"></center>

So, with the backfiring of the announcement post, and the inability to actually get hands on experience in any of the unique features I set out for <strong>I have to consider this part of the investigation a failure</strong> :(

<center><h2>Goal 2: Chaos</h2></center>

<strong>After making a fuss</strong> I finally got my original 0.01 btc buy-in processed, so I started cranking out posts as a variety of different characters and self voting. There doesn't seem to be any disincentive to vote on your own content, and the system actually *requires* you to vote on a variety of content to qualify for any curation reward.. 

Making different characters and post ideas was harder than I expected due to the lack of noise to hide in, but I handy side-effect of forcing everyone to vote on content meant I got daily upvotes for simple intro posts and especially the posts I made as characters defending the network ;)

<center>At this point the highest paid content is from whales copy pasting whole articles and self voting.</center>

<strong>One of the easier characters was Tara</strong> , an art history student from Jakarta that wants to practise her english and pheonix sketch.

<center><img src="http://imgur.com/ZVh8IJt.jpg"><br />Rotate 90 degrees, crop, add text = unique image ;)</center>


Unfortunately I didn't document these as I made them, because I figured it was <em>all on a blockchain</em> and <em>I'll just look it up afterwards</em>.

<strong>Big mistake</strong>, an updated got pushed so downvoted posts are now <em>completely hidden from view.</em> 
<em>Not just tucked away like steemit</em>, but <strong>completely censored</strong>.

Incidentally the dev and many users gush about how these "web nodes" make the network totally decentralized and different to steemit. Its not. 

We already have heaps more ways to view the steem blockchain already (like steemit,steemd,steemdb,steemviz etc etc) , except this model crams a traditional database between the php web interface and the blockchain, allowing for simple censorship <em>amongst other things</em>.

<strong>I found this clue</strong>, in a comment from a user apparently running one of only 3 available "web nodes". 

>I have requested many times that downvoted posts / comments to be hidden. If developers don't release an <strong>emergency update</strong> to hide downvoted idiots / retards / troller posts i will shut down my node and sell all the coins. I can't bring users to my web node when trollers scream <strong>scam</strong> at every corner. Downvoted posts / comments <strong>must be hidden</strong> !!!!!!!

<div class="pull-left">
The above comment was posted about 24hrs before <strong>my posts all disappeared</strong>.

<strong>Soon enough I was getting whale downvotes</strong> for pointing out things like the exchange problems with screenshots of massive dumps happening with no matching record on the blockchain.

<em>Despite seeing lots of other posts from users with the same issues</em>, each thread got comments defending the network and claiming there are no problems. <em>Before the threads got censored</em>.
</div>
<div class="pull-right">
<center><img src="https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/26/pricegraphdumpddc83.png"><img src="https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/26/mysterydumps03d25.png"></center>
</div>
<hr>

<strong>Kudos to "smoke"</strong> for being one of the only seemingly honest early adopters willing to bluntly talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the platform. Walking the line well between protecting his investment and warning about the real issues he and other users face regularly.. Until he got burned again.

>smoke   ~2 days ago
you don't even receive the bitcoin when you sell anymore.
Most sales on maskexchange are not even recorded on the blockchain. So who knows whats going on. 

At this point thousands of coins have been dumped, nobody seems to be getting any btc and I feel pretty justified in my initial "its an exit scam waiting to happen" call. 

Heres a few random screenshots from my adventures:

<center><img src="https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/26/marksnetworkdirectorylisting920e1.png"><br />Open directory listings..</center>

<center><img src="https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/26/marksnetworkadminsettings6415b.png"><br />Admin settings..</center>

<center><img src="https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/25/maskexchangedownf045a.png"><br />Aaand its gone till at least <strong>January 2017</strong></center>

<strong>I'm not taking credit for this</strong>. <em>I'm just saying.. That happened.</em>

Because I was able to <em>eventually</em> get my initial 0.01 btc buy in processed, and I immediately dumped every token I made and harrassed support to get my initial sells processed - I actually did alright.
<center><img src="https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/26/marksexchangetradesd484f.png"><br />As it stands, I'm up 0.034244 btc or a whole ~$27 even if I never get back my other 0.01<br /></center>

<center><img src="http://imgur.com/yMDGNXQ.png"></center>

<strong>Any profit I make on other platforms I'll reinvest back into steem</strong>. 
I pushed this transaction through @shapeshiftio to keep things simple:

<div class="pull-left">
<center><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Lr0oX51.png"><br />0.034244 btc goes in, 37.076 steem comes out<br /><a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bill-oreilly-you-cant-explain-that">Never a miscommunication</a></center>
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<div class="pull-right">
<center><img src="https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/26/steemvizpowerupprofits439df.png"><br />Powering up my liquid steem balance.</center>
</div>

<hr>

<center><h2>Conclusion</h2></center>

This didn't work out how I planned at all, but it was an interesting experience anyway.

I'm excited to find a better target for the next #ausbitundercover - <strong>do you have any <a href="https://steemit.chat/direct/ausbitbank">suggestions</a> ?</strong>

At this point I think the next logical target is <strong>gollum</strong> ;)

<center><a href="https://www.steemimg.com/image/aa4kZ"><img src="https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/26/gollumnotequaltosteemf03a8.png"></a></center>

<center> <img src="https://imgur.com/1rTOMBf.png" /> <strong>
Written by <a href="https://steemit.com/@ausbitbank">@ausbitbank</a> - If you found it interesting please see these
@steemleak ~ <a href="https://v2.steemviz.com">steemviz</a> ~ <a href="https://www.steemcap.com">steemcap</a> ~ <a href="https://steemit.com/steem/@ausbitbank/steem-sbd-btc-market-view-for-25th-september-2016-custom-indicator-update">steemUSD/sbdUSD indicator</a></strong><br /><a href="https://steemit.com/@ausbitbank"><img src="https://www.steemimg.com/images/2016/09/21/ausbitbank4275c.png" /></a></center>