It's called brushing and basically a Chinese seller sends something cheap (like seeds, or trinkets) and then creates a review from "someone in the US".
The shipping portion is necessary because they need the tracking info for the sale to be counted.
edit:oops, accidentally mixed up churning with brushing. churning is something else
Some of it is to get the "verified purchase" reviews, but the specific discussion was around the Alibaba IPO and whether it can be used to inflate stock price via fake revenues.
But seeds cast a whole other dimension onto this problem... It is not a problem if they send you a cheap plastic bracelet but seeds can have unforseen consequences
Yup like wooden crates packaging actual products but infested with emerald ash bohrer or asian long horned beetle larvae. Only NZ and AU have an effective biisecurity policies.
Not really. Apparently folks can order these seeds already? So its happening, notice or no notice. It seems inevitable that seeds of every plant will be in gardens of every conceivable corner of the earth.
Starting in the 1700's with botanists traveling the world to collect and disseminate them. Which gave us modern corn, wheat, flowering plants, grasses, succulents and nearly everything we grow, harvest and appreciate today. May be a little late to start being concerned about this.
Not just that but there's also a method where the product name and photo is edited later. So they ship one dollar items and later edit it to be something much more valuable on amazon.
There are so many items that have reviews for obviously different items right now. I’ve seen it on a lot of COVID related items like no contact thermometers.
This is the part that doesn't make sense: these items don't have Delivery Confirmation. They're untracked. I even entered in a few from the Facebook link below where people posted their own screenshots, and yep, UJ.........CN tracking numbers aren't tracked once they reach USA.
So what's the point of sending out anything at all?
Just include any old tracking number for any other legit purchase as proof of sending something on an illegit purchase.
Is this why I get magazines in the mail that I don't subscribe to? For the past six or seven years we get magazines like Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and a couple others off and on. I haven't bought or subscribed to a paper magazine in 20 years, yet these keep showing up in the mail.
I thought maybe it was the publication trying to adjust their demographics to increase rates (we live in a zip code with lots of college graduates and high incomes).
The same thing happened to me, I started getting Cosmopolitan and InStyle unsolicited. It happened shortly after my college-aged daughter bought a small Coach bag (using a credit card on my account), so I assumed they determined our household was the right demographic for their advertisers.
I know I used to receive several free magazines because having a large audience for advertisers is apparently more profitable than actually selling the magazine. But I don’t remember ever receiving a magazine I didn’t ask for.
I don't understand. Why do they need to ship anything in the box at all? They could ship empty boxes and still have tracking numbers show as delivered.
In China they usually need to pay 1 to 1.5 dollars for someone willingly doing it for them, it's open secret and an entire industry, it feeds platform's ranking/recommendation system to get ahead, sometimes platforms actively encourage it.
You may have heard of the Singles Day shopping event, it's common for sellers to boost their revenue that day to meet requirements from platforms, like selling a cheap T-shirt for $150 then refund it upon receiving the package.
A friend had his information (leaked from some company who he used to buy products from its database) used for this. I wonder if they usually get their information from stolen user DBs
If I wanted to clandestinely introduce invasive species, I would of course not send seeds from whatever suspicious country to random people. A package marked as e.g. folk art piece would be used, containing seeds, maybe covered with fertilizer, as a filler of an actual e.g. animal figure, or something. The package would arrive to a package consolidation service and packaged, along with some other goods, with a US originating address.
That package would be taken by an agent who would rip it and throw it away onto some strip of farming land along a busy road, while driving there at night, reasonably far away from home. The agent would not understand that this action is the "payload" of the mission, and would never associate the incident with the seeds' country of origin.
If I can come up with this trivial plan in 5 mins, a secret service would, too.
So no, this certainly is not a clandestine operation by a serious nefarious actor, it's a silly e-commerce shtick by a small-time seed seller.
FSB tactics, on the other hand, involve doing almost everything they can to signal that they were the perpetrators while at the same time denying responsibility.
It’s a weird way to flex, братан, but the diplomatic and psychological impact of the attack is far more effective than the attack itself.
Example: Russian poisoning suspects say they were only visiting cathedral
It's really just political gaslighting and has been going on since the Soviet era. Frida Ghitis used just that term to describe the ridiculous denials from Russia when presented with evidence of Russian operatives active in Crimea.
What's worrying to me is that it's by no means unique to Russia, even if they have perfected it. The current president of the United States does not consider himself above using the exact same rhetorical strategy.
I'm always curious about new slang or jargon but can't place this sense of 'Bratan' in the context of espionage/geopolitics. Flexing brotherhood? Flexing manliness?
> They are sending these seeds to many people in the US, aka
> PRC supporters. Or even those pressured to do their work.
I'm not sure why you're being down-voted, this is entirely a viable exercise in economic disruption (whether intentional or not). You can definitely get at least 1 in 1000 to plant them (intentionally or unintentionally).
Remember for example the old trick of leaving USBs in company car parks. You can tell people a billion times not to plug random crap into their machines, but you'll find at least one person willing to do so at each company. The problem got so bad that they had to glue the USB ports at some places.
> Invasive species can destroy an economy. Devastate it.
100%, it's why many Countries have such very strict laws regarding bringing organic foreign goods across the border.
> I'm not saying the PRC is doing this, but if I was trying
> to harm the US.. I'd do all sorts of evil things like
> this.
If they are shipping from China, you can likely say they are originating from China. Whether or not it is nefarious is another question altogether. With just a few thousand dollars (to cover shipping) they could cause massive damage.
This actually happens all the time as it happens, people buy random seeds from Amazon (for example) and receive something that should really not be planted in local soil. Without planting them, it can be quite hard for the average person to tell them apart.
We know from history that bad guys sometimes have terribly poor opsec.
But again, if I were in charge I would never ever give the people packaging the seeds in China any address in the US except the parcel consolidation service address, or any idea that such other addresses may exist.
And look, I did not serve in the secret service a single day. I bet people in the Chinese secret service department that works on clandestine operations abroad are at least as qualified as me.
Honestly, if you really wanted to do it, all you'd need is a single person in a car with a giant bag of seeds. How many could a single person plant in a week going for walks in conversation areas? What if you had 10 people or 100? Way more efficient than mailing the seeds out and hoping people plant them.
A few years ago, some folks sent out some advertising letters that contained flower seeds in the paper. You could literally bury the paper in the ground to grow the flowers.
I live in California, and received a suspicious bag of seeds in the mail after ordering something from Amazon. Happened about one month ago. The seeds were sent in their own small package, with Chinese characters on it.
I had heard about these types of shipping scams, but had never experienced it personally until this. I was so intrigued that I immediately planted the seeds for fun (I think they’re cucumbers).
I now realize that I was extremely ignorant. I wasn’t aware of the danger of invasive species.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I decided to rip up the plants and throw them away.
Yes, you are being paranoid. But, from the look of these comments, you aren't alone. The general consensus here seems to be a plausibly-deniable CCP bio-terror plot.
What is more likely: review scam or elaborate bioterrorism with an easily detectable, unreliable distribution mechanism? Never mind the complete lack of proposed harm. What is the evil plot? Destruction of the US cucumber industry?
Contrast that with the flood of fentanyl, which was/is real CCP-sponsored asymmetrical warfare with plausible deniability. Highly effective, with a side irony. Now that was an elegant way to damage a society.
That said, I hope you washed your hands after disposing of the plants. If it is Trichosanthes kirilowii (Chinese cucumber, snake gourd), the roots contain a ricin-like protein.
Pretty unlikely. GP "thinks they were cucumbers". If the plant was already fruiting, there'd be no doubt, so we conclude that the plants were still quite young. No fruit, no seed. No hazard. They're just going to be compost.
I research about sources (both publications and authors) to see what credence I should lend them. The little I could find out about this book was a review at [0] that concludes with "I would not recommend this book to those beginning a study of Invasion Biology. It is a polemic presumably aimed at the practitioners of what the author holds is a pseudoscience, and perhaps also at policy‐makers."
Thanks. I'm somewhat skeptical of the "invasive biology" scare too and would like to collect literature on the subject. Unfortunately I can't afford to buy every book on the subject ("buy used: $336.82", whats up with that?), but I did find a book review which gave a good summary I think:
He does seem to take an extreme position, but it is sometimes beneficial to take in an extreme counterpoint in order to find the reasonable "middle" ground.
>Also I can’t imagine getting a box of seeds in the mail (unsolicited) and thinking to myself, “I should plant these and see what comes up!”
different strokes for different folks i guess, but that is absolutely something i would do. or would have done if they'd arrived in may, planting in august is kinda pointless where i live.
Same. I can't believe the FUD that's going on. What's the worst that can happen with a seed?? It will not open a portal to another dimension! A plant will just grow out of it.
You keep it inside and take a picture and you will know if you will get nice flowers, or vegetables, or...nothing. Just leaves.
As a kid I loved to plant seeds in plastic cups and see what grew out of it, and trying additives to see if they could help the plant grow. Once I grew a little tomato, and ate it. I didn't drop dead from tomato consumption.
It's innocent and safe. The government should have no business regulating what people do with seeds.
That seems like hysteria. Yes, birds can potentially carry bird flu. Also, Chinese culture is more open-minded about animal consumption than USA culture and health safety laws. Culture clash is more likely explanation than bio warfare.
If you want to smuggle bird flu into USA, are you really going to do it in a bag of whole dead birds, and not some processed form that is more convenient and less suspicious?
I thought customs trying to control biological materials ("meats, fruits, vegetables, plants, seeds, soil, animals, as well as plant and animal products") coming into a country was a thing, long before present events.
Authorities get really uptight about invasive species and whatnot. Maybe groundless talk of biowarfare is "hysteria" but regulating biological materials going across borders is the norm as far as I know.
It’s still a country that has a massive portion of the population that’s poor. If you want the poor people in the world to stop trying everything they can get some of your money then vote for more income equality initiatives and cut your own salary.
This type of behavior is endemic with poverty and can be seen with Nigerian princes, Indian call center scams, or just your friendly San Francisco neighborhood bike thief.
This behavior has more to do with poverty and income inequality than Chinese people (or people of any country or race for that matter).
It's clearly the first line of a deeply rooted plot. These plants, when fully grown, will be identifiable from special satellites. They just have to get enough unwitting people planting them as well to make the strategic plants from sticking out.
All you may need is to throw the biodegradable package in trash. On a landfill site, where the seeds will arrive, they will grow and possibly even prosper.
It might turn out to be poisonous. If you can't precisely identify what you grow, get rid of it. To reduce contamination risk, roast it to a crisp, bleach or otherwise sterilize it. This doesn't just apply to exotic plants, but also to most plants of the family Apiaceae, as they can be hard to correctly identify and tell apart. Needless to say, many of them are noxious, poisonous or invasive, some all three of them, like the giant hogweed.
I got some in the mail a few weeks ago and thought about planting them. I've ordered seeds from the internet in the past and so I just assumed that I must have ordered these at some point and forgot about it.
I can’t either! I’m surprised at the comments saying they totally would. I guess I remember the anthrax scare when I was little, so unsolicited packages have always freaked me out a bit.
I know this one. They make such phantom sales to increase their standing on the platform (ebay, Aliexpress). The platforms do not know it, they put people to make those fake sales so randoms in US and Europe.
In most cases they send hairpins and such stuff, but in this case it happened to be seeds.
If the government response is so heavy handed on this stupid issue (sellers trying to trick the platform), imagine how silly other investigations could be.
Considering that receiving "unsolicited" seeds from just about anywhere else has exactly the same risk and is entirely legal, this seems to me to be little more than anti-China fearmongering. I've been asking my local state reps to stop the sale of Callery Pear trees (which are invasive and damaging) but they have ignored me for years because the nursereys make a lot of money from them and lobby to keep them legal. Perhaps if I started pointing out that the trees are Chinese/Vietnamese in origin I might get somewhere now.
I guess you don't have to be there if you mail them out, but man if you were for some reason wanting to spread an invasive species.... you could just plant the seeds yourself....
You would also be able to target what you might want to happen and where.
Random individuals would seem sort of silly to target unless it spread dramatically or was something else.
Just doesn't make a lot of sense as a sort of intentional invasive species thing.
The receiver will just throw the seeds in the garbage, and depending on the hardiness of the seeds, that is as good as planting them in the garbage dump.
When I visited my local garbage dump with school I was impressed with the number of pumpkin plants growing out of the piles of garbage. I wonder why pumpkins grow so well there.
Readit News
The shipping portion is necessary because they need the tracking info for the sale to be counted.
edit:oops, accidentally mixed up churning with brushing. churning is something else
There was an almost identical scam which has been going on for a while called "Brushing"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brushing_(e-commerce)
Some of it is to get the "verified purchase" reviews, but the specific discussion was around the Alibaba IPO and whether it can be used to inflate stock price via fake revenues.
I only was able to track down the glowing review for the bartender kit, I have no idea where the other stuff was purchased from.
Though optimistically, perhaps the worst and most destructive invasive threats have already arrived?
Starting in the 1700's with botanists traveling the world to collect and disseminate them. Which gave us modern corn, wheat, flowering plants, grasses, succulents and nearly everything we grow, harvest and appreciate today. May be a little late to start being concerned about this.
Dead Comment
Should be easy to catch these.
So what's the point of sending out anything at all?
Just include any old tracking number for any other legit purchase as proof of sending something on an illegit purchase.
How isn’t this enabling fraud?
Shouldn’t be able to completely change the listing. Versión bumps might be ok maybe?
I thought maybe it was the publication trying to adjust their demographics to increase rates (we live in a zip code with lots of college graduates and high incomes).
I don't understand. Why do they need to ship anything in the box at all? They could ship empty boxes and still have tracking numbers show as delivered.
You may have heard of the Singles Day shopping event, it's common for sellers to boost their revenue that day to meet requirements from platforms, like selling a cheap T-shirt for $150 then refund it upon receiving the package.
Dead Comment
That package would be taken by an agent who would rip it and throw it away onto some strip of farming land along a busy road, while driving there at night, reasonably far away from home. The agent would not understand that this action is the "payload" of the mission, and would never associate the incident with the seeds' country of origin.
If I can come up with this trivial plan in 5 mins, a secret service would, too.
So no, this certainly is not a clandestine operation by a serious nefarious actor, it's a silly e-commerce shtick by a small-time seed seller.
It’s a weird way to flex, братан, but the diplomatic and psychological impact of the attack is far more effective than the attack itself.
Example: Russian poisoning suspects say they were only visiting cathedral
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/13/russian-tele...
What's worrying to me is that it's by no means unique to Russia, even if they have perfected it. The current president of the United States does not consider himself above using the exact same rhetorical strategy.
I'm always curious about new slang or jargon but can't place this sense of 'Bratan' in the context of espionage/geopolitics. Flexing brotherhood? Flexing manliness?
They are sending these seeds to many people in the US, aka PRC supporters. Or even those pressured to do their work.
And they simply got the address wrong, a few times out of thousands.
Invasive species can destroy an economy. Devastate it.
I'm not saying the PRC is doing this, but if I was trying to harm the US.. I'd do all sorts of evil things like this.
> PRC supporters. Or even those pressured to do their work.
I'm not sure why you're being down-voted, this is entirely a viable exercise in economic disruption (whether intentional or not). You can definitely get at least 1 in 1000 to plant them (intentionally or unintentionally).
Remember for example the old trick of leaving USBs in company car parks. You can tell people a billion times not to plug random crap into their machines, but you'll find at least one person willing to do so at each company. The problem got so bad that they had to glue the USB ports at some places.
> Invasive species can destroy an economy. Devastate it.
100%, it's why many Countries have such very strict laws regarding bringing organic foreign goods across the border.
> I'm not saying the PRC is doing this, but if I was trying
> to harm the US.. I'd do all sorts of evil things like
> this.
If they are shipping from China, you can likely say they are originating from China. Whether or not it is nefarious is another question altogether. With just a few thousand dollars (to cover shipping) they could cause massive damage.
This actually happens all the time as it happens, people buy random seeds from Amazon (for example) and receive something that should really not be planted in local soil. Without planting them, it can be quite hard for the average person to tell them apart.
But again, if I were in charge I would never ever give the people packaging the seeds in China any address in the US except the parcel consolidation service address, or any idea that such other addresses may exist.
And look, I did not serve in the secret service a single day. I bet people in the Chinese secret service department that works on clandestine operations abroad are at least as qualified as me.
For those that don't get the joke (this is a joke)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2017/03/20/c...
https://www.cheerios.ca/bringbackthebees/
plantable seed paper:
https://buddyburst.com/products/plantable-seed-paper/postcar...
I had heard about these types of shipping scams, but had never experienced it personally until this. I was so intrigued that I immediately planted the seeds for fun (I think they’re cucumbers).
I now realize that I was extremely ignorant. I wasn’t aware of the danger of invasive species.
Maybe I’m paranoid, but I decided to rip up the plants and throw them away.
What is more likely: review scam or elaborate bioterrorism with an easily detectable, unreliable distribution mechanism? Never mind the complete lack of proposed harm. What is the evil plot? Destruction of the US cucumber industry?
Contrast that with the flood of fentanyl, which was/is real CCP-sponsored asymmetrical warfare with plausible deniability. Highly effective, with a side irony. Now that was an elegant way to damage a society.
That said, I hope you washed your hands after disposing of the plants. If it is Trichosanthes kirilowii (Chinese cucumber, snake gourd), the roots contain a ricin-like protein.
given the sufficient scale of operation, it could be a pretty reliable mechanism probabilistically speaking.
Now they can start growing in a landfill somewhere.
Very curious what are those characters. If you could kindly post a picture of the package, I can help translate what's written on it.
For a good counter to all the "invasive biology" craze see:
https://www.amazon.com/Invasion-Biology-Pseudoscience-David-...
He raises many good points. Much damage to the eocology has been done in removing "invasive" species.
Now, diseses, those can really devestate. I'd love to still have our (US) chestnut forests.
Make of that what you will.
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4242384/
https://www.publish.csiro.au/pc/pdf/PC040070
He does seem to take an extreme position, but it is sometimes beneficial to take in an extreme counterpoint in order to find the reasonable "middle" ground.
Also I can’t imagine getting a box of seeds in the mail (unsolicited) and thinking to myself, “I should plant these and see what comes up!”
Edit, found more about this here: https://www.wusa9.com/mobile/article/news/local/virginia/vir...
Along with a story of a Chinese National attempting to transport birds into Virginia which are known to be transmitters of Avian flu.
different strokes for different folks i guess, but that is absolutely something i would do. or would have done if they'd arrived in may, planting in august is kinda pointless where i live.
My seeds arrived about 2 years ago, from China, entirely unannounced, and directed to my address in London, but with no name.
They turned out to be strawberries. Nothing unusual about them as far as I can taste...
They inspired me to make a service for other people to get random gifts from China... [1]
[1]: https://erraticpacket.com
Oops!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asparagus_asparagoides
You keep it inside and take a picture and you will know if you will get nice flowers, or vegetables, or...nothing. Just leaves.
As a kid I loved to plant seeds in plastic cups and see what grew out of it, and trying additives to see if they could help the plant grow. Once I grew a little tomato, and ate it. I didn't drop dead from tomato consumption.
It's innocent and safe. The government should have no business regulating what people do with seeds.
If you want to smuggle bird flu into USA, are you really going to do it in a bag of whole dead birds, and not some processed form that is more convenient and less suspicious?
Authorities get really uptight about invasive species and whatnot. Maybe groundless talk of biowarfare is "hysteria" but regulating biological materials going across borders is the norm as far as I know.
Dead Comment
Dead Comment
> Um... China... what’s the deal?
China's a country of over a billion people.
Let's not attribute the actions of individuals to sinister top-down plot from the CCO politboru until there's actual evidence.
This type of behavior is endemic with poverty and can be seen with Nigerian princes, Indian call center scams, or just your friendly San Francisco neighborhood bike thief.
This behavior has more to do with poverty and income inequality than Chinese people (or people of any country or race for that matter).
Is that just because of the fear you might spread an invasive species, or is there some other risk trying to grow an unknown plant entails?
In most cases they send hairpins and such stuff, but in this case it happened to be seeds.
If the government response is so heavy handed on this stupid issue (sellers trying to trick the platform), imagine how silly other investigations could be.
Friends in the UK are reporting it happening there, and are being advised to either burn or boil seeds for several minutes.
Anyone know what this is about, what the actual purpose is?
You would also be able to target what you might want to happen and where.
Random individuals would seem sort of silly to target unless it spread dramatically or was something else.
Just doesn't make a lot of sense as a sort of intentional invasive species thing.
I hope she doesn't join a radical militant outfit when she grows up.