It’s no secret that you can fake just about everything on the Internet, you can fake job references, fake news, fake academic credentials, and fake science.
Academic journals that distribute important research from universities, such a Stellenbosch have had to deal with a proliferation of fake peer reviews. Scams that mask themselves as academic journals which request payment, to accept and publish papers without any form of peer review whatsoever, are common, but now the peer review process itself is being hacked thanks to third-party services that can be paid to fabricate peer reviews for papers. In many cases, identity theft is also involved, with real scientists often never knowing that their identities have been stolen for the purposes of issuing false peer reviews.
Below is a mail sent to one of our own esteemed researchers, who was solicited to complete a survey about the peer review process. Although seemingly innocuous, a quick check on retractionwatch.com reveals that this particular survey has been flagged as a potential source of identity theft, malware and phishing. Dangerous parts of the mail have been removed.
If you are involved in writing and submitting academic papers and reviewing papers, be aware of the minefield of scammers out there who only want to use your good name and reputation, for their own monetary gain and status.
[ARTICLE BY DAVID WILES]
From: Scholarly Research Survey <scholarlyresearch@dummyaddress.com>
Reply-To: Scholarly Research Survey <noreply@dummyaddress.com>
Date: Thursday, 12 November 2015 at 12:05
To: Dr R.E. Searcher <emailaddress@dummyaddress.com>
Subject: Survey on peer review
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Dear Dr. Searcher, We are contacting you because you are the corresponding author on a paper that was published in XXXX-XXXX. We would like to invite you to complete a survey, which is about the attitudes of researchers to peer review and scholarly publishing in general. It should take no longer than 8-12 minutes of your time. This study is being conducted on behalf of a major publisher whose identity will be revealed at the end of the study as we do not wish to bias responses. Your results will be kept confidential and used only for research purposes. To begin the survey, please click on the link below (or paste it into your browser): Thank you very much for your time, we really value your input. |
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________________________________________________________________________________ If you would like to opt-out of mailings in relation to this research project, please click (here). |
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Tags: phishing