No good idea - like rewarding open source software developers and maintainers for their contributions - goes unabused by cybercriminals, and this was the case with the Tea Protocol and two token farming campaigns.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/17/tea_ceo_fends_off_token_farmers/

#opensource

The method outlined here in this Israeli social science experiment is one of the most fascinating I've ever read about: https://archive.ph/1WyBd

"Don’t tell everyone in Giv’at Shmuel that they’re wrong. Tell them that they’re right: A perpetual war with Israel’s neighbors made a lot of sense. If anything, the people of Giv’at Shmuel ought to be angrier.

With the help of an advertising agency, the social scientists created online ads celebrating the tension between Israelis and Palestinians, and extolling the virtues of fighting for fighting’s sake. One ad showed iconic photos of Israeli war heroes and proclaimed, “Without [war] we wouldn’t have had heroes. For the heroes, we probably need the conflict.” The ad was scored with Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries.” Another ad featured footage of a soldier with a machine gun petting a kitten and an infantryman helping an old man cross the street. “What a Wonderful World” played in the background. Its tagline read, “Without [war] we would never be moral. For morality, we probably need the conflict.” The ads, along with brochures and billboards, began appearing in Giv’at Shmuel in 2015. Over a six-week period, according to polling, nearly all of its 25,000 residents saw them."

Over the last 12 months, watchTowr Labs uncovered thousands of leaked credentials: cloud keys, AD creds, API tokens, even KYC data - already being abused.

Join us on our journey into “innocent” developer tools.

https://labs.watchtowr.com/stop-putting-your-passwords-into-random-websites-yes-seriously-you-are-the-problem/