A DEF CON 26 talk by investigative journalists and hackers on the fake science industry, with bogus conferences and predatory journals that give studies false credibility. It draws on a large investigation into the money behind them.
Why Hacker News points people here: Recommended as a funny but depressing investigation, and the usual link in threads on predatory publishing and fake citations.
“It's a funny talk, if depressing. A great investigation.”HN comment, 2019
“First you'll laugh. And then you'll weep for humanity!”
Funny but depressing investigation of fake science industry
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Inside The Fake Science Factory from DefCon 26. First you'll laugh. And then you'll weep for humanity! this video Also really dug Jeremy Rifkin's The Third Industrial Revolution: A Radical New Sharing Economy. Outlines the rollout of a possible new engineering platform consisting of free energy, satellite internet, and AI. link Keep the links coming, please. Terrific counter-programming for holiday down time ;)
Strongly recommendsyesenadamJan 2019
“A must watch. Very funny, if depressing.”
Investigation of huge network of fake conferences and journals
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Inside the Fake Science Factory (2018) is an amazing DEFCON talk, by 3 people who stumbled on and investigated an unbelievably huge worldwide network (400,000 scientists involved) of fake-scientific conferences, journals, websites raking in money and enabling people to make claims that their products are scientifically proven. The presenters got hackers to track down the people behind one of the largest organizations, and analyze the huge numbers of conferences/papers. They present/publish nonsensical talks on graphs and bees+cancer to see what peer review there is... A must watch. Very funny, if depressing. this video
Strongly recommendsyesenadamFeb 2019
“It's a funny talk, if depressing. A great investigation.”
Investigation into predatory fake journals and conferences, with bogus papers
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Inside the Fake Science Factory is an amazing 2hr talk talk from DEFCON 2018 by 2 German journalists and a British science guy about an investigation into the world of predatory fake journals, conferences, websites. 400,000 scientists involved. Unbelievably huge scam. They wrote bogus papers and presented one at a fake conference. It's a funny talk, if depressing. A great investigation. Maybe the worst is that these fake scientific credentials are then used to sell useless products to dying people. this video
Strongly recommendscaptainkrtekAug 2025
“was fantastic and pretty funny as well”
Fake science factory presentation
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This presentation from Defcon in 2018 on “Fake Science Factory” was fantastic and pretty funny as well: this video
RecommendsgtrubetskoyJan 2019
“There was a fascinating Defcon 26 talk on "predatory publishing”
Explains predatory publishing and how fake citations arise
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There was a fascinating Defcon 26 talk on "predatory publishing" which may explain how this kind of thing happens: this videolink
RecommendsyesenadamAug 2019
“The scale of it is astonishing and depressing.”
Scale of predatory publishing is astonishing
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More than a bunch! The scale of it is astonishing and depressing. See Inside the Fake Science Factory this video
RecommendsmablopouleMay 2023
“There is a very interesting DEFCON talk[1] called "Inside the fake science factory" about this.”
Fake journal cycles used to validate dishonest research
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Another possibility would be to prop-up a fake journal/conference cycle, which is used by some interest groups to publish and thus "validate" dishonest research which then goes toward their own business/political interests. Think "money laundering", but for scholarly credentials. There is a very interesting DEFCON talk[1] called "Inside the fake science factory" about this. [1] this video
Cites itjayessMar 2019
“DEFCON talk in 2018 regarding these fake journals”
Talk about fake journals
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Another fake scientific journal. > Received: July 20, 2018; Accepted: August 08, 2018; Published: August 17, 2018 link DEFCON talk in 2018 regarding these fake journals: this video
