How impersonators evolve

Impersonators usually start with low-effort cloning and become harder to spot as the obvious handles get reported. The scorer uses multiple signals because no single clue is reliable on its own.

Common clone patterns

Pattern	Example	Signal
Suffixes	alex_charts1, alex_chartss	Handle similarity
Official-sounding handles	alex_charts_official	Handle and bio similarity
Homoglyphs	aIex_charts, alex_chart$	Normalized handle/name similarity
Copied images	Same avatar with small edits	Perceptual image hash
Giveaway scams	"DM me", "airdrop", "private group"	Posting behavior and bio overlap
Fresh accounts	Created recently with few followers	Account age and follower ratio

Why false positives matter

Not every similar account is malicious. Fan accounts, parody accounts, and older unrelated accounts can look close at first glance. x-impersonation-guard intentionally reduces scores when profiles clearly say they are fan/parody accounts or when the candidate predates the protected identity.

See Scoring explained for the exact signals and demo examples.