Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter • Hacker News Board

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#101

Post by problems » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:45 PM UTC

will_pseudonym wrote: post #96

wmil wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've bought fake followers before. It's actually fun. You'd be surprised how much of the "chattering class" will check your follower count before they decide if they should read and respond to your comments. If you enjoy chiming in on national conversations then it's a cheap way to appear prestigious. Of course, you need to be able to argue well enough to not out yourself as some random joe.

I wonder what proportion of the chattering class will pay attention to measures of retweet:follower ratios. It's a good proxy for a fake account.

Go over to google and put in the words "buy retweets". That's really not a problem. They have full control over the accounts (via either fake signups themselves or script kiddie iStealer means), so anything like that in demand enough is probably something you can buy.

A look at the history or content of mentions is probably the best bet to detect a faked account. Still, a clever person might slip by a cursory check.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#102

Post by will_pseudonym » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:45 PM UTC

warcher wrote: post #67

ashark wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My cell phone's the same way now. Maybe one in ten calls, at best, isn't phone-spam. And that's with being on the Do Not Call list. I've been trying to figure out a way to do without an actual phone (except maybe a burner on the off chance I need to call 911) as a result. Text is by far the more valuable side of my phone plan, but mostly because everyone wants to use it for auth these days (I could switch to another…

Protip: I moved my legacy phone number (the number you get for customer service calls, that I hand out publicly, etc) over to google voice years ago. It follows me from phone to phone as I move carriers, everybody can reach me, and their "Press one to connect to the phone" feature throws off robodialers very effectively. The only downside is that google voice smells like the kind of service that google doesn't regard…

They did just update the Google Voice iOS (and presumably Android) apps. So that's a good sign.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#103

Post by golergka » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:45 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #57

OliverJones wrote: post #20

Huh. The landline telephone business has, for a long time now, been compromised by spammers and bots (telemarketing calls and robocalls). I canceled my land line about four years ago after going for three months without receiving a single call I wanted. It seems the commercial social networks are headed for the same fate. And, they're headed for hardnosed and unpleasant regulation by governments. They probably need t…

> social networks are headed for the same fate On the contrary, Facebook is the last halo of peace for me. I only talk to my friends, never get unwarranted messages, spam, mail subscriptions, renewals, ads, scary calls/emails, ... you name it. Now if I could email via Facebook, that would be awesome.

I already have most of work-related messaging on Facebook, and it's awesome indeed. Can't wait to drop Skype completely.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#104

Post by pfarnsworth » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:45 PM UTC

throwaway91111 wrote: post #63

dhimes wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US isn't there a law expressly prohibiting these calls to cell phones?

Yes, but a number of difficulties remain: 1) there's little way of figureing out who is actually contacting you. 2) If you file the number with the FCC you don't get a response. 3) it's not always obvious there's a commercial entity on the other side. I've gotten a number of calls that appear to try and keep me on the line while preventing from Turing test esque conversation from taking place. 4) some of the spam is…

For #3, I no longer answer the phone with "Hello" from an unknown number. I wait for the person to say "Hello?" or if the person starts talking I just hang up.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#105

Post by will_pseudonym » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:46 PM UTC

fokov wrote: post #22

OliverJones wrote: post #20

Huh. The landline telephone business has, for a long time now, been compromised by spammers and bots (telemarketing calls and robocalls). I canceled my land line about four years ago after going for three months without receiving a single call I wanted. It seems the commercial social networks are headed for the same fate. And, they're headed for hardnosed and unpleasant regulation by governments. They probably need t…

Does anyone know if any of the social media sites have release info on their relative bot counts? I'm curious because I've seen the same posts in different places and now see a ton of comments boiling down to "Source?" again. The later used to be everywhere 8-9 years ago, but were typically people that actually wanted a source to read not just spam the question. Now it seems they are spamming it to distract from the…

No, because they report on growth of active users, which include bots. Their stock price would be reduced if they disclosed bot account numbers.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#106

Post by pfarnsworth » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

Is this really a surprise?

I don't even use Twitter, and I have 4 different Twitter accounts. The amount of fake accounts must be staggering, but there's no way Twitter will cull them otherwise their MAU numbers will tank, and along with it, their ad rates, etc.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#107

Post by pfarnsworth » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:48 PM UTC

wmorein wrote: post #62

danso wrote: post #2

This seems like a pretty straightforward thing to identify. I remember when the NYT's story, "The Agency", was published [0], some of the fake accounts it had mentioned were still up. Even though the accounts in that story were actually populated by real people, the sockpuppetry was pretty easy to identify. One: the accounts' past tweets right up until they started spreading the news about the fake U.S. disaster were…

I've seen a lot of cases of people's accounts being cloned and then being used to re-friend their friends. I've always wondered a bit about what they are going to be used for and I suspect this is one of the potential options.

They will contact the friends list and ask for money because they got into an accident, foreign country, etc. This happened to my wife and her friends, but luckily no one fell for it.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#108

Post by andai » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:49 PM UTC

iamatworknow wrote: post #80

sergiotapia wrote: post #60

Twitter has become unbearable to use for news. Every single submission from news stations to President Trump is filled with combo-replies from people. 1 dude will bombard the tweet, then a chick, then a different guy. Example: http://i.imgur.com/zbyM7YG.png You need to scroll down at least 5 load-more's to see regular people tweets. It's a really terrible user experience that Twitter needs to solve.

>You need to scroll down at least 5 load-more's to see regular people tweets. I personally don't find much added value in those tweets, "regular people" or not. They're basically YouTube comment level at this point.

And it was at this moment andai that realised, that YouTube comments are written by regular people.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#109

Post by dgfgfdagasdfgfa » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:52 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #29

dgfgfdagasdfgfa wrote: post #8

Bot accounts, not fake accounts. I don't even know what the latter means—plenty of people don't associate twitter with their real name. And why would you! Secondly, of course there are this many. There are probably many more. I run several bots myself; there's nothing wrong with this. Twitter's TOS is only as good as its enforcement, and if there's anything twitter is terrible at, it's having any control over its com…

"Fake" implies deception: it's fake because it counterfeits or forges something else that is real. An anonymous or pseudonymous Twitter account run by a human, in the way that a human is expected to use a Twitter account, is not a fake account: it's real, just pseudonymous. A bot account that's clearly a bot, like @big_ben_clock or @choochoobot, isn't a fake account either: it doesn't pretend to be anything other tha…

Deception is a great feature. Why is that bad? I don't want Twitter to know my name. Don't exclude me for valuing my own privacy! I'm certainly not "fake", and neither are my interactions.

Re: Massive networks of fake accounts found on Twitter

#110

Post by ronnier » Fri, Jan 27, 2017, 9:53 PM UTC

OliverJones wrote: post #20

Huh. The landline telephone business has, for a long time now, been compromised by spammers and bots (telemarketing calls and robocalls). I canceled my land line about four years ago after going for three months without receiving a single call I wanted. It seems the commercial social networks are headed for the same fate. And, they're headed for hardnosed and unpleasant regulation by governments. They probably need t…

I receive a few calls a day from recruiters and spammers on my mobile phone. The spammers are usually around car warranties and home security systems. Long ago I've stopped answering calls from numbers that I don't know, but they still leave a voice mail. I recently picked up one of the calls and it was someone wanting information on my account because "someone opened a credit card in your name and we want to verify if it was you". I just hung up.