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Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

theintercept.com

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Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#71

Post by jackgolding »

bigiain wrote: post #52
lorenzhs wrote: post #38

I got fed up with Twitter's lack of enthusiasm in blocking these accounts so I whipped up a quick proof of concept a while ago. The amount of trivial-to-detect cryptocurrency scams in replies to popular accounts was so high that I put together a hacky PoC: https://gist.github.com/lorenzhs/864353c202112a38de17ed054f3... -- the scammers' messages have changed now, the messages no longer match that particular filter, bu…

I got fed up with Twitter's lack of enthusiasm in blocking all sorts of shitposts that I stopped using it. I've been significantly less angry ever since...

I wouldn't call it shitposting but snarky identity-politics (all left, right, up and down) driven replies/tweet storms (which generally have nothing to do with the original post) are why I only look at "what you've missed" every few days on Twitter.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#74

Post by aphextron »

This whole problem could be solved by opening account verification up to everyone. Twitter would be amazing if every profile were guaranteed to be a verified human being with government issued ID. Leave it open to those who want to stay anonymous, but give users the option to filter those people out.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#75

Post by zeth___ »

bigiain wrote: post #52
lorenzhs wrote: post #38

I got fed up with Twitter's lack of enthusiasm in blocking these accounts so I whipped up a quick proof of concept a while ago. The amount of trivial-to-detect cryptocurrency scams in replies to popular accounts was so high that I put together a hacky PoC: https://gist.github.com/lorenzhs/864353c202112a38de17ed054f3... -- the scammers' messages have changed now, the messages no longer match that particular filter, bu…

I got fed up with Twitter's lack of enthusiasm in blocking all sorts of shitposts that I stopped using it. I've been significantly less angry ever since...

Honest question: what's the point of twitter?

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#76

Post by retox »

aphextron wrote: post #74

This whole problem could be solved by opening account verification up to everyone. Twitter would be amazing if every profile were guaranteed to be a verified human being with government issued ID. Leave it open to those who want to stay anonymous, but give users the option to filter those people out.

I refuse to create accounts on site that require even a phone number, let alone government ID. It will eventually get lost and things like passports being faked can land you in prison or watchlists if someone like Israel decides to steal your identity while committing an extra-legal assassination.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#77

Post by chrisweekly »

thinkloop wrote: post #70

> finding these accounts is pretty easy, he used advanced google search and google reverse image search All Twitter has to do is develop the most intelligent software ever created and make sure it keeps inching towards generalized AI over time.

FWIW I read gp as "_use_ Google", not "_be_ Google".

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#78

Post by gerdesj »

kzrdude wrote: post #20

> (“jakten” means “hunt” in Norwegian) I don't mind the confusion, it's just a fact that we can use knowledge of Norwegian to understand Swedish. Fun fact, same word as yacht, which is borrowed from dutch jacht with the same meaning as Swedish and Norwegian jakt.

Is it just a coincidence that jakten means both hunt and yacht in Norge? (I think I unpicked that chain correctly)

Also, now I come to think about it, it is a bit embarrassing that we (en) pronounce yacht as "yot". I look forward to reading a future man page describing yacht as an archaic form of the correct usage. The man page for the ls command used to describe colour as an archaic term for the "modern" form - color!

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#79

Post by simplify »

zeth___ wrote: post #75
bigiain wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got fed up with Twitter's lack of enthusiasm in blocking all sorts of shitposts that I stopped using it. I've been significantly less angry ever since...

Honest question: what's the point of twitter?

It's like an RSS reader but for people & products. At least that's how I use it.

Re: Hackers Are So Fed Up with Twitter Bots They’re Hunting Them Down Themselves

#80

Post by lordCarbonFiber »

cornholio wrote: post #27
westurner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting that Mastodon has a better system for identifying harassment, spam, and spam accounts? Or that, given that they're mostly friendly early adopters, they haven't yet encountered the problem?

Regardless of the technical measures, I think we can all agree something called 'Mastodon' will be safe from spam bots in perpetuity simply by virtue of not having any non-geek users. "Hey Melissa, here's my Mastodon handle, hit me up." "Your... what?" "My Mastodon, it's a federated social network free from any corporate overlord!" "Whatever, freak..."

As opposed to the service that litterally has "twit" in the name? Or the nonsense that has been search engine naming conventions (Google, yahoo, bing, etc)? I think you overestimate the ability for society to accept a name.
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