Nearly 90,000 Sex Bots Invaded Twitter in 'One of the Largest Malicious Campaigns Ever Recorded on a Social Network' (gizmodo.com) 53
An anonymous reader shares a report: Last week, Twitter's security team purged nearly 90,000 fake accounts after outside researchers discovered a massive botnet peddling links to fake "dating" and "romance" services. The accounts had already generated more than 8.5 million posts aimed at driving users to a variety of subscription-based scam websites with promises of -- you guessed it -- hot internet sex. The accounts were first identified by ZeroFOX, a Baltimore-based security firm that specializes in social-media threat detection. The researchers dubbed the botnet "SIREN" after sea-nymphs described in Greek mythology as half-bird half-woman creatures whose sweet songs often lured horny, drunken sailors to their rocky deaths. ZeroFOX's research into SIREN offers a rare glimpse into how efficient scammers have become at bypassing Twitter's anti-spam techniques. Further, it demonstrates how effective these types of botnets can be: The since-deleted accounts collectively generated upwards of 30 million clicks -- easily trackable since the links all used Google's URL shortening service.
IT'S OVER 90000! (Score:5, Funny)
What's with this "nearly" stuff. That's not how to write a sensationalist headline. Though I give you props for using "sexbot".
Re: IT'S ME IM THE SEXBOT IN OP (Score:1)
Suck my DAMN balls
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lick me
Those aren't Sirens. Those would be called Harpies (Score:3)
Even if they can't get their ancient mythology right, they at least got the attack detected.
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What did they get wrong? It seems like they got the right mythological creature.
They were right, it's sirens. They lived on an island and lured sailors to try to land by their enchanted singing; the ships were then shipwrecked on the rocks. The sailors did not need to be drunk though, or horny - in the ancient stories it was the song, not the sex. There were various descriptions of them, but generally half woman and half bird, and there are various stories that feature them, the most famous being Homer's Odyssey.
Re: Those aren't Sirens. Those would be called Har (Score:1)
Golly, Miss Molly... (Score:3)
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We think it's an artificial stupidity program that got loose.
That would be the founding of Twitter (see "Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal" [amzn.to] by Nick Bilton)
"Online Dating" is full of sex workers (Score:1)
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Maybe you're just not very attractive? Because.. yeah, that sounds more like sour grapes than the reality most people face.
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the 4chan is strong in this one; hah.
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Well, look at OP's post -- what state of mind do you think he's in? If you were a reasonable, well adjusted woman, would you be attracted to that? (disregarding looks) Just reading it conjures up a fedora clad jackass with entitlement issues.
It basically reads as:
"I can't land a woman, but it's utterly impossible that it has anything to do with me."
To your point though: a "worthy" woman? Sheesh, are you absolutely certain you yourself have anything of value to offer?
But regardless, Okcupid and match.com ar
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go away casey, you're drunk.
Re: "Online Dating" is full of sex workers (Score:1)
"Hot Internet Sex" (Score:2)
If the promise was humans who would do anything for arbitrary internet user for free, that is another issue.
Guns (Score:2)
Did they have machine gun jubblies? [youtube.com]
I responded to one on these... (Score:4, Funny)
...a Nigerian prince showed up at my door. Was disappointed, but since I already paid...
Automation (Score:4, Interesting)
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have we found a way to get a robot to be POTUS ? That should save on a lot of travel expenses. Just elect new software every 4 years and term limit microsoft and apple.
Assuming we survive MS and Apple, we'll quickly run out of options. Google? Amazon? RIM? Oracle? IBM?
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Oh come on, how could the President possibly be replaced by a malicious piece of software that does nothing more than post highly provocative, cynically manipulative content on Twitter, with the aim of enriching its creators regardless of the consequences?
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have we found a way to get a robot to be POTUS?
Yes, I think we have. [twitter.com]
A good thing (Score:2)
Easily trackablelink- (Score:1)
Re: Easily trackable link (Score:3)
I'm fine, thanks for asking.
It's About Damn Time (Score:2)
Oh thank goodness. I was starting to wonder if Twitter even cared about the problem. I've had bots liking & retweeting my old tweets for months now.
Their actions and profiles were always the same: a bunch of random retweets, and then a saucy profile picture and a pinned tweet talking about sex and inviting you to their dating website. There's no way this wasn't detectable.