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Twitter Social Networks The Internet

Twitter Warns of Suspicious Traffic Coming From China and Russia (reuters.com) 72

Posted by msmash from the stranger-things dept.
Suspicious traffic to a Twitter user forum appears to be part of a government-backed activity coming from China and Russia, a Twitter spokesman told Reuters Monday. The company said it is yet to determine the reason for the activity, but is choosing to notify users out of an abundance of caution.

Additionally: Twitter bug leaks phone number country codes.
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Twitter Warns of Suspicious Traffic Coming From China and Russia More

Twitter Warns of Suspicious Traffic Coming From China and Russia

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  • But they're not so cautious (Score:3)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @03:54PM (#57819280)
    that they won't pocket the ad revenue from the extra traffic.

    • that they won't pocket the ad revenue from the extra traffic.

      What should they do with that revenue? Remember, there is no way to connect ad revenue to any specific tweets.

      Should they a) try to come up with an arbitrary number and refund that percentage of their revenue to advertisers? or b) donate that arbitrary amount of revenue to charity? or c) endeavor to block that suspicious traffic even though it might cost you future revenue?

      • Youtube tracks theirs though right? Couldn't twitter do the same?

        • Youtube tracks theirs though right? Couldn't twitter do the same?

          No. On YouTube, ads are run on specific videos and channels, so you can see which videos are driving the ad revenue.

          On Twitter, ads are run on your timeline, and are not attached to any specific tweet. If you follow a bunch of accounts of guitar players, you might get ads from Guitar Center (or if your bio says you play guitar, etc). It's a completely different model from YouTube.

  • Ever notice they never bothered with Google+ (Score:5, Funny)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @03:57PM (#57819300)
    Maybe we should all switch.

  • correction in linked reuters story (Score:5, Informative)

    by sittingnut ( 88521 ) <sittingnut.gmail@com> on Monday December 17, 2018 @03:59PM (#57819318) Homepage

    "(This story corrects to show Twitter saying suspicious traffic appears to be coming from China and Saudi Arabia, not China and Russia) "

    seems reuters (and /.) has too much russia on its mind and sees russia everywhere.

    • You're not paranoid if they're really out to get you. :)

  • The key objective in a war, is to get what you want by any means possible. Wither that is land, material, workers, or just follow your ideas or not being a threat to your security.

    Today, why bother with all the killing, when you can obtain your objectives via hacking the media. I

  • Caffeinated bacon/crimson tsunami, very likely comes from china. But there are others here whose job is to come here and lie. Until sites vet ppl ( just have to get them as being who they claim; do not have to tell others it ), this will continue.

  • Not Russia (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AHuxley ( 892839 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @04:18PM (#57819452) Journal
    Seems they have found another nation and China in an update. Strange how its always Russia until its not, but its still Russia :)

    • "Pyotr, they've found you out! Your twitter spammers have been spotted! Duraki!"

      "I'll tell them to switch to the Saudi Arabian fronts. That'll work for a while."

  • There has _always_ been adversarial traffic from foreign countries, including from foreign government-sponsored entities. There will _always_ be such traffic. All these reports are is CYA: if, god forbid, someone in Russia were to spend $6k promoting Black Lives Matter they can say âoesee, we told you it was happeningâ. This is not new, this happens all the time, and is done by all countries. Furthermore, thereâ(TM)s no way to reliably tell if adversary is a government or not, and any asserti

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • I can hear the rest of you "But but, you break the internet"

        But why would anybody say that if you're only protecting your private LAN? I mean, you're not asking the ISPs to white-list specific IP ranges, are you? That would break the internet, and the ISPs don't need any more help in that department.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah someone really needs to tell these elite, highly funded, government Chinese and Russian hackers that there are ways of making their traffic look like it's coming from somewhere else. The least technical solution would be to set up your cell in the actual country you want your traffic to look like it's coming from.
      But we don't have to tell them because THEY AND EVERYBODY ELSE ALREADY KNOW THIS, SO ALL THIS BULLSHIT NEWS ABOUT MALICIOUS NETWORK TRAFFIC COMING FROM CERTAIN COUNTRIES IS ABSOLUTE PROPAGANDA

  • Contradicting opinions are suspicious (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    that's what I'm reading. The U.S. wants to lie, lie, and lie some more, and if someone corrects or contradicts the lies, then it's suspicous propaganda.

  • Next time, when we tell you there are hundreds of thousands of fake twitter bots, and turn them in to you, believe us.

    Note it's probably a lot worse than that.

  • Twitter is full of twats.
    For a happy life, avoid Twitter. :)

    (At least, don’t read the comments to the people you follow. )

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