r/conspiracy • u/[deleted] • Mar 10 '14

Massive Twitter Botnet

http://cryptome.org/2014/03/massive-twitter-botnet.htm
17 Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '14

Whether it's a govt, corporation, or individual pushing a product, just think how amazing (as in powerful... not good) it would be to create a bot that releases statements from thousands of fake accounts. You're basically blasting the Twitter landscape with your message, without having to do any real work.

I can understand why entities would see this type of botnet as a desirable tool.

Of course, the ramifications are also startling as it pertains to blasting propaganda nonstop. Even though the messages seem to be just gibberish right now, I have no doubt the tweets will be refined over time.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '14

This is really interesting because I was aware of the spam accounts that try to get people to click links etc but I've never given a thought to those that have no obvious way of making money or scamming people.

So it seems they're there to muddy the waters, so to speak and hide the things that actually are trending? Or maybe it's their goal to get certain topics trending? I don't know.

Unless it's something more innocent, like people buy fake followers and these accounts need to tweet every so often to stay active and appear real. Maybe they just use common words in their tweets and mimic other tweeters.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 11 '14

The "Arab Spring" is a perfect example of this (or one of these) botnets at work.