The Underground Economy of Social Networks 84
An anonymous reader writes "In a new study, Barracuda Labs analyzed a random sampling of more than 70,000 fake Twitter accounts that are being used to sell fake Twitter followers. They also analyzed some of the people that are using such fake followers including the recent example of U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Twitter account. Between Facebook's 10-Q filing stating that 83 million of its accounts are fake, to Mitt Romney's Twitter account recently falling under scrutiny for suspicious followings, fake social network profiles are a hot topic at the moment. And these fake profiles are at the center of a very vibrant and growing underground economy. This underground economy consists of dealers who create and sell the use of thousands of fake social accounts, and abusers who buy follows or likes from these fake accounts to boost their perceived popularity, sell advertising based on their now large social audience or conduct other malicious activity."
I wonder .. (Score:3, Interesting)
How many fake accounts will it take to prop up Farcebook after they've forced Timelines on people and they begin the mass exodus to Google+
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We can only hope that both of you are correct, and that the 'social' space remains a howling wasteland trodden by only marketers, wolverines, spammers, and zynga employees...
Re:I wonder .. (Score:5, Funny)
Please, please, we prefer the term "heuristically assisted accountholders" and would like to assure all Facebook shareholders who aren't currently insider trading that they are based on the highest quality statistical inferences from our actual userbase for the greatest plausibility to the clickfraud bots that drive our advertising arm.
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brilliant
Re:I wonder .. (Score:5, Insightful)
That statement assumes that the average user^H^H^H^H^product of Facebook cares about privacy.
Shills aren't new (Score:5, Insightful)
Bulk shills are. Welcome to the future, where the difference between a valid viewpoint and an astroturfed attempt to hornswaggle you out of your own money and political power has shrunk to the imperceptible.
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hornswaggle
You learn something new every day.
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I believe this is from Roald Dahl, the book "Little Billy". Another great one is "hoodwinklers".
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Re:Political power (Score:4, Interesting)
If you aren't the one holding the gun, then you have no political power.
Pithy; but mostly false. In basically any polity as large/complex or larger than 'barbarian warband' actually holding the gun is a rather entry level task, typically handled by the actual leader's lackies. At the 'barbarian warband' level the strongman might occasionally have to do it himself; but even there it will be his charisma and burly friends and/or non-traitorous-family who keep somebody from just stabbing him in the eye while he sleeps...
If anything, "political" institutions are really an exercise in nothing so much as the mitigation of direct gun handling, through a combination of institutional compliance(ie. they don't say force of law for nothing; but the overwhelming majority of compliance requires zero cops to achieve) and relatively small(and, if one is both competent and lucky, tame) violence specialists to deal with any exceptions to the former.
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"Leadership is mostly a power over imagination, and never more so than in combat. The bravest man alone can only be an armed lunatic. The real strength lies in the ability to get others to do your work."
Lois McMasters Bujold, _Shards of Honor_ (Captain Aral Vorkosigan)
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If you aren't the one that can pull the trigger...
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No, if you aren't the one with the money. Because if you have money, you can hire more guns, and bigger guns.
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And when the more and bigger guns decide they like your money more than you, what then?
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Not so, in those close political races separated by only a few votes. Each voter in those elections wielded enormous power to allocate budgets, pass laws to fix our problems, or steal our liberties, or give money to local contractors, or raise taxes, or vote in additional tax breaks. The best that someone holding a gun has done lately is kill a few dozen people watching Batman and worshiping in a Temple. I think the gun/power thing is really overshadowed by the power of the vote. It does make some people t
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"Each voter in those elections wielded enormous power [...] The best that someone holding a gun has done lately is kill a few dozen people"
Therefore, killing a few dozen of those enormously powered voters *is* a lot of power, isn't it?
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Point well taken, of course you have to fear that doing that angers voters who vote anti-gun laws and they come and take away your guns with the military and tanks to back them up. So it may not be wise to piss of the electorate. You see what they did with prohibition of alcohol and now with tobacco. You miss-behave and your next on the legislation list.
As we can see in the story submission (Score:2, Insightful)
Welcome to the future, where the difference between a valid viewpoint and an astroturfed attempt to hornswaggle you out of your own money and political power has shrunk to the imperceptible.
Indeed, the very story submission itself was crafted by the Democratic party... it would have been pretty easy to write up a less obviously partisan story summary but they couldn't be bothered to even try and hide.
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How come I never see you posting things that aren't crazy conspiracy theories?
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...where the difference between a valid viewpoint and an astroturfed attempt to hornswaggle you out of your own money and political power has shrunk to the imperceptible.
Fortunately, most attempts at astroturfing are hopelessly incompetant. I saw one recently here who was almost certainly turfing for Microsoft and he was called out time and time again.
We live in an age where in marketing circles subtlety and tact are deemed to be completely redundant. No-one takes the effort (or rather, pays the going rate) to actually create plausible, human and difficult to detect astroturfing efforts.
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Bulk shills are. Welcome to the future, where the difference between a valid viewpoint and an astroturfed attempt to hornswaggle you out of your own money and political power has shrunk to the imperceptible.
That's why Mitt has to use them. Not very many of the people who *actually* agree with him are competent enough to use the "new fangled internets" and yet her feels he must seem as if they are.
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Wait until androids become affordable and astroturfing comes to meatspace...
well that settles it (Score:5, Funny)
Whereas I previously liked all of Mitt Romney's policies and was going to vote for me, this shocking revelation that his Twitter follower count might be manipulated is just too much for me to swallow, so he loses my vote!
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Hah, I suppose I should preview better before posting. I was going to vote for him of course. But maybe I should indeed write-in "me" instead. My Twitter-follower count is genuine.
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No, no, don't worry, Mittens, your secret's safe with us, we won't tell everyone about your shill accounts on Slashdot. Continue voting for yourself.
Re:well that settles it (Score:4, Funny)
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So who are you going to vote for, then?
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Whereas I previously liked all of Mitt Romney's policies and was going to vote for me, this shocking revelation that his Twitter follower count might be manipulated is just too much for me to swallow, so he loses my vote!
So you're either gonna NOT vote or vote for the current shitbag in the Whitehouse.... really smart there, Sparky....
Your 'whoosh', sir. *hands over a card with 'WHOOOOSH!' written on it*
I would have phrased it differently. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have phrased this differently:
This underground economy consists of dealers who create and sell the use of thousands of fake social accounts, and abusers who buy follows or likes from these fake accounts to boost their perceived popularity, sell advertising based on their now large social audience or conduct other malicious activity."
We could probably go with something like this:
This underground economy consists of dealers who create and sell the use of thousands of fake social accounts, and suckers who buy follows or likes from these fake accounts to boost their perceived popularity while under the misguided impression that these numbers convince people to purchase their product
One "like" from a "friend" is worth a hundred thousand likes from random strangers (even if they're real people). And one detailed comment about a product from an actual trusted friend is worth more than a hundred thousand likes from friends.
Re:I would have phrased it differently. (Score:5, Interesting)
That was supposed to be the whole point of Facebook. It's easy to "like" anything, but having a relationship graph gives you the context necessary to decide who the hell is "liking" something in the first place, and what that means. It all starts to break down when people friend anyone will-nilly, or sell their friendship to bots.
The problem is that friendship on Facebook (or Google Plus, for that matter) is an exhaustible resource. They'd probably kill fake accounts dead if they rationed the number of friends you're allowed to make, and only allowed people to create new accounts on the basis of several invitations and community rating -- essentially a proper web of trust.
Of course the whole business model for these sorts of sites is to bilk advertisers with clickfraud, and bots with phony accounts are a great way of doing that, so the goal isn't to eliminate phony accounts or friend relations, but to find the perfect balance of just enough humans to make the ads profitable, and advertisers feel like they're actually hitting an eyeball every now and then.
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All they really need to do is convince people that the ads are profitable. They probably aren't, even if every hit actually was a real eyeball, but the whole purpose of the marketing department is to make the client believe that the money they are spending actually results in more sales.
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One "like" from a "friend" is worth a hundred thousand likes from random strangers (even if they're real people). And one detailed comment about a product from an actual trusted friend is worth more than a hundred thousand likes from friends.
That must be why they pay me so well for killing peoples' friends and replacing them with eerily lifelike spamdroids... I always wondered.
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One "like" from a "friend" is worth a hundred thousand likes from random strangers (even if they're real people). And one detailed comment about a product from an actual trusted friend is worth more than a hundred thousand likes from friends.
What? People actually pay attention to "Likes" and "+1s" and such? Then again, somebody (or some-bot) actually clicked a button so it has to be important, right?
Maybe we should think about it like this: "Facebook Likes, number of Twitter followers, Google +1s and similar can have a powerful effect on the weak minded" --Obi Wan Kenobi
Why use twitter (Score:4, Insightful)
fake Twitter accounts that are being used to sell fake Twitter followers
Why use twitter? It sounds more and more like that fight club speech WRT doing work at jobs we hate to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like. Is there anyone still using twitter who is not a bot, bot dealer, or PR shill?
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Politicians...
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Is there anyone still using twitter who is not a bot, bot dealer, or PR shill?
Politicians...
I don't know I would qualify those who work for politicians as PR shills so maybe they were covered.
What idiots. (Score:2)
"Chance to win a free (item of desire), just retweet this and follow!"
"Receive free in-game armor for liking our game!"
or the one I actually make a fake facebook account to do on my defensive driving course...
"Like this service on Facebook and get the audio tracks for free!"
You can buy followers for FRIENDS or ENEMIES (Score:1)
You can buy followers for FRIENDS or ENEMIES.
As such, someone may have bought you followers.
Imagine as a jr. high bullying move - buying 5000 twitter followers for the unpopular kid.
Then - announcing that unpopular kid has paid for followers.
Ha ha for everyone but the victim. (On the bright side, unpopular kid now has 5000 followers in addition to the kid's mom!)
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Isn't this just how advertising works? (Score:1)
The actual problem (Score:5, Insightful)
is advertising. It needs to be pretty much removed from modern life. Attracts the slimiest motherfuckers.
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Advertising, per se, is not the problem (as much as I hate ads). The problem is greed. The problem is evil.
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Advertising is a problem, because advertising is just en euphemism for lying.
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Yeah, but then we might actually have to pay for things ourselves. Biliking large corporations from their advertisign dollars to allow users access to a service without having to undertake a monetary transaction ("free") is really the only sort of taxation we can expect these days. There will always be cons, shills and marks. As long as you accept that, then you have a pretty good chance to avoid being one of the latter.
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Yep advertising can be good, a great way to fleece stupid companies into supporting things that we like for no good reason. It's the bread and butter of free online services and a lot of sports.
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It needs to be pretty much removed from modern life. Attracts the slimiest motherfuckers.
No, no, no! Advertising keeps all of them in single location! Much easier to target them!
the argument on anonymity is approached wrong (Score:4, Interesting)
there is a perception that anonymous accounts must be stamped out by google, facebook, twitter, etc. wrong approach
in truth, let anonymous accounts blossom by the ten, hundred, or thousandfold
instead, the option should be provided for people to choose one of their accounts to be certified as real, whatever that process may be (the process must be thought out, you can hack anything, but the process must be as foolproof as possible)
people who want real metrics, real voting, real value, real financials, etc., can therefore choose to refrain certian transactions to only certified accounts. then let the bilgewater anonymous drek do as it wants, not affecting those things which the internet holds great promise to do, but is currently held back to due anonymous douchebaggery
ps: of course there are valid uses for anonymity. i don't need to the hear the arguments for anonymity, i understand them. you need to understand i am making a place for anonymity in this scheme of certification, and you also need to understand that there is plenty the internet promises to do (such as voting and certain financial transactions) that anonymity ruins
so the emphasis then becomes on not negative proof: stamping out every anonymous account, which is impossible and a ridiculously huge undertaking. the emphasis becomes one of positive proof: self-chosen inclusiveness and opt-in. for those who choose not to be anonymous, certain new abilities on the internet become possible. for everyone else who chooses to remain anonymous, carry on, status quo unaffected
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
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Obama is also a Conservative, he just happens to be a member of the Democratic conservative party instead of the Republican neo-conservative party.
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Businesses who stupidly buy into those fake accounts will lose money and eventually collapse, then the fake account sellers have nobody to sell to, and they'll go away (or find some other scheme to make money off stupid people)
Except that doesn't happen. And I'd really be surprised if any business other than those already on shaky ground would go under because of buying fake accounts. If they did, then they'd have other, larger problems that led to their collapse, not buying fake accounts.
I highly doubt that IBM would go under from buying fake accounts any time soon.
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Is IBM buying fake accounts? I don't know, but if they are, and they aren't going under, then they probably aren't buying them stupidly.
1). I don't actually know if they are buying fake accounts or not; they were just an example of a company that is plenty big enough to buy accounts stupidly and not really feel any penalty for it.
2). Just because a company isn't going under doesn't mean that buying the fake accounts isn't stupid. Likewise, just because a company is going under doesn't mean that buying the fake accounts is stupid.
OT? Pls explain teen "share or like" posts on FB (Score:2)
For those of your lucky enough to have friended family teens on FB, or maybe you are one, but if you haven't noticed there are a ton of entities out there making teen-oriented versus-oriented info graphics that encourage "like" or "share" (i.e. iphone: like, blakberry: share). I figure this has to be a not-so-elaborate way of getting info on users preferences. But the teenage demographic seems targeted. And all this has to be a reason. There's also the get "2000 friends posts" just by liking this.
I want to
We reported this last year; Barracuda missed much. (Score:5, Informative)
Our paper from November 2011, "Social is bad for search, and search is bad for social" [sitetruth.com], covered this last year.
Barracuda Networks doesn't even seem to have published a paper. (The article linked in the Slashdot article is a scraper site for press releases.) The Barracuda press release [barracudanetworks.com] points to an "infographic" [barracudalabs.com] and a blog posting [barracudalabs.com] which, as their only outside source, links to a black hat site. [fiverr.com]
Barracuda doesn't seem to have discovered the extent of the social spamming ecosystem. We identified at least 6 levels:
This structure insulates the legitimate businesses who use ad agencies from the criminal activity at the bottom. Except for the botnet operators, everybody in that ecosystem has some kind of web presence, although towards the bottom, they usually have only Skype and Gmail accounts as contacts. I'm not going to link to them here, but our paper gives actual names.
Link to full research blog post (Score:1)
Tons of fake followers, well, duh. (Score:2)
There are 2 kinds of fake FB accounts (Score:1)
There are two kinds of fake Facebook accounts.
The first kind are ones that are just spambots.
The second kind are ones where the people using them, due to the pervy privacy-hating nature of Facebook, don't give personal information like their cell phone number or other data and refuse to let themselves be facially identified.
Please be precise.
There are also ones for children (like my sisters have for their kids, but only the mom knows the password and uploads pics and approves all postings), pets (similar, i
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Yeah, I definitely think it's time for Slashdot to get back to its roots - "News for nerds, stuff that matters, unless it's embarrassing to the Republicans".
That said, the revelation in this Slashdot article is hardly news [theatlantic.com] or previously unheard of, as usual. Nor should the number of Twitter followers or Likes matter, but quite obviously there are many who believe they do.
Just to quote the above news article as a teaser, "We subjected Barack Obama's account, @BarackObama, to the same analysis."
But how much do 5 slashdot recs cost? (Score:2)