Twitter spammers, besides being evil douche-bags who like to shit on a good time… blah blah blah etc etc are surprisingly smart. I think that’s why it’s going to be tough to eradicate them unless Twitter takes some drastic action. Here’s why…
Setting up a Twitter account and posting a link to a landing page of some sort is free and can be fairly automated or at least done very cheaply in mass quantities. Same thing can be said for setting up spam accounts on blogs which has been in practice since the old times and doesn’t seem to be slowing up any. So we have our starting point. A free page with a link to another landing page to sell someone something or monetize a click. Spammer 101. With a spam blog you have to do all kinds of work to get that page seen and into the search engines. It can be a real pain in the ass. Automated bot and posting packages make it easier to handle but you’re still in a post and wait mode. With Twitter though you have all the tools in one convenient package to get thousands of people to see your link and probably click it with very very very little work and without much wait at all. Here’s how…
First you create a large number of accounts and post your links. Maybe even spruce the pages up a little with profile pics and custom backgrounds so at first glance people will be fooled in to thinking it’s a real person’s page. And most of the spam accounts I’ve seen so far have been women’s names followed by a digit or few. At the same time you start to collect a large database of Twitter usernames by scraping the unauthenticated public rss feed. Let a bot simmer on that for a few days and you’re looking at building a pretty massive username database. Then you can use any number of techniques to follow thousands of people to all of your bogus accounts. Since most people are vain and want to know whenever someone follows them they get an email directing them to their new friend’s page. The page that contains the link. With very little effort you just spammed tens of thousands of people and probably had a very good hit rate on your landing page. And you’ve still got all those usernames just collecting away so you can spread them around. Each fake user never has the same pattern of follows as that of another fake user has making it very hard to automatically detect. The whole thing relies on people leaving on their email notifications and I’ve been duped a few times myself. Some people even have auto-followers that follow anyone that has followed them so what you can get is a fake user with actually people following them which makes their links even that much more appealing.
Twitter is going to have a hell of a lot of fun dealing with these people when the tools mature. I could spend a weekend writing a suite of tools that would bounce through open proxies creating users, posting fake content along with spam links to landing pages that pay me for either clicks or sales and probably do ok for a while before anyone ever noticed. Even looking at following patterns and balances between Following/Followers which usually is how you can tell at a glance if a user is bogus can be fudged by using some of the fake accounts to pad the numbers. It’s not hard to make an account look legit when you’re dealing with 140 character limit posts. And Twitter was nice enough to offer an open API which makes shenanigans all the easier.
The Twitter guys are pretty alright so I won’t, but someone will. It looks like they may already have if the uptick in recent spam is any marker. It’s too easy a target and the payoff is too great to let it pass.
Filed under Blackhat?. |
11 Steps to Fight the ‘God Complex’
This is a great article that I ran across this morning. It’s 11 conditions and recovery steps relevant to people with a “God Complex” brought on by doing creative work or being a creative individual. Let’s be frank. It might be called a God Complex in the article but it could just as easily could have been called “11 reasons you’re such a selfish condescending asshole to everyone around you and that’s on the good days.” I’m guilty of it and I know it. When I have the wherewithal to take a very deep breath and look at myself from a different perspective it’s glaringly clear how unbelievably irrational you can get when you’re in the creative zone or protecting your creation from the myriad of outside influences. I think anyone who is creative has bouts of “Holier than thou-itis” and it’s part of the gig. Not letting it consume you to the point where you lose perspective is the really difficult part. Take it from someone with over a decade of first hand experience.
Filed under Life. |
Saw this over at Bonner’s and thought I’d give it a go. Only one word answers need apply.
Continue reading ‘One Word’
Filed under General BS. |
This week I leave San Francisco for a new chapter of my life. I’m moving south to Long Beach where I’m going to do some couch surfing, soul searching and generally renewing and re-vitalizing my spirit. Over the past month I’ve been asked by several people why I’m leaving this ‘perfect little city’. The reasons don’t really fit into a standard San Francisco elevator pitch so most people’s eyes glaze over and they generally end up walking away while I’m in mid-sentence. So here I’m going to try and explain some things about me that I’ve been struggling with and the radical changes I’m making in my life.
The first thing that’s really different is materialism and my personal war against it. I just packed everything I own and with the exception of my bed and couch it all fits into a standard walk in closet and even this amount of stuff makes me a bit ill. Ever since I can remember I’ve led a fairly spartan existence. It’s always been a side effect of my penchant for moving every year or so. Several years ago I was unemployed living in LA the day ‘Fight Club’ was released. I saw it in the theaters 3 times opening day. The movie struck a chord with me that resonated very deeply and can generally be summed up in 2 quotes. The things you own end up owning you. & This is your life and it’s ending one minute at a time. After years of struggling with my suburban upbringing and it’s penchant for consumerism I’ve finally come to grips with the duality I’ve been fighting all my life. Settle down, get a nice home and fill it with crap was always the line I was fed as is with most Americans.There’s security in having “stuff”. It’s a way to mark your progress through life and rank your success. He who dies with the most stuff wins was always jokingly referred to as our family motto. I’ve come to believe that in our sanitized culture the thought of actually dying has come to seem like such an improbable event that most people don’t think about their life coming to an end. Let’s just work ourselves half to death and spend the fruit of our labor at Ikea. Lather, rinse, repeat. As I see it freedom from crap is the first step towards a truly happier existence. Anything beyond the bare essentials is being purged.
Health is another reason things are changing. As an engineer I spend extremely long days sitting and typing. This has led me to be the most unhealthy and overweight I’ve ever been in my life. I haven’t been really in good shape since I got into this business about 14 years ago. I’ve watched what this life did to my Mother and it’s ruined her to the point that she can’t even travel and a lot of days can’t even get out of bed. That’s not going to be me. I’m going to get back down to fighting weight as quickly as possible and to do that I need a change of not just scenery but a total lifestyle overhaul. It’s so easy to fall back into the same habits when you don’t change everything. Getting in shape is hard work but it’s fun when you aren’t stressed about other things like getting to your desk on time.
Which brings me to business. Most of us in the web business know that typical business hours and office life doesn’t work well for us. We like to work odd hours and most aren’t down with sitting in a cube. Most people who do what I do tend to jump jobs a lot and have bouts as a contractor in between. I’m no different. This time around I’m trying something new. I’ve spent almost 2 years at a desk doing the grind and now I’ve left to do contracting work. The difference is I’m basically doing the exact same job I was doing. I work for the same company and do my same job. The difference is now I can do it from anywhere and whenever. I don’t spend time and energy commuting or sitting in meetings. I just do my job and get paid for it. It’s the most efficient set-up that I think is possible for an engineer. I work for 5 hours a day which leaves a massive amount of time to devote to life or other pursuits.
Recovery is my last point before I wrap this up. I have always been a workaholic and haven’t paid enough attention to a properly balancing my life. When I’m not working at an office I’m working at home on other businesses or just researching and learning. I almost never take time to just recover and absorb and re-learning how to do this properly is of the highest priority. Arranging my life, time, business finances and possessions to give me the most recovery time to soak in the world around me is what all this is about.
I’ve got a lot more to say on each of these topics and will expound on them as they become clearer to me as I walk each of the paths. But for now I’m ready to roll. Bags are packed and it’s a waiting game beore I pick up the truck on Friday and hit the road. Goddamn I can’t wait…
Filed under Life. |
