this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
179 points (97.9% liked)

interestingasfuck

1827 readers
1 users here now

Please go to !interestingshare@lemmy.zip

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 17 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] tiramichu@lemm.ee 67 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It's a nightmare that we live in a world where this bullshit even exists.

[–] perviouslyiner@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Or that sci-fi predicted it (For The Win)

[–] psychonova@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 11 months ago

i actually just finished another re-read of For The Win, and yeah, that's gotta be more relevant now than ever before ._.

[–] cmhe@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Just another artifact of the fact that advertiser financed businesses is not robust. And the end of them is likely coming nearer.

[–] Chozo@fedia.io 66 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

They appear to be scrolling through a single social media feed. This operation is likely what those social media "boosting" services are doing, where they'll bring a ton of new traffic to your profile to try to goad the algorithm into sending real users your way.

[–] kionite231@lemmy.ca 25 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Is there a way to interact with GUI elements of Android using external device like a pc Or something?

[–] brian@lemmy.ca 37 points 11 months ago

There are a ton of things you can do with a keyboard natively on Android. I would imagine these use that plus a bit of software to emulate "real" movements, like the flicking down to scroll

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 11 months ago

Sure with like teamviewer or similar app. I'd guess they're running the bot on a computer which is remote controlling those phones

[–] Aux@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

Yes, you can control the phone programmatically if you unlock it and put it into dev mode.

[–] Vince@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

If it's just a browser you can connect to chrome devtools via web socket and send commands

[–] Zier@fedia.io 20 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So all my followers/adoring fans are just 1 guy with a laptop? [crushed]

[–] DemBoSain@midwest.social 6 points 11 months ago

All of my Twitter followers are thot-bots. I don't even get the good ones that have pictures of cats in their bio. Just poorly photoshopped Kim Kardashian body swaps.

[–] CptEnder@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago

https://minsoftware.vn/

Looks like these guys, seeding bot farm. Actually has some good writeups of their methodology.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 13 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Surprised they use real phones for this, I would think VMs and VPNs would be the most scalable.

[–] cmhe@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Since their usage is probably forbidden my the TOS of the platforms they use, and the platforms will try to detect this kind of usage and ban users, I would assume that the closer they appear like natural usage, the more effective they are.

Running these apps on a emulator and using VPNs etc. will probably be a red flag.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What are they automatically making the phones do though?

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 11 months ago

Scrolling though a feed trying to convince the algorithm to promote said feed to others.