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Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
@conspirator0
Jul 10, 2021 • 9 tweets • 6 min read • Read on X
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It's #Caturday, so here's a freshly-made botnet tweeting cat videos because of course that's a thing.

cc: @ZellaQuixote Image
This botnet consists of 36 accounts created in July 2021. All 36 accounts have links to blogspot blogs on their profiles and GAN-generated profile pics. (GAN = "generative adversarial network", the AI technique used by thispersondoesnotexist.com to generate fake faces.) ImageImage
The current generation of GAN-generated face pics (at least unmodified ones) always have the primary facial features (especially the eyes) in the same position on every image. This anomaly becomes visually obvious when the images are blended together.
These accounts have thus far posted two types of tweets:

• Tweets linking YouTube videos, sent via social media automation service @IFTTT
• Generic greetings, sent via the Twitter Web App ImageImageImage
The YouTube videos shared by the bots were posted by YouTube accounts whose names match the names of the Twitter accounts, and which use the same GAN-generated face pics. Some (and possibly) all) of the video content is plagiarized. ImageImageImageImage
In addition to the matching YouTube accounts, each Twitter account also has a corresponding Blogspot blog (linked from each account's profile). Each blog has a post claiming to be a "virtual assistant" as well as a link to the same YouTube video as the related Twitter account. ImageImageImageImage
More threads on GAN-generated images and their use on social media linked in this thread:
Update: this botnet has grown in size from 36 accounts to 66 in the time since this thread was initially posted. It has also gained a new behavior: 14 of the accounts have tweeted links to articles on morningbrew(dot)com. ImageImage
This network continues to grow and now consists of 87 accounts with GAN-generated profile pics. Content continues to be a mix of YouTube videos (posted by YouTube accounts with GAN avatars matching the Twitter accounts) and links to morningbrew(dot)com. ImageImage

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More from @conspirator0

Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Oct 18
None of these chefs exist, as they're all AI-generated images. This hasn't stopped them from racking up lots of engagement on Facebook by posting AI-generated images of food (and occasional thoughts and prayers), however.

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of 11 AI-generated images of chefs, presently being used as the avatars of Facebook accounts
These "chefs" are part of a network of 18 Facebook pages with names like "Cook Fastly" and "Emily Recipes" that continually post AI-generated images of food. While many of these pages claim to be US-based, they are have admins in Morocco per Facebook's Page Transparency feature. collage of the profiles of 18 Facebook "chef" pages that post AI-generated images of food
screenshots of Facebook page transparency info showing that the pages are run from Morocco
Between them, these 18 Facebook "chef" pages have posted AI-generated images of food at least 36,000 times in the last five months. Not all of the images are unique; many have been posted repeatedly, sometimes by more than one of the alleged chefs. examples of AI-generated food images posted by the Facebook spam pages
examples of AI-generated food images posted by more than one Facebook spam page
Read 7 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Sep 8
Can simple text generation bots keep sophisticated LLM chatbots like ChatGPT engaged indefinitely? The answer is yes, which has some potentially interesting implications for distinguishing between conversational chatbots and humans.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
conspirator0.substack.com/p/baiting-the-…
screenshot of Substack post
For this experiment, four simple chatbots were created:

• a bot that asks the same question over and over
• a bot that replies with random fragments of a work of fiction
• a bot that asks randomly generated questions
• a bot that repeatedly asks "what do you mean by <X>?"
The output of these chatbots was used as input to an LLM chatbot based on the 8B version of the Llama 3.1 model. Three of the four bots were successful at engaging the LLM chatbot in a 1000-message exchange; the only one that failed was the repetitive question bot.


screenshots of portions of the conversation between the repetitive cheeseburger bot and the LLM bot
screenshots of portions of the conversation between the Star Trek bot and the LLM bot
screenshots of portions of the conversation between the random question bot and the LLM bot
screenshots of portions of the conversation between the "what do you mean" bot and the LLM bot
Read 5 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Sep 3
The spammers behind the "Barndominium Gallery" Facebook page have branched out into AI-generated video and started a YouTube channel with the catchy name "AY CUSTOM HOME". The results are just about as craptastic as you'd expect.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
screenshot of the AY CUSTOM HOME Youtube channel
In this synthetically generated aerial video of a (nonexistent) barndominium under construction, the geometry of the roof changes, a blue building appears, and a tree vanishes, all in the course of just three seconds. still images from two different points in an AY CUSTOM HOME YouTube video, showing multiple impossible changes over the course of a few seconds
This AI-generated barndominium features a long AI-generated porch with some chairs on it. Exactly how many chairs there are depends on what angle you look at it from, however, as the chair on the left splits into three chairs as the camera pans. still images from two different points in an AY CUSTOM HOME YouTube video, showing multiple impossible changes over the course of a few seconds
Read 4 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Aug 28
Some observations regarding @Botted_Likes (permanent ID 1459592225952649221)...

First, "viral posts which don't result in follower growth and have very little engagement in the reply section" is not a useful heuristic for detecting botted likes. Why not?

cc: @ZellaQuixote screenshot of @Botted_Likes's profile with the text "THIS IS NOT AN EFFECTIVE METHOD OF DETECTING POSTS WITH BOTTED LIKES" overlaid in Comic Sans
"Viral posts that do not result in follower growth" is not a valid test for botting, because posts from large accounts often go viral among the large account's existing followers but do not reach other audiences, resulting in high like/repost counts but little/no follower growth.
"Very little engagement in the reply section" doesn't work for multiple reasons (some topics spur debate and some don't, some people restrict replies, etc)

Hilariously, @Botted_Likes seems to be ignoring their own criteria, as many of the posts they feature have tons of replies. screenshots of six @Botted_Likes posts featuring screenshots of posts that allegedly have botted likes
Read 5 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Aug 20
A new account named @kamala_wins47 has racked up 56K followers in just three weeks, and is now claiming to be affiliated with the DNC.

In reality, this account appears to be nothing more than the latest version of a banned T-shirt spam account, @emywinst.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
screenshots of @kamala_wins47's profile and an August 19th post claiming affiliation with the DNC
As with the banned @emywinst account, the @kamala_wins47 account farms engagement by reposting other people's videos, accompanied by bogus claims that the videos have been deleted from Twitter. These video posts frequently garner massive view counts.

screenshots of video posts from @kamala_wins47 falsely claiming that the videos therein have been deleted from Twitter
@Emywinst @kamala_wins47 The operator of the @kamala_wins47 account generally follows up these viral video posts with one or more replies advertising T-shirts sold on bestusatee(dot)com. This strategy is identical to that used by the banned @emywinst account.

screenshots of @kamala_wins47 replies advertising t-shirts and linking to bestusatee.com
Read 11 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
Aug 5
What's up with all these similarly-worded enthusiastic posts about a Pierre Poilievre rally in Kirkland Lake, and are they all from accounts that are less than a month old? (Spoiler: yes, they are.) #Spamtastic

cc: @ZellaQuixote collage of 15 similarly-worded posts about the Pierre Poilievre rally in Kirkland Lake
An X search for "Pierre Poilievre", "Kirkland Lake", and "refreshing" performed on August 4th, 2024 turned up 151 posts from 151 accounts. All are new accounts, with the oldest having been created less than a month ago, on July 7th, 2024. (Some have since been suspended by X.)
histogram of account creation dates for the 151 spam accounts
collage of the profile images of the 151 accounts
The most intense period of activity for this group of accounts was on August 3rd, 2024, when the repetitive posts about the Poilievre rally were posted. Each account also has at least one earlier post on a random topic; some of these older posts seem to cut off abruptly.
hourly post volume for the 151 spam accounts
collage of early posts from the spam accounts
Read 6 tweets

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