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Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
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25 Jul, 4 tweets, 3 min read
The accounts in the original "requesting faucet funds" botnet have all been suspended, but a fresh batch has arisen to take their place, and they've evolved (slightly). #SaturdaySpam

cc: @ZellaQuixote Image
The current incarnation of the "faucet funds" network consists of 1436 accounts created between July 19th and July 22nd, 2021. All accounts have zero likes and zero followers, and have sent all their tweets thus far via the Twitter Web App (allegedly). ImageImageImage
As with the previous version of the network, all 1436 accounts in the new botnet have sent exactly one "Requesting faucet funds" tweet. Unlike the previous version of the botnet, these tweets are not accompanied by links to a website.
Image
707 of the 1436 accounts in the new botnet (49.2%) have also posted repetitive tweets in Chinese. These tweets also include the display names of the accounts posting them and sets of numbers. ImageImage

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More from @conspirator0

Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
19 Jul
Meet @El6YUlRJVNEFutr (permanent ID 1412134274762002436). Despite having been created just two weeks ago and having almost no content, it has somehow accumulated a large following consisting almost entirely of accounts that are at least seven years old.

cc: @ZellaQuixote
Weirdly, almost all of @El6YUlRJVNEFutr's followers are older accounts, created in 2013 or earlier. The near-total absence of accounts that are even remotely new is a sign that this follower growth is extremely unlikely to be organic.
These accounts are part of a bulk follow network that followed a variety of accounts en masse over the last few weeks. (The followers from the network are highlighted in orange on the follow order by date range plots.)
Read 9 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
18 Jul
Rather ironically given its stated interest in "healthy conversations online" and "thriving engaged communities", @OpenWebHQ got many of its early followers from a duo of fake follower botnets. We've seen one of these botnets before; here's a look at the other.

cc: @ZellaQuixote ImageImage
This fake follower botnet consists of 4075 accounts created in large batches in July 2014. All accounts have lowercase names containing underscores, and usually digits as well. All have been dormant since late 2015 but (allegedly) tweeted via "Twitter Web Client" when active. ImageImageImage
Who does this fake follower botnet follow? Mostly commercial/promotional accounts belonging to a variety of businesses and entrepreneurs. Most of the accounts followed by the bots tweet primarily in English, although a few Arabic-language accounts turn up as well. Image
Read 8 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
12 Jul
Meet @aykacmis, @degismece, @anlamislar, @aykacti, @kayitlii, and @donmedim, a sextet of blue-check verified Twitter accounts created on June 16th, 2021. None has yet tweeted and all have roughly 1000 followers (and mostly the *same* followers).

cc: @ZellaQuixote
Two of these six accounts (@kayitlii and @aykacti) have photographs of people as their profile pics. Despite the presence of the blue verification checkmark, neither image is likely to depict the account holder as both images appear to be stolen.
These six newly-created verified accounts have 977 followers in common. One is @verified (which follows all blue-check verified accounts). The other 976 were all created on June 19th or June 20th, 2021, and all follow the same 190 accounts. #Astroturf
Read 12 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
10 Jul
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.
Read 9 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
8 Jul
It's a day ending in "y", and a swarm of accounts with GAN-generated face pics is spamming utter nonsense. #YouWontSeeThesePhrasesOnWheelOfFortune #DictionaryShenaniGANs

(GAN = "generative adversarial network", the AI technique used by thispersondoesnotexist.com)

cc @ZellaQuixote
This network consists of 99 accounts, created between January and May 2021. All have first + last name combinations as their display name, handles that match their display names, and all have GAN-generated face images as their profile pics.
As is the case with unmodified GAN-generated face pics (so far), the primary facial features (especially the eyes) are in the same location on all 99 images. This anomaly becomes obvious when one blends the images together.
Read 8 tweets
Conspirador Norteño Profile picture
6 Jul
TFW you go to sleep in 2015 tweeting in Spanish and wake up in 2021 as an "Elon" account, complete with @ElonMusk's current (as of July 6, 2021) profile pic. #RepurposedAccounts #LifeComesAtYouFast

cc: @ZellaQuixote
The recently awakened Elons are part of a larger network of 576 accounts created in May 2014. All accounts went dormant in late 2015, but some of them woke back up in 2021. Old tweets are almost all in Spanish, whereas new tweets are a mix of English, Indonesian, and Japanese.
The old Spanish tweets from these accounts are highly repetitive, with many tweets duplicated verbatim on dozens of accounts. Those of the accounts that are still dormant have similar names and tweet counts, and fewer than three likes (most have zero).
Read 9 tweets

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