Duo Security researchers developed an algorithm to hunt down Twitter bots on a Twitter-sized scale.
Why it matters: On a large social media platform, using humans to hunt accounts of automated scams is a particularly difficult game of whack-a-mole. This is exactly the kind of problem that the Duo algorithm can help solve. One of the piers that hit during a test was a large network of cryptocurrency scammers.
Researchers Olabode Anise and Jordan Wright will present that research later this week at Black Hat's information security conference. he was reactive when the robots reported by Duo, they said.
The big picture: The sheer scope of the bot problem makes it hard to fight – just ask Elon Musk, who had so many robots with his name to promote cryptocurrency scams that Twitter banned naming accounts after him.
The bots in question are non-staffed accounts that automatically send content to Twitter.
Not all robots are harmful . Most are not. "During the tests, one of the things we discovered was a bot that released lyrics that someone thought were interesting," Anise told Axios.
The algorithm does not separate good from evil but is human from the machine. Real humans still need to make the last call.
How it works: Duo transmits publicly available data, such as how quickly accounts respond to other accounts, screen names, time of day of publication, and profile data.
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