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> Spam is hard. No real platform has solved it completely, and none ever will. Spammers evolve, platforms catch up, spammers evolve again, and so on until the l

> Spam is hard. No real platform has solved it completely, and none ever will. Spammers evolve, platforms catch up, spammers evolve again, and so on until the last post is posted and the last user signs out. I find it hard to believe there's not some state of the art technology that can detect (or thwart/disrupt) when a user is legitimately accessing X through the mobile app / website, or a bot hitting it through the API and/or a headless browser scripted type fashion

sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago
It's an arms race, and constantly evolving. Detection methods that work today will be avoided by spammers tomorrow. New methods are found and deployed, and then those too are avoided over time. And there's the balancing of not making your detection so strict that you block the clients you want.
- preciousoo 3y ago
  I’ve seen some technically impressive kids reverse engineer and break down anti bot software in order to scalp shoes/tech. It’s definitely possible but the ROI is high. Do spam botters like this make enough to justify breaking down and bypassing around sophisticated anti spam measures over and over?
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
At the end of the day it's all bits over the wire.
moritzwarhier 3y ago
What makes you think mobile app and browser interactions couldn't be faked? Strong reliance on an app with many fingerprintable permissions or on unique device and user identifiers slightly requires spammers/promoters/shills/bots to up their game, nothing more. This is and has been happening for years, both with advertisement and engagement metrics aw well as content, and for both commercial and political purposes.
yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
What makes you think they won't use the real app on a real phone? Ex. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/click-farms-internet-china-154440209.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/click-farms-internet-china-15... (ignore the specifics of that use; the point is that it's totally possible to assemble a rack full of real phones running real apps and run interactions through them)
nunez 3y ago
there is; it's called "a bunch of folks at twitter doing manual drudge work who elon thought were unnecessary"

sjsdaiuasgdia 3y ago

It's an arms race, and constantly evolving. Detection methods that work today will be avoided by spammers tomorrow. New methods are found and deployed, and then those too are avoided over time. And there's the balancing of not making your detection so strict that you block the clients you want.

preciousoo 3y ago
I’ve seen some technically impressive kids reverse engineer and break down anti bot software in order to scalp shoes/tech. It’s definitely possible but the ROI is high. Do spam botters like this make enough to justify breaking down and bypassing around sophisticated anti spam measures over and over?

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

At the end of the day it's all bits over the wire.

moritzwarhier 3y ago

What makes you think mobile app and browser interactions couldn't be faked? Strong reliance on an app with many fingerprintable permissions or on unique device and user identifiers slightly requires spammers/promoters/shills/bots to up their game, nothing more. This is and has been happening for years, both with advertisement and engagement metrics aw well as content, and for both commercial and political purposes.

yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago

What makes you think they won't use the real app on a real phone? Ex. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/click-farms-internet-china-154440209.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/click-farms-internet-china-15... (ignore the specifics of that use; the point is that it's totally possible to assemble a rack full of real phones running real apps and run interactions through them)

nunez 3y ago

there is; it's called "a bunch of folks at twitter doing manual drudge work who elon thought were unnecessary"