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>$10 won't stop spammers. Are you sure? It sure seems to me like it would if every spam spree resulted in account shutdown with the result that to continue to

>$10 won't stop spammers. Are you sure? It sure seems to me like it would if every spam spree resulted in account shutdown with the result that to continue to spam, the spammer had to pay another $10. I think the argument you want is that it discourages desirable signups too much.

defrost 2y ago
Dunno - here's a list of 38 bots currently (last 4 hours) active on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41024612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41024612 part of a larger network. The cost is perhaps $500 to have a group that can cordinate votes to raise the profile of posts (for marketing and other reasons), to downvote | flag negative coments, etc. With AI such things can fly more and more under the radar and will be seen by some as a valid expense for the gain they seek.
- hollerith 2y ago
  > a group that can cordinate votes to raise the profile of posts Are we calling that spamming now?
  - defrost 2y ago
    Read the comments made by the listed accounts in the past few hours and describe their content.
  - LinuxBender 2y ago
    That is called "warming up" spammer accounts, a technique most spammers use and the warmup method and timing will vary by the intended use. Some spammers don't really know how to do this correctly. I did something similar to this a long time ago on IRC when channels would be operated by "power trippers". I made a bunch of accounts spread out over months, then would slowly join them to a channel with a power-tripping operator. When they would kick/ban myself or others for disagreeing with a statement, a warmed up account would reply. They would kick/ban and another account on another IP would reply ... and so on. So there are multiple use cases for warming up accounts. Sometimes I could get another operator to kick/ban the power tripping operator and sometimes it was just entertainment. Eventually they would realize that 65+% of their audience they were power tripping in front of was just me and they would never know if they kicked all of "me".
  - djbusby 2y ago
    Sometimes that part is called "astroturfing"
Aurornis 2y ago
> Are you sure? It sure seems to me like it would if every spam spree resulted in account shutdown with the result that to continue to spam, the spammer had to pay another $10. I talked to someone who worked at a PR firm that used puppet accounts and voting rings to get things upvoted on sites like Reddit and HN. $500 would be a relatively small part of their budget from what they charge clients. An obstacle, yes, but not a show stopper.

defrost 2y ago

Dunno - here's a list of 38 bots currently (last 4 hours) active on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41024612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41024612 part of a larger network. The cost is perhaps $500 to have a group that can cordinate votes to raise the profile of posts (for marketing and other reasons), to downvote | flag negative coments, etc. With AI such things can fly more and more under the radar and will be seen by some as a valid expense for the gain they seek.

hollerith 2y ago
> a group that can cordinate votes to raise the profile of posts Are we calling that spamming now?
- defrost 2y ago
  Read the comments made by the listed accounts in the past few hours and describe their content.
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  That is called "warming up" spammer accounts, a technique most spammers use and the warmup method and timing will vary by the intended use. Some spammers don't really know how to do this correctly. I did something similar to this a long time ago on IRC when channels would be operated by "power trippers". I made a bunch of accounts spread out over months, then would slowly join them to a channel with a power-tripping operator. When they would kick/ban myself or others for disagreeing with a statement, a warmed up account would reply. They would kick/ban and another account on another IP would reply ... and so on. So there are multiple use cases for warming up accounts. Sometimes I could get another operator to kick/ban the power tripping operator and sometimes it was just entertainment. Eventually they would realize that 65+% of their audience they were power tripping in front of was just me and they would never know if they kicked all of "me".
- djbusby 2y ago
  Sometimes that part is called "astroturfing"

Aurornis 2y ago

> Are you sure? It sure seems to me like it would if every spam spree resulted in account shutdown with the result that to continue to spam, the spammer had to pay another $10. I talked to someone who worked at a PR firm that used puppet accounts and voting rings to get things upvoted on sites like Reddit and HN. $500 would be a relatively small part of their budget from what they charge clients. An obstacle, yes, but not a show stopper.