7 ms·

Not saying that's not the case, but you have no data or knowledge to back any of that up. I wouldn't assume a problem is easy or hard until I've got sufficient

by pmarsh 14y ago

Not saying that's not the case, but you have no data or knowledge to back any of that up. I wouldn't assume a problem is easy or hard until I've got sufficient info on it. Too often I've heard "how could XYZ not have done this, fixed that?" Then have that same party sign on board to fix this "easy" problem and get themselves in a world of hurt.

ebtalley 14y ago
data would be * IP addresses, one can assume a bot would only have a set of addresses they could use, barring botnets. * request patterns, ie: did the bot request css/js, etc * request timeframes * UA strings Sure, its a big data problem, but I can imagine that Facebook has solved these types of scenarios many times over.
- zburt 14y ago
  What if you start a new Amazon EC2 spot instance (netting you a new IP address), start up Chromium in headless mode (say, using Xvfb), navigate to the website of choice, use mouse automation to start clicking around, click the ad, spend 5 minutes clicking around in a semi-choreographed pattern on the advertisee's website, and then shut down the instance -- only to repeat? Moreover, Amazon is always buying new IP subnets.
  - kirubakaran 14y ago
    The user from that new IP won't have any real human like history - photos shared and commented on over time etc.
  - geori 14y ago
    I dont count clicks from any amazonaws or ec2 hostnames on my site.
  - jonknee 14y ago
    It sounds like you don't need to go to that much hassle currently, but even that rigmarole is simple enough to combat. The user account should be real, the usage real (comments, photos, messages back and forth) and the friends also real. False positive spam Ids are OK, that will lower your revenue but won't constitute fraud with your customers. Put up a test for uses you think are spamming, the test they already do of identifying photos of your friends would be a good one. Large numbers of real looking fake accounts should be hard to keep up.
  - freeall 14y ago
    But why would you go through all that to click on ads? If I click on an ad for "Some Record Company" how does that make me money?
    - aidos 14y ago
      It doesn't always need to make you money, sometimes you might just want it to cost your competitor money.
  - radicalbyte 14y ago
    Then pay Amazon for a list of their EC2 IPs, or obtain that information from a public source (i.e. RIPE, ARIN).
rapind 14y ago
Well I do have at least some data to back that up. I know that they are a walled garden that keeps a ton of user data for every account (even the subset represented in Open Graph is significant). And it's with this knowledge that I make my conclusion. * Accounts subsisting of an unusual proportion of ad clicking activity compared to their other activities are likely bots. * New accounts with no history but high ad clicks are likely bots. Before a click is counted, check the source account for it's human rank (activity-to-clicks). If it's below a certain threshold (tuned over time) than don't bill your customer for it. The algo's to determine human rank can start fairly simple and become more complicated and accurate over time. In terms of their current sophistication I would definitely call this an easy problem from a tech standpoint. Scaling to millions of concurrent users? Hard. Attracting and keeping millions of users? Hard.
- monkeypizza 14y ago
  Compare it to google's problem filtering out automatically generated splogs, though - it took them years to make progress against that. Real human social activity is a lot more random than real informational content in blogs - so fb's problem seems harder. Also, facebook banning accounts is a much stronger action than google just lowering the pagerank of suspected splogs. So overall I think fb's problem is harder than a currently google-unsolved problem.
  - jonknee 14y ago
    Facebook has total control of the users very action since joining Facebook. Much easier than coming across a random HTMl page and deciding on if it's real (whatever real means, YouTube comments are real but are very low signal but a database that runs itself could provide lots of signal).
  - Foy 14y ago
    He never said to ban the suspicious accounts, just don't charge companies for their clicks. The detection part aside, it's a simple fix. I just wonder why FB hasn't already. (Is it because it'd hurt their revenue when they need it the most?)
  - 14y ago

by pmarsh 14y ago

ebtalley 14y ago

data would be * IP addresses, one can assume a bot would only have a set of addresses they could use, barring botnets. * request patterns, ie: did the bot request css/js, etc * request timeframes * UA strings Sure, its a big data problem, but I can imagine that Facebook has solved these types of scenarios many times over.

zburt 14y ago
What if you start a new Amazon EC2 spot instance (netting you a new IP address), start up Chromium in headless mode (say, using Xvfb), navigate to the website of choice, use mouse automation to start clicking around, click the ad, spend 5 minutes clicking around in a semi-choreographed pattern on the advertisee's website, and then shut down the instance -- only to repeat? Moreover, Amazon is always buying new IP subnets.
- kirubakaran 14y ago
  The user from that new IP won't have any real human like history - photos shared and commented on over time etc.
- geori 14y ago
  I dont count clicks from any amazonaws or ec2 hostnames on my site.
- jonknee 14y ago
  It sounds like you don't need to go to that much hassle currently, but even that rigmarole is simple enough to combat. The user account should be real, the usage real (comments, photos, messages back and forth) and the friends also real. False positive spam Ids are OK, that will lower your revenue but won't constitute fraud with your customers. Put up a test for uses you think are spamming, the test they already do of identifying photos of your friends would be a good one. Large numbers of real looking fake accounts should be hard to keep up.
- freeall 14y ago
  But why would you go through all that to click on ads? If I click on an ad for "Some Record Company" how does that make me money?
  - aidos 14y ago
    It doesn't always need to make you money, sometimes you might just want it to cost your competitor money.
- radicalbyte 14y ago
  Then pay Amazon for a list of their EC2 IPs, or obtain that information from a public source (i.e. RIPE, ARIN).

rapind 14y ago

Well I do have at least some data to back that up. I know that they are a walled garden that keeps a ton of user data for every account (even the subset represented in Open Graph is significant). And it's with this knowledge that I make my conclusion. * Accounts subsisting of an unusual proportion of ad clicking activity compared to their other activities are likely bots. * New accounts with no history but high ad clicks are likely bots. Before a click is counted, check the source account for it's human rank (activity-to-clicks). If it's below a certain threshold (tuned over time) than don't bill your customer for it. The algo's to determine human rank can start fairly simple and become more complicated and accurate over time. In terms of their current sophistication I would definitely call this an easy problem from a tech standpoint. Scaling to millions of concurrent users? Hard. Attracting and keeping millions of users? Hard.

monkeypizza 14y ago
Compare it to google's problem filtering out automatically generated splogs, though - it took them years to make progress against that. Real human social activity is a lot more random than real informational content in blogs - so fb's problem seems harder. Also, facebook banning accounts is a much stronger action than google just lowering the pagerank of suspected splogs. So overall I think fb's problem is harder than a currently google-unsolved problem.
- jonknee 14y ago
  Facebook has total control of the users very action since joining Facebook. Much easier than coming across a random HTMl page and deciding on if it's real (whatever real means, YouTube comments are real but are very low signal but a database that runs itself could provide lots of signal).
- Foy 14y ago
  He never said to ban the suspicious accounts, just don't charge companies for their clicks. The detection part aside, it's a simple fix. I just wonder why FB hasn't already. (Is it because it'd hurt their revenue when they need it the most?)
- 14y ago