The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Gosh, Stacy, There’s No Way @Twitter Could Spot All These Fake Accounts’

Posted on | September 14, 2013 | 67 Comments

Excuse me for belaboring the obvious, but I’ve gotten pretty damned fed up with certain “friends” making excuses for Twitter’s inability to stop this influx of spambot accounts. So say hello to Patsy Moen (@MsGiovanna__Sto), Zakary Greenfelder (@Chet_Senger_967), Kirsten Stiedemann (@Conroy_Evan7897), Myrna Schulist Sr. (@MissNia_Kulas__), Annamarie Eichmann (@MrsGerhold_Cory) and Laurie Lehner (@Block_Lia_1657):






Honestly, I’m trying to maintain a sense of humor about this:

The problem is that the ease with which these spammers have gamed the system — creating a simple algorithmic software program that auto-generates thousands upon thousands of these fake accounts — exposes gross negligence by Twitter personnel that degrades the quality of the network, and this is highly relevant now that Twitter is seeking to take their product to the public capital markets:

Last December, Twitter announced that it had more than 200 million active users — people who used the service at least once a month.
A few months later, CEO Dick Costolo told employees he expected to get to 400 million users by the end of 2013, according to people familiar with the company. . . .
One factor that may have thrown off Twitter’s growth targets from earlier this year has been spam. The company went through a significant campaign to get rid of bogus accounts earlier in the year, people familiar with the company said. That effort was successful enough that it ended up shrinking Twitter’s true user number.

Big headlines for the big news:

A Short Post, a Big Splash: #TwitterIPO
— New York Times

Investors expect Fed to tap brakes
— Twitter going public —
Goldman scores top underwriting spot
— Politico

Twitter Files for Initial Public Offering
— Wall Street Journal

Yet the same week they announced their IPO, we discover Twitter can’t stop the cheesy spambot program that generates thousands of accounts like Dr. Miller Pacocha (@BoehmPierce_296), Miss Demetris Heaney (@DrMetz_Dewitt__), Jermaine O’Conner (@Nader_Zackary45), Blanche Tremblay (@MrsHauck_Gertru) and Mr. Greg Hudson (@Shanny_Batz6276):






Even as spam accounts flood onto Twitter, however, the accounts of actual human beings are suspended because of phony “abuse” claims:

Since 2011, at least, conservative activists have complained about “Twitter gulag,” the repeated suspension of accounts prompted by multiple bogus abuse reports from leftist thugs who systematically target their Republican-leaning antagonists. The fact that there is now a Twitter Gulag Defense Network (hashtag #tgdn) to warn users and assist conservative activists targeted for suspension, tells you all you need to know about the ineffectiveness of Twitter’s policies.

How many $100-an-hour programmers does Twitter have on its payroll? How many hours would it take for such a programmer to identify the source of these spambot accounts? And how many more hours would it take to write a code that blocks the spammers?

OK, so once Twitter’s programmers identified the source and blocked the program, how long would it take for a $150-an-hour attorney to write up a criminal complaint against the spammers, documenting the fraud, and to deliver that complaint to the FBI? See, this isn’t just a “terms of service” violation, this is deliberate systematic electronic fraud — a federal felony under various statutes — and until the perpetrators are indicted and prosecuted for their crimes, there is no real incentive to discourage anyone else from doing the same thing.

Twitter needs to get serious about this problem, and my “friends” need to stop telling me that this isn’t a serious problem, because I’m well past the point of tolerating such bullshit advice.

 

TELL @TWITTER @SUPPORT TO STOP THE BOTS!

 

PREVIOUSLY:

 


Category: Blogging

Far-Right Religious Extremists in Tennessee Attacking Public Education

Posted on | September 14, 2013 | 94 Comments

Oh . . . wait a minute. No, I’m sorry — that’s what the headline would be if Think Progress wrote this story. Let me try again:

Teacher Tells Ten-Year-Old Memphis Girl
She Can’t Write About God for Assignment

Memphis mother Erica Shead said she was angry after her 10-year-old daughter Erin, told her Wednesday, she wasn’t allowed to write about God for a school assignment.
“It was so cute and innocent. She talked about how God created the earth and how she’s doing the best she can,” said Shead.
Erin is a student at Lucy Elementary.
Shead said Erin was told she can’t use God as an idol for the assignment.

It’s Shelby County, Tennessee, so maybe you’re thinking Erica Shead and her daughter Erin are just typical hillbilly Bible-thumpers.

Doesn’t quite fit the Think Progress narrative. I mean, First Amendment freedom of religion — not like that’s a civil right or anything, eh?

After 10-year-old Erin’s writing about God was rejected, she tried again with Michael Jackson. That was OK. Jeff Dunetz blows a gasket:

Just to summarize for a moment; the teacher said that the creator of the universe, Lord, God himself could not be used as an idol but an accused pedophile who died of a drug overdose was a good choice? Please someone tell me what I am missing?

It’s about attitudes, Jeff. Public school is no longer about teaching facts. It’s not about teaching skills. It’s about teaching attitudes.

Hostility toward religion — rejection of the Bible and of divine authority — is essential to the project of modern public education.

Lesson One: There is no God.

Lesson Two: Your parents are stupid.

Lesson Three: Being gay is awesome.

Whatever comes after that is optional, but it’s important that these fundamental principles be taught in elementary school, or otherwise children might grow up to vote Republican.

And that would be a tragedy . . .

 


Category: Education, Religion

Anna Shireman-Grabowski: Only Through Suicide Could She Ever Expiate Her Guilt

Posted on | September 13, 2013 | 98 Comments

The very existence of this Middlebury College student is an act of historical oppression, exploitation and genocidal imperialism:

My intention was not to cause pain but to visibilize the necessity of honoring all human life and to help a friend heal from the violence of genocide that she carries with her on a daily basis as an indigenous person. While the American flags on the Middlebury hillside symbolize to some the loss of innocent lives in New York, to others they represent centuries of bloody conquest and mass murder. As a settler on stolen land, I do not have the luxury of grieving without an eye to power.

Thus does an anti-American leftist explain why she wrecked a 9/11 memorial of 2,997 U.S. flags symbolizing the victims of terrorism:

When you use the word visibilize, you have been listening to your Transgendered Native American Theory professor too much.
When you listen to your Transgendered Native American Theory professor too much, you destroy a September 11 memorial.
When you destroy a September 11 memorial, everyone in the comments section of the school’s blog thinks you’re a douche.
Don’t use the word visibilize.

Anna Shireman-Grabowski writes for Salon.com and also produces carbon dioxide. Anna Shireman-Grabowski in fact has had an enormously negative impact on our planetary ecology.

Climate scientists have noted a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions that can be traced back to the day Anna Shireman-Grabowski was born, a date that marked the “tipping point “at which the degradation of habitat began to result in mass deaths for polar bears, penguins, seals and several others especially cuddly species you used to see on Discovery Channel shows until Anna Shireman-Grabowski started hogging up all the natural resources and spewing massive quantities of carbon dioxide, and now they’re all nearly extinct.

Furthermore, Anna Shireman-Grabowski is the living embodiment of racism and white privilege. When she insisted on attending Middlebury College, Anna Shireman-Grabowski deprived an impoverished black child of the opportunity for admission to that elite school ($57,075 a year). And why? So that Anna Shireman-Grabowski could continue raping the environment and emitting CO2 that destroys the habitat of adorable arctic wildlife, that’s why.

Leading environmental experts agree that it was a catastrophic error that Anna Shireman-Grabowski was ever born. “If only her father had been gay,” said one noted climatologist, “our planet might have been spared this unprecedented devastation.” But both her parents were notorious homophobes, and her mother failed to exercise “a woman’s right to choose,” so that by an act of anti-choice hatefulness, Anna Shireman-Grabowski was unfortunately born.

Although she has attempted to atone for her existence by denouncing pipelines, fracking and the genocide of indigenous persons, the real problem is Anna Shireman-Grabowski herself.

The United Nations is considering a resolution to condemn her, but this will probably be too late to save the endangered penguins.

 

Category: Education, Environmentalism, Vermont

Will @Mueller_Moriah2 Buy @Twitter IPO Shares? Will @MrDeondre__Huel? How About @MsBernhard__Mer?

Posted on | September 13, 2013 | 53 Comments

Say hello to the fake Twitter account Evie Pacocha PhD (@Mueller_Moriah2) alias Ms. Darron Reichel (@MrDeondre__Huel) also known as Johnny Gibson DVM (@MsBernhard__Mer):



During another conversation with a friend — and, as usual, by “conversation” I mean me ranting like a madman — about this continuing problem, I made the point that only lax policy by Twitter could make this kind of bogus spam scam feasible.

These fake accounts are all generated by the same algorithmic software, so that they are formulaic and predictable, with the same photo avatars used over and over. Just scanning down the list of thousands of fake accounts now following me on Twitter, I’d estimate they’ve got about 300 or 400 different avatar photos. They’ve programmed a certain number of first and last names into the algorithm, with a few hundred aphoristic sayings (culled from WikiQuotes) used as profile slogans. Always, it’s “United States, [Insert Random State]” as location, and they’re following a couple dozen of the same Twitter accounts.

Because the formula is so obvious, you realize that the fake-account scammers don’t even really have to try very hard to evade whatever security screens Twitter has in place to prevent this kind of fraudulent abuse. It’s such a piece of cake to get through the screens that a simple algorithmic program can auto-generate fake counts by the thousands without anybody at Twitter even noticing!

If Twitter doesn’t take action — and by “take action,” of course I mean siccing the FBI on these spammers and putting a few of them in federal prison so as to put the fear of God into anyone else who would even be tempted to think about trying it again — I’m going to keep hammering them every day. How long have these miserable spambot merchants been doing these cheesy fake accounts and getting away with it? I don’t know, but the day somebody decided to target me for this plague of Twitter locusts was the beginning of the end for them.

 

TELL @TWITTER @SUPPORT TO STOP THE BOTS!

 

PREVIOUSLY:

 


Category: Blogging

Crime Is a People Problem: Why @Twitter Must Prosecute Fake Account Makers

Posted on | September 13, 2013 | 128 Comments

How hard is it to miss this as a Twitter avatar? As thousands upon thousands of fake accounts — all of them evidently generated by an algorithmic software program — have piled on following me on Twitter, I have tried to point out the obvious pattern:

That all of these fake accounts are so similar, and use a limited number of avatar images, it seems logical that locating the source of this fraudulent menace would be simple, as would identifying and deleting all of the bogus accounts created by this criminal scheme.

What is shocking to me is that people continue telling me that I need to do this or that thing — download some software, visit a certain Web site, switch my account settings — in order to prevent this fake swarm. No, no, no — that’s wrong. This is Twitter’s problem. Twitter’s service is being used fraudulently, and it is incumbent on Twitter to prevent their law-abiding users from being targeted by criminals.

Also: CRIME IS A PEOPLE PROBLEM.

This is an old-fashioned common-sense idea that contradicts what has become Conventional Wisdom in the post-modern age.

Crime does not occur randomly within society. Not all persons are equally prone to commit theft, robbery, assault, rape or murder.

The vast majority of serious crime is committed by a rather tiny segment of the population — people who are habitual criminals, and who will not cease to be a menace to their fellow citizens until they are put in prison or sent to their graves.  Some juvenile delinquents will, as they mature, grow out of their youthful lawlessness, but fear of severe punishment (including long incarceration) for criminal acts is the only possible deterrence to those who are habitually devoted to a life of crime.

Law enforcement is most effective when it understands that crime doesn’t just “happen” randomly or coincidentally, but is the result of human action, and that the purpose of law enforcement is to locate, identify, apprehend, prosecute and imprison wrongdoers.

Think about this: If you go into a community and see iron bars on people’s windows, does that make you feel safe? No, it has the opposite effect. Where law-abiding citizens are so fearful that they live behind locked doors and don’t dare walk the streets at night, you know that criminals are being allowed to roam free, and that the criminal population in that community is so large and active that the police have effectively surrendered control of the streets.

The same thing is true of the online community. If spammers, hackers, perverts and other criminals are allowed to use the Internet for their illegal purposes without consequence — if online criminals do not fear apprehension and prosecution — you can be sure that the law-abiding Internet users will be forced to fight an ever-escalating war of defense against the wrongdoers. The more common cyber-security becomes, the more sophisticated will become the methods by which criminals seek to evade cyber-security.

Online as in real life, every time a criminal gets away with illegal activity, he will be emboldened to further crimes, until he becomes so arrogant about his ability to evade prosecution that his continued spree of criminality is like an advertisement of the ineffectiveness of law enforcement: “You can’t catch me, cops!” Where wrongdoers no longer fear justice, the innocent must always fear wrongdoers.

Twitter is permitting this lawlessness. If they were genuinely determined to prevent the mass creation of fake accounts, there would not be — there could not be — these tens of thousands of fakes that have descended on my account like Egyptian locusts. After nearly 48 hours of this plague, I’m not just angry about the harassment, I’m becoming angry at other people for not being angry about it.

DEL HARVEY ENABLES NEAL RAUHAUSER?

Go read that. You should be very angry.

 

UPDATE: Really, could it be more obvious?

The fact that these accounts — tens of thousands of them — are being manufactured by an algorithmic program should make detection of the source simple, if Twitter were really serious about stopping the mass manufacturing of such fake accounts. Because Twitter evidently doesn’t care, the criminals have no fear of being prosecuted, and therefore don’t even bother to conceal their fraudulent activity.

 

Category: Crime

A Female Rodney King?

Posted on | September 13, 2013 | 74 Comments

Doc Washburn called my attention to this item at a liberal blog about a woman named Christina West who got arrested for drunk driving and got her face broken by the cops. The liberal blog makes this a case of police brutality, but what I’m seeing is a drunk woman who disobeyed instructions while police were trying to handcuff her. You can watch the whole video, but the key part starts at about the 7:30 mark. The cops ask her to get out of the car so that she can take a breathalyzer test. She has to be told four times, “Get out of the car,” and apparently doesn’t realize they’re going to put the cuffs on her before they give her the test. Problems ensue:

Now, you may want to click over to that liberal blog and see the picture of Christina’s face — it’s pretty bad. The blogger claims the cops made up the stuff about Christina trying to grab their crotches, but listen closely at 8:30 — “Let go of my hand,” the cop says — and then Christina says the cops are going to break her arm.

Ah, the uncooperative suspect!

Anybody who has watched “C*O*P*S” is familiar with this phenomenon: The perp who refuses to comply with police orders, who struggles when they’re trying to put the cuffs on.

Well, guess what, perp? Those cops aren’t playing around, and they’re experts at making perps comply with their commands.

The minute you start struggling, you inadvertently authorize them to employ Advanced Methods of Enforcing Compliance, which tend to be rather uncomfortable for the uncooperative suspect.

At 7:38, one of the cop says, “Stop f–king touching me.”

Yeah, bad idea, Christine. They had you wedged up against the car and now — 7:40 — you’re going to the pavement. Real hard.

Kinda painful, when you don’t cooperate with the cops.

Maybe some liberal bloggers will call this “police brutality.”

I call it, “By God, don’t mess with the Tallahassee P.D.”

To-may-to, to-mah-to.

 

Category: Crime

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.13.13

Posted on | September 13, 2013 | 11 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
“Biblical” Rains Trigger Flooding That Kills Three In Colorado

Officials inspect a road collapse on Highway 287

State bracing for more rain and flooding through the weekend


Putin: World Must Welcome Syrian Steps On Chem Weapons
Lauds Syrian decision to join convention on chemical weapons


Taliban Hits US Consulate in Herat, Afghanistan
Bomb attack kills three



POLITICS
California Set To Raise Minimum Wage 25% By 2016

I AM GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN
MY AURA SMILES AND NEVER FROWNS

Bill passes California Senate on party-line vote


NASA Confirms Voyager Spacecraft Has Left The Solar System

Decision Looms In Holder’s “Fast & Furious” Contempt Case

DNC Head Debbie Wassermann-Schultz Blames Colorado Recall Losses On “Voter Suppression”

Senate Confirms Victoria Nuland Despite Role In Benghazi Response

Tea Party Caucus Flexes Muscle, Puts Boehner In Tight Spot As Shutdown Looms

GOP Moves To Halt ObamaCare Subsidies For Unions



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Oil Prices Down From US Close As Syria Talks Continue: NYMEX $108.56, Brent $111.75
Twitter Files For Long-Awaited IPO
Glitches Blamed For Big Drop In Jobless Claims
Dell Shareholders Approve $24.8 Billion Offer To Go Private
Hilton Files For $1.25 Billion IPO
In Beijing, New iPhone Gets Resounding “Meh”
Microsoft Launches iPad Trade-In Promotion
Chrome For iOS Learns Pronouns
Microsoft’s Cortana To Battle Siri
Outlook.com Adds IMAP
Tablet Shipments Poised To Top PCs
Valve Adds Free Game-Sharing To Steam



SPORTS
Brewers Beat Cardinals 5-3

Tyler Thornberg holds the birds to 2 runs

St. Louis falls into tie with Pittsburgh atop NL Central


Red Sox Come Up Short Against Rays, Can’t Complete Sweep


Griffin Dominates Twins, A’s Extend Lead In AL West

Yanks Edge O’s 6-5 To Remain In Wild Card Hunt

Tribe Scalps Red Sox 14-3

Tom Brady, Patriots Hang On For Sloppy 13-10 Win Against Jets

Lance Armstrong Returns Bronze Medal To IOC

Nationals Crush Mets 7-2, Extend Win Streak To Six; Just 5 1/2 Behind Reds In Wild-Card



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Kate Middleton: What Glitters Is In Fact Gold

The Duchess of Cambridge

Attending Tusk Foundation gala dinner with Prince William

Nicole Kidman Knocked To Ground By Paparazzo On Bike; Pressing Charges

Kelly Rowland Flaunts Her X Factor On The Cover Of SHAPE

Courtney Stodden Feels “Like A Grown Woman” After “Celebrity Big Brother” Eviction

Abigail Breslin On Being A Blonde: People Don’t Recognize Me

Lady Gaga Dishes On Sexual Past & Preferences


Nicki Minaj Accused Of Ripping Off Huge Hit “Starships”

Jenny McCarthy Worried Donnie Wahlberg Might Be Gay Before They Started Dating

Demi Moore Dating Restaurant Mogul Peter Morton – Father Of Former BF  Harry Morton

Topless Chrissy Teigen Photo Surfaces



FOREIGNERS
At least 12 Dead After Fire In Russian Psychiatric Institute
American Jihadi believed Killed In Somalia
South Korean Abducted By Norks Returns Home After 41 Years
Egyptian Army In Major Push To Crush Sinai Jihadis
Zawahiri Calls For Muslims To Boycott, Attack US
Merkel’s Allies In FDP Rule Out Grand Coalition With SDP, Greens
Navalny Files Election Fraud Lawsuits In Courts Across Moscow



BLOGS & STUFF
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: College Student And Salon Contributor Faces Ostracism For Being A Douche
Doug Powers: T-Boned – National Review Files Lawsuit Against Cory Booker
Twitchy: Rights Are Hard – Piers Morgan Reminds Everyone Why He’s The Dumbest Man Alive
American Power: The Collapse Of The Obama Presidency
American Thinker: Close Reading Is Close To A Con
The Necropolitan Sentinel: Obamacare Watch – Move Along, Nothing To See Here
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, September 12
Jammie Wearing Fools: After Weeks Of Humiliation Over Syria, Obama Ready To Re-Pivot To The Economy Again
JustOneMinute: Obamacare — Trouble In (Union) Paradise
Pat Dollard: Senate Panel Approves Language Defining What A Journalist Is
Protein Wisdom: Pwned! Putined!
Shot In The Dark: Stalingrad On Fountain Creek
The Jawa Report: War In Syria Back On?
The Lonely Conservative: Obama’s War On Coal Continues
Megan McArdle: Did Demographics Cause 1970s Stagflation?


Deadline to submit posts for this weekend’s FMJRA is midnight tonight. DO IT.


Category: Live at Five

Can @Twitter @Safety Prevent This?

Posted on | September 12, 2013 | 118 Comments

Apparently someone at Twitter paid attention and about 10,000 fake followers got scraped off my account, but there are still about 3,500 that need to be zapped. Twitter has got to do something to eliminate this problem. People kept telling me, “You should do this” or “You should do that,” and I was like, “Why should I have to do anything? How about Twitter does something to put a stop to this abusive behavior that is used to silence, intimidate or harass people?”

We don’t have to wonder why this happened, of course, but if it weren’t for services selling fake followers — a fraudulent and dishonest practice in itself — it wouldn’t be possible for someone to plunk down X dollars for X-number of fake accounts in what was apparently an attempt to get me sent to the “Twitter gulag” (see TGDN). And, honestly, it doesn’t take a genius to spot the fake accounts:

If I can figure out what a fake account looks like — all of these were among the thousands that somebody sicced on me — then the pattern should be obvious enough that somebody at Twitter can create a software program to detect and batch-delete these spam scams. And once they figure out who is creating these phony accounts, Twitter needs to take legal action to punish this kind of fraudulent abuse.

As I said in a phone conversation with a friend — and by “conversation,” I mean, me shouting at the top of my lungs — crime is a people problem. Just identify the people responsible for the problem, get rid of those people, and you get rid of the problem. There are some people so evil that they should never be allowed to use the Internet, and at the very least, Twitter should start identifying the systematic abusers of their service and taking legal action to get those people permanently banned from using the service.

It should not be incumbent upon law-abiding honest users to take action to defend themselves against this kind of harassment. Instead, it should be incumbent upon Twitter to ensure that dishonest and abusive people are not allowed to use Twitter, period. Let them figure out who unleashed these fake Twitter accounts on me — find the person responsible — and take appropriate measures to ensure that this person is punished for their fraudulent harassment, and permanently banned from Twitter.

UPDATE: John Hoge explains:

Over the last 24 hours, around 20,000 twitter account have tried to follow my @wjjhoge account. Exactly two of them were real.
This sort of deluge of spambot followers first hit Aaron Walker (@AaronWorthing) a few days ago. Stacy McCain (@rsmccain) was added to the party a few hours after I was.

This tactic has been used as part of systematic campaigns to gulag others (ask Tossing Tomatoes) and the pattern is evident:

Bad people do bad things and get away with it, so they keep doing it. But then they try to do it to me, and that’s where their trouble begins.

Go tell Del Harvey to delete all of these fakes. Tell Del Harvey to pursue legal action against the person responsible.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers! And, no, as of this morning, Twitter still hasn’t stopped it.

If, as I’ve been told, the going rate for fake followers is $20 per thousand, by my math (counting those fakes that were sicced on me yesterday and scraped off), someone must have spent at least $400 to inflict this plague of fake accounts on me.

 

Category: Fear. Loathing.
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