i saw a thread by seun
https://www.nairaland.com/7387081/fake-likes-tinubu-bots
requesting for ideas on how to tackle the menace of tinubu bots. The developer in me will doubt the sincerity of this request because it is not actually a programming nightmare to stop the so called 'bots'.

This is something a developer can easily stop by investigating the source of the problem and writing appropriate functions or 'algorithms' that can curb the menace.

I believe that those responsible for the fake likes are not really sophiscated enough to create programs that automate the process of generating fake likes. So i will assume that they are simply creating multiple accounts that maybe, a ten man team sitting in same room and using the accounts to like affliated posts.

Moving to the possible scenarios and solution.

1. So assuming that as a not too techy person i want to generate likes. I will
simply create multiple accounts with temp mail or normal gmail and use same password on all for easy
rememberance. Having 500 accounts with different password is a nightmare, so i will definitely use same password or at least same set of passwords.

2. i will simply launch my tor,chrome or microsoft edge browser. open 25 private tabs on each of the browsers. On each of the tabs i will simply log in with a fake account and start liking affliated posts.

If we are just 5 guys in a room operating 25 tabs each on two different browsers we will generate (25*2) * 5 = 250 likes for a single post. imagine we are 10,20 guys? that will be 500 and 1000likes respectively



SOLUTION

i believe that nairaland is already logging the ip addrress of each user during login. How do i know this? After some failed login attempts you are expected to wait for some minutes before trying to log in again. This same process could have been done with cookies or a session on the users browser, i cant really tell because i have not tried to investigate, so i am just assuming.

The solution lies in the changing the criteria for a user to like a post. Instead of checking if the user name or user id have liked a particular post in the likes table, you can check if thesame
ip address have liked the post. This means instead of just using user id or user name in the likes
table you can use the ip address as the primary identifier.

The problem with using the ip address as an identifier is that many people can be on same wifi router and access nairaland. so limiting same ip can cause problems for others that are genuine.

You can bypass this by checking the ip address count. If about 20 users are associated with thesame Ip address, then that is likely a red flag.


You can investigate more by simply including the user agent. The user agent gives you information about the browser making the requests. Writing a function that checks if two ip addresses have same
user agents will obviously expose that such an account is a BOT account. You can use more parameters like screen size, browser name etc to identify unique likes!

STOP FAKE ACCOUNTS FROM LOGGIN

Simply creating a table to track each successful login.

On each logging, store the password,Ip address, user agent and username.

On each login attempt check if the password,Ip address and user agent already exist on the logging table. If it exists and the username names don't match, this means the login is coming from same device and address, it is a bot or alternate account. You can simply stop the login process at this point.

If the above matches and the username are thesame, it is a genuine account that logged out and trying to log in again.

You can set up a cron job or task scheduler that will empty this table after 24hours.

The simple truth is that the solutions listed above can affect some genuine users. Let us say that I visited a friend and logs out his account to use mine. A problem will arise because the system will assume that I am an alternate account. We can control this by timed refreshing of login table etc.

The minor problems are a small price to pay so as to make your forum free from manipulations but to truely reflect the opinion of the majority.

Booked...
Lots of work to do getting those Tinubu urchins by their throats.
Left for I'd suggest they be left alone with their fake likes,if it makes them feel less frustrated.

Such things can't happen on Twitter and Facebook.

It's gonna be hard.

Most of the fake accounts were opened in March prior to the APC primaries. I have screenshots of some of them.

You will be surprised they have just 10 urchins spamming Nairaland at their Drugnubu social media unit.

ecolime:
It's gonna be hard.

Most of the fake accounts were opened in Mar h prior to the APC primaries. I have screenshots of some of them.

You will be surprised they have just 10 urchins spamming Nairaland at the social media unit.

From a developer perspective there is nothing hard in this. Time of opening the accounts don't have any effect on the solutions I proffered in the original post .

Seun should show the original post to his developers. They will better understand.

This OP is dead in the brain.
Imagine being a mod n having to handle this

blancsn1:
This OP is dead in the brain.
Imagine being a mod n having to handle this

Stop exposing your ignorance. Programmers will understand what I am saying. I am simply explaining programs that can be written to stop the bots. The mods have no business in the process.

blancsn1:
This OP is dead in the brain.
Imagine being a mod n having to handle this

What makes him dead in the brain? For bringing a simple solution that will throw you of your propaganda job?

This site needs to be cleaned up for sane users.

ExplorerReturns:

Stop exposing your ignorance. Programmers will understand what I am saying. I am simply explaining programs that can be written to stop the bots. The mods have no business in the process.

leave that f**# . even me that is not a programmer have this same subjection but I know seun is not sincere ,the reason I hold back my comment

What makes him dead in the brain will be explain by the mod that needs to undertake what he explained. His explanation is not even simple, now imagine the mod that will have to monitor that n still deal with other situations.

A simple solution is registration on NL should be via phone number with phone verification. This will curb any fake from any side of the divide but I guess it will reduce the views NL need to boost it revenue so the owner is not ready

ecolime:

What makes him dead in the brain? For bringing a simple solution that will throw you of your propaganda job?

The site needs to be cleaned up for sane users.

Seun can tell who like a post and the time .so it easy to track if the account is a bot account .we know millions of people login in daily but these fake like are created with bot that can easily be trace bcuz the likes and share com in at same time

blancsn1:
What makes him dead in the brain will be explain by the mod that needs to undertake what he explained. His explanation is not even simple, now imagine the mod that will have to monitor that n still deal with other situations.

A simple solution is registration on NL should be via phone number with phone verification. This will curb any fake from any side of the divide but I guess it will reduce the views NL need to boost it revenue so the owner is not ready

Just like temp mail phone numbers can also be generated for verification. Apart from that, seun will have to pay for each sms verification that is sent to a phone number. His competitors will finish him with this by registering thousands of phone numbers and an sms will be sent to each of them at the cost of 2 or 4 naira

Abfinest007:
Seun can tell who like a post and the time .so it easy to track if the account is a bot account .we know millions of people login in daily but these fake like are created with bot that can easily be trace bcuz the likes and share com in at same time

I have always doubted his sincerity in curbing the likes

Lots of sick people here, when Obi gets 500 likes, then it is real people ?

Look at how this thread is void of urchinsons.

imohimoh12:
Lots of sick people here, when Obi gets 500 likes, then it is real people ?

You are in pains

ExplorerReturns:


You are in pains

to b delivered at your doorstep

Hmmm. We are making progress. Don't forget to drop something even if it is an ads space if you adopt my idea. @seun seun

Hehehe


They've been crying.

I only told one of them that it is the genesis of the impending doom that will eventually befall all of them enemies of Nigeria... imagine after installing Buhari, they have the enfontry to rub it on our face by supporting tinubu, what insolence??

ExplorerReturns:
i saw a thread by seun
https://www.nairaland.com/7387081/fake-likes-tinubu-bots
requesting for ideas on how to tackle the menace of tinubu bots. The developer in me will doubt the sincerity of this request because it is not actually a programming nightmare to stop the so called 'bots'.

This is something a developer can easily stop by investigating the source of the problem and writing appropriate functions or 'algorithms' that can curb the menace.

I believe that those responsible for the fake likes are not really sophiscated enough to create programs that automate the process of generating fake likes. So i will assume that they are simply creating multiple accounts that maybe, a ten man team sitting in same room and using the accounts to like affliated posts.

Moving to the possible scenarios and solution.

1. So assuming that as a not too techy person i want to generate likes. I will
simply create multiple accounts with temp mail or normal gmail and use same password on all for easy
rememberance. Having 500 accounts with different password is a nightmare, so i will definitely use same password or at least same set of passwords.

2. i will simply launch my tor,chrome or microsoft edge browser. open 25 private tabs on each of the browsers. On each of the tabs i will simply log in with a fake account and start liking affliated posts.

If we are just 5 guys in a room operating 25 tabs each on two different browsers we will generate (25*2) * 5 = 250 likes for a single post. imagine we are 10,20 guys? that will be 500 and 1000likes respectively



SOLUTION

i believe that nairaland is already logging the ip addrress of each user during login. How do i know this? After some failed login attempts you are expected to wait for some minutes before trying to log in again. This same process could have been done with cookies or a session on the users browser, i cant really tell because i have not tried to investigate, so i am just assuming.

The solution lies in the changing the criteria for a user to like a post. Instead of checking if the user name or user id have liked a particular post in the likes table, you can check if thesame
ip address have liked the post. This means instead of just using user id or user name in the likes
table you can use the ip address as the primary identifier.

The problem with using the ip address as an identifier is that many people can be on same wifi router and access nairaland. so limiting same ip can cause problems for others that are genuine.

You can bypass this by checking the ip address count. If about 20 users are associated with thesame Ip address, then that is likely a red flag.


You can investigate more by simply including the user agent. The user agent gives you information about the browser making the requests. Writing a function that checks if two ip addresses have same
user agents will obviously expose that such an account is a BOT account. You can use more parameters like screen size, browser name etc to identify unique likes!

STOP FAKE ACCOUNTS FROM LOGGIN

Simply creating a table to track each successful login.

On each logging, store the password,Ip address, user agent and username.

On each login attempt check if the password,Ip address and user agent already exist on the logging table. If it exists and the username names don't match, this means the login is coming from same device and address, it is a bot or alternate account. You can simply stop the login process at this point.

If the above matches and the username are thesame, it is a genuine account that logged out and trying to log in again.

You can set up a cron job or task scheduler that will empty this table after 24hours.

The simple truth is that the solutions listed above can affect some genuine users. Let us say that I visited a friend and logs out his account to use mine. A problem will arise because the system will assume that I am an alternate account. We can control this by timed refreshing of login table etc.

The minor problems are a small price to pay so as to make your forum free from manipulations but to truely reflect the opinion of the majority.

To be very Honest, none of the above would work.

No method is 100% effective BUT the above wouldn't work at all, and if it works, it would do more harm to innocent users.

To me, I doubt there are Computer Bots here on Nairaland, probably Human bots.
Any workAble solution need not be known to we ordinary users.

Just like google are not open with how they do certain things else PROs would find a wrkAround.

Now solution to the so called NairaLand bots is very simple, and Mr Seun seemingly asking for ideas seems suspicious to me. Except He wants to say all the developers he's hired were unable to proffer a solution that would at least half the problem.

bassdow:




To be very Honest, none of the above would work.

No method is 100% effective BUT the above wouldn't work at all, and if it works, it would do more harm to innocent users.

To me, I doubt there are Computer Bots here on Nairaland, probably Human bots.
Any workAble solution need not be known to we ordinary users.

Just like google are not open with how they do certain things else PROs would find a wrkAround.

Now solution to the so called NairaLand bots is very simple, and Mr Seun seemingly asking for ideas seems suspicious to me. Except He wants to say all the developers he's hired were unable to proffer a solution that would at least half the problem.

This is strictly your opinion and not a fact.

I am sure that I gave at least 3 possible solution to the problem. But you choose to talk about the one that have the potential to affect users.

Are you afraid of something?

ExplorerReturns:


This is strictly your opinion and not a fact.

I am sure that I gave at least 3 possible solution to the problem. But you choose to talk about the one that have the potential to affect users.

Are you afraid of something?

Seriously, this is no issue and if it's really an issue, the website owner(s) should be able to bring things under control as much as possible.

Even with the way nairaLand's Shares/Likes works, you can't know who Liked or shared.
it could be anyOne, including the website's owner(s).

Coming openly to ask such question seems somehow.


And yea, none of your proposed methods would work

bassdow:


Seriously, this is no issue and if it's really an issue, the website owner(s) should be able to bring things under control as much as possible.

Even with the way nairaLand's Shares/Likes works, you can't know who Liked or shared.
it could be anyOne, including the website's owner(s).

Coming openly to ask such question seems somehow.


And yea, none of your proposed methods would work

You can know who shared but can't know who liked

OP solution is not even realistic apart from IP ban

And IP address ban will affect many people because of how mods ban people here.
Same as phone number verification

All these sit at home animals and their obsession with Tinubu

They done swear for the Pigs from SadEast


Your Biafuro or death rubbish will soon start by March next year

Sammy07:


You can know who shared but can't know who liked

OP solution is not even realistic apart from IP ban

And IP address ban will affect many people because of how mods ban people here.
Same as phone number verification

Seriously, there are many intelligent ways to solving the issue.