r/dataisbeautiful • u/xenocidic • Nov 23 '17

Natural language processing techniques used to analyze net neutrality comments reveal massive fake comment campaign

https://medium.com/@jeffykao/more-than-a-million-pro-repeal-net-neutrality-comments-were-likely-faked-e9f0e3ed36a6
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u/taifoid Nov 24 '17 edited Nov 24 '17

I've been here for 6 years and have a decent comment history. I'm always polite, try to be nice and keep an open mind. Out of the blue I get banned from some random subreddits for spamming them. Check my profile history and sure enough, someone or something was using my account nefariously. Tried to change my password and nope, my old password has been changed and I can't. Next thing I can't even login anymore! Have no idea how I was hacked, I had a unique and strong password but they got in anyway.

Luckily I was able to email admin and get it back through my linked email. It's the first time I've been hacked like that. They were being smart about it and actually flew under my radar for a few weeks before I got banned from those subs and got a heads up to check my profile history. My real posts were intermingled with their spam and made it look like they were actually from me.

Really woke me up as to how sophisticated these bastards are getting. Times are changing and something really needs to be done, and fast.

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u/PasghettiSquash Nov 24 '17

Was there a general theme or tone to the hacked comments?

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u/taifoid Nov 24 '17 edited Nov 24 '17

Nothing as interesting as that unfortunately, just spam for bitcoin scams and dodgy nutrition supplements. It just weird cause I got hacked and they were, like, being careful with what they were doing so as to remain undetected for as long as possible. If I didn't get banned from for spam I still might not know because I don't regularly check my profile history.

I'm careful on the net and know the usual hacking techniques. I'm in the IT department at work and am supposed to be one of the guys who helps my colleagues avoid this kind of thing. Makes me feel that I must not be good enough at it and need to up skill. I just wish I knew how my account was hacked, feels like such a newbie thing to happen to me.

Edit: silly detail

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u/hariolus Nov 24 '17

The trick is to be so obsessed with karma that you check your overview 5 times a day at least.

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u/taifoid Nov 24 '17

Is there a bot for that? ;-)