Interesting times battling against “
followersfree.com” an evil Twitter Spambot thing!
This is a first for me, and, let it be said, entirely my own silly fault. Whilst in the general Twitterstream at the weekend, I noticed a grow your numbers scheme called “followersforfree.com.” This, I thought, was a reincarnation of a similar automated scheme Twitter banned earlier this year which included the ability to follow/ unfollow people
en masse. I have at the same time been trying to get round a change in the Twitter display that doesn't show immediately whether you can direct message people you follow, in other words whether they are following you. I thought I’d try and see if this site held some way of getting multiple follow/ unfollow/ people listed, as this is a classic pattern indicative of activity by spammers and the like.
Big mistake.
Do not touch this site with a bargepole. The advice Twitter itelf gives is good —
never give out details to any scheme that claims to be able to build your numbers. Within minutes I found this evil SpamBot was sending out a message in my name, which had transferred across to publish through Facebook.
I then tried to unsubscribe, and blow me down, it sent out another spam in my name to say I'd unsubscribed.
I tried changing my Twitter password, but it kept on changing back! I tried
suspending access privileges on my account, but it hadn't got these in the first place. Every time I changed password, out went another evil Spam message!
Twitter has currently limited my acccount’s ability to change password, probably as a reaction to all the gyrations. I am wondering whether the evil bot has some way of changing my password back (I can’t see how that would work). In the meanwhile I need to say:
- Nobody else has got infected through this. It's just an annoyance.
- There is no evidence this SwineFlu of Evil Bots can touch you unless you go to their site and engage. So just don’t.
- Nor is there any evidence that it can infect anyone else through you. It just sends out messages plugging itself as though you had sent them from your Twitter account.
- I have now had three clear hours without any message going out in my name — touch wood.
- I never did find out how the thing from the Swamp’s unfollow unfollowers routine works.
- The story may not be entirely over, but I believe it is for now. I am retreating back to my cave to clean the Exorcist style green puke off my cassock, and rub out a few bits of Jabberwocky spam that got splashed around the place in my name. It's all in a day's work, I suppose, and an interesting learning experience...
Whilst checking my Spam Filter I came across a really interesting offering from Somewhere East of Eastbourne. In 2009 I overpaid my taxes and got a refund — My sincere thanks to Mrs Shah and colleagues in Bradford Tax Office for increasing my cheer.
However last week this Phishing email arrived, horrifically, with the correct figure for the amount I was due.
