Ars Technica: Widely used D-Link modem/router under mass attack by potent IoT botnet. “Malicious hackers are mass exploiting a critical vulnerability in D-Link DSL routers in an attempt to make them part of Satori, the potent Internet-of-things botnet that is used to take down websites and mine digital coins, researchers said.”
bots
Library of Congress: Linking chatbots to collections for place-based storytelling
Library of Congress: Linking chatbots to collections for place-based storytelling. “The following is a guest post from Library of Congress Labs Innovation Intern, Charlie Moffett. In the course of crafting data-driven narratives with digital collections, he created @govislandbot and an open-source mapping tutorial. Below he shares his processes, some of the challenges he encountered, along with the code.”
OMG, that’s downright Wicked: Botnet authors twist corpse of Mirai into new threats (The Register)
The Register: OMG, that’s downright Wicked: Botnet authors twist corpse of Mirai into new threats. “Cybercrooks are using the infamous Mirai IoT botnet as a framework to quickly add in new exploits and functionalities, it has emerged. The tactic is dramatically decreasing the development time for new botnets, according to research from Netscout’s Arbor Security Engineering and Response Team (ASERT).”
Amit Agarwal: How to Screen Capture Tweets with a Twitter Bot
Amit Agarwal, back again with a useful tool: How to Screen Capture Tweets with a Twitter Bot . “Introducing Screenshot Guru, a new Twitter bot that will help you easily take high-resolution screenshots of tweets. There are a plethora of screen capture apps available, including the good old Print+Screen combo but with Screenshot Guru, you get crisp and beautiful screenshots sans the clutter.”
CNET: We can’t stop botnet attacks alone, says US government report
CNET: We can’t stop botnet attacks alone, says US government report. “A newly released report from the departments of Homeland Security and Commerce takes a dive into the global cybersecurity issue. A botnet is a network of internet-connected devices that are infected with malware and controlled without the users’ knowledge. They’re used to launch things like distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks or ransomware attacks that can put critical infrastructure at risk, making them a big concern for the government.”
Huffington Post: We Built A Twitter Ratio Bot That Tracks All Your Terrible Tweets
Huffington Post: We Built A Twitter Ratio Bot That Tracks All Your Terrible Tweets. “Whatever Twitter was originally intended to be, it certainly wasn’t this. Nazis roam free, celebrities melt down daily, entire news cycles run their course in a matter of minutes, and you can’t figure out why 200 people with rose emojis in their username keep calling you a cop. Not only is the constant noise just generally overwhelming, but it can also bury one of the platform’s few perfect uses: watching other people dunk on terrible tweets. Those days are behind us now, thanks to a new Twitter bot built by HuffPost in collaboration with Adam Pash (who in real life is a director of engineering at Postlight).” I had no idea what the rose emoji means. Mashable clued me in.
Bloomberg: Twitter Bots Helped Trump and Brexit Win, Economic Study Says
Bloomberg: Twitter Bots Helped Trump and Brexit Win, Economic Study Says. “Twitter bots may have altered the outcome of two of the world’s most consequential elections in recent years, according to an economic study. Automated tweeting played a small but potentially decisive role in the 2016 Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s presidential victory, the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper showed this month. Their rough calculations suggest bots added 1.76 percentage point to the pro-‘leave’ vote share as Britain weighed whether to remain in the European Union, and may explain 3.23 percentage points of the actual vote for Trump in the U.S. presidential race.”
