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posted by martyb on Monday August 06 2018, @04:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the cat-and-mouse dept.

Creators of fake accounts and news pages on Facebook are learning from their past mistakes and making themselves harder to track and identify, posing new challenges in preventing the platform from being used for political misinformation, cyber security experts say.

This was apparent as Facebook tried to determine who created pages it said were aimed at sowing dissension among U.S. voters ahead of congressional elections in November. The company said on Tuesday it had removed 32 fake pages and accounts from Facebook and Instagram involved in what it called "coordinated inauthentic behavior."

[...] Facebook said it had shared evidence connected to the latest flagged posts with several private sector partners, including the Digital Forensic Research Lab, an organization founded by the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank.

Facebook also said the use of virtual private networks, internet phone services, and domestic currency to pay for advertisements helped obfuscate the source of the accounts and pages. The perpetrators also used a third party, which Facebook declined to name, to post content.

Source: Reuters


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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @05:19AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @05:19AM (#717751)

    These days they take a picture of a person in public, create a facebook account, create a grindr account. Just for fun.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @05:26AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @05:26AM (#717753)

    I am Prince Bohar of Senegal, son of the... nevermind. I am actually Ted Smith (body-builder image from unsplash)... Er, Ok - I *really* am Anish S. from a "call center" in "Southern Asia". I am currently sitting in an Internet "cafe" in Thailand with my friend Igor V. from a country North of us....

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @08:06AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @08:06AM (#717764)

      Are you looking for help moving your millions out of the country before your brother marries you off to a very ugly no longer rich bitch daughter who lost their wealth in an oil scam who is now marrying you for your title and wealth so you really have to leave immediately please call you now?

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 06 2018, @11:50AM (1 child)

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Monday August 06 2018, @11:50AM (#717797) Homepage
    Why take a photo rather than just cropping one out of a rando photo on the internet? Why let the grunts who do this "work" out into the sunlight?

    The story's hardly surprising, it's typical preditor/prey evolution. Not sure which one's the preditor here, though.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @01:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @01:43PM (#717827)

      Why take a photo rather than just cropping one out of a rando photo on the internet?

      Because this exists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_image_search [wikipedia.org]