Elon Musk’s new “Not-a-Bot” program is starting in New Zealand and the Philippines. It charges new users $1 per year and requires phone verification to post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
There are still companies that actively maintain lists of VPN IPs. My employer is a big user of Akamai for CDN & web security. Although we don’t use it, I know Akamai has a highly accurate list of VPN addresses that customers have access to.
if vpns still run in china where the entire security establishment (including all the network infrastructre) are playing cat and mouse with trying to block them i think they can manage it for a tech company clinging on with 1/3 of the required workforce.
Vpns are open source, commodity software. You can set one up with a script at any webhost. He would have to block every site that lets you spin up server, which is most of the internet.
Its not possible to actually block vpns without nation state access to interent infastructure, and even then it’s not easy.
If I’m a bot owner and I could pay $500/year to ensure my 500 bots run unfettered, it might be worth it. I can influence a significant amount of discourse with 500 accounts xitting, rexitting the original xit that was xit out, etc.
If he thinks he can make money from bot managers, it may make sense.
It will probably decrease trust in the whole xitty system, but maybe Musk doesn’t care?
It has nothing to do with bots. Bots were his way of trying to get out of being forced to make good on his legally binding offer to buy Twitter. He goes on and on about bots, but he’s stopped reporting metrics about monetizable users and just started reporting made up metrics like number of user-seconds and crap like that.
The funny thing would be to use a VPN to simulate traffic from NZ so it looks like they try accessing it and then just give up.
Thats hilarious. Does a vpn get around this? Because if so, it wont stop botting
It would unless they started banning VPN IPs. I guess Musk is stupid enough to do it
Dont most vpn companies cycle their active ips? Or is that more of a niche thing only one or two options do
There are still companies that actively maintain lists of VPN IPs. My employer is a big user of Akamai for CDN & web security. Although we don’t use it, I know Akamai has a highly accurate list of VPN addresses that customers have access to.
They have dedicated blocks of IPs assigned to them, he would just have to block the blocks.
if vpns still run in china where the entire security establishment (including all the network infrastructre) are playing cat and mouse with trying to block them i think they can manage it for a tech company clinging on with 1/3 of the required workforce.
I’m not saying it’s difficult to do, it’s actually pretty simple. I’m just describing how it would be done.
Vpns are open source, commodity software. You can set one up with a script at any webhost. He would have to block every site that lets you spin up server, which is most of the internet.
Its not possible to actually block vpns without nation state access to interent infastructure, and even then it’s not easy.
If I’m a bot owner and I could pay $500/year to ensure my 500 bots run unfettered, it might be worth it. I can influence a significant amount of discourse with 500 accounts xitting, rexitting the original xit that was xit out, etc.
If he thinks he can make money from bot managers, it may make sense.
It will probably decrease trust in the whole xitty system, but maybe Musk doesn’t care?
And you’ll use 500 accounts for that?
I think that when they are banned, you’ll have to come up with 500 new ways to pay
I think you underestimate how many validated credit cards come up for sale every week on the internet.
Trust me, paying $1 isn’t even a speed bump to scammers: they pay it with Other People’s Money.
That’s the tough part about white-hat, you follow the rules, they don’t.