Security News > 2024 > July > FBI, cyber-cops zap ~1K Russian AI disinfo Twitter bots

The FBI and cybersecurity agencies in Canada and the Netherlands say they have taken down an almost 1,000-strong Twitter bot farm set up by Russian state-run RT News that used generative AI to spread disinformation to Americans and others.

The international crime busters seized two web domains and 968 X accounts that were integral parts of the bot farm, the US Department of Justice said in a statement Tuesday.

An account would be created with a randomly generated soul, that would define the personality of the bot's output, and then assigned thoughts, which would direct the bots to perform actions and interact with other accounts.

The Feds said they found that there were three general forms of soul; one featuring a completely filled-out profile with a name, personal background info, and photos generated by an open source tool that uses AI to make up fake data, and used to vocally spread political opinions; another archetype with very little info at all used for liking other bots' posts; and a third designed to look very real, gain lots of followers, and signal boost content posted by both bots and real accounts.

The bot farm implemented various strategies to avoid getting caught, such as having the bots follow big accounts with more than 100,000 followers and following accounts with opinions that matched the corresponding soul, using proxy IP addresses individual to each soul, and bypassing X's bot identification measures.

The bot farm probably made a big mistake by signing up its 968 X accounts through the two domains it owned, and that probably made it pretty easy for the Feds and X to find them all, it's said.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/07/09/russian_ai_bot_farm/