@JessTheUnstill @codinghorror

I've addressed the situation with the accounts, updated/clarified rules, announced the changes, and clarified expectations of moderators. I am not going to engage any further in this. I am perfectly happy with being blocked, and to some extent, I hope that happens, and I understand that may make some people leave, and I understand that too.

@EdBruce @Viss @silhouette to be clear, I'm not blocking those - just an observation about where recent bot signups are coming from. I'm not sure why you would be blocked sometimes.

@Viss though I will say, I bet my hammer could tell some stories if it could talk. Whew.

@Viss that is painful to think about. I know it happens. I also use Claude, but I don’t really talk to my hammer or my jigsaw, so I have a hard time relating. Maybe I’m just too old.

@oscarsclaws @Viss @linuxandyarn fair enough. That could be it too

@Viss I don’t know if it’s that or they have relaxed some things to balloon their user base ahead of, I don’t know, a sale or merger, or investment, or IPO. Would have been a ridiculous thought a few years ago, but lately we are swimming in ridiculousness

@Viss @silhouette residential US IP addresses, tor exit nodes, and lately protonvpn. They have figured out how to mass create proton accounts because the last few day, protonmail.com and protonvpn IPs have become the strongest signal of a bot (but it’s also used by a lot of legit people)

@Viss @linuxandyarn I really don’t know what the point is. The ability to spam or scam tens of people just seems… futile.

@silhouette @Viss I see all sorts of wacky stuff - that gets discarded. Quite a few of them are copying the contents of bios of other mastodon accounts and using that as the reason to join. I get a lot of “Infosec.exchange requires you to enter a reason to join. You need to enter something believable. Would you like help?” (Variations of that), and lately, it’s been very on point reasons “I work in IT and trying to get into cyber security” and so on. The latest wave is not really discernible based on the reason they provide.

@Viss @linuxandyarn anyhow, it’s an arms race and most instances are feeling it. I have a number of sentinel accounts around the fedi and they are getting follows almost every day lately from different instances.

@Viss @linuxandyarn if you’re posting follower only, they you’re right, you have to be a follower to see them. Few people seem to post that way though.

@Viss @linuxandyarn there’s no real advantage - mastodon is a wide open book.

@Viss the bots have gotten very good at gaming the moderated signups. Residential IP, protonmail or gmail address, on topic reason for joining, then lay low, make a few posts, follow some accounts, then start posting about how unfair it was for Ukraine to start a war or how Christians are the most persecuted religion. It’s starting to make me crazy. Report them when you see them.