Post #1532691
2026-04-22 15:31 UTC
Replies (11)
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@sb@metroholografix.ca 2026-04-24 03:17
So, yeah looks like it was #pravdaNetwork. Fun stuff. Very good.
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@hipsterelectron@circumstances.run 2026-04-22 15:35
@sb@metroholografix.ca scary.....
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@dbrand666@mastodon.social 2026-04-22 15:40
@sb@metroholografix.ca Any important elections coming up?
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@paul@oldfriends.live 2026-04-22 15:44
@sb@metroholografix.ca A lot of times, nefarious accounts just sit idle for a long time before being called into action. It's also worthy to note, with Mastodon, users can setup interactions to be filtered under a special area in notifications for news accounts, as well as other settings... So, if a new account tries to send spam within the first 30 days, it will get filtered behind a special area in notifications. They could be for future nefarious use,
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@Quasit@kolektiva.social 2026-04-22 15:44
@sb@metroholografix.ca Whatever it is, I wouldn't count on it being anything good! Something smells like billionaire to me...
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@kinetix@humanwords.party 2026-04-22 15:59
@sb@metroholografix.ca Possibly data harvesting while waiting for some command? I think IFTAS had a post quite recently about a whole botnet that's creating tons of accounts, behaving kind of normally for awhile before they start doing... whatever it is they start doing (wow, having a short sleep is doing wonders for the memory).
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@troy@opencoaster.net 2026-04-22 16:24
@sb@metroholografix.ca definitely will be used later. Had that happen here, they’d look legit for a while then start spamming. Luckily recently for me all of the spam signups have been pretty dang obvious.
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@synnfynn@corteximplant.com 2026-04-22 16:31
@sb@metroholografix.ca Sounds like sleeper bot accounts. They're most likely monitoring your public instance feed, including non-federated instance-local-only posts as I noticed some aren't following other accounts, but check if an account is following them. I'd also check for any unexpected traffic to/from your instance on the wire when there shouldn't be any, just in case. But it's concerning.
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@ophiocephalic@kolektiva.social 2026-04-22 17:01
@sb@metroholografix.ca This sounds similar to a bot campaign which has recently unfolded on a number of instances including ours. They can talk their way through a manual signup review, leading some to think humans initiate the accounts. The Kolektiva bots initially boosted a few toots from local accounts. They post squalls of stochastic automated text, first in English, and then switching to Greek (!). They also post slop graphics. A thematic that emerges through the nonsense is clear, a focus on the Ukraine war which is derogatory to Ukrainians. IOW, actual Russian bots
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@madsenandersc@social.vivaldi.net 2026-04-22 19:43
@sb@metroholografix.ca I've noticed similar accounts commenting on YouTube. They have been created years ago with minimal information, and suddenly they come out and go full throttle with pro-Russian arguments in debates on videos related to the US, EU and Ukraine. It's not ideal that Hetzner is hosting the email for them, but then again - if the Hetzner account is created by a EU citizen with Russian ties, it's almost impossible to detect. Personally I would contact the account owner and ask them a couple of follow-up questions and tell them to go elsewhere if I felt something was fishy.
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@iftas@mastodon.iftas.org 2026-04-23 05:30
@sb@metroholografix.ca Please see: https://about.iftas.org/library/suspected-portal-kombat-accounts/