man creates army of amazon bots to inflate ebook rankings

1. 2016-10-04 at 11:51 PM UTC

   #1
   Merlin Houston
   I think a lot of people here will find this inspiring. Basically this guy created an army of amazon accounts, dl'ed ebooks which inflated their ranking, and then made profit - millions of dollars. They call it a scam, although he didn't break the law, and it's questionable if it's illegal in a civil sense (claims amazon wants to sue him). I wonder if they've patched these holes or if someone could copy it exactly as is. Either way it makes you wonder what else this could be applied to. Most of the success hinged on amazon not verifying email accounts, I can't think of any service which doesn't do that anymore.
   
   http://www.zdnet.com/article/exclusi...tfishing-scam/
2. 2016-10-05 at 12:34 AM UTC

   #2
   The Self Taught Man Black Hole
   Making all those fake books looks like fun. I wonder if this would work on the darknet.
3. 2016-10-05 at 12:56 AM UTC

   #3
   

   Sophie Pedophile Tech Support
   Interesting article. And yeah i wonder how they will try to prosecute the guy. This seems like a grey area as far as the law is concerned.
4. 2016-10-05 at 2:16 AM UTC

   #4
   Merlin Houston

   Making all those fake books looks like fun. I wonder if this would work on the darknet.

   That seems like the worst part. I absolutely hate writing bullshit. I don't know what could really be exploited on the darknet, I mean who buys ebooks on amazon? My mother...
   
   

   Interesting article. And yeah i wonder how they will try to prosecute the guy. This seems like a grey area as far as the law is concerned.

   
   I'm saying, normally when you violate the TOS nobody cares they might take whatever was in the account, but this kind of goes beyond normal blackhat tricks.
5. 2016-10-06 at 3:26 AM UTC

   #5
   

   SBTlauien African Astronaut
   I may have been asked by a manager at one of my jobs to create a bot that gives the company good reviews.
6. 2016-10-06 at 11:50 PM UTC

   #6
   Merlin Houston

   I may have been asked by a manager at one of my jobs to create a bot that gives the company good reviews.

   
   Get them to pay you extra and build it on company time when you'd be otherwise doing shit work. Something that would work well for this is selenium, it's something I've been meaning to learn.
7. 2016-10-07 at 3:50 AM UTC

   #7
   

   SBTlauien African Astronaut

   Get them to pay you extra and build it on company time when you'd be otherwise doing shit work. Something that would work well for this is selenium, it's something I've been meaning to learn.

   
   The general manager just does it from time to time. I don't know if a bot would fit this small company, it'd be a bit overkill. Bots are interesting.