After reading through this week’s weekly materials I found myself wanting to know more about botnets. A botnet is “nothing more than a string of connected computers coordinated together to perform a task. That can be maintaining a chatroom, or it can be taking control of your computer”.
When I think of my own personal experiences with Botnets I think about all the fake accounts I see on my social media, specifically on Facebook and Instagram. In most instances when I have follow requests or message requests from suspicious accounts I identify them as botnets by checking their profiles. If I find they have no profile pictures or posts and a very small following then I will make the assumption they are fake and report them. In recent times, I have noticed it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to identify bots as they continue to advance.
For my remediation this week I followed a simple meme template on the topic of botnets on social media as I thought this template would be fitting with my discussion.
LET’S BE FRIENDS / FOLLOW MY SOCIALS ♡
Twitter: @__nicolepap
Instagram: @__nicolepap
Etsy: TheFramedCollective
RedBubble: TFCollective
TikTok: @__nicolepap
NICOLE PAP 
I enjoyed your remediation because it acts as a message to people not to cloud social media platforms with bots. Interestingly enough I made a social media bot for my DA but I use it in conjunction with my real account. I too find myself being followed by bots but sometimes I wonder if they are real or fake. As these social media bots get better, it seems to be increasingly difficult to identify them. For my remediation this week I made a video of me demonstrating some simple “hacking”. If you find this topic interesting you might want to check it out: https://benton.home.blog/2019/10/21/a-demonstration-on-cybercrime/
Here is an additional source on botnets that I found: https://au.norton.com/internetsecurity-malware-what-is-a-botnet.html
LikeLiked by 1 person
BotNet’s are a scary thought! Funnily enough, I rarely get botnets messaging me its mostly just beautiful Russian men and women who live in my area that only have 3 followers, how strange! With our homes and lives becoming increasingly entwined in the digital world, this could lead to some terrifying repercussions!
Well made remediaiton, really well done! I found a little more information that is a great read linked below! Keep up the great work!
https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/botnets-malware-cyberattack-increase
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hey Nicole!!
This happens all the time for me! It seems like every time I open Facebook I have a new friend request from a shady profile with no mutual friends. Just like with everything, there is a good and a bad side to bots. During my research for this topic I looked at the applications of Bots and found that they are often used as information curators and aggregators, relaying messages, etc.
However, Bots may also be used for malicious purposes, such as discovering passwords, obtaining financial information and sending spam, etc. Another relevant article I found discussed Social Bots and how hard it can be to detect if something is real or a bot, so it’s becoming increasingly harder to stay safe online.
I loved your remediation, keep up the good work!
Hayden.
https://curleyh.home.blog/2019/10/23/bots/
https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204021-the-rise-of-social-bots/fulltext
LikeLiked by 1 person