Who are VK bots and offers? Who are bots? The bot understands words like an ordinary person

With the modern trend in the development of information technology, there are more and more ways to manipulate human consciousness. There are many tools and different platforms, but social networks have become the main springboard for such actions. Now we will talk about the so-called social bots - special programs created to imitate the behavior of people in social networks. The purpose of these programs can be different, but most often they are used by Internet marketers and cybercriminals.

Not so long ago, a group of scientists from the University of British Columbia, led by Professor Yazan Bushmaf, conducted a large-scale experiment to identify vulnerabilities in major social networks. The experimental part of the study lasted two months. During this time, scientists were able to obtain more than 250 GB of users' personal information from just one Facebook network. For these purposes, about a hundred bots were developed with a certain array of scripts, due to which they could impersonate real people.

The programs instantly created pages for themselves with photos and personal information. Also, bots could participate in dialogues, periodically change statuses and send messages with invites. As a result, in two months they were able to send 5053 messages to request personal data, of which 80% had a positive result. To prevent Facebook's anti-spam protection from working, bots sent no more than 25 messages per day. To increase user confidence, the programs used a social engineering technique called the triadic closure principle, which involves making mutual friends.

As a result, the experiment showed that the protection of most social networks is not ready for large-scale data theft attacks. 8 out of 10 users fall for the tricks of social bots without knowing it. However, the Facebook management said that the results of the experiment were greatly exaggerated, and their Facebook Immune security system is constantly being improved to detect fake profiles and new types of cyber attacks.

The main types and tasks of social bots

Technical bots. In their structure, there are almost always specially prescribed programs. Their main tasks include accumulating likes and monosyllabic comments under the desired post, creating a large mass of friends to increase trust in the bot, and distributing publications through reposts. This is the most popular type of bots used on any social network, be it Facebook, VKontakte or Instagram.

Combat bots. They are required primarily to reduce the reputation or block a certain page on a social network by sending a large number of complaints and negative comments.

Drain bots. Sometimes special bots are used to distribute this or that information, which at first behave like real users, but at a certain point they begin to spread insider information. Subsequently, many online publications and media outlets will refer to this fake source.

Hyperbolizing bots. This is perhaps the most subtle and sophisticated type of social bots, which is designed to gain trust in the customers of a competitor's customer with the further creation of anti-advertising. At first glance, the fake user fully supports the ideology and views of the opponent. But at a certain moment, he begins to spread exaggerated (exaggerated) information. For example, a bot infiltrates a group of fans of a certain car brand and informs that all car owners of other companies are stupid people with no taste. It is supported by other bots. As a result, many potential buyers will begin to be very skeptical about all the owners of these cars and, accordingly, the brand as a whole.

Intelligent combat bots or simply "trolls". These bots are interesting because they use their own embedded intellectual resource. That is, the program, with the necessary embedded data, is sent to the information war to promote an outside opinion. The main task of such a bot is to communicate on highly specialized topics in a specific topic or message thread. In addition, such a bot can often turn to insults or provocative statements against other users, thereby distracting attention from the main topic of the conversation. This type of bot is most popular when discussing political and social phenomena.

Bots from sites. Usually, little-known companies resort to help, creating an account for a virtual person. Usually such bots are inactive and easy to identify.

How to recognize a bot?

To protect yourself and not be attacked by bots, you need to know the main points to which you should pay special attention.

• The account was recently created, but it actively posts meaningless photos, links and posts;
• The account was created recently, it is maintained by an unknown person, but it already has a large number of friends with pages almost identical to this profile;
• The account was recently registered. There is no information or photos on him, but he actively communicates with other users and in groups;
• The account owner never replies to comments under their own posts. Most often these are bots from sites. They can be easily calculated when trying to enter a simple dialogue with them;
• The account was created a long time ago. For a long time he was inactive, after which he abruptly begins to publish dozens of entries a day. This often happens if the account has been hacked.

Therefore, if you are convinced that you have stumbled upon a bot, do not be lazy and send a complaint about it to the administration of the social network. It is known that today bots generate more than 60% of Internet traffic and it is quite possible to mislead even an intelligent person. The most interesting thing is that thousands of people around the world use the services of social bots, sometimes for very bad purposes. It is possible to fight them, but, most likely, it is useless, since new and more sophisticated ways of deceiving people will always appear.

Surely it happened to you - you go to the site, and you are offered to install a free mobile application? Sberbank, Gett taxi, Facebook, Avito, Lamoda - in general, “do it” you are offered by many sites every day. Looking at my phone, I counted more than 10 installed applications, and I use almost all of them every day. But due to the fact that the user's life is flowing from the "big Web" into messengers, the developers have come up with chat bots for us, which are designed to help users (navigate the Internet, search for the necessary information and much more).

A bit of history

Back in the 1950s, Alan Turing was doing research (Turing Test) whether humans could figure out a robot.

What was the essence:

A person must determine with whom he is talking to a person or a robot. The subject could ask questions and draw a conclusion only on their basis, and the task of the robot was to make the subject believe that he is a human.

And in 1964, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joseph Weisenbaum wrote the ELIZA bot program, which could plausibly portray a psychotherapist and ask a patient questions.

As we can see, back in the middle of the 20th century, scientists tried to create a bot that would help us in our work and replace the assistant. And already in 1984 the director James Cameron made a splash with the film "The Terminator" (everyone watched it, and, I suppose, more than once). Everyone remembers that the essence of the film is to defeat artificial intelligence.

Finally, we got to the very essence of our article - artificial intelligence. Today, it is almost impossible to surprise anyone with robots that speak and understand our speech, but the problem is that they look unnatural, so we do not trust them (not like Schwarzenegger, right? Here is a good example of a robot that will be trusted). But so far we have not created such humanoid robots (although companies are already working on this), we will talk about other robots, which, by the way, you already trust - chat bots.

Who are bots and why are they needed

Bots are internet robots that are meant to help us. They are ready to answer any question that interests you, tell you where you can dine, how to get to the place you need, what is in fashion today, what is the weather and much more.

Bots are everywhere

We meet robots everywhere, we just don't think about it. For example, last year Yandex announced a new format for news generated by bots.

According to Yandex, while such bots will create simple news notes that will be generated based on monitoring and analyzing data from the Web. The news excited news journalists, for whom news writing is their main source of income. Perhaps very soon robots will write not only news, but also analytical articles, and maybe do all our work. This is possible because the robot only needs to download information, while a person needs a lot of time to study a particular subject.

However, Yandex news is still far from perfect.

What are chatbots doing?

You can communicate with the bot on any topic, ask questions, find out the news, while you do not need to use stamps, it will understand you and answer the way you want it. By the way, for each user / client the answer will be formulated differently (individually).

While I was writing this article, the wonderful British sci-fi movie Out of the Machine came to mind. If you are interested in robots and artificial intelligence, I recommend watching it.

Now let's move on to the chatbots that surround us.

Siri

Personal assistant developed on the iOS platform. Siri was born back in 2010 and was available as an application in the App Store, but soon it was bought by Apple and now it is an integral part of Apple iPhone (4S and older), iPad (third generation and older, as well as all iPad mini devices) , iPod touch 5g and Apple Watch. Siri spoke Russian only a year ago, when the developers updated the firmware to 8.3.

Cortana

This assistant from Microsoft helps Windows Phone 8.1 users. It is designed to anticipate the needs of the user. If you wish, you can give her access to her e-mail, address book - all so that she can help you (she will never forget about a friend's birthday or an important meeting).

Tay

A self-learning teenage bot from Microsoft, created for Twitter at the end of March 2016. He was programmed so that his communication style did not differ from English-speaking teenagers.

But as soon as the bot was launched on the Network, they began to ask him incorrect questions, one might say that the bot contacted a bad company. So, in just a day, the bot became a Nazi, after which Microsoft disabled its bot.

Google Chatbot

Google continues to experiment with a chatbot to make it even smarter and not at all different from a person. The Google bot can communicate with you on various topics, watch movies, and then discuss them, perhaps someday bots will replace human communication.

Facebook Messenger

On April 12, Facebook announced the launch of a chat bot, which will issue a user with a complicated text, but a colorful picture with a description. With the help of bots, users will be able to book a table in a restaurant or buy the desired product.

Bitrix 24

So we got to the Russian developers, ours still have gunpowder in their flasks! It is easy to guess that the bitrix bot is available only for those who use Bitrix 24, these lucky ones can take advantage of this. The bot's name is Martha, she is always in touch, she will answer any question, help you understand the internal programs, and also talk with you on abstract topics.

@ya

Yandex developers have been working on the creation of bots for a long time, which are designed to help users. A month ago Yandex announced a new smart bot for the Telegram platform. This bot is designed to not easily search for music and video, translate texts, it can tell you what has happened in the world or just chat with you. In addition, you can connect it to your internal correspondence with a friend, and if you need help or a suitable picture, the bot will always help you.

And I found this chatbot when I was preparing this article. Christina is a sex bot, but she can communicate on other topics as well. If interested, you can see for yourself.

Output

As we found out, today we are surrounded by many bots, and, sometimes, we do not notice them. And due to the fact that this direction is only developing, we will meet with them more than once. Remember that they are designed to make our life more convenient, easier, but they are not alive, so appreciate human communication!

Humanity seeks to free its life as much as possible from unnecessary problems. Therefore, he comes up with various robots ready to perform any programmed work. Sometimes it turns out so much that you can only gasp! However, many do not understand what this is about. "Who is a bot?" they ask. Consider who or rather what it is, what "it" is for and summarize the data.

1. What is it all about?

As already mentioned, at the moment there are many robots (abbreviated as bots). They can perform such a volume of work that a person can never do. However, they have a significant drawback. They still, thank God, do not know how to think. And, therefore, they directly depend on the person. That is why the question: "Who is a bot?" slightly incorrect, as there is no artificial intelligence at the moment.

2. What are they for?

The Internet is a huge network in which people can not only spend their free time, search for necessary information and have fun, but also perform commercial activities. As a rule, in order to have successful business in the virtual space, it is necessary to notify

other Internet users about their site. To automate this process, special programs have been invented. For example, there are bots for ICQ. Their tasks are simple. First, they are added to several thousand users, then they send them the same type of messages. Several recipients can follow the link, thus, the program's task will be completed. There are, of course, similar things for other purposes, but they are less popular. This includes an answering machine for an ISQ agent. The translation bot is equally popular. True, only a small part of users is ready to resort to its services so far. The fact is that the quality of the translation leaves much to be desired. It should be said that large financial resources are involved in this direction, so the situation should soon change for the better. Do not forget about all kinds of online games, the developers of which, to recreate a realistic atmosphere, create rival robots whose actions are calculated by the computer.

3. Position of bots on the Internet

Earlier it was mentioned for what purpose these obscure, mysterious computer wards were introduced. After all, even five years ago, no one knew who a bot was. However, most people now know that it is the scammers who use the services of such programs. Yes, do not forget that someone else writes them and gets paid for it. With the help of such assistants, you can quickly raise your level in the game, automatically place hearts on social networks, translate some texts, download music, make money by automatically clicking on links and much more. There is a completely justified opinion that evaluates all actions of automatic programs with the lowest score. And one should not forget that the Internet was originally created for the exchange of information between people. But when a programmed machine works under the image of a person, which absolutely does not care what to do, then the original task, as they say, comes to naught.

Now you know who a bot is. In short, this is a special program; its goal is to make life easier for some people, although sometimes other Internet users may suffer because of this.

Often the owners of VKontakte groups and publics turn to me with the question: "How can you quickly and cheaply recruit subscribers to a group?" They also ask who are the bots and offers of VKontakte. I answer that this is not for me about "fast and cheap", as I work with groups of my customers using exclusively white methods using paid promotion methods.

Who are bots?

Working on social networks, and in particular VKontakte, is a big job that requires a serious investment of time, effort and money. Entrepreneurs often go to social networks without understanding how everything works here. That is why people "fall for" dubious offers, where they are offered "real live subscribers" for very modest money. Let's try to figure out what kind of "live" subscribers they are and where they come from.

Do you know who bots are and how do they differ from offers?

Bots are personal VKontakte pages filled with false information and performing automatic tasks. Who creates these bots? There are special programs that either create such pages or hack the pages of real people.

What are offers?

A few years ago, bots were actively used by Vkontakte, but today they are almost completely replaced by offers. The social network Vkontakte has a negative attitude towards inanimate accounts and if you manage to fill your group with bots, it will simply be blocked. You will then long and persistently communicate with the administration and explain where you got these bots.

Offers, unlike bots, are real people who are ready to join a certain VKontakte group and perform certain actions in it, for example, like, repost, or write a comment. Why are they doing this? For a fee, of course.

Before you is just a screen from the site where people are invited to earn VKontakte by performing certain targeted actions.

How much do the offers cost?

The prices for the offers are very different. To be honest, I myself have never used services for recruiting a group of offers, but finding them on the network is not difficult at all. Go to the search engine and enter the search query "Buy VK offers" and get acquainted with the prices. Here is a screen that I made by looking at one of the sites that provide such services.

But I want to warn you right away, when ordering offers, you think you will find yourself in the same situation as the author of this post in the discussion thread on the forum. That is, after joining your community, people will hang there as an absolutely dead audience, and this is even at best. And at worst, they will begin to unsubscribe en masse and turn into "dogs".

Why bots and offers are useless for business

Why it happens? The answer is simple - these people are absolutely not interested in your group and your business. They received their reward and happily forgot about you. And even if the cost of one such subscriber is much cheaper than the target one obtained by launching paid advertising, the question arises: why do you need these offers at all?

Some authors of VKontakte projects believe that they join a group with several thousand subscribers much better than an empty one. But the whole problem is that in order to powder the brains of people, you will also have to imitate at least minimal, but activity in your group. And you will have to pay for this too ... And again, this activity will be fake. That's why I never buy offers anywhere and I do not advise you.

Why buy offers

If you want your Vkontakte business to develop and make a profit, you need to learn not to buy offers, but to work competently in this social network. Make your group interesting to your subscribers and learn how to attract a real live target audience.

Some owners of VKontakte groups want to buy offers in order to get into the TOP results in the internal search on VKontakte. In this regard, I will say the following. If in order to reach the TOP you need to recruit up to 10 thousand subscribers to the group, then it is quite possible to cope with this task without any offers, and, moreover, in a fairly short time (provided, of course, there is a certain budget).

For example, the group "SECRETS OF CHINESE MEDICINE" is in the top three in the search results for the internal search of VKontakte among 410 communities. And they recruited this group exclusively in white ways.

If, in order to get to the TOP, you need to gain 100 thousand subscribers or more, it is generally thankless to recruit offers. Why? Because the lack of activity in a group with such a serious number of subscribers will rather work against you.

People will have a question: why in such a large group no one is interested in the product, does not ask questions, does not leave reviews. Are you going to imitate the "movement" in your group yourself? Maybe then you will buy from yourself?

Yes, and such a picture in the subscribers of your community will also not work to build trust in you and your business:

So, my friends, I want to warn you against unnecessary and pointless spending. Do not believe the promises of recruiting a target and solvent audience for a small amount of money.
It's all a scam.

If you really want to develop your VKontakte business, then study paid advertising. And don't expect instant results! If you study and work, then the results will be sure, but not immediately.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask! I will gladly answer.

Like the article, share with your friends!