DEF CON 24 - Hunter Scott - RT to Win: 50 lines of Python made me the luckiest guy on Twitter

Summary

In this video, a computer engineer describes how they used a Python script to automate entering Twitter contests, bypassing rate limits and follow restrictions. By scraping Twitter search results and using fake followers, they were able to enter thousands of contests, winning bizarre prizes like signed cowboy hats and albums. Despite encountering some technical hurdles and unintended interactions with Twitter users, the project highlights the power of automation, the prevalence of bots on the platform, and the unexpected randomness of the prizes. Ultimately, the engineer reflects on the ethical implications and the challenges of running such a bot.

Takeaways

• 😀 The speaker, a computer engineer, created a Python script to enter Twitter contests automatically, which turned out to be far more effective than anticipated.
• 😀 The project began when the speaker noticed that many Twitter contests only required a retweet to participate, prompting the idea to automate the process with a script.
• 😀 Initially, the speaker faced challenges with Twitter's API rate limits, which were bypassed by scraping Twitter's search page for contest-related tweets.
• 😀 Following contest rules often included following accounts, but Twitter limits the number of accounts you can follow, leading the speaker to buy fake followers to work around this limitation.
• 😀 The script was able to follow contests automatically, enter them, and unfollow accounts once the contests ended, thanks to the use of a FIFO (First In, First Out) method for managing follows.
• 😀 Despite a number of false positives (tweets that weren’t actually contests), the speaker's bot successfully entered a wide variety of contests, some of which resulted in bizarre or unexpected prizes.
• 😀 The speaker faced multiple ethical dilemmas during the project, including winning contests for prizes they didn't want or weren't eligible to claim (e.g., Fashion Week trip).
• 😀 The bot led to an influx of followers, many of whom were fake accounts, but some were legitimate, increasing the credibility of the speaker's Twitter profile.
• 😀 The speaker experimented with using the bot for good, such as retweeting for charity donations, but this also backfired at times.
• 😀 After entering about 265,000 contests, the speaker gathered a range of odd and random prizes, including signed items, free products, and even a Mexican soap opera star's signed cowboy hat.
• 😀 Ultimately, the speaker concludes that contests on Twitter can be gamed by scripts, but it's part of the system's nature, and attempts to prevent this behavior only lead to increasingly stealthy tactics.

Q & A

What was the main goal of the speaker's Twitter automation project?

The main goal was to create a Python bot that could automatically enter Twitter contests by retweeting contest posts, maximizing the number of contests entered without manual intervention.

How did the speaker overcome the Twitter API rate limits?

The speaker bypassed the Twitter API's rate limits by scraping the Twitter search results page directly and using BeautifulSoup to extract relevant contest tweets.

Why did the speaker buy fake followers for their Twitter account?

The speaker bought fake followers because Twitter has a limit on how many accounts you can follow when you have a small number of followers. By increasing the follower count artificially, the speaker could follow more people and enter more contests.

What issues did the speaker encounter with fake followers?

The fake followers were not real people, and many had incomplete profiles (like the default egg profile picture). This led to the account being filled with bot-like followers, which could be identified as suspicious.

How did the bot handle the follower limit problem on Twitter?

The speaker implemented a FIFO (First In, First Out) system for following users. When a new person needed to be followed, the bot unfollowed the earliest person in the list to maintain the limit of 2,000 people.

What kind of prizes did the speaker win through the Twitter contests?

The speaker won a variety of prizes, including physical items like books, vinyl records, t-shirts, and even a signed cowboy hat. They also received a four-thousand-dollar trip to Fashion Week in New York City, though they didn't claim it.

What were some of the most bizarre interactions the speaker had during the project?

The speaker encountered several false positives, such as contests that weren't actually contests, and got involved in strange interactions like a contest to win an autographed photo by someone they didn't know, or a retweet campaign by a girl asking for a date.

Why did the speaker stop running the contest automation bot?

The speaker faced issues like being flagged for suspicious activity and banned, and also grew tired of the ethical implications of automating entries. There was also the concern of others copying their work and creating versions of the bot.

What unexpected side effects did the speaker observe while using the bot?

Some side effects included gaining more legitimate followers from companies and people running contests, as well as being able to enter contests without being noticed by organizers. The speaker also had to deal with weird automated interactions, like people retweeting everything the bot did.

What was the most valuable prize the speaker won, and why didn’t they claim it?

The most valuable prize was a $4,000 trip to Fashion Week in New York. The speaker didn’t claim it because it didn’t cover travel costs, and they weren’t particularly interested in attending Fashion Week.