Dogecoin creator helps Elon Musk fix his Twitter scambot problem
Weirdest buddy cop movie ever.
A Tuesday night Twitter conversation saw Elon Musk making reference to the "pedo guy" claims that earned him criticism in July.
Elon Musk is Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla , founder of Space X, probably the most famous tech entrepreneur in the world. Jackson Palmer is the co-creator of Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that started out as a harmless joke but, at its peak, had a market cap of $2 billion.
For the briefest of times, they worked together to solve one of Elon Musk's strangest problems: Everyone keeps trying to impersonate him on Twitter to promote cryptocurrency scams.
I'm talking about tweets like this:
— EIon Muskㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ (@GesaScud) September 17, 2018
And this:
— EIon Muskㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ (@SadikuYeun) September 17, 2018
Which, at a quick glance, makes it seem like Elon Musk lost his goddamn mind and started giving away cryptocurrency for free. Obviously that didn't happen. It's just Twitter scambots pretending to be Elon Musk.
As you might expect, Elon Musk isn't too happy about this, despite expressing admiration in the beginning.
I want to know who is running the Etherium scambots! Mad skillz …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 8, 2018
On Monday that admiration had devolved into something approaching exasperation.
Maybe the scammers will just get tired of winning eventually
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 17, 2018
But Jackson Palmer, as the creator of one of the internet's most popular cryptocurrencies, is no stranger to crypto scambots. He's seen so much of them he created a script that, he says, solved the issue of crypto scambots infiltrating Twitter replies.
I literally have a Python script that does this regex, blocks and reports the accounts then Twitter shuts them down within seconds. Running for months with no more scam accounts.
— Jackson Palmer (@ummjackson) September 17, 2018
DM me if you’d find it useful.
Musk wanted a part of that solution.
@ummjackson if you can help get rid of the annoying scam spammers, that would be much appreciated
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 17, 2018
Jackson Palmer then invited Musk to send him a direct message over Twitter, where the conversation continued.
"A minute or two later, while in bed," Palmer told CNET, "I received a message from Elon Musk with a link to my tweet just saying 'OK'."
OK.
Palmer and Musk began chatting. Palmer sent over a link to his private GitHub, a hosting service mostly used for computer code, where he had put the script.
"It's literally a 30 line python script," explained Palmer.
The script taps into a Twitter API and allows Palmer to identify and shut down scambots. "If you're a verified account it gets prioritsed in their system and gets rid of it quickly," said Palmer.
He has no idea if Musk has set the fix up yet, but Palmer has been successfully using the script for months. Elon Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Palmer thinks it's a problem Twitter should have already fixed, and Musk agreed.
"He told me he was going to talk to Twitter about it," said Palmer.
"The conversation all took place in like 10 minutes. It was very 2018."
Blockchain Decoded: CNET looks at the tech powering bitcoin -- and soon, too, a myriad of services that will change your life.
Follow the Money: This is how digital cash is changing the way we save, shop and work.