Creating Sock Puppet (Fake) Social Media Accounts

-

Creating Sock Puppets - Introduction

I signed up for the Trace Labs Global Missing Person CTF V. Here is my experience/tips with sock puppet accounts!

Virtual Machine

Don't use your usual browsers. If your logged into Gmail, that will track everything and reveal your sock puppet identities. I use an OSINT VM I made myself using Michael Bazzell's OSINT book.

Burner Phone

Remember "Wear Hat, Pay Cash". These days you can "Wear Hat, Use Mask, Pay Cash". I got my burner phone at Walmart. StraightTalk has cheap $30 dollar flip-phones that have a working mobile browser. You can use the browser to register for Facebook and Instagram. StraightTalk (when registering online) doesn't ask for personally identifiable information. The most they requested was for a Zip Code. You can lie.

Gmail

Surprisingly, Gmail let me register on a VPN without email or phone number verification.

Twitter

Twitter let me register with a VPN + ProtonMail.

LinkedIn

You can register on LinkedIn with a VPN + ProtonMail + Burner Phone number. You need the burner phone.

Instagram - #2 Pain

Instagram hates VPNs. It flagged me. I resorted to using my burner phone to register. After you can login using a VPN.

Facebook - #1 Pain in the Ass

Facebook hates ProtonMail. I got a Facebook account using my burner flip-phone browser. I tried using ProtonMail + VPN. Failed. I tried the Library Wifi + Protonmail account. Failed. Maybe using a Gmail + Public Wifi will work? With a flip-phone browser you can forgo the email situation.

I also think my use of Firefox containerization + lack of bot tracking history flagged me too. How will Facebook make money/advertise off me? I just seem too secure and privacy oriented... maybe?

I heard you have to constantly upkeep the FB account. I'll let you know how long I last. Hopefully I can keep it alive until the CTF is over.

TikTok

So far I can see TikTok videos without registering. I will forgo a TikTok Account.

Any Tips?

Tip down below or DM me in TraceLabs Slack channel (username is Q).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Palo Alto for GNS3 CCDC Tutorial

-
Image
Opening Hello fellow CCDC Competitors! Struggling to get a Palo-Alto VM? I know how you can get one! Email me at ASzampiasSWD@gmail.com. I'll tell you the steps to get a PA-VM for GNS3. Why am I giving this info to you? Wouldn't it make sense to hog the info to myself? Wouldn't my team have an advantage? There are have and have not universities when it comes to PaloAltos. I fell into the "have not" group. Our college didn't have access to PA-VMs and still doesn't. Even if PA Cybersecurity Academy is free, there is too much red tape. I can't change the outcome. I can only come up with this one solution. Another reason is Tri-C is a tryout team. I think its pretty unfair as a potential Firewall Admin I'm the only one with access. No one can challenge me unless they spend 2K for a PA-VM. It becomes a rich-person only position. I have a leftover PA-VM from 2018 I promised not to share. I couldn't share that with my challengers. But I f...
Read more

Trace Labs Global Missing Persons CTF V

-
Image
Trace Labs CTF V TraceLabs hosted the Global Missing Persons CTF V event on July 11, 2020. My team //synergy got 64th place out of 190 teams. Introduction This was my first Trace Labs CTF. I captained a team. The good thing about being a captain is you can control who is on the team. My rules were: Must have sock puppet accounts ready. Must have a VPN. Writing out this is a competitive team where we work the entire 6 hours. I was worried about a future team member spamming submissions and disqualifying the team. I thought my requirements would eliminate people who weren't serious. The team hit 4 members Friday evening pretty quickly. Notes My laptop was too slow for this event. My virtual machine froze and I had to restart. Restarting means I have to login to my accounts again. I'll use my desktop next time. The team used Slack and Trello. Our strategy was to research a person and rotate every hour. This strategy broke after 1 rotation. Some missin...
Read more

Release of CCDC ISE Manager Website

-
Image
I worked on the ISE (Inject Scoring Engine) website from 2017 to 2019. I made it to encourage teams to follow a merit-based, open admission tryout format. I identified a problem and made a solution for it. Problem: Call for Merit and Fairness on CCDC Rosters Solution: Github Project Solution: How to run a Team After Tri-C was finished with 2017 Midwest Wildcards I used httrack to grap the Inject PDF files. I didn't grap just the files, but the entire front-end code of the website. If you created the HTML and CSS of the original ISE website, tell me your name so I can give you credit! My goal was to make an almost-replica of the original. The database and back-end code is all guessing by me. I used a LAMP stack because I believe the original website is built on that. I did some fingerprinting and found the "ccdcadmin1" website was hosted on Apache and PHP. If you notice any bugs or errors let me know. If you want a feature added let me know. I will be working ...
Read more