A market perspective on digital manipulation may help improve online trust and safety , The internet is awash with inauthentic activity. Although some of this activity is harmless, a substantial proportion can be classified as malicious, including bots designed to steal personal data, networks of inauthentic social media accounts promoting crypto scams, and coordinated political influence operations ( 1 , 2 ). To enhance security, online platforms have implemented measures to counter inauthentic activity, with most requiring users to confirm account authenticity via a one-time password sent through short message service (SMS). However, there exists a thriving market for buying and selling on-demand SMS verifications, which forms a cornerstone of the wider online manipulation economy. Despite its centrality in the digital manipulation ecosystem, this SMS verifications market has not been systematically studied. To address this knowledge gap, we developed the Cambridge Online Trust and Safety Index (COTSI; cotsi.org), which tracks the daily price of SMS verifications for 197 countries and >500 platforms.
Mapping the online manipulation economy
A market perspective on digital manipulation may help improve online trust and safety , The internet is awash with inauthentic activity. Although some of this activity is harmless, a substantial proportion can be classified as malicious, including bots designed to steal personal data, networks of inauthentic social media accounts promoting crypto scams, and coordinated political influence operations ( 1 , 2 ). To enhance security, online platforms have implemented measures to counter inauthentic activity, with most requiring users to confirm account authenticity via a one-time password sent through short message service (SMS). However, there exists a thriving market for buying and selling on-demand SMS verifications, which forms a cornerstone of the wider online manipulation economy. Despite its centrality in the digital manipulation ecosystem, this SMS verifications market has not been systematically studied. To address this knowledge gap, we developed the Cambridge Online Trust and Safety Index (COTSI; cotsi.org), which tracks the daily price of SMS verifications for 197 countries and >500 platforms.
SMS Verification Statistics by platforms | COTSI
Discover how the Cambridge Online Trust & Safety Index (COTSI) tracks SMS verifications of social media accounts, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, and Telegram; cloud infrastructure providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Google Firebase, and OpenAI; marketplaces; online banks; crypto exchanges; and more.
Deepfakes, Scams, and the Age of Paranoia
As AI-driven fraud becomes increasingly common, more people feel the need to verify every interaction they have online.
Double Counter — Discord Security Bot
The most trusted Discord security bot. Block alt accounts, raids, and VPNs with a privacy-respecting, data-powered verification system. Trusted by 600,000+ communities since 2020.
CAPTCHA successor Privacy Pass has no easy answers for online abuse | The Mozilla Blog
As much as the Web continues to inspire us, we know that sites put up with an awful lot of abuse in order to stay online. Denial of service attacks, fraud
Legally Cognizable Manipulation
Swaths of personal and nonpersonal information collected online about Internet users are increasingly being used in sophisticated ways for online political mani
Discord users’ data was exposed in a breach at server bot Double Counter.
The server privacy bot says hackers copied about 12GB of data, including Discord usernames and user IDs, IP addresses, location data, and email addresses. The attackers also took control of the bot’s Discord token, posted links “in about 50 large servers,” and “used a stolen payment key to commit financial fraud on a separate account.” [Link: Double Counter — Security Incident Report (4 October 2026) | https://doublecounter.gg/blog/security-incident-october-2026 | Double Counter]
Continuous accountability for Verified bots
Identity alone doesn't guarantee a bot will behave responsibly. We are introducing a system to continuously evaluate whether Verified bots honor site preferences, like robots.txt and HTTP 429s, ensuring they remain accountable over time.
Fooling AI Agents: Web-Based Indirect Prompt Injection Observed in the Wild
Uncover real-world indirect prompt injection attacks and learn how adversaries weaponize hidden web content to exploit LLMs for high-impact fraud.
Security Verification
Security verification page to protect against malicious bots.
ĐApps: What Web 3.0 Looks Like
As we move into the future, we find increasing need for a zero-trust interaction system. Even pre-Snowden, we had realised that entrusting our information to arbitrary entities on the internet was fraught with danger. However, post-Snowden the argument plainly falls in the hand of those who believe that large organisations and governments routinely attempt to stretch and overstep their authority. Thus we realise that entrusting our information to organisations in general is a fundamentally broken model. The chance of an organisation not meddling with our data is merely the effort required minus their expected gains. Given they tend to have an income model that requires they know as much about people as possible the realist will realise that the potential for convert misuse is difficult to overestimate.
Online Trust and Safety Hub: Stay Safe Online | Internet Society
Learn how to stay safe online, protect your privacy, spot scams, identify false information, and build safer digital habits.
Katika Kühnreich (@Katika@chaos.social)
Attached: 1 image #SocialMedia of #realnameregistration , oh sorry, they call it real #humans , that advertises with " #AI " #slop #wsocial is more than problematic And already has #bots crawling it's #network Now they show that they are problematic concerning #aesthetics as well & advertise with tasteless #aislop @bildoperationen@tldr.nettime.org #realnameregistration is highly dangerous & if the company that wants to have your most private data can't save there net from bots they're not very trustworthy, are they? #tech
Data Leeks: Made with love, leaked by hackers | The Mozilla Blog
Data breaches are on the rise. According to web security experts, the frequency of data breaches almost doubled from 2016 to 2017, and 73% of all U.S. comp
SCAM — How safe is your AI agent?
An open-source benchmark by 1Password that tests whether AI agents can handle real security threats during everyday tasks.