Post by @thynktech

Cell phone bot farms use racks of real smartphones connected to centralized automation systems to perform online actions at scale. Operators can program the devices to click digital ads, install apps, generate website traffic, create social media accounts and inflate likes, comments, followers and video views. Because these operations use physical smartphones with legitimate hardware identifiers and mobile network connections, their activity can appear more like real human traffic than traditional bots running on servers or virtual machines. For advertisers and businesses, the technology can create a major problem. Fake clicks can consume advertising budgets without producing real customers, while artificial engagement can distort campaign data and influence the algorithms companies use to determine who should see their ads. TrafficGuard says sophisticated phone farms can also simulate scrolling, browsing and different session lengths while rotating network addresses, making fraudulent activity more difficult for basic detection systems to identify.