Seductive Russian chat bot tries to steal your private data

by Tim Conneally

From Russia, the land well-publicized for bringing the Internet questionable music service AllofMP3.com and mafia-related bank scams, comes a new kind of chat bot.

Called Cyberlover, the program is an application that claims to intelligently fabricate chat room dialogue that seduces its victims into sharing personal photos and phone numbers. In half an hour, the program can supposedly secure 4 to 6 "contacts."

The product is said to automatically create profiles for each person it chats with, which include the photograph, e-mail address, and phone number obtained from the girl --it's targeted at females, but can be tailored to males. The bot is sold for $24.95 USD.

The software's site is only a front page full of dead links, but a message in English placed across the top says it will be back on February 15, and provides a link to software screenshots along with the Botmaster site.

Chat bots often fill chat rooms with advertisements and randomly pop up on users of Yahoo! Messenger and AIM. Considered a nuisance by many, these conversation programs are an important step in the development of artificial intelligence, and have been growing since the mid 1960s. But Cyberlover appears to be the first instance of a bot trying to seduce individuals in order to steal their personal data.

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