Using RainRatBot for Moderation - Bot defense - Introduction

A Telegram bot is a software program that sends commands to and receives messages from the Telegram network. It's programmed to take specific actions even when not directly supervised by a person.

When used as intended, a Telegram bot is a useful thing, supported by the Telegram developers, who even provide an interface for bots to talk to their Telegram servers. I will call these "Telegram-recognized bots". These bots:

• Always have a @username that ends in "bot".
• Can't join groups, they have to be added by a person.
• Can't initiate private conversations with users.

On the other hand, there are bots that don't follow these restrictions. The Telegram protocol is open enough that developers can write programs that talk to the Telegram servers exactly how a user using a Telegram client program would. I will call these "Rogue bots".

• Does not have a @username that ends in "bot" (or may not have an @username at all).
• Can join groups.
• Can initiate private conversations with users.

This is an example of a "Rogue bot". It joined the group on its own(circled at bottom), and its user name does not end in "bot".

Why am sure it's a Rogue bot and not just a new user? It follows a very predictable pattern that we've seen over and over:

• The last part of the @username, after "Gretta", "Zo0rs" is a random combination of letters and numbers. After seeing dozens of Rogue bots, that part of a username is always exactly 5 letters or numbers.
• They join groups with very specific audiences, yet never say a word, even when multiple users reply trying to get them to say something. If a Rogue bot was simply not programmed to reply to anything, this is the logical explanation for why they don't reply to even simple questions.

If you're interested in seeing the patterns of bot activity, feel free to join the read-only channel @rainratbotreports 

What's the purpose of these Rogue bots joining groups? If it is not removed from the group, we've seen cases where the Rogue bot adds a Telegram-recognized bot to the group, which then quickly filled the group with spam messages. In theory, the Rogue bot could also spam the group directly, but adding the second account is how we've seen it happen so far.