I created a bot a while back based on phantom.js a headless browser. Mostly I wanted to see if upvotes could be scripted and I wanted to play with phantom.js. It seems that the system is based on 1 vote per public IP. It's possible to use many instances of DO/GCloud/AWS.
I would suggest that there are probably a few vote brigade bots out there. I think the most common bot would be a story cross poster, which takes top-stories from places like lobste.rs et. al. and posts them to HN to build reputation.
I would suggest that there are probably a few vote brigade bots out there. I think the most common bot would be a story cross poster, which takes top-stories from places like lobste.rs et. al. and posts them to HN to build reputation.