As technology advances, increasingly complicated tasks can be automated and delegated to bots. While these bots spare us tedious efforts, they also present malevolent possibilities. Executive summary \n \n Akamai researchers have been monitoring a bot situation that has been taking advantage of Israeli citizens through various governmental agencies. \n \n More than 700,000 Israelis are seeking an appointment for a passport renewal, creating a backlog of months at the Ministry of Interior. \n \n A group of developers created a bot to secure appointments through MyVisit, the appointment scheduling platform used by some Israeli government offices, and released it for free public use. \n \n Soon after, a different group made their own bot to scalp and sell MyVisit appointments for various government services, including at the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Transport, National Insurance, Israel Post, the Electricity Company, and more. Each appointment sells for more than $100.…