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Ask HN: How does my Instagram keep getting compromised?

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Re: Ask HN: How does my Instagram keep getting compromised?

#101

Post by indigochill »

AdamJacobMuller wrote: post #39
cryptoz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instagram stole @sussexroyal from a real user, and gave it to some entitled "royals" who used the account for like a year before dropping it. So annoying how your handle isn't your handle, it's the company's, and they will steal your handle at a whim. I never even figured out why the "Royals" wanted specifically @sussexroyal or whatever it was so badly . The Royals can't even be like the rest of us and pick a handle…

> So annoying how your handle isn't your handle, it's the companies, and they will steal your handle at a whim. You don't own digital assets in any sense (excepting crypto, which is a whole other set of problems), at best you have a contract with some rights of use.

You don't own crypto, either - the consensus does. If the consensus is that you don't have the crypto (such as if they fork after you successfully stole millions of dollars worth of crypto on the main chain), you don't.

Re: Ask HN: How does my Instagram keep getting compromised?

#102

Post by praisewhitey »

china wrote: post #21
barbazoo wrote: post #15

Someone at Facebook stealing your domain is quite an accusation. Assuming your domain was similar to your username/IG handle, wouldn't it be more likely to be people wanting your "china" domain for spam/malware/propaganda/etc?

I think the stealing of my domain was a bit of social engineering by a hacker (not somebody at FB). Now, my account gets taken without any noticeable trace on my end. No security emails, no suspicious login attempts, nada...

there is a lot of precedent for Meta employees taking usernames. here's another example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7598226

Re: Ask HN: How does my Instagram keep getting compromised?

#103

Post by vogelfrei »

Instagram is severly broken. I have never had an account on there and it has repeatedly happened that I was logged into some random stranger's account as I clicked on some Instagram weblink. I could read all their private conversations, message people in their name, mess with their settings. Their security is so badly broken, I wonder if they can be held criminally liable for it.

Re: Ask HN: How does my Instagram keep getting compromised?

#104

Post by r0fl »

My insta account keeps getting reset password requests every week for years. I’ve had multiple people ask to buy it, then threaten to sue, etc

I’ve tried to contact meta/Instagram about 50 times and not once has anyone emailed me back

How is it this hard to get support? It’s a personal account and I still have it so I don’t really care that much but there must be a way to get a hold of someone isn’t there!?

Re: Ask HN: How does my Instagram keep getting compromised?

#105

Post by hnarn »

PostThisTooFast wrote: post #94
delgaudm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks up "af"

The other problem is people not capitalizing abbreviations as they should. You see even major news organizations doing it. The entire nation of Great Britain appears to think there's a space agency called "Nasa." Ignorant AF.

I think I read somewhere that there’s a rule for abbreviations that if they’re “pronounceable” you shouldn’t use all caps. For example, you write IBM because you articulate the letters, it’s not “Ibbem”. Conversely you don’t say the letters in Nasa, but you do in NSA and so forth.

Re: Ask HN: How does my Instagram keep getting compromised?

#106

Post by jjeaff »

hamburglar wrote: post #90
vineyardmike wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old Gang of people... the original gangster. This doesn't seem wrong. OG directly translates to Original Gangster, but is used to refer to the old crowd, the original people, the firsts, etc. In extreme example, it would not be considered incomprehensible (but perhaps strange) to say something like "native americans are the OG north american inhabitants"... really nothing to do with gangsters.

Technically true, but... if you say it means "old group" or "original gaggle" or "oldest goat," you should probably expect to be corrected, because it sounds like an implication that that's what OG actually stands for.

It is notable in this case that gang is the root of gangster.

Re: Ask HN: How does my Instagram keep getting compromised?

#107

Post by 0x008 »

PostThisTooFast wrote: post #94
delgaudm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks up "af"

The other problem is people not capitalizing abbreviations as they should. You see even major news organizations doing it. The entire nation of Great Britain appears to think there's a space agency called "Nasa." Ignorant AF.

Abbreviations are not capitalized but acronyms are.

Re: Ask HN: How does my Instagram keep getting compromised?

#108

Post by PickledHotdog »

hnarn wrote: post #105
PostThisTooFast wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other problem is people not capitalizing abbreviations as they should. You see even major news organizations doing it. The entire nation of Great Britain appears to think there's a space agency called "Nasa." Ignorant AF.

I think I read somewhere that there’s a rule for abbreviations that if they’re “pronounceable” you shouldn’t use all caps. For example, you write IBM because you articulate the letters, it’s not “Ibbem”. Conversely you don’t say the letters in Nasa, but you do in NSA and so forth.

It's dependent on the organisation's style guide, so not a 'hard and fast' rule, but you're correct

Other examples like this are whether numbers are spelt out (eg one vs 1), and at what point that changes (eg spelling out "ten" but writing 1,000)

But yeah, depends on the organisation.

Check out how the New Yorker deals with the word co-operation :P

Re: Ask HN: How does my Instagram keep getting compromised?

#109

Post by cutthegrass2 »

heurisko wrote: post #40
pkrotich wrote: post #9

Your situation is apparently common nowadays with OG usernames and can get very dangerous. I had no idea this was a thing until I listened to an episode on Darknet Diaries [0] recently. In the old days, I remember people going after short domains in the same manner. ICANN ended up adding locking (auth codes) - perhaps IG and other social sites can learn from it. Be safe! [0] https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/106/

I'm not up-to-date with what OG means. Apparently OG "original gangster" usernames refer to common words such as "@Miracle", that were registered by early adopters. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/style/instagram-account-f...

Well TIL. I thought it stood for Old Guard meaning "original or long-standing members of a group", but I'll take "original gangster" instead, sounds better :-)
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