Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack? • Hacker News Board

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#271

Post by ihsw » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

mansion7 wrote: post #141

djmetzle wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. We've entered a world where the lowest common denominator of information is being used as primary source for current events. That's asinine.

That's partially because the sources formally seen as primary, at least in the US, have started to be viewed as biased and unreliable. This is largely through their own actions. Examples are legion, but a recent one is debacle at NYT over an op-ed. The news-consuming public was able to view the shenanigans of NYT reporters and staffers, which would formerly been done being the scenes. Many eyes were opened, and I'm c…

> viewed as biased and unreliable

That's because they are.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#272

Post by dcow » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

monkeywork wrote: post #216

dcow wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I would hold the people who acted on partial information accountable for their actions. Harassment is wrong regardless of whether you think someone is guilty of something or not. The internet needs to grow up.

since you think personal privacy is useless and your fine with personal information being out there can I get your real name, address and phone number plz?

My handle is not anonymous or even pseudonymous. You can easily find me.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#273

Post by in3d » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 3:11 AM UTC

brisance wrote: post #267

blisseyGo wrote: post #69

I think people are still severely under-estimating how dangerous this was. Back in 2013 when The Associated Press was hacked with a tweet of "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured" and erased $136 billion in equity market value: Archive: http://archive.is/8lCMV https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23... This twitter hack could have literally destroyed economies,…

Your point is well-taken, but to put things into perspective… $136 billion is a <1% move in Apple's market cap.

I think you mean 10%.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#274

Post by lyx0 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 3:12 AM UTC

The thing I'm most concerned about is that if Brian Krebs is right and they had access to their DM's, that the very obvious crypto scam they ran was just a facade, some kind of distraction because they knew they would have been noticed, but the true goal were the DM's.

Imagine a celebrity saying some 'not so politically correct' things to a friend in private 8 years ago, and now imagine this becoming public while the Twitter cancel culture is in full force. There's a lot of money and power in having that information.

I don't want to argue about what's wrong or not, I just want to point out what I find really concerning about the hack.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#275

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

blisseyGo wrote: post #69

I think people are still severely under-estimating how dangerous this was. Back in 2013 when The Associated Press was hacked with a tweet of "Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured" and erased $136 billion in equity market value: Archive: http://archive.is/8lCMV https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23... This twitter hack could have literally destroyed economies,…

[deleted]

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#276

Post by murat124 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 3:16 AM UTC

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #11

man who falls for this stuff. i've been seeing "send me money to this account to get double that" scam for like 20 years, its hard to believe there are people who still don't know better.

I believe it's got a lot to do with the Dunning-Kruger effect because this scam gives the illusion to the victim that they are the one who's actually doing the scamming. When victims of this kind of scam see an opportunity that they'd be making money off of a "very stupid" offer they jump on it. In some cases though the scammer is forced to employ tactics to speak to victim's emotions by inducing guilt or pity but otherwise it's just plain stupidity powered by internalized intelligence.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#277

Post by judge2020 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 3:19 AM UTC

aahhahahaaa wrote: post #155

amatecha wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if web services that let people post whatever they want at any time, vulnerable to whatever security flaws may be present, shouldn't be used as a reliable source for up-to-the-minute information about literally anything important at all.

It shouldn't be, but the bleeding edge of markets have always relied on having the latest data from anywhere that can indicate a shift and I don't expect it to change anytime soon.

Exactly. Twitter only succeeds because it's an authoritative source for who a tweet is from. It'll surely be questioned in the future since this is huge, but any other platform getting hacked like YouTube or Facebook would have similar consequences.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#278

Post by ransom1538 » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 3:23 AM UTC

Twitter:

function adminPanelShow()

{

   if ( !isInOurVPN() ) 

      throw logSecurityBreach(); 

      

   if ( !isLoggedIn() ) 

      throw logSecurityBreach(); 

  
   slackSecurityChannel("AdminPanel Access: " + userName); 

   ... 

}

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#279

Post by lostsock » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 3:23 AM UTC

lifeformed wrote: post #260

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying it could have started a war. Excuse me for being naive but come on—really? This is total sensationalism. What party wouldn’t verify something on twitter through diplomatic channels before going to war? Equity destruction: sure. War: no way.

Here's how I think it could be done: Get Trump's account, and tweet something like, "I've ordered a NUCLEAR STRIKE on China! The missiles are already in the air. The DEEP STATE is trying to take me out. They will try to silence me and delete these tweets and use deep fakes to say this was a hoax! The storm is here, Q is real, it's time to take up arms and kill democrats." Then continue tweeting escalating things over…

Not to mention hijacking other accounts that would plausibly say things along the same lines as "proof" that the statement is real.

Even after dozens of high profile accounts were hacked many were still commenting that they didn't think it was possible for it to be a twitter vulnerability, but rather individual accounts being compromised or a 3rd party. If you only tweeted plausible things about war and corroborated it from multiple accounts at the same time you can reinforce things pretty easily.

Re: Who’s behind Wednesday’s epic Twitter hack?

#280

Post by IAmGraydon » Fri, Jul 17, 2020, 3:23 AM UTC

todd3834 wrote: post #252

IAmGraydon wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Destroyed economies? Started a war? The tiny effect on the market lasted less than 5 minutes. Your post is bordering on comical.

I believe they are referring to the fact that they could have theoretically tweeted the wrong thing from the wrong account that could have caused a war. It isn't extremely likely but not comically unrealistic. Definitely within the realm of possibility.

How do you envision that happening? I mean the actual chain of events. A tweet is seen and some general launches all ICBMs? They pour their country’s military might into a war because of a tweet that is known to be fake within 3 minutes? No, it is not within the realm of possibility.