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Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

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Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#31

Post by devenblake »

amrrs wrote: post #22

No where in the article it mentions how did they nail him or how did he do. With Twitter saying that this entire process was done by social engineering some employee and then gaining system access of others by monitoring the process - this seems to have been done by someone with Corporate process understanding and hard to believe it could be a 18 yold.

It's doubtful that he actually did it. Probably just a teen groomed by a cracking group; the group gets away with the deed by leaving a paper trail pointing to the teen (that will get a reduced prison sentence) and the teen gets PR which will inevitably lead to a well-paying job.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#32

Post by abhorrence »

ziddoap wrote: post #11

I was under the (apparently false?) assumption that under-18s couldn't be named. The alleged mastermind here is 17, yet is named and pictured. Interestingly, when I first checked this out ~8 minutes ago, they stated that they would not name the alleged mastermind due to the fact he was under 18. In the update ~4 minutes ago, they have removed that section and named him.

There actually are very few legal restrictions on naming minors. There is substantially more scrutiny applied to false reporting when it involves accusing a minor of a crime. Most of the time when publications refuse to name a minor it’s because they promised not to while obtaining the minor’s name.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#33

Post by henryfjordan »

Jestar342 wrote: post #30
henryfjordan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida has some of the most permissive laws about mugshots and criminal info. The reason for the "Florida Man" meme is not that people in Florida are more weird than anywhere else, just that it's easier to find the mugshots online.

I always thought this was for precisely the oppposite - i.e. that news headlines (edit: I mean whole articles) were more often "A Florida Man has been arrested" because they were not allowed/didn't have the names.

I think using the term "Florida Man" is a meme now and probably carries more weight than using the accused's actual name.

From the wikipedia article:

> Miami New Times claimed that freedom of information laws in Florida make it easier for journalists to obtain information about arrests from the police than in other states and that this is responsible for the large number of news articles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Man

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#34

Post by happytoexplain »

montenegrohugo wrote: post #27

If this turns out to be true, then we can conclude two things: 1. It's incredible that the security of Twitter allows for a solitary 17-year old to gain full access to (any) account. 2. This also explains why the profit of the hack was 'only' ~$100k. Many speculated about how incredibly valuable such a hack could be and how much more a group could have profited from this hack. Using it for two hours of bitcoin scammi…

Frankly, I don't take "a teenager did it" as an extra mark against hacked systems any more. It's the details that matter - the difference between one teenager and multiple adults being able to hack something is not large unless the context is government hacking.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#35

Post by J5892 »

Jestar342 wrote: post #30
henryfjordan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida has some of the most permissive laws about mugshots and criminal info. The reason for the "Florida Man" meme is not that people in Florida are more weird than anywhere else, just that it's easier to find the mugshots online.

I always thought this was for precisely the oppposite - i.e. that news headlines (edit: I mean whole articles) were more often "A Florida Man has been arrested" because they were not allowed/didn't have the names.

How many headlines about non-public figures have you seen that include someone's name?

"Tim Jones has been arrested" isn't exactly an informative headline.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#38

Post by ProAm »

cookiecaper wrote: post #24
ziddoap wrote: post #11

I was under the (apparently false?) assumption that under-18s couldn't be named. The alleged mastermind here is 17, yet is named and pictured. Interestingly, when I first checked this out ~8 minutes ago, they stated that they would not name the alleged mastermind due to the fact he was under 18. In the update ~4 minutes ago, they have removed that section and named him.

My guess would be that he is being tried as an adult and thus not eligible for the protections afforded to juveniles.

Tried as an adult for a hack on a social media site?

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#39

Post by jacquesm »

amrrs wrote: post #22

No where in the article it mentions how did they nail him or how did he do. With Twitter saying that this entire process was done by social engineering some employee and then gaining system access of others by monitoring the process - this seems to have been done by someone with Corporate process understanding and hard to believe it could be a 18 yold.

If you are not 100% perfect in your opsec as a wannabe hacker you will get caught. It takes just one small slip-up.
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