Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

wfla.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 702 posts

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

#81

Post by tptacek »

Kalium wrote: post #76
jermier wrote: post #43

Probably could have earned a lot more from his exploits if he went the formal route and directly confronted Twitter. But then who even knows if Twitter are a good 'first responder' when it comes to high-profile exploits of their system. There was a recent post about some researcher who exposed flaws in Tor's architecture (which allowed third parties to detect Tor traffic easily) and Tor's staff didn't respond; so she…

> It's just unfortunate that the various channels like HackerOne[0] or wherever the skiddies flock to these days are not utilized thoroughly. A lot of the bug bounty programs don't pay as well as using exploits to steal money. Some estimates put this particular breach at having netted upwards of $120k. I don't think I've ever seen a bug bounty that high. The highest I've ever heard of or see documentation describing…

The opposite thing is true; people have wildly inflated expectations of how much money marginal bugs like XSS can earn, or even game-over bugs in marginally important applications. And if you're doing the financial comparison, as you note, you have to do it risk-weighted. Your intuitions about the risk of exploiting a vulnerability are likely heavily biased by the fact that most exploitation, or at least most of the exploitation you hear about, is non-monetary. Monetizing an exploit ratchets the risk up significantly.

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

#82

Post by js2 »

henryfjordan wrote: post #19
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.

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 grew up in Florida. It's not just easier to find mug shots online. It's a weird place.

Alligators:

https://nypost.com/2020/06/11/florida-man-fights-off-alligat...

https://nypost.com/2018/07/30/florida-man-brings-gator-into-...

https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/8-foot-gator-wrestled-from...

Pythons:

https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/local/2019/08/12/6-foo...

https://www.foxnews.com/science/alligator-fights-python-on-f...

Driving dogs:

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/22/us/florida-dog-drives-circles...

Kangaroos:

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/f...

Speed-trap towns that had to decommission their police:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kELze26IXpk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldo,_Florida

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

#83

Post by danso »

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.

The courts have historically ruled on the press's right to name accused minors:

https://splc.org/2020/01/naming-names-identifying-minors/

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

#84

Post by [deleted] »

fortran77 wrote: post #58
cellis wrote: post #25

I actually think this kid has a bright future. My prediction: 1 year jail time, 5-10years probation. Will get hired as a security consultant.

I wouldn't hire him. It's not like he _programmed_ his way in. And he didn't just post tweets saying "Twitter's security is bad." He actively tried to scam people. So he wasn't trying to accomplish anything good.

[deleted]

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

#85

Post by [deleted] »

knolax wrote: post #73
fernandotakai wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the verge is reporting that he's being tried as an adult, so maybe that's the reasoning. https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/31/21349920/twitter-hack-arr... >He’s being charged as an adult, and the press conference made clear that law enforcement is considering how bad consequences of the hack could have been — not just the $100,000-plus in bitcoin that the teen is alleged to have scammed out of unsuspecting Twitter user…

Can't even buy a cigarette but he's being charged as an adult. The court system needs reform.

[deleted]

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

#86

Post by YinglingLight »

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.

Yep. This isn't Fake News. It's Misinformation for reasons we can only speculate.

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

#88

Post by akerl_ »

ideals wrote: post #53

(If this is actually the person behind the attacks) Yes he may serve jail time for this, but he did get to read DMs of some of these people, and has had enough time to copy those contents to be read later. That's still valuable knowledge, he should leverage this to get people interested in those details to fund his legal defense in return for providing the contents of the DMs. Or is that illegal?

This is just as viable as selling stolen diamonds to fund your defense for robbing a jewelry store.

It turns out that the legal system is already set up to make “selling illegally obtained material” also illegal, and to take notice of people doing so in order to fund their ongoing operations.

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

#89

Post by detaro »

p4bl0 wrote: post #65

This is all I can see on this page : This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws. It should not be this complicated to respect laws that just enforce minimal good practices. A replacement link should be found for this story. Wfla dot com is clearly shit.

Multiple people already have posted alternative links in the comments. Use those, and note that this kind of complaint is off-topic according to the site rules.
Post reply on HN