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Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

wfla.com

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

#211

Post by bcohen5055 »

threatofrain wrote: post #179
Taek wrote: post #131

Hitting a 17yo with 30 felony charges feels a bit steep to me. Also should any repercussions be considered against Twitter that a 17yo was able to gain access to the private messages of potentially some of the most important individuals in the world? If a 17yo could do it, I'm sure a nation state could do it.

> Also should any repercussions be considered against Twitter that a 17yo was able to gain access to the private messages of potentially some of the most important individuals in the world? Is the suggestion that if your security is weak, at least some of the blame goes to the hacked? If your home security is weak, should we grant more leniency to a burglar? The insurance company should be the one to punish the riski…

Not a home but if you were a bank and a 17 year old walked into the bank, talked to someone and was able to walk out with a fat stack of cash i think the insurance company would have to reconsider your policy.

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

#212

Post by nordsieck »

gregschlom wrote: post #187
nordsieck wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also should any repercussions be considered against Twitter that a 17yo was able to gain access to the private messages of potentially some of the most important individuals in the world? 200 Million Americans could drive a car into a crowd. That doesn't make it any less bad for someone to do.

That is not the point that the parent comment is making, though. It's not whether it's bad for someone to commit this crime, it's whether Twitter should be held liable for such poor security practices that a 17 year old can hack them.

> It's not whether it's bad for someone to commit this crime, it's whether Twitter should be held liable for such poor security practices that a 17 year old can hack them.

That is exactly my point.

There are tons of crimes that basically anyone can do. If you said instead: people whose houses are set on fire by an arsonist should be liable for poor security, at the very least you'd not be taken very seriously.

There is a duty to not commit crime. There is no duty to avoid being the victim of a crime.

On top of that, there is broad industry consensus that it is largely impossible to write bug free software - certainly at the scale of Twitter. To suggest that they have the duty perform the impossible strikes me as deeply irresponsible if not simply malicious.

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

#214

Post by cordite »

alexander1100 wrote: post #170

I personally lost $6000 dollars, is there any way I could prove that I was a victim and get my crypto back?

Good luck.

This is how bitcoin works. You send value to somewhere else of your will. There is no outside party here.

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

#215

Post by shuntress »

SahAssar wrote: post #193
alexander1100 wrote: post #170

I personally lost $6000 dollars, is there any way I could prove that I was a victim and get my crypto back?

If you want legal recourse and refunds why would you use a currency that explicitly does not allow for those? Seriously, if you want the protections of the legal system, then use currency controlled by the legal system.

Bitcoin is actually explicitly designed to enable recourse and refunds. Every single transaction is permanently and immutable tied to a verifiable identity.

Through common practice, these identities are treated as disposable and therefor generally ignored. But stating that the currency is explicitly designed to disallow accountability is not an accurate representation of reality.

--

Edit to add a practical example for clarification because this is being downvoted.

If the FBI conducts an effective warranted search + seizure of a mob safehouse, seizes a large safe, opens it up, and finds either:

A) Gold bricks

or

B) Bitcoin wallet private keys

In case (A), they can maybe correlate records, reports, statements, and other evidence to possibly determine the rightful owner of the gold or goods laundered for gold.

In case (B), they can check the BTC ledger against fraud reports that contain bitcoin wallet public keys, then publish a public statement asking people to prove they own any matching public keys -- because bitcoin, by it's fundamental nature, is more accountable in a way that enables recourse and refunds.

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

#218

Post by dylan604 »

brudgers wrote: post #101
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.

Seems to me that a person sophisticated enough to social engineer Twitter employees is probably sophisticated enough to social engineer a Tampa teen into place for taking a fall. To me state level targets suggest state level actors and Twitter has been mucking about with state level political operations since at least the Arab Spring almost a decade ago. Twitter has a lot of powerful people and organizations who have…

Teenagers social engineer their parents and teachers on a daily basis. Their success rate is higher than either parents or teachers would like to admit.

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

#219

Post by latchkey »

Pfhreak wrote: post #168
asutekku wrote: post #125

The third person has been identified in an Ars Technica article [1]. 1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/07/florida-teen-arr...

We protect juveniles for a reason. It seems reasonable to make an effort not to spread their identities around on social media (even if they are reported by press sites.)

Except for the part that it is Florida and they release all this stuff... which is what brought on the whole Florida Man meme.

https://www.wfla.com/news/hillsborough-county/tampa-teen-acc...

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

#220

Post by dshep »

Trying to paint this 17-year old kid as a criminal mastermind strikes me as rather gross. I can see it as a kid doing it to see if he could, and using an obviously meme-worthy fake post that got out of hand. I think everyone has done some dumb things at this age without thinking about the consequences. If that is the case here, I hope this doesn't ruin the guys life.
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