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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

#471

Post by kbradero »

bradly wrote: post #452
bilbopotter wrote: post #438

Obviously what they did is wrong but the kid is 17. To me this is a prime example of where a short sentence or community service should be used. Don't ruin his life - he could be a useful employee for a tech company.

Depends on your views of the justice system. Is it prevent person from committing the crime again? Is it punish the person for the crime regardless of whether or not the punishment prevents future crimes by the person? Or is it to punish the person so others will be fearful of similar consequences?

100% the first, always the first. Other than that justice will become just a political tool.

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

#472

Post by arthurcolle »

jessaustin wrote: post #423
vkou wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the SEC isn't stupid, and would trawl through the data, until they found: * A set of freshly opened accounts. * That only shorted a single stock. * Right before a major hack. * That cashed out all at once. * That never traded again. And then they'd start calling the owners of those accounts, and asking questions. Most of those accounts would be legitimate traders, but that's fine - there's not that many…

It would be nice if SEC were this dogged in its pursuit of actual insider trading.

Haha, that's a good one.

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

#473

Post by hourislate »

What's the big deal, he stole some bit coin and embarrassed Jack.

Wall Street Insiders steal billions everyday from Joe6pack with the Governments help and they get to laugh about over a drink after work.

Now we can spend millions in tax payer money incarcerating him....

He should get a reward for exposing how shitty Twatter is. Besides the NSA is reading every txt you send and listening to every call you make. They know where you are 24/7 and what you bought for lunch. No one is punishing them.....

It's all theater for the masses I suppose....we caught the bad guys.....LOL...

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

#474

Post by celdon25 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #269
nickff wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From memory, I recall the FBI did a study, and found that half of their employees would plug in a USB drive that they found on the ground in the parking lot. After training, that number was reduced to a quarter. If a security-focused government police agency is so vulnerable, it is unreasonable to expect perfection from a (less paranoid) company.

I would be surprised if the average FBI agent was less likely to plug in an unknown USB drive than the average Twitter engineer.

What makes you say that?

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

#476

Post by SahAssar »

pps43 wrote: post #411
SahAssar wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you arguing against something I've said? Because if so I don't understand what or how.

I'm arguing that Twitter is now critical infrastructure, like banking or power grid, and needs to take security seriously. If they don't do it themselves, they'll get regulation like HIPAA.

Then you need to find someone else to argue with. All I said was that bad security is not criminal currently.

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

#477

Post by dumbfoundded »

hourislate wrote: post #473

What's the big deal, he stole some bit coin and embarrassed Jack. Wall Street Insiders steal billions everyday from Joe6pack with the Governments help and they get to laugh about over a drink after work. Now we can spend millions in tax payer money incarcerating him.... He should get a reward for exposing how shitty Twatter is. Besides the NSA is reading every txt you send and listening to every call you make. They k…

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

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

#478

Post by robomartin »

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.

This is a tough topic. If we take the approach of effectively turning this kind of crime into job interviews and a way to enter life-long careers we would create a positive feedback loop. Punishment, on the other hand, creates a negative feedback loop. We can discuss the degree of punishment, but it is clear that humans, for the most part, only tend to self regulate if they understand that the consequences of their actions are negative enough.

The seriousness of this incursion has to be put into context as well. There's the money, of course. Yet, I don't believe this is the most serious aspect of the breach. This was a case of mass momentary identity theft and fraud. This kid temporarily stole the online identities of a number of people and committed fraud against everyone watching. He could have triggered a massively negative event that would have led to the loss of one to thousands of lives.

Think George Wells' War of the Worlds and imagine someone playing puppeteer with the accounts of a range of prominent and less prominent people on social media. The outcome could be horrific.

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

#479

Post by kingbirdy »

TeeMassive wrote: post #453
Waterluvian wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American justice is rarely about rehabilitating the perpetrator. It’s about ensanguinating the bloodthirsty and making the fearful feel safe.

And enriching the private prisons owners, who then lobby both parties for harsher sentences and this is why the US, a free democracy, has the highest incarceration rate in the World.

Private prisons represent only ~8% of the US state & federal prison population[0]. Private prisons, while bad, are a distraction from the larger issues of policing and incarceration in the US and aren't the reason why we have so many people locked up. Almost half of all federally incarcerated people in the US are there for drug-related offenses[1] thanks to the "War on Drugs", that's where you want to be focusing your efforts on change.

[0]: https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-priso....

[1]: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...

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

#480

Post by sgustard »

raverbashing wrote: post #307
slg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The age of the attacker is irrelevant to Twitter's role in this story. However your underlying point still stands. If we want these types of attacks to stop, we can't just let all these companies off with a public embarrassment being the primary punishment. At a certain point we have to start calling it negligence when companies fall for these attacks and fail to have proper precautions in place to prevent them.

Yes. But at the same time, it's easy to get into "blame the victim" mode Having full blown security could mean nothing is done easily anymore Prosecuting is important

Prosecuting is mostly irrelevant. A lot of attacks come from countries outside the reach of US law enforcement.
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