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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

#501

Post by [deleted] »

slg wrote: post #457
saurik wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't deserve any blame if someone broke down my front door to do it. I mean, you could have gotten a more sturdy door... drawing the boundary between someone opening an unlocked door and breaking down the door is hard; so I'd agree with "even less blame", but if we believe you are ever at blame here, there isn't anything magical about the lock that shifts you from having blame to being blameless.

To repeat myself, the opposition to victim blaming is about "not blaming victims for things that are out of their control or that any other reasonable person would do." I acknowledged that a standard lock is generally not going to stop many determined criminals, but it is an acceptable baseline that all reasonable people can be expected to meet in order to help prevent their home from being burgled. You can of course…

[deleted]

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

#502

Post by nkrisc »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #353
indigochill wrote: post #306

I have an unrealistic idea (more of a thought experiment) that companies should face equal culpability to criminal hackers in attacks. After all, technically the way the hackers use systems /is/ authorized in a sense, even if the method of obtaining authorization is unconventional. Maybe this would get companies to pay more attention to securing their systems. From a certain perspective, Twitter is an accomplice to f…

Should we make homeowners equally criminally liable when burglars break in? Certainly if the homeowner had been less lax or obtained more security, that burglary could have been prevented.

Like most things in life: it depends.

Your home was broken into and your jewelry stolen? No, you're not criminally liable for anything, you were the only victim.

Your home was broken into and they stole the stack of personal records for your small business' employees that you left sitting on the dining room table? Yes, you should be liable for that because you were not the only victim and those others were victimized due to your own negligence. The documents were not properly secured, was your home properly secured as well given the sensitive material you were housing there?

It doesn't have to be a binary thing either, there's nuance to it. A hacker steals unencrypted personal information off a server you didn't even password protect? You're more liable than a company that lost personal information that was strongly encrypted.

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

#503

Post by i1856511 »

varenc wrote: post #499
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.

An acquaintance of mine worked at the NSA and they also deal with this. He said during his first week he made the mistake of putting a CD-ROM with some official training materials into his work system. Within 10 minute two people showed up to stop him and investigate what was going on with his computer. It was fine in the end but he was seriously reprimanded by his boss. When you can’t trust users, the answer isn’t j…

This seems silly. Network admins can determine he inserted a CD and respond immediately in person - but nonetheless issue PCs with CD-ROMs and the ability to interact with removable media?

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

#504

Post by enraged_camel »

nickff wrote: post #344
enraged_camel wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>If a security-focused government police agency is so vulnerable I think calling FBI "security-focused" is a bit too generous. They are essentially glorified police detectives, with greater authority and jurisdiction. I don't believe the average FBI agent is particularly competent, in terms of technical (i.e. computer) skill or knowledge.

The FBI literally performs the background checks for security clearances. Like any other organization it has less security focused divisions, but insofar as any organization is security focused, the FBI is.

Like I said, none of this translates to computer literacy.

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

#505

Post by CydeWeys »

ta17711771 wrote: post #458
davinic wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. At least one of these kids used their personal gmail account on the hacking forum. These are not advanced hackers.

They've done more than you, and majority of others, though.

And robbers have done more robbing than me too. It's not a competition I'm interested in entering.

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

#506

Post by cutemonster »

Taek wrote: post #337
ggggtez wrote: post #278

Imagine a 17 year old robs a bank and steal 100k from the savings accounts of random people. Or a 17 year old steals a couple of cars from random people off the street... The crime is not breaking into Twitter. The crime is theft. Twitter didn't steal that money, this guy did. Let's not pretend the internet is a magical land without consequences.

> Imagine a 17 year old robs a bank and steal 100k from the savings accounts of random people. I think that's a great comparison. But it's not an armed robbery, it's a break-and-enter where no property gets destroyed. How many felonies does the robber get after being caught? I don't actually know but I'm guessing 1-3? Certainly stealing $100k is a deserving felony. But 30 felonies seems a bit steep.

> a great comparison

What!

It's more as if he, once in the bank, added a poster:

"mail money to street 123 city Abcde, and we'll mail you twice back"

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

#507

Post by pier25 »

jacquesm wrote: post #434
pier25 wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally, but opening a bitcoin account with your license driver and moving stolen bitcoins there without any anonymization is another thing altogether.

It may be a surprise to you but criminals are usually stupid. If they were smart you wouldn't realize they are there at all. Think about it: this idiot had access at a level that nation states secret services can only dream of and went for $100K in lousy bitcoins.

I know, which is why it doesn't make sense.

If you're so stupid how can you social engineer your way into Twitter?

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

#508

Post by saghm »

rschneid wrote: post #395
nickff wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that better security practices are advisable, but you're victim-blaming. Twitter wasn't 'asking for it', and neither were the individuals who lost bitcoins; the 'hackers' intentionally perpetrated deceptions, misrepresentations, and fraud against both Twitter and the general public. If you compare what these three did to a white-collar crime, the dollar amount was small, but the behavior was egregious.

Twitter is a platform used widely by some of the most powerful people in the world and in the US government. As a result, there is plenty of justification and precedent for said gov't to regulate their security practices and procedures. To illustrate this point, I doubt you'd have any sympathy for Twitter if they had been sending their passwords over http. Now, I don't think the government is prepared to do this proa…

> To illustrate this point, I doubt you'd have any sympathy for Twitter if they had been sending their passwords over http

This is probably off-topic, but companies shouldn't even be sending the passwords over HTTPS; passwords should be hashed client-side and then the hash should be sent to the server (preferably over HTTPS).

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

#509

Post by janmo »

DabbyDabberson wrote: post #500
dkersten wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock idea is dumb, in my opinion, because there were safer (no SEC) ways that required less capital and didn't require fancy trade accounts. For example: buy up a load of super cheap shitcoins. Can be done for under $100. Then tweet from an exchange like Binance that they will shortly be listing said shitcoin. Watch the price go up, sell. Or, with a bit more money, short one of the cryptocurrencies, tweet from a…

if you're someone whose regularly traded 10s of thousands of certain stocks over the last few years, it would be nearly impossible for them to detect a $100k profit from stock manipulation. especially a high volume stock like TSLA

Especially that Tesla is shorted so much. That said, shorting even with leverage requires you to have some money to invest. If you are 17 you are most likely broke.

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

#510

Post by cutemonster »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #361
stefap2 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year or two and return the money. It's not like he tried to break into a nuclear plant. It is a messaging app, mostly nonsense.

... with the ability to move trillion dollar markets and potentially start riots or wars.

Lots of people have the ability to do bad things.

Seems you believe they should therefore all go to prison,

also if they didn't actually do those particular things

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