Live data from Hacker News

Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

wfla.com

551–560 of 702 posts

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

#551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hitting a 17yo with 30 felony charges feels a bit steep to me. Hitting them with 30 felony charges is perfectly reasonable/correct. Those are what the charges are for the crimes. But the punishment for those 30 felonies should/will be adjusted down. I think at most this person will lose 5 years of their life. Not like the 25 year old girl in Seattle that set a bunch of Seattle Police cars on fire during the protest…

The sentences should run concurrently. 4 years for setting a car on fire is not unreasonable, although maybe a little harsh depending on priors. It's a dangerous thing to do. But setting five cars on fire is not particularly worse than setting one car on fire.

Maiming peaceful protesters with mace and rubber bullets is a dangerous thing to do.

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

#552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting five police cars on fire is an act of domestic terrorism. That's not in any way a normal protest action.. That's what the prosecutor will argue.

The Boston Tea Party was an act of domestic terrorism. It's hard to determine whether an act is right or wrong without a good duration of hindsight.

Yep and maybe she'll be vindicated by future historians. But right now she's going to do 20 years.

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

#553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree the crime is serious. But that she did it more than once doesn't make it proportionally more serious, and certainly should not make the sentence proportionally longer.

Why doesn't it make it proportionally more serious?

Ehm, seriously? 10 machine 40 years? 20 machine 80 years? There's no correlation with the concept of reforming that person after a while

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

#554
post #275
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.

Security training improves security but it doesn't get close to stopping 100% of attacks. I know it's obvious, but it feels like it's only obvious to those that think about security. It's the same reason that putting your developers through a yearly OWASP Top 10 secure coding course isn't going to get you to 100% secure code. Locking down systems seems draconian, but it's the only way: - Disabling USB storage - Movin…

Anytime there are humans involved, there is no way to 100% secure it

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

#555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sentences should run concurrently. 4 years for setting a car on fire is not unreasonable, although maybe a little harsh depending on priors. It's a dangerous thing to do. But setting five cars on fire is not particularly worse than setting one car on fire.

Maiming peaceful protesters with mace and rubber bullets is a dangerous thing to do.

[deleted]

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

#556

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…

Strongly agree and I don’t know why you get downvoted...

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

#557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That attitude is exactly the problem though. These kids getting hit with a 30 year sentence bothers those of us who relate, when the same thing happens to young black inner city kids every day. Plenty of them are just as intelligent, risky, and bold as these kids but we throw them in prison for the best parts of their life without a second thought.

That's violent crime though, which is more obviously bad, even to a teenager. If you're 17 and intentionally kill someone then your brain is broken and you should be kept away from innocent people forever unless you really have some delayed development that comes later.

Where did GP mention violent crime or killing people?

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

#558
post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

Wouldn't that allow for a compromised database to leak the information a nefarious user needs to log into accounts? Compared to needing to find a collision if a database of hashes leaked?

I think client-side password hashing is generally in addition to server-side hashing. Not instead of it.

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

#559
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Depends on how you define the victim. One could argue that the victims in this case are the people whose profiles had been hacked. As for having full blown security getting in the way of getting stuff done, try replacing "Twitter" with "Equifax", a company that handles arguably more sensitive data and should have the "full blown security" you mentioned. Did they suffer any tangible consequences?

The stock when down for a couple of days, that should teach them. On a serious and besides note, it's such a clash between company and user-experience (i.e. every NA citizen) incentives that credit scores companies have a stock in the first place.

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

#560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the study says 29% gave the password without chocolate as well . Some where given chocolate before and after , nowhere it says chocolate was offered as payment for sharing the password. Small gifts could have been inducement to establish relationship and trust not the same as a bribe as you characterises it I find it hard to believe 25 /40 % plus people readily share their password to total strangers , without knowin…

What kind of mindset would lead to this behavior?? Maybe it doesn't matter. It feels -to me- like simply being exposed to people who say things like: " What ?-- no, that's not good" while remaining professional, respectful, and humorous, is a vaccine against not wanting to seem jerky, yet staying secure.

To take your question literally: a trusting mindset. Many people default to assuming that people they meet mean them no harm
Post reply on HN