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Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack
651–660 of 702 posts
Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack
#652Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> There is no duty to avoid being the victim of a crime.
In Germany (and likely also other jurisdictions), if your car gets stolen because you left the door open and the keys in the ignition, you will be held liable for it to some extent: As the owner of a dangerous machine, you're responsible to reasonably secure it even against illegal acts. [1]
I don't see why this would be different if your machine is a lot bigger, and as a result arguably a lot more dangerous than a single car (imagine tweets trying to trigger violent mobs).
[1] https://dejure.org/gesetze/StVG/7.html subsection 3
Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack
#653Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Programming is a waste of time if you don’t need a program.
True, but what tech company would benefit from the social engineering skills of a young man with dubious morality? If at least he had proven to be the new Mitnick, but he hasn't.
Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack
#654Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Well, I think "the problem with victim blaming" is that it implies that there is something "a reasonable person" has to do in order to not get attacked: a woman should be able to walk around naked, for example, without being raped, and we shouldn't say "well any reasonable person would have at least worn clothes". In fact, I would then claim pretty forcibly that a lock strong enough that someone has to break your doo…
In The Netherlands we have law to protect the youth against smart, sophisticated hacks (we're not talking about (D)DoS here). These people are then taught lessons about ethics an how they can apply their knowledge for Good.
As such, my proposal of punishment would be to give this fellow an unpaid, mandatory internship at Twitter. This teaches them to learn their victim, and Twitter can teach the perpetrator the proper way to handle a company's problems. Show him how fun red teaming or blue teaming or pentesting can be.
Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack
#655Earlier 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.
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.
Did anyone in the FBI get fired for plugging in a USB drive into their computers?
If they did I bet those numbers would change pretty quickly.
Similarly, if Equifax had been shut down under the mountain of lawsuits they should have had for losing people’s data, I bet security would become a much bigger concern for everybody.
The FBI study basically shows that consequences are important.
Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack
#656Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There is no duty to avoid being the victim of a crime If you entrust a bank with 10 thousand dollars, and the bank puts your money in a paper bag and leaves it in the lobby, they are going to be held liable if someone walks away with it. Twitter letting teenagers steal people's data is approaching that level of negligence for a mutli-billion dollar company.
The only thing between the inside of a home and the outside is a thin layer of glass. Should we hold home owners responsible for people breaking in and stealing? Lots of things are fragile, we have a laws to act as a deterrent to violations
We do in some cases.
Someone breaks in and steals your stuff? We generally don't care, because its solely your problem.
Someone breaks in and steals other people's stuff that you held, or stuff that's dangerous to others? Depending on what it was, you may be held liable if you didn't take appropriate measures.
If the stolen stuff was, for example, sensitive private information, and you didn't have it in at least a locked cabinet, you may be liable. If it was a gun, in many jurisdictions, you're liable. Your car gets stolen _because you didn't secure it correctly?_ In Germany, you're liable for the damage caused with it!
Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack
#657Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> 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…
> Twitter can afford cameras and alarm systems for its data centers; I can’t.
Twitter is also a much bigger target, and it makes sense to apply very different standards to what "reasonable" security is.
Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack
#658Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 you…
While that percentage is low, it doesn't tell the whole story. Private prisons are certainly a major symptom of the problem with our prisons. The U.S. has the largest private prison population in the world, and you'll note from your own link that the private prison population from 2000 to 2019 increased by 39%. Also, for federal prisons, the percentage of inmates in private prisons is 19.1%. These are definitely prob…
And private prisons create an insane incentive to increase incarceration in order to increase profits.
Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack
#659Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your Honor, I firebombed those police cars because I'm PUNK ROCK! do you see how you sound
Again, you are misunderstanding the intention. 9/11 was an act of terrorism. Setting police cars on fire is vandalism, destruction of government property, maybe something for endangering police officers or something. All things condoned by your local friendly "anarchists". What it isn't is terrorism. Now go and listen to some Rage Against the Machine. Are they terrorists?
Is lighting crosses on fire terrorism?
Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack
#660Hitting 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.
Just because he is 17 doesnt mean he didnt understand the repurcutions of his actions. That said, Twitter should be facing fines as well for not protecting their platform. I mean seriously what if someone gets hold of a say, Putin or Trump's account and starts stating they are launching strikes on XYZ country within the hour, what happens then? With great power comes great responsibility and these platforms of communication are no exception.