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Someone has stolen my Instagram account

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Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#301

Post by samatman »

skinkestek wrote: post #231
x3n0ph3n3 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little difference with Facebook and Google, because unlike the other companies you mentioned, users are not the customers of Facebook and Google -- advertisers are. There is very little incentive to make their users happy when their users are not paying for the service.

> It's a little difference with Facebook and Google, because unlike the other companies you mentioned, users are not the customers of Facebook and Google -- advertisers are. This is so tiring. Also, I've been paying Google real money for half a decade or so, so I am definitely their customer. That said I'm well aware that that doesn't seem to mean anything in Google land and I might be thrown out for anything tomorro…

It's still true on an institutional level, though.

Paying customers at Google are pin money, AdSense is bread and butter.

If there's a conflict, AdSense wins, period. There's a firmly entrenched culture where user accounts are a cost center, to be managed "at scale", that carries over to paying accounts. That attitude shouldn't carry over, of course; nonetheless, it does, as you recognize in your last paragraph.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#303

Post by theduder99 »

lightgreen wrote: post #95
dannyw wrote: post #28

My Instagram account has suddenly started asking for a phone number and won’t let me log in without one.

OK, then give it a phone number? Why do you post about it on HN, what's the story you want to tell here?

more proof of instagram's shady business practices

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#304

Post by jonas21 »

Aeolun wrote: post #139
renewiltord wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Users here will believe any conspiracy theory so that's not really a high bar. I'm serious. There was that massive 2000 comment thread the other month about some big company doing something evil and then it turned out they didn't do it. Everyone who was right and informed in the original thread was greyed out by users here.

Maybe that’s because 90% of the time it turns out the company did do it? I’d be interested in knowing what thread that was though.

It seems like most of the high-profile examples lately have either been false or misleading.

Just to check, I looked at all posts with over 1000 points in the past couple of months where a big tech company is accused of doing something "evil" to the little guy. They are:

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1. Tell HN: Never search for domains on Godaddy.com (1656 points) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24506303

The OP accused GoDaddy of registering a domain for itself after the OP had added it to their cart. It turns out that many people were searching for the same search terms and someone else just happened to register it via GoDaddy on the same day.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24523901

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2. Google is apparently taking down all/most Fediverse apps from the Play Store (1313 points) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24304275

The OP implied that Google was banning all Fediverse apps with no recourse for the developers. But it turned out that Google was asking developers to block logins to a set of unmoderated instances that are known to be full of hate speech. Some developers refused, but it seems like most did not, and are doing just fine.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.keylesspal...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.juggler.sub...

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3. When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited] (1243 points) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23987584

The original title and tweet said that Apple keeps the 30% cut. The author turned out to be misinformed.

https://twitter.com/twolivesleft/status/1288625617873694721

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Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#305

Post by ryanlol »

uniqueid wrote: post #269
abalone wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re assuming the attacker was telling the truth about “knowing someone” at Facebook. More likely they figured out how to bypass 2FA (e.g. sim swap, socially engineered a customer service account recovery workflow, etc.)

Yes, that's the simplest explanation. Not that Instagram is above giving an existing nobody's account to a VIP, but they're not going to do that without wiping its content, and notifying the nobody first.

> notifying the nobody first

They certainly never do this. SOP is just to swap the existing account to a different name.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#306

Post by jeremymcanally »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #220
ipsum2 wrote: post #7

There's no evidence to back the user's claims. This sounds like "Hey my dad works at Xbox and will ban you". There are other ways to compromise an Instagram account, like sim swapping ( https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/05/t-mobile-employee-made-u... )

The author's girlfriend had to re-follow the account, which implies the original followers were replaced with Danny's. In the new Danny's screenshot, it shows that he's followed by three other "OG" account names: "blood", "murder", and "dead". Furthermore, the screenshot was taken from another account, otherwise it would have shown as "This account is private" (Try viewing your own Instagram profile while logged in a…

It doesn't surprise me at all, actually. These idiots brag about this to friends constantly and try to make new connections inside the companies to exploit. I have a very short Twitter that people try to take over constantly, and by virtue of being on the platform early, I've accrued a few "OG" accounts for various projects or whatever. When someone stole one of my accounts that I didn't use anymore by having their friend take it over, I had my friend look into it and they reversed it.

The account jacking idiot then messaged me trying to get me to put them in touch with my friend so they could try to help them get other accounts and bragged about how he was just going to take some of my other accounts that he somehow knew belonged to me despite there being no link to one another outside of what would be Twitter-internal data. It was the most brazenly ridiculous thing I've ever encountered, but I'm assuming it's an ignorant kid who doesn't realize the possible consequences or a really dumb adult.

So, I can totally believe the idiot would just blurt out how he got it because that gives him clout amongst his miscreant "OG account" friends.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#308

Post by AA-BA-94-2A-56 »

Anecdotal, but I used to own the @clonetrooper Twitter handle. One day I woke up and someone else had it.

Tried contacting Twitter, and they wouldn't accept my screenshots as evidence that I owned it. So what do I do? It's been almost a decade now, and I will never get it back.

Re: Someone has stolen my Instagram account

#310

Post by will_walker »

There's a great episode on ReplyAll podcast[0] about the methods for bypassing 2FA to snag accounts. Was the 2FA endpoint a SMS cell number? In that case, it's probable the thief fraudulently impersonated the victim to the cell service provider and phished the 2FA code. Sadly, the cell providers are the weakest link in that particular chain (probably much weaker than Facebook's security).

I also wouldn't put it past someone to guess a password or have reused a password with another service that has been hacked. Humans are terrible at password hygene.

[0] https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/v4he6k

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