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Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#101

Post by garrettgarcia »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
powera wrote: post #13

If you don't use Two-Factor Authentication, and you have a public profile, the question isn't if your account will be compromised, but when . Apparently, for Mr. Mattheij, when was today. The next question is "how do you safely recover your account". Hopefully this is a straightforward process, considering you have access to the email account associated with your Twitter account. Of course, Twitter needs to make sure…

There is no way that my account password was compromised without a much more elaborate hack of Twitter, either that or someone social engineered them to change my password.

Your account being compromised doesn't necessarily mean your password was compromised. Attackers are constantly developing new ways of accessing people's accounts. There's no valid reason to assume that there was an "elaborate hack of Twitter." Even people who are very careful, as it sounds like you are, can be successfully targeted. I don't know if turning on 2FA would have prevented this, but it sure wouldn't have hurt.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#102

Post by jacquesm »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #93
jacquesm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wait, why not cancel your appeal, and try deleting the tweet on your own? Because that might remove any forensic data that might allow me to figure out how this was done.

That makes sense, I wouldn't rely on twitter saving the relevant data either. It really seems that the real problem is that it's possible to be banned for a single tweet, and so quickly.

I really wonder how this was done. And if it can be done this easily how often it happens, it's not like I'm super visible, there are probably millions of accounts on Twitter with more visibility.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#103

Post by ziddoap »

filoleg wrote: post #76
rosndo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. If you weren’t a prolific HN commenter this would be the top comment here. Right now you’re making an extraordinary claim with zero evidence. Pointing this out isn’t “out of line”. E: As it turns out, not only was I not out of line, I was also entirely correct. You wrote this tweet Jacques, you just forgot. It’s not unusual at your age. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31240589 It’s time for you to ap…

Given that OP was making very pro-Ukraine statements and expressing their support for Ukraine on twitter up until that point, I believe it is extremely unlikely they just got drunk and tweeted "Die on the job..." to a pro-Ukrainian publisher called The Kyiv Independent. Even their HN reputation aside, it just doesn't make sense. I am one of the first people to always take OP statements with a gran of salt in cases li…

>I believe it is extremely unlikely they just got drunk and tweeted "Die on the job..."

Is it not even more unlikely that Twitter itself was hacked, just so someone could post this tweet as OP?

I agree it is an uncharacteristic tweet on the OPs behalf, but... If we are to believe OPs claim that there is "no possible way" their machine and/or account have been hacked... My next step isn't thinking "Well, all of Twitter must have been hacked".

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#104

Post by jacquesm »

vorpalhex wrote: post #99
jacquesm wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tree style tabs, adblock plus, umatrix, all as far as I know reputable and clean. Don't use other computers besides this one for Twitter. The password is very long, generated, so impossible to guess and I have never moved it to another machine.

Probably time to shut down the machine in question, clone it and do a forensics run on the clone. Use a new machine temporarily. Obviously other vectors are possible, but in the absence of knowledge it is likely appropriate to react in a secure by default way.

Yes, this is good advice.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#105

Post by jacquesm »

gojomo wrote: post #62

Remember, not long ago even @jack's account was taken over: https://www.wired.com/story/jack-dorsey-twitter-hacked/ If you'd ever supplied a phone number as a backup-auth, then a SIM/phone-number-hijack would be a likely cause. (I think you'd see an email about a password reset in that case.) But also any 3rd-party app that was ever granted posting access ª then itself compromised or misused – could also be to blame.…

Interesting! But: I never gave Twitter my phone number exactly because I figured that that would open me up to SIM swap attacks and the password on the account is quite secure. As secure as this machine, I guess.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#106

Post by doldols »

filoleg wrote: post #76
rosndo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. If you weren’t a prolific HN commenter this would be the top comment here. Right now you’re making an extraordinary claim with zero evidence. Pointing this out isn’t “out of line”. E: As it turns out, not only was I not out of line, I was also entirely correct. You wrote this tweet Jacques, you just forgot. It’s not unusual at your age. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31240589 It’s time for you to ap…

Given that OP was making very pro-Ukraine statements and expressing their support for Ukraine on twitter up until that point, I believe it is extremely unlikely they just got drunk and tweeted "Die on the job..." to a pro-Ukrainian publisher called The Kyiv Independent. Even their HN reputation aside, it just doesn't make sense. I am one of the first people to always take OP statements with a gran of salt in cases li…

I’m Ukrainian, very pro-West Ukrainian at that.

I absolutely despise Kyiv Independent for working to discredit real journalists by pushing completely absurd propaganda, like the “ghost of Kyiv” lie.

These things are more complicated than they might seem at first glance.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#107

Post by carabiner »

wfhordie wrote: post #9

I am sort of baffled by all the ink being spilt about Twitter. I still find it jarring that anyone reports on “tweets,” and that there is even a process to ‘appeal’ a decision made ‘about a tweet.’ Anyway, meta-commentary aside, this blog post is something of a mystery. I don’t know whether the author of the post actually wrote the tweet in question and is somehow trying to get back onto Twitter, or if his account wa…

The previous US president used Twitter as his primary form of public address. These are now part of the presidential archive. Like it or not, in 2022, Twitter is a first class medium for communication.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#108

Post by david927 »

mkmk wrote: post #23
wfhordie wrote: post #9

I am sort of baffled by all the ink being spilt about Twitter. I still find it jarring that anyone reports on “tweets,” and that there is even a process to ‘appeal’ a decision made ‘about a tweet.’ Anyway, meta-commentary aside, this blog post is something of a mystery. I don’t know whether the author of the post actually wrote the tweet in question and is somehow trying to get back onto Twitter, or if his account wa…

FWIW, the author is very prolific and sane on hackernews(at least as far as I've noticed), so the post could be considered more trustworthy than a random post by somebody who has never participated here before.

As someone with a 15-year-old account here, I can verify that Jacques is in a special, small group of members of this community with recognized user names -- based on a long and impeccable record of substantial knowledge and respected expertise.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#110

Post by jacquesm »

garrettgarcia wrote: post #101
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way that my account password was compromised without a much more elaborate hack of Twitter, either that or someone social engineered them to change my password.

Your account being compromised doesn't necessarily mean your password was compromised. Attackers are constantly developing new ways of accessing people's accounts. There's no valid reason to assume that there was an "elaborate hack of Twitter." Even people who are very careful, as it sounds like you are, can be successfully targeted. I don't know if turning on 2FA would have prevented this, but it sure wouldn't have…

Then I'm super interested in the mechanism used because I was under the impression that as long as my password is secure my account is secure barring a hack of Twitter at an entirely different level.

2FA the way Twitter uses it (using SMS to phone number) would in my opinion be less secure rather than more secure because it opens up a whole slew of possible attacks that would then also involve my phone.

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