The common thread among most stories like this is the spoof-ability of phone numbers. Telecom companies must make changes to prevent this kind of spoofing. Honestly, I think if telecom companies could be sued for damages caused by this kind of thing (not to mention spam) then I think the problem would get solved very quickly. The only reason it hasn't been solved yet is most of the cost and pain is borne by others.
'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
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Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#12I can't imagine these people are that untraceable. If they are dumb enough to reach out to the victims, finding them should be doable with a bit of luck.
I think one of the issues is spoofing numbers is still not prevented by the miserable US telecoms. That allows these people to spoof calls and swat the target, worst case.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#13Yes another reason people should leave these corporate run media sites.
I would go further and say that all social media should be outright banned, corporate or not
Social media is optional. You don't have to use it. I don't.
But not letting other people send messages over the internet through platforms created for the purpose because you don't like it is a special level of heavy-handed dictating.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#14Easy solution: Assign all accounts a unique and randomly generated ID, and allow everyone to then use the handle they want. If someone wants to write a @handle in a post or a comment, a list shall appear, asking them to choose the account they wish to link to. IDs shall be public, and the list shall present itself as something like "@Max 36hf28bcd ; @Max 9jv1tcsh ; @Max b63avg960"
That isn't a solution, because people who want to have a memorable/unique username are not interested in sharing it with others, and they will move to a platform where they don't have to. Probably part of Twitter's appeal early on was the ability to get there early and grab up an account like @cookies or @milk.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would go further and say that all social media should be outright banned, corporate or not
Social media is optional. You don't have to use it. I don't. But not letting other people send messages over the internet through platforms created for the purpose because you don't like it is a special level of heavy-handed dictating.
You are on it. Right now.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#16Yes another reason people should leave these corporate run media sites.
There's nothing about this campaign that is caused by or made worse by the fact it is a corporate media site. Names - whether they be DNS names or Instagram handles or trademarks - are valuable.
This is definitely a problem of social media IMHO. When you can be @ginger@some.domain by just finding a Fediverse server where nobody's decided to be @ginger yet, or getting someone in your circles with the resources to stand up a server, there's a lot less competition than when there can only be one @ginger on all of Instagram across the entire world.
Someone could still decide that being @ginger@prestigious.domain is Worth Something and start harassing you for having it but it's a lot less likely.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#17Someone needs to go Liam Neeson on these people.
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#18Easy solution: Assign all accounts a unique and randomly generated ID, and allow everyone to then use the handle they want. If someone wants to write a @handle in a post or a comment, a list shall appear, asking them to choose the account they wish to link to. IDs shall be public, and the list shall present itself as something like "@Max 36hf28bcd ; @Max 9jv1tcsh ; @Max b63avg960"
Basically Discord then? You have a human-readable handle that is not guaranteed to be unique, and disambiguated by the last 4 digits (?) of your actual UID (which is a number)?
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#19Easy solution: Assign all accounts a unique and randomly generated ID, and allow everyone to then use the handle they want. If someone wants to write a @handle in a post or a comment, a list shall appear, asking them to choose the account they wish to link to. IDs shall be public, and the list shall present itself as something like "@Max 36hf28bcd ; @Max 9jv1tcsh ; @Max b63avg960"
Discord does this. You can choose whatever name you want. Then your name has ‘#’ and 4 random numbers appended to it, like ‘Foo##5142’. The # and numbers are greyed out and mostly hidden so when you see peoples ids, unless your explicitly looking for it your brain only pays attention to the name part. IMO it works really well
Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles
#20Easy solution: Assign all accounts a unique and randomly generated ID, and allow everyone to then use the handle they want. If someone wants to write a @handle in a post or a comment, a list shall appear, asking them to choose the account they wish to link to. IDs shall be public, and the list shall present itself as something like "@Max 36hf28bcd ; @Max 9jv1tcsh ; @Max b63avg960"
Discord does this and it's really annoying. Especially if your usual handle is actually sufficiently unique that you've never had a name collision on any site, ever. It's almost as annoying as trying to remember anyone's ICQ number.
"Easy" solution: all account names must be at least ten characters long, single dictionary words and common first names are illegal. Make everyone spend some time picking a Good Handle.