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How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username

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Re: How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username

#121

Post by patio11 »

mierle wrote: post #113
patio11 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard good things about them from friends. This article was the last straw for me -- I just migrated my 90 domains off of GoDaddy. Actually, I didn't. I just told DNSimple to do all the work, via their (brilliant) concierge onboarding option: http://blog.dnsimple.com/2014/01/domain-transfer-concierge-s... "Here's my credit card and GoDaddy creds, guys, and here's a technical note about my DNS settings that I wan…

Was there anything in particular that made you migrate away from GoDaddy?

GoDaddy has one job: making sure that, with regards to domain names I've purchased, people accessing them get sent to IPs which I control. GoDaddy just demonstrated that they're capable of failing at their one job if anyone applies a determined high schooler level of intelligence to defeating their security processes.

I run a business which collapses catastrophically if I lose control of my Internet presence, and I'm at least as Internet-exposed as "a guy who owns a desirable Twitter handle."

I don't care about elephant hunting. I put up with years of my intelligence getting insulted by SSL certificates being hawked by models. I can appreciate that the economics of the business mean that there need to be upsells to continue offering the low low prices. Fine. But if you cough up a domain, that's it, we're done. I care about that like Thomas cares about SSL CAs offering a CA=true cert to a third party.

Re: How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username

#122

Post by vxNsr »

bredren wrote: post #40

This is a scary story! Focusing on the Twitter handle sale part: I have the twitter handle @jetsetter, and have been offered multiple thousands of dollars for it (guess who!). Unfortunately, selling a twitter handle is against TOS. Only @israel has been officially allowed to transfer hands for money, that I'm aware of. So trying to broker the sale of a twitter account can allow the buyer to report your 'behavior' to…

If you're refering to this: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/sep/14/twitter-us...

at the bottom a twitter representative is quoted as saying that as long as they give you permission to sell/buy a handle they won't block/lock the account.

Also apparently CNN also purchased a handle[1].

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/cnn-acquires-cnnbrk-twitter-a...

Re: How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username

#123

Post by agwa »

patio11 wrote: post #116
agwa wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does sound really good. On the other hand, we're talking about security here, and, sadly, a company that has extra helpful support may be more easily socially engineered. The author's advice to use gmail.com addresses only works because Google basically has no customer support for gmail.com, so there's no one to social engineer!

This is, ironically, one of the reasons I feel more secure with their 3-man firm than with GoDaddy. GoDaddy has all the resources to put in place a well-architected ISOwhatever procedure with flow-charts, custom software, and government document review... and then fail at their one job. These guys, on the other hand, pretty much will be forced to having an actual human who knows me decide "Is this chap claiming to be…

Those are excellent points. Some of it only applies to you (being a large customer and having 2 degrees of separation), but I too would feel a lot more comfortable with 3 decent- and competent-sounding guys like them than with a larger company like GoDaddy.

Re: How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username

#124

Post by ivanbrussik »

benatkin wrote: post #100

It's sad, but twitter's not transferring it back in a week's time gives me more confidence in twitter, not less. There isn't any evidence of the stealing of the domain names and the extortion available besides OP's copies of the email messages and information that GoDaddy won't provide. With the value twitter ID has, twitter shouldn't do anything without clear evidence. He might have been able to get it back if it wa…

I value any company's committment to security however there are ways that Twitter can prove who the owner of the account was, if they really wanted to.

Let's see if this story hits real news headlines and affects Twitters stock before closing bell tomorrow and action will happen.

Re: How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username

#126

Post by hnriot »

imsofuture wrote: post #38
harryh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, the fact that he tweeted a grand total of twice in 2013 (see https://twitter.com/N_is_stolen ) makes me have a little less sympathy.

I'm a very casual and infrequent tweeter, and I can't fathom how that makes my username 'up for grabs'. Sorry you have such a twisted view of username ownership :/

while it clearly doesn't, I wonder though if someone is using twitter so infrequently they would even care what their handle is. It's not like it has any intrinsic value or meaning. Why not just pick a random guid and use that as a handle (like I did) since I don't care one hoot what the handle is as I use twitter for exactly two things. Machine Learning datasets, and following a dozen or so people. I can do that from a guid as effectively as if I had @2600

Re: How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username

#127

Post by adrr »

micahgoulart wrote: post #2

An interesting point made was to avoid using custom domains for the login emails, since a DNS takeover would compromise your accounts tied to that email.

Wonder how would you prevent or detect this hack attempt early. Are there services that monitor for DNS changes? Could you up the TTLs on the MX records so if you did notice a breach, you would have adequate time to resolve it?

Re: How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username

#128

Post by ivanbrussik »

pyk wrote: post #81

No lawyer? Any reason why none was mentioned? Extortion is serious federal crime (across state lines, multiple companies, even clear admission of guilt). At the least it would get GoDaddy's attention vs. just asking nicely.

It is a long shot, and would take ton of money in fees mainly for a very skilled private investigator but you are absolutely correct this is one route to go.

Re: How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username

#129

Post by ohashi »

harryh wrote: post #18

Who are people's current favorite domain registrars? I've been with name.com for the last year or so and have been happy, but I'm always curios to hear from others.

If you have a lot of domains (or willing to pay a premium), I am a huge fan of Fabulous.com. Good support, good pricing, my impression is fairly secure. They have an executive lock feature:

Executive-lock (E-Lock) allows for the domain name to be frozen. This means that the domain name is:

1. Unable to be transferred out to another Registrar.

2. Unable to be pushed to another Fabulous account.

3. Unable to have changes to its nameservers.

4. Unable to have the registrar-lock status removed.

You can define whatever conditions you want and they manually do them if you want it unlocked. It could take many days to unlock your domain, but it definitely isn't going anywhere.

Re: How I Lost My $50,000 Twitter Username

#130

Post by porlw »

bredren wrote: post #40

This is a scary story! Focusing on the Twitter handle sale part: I have the twitter handle @jetsetter, and have been offered multiple thousands of dollars for it (guess who!). Unfortunately, selling a twitter handle is against TOS. Only @israel has been officially allowed to transfer hands for money, that I'm aware of. So trying to broker the sale of a twitter account can allow the buyer to report your 'behavior' to…

How about setting up a company, GIVING the handle to the company, then selling the company?
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