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Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

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Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#241

Post by boogies »

qppo wrote: post #201
nickff wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't that how they got Stuxnet into the Iranian nuclear facilities?

Something like that (USB exploit of Windows zero days, breaching an airgap). (Edit: though not by leaving flash drives outside of the facilities, by infecting some with a virus that spread from Windows PC to Windows PC around the world.)

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#242

Post by camjohnson26 »

kolbe wrote: post #210
Taek wrote: post #131

Hitting 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.

I agree this bothers me to my core. Even the 22 year old hasn't developed a fully functional neocortex. I know it seems a little hypocritical of me for getting sad when this happens to a young programmer and not an inner city gang member, but it does. To pull off a hack like this is indicative of these kids being intelligent, risky and bold. Yeah, they went where they shouldn't, but I personally think these are the t…

That attitude is exactly the problem though. These kids getting hit with a 30 year sentence bothers those of us who relate, when the same thing happens to young black inner city kids every day. Plenty of them are just as intelligent, risky, and bold as these kids but we throw them in prison for the best parts of their life without a second thought.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#243

Post by Swizec »

nickff wrote: post #183
slg wrote: post #140

Earlier 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.

I remember an article a few years ago saying that large % of office employees would trade their password for chocolate.

Ah yes here we go, large scale study, 43% of participants gave away their password when bribed with a chocolate bar. People just don't realize how valuable passwords are.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160512085123.h...

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#245

Post by pyuser583 »

Taek wrote: post #131

Hitting 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.

He’s being treated a lot better than the adult defendants.

He’s being charged in state court - specifically the state he resides in.

The charges are being brought in San Francisco - which is thousands of miles from the where the other suspects live.

Relative to the other defendants, he’s getting it easy.

Yes, he’s technically facing life in prison. But it’s a prison near his home.

He probably won’t get life in prison, but at least he’ll be able to get family visits, etc.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#246

Post by SahAssar »

shuntress wrote: post #215
SahAssar wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want legal recourse and refunds why would you use a currency that explicitly does not allow for those? Seriously, if you want the protections of the legal system, then use currency controlled by the legal system.

Bitcoin is actually explicitly designed to enable recourse and refunds. Every single transaction is permanently and immutable tied to a verifiable identity. Through common practice, these identities are treated as disposable and therefor generally ignored. But stating that the currency is explicitly designed to disallow accountability is not an accurate representation of reality. -- Edit to add a practical example fo…

Transactions are not reversible by legal authority in bitcoin, only by the receiving party willingly doing the transaction in reverse.

What you are talking about is establishing reputability, not about refund-ability or the ability of authorities to reverse illicit transactions. You can see that as a feature of bitcoin or not, but if you want protections from a system you need to act within that system.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#247

Post by superkuh »

ceejayoz wrote: post #209
superkuh wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about the public. That is many people I don't have control of. I do know that I can do it myself and it works fine and I can work around things. I think this is true for many technical people. And I think doing this would encourage many of us to think of better ways to design and implement no-JS fallback functionality when making things for the public to use.

> I don't know about the public. The EU is tasked with protecting their public in a way that you are not.

Just to refresh, the context of this sub-thread is about what people outside of the EU should do. Those living in the EU already subscribe to social policies based on positive liberty and can ignore discussions about individual responsibility for their behavior.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#248

Post by [deleted] »

sepulchers wrote: post #230
par wrote: post #126

> Today’s announcement proves that cybercriminals can no longer hide behind perceived global anonymity Anyone know what the loose end was that got these guys busted?

> In the days leading up to Wednesday’s attack on Twitter, there were signs that some actors in the SIM swapping community were selling the ability to change an email address tied to any Twitter account. In a post on OGusers — a forum dedicated to account hijacking — a user named “Chaewon” advertised they could change email address tied to any Twitter account for $250, and provide direct access to accounts for betwee…

[deleted]

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#249

Post by justchilly »

dshep wrote: post #220

Trying to paint this 17-year old kid as a criminal mastermind strikes me as rather gross. I can see it as a kid doing it to see if he could, and using an obviously meme-worthy fake post that got out of hand. I think everyone has done some dumb things at this age without thinking about the consequences. If that is the case here, I hope this doesn't ruin the guys life.

Would that apply to criminals of all ages, based on their intelligence / mental maturity? Plenty of incarcerated 18+ adults with less brainpower than this guy were deemed responsible for their actions.

Re: Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

#250

Post by shadowgovt »

gregschlom wrote: post #187
nordsieck wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? 200 Million Americans could drive a car into a crowd. That doesn't make it any less bad for someone to do.

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.

We generally handle that liability free-market style, i.e. "Why the hell would I sign up for a Twitter account? Their security is so lousy some 17-year-old could be speaking as me."
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