Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack

wfla.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 702 posts

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

#291

Post by shadowgovt »

SahAssar wrote: post #264
shadowgovt wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually, the counterweight to bad security is the extremely-practical "Pests, assholes, or criminals ownz you." Which works on average.

I disagree. For every Mossack Fonseca, Mernis, Equifax, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ashley Madison we get public hacks from I think we have many more that see it as "the cost of doing business" and keep bad practices around. In many types of businesses the cost of a security breach is "priced in" or not considered at all and they are gambling on it happening to their competitors (or not at all) instead of to them.

I think we are in agreement on mechanism. I meant "works on average" in the sense of "Keeps fraud and breaches to a level consumers are comfortable with." Nobody imagines breaches can be driven to zero; we seem to be comfortable as a society with the overall rate and severity of breaches (demonstrably, since people keep signing up for these rando online services willy-nilly with nary a care to who holds their data).

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

#292

Post by dhosek »

dumbfoundded wrote: post #284
amrrs wrote: post #268

> Washington DC Field Office Cyber Crimes Unit analyzed the blockchain and de-anonymized bitcoin transactions allowing for the identification of two different hackers. Anyone with Bitcoin Transaction knowledge, what's this de-anonymization of Bitcoins transaction? >Today’s announcement proves that cybercriminals can no longer hide behind perceived global anonymity,” said Thomas Edwards, Special Agent in Charge, U.S.…

Bitcoin is anonymous until you tie it to something that requires a real identity. For most people, it's probably tied to an exchange that has their real identity, credit card info, and maybe bank account info. What they should've done is generate a new wallet with no previous transactions and just used that to buy things.

But wouldn't the purchase transactions be able to be connected to the perpetrators?

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

#294

Post by idlewords »

tptacek wrote: post #61
ideals wrote: post #53

(If this is actually the person behind the attacks) Yes he may serve jail time for this, but he did get to read DMs of some of these people, and has had enough time to copy those contents to be read later. That's still valuable knowledge, he should leverage this to get people interested in those details to fund his legal defense in return for providing the contents of the DMs. Or is that illegal?

Yes, that would be pretty illegal.

But then he can do it again to pay for the second legal defense

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

#295

Post by pps43 »

SahAssar wrote: post #287
pps43 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is bad security ok for, say, a bank or a nuclear power plant?

No, and that's why we (basically all nations that have banks or nuclear power plants) have specific laws governing them. Look, if you want to pass a law saying all internet business having X personal data needs to prove Y security, then I'd probably be for it (depending on X and Y). We already have PCI-DSS and similar today for payment providers. I'm just saying that there is nothing like that today, and if there was…

In "2020 Commission Report" by Jeffrey Lewis, North Korea nukes the US because of one twit. This looks very plausible to me.

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

#296

Post by paulpauper »

ibejoeb wrote: post #147
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.

Nothing in the complaint (well, for the two others, since his is sealed) says that a state-level actor wasn't involved. Could be the tip of the iceberg. I find it hard to believe that this was prank hacking for about $150,000. You could sell Obama's handle for more, surely.

yeah cuz a trillion dollar state entity is so strapped for cash it needs to steal 150k of bitcoin too, drawing attention to the scheme.

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

#297

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

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.

This kind of feels like "privilege" of the sort where you can kind of identify with this kid (he's a hacker, into computers) so you're excusing his actions.

Yes, everyone has done some dumb things at this age, but the consequences of this were pretty severe, and he certainly knew what he was doing. Just calling this a "meme-worthy fake post" is minimizing what he did.

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

#298

Post by refurb »

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.

I put a cheap lock on my door and someone breaks in and steals everything.

Should I be held liable for my poor security practices?

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

#300

Post by searchableguy »

pojntfx wrote: post #99

"Our European visitors are important to us. This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws." nice

Alternative: https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/31/21349920/twitter-hack-arr...
Post reply on HN