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The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

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Re: The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

#291
post #9

Support requests have always been the weakest link in the security chain for big corps. I've had accounts of mine turned over with 2FA disabled by humans before. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the LLMs are doing the same thing. The simple fact that 2FA can be removed by low level support staff drives me mad. It defeats the whole purpose of the process.

A flow can either fail safe or fail secure. Fail secure: if you lose your email, your account is forever locked. Fail safe: if you lose your email, your account is not forever locked. But, someone else might be able to get your account by pretending you lost your email. There are no other choices. When the electronic door controller loses power, either the door stays locked, or the door stays unlocked. In case of a f…

There are definitely more shades of grey. On my iPhone I can select a close contact to be able to overturn my protection but this contact needs to have security features turned on, too. So Apple staff cannot do it, only a non publicly known person that has 2FA and encryption themselves. Add time delays, notifications, identity checks and more to it and you can make this process reasonably secure while still ensuring recovery.

Re: The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

#292
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no other online choices. If my Bank login goes totally Kaput, though, I can take my ID down to the Branch to get it sorted. Same with my telecom provider. I try to only depend on services which have this property. I don't succeed.

Sounds great until you have an aging parent with a problem who can't get there. Get a power of attorney you say.. great but they won't accept unless parent comes to the branch. This comes back to haunt you in the future.

I've done this. I'm very surprised that, in your case, the POA was not sufficient to get your business done.

I'm not sure what alternative you are proposing. This only gets much, much worse when the aging person is trying to use a password...

Re: The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

#293
post #9

Support requests have always been the weakest link in the security chain for big corps. I've had accounts of mine turned over with 2FA disabled by humans before. I guess we shouldn't be surprised that the LLMs are doing the same thing. The simple fact that 2FA can be removed by low level support staff drives me mad. It defeats the whole purpose of the process.

A flow can either fail safe or fail secure. Fail secure: if you lose your email, your account is forever locked. Fail safe: if you lose your email, your account is not forever locked. But, someone else might be able to get your account by pretending you lost your email. There are no other choices. When the electronic door controller loses power, either the door stays locked, or the door stays unlocked. In case of a f…

I'm probably out of date, but Google's advanced protection at one point did account recovery via postcard to your home address. High latency but pretty good as a fallback.

Re: The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

#294

What's funny about this to me is that I tried to sign up for insta once and could never get past their automated ID check that would fire after signup despite using a real ID. (So never did sign up. I suspect maybe they just really don't want you using web on mobile devices but ymmv.)

On mobile, Meta absolutely doesn’t want you to use web. I created my Facebook account in 2004, deleted it in 2018 (Cambridge Analytica scandal), and later created a fake one just to use FB marketplace to sell things. I will never install the Facebook app on my phone, so I use a browser instead. The experience is almost unusable. I can’t rate people. I’m not even sure if I can send messages. I can’t list things. The U…

How you do you use fb marketplace without installing the messenger app?

I've tried that, but fb has stopped sending email notification of messages, so without the messenger app installed for notifications, I'll invariably fail to check messages on any kind of timely basis.

Re: The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A flow can either fail safe or fail secure. Fail secure: if you lose your email, your account is forever locked. Fail safe: if you lose your email, your account is not forever locked. But, someone else might be able to get your account by pretending you lost your email. There are no other choices. When the electronic door controller loses power, either the door stays locked, or the door stays unlocked. In case of a f…

What about "go see an agent in person and use your fingerprint to prove it is you"?

[deleted]

Re: The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

#296
post #128
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see no difference between X and Instagram in this regard whatsoever. Think NASA, for example; it's also a government agency, and they are doing great job posting photos in Instagram, do you think anything is wrong with it?

It is just bizzare when you take a step back and remember the world 20 years ago. NASA would just post directly to their own website. Of course they would. Now imagine you go back in time 20 years ago and say "What if we took all these images you are providing for the public on their dime, compressed the hell out of them, and served them in this for profit proprietary marketing/propaganda app instead?" Engineers in 2…

I'll note that for most purposes the canonical NASA image repository is on Flickr, and it seems like NASA pays to have it ad-free for viewers.

Re: The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

#297
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no other online choices. If my Bank login goes totally Kaput, though, I can take my ID down to the Branch to get it sorted. Same with my telecom provider. I try to only depend on services which have this property. I don't succeed.

Sounds great until you have an aging parent with a problem who can't get there. Get a power of attorney you say.. great but they won't accept unless parent comes to the branch. This comes back to haunt you in the future.

On the other hand, the best anti-scam feature for older relatives is to tell them to "go there in person". Get a call from the bank, they simply tell them "ok, I'm coming to the bank tomorrow, in person", and they're done. Scam call? Legit call? Doesn't matter, they'll sort it out at the bank.

There's a whole wide age and knowledge/competence where older people can still fall for scams (or can't know if it's legit or a scam) but on the other hand are still capable to go to whatever office/bank they need to go.

Re: The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

#298
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no other online choices. If my Bank login goes totally Kaput, though, I can take my ID down to the Branch to get it sorted. Same with my telecom provider. I try to only depend on services which have this property. I don't succeed.

Sounds great until you have an aging parent with a problem who can't get there. Get a power of attorney you say.. great but they won't accept unless parent comes to the branch. This comes back to haunt you in the future.

> until you have an aging parent with a problem who can't get there

Or you get elected to high office and consequently getting to the branch is a bit ... faffy[0]

[0] https://chicago.suntimes.com/pope-leo-xiv/2026/05/06/pope-le...

Re: The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A flow can either fail safe or fail secure. Fail secure: if you lose your email, your account is forever locked. Fail safe: if you lose your email, your account is not forever locked. But, someone else might be able to get your account by pretending you lost your email. There are no other choices. When the electronic door controller loses power, either the door stays locked, or the door stays unlocked. In case of a f…

There are no other online choices. If my Bank login goes totally Kaput, though, I can take my ID down to the Branch to get it sorted. Same with my telecom provider. I try to only depend on services which have this property. I don't succeed.

Seems like a business opportunity. Face to face authentication in every major city that can authenticate people when needed.

Re: The newest Instagram “exploit” is the goofiest I've seen

#300
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no other online choices. If my Bank login goes totally Kaput, though, I can take my ID down to the Branch to get it sorted. Same with my telecom provider. I try to only depend on services which have this property. I don't succeed.

Sounds great until you have an aging parent with a problem who can't get there. Get a power of attorney you say.. great but they won't accept unless parent comes to the branch. This comes back to haunt you in the future.

This is still less problematic than an attacker getting in and draining the funds.
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