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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

#301

Post by sna1l »

From the Verge[1] article it seems like there was someone else providing access to the accounts? So was it social engineering or not?

> Intriguingly, Sheppard and Fazeli may just be middlemen for the scam — “an unknown individual” with the handle “Kirk#5270” is believed to be the one who got access to Twitter’s internal systems. It’s not clear if the Tampa teen is Kirk#5270, though it sounds like that’s possible. The Sheppard complaint is dated July 22nd, and the Tampa teen wasn’t arrested until today. Originally, “Kirk” claimed to be a Twitter employee, according to a Discord chat log:

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/31/21349920/twitter-hack-arr...

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

#303

Post by paulpauper »

SahAssar wrote: post #155
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.

Having bad security is not criminal. If it was we wouldn't have a voting village at defcon cracked by pre-teens and there would be a lot more irresponsible CEO's in prison (so probably a better world).

agree. twitter is under no obligation to provide secret service level security on its platform because some high profile people use it. IF the government deems such security measures so important, they should pay twitter to implement them,

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

#304

Post by 7786655 »

refurb wrote: post #298
gregschlom wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you were responsible for securing my stuff, and you put a cheap lock on your door protecting my stuff, and someone breaks in and steals all my stuff, then yes, you should be held liable for your poor security practices.

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

#305

Post by Shared404 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #285
Shared404 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know the quote was accurate. I thought it was common knowledge that bitcoin is not anonymous, therefore making "de-anonymized the bitcoin transactions" a bit of an overstatement.

Ah, now I follow. I assume they intended "de-anonymized" to mean "tied the public keys to identifiable human beings IRL."

No hard feelings.

That's certainly an understandable take, and I'm probably just overly pessimistic.

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

#306

Post by indigochill »

I have an unrealistic idea (more of a thought experiment) that companies should face equal culpability to criminal hackers in attacks. After all, technically the way the hackers use systems /is/ authorized in a sense, even if the method of obtaining authorization is unconventional. Maybe this would get companies to pay more attention to securing their systems.

From a certain perspective, Twitter is an accomplice to fraud by providing the platform and the access to the fraudsters (although I'm fuzzy on whether knowledge of one's aiding of a crime is necessary for an entity to be legally considered an accomplice - probably is).

And yes, the charge count is insane but the US loves holding a bit of life-ruining theater when they catch hackers threatening commercial interests. e.g. Aaron Swartz's conviction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#Arrest_and_prosec...

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

#307

Post by raverbashing »

slg wrote: post #140
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.

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.

Yes. But at the same time, it's easy to get into "blame the victim" mode

Having full blown security could mean nothing is done easily anymore

Prosecuting is important

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

#308

Post by pyuser583 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #270
pyuser583 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> He’s being charged in state court The release doesn't say that either thar he is being charged in state court or that he is not being charged in federal court. First it says why they won't tell you details of any federal charges —“With exceptions that do not apply to this case, juvenile proceedings in federal court are sealed to protect the identity of the juvenile”—then it says that the federal authorities have re…

Sorry I was incorporating information from another HN linked article: https://www.wfla.com/news/hillsborough-county/tampa-teen-acc...

It’s much clearer as to what’s happening at the state level.

It’s also clearer that, for now anyway, he’s being held near his family.

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

#309

Post by jmount »

I don't have examples, but it seems to me you really hear a lot of teens pulling off successful social engineering attacks, even back to the days of phone-hacking. I guess that is evidence that some teens develop a fairly comprehensive understanding of social interaction.

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

#310

Post by SahAssar »

shuntress wrote: post #281
SahAssar wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is like saying that gold coins are explicitly designed not to allow recourse and refunds and that transactions in gold are not reversible by any legal authority. In both BTC and solid gold, reversibility is not a property of the currency. It is a part of the system which uses that currency. However, with Bitcoin (unlike with gold) the currency is explicitly designed with verifiable identity being fundamental to…

What I said was "not reversible by legal authority". That's true for both gold coins and bitcoin if the legal authority don't have them to give.

I'm not saying bitcoin is less accountable and giving 6000$ in gold coins to a stranger promising to double them would only be slightly more responsible since then you'd at least know a physical jurisdiction.

What I'm saying is that when bitcoin X leaves wallet Y to wallet Z the only way to get back X into Y is for the holder of Z to willingly give it, while "normal" digital transactions can be reversed by the transactor or by law. So if you want a transaction to be reversible by law you probably don't want it in bitcoin. Please let me know if I'm wrong.

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