Tampa teen accused of being ‘mastermind’ behind Twitter hack • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by rootsudo » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:29 PM UTC

dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #382

ACS_Solver wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read one of the complaints, against the 22 year old "Rolex". It's not so much loose ends as loose everything. He didn't use a VPN or anything to mask his home IP, he discussed the hack on Discord, an unencrypted third-party platform, and reused a gmail address for the hack that he also used for a Coinbase account. Said Coinbase account being verified with his driver's license... I shouldn't be too surprised, b…

I don't know, tbh I'm still surprised. The Discord connection was known early on. I was really surprised anyone would do something like this and communicate over Discord about it. The fact that no VPN/Tor were involved, the fact that Gmail was involved... that's really crazy. It's hard to tell when being dumb ends and being self destructive begins? Is it possible to be this ignorant about the Internet while perpetrat…

Yes, many people consider facebook and Twitter "The Internet." and while they are just two giant tech companies publishing web apps.

Networking Layer is invisible to 99% of users nowadays. "it just works."

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

#392

Post by maerF0x0 » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:31 PM UTC

tedunangst wrote: post #205

libraryatnight wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt a sting reading that too. He hit the idiot computer kid jackpot and did idiot computer kid things with it. Not saying no consequences, but damn.

Idiot kid things would be having Obama tweet "I think @Kelly2003 should go to the prom with Clark". If you're old enough to run a send back scam, you should know it's wrong.

One thing I think we ought to give credit to is that as Infosec becomes higher profile and more public, the sophistification of kids will rise with it.

For example many of the techniques that are basically public info on youtube[1] nowadays was hidden in some "darkweb" forum not many years back.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/c/STOKfredrik/videos

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

#393

Post by pier25 » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:35 PM UTC

lomoeffect wrote: post #347

pier25 wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Originally, “Kirk” claimed to be a Twitter employee, according to a Discord chat log So these guys were able to get into Twitter but they chatted freely on Discord without considering everything would be recorded? And then they make one of the most public hacks in recent history without considering someone would go through all the logs with all the noise they made?

> Sheppard had used a personal driver’s license to verify himself with the Binance and Coinbase cryptocurrency exchanges, and his accounts were found to have sent and received some of the scammed bitcoin. Didn't even layer the Bitcoin through an anonymiser like Monero and extra Bitcoin wallets. Just sent and received BTC directly to an account linked with photo ID on multiple exchanges. Incredible really!

It's like robbing a bank and then making sure everyone knows you put the money in your personal bank account. If you spend 5 minutes reading about anonymizing Bitcoins you'll find plenty of ways to do it (tumblers, etc).

How can you do a hack that will certainly get you in jail for several years and not even research the most basic techniques to protect yourself? It just doesn't make sense.

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

#394

Post by dumbfoundded » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #292

dumbfoundded wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It depends on what you buy. The best thing to buy would be a currency like Monero where you're actually anonymous.

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

#395

Post by rschneid » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:38 PM UTC

nickff wrote: post #385

slg wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you need processes in place to make sure a single person being careless cant do this much damage. There are low tech solutions that would greatly improve security[1], however the overhead this introduces is hard to justify in a world in which these breaches aren't that damaging to a company. We need to change incentives for companies by either mandating these security practices or implementing harmful repercussi…

I agree that better security practices are advisable, but you're victim-blaming. Twitter wasn't 'asking for it', and neither were the individuals who lost bitcoins; the 'hackers' intentionally perpetrated deceptions, misrepresentations, and fraud against both Twitter and the general public. If you compare what these three did to a white-collar crime, the dollar amount was small, but the behavior was egregious.

Twitter is a platform used widely by some of the most powerful people in the world and in the US government. As a result, there is plenty of justification and precedent for said gov't to regulate their security practices and procedures. To illustrate this point, I doubt you'd have any sympathy for Twitter if they had been sending their passwords over http.

Now, I don't think the government is prepared to do this proactively and effectively, but the idea of a telco that advertises resilience to hacks (whether through social engineering or technical incompetence) sounds like it would be quite appealing to a growing segment of the connected world and whatever such promises that find success in the marketplace might be used to inform legislation or regulation, eventually...

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

#396

Post by millzlane » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:38 PM UTC

ziddoap wrote: post #11

I was under the (apparently false?) assumption that under-18s couldn't be named. The alleged mastermind here is 17, yet is named and pictured. Interestingly, when I first checked this out ~8 minutes ago, they stated that they would not name the alleged mastermind due to the fact he was under 18. In the update ~4 minutes ago, they have removed that section and named him.

I was under the impression that because he was charged as an adult the info would be released.

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

#397

Post by slg » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:40 PM UTC

nickff wrote: post #385

slg wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you need processes in place to make sure a single person being careless cant do this much damage. There are low tech solutions that would greatly improve security[1], however the overhead this introduces is hard to justify in a world in which these breaches aren't that damaging to a company. We need to change incentives for companies by either mandating these security practices or implementing harmful repercussi…

I agree that better security practices are advisable, but you're victim-blaming. Twitter wasn't 'asking for it', and neither were the individuals who lost bitcoins; the 'hackers' intentionally perpetrated deceptions, misrepresentations, and fraud against both Twitter and the general public. If you compare what these three did to a white-collar crime, the dollar amount was small, but the behavior was egregious.

The push against "victim blaming" is not about removing any possible role a victim would have in their victimhood. It is about destigmatizing victimhood and not blaming victims for things that are out of their control or that any other reasonable person would do.

Let's imagine a situation in which someone breaks into my house and steals my TV. I deserve a decent amount of blame if I left my front door wide open before it happened. I deserve much less blame, but still some blame if I left my front door unlocked. I don't deserve any blame if someone broke down my front door to do it.

In this situation, Twitter left their front door unlocked.

Furthermore, Twitter is not even the primary victim here. The biggest victims are the people whose accounts were stolen and the people who were tricked into losing their bitcoin.

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

#398

Post by bartread » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:42 PM UTC

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

"Our European visitors are important to us."

Yes, quite. I won't repeat the phrase that immediately came to mind when I read that, but I will say it ended with, "you News Channel 8!"

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

#399

Post by imgabe » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:43 PM UTC

montenegrohugo wrote: post #27

If this turns out to be true, then we can conclude two things: 1. It's incredible that the security of Twitter allows for a solitary 17-year old to gain full access to (any) account. 2. This also explains why the profit of the hack was 'only' ~$100k. Many speculated about how incredibly valuable such a hack could be and how much more a group could have profited from this hack. Using it for two hours of bitcoin scammi…

People did say things like you could have made a fortune shorting stock by tweeting something insane from Elon Musks account. I don't buy that as necessarily better than a Bitcoin account. Stock transactions are heavily regulated and monitored. You'd leave a pretty large paper trail of any stock manipulation you hoped to profit from.

Of course Bitcoin is highly traceable as well, so maybe the lesson is hacking into high-profile Twitter accounts just isn't as profitable as you'd hope?

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

#400

Post by apengwin » Fri, Jul 31, 2020, 10:43 PM UTC

aerovistae wrote: post #370

It's sad to me how the authorities are bragging about how quickly they caught them and how effective they are at solving this type of crime. The truth is, the vast majority of these crimes go unpursued. They handled this quickly because it was so prominent, but if this happened to an everyday individual, the police wouldn't even bother. I don't see this as much of a triumph. It never should have happened in the first…

I don't think they're bragging. They're trying to dissuade the next attacker.