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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

#431

Post by cle »

lima wrote: post #362
happytoexplain wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I don't take "a teenager did it" as an extra mark against hacked systems any more. It's the details that matter - the difference between one teenager and multiple adults being able to hack something is not large unless the context is government hacking.

Maybe in terms of raw skills, but adults are likely to have more experience, better judgement and better opsec.

This works against them in many ways. They're also more likely to say "that wouldn't work", and to be otherwise biased by their prior experience.

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

#432

Post by saurik »

slg wrote: post #397
nickff wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 befor…

> I don't deserve any blame if someone broke down my front door to do it.

I mean, you could have gotten a more sturdy door... drawing the boundary between someone opening an unlocked door and breaking down the door is hard; so I'd agree with "even less blame", but if we believe you are ever at blame here, there isn't anything magical about the lock that shifts you from having blame to being blameless.

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

#433

Post by Consultant32452 »

tantalor wrote: post #389
ChrisLomont wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we make homeowners equally criminally liable when burglars break in? Certainly if the homeowner had been less lax or obtained more security, that burglary could have been prevented.

Bad analogy: the only victim of a home invasion is the home owner. In the Twitter case, the victim were the users.

Your comment just sparked an weird thought for me. We're all familiar with the adage that if a product is free, you're not the customer you're the product. In this Twitter breach, Twitter's customers were not harmed. However, the product was harmed.

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

#434

Post by jacquesm »

pier25 wrote: post #401
jacquesm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not 100% perfect in your opsec as a wannabe hacker you will get caught. It takes just one small slip-up.

Totally, but opening a bitcoin account with your license driver and moving stolen bitcoins there without any anonymization is another thing altogether.

It may be a surprise to you but criminals are usually stupid. If they were smart you wouldn't realize they are there at all. Think about it: this idiot had access at a level that nation states secret services can only dream of and went for $100K in lousy bitcoins.

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

#435

Post by dahfizz »

indigochill wrote: post #306

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 f…

> companies should face equal culpability to criminal hackers in attacks.

That's an interesting idea, and I think I agree with you in spirit. But don't most hacking-related criminal charges boil down to "unauthorized access to a computer"? It would be hard to argue that the company that owns the computers has unauthorized access.

Maybe a better phraseology would be to say that the company is an accomplice to the hacker. For that to really hold up, I think you would need to show that the company was negligent or not keeping up with security best practices.

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

#436

Post by Sebb767 »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #353
indigochill wrote: post #306

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 f…

Should we make homeowners equally criminally liable when burglars break in? Certainly if the homeowner had been less lax or obtained more security, that burglary could have been prevented.

> Should we make homeowners equally criminally liable when burglars break in?

Aren't they? I've seen a lot of insurance cases being denied due to negligence. This might even happen if you let your bag lie around openly in your locked car.

Also, burglar victims tend not to cause further damage. And, if they do, the victims will be in trouble as well. At least in Germany, a stolen gun will cause you a lot of problems, unless you can prove that you stored it securely according to the national guidelines.

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

#437

Post by twat »

shuntress wrote: post #336
SahAssar wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You are not wrong but you are glossing over the fact that by "digital transactions" you seem to actually mean "transactions brokered by a third party". USD also works the way you describe. I may write someone a check based on a fraudulent premise then later demand my money back. If they have already cashed that check and run then the money is gone from their account and there is no way to reverse the transaction. The…

This is such a weird hill to die on

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

#440

Post by Sebb767 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #288
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 think the fact that "a 17yo was able to gain access to the private messages of potentially some of the most important individuals in the world" does pretty serious damage to their reputation — that is in itself a repercussion.

You'd think so, but the history shows that this will only be a footnote in Twitters history. See Equifax; they have lost the personal finance data of basically everyone in the US and they're doing fine. Twitter is not going to suffer anything other than a few bad jokes at its expense.
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