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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

#491

Post by Datsundere »

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.

What about when NSA wants to build a backdoor in encryption standards? Who is at fault then?

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

#492

Post by hguant »

nickff wrote: post #183
slg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From memory, I recall the FBI did a study, and found that half of their employees would plug in a USB drive that they found on the ground in the parking lot. After training, that number was reduced to a quarter. If a security-focused government police agency is so vulnerable, it is unreasonable to expect perfection from a (less paranoid) company.

I wonder what sort of machine those folks were plugging it into? If it's their general purpose work issued machine, shame on them, but I can't believe the FBI doesn't have a high and low side networks. How many plugged into the high side? How many plugged into the "this is my email and timecard" computer?

I have a Chromebook running arch[0] that has a borked network adapter than I use to plug weird things into/use as an airgapped box I can reset in about 5 minutes. I'd have no qualms about plugging anything into that

[0] BTW I run Arch

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

#493

Post by refurb »

7786655 wrote: post #304
refurb wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that's not actually the law, is it? You could certainly bring a civil lawsuit (and so could Twitter users), but I haven't committed a crime.

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

#494

Post by tptacek »

bilbopotter wrote: post #438

Obviously what they did is wrong but the kid is 17. To me this is a prime example of where a short sentence or community service should be used. Don't ruin his life - he could be a useful employee for a tech company.

It drives me a little nuts when people say stuff like this (they said it about Reiser, too) --- because you can say the same thing about tens of thousands of young offenders imprisoned for crimes we don't have a rooting interest in.

We need to reduce sentences across the board, for both violent and nonviolent crimes, because our sentencing ranges are bonkers. But it's immoral to single out crimes committed by people we identify with personally as particularly worthy of leniency.

At any rate, presuming the evidence holds up, it's unlikely that this person is going to find any leniency at all. High profile is tough but survivable; monetized is tougher still. High profile and monetized? My guess is they're going to make an example out of him.

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

#495

Post by mikeshank »

wil421 wrote: post #165
ponker wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the 17yo have to do with it? Would it be different for an 18yo?

I believe most states will charge a 17yo as and adult. Not sure what the feds would do.

First they need to determine his political leanings, then they'll have a good idea of how to move forward.

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

#497

Post by transitionnel »

manquer wrote: post #419
Swizec wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember an article a few years ago saying that large % of office employees would trade their password for chocolate. Ah yes here we go, large scale study, 43% of participants gave away their password when bribed with a chocolate bar. People just don't realize how valuable passwords are. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160512085123.h...

the study says 29% gave the password without chocolate as well . Some where given chocolate before and after , nowhere it says chocolate was offered as payment for sharing the password. Small gifts could have been inducement to establish relationship and trust not the same as a bribe as you characterises it I find it hard to believe 25 /40 % plus people readily share their password to total strangers , without knowin…

What kind of mindset would lead to this behavior?? Maybe it doesn't matter. It feels -to me- like simply being exposed to people who say things like: "What?-- no, that's not good" while remaining professional, respectful, and humorous, is a vaccine against not wanting to seem jerky, yet staying secure.

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

#498

Post by jayrice257 »

cle wrote: post #431
lima wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But having no experience also can work against you in giant ways like leading to dead ends and hurdles you don't know how to overcome.

Overall there's not a good argument that it's a better position for an individual to be in for success.

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

#499

Post by varenc »

nickff wrote: post #183
slg wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From memory, I recall the FBI did a study, and found that half of their employees would plug in a USB drive that they found on the ground in the parking lot. After training, that number was reduced to a quarter. If a security-focused government police agency is so vulnerable, it is unreasonable to expect perfection from a (less paranoid) company.

An acquaintance of mine worked at the NSA and they also deal with this.

He said during his first week he made the mistake of putting a CD-ROM with some official training materials into his work system. Within 10 minute two people showed up to stop him and investigate what was going on with his computer. It was fine in the end but he was seriously reprimanded by his boss.

When you can’t trust users, the answer isn’t just to give up! It’s to acknowledge their fallibility and create a system that doesn’t rely on 100% compliance. In this case that means having software that instantly reports when any external media is connected.

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

#500

Post by DabbyDabberson »

dkersten wrote: post #467
imgabe wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

The stock idea is dumb, in my opinion, because there were safer (no SEC) ways that required less capital and didn't require fancy trade accounts. For example: buy up a load of super cheap shitcoins. Can be done for under $100. Then tweet from an exchange like Binance that they will shortly be listing said shitcoin. Watch the price go up, sell. Or, with a bit more money, short one of the cryptocurrencies, tweet from a…

if you're someone whose regularly traded 10s of thousands of certain stocks over the last few years, it would be nearly impossible for them to detect a $100k profit from stock manipulation. especially a high volume stock like TSLA
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