Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 164 posts

Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

#61

Post by wrycoder »

fortran77 wrote: post #55
hx2a wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nowadays the closest I've gotten to this is the people who keep using my Gmail address as their own email address. I find this behavior rather bizarre and don't know what it achieves. I have this problem also! I thought it was rare. In my case I think the person is very bad with computers and doesn't know what their email address is. I've gotten emails from their bank, cell phone, and even online dating. I tried ma…

my gmail is my @gmail.com It's not a super-common lastname, but there are probably several hundred people with it in the US. I get all sorts of email for people whose address is some variant of it, like @gmail.com. I've gotten plane tickets, paypal payments, cancer diagnoses, Bar Mitzvah and Wedding invitations, college transcripts, all sorts of personal information. In many cases, I don't think it's the fault of the…

My Gmail is firstname.lastname@gmail and I get mail to that account that’s not for me. Must be the other party has a middle initial they are leaving out.

Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

#62

Post by bombcar »

joe_g_young wrote: post #58
bombcar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

usually it is someone who has their email john.r.smith or similar and forgets they need the r There are other stories of people forgetting which company it was with (gmail vs yahoo) and even of google accidentally giving out emails with a period and then silently removing periods.

The Gmail domain will deliver email to an email address regardless of periods in the username. My email address is first name period middle initial period last name. I can a period between any letter, all letters or none and I can still receive it.

Yeah, the story goes that very early on it let two people register joe.blow and joeblow.

Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

#63

Post by woojoo666 »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #14
Victerius wrote: post #7

Easy solution: Assign all accounts a unique and randomly generated ID, and allow everyone to then use the handle they want. If someone wants to write a @handle in a post or a comment, a list shall appear, asking them to choose the account they wish to link to. IDs shall be public, and the list shall present itself as something like "@Max 36hf28bcd ; @Max 9jv1tcsh ; @Max b63avg960"

That isn't a solution, because people who want to have a memorable/unique username are not interested in sharing it with others, and they will move to a platform where they don't have to. Probably part of Twitter's appeal early on was the ability to get there early and grab up an account like @cookies or @milk.

I guess we as a society have to decide if we want a market on usernames. I don't think we need it. And if the majority of users agree and switch to a platform that doesn't value usernames, then the few people trying to monopolize usernames (like the people who swarmed to twitter to grab handles) will be left on a barren platform.

Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

#64

Post by ev1 »

armchairhacker wrote: post #19
Victerius wrote: post #7

Easy solution: Assign all accounts a unique and randomly generated ID, and allow everyone to then use the handle they want. If someone wants to write a @handle in a post or a comment, a list shall appear, asking them to choose the account they wish to link to. IDs shall be public, and the list shall present itself as something like "@Max 36hf28bcd ; @Max 9jv1tcsh ; @Max b63avg960"

Discord does this. You can choose whatever name you want. Then your name has ‘#’ and 4 random numbers appended to it, like ‘Foo##5142’. The # and numbers are greyed out and mostly hidden so when you see peoples ids, unless your explicitly looking for it your brain only pays attention to the name part. IMO it works really well

I had discriminator #9999 of a common last name and received death threats (for over a year) and support ticket impersonation "hey I lost access to my account", random friend adds and DMs trying to phish, constantly being sent tokenstealer malware.

This ended in the funniest way possible: being banned for using third party client Ripcord (presumably, no other offenses, happened shortly after trying it out).

My prediction for a system similar to the one parent suggests is that people will continually keep creating accounts until they get something like "Max a0a0a0a" or "Max 000000e" or something by chance, and then that becomes """valuable""" and the same thing happens.

Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

#65

Post by Brajeshwar »

sys_64738 wrote: post #9

I remember getting a demand I surrender my HoTMaiL address to somebody in a very threatening email to my address way back in 1998. It was kind of surreal back then as the internet was still fresh. Nowadays the closest I've gotten to this is the people who keep using my Gmail address as their own email address. I find this behavior rather bizarre and don't know what it achieves.

Hotmail: It was really easy to "hack" hotmail during that time. I created mine in 1999 and lost in early 2000. By summer 2000, I happen to talk to a friend of a friend who works at Hotmail. I got him to reset and give me a new Password that worked. I still have my hotmail account and is used to the times when you need a Microsoft Account.

Gmail: A lot of people seem to think email, then "Gmail". I get emails of at-least 4 (or is it 5) people who have used some variation and also exact ID of my Gmail account (created when it came out in beta). I get details of their Credit Card, Bank, Phone, and what not. I just ignore/delete them but someone with time and fun/bad intention can do some serious harm. I have tried sending emails, contacting them few times but to no good result. One got angry that I have access to "his email". From the mail history, I feel really sorry for them. They are definitely not well-off and I feel I should protect this part of their digital identity. :-)

Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

#66

Post by Brajeshwar »

wrycoder wrote: post #61
fortran77 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my gmail is my @gmail.com It's not a super-common lastname, but there are probably several hundred people with it in the US. I get all sorts of email for people whose address is some variant of it, like @gmail.com. I've gotten plane tickets, paypal payments, cancer diagnoses, Bar Mitzvah and Wedding invitations, college transcripts, all sorts of personal information. In many cases, I don't think it's the fault of the…

My Gmail is firstname.lastname@gmail and I get mail to that account that’s not for me. Must be the other party has a middle initial they are leaving out.

I would be careful with the "." in your username as someone else with `firstnamelastname@gmail.com` would likely get your email. I get the emails that are my ID with the "." in between.

Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

#67

Post by wrycoder »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #66
wrycoder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Gmail is firstname.lastname@gmail and I get mail to that account that’s not for me. Must be the other party has a middle initial they are leaving out.

I would be careful with the "." in your username as someone else with `firstnamelastname@gmail.com` would likely get your email. I get the emails that are my ID with the "." in between.

I thought that gmail ignored the period, and would not allow registering one of those accounts if the other one already existed.

Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

#68

Post by egypturnash »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #27
egypturnash wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely a problem of social media IMHO. When you can be @ginger@some.domain by just finding a Fediverse server where nobody's decided to be @ginger yet, or getting someone in your circles with the resources to stand up a server, there's a lot less competition than when there can only be one @ginger on all of Instagram across the entire world. Someone could still decide that being @ginger@prestigious.domain…

You're missing the point that you might want @me:yourname.domain, but someone has already registered the domain. Real names aren't unique either. This is why domains frequently change hands for a lot of money.

True, but this greatly expands the name space for people who are content to be an account on someone else’s server.

The name space of domains is also a lot larger now that we have tons of TLDs.

Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

#69

Post by egypturnash »

nl wrote: post #30
egypturnash wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely a problem of social media IMHO. When you can be @ginger@some.domain by just finding a Fediverse server where nobody's decided to be @ginger yet, or getting someone in your circles with the resources to stand up a server, there's a lot less competition than when there can only be one @ginger on all of Instagram across the entire world. Someone could still decide that being @ginger@prestigious.domain…

This accomplishing precisely nothing except moving the problem to another layer. > A man who enlisted his cousin to break into a Cedar Rapids man’s home and order him at gunpoint to transfer an Internet domain was sentenced today to 14 years in federal prison. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndia/pr/social-media-influencer...

It greatly expands the space. If you’re content being @ginger@some.domain then you’re fine. If you insist on being @ginger@ginger.com then it’s still a limited resource to be fought over. But you might also be happy with @ginger@ginger.party and find that to be available, thanks to the expansion in TLDs.

Re: 'I want your Instagram account': a deadly campaign over coveted handles

#70

Post by anonAndOn »

sys_64738 wrote: post #9

I remember getting a demand I surrender my HoTMaiL address to somebody in a very threatening email to my address way back in 1998. It was kind of surreal back then as the internet was still fresh. Nowadays the closest I've gotten to this is the people who keep using my Gmail address as their own email address. I find this behavior rather bizarre and don't know what it achieves.

I have a similar gmail address as a successful VC. As a result of this coincidence, I get unsolicited pitches for startups regularly. My anecdotal evidence suggests that 100% of unsolicited startup pitches are dumpster fires of cash. YMMV
Post reply on HN