I grabbed a short 2-letter Twitter handle within a few months after they launched. A few years ago I had someone used SIM hijacking to steal access to my phone number. This failed to get access to my Twitter account because I never set up a recovery phone number, however he got access to my Facebook and a few other accounts. I got T-Mobile to fix the SIM swap, but after 3 nights of harassment I just changed my handle…
How would they know the phone number associated with your account?
They were likely guessing that the number matching public records for the account owner’s name was the same used to secure the Twitter account.
I would go further and say that all social media should be outright banned, corporate or not
Social media is optional. You don't have to use it. I don't. But not letting other people send messages over the internet through platforms created for the purpose because you don't like it is a special level of heavy-handed dictating.
Smoking is optional. Guns are optional. Nukes are optional. Still needs to be regulated. How long before society accepts that damage is being caused by mobile phones and social media?
I grabbed a short 2-letter Twitter handle within a few months after they launched. A few years ago I had someone used SIM hijacking to steal access to my phone number. This failed to get access to my Twitter account because I never set up a recovery phone number, however he got access to my Facebook and a few other accounts. I got T-Mobile to fix the SIM swap, but after 3 nights of harassment I just changed my handle…
Even 3 letter handles can be a bit of a drag, when random tweets get chopped off and only the first 3 letters of other twitter handles happen to match
I really enjoy cases of swatting because it's a Confused Deputy problem but with actual confused deputies!
Police organizations are usually pretty primitively organized. They don't have the concept of studying a common body of work or anything. So they suck at what they do and they don't get better at it.
The common thread among most stories like this is the spoof-ability of phone numbers. Telecom companies must make changes to prevent this kind of spoofing. Honestly, I think if telecom companies could be sued for damages caused by this kind of thing (not to mention spam) then I think the problem would get solved very quickly. The only reason it hasn't been solved yet is most of the cost and pain is borne by others.
> Telecom companies must make changes to prevent this kind of spoofing. Traditional phone companies absolutely should do a better job vs spoofing (and I believe there is supposed to be at least some progress there via STIR/SHAKEN in the US at least), but I'm a lot more inclined to blame services and particularly armed response services that still treat them as secure in a way they have long long LOOONNNGGG since prov…
> but by his own (suspicious) words nobody is in any immediate danger.
I'd agree, were it not for my knee-jerk tendency to argue the contrary - the girlfriend may in fact not be dead, but only in shock. Also how do you know there isn't anyone in the house?
But probably those would be outlier situations, and the steps you suggest would be better than storming in.
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.
> 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…
I’ve gotten invitations for a GP system, among countless signups for games as well as an account approval for a car. I’ve gotten a hold of one person who was ordering curtains with my email address, they were nice, I got hold of another person who was repairing their phone and they got angry. It’s really quite annoying, and half of the services aren’t even confirming the address, they just put whatever you fill in on the account and start sending ‘informational’ spam.
This seems like such needless hassle and pain for everyone involved. If these companies just adopted a username system like most video games, where the user gets to pick any name they want and some arbitrary numbers get tacked on to the end, then this situation would be totally solved.
'I want your Instagram#0000 account'
Make the number random and exclude numbers under 1000, numbers with special meanings (1337, etc).
> 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…
Surely some of those are legitimate mistakes, but also I think things like the cancer diagnosis are probably designed to get you to respond. This proves that there's a human to spam/phish at that address. I've also gotten "we're here at the airport, are you coming to pick us up?"