World's dumbest hackers waste once-in-a-lifetime opportunity

[Eacaraxe]

Hackers take over Twitter accounts of Gates, Musk, Biden, Obama, Apple and others in crypto scam

Hackers gained access to the Twitter accounts of Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and many others Wednesday afternoon in an apparent cryptocurrency giveaway scam. Other accounts including Barack Obama,… Read More

www.geekwire.com

Someone, somehow, got access to Bill Gates', Elon Musk's, Jeff Bezos', Mike Bloomberg's, Kanye's Twitter accounts, as well as that of major corporations such as Apple. And they blew this on Bitcoin scam spam.

A freaking Bitcoin scam.

I am so angry right now I can barely type straight. Why -- on Earth, in all the skies, heavens above and hells below, why -- would you waste the single greatest opportunity ever afforded a human being in the digital age to screw with people, on a Bitcoin scam. This was unlimited free real estate, do these people realize what they had and wasted?

Apple's account tweeting about 5G and shungite. Elon Musk tweeting about alien contact and real UFO's. Bill Gates tweeting about water-fueled engines. Bloomberg could tweet he has evidence that could lead to Hillary's arrest. Bezos could tweet and confirm he is indeed a lizard-alien and part of a cabal that secretly rule the Earth. Kanye could endorse Biden on Twitter. Uber tweeting about how their geolocation services are a cover-up for flat Earth.

The possibilities were freaking endless. The conspiracy theories could have lasted decades. The human mind boggles at the magnitude of lulz that could have been harvested, but nope. Bitcoin scam. I hope these people get caught, and I hope they go to prison for a very, very long time, just for the sheer scale of their screw-up.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Hard agree, you either dig up something juicy in their DMs, or you tank stocks with nonsense conspiracies.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Hard agree, you either dig up something juicy in their DMs, or you tank stocks with nonsense conspiracies.

...oh my God they might have had access to Bezos' dick pics. Tragic, this is what this is.

 

[Houseman]

Why? Maybe because it was automated, and human ever knew what they had. It's unlikely that they specifically targeted the most powerful people in the world on purpose.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Why? Maybe because it was automated, and human ever knew what they had. It's unlikely that they specifically targeted the most powerful people in the world on purpose.

I don't think it's automated, I was watching Musk's TL and whoever's doing this sent a couple tweets that aren't the BTC spam. It's definitely looking targeted though, I saw some reports Obama's and Warren Buffett's twitter were hit too but I didn't see those tweets myself but rather screenshots which could have been edited.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Why? Maybe because it was automated, and human ever knew what they had. It's unlikely that they specifically targeted the most powerful people in the world on purpose.

They just got Obama's password.

 

[Tireseas]

Elon Musk tweeting about alien contact and real UFO's

How is this any different than Musk's usual insanity?

 

[CM156]

Bitcoin and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

I hope these people get caught, and I hope they go to prison for a very, very long time, just for the sheer scale of their screw-up.

I hope they get sent to that supermax in Colorado where we house the worst of the worst.

 

[SupahEwok]

Bitcoin and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.


I hope they get sent to that supermax in Colorado where we house the worst of the worst.

Yes, we all suffered under the horror of inflated graphics card prices, and these criminals must answer to that.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Money has no sense of humour. Trust me, I tried.

 

[CM156]

Yes, we all suffered under the horror of inflated graphics card prices, and these criminals must answer to that.

Is hanging too good for them?

 

[SupahEwok]

Is hanging too good for them?

It is. They need to roast in the fires of the OC'd GPU farms they forged.

 

[CM156]

It is. They need to roast in the fires of the OC'd GPU farms they forged.

I can already hear their final words: "This is good for Bitcoin!"

 

[Gordon_4]

It is. They need to roast in the fires of the OC'd GPU farms they forged.

Yes, toast them over the fires of a million undercooled graphics cards.

 

[Eacaraxe]

Some overnight developments that seem to have emerged, based on Twitter scuttlebutt and...ugh...4chan. Because most articles about this are sourcing (read, plagiarizing) Twitter scuttlebutt and 4chan anyways. There are screencaps in the wild which I won't link or post here because they contain personal information that could be construed as doxxing.

No word yet on who did it as far as I know. Twitter admits this wasn't a compromise of their software or infrastructure, it was a social engineering attack targeting Twitter admins to seize admin-level access. Remember back in 2018 when Dorsey testified under oath before the Senate, during the Muller commission, Twitter admins don't have that level of individual account access? So, uh...whoops?

Scuttlebutt/sepculation is emerging the BTC scam is a feint or a front, and the target of the attack were the DM's of affected accounts. Whether this pans out is to be seen, but it seems likely. Either way, BTC scam was stupid and the attackers should have gone for lulz instead.

What did emerge, however, were alleged screencaps of Twitter's administrative toolkit. And indeed it would seem the admin toolkit includes access to users' timeline and direct messages as well as all private and contact information submitted to Twitter for purposes of communication, account security and recovery, and verification. The latter hardly surprising as it is an admin toolkit and verification/communication is one of the purposes of an admin toolkit, the former...not so much. The one thing that struck me as odd, was accounts that use VPN's or onion routing have their own account flag, in contrast to multi-user accounts.

And what appears to be a rather extensive toolkit for limiting various levels of access, as well as data collection and trending white/blacklists. If these screencaps are legitimate, it would seem as if Twitter does in fact shadowban and influence trending after all.

 

[tstorm823]

it would seem as if Twitter does in fact shadowban and influence trending after all.

I don't think there are many people in the world who would be surprised by that and care.

 

[Chimpzy]

It is. They need to roast in the fires of the OC'd GPU farms they forged.

Maybe Nvidia will bless us with lower GPU prices with enough sacrifice on those burning altars.

 

[Agema]

No word yet on who did it as far as I know. Twitter admits this wasn't a compromise of their software or infrastructure, it was a social engineering attack targeting Twitter admins to seize admin-level access. Remember back in 2018 when Dorsey testified under oath before the Senate, during the Muller commission, Twitter admins don't have that level of individual account access? So, uh...whoops?

Possibly it wasn't in 2018, but the Senate gave them the idea.

 

[Eacaraxe]

I don't think there are many people in the world who would be surprised by that and care.

Surprised, no, but care...

Possibly it wasn't in 2018, but the Senate gave them the idea.

...speculation and allegations had been going on far longer than that, Dorsey and Sandberg testified (in 2018, Sept. 5) to answer to those allegations specifically with an eye towards the ongoing Section 230 fight. And this isn't just a left/right issue, sex workers and adult content providers on Twitter have been fighting this for a while as well especially after SESTA-FOSTA which became law in April of that year.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Wait, twitter actually employs human beings to be admins? That sounds kinda insane. The poor bastards must be ridiculously unhappy people.