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Twitter should suspend the entire platform until they can credibly fix this and prevent it in the future. An attacker could drop AMZN stock by 10% in minutes w

Twitter should suspend the entire platform until they can credibly fix this and prevent it in the future. An attacker could drop AMZN stock by 10% in minutes with just the wrong tweet from Bezos.

PatrolX 6y ago
If they don't do that soon then expect POTUS to seize control of it.
baxtr 6y ago
Even worse? How about POTUS declares war on China thru twitter? OMG, I just realized how dumb that would have been to say back in 2016. But these days?
- hn3333 6y ago
  That's assuming Tweets actually serve an actual diplomatic function and are not merely marketing/propaganda for voters. (Also POTUS is not authorized to declare any wars btw.)
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Ok, mass panic then?
  - mattigames 6y ago
    > That's assuming Tweets actually serve an actual diplomatic function and are not merely marketing/propaganda for voters. He has fired people over twitter [0] so I'm not sure the scope of one can do there is limited to "marketing/propaganda" > (Also POTUS is not authorized to declare any wars btw.) Other nations are not going to read the US law first before deciding if the declaration was or not real. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113950/trump-state-department-rex-tillerson-fired-tweet-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113950/trump-state-depa...
    - Alupis 6y ago
      > He has fired people over twitter [0] All we have here is an announcement. Seriously doubt this was the "official" firing, hiring or promoting of anyone. The statement in the article isn't even from Tillerson, so we don't really know. > Other nations are not going to read the US law first before deciding if the declaration was or not real There's a lot more formality to declaring war, for any nation. Not to mention the lack of anything else to support such a statement, like an actual press conference or public statements, media attention or, you know, actual military movement which all capable nations track constantly.
      - jacquesm 6y ago
        You again? Please stop with the Trump apologism already, we have a trade war that was mostly conducted via twitter, people heard via twitter that their services were no longer required, the whole Mexican affair was conducted via the phone and when that didn't work out led to a slew of angry tweets. There is definitely precedent enough that if Trump's twitter account would speak the right magic words that you can expect a reaction. "Dear Twitter Followers, It is with grave heart that I have to ask you to do the right thing for your country, go out and do something about - insert bogeyman of the hour here - and I will be sure to reward you greatly. The time has come to do your part. I personally promise to pardon anybody that ends up on the wrong side of what today still is the law. Let's take this country and make it even greater." That's just a two minute sample, give me an hour or so and I'll come up with something much worse than that. These things are easier to start than to stop.
        Alupis 6y ago
        I think you read far too deep into things you don't like, and try to find something to be upset about. It's kind of the national pastime these days, it seems. No nation is going to start killing people because of a Tweet. Be realistic. It detracts from your otherwise valid points when paranoia and blind hatred overshadow your arguments. The number of posts you've made about the leader of a foreign nation is astonishing. Are there zero domestic problems to be fired up about? > You again? I guess I could say the same. Touché.
  - neltnerb 6y ago
    Deleted
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      He doesn't have to declare anything, another country to simply react to a tweet and then you'd be in a way, like it or not.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    There are multiple instances of policy changes where 'Twitter first' was the chosen road.
  - vechagup 6y ago
    > (Also POTUS is not authorized to declare any wars btw.) While true, this effectively doesn't matter given the number of people we've bombed since our last declaration of war in 1942 [0]. [0] https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_and_teasers/WarDeclarationsbyCongress.htm https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_a...
  - duskwuff 6y ago
    Doesn't matter. Imagine, for a moment, a Tweet posted on Trump's account along the lines of Reagan's joke in 1984 [1]: > Iran has gone TOO FAR! As President I have ordered the use of nuclear weapons against key military targets. We begin bombing in five minutes. Regardless of the plausibility of the message, it would be likely to trigger a panicked response from foreign militaries. It's not at all implausible that it'd start a war. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minut...
    - fermienrico 6y ago
      Not sure why you're downvoted. This is a real possibility as insane as it sounds.
  - toofy 6y ago
    They can seemingly do most acts which occur in war, as long as they don’t officially declare it. I mean, when is the last time we officially declared war? It has to have been decades ago.
    - mileycyrusXOXO 6y ago
      1942
- totony 6y ago
  Yeah, this could've been very bad. I don't buy that it's a test. Twitter is going to fix this. Probably it's a restriction of the exploit that you don't know the posting account or something.
- DevX101 6y ago
  This hack could absolutely get people killed. There are several tweets I can think of from POTUS that would begin immediate military mobilization from an unfriendly country.
  - alkonaut 6y ago
    That’s a scenario I find much less likely than the hundreds of Trump tweets that would set off domestic violence within minutes. If Trump would tweet what the fringe communities want to hear (example: Trump tweets that state law enforcement have started rounding up people with Hawaii shirts and confiscating their weapons and should be seen as enemy combatants and engaged on sight. That would turn ugly very quickly). A well crafted tweet about e.g the Taliban could easily put US soldiers abroad in harms way immediately too.
    - jkhdigital 6y ago
      I think you’re overestimating the number of people in the US who would actually respond decisively to something like that. But it’s more than zero, unfortunately, which is too many.
      - tornato7 6y ago
        Up the reaction would be more like "oh look, another stupid Trump tweet."
      - alkonaut 6y ago
        Yeah I don’t think it would be the start of a civil war but I certainly believe dozens or hundreds of people would become violent.
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    I can think of a couple that would likely start a revolution or a civil war in the United States. Policy by twitter always was madness.
    - 6y ago
- BiteCode_dev 6y ago
  Or just post some white nationalist call for arm. The US is ripe for a blood bath right now.
  - larrywright 6y ago
    If someone were to take over that account an issue a call to arms for the QAnon crowd, it could be disastrous.
    - RIMR 6y ago
      You aren't wrong. If Trump suddenly tweeted that QAnon followers should murder as many leftists as they can and that he'd personally commute their sentences, I think we'd see at least a few people respond by doing what they are told.
      - jacquesm 6y ago
        I can think of much, much worse. The USA is a tinderbox all it takes is the right match.
        larrywright 6y ago
        There are any number of really bad scenarios. The militias and the QAnon folks scare me the most at the moment.
      - 908087 6y ago
        Seeing as how they've already been openly threatening to start a civil war for a long time, I think it would be more than a few.
- totetsu 6y ago
  [bomb_emoji][china_flag_emoji]
- andersco 6y ago
  As mentioned in a NYT article, Trump’s account is under “separate lock and key” which I think means it was not vulnerable to this threat. But yeah still super scary. Src: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/technology/twitter-hack-bill-gates-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/technology/twitter-hack-b...
- kzrdude 6y ago
  You would be surprised. Of course it would be a disruptive tweet, but it would not be a credible threat of war, in reality.
eternalban 6y ago
Many powerful actors, including state actors, would love to see Twitter, as a political instrument, go away. It could even be our own, or a dissident group within our own, IC. If someone can get a presidential candidate and an ex-president's twitter account to say what they want, then that is pretty much the end of Twitter as a political tool.
- woeirua 6y ago
  I hadn't really considered that the attack might be against Twitter, the corporation, itself. The BTC thing is obviously too stupid to be the objective, but if you hate Twitter, then would there be a better way to teardown the entire site than doing something like this?
  - kristofferR 6y ago
    Make everyone post the N-word and goatse? Hell, even just hacking Trump to do it would probably trigger a federal investigation. I doubt this current situation will.
    - Eyght 6y ago
      Disclaimer. This is just my personal speculation about the current Twitter situation. Since this attack was preceded by the hacking of Jack Dorsey's account through a mobile provider vulnerability, my suspicion falls on a large Trump-friendly country, known for their state-sponsored hackers. The motive would be to punish Jack for his anti-Trump stance. When they gained access to Jack's account these hackers might've found access credentials, like a root password, and decided to quickly capitalize on their find with a simple bitcoin scam, aswell as just generally messing about with the platform.
      - eternalban 6y ago
        Are you saying Jack Dorsey had access to everything via a super-user account?
whoisjuan 6y ago
They just disabled tweeting from verified accounts. Right now I have more power than Elon.
- codezero 6y ago
  can confirm - my wife has a verified account and a company account and both are unable to tweet, though one can still quote retweet apparently, but probably just a lagging feature flag.
- DevX101 6y ago
  Good. This should have been done an hour ago. Fortunately the attackers weren't nearly as malicious as they could have been.
- PatrolX 6y ago
  They can still RT. See here: https://twitter.com/asculthorpe/status/1283531636450230274 https://twitter.com/asculthorpe/status/1283531636450230274 @TheRegister (verified) just RT'd for help.
- slg 6y ago
  Honestly I'm kind of enjoying seeing what it is doing to my feed with only unverified accounts and verified retweets. Twitter hasn't been this much fun in months.
- elboru 6y ago
  Some accounts are back again: https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283562446196596737 https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/128356244619659673...
rvz 6y ago
Well, no verified user can tweet at the moment: https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283526400146837511 https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/128352640014683751...
Bluecobra 6y ago
Yep, something like that already happened when the AP’s Twitter account was hacked back in 2013. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23/syrian-hackers-claim-ap-hack-that-tipped-stock-market-by-136-billion-is-it-terrorism/%3foutputType=amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor...
- AlexDragusin 6y ago
  Non AMP link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23/syrian-hackers-claim-ap-hack-that-tipped-stock-market-by-136-billion-is-it-terrorism/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23...
- benlumen 6y ago
  Wow, I remember that. Amazing. Think how many more people would see that sort of tweet today.

Twitter should suspend the entire platform until they can credibly fix this and prevent it in the future. An attacker could drop AMZN stock by 10% in minutes with just the wrong tweet from Bezos.

PatrolX 6y ago

If they don't do that soon then expect POTUS to seize control of it.

baxtr 6y ago

Even worse? How about POTUS declares war on China thru twitter? OMG, I just realized how dumb that would have been to say back in 2016. But these days?

hn3333 6y ago
That's assuming Tweets actually serve an actual diplomatic function and are not merely marketing/propaganda for voters. (Also POTUS is not authorized to declare any wars btw.)
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Ok, mass panic then?
- mattigames 6y ago
  > That's assuming Tweets actually serve an actual diplomatic function and are not merely marketing/propaganda for voters. He has fired people over twitter [0] so I'm not sure the scope of one can do there is limited to "marketing/propaganda" > (Also POTUS is not authorized to declare any wars btw.) Other nations are not going to read the US law first before deciding if the declaration was or not real. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113950/trump-state-department-rex-tillerson-fired-tweet-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113950/trump-state-depa...
  - Alupis 6y ago
    > He has fired people over twitter [0] All we have here is an announcement. Seriously doubt this was the "official" firing, hiring or promoting of anyone. The statement in the article isn't even from Tillerson, so we don't really know. > Other nations are not going to read the US law first before deciding if the declaration was or not real There's a lot more formality to declaring war, for any nation. Not to mention the lack of anything else to support such a statement, like an actual press conference or public statements, media attention or, you know, actual military movement which all capable nations track constantly.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      You again? Please stop with the Trump apologism already, we have a trade war that was mostly conducted via twitter, people heard via twitter that their services were no longer required, the whole Mexican affair was conducted via the phone and when that didn't work out led to a slew of angry tweets. There is definitely precedent enough that if Trump's twitter account would speak the right magic words that you can expect a reaction. "Dear Twitter Followers, It is with grave heart that I have to ask you to do the right thing for your country, go out and do something about - insert bogeyman of the hour here - and I will be sure to reward you greatly. The time has come to do your part. I personally promise to pardon anybody that ends up on the wrong side of what today still is the law. Let's take this country and make it even greater." That's just a two minute sample, give me an hour or so and I'll come up with something much worse than that. These things are easier to start than to stop.
      - Alupis 6y ago
        I think you read far too deep into things you don't like, and try to find something to be upset about. It's kind of the national pastime these days, it seems. No nation is going to start killing people because of a Tweet. Be realistic. It detracts from your otherwise valid points when paranoia and blind hatred overshadow your arguments. The number of posts you've made about the leader of a foreign nation is astonishing. Are there zero domestic problems to be fired up about? > You again? I guess I could say the same. Touché.
- neltnerb 6y ago
  Deleted
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    He doesn't have to declare anything, another country to simply react to a tweet and then you'd be in a way, like it or not.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- jacquesm 6y ago
  There are multiple instances of policy changes where 'Twitter first' was the chosen road.
- vechagup 6y ago
  > (Also POTUS is not authorized to declare any wars btw.) While true, this effectively doesn't matter given the number of people we've bombed since our last declaration of war in 1942 [0]. [0] https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_and_teasers/WarDeclarationsbyCongress.htm https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/h_multi_sections_a...
- duskwuff 6y ago
  Doesn't matter. Imagine, for a moment, a Tweet posted on Trump's account along the lines of Reagan's joke in 1984 [1]: > Iran has gone TOO FAR! As President I have ordered the use of nuclear weapons against key military targets. We begin bombing in five minutes. Regardless of the plausibility of the message, it would be likely to trigger a panicked response from foreign militaries. It's not at all implausible that it'd start a war. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minut...
  - fermienrico 6y ago
    Not sure why you're downvoted. This is a real possibility as insane as it sounds.
- toofy 6y ago
  They can seemingly do most acts which occur in war, as long as they don’t officially declare it. I mean, when is the last time we officially declared war? It has to have been decades ago.
  - mileycyrusXOXO 6y ago
    1942
totony 6y ago
Yeah, this could've been very bad. I don't buy that it's a test. Twitter is going to fix this. Probably it's a restriction of the exploit that you don't know the posting account or something.
DevX101 6y ago
This hack could absolutely get people killed. There are several tweets I can think of from POTUS that would begin immediate military mobilization from an unfriendly country.
- alkonaut 6y ago
  That’s a scenario I find much less likely than the hundreds of Trump tweets that would set off domestic violence within minutes. If Trump would tweet what the fringe communities want to hear (example: Trump tweets that state law enforcement have started rounding up people with Hawaii shirts and confiscating their weapons and should be seen as enemy combatants and engaged on sight. That would turn ugly very quickly). A well crafted tweet about e.g the Taliban could easily put US soldiers abroad in harms way immediately too.
  - jkhdigital 6y ago
    I think you’re overestimating the number of people in the US who would actually respond decisively to something like that. But it’s more than zero, unfortunately, which is too many.
    - tornato7 6y ago
      Up the reaction would be more like "oh look, another stupid Trump tweet."
    - alkonaut 6y ago
      Yeah I don’t think it would be the start of a civil war but I certainly believe dozens or hundreds of people would become violent.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  I can think of a couple that would likely start a revolution or a civil war in the United States. Policy by twitter always was madness.
  - 6y ago
BiteCode_dev 6y ago
Or just post some white nationalist call for arm. The US is ripe for a blood bath right now.
- larrywright 6y ago
  If someone were to take over that account an issue a call to arms for the QAnon crowd, it could be disastrous.
  - RIMR 6y ago
    You aren't wrong. If Trump suddenly tweeted that QAnon followers should murder as many leftists as they can and that he'd personally commute their sentences, I think we'd see at least a few people respond by doing what they are told.
    - jacquesm 6y ago
      I can think of much, much worse. The USA is a tinderbox all it takes is the right match.
      - larrywright 6y ago
        There are any number of really bad scenarios. The militias and the QAnon folks scare me the most at the moment.
    - 908087 6y ago
      Seeing as how they've already been openly threatening to start a civil war for a long time, I think it would be more than a few.
totetsu 6y ago
[bomb_emoji][china_flag_emoji]
andersco 6y ago
As mentioned in a NYT article, Trump’s account is under “separate lock and key” which I think means it was not vulnerable to this threat. But yeah still super scary. Src: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/technology/twitter-hack-bill-gates-elon-musk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/technology/twitter-hack-b...
kzrdude 6y ago
You would be surprised. Of course it would be a disruptive tweet, but it would not be a credible threat of war, in reality.

eternalban 6y ago

Many powerful actors, including state actors, would love to see Twitter, as a political instrument, go away. It could even be our own, or a dissident group within our own, IC. If someone can get a presidential candidate and an ex-president's twitter account to say what they want, then that is pretty much the end of Twitter as a political tool.

woeirua 6y ago
I hadn't really considered that the attack might be against Twitter, the corporation, itself. The BTC thing is obviously too stupid to be the objective, but if you hate Twitter, then would there be a better way to teardown the entire site than doing something like this?
- kristofferR 6y ago
  Make everyone post the N-word and goatse? Hell, even just hacking Trump to do it would probably trigger a federal investigation. I doubt this current situation will.
  - Eyght 6y ago
    Disclaimer. This is just my personal speculation about the current Twitter situation. Since this attack was preceded by the hacking of Jack Dorsey's account through a mobile provider vulnerability, my suspicion falls on a large Trump-friendly country, known for their state-sponsored hackers. The motive would be to punish Jack for his anti-Trump stance. When they gained access to Jack's account these hackers might've found access credentials, like a root password, and decided to quickly capitalize on their find with a simple bitcoin scam, aswell as just generally messing about with the platform.
    - eternalban 6y ago
      Are you saying Jack Dorsey had access to everything via a super-user account?

whoisjuan 6y ago

They just disabled tweeting from verified accounts. Right now I have more power than Elon.

codezero 6y ago
can confirm - my wife has a verified account and a company account and both are unable to tweet, though one can still quote retweet apparently, but probably just a lagging feature flag.
DevX101 6y ago
Good. This should have been done an hour ago. Fortunately the attackers weren't nearly as malicious as they could have been.
PatrolX 6y ago
They can still RT. See here: https://twitter.com/asculthorpe/status/1283531636450230274 https://twitter.com/asculthorpe/status/1283531636450230274 @TheRegister (verified) just RT'd for help.
slg 6y ago
Honestly I'm kind of enjoying seeing what it is doing to my feed with only unverified accounts and verified retweets. Twitter hasn't been this much fun in months.
elboru 6y ago
Some accounts are back again: https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283562446196596737 https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/128356244619659673...

rvz 6y ago

Well, no verified user can tweet at the moment: https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1283526400146837511 https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/128352640014683751...

Bluecobra 6y ago

Yep, something like that already happened when the AP’s Twitter account was hacked back in 2013. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23/syrian-hackers-claim-ap-hack-that-tipped-stock-market-by-136-billion-is-it-terrorism/%3foutputType=amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor...

AlexDragusin 6y ago
Non AMP link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23/syrian-hackers-claim-ap-hack-that-tipped-stock-market-by-136-billion-is-it-terrorism/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/04/23...
benlumen 6y ago
Wow, I remember that. Amazing. Think how many more people would see that sort of tweet today.