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I’m guessing DMs were the real loot. The public display with the BTC diversion validates any DMs that were stolen. Otherwise blackmail targets could deny them.
by jgbond 6y ago
I’m guessing DMs were the real loot. The public display with the BTC diversion validates any DMs that were stolen. Otherwise blackmail targets could deny them.
- cj 6y agoIf DMs were the real loot, they wouldn’t have exposed the hack by tweeting on the account.
- nickff 6y agoIf DMs were the real loot, the tweets were a "proof of work" (to show the accounts had really been owned). You can prove you have 'blackmail materials' just by proving you own the bitcoin wallet.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Mountain_Skies 6y agoPerhaps it is a form of proof that they actually have access to the accounts and thus the DMs. Just posting claimed DMs that can be deleted and denied has a lower probability of being believed.
- dx034 6y agoThey needed to reset credentials so this could've never been a stealth attack. By making it public, any later leak of DMs is much more likely to be accepted as authentic. Without that, most people would've doubted the authenticity of leaked material.
- Breza 6y agoPrecisely. And who's to say which leaked DMs are real and which ones are faked? If you're interested in this kind of stuff, I recommend the book Active Measures.
- xvector 6y agoThese are publicly managed Twitter accounts, they probably don't have any DMs of substance.
- parsimo2010 6y agoI'll bet that Bill Gates doesn't have much on his Twitter, but I'll also bet Elon Musk has some crazy DMs.
- CamperBob2 6y agoThen again, the market for crazy is pretty saturated these days. Hard to see how to monetize it, at least in Musk's case.
- nvr219 6y agoDMing SEC
- nullc 6y agoThey potentially had access to any account they wanted. You don't know that they weren't snarfing DMs on interesting accounts while having the celeb accounts panhandle for bitcoin after.
- dx034 6y agoIs Musks account really publicly managed? He probably has an agency helping him but I doubt he'd use another account for DMs.
- Breza 6y agoYou'd be surprised. Some celebrities might engage in salacious activities via DM but even the most boring corporation can have lots of customer information in support chats.
- axaxs 6y agoInteresting theory, but this widespread hack pretty much gives most people plausible deniability in my opinion.
- benlumen 6y agoData theft like that is normally silently dumped after the breach occurs and anyone knows what happened. This looks more like data injection somewhere. Perhaps an old API exploit. You used to be able to send an SMS to tweet, for example.
- Nextgrid 6y agoKill 2 birds with one stone? Once you stole the data why not double-dip and make extra money by pulling a scam?
- reilly3000 6y agoI think that's the case. No prominent Republicans were targeted. See: Watergate, Wikileaks DNC emails. Same shit.
- dx034 6y agoOr they were but it was kept secret. Twitter hasn't published a list, we only know of the BTC tweets. Maybe they actually were after other accounts' DMs and the tweets are just diversion to make it seem like an undirected attack. Unless we hear from account holders that their credentials weren't stolen, there's no reason to believe that only those were hacked that sent tweets.
- zspade 6y agoExcept that is all the evidence we have to go on for this conversation. Verified fake tweets have been sent from prominent democrats, and not from any prominent republicans. Of course you're right that we don't know is if this is political, or just a distraction from whatever their real goal is / was. But the optics are clear here, and there is no reason to muddy the waters.
- canjobear 6y agoBlackmail targets could still deny them.
- ben174 6y agoInteresting theory, but then why would they include Apple? Among others in the list, they’re almost guaranteed to be of no value and only increase the risk.
- vlz 6y agoWhat does "DM" mean in that context? (Went to wikipedia, but their suggestions like Death Metal and Dance marathon are probably not it ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DM )
- q-base 6y agoDirect messages - so private messages to and from