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Child tweets gibberish from US nuclear-agency account
- airhead969 6y agoIsn't the automatic reaction of a Windows desktop/laptop user to lock their workstation (Ctrl-Alt-Del, Enter, Enter) if they leave for any reason? Edit: that was a great Chaos Monkey to reiterate security hygiene. Or was it a Mini Chaos Monkey? https://netflix.github.io/chaosmonkey/ https://netflix.github.io/chaosmonkey/
- throwanem 6y agoThat's an old-school shortcut! Windows+L is faster, fwiw.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y agoIsn't win+L easier?
- airhead969 6y agoI haven't used Windows in a loong time, so I guess it is. ;)
- amenod 6y agoTux + L then. :)
- airhead969 6y agoOh nice. Or Ctrl-Command-Q on my last mac, a mini from 2012. (It does have an upgraded fast SSD, big HDD, and 16 GiB.)
- BalinKing 6y agoCtrl-Cmd-Q works on my (relatively recent) MBP as well—I always used the Touch Bar instead... TIL!
- ziddoap 6y ago>Isn't the automatic reaction of a Windows desktop/laptop user to lock their workstation Having attempted to encourage this as a habit for my users for about a year, and not a single one doing it, I've had to come up with other solutions that takes it out of their hands. (It's not business-critical for us, however we try to encourage good security habits all around). So no, I don't think it is an automatic reaction for the majority of people. Although, this is government - so I would have expected a bit more rigor. Perhaps working in a home environment contributed to relaxing of security habits. Side note: Windows + L was a bit easier to remember than Ctrl+Alt+Del -> Enter -> Enter for the users who made good faith efforts at making it a habit
- airhead969 6y agoIIRC, the trick is practical jokes! Change desktop backgrounds, move icons around, leave goofy/giant text Word documents, etc.
- lemmsjid 6y agoThat is so true. I struggled to develop the habit and then ended up on a team that did this (mainly send silly emails from the victim’s account). It’s over a decade later and I still hit the lock combo every time I get up.
- amenod 6y ago...or invite the whole team for a beer via e-mail. :)
- duck 6y agoOr Slack everyone with "I'm a noob!"...
- airhead969 6y agoMuhaha. I can think of other broadcast communications that would get people fired.
- znpy 6y ago
- julienreszka 6y agoSeems like no it's not automatic for everyone. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13672231/pelosi-office-trump-supporters-storm-capitol-building/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13672231/pelosi-office-trump-s... Even experienced people have issues with this (bit less after a few rm -rf *)
- quickthrowman 6y agoI’m pretty sure I’m the only person in my 200 person office that presses Win+L when leaving my computer
- airhead969 6y agoWould they include accountants, IT people, managers, and insiders? If so -> D:
- fy20 6y agoDefinitely not. In my co-working space people regularly leave laptops unattended and unlocked when they go for lunch.
- bentcorner 6y agoI do that "in the office" but at home I usually leave my PC unlocked if I'm stepping away and trust my family not to mess around with my computer. It'll lock in a few minutes by itself anyways. While I probably would be more careful with younger children around I could easily see this happening for someone working from home. Also - in the office if you leave your computer unlocked you may find that you have emailed the team and promised to bring everybody doughnuts tomorrow.
- airhead969 6y agoI guess it's like outlet protections for little ones who don't know any better, or mischievous little devils. Hahah, nice! That's an awesome office. :D
- jcadam 6y agoBack in the good 'ol days of the 1990s, if you left your computer unlocked you were liable to return to your desk and find somebody replaced your desktop wallpaper with something... pornographic and/or you sent an email to your boss (with the entire office on CC) professing your undying love for him.
- astura 6y agoAt work, yes, always, because it's company policy and I can be officially reprimanded for leaving the computer unlocked and people actively look for this violation. At home, never, ever. This person was working from home. Though, I admit, if I'm working late and I'm the only one left in the building then I don't lock the computer. I'd imagine many computer uses don't know how to lock their computers if they weren't taught by IT - many "obvious" things to a tech savvy person are unknown by your average office worker (you can't imagine how many people I've taught to use CTRL+F) Also, the shortcut is Windows Key+L.
- mcguire 6y agoOnce upon a time, there were manuals and stuff that might have taught this sort of thing. Now, it's assumed to be intuitively obvious.
- rad_gruchalski 6y agoWasn’t it Windows+L?
- kbelder 6y agoI still always do CTRL-ALT-DEL and enter, enter, like the op. Might be age related; I guess we really need to do a poll. This may be because I've always hated the windows key, and would sometimes seek out keyboards that didn't have one.
- bartread 6y agoHere's the thing: sometimes the lock screen on Windows 10 doesn't work and you can get back to the desktop simply by swiping up even when you think you should have to re-enter your password or PIN. Note that I have face ID disabled because I got really fed up of my computer unlocking itself just because I'd gone back to my desk to pick up something I'd forgotten when I locked it and walked away. This always seemed incredibly insecure to me, not to mention very annoying.
- Leparamour 6y ago>you can get back to the desktop simply by swiping What exactly do you mean by "swiping up"? Are you using Win10 on a tablet?
- bartread 6y agoI have a Dell XPS laptop equipped with a touchscreen.
- gregmac 6y agoHaving used Windows 10 basically since it came out, on many different devices, I've never experienced this, and I lock my PC every time I step away (or at least I did when I was working in an office). I also can't find anyone discussing it, though admittedly the search terms for this are difficult (mostly all I can find is people complaining their screen doesn't auto-lock after timeout). Can you provide anything else on this, rather than just casually claiming one of the most popular OSes has a massive security bug?
- bartread 6y agoNot really, only to say that it's happened to me several times, and isn't something I've been able to reproduce. It happens infrequently enough that the first handful of times I thought I must have just forgotten to lock the machine. Eventually I realised that wasn't so and I wasn't just imagining it because, of course, by this time I'd become ultra-paranoid about locking the thing. I'm running a ~2 year old Dell XPS equipped with a touchscreen. It's a decent machine for my needs but nothing special or exotic, and certainly I can't see any reason why this would be an issue. I don't know what else to tell you other than I wish I was making it up.
- bombcar 6y agoMy Mac takes so long to come back to a usable state after sleep that I only lock when I’ll be away for a long period of time.
- saghm 6y agoIs there a power setting that makes it not suspend when it's idle? I'm not sure about MacOS, but on my Linux desktop there's a toggle in the power settings to make turn that behavior off, so I can lock my screen without having to worry about suddenly losing the ability to ssh into it.
- bombcar 6y agoI've done that - but even coming from just "display sleep" seems to cause it to go "HOLY SHIT I HAVE A DISPLAY! AND ANOTHER ONE! AND ANOTHER ONE! OH MY GOSH THERE'S A FOURTH?!? AND A FIFTH!?!?" And then it calms down and all is well unless the cable decides not to connect at full speed, and I get to cycle it.
- InitialLastName 6y agoWIN+L is faster and can be done with just one (stretched) hand.
- ahepp 6y agoMost computers I've seen on government networks use a smart card to sign in (I'm sure it depends on which government network). Pull the smart card out, and the device locks. Most people do a good job of taking the card with them, from what I've seen. Although it can be a pain in the ass when you have to resize windows or enter the card pin ~3 times to get logged back in.
- ThePowerOfFuet 6y ago>Ctrl-Alt-Del, Enter, Enter Win+L.
- unclemase 6y agoI love Canada now more than ever. https://ibb.co/TWnNdGJ https://ibb.co/TWnNdGJ
- echelon 6y agoWhat a wholesome response! For most companies and organizations, this is absolutely understandable. WFH is challenging, and balancing childcare even more so. In this case, though, it begs the question - why does US Strategic Command even have a Twitter account? Are they going to post fun and engaging tweets about the nuclear football? Twitter seems like something this agency should not be doing.
- Scoundreller 6y agoIt’s fine to have one, but I dislike how corp/gov accounts inevitably become about their new CEO (don’t care) or Bob from accounting celebrating 30y on the job (don’t care). Canada’s border agency account likes to tweet pics of them “expediting” vaccine clearances while border holdups are their fault in the first place. Like, thanks for circumventing your slow process, but let’s not celebrate your on-tarmac releases as an unusual practice. Meanwhile when they reduce their hours of operation (useful), they bury it on their website because people might (rightfully) complain too directly.
- kube-system 6y agoI think the culture of being engaged with the public is more of a good thing than a bad thing, regardless of how 'useful' it is.
- Guest42 6y agoPersonally, I think my brain gets tired of having to filter non-stop PR. Actual engagement would be fantastic though so as much as that exists I’d claim provides a good potential.
- libraryatnight 6y ago
- Finnucane 6y agoGood thing it was a kid and not his cat; a cat would have declared war.
- zomg 6y agohilarious -- i came here to defend our feline friends too! :) meaning, it was definitely not a cat...
- HenryBemis 6y agoNow then.. a cat would have sat/lied down on the warm keyboard (assuming laptop) and the keypresses would have exceeded the allowed maximum number of characters, and thus the tweet wouldn't have been possible. Another 'analysis' of the key presses: Right hand first: ;l;; then left hand: g right hand again: lm then wrap up with left hand: xzssaw
- HenryBemis 6y ago(only because I was watching it again last night - and you are getting downvoted) Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the war room!
- airhead969 6y agoDo you realize that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?
- mcguire 6y agoNote: These are references to the classic movie Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. As is my own, Animals vill BE BRED UND SCHLAUTERED!
- airhead969 6y agoCatbert would've gone full Chemical Brothers: https://youtu.be/6b9ci_z4v7M https://youtu.be/6b9ci_z4v7M
- lamontcg 6y agodup: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26632837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26632837
- xiphias2 6y agoSince a long time ago it's clear that social media (and bank) accounts need multi signature and 2FA support to allow advanced workflows. Of course it can only be achieved securely with an open standard that allows any combination of these deployed on all platforms (I'm OK with making it payed-only enterprise feature as long as the US military and presindent and maybe Elon Musk has enough money to pay for the feature).
- cwmma 6y agoon the other hand, see the Hawaiian missile alert fiasco where excessive friction prolonged the issues.
- vlovich123 6y agoHow does any of that solve the “child types jibberish on an unlocked laptop”? A better feature would be for laptop cameras to auto logout the user when they step away and let them log back in without authentication within 15 min. I think that better solves the unattended laptop problem than anything else. You can kind of get there with BLE keys but face authentication would work much better for presence detection (maybe do both BLE + face).
- xiphias2 6y agoImportant accounts shouldn't be handled by 1 person, there should always be another one who can approve it.
- apetresc 6y agoDo you consider the Twitter account an "important account" that needs multi-party approval?
- kirubakaran 6y agoWe could have another https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minutes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_begin_bombing_in_five_minut... situation
- hprotagonist 6y agohttp://catb.org/jargon/html/M/molly-guard.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/M/molly-guard.html
- airhead969 6y agoCool! Back in the early 00's, there was a Linux kernel module or program to detect and eliminate feline keyboard input.
- trop 6y agoIf only it worked on Linux. It's Windows-only: http://bitboost.com/pawsense/ http://bitboost.com/pawsense/. This software is the only winner so far of an Ig Noble prize in the category of Computer Science: https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/winners/#ig2000 https://www.improbable.com/ig-about/winners/#ig2000. See https://priceonomics.com/the-software-that-detects-when-a-cat-is-messing/ https://priceonomics.com/the-software-that-detects-when-a-ca... for a write-up. Apparently this is still maintained, as it is described as compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10 (excepting "Metro/Modern" mode). Written by this charming coder: http://chrisniswander.com/ http://chrisniswander.com/. [edited for grammar -- and should note that, of course Linux and ilk OS do offer a "cat" command]
- bradrn 6y agoThis one? http://www.bitboost.com/pawsense/ http://www.bitboost.com/pawsense/ (I remember it for having won the Ig Nobel Prize in Computer Science.)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ada1981 6y agoCovfefe.
- HenryBemis 6y agoYour the URL in your profile responds with: This site is temporarily unavailable
- ada1981 6y agoUpdated profile. Island website is being moved and updated. Email me a@175g.com if You like.
- astura 6y agoHere's their response to the FIOA request requesting documents/communication about this tweet: https://www.scribd.com/document/500831873/FOIA-U-S-Strategic-Command-response-to-l-gmlxzssaw-tweet https://www.scribd.com/document/500831873/FOIA-U-S-Strategic...
- Causality1 6y agoPeople need to chill out. That a Twitter handle is run by someone who gets paid by some important agency is completely irrelevant. https://xkcd.com/932/ https://xkcd.com/932/
- dathinab 6y agoTL;DR: Parent forgot to lock computer child typed gibberish. But then it's just a twitter account, sure from the US nuclear-agency, but so what. Social media accounts get hacked all the time so this is IMHO not really that serious... ...if the computer isn't also used for more "high-security" applications, in which case I'm worried because of non appropriate screen locking setups might imply non appropriate security in other parts of the setup, too.
- idownvoted 6y agoThe real story is how delusional the world has become, to consider Tweets important
- riffic 6y agoIt'd be nice if government agencies moved to self-hosting their own official social media systems by way of interoperable web standards (ActivityPub for example).
- joosters 6y agoDoes this stop their kids from typing on their keyboard? (And anyway, surely viewing a web page counts as an interoperable web standard already?)
- riffic 6y agoTwitter is a walled garden service and is hostile to both their users and to people in the developer ecosystem. It does not even pretend to interoperate. While this doesn't address the number one issue (the kid on the keyboard) it does provide a certain amount of accountability and transparency into how a public sector agency pushes their communications out into the world / digital commons.
- briangerman 6y agoI still don't see how it prevents children from accessing their parents computer.
- zzzeek 6y agothey would implement the system such that two toddlers no less than 15 feet apart would need to type the identical gibberish characters into two terminals simultaneously in order for the tweet to be published.
- Apocryphon 6y agoBuild clients for it that mandate biometric access following already-existing government data security standards.
- kube-system 6y agoShould they self-host TV stations, newspapers, and radio stations? Why should internet media be any different?
- malwarebytess 6y agoQanon people thinks it was a message from the military, lol. Because of this which provides a solution as "Q ACQUITTED": ;l;;gmlxzssaw http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/cryptogram-solver.php http://rumkin.com/tools/cipher/cryptogram-solver.php
- raunak 6y agoThat is honestly quite funny. I just can't imagine being that delusional in real life. What a Q believer's day-to-day life must look like is a wonder to me.
- mcguire 6y agoEvery day is probably a journey of adventure and discovery.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Leparamour 6y agoInterestingly, the infamous "covfefe" tweet using the cryptogram-solver dissolves to "IMPEDED".
- argvargc 6y agoDelete the semicolons and note the second solution... O_O
- Duckey 6y agoI think the most notable part of this claim is why wasn't this message deleted right away, and why were they drawing attention to it by saying "please disregard"? It's a purposeful streisand effect tactic
- airhead969 6y agoHow about a nice game of chess?
- gnulinux 6y agoFor those who don't know, this is a reference to the movie WarGames (1983).
- abhiminator 6y agoAmong the few good movies that captured the essence of the Cold War. "There are some games where the best move is to not play."
- rspoerri 6y agonothing to see here, it's just nuclear that went home office as well...
- whereis 6y agoTwitter expects users to control their own editorial process. There are apps to manage this. If none are suitable for government agencies such as US Strategic Command (!), this is low hanging fruit for a small startup to build suitable twitter publishing infra
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago"Nuclear agency" makes it sound like the NRC or DoE. This was U.S. Strategic Command, i.e. the nuclear weapons agency.
- alfiedotwtf 6y ago... who left their computers unlocked?! Shouldn’t someone be raked over the coals for leaving a computer unlocked at an agency like that, even if it was just their marketing department?
- notyourday 6y agoOh, we don't do that. That's assigning individual responsibility and that's frowned upon.
- knorker 6y agoThis is the same agency that had "00000000" as the code for US nukes, with it pre-set, too?
- beaconstudios 6y agopresumably the social media manager is working from home.
- NovemberWhiskey 6y agoOh please. This is a social media manager who’s working from home that we’re talking about here. On the basis of these facts alone I can be relatively confident that the U.S. nuclear posture wasn’t seriously in jeopardy.
- jonas21 6y agoOn the other hand, if the child had been a little bit older and thought it would be funny to tweet, "we have launched a nuclear strike on North Korea," or something, I'd imagine that we might be looking at this differently. I don't blame the social media person, but I am pretty surprised that the US Strategic Command allows their Twitter account to be operated from an insecure location.
- tamaharbor 6y agoLuckily, that was more than one character away from the actual nuclear launch code.
- bombcar 6y agoHighly unlikely any kid would ever guess 00000000
- jeffreyrogers 6y agoI don't see how this is as big a deal as people make it out to be. The person in charge of this account probably has nothing to do with anything that remotely matters. You wouldn't worry about your 401k if the asset manager's twitter account posted some gibberish.
- smt88 6y agoWhat if the child were a little older and typed something related to launching missiles as a joke?
- de_Selby 6y agoIs it standard practice to tweet about it when launching a nuclear attack?
- sharkweek 6y agoI think you’re drastically underestimating how many people would assume it was true
- airhead969 6y agoSunday, October 30, 1938
- msla 6y agoAh, the "NEW MEDIA: THREAT OR MENACE?" broadcast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1938_radio_drama) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(1938_ra... > The response may have reflected newspaper publishers' fears that radio, to which they had lost some of the advertising revenue that was scarce enough during the Great Depression, would render them obsolete. In "The War of the Worlds", they saw an opportunity to cast aspersions on the newer medium: "The nation as a whole continues to face the danger of incomplete, misunderstood news over a medium which has yet to prove that it is competent to perform the news job," wrote Editor & Publisher, the newspaper industry's trade journal.[2][55] > William Randolph Hearst's papers called on broadcasters to police themselves, lest the government step in, as Iowa Senator Clyde L. Herring proposed a bill that would have required all programming to be reviewed by the FCC prior to broadcast (he never actually introduced it). And we all know Hearst would have no incentive to gin up something to make radio look bad and newspapers look better. > Few contemporary accounts exist outside newspaper coverage of the mass panic and hysteria supposedly induced by the broadcast. Justin Levine, a producer at KFI in Los Angeles, wrote in a 2000 history of the FCC's response to hoax broadcasts that "the anecdotal nature of such reporting makes it difficult to objectively assess the true extent and intensity of the panic.[56] Bartholomew sees this as yet more evidence that the panic was predominantly a creation of the newspaper industry.[57]
- latenightcoding 6y agoreminds me of the "Almost my bday!!" tweet from House of Representatives of the Philippines. Best link I could find: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1347310/house-tweets-birthday-countdown-amid-speakership-row https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1347310/house-tweets-birthday-...
- fireeyed 6y agoWhy does every US Government agency needs a Twatter account ? There is a whole agency with in these agencies called Public Relations that have been in existence since WWII. They have websites that cost million of $$ to build and maintain. The imbeciles who man the US Military playing with their twatter accounts. I could only arrive at one conclusion: Too much tax payer money wasted on hiring extra imbeciles to run these government twatter accounts.
- sp332 6y agoYeah, the Twitter account manager made the tweet.
- thelean12 6y agoI'm sure plenty of people would/did complain about the website as well. "They have news conferences and can release memos. Why would you need a website!? What a waste of money!" Considering you also mockingly call it "twatter", I'm guessing you might just be out of touch.
- mudetroit 6y agoI keep wondering why the US Strategic Command needs a social media presence. Is that just me?
- mzkply 6y agoThey're a large organization like any other and need HR, finance... and comms teams to announce decisions, policy changes, etc.
- whack 6y agoThe responsible agency is rightfully embarrassed by this oversight, and has now taken stringent measures to ensure something like this never happens again - Henceforth, all tweets can only ever be sent from a remote-desktop server that has to be hosted in a security-clearance-5 site - In order to access the remote-desktop, 2 government employees, who both have 10+ years of government experience, will need to jointly log into the server together. The 2 users will need to alternate keypresses and mouse-clicks, in order to prevent either one from abusing their power - Both employees will need to be using a computer that comes equipped with a built-in webcam, that has been security cleared by the NSA. This webcam should be running NSA custom-built software that continuously monitors the faces of both employees, and locks the computer if it detects anything suspicious or anomalous - To prevent the possibility of misuse or bias, all tweets will need to be pre-cleared by the CIA's department of information warfare In other news, why does it cost the government so much money, and take so long, to get anything done!? Stay tuned for more.
- olodus 6y agoNon-Parenthood and celebacy are now a requirements for any governmental position. Never will this proud nation be scarred by something this embarrassing again.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoThe room where the tweeting designated computer is located is painted with anti wifi paint. No communication devices are allowed in the room and is protected by armed guards disguised as plants. Submitting the tweet requires turning two keys at the same time, the keys are reissued every 24 hours. The password to unlock the computer is written with invisible ink in a microfilm contained inside a spy coin in a fake book which can only be found in a public library in Alaska corresponding to the volume #25 of the 1951 Encyclopedia Britannica, an encyclopedia that only had 24 volumes originally. The password is punched into cards in reverse order. Then, these punched cards are used as an stencil that can be scanned with a fake Android barcode app that returns thingiverse url which can be used to 3d print a key that will unlock the chest where the actual password is contained. The second key is obtained by calling the phone number found in the tag of a XXXL Harambe t-shirt from a specific vendor on Amazon. The phone number will emit a fake busy tone for 5 minutes and then an operator will pick up and answer in the Klingon language.
- lmilcin 6y agoBut how is access to twitter account in any way connected with oversight duties? Most likely there is somebody hired to post to the twitter account from time to time, who has absolutely no oversight responsibilities or access to anything more substantial, they work from home and they forgot to lock their computer. How is that a story for BBC? Nothing really more interesting happening?
- CivBase 6y agoToday I learned the US Strategic Command has a Twitter profile. For some reason. Seriously, why? I don't see what could possibly go right.
- JamisonM 6y agoLots of comments here about locking workstations, etc. I think the answer to this sort of stuff is if you have a high-profile and important twitter account shouldn't the content actually be running through a CMS that has some sort of gated publishing system? It just takes one other person to double-check a post to makes sure that gibberish/crazy/genuinely bad stuff doesn't get published, right? So then one actual human has the credentials for the actual twitter account in question. That's possible??
- 908B64B197 6y agoI just wish there was a disclaimer for government accounts that basically says: For entertainment purposes only.
- JBiserkov 6y ago“Execute Order 66.”
- mensetmanusman 6y agoAt least they didn’t say that women belong in the kitchen
- KingOfCoders 6y agoLooks like the person is not (auto) locking the computer when leaving it - a bad habit.
- brundolf 6y agoWeird; last week another child tweeted some gibberish from Amazon's account
- kcdev 6y agoHow about delete the Twitter account. Why does this agency need social media?