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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

by X9 4y ago

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. I didn't want to give in but the handle wasn't worth the trouble. On the plus side since Twitter doesn't allow handles that short anymore, once I changed my handle the hijacker's attempts were foiled.

adharmad 4y ago
Reminds me of this: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/how-i-lost-my-50000-twitter-username/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/how-i...
0x00000000 4y ago
How would they know the phone number associated with your account?
- vkou 4y ago
  They may have had their Twitter handle on their CV.
- 6sp 4y ago
  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.
  - tinus_hn 4y ago
    Clearly, because the number wasn’t even associated with the account.
nevster 4y ago
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
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
askafriend 4y ago
IMO you shouldn't have given in. You should have been extremely petty here on principal - the situation calls for it.
- motoxpro 4y ago
  Did you not read the article? The one where peoples family members are getting harassed and someone died of a heart attack? That is a lot to put other people through out of "principle"
MarcoZavala 4y ago