4 ms·

Ya, the fact that he tweeted a grand total of twice in 2013 (see https://twitter.com/N_is_stolen https://twitter.com/N_is_stolen) makes me have a little less sy

by harryh 13y ago

Ya, the fact that he tweeted a grand total of twice in 2013 (see https://twitter.com/N_is_stolen https://twitter.com/N_is_stolen) makes me have a little less sympathy.

imsofuture 13y ago
I'm a very casual and infrequent tweeter, and I can't fathom how that makes my username 'up for grabs'. Sorry you have such a twisted view of username ownership :/
- harryh 13y ago
  Oh it definitely doesn't make your username 'up for grabs'. What happened to you totally sucks and I hope you manage to get your account back. That being said if you're not actually going to use your account you might want to at least consider giving it to someone who would put it to more active use. Just a thought.
  - nathanb 13y ago
    Someone offered him 50 grand for it, and he turned them down. I would be surprised if he hadn't considered it at that point, if not previously.
  - nh7a 13y ago
    I've been actively using the account for other purpose than tweeting, and had a vague plan to start using it for tweeting again. Should I have mentioned the plan publicly so that the attacker would have refrained from blackmailing me? I don't think so.
  - jrs99 13y ago
    This COULD make sense. Are all other names taken up on twitter? Is it difficult to tweet without using the @N name? I never used twitter before.
    - harryh 13y ago
      Maybe google.com should have built their web site on kljasdklfjnaksdfn.com instead. That would have worked out just as well for them right? I haven't used the web very much.
- bigiain 13y ago
  While sympathetic - I'm also slightly amused at your twisted view about twitter name/account "ownership"… Just how much of the "real world" law you're alluding to by using the term "ownership" do you suppose applies to Twitter handles? (or Gmail addresses, or Facebook pages, or even domain names?)
  - riffic 13y ago
    The twitter namespace is property of Twitter alone. It's cute that there are those who think the "owners" of these names would be each user.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - scintill76 13y ago
      Well, OK, but a certain level of assured "ownership" is beneficial to everybody. Twitter handles, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, etc., would not be very useful if Twitter, ISP, postal service, telcos, etc. frequently exercised the right to deny access to previous users at any time. Seeing how easily GoDaddy handed over the domain, it seems one can't even own a domain properly, and that is supposed to be a lot closer to an "ownership" right than Twitter handles.
      - riffic 13y ago
        The difference between some of those and twitter's namespace is that Twitter is not a public utility. It is a privately operated company with a defacto monopoly on short status updates (micro blogging). We could look towards email and dns, though, as examples of a more fair distribution of namespace resources. Organizations would do well to investigate what their options are to retain control over their namespace, lest it fall whim to a mishap such as this instance.
      - malka 13y ago
        I really don't understand why people still use goDaddy. i wouldn't recommend it to my arch-ennemy
- hnriot 13y ago
  while it clearly doesn't, I wonder though if someone is using twitter so infrequently they would even care what their handle is. It's not like it has any intrinsic value or meaning. Why not just pick a random guid and use that as a handle (like I did) since I don't care one hoot what the handle is as I use twitter for exactly two things. Machine Learning datasets, and following a dozen or so people. I can do that from a guid as effectively as if I had @2600
mdmarra 13y ago
If someone had a Mercedes and only drove it twice a year, is it OK for someone to steal it?
- harryh 13y ago
  No. But I'd feel less bad for that person than someone who drove their Mercedes every day and had it stolen. Also, a Mercedes and a twitter handle (or domain name) aren't exactly the same thing as a twitter handle is a unique owner of a particular pice of the namespace. A better analogy would be an owner of a valuable piece of property who wasn't putting it to good use.
  - bushido 13y ago
    > A better analogy would be an owner of a valuable piece of property who wasn't putting it to good use. So if you were not putting your backyard to good use you would not feel too bad if your neighbors decided to encroach on it?
    - harryh 13y ago
      I think you're deliberately not hearing what I'm saying. Here's a good analogy: Some rich guy buys an amazing house on a beautiful California beachfront. But then never even bothers to stay there because he's got 3 other vacation homes. It just sits there empty all year long. Would it be ok for someone to break in and start living there? No, of course not. But you do have to kind of dislike that guy right? If he doesn't want to use this limited and valuable resource he should maybe give it up so someone else can get good use out of it.
      - haswell 13y ago
        So a minute ago you're saying that a Mercedes can't really compare to a unique Internet handle but somehow owning 4 houses is comparable? I'm really not following your analogy.
      - hueving 13y ago
holyavengerone 13y ago
So if I don't really use my $50k collection car, it's as bad if it gets stolen?
madiator 13y ago
To use Twitter, one does not have to tweet.
- harryh 13y ago
  If you're not interested in creating tweets then you don't really need to be taking up such a valuable piece of the namespace.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    Why is it valuable? What amazing things are other single character handles being used for? Or is it just vaguely notable?
    - harryh 13y ago
      Apparently (according to the author of this blog post) it's worth 50k. That's at least moderately valuable. shrug
    - zz9pza 13y ago
      harry works around people that pine for vanity usernames. vanity = big deal in those circles. who knows why. not bad in itself. places like foursquare, people know people at twitter. if your outside the valley twitter won't even help you when the autosuspender mistakenly pops your account but valley/connected people call an investor or executive and get their vanity handle in hours. seen it happen twice. it's all who you know and never forget it. when i dealt with twitter support as a normal the disparity between insider service and official was pretty amazing. they are the worst of the valley backscratchers. bet they would have taken @n if the right person called. what would you do, sue?
      - harryh 13y ago
        Twitter never would have taken @n if the right person called. Up until maybe 18-24 months ago if you knew the right folks you could generally get an inactive account released but even that is pretty much off the table at this point. All industries have insiders. In some you can get a twitter handle, in others hard to get concert tickets, in others I bet it's early access to the latest in air ventilation equipment. It's not malicious. It's just personal relationships.

by harryh 13y ago

Ya, the fact that he tweeted a grand total of twice in 2013 (see https://twitter.com/N_is_stolen https://twitter.com/N_is_stolen) makes me have a little less sympathy.

imsofuture 13y ago

I'm a very casual and infrequent tweeter, and I can't fathom how that makes my username 'up for grabs'. Sorry you have such a twisted view of username ownership :/

harryh 13y ago
Oh it definitely doesn't make your username 'up for grabs'. What happened to you totally sucks and I hope you manage to get your account back. That being said if you're not actually going to use your account you might want to at least consider giving it to someone who would put it to more active use. Just a thought.
- nathanb 13y ago
  Someone offered him 50 grand for it, and he turned them down. I would be surprised if he hadn't considered it at that point, if not previously.
- nh7a 13y ago
  I've been actively using the account for other purpose than tweeting, and had a vague plan to start using it for tweeting again. Should I have mentioned the plan publicly so that the attacker would have refrained from blackmailing me? I don't think so.
- jrs99 13y ago
  This COULD make sense. Are all other names taken up on twitter? Is it difficult to tweet without using the @N name? I never used twitter before.
  - harryh 13y ago
    Maybe google.com should have built their web site on kljasdklfjnaksdfn.com instead. That would have worked out just as well for them right? I haven't used the web very much.
bigiain 13y ago
While sympathetic - I'm also slightly amused at your twisted view about twitter name/account "ownership"… Just how much of the "real world" law you're alluding to by using the term "ownership" do you suppose applies to Twitter handles? (or Gmail addresses, or Facebook pages, or even domain names?)
- riffic 13y ago
  The twitter namespace is property of Twitter alone. It's cute that there are those who think the "owners" of these names would be each user.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - scintill76 13y ago
    Well, OK, but a certain level of assured "ownership" is beneficial to everybody. Twitter handles, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, etc., would not be very useful if Twitter, ISP, postal service, telcos, etc. frequently exercised the right to deny access to previous users at any time. Seeing how easily GoDaddy handed over the domain, it seems one can't even own a domain properly, and that is supposed to be a lot closer to an "ownership" right than Twitter handles.
    - riffic 13y ago
      The difference between some of those and twitter's namespace is that Twitter is not a public utility. It is a privately operated company with a defacto monopoly on short status updates (micro blogging). We could look towards email and dns, though, as examples of a more fair distribution of namespace resources. Organizations would do well to investigate what their options are to retain control over their namespace, lest it fall whim to a mishap such as this instance.
    - malka 13y ago
      I really don't understand why people still use goDaddy. i wouldn't recommend it to my arch-ennemy
hnriot 13y ago
while it clearly doesn't, I wonder though if someone is using twitter so infrequently they would even care what their handle is. It's not like it has any intrinsic value or meaning. Why not just pick a random guid and use that as a handle (like I did) since I don't care one hoot what the handle is as I use twitter for exactly two things. Machine Learning datasets, and following a dozen or so people. I can do that from a guid as effectively as if I had @2600

mdmarra 13y ago

If someone had a Mercedes and only drove it twice a year, is it OK for someone to steal it?

harryh 13y ago
No. But I'd feel less bad for that person than someone who drove their Mercedes every day and had it stolen. Also, a Mercedes and a twitter handle (or domain name) aren't exactly the same thing as a twitter handle is a unique owner of a particular pice of the namespace. A better analogy would be an owner of a valuable piece of property who wasn't putting it to good use.
- bushido 13y ago
  > A better analogy would be an owner of a valuable piece of property who wasn't putting it to good use. So if you were not putting your backyard to good use you would not feel too bad if your neighbors decided to encroach on it?
  - harryh 13y ago
    I think you're deliberately not hearing what I'm saying. Here's a good analogy: Some rich guy buys an amazing house on a beautiful California beachfront. But then never even bothers to stay there because he's got 3 other vacation homes. It just sits there empty all year long. Would it be ok for someone to break in and start living there? No, of course not. But you do have to kind of dislike that guy right? If he doesn't want to use this limited and valuable resource he should maybe give it up so someone else can get good use out of it.
    - haswell 13y ago
      So a minute ago you're saying that a Mercedes can't really compare to a unique Internet handle but somehow owning 4 houses is comparable? I'm really not following your analogy.
    - hueving 13y ago

holyavengerone 13y ago

So if I don't really use my $50k collection car, it's as bad if it gets stolen?

madiator 13y ago

To use Twitter, one does not have to tweet.

harryh 13y ago
If you're not interested in creating tweets then you don't really need to be taking up such a valuable piece of the namespace.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Why is it valuable? What amazing things are other single character handles being used for? Or is it just vaguely notable?
  - harryh 13y ago
    Apparently (according to the author of this blog post) it's worth 50k. That's at least moderately valuable. shrug
  - zz9pza 13y ago
    harry works around people that pine for vanity usernames. vanity = big deal in those circles. who knows why. not bad in itself. places like foursquare, people know people at twitter. if your outside the valley twitter won't even help you when the autosuspender mistakenly pops your account but valley/connected people call an investor or executive and get their vanity handle in hours. seen it happen twice. it's all who you know and never forget it. when i dealt with twitter support as a normal the disparity between insider service and official was pretty amazing. they are the worst of the valley backscratchers. bet they would have taken @n if the right person called. what would you do, sue?
    - harryh 13y ago
      Twitter never would have taken @n if the right person called. Up until maybe 18-24 months ago if you knew the right folks you could generally get an inactive account released but even that is pretty much off the table at this point. All industries have insiders. In some you can get a twitter handle, in others hard to get concert tickets, in others I bet it's early access to the latest in air ventilation equipment. It's not malicious. It's just personal relationships.