Obama's Twitter Account "Hacked"

Oxford_Comma_Lover writes "A 24-year-old living with his mother in France was arrested for 'hacking' into Obama's twitter accounts. (Warning: WSJ does obnoxious paywall things. Your miles may vary.) Apparently he guesses the answer to a question related to password recovery in order to break into the accounts of famous people; he has no computer science training or financial motive. He posted screenshots to a few boards and twitter found out within a few hours, either from a tip or from noticing when someone from France logs onto twitter as the President of the United States. (He did not actually tweet as POTUS, but just wanted to show he could break into the account.)"

Comments

He shouldn't be arrested

[Monkeedude1212]

Apparently he guesses the answer to a question related to password recovery in order to break into the accounts of famous people

If thats all it takes then the system is broken, not the people abusing it.

Re:He shouldn't be arrested

[DragonWriter]

If thats all it takes then the system is broken, not the people abusing it.

Its pretty trivial to break into most homes, cars, etc., but when people actually do it, we consider their actions to be the problem.

I don't see why the fact that it is a computer system means that there is suddenly nothing wrong with the actions of the person deliberately breaking in.

Sure, its fairly trivial for an online service to institute better security than "guess an fairly easy question and get access", so there are grounds for saying that the system has a problem. Its another thing, though, to go further and say that it is the system and not the intruder that is the problem.

Re:He shouldn't be arrested

[girlintraining]

Having a security question that is easily guessable is like leaving your car door unlocked. I wouldn't be surprised if it got stolen. Simple as that.

You know, bathroom locks in most homes and apartments can be opened with a straightened paper clip. There's a reason for this: You can't accidentally open the door, but if there's an emergency (say someone has a fall, or locks themselves in to overdose on pills) the door can be easily opened.

Pointing out the flaws of the security system don't relieve the person overriding it of their ethical responsibilities to their fellow human beings. Most security exists merely to satisfy the restraint that breaking it isn't accidental, because strong security can impede a variety of legitimate activities. As one example, my cousin lives with roommates who steal her pills, so she had a lock placed on her bedroom door. However, she needed me to get into the room while she was away to get some paperwork. So I fashioned a simple lock pick and gained entry (with the owner's permission). The average person would be unable to do this, but as a security expert, I can. However, I did not do so without permission, because that would be a violation of privacy, however trivial it was for me to actually open the door (about 5 seconds).

Good.

[geekoid]

Having a password clearly dictates the intent of the person is not to allow other people to use it.

If a door is locked, then people know they shouldn't enter and kicking in the door would be a crime... or at least very rude.