Hacker Sends Out Fake Tsunami Warning On Twitter

An anonymous reader writes "A Twitter account belonging to an official adviser of the Indonesian president has been broken into by a hacker who posted a warning that a tsunami was heading for Jakarta. Andi Arief is Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's disaster management adviser and a frequent user of Twitter. But when he lost control of his account, a tsunami warning was sent out to Twitter users."

Comments

Take with a grain of salt

[mirix]

Trusting twitter? Turn on the TV or radio. Perhaps check the meteorological service's website.

Re:Take with a grain of salt

[rastilin]

That would be a good idea if it weren't a life or death thing. If you get a message saying "Death is coming, run for your life", going indoors to check the weather channel might not be the ideal course. Do you know the joke where during a firefight, the commander screams "heads up" and the dude in the back stands up and says "Why?"?

Re:Take with a grain of salt

[antifoidulus]

But if you have access to the internet then they still should include a link in the tweet to an official government site with more info. Plus such a link would help verify that the tweet is real.

Re:Take with a grain of salt

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Better a live fool 100 times than a dead fool once.

You never know how long you got after a tsunami warning unless they actually state it originated far enough away, as there's a few minutes delay before the warning reaches you.

Re:Take with a grain of salt

[Beelzebud]

Which is probably why you shouldn't be relying on Twitter for issues of life and death...

Re:Take with a grain of salt

[md65536]

Trusting twitter? Turn on the TV or radio. Perhaps check the meteorological service's website.

True. The only twit that I'd trust on this subject are along the lines of "LOL @tsunami".

I would wait for an official blog post from Susilo to find out if there is indeed a tsunami, and how does he feel about it.

For safety through redundancy, Susilo could also send out a message such as "Please 'Like' my 'Oh noes tsunami coming' facebook page and check out my youtube video of me on a webcam saying that a tsunami is coming!"

Re:Take with a grain of salt

[Anonymous Coward]

You could just, you know, look at the water. A tsunami is a very long wave, so if it is coming, the water will recede before it comes back. It doesn't happen instantly, but when you see the water receding, you better hoof it!!

If the water does not recede, then there is no tsunami or a very small one.

Re:Take with a grain of salt

[interkin3tic]

For those people who are within sight of the beach when they are checking twitter, yes, a glance would have been an indication.

For anyone who is more than seconds away from verifying themselves, which I would assume is most people who would be affected, no, that's idiotic. The minutes it takes you to observe the water level could be the minutes you'd need to get yourself and your family out of the danger zone. -Toward- the water is not where you want to go in the event that the tsunami was about to hit.

Re:Take with a grain of salt

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitter == Internet access

Check the weather online. Relying on Twitter is stupid.

Asshat

[gavron]

He didn't "lose control of his account", and a hacker didn't "take over his account."

People in responsible positions shouldn't be asshats about their passwords.

Sorry, asshat, next time don't have an easily guessable dictionary password and blame the rest of the world for your folly.

E

Re:Asshat

[tsj5j]

It's sad that such an uninformative troll post is modded insightful.

Nowhere in the source did they confirm that his account was compromised due to a weak password.
The source speculates it to be so, but given Twitter's security record it may not be so.
Perhaps his password was recovered with forgot password, or a vulnerability found.

Furthermore, weak passwords aren't the only way passwords get compromised.
More often than not, social engineering or a brute force of his publically available information is used.
He may have fallen for a phishing attempt in which a layman is unable to differentiate, or used an infected PC.

Most importantly, either technical inexperience or weak passwords doesn't justify impersonation or calling anyone an asshat.
Slashdot must accept that people are skilled in different fields, and IT is just but one of them.
There's this foolish mentality around here that everyone must be experienced and knowledgeable in IT, when slashdotters are themselves clueless in many other fields - for example, fashion or (.

Qualifies as Terrorism

[gweihir]

I think this qualifies as terrorism. That the account may not have been secured well does not matter. Most terrorist targets are not secured well. This has the potential to cause panic and significant loss of life.

I hope they get this person and that the sentence will fit the potential damage.

To all those that think this is only a prank: It is about as much a prank as setting a building on fire. Occasionally stupid teenagers do this and then become murderers. This is similar. I do not see any reason for leniency.

Re:I pity the fool.

[Arancaytar]

... Reiser?

What does murder have to do with computer crime?

Re:I pity the fool.

[Pseudonym Authority]

What if that isn't the real Hans at all? I think that he was kidnapped by aliens and cloned on behalf of the US Government, so they could eliminate competition for on of their puppet's projects, Sun's ZFS (this was back before Oracle bought them, and as a result they got Sun as well). Who would know where a body, that may have never lived in the first place, was besides Government satellites?

The only thing that doesn't add up is why they have brainwashed you to try discredit me....

Re:I pity the fool.

[GrumblyStuff]

Oooh goody! You wouldn't believe how many politicians we could ki- oh, right. These rules would only apply to the rest of us.

Re:I pity the fool.

[Stooshie]

" ... official should also be punished ... "

What crime did the official commit?