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

[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

[rastilin]

You're right, it's a matter of convenience. If it takes any longer than a few seconds, I vote for running.

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!"

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 (.

Hey! There's a fake tsunami coming!

[ignavus]

It is all a matter of operator precedence:

fake (tsunami warning) versus (fake tsunami) warning

Re:Hey! There's a fake tsunami coming!

[md65536]

It is all a matter of operator precedence:

fake (tsunami warning) versus (fake tsunami) warning

"fake (tsunami warning)" is standard gramatical precedence or whatever.
"(fake tsunami) warning" would be specified "fake-tsunami warning"

Please mod me down, thanks. I can't believe I replied to this.

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.