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Hijacked Fox News Twitter Account Falsely Claims Obama Shot Dead

Frankie70 writes with word of a Twitter-account hijacking that's raised eyebrows today, supplying a link to the account in question. From the Telegraph's account: "'The Twitter account of the American Fox News Politics team was compromised and used to falsely announce the death of the U.S. president. Hackers, who identified themselves as 'The Script Kiddies' and said they shared the spirit of prominent hacking group Anonymous, used the account to write: 'BREAKING NEWS: President @BarackObama assassinated, 2 gunshot wounds have proved too much. It's a sad 4th for #america. #obamadead RIP.'"

11 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Re:HOW? by Inda · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hello Mr Corporate Account User, I'm from the password police and I need to inspect your password!

    I joke around here that this month's password is July2011 as it passes all the company's password requirements (1 upper, 2 digits, +7 length). I know for a fact that the boss uses it and 10 quid says others do too.

    Listen to the IT Expert (moi?) when he's having a bad day? You may as well play with matches.

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    This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
  2. false flag! by Titan1080 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every one of these 'hacker' news stories brings us one step closer to an internet kill switch. The government knows that the riots will begin soon in the US, and they are trying to set things up to make it hard to communicate. Beware.

  3. Re:HOW? by RevWaldo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Words go in, tweets come out. Never a miscommunication. You can't explain that.

    .

  4. Better ways of getting them by antifoidulus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Come on kids, everyone knows the only real way to get back at an evil media mogul is to broadcast him on his own channel saying that his viewers mean as much to him as a festering bowl of dog snot does. Bonus points if you get the reference.

  5. Re:Why aren't they deleted yet? by PhilHibbs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    First, hack the account. Change the password.
    Second, post a fake tweet or five, make them obvious and crass.
    Third, post that the account has been brought back under the control of Fox News and locked down while the hack is investigated. Change the password again.
    Finally, start posting some more fake tweets an hour or so later, but be more subtle about it.

  6. Re:Only news because it is Fox, not CNN or MSNBC.. by Xest · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So I guess you're voting for the Republican candidate in 2012 then?

  7. Re:ironically it's not far from the truth... by mcavic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or rather, just reduce spending until the debt goes away. Whatever you do, don't raise my taxes, because the economy isn't my problem.

  8. Re:HOW? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If I had mod points I'd be modding it down. It's just an ad hominem rant aimed at a general group of people, using an altered version of what was really said. The parent was Trolling and caught himself another Troll.

  9. Re:ironically it's not far from the truth... by m50d · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Tax revenue raises itself, when the economy grows, and is more likely to do if the economy isn't being bled by government and kept from growing.

    All the money that comes into the government goes out again, usually into economic circulation. So while it's in the interests of the economy to cut taxes on economic activity, it's also worth taxing money that would otherwise be taken out of circulation. And yet it's tax cuts on the income of the rich (which contributes far less to economic activity than that of the poor) which the republicans are most strongly advocating.

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    I am trolling
  10. Re:ironically it's not far from the truth... by Ricwot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Except the rich have to do something with their money, usually putting it in a bank, or investing it, which is used to fund loans to other businesses or individuals, which generates jobs or allows people to get mortgages.

    Rich people are not Scrooge McDuck, they don't build a massive vault and just hoard all their money. If they actually did that, the effective amount of money in circulation would decrease, and the spending power would increase. The way to misallocate resources in the economy is to pay people to do things they shouldn't be doing, like overly high unemployment benefit, fraudulent disability benefits, useless jobs, or excessive numbers of prison places.

    Money the government spends on things people wouldn't buy on their own (agricultural subsidies, bank bailouts) create inefficiency in the economy and slow growth.

  11. Re:Not even trying, are we? by Kjella · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So true. That's one stroke of genius by President Obama. By selecting Biden for VP he made sure even the KKK pray for the health of the President every night.

    Well, if it's a tactic it's a bipartisan one. If McCain had won you could swear every democrat would pray for his health too, or there'd be President Palin...

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    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings