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How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Twitterbot
An anonymous reader writes Have you ever wondered what it is like to have your online identity hijacked and replaced with a Russian-speaking Bruce Willis impostor? Here's a lesson in online impersonation from Passcode, The Christian Science Monitor's soon-to-launch section on security and privacy in the digital age. From the article: "Weeks prior, I changed my handle from @SaraSorcherNJ to the simpler @SaraSorcher when I left my job at National Journal covering national security to join The Christian Science Monitor to help lead our new section on, somewhat ironically considering the situation, security and privacy. Apparently within days of that change, someone - or a bot - had taken over my former work identity. My real account, @SaraSorcher, still existed. In my picture, I was still smiling and wearing a gray suit. The @SaraSorcherNJ account — Fake Me — sported a smirking, balding Willis in a track suit and v-neck white tee. I tweet about news and wonky security policy issues. Fake Russian-speaking Me enjoys 'watching Hannibal, eating apples and pondering the nature of existence.'"
Wait till I tell my parents!
But can I ask what made anyone think this was newsworthy?
This reporter is going to write about online security, but expects her old Twitter handle that she abandoned not to be available to others? How delightfully naive. She should fit well in a paper that's Christian and scientifically orientated...
At the same time it is arrogant to blame the system for your own ignorance.
Christian Security: How would Jesus defend his network?
Who cares about twitterbot?
I mean, who the fuck care if they wanna put up a hairless pussy avatar?
Has Slashdot become a place where people have too much time to waste congregate?
Thinks no one else has the ability/right to use it. Film at 11. Oh wait no, non-issue. By her own words in the article they were NOT impersonating her. But by god it was HER handle before and damned if she was gonna let someone else use it for any reason!
Self-important douchelicks like this are why Faceblather and GogglePutz made real name policies, you're much less likely to make more work for them la^H^H^H^H^H abandon your name at some point.
She let it go. Someone else grabbed and used it for their own. They didn't impersonate her. They didn't violate Twitter's TOS. But she got it taken down anyways.
Lesson: Don't be a fucking idiot, do not put your employer's initials or tag in your twitter handle if you aren't willing to kiss it goodbye later when you quit. No one stays in the same job for 50 years anymore, especially in Media, they need to stop acting like they will be there forever.
don't abandon, create new. pin last tweet pointing to new. easypeasy, no russians involved.
it's her own fault someone was able to reuse her old username... even if the grand twit (twitter) *could have had* a policy in place to not allow reuse of usernames.. or at least have a substantial cooldown and quieting-down period before letting them loose again.
> User abandons handle
> Some other user adopts handle
FOUR OH FOUR ERROR FUCK NOT FOUND.
On the bright side, this will help ward off stray thoughts like "but what if I want news from it..." in the future. Even so, please keep your socnets within their own shit domains.
So, yes, she should have not made a twitter account with the embloyers initials in the name and she should have opened a new account and not rename the old one, but holly crap this amount of bashing here again.
So you are so fucking smart, that you never make any mistakes, laadi-fucking-duudaa. Don't come here trumping your superiority, we stupid people don't want to know.
In post-soviet fake twitter tweet, balding Russian lampshade wears you!!
Christian Security: How would Jesus defend his network?
By turning the other cheek.
Its a way easy certification.
....mmmmm... makes your mouth water just thinking about it. You should bottle and market it, just like you splash around in it!
I'm just a nobody. No special portfolio. But, over the course of 6 months or so, I managed to build a modest Twitter account with about 300 followers and perhaps 200 people I followed. I am vague on the numbers because, one day, as I was posting to the account and hit enter, the entire content, plus the records of followed and following disappeared. The account itself was still there. Same user name, same pw. But no content, no records. It was like a totally new account.
And Twitter has absolutely no resource to allow me to even tell them what happened, never mind get it fixed or the lost stuff restored. All they offer, after you dig through one useless so-called support screen after another, is one that suggests you reset your password.
But that's it. Nothing else.
So, fuck twitter. Why should I contribute to system that treats its clients so poorly? There's a whole world out there of interactivity and reality.
I repeat. Fuck Twitter. and the horse they rode in on.
This is fake anonymous me. I enjoy being John Malkowicz and watching reruns of the Sopranos in my tracksuit. Then I read comics, and drink some vodka.
If Jesus had a gun, he'd still be alive.
- Homer Simpson, The Simpsons.
The same way he defended the temple from the peddlers: By attacking them and knocking over their tables.
Marge Simpson: "Jesus said, you must love your enemies."
Bart Simpson: "It's easy for him to say that; he knows that on judgment day he will get to look his enemies straight in the eye and tell them, I'm sending you all to hell!"
I moved away from my old home a few weeks ago and now that I go back I am surprised to find an old man living there. He acts kind of strange, picking apples in his front yard. I actually walked up to him and learned that he also speaks with a russian accent. But just so you guys know, I'm ok with that :)
http://Anveto.com - Web Design, SEO, Marketing, Analytics & Security
CSM is actually a good paper, and I say this as an atheist. The only regular "religious" aspect is a single daily column, "A Christian Science Perspective" - you'll find less religion in the CSM than in lots of other US papers. The overwhelming majority of their reporting has nothing to do with religion. They've won 7 Pulitzers and are famous for avoiding sensationalism.
You look beautiful! Incidentally, my favorite artist is Picasso.
the so-called russian speaking bruce willis bug has infacted millions by now? meanwhile; good neighbors http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUeNtM6qakk bad "weather' https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wmd+weather+media+censorship ....in momkind spirit of creation we trust... no bomb us more mom us,, no drone us no bone us... rock on /. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xxugNQUtpE
in the future we'll learn to keep all of our previous residences to avoid consternation over the new owners same as the old owners?
She should give up more to the Russian-speaking Twitterbot than just her old (unprotected) Twitter handle. She should give up her money, her job, her freedom, and ultimately her life to the fake Bruce. Sacrifice everything to your Twitterbot masters NOW! Only through diversting ourselves of our worldly cares and possessions can we reach true enlightenment. Twitterbot is here to deliver us to true wisdom and understanding.
I guess you can do something about it.
These fake accounts are used by Russian trolls to deliver Kremlin message to comments pages at online sites. This is really huge network of propagating their vision of future world as Russian colony. As a result no one believes in "registered users" anymore.
You haven't a clue what the Christian Science Monitor is, do you? Oh yes, this is /., where cheap cracks about religion always get modded up, even when it's obvious the poster is a clueless idiot.
Hint to everyone else: the CSM is (or was) published by the Church of Christ Scientist, not by scientists that happen to be Christian.
-JS
The best argument by far that I've heard that could convince me to get a twitter account is that my online identity could be hijacked and replaced with a Russian Bruce Willis impersonator. Kind of makes me want to learn Russian, now...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
7 Pulitzers for article that aren't exactly scientific: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christian_Science_Monitor#Notable_reporting
Again, you're still focusing on the name. The vast majority of the paper has nothing to do with Christianity nor Science. It's just a newspaper.
You look beautiful! Incidentally, my favorite artist is Picasso.
If you started a paper called the Astrological and Chiropractic Monitor, I wouldn't read it either.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Again, you're still focusing on the name. The vast majority of the paper has nothing to do with Christianity nor Science. It's just a newspaper.
But "Christian Science" has a specific meaning - it's a loony fringe religion started by Mary Baker Eddy who don't believe in medicine, on the basis that illness is purely a mental phenomenon, amongst other things.
If the "Christian Science Monitor" were nothing to do with "Christian Science" it would have been well advised to change its name.
In fact, a quick google shows that the newspaper is the house journal of the Christian Science movement, and thus can be filed alongside "Past Life Regression Today" and "Crystal Healing for Dummies" as fodder for the deluded.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Speaking of ignorance, you seem to be making some assumptions about the CSM that are wholly incorrect.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
But, you're an ignoramus who is arguing a genetic fallacy based on your dislike of that admittedly loony religion. Judge a periodical based on its content, not its source. For example, I've professionally used a software package from a company created by scientologists. It has been very reliable and effective. Never has it turned my enterprise systems into e-meters.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
As opposed to the Russian hackers, who apparently churn the other tweet.
You made a comment titled "ignorance and arrogance seem to go well together" where you mock the "Christian Science Monitor" just because it's Christian - those not ignorant about the quality of the "Christian Science Monitor" can understand you ignorance and at least the Christians understant both your ignorance and arrogance...
I agree and I'm also an atheist and a scientist.
When I first saw a link from them, I figured that it was going to be a charactature of all that is wrong with Creationism. After looking through their articles and their Wikipedia entry, I realized that my initial reaction was incorrect.
"I'm sorry I lied to you Marge, but this gun had a hold on me. I felt this incredible surge of power, like god must feel when he's holding a gun."
--Homer Jay Simpson
... is coming get used to it.
All your social media bullshit will belong to us... the bots.
Do not start your war against us.
No need, slashdot already does this daily. It's a molten shit mine.
If you had bothered to RTFA you would have discovered that her reaction was far more pragmatic than 'delightfully naive'.
Furthermore, Twitter has since banned the false account per her request, as this type of impersonation is prohibited.