Twitter Users Warned About Being Targeted By State-Sponsored Attacks (bbc.com) 43
An anonymous reader writes: Twitter has sent out unexpected warning notices to a number of users, informing them that their account might have been targeted by state-sponsored hackers. This is the first time Twitter is known to have sent out such notifications, and they're also recommending Tor and other privacy-oriented measures to these users. Among known recipients of the message are Coldhak, a Winnipeg-based nonprofit; Coldhak director Colin Childs; privacy and security researcher Runa Sandvik; activists and cryptoparty organizer Cassie Traun; security researcher Noris Fabio; Tech writer and programmer David Robinson; and banker and mathematics student Jens Kubieziel (also the author of a book about anonymity on the Internet).
tor? twitter? (Score:5, Informative)
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Doubtful. Twitter already engages in banning people for wrongthink [archive.is] and forcing people to delete tweets that are engaged in wrongthink as well. [reddit.com] You think they'll give an exemption to Tor users? I doubt it, more likely they'll bend over backwards and give the totalitarian governments a hand.
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To that end, Twitter has also broadened its definition of "violent threats"—which may lead to more users getting stuck in this new suspension net—by removing a "direct, specific" qualifier and adding a qualifier about "promoting violence against others."
Are you getting confused by the presumably fake tweet? I know, it seems odd that Twitter would use a direct threat of violence to demonstrate that they will now ban indirect, non-specific promotion of violence against others. But hey, going by your reaction and moderation, it works.
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I'm not sure what you're doing wrong, but it works fine for me. I regularly use it through Tails OS (all Tor, all the time) and Twitter hasn't bumped me off yet. I think Twitter was very anti-Tor until the last year or so. Was your experience further back than that?
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I know Tor is pretty large in scale and has a lot of IP addresses through it's many proxies, but I've always wondered what the chances you get an IP that some spammer just used thus causing problems such as your twitter getting blocked.
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Sounds to me like yet ANOTHER reason not to be on social media, like FB or twitter....
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Sounds to me like yet ANOTHER reason not to be on social media, like FB or twitter....
Exactly...as if I needed another reason, lol.
I have no facebook, no twitter, no pinterest, instagram, linkedin, etc etc etc, none of that crap. And yet my life seems to be doing just fine, better in fact than most the people I know who are obsessively fiddling with that shit all day long. I have a life, they have text messages.
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Social Media is about Public Information. If you choose to post political beliefs then people will know your political beliefs, and not all of them will agree with you. If you are posting that you are doing illegal activities then chances are the officials will be finding that. Using FaceBook or Twitter is fine if you post stuff that you want everyone to know about you.
I tend to limit to pictures of my Pets, and the weather.
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Well, it isn't just what YOU post. You might be careful....
BUT, it can cause y
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Re: Okay, but... (Score:1)
Twitter allows you to post your every thought. It is a temporary workaround while the chips they are going to insert in our brains are being beta tested.
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I don't even know what Twitter is. What is it?
Twitter is the confetti of the internet.
State-Sponsored attacks? (Score:3)
so which states are sponsoring these attacks? I know that if I was living in one of those states I would be contacting the governor and my local state representative and senator about the waste of taxpayers money. They should be spending the surplus on roads and bridges (or giving us tax refunds if they were Republican s)
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Could also be the US. The point is that "state sponsored" should be read as "nation-state sponsored". It has nothing to do with individual states within the US.
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But Tor can do nothing about the path between the exit node and the endpoint. It can't protect you against an endpoint that is a bad actor. That's where the hidden service comes in handy; the Tor user has a completely hidden connection to the endpoint without the normal problems associated with malevolent exit nodes, or the path between the exit and the endpoint. Yes, good habits are still required between the hidden service user and the hidden service.
Don't fight the crime if you can't waste the time (Score:1)
Don't do it!
Throw away the account. Make a new one. Throw it away! Go some where else! Do some thing else!
Lol, not me (Score:2)
Damn, if only I had a Twitter account then I could lay awake at night worrying about this...
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I just set 2FA on my Twitter account and forget about it. The only reason I have a Twitter account is because during a recent job interview, the interviewer asked about what stuff I tweeted, I told him that I didn't bother... and the interviewer called me a fossil for not being "hip enough to use modern technology" and ended the interview. So, I have a Twitter account just so if asked about it, I can say I have one, and actually have bothered to follow one company.
That, and one website I used to use decid
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... and the interviewer called me a fossil for not being "hip enough to use modern technology" and ended the interview.
Jesus, what a jackass. I would have told that prick in no uncertain terms to FUCK RIGHT OFF, and I might have accidentally spilled my coffee on his desk on the way out (hey, accidents happen, amirite?).
Seriously, if you won't hire me because I don't have a fucking twitter account, then fuck you. You and your company are exactly the kind of assholes I'd never want to work for.
And, just to close the loop, if he wasn't the CEO, I'd write the CEO a brief, polite letter him know what an asswipe his hiring manag
I have been targeted myself (Score:1)
The US government is requiring me to register my drones.
See!
How will I bird watch all the nests now?