Twitter: hacked or not?

I'm not sure if it's true, but there's a claim that some Twitter accounts have been hacked. So far it seems Anonymous are involved, but Twitter says hacked accounts are already banned spam accounts or just duplicate.

Personally, I don't think there is some proper hacking because I didn't see my e-mail listed. I also can't find any very popular media reporting this case. However, I might be wrong.

What do you think?

Hackers claiming to be affiliated with the hacktivist group Anonymous claimed this week to have accessed and published the details of about 55,000 Twitter accounts.

But Twitter said Tuesday those claims are largely bogus, and that the group mostly posted duplicate information or username and password information for suspended spam accounts.

An anonymous Pastebin user posted five extremely long pages of alleged Twitter usernames and passwords to the text storage site on Monday. (Here are pages one, two, three, four and five.) The hacking news aggregator Airdemon.net reported the supposed breach on Tuesday, beginning to fuel speculation around the web of a massive successful attack on Twitter’s servers. Airdemon said celebrity accounts were among those compromised, and also claimed to have information from a “Twitter insider” confirming the attack.

...

Source: mashable

Ben... Canada. May 09 2012 17:10. Posts 1702

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I checked for both my email and ID and neither were in the 5 lists. From the look of the lists, the vast majority of the accounts were gibberish emails and Twitter IDs and 8-character randomly generated passwords often associated with spam accounts so it looks like Twitter might be honest in their claim that the accounts are just banned and spam accounts.

"Cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide" -Tastosis

TheBatman United States. May 09 2012 17:18. Posts 177

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hmm this is quite the issue, Anonymous will have a monopoly on the inflow and distribution of tweets.
We are going to have to take this issue very seriously and handle it delicately, considering worst case scenario where Anonymous sends out mean/hurtful tweets using these accounts where the recipient may think it's from their friend or family, some feelings might be very hurt.

We must fight this at all costs, our tweets are at stake!

Last edit: 2012-05-09 17:19:41

v3chr0 United States. May 09 2012 17:44. Posts 855

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Every single one of those passwords is ##(Letter) or #(letter), (L)(L)#, etc, not one password is an actual word + numbers's, it's definitely bullshit. Maybe a few are real but I doubt it, I just checked, my stuff isn't listed either.

"He catches him with his pants down, backs him off into a corner, and then it's over." - Khaldor

Witten United States. May 09 2012 17:52. Posts 1166

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Anonymous is really wasting their time doing this, who are they protesting with this? Usually they try to say they have a message or a cause but what could they have against twitter?

Well, judging by the supply Jaehoon is still 4 supply ahead, clearly he raped face in that battle. -Sayle 23:10 Cranium: the way i would fix SC2 23:10 Cranium: is i would tell them 23:10 Cranium: to remove everything stupid

Wombat_NI Northern Ireland. May 09 2012 18:01. Posts 5145

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On May 09 2012 17:52 Witten wrote:
Anonymous is really wasting their time doing this, who are they protesting with this? Usually they try to say they have a message or a cause but what could they have against twitter?

Anon don't really have an overarching goal, they are a disparate group of individuals. Some are conscious of what they perceive to be social injustice, some just probably like the power that they get from doing such things.

'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - McBengt Also anyone with any questions or desires to help the Irish scene, PM me!

Shock710 Australia. May 09 2012 18:08. Posts 2925

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i'm not sure about this, so correct me if i'm wrong, cause i dont really know about hacking and that kinda stuff apart from what i hear on the news and TL ect, but cant any hacker, or anyone on the net call themselves Anonymous?

The day before christmas my true love gave to me: Teamliquid | [23:55] <Shock710> that was out of context -_-

MonkSEA Australia. May 09 2012 18:12. Posts 1161

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claiming is key word in this article.

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nayc Germany. May 09 2012 18:13. Posts 42

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On May 09 2012 17:44 v3chr0 wrote:
Every single one of those passwords is ##(Letter) or #(letter), (L)(L)#, etc, not one password is an actual word + numbers's, it's definitely bullshit. Maybe a few are real but I doubt it, I just checked, my stuff isn't listed either.

who uses real words as part of password? THATS bullshit. srsly

Last edit: 2012-05-09 18:13:24

There is no "i" in "fuck you!"

HotShizz France. May 09 2012 18:13. Posts 553

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I am going to say regardless of whether twitter was hacked or not we need to make a stand here and now! I, for one, will not stand by as a word like "hacktivist" is attempted to be engendered! No, sirs, we must nip it in the bud!

RaZorwire Sweden. May 09 2012 18:28. Posts 318

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On May 09 2012 18:13 nayc wrote:
who uses real words as part of password? THATS bullshit. srsly

I do... And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in the world.

darkness Bulgaria. May 09 2012 18:55. Posts 2661

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On May 09 2012 18:08 Shock710 wrote:
i'm not sure about this, so correct me if i'm wrong, cause i dont really know about hacking and that kinda stuff apart from what i hear on the news and TL ect, but cant any hacker, or anyone on the net call themselves Anonymous?

From what I've read, you're right about Anonymous, hence their name and, I guess, masks. I've made a blog recently, but it wasn't deeper than saying this could be abused if someone pretends to be Anonymous and provokes people to do some kind of stupid stuff.

Last edit: 2012-05-09 18:55:44

JackDino Gabon. May 09 2012 19:01. Posts 3292

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They're a bunch of idiots trying to have some "fun" and sometimes pretend that it's for the greater good, but it really isn't. Just a bunch of kids.

This isnt Broodwar so I dont owe anyone respect for beating me. -arb

acerockolla United States. May 09 2012 19:10. Posts 219

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Twitter was setup so that you could have a script run forever that continually sets up accounts. I remember this specifically with the race to 1 million, numerous scripts were posted to get someone (I forget who) to 1 mill followers before kutcher or whoever it was. Also, anonymous simply equates to script kiddies. It's ridiculous how the media gives attention to people who use botnets to DDoS websites, which is truly a non-event. Even the things they "leak" are typically found through open source methods / "google expertise". You'll never hear about real hackers, because the companeis will never report them, as it shows how vulnerable they truly are, and those very hackers will never expose themselves, as they aren't doing it for attention like retarded script kiddies.

r.Evo Germany. May 09 2012 19:13. Posts 5194

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On May 09 2012 18:13 nayc wrote:

Show nested quote +

who uses real words as part of password? THATS bullshit. srsly

Not sure if you're aware of it but making your passwords unpronouncable gibberish isn't exactly most effective.

xkcd pointed it out pretty well: http://xkcd.com/936/

+ Show Spoiler +

"We don't make mistakes here, we call it happy little accidents." ~Bob Ross

Clarity_nl Netherlands. May 09 2012 19:28. Posts 3283

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On May 09 2012 18:01 Wombat_NI wrote:

Show nested quote +

It's the obscurity of "if you say you're anon, you're anon" that's going to be their downfall.
I say good riddance.

More gg, more skill.

Alvin853 Germany. May 09 2012 19:36. Posts 149

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I'm saying "not hacked"

Looking at the lists, all of the accounts seem to be automatically generated using given patterns, probably to artificially generate followers for other users (offering followers for money?) or to spam tweets, maybe trying to hijack trending topics. Some white knight of the internet found the data, and didn't know if he'd get in trouble, so he just published it so twitter can take care of the situation.

More info on Hacker News

Yoshi- Germany. May 09 2012 20:41. Posts 3999

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On May 09 2012 19:13 r.Evo wrote:

Show nested quote +

Not sure if you're aware of it but making your passwords unpronouncable gibberish isn't exactly most effective.

xkcd pointed it out pretty well: http://xkcd.com/936/

+ Show Spoiler +

That password is like the worst password. With a small dictionary and by combining words, this would be cracked in less than a hour.

v3chr0 United States. May 09 2012 20:49. Posts 855

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I'm just saying that every single one of those passwords is basically a recurring format. That's highly improbable (to be real), some of those passwords would contain words, real or not (xtrollzor91), there are none like that, just scrambled letters and numbers, not even 1337 words or random capitalization.

Last edit: 2012-05-09 20:53:12

"He catches him with his pants down, backs him off into a corner, and then it's over." - Khaldor

BallerIndustries Australia. May 09 2012 20:54. Posts 22

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On May 09 2012 17:18 TheBatman wrote:
hmm this is quite the issue, Anonymous will have a monopoly on the inflow and distribution of tweets.
We are going to have to take this issue very seriously and handle it delicately, considering worst case scenario where Anonymous sends out mean/hurtful tweets using these accounts where the recipient may think it's from their friend or family, some feelings might be very hurt.

We must fight this at all costs, our tweets are at stake!

Not really. It's very easy for twitter to ban/suspend all of these accounts.

A lonely game developer ballerindustries.com

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