Obama's Twitter Account "Hacked"

Oxford_Comma_Lover writes "A 24-year-old living with his mother in France was arrested for 'hacking' into Obama's twitter accounts. (Warning: WSJ does obnoxious paywall things. Your miles may vary.) Apparently he guesses the answer to a question related to password recovery in order to break into the accounts of famous people; he has no computer science training or financial motive. He posted screenshots to a few boards and twitter found out within a few hours, either from a tip or from noticing when someone from France logs onto twitter as the President of the United States. (He did not actually tweet as POTUS, but just wanted to show he could break into the account.)"

Re:He shouldn't be arrested

[drachenstern]

I just wanna know if it had the phone number to Obama's Blackberry synced and if those were in the screenshots...

Re:He shouldn't be arrested

[0100010001010011]

Who says the answer has to be 'right'?

For example every website that wants "Mother's Maiden Name" gets a sha1(md5($maidenname)). Technically accurate but no one is going to 'guess' it.

Same goes for all other questions. It doesn't even have to be as complex as a hash. Just do a simple reverse or Rot13.

Last name: Smith.
Reversed: htimS.
Rot 13: ugvzF.

Now the last name is technically accurate, even if it is permuted.

How?

[iprefermuffins]

I'm a little confused how this guy's "hack" worked as described. I just checked Twitter and it doesn't have password recovery questions. And the "forgot password" form offers to send a password reset link to the email address associated with the account, so it's not going to be a way in unless you have access to the email too.

Re:too obvious..

[Yetihehe]

If I forgot my password, there is very high possibility that I also forgot this complicated answer. Happened to me once.

Re:log of 'hacked' password recovery session:

[bsDaemon]

I used to be a paid functionary of the "conservative" movement. I use the term paid loosely, though, because I made shit for money and no benefits, but was forced to write propaganda against health care reform, even back in 2007. Most of these high-profile people against health care reform, I've met. Eric Cantor, for instance, I've met on several occasions. My hatred for the movement is largely to do with my own shame in having been part of that side of the aisle and actively working against my own interest, as well as that of many, many others of my countrymen. I'm sorry for all the crap that I helped do, but I learned my lesson, left and went on to other things. Maybe hate against movment members on the streets isn't warrented like it is against the party leaders, but I feel really, really bad for them that they either can't or won't realize that they're being manipulated to work against their own interests by the rich and powerful who serve as their puppet masters.