Hijacked Fox News Twitter Account Falsely Claims Obama Shot Dead 290
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.'"
HOW? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is your corporate account. How does this happen?
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This is your corporate account. How does this happen?
I suggest it didn't. They just had to really quickly gin up a "hacker group" to cover their sick joke
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This is your corporate account. How does this happen?
I suggest it didn't. They just had to really quickly gin up a "hacker group" to cover their sick joke
It's sad, but what you said rings more true than anything that so-called news organisation comes out with....
Re:HOW? (Score:5, Interesting)
Take a breath, man, Jesus.
I am not an american, I don't support either of your two parties. I made no comment on Obama, or any of the other news outlets. None are perfect, and I didn't say any were. However, in my eyes, what thankfully little I see of Fox News is the worst example of biased shrill fearmongering bullshit which twists facts, ignores common sense, and generates maximum anger, fear and hate - and leads to rants like yours, which so beautifully illustrates the problems that are making the US political system so badly uncompromising, reactive and broken.
Whether you agree with Fox's agenda (and you cannot realistically deny they have one) or not, the fact is they fucked up on a matter of IT security here, and it takes down a peg or two, and I think that's a good thing, are enjoying it. I could hope that they might start to take themselves a little less seriously, but it's a little to much to ask.
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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.
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P.S. WTF would it even mean to "outlaw Russia forever?"
Re:HOW? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:HOW? (Score:5, Informative)
If you're going to implement password cycling, keep it reasonable. The system I access has nothing more sensitive than the last four digits of a credit card number. We really don't need monthly cycling unless we're dealing with something really secure.
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Solution?
*) Choose a master password.
*) Never forget it, never disclose it
*) Concatenate it with "MonthYYYY"
*) Calculate its SHA1 in base 64
*) Ensure that the 8 first chars contain upper, lower, number. If not, concatenate i+=1 to the master password and keep hashing
It looks like this In Ruby: http://www.pastie.org/2163871 [pastie.org]
An example with P4SSW0RD as master password gives : OWRhNGE5
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At bare minimum that really ought to be 1 upper, 2 digits, 7+ length and no words. And that's an extremely low standard at this point given the state of affairs these days. It always bothers me when sites require me to use no more than 16 characters. It's not realistic to expect people to memorize all these unique passwords so you may as well require them to use a 30 character password.
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Yeah I know, you must have wasted a good half hour reading those unwanted posts but I promise you, the more you read the faster you'll get until eventually it won't be such a big deal. After a mere sentence or two you'll know whether a post is worth reading or not, and it might only take you a second or so. But for now keep working on your words!
Forum rage makes me laugh and wonder exactly how pathetic your life must be.
I've upped my browsing threshold. (Score:2)
Tell me, Sherlock, how do I determine that I shouldn't read a post?
Up yours.
Re:HOW? (Score:5, Insightful)
.
Re:HOW? (Score:4, Funny)
Burmashave?
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Password = 12345
Thats the same as my luggage!
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Their owner, being Australian, has somehow confused American Independence Day with April Fool's Day... given the mix of stupidity and false patriotism Fox broadcasts, it wouldn't surprise me if he considered the two days one and the same.
FORMER Australian, thank you. We're glad to be rid of him. You wanted him (and gave him citizenship), you've got him.
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Speak for yourself, I didn't want that carpetbagging asshole here!
Look, can we compromise here? Since he's all for no government can we jointly ship him off to, I don't know, Somalia?
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No, it was Bob Saget who didn't rape and murder a young girl, and it was 1990 that it didn't happen in. Get your unfacts straight!
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Just dump him in the middle of Bir Tawil [wikipedia.org].
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If anything working on PCs belonging to those in all walks of life I've found that that rail on about family values usually have the largest porn collections.
Your neighbors and family members don't count as a statistically relevant sample group.
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How about that Republican guy who kept condemning homosexuality, but was caught with a male prostitute? And his wife was unaware of his proclivities. Well, I suppose I should be more specific, since there's been about a dozen.
That might not be statistically relevant either, but it's pretty damning nevertheless.
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"Fuck, the fact that you're at Slashdot shows that you have an extreme tolerance for lies and dimwit bullshit being posted as "news."
And yet you are drawn here to read the lies and bullshit and post your own, undoubtedly lies and bullshit. Thank you for making Slashdot a better place!
nt (Score:4, Informative)
In all fairness, Fox News did claim (accidentally) that the president was dead in Afghanistan.
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Though it seems like an honest mistake... then again, they are Fox News, so...
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Don't you know never to let facts get in the way of ideology? It's the new way~
I refuse to believe it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I refuse to believe it (Score:4, Funny)
Won't happen anytime soon, following strict Christian Laws they dropped his body over the Atlantic ocean.
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... before sunset.
Why (Score:3, Funny)
what's the point of hacking fox news to spread disinformation? Just leave them alone and they will do it by themselves.
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If they were really in it for the lulz they'd be posting accurate information. Such as admitting that Bush didn't win the 2000 Presidential election,
Why aren't they deleted yet? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Probably because they haven't (yet) regained control of the account. Given that it's the 4th of July, I suspect a lot of organisations (Twitter included) are on skeleton crews today. If Fox News calls in a huff demanding an account password is changed immediately, how's the crew to know if this is real or another layer of social engineering? All the higher-ups who would make any decision like that are just now waking up & planning their day of grilling.
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I had not heard of FoxNews before this
Welcome to Earth. Our is a peaceful race.
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Maybe whoever gained access to the account also changed the password?
Re:Why aren't they deleted yet? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why aren't they deleted yet? (Score:5, 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.
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This reminds me of the Mark Foley incident where he was repeatedly labeled as a Democrat during a show, and that show was re-run three times at least before the text was edited out (without explanation). Just like with Twitter content, Fox News probably didn't know that it could edit video content either.
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Hackers on steroids !
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Maybe Fox News are twits who don't know how to delete tweets?
Maybe there is an opening for a tweeter deleter.
false flag! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hacker's Kill Switch (Score:2)
I would much prefer that the hackers be hunted down and have their Kill Switch flipped...with the help of an HK416.
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I'd rather the hackers' USB rights were revoked, and they were forced to revert to RS-232-C.
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Are you serial about that?
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Yeah! It would make sure there's null modem hackers!
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Re:false flag! (Score:4, Funny)
So the government is unable to prevent people leaking sensitive diplomatic cables and embarrassing videos and documents yet they can pull off massive false flag operations without a single person leaking the fact that it's a government operation? Umm, yeah right.
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It doesn't require the government to carry out a false flag. It could easily be a single person at Fox News who has the password, goes to the library, posts the fake information and claims it was a hacker.
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Re:false flag! (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Of course the most insidious part of the government's plan was the pre-planting of paranoid conspiracy theories on all the major tech sites, so that when the time came, the Internet's system operators would turn on each other in a ferocious bloodbath of nerd terror.
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There's nothing to riot about, yet. The current situation is a day at the beach compared to the Great Depression, and the public are divided between the two Parties so everyone has a plump affirming cawk to suckle on.
USians are vocal, but they are too cozy and stupid to change anything, and more important they no longer have any idea about what to change other than breaking government (not a bad experiment).
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Really not even funny to joke about. Although I dislike the messages of MSNBC, I would NEVER suggest their censorship. People like you will lead to the destruction of our 1st amendment rights.
Official Fox News reaction (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/04/foxnewspolitics-twitter-feed-hacked/
The next thing Twitter needs... (Score:2)
... is optional 2-factor authentication.
@foxnewspolitics (the account in question) only has 33k followers but other prominent accounts have many more. A quick check shows @foxnews has 3/7 million and CNN has over 2 million. The ability to spread news to millions of people NEEDS to have more than just a single password.
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Sorry for the typo. @foxnews has 3/4 million followers, not 3/7. :-)
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Your laptop doesn't have a numberpad?
Sounds like a phish-fest in the making. (Score:3)
"You may have heard of recent incidents involving compromised accounts on major Web sites, including Twitter. To strengthen the integrity of our systems and accounts and ensure compliance with Federal cybersecurity laws and recommendations, we at Twitter are now instituting a stronger authentication system. In order to continue posting after 11:59:59 PM 2011-07-04, we require your full name, address, Social Security Number (SSN), Date of Birth (DOB), and valid US credit card information. Click Here [example.com] to ve
And congress said... (Score:3, Funny)
no problem, we'll just attach more strings...
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Nice one. I wish I had mod points.
Shame it's only the one account (Score:2, Insightful)
When content falsely attributed to LulzSec started showing up on Pastebin, and their response was essentially "it's not real unless we tweet it", I really, *really* wanted someone to crack their Twitter account. A Twitter credentials dump could lead to some some serious lulz.
Better ways of getting them (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
Sorry, but Philo already returned to his home planet. We'd need some way to broadcast it other than U62.
And we don't have Stanley's mop handy.
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God I loved UHF. I wish Weird Al would make another movie.
Something's fishy here (Score:3)
Why would someone "hack" a Fox news twitter account and promptly announce something that the followers of that account would cheer at, or at least be mildly glad of it? Why Tweet something huge like that?
Everything about the Tweet that was sent screams immature and/or amateur, but the content of it hints at some twisted intent that no real hackers would have.
"The Script Kiddies"? Come the fuck on.
If I were going to hack a Fox Twitter account, I'd send a message that was contrary to Fox's agenda. Something like "Boehner, Cantor, McConnell found performing gay satanic ritual in Capitol basement. Nervous goats on scene, US flags burning."
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As a social experiment. How many people will re-tweet this (and with what levels of anonymity-fueled ebullience) without checking sources? As recently as ten minutes ago someone re-tweeted this as if it were true.
Extra bonus points if any so-called "news" outlet -- radio, television, or internet -- actually reported this as true.
Of course, for some, 'social experiment' is the excuse. It's really for the lulz.
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It's gross misrepresentation and tantamount to blanket libel to write that followers of a certain account, by definition, wish to see the President dead.
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It's ... tantamount to blanket libel to write that followers of a certain account, by definition, wish to see the President dead.
is that what the Fox legal team said? why would you repeat corporate rubbish? at least put a smiley face on that noise or you might confuse the less evolved
Very dissapointed... (Score:2)
Re:Not even trying, are we? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, you can tell it's an obvious fake as they call it a "sad day". Fox would never do that.
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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.
Re:Not even trying, are we? (Score:4, 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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"Bah, so shoddily written and obviously fake that's it's not even funny"
That makes it a good fit with the rest of Fox pseudo-news. Yes, really.
Der Sturmer probably had better editors.
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I'd expect a "#goodnightsweetprince" hashtag from real script kiddies.
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Maybe their editor was woken up by the sound of champagne corks popping.
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Not their job. It's your job to make the case that it's true.
Re:Only news because it is Fox, not CNN or MSNBC.. (Score:5, Insightful)
So I guess you're voting for the Republican candidate in 2012 then?
Back on planet earth... (Score:3)
it is a major headline and an opportunity for the childlike masses to stroke themselves into a frenzy of Fox bashing and demonizing
Those of us who actually read the headline for this slashdot article noticed it started with "hijacked fox news twitter account". If slashdot was actually looking to make fox news look bad, they would have chosen a less-friendly headline. Both news outlets are on the payroll of newsmax.com/townhall.com.
Palin
Is not officially running for anything right now. We just know she loves being in front of a camera.
Bachmann
Is running, but writes her own jokes.
Trump
Has already dropped out of the running.
unclever anti-fox KOS memes.
Do you honestly believe
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Don't you usually blog at Democraticunderground.com?
No. Or is this some sort of joke that just isn't funny?
R
Did someone log your browser onto another site while you were off getting a diet coke?
I don't drink diet coke.
Wrong Forum (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you are posting on the wrong forum. This site, through the surprisingly effective moderation system, leans heavily toward rational analysis when compared to most.
While there is a significant bias in favor of a fairly strict interpretation of the Bill of Rights (though at times the second gets shorter shrift than I might prefer) on this site, that is a bias that would serve my nation (and, I believe, most nations) quite well. And it may be that the offenses to the first and fourth have been most heavily observed to come from the side of the aisle you seem to prefer (at least until Obama took that ball and ran with it). But your post seems targeted at forums which play host to leftists. Certainly the amount of rational disdain that this forum focuses on the left-oriented oligarchs in the health care, law, and copyright industries should be more than adequate evidence of the lack of partisan line-toe-ing here.
Save your implications of dupery for people who do not engage in critical thinking. Your attempt to induce stigma-based inhibition to identifying and publishing cases of media bias and politicians who generate more heat than light are neither warranted nor productive in this place.
If you must pander to one side, do it by pointing out factual errors or examples of emotionalism on the side you do not like. Engage in creative destruction by rational deconstruction; leave your emotionalist inhibition mongering at home.
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"he has proven himself to be just like the retard he replaced in most respects. reform my ass."
Well, as a foreigner there's at least one area we can be thankful you have Obama, and that's that at least Obama is just fucking your country up, in contrast, Bush managed to fuck everyone's country up between managing to drastically increase religious tension in the world and nurture policies that brought the world economy to near collapse.
I suppose you could be thankful that he at least hasn't started any new tr
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the religious tensions i'm sure have nothing to do with the fact that your government convinced the taliban to fight a proxy war against the USSR, then after the commies went back home, you just left them with the country in ruins, the economy colapsed and not even a "thank you" note.
oh, the inconditional support to israel's near genocidal policies have nothing to do with it either.
you know, there's only so much bullying and lying you can get away with before someone slams an airplane or three in your build
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You kinda missed his point. In Afghanistan, US indiscriminately armed all factions so long as they were fighting the Soviets - even the religious fanatics. When said fanatics then used the guns to overrun the rest of the country, it's not exactly surprising that some people find it mildly amusing that, 15 years later, US labels those same guys terrorists and starts a witch hunt. Doubly so when Russians are hired as consultants.
That mistake is being repeated right as we speak, by the way - US is now indiscri
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Do you always add shitloads of crazy stuff to the posts you comment on or is that just when you do not have a leg to stand on?
I can not really see in my post where I advocated killing all Muslims.
I do though agree that any Christian church that keeps its mouth shut when Christians do horrible things should be looked at closely and trusted not at all.
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Because you blame the religious tensions on terrorists. The religious tensions have absolutely nothing to do with the actual 9/11 attack, and everything to do with America (as a whole, not as in every individual) started equating Muslim and Terrorist afterwards. If instead, people had been intelligent and gone "Religion is only an excuse for their actions, not the reason," and not decided that bombing the fuck out of every country the terrorists had a camp in, there wouldn't be the rise in religious tension
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Re:ironically it's not far from the truth... (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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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 peopl
Re:ironically it's not far from the truth... (Score:4, Interesting)
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 evil, but the free market is not perfect. Take a look at How Markets Fail [amazon.com]. We've seen over the past ten years (or actually since 1980) that as the wealthy accumulate a greater and greater share of the wealth, average wages and employment figures do not improve. Also, there's no requirement that they invest or loan the money in the U.S. Whenever we given money to an investor, a lot of that money will end up overseas.
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That theory, while trivially true, falls down when you're borrowing at usurious rates and taxing people to fund inefficient government-enabled monopolies to inject funds into an economy with more holes in it.
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100% Correct. When in doubt just spend and borrow more. Whatever you do. Never spend less.
First off, hang all the lawyers, that way the international banksters won't be able to get the best justice money can buy. Secondly, hang all the banksters. It really doesn't matter whether Obama is alive or dead since his signature is recorded by auto-sign technology.
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Find me the statute which makes it a federal crime to joke about the president having been killed, and I'll find you the part of the Constitution which makes it invalid.
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We're still here at /., aren't we?