Elon Musk Buys Twitter

[Cthulhu 2020]

https://twitter.com/JackMLawrence/st...80221257359361

It took me less than 25 minutes to set up a fake anonymous Apple ID using a VPN and disposable email, attach a masked debit card to it (with the address being Twitter's HQ), and get a verified account for a prominent figure. Just think what a nation-state or bad actor could do...

Twitter wants to pass the verification steps off to Apple and card providers but Apple didn't check a single detail and you can easily find disposable cards with no links to you or even stolen/hacked card details if you're a particularly malicious actor. The policy is unworkable

Twitter claims they've raised costs for malicious actors but I think they've actually lowered them. Now anyone with $8 can buy a verified badge rather than having to hire someone to hack a verified's account or trawl through password leaks.

It's not impersonations of high-profile accounts that are the problem. It's the person impersonating a minor online celebrity, an obscure government functionary, or perhaps their ex. That's where the harm will be done and no one will notice or care until it's far too late

The problem with the argument that "the verification system now just means something different and we should accept that" is that the new system is very unintuitive and counter to what every other SM site does. If you're not terminally online you may not realise what's happened

There will be a few examples of big accounts doing big damage but I suspect the more common scenario we'll see is small to medium size accounts doing small to medium size damage (or big damage to a small number of people). It'll be death by a thousand cuts not a single blow

It’s even worse than this. Twitter will have no way to know which of the 7 accounts claiming to be Dr X is really Dr X. They may find fakes but they’ll ban many real users, too.

This is a really good point. If everyone can get verified (without anybody actually verifying their identity at any stage of the process) how will anyone - let alone twitter - know who the real Dr X is?

Earlier this year it was revealed that 57 UK MP’s didn’t have twitter accounts. What’s to stop someone starting up an account as one of them? As long as you don’t go overboard the impersonation could take a while to be detected. (h/t
@GidMK

My argument is not only that bad stuff might happen. It was also a response to twitter’s repeated claims that just because they’re not doing verification it doesn’t mean no one is. My experiment debunks this claim. No one checked my identity at any stage.

As I said earlier during the Elon Musk Twitter Space meeting with the advertisers: Twitter should focus on prevention rather than mitigation with the impersonation issue. As long as they only treat impersonation as their problem AFTER it’s happened I’m not sure they’ll get far

Infosec and cybersec people are ringing alarm bells at how huge a fuck up being able to buy the authentication check mark is. It's not the big names that it's a danger, it's people impersonating smaller names and committing phishing and crypto scams, among other things, in their name.

[Mayhem]

To be fair, they didn't have much choice in that. Both my Grandpas fought in the war and both were definitiely not nazis (as in supporting the Nazi ideals). One was executed because he refused to shoot russian partisans since he was himself half russian. The other lucked out and was in Norway, didn't shoot a single shot in the war, made even friends there that he visited for decades after the war every year. And boy did he hate the Nazi party. But when they came to draft it was either that or the camps.

Hm looks at Iran and the women that keep protesting despite rape and executions

yeah

not much of a choice

[Shadowferal]

Elon Musk Sells $3.95 Billion More in Tesla Stock. The Timing Is Odd.

Investors were waiting for stock sales from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, guessing he needed to sell more shares to finish his Twitter purchase. He sold more stock, but it happened after the Twitter deal closed.

Musk disclosed the sale of 19.5 million shares of Tesla (ticker: TSLA), or about $3.95 billion of it, in 38 separate transactions on Nov. 4, 7 and 8. He has been selling stock for the past three days, according to disclosure filings that posted on Tuesday.

Tesla stock is down about 11% over the past three days. The Nasdaq Composite is up almost 3% over the same span.

Musk’s sales actually help explain the Tesla stock drop—a little. Higher than average volume—buying or selling—can move a stock in either direction. About 319 million Tesla shares traded over the past 3 days. That is roughly 106 million shares a day, which is about 40% higher than the average daily trading volume over the past 30 days. Musk is only a small portion of that increase. Still, he represented about 6% of the total volume over the past few days.

[Poopymonster]

If someone can convince Elon Musk to buy Chil-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby, that'd be fantastic.

[s_bushido]

If someone can convince Elon Musk to buy Chil-Fil-A and Hobby Lobby, that'd be fantastic.

lol, why?

I haven't had Chick-Fil-A in years. They still donating to political groups that want to put LGBT people in camps?

[Lathspell]

https://twitter.com/JackMLawrence/st...80221257359361



Infosec and cybersec people are ringing alarm bells at how huge a fuck up being able to buy the authentication check mark is. It's not the big names that it's a danger, it's people impersonating smaller names and committing phishing and crypto scams, among other things, in their name.

I was under the impression that they verify the name against the payment info. So they would need to have that persons credit card info too to impersonate them.

[Draco-Onis]

Yeah, it's got too big a userbase to collapse in the way some people believe it will, but it sure is bleeding users already leaving the door wide open to competition. If this keeps up I'm not sure many will be using Twitter in three to five years.

Let's also keep in mind Twitter is a private company Elon can keep it going and lie to everyone about how great he is doing until the cows come home. The guy is a compulsive liar and as a private company he basically has zero oversight and no transparency.

[Forogil]

I was under the impression that they verify the name against the payment info. So they would need to have that persons credit card info too to impersonate them.

I don't know how hard that will be for scammers, and there are two major exceptions to that - in many cases there are multiple persons with the same name, and additionally many tweet-handles aren't the legal name of the person.

Stephen King has been mentioned regarding the cost, but consider a related author: Joe Hill https://twitter.com/joe_hill - should he be denied that mark since it isn't his real name?

[Paranoid Android]

So you have no proof that they were all Nazis. Good to know.

Hey obtuse person! They SWORE a loyalty oath to Hitler.

Why the eff are you thinking it's good to defend a pic of an actual German WWII picture. For the most brilliant man in the world that so many love D-riding, you should at least know staying away from any German WWII pic is probably the best thing.

Thanks for your contrarian takes. I will add you to my ignore list.

[Specialka]

Hey obtuse person! They SWORE a loyalty oath to Hitler.

Why the eff are you thinking it's good to defend a pic of an actual German WWII picture. For the most brilliant man in the world that so many love D-riding, you should at least know staying away from any German WWII pic is probably the best thing.

Thanks for your contrarian takes. I will add you to my ignore list.

You do realize that your signature perfectly applies to you.

Stop derailing the thread.

Btw, @Yriel gave us a good example of reality.

[Yriel]

Hm looks at Iran and the women that keep protesting despite rape and executions

yeah

not much of a choice

So every single women who protests gets directly sent to a concentration camp in Iran? I did not know that.

[Rozz]

Get back on topic and don't reignite a derail.

[Rasulis]

Elon Musk Sells $3.95 Billion More in Tesla Stock. The Timing Is Odd.

Investors were waiting for stock sales from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, guessing he needed to sell more shares to finish his Twitter purchase. He sold more stock, but it happened after the Twitter deal closed.

Musk disclosed the sale of 19.5 million shares of Tesla (ticker: TSLA), or about $3.95 billion of it, in 38 separate transactions on Nov. 4, 7 and 8. He has been selling stock for the past three days, according to disclosure filings that posted on Tuesday.

Tesla stock is down about 11% over the past three days. The Nasdaq Composite is up almost 3% over the same span.

Musk’s sales actually help explain the Tesla stock drop—a little. Higher than average volume—buying or selling—can move a stock in either direction. About 319 million Tesla shares traded over the past 3 days. That is roughly 106 million shares a day, which is about 40% higher than the average daily trading volume over the past 30 days. Musk is only a small portion of that increase. Still, he represented about 6% of the total volume over the past few days.

The big question is whether he will need to sell more Tesla stocks to maintain Twitter daily operation? Or will he be able to convince somebody to front the money.

[Edge-]

The big question is whether he will need to sell more Tesla stocks to maintain Twitter daily operation? Or will he be able to convince somebody to front the money.

Don't worry, he'll fire enough people and drive away enough users that operating costs will be commensurate with its even further reduced revenue.

[Forogil]

Musk’s sales actually help explain the Tesla stock drop—a little. Higher than average volume—buying or selling—can move a stock in either direction. About 319 million Tesla shares traded over the past 3 days. That is roughly 106 million shares a day, which is about 40% higher than the average daily trading volume over the past 30 days. Musk is only a small portion of that increase. Still, he represented about 6% of the total volume over the past few days.

Why do they make the explanation so complicated by discussing volume?

Musk wanted to sell a lot (of shares) in a short time-frame, that usually reduces the price in a market.

[Draco-Onis]

Don't worry, he'll fire enough people and drive away enough users that operating costs will be commensurate with its even further reduced revenue.

I am sure the Saudis and Chinese would be happy to give him more money for more stake and control not that anyone would ever know about it since they are private.

[Paranoid Android]

Oh yes! While I don't want people to get scammed, if brings this place down, then I'm for it. I posted earlier all you need is any business, especially a bank account scam someone. Dat Blue Check mark!

[Edge-]

Weird how Twitter seems to take almost immediate action on accounts "impersonating" Elon, but that there seem to be thousands of ever-growing genuine spoof accounts engaged in actually malicious activity.

I wonder why advertisers don't feel like that's a safe platform for their brands to be spending money on?

[Paranoid Android]

Several top security and privacy executives resigned from Twitter on Thursday, citing the rapid rollout of new features without proper security reviews and Elon Musk’s order that employees return to the office.


Let it burn!

[Edge-]

Several top security and privacy executives resigned from Twitter on Thursday, citing the rapid rollout of new features without proper security reviews and Elon Musk’s order that employees return to the office.


Let it burn!

Real though, the end of WFH may be what kills Twitter. Tech employees seem to be fighting that shit hard since like, there's generally no actual point of being in the office on a day-to-day basis. I'm sure there are Elonbots at Twitter (there have already been reports) who will be more than happy to do whatever Elon asks, but I think he's gonna have a bit of a shock having a workforce that didn't in part join the company because they were excited to work at a company Elon owns.