Hackers tell the story of the Twitter attack from the inside

Practitioners take issue with these gross failings, but the markets and regulators seem to not care in the slightest. Disheartening to say the least, yet the reality of the situation.

VPN credentials can also be tied to a device certificate, which can be securely stored in the machine’s TPM.

This prevents VPN login from anything except a company issued machine. You don’t get this with normal password auth.

Not any more. The US has had for several years a person occupying the Presidents chair who makes major policy announcements first via Twitter, from abrogating treaties, to immigration policy, issuing pardons/commutations for friends, etc. These pronouncements often surprise even his closest senior staff, and are expected to be acted upon

This is a far cry from the original trivial "look at these beautiful scallions I had on my breakfast plate!"

The platform needs to be treated with the appropriate seriousness.

Sure " thermo-nuclear war" is at the far end of the scale. Hacks using Twitter or other SocMed would likely be lower on the scale.

But it is definitely true that with control of all and any verified accounts, including Presidents, commanders, military commands, news outlets, etc., one could craft a series of messages that would at the very least create widespread deadly panic in minutes, if not start an actual war (Go look up the results of Orson Welles's "War of the Worlds" broadcast.).

The problem is that with the right attack, a lot of things going right WILL cause major problems. The entire point is that it would not require 1000 other things to also go wrong.

As to Facebook, there is more than plenty of evidence that it successfully influenced the election. Not primarily through forming major opinions as through Fox, etc., but by targeting specific demographics down to the individual level (using data stolen from other channels including voting rolls) with tuned messages to generate a specific response, and more on the side of suppressing or diverting voter turnout for HRC than generating it for DT. It took only a few 10K votes in 3 states.

These technologies are far beyond mere juvenile startup toys. Their scale, influence, and valuation show how much power they wield. We need to hold them to levels of responsibility commensurate with that power, not continue to make excuses as if they were children's toys.

But then you gain in immediate effect but all those accounts will immediately say that they have been hacked. And since it's many uncoordinated and adversary accounts, people will have less trouble believing in a hack.

While if you do it with a single tweet, the suspicion it was in fact authentic will linger.

We've recently seen the police over here raiding the homes and offices of prominent journalists (quite publicly) to gain access to their sources and related material. :(

We're at the point where the NYT is doxxing random bloggers. I don't think this is a good time to be relying on journalistic integrity for your safety.