'I had a rare Twitter handle... I was extorted into giving it up'

This was the week when a developer was blackmailed out of a rare, single-letter Twitter handle by a hacker who claims to have social-engineered their way into his life through GoDaddy and PayPal. Naoki Hiroshima, once the proud owner of the Twitter account @N, said he was forced to give up the account to a hacker who had …

[Tom 7]

I name that ring "Twatus Bigus"

Rhawn Joseph PhD there you go.

[Richard 81]

"I’ve been offered as much as $50,000 for it."

Then why didn't you bloody well sell it?!?

[Khaptain]

Re: "I’ve been offered as much as $50,000 for it."

Because the greedy bugger was holding out for someone to offer him 1 Beeeeellion dollars.

[Stacy]

Re: "I’ve been offered as much as $50,000 for it."

Maybe because he didn't want to sell it?

[Pascal Monett]

Re: "he didn't want to sell it"

I can understand that position.

I have a little website which is nothing at all, but I wouldn't want to sell my domain name off either.

On the other hand, this tale now prompts me to think that large piles of money are harbingers of the end of whatever it is they target because it would seem that, if someone is offering you a suitcase of money for something, someone else is lurking in the shadows, looking for a way to steal it. Either way, you lose the thing, so you might as well get some dough out of it.

I do hope that criminal will get caught and prosecuted, though. Piece of slime. Obviously the NSA has nooooo information on this, no sir, not at all.

[Timmay]

"I had a rare Twitter handle..."

There's only one Twitter handle like mine - that's pretty rare too, right?

[Neil 8]

High res mars pics

But... They do and already did release high res photos and all raw images. I posted the links the last time around.

Edit: Here - How much higher res did he want? These were available the day after it made the news.

http://tinyurl.com/nw2kjeu

The rest are here: http://tinyurl.com/bnm2z

And I'd say it's reasonable to suspect this image shows the hole in the ground that the rock was flicked up from: http://tinyurl.com/qg983lp

[TeeCee]

I think they should have kept quiet.

it wasn't any kind of update or software glitch in Lloyds' systems. An HP server had gone down in the UK:

So an even more basic fuckup then. A lack of redundancy / failover for critical systems.

[LazyLazyman]

Why can people no longer call companies?

Why the fuck do all of these twatter users have to jump online the second there is a problem. My sister in law dose it and so do many people my wife follows (Or followed until they started stupid campaines against companies for "poor customer service" because they whinged on twitter rather than calling customer service to get an issue fixed).

The argument with my sister in law goes round and round

"X company did Y"

"Have you called them? Last time I had a problem they were very good"

"No. I posted to @Xcompany and they DIDN'T COME BACK TO ME"

"Why don't you call them?"

"Because they should be able to sort it out on twitter! Customer service!"

"Yes, but they have no idea who @Ilovefluffycatzlol123 is, and even if they did do you really want your bank/phone company/car insurance etc discussed over twitter?"

"But this is the new way of communicating"

etc.

[robmobz]

Re: Why can people no longer call companies?

In some cases they are complaining after phoning as shown here:

So embarrassing having your card declined, and then takes 18 minutes on hold to find out that lloyds tsb systems are down!

— Jade Hampton (@lissajadeh) January 26, 2014

(emphesis added)

[anickid]

Re: Why can people no longer call companies?

Well, when I had a customer service issue recently I mentioned/tweeted a company on Twitter after finding out I would have to be on hold for 3 hours if I called.

I got a reply from a rep within 15 minutes, had a basic conversation through DMs, and then they called shortly afterwards. My problem was fully resolved 2 days later.

I don't know if it's necessary all the time [complaining for the sake of complaining], but a lot of companies monitor social media pretty closely and, in my case at least, provide better customer service in a public forum.

I'm still waiting for resolution from a different company that I've been calling/emailing for a month.

[dssf]

Fungus Shots and Naming Rights

He should beg Branson to get Virgin Galactic to send up its OWN investigagtory probe. Not as if we don't need an independent audit of lunar surface shots, right?

And, since the Moon is not supposed to be "militarized", what sane, above-board government would make it illegal for care-taking, conscientious, science-backed investigators to send up their own hi-res, distant-shot orbital cameras? To disallow would be to indicate a fear of the discover not of aliens but of Earth-planted devices that may be illegally stationed/landed there. If any devices are illegally there (at least US-owned/UK-owned), you can bet that NASA would be "obliged" to obfuscate inadvertent non-gov discovery of them. I suspect, not confirm, mind you.

[Anonymous Coward]

If NASA can't get photos of any aliens on Mars soon

I will definetly sue them to bankruptcy.

[Vociferous]

Hiroshima got nuked,

and a mushroom cloud fell over NASA.

[Hubert Thrunge Jr.]

Lloyds TSB down...

What kind of reporting is this?

'AN HP Server'????????

Its 'A HP server'.....

Stand in the corner and face the wall for ten minutes with the Justin Beiber hat on.

[MrZoolook]

'What kind if repirting is this?'

'AN HP Server'????????

Its 'A HP server'.....

What kind of grammar natzism is this? If it was pronounced as the individual letters H followed by P, it would indeed be 'an HP server'.

And I'm reasonably sure it would be "It's", as in 'It is' rather then plural of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 'What kind if repirting is this?'

Not the plural of it: the possessive.