Dutch officials say Donald Trump really did protect his Twitter account with MAGA2020! password Dutch prosecutors have confirmed what many already suspected about President Donald Trump: that he’s an idiot. At least when it comes to choosing passwords. Back in October, Dutch citizen Victor Gevers claimed to have accessed the President’s Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump, with the password MAGA2020! It was discovered …
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He did, though you could argue that his choice of content to comment was a bit childish. If you go through the proper channels to notify all parties involved and nobody acts on it, you are ethically allowed to use the account to prove you have indeed gained access to it. It was crude, but not unethical.
passwords for humans are ultimately inscure because of the humans
If you let the user make their own password then either it can be guessed or eventually they will reuse portions or all, or they will have some reused nmemonic/algorythm that looks individual and secure but is unltimately guessable once enough data it collected
As the saying goes if two people must keep a secret one needs to be dead
I once timed myself at 20 minutes to go through all possible combinations on a three digit combination lock, though I did get a blister on my thumb :o(
Assuming that the combinations are different, two three digit combination locks would, therefore, on average take me about 20 minutes.
Why would he lock his own luggage? That's what flunkies were for when he wasn't president.
Now he is, there is no need to lock it since the Secret Service guard his luggage closely in case someone sticks a bomb in it - and they protect former presidents (and their luggage) indefinitely after they have left office.
I know, there is always some bastard who ruins to a good joke (and it is a good joke). I'll get my anorak.
a) I'm at the other end of the state (300 mi/450 km) from him and I don't want him here...
b) I learned after moving here 30 years back that any open freshwater bigger than a kiddie pool can be presumed to hold gators, and to never let your small pets or toddlers anywhere near waters' edge as a result. The tragic case of the child killed at Disney walking the lakefront with her parents comes to mind.
Trump won't end up in San Quentin. When his lawyers finally persuade him he has no choice but to take a deal they'll make sure he gets sent to one of those cushy jails for rich people, which are basically a country club without the table service and where the spikes on the perimeter fence point in rather than out. The most serious threat he'll face from the other inmates will be only being able to cheat on a 9-hole course rather than an 18-hole one.
@ Rich 11: "Trump won't end up in San Quentin. When his lawyers finally persuade him he has no choice but to take a deal they'll make sure he gets sent to one of those cushy jails for rich people, which are basically a country club without the table service and where the spikes on the perimeter fence point in rather than out."
I can dream can't I?
Maybe he'll plead insanity or mental incompetence? ("Nurse Ratched! Time for his medication".)
Aha! You must be right as, every time he unlocks it, you can see his lips moving as he hums along to Manfred Mann.
I really, really hope that's true.
The idea that 70+ million bigots will suddenly go "We were wrong, he's an arsehole" is pretty unlikely.
I expect Trump's sore loser antics to carry on for four years. At the end of that he may well get another shot. 300,000 dead and counting and still no negative reaction from his base. In fact, it's clearly not enough dead as his sick burst of lame duck federal executions shows.
We're just lucky he's a fucking idiot. Anyone with an ounce of nouse wouldn't have lost the election, and if they did they'd have used the lickspittles they installed in positions of power to cling on. We dodged a bullet but, judging by sleepy Joe's "let's all work together" bullshit, we haven't learned anything.
And forgetful creepy Biden, who voted through actual racist legislation and was VP for 8 years, in which time groups like BLM formed.. who takes money from China, he's so much better. His running mate who has sent innocent people to prison, she's also a role model. Got it.
Branding all Trump voters as bigots is the most stupid thing I've read so far today, but there're plenty of hours left.
"And forgetful creepy Biden, who voted through actual racist legislation..."
Ge did the decent thing and apologised for that and is running to rectify it.
As for forgetful? Are we talking about Trump? The one who denies he says or writes things despite it being recorded?
"Branding all Trump voters as bigots is the most stupid thing I've read so far today, but there're plenty of hours left."
If you can sit through a Trump monologue (or interview although I suspect you may consider those "biased against Trump" when people ask him questions) and come to the conclusion that Mr Trump is honest, trustworthy, is running his administration well and has no negative personality traits that are impacting his ability to run the country, then I guess you're able to see something that the vast majority of the Western world is unable to see.
In 2016, the US elected a liar and con-artist to run their country. A large percentage are still unwilling to admit that mistake.
Perhaps the things you're reading aren't stupid and the stupidity lays with the reader?
And forgetful creepy Biden, who voted through actual racist legislation and was VP for 8 years, in which time groups like BLM formed.. who takes money from China, he's so much better.
And in other news, a supporter of a pitch black pot accuses the kettle of having some grey bits.
>Branding all Trump voters as bigots is the most stupid thing I've read so far today
I know quite a lot of them, they're my demographic (old white geezers). I don't brand them as 'bigots' but they sure are gullible. Because I'm that demographic I got bombarded with the robocalls ("Hi, I'm Donald Trump....") and adverts, those fake push polls, and if that material is anything to go by they're a pretty dumb bunch. (Sorry if you are one of them....but honestly....do you ever *listen* to what's being said?)
The good news is that there are a significant number of old-school Republicans outt here who can't stand him.. They tend to be the more educated sorts, people I can have constructive discussions with despite our political differences. They might help to build a new Republcian party -- the mindset isn't going anyplace, unfortuantely, but the party definitely needs to receede from its flirtations with fascism.
There's a lot of ingrained racism in the US. Still. Open racism is in our recent history even in supposedly progressive states such as California. We can't do much about our past but we certainly owe it to the present and future not to keep this particular flame alive. Unfortunately the GoP has been prone to do this (anyone remember Willie Horton?) and there's no signs of it letting up just yet. So racism coupled with an insatiable need to poke their legislative noses into other peoples' private business gets the appelation 'bigot'. Sorry.
I didn't like either candidate, but I'll say that Biden can at least put together a sentence, can go without lying for minutes at a time, and actually seems to have a functioning conscience and empathy, unlike in Trump where these are purely vestigial organs. I feel like I scraped something off my shoe the other day that I would rather see elected to office than another 4 years of our idiot in chief.
Anything that Biden may have done in his past or his offspring may have done is like a jaywalking charge compared to the last 4 years of bad judgement, callous disregard for human rights, racism, likely felonies, and perhaps even treason that we've suffered through with Trump. I don't think everyone that voted for Trump is an idiot, but I utterly fail to understand what they see in him.
Branding all Trump voters as bigots is the most stupid thing I've read so far today, but there're plenty of hours left.
You *have* to be a bigot to vote for Trump, or *staggeringly* stupid. There is no other way to excuse that sort of behaviour. The man is the worst example of humanity to emerge in world leadership since Pol Pot, and the least articulate, the most self-centred, the whiniest, and the stupidest.
Yeah can you imagine Trump's mental and physical health at nearly 80 after 4 years of brooding and comfort eating?
It won't be good. He'll most likely have another stroke well before then.
In the meantime my post from a couple of months ago saying that Biden etc. will do f*ck all for the average American will have also come true.
Jimmy Dore for Pushing AOC for a vote on M4A!!!!! Go Jimmy!!!
Ahhh so even after seeing Biden's corporate lobbyist status quo cabinet picks, some Dem folks are still in denial that they will get nothing over over the next 4 years.
Just look at AOC's current back peddling and gas lighting on why she won't support a vote on M4A as a taste of things to come.
Yeah asking for healthcare during a pandemic is 'not the right time'. Jeez.
They all get bought.
The idea that 70+ million bigots will suddenly go "We were wrong, he's an arsehole" is pretty unlikely.
Absolutely, also they need to be incentivised.
Trumps little tantrums over the election raised about $250m from that 70+m idiots and his legal fees were about $10m, the remaining $240m going straight into his pocket (metaphorically speaking, yes he's fat but pockets don't get that big).
But that is just the beginning, he now has a list of the most gullible idiots in America and if he keeps spewing the same sort of incendiary crap, they'll keep giving. As long as he keeps out of prison he should be able to milk them for years.
Yep it's a great grift.
I saw all this coming back in 2015 when Newt Gingrich was challenged on some false crime BS he was spewing. He just smiled and said -
"It's not what's true that is important! It's what I believe is true that is!"
I knew we were all f*cked when I heard that.
> But that is just the beginning, he now has a list of the most gullible idiots in America and if he keeps spewing the same sort of incendiary crap, they'll keep giving
Exactly the gravy train that Nigel Farage has jumped aboard in fact. Stir up hatred against $thing, launch party/campaign opposed to it and charge for membership - do very little in practice, but make lots of noise. Pocket lots of dosh.
The idea that 70+ million bigots will suddenly go "We were wrong, he's an arsehole" is pretty unlikely.
More likely it'll go like Bush. Over the next 4-8 years the famous Trump haters will start to say that he wasn't so bad and the ordinary people will either moderate their views of him or get pushed to the fringes.
It sounds unthinkable now, but if you'd woken up from a coma since 2009 and seen a photo of Biden pinning a medal on Bush you'd have sworn blind it was a photoshop.
Because it is unthinkable. It's just that it's also business as usual.
Downvote if you have to. These are stressful times.
"More likely it'll go like Bush. Over the next 4-8 years the famous Trump haters will start to say that he wasn't so bad and the ordinary people will either moderate their views of him or get pushed to the fringes." Don't agree, unless someone WORSE than Trump gest selected. THAT is the only reason Bush haters changed their tune.
Yup, that's exactly what people were saying in 2008. The only difference is that time has passed.
If you doubt that this is cyclical then find the documentary "When AIDS was funny" about Reagan's administration.
If he'd had even an average IQ he would have realized that ignoring COVID and letting it rage would hurt the economy in the long run and hurt his election chances in November. He was handed an opportunity to act presidential and bring people together like Bush did after 9/11, but he stupidly used it a wedge and turned his cultists into anti-mask virus deniers because he doesn't know how to do anything but divide people.
We're lucky he's such a moron.
@OP AC
I've got bad news for you: Trump is like that crusty booger that you dug out of your nose one day; as you started extricating the thing, you realised that it had a long, sticky tail that reached down almost to your throat. Upon reaching the exit, you then yanked it in order to get a clear exit, but unfortunately you dropped it, with the result that it fell on your lower lip, with the sticky tail still attached to your nose.
When you tried to blow it away in disgust, it landed on the back of your hand. Instintively reacting, you then tried to shake it off, only for it to land on your brand new pants. After gingerly prising it loose (in order to minimise the slimy residue on your pant-leg), you flicked it away.
Unfortunately you lost track of its trajectory, so that its whereabouts were unknown and the safest resolution was to avoid the area for the next two weeks in order to allow it to dry out completely and become relatively harmless.
I rather suspect that you will be stuck with him until he gets a clue, or the heat death of the universe arrives.
My money is on the heat death of the universe winning this race.
Disclaimer: This is not original - there was a Tintin book where they were stuck with a piece of sticky plaster that just would not go away, that inspired the disgusting piece above.
We won't have to stop caring about him in a month, but luckily he's old, overweight and has a poor diet so hopefully won't be around much longer. Maybe the stress of dealing with all the court cases he'll face starting next year will be what does him in. We can only hope!
What I hope is that the media stops reporting on his tweets and makes a decision to ignore him. They created the monster, they can slay him by ignoring him and denying him the attention he needs to survive.
If he only hears himself talked about outside right wing media in relation to court cases but they ignore his tweets, rallies and so forth that will frustrate him to no end! I'm sure if they try he will make more and more outrageous tweets with crazy conspiracy theories about Biden and Harris drinking the blood of infants or something like that trying to get them to take the bait, they have to be smart and just report on actual news not a has been trying to make himself the news.
While the Federal authorities may pass on the plethora of likely charges to avoid the appearance of political persecution, the state attorney in NY has been after Trump's companies for some years about taxable value of his properties there. He apparently quoted one number to the state tax authority and another larger number as collateral value for loans taken with Deutsche Bank shortly after.
And the President's pardon power only applies to Federal crimes, not state-level.
2024 may find him under house arrest if not doing the orange jumpsuit perpwalk.
I got a hell of a lot of hate for my comment, so I apologise for hurting any feelings. Just to be clear, I'm not saying Trump is the best choice. In fact, I think it's utterly messed up that we've come to the point where the two choices are Trump or Biden.
I just think there an awful lot of people backing Biden just because they hate Trump, and they really don't know what Biden stands for, which, in my useless and awful opinion, is a bad way to approach an election.
And yes, I did read to the end of the comment, where Biden was also painted in a bad light.
If I were to make predictions about a Biden presidency, it will:
a) quickly become a Kamala Harris presidency,
b) be something far from what the voters wished for, and finally
c) blame all issues as somehow being inherited from the Trump presidency
"c) blame all issues as somehow being inherited from the Trump presidency"
That's a given in politics. All leaders blame everything on their predecessors! Here in the UK, Labour were blaming all their woes on the Tories, right up to the day they left office after being in power for 13 years.
Some day you might grasp that in a two party system the choice tends to be slightly restricted.
Regarding Trump and Biden there is no doubt who is the wrong end of the stick in an other binary world.
I find it hard to consider Trump a Republican and it's as hard to accept the party as Republican also.
It got all rotten the moment Trump stepped in or should one say, came down, such brave men and women in that party.
For a more eloquent and neutral explanation of Trump I would recommend Noam Chomsky on Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W1gCzbQr2k
"What exactly is a 'proper African American'?".
The far right-wing twats claimed Obama was even worse than an African-American as his mother was white and they have already expressed similar sicophobic opinions of Harris as her mother came from India.
The far right-wing twats claimed Obama was even worse than an African-American as his mother was white
As far as I have been able to ascertain, the greater majority of African-Americans born as slaves during slavery were likewise "worse because their fathers were in so, so many cases, white ... brains and bigotry don't go together.
As a non-USAnian, I am surprised no one has responded yet. So here goes:
a). It is reference to the VPOTUS being only 'only a heartbeat away from the Presidency'. Biden is somewhat elderly, as I am, and in four years he may deteriorate to the point where the VP may become in practice or reality the POTUS.
There is an implication in these expressions, that Biden will have his strings pulled by Harris. Speaking from the right side of the Atlantic, I see litttle sign of it.
b). In European originated societies there is something nasty in the woodpile, that is to a greater or lesser extent verbalised. To many in these societies she has three disadvantages, she is young and vigorous, she is not white and above all she is not a man.
I have never posted as an AC, but this time I feel it is for the best.
One: - the USA elected Trump. That was an utter mess-up.
Two: - the USA didn't elect Trump for a second term. Not a mess-up.
Three: - Biden defeated Trump. Not a mess-up, a pretty spectacular achievement in fact, given the state of American irrationality.
Dear USA, congrats on your new President elect and try to stay sane in future.
The idea that 70+ million bigots will suddenly go "We were wrong, he's an arsehole" is pretty unlikely.
My uncle had a 'doo cot' - a pigeon loft - for his homing race pigeons. When he died my mum asked my cousins what happened to his pigeons. You can't rehome a homing pigeon once it's been conditioned. Even if you destroy their home they will always return to the same place. You just have to wait for them to die off.
I'm pretty sure most of the news agencies can't wait for Uncle Donnie to be out of the WH. They can stop printing in yellow fonts. (that's yellow journalism for you youngins)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
Fast forward two years, and if Uncle Donnie is healthy, and not in the slammer, he will start up the yellow press again. Hopefully people have learned not to listen.
The news agencies and MSM will go into decline most likely. Trump has been news gold for them.
As one American comedian said "Trump is like a scared horse loose in a children's hospital!"
Ratings and advertising revenue is going to plummet. Lot of people going to lose jobs and the talent have to make do with lower contracts.
It's their own fault really. It's a lot of people's fault.
People forget the original meaning of the word twitter, as defined in Roger's Profanisaurus. However, your definition lends itself nicely to referring to the most popular social media channels collectively as twatface.
A Twitter spokesperson said:
We proactively implemented account security measures for a designated group of high-profile, election-related Twitter accounts in the United States, including federal branches of government.
(Emphasis added)
Trump famously uses his personal Twitter account instead of the official US presidential one. Is this Twitter sort of sticking to their own rules and "accidentally" not securing a personal account?
Also, I find it hard to believe that he previously used yourefired. Although I would have no trouble with yourfired ;-)
Leaving aside the orange one's idiocy, why the hell are Twitter not flagging up that suddenly a US registered account got a login from the Netherlands?
I know Trump would ignore it, but it would be a much better look for Twitter if they were flagging suspicious logins and could blame this on a stupid user
Because people (used to) travel ?
Because people use a VPN ?
e.g.: while working from home I need to connect to the work network through a VPN.
Because f this the internet thinks I'm in France (which leads to many advertisements showing up in French) when I disconnect I'm in the netherlands (which leads to most advertisements being in English )
The VPN is soemtimes a bit flakey , which means that in the span of an hour Twitter would see me connecting from just south of Paris then 10mins later from north of the dutch-belgian border, than back to France
For extra git & shiggles I could enable opera's privacy mode VPN which bounces me around the world at random
Office 365 (for example) flags quick changes of ASN by a user as suspicious, and if you use a web browser like Opera with a builtin VPN or a service like Hola the ASNs used by those services are blocked by many websites for obvious reasons.
I'm not defending the orange one, and I'm sure the hacker did use some sort of masking of his real internet address, but Twitter need to do a much better job on suspicious activity. It's not like celebrity hacks are a new thing, imagine what someone malicious could have tweeted from that account and the chaos they could have caused.
Should Twitter treat his personal account any differently than they do for any other person account just because of who he is?
Yeah maybe they mandate that passwords have to have a 8+ characters and contains letters, numbers and extended characters. Which the password he chose would have passed those checks.
But I am sure that the president has lots of advisers who would have told him how to secure it with 2FA and use strong passwords not easily guessable. But clearly he chose to ignore that advise, as he knows best.
"Should Twitter treat his personal account any differently than they do for any other person account just because of who he is?"
Yes, they already do. In the name of "public interest" his account has been more leniently policed than it would have been when he has posted demonstrably false information.
Source: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/a-trump-loss-means-end-of-twitter-special-treatment
How is a rise in the minimum wage in any way bad for the average American?
Or the desire to create new jobs at home, the green agenda, and the new jobs that both create?
Just look at regeneration schemes around the world you'll soon catch on that looking backwards is not a way to re-invent the US economy.
I actually agree with the protectionist elements of Republican policies; but let's be honest US borders the ship has LONG since sailed and you aren't chucking out all those people now. And, apart from the Native Americans; let's face it, you are ALL sons and daughters of immigrants yourselves... Not that many generations removed at that.
Unchecked capitalism is bad for Joe average, and fully state regulated planned economies are also bad for Joe average. Moderation is key; backed by education.
AC because fully expect flame in response; by another DT nobbled lunatic.
Well just you wont get much of the later part of your post. Especially education.
You wont get much of anything. Minimum wage is still MINIMUM wage. It's not a living wage, folks will still be working three jobs and 18 hours a day to get by...if they can.
Pelosi is still not on board with helping folks during the pandemic, yet gladly signed off trillions for the corporations.
Green new deal...that will get watered down and down as the lobby cheques from the fossil fuel industry come wafting across Biden's desk.
Nothing is going to change. The average American is still going to get screwed while still having to pay for it all.
I don't even live in the US but can see it. But then all I have to do is sit back, watch it all come to pass and say "told you so!"
You wont get much of anything. Minimum wage is still MINIMUM wage. It's not a living wage, folks will still be working three jobs and 18 hours a day to get by...if they can.
That really depends on the "minimum wage", in most of Europe the legal minimum wage allows one to live with an acceptable (if still on the frugal side) lifestyle on an ordinary 40 hours per week salary.
I agree with most of what you wrote there, but this nugget: "Moderation is key; backed by education" isn't quite right. You can be as educated as you like, but if you start off poor, unregulated free-market economics leads to you staying that way. The key to that moderation is regulation. That doesn't mean a command economy, but it does mean such things as legislation to prevent monopoly abuse, which I believe is not strong enough, because it doesn't do anything to limit predatory capitalism whereby large corporations (your Alphabets, Amazons, et al) have free rein to absorb smaller companies, or straight-up outcompete them by economies of scale. This is good for those predatory organisations, but not for anyone else.
How is the COVID stimulus package from Trump and the GOP doing for the average American? Oh it never happened? But they promised and you voted for them and now you've lost your house. Well at least you can sell your kids for medical research so you can afford bullets.
"Pence is just a racist prick."
You just going to give him a pass on his idea of Christianity? i.e. letting the poor, the suffering and the weak die.
Yes Pence is happy to protect unwanted children. At least up until they're born - then they can die because healthcare, shelter, food and water cost money.
I had the misfortune of being in Iceland the day Pence was there (he had idiotic levels of security, including snipers on the roof in a country where they don't even have armed police, and the unannounced nature of his visit almost caused us to miss the coach to our very expensive tour booking).
Pence is renowned for his homophobia, and it is to the credit of the Icelandic delegation that every single one of them wore a rainbow wristband, and the building opposite flew rainbow flags on that day. Gotta love that Nordic sense of humour.
Former Irish Taoiseach (PM) Leo Varadkar can be seen grinning while he and his partner stand with Pence and Pence's "mother" on St Paddy's Day last year. Pence had to suck it up!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/14/mike-pence-ireland-pm-leo-varadkar-meeting-openly-gay-irish-pm-partner-video
I thought Twitters' rules for verified accounts were that two factor verification had to be set up on them. Is it possible that on dealing with said two factor authentication, Trump ordered it be turned off because it was annoying and inconvenient? He wouldn't be the first pensioner I've dealt with who found account security an inconvenience and voiced their anger at it. Sometimes you just have to let them make their own mistakes no matter the consequences and I guess his staff probably just wanted a quiet life. He's probably still shouted at some poor sod who deals with this sort of thing for him, whilst grudgingly accepting it has to be switched on now.
Otherwise his venom will be spewed in some alt right echo chamber and be invisible.
It's already up and running. When F*B* fact-checked and banned to worst of them, they started a rival social media, called Parler. It was supposed to be the French word for "to speak", but since these are, after all, the dimmest bulbs in the USA, it is pronounced "PAR-ler, like the room one received visitors in Victorian times. It is the toxic swamp one imagines, with lots of threats the FBI will be, I hope, looking into.
Indeed, when idiots who operate at the fringes of the law (when it comes to hate speech and violence) congregate, all this does is keep their echo-chamber away from susceptible innocents, and has the convenient side-effect of making it easier for law enforcement to know where to look.
They won't be recruiting the young-and-naïve on FB or Twitter if they're banned there, so the "new blood" would have to go seeking them out.
> Dutch prosecutors have confirmed what many already suspected about President Donald Trump: that he’s an idiot. At least when it comes to choosing passwords.
I'm not a professional translator, but as a Dutch person I think I can give some insight on details that might've been lost in translation on first paragraph in this article.
The public prosecutor's office (Openbaar Ministerie) were treating this case -as if- he actually did log into Trump's Twitter account.
Gevers insisted that he had evidence, yet Twitter and the White House deny this claim, stating that there were no logs of these login attempts.
After the investigation of Team High Tech Crime of the Dutch police, the public prosecutor's office has decided not to prosecute Gevers.
that said, if I were him, I'd be a bit uneasy to visit the land of the free, Biden or no Biden. If you're waiting in arrivals, and they gently take you by the elbows and navigate through a side door, put a bag over your head and fast-forward, you find yourself in front of FISA court and declare guilty... I guess you have the right to protest all you want :(
You may laugh at Mr Trump, as people laughed at previous dodgy politicians. But he is no laughing matter. Politicians like him usually manage to do a lot of damage before they go/die. Heck, there is no reason not to think he might try for a Coup to cling on to or regain power, he does have armed supporters after all.
And yet, oddly, not a single journo globally has posted a triumphant screenshot of this claimed hacked post.
Despite thousands of journos and third-party nutters hovering over his account constantly.
Despite any number of barely-known randos having intra-5min-before-deletion screenshots taken and posted for embarrassment value.
I call fantasy. I call TDS.
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