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Good morning, everybody. I was on a special appearance with Jim Polito this morning to discuss this huge Twitter hack and what happened and what can be done about it. Here we go with Jim.

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

[00:00:00] Craig Peterson: So they had this God mode they got in trouble for. Well, it really seriously looks like, and there is a similar God mode on Twitter.

It's a special appearance, command appearance, right? Yeah. Craig Peterson here and Jim Polito wanted to go into the details behind this Twitter hack. What happened? Why did it happen? What can we do about it? Does it really matter? Well, that's exactly what we were talking about.

Jim Polito: Here's a funny one. There was a big Twitter hack yesterday and Steve Fourni, Western Mass producer sent me a text. Hey, Mr. blue check, did you get hacked. Like no. Nobody's going to hack me. There's no money to be had.

[00:01:00] And, and who's going to accept, uh, a message from Jim Polito. But if you got a message from say, Barack Obama or Joe Biden, maybe you could be swindled out of some Bitcoin. Joining us now to sort this all out a special appearance. And we appreciate the extra time from him. Our good friend and tech talk guru, Craig Peterson.

Good morning, sir.

Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning, Jim. Glad to be back.

Jim Polito: Thanks for coming. Uh, I appreciate it. I know you were here Tuesday with the guys while I was off. So thanks for coming back. So what, what exactly happened? And here's my worry, I'm hearing. This was an inside job. So what's being done at these companies to protect people, you know, uh, people like me, Craig, you know, not just me, but others. Is this an inside job at Twitter?

Craig Peterson: Well, think of all of the people yourself included, obviously, but businesses use Twitter to disseminate real-time news. This is a very, very big deal. And 10 years ago, you might remember Twitter got fined.

[00:02:00] They paid a fine too, I think it was the FTC thing that, uh, they straightened out their act too, because back then, They got hacked again. So here's what it looks like happened. This is kind of interesting. This is from an article on vice.com, but one of the sources told the reporters here that this is a quote.

We used a rep that literally done all the work for us. And they say that they paid this rep and there were some pictures posted of a tool. Now, do you remember the whole God mode, controversy with, you know, um, yeah? With, with the driving app?

Jim Polito: Uber, Uber.

Craig Peterson: Uber, why can't I remember Uber is fun.

Jim Polito: Well, 'cause you're brilliant and you get too much stuff in the brain as Einstein did. So we would forget his address, you know,

[00:03:00] Craig Peterson: With Uber, they had this thing called God mode and it turned out that their employees and contractors were sharing exactly where various celebrities were in Uber cars, where they were picked up, they figured out where their homes were because of course, that's where the phone sleeps at night, right. Is in people's homes. So they had this God mode, they got in trouble for, well, it really seriously looks like, and there is a similar God mode on Twitter.

Apparently Twitter has an app and screenshots of it were posted on Twitter and have been shared elsewhere, that I'll allow people who are using this tool to do anything. And it's fine. This screenshot was posted on Twitter of Beyonce's account in this tool, in this God mode where they can get into your account can basically do anything.

[00:04:00]  So what looks like what happened here is that there was, and this is according to Twitter. Now, this is a statement from Twitter. Some of their employees were manipulated using social engineering. So some of the employees that according to Twitter were manipulated into giving this God mode application access to this hacker group.

The hacker group is saying, no, no, no. We planted somebody inside of Twitter that gave us access to it. The FBI is now involved. Investigating this thing, because what happened is you've been mentioning this morning is that they have these various accounts and then they started sharing messages. So for instance, uncle Joe Biden was posting things saying, Hey, listen, Then guys, you know, we, we really care about [00:05:00] you so here's what I'm going to do. They did various things on different accounts, but the bottom line message across the board was I want to give back now. This is what Elon Musk said, uncle Joe, said, uh, you know, For the next 30 minutes or in some cases it was for the next four hours, et cetera.

If you send the Bitcoin, I'm going to give back, I'm going to double whatever amount of Bitcoin you send me and I'll double it and send it back. Now, all of these accounts were very big accounts. You've been mentioning the name of some of these accounts that were up there. Very, very prominent accounts like President Obama and of course, President Trump, apparently he was not hacked. 

I don't know if I'd call this a hack when they're using a God mode application treated by Twitter. Right. But, um, his account wasn't used for this.  Apparently there's more than a hundred thousand dollars that have been sent to them in this Bitcoin account.

[00:06:00] Now, for those that don't know, Bitcoin is a type of virtual currency. It's called a cryptocurrency. Now the reason bad guys love bitcoin is that you can share it, not really anonymously, but somewhat anonymously. Our government does have ways of tracing this. I heard a lecture by a secret service member about how, they cracked some of these online organizations.

But the thing that liked the most about it is you can send money by a bitcoin. And there's absolutely no way to get that money back. Once you've spent that money. There are people. All over the world. Yeah. That has been sending this guy or these guys money. Uh, one apparently in Japan as much as $40,000 in one transaction, I guess he, he really feels the burn.

[00:07:00] Yeah. It's just incredible

Jim Polito: Were talking with our good friend, Craig Peterson, tech talk guru. No, no need to look at your watch or your calendar. No, it is Thursday, but he's back here because of this situation with Twitter. So first of all, I mean the obvious advice to everybody is, uh, if you start seeing messages like that, uh, from, uh, uncle Joe Biden or Barack Obama or anyone else, uh, if it's too good to be true, It's too good.

[00:08:00]  It's like those messages I used to get that Bill Gates is giving away his, um, uh-huh. Millions of dollars and if you copy this email to 10 friends, you know, you'll, you'll get a piece of it, you know, yadda, yada, yada, and people believe it. You know, I mean, that's kind of slowed down a little bit. So you needed something more creative than people would believe, but you know, I don't think uncle Joe's going to be sending me any message soon. Yeah. I don't think

Craig Peterson: First of all, giving away money. Yeah, what's new in there, right?

Jim Polito: Well, but you'd be huge. He's giving away your money, you know, like tax dollars, but, but giving away his own money and then you have to do it through Bitcoin. No, thank you.

Craig Peterson: And this isn't the first time this type of thing has happened.

Facebook employees were using their privileged app to stalk women. Snapchat workers had a tool called Snap Lion that gave permission information on users. Myspace employees use their tool called Overlord to spy on users back in the day.

Jim Polito: I was just going to say my ma my space. I mean, it wasn't that done in hieroglyphics.

[00:09:00] Is that how old that didn't you need the Rosetta stone to be able to translate the trip around me based on tablets.

Craig Peterson: Yeah. That's that was so I guess,

Jim Polito:  I guess these companies need to be a lot more selective about who gets this God mode, this mode, where they can do whatever they want, which is probably necessary to fix some issues. But hi, they better be very careful with who they give this to.

Craig Peterson: You know, they're not being that careful, frankly, from what I've seen, look at Facebook recently, the news, because of problems with people who are doing the monitoring, who are saying, well, you can post this. You can't, that are like a third-party.

So, yeah, these, these tools are in the hands of not just employees, the contractors, and they're falling for scams, according to Facebook, but according to the hackers, and this has been reported a few places online, according to the hackers, this was kind of an inside job. They got someone inside there, they turned them, or got them in there in the first place and had free reign. It's no different than people getting an insider at a bank or a jewelry store or something else like they did in the old days.

Jim Polito: Craig Peterson, Hey, Craig, let's give out, let's give out your information in case folks want to reach out to you and um, and then you'll be back Tuesday, which is great.

[00:10:00] Absolutely. You can just email me. Craig peterson.com. It's M E at Craig peterson.com or a hit or miss with the texting. I gotta get this thing fixed. You can just text me at (855) 385-5553. I've just been too busy lately.

The standard data and text rates apply. I appreciate it, I know you are busy and I appreciate you coming in today for some extra duty and helping us out with, to understand this and we'll catch up with you Tuesday, Craig.

Craig Peterson: Alright, take care, Jim. Thanks

Jim Polito: You too.

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