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The Courts Twitter

Twitter Hack Zoom Court Hearing Interrupted by Loud Music and Porn (vice.com) 71

Posted by msmash from the as-expected dept.
From a report: A judge was forced to suspend the virtual bond hearing of the 17-year-old accused of being the "mastermind" behind the recent massive Twitter hack, after several people got into the Zoom meeting posing as CNN and BBC staffers and played loud music and even a porn video. Multiple reporters who attended the hearing via Zoom on Wednesday confirmed the incident. According to independent security journalist Brian Krebs, the problem was that the judge and his clerks did not set up the meeting in a way that would mute attendees and prevent them from taking over the screen (these are features that can be easily set when one creates a Zoom meeting). "Judges holding hearings over Zoom need to get a clue," Krebs wrote on Twitter.
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Twitter Hack Zoom Court Hearing Interrupted by Loud Music and Porn More

Twitter Hack Zoom Court Hearing Interrupted by Loud Music and Porn

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  • Can we stop coddling the illiterate now please? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Narcocide ( 102829 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @04:12PM (#60370221) Homepage

    It's well past time for the burden of competence to be placed back on the user. This whole social experiment into allowing idiots to think they have a right to be cognitively lazy when using the internet for critical communications has proven to be a total failure and it needs to end.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      The judge could possibly argue that if the UI had only the buttons and defaults that courts needed, mistakes would be rarer. It probably has a sea of features that are irrelevant to court work.

      • I suppose he could, but I would wonder why he'd expect to see a court-work specific UI when using generic conferencing software intended for a huge variety of internet users.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          It could be argued that if tens of thousands of judges use such a tool, then having a court-customized UI is economically justifiable. I'm not quite sure that's the case, but it can be raised. If there is a telework API available, then a customized UI could be glued around it.

    • Re:Can we stop coddling the illiterate now please? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @04:35PM (#60370297) Homepage

      Even if you know what you're doing, without sensible defaults you're at the mercy of having an absent-minded moment or not. It's like when routers defaulted to an unsecured SSID or a universal standard default password.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Scutter ( 18425 )

        Routers defaulted to an unsecured SSID and passwords to a standard default specifically because users are well-known to be cognitively lazy. They can't be bothered do even the barest amount of reading to set up their $THING properly, so the manufacturers have to cater to the absolute lowest common denominator. Basic security doesn't have to be hard but the user has to actively participate and most will completely (and aggressively) refuse.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
        What's a sensible default? Everyone is muted?
        OK, here's a future headline for you: "Town hall criticized for not allowing citizens to voice opinion".
        It'll turn out that the council members had it on the "sensible default" of muting everyone else.

        • Everyone but the hosts, yes. That's a best practice. It's not like you can't unmute them when needed. You would never want to start out with everyone unmuted if it's open to the public.

        • What's a sensible default? Everyone is muted?

          DON'T USE ZOOM!

          For the love of everything, why does people keep using this crappy insecure 15 year late newcomer??

          • For the love of everything, why does people keep using this crappy insecure 15 year late newcomer??

            Because the well-entrenched existent commercial video chat services sucked.

            • * reilably acceptable sound - much better than skype / meeting / teams etc.
            • * handles up to 300 person meetings
            • * simple free access which lets your participants test and practice without having to buy access
            • * easily available free client for almost all widely used client systems
            • * does not degrade sides / images that you are sharing
            • * decent features for managing who has what rights in a meeting
            • * bunch of other random valuable features that some specific people care about

            Each of the alternatives is b

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Cederic ( 9623 )

              * reilably acceptable sound - much better than skype / meeting / teams etc.

              The only time I've tried using Zoom I couldn't get any sound at all.

              Fucking shitshow of a product. Video conferencing with no working sound when every other piece of software I run on my systems have no issues at all.

              • You have probably met a simple UX Zoom bad design, but I wasn't answering the question "what could the zoom people fix if they want to make their product better". I was answering "why does people keep using this crappy insecure 15 year late newcomer??" with the hope that someone else wants to learn from my list and replace zoom as the leading communication platform.

                If you work for Jitsi and think it's useful, tell me where to contact you and I'll happily tell you all the things wrong with zoom and some s

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Merk42 ( 1906718 )

                The only time I've tried using Zoom I couldn't get any sound at all.

                Not having sound at all in the sensible default.

        • Come on, anyone can see that letting everyone talk at once wasn't any better here.

    • Re:Can we stop coddling the illiterate now please? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @05:02PM (#60370401)

      It's well past time for the burden of competence to be placed back on the user.

      I disagree. I think it's well past time for people to be decent and respectful enough to not interrupt court hearings no matter what medium they are in, and for violators to be charged and prosecuted. There are no requirements or barriers to walk into a court and just start yelling (nor should there be), except that the judge would declare you in contempt, with serious consequences. Holding court through an electronic forum should be no different: public, respectful, with intentional interference punished.

      • Well, I agree with you on the punishment part, and I hope and assume that is what will actually happen, but despite that time and money was still wasted over something entirely preventable ahead of time. If the judge has the authority to choose the product and administer the use of it they need the qualifications to do it as well.

      • spotted the statist

      • Well, it isn't. In the courts in my country at least you first have to go through a security screening that ensures you're not going to cause trouble in the court session. If you let any idiot barge into a virtual one, you should expect the odd oddball.

        • odd oddball.

          I guess that makes it a... ball?

        • You generally go through a security screening here to make sure you have no weapons. I have no idea what kind of security screening would make "ensures you're not going to cause trouble" since these guys "caused trouble" without the use of weaponry.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        The US legal system does little to justify respect, so why shouldn't I mock it?

        the judge would declare you in contempt, with serious consequences

        The judge can go fuck himself, I'm not in his jurisdiction and his inability to hold a hearing online securely means I absolutely have contempt for him.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by phayes ( 202222 )

      One hopes that the idiots doing so continue to piss off the judge making sure that he is as riled as possible when considering defense motions and getting the FBI to track down and ruin the days of those who (wrongly) think themselves untouchable.

      • Considering that it's the internet we're talking here, I doubt the FBI will be responsible authority for a lot of those cases, maybe try the CIA. Or the military. Or who's right now the entity to enforce the US will globally?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by phayes ( 202222 )

          I recognize your hyperbole but the principal responsible authority is still the FBI, just as it was in tracking down Graham Ivan Clark & his cohorts. "Internet" changes nothing herre.

          • When it comes to the FBI, I'm pretty much untouchable. I don't plan to put a foot into the USA as long as it's run by a bunch of loonies. And since it has been like that for the better part of the past decades and shows no signs of changing any time soon, I guess it's gonna stay that way for a while.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by phayes ( 202222 )

              Strange words coming from someone whose sig talks about “we” in a uniquely American context.

              • That sig is older than me steering clear of the USA.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by phayes ( 202222 )

                  Fair enough, mine dates back to the first months of my /. account. Still strange to hear “we” on the Bill of Rights coming from a non American citizen.

    • I agree but I don't think you went far enough, I'm being sent stuff from my friends that a computer literate 8 year old would not fall for. Including two satire sites that they were too lazy to check out and literally believe. I know a taxi driver sharing anti mask nonsense that cites an article that talks about masks not working against the flu, he drives around old people for crying out loud! Several have turned off what they think is a tracking app that Apple and Google have smuggled on to their phones b

  • It makes me sick that courts would still be using (Score:3)

    by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @04:16PM (#60370229) Journal

    Chinese malware after an open FBI warning among many many other things.

  • That is not the easiest thing to parse. It almost looks like a random jumble of words that you'd use in a cognitive test.

  • Judges holding hearings over Zoom need to get a clue

    Isn't that being kind of ... judgmental?

  • If not, the zoonbombers did him no favors as he would likely have been able to make bond.

  • The Vice headline is much, much better: (Score:4, Informative)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @04:47PM (#60370343)

    "Twitter Hack Zoom Court Hearing Interrupted by Ass-Eating Porn Video"

    Although, the article didn't specify "which" Ass-Eating Porn Video it was.

    • Well, it's not really a big deal, the storyline is pretty predictable, you've seen one, you've puked to all of them.

  • Why would the judge need a clue? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fredrated ( 639554 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @05:18PM (#60370451) Journal

    Don't they have minions to set these up properly?

    • Court hearing are required to be open to the public in Florida so they didn't have a secured session. They weren't expecting the proceedings to be interrupted like this because it never happens normally. But, this case is different in that it involves a bunch of childish online hooligans who think that if it happens on line, no one can do anything about it or catch them even when it is a court proceeding about bail for one of them who was caught.
  • Why the move to Zoom, whatever happened to Skype and the rest?

  • Judges should be good at judging (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gnasher719 ( 869701 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @07:07PM (#60370749)
    Why would we expect a judge to be any good at using some video chat software? They should know the laws, how to apply them, how to run a court case in a fair way - they shouldn't have to know how to run this software.

    There is really no reason why the judge should be overseeing the video conference. That should be the job of some clerk who can be sent off for a weeks training to learn it all.
    • If a judge brings a tape recorder into the courtroom, I expect him to be able to use it.
      If a judge brings a camera into the courtroom, I expect him to be able to use it.
      If a judge brings a laptop into the courtroom, I expect him to be able to use it.

      The judge is in charge of his courtroom. If he allows something into the courtroom, he should understand the usage and ramifications of that device. If a spectator comes into his courtroom with a megaphone, he should understand the potential for disrupting

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Slayer ( 6656 )

      In this particular incident the judge was supposed to hold a bond hearing about a massive hacking spree, yet the judge proved utterly incompetent about this subject.

  • This is incredibly funny. Just because you can use something does not mean you can use it well. Or even competently.

  • Bring back Twitter Premium! Nobody wants to see what bluechecks have to say.

  • For being such fucking off-the-scale retards, that you would use Zoom, at all, /ever/.
    Let alone in a freaking *court hearing*.

    Such people (I meant thst judge) NEED to be put in a hospital or the mentally disabled / criminally insane! Otherwise we are letting the idiocracy just come.

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