"It contains pretty much everything on Gab, including user data and private posts, everything someone needs to run a nearly complete analysis on Gab users and content,"
This is obviously supposed to intimidate conservatives who use Gab.
the group says it will selectively share it with journalists, social scientists, and researchers. WIRED viewed a sample of the data
Any news outlet that receives that data is breaking federal laws.
the hacker says that they pulled out Gab's data via a SQL injection vulnerability in the site—a common web bug in which a text field on a site doesn't differentiate between a user's input and commands in the site's code, allowing a hacker to reach in and meddle with its backend SQL database.
I've never trusted Gab, so I don't doubt that this could be a purposeful 'bug' in their code. Or this could be a cover for other illegal sources used to acquire names of people who support Trump that they know are on Gab, or it could be to cover fake accounts that have been used to impersonate certain people.
Gab doesn't collect personally identifiable information from its users such as telephone numbers, Social Security numbers, birth dates, or health and financial information.
Making it far easier to impersonate.
both his and Donald Trump's accounts had been "compromised."
Trump doesn't have an account on Gab. Someone else made it.
(DDoSecrets was careful to note to WIRED that it has not attempted to crack any of the hashed passwords or tested any of the plaintext passwords in the hacked data. WIRED hasn't either.)
Ya, right.
When Amazon booted Parler from its hosting service in January, many of the site's users flocked to Gab.
They went out of their way to invite them all there immediately after, even though they couldn't handle the load. Part of why I don't trust them.
The article sounds like they want to excuse the hack, rather than go after the alleged hackers.
(post is archived)