NYT Interviews 4 'Twenty-Somethings' Who Claim Responsibility For Twitter Hack

As we suspected, claims that the Twitter hack was perpetrated by a state actor because it was 'among the most sophisticated hacks in history' have proven suspect, as the New York Times has apparently tracked down a group of hackers (all of whom refused to reveal their identities even to the paper's reporters, a major no-no when using anonymous sources) who say they helped perpetrate Wednesday's hack, which saw dozens of accounts including high-profile 'blue checkmark' accounts belonging to Joe Biden's campaign, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others.

Among other things, the hack has revived fears about foreign manipulation and "disinformation" on social media (or at least that's what the mainstream media has reported).

But if the NYT has this right, the hack was actually perpetrated by a bunch of bored twenty somethings working with a mysterious mastermind only identified by the screenname "Kirk". Though that sn betrays the mastermind's status as an avowed Trekkie, it conveys little else. In total, the NYT says it spoke with four people who claimed to be involved in the attack.

According to the NYT, it connected with the hackers via a security researcher in California named Haseeb Awan who had been communicating with them. The hackers had previously targeted a bitcoin-related company Awan once owned, and had once unsuccessfully targeted his current company.

Why Awan would want to help these hackers after they purportedly tried to destroy his livelihood doesn't exactly make sense to us. But the two individuals who spoke with the Times - one who went by the screenname "lol" and another who went by the screenname "ever so anxious" - are both twentysomethings, one of whom lives in California, and the other somewhere in England. One claimed to still be living in his mother's basement.

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