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security Need Investigative help please for TheDomains.com Twitter hacked account

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Hello,

First off, I am not affiliated with TheDomains.com at all. It is and always was Mike Berkens site. Raymond Hackney @equity78 is a huge part of TheDomains.com now since MB kinda retired.

So, I was off of work today.. I should have done many things, ran errands, put some domains in auction, domain management, wrote in my own blog (which I have the hardest time ever doing), crypto coin movement since market moved, and a long honey-do list, etc.

I start off my day, looking at the domain blogs, and of course checking my Twitter account. I notice that TheDomains Twitter account got hacked. That kind of pissed me off. Nobody should be able to do that. Some people were trying to help tweet to people to report this hack to Twitter, just press the gear icon, etc. Well, my desktop twitter didnt have one so I created a screenshot showing how to report it from desktop set-up.

Twitter support blows. I am sure that so many fans of The Domains have reported this, and still no help. The knucklehead holding the twitter account for ransom still has full control of the site. This only goes to show the rest of us that have many less followers, that if we ever get hacked, we will never get our accounts back.

So, this starts bothering me. I know Ray for almost 10 years now. Mike Berkens had my favorite portfolio of any big time domainer ever, before selling it. Almost got to meet Mike when in Ft. Lauderdale a couple years ago. Just seems like a very cool guy. I have TONS of respect for TheDomains.com and Mike and Ray.

Ok so, I see this knucklehead hacker tweeting on that account. At one time, he asks for $50 in Bitcoin to get account back. I tweet that I will pay it to get it back to them.

Then he direct messages me.His tweets sounded childish, but his DM's sounded much more civil. So, I feel like I am dealing with a guy down on his luck and he is a hacker, sure I will give him the $50 to get the account back to Mike and Ray.

Thats where I F-ed up.

So, I sent him $50 in Bitcoin from my Bittrex along with the $15 fee thinking he was going to turn over the account. Of course, he didn't

Now, you may call me an idiot, and I get it. I do feel embarrassed. Based on the DM's I really felt like I could fix this. The money was not too big of an issue to me considering the knowledge I have gotten from Mike on TheDomains.com for free for all of these years, and Ray has done 100x more than $50 worth for me in the past 10 years as well. So this could have been a great ending but unfortunately not.

This is where you come in.

Can anyone find this guy? I know there are some brilliant people who frequent this forum and I think I got a lot of information from this scumbag. A couple members I have seen here who have done some great investigative work... @Grilled @promo anyone else that may be able to help, that would be extremely cool!

I am gonna eventually post my whole DM conversation here thru screenshots. I have his Bitcoin address and some text address screenshot that may be helpful. I don't know why, but I am angered by this big time like it is my own site even though it isn't.

Thanks,
Vito

Ok I think I captured entire conversation
Here goes...

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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
I wanted to help just like everyone else. Since I don't know how to 'hack the hacker', I followed the path @Grilled suggested.

I've gotten my best responses to my complaints by going to higher ups within the company (I recently got a refund voucher after emailing the CEO of American Airlines)

Anyway, I digress: here are email formats I've checked and verified for some twitter execs. Although, they may all be on vacay right now, I hope this may help:

Chief Legal Officer: Vijaya Gadde ([email protected])
Chief Information Security Officer: Michael Coates (first initial + lastname @twitter.com), mcoates
Chief Operations Officer: Anthony Noto (firstname.lastname @twitter.com)
VP of Product: Keith Coleman (first initial + last name @twitter.com)
I believe the CEOs address may be [email protected], but I wasn't able to confirm that one.
 
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You sure this account was actually hacked? Still see the Trump praising.
 
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I have now also taken all my card details and personally stuff off Twitter

The domain king appears to have also taken action by removing his credit card details as well.

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If your satill having problems I have a good contact in twitter can ask him sort this.
 
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If your satill having problems I have a good contact in twitter can ask him sort this.

Please do.

As @Grilled just said " We need human at Twitter to catch wind of what's going on"
 
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The guy that stole that account is silly. I had conversations over two days and he just wants money and that account. He knows very little about domains.

He responds using a free trial email...hi at topmail dot com. He has changed the Twitter email to li*** at topmail dot com.

That's as much as I could get. I also have his wallet ID. That's it.

I believe he has done this before. I believe he is not in the us.
 
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The guy that stole that account is silly. I had conversations over two days and he just wants money and that account. He knows very little about domains.

He responds using a free trial email...hi at topmail dot com. He has changed the Twitter email to li*** at topmail dot com.

That's as much as I could get. I also have his wallet ID. That's it.

I believe he has done this before. I believe he is not in the us.

All of that information was posted already. I posted his wallet id in my first post...lol

JagG posted his email info with the li...@topmail also a while back when he was trying to hack the hacker.

Maybe you or others arent reading the whole thread and i get it. Its getting long.

Let me start from scratch here.

Here is his wallet id, that i foolishly sent the BTC to...

1KBBFEkudkrcEb1McS16BS3ubGuR47JX6t

I was hoping someone could find out any info that leads to his wallet id since there has to be other transactions to this wallet.

Also on another note, @Acroplex said Richard Laus account was hacked and he got it back. If anyone has contact with him, (he did post his twittter handle @lau) maybe he can give us that one tip, that one twitter account to reach out to, that one phone # to call in order to speed this insanity up.
 
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That is one ugly looking hacker, i'd pay what he is asking for just so he can disappear - he can also keep the account.
 
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The original hacker may have sold the account, the email looks to have changed for the reset.

Mike has filed a lawsuit against Twitter https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/3...rldwide-media-inc--et-al-v-twitter-inc-et-al/

This is a damn shame. Really unbelievable the lack of response. I find it so hard to believe nobody at twitter heard any of us thru all we have tried so far.

Dont they use their own platform???

Best of luck to TheDomains.com with their lawsuit.
 
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Seems now the hacker sold Mikes Twitter Handle to a 3rd party making much harder to ever get back!

So @thedomainscom loses 10 YEARS of WORK!! 10 YEARS!! GONE!! This sucks! Can't support this company or platform any longer!

Where is the outrage?? Lift a damn finger and start RETWEETING some of this stuff.

So what's the condition of the "Domain Industry" if we as an INDUSTRY can't come together to Help Mike Berkens @thedomainscom get his REAL @Twitter account back and his 10 YEARS of WORK?

It's DEAD!!!

"Likes" don't help. Only RETWEETS! #Domains @TwitterSupport #Twitter #Ransom

Our job is to circulate and get some attention to this very serious matter!

All help appreciated!!

And for those that want to minimize/excuse this, GET OUT OF THE WAY!! You have no value if you don't want to do something constructive!

Thank you!!
 
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Please do.

As @Grilled just said " We need human at Twitter to catch wind of what's going on"
will email thwe person that I know ask if he can sort it out
 
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Important Precautions to take when buying ... they may even want to sell some (fake) good domain names and trick you with ID TW @TheDomains
 
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This is absolutely outrageous. I too have made contact with Twitter and whoever I can to voice my concerns.

If enough of us show our outrage surely they must do something!? Absolutely pathetic from Twitter. Laughable company to ever invest in in the future.
 
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Hate to say this folks if you serve papers on twitter your just lost any connection of getting twitter handle back.
Its the wrong way doing things. When you create account its your job to make sure account is safe. There is also safe factors put in place to protect your account from being changed over to another email account.

Always make sure your twitter account password is changed over every couple of months dont use same password as you use for linkedin, Facebook or another social media accounts.
 
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Looks like Twitter is paying some attention to this as you know what I mentioned about when you hit forgot lost password you see a partial email address, well now trying that with the @TheDomains account does not work, I tried putting in any old password and it says there is suspicious activity on this account. So maybe they are getting close to righting this.
 
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Looks like Twitter is paying some attention to this as you know what I mentioned about when you hit forgot lost password you see a partial email address, well now trying that with the @TheDomains account does not work, I tried putting in any old password and it says there is suspicious activity on this account. So maybe they are getting close to righting this.

A friggen week later...Great.
Better later than never.

Well best of luck to you guys Ray.
 
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School districts expressing their frustration,

Trouble Reaching Twitter
The Clark County spokesman declined to specify exactly how long Foothill's account was compromised, but it appeared to be under external control for well over three days.

And in remarks at a news conference that were reported by local station WPTV, St. Lucie superintendent Wayne Gent fumed at how long it took Twitter to remove the racist messages posted from his district's account.

"I was mad as hell," Gent said during the news conference. "There's not a hotline that you can contact or a hotline that you can call. It's done through emails, it's done through texting and we could not get a response from [Twitter.]"


Levin of EdTech Strategies said that's unfortunate, but not surprising. Platforms such as Twitter are awash in offensive, abusive, and otherwise problematic content, and they are even getting called to testify before Congress for their roles in enabling foreign governments to spread misinformation and meddle in elections. And their strategy of relying on algorithms and technology to respond to problems doesn't appear to be working very well, he added.

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/10/11/hacked-twitter-accounts-a-new-headache-for.html
 
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So it is a widespread problem at Twitter i see now. Matter of fact i do remember Mcafee saying something about a coin that wasnt him endorsing. I just thought someone else made an account with his name and image trying to pump their own coin. Didnt know HE was hacked as well.

I would think shareholders cant be too happy about this. Once they start selling off and jumping ship because of bad publicity plus lawsuits maybe twitter will get their $hit together.
 
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This is just one of a 100s examples how they do it. In this example, hkr claims to be selling 32 millions of Twitter accounts.

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So it is a widespread problem at Twitter i see now. Matter of fact i do remember Mcafee saying something about a coin that wasnt him endorsing. I just thought someone else made an account with his name and image trying to pump their own coin. Didnt know HE was hacked as well.

I would think shareholders cant be too happy about this. Once they start selling off and jumping ship because of bad publicity plus lawsuits maybe twitter will get their $hit together.

Right Rick has a 7 figure position in Twitter stock, Mike owns 10,000 shares, shareholder lawsuit being filed as well.
 
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