
Hackers are defacing Reddit with pro-Trump messages - rbanffy
https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-are-defacing-reddit-with-pro-trump-messages/
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Hackbraten
> but the large scale of the incident suggests that the intruder(s) might have
> gained access to a high-privileged moderator or admin account.

The fact that only certain, less-than-top-20 subreddits are affected seems to
suggest that it’s just certain subreddit moderators who have been hacked, not
actual Reddit admins.

I feel that distinction is important. Aren’t subreddit moderators just regular
users anyway who happen to moderate a subreddit?

~~~
Barrin92
in particular because apparently very few moderators mod a ton of subreddits.
I remember seeing some drama a while ago about some sort of excessively
concentrated mod power.

~~~
ffpip
4 users are the moderators of 96 of the top communities.

Of course the same mods took down the post that pointed this out, saying it
was harassment.

These 'power mods' have full access to the sub reddit they are moderators of.
They can push a post up or down the feed's algorithm , give it as many reddit
awards as they wish and perma ban any user.

~~~
duskwuff
> They can push a post up or down the feed's algorithm

This is not, and has never been, the case. Moderators can remove posts and ban
users, but they cannot affect the scoring or placement of posts (short of
pinning up to two posts to the top of the page, which visually distinguishes
them from other posts).

~~~
ffpip
The usual mods can't, but the power mods can.

I know it sounds like a conspiracy, but these are trusted users with lots of
karma. A normal mod has no power except remove posts and ban users

~~~
duskwuff
I have never heard of or seen evidence of this before, and I've been using
Reddit for the last ten years.

"Power mods" is a colloquial term used for users who are moderators of a large
number of subreddits (especially large ones). It isn't a separate, special
status.

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stx
Its strange that some of these messages are written in Chinese.
[https://video-
images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1596820874448-s...](https://video-
images.vice.com/_uncategorized/1596820874448-screen-
shot-2020-08-07-at-10932-pm.png?resize=800:*)

Also some messages instead of saying Donald Trump they used 唐纳德·特朗普 which are
the Chinese characters for Donald Trump according to google translate.

Was this done to try to frame China or something? Or would Chinese hackers
really use Chinese characters?

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joshstrange
This looks like a coordinated usage of previously hacked/compromised mod
accounts (as in, not like the Twitter hack).

Here is at least 1 mod saying that is what happened:
[https://reddit.com/r/space/comments/i5fhd3/_/g0oumkc/?contex...](https://reddit.com/r/space/comments/i5fhd3/_/g0oumkc/?context=1)

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jackson1442
I'm curious what the goal was here, since the posts they made almost read as
satire.

~~~
DenisM
> I'm curious what the goal was here, since the posts they made almost read as
> satire.

Well, that could have been the goal then?

~~~
stx
If the goal was to increase support for Trump I don't think it will accomplish
that goal.

~~~
grawprog
Maybe the opposite?

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ryaan_anthony
I wonder why they would do that.

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m-p-3
Maybe the impact would have been lower if there was a limit to how many
subreddits you can be a moderator of? At some point, you might be moderating
more than humanly possible.

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sirmoveon
More like subreddit moderators selling their accounts to the Russians

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vaxman
Are politics like that allowed on here? Doesn’t sound like a good idea. ‘Old
Biden was a good man anyway, but be has one confirmed brain aneurism and may
have a second, plus we are in a depression that everyone calls a recession (to
avoid panic) so doesn’t the final choice have to be Trump Good, Starvation
Bad? By the way, there is no way to deface Reddit and Russia are gone-be our
BFFs in a Trump second term —Russia plus USA will remind everyone what China
rhymes with.

