Arron Banks' private messages leaked by hacker

[Denzil_DC]

Last edited Wed Nov 20, 2019, 01:11 AM - Edit history (1)

The Twitter account of Arron Banks, the founder of the pro-Brexit campaign Leave.EU, has been hacked.

The perpetrator has leaked thousands of his private messages to and from dozens of other people spanning several years.

In a statement, Mr Banks accused Twitter of taking too long to tackle the issue and said the social network had "deliberately chosen" to leave his personal information online.

Twitter said it had "taken steps to secure the compromised account".

"We will continue to take firm enforcement action in line with our policy which strictly prohibits the distribution on our service of materials obtained through hacking," Twitter said in a statement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50474626

The stable door is well open, and a number of Banks' messages have already been posted on social media - unfortunately, along with some spoofs which will muddy the waters. The legality of re-posting any of the messages is unclear, though some of them have been made available on the Twitter hashtag #arronbanksleaks. Some journalists, including Carole Cadwalladr, who've started sifting through them have described them as "explosive".

Link to tweet

Carole Cadwalladr ✔
@carolecadwalla

#arronbanksleaks Right. I've just been sent the first set of direct messages from the file. They're pretty explosive. What are the ethics/legals on this, world?

Ironically, one avenue Banks may have to prevent disclosure of his correspondence is EU legislation. The EU's Brexit Coordinator Guy Verhoftadt tweeted:

Link to tweet

Guy Verhofstadt
?@guyverhofstadt

Arron Banks is angry that his personal data has been breached. I believe the Brits have a good saying for this: What goes around comes around...

Who may be implicated and how much of all this will see the light of day with sufficient prominence and volume to have any effect on the election, we'll have to wait and see, though with pressure on the government to release the report on Russian electoral interference continuing, there may be some jumpy spads, politicians and journalists around at the moment.