Unmasking the Twitter hacker offers only cold comfort

The face behind the sensational breach of several high-profile Twitter accounts on 15 July has just been uncovered. Police have arrested Graham Ivan Clark, 17, in Tampa, Florida. He is reportedly being charged as an adult and faces 30 felonies. Reports suggest that Clark was initiated to the world of digital foul play quite early, through a popular video game called Minecraft, and he soon graduated to scamming people online, joining a forum of hackers and swindling people of Bitcoin worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Clark used a variety of “cool” aliases on digital platforms, ensnaring people to part with their money, pictures and vital information. He spent much of his time online as an escape from a dysfunctional family and was living alone in a condominium complex when he was arrested. Crime and broken families display a correlation, but that’s not the point. The real issue at hand is the vulnerability of digital platforms.