Earlier on 15th July, the recent Twitter hack targeting a number of the platform’s most high-profile users caused chaos around the world, with Twitter temporarily restricting verified users from posting at all. The hack had users like Bill Gates , Kanye West, and Obama tweeting out a bitcoin scam to million of several other followers.
Now, a 17-year-old Florida teenager has been arrested over the hack, and a New York Times profile has delved into his history of hacks and online scams. Friends told the NY Times that Graham Ivan Clark started playing Minecraft at age of 10 to flee an unhappy home life, and shortly became adept at scamming other players.
Like many young gamers, Clark dabbled with YouTube, building an audience playing Minecraft in PVP oriented servers. He reportedly used the username Open, or OpenHCF. The NY report tracked down several of players who had been scammed by someone with a similar username – usually offering to sell a username or a rare cape then blocking the user once money had been sent.
One player described how he offered to purchase for Clark’s own username “Open” for $100 USD, on the other hand was blocked once the transaction was sent. “I was just just a dumb teenager, and searching back, there’s no way I should have ever done this,” the user told the NY. “Why should I ever have trusted this dude?”
Clark’s seemingly practiced Minecraft scams are now preserved during a number of YouTube videos by other Minecraft players, exposing the foremost common ways he was scamming around with other players.
After the Twitter hack, Clark is being charged as an adult with 30 felonies. He had previously been involved within a large bitcoin theft, but wasn’t charged due to being a minor.