The night joke could have gone wrong. A series of French Twitter accounts was suspended Friday morning after one of their owners had fun, via the social network, to declare war on the United States on behalf of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.
It is a French twitto (a Twitter user), nicknamed Kira, who is the source of the hoax. Thursday evening, he managed to recover access to a certified and inactive account belonging to a small Nigerian party called "United Democratic Party" (UDP). An account that is not affiliated with Muhammadu Buhari, leader of the Congress of Progressives (APC). "He decided to keep the account to bring his subscribers on it, with no idea behind his head," said Nathfurax, a friend of the hacker, who followed the story, to the Parisian.
A night like the others on Twitter .. #Kira #Nigeria pic.twitter.com/UawdIpRjdm
- 100 sens ™ (@ 100_sens_) January 16, 2020To find the codes, you don't need complex software. Everything was done from a Twitter "database" disclosed in 2013, explains another twitto member of the group, nicknamed the "FC Hagra", instigator of the joke. "With the help of other databases, we can find the account information by doing a minimum of research," he says.
A joke targeting Donald Trump
Nathfurax therefore suggested to his friend to make a joke. "To laugh, I told him to change his profile to look like the president of Nigeria, since the profile was certified and it was credible to declare a war by mentioning a country. So he mentioned Donald Trump, "said the surfer.
Thus at 10.52 p.m. a declaration of war for the American president appeared, in rough English. "I, Muhammadu Buhari, declare war on the United States today by promising to destroy the citizens who adhere to Donald Trump's policy. @realDonaldTrump, you've been warned, ”reads it.
In the space of a few minutes, retweets have multiplied by hundreds. Frightened by the magnitude of the response, Kira ended up deleting the message. Too little time, therefore, to get a reaction from the President.
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Later, it was a new surfer, outside of FC Hagra, who decided to usurp, this time, the identity of the UDP. "It should be noted that, although these so-called hackers tried to attack our resources through childish methods, these young criminals have no way of coping with Nigeria's technological superiority. It is impossible for them to hack us ”, assured this parody account, the owner of which has not yet been identified.
It must be noted that while the so-called "hackers" have tried to take down our resources through childish methods, these young criminals do not have in any shape or form the means to compete with the technological Nigerian superiority. It is impossible for them to hack us.
- United Democratic Party of Nigeria (@UDPartyNigeria) January 16, 2020A "provocation" for FC Hagra who, in response, told the Parisian that he then hacked a site that was part of the domain of the Nigerian government. They also managed to put the UDP site offline as well as, for a time, the Nigerian presidency site, which was restored at the end of the morning on Friday.
A joke punishable by one year in prison
Are these young hackers, who are between 13 and 24 years old, afraid of reprisals? Not really, they say. "I don't think the government is reacting," said one of them. Other relatives of Kira were still joking about it on Twitter Friday morning. Contacted, the Nigerian Ministry of Communications has not yet been able to respond to our requests.
According to a whistleblower very present on Twitter, and who has long denounced the actions of FC Hagra, the group is an aficionado of account theft and mass actions. However, "this is the first time that they have made this political coup," he said. The communications department of Twitter, contacted by us, had not yet responded to us on Friday afternoon.
Online identity theft, if it is the subject of a complaint, can be punished with a year in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros, specifies the site of the National Commission for Information Technology and Freedom (Cnil ). Piracy, on the other hand, can be punished with “three years' imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 euros”, specifies the Criminal Code.