Torso-baring rapper Ja Rule (real name Jeffrey Atkins) was handed a two year prison sentence yesterday after admitting to illegal gun possession.
The charges stem back to July 2007, when New York city police police stopped his luxury $250,000 Maybach sedan for speeding and found a semiautomatic .40-calibre pistol in the back seat. The Associated Press reports that Ja Rule is likely to serve 16 months in prison followed by 18 months’ probation, after he reached a plea deal with prosecutors.
What’s of most interest to us here on Naked Security, however, is that it appears a hacker has had control of Ja Rule’s Twitter account for several hours.
Over 36,000 followers of the rap star have been witnessing dozens of peculiar tweets coming from Ja Rule’s account – some mildly amusing, some offensive, and many utterly intelligible to member of the computer security industry who doesn’t follow the ins-and-outs of rap music:
i tried to do an album in auto tune and broke the damn machine
i cant even get people to download my albums illegaly
Oh, and some which are likely to upset 50 Cent’s mum:
It’s pretty clear that the real Ja Rule hasn’t posted the scores of messages that have appeared and, at the time of writing, are still being posted. It’s not just the content which indicates this; the messages also appear to be mainly being sent via the Twitter website rather than the Twitbird and Twitterific clients that Ja Rule normally uses.
In other words, it’s looking very much like Ja Rule has been careless with his Twitter password – and allowed a third party to sneak their way in. Maybe he used the same password as one he used on another site, or maybe it simply was simple to guess or crack.
In my opinion it’s time that Ja Rule pulled his trousers up and took his computer security a little more seriously. Maybe he’ll have time to think about that while he’s in the clink.
Could care less about what these douche-bags do with their life. It makes me ill to my stomach, that someone like Ja Rule can afford to drive a Maybach around. And to be so ignorant to carry a loaded gun with him. He's a thug that people admire. I guess one has to be an egocentric criminal to make lots of money in the good ol United States.
These rappers have so much Ego its disturbing. They are very dumb people to begin with as they let their ego rule over their lives from the day they develop a conscious, thinking mind. Black athletes are the same for the most part.
Their community brings them down because their are very little people who want to do anything about the sad state they are in, because they fear persecution from friends, family and other community members, especially the thugs that destroy these communities.
Then they go and blame the government (lets say the white man) for all their problems. Get over it!
NYTimes has it right, the Black man is in a serious crisis, and nobody is helping. Why isn't Obama helping? How about Oprah? or Bill Cosby? Ja Rule? Jay-Z? etc.
They are so wrapped up in their wealth and fame, that they just can't let go of that EGO that keeps them from advancing as a HUMAN BEING. Now and then they do something minor, to be shown as 'saints' in the media, but its really pointless, and again, an ego-boost.
Then you have the news/media, like this article that has no problem glorifying this lifestyle.
Its time for a change, lets help our brothers get educated, and I mean real education, not that fake kind that teaches them to say a few big words now and then (in all actuality… wtf is that??).
Crisis, and lets help them help themselves. They need a new outlook on life from their earliest childhood.
From one black-man to the rest of the world reading this.