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by X9 1432 days ago
I grabbed a short 2-letter Twitter handle within a few months after they launched. A few years ago I had someone used SIM hijacking to steal access to my phone number. This failed to get access to my Twitter account because I never set up a recovery phone number, however he got access to my Facebook and a few other accounts. I got T-Mobile to fix the SIM swap, but after 3 nights of harassment I just changed my handle. I didn't want to give in but the handle wasn't worth the trouble. On the plus side since Twitter doesn't allow handles that short anymore, once I changed my handle the hijacker's attempts were foiled.
4 comments

How would they know the phone number associated with your account?
They were likely guessing that the number matching public records for the account owner’s name was the same used to secure the Twitter account.
Clearly, because the number wasn’t even associated with the account.
They may have had their Twitter handle on their CV.
Even 3 letter handles can be a bit of a drag, when random tweets get chopped off and only the first 3 letters of other twitter handles happen to match
IMO you shouldn't have given in. You should have been extremely petty here on principal - the situation calls for it.
Did you not read the article? The one where peoples family members are getting harassed and someone died of a heart attack? That is a lot to put other people through out of "principle"