- Twitter Bird Hacked
TechCrunch, despite a rigorous online uproar, reveals the hacked documents of Twitter employees’. Apparently on Tuesday evening 300 confidential documents and screenshots landed in TechCrunch’s inbox.
According to TechCrunch, “The documents include employment agreements, calendars of the founders, new employee interview schedules, phone logs and bills, alarm settings, a financial forecast, a pitch for a Twitter TV show, confidentiality agreements with companies such as AOL, Dell, Ericsson, and Nokia, a list of employee dietary restrictions, credit card numbers, PayPal and Gmail screen shots, and much more.”
Undoubtedly TechCrunch sat down with their lawyers and decided what to publish on their blog. Many online responders clamored that TechCrunch should not publish the documents.
TechCrunch responded to the outcry:
“We publish confidential information almost every day on TechCrunch. This is stuff that is also “stolen,” usually leaked by an employee or someone else close to the company, and the company is very much opposed to its publication. In the past we’ve received comments that this is unethical. And it certainly was unethical, or at least illegal or tortious, for the person who gave us the information and violated confidentiality and/or nondisclosure agreements. But on our end, it’s simply news.”
TechCrunch said that Twitter approved the release. But a recent Twitter page tweet from Evan Willimam’s, CEO of Twitter, says other wise:
“@TechCrunch @arrington “we have been given the green light by Twitter to post this information” What?! By whom? That’s not our understanding”
Not The First Time
This is not the first time Twitter was hacked. In January 2009 a trail led to “Gmz” on a hacker site called Digital Gangster. According to TechCrunch, 33 celebrity Twitter accounts were hacked.
“Fox News got “Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay,” and Rick Sanchez from CNN got “I am high on crack right now might not be coming into work today.” But other Twitter accounts had links to sites to generate affiliate revenue. Facebook’s Twitter account had a message pointing to getlaid.info (now shut down), which redirected to a porn site. President Elect Barack Obama’s account had a link to a site that offered a $500 gas card for taking a survey. Both had affiliate links associated with them.”
The Entire Twitter-hacker Ordeal Brings Up Issues:
- What makes hackers any different than news reporters that uncover scandalous breaking news from anonymous tips?
- The hacker forces companies to think long and hard about their Internet security.
- This could put a ding in the adaptation of Cloud Computing, which is the model for placing applications in the cloud assessable from a hackable browser interface.
- Why didn’t Twitter learn from the first hack job?
Surely hackers are creepy. Who wants their undergarments exposed? EnoggEggbert is just an Egg, so revealing our yolk-parts isn’t all that interesting. But the Internet will have to find a way to learn from these frustrated cyber-slinging hacker pioneers. Are they pioneers or are they gangsters?
Twitter Should Hire These Hackers!
Get them working on the inside helping Twitter create great communities and teaching us all a thing or two about Internet security. Reciprocally, this helps Twitter hire knowledgeable Internet wizards, which clearly they need to do.
Egghead Relations 101
From The Desk of EnoggEggbert
