Do Twitter Phishing Scams Herald the End of Microblogs?

An anonymous reader writes "Twitter's been hit by a big phishing scam. Culture Crash blogger Dan Tynan says this is the end of Twitter's innocence. Will tweets become like email, with two out of every three just worthless spam?"

Comments

Innocence?

[TurboNed]

this is the end Twitter's innocence.

Isn't this the internet? What's innocent?

Re:Innocence?

[jbezorg]

The most merciful thing in the internet, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We surf in a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of lol cats, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The networks, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated bytes will open up such terrifying vistas of content, and of the frightful capsuns therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly lulz into the peace and safety of a new gym pass.

Let's hope so

[Gothmolly]

terms like "twitterverse" and "microblog" are heralding the end of the sane Internet, so lets hope they get consumed by the vermin of the Internet.

Re:Let's hope so

[_ivy_ivy_]

The sane internet died a decade ago. We're in the death throws of the internet-of-the-corporate-hack. Likely our next stop will be the reincarnation of an AOL like atmosphere where a central application or website insulates you from the internet, and provides you with a limited array of things to do.

Ironically, it was the connection of AOL to the internet that marked the end of sanity in my book.

Re:Let's hope so

[DrVomact]

The sane internet died a decade ago. We're in the death throws of the internet-of-the-corporate-hack. Likely our next stop will be the reincarnation of an AOL like atmosphere where a central application or website insulates you from the internet, and provides you with a limited array of things to do.

Holy cow, you've hit on the solution! This is exactly what's needed! Needed not by us, of course, but by normals. Consider the possibilities. As you well know, over 90% of the people who own computers are not qualified to use anything more complex than a simple calculator. Computers are very complex tools. What are normals using these tools for? Well, to write email, maybe do their online banking, post stupid pictures of their kids on some website and...what else do normals use computers for? Not counting apps like Free Cell that don't require an internet connection, I mean. The rest of the CPU cycles of these computers are used to transmit spam and various malware—they are the soldiers of the botnets.

Then there's the maintenance & support headaches. Who here doesn't have a gaggle of clueless relatives and friends who bombard them with stupid questions and pleas for help with their malware-clogged, zombified computers? And then blame you the next time something goes wrong?

Well, the solution is now within our reach: put everyone of these people on dumb terminals connected to a service like AOL that gives them very limited options so they're not confused. They just plug it in, turn it on, and the user menu—complete with cute tail-wagging puppy—comes up. Give them access to word processing or spreadsheet apps on a pay-as-you go basis. (No installation hassles!) Sure, their data is now 0wnz0red by some corporate empire, but normals don't care about this kind of stuff.

Better yet, all maintenance problems now become the service provider's problem. You can honestly say "Gee, I can't help you with that, but if you call MyIntarnet's tech support, I'm sure they'll fix it". Best of all, without an on-board hard drive, there's no problem with virus/trojan/worm propagation. Spam will finally die...well diminish, anyhow.

Of course that's for them; people who know better would still use real computers. It would be even better if they could have their own internet sorta like AOL was in the early days...but that's probably not practical.

That would imply that non spam tweets were useful

[Sycraft-fu]

Thus far Twitter seems like a totally useless idea to me. No, you are not so important that everyone cares what you are doing when you are going shopping.

Re:That would imply that non spam tweets were usef

[solios]

Agreed. Much like the "blogosphere," twitter is the kind of thing that is OMFG WORLD CHANGING.... but only to its users.

It's great that the service is there and all, but like facebook, myspace, et al, I really wish people would stop blithering about how INSANELY GREAT it is.

A web gui for the equivalent of an IRC or AIM /away message is about as world-changing as a gui for a MUD. Sure, at least one is successful... but I don't do MUDs or MMOs, so how has it changed my life, aside from a few of my friends disappearing for months whenever a new expansion is released?

That said, a pointless-to-me-anyway service that people I otherwise respect can't shut up about is being crapflooded? Awesome!

Re:That would imply that non spam tweets were usef

[larry bagina]

2008-1-5 11:53AM - just took a dump.

Re:That would imply that non spam tweets were usef

[gEvil (beta)]

Celebrating the one year anniversary?

Re:That would imply that non spam tweets were usef

[zappepcs]

I'm kind of with you on this one. I remember back in the day, if you spent more than an hour on the phone people thought there was something wrong with you. Back then I thought they were right. If some galactic disaster wiped out electronics on Earth, there would be a lot of people who suddenly lose it because they have nobody to blab to. Twitter gives them this outlet even when they are surrounded by people that really don't want to hear their crap. It's really no different than thinking outloud or talking to walls; an umbilical cord to keep them from having to be alone. They talk about how great it is because they are addicted and cannot function without someone listening to them blabber on about nothing all day. As long as they are talking, they feel somehow important. - Yes, I get the irony

Re:Let me rephrase that question...

[thrillseeker]

your thoughts are intriguing ... can I follow you?

Twitter spam easy to stop

[Jason Levine]

Many people who are replying don't seem to use Twitter or even understand really what is going on with the phishing. Since I use Twitter, I'll explain:

With Twitter, you set up lists of people that you follow. When you follow someone, you can then see their Twitter messages on your main screen (or in your client application if you use one). Everyone else following that person can see the person's messages. People you follow can also send you Direct Messages. These messages aren't seen by anyone but the sender and recipient. In this respect, it is sort of like e-mail only it requires a "trusted relationship" to have been formed first i.e. No spamming from joe_random@somesite.com to everyone_else@somewhere-else.org.

What the Phishers are doing are sending DMs from compromised accounts telling the recipients about some blog post that they should check out. The recipients (assuming they fall for the phish), see a page that looks like the Twitter login page (but is really on access-logins.com). They enter their username and password and now the Phishers have another account to send DMs from. Rinse and repeat. I strongly suspect that there's a Phase Two in there that involves more than just collecting Twitter account information but so far they are just collecting accounts.

Stopping it is easy. If you change your password, they no longer have access. People have been outing people who "sent" them DMs (and thus were compromised). If a person doesn't fix their situation, you could unfollow them. This would mean they could no longer send you Direct Messages. As people stop following compromised people, they will either fix the problem or will dwindle to zero followers. Spam stopped. (If only e-mail spam were so easy to stop.)

And to address the "Twitter is useless" commentary, yes there are a lot of people on Twitter who post inane things. Then again, there are some good posters. (For example, I follow Greg Grunberg from Heroes and love reading his tweets.) I think you'll find that in any online medium. Blogs are like this, web sites are like this, even comments on Slashdot are like this. Choose a random Slashdot article and browse at -1. You're sure to find many worthless comments for every worthwhile comment. As for Twitter, I tend not to follow the inane Twitter posters, so I don't see those posts in my Twitter-feed. Like any online tool, Twitter is only what you make of it.

Re:That would imply that non spam tweets were usef

[HertzaHaeon]

Conversations? Bah, back in my day, we used to grunt and throw rocks at each other to communicate. Then som smart whipper-snapper like you came along with his fancy language, destroying our fine old traditions.

Re:No, end of services

[Anonymous Coward]

If my toilet cant twitter then I'll stop using it.

Um. . . do you mean Twitter or the toilet?

Whichever. They're both full of shit.