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Twitter Bug Lets Users Force Others To Follow Them

Posted by Soulskill on from the take-that-conan dept.

Several readers have sent word of a Twitter bug which has been allowing users to make any other user follow them by simply tweeting "accept [username]." People have been abusing it to make the accounts of various celebrities and publications follow them. Twitter acknowledged the bug and disabled the follow/unfollow system until they can get it fixed.

6 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. That sounds more like a by abbynormal+brain · · Score: 3, Insightful

    test command embedded into the code that allows "dummy" testing within the development environment. Either way - oops.

    --
    L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
    1. Re:That sounds more like a by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm going to stick my neck out and suggest it's more a case of someone deciding not to check for errors in a bit of code.

      In Twitter, you can have either protected tweets or unprotected tweets. If the former, then if someone wants to follow you, they have to request it, and you can either "accept" them following or deny it.

      It looks to me that the commands are sent in-band, and that the command "accept " is related to the above code. What isn't happening is any check that the person identified ever actually sent a request in the first place.

      So, this isn't an evil conspiracy to send people advertising (was BAG being serious?), and I doubt it's test code either. The above just "fits" with everything we know about twitter.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  2. Re:Probably not a bug by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So what should you do? Stop using Twitter?

    Yes.

  3. In-Band Signalling by captaindomon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is one of the difficulties of In-Band Signaling. Their communication channel is so limited that handling secure signaling is difficult.

    --
    Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
  4. Re:Probably not a bug by fotbr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

  5. Re:Probably not a bug by Dalambertian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The suggestion that we should stop using twitter because of spam is quite strange. Has spam stopped you from using email?