Twitter Hit With Second Worm In a Week

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Twitter Hit With Second Worm In a Week

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday September 27, 2010 @04:55AM from the security-is-hard dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "Days after a site update unleashed a Twitter cross-site scripting attack, the micro-blogging site was again hit with a bug that spread via questionable links. The offending messages appeared on a user's Twitter feed with 'WTF:' followed by a link. If you clicked on that link, you were taken to a blank page, but behind the scenes, the worm would post vulgar messages on your account that discussed, well, sex involving goats."

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Goatse Worm? by WrongSizeGlass · 2010-09-27 04:57 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's no surprise that you could get worms from having sex, well, with goats.
Re:Great - more 4Chan? by Dancindan84 · 2010-09-27 05:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

You have to use twitter and be the type of person who clicks on questionable links without regard. This worm sounds like watching Darwinism in action in the digital age.

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"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Re:Call me hysterical if you will... by neumayr · 2010-09-27 05:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

Hehe, good choice. But please be aware that you have no idea of knowing how much of my code you're already running ;P

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Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
Re:Great - more 4Chan? by amicusNYCL · 2010-09-27 05:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

You have to use twitter and be the type of person who clicks on questionable links without regard.
Which of these links is "questionable":
http://tinyurl.com/2tx
http://bit.ly/heezy
http://xrl.us/bh2p3m
That's what all of the links on Twitter look like, which are OK and which are questionable? How does one distinguish?

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"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Re:Great - more 4Chan? by Dancindan84 · 2010-09-27 05:55 · Score: 5, Insightful

All of them. I don't click on shortened URLs. Nor should anyone who isn't a Rick Astley or Goatse fan.

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"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Re:I guess this script is baaaad for you. by miffo.swe · 2010-09-27 06:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

The fucking point of the internet is klicking on links. Playing whack a mole with stuff like antivirus, antispam, antiwhatever suggests your operating system is broken. If you have to verify every damn link you could as well just go for chess by physical mail and penpals instead of the internet.
The user uses the internet as intended, the developers, not so much.

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HTTP/1.1 400
Re:I guess this script is baaaad for you. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-09-27 06:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

So you're saying that every single time a friend posts a link, you phone or email them and ask if you actually posted a link, and want a description of the page linked to?
Wow... you're a douche. If you were my friend, I'd have long since put you into a group that can't see my updates, or just de-friended you altogether.
Re:The early bird... by _PimpDaddy7_ · 2010-09-27 06:47 · Score: 1, Insightful

OMG, I gotta retweet that!
-Tweet Tweet!
The Revolution by Beelzebud · 2010-09-27 07:15 · Score: 1, Insightful

Will not be Tweeted.
Re:Great - more 4Chan? by Dancindan84 · 2010-09-27 08:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

So people send a URL to a shortening service and receive a shortened URL they can post/send to me, and I can use a GreaseMonkey script that contacts the service and caches results to decode that shortened URL into the original URL they shortened... I understand we're not in the days of memory being measured in KB or 9600 baud modems, but this is retarded. Most phones aren't even bound by a character limit in SMS anymore. If a URL is stupidly long due to variables being sent, it's not hard to shorten a link without a stupid 3rd party service. Is it?

--
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde