I was in a store once with my wife and sons and I saw a child sitting on the ground crying. I walked near him and asked if he was ok and if he was lost. He stopped crying, got up, and ran down the aisle to his mother. Apparently, he decided to throw a temper tantrum and she was calling his bluff by walking away. (I've done the same for my boys. Works most of the time.) Seeing a "stranger" approach him must have snapped him out of his tantrum.
The dad in me just wanted to help out a child that seemed to be lost. If my son was lost, I wouldn't want people to just ignore him and let him cry. I'd want someone to help him to the customer service desk where they could call for me.
I don't think that anyone's claiming that the Internet is completely benign, but it isn't a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" like some Protect The Children advocates would like us to think either. The truth is in the middle. Yes, there are parts of the Internet that aren't good for kids. However, there are places that are very good for them. The key is to help kids distinguish which is good, which is bad, and how to react to both.
I often compare the Internet to New York City. You wouldn't visit New York City for the first time, drop your 6 year old on a random street corner and shout "have a good time" as you drive off. You would accompany your child to the city first. You would show them the better/kid-friendly aspects of the city. Perhaps a museum or a Broadway show. You would warn them about the dangers such as walking down dark alleys. You would tell them how to react if they found themselves in a dark alley and what to do if confronted with unsavory characters. As your child grew up they would get better at spotting the good and avoiding the bad and you would give them more and more freedom to explore on their own.
The same is true for the Internet. The first time your kid goes online, you should be right there helping them along. At first, use a product like KIDO'Z to steer them to certain sites and/or use Parental Controls to restrict what sites they can visit. Slowly, let them explore more of the Internet (with you there). Make sure they know how to tell if something isn't good and how they should react (coming to you, closing the browser, whatever). Eventually, they will be able to browse the Internet without your direct supervision (though you should always do spot checks here and there).
So a kid signing online isn't going to be immediately slammed with kiddie porn loving perverts but neither is he going to be able to know how to go to the good sites and avoid the bad. That's the parent's job.
I've experienced both. I had both individual bullies torment me and packs. The packs were definitely worse. When one of them would pass me in a hall, he would leave me alone. (I wasn't a violent person, but could easily have taken any single one of them in a fight if pushed hard enough.) But when two, three, or more were together, they would suddenly get brave. They would follow me from class to class making fun of me and laughing at me the whole way. Attempts to lose them would only get me more verbal abuse from my followers. Because of this, I became very paranoid. I was convinced that all laughter on the school bus was directed at me (whether it really was or wasn't).
One of their favorite activities was gathering near the door of one of my classes and tormenting me as I passed through. One day, while they blocked my path and verbally abused me, I nearly lost it. You know that expression "Seeing Red?" Well, I literally saw red. Everything around me turned red and I almost got extremely violent on the nearest group member. Luckily for me/them, my teacher saw what was happening and broke up their little gathering. It's because of this incident that I have a small degree of sympathy for those kids who are picked on and turn to school shootings. Not that I'm forgiving the violent outbursts, mind you, but because I know my life could have turned out like theirs all too easily.
And then of course there are female bullies. From my experience and those related to me, male bullies are relatively fucking cheerful. Female bullies, especially towards other females, take the "passive aggressive" approach;
My wife taught for awhile in an all girl's Catholic middle school. Bullying was tough to spot with the girls. If two boys have a problem with each other, they will likely fight it out. There's no subtly involved. If a girl has a problem with another girl, they'll look like best friends by all outward appearances. Meanwhile, the one girl will be psychologically tearing the other girl to shreds.
Just one of many reason why I'm glad I have two sons.
A couple of weeks ago, my son was walking across my in-laws' kitchen when he slipped and fell on the back of his head. (Think Charlie Brown trying to kick the football falling.) He had a concussion and possible seizure that resulting in an ER trip. (This part is true. Luckily, he's ok now, but he did scare us for a bit.)
By Mr. Blumenthal's reasoning, I should now lobby to ban all tile-based flooring for kitchens. All flooring surfaces should be like bean bags. If you fall on it, it just absorbs the impact and you don't get hurt. I'm sure I can count on Mr. Blumenthal's support in this ban on dangerous flooring materials. At the very least, we need to encase all small children in industrial strength bubble wrap. PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!
My sons both at a certain age discovered their respective penises and decided that it was fun playing with them. We had to remind our older kid that it is not polite to grab your crotch in public (even if your underwear isn't quite sitting right). That combined with their love of flirting with women (at least when they were younger) leads me to believe that I'll have my hands full when they hit the teenage years.
They will learn how to "write flirtatious text messages and emails" and this is supposed to help them enter the world of work? Now I might not be the biggest social guy around, but even I know that writing flirtatious e-mails at work isn't going to help you out. In fact, it's likely to get you fired. Especially if they are directed at your co-workers. (And, no, I don't know about this from experience. In my single days, I made it a rule never to "dip my pen in the company ink." Not that I ever had the opportunity mind you...)
it is your last place to be where fun/childish behavior is sanctioned and acceptable.
You also are strapped with potentially a lifetime ending anchor of a kid
Let me guess, you don't have a kid? I have two and let me tell you, I'm able to engage in much more fun/childish behavior than when I was in college. Watching cartoons, playing with toys, seeing old favorites (movies/shows) through new eyes, etc. It's all perfectly appropriate when you're a dad/mom. Yes, you're going to have to act like a grown-up sometimes ("No you can't throw that ball around in the house! You'll break something." "No you can't watch that movie now. It's your bedtime.", "No, you can't play GTA. You're only 6."), but the act-like-a-kid moments and the act-grown-up moments tend to balance themselves out.
That said, I wouldn't advise anyone to rush into being a parent. It is a big responsibility and if you mess up, you're not just messing up your own life. But, once you are ready to be a parent, it isn't a life-ending event. It's just the beginning of something much bigger.
Man, that last sentence sounded cliche. Oh well. It's Friday. Work is almost over. It's nearly playtime!!!!
In Judaism, there is a custom not to name children after someone while they are living. For example, our second son was named after my wife's grandfather who passed away a month before our son was born. Had her grandfather lived another month or so, our son would have been named after someone else. Therefore, if you wish that someone would be named after a person, you're wishing that they would pass away.
I didn't have any accounts open with Capital One (the card that got opened in my name). I did have one years ago, but that was before my current address (which the card was sent to). Still, I wouldn't discount any source for leaking my information. I'll likely never know. The police barely followed up on the case. I finally got tired of calling back again and again to prod them into action. They even told me that they needed to investigate first to find out if it was even in their jurisdiction. Capital One, meanwhile stonewalled both my and the police. They refused to give me any information and told me to have the police call a certain number. That number was "staffed" by a recording. We finally pried enough information out of Capital One to figure out that the credit card was applied for online. Other than that, I got little to no information on the thief.
Really? Tell that to to guy who opened a credit card in my name (using my SSN, DOB, address and yet somehow the wrong Mother's maiden name) and tried to get a large cash advance on it. It was only a quirk of fate the saved me some serious credit record damage. (They opened the card using my address, changed it to theirs, and paid to get it rush-shipped. The card wound up being mailed before the address change went through.) How the thief got my information, I don't know. It could have been from dozens of different sources both under my control (unlikely though it may be) and not under my control (employer, doctor's office, etc). Still, my information is out there now and I need to watch my credit like a hawk. The next thief might not be so incompetent and I might find myself trying to explain to the credit agencies that I did *NOT* open up a dozen accounts with mailing addresses scattered around the US. So, yes, people *DO* care about your identity and can do you some serious financial harm if they obtain it.
No need to make up one. We just need to find a language that the terrorists hate so much that they refuse to communicate in it. Obviously, their hatred of Americans isn't strong enough to make English that language. Who do they hate more than Americans? Jews! (And I say that as one.) Hebrew might be too obvious, so I propose that we all speak Yiddish from now on. Plus, Yiddish has the best curses. About Bin Laden: Ale tseyn zoln bay im aroysfaln, not eyner zol im blaybn oyf tsonveytung. And furthermore: Migulgl zol er vern in a henglayhter, by tog zol er hengen, un bay nakht zol er brenen.
That's the argument I always used when confronted with people who said "Yeah, but I trust Bush to use these powers wisely." Of course, back when I said it Hillary Clinton seemed like she was going to be the nominee. Plus, she had the added bonus of automatically raising Republican's blood pressure based solely on her last name. The outcome is the same though. Even if you like President A and think he/she is completely capable of using the enhanced powers wisely, who's to say that President B, C, D, or E will have the same wisdom? It's not a matter of whether the enhanced powers are going to be abused, but when they will be.
Why not get a warrant in the first place? Maybe there wasn't time.
If they didn't have time to spend two hours going to the courthouse and getting a judge to look at some papers, then we would have seen a whole lot more stuff blown up by now....
And even if they didn't have time beforehand, for whatever reason, they can seek a retroactive warrant up to 72 hours later. What kind of crisis does it have to be that you can't spare one guy to put together a warrant request and run down to the courthouse THREE DAYS after you started your wiretap?
The real useful function of the labels was traditionally separating the hits from the duds. They weren't perfect at it, of course, but that was their job. They seem to have forgotten their job function, however, and instead chase trends ("hey this singer is hot, let's sign a dozen more like her!"), interfere with the artists ("we think your song would be more marketable if...."), and generally just try to get away with ripping off as many people as possible ("pay for play" musician law, "losing" the addresses of well known artists so as to be unable to forward on payments, P2P lawsuits, etc).
One of the things I like about Amie Street is that the users take on the label's job. Songs start out as free and rise in price to a maximum of 98 cents as people buy them. So if you buy a 98 cent song, you're guaranteed to have something that many people like. Otherwise, you could buy a free/very-low-cost song, taking a risk that it is as good as the song preview makes it out to be, and not risk much money. With the $15 that you might use to buy one 12-song CD, you could buy 15 hits and 6 nickel-priced possible hits. 21 songs versus 12 songs and that's not even counting free songs you could take a chance on.
1. Stop buying new music from RIAA affiliated labels 2. Stop going to shows of new acts signed up with RIAA affiliated labels
There are plenty of good artists whose music you can buy and whose shows you can attend who aren't affiliated in any way with the RIAA. Don't punish them for the RIAA's sins. In fact, let's reward them for not being part of the RIAA-mess. If artists see non-RIAA artists doing well, they'll realize that they don't need the RIAA. I recommend signing up with http://www.emusic.com/ and http://www.amiestreet.com/ and purchasing some songs from there.
I completely agree. I think that a bigger threat than the Phishing DMs are sites that provide or seem to provide a service and then ask for your password. I built page based on the Twitter API (mainly to see what it could do) and ran into the issue that, for some actions, I needed the user's Username and Password. This is fine if you're building a locally installed client, but not if you're just looking for a novel way of showing your Twitter messages online. For example, http://tweetchat.com/ . Many people have said they're reputable, but how do I know that they're not storing my Twitter Username/password for later malicious use? Or perhaps they stored my username/password for some non-malicious intention and then had their systems hacked. (No, I've never entered my Username/password into their site. This is hypothetical.)
You should be able to enter your Twitter Username, have the application send an access request, then go to an "Apps" page on Twitter.com to grant the request. Sure, it wouldn't be as "easy" as entering your username/password into the web application, but it would be more secure.
I'll agree with you that people should already be on guard for this kind of thing. Just because it's a new site doesn't mean that phishers and scammers can't infiltrate it. I have yet to get one of the phishing DMs. Perhaps this is because I'm just lucky, perhaps the phishers just don't like me, or perhaps I just have a smarter-than-average group of followers (quite likely).
No, but one's DM-spam-potential on Twitter is directly proportional to the number of followers one has. I happen to have 125 followers. If my account was compromised, it could be used to contact 125 people. If someone with 1,000 followers had their account phished, they could be used to DM 1,000 people. If you didn't have any followers, any phisher that took over your account wouldn't be able to DM anybody.
Yes, it is similar to address mining, but there is a significant difference. For example, suppose my computer is compromised and I have your e-mail address in my address book. You could have never heard of me, but I got it from a friend of a friend and stuck it in there. Now the spammer who mined my address book knows where to send you e-mails. Those e-mails will arrive in your inbox (assuming they get by any spam filter, of course).
Now let's move the example to Twitter. I've followed you on Twitter and my Twitter account is broken into. The spammer knows your Twitter account name now. However, unless you are following me, they can't direct message (DM) you. If you are following me and they DM you, you can unfollow me and they won't be able to send you DMs anymore.
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.
Slashdot Mirror
I was in a store once with my wife and sons and I saw a child sitting on the ground crying. I walked near him and asked if he was ok and if he was lost. He stopped crying, got up, and ran down the aisle to his mother. Apparently, he decided to throw a temper tantrum and she was calling his bluff by walking away. (I've done the same for my boys. Works most of the time.) Seeing a "stranger" approach him must have snapped him out of his tantrum.
The dad in me just wanted to help out a child that seemed to be lost. If my son was lost, I wouldn't want people to just ignore him and let him cry. I'd want someone to help him to the customer service desk where they could call for me.
I don't think that anyone's claiming that the Internet is completely benign, but it isn't a "wretched hive of scum and villainy" like some Protect The Children advocates would like us to think either. The truth is in the middle. Yes, there are parts of the Internet that aren't good for kids. However, there are places that are very good for them. The key is to help kids distinguish which is good, which is bad, and how to react to both.
I often compare the Internet to New York City. You wouldn't visit New York City for the first time, drop your 6 year old on a random street corner and shout "have a good time" as you drive off. You would accompany your child to the city first. You would show them the better/kid-friendly aspects of the city. Perhaps a museum or a Broadway show. You would warn them about the dangers such as walking down dark alleys. You would tell them how to react if they found themselves in a dark alley and what to do if confronted with unsavory characters. As your child grew up they would get better at spotting the good and avoiding the bad and you would give them more and more freedom to explore on their own.
The same is true for the Internet. The first time your kid goes online, you should be right there helping them along. At first, use a product like KIDO'Z to steer them to certain sites and/or use Parental Controls to restrict what sites they can visit. Slowly, let them explore more of the Internet (with you there). Make sure they know how to tell if something isn't good and how they should react (coming to you, closing the browser, whatever). Eventually, they will be able to browse the Internet without your direct supervision (though you should always do spot checks here and there).
So a kid signing online isn't going to be immediately slammed with kiddie porn loving perverts but neither is he going to be able to know how to go to the good sites and avoid the bad. That's the parent's job.
I've experienced both. I had both individual bullies torment me and packs. The packs were definitely worse. When one of them would pass me in a hall, he would leave me alone. (I wasn't a violent person, but could easily have taken any single one of them in a fight if pushed hard enough.) But when two, three, or more were together, they would suddenly get brave. They would follow me from class to class making fun of me and laughing at me the whole way. Attempts to lose them would only get me more verbal abuse from my followers. Because of this, I became very paranoid. I was convinced that all laughter on the school bus was directed at me (whether it really was or wasn't).
One of their favorite activities was gathering near the door of one of my classes and tormenting me as I passed through. One day, while they blocked my path and verbally abused me, I nearly lost it. You know that expression "Seeing Red?" Well, I literally saw red. Everything around me turned red and I almost got extremely violent on the nearest group member. Luckily for me/them, my teacher saw what was happening and broke up their little gathering. It's because of this incident that I have a small degree of sympathy for those kids who are picked on and turn to school shootings. Not that I'm forgiving the violent outbursts, mind you, but because I know my life could have turned out like theirs all too easily.
My wife taught for awhile in an all girl's Catholic middle school. Bullying was tough to spot with the girls. If two boys have a problem with each other, they will likely fight it out. There's no subtly involved. If a girl has a problem with another girl, they'll look like best friends by all outward appearances. Meanwhile, the one girl will be psychologically tearing the other girl to shreds.
Just one of many reason why I'm glad I have two sons.
A couple of weeks ago, my son was walking across my in-laws' kitchen when he slipped and fell on the back of his head. (Think Charlie Brown trying to kick the football falling.) He had a concussion and possible seizure that resulting in an ER trip. (This part is true. Luckily, he's ok now, but he did scare us for a bit.)
By Mr. Blumenthal's reasoning, I should now lobby to ban all tile-based flooring for kitchens. All flooring surfaces should be like bean bags. If you fall on it, it just absorbs the impact and you don't get hurt. I'm sure I can count on Mr. Blumenthal's support in this ban on dangerous flooring materials. At the very least, we need to encase all small children in industrial strength bubble wrap. PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!
My sons both at a certain age discovered their respective penises and decided that it was fun playing with them. We had to remind our older kid that it is not polite to grab your crotch in public (even if your underwear isn't quite sitting right). That combined with their love of flirting with women (at least when they were younger) leads me to believe that I'll have my hands full when they hit the teenage years.
They will learn how to "write flirtatious text messages and emails" and this is supposed to help them enter the world of work? Now I might not be the biggest social guy around, but even I know that writing flirtatious e-mails at work isn't going to help you out. In fact, it's likely to get you fired. Especially if they are directed at your co-workers. (And, no, I don't know about this from experience. In my single days, I made it a rule never to "dip my pen in the company ink." Not that I ever had the opportunity mind you...)
I don't eat pig either because it's not kosher and I have no roblem-pay ith-way atin-lay.
If a Slashdot member with a girlfriend is rare, what does that make me? I'm a Slashdot member with a wife and two sons.
Let me guess, you don't have a kid? I have two and let me tell you, I'm able to engage in much more fun/childish behavior than when I was in college. Watching cartoons, playing with toys, seeing old favorites (movies/shows) through new eyes, etc. It's all perfectly appropriate when you're a dad/mom. Yes, you're going to have to act like a grown-up sometimes ("No you can't throw that ball around in the house! You'll break something." "No you can't watch that movie now. It's your bedtime.", "No, you can't play GTA. You're only 6."), but the act-like-a-kid moments and the act-grown-up moments tend to balance themselves out.
That said, I wouldn't advise anyone to rush into being a parent. It is a big responsibility and if you mess up, you're not just messing up your own life. But, once you are ready to be a parent, it isn't a life-ending event. It's just the beginning of something much bigger.
Man, that last sentence sounded cliche. Oh well. It's Friday. Work is almost over. It's nearly playtime!!!!
Yeah, but you should see what happens to the car when you press Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Select, Start!
In Judaism, there is a custom not to name children after someone while they are living. For example, our second son was named after my wife's grandfather who passed away a month before our son was born. Had her grandfather lived another month or so, our son would have been named after someone else. Therefore, if you wish that someone would be named after a person, you're wishing that they would pass away.
I didn't have any accounts open with Capital One (the card that got opened in my name). I did have one years ago, but that was before my current address (which the card was sent to). Still, I wouldn't discount any source for leaking my information. I'll likely never know. The police barely followed up on the case. I finally got tired of calling back again and again to prod them into action. They even told me that they needed to investigate first to find out if it was even in their jurisdiction. Capital One, meanwhile stonewalled both my and the police. They refused to give me any information and told me to have the police call a certain number. That number was "staffed" by a recording. We finally pried enough information out of Capital One to figure out that the credit card was applied for online. Other than that, I got little to no information on the thief.
Really? Tell that to to guy who opened a credit card in my name (using my SSN, DOB, address and yet somehow the wrong Mother's maiden name) and tried to get a large cash advance on it. It was only a quirk of fate the saved me some serious credit record damage. (They opened the card using my address, changed it to theirs, and paid to get it rush-shipped. The card wound up being mailed before the address change went through.) How the thief got my information, I don't know. It could have been from dozens of different sources both under my control (unlikely though it may be) and not under my control (employer, doctor's office, etc). Still, my information is out there now and I need to watch my credit like a hawk. The next thief might not be so incompetent and I might find myself trying to explain to the credit agencies that I did *NOT* open up a dozen accounts with mailing addresses scattered around the US. So, yes, people *DO* care about your identity and can do you some serious financial harm if they obtain it.
No need to make up one. We just need to find a language that the terrorists hate so much that they refuse to communicate in it. Obviously, their hatred of Americans isn't strong enough to make English that language. Who do they hate more than Americans? Jews! (And I say that as one.) Hebrew might be too obvious, so I propose that we all speak Yiddish from now on. Plus, Yiddish has the best curses. About Bin Laden: Ale tseyn zoln bay im aroysfaln, not eyner zol im blaybn oyf tsonveytung. And furthermore: Migulgl zol er vern in a henglayhter, by tog zol er hengen, un bay nakht zol er brenen.
That's the argument I always used when confronted with people who said "Yeah, but I trust Bush to use these powers wisely." Of course, back when I said it Hillary Clinton seemed like she was going to be the nominee. Plus, she had the added bonus of automatically raising Republican's blood pressure based solely on her last name. The outcome is the same though. Even if you like President A and think he/she is completely capable of using the enhanced powers wisely, who's to say that President B, C, D, or E will have the same wisdom? It's not a matter of whether the enhanced powers are going to be abused, but when they will be.
I agree. You need to throw a "To protect the children" and "to combat terrorism" in there somewhere. Then they'll vote for it no matter what it says.
And even if they didn't have time beforehand, for whatever reason, they can seek a retroactive warrant up to 72 hours later. What kind of crisis does it have to be that you can't spare one guy to put together a warrant request and run down to the courthouse THREE DAYS after you started your wiretap?
The real useful function of the labels was traditionally separating the hits from the duds. They weren't perfect at it, of course, but that was their job. They seem to have forgotten their job function, however, and instead chase trends ("hey this singer is hot, let's sign a dozen more like her!"), interfere with the artists ("we think your song would be more marketable if...."), and generally just try to get away with ripping off as many people as possible ("pay for play" musician law, "losing" the addresses of well known artists so as to be unable to forward on payments, P2P lawsuits, etc).
One of the things I like about Amie Street is that the users take on the label's job. Songs start out as free and rise in price to a maximum of 98 cents as people buy them. So if you buy a 98 cent song, you're guaranteed to have something that many people like. Otherwise, you could buy a free/very-low-cost song, taking a risk that it is as good as the song preview makes it out to be, and not risk much money. With the $15 that you might use to buy one 12-song CD, you could buy 15 hits and 6 nickel-priced possible hits. 21 songs versus 12 songs and that's not even counting free songs you could take a chance on.
I'd suggest a slight alteration of rules 1 and 2:
1. Stop buying new music from RIAA affiliated labels
2. Stop going to shows of new acts signed up with RIAA affiliated labels
There are plenty of good artists whose music you can buy and whose shows you can attend who aren't affiliated in any way with the RIAA. Don't punish them for the RIAA's sins. In fact, let's reward them for not being part of the RIAA-mess. If artists see non-RIAA artists doing well, they'll realize that they don't need the RIAA. I recommend signing up with http://www.emusic.com/ and http://www.amiestreet.com/ and purchasing some songs from there.
I completely agree. I think that a bigger threat than the Phishing DMs are sites that provide or seem to provide a service and then ask for your password. I built page based on the Twitter API (mainly to see what it could do) and ran into the issue that, for some actions, I needed the user's Username and Password. This is fine if you're building a locally installed client, but not if you're just looking for a novel way of showing your Twitter messages online. For example, http://tweetchat.com/ . Many people have said they're reputable, but how do I know that they're not storing my Twitter Username/password for later malicious use? Or perhaps they stored my username/password for some non-malicious intention and then had their systems hacked. (No, I've never entered my Username/password into their site. This is hypothetical.)
You should be able to enter your Twitter Username, have the application send an access request, then go to an "Apps" page on Twitter.com to grant the request. Sure, it wouldn't be as "easy" as entering your username/password into the web application, but it would be more secure.
I'll agree with you that people should already be on guard for this kind of thing. Just because it's a new site doesn't mean that phishers and scammers can't infiltrate it. I have yet to get one of the phishing DMs. Perhaps this is because I'm just lucky, perhaps the phishers just don't like me, or perhaps I just have a smarter-than-average group of followers (quite likely).
No, but one's DM-spam-potential on Twitter is directly proportional to the number of followers one has. I happen to have 125 followers. If my account was compromised, it could be used to contact 125 people. If someone with 1,000 followers had their account phished, they could be used to DM 1,000 people. If you didn't have any followers, any phisher that took over your account wouldn't be able to DM anybody.
Yes, it is similar to address mining, but there is a significant difference. For example, suppose my computer is compromised and I have your e-mail address in my address book. You could have never heard of me, but I got it from a friend of a friend and stuck it in there. Now the spammer who mined my address book knows where to send you e-mails. Those e-mails will arrive in your inbox (assuming they get by any spam filter, of course).
Now let's move the example to Twitter. I've followed you on Twitter and my Twitter account is broken into. The spammer knows your Twitter account name now. However, unless you are following me, they can't direct message (DM) you. If you are following me and they DM you, you can unfollow me and they won't be able to send you DMs anymore.
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.