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Twitter “verified accounts” coming soon

14 June, 2009 by sky Leave a Comment

Good to see this … Twitter will be offering “verified” accounts soon.

We’re starting with well-known accounts that have had problems with impersonation or identity confusion. (For example, well-known artists, athletes, actors, public officials, and public agencies). We may verify more accounts in the future, but because of the cost and time required, we’re only testing this feature with a small set of folks for the time being. As the test progresses we may be able to expand this test to more accounts over the next several months.

We ran into a problem with an account purporting to be the office of the Dalai Lama [OHHDL] in 2008. The account looked like it might be real, but turned out to be someone impersonating the office. But it wasn’t exposed until more than 10,000 people had started following the Twitter account.

This move on Twitter’s part will be welcome.

Teens don’t use Twitter; so who does?

11 June, 2009 by sky Leave a Comment

Marcia Connor (@marciamarcia) pointed me at this blog article -> “5 Reasons Teens Don’t Like Twitter.” It’s the blogger’s first article ever, and I don’t agree with all of the points, but it’s an interesting premise, so let’s dive into it. Why would teens (or anybody for that reason) not like Twitter? [Read more…]

Can short URL sites and Twitter together be attack vectors?

19 April, 2009 by sky Leave a Comment

On my site The Social Graph of Malware, I try to present current information (with appropriate background) on malware and attack vectors that use social engineering as a part of their methodology.

Last week I read somewhere (I know not where) about the potential for URL-shortening sites pointing you at sites containing malware. It’s pretty simple – imagine that someone posing as your friend twitters you and there’s one of these shortened URLs inside the message … but that this shortened URL points you at a site containing an embedded virus rather than at a site that you would want to actually visit. Your actual or supposed friend might not even know the site is poisoned. How can you protect yourself against this? Read this page at The Social Graph of Malware for more details. (I promise you there are no shortened URLs in the article.)

Twitter is like shouting at a dinner party

16 April, 2009 by sky 1 Comment

Whoof! I thought I knew everything about Twitter, but I was really surprised to learn something new [see below] last week.

If I drop this message into my Tweetstream… “@quinnovator That was a great idea you had the other day!” …who sees it? Specifically, do all of my followers see it? This would be like sitting at a dinner party, wanting to ask a question of the person next to you, and shouting it out so everyone could hear it.

[Read more…]