November 12th, 2008
Gullible Twitter users hand over their usernames and passwords - did you get your Twitterank yet?!
Mana from the heavens for cloud sceptics - on a day a lot of professional photographers lost all their images due to the failure of photo hosting site Digital Railroad which went under - as Twitter users fanned their egos en masse to parade their ‘twitterank‘ to their followers.
Twitterrank has no apparent purpose beyond a sketchy numerical rating, and there are rumors circulating on Twitter this afternoon that it is basically a fishing expedition.
I picked up on this after seeing Tantek Çelik retweet:
@t RT @brianoberkirch Twitterank is a vast conspiracy I created to steal all of ur passwords + shame Twitter into OAuthing. + make u look vain.
At the time of this writing I’m not sure what’s going on with Twitterank, but I have to say it is amazing how promiscuous web app users can be with their security details.
This sort of vanity time wasting harms Twitter’s credibility as a useful collaboration and communication tool and adds credence to many IT professional’s doubts about the security of online transactions.
The ‘Twitterank algorithm is vewy vewy secwet‘ - your login details should be as well!
Have you got your twitterank yet and did you read the FAQ to see how secure this was?
Update: a screenshot of the source code by @nateritter (thanks @flashman for the tweet alerting me to this).
Not the most encouraging of images, might be worth changing your password if you checked your twitterank…
Oliver Marks provides seasoned independent consulting guidance to companies on the effective planning of 'Enterprise 2.0' strategy, tactics, technology decisions and roll out. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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