The Twittergate Saga
Like many other technophiles out there, we’re currently transfixed by all the fuss of Twittergate...
If you haven’t already heard about the hoo-ha, BBC’s Dot.Life blog will get you up to speed about how a cracker by the name of Hacker Croll broke into a Twitter employee’s email account, found more than 300 highly sensitive documents and handed them over to top tech site TechCrunch.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/
As you can see, the decision by TechCrunch to publish the documents hasn’t been met with universal approval, and has been considered by many to be an unethical way of making the news. TechCrunch reports that Hacker Croll claims, far from wanting to profit from his actions, wanted to ‘show how easy it is for a malicious person to gain access to sensitive information without too much knowledge’.
(To be honest, it reminded us a little bit of a story in the news a few weeks ago about Sussex police officers creeping into people’s homes in order to highlight how easy it is for burglars to enter through unlocked doors and windows. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1198843/Homeowners-shocked-PCSOs-enter-open-windows-easy-thieves.html Yes, you’ve made your point, but you’re probably not going to make any friends doing it.)
Of course, it’s different and arguably OK when the information is in the public interest (see the expenses scandal that gripped the nation for what seemed like a lifetime). But the information acquired by Hacker Croll included financial projections, meeting notes and even suggestions of the company’s plans for a reality show(?). Is this what you’d call ‘in the public interest’?
In ‘The Anatomy of the Twitter Attack’, Nic Cubrilovic sometimes seems to suggest so, offering a moral for this story:
‘...reset those passwords and don’t use the same passwords for different services. Don’t use password recovery questions that can easily be answered with a simple web search... And just in general be paranoid about data security. You may be happy you were.’
But is this justification for actually publishing the documents? The process of acquiring the documents may well highlight some serious security issues, which tech lovers need to know about – but, having proved that it can be done, was it really necessary to blow Twitter’s cover on things like its TV pitch? Should we applaud the hack, and question the reveal? Could this have been an idea that was created initially in the public interest, but which ended up crossing the line?
We’d love to hear what you think. Email us at kate@beamagency.com or twitter us at @beamagency, and we’ll post any of your thoughts.