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Another Crazy Twitter Vulnerability

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Keep a close eye on who you’re following on Twitter. According to this thread over on Hacker News – you can make anyone you like follow you (virtually speaking!) by simply typing “accept” followed by their username into a new tweet. e.g. “accept DaveNaylor” (without the quotes). Not that I would in any way condone you messing up Dave’s “666″ follow count.

(I concede that ‘vulnerability’ might be a bit of a stretch, but it’s not good, is it?)

6 Comments

  • Stefan 1105 days ago

    http://www.motorvision.de

    Made my day. Disclosure of some of the deepest wishes: SebastianY acccepts arrington finally and all 14-year-old twittergirls took their chance. Maybe one should have told them, how this bracket thing works…
    “PaolaMarcellexyz Accept [justinbieber]“

    Reply
  • Glenn Friesen | SEO 1105 days ago

    http://green9media.com

    I just tested this on two accounts I own, and it did NOT work on either.

    Twitter Vulnerability Fail. ;)

    Reply
  • James 1104 days ago

    Stefan: A Twitter search for “accept justinbieber” does give some amusing results. I had to finally relent and look up who the hell “Justin Bieber” was too.

    Glenn: It did work, but was fixed very quickly after it got a lot of attention. It was mildly amusing while it lasted though – and despite Twitter’s assurances that they’ve rolled back any effects it had… they clearly haven’t in all cases.

    Reply
  • Jorgen Sundberg 1102 days ago

    http://jorgensundberg.net

    That’s interesting, a friend of mine suddenly followed loads of xxx rated Tweeters the other day – must have been the hack!

    Reply
  • [...] 14, 2010 After the ‘accept’ shenanigans of earlier this week, I’ve been keeping an eye on my Twitter followers to see if any other strange things happen [...]

  • Anne 1084 days ago

    http://www.adoncreative.com

    Thanks for the information! same with my friend… even if she didnt tweet! there’s a user, using her account, its also hack!

    Reply

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