Tech | July 15, 2009 | 1 comment

In Their Inbox: Hundreds Of Confidential Twitter Documents

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sarahlane
So a Twitter employee's account gets hacked, and the hacker decides to send all of the info to several news outlets, one of them being TechCrunch. TechCrunch states in this post that they plan to publish some of the hacked content! Here's what Mike Arrington says about this decision:

"There is clearly an ethical line here that we don’t want to cross, and the vast majority of these documents aren’t going to be published, at least by us. But a few of the documents have so much news value that we think it’s appropriate to publish them."

Read the article here and let me know what you'd do in their position: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/14/in-our-inbox-hundreds-of-confidential-twitt...

I'm torn. I guess some of it IS extremely newsworthy, but it also feels slimy to be reading private information obtained this way.
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    Tech,   Twitter
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    Tech Hackers Twitter Privacy 2 more
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1 comment // In Their Inbox: Hundreds Of Confidential Twitter Documents

  • shocksopping
    • 0
      shocksopping  
    • I've been reading about this all day, and really thinking about the ins and outs to the whole situation. I don't think TechCrunch should even be considering posting any information obtained from these documents. Doing so would simply give the hacker the attention he was obviously looking for.

      When a "hacker" (read: scriptkiddie) does something like this, its only done to develop a reputation online among other wanna be hackers. All they are doing, in reality, is running some program they found online by searching Google, and flaunting the results they achieved by clicking the "go" button.

      He could've done a great thing for the world by coming out and saying 'hey, I found a way in. Google take note and fix your hole, and Twitter, be smarter about where you store your documents.' This is what separates the white hat hackers from the black. Its a level of respect for other people, and an admission of some sort of humility. You still get your name out, and you also get praise, and in all likelihood, a job with one of the aforementioned companies.

    • 2 years ago
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