Comments on: Twitter worm still not dead. Mikeyy’s contact details and photo (possibly) made public.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:44:35 +0000

Yekla. if you’d taken the time to read the original post by Zee, whose colleagues now condone the publishing of private telephone numbers and addresses on a public site, you would have seen that he wrote “[Twitter] made clear no passwords, phone numbers, or other sensitive information were compromised as part of this attack.”

So who’s privacy was invaded?

Having said that I can see I’m wasting my time here, obviously the readers and writers of this blog have no more sense of right or wrong than the teenage hacker they clearly want to feel superior to.

This guy was an anonymous idiot with nothing to lose. The owners of this site have clearly spent time and money building a public profile, and have ended up looking as dumb as the bored 17 year old. If I was an investor I know which way I’d be walking right now.

By: Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:05:51 +0000

No, as expected, nobody contacted us. We were planning on deleting the information anyway as they added nothing to the post and the information was available elsewhere.

But the irony of Mikeyy spending time on something futile like this instead of his real problems wasn’t lost on us so we decided to play along and wait for his attorney to show up.

Of course he never did.

By: Yekla

Yekla — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:28:08 +0000

You have a lot of nerve, making worms that invade people’s accounts and then throwing around legal threats when people, who are sick to death of this kind of shit, retaliate. People are sick of viruses and worms and trojans, so they’re going to retaliate when the opportunity presents itself.

Worms are an invasion of privacy. You made a worm. Now your privacy is being invaded. How’s it feel?

By: Sign in with “Twitter Connect”? | netdesk

[...] be the issue of security, which has been an Achilles Heel for Twitter in the past, and the recent worm attack will have done little to enhance confidence in the [...]

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 19:04:04 +0000

So you’re only prepared to do the right thing when you’re forced to by lawyers? What’s the matter with you people? I thought you were running some kind of commercial operation.

Having said that, now the details have been deleted are we supposed to assume that you’ve been contacted after all?

Seriously guys, you’re coming off as no better than a teenage hacker. Way to go.

By: Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 18:52:07 +0000

I admit we could have just as well linked to the other article instead if repeating it here as Mikeyy’s contact details are publicly available online and can be found on many websites including the one where we got it from.

I wouldn’t have minded deleting the information from this post but since Mikeyy has already ‘contacted his lawyer’ I guess might as well wait for that. A few things might happen:

1: we never hear from Mikeyy again (highly likely)
2: Mikeyy actually has a lawyer (unlikely) and he will explain to Mikeyy that maybe he should focus on the million dollar lawsuit and impending jail time instead of trying to sue a blog in another country for disclosing data that is publicly available.

I will update this post as soon as anything happens. Don’t hold your breath…

By: Mikeyy

Mikeyy — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 17:01:39 +0000

I agree Ed, I have contacted my attorney and he said he will get in contact with the provider of the website.

Regards,
Mikeyy

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:58:16 +0000

Well, if I can be honest with you, I think the worm was a dumb idea. I get how you’re trying to justify it, but as you say so yourself, it probably wasn’t the best move you ever made.

But – and this is a big “but” – there are privacy laws in place for a reason, and they should be respected. In this case, two wrongs most definitely do not make a right, and the people running this site are on shaky moral and legal ground.

I’m assuming from their lack of action, or response to the earlier comments on here questioning what they did, that they simply don’t give a shit. Well, arrogance is one thing, but privacy breaches are rarely lawful, and hardly ever justifiable.

By: Mikeyy

Mikeyy — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:48:33 +0000

Thanks for the support Ed, yeah, I know the worm wasn’t the best idea. But look on the bright side, the worm was a temporary affect that caused no actual harm, yet if I had not made the worm(s) then everyone’s information would be at risk of being compromised. By information, I mean your email, password, or mobile number. If people opened their minds up and based their opinions on the long terms than short terms they would agree with me, if not then they might as well join a site that allows you to post all your information to the whole Internet.

Regards,
Mikeyy

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:41:52 +0000

Hey Mikeyy, just go ahead and sort an attorney out anyway, I’d be happy to support you. I don’t condone what you did, but the guys running this site went over the line here. If they’re happy to do it to you they’ll do it to anyone.

Make sure you contact the site’s advertisers as well and point them towards this page. It’d be interesting to see how happy they are to be associated with these kind of privacy breaches. In fact, thinking about it, I’ll do that myself as well.