This morning we discovered 33 Twitter accounts had been "hacked" including prominent Twitter-ers like Rick Sanchez and Barack Obama (who has not been Twittering since becoming the president elect due to transition issues). We immediately locked down the accounts and investigated the issue. Rick, Barack, and others are now back in control of their accounts.

What Happened?

The issue with these 33 accounts is different from the Phishing scam aimed at Twitter users this weekend. These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can't remember or get stuck. We considered this a very serious breach of security and immediately took the support tools offline. We'll put them back only when they're safe and secure.

Reacting Quickly and Fixing the Problems

In addition to this Monday morning madness we're coming off a wacky weekend where lots of folks were tricked into participating in a Phishing scam aimed at Twitter users. In both cases, our on-call team was able to attend to the matter quickly and prevent too many people from being affected. Our support team is definitely going to have a busy week because we reset a bunch of passwords just to be on the safe side.

Could OAuth Have Helped?

We plan to release a closed beta of the open authentication protocol, OAuth this month but it's important to note that this would not have prevented a Phishing scam nor would it have prevented these accounts from being compromised. OAuth is something we can provide so that folks who use third party applications built on the Twitter API can access to their data while protecting their account credentials.

A number of high-profile Twitter accounts were compromised this morning, and fake/spam updates were sent on their behalf.

We have identified the cause and blocked it. We are working to restore compromised accounts.

As a precaution, it would be prudent to reset your Twitter password and make sure email in your settings is your own.

More details to come.

If you receive a direct message or a direct message email notification that redirects to what looks like Twitter.com—don't sign in. Look closely at the URL because it could be a scam.

What Is Phishing?

Wikipedia defines phishing as "the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication." We've identified a phishing scam directed at Twitter users and we don't want you to get tricked into giving your password to a scammer.

How Does It Work?

This particular scam sent out emails resembling those you might receive from Twitter if you get email notifications of your Direct Messages. The email says something like, "hey! check out this funny blog about you..." and provides a link. That link redirects to a site masquerading as the Twitter front page. Look closely at the URL field, if it has another domain besides Twitter but looks exactly like our page then it's a fraud and you should not sign in. Here are some basic tips on how to avoid Phishing scams.

What If I Get Tricked?

Some folks may have clicked the link and given their Twitter password to the phishing site. In those cases it would be possible for the phisher to send out direct messages on your behalf which could trick your followers. In those cases, we proactively reset the passwords of the accounts.

So, if you find yourself unable to login to your account with your username and password, please use the reset password link to regain access. This will send an email to the address associated with your account and you'll be able to create a new password.

If you don't receive the reset password email, please check your junk or spam email folder as it may be accidentally delivered there. If you are still having trouble logging in, please contact our support team and we'll help you out.

If you receive an email notice saying you’ve received a Direct Message with a link that redirects to what seems like Twitter.com, be careful about entering your Twitter credentials. Instead, look closely at the URL to see if it’s not really Twitter but a sketchy phishing site like http://twitter.access-logins.com. If this has you feeling a bit weirded out, feel free to change your Twitter password.

Update: The suspicious site is being blocked. More information at the Twitter Blog.

Great video posted over in Twitter earlier today.

 

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Check it out, @jojeda has published a book called Twitter Means Business about how companies are "harnessing Twitter to engage their customers, promote their products and monitor what is being said about their brands" among other things.

Definitely a talented guy. Rock on buddy!

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By David Niall Wilson

‘Twas the night before Twitmas, when all through the house,

Not an interface stirring, not even a mouse;

The E-cards were printed with Holiday Flair,

And a Blip.FM Christmas tune hung in the air;

The rugrats were down for the count in their beds

While visions of Playstations danced in their heads;

And ma with her zinfandel, I with cognac,

Had just settled down to build, box, wrap and stack;

When on both of our speakers, there arose such a clatter,

We refreshed our screens to see what was the matter.

To open new windows I sprang in a flash,

Double-clicked Tweetdeck and awaited a crash.

My home page awash in ani-gif Snow,

Gave a holiday luster to the pages below.

When what to my tired bloodshot eyes did appear,

But an @tweet from Santa all filled with good cheer.

A 140 character message so slick,

That I knew in an instant it came from St. Nick.

More rapid than fingers can fly, the tweets came,

And he messaged his reindeer @ each one by name,

“@Dasher! @ Dancer! @ Prancer @Vixen!

@ Comet! @Cupid! @ Donder @Blitzen!

To the Twitter Elite! To the folks at Twitwall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

As bits in a torrent with DSL fly,

When they hook up and download with only one try,

So up to the top of the Twitter Trends flew,

Those Twittering Reindeer, and St. Nicholas too.

And quickly I favorited each one as proof,

Of the pokes and the prods of each Qwertying hoof.

Then I started to type a reply when I found,

That the program had closed and the OS shut down.

I turned to the fireplace and sat back in shock,

For despite ADT, the deadbolt, and the lock,

The man of the hour had invaded our space,

And he stood there, arms crossed, with a smile on his face.

He had widgets and gadgets and software and more,

And he spilled it all out of his bag to the floor,

Then he unplugged the monitors, Wi-Fi and cable,

And stacked them all neatly on Ma’s coffee table.

He waved his fat arms and the phosphors, they flew,

And he showed us a new thing that Santa can do,

While all we could do was to sit, and to stare,

He opened up Facebook right there in the air!

He filled in the profiles, our children and friends

And the others neglected by retweets and sends.

He clicked on the X in the far upper right,

And he winked, and it all disappeared from our sight.

Then laying his finger aside of his nose,

He turned to our chimney, and up it he rose.

We heard music and laughter, we rose and we hugged,

Then we glanced at the Internet cables, and shrugged,

For the moment the lolcats and e-mail and Spore,

By their silence gave Christmas a little bit more,

Of the spirit of family, magic and cheer,

That we expect from this time of the year.

We stepped to the window and watched the night sky,

As the sleigh, and the reindeer, and Santa flew by…

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

“Happy Twitmas to all, and to all a good-night.”

If that loveably overprotective clownfish had access to Twitter's new and improved Name Search he never would have gone on that extraordinary adventure but there is no need for you to go on such a roundabout trip if you're looking for another Twitter user named Nemo. Or Shaq, or Biz, or Ev. Looking for someone on Twitter? Just click "Find People" in the navigation bar at the top of your Twitter home page.

Name Search results page.

Twitter is much more valuable when you can find the accounts of the people or organizations you care about—whether they're friends, news organizations, or the airline that will be taking to see your family over the holidays. You'll notice that our new name search is much faster, more relevant, and it even has a phonetic similarity algorithm which is basically fancy talk for spell check on names. For example, if you type in "Even Williamz" it will ask you, "Did you mean Evan Williams?" Try it out!

Thanks to @abdur, @stevej, @robey, @jeremy, @rael, and @bs for bringing this hugely important feature back to life!

We announced our new Name Search product today! One note: if you update your profile information, it may take several hours for the new data to be reflected in Name Search.

We are also having a deliverability problem to Yahoo email addresses. We’re trying to get this resolved.

Update: The Yahoo mail problem has now been resolved.

Digg has kicked it up a notch on Twitter and created accounts for a bunch of categories. As the Digg community works collectively to find and promote interesting content, the best articles, videos, sites, and more will be available from a variety of Twitter accounts.
@digg_popular every story as they’re promoted to the Digg homepage
@digg_2000 stories that have 2000 or more diggsTechnology
@digg_technews popular stories from Digg.com/technology
@digg_applenews popular stories from Digg.com/apple
@digg_software popular stories from Digg.com/softwareWorld News and Politics
@digg_worldnews popular stories from Digg.com/world_business
@digg_politics popular stories from Digg.com/politicsScience
@digg_sciences popular stories from Digg.com/science
@digg_enviro popular stories from Digg.com/environmentOther
@digg_gamingnews popular stories from Digg.com/gaming
@digg_entertain popular stories from Digg.com/entertainment
@digg_sport popular stories from Digg.com/sports
@digg_offbeat popular stories from Digg.com/offbeat
@digg_images popular images from Digg.com/images
@digg_video popular videos from Digg.com/video If you follow a few news sources on Twitter you might consider adding a Digg account or two. I'm going to follow @digg_sciences so I can keep up with commercial spaceports and hidden ocean harbor life on Europa.

Some users are unable to post from the web site due to a bug introduced on Friday. This problem does not occur in all browsers (FF 3.0.x still works but not 3.1, for example).

We’ll be pushing out a fix for this as quickly as we can.

Update: This was fixed yesterday.

North entrance of NORAD

The fine folks at Norad and Google have apparently done so much math that they've come to believe Santa functions within a different spacetime continuum than the rest of us. They've built a web site so it must be true. Once this was established, it made perfect sense to track Santa as he combines space and time into a single manifold. If all of this sounds a bit too intense, you can just follow his Twitter account: @noradsanta.

Folks aren’t seeing as many updates as they should due to a replication problem. We are working on it now.

Update: This should now be fixed. If you are still seeing problems, please let us know.

Seeing some broken layout on twitter.com? This is an bug in a deploy we’re doing and we’re working to clean it up right now.

You may see some error pages as we restart machines to recover.

Update: This has been fixed.

We are experiencing SMS delivery problems across carriers and we’re working to figure out why. 

Also: we’ll be releasing a change later this afternoon that will start removing deleted and suspended users from your list of followers. As this hasn’t been cleaned up previously, you may notice your follower counts go down. This is to be expected.

Update: We resolved a problem whereby folks were only getting updates from those whom they were following back. Also: on the decreased followers, this will not happen all at once but over time.

Twitter plans to integrate with the open initiatives offered by our friends at MySpace, Facebook, and Google. We officially announced our intent to work with MySpace back in May because we believe strongly in offering the exchange of public information between our complementary services.

Yesterday, Google included Twitter in their Friend Connect program which means folks can stay connected with their Twitter network on web sites that have activated the service. This particular integration did not require effort on our part so it was a quick win for folks who use Twitter and want to connect on participating web sites.

Integrating with MySpace as well as Facebook Connect will require some development effort on our part. Now that we have 13 software engineers working at Twitter and our reliability continues to improve we're getting closer to integrating with your favorite social networks.

Google is integrating Twitter with Friend Connect! With Google Friend Connect, Twitter folks will be able to bump into and recognize each other out there on the web—and discover new people to follow on Twitter. The Google Blog has more info.

Users who had recently deleted themselves were running into an issue where their accounts appeared suspended after deletion. This was unintentional.

We have disabled user deletion as we work through this issue.

The Facebook application is currently offline and we’ll be working to bring it back.