Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2008 > November > 13 > Entry
Password panic spreads (needlessly) over Twitterank
Like most things on the microblogging social site Twitter, it spread like wildfire, with as many catty, dramatic turns as a season of “Gossip Girl.”
What was up with Twitterank? Real? Fake? Hoak? Password phishing scheme?
From my vantage point, it started in the afternoon when several people I follow began posting their scores as given a site called “Twitterank.” The score, it could be guessed, had something to do with how popular a person was on the site. There are other sites that calculate a score based on the number of followers someone has, how often they post, how many followers their followers have and any other number of criteria.
However, the bare nature of the Twitterank Web site and the seemingly arbitrary number it gave to those who used the service began to worry some. Even more worrisome: Twitterank required users to enter their Twitter login and password to work.
Soon, a blog on ZDNet had posted an inflammatory post calling those who used Twitterank “Gullible” and fanning the baseless flames of rumors that Twitterank was a fake site looking only to steal passwords.
It didn’t take long for panicked Twitter users to begin warning friends who’d used Twitterank to change their passwords, lest they be the victims of Twitter identity theft. Who knew what could happen!? Someone could get into your account and post links to funny cat photos, or market someone’s blog that nobody is likely to go read anyway.
Pretty much the same stuff a lot of people are posting now…
The full-blown panic that erupted among otherwise sane Tweeple was partly justified: it was as if everyone had suddenly realized that using third-party sites that require your Twitter password might not be such a bright idea. Of course, many of the worried have had no problems using other Twitter-feeding services like Twitpic (for posting photos), Twitterfeed (for posting RSS feeds to Twitter) or any number of iPhone or Blackberry iPhone applications.
To be honest, I felt bad for the developer of Twitterank. It’s not a very good application (at least not in the state it was in yesterday), but there was no reason for people to jump to the conclusion that the creator of the app was doing anything malicious.
Today, Ryo Chijiiwa, the creator of Twitterank, posted this message on the site: “I’m not out to steal ur twitterz. Frankly, I wish I didn’t have to ask for your account info, but Twitter doesn’t offer APIs using any other authentication mechanism (according to the docs). So blame them. Read more about what I’ll do with your account info/data in the FAQ. I will not store your password. I will only use it once to calculate your Twitterank.”
Why, then, some irate Twitters would ask, does this site need your password? Why even ask for it? Because without it, the Twitterank service wouldn’t post an automated message to someone’s account alerting the world to their (completely useless) Twitterank number. That’s why.
For those who changed their passwords (and, confession time: I was one of them), at least learned a small lesson about not giving out your login/password information so easily to every new service that seems to pop up for users of Twitter.
A few friends and I made light of the situation late last night, posting about all the awful things that the nefarious Twitterank was doing. Among them:
- Twitterank just robbed a bank!
- At the daycare. Horrified to discover that a Twitterank dingo ate me baby!
- Presidential election results have been overturned and a national recount is underway. DAMN YOU, TWITTERANK!!!
- Have alerted Jack Bauer: Twiterank is now in possession of the nuclear codes.
- I heard Twitterank was going around asking if anyone had seen John Connor.
- Twitterrank faked the moon landing.
- Twitterank shot J.R.
Still, it was a bit alarming to see what amounted to a virtual Frankenstein hunt (sans, only, pitchforks and torches) spread through the Twitter community based only on rumors, retweets and, frankly, bad journalism over at ZDNet.
Come on, Twitter community. You can do better than that.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Internet
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By Omar Gallaga
November 14, 2008 9:56 AM | Link to this
It's explained in the FAQ. I think people were freaked out by how little information was on the site at the time, but it's being built out now with more stuff.
By Jonas Lamis
November 13, 2008 5:10 PM | Link to this
I'm still confused if a high twitterank score is better or if a low score is better?