Earlier this week Techcrunch ran a story about co-founder EV Williams ( From Lincoln Nebraska but never gives a shout out) got hax0red. His Gmail account (and Google docs) got owned and other stuff… turns out they also had server passwords with the password of….. password. Total alleged things the hacker gained access to:
* the complete list of employees
* their food preferences
* their credit card numbers
* some confidential contracts with Nokia, Samsung, Dell, AOL, Microsoft and others
* direct emails with web and showbizz personalities
* phone numbers
* meeting reports (very informatives)
* internal document templates
* time sheet
* applicant resumes
* salary grid (time for me to move..lol)
Yesterday (7-14-09) Mike Arrington posted that they had received over 300 confidential twitter internal documents and would be releasing them to the public on Techcrunch. Many other sites are also claiming to have received the same documents but will not post them for ethical reasons (which i think means they just want to seem important but didn’t really get them).
After the post Twitter users bombarded Techcrunch with pleads not to release the documents and it was a trending topic on twitter all day today. Mike then posted a response Today (7-15-09) about what they planned to do with the confidential Twitter docs and specifically on ethics. To quote:
We are always in the delicate position of balancing what’s right for the community with publishing insider news that helped build this site into what it is today. We don’t sit around and republish press releases, we break big stories.
This is one of the reasons I love TechCrunch and its aggressive journalism. They don’t fuck around.
Later today Techcrunch revealed the first of many to come of the Twitter internal documents. This one is the growth and financial sheet. While its a updated sheet its very interesting to see where the co-founders thought the site would be at in terms of growth and revenue. Mike also leaves us with a cliff hanger for tomorrow revealing twitters original idea to monetize the website.
I personally cant wait to see these docs as they keep coming on TechCrunch.
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{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, talk about FAIL. The server password was “password”……
My question is, why does twitter have the credit card numbers of their employees?
May be twitter have provided them from Company’s accounts … anything to retain the talent … remember.
Strange that such a huge and renowned service can be such vulnerable to Hacker attacks. Are they so poorly prepared for this?
A look at the techcrunch report shows that they were aiming billions in revenue. An organization targetting billions in revenue, has such a poor infrastructure. Difficult to digest!
Pretty interesting. That’s amazing how much info hackers get just by hacking email accounts.
Unless it is a linkbait by twitter. lol
Time will reveal everything … let the two days passed and we will come to know about everything.
You never think you’re going to get hacked until you do get hacked.
I’ve always wondered why hackers hack? just for the fun of it? Unless he stole money or something i guess just for the thrill.
I think it’s a 50/50 split. Half do it for the technical challenge, break in look around, go away – the other half are frustrated (i.e. shit) programmers out to prove how clever they are. No prizes for guessing what this hacker is about?
I very happy to be able to read your article and I feel lucky because I can read the article you, thank you this article opened my mind about the internet more, thank you this article is very excellent, successful
HA! Twitter is gaming the gamers. Its an old Hollywood stunt, OOPS! Someone seen my panties. Come on, do you really believe Twitter would F’up that bad? I smell conspiracy between Twitter and TechCrunch to boost their subscription numbers …just a tiny bit more. Where is Oliver Stone when you need him?
Techcrunch was bombarded with requests – the main reason is their food preferences. People are afraid this info is going to become public.
By the way, if you haven’t deposited that check yet I’d be glad to cash it for you. For a small fee of course … you see I am a Nigerian Prince and my fader left me millons …and, well u know the rest HA!
That’s not cool!
Ummm…isn’t hacking illegal, and if so, aren’t there also laws against possession of stolen goods? As such, is TC opening itself up to litigation for knowingly releasing information it knows was obtained illegally?
Tolle Sache, dass man hier so frei schreiben kann.
This is crazy. Hackers rule the world nowadays?
If they do post this information I hope Ev sues Tech crunch so they can see who gave them the information. I think it was great that Ev said they got hacked that is half the battle there. They need to take the steps to secure this information so no one does this again. Greg Ellison
I can’t believe they left the password as ‘password’ you are more than asking for it!
Just visited techcruch. And oh thwy are on the homepage. Is is ethical to publish what they have read? r even what they have only known? What do you think guys here?
wtf.. who uses password as the password.. haven’t they ever seen the movie hackers?
Can anyone say “PR Stunt”. I think this was dreamed up over a few beers between Mike Arrington and Evan Williams… Nice move fellas.
No, I haven’t missed it. I’ve spent WAY too much time reading all the comments and Arrington’s responses. WAY too much.
I think this is all one big giant way if getting traffic, I wonder if twitter will sue tech crunch…..
What is the legal ramifications of TechCrunch publishing confidential stuff that has been obtained via illicit means? Hats off to them for sharing though!
It always cracks me up that people use the same password for ALL their online accounts. Just set up a simple login site and get people to sign up and provide an email, user id, and password to setup their account. I bet that 9 times out of 10 you will be able to log into their email using the password provided on your site.
Always use a different password for each site cause you never know how honest the people hosting the site may be.
Гуглил сейчас в поисках доклада, наткнулся на ваш блог и не удержался, чтобы не скопи-пастить пару постов. Ну и этот взял.
P.S. Интересно будет видеть в списке использованной литературы ссылку на блог ))))
P.P.S. Домашняя страничка моя, ето не спам
That Is BaD Think and Crazy Work
This could be a good thing if it is in fact true. If there is something fishy going on at twitter hopefully Tech Crunch will snoop it out.