Fecking Twitter

[luke]

[pirtybirdy]

[luke]

i couldn't afford the health care

[faceless]

'Iranian Cyber Army' hackers take down Twitter in early-morning attack
18th December 2009

Iranian hackers brought down micro-blogging website Twitter for around two hours this morning. The attack took place at around 6am and left the site's estimated 30million users unable to send messages or post 'tweets'.

The main Twitter homepage had been replaced with a black and red screen featuring an image of a green flag. The page carried the message: 'This site has been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army. The USA thinks they control and manage internet access, but they don't. We control and manage the internet with our power, so do not try to the incite Iranian people.'

The site reappeared around two hours later, with staff telling users: 'We are working to recovery from an unplanned downtime and will update more as we learn the cause of this outage.'

It is believed that Twitter's DNS records were hijacked in the attack meaning that users who were trying to visit the site were actually redirected to the new page. The DNS, which stands for Domain Name System, connects the name of a website, in this case twitter.com, to the servers which hold its contents.

The Google search for Twitter which shows that the cyber-attack lasted long enough for it to have been indexed by the search engine

A short statement was issued on the company's blog. It read: 'Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed. We are looking into the underlying cause and will update with more information soon.'

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[luke]

Twitter joke led to Terror Act arrest and airport life ban
Man bailed but suspended by his employer after ordeal by interrogation


A Twitter post landed Paul Chambers in hot water with the police

When heavy snowfall threatened to scupper Paul Chambers's travel plans, he decided to vent his frustrations on Twitter by tapping out a comment to amuse his friends. "Robin Hood airport is closed," he wrote. "You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

Unfortunately for Mr Chambers, the police didn't see the funny side. A week after posting the message on the social networking site, he was arrested under the Terrorism Act and questioned for almost seven hours by detectives who interpreted his post as a security threat. After he was released on bail, he was suspended from work pending an internal investigation, and has, he says, been banned from the Doncaster airport for life. "I would never have thought, in a thousand years, that any of this would have happened because of a Twitter post," said Mr Chambers, 26. "I'm the most mild-mannered guy you could imagine."

While it has happened in the United States, Mr Chambers is thought to be the first person in the United Kingdom to be arrested for comments posted on Twitter. His ordeal began on 6 January when, after hearing that extreme weather had forced the closure of Robin Hood airport, he posted the ill-advised message – frustrated because he was to fly to Ireland from that airport on Friday 15 January.

On 13 January, after apparently receiving a tip-off from a member of the public, police arrived at Mr Chambers' office. "My first thought upon hearing it was the police was that perhaps a member of my family had been in an accident," he said. "Then they said I was being arrested under the Terrorism Act and produced a piece of paper. It was a print-out of my Twitter page. That was when it dawned on me."

Mr Chambers said the police seemed unable to comprehend the intended humour in his online comment. "I had to explain Twitter to them in its entirety because they'd never heard of it," he said. "Then they asked all about my home life, and how work was going, and other personal things. The lead investigator kept asking, 'Do you understand why this is happening?' and saying, 'It is the world we live in'."

After the interview, Mr Hale was returned to a cell for an hour then released. But, he said, not before the police deleted the post from his Twitter page. He has been bailed until 11 February, when he will be told whether or not he will be charged with conspiring to create a bomb hoax. In the interim, detectives have confiscated his iPhone, laptop and home computer.

The civil libertarian Tessa Mayes, an expert on privacy law and free speech issues, said: "Making jokes about terrorism is considered a thought crime, mistakenly seen as a real act of harm or intention to commit harm.

"The police's actions seem laughable and suggest desperation in their efforts to combat terrorism, yet they have serious repercussions for all of us. In a democracy, our right to say what we please to each other should be non-negotiable, even on Twitter."

A spokesman for South Yorkshire Police confirmed the arrest and said: "A male was arrested on 13 January for comments made on a social networking site. He has been bailed pending further investigations."

Nobody from Robin Hood airport could be contacted last night.

from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/twitter-joke-led-to-terror-act-arrest-and-airport-life-ban-1870913.html

[faceless]

If Twitter was all I had: a life in 140 pieces
PETER MUNRO
May 9, 2010
theage.com.au

"BELATED good morning," warbles my Twitter account before 7am. The sun is up and my computer is on, and the ABC has woken me to say a creature called a "city of gonads" jellyfish has been found in Tasmania. Nigeria's president has died, says CNN. On another note: "Sexagon? Tennis Corset? When nail polish names go horribly wrong."

If all I had was Twitter, I would need earplugs and good humour. Wired reckons I am 4 per cent Neanderthal. The BBC, meanwhile, boasts footage of "one of the rarest mating rituals of any British animal". Iran is holding war games in the Gulf and cars are driving down the wrong side of the Hume Highway. God save us all.

A novel Korean study of Twitter, published last month, found the micro-blogging site is more like a traditional news source than social media tool. More than half of the 106 million tweets catalogued were on headline news topics. Such information spread from a relative few to a wide audience, the study found.

I shut myself in a room with Twitter for two days, with no resort to other news sources, online or offline. With nothing but Twitter to inform me, here's what I learned about the world.

If all I had was Twitter, 140 characters at a time, the world would seem loud. It never shuts up, no matter if there is nothing to say. At 11.25am, news.com.au: "Treasurer Wayne Swan to hold press conference at 11.45am (AEST). No reason given." At 8.22am, Agebreaking: "It's Cameron - maybe."

Perhaps everyone is too busy talking to listen. I feel strangely disconnected, despite being stuck in a lift with 100 million people. A joke on the British election - "Fox News has called the election for Bush" - spews widely in the mad rush, retweeted a hundred times. "Breaking news" breaks again and again. Nigeria's President Umaru Yar'Adua is still dead. The BBC points to a "long illness" and asks for comments.

If all I had was Twitter, the world would look chaotic and contradictory. Guardiannews, two hours ago: "Poll: Tories may fail to win overall majority." Guardiannews, one hour ago: "Cameron eyes the prize as polls suggest Conservative victory." Guardiannews, 8 hours ago: "Help …"

Amid the blather, I am distracted by a few bright sparks. American comedian Stephen Colbert tweets that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown "is so boring, if he were a spice girl, his name would be 'salt' ". British comedian Bill Bailey challenges political leaders to a "Royal dance-off" before the Queen.

If all I had was Twitter, the world would taste like so much pudding. Britain faces a hung parliament and Joan Collins is the world's No. 1 Twitter topic. Unfiltered, news is served up in globs, determined more by volume and velocity than value. Hi Joan, bye Joan. Soon she makes way for Canadian tween Justin Bieber and Iron Man 2.

It's new but is it news? In a single breath, the BBC reports on austerity cuts in Greece and Russell Crowe's head being shrunk to fit on a postage stamp. The actor, just back from presenting a humanitarian award at the ''Simon Weisenthal [sic] annual dinner'', tweets how he is missing his "little hearts" and "darling wife".

If all I had was Twitter, I'd think celebrities charitable and selfless, and as lonely as the rest of us. Demi Moore (2.7 million followers) "appreciated the opportunity to participate in a Congressional briefing at the White House to end Child Sex Slavery in America!". Oprah Winfrey (3.5 million) asks "IF you have a child. Know someone who has a child. Or were molested as a child. I pray you'll watch Monday's show and Tweet me your thoughts."

Ashton Kutcher is moaning to his 4.8 million followers about a $20 vodka tonic. David Lynch is building a table. Ben Stiller is having root canal. Tom Cruise is tweeting in Spanish and giving away DVDs of his films ("Check out this awesome compilation of some of the coolest moments in Tom's film career!").

The Twitter study found about 40 accounts have more than a million followers, PC World reports. The most popular accounts belong to celebrities. But only 22 per cent of users follow each other.

Comedian Catherine Deveny, who was let go as a columnist by The Age last week, over her Logie tweets, compared Twitter to "passing notes in class". But as a news source, Twitter is an ocean with no anchor points.

If all I had was Twitter, the world would seem really big and at the same time quite small. "Voter chaos, hung parliament in Britain," says The Australian. "ABC election analyst Antony Green's take on the Penrith byelection," counters the ABC.

In February, five radio journalists were holed up in a farmhouse in the south of France for five days, to test the quality of news from Twitter and Facebook. One later complained about the "huge amount of soft news" but it's not so much soft as undercooked.

At 7.08am, the BBC tweets on the latest exit poll from the British election. It's "breaking news" on an Age tweet, 70 minutes later.

At 8am, I receive an email saying Kevin Rudd is following me. He signs his tweets "KRudd". By 6pm, the Australian dollar has fallen to US88.7¢ in Asia trade. In other news, Justin Bieber is back in Twitter's top 10 topics list, and all is well in the world.

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[luke]

[MegaChairmanMao]

They should rename this website. They should call it "Your account is currently suspended. For more information, please visit Suspended Accounts DOT COM" because that's the message I see every time I try to post there. I must have been suspended ten times now and unsuspended nine times. I wish they'd either ban me or leave me alone, not just suspend me because some idiot blocked me.

[faceless]

I saw one of your tweets earlier - I'm guessing it was because you annoyed an atheist. They hate that.

[MegaChairmanMao]

[faceless]

haha yeah, they really are. And they refuse to see it too

[MegaChairmanMao]

Looooooool.

[faceless]

what did you do to get that?

[MegaChairmanMao]

Whenever you tweet somebody first and they block you, it's a black mark on your account. If you do it enough, you'll get suspended. I did that about a thousand times. It was the culmination of all of them.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back: