Saturday 9 July 2011

Twitter

Got an email this morning. Apparently one of the people I follow on Twitter had sent me a message saying, "Read this funny blog post - it mentions you!" The message included a link to take me to said blog post. For some reason I didn't fall for it. It might have been because I barely knew this person. Lucky, really. After making enquiries it turned out this was a phishing site, the result of someone's account being hacked.

That's the trouble with Twitter. It's instant and can be exhilarating if you get swept up in some trending topic. It gives you the chance to talk to anyone anywhere. It can make you feel connected. But with every tweet you're revealing information that some can use against you. I've been spied on recently and the result wasn't pleasant. No real harm done, but it seems no sooner do we find new ways to communicate than someone finds a way to use that against us.

So if you're on Twitter, beware of prying eyes.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been warning people for years that we're being watched, but they all thought I was mad. ;)

- Naomi

cagnolino said...

You are mad, that's why they're watching. The sane, well, they can walk freely, safe in the knowledge that no one cares.

Twitter, words thrown out in the hope that someone is listening, a bit like'speaker's corner' only you can't see the leering, jeering grins of the crowd as they decide what flavour of mental illness you suffer from, and you don't have to leave the comfort of your bed.

No wonder we are targets...

Sandra Patterson said...

Haha! I'm as sane as the next man...

Martin 'Beejay' Wells said...

I'm the next man. Heh, heh. You really want to be as sane as me?

Sandra Patterson said...

You've just proved my point, BJ! ;-)