motto lotto

Thursday, July 23, 2009

great article on computer security

A french hacker collected a lot of information about Twitter from Twitter employee accounts and sent it to TechCrunch. I especially liked the hacker's extreme but appropriate advice (in an apology letter translated from French):
I did not do this to profit from the information. Security is an area that fascinated me for many years and I want to do my job. In my everyday life, I help people to guard against the dangers of the Internet. I learned the basic rules .. For example: Be careful where you click the files that you download and what you type on the keyboard. Ensure that the computer is equipped with effective protection against viruses, external attacks, spam, phishing … Upgrading the operating system, software commonly used … Remember to use passwords without any similarity between them. Remember to change them regularly … Never store confidential information on the computer

The Anatomy of the Twitter Attack (h/t Schneier)
There's a takeaway at the end of the article that's good advice too. I'm not sure this guy shares the hacker ethic but TechCrunch also has to deal with the ethical question.