The Guardian's excellent technology blog today carries a concerning story regarding the safety of personal, direct messages sent through the service. According to a piece by Tom Scott, "almost every Twitter application you authorise, no matter how trivial, has near-complete control over your account" - including your private messages.
In short, this problem stems from third-party applications such as Facebook whic have access to your account:
"The trouble is that Twitter's authorisation process makes no distinction between small toys like that and big applications like TweetDeck that handle your entire account. Toys only need to read public messages and perhaps tweet once, but usually request, and are being given "read and write" permission, which means they can do every action Twitter can provide an authorised user: the power to change profile pictures, follow and block users, and – crucially – read direct messages. Changing your password doesn't lock them out either; you need to explicitly revoke their access"
It doesn't appear, given the inability of Twitter users to personalise their privacy settings to any meaningful extent, that there is a great deal individuals can do to prevent their data being accessed. In short, individuals should carefully consider the type of information they send through the service. If you don't want it to become public, don't sent it through Twitter.
Click here to read Tom Scott's full piece.
I stopped using Twitter after the Robin Hood Airport thing.
Posted by: Purlieu | 07/12/2010 at 05:45 PM