Twitter Worm Created by bored 17 year old.

As a second Twitter exploit began circulating on the micro-blogging site Sunday, a teen-ager from Brooklyn told CNET News he created both worms because he was bored and wanted to draw attention to the Twitter flaw. 


Much like Saturday's StalkDaily worm, the "Mikeyy" worm posts unwanted messages to users' pages. The "Mikeyy" worm began spreading on the micro-blogging site early Sunday, posting messages such as "Mikeyy I am done...," "MikeyyMikeyy is done.," and "Twitter please fix this, regards Mikeyy." 

Brooklyn resident Michael "Mikeyy" Mooney, 17, told CNET News in an interview that he created the worm "out of boredom." 

"I thought about it later and basically did it because I was bored," he said. "And I didn't think Twitter would fix (the flaw) very soon. But I didn't think it would spread as far or as fast as it did." 

Mooney, a high school senior who said one day he hopes to get a job as a security analyst, said he has been creating worms for about three years. He added that the worms he creates aren't designed to do much damage but that this will likely be his last worm. 

"I'm done with Twitter," he said, adding that he was feeling a bit overwhelmed. "I've been getting too much attention lately." 

Mooney said his site has has been live to the public for about two weeks and has 905 members, but that it "is growing quickly because of the worm." 

The messages circulating Saturday promoted StalkDaily.com, a short-messaging site similar to Twitter. While initially denying any responsibility for the worm, StalkDaily.com posted a message saying, "I have came clean and have accepted the responsibility for the worm..." 

Twitter said it has closed the hole that allowed the worm to spread. 

"We've taken steps to remove the offending updates, and to close the holes that allowed this 'worm' to spread," Twitter said in a statement Saturday. "No passwords, phone numbers, or other sensitive information were compromised as part of this attack." 

However, Mooney said he released the second worm exploiting the original flaw Sunday morning, after Twitter claimed to have closed the holes. He also said that he had not yet been contacted by Twitter representatives.

cnet.com by Steven Musil.  http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10217684-83.html

Good Advice from the Sydney Morning Herald on Facebook

Dan Warne shows how to keep Facebook posts private. The first time is so often the best in life. And so it is with Facebook and the intoxicating effects of signing up and discovering how many people you know on there.

If you're like most Facebook users, you'll have gradually built up hundreds of friends, including family, school friends, old teachers, current friends, work friends, your partner's work friends and possibly the managing director of your company.

That's all good until you show what a laconic and self-deprecating person you are by setting your status line as Jack (or Jill) as "a one-can screamer; epic hangover" and you take a day off to nurse your throbbing temples.

Halfway through your mid-afternoon nap, you wake up with a start and the painful realisation that all your workmates and your boss, and your boss's boss, can read your status lines too.

By now the tale of AAPT call centre employee Kyle Doyle has passed into legend. The story goes that Doyle was fired after posting on his Facebook page: "f--- it i'm still trashed. SICKIE WOO!"

There's been speculation about whether this was a hoax - but that's not the point. We laughed because it could so easily happen. If only Kyle had known how to separate work and personal friends on Facebook, he could have saved his job.

Here's how (and note: the answer is not to create two identities on Facebook - one for your personal self, named "Jake the caped crusader" and one for your work colleagues, named "Jake Green").

STEP 1: Set up Facebook friends lists

Once you've logged on to Facebook, go to the "Friends" tab. In the left-hand column, you'll see a "Friend lists" column. Click the "Make a new list" button.

Type a name for your new list. You can add friends to it by typing their names into the "Add to list" box Facebook provides.

If you have a lot of friends, it might be easier to click the "Select multiple friends" link, which provides the familiar interface of all your friends in a grid, with the ability to click on them to select them. Once you've selected all your friends for a list, click "Save list". Now repeat this step until you have made lists for all your various types of friends.

This bit can be rather tedious if you have a lot of friends but it's a necessary part of setting up different privacy settings for your work and personal friends - otherwise Facebook can't tell your friends apart.

STEP 2: Set up privacy settings

Now, go to Facebook's privacy settings page to set up different privacy settings for each list of friends.

In the very top menu bar, select "Settings", then "Privacy Settings" from the drop-down menu.

Now you can set which of your friends can see different parts of your profile. For example, if you didn't want your family to see your friends' obscene wall posts on your profile, select the "Profile" section, then the drop-down next to "Wall posts". Select "Customize . . ." .

A window will pop up that lets you customise your settings for wall posts. Here you can select an appropriate general privacy level, such as "Friends of friends" or "Only friends".

The "Except these people" box below is the key to the whole thing.

In this box, you can type in individual names of friends or lists of friends.

So, for example, you could type in "family" if you had a friends list called "Family" - this would block them from seeing your wall posts.

Repeat this process for each part of your Facebook profile to ensure you're showing the right parts to the right people.

Now, click "Save changes" at the bottom.

STEP 3: Lock down who can search for you

If you're worried about your antics coming up on Google in the future (employers are increasingly Googling applicants' names to find out more about the "real them"), you can set who should be able to find you on Facebook too.

In the privacy settings, go to "Search" and you can select to let everyone (any random person), just friends of friends or only current friends find you on Facebook. You can also control whether your profile should be listed publicly on Google.

Scource: Dan Warne, Sydney Morning Herald, 29/12/2008