Twitter apologises for mass password reset error
Many Twitter users were confused and alarmed this morning by an email from the service saying that their accounts had been “compromised” and forcing them to change their passwords. Read more
Spam, spam and slightly less spam
At first this looks so promising. Volumes of spam are down nearly 70 per cent from last year according to a report from Symantec, the IT security company. In June, there were 39.2bn unsolicited, “spam” messages in circulation each day, compared with 121.5bn a day in June 2010. This echoes findings earlier this month from rival McAfee, which suggested spam levels had halved in the last year.
But sadly, this doesn’t mean we are winning the war on cybercriminals and botnets. Rather, it is a reflection on how use of the internet is evolving to become more centred around social networking sites and mobile phones. Spam on Twitter and Facebook is becoming a growing problem. Read more
US, China cyber experts agree…on spam
There has been an increasing amount of talk from high places, including the White House, about the urgent need for international cooperation on cybersecurity. But a proposal to be released tomorrow calling for specific US-China steps shows, more than anything, how far we have to go. Read more
Twitter’s own Top Tweets account retweets adult spam to 1m followers
This time last year, Twitter wrote a somewhat smug blog post trumpeting its success in tackling spam. It had reduced the percentage of tweets that were spammy from a peak of almost 11 per cent in summer 2009 to less than 1 per cent in February 2010, it said. Everyone was very pleased.
Fast forward a year, and it seems that the spammers are starting to stage a comeback. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Google: we can do better on spam
Google has hit back at growing criticism of the quality of its search results, with a blog post pledging to tackle “content farms” and admitting: “We can and should do better.”
The move has been seen as a threat to Demand Media, one such producer of low-cost articles and videos designed to suck up search traffic, which has just priced its initial public offering. Read more
Twitter touts less spam
After taking so much flack for its frequent outages and the regular attacks on its system, it is only fair that Twitter gets to toot its own horn once in a while.
In a bit of very good news for the company, Twitter says it has finally gotten spam on the site under control.
As Twitter was going through its major growth spurt last year, spammers and scammers flocked to the site. From May through October, as much as 9 per cent of all tweets were spam, according to Twitter’s own numbers. Now that number is down to about 1 per cent, said Twitter chief scientist Abdur Chowdhury in a blog post. Read more
Scammers and spammers target social sites
“No, Your Social Networking ‘Friend’ Isn’t Really in Trouble Overseas” — That’s the title of a press release put out yesterday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The release was a warning to users of social networking sites, encouraging them to be sceptical of suspicious requests, even if they look like they are coming from friends. In a recent popular scam, fraudsters have been infiltrating accounts, announcing they are in trouble overseas, and asking their friends for money. Read more
How much does spam cost? It’s hard to quantify in terms of bandwidth, time and effort blocking it, and general nuisance. But here’s a figure to mull over: $873m.
That’s how much Facebook has been awarded in damages against a spammer in a US court for sending unsolicited messages on the Facebook network. And if it sounds trivial in this era of multi-billion dollar bailouts, it’s a lot more than Facebook’s expected revenues for 2008 – more than double, in fact. Read more
| About this blog | Blog guide |
Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
