Le Twitter Hack

Le Twitter Hack by: sean percival Early 2009 A French hacker calling himself Hacker Croll sets his sights on Twitter. He starts by gathering personal information on employ- ees for later use. May 1, 2009 PC World runs a story titled 'Hacker: I Broke Twitter'. They Hacker April 27, 2009 Into reveal that Croll accessed several high profile Twitter accounts like Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears. Croll hacks the Yahoo Mail account of Twitter employee Jason Goldman. He then gains access to a private Twitter admin system and documents the break-in with a series of screenshots. July 14, 2009 A French blog posts additional screenshots from Croll. These appear to show he has gained access to various Twitter owned accounts on Facebook, GoDaddy and Google Apps. July 14, 2009 Twitter CEO @ev confirms the hack to TechCrunch, describing it as "highly distressing." July 15, 2009 TechCrunch receives 310 confidential Twitter documents via email from Hacker Croll. The docs contain meeting notes, partner agreements and financial projections. The post receives CONBDENTIAS over 200 comments within an hour. July 15, 2009 After the initial TechCrunch post the Internets goes nuts over the story. The ethics debate is started and covers everything from TechCrunch's right to publish these documents, to the potential legal implications of doing so. Late that night @ev simply tweets "Having a bad night." July 15, 2009 Finaltweet TechCrunch posts the first doc, a horrible pitch for a Twitter based TV show. July 16, 2009 TechCrunch posts the next document which includes financial and user base forecasts. This crude Excel document predicts 1 billion users and $400K in revenue sometime in Q3 2009 (now). July 16, 2009 In what may be the last of the released docu- ments, TechCrunch posts 'Twitter's Internal Strategy Laid Bare'. The expansive post covers Twitter's trails and tribulations with Microsoft, Google and Facebook. It also reveals Twitter's ultimate goal: "To be the pulse of the planet." lalarag