Saturday, August 01, 2009

Twitter Account Hacked

My Twitter account was hacked the other day. Whoever (or whatever) logged in and made one Twitter post. It was effectively a spam email with an "adult" link. Twitter then suspended my account pending an investigation of suspicious activity. Twitter provides a link to get your account back.

As part of the report, there is a required field where you complete the statement "I feel: ________". I wrote "violated". On that request page, it says that "tiger is assigned to your request." I address tiger directly later on.


Here is a running log of the exchange between Twitter and me in an effort to un-suspend the account....

- Submitted Jul 30 01:02 pm by you
It appears that my account has been hacked. I am going to change my password. I hope that Twitter can un-suspend my account soon.

- Twitter also sends an email to my default account

- Jul-30 2009 01:28 pm.
Thank you for the email. My Twitter password appears to have been hacked. Since this happened, I changed my password. I also deleted the spam-like tweet that was posted as part of the hack. I don't believe I have violated any other terms. I hope to have my account reinstated promptly.

- Twitter sends another email requesting that I change my password. (Notice I've explained twice that I've already done so).

- Password has been reset. Again. Are we good?
Jul-30 2009 02:48 pm.

- At this point, my Twitter account disappears for a few hours. Eventually, it moves back to being suspended. Twitter does nothing from this point onward. I decide to add to the online request form every 8 hours or so, hoping to get the problem resolved.

- Seriously... When can we set my account straight? Or is this like a 50 game steroid suspension?
Jul-30 2009 09:53 pm.

- What's with this suspension? What do you need to hear from me? That I like Michael Bolton's music? Fine - For my money it doesn't get any better than when he sings "When a man loves a woman". Happy?
Jul-31 2009 10:34 am.

- I've tweeted 38 times in 7 months. That averages out to one tweet every 5.5 days. And, to be perfectly honest, nothing I have to say is that interesting anyways. How could I possibly have violated your terms? Let's fix this, fellas.
Jul-31 2009 11:47 am.

- Do you guys not work on Fridays? As much as I really don't "get" the whole Twitter hype, I would like to have my account back. My account was hacked. I changed the password. That's it. What's so complicated?
Jul-31 2009 04:30 pm.

- Tiger -
Do you want to know what happened today? I did something for the first time. I used 3-ply toilet paper. It was pure bliss. But guess what? I didn't get to share this joy with anyone. I'll give you one guess as to why.
Aug-01 2009 05:02 pm.

As of today, my account remains suspended.


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Update: Still no word from Twitter. So I've continued my "follow ups" to the open request...

- We've now hit the 5-day mark. And my account is still suspended. When a major league pitcher initiates a bench clearing brawl, he's allowed back after 5 days.
Aug-02 2009 01:15 pm.

- Can't you do a simple IP trace on the malicious post? I guarantee it's not mine. Speaking of, if you can't do an IP trace, I'm just going to open a new Twitter account using a different email address. I mean, yeah, that's a pain for me. But if that's what it takes to bring Twitter happiness back to my life, then that's what I'll do. Just let me know, since this suspension is now beyond ridiculous.
Aug-02 2009 08:55 pm.


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The issue is resolved, nearly a week after it began. Thanks to tiger at Twitter for the following...

- tiger, Aug 03 03:39 pm:
If you have not already, you should shortly receive notification that your account posted some updates that led us to believe that it was compromised. We are in the process of cleaning things up and should have already sent you a password reset notification. Your account is at this point back up and running; please only reopen this ticket if you encounter further issues. Make sure that sweep your computer for malware and create a secure password consisting of both letters and numbers; do not provide your username and/or e-mail and password to untrusted third-party sites.
Thanks, tiger

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