Twitter

Twitter: Hacking attacks may have accessed data of 250K users

Twitter said today that it recently detected a series of attempts to hack into user data and that the attackers may have successfully absconded with some users' information.

In a blog post this afternoon, Twitter explained the situation and the steps it has taken to fight off the hackers.

This week, we detected unusual access patterns that led to us identifying unauthorized access attempts to Twitter user data. We discovered one live attack and were able to shut it down in process moments later. However, our investigation has thus far indicated that the attackers may have had access to limited … Read more

Twitter hit by overcapacity issues

Updated: Twitter has since reported that the issue was resolved.

The fail whale is alive and well at Twitter this morning.

"Some users may be experiencing issues accessing Twitter," the company reported on its status page today. "Our engineers are currently working to resolve the issue."

Downrightnow.com, which tracks the availability of Web sites, indicates that Twitter has been up and down for the past several hours. A similar site, Isitdownrightnow.com, shows that Twitter is currently up but notes that it was down earlier.

On my end, I've been able to access the … Read more

Twitter tweaks photos and video viewing

Twitter today showed a little more love to media sharing by rolling out some enhancements to photo and video viewing.

The micro-blogging service now lets users view enlarged photos directly on the page instead of going to another link. Twitter also added the videos you've shared -- made through Vine, YouTube, Vimeo and others -- to the gallery on your profile that used to display only your photos.

These are little tweaks to the site, but a part of Twitter's continuing efforts to put a bigger spotlight on sharing photos and video.

Sad plant! Vine experiences widespread service outage

Vine, the loopy video-sharing application from Twitter, experienced a widespread service interruption Tuesday. Sadly, people's pithy, provocative, and pretentious 6-second updates were put on semi-permanent pause.

The Twitter-owned service acknowledged the issues and alerted people via tweet at 10:17 a.m. Pacific today. Twitter declined to provide an explanation for the downtime, but the company did confirm that the service is now back up and running.

Vine, still less than a week old, is to video what Twitter is text, which means the iPhone application and its 6-second machinations are inspiring both awe and ire. See the Vine … Read more

Twitter acquires Crashlytics crash reporting service

Twitter has bought Crashlytics, a startup whose crash reporting tool has been incorporated into a wide variety of iOS apps including Vine, Yelp, Kayak, TaskRabbit, and Waze.

In a blog post today, Crashlytics co-founders Jeff Seibert and Wayne Chang announced that the company is "joining the flock," the term often used when people or companies are hired or acquired by Twitter:

We started Crashlytics a little over a year ago to address a huge hole in mobile app development. With hundreds of millions of devices in use around the world, it was impossible for developers to fully test … Read more

Twitter making it harder (sort of) to find porn on Vine

As has been well reported, there's already an endless amount of porn on Vine, Twitter's new video service. But now, the social-networking company appears to be making it a bit harder to find the adults-only content.

According to The Verge, Twitter has blocked a number of porn-related Vine search terms such as "#porn." At the same time, though, it's clear that there are still plenty of ways to find people's 6-second sex tapes. For example, a search for "#nsfw," meaning not safe for work, resulted in no shortage of videos.

And while … Read more

Do Twitter, Google share too much info with gov'ts? (poll)

To "celebrate" Data Privacy Day today, both Google and Twitter issued transparency reports, detailing how often they comply with government requests for information about users. In the United States, Google said it provided some or all requested information 88 percent of the time, while Twitter -- which says it prizes users' privacy -- did so 69 percent of the time.

Those numbers seem shockingly high, but in Twitter's case at least, privacy advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation said they didn't blame the social network for complying with the law. And, the EFF added, Twitter's … Read more

VineRoulette weaves Vine videos into desktop visualization

Less than a week old, Vine, Twitter's 6-second looping video mishmash tool, has inspired third-party application makers to remix public content in their own unique ways. Take VineRoulette, a full-screen, desktop visualization that continuously loads Vines published around the world.

VineRoulette, built by TweetBeam creator Yousef El-Dardiry over the weekend, provides people with a window to Vines of all kinds. Sit back and watch a panoply of unfiltered Vines as they trickle in or search for something specific like dogs to check out cute puppy vides one after the other.

Don't worry, VineRoulette, as the name would suggest, … Read more

Twitter gives user data to U.S. 7 times out of 10

Twitter gives government agencies in the United States at least some of the information they ask for on users 69 percent of the time.

That data and much more about how the social network responds to government requests for user information, as well as demands to remove tweets and reports of copyright violations was part of Twitter's second so-called transparency report, which it issued today "in celebration of" Data Privacy Day. Google issued such a report today as well.

"We've been thinking about ways in which we can more effectively share this information, with an … Read more

Porn briefly makes 'Editor's Pick' on Twitter's Vine

A pornographic video briefly made Vine's "Editor Pick" list, further raising the question of whether the video-clip-sharing app has a porn problem.

The clip showed up this morning and was spotted by The Verge, before it was quickly taken down. A video featuring the "I love NY" logo is the current top editor's pick.

Vine, a Twitter app that allows people to share six-second looping video clips, launched last week with a lot of buzz. But just a few days after its launch, videos that would be deemed NSFW -- not safe for work -- began showing up on the app. … Read more