The Iranian Cyber Army took credit for hacking into Twitter last night. Anyone logging on to the popular microblogging site was redirected to a screen showing a green flag and stating “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army.”
Twitter and Iran:
Twitter and Iran have had an interesting relationship during the past several months. During the elections, the world could follow tweets and retweets of the bloody protests and images of the violence while the mainstream media was unable to obtain access.
The US State Department even asked Twitter to reschedule a routine maintenance operation to keep the site open for all developing issues.
Twitter and the Iranian Cyber Army?
Back in July, Twitter’s security resume was supposedly damaged when hackers stole secret company documents. These documents supposedly describes it operations but the theft did not compromise the website.
Twitter Tweets about the Hacking:
On its official Twitter page, Twitter reported that, “Twitter’s DNS records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed. We will update with more information soon,” The posting was made by Twitter after the Iranian Cyber Army’s message was taken down. It was posted at about 2:30 a.m. ET Friday.
History of Twitter and Iran
According a report on the Wall Street Journal, Iran’s elite security force, the Revolutionary Guard, has been conducting a campaign of tracking, harassing and intimidating Iranians around the world. By tracking usage of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, they have been looking for dissidents and oppositions to their regime.
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a social network where its members can create small blogs, called microblogs. These can be followed, or retweeted, to keep people updated on daily or occasional happenings.
Is the Iranian Cyber Army’s hacking of the popular socializing network a type of terrorism? By taking over the website and compromising a public source of enjoyment, yes, it is. However, there is something deeper here for those who care to look. If a group of people can follow a second group of people for the purpose of figuring out who is “in” and who is “out”, then you might ask yourself just how much information should I post to these social networks. While I would be the first to admit it would be cool to hear about a big event in a family member’s life, I’m not interested in who finished washing their dishes, etc.
This is especially true if some group such as the “Dishwater Dissidents” was trying to decide whether I used dishes or paper plates through my Twitter and other social networks.
Sources:
CNN Report on Twitter
Wall Street Journal Blog
