Comments on: An Avatar for a Password: A Lesson in Social Media Security

By: Mandi

Mandi — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:42:29 +0000

I liked this author’s philosophy for fixing your insecure passwords. http://www.slate.com/id/2223478/

By: Nathan Barry

Nathan Barry — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:16:45 +0000

@Anon Yes, the Iran Election site does use OAUTH, though I thought when they first started out they only had the option to login with your Twitter credentials. I may be wrong though (it has happened before).

And sharing your email address to post a comment is a bit different then sharing passwords. But I get your point.

@Kimberly I haven’t seen it before with WordPress plugins, but that does make sense. Maybe I’ll write more later on WordPress security.

By: Linkeracy 21 July 2009 – Tangled up in Purple

Linkeracy 21 July 2009 – Tangled up in Purple — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:39:47 +0000

[...] Nathan Barry exposes how experienced web developers happily allowed someone else access to their Twitter network. Wth the exponential growth of Twitter and other Social Networking applications, people are excitedly giving away their passwords in order to quickly jump on the latest trend. [...]

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:08:06 +0000

I just read your post. Awesome write up.

I still find it amazing just how easily sucked in people are when it comes to online security. Do people still lack common sense when it comes to providing information online.

It’s not just social networking sites trawling for data either, I recently looked at a plugin for WordPress, which wanted my email address to activate it. Me being the sceptical me, I thought “why do you want that?” turns out the plugin in question is developed by spammers harvesting email addresses.

It’s the same with email phishing scams with banks. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen TV adverts stating a certain bank will not ask for access numbers but then not even a week later I hear people have fallen victim to the same scams.

Does the Human race not learn or is everyone just living in their own little world thinking “It’ll never happen to me”

By: Anon

Anon — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 04:07:28 +0000

Good post. Interested that you require our email addresses and state that they will never be shared. Can we trust you?

Also, helpiranelection.com – the green avatars – did use OAUTH. And you could immediately remove the authorisation after changing colour.