It took over a month for Twitter to release this statement about their security incident that had been going on last year.
On December 24, 2019 we became aware that someone was using a large network of fake accounts to exploit our API and match usernames to phone numbers. We immediately suspended these accounts and are disclosing the details of our investigation to you today because we believe it’s important that you are aware of what happened, and how we fixed it.
17 million usernames and phone numbers were matched and exposed.
But they didn't mention who have been impacted by this incident and what to do if you are affected. 🤷♂️
This incident was specific to this option, “Let people who have your phone number find you on Twitter”.
If this option was enabled, your account may be impacted.
It is safer to "disable" these options even though they "fixed" the issue. (we never know if they "fixed" the email option or other APIs)
The least you can do to mitigate is this issue ⤵️
Discoverability and contacts
https://twitter.com/settings/contacts
And uncheck both of them.
Twitter CEO wants to decentralize Twitter
Finally, new technologies have emerged to make a decentralized approach more viable. Blockchain points to a series of decentralized solutions for open and durable hosting, governance, and even monetization. Much work to be done, but the fundamentals are there
And the company is actually funding a small team to develop decentralized social media.
Online web platform is the most harsh environment and centralized platform is always under attack by malicious actors, but decentralized ecosystem would eradicate exploits like Twitter incident and your personal data would stay safe and remain personal.
What is your opinion on this?
