"Twitter Nitwits" - Catchy Post Title, Pretty Good Advice

"Watch out for Twitter nitwits"
Consumer Reports electronics Blog (September 9, 2008)

"Beware: There's a rash of cyberspace attackers trying to plant a 'bot' or some other sort of malware on your PC. They've graduated from email-based exploits to the use of 'Web 2.0' social networking sites to do their dirty work. Twitter is the most recent example. Here's how it works:

Logging into Twitter, you get a request, maybe in a foreign language, to 'follow' another user. But the sender's real intent is to get you to click on an enticing web link in the message, purportedly to view a photo or video. You click on it, and a message pops up telling you that you need a 'Flash update' to view the video, with a convenient web link to the file. You run the self-installing file, which... you guessed it, installs a malware program on your PC...."

Twitter's okay: it's the (minority, I trust) of people and organizations that use Twitter for nefarious purposes that's a problem. I've had a Twitter account for a while now (I'm Aluwir on Twitter), and noticed that other accounts "follow" mine before disappearing. Some are pretty obviously commercial come-ons for some sort of cheesy product or service. And, they disappear within 24 hours.

That minority can be a problem, though: particularly if the 'follow me' link is enticing.