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July 17, 2009
Twittergate: Hacked Docs Stir Up Questions of Ethics and Security
Recently a hacker obtained confidential documents containing information about Twitter's business plans as well as user accounts and passwords. The hacker sent the documents to two blogs: Silicon Valley's TechCrunch and Korben, a tech news site in France.
TechCrunch has spent the better part of a week publishing a few of the documents one blog post at a time. (Can we just call them TwitterCrunch at this point?) They claim to be working with Twitter and their legal team to determine which ones to post, but Twitter has denied giving permission for publication of any of the documents. Many comments left on TechCrunch's blog were in opposition to the publication, as well.
Twitter and TechCrunch have agreed on one thing - the documents were not ready for prime time. Many of them were handwritten notes, for example.
I personally haven't read the documents that have been released, though obviously it's been hard not to catch a whim of what was included here and there. They were stolen. They're confidential. I suppose that makes me a bad blogger/journalist, but I've got this "Do unto others" philosophy that I try to live by.
Taking ethics out of the question, I'm primarily more interested in what IS rather than is hoped for. After all, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray." (Have you seen Pirates of Silicon Valley? What were Jobs' and Gates' original plans? Where was Apple in the late 1990s?)
What would you have done if you had received the documents? Publish them? Blackmail Twitter? Let us know your gut reaction in the comments below.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on July 17, 2009 12:18 AM
Comments
John Scott Cothill July 17, 2009 5:01 AM
This shouldn't be all that complicated:
The documents that were taken, were stolen. Plain and simple.
Even if I forget to lock my door to my house and you walk in and take property from my home, although you can call my judgement into question for not locking the door, its does not absolve you from the fact you entered without permission and stole my property. Its theft. This is no different other than the fact you could argue they did "lock the door to the house" but unfortunately the passwords weren't strong enough and the door lock was breached. This in my opinion is even worse. Its like you used a paper clip or another tool to open my locked door and take my property.
The Hackers, and thats what they are, who did this and took the documents broke and entered in my opinion. They broke into a house that was not theirs and took property that is not theirs.
Their argument will probably be we are "white hat" hackers doing this for the good of the internet community and cloud computing as a whole. They will claim altruistic behavior....like radical greenpeace activists who antagonize, sometimes break the law and are punished accordingly.
There is a place to sound alarms that cloud computing can be unsafe. However, in my opinion there are other means to arrive at the same end.
One could also argue that the hackers have made their point. This has become news worthy because it has become an ethical question. It is still wrong. My last example and closing comment is this... If you receive stolen goods and sell them even unknowingly you can face charges. These publishing outlets have received stolen goods and by publishing them for value and money they are knowingly breaking the law. In my strong opinion (not humble) if they publish stolen material and know it they should face stiff legal penalties.
There is no decision process here. Its just wrong. Its stolen property.
Silly Valley July 17, 2009 10:54 AM
Agree with John Scott Cothill:
"This shouldn't be all that complicated:
The documents that were taken, were stolen. Plain and simple."
The "Public Interest" is as far as I know missing.
ulstrup July 17, 2009 11:11 AM
I couldn't agree with you more. I was one of them who opposed the release of said documents via TC.
I haven't read anything past the first 'release' they did. It became obvious pretty quickly that this is such a 'news for views' campaign for TC and I will not take part in helping them with this.
I also like it how they word it about 'working' with Twitters legal team. More like, they are being very careful in what they publish as they don't want to get sued.
Jesh, it's like putting a chocolate bar in front of a kid and saying, "do not eat it", some will restrain with no problem, while others won't take a blind bit of notice.
"I suppose that makes me a bad blogger/journalist" - wrong. It's, for example, what makes you the difference between a tabloid and a broadsheet.
I shall continue to read TC news going forward, but any ounce of respect I once had for them, gone.