So this weekend I was officially and blatantly hacked. It was obnoxious, uncomfortable, and slightly embarrassing. I am 99 percent sure that the user got in via Firesheep. Firesheep has been publicized since the end of October, and therefore it should be assumed that everyone and their mother has downloaded the easy-to-use Firefox add on. Sadly I had read this article a couple days before the hacking upon my accounts had occurred and had laughed to myself: How could these users be so oblivious and so unfazed by that situation?? It describes careless Starbucks customers calmly ignoring a “vigilante” Firesheep user attempting to privately warn them that their accounts were exposed. It made me think an extra second about the fact that I did not maintain a home internet connection and typically frequented coffee shops just like Starbucks, but… then I moved on with my day.
My friend and I sat within our local coffee shop and discussed the article I had read a few days earlier about Firesheep. We should have just downloaded it for ourselves and tested it out, but honestly we had other things to work on. Shortly after my friend left the coffee shop, I noticed completely obscene posts… coming from my Twitter and WordPress accounts. I instinctively began deleting them as they appeared. The hacker mocked me in their posts as I responded to them by posting “wow. have i been hacked? awkward” and continuing to delete what they were writing. I was obviously onto them within seconds of their first post, and was easily able to hush their commentary by logging out of my accounts, but it was pretty disturbing. I figured this sort of thing was easy for the more computer savvy but those people typically have better things to do then hack Facebook and Twitter accounts. It is a little unnerving that tools like this have now been given to the masses for those people that really have nothing better to do than attempt to jack up people’s social media accounts with garbage comments.
Image courtesy of http://codebutler.com/firesheep.
All in all I was left with some damage control in terms of making sure people knew I had been hacked and had not in fact decided to turn perv on them. Deep down however I was left with the sinking feeling that all this investment in social media and interaction with online tools can easily backfire on any one of us. I mean obviously we should all be aware that public wireless is not secure now nor ever really was… but it won’t stop there. People will continue to press boundaries and attempt to get into more than they really need to get into. More tips/tools for getting into another user’s account “for fun” “as a joke” etc. will be publicized. I guess this will teach all of us a little bit more about other people’s morals and the boundaries they are willing to cross to spam, irritate, humiliate and or generally wreak havoc on other users’ accounts.
