Twitter Account Hack, John C. Dvorak Password Security
John C. Dvorak addresses reports that his Twitter account was compromised over the weekend. He clarifies that while some suspected a root server breach, the vulnerability was likely due to a "skeleton key" password he reused across multiple low-security forums. Dvorak confirms he has since updated his credentials but remains indifferent to the security of non-essential forum accounts.
twitter· hacking· password security· john c. dvorak· skeleton key
00:01 Adam Curry, John C. DeVora It's March 7, 2010, time for your Gitmo Nation Media Assassination Episode 180. This is no agenda. Scouring the lamestream media from all across Gitmo Nation, coming to you from the 17th Century Canal House, Crackpot Command Center in Gitmo Nation Lowlands in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, under siege of the United States of Europe. In the morning, I'm Adam Curry. And from Northern Silicon Valley, where it's sunny again today, I'm John C. Dvorak. In the morning to you. Yeah morning to you. Hey, so how's that diet coming along? Yeah real funny So I'm in get my gibbon nation east over the weekend with my daughter sleeping on the couch Stomping potato chips into her carpet and all sudden my my phone starts like explode with Twitters Tell John he's been hacked or he's gonna be really thin
01:02 I would be or lose 20 pounds. Hmm. So I that'd be my that'd be my ideal weight. You know what's kind of interesting is that I don't think they guessed your password. I don't think that's what happened here. No, I feel thing it was a there's 200 to hack so that somebody thinks that the some route was busted. How about it's not happening? Isn't there some kind of isn't there some kind of JavaScript that you might have clicked on that I should log in and it? No, I don't do that. Because I remember you were having lots of problems logging into Twitter and you'd have to keep entry, it would never keep the credentials and you'd have to keep refreshing and logging in. You sure that didn't happen? No, I never said that. I've never had any trouble logging into Twitter.
01:46 Yeah, you did. I remember a while ago you had on one machine it would not... No, the whole thing with the Twitter... No, no. No. Well, okay. You either misunderstood me or I wasn't explaining myself correctly. Okay. I've never had a situation that would indicate... and I'm always on the lookout for that stuff anyway. Yeah, well of course you're always on the lookout, but still... so there was no re-login or anything? You think a root server was hacked? Well, that's what some people think. Was your password... you don't seem like the guy who has easy to guess passwords. Well, in this case it was.
02:22 I could have hacked this password myself. Because when I first joined Twitter, I have layers of passwords, depending on how secure I want something to be. You're not supposed to use password as password, John. You do know that, don't you? But the point is, I have a bunch of skeleton key passwords that I use for lesser sites that I don't think need passwords because I don't care. And I don't want to type in a million letters and words. So when I first joined Twitter, I was still skeptical at the time. And so I used a simple password. I never changed it. I changed it now. Mm-hmm. And you didn't use that password for anything else. Did you? There were there it was a skeleton key password that was used on a forum Which you know, I rarely log into okay, so and you've changed that No, I don't care
03:14 You're amazing. I don't care. I mean, what difference does it make if somebody hacks into your forum and starts saying, Macintosh sucks. There is no evidence that anyone would want to use a mouse as a pointing device, you losers. Well, you know, there is a Twitter scam that I can unveil. Something very interesting happened. that I've not seen reported anywhere except Gitmo Nation Lowlands, although it does involve Lance Armstrong. Oh really? Yeah. About, I think, five or six months ago, Miss Mickey started... I could see she was sending these tweets to someone. She's like, oh, you know, I've got kind of like a Twitter friend, this girl named Ines, and I guess she was... I don't know if she was an artist or something, but she had brain cancer.
