Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Allison — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 01:53:51 -0000

Can't many of the services offered by these twitter applications be achieved simply by having you follow them (like MrTweet?) rather than logging in? I prefer to use the services that require me to follow someone, because then I can unfollow (and even block) the user later if I want.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

MITS Engineering college — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:59:47 -0000

MITS Engineering College,Best Institute in Orissa, India

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Adam — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 16:30:39 -0000

This has come about because so many sites are so keen for you to add your friends that the ask for you to enter your email addy and pass for that which is much more damaging if phished.

It's a trend, and not a good one.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

ana hyacinth quiminales — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:24:48 -0000

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Janet — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 18:10:49 -0000

I fell for it too. We seem to be quite willing to give up this info even though we all should know better. Whether this was malicious or not, it wouldn't take much to save all that luscious data and do something dastardly.
I have a habit of changing my Twitter pass before and after I give it to other apps like this one that only run once . Now I feel all justified.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Widgia — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 03:56:06 -0000

It seems this twitter widget have some flaws, hope they will fixed it soon.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Andy — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:30:02 -0000

Here is an Interview with Ryo (German and english)

http://www.phishmail.de/200...

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Andy — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:29:40 -0000

Here is an Interview with Ryo (Gernam and english)

http://www.phishmail.de/200...

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Ryo Chijiiwa — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 16:46:01 -0000

@Michael Bailey @Nikhil Narayanan You are both correct. If the user's score is already in the database and is less than 24 hours old, a request is never made to Twitter, so any password will work. If, however, the user's score is not in the database or the score is more than 24 hours old, then a request is made to Twitter, and you'll get an error if the password is incorrect. Or, at least that was the case until a couple of hours ago. The REST Twitter APIs were timing out, so I switched to using the Search API which doesn't require a password. The password is currently only used to post the score to the user's Twitter stream (if that option is selected).

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Nikhil Narayanan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:06:13 -0000

@Michael Bailey
I tried with 10 twitter ids and passwords like hkjhkhkh, it worked. I asked others to try and it worked.
Why would I come up with false statements?
-Nikhil

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

mark — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:25:55 -0000

Change password. Check rank. Change password back. Duh.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

threemer — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:05:45 -0000

Nikhil Narayanan - you are wrong.

Putting in a false password only does this: makes the process fail when twitterank tries to send your rank to Twitter - you don't see this failure, but that's what happens (I'm a developer who is very familiar with the Twitter API).

Because you don't understand (which is ok in itself) you are prone to assume that what you say is true - in fact it is false and you should retract your statement.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

threemer — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:00:41 -0000

Mashable, What you should do now is write an article on "What happens when people get caught checking their ego"

This whole password stealing rumor got started when a few people who did NOT bother to uncheck the box for sending their Twitterank to Twitter.

Then it became a matter of self-preservation expressed in the form of "I did NOT give them permission to send that to Twitter" - well, yes they did because of the default setting, which they didn't bother to read.

So, as most self-preservation of ones ego goes, many people began the rumors that the site must be stealing their passwords, even rumors of DM's being sent from their account.

I checked the twitterank.com site just now and it appears to be down - what a shame that so much false information and ego-preservation could actually bring a site down.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Nikhil Narayanan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:58:35 -0000

This site is total crap.
One can give some random characters as password and it still accepts that if the username is a valid twitter username.
So taking the password is all BULL, and is a phishing attempt.
WTH-they say Twitter API demands password.HELL!!
I am sure even the rank generated is some random stuff.

Get a life, twitterank!!
-Nikhil

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Matt — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:13:54 -0000

Hopefully this guy is on the up-and-up. Amazing though, that so many people just hop on the bandwagon.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Beth — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:07:22 -0000

^^^^ THIS.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Beth — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:01:40 -0000

ZDNet calls people gullible? LOL!!! This from the guy who bought some random guy's sarcastic tweet and immediately assumed it was the twitterank guy!

All they had to do was a simple whois search on the twitterank domain, and they could have even called the guy who made the site.

People are such lemmings - everyone follows the herd first getting their "rank," then they all collectively go into a frenzy over ZDNet's paranoid and unresearched speculation. It took me about 20 seconds to find the Twitterank guy, and I'm a complete n00b compared to what I'd expect from someone at ZDNet.

FAIL!

Weâ€™re still trying to pin down a few more details on Twitterank

Do a whois at godaddy. Come on, guys, you know this!!!
Also, here: http://twitter.com/ryochiji << that's him.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Anthony Lawrence — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:04:02 -0000

No, I didn't trust it.

If it really were honest, why not just post the algorithm or actual code so that we could run it ourselves?

Maybe he was not out for anything crooked, but I can't be that trusting :-)

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Liz — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:51:23 -0000

I must be pretty stupid because I didn't even think of this at all... but I changed my password so, thanks!

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Lady Diamond — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:11:55 -0000

I still see my friends posting their rank - even after I twitter'd this article. *Shakes head* It amazes me the things people will justify just so they can do it.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Ryo Chijiiwa — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:40:17 -0000

Hi folks,

I'm the guy who made the beast known as Twitterank. Unfortunately, I was at work when rumors about this being a phishing operation started going around, and apparently did a bad job at damage control. What do I have to do to set the record straight?

Ryo

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

AndjelahBurek — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:18:38 -0000

Lucky me, I got a Twitter API FAIL... WHALE. (code 400).

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Blondefabulous — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:02:09 -0000

I knew my rank would be microscopic, so I didn't even bother. Glad I din't!

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

Adam — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:56:44 -0000

thanks, anonymous Mark. Note how the title is a question. People were talking about it, and given most Mashable readers use Twitter, it was worth reporting. We also updated with the developer's side of the story.

Re: Is Twitterank Ranking Your Popularity Or Stealing Your Password?

tweetip — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:27:53 -0000

1st Tweets chart ... http://tweetip.us/lkvhi