Justin's Political Corner

But other sections reflect a scramble for a solution: “Designate one computer to use for Twitter,” the company recommends. “Don’t use this computer to read email or surf the web, to reduce the chances of malware infection.” 

Twitter is currently working on a two-step authentication system to prevent future hacks, but hasn’t released it to the public yet. (One possible reason for the slow process: figuring out a two-step system for accounts that are often shared between many people is more complicated than developing one for, say, Gmail.) Until the tool is out, though, Twitter seems to be asking prominent users to go into a sort of wartime mode.

Here’s the full memo:

Please help us keep your accounts secure. There have been severalrecent incidents of high-profile news and media Twitter handles being compromised. We believe that these attacks will continue, and that
news and media organizations will continue to be high value targets to
hackers.

What to be aware of:

These incidents appear to be spear phishing attacks that target your
corporate email. Promoting individual awareness of these attacks
within your organization and following the security guidelines below
is vital to preventing abuse of your Twitter accounts.

Take these steps right now:

Change your Twitter account passwords. Never send passwords via
e-mail, even internally. Ensure that passwords are strong- at least 20
characters long. Use either randomly-generated passwords (like
“LauH6maicaza1Neez3zi”) or a random string of words (like “hewn cloths
titles yachts refine”).

Keep your email accounts secure. Twitter uses email for password
resets and official communication. If your email provider supports
two-factor authentication, enable it. Change your e-mail passwords,
and use a password different from your Twitter account password.

Review your authorized applications. Log in to Twitter and review the
applications authorized to access your accounts. If you don’t
recognize any of the applications, contact us immediately by emailing
______@twitter.com.

Help us protect you. We’re working to make sure we have the most
updated information on our partners’ accounts. Please send us a
complete list of all accounts affiliated with your organization, so
that we can help keep them protected.

Build a plan. Create a formal incident response plan. If you suspect
your organization is being targeted by a phishing campaign or has been
compromised by a phishing attack, enact the plan.

Contact us immediately at ______@twitter.com with the word “Hacking”
in the subject. Include copies of suspected phishing emails.

If you lose access to an account, file a Support ticket and email the
ticket number to ______@twitter.com.

Moving Forward:

Review our security guidelines to help make sure your accounts are as
secure as possible.

Talk with your security team about ensuring that your corporate email
system is as safe as possible. A third-party provider that allows for
two-factor authentication might be a safer solution.

Strong security practices will reduce your vulnerability to phishing.
Consider the following suggestions:

Designate one computer to use for Twitter. This helps keep your
Twitter password from being spread around. Don’t use this computer to
read email or surf the web, to reduce the chances of malware
infection.

Minimize the number of people that have access. Even if you use a
third-party platform to avoid sharing the actual Twitter account
password, each of these people is a possible avenue for phishing or
other compromise.

Check for signs of compromise. Checking your email address and
authorized apps weekly or monthly can help detect unauthorized access
and address the problem before access is abused.

Double-check the email address associated with your Twitter accounts:
https://twitter.com/settings/account

Review the apps authorized to access your accounts:
https://twitter.com/settings/applications

Change your password regularly. Changing your Twitter password
quarterly or yearly can reset the clock if a password has leaked.

Using a Password Manager integrated into your browser can help prevent
successful phishing attacks.

Third-party solutions such as 1Password or LastPass, as well as the
browser’s built-in password manager, will only auto-fill passwords on
the correct website. If the password manager does not auto-fill, this
might indicate a phishing attempt.

Password managers make it much easier to use a very strong password.
Very difficult passwords will discourage memorization, which will
greatly reduce the chances of being phished.

Be certain to set a master password, since otherwise passwords may be
stored unprotected.

Don’t hesitate to email us if you need assistance.

H/T: BuzzFeed

Fox News contributor Erick Erickson wrote a FoxNews.com piece on the Boston bombings that attacked Islam as a religion that “cannot … peacefully coexist with other religions” and suggested “multiculturalism” helped lead to the bombings.

In his piece, Erickson wrote, “In the past decade we have seen that not all Muslims are terrorists, but just about every terrorist has been a Muslim.” He also claimed that “contrary to the political correct,” “[c]ompared to all other religions in the Twentieth and Twenty-first century, only Islam seems to generate people willing to kill for their religion.”

Erickson suggested that societal emphasis on ”multiculturalism” led the Boston bombing suspects to turn to radical Islam because immigrants aren’t expected to “assimilate into American society.” In a tweet linking to his piece, Erickson said:

 

Erickson has a long history of inflammatory remarks: he has endorsed white-men-only scholarships, defended Rep. Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments, and has said ”violence” is “extremely common … within much of Islam.”

h/t: MMFA

Twitter is reportedly close to adding two-step authentication to its service following the hack of the official account of the Associated Press.

According to Wired, Twitter has been internally testing the feature, and hopes to make it available to users soon. The report does not specify when Twitter users can expect two-step authentication.

The features adds an extra layer of security to Twitter accounts, requiring users to input their password and a special code when logging in from a new device. The code is usually generated at random, and transmitted via text message to a user’s cell phone. Companies such as Google and Facebook already use two-step authentication.

h/t: USAToday.com

Chuck Woolery, the game show host and self-styled conservative pundit, took to Twitter today to record his reactions to the ongoing lockdown in the Boston suburbs.

One thing for sure. Muslims can’t seem to live in peace with anyone. Even each other. FACT.

— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) April 19, 2013

All muslims are not terrorists. Most, if not all terrorists are muslims. Please dispute that.

— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) April 19, 2013

h/t: Salon.com

A new report out Thursday finds that right-wing extremists on Twitter are “highly engaged” with the mainstream conservative movement and the Republican Party and highlights the role the GOP has to play in countering their more violent fans.

The report — titled “Who Matters Online: Measuring influence, Evaluating Content and Countering Violent Extremism in Online Social Networks” — originally sought to examine the way that extremists use social media to interact among themselves, in this instance focusing on white nationalists’ use of Twitter. But throughout their investigation, the study’s authors, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation associate fellow J.M. Berger and Bill Strathearn, inadvertently discovered something interesting.

They began with 12 “seed” Twitter accounts for their unambiguous status as white nationalists. The authors then created a dataset of 3,542 Twitter users who interacted with those 12 seed accounts, of which 44 percent self-identified as white nationalists. After analyzing the interactions between the 3,542 users and the 12 seed accounts, the authors identified the 200 top-scoring accounts, of which 83 percent self-identified as white nationalists (for the top 400, the self-ID rate was 74 percent).

The real surprise came almost accidentally, when studying the content of the tweets members of the dataset sent out, with a substantial amount of it linked to the conservative movement in the United States and the Republican Party. Among the most popular hashtags used by those featured in the dataset included “#tcot,” or top conservatives on Twitter; “#teaparty,” and “#gop.” The study also looked at the links these users sent out, categorized into mainstream, content-neutral, alternative, and extremist categories. More than half of the alternative links these users sent out were also to conservative websites, such as World Net Daily and Breitbart.com.

The authors of the study determined that the usage seemed to be “driven more by white nationalists feeling an affinity for conservatism than by conservatives feeling an affinity for white nationalism.” They were also quick to note that the data were pulled during a period of time surrounding the Republican National Convention, potentially providing a boost in references to the GOP. However, a comparison group — composed of left-wing anarchists — did not yield similar results linking them to progressive ideals or the Democratic Party.

This seemingly unidirectional engagement, however, has a potential upside. Due to their influence, the GOP could help reduce the affect that violent extremists have on the national stage, the report says:

Since the data suggests white nationalists are actively seeking dialogue with conservatives, CVE [countering violent extremism] activists should enlist the help of mainstream conservatives, who may be considerably more successful than NGOs at engaging extremists with positive messaging. Further research may also suggest avenues for engagement between other kinds of extremists and other mainstream political and religious movements.

The report comes out on the heels of a Southern Poverty Law Center report identifying a spikein far-right anti-government groups, with their number having reached an “all-time high” in 2012. As the Republican Party is desperately seeking to rebrand itself from being seen as a “scary” party of primarily white people, it would do well to listen to the ICSR’s recommendations and not those of people who would defend slavery.

h/t: Hayes Brown at Think Progress

The Vatican has dispelled claims that Pope Benedict XVI’s “Pontifex” Twitter account will be shut down permanently, clarifying that it “will be available for use by the next Pope as he may wish.”

Monsignor Paul Tighe, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, said Feb. 23 the Twitter account was created for the Pope’s “exclusive use.”

In a statement published by Vatican Radio, he said the account will be inactive during the interim “sede vacante” period between the Feb. 28 resignation of Pope Benedict and the election of a new Pope.

Many media outlets misinterpreted an earlier account from Vatican Radio and reported that the Vatican would be shutting down its ten-week-old effort on the social media site.

The Pope’s most recent Tweet of Feb. 24 alluded to his upcoming resignation and the selection of his successor.

h/t: EWTN News