Twittruders: Stray Tweets from people you don't follow
It seems that there is a breach of some sorts in Twitter today where stray tweets show up unexpectedly on people's timelines. These tweets are not retweets, they're not quoted tweets, and they're not from people being followed. These stray tweets may not necessarily be spam. It's entirely possible at this point that there is or was a breakdown in Twitter's network which leaked messages into other people's timelines.
Speaking with Peter Baxter from AVG a few weeks ago, he mentioned that the Twitter network as well as the website are very insecure and Twitter, the company, isn't doing very well when dealing with these attacks. It's difficult to dispute the man when the facts speak for themselves.
A short while ago there was a serious breach where a large number of user accounts were hijacked to send direct messages to their followers containing links that lead to phishing sites. It could be argued that those people inadvertently gave up their login details to some rogue app or service but there was little to draw solid conclusions on that premise. It's still possible that it may even be legit services who had their databases hacked or even Twitter themselves. Regardless, Twitter's network isn't 100% safe.
There's also the mentions from "Britney" or "Forex" spam accounts that tend to be accompanied by links or tell you to click on links posted on their profile. Those have to be removed by Twitter whereas direct messages can easily be deleted. Practice caution when you tweet.update December 9, 2009
The problem is getting more prevalent. More users are noticing more twittruders in their timelines. Let me restate: Twittruders are not necessarily spam. Many of those are genuine accounts that have leaked into your subscribed timelines. Please don't report them as spam. It's more likely that Twitter's database is broken.
*twittruder coined by @ariauakbar
update December 9, 2009 (2)
Twitter failwhaled for roughly one hour since 7 am UTC and is now excruciatingly slow. Some updates managed to slip through but only a handful at a time. Whether it's related to the problem above is unknown. There's no word from Twitter HQ about it yet.
update December 10, 2009
