An anonymous coder aims to raise awareness about the perils of sharing private information online. His unusual method consists in finding people who post their phone numbers on Twitter and spamming them with tons of cat facts.
We often forget that the Internet is the largest public space, and often an island of democracy. Discretion is mandatory, as not all the members of the digital society have good intentions. Sharing some of your data might be a mishap that can be corrected easily, but posting your real phone number is a different matter altogether.
"I've found Twitter users' operational security failures interesting," the programmer told Jordan Pearson, staff writer at Motherboard.
The coder underlined that people don't realize how vulnerable they become to malware or other malicious attacks when giving away their contact data. He further pointed out that something along the lines of Android Stagefright or phishing can happen to the less vigilant of users. What he wants to say is that sharing your phone number online in today's world is a sure way to get hacked through your smartphone.
The person who is behind the awareness campaign used two automated scripts to find numbers and flood them with informative texts about the feline world.
The first script makes use of the social network's application programming interface (API), allowing it to go into Twitter's live feed of tweets. The second one sends messages to those numbers using a free texting website. Although the name of the site was not mentioned, the coder claims that the weak CAPTCHA process makes this exploit easy.
How do you stop such a devastating stream of purring data? Tweeting "Meow, I <3 catfacts" at Edward Snowden was the only solution offered.
don't give out your phone number kids - @Snowden Meow, I <3 catfacts pic.twitter.com/KyqZMGggCm
— ️️️️️️️️️️ (@artaimh) November 18, 2015
The Verge asked the coder why users were urged to do this.
When he joined Twitter, [Snowden] expressed his appreciation for cats," the programmer answered. From his perspective, the joke was easy to understand. Edward Snowden, a famous NSA leaker and transparency advocate was the perfect symbol to remind people that sharing their data online places them in danger.
"Turns out most of them have no idea who Snowden is," the coder said.
