Art & Inspiration Blog

The phishing scam brought lessons about whether it is better to follow or be followed, what it means to be followed, leadership and what makes social media special.

The phishing scam proved to me that it is absolutely better to follow.

I follow everyone who follows me. I follow people who usually tweet comments like, “eating eggs for breakfast,” which I find endearing and kind of intimate, but apparently turns off the influencers and “movers and shakers”.

I figured that following as many people as I can means more access to information. Everyone has some information that can or will be valuable to me.

The night of the phishing attack many of the first people hit were not the influencers, techies, and savvy internet people, but those people who have far fewer followers and posts.

The Twitter stream can alive with their posts of the strange phishing DMs, as those who had given their account names and passwords sought help and others sounded the alarm.

A few happen to be people I follow.

Suddenly people who rarely posted were busy as sentry guards, who then morphed into first response Minute Men and Women. Following them gave me more immediate and better information that I got until many, many hours, even a day later from any influencers I follow.

The unsung heroes of the phishing attack on Twitter are not the influencers, techies, or communications experts. Twitter members who sell pet supplies, do PR, craft all kinds of lovely things, musicians, video makers or who have day jobs in many fields that are not PC related, stepped up and posted alerts in the message stream.

By the time any phishing messages arrived in my box, I was prepared thanks to the alerts flooding the stream. Only the people who were just logging into Twitter for the first time were falling prey.

So the first lesson is one that confirms ancient wisdom. Q: Who is wise? A: The person who can learn from anyone. The more people a person follows on Twitter, the more likely one has access to a broader and better field of information. The more one can learn.

During the Mumbai attacks I learned that Twitter is the best and fastest place to get breaking news, as at least one member is near the scene ready to text into a handheld device or laptop.

If we had had the technology and Twitter on 9/11 more lives would have been saved. The people in the towers and planes who were on Twitter would have been able to describe what was happening and what they knew and saw from where they were. Those who followed the most people would have had more information and a better chance to survive the emergency and attack.

Second Lesson: Being followed puts one in a position of trust

I’ve been active on Twitter for gaining on two months. Almost immediately it became clear that people got excited and rejoiced as they had more followers. It seemed to mean more than popularity. It was taken as a token of one’s importance.

Actually, most (but not all) people who have tens of thousands of followers are not necessarily leading anyone anywhere. Their messages can include links to free things, “insider information” on techie things or they are celebrities, like Shaq, who we all want to have as a buddy.

Having a new theory of how to create art, and now discovering that this art can actually change how a person sees the world and then relieve one of much negative emotions on a daily basis, means I have to lead – at least in relation to these ideas and discoveries. I have fulfilled leadership roles before, possibly in preparation for what I do now. If I need to, I can lead.

I maintain that on Twitter people follow each other because they wish to connect. People choose to follow their friends, workmates, and others based on the value of the relationship, not a need to find a leader to follow. When I click “follow” I have never once thought I was selecting someone to lead me to anything more than information or friendship.

Yet, there is a basic trust of relationship between those who follow and are followed. I follow all of my followers, so the communication and trust goes both ways.

Saturday night, all in a row I received three phishing DMs. Since I do look at the bios and web sites of the people who follow me and I follow back, I knew these people, although not well. They were not scammers. As I sent warnings of the scam to the people whose accounts had been used send me phishing messages, I realized that many regular contacts were not currently on Twitter as it was Saturday night on a holiday weekend.

I messaged the Twitter stream that the accounts of people who I knew to be good members were sending phishing messages. Others were posting similar messages. This new understanding gave the problem a new urgency as people are likely to trust messages from those they know.

Since DMs are sent directly to email boxes outside of Twitter, the likelihood that many people would fall prey to the scam before they logged into Twitter was real.

I sent DMs to warn influencers who follow me and are friendly and helpful. I kept a close eye on the Twitter stream for a couple of others who I expected would pop in, and as soon as I saw then, I sent a warning message about the phishing. I sent DMs to people I follow and who follow me who had not seen on that night who I normally interact on Twitter. I could easily contact people who follow me privately through DMs.

And then I realized that the phishing storm would hit many businesses and non-profits as soon as they signed onto their email, as DMs go to email boxes. This would most likely include museums, galleries, not for profits and others in the art world whom I follow because I am an artist and I am founding a new theory of art. I sent many more messages, DMing when I could, as I continued to watch who was now in the stream.

I worked my way back in time through the listing of those I followed knowing that among the first five Twitter ID’s I followed were MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. No way would I go to bed before I alerted them.

My last messages were in the Twitter stream saying that I would be blogging on the life lessons I learned from the phishing problems. Then I messaged G’Night, as I usually do.

It was almost four A.M. when I crawled into bed. I thought my participation was over—

that I had done my part. George Washington staying with the troops and all that—except artists don’t have troops. But, artists did not have the Internet before now, either.

What does it mean –what is our responsibility – if we are followed on Twitter? Or in business? Or life?

Late Sunday morning it seemed that the phishing was continuing. Yet, Twitter life had resumed, people were communicating much as before with messages about the phishing tossed in among their Tweets like bird seed. I went off to see a movie with a friend.

When I returned, the phishing situation had grown worse. Many people had their identities usurped. There was a constant stream of messages with #phishing in them indicating an update.

As mentioned I am fairly new to Twitter. I had only discovered how to use the hash tag(#) to find an ongoing chat four days before. Went to the #phishing chat to discover what was going on now, and what other members were doing to help.

One member @PawLuxury, a husband, wife and dog team who sell pet products was sending a steady update of messages indicating the names of compromised Twitter identities. Although this alone was a lot of work, the information remained confined on Twitter in their message stream or in the chat. It was difficult to easily discover the names.

At #phishing I found links from members who are web, social media, or tech experts to their blogs, which basically either retold what had occurred so far or gave the information that one needs to be careful giving out one’s ID and password. Of course by the time most people saw those blogs they’d seen that info in the Twitter stream. Twitter had that basic info at their blog also.

There was a lot of confusion as people tried to discover what messages were real, what was fake, if their account was being used and whose was. It was obvious that anyone who was locked out of their account, and some people reportedly were, could not get to #phishing or the information in the Twitter stream.

I checked the blogs of some of the web influencers, and looked for links. Surely some web savvy, social media guru, app expert, web marketer — someone whose business it was to deal with this kind of thing had stepped in and set up a list of names, on the Internet.

Nope.

There was just @PawLuxury plodding away, sending the info into the stream, while those regular Twitter folks, those Minute Men And Women added what information they could and repeated and repeated answers and information to their followers,

It was obvious that people who were not on Twitter or unable to sign in due to the phishers needed a place where they could discover if their ID was actually involved and compromised. People needed an easy way to discover if their followers and those they followed were involved so they could stay safe. At the time we had no idea how far the phishing would go, if a virus could be involved, or what would come next, so staying safe and helping others do the same was vital.

Where were the web influencers? The marketers and people who would actually benefit by making their blog a go to place for information of the phishing problem on Twitter?

I have two blogs. My main blog domain is shorter, and better known, which came in handy as people were obviously leery of following links, including tinyurls. I figured that if I could create a list and kept it as the most recent blog, the URL would be short enough to use in 140 character Tweets. I set out to “write” a new blog article at http://ungravenuimage.com/blog, which was a list of the names that were being used to send phishing messages.

I sent messages on the Twitter stream that an ongoing updated list names sending phishing messages is posted at http://ungravenimage.com as a service for Twitter followers and friends.

As fast as I could I began to copy the Twitter @names/IDs that were reported as sending out phishing DMs and pasting them into a new blog article. @PawLuxury and I worked together for a couple of hours. They did the research, sent out as messages on the stream and I copied that. Names were being reported faster than I could cut and paste, remove the hyperlinks, bold and save.

Early in the evening @PawLuxury had to move on. Apparently they had worked on gathering and sending the names for six hours that day, which meant time away from their business. I kept going, taking time away that I needed for mine also, but by then I already had the blog established as a go to resource and there was no one in sight to hand the work over to.

People on Twitter were messaging me with new names and information. New people asked me technical questions and were surprised to discover that I am an artist, not an internet or tech guru. But I replied that as an artist I have a responsibility to my followers and collectors, which, I do. There were a disproportional number of artists and crafters helping with information throughout.

Fortunately, someone always stepped in with an answer to help. I sent out many messages, they were ReTweeted, and others sent out messages telling everyone to change their passwords. Messages went out telling people to DM anyone they could whose ID had sent a phishing message to change their password. People went to the blog page, found names of those they knew and contacted them.

Posting tinyurls in messages that linked to authority sites telling people to change their password, a message that was also in the information above the list, was not as effective as the many sent and ReTweeted messages that gave that info. Again, that was done by the regular Twitter members themselves, who Re Tweeted the messages over and over to each other.

What I learned about having followers and leadership:

If being followed means leadership, then it brings responsibility.

I had a vision of what needed to be done, and I set out to do it. People joined me, quickly becoming my friends if they weren’t already as we DMed others, sent information, found information, and seemingly endlessly ReTweet the information to change passwords and check the list at http://ungravenimae.com/blog and #phishing for updates.

It was never about me, it was always about us. The power is in the group and the group came together. Social media is about relationship. About us.

On Following Followers:

From the beginning I have and will continue to follow my followers. I understand that if I had 30,000 or more followers, that might seem difficult, but I am pretty good at skimming. There is no rule that says a person has to read every single message everyone sends all day long.

Following everyone who follows me not only gave me more information, it meant that I already knew some of the people I could ask for help. Even if we had not interacted much, I’d seen their messages.

I knew @PawLuury is an outstanding contributor. I knew that one of the first people who DMed me with a phishing message really had a great web site that was suddenly missing too, because I’d enjoyed it. So I was able to sound the alarm, as did others, that Twitter IDs of good members were hacked.

I knew who would ReTweet.messages. Rumors were flying, so knowing whose information one can trust was helpful. That kind of knowing comes from following.

Of course, there were some new people who I now follow and others who were also amazing contributors. It’s about us—an ever expanding us.

Friends

On Sunday I received back several legitimate DMs from people I had written to on Saturday night/early Sunday morning alerting about the phishing. They thanked me. Two called me “my friend”. There’s a smile on my face as I recall that. It may have helped motivate me to start the blog list.

Since then many people have thanked me, offered praise and cheered me on, but most importantly called me their friend. We are following each other, this puts us in a relationship and we are friends.

My life’s work is to change the way we see the world to transform lives through a vision we can share. If we share a vision, we are friends.

Happy that we’re friends on Twitter,

@judyrey :- ))

P.S.: Too many people were involved helping other Twitter members during the phishing attack for me to mention and credit them all. They all deserve a thank you. Everything that happened in the Twitter stream remains in the history of individual accounts. A great deal of how events unfolded is currently available at #phishing. It shows some of how many people were contributing from the onset. Their actions helped others restore their accounts and prevented more accounts being hacked or lost, plus other damage from the use of harvested passwords. If someone helped you, or you know of someone who was helpful , please thank them. If you message them in the Twitter stream include #phishing so that chat becomes a Twitter Monument to the Minute Men and Women of Twitter. And be sure to thank @PawLuxury while you’re at it!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 9:14 pm and is filed under Art & Inspiration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.