The bug interfered with the networking component of the Twitter site that allows users to “follow” and “be followed” by other users, enabling them to share messages and updates. The hacker’s bug overrode the permission component of this process on the site, meaning that any user could force any other user to follow them without having to submit the request for verification first. As part of their efforts to fix the bug, Twitter staff had to employ a method that temporarily removed the list of all those following and being followed on Twitter. Users were still able to post messages but had no way of knowing whether anybody else could see their posts. Celebrities and others eagerly “Tweeted” about the doings of the hacker.The hacker responsible for such an outcry is a 17-year-old high school student from Turkey’s Zonguldak province. Bora Kırca says that he stumbled upon the security glitch that allowed forced following entirely by accident and that he never meant to create problems for Twitter users worldwide.
Speaking to the press in a statement from his home, Kırca explained how it had all happened. Kırca is a fan of the heavy metal band Accept and while writing the phrase “Accept pwnz” in praise of the group on Twitter, realized that a user named “Pwnz” had automatically begun following Kırca on Twitter. To verify what had gone on, Kırca tried the same command with Bill Gates -- and it worked. He says that he wrote to Twitter administrators to inform them of the breach in security but that he received no response for 14 hours, and then realized that his discovery had affected the globe.
“If I was a hacker I wouldn’t reveal my identity like this,” Kırca said. “I’m not proud of this. ... I had no intention of harming anybody. ... I was an ordinary user. I’d joined Twitter one-and-a-half weeks ago. It was mere chance that I came across this detail. My aim wasn’t to hurt the site, and the harm that ensued wasn’t my doing. The people who heard about this breach in security took advantage of it, capitalizing on the opportunity, and that’s where all the trouble started,” he said.
