Recent cyberattacks on Twitter and other popular Web services disrupted the lives of millions

The recent cyberattacks on Twitter and other popular Web services disrupted the lives of millions of Internet users

Preliminary indications have the attacks originating in Russia and Georgia (Former Soviet Union Territory).

NYTIMES.COM stated:
"Security experts say that it is nearly impossible to determine who exactly is behind the attack, which disrupted access to Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal and some Google sites on Thursday and continued to affect many Twitter users into Friday evening."

DoS Cyber Attack Takes Twitter Offline

Attacks on the social networking site Twitter Thursday morning left many users unable to access and update their status.

Twitter was back up by mid-day and it was reported that the attacks had originated either from Russia or the former Soviet republic Georgia.

Twitter confirmed the outage was linked to malicious attackers in a brief status message posted around 11:00 a.m EST.

We are defending against a denial-of-service attack, and will update status again shortly.

Update: the site is back up, but we are continuing to defend and recover from this attack.

Facebook experienced problems for part of the day, but it was unknown if they were the result of this attack.

References:

Source: http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=6922
Source: http://status.twitter.com/post/157191978/ongoing-denial-of-service-attack
Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=3953
Source: http://www.courant.com/business/hc-twitter0807.artaug07,0,4042649.story

Facebook Privacy Issues

Facebook users who deleted their accounts did not realize that information that they shared with other users would persist on their Facebook friends' accounts.

Essentially, according to these new terms, if you created a Facebook page, posted content on one, created a link from one, or allowed someone else to do so, you had transferred the intellectual property rights to the content to the company, subject to your privacy settings.

Source: SecurityFocus.com

Myspace and Facebook Privacy

Online social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook and even personal blogs have became part of the interviewing process when companies are making a decision on bring someone on board.

It seems like President–elect Obama’s administration is following suit.

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team wants to know all about job candidates' lives before giving them a post in his administration by asking information about spouses' jobs and children’s lives. Applicants must include any e-mails that may embarrass the president-elect, any blog posts and even links to Facebook and MySpace pages.