SocialSev

In May of this year, a resourceful hacker was able to pierce the veil of Twitter’s secrecy, obtaining some 310 confidential documents along the way. The hacker was able to gain access to a Twitter employee’s Google Apps account where the sensitive material resided. According to Twitter founder Biz Stone, the intrusion “speaks to the importance of following good personal security guidelines such as choosing strong passwords.” Although the documents were procured two months ago, they were finally sent to TechCrunch on Wednesday. Never one to be accused of having a strong moral compass, TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington made this statement initially:

There is clearly an ethical line here that we don’t want to cross, and the vast majority of these documents aren’t going to be published, at least by us. But a few of the documents have so much news value that we think it’s appropriate to publish them.

The general consensus from TechCrunch’s readership in the comments was that they should not publish the stolen documents. In a follow-up post, Arrington even acknowledges the wishes of his readers. But he was not to be swayed from his decision. He had this to say in said post: Read the rest of this entry »