A Twitter virus has shown up. Tweetstreams, including mine, send out the message:
Hey everyone, join www. StalkDaily. com. It's a site like Twitter but with pictures, videos, and so much more! :)
(Of course, the URL link is live in the original.)
Update: Twitter now claims to have patched the hole that allowed the virus to spread. And I've posted a simpler version of the whole story.
Nobody seems to know yet exactly what is going on. http://twittercism.com/howto-remove-stalkdaily/ is getting a lot of attention with advice to stop it, but basically just says "Change your password and clear your cookies and browser cache; that should work."
Some people are assuming the virus is contracted by actually visiting the site, but I'm sure I got it WITHOUT visiting the site.
I'll try to get more information here, in the main post or comment thread, when I can.
Edit: Mark Hawker is figuring out how this works, and updating the comment thread below. He's posting more detail yet in his own Twitter stream.
Edit: @pilot suggests disabling scripts via NoScript in FireFox. But this has painful side effects.
Edit: @anowheels thinks clicking on the GangsterBoy Twitter account can cause infection -- and I did click there right before getting hit. The theory is plausible for other reasons.
Specifically, there's a profile broken in a way I haven't seen before, looking like:
- Name gangsterboy
- Location Google
- Web http://">
View Source right now gives: