Twitter has the plague this morning ...

By at 6:10 am Tuesday, Sep 21

[ETA: Twitter says things are back to normal again. This seems to be true as far as I can tell. Thank goodness gracious!] If you've noticed some frustrating brands of funkiness going on with Twitter this morning, it's not just you. There's a security flaw that's being exploited out the wazoo. Mostly, it's just obnoxious—blocking access to using your Twitter home page and auto-retweeting the problem-causing code any time you mouse over. But there've also been reports of the trick being used to send users to hard-core porn sites (problematic at work, to say the least) and the good folks at Sophos are worried that it also lead to spam pop-up waterfalls and being redirected to sites full of malicious code. They're suggesting you stay off Twitter for the time-being, to slow the spread and protect your computer. Third-party clients seem to be are OK.

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Maggie Koerth-Baker

I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.

Books
• Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us, my book about the future of energy in the United States, will be published April 10th.

Upcoming Appearances
• April 2 at Skeptics in the Pub, Boston, Mass.— 7:00 pm at Tommy Doyle's in Harvard Square. Please RSVP.
•April 4 at MIT: "Shedding Light, Online", a discussion about how blogging and a dynamic audience helped shape my book, Before the Lights Go Out—4:00 pm in Maseeh Hall. Please RSVP.
• April 6 at Carnegie Mellon University: More details to come
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs
• April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—3:30 pm in the Rocky Mountain Innosphere.
• April 19 at The Bakken Museum in Minneapolis: Book Launch Party! Come enjoy snacks, a presentation by me, and some fun with the Bakken's Leyden jar.
• April 21 at Science Museum of Minnesota, St. Paul: Earth Day Tweetup event with Will Steger and Sean Otto—events run 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
• May 2 at University of California, Berkeley: "Putting the Fun Back in Infrastructure"—6:00 pm, location TBA.
• May 3 at the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter—Lunchtime lecture, time and location TBA.
• May 3 at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito, Cali.—7:00 pm.
• May 30 in New York City—Panel on local and DIY energy with the New America Foundation
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum
• July 5-8 at CONvergence in Minneapolis, Minn.—exact times and dates TBA

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