Apparently a good number of high profile Twitter accounts were hacked and used for various underhanded motives. Some were used to make fun of celebrities, such as Bill O’Reilly’s account saying “Bill O Riley is gay” and Rick Sanchez’s account saying “i am high on crack right now might not be coming to work today”. Other accounts were used to for profit, such as president-elect Barack Obama’s account posting a link to an survey where an affiliate makes money per sign up.

The messages all seemed to be written by different people with different purposes, but all happened at the same time which was a weird coincidence. It appears that it may have all started with one person “Gmz”, posting the various account credentials on a forum where others likely grabbed them to use for their own reasons.

Obviously impersonating others online is incredibly unethical. Whether you are doing it maliciously to embarass them or to use their influence to make money, what you are doing is wrong. Of course, not only is it wrong, it will likely lead to some nasty consequences if you are dumb enough to target the next president while leaving behind an easily trackable trail in an affiliate link.