Idiocy auto-hacks Twitter accounts on public Wi-Fi, warns the owners about Firesheep

The geek community has been buzzing about Firesheep, a Firefox add-on that grabs Facebook and Twitter login cookies from any public Wi-Fi network, and uses them to log into others' accounts. Not everyone at the local coffee shop will have heard about Firesheep, though ... and that's where Idiocy comes in. Idiocy is a bit of code you can run that will use Firesheep to automatically break into any Twitter account that sends an insecure login cookie over your wireless network.

Once it's grabbed someone's login credentials, Idiocy will post a tweet from their account, warning them that they've been compromised and linking to a page about Firesheep and how to secure your account against it. It sounds malicious, but Idiocy is more like a public service than anything else. Sure, the tech blogs and Twitter buzz about Firesheep should be enough to convince people to use HTTPS when they log into social networking sites, but some people just don't get the picture until it affects them personally.

The moral of the story is that, unless you want someone maliciously using Firesheep on you, or using Idiocy on you for your own good, you should consider taking five minutes for some quick security fixes.

Tags: firesheep, hacking, HTTPS, idiocy, security, twitter, wi-fi, wifi, wireless