Twitter Makes HTTPS Default For Signed In Users

Twitter users had an option to turn on https for their connections to the popular social messaging site for quite a while. Users who turned the feature on, benefited from encrypted communication with Twitter which blocked snooping and eavesdropping attacks, and recommended when for connections to the site on public (wireless) networks. This was especially useful for Twitter users on the go, but recommended for all users as it should not have any visible negative effects.

Twitter yesterday announced that they enabled HTTPS for all of their signed in users by default. Nothing changes for users who have enabled HTTPS previously in the site preferences. Everyone else will now notice that Twitter will automatically load https://twitter.com/ whenever they visit the website. Users who enter http://twitter.com/ are automatically redirected to the https version of the site.

While all users are now moved to secure https connections, some may experience connectivity issues because of this. Those users can disable the new feature in the settings.

Always use HTTPS is a preference under Account there. You may need to scroll down until you see it on the page. Just remove the checkmark and click on save changes afterwards to disable forced https connections on Twitter. You need to enter your Twitter password for confirmation to save the settings to your account.

Once disabled, you won’t be redirected anymore to https if you want to load the http version of the site. You basically get the choice to load http://twitter.com/ or https://twitter.com/

Twitter is not the first company that moves all of their users to https. We have seen similar moves by companies such as Google or Facebook as well.

You can read the original announcement at the official Twitter blog. (via Techdows)

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HTTPS Everywhere Encrypts Connections, If Possible About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Tuesday February 14, 2012 -
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ShowMeTrend Links Twitter Tags To Web News

The messaging platform Twitter can be used for trending purposes. The more users talk tweet about a certain topic, the more popular it has to be. While it is not possible to say that with absolute certainty, as other factors like automation play a role as well, it can often act as an indicator. Twitter displays the top ten trending topics for a single country, with options to change the country to another one on the page.

While it is possible to read the messages on Twitter about a trending topic, it is not guaranteed that you will see any links in the messages that you are reading.

That’s where the web service ShowMeTrend comes into play. The service links the top 10 Twitter trends of a particular day to Google News articles about that particular topic.

The trending topics get updated regularly, and it appears as if the links from Google News are pulled more or less whenever they appear there. All news articles are linking directly to the site they have been published on. It is furthermore possible to open Google News’ listing of all related news, or to go back and forward one news entry on the ShowMeTrend website.

Selections can be made at the top to switch from the day’s worldwide trends to country specific and date/time specific trends. About ten countries can be selected, from Germany and the United States to the Netherlands, UK or Brazil. The service’s back catalog of Twitter trends begins in October 2011, which is an indicator that it is a relatively new service. Users can not only select the date but also the time of a day to get a listing of trending topics.

One of the issues that the developers need to fix is the lack of links for some topics. Some trends show a white listing and not a single news item. One of the options here would be to either improve the search algorithm or to use additional news sources besides Google News.

ShowMeTrend is an interesting service for researchers, marketing agencies and individual users. Have you tried the service? If so, what is your take on it?

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Webmasters: Search For Links Posted On Twitter About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Tuesday January 31, 2012 -
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FBI Seeks Disasters Social App and Twitter Announces Censorship

The FBI is looking to develop an emergencies early warning system that works by “scraping” information in real time from social networks.  The US policing and intelligence bureau has asked contractors to suggest possible solutions and to come up with ways in which this might work.  In a post on the Federal Business Opportunities website called “Social Media Application” they say…

The Federal Bureau of Investigations is conducting market research to determine the capabilities of the IT industry to provide a social media application. The tool at a minimum should be able to meet the operational and analytical needs described in the attachment.

This is actually harder than it might appear.  On the face of it such a program would scour Twitter, Facebook and other websites for key words.  However disasters can never be predicted and, as such, determining the language people will use at the time is extremely difficult.  Even harder would be to determine where an event is taking place.

In theory such a program would also be able to highlight major crimes when people mention them online.  People have until February 7th to submit their ideas to the bureau.

In other Twitter news the company behind the hugely successful micro-blogging site has today announced that they have developed a way to selectively censor tweets on a country by country basis.  In it’s blog they said they could now “reactively withhold content from users in a specific country”.

It is curious as to why Twitter, a company that has always encouraged free speech, would make such a move.  Social networks were used extensively in the uprisings in Egypt and the middle-east last spring, and were widely hailed for helping protestors galvanise such huge crowds of support.

Having the ability to censor specific types of tweet in individual countries could potentially prevent this type of thing from ever occurring again.

As justification the company said “that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression” going on to cite France and Germany for banning pro-Nazi speech.

Anything that curtails freedom of speech online will not be welcomed by many people who believe the Internet simply should not be censored in any way, and it remains to be seen is there will be any negative impact on Twitter for enabling this feature.

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ping.fm: Update all your social networks at once About the Author:Mike Halsey is a Microsoft MVP for "Windows Expert". He is also the author of Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out from Microsoft Press and the Windows 7 Power Users Guide, a how-to guide for non-technical Windows users on how to get the best out of Microsoft's new operating system, with step-by-step and quick guides. You can follow Mike on Facebook, Twitter or on his own website The Long ClimbAuthor: Mike Halsey MVP, Friday January 27, 2012 -
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The Latest Feature Of iPhone iOS 5 on Twitter

It was first Orkut, then Facebook, now it is Twitter. Twitter is the world's foremost social networking site. It is a site that is more lightweight than Facebook & more exact. It is an on-the-go site that is simple to make use of. Used by stars & celebrities it's gained popularity all through the world for instant updates. The iPhone is definitely not late in catching the Twitter-fever. Thus the Twitter application on iPhone was born thanks to the hard work by iPhone developers.The Twitter application is integrated in iOS5 & is an extension of the Twitter web-site, in the type of an iPhone application. Each update put up on the net site is called a 'tweet'.

 A tweet is understood both as a noun & a verb. Somebody always tweets a tweet. Since Twitter is incorporated in to the operating process of the mobile, it can be invoked from a list of other applications namely safari or YouTube or maps.Setting UpIn iPhone, a Twitter account is set up in the settings section, like how electronic mail accounts are setup. They can set up any number of Twitter accounts. The important feature here is that they can store the Twitter usernames of our friends, right in their contacts, like their mobile numbers.

This ensures a one-time login & a one-time storage of names. In case you have a 3Gs then you can find the Twitter application in the Apple AppStore which you can download & install.Photo TweetsThanks to the iPhone development teams gone are those days, when you require to take your digital camera & your laptop computer on the go. Here, with this single application on your iPhone, you can make your travel luggage light as well as keep everyone updated about your life. & these updates can contain a photograph of the moment that you require to share together with your friends. It is a single step process to tweeting. Take the necessary photograph & touch the screen.

There will be a drop up menu with the choice tweet. It is as simple & straightforward as that.Across Other ApplicationsThis application is of its kinds in the history of iPhone applications. Though there is a separate icon for Twitter, it may even be invoked from other applications. For example: if they are browsing through the net on safari & they like the link that they are accessing. They require to tweet it. So what they must do is click on the tweet option. The link along with our comments (if any) will be posted to the net site. The other applications, from where they can tweet, are YouTube & Maps.

From YouTube, they can tweet the video that they may have uploaded. & from Maps they could tweet the location they are in or any distinct location that they require to tweet about.An All-In-One ApplicationHence, an iPhone incorporated with this application, is a digital camera, a laptop computer & a GPS, all rolled in to & this is due to the pains taken by the iPhone development teams to give us the best.