Better Twitter Signup Could Stall Twitter Woes and Twitter Worms: Why delay the inevitable?

When they say "anyone can get a Twitter account" they mean anyone and anything can get a Twitter account, including malicious 'bots and worms.

I'm all for equality, open access, and ease of access, but I'm not keen to share my social-network-of-choice with machines and anonymous jerks. History tells us that sort of thing eventually leads to spam and worms, both of which threaten to hobble Twitter as they hobbled email. And a lot of the problems now looming with Twitter are preventable, or at least containable, if the folks at Twitter act now, before things get out of hand.

(As for the hobbling of email, make no mistake, email could be very much better than it is right now if it were less prone to abuse. Securing email, which could be done if the large providers would drop their petty greed-based differences, would make it way more useful and productive than the pale shadow it is today--in other words, spammers and worm-writers cost the world billions in lost productivity, on top of the ongoing cost of blocking with their irresponsible crap).

The first step in prevention and protection for Twitter is to require email confirmation for Twitter signup. That would make it harder to do things like this. Right now the Twitter signup process is irresponsibly open, as in "open to abuse" and we are seeing the first Twitter worms right now. Consider what happened recently when I had the pleasure of participating in an elaborate April Fool's caper.

To increase the credibility of our hoax I created a Twitter account in the name of the fake product we launched. I was shocked at how easy this was. Although the Twitter signup process asks for an email address it does not check to make sure the address is real. There is no "confirmation email" such as most forums, bulletin boards, and social networks require. And although Twitter signup uses a captcha, we know captchas can be beaten by any entity who is motivated enough to create fake accounts. (The "fake"account that I created used a valid email address but tests show this is not required--Twitter does try to validate your email address after signup and lets you know if they have a problem with it, but they don't kick you off the system.)

The point is, and I say this with love--because I love to Twitter--the folks at Twitter could do more to prevent abuse. Right now they have a chance to save Twitter from worms and I'm hoping they will learn from the mistakes made by email providers and act now rather than later, when it will be that much harder. I predict email verification will eventually come to Twitter, so why not do it now? The email industry missed several golden opportunities to keep the bad guys and bullies out. Twitter can do better, and I hope it will. I would happily give up the ability to make fake Twitter accounts for April Fool's Day.