Teen Hacks His Way to MySpace Popularity
Posted on October 17, 2005
A 19-year-old named Samy hacked his way to MySpace popularity. Samy created the code for a MySpace worm and placed it on his profile. When other MySpace.com members visited Samy's page the code executed and automatically added Samy to their list of friends along with the message "Samy is my hero." The worm also copied itself to the visitor's profile. It wasn't long before the worm exploded and suddenly tens of thousands of MySpace members had Samy on their friends list. And in less than 20 hours Samy passed the 1 million friends mark. Samy explains how he did it on his website:
If I can become their friend...if I can become their hero...then why can't their friends become my friend...my hero. I can propagate the program to their profile, can't I. If someone views my profile and gets this program added to their profile, that means anyone who views THEIR profile also adds me as a friend and hero, and then anyone who hits THOSE people's profiles add me as a friend and hero... So if 5 people viewed my profile, that's 5 new friends. If 5 people viewed each of their profiles, that's 25 more new friends. And after that, well, that's when things get difficult. The math, I mean.Samy's site also includes the code Samy used as well as links to Samy t-shirts that are for sale. More information about Samy's MySpace worm can be found in this interview he gave with Google Blogoscoped.
The MySpace worm story also has a dark side. A Computerworld.com article about Samy's MySpace worm says a similar worm could be used to destroy or steal data.
Using a self-propagating worm that exploits a scripting vulnerability common to most dynamic Web sites, a Los Angeles teenager made himself the most popular member of community Web site MySpace.com earlier this month. While the attack caused little damage, the technique could be used to destroy Web site data or steal private information -- even from enterprise users behind protected networks, according to an Internet security firm.We are glad Samy used his worm for popularity instead of evil.