Here’s a puzzle that needs to be solved by our email administrators. Dancho Danchev reports on a new marketing software product called tweet tornado as a spamming tool.  Now Dancho comes with solid credentials as an independent security consultant and cyber threats analyst, with extensive experience in open source intelligence gathering, malware and E-crime incident response.  In Dancho’s article “Commercial Twitter spamming tool hits the market” he points out that the tweet tornado pitches itself as a “fully automated advertising software for Twitter”.  He goes on to say “this software potentially empowers phishers, spammers, malware authors and everyone in between with the ability to generate bogus Twitter accounts and spread their campaigns across the micro-blogging service.”

The blog “Threat Chaos” apparently agrees with Dancho in its article “More on Mr. TweetTornado“.  This blog article states “It is basically a spam tool in that those using TweetTornado generate multiple Twitter identities and put links in them back to their sites that generate revenue through affiliate networks or simply Google ads.” Commenting on this article, the developer of Tweet Tornado defended his marketing software with: “TweetTornado only adds followers. People have to click on the page and choose to follow someone so there is no spam involved, only opt in marketing. The only people who receive anything are the people who follow and give permission. Everyone needs to realize this is not like a typical spam tool. This is permission based opt in marketing! And if Twitter would quit shutting the accounts down for no good reason then the software wouldn’t have to create unlimited accounts anymore. I don’t see how this software is bad for Twitter, anyone can do the same thing without software the difference is this software saves you a lot of time following people.”

I viewed the video on Tweet Tornado, which provides an overview on its usage.  It appears to automate the process people perform on Twitter in creating an account, posting 140 character tweets of current status with a link back, following people and other people following the account holder.

Where the puzzle question comes in is whether Tweet Tornado is a potential spam tool, because it automates continuous tweets on Twitter with website link backs. It automates acquiring more followers in a shorter period of time, thereby driving traffic to a linked back website. Although a slower process, isn’t that what people do on Twitter manually?  People post tweets on Twitter with link backs to their website. People search Twitter by category to find like minded people they can follow and potentially market their products or services. Could it be that Tweet Tornado just appears to accomplish this faster?

Post a comment and let us know what you think?