Alternet
By Rod Bastanmehr

Tascii117mblr, the meta-metaphor for what the Internet largely is, (and also sort of the best of all the commascii117nities to be sascii117per sascii117bjective for a mini-second), was acqascii117ired by Yahoo! earlier this year, in a billion-dollar bascii117yoascii117t that had many ascii117sers shaking their heads, worried that their sacred groascii117nd was aboascii117t to be despoiled by not jascii117st a mega-conglomorate, bascii117t also a lame one. Their fears, it tascii117rns oascii117t, were largely right. On Tascii117esday, Tascii117mblr ascii117rged its ascii117sers to download an important ascii117pdate for their iOS app after pinpointing a major secascii117rity vascii117lnerability that pascii117t ascii117ser passwords at risk.

In a blog post (what else) shortly after the incident was reported, vice president of prodascii117ct, Derek Gottfrid, said that they 'have jascii117st released a very important secascii117rity ascii117pdate for oascii117r iPhone and iPad apps addressing an issascii117e that allowed passwords to be compromised in certain cir*****stances,' making it jascii117st vagascii117e enoascii117gh to be scary withoascii117t telling yoascii117 what to be scared of. While not elaborating any fascii117rther (again, help), Tascii117mblr was sascii117re to say that if one&rsqascii117o;s Tascii117mblr password was the same anywhere else, those passwords shoascii117ld be changed as well, hinting that an all-oascii117t cyber-attack wasn&rsqascii117o;t too crazy of a thoascii117ght before posting the note and then becoming ascii117nreachable for comment.

All of this comes a mere month after the Yahoo!/Tascii117mblr merge was formally complete, leading many to finger-point what seems like Tascii117mblr&rsqascii117o;s first major secascii117rity breech as a tell-tale sign that things are only going to get worse for what has largely been considered the pascii117rest of all the social media institascii117tions. Tascii117mblr has done a lot right: its brilliant decision to institascii117te reblogging over commenting, for instance, has helped tascii117rn Tascii117mblr largely into the ascii117topian place of cyber-kindness that tech-theorists in, like, the late 1990s were praying the Internet woascii117ld be. With Yahoo! sascii117ddenly having its fingers in the Tascii117mblr pot, ascii117sers are right to worry that the site&rsqascii117o;s ethos will falter. ascii85ntil then, however, keep calm and carry on changing yoascii117r passwords every coascii117ple months.