Australian Teen Pearce Delphin Hacks Twitter, Causing Widespread Japanese Porn Outbreak

(Sept. 22) -- Today's digital-age lesson: Beware of hackers with Australian accents. The homeland of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is also home to 17-year-old Pearce Delphin, who is at the receiving end of the blame stick for Tuesday's mishaps on Twitter.

Delphin caused an international incident when he tweeted a piece of JavaScript code called a "mouseover," which causes an action to occur when a user moves his mouse over the tweet. He claims he did it only to see if it was possible, but other hackers took advantage of the find and used it for more unsightly ends, like causing Japanese porn sites to pop up and launching worms, which automatically replicated the tweet. The code even took out the accounts of such high-profile figures as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Sarah Brown, wife of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Pearce Delphin, 17-year-old Twitter Hacker

www.zzap.me//

When Pearce Delphin, 17, tweeted a piece of code called a "mouseover" on Twitter, hackers found it could be used for malicious purposes.

Delphin, who goes by @zzap on Twitter, said he got the code from a Japanese user, reportedly Masato Kinugawa, who used it to make his tweets rainbow-colored. Though Twitter claims little damage was caused by the malicious code this time round, the incident exposes a potentially dangerous security vulnerability in the micro-blogging site.

"The vast majority of exploits related to this incident fell under the prank or promotional categories," Twitter wrote on its blog Tuesday. "Users may still see strange retweets in their timelines caused by the exploit. However, we are not aware of any issues related to it that would cause harm to computers or their accounts. And, there is no need to change passwords because user account information was not compromised through this exploit."

Meanwhile, back in Melbourne, Delphin is enjoying his 15 minutes of dubious fame. His Twitter feed (which says he is "an almost legal teen (XVII), social media whore & politics lover. Good at being angry on Twitter. Also good at drinking vodka. & looking hot,") is lit up with re-tweets from adoring fans and messages like this one, which should be read with an Australian accent:

Is this the point where I mention I need a job? I'm just a poor boy, no body loves me ... except for the media.less than a minute ago via TweetDeckPearce H. Delphin
zzap

And this one:

I appear to be receiving some media coverage. What a great pleasure it must be, to have a friend as wonderful as me.less than a minute ago via TweetDeckPearce H. Delphin
zzap

Earlier today, the teenager added "hacking Twitter" to the list of "activities" on his yFrog account.

And, as with a true Internet gangsta, it looks as if he will get away with it. Twitter said it is not pressing charges. They're not even going to suspend his account.