The microblogging service Twitter is taking legal advice after hundreds of documents were hacked¹ into and published by a number of blogs.

微博客服务提供商Twitter在数百个文档被侵入转载之后采取法律手段。

Twitter employees can be a target, said Biz Stone

TechCrunch has made public some of the 310 bits of material it was sent.

It posted information about Twitter's financial projections² and products.

"We are in touch with our legal counsel about what this theft means for Twitter, the hacker³ and anyone who accepts...or publishes these stolen documents, " said Twitter's Biz Stone.

In a blog posting he wrote that "About a month ago, an administrative⁴ employee here at Twitter was targeted and her personal email account was hacked.

"From the personal account, we believe the hacker was able to gain information which allowed access to this employee's Google Apps account which contained Docs, Calendars and other Google Apps Twitter relies on for sharing notes, spreadsheets（电子表格）, ideas, financial details and more within the company."

Mr Stone, Twitter's co-founder⁵, went on to stress that "the attack had nothing to do with any vulnerability（弱点，漏洞） in Google Apps".

He said this was more to do with "Twitter being in enough of a spotlight⁶ that folks who work here can be a target".

In his blog post, Mr Stone underlined the need for increased online security within the company and for staff to ensure their passwords are robust（强壮的，强烈的）.

It is believed a French hacker who goes by the moniker "Hacker Croll" illegally accessed the files online by guessing staff members' passwords.

"News value"

A number of technology blogs were offered the documents for publication in what is now being dubbed⁷（复制） "Twittergate" in some online forums⁸.

TechCrunch, one of the most respected blogs in Silicon⁹ Valley, has set off a firestorm of criticism and debate over its decision to post some of the material.

It started things off with what it called a "softball" and published details about a reality TV show involving Twitter. Details of such a programme were made public in May.

That was followed by documents relating to an internal Twitter financial forecast that the company said is no longer accurate.

"There is clearly an ethical¹⁰（伦理的，民族的） line here that we don't want to cross, and the vast majority of these documents aren't going to be published, at least by us.

"But a few of the documents have so much news value that we think it's appropriate to publish them," wrote TechCrunch Editor and founder Michael Arrington

Mr Arrington noted¹¹ the site received a deluge¹²（大洪水，泛滥） of comments on the issue and said "many users say this is "stolen" information and therefore shouldn't be published. We disagree.

"We publish confidential¹³ information（保密情报，机密消息） almost every day on TechCrunch. This is stuff that is also "stolen," usually leaked by an employee or someone else close to the company."

The TechCrunch founder cited examples of stories it has covered in the past that involved information it had acquired and also those covered by newspapers like the Wall Street Journal that had done a similar thing.

Mr Arrington said that he has also consulted lawyers about the laws that cover trade secrets and the receipt of stolen goods.