François, an unemployed 23-year-old, lives with his parents in Auvergne and spends lots of time on the Internet.

François searched the web for information on some employees of Twitter, in order to be able to guess answers to “secret questions” asked if a user forgets a password.

According to Adeline Champagnat of the French central office against online fraud (French acronym, O.C.L.C.T.I.C.), “he found the passwords of Twitter administrator accounts that would have let him then access access other accounts. He could have practically taken control of Twitter. Il could have, for example, deleted an account.”

As it happens, François seems to be a trespasser, not a burglar: he acknowledges accessing the administrator accounts but took only screen shots, in order to have bragging rights, under screen name “Hacker Croll”, to his exploits. Francois didn’t take control of Twitter, access other accounts, or delete anything.

François was apprehended last week and, after a day’s detention, charged with illegal access to a computer system. He will stand trial on June 24 in Clermont-Ferrant. If convicted, François could be imprisoned for up to two years and fined up to 30 000 euros.

This case makes me uneasy, for two reasons.

First, law enforcement seems to have grabbed the lowest-hanging fruit on the tree. Acting alone, in a hit-or-miss way, a late-blooming adolescent trespassed on Twitter, without injury to person, property, or data. Certainly there are cases more dire that investigators could pursue.

Second, the media failed to ask questions about François and showed no real knowledge of Twitter. The online service was invariably described as “the network used by Barack Obama and Britney Spears”, illustrated by stock footage of the President and the performer. Most reporters seemed to struggle with the technical aspects of the case and to view computers and the Internet as necessarily aggravating factors.