This is because the purpose of the OAuth standard was to mitigate the password antipattern, not to holistically solve every security problem. Since none of the

This is because the purpose of the OAuth standard was to mitigate the password antipattern, not to holistically solve every security problem. Since none of the other comments have anything favorable to say about Twitter OAuth, let me make the point that it does accomplish its primary goal I agree with the writer that OAuth doesn't create a absolutely fool-proof way to authenticate the app itself. However, in terms of authenticating the user, it does much better than the old basic auth scheme (where some apps ended up sending passwords over HTTP). So Twitter OAuth is a security win from a user perspective.