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I worked directly with Ahmad at Twitter on the international media team. All I can say is I now understand how the next door neighbor to a serial killer can say

I worked directly with Ahmad at Twitter on the international media team. All I can say is I now understand how the next door neighbor to a serial killer can say "but he always seemed like the nicest guy." He really was very nice to everybody, worked hard, and seemed genuine. They were definitely tools available to all of us that allowed this type of access to personal data and more. Specifically a lot of the lists that were generated about who to follow suggestions were manually curated at the time and we could put whoever we wanted on the list. We were expected to put people that were relevant in our industry on those lists, but I think Ahmed actually got in trouble for putting himself on that list to build up his Twitter following. At the time it was certainly a major initiative to rebuild the legacy systems to fix exactly this type of problem. There were strong mandates from the top of the company that were made abundantly clear to us that while they were fixing these things we were all under agreement and NDA to keep all of this data private. The systems were broken no question, but the message was clear. That just makes it even more disappointing to see what he did. He has a very young family at home that is now going to be totally broken.

wheelerwj 7y ago
> All I can say is I now understand how the next door neighbor to a serial killer Hey, i get it, its a little surprising and scary. But this is just a quick reminder that we do the whole innocent until proven guilty thing here in the US. He hasn't been convicted yet, just keep that in mind when thinking about your colleague.
- threatofrain 7y ago
  Innocent until proven guilty is for the US courts though. Real life operates by a different principle -- use your eyes and don't f* up. There are accusations that a teacher sexually molested somebody, but the investigations never went anywhere; do you hire that teacher? I don't think parents are about to blame you for not hiring that teacher.
  - chmod775 7y ago
    So you think it's fine to not hire someone and possibly ruin their career and life based on unsubstantiated allegationts? What if you got falsely acussed of sexual assault? Will you go "well that sucks" and start collecting food stamps for the rest of your life?
    - threatofrain 7y ago
      I'm pointing out an observation, I'm not sure how interesting it is to ask me to imagine what if I were accused of sexual assault. But while we are imagining, imagine that you are a school administrator who has hired such a teacher, and then there is another accusation of sexual crime with the same teacher. You suspend the teacher while investigations are ongoing, and ultimately the investigations go nowhere. From the perspective of others, who is at fault? Isn't it time to quit because as an organizational leader you've lost the confidence of the public, which now impairs your effectiveness? As an observer, that is the answer I observe to be true of the land. And let's not forget... the justice system gets things wrong sometimes. It's not a proxy for your eyes.
    - rypskar 7y ago
      But isn't that what in practice often happen when the name and/or image of the accused makes it into the news? It is not at all fine that someone gets their life ruined by falsely accusations, but identifying the accused in media goes a long way towards it.
  - Ma8ee 7y ago
    And then it is very easy to destroy someones livehood and future. Or blackmail someone: "raise my grade or I'll tell everyone you touched me". Then the poor teacher with some kind of integrity will never have a job as a teacher again.
    - rebuilder 7y ago
      People tend to care more about their kids than they do about teachers. A lot of people even support the death penalty, even though it obviously means innocents will also be executed at times. Justice and punishment is always a balance, where hopefully an optimum is found where the least people suffer.
- amlozano 7y ago
  Another thing to bear in mind is that people who commit espionage are often coerced into doing it by blackmail or threats. This is one of the primary reasons for background checks beyond simple criminal background checks: you want to make sure the people you trust don't have anything in their history that can be used to blackmail or otherwise coerce them.
- pavlov 7y ago
  In this case, the behavior of the former Twitter employee makes him appear unlikely to be innocent. He tried to forge an invoice while an FBI agent was in his home: “ According to the complaint, Abouammo created a false receipt using his home computer during the interview to show a $100,000 payment received from Asaker to disguise the payments as media strategy work.”
  - dmos62 7y ago
    It's crazy how they don't bother to launder the espionage salary. Just a hundred thousand from Saudi Arabia, nothing to see here.
nabla9 7y ago
This is traditional spycraft and HUMINT. Targeted intelligence collection of persons of interests will always be a problem, but it's not problem threatening the whole society as mass surveillance is. Twitter (and Yahoo) deserve kudos for fighting back and being uncooperative. Twitter refused to join PRISM.
- soraminazuki 7y ago
  I’m surprised that anyone remembers Yahoo as being champions of privacy. Yahoo installed kernel modules on their servers to scan customer data at the request of the government, without even alerting their very own security team. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-order-idUSKCN12800D https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-order-idUSKCN12...
Japhy_Ryder 7y ago
> He has a very young family at home that is now going to be totally broken. Well maybe he shouldn't have spied for Saudi Arabia? I hope he enjoys federal prison.
- jedimastert 7y ago
  First, he hasn't been convicted yet. Second, most civilians who do this kind of thing are coerced into it. "Do this thing for me or I'll kill your family. If you talk to the FBI, I'll kill your family." If he doesn't get sent to prison, people who don't know the story and condemn him because of a headline will.
- formertwitter 7y ago
  Yes. That's is the whole point I am making. He knew it was wrong, and a lot of people suffer, including his innocent children. Not sure if you think I am defending what he is reported to have done, but I am not at all intending to do so.
raxxorrax 7y ago
Additionally I think it disappointing that Twitter curates this type of content at all. I was never a heavy user, but currently Twitter just hasn't any draw at all anymore.

wheelerwj 7y ago

> All I can say is I now understand how the next door neighbor to a serial killer Hey, i get it, its a little surprising and scary. But this is just a quick reminder that we do the whole innocent until proven guilty thing here in the US. He hasn't been convicted yet, just keep that in mind when thinking about your colleague.

threatofrain 7y ago
Innocent until proven guilty is for the US courts though. Real life operates by a different principle -- use your eyes and don't f* up. There are accusations that a teacher sexually molested somebody, but the investigations never went anywhere; do you hire that teacher? I don't think parents are about to blame you for not hiring that teacher.
- chmod775 7y ago
  So you think it's fine to not hire someone and possibly ruin their career and life based on unsubstantiated allegationts? What if you got falsely acussed of sexual assault? Will you go "well that sucks" and start collecting food stamps for the rest of your life?
  - threatofrain 7y ago
    I'm pointing out an observation, I'm not sure how interesting it is to ask me to imagine what if I were accused of sexual assault. But while we are imagining, imagine that you are a school administrator who has hired such a teacher, and then there is another accusation of sexual crime with the same teacher. You suspend the teacher while investigations are ongoing, and ultimately the investigations go nowhere. From the perspective of others, who is at fault? Isn't it time to quit because as an organizational leader you've lost the confidence of the public, which now impairs your effectiveness? As an observer, that is the answer I observe to be true of the land. And let's not forget... the justice system gets things wrong sometimes. It's not a proxy for your eyes.
  - rypskar 7y ago
    But isn't that what in practice often happen when the name and/or image of the accused makes it into the news? It is not at all fine that someone gets their life ruined by falsely accusations, but identifying the accused in media goes a long way towards it.
- Ma8ee 7y ago
  And then it is very easy to destroy someones livehood and future. Or blackmail someone: "raise my grade or I'll tell everyone you touched me". Then the poor teacher with some kind of integrity will never have a job as a teacher again.
  - rebuilder 7y ago
    People tend to care more about their kids than they do about teachers. A lot of people even support the death penalty, even though it obviously means innocents will also be executed at times. Justice and punishment is always a balance, where hopefully an optimum is found where the least people suffer.
amlozano 7y ago
Another thing to bear in mind is that people who commit espionage are often coerced into doing it by blackmail or threats. This is one of the primary reasons for background checks beyond simple criminal background checks: you want to make sure the people you trust don't have anything in their history that can be used to blackmail or otherwise coerce them.
pavlov 7y ago
In this case, the behavior of the former Twitter employee makes him appear unlikely to be innocent. He tried to forge an invoice while an FBI agent was in his home: “ According to the complaint, Abouammo created a false receipt using his home computer during the interview to show a $100,000 payment received from Asaker to disguise the payments as media strategy work.”
- dmos62 7y ago
  It's crazy how they don't bother to launder the espionage salary. Just a hundred thousand from Saudi Arabia, nothing to see here.

nabla9 7y ago

This is traditional spycraft and HUMINT. Targeted intelligence collection of persons of interests will always be a problem, but it's not problem threatening the whole society as mass surveillance is. Twitter (and Yahoo) deserve kudos for fighting back and being uncooperative. Twitter refused to join PRISM.

soraminazuki 7y ago
I’m surprised that anyone remembers Yahoo as being champions of privacy. Yahoo installed kernel modules on their servers to scan customer data at the request of the government, without even alerting their very own security team. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-order-idUSKCN12800D https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yahoo-nsa-order-idUSKCN12...

Japhy_Ryder 7y ago

> He has a very young family at home that is now going to be totally broken. Well maybe he shouldn't have spied for Saudi Arabia? I hope he enjoys federal prison.

jedimastert 7y ago
First, he hasn't been convicted yet. Second, most civilians who do this kind of thing are coerced into it. "Do this thing for me or I'll kill your family. If you talk to the FBI, I'll kill your family." If he doesn't get sent to prison, people who don't know the story and condemn him because of a headline will.
formertwitter 7y ago
Yes. That's is the whole point I am making. He knew it was wrong, and a lot of people suffer, including his innocent children. Not sure if you think I am defending what he is reported to have done, but I am not at all intending to do so.

raxxorrax 7y ago

Additionally I think it disappointing that Twitter curates this type of content at all. I was never a heavy user, but currently Twitter just hasn't any draw at all anymore.