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I really feel like everyone is getting one of the broad points in this discussion wrong. If Twitter is a national security risk because people can hack it to sp

I really feel like everyone is getting one of the broad points in this discussion wrong. If Twitter is a national security risk because people can hack it to speak in the official voice of prominent leaders, or discover state secrets through direct messages, that is nobody's fault but the government's, for relying on a platform they have no control over for official business. Can you imagine the military complaining that the enemy was able to give false orders or discover troop movements through messages on a privately owned communications network completely outside their control? No, because it would be absurd for the military to rely on such a network. It is no less absurd that the civilian government (which nominally has more power than the military) is doing so. It was a scandal when Hillary Clinton relied on a private email server. It is a far larger scandal that so many leaders, and especially the President, are now relying on a private company for their official communications.

chasing 6y ago
Obviously government employees shouldn't be using Twitter DMs for unofficial business, but they're more or less required to use Twitter for communications with the public and fundraising. If they don't, they hand way too much of an edge to their competitors. The issue is that we don't want Donald Trump to mysteriously tweet "We're nuking Toronto this afternoon! #MAGA" and have a national security episode trying to figure out if it's a hacker or if he just saw something on Fox News that irked him.
- sanderjd 6y ago
  They would not be "required" to use Twitter to keep up with their competitors, if they were all required not to use it for official communications. I'm not saying that politicians should choose to stop using Twitter for official communications, I'm saying Congress should pass a law requiring they not. I think there are already laws on the books around appropriate changes for official communications that could be augmented for this purpose.
anonbcpolitics 6y ago
> If Twitter is a national security risk because people can hack it to speak in the official voice of prominent leaders, or discover state secrets through direct messages, that is nobody's fault but the government's, for relying on a platform they have no control over for official business. I don't see the government relying on it. I see public officials using it as a platform. No coordination is being done (unless it's redundancy), just communication with constituents. > It was a scandal when Hillary Clinton relied on a private email server. One problem with using a private email server was because it circumvented FOIA requests. Twitter is open, a private email server is not. We still don't know what 33k of the subpoenaed emails were about that her personal IT guy deleted, other than the ones found on Huma Abedin's laptop. The other problem of course is having a personal IT staff run your email server with classified secrets (yes there were classified emails). It's not quite the same as having Twitter or the DoD run your security. I mean, the guy (stonetear) was on Reddit asking how to delete emails, I doubt he knew how to protect against state actors.
- sanderjd 6y ago
  > I don't see the government relying on it. Ok, then a sizable portion of Schneier's article here is pointless. If it's not a national security risk, then this hack, while a big deal, is not as big a deal as he's saying. Personally, I think it is much less of a risk than some people seem to be arguing, but much more of a risk than I'd like it to be. I do think someone could cause major real-world problems with national security ramifications by tweeting something from the President's account, and I don't think that should be possible.
- burkaman 6y ago
  > I don't see the government relying on it. I see public officials using it as a platform. No coordination is being done (unless it's redundancy), just communication with constituents. The president regularly announces decisions on Twitter that he has not communicated through any other medium. Here's two major examples: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113950/trump-state-department-rex-tillerson-fired-tweet-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113950/trump-state-depa... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/donald-trump-tweets-transgender-military-service-ban/579655/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/donald-...
Craighead 6y ago
But your military example literally happened with edmondo where people jogging around secret military bases were found because that system was breached

chasing 6y ago

Obviously government employees shouldn't be using Twitter DMs for unofficial business, but they're more or less required to use Twitter for communications with the public and fundraising. If they don't, they hand way too much of an edge to their competitors. The issue is that we don't want Donald Trump to mysteriously tweet "We're nuking Toronto this afternoon! #MAGA" and have a national security episode trying to figure out if it's a hacker or if he just saw something on Fox News that irked him.

sanderjd 6y ago
They would not be "required" to use Twitter to keep up with their competitors, if they were all required not to use it for official communications. I'm not saying that politicians should choose to stop using Twitter for official communications, I'm saying Congress should pass a law requiring they not. I think there are already laws on the books around appropriate changes for official communications that could be augmented for this purpose.

anonbcpolitics 6y ago

> If Twitter is a national security risk because people can hack it to speak in the official voice of prominent leaders, or discover state secrets through direct messages, that is nobody's fault but the government's, for relying on a platform they have no control over for official business. I don't see the government relying on it. I see public officials using it as a platform. No coordination is being done (unless it's redundancy), just communication with constituents. > It was a scandal when Hillary Clinton relied on a private email server. One problem with using a private email server was because it circumvented FOIA requests. Twitter is open, a private email server is not. We still don't know what 33k of the subpoenaed emails were about that her personal IT guy deleted, other than the ones found on Huma Abedin's laptop. The other problem of course is having a personal IT staff run your email server with classified secrets (yes there were classified emails). It's not quite the same as having Twitter or the DoD run your security. I mean, the guy (stonetear) was on Reddit asking how to delete emails, I doubt he knew how to protect against state actors.

sanderjd 6y ago
> I don't see the government relying on it. Ok, then a sizable portion of Schneier's article here is pointless. If it's not a national security risk, then this hack, while a big deal, is not as big a deal as he's saying. Personally, I think it is much less of a risk than some people seem to be arguing, but much more of a risk than I'd like it to be. I do think someone could cause major real-world problems with national security ramifications by tweeting something from the President's account, and I don't think that should be possible.
burkaman 6y ago
> I don't see the government relying on it. I see public officials using it as a platform. No coordination is being done (unless it's redundancy), just communication with constituents. The president regularly announces decisions on Twitter that he has not communicated through any other medium. Here's two major examples: https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113950/trump-state-department-rex-tillerson-fired-tweet-twitter https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/13/17113950/trump-state-depa... https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/donald-trump-tweets-transgender-military-service-ban/579655/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/01/donald-...

Craighead 6y ago

But your military example literally happened with edmondo where people jogging around secret military bases were found because that system was breached