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> 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 direc

> 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-...
EvanAnderson 6y ago
>Twitter is open, a private email server is not. In what way is Twitter "open"? Can I FOIA a government official's DM's? I don't see that as likely. From my standpoint, Clinton's private server is equivalent to Twitter (albeit likely less well-maintained from a security perspective). To my mind, it's wholly unacceptable for the US government to maintain secret communication platforms outside the reach of FOIA. Working to keep communications off-the-record and out of the public's hands is a betrayal of the public trust.
- Thorrez 6y ago
  >In what way is Twitter "open"? If a Tweet is posted, journalists can see it and write articles about it. Of course this doesn't apply to DMs, they are not open. I think anonbcpolitics was ignoring DMs.
  - EvanAnderson 6y ago
    I can FOIA my government's one-to-one email communication. If I can't do that w/ Twitter they shouldn't be using Twitter. The local government I work for uses some god-awful subscription software to "archive" all their various social media interaction. I'd rather just see the government not use third-party-hosted communications systems but, grudgingly, I'll take thr "archived" social media data over nothing. The data needs to be accessible to the public, ultimately.
    - Thorrez 6y ago
      Shouldn't be using Twitter at all or shouldn't be using Twitter DMs?
  - anonbcpolitics 6y ago
    > I think anonbcpolitics was ignoring DMs. Yes, because there's no evidence of anyone using DMs to govern. We don't know if a politician uses Signal, Twitter/IG DM, or other 1:1 communication apps, we have to handle those cases when we catch them, like Hillary was caught with her private email server. If she was actually punished it may have deterred people from circumventing FOIA. I would be directly opposed to such communication the same way I'm opposed to a private email server being used. Communicating in public tweets is entirely different though.

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-...

EvanAnderson 6y ago

>Twitter is open, a private email server is not. In what way is Twitter "open"? Can I FOIA a government official's DM's? I don't see that as likely. From my standpoint, Clinton's private server is equivalent to Twitter (albeit likely less well-maintained from a security perspective). To my mind, it's wholly unacceptable for the US government to maintain secret communication platforms outside the reach of FOIA. Working to keep communications off-the-record and out of the public's hands is a betrayal of the public trust.

Thorrez 6y ago
>In what way is Twitter "open"? If a Tweet is posted, journalists can see it and write articles about it. Of course this doesn't apply to DMs, they are not open. I think anonbcpolitics was ignoring DMs.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  I can FOIA my government's one-to-one email communication. If I can't do that w/ Twitter they shouldn't be using Twitter. The local government I work for uses some god-awful subscription software to "archive" all their various social media interaction. I'd rather just see the government not use third-party-hosted communications systems but, grudgingly, I'll take thr "archived" social media data over nothing. The data needs to be accessible to the public, ultimately.
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    Shouldn't be using Twitter at all or shouldn't be using Twitter DMs?
- anonbcpolitics 6y ago
  > I think anonbcpolitics was ignoring DMs. Yes, because there's no evidence of anyone using DMs to govern. We don't know if a politician uses Signal, Twitter/IG DM, or other 1:1 communication apps, we have to handle those cases when we catch them, like Hillary was caught with her private email server. If she was actually punished it may have deterred people from circumventing FOIA. I would be directly opposed to such communication the same way I'm opposed to a private email server being used. Communicating in public tweets is entirely different though.