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The whistleblowing case is a new dimension. To me as an outsider it implies Agrawal may have also been the manager in his previous technical role for a lot of t
by motohagiography 4y ago
The whistleblowing case is a new dimension. To me as an outsider it implies Agrawal may have also been the manager in his previous technical role for a lot of the tech problems Zatko identified, and what made Agrawal CEO was his ability to leverage these problems to play ball with all the interests in that company and board, while sustaining through neglect some of those concerning practices within the organization. Twitter's product isn't technology, it's an uncertified slot machine that pays out in political influence, and there are a lot of big interests depending on their cut of it. They needed a steady hand who wouldn't be vulnerable to being swayed by principle, and that's the one thing you don't keep hackers around for, imo.
If I were betting, nothing is ever really systemically broken in large orgs, it just works for someone you can't see. This is a factor everywhere and not necessarily at Twitter. Shitty process? Cui bono. Unverifiable systems? Cui bono. Deniable and unaccounted-for access to God-mode data? Cui bono. Repudiable numbers reporting? Cui bono. Bizarre political posturing? Cui bono, etc.
- nullc 4y agoPart of the allegation seems to be that the beneficiaries may be foreign state actors who have infiltrated the organization. Not particularly shocking as they'd have to be incompetent to not try to infiltrate a major communications platform, and if the internal controls are as bad as alleged (and has exposed in some of the prior hacks, e.g. the control panel screenshots) they'd have to be incompetent to fail.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoA friend I trust quit after being at twitter only a few weeks specifically because of the atrocious lack of internal security controls. When I spoke to them the first thought I had was “this sounds like a gold mine for spies”, so this story today makes perfect sense to me.
- jasonm23 4y agoOoof... > They needed a steady hand who wouldn't be vulnerable to being swayed by principle. That's my golden quote of the day, time for bed.
- kotenshu 4y agoNow apply that to 90% of management roles in 90% of companies. Human nature is a bitch.