3 ms·

> FOREIGN THREATS: Twitter is exceptionally vulnerable to foreign government exploitation in ways that undermine US national security, and the company may even

> FOREIGN THREATS: Twitter is exceptionally vulnerable to foreign government exploitation in ways that undermine US national security, and the company may even have foreign spies currently on its payroll, the disclosure alleges. This is a very strange article to me. When I think of Twitter and government influence, I think of the overwhelming pro-Washington bias. I think of the "state-affiliated media" tags that somehow don't apply to RFE/RL and BBC. I think of the countless heterodox/dissident accounts that have been banned or silenced on the platform. I think of the "hacked materials" warning label that was invented to discredit a particularly damning story about a covert disinformation campaign involving Reuters and BBC. I think of Twitter's complete tolerance of the obvious platform abuse by the textbook troll farm known as "NAFO". I think of the revolving door between the federal government and policy/compliance positions at large tech companies including Twitter, of which Mudge is one of many. My tinfoil hat is whispering that this story is part of a broader campaign to put pressure on Twitter to be even more compromised by the federal government and intelligence agencies. I just don't see how this "foreign threat" narrative lines up with the reality of how effectively managed Twitter has become over the past few years. Realistically though, Mudge probably just has a huge hacker ego and is butthurt that he was caught slackin'.

nym375 4y ago
Read the report of the problems he was trying to surface: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/twitter-whistleblower-sec-spam/risk_committee_issues.pdf https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/t... This doesn't seem like he was "butthurt and caught slackin'." The tone of the report seems like he's frustrated that he was hired to do a job, and not given the resources / authority to make the necessary sweeping changes. Perhaps someone with a more political approach could have influenced leadership better. But they hired an extremely technical person, not an extremely political person.
kornhole 4y ago
What more pressure do you think intelligence agencies would want to enforce? https://www.mintpressnews.com/twitter-hiring-alarming-number-spooks-secret-agents/281114/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/twitter-hiring-alarming-number...
brundolf 4y ago
There's been at least one Saudi spy found working at Twitter and convicted: https://nypost.com/2022/08/09/ex-twitter-employee-ahmad-abouammo-convicted-of-spying-for-saudi-arabia/ https://nypost.com/2022/08/09/ex-twitter-employee-ahmad-abou... > Saudi citizen Ali Alzabarah, who worked as an engineer at Twitter, used their positions to access confidential Twitter data about users, their email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses, the latter of which be used to identify a user’s location Internal data security practices could probably have helped limit his access
- pphysch 4y ago
  The line between "spy" and foreign-lobby operative is pretty blurry when it comes to KSA/Israel/etc. Look at Jonathan Pollard. I would be surprised if there were an actual Chinese/Russian/Iranian spy working at Twitter.
Sebb767 4y ago
> When I think of Twitter and government influence, I think of the overwhelming pro-Washington bias. And I think of AWS announcing a massive data loss, Kim-Jong Un tweeting "Nukes have been launched" and the US president tweeting about an impeding Yellowstone explosion. If you want to really f up the country in a big way, Twitter is a great way. With how much verification some journalists do, the news will have secondary 'sources' outside Twitter within minutes for free. Even without going to such lengths, the activities and rough locations of US officials will already be massively valuable to any foreign power. Facebook had papers where they managed to guess an individuals health based on their typing patterns, just imagine what you could do with all of the Twitter analytics.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Trump's presidency should have made it very very clear that relying on a tweet for anything at all is a monumentally stupid idea, and the only reason someone isn't currently taking advantage of that reliance is that they don't think it's worth it to attack you in that way.
NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
>I think of the "state-affiliated media" tags that somehow don't apply to RFE/RL and BBC. More importantly they don't point out things like CNN being owned by AT&T. Ever wonder why CNN doesn't cover why AT&T can be so awful? There's your answer. MSBNC is owned by this massive entertainment conglomerate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBCUniversal_Television_and_Streaming#NBCUniversal_News_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBCUniversal_Television_and_St... CBS is owned by this entertainment conglomerate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Paramount_Global#CBS_Entertainment_Group_(TV_Entertainment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Paramo... ABC is owned by Disney (wonder why their copyright pushing insanity is never covered negatively there? Most people seem to assume that mainstream news is just an independent journalistic organization beholden only to itself, that truth is important, and delivering the news to the viewers are priorities. Something that is wildly untrue for almost all of them. Their corporate owned and those corporations have their own agendas that aren't aligned with the average American in the slightest. >I think of the countless heterodox/dissident accounts that have been banned or silenced on the platform. They banned satire accounts for wrongthink.

nym375 4y ago

Read the report of the problems he was trying to surface: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/twitter-whistleblower-sec-spam/risk_committee_issues.pdf https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/t... This doesn't seem like he was "butthurt and caught slackin'." The tone of the report seems like he's frustrated that he was hired to do a job, and not given the resources / authority to make the necessary sweeping changes. Perhaps someone with a more political approach could have influenced leadership better. But they hired an extremely technical person, not an extremely political person.

kornhole 4y ago

What more pressure do you think intelligence agencies would want to enforce? https://www.mintpressnews.com/twitter-hiring-alarming-number-spooks-secret-agents/281114/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/twitter-hiring-alarming-number...

brundolf 4y ago

There's been at least one Saudi spy found working at Twitter and convicted: https://nypost.com/2022/08/09/ex-twitter-employee-ahmad-abouammo-convicted-of-spying-for-saudi-arabia/ https://nypost.com/2022/08/09/ex-twitter-employee-ahmad-abou... > Saudi citizen Ali Alzabarah, who worked as an engineer at Twitter, used their positions to access confidential Twitter data about users, their email addresses, phone numbers and IP addresses, the latter of which be used to identify a user’s location Internal data security practices could probably have helped limit his access

pphysch 4y ago
The line between "spy" and foreign-lobby operative is pretty blurry when it comes to KSA/Israel/etc. Look at Jonathan Pollard. I would be surprised if there were an actual Chinese/Russian/Iranian spy working at Twitter.

Sebb767 4y ago

> When I think of Twitter and government influence, I think of the overwhelming pro-Washington bias. And I think of AWS announcing a massive data loss, Kim-Jong Un tweeting "Nukes have been launched" and the US president tweeting about an impeding Yellowstone explosion. If you want to really f up the country in a big way, Twitter is a great way. With how much verification some journalists do, the news will have secondary 'sources' outside Twitter within minutes for free. Even without going to such lengths, the activities and rough locations of US officials will already be massively valuable to any foreign power. Facebook had papers where they managed to guess an individuals health based on their typing patterns, just imagine what you could do with all of the Twitter analytics.

mrguyorama 4y ago
Trump's presidency should have made it very very clear that relying on a tweet for anything at all is a monumentally stupid idea, and the only reason someone isn't currently taking advantage of that reliance is that they don't think it's worth it to attack you in that way.

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago

>I think of the "state-affiliated media" tags that somehow don't apply to RFE/RL and BBC. More importantly they don't point out things like CNN being owned by AT&T. Ever wonder why CNN doesn't cover why AT&T can be so awful? There's your answer. MSBNC is owned by this massive entertainment conglomerate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBCUniversal_Television_and_Streaming#NBCUniversal_News_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBCUniversal_Television_and_St... CBS is owned by this entertainment conglomerate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Paramount_Global#CBS_Entertainment_Group_(TV_Entertainment) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_Paramo... ABC is owned by Disney (wonder why their copyright pushing insanity is never covered negatively there? Most people seem to assume that mainstream news is just an independent journalistic organization beholden only to itself, that truth is important, and delivering the news to the viewers are priorities. Something that is wildly untrue for almost all of them. Their corporate owned and those corporations have their own agendas that aren't aligned with the average American in the slightest. >I think of the countless heterodox/dissident accounts that have been banned or silenced on the platform. They banned satire accounts for wrongthink.