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Was Twitter really as sophisticated as Facebook in this regard? If @realdonaldtrump and @johnbarron are both tweeting from the same IP in the same time frame,

Was Twitter really as sophisticated as Facebook in this regard? If @realdonaldtrump and @johnbarron are both tweeting from the same IP in the same time frame, could Twitter make the connection that both are the same user? Was there enough backtracking stored in their systems to know that?

buildbot 3y ago
They may not have a literal field for the account, but they are asking twitter to run a simple join across database fields for matching IP addresses in the time range. The jusge is clearly fed up with twitters bullshit - the control F comment does actually make a lot of sense, it should be that simple. For example, SELECT * FROM dms WHERE ip=donaldtrumpsaccountip
- joezydeco 3y ago
  If the the IP is "the White House" there may be dozens of clients running out that single NAT IP. So you'd need a bit more correlation before you hit all of them with a warrant, I'd think. Some tracking cookie or some ID to show it's the same person behind the keyboard. As the transcript shows, the judge asked about payment (like a credit card # for correlation) but Twitter is free. Not saying it's a viable technique but I get the idea that judges hate warrants that vague.
  - nickthegreek 3y ago
    If you log into both accounts using the twitter mobile app there is most likely a device ID now associated with the accounts.
  - buildbot 3y ago
    Sure, but as others have said, you have device IDs, you have when Trump was traveling and using cellular data, etc. So there is a huge amount of info that can be used to relate accounts. Legally, it seems asking for a company to run essentially joins across their DB tables is accepted practice. Otherwise, how could warrant be obtained from google for all devices within a specific geolocation? Requires at least a few DB queries I'd imagine.
    - joezydeco 3y ago
      A smoothed out device ID makes more sense. Thanks.
rsynnott 3y ago
They should be able to trivially determine, after the fact, that the two accounts were using the same IP, even if not at the time. (Of course, that doesn’t _necessarily_ mean they’re the same person).

buildbot 3y ago

They may not have a literal field for the account, but they are asking twitter to run a simple join across database fields for matching IP addresses in the time range. The jusge is clearly fed up with twitters bullshit - the control F comment does actually make a lot of sense, it should be that simple. For example, SELECT * FROM dms WHERE ip=donaldtrumpsaccountip

joezydeco 3y ago
If the the IP is "the White House" there may be dozens of clients running out that single NAT IP. So you'd need a bit more correlation before you hit all of them with a warrant, I'd think. Some tracking cookie or some ID to show it's the same person behind the keyboard. As the transcript shows, the judge asked about payment (like a credit card # for correlation) but Twitter is free. Not saying it's a viable technique but I get the idea that judges hate warrants that vague.
- nickthegreek 3y ago
  If you log into both accounts using the twitter mobile app there is most likely a device ID now associated with the accounts.
- buildbot 3y ago
  Sure, but as others have said, you have device IDs, you have when Trump was traveling and using cellular data, etc. So there is a huge amount of info that can be used to relate accounts. Legally, it seems asking for a company to run essentially joins across their DB tables is accepted practice. Otherwise, how could warrant be obtained from google for all devices within a specific geolocation? Requires at least a few DB queries I'd imagine.
  - joezydeco 3y ago
    A smoothed out device ID makes more sense. Thanks.

rsynnott 3y ago

They should be able to trivially determine, after the fact, that the two accounts were using the same IP, even if not at the time. (Of course, that doesn’t _necessarily_ mean they’re the same person).