This guy is obviously paid off by Elon
Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies
331–340 of 645 posts
Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies
#332"The whistleblower also says Twitter executives don't have the resources to fully understand the true number of bots on the platform, and were not motivated to." I imagine this hurts Twitter's defense against Musk from pulling out of the takeover deal, or, is this whistleblower's account inadmissible?
It's probably not coincidence that that piece is in there ...
Unless the bot problem regularly gets in users' way, this isn't really what you want to blow the whistle on--hard problems are hard. You bring this up to damage Twitter.
Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies
#333Honestly, can you really trust anything about major social media sites any more? Has Twitter ever been in the news for properly making even a thousand people successful from scratch really ever in the product's life? They have pipelines of exploitation for everyone that gets "discovered" into contractual nightmare deals, they require tons of free labor and costly hurdles just to become notable and visible on the plat…
> Twitter continues to focus on only pleasing it's sponsors, investors, and execs year after year
I mean, it's not really doing a good job of any of that either.
Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies
#334This guy is obviously paid off by Elon
After the Peter Thiel/Hulk Hogan incident, and especially considering Musk and Thiel are both Paypal mafiosi, it's quite possible.
Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies
#335Millenials and GenZ may have no idea who Mudge is. I, however, almost lost my first job out of college at a bank because I ran l0phtcrack against our Windows NT 4 server to see if it could crack passwords. I showed my boss, and he pulled me aside into another room and tore my head off for irresponsibly running this tool against a production server. He said I could have been fired if this got out, but he covered my as…
I agree. I grant It’s possible Mudge is A) an old hand and doesn’t know how to run a security program with the tech today B) a strong tech hire who can’t lead a program. But Mudge is still… Mudge, and he’s also proven his ability to collaborate so if he was a bull in a china shop a twitter, that would be surprising. There’s also a broader trend here of well known security leads that originate from that time working a…
I read the full whistle-blower complaint, and the whole story from his perspective (and the crazy statement from Agrawal) looks like it's not B. Instead, it looks like it was a culture clash with his manager.
He seems to have tried to escalate things to people above Agrawal nearly constantly. He was hired by Jack Dorsey, and felt accountable to him and to the board, but he reported to Agrawal, who believed that Mudge had a responsibility to follow the chain of command very rigidly.
I have previously had managers who want you to rigidly follow the chain of command, and if you are a "hacker" type, they are a shock (and you are a shock to them). They are often very interested in controlling information that goes upward and how mandates flow downward through them (both to control their reputation and make sure everyone gets information in "proper context"), to the point that they see it as an attack on their position to even speak with their manager. A "hacker" would rather put the information in front of the people who need it, instead of filtering it through the hierarchy.
At the first opportunity Agrawal had to clean house, he cleaned out Mudge because he didn't want to work with him. House cleaning is normal for a new CEO. From Agrawal's perspective, Mudge did a terrible job, since he wanted to circumvent Agrawal.
Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apperantly he started the whistleblowing process before any Musk involvement with Twitter. https://twitter.com/KimZetter/status/1562061556745089025
> Apperantly he started the whistleblowing process before any Musk involvement with twitter. According to his lawyer as reported by someone on Twitter. IIRC, lawyers make statements that guilty clients are innocent all the time. If he was working with Musk help him wiggle out of the Twitter deal, it would fatally undermine the goal for to come out publicly about the relationship. I'm skeptical unless they can provide…
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Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies
#337Millenials and GenZ may have no idea who Mudge is. I, however, almost lost my first job out of college at a bank because I ran l0phtcrack against our Windows NT 4 server to see if it could crack passwords. I showed my boss, and he pulled me aside into another room and tore my head off for irresponsibly running this tool against a production server. He said I could have been fired if this got out, but he covered my as…
There's a simpler explanation. He is doing this for profit. I don't buy all the speculation that he approached the SEC out of some professional obligation or simply to spite the Twitter leadership. As a former executive he most likely still holds stock and having the price plunge is not exactly in his interest unless the pay-off from whistleblowing is high enough. Given his high profile, he just burned all bridges career-wise at big tech. The expected whistleblower payout here must be enormous.
Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
Corporate robots don't care. They have gotten away with so much for so long, they live in their own disconnected reality. When things break some of them cash out. Others find someone to blame. They don't pay a price at all. And the cycle continue. In China atleast people are scared of the govt. In the west its a total joke how no one is ever held responsible.
Yikes, I wouldn't boast about being scared of a govt. That's on the cusp of being fascist.
I think the commenter brings up an interesting point that China more effectively regulates industries that commit wrong [1]. I wouldn't reduce their point to being tantamount to fascism; rather, I read @gsatic as arguing for equal application of the law. This seems fundamental to the US constitution vis à vis John Locke: people (corporations in this case) cede rights for security. If we give corporations regulatory fines that pale in comparison to revenue as a result of malfeasance, are we allowing companies to enjoy our society's benefits, without having to sacrifice the same rights others do?
[1] - Of course, this isn't the complete picture: China has a penchant for arbitrarily dealing a heavy hand to law-abiding companies/persons.
Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies
#339I've been hearing about Mudge for decades . It's actually a bit ... heartbreaking ... to see him looking so corporate, but we all age, don't we? I doubt he was fired for being bad at his job. But I'll bet he was fired for getting in people's faces. That was basically his calling card for years . Why is anyone surprised? I guess Twitter thought they could hire the cachet, without hiring the man. I remember an Apple WW…
> I doubt he was fired for being bad at his job. But I'll bet he was fired for getting in people's faces. As head of X, maintaining good relationships is part of your job. It's actually the biggest part of your job.
Yes and no.
There’s many facets to these types of jobs, and these types of teams.
I suspect that he was a “known quantity,” when he was hired, and acted as he was expected to act, by the person that hired him.
Jack Dorsey had his own issues, and pleasing him may not have counted for much, after the new folks took over.
I do have issues with declaring that someone at that level is being fired “with cause,” especially someone that knows where the bodies are buried. This goes double, for someone well-known for doing well in other environments. Usually, there’s some kind of “golden handcuffs,” and the firee simply “leaves to spend more time with their family.”
Regardless of his faults, they set themselves up for this. From here, it appears to be a rather petty personality spat that may end up hurting a whole bunch of folks.
So yes, you are correct, but the person at fault may not be Mudge.
Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't remember conservatives threatening Twitter to censor "dangerous" views or "misinformation" or telling who to ban.
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Bigger example: Donald Trump called Net Neutrality "Obamacare for the Internet", back when the bug-bear was Comcast rather than FAANG.