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Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

cnn.com

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Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

#431

Post by zeruch »

gonehome wrote: post #417
zeruch wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think we're in lockstep here. I'm no fan of Musk (he's truly worked very hard to be the most provacatively pustulent punkass of tech) but that doesn't mean that Twitter leadership is any better. Just not as well PR'd. Dorsey himself was mostly an imbecile who drank too much of his own Kool Aid. Twitter has for years been the standard bearer for the most opaque, and incoherent content management; from user fee…

I’m a huge musk fan, but I still think his trying to get out of the Twitter deal is lame buyer's remorse and his arguments are weak. I see it as mostly unrelated to this mudge issue.

Oh they are unrelated, but he will leverage the Mudge moment for all it can be.

Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

#432

Post by raarts »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #422
enumjorge wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last US President used Twitter as his primary way to communicate with the world. That on its own has serious security implications. I agree with you that we have landed in not a great place.

I hope we get to a place where we all agree that a sitting U.S. President should not "tweet." The White House maintains a Press Secretary for a reason. Granted, the current person holding the job is no C.J. Craig.

Like traditional secretaries, the WH Press Secretary may have become obsolete.

Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

#433

Post by mzs »

kyrofa wrote: post #421
chipgap98 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The company also lacks sufficient redundancies and procedures to restart or recover from data center crashes, Zatko's disclosure says, meaning that even minor outages of several data centers at the same time could knock the entire Twitter service offline, perhaps for good. I mean if it were true that seems pretty negligent. If that were the entire extent of the whistleblower complaint (not sure if complaint is the…

I dunno, pointing out that something has a poor architecture and pointing out that something has severe, known, and ignored security issues feels different.

Knocking-out twitter (used by journalists and govs) during a crisis IS a security concern.

Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

#434

Post by gonehome »

raarts wrote: post #427
gonehome wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a huge musk fan, but I still think his trying to get out of the Twitter deal is lame buyer's remorse and his arguments are weak. I see it as mostly unrelated to this mudge issue.

Musk posted a meme explaining why he pulled out. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1546344529460174849

Yeah - but that's dumb bullshit. He can't legally pull out because of that.

He waived all of that to force Twitter to agree to the deal (because it'd be basically impossible for the board to reject it). This made sense at the time, because the board was looking for ways to weasel out of it because (imo) they politically don't like Musk. Then the market crashed and suddenly he was overpaying a ton for Twitter, then he complains about bots (this isn't new information from when he made the deal).

Whether or not the bots thing is true isn't even relevant based on the deal he put forward.

I think he earnestly wanted to buy Twitter for principled reasons around speech which I agree with. He structured the deal in such a way where Twitter's board couldn't reject it (because it was so favorable to shareholders). Then when the market tanked the deal way overpriced Twitter, but he had already committed to it so he's trying everything to get out of it. I suspect he actually believes the things he's arguing (he's always seemed pretty earnest to me), I just think he's wrong in this case and it's mostly driven by motivated reasoning.

That doesn't mean Twitter isn't a disaster, just that they're in the right with regard to him having to close the deal.

Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

#435

Post by caycep »

raarts wrote: post #427
gonehome wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a huge musk fan, but I still think his trying to get out of the Twitter deal is lame buyer's remorse and his arguments are weak. I see it as mostly unrelated to this mudge issue.

Musk posted a meme explaining why he pulled out. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1546344529460174849

granted, I'm not entirely certain Musk wants to pull out vs. getting a better price/discount on the purchase...

Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

#436

Post by josefresco »

prophesi wrote: post #347
josefresco wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know Mudge and neither does 99.9% of the public. His timing here is suspect. If these problems existed for so long, why now?

I'm not sure why any sizeable portion of the public would know _any_ reputable cyber security experts. Twitter's CEO said the firing was due to "the impact on top priority work", and whistleblowing 6 months later isn't a surprising timeline when you need to have long talks with an attorney and get your own work-life situated.

Mudge specifically referenced Musk in his complaint. This isn't just 6 months of due diligence it's targeted and timed for maximum damage.

Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

#437

Post by yupper32 »

mzs wrote: post #433
kyrofa wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, pointing out that something has a poor architecture and pointing out that something has severe, known, and ignored security issues feels different.

Knocking-out twitter (used by journalists and govs) during a crisis IS a security concern.

A security concern for the governments, not twitter. It's not twitter's fault that governments are using it as a primary form of communication, nor should it be their responsibility to have amazing uptime just because governments are using their platform.

Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

#438

Post by mrex »

dehrmann wrote: post #323
mrex wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is rampant. How is this a story? Bro. It's not every day that literally Mudge, who has -no doubt- seen his fair share of shit-shows, whistleblows on an employer.

But was he fired by any of those shit shows?

I don't think you understand how poorly attacking Mudge's character or insinuating that he's driven by some unethical ulterior motive is going to work out. Mudge is... he's Mudge. He's a known quantity, and one everyone wishes we had more of. When he says something like this, smart people listen intently.

Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

#439

Post by crb »

jonstewart wrote: post #409
pclmulqdq wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wouldn't paint with too broad of a brush in this instance, however. Yes, mudge is the ur-hacker, but also: he worked at BBN and DARPA (where he was extremely effective) and elsewhere. He probably has the most experience of any technical/hacker on the planet of working with executives in large organizations. Agrawal's memo, in contrast, reeks of insecurity. The combination of how he's treated mudge and Rishi Sunak a…

What's the story with Rishi Sunak? Assuming you mean the candidate for Conservative Party leader and thus UK PM, I wasn't aware of such a connection.

Re: Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless cybersecurity policies

#440

Post by colechristensen »

jonstewart wrote: post #409
pclmulqdq wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wouldn't paint with too broad of a brush in this instance, however. Yes, mudge is the ur-hacker, but also: he worked at BBN and DARPA (where he was extremely effective) and elsewhere. He probably has the most experience of any technical/hacker on the planet of working with executives in large organizations. Agrawal's memo, in contrast, reeks of insecurity. The combination of how he's treated mudge and Rishi Sunak a…

A security lead who didn't try to raise major issues around a bad boss would be doing a bad job.
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