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Twitter's response to US Government search warrant (turned over deleted DMs) [pdf]

dcd.uscourts.gov

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Re: Twitter's response to US Government search warrant (turned over deleted DMs) [pdf]

#71

Post by jellicle »

A brief summary: lawyers for Twitter were busy obfuscating and dissembling to the judge, pretending that Twitter was completely unable to formulate a SQL query to identify multiple accounts used by the same device and otherwise playing dumb, trying to throw enough technobabble to confuse a judge. The lawyers were also assembling a bunch of nonsense 1st Amendment arguments and hurling those at the wall too, hoping something would stick.

The judge and prosecutors were not fooled. Eventually the judge fined Twitter for all their nonsense.

So, contrary to some of the comments posted here already about dumb judges or whatever, this case shows a judge seeing through a bunch of techno-nonsense that lawyers tried to use to sow confusion.

Re: Twitter's response to US Government search warrant (turned over deleted DMs) [pdf]

#72

Post by altairprime »

The non-disclosure order by the courts for this warrant was issued to Twitter on January 17th for six months; the day it expired, Reddit suddenly decided to purge all chat history prior to 2023: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36782915

Re: Twitter's response to US Government search warrant (turned over deleted DMs) [pdf]

#73

Post by tppiotrowski »

mikestew wrote: post #61
tppiotrowski wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the government attorney explaining how Twitter should do it: > To the extent that Twitter does not, it should be a simple process. You have cookies associated with an account; you have the email for the subscriber information; perhaps you have the phone number; you definitely have the IP addresses. Control F that through your system to see what other accounts have come from those IP addresses, are linked to th…

So following your analogy (which I'll state upfront is a poor one), where do you think the government attorney is wrong? Because from where I sit the government attorney, if not completely correct, is at least on the right track. Other companies can piece this together (how else do they know that you are logged in somewhere else?), and I would be shocked if there isn't some means on Twitter's backend to do the same.…

I just think it will realistically take Twitter more than two weeks to come up with this data. Seems like a long time but my experience at companies of 1,000+ is that things move very slow.

Re: Twitter's response to US Government search warrant (turned over deleted DMs) [pdf]

#74

Post by darkstar999 »

thrway0816 wrote: post #40
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're complaining that a random judge doesn't know that Twitter is free?

It's a central and ongoing misunderstanding throughout the document that, beyond verified users, the Court does not realize Twitter account is not associated with a verified human identity. A judge should not be walking into this case completely ignorant of the subject matter that will be presented to them, but this one is.

It is unreasonable to expect a judge to be a subject matter expert on every case they preside over. That's why they ask questions. That is a reasonable question considering there are ways of paying for twitter and ways of getting verified on twitter.

Re: Twitter's response to US Government search warrant (turned over deleted DMs) [pdf]

#75

Post by MisterBastahrd »

runjake wrote: post #27
dboreham wrote: post #6

Trump didn't have the legendary opsec he's supposed to have.

Legendary where? His Twitter password was guessed[1]. Even worse, he used that password across several more services and didn't change them when his Twitter account was compromised. Legendarily bad, perhaps. 1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/12/17/dutch-trump-...

It's a joke.

Trump once claimed that he understood technology better than anyone.

And security.

And the proper way to milk a cow (probably).

Depending on the subject, he's the world's greatest expert, even if he can't spell the subject's name.

Re: Twitter's response to US Government search warrant (turned over deleted DMs) [pdf]

#76

Post by breakingrules »

postmodest wrote: post #15

At this point, Elon's purchase and seemingly-intentional brand-suicide looks more and more like a political favor. I mean, yes, if we shave this with Hanlon's Razor, the outcome is the same, but the rightward swing of Elon's public statements certainly makes this look more like quid-pro-quo than an oopsie.

[dead]

Re: Twitter's response to US Government search warrant (turned over deleted DMs) [pdf]

#77

Post by morkalork »

ceejayoz wrote: post #59
morkalork wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy-peasy, just open the last 6 years of twitter access logs in Excel and ctrl-F for Donny's ip/device identifier!

Do you really think they don't have some sort of system to index data like device identifiers for quick searching? https://help.twitter.com/en/about-personalization-across-you... > By better understanding how different browsers and devices are related, we can use information from one browser or device to help personalize the Twitter experience on another. For example, if you commonly use Twitter for Android around th…

No, I just find the thought of a legal aide trying to open a comically huge .csv file in Excel humerous.

Re: Twitter's response to US Government search warrant (turned over deleted DMs) [pdf]

#80

Post by exo-pla-net »

brandonagr2 wrote: post #48
postmodest wrote: post #15

At this point, Elon's purchase and seemingly-intentional brand-suicide looks more and more like a political favor. I mean, yes, if we shave this with Hanlon's Razor, the outcome is the same, but the rightward swing of Elon's public statements certainly makes this look more like quid-pro-quo than an oopsie.

In your theory, what does Elon get in return for these 'favors'?

While it's true that he's currying favor with a political group that favors gas-guzzling pickup trucks over electric vehicles and is diametrically opposed to his mission of saving humanity from ecological disaster, owning the libs (his customer base) is its own $40b reward. /s
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