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

Post by fmobus » Wed, Aug 16, 2023, 4:37 PM UTC

tppiotrowski wrote: post #73

mikestew wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Aug 16, 2023, 4:38 PM UTC

tppiotrowski wrote: post #38

hnburnsy wrote: post #2

My favorite part is when the government suggests to Twitter that they should Ctl-F to find 'associated accounts'

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…

Post by buildbot » Wed, Aug 16, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #35

buildbot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

Post by nannal » Wed, Aug 16, 2023, 4:46 PM UTC

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.

Post by joezydeco » Wed, Aug 16, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

buildbot wrote: post #85

joezydeco wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…