CNN interviews Twitter whistleblower about what he saw inside the company

Former Twitter Head of Security Peiter "Mudge" Zatko says the company has major security vulnerabilities that threaten national security. In an exclusive video interview, he tells CNN's Donie O'Sullivan why he's coming forward as a whistleblower.
#cnn #News

73 comments

    1. @Ridge Have you ever read any Mark Twain? I have. He offers some good advice. I’m gonna take some of it right now and end the argument. You can look it up if required. Later dude.

    2. @8mondaymonkey have you?nothing to end..if you are arguing,thats on you dude.I dont argue with fools.when I argue,you will know.you can look it up if you haven’t dude.later dude.

  1. It must be a silly bugger but I don’t reTweet or repost on Facebook about a topic unless I’m familiar with it enough to know the post to be a fair representation. If I’ve not heard of something, I Google and look for good sources. If I feel like the post mis-represents in any way, I don’t share it unless it’s to debunk it. Why are people believing everything on Twitter or Facebook to begin with?

    1. Ten years ago on Facebook, a friend posted something that was clearly BS. She had gotten a ton of likes.

      I confronted her and asked her why she reposted something that was so obviously untrue.

      She replied, “Just in case.”

      In other words, she did not know if it was true or not, but shared it as if it were true, just in case it was true.

      Average IQ is 100, and lots of people are on the lower end of that spectrum.

  2. Add this to the stack of reasons to generally avoid social media. It’s bad for you in so many ways.

    Trust me, that old acquaintance from grade school could not care less about your beef stroganoff. But some potential employer, lover or other future prospect might care very much about some off color joke from 20 years ago that didn’t age well.

  3. Brave man, I wish him the very best. Also, this is yet another reason I have nothing to do with the twit-verse, it’s leakier than a sieve with 500 meter holes.
    Finally, I’m tired of companies throwing out the phrase “‘X’ is a priority.”; they want the public to interpret this as “We’re working on it.”, when in reality it does not mean that. At best it’s one item on a to do list. Remember, every company’s top priority is to amass the highest profits they can and that will always take a backseat to any other stated “priority”.
    Just My Two Cents

    1. Unabated Capitalist pursuit, will destroy humanity, perhaps the Planet. Great Post, I speak for you on Twitter.

  4. “Poor performance” is a game tech companies play; they adjust the inputs × levers against which “performance” is measured. Every call center employee, for example, understands how this works, in favor to the company, to exert full power against employees—masked under the guise of “performance stats”.

    1. It’s Henry VIII all over again. “I am a rich powerful person and you (the worker) are at my mercy. Give me what I want or I’ll give you the axe.”
      Any power differential in any relationship is a potential liability.

    2. As a previous call center employee, I can confirm that they do indeed use “performance” as an excuse to fire people they don’t like. It’s pretty common, and not just in call centers.

  5. Anyone who gets their perception of the world through Twitter needs a lot more than a whistleblower to set them straight. A whole chain of failures from parents, teachers, peers, friends, etc, must have let this hole swallow someone completely.

  6. It has been standard wisdom since the early 80s not to put all your personal info on someone else’s computer system. How we just arbitrarily legitimized the internet’s bathroom wall as a safe public space, I guess I will never understand.

    Everything online is a marketing ploy, and if you don’t know what the product being sold is… it’s you.

    1. Really true ,I’ve had this handle since those days when you didn’t use your name ,its a habit now but there was a time you didn’t do any information online

    1. @Shawn Murray the airplane analogy. Why would you compare twitter employees that work for the company to passengers on a plane. The passengers would be regular twitter users. The employees are like the flight attendants. He speaks in ridiculous hyperbole and his one example isnt even a good one.

  7. I am not surprised. Many tech companies play it fast and loose tbh. And there is a culture of not taking responsibility or of doing anything to improve major flaws in these kinds of companies unfortunately. It’s not just FB and twitter. But it is surprising and somewhat hopeful to see a senior exec step forward to shed light on the issue in this fashion. Ngl whistleblowing always has personal and professional risk attach to it.

  8. When I was a girl in the 50s and 60s I remember my dad telling me “baby there’s not a lock in the world that someone can’t open…when someone is making the lock there’s someone making the key”…open access…you cannot lock everyone out.

    1. There’s an old adage in computer security, the only way to make a computer truly secure is to smash it with a hammer.

  9. Twitter’s response being “inaccuracies, inconsistencies, context” is pretty soft in the face of “risk to national security, democracy”.

  10. Mudge has been recognized as an expert in the field for decades, way before Twitter existed. I think I’ll place my bets on him.

    1. @Mario Mario its important becuase it now forces them to be honest under threat of perjury. With cases like this it’s hard to ask questions without a standing. But we now have a witness making these claims. Which we can now question Twitter on.

    2. @Mario Mario Again, now that there is a witness. They can now be able to investigate it in the courts. Twitter will have to show why he was fired. And discovery can find out if there solidity in the claim.

  11. I find this all sad. When these companies, like Twitter, first came up, there was such an optimism about bringing the world together online and empowering everyone with information and connectivity. Now it’s all gone to sh💩t because of bad people doing bad things.

    But people should know how much worse Tik Tok is… it’s the worst of all.

  12. I appreciate it when people are brave enough to do the right thing like this. Thank you, dude! It seems rare in cases like this and the one occurring now within our own government.

    1. He’s just trying to bring some attention to his new security company now that he’s out of a job and is trying to make money on his own.

  13. It amazes me how these companies are allowed to conduct their businesses without any serious regulations and oversight given the serious threat they pose. I guess in America it’s all about money

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