Spies in Silicon Valley: Twitter Breach Tied To Saudi Dissident Arrests

An internal breach at Twitter a half decade ago yielded data that was later used by Saudi Arabia to harass or arrest people critical of the government, according to lawsuits, human rights groups and the relative of a person apprehended in 2018. From a report: In 2015, two Twitter employees allegedly accessed more than 6,000 accounts while acting as spies for the government of Saudi Arabia. Some details of the incident have been disclosed by U.S. prosecutors, who charged the two men last November, and in recent lawsuits by people who alleged their accounts were among those breached. But few other details have emerged about what the Saudi government may have done with the data. Now, the sister of a Saudi man who ran an anonymous Twitter account said her brother's disappearance resulted from the activities of the alleged Twitter spies. Abdulrahman al-Sadhan was working at his office in Riyadh on March 12, 2018 when Saudi Arabia's secret police showed up and took him away, according to his sister, Areej al-Sadhan. His family hasn't seen him since, and until he was permitted to make a short phone call to a relative in February, they worried that he might have been killed.

And yet ANOTHER reason...

[cayenne8]

....NOT to be on social media!!!

Re:

[hey!]

Of course that ignores the reason *to* be on social media, if you live in an oppressive regime: to engage in opposition, and to express your opinions of the regime.

That is inherently dangerous in a place like Saudi Arabia. As perilous as it is to put your trust in the security of a company like Twitter, that might not be your greatest concern.

Re:

[jythie]

Agreed. I do not think people who live in states that allow (to various degrees) public dissent realize how useful these semi-anonymous tools are in terms of getting information out there or coordinating activism.

Yet another misleading headline

[dtmos]

With the recent Twitter breach still in the news -- see the following story -- it would have been better had the editors added the date of this breach in the headline: "Spies in Silicon Valley: 2015 Twitter Breach Tied To Saudi Dissident Arrests".

I don't get it

[Errol backfiring]

Isn't twitter for socially incontinent people who want to shout to the world just because? Is there anybody who thinks that even one bit of twitter data could be private? What on earth could spies know about twitter data that is not already public?

Re:

[jythie]

IP addresses or other details that could allow authorities to tie otherwise anonymous accounts back to individuals?

Actually, I don't get it, either

[dtmos]

socially incontinent people

What does it mean to be "socially incontinent"? To involuntarily lose control of one's bladder and bowel in the company of others?

If that is the case, I would suggest that Twitter is the least of one's problems.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I'm pretty sure they meant people who shit out stupid ideas all over the internets.

Kind of like suggesting that only stupidity is on Twitter. It may be the majority of content, but so what? One thing Slashdot has taught me is that smart people can say a lot of stupid shit.

Re:

[dtmos]

I'm pretty sure they meant people who shit out stupid ideas all over the internets.

Ahh, the *antisocial* incontinent.

Got it.