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Twitter Security IT Technology

Twitter Names Famed Hacker 'Mudge' as Head of Security (reuters.com) 14

Social media giant Twitter, under increased threat of regulation and plagued by serious security breaches, is appointing one of the world's best-regarded hackers to tackle everything from engineering missteps to misinformation. From a report: The company on Monday named Peiter Zatko, widely known by his hacker handle Mudge, to the new position of head of security, giving him a broad mandate to recommend changes in structure and practices. Zatko answers to CEO Jack Dorsey and is expected to take over management of key security functions after a 45- to 60-day review. In an exclusive interview, Zatko said he will examine "information security, site integrity, physical security, platform integrity -- which starts to touch on abuse and manipulation of the platform -- and engineering." Zatko most recently oversaw security at the electronic payments unicorn Stripe. Before that, he worked on special projects at Google and oversaw handing out grants for projects on cybersecurity at the Pentagon's famed Defense Advanced Research and Projects Agency (DARPA).
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Twitter Names Famed Hacker 'Mudge' as Head of Security

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  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Monday November 16, 2020 @04:23PM (#60731520)
    Big tech will have their prez of choice in the oval office. There will be no threat to big tech.
    Big Tech used every means they had to swing the prez election to Dems and the China.
    Now the Dems will pay Big Techs invoice for services rendered.
    • maybe. but Trump would of gone nowhere on 2016 without social media being a thing. he NEEDS and relies on big tech himself, even moreso than his opposition.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Who pissed in your metamucil this morning?

    • Who paid more tax to the Communist Party of China than US Federal Taxes? Wake up sheeple.
    • Big tech will have their prez of choice in the oval office. There will be no threat to big tech.
      Big Tech used every means they had to swing the prez election to Dems and the China.
      Now the Dems will pay Big Techs invoice for services rendered.

      Facebook seems to have been doing everything possible to support the republicans while pretending they were walking a fine line between freedom of speech and censorship.

      The other big tech companies not so much.

    • Big tech will have their prez of choice in the oval office. There will be no threat to big tech.

      Yeah, the whole "Twitter is threatened by government" thing is a head scratcher, because that went straight out the window two weeks ago. Trump may have liked using Twitter, but Joe Biden and the House will protect Twitter. And Jack damn well knows it.

  • With a resume like that, it's clear that Mudge was never really a hacker in the sense that he didn't break in to places to steal data for subsequent sale. It's confusing to label someone that way when there is a stigma attached to the label. Why can't Mudge just be a security researcher or something less sinister?

    • by davecb ( 6526 )

      "Hacker" is a classic name for an experimenter, or optionally "someone who carves wooden furniture with an axe(;-))". It gets conflated with "cracker", as in "safe-cracker".

      If you're interested in the back-story, have a peek at https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebo... [kobo.com]

    • >With a resume like that, it's clear that Mudge was never really a hacker in the sense that he didn't break in to places to steal data for subsequent sale.

      You have no idea what you're talking about. Mudge was from the era where hacking for money was almost as bad as snitching. (Including the fact that lots of hackers did both and pretended not to)
      Yes Mudge used to pwn mofos and break the law all the time. I can't recall if he ever did anything serious or just played pranks but he was a hacker and mor

  • I wonder a bit how one can, in good faith, work for an organization like Twitter. The social damage caused by this platform is unlike anything else. And no "someone was bound to invent it" is not an excuse.

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