Scrutable

Linette Lopez
@lopezlinette
How do I know so much about how
@elonmusk
does things? I spent 3 years investigating Tesla at
@BusinessInsider
from 2018-2021. Here are some of sloppy, dangerous, callous, things I learned

lpm wrote: Mon Nov 07, 2022 2:36 pm

bjn wrote: Mon Nov 07, 2022 1:43 pm From what I understand you can just buy a blue tick without having to prove your identity. Which is rather going against the original purpose.

But you need a credit card.

So it depends if twitter lets you use a credit card in the name Hillary Clinton to buy racistDonaldTrump. Or if you can only buy a name that matches your credit card name.

lpm wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 11:27 pm Lol, a hell of a lot of people are paying $8 for an evening of entertainment. Fake a famous ID, play it for laughs, eventually get banned by twitter.

The next stage will be to pay $8 for a quick scam. Crash a stock, pump a stock, raid a bitcoin wallet.

As I said before, it depends on what twitter choose. And they've chosen to allow someone with a credit card in the name Hillary Clinton to register a variant of the name Donald Trump. Unbelievably stupid.

lpm wrote: Mon Nov 07, 2022 2:36 pm

bjn wrote: Mon Nov 07, 2022 1:43 pm From what I understand you can just buy a blue tick without having to prove your identity. Which is rather going against the original purpose.

But you need a credit card.

So it depends if twitter lets you use a credit card in the name Hillary Clinton to buy racistDonaldTrump. Or if you can only buy a name that matches your credit card name.

lpm wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 10:47 am The way to profit from this is to establish fake entities of a group of trusted people. For example, all Telegraph journalists.

"Fraser Nelson" then posts that the Barclay Brothers are launching a bitcoin investment fund and for one hour only are giving free bitcoin to all Telegraph readers and supporters. "Allison Pearson" then endorses the message. The entire group talk about it, support it, cross-post. Get a bunch of stooge accounts to describe how they've taken up the offer and they're now rich. A few suckers be caught.

For $800 you could make this look plausible. Twitter deletes the fake accounts but the scam will over hours or even days by that time.

Or if you don't want money, make it political. On election day all those Telegraph journalists suddenly start posting that Keir Starmer has been arrested for sexual assault.

lpm wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:53 am Twitter troll farms are a mature industry - if scammers can't orchestra the retweets (and push the scam into Facebook, Instagram etc) then they don't deserve the ill-gotten gains.

I think normal people, plus Elon Musk, don't appreciate how much work organised crime is prepared to do. Like magicians - will do enormous preparation to accomplish a minor trick and onlookers are fooled because they can't conceive of all this effort as being the explanation.

Woodchopper wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:23 pm

lpm wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:53 am Twitter troll farms are a mature industry - if scammers can't orchestra the retweets (and push the scam into Facebook, Instagram etc) then they don't deserve the ill-gotten gains.

I think normal people, plus Elon Musk, don't appreciate how much work organised crime is prepared to do. Like magicians - will do enormous preparation to accomplish a minor trick and onlookers are fooled because they can't conceive of all this effort as being the explanation.

Certainly, it would be worth it to, say, spend $200 to pay five Bangladeshis to spend all day making a few thousand fake accounts. Most of it can be automated. Then use those accounts to scam 100 people out of $10 each.

dyqik wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 10:10 pm This is interesting...

https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/159 ... qjH2g&s=19

Twitter is under a consent decree with the FTC about the consumer information security of its new product offerings.

Facebook got fined $5 billion for violating a sort of similar decree.

dyqik wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:49 pm

dyqik wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 10:10 pm This is interesting...

https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/159 ... qjH2g&s=19

Twitter is under a consent decree with the FTC about the consumer information security of its new product offerings.

Facebook got fined $5 billion for violating a sort of similar decree.

And it looks like Elmu has decided to play chicken with the FTC, and is actively trying to shift the blame to the engineers who did his bidding.

https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1 ... ee1fLvG49A

Casey Newton
@CaseyNewton
According to messages shared in Twitter Slack, Twitter’s CISO, chief privacy office, and chief compliance officer all resigned last night.

An employee says it will be up to engineers to “self-certify compliance with FTC requirements and other laws.”
3:13 PM · Nov 10, 2022
·Twitter for Mac

jimbob wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:56 pm

dyqik wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:49 pm

dyqik wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 10:10 pm This is interesting...

https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/159 ... qjH2g&s=19

Twitter is under a consent decree with the FTC about the consumer information security of its new product offerings.

Facebook got fined $5 billion for violating a sort of similar decree.

And it looks like Elmu has decided to play chicken with the FTC, and is actively trying to shift the blame to the engineers who did his bidding.

https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1 ... ee1fLvG49A

https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/ ... 2nBz3qdJkg

Casey Newton
@CaseyNewton
According to messages shared in Twitter Slack, Twitter’s CISO, chief privacy office, and chief compliance officer all resigned last night.

An employee says it will be up to engineers to “self-certify compliance with FTC requirements and other laws.”
3:13 PM · Nov 10, 2022
·Twitter for Mac

jimbob wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:56 pm

dyqik wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:49 pm

dyqik wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 10:10 pm This is interesting...

https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/159 ... qjH2g&s=19

Twitter is under a consent decree with the FTC about the consumer information security of its new product offerings.

Facebook got fined $5 billion for violating a sort of similar decree.

And it looks like Elmu has decided to play chicken with the FTC, and is actively trying to shift the blame to the engineers who did his bidding.

https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1 ... ee1fLvG49A

https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/ ... 2nBz3qdJkg

Casey Newton
@CaseyNewton
According to messages shared in Twitter Slack, Twitter’s CISO, chief privacy office, and chief compliance officer all resigned last night.

An employee says it will be up to engineers to “self-certify compliance with FTC requirements and other laws.”
3:13 PM · Nov 10, 2022
·Twitter for Mac

bjn wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:16 pm

jimbob wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:56 pm

dyqik wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 5:49 pm

And it looks like Elmu has decided to play chicken with the FTC, and is actively trying to shift the blame to the engineers who did his bidding.

https://twitter.com/alexeheath/status/1 ... ee1fLvG49A

https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/ ... 2nBz3qdJkg

Casey Newton
@CaseyNewton
According to messages shared in Twitter Slack, Twitter’s CISO, chief privacy office, and chief compliance officer all resigned last night.

An employee says it will be up to engineers to “self-certify compliance with FTC requirements and other laws.”
3:13 PM · Nov 10, 2022
·Twitter for Mac

As a software engineer, if I was told that, and my company didn't guarantee me against all and any consequences if I f.cked up something I'm not expert in, I'd definitely walk. And even if they did, I'd be looking for new a job ASAP.

bjn wrote: Thu Nov 10, 2022 9:04 pm In which case I’d go for constructive dismissal.