Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • November 17, 2022 8:13 PM

@ Frank B., AlanS, ALL,

Re : Inside the Chief Twits head

Remember they are also a speed freak who has left the wheelhouse…

Nobody has a clue about direction or destination only that they will get there way faster than is safe.

Some of the “hold rats” have been offered a deal to “jump ship” so the Chief can get more speed.

Arguably it might be the best offer of their life such as it is currently. As for the passengers, well mostly they are along for the white finger ride, as they have a death grip on the deck rails and rigging with a prayer on their lips or fervent hope that singing “Rock of Ages” will be the only rock they come into contact with…

Clive Robinson • November 18, 2022 11:22 AM

@ Ismar, ALL,

Re : Growing Pains.

“yet, here we are using the same infrastructure more then ever (including this blog) and managing to move forward which should make us think about our biases in this regard”

Actually are very far from using the same infraatructure, when did you last see a real acoustic modem and RE232 port in use on analog land lines?

What has happened was originally we did not actually have the technical resources to run things in a properly designed way. Thus the protocols and standards were bereft of nearly every security feature we now consider critical to privacy.

Over time as hardware resources have improved two things have happened,

1, Massive increase in user features
2, Minimal to no increase in security.

It was only when “public shaming” became common and corporate lawyers told the C-suits “using legislation against free speach will cost more than cleaning your code up” that things started to change.

But there are still two problems,

1, Managment driven by marketing only want to move forward as fast as possible on features.

2, Coders can not keep up and managment don’t have time for testing. Thus organisations leave increasing technical debt behind.

That technical debt if you know about it properly can keep you “job safe” as other people have to come to you. In some coubtries –Japan and South Korea to my certain knowledge– there is an implicit culture of keeping information to yourself as it gives you power. For those old enough to have braved Microsoft’s MFC thirty years ago[1] you will know the problem as it was so awful that many coders invested so much of their own personal time in it they wanted “pay back” so they too kept details secret, thus gained power and as they thought job security.

The thing is that there is a joke about the rush to get code out the door as fast as possible “because the techbical debt tsunani is pushing it”

People are expressing “shock horror” at the moment about Twitter’s dirty secrets coming out. The fact is it should not shock anyone who’s had experience of certain types of large “investor driven Corps”

The trick for sebior managers is to hide it as much as possible grab their share options and get the heck out of dodge before the Tsunami does catch up.

I’ve said this about managment with “big projects” being used to “jump up” the corporate ladder. You promise miracles pull in the resources and just as the actual workers realise it’s a dog, the manager jumps ship to a new company. By the time new gets out about what a disaster the project was, that manager is two or three jobs ahead.

They have a fail safe argument strategy if asked… If the project is a success then obviously it was due to the managers vision and foundation work. If not it was due to the failings of those who followed not following the vision or correctly building on the foundations.

Start-up founders play a similar game as do the venture capitalists that back them. They build it up slap lipstick on it and keep selling and selling it as the investment money pours in. They then find an idiot to buy them out and walk away with not just enough money to live very comfortably for the rest of their life, but play the same game over and over, getting slicker with each turn of the wheel.

The result is that Tsunami of technical debt and impossible to secure features turns into an industry wide bubble. The thing about bubbles is they have two fates,

1, They burst and everyone still in takes a bath.
2, Some actually in it to build a furure do what they can to gently deflate the bubble.

Which happens depends on the managers and vebture capitalists assisted by the stupidity of certain types of investors.

The result though as we are seeing is the Techs either get no credit or carry all the blaim… Either way they are “out the door” unless they have “secret power” that makes them “to important to push” out the door or under the bus…

So yeh we’ve lots of problems and we are still not solving them. This current social media bubble was well on the way to bursting befor Elon Musk got what most consider “A fit of the crazies”.

The thing is history shows that all new tech from vlack tulips through digging cannals onwards through steam, railways, telegraphs, telephones, power generation, radio system etc even cryptography and more recently “crypto-coins” and the blockchain have had investor bubbles, often upto three in succession untill either the market splits into other markets or some level of stability is achieved even if it is zero further market.

All that realy matters is that you are aware of it and you get your timing right so you don’t get the cold bath…

[1] But all things come to pass and the MFC of thirty years ago is now but a memory to the few and a “campfire story” for most. But though less used MFC is still with us and the latest update was oh nine days ago… And yes people still keep secrets about it…

Clive Robinson • November 19, 2022 8:19 PM

@ lurker, SpaceLifeForm, ALL,

Re : Implosion crater.

Read what has been said on Empty Wheel carefully.

With regards,

“If as EW reports the whole of payroll and taxes is MIA”

Not so much MIA but “locked out”

Piecing things together,

1, A lot of staff have been terminated.
2, Some have been called back.
3, Some are “home working”
4, The office is locked but somebody left the lights on.

It’s important to note the last two. As I understand it the “support staff” like cleaning got terminated(1), necessitating the office to be closed(4) hence some admin staff are working from home(3).

Whilst this will show immediate savings on “pay role” which will please investors and similar, it will create confusion and thus slow things down as well as being more costly in the long term, but that’s not “this quaters” worry.

Elmo has to make this quaters figures look “magic” and I suspect they will indeed look interesting.

However whilst investors are the immediate issue falling add revenue is the real concern. I think atleast six of the biggest advertisers have publicly said they have put a temporary hold on Twitter advertising. There is no way that can not hurt, but that won’t come through untill next quaters figures.

That gives Elmo a three month window to try and get the advertisers back on line.

He has way to many “balls in the air” and some will inevitably have to get dropped. The question is which will bounce and which will splat if only those that will bounce get dropped then they can still be caught at a later time.

One thing Elmo can do is digg out dirt on previous office holders and use it to show regulators that they had to go.

It’s acceptable to turn bad apples out of a barrel, even if it makes the barrel come up well short. The view point being half a barrel of good apples is better than an entire barrel of rotten apples.

This show is probably far from over, and there are so many snakes involved that the twists and turns are going to be a great many.

When you get to play games at this level it’s all about showmanship and presentation and talking your way ahead of others so the legal and other teams can have time to back stop your play.

Whilst there are a lot of rats in the bag, the cats in there with them are more intent on fighting each other. If I was in that bag, I’d be looking not just for a quick way out, but by a route the cats can not follow.

I suspect that Twitter 2.0 can not arise from any current staff, because of either “non compete” or other clauses in their contracts. Most will be constrained by the legal notion that any ideas they have over the next couple of years will be because of what they learned at Twitter, thus legaly belongs to Twitter. Future employers will be mindfull of this because of what has happened in the “self-drive” area.