Archive for May 22, 2023

Twitter Seems To Be Restoring Deleted Tweets… WTF?

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 22, 2023 by itnerd

From the “you can’t make this stuff up department” comes news via The Verge that deleted Tweets are reappearing for reasons that people do not understand:

Earlier this year on the 8th of May I deleted all my tweets, just under 5,000 of them. I know the exact day because I tweeted about it.

This morning, though, I discovered that Twitter has restored a handful of my old re-tweets; interactions I know I scrubbed from my profile. Those re-tweets were gone. I remember surveying my bare timeline with satisfaction before thinking, “great, time to draw attention to myself.” But now they’re back. You can see them by scrolling down my timeline past May 8th, with even more appearing if you select “tweets with replies.”

And:

I’m not the only one to notice deleted tweets resurfacing recently. I only checked my timeline after seeing a post on Mastodon (via Ryan Broderick’s newsletter) in which a user complained on May 17th that 34,000 of his deleted tweets had been restored. 

“Last November I deleted all my Tweets. Every single one. I then ran Redact and deleted all my likes, my media and retweets,” tooted open-source developer Dick Morrell. “Woke up today to find 34k of them restored.by [sic] Twitter who presumably brought a server farm back up. Now re deleting. This shows why you should NOT be using Twitter, ever.”

Why is this happening? Who knows? But it is troubling as it illustrates that what gets deleted on Twitter doesn’t actually get deleted. Which means that you could be open to all sorts of trouble if you deleted Tweets on Twitter. For example a potential employer can find your Tweets where you rage Tweeted, and then deleted the Tweets once you cooled down. Or a repressive government might find Tweets that they don’t like because it doesn’t fit within their political view and expose you to danger for example.

The bottom line is this: This is bad. This illustrates how Elon Musk has seriously damaged Twitter. And it should serve as big reason for you to abandon the platform. Though you have to wonder if the platform will let you disappear based on this news.

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IPv4.Global Launches First IP Address Audit Tool

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 22, 2023 by itnerd

IPv4.Global, a division of Hilco Streambank, the largest, most trusted and transparent IPv4 marketplace in the world, today announced the release of ReView, a new, first-of-its-kind digital IP address audit tool at RIPE 86.ReView was developed in collaboration with 6connect, the authors of revolutionary provisioning and IP address management software.

Many organizations have disorganized IP address holdings and are deterred from performing a detailed inventory by the potential time and expense. ReView, a new, free audit tool from IPv4.Global, allows network operators and administrators to quickly and easily gain visibility of their IP address allocations, and more effectively manage their records. ReView allows users to easily understand how their IP addresses are allocated and assigned. 

While many companies have turned to IP address management (IPAM) software to help them manage IP address allocations in increasingly dynamic networks, a significant proportion still attempt to track their IP addresses manually. Ineffective manual management of IP addresses results in increased risk of service interruptions, creates potential security risks, and makes updates to the network more time consuming. IPv4.Global’s ReView delivers the information needed to optimize network efficiency and unlock cost savings.

With ReView, organizations can quickly gain a clear picture of their entire address holdings. In addition, a thorough address audit delivers additional financial benefits as address consolidation avoids unnecessary purchases of new addresses and often reveals hidden, unused IPv4 address blocks which can be monetized.

With well-organized IP blocks, network administrators can easily group devices with the same rules and permissions into consecutive addresses or blocks, ensuring faster network updates and reducing the likelihood of accidentally creating security risks by omitting devices from updates. Additionally, network expansion is more efficient as new addresses can be rolled out quickly and optimally. 

To perform an IP address audit using ReView, users need to sign up for a free account, download and run the app from Windows, Apple, or Linux. They then choose their preferred network discovery approach – which is performed either via a fully automatic network scan, or by importing configuration details directly to their local ReView app. The app then lists the IP blocks that are in use, allowing users to see how efficiently their IP address blocks are being consumed.

For more information: https://ipv4.global/review/

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Meta Fined $1.3 Billion By The EU For Sending EU Facebook Data To The US

Posted in Commentary with tags on May 22, 2023 by itnerd

Sometimes, I have to wonder if Meta who owns Facebook really wants to play by the rules as they seem to have the attitude that it’s only illegal if they get caught. Here’s an example of that. Apparently Meta has been shipping Facebook data that is tied to the EU to the US. The EU wasn’t thrilled about that and has lowered the boom on the company. Big time:

The European Union slapped Meta the privacy fine on Monday and ordered it to stop transferring user data across the Atlantic by October, the latest salvo in a decade-long case sparked by US cybersnooping fears. 

The penalty fine from Ireland’s Data Protection Commission  (DPC) after a three-year probe into the social media giant is the biggest since the EU’s strict data privacy regime took effect five years ago, surpassing Amazon’s $807million penalty in 2021 for data protection violations.

The DPC said that Meta had breached part of the European GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) rules in the way that it had moved data of Facebook users across borders.

It ordered Meta Ireland to ‘suspend any future transfer of personal data to the US within the period of five months’ and also levied a record fine on the business ‘to sanction the infringement that was found to have occurred’.

That fine is far from trivial. Even for Meta. And this fine clearly this got their attention based on this response from the company:

Meta, which had previously warned that services for its users in Europe could be cut off, vowed to appeal and ask courts to immediately put the decision on hold.

‘There is no immediate disruption to Facebook in Europe,’ the company said.

‘This decision is flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and US,’ Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global and affairs, and Chief Legal Officer Jennifer Newstead said in a statement.

‘We are … disappointed to have been singled out when using the same legal mechanism as thousands of other companies looking to provide services in Europe,’ the statement added. 

It continued: ‘We are pleased that the DPC also confirmed in its decision that there will be no suspension of the transfers or other action required of Meta, such as a requirement to delete EU data subjects’ data once the underlying conflict of law has been resolved.

‘No country has done more than the US to align with European rules via their latest reforms, while transfers continue largely unchallenged to countries such as China.’

That last sentence is a reference to TikTok by the way. And to make their case, Meta has put out a blog post to tell its side of the story. But here’s the core issue in my mind. Personal privacy is a human right. And Meta’s whole business model is based on the violation of users personal privacy. The company has no way to pivot away from that a they know it. Thus fines like these and demands that they change their business practices are threats to their business that they have to fight. That explains why you’re seeing such a strong response from Zuckerberg and company. And you can fully expect that if they fight back, the EU will find new and creative ways to twist the screws on Meta until they have to make a call about staying in the EU as there is zero chance that they will alter how they do business in the EU.

This will be interesting to watch.

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