Archive for June 16, 2023

Elon Musk Says Twitter Has Improved…. What Is He Smoking?

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 16, 2023 by itnerd

Elon Musk had a speech at Vivatech today. And one of the things that he said is really raising eyebrows. Francisco Jeronimo who is the VP, Data & Analytics – Devices at IDC which is a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the IT, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. He summed it up like this:

Now you can watch what he said here via YouTube, but since Elon took over Twitter, it’s been a complete train wreck next to a dumpster fire. And from what I hear, it makes people want to use Twitter less than more. I’m not sure if he’s smoking weed and drinking like he did on the Joe Rogan podcast, but it’s pretty clear that he’s not on the same page as the users of Twitter. Which means that Twitter is doomed.

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Reddit’s CEO Has Completely Lost The Plot

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 16, 2023 by itnerd

Steve Huffman who is the CEO of Reddit had an interview with The Verge. And it went as well as you’d expect. Which is badly. In the interview, he said this:

We offer the API so the vast majority of our use of the uses of the API — so not these, the other 98 percent of them that make tools, bots, enhancements for Reddit — that’s what the API is for.

It was never designed to support third-party apps. We let it exist. And I should take the blame for that, because I was the guy arguing for that for a long time. But I didn’t know — and this is my fault — the extent that they were profiting off of our API. That these were not charities. 

The ones that actually are doing good for our users — RedReader, Dystopia, Luna — like actually adding real value at their own cost? We’ve exempted. We’ll carry that cost.

Huffman “didn’t know” what was going on? Um, he’s the CEO, he’s supposed to know. That’s either a dodge or he’s asleep at the switch. That’s eye opening either way.

But there’s also this:

I want to stop you for a second there. So you’re saying that Apollo, RIF, Sync, they don’t add value to Reddit?

Not as much as they take. No way.

Um, let me point out something here. The native Reddit app sucks. And I don’t mean it kind of sucks, or it sort of sucks. I mean that it is really, REALLY BAD. Third party apps for Reddit are, or were orders of magnitude better than the native Reddit app. Maybe he should go do something about that because those apps were likely a factor when it came to people being on Reddit. Without them, the willingness for people to be on Reddit drops.

But it also seems that Reddit is going to force subreddits that have been dark back online.

This guy is one of the moderators of the r/Apple subreddit, and according to him, Reddit is threatening to remove moderators of subreddits that are blacking out indefinitely. Excuse my French here, but that’s a dick move by Reddit and illustrates that this protest is likely hurting them more than they are letting on.

At the end of the day, this will be a case study of how to anger the users who generate the content on which your platform is built on, with the net result of the platform imploding. That’s what Huffman is doing here. The question is, will he get a clue and change course in time to save Reddit before the users that he needs to generate content that encourages people to visit the platform leave for other places and put a bullet in his plans to have the platform generate income?

UPDATE: According to AppleInsider, the r/Apple subreddit has reopened under duress because of the threats made by Reddit. Like I said earlier, this is a dick move by Reddit.

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All federal agencies must secure Internet-exposed devices: CISA

Posted in Commentary with tags on June 16, 2023 by itnerd

In its first binding operational directive (BOD) of the year, CISA is giving federal civilian agencies just 14 days (from discovery) to lock down Internet exposed network devices. Binding Operational Directive 23-02. The directive applies to all network devices with Internet exposed management interfaces such as routers, firewalls, proxies, and load balancers that grant users admin access to the network. 

CISA said it will be conducting scans to identify devices that fall under the BOD scope and notify agencies of their findings.

“Agencies must be prepared to remove identified networked management interfaces from exposure to the internet or protect them with Zero-Trust capabilities that implement a policy enforcement point separate from the interface itself,” they added.

Neal Dennis, Threat Intelligence Specialist, Cyware had this to say:

   “Controlling your exposure to the internet is critical to any security posture, the more devices directly accessible, the more chances for threat actors to do their thing. Adopting a Zero Trust methodology is a solid option, one that could limit both security concerns directly to the exposed device as well as accesses to connected systems should that device be compromised. A solid Zero Trust approach does not solve all security problems, but it definitely helps limit impact should a breach occur.

  “I view this as a very impactful move by CISA and shows they are taking their role seriously. All organizations, public and private, should strive to limit their publicly accessible internet footprint. Less exposure equals less targets for threat actors which equals less devices you need to monitor for initial incursions, giving you more resources to hopefully monitor critical assets.”

It’s good to see that the CISA is taking this seriously. And it would be in your interest to do the same thing if your company, or you at home have devices exposed to the Internet as threat actors will pwn anything if given the chance.

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