Pinky Swear

It’s that time of the week where I look at what’s happening in the security world and I tell you what’s interesting.

First up, I can’t believe I’m mentioning Pinkerton for a second time in this blog space. It’s kind of like seeing living dinosaurs, only for a second time now and they’re wearing people clothes. That is what I’m going to do, however, because the old once upon a time detective agency turned protection racket and corporate spies are reapplying for their right to operate as a security service in Denver. Their license lapsed in the city while the company was fighting a lawsuit from 2020 where a subcontractor for the company shot and killed a protestor after being hired as security for journalists covering the protest.

I don’t know that everything that the agency gets up to ends with one or more people dead, but there does seem to be an established pattern. It’s in the hands of the city to grant the license to them again at this point. All they need to do is be in compliance, oh, and not be in violation of a city code that states their character and reputation cannot, “…show a pattern of conduct or personal history that does not demonstrate honesty, fairness, and respect for the rights of others or for the law.”

Uh, good luck with that one, guys, don’t give them a history book to review.

Also in the news, Twitter still out of its cage and in the doghouse. I’d say the bird has been in a bad way since the Musk takeover, but really evidence provided by whistleblowers has painted the platform as a lawless insecure wild west show complete with foreign agents and a “GodMode” tool that allows anyone with access to tweet as any account.

In 2020 a group of teenagers used it to tweet as Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and several others. Well a new complaint says they have, in fact, not fixed that particular security concern. In addition to being in violation of FTC legal obligations, the tool is apparently available to any engineer that can lay hands on it, and Twitter doesn’t have the capability to log what engineers, if any, are using the program.

Maybe Twitter can use some sort of honor system, “Please don’t put words in the mouths of public figures and delete tweets,” or maybe some kind of unbreakable vow.

Or maybe don’t leave the keys to the kingdom laying around like a cartoon pie on a windowsill.