Toni Dimaano Tech 01.24.2023 21:Jan PM EST

Whistleblower Claims Twitter Violates FTC Security Regulations As Engineers Still Use 'GodMode'

A new Twitter whistleblower has come forward, confirming the startling evidence from last year about the appalling status of the company's privacy protections.

The whistleblower has been claiming that, under the ownership of Elon Musk, Twitter continues to break the Fair Trade Commission's Regulation as per a Bloomberg report.

Twitter's 'GodMode' Is The Center Of Complaints

The new complainant claims that any Twitter engineer still has access to an internal tool, formerly known as "GodMode," that allows them to tweet from any account.

According to the whistleblower's complaint, GodMode, now known as "privileged mode," is still available on any engineer's laptop simply by using a production machine and a quick code update from "FALSE" to "TRUE."

Screenshots of the code show a warning to anyone attempting to use it: "THINK BEFORE YOU DO THIS," according to a complaint submitted to the FTC in October.

In addition to the fact that any developer can make this modification themself, the whistleblower said that Twitter security staff has no means of knowing who made it, 9to5 Mac details.

Ella Irwin, the organization's current head of trust and safety, did not reply to an email requesting comment on the fresh allegations.

A tweet asking for feedback also received no response from Parag Agrawal, the CEO for a year before Musk dismissed him in October.

After an incident in 2020 where adolescents broke into Twitter's internal systems and tweeted as Elon Musk, Barack Obama, and others, worries about the platform's security skyrocketed.

At the time, Twitter management said that the problem had been resolved and that a thorough information security program had been put in place to safeguard nonpublic customer data's security, privacy, confidentiality, and integrity.

"After the 2020 hack in which teenagers were able to tweet as any account, Twitter publicly stated that the problems were fixed," the complaint says.

"However, the existence of GodMode is one more example that Twitter's public statements to users and investors were false and/or misleading," it adds.

A Previous Whistleblower Disputed Twitter's Security Claims As Well

After meeting with the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the FTC earlier, the whistleblower spoke with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday.

The whistleblower claimed that Peiter Zatko's testimony from last year, the former head of Twitter security whose broad allegations, inspired him to come forward.

According to Bloomberg, poor access restrictions, according to Zatko, were only one of many ways Twitter broke the terms of its 2011 FTC consent decree, which came after serious violations.

A third engineer who is still employed by the firm informed Twitter security administrators that a program for tweeting as others was still freely available.

He also said that he had attempted to get it restricted or shut down years earlier when Zatko testified in Congress that no such scheme was in place.

According to the new complaint, the occurrence prompted Twitter to reopen the situation, which led to the realization that engineers could likewise remove or restore anyone's tweets.

The nonprofit organization Whistleblower Aid, which also represents Zatko, filed the latest whistleblower's case.

Engadget writes that former Twitter employees are reportedly being questioned by the FTC on the accusations at the moment.