Twitter engineers can still use 'GodMode' to tweet as any account, claims whistleblower
The new complaint says they could also delete and undelete tweets.
Twitter has a new whistleblower, as another former employee has sounded the alarm about security issues, according to The Washington Post. The new complainant, who has spoken with Congress and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), says any Twitter engineer still has access to an internal program â formerly called âGodModeâ â that lets them tweet from any account.
The whistleblowerâs complaint alleges GodMode (now renamed to âprivileged modeâ) remains on the laptop of any engineer who wants it, requiring only a production computer and a simple code change from âFALSEâ to âTRUE.â Screenshots of the code, included in an October complaint filed with the FTC, show a warning to anyone attempting to use it: âTHINK BEFORE YOU DO THIS.â
This isn't the first time Twitter security has drawn scrutiny. In 2020, teenage crypto scammers hacked the companyâs internal systems, sending fake tweets from the accounts of President Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Musk and others. Twitterâs at-the-time executives said they had fixed the issue and launched a âcomprehensive information security program that is reasonably designed to protect the security, privacy, confidentiality, and integrity of nonpublic consumer information.â
However, Twitterâs first whistleblower, Peiter Zatko, disputed that. Another engineer claimed at the time that GodMode was still widely available.
The new complainantâs filing says the incident led to Twitter reopening the case, which sparked the discovery that engineers could also delete or restore anyoneâs tweets. (Regular Twitter users can't do either.) He also claims Twitter canât log who, if anyone, uses or abuses any of the special privileges.
The new whistleblowerâs complaint was filed by Whistleblower Aid, the same nonprofit firm representing Zatko. The FTC is reportedly interviewing former Twitter employees about the allegations.