### Issue 1678 - Wednesday 24th August, 2022

## In Today's Issue

- Former Twitter security boss blows whistle on company's awful security practices
- Oracle's boasting of a 5 billion person advertising dossier collection subject to a class action
- Instagram tests "candid challenges", ripping off latest social media rookie star, BeReal
- Results of IEEE Spectrum's 2022 top programming language and Stack Overflow's 2022 developer survey are in
- Cheap Monkey Island, Disco Elysium, Sony bluetooth speakers

## The News

### Former Twitter security boss blows whistle on company's awful security practices

CNN and The Washington Post have received documents from whistleblower Peiter "Mudge" Zatko claiming that Twitter is an absolute security shitshow. The allegations include "too many of its staff [have] access to the platform's central controls and most sensitive information without adequate oversight", "senior-most executives have been trying to cover up Twitter's serious vulnerabilities", "one or more current employees may be working for a foreign intelligence service", "does not reliably delete users' data after they cancel their accounts" and "executives don't have the resources to fully understand the true number of bots on the platform, and were not motivated to". Big oof.

### Oracle's boasting of a 5 billion person advertising dossier collection subject to a class action

A huge class action lawsuit has been filed in California against Oracle. The plaintiffs are "acting on behalf of worldwide Internet users who have been subject to Oracle's privacy violations". Oracle proudly claims they have "detailed dossiers on 5 billion people" with data like "names, home addresses, emails, purchases online and in the real world, physical movements in the real world, income, interests and political views, and a detailed account of online activity". The plaintiffs argue this ginmorous database violates a shitload of US and Californian privacy laws. Strap yourselves in, this is gonna be a long one.

### Instagram tests "candid challenges", ripping off latest social media rookie star, BeReal

BeReal is the latest social media app that could end up as the next TikTok or fizzle out like Clubhouse. 10 years ago Meta would have simply purchased BeReal for a lazy $50m, made BeReal's founders rich, absorbed this feature into the main app and shut down a competitor. But with governments around the world wise to these anti-competitive antics, Meta has to clone features instead. Today Instagram is testing a new feature called IG Candid Challenges. Instagram users participating in Candid Challenges "will receive a notification at a different time each day to snap a photo of their surroundings" - just like BeReal, but with the benefit of your existing Instagram audience. The network effect in action.

## Something I Saw On The Internet

### Results of IEEE Spectrum's 2022 top programming language and Stack Overflow's 2022 developer survey are in

IEEE Spectrum has published their 9th annual "top programming languages" for 2022. They went through a shitload of sources like job ads, social media, journal articles, GitHub and more, ran the data through some stats stuff and found that Python is the most popular language overall (if you consider C, C# and C++ as separate langugages), but SQL is the most in demand from employers. Employers want programmers that not only know how to code, but know how to use a database too. Time to polish those SQL skills! If you found the IEEE's stuff interesting, you'll find Stack Overflow's 2022 survey on the wider programming industry (salary, conditions, etc) interesting too.

## Bargains

- Monkey Island Collection for PC - $7.32 on Steam
- Sony XB33 or XB43 Bluetooth speakers - $194/$259 from The Good Guys
- Disco Elysium for PC - $19.99 from GOG

## The End

📻 They Come to Get Us - The Death Set

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The Sizzle is created on Wathaurong land and acknowledges the traditional owners of country throughout Australia, recognising their continuing connection to land, water and community. I pay my respect to them and their cultures and to elders both past and present.