computer science

Saudi infiltration of Twitter

Saudi infiltration of Twitter is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Saudi infiltration of Twitter rather than just read about it. In short: In 2014 and 2015, a team of Saudi agents allegedly stole proprietary and sensitive personal data from the American social media platform Twitter, in order to unmask anonymous dissidents of Saudi Arabia. Email addresses, phone numbers, internet IP addresses, dates of birth and a history of all the users' activity of Saudi dissidents, opponents and others, were among the stolen materials.

Key takeaways

Saudi infiltration of Twitter belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Saudi infiltration of Twitter to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Saudi infiltration of Twitter from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

In 2014 and 2015, a team of Saudi agents allegedly stole proprietary and sensitive personal data from the American social media platform Twitter, in order to unmask anonymous dissidents of Saudi Arabia. Email addresses, phone numbers, internet IP addresses, dates of birth and a history of all the users' activity of Saudi dissidents, opponents and others, were among the stolen materials. The United States Department of Justice charged two former Twitter workers and a Saudi intermediary with "acting as illegal agents of Saudi Arabia". Personal data of at least 6,000 Twitter accounts was acquired, according to the complaint. Human rights groups ANHRI and Prisoners of Conscience have observed that some anonymous Saudi political activists on Twitter were identified and detained after the infiltration, and suspect that it is related. A Saudi scholar in exile in the United States sued Twitter, alleging that dozens of anonymous political activists he was in contact with have died, were tortured, or remain behind bars as a result of being found to have a connection to him.

Background With roughly 10 million Twitter users, Saudi Arabia is the service's top Arab market. Not requiring use of real names further made Twitter a leading platform for political dissent in the country. Saud al-Qahtani, one of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman's top confidants at the time, posted a warning against masked Twitter accounts using his own verified Twitter account in August 2017. Asserting that governments can know the true names of those using Twitter anonymously, he brought up "technical methods" for tracing a person's IP addresses, as well as a "secret I'm not going to reveal." Twitter permanently banned al-Qahtani's account in September 2019, claiming "violations of our platform manipulation policies."

Incident

Perpetrators Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi national, and Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen, were the two former Twitter employees that funneled the data, the complaint asserts. Another Saudi national, Ahmed Almutairi, also known as Ahmed Aljbreen, worked as a middleman between Alzabarah, Abouammo, and representatives of the Saudi Royal Family. Almutairi is known for co-founding SMAAT, a Riyadh social-marketing firm that is controlled by the royal family and had a history of running political and commercial influence operations. Bader al-Asaker, a Saudi official who heads the private office of Prince Mohammed and is a board member of Misk Foundation, a philanthropic organization affiliated with MBS, was also involved in the conspiracy, according to the complaint.

Timeline Ali Alzabarah joined Twitter as a site reliability engineer in August 2013. Being involved in keeping the site up, he was given broad access. In November 2013, Abouammo, who joined the firm as a member of Twitter's global media team to head the Middle East partnerships, met Alzabarah there. In 2014, Abouammo was asked to authenticate an account belonging to a Saudi news personality by a public relations agency representing the Saudi Embassy. This request for a blue checkmark was followed by a request from a US-Saudi business group in Virginia to visit Twitter's headquarters. Bader al-Asaker was to be part of the visit, which was nominally for entrepreneurs. On June 13, 2014, al-Asaker traveled to San Francisco to meet Abouammo. Months later, Abouammo met al-Asaker in 2014 in London, where he was given a $20,000 watch. A week after returning to Twitter's headquarters, Abouammo accessed the system he used to verify users and obtained information about at least two Saudi dissidents, later passing the data to al-Asaker. That system, according to insiders who have used it, retains information such as email addresses, phone numbers and the latest log-in time – personal information usable to track a user in real life. In February 2015, Abouammo got his operators in touch with Alzabarah. Alzabarah's ambitions were straightforward: he wanted to work in a high-ranking job for a "charitable organization run by al-Asaker." In May 2015, and within the first week of arriving in San Francisco from Washington, D.C. where he met with al-Asaker, Alzabarah "began to access without authorization private data of Twitter users en masse." Over 6,000 users were compromised in six months, according to the FBI. 33 of those users, the Saudi government has already requested Twitter to provide their personal information through emergency disclosure demands. Later in 2015, Abouammo departed Twitter for a position at Amazon in Seattle. Over the next two years, well over $300,000 in bank transfers were made from al-Asaker to Abouammo's various bank accounts. On December 2, 2015, Alzabarah reportedly acknowledged to his superiors that he examined user data out of curiosity. His work-owned laptop was taken, and he was removed from the office. He returned to Saudi Arabia the next day after communicating that night with al-Asaker and then Dr. Faisal Al Sudairi, the Saudi consul general in Los Angeles. Alzabarah has not been seen since, according to authorities. After arrival in Saudi Arabia, Alzabarah became the CEO of the Misk Initiatives Center, a branch of Mohammed bin Salman's Misk Foundation, which he created in 2011 and whose secretary-general was al-Asaker. On October 20, 2018, FBI agents in Seattle questioned Abouammo about his efforts on behalf of Saudi officials. In an attempt to hinder the inquiry, Abouammo purportedly lied to the investigators and supplied them with a forged invoice. On November 5, 2019, as part of the complaint, federal warrants for both Ali Alzabarah and Almutairi were issued. Both were accused of operating as undeclared agents of a foreign government. On the same day, Abouammo was apprehended in Seattle, WA, and had his first federal court appearance in Seattle on November 6, 2019. On February 24, 2021, a federal judge rejected a request to dismiss charges against Abouammo. In August 2022, Abouammo was found guilty of acting as a foreign agent without notice to the Attorney General, conspiracy, wire fraud, international money laundering, and falsification of records in a federal investigation. On December 14, 2022 he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Reaction

Twitter response On the condition of anonymity, a business representative of Twitter told The Washington Post in 2019 that access to the instrument panel is now restricted to a small group of "trained and vetted" workers, citing worries about staff safety.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Saudi infiltration of Twitter

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Saudi infiltration of Twitter claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Saudi infiltration of Twitter before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Saudi infiltration of Twitter ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Saudi infiltration of Twitter

In research: Saudi infiltration of Twitter appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Saudi infiltration of Twitter in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Saudi infiltration of Twitter is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Controversies in Saudi Arabia, Criticisms of software and websites, Human rights in Saudi Arabia, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Saudi infiltration of Twitter outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Saudi infiltration of Twitter in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Saudi infiltration of Twitter means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Saudi infiltration of Twitter out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Saudi infiltration of Twitter in simple terms?

Why does Saudi infiltration of Twitter matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Saudi infiltration of Twitter?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Saudi infiltration of Twitter.