Comment by tobyjsullivan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tobyjsullivan | Hacker News Reader

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Update: Some of my assumptions here are wrong. As a commenter noted, Okta had posted a PR-response about the breach a few days before the tweets. The termination was specifically about posting confidential documents which detail the hack, not exposing the breach generally. I'll leave the original post in tact for posterity:

Exactly this. I see multiple [moral] failings here and none are from the author.

Okta, a security company, was breached. Rather than getting ahead of it, admitting their failures and committing to be better, they are actively trying to cover it up.

Zoom, a company with a reputation for misrepresenting their own security, has gotten into bed with Okta. Apparently their values align so that’s making more sense now.

One of zoom’s employees tweeted about some documents which he found in the wild. Zoom decided the best next move was to be an active participant in Okta’s cover up.

Rather than support their employee, they fired him. And now, as anyone could predict, we’re seeing the Streisand effect in action.

But all of this seems to be based on a false premise. Okta had already, before the tweet (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/okta-we-made-...) provided a detailed timeline of their failure and admitted to serious mistakes in handling it.

Wow, they buried their acknowledgement of mistake so deep. A decent thing to do would have been to update the blog post (https://www.okta.com/blog/2022/03/oktas-investigation-of-the...).

Zoom asked him to delete the tweets instead of immediately firing him. He had his opportunity and chose termination.

So keep the cover up or you get fired? Yep that’s in the best public interest and the best moral stance.

Or... release the documents to journalists, anonymously. Then the public interest is served and you get to keep your job (if you still want it).

Many journalists, particularly tech journalists are compromised and not really journalists but more mouthpieces / advertisers.

Snowden tried to give the big papers his story but none but the Guardian would actually print it first. The big papers had to follow suit once it was out though, or it would be obvious they were compromised on this particular issue.

Okay, what's the alternative then?

"everybody can leak whatever they want"?

"everybody can leak whatever they want, but we leave it to the court of public opinion to decide the leaker should be punished or not"?

> Exactly this. I see multiple [moral] failings here and none are from the author.

Just because it's not a "[moral] failing", doesn't mean it's smart to be a martyr.

A martyr is someone who is killed because of their beliefs - it is the ultimate sacrifice.

I don't know the author but I'm going to guess he's not a martyr. He will get another job by the end of the week if he wants and I'm sure he knew that going in. The cost of getting fired was probably very low.

He was presented with an ultimatum: hold your high ground or keep your job.

It's precisely because of the low cost of losing his job that he was able to hold the high ground. It won't be the same for everyone. For every person who can afford to stand their ground, there's someone else who can't - someone else who has to sacrifice their own values to keep their medical benefits. And that's why we celebrate and hold up the people who can hold their ground - because they represent everyone who can't.

This isn't a pity party for the author. He never asked for pity. I read his post as surprise at how low Zoom would go.

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