Tech

Spread the secrets of Silicon Valley, one tweet at a time


This is not Wong’s work. In fact, she describes reverse engineering code as her hobby. “I just wanted to dig into the apps and see how they are structured,” she said from her home in Hong Kong, where she lives with her family. She’s not a hacker; All the data from which she obtains her information is public. She looks like the computer science version of Gossip Girl.

Wong’s Twitter feed is a near-daily news factory, but she insists that nothing she posts is a leak. “Leaks mean they are based on information coming from employees, of which employees are the source,” she said. “But I use publicly available data and code. They do not leak. “

Wong has built a reputation for being always right. Journalists cite her work in articles, noting her achievements. “Initially, people would ask, ‘Who is she? How did she get this information? ‘”She speaks. “But I built trust over time. You must prove your information is valid”.

It got to the point where companies created Easter eggs for her to find. Newton says many people gave up trying to hide their code and simply played along. “There have even been cases where developers put a ‘Hello, Jane’ message in their code,” he said. “They knew she was coming.”

Wong’s work brings attention to companies’ overlooked research and development departments, which could be a PR win. The programmers at Meta loved her so much that they formed an internal Jane Manchun Wong fan club, which included its member Andrew Bosworth, the company’s CTO. A spokesperson for Meta said: “We appreciate her contributions and feedback to help improve our product.

But even if they know she’s coming, that doesn’t mean they always welcome her. VFX and surprise are key to maintaining the aura around a technology launch or feature reveal — and Wong unearths these secrets, breaking through carefully constructed walls. of technology companies. With just one tweet, she will effectively destroy any buildup or narrative they have about a feature.

In fact, this is exactly why, Wong says, she tweets out features before they go public. For her, secrecy and the ensuing hype mattered. Applications used by people; Shouldn’t those people know what updates and products are being worked on behind the scenes?

It’s not hard to imagine that companies might be upset about a social media celebrity disgruntledly revealing their secrets on Twitter. And as a 20-year-old Asian woman who posts a steady stream of rumors about tech companies on Twitter, Wong is a prime target for the kind of harassment and trolling that can make even humans angry. “I wish more people recognized me as a person,” she said. “I’m not just a machine.”

It was a controversial move and had a profound effect on her. Several times over the years, she tweeted about being depressed and feeling that people hated her. She has been open about her mental health struggles and says she continues to face depression.

And though Wong describes what she does as a hobby, it can sometimes be more of an obsession: she used to spend nearly 18 hours a day coding and checking out companies that are doing business. find out. She sacrificed her sleep and health, sometimes locking herself at home for days when the harassment became too much. A few times, she went as far as to threaten suicide after being mocked online. She left the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, with only a few months left of graduation due to medical problems, which she regrets.

Is it all worth it? Wong believes it does, saying she’s noticed that companies are being more transparent about what they’re doing these days. “And if they’ve done it before, I wouldn’t have to do this,” she said.

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Over the course of the pandemic, Wong has adjusted and re-evaluated his schedule. She’s still a night owl, but she’s starting to find her balance. She went hiking on the outskirts of the city, and she found refuge at a local cafe nestled in a nearby church.

The quarantine also made her realize that she didn’t want to do this job full-time. She said: “I have wanted to be a software engineer since I was 6 years old. “I want to create everything.” But she’s not ready to get a job in tech, even though she’s been getting a lot of offers. “I’m still curious about this,” she said. “When I satisfy that curiosity, I will stop. I will continue. ”



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