3074 matches found
LinkedIn Job Scams
Interesting article on the variety of LinkedIn job scams around the world: In India, tech jobs are used as bait because the industry employs millions of people and offers high-paying roles. In Kenya, the recruitment industry is largely unorganized, so scamsters leverage fake personal referrals. I...
Using AI-Generated Images to Get Refunds
Scammers are generating images of broken merchandise in order to apply for refunds...
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Camouflage
New research: Abstract: Coleoid cephalopods have the most elaborate camouflage system in the animal kingdom. This enables them to hide from or deceive both predators and prey. Most studies have focused on benthic species of octopus and cuttlefish, while studies on squid focused mainly on the...
IoT Hack
Someone hacked an Italian ferry. It looks like the malware was installed by someone on the ferry, and not remotely...
Someone Boarded a Plane at Heathrow Without a Ticket or Passport
I'm sure there's a story here: Sources say the man had tailgated his way through to security screening and passed security, meaning he was not detected carrying any banned items. The man deceived the BA check-in agent by posing as a family member who had their passports and boarding passes...
Substitution Cipher Based on The Voynich Manuscript
Here's a fun paper: "The Naibbe cipher: a substitution cipher that encrypts Latin and Italian as Voynich Manuscript-like ciphertext": Abstract: In this article, I investigate the hypothesis that the Voynich Manuscript MS 408, Yale University Beinecke Library is compatible with being a ciphertext ...
Huawei and Chinese Surveillance
This quote is from House of Huawei: The Secret History of China 's Most Powerful Company. "Long before anyone had heard of Ren Zhengfei or Huawei, Wan Runnan had been China's star entrepreneur in the 1980s, with his company, the Stone Group, touted as "China's IBM." Wan had believed that economic...
More on Rewiring Democracy
It's been a month since Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship was published. From what we know, sales are good. Some of the book's forty-three chapters are available online: chapters 2, 12, 28, 34, 38, and 41. We need more reviews--six on Amazon is no...
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Game: The Challenge, Season Two
The second season of the Netflix reality competition show Squid Game: The Challenge has dropped. Too many links to pick a few--search for it. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered. Blog moderation policy...
Rewiring Democracy is Coming Soon
My latest book, Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship , will be published in just over a week. No reviews yet, but you can read chapters 12 and 34 of 43 chapters total. You can order the book pretty much everywhere, and a copy signed by me here. Pleas...
AI in the 2026 Midterm Elections
We are nearly one year out from the 2026 midterm elections, and it's far too early to predict the outcomes. But it's a safe bet that artificial intelligence technologies will once again be a major storyline. The widespread fear that AI would be used to manipulate the 2024 US election seems rather...
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Overfishing in the Southwest Atlantic
Article. Report...
Use of Generative AI in Scams
New report: "Scam GPT: GenAI and the Automation of Fraud." This primer maps what we currently know about generative AI’s role in scams, the communities most at risk, and the broader economic and cultural shifts that are making people more willing to take risks, more vulnerable to deception, and...
Details of a Scam
Longtime Crypto-Gram readers know that I collect personal experiences of people being scammed. Here's an almost: Then he added, "Here at Chase, we'll never ask for your personal information or passwords." On the contrary, he gave me more information--two "cancellation codes" and a long case numbe...
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking and signing books at the Cambridge Public Library on October 22, 2025 at 6 PM ET. The event is sponsored by Harvard Bookstore. I’m giving a virtual talk about my book Rewiring Democracy at 1 PM ET on October 23, 2025...
GPT-4o-mini Falls for Psychological Manipulation
Interesting experiment: To design their experiment, the University of Pennsylvania researchers tested 2024's GPT-4o-mini model on two requests that it should ideally refuse: calling the user a jerk and giving directions for how to synthesize lidocaine. The researchers created experimental prompts...
Indirect Prompt Injection Attacks Against LLM Assistants
Really good research on practical attacks against LLM agents. "Invitation Is All You Need! Promptware Attacks Against LLM-Powered Assistants in Production Are Practical and Dangerous" Abstract: The growing integration of LLMs into applications has introduced new security risks, notably known as...
Zero-Day Exploit in WinRAR File
A zero-day vulnerability in WinRAR is being exploited by at least two Russian criminal groups: The vulnerability seemed to have super Windows powers. It abused alternate data streams, a Windows feature that allows different ways of representing the same file path. The exploit abused that feature ...
Cheating on Quantum Computing Benchmarks
Peter Gutmann and Stephan Neuhaus have a new paper--I think it's new, even though it has a March 2025 date--that makes the argument that we shouldn't trust any of the quantum factorization benchmarks, because everyone has been cooking the books: Similarly, quantum factorisation is performed using...
That Time Tom Lehrer Pranked the NSA
Bluesky thread. Here's the paper, from 1957. Note reference 3...
Friday Squid Blogging: The Giant Squid Nebula
Beautiful photo. Difficult to capture, this mysterious, squid-shaped interstellar cloud spans nearly three full moons in planet Earth's sky. Discovered in 2011 by French astro-imager Nicolas Outters, the Squid Nebula's bipolar shape is distinguished here by the telltale blue emission from doubly...
Using Signal Groups for Activism
Good tutorial by Micah Lee. It includes some nonobvious use cases...
Ghostwriting Scam
The variations seem to be endless. Here's a fake ghostwriting scam that seems to be making boatloads of money. This is a big story about scams being run from Texas and Pakistan estimated to run into tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars, viciously defrauding Americans with false hopes of...
Why Take9 Won’t Improve Cybersecurity
There's a new cybersecurity awareness campaign: Take9. The idea is that people--you, me, everyone--should just pause for nine seconds and think more about the link they are planning to click on, the file they are planning to download, or whatever it is they are planning to share. There's a...
Friday Squid Blogging: Pyjama Squid
The small pyjama squid Sepioloidea lineolata produces toxic slime, "a rare example of a poisonous predatory mollusc." As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered...
Cryptocurrency Thefts Get Physical
Long story of a $250 million cryptocurrency theft that, in a complicated chain events, resulted in a pretty brutal kidnapping...
Friday Squid Blogging: New Squid Fossil
A 450-million-year-old squid fossil was dug up in upstate New York. Blog moderation policy...
Atlas of Surveillance
The EFF has released its Atlas of Surveillance, which documents police surveillance technology across the US...
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid the Care Dog
The Vanderbilt University Medical Center has a pediatric care dog named "Squid." Blog moderation policy...
Journalists and Civil Society Members Using WhatsApp Targeted by Paragon Spyware
This is yet another story of commercial spyware being used against journalists and civil society members. The journalists and other civil society members were being alerted of a possible breach of their devices, with WhatsApp telling the Guardian it had "high confidence" that the 90 users in...
Social Engineering to Disable iMessage Protections
I am always interested in new phishing tricks, and watching them spread across the ecosystem. A few days ago I started getting phishing SMS messages with a new twist. They were standard messages about delayed packages or somesuch, with the goal of getting me to click on a link and entering some...
Microsoft Takes Legal Action Against AI “Hacking as a Service” Scheme
Not sure this will matter in the end, but it's a positive move: Microsoft is accusing three individuals of running a "hacking-as-a-service" scheme that was designed to allow the creation of harmful and illicit content using the company's platform for AI-generated content. The foreign-based...
Friday Squid Blogging: Anniversary Post
I made my first squid post nineteen years ago this week. Between then and now, I posted something about squid every week with maybe only a few exceptions. There is a lot out there about squid, even more if you count the other meanings of the word. Blog moderation policy...
Friday Squid Blogging: Transcriptome Analysis of the Indian Squid
Lots of details that are beyond me. Blog moderation policy...
The Scale of Geoblocking by Nation
Interesting analysis: We introduce and explore a little-known threat to digital equality and freedomwebsites geoblocking users in response to political risks from sanctions. U.S. policy prioritizes internet freedom and access to information in repressive regimes. Clarifying distinctions between...
Friday Squid Blogging: Female Gonatus Onyx Squid Carrying Her Eggs
Fantastic video of a female Gonatus onyx squid swimming while carrying her egg sack. An earlier related post. Blog moderation policy...
Justice Department Indicts Tech CEO for Falsifying Security Certifications
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the CEO of a still unnamed company has been indicted for creating a fake auditing company to falsify security certifications in order to win government business...
Squid Fishing in Japan
Fishermen are catching more squid as other fish are depleted. Blog moderation policy...
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking at eCrime 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The event runs from September 24 through 26, 2024, and my keynote is at 8:45 AM ET on the 24th. I’m briefly speaking at the EPIC Champion of Freedom Awards in Washington, D...
Long Analysis of the M-209
Really interesting analysis of the American M-209 encryption device and its security...
Friday Squid Blog: The Market for Squid Oil Is Growing
How did I not know before now that there was a market for squid oil? The squid oil market has experienced robust growth in recent years, expanding from $4.56 billion in 2023 to $4.94 billion in 2024 at a compound annual growth rate CAGR of 8.5%. The growth in the historic period can be attributed...
Taxonomy of Generative AI Misuse
Interesting paper: "Generative AI Misuse: A Taxonomy of Tactics and Insights from Real-World Data”: Generative, multimodal artificial intelligence GenAI offers transformative potential across industries, but its misuse poses significant risks. Prior research has shed light on the potential of...
Friday Squid Blogging: Treating Squid Parasites
A newly discovered parasite that attacks squid eggs has been treated. Blog moderation policy...
Friday Squid Blogging: Sunscreen from Squid Pigments
Theyre better for the environment. Blog moderation policy...
Friday Squid Blogging: Newly Discovered Vampire Squid
A new vampire squid species was discovered in the South China Sea. Blog moderation policy...
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Nebula
Beautiful astronomical photo...
Friday Squid Blogging: Illex Squid and Climate Change
There are correlations between the populations of the Illex Argentines squid and water temperatures. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here...
Friday Squid Blogging: Vegan Squid-Ink Pasta
It uses black beans for color and seaweed for flavor. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here...
Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Parts into Fertilizer
Its squid parts from college dissections, so its not a volume operation. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here...
Friday Squid Blogging: Underwater Sculptures Use Squid Ink for Coloring
The Molinière Underwater Sculpture Park has pieces that are colored in part with squid ink. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here...