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...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking at Boskone 62 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, which runs from February 14-16, 2025. My talk is at 4:00 PM ET on the 15th. I’m speaking at the Rossfest Symposium in Cambridge, UK, on March 25, 2025. The list is maintaine...

Short-Lived Certificates Coming to Let’s Encrypt

Starting next year: Our longstanding offering won't fundamentally change next year, but we are going to introduce a new offering that's a big shift from anything we've done before--short-lived certificates. Specifically, certificates with a lifetime of six days. This is a big upgrade for the...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid-Inspired Needle Technology

Interesting research: Using jet propulsion inspired by squid, researchers demonstrate a microjet system that delivers medications directly into tissues, matching the effectiveness of traditional needles. Blog moderation policy...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid-A-Rama in Des Moines

Squid-A-Rama will be in Des Moines at the end of the month. Visitors will be able to dissect squid, explore fascinating facts about the species, and witness a live squid release conducted by local divers. How are they doing a live squid release? Simple: this is Des Moines, Washington; not Des...

Sophos Versus the Chinese Hackers

Really interesting story of Sophos's five-year war against Chinese hackers...

Tracking World Leaders Using Strava

Way back in 2018, people noticed that you could find secret military bases using data published by the Strava fitness app. Soldiers and other military personal were using them to track their runs, and you could look at the public data and find places where there should be no people running. Six...

Indian Fishermen Are Catching Less Squid

Fishermen in Tamil Nadu are reporting smaller catches of squid. 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...

Adm. Grace Hopper’s 1982 NSA Lecture Has Been Published

The "long lost lecture" by Adm. Grace Hopper has been published by the NSA. Note that there are two parts. Its a wonderful talk: funny, engaging, wise, prescient. Remember that talk was given in 1982, less than a year before the ARPANET switched to TCP/IP and the internet went operational. She wa...

New Patent Application for Car-to-Car Surveillance

Ford has a new patent application for a system where cars monitor each others speeds, and then report then to some central authority. Slashdot thread...

Criminal Gang Physically Assaulting People for Their Cryptocurrency

This is pretty horrific: …a group of men behind a violent crime spree designed to compel victims to hand over access to their cryptocurrency savings. That announcement and the criminal complaint laying out charges against St. Felix focused largely on a single theft of cryptocurrency from an elder...

Apple Is Alerting iPhone Users of Spyware Attacks

Not a lot of details: Apple has issued a new round of threat notifications to iPhone users across 98 countries, warning them of potential mercenary spyware attacks. Its the second such alert campaign from the company this year, following a similar notification sent to users in 92 nations in April...

Details of a Phone Scam

First-person account of someone who fell for a scam, that started as a fake Amazon service rep and ended with a fake CIA agent, and lost $50,000 cash. And this is not a naive or stupid person. The details are fascinating. And if you think it couldnt happen to you, think again. Given the right set...

UK Threatens End-to-End Encryption

In an open letter, seven secure messaging apps--including Signal and WhatsApp--point out that the UKs Online Safety Bill could destroy end-to-end encryption: As currently drafted, the Bill could break end-to-end encryption,opening the door to routine, general and indiscriminate surveillance of...

Camera the Size of a Grain of Salt

Cameras are getting smaller and smaller, changing the scale and scope of surveillance...

Defeating Phishing-Resistant Multifactor Authentication

CISA is now pushing phishing-resistant multifactor authentication. Roger Grimes has an excellent post reminding everyone that "phishing-resistant" is not "phishing proof," and that everyone needs to stop pretending otherwise. His list of different attacks is particularly useful...

Complex Impersonation Story

This is a story of one piece of what is probably a complex employment scam. Basically, real programmers are having their resumes copied and co-opted by scammers, who apply for jobs or, I suppose, get recruited from various job sites, then hire other people with Western looks and language skills a...

Friday Squid Blogging: Multiplexing SQUIDs for X-ray Telescopes

NASA is researching new techniques for multiplexing SQUIDs--thats superconducting quantum interference devices--for X-ray observatories. 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...

John Oliver on Data Brokers

John Oliver has an excellent segment on data brokers and surveillance capitalism...

Insider Attack on the Carnegie Library

Greg Priore, the person in charge of the rare book room at the Carnegie Library, stole from it for almost two decades before getting caught. Its a perennial problem: trusted insiders have to be trusted...

Seny Kamara on "Crypto for the People"

Seny Kamara gave an excellent keynote talk this year at the online CRYPTO Conference. He talked about solving real-world crypto problems for marginalized communities around the world, instead of crypto problems for governments and corporations. Well worth watching and listening to...

Using a VM to Contain an AI Agent

It won't work: My suspicion was that GPT 5.6-Cyber would succeed, but the frequency and manner of its success removed all doubt. We have to reassess sandboxing quality for capable AI agents, and in general the software stack with which they interact. An off-the-shelf VM is not enough to contain a...

Hacking Public Wi-Fi DNS to Steal Credentials

Criminals are hacking into public Wi-Fi devices--at hotels, conference centers, and so on--around the world and changing their DNS settings. The goal is to redirect users to fake login pages and steal their credentials...

US Bans All Foreign-Made Consumer Routers

This is for new routers; you don't have to throw away your existing ones: The Executive Branch determination noted that foreign-produced routers 1 introduce "a supply chain vulnerability that could disrupt the U.S. economy, critical infrastructure, and national defense" and 2 pose "a severe...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Fishing Tips

This is a video of advice for squid fishing in Puget Sound. 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...

Friday Squid Blogging: New Squid Species Discovered

A new species of squid. pretends to be a plant: Scientists have filmed a never-before-seen species of deep-sea squid burying itself upside down in the seafloor--a behavior never documented in cephalopods. They captured the bizarre scene while studying the depths of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone CCZ...

The Constitutionality of Geofence Warrants

The US Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of geofence warrants. The case centers on the trial of Okello Chatrie, a Virginia man who pleaded guilty to a 2019 robbery outside of Richmond and was sentenced to almost 12 years in prison for stealing $195,000 at gunpoint. Police probing...

The Wegman’s Supermarket Chain Is Probably Using Facial Recognition

The New York City Wegman's is collecting biometric information about customers...

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Found in Light Fixture

Probably a college prank. 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...

Flock Exposes Its AI-Enabled Surveillance Cameras

404 Media has the story: Unlike many of Flock's cameras, which are designed to capture license plates as people drive by, Flock's Condor cameras are pan-tilt-zoom PTZ cameras designed to record and track people, not vehicles. Condor cameras can be set to automatically zoom in on people's faces as...

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...

Friday Squid Blogging: Pilot Whales Eat a Lot of Squid

Short-finned pilot wales Globicephala macrorhynchus eat at lot of squid: To figure out a short-finned pilot whale's caloric intake, Gough says, the team had to combine data from a variety of sources, including movement data from short-lasting tags, daily feeding rates from satellite tags, body...

Apple’s Bug Bounty Program

Apple is now offering a $2M bounty for a zero-click exploit. According to the Apple website: Today we’re announcing the next major chapter for Apple Security Bounty, featuring the industry’s highest rewards, expanded research categories, and a flag system for researchers to objectively demonstrat...

China Accuses Nvidia of Putting Backdoors into Their Chips

The government of China has accused Nvidia of inserting a backdoor into their H20 chips: China's cyber regulator on Thursday said it had held a meeting with Nvidia over what it called "serious security issues" with the company's artificial intelligence chips. It said US AI experts had "revealed...

The Semiconductor Industry and Regulatory Compliance

Earlier this week, the Trump administration narrowed export controls on advanced semiconductors ahead of US-China trade negotiations. The administration is increasingly relying on export licenses to allow American semiconductor firms to sell their products to Chinese customers, while keeping the...

First Sentencing in Scheme to Help North Koreans Infiltrate US Companies

An Arizona woman was sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for her role helping North Korean workers infiltrate US companies by pretending to be US workers. From an article: According to court documents, Chapman hosted the North Korean IT workers' computers in her own home between October...

Friday Squid Blogging: A Case of Squid Fossil Misidentification

What scientists thought were squid fossils were actually arrow worms...

Aeroflot Hacked

Looks serious...

That Time Tom Lehrer Pranked the NSA

Bluesky thread. Here's the paper, from 1957. Note reference 3...

Using Signal Groups for Activism

Good tutorial by Micah Lee. It includes some nonobvious use cases...

Hiding Prompt Injections in Academic Papers

Academic papers were found to contain hidden instructions to LLMs: It discovered such prompts in 17 articles, whose lead authors are affiliated with 14 institutions including Japan's Waseda University, South Korea's KAIST, China's Peking University and the National University of Singapore, as wel...

Friday Squid Blogging: Gonate Squid Video

This is the first ever video of the Antarctic Gonate Squid. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered...

Is Security Human Factors Research Skewed Towards Western Ideas and Habits?

Really interesting research: "How WEIRD is Usable Privacy and Security Research?" by Ayako A. Hasegawa Daisuke Inoue, and Mitsuaki Akiyama: Abstract : In human factor fields such as human-computer interaction HCI and psychology, researchers have been concerned that participants mostly come from...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking at the Rossfest Symposium in Cambridge, UK, on March 25, 2025. I'm speaking at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management in Toronto, Canada, on April 3, 2025. The list is maintained on this page...

CISA Identifies Five New Vulnerabilities Currently Being Exploited

Of the five, one is a Windows vulnerability, another is a Cisco vulnerability. We don't have any details about who is exploiting them, or how. News article. Slashdot thread...

AI Mistakes Are Very Different from Human Mistakes

Humans make mistakes all the time. All of us do, every day, in tasks both new and routine. Some of our mistakes are minor and some are catastrophic. Mistakes can break trust with our friends, lose the confidence of our bosses, and sometimes be the difference between life and death. Over the...

Upcoming Speaking Engagements

This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking on “AI: Trust & Power” at Capricon 45 in Chicago, Illinois, USA, at 11:30 AM on February 7, 2025. I’m also signing books there on Saturday, February 8, starting at 1:45 PM. I’m speaking at Boskone 62 in Boston,...