News : A sponge made of cotton and squid bone that has absorbed about 99.9% of microplastics in water samples in China could provide an elusive answer to ubiquitous microplastic pollution in water across the globe, a new report suggests. [...] The study tested the material in an irrigation ditch …
A judge has found that NSO Group, maker of the Pegasus spyware, has violated the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by hacking WhatsApp in order to spy on people using it. Jon Penney and I wrote a legal paper on the case. [...]
Good survey paper. Blog moderation policy. [...]
Interesting analysis: An Internet Voting System Fatally Flawed in Creative New Ways. Abstract: The recently published “MERGE” protocol is designed to be used in the prototype CAC-vote system. The voting kiosk and protocol transmit votes over the internet and then transmit voter-verifiable paper ballots through the mail. In the …
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 free and paid websites, allowing trunk cables to repressive …
Really interesting research: “ An LLM-Assisted Easy-to-Trigger Backdoor Attack on Code Completion Models: Injecting Disguised Vulnerabilities against Strong Detection “: Abstract : Large Language Models (LLMs) have transformed code com- pletion tasks, providing context-based suggestions to boost developer productivity in software engineering. As users often fine-tune these models for specific applications, poisoning …
Researchers at Google have developed a watermark for LLM-generated text. The basics are pretty obvious: the LLM chooses between tokens partly based on a cryptographic key, and someone with knowledge of the key can detect those choices. What makes this hard is (1) how much text is required for …
Interesting map, from this paper. Blog moderation policy. [...]
New research evaluating the effectiveness of reward modeling during Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF): “ SEAL: Systematic Error Analysis for Value ALignment.” The paper introduces quantitative metrics for evaluating the effectiveness of modeling and aligning human values: Abstract : Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) aims to align language models …
There is a side-channel attack against YubiKey access tokens that allows someone to clone a device. It’s a complicated attack, requiring the victim’s username and password, and physical access to their YubiKey—as well as some technical expertise and equipment. Still, nice piece of security analysis. [...]
This is yet another insecure Internet-of-things story, this one about wireless gear shifters for bicycles. These gear shifters are used in big-money professional bicycle races like the Tour de France, which provides an incentive to actually implement this attack. Research paper. Another news story. Slashdot thread. [...]
Really interesting article on the ancient-manuscript scholars who are applying their techniques to the Voynich Manuscript. No one has been able to understand the writing yet, but there are some new understandings: Davis presented her findings at the medieval-studies conference and published them in 2020 in the journal Manuscript …
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 advanced AI systems to be exploited for malicious purposes. However …
The latest in what will be a continuing arms race between creating and detecting videos: The new tool the research project is unleashing on deepfakes, called “MISLnet”, evolved from years of data derived from detecting fake images and video with tools that spot changes made to digital video or …
New attack against the RADIUS authentication protocol: The Blast-RADIUS attack allows a man-in-the-middle attacker between the RADIUS client and server to forge a valid protocol accept message in response to a failed authentication request. This forgery could give the attacker access to network devices and services without the attacker …
A new paper, “Polynomial Time Cryptanalytic Extraction of Neural Network Models,” by Adi Shamir and others, uses ideas from differential cryptanalysis to extract the weights inside a neural network using specific queries and their results. This is much more theoretical than practical, but it’s a really interesting result …
A new squid species—of the Gonatidae family—was discovered. The video shows her holding a brood of very large eggs. Research paper. [...]
Interesting paper about a German cryptanalysis machine that helped break the US M-209 mechanical ciphering machine. The paper contains a good description of how the M-209 works. [...]
Interesting research: “ Teams of LLM Agents can Exploit Zero-Day Vulnerabilities.” Abstract: LLM agents have become increasingly sophisticated, especially in the realm of cybersecurity. Researchers have shown that LLM agents can exploit real-world vulnerabilities when given a description of the vulnerability and toy capture-the-flag problems. However, these agents still perform …
New research: “ Deception abilities emerged in large language models “: Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are currently at the forefront of intertwining AI systems with human communication and everyday life. Thus, aligning them with human values is of great importance. However, given the steady increase in reasoning abilities, future LLMs …
Interesting research: “ Hyperlink Hijacking: Exploiting Erroneous URL Links to Phantom Domains “: Abstract: Web users often follow hyperlinks hastily, expecting them to be correctly programmed. However, it is possible those links contain typos or other mistakes. By discovering active but erroneous hyperlinks, a malicious actor can spoof a website or …
Brian Krebs reports on research into geolocating routers: Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geolocate devices. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they relied on publicly available data …
New paper: “ Zero Progress on Zero Days: How the Last Ten Years Created the Modern Spyware Market “: Abstract: Spyware makes surveillance simple. The last ten years have seen a global market emerge for ready-made software that lets governments surveil their citizens and foreign adversaries alike and to do so …
This is another attack that convinces the AI to ignore road signs : Due to the way CMOS cameras operate, rapidly changing light from fast flashing diodes can be used to vary the color. For example, the shade of red on a stop sign could look different on each line …
Law professor Dan Solove has a new article on privacy regulation. In his email to me, he writes: “I’ve been pondering privacy consent for more than a decade, and I think I finally made a breakthrough with this article.” His mini-abstract: In this Article I argue that most …