The first live video of the Promachoteuthis squid, filmed at a newly discovered seamount off the coast of Chile. Blog moderation policy. [...]

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. [...]

Really interesting analysis of the American M-209 encryption device and its security. [...]

This story seems straightforward. A city is the victim of a ransomware attack. They repeatedly lie to the media about the severity of the breach. A security researcher repeatedly proves their statements to be lies. The city gets mad and sues the researcher. Let’s hope the judge throws …

The NSA’s “ National Cryptographic School Television Catalogue ” from 1991 lists about 600 COMSEC and SIGINT training videos. There are a bunch explaining the operations of various cryptographic equipment, and a few code words I have never heard of before. [...]

Interesting vulnerability :...a special lane at airport security called Known Crewmember (KCM). KCM is a TSA program that allows pilots and flight attendants to bypass security screening, even when flying on domestic personal trips. The KCM process is fairly simple: the employee uses the dedicated lane and presents their …

Details. Blog moderation policy. [...]

The “ long lost lecture ” by Adm. Grace Hopper has been published by the NSA. (Note that there are two parts.) It’s 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 …

Matthew Green wrote a really good blog post on what Telegram’s encryption is and is not. EDITED TO ADD (8/28): Another good explainer from Kaspersky. [...]

Ars Technica has a good article on what’s happening in the world of television surveillance. More than even I realized. [...]

This is a big deal. A US Appeals Court ruled that geofence warrants—these are general warrants demanding information about all people within a geographical boundary—are unconstitutional. The decision seems obvious to me, but you can’t take anything for granted. [...]

Making self-healing materials based on the teeth in squid suckers. Blog moderation policy. [...]

This site will let you take a selfie with a New York City traffic surveillance camera. EDITED TO ADD: BoingBoing post. [...]

This is a fantastic project mapping the global surveillance industry. [...]

Rolling Stone has a long investigative story (non-paywalled version here ) about a CIA agent who spent years posing as an Islamic radical. Unrelated, but also in the “real life spies” file: a fake Sudanese diving resort run by Mossad. [...]

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. [...]

Palo Alto Networks published its semi-annual report on ransomware. From the Executive Summary: Unit 42 monitors ransomware and extortion leak sites closely to keep tabs on threat activity. We reviewed compromise announcements from 53 dedicated leak sites in the first half of 2024 and found 1,762 new posts …

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 press is reporting a critical Windows vulnerability affecting IPv6. As Microsoft explained in its Tuesday advisory, unauthenticated attackers can exploit the flaw remotely in low-complexity attacks by repeatedly sending IPv6 packets that include specially crafted packets. Microsoft also shared its exploitability assessment for this critical vulnerability, tagging it …

From the Federal Register : After three rounds of evaluation and analysis, NIST selected four algorithms it will standardize as a result of the PQC Standardization Process. The public-key encapsulation mechanism selected was CRYSTALS-KYBER, along with three digital signature schemes: CRYSTALS-Dilithium, FALCON, and SPHINCS+. These algorithms are part of three …

Texas is suing General Motors for collecting driver data without consent and then selling it to insurance companies: From CNN : In car models from 2015 and later, the Detroit-based car manufacturer allegedly used technology to “collect, record, analyze, and transmit highly detailed driving data about each time a driver …

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 on the 24th. The list is maintained on this page. [...]

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 …

Yet another SQUID acronym : SQUID, short for Surrogate Quantitative Interpretability for Deepnets, is a computational tool created by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists. It’s designed to help interpret how AI models analyze the genome. Compared with other analysis tools, SQUID is more consistent, reduces background noise, and …