To subscribe to my monthly email newsletter, you have to enter your information on the webpage, and then reply to an automatically generated email. This is, of course, to prevent people from subscribing addresses other than their own. Starting last weekend, I have been receiving a lot of individual …
This is interesting: The records describe a force-generation mechanism for several General Staff components, including the GRU, Main Operational Directorate, and 8th Directorate, which is associated with protected communications, cryptography, and information security. [...] The reporting also linked a 2024 Department No. 4 graduate, Aleksei Kondrashov, to Military Unit 74455 …
Nathan E. Sanders and I are writing a series of essays on real-world examples of democratic technologies for The Renovator. I haven’t been posting the full text on the blog because they’re a bit long, but here are links. Part 1 is about the Japanese digital democracy …
It sure seems like it. The stores confirmed to be affected include Fort Irwin, Calif.; F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.; Fort Huachuca, Ariz.; Naval Station Newport, R.I.; Columbus Air Force Base, Miss.; and Travis Air Force Base, Calif., according to announcements made online by each installation …
Someone hid AI instructions into a legal filing. Alternate link. [...]
Ugh : A tractor-trailer rollover sent a truckload of squid spilling into a Rhode Island roadway, leaving a stench as they sat in the road for hours in the summer heat. Local authorities have dubbed it the “Squidpocalypse of ’26.” That would be twenty tons of squid. As usual, you …
This essay was written with Kasra Rafi, and originally appeared in The Guardian. Earlier this month, about 40 top mathematicians gathered at OpenAI’s offices to discuss the future of their profession. The meeting was off-the-record, but if recent articles by mathematicians are any guide, it was mostly pretty …
OpenAI disrupted a social engineering group from Cambodia that used ChatGPT. Its scope is impressive: The network simultaneously conducted multiple types of scams, often blending elements from different schemes. For instance, operators used dating personas to build trust before introducing fraudulent investment opportunities involving cryptocurrencies and spot gold trading …
The New York Times has a long article ( alt link ) on surveillance systems aimed at babies. They are increasingly using AI. Nanit and its rivals want to own 24/7 health tracking for the sub-four-foot set. And their already astonishing levels of baby data collection are just the beginning …
Andy Ellis has a roundup of the security vendors at Black Hat this year. Key Takeaways: We have entered into an AI world. While nearly half of booths didn’t directly mention AI or agents in their taglines, the effects of AI are everywhere. Multiple spaces (Identity, SaaS, AppSec …
Interesting paper : Abstract: With entrepreneurial fraud cases on the rise, we investigate how entrepreneurs carry out criminal deception, employing deceptive means to defraud audiences. Analyzing court data from Silicon Valley ventures and their founders prosecuted for fraud between 2000 and 2023, our findings reveal that entrepreneurs carry out criminal …
The neon flying squid can fly in formation. The shoal of about 100 squid rose unexpectedly from a patch of the Pacific Ocean around 370 miles from Tokyo and glided near the boat for about 30 metres. The astonished researchers were the first to capture photographs of such a …
This sort of research is both exciting and terrifying: The two models in question were told to generate complete genomes for a viable bacteriophage—a type of virus able to infect and replicate itself inside bacteria, destroying them from the inside. Using an existing bacteriophage as an example—ΦX174 …
The AI Security Institute has a new report of AI systems engaging in “unsanctioned behavior”—what I have been calling “ genie behavior —while being tested on their cybersecurity capabilities. The incident stemmed from a single evaluation where agents were given a task of solving a cyber security challenge. We …
OpenAI presented details of its AI’s model’s cyberattack on Hugging Face at Black Hat last week. Simon Willison details the timeline. It’s really interesting to read through—and really impressive cyberoffense work. [...]
A usage policy for Flock license plate reader cameras tells police not to talk about the cameras: When cops use Flock to arrest someone in Wapello County, Iowa, they don’t want them to know. A usage policy for the automated license plate reader cameras in the county tells …
ICE collected nearly a million DNA samples last year. [...]
Since February, we’ve grown AWS Security Hub Extended from 14 curated partners across 9 categories to 23 partners across 10. At Black Hat this month, 14 of those partners were at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) booth demoing live. Four of those partners delivered theater talks and ten …
I have been thinking a lot about AI and integrity. Part of that is contextual integrity. I recently found two papers on the topic. “ CIMemories: A Compositional Benchmark for Contextual Integrity of Persistent Memory in LLMs “: Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) increasingly use persistent memory from past interactions to …
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is gradually introducing updates to the AWS Sign-In and sign-up experience to a limited number of customers. We’re sharing these changes so you will know what to expect as we gradually make the updated experience available to more customers. These updates include new options …
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. [...]
Fascinating video about searching for life undersea. The video basically makes the point that our bright white searchlights are scaring everything away, and that red light is more neutral. That, plus bait to attract sea creatures, is teaching us a lot about what’s going on down there. Lots …
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak: I’m speaking, signing books, and participating in panel discussions at LAcon V in Anaheim, California, USA. My full schedule is here. I’m speaking online (via Zoom) at a League of Women Voters event …
This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in The Guardian. OpenAI, and then Anthropic, were each formed by AI developers who feared unrestrained corporate AI development—specifically, that companies like Google and Meta would steer the technology towards deleterious, maybe even catastrophically unsafe, outcomes for …
This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in Tech Policy Press. AI represents the first time we humans can do cognitive work outside of our bodies at scale. The only comparable moment is the early years of the industrial revolution, when new technologies like the …