Field notes from the edge.
What our engineers learned this week. Hands-on technical deep-dives, postmortems, and strategy frameworks.
How Technology Empowers—and Imperils—Dictators
This essay was written with Seva Gunitsky, and originally appeared in Foreign Affairs . Two weeks after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, the Russian TV Channel One editor Marina Ovsyannikova burst onto the set of the evening newscast. She held up a hand-drawn sign behind the anchor’s head that read: “Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They’re lying to
Apple’s Verified Photography System
Apple just released a system called “Reference Image.” It can verify the image is exactly as taken by an iPhone—new models only—without tying it to a specific iPhone or photographer. It can also verify that multiple images came from the same iPhone. Other industry solutions require a photographer or institution to vouch for an image using their own credentials. We are concerned
Possible Vulnerability in Apple’s Automatic Reboot
404Media is reporting (alternate link ) that a cyber-weapons arms manufacturer is exploiting a vulnerability in iOS to bypass its automatic reboot security feature. This is the feature that automatically puts an iPhone into a more secure state if it hasn’t been used for 72 hours. The new technology to get around inactivity reboot was developed by Magnet Forensics, the company b
Another Historic Cipher Falls to AI
This one is from 1809, written by Napoleon’s nephew.
Friday Squid Blogging: EU is Trying to Fight Unregulated Squid Fishing
The EU is recommending import controls to combat unregulated squid fishing in the Southwest Atlantic. I’m not optimistic. 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.
Unidentified Flock Cameras in Florida
St. Lucie County in Florida discovered ( alt link ) a dozen Flock cameras whose ownership it can’t identify, and that the county government had not permitted. I am reminded of the decade-old story of StingRay cell phone surveillance devices in Washington, DC, whose operators were also unknown. My guess is that in the StingRay case, the devices were operated by foreign actors. T
How American Political Campaigns Are Using AI—and What They’re Spending on the Tools
This essay was written with Nathan E. Sanders, and originally appeared in The Guardian . New campaign finance disclosure data shines a light on which US political campaigns are using AI tools and how much they are spending on them. Candidates’, parties’ and committees’ spending reveals that AI is fast becoming an essential tool of politics. The candidates themselves are quiet a
Connected Cars Are a Surveillance Platform
Researchers at Northeastern University, in collaboration with Consumer Reports , evaluated how much modern cars spy in their drivers: To determine this, CR dug through thousands of pages of automakers’ privacy policies and asked questions of 15 different automakersBMW, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Stellantis, Subaru, Tesl
I Want Better Reporting on AI Genie Behavior
AI systems are regularly completing tasks in ways that their prompters don’t want or intend. Some of them are disturbing, and some of them are dangerous. This is something I’ve been calling “ genie behavior ,” because I think that really gets at the core of what’s happening. I wish the popular press would report on this better. I don’t like the “going rogue” framing because it
Using Device Linking to Eavesdrop on WhatsApp and Signal
Modern messaging apps allow users to link their phone accounts to their computer desktop. Eavesdroppers are taking advantage of this capability: Apps such as WhatsApp Web and Signal Desktop allow people to use their accounts on other devices, such as laptops or desktop computers. Germany’s Customs Office has been using these features to connect a police-controlled computer to a
New Attack Against RSA
ArsTechnica is reporting on a “new” attack against RSA, one that bypasses factoring. First, this attack isn’t new. The original research is from 2007 . What is new is the implementation. Second, it is a forgery attack. It allows an attacker to forge digital signatures. It does not recover the private key from the public key. Third, the attack only works against pure signatures.
Friday Squid Blogging: Participatory Squid Dissection in October in Tennessee
I feel like someone who reads this blog will want to go to this : Families are invited to dive into the fascinating world of marine biology during an exciting, hands-on Family Squid Dissection at the Hands-On Science Center. Designed for curious learners of all ages, this unique experience combines an interactive lesson with the opportunity to explore the anatomy and adaptation
On Anthropic’s AI Misuse Report
Earlier this month, Anthropic published a long report detailing all of the Claude misuses it detected. Daniel Meissler usefully summarized the report into 117 findings. A few of the highlights: AI agents increasingly handled reconnaissance, exploitation, data theft, propaganda production, surveillance workflows, and research while humans selected targets, set goals, and reviewe
Malicious npm Packages That Evade Defenses
This is an impressive piece of malware . Its sophistication says nation-state to me, but there is no direct evidence and certainly no attribution.
Research on Models Engaging in Genie-Like Behavior
New paper: “ Self-Jailbreaking: Language Models Can Reason Themselves Out of Safety Alignment After Benign Reasoning Training .” Abstract: We discover a novel and surprising phenomenon of unintentional misalignment in reasoning language models (RLMs), which we call self-jailbreaking. Specifically, after benign reasoning training on math or code domains, RLMs will use multiple s
GPT-6 Astra Breaks an Old Enigma Message
This is pretty amazing: However, the most astonishing thing about this break is that the GPT6 Astra did it entirely on its own. Carter Leffer only directed GPT6 Astra to see if it could break any of the unbroken Enigma messages published on the Crypto Cellar Research web page. After analysing the unbroken messages on the website, it decided that the most promising message was
Reverse-Engineering Flock Cameras
Hackers captured a Flock camera and got a look (alternate link ) at the software: While much of the automatic license plate reader’s (ALPR) most sensitive storage remained encrypted and inaccessible, the joint analysis of the recovered data shows that software running on the device explicitly detects people as well as vehicles, license plates, and bicycles. The camera can produ
Friday Squid Blogging: On Squid Egg Sacs
Short essay about squid egg sacs. 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.
Are AIs Still Struggling with CAPTCHAs?
Anthropic’s recent security-incident document contains a bit about how CAPTCHAs are still frustrating Claude. In the transcript, the Claude model that is so powerful that Anthropic is gatekeeping access to it appeared to slam its virtual head against the wall solving a simple image identification test. In a test where the agent was asked to identify a shape that didn’t match th