Privacy & Anonymity — Posts

33 posts on "Privacy & Anonymity" by Shlomo Strauss — bilingual writing on technology, science, and business.

• Can Hackers Really Steal Your Fingerprints From Selfies? — While extracting fingerprints from photos is technically possible, modern scanner security and image compression make the actual risk extremely low.
• IPv6 Usage Surpasses IPv4 on Google Servers for the First Time — After 28 years, IPv6 traffic has officially overtaken IPv4 on Google servers, marking a major milestone for a faster and more secure internet.
• France’s Shift to Linux Signals a Growing Challenge for Microsoft — France's transition to Linux highlights a growing global trend of governments and enterprises seeking alternatives to Microsoft's ecosystem.
• Anthropic vs. the Pentagon: a $200M contract and a question of who — After Anthropic refused to lift Claude's safety restrictions for the Pentagon, losing a $200M contract, the clash raises hard questions about corporate…
• Building a low-latency cloud infrastructure for algorithmic trading — A hands-on account of architecting a high-security, GPU-capable cloud server with 0.3 ms latency and cross-continental database replication for a private…
• How Nvidia quietly sought pirated data from Anna's Archive to train — An internal Nvidia email revealed the company pursued access to Anna's Archive's illegal dataset for AI training, exposing the ethical compromises driving
• When crypto thieves knock on the door: the rise of physical robbery — As cold wallets and stronger cybersecurity close digital attack routes, criminals are turning to physical home invasions to steal crypto — with over 200…
• How an RCE attack turned a Linux server into a zombie botnet node — A port-scanning alert exposed a Linux server infected via RCE with Gafgyt malware — a firsthand account of the attack, the investigation, and the…
• How stolen Motorola technology helps China track Tibetan refugees in — Stolen Motorola source code, surveillance cameras, and economic incentives have turned Nepal into a Chinese-operated tracking ground for Tibetan exiles.
• Databricks: the $100 billion startup most people have never heard of — Valued at up to $130 billion, Databricks dominates enterprise AI and big data infrastructure while remaining almost invisible to the general public.
• PROMPTSTEAL: the malware that uses AI to build itself after — Google researchers exposed a Russian-linked malware that carries no malicious code upfront, instead querying an AI model post-installation to generate…
• How an SS7 security flaw became a tool for tracking and killing — A shell-company operation exploited a decades-old flaw in the SS7 telecom protocol to sell real-time phone location tracking to corrupt regimes, with…
• A free WordPress plugin for Israel's privacy banner requirement — Responding to Israel's updated privacy law and the lack of local tools, the author built a free WordPress plugin that adds a customizable privacy notice…
• Pig butchering on a massive scale: the $15 billion Bitcoin seizure — The U.S. Justice Department seized $15 billion in Bitcoin tied to a Cambodian forced-labor fraud network running large-scale pig butchering scams.
• How one stolen iPhone unraveled an international theft ring in London — A stolen iPhone that kept broadcasting its location led London police to a shipment of stolen devices at Heathrow, exposing a ring that supplied iPhones…
• Behind U.S. moves on Intel: intelligence, not economics — A new opinion column argues that U.S. government actions regarding Intel are likely driven by intelligence-gathering motives rather than purely economic…
• Where true randomness comes from and why it matters for encryption — A practical look at true versus pseudo-random number generation, the hardware and software methods behind it, and the real-world consequences of getting…
• Why Catalan police are taking a close look at Google Pixel owners — Because Pixel phones are the only devices that run the privacy-hardened GrapheneOS, Catalan police now treat ownership as a potential red flag in…
• How the CIA hid a spy network inside a Star Wars fan site — In the early 2000s the CIA ran a covert network of fan sites to communicate with field agents, until a captured spy in Iran exposed the operation's…
• Steganography: hiding a file inside an ordinary image — A look at digital steganography and the open-source tool OpenStego, which can conceal files inside images in seconds with no visible trace.
• How botnet operators hide commands inside DNS records — Infected machines can be silently commanded to launch DDoS attacks by reading instructions embedded in ordinary DNS text records, bypassing the need for…
• Shodan: the search engine that maps millions of exposed devices — Shodan scans open ports across the internet and indexes exposed devices, making it both a vital security tool and a ready resource for attackers.
• Friends on Telegram: an Israeli and Iranians raised to be enemies — A personal account of genuine friendship formed online between an Israeli and young Iranians, and the hope of one day hosting them in a freer Middle East.
• Google's patent puts 3D face recognition directly under the display — A newly filed Google patent describes an under-display 3D face recognition system that could rival Apple's Face ID while eliminating the need for a notch…
• An AI model links different fingerprints from the same person — Trained on 60,000 prints from a government database, an AI model matched different fingers belonging to the same person with 77% accuracy, challenging…
• The LAPD's patrol robot looks like it came straight from a video game — The LAPD's new autonomous patrol robot bears a striking resemblance to drones from Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, raising familiar questions about government…
• Your router's Wi-Fi signals can map your movements through walls — Researchers trained a model on paired Wi-Fi signals and camera footage, enabling human presence and movement detection through walls without any camera.
• Apple patents AirPods that can read electrical signals from the brain — Apple's new patent describes using AirPods to detect a user's mood and adapt music playback or the tone of Siri's responses accordingly.
• Apple ties iPhone components to user accounts to deter theft — A recent iOS update lets Apple lock hardware components like the battery and camera to a user's Apple account, rendering stolen parts unusable on other…
• Beeper brings 14 messaging apps into a single interface — Built on the open, decentralized Matrix protocol, Beeper consolidates WhatsApp, Telegram, and 12 other services into one free app across all major…
• Apple's on-device AI strategy may finally give Apple Silicon a reason — By betting on privacy-focused, on-device AI with its new openELM model, Apple may have found the killer use case that finally justifies its powerful…
• Telegram's slow climb from niche app to messaging giant — A personal decade with Telegram traces its technical edge over WhatsApp, its growth to 800 million monthly users, and its gradual crackdown on piracy.
• UK authorities dismantle the LockBit ransomware network — British authorities dismantled the LockBit ransomware group and now plan to unmask its founder, who once offered a $10 million bounty for his identity.