In September, hackers from a group called ShinyHunters announced that they stole a trove of FBI data about its own agents. It was an intelligence disaster . Last week, the FBI arrested (alternate link ) someone associated with that crime.

On Wednesday I spent a day fishing, on a small boat out of Gloucester, MA. We caught many cod (none of which we could keep), and a bunch of hake and mackerel (all of which we could keep). And…I caught a squid! Near as I can tell, it’s a longfin squid, sometimes called a Boston squid ( Doryteuthis (Amerigo) pealeii ). That night I cooked it over a barbecue grill—hot and fast. Delicious.

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 you!” She shouted,

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 this puts some phot

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 behind GrayKey, a pop

This one is from 1809, written by Napoleon’s nephew.

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.

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. This Flock case is mo

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 about how they are us

Researchers at Northeastern University, in collaboration with Consumer Reports , evaluated how much modern cars spy in their drivers: The new Northeastern study shows, for the first time, data flowing among the vehicles, the vehicle apps you download when you buy your car, and third-party companies, documenting exactly what kind of data gets siphoned from our vehicles and which companies are recei