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v0max.bsky.social
Scientist. Dir. of Usable Security & Privacy at the International Computer Science Institute (icsi.berkeley.edu). Founder, AppCensus (appcensus.io). All opinions are those of his employer(s), and not his own. https://www.guanotronic.com/~serge/
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Posts 27 Comments 23

After 800 games played, I’m finally back to 100% win rate based on rounding!

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

me: haha how could anyone be so gullible that they'd buy magic beans tech industry: the next big thing is a Money Algorithm that you run on a billion GPUs all at once to get Even Richer. Venture capital has given us infinity money for this concept. We have no business model. me: ah.

submitted 5 days ago • 16 comments

The accused assassin allegedly used data brokers to track down the Democratic lawmakers he murdered. Congress doesn't need any more proof that selling data to anyone with a credit card is deadly. Every American's safety is at risk until Congress cracks down on data brokers.

submitted 7 days ago • 70 comments

An airline-owned data broker collected US travelers’ flight records, sold them to Customs and Border Protection, and then as part of the contract told CBP to not reveal where the data came from, according to a contract obtained by 404 Media.

submitted 8 days ago • 31 comments

On average, more than 68 thousand people visit the National Mall each day. www.nps.gov/nationalmall...

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

LAPD is illegally sharing license plate data with ICE and Border Patrol. Under California law, police agencies are barred from sharing license plate reader data with out-of-state public agencies or federal entities.

submitted 10 days ago • 117 comments

I once sat across the aisle from Peter Falk on a flight. The captain welcomed him aboard over the PA. Since I had been upgraded, I casually looked around (assuming he’d be up there), and there he was directly across from me smiling back! He’d just written a book and handed out copies to the crew.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

Bath time!

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

They did this to a sitting senator while they knew cameras were rolling. Imagine what they are doing to more vulnerable people in the dark.

submitted 11 days ago • 14 comments

It turns out Spinal Tap had it right all along.

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

It’s completely insane that US troops are illegally deployed to suppress domestic opposition and it’s not uniformly condemned by the press and political elite.

submitted 12 days ago • 531 comments

I suppose it’s good that they’ve conceded upfront that they have no legal authority?

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

Live blogging SHB day 2: vaniea.com/post/2025/sh...

submitted 13 days ago • 1 comment

We need to build some real social stigma around being afraid of cities. You don't have to like them or live there, but a politics built this strongly around watching TV and going "ewww" is embarrassing, and people should be embarrassed by it. It's like "fear of werewolves" being your top issue.

submitted 13 days ago • 580 comments

Really important that no one read this @orlandosentinel.com reporting when it publishes. I'm setting up alerts just to make sure I don't accidentally read it and share it widely when the time comes

submitted 14 days ago • 14 comments

I keep referring to this font as “Saarinen Sans” because it’s straight out of Dulles or the TWA JFK terminal, but it probably has a real name…

submitted 15 days ago • 5 comments

I continue to contend that she is an idiot’s idea of a smart person.

submitted 15 days ago • 1 comment

Five years ago this guy asked for help with a privacy story, so I spent a few weeks analyzing apps and generating data for him, all on my own time (the type of thing my company charges thousands of dollars for for business customers). 1/

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

“Have you ever found your SSN on a Russian cybercrime forum?” “You will! And the company that will bring it to you: AT&T!”

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

This is an exciting and innovative position that is unusual in the US, but key to meaningful privacy protections and privacy-forward systems today. Join us!

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments

wonderful to see so many companies celebrating pride month this year

submitted 21 days ago • 31 comments

When have privacy and/or societal risks ever caused Meta to think twice about doing something? The only shift is that instead of overruling actual people who know better, now they get to abdicate responsibility by saying the machine said it was okay.

submitted 23 days ago • 2 comments

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd. It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

submitted 24 days ago • 463 comments

Every government worker impacted by Elon's government massacres should call.

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

"building a product that will use people lookup tools, data brokers, and data breaches to “jump from LPR [license plate reader] to person,”" I know I'm late to the story but not sure we've seen breached data instrumentalized in quite this official way before www.404media.co/license-plat...

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

I lost a contract after outing a fake root CA three years ago. No regrets! archive.is/6KH1W

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

The other really stupid part is that the “debate over its applicability to illegal aliens” wasn’t a thing because there wasn’t such a thing as an illegal alien: the US effectively had open borders up until the early 20th century. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History...

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments