Schneier on Security
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Friday Squid Blogging: “El Pulpo The Squid”
There is a new cigar named “El Pulpo The Squid.” Yes, that means “The Octopus The Squid.”
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
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Part Four of The Kryptos Sculpture
Two people found the solution. They used the power of research, not cryptanalysis, finding clues amongst the Sanborn papers at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art.
This comes as an awkward time, as Sanborn is auctioning off the solution. There were legal threats—I don’t understand their basis—and the solvers are not publishing their solution.
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Serious F5 Breach
This is bad:
F5, a Seattle-based maker of networking software, disclosed the breach on Wednesday. F5 said a “sophisticated” threat group working for an undisclosed nation-state government had surreptitiously and persistently dwelled in its network over a “long-term.” Security researchers who have responded to similar intrusions in the past took the language to mean the hackers were inside the F5 network for years.
During that time, F5 said, the hackers took control of the network segment the company uses to create and distribute updates for BIG IP, a line of server appliances that F5...
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Failures in Face Recognition
Interesting article on people with nonstandard faces and how facial recognition systems fail for them.
Some of those living with facial differences tell WIRED they have undergone multiple surgeries and experienced stigma for their entire lives, which is now being echoed by the technology they are forced to interact with. They say they haven’t been able to access public services due to facial verification services failing, while others have struggled to access financial services. Social media filters and face-unlocking systems on phones often won’t work, they say...
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A Cybersecurity Merit Badge
Scouting America (formerly known as Boy Scouts) has a new badge in cybersecurity. There’s an image in the article; it looks good.
I want one.
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Agentic AI’s OODA Loop Problem
The OODA loop—for observe, orient, decide, act—is a framework to understand decision-making in adversarial situations. We apply the same framework to artificial intelligence agents, who have to make their decisions with untrustworthy observations and orientation. To solve this problem, we need new systems of input, processing, and output integrity.
Many decades ago, U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd introduced the concept of the “OODA loop,” for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. These are the four steps of real-time continuous decision-making. Boyd developed it for fighter pilots, but it’s long been applied in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. An AI agent, like a pilot, executes the loop over and over, accomplishing its goals iteratively within an ever-changing environment. This is Anthropic’s definition: “Agents are models using tools in a loop.”...
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Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Inks Philippines Fisherman
Good video.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
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A Surprising Amount of Satellite Traffic Is Unencrypted
Here’s the summary:
We pointed a commercial-off-the-shelf satellite dish at the sky and carried out the most comprehensive public study to date of geostationary satellite communication. A shockingly large amount of sensitive traffic is being broadcast unencrypted, including critical infrastructure, internal corporate and government communications, private citizens’ voice calls and SMS, and consumer Internet traffic from in-flight wifi and mobile networks. This data can be passively observed by anyone with a few hundred dollars of consumer-grade hardware. There are thousands of geostationary satellite transponders globally, and data from a single transponder may be visible from an area as large as 40% of the surface of the earth...
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Cryptocurrency ATMs
CNN has a great piece about how cryptocurrency ATMs are used to scam people out of their money. The fees are usurious, and they’re a common place for scammers to send victims to buy cryptocurrency for them. The companies behind the ATMs, at best, do not care about the harm they cause; the profits are just too good.
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Apple’s Bug Bounty Program
Apple is now offering a $2M bounty for a zero-click exploit. According to the Apple website:
Today we’re announcing the next major chapter for Apple Security Bounty, featuring the industry’s highest rewards, expanded research categories, and a flag system for researchers to objectively demonstrate vulnerabilities and obtain accelerated awards.
- We’re doubling our top award to $2 million for exploit chains that can achieve similar goals as sophisticated mercenary spyware attacks. This is an unprecedented amount in the industry and the largest payout offered by any bounty program we’re aware of and our bonus system, providing additional rewards for Lockdown Mode bypasses and vulnerabilities discovered in beta software, can more than double this reward, with a maximum payout in excess of $5 million. We’re also doubling or significantly increasing rewards in many other categories to encourage more intensive research. This includes $100,000 for a complete Gatekeeper bypass, and $1 million for broad unauthorized iCloud access, as no successful exploit has been demonstrated to date in either category. ...
