evacide

Director of Cybersecurity
@EFF
/ Co-founder of
@stopstalkerware
/ These are my opinions, not my employers’ / I did a TED talk once

Public Key

npub1pdy6l28vft74na25fsr2k4esu8yecarxnhn8h0wm67sd6fjn264qwxcay2

NIP-05 Address

evacide_at_hachyderm.io@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsqkjd04rky4l2e742ycp4t2ucwrjvuw3nfmenmhhda0gxayef4d2spz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduq5w0dw

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

Author Public Key

npub1pdy6l28vft74na25fsr2k4esu8yecarxnhn8h0wm67sd6fjn264qwxcay2

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Last Notes

2024-08-25 20:23:19

My dudes, Telegram is not an e2e messaging app like Signal or WhatsApp. Telegram is more like Twitter. It is a social media app that is mostly public content that also happens to have DMs, where you can turn on e2e messaging with questionable cryptography that most people never even bother to use.

2024-08-09 20:34:27

Every woman I know who does tech support for survivors of domestic abuse does it because she is a survivor. Every man I know who does this work does it because they've seen someone abused and they were moved to do something about it.

2024-08-09 18:13:55

'Tis the season for domestic abuse, I guess. I've had eight cases come in since Monday and Friday isn't even over.

2024-08-08 19:25:34

Consumer Reports and Tall Poppy join forces to find out if people-search site removal services really work. Unsurprisingly, the answers are "kind of," "not always" and "it depends."
https://innovation.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Data-Defense_-Evaluating-People-Search-Site-Removal-Services-.pdf

2024-08-05 20:11:54

Court rules that Google illegally monopolized the online search and advertising markets for 10+ years.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/doj-states-win-google-search-191541412.html

2024-08-05 20:07:10

This is your regular reminder that Google spent billions of dollars a year making their search engine the default while Google search results became increasingly tainted, nonsensical, and useless.

2024-08-05 06:17:04

I am buying all of the high-waisted, wide-legged pants right now to get me through the Long Winter of Unflattering Pants that will surely come next. Years may pass before these, the most suitable of pants, become fashionable again. I must hoard them like a dragon.

2024-08-02 22:45:51

Some days, I read the news and I feel extremely lucky that my first instinct when given the opportunity to meet a famous person whose work I like is to run to the other side of the room and pretend that I don't see them.

2024-08-02 00:13:34

Mostly the internet is a garbage fire, but sometimes it brings me cheese puns.

2024-08-01 23:54:20

After years of being informed that I am in the pocket of Big Tech (alas, without making a Big Tech salary), I would like to announce that, like the Olympians, I am ready to be sponsored by Parmesan cheese.

2024-08-01 20:04:20

KOSA passed overwhelmingly in the Senate yesterday, but today it’s dead in the House. The fight isn’t over, but we have won this round and let’s take a minute to enjoy it.

2024-07-31 05:30:51

Iowa's six-week abortion ban is now in effect. Six weeks is barely long enough for a woman to realize she is pregnant.
Today is a good day to rage-donate to the Iowa Abortion Access Fund:
https://www.iowaabortionaccessfund.org/shop/
https://19thnews.org/2024/07/iowa-six-week-abortion-ban-takes-effect/

2024-07-30 21:52:48

Governments always want to censor and surveil the internet and the only thing that ever changes is the boogeyman they point to as justification for their power grab.

2024-07-30 17:20:36

Of course one of the few things the GOP and Democrats can agree on is that we should give the power to censor the internet to people who've explicitly said they want to use it to block LGBTQ+ content.
This is punk rock time. This is what Joe Strummer trained you for. Click here & contact your rep.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/07/kosa-internet-censorship-bill-just-passed-senate-its-our-last-chance-stop-it

2024-07-26 18:58:36

It has come to my attention that some of you are unfamiliar with the BEC, or "bitch eating crackers," an extremely important concept to keep in mind when you hear someone talking shit: https://criminalreviews.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/a-captain-awkward-glossary/#bitcheatingcrackers

2024-07-25 18:00:13

Leaked documents show that the Israeli government is continuing its efforts to cover NSO Group’s ass in the WhatsApp lawsuit.
https://forbiddenstories.org/actualites_posts/israel-maneuvered-to-prevent-disclosure-of-state-secrets-amid-whatsapp-vs-nso-lawsuit/

2024-07-23 02:49:28

I don't know who first said "Walk into a room like you are a punishment sent by God," but I think about it a lot before stepping into a certain kind of meeting.

2024-07-21 21:32:58

A whole lot of people who were previously unfamiliar with the word "misogynoir" are about to learn it real soon.

2024-07-21 05:40:04

Sometimes bad things happen to bad people and I get to enjoy it, as a little treat.
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/19/messari-ryan-selkis-donald-trump-political-controversy-tweets

2024-07-19 19:08:23

The overlap between the people whose job involves dealing with the fallout of the Crowdstrike update and people who have time to shitpost about the fallout of the Crowdstrike update is very narrow.

2024-07-18 23:55:52

I was going to link to a story about ProtonMail incorporating a bunch of AI features that no one wants and that may, in some cases, be on by default, but at the closing paragraph confused privacy and security in a way that made me so annoyed that I rage-closed the browser tab.

2024-07-18 18:43:11

Fun fact: EFF's campaign to get Venmo to allow people to make their list of friends private was not what made that change happen.
It was this: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/we-found-joe-bidens-secret-venmo

2024-07-18 18:34:39

We ran a whole campaign at EFF to get Venmo to even make it possible for users to hide their social networks. The fact that JD Vance couldn't be bothered to turn that option on is a lesson in the tyranny of default settings.
https://www.wired.com/story/jd-vance-venmo/

2024-07-17 19:38:18

Adulthood is having six distinctly different lightbulbs in your house for your various light fixtures.
This post was brought to you by the lightbulb in my shower that needs to be replaced.

2024-07-11 20:00:07

" ...emails in the leaked Zendesk data show that mSpy and its operators are acutely aware of what customers use the spyware for, including monitoring of phones without the person’s knowledge"
https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/11/mspy-spyware-millions-customers-data-breach/?guccounter=1

2024-07-11 07:04:44

Late at night, as I browse the internet, the bad ideas whisper in my ear...
Dye your hair pastel pink, they say.
Buy another black jumpsuit, they say.
Submit a talk for that CFP, they say.
Surely I will not regret any of these things.

2024-06-20 05:46:03

Sometimes I will say something out loud and I will be reminded that not everyone is constantly assembling a heist team in their heads and pursuing new skills because they may be useful in a heist.

2024-06-19 00:54:41

"There are 948 words in this document. They can't ALL be wrong."
Things I say while editing.

2024-06-15 17:14:48

I have been tremendously lucky in my career, but I have absolutely seen men get paid more for the same or less work with the same or fewer qualifications and I have seen men praised as geniuses for behavior that gets me called a bitch.

2024-06-15 17:10:25

"The longer a woman works at Apple, the larger the gap in compensation she receives compared to similarly situated men," the proposed class action alleged.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/06/apple-deliberately-pays-women-less-than-men-lawsuit-says/

2024-06-13 23:31:26

This is terrible news:
https://www.platformer.news/stanford-internet-observatory-shutdown-stamos-diresta-sio/

2024-06-12 20:44:07

Sometimes the good guys win.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/06/one-of-the-major-sellers-of-detailed-driver-behavioral-data-is-shutting-down/

2024-06-12 16:29:17

One of the most interesting things about this story is that the hacker allegedly gained access to "a database intended for law enforcement to identify owners of specific Tile trackers." I've had LE complain that they couldn't ID owners of specific trackers in the past.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/12/24176889/tile-life360-customer-data-breach-hacker-extortion

2024-06-10 22:58:58

letthemfight.gif
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-06-10/elon-musk-to-ban-apple-devices-if-openai-is-integrated-into-os

2024-06-09 19:58:05

Summer is here, which means that people are having Discourse about what weight women are allowed to reach before they should not be allowed to wear revealing clothing instead of just letting people wear clothes and shutting the hell up.

2024-06-09 02:14:44

Let there be no doubt that NSO Group is using the courts to harass the security researchers who have done the most to shed light on their years of misdeeds and lies.
https://theintercept.com/2024/05/06/pegasus-nso-group-israeli-spyware-citizen-lab/

2024-06-09 00:26:50

I went to see "Innocence" at the opera last night and I was perfectly fine until the survivor of a school shooting said it made her decide to become a doctor. It turns out that trauma survivors becoming the people who would have saved themselves stabs me directly in the feelings.

2024-06-07 17:25:17

Microsoft says they are making a bunch of changes to Recall to mitigate the many, many security and privacy problems that researchers have found over the last week:
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/7/24173499/microsoft-windows-recall-response-security-concerns

2024-06-06 23:51:29

When AirTags first came out and I warned that they were Apple's gift to stalkers, so many Apple fanboys told me that I was overreacting.
https://www.404media.co/email/ce4cec4d-51c3-4101-b2b4-2c9a64aee5e8

2024-06-06 04:01:04

I try to be gracious and good rather than petty and mean, but sometimes bad things happen to bad people and I pop some popcorn, as a little treat.

2024-06-01 01:44:04

There are so many reasons you shouldn't use stalkerware and @npub1xvw…ksg7 lays them all out for you right here: https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/31/hacked-leaked-exposed-why-you-should-stop-using-stalkerware-apps/

2024-05-31 19:05:49

Who are the "supersharers" of fake news on Twitter? Republican Middle-aged white women living in Arizona, Florida, and Texas.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl4435

2024-05-30 21:37:23

Yes, I know that guy still stands a good chance of winning the election in November, but this is your regular reminder that you can't fight a long fight without stopping to enjoy your victories or you will burn out to a cinder.

2024-05-29 17:59:21

"I cannot be phased by being condescended to by old white men in legislative meetings. I have worked many years in infosec and I am dead inside" is an actual thing I said in an all-hands meeting yesterday.

2024-05-28 22:02:20

If you, a white person, feel the need to disguise yourself as a black person for any goddamn reason, how about you just don't?

2024-05-26 21:22:50

There is nothing more American than bragging that you know a bunch of languages because you can stumble your way through a restaurant menu and nothing more European than fluently speaking 3+ languages while apologizing for your accent.

2024-05-23 17:23:00

As a person who enjoys live music, this is the kind of action I love to see.
“It is time to break up Live Nation-Ticketmaster,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/23/24163083/live-nation-ticketmaster-doj-monopoly-lawsuit-break-up

2024-05-22 17:55:02

I keep writing "privacy for cats" instead of "privacy for cars" in my work calendar, which leads to a very different mental image of what my job looks like.

2024-05-22 06:15:42

A lot of people who are not experts in domestic abuse think they're making a clever point by informing me that if an abuser has physical access & login credentials, the game's already over.
I am very tired and do not have the energy to explain why making spying easier for abusers is bad, actually.

2024-05-22 00:24:59

"...a would-be hacker would need to gain physical access to your device, unlock it and sign in before they could access saved screenshots."
I've got some news for Microsoft about how domestic abuse works.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwwqp6nx14o

2024-05-20 03:02:58

"I'm not listening to any more Dune takes from a guy who can't tell CHOAM from the Landsraad!" is a perfectly normal thing to yell while making brunch.

2024-05-16 21:28:38

Threat models matter.
When a platform/service/app tells you they are “private” or “secure” always ask “from whom?”
Criminals, domestic abusers, law enforcement, data brokers, and intelligence agencies are all different attackers with very different capabilities.

2024-05-16 19:42:51

When I talk about digital privacy, there is always some smug genius who shrugs and tells me, "Who cares? We all know we don't have any privacy anyway." Nothing could be more wrong. Convincing you that the fight is already over to the way people in power get you to stop resisting.

2024-05-15 20:29:02

"Cisgender is a slur" has some real "people pointing out racist behavior are the real racists" energy to it.

2024-05-14 23:46:13

If you own a Tesla, your car is covered in cameras that take images reviewed by Tesla employees, who share them with each other, joke about them, and make them into memes.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-workers-shared-sensitive-images-recorded-by-customer-cars-2023-04-06/

2024-05-14 19:42:16

I see that everything is going fine over at the Hellsite.
https://media.hachyderm.io/media_attachments/files/112/441/143/269/589/043/original/90ef70fec1df7738.png

2024-05-14 18:47:52

I have spent this week declining work requests that are unreasonable in scope or that make me uncomfortable and I would like a goddamn medal.

2024-05-13 18:01:37

I'm just a security researcher, standing in front of a journalist, asking them not to delete the file with the malicious attachment before calling me.

2024-05-10 18:25:28

Why yes, I am absolutely wearing this cut-off tshirt with an image of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofrenes that says “Girl Dinner” to the talk I am giving this afternoon about tech-enabled abuse.

2024-05-09 18:01:33

Everything about Durov's statement is so profoundly dishonest that I feel like engaging in a point-by-point debunking is a waste of time. If most of the messages on your platform are not end-to-end encrypted AT ALL, it is less private and secure than platforms whose messages are all e2e by default.
https://t.me/durov/274

2024-05-08 17:39:43

This is your regular reminder that most communications on Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted. Channels and groups are never end-to-end encrypted and 1-on-1 messages are only end-to-end when explicitly enabled.

2024-05-07 18:25:40

Buying a new car in 2024 is a goddamn privacy nightmare, part 3591 of an endless series: https://sherwood.news/tech/how-to-opt-out-of-the-privacy-nightmare-that-comes-factory-installed-in-new/

2024-05-07 00:21:04

Do not stare into the abyss, lest you be invited to keynote the abyss.

2024-05-06 19:07:46

"You are absolutely not going to like what I have to say about this thing you have invited me to keynote about" is my whole vibe.

2024-05-06 01:02:58

The saddest thing about meeting other high-profile women and enbys in infosec is the part where you compare your lists of stalkers and chronic harassers.

2024-05-05 06:32:48

Welp. It was definitely a good week to talk to a bunch of college CISOs about campus surveillance.

2024-05-02 15:15:54

I cannot overstate how dangerous to free speech and a healthy democracy it is to redefine all anti-Zionism and criticism of the state of Israel as antisemitism. You know who's loudly critical of Zionism and the Israeli govt? Jews. A lot of Jews.
https://forward.com/fast-forward/608308/gop-democrats-antisemitism-campus-israel/

2024-04-27 04:02:54

It is now the time after my company-wide retreat when I come home and mentally review every single thing I said to my co-workers that was awkward or weird.

2024-04-21 21:00:48

Grappling with the realization that I might be done going to DEFCON.

2024-04-20 17:11:37

4/20 is the single worst day in San Francisco to try to do anything near Golden Gate Park, which is unfortunate because I have things to do near Golden Gate Park.

2024-04-19 18:57:27

We are living in the worst possible timeline.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/disturbing-recordings-crying-infants-played-israeli-quadcopters-lure-gaza-residents-shooting

2024-04-15 20:21:56

If you're the person who stole the package from my foyer, I hope you're enjoying Police and the Empire City: Race and the Origins of Modern Policing in New York.

2024-04-14 22:37:16

The flea markets at Saint Ouen in Paris are the most intense shopping experience known to man. I walked up some stairs in Marche Dauphine and told my friends, “I regret to inform you that this entire floor is vintage clothing. We may never leave this place.”

2024-03-31 21:41:37

This is your regular reminder that "I did this thing 20 years ago" is not the same thing as "I have 20 years of experience." It's not even an indicator that you have any idea of how things are done now.

2024-03-31 21:32:04

I have experimented with privacy/security advice chatbots and I have discovered that the part of my expertise I absolutely cannot replicate is figuring out what the person I'm talking to isn't telling me.

2024-03-31 03:19:25

My co-worker has proposed an AI chatbot that answers every legal question with a long sigh and "it depends..."
This chatbot could also be used for digital privacy and security advice.

2024-03-29 15:55:58

The Canadian government clutches its pearls over the Flipper Zero and EFF is not impressed. With bonus toilet-hacking from [@zoracon](https://infosec.exchange/@zoracon): https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/restricting-flipper-zero-accountability-approach-security-canadian-government