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David Agranovich

@dagrano.bsky.social
3.1K followers 139 following 131 posts

Fmr. NSC Director, Intelligence. Director, Threat Disruption @ Meta. Rescue Dog Pilot, Flight Instructor, Former Big Hair Practitioner 🏳️‍🌈

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by David Agranovich
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai @lorenzofb.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
NEW: Meet the folks at AccessNow's Digital Security Helpline, who have been investigating government spyware for more than a decade, helping journalists and dissidents all over the world. I spoke to Hassen Selmi, who heads the incident response team, to learn how his team fights spyware abuses.
techcrunch.com
Meet the team that hunts government spyware
For years, Access Now’s Digital Security Helpline has been aiding journalists and dissidents who have been targeted with government spyware. This is how they operate.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
And people say targeted advertising doesn’t work
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 13/12/2025
California winters are really something else (Half Moon Bay)
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
It’s fog season again in San Francisco!
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
We just launched our new and expanded Adversarial Threat Report! We've been reporting on online threats like foreign interference for 7 years, but today's report expands our work to cover fraud, scams, and AI security threats. There's a ton in the report, I'll try to break it down in this thread. 1/
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
It’s green season in the Bay! And the mustard is flowering in Half Moon Bay. Sometimes when world events have you down it’s good to get above it for a bit.
View from an airplane of the California coast and bring yellow mustard fieldsView from an airplane of the California coast
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
For those unfamiliar with the US intelligence community, this is the Discount Intelligence Agency
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Reposted by David Agranovich
The Citizen Lab @citizenlab.ca · 19/12/2024
In this episode of Zoom In Zoom Out on TaiwanPlus, The Citizen Lab’s senior researcher Rebekah Brown talks about the commercial spyware industry, its misuse by governments, and the urgent need for regulation. #spyware Watch it here: www.taiwanplus.com/news/shows/z...
taiwanplus.com
Combating Global Abuse of Commercial Spyware
The Biden administration this year launched an initiative to combat the global abuses of commercial spyware. What exactly is commercial spyware and how pervasive is its use? On this episode of Zoom...
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Reposted by David Agranovich
Josh Goldstein @joshagoldstein.bsky.social · 17/12/2024
Wrote a piece in @techpolicypress.bsky.social on some of the lessons that Meta’s Q3 threat report brings back to the surface in online IO: 1. Tension between virality & opsec 2. Experimentation is ongoing 3. Variation in defenses creates arbitrage dynamics 4. Line btwn overt & covert is blurry
techpolicy.press
Old Meets New in Online Influence | TechPolicy.Press
Josh Goldstein writes that now is the time to learn from the influence operators and experiment with new reporting practices.
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Reposted by David Agranovich
J.M. Berger PRE-ORDER THE POPE'S HITMAN @jmberger.com · 17/12/2024
To quote @hayesbrown.bsky.social, "this is going to be [is already] the dumbest dystopia
Text and images from Meta's quarterly Adversarial Threat Report discussing "peculiar croissant-obsessed attempts to iterate and probe our ad defenses"
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
DRONE THREAD (I’m sorry) Context: I used to be a commercial drone operator in DC before becoming a real airplane pilot. I’ve seen a lot of people confused about this “drone” story. Some important things to understand:
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
As the holiday season approaches, we’re taking steps to disrupt scammers operating across the internet, including on Meta platforms, and partnering with researchers and experts to raise awareness about scams - read more below! /1
about.fb.com
How to Avoid Scams Online This Holiday Season | Meta
We’re launching a global anti-scam awareness campaign in collaboration with researchers and safety experts to help people avoid scams this holiday season.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
"The Haw Tuah Memecoin Rug Pull Is The Apotheosis of Bag Culture..." You bolt awake in the mountains of Carthage. You are not online. It is 217 BC. You are the general Hannibal, and you have changed your mind. The future cannot come to pass. Rome must burn.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Interestingly, Sichuan Silence LTD was also the subject of our info ops threat report in 2021: about.fb.com/news/2021/12...
about.fb.com
Meta's Adversarial Threat Report | Meta
We’re sharing a detailed, end-of-year threat report on six adversarial networks we found and removed for Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior, Brigading and Mass Reporting.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
We've just released our Q3 Adversarial Threat Report. Being part of the team creating the threat disruption discipline has been the high point of my last 6 years at Meta. The report covers influence operations and adversarial ops we've detected and disrupted in the last quarter. Some key takeaways:
transparency.fb.com
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Reposted by David Agranovich
The Citizen Lab @citizenlab.ca · 02/12/2024
NEW REPORT: We investigate the rising trend of gender-based digital transnational repression by drawing on the lived experiences of 85 women human rights defenders living in exile across the globe. Read the full report: citizenlab.ca/2024/12/the-...
citizenlab.ca
No Escape: The Weaponization of Gender for the Purposes of Digital Transnational Repression - The Citizen Lab
Building upon our prior research and the contributions of other scholars to this field, the aim of this novel study is to understand the security risks and harms caused by digital transnational repres...
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
All these takes debating whether we need to stay on X to “break through” or whatever and my top of feed there is a graphic of prominent women in history with Stars of David overlaid on their faces claiming “feminism is a tool of Jews to undermine the Christian Man” I think we will be ok without X
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
Ever wondered what more than 1000mph of closure looks like? Southwest Airlines passing 1000 feet below from a Cirrus Vision Jet going the other direction
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Looking down the Pacific coast on a chilly Fall morning
Looking out the left window of a Cessna 172, you see the Pacific Ocean and the tree filled coastline of Northern California.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
While it’s a tale as old as time to see platforms speed run these hard tradeoffs, I really respect the Bluesky team for talking transparently *about* those tradeoffs. While this is an adversarial space, this kind of transparency goes a long way in building trust.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
Oh hey San Francisco
The Golden Gate Bridge viewed from a plane flying over the San Francisco Bay
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Good group to follow!
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 07/07/2023
> everyone posts solidarity weasels > inadvertently DDoSes the app again
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 06/07/2023
Looking at the implementation on profiles, seems there’s space for a future domain host
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 05/07/2023
Some photos of Yevgeny Prigozhin appeared today today, some notable stuff, besides how dumb he looks. First, this one. Most notable is the insignia on his hat, which appears to be for the Libyan Armed Forces, and is consistent with the uniform he’s wearing. Why Libya? 1/x
Yevgeny Prigozhin looking like a tool with a fake wig and Libyan army uniform
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 05/07/2023
The brilliant and occasionally grumpy @shanehuntley.bsky.social is here, go follow him because he gazes into the cyber abyss and brings forth arcane knowledge
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 29/06/2023
@gavinwilde.bsky.social worth reading today. Those (particularly in Western Europe) who point to the popularity of Russian media in LatAm and Africa shouod perhaps introspect on history.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 24/06/2023
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 24/06/2023
If Russia-watchers search their deepest selves, the situation in Rostov feels like the most predictable outcome of the last 6 years. Russia invades Russia while Russian state media decries news about Prigozhin, noted troll farm operator, as misinformation.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 24/06/2023
Lol. Lmao even.
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Reposted by David Agranovich
Oleksiy @oleksiy.bsky.social · 20/06/2023
As I join a new social network, it feels very apropos to begin with an article on why one should close their account with another social network www.wired.com/story/the-kremlin-has… #telegram #ukraine
wired.com
The Kremlin Has Entered Your Telegram Chat
Russian antiwar activists placed their faith in Telegram, a supposedly secure messaging app. How does Putin’s regime seem to know their every move?
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Reposted by David Agranovich
doğa @dogaker.bsky.social · 17/06/2023
Great thread. In addition $8 gateway probably does the exact opposite by keeping the vulnerable and marginalized groups especially in international contexts with weaker currencies.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 17/06/2023
They absolutely would. Elon thought $8 and payment professing was meaningful friction against bots, trolls, and spammers, but the ego-driven misconceptions that led to his failure deserve some elaboration. Thread time!
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 17/06/2023
Definitely a different intelligence guy than the one that named Operation Acoustic Kitty en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Kitty
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 31/05/2023
Woof Wednesday with two perritos traveling north from Baja to Seattle. Oro and Laura were strays taken in by Baja Dogs La Paz and later adopted by families in Washington. The slept the whole way up, though Laura often stuck her head up front to make sure we knew what we were doing.
Two small dogs sleeping in crates in the back of a small airplane Two small dogs standing next to the tail of a small airplane A small dog peeks into the flight deck of an airplane with a look of mild concern
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 31/05/2023
This is Zeus. He is a deaf Great Pyrenees who lived in a small shelter in Sonoma until he was adopted by a deaf dog rescue ranch in SoCal. He was one of my first Pilots n Paws passengers and fell asleep from the engine vibrations. He lives in SoCal now and guards a bunch of sheep.
A cute Great Pyrenees dog stuck between the seats of a small airplane A cute Great Pyrenees dog gazes happily out the window of a small airplane flying high over the Central Valley of California.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 26/05/2023
Hello San Francisco. These flights always make me think about how someone on the ground is having a cold, wet, overcast day; yet a sunny blue skies day is just a few hundred feet above them. Two completely different moods coexisting.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 25/05/2023
This is even more impressive placed in historical context: the US utterly failed at the narrative war when Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014. The aggressive disclosure policy in 2022 neutered many Russian covert operations and primed the public to spot disinformation. 1/
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 16/05/2023
Some truly incredible work by Olga and the team diving into the challenging and nuanced realm of State Controlled Media, how to define it, and how to address it. Read the lawfare piece linked in her thread for more
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/05/2023
Flown commercially recently and experienced delays? Something is rotten in the National Aerospace System, and it’s getting worse 1/n
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/05/2023
Fascinating watching a relatively small team build capabilities fairly quickly. Content moderation has been stuck with few archetypes (curated feed[TikTok], trying to do everything[FB, Twitter], opacity [YouTube], nothing[Parler, 4Chan]). Definitely a space to watch, hoping for something new.
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Reposted by David Agranovich
Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 11/05/2023
So... we're excited to launch: Moderator Mayhem (which we've spent the last few months building, in partnership with Engine). A browser-based mobile content moderation simulator game: moderatormayhem.engine.is
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 09/05/2023
Hey everyone. So we’re supposed to post blue skies?
Blue skies over snowy maintains on the approach into Salt Lake City
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