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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 🏳️‍🌈

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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
10/ This is our first attempt at expanding the aperture of threats we report on - we would welcome your feedback as we want this to be a valuable tool for the security community. Read more here: transparency.meta.com/sr/Q2-Q3-202...
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
9/ Threat actors also target AI systems - in the report, we talk through how we approach securing model inputs and design.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
8/ The good news - AI tools also hold some promise for building more effective defenses. We've piloted using AI to identify potential scam archetypes in Messenger conversations to warn people against engaging with a potential scam.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
7/ Finally - AI continues to evolve and we've seen threat actors attempt to leverage AI tools for everything from content and image creation to more sophisticated social engineering to enable scams.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
6/ Fourth: Russian operations continue a trend we've reported before of co-opting third parties in other countries to run their covert influence operations. We share two examples, both targeting Africa. This trend is particularly pernicious as it make it more difficult to hold them accountable
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
5/ read more about Endless Mayfly here from the people who originally named it: bsky.app/profile/rond...
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
4/ Third: We are able to attribute a long-running operation known as "Endless Mayfly" (H/T @citizenlab.ca) to Iran's International Union of Virtual Media. This operation spanned networks we disrupted from 2018 through 2024 and was active across numerous online platforms.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
3/ Second: Ever since COVID, online fraud and scam activity has exploded. We walk through the internal Fraud Attack Chain taxonomy we use to map out scams and we also share an investigation into a scam center in Cambodia we disrupted 
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
2/ First off - go read more here: transparency.meta.com/sr/Q2-Q3-202...
Table of contents for the linked report
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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 · 18/01/2025
Holy shit sayyadina neuberger
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
How dare you
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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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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 26/12/2024
Huge improvement over how I used to get the homies to their Newark United connection
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 26/12/2024
Getting ready to take my new couch from Hoboken to Brooklyn
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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
6/ You might not normally notice satellites streaking by, star link microsats trailing in a line, or starlight twinkling through an inversion layer - but you definitely will when all your neighbors think the Iranians are invading with help from ET. And it wouldn’t be the first time:
medium.com
During a 1994 blackout, L.A. residents called 911 when they saw the Milky Way for the first time
More like the City of Too Much Light…
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
5/ people notice things more when they’re pointed out. You might live your whole life in NJ without appreciating just how much helicopter, airplane, and other air traffic exists.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
4.5/ The position of the lights can create confusing visual illusions when the aircraft passes or turns, and can look like they’re moving erratically or impossibly.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
4/ people (even pilots) are pretty bad at identifying lights in the sky at night. Airplanes that would be 20-30 miles away and invisible during the day are easy to see at night, especially below 10k ft where their landing lights are on.
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
3.5/ It’s a mass hysteria self-licking ice cream cone. I wouldn’t be surprised if some people with hobby drones are flying around at night in NJ just to mess with people at this point
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
3/ maybe something weird was going on in NJ when this kicked off. But at this point you’ve WSJ and NYPost reporters posting videos of MD-80s and C17s flying over as if they’re alien spacecraft and hobbyists launching drones in NJ to try to take pics, causing more people to see real drones and panic
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
2.5/ and they are often flown by some guy that just bought a DJIPhantom at Walmart and has no idea what he’s doing. IG is full of videos by drone owners flagrantly violating these rules
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
2/ The vast majority of American airspace from the ground up to between 700-1200 feet is uncontrolled entirely. Hobby drones and larger agricultural drones generally don’t have transponders, don’t show up on radar (radar needs line of sight and stuff really close to the ground won’t often show up
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 15/12/2024
1/ basically anybody can buy a range of drones at Walmart or online from companies like DJI. They can be pretty big, including some agricultural models. There are regulations around where you can fly them and when you need a license, but there aren’t great ways to enforce them
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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
Unfortunately @aaron.bsky.team seems to be doing a good job otherwise we could have some fun with the crypto wallet scam bots like over on X
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
yes right away mr zuckerbok sir
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
And check out @racheltobac.bsky.social's video outlining how to spot scams in the wild /end
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Read more about common holiday-themed scams here: graphika.com/reports/holi... /8
graphika.com
Holiday Hoaxes Unwrapped: Fake Trees, Freebies, & Shopping Sprees
Scammers Orchestrate Cross-Internet Campaigns to Deceive and Defraud Holiday Shoppers of their Money and Personal Information
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
Finally, we constantly work to disrupt phishing domains impersonating our brands across the internet. This year, we got over 24K URLs hosting phishing content in Vietnam and Singapore removed from the internet. /7
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
We’ve also continued to expand our pilot program to share information about scams directly with banks and financial services partners to disrupt scammers across the internet /6
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
On Marketplace, we rolled out warnings to alert you if we detect messages that follow the patterns of known scam scenarios. /5
A interstitial on Facebook Marketplace that warns of a potential scamA interstitial on Facebook Marketplace that warns of a potential scam
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
On Instagram, if an account we suspect to be engaging in potentially scammy activities requests to follow you, we will remind you to be aware of potentially suspicious interactions. /4
An Instagram interstitial warning of a possible scamAn Instagram interstitial warning of a possible scam
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
On WhatsApp, if someone you don’t know messages you or adds you to a group, you’ll now see a context card giving you more information about the user or the group. /3
A WhatsApp context card describing a user and Group
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 11/12/2024
In addition to enforcement, teams across Meta are constantly rolling out new product features to help protect people on our apps from known scam tactics at scale. Here are a few relevant anti-scam tools we’ve launched this year: /2
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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 · 05/12/2024
Yeah I think you're right, some of the news coverage seems to indicate that NYPD did find brass at the scene
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
It's really hard to tell from the camera, but could this have the advantage of forcing manual cycling so that the shooter can recover the spent casings? Subsonic ammunition+heavy suppressor+maybe no nielsen device probably means many semiauto pistols would malfunction? Caveat I know zip about hitmen
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David Agranovich @dagrano.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Huh weird. I’ll troubleshoot it!
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