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Eran Toch

@eranto.bsky.social
489 followers 96 following 216 posts

I invent new technologies and user experiences for privacy & human-AI interaction. Prof of Engineering at TAU.

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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
TheMarker just published its latest “40 Under 40” list. It got me thinking: are they actually that promising? I set Claude Code loose on a preliminary (and limited) analysis of whether the people featured in two lists over the years actually lived up to the promise. claude.ai/artifact/FZo...
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I joined Guy Rolnik on TheMarker's podcast to talk about AI, the end of the world, privacy, and regulation. We discussed the problems in doomer discourse and what happens to privacy and our rights over our own work in an AI world. Have a listen! open.spotify.com/episode/38bp...
open.spotify.com
״כל הידע והעבודה שלנו נלקחים על-ידי צ׳אט ג׳יפיטי וקלוד״ | פרק 391
המרקרים · Episode
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Really happy to see my PhD student Vanessa Budde’s work recognized with a Short Paper Honorable Mention at MuC 2026 🎉. Our paper looks at how people experience harmful chatbot interactions: from manipulation and behavioral steering to boundary violations. toch.tau.ac.il/3924-2/
the prize the prize
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Congratulations to Michael Khavkin (my Ph.D. student) on receiving the Ein-Dor Student Research Award! The award, by ILAIS, was received for our paper “Beyond the Privacy-Utility Trade-Off: How User Disclosure Decisions Shape Information Systems Under Differential Privacy."
Receiving the Ein Dor Prize
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Dan Kotliar @danmk.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
אם טרם נרשמתןם לאחד הכנסים, אז ממש כדאי לכםן! למה כדאי? בין השאר כי 👇
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Claude Code is powerful, but as your projects pile up, it's hard to track everything across terminal sessions. Understudy is an open-source layer on top of Claude Code that makes it act less like a tool you drive and more like an assistant that keeps work moving on its own. 🧵 1/7
understudy dashboard
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Super proud of my PhD student Danielle Movsowitz Davidow, for giving her research, “The Blockchain Privacy Paradox: Perceptions of Privacy Coins,” at the 13th Privacy Conference at Tel Aviv University. >>
Lecture
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
While driving out of Tel Aviv with my kids during a missile alarm, I found myself searching for a roadside shelter and coming up empty. That led me to ask: what would it take to ensure that drivers on intercity roads can reach a shelter within 5 minutes? >> eranto.github.io/shelter_plac...
eranto.github.io
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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Hashing isn’t a magic incantation that anonymizes your data.
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
While we were in the shelter, I received an email announcing that my paper, co-authored with Bar Ifrah (whom I supervised on a master’s project) and @birnhack.bsky.social, has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Documentation >>
Scanned newspaper
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
The game Eternal Afternoon by Alex Klexber is perfect for these end times. A kid living in some generic housing block has 20 minutes before the world is destroyed in a giant wave. How do you pass the time in the last 20 minutes of your life? Again and again? store.steampowered.com/app/3924170/...
store.steampowered.com
Eternal Afternoon on Steam
Spend one last afternoon exploring your childhood neighborhood before the world ends at 6:38 PM.
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Dan Kotliar @danmk.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
התחלנו לשחק בHaifa - משחק מקסים על חיפה בזמן המלחמה. גיבור המשחק הוא נרי שיוצא לחפש את חברו איברה שנעלם. האווירה קודרת (מלחמה), אבל יש במשחק הרבה יופי חיפאי - על הנופים, האנשים, הרב-תרבותיות, ועוד. חובה לחיפאים/ות ומומלץ מאוד לכל השאר. זכור לי שאחת המפתחות היתה בבלוסקיי. מישהו זוכר?
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Paula Villa Braslavsky @paulita.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
This has just been published in “Theory & Society” (formerly) considered THE top #sociology /theory journal, after Springer Nature redid the board, installing Steven Pinker among them. Shame shame shame
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Open-access publishing models allow well-funded academic institutions (such as my university) to use their financial resources and purchasing power to give their faculty an unfair advantage in the number of publications and citations. Isn't pay-to-publish more harmful than pay-to-read?
open access funding
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
OpenAI is in the big Latex business now x.com/OpenAI/statu...
x.com
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
We’re happy to announce that our paper, “Place Matters: Neighborhood Effects on Smart City Service Adoption,” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Urban Technology. >>
Urban technology journal
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Mor Naaman @informor.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
“Let’s make this clear right now: unless you’ve made at least two masterpieces and changed the face of cinema forever — don’t walk on bike lanes.” Well played, Facebook account of the City of Tel Aviv-Jaffa
Quentin Tarantino on a bike lane in Tel Aviv -- and the city's response
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
So proud of the work we’ve done in CHI’s Privacy and Security subcommittee. It was really a privilege co-chairing this subcommittee with Florian and Emilee. Sadly, our lab’s papers weren’t so lucky.
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Pedro Lopes @pedrolopes.org · 23/12/2025
#CHI2026 program is shaping up: here's the first glimpse at the list of accepted workshops: chi2026.acm.org/workshops/ac... This will be a really fun @chi.acm.org ! (Reminder that there's no added fee this year to attend workshops, they will happen throughout the conference!)
chi2026.acm.org
Accepted Workshops - ACM CHI 2026
CHI workshops are organized independently by their organizers. Please see the websites of the individual events for detailed instructions on how to submit position papers and/or applications. Please n...
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
Academic Equinox: the moment when your Google Scholar citations from last year equal your citations this year.
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Michael Birnhack @birnhack.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
קול קורא לכנס הפרטיות ה-13! בפקולטה למשפטים, אונ' ת"א הכנס ייערך ביום א, 3.5.2026
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
Thank you, Alon Zoizner, for inviting me to speak at the Communication Department seminar at the University of Haifa and for the opportunity to present, for the first time, the work by Adam Aviv, Oshrat Ayalon, and me on Kosher phone users’ perceptions of safety, privacy, and community.
Kosher phones
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Daniel Solove @daniel-solove.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Congrats to @lorriecranor.bsky.social for writing a young children’s book about privacy. Great story in the WaPo about it and so happy it also mentions my book about privacy for older kids www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
washingtonpost.com
Analysis | This new children’s book is a bedtime story for the AI age
With “Privacy, Please!” a longtime cybersecurity expert wants preschoolers to start learning about digital privacy.
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Michael Birnhack @birnhack.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Final version! In Defense of Privacy-as-Control (Properly Understood), 65 Jurimetrics (2026 forthcoming) I defend Privacy-as-Control, explain why its wrong to reduce it to notice & choice, and argue it serves as a common denominator for privacy's many theories papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
papers.ssrn.com
In Defense of Privacy-as-Control (Properly Understood)
Privacy-as-control (‘PaC’) is one of the dominant conceptions of privacy. PaC means that each person should be able to decide for themselves whether to disclose
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Britt Paris @hellobrittparis.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
UC faculty and the @aaup.org demand the end of mandatory surveillance software use across the UC system. The future belongs to people, not to big brother! www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
University of California faculty push back against Big Brother cybersecurity mandate
School officials defend software as bulwark against ransomware, but professors fear potential surveillance of their devices
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Working in Israel on disinformation? (mitigating it, not spreading it). The Israeli Internet Association has a new grant (50K NIS) open to activists, initiatives, and orgs to develop new solutions. I'm on the board of the committee (w @avischarf.bsky.social etc) www.isoc.org.il/disinformati...
isoc.org.il
קול קורא: מענקים למענים טכנולוגיים וציבוריים לפיתוח חסינות והתמודדות עם איומי דיסאינפורמציה והפצת תוכן כוזב ברשתות בישראל
קול קורא למענקי פיתוח עבור ארגונים, יוזמות ופעילים המקדמים פתרונות ומענים טכנולוגיים וציבוריים לפיתוח חסינות והתמודדות עם איומי דיסאינפורמציה והפצת תוכן כוזב ברשתות בישראל…
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
I was interviewed in Haaretz’s economics paper, TheMarker, about the job market in Industrial Engineering and Management jobs and the effects of AI on junior jobs in this market >> www.themarker.com/career/2025-...
themarker.com
"לכולם יש משבר ג'וניורים, אבל בתחום הזה - זה חזק במיוחד"
התואר בהנדסת תעשייה וניהול מושך צעירים רבים עם יכולות ארגוניות וניהוליות שחולמים להשתלב בענף ההייטק. אבל רבים מהבוגרים מרגישים שהמשרות שבעבר יועדו להם - כבר אינן ■ משרות ניהול פרויקטים מצומצמות והתחרו...
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
It doesn’t make much sense to move to Bluesky but then to not use it pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40637733/
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky - PubMed
Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For the past decade, Twitter has been a primary home of scientists on social media. In recent years, new leadership at Twitter has made substantive changes th …
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
We were awarded a very exciting new grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) with colleagues Adam Aviv from The George Washington University and Oshrat Ayalon from the University of Haifa. >>
screenshot from press release about NSF-BSF
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
We have a new paper just published in Information, Communication & Society. Maayan Cohen and I are looking at how the discourse around algorithmic bias was taken up, amplified, and reframed across ideological lines in the launch of ChatGPT 3.5. >> doi.org/10.1080/1369...
doi.org
Hijacking algorithmic bias: analyzing the political discourse around ChatGPT on social media
Following the introduction of ChatGPT 3.5, the first widely available general-purpose large language model, users were able to experiment and interact with this new AI technology at scale for the f...
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Should I update this starter pack of Israeli academics? Anyone who I should add? Say hi or tag someone! go.bsky.app/Q6MFTcY
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
It is time to wrap up my term as Head of the School of Industrial & Intelligent Systems Engineering at Tel Aviv University. A lot has happened during this time: first and foremost, our department became a school with a new name that reflects our broadaning research and teaching interests >>
Picture of the faculty, admin, and phds at the school
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
I would adjust my settings asap on Venmo if I don't want to get phished by the whole world.
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Dan Kotliar @danmk.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
I was very happy to give a Cybersecurity Colloquium seminar at the The Data Science Institute at Columbia University, presenting with this stunning view. I was talking about: When Differential Privacy Meets Human Decision-Making.
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
What's the meaning of life after the #chi2026 deadline had passed?
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
Everyone is working on AI, but how can we design AI-based systems that are actually friendly and usable? Bidding closes soon at TAU. so it’s a good time to remind that I'll be teaching the graduate course “Human–AI Interaction” (2 hours, open to the entire campus). Here is a short explanation >>
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
It will be my second year co-chairing the Privacy and Security subcommittee at #CHI2026, with the awesome Florian Schaub and Emilee Rader. Abstract submission is today, and we are very excited to review the list of papers that you'll send our way...
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
The preprint of our paper, “Differential Privacy Configurations in the Real World: A Comparative Analysis,” by (brilliant) student Michael Khavkin and myself, has been published on the IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering website. Read it here: www.computer.org/csdl/journal...
IEEE screenshot.
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 31/08/2025
On Wednesday, September 3, the senior faculty at Tel Aviv University will hold a warning strike. We will head to Jerusalem to protest against the dismantling of the rule of law, the continuation of the war, and the indifference toward the hostages.
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Exciting news: our paper “Differential Privacy Configurations in the Real World: A Comparative Analysis” was just accepted to IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering. Another great paper of Michael Khavkin’s Ph.D.! Here is a short thread about the study >>
Paper screenshot
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
Hundreds of thousands gathered yesterday in Tel Aviv calling the government to return the hostages and end the war. By the way, the demonstration happened about two hours after a Houthi ballistic missile had cleared people off the streets.
Demonstration in Tel Aviv View of demonstration in Tel Aviv
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Dr. Elinor Carmi @elinorcarmi.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
And if you want to read more about AI hype I recommend my brilliant friend @danmk.bsky.social's amazing new article on it www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
tandfonline.com
Can't stop the hype: scrutinizing AI's realities
Recently, we have been inundated with reports about the revolutions brought about by AI. However, much of our knowledge about these ‘revolutions’ arises from media sensationalism and advertising cl...
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Dan Kotliar @danmk.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
בוקר לאחר ההחלטה האסונית של הקבינט אמש על כיבוש עזה, מתפרסמת עוד עצומה של אקדמאים. הפעם זו עצומה משותפת של סטודנטים וחברי סגל מאוניברסיטת חיפה, האוניברסיטה שלי. האם זה ישנה למישהו? לא בטוח בכלל? האם אני שלם עם כל פסיק בעצומה, לא ממש. ועם זאת, בתקופה כזאת, אסור לעמוד מנגד.
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Demonstrating tonight at Tel Aviv to put an end to the war and return the hostages immediately.
Demonstration in Tel Aviv against the war
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Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 05/08/2025
Call for Proposals: Elkana Forum Workshops: Rethinking Scientific Problems Through Dialogue with Historical & Philosophical Perspectives #hps #philsci #histSTEM (@odedrechavi.bsky.social @eranto.bsky.social @liadmudrik.bsky.social maybe of interest to you)
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
I'm starting to believe that if you're not using LLMs when reviewing papers, your reviews aren't as good as they could be. What do you think?
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
I’m happy to see the presidents of Tel Aviv Univeristy, the Hebrew Univeristy, Weizmann Institute and others higher eds, join the call to end the Cabinet’s criminal policies in Gaza. It’s easy to be cynical about these types of letters, but remember that 80% of the uni budget come from the state.
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Excited to share that I’ve received an ISF grant to study deep analysis of deceptive user interface design patterns. Casual games, I'm coming for your dark patterns.
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Eran Toch @eranto.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
ישראל היא השדרות של העולם
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