iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 6h

Name your favorite cover song… m.youtube.com/watch?v=LhL8...

m.youtube.com

Devo - Head Like a Hole

YouTube video by MsAnonn

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Reposted by Serge Egelman

maddy varner @regret.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

FTC puts out a proposed policy statement re: personalized pricing (sometimes referred to as "surveillance pricing"). Statement points out several ways personalized pricing is in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act (!) www.regulations.gov/document/FTC...

regulations.gov

Regulations.gov

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Reposted by Serge Egelman

Wolfie Christl @wchr.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The web and mobile apps of major conversational AI engines transmit prompts, titles and conversation permalinks to advertising data firms, alongside device IDs, hashed email and other persistent identifiers. Comprehensive analysis, like always from this team: jorgegarciaherrero.com/wp-content/i...

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

My man looks like Lt Cmdr Data experiencing anaphylaxis.

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JLRay @jlray.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Whoa, one of the pedophiles responsible for the GOP's political power just died. No, not that one, the other one. No, not that one, the other one. No, not that one, the other one. No, not that one, the other one. No, not that one, the other one. No, not that one, the other wgntv.com/news/chicago...

wgntv.com

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert dies at 84

Former U.S. House Speaker John Hastert has died at the age of 84 from natural causes.

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Reposted by Serge Egelman

Gateklons @gateklons.eurosky.social · 04/10/2026

Another one of Google's tricks to get you to install Chrome even if you are using one of the other Chromium browsers which are perfectly compatible with all Chrome Web Store extensions (but most users of these browsers probably don't know that)

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

And in more recent hilarious developments, the state is asking for $40B, whereas Meta believes the fine should be no more than…$3.5B! That Meta is opening with $3.5B says a lot about how little the other states got. www.reuters.com/world/us/new...

reuters.com

New Mexico wants Meta to pay up to $40 billion in penalties after data privacy trial

The state of New Mexico asked a judge on Thursday to order Meta Platforms to pay between $35 billion and $40 billion in penalties after a jury found the company had misled consumers about the privacy...

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tante @tante.cc · 03/10/2026

Really tired of the "I worked at the kitten crushing factory for years, made a fuckton of money and now I found my conscience and get to tour the stages of the world telling people how to be ethical" grift.

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Reposted by Serge Egelman

Rob Cottingham @robcottingham.ca · 02/10/2026

You’re surrounded by boozers, misfits and losers And down seven goals at the half Your ammo is spent and you can’t find Roy Kent You’re fucked so you might as well laugh

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Reposted by Serge Egelman

Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Things Gavin Newsom has vetoed this week: -A ban on secretly recording people with smart glasses -A ban on ICE agents working for the state government -A ban on websites selling your data -A bill giving native tribes more say over water rights -A bill protecting transgender healthcare providers

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I ordered ramen online from Japan! It only took 3.5 months to get here…I might have gotten too much?

12 boxes of ramen stacked up on my porch.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It's a recurring pattern: 1) Introduce a new feature that makes people's information more widely available by default. 2) Offer the ability to opt-out through some convoluted control that 90%+ won't find or use correctly. 3) Proclaim that users have real privacy choices and chose to opt in.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The broader context is that he wanted to make people's Facebook statuses publicly searchable, which meant encouraging them to not use privacy settings to make their Facebook status private.

From: Chris Cox
To: Mark Zuckerberg
Sent: Sat Jan 24 09:19:36 2009
Subject: Re: Search PPPMB - 10/23/2006
Yeah I'm on it.
I don't know if the amount will be the vast majority of our users though- that seems like a lot to ask with the
expectation that they still share as much. What percentage were you thinking?
On 1/24/09 1:25 AM, "Mark Zuckerberg" > wrote:
FYI -- Akhil thinks global stream search will be ready in March.
Can you work with Leah to make sure we get all (or the vast majority) of current users to make their statuses
and other stream content public before then?

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Here's a great one: nmdoj.gov/wp-content/u... It's a 2009 email from Mark Zuckerberg, in which he acknowledges that "90%+ of these folks...probably don't understand their current privacy settings."

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

It’s pretty weird how many resources the “party of life” regularly expends to try and kill people, right?

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Reposted by Serge Egelman

Cyrus Farivar @cfarivar.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Grand / MacArthur, Oakland

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Carolyn E Holmes @carolyneholmes.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Seems like some of you are just now learning that TItle IX offices are on survivors' side in the same way that your HR rep is on your side in an employment dispute.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Just wait until they finally post the rest of the trial exhibits!

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

You’re demeaning the work of those who actually graduated high school: he dropped out of school after 8th grade. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/t...

“He dropped out of school after eighth grade because of chronic health issues, and never returned.”

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It’s probably a good reminder that Robert Morris was convicted of a felony under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for authoring a worm that broke into other systems.

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Reposted by Serge Egelman

Ken Schwencke @schwanksta.com · 26/09/2026

Do you or someone you know use DraftKings or FanDuel? You can help @propublica.org continue to report on these apps by sharing your data with us. In some states, you can request it. But we also built a browser extension to help download your own data! projects.propublica.org/sports-betti...

projects.propublica.org

Help ProPublica Report on Sports Betting by Sending Us Your App Data

If you’ve bet on sports with FanDuel or DraftKings, you can help ProPublica understand how these apps respond to their users’ betting behavior. Use our browser extension to download your betting histo...

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Reposted by Serge Egelman

Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026

I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Yeah, definitely preferred it when it was all either ambiguous SaaS products or competing weed delivery services.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Jury apparently has a verdict in NM!

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The reason why telehealth companies keep exposing their users’ sensitive health data to these adtech platforms is because it is profitable for them to do so, and there generally aren’t serious consequences for them when they get caught.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Most ad blockers don’t actually block the Meta Pixel or Google Analytics, and they certainly don’t block server-to-server transmissions (e.g., Meta’s Conversions API). Rather than blaming the victim for not using tools that won’t help them, the AP should blame the real culprit, lack of enforcement.

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Jeffrey Vagle @jvagle.me · 24/09/2026

I propose a moratorium on news stories describing AI* tools as “going rogue” as if they have intent and moral agency. Instead, let’s describe the events in terms of the companies’ negligence.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Do you have a link to share? I'm not finding anything about this...or was this really just a pun? :) I'm fairly certain that it's been government policy that most things international-facing are done in SI units. For example, when I was at NIST, all scientific publications needed to use metric.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

100% this! That said, the BBC put out an excellent documentary on all of this (including the rise of the neocons), “The Power of Nightmares”: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pow...

en.wikipedia.org

The Power of Nightmares - Wikipedia

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Really hope there’s a plan to get it back…

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Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

SF City Attorney's office says Meta's response is "astonishing"

Statement from SF City Attorney's Office:

“We find Meta’s response astonishing. Meta appears less concerned about whether they’re guilty of exploiting children than whether San Francisco should say anything about it. Meta has bigger problems to solve here than determining our jurisdiction.

"To be clear, San Francisco consumers can access the unlawful ads through Meta online spaces. In that way, Meta is serving California consumers, including San Franciscans, with advertisements that contain unlawful, sexually explicit material.

"The San Francisco City Attorney is empowered under state law to act in the name of the People of the State of California to address unfair, unlawful, and fraudulent business practices across the State. Our letter to Meta simply asks that the company stop violating the law.”

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

“Nearly a decade after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, New Mexico alone is taking Facebook to trial” …and I am here for it! (Literally) apnews.com/article/face...

apnews.com

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Weird! Both URLs work for me. This was the first one: www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2... The second was to a blog post that's no longer online (blog.appcensus.io/2022/04/06/t...). Archive.org has it: web.archive.org/web/20240329... We got fired from an unrelated DHS contract for that :)

washingtonpost.com

Web browsers drop mysterious company with ties to U.S. military contractor

TrustCor Systems was a root certificate authority, a key position in internet infrastructure. But details about the company raised questions about where it is based and who it works with.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Actually, shit, I misremembered: the whole thing did start with an actual blog post we wrote: archive.is/atF7n

archive.is

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Does taking down a corrupt root CA count? Since this isn’t the sort of thing that’s publishable in academic venues, we gave it to the WaPo: archive.is/6KH1W (I still refer to it as the Whole Foods Blog, so that must count, right??)

archive.is

Welcome to nginx

If you see this page, the nginx web server is successfully installed and working. Further configuration is required.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

“While walking across a university parking lot, I found myself stepping out of the way of electric scooters and e-bikes multiple times. In a matter of minutes, I nearly collided with riders on three separate occasions.” Maybe pay attention and try not walking in the bike lane?

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Once I explained that it would be highly deceptive to tell people that using one of these services would have prevented the data brokers we specifically used from selling their data, IRB relented. This isn’t solvable via technology. It’s a policy problem. 3/3

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I entertained the idea and so looked at half a dozen such services: none covered any of the data brokers that we *actually* obtained data from! 2/

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

So, I have thoughts on these services. We did a study last year where we surveyed people found on data broker lists. IRB originally wanted us to offer participants a subscription to a removal service, like DeleteMe… 1/

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Jeff Bridges goes bowling.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Diplomatic immunity. Best they can do is expel him.

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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

It would be hilarious if they did this while citing the fact that the US government used Comey's Instagram post of sea shells as evidence of a violent threat.

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