The magazine is from 1984, but that's clearly Jonny "Zero Cool" Lee Miller

pirates and raiders: the computer-abuser subculture, article, imagery, k-power, magazine (1984) archive.org/details/k-po...

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— videogame history (@vghistory.bsky.social) June 13, 2025 at 12:10 AM

(The article is titled "Pirates and Raiders: The Computer-Abuse Subculture" from the February 1984 edition of K Power: The Magazine for the Computer Generation.")

"Hackers breach Norwegian dam, open valve at full capacity"

That's one of the stories from today's Risky Business newsletter about cyber security. (It caused no real problem before it was fixed, and it's unclear if the hackers even knew what they achieved.) (Just wanted to share the newsletter)

404 Media has new merch if you want to support them (the horse tee is great)

We have new 404 Media merch! These are *preorders* and won't arrive before Christmas. But we've got new sweatshirts, new hoodies, new t-shirts all with updated designs. Likely to sell out when we do get the stock in https://t.co/MeNcXwhhEO pic.twitter.com/DbNbWJnQj1

— Joseph Cox (@josephfcox) December 17, 2024

(They have a few older items, too)


Speaking of 404:

Researchers found its possible to automate the jailbreaking of AI models at scale. You just need to type like the SpongeBob meme https://t.co/cHNCWj2KaL

— Joseph Cox (@josephfcox) December 19, 2024

"BoN Jailbreaking simply keeps tweaking that prompt with random capital letters, shuffled words, misspellings, and broken grammar until GPT-4o provides the information"

Defeating geoblocking to unlock the hearing aid feature in Airpods Pro

Apple released a hearing aids feature for the AirPods Pro a while ago. I bought a pair for grandma, but then realized that the feature was geoblocked in India

So we at @_lagrangepoint decided to unblock it. It ended up involving a leaky microwave and building a Faraday cage: pic.twitter.com/G7E3Bl6f7W

— Rithwik Jayasimha (@thel3l) November 12, 2024

From the thread:

Our hacky proof of concept was a Faraday cage built of aluminum foil, placed right above to the jammer–microwave that was turned on at full power

It was literally as sketch as it looked: pic.twitter.com/61QRGFJNMA

— Rithwik Jayasimha (@thel3l) November 12, 2024

"Hacker Returns $19.3 Million to Drained US Government Crypto Wallet"

"A government-controlled wallet that had been drained of $20 million on Thursday received most of its funds back Friday, adding another layer of mystery to transactions flagged by blockchain analysts as likely being connected to a high-profile theft."

The Crowdstrike merch shop sells hacker action figures and figurines

Aquatic Panda and more:

I believe this is the second time in a week Darren Rovell's 1.9 million-follower Twitter account has been hacked

Posting crypto, of course (he's consistently said he doesn't believe in crypto as an investment). (I've also been picking up bot followers again over the last few days after a long break.)

I watched these Tweets live since I follow the marketing accounts and genuinely thought McDonald's was dabbling in crypto

McDonald’s gets hacked and $GRIMACE proves to be a pump and dump pic.twitter.com/hCbLGaNKhr

— BoysClubWorld (@BoysClubWorld) August 21, 2024

All Los Angeles County Superior Courts will be closed tomorrow on account of the ransomware attack

All Superior Court of Los Angeles County locations closed tomorrow as work continues to get systems back online after ransomware attack. More information here: https://t.co/0ZzCLxqXyS pic.twitter.com/fYVg1s7Xoy

— Superior Court of Los Angeles County (@LASuperiorCourt) July 22, 2024

The Los Angeles County Superior Court system was hit by a ransomware attack Friday morning

Not much info yet, but parts of the public-facing website are down.

"23andMe confirms hackers stole ancestry data on 6.9 million users"

Techcrunch:

On Friday, genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers accessed the personal data of 0.1% of customers, or about 14,000 individuals. The company also said that by accessing those accounts, hackers were also able to access “a significant number of files containing profile information about other users’ ancestry.” But 23andMe would not say how many “other users” were impacted by the breach that the company initially disclosed in early October.

As it turns out, there were a lot of “other users” who were victims of this data breach: 6.9 million affected individuals in total. 

...

23andMe declared part of its email as “on background,” which requires that both parties agree to the terms in advance. TechCrunch is printing the reply as we were given no opportunity to reject the terms.

Infamous Chisel x Sandworm vs. Android

New Russian malware, known as Infamous Chisel, associated with #Sandworm activity, is being used for unauthorized remote access and data exfiltration from Android devices. Explore today’s #FBI, @NCSC @CISAgov and @NSACyber joint advisory. https://t.co/fJQwMsjRgz pic.twitter.com/O0xkcJuvT3

— FBI (@FBI) August 31, 2023

The “cyberattack” on Poland's railway "doesn't seem to have involved any cyber at all"

Wired:

On Friday and Saturday, August 25 and 26, more than 20 of Poland's trains carrying both freight and passengers were brought to a halt across the country through what Polish media and the BBC have described as a “cyberattack.” Polish intelligence services are investigating the sabotage incidents, which appear to have been carried out in support of Russia. The saboteurs reportedly interspersed the commands they used to stop the trains with the Russian national anthem and parts of a speech by Russian president Vladimir Putin.

...

Because the trains use a radio system that lacks encryption or authentication for those commands, Olejnik says, anyone with as little as $30 of off-the-shelf radio equipment can broadcast the command to a Polish train—sending a series of three acoustic tones at a 150.100 megahertz frequency—and trigger their emergency stop function.

...

the ability to send the command has been described in Polish radio and train forums and on YouTube for years

Jailbreaking LLMs by using extremely grammatically incorrect language

# Background:

If you were on the internet around 2003, you may have seen this popular email circling around:

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer…

— LaurieWired (@lauriewired) July 22, 2023

"Malware Finds a Way" t-shirt

Some good hacker-themed tees in the Spearfish General Store:

Hackers were paid a $1.1-million ransom after they compromised the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department computer systems

"The ransomware attack, discovered in early April, forced the department to temporarily shut down some of its computer systems, including email, in-car computers and some law enforcement databases, including a system that deputies use for background checks."

Wired looks at the names of hacker groups

Wired:

[Why] did I find myself referring to them as "the hacker group known as Kimsuky, Emerald Sleet, or Velvet Chollima"? 

...

A few days ago, Microsoft's cybersecurity division announced it was changing the entire taxonomy of names it uses for the hundreds of hacker groups that it tracks. Instead of its previous system, which gave those organizations the names of elements—a fairly neutral, scientific-sounding system as these things go—it will now give hacker groups two-word names, including in their description a weather-based term indicating what country the hackers are believed to work on behalf of, as well as whether they're state-sponsored or criminal.

That means Phosphorous, an Iranian group that Microsoft reported this week has been targeting US critical infrastructure like seaports, energy companies, and transit systems, now has the less-than-fearsome name Mint Sandstorm.

...

Many of the new names sounded so absurd that I actually double-checked Microsoft hadn't published the new labeling system on April 1. Periwinkle Tempest. Pumpkin Sandstorm. Spandex Tempest. Gingham Typhoon. 

So many more names (and plenty discussion about the merits of the naming systems). 

Tic-Tac-Toe for lockpickers = Pic-Tac-Toe

We had such a successful first run of #PicTacToe at @bsidesnash it was honestly incredible to see people compete and build new friendships. The #locksport community is just the friendliest bunch! Will you be at @BSidesKnoxville next month to try your hand at the new completion!? pic.twitter.com/fen0KgePGm

— FoxPick™ 🦊 (@Fox_Pick) April 19, 2023

What is the FoxPick team up to tonight? Ensuring we have backup boards ready for any potential breaks. Best to be over prepared! Since we are finally premiering to the public, in person at @bsidesnash on Saturday with our brand new custom game #PicTacToe!! #LockPickVillage pic.twitter.com/gmeegHYG6g

— FoxPick™ 🦊 (@Fox_Pick) April 14, 2023

*Previously: Lockpicking hamster

Hacker llama in a hoodie, hacker Cortana in a hoodie

Announcing RedPajama — a project to create leading, fully open-source large language models, beginning with the release of a 1.2 trillion token dataset that follows the LLaMA recipe, available today!https://t.co/daoVIs706d
More in 🧵 … pic.twitter.com/foUNRx0fOW

— Together (@togethercompute) April 17, 2023

Okay, here me out - 'Microsoft Security Copilot' becomes

Microsoft Cortana for Defender pic.twitter.com/Pyb90leDEZ

— SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) April 17, 2023

RedPajamaLlama and causally-dressed Cortana were practically back to back in my feed today. Some solid attempts by the AI to spell Microsoft:

Today's cyberpunk loadout is an adversarial hoodie for defeating night vision security cameras, 3d-printed firearms for resisting the military coup, and a voice replica for seizing bank accounts

"The Camera-Shy Hoodie is a DIY adversarial garment designed to give the user the option to anonymize themselves within the recording of a night vision security camera." https://t.co/V6htOLDOGR pic.twitter.com/JOCfGj4IEN

— Jake Hanrahan (@Jake_Hanrahan) February 25, 2023