Windows and Linux users: The deadline to update Secure Boot keys is near - Ars Technica - June 24, three certificates that cryptographically verify that each piece of firmware and software that loads during system boot will expire. The Microsoft-signed certificates are the linchpins of Secure Boot, a Microsoft-designed chain of trust. Secure Boot checks the digital signatures of all firmware that loads during system startup to ensure it originates from a trusted provider, such as the manufacturer of the motherboard the system runs on.
There are a lot of issues to be called out around AI, but one that has recently begun to worry me the most isn’t ethical, moral, or even environmental. Rather, its practical.
Once upon a time, the villages and towns were full of worker’s guilds. If a young man or woman wanted to pursue a career of interest, they would find themselves spending hours hanging on the elbows of conversations between persons of import and expertise. If they were brave, they might venture to speak up and ask a question, enduring the good natured ridicule of the absurdity of their inquiry. A master of the art, taking pity on the young acolyte, might then take the fledgling under their wing and begin to educate them in the crafts. As the guild grew, so did its libraries. Knowledge filled the shelves as scribes recorded the decisions of the masters and the outcomes of decision making and debate. Factions formed within the guilds around these decisions, but overall, the discussions were lively and well-intentioned.
Dashlane explains how attackers managed to download encrypted password vaults - Ars Technica - In response, Dashlane’s automated security systems operated as intended, triggering an automatic lockout of the targeted accounts to protect those users. Before the attack was fully mitigated, the threat actor was able to brute force and generate valid tokens for fewer than 20 personal plan customers, allowing them to register a new device on those accounts and download copies of users’ encrypted vaults.
A handout for the Chattanooga Voluntaryist Society Talk
4 June 2026
The Agora
Part 1: Privacy Tools & Defensive Tactics
TAILS (The Amnesic Incognito Live System)
TAILS is a security-focused operating system that boots entirely from a USB drive, bypassing the host computer’s hard drive. It automatically routes all internet traffic through the anonymous Tor network and stores nothing on the machine. Because it runs purely in temporary memory (RAM), every trace of your activity vanishes instantly the moment you shut down or unplug the drive.
Encrypted Messaging (Signal vs. Delta Chat)
While both tools secure your conversations, they use completely different architectures. Signal offers gold-standard end-to-end encryption for text and voice, operating on a centralized server but storing almost zero user metadata. Delta Chat provides a decentralized alternative; it requires no phone number and sends encrypted messages over standard, existing email servers, leaving no central company or server for adversaries to target or subpoena.
Part 2: Emerging Infrastructure & Local Threats
Cell-Site Simulators (“Stingrays”)
Stingrays are passive and active surveillance devices used by law enforcement that mimic legitimate cell phone towers. They trick all nearby mobile devices into connecting to them, allowing operators to map your precise location, track your movements in real time, and occasionally intercept unencrypted communications data without your knowledge.
Flock Safety & Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs)
Flock Safety operates a massive network of neighborhood and roadside cameras designed to automatically capture vehicle license plates, makes, models, and unique identifying features. This data is fed into a centralized, searchable cloud database, allowing police departments and private entities to track a vehicle’s geographical history and establish long-term patterns of life.
Vehicular Surveillance (Ford’s In-Cabin Patents)
Modern cars are quietly becoming highly invasive tracking devices. Recent patent filings from major automakers like Ford highlight an aggressive push toward in-vehicle monitoring. These include “in-vehicle advertisement systems” designed to listen to passenger conversations via cabin microphones to serve targeted dashboard ads. Other automotive patents detail using internal cameras for facial recognition, biometric eye-tracking, and speed monitoring to autonomously share data with law enforcement or insurance providers.
Part 3: Wireless Leakage & The Digital Footprint
Cell Phone Emissions (Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Leakage)
Even when you aren’t actively using your phone, it constantly broadcasts unique identifiers. Your device silently beacons out a list of Preferred Wi-Fi Networks (past SSIDs you’ve connected to), allowing passive scanners to map your historical movements. Simultaneously, active Bluetooth vulnerabilities and location data leaks from unsecure commercial apps broadcast your real-time coordinates to surrounding receivers.
Biometric Eye Scanning (Iris & Retina Tracking)
Biometric surveillance is shifting from broad facial recognition to precision eye scanning. Iris recognition maps the complex, unique patterns of the colored ring of the eye from a distance for rapid identification, while retina scanning maps the blood vessels at the back of the eye for high-security access control. These technologies are increasingly deployed at border checkpoints and restricted public spaces for persistent, unalterable tracking.
Part 4: The Surveillance Economy
Individualized “Surveillance Pricing” (Kroger’s Digital Tags)
The retail landscape is shifting from standard pricing to algorithmic “surveillance pricing” via Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs) like Kroger’s EDGE system. Rather than just changing prices based on the time of day, these digital shelf tags can be paired with embedded cameras, loyalty card profiles, and facial recognition technology. By analyzing a shopper’s demographics, buying history, or perceived wealth while they stand in the aisle, the algorithm calculates that specific individual’s “maximum willingness to pay” and dynamically alters the price on the shelf in real time.
The Online-Offline Ad Loop (Google, Mastercard, & Visa)
Big Tech bridges the gap between digital activity and physical spending by buying private financial data. Google has cut multi-million dollar deals with credit card networks like Mastercard to access real-world transaction logs. Through “Store Sales Measurement” tools, Google uses double-blind encryption to cross-reference your offline credit card swipes with your online search history and ad clicks, letting retailers track exactly whether an online ad successfully coerced you into buying a product in a physical store.
Commercial Data Brokers & Government Purchasing
When legal warrants are difficult to obtain, agencies frequently bypass constitutional restrictions by purchasing bulk data directly from private data brokers. These brokers aggressively harvest location history, app usage, and behavioral profiles from ordinary smartphone software, bundling and selling the records to the highest bidder under tiered corporate pricing models.
Social Media Analytics & Predictive Spying
Modern surveillance relies heavily on Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) scraped from social media networks. Advanced AI algorithms ingest massive amounts of public posts and metadata to perform automated sentiment analysis. By tracking public opinion and mapping user associations, these platforms build predictive models designed to forecast future actions, protests, or potential dissidence before they occur.
Minimize Wireless Footprints: Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth entirely when leaving trusted environments to prevent passive tracking from beaconing your preferred networks.
Starve Retail Trackers: Avoid using store loyalty apps that tie your real-name identity to your minute-by-minute aisle movements. Opt for cash where possible to sever the online-offline ad loop.
Audit App Telemetry: Deny “Always Allow” location access to smartphone apps, and use privacy-focused browsers or DNS ad-blockers to choke off the background data pipelines that feed commercial brokers.
Check Vehicle Privacy Settings: Look into your car’s infotainment menu and manufacturer privacy portals to explicitly opt out of data sharing, connected telematics, and insurance reporting pipelines.
Use Lockdown Mode: Enable Lockdown Mode (on iOS) or absolute minimal-privilege profiles on Android/Linux devices when traveling through high-risk transit points to dramatically reduce your digital exploit surface.
I’m an experienced home cook, security engineer, people leader, and dedicated father and husband. I can be found on Mastodon at @IAintShootinMis@DigitalDarkAge.cc and on Signal at DigitalDarkAge.98. An RSS Feed of this blog is available here and a copy of my current OPML file is here.
FBI: Crooks enter legal offices and steal data via USB drive - It also warned last year that the callback phishing specialists had started physically walking into the law firms’ offices when remote social engineering attempts go south. The FBI’s latest advisory reaffirms these findings, with fresh attacks reported in Spring 2026.
Texas AG sues Meta over claims that WhatsApp doesn’t provide end-to-end encryption - Ars Technica - In a complaint filed Thursday, Texas AG attorneys said Meta’s claims are false and that the company can and does read the unencrypted contents of WhatsApp messages. They said they are filing the action to “prevent WhatsApp and Meta from continuing to willfully deceive [Texans] by misrepresenting that their private communications were just that—private and inaccessible even to WhatsApp and Meta—when, in fact, WhatsApp and Meta have access to all WhatsApp users’ communications in their entirety.” According to Bloomberg, the January 16 email, sent to more than a dozen officials at other agencies, stated, “There is no limit to the type of WhatsApp message that can be viewed by Meta. The misconduct of Meta and its officers, including current and former high-level executives, involve civil and criminal violations that span several federal jurisdictions.”
Poland builds its own Signal amid security concerns - Beyond Signal support staff impersonation, the agencies said the attacks can also involve outsiders persuading victims to surrender their verification codes or PINs, or abusing the platform’s Linked Devices feature via QR codes to take control of accounts.
Do fear the Reaper - stealer swipes macOS users’ passwords, wallets, then backdoors them - Assuming that the machine is located elsewhere and the user clicks on the fake tool installer, they open Apple’s Script Editor app via a sneaky link that’s heavily padded with ASCII art and fake terms to push the malicious command far below the visible portion of the window when it loads.
Hackers Used AI to Develop First Known Zero-Day 2FA Bypass for Mass Exploitation - “Our analysis of exploits associated with this campaign identified a zero-day vulnerability implemented in a Python script that enables the user to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA) on a popular open-source, web-based system administration tool,” Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said in a report shared with The Hacker News.
“For example, the script contains an abundance of educational docstrings, including a hallucinated CVSS score, and uses a structured, textbook Pythonic format highly characteristic of LLMs training data (e.g., detailed help menus and the clean _C ANSI color class),” GTIG added.