Collaborate Disseminate
If one uses a FAT32-formatted USB stick on Windows, Linux, or Android, would there be a way to determine on which computer the USB stick was used by examining the USB stick?
I know OS can log which USB sticks were connected. As far as I kn… Continue reading What traces are left on a USB stick after using it?
Interesting Twitter thread on how cell phone metadata can be used to identify and track people who don’t want to be identified and tracked.
Continue reading On Cell Phone Metadata
Ordinarily, if you want to check if two plants of the same species come from genetically different populations, you have to analyze their DNA. A new study, however, has found that an analysis of the reflective qualities of their leaves is a much quicke… Continue reading Leaf-reading tool could replace DNA analysis for plant identification
This isn’t the first time I’ve received an e-mail like this:
Hey! I’ve done my research and looked at a lot of facts and old forgotten archives. I know that you are Satoshi, I do not want to tell anyone about this. I just wanted to say that you created weapons of mass destruction where niches remained poor and the rich got richer! When bitcoin first appeared, I was small, and alas, my family lost everything on this, you won’t find an apple in the winter garden, people only need strength and money. Sorry for the English, I am from Russia, I can write with errors. You are an amazingly intelligent person, very intelligent, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Once I dreamed of a better life for myself and my children, but this will never come ……
How reliable is a mathematical model of a human fingerprint for identification?
I am looking for a way to uniquely identify individuals that is very reliable and easy to use that does not require storing actual biometric data. Storing the … Continue reading How reliable is a mathematical model of a human fingerprint for identification?
It’s the eyes:
The researchers note that in many cases, users can simply zoom in on the eyes of a person they suspect may not be real to spot the pupil irregularities. They also note that it would not be difficult to write software to spot such errors and for social media sites to use it to remove such content. Unfortunately, they also note that now that such irregularities have been identified, the people creating the fake pictures can simply add a feature to ensure the roundness of pupils.
And the arms race continues….
Research paper.
In a cluttered, busy workshop, it’s certainly possible to lose track of what substance a given sheet of material is composed of – making it risky to cut with a laser. The SensiCut system is designed to help, by identifying 30 different materials based … Continue reading MIT SensiCut tech identifies materials for laser-cutting
A lot of companies are proper mental these days and force me to send them a scanned digital image of my government-issued photo id. It feels scary to do so, especially unmodified. I want to put some sort of "watermark" over the i… Continue reading How should I make a "watermark" on my scanned government id/passport/bank card? [closed]
This is probably worth paying attention to:
A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its users’ content. This includes things like “faceprints and voiceprints,” the policy explained. Reached for comment, TikTok could not confirm what product developments necessitated the addition of biometric data to its list of disclosures about the information it automatically collects from users, but said it would ask for consent in the case such data collection practices began…
The person behind the Bitcoin Fog was identified and arrested. Bitcoin Fog was an anonymization service: for a fee, it mixed a bunch of people’s bitcoins up so that it was hard to figure out where any individual coins came from. It ran for ten years.
Identifying the person behind Bitcoin Fog serves as an illustrative example of how hard it is to be anonymous online in the face of a competent police investigation:
Most remarkable, however, is the IRS’s account of tracking down Sterlingov using the very same sort of blockchain analysis that his own service was meant to defeat. The complaint outlines how Sterlingov allegedly paid for the server hosting of Bitcoin Fog at one point in 2011 using the now-defunct digital currency Liberty Reserve. It goes on to show the blockchain evidence that identifies Sterlingov’s purchase of that Liberty Reserve currency with bitcoins: He first exchanged euros for the bitcoins on the early cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox, then moved those bitcoins through several subsequent addresses, and finally traded them on another currency exchange for the Liberty Reserve funds he’d use to set up Bitcoin Fog’s domain…