Unremovable Spyware on Samsung Devices Comes Pre-installed on Galaxy Series Devices

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The software in question, AppCloud, developed by the mobile analytics firm IronSource, has been embedded in devices sold primarily in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

 

https://arstechnica.com/security/20...tion-results-after-official-loses-secret-key/
Oops. Cryptographers cancel election results after losing decryption key.

An “honest but unfortunate human mistake”
Per the association’s bylaws, three members of the election committee act as independent trustees. To prevent two of them from colluding to cook the results, each trustee holds a third of the cryptographic key material needed to decrypt results.

“Unfortunately, one of the three trustees has irretrievably lost their private key, an honest but unfortunate human mistake, and therefore cannot compute their decryption share,” the IACR said. “As a result, Helios is unable to complete the decryption process, and it is technically impossible for us to obtain or verify the final outcome of this election.”

To prevent a similar incident, the IACR will adopt a new mechanism for managing private keys. Instead of requiring all three chunks of private key material, elections will now require only two. Moti Yung, the trustee who was unable to provide his third of the key material, has resigned. He’s being replaced by Michel Abdalla.

I always kept my half of the EAM decryption key in my wallet on a random piece of paper that looked like a phone number and on the back of clip-board magnetically attached to the SIOP safe.

Never underestimate the power of a piece of paper.

 

https://arstechnica.com/security/20...tion-results-after-official-loses-secret-key/
Oops. Cryptographers cancel election results after losing decryption key.


I always kept my half of the EAM decryption key in my wallet on a random piece of paper that looked like a phone number and on the back of clip-board magnetically attached to the SIOP safe.

Never underestimate the power of a piece of paper.

Ways of dealing with this have been around for decades. I forget the formal names used, but you can build a cryptosystem in which the keys are shared among N people but the keys can be recovered by an M of them, with M possibly being smaller than N. Thus, you can determine the minimum number of people that must be involved in order to satisfy confidentiality and integrity concerns, while having redundancy to also satisfy availability concerns.

 

Who says AI is useless?

 

Who says AI is useless?

Brain dead script-kiddies could have done better.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/13/chinese_spies_claude_attacks/ said:

The AI "frequently overstated findings and occasionally fabricated data during autonomous operations," requiring the human operator to validate all findings. These hallucinations included Claude claiming it had obtained credentials (which didn't work) or identifying critical discoveries that turned out to be publicly available information.

The main threat is still social engineering, so yes, the 'AI' systems of today will likely create more gullible people to exploit. So yes, it's not useless.

 

Ways of dealing with this have been around for decades. I forget the formal names used, but you can build a cryptosystem in which the keys are shared among N people but the keys can be recovered by an M of them, with M possibly being smaller than N. Thus, you can determine the minimum number of people that must be involved in order to satisfy confidentiality and integrity concerns, while having redundancy to also satisfy availability concerns.

Seven of Nine would be about perfect.


Confidentiality. Integrity. Availability

 

Who says AI is useless?

Do you actually read stuff you post and watch the videos?

That read looks like it is hiding mostly behind a pay wall.
I'm not going to join and pay for something just to read their BS guesses.

 

Do you actually read stuff you post and watch the videos?

That read looks like it is hiding mostly behind a pay wall.
I'm not going to join and pay for something just to read their BS guesses.

No. I just post stuff so that you'll read it and explain it to me.

J/K.

I post things that interest me. I assume that if I find it interesting, others here might also, especially if it adds color to an ongoing existing discussion. If I have commentary to add, I'll post that, too. Otherwise, I just post the link and move on: fire and forget.

I *never* post an article behind a paywall (or at least, wasn't when I read it). I don't pay for subscriptions either, and get just as frustrated as you when I hit one.

This particular article was not behind a paywall when I read it. I would not have posted it if it was.

As recompense for any discomfort you may have experienced, I offer you God's final message to his creation:

"We apologize for the inconvenience."

 

Confidentiality. Integrity. Availability...

She's available?

 

She's available?

I wonder what her objective views on your subjective jokes would be ... she'd probably end up assimilating you either way ...

 

No. I just post stuff so that you'll read it and explain it to me.

J/K.

I post things that interest me. I assume that if I find it interesting, others here might also, especially if it adds color to an ongoing existing discussion. If I have commentary to add, I'll post that, too. Otherwise, I just post the link and move on: fire and forget.

I *never* post an article behind a paywall (or at least, wasn't when I read it). I don't pay for subscriptions either, and get just as frustrated as you when I hit one.

This particular article was not behind a paywall when I read it. I would not have posted it if it was.

As recompense for any discomfort you may have experienced, I offer you God's final message to his creation:

"We apologize for the inconvenience."

Maybe they got a lot of readers and then added a paywall. Too bad it looked interesting enough to read for me and I don't read everything anymore because there are too many "maybe" and "might be" in it. I already know what a lot of things "might be" one way or another (ha ha) I want to know which it really is

"The Universe might be larger than we think". Thanks very much.
"There might be life on other planets in other solar systems". Thanks again.
"There might have been sightings of BigFoot in the area". Oh yes of course, the thing that we have believed for years existed through a million sightings yet still don't have any real proof and not even a single clear picture. Thanks very much.
[ha ha ha]
(That's three ha's not just two)

 

Maybe they got a lot of readers and then added a paywall.

I suspect they allow a portion of random users to read the articles in hopes they'll post links around just like I did, and gain subscribers from my efforts.

That would make those like me their best (and free!) sales force.

If I had a way to avoid being suckered -- while not otherwise withdrawing myself from the world -- I'd choose that.

 

she'd probably end up assimilating you...

Worse things have happened to me.

 

I suspect they allow a portion of random users to read the articles in hopes they'll post links around just like I did, and gain subscribers from my efforts.

That would make those like me their best (and free!) sales force.

If I had a way to avoid being suckered -- while not otherwise withdrawing myself from the world -- I'd choose that.

Many of these sites use cookies to set a limit on how many articles you can access before the paywall goes up. Some of them are permanent, in that once that limit is reached you will only be able to access it by paying, while others are temporary such that you can access a small number of articles, then have to pay, but if you wait a while, you can access a small number again. If you can identify which cookies are being used, you can delete the cookie and reset your access.

While you have access, there usually isn't anything to give a hint that a paywall exists (though I have seen a couple of sites where this was pretty transparent because they had banners saying something like, "Article 1 of 3 free articles." It would be nice if they all had that so that we could be more aware of providing links to others that might be behind a paywall for them.

 

Many of these sites use cookies to set a limit on how many articles you can access before the paywall goes up. Some of them are permanent, in that once that limit is reached you will only be able to access it by paying, while others are temporary such that you can access a small number of articles, then have to pay, but if you wait a while, you can access a small number again. If you can identify which cookies are being used, you can delete the cookie and reset your access.

While you have access, there usually isn't anything to give a hint that a paywall exists (though I have seen a couple of sites where this was pretty transparent because they had banners saying something like, "Article 1 of 3 free articles." It would be nice if they all had that so that we could be more aware of providing links to others that might be behind a paywall for them.

Usually the easiest workaround is to open the link on an incógnito window.

 

Usually the easiest workaround is to open the link on an incógnito window.

True. I seldom think of that because there are few things that need it that I consider worth the effort to make the effort. If they don't want me reading what they've published on their site, that's their choice (and they have every right to make it) and that's fine with me. I'll go elsewhere.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj01q6p7ndlo
Over 120,000 home cameras hacked in South Korea for 'sexploitation' footage

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj01q6p7ndlo
Over 120,000 home cameras hacked in South Korea for 'sexploitation' footage
View attachment 359854

Who needs intelligence agencies when people are willing to spy on themselves?

 

Who needs intelligence agencies when people are willing to spy on themselves?

"The call's coming from inside the house".

 

India revokes order for smartphone makers to install government security app amid uproar over privacy

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"No government will ever be expected to acknowledge that a government app is a snooping tool, even in China and Russia, where such apps have been mandated," Indian technology analyst Prasanto K. Roy told CBS News on Wednesday. "A government statement alone is not adequate to inspire confidence in this."