I’m having some fun with VStarcam firmware, so why shouldn’t you? After downloading hundreds of their firmware updates I decided to document all these numerous proprietary formats. This even included figuring out a proprietary compression algorithm (not the one I asked about here a few days ago, that one is still a mystery).
https://palant.info/2025/12/15/unpacking-vstarcam-firmware-for-fun-and-profit/
Cool project: "Nepenthes" is a tarpit to catch (AI) web crawlers.
"It works by generating an endless sequences of pages, each of which with dozens of links, that simply go back into a the tarpit. Pages are randomly generated, but in a deterministic way, causing them to appear to be flat files that never change. Intentional delay is added to prevent crawlers from bogging down your server, in addition to wasting their time. Lastly, optional Markov-babble can be added to the pages, to give the crawlers something to scrape up and train their LLMs on, hopefully accelerating model collapse."
Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen and General Motors win ruling they did not violate laws when their "vehicles began downloading and storing a copy of all text messages on smartphones when they were connected to the system... software makes it impossible for vehicle owners to access their communications and call logs but does provide law enforcement with access...
Many car manufacturers are selling car owners’ data to advertisers as a revenue boosting tactic"
https://therecord.media/class-action-lawsuit-cars-text-messages-privacy
STOP COUNTING CVEs
* BUGS WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE PLENTIFUL!
* Years of comparing relases by CVE numbers and yet no real-world use found.
* Want to use secure software? We had a tool for that: It was called updating.
* "Yes, please give me the software with the least CVEs". Statements dreamed up by the utterly deranged!
Look at what "security analysts" have been demanding your respect for all this time: low median CVSS score!? least CVEs?
They have played us for absolute fools.
Apple updated the security contents of iOS 15.5 crediting us for the use after free issue in AppleAVD.
This is my 10th kernel issue on Apple platforms that got assigned a CVE since October 25th, 2021.
@lcamtuf, as odd it might sound, is there any way to ask you some questions about the skipfish tool you contributed back in the days?
Or are there other ways to get some answers?
Cheers!
Wladimir Palant
Joseph Cox
tante
Chris Trottier
ouinne
scriptjunkie
Frederik Braun �
antoniozekic