Pri Bengani

516 Followers
519 Following
2.1K Posts
Senior Research Fellow, Tow Center @ Columbia University
I hope buttons look like buttons again.
U.K. orders Apple to let it spy on users’ encrypted accounts

Secret order requires blanket access to protected cloud backups around the world, which if implemented would undermine Apple’s privacy pledge to its users.

The Washington Post
iOS App Store apps with screenshot-reading malware found for the first time

Kaspersky reports finding several apps on the Apple App Store infected with malware designed to facilitate crypto theft.

The Verge
It kind-of sucks that Apple forced the EU’s hand with some of its App Store policies, because there is an alternate universe where the alt stores just don’t exist.
I’ve had qualms about third-party app stores from the beginning and… well…

What is with Apple icons lately? First Playground and now Invites. They could’ve at least tried to do balloons instead of the random colourful circles.

(And, no, this isn’t nostalgia for the good ol’ skeuomorphic days.)

Some fascinating research out on hacking a Subaru via STARLINK connected vehicle service.

"On November 20, 2024, Shubham Shah and I discovered a security vulnerability in Subaru’s STARLINK connected vehicle service that gave us unrestricted targeted access to all vehicles and customer accounts in the United States, Canada, and Japan.

Using the access provided by the vulnerability, an attacker who only knew the victim’s last name and ZIP code, email address, phone number, or license plate could have done the following:

Remotely start, stop, lock, unlock, and retrieve the current location of any vehicle.

Retrieve any vehicle’s complete location history from the past year, accurate to within 5 meters and updated each time the engine starts.

Query and retrieve the personally identifiable information (PII) of any customer, including emergency contacts, authorized users, physical address, billing information (e.g., last 4 digits of credit card, excluding full card number), and vehicle PIN.

Access miscellaneous user data including support call history, previous owners, odometer reading, sales history, and more.

After reporting the vulnerability, the affected system was patched within 24 hours and never exploited maliciously."

https://samcurry.net/hacking-subaru#introduction

#cars #security #subaru @starlink

Hacking Subaru: Tracking and Controlling Cars via the STARLINK Admin Panel

On November 20, 2024, Shubham Shah and I discovered a security vulnerability in Subaru’s STARLINK admin panel that gave us unrestricted access to all vehicles and customer accounts in the United States, Canada, and Japan.

samcurry.net
OpenAI quietly funded independent math benchmark before setting record with o3

OpenAI's involvement in funding FrontierMath, a leading AI math benchmark, only came to light when the company announced its record-breaking performance on the test. Now, the benchmark's developer Epoch AI acknowledges they should have been more transparent about the relationship.

THE DECODER
Every Saturday we publish The Abstract, a round-up of new science studies and reporting from one of the best science writers in the business, Becky Ferreira. Easily one of the most popular and insightful things on 404 Media. Signup to get every week: https://www.404media.co/the-data-on-civilization-ending-superflares-3/
The Data on Civilization-Ending Superflares

Don’t panic…yet. Also: A baby galaxy with a bedazzled name, tiny poops with big potential, and an ancient ritual compound in a secret cave chamber.

404 Media
BBC complains to Apple over misleading shooting headline

Apple's new artificial intelligence features falsely made it seem the BBC reported Luigi Mangione had shot himself.

BBC News