Mastodawn

Between this and the Google Quantum Circuit ZKP bug/forgeries, I think it should become standard practice to formally verify zero-knowledge proof circuits.

Otherwise, we really have zero-knowledge about what's being proven.

Frédéric Jacobs 1h ago

Taylor Hornby, paired with Opus 4.8, found a money minting bug in the Zero Knowledge Proof circuit of Zcash.

An element of the Orchard circuit was under-constrained element therefore it was possible to put arbitrary false inputs into an elliptic curve multiplication and still have the multiplication check pass.

Shielded Labs is initiating a project to formally verify the Orchard circuit.

https://shieldedlabs.net/the-orchard-counterfeiting-vulnerability/

The Orchard Counterfeiting Vulnerability - Shielded Labs

By: Zooko Wilcox, Jason McGee, and Taylor Hornby Summary On May 29, 2026, Taylor Hornby discovered a critical counterfeiting vulnerability in Zcash’s Orchard pool. Taylor disclosed the vulnerability to Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL), who coordinated an ecosystem-wide emergency response to fix the vulnerability, which was completed on June 2. After reviewing Taylor’s report and […]

Shielded Labs

Frédéric Jacobs 11h ago

Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf 12h ago

I'm afraid that this is why the US administration wants to shut down ocean observations: they don't want the people to know what is happening in our oceans, as it does not fit their ideology and the interests of their fossil fuel industry funders.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/03/climate/ocean-monitoring-system-amoc-trump-administration

The oceans are in deep trouble. The Trump administration is ditching a vital deep-sea monitoring system

The Trump administration will dismantle a $368 million monitoring system that provides critical data on the world’s oceans, sparking alarm among scientists

CNN

Frédéric Jacobs 11h ago

Electronic Frontier Foundation 12h ago

EFF’s Threat Lab confirmed @WIRED's finding that Meta has deployed facial recognition code to millions of their always-on surveillance glasses. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/move-fast-surveil-things

Move Fast, Surveil Things

Meta has deployed facial recognition code to millions of their always-on surveillance glasses, according to new reporting by Wired. EFF’s Threat Lab was able to confirm that the facial recognition code is present through static analysis of the application. This dangerous new Meta functionality...

Electronic Frontier Foundation

Frédéric Jacobs 11h ago

Zack Whittaker 12h ago

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@cR0w/116692776221622923

Last year I said this, and it's still true.

"If there's one thing I've learned about covering cybersecurity over the past decade or so, is that the cybersecurity community (the fixers and breakers) and the cybersecurity industry (profits above all else) are two very, very different things."

Frédéric Jacobs 19h ago

gclef 1d ago

The Trump administration is moving to dismantle an ocean observation system consisting of more than 900 instruments in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Data supplied by the system has been used to study key Atlantic currents that increasingly appear in danger of collapse as the climate warms. Read more on E360 →

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/trump-ooi-amoc

#Environment #Climate #Science #Yale #ClimateDiary #ClimateCrisis #Nature

U.S. to Dismantle System Tracking Atlantic Currents That Are at Risk of Collapse

Yale E360

Frédéric Jacobs 1d ago

As Mastodon adoption grows, attackers are also looking at leveraging it for hostile activities.

Sekoia explains how Russian malware used Mastodon encrypted post updates as a dead drop resolver to tell the malware where to exfiltrate data:

"[Mastodon] posts were consistently updated four times per day at uniform intervals with a variance of only a few minutes”

https://blog.sekoia.io/fsbs-matryoshka-3-3-gamaredons-gifts-that-keeps-unpacking-gammasteel/

FSB’s matryoshka #3/3 - Gamaredon’s gifts that keeps unpacking - GammaSteel

Discover part 3 of our FSB Matryoshka investigation. We deep dive into Gamaredon's Gammasteel info-stealer, its data exfiltration TTPs, and indicators.

Sekoia.io Blog

Frédéric Jacobs 1d ago

Steven Murdoch 2d ago

For 19 years, GPS satellites have secretly broadcast a “numbers station” in their public signals. We decoded 12M messages: a 2011 flash where 31 of 32 satellites flipped in hours, “ghost” substrings repeating years apart, and a “TEXT” prefix spreading now. https://lsc-pagepro.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=865273&p=62&view=issueViewer

Frédéric Jacobs 1d ago

Mastodon 1d ago

The @EUCommission just released a statement positioning open source as central to #Europe’s #TechSovereignty.

We couldn’t agree more. #OpenSource is critical to a robust and independent society.

Here’s our full statement: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/06/europes-new-tech-strategy-puts-open-source-front-and-centre/

#Mastodon #Fediverse #SocialWeb #OpenWeb #DigitalSovereignty

Europe's New Tech Strategy Puts Open Source Front and Centre

Mastodon's thoughts on the EU's newly released tech and open source strategy

Mastodon Blog

Frédéric Jacobs 2d ago

Jad Koleilat 2d ago

The Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and mathematics https://leidendeclaration.ai/ is disappointing. The preamble is good; it clearly explains the threats that mathematics faces due to AI. The reason it is disappointing is that the only proposed solution is more transparency.

In the preamble, the authors state: « […] the consequences of large-scale investment in artificial intelligence are being widely discussed in regard to warfare, mass surveillance, political disruption, and environmental damage.». They are right: AI is currently being used to kill, surveil, and impoverish people. AI for mathematics cannot exist independently of the rest of the world; for it to function, companies need to make a profit, they need to sign deals with the military, and they need to keep destroying the planet to power their servers. To use AI is to contribute to this system. No use case of AI has provided sufficient benefits to justify the destruction it is causing.

To have as the only (possibly) constraining recommendation to « Evaluate the ethical consequences of your work, and take action accordingly» is simply not understanding the problem. AI can never be ethical in a capitalistic society. The purpose of this recommendation is to open the way to people claiming that they are using AI in an ethical way, which is impossible. How can one claim to be for open science and not condemn the use of AI, which is based on stolen work?

The few mathematical problems that will be solved by AI won’t outweigh the years of work and the brilliant minds we are losing because of it. No mathematical problem is worth the death of people, the destruction of our education system, and the destruction of our planet.

Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics

This declaration calls for action to address the challenges posed by the use of artificial intelligence within mathematics research.

Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics

Website	https://www.fredericjacobs.com
Readings	@[email protected]
127.0.0.1	Lausanne, 🇨🇭
Lang	[“en_us”, “fr_ch”, “de_de”, “nl_be”] (Three dots on profile to choose posts in which language you're subscribed to)