Some scams are easier to spot than others. That said, we get these semi-regularly and they are only getting more focused and custom-tailored, so be careful writers! And, no, we didn’t reply, but it was super-tempting.
Jessica Shurson
@jessicashurson.bsky.social
Law academic @ University of Sussex. Research interests: cybercrime and criminal law; digital surveillance, investigations & evidence; privacy law. 🇺🇸 in 🇬🇧. (Views are my own.) issuesincybercrimelaw.substack.com https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2775-2136
Higher education regulator apologises for unlawfully fining University of Sussex www.theguardian.com/education/20...
Higher education regulator apologises for imposing £585,000 fine on university
Office for Students made decision to punish University of Sussex last year after claiming it breached free speech regulations
theguardian.com
Ha! This is exactly the kind of "your research output changed our practice" confirmation academics need for REF impact case studies.
Joe Tidy BBC News@joetidy.bsky.social · 5d agoThis was surreal. I emailed the proton mail of the hacker group that breached the UK airports yesterday and they replied overnight with this...
Is Flock the only mass surveillance tool/network that people should be worried about? No. But it is an entry point for people from all walks of life to the fight against mass surveillance and I'm glad people are paying attention and taking action.
I joked with friends recently that we only needed to wait a couple years for private schools to go tech-free to signify as elite. I wonder if this will extend to UK unis, but think the race to expand student numbers to deal with funding crisis here might prevent it, at least in the short term?
Tressie McMillan Cottom@tressiemcphd.bsky.social · last wk.After 90 or so years of democratization of higher ed, the race to calcify prestige hierarchies is accelerating. www.chronicle.com/article/u-of...
This is an impressively bad take from the NYT when viewed from almost any angle, which is harder than you'd think to do.
Mike Masnick@masnick.com · 2w agoThe NY Times is just straight up trolling me now, right?
It's being treated as a policy victory that we have less of the world's smart young people coming to learn from us, participate in our society and economy. This is just so depressing to me, it feels like a complete victory for know-nothing ignorant bigotry over enlightened sensibilities.
Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 2w agoStudent visa slump ‘raises serious questions’ on university funding. Number of student visas granted falls by more than 40 per cent in three years. China, India, Pakistan and Nigeria all down year-on-year. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...
I have not been able to read my full timeline in a while but I see today is an excellent day to remind people that "social media addiction" is a made up thing and accepting that framing and using that term is actively harmful www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Overestimates of social media addiction are common but costly - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Overestimates of social media addiction are common but costly
nature.com
Anyone using the term "social media addiction" has fallen for a manufactured narrative that is contrary to every actual finding of reputable scientists working without an agenda. It not only does not exist, framing it in that way *actively* harms people's mental health and ability to self-regulate.
From the @cdt.org British Public Oppose Secret Surveillance Powers and Want Strong Protections for Encrypted Communications cdt.org/press/britis...
British Public Oppose Secret Surveillance Powers and Want Strong Protections for Encrypted Communications
The British public overwhelmingly believe they have the right to private conversations online and broadly oppose allowing law enforcement to access encrypted messages. Today, the Center for Democracy ...
cdt.org
"for all the people “celebrating” this as a win “against” Meta, you’ve been fooled. Meta just cut a deal to put itself in charge of how social media works going forward. this is Meta taking a “please regulate me Daddy” approach to the government, & getting exactly what it really has been asking for"
Techdirt@techdirt.com · 2w agoMeta Just Paid Nearly $17 Billion To Make Sure It Gets To Write The Kid Safety Rules For Every Other Social Media Platform By now... https://www.techdirt.com/2026/08/26/meta-just-paid-nearly-17-billion-to-make-sure-it-gets-to-write-the-kid-safety-rules-for-every-other-social-media-platform/
I miss Peak Blog... RIP Google Reader
mtsw@mtsw.bsky.social · 3w agoIt seems fucking crazy from 2026, but a thing you gotta understand about 2008 is that while Twitter and Facebook technically existed that year, blogs were like 100x more important than social media was that cycle. Honestly, Peak Blog bsky.app/profile/erne...
well gee golly gosh what a huge surprise. no-one could possibly have predicted that this noble assistive technology would be used in this way i wonder if perchance we should maybe... BAN THESE DAMN THINGS
Maggie Harrison Dupré@mharrisondupre.bsky.social · 3w agoNEW: Teen boys are using smart glasses — mainly Meta's AI Glasses — to film themselves harassing classmates at school, following girls around and "rizzing" them or "ragebaiting" them w/ insults. In several videos we reviewed, girls plead w/ the poster to stop filming. futurism.com/artificial-i...
I have been saying the same for a while, at least since the Apple-UK encryption order saga in 2025 when their reporting was consistently the most accurate. (Also like their Daily Briefing podcast for a short dose of news in the morning)
David Kaye@davidakaye.bsky.social · 3w agoFT may just be the best mainstream daily in English rn. scoops, analysis, depth, range, clarity, nuance. if you can afford it, or have an academic acct like I do, subscribe.
I really think this could be huge. Both sides of it. The decline of our ability to do law enforcement, and the increase of accessibility of all communications to any sufficiently rich bad actor (including semi-beloved countries transiently run by autocrats.) #cybersecurity #AIEthics #backdoors
Matthew Green@matthewdgreen.bsky.social · 3w agoI wrote up a new post about what AI software finding might mean for the backdoor debate. blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/08/14/e...
I wrote up a new post about what AI software finding might mean for the backdoor debate. blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2026/08/14/e...
Everything is about to “go dark”
I’m coming down from spending a few days at Usenix Security, right here in my hometown of Baltimore. This means that my days have been taken up with two kinds of conversation: first, explaini…
blog.cryptographyengineering.com
Me minding my own business:... The British Gov through the insanely loud emergency alert on my phone: 🚨DON'T LIGHT ANY FIRES YOU STUPID F**KING BASTARDS!!🚨
NEW: U.S. courts will start publishing data on how many times the feds do wiretaps using spyware and hacking tools, starting in 2029. As of now, we knew the FBI and others used spyware, but we had no idea how many times that was happening. Change comes after several requests from Sen. Ron Wyden.
US courts will start publishing how often the government uses spyware | TechCrunch
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts told TechCrunch that it will start disclosing how many times judges authorized the use of spyware to wiretap suspected criminals.
techcrunch.com
the gaslighting over the pervert glasses is in a class of its own. They think we're idiots. www.engadget.com/2236054/meta...
Meta is giving away 15,000 AI glasses to blind and visually impaired people in Ireland - Engadget
Meta is donating 15,000 Ray-Ban Meta glasses to an Irish charity supporting people with sight loss.
engadget.com
it's hard for non-perverts to understand how many perverts are out there. My daughter, now 20, gets a lot LESS hassle in the street from ADULT MEN now that she's NOT wearing a school uniform. When she did, it was a daily occurrence, multiple times a day in a walk to school that took c 90 seconds
Wow this is a bad result for Farage. In the most Reform friendly seat in the country should get more than this - and Binface’s result shows once again that the centre and left will vote for literally anyone to try and stop him.
Election Maps UK@electionmaps.uk · 4w agoClacton By-Election Full Result: ➡️ RFM: 63.3% (+17.1) 🗑️ CBF: 26.7% (New) ⭐ REU: 1.4% (New) 🙋 Francis (Ind): 1.2% (New) 🙋 Walford (Ind): 1.1% (New) 🦊 REC: 1.0% (New) 🔴 SDP: 0.7% (New) 🙋 Pelas (Ind): 0.6% (New) 🤝 CNS: 0.5% (New) 🙋 Ingram (Ind): 0.5% (New) [1/4]
Six police forces are now known to have processed data with Palantir software, while further information is being fed in through data sharing agreements with neighbouring forces. goodlawproject.org/palantir-uk-...
Palantir: UK police forces rack up £7.8m on US spy tech | Good Law Project
Six police forces are now known to have processed data with Palantir software, while further information is being fed in through data sharing agreements with neighbouring forces.
goodlawproject.org
Every six months a writer goes on parental leave, is driven insane by watching 10,000 hours of Paw Patrol, and writes another one of these articles, and they're always great.
Jim Swift@jimswift.bsky.social · 4w ago
The key bit “Andrew, who was sitting fourth on a waitlist for a class later that week, asked if it was possible to move him to the top of the list.” In other words the AI did what humans asked it to do. Again. Oh and the network really shouldn’t allow such things to happen. Very Ferris Bueller
Nick Miller@nickdmiller.bsky.social · 4w agoGreat story from ABC this morning about a chap in Melbourne who asked an AI agent (OpenClaw) to book a gym class, and it ended up hacking the gym's booking system to kick people off the waiting list. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08...
Two security researchers shipped me a pink plastic kid's smartwatch from Amazon. When I wore it, they tracked my movements, surreptitiously took photos of me, even listened to my conversations. The same backend they hacked is used by 30+ watch brands for kids. 🧵👇 www.wired.com/story/hacker...
Hackers Stalked Me by Hijacking a Smartwatch for Kids
Security researchers tracked and eavesdropped on a WIRED reporter using vulnerabilities in a pink plastic smartwatch. It’s just one piece of a deeply insecure supply chain of GPS-enabled gadgets.
wired.com
Jane Austen used 'however' at the beginning of a sentence, and so can you.
The only thing that's unusual about this is how many people are following along. Ideally in academia, you find a subject in which only you and two other people are expert enough to have a really vicious, decades-long argument about it.