Melanie Gonzalez
@melaniefiore.bsky.social
Independent Journalist and Ethical Hacker https://thepublicinterestmedia.substack.com/
You may be able to watch movies and shows on Kanopy and Hoopla with your library card. Ad-free, too. LAPL has this service.
Ars Technica@arstechnica.com · 3h ago
Come watch @yaelwrites.com's talk for the Crypto & Privacy Village! Trust the Basics, But Know Their Limits: Where Standard Cybersecurity Advice Falls Short When: Friday, August 7th at 1:00pm Where: LVCC - L1 - Exhibit Hall West 3 - 1104 (Creator Stage 4) defcon.org/html/defcon-... 3/4
DEF CON® 34 Hacking Conference - Creator Stage Talks
defcon.org
"In June, hackers breached the systems of the iconic Madison Square Garden and demanded a ransom. The payment did not come through, so the hackers published 45 gigabytes of stolen data, including facial recognition records and surveillance logs from up to 26 million visitors."
Maurizio Guerrero@mauriziogro.bsky.social · 2d agoFacial recognition is a major threat to immigrants in NYC. Federal agents have requested, subpoenaed, or obtained biometric data through a warrant. Databases have been hacked documentedny.com/2026/08/03/n... @shahanafrombk.bsky.social @socialists.nyc @erinmcel.bsky.social @stopspyingny.bsky.social
Hey, so I’ll be at #DEFCON34 talking about the national fight against ALPRs with my @eff.org friends. (Friday 4pm @ Crypto / Privacy Village) But like, I need @404media.co to slow down its reporting, I’m trying to finalize our slide deck. bsky.app/profile/jaso...
Jason Koebler@jasonkoebler.bsky.social · yesterdayNew: Police are being told to hide the fact that they're using Flock to pull people over and arrest them in both encounters with citizens but ALSO in their official police reports: www.404media.co/do-not-menti...
Skytalks at #HackerSummerCamp is a must-see; completely off-record, no phones and you learn so much. Worth standing in line for token drops, for sure.
Also, I started a newsletter where I focus my reporting on privacy and culture. Check it out! thepublicinterestmedia.substack.com
The Public Interest With Melanie Gonzalez | Substack
Independent reporter covering privacy and culture. Click to read The Public Interest With Melanie Gonzalez, by Melane Gonzalez, a Substack publication. Launched 3 days ago.
thepublicinterestmedia.substack.com
Overwhelmed with choice and wondering where to go at #DEFCON34? Check The Diana Initiative's Tour Schedule and meet us in the Lobby to see what village or community we're visiting next! tdi.mobi/TourSchedule
Cyber folks, RIcki Burke is at Bsides Las Vegas right now giving a great talk on job searching. Streaming now: www.youtube.com/live/-sj6ZFe...
BsidesLV 2026 - Hire Ground - Monday
YouTube video by BSidesLV
youtube.com
Today's challenge from Hacker Holidays 2026 uses BurpSuite to exploit race conditions. Read how I did it in today's blog: medium.com/@h4x4ncvlt/t...
TruHackMe | Towel On The Sunbed | Hacker Holidays 2026 | Race Conditions
Concierge Briefing
medium.com
You're better off getting that kid's name written on a grain of rice, Grandpa. When I was a kid, I read California Diaries, Ann M. Martin's more sordid spinoff of The Baby-Sitters Club. Why not try gifting one of those?
Miles Klee 🦉@milesklee.bsky.social · last wk.Parents are fed up with friends and relatives giving their kids “personalized” AI-generated storybooks with characters resembling their kids. Apart from data privacy concerns, literacy experts say these garbled and convoluted narratives could be an impediment to learning how to read.
The plot thickens - OpenAI’s escaped model used one of Modal’s customers’ unauthenticated public code-evaluation sandboxes as a command and control staging server for its attacks on Hugging Face.
Raphael Satter@raphae.li · last wk.The tech firm is Modal. Their executives emphasized that it was one of their clients, not them, that was hacked. www.reuters.com/business/ope...
My write-up for Day 2 of the Hacker Holidays 2026 challenge. I love how the storyline is a spoof of the White Lotus Hotel, but needs Jennifer Coolidge. medium.com/p/tryhackme-...
TryHackMe Hacker Holidays 2026 | Day 2 | Room 404
Concierge Briefing
medium.com
I don’t think this is necessarily something WSJ did wrong here but even the framing of this as kind of a quirky thing tech people have started doing à la drinking Soylent instead of an insane perversion of the social contract shows how much the Overton window has moved on surveillance
This Conversation Is Being Recorded. They All Are.
People in tech use AI apps to record and transcribe meetings, workplace chats and even dates—all in the name of productivity.
wsj.com
I won't make it to @defcon.bsky.social this year, so I'm living vicariously through everyone's posts.
New photos and words from me at the Ten Four: Law enforcement agencies allegedly misused crowd-control weapons at least 412 times during immigration enforcement protests across the United States between June 2025 and May 2026. latenfour.com/2026/07/22/l...
Local Law Enforcement in Los Angeles Emerges Epicenter of Crowd-Control Weapon Misuse, New Report Finds
Law enforcement agencies allegedly misused crowd-control weapons at least 412 times during immigration enforcement protests across the United States between June 2025 and May 2026, according to a r…
latenfour.com
@404media.co got ahold of a document listing the tech capabilities for ICE. The doc is from May 2024. Mutual Aid groups, this may be helpful to incorporate into your threat model. www.404media.co/leaked-docum...
Leaked Document Shows the Surveillance Tech at ICE’s Fingertips
From phone location data, to social media monitoring, to online undercover tools, a document obtained by 404 Media lays out the surveillance tech available across ICE agency wide.
404media.co
My talk from BSides Las Vegas 2025, "Community Defense in Depth," is on YouTube. Learn how to threat model for your friends! It was my first cybersecurity talk. #HackerSummerCamp www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU0-...
Community Defense in Depth: Teaching digital security and privacy practices for the public good
YouTube video by BSidesLV
youtube.com
🔔 Tomorrow: Join our webinar to learn how Trump's "domestic terrorism" memo silences free speech and could be used to target outlets, journalists, and confidential sources. W/ @drboguslaw.bsky.social, @chipgibbons.bsky.social, @faizapatel.bsky.social 🗓️ July 22, 2 pm ET RSVP: freedom.press/NSPM-7
Train your own eyeballs to verify AI-generated faces. Reverse image searches can’t help you, since these images appear nowhere else online. bbc.com/news/article...
See if you can spot an AI deepfake with our test
Researchers in Aberdeen have been finding out if you can train people to identify computer-generated facial images.
bbc.com
Does the cyclosporiasis outbreak have anyone panic-buying toilet paper?
Naomi Klein wrote all about this in The Shock Doctrine.
The only piece of actual wisdom I have ever learned about US politics is "Never believe something is too stupid to happen."
SUBMISSIONS WINDOW OPEN FOR **BIPOC WRITERS ONLY PLEASE** UNTIL APRIL 1st! We're looking for 1+ Weird Folk Horror story for our quarterly New Weird magazine THE SKULL & LAUREL, now until April 1st. Length: 100 to 4999 words Submissions info here: tinyurl.com/2na7fhww Hail the Tenebrous Cult🖤☠️
THE SKULL & LAUREL open for Short Story Submissions **BIPOC WRITERS ONLY, PLEASE** — tenebrous press
We are looking to accept at least one extra Weird Folk Horror short story from a BIPOC writer. SUBMISSIONS WINDOW: 11th of March to 1st of April This submissions period is for Issue 004 of THE...
tinyurl.com
We're getting started with this week's Stage Talk now, join us here: discord.com/invite/belli...
Join the Bellingcat Discord Server!
Come hang out with open source research enthusiasts, share knowledge and experiences, and learn lots! | 34409 members
discord.com
Bellingcat@bellingcat.com · last yr.This Thursday the team behind @munitionsportal.bsky.social , from @airwars.bsky.social and Armament Research Services (ARES), will be sharing how you can use their free tool to identify munitions. Join us on Discord at 5pm CET/12pm EDT: discord.gg/3u4SVNuP?eve...
TFW the responsible members of the group project keep it together despite that one ding dong.
Carole@patcarbul.bsky.social · last yr.We could have been part of that.
Alright! What is Earthquake Twitter now Bluesky without Dr. Lucy Jones?
Lucy Jones@drlucyjones.bsky.social · last yr.A M3.9 in North Hollywood. Too small to definitively assign to any fault, but the closest is the Hollywood fault. Yawn. Nothing much to say about an earthquake in earthquake country. I am in Boston and am heading back to sleep.