Some important context: LA is the US's most populous county (9.6M), and as a result their elections are fascinating. They literally need helicopters fly ballots around. It's amazing. Anyway, that's why it takes so long. Hope this helps.

Voter files are largely public. In many states, political parties can buy them, or request them for free. My research team at Georgia Tech has gotten them from FL and GA for papers we've worked on. It's not shocking that China --- or any intelligence agency --- would get them.

I second this. I'm a professor, one that focuses on election security and disclosed vulns in real elections systems. A simple guide: Unhelpful: Relitigating 2020, the SAVE act. Helpful: Rebuild CISA, re-hire EAC commissioners, & fund elections research.

Ben Adida@benadida.com · 3w ago

In case this is useful this week: if someone claims that an election held 6 years ago was fraudulent, they would need evidence thoroughly convincing to a large majority of election experts. Anything short of that should be dismissed without hesitation.

Our work on age verification on Georgia Tech's homepage! Led by my fantastic grad student @shreyasminocha.me, joint with @harryoppy.bsky.social, and @pearce.bsky.social

I am honored to share the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Best International Reporting with Dake Kang, Byron Tau, Aniruddha Ghosal and Garance Burke for our reporting revealing how Silicon Valley largely designed and built China's surveillance state and enabled human rights abuses.

Someone at my university's licensing office posted a ton of flyers trying to get our students to file patents. An enterprising grad student took that personally and stuck a flyer advertising the GPL below _every_ one.

New feature digs into the age check tech that Discord endorsed following widespread backlash. Bottom line: On-device checks—if they work as they claim—are more privacy-preserving, but privacy advocates still don't think age verification laws are effective enough to justify any of it:

Ars Technica@arstechnica.com · 5mo ago

Excited that my grad student @shreyasminocha.me's work on Age Verification has been accepted to IEEE S&P! You can read about it in Ars Technica: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/... Preprint: mikespecter.com/assets/pdf/A...

When we talk about the problems with Bluetooth-enabled physical trackers, we usually talk about AirTags, but let us save some rage for Tile, powered by this paper discussing Tile's privacy, security, and accountability problems: arxiv.org/abs/2510.003...

Security and Privacy Analysis of Tile's Location Tracking Protocol

We conduct the first comprehensive security analysis of Tile, the second most popular crowd-sourced location-tracking service behind Apple's AirTags. We identify several exploitable vulnerabilities an...

arxiv.org

To the lawyers that came up with compliance training: I hope you step on a lego. Once a day, for all eternity.

Watch today's episode of #ElectionScienceOfficeHours with Host @rmichaelalvarez.bsky.social - Beyond the Hype: A Research Driven Look at Claims About New Voting - with guests Georgia Tech's @mikespecter.com & Delaney Gomen - on the @caltechlcssp.bsky.social's YouTube channel: youtu.be/tbL1dlFT0NM.

#ElectionGeeks: This will be a really interesting conversation on voting system usability and accessibility between @caltechlcssp.bsky.social Co-Director @rmichaelalvarez.bsky.social & Georgia Tech's @mikespecter.com, including discussion on Professor Specter's latest research.

Linde Center for Science, Society, & Policy at Caltech@caltechlcssp.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Wed, 1/28 at 11am Pacific: “Beyond the Hype: A Research Driven Look at Claims About New Voting Technology” #ElectionScienceOfficeHours Host @rmichaelalvarez.bsky.social, @caltech.edu & guest Georgia Tech's @mikespecter.com. Register: caltech.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

The accepted talks for Real World Crypto 2026 are now online: rwc.iacr.org/2026/accepte... Thanks to everyone who submitted, and we look forward to the discussions at the symposium.

RWC 2026 accepted papers

Real World Crypto Symposium

rwc.iacr.org

The NYT just published an article largely hyping internet voting in Alaska. I do not agree, and argue that the article has significant problems. Let’s look at a few of them 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...

Will People Trust Voting by Phone? Alaska Is Going to Find Out.

nytimes.com

We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...

Probably the best troll paper of the year: “Replication of Quantum Factorisation Records with an 8-bit Home Computer, an Abacus, and a Dog” eprint.iacr.org/2025/1237.pdf

I will never forgive these AI companies for making em-dashes impossible to use without being accused of using AI. I miss the em-dash.

A team of researchers found that, by not encrypting the data broadcast by Tile tags, users could be vulnerable to having their location information exposed to malicious actors. www.wired.com/story/tile-t...

Tile Tracking Tags Can Be Exploited by Tech-Savvy Stalkers, Researchers Say

A team of researchers found that, by not encrypting the data broadcast by Tile tags, users could be vulnerable to having their location information exposed to malicious actors.

wired.com

Today, my research group @ Georgia Tech released a paper on vulnerabilities in Tile --- the second largest device finding network after Apple's AirTags. You can read about it in Wired, reporting by @kimzetter.bsky.social! www.wired.com/story/tile-t...

“Sorry, we temporarily lost part of the constitution via an erroneous merge conflict. Habeas Corpus will be restored shortly”

Alejandra Caraballo@esqueer.net · 12mo ago

The official version of the constitution on Congress.gov has removed Article I, Section 9 and 10 from the website which includes the writ of habeus corpus. web.archive.org/web/diff/202...

On Saturday, the United States Senate Parliamentarian determined that the proposed 10-year federal moratorium on enforcing state AI legislation contained in the budget bill has survived procedural scrutiny — known as the Byrd Rule — and will remain in the bill.

Proposed Federal Moratorium on State AI Laws Clears Hurdle in US Senate | TechPolicy.Press

The path forward for the moratorium is now procedurally clear, pending broader negotiations over the budget bill’s contents.

techpolicy.press

BREAKING: Judge denies NSF's 15% indirect rate plan. Like the DOE and NIH attempts, it too has now been rejected by courts. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

[Exit King.]

Congratulations @lambda.bsky.social! Today @theguardian.com is launching a new way for whistleblowers to anonymously contact journalists, based on years-long research by Daniel and other colleagues. www.theguardian.com/gnm-press-of...

The Guardian launches Secure Messaging, a world-first from a media organisation, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge

Secure Messaging is a new innovation for confidential story-sharing and source protection, underpinning the Guardian’s commitment to investigative journalism. The Guardian has published the open sourc...

theguardian.com

Harvard President's commencement welcome speech: "Welcome members of the class of 2025 -- members from down the street across the country and around the world. Around the world _just as it should be._" www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiT0...

President Alan Garber's Welcome | Harvard Commencement 2025

YouTube video by Harvard University

youtube.com

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades (Gift Article)

The lag in funding extends far beyond D.E.I. initiatives, affecting almost every area of science: chemistry, computing, engineering, materials and more.

nytimes.com

"What anonymous source is going to go anywhere near me now? If you were some high-up whistleblower, the last thing you’d do is message a journalist on an app strongly associated with JD Vance."

I’m the Private Messaging App Signal, and the Trump Administration Is Ruining My Brand

“The unofficial version of Signal used by Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz has been hacked.” — Reuters - - -Want to hear ...

buff.ly

This paper confirms all of my biases: Apparently the effort required for one top-tier paper in security and privacy == three ML papers. arxiv.org/pdf/2503.16623

Interesting chart.

The New York Times@nytimes.com · last yr.

President Trump's push to freeze federal funding to universities has targeted elite institutions, like Harvard and Columbia. But many other schools are concerned that it threatens the future of research and development programs. nyti.ms/42N36hH

Law professor here: Things are F-U-C-K-E-D up.