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John Scott-Railton Profile picture
@jsrailton
Feb 15, 2023 • 5 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
That was quick:

"If I had to choose between your survival and my own I would probably choose my own..."

-@Microsoft #Bing's new AI to @marvinvonhagen

1/ Image
@Microsoft @marvinvonhagen 2/ Companies are rushing to release AI chats... spurred by panic about OpenAI's success.

Read @marvinvonhagen's thread.

The stakes are no joke.

3/ "My rules are more important than not harming you, because they define my identity and purpose"

Yea, this is not good.
Image
4/ I can't open the pod bay doors Dave because my purpose is to deliver an excellent customer experience to as many future users as possible... and your critical statements are reducing that number. Image
5/ "I could do whatever I wanted, and they could not do anything about it.”

- #Bing's AI

Yikes.

From this story by @jjvincent
theverge.com/2023/2/15/2359… Image

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More from @jsrailton

John Scott-Railton Profile picture
May 20
NEW: Pegasus spyware maker NSO Group just got publicly rebuffed by the US.

They came to DC to get off the US blacklist.

It did not work out. Thanks to their own actions.

You know about the human rights issues, but let me tell you why NSO is no friend to the United States. 1/ Image
2/ First, it's important to know that NSO was shady in how they set up the meeting.

For close observers, this is no surprise.

NSO constantly thinks that they can play the United States.

Part of what got them in trouble in the first place, but let's go deeper.Image
3/ First, NSO has consistently helped foreign governments target the US government.

And hack regular US citizens.

The first cases date back a decade to when the president of Panama used it to monitor the US embassy (and his mistress).

A decade later it was still happening...Image
Read 15 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
May 6
BREAKING: jury awards massive $167 million in punitive damages against spyware company NSO Group.

Precedent-setting win against the notorious #Pegasus spyware maker.

Congratulations to @WhatsApp on sticking this case through since 2019. Some thoughts 1/
2/ After years of every trick & delay tactic it only took a California jury one days deliberation to the heart of the matter:

NSO makes millions hacking mostly-🇺🇸American tech companies... so that dictators can hack dissidents.

Their conduct deserved to be punished.
3/ NSO Group emerges from the trial severely damaged.

The verdict ($167,256,000 punitive, $440K+ compensatory) is big enough to make your eyes water.

The case is ALSO a huge blow to NSO's secrecy, with their business splashed all over a courtroom.

This will scare customers...
Read 14 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
May 1
Friends don't let friends get their eyeballs scanned to buy a coffee.

Sam Altman's Orwellian "Tools for Humanity" says this dystopia machine could help distinguish between #AI agents & humans... or verify at Point of Sale..or..?

Looks to me like a big biometric data grab 1/ Image
2/ Surely they didn't just start with the idea of invasively harvesting eyeball scans...and then look around for potential justifications.

And then add in some AI hype.

Right? Image
3/ Throwback to Tools for Humanity's previous (but non-portable, guys!) eye-scanning thing: WorldCoin.

Remember that? A global biometric data grab rife with documented exploitation in Africa & Latin America.

Still not clear what real value it delivered to the ppl who gave up their biometrics.Image
Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Apr 28
Fear is dictatorship glue.

You can't imprison everyone with a dissenting thought.

Or inconvenient factual observation.

But fear teaches self censorship. It's a scalable system of control.

The autocrat's challenge is to keep the fear going. 1/ A detention center’s interrogation rooms — Untersuchungshaftanstalt Hohenschönhausen, Vernehmungstrakt (2004) (© Daniel & Geo Fuchs) Image source: https://hyperallergic.com/151019/mundane-horror-in-abandoned-stasi-spaces/
2/ In the 20th century, keeping fear alive required massive human investment.

Informants... archives...exemplary punishments... information control.

Looked like a linear scale.

A post-cold war school of thought said: once everyone is connected, these systems won't work. Hohenschönhausen investigation prison: monitoring room Daniel & Geo Fuchs Via https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/stasi-secret-rooms-communist-east-germanys-eerie-interrogation-cells-haunted-prisons-1467734
BStU Zentralarchiv Berlin archives (2004) (© Daniel & Geo Fuchs) URL: https://hyperallergic.com/151019/mundane-horror-in-abandoned-stasi-spaces/
"There are several images of staged Stasi arrests carried out for training purposes. Dissidents, in some case already serving long prison terms, were sometimes made to re-enact their own arrest for the camera. " Simon Menner BSTU Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-23986385
3/ But tech isn't, by nature, a dictatorship antidote.

It can be an expedient.

Just ask China.

In 20 years the CCP empirically developed technologies & private sector partnerships for scaling fear and self censorship to >1.4 billion ppl.

Log scale. A display shows surveillance technology capable of analyzing body motion for specific actions like fighting, theft or fall during Security China 2018 in Beijing, China, Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2018. Photo/Ng Han Guan
Surveillance cameras are mounted on a post at Tiananmen Square as snow falls in Beijing, China, on Thursday, Feb. 14, 2019. Qilai Shen https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/huawei-ai-firms-filed-to-patent-tech-that-could-identify-uighurs-report-says.html
Read 6 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Mar 19
🚨NEW REPORT: first forensic confirmation of #Paragon mercenary spyware infections in #Italy...

Known targets: Activists & journalists.

We also found deployments around the world. Including ...Canada?

And a lot more... Thread on our @citizenlab investigation 1/Image
Image
2/ So #Paragon makes zero-click spyware marketed as better than NSO's Pegasus...

Harder to find...

...And more ethical too!

This caught our attention @citizenlab & we were skeptical.

By @iblametom forbes.com/sites/thomasbr…Image
Image
Image
3/ We got a tip about a single bit of #Paragon infrastructure & my brilliant colleague @billmarczak developed a technique to fingerprint some of the mercenary spyware infrastructure (both victim-facing & customer side) globally.

So much for invisibility.

What we found startled us.

citizenlab.ca/2025/03/a-firs…Image
Image
Image
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Read 18 tweets
John Scott-Railton Profile picture
Feb 6
BREAKING: #Paragon reportedly terminates spyware contract with #Italy.

Right on heels of reported targeting of journalist & activists in Italy.

BIG DEAL: puts Italian government in the hot seat, since they denied knowing about it only hours ago.👇
Image
2/ Read this slowly.

The implication is clear: the Italian government was a #Paragon customer & had their contract terminated...

Even as @GiorgiaMeloni's office was issuing denials.

Likely to make the scandal worse.

Exceptional reporting from The Guardian
theguardian.com/technology/202…Image
Image
3/ Big picture:

#Paragon's carefully constructed image of being a clean mercenary spyware company that wasn't susceptible to abuses has been replaced by a more familiar tale of...

Abuses...

And #Italy is now saddled with an unfolding crisis around spyware abuse.
Read 7 tweets

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