Search the archive

DARWIS TAXII

DARWIS TAXII provides a high-performance Trusted Automated eXchange of Indicator Information (TAXII) server written in Rust. It's a Rust port of EclecticIQ OpenTAXII.

INTRODUCING SUPPLY CHAIN ATTACK CAMPAIGNS TRACKING IN THE SOCKET DASHBOARD

Socket launched a Threat Intel page with campaign tracking that identifies whether organizations are affected by active supply chain attack campaigns targeting package registries like npm. The feature groups related malicious packages under single campaigns (such as Shai-Hulud and Contagious Interview), displays Safe/Impacted status for each organization, and provides direct links to affected repositories with ecosystem filtering for npm, PyPI, and Maven. Security teams can immediately assess exposure to coordinated attacks without cross-referencing advisories or running custom scripts.

HONG KONG ISSUES CODE OF PRACTICE UNDER THE PROTECTION OF CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURES (COMPUTER SYSTEMS) ORDINANCE

Hong Kong's Office of the Commissioner of Critical Infrastructure issued a Code of Practice on January 1 that translated the Protection of Critical Infrastructures Ordinance into specific compliance requirements for critical infrastructure operators. The CoP establishes criteria for Critical Computer System designation (including SCADA and industrial control systems), defines material change notification triggers, mandates security audits and management plans, and clarifies incident reporting timelines—12 hours for serious incidents affecting service levels or causing data breaches, and 48 hours for other security incidents. Critical infrastructure operators should treat the CoP as the operative compliance benchmark and implement structured governance programs aligned with its technical baselines, security audit requirements, and incident response protocols to meet supervisory expectations.

A NOVEL SIDE-CHANNEL ATTACK THAT UTILIZES MEMORY RE-ORDERINGS

Memory DisOrder is a timerless side-channel attack that exploits memory re-orderings in relaxed memory models to infer cross-process activity on mainstream CPUs (X86/Arm/Apple) and GPUs (NVIDIA/AMD/Apple). The technique demonstrated covert channels achieving up to 16 bits/second with 95% accuracy on Apple M3 GPU, reliable DNN architecture fingerprinting, and potential throughput of nearly 30K bits/second on X86 CPUs when exploiting low-level system details. Organizations should monitor for emerging mitigations as this vulnerability class, which affects parallel processing units, becomes better understood.

PHISHING CAMPAIGN ZEROES IN ON LASTPASS CUSTOMERS

An ongoing phishing campaign targeting LastPass customers began around January 19, using LLM-crafted emails with plausible subject lines urging users to "back up their vaults" before scheduled maintenance. The phishing emails direct victims to credential-harvesting sites designed to capture master passwords, potentially compromising entire password vaults. Organizations should alert users to verify email sender addresses, enable MFA on password managers, and report suspicious LastPass-branded emails.

CURL SHUTTERS BUG BOUNTY PROGRAM TO STOP AI SLOP

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ADMITS DOGE MAY HAVE MISUSED AMERICANS' SOCIAL SECURITY DATA

According to court documents, two members of DOGE may have accessed and shared SSNs in an effort to help an advocacy group “overturn election results in certain states.”

PWN2OWN AUTOMOTIVE 2026 - DAY ONE RESULTS

Pwn2Own Automotive 2026 Day One awarded $516,500 for 37 unique zero-days across IVI systems, EV chargers, and Tesla Infotainment, with Fuzzware.io leading the Master of Pwn competition.

Try Asana for free >>

MY FAVORITE NEW SOCIAL NETWORK

People are moving away from public feeds toward small, intentional email networks known as ‘Heartbeat Emails'. These are periodic, semi-personal updates sent to a curated group of people you genuinely want to stay connected with. They're designed to invite replies rather than broadcast status. Heartbeat Emails extend the life of coffee meetings and create space for honesty that does not fit on LinkedIn.

CONSUMERS SPENT MORE ON MOBILE APPS THAN GAMES IN 2025

Consumers spent more on non-game apps than games for the first time last year. App spending reached $85B, up 21% YoY, as AI app revenue more than tripled and usage surged. Users spent far more time in these apps rather than simply downloading more of them. AI assistants led the charge, dominated by ChatGPT, Gemini, and DeepSeek. Mobile emerged as the primary access point for AI, especially in the US. AI has moved from novelty to daily utility.

RESULTS FROM UNGATED CONTENT

After spending $15K to generate just 106 low-quality ebook leads, a team realized gated content was blocking real engagement. Only 3% of visitors filled out the form, so they ungated everything and stopped reporting on leads. They measured cost per engagement and focused on pipeline and revenue. One year later, demo requests rose 265%, pipeline grew 242%, and cost per engagement dropped 90%. By letting people opt in only when they wanted the content, the team showed ungating drives far more business impact than chasing low-quality leads.

LET PEOPLE KEEP THEIR RETURNS

Letting customers keep low to moderately-priced items while issuing a full refund increases repeat purchase intent and brand sentiment, making customers up to 2x more likely to buy again. Across 9 experiments, returnless returns drove 24.6% higher ratings, up to 30.1% more positive reviews, and 30% higher perceived value compared to standard return policies. The effect is stronger when it is framed as customer convenience or an environmental choice and when customers are encouraged to donate items, but it weakens if proof is required, causing 20% less positive word of mouth. The approach works best for frequently repurchased and lower-cost items, while profitability depends on category, price, and fraud controls.

HOW TO MANUALLY TRACK SENTIMENT

Understanding brand sentiment does not require expensive tools. Collect 100 comments from influencer posts, reposts, and related social channels like Reddit, Facebook groups, or TikTok. In a spreadsheet, create columns for positive, neutral, and negative. Positive includes intent to buy, or tagging friends. Neutral covers mentions or facts. Negative includes skepticism, complaints, or comparisons. Count comments in each column and divide by the total to get a sentiment score.

OPENAI TEXT TO SPEECH

This credit-based AI tool converts written text into natural-sounding spoken audio using an advanced neural model.

YOUTUBE CEO NEAL MOHAN'S BIG IDEAS FOR 2026: MORE SUPERSTAR CREATORS AND TRANSPARENCY, LESS AI SLOP

Neal Mohan frames the year as an inflection point. He's drawing a clear line against low-quality “AI slop”, spam, and deepfakes. YouTube plans to increase transparency through labeling and likeness protections and continue treating creators as full-fledged studios rather than casual users. The goal is to balance openness and innovation with a viewing experience people actually want to spend time in.

UX STRATEGIST: THE ONLY JOB WHERE SAYING ‘IT DEPENDS' IS CONSIDERED EXPERTISE

UX strategy often stalls product progress because it avoids hard decisions and defaults to more research. Many UX strategists charge $120 to $180 per hour to produce frameworks and PDFs that conclude further validation is needed. In contrast, direct fixes based on obvious user pain points cut support tickets by 68% in one case and raised activation by 23% in another. The real cost is not just money but months of delay while products stay broken and teams wait for clarity that never arrives.

NETFLIX APP IS GOING TO CHANGE AS THE COMPANY COMPETES WITH INSTAGRAM FOR ATTENTION

Netflix is preparing a mobile app redesign that treats the interface as an evolving feed rather than a static catalog, reflecting how users now discover entertainment through constant scrolling. Executives framed the update as a foundation for ongoing experimentation, with vertical video and short clips playing a larger role. The shift aligns with Netflix's expanding mix of formats, including podcasts and live events, which naturally generate ‘snackable' moments.

TOP FACEBOOK ADS TRENDS FOR 2026

Facebook ad success is determined by the quality of first-party data flowing into Meta's systems.

GOOGLE DEEPMIND CEO REITERATES ‘NO PLANS' FOR GEMINI ADS

Demis Hassabis highlighted Google's ability to fund development while focusing on long-term assistant usefulness instead of short-term monetization.

DO AMERICANS USE AI FOR NEWS?

Despite widespread awareness of AI tools, Americans overwhelmingly rely on social platforms and traditional outlets for news, citing false AI-generated information as a key reason for skepticism.

🫣 Stop playing hide-and-seek with your tools. Microsoft Azure

brings together everything you need to build and run software in a single workspace.

Simplify your stack with Azure →

THE MICROSOFT-OPENAI FILES: INTERNAL DOCUMENTS REVEAL THE REALITIES OF AI'S DEFINING ALLIANCE

Elon Musk's lawsuit accusing OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman of abandoning the nonprofit mission has unveiled over 200 documents that offer an inside look into the relationship between OpenAI and Microsoft. Musk, an OpenAI co-founder, is seeking up to $134 billion in damages, with a jury trial scheduled for this Spring. The files reveal how Microsoft pursued, rebuffed, and backed OpenAI at various moments over the past decade. The previously undisclosed emails, messages, slide decks, reports, and deposition transcripts show how Microsoft ultimately shaped the course of the lab that launched the generative AI era.

X OPEN SOURCES ITS ALGORITHM WHILE FACING A TRANSPARENCY FINE AND GROK CONTROVERSIES

X has open sourced its algorithm, giving the world a peek behind the company's algorithmic curtain. The site's algorithm considers engagement history and surveys recent in-network posts when finding content for individual users. It conducts a machine-learning-based analysis of 'out of network' posts that it believes the user might also find appealing. The algorithm then filters out certain kinds of posts, as well as content deemed too violent or spam-like, and ranks the content based on what it thinks users will find most appealing.

MODERNA, MERCK REPORT POSITIVE RESULTS FROM CANCER-VACCINE STUDY

In a Phase 2b trial, Moderna and Merck's cancer vaccine reduced the risk of relapse or death in melanoma patients by 49% when used in combination with Merck's immunotherapy Keytruda, compared to when using Keytruda alone. The results illustrate mRNA's potential in cancer care. The treatment continues to demonstrate sustained and clinically meaningful improvement. The companies are currently running eight Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials across multiple tumor types.

THE FIRST COMMERCIAL SPACE STATION, HAVEN-1, IS NOW UNDERGOING ASSEMBLY FOR LAUNCH

The International Space Station is due to be decommissioned in less than five years, but NASA has yet to formally publish rules and requirements for a potential replacement. There are currently four main contenders for NASA's commercial space station program: Voyager Technologies, Axiom Space, Blue Origin, and Vast Space. NASA is expected to select one or two of these companies for contracts later this year. This article contains an interview with Vast's chief executive, Max Haot. Vast is currently building a smaller interim space station capable of short-duration stays called Haven-1.

together →

MCP, SKILLS, AND AGENTS

Harnesses are constantly improving by iterating on what works well. However, every time someone releases a new behavior, the thought leaders of the internet determine that it has replaced all previous functionality. Developers should try both skills and MCP to learn the fundamentals of how the technology works and what that means for managing the context window. How the technologies shift in the future depends entirely on the workflows they help people solve.

SKILLS.SH

Skills are reusable capabilities for AI agents. This site contains an open agent skills ecosystem with a collection of skills anyone can install with a single command to enhance their agents with access to procedural knowledge. The site contains thousands of skills. The index is searchable and shows how many times each skill has been installed.

I'M ADDICTED TO BEING USEFUL

People think software engineers are addicted to being useful, driven by an addiction to solving puzzles, or drawn by power and money. What actually motivates software engineers is often more of an internal compulsion. It's worth figuring out what really motivates you so that you can harness that compulsion most effectively.

AGENTIC AI AND THE MYTHICAL AGENT-MONTH

The concept of 'Scalable Agency', where a developer could theoretically spin up thousands of agents to complete tasks faster, relies on a flawed assumption that software engineering is an embarrassingly parallel task. Context loading is not the same as common knowledge, and reading tokens is not the same as understanding the causal chain of changes across a system. Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Multi-agent systems do not escape this law, they simply hit the wall of state-space explosion faster than humans do.

FULLY REMOTE)

As the first engineer on TLDR's new Applied AI team, you'll build AI agents and composable Claude Skills to let non-technical teammates create their own AI workflows. Learn more [16].

SYNTUX

syntux is a generative UI library that is consistent and flexible.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE AGENTIC COMMONS

AI agents help facilitate better match quality through centralized mechanisms in 'thin' markets.

THE MICROSTRUCTURE OF WEALTH TRANSFER IN PREDICTION MARKETS

Prediction markets are creating a systematic wealth transfer, where impulsive Takers pay a structural premium for affirmative outcomes while Makers capture an 'Optimism Tax' simply by selling into this biased flow.

SOFTWARE AS CLAY ON THE WHEEL

Just like when working with clay, when software doesn't work, you throw it back, refine it, and spin again until it's right.

NETFLIX TO PAY ALL CASH FOR WARNER BROS. TO FEND OFF PARAMOUNT HOSTILE TAKEOVER

Netflix originally planned to buy each Warner Bros. share with $23.25 in cash and $4.50 in Netflix stock, but it has amended the deal to sweeten the offer for shareholders.

PIPENET

pipenet is an alternative to localtunnel that bundles client and server to host self-hosted tunnel infrastructure for full control over security, domains, and availability.

today, you'll find guidance to simplify your AI agent journey.

DEEPMIND CEO SAYS CHINESE AI FIRMS ARE 6 MONTHS BEHIND THE WEST

Google DeepMind's CEO, Demis Hassabis, says that Chinese AI companies remain around six months behind the frontier AI of the leading Western labs. He says the response to DeepSeek's R1 model last year was a massive overreaction and that while Chinese firms are very good at catching up to the frontier, they have yet to show they can innovate beyond that. Some of the barriers to Chinese AI development are set to come down as the Trump administration is easing a ban on advanced AI chip exports to China. Sales of the most advanced AI processors will remain blocked on national security grounds.

GEMINI IN CHROME IS GETTING “SKILLS” AS IT MOVES TOWARD BECOMING A FULL AI AGENT

Gemini in Chrome is being upgraded into a proactive agent capable of performing complex tasks on users' behalf. A hidden internal page for 'skills' has been spotted in testing. The page features a dedicated interface where users can define specific capabilities for the AI. Skills will effectively allow users to 'teach' Gemini how to handle specific or repetitive workflows within the browser.

THE MESSY HUMAN DRAMA THAT DEALT A BLOW TO ONE OF AI'S HOTTEST STARTUPS

Mira Murati says that Barret Zoph was fired from Thinking Machines Lab after repeated concerns about his conduct and lack of productivity. Zoph claims he was fired for expressing an intent to take a job elsewhere. Within hours of Zoph's firing, Zoph, another co-founder, and a third employee had signed offers to rejoin OpenAI. The departures are a sign of how the AI race is as much a battle for talent as technology.

AI STARTUP HUMANS& RAISES $480 MILLION AT $4.5 BILLION VALUATION IN SEED ROUND

AI startup Humans& has secured $480 million in seed funding, reaching a $4.5 billion valuation. Key participants included Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, and GV. The company aims to develop human-centric AI for improved communication and collaboration. A product launch is expected early this year. The founding team consists of experts from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Meta.

WITHOUT BENCHMARKING LLMS, YOU'RE LIKELY OVERPAYING 5-10X

Those paying for LLM APIs and have never tested alternatives are likely overpaying. There are almost always cheaper options with comparable quality for every workflow. Benchmarking and finding an optimal model is a complex process, but it can result in significant savings. This post discusses how one team navigated the process to save thousands of dollars.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE AGENTIC COMMONS

AI agents can improve matching markets, like dating or job searches, by using LLMs to convert unstructured preferences into actionable data, outperforming standard questionnaires. However, in markets where everyone uses AI agents, congestion increases significantly, reducing efficiency without a pricing mechanism. Introducing prices and institutional design can alleviate congestion, streamline coordination, and enhance market efficiency.