Source: Newser & Wire Services (AP)
https://www.newser.com/story/382120/scotus-to-hear-case-on-geofence-warrants.html
High court to consider arguments on legality of culling location history of people near crime scenes. The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide the constitutionality of broad search warrants that collect the location history of cellphone users to find people near crime scenes. The case involves what’s a known as a “geofence warrant” that was served on Google in a police hunt for a bank robber in suburban Richmond, Virginia. Geofence warrants, an increasingly popular investigative tool, seek location data on every person within a specific location over a certain period of time, per the AP.
Prosecutors argued that Chatrie had no expectation of privacy because he voluntarily opted into Google’s Location History.
[…]
Category: Technology
Subject: Report Shows Massive Increase in Iranian Bitcoin Adoption Amid Nationwide Unrest
Source: Gizmodo
https://gizmodo.com/iranian-bitcoin-adoption-amid-nationwide-unrest-2000711457
A new report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis indicates there has been a massive increase in Bitcoin adoption in Iran over the past month, as the country deals with nationwide unrest and protests. The report specifically looks at the increase in withdrawals from crypto exchanges to unknown Bitcoin addresses, which indicates the local population is avoiding centralized financial infrastructure in the country in favor of the decentralized, peer-to-peer digital cash system.
To Chainalysis’s point, this is not the first time a sharp increase in Bitcoin adoption has been noticed in a country dealing with some sort of crisis. In the past, Chainalysis has issued reports involving increased adoption in Ukraine amid war with Russia, Argentina and Venezuela’s respective currency devaluations, and more.
Unrest has persisted in Iran since late December, as protesters are fed up with the devaluation of the Iranian rial and other economic hardships. These grievances are compounded by longer-term issues such as corruption, repression, and general government mismanagement. In this way, the use of Bitcoin itself can also be seen as a form of protest where people are simply opting out of the traditional financial system.
Ironically, the Iranian regime has also been found to have used crypto for avoiding sanctions and laundering funds.
This situation illustrates the conundrum for authoritarian regimes around the world when it comes to Bitcoin, as the features that make it useful for the regime to avoid restrictions in the US-controlled global banking system also enable it to be used for the local population to gain greater financial freedom.
Bitcoin is not the only technology that has proven helpful for Iranians during the protests, as the existence of Starlink is one of the only reasons information has been able to get out of the country amid government-imposed internet blackouts. While mesh-networking based Bitchat has seen increased adoption in other countries dealing with turmoil recently, a forked version of the app called Noghteha has gained notoriety in Iran. Although, there has been controversy with Noghteha due to its closed source aspects and collection of donations.
[I wonder why Iran hasn’t put the Kabash כָּבַשׁ)on the exfiltration of these transaction from the banking system? /pmw1]
Source: Help Net Security
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2026/01/19/international-ransomware-group-investigation-ukraine/
Law enforcement agencies in Ukraine and Germany have identified two members of a Russian-affiliated ransomware group and carried out searches in western Ukraine.Investigators also named the alleged organizer, a Russian national, and placed him on an international wanted list through INTERPOL. Foreign law enforcement agencies said the individual may have connections to activity associated with the Conti ransomware operation….
Targets and financial impact of the attacksLaw enforcement agencies stated that the group targeted companies, institutions, and public authorities across economically developed Western countries. Between 2022 and 2025, investigators attributed attacks against hundreds of organizations to the group, with reported losses reaching hundreds of millions of euros.
Source: Schneier on Security
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/01/ai-powered-surveillance-in-schools.html
AI-Powered Surveillance in Schools – It all sounds pretty dystopian
Inside a white stucco building in Southern California, video cameras compare faces of passersby against a facial recognition database. Behavioral analysis AI reviews the footage for signs of violent behavior. Behind a bathroom door, a smoke detector-shaped device captures audio, listening for sounds of distress. Outside, drones stand ready to be deployed and provide intel from above, and license plate readers from $8.5 billion surveillance behemoth Flock Safety ensure the cars entering and exiting the parking lot aren’t driven by criminals.
This isn’t a high-security government facility. It’s Beverly Hills High School.
Tags: AI, privacy, schools, surveillance
Subject: Gemini AI assistant tricked into leaking Google Calendar data
Source: Bleeping Computer
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/gemini-ai-assistant-tricked-into-leaking-google-calendar-data/
Filed: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/
Related Articles:
- Google’s Personal Intelligence links Gmail, Photos and Search to Gemini
- Google is testing a new image AI and it’s going to be its fastest model
- Google Chrome adds new security layer for Gemini AI agentic browsing
- Reprompt attack hijacked Microsoft Copilot sessions for data theft
- Google Chrome tests Gemini-powered AI “Skills”
Source: Help Net Security
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2026/01/20/reddit-cybersecurity-help-questions/
A strange charge appears on a bank account. An email claims a package is on the way. A social media account stops accepting a password that worked yesterday. When these moments hit, many people do the same thing. They open Reddit and ask strangers for help. A new study shows how often this happens and what people ask when they do.
Researchers affiliated with Google and University College London built an analysis pipeline that sifted through 1.1 billion Reddit posts over four years to understand how users seek help.
Everyday online activity carries risk
Google warns that the threat landscape heading into 2026 is being shaped by faster attacks, broader automation, and expanding use of AI. Phishing reaches more people, scam messages often look legitimate, and voice cloning is used to impersonate trusted contacts, with deception playing a larger role.
Europol identifies manipulated phone identities as a core tactic behind financial fraud and social engineering in Europe. The agency estimates annual global losses at about €850 million, with phone and text based scams accounting for most reported incidents. Three in ten people who experienced a cyberattack or scam said it began with a text message or a messaging app like WhatsApp or iMessage.
According to Malwarebytes, 74% of mobile users have encountered social engineering scams, and one in three have fallen victim.
Help seeking has become routine
The researchers reviewed a large collection of Reddit posts and applied a fine-tuned Gemini language model to identify posts where users were seeking help with digital risks. These posts were not news stories or general discussions. Each one involved a person trying to understand a problem or decide what to do.
Help seeking activity stayed relatively steady from 2021 through 2023. That pattern changed in 2024, when posting volume rose sharply. Over the final year of the study, monthly help seeking posts increased by more than 66%, reaching over 100,000 questions per month by August.
…
Subject: We Asked Cybersecurity Experts for their Predictions for 2026
Source: tech.co
https://tech.co/news/cybersecurity-experts-predict-2026
This year, the landscape of cybersecurity will never be the same. Here’s what to watch for, from data surges to AI malware.
The hits keep coming for cybersecurity as we head into a new year. For starters, one report recently found that 48% of cybersecurity leaders failed to report data breaches in the past year, due in part to fears of punitive responses.
At the same time, the US Department of Defense stated in October 2025 that it plans to cut back on several types of cybersecurity training, including annual training that one expert has called “critical.”
We wanted to check in with a wide range of tech experts and C-Suite executives to see if we could figure out what’s coming down the pike for IT teams in 2026.
Artificial intelligence continues to be the buzziest technology around, so it’s little surprise that the large majority of our responses were guessing how AI would impact digital security. Read on to learn about the most interesting trends ahead of time, from shadow AI challenges to autonomous agents to AI-powered malware.
Top Cybersecurity Predictions for 2026:
[…]
Source: Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/aoc-paris-hilton-capitol-hill-grok-ai-deepfake-porn-2026-1
- Paris Hilton is teaming up with AOC on a bill to combat AI-generated deepfake porn.
- “While these images may be digital, the harm to victims is very real,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
- The proposed legislation comes after Grok began generating sexualized deepfakes of people on X, leading to backlash.
Paris Hilton and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are taking on AI-generated deepfake porn. The hotel heiress and businesswoman traveled to the Capitol on Thursday for a press conference with the New York Democrat and Republican Rep. Laurel Lee of Florida to promote the Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits Act, or DEFIANCE Act.The bill would create a civil right of action allowing victims of AI-generated deepfake porn to sue the creators and distributors of those images….In May, President Donald Trump signed the “TAKE IT DOWN Act” into law, which includes a provision requiring platforms to take down AI-generated revenge porn. That provision doesn’t fully take effect until May 2026.This isn’t the first time Hilton has come to Capitol Hill to advocate for a piece of legislation.In both 2021 and 2023, she came to Washington to push for the passage of a bill aimed at combating abuse in residential treatment facilities for troubled teens.
Source: The Intercept
https://www.bespacific.com/fbis-washington-post-investigation-shows-how-your-printer-can-snitch-on-you/
Follow up to FBI Searches Home of Washington Post Journalist in a Leak Investigation see also The Intercept – FBI’s Washington Post Investigation Shows How Your Printer Can Snitch on You. “Workplace printers don’t just track file names — in some cases, they can recall the exact contents of any file they print. Federal prosecutors on January 9 charged Aurelio Luis Perez-Lugones, an IT specialist for an unnamed government contractor, with “the offense of unlawful retention of national defense information,” according to an FBI affidavit. The case attracted national attention after federal agents investigating Perez-Lugones searched the home of a Washington Post reporter. But overlooked so far in the media coverage is the fact that a surprising surveillance tool pointed investigators toward Perez-Lugones: an office printer with a photographic memory…”
NB: No one who deals with the recycling / disposal of office equipment is surprised by needing to clear printer memmories /pmw1
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Subject: AI Fools Itself: Top Chatbots Don’t Recognize AI-Generated Videos
Source: NewsGuard
https://www.bespacific.com/ai-fools-itself-top-chatbots-dont-recognize-ai-generated-videos/
NewsGuard “tested leading AI chatbots and found that in 78-95 percent of cases, the tools could not tell when videos were created by OpenAI’s text-to-video tool Sora — including OpenAI’s own ChatGPT. OpenAI’s new AI video-generating tool, Sora, has quickly gained a reputation for its ability to fool humans into thinking its videos are authentic. It turns out that Sora can also fool AI itself.A NewsGuard test found that three leading chatbots overwhelmingly failed to detect fake videos generated by Sora unless they were watermarked. (Sora watermarks all of its videos, but the videos can easily be un-watermarked; see below.)
The three chatbots — xAI’s Grok, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Google’s Gemini — did not identify non-watermarked Sora videos as AI-generated 95, 92.5, and 78 percent of the time, respectively, when prompted. ChatGPT’s failure rate of 92.5 percent is particularly notable, since the same company, OpenAI, created and owns both ChatGPT and Sora. OpenAI did not respond to NewsGuard’s question about ChatGPT’s apparent inability to recognize the company’s own AI-produced videos. Moreover, even with watermarked videos, two of the three chatbots sometimes stumbled. Grok failed to identify the watermarked videos as AI-generated 30 percent of the time and ChatGPT failed 7.5 percent of the time, NewsGuard found. Only Gemini succeeded in all tests…
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