Sooraj Sathyanarayanan

Sooraj Sathyanarayanan

@profincognito.me

Security & Privacy Researcher | Advocate for Privacy, Open Source & Digital Rights 🎓 MS Cybersecurity @ Northeastern University 🌐 https://profincognito.me

173 followers136 following74 posts

Sooraj Sathyanarayanan reposted

Open-source security is a team sport, and we’re thrilled to see Anthropic join the defense team with OSS Scanner. Like with Google’s OSS-Fuzz and GitHub’s CodeQL and autofix, we hope more companies will invest in free services for the ecosystem we all depend on. www.anthropic.com/research/lau...

anthropic.comAn opt-in vulnerability-finding service for open-source softwareWe’re launching OSS Scanner, an opt-in vulnerability scanner for the open-source ecosystem informed by our experience using Claude to find vulnerabilities during Project Glasswing. Projects that join ...

Sooraj Sathyanarayanan reposted

Flock takes their privacy very seriously. But the ethical gray area in surveillance technology works both ways. Under no circumstances should elected officials or public servants enjoy an expectation of privacy when spending tax dollars to attend a surveillance lobbying event.

Sooraj Sathyanarayanan reposted

California recently passed, and Colorado and NY recently introduced, age verification legislation targeting OS providers that is so imprecisely written that it's unclear how to comply. If you live in one of those states, contact your state senator and rep asking them to oppose this legislation.

Sooraj Sathyanarayanan reposted

📘 Curious about how AI, data protection, ethics, and neuro-rights intersect? My new book “Artificial Intelligence, Neural Networks and Privacy” explores it all. Available in English & Italian. 💬 Feedback & reviews welcome! 🔗 www.nicfab.eu/en/pages/boo... #AI #Privacy #LLMs #AIAct #booksky

nicfab.euArtificial Intelligence, Neural Networks and PrivacyStriking a Balance between Innovation, Knowledge, and Ethics in the Digital Age

Sooraj Sathyanarayanan reposted

GRAPHENEOS IS HIRING Are you an experienced AOSP developer? Interested in working full time, fully remotely on GrapheneOS? Can you hit the ground running? grapheneos.org/hiring. Global opportunity paid via Wise (local bank transfers), BTC, ETH or XMR.

Firefox changed their ToS recently, and it’s really bad. It’s disappointing to see Linux distros still setting Firefox as the default browser when security and privacy should be top priorities. #privacy #security #opensource #linux

This might be my conspiracy theory, but doesn’t it seem like the food industry pumps out junk just so the medical industry can profit off our ailments? Are they colluding against us? We’re stuck in a vicious cycle—keep us sick, keep them rich.

If you’re a Windows user, I can help you switch to Linux. Please stop supporting an insecure and privacy-intrusive operating system. What’s stopping you from switching to Linux/macOS? Ask all your questions, and I’ll answer everything. #privacy #security #linux #macos #windows

Finally got to catch up with an old friend and we ended up having a super productive evening! We dived into open-source tools, demoed the Brave browser, explored the magic of Nix/NixOS, and talked about projects like secureblue and Trivalent. We also agreed Chromium’s security model is hard to beat.

It felt great to nerd out on privacy advocacy and the possibility of community-run internet. We even wrapped it up with a conversation on improving our personal health—because what’s success in tech without taking care of ourselves first? Feeling energized and inspired!

Free speech is liberty's foundation. When America—historically its strongest defender—wavers, the world notices. Laws favoring 'safety' over speech open doors to censorship. Once government defines 'acceptable speech,' dissent becomes the target.

Today, they censor 'misinformation' and 'hate speech.' Tomorrow, it could be criticism of policies or leaders. If America's beacon of free expression dims, it sets a global precedent. A world of controlled narratives follows.

The line must be drawn. The First Amendment isn't just American—it's humanity's blueprint for freedom. Its erosion threatens more than speech—it endangers democracy itself. Defend it now, or lose it forever.

An era when scientists were the true celebrities 🌟 Madame Curie, the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, receives a standing ovation for her unparalleled contributions to science and humanity. Let’s make science cool again 🫡

AI agents will be HUGE. With each new capability, attack surface grows. Attackers can poison training data, manipulate decision logic or use deceptive inputs to trigger unintended behaviors. One compromised agent can infiltrate entire networks. We need adversarial testing and monitoring. #AISecurity

One solution? Containers. Implement strict isolation using SELinux policies, seccomp filters, and network namespaces. Lock down resources with cgroups, enforce read-only filesystems, and validate every action with ephemeral tokens. Each AI agent becomes its own hardened, containerized environment.

Testing Ubuntu after many years (only for system hardening guidance). While I still recommend Pop!_OS over Ubuntu, I understand switching OS is tough. Let’s improve your current setup! Reminder: we don’t recommend Ubuntu due to past privacy concerns, but it’s still far better than Windows.

Sooraj Sathyanarayanan reposted

New for Android: Chat folders to organize your conversations into customizable folders. See unread messages, filter 1-on-1 and group chats, and keep work chats separate to clock what's happening after you clock out. Settings > Chats or long-press any chat

I’ve spent some time digging into how smartwatches store and protect our health data, and the differences are pretty striking. If you’re wearing an Apple Watch, Google Pixel Watch, or a Samsung Galaxy Watch, here’s what you need to know about who’s really keeping your health data safe. 🧵

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Bottom line: If you're someone who values privacy for your health metrics, Apple Watch sets the gold standard at the moment (for iOS users). Privacy should be the default. If companies can access your data, they will be compelled to at some point. Choose systems that protect your privacy by design.

I’ve spent some time digging into how smartwatches store and protect our health data, and the differences are pretty striking. If you’re wearing an Apple Watch, Google Pixel Watch, or a Samsung Galaxy Watch, here’s what you need to know about who’s really keeping your health data safe. 🧵

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Google and Samsung use TLS encryption for transit and AES-256 for storage. These companies maintain the ability to access data server-side. They encrypt data in cloud, but not end-to-end. This means that while your info is still "protected", it’s accessible to the companies if a situation arises.

With Apple’s strict approach, losing your password could mean losing your data forever. Google and Samsung can analyze patterns across users (with consent I hope) to develop new health features. Apple requires users to explicitly opt-in to studies through ResearchKit.

I’ve spent some time digging into how smartwatches store and protect our health data, and the differences are pretty striking. If you’re wearing an Apple Watch, Google Pixel Watch, or a Samsung Galaxy Watch, here’s what you need to know about who’s really keeping your health data safe. 🧵

To get better protection: you need to have 2FA on your Apple ID, passphrase set on your iPhone, iCloud backups on. Then, the health data is basically sealed off from everyone but you. These requirements ensure proper key management & secure storage of your encryption keys. github.com/iAnonymous30...

github.comGitHub - iAnonymous3000/iOS-Hardening-Guide: A comprehensive guide for enhancing security and privacy on iOS and iPadOS devices.A comprehensive guide for enhancing security and privacy on iOS and iPadOS devices. - iAnonymous3000/iOS-Hardening-Guide

The hyphen in open source vs. open-source matters! 👉 Open source (two words) is the official term by @opensource.bsky.social, meeting their 10 criteria like free redistribution, source code access, and freedom to create derived works. It’s about freedom, not just visibility. opensource.org/osd

opensource.orgThe Open Source DefinitionIntroduction Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open source software must comply with the following criteria: 1. Free Redistribution The license shall…

Source-available ≠ open source. Licenses like MongoDB’s SSPL allow you to view code but restrict freedoms like modification, redistribution, or commercial use. From a security perspective, source-available often suffices for code audits, but it lacks the trust guarantees of true open source.