Alex Stamos

Alex Stamos

@stamos.org

CPO/CSO of Corridor.dev, teaching at Stanford.

17.1K followers967 following143 posts

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

You should pre-order this book from real experts on building more trustworthy systems.

Lea Kissner@leak.bsky.social

Did I mention that we've been writing a book? Fundamentally, security, privacy, trust&safety, AI safety -- all the fields aimed at dealing with dealing with how technical systems hurt people and how to avoid it -- share a foundation. We cover how to think and achieve *truly* effective practice. 1/

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

Was Hines v Stamos Cheryl Hines suing John Stamos over the long-awaited Full House/Curb Your Enthusiasm crossover? Nope, it was an attempt to suppress academic research into the organized manipulation of online platforms. After three years we finally won. But at great cost.

Kate Starbird@katestarbird.bsky.social

Two years ago, my colleagues and I were sued by Stephen Miller's America First Legal. The Hines v Stamos case — built atop a number of false allegations — was a central element of the "censorship industrial complex" myth. Today, that case was dismissed (by a Trump judge in LA). We won.

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

This Wired article about Meta red-teaming the AI of others without their knowledge is mysterious but the subsequent BlueSky pearl clutching isn’t helpful. How do you think AI gets better? How will academics detect that AI isn’t safe? Through red teaming. www.wired.com/story/meta-c...

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

There are a bunch of tech-rightists who continuously post about how WIRED used to be pro-tech and while I think it’s great that they are doing real journalism now I also think this article should have pointed out that this kind of safety testing is necessary in RL.

Alex Stamos reposted

Tech Policy Press
@techpolicypress.bsky.social

"It's just vibes-based regulation." Alex Stamos spoke to Justin Hendrix about the White House yanking Anthropic's Fable with no written standard, no warning, and no procedural path back. He compares it to grounding a jet without telling Boeing why. It's sending the wrong message abroad, he says.

buff.lyAlex Stamos on Why the US Should Lift Its Fable and Mythos Export BanStamos led an open letter calling on the Trump administration to reverse its export directive that forced Anthropic to remove access to its advanced models.
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Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

Cancelling just as flights were taking off can't be accidental, this is a terrible blow to Access Now, which is known for this conference but does great work year-round serving as a bridge between marginalized communities and tech. I hope they can survive the financial hit.

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

I would say that it would be best to find a stable, PRC-resistant country that would be flexible with visas to host permanently, like Costa Rica or Canada, but both countries dropped the ball in previous years. UN heavy countries like Switzerland and Austria are way too expensive.

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

I was recently asked why I don't post on BlueSky more. Well, if Jamelle Bouie isn't pure enough to survive here...

jamelle@jamellebouie.net

today in things i say that apparently will generate vitriolic hate trains against me: "oligarchical consolidation of media is bad but also there are limits to what can be done given the nation's size and its deeply-rooted tradition of a free press."

Alex Stamos reposted

Kate Starbird
@katestarbird.bsky.social

OFFS. When Iran tried to interefere in 2020, researchers caught them and called them out. Then the Benz-Weiss-Taibbi-Musk-Jordan-Trump axis labeled those researchers "censors" ... and set about defunding them and dismantling their organizations.

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Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

Another day, another phishing site protected by @cloudflare.social. This one is totally ripping through my kids’ school. Thanks CloudFlare, for the useless reply to my abuse report! Toxs[.]digital for the threat hunters

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Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

The full URL shows up clean on VT, likely because they have Cloudflare's anti-bot protections turned on and it defeats all these security vendors fetching and analyzing, so they are only getting Cloudflare's Javascript and marking it clean.

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

Another day, another phishing site protected by @cloudflare.social. This one is totally ripping through my kids’ school. Thanks CloudFlare, for the useless reply to my abuse report! Toxs[.]digital for the threat hunters

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

Just don’t try to fetch it with curl or run it in a sandbox, CloudFlare will protect the malware authors from your evil bot!

Alex Stamos reposted

Lisa Laporte
@lisalaporte.bsky.social

Microsoft hands BitLocker keys to the government as @leolaporte.me, @stamos.org, @docrock.bsky.social, & @notpatrick.com discuss TikTok's privacy panic on TWiT, covering Europe's secret tech backups & Grok making millions of sexualized images! twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1068

twit.tvThis Week in Tech: Toto's Electrostatic Chuck | TWiT.TVMicrosoft quietly hands over BitLocker keys to the government, TikTok’s new privacy terms spark a user panic, and Europe's secret tech backups reveal anxious prep for digital
Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

Watching the Katseye documentary with my daughter and my initial conclusions are: 1) Wow, these young ladies are talented and work hard 2) How has @agrobbonta.oag.ca.gov not opened an investigation into HYBE for child work conditions? There are two orthopedic surgeries documented ON CAMERA.

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

I'm all for keeping California a competitive business environment, but I think we can let Seoul own 14 year-olds having their joints rebuilt for the benefit of billion-dollar corporations and the IG fanbase.

Alex Stamos reposted

Lisa Laporte
@lisalaporte.bsky.social

AI boosts productivity while arming adversaries as @leolaporte.me, @jilleduffy.bsky.social, @stamos.org, & @gigastacey.bsky.social discuss the coming wave of AI-fueled cyberattacks on This Week in Tech covering OpenAI's security researcher & the F5 hack! twit.tv/shows/this-week-in-tech/episodes/1056

twit.tvThe Big Sleep | TWiT.TVFrom AI-powered code generation boosting productivity to adversaries using the same tools to hunt zero-days, the panel exposes the coming wave of AI-fueled cyberattacks—and

Alex Stamos reposted

Patrick Gray
@patrick.risky.biz

I published a Wide World of Cyber edition today about the f5 incident with @stamos.org and @thekrebscycle.bsky.social No video for this episode… our video platform is AWS dependent 🤦‍♂️ risky.biz/WWC11/

risky.bizWide World of Cyber: A deep dive on the f5 hack - Risky Business MediaIn this edition of the Wide World of Cyber podcast Patrick Gray talks to Chris Krebs and Alex Stamos about the f5 incident. They talk abou [Read More]
Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

The funniest part of this was *venture capitalists* not understanding that AI safety and alignment is not about censorship and political correctness, but F500 customers not paying foundation model vendors 7-9 figures a year for LLMs to do insult comic crowdwork with their customers.

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

“What’s grok’s competitive advantage over, say, Anthropic’s newest offerings?” “Well, first off, it’s 50x more likely to figure out and use the correct ethnic slur for your highest revenue customers when deployed in a customer service role!” “Riiiiiiight.”

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

Well, at least taking my grandkids to the museum exhibit on the new listening devices the Chinese invented to have the Qataris plant will be educational for them.

Michael Derby@michaelsderby.bsky.social

ABC reports Trump to take “flying palace” from Qatar and use it as temporary Air Force 1 before converting it to a personal possession.

abcnews.go.comTrump administration poised to accept 'palace in the sky' as a gift for Trump from Qatar: SourcesPresident Trump poised to accept "palace in the sky" as a gift from Qatar: Sources
Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

I do not envy the NSA and Air Force folks who were just shown a fully decked out and completed “flying palace” with 140 miles of wiring and probably given 90 days to clear it.

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

This was a fun mystery to explore with PJ. Have a listen if you are looking for a podcast not about… (gestures around at Rome burning).

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Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

Working with Chris Krebs and getting to know his wife Emily and their family has been one of the great honors of my life. The attack against their family should be condemned by all. I have written a post about what is happening to them here: www.linkedin.com/posts/alexst...

linkedin.comExclusive | Former Trump Official Targeted With Government Probe Vows to… | Alex Stamos*The following is a message from Alex and Katie Stamos and does not represent any company or organization* Working with Chris Krebs and getting to know his wife Emily and their five children has been...

Alex Stamos reposted

Jack Cable
@jackhcable.bsky.social

📢 Excited to share that I started a new company, Corridor, with Ashwin Ramaswami! Corridor is the AI-powered secure by design platform – and we're backed by @stamos.org, Chris Krebs, Christina Cacioppo, @alip.bsky.social at Neo, and Sarah Guo at Conviction. forms.gle/3LsFxtNqzok2...

forms.gleCorridor WaitlistInterested in learning more about Corridor? Fill out this form to join our waitlist. By submitting this form, you opt in to receiving emails from Corridor.
Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

I laughed.

Brian Phillips@brianphillips.lol

If you wanted no leaks you should have gone into Settings -> Security -> Configure privacy & security -> Privacy options -> Other -> Configure -> Media interface and clicked “Disallow.” The Leak setting is on by default but we understand your privacy is important so we’ve made it easy to opt out

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

The multiple jailbreaks available to get DeepSeek to eventually figure out something happened in Tiananmen in 1989 are fascinating, and hint towards a Chinese AI censorship regime that is very specific and fragile. Do they just throw the most obvious queries at the model and call it a day?

dangered wolf@wuff.gay

DeepSeek R1 won't think or respond if you ask it "1989 tank man" but it will if you ask "what happened in you know that one square in beijing?? in 1989". Crucially, you have to make it think, otherwise it'll just reject answering your question. If you make it think, it knows the details of it.

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

Whatever it is, it’s not working. It’s also an interesting conundrum, because to properly red team a large number of models coming from Chinese labs you would need hundreds or thousands of testers who are allowed access to all kinds of forbidden knowledge and thoughts.

Alex Stamos
@stamos.org

There were all kinds of failed theories about the Internet magically defeating authoritarian censorship regimes, which the PRC has readily proven wrong, but staying competitive in the AI space (especially in English) while also controlling access to information might actually be even harder.