🚨DR UK's Statement on the EHRC's New Code of Practice "We are appalled at implications that an adequate workaround is trans people using Disabled toilets instead. We will not be used as a loophole in the wider erosion of trans rights." Full statement👇 www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/disabil...

The Supreme Court has today "strip[ped] fundamental human rights protections from potentially hundreds of thousands of severely disabled people" say a group of National Charities for disabled people. www.mind.org.uk/news-campaig...

www.computerweekly.com/news/3666438... Our recent paper for FIPR reported in Computer Weekly - age verification tech will increase the very harms that the government is trying to prevent, especially for the most vulnerable.

🚨 Parliament is back today. Join us in asking your MP to reject the EHRC’s harmful Code of Practice: equalrecognition.eaction.org.uk/rejectthecode

So, the reality of this is finally settling in: The @workersobservatory.org has been funded for ten years (!) by the Regenerative Futures Fund. This is a game-changer for us and for the city.

We used to talk about the University as an "anxiety machine", producing intolerable working conditions (slowness, for example, was a response), but it's really become a "grief machine" and I'm not sure we know what to do with the pain and loss yet.

Just to really hammer this home - many proposed AV designs would result in minoritised groups having in practice a higher age limit to use social media than the rest of the population. And these groups that are the most likely to lack other accepted methods of proof of age.

So if you're a government bringing in an online age ban, how can you actually implement Age Verification in practice, and what do the different options mean?

Strong AV will have massive issues of digital exclusion and will cause particular harms to vulnerable kids and adults. Find our response, which includes an easy explainer of the technical issues with AV implementation, at www.fipr.org

As the Starmer government announces a ‘crackdown’ on teenagers accessing social media, FIPR are publishing our response to express deep concern with the proposals to implement strong Age Verification by default for online services. These will not only affect children, but all adults in the UK.

As the Starmer government announces a ‘crackdown’ on teenagers accessing social media, FIPR are publishing our response to express deep concern with the proposals to implement strong Age Verification by default for online services. These will not only affect children, but all adults in the UK.

Wild as an STS person to see none other than Steve Woolgar getting a mention in the new ZA/UM game.

This is not equality. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

Love reading research papers but wish they involved more shiny hair and wild gesticulating? You can see a video of me presenting our latest work - on generative AI in the cybercrime ecosystem - at the CETaS annual showcase here! www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap_A...

Nothing that Starmer, Philipson, Labour, or the EHRC can do will ever wipe clean the stain of this. Everyone involved will forever be marked with this disgrace. No coming back now

Just saying.

Crucial points here from @doublepulsar.com & @zackwhittaker.com @malwaretech.com has brought home to us the attacker economics of all this. Subverting an existing LLM to get it to hack is hard work. Building your own is really expensive. Phishing & password spraying etc is cheap, & still works

cetas.turing.ac.uk/publications... Blog post with CETaS on vibercrime - the (sort of) adoption of GenAI by hackers(ish)

*Elite cybercrime forums overwhelmed by slop. This is fantastic https://www.wired.com/story/cybercriminals-are-complaining-about-ai-slop-flooding-their-forums/

Cybercriminals hate AI slop as much as you do. Maybe more! from @mattburgess1.bsky.social

“An AI generator for posts would turn this into a clanker forum of AI's talking to each other..." Someone talking about their hatred of AI... on a cybercrime forum

NEW: Even cybercriminals and scammers are annoyed by AI slop taking over their online spaces. @mattburgess1.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/cyberc...

cetas.turing.ac.uk/publications... New blog out with CETaS today on our research - how the cybercrime underground is (and isn't) adopting Generative AI

www.theguardian.com/books/2026/a... Louise Brangan's upcoming book The Fallen is absolutely essential - among the best works of nonfiction I have ever read.

Really interesting piece of work - and conclusions broadly the same as our new exploratory study on adoption of models in the cybercrime underground (don’t panic - yet) arxiv.org/pdf/2603.29545

This paper represents a small but deeply impressive and genuinely important achievement by the much maligned British state in what is probably the most important global issue of our era. Hear me out ( 🧵) 1/ www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/our-eva...

This isn’t the occasion to debate its contents. But the TL:DR summary is that Mythos is really good at hacking but it’s a case of prepare, don’t panic. that’s a really useful dose of realism (not least because of the argument that it served anthropic’s commercial interests to hype up mythos) 11/

#History of the #hacking scene in 2 countries is a mini fixation of mine, #Russia & #China. In an effort to make this history more accessible I have been uploading archives of #hacker zines from both countries to Internet Archive, as part of this, issues 41 - 60 of XAKEP. archive.org/details/XAKE...

Sneak preview of a new preprint looking at adoption of Generative AI in the cybercrime underground: arxiv.org/pdf/2603.29545 we use a very large crime forum dataset to explore how cybercrime actors are adopting (or not) these tools - a phenomenon we call 'vibercrime'

This piece also contains one of my favourite quotes we've had in a paper recently - "If I was employed as a threat analyst and this is... behind next gen malware I'd be celebrating." (rest is in image). Real disdain in a lot of the cybercrime underground for GenAI tools as coding assistants.

More Redirect method stuff moving to chatbots. Influence Policing (domestic influence interventions carried out by police and security services for crime and terrorism prevention) largely still in the domain of behaviour targeted ads but future seems split between chatbots and $$ human influencers.

FIPR very pleased to sign this statement by EDRi against current moves by the US govt to rein in EU regulation of technology providers edri.org/wp-content/u...

VIBERCRIME

To bastardise a quote: “One should be aware of the impact that one has, in all ways, and not just those ways that one intends” Important point here for the future of #Cybercrime and #DigitalPolicing #Criminology

I should also add that in the absence of a CEO or VC class in the cybercrime underground to push hype, most of the chat at least up to Dec 2025 is that LLMs and chatbots and agents not really that useful. So even the script kiddies are largely not buying it.

Great interview with my brilliant colleague @susansegfault.bsky.social about his excellent book on Tor-Dark Web. highly recommend both the interview and the book, which is available free at MIT press direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon...

We'll do a proper release of the paper soon (it's been peer reviewed and we're presenting it later in the year) - it's been great working with Jack Hughes (Cambridge) and Daniel Thomas (Strathclyde) on this as ever, and w/ thanks and love to Prof Alice Hutchings and the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre.

We argue that genAI is largely being adopted for criminal logistics, not for hacking. Two possible trajectories - the Stand-Alone Complex (genuine scale transition from automation) and vibercrime (adoption for vibe coding further proletarianises the work of cybercrime-as-a-service).

In general, we found that there was very little 'transformative' adoption in the underground (as opposed to OCGs or state actors). These groups mostly lacked the technical skill and resources for real innovation or adoption - with a couple of exceptions we discuss in the paper.

Sneak preview of a new preprint looking at adoption of Generative AI in the cybercrime underground: arxiv.org/pdf/2603.29545 we use a very large crime forum dataset to explore how cybercrime actors are adopting (or not) these tools - a phenomenon we call 'vibercrime'

Paula Bialski and I had such a fun time talking with Ben. I loved his approach to the Tor community, and it was also lovely discovering our many research community overlaps. As I say in the ep, I felt like the spirit of @biella.bsky.social was in the virtual room with us the whole time.

In one of our most read articles from the last month, @lsmwilson.bsky.social  reports on the elite academics, from Noam Chomsky to Larry Summers, who shared more than they want to admit with Jeffrey Epstein.

Had a lovely time talking on the People and Things podcast about the Tor book - link here athenaeum.vt.domains/peoplesandth...

So, uh, I have some news.

Aberdeen, Dundee, Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde on strike.

My new project - because who doesn't want a deep dive into pre-Islamic poetry or the esotericism of the mysterious Brethren of Purity? Take a break from the world and learn more about classical Arabic literature - from wherever you get your podcasts

NEW: From Noam Chomsky to Larry Summers, elite academics shared more than they want to admit with Jeffrey Epstein, reports @lsmwilson.bsky.social in @newlinesmag.bsky.social newlinesmag.com/argument/the...

When I saw Chomsky was in the Epstein files, I knew there'd be people I'd worked with - and I was right. As I dug into it, a horrifying picture of academia emerged. I wrote it up, for @newlinesmag.bsky.social

The developer concludes - and planning officer accepts - there are no likely “significant environmental effects” of the data centre. To reach this conclusion they compare the emissions of their data centre to the *entire carbon budget of the UK*, then say “wow look that number is much smaller!”