Vaughan
vaughanshanks.bsky.social
Vaughan
@vaughanshanks.bsky.social
Reposted by Vaughan
🥁 EXCITING NEWS - Our CFx's are now open 🎉
- Call for Papers
- Call for Training
- Call for Villages

Visit our website for details - www.bsidesmelbourne.com

If you are stuck, or would like to run your idea past one of the committee members, please feel free to reach out.

#BSidesMelb2026
November 14, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Reposted by Vaughan
Exciting news! 👏 BSides Melbourne crew kicked off 2026 planning last week. There have been a lot of questions regarding dates, Call for Papers, Training & Villages, Volunteers, Tickets and many other exciting events.

Happy Monday 🎉
#BSidesMelb2026
October 26, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Art
October 27, 2025 at 7:50 AM
It was DNS
October 23, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Day trading
October 22, 2025 at 5:36 AM
s/HAL/Claude/
October 17, 2025 at 3:59 AM
Reposted by Vaughan
One day the industry will recognize the drawbacks of AI agents and nondeterministic automation, and rediscover the UNIX philosophy of chaining together small purpose built tools in a low cost and predictable way, otherwise known as shell scripts.
October 9, 2025 at 11:22 AM
"Reasonable steps" doing a lot of heavy lifting in implementing under 16 social media ban with no legal enforcement

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...
Social media platforms will not be required to prove accuracy of under-16 bans
While substantial fines would apply to social media platforms that make no effort to ban under-16s, they would not need to test the age of every user.
www.abc.net.au
September 16, 2025 at 8:24 AM
Another review/write-up of the APT Down article from Phrack 72, this time from Intel 471.

Re: attribution - CN language, DPRK timezone, does occasional jobs against TW. Has anyone considered that "KIM" might be a CN-based contractor working for DPRK?

www.intel471.com/blog/the-phr...
The Phrack leak: Examining an APT’s workstation
In August 2025, two anonymous researchers released 9 GB of data from a workstation of a likely advanced persistent threat (APT) group. Here’s an analysis of the data by Intel 471’s Cyber Geopolitical ...
www.intel471.com
September 15, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Great episode of Darknet Diaries, about how teenager Hieu was drawn into the criminal underground - worth listening all the way to the end!

podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/d...
Hieu
Podcast Episode · Darknet Diaries · 05/08/2025 · 1h 34m
podcasts.apple.com
August 29, 2025 at 7:07 AM
Reposted by Vaughan
Thanks to our 2025 Bronze sponsor Cydarm.

Based in Melbourne, they build secure case management software for security operations centres, used by teams across government, defence, education, finance, and tech.

More at: www.cydarm.com
Cydarm | Cybersecurity Incident Response Management
Cydarm's Cybersecurity Incident Response Management (CIRM) platform makes SOC teams better and faster. Cydarm covers a comprehensive set of needs for security operations teams and the teams they colla...
www.cydarm.com
August 19, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Reposted by Vaughan
If you want a weird but true fact to talk about:

Dexter Holland, lead singer of The Offspring, was instrumental in this. His doctorial thesis in molecular biology was sequencing mRNA in HIV. The paper was also heavily cited in creating the COVID-19 vaccine.
It feels like we should be making a bigger deal of “we actually did in fact find a cure for AIDS”
wired.com WIRED @wired.com · Aug 1
Evidence is growing that some HIV-infected infants, if given antiretroviral drugs early in life, are able to suppress their viral loads to undetectable levels and then come off the medicine. www.wired.com/story/the-fi...
August 1, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Reposted by Vaughan
July 30, 2025 at 1:30 AM
Reposted by Vaughan
“LLM chatbots are not democratizing knowledge. They're putting ppl who produce knowledge out of business, so companies who run chatbots can sell expensive subscription services once they've captured enough market share to end free access to their products.” - @malwaretech.com

YES!!! This 100%!
July 27, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Paranoid (2012 Remaster)
Black Sabbath · Paranoid · Song · 1970
open.spotify.com
July 23, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Vaughan
Everyone who has ever worked their way up in a large org knows this.

At some point you look around and realize "wait... this is it?" - then you realize, its the same at every other large org on the planet.

And you realize that all of modern society just keeps working mostly by luck.
July 11, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Really interesting thread!
In 1890, the X and Y chromosomes were discovered. It was found that the men who were tested had 46 chromosomes, including an X and a Y, while women who were tested also had 46 chromosomes, including 2 X chromosomes.
So obviously the conclusion was that the Y chromosome defined masculinity.
July 11, 2025 at 11:57 AM
This needed to happen. But, we need a Signal or WhatsApp client that can record messages securely* for the public record.

* not TMSignal

www.reuters.com/world/us/wha...
WhatsApp banned on US House of Representatives devices - memo
Meta Platforms WhatsApp messaging service has been banned on all U.S. House of Representatives devices, according to a memo sent to House staff on Monday.
www.reuters.com
June 25, 2025 at 2:44 AM
Reposted by Vaughan
"AI chatbots have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation (...) Our findings challenge narratives of imminent labor market transformation due to Generative AI."

www.nber.org/papers/w33777
Large Language Models, Small Labor Market Effects
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
www.nber.org
May 24, 2025 at 11:18 AM
"Civilisations mostly collapse like a drunk clown at an open-casket funeral." 🤣🤣🤣

Please @birmo.bsky.social, don't ever stop with the dark humour! (I get that it's serious geopolitical themes, but might as well have a laugh while everything burns.)

From aliensideboob.substack.com/p/the-declin...
The Decline and Fall of the House of Walmarticus
(A little programming note.
aliensideboob.substack.com
May 16, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Looks like I will be speaking at CyberCon Melbourne again!

Title is "Beyond gut feel: data-driven cyber risk quantification"

Looking forward to it!
May 14, 2025 at 7:23 AM
We live in troubled times, but on the positive side we have Dire Wolves to look forward to!
Scientists Claim to Have Brought Back the Dire Wolf
Startup Colossal Biosciences has edited the DNA of a gray wolf to produce what it says is a de-extincted animal. Does that make it a true dire wolf?
www.wired.com
April 8, 2025 at 4:16 AM
Reposted by Vaughan
I don't think the discourse on whether or not Signal itself is vulnerable is very meaningful. It doesn't cost a whole lot for a government to purchase the capability to remotely hack a smartphone. With kernel access, they'd likely be able to just read any Signal chats without having to hack Signal.
March 26, 2025 at 4:06 AM
Reposted by Vaughan
March 25, 2025 at 5:00 PM