Improver, Husband, Father of 3 Technophile Software @Mindera | Communities @GDGPorto | Feedback @LoopGain_org | 🔥 @O_Que_Arde_Cura | Liberal
Matosinhos/Porto, Portugal
Joined March 2009
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Popper never believed this.
"I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise." 1/n
Pedro Vicente retweeted
Mais de 2500 propostas de alteração ao Orçamento do Estado. Felizmente já vou no sexto processo destes e sei que é tudo irrelevante e repetido só para fazer número. Já vi de tudo:
1) propostas que ainda vinham com a data do ano anterior
2) propostas que não alteravam nada
3) propostas para alocação de verbas a obras que já tinham sido feitas no ano anterior e ninguém reparou antes de fazer a proposta.
4) propostas em branco
É o culto de carga. Daqui a pouco sairão uns gráficos a prezar a quantidade de trabalho inútil a que se vai sujeitar os serviços da assembleia. Mais uma ineficiência absurda.
Pedro Vicente retweeted
North Korea stole $6.3 billion from Binance by inviting one of its engineers to a job interview at a company that didn't exist.
And the guy didn't even have access to the money.
It took them five months and two separate hacks to pull this off.
Back in June, an engineer on Binance's wallet team went looking for an AI tool and installed a tampered Homebrew package. Binance caught it, swapped the laptop and reset the passwords. Problem solved, they figured. Except by then the attackers already knew who worked on that team and what each person did.
So they went recruiting.
In September a different Binance engineer got a message on a real job site from someone calling himself a project director. First round was a video call with a fake HR person, who even shared a social media account full of personal photos so the whole thing felt legit. Second round was with the "CEO," who told him to download a coding assignment onto his work computer. It was loaded with malware nobody had seen before, and Binance's security software missed it completely.
Then they waited. On October 20 they used his laptop plus one of Binance's own internal AI tools to get onto two wallet engineers' computers, and one of those engineers had permission to spin up new code on Binance's systems. Nine days later the attackers did exactly that. They ran a script and used an Ethereum feature called EIP-7702 to hand themselves control of a hot wallet, one of the wallets Binance keeps online to process withdrawals. Money started pouring out at 8:05pm UTC.
It took Binance four hours to stop it, which works out to more than $25 million a minute.
And it took that long because of a safety feature. Binance splits the signing power on those wallets into pieces held by different parties, so no single employee can ever drain one alone. That sounds great until something goes wrong, because it also meant nobody could hit the off switch on their own.
For context, the previous record was Bybit's $1.5 billion in February 2025, also North Korea. This one is four times bigger. Binance has already refilled about 98% of it out of its own pocket and says customers won't lose a cent.
Binance says it blocked 57 suspected North Korean attacks this year, and the one that got through started with a guy who just wanted a new job.
Pedro Vicente retweeted
O primeiro senador muçulmano da história dos EUA, Abdul El-Sayed, foi perguntado se repudiaria a Irmandade Muçulmana, grupo muçulmano com componentes extremistas.
A resposta foi essa lapada:
Pedro Vicente retweeted
O preço do arrendamento caiu em nove dos dez distritos de Barcelona desde que se aplicaram tetos às rendas, há dois anos, revelam dados do Governo regional da Catalunha. Leia mais: expresso.pt/espanha/2026-11-…
📷 Getty Images
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Embora as rendas médias de novos contratos tenham caído 4,4% em Barcelona (e em 9 de 10 distritos) segundo o Incasòl, o número de novos contratos diminuiu ~10-20% e a oferta de anúncios reduziu-se >20% nas zonas reguladas, com preço por m² em máximos.
elperiodico.com/es/barcelona/2…
expansion.com/catalunya/2026…
elespanol.com/invertia/obser…
expresso.pt/espanha/2026-1…
Pedro Vicente retweeted
All software engineers were just promoted to Engineering Managers. The senior and manager engineers were promoted to Product Engineering Managers. The software IC roles no longer exist, unless playing the role of architect or security engineer because you can hold a larger context then LLMs
Pedro Vicente retweeted
I'm starting to sense a divide in the tech industry:
- People thriving on autonomy who are reinventing how they work and what tools they use with AI: LOTS of work, but they're enjoying it and getting very efficient
- People used to being mentored / trained / or simply told what to do and how. Frustrated with the lack of guidance from management on what to do with AI; also frustrated by seeing some of their peers thriving; increasingly bitter about AI and the state of the industry, as a whole
Neither group seems to be aware that there's another group, or have empathy for the other group
Pedro Vicente retweeted
If you've ever wondered why smart TVs are so cheap, this is why.
@log4j rooted his Samsung and found an always-on hot mic, automatic content recognition, geolocation, network mapping, ad targeting and user profiling, shared with Samsung's "400 partners".
A lot of it can be blocked in <15 min, wrote a basic guide below.
What your TV is doing
The main culprit is ACR (automatic content recognition). Your TV screenshots what's on screen, fingerprints it, and sends it home to build your ad profile. Samsung does it every 500ms, LG every 10ms [1].
What is insane: it happens on connected devices too.
Plug in your laptop, your console, your work machine, and your TV can fingerprint that via HDMI [1].
He also found that if your Samsung doesn't have a mic, it'll look for one from a connected soundbar or bluetooth device.
teapawt.net/log4j/status/211376224…
It's on by default, and you likely agreed to it on the setup screen you clicked through in 10 seconds.
Step 1: Turn off ACR
Samsung: Terms & Privacy → Viewing Information Services
LG: Live Plus
Vizio: Viewing Data
Roku: "Use info from TV inputs"
Sony/Google TV: Samba Interactive TV
Menus vary by model, but those are the names to look for. While you're in there, opt out of interest-based ads, reset your advertising ID, decline every optional privacy agreement, turn off voice recognition, and delete apps you never open.
Step 2: Give smart devices their own network
Put the TV, cameras, speakers and vacuum on your router's guest/IoT network. The logic is simple: these devices rarely get patched. If one gets compromised (getting drastically more frequent with AI), it shouldn't be able to see your other devices or home network.
Step 3: Block trackers for the whole house with DNS-level filtering
NextDNS (cloud-based) is easy and has a solid free plan. Pi-hole is a little bit more work if you prefer self hosting. For simplicity we'll focus on the former.
1. Sign up at nextdns.io (free tier is plenty)
2. Privacy tab: add a blocklist (OISD is a good bet) and turn on Native Tracking Protection for Samsung, LG, Roku, Amazon (see attached image)
3. Setup tab: copy your endpoint
4. Paste it into your router's DNS settings as DNS-over-HTTPS/TLS (or use the IPs + "Link IP" if your router only does plain DNS)
5. Bonus: block outbound port 53 except to your router. Some devices hardcode their own DNS to get around you
Then open the NextDNS logs and watch how often your TV phones home. It's eye-opening. If an app or update breaks, find the domain in the logs and allowlist it.
Why they do this
TV prices are down 97% since 2000 [2]. Most of that is better manufacturing and brutal competition. But once margins on the hardware hit zero, the cost moved to you.
In Q3 2024, Vizio lost $6.7M selling TVs and made $115.8M in gross profit from ads and viewing data [3]. They've said on earnings calls that they keep TV prices low to grow the audience they sell to advertisers. Walmart bought them in 2024.
This isn't a conspiracy theory either. Vizio paid $2.2M to the FTC in 2017 for tracking 11 million TVs without consent. Last December, Texas sued Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense and TCL over ACR. Samsung and LG have since agreed to stop collecting that data without explicit consent [4].
TL;DR
1. ACR off
2. Ads + voice off
3. Smart devices on their own network
4. NextDNS filtering on the router
Sources:
[1] ACR study: arxiv.org/abs/2409.06203
[2] Cost of US consumer goods: aei.org/economics/chart-of-t…
[3] Vizio Q3 2024: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/…
[4] Texas v. Samsung: texasattorneygeneral.gov/new…
Pedro Vicente retweeted
Meloni announces a new decree and 4 new measures to combat violent riots and looting.
She says that people of foreign background constitute half of the 330 people arrested and detained so far.
The new measures include prison sentences of up to 5 years and fines of €20,000 for participating in violent protests.
Under the new decree:
- Rioters acting in groups of 5 or more face tougher penalties, particularly if they conceal their faces or injure someone.
- Parents will be held financially responsible for damage caused by their underage children.
- Preventive detention powers will be extended to minors.
- An additional 500 soldiers will be deployed to Milan until the end of the year.
- Juvenile courts and detention facilities will receive additional resources.
Meloni said hundreds of teenagers, many mobilized through social media, had joined Antifa extremists in the streets to vandalize property, loot stores and film themselves committing crimes.
Pedro Vicente retweeted
🚨 If you use OkHttp, you might want to add the following certificates to a blocklist ASAP due to a recent leak of certificate authority private keys
Thanks to Jesse Wilson for posting about this and adding the steps to mitigate
publicobject.com/2026/10/20/…
Pedro Vicente retweeted
Tânia Laranjo na primeira pessoa, a desmascarar a extrema esquerda.
Tudo o que viu, tudo o que ouviu.
Para quem quiser perceber o que tem acontecido nos últimos dias, este vídeo é fundamental.
Pedro Vicente retweeted
Quando o PS governou com o apoio dos partidos do Sr Raimundo e do Dr Pureza, fizeram 59 habitações em 4 anos! Grande sentido de responsabilidade e urgência
Pedro Vicente retweeted
Parabéns ao PÚBLICO pela extraordinária investigação: descobriu que há deputados que têm casa e que alguns até as arrendam. Escândalo.
Sobre o panfleto que hoje fez capa:
1. O PÚBLICO tem toda a legitimidade para escrutinar o património dos deputados. Mas o escrutínio exige mais do que colocar dois factos verdadeiros lado a lado, em alguns casos incompletos (eu e tantos outros somos também inquilinos), e deixar que a insinuação faça o resto.
2. Só olhou para os deputados do PSD, CDS, CH e IL. Se tivesse incluído os outros não teria encontrado nada muito diferente: em Portugal, 70% da população é proprietária, portanto o Parlamento não haveria de ser muito diferente. Os partidos de esquerda também têm deputados proprietários. E não esquecer Ricardo Robles, claro, o mago imobiliário.
3. Como têm casa, insinua-se que legislam em causa própria quando votam leis da habitação. A prova do conflito de interesses? A parte a que poderíamos chamar jornalismo? Despejada.
4. Pelo mesmo brilhante critério, deputados com filhos não podem votar o abono de família, deputados que recebem salários não podem votar o IRS e deputados que têm carro não podem votar o IUC.
5. Aliás, ainda há dias votámos o alargamento da licença parental. E, pasme-se, os deputados da IL podem vir a ter mais filhos no futuro e a beneficiar com isso! Mais uma capa de jornal.
6. Explicámos tudo isto ao PÚBLICO, mas o jornal preferiu publicar apenas o primeiro parágrafo da nossa resposta. Os restantes, que expunham o ridículo da premissa, ficaram de fora.
7. No meio de tantos números, gráficos e imóveis contabilizados, faltou um pequeno pormenor: identificar uma única norma feita à medida de um deputado, um único favorecimento particular, um único conflito de interesses efetivamente demonstrado.
8. Talvez seja essa a verdadeira notícia: o PÚBLICO descobriu que os deputados têm casas, mas parece ter-se esquecido de que o jornalismo também deve ter princípios.
9. Como é bom de se ver, o activismo não se circunscreve à praça D. João I ou ao Rossio. Está vivo na Doca de Alcântara.
Pedro Vicente retweeted
Adoro quando o Rodrigo começa a metralhar factos e os outros ficam com um ar pateta a refletir, a tomar notas, a olhar para o ar ou a fazer um sorriso amarelo palerma.
King👑
Pedro Vicente retweeted
OpenAI’s post is very very very carefully worded so here’s more information from the criminal complaint and DOJ statements.
The individual that planted the device was Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, a Saudi national and engineer on the product team who joined OpenAI in July 2025.
Key allegations from the complaint (N.D. Cal.):
• On or about Sept. 30, OpenAI’s technical surveillance team found a surreptitious audio recording device plugged into a USB port on the back of a TV in an executive conference room. It was concealed in toilet paper, installed around Sept. 28, and its contents were encrypted.
• The room is used for highly confidential technical, commercial, and strategic discussions. Alfozan had no authority to access it or attend meetings there. CCTV showed him near the room on multiple dates beforehand.
• On Oct. 5 he entered the room and appeared to look behind the TV. That same day he left an unattended bag in another room containing his wallet, ID, and a second similar recording device.
• Before installation, he queried internal tools about building addresses, meeting rooms, room capacities, calendars, and locations of leadership and external partner meetings.
• A chatbot account tied to his spouse (sharing multiple identifiers with his own) submitted prompts between Sept. 24–30 about building a continuous audio recorder, encrypting the SD card, concealing the device, adding Wi-Fi/remote access, and the specific device’s MAC address.
He’s been charged with using or attempting to use a device to intercept oral communications (18 U.S.C. § 2511).
If convicted: up to 5 years, $250,000 fine, and 3 years supervised release.
Arrested Oct. 9, initial appearance Oct. 13, remains in custody. Detention hearing set for Oct. 19.
OpenAI says it used its models to help identify him, coordinated the termination with the FBI (access was progressively restricted beforehand), and has no indications of model-weight, source-code, or customer-data exfiltration.
U.S. Attorney described it as a national-security matter; FBI has flagged protection of American AI innovation as a high counterintelligence priority.
Friendly reminder that physical + digital insider-threat controls matter even when the goal isn’t classic IP exfiltration. Wiretap charges don’t require successful data theft. Toilet-paper concealment and a second device left in a bag with ID are not sophisticated tradecraft.
(Complaint details drawn from SF Standard reporting, DOJ/USAO Northern District of California statements, and OpenAI’s own post.)
We discovered a sophisticated recording device that was hidden inside one of our offices. We used our models to understand the device and where it had come from, identifying that a specific employee had planted it a few days earlier. We referred the matter to the FBI, and we’re grateful to the agents and prosecutors who moved quickly to make an arrest. The FBI’s investigation is ongoing and we will continue to support their work.
At this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code, or customer data. The employee was terminated.
We take protecting our technology, data, and people seriously, and as a matter of national importance. Our security program is designed to protect against a wide range of threat actors, from insider risks to cybercriminals to nation states, and this case is an example of how AI can help address these sophisticated security threats.
Pedro Vicente retweeted
Incredible: Not only is Google working to block AI crawlers, but @nozzleio uncovered evidence that Google is deliberately serving FAKE search results to scrapers
The "poisoned" search results look real, but w/ garbage data. This influences AI crawlers, scrapers, & rank trackers.
Pedro Vicente retweeted
【注意喚起】国内で相次ぐ情報漏えい事案の原因の一つとして、新たな攻撃手法『A2B攻撃』を特定しました。
攻撃者は公開Androidアプリの解析結果をもとにバックエンドサーバを狙い撃ちしています。
Androidアプリを提供している事業者は要注意です。
#NICT #CYNEX #LETTICE
nict.go.jp/press/2026/10/13-…
