@iainthomson

British hack for hire, 30 years covering the technology sector.

Signal iainthomson.60

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

My latest piece for Techfinitive on the SpaceX IPO and how your pension funds helped make Musk a trillionaire.

Short term the price is going to be up and down like a Falcon 9 but as a long term punt it has possibilities.
https://t.co/FyEPOxbps0

[John Scott-Railton @jsrailton]

Epic OPSEC fail by NSO Group.

@whatsapp recently caught the notorious spyware company hacking across their platform.

(NSO is forbidden from doing this by a US court!)

In their testing, NSO was sending a test image of a soup cup...on a desktop mat with the NSO Group logo.

Making it worse, the image was user-reported to WhatsApp.

Cleanest attribution I've seen in a long time.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

A British teenager has been sanctioned by Russia for exposing its crypto dealings. Top class work by @Alexbrowder_

"Great, you scored the winning goal in the footie. I got Putin so pissed he sanctioned me." There's a bright future for this young chap.

[Alexander Browder @Alexbrowder_]

BREAKING. The Russian government has just announced that I have been added to their sanctions list for my work exposing their sanctions evading cryptocurrency A7A5. In doing so, I have exposed their Achilles’ heel. Without A7A5 they would not be able to fund their war of aggression. I have been sanctioned alongside Washington Post reporter @catherinebelton and 3 other UK nationals. It’s a badge of honour.

https://t.co/79b55DtSBK

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

@conspiracynews_ @LakelandFLSarah @martianwyrdlord The single-edged Scottish sgian dubh certainly is with a kilt, you tuck it into your sock.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

@alexanderrX_ @UK_Daniel_Card Well that's certainly a bold suggestion.

You are insane.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

@MortenFossli @bepsays @BradyHaran Getting that way, but it's been a while since I was back.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

@bepsays @BradyHaran Edvard Munch's The Scream isn't so much a picture of existential angst as a British person getting their bar bill in Oslo.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

@robertgraham I was asked by UK customs if I had any nuclear weapons in my carry on.

It's a common tactic - if you don't laugh or give them a WTF expression then it's time to check what's really in there.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

The UK parachutes six medics and supplies to our most distant island to fix a hantavirus case.

Fun fact: Tristan da Cunha is so remote that in 1919 the first supply ship turned up after a decade and informed the residents that the First World War had both started and ended.

[Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 @DefenceHQ]

Strap in: Follow one of our paratroopers from @16AirAssltBCT jumping in to Tristan da Cunha – one of the world’s most remote communities – to deliver vital medical support 🪂

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

Oh FFS. Don't do that.

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

No @BBCNews - you can't send out a breaking news alert to millions of people across the UK that begins "Sir David Attenborough..." the day before his 100th birthday. The entire country just took a sharp intake of breath.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

@LisaForteUK Absolutely superb! Was so happy to see him get his podium at last, now for the win.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

April's View from the Valley is entitled "The shot heard round the AI world."

Two attacks on Sam Altman's house this month are a sign that some damaged Americans are getting bizarrely militant about AI. https://t.co/zp9kBnvE7e

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

A stopped clock is right twice a day.

That said, anyone who names their child Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher shows a devastating lack of appreciation for bullying.

[Mukhtar @I_amMukhtar]

Agreeing with Jacob Rees-Mogg wasn't on my 2026 bingo card.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

@AndrewOrlowski To be fair, he didn't fume for years - he made an off-the-cuff quote about it and saw the funny side weeks afterwards.

Guy was a friend and mentor and an excellent tech journo who, along with Jack Schofield, helped stop Intel IDing Pentium III chips.

But he did love a lunch.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

@Matt_Schulman1 We prefer Frisco :)

Seriously, on the pizza side Outta Sight and Tony's should be on your list.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

120 years ago today, there was a whole lotta of shaking (an estimated 7.9 magnitude) going on in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake.

Some colourised footage here, with commentary from Jack London's account of the disaster.
https://t.co/XHhkyCnSOj

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

A very enjoyable show, and you gt to see a British and French journalist agree on something :)

[Lisa Laporte @lisadlaporte]

Social media addiction lawsuits are reshaping how courts view app design, NASA finally solves its Outlook glitch, and OpenAI acquires a tech talk show as Leo Laporte, @NotPatrick, @alheeti_3, & @iainthomson cover the week on This Week in Tech!

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

@robertgraham @Turambar13 @TerribleMaps The people responsible for the subtitles have been fired. Bring on the llamas.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

@happygeek @TFinitive And no mention of enforcing software updates - a major goal missed.

[@iainthomson @iainthomson]

Covered #BSidesSF and a great talk by
@k8em0.

She said something that I can't forget. The UN World Food Programme says it could end world hunger in a decade for $40bn a year. This year, five tech companies committed $660–690bn to AI infrastructure. https://t.co/fkwoPtRLul