Artur Papyan

Journalist, Blogger, Media Consultant (rt ≠ endorsement, rt = something worth checking out)

[Google @Google]

Today we’re introducing Gemma 4 12B — our latest open model that brings advanced agentic reasoning, vision and audio directly to your laptop.

It delivers performance nearing our larger Gemma models with a much smaller total memory footprint, while being small enough to run locally with just 16GB of VRAM. It’s open and accessible for everyone to use under a permissive Apache 2.0 license.

This is all made possible by our new, unified architecture that removes separate multimodal encoders. Here’s how we did it 🧵

[Mullvad.net @mullvadnet]

A new VPN leak that allows any app to leak traffic outside the VPN tunnel has recently been discovered by @cybaqkebm

Read more here: https://t.co/K9bxtiGHbw

[Donncha Ó Cearbhaill @DonnchaC]

Today we are also publishing a forensic guide to help defenders and civil society leverage this tool to further accountability efforts.

https://t.co/c9DTfZBCms

[Florian Roth ⚡️ @cyb3rops]

Google is rolling out Android “Intrusion Logging” for high-risk users.

It stores encrypted forensic logs in the user’s Google account, making it harder for spyware or forensic tools to erase traces after compromise

Very useful shift for Android spyware investigations

https://t.co/73inIGBwUt

[Signal @signalapp]

To help protect Signal users from phishing and social engineering attacks, we’ve introduced additional confirmations and educational messaging in the app to help people better detect fraudulent profiles, especially message requests from scammers posing as Signal.

More changes are on the way.

[Have I Been Pwned @haveibeenpwned]

New breach: Udemy had 1.4M email addresses leaked yesterday following an extortion attempt by ShinyHunters. Data included name, address, phone, employer info and instructor payout method. 56% were already in @haveibeenpwned. Read more: https://t.co/qxq9LkoMqs

[Signal @signalapp]

We are very happy that today Apple issued a patch and a security advisory. This comes following @404mediaco reporting that the FBI accessed Signal message notification content via iOS despite the app being deleted.

Apple’s advisory confirmed that the bugs that allowed this to happen have been fixed in the latest iOS release. You can read more here: https://t.co/yE8ufSTQHk

Note that no action is needed for this fix to protect Signal users on iOS. Once you install the patch, all inadvertently-preserved notifications will be deleted and no forthcoming notifications will be preserved for deleted applications.

We’re grateful to Apple for the quick action here, and for understanding and acting on the stakes of this kind of issue. It takes an ecosystem to preserve the fundamental human right to private communication.

[Artur Papyan @ditord]

Mark the date, on April 17th I'll be on a panel at the Global Forum: FIMI & Hybrid Threats
https://t.co/VVFZjnklCQ

[Google Research @GoogleResearch]

Introducing TurboQuant: Our new compression algorithm that reduces LLM key-value cache memory by at least 6x and delivers up to 8x speedup, all with zero accuracy loss, redefining AI efficiency. Read the blog to learn how it achieves these results: https://t.co/CDSQ8HpZoc

[bot blocker | блокировщик ботов @antibot4navalny]

Yesterday's Matryoshka campaign targeting June-2026 elex in Armenia alleges a secret agreement between Macron and Pashinyan:

"Pashinyan will receive Macron's support in Armenia's parliamentary elections.

In exchange, Pashinyan would start a war with Russia after his victory."

[gnida project @gnidaproject]

The latest Storm-1516 disinformation campaign is targeting Armenia and the prime minister Nikol Pashinyan, the campaign promotes a false narrative that the Armenian government is planning to revoke all military awards related to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

[profdeibert @RonDeibert]

Check out this excellent masterclass from @citizenlab's @jsrailton on digital security for journalists

Shares Tips and Tools to Protect Yourself Digitally @gijn https://t.co/89Xkzn0rAE

[The Associated Press @AP]

BREAKING: Iranian state television's English arm says Tehran rejects U.S. ceasefire proposal, quoting an anonymous official. Follow live updates: https://t.co/Jumsw9CM5O

[Kornelij @Kornelij]

This is the next level of spyware transformation. Spyware company not just providing services to political groups. But becoming actor, self-player in political games. Scaring level of self-confidence

[John Scott-Railton @jsrailton]

NEW: VIPs & regular people are losing their @signalapp accounts to a clever deception.

I've made a little graphic of how the attack works.

Here's how to protect yourself1/

[Christo Grozev @christogrozev]

Denis Alimov, FSB Alfa veteran and senior operative of Russia's new and "most secretive" assassination unit, walked into El Dorado Airport in Bogotá on Feb 24 looking like a tourist heading to Cartagena. He walked out in handcuffs.
He was undone by Google Translate.
🧵New @TheInsider investigation with @DerSpiegel — thread below.

[Daron Acemoglu @DAcemogluMIT]

Dear followers,
I’m happy to share this new academic paper on how even capable AI can lead to deterioration of collective knowledge in society

[Digital Security Lab Ukraine @DSLab_Ukraine]

Large-scale phishing attacks keep evolving, abusing trusted platforms like Google, Cloudflare, Vercel, and Telegram. Pre-built kits enable massive scaling. A new “Meta Verified” tactic steals credentials and bypasses 2FA in real time via Telegram exfiltration.

[Olivia Moore @omooretweets]

🚨 The @a16z consumer AI Top 100 is back!

For the sixth time, we ranked consumer AI websites and mobile apps by usage (monthly unique visits and MAUs).

This edition, we changed the rules. Here's why - and what the new list says about where consumer AI is heading 👇