Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ

Electric Power Geek, Hardhat Hacker, Control System Security Engineer, & .... Opinions are my own. (ಠ_ಠ) c[_] KC3GST

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

Here

https://t.co/2S717YvZup

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

Soon...soon...

https://t.co/UHHK62UPIw

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

Called it.

[Michael Thomas @curious_founder]

This week I found permits and satellite photos suggesting Amazon is backing what could be the largest gas power plant ever built in the US.

I just got off the phone with the company and confirmed they're behind it.

Amazon confirmed that it has acquired a site in Pecos County, Texas called GW Ranch, where it plans to build an AI data center campus powered by a 7.65 GW gas plant. It would initially be entirely disconnected from the Texas electric grid.

In January, GW Ranch received a permit from the state of Texas allowing the gas power plant to emit 33 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

If the project emitted that much CO2, it would be the largest single source of pollution in the United States—emitting more greenhouse gases than the country’s largest coal plant. It’s worth noting that companies rarely emit as much as their permits allow.

The paper trail linking Amazon to GW Ranch surfaced earlier this week when Amazon filed three construction permits with the state. The permits showed Amazon’s plans to build three data center buildings with construction beginning immediately.

Cleanview reviewed satellite imagery to look for the project and discovered that land clearing had begun at the site described in GW Ranch’s air permit records.

We reached out to Amazon and the company confirmed it had acquired the GW Ranch site and plans to buy power from the plant, which is being developed by Pacifico Energy.

Partnering with GW Ranch marks Amazon’s first major investment in an off-grid data center. In doing so, the company joins Microsoft, Google, and Meta who have all invested significantly in natural gas power this year.

Data center developers have announced nearly 60 behind-the-meter gas power projects since the beginning of 2025 with a combined capacity of 90 GW, according to Cleanview’s latest report.

Not all of these projects will be built, but in recent months a growing share of them have begun construction and signed key tenant deals.

Amazon’s project in West Texas is unlikely to be its last bet on large-scale natural gas power. Yesterday, the company confirmed that it is in talks with the developers of a 4.5 GW gas power plant in Homer City, Pennsylvania.

When the developers of the Homer City gas plant first announced their project, they said it would be the largest gas power plant in America.

Now it’s just one of many giga-scale power plants that have been proposed across the country.

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

This is the point where the AI business case comes to full fruition. Without AI defense, AI attack is far too capable and pervasive and will drown defenders in vulnerabilities and patches.

https://t.co/LIs0M2Cw5Z?...

Skip to 32:00 for the final thoughts.

[@mikko @mikko]

Annual OPSEC reminder for those going to BH/DC.
#BHUSA #DEFCON

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

Now that Al is having his IPO moment, I thought I'd share his picture so you know that he's doing his best.

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

@HackingDave Super disappointed.

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

@sjmurdoch I did some very speculative research on frame 17 years ago, but looking at the hardware and encoding not the actual data transmitted.

https://t.co/OQgDbu613s

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

Go to sleep go to sleep...

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

Always turn off electricity at the breaker before doing work on electric systems.

[Jihad Joquetta Jackson @Lifeinvestmoney]

A/c stopped working

Local company wanted $982 to repair

Asked AI what was wrong

Prompted to replace capacitor

Bought new capacitor on Amazon for $19

Went to replace capacitor

Got electrocuted

AI said “it looks like you’re right that’s incorrect”

Went to hospital

Overnight stay cost $8,922

A/c still out

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

Anthropic's business is converting compute into value using the fruits of their science, data, and engineering expertise, for *paying* customers...

Why join the AI build out race-to-the-bottom to build compute when you can rent it for pennies on the dollar?

[Anthropic @AnthropicAI]

Our run-rate revenue has surpassed $30 billion, up from $9 billion at the end of 2025, as demand for Claude continues to accelerate. This partnership gives us the compute to keep pace.

Read more: https://t.co/XgSjL0And7

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

@TVAnews Beautiful lift, folks.

[Riley Walz @rtwlz]

Payphones are strangely still licensed in California, so I filed a FOIA request and got the full list. Naturally I made a game you can now play:

[Nes 🎨 @feydemon]

made a pizza and sliced it like a psychopath because i remembered i have free will and can do whatever i want

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

My bigger question is which videos are in the Downloaded folder.

I'd say 1969, RCA, with this one from @veritasium : https://t.co/RJYnmThS5E

[LaurieWired @lauriewired]

You can send a single smartphone to any point in human history. No instructions.

Winner is whoever advances human progress the most.

When + where do you send it?

[LaurieWired @lauriewired]

You can send a single smartphone to any point in human history. No instructions.

Winner is whoever advances human progress the most.

When + where do you send it?

[MG @_MG_]

I’m a bit concerned about the non-inquisitive celebration from infosec on this.

Where is the “what does keystroke latency even mean?” Without that, you can’t implement it for yourself, nor can you identify weaknesses.

~3yrs I was privately proposing similar options. So, AS SOMEWHAT OF A KEYBOARD EXPERT MYSELF 🤔💅, let’s look…

First, this is most likely NOT a direct measure of network latency. This machine was physically located in Arizona. DPRK started off with shipping corp laptops overseas, but the network latency was a dead giveaway. So they started colocating them in the USA and remotely controlling them. First with remote control software, which is easy to identify if the company has security software on the machine. And then with hardware like IP-KVMs. There are sometimes a few tells that an IP-KVM is in use, but a well tuned one will identify exactly like a normal external keyboard/mouse/monitor. Unless…

This is where you have to start looking beyond device identity and instead look at input anomalies. Keyboard/mouse input being sent halfway across the world via network packets to an IP-KVM can look… weird. Think bursts of input. This looks very weird with mouse data that is normally smooth. But even keystrokes start to stand out when you have a big enough dataset to compare against. So, of course, you could improve the IP-KVM to smooth out and “humanize” the inputs before relaying them to the host. But…

You can also present some real time control surfaces. I don’t want to blow anyone’s defense tradecraft here. So let’s just imagine the employee needs to play a 5sec game of flappybird each day. Or maybe it’s an overt “DPRK Detector” step during login. The visual input has to travel halfway across the globe, then the input has to come all the way back. That’s a massive delay for response to visual stimulus. Certainly anomalous enough to warrant investigation. How do you beat that? Maybe an AI process running on the IP-KVM that plays DPRK Detector for you?

The arms race will continue. And it’s mostly because HR and Hiring Managers don’t want to do deeper background checks needed to identify fake/stolen identities. 🤷‍♂️

And for anyone not familiar with these hunts, the detection techniques are NOT definitive proof of wrong doing. They are simply turning a mountainous hay stack into a fistful of hay that a human can quickly sift through to look for other indicators.

Note: there are environment-specific detections as well. But I tried to stay in territory that’s applicable to everyone who has this risk in their threat model.

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

We get it, AI is bad at math.

[Snehil Saluja @mrsnhl]

what a clever ad

[Mɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ Tᴏᴇᴄᴋᴇʀ @mtoecker]

One of the coolest things about Kurowski's show is seeing her actually sit down with the client on camera with a pen and paper.

This isn't about performing, it's about working, and listening.

[Magnolia Network @magnolianetwork]

Lindsey Kurowski helps a property owner rediscover his passion for his struggling motel in the charming city of Tombstone, Arizona. Watch a new episode of #MotelRescue tonight at 8/7c on #MagnoliaNetwork on TV, @streamonmax, and @discoveryplus.

[autumn @adrusi]

this image depicts two pole-mounted energy storage systems

[natalie @natalie_thenerd]

I am a woman of my word.

The Lego Game Boy - with a working Game Boy inside (not an emulator)