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Sam Bent
contact@sambent.com
npub1y7rv...d0r3
Agorist. Counter-economist. Privacy maximalist. Student of OPSEC. Anti-authoritarian. Free speech absolutist. Logician. Ex-Darknet Vendor. Youtuber.
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SamBent 6 days ago
#OPSEC365 192/365 Video call recordings capture everything in frame and earshot. Zoom and Teams meetings get recorded, often by default in corporate settings. Your facial expressions, background, voice, and any visible documents are preserved. Meetings you thought were ephemeral may sit in cloud storage accessible to IT and management. Side conversations and visible documents end up in storage you don't control. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 1 week ago
Stack XMR while normies argue about which surveillance coin will pump next. image
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SamBent 1 week ago
#OPSEC365 191/365 Your employer tracks who clicks on phishing simulations. Corporate security teams send fake phishing emails to test employees. If you click the link, that failure is logged. Repeat offenders get flagged for additional training or worse. Your click rate on simulated attacks becomes part of your employment record. Treat every suspicious email at work as potentially a test of your security awareness. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 1 week ago
#OPSEC365 190/365 Downloading your social media archive reveals more than you posted. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram archive downloads include messages, login locations, advertiser categories you're sorted into, facial recognition templates, and data you never knew was collected. The archive is more revealing than your public profile. Download your data archive from each platform and see what they've collected about you. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 1 week ago
#OPSEC365 189/365 Your Bluetooth device name is a persistent surveillance identifier. In a noted ISS exercise, Jenkins scanned Bluetooth signals on a train and noted five device names. An hour later at an art gallery, one name reappeared. A monitoring operator was on the train.
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SamBent 1 week ago
#OPSEC365 188/365 ATM cameras record your face alongside your transaction. Banks use cameras at ATMs for security, capturing high-quality footage of anyone making a withdrawal or deposit. This footage includes timestamps that correlate exactly with your transaction records. The combination creates a verified record of your presence at that location. ATM cameras produce timestamped facial imagery that correlates exactly with your transaction record. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 1 week ago
#OPSEC365 187/365 Venmo's default settings make your friends list and transactions visible to anyone. Even with private payments, your list of Venmo contacts is publicly searchable unless you change settings. This social graph reveals your relationships, roommates, partners, and anyone else you regularly exchange money with. Check your Venmo privacy settings and make your friends list private. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 1 week ago
#OPSEC365 186/365 Your network is visible even when your profile is locked. Maltego runs a transform on your name and maps every connected entity: your employer, your family, your co-authors, the forums you both post in. Gephi visualizes graph and marks you as a central node. The people around you are not private. The map of who you know is data, and that data sits in tools anyone can run. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 1 week ago
#OPSEC365 185/365 Car warranty and maintenance records track your vehicle's history. Every dealer visit, oil change, and repair is logged in manufacturer databases by VIN. Mileage, service intervals, and reported issues persist in the vehicle's permanent record. When you sell the car, that history transfers to the new owner and affects resale value. Mileage discrepancies and service patterns follow the VIN to the next owner. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 2 weeks ago
#OPSEC365 184/365 Hotel rooms are a standard target for technical surveillance. Surveillance teams operating in an area choose hotels for privacy of movement. From the target's perspective: rooms change occupants daily, maintenance provides routine access cover, and any prior occupant had unrestricted time inside.
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SamBent 2 weeks ago
#OPSEC365 183/365 Sharing streaming credentials merges behavioral records under one identifier. The military term is the mosaic effect: unremarkable data points combine to reveal health, political views, and psychological patterns. Shane Harris's The Watchers describes analysts wanting 'what they bought, what they read, where they traveled.' Your streaming history is the modern version. Use a separate account per household member so records don't merge. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 2 weeks ago
#OPSEC365 182/365 Your VPN provider sees everything your ISP would have seen. You moved the trust, not the exposure. In 2020, seven "no-log" VPN providers leaked 1.2TB of user data including connection logs they claimed not to keep. Choose a VPN based on jurisdiction, independent audits, and revenue model. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 2 weeks ago
#OPSEC365 181/365 Audio watermarks can identify who leaked media. Netflix, Disney+, and movie studios embed inaudible watermarks in streaming audio that identify your account. If you record and share the content, the watermark traces the leak back to your specific stream. Netflix embeds per-stream watermarks. Sharing a recording identifies your account to the millisecond. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 2 weeks ago
#OPSEC365 180/365 HUMINT collectors call it apparent withdrawal. The collector signals the conversation is ending, releases tension, then drops the real question as an afterthought. "One last thing before I let you go..." Your guard drops because the pressure seemed over. The question that follows is the one they came for. The entire preceding conversation was setup.
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SamBent 2 weeks ago
#OPSEC365 179/365 HUMINT is the collection discipline most people forget to model against. Your adversary doesn't need to hack your devices if they can call your former employer, ask your neighbors, or socially engineer your friends for your new address. Military OPSEC doctrine explicitly lists human intelligence as a primary threat vector. Your digital defenses are irrelevant if your human network leaks. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 2 weeks ago
#OPSEC365 178/365 Thermostat data reveals when your home is occupied. Smart thermostats from Nest, Ecobee, and Honeywell detect occupancy through sensors and adjust temperature accordingly. That data flows to the cloud. The pattern of your home heating and cooling maps exactly when someone is home and when the house is empty. Nest knows when your house is empty because occupancy sensors feed the algorithm. That data sits on Google's servers. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 3 weeks ago
#OPSEC365 176/365 Pregnancy and fertility apps share your most intimate health data. Flo, Ovia, and similar period tracking apps have been caught sharing data with Facebook and marketing partners. When Roe v. Wade was overturned, concerns emerged about this data being used for prosecution. Review privacy settings on any health tracking apps that collect reproductive data. #OPSEC365
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SamBent 3 weeks ago
#OPSEC365 175/365 Password reset emails create a trail of your account activity. Every password reset request generates an email in your inbox and a log entry at the service. That trail shows when you got locked out, accounts you have, and roughly how you use them. Someone with access to your email sees a map of your online presence through reset history. Delete password reset emails after using them and review your email for old reset requests. #OPSEC365
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