In this issue:
- An American-owned commercial spyware campaign against civil society targets
- Research advancements in recursive proving
- Medieval biohacking secrets
- Nockchain technical updates
WhatsApp Uncovers Private Commercial Spyware Campaign Targeting Journalists
A few weeks ago, WhatsApp exposed a private commercial spyware operation targeting approximately 90 journalists and civil society members across 24 countries. The campaign, linked to the Israeli-born but now American-owned firm Paragon Solutions, used zero-click exploits through malicious PDF files in group chats to gain complete device access.
Paragon was recently acquired by a U.S. private equity firm for $900M and has a $2M contract with ICE.
The targeting of journalists and activists appears to be a feature, not a bug, of the commercial spyware market. This marks the first confirmed case, as far as I can find, of an American-owned commercial spyware operation against civil society targets.
The OG Longevity Hackers
Way before it was cool, the Knights Templar achieved remarkable longevity in an era when wealthy men rarely lived past 31. Many Templars lived into their 60s and 70s.
Their lifestyle combined monastic restraint with military strength: Meat 3 times per week, vegetable-based meals with bread, eggs, and cheese on other days, Friday fasts with fish and almond milk, wine in moderation (diluted), communal silent meals, mandatory handwashing before meals. The knights grew Mediterranean produce like figs, almonds, pomegranates, and olives. They also made an "Elixir of Jerusalem"—a healing mixture of aloe vera, hemp, and palm wine.
Virtue and vitality are more closely related than people realize. In the Middle Ages, hygiene was seen as a sign of courtesy and moral discipline. Washing hands before meals was not just about cleanliness but also respect for others at the table.
Monastic communities linked physical health with moral virtues such as humility and self-discipline. Their balance of rigorous training, mindful eating, and advanced medical knowledge—essentially "biohacking"—made them outperform even the wealthiest and most sophisticated civilians.
MicroNova: Efficient On-Chain Verification for Recursive Proofs
MicroNova is a new system (2024) for efficiently verifying recursive zero-knowledge proofs on blockchains. It addresses a key limitation of existing systems like Nova: While they can generate compact proofs, verifying those proofs on-chain is prohibitively expensive, requiring billions of gas on Ethereum.
MicroNova's innovation is to split verification across two different types of curves—one pairing-friendly (BN254) and one not (Grumpkin). This "half-pairing" approach, combined with careful optimization of the verification circuit, reduces gas costs dramatically.
This represents a notable advance in making recursive proofs practical for on-chain applications, though it does trade some prover efficiency for dramatically improved verification costs.
Nockchain Technical Updates
We are proceeding with consensus testing and documenting tests, attack surfaces, and mitigations. We implemented a new protocol for catch-up and re-org which decreases the necessary bandwidth for nodes to find the highest common block on their respective views of the heaviest chain.
We’re currently working on the node-banning logic, by which Nockchain nodes will refuse to continue communicating with peers if they relay invalid blocks or transactions. Malice and incompetence are indistinguishable.
We also solved a concurrency bug in the NockApp framework’s save logic, which would result in broken saves and extremely high log volume.
