Gianluca Stringhini
@gianlucastringhini.com
Associate Professor at BU. Cybersecurity and Cybersafety. Come for the memes, stay for the science. Skeets are my own
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
🚨 New working paper 🚨
What happens when you add money + competition to generative AI creation?
On Civitai—a prominent platform for gen-AI content/tools w. millions of users—you get a growing marketplace for NSFW requests and a nontrivial stream of deepfakes.
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2601.09117 🧪
What happens when you add money + competition to generative AI creation?
On Civitai—a prominent platform for gen-AI content/tools w. millions of users—you get a growing marketplace for NSFW requests and a nontrivial stream of deepfakes.
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2601.09117 🧪
January 23, 2026 at 2:06 AM
🚨 New working paper 🚨
What happens when you add money + competition to generative AI creation?
On Civitai—a prominent platform for gen-AI content/tools w. millions of users—you get a growing marketplace for NSFW requests and a nontrivial stream of deepfakes.
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2601.09117 🧪
What happens when you add money + competition to generative AI creation?
On Civitai—a prominent platform for gen-AI content/tools w. millions of users—you get a growing marketplace for NSFW requests and a nontrivial stream of deepfakes.
Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2601.09117 🧪
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
Universities, companies, and government agencies that continue to operate on X, now that this is clearly documented (majority of content included sexualized images of women and children) are actively supporting "industrial-scale abuse." Paid subscribers can still do this.
We set out to determine how many images of women and girls Grok created during its nudifying spree. What we found was “industrial-scale abuse,” experts said. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/t...
Musk’s Chatbot Flooded X With Millions of Sexualized Images in Days, New Estimates Show
www.nytimes.com
January 22, 2026 at 4:21 PM
Universities, companies, and government agencies that continue to operate on X, now that this is clearly documented (majority of content included sexualized images of women and children) are actively supporting "industrial-scale abuse." Paid subscribers can still do this.
Happy start of the semester!
a cartoon dog is sitting at a table with a cup of coffee in front of a fire with the words this is fine .
Alt: a cartoon dog is sitting at a table with a cup of coffee in front of a fire with the words this is fine .
media.tenor.com
January 21, 2026 at 12:40 PM
Happy start of the semester!
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
1/ Thoughts on the state of federal higher ed policy: Showing the limits of Trump’s power, he asked Congress to gut research funding, cut access programs, and end support for MSIs. Congress said no. But … the government will need to stay open and Trump will have to approve the funding packages.
Congress Proposes Increasing NIH Budget, Maintaining ED
Appropriators have released legislation that wouldn’t defund Education Department programs or slash the National Institutes of Health budget. And it would prohibit the federal government from capping ...
www.insidehighered.com
January 21, 2026 at 11:47 AM
1/ Thoughts on the state of federal higher ed policy: Showing the limits of Trump’s power, he asked Congress to gut research funding, cut access programs, and end support for MSIs. Congress said no. But … the government will need to stay open and Trump will have to approve the funding packages.
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
⏰ Less than two weeks left to apply!
@isi.it & CRT Foundation offer 10 one-year scholarships in data science & AI, applied to: 🩺 public health · 🌍 humanitarian response · 🏙️ urban development · ♻️ sustainability
📅 Deadline: Feb 2, 2026
🔗 Details here: sites.google.com/view/lagrang...
@isi.it & CRT Foundation offer 10 one-year scholarships in data science & AI, applied to: 🩺 public health · 🌍 humanitarian response · 🏙️ urban development · ♻️ sustainability
📅 Deadline: Feb 2, 2026
🔗 Details here: sites.google.com/view/lagrang...
Lagrange Fellowship Call
The Lagrange Project started in 2003 and it is regarded as one of the pioneering and most innovative European projects on complex systems science and data science.
It is promoted and funded by Fondazi...
sites.google.com
January 19, 2026 at 1:23 PM
⏰ Less than two weeks left to apply!
@isi.it & CRT Foundation offer 10 one-year scholarships in data science & AI, applied to: 🩺 public health · 🌍 humanitarian response · 🏙️ urban development · ♻️ sustainability
📅 Deadline: Feb 2, 2026
🔗 Details here: sites.google.com/view/lagrang...
@isi.it & CRT Foundation offer 10 one-year scholarships in data science & AI, applied to: 🩺 public health · 🌍 humanitarian response · 🏙️ urban development · ♻️ sustainability
📅 Deadline: Feb 2, 2026
🔗 Details here: sites.google.com/view/lagrang...
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
Senior academic roles in Cyber Security at De Montfort University Leicester (ACE-CSE Gold; 20+ academics in cyber; great facilities; research links with AI and with social responsibility), professor and associate professor. Closing 18 Jan.
Professor careers.dmu.ac.uk/job/Professo... and Associate Professor careers.dmu.ac.uk/job/Associat... roles available at De Montfort University. Closing 18 January. Contact me ([email protected]) to discuss. Prof interviews 1 April.
Professor of Cyber Security
Professor of Cyber Security
careers.dmu.ac.uk
January 6, 2026 at 12:16 PM
Senior academic roles in Cyber Security at De Montfort University Leicester (ACE-CSE Gold; 20+ academics in cyber; great facilities; research links with AI and with social responsibility), professor and associate professor. Closing 18 Jan.
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
Folks, she brought a whole plate of spaghetti to the broadcast center to do her headshot. She then houses that spaghetti.
Mattia sips on an espresso during his.
Truly the heroes we need during these times.
Mattia sips on an espresso during his.
Truly the heroes we need during these times.
January 2, 2026 at 1:46 PM
Folks, she brought a whole plate of spaghetti to the broadcast center to do her headshot. She then houses that spaghetti.
Mattia sips on an espresso during his.
Truly the heroes we need during these times.
Mattia sips on an espresso during his.
Truly the heroes we need during these times.
My daily audience while writing grant proposals
January 2, 2026 at 1:30 PM
My daily audience while writing grant proposals
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
The fun thing about watching the movie 2001 in 2025 is you realize HAL is just an LLM and so *obviously* it’s going to murder its crewmembers every few flights due to malformed JSON.
January 2, 2026 at 1:27 AM
The fun thing about watching the movie 2001 in 2025 is you realize HAL is just an LLM and so *obviously* it’s going to murder its crewmembers every few flights due to malformed JSON.
2025 was a tough year, but we are still here. To all academics out there, may 2026 be a great year! 🎉
a man singing into a microphone with the words but i get up again above him
Alt: a man singing into a microphone with the words "but i get up again" above him
media.tenor.com
January 1, 2026 at 10:46 PM
2025 was a tough year, but we are still here. To all academics out there, may 2026 be a great year! 🎉
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
PhD students in AI: Bell Labs Cambridge is hiring Summer 2026 interns in Social & #ResponsibleAI.
Paid, 3 months, visa support, publication-focused.
Work on AI ethics, risk, governance, and human values.
Deadline: Jan 11, 2026.
Paid, 3 months, visa support, publication-focused.
Work on AI ethics, risk, governance, and human values.
Deadline: Jan 11, 2026.
December 23, 2025 at 9:20 PM
PhD students in AI: Bell Labs Cambridge is hiring Summer 2026 interns in Social & #ResponsibleAI.
Paid, 3 months, visa support, publication-focused.
Work on AI ethics, risk, governance, and human values.
Deadline: Jan 11, 2026.
Paid, 3 months, visa support, publication-focused.
Work on AI ethics, risk, governance, and human values.
Deadline: Jan 11, 2026.
The 2025 @acsacconf.bsky.social is ready to start! Looking forward to three days of papers and discussions. Come say hi if you are around!
December 10, 2025 at 4:43 PM
The 2025 @acsacconf.bsky.social is ready to start! Looking forward to three days of papers and discussions. Come say hi if you are around!
Our paper "The Cost of Convenience: Identifying, Analyzing, and Mitigating Predatory Loan Applications on Android" was accepted at ASIACCS 2026! Work led by my student Olawale Akanji. Stay tuned for the PDF!
November 21, 2025 at 11:29 AM
Our paper "The Cost of Convenience: Identifying, Analyzing, and Mitigating Predatory Loan Applications on Android" was accepted at ASIACCS 2026! Work led by my student Olawale Akanji. Stay tuned for the PDF!
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
When people falsely claim that we are doing censorship work, I think, in many cases, what they are trying to do is stop us from trying to understand the harms they are trying to push...using bad information.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=kFoO...
m.youtube.com/watch?v=kFoO...
University of Cambridge Prof Jagolinzer on the need to understand the harms from disinformation
YouTube video by Cambridge Disinformation Summit
m.youtube.com
November 13, 2025 at 6:53 AM
When people falsely claim that we are doing censorship work, I think, in many cases, what they are trying to do is stop us from trying to understand the harms they are trying to push...using bad information.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=kFoO...
m.youtube.com/watch?v=kFoO...
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
Just accepted at #AAAI26 in Singapore: Our paper on estimating the *correctness* of LLM-generated code in the absence of oracles (e.g., a ground-truth implementation).
📝 arxiv.org/abs/2507.00057
with Thomas Valentin (ENS Paris-Saclay), Ardi Madadi, and Gaetano Sapia (#MPI_SP).
📝 arxiv.org/abs/2507.00057
with Thomas Valentin (ENS Paris-Saclay), Ardi Madadi, and Gaetano Sapia (#MPI_SP).
November 8, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Just accepted at #AAAI26 in Singapore: Our paper on estimating the *correctness* of LLM-generated code in the absence of oracles (e.g., a ground-truth implementation).
📝 arxiv.org/abs/2507.00057
with Thomas Valentin (ENS Paris-Saclay), Ardi Madadi, and Gaetano Sapia (#MPI_SP).
📝 arxiv.org/abs/2507.00057
with Thomas Valentin (ENS Paris-Saclay), Ardi Madadi, and Gaetano Sapia (#MPI_SP).
Great visiting KIT yesterday. Thanks for hosting me!
We are lucky to be visited by @gianlucastringhini.com who gave an insightful talk about research on online safety as part of our @kastel-labs.bsky.social distinguished lecture series: dls.kastel.kit.edu today -
Thanks a lot!
Thanks a lot!
November 6, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Great visiting KIT yesterday. Thanks for hosting me!
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
This is a remarkable case of Chinese authorities threatening a UK university into halting research on human rights violations, and the university acquiescing.
China intimidated UK university to ditch human rights research, documents show
Sheffield Hallam University apologises to Professor Laura Murphy for restricting her academic freedom.
www.bbc.com
November 3, 2025 at 6:44 AM
This is a remarkable case of Chinese authorities threatening a UK university into halting research on human rights violations, and the university acquiescing.
Looking forward to visiting Karlsruhe next week!
On Wednesday, November 5th, as part of our KASTEL Distinguished Lecture Series Prof. Gianluca Stringhini, PhD from Boston University will talk about ‘Improving the Moderation of False Information and Influence Campaigns on Social Media’.
Everybody is welcome and stay around for the Q&A afterwards.
Everybody is welcome and stay around for the Q&A afterwards.
October 30, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Looking forward to visiting Karlsruhe next week!
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
Exciting position @northeasternu.bsky.social ! Managing Policy Director at the new Institute for Information, & Democracy, please share with interested parties. northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career...
Managing Policy Director - Institute for Information, Internet, and Democracy
About the Opportunity JOB SUMMARY The Institute for Information, Internet, and Democracy seeks to support rigorous research on the problems of the contemporary information ecosystem, and to evaluate t...
northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
October 28, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Exciting position @northeasternu.bsky.social ! Managing Policy Director at the new Institute for Information, & Democracy, please share with interested parties. northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career...
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
"Vanderbilt is failing in its moral responsibility to push back against rising authoritarianism and political coercion."
My effort to convince Vanderbilt (and all universities) to take a stand for the rule of law, the Constitution, and our democracy.
www.tennessean.com/story/opinio...
My effort to convince Vanderbilt (and all universities) to take a stand for the rule of law, the Constitution, and our democracy.
www.tennessean.com/story/opinio...
Here's why Vanderbilt's response to the Trump higher ed 'compact' is not enough | Opinion
With the deadline looming for colleges to sign Trump's "compact," Vanderbilt must resist, says one university professor.
www.tennessean.com
October 24, 2025 at 12:32 PM
"Vanderbilt is failing in its moral responsibility to push back against rising authoritarianism and political coercion."
My effort to convince Vanderbilt (and all universities) to take a stand for the rule of law, the Constitution, and our democracy.
www.tennessean.com/story/opinio...
My effort to convince Vanderbilt (and all universities) to take a stand for the rule of law, the Constitution, and our democracy.
www.tennessean.com/story/opinio...
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
5. For example, research produced and funded by tech companies often either frames problems as user-driven, or explores solutions as the obligation of users (e.g. community notes). Seldom does it explore consequences of design, UX, or algorithmic implementation, let alone the business model.
October 24, 2025 at 1:01 AM
5. For example, research produced and funded by tech companies often either frames problems as user-driven, or explores solutions as the obligation of users (e.g. community notes). Seldom does it explore consequences of design, UX, or algorithmic implementation, let alone the business model.
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
🌟 Want to help shape #MADWeb 2026? Nominate yourself for the Program Committee! Deadline: Oct 31, 2025 ⏰ Consider applying even if you don't have extensive reviewing experience!
forms.gle/UovLWS78aa3t...
forms.gle/UovLWS78aa3t...
MADWeb 2026 PC Nomination Form
The web connects billions of devices, running a plethora of clients, and serves billions of users every day. To cope with such a widespread adoption, the web constantly changes. This is evident by som...
forms.gle
October 7, 2025 at 7:30 PM
🌟 Want to help shape #MADWeb 2026? Nominate yourself for the Program Committee! Deadline: Oct 31, 2025 ⏰ Consider applying even if you don't have extensive reviewing experience!
forms.gle/UovLWS78aa3t...
forms.gle/UovLWS78aa3t...
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
Here is a story about a AAAI paper that got 5 human reviews and 1 AI review. The AI generated review contained a page-long counterexample to a proof in the paper. The AI’s counter example contained hallucinated errors. How does one rebut an AI reviewer? www.linkedin.com/posts/omerbp...
#aaai26 | Omer Ben-Porat | 13 comments
#AAAI26
This year, in addition to five human reviewers, we also received an AI review.
The humans sort of liked the paper, so there's hope.
The AI, however, took a bolder approach: it confidently d...
www.linkedin.com
October 16, 2025 at 1:19 AM
Here is a story about a AAAI paper that got 5 human reviews and 1 AI review. The AI generated review contained a page-long counterexample to a proof in the paper. The AI’s counter example contained hallucinated errors. How does one rebut an AI reviewer? www.linkedin.com/posts/omerbp...
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
We turned our pain into a research paper… documenting how our collaborative research team (which included researchers at a public university) navigated a slew of public records requests (by some of the same folks who have since turned their attention towards attacking academia more broadly).
I'll be at #CSCW2025 presenting a paper on the impact of public records (FOIA) requests on multi-stakeholder collaborations — co-authored with Rachel Moran, @emmaspiro.bsky.social, and @katestarbird.bsky.social: dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1...
Privacy versus Transparency: Navigating Public Records Requests and Adversarial Dynamics in a Distributed Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration | Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Public records laws are standard for state and federal governments across the U.S.
Such laws rest on the core notion that transparency, enacted through access to governmental
documentation, will ensur...
dl.acm.org
October 17, 2025 at 4:31 PM
We turned our pain into a research paper… documenting how our collaborative research team (which included researchers at a public university) navigated a slew of public records requests (by some of the same folks who have since turned their attention towards attacking academia more broadly).
Reposted by Gianluca Stringhini
AI predicts rain. We predict trouble!
Today, Erik presents a novel attack on Google's latest AI weather model at #CCS2025. By changing only 0.1% of the observations, the attack can fabricate or suppress the prediction of extreme events, from hurricanes 🌀 to heat waves 🔥
1/4 @bifold.berlin
Today, Erik presents a novel attack on Google's latest AI weather model at #CCS2025. By changing only 0.1% of the observations, the attack can fabricate or suppress the prediction of extreme events, from hurricanes 🌀 to heat waves 🔥
1/4 @bifold.berlin
October 15, 2025 at 6:06 PM
AI predicts rain. We predict trouble!
Today, Erik presents a novel attack on Google's latest AI weather model at #CCS2025. By changing only 0.1% of the observations, the attack can fabricate or suppress the prediction of extreme events, from hurricanes 🌀 to heat waves 🔥
1/4 @bifold.berlin
Today, Erik presents a novel attack on Google's latest AI weather model at #CCS2025. By changing only 0.1% of the observations, the attack can fabricate or suppress the prediction of extreme events, from hurricanes 🌀 to heat waves 🔥
1/4 @bifold.berlin