Agent detection and better stealth browsers: @usefoil Co-founder of @getcognito, acquired by @Plaid.
San Francisco, CA
Joined July 2008
- Tweets1.6K
- Following437
- Followers2.5K
- Likes1K
Pinned Tweet
Discovered a new method for detecting if someone is using Incognito in Chrome:
Write 512 tiny 1-byte responses into a scratch Cache API cache, then read:
navigator.storage.estimate().usageDetails.caches
Normal Chrome: ~393kb
Incognito: ~85kb
Why? When you're in incognito, Chrome writes to memory instead of disk, which leaves less metadata residue
Feels very much like we’re approaching the “rage against the machine” era
Businesses vs. personal agents
Government vs. abliterated models
People vs. ai
Most companies don't even have automatic CVE patching, let alone security agents running 24x7. The next few months will be extremely difficult for many
xitter.cf/thdxr/status/211179051…
Was excited to give Grok Bot a try, but saw it's $350/mo just to kick the tires. What's up with that @johnbai !?
CSS + canvas animations with Fable are *dramatically* better
One of the things Anthropic has RL'd into Fable is a frame stopper
Build a Fable animation and you'll notice it adds a URL anchor system (ex. # t=3.66) so the model can reliably screenshot at specific times
What are your favorite scraping, anti-detect, and AI agent browser services? Eg: @brightdata, @browser_use, @browserbase, @nottecore
Working on a report
You can detect if someone is using iCloud Private Relay super easily
Apple publishes a database of their egress IP addresses and the entire world's iCloud Private Relay traffic exits through ~105K IPv4 addresses.
I analyzed it and found some surprising stuff. Let's dig in:
But iCloud Private Relay users can rejoice: its traffic is typically associated with *lower* levels of fraud because it requires having a valid Apple ID with a working credit card.
So (good) fraud models treat this as a risk reducer, despite it being a VPN
You can find the raw data, straight from Apple, here:
mask-api.icloud.com/egress-i…
Follow me @alain for more opsec, browser security, and privacy/fingerprinting explorations
AI is still terrible at writing
One of the remaining disciplines where the proof-of-work of human sweat *is* the value
Same for design
Excited for @jgreze and team - looking forward seeing what Town becomes
xitter.cf/jgreze/status/20621786…
Today, we’re launching @TownAI: the AI assistant that learns you.
We’re coming out of beta with a $55M Series A led by @ARampell at @a16z, with participation from @KirstenGreen at @forerunnervc and continued support from @firstround, @altcap, and @conviction.
Right now, getting real value from AI means prompting, configuring, building workflows, managing agents.
We think that’s backwards.
The future of AI is a companion that already knows you and how you work. Town connects across your inbox, calendar, Slack, docs, messages, and workflows to understand what you need, then starts doing the work with you.
Drafting. Scheduling. Project tracking. Follow-ups. Context gathering. Multi-step tasks. And it only acts when you say so.
All adapting to your voice, priorities, routines, and relationships over time.
Your Townie is the AI assistant you actually need.
Underrated second-time founder GTM buff: people who will be your first customers because they want to invest
tired: gpt wrappers
wired: glp wrappers
Retatrutide phase 3 obesity trial just came out and the results are genuinely insane:
- 28.3% bodyweight lost on 12mg over 80 weeks
- 70.3 pounds on avg. or 31.9 kg
- 45.3% of patients hit 30%+ weight loss (this is bariatric surgery territory)
- 30.3% weight loss (85 lbs) at 104 weeks in higher-BMI patients
- 65.3% of 12mg patients dropped below the obesity BMI threshold
- 19% loss on 4mg over 80 weeks (47.2 lbs) with fewer dropouts than placebo (4.1% vs 4.9%)
- significant drops in blood pressure, triglycerides, non-HDL cholesterol, waist circumference, and hsCRP
- no cardiac or liver signals
Retatrutide is going to completely overshadow tirzepatide and semaglutide, and take the throne as the best-selling drug of all time.
Alain Meier retweeted
Excited to ship 2 new features in our Beacon anti-fraud product.
1: Data breach reports. See when your users' personal data shows up in data breaches
2: Search by account + routing number
These two products will be free to new & existing customers.
plaid.com/blog/fraud-defense…
Today, we're announcing something very simple: Sign up with Plaid.
That “simple” thing increases end-to-end sign up rates by 10 - 25%, and we're calling it Plaid Layer.
Here’s how we give you the Internet’s fastest, highest converting financial onboarding experience 🧵
1. 📱 You send us your user's phone number when they're signing up for your service. From that, Plaid tells you whether that user is in the Plaid network
2. ⚡ In-network users are given the choice to sign up instantly with Plaid. Layer authenticates the user, and then presents them everything from their name and date of birth to their SSN and their most relevant previously linked bank account
3. 🌐 Your user hits "Share" and instantly permissions their full identity so you can KYC them. This also links a bank account in one tap (for supported institutions)
This is a *massive* improvement in user onboarding. It's an 87% reduction in end to end financial onboarding time - KYC to account linking. And it works, today, for tens of millions of users who are already in our network.
Some of my favorite key features:
🔑 Next-level user authentication, powered by direct-to-carrier SIM authentication, our ML models for thwarting bad actors, Passkeys for seamless login, and our network of trusted devices
📊 You can make sure that only users who have *exactly the data you need* on file go through this experience. Everyone else uses your existing signup flow.
🎉 We only charge you when users successfully share their information and link an account with you. Our incentives are 100% aligned with yours.
🧠 We called it Layer because it's a layer that sits on top of your sign up flow that only appears when it benefits you and your users
It's available starting today. Check it out: plaid.com/blog/introducing-p…