Building something new for preventing fraud from AI agents. Co-founder of @getcognito, acquired by @Plaid.
Joined July 2008
- Tweets 1,635
- Following 443
- Followers 2,520
- Likes 1,005
95 Photos and videos
Pinned Tweet
Jun 4
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
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Jun 12
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
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Jun 6
What are your favorite scraping, anti-detect, and AI agent browser services? Eg: @brightdata, @browser_use, @browserbase, @nottecore
Working on a report
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Jun 5
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:
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Jun 5
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
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Jun 5
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
Jun 5
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:
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Jun 4
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
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Jun 3
Excited for @jgreze and team - looking forward seeing what Town becomes
x.com/jgreze/status/20621786…
Jun 3
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.
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Jun 2
Underrated second-time founder GTM buff: people who will be your first customers because they want to invest
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May 22
tired: gpt wrappers
wired: glp wrappers
May 21
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.
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Alain Meier retweeted
7 Aug 2024
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…
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18 Jun 2024
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 🧵
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18 Jun 2024
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.
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18 Jun 2024
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…
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24 May 2024
We’re so back
24 May 2024
.@NintendoAmerica just announced they are opening a second store in the U.S. — right here in the ❤️ of San Francisco. This is great news for Union Square and fans from everywhere! We’re excited for San Francisco’s future and look forward to welcoming this iconic brand to our City.
nintendo.com/us/whatsnew/nin…
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8 Feb 2024
Junior manager mistake: the goal of a leader isn't to make your team happy
It's to make them feel like the company is winning, and that they're contributing to that. Happiness usually follows, but is not the goal in and of itself.
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25 Jan 2024
gimme that imax google doc. im ready to mainline product review documents. snort engineering specs and engulf my vision in insightful google comments starting with "I would like to challenge you all to think holistically about..."
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