Tech
Hacker linked to Epstein removed from Black Hat cyber conference website
Vincenzo Iozzo, a renowned hacker linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, is no longer listed on the website of Black Hat, one of the largest cybersecurity conferences in the world, nor on the Japanese security conference Code Blue.
As of Thursday, Iozzo does not appear on the official review board pages of Black Hat or Code Blue. He was still listed on both pages as of last week. Iozzo had been on the Black Hat review board since 2011, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In a statement shared with TechCrunch through a spokesperson, Iozzo said he told Black Hat that he “will not willingly resign” and welcomed “a full investigation.”
Spokespeople for Black Hat did not respond to requests for comment.
Iozzo, currently the founder and chief executive of cybersecurity startup SlashID, has had a long career in the industry. Iozzo authored one of the first manuals for hackers researching Apple’s mobile software, and in 2015, founded cybersecurity startup IperLane, which was later bought by CrowdStrike, leading him to serve as a senior director at the company for almost four years.
Iozzo’s name appears in more than 2,300 documents, some of which contain several emails, released on January 30 as part of the Department of Justice’s legally required effort to publish materials from its investigation into the late financier and sex trafficker.
Iozzo’s interactions with Epstein span from October 2014 until December 2018. In late 2018, the Miami Herald published news stories detailing allegations that Epstein abused more than 60 women, some of them teenage girls.
After these stories were published, newly released emails show Iozzo was trying to meet with Epstein at his New York town house.
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Among the new material published by the Justice Department, beyond the more than 2,300 documents mentioning Iozzo, there was also a report from an FBI informant who claimed Epstein had a “personal hacker.” The document is redacted and does not name the alleged hacker. However, some of the identifying details included in the document strongly suggest that the informant believed Iozzo was Epstein’s hacker. Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera reported on the emails earlier this month and named Iozzo as the person likely redacted in the informant document.
It’s important to note that the claims and allegations by the FBI informant were not confirmed by the FBI and may be partially wrong. Furthermore, there is no evidence in the emails that suggests Iozzo did anything unlawful for Epstein.
Iozzo said in his statement to TechCrunch that he “knew Epstein for professional reasons” and that he wished he had not, but he denied claims that he was Epstein’s hacker or did any hacking for him.
“We were introduced in 2014 when I was a 25-year-old at MIT fundraising for my startup, by people whom I trusted and admired. Because of this, I failed to ask the right questions that, in retrospect, seem obvious,” read the statement, sent by his spokesperson Joan Vollero. “I foolishly accepted the narrative that was presented to me by others that greatly minimized the magnitude of his horrific actions. I regret the past association and take full responsibility for not exercising greater judgment at the time.”
“My interactions with Epstein were limited to business opportunities that never materialized, as well as discussions of the markets and emerging technologies. I never observed nor participated in any illegal activity or behavior,” Iozzo added.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from girls as young as 14 and registered as a sex offender in Florida and New York. In 2018, new reports emerged that Epstein was allegedly a serial sex abuser and had trafficked underage girls at his private island. After these new reports, the Justice Department formally charged Epstein in 2019 of trafficking, exploiting, and abusing dozens of underage girls. Epstein later died in jail.
Neither Iozzo’s spokesperson Vollero, nor his attorney Emma Spiro, explained why Iozzo was removed from Black Hat’s website, but did not dispute the removal.
“Mr. Iozzo welcomed an independent investigation from Black Hat, rather than a knee-jerk removal decision, because he is confident that he would be cleared through that process,” said Vollero.
Code Blue spokesperson Ken-ichi Saito confirmed to TechCrunch that the conference removed Iozzo’s name from its review board. Saito said the conference had been “preparing for this update for several months” to remove Iozzo and two other review board members “who had not been active” and that the “the timing of our website update coincidentally overlapped with the public release of the Epstein documents.”
Tech
Revolut eyes valuation of up to $200B in eventual IPO
British neobank Revolut seems to be eyeing a major valuation bump when it eventually goes public. The company is targeting a market cap between $150 billion and $200 billion in an initial public offering, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous investor sources.
The fintech giant, which secured a full banking license in the United Kingdom in March after years of waiting, was most recently valued at $75 billion, up from $45 billion in 2024, in a secondary share sale that made it one of Europe’s most valuable private tech companies.
Revolut’s co-founder and CEO, Nik Storonsky, last week said that the company’s IPO was at least “two years away,” according to Bloomberg.
According to PitchBook and the Financial Times, the company is working on another secondary share sale, scheduled for the second half of 2026, that would value it at more than $100 billion.
As of November 2025, the company had raised a total of $5.89 billion, according to PitchBook. Revolut reported revenue of $6 billion in the financial year ended December 31, 2025, up from $4 billion in 2024. The company’s net profit grew to $1.7 billion, up from $1 billion in 2024, and counted 68.3 million retail customers at the end of 2025.
Revolut declined to comment.
Founded in 2015, Revolut offers a range of services spanning multi-currency accounts, payment and transfer services, crypto products, insurance, and more. The neobank has been pouring truckloads of cash into expanding its operations internationally, and recently applied for a banking license in the United States.
Besides the U.K., Revolut has a banking license in the European Union, and it operates in Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil, and the U.S. Revolut launched operations in India last October, is about to start operating in Colombia this year, and has received a banking license in Mexico.
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Tech
Amazon taps Sweden’s Einride for its electric big rigs
Einride is adding 75 of its electric heavy duty trucks to Amazon’s Relay freight network as part of a deal that gives the Swedish startup a toehold in the e-commerce giant’s operations. Einride will also provide charging infrastructure across five locations in the United States, under the agreement announced Tuesday.
Amazon isn’t buying or operating the electric trucks. Instead, Einride will own and manage (using its own Saga AI software) the trucks, which can be used by drivers in Amazon’s Relay freight network. Relay, launched in 2017, is an app that truck drivers can use to book hauling gigs with Amazon.
Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli, who took over as chief nearly a year ago, said working with Amazon is a powerful validation of the startup’s technology and strategic vision.
“By deploying our intelligent platform within one of the world’s most sophisticated logistics networks, we are accelerating growth, while continuing to build industry-leading operational expertise,” he said in a statement.
Einride has gained attention and investment for its two-pronged approach to freight. The company has developed and now operates a fleet of about 200 heavy-duty electric trucks for companies like Heineken, PepsiCo, and Carlsberg Sweden in Europe, North America, and the UAE. It has also developed autonomous pod-like trucks, which stand out for their cab-less design.
The agreement with Amazon doesn’t include the autonomous pods.
Einride has landed this agreement at a critical time: The startup is finalizing a merger with blank-check company Legato Merger Corp. and is expected to go public soon.
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While the agreement might not carry the same weight for Amazon, which has a market cap of $2.7 trillion, it does contribute to its low-carbon goals. Amazon has said it wants to reach net-zero carbon emissions across its operations by 2040.
“This rollout is an important step forward in addressing one of the toughest challenges we face in decarbonizing our transportation network — electrifying heavy-duty trucking,” an Amazon spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We’re excited to continue to collaborate with Einride and learn from these operations as the trucks hit the road.”
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Tech
YouTube expands its AI likeness detection technology to celebrities
YouTube is expanding its new “likeness detection” technology, which identifies AI-generated content, such as deepfakes, to people within the entertainment industry, the company announced on Tuesday.
The technology works similarly to YouTube’s existing Content ID system, which detects copyright-protected material in users’ uploaded videos, allowing rights owners to request removal or share in the video’s revenue.
Likeness detection does the same, but for simulated faces. The feature is meant to help protect creators and other public figures from having their identities used without their permission — a common problem for celebrities who find their likenesses have been used in scam advertisements.
The technology was first made available to a subset of YouTube creators in a pilot program last year before expanding more broadly to include politicians, government officials, and journalists this spring.
Now YouTube says the technology is being made available to those in the entertainment industry, including talent agencies, management companies, and the celebrities they represent. The company has support from major agencies like CAA, UTA, WME, and Untitled Management, which offered feedback on the new tool.
Use of the likeness detection tool does not require entertainers to have their own YouTube channels.
Instead, the feature scans for AI-generated content to detect visual matches of an enrolled participant’s face. Users can then choose to request removal of the video for privacy policy violations, submit a copyright removal request, or do nothing. YouTube notes that it won’t remove all content, as it permits parody and satire content under its rules.
In the future, the technology will support audio as well, the company says.
Related to this, YouTube has also been advocating for similar protections at a federal level, with its support for the NO FAKES Act in Washington, D.C. This would regulate the use of AI to create unauthorized re-creations of an individual’s voice and visual likeness.
The company hasn’t yet said how many removals of AI deepfakes have been managed by the tool so far, but noted in March that the amount of removals was still “very small.”
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