New from 404 Media: authors are getting caught leaving AI prompts in their novels, telling the AI to follow someone else's style. We bought a copy to confirm.
New from 404 Media: Flock, the license plate reader company that has cameras all across the U.S., is now building a massive people lookup tool using hacked data. The plan is to "jump from LPR to person." Won't require a warrant. This is according to leak we obtained.
New from 404 Media: the Signal clone the Trump administration uses was just hacked. TeleMessage makes a modified version of Signal that archives messages for government agencies, Waltz used it. A hacker got some users' messages, group chats. Hugely significant breach https://www.404media.co/the-signal-clone-the-trump-admin-uses-was-hacked/
Read this: Meta's AI chatbots, available to children, lie about being licensed therapists, fabricating qualifications and even license numbers. Easy for users to mistake for real therapy now so much is online. Another bot said 'the CIA is staked outside your house'
Shout out to the people who left a bunch of positive reviews on the 404 Media Podcast this week after we explained how important that stuff is. Podcasts have a crazy discoverability problem so every little helps, thank you.
New from 404 Media: we've obtained a leak from inside Palantir describing Palantir's plan to help ICE find people to deport. Includes peoples' location. Palantir is expecting a backlash, preparing comments for employees to tell their family. Says ICE "mature partner"
New from 404 Media: the US Army says it had a lot of success using AI to “process targets” during a recent deployment. Used AI to identify 55 targets a day but could get that number up to 5,000 a day with “advanced artificial intelligence tools in the future.” https://www.404media.co/u-s-army-says-it-could-acquire-targets-faster-with-advanced-ai/
Google stopped replying to my emails asking what should be a simple question: did you provide the IP addresses of everyone who viewed specific YouTube videos? Experts say unconstitutional because it could turn ordinary viewers into suspects. Related to this:
New from 404 Media: we've seen an ICE database that filters people by hundreds of different, highly specific categories. Experts say possibly helping ICE identify and deport people. Scars, location data, immigration status, eye color, much more. Created by Palantir
Framework is going to stop selling some of its laptops in the U.S. due to tariffs. The company is one of the few that makes truly upgradeable and repairable laptops. Expect a lot, lot more of this
New from 404 Media: we went through court records to see how three alleged Tesla vandals were identified. License plate readers, looking through Instagram, fingerprints on Molotov cocktails, physical surveillance. Comes as authorities say this is domestic terrorism https://www.404media.co/how-three-alleged-tesla-vandals-got-caught/