For years, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has been dogged by rumors of malfeasance and federal investigations. Today, in a set of accusations that will rock the already tumultuous world of crypto, the US Department of Justice revealed criminal charges against the company and its chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, claiming they enabled the laundering of vast flows of dirty … [Read more...]
Secretive White House Surveillance Program Gives Cops Access to Trillions of US Phone Records
A little-known surveillance program tracks more than a trillion domestic phone records within the United States each year, according to a letter WIRED obtained that was sent by US senator Ron Wyden to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sunday, challenging the program’s legality.According to the letter, a surveillance program now known as Data Analytical Services (DAS) has for more than a decade … [Read more...]
The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry
If you work at a spy agency tasked with surveilling the communications of more than 160 million people, it’s probably a good idea to make sure all the data in your possession stays off the open internet. Just ask Bangladesh’s National Telecommunication Monitoring Center, which security researchers found connected to a leaky database that exposed everything from names and email addresses to cell … [Read more...]
Inside the Race to Secure the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix
Every Formula 1 race weekend is essentially a pop-up event in a different city around the world, bringing 10 teams, their cars, and their entire mobile infrastructure to Australia, Singapore, Monaco, and beyond. This weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix is especially unscripted, though, because the event is Formula 1's debut in Sin City. Cold weather and a rogue drain cover on the track have … [Read more...]
The Bin Laden Letter Is Being Weaponized by the Far Right
A number of users have posted TikToks in recent days that share parts of Osama bin Laden’s 2002 “Letter to America,” where the deceased al Qaeda leader said the attacks on September 11, 2001, were justified. Posters used it to critique US foreign policy and have claimed that the letter changed their perspective. But while some have questioned the actual virality of these posts as conversations … [Read more...]
US Congress Report Calls for Privacy Reforms After FBI Surveillance 'Abuses'
A report compiled by the Republican majority members of the United States House Intelligence Committee says that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation should be required under the law to obtain a “probable cause warrant” before scouring the database of a controversial foreign intelligence surveillance program for information related to domestic crimes.The Section 702 program, authorized … [Read more...]
Running Signal Will Soon Cost $50 Million a Year
The encrypted messaging and calling app Signal has become a one-of-a-kind phenomenon in the tech world: It has grown from the preferred encrypted messenger for the paranoid privacy elite into a legitimately mainstream service with hundreds of millions of installs worldwide. And it has done this entirely as a nonprofit effort, with no venture capital or monetization model, all while holding its own … [Read more...]
How to Opt Out of Facebook’s Latest Two-Factor Authentication Change
Meta recently changed how two-factor authentication works for Facebook and Instagram. You might have received a notification about this, but it was easy to miss in the platform’s sea of red alerts. OK, so what’s different? “Any devices you’ve frequently used Facebook on in the past two years will be automatically trusted,” reads Meta’s updated settings page. This means it’s automatically adjusted, … [Read more...]
A Spy Agency Leaked People's Data Online—Then the Data Was Stolen
The list of data is long. Names, professions, blood groups, parents’ names, phone numbers, the length of calls, vehicle registrations, passport details, fingerprint photos. But this isn’t a typical database leak, the kind that happens all the time—these categories of information are all linked to a database held by an intelligence agency.For months, the National Telecommunication Monitoring Center … [Read more...]
Google’s New Titan Security Key Adds Another Piece to the Password-Killing Puzzle
Passwords are a woefully insecure—and frustrating—authentication technology, but after decades of digital use, they’re ubiquitous. Recently, though, the global tech industry has been working to promote a simpler and more secure alternative known as passkeys. Along with its other initiatives to champion the login tech, Google announced today that it is launching a new version of its Titan hardware … [Read more...]
The QAnon Shaman Isn’t Even the Most Extreme Candidate in His Race for Congress
The man who became a figurehead of the January 6 Capitol riot is planning to run for Congress in Arizona, and he may not even be the most extreme candidate on the ballot.Jacob Chansley, a January 6 rioter known as the QAnon Shaman who wore face paint and horns to breach the Capitol, pleaded guilty to taking part in the riot. Last week, Chansley filed a statement of interest to run for a seat in … [Read more...]
Social Media Sleuths, Armed With AI, Are Identifying Dead Bodies
In 2021, an unidentified Black woman died by suicide after jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. She was wearing hot pink nail polish, had a pink left eyebrow piercing and several tattoos—all distinguishing features that should have made it easier to identify her. Two years later, her identity is still unknown.The tragedy of unidentified cadavers is something that Rionna Lee had been thinking about for … [Read more...]
Asian Americans Raise Alarm Over ‘Chilling Effects’ of Section 702 Surveillance Program
Dozens of prominent Asian American groups are asking United States lawmakers this morning to hold fast in the face of an anticipated campaign by congressional leaders to extend the Section 702 surveillance program by securing it, like a rider, to another “must pass” bill.Sixty-three groups across the country representing and allied with Asian American and Pacific Islander communities have signed a … [Read more...]
CISA Has a New Road Map for Handling Weaponized AI
Last month, a 120-page United States executive order laid out the Biden administration's plans to oversee companies that develop artificial intelligence technologies and directives for how the federal government should expand its adoption of AI. At its core, though, the document focused heavily on AI-related security issues—both finding and fixing vulnerabilities in AI products and developing … [Read more...]
Fermi’s Paradox Proves There’s No Government Alien Conspiracy Around Roswell
Across the 75 years since something—something—crashed outside Roswell in early July 1947, the very name itself has taken on a life of its own: Today, it’s shorthand for UFOs, extraterrestrials, and a vast government conspiracy, perhaps even where the very idea of the deep state itself was born. The city of 50,000 in southeastern New Mexico, about three hours from Albuquerque and El Paso, has … [Read more...]
US Privacy Groups Urge Senate Not to Ram Through NSA Spying Powers
Some of the United States’ largest civil liberties groups are urging Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer not to pursue a short-term extension of the Section 702 surveillance program slated to sunset on December 31.The more than 20 groups—Demand Progress, the Brennan Center for Justice, American Civil Liberties Union, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice among them—oppose plans that would allow … [Read more...]
The Mirai Confessions: Three Young Hackers Who Built a Web-Killing Monster Finally Tell Their Story
Early in the morning on October 21, 2016, Scott Shapiro got out of bed, opened his Dell laptop to read the day’s news, and found that the internet was broken.Not his internet, though at first it struck Shapiro that way as he checked and double-checked his computer’s Wi-Fi connection and his router. The internet.This article appears in the December 2023/January 2024 issue. Subscribe to … [Read more...]
Signal Is Finally Testing Usernames
Drones, hidden cameras, thermal vision scopes—these are just a few examples of the high-tech equipment recommended by the animal liberation group Direct Action Everywhere, according to a manual released by the organization this week. The document, which was reviewed by WIRED, is a rare glimpse into how the organization is using tech to target factory farms in often brazen operations that have … [Read more...]
Senate Leaders Are Trying to Extend a Controversial NSA Surveillance Program
Leaders in the United States Senate have been discussing plans to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) beyond its December 31 deadline by amending a must-pass legislation this month.A senior congressional aide tells WIRED that leadership offices and judiciary sources have both disclosed that discussions are underway about saving the Section 702 program in the … [Read more...]
The NSA Seems Pretty Stressed About the Threat of Chinese Hackers in US Critical Infrastructure
The United States National Security Agency is often tight-lipped about its work and intelligence. But at the Cyberwarcon security conference in Washington DC on Thursday, two members of the agency’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center had a “call to action” for the cybersecurity community: Beware the threat of Chinese government-backed hackers embedding in US critical infrastructure.Alongside its … [Read more...]
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