When thousands of security researchers descend on Las Vegas every August for what's come to be known as “hacker summer camp,” the back-to-back Black Hat and Defcon hacker conferences, it's a given that some of them will experiment with hacking the infrastructure of Vegas itself, the city's elaborate array of casino and hospitality technology. But at one private event in 2022, a select group of … [Read more...]
Some of the Most Popular Websites Share Your Data With Over 1,500 Companies
Everywhere you go online, you’re being tracked. Almost every time you visit a website, trackers gather data about your browsing and funnel it back into targeted advertising systems, which build up detailed profiles about your interests and make big profits in the process. In some places, you’re tracked more than others.In a little-noticed change at the end of last year, thousands of websites … [Read more...]
Glassdoor Wants to Know Your Real Name
Using Glassdoor, the site famous for candid employee reviews that break through corporate facades, is less anonymous than it used to be.In July last year, the company added new social features integrated from Fishbowl, an app for work-related discussions acquired in 2021. Glassdoor has also changed its sign-up process to ask people to disclose their full name, job title, and employer; … [Read more...]
Automakers Are Telling Your Insurance Company How You Really Drive
How do you know the internet has a deepfake porn problem? Just look at copyright takedown requests. WIRED found this week that Google is receiving thousands of Digital Millennium Copyright Act complaints for deepfake nudes, most of which are published by just a handful of websites. Experts say the deluge of DMCA takedown requests is evidence that Google should delist the offending sites from … [Read more...]
Sinking Section 702 Wiretap Program Offered One Last Lifeboat
A bill introduced by senators Dick Durbin and Mike Lee to reauthorize the Section 702 surveillance program is the fifth introduced in the US Congress this winter. The authority is threatening to expire in a month, disrupting a global wiretapping program said to inform a third of articles in the President’s Daily Briefing—a morning “tour d’horizon” of US spies’ top concerns.But the stakes aren't … [Read more...]
The ‘Emergency Powers’ Risk of a Second Trump Presidency
Donald Trump appears to dream of being an American authoritarian should he return to office. The former US president, who on Tuesday secured enough delegates to win the 2024 Republican nomination, plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants and house scores of them in large camps. He wants to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy the military in cities across the nation to quell civil … [Read more...]
There Are Dark Corners of the Internet. Then There's 764
WIRED collaborated with Der Spiegel, Recorder, and The Washington Post on this reporting. Each wrote separate stories that the news organizations agreed to publish in tandem. This story contains descriptions of abuse, self-harm, murder, and suicide. Reader discretion is advised.It sounds like a cheap true-crime conspiracy: An international network of predators steeped in Satanism lure children … [Read more...]
Porn Sites Need Age-Verification Systems in Texas, Court Rules
Texas can enforce a law requiring age-verification systems on porn websites, the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled Thursday. The appeals court vacated an injunction against the law's age-verification requirement but said that Texas cannot enforce a provision requiring porn websites to "display health warnings about the effects of the consumption of pornography."In a 2-1 decision, … [Read more...]
US Lawmaker Cited NYC Protests in a Defense of Warrantless Spying
At a private meeting about the reauthorization of a major United States surveillance program late last year, the Republican chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee presented an image of Americans protesting the war in Gaza while implying possible ties between the protesters and Hamas, an allegation that was used to illustrate why surveillance reforms may prove detrimental to national … [Read more...]
Binance’s Top Crypto Crime Investigator Is Being Detained in Nigeria
In his years as a US federal agent, Tigran Gambaryan helped to lead landmark investigations that took down cryptocurrency thieves and money launderers, dark-web drug dealers, and even crypto-funded child exploitation networks. Now, in his post-government role at the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, he has become the target himself of a very different sort of federal crypto crackdown: For the past … [Read more...]
The 4 Big Questions the Pentagon’s New UFO Report Fails to Answer
After a year of eyebrow-raising headlines about government whistleblowers alleging that the military was running secret programs focused on alien spaceships and a months-long study and dogged investigative work through the shadows of classified Pentagon programs, the United States Defense Department announced Friday that it found no evidence that the government is covering up contact with … [Read more...]
Airbnb Bans All Indoor Security Cameras
Airbnb will soon ban hosts from watching their guests with indoor security cameras, as the company is reversing course on its surveillance policies.As of April 30, hosts around the world must remove indoor cameras and disclose other outdoor monitoring tech to guests before they book. Airbnb previously allowed hosts to install security cameras in common areas of a home, like hallways and living … [Read more...]
Google Is Getting Thousands of Deepfake Porn Complaints
The number of nonconsensual deepfake porn videos online has exploded since 2017. As the harmful videos have spread, thousands of women—including Twitch streamers, gamers, and other content creators—have complained to Google websites hosting the videos and tried to get the tech giant to remove them from its search results.A WIRED analysis of copyright claims regarding websites that host deepfake … [Read more...]
Russian Hackers Stole Microsoft Source Code—and the Attack Isn’t Over
For years, Registered Agents Inc.—a secretive company whose business is setting up other businesses—has registered thousands of companies to people who appear to not exist. Multiple former employees tell WIRED that the company routinely incorporates businesses on behalf of its customers using what they claim are fake personas. An investigation found that incorporation paperwork for thousands of … [Read more...]
Meta Abandons Hacking Victims, Draining Law Enforcement Resources, Officials Say
Forty-one state attorneys general penned a letter to Meta’s top attorney on Wednesday saying complaints are skyrocketing across the United States about Facebook and Instagram user accounts being stolen, and declaring “immediate action” necessary to mitigate the rolling threat.The coalition of top law enforcement officials, spearheaded by New York attorney general Letitia James, says the “dramatic … [Read more...]
Inside Registered Agents Inc., the Shadowy Firm Pushing the Limits of Business Privacy
Inside a drab one-story office building in Post Falls, Idaho, a little-known American company has built the machinery that enables hundreds of thousands of businesses to operate in near-total secrecy.The company, Registered Agents Inc., is a one-stop shop for people seeking to incorporate a business in any US state, often in those with advantageous tax policies, while obscuring their identities. … [Read more...]
Hackers Behind the Change Healthcare Ransomware Attack Just Received a $22 Million Payment
The ransomware attack targeting medical firm Change Healthcare has been one of the most disruptive in years, crippling pharmacies across the US—including those in hospitals—and leading to serious snags in the delivery of prescription drugs nationwide for 10 days and counting. Now, a dispute within the criminal underground has revealed a new development in that unfolding debacle: One of the … [Read more...]
The Privacy Danger Lurking in Push Notifications
Just days after an international law enforcement operation disrupted LockBit, the ransomware group reemerged with a new dark-web site where it threatened to release documents stolen from Fulton County, Georgia, where Donald Trump and 18 codefendants stand accused of a conspiracy to overturn the 2024 election. But by the time the deadline for Fulton County to pay arrived, all mention of the leak … [Read more...]
Here Come the AI Worms
As generative AI systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini become more advanced, they are increasingly being put to work. Startups and tech companies are building AI agents and ecosystems on top of the systems that can complete boring chores for you: think automatically making calendar bookings and potentially buying products. But as the tools are given more freedom, it also increases the … [Read more...]
The UK’s GPS Tagging of Migrants Has Been Ruled Illegal
The way the UK government has been tagging migrants with GPS trackers is illegal, the country’s privacy regulator ruled on Friday, in a rebuke to officials who have been experimenting with migrant-surveillance tech in both the UK and the US.As part of an 18-month pilot that concluded in December, the UK interior ministry, known as the Home Office, forced up to 600 people who arrived in the country … [Read more...]
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