Mark Nelson took the call in an immigration detention center—a place that, to him, felt just like prison. It had the same prison windows, the same tiny box rooms. By the time the phone rang, he’d already spent 10 days detained there, and he was wracked with worry that he would be forced onto a plane without the chance to say goodbye to his kids. So when his lawyers relayed the two options … [Read more...]
How the Pentagon Learned to Use Targeted Ads to Find its Targets—and Vladimir Putin
In 2019, a government contractor and technologist named Mike Yeagley began making the rounds in Washington, DC. He had a blunt warning for anyone in the country’s national security establishment who would listen: The US government had a Grindr problem.A popular dating and hookup app, Grindr relied on the GPS capabilities of modern smartphones to connect potential partners in the same city, … [Read more...]
How a Right-Wing Controversy Could Sabotage US Election Security
The meeting between top US election officials and their cybersecurity partners from the federal government almost went off without a hitch. Then Mac Warner spoke up.Warner, West Virginia’s Republican secretary of state, didn’t have a mundane logistical question for the government representatives, who were speaking at the winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State in … [Read more...]
A Vending Machine Error Revealed Secret Face Recognition Tech
Canada-based University of Waterloo is racing to remove M&M-branded smart vending machines from campus after outraged students discovered the machines were covertly collecting face recognition data without their consent.The scandal started when a student using the alias SquidKid47 posted an image on Reddit showing a campus vending machine error message, … [Read more...]
A Mysterious Leak Exposed Chinese Hacking Secrets
Today marks two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This week, we detailed the growing crisis in Eastern Ukraine, which is now littered with deadly mines. As it fights back the invading Russian forces, Ukraine’s government is working to develop new mine-clearing technology that could help save lives around the globe.A leaked document obtained by WIRED has revealed the … [Read more...]
Here Are the Secret Locations of ShotSpotter Gunfire Sensors
The gunshot-detection system ShotSpotter has for years drawn criticism from activists and academics who believe the company behind the system, SoundThinking, places its microphone sensors primarily in low-income communities of color. Now, a WIRED analysis of data leaked from the company reveals the secret locations of ShotSpotter sensors around the globe and the US communities most directly … [Read more...]
Leak Shows Alarm in Congress Over a Russian ‘Threat’ Is a Real Anomaly
A decision by US House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) chair Mike Turner to sound the alarm over space-based Russian military research was far more extraordinary than previously reported.A WIRED review of an internal messaging system used by the United States Congress shows that HPSCI rarely sends members invites to review classified documents and has not—in at least 15 years—alarmed lawmakers by … [Read more...]
Apple iOS 17.4: iMessage Gets Post-Quantum Encryption in New Update
Apple is launching its first post-quantum protections, one of the biggest deployments of the future-resistant encryption technology to date.Billions of medical records, financial transactions, and messages we send to each other are protected by encryption. It’s fundamental to keeping modern life and the global economy running relatively smoothly. However, the decades-long race to create vastly … [Read more...]
Anne Neuberger, a Top White House Cyber Official, Is Staying Surprisingly Optimistic
When Anne Neuberger stepped into the newly created role of deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology on the White House’s National Security Council at the start of the Biden administration, she was already one of the government’s most experienced cyber veterans.Neuberger spent a decade at the National Security Agency, serving as its first chief risk officer, and then … [Read more...]
Signal Finally Rolls Out Usernames, So You Can Keep Your Phone Number Private
For nearly a decade, cybersecurity professionals and privacy advocates have recommended the end-to-end encrypted communications app Signal as the gold standard for truly private digital communications. Using it, however, has paradoxically required exposing one particular piece of private information to everyone you text or call: a phone number. Now, that's finally changing.Today, Signal launched … [Read more...]
The Notorious Lockbit Ransomware Gang Has Been Disrupted by Law Enforcement
For the last four years, the LockBit ransomware group has been on an unrelenting rampage, hacking into thousands of businesses, schools, medical facilities, and governments around the world—and making millions in the process. A children’s hospital, Boeing, the UK’s Royal Mail, and sandwich chain Subway have all been recent victims.But LockBit’s hacking campaign has come to a juddering halt. A … [Read more...]
The Danger Lurking Just Below Ukraine's Surface
Oleksandr Kryvtsov had enough.The owner of an agricultural company in Hrakove, near Kharkiv, Kryvtsov found his land littered with land mines. That region of Ukraine, occupied by Russian forces for nearly eight months, had been pockmarked with explosive ordinances. The threat meant that farmers like Kryvtsov had to let their fields lay fallow. Even though Kryvstov’s fields were once part of … [Read more...]
How to Not Get Scammed Out of $50,000
Americans were warned this week about a potential “urgent threat” to the United States, which was later linked to a Russian effort to develop the capability to launch nuclear weapons in space. While no one has disputed the authenticity of the threat, WIRED has learned that the leak was part of a behind-the-scenes campaign to block privacy-focused reforms of a major US surveillance program known as … [Read more...]
SpaceX Launched Military Satellites Designed to Track Hypersonic Missiles
Two prototype satellites for the Missile Defense Agency and four missile-tracking satellites for the US Space Force rode a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into orbit Wednesday from Florida's Space Coast.These satellites are part of a new generation of spacecraft designed to track hypersonic missiles launched by China or Russia and perhaps emerging missile threats from Iran or North Korea, which are … [Read more...]
Leak of Russian ‘Threat’ Part of a Bid to Kill US Surveillance Reform, Sources Say
The latest botched effort at salvaging a controversial US surveillance program collapsed this week thanks to a sabotage campaign by the United States House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI), crushing any hope of unraveling the program’s fate before Congress pivots to prevent a government shutdown in March.An agreement struck between rival House committees fell apart on Wednesday after one side of the … [Read more...]
Elon Musk’s X Gave Check Marks to Terrorist Group Leaders, Report Says
A watchdog group's investigation found that terrorist group Hezbollah and other US-sanctioned entities have accounts with paid check marks on X, the Elon Musk–owned social network that still resides at the Twitter.com domain.The Tech Transparency Project (TTP), a nonprofit that is critical of Big Tech companies, said in a report on Wednesday that "X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, is … [Read more...]
Section 702 Surveillance Fight Pits the White House Opposite Reproductive Rights
One of the foremost women’s advocacy groups in the United States is urging members of Congress to support a ban on government agencies using private data brokers to acquire access to Americans’ private data without a warrant, a response that came late Tuesday following explosive revelations about the surveillance of women’s health clinics across the US.The National Partnership for Women & … [Read more...]
‘AI Girlfriends’ Are a Privacy Nightmare
You shouldn’t trust any answers a chatbot sends you. And you probably shouldn’t trust it with your personal information either. That’s especially true for “AI girlfriends” or “AI boyfriends,” according to new research.An analysis into 11 so-called romance and companion chatbots, published on Wednesday by the Mozilla Foundation, has found a litany of security and privacy concerns with the bots. … [Read more...]
A Backroom Deal Looms Over Section 702 Surveillance Fight
Twice in the past decade, legislation limiting the United States government’s domestic surveillance powers sailed through the US House of Representatives. Attached to bills that would ultimately become law, both of these pro-privacy amendments were killed off in the final hours of consideration—erased each time in secret meetings held among a select group of congressional power brokers. Capitol … [Read more...]
Satellite Images Point to Indiscriminate Israeli Attacks on Gaza’s Health Care Facilities
The world has witnessed a near-unprecedented and ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza during the first 129 days of the Israel-Hamas war. Despite their critical role in saving lives, hospitals and other health care facilities—which are protected under international law—have not been spared the widespread destruction in the Palestinian territory, according to new research.A study published Monday in … [Read more...]
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