Two surveillance bills are barreling their way through the US House of Representatives this week. Both claim to achieve roughly the same goal: Enact sweeping reforms and save a dying surveillance program beleaguered by “persistent and widespread” abuse.Under this program, Section 702, the US government collects hundreds of millions of phone calls, emails, and text messages each year. An … [Read more...]
Ukraine Is Crowdfunding Its Reconstruction
While Ukraine remains locked in a brutal war with Russia, Ukraine’s government in Kyiv is already looking forward to a day when the country rebuilds itself from the ground up.It will be no small task. The World Bank estimates that, as of early this year, Ukraine’s rebuilding costs surpassed $410 billion. To recover from Russia’s bombing, shelling, and attacks against critical infrastructure, … [Read more...]
Elijah Wood and Mike Tyson Cameo Videos Were Used in a Russian Disinformation Campaign
For around $340, actor Elijah Wood can record you a personalized video wishing you happy birthday. John McGinley, best known for his role in medical TV show Scrubs, will give you a lengthy pep talk for around $475. Priscilla Presley will record a clip talking about everything from Christmas shopping to Graceland for around $200.These celebrities all use the video-sharing platform Cameo to quickly … [Read more...]
End-to-End Encrypted Instagram and Messenger Chats: Why It Took Meta 7 Years
Since 2016, the social behemoth now known as Meta has been working to deploy end-to-end encryption in its communication apps. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even promised in 2019 that the data privacy protection would roll out by default across all of the company's chat apps. In practice, though, it was a wildly ambitious goal fraught with technical and political challenges, and Meta has only been able to … [Read more...]
The Binance Crackdown Will Be an 'Unprecedented' Bonanza for Crypto Surveillance
One attraction of Binance, as the company grew from its 2017 founding into the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, was the firm's freewheeling flouting of rules. As it amassed well over 100 million crypto-trading users globally, it openly told the United States government that, as an offshore operation, it didn't have to comply with the country's financial regulations and … [Read more...]
Police Can Spy on Your iOS and Android Push Notifications
If you have push notifications turned on for sensitive apps, you may want to reconsider your settings.The United States government and foreign law enforcement can demand Apple and Google share metadata associated with push notifications from apps on iOS and Android, according to a US senator and court records reviewed by WIRED. These notifications can reveal which apps a person uses, along with … [Read more...]
The 23andMe Data Breach Keeps Spiraling
More details are emerging about a data breach the genetic testing company 23andMe first reported in October. But as the company shares more information, the situation is becoming even murkier and creating greater uncertainty for users attempting to understand the fallout.23andMe said at the beginning of October that attackers had infiltrated some of its users' accounts and piggybacked off of this … [Read more...]
A New Trick Uses AI to Jailbreak AI Models—Including GPT-4
When the board of OpenAI suddenly fired the company’s CEO last month, it sparked speculation that board members were rattled by the breakneck pace of progress in artificial intelligence and the possible risks of seeking to commercialize the technology too quickly. Robust Intelligence, a startup founded in 2020 to develop ways to protect AI systems from attack, says that some existing risks need … [Read more...]
US Lawmakers Want to Use a Powerful Spy Tool on Immigrants and Their Families
Americans with family overseas who hope to visit the United States may soon face an increased risk of being surveilled by their own government.Support in Congress is growing for intensified vetting procedures at the US border, which would see immigrants and foreign visitors subjected to the same levels of scrutiny as suspected terrorists and spies. A bill introduced last week by members of the … [Read more...]
Inside America's School Internet Censorship Machine
Around dinner time one night in July, a student in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Googled “suicide prevention hotline.” They were automatically blocked. The student tried again, using their Albuquerque Public Schools district-issued laptop to search for "contact methods for suicide." Blocked. They were turned away again a few hours later when attempting to access a webpage on the federally-funded … [Read more...]
How to Not Get Hacked by a QR Code
For every form of communication or messaging out there, you can be sure that scammers and hackers are trying to find a way to take advantage of you—from emails to texts to calls. This threat extends to QR (quick response) codes too.Earlier this year, we saw a QR code scam targeted at a major US energy company, for example, and security analysts are warning that these so-called quishing attacks are … [Read more...]
ChatGPT Spit Out Sensitive Data When Told to Repeat ‘Poem’ Forever
Brinkmanship escalated in the US Congress this week over strategies to reauthorize the government surveillance powers known as “Section 702,” as civil rights groups sounded the alarm about the consequences of the program and its potential renewal. A WIRED investigation of more than 100 restricted Telegram channels indicated that the communication app's bans on extremist discourse aren't effective … [Read more...]
When It Comes to January 6 Lawsuits, a Court Splits Donald Trump in Two
Donald Trump, the president, may well be immune from any civil action for allegedly inciting an attack against the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. But Donald Trump, the candidate, is not, an appellate court in the District of Columbia says.“When a first-term President opts to seek a second term, his campaign to win re-election is not an official presidential act,” says a ruling handed down this … [Read more...]
Anduril’s New Drone Killer Is Locked on to AI-Powered Warfare
After Palmer Luckey founded Anduril in 2017, he promised it would be a new kind of defense contractor, inspired by hacker ingenuity and Silicon Valley speed.The company’s latest product, a jet-powered, AI-controlled combat drone called Roadrunner, is inspired by the grim reality of modern conflict, especially in Ukraine, where large numbers of cheap, agile suicide drones have proven highly deadly … [Read more...]
Google Fixes a Seventh Zero-Day Flaw in Chrome—Update Now
The holiday season is here, but software firms are still busy issuing fixes for major security flaws. Microsoft, Google, and enterprise software firm Atlassian have released patches for vulnerabilities already being used in attacks. Cisco also patched a bug deemed so serious, it was given a near-maximum CVSS score of 9.9.Here’s everything you need to know about the patches released in … [Read more...]
The CDC's Gun Violence Research Is in Danger
Moments before the kickoff of the 118th United States Congress in January, incoming GOP leaders ripped down Nancy Pelosi’s post-insurrection magnetometers, which had stopped at least one Republican, Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, from entering the House floor with a handgun. The first meeting of the House Natural Resources Committee, held on February 1, devolved into partisan vitriol as … [Read more...]
Okta Breach Impacted All Customer Support Users—Not 1 Percent
In late October, the identity management platform Okta began notifying its users of a breach of its customer support system. The company said at the time that about 1 percent of its 18,400 customers were impacted by the incident. But in a massive expansion of this estimate early this morning, Okta said that its investigation has uncovered additional evidence that, in fact, all of its customers had … [Read more...]
OpenAI’s Custom Chatbots Are Leaking Their Secrets
You don’t need to know how to code to create your own AI chatbot. Since the start of November—shortly before the chaos at the company unfolded—OpenAI has let anyone build and publish their own custom versions of ChatGPT, known as “GPTs”. Thousands have been created: A “nomad” GPT gives advice about working and living remotely, another claims to search 200 million academic papers to answer your … [Read more...]
A Civil Rights Firestorm Erupts Around a Looming Surveillance Power Grab
United States lawmakers are receiving a flood of warnings from across civil society not to be bend to the efforts by some members of Congress to derail a highly sought debate over the future of a powerful but polarizing US surveillance program.House and Senate party leaders are preparing to unveil legislation on Wednesday directing the spending priorities of the US military and its $831 billion … [Read more...]
Elon Musk Is Giving QAnon Believers Hope Just in Time for the 2024 Elections
With no new messages from Q in almost three years and former US President Donald Trump facing mounting legal woes, one would think that the QAnon political conspiracy was losing steam. But, on November 22, Elon Musk may have renewed hope for conspiracists around the world: As the US was preparing for Thanksgiving, Musk tweeted “Q*Anon” out to his 164.5 million followers.Musk’s post, which has been … [Read more...]
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