Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Freaking Out
This week, we discuss inbox slop, Claude cults, and more.
Flock
Federal Judge Rules a Flock Search Was ‘Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance’ and Unconstitutional
Flock’s nationwide network is quickly “approaching dragnet-type law enforcement practice” and the cop should have got a warrant, the judge wrote.
Podcast
Podcast: The FBI Was Hacked. We’ve Seen the Data
The massive FBI hack; a company wants to add facial recognition onto Flock; and Muse in some cases is actually just people.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Freaking Out
This week, we discuss inbox slop, Claude cults, and more.
Newsletters
'Everything but censorship'
A look at the state of student journalism in light of the Cornell sexual assault case, and much more.
FOIA
How Schools and Universities Try to Censor Student Journalists
As the Cornell 7 case highlights the importance of student journalism, public records reveal how schools try to censor on-campus news outlets.
Hacking
Cops Can Bypass iPhone’s Automatic Reboot to Get Into Locked Phones, Leaked Video Claims
Magent Forensics, the owner of the GrayKey phone unlocking tool, says it can bypass an iPhone rebooting feature that was locking cops out.
AI
Someone ‘Torturing’ LLMs in a Robot Prison Has Triggered the Dumbest Debate in AI Yet
The "AI Torture Chamber" has opened an upsetting and absurd window into the effective altruist obsession with "model welfare."
AI
Lawyer Cites ChatGPT-Invented Fake Witnesses in Murder Appeal
"Do you watch the news? Do you listen to the radio? Do you read anything about what's going on in the world?” one of the judges asked the lawyer, who submitted false testimony and witnesses after using ChatGPT.
Cameras
USPS To Put Cameras in Trucks That Scan Roads for ‘Community Safety’
USPS says the cameras, put on USPS truck dashboards, will scan roads, signs, and more.
Deepfakes
Internet Infrastructure Services Empower Deepfake Abuse, New Study Finds
Cloudflare, Google, and Proton were among the "dominant" infrastructure providers to sites dedicated to hosting abusive content, the study found.
Newsletters
How the Feds Get Your Data
How local cops are forced to feed their license plate data to the feds, the two loudest birds on the planet, and a very strange video from the FBI.
Flock
How Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Massive Federal Surveillance Program
How the federal government built a massive database of license plate reader data through an anti-drug trafficking program.