Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Storage Woes and RSS
This week, we discuss storage, RSS, and a big reporting project.
ICE
ICE Plans to Develop Own Smart Glasses to ‘Supplement’ Its Facial Recognition App
A DHS official and another person who attended a recent conference described the plans to 404 Media.
Features
‘HELLO BOSS’: Inside the Chinese Realtime Deepfake Software Powering Scams Around the World
404 Media has obtained a copy of ‘Haotian AI’, a popular piece of realtime deepfake software marketed to scammers. It can turn a fraudster's face into anyone else's on WhatsApp, Zoom, and Teams.
Podcast
Podcast: Flock Used Cameras at a Children’s Gymnastics Center for a Sales Pitch
A Flock sales pitch; a retracted paper on ChatGPT; and Chinese interference in RightsCon.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Big Questions of Consciousness
This week, we discuss a wild message, a new anthology, and a visit to a museum.
cheating
People Are Selling Kills of Marathon’s Hardest Boss on eBay
The Compiler takes a serious amount of time, skill, and luck to get to. Someone on eBay is selling an easy fix.
DHS
DHS Plans to Buy More Predator-Style Drones
CBP is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on more high-powered surveillance drones, and other components of DHS may start their own fleet of MQ-9 drones as well.
Impact
Apple Fixes Bug That Let FBI Extract Deleted Signal Messages After 404 Media Coverage
The move comes directly in response to 404 Media’s coverage about how the FBI was able to recover incoming Signal messages from an iPhone because the messages were saved in the device’s notification storage.
Podcast
Government Hacking Tools Are Now in Criminals' Hands (with Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai)
Here's what happened when powerful hacking tools from one of the most trusted vendors ended up in the wrong hands.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Jazz and Journalism
This week, we discuss the Madonna-whore algorithm, reader tips, and jazz.
Impact
Thomson Reuters Shareholders Demand Investigation into ICE Contracts
The shareholders explicitly cited multiple 404 Media investigations, including one that showed Thomson Reuters' CLEAR is integrated with a tool ICE uses to find neighborhoods to target.
FOIA
Emails Reveal Space Force’s Hardest Mission Is Writing a Song
Internal Space Force emails obtained by 404 Media show the work it takes to have a government agency make a new theme song. A general even wanted to start the whole thing over again.