Podcast
Podcast: The Underground Trade of Car Hacking Tech
The Flipper Zero is being modified to break into cars; the wave of 80s nostalgia AI slop; and how the Citizen app is using AI to write crime alerts.
News
Citizen Is Using AI to Generate Crime Alerts With No Human Review. It’s Making a Lot of Mistakes
Three sources described how AI is writing alerts for Citizen and broadcasting them without prior human review. In one case AI mistranslated “motor vehicle accident” to “murder vehicle accident.”
404 Media
404 Media at Two Years: How We've Grown, and What's Next
We're reflecting on the impact our journalism had in year two, how we've grown with your support, and what we aspire to accomplish in year three.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Our Second Anniversary Party!
This week, we have some party pics and musical selections from last night.
Features
Inside the Underground Trade of ‘Flipper Zero’ Tech to Break into Cars
“Kia Boys will be Flipper Boys by 2026,” one person in the reverse engineering community said.
Podcast
Podcast: The Inside Story of Tea
The inside story of how Tea undercut women's safety groups to get people to join its app; GPS trackers sold on TikTok; and Grok exposes its prompts.
News
Grok Exposes Underlying Prompts for Its AI Personas: ‘EVEN PUTTING THINGS IN YOUR ASS’
The website for Elon Musk's Grok is exposing prompts for its anime girl, therapist, and conspiracy theory AI personas.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Exercises in OSINT and Storage Pains
This week, we discuss OSINT for chat groups, Russell Crowe films, and storage problems.
News
ICE Adds Random Person to Group Chat, Exposes Details of Manhunt in Real-Time
The texts were sent to a group called “Mass Text” and show ICE using DMV and license plate reader data in an attempt to find their target, copies of the messages obtained by 404 Media show.
Podcast
Podcast: Why Are DHS Agents Wearing Meta Ray-Bans?
CBP's use of Meta Ray-Bans; the bargain that voice actors are having to make with AI; and how Flock tech is being essentially hacked into by the DEA.
FOIA
LAPD Eyes ‘GeoSpy’, an AI Tool That Can Geolocate Photos in Seconds
Emails obtained by 404 Media show the LAPD was interested in GeoSpy, an AI tool that can quickly figure out where a photo was taken.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Speculation, Distraction, and Smart Glasses
This week, we discuss Wikipedia's ethos and zooming in on a lot of pictures of cops' glasses.