Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Backdoors and the Miracle of Wikipedia
This week, we discuss Apple's iCloud, Wikipedia as a miracle of humankind, and good soup.
wired
The Murky Ad-Tech World Powering Surveillance of US Military Personnel
A Florida data broker told a US senator it obtained sensitive data on US military members in Germany from a Lithuanian firm, which denies involvement—revealing the opaque nature of online ad surveillance.
DOGE
DOGE Employees Ordered to Stop Using Slack While Agency Transitions to a Records System Not Subject to FOIA
Employees at Elon Musk's agency have been told "OMB is asking us to stop generating new slack messages starting now."
Podcast
Podcast: Inside Musk’s Government Takeover
We talk all about Musk's takeover of the federal government, including audio of a meeting we got touching a Musk ally's AI plans. Then, AI slop in libraries.
News
‘Things Are Going to Get Intense:’ How a Musk Ally Plans to Push AI on the Government
404 Media has obtained audio of a meeting held by Thomas Shedd, a Musk-associate who is now heading a team of government coders. In the call one employee pushed back and said one of the planned moves is an “illegal task.”
FOIA
Air Force Documents on Gen AI Test Are Just Whole Pages of Redactions
The Air Force paid a company that is doing generative AI work for the government. The Air Force won't say what it did, though.
News
The CDC’s Website Is Being Actively Purged to Comply With Trump DEI Order
“CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.“
News
Musk’s DOGE Brings in HR Consultant Focused on ‘Non-Woke’ DEI 'Aligned With Our Faith’
“It’s simply just a non-woke version, offering employers an alternative approach to diversity and inclusion.”
News
Sellers of Anom, the FBI's Secret Backdoored Phone, Plead Guilty
The pleas mean that “Afgoo,” the person who provided the FBI with the backdoored encrypted phone company in the first place, likely won’t have to testify and have their identity revealed in court.
FOIA
Here's the Video for Our Fifth FOIA Forum: Federal Records
Here is the video archive for our FOIA Forum where we went deep on getting federal government records.
Podcast
Podcast: The Truth Behind DeepSeek
We talk all about DeepSeek, the U.S. government memo metadata, and how GitHub is showing the U.S. government's transformation in real time.
News
Hackers Mined AT&T Breach for Data on Trump's Family, Kamala Harris
Hackers behind the breach of “nearly all” of AT&T customers’ metadata searched for records associated with members of the Trump family, Kamala Harris, and Marco Rubio’s wife.