Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Sinkholes and Site Seizures
This week, we discuss a ransomware gang, book bans, and infrastructure.
News
DC National Guard Is Being Trained to Carry Pistols Known to Fire at Random
The Sig Sauer P320 has a reputation for firing on its own. The National Guard is training to use them on the streets of D.C.
News
AI at the World’s Biggest Games Event Booked Random Meetings for Attendees
The Gamescom app spammed attendees with AI-generated meetings before organizers disabled it.
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.
wired
Chinese Livestreaming 'Virtual Human' Salespeople Are Outselling Their Human Counterparts
Built using AI technology from Baidu and DeepSeek, these virtual livestreamers sell everything from wet wipes to printers and work 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Features
How Tea’s Founder Convinced Millions of Women to Spill Their Secrets, Then Exposed Them to the World
A 404 Media investigation reveals how the man who started Tea, the ‘women dating safety’ app, tried to hire a female ‘face’ for the company and then hijack her grassroots community.
TikTok
TikTok Shop Sells Viral GPS Trackers Marketed to Stalkers
"If your girl says she’s just out with friends every night, you’d better slap one of these on her car."
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.
News
The Government Just Made it Harder for The Public to Comment on Regulations
A critical piece of tech infrastructure that lets people talk to the government has been disabled.
The Abstract
A Strand of Hair Just Changed What We Know About the Inka Empire
A 500-year-old human hair in a rare khipu challenges the long-held idea that only elite men created these knotted records in the Inka empire.
The Abstract
A New Discovery Might Have Just Rewritten Human History
Long before modern supply chains, ancient hominins were moving stone across long distances, potentially reshaping what we know about our evolutionary roots.
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
Pentagon Funded Experiment Develops Robots that Change by ‘Consuming’ Other Robots
Researchers say this 'robot metabolism' is an early step in giving AI biological style bodies.