Flock
Police Used Flock to Give a Man a Traffic Ticket
“CAPTURED ON FLOCK CAMERA 31 MM 1 HOLDING PHONE IN LEFT HAND.”
News
Ghost, Encrypted Phone for Criminals, Was an ‘Absolute Mess’
A security researcher managed to pull a list of Ghost users, resellers, and even customer support messages from an exposed server. It shows how as organized criminals move to making their own encrypted platforms, they might make vulnerable products.
News
Google Serving AI-Generated Images of Mushrooms Could Have 'Devastating Consequences'
AI-generated images of mushrooms that look nothing like the real species could spread misleading and dangerous information.
News
Privacy Service Optery Faces Backlash After Plan to Send OpenAI User Data
Optery initially planned to send users' data to OpenAI by default, but walked back the decision over the weekend.
News
Telegram Changes Policy, Says It Will Provide User Data to Authorities
In an update to its privacy policy, Telegram says it will now share IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities in response to valid orders. The change is a dramatic switch for the social network app, which has become a hotbed for criminals.
News
The Lost Isle of Moo-Deng-Sized Hippos
Also in The Abstract this week: world-vaporizing cosmic jets and “assisted sexual recruits” are fortifying coral reefs against heat waves.
Features
The Walls Are Closing in on the Snowflake Hacker
As security researchers circle around Judische, and authorities takedown his servers, how much longer will a hacker responsible for breaching Ticketmaster, AT&T, and many more companies remain free?
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Good Dogs and Joyous Games
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss good dogs, good games, getting documents and netsex.
News
‘Cold-Blooded Business’: Nintendo Is Patent Trolling Palworld Because It Got Too Big
Japan games industry analyst explains why Nintendo is going after Palworld, and why it’s probably going to win.
Generative AI
Project Analyzing Human Language Usage Shuts Down Because ‘Generative AI Has Polluted the Data’
Wordfreq shuts down because "I don’t think anyone has reliable information about post-2021 language usage by humans.”
Starship
Delivery Robot Knocked Over Pedestrian, Company Offered ‘Promo Codes’ to Apologize
When a Starship employee talked to the police, the report says, he asked for the employee’s information “so he could contact her and offer their insurance information for her injuries and ‘promo codes.’”
News
Criminals Keep Hacking Themselves, Letting Researchers Unmask Them
Infostealer malware is often hidden in pirated or cracked software, and hackers then post the harvested credentials and other data online. Criminals have been infected too.
News
Homemade Porn Site Promises Not to Train AI on Performers
Lustery, a site for consent-based homemade porn, has added a new clause to its contract promising not to replace human performers with AI without consent.