🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. Astronomers think they have solved the puzzle of so-called “little red dots” in space, a population of bizarre objects at the very edge of the observable universe, according to a study…
When self-employed software engineer Nick Benson put out the call for dashcams online, he thought he’d get maybe 10 people to donate. More than 500 have shown up on his front porch in suburban Minneapolis. “The state apparatus, of course, has cameras everywhere,” Benson told 404 Media. “The citizens will also benefit from having the…
A police officer in Colorado used evidence from Flock cameras to wrongfully accuse an innocent woman for package theft, then yelled at her on the phone when she told him she had evidence that exonerated her, according to body camera footage obtained by 404 Media. The nightmare situation happened in September in Columbine Valley, Colorado…
We start this week with Joseph’s article about Webloc, a tool ICE bought that can monitor phones in entire neighborhoods. After the break, Emanuel and Sam talk about their recent coverage of Grok. In the subscribers-only section, Jason explains how police inadvertently unmasked millions of their surveillance targets through a Flock redaction error. Listen to…
AI generated influencers are sharing fake images on Instagram that appear to show them having sex with celebrities like LeBron James, iShowSpeed, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. One AI influencer even shared an image of her in bed with Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro. The images are AI generated but are not disclosed as such, and…
A handful of police departments that use Flock have unwittingly leaked details of millions of surveillance targets and a large number of active police investigations around the country because they have failed to redact license plates information in public records releases. Flock responded to this revelation by threatening a site that exposed it and by…
On the podcast this week, I talked to YouTuber Benn Jordan, who has done some of our favorite reporting on Flock, the automated license plate reader surveillance company. A couple months ago, he found vulnerabilities in some of Flock’s license plate reader cameras. I have been following Benn’s work for a while, and soon after…
Noelle Perdue recently joined us on the 404 Media podcast for a wide-ranging conversation about AI porn, censorship, age verification legislation, and a lot more. One part of our conversation really resonated with listeners – the idea that erotic chatbots are increasing the isolation so many people already feel – so we asked her to…
Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that lurked in the dark, pulsated with light, wagged a tail, and called it a night. First, scientists have yet again spotted a bizarre object in space that has never been seen before—the universe just keeps serving them up. Then: news from the biggest…
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 viewing terrible images online and giving out zines at a benefit show. EMANUEL: I’ve seen a lot of terrible videos in my years online but by far…
