Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced the rollout of GenAI.mil today in a video posted to X. To hear Hegseth tell it, the website is “the future of American warfare.” In practice, based on what we know so far from press releases and Hegseth’s posturing, GenAI.mil appears to be a custom chatbot interface for Google…
Instagram is generating headlines for users’ Instagram posts without their knowledge, seemingly in an attempt to get those posts to rank higher in Google Search results. I first noticed Instagram-generated headlines thanks to a Bluesky post from the author Jeff VanderMeer. Last week, VanderMeer posted a video to Instagram of a bunny eating a banana….
A man in Atlanta has been arrested and charged for allegedly deleting data from a Google Pixel phone before a member of a secretive Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unit was able to search it, according to court records and social media posts reviewed by 404 Media. The man, Samuel Tunick, is described as a…
On a recent immigration raid, a Border Patrol agent wore a pair of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, with the privacy light clearly on signaling he was recording the encounter, which agents are not permitted to do, according to photos and videos of the incident shared with 404 Media. Previously when 404 Media covered Customs and…
404 Media is making a print zine about the surveillance tactics used by ICE, and the ways people are resisting this technology. It will be 16 pages and printed on a risograph printer by a printshop in Los Angeles. It contains both reworked versions of our best reporting on ICE and some new articles for…
This week Sam is in conversation with Noelle Perdue. Noelle is a writer, producer, and internet porn historian whose works has been published in Wired, the Washington Post, Slate, and more, and you’re probably familiar with her work if you’ve been paying attention to the plot in your favorite pornographic films. She’s writing on Stubstack…
The creator of ICEBlock, a popular ICE-spotting app that Apple removed after direct pressure from the Department of Justice, is suing Attorney General Pam Bondi and other top officials, arguing that the demand violated his First Amendment rights. The move is the latest in the ongoing crackdown on ICE-spotting apps and other information about the…
Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that fought for their food, took one for the team, passed the extraterrestrial sugar, and got lost in an ancient haze. First, a story about the spiciest meatball in the animal kingdom. Then: ants are being interesting again, a new discovery about an old…
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 PC woes, voice deepfakes, and mutual aid. JOSEPH: Today I’m speaking at the Digital Vulnerabilities in the Age of AI Summit (DIVAS) (good name) on a panel…
A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) app that lets local cops use facial recognition to hunt immigrants on behalf of the federal government has been removed from the Google Play Store, 404 Media has learned. It is unclear if the removal is temporary or not, what the exact reason is for the removal, or if…
