This article was produced with support from WIRED. Last year, a joint investigation revealed that a Florida-based data broker, Datastream Group, was selling highly sensitive location data that tracked United States military and intelligence personnel overseas. However, at the time, the origin of that data remained unknown. Now, a letter sent to US senator Ron Wyden’s office…
On Tuesday, a judge ordered the Department of Health and Human Services, Center for Disease Control, and Food and Drug Administration to restore several of the webpages they removed following President Trump’s executive order attacking diversity, equity and inclusion. The health agencies have until 11:59 p.m. on February 11 to restore the pages to how…
Senator and Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin has sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking about his company’s role in directing traffic to apps that use artificial intelligence to generate nonconsensual nude images. Specifically, Durbin’s letter cites 404 Media’s reporting about Crushmate, a so-called “nudify” app that has repeatedly…
The Wikimedia Foundation is building new tools that it hopes will help Wikipedia editors stay anonymous in part to avoid harassment and legal threats as Elon Musk and the Heritage Foundation ramp up their attacks on people who edit Wikipedia. Some of the tactics have been pioneered by Wikimedia in countries with authoritarian governments and…
A new paper from researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University finds that as humans increasingly rely on generative AI in their work, they use less critical thinking, which can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.” “[A] key irony of automation is that by mechanising routine tasks and leaving…
Welcome back to the Abstract! Since we are all super-chill and bereft of any existential dread these days, let’s take a moment to envision the grand-daddy of all apocalyptic scenarios: Death by asteroid. We have a small rock potentially incoming in December 2032 and a big rock potentially incoming in September 2182. Pick your fighter! …
Donald Trump fired National Archives director Colleen Shogan Friday night, she said in a LinkedIn post and confirmed to 404 Media. “It was an honor and privilege to serve as the 11th Archivist of the United States,” Shogan told 404 Media. “I did so with integrity every day.” Earlier on LinkedIn, Shogan wrote: “This evening,…
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 “staying out of politics” and what it means to be a tech news publication. EMANUEL: I’m very proud of our output for the last few weeks. When…
While responding to the most damaging wildfires in the history of California, FEMA employees received an order “for immediate compliance” this week that states they must immediately change their vocabulary to comply with the Trump Administration’s preferred terminology on gender and immigration. For example, FEMA employees are no longer allowed to call undocumented immigrants “migrants”…
Wednesday night, ABC News reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio “has been the acting archivist” at the National Archives and Records Administration “since shortly after President Trump’s inauguration.” The idea that Rubio might be their new boss—and has been their boss, apparently, for weeks—is news to National Archives employees and apparently to its current…
