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…
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recently spent nearly four million dollars on facial recognition technology in part to investigate people it believes have assaulted law enforcement officers, according to procurement records reviewed by 404 Media. The records are unusual in that they indicate ICE is buying the technology to identify people who might clash with…
Thomson Reuters, the media company which is also a data broker, has long provided underlying personal data for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) tools, according to documents obtained by 404 Media and sources. There are also indications its data is now part of the Palantir system ICE uses to find which neighborhoods to target. The…
On Monday, a publicly-sourced archive of more than 10,000 national park signs and monument placards went public as part of a massive volunteer project to save historical and educational placards from around the country that risk removal by the Trump administration. Visitors to national parks and other public monuments at more than 300 sites across…
Welcome back to the Abstract! You’ve probably been reading a lot about humans this week. Most of the news seems to revolve around humans. Fair enough, we do seem to get up a lot of hijinx. But now, we’re going to check in on what some other Earthlings have been doing with their time. Some…
Why you need to be very careful with this app.
This week, Sam talks to Emily Bender and Alex Hanna about the marketing ploys of “artificial intelligence,” why ridicule works to keep big tech’s claims in check, and what makes them hopeful for the future. They’re the authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want. Dr….
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 support and saying RIP to FPDS. JOSEPH: I think I might make this into a more full article in a couple weeks when it actually happens, but…
Sophos has been named one of Computerworld’s 2026 Best Places to Work in IT for the second consecutive year, earning 10th place among large organizations for its innovative, people-focused, and high-impact IT culture.
This week we start with Emanuel’s crazy story about WebinarTV, a company that is secretly recording Zoom meetings and turning them into AI-powered podcasts. It’s nuts. After the break, Joseph tells us about the eccentric billionaire who tried to become a cocaine kingpin. In the subscribers-only section, we lament the lose of the metaverse. Listen…
