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The FBI is using artificial intelligence in what it describes as “remote access operations,” FBI parlance for hacking, according to an FBI official. The comments, given at a national security and AI conference 404 Media was attending, give an unusually candid admission of the FBI’s use of hacking tools, which are often shrouded in secrecy….

Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine formally asked the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate and provide details on many of the surveillance technologies being used by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a copy of the letter shared with 404 Media. The…

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has publicly released an app that Sheriff Offices, police departments, and other local or regional law enforcement can use to scan someone’s face as part of immigration enforcement, 404 Media has learned. The news follows Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) use of another internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) app…

🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. After a decade-long excavation at a remote site in Kenya, scientists have unearthed evidence that our early human relatives continuously fashioned the same tools across thousands of generations, hinting that sophisticated…

This week, we’re going to try something new at 404 Media. Which is to say we’re going to try doing nothing at all. The TL;DR is that 404 Media is taking the week off, so this is the only email you’ll get from us this week. No posts on the website (except a scheduled one…

Welcome back to the Abstract! These are the studies this week that were exhumed from their graves, worked scatological miracles, and drew inspiration from X-rays. First, a diagnosis 200 years in the making confirms, once again, that Napoleon’s retreat from Russia was a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad time. Then: crystal pee, life-giving poo, and…

On Friday, thousands of NFTs that had once sold collectively for millions of dollars vanished from the internet and were replaced with the phrase “This content has been restricted. Using Cloudflare’s basic service in this manner is a violation of the Terms of Service.” The pictures eventually returned but their brief loss, as a result…

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…