The U.S., founded to thwart an oppressive monarchy, operates the most far-reaching and powerful surveillance machine in world history. san.com/cc/in-the-mo...

Canadian hacker Aubrey 'Kirtaner' Cottle has been sentenced to 18 months after pleading guilty to charges related to the 2021 hack of the Texas GOP website. Cottle will serve five months and three weeks after having his sentence reduced by time served. www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...

New from 404 Media: Madison Square Garden made a dossier on activists who have opposed the venue's facial recognition program. MSG scans faces of people so some can be arbitrarily denied entry. Dossier includes specific activists, their contact info, tweets, etc www.404media.co/madison-squa...

NEW: A spyware and hacking tools maker released details of an unpatchable flaw in Apple chips that could potentially allow hackers to make a jailbreak for older devices. The flaw, dubbed usbliter8, can help someone with physical access to devices up to the iPhone 11 to unlock and break into them.

Officially presenting "Leaking and Investigating the Epstein Files" at @hope.net with @mikaelthalen.bsky.social, @mazmhussain.bsky.social, and @ryangrim.bsky.social www.hope.net/talks/#Leaki...

NEW: Aubrey Cottle, the Canadian hacker known as "Kirtaner," has pled guilty to charges related to the 2021 hack of the Texas Republican Party. Prosecutors want 2.5 years. Cottle, whose been in jail since October, wants time served. Cottle is also facing charges in the U.S. san.com/cc/hacker-pl...

NEW: Dialog—the secretive, invite-only organization of elites founded by Peter Thiel, often referred to as the Bilderberg Group for tech—exposed the private information of attendees to its annual meeting this year in Ireland. san.com/cc/peter-thi...

New: Cops keep getting arrested for using Flock to stalk people. Seemingly every week there's a new case, the details usually similar. Cops use unfettered access to Flock to surveil an ex. They most often search their plates hundreds of times over course of months www.404media.co/cops-keep-ge...

New: the FCC is trying to ban burner phones by forcing all telecoms to store ID information on all new and renewing customers. That includes a government issued ID number. Massive privacy-impacting change “We never thought that would happen here,” the ACLU says www.404media.co/fcc-wants-to...

NEW: While Meta publicly said it was still deciding whether and how to deploy facial recognition in its smart glasses, the company was quietly distributing it to millions of users. WIRED found an unreleased facial-recognition system embedded in the Meta's AI companion app. w/ @dell.bsky.social

NEW: A Ransomware gang has published over 11,000 internal files from Mike Lindell's company MyPillow. Prior to the leak, Lindell told me that he guaranteed no such hack had taken place. When I texted him photos of the files today, he didn't respond. More on the files here: san.com/cc/mike-lind...

NEW: Mike Lindell denies claims made by a ransomware gang that his company MyPillow was hacked. "This is another hit job by outside sources because I'm running for governor," he told me. "We are the most secure company in this country." The ransom deadline is Friday. san.com/cc/mike-lind...

NEW: A ransomware gang claims to have hacked 'MyPillow," the company founded by 2020 election conspiracy theorist & Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Mike Lindell. The hackers have threatened to leak the company's data on Friday if a ransom isn't paid. san.com/cc/mike-lind...

NEW: 'BusPatrol' put AI cameras in tens of thousands of school buses to catch people who overtake parked buses. Now, according to leaked documents, BusPatrol plans to scan all license plates buses pass and give that data to law enforcement. Think, Flock on wheels www.404media.co/buspatrol-pu...

NEW: “Anti-tech extremism” is now actively being monitored by US law enforcement as frustration over AI and data centers percolate across the country, according to records obtained by @wired.com. @drboguslaw.bsky.social has the scoop. No paywall bc FOIA www.wired.com/story/us-law...

NEW: Trump Mobile finally confirms that it was exposing customers' names, email addresses, mailing addresses, and cellphone numbers. The company blamed a third-party provider and said it found no evidence that credit card numbers, SSNs, or other financial information spilled online.

wait, the FBI Director has a personal merch website???

NEW: FBI Director Kash Patel's personal merchandise website was taken offline today after it was revealed that hackers had hijacked it to trick visitors into downloading malware. san.com/cc/kash-pate...

NEW: In the morning, lawmakers plan to introduce an amendment to a $580 billion transportation bill that would make federal highway funds contingent on states and cities killing off their automated license plate reader programs, i.e., Flock, in most cases.

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New --> Hackers have breached automatic tank gauges (ATGs) at gas stations in multiple states. US officials suspect Iran. ATGs monitor the amount of fuel in storage tanks. www.cnn.com/2026/05/15/p...

NEW: A group of Democratic senators are pushing back on attempts by the Department of Homeland Security to develop its own smart glasses for biometric identification. "DHS should immediately abandon any plans it has to develop this technology," the senators said. san.com/cc/dhs-is-wo...

NEW: A tool known as the Apocalypse Early Warning System alerts users to unusual spikes in private jet & military aircraft activity, framed by its creator as a potential signal of insider knowledge about major events. san.com/cc/is-the-ap...

NEW: The Iranian-linked hacker group Handala has leaked hundreds of thousands of emails and the private X messages of Robert Malley, President Barack Obama’s lead negotiator on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. san.com/cc/iran-link...

An Atlanta suburb learned Flock was using livestreams from a children's gymnastics studio, a pool, and a playground in sales pitches to other cities. Residents are furious but the city renewed its contract with Flock anyway: www.404media.co/city-learns-...

NEW: A bipartisan pair of senators are demanding answers from Navigate360, the company whose 'anonymous' tip platform was hacked. The breach, as revealed last month by myself & @ddosecrets.org, exposed 8.3 million highly sensitive records from 1987 to 2025. san.com/cc/senators-...

NEW: The Iran-linked hacker group Handala sent threatening WhatsApp messages to U.S. military personnel in the Middle East on Monday before publishing the alleged names & phone numbers of 2,379 Marines on Tuesday. I called two dozen numbers to see if the data was legit. san.com/cc/iran-link...

NEW: FOIA documents show Palantir is helping the IRS target criminal investigations using "massive-scale" data mining across federal databases theintercept.com/2026/04/24/p...

NEW: Apple fixed the bug that law enforcement, like the FBI, were taking advantage of to extract chat messages that had been deleted or disappeared automatically. Until now the iPhone stored deleted or disappered messages in a database, allowing authorities to access them with forensic tools.

Anonymous tips used to prevent school shootings have been leaked with identifying info, which puts the entire system at risk. Really important story from @mikaelthalen.bsky.social san.com/cc/sandy-hoo...

A recent hack of P3 Global Intel has exposed details about potential school shooters and bullies, as well as the people who informed on them. An analysis by Straight Arrow revealed the highly sensitive nature of the leak. Details at the link: https://ow.ly/34zu50YNYis

The Iranian-linked hacker group Handala is soliciting information about Israel over an "encrypted, zero-trace dead-drop." It's a website without SSL.

Software used for submitting anonymous tips in schools was hacked, exposing sensitive records on issues such as potential school shootings. straightarrowne.ws/4tn3lur

NEW: A breach at the company behind the 'anonymous' tip lines used by more than 35,000 schools has exposed tips sent in by students, parents & teachers involving everything from bullying & potential school shootings to suicidal thoughts & sexual misconduct. san.com/cc/sandy-hoo...

🚨 ICE Glasses are coming - specialized smart glasses designed by and for the Department of Homeland Security, documents reveal: www.kenklippenstein.com/p/exclusive-...

big news, the FAA has gotten rid of criminal penalties for flying drones near ICE vehicles

NEW: The hackers who stole 8.3 million crime tip records are now offering the data for $10K on a cybercrime forum. "It’s truly not something I want to do & it goes against my principles,” one hacker said. “However, it was out of necessity. Principles are for the well-fed." san.com/cc/hackers-w...

For this months column I wrote about the intersection of cyberwarfare and hacktivism and how we ended up with Handala Hack after things like Guccifer 2.0 and NB65 came before it.

SCOOP The Iranian group producing the Trump LEGO videos have a secret weapon.....Americans who send them tips and ideas to make their content better www.wired.com/story/inside...

Good reminder to change your notification settings to not show the content of communications!

Hackers linked to the Iranian government have been targeting critical U.S. infrastructure, a joint U.S. government advisory says. san.com/cc/iran-link...

New, by me: Mounir Idrassi, the developer of the popular file encryption software Veracrypt, says Microsoft has locked his account used for sending software updates, and warned that Windows users who encrypt their PCs with his software may soon find it "impossible to boot," Idrassi tells me.

New: Florida's wildlife police are giving ICE access to Flock from thousands of cameras around the country & performed dozens of lookups for immigration enforcement per month. Shows ICE is still accessing and also shows that access often comes from unexpected places: www.404media.co/floridas-wil...

Tips from Luigi Mangione manhunt exposed in BlueLeaks 2.0 via @crimew.gay and @mikaelthalen.bsky.social san.com/cc/tips-from...

happy to report i found the tip that led to luigi mangiones arrest in the P3 data leak. mikael did a good job writing up all of the tips leading up to that point!

NEW: Hacked Crime Stoppers data reveals the tips received during the 5-day manhunt for Luigi Mangione. I spoke with one woman who claims to have come face-to-face with Mangione the day before his arrest. san.com/cc/tips-from...

Wanna know if your school uses Flock? Through records requests and audit logs, FOIAball found over 75 universities that have surveillance cameras installed on campus. There's almost certainly many, many more. www.foiaball.com/p/flock-came...

There's a bonanza of illicit surveillance shenanigans in Hungary going on right now The latest: calls between sources and Politico journalists intercepted and leaked online 👇 www.politico.eu/article/poli...

Breaking WaPo: Trump showed a classified map he retained from his first term in office to passengers on a 2022 private plane flight and retained another record so sensitive that only six high-ranking government officials had access to it, according to a prosecution memo released to Congress.

A federal judge on Friday sided with The New York Times in its lawsuit against the Trump administration's Pentagon press rules. san.com/cc/federal-j...