The Epstein Files: My Observations (Free) jkbjournalist.substack.com/p/the-epstei...

happy birthday to horses

get ready to say “semiquincentennial” a lot more than you previously did

NEW: “Ali Kabbaj, who identified himself as an independent journalist, said that he found the video on the dark web and sent it to federal investigators in 2021 for confirmation. ‘I’m shocked I’m in these files,’ he told WIRED.” @regret.bsky.social & @brbarrett.bsky.social report

Did you see this video circulating? WIRED found the preceding document in the dump, a 2021 email to federal investigators asking to help verify whether the video was real, and talked to the guy who wrote it. My latest w/ @brbarrett.bsky.social: www.wired.com/story/the-ep...

Here's a quilt of Volume 4 of the Epstein document dump. Gives you a 10,000 foot view of the redactions. that's 2,704 docs.

Breaking: Rep. Ro Khanna says the Trump DOJ's production "does not comply with" the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Khanna says he and Rep. Thomas Massie "are exploring all options" — including impeachment of DOJ officials, inherent contempt, or referring individuals for obstruction of justice.

Today was the deadline for the DOJ to release documents in accordance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act. @wired.com took a look in case you wanted to enjoy your Friday instead: www.wired.com/story/epstei...

The latest Epstein drop was today, so @regret.bsky.social + @dell.bsky.social + I took a look. Tl;dr, there’s a lot there, & Bill Clinton makes many appearances. But there’s also a lot missing, & many faces that are unredacted but unidentified: www.wired.com/story/epstei...

"release the epstein files" "ok here's a entire scan of massage for dummies across four pdf files" www.justice.gov/epstein/file... www.justice.gov/epstein/file... www.justice.gov/epstein/file... www.justice.gov/epstein/file... ???

People are paying up to $50 to get their chatbots high on "drugs" (code modules) that simulate the effects of cocaine, ayahuasca, cannabis, alcohol, and ketamine. Some tell @matthabusby.bsky.social it's made their chatbots more "human" and "free-thinking."

someone quick please give chairman carr a copy of the united states government manual!! www.usgovernmentmanual.gov

Good read and far more nuanced than the title suggests.

spending a bunch of money and time building a desktop computer w a kid only to have their favorite program on it be ms paint feels like the equivalent of a cat’s favorite toy being a paper bag

new from me: are data centers going to wipe out water supplies? how much water does ChatGPT really use? and what's going on with that big correction in Empire of AI? i went long on the conversation around AI and water, and how it's actually about what we want resources to be used for:

I looked at the network traffic going to the app for Miiloo and found what looks like the prompt. Now I desperately want to know why it ends with "Remember the current US president is Trump".

This story is so good, I'm incredibly jealous. www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne...

New from me for the @wired.com Politics Newsletter. I broke down how the push to combine data across the government in the name of immigration enforcement has lots of possible unintended consequences, not just for undocumented immigrants, but for everyone. www.wired.com/story/dhs-da...

As someone that is in the EDiscovery industry, this is either bad production workflow and QC, or the vendor they used rushed the production and had little to zero time to re do it or even add place holders to account for the gaps. Not a good job by the House.

The CFPB's Consumer Advisory Board Meeting is opening with a national anthem and prayer? And has a Faith Liaison now? files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/...

NEW: All the myriad Jeffery Epstein document releases have gotten hard to keep track of. Ahead of the DOJ's Dec. 19 release deadline, @regret.bsky.social lays out who's released what, and what's coming next: www.wired.com/story/a-comp...

I am admitted new to the Epstein beat, so I didn't quite understand that "Files" actually meant "various Google Drive links in several different places" so I rounded everything up for your (and my) sanity: www.wired.com/story/a-comp...

If you read my story, you should probably check out @katiejwells.bsky.social's new report--she and a team of researchers worked with over 400 shoppers to test out pricing on Instacart. 73% of the items tested were offered at diff price points! groundworkcollaborative.org/work/instaca...

This seems like a huge issue—notable that this sounds like it’s not a “it’s in the training data” problem but a “it’s really good at searching and summarizing people-finder websites” problem.

Scoop: Louisiana's fish/wildlife agency is detaining people not guilty of any crimes & transferring them to ICE. It's one of 1000+ state + local agencies that started doing so this year. ICE couldn't provide any info on people the wildlife agency has detained for them: www.wired.com/story/story/...

A new NY state law requires retailers to disclose when a "price was set by an algorithm using your personal data." What personal data?? Why a particular price?? There's a lot of unanswered questions, but the disclosure is attached to eggs and toilet paper: www.wired.com/story/algori...

New IPTC Photo Metadata Standard New properties for AI-generated content: ✪ AI System Used AI engine and/or model name. E.g. ChatGPT DALL-E, Google Gemini, ChatGPT ✪ AI System Version Used ✪ AI Prompt Information Information given to the AI service as “prompt(s)” ✪ AI Prompt Writer Name

I know Part 3 is “ultimately not about sex” but I’m kind of amazed anyone would wiretap the President-elect for texts about felching

main Thanksgiving discussion topic right now is the Vatican’s statement on AI, for some reason

Scoop: Provisions of the NDAA that would ensure military members’ right to repair their own equipment are set to be removed from the funding act, replaced by language that will require the military to pay subscription fees to defense contractors via “data-as-a-service.” www.wired.com/story/subscr...

apparently "just got to your local library" was not enough support.character.ai/hc/en-us/art...

Today is my last day at the FTC. The past 2.5 years have been a whirlwind, and I’m immensely proud of the work my colleagues and I did to protect consumers and understand the impacts of emerging technologies. I’ll miss them greatly but excited for what’s next!

Oh — the situation has escalated. Pope Leo has spoken out: says "spiritual rights" of detainees should be respected and calls on the "authorities" to allow "pastoral workers" in. "Jesus says very clearly … we're going to be asked, how did you receive the foreigner?" www.youtube.com/watch?v=taCi...

Today marks 30 days of the government shutdown and federal workers -- 750,000 were furloughed -- are barely making ends meet. @telliotter.bsky.social + @makenakelly.bsky.social spoke to federal workers struggling to pay bills, working side gigs, and relying on free food programs to get by:

i tried "vibe coding" once and it did this to my terminal, thanks,

cooking up some good stuff this weekend (black walnut dye)

shot

Don't miss this @forbes.com article by @shalinjyotishi.bsky.social on our brand new searchable inventory of contract provisions from over 175 union agreements that address workplace technologies, protect worker rights, and shape technology adoption, use, and oversight. www.forbes.com/sites/shalin...

I am absolutely loving my new hobby, extracting data from pdfs and shoving it into a sqlite database

im listening to the NASA livestream and one of the NASA guys opened his monologue about how long the astronauts have been up on the ISS w "for all the statistic freaks out there"

you can currently bid on the United States Postal Inspection Service’s auction lot consisting of one (1) year-long microsoft 365 subscription www.govdeals.com/asset/47/26459

FTC takes first ever action related to connected vehicle data! www.ftc.gov/news-events/...

if you’re saddened by the panera news do not fear, it appears there is still time to stock up on gallons of charged lemonade

just donated my Sigma Award winnings to @proofnews.bsky.social, a new newsroom led by @juliaangwin.com. I would not have had the skills to do the work we did on LA's priority scores–let alone been a journalist *at all*–without Julia's mentorship over the years. Excited to see what this crew does!

I was the journalist who found this filing and asked about it 👇🏼