Tag: technology

Montreal minor allegedly used AI to plan school attack targeting Muslims, Haitians and LGBTQ+ community

A Montreal minor arrested in a national security investigation allegedly used artificial intelligence while planning a potential attack on a school and posted threats targeting Muslims, Haitians and members of the LGBTQ+ community, according to new details provided by the RCMP to Rebel News.

The RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team arrested the youth Friday morning after investigators said they had reasonable grounds to believe the suspect might commit a violent extremism offence.

The investigation began several weeks ago after the FBI provided intelligence to Canadian authorities.

In response to an inquiry from Rebel News reporter Alexa Lavoie, the RCMP revealed additional details not included in its initial public statement.

“According to the alleged facts, the individual was planning an attack at a school located in Montreal,” the RCMP told Lavoie.

Police said the suspect “allegedly used artificial intelligence as part of the potential planning of an attack in the Montreal area.”

The RCMP also clarified who was allegedly targeted by threatening messages posted online.

“He also allegedly posted threatening statements on Telegram targeting various groups, including Muslim, Haitian and LGBTQ+ communities,” police said.

Investigators also executed a search warrant at the youth’s residence, seizing electronic devices and any other evidence considered relevant to the investigation.

The police operation was intended to disrupt the suspect’s alleged activities and require him to enter into a peace bond under Section 810.011 of the Criminal Code.

That provision allows authorities to seek a recognizance where there are reasonable grounds to fear a person may commit certain terrorism or criminal organization offences, without waiting for the feared offence to occur.

Despite the arrest, the investigation remains ongoing and charges could be laid at a later date.

“The investigation is ongoing, and all of the evidence will be analyzed,” the RCMP told Rebel News.

The youth was scheduled to appear Friday in Youth Court at the Montreal courthouse.

The RCMP characterized the investigation as involving ideologically motivated violent extremism and said combating such threats remains a national priority.

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Drone Warfare in Ukraine and the Changing Nature of Combat

Ukraine has exposed serious weaknesses in Russia’s conventional military by relying on drones, electronic warfare, and rapid technological adaptation to offset Moscow’s advantages in manpower and equipment. The world’s second most powerful military could be able to carpet-bomb Ukrainian positions, then follow through with a massive surge of troops and tanks all the way to Kyiv. However, the development of new technologies has changed that calculus, making it increasingly costly to deploy expensive aircraft or risk large numbers of troops and tanks.

Ukraine demonstrated that rapid innovation, such as FPV strike drones, decentralized command, and real-time intelligence sharing, could inflict disproportionate damage on a larger conventional force. At sea, Ukraine effectively neutralized much of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet using domestically produced Neptune anti-ship missiles, one of which sank the flagship Moskva, and explosive sea drones, forcing the Russian Navy to retreat from Crimean ports.

However, the war is far from over. There are no noticeable signs that Russia is on the brink of surrender, and those saying that the paradigm of war has changed permanently, or that this war proves traditional staples such as infantry, tanks, and aircraft have become obsolete, are premature at best, if not misguided.

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Peter Thiel-Funded Company Anduril to Triple the Number of Autonomous Surveillance Towers Along the US-Mexico Border

In June, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report that detailed how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has contracted with Anduril Industries—a Peter Thiel-funded company—to nearly triple the number of surveillance towers along US borders. The report outlines the plan to increase the number of surveillance towers from 830 to 2,300 by 2034.

The new GAO report describes the “Integrated Surveillance Towers” (IST) program that currently consists of “803 fielded towers located along US borders that detect items of interest, such as people or vehicles.”

The IST program includes towers from four legacy systems, including Autonomous Surveillance Towers (AST). An AST is a solar-powered surveillance tower that the DHS says can “provide autonomous surveillance operations 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.” The towers are equipped with radar, optical, and thermal cameras.

According to the GAO report, in August 2024, DHS approved the purchase of up to 42 additional ASTs. DHS had previously approved Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) request to purchase up to 133 additional towers between 2022 and 2023. The report states that the program should be completed by March 2034, with 2,300 deployed by that date.

The GAO was established in 1921 to serve as an independent and nonpartisan agency that audits the federal government. The GAO releases annual reports on key issues and details its findings to Congress.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to digital privacy and rights, called the expansion of border surveillance a “digital dumpster fire for human rights and civil liberties.”

“It’s not just surveillance towers; drones, aerostats, surveillance vehicles, ground sensors, game cameras, and license plate readers are also part of the vast taxpayer-funded infrastructure that threatens all those who live, work, or seek refuge in the borderlands,” the EFF wrote in response to the GAO report. “This technology isn’t exclusive to U.S. federal agencies: it’s also deployed by state and local law enforcement, and even by governments on the Mexican side.”

The EFF also noted that these rapidly expanding surveillance technologies place residential neighborhoods in Arizona within the sight of the towers, making them “capable of spying on homes on both sides of the border.”

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US Government Warns: Hackers Attacking Vulnerable Water Systems With AI Help

Several U.S. government agencies have said that cyber actors are attempting to hack into devices made by industrial systems company Siemens that are used to monitor water and other critical infrastructure systems.

In an advisory published on Wednesday, the FBI, National Security Agency (NSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and other U.S. agencies informed “owners and operators of industrial control systems” that there is an “active cyber threat to Siemens S7 Series PLCs,” or programmable logic controllers—an industrial automation system.

Unnamed “threat actors are conducting reconnaissance and capability development against U.S.-based Siemens PLC installations using AI-generated exploitation scripts disguised as legitimate monitoring tools,” the advisory said.

It added that the hackers use services to find PLCs connected to the internet that run what the agencies said is “outdated software” or are “otherwise poorly protected.”

“The U.S. critical infrastructure sectors most targeted by this threat activity include Critical Manufacturing, Energy, Water and Wastewater, Chemical, Food and Agriculture, and Commercial Facilities,” the advisory reads.

“This is not a theoretical risk—it is an active threat.”

The agencies further warned that “exploitation of poorly protected PLCs could lead to disruption of critical industrial processes, safety incidents, downtime or equipment damage, compromise of sensitive data, compliance violations, and cascading impacts across interconnected systems.”

Organizations using Siemens systems are encouraged to apply relevant security updates, isolate devices and systems from the internet where possible, implement strong security protocols, and strengthen monitoring for potential malicious activity, according to the advisory.

“These mitigations are particularly important for owners and operators who work with third-party service providers or system integrators who may have remote access to PLCs, as the asset owners may not realize that their systems are exposed and at risk,” they added.

The advisory did not provide the name of a specific group, country, or actor that may be involved in attempting to hack the Siemens systems. Nor did it name companies that may have been targeted by the threat actors.

The warning ‌comes amid U.S. cyber incidents ⁠targeting local water systems in several states in recent weeks. The FBI said earlier this month that from July 27 to July 30, water and wastewater utility companies in seven states reported security-related incidents.

In July, CISA and other agencies said Iran-linked hackers have targeted PLCs made by Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, Siemens, and potentially others.

A cybersecurity risk organization, Encrygma, said on Wednesday that a group linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, known as the CyberAv3ngers, has attacked water systems in the United States and displayed political messaging. CISA linked the group to cyberattacks on PLCs in late 2024.

Since February, the United States and Iran have traded strikes as the Trump administration has demanded that Tehran give up its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway that allows for the transportation of significant amounts of the world’s traded oil.

Other agencies that were involved in the release of Wednesday’s advisory included the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The NSA, FBI, CISA, and other U.S. agencies have long said that the Chinese regime, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have engaged in malicious cyber activity against U.S. infrastructure networks, collecting intelligence and engaging in cyber espionage.

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‘Have I Been Flocked’ Website Lets You Check If Police Searched for Your Car Using Flock Camera System

A new website allows drivers to find out whether their license plate has been photographed and searched through law enforcement agencies’ Flock camera systems.

The new website, “Have I Been Flocked,” compiles Flock camera audit logs and lets users see if their plate number has been run through the Flock application by a system operator.

If a person’s license plate appears in the database, it means not only that the plate was photographed, but that someone using the Flock system actively searched the database for that plate, according to the site. Included in the audit log is the stated reason someone in law enforcement gave for looking up the plate.

The site notes several limits to what its records show. The database does not reveal when or whether a vehicle passed one of the Flock Safety cameras. Those searching Flock databases are not necessarily police officers, and appearing on the site does not mean a person was under investigation.

The database of audit logs was built through FOIA public records requests filed with 6,586 different agencies across the country. Organizers caution that some information may be outdated or incomplete.

“The dataset is incomplete; few governments provide easy access to these logs, and the records we obtain are often redacted,” organizers of the site warn.

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Amazon ‘Prime Air’ To Expand Drone Delivery To Nearly 500 US Cities This Year

Amazon’s Prime Air drone delivery service, first teased by Jeff Bezos in a 2013 60 Minutes interview as a way to get packages under 5lbs to customers in 30 minutes or less, represents the broader push toward autonomous aerial last-mile logistics that could bypass traffic and cut delivery times dramatically. 

After years of regulatory hurdles with the FAA, technical iterations, and limited trials, the service has matured into a commercial offering using the MK30 drone, which hovers to drop packages.

A major breakthrough came in 2024, when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted Amazon a waiver allowing its drones to fly beyond the visual line of sight of their operators, and has already completed hundreds of thousands of deliveries in 2026 across 11 sites in seven states. 

Today Amazon announced plans to expand it to nearly 500 US cities and towns by year-end – a roughly sixfold increase – bringing ultrafast options (as quick as 30 minutes) to tens of millions more customers in places like the Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, Syracuse, and Boise metro areas.

The drones will primarily operate in suburban areas, away from skyscrapers and major airports that could complicate operations.

Amazon describes the aircraft as “highly autonomous,” with onboard cameras and sensors for navigation, obstacle detection, and safe delivery.

The cameras do not transmit a live video feed, according to the company.

The company also sought to address the potential concern about noise.

“During drop-off, the sound level is below that of an idling delivery truck parked curbside and lasts about 30 seconds,” Amazon said.

Someone standing outside may hear a sound “comparable to a window fan on low” as the drone arrives, while people indoors may not hear it at all, the company added.

Prime Air delivery is free for Prime members on orders of at least $50, but orders below that threshold carry a $2.99 delivery fee, while customers without a Prime membership are charged $4.99.

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200,000 Fake AI ‘Victims’ Deployed To Scam-Bait Online Fraudsters

Australian tech firm Apate deploys a vast array of AI-bot characters worldwide that play the role of gullible scam victims to waste millions of hours of con artists’ time each month.

Hilariously, one of the company’s monthly performance metrics is how many times frustrated scammers swear at the idiot ‘victims’ who are playing dumb and stringing them along.

“I think we’re the only company in the world that is actually keeping as part of their KPIs the number of F-words that scammers are dropping at them,” Apate founder Dali Kaafar tells Magazine with a chuckle. 

The company has a stable of almost 200,000 AI characters that are able to hold convincing phone conversations and to chat on social media and messaging platforms.

”I can tell you that we’re basically servicing, as we call them, hundreds of thousands of calls a day, and pretty much hundreds of thousands of conversations on the other channels,” he says. 

Every hour of a con artist’s time they waste is another hour they’re not scamming a member of the public. In the six weeks up to the end of 2025, Apate’s bots engaged in 600,000 scam calls for a single telco called TPG in Australia. 

“Essentially, we wasted more than five hundred days of scammers’ time,” he explains. “That roughly equates to somewhere around thirteen million dollars being saved.”

The bots’ other goal is to elicit actionable intelligence for banks and telcos to combat scam rings across Australia, Asia, Africa and the UK and Europe.

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Cop Fired After Allegedly Using Flock Cameras to Stalk Former Boyfriend – She Abused System 166 Times

A South Carolina police officer has been fired for allegedly using a Flock camera system to check on an individual with whom she had had a relationship.

Ellie Anna Hammond, 24, was fired on Aug. 3, the Mauldin Police Department said, according to KOCO-TV.

A department representative said no comment on the action would be coming, because it’s “a personnel matter.”

Hammond was fired due to alleged misconduct between March and July, according to documents from the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy.

During that period, Hammond was accused of accessing the Flock camera system 166 different times to track a vehicle that belonged to an individual with whom she once had a relationship.

Every time the system was accessed, a reason was provided, but the documents said those reasons were bogus.

The reasons were variously listed as a warrant check, traffic infraction, or welfare check.

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U.S.-Registered Drone Detected at Site of Suspected CIA Boat Strike

In the hours after a mysterious attack on an Ecuadorian fishing boat near the Galápagos Islands on March 17, a drone registered to U.S. defense contractor Shield AI was hovering just 500 meters from the burning vessel, La Negra Francisca, according to a review of flight tracking data by Drop Site News. This represents the first known vehicle to arrive at the site of the strike.

The unattributed bombing of three Ecuadorian fishing boats in January and March, and the subsequent abduction and torture of 36 fishermen, was first reported by Drop Site in April. Last week, The Washington Post, building on Drop Site’s ongoing investigation, reported that the attacks were part of a covert CIA operation.

According to flight and vessel tracking data from Radar 24 and Global Fishing Watch, the drone was a V-BAT model, primarily used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, but capable of carrying a weapons payload and switching its signal on and off to avoid detection.

The Shield AI drone matches the fishermen’s descriptions of the drones that circled their boats before the bombing, and bears the same red and green lights eyewitnesses reported seeing as they photographed the explosion.

Shield AI did not respond to a request for comment.

The CEO of Shield AI, Brandon Tseng, has publicly stated that the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy are using V-BAT drones “to interdict and destroy billions of dollars’ worth of drugs that were headed for the United States of America.” In 2024, the U.S. Coast Guard signed a $198 million contract with Shield AI for V-BAT drones; in April 2026, Shield AI announced it had received an $800 million contract for V-BAT drones from the U.S. Navy.

No drugs were found on any of the three fishing boats investigated by Drop Site—the Negra Francisca, Don Maca, and Fiorella—all of which were searched and cleared by Ecuadorian coast guard personnel prior to the strikes.

Last month, Drop Site published NASA thermal imagery consistent with an explosion at coordinates 1.5822°N, 87.6958W°, recorded at 1:02 p.m., the time fishermen say they were hit, and in the location where their transponder stopped broadcasting.

Tracking data suggests that the drone launched from a nearby boat on March 17, seven hours after the strike on La Negra Francisca and then circled near the site, its signal disappearing and reappearing. Ascending and descending patterns of movement indicate that the drone may have been landing on a boat and then resuming its flights.

Drop Site previously reported that vessel tracking data showed a U.S. Coast Guard cutter leaving a Galápagos military base a day before the Negra Francisca bombing—despite claiming it only deployed the cutter as a post-incident rescue effort. The Coast Guard vessel’s signal went dark and later appeared in Central American waters 24 hours before the fishermen were placed in El Salvador’s custody.

Video recordings, taken by eyewitnesses to the bombing, show the U.S. Coast Guard patrolling in the aftermath of the airstrike. Drop Site asked the U.S. Coast Guard in June to account for the cutter’s movements after its signal went dark. The Coast Guard responded that it “does not disclose cutter movements during law enforcement missions for operational security.”

In June, the U.S. Coast Guard told The Guardian it deployed its Bertholf cutter for a search-and-rescue operation after receiving a Mayday alert, contradicting prior statements by the U.S. Southern Command, which oversees maritime operations in the Pacific, that it had no knowledge of any U.S. involvement in the incidents. To date, the U.S. Coast Guard has not acknowledged using drones in its purported rescue efforts.

The U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Southern Command, and the Central Intelligence Agency did not respond to questions for this article.

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Comcast Turns Millions Of Routers Into Motion Sensors – The Same WiFi Signals Can ID You With 99.5% Accuracy

Dear Comcast customers: The internet gateway in your living room is now a motion sensor. It’s free of charge, and the data can go to law enforcement without further notice. What’s more, researchers have already shown that these same signals can identify exactly who is in the room.

On Tuesday, Comcast unveiled Xfinity Shield, a home security platform built entirely around the WiFi network. Its centerpiece, WiFi Motion, turns the leased gateway into a motion detector at no extra charge. According to Comcast, a typical customer has roughly 36 devices connected to their WiFi.

WiFi Motion works because a human body moving through a room disturbs the signal field between the gateway and stationary connected devices, like a printer or a game console. While the feature is opt-in and – according to Comcast’s rollout materials – does not track phones or reach through WiFi extenders, those limitations are choices Comcast made in software, not limitations of the technology itself.

Comcast says WiFi Motion works “without recording video, capturing images or identifying individuals.”

The company is not shy about identification as a product. The $15-a-month tier, Xfinity Shield Select, adds AI-powered cameras that identify people, pets, packages and vehicles. The free tier’s restraint is a line drawn one product SKU away.

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