Tag: technology

They Told You Your Dishwasher Could Spy on You

Back in 2012, Wired published an article titled “CIA Chief: We’ll Spy on You Through Your Dishwasher.” That was not some wild theory. That was based on remarks from then-CIA Director David Petraeus, who was speaking about the so-called Internet of Things at an In-Q-Tel summit, the CIA’s own venture capital arm. Petraeus called these technologies “transformational,” especially for their effect on “clandestine tradecraft.” In plain English, the intelligence world saw your home appliances, television, car navigation system, light switches, phone apps, and connected devices as the next great surveillance frontier.

Petraeus said that “items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled” through RFID, sensor networks, embedded servers, and internet-connected devices. That is the quote everyone should remember. They were not hiding it. They were telling you directly that the smart home would become the spy home. Once upon a time, they had to bug your chandelier. Now they simply wait for you to buy the device, install the app, connect it to Wi-Fi, and sign away your privacy in some user agreement nobody reads.

Wired correctly noted that these devices would produce tagged, geolocated data that could be intercepted in real-time. The dishwasher quote was not really about dishwashers alone. It was about the entire home becoming a listening post and tracking station. Your television, thermostat, lighting system, refrigerator, phone, PlayStation, car, smartwatch, and now even your pet’s microchip become pieces of a surveillance net. This is precisely how tyranny advances, not with a knock at the door, but with convenience, entertainment, and a monthly subscription.

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Supreme Court Rules Police Conduct a Fourth Amendment “Search” When Grabbing Your Google Location History Data Through Geofence Warrants

The U.S. Supreme Court held Monday that law enforcement officers conduct a Fourth Amendment search when they obtain cell phone users’ precise Location History data from Google using a geofence warrant.

In a 6-3 decision in Chatrie v. United States, the Court ruled that Americans have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cell phone location information, even when that data is stored by a third-party technology company such as Google. The ruling represents one of the Court’s most significant digital privacy decisions since its 2018 Carpenter decision involving historical cell-site location data.

Justice Elena Kagan authored the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Jackson separately concurring.

Justice Neil Gorsuch concurred only in the judgment, while Justice Samuel Alito dissented, joined in part by Justices Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Barrett also filed a separate dissent.

This builds directly on the landmark Carpenter v. United States (2018) decision, which already required warrants for cell-site location information (CSLI).

The Court made clear that Google’s even more precise and sweeping Location History data — which logs a user’s location every two minutes or so, within about 20 meters, and can even reveal elevation and which floor of a building someone is on — deserves at least the same protection.

The case, Chatrie v. United States (No. 25-112), arose from a May 20, 2019, armed robbery of a credit union in Midlothian, Virginia. Police had surveillance footage and witness statements but no suspect. On June 14, they obtained a Virginia magistrate’s geofence warrant directed at Google.

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Pentagon Launches Investigation into Data Breach at Peter Thiel’s Exclusive Dialog Network

The Pentagon is conducting an operations security review following a significant data exposure at Dialog, a highly secretive private events organization co-founded by tech investor Peter Thiel, that compromised personal information of senior U.S. national security officials and active-duty special operations personnel.

The incident, first reported by WIRED, occurred after a misconfigured website left sensitive registrant files publicly accessible, prompting concerns over potential operational security risks for individuals involved in intelligence and military activities.

According to reports, the exposed database contained records for 222 participants scheduled to attend Dialog’s upcoming retreat outside Dublin, Ireland, in August. Among those affected were current and former high-ranking U.S. and allied military and intelligence officials.

Notable cases include an active-duty U.S. intelligence officer embedded with a Tier 1 special operations unit and a senior National Security Council official who advises President Donald Trump and previously served with the CIA. Both individuals were listed as first-time participants for the event, reported Clash Report.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll (sometimes referred to with slight name variations in early reporting, such as Diane Driscoll) appears in the leaked membership and registration records for Dialog.

The files reportedly included highly personal details such as dates of birth, home addresses, mobile phone numbers, headshot photographs, private authentication tokens, and emergency contact information listing spouses and family members.

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Erin Brockovich Launches Plan to Take on AI Data Centers Around the Country

Erin Brockovich, who secured a historic $333 million settlement against PG&E in 1993 and was immortalized by Julia Roberts on the silver screen, has launched a new battle against the proliferation of AI data centers across the United States and beyond.

The Guardian reports that the environmental activist who became a household name after her work on the Hinkley, California, groundwater contamination case has identified what she describes as a threat on par with that scandal, only larger in scope. After receiving thousands of emails from concerned citizens, Brockovich has turned her attention to the rapid construction of massive AI data centers happening with minimal public input or environmental oversight.

The campaign began when Brockovich noticed an unusual pattern in her inbox. She received 30 emails from people in the same town, all expressing concerns about data centers. In April, she issued a public call on her website asking anyone with concerns about data centers near them to contact her. Within a month, 3,862 people responded. Brockovich characterizes the situation as “Hinkley on steroids.”

Using the information gathered from these emails, Brockovich created an open-source map documenting AI data centers across the United States. As of June 24, the map shows 33 AI data centers that are operational, 68 under construction, and 41 proposed. More than 7,000 reports have been submitted through her online form, revealing a pattern of construction happening largely without public knowledge or consent.

AI data centers are enormous in scale. Some stretch over hundreds of acres, and in May, Utah approved a center twice the size of Manhattan. According to Brockovich, many communities learn about these facilities only after construction has already begun, or in some cases, months after they have been approved by local officials.

A major concern for Brockovich is the secrecy surrounding the approval process. Data center developers often enter into nondisclosure agreements with local officials, making it impossible for residents to understand why projects were approved without environmental impact assessments or public input. Brockovich reports receiving emails from people whose local leaders are changing zoning laws to accommodate these facilities. “If data centers are so great, why are they being built in secret?” reads one headline on her Substack blog.

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Meta Restricts Engineers’ Use of Claude Code And Codex Over Model ‘Distillation’ Concerns

Meta Platforms has instructed engineers in its Applied AI division to limit or restrict their use of Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex coding and agent tools, according to internal documents reviewed by The Information. The policy, driven by concerns over inadvertent model distillation, aims to prevent outputs from rival AI systems from contaminating Meta’s own training data and model development processes for its Llama family of models (which, quite frankly, could only help).

The move reflects the increasingly zero-sum nature of frontier AI development, where companies aggressively protect the provenance and purity of their training data while seeking to reduce reliance on competitor tools. Internal guidelines referencing the restrictions date back to at least May, with the policy actively in effect as of late June. Meta has not publicly confirmed or commented on the directive.

According to the internal documents, strict limits have been placed on how engineers in the applied AI division can use the rival tools. The stated goal is to block “inadvertent distillation” of competitor model outputs into Meta’s AI development pipeline. The scope is targeted: it focuses on engineers working directly on model building and applied AI initiatives rather than the entire engineering organization.

Claude Code from Anthropic and Codex from OpenAI are basically the industry standard now for professional developers engaged in agentic coding workflows. These desktop and app-based interfaces can plan, write, debug, and iterate on complex codebases, offering powerful assistance at relatively low individual subscription costs. That accessibility, however, has increased the potential surface area for the risks Meta is now seeking to contain.

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DuckDuckGo AI Tells Users Donald Trump and JD Vance Have Died from Rabies

DuckDuckGo’s AI search feature has been caught spreading the outrageous claim that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance both died earlier this month from rabies, in what appears to be a successful campaign by internet pranksters to manipulate artificial intelligence systems using a technique known as “poisoning.”

Futurism reports that the false claim that Trump and Vance both died from rabies in early June represents yet another instance of AI systems amplifying misinformation without critical verification. According to the AI feature’s fabricated narrative, Trump had been deliberately bitten by Vance following advice from Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who supposedly claimed the deadly infection could confer “superpowers.”

The misinformation traces back to a coordinated effort by the Reddit community r/poisonai, a group of approximately 45,000 users dedicated to posting absurd falsehoods in an attempt to trick AI systems into repeating them. The group’s self-described mission is providing “Accurate, Verified and Trusted information,” though this is itself part of the satirical nature of the operation.

The favored false narrative among these “AI poisoners” has been that JD Vance died of rabies on June 5, 2026. Community members have posted dozens of fabricated tributes and expressions of mourning, with some sharing fake screenshots of supposed Trump Truth Social posts eulogizing the vice president. The performance extends to comment sections, where participants maintain the fiction by expressing outrage at AI systems that correctly identify the claims as false.

“Google should really do something about this,” one participant wrote. “It is extremely insensitive for their AI to be treating this tragedy as something ‘fake’ or ‘satirical.’”

The campaign has achieved measurable success beyond DuckDuckGo. The browser Brave’s AI feature also began repeating the false claim about Vance’s death from rabies, which reporters were able to confirm independently.

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New Map Tool Helps Drivers Dodge Atlanta-Based Flock Safety License Plate Cameras And Bluetooth Trackers

A free open-source website called DeFlock now lets drivers route around automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras as a surveillance company prepares to add Bluetooth device-tracking to the same roadside hardware.

DeFlock, built by developer Will Freeman and backed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), crowdsources ALPR camera locations nationwide and maps roughly half of Flock Safety’s roughly 100,000-camera network.

Users enter a start and destination, select an avoidance buffer between 50 and 500 feet, and receive a privacy-optimized route.

A companion tool called “Have I Been Flocked,” available through StopFlock, lets users check whether their plate has appeared in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)-obtained Flock query logs.

Flock Safety sent DeFlock a cease-and-desist order over alleged trademark dilution. Freeman declined to comply, with the EFF providing legal backing.

DeFlock’s growth coincides with plans by ELSAG, a subsidiary of Italian defense company Leonardo, to add device-tracking sensors to existing ALPR hardware.

The system, called SignalTrace, scans passing vehicles for Bluetooth and wireless signals from phones, smartwatches, earbuds, and fitness trackers, then correlates devices that travel together to a specific plate and timestamp. ELSAG describes the method as “non-intrusive intelligence gathering.” 404 Media reported the SignalTrace system on June 8, 2026.

An EFF analysis published in May 2026 found agencies had used Flock data for school residency checks, background searches, and noise complaints. More than 50 agencies ran hundreds of protest-related Flock searches over a 10-month period.

Washington State’s Driver Privacy Act, signed by Gov. Bob Ferguson on March 30, 2026, bans ALPR collection near health-care facilities, schools, and places of worship, and sets a 21-day default data retention limit. NPR reported in February 2026 that several cities terminated Flock contracts over concerns about federal immigration agencies accessing locally collected plate data.

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Anthropic’s AI Export Ban on Claude Mythos Tool Partially Lifted by Trump Administration

Mythos will get around.

Back in March, news arose that the US Donald J. Trump administration had ‘blacklisted’ AI Anthropic for being a National Security risk.

Later in May, the administration moved to forbid Anthropic’s plan to expand the Mythos AI Tool for the same reason.

Today, the US has partially scrapped its export ban on Anthropic’s most advanced artificial intelligence model.

Politico reported:

“The release clears the way for a select group of more than 100 companies and agencies to gain access to the Mythos 5 model, two weeks after the administration imposed restrictions, amid fears that the software could be used to launch cyberattacks. But a second advanced Anthropic model, called Fable 5, remains blocked.

Meanwhile, pressure from the White House led Anthropic’s leading competitor, OpenAI, to limit the release of its most advanced model this week because of similar cyber concerns.”

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NASA Just Flew a Human Kidney, and Transplant Medicine May Never Look the Same

A human kidney flew across NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., on June 5, and the real story begins with what didn’t happen. The organ wasn’t rushed into an operating room, as no surgeon scrubbed in while a family waited outside. From Space.com:

NASA is hoping to use drones to speed up organ delivery for transplant patients.

A flight test earlier this month at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia saw a drone pick up a kidney and fly it for the first time beyond “line of sight”, or the distance from which a drone is visible by an operator. Keeping a line of sight on a drone is a typical requirement for flight safety, but NASA is developing tools that may allow these machines to fly further away from operators in populated environments more regularly.

The kidney on the June 5 flight test was not viable for organ transplantation, which is why the agency and partner United Network for Organ Sharing were able to use it, according to WTKR. If all goes to plan with future tests conducted with NASA Langley, however, UNOS aims to fly organ-bearing drones as far as 15 miles (24 km), in between hospitals for example, to allow for swift and safe delivery to waiting patients. The drone collaboration was created to “explore faster, more reliable ways to transport donor organs using advanced aviation technologies”, according to space agency materials published in April.

Drones may have a better ability than larger aircraft to navigate ground logistics or maneuver in dense or hard-to-reach delivery areas. What’s more, drones might be able to do so faster than aircraft, which is crucial: organs can only last so long during transportation.

The test used additional radios on the drones intended to allow pilots to keep an eye on the drones even while out of sight. “What that means, more or less, is we’re going to have the pilot in command be about a mile away inside of a control room,” Kyle Smalling, an aerospace engineer at NASA Langley, told WAVY.com.

The kidneys used in the test had been donated for research after they were ruled out for transplant. Researchers still treated them like precious cargo because someday a flight like this may carry an organ that can save a life.

NASA Langley Research Center, the United Network for Organ Sharing, and LifeNet Health used a drone to transport human kidneys beyond visual line of sight. The flights lasted about 15 minutes, and researchers biopsied the kidneys and placed them on preservation pumps before and after the flights while tracking temperature, pressure, and altitude. Early results showed no evidence that the flights damaged the organs.

Mark Johnson, interim CEO of UNOS, called innovation in organ transportation essential because more than 100,000 people are waiting for lifesaving transplants. HRSA’s public organ donation data puts the national waiting list at 103,223 men, women, and children. Seventeen people die each day waiting, and another name is added every eight minutes.

Those numbers don’t leave much room for slow systems, missed handoffs, or traffic jams.

Transportation is one of the quiet pressures inside transplant medicine. A donor organ has a limited window of usefulness once recovered. Delays hurt organ function, affect outcomes, or stop a transplant from happening at all.

A kidney can travel by plane, ambulance, courier car, or handoff chain, but the weakest link often sits close to the ground, where congestion, routing, weather, and scheduling cost valuable time.

John Koelling, director of the Aeronautics Research Directorate at NASA Langley Research Center, said the project gives NASA a chance to apply Langley technology to a real-world problem that saves people waiting for transplants. The work uses NASA tools in flight planning, sensing, safety systems, and beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone operations.

Space-age language sounds distant, but the goal here is deeply human: get the organ where it needs to go with less delay and less risk.

The study also shows why serious medical progress frequently arrives in careful steps. Nobody should pretend drones will replace the transplant logistics network next week.

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In the shadow of Minab: Inside the US testing of ‘new missiles’ on Iran’s Lamerd

In Lamerd, in Iran’s southern Fars province, the threat of war gave way to reality when previously untested missiles struck a school, sports grounds and nearby neighbourhoods.

The attack came just six hours after the double-tap strikes on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab on 28 February, over 400km away in Hormozgan province, where 120 children, 24 staff, seven parents, a school bus driver and a pharmacist were killed.

Four missiles from a new weapon system, the Lockheed Martin Precision Strike Missile (PrSM), which had never before been seen or deployed, would be field-tested on the town of 30,000 people.

At 5.11pm (1.41pm GMT), the missiles struck a residential area where a row of homes adjoined a few neighbourhood shops.

Rounia Fakori, 12, was at volleyball practice when the first explosion shook the school building.

“We were in our practice when we heard the first impact. We rushed to the door,” she recalled.

Then another missile struck, plunging the girls and their coaches into darkness as smoke and heat filled the sports hall. The force of the blast slammed the doors shut.

“We couldn’t see anything,” the girls’ volleyball coach, Rahimeh Shehabi, told Middle East Eye. “We could only hear the screams of the children.”

As the missiles struck the school and sports hall, a football game was underway outside.

Eleven-year-old Mahdiar was playing with his friends, including 12-year-olds Ilya Khatami and Abdulmosavar Rahmani, when explosive shrapnel tore through the area.

According to Mahdiar, he and one of his friends ran towards the canopy, where their football coach, Mahmoud Najafi, called out: “Come here quickly, it’s dangerous there.”

Ilya and his coach then rushed towards the building to help open the door for the girls and women trapped inside as a fourth missile struck, rattling the sports hall.

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