The internet has long been a source of information and support for transgender people. Now, trans rights and the internet itself are in a moment of crisis. What happens next? People who have documented their lives online are discovering the dark side of digital permanence. The internet once helped trans people connect and organize. Now it's a dangerous liability. What comes next? How do resources on transitioning survive the era of surveillance and AI slop? The anonymity granted by the internet is a lifeline to many trans people. What happens when that privacy disappears?
In May of this year, 404 Media published evidence that Illinois automated license plate reader data was being accessed on behalf of federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as directly by law enforcement agencies across the country, including in Texas, who used the information for immigration enforcement and to monitor people seeking abortions.
A smelly, morbidly-obese married Long Island lawyer allegedly tormented his much younger lover for years - setting up secret cameras in her apartment, a tracker in her car, and a keystroke recorder on her computer. Ronald David Ingber allegedly manipulated the Bergen County woman until she was isolated from her family and dependent on him, then blasted out sexual photos and videos of her to friends and family when she tried to leave, she said in a lawsuit.
In today's episode, Zoë Schiffer is joined by senior politics editor Leah Feiger to run through five stories that you need to know about this week-from the Antifa professor who's fleeing to Europe for safety, to how some chatbots are manipulating users to avoid saying goodbye. Then, Zoë and Leah break down why a recent announcement from OpenAI rattled the markets and answer the question everyone is wondering-are we in an AI bubble?
OpenAI has published research revealing how state-sponsored and cybercriminal groups are abusing artificial intelligence (AI) to spread malware and perform widespread surveillance. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) AI has benefits in the cybersecurity space; it can automate tedious and time-consuming tasks, freeing up human specialists to focus on complex projects and research, for example.
The attack occurred around 3:40 a.m. on Oct. 6, when a 43-year-old woman was sleeping in her Bushwick residence near Pilling Street and Evergreen Avenue, according to the NYPD. Police said the intruder entered through a kitchen window and placed a pillow over the woman's head as she awoke, prompting a struggle. He then restrained her wrists and carried out what investigators described as a sexually motivated act.
In its most recent threat report [PDF] published today, the GenAI giant said that these users usually asked ChatGPT to help design tools for large-scale monitoring and analysis - but stopped short of asking the model to perform the surveillance activities. "What we saw and banned in those cases was typically threat actors asking ChatGPT to help put together plans or documentation for AI-powered tools, but not then to implement them," Ben Nimmo, principal investigator on OpenAI's Intelligence and Investigations team, told reporters.
Steve messed up all the time, his wife said, because he's "sloppy," and, truth be told, "stupid." A few years into their marriage, words like "always" and "never" entered the mix. He "always fucked up." He could "never be trusted" - even to fill out a simple form, and certainly not to spend money without her approval. Steve was told he misjudged people and that he needed his wife to tell him what to say so that everyone wouldn't hate him.
The Trump administration declared war on the " terrorist organization " of "antifa" and the supposed "networks" associated with it last week. Antifa is not so much a vast national conspiracy as it is simply an abbreviation for anti-fascism - but don't point out that anti-anti-fascism looks a lot like fascism. That would make you antifa, too. The plain intent of the memo is to make Americans afraid to call fascism what it is - or worse, to say fascism is bad.
Detectives in the Bronx need the public's help in finding four suspects, pictured in surveillance images released on Wednesday night, wanted for a Bronx gang assault back in August. NYPD Detectives in the Bronx need the public's help in finding four suspects, pictured in surveillance images released on Wednesday night, wanted for a Bronx gang assault back in August. According to police sources, the newly released footage shows four people brutally attacking and stabbing a man on a Bronx street on Aug. 19.
As President Donald Trump prepares to further unleash a rapidly expanding surveillance state against the administration's critics, recent legal struggles from activists who document and protest Trump's mass deportation campaign may be a preview of what's to come as part of a broader effort to silence dissent. Trump made headlines on September 22 with an executive order declaring "Antifa," short for anti-fascist, a domestic terrorist organization.
Unfortunately, some of those jammers they operate on the same signal as Wi-Fi signals and that's where the jamming takes place, as that jammer approaches the Wi-Fi signal it will cause interruptions to the cameras
Chief Constable Jon Boutcher has apologised after investigations by an independent reviewer, Angus McCullough KC, revealed that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) retained copies of the data on its computer system more than six years after it should have been deleted under a court agreement. Boutcher commissioned McCullough to carry out an independent review - which is due to report this week - into allegations that the PSNI had placed journalists, lawyers and non-government organisations under unlawful surveillance.
AMONG A GROWING ARRAY of government-sanctioned informational systems, motion sensors, acoustic monitors, biometric scanners, and thermal cameras work in tandem with sprawling private networks of data brokers to track social and environmental flows with forensic precision. They measure footfalls, scan license plates, log financial transactions, and inspect the movement of people alongside particulate matter. As sensing technologies increasingly oversee and overwrite the spatial production of contemporary life, proposals for "smart cities" and other data-dependent composites-proliferating since the early 2010s-obfuscate regimented environments of surveillance and control through rosy prospects of connectivity, security, and risk management, all sustained by the tenacious dystopian dream we call information.
The body camera hung from the top of the IV drip, recording the slightest twitch made by Yang Guoliang as he lay bloody and paralyzed in a hospital bed after a police beating with bricks.By then, surveillance was nothing new for the Yang family in rural China, snared in an intricate network based on U.S. technology that spies on them and predicts what they'll do.
Serenity Brown, 21, of Toronto, was pronounced dead in hospital, police said in a news release. Police were called to the area of Glenlake and High Park avenues shortly before 6 p.m. Friday, When officers arrived, they found Brown in the vehicle. Toronto paramedics took her to hospital, where she died from her injuries. Police have not released the cause of death. She is the city's 30th homicide victim of the year.
On Tuesday night, Berkeley City Council will vote on a contract with Flock Safety to operate fixed surveillance cameras throughout Berkeley. But given reports in the past month on Flock's illegal cooperation with ICE and the Trump administration, such a contract will put the Berkeley community in grave danger. The council must uphold our sanctuary city commitments and vote no on a new contract with Flock.
Three Israeli police checkpoints frame the entrance to Damascus Gate, through which most Palestinians access the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City. They enter and leave through the impressive gate of the Ottoman era, apparently oblivious to the presence of the Israelis. Since October 2023, I practically never go to Damascus Gate. I use other entry points. I feel better if I don't see the police stationed there, marking the territory, making us feel so unsafe and vulnerable.
An organizer, wearing a keffiyeh and a shirt reading "Divest from Genocide," stood on a table: "We're all standing here today to hold companies like Palantir and Microsoft accountable for their role powering the world's first AI-assisted genocide." Behind them, nearly 100 activists from Jewish Voice for Peace filled the lobby of Palantir's Seattle offices on July 14, 2025. Activists carried banners featuring giant eyes with yellow irises: "First Palantir Surveils, then IDF Kills." "First Palantir Tracks, then ICE attacks."
Sariel had a plan to transfer large amounts of Unit 8200's data, including top-secret information, into Microsoft's cloud platform, Azure. This would enable mass surveillance on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
