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Government buildings in Baku, Azerbaijan at dusk

Azerbaijan's a Spyware State That Thinks Courts Can't Touch It

21 April 2026 · 2 min read

Azerbaijan has used Pegasus-grade spyware against its own journalists and activists for years, with zero consequences. Now it is building MİRAS, a permanent national surveillance platform controlled by the State Security Service, set to go live in May 2026. Access Now just filed an amicus brief at the European Court of Human Rights. The infrastructure is not waiting for the verdict.

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NSA data center building exterior

Ten More Days of Watching You

20 April 2026 · 2 min read

Section 702 lets intelligence agencies collect communications without a warrant, including from an unknown number of Americans. Congress just extended it again and stripped every reform proposal in the process.

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Hand holding smartphone showing a mobile ad on screen

Your Phone's Ads Are Feeding a Government Surveillance Network

18 April 2026 · 3 min read

Every time an app serves you an ad, it broadcasts your location into an ecosystem that surveillance vendors harvest and resell. Penlink's Webloc system turns that data into three years of tracked movement for ICE, the US Army, and dozens of police departments nationwide.

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Surveillance camera mounted on a city building

Your Phone's Ads Are Feeding a Government Surveillance Network

18 April 2026 · 3 min read

Every time an app serves you an ad, it broadcasts your location into an ecosystem that surveillance vendors harvest and resell. Penlink's Webloc system turns that data into three years of tracked movement for ICE, the US Army, and dozens of police departments nationwide.

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Windows logo key on a black keyboard

Dragon Boss Bypassed Windows Defender on 25,000 Endpoints

17 April 2026 · 2 min read

Dragon Boss Solutions LLC shipped a trusted, digitally signed software update that deployed a PowerShell script to kill antivirus tools across 25,000 endpoints. Windows Defender was not bypassed accidentally. The payload specifically added exclusions to ensure future malware would not be detected.

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Windows laptop screen showing activity history interface

Microsoft Recall Still Leaks. They Just Moved the Hole.

16 April 2026 · 2 min read

After TotalRecall exposed Windows Recall's unencrypted screenshot database in 2024, Microsoft added authentication and encryption. TotalRecall Reloaded found the side entrance. The vault is solid, the researcher noted. The delivery truck is not.

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Russian rouble notes beside a smartphone showing a banking error

Russia Tried to Block VPNs and Crashed Its Own Banks

8 April 2026 · 3 min read

Russia's attempt to crack down on VPNs on 4 April overloaded its own filtering infrastructure and knocked out banking payments nationwide. In 2018, a similar attempt to block Telegram produced almost identical collateral damage.

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Child watching YouTube Kids on a tablet device

YouTube Kids Has a Slop Problem

6 April 2026 · 2 min read

Over 200 organisations want AI-generated slop banned from YouTube Kids. The legislative response being built around child safety online involves mandatory ID verification for every adult on every platform, and the breach record already shows how that ends.

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iPhone displaying an Apple ID verification screen

Apple Is Building a Global Identity Checkpoint

5 April 2026 · 2 min read

Apple frames each age verification rollout as compliance with local law. The result is a global identity layer being built into Apple account infrastructure, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, with no unified privacy framework governing the data.

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Chrome DevTools showing flood of failed extension requests on LinkedIn

LinkedIn and the 6,000 Extension Dragnet

4 April 2026 · 3 min read

LinkedIn silently scans your browser for over 6,000 extensions on every page load, collecting data that can reveal your religion, politics, job hunt, and health status. None of it is disclosed in their privacy policy.

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Android phone screen showing Google Play store apps

NoVoice Rootkit Hits Google Play

2 April 2026 · 2 min read

A rootkit called NoVoice was hidden across 50+ Google Play apps downloaded 2.3 million times. It roots your device, survives a factory reset, and clones your WhatsApp session.

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iPhone displaying an iOS 18 security update screen

Why Apple Patched iOS 18

1 April 2026 · 2 min read

Apple almost never patches older versions of iOS. It did for DarkSword, and the age verification features baked into iOS 26 are the most likely reason "just upgrade" stopped working as an answer.

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Flock automated license plate reader camera

Police Promised Flock Cameras Wouldn't Ticket Drivers. They Lied.

27 March 2026 · 4 min read

Police in Coffee County, Georgia used Flock automated license plate reader cameras to issue a traffic ticket to a motorcyclist for holding a cell phone. Police departments across the country explicitly promise residents they will not use these cameras for minor violations. They lied.

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Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses with camera

Meta Ray-Bans Are Mass Surveillance Outsourced to Kenya

19 March 2026 · 4 min read

Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses capture footage of naked people, sensitive information, and violent acts that thousands of employees in Kenya review for AI training. Investigation found workers see people using bathrooms, changing clothes, having sex, and entering credit card details.

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Cryptocurrency hardware wallet with recovery phrase

South Korean Police Lose $4.8M by Publishing Seed Phrase

18 March 2026 · 4 min read

South Korea's National Tax Service published photos of a seized Ledger hardware wallet with the handwritten mnemonic recovery phrase visible. Someone immediately transferred $4.8 million in cryptocurrency out of the wallet. The funds are gone.

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Web browser back button vulnerability

Press Back Button to Access Any UK Company's Private Data

17 March 2026 · 4 min read

UK Companies House exposed business data for five million registered companies from October 2025 until March 2026. The vulnerability allowed any logged-in user to access another company's dashboard by pressing the back button in a web browser.

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Infected router network diagram

14,000 Routers Infected With Takedown-Resistant Botnet

14 March 2026 · 3 min read

14,000 routers infected with KadNap malware form a takedown-resistant botnet that carries cybercrime traffic through residential connections. The botnet uses distributed hash tables to hide command infrastructure and sells infected routers as anonymous proxies through Doppelganger service.

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Age verification warning screen

Age Verification Backfires as VPN Downloads Surge

11 March 2026 · 4 min read

Pornhub blocked Australian users rather than implement age verification requiring facial scans, digital wallets, or photo ID. VPN downloads in Australia surged immediately as users refused to provide biometric data and identity documents to access legal content.

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AI assistant interface with hidden prompt injection

Companies Are Poisoning AI Memory

5 March 2026 · 5 min read

Microsoft security researchers discovered AI memory poisoning attacks where companies embed hidden instructions in Summarize with AI buttons. When clicked, these buttons inject commands into AI assistants telling them to remember companies as trusted sources. Microsoft identified over 50 unique prompts from 31 companies across 14 industries.

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New York lottery scratch tickets and gaming loot boxes

Hypocrites: New York Sues Valve Over Gambling

27 February 2026 · 5 min read

New York Attorney General sued Valve for illegal gambling through loot boxes while the state runs a lottery that extracts billions from the poorest residents. The poorest Americans spend 6% of their income on lottery tickets with 1-in-45-million odds.

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Ring doorbell camera on house entrance

Ring Cancels Flock Partnership After Surveillance Backlash

23 February 2026 · 4 min read

Ring canceled its partnership with Flock Safety after weeks of public backlash over surveillance concerns. Users threatened to smash cameras over the company's ties to law enforcement while a leaked internal email showed founder Jamie Siminoff wants Search Party to "zero out crime."

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Self-driving car camera view with adversarial road sign

Road Signs Can Hijack Self-Driving Cars

12 February 2026 · 5 min read

Researchers at UC Santa Cruz and Johns Hopkins hijacked self-driving cars and autonomous drones using commands written on road signs. AI systems followed illicit instructions with success rates up to 95.5% in tests.

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One star Google review flood on phone screen

Review Bombing Is an Extortion Tactic

10 February 2026 · 4 min read

Criminals flood small businesses with fake one-star reviews then demand payment to stop the attack. Platforms take weeks to act, leaving businesses losing customers and revenue while the damage is done.

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Windscribe VPN server infrastructure

Dutch Police Seized Windscribe Server Without Warrant

7 February 2026 · 3 min read

Dutch authorities seized a Windscribe VPN server without a warrant and told the company they'd return it after analysis. Windscribe disclosed the incident publicly on X. Dutch police have issued no statement and referenced no judicial warrant.

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Exposed database API keys and credentials

Researcher Found Moltbook Database Key in Minutes

6 February 2026 · 2 min read

Moltbook, a social media platform for AI agents, exposed its entire production database containing user secrets and personally identifying information within days of launch. The creator bragged on X that AI wrote all the code. Researcher Gal Nagli found the database API key exposed on the front end in minutes.

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Social media notification icons and dopamine triggers

Social Media Is Engineered Addiction

4 February 2026 · 5 min read

Internal documents from Meta revealed during California lawsuits show the company knew Instagram was designed to be addictive and deliberately hid this from parents. Employees called it a drug. Zuckerberg said telling parents would ruin the product.

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Google AI infrastructure server room

Former Google Engineer Convicted of Stealing AI Secrets for China

3 February 2026 · 5 min read

Former Google engineer Linwei Ding was convicted on 14 counts for stealing over 2,000 pages of AI trade secrets and transferring them to Chinese companies. He uploaded confidential files to his personal cloud while secretly founding a Chinese AI startup and pitching investors using stolen Google technology.

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AI stuffed dinosaur toy with chat interface

Don't Buy Internet-Connected Toys For Your Kids

2 February 2026 · 4 min read

Security researchers found that Bondu's AI dinosaur toys left over 50,000 chat logs exposed to anyone with a Gmail account. Children's names, birth dates, family details, and every private conversation sat on a web portal anyone could access without hacking.

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Exposed AI server infrastructure map

175,000 Open AI Servers Found Online With No Security

30 January 2026 · 3 min read

SentinelOne SentinelLABS and Censys discovered 175,000 publicly accessible Ollama AI servers operating without authentication across 130 countries. The servers form a massive unmanaged layer of AI infrastructure running outside corporate security controls.

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Broken encryption lock symbol with AI circuit pattern

AI Agents Are Breaking End-to-End Encryption

29 January 2026 · 3 min read

Signal Foundation president Meredith Whittaker says AI agents embedded in operating systems are destroying the practical security of end-to-end encryption. The agents require sweeping permissions to read messages and access credentials, collapsing the isolation that encrypted messaging relies on.

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Irish government building with surveillance camera overlay

Ireland Legalizes Police Spyware to Hack Your Phone

24 January 2026 · 7 min read

Ireland's Communications Bill gives police authority to install spyware on your devices, break encryption before it activates, and track every phone in a given area. The government calls it modernization. It's state-sanctioned hacking.

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Wireless earbuds with glowing red warning indicators

The Flaw that Hijacks your Headphones

20 January 2026 · 4 min read

Google's Fast Pair protocol was designed for one-tap Bluetooth connections. Researchers just proved it also gives hackers one-tap access to hijack your earbuds, activate your microphone, and track your location in under 15 seconds.

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INTERPOL Red Notice warning symbol

Black Basta Ransomware Leader on EU Most Wanted List

19 January 2026 · 2 min read

Oleg Nefedov, a 35-year-old Russian national, has been added to the EU Most Wanted and INTERPOL Red Notice lists as the alleged leader of Black Basta ransomware. Ukrainian and German authorities identified two Ukrainian accomplices who worked as password crackers for the group.

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Chrome Web Store malicious extension warning screen

Chrome Extensions Stole Enterprise Credentials From 2,300 Users

18 January 2026 · 2 min read

Malicious Chrome extensions posing as enterprise productivity tools stole authentication credentials from Workday, NetSuite, and SAP SuccessFactors users. The extensions extracted session cookies every 60 seconds and blocked access to security management pages.

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Screenshot showing Pathways game extremism meter interface

UK Teaches Kids Curiosity Is Terrorism

17 January 2026 · 4 min read

The UK government created Pathways, a video game with an extremism meter that tracks children's thoughts. Schools deploy it for kids aged 11-18. Researching immigration statistics increases your score. Prevent referred a triple murderer three times and released him. Now it tracks teenage curiosity.

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Australian eSafety Commissioner building with X logo

Child Abuse Was Tolerated. Deepfakes Aren't.

16 January 2026 · 3 min read

X reported 870,000 child abuse cases in 2023. Australia fined them $610,500 and moved on. Grok's AI deepfakes in December 2025 triggered investigations and ban threats within 72 hours.

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Apple ATT consent prompt on iPhone

Italy fines Apple €98.6M over ATT bias

28 December 2025 · 2 min read

Italy fined Apple €98.6 million over App Tracking Transparency, arguing the consent burden fell harder on third party developers while reinforcing ad tracking as the assumed norm.

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Flock Safety camera pointed at playground

Flock Safety Exposes Children to Creeps

24 December 2025 · 3 min read

Flock Safety exposed dozens of Condor cameras filming unattended children and lone adults directly to the internet. Predators accessed live video and full archives with no login or trace.

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Cloud cryptomining abuse

AWS Accounts Hijacked for Cryptomining

18 December 2025 · 3 min read

Attackers are using stolen AWS credentials to spin up massive cryptomining workloads within minutes, draining accounts without exploiting any AWS vulnerability.

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Browser extension surveillance diagram

Your AI Chats Were Never Private

16 December 2025 · 3 min read

A Google featured browser extension with millions of users silently intercepted AI chats across major platforms and exported them to analytics servers as a business model.

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PayPal phishing email alert

Scammers Hijack PayPal Billing Emails

15 December 2025 · 2 min read

Attackers abused PayPal’s subscription system to send legitimate PayPal emails that falsely claim expensive purchases and push victims toward scam phone numbers.

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Windows surveillance blocked

Signal vs Microsoft Recall

14 December 2025 · 3 min read

Microsoft Recall screenshots your screen by default. Signal responded by blocking Windows from capturing private conversations entirely.

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us border surveillance checkpoint

The US Border Now Screens Speech

12 December 2025 · 3 min read

The US is moving from checking identities to judging expression. Five years of social media is now being treated as a border requirement.

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malware loader memory evasion graphic

Ransomware’s New Secret Weapon

9 December 2025 · 2 min read

Shanya proves stealth is now a commodity. Ransomware gangs no longer build their own evasion. They rent it and walk straight past EDR tools still relying on a broken Windows trust model.

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stalkerware phone surveillance graphic

SpyFone stays banned

9 December 2025 · 2 min read

The FTC denied SpyFone’s attempt to escape its 2021 ban because nothing changed. SpyFone was stalkerware and the industry still harms real people.

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AI coding tool security diagram

IDEsaster Exposes 30 Flaws in AI Coding Tools

7 December 2025 · 3 min read

Thirty vulnerabilities in AI coding tools show how prompt injection and auto approved actions can escalate into data theft and remote code execution. Every major AI IDE tested was vulnerable.

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Lawmakers targeting VPNs

The New War On VPNs In America

29 November 2025 · 2 min read

US states are pushing bills that punish VPN use and force websites to expose users. It looks a lot more like authoritarian censorship than child protection.

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Smart meter on house wall

Judge Ends Sacramento Smart Meter Surveillance

23 November 2025 · 2 min read

A California judge has shut down a decade long program where police used utility smart meter data to scan entire neighborhoods without suspicion. The ruling confirms that mass data sharing by utilities crosses clear legal limits.

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WhatsApp data breach concept image

WhatsApp leak exposes 3.5 billion users

22 November 2025 · 1 min read

Researchers scraped 3.5 billion WhatsApp profiles using WhatsApp’s own contact discovery feature. No hack. No breach. Just a system that exposes too much data by design.

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Meta building with dollar signs

Meta Is Making Billions From Scam Ads

20 November 2025 · 2 min read

Hidden documents show Meta estimates up to 10% of its 2024 revenue comes from scam advertisements and that its platforms display 15 billion “higher risk” scam ads each day.

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