Your devices may be revealing a lot more about your life than you realize. During the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last month, we set out to find just how much data is floating around in the digital ether all around us. Armed with a fanny pack filled with radios—including …
Read More »The NSA Has a Podcast—Here's How to Decode It
My first story for WIRED—yep, 31 years ago—looked at a group of “crypto rebels” who were trying to pry strong encryption technology from the government-classified world and send it into the mainstream. Naturally I attempted to speak to someone at the National Security Agency for comment and ideally get a …
Read More »Seriously, Use Encrypted Messaging
Encrypted messaging is a godsend for mobile communications, whether you’re sending texts to your friends that you want kept private, or engaging in interactions that are better kept secret for safety reasons. Apps like Signal and Telegram offer users the ability to trade messages that can be read by only …
Read More »Germany’s Far Right Is in a Panic Over Telegram
Soon after the arrest of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov, a warning that was viewed more than 85,000 times started circulating among Germany’s far right: “Back up your Telegram data as quickly as you can and clean your account.” The message came from Kim Dotcom, the embattled German founder …
Read More »Telegram Faces a Reckoning. Other Founders Should Beware
Among the leaders of the world’s biggest social media sites, Telegram founder Pavel Durov has always been an outsider. Unlike Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, he has never appeared on Capitol Hill to apologize for past mistakes. Unlike TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, he’s never signed up for a five-hour grilling by Congress …
Read More »Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s Arrest Linked to Sweeping Criminal Investigation
French prosecutors gave preliminary information in a press release on Monday about the investigation into Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, who was arrested suddenly on Saturday at Paris’ Le Bourget airport. Durov has not yet been charged with any crime, but officials said that he is being held as part of …
Read More »Geofence Warrants Ruled Unconstitutional—but That’s Not the End of It
The 2024 US presidential election is entering its final stretch, which means state-backed hackers are slipping out of the shadows to meddle in their own special way. That includes Iran’s APT42, a hacker group affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Google’s Threat Analysis Group says targeted nearly a …
Read More »Spyware Users Exposed in Major Data Breach
In one of the largest-ever breaches of a US telecom giant, AT&T revealed this week that “nearly all” its customer phone and text records were stolen after hackers accessed its account on a third-party cloud service. That cloud service, Snowflake, has been linked to several recent breaches, including those of …
Read More »Apple to Allow Rivals to Access ‘Tap and Go’ Technology
Apple will allow rival companies to operate wallet technology on its iPhones free-of-charge for a decade, European Union regulators said on Thursday, in the latest overhaul prompted by local rules. Apple’s mobile wallet allows iPhone users to pay for products in-store and online using its own-brand Apple Pay. Until now, …
Read More »Google Is Adding Passkey Support for Its Most Vulnerable Users
The password killers known as “passkeys” are now available to users of Google's Advanced Protection Program, which works to add an additional layer of account protection for people who fear that they could face targeted digital attacks. The company is more than a year into supporting passkeys for all regular …
Read More »