On Wednesday, August 23, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary outfit Wagner Group, was killed after his plane exploded and fell from the sky. While the details of exactly what happened are still scarce, open source information has helped to fill in the gaps. To investigate technology, you …
Read More »In a World of Fakes, Trump’s Real Mug Shot Matters
For months, Etsy has become littered with a new genre of T-shirt: the Donald Trump mug shot. And they’re available in two main styles: Guity AF and Not Guilty. The shirts are adorned with photos of the former US president appearing as if he’d just been booked, but until very …
Read More »Why The Chainsmokers Invest in—and Party With—Niche Cybersecurity Companies
On Saturday, with Hurricane Hilary looming, Alex Pall and Drew Taggart of the DJ duo The Chainsmokers performed a concert at Los Angeles State Historic Park that set an all-time attendance record for the venue. By Tuesday night, Pall was in Switzerland, speaking to WIRED on Zoom, but he had …
Read More »How to Talk to Your Kids About Social Media and Mental Health
If you give a kid a smartphone, they’re going to want a social media account. That’s not the start of a storybook. The average age for a kid getting their first smartphone is 10.3. Within a year, a child has likely made four or five social media accounts; by the …
Read More »The Internet Is Turning Into a Data Black Box. An ‘Inspectability API’ Could Crack It Open
In today’s digital world, injustice lurks in the shadows of the Facebook post that’s delivered to certain groups of people at the exclusion of others, the hidden algorithm used to profile candidates during job interviews, and the risk-assessment algorithms used for criminal sentencing and welfare fraud detention. As algorithmic systems …
Read More »A Huge Scam Targeting Kids With Roblox and Fortnite 'Offers' Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight
Thousands of websites belonging to US government agencies, leading universities, and professional organizations have been hijacked over the last half decade and used to push scammy offers and promotions, new research has found. Many of these scams are aimed at children and attempt to trick them into downloading apps, malware, …
Read More »How to Remove Your Personal Info From Google by Using Its ‘Results About You’ Tool
In 2022, Google launched the “Results about you” tool to help people remove personal info from the company’s search results. With billions of searches happening daily on Google, finding your private phone number or home address indexed for the world to see can be quite shocking. Luckily, new updates to …
Read More »How to Remove Your Personal Info From Google’s Search Results
It can be quite frightening to find personal information about yourself in a Google search, like a home address or phone number, but you can take proactive steps to protect your privacy. A couple of years ago, Google expanded the ways you can submit removal requests for search results containing …
Read More »Are You Being Tracked by an AirTag? Here’s How to Check
When the AirTag launched in 2021, Apple’s Bluetooth tracker with ultra-wideband was lauded as a step toward the future of augmented reality and a great way to find everyday objects, like your lost TV remote. Cybersecurity experts expressed concern that the tracking device would be exploited by stalkers. The warnings …
Read More »A Guide to RCS, Why Apple’s Adopting It, and How It Makes Texting Better
If you've been keeping up with all the news out of WWDC 2024 this week, you'll know that Apple is bringing the RCS (Rich Communication Services) messaging standard to iPhones later this year with iOS 18. That's a win for Google, which has long backed RCS on Android. But what …
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