Category: 404 Media

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to make it effectively impossible for people to buy what many call burner phones—a phone not explicitly linked to your identity at the point of purchase—which would impact privacy-conscious people, to domestic abuse survivors, to journalists, and many more. The FCC plans to do ...

A surveillance company plans to add sensors to automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) that would mean the devices, as well as capture the license plate of passing vehicles, would also sweep up unique identifiers of mobile phones, wearables, and other Bluetooth-enabled devices in those cars, potentially letting law enforcement identify ...

Almost 30 years ago a farming family deeded land to the City of Taylor, Texas, on the condition the city use it for a public park. For the nominal fee of $10, the farmers granted the 87 acres to a public trust in 1999. Taylor sold it to Blueprint, a ...

I didn’t plan it this way, but it’s a good coincidence that my interview with Devindra Hardawar is coming out on the week that the first Star Wars movie in years is being crushed at the box office by two low budget horror movies. Something is extremely off at Hollywood, ...

Microsoft has shut down a wave of its own repositories on GitHub, including those related to Azure and AI coding agents, as it investigates a data breach, according to research from cybersecurity researchers and a statement given to 404 Media by Microsoft. Hackers planted malware that would harvest peoples’ credentials ...

Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that balanced it out, performed evasive maneuvers, decorated a love shack, and bred inside bones. First, scientists discover a new “triple symmetry” on Earth that nobody can explain. Then: female dolphins keep tabs on coercive males, bowerbirds turn urban ...

K-pop fans are well-known as a force to be reckoned with on the internet, with some fans holding fierce allegiances and passions when it comes to specific artists. On social media, some obsessive fans are using generative AI to create what is essentially self-insert fan-fiction—creepy videos and images of themselves ...

🌘 Subscribe to 404 Media to get The Abstract, our newsletter about the most exciting and mind-boggling science news and studies of the week. The U.S. military has likely been quietly broadcasting codes for its global encryption network using public GPS for nearly 20 years, turning each satellite into a ...

This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss controversial memes, good times at Meta, and more. EMANUEL: My recent story about Google employees internally sharing memes about how they hate ...

📄 This article was primarily reported using public records requests. We are making it available to all readers as a public service. FOIA reporting can be expensive, please consider subscribing to 404 Media to support this work. Or send us a one time donation via our tip jar here. Immigration ...