2026-01-30 03:00:30
Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine formally asked the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to investigate and provide details on many of the surveillance technologies being used by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to a copy of the letter shared with 404 Media.
The letter touches on many of the surveillance technologies and companies that 404 Media has been writing about in recent months, including Flock license plate readers, Penlink social media and location data monitoring, Clearview AI’s facial recognition tech, Paragon Solutions’ phone hacking technology, as well as other social media scanning and biometric collection databases used by DHS in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
“We are deeply concerned that ICE’s surge in brutality against American communities is being facilitated by the inappropriate and unsupervised use of surveillance technology,” the senators wrote. “As such, we formally request an investigation by your office into the methods that DHS uses to collect, retain, analyze, and use data about the communities where it operates in conjunction with the companies mentioned above, and any companies DHS is seeking to conduct business with–for similar purposes—in the future.”
The letter then demands that Joseph Cuffari, the Inspector General for DHS, provide information about how DHS obtains, processes, and stores people’s sensitive data, whether it keeps track of false positive and incorrect identities returned with its biometric surveillance tools, whether it keeps track of times its surveillance tools are used against U.S. citizens, how it shares information with private companies, and how it obtains information from other federal agencies. It also seeks information about DHS’s relationships with data brokers, whether it allows people to opt out of surveillance, and any privacy protections around some of the data it obtains.
While the letter itself seems unlikely to change anything about how ICE is operating in the field, these types of information gathering exercises from lawmakers often result in new details about the inner workings of surveillance programs and tools and can eventually lead to reform.
“In addition to egregious practices we have seen in public reporting, it’s important that your office shine light on activities that undergird ICE’s enforcement actions including a muddled patchwork of technology procurements that have significantly expanded DHS’ ability to collect, retain, and analyze information about Americans,” they wrote. “Together, ICE’s new information collection tools potentially enable DHS to circumvent the constitutional protections provided by the Fourth Amendment—protections guaranteed to all Americans and all persons within our borders.”
The Trump administration has sought to undercut inspectors general across the federal government; soon after he was inaugurated, Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general. Cuffari, who was appointed during Trump’s first term and served under Joe Biden as well, was one of the few inspectors general who was left in his post. In 2024, an independent panel found that Cuffari had violated ethics rules during this confirmation process and recommended that he be replaced, but Biden left him in his role.
2026-01-29 22:54:40
Chat & Ask AI, one of the most popular AI apps on the Google Play and Apple App stores that claims more than 50 million users, left hundreds of millions of those users’ private messages with the app’s chatbot exposed, according to an independent security researcher and emails viewed by 404 Media. The exposed chats showed users asked the app “How do I painlessly kill myself,” to write suicide notes, “how to make meth,” and how to hack various apps.
The exposed data was discovered by an independent security researcher who goes by Harry. The issue is a misconfiguration in the app’s usage of the mobile app development platform Google Firebase, which by default makes it easy for anyone to make themselves an “authenticated” user who can access the app’s backend storage where in many instances user data is stored. Harry said that he had access to 300 million messages from more than 25 million users in the exposed database, and that he extracted and analyzed a sample of 60,000 users and a million messages. The database contained user files with a complete history of their chats with the AI, timestamps of those chats, the name they gave the app’s chatbot, how they configured the model, and which specific model they used. Chat & Ask AI is a “wrapper” that plugs into various large language models from bigger companies users can choose from, Including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Google’s Gemini.
2026-01-28 23:54:09
Hackers claimed on Wednesday they’ve stolen a mass of internal data from Match Group, which runs dating apps Hinge, Match, and OkCupid.
Match Group, the company that owns the targeted platforms as well as Tinder and other massively popular dating apps, says it is investigating the incident.
404 Media downloaded the data and reviewed portions of its contents. It appears to contain some users' unique advertising IDs; corporate receipts; and other internal company documents.
2026-01-28 23:50:52
The Doomsday Clock, a symbol of how close humanity is to destroying itself, has moved from 89 seconds to 85 seconds, four seconds closer to “doomsday.” That is the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight. That’s when, in the metaphor proposed by the keepers of the Clock, the world ends. According to the scientists and experts who oversee the ritual setting of the Doomsday Clock, the end of the world is more possible now than it’s ever been.
But In 2026, I feel I don’t need the reminder.
President Donald Trump’s masked police have executed people in the street, the last nuclear treaty between Russia and the US is about to die, and tech oligarchies are constructing massive resource-sucking datacenters to power an unwanted nuisance technology they say is a path towards a godlike super intelligence.
Why watch the Clock? What is the point of keeping time? I have watched this ritual timekeeping for a decade and, I confess, I am feeling numb and cynical about it.
The Doomsday Clock began ticking in 1947, two years after Albert Einstein and a group of Manhattan Project veterans founded the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the organization that sets the clock. For almost eight decades, generations of the world’s brightest minds have gathered once a year to tell the world how screwed it is.
Alexandra Bell, the current head of the Bulletin, said The Doomsday Clock is worth preserving, of course. Bell describes herself as a late stage Gen Xer. The Clock, she told me in a call last week, has always been a part of her life. “One of every four movies on TV was a nuclear one,” she said. The clear and iconic lines of the Clock have been present in pop culture for decades, most noticeably as a thematic image in Alan Moore’s Watchmen comic book. According to Bell, the symbol is important. “It’s clear that people respond to it. If you simply had a set of scientists deliver a statement about the state of existential risks…would it have the same global reach that the Clock does?”
Nuclear expert Joseph Cirincione also doesn’t recall a time when the Doomsday Clock wasn’t ticking away in the background of his life and work. “It’s part of the fabric of the nuclear age,” he said. Cirincione worked on military reform as a Congressional staffer for nine years before starting a long career in the nuclear world. He’s the former director of non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the retired president of the Ploughshares fund.
Cirincione wasn't exactly skeptical of the Clock when I spoke to him the day before the announcement. “The Doomsday Clock is probably the most cited measure of nuclear risk in the world today,” he said. But he did share some of my concerns. “Being so close to midnight, you’re afraid the metric loses its power,” he said.“What does it mean to go from 89 seconds to 75 seconds?”
“Here's the dilemma: I believe we are seconds away from nuclear catastrophe,” he said. “This is true. This is an accurate reflection of the risk. You can make a long list of what the risks are, but at the top of the list is that a crazy man has the sole unfettered ability to launch a nuclear war, and no one can stop him, and that is our president. That is true. He could do that this afternoon. The President of the United States is increasingly demonstrably mentally unstable, and yet, if he wanted to launch a nuclear weapon, no one could stop him.”
During an interview with New York Magazine published on January 26, 2026—the day before the Clock ticked forward—Trump appeared to forget the word “Alzheimer’s” when describing the health issue that felled his father. “Well, I don’t have it,” Trump said after his press secretary filled in the word for him. “I don’t think about it at all. You know why? Because whatever it is, my attitude is whatever.”
These are not inspiring words from a man with the ability to end all life on Earth.
Cirincione wants the Bulletin to stress Trump’s diminished mental capacity during its announcement, but he’s not hopeful they will. “What holds them back is that the natural desire of experts to be non-partisan and to not explicitly criticize a leader of a country, a leader of a political party, they don't want to be dragged into that,” he said. “Discussing the mental stability of that person that is way too sensitive for a group like the Bulletin to take on. So they will shirk from that.”
During speeches and a question and answer session after the announcement, the experts at the Bulletin mentioned Trump many times. It’s clear they see him as a liar and a threat to world peace. “We’ve seen President Trump using [AI videos] to try to persuade people that things have happened that have not happened,” Steven Fetter, a member of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, said. But as Cirincione predicted, they didn’t touch on his mental state.
They did, however, hit on another topic Cirincione worried they would avoid. “The biggest change in nuclear risks over the last 10 years is that seven of the nine nuclear armed states are now led by authoritarian leaders,” he said.
The rising tide of authoritarianism and nationalism were central talking points of the Bulletin’s announcement this year. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Maria Ressa gave the keynote address of the announcement. Ressa, a journalist from the Philippines, is well aware of the world’s current horrors. Ressa reported on the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte who was a kind of proto-Trump. She said that democracy, diplomacy, and science don’t work without a shared sense of reality, what she calls the world’s operating system.
“The operating system has been corrupted, deliberately, systematically, for profit,” she said during her address. “The platforms that mediate our information were built on an extractive and predatory model. They turned our attention into a commodity and our outrage into their business model…this brings out the worst of humanity. They don't connect us, they divide us, and in that division, they've enabled the collapse of cooperation and the rise of illiberal leaders who exploit chaos. As of last year, 72 percent of the world is now under authoritarian rule.”
In her address, Ressa was critical of big tech. “The old order is not coming back,” Ressa said. “We’re witnessing something more dangerous: the fusion of state power with the tech oligarchy. The men who control the platforms that shape what billions believe have merged with the men who control governments and militaries. Might makes right is the new operating principle and they have the tools to manufacture consent or to simply drown out dissent.”
In a world where the tech company Palantir works hand in glove with ICE to figure out which neighborhoods to raid and Flock’s facial recognition technology is used liberally by police across America, Ressa’s words hit the mark more closely than the threat of nuclear weapons. And maybe that’s what I’m feeling too: the sense that nuclear weapons, like the Clock, are a nostalgic fear in the face of Big Tech overreach and the rise of authoritarianism.
And yet. The United States is set to spend trillions of dollars on new and different kinds of nuclear weapons. In less than two weeks, the last remaining treaty that limits the amount of deployed nuclear weapons in America and Russia will expire. Trump has threatened to test nuclear weapons again. China is building more nukes. Multiple countries, including South Korea, have expressed interest in acquiring their own nukes.
The risk of nuclear annihilation can feel abstract and overwhelming. The world has built a series of complicated and interconnected systems that allow a handful of people to destroy everything. When facing the totality of these weapons I feel like the protagonist of a Lovecraft story. I am struck dumb by horrors beyond my comprehension.
Best, then, to keep the metaphors simple. “Other people have tried,” Cirincione said. “None of them have come close to the traction of the Clock. So, the best argument for keeping the Clock is that it works and it has a proven track record, and you'd be foolish to give up that symbol now.”
Bell said that more people are paying attention to the Clock than ever before. She tells me that traffic is up at the Bulletin’s website and more people are reading about nuclear weapons, climate change, and the existential risks of technology like AI. The Clock, Bell said, is still connecting with people. “It’s not just a warning, it’s a call to action,” she said. “The fact that it’s not midnight yet means we have time to fix these problems.”
I ask her how close the Clock has to tick down to midnight before the metaphor breaks down.
“I hope we never have to find out,” she said. “Every metaphorical second counts.”
So the Clock ticks on. Four seconds closer now.
“How long can we go? We go until midnight,” Bell said.
2026-01-28 23:10:34
In the wake of the public killings of multiple US citizens, protestors, and legal observers in recent weeks by immigration agents in Minneapolis, January 26, 2025 marked a watershed moment for r/FuckingFascists: they will no longer allow content or roleplay featuring ICE.
The Reddit community r/FuckingFascists is for people with a kink for roleplaying sex with fascists. The subreddit’s description explicitly states that the sub is “about making porn or making fun of authoritarians. REAL FASCISTS, SEXISTS, HOMOPHOBES, TRANSPHOBES AND OTHER BIGOTS ARE NOT WELCOME HERE!,” and “Rule 1: No Fascists”.
On Monday morning, moderator LilyDHM announced a complete ban of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) content in the sub. “No ICE related content will be allowed in kink posts,” the post reads. “We believe that this is the best option to allow people to still post MAGA content without touching this particular aspect of it, as it directly involves current politics and multiple lost lives.”
2026-01-28 22:28:19
Faced with concerns about its leadership experiencing AI-induced delusions, backlash because its founder stating she now finds sex work “exploitative,” and confusion from its millions of creators and users, porn platform ManyVids is doubling down on the AI-generated messaging with posts about “believing in aliens.” In a post seemingly by the platform’s founder Bella French, she says the answer should be “a 3-hour long-form podcast conversation.”
This comes after the platform promised more clarity into how creators would be affected.
In the past few months, as 404 Media reported last week, ManyVids has increasingly turned to posting bizarre, clearly AI text and videos about imaginary conversations with aliens, French as an astronaut floating toward a black hole, and photos of hand-scrawled plans to convert the site to a tiered safe-for-work funnel, versus what makes it popular today: access to adult content from sex workers. French also recently changed her website to state she doesn’t believe the adult industry should exist, causing many online sex workers to question whether the site will remain a viable option for their income.
When I asked ManyVids for clarity on French’s statements—specifically on how she plans to “transition one million people” out of sex work, and if any of this will affect the millions of creators and fans who use the platform—someone replied from the support staff: “We are not victims — and we are taking action now,” the statement said. I asked what “taking action” means, and they replied assuring me that all would become clear on January 24, when a post would be published on the ManyVids news feed “It will provide additional clarification and go into a bit more detail on this,” they said. ManyVids published several posts on Saturday. None of them include additional clarification, all of them seem to be AI-generated, and they introduce more questions instead of answers.
Samantha Cole
“MV is an 18+ pop-culture, e-commerce social platform — and part of the job-creation economy of the future,” one post on the 24th said. “Our diverse offering of NSFW & SFW creators is a strength. How did we get here? Why SFW matter? [sic] How can online sex workers be recognized by society with the same legitimacy and respect as any other form of labor? After 15 years of reflection — 3 years as a performer and 12 years as a CEO — I believe a 3-hour long-form podcast conversation is the best way to explain the why, the numbers, the logic, and the how behind this work. Today’s stigma, debanking, deplatforming, and prejudgment punish online SW without giving them a fair chance to be heard. Protection comes from building better systems and creating more options.”
The post ended with the hashtag “#MaybeLexFridman,” referring to the popular podcaster.
A second post that day features an AI-generated video of French as a fireman with laser eyes. “At ManyVids, we believe in a Human-Centered Economy (HCE) — where merit and meaning are preserved because they matter,” the post says. “The job-creation network of the future, for humans who want to monetize their passions.” It goes on to mention, but not explain, a fictional concept called “Universal Bonus Intelligence.”
The post concludes: “MV - Made by Humans & AI. For Humans.”
And in a third post that day, with a collage of photos and AI-generated versions of French in different occupations, including astronaut and firefighter: “At ManyVids, we choose slow truth over quick certainty. We aim to help open hearts and minds toward differences.”
That post ends with: “Bella French. Co-Founder & Still-Standing CEO #RespectOnlineSexWorkers #Innovation #Since2014”
In the two days since, ManyVids has posted several more times. In one titled “A Message from the Green Tara,” referencing a figure in Buddhism: “So yeah... dragons are real. 😜🐉🔥 #MaybeJoeRogan” In another about Lilith, a fictional character from religious folklore: “Not Heaven. Not Hell. A 3rd option: no old binaries: a new garden built by outcasts. Yeah... We Are Many. And we deserve better. ✨🔥 #MVMag13 #WeAreMany #MaybeJordanPeterson”
And in the platform’s most recent post: A huge thank you to everyone who has ever been part of the MV Team and the MV Community. 💖 You are FOREVER family. 💖 💖 Un gros merci du fond du cœur. 💖 From your favorite pop culture platform for adults that also 100% believes in aliens. 👽🖖🏾✨😉” This is a reference to concerns from the community about previous posts featuring imaginary conversations with aliens.
ManyVids did not respond to my requests for comment about these recent posts.
