2026-04-30 21:50:51
The Complier is the hardest boss to reach in the extraction shooter Marathon. To even have the chance to fight it, you need to have cleared six vaults—increasingly elaborate puzzle rooms—in the Cryo Archive, Marathon’s end game map. To even get the chance to enter each of those vaults, you need to obtain a key for each. To even get a chance to get one of those keys, you need to kill another set of bosses or find them in dangerous runs of another map. And if you do find a key, or you bring one into Cryo Archive to use, another team of players may simply kill you and take it from you.
Or, you could pay a random guy on eBay to kill the Compiler for you.
“Too busy with life? Want to hop on after a long day with a vault full of loot? Look no further!,” the description for a listing on eBay says. The listing itself is advertising a “Cryo Archive Compiler Kill.”
“Since the old Destiny loot cave days, I have loved helping players get the most out of their enjoyment with the game. Whether you want lots of loot, a higher rank, or a fun group of people to play with, my goal is simple: help you get results without wasting time,” it adds.
Paid boosting in video games is, obviously, not new. For years players without enough time to do it themselves have paid other people real money to grind Call of Duty experience for them, get to a certain rank in World of Warcraft, or obtain specific loot in Arc Raiders. But I found the Compiler kill offer especially jarring because it is something that requires so much time and skill from the person offering the boost. Killing, even getting to, the Compiler is not a mindless grind. You have to play a lot of Marathon to get there, and be good at the game. That, and personally it is a goal Emanuel, Matthew, and myself are slowly working towards, because that slow, painful progress is so satisfying to do yourself.
One attraction of killing the Compiler is that you get a unique character skin after doing so, something that in the know players will definitely notice you flaunting. There is also a chance to get the Biotoxic Disinjector weapon as a reward. This is a ludicrous gun that shoots both slime and grenades, and Bungie already had to lower its power once. If you want one Biotoxic Disinjector, the booster is charging $200. If you want three, you need to cough up $400. If you’re happy with just the kill itself, it costs $125. According to the listing, 15 people have paid for this particular service.
The eBay listing says buyers can have the booster play on the customer’s account, or “You play with us (Me and one more good player) *More expensive.” They also let you pay and play with another person of your choosing, but keep it hidden from them you’re paying for a boost, if you want to add some friendship deception in there too.
I noticed at least one listing advertising a similar Compiler kill service has been removed from eBay. Bungie, Marathon’s developer, did not respond to a request for comment, and I specifically asked Bungie if these boost services violate its rules.
2026-04-30 21:25:36
Residents of an Atlanta suburb have been rocked by the revelation that sales employees at Flock have been accessing sensitive cameras in the town to demonstrate the company’s surveillance technology to police departments around the country. The cameras accessed have included surveillance tech in a children’s gymnastics room, a playground, a school, a Jewish community center, and a pool.
Flock has taken issue with the way that residents and activists have characterized the access but confirmed that the camera access did happen as part of its sales demonstrations. A blog post by Jason Hunyar, a Dunwoody, Georgia resident who learned about Flock accessing the city’s cameras by obtaining Flock access logs via a public records request is called “Why Are Flock Employees Watching Our Children?”
Flock has pushed back against this characterization on social media, in a blog post, at city council meetings, and in a statement to 404 Media: “The city of Dunwoody is one city in our demo partner program,” a Flock spokesperson told 404 Media. “The cities involved in this program have authorized select Flock employees to demonstrate new products and features as we develop them in partnership with the city. Moreover, select engineers can access accounts with customer permission to debug or fix any issues that may arise. No one is spying on children in parks, as the substack incorrectly asserts.”
Flock also argued that it is more transparent than any other surveillance company because it creates these access logs at all, and they can be obtained using public records requests. “Also, I must state the irony of the situation. We're one of the few technology companies in this space dedicated to radical transparency [...] I understand the concern from the resident, but it is unequivocally false to assert that Flock, or the police, or city officials are doing anything other than using technology to stop major crimes in the city.”
The records Hunyar obtained, however, show that some of the cameras that were accessed were in sensitive locations, including the pool at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (in Dunwoody), the children’s gymnastics room at MJCCA, and several fitness centers and studios. The access logs obtained by Hunyar show at the very least how expansive Flock’s surveillance systems can be in a single city, encompassing not just cameras purchased by the city but also cameras purchased by private businesses.
After Hunyar wrote about what he found, Flock has agreed to stop using Dunwoody’s cameras to demonstrate its product. Flock’s FAQ page states that “Flock customers own their data” and “Flock will not share, sell, or access your data.” It also states “nobody from Flock Safety is accessing or monitoring your footage.” Flock also published a blog post that notes “one of the benefits communities value most about Flock technology is the ability for law enforcement to directly access privately owned cameras, if and only if the organization allows them to, for crime-solving and security purposes.”
“Fair questions have been asked about conducting demos on cameras in sensitive locations when doing this very critical testing in the real-world. Last week, in the City of Dunwoody, questions were raised about a demo conducted as part of authorized activity approved under the city's demo partner agreement, on cameras at a local Jewish Community Center. Although the camera was only viewed during a routine demo, we understand that this is a sensitive location for many. We have therefore determined that employees will be trained to only conduct demos in more public locations, like retail parking lots,” Flock wrote in the blog. “Accusing someone of spying on children is not a policy disagreement; it is a life-altering allegation. Claims of inappropriate conduct by our employees are false. The employees being named online are well-intentioned employees who accessed a camera network with the city's explicit permission, as part of their job. They are now being called predators for it.”
2026-04-30 20:56:21
Japan’s Minister of Defense Shinjirō Koizumi posed with a cardboard drone on Monday during a meeting with drone manufacturer AirKamuy. The AirKamuy 150 is a cheap pre-fab cardboard drone meant to die on the battlefield and it comes shipped in a flatpack like an IKEA shelf.
According to Koizumi, Japan’s military has already begun to use the cardboard drone. “The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is already utilizing them as targets,” he said in a post on X. “In aiming to become the Self-Defense Forces that makes the most extensive use of unmanned assets, including drones, in the world, strengthening collaboration with startups enthusiastic about the defense sector is indispensable.”
2026-04-30 00:54:33
Update 4:30 PM EDT: On a popular listserv for academics, many of whom are attending RightsCon, a board member of Access Now wrote "I am told I can leak that RightsCon has been canceled. Message from [Access Now] following shortly" in a thread about what attendees were planning on doing. And in an email, AccessNow wrote: "It is with heavy hearts that we share: RightsCon will not proceed in Zambia or online. We understand this news is deeply upsetting for our community and while we know everyone has questions, our goal right now is to notify you of the event’s status because many of you have imminent travel plans. We do not recommend registered participants travel to Lusaka for RightsCon.
Over the last 48 hours we have experienced an overwhelming surge of support from civil society, government representatives, sponsors, and our community as a whole. For this, we wholeheartedly thank you. We’ll communicate more information soon." The original article continues below.
Days before thousands of researchers, academics, and human rights experts were set to convene in Lusaka, Zambia, the government of Zambia announced it was postponing RightsCon, one the largest and most important digital human rights conferences in the world. The announcement, which came as some participants and speakers were already en route to the conference, has sown confusion and chaos in the academic community.
Minister of Technology and Science Felix Mutati first announced the postponement on April 28, saying that Zambia needed more time to ensure the conference “fully [aligns] with national procedures, diplomatic protocols, and the broader objective of fostering a balanced and consensus-driven platform for dialogue.”
“In particular, certain invited speakers and participants remain subject to pending administrative and security clearances, which have not yet been concluded," he added, according to the Lusaka Times.
2026-04-29 22:35:14
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to expand its fleet of high-powered surveillance drones, and other parts of the Department of the Homeland Security (DHS) may buy their own Predator-style drones, according to recently published procurement records.
The news shows DHS’s continued investment in drone surveillance technology, and how use of large scale drones could expand to other parts of the umbrella agency.
2026-04-29 21:01:22
Last week Apple fixed an issue that let the FBI forensically extract copies of incoming Signal messages from a defendant’s iPhone, even after the app had been deleted, because copies of those messages were stored in the iPhone’s notification database. The move comes directly in response to 404 Media’s coverage of a case in which the FBI was able to extract a suspect’s deleted Signal messages. Apple’s fix means iPhones should no longer save copies of deleted messages from Signal or other apps, and Apple said the patch also purges already saved and related notifications.