The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden's Surveillance Machine Famously vengeful Knicks owner Jim Dolan has long spied on people at his iconic arenas. WIRED goes deep inside the operation that allegedly tracked a trans woman, lawyers, protesters, and more.

For @wired.com’s April cover, we take you inside Madison Square Garden’s surveillance machine — which has allegedly tracked a trans woman, lawyers, protesters, and more.

Revelatory work from @noahshachtman.bsky.social & @robertsilverman.bsky.social that I’m proud to publish and urge you to read.

The Internet's Most Powerful Archiving Tool Is in Peril As major news outlets cut off the Wayback Machine, journalists and advocacy groups are rallying to protect the Internet Archive’s vast collection of web pages.

Journalists know that losing the Wayback Machine would be a nightmare: www.wired.com/story/the-in...

The Dumbest Hack of the Year Exposed a Very Real Problem Last April, a hacker hijacked crosswalk announcements to mimic Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Records obtained by WIRED reveal how unprepared local authorities were.

NEW: Someone hacked the crosswalk announcements in cities in 5 states to make it say messages about politics and tech in the voices of Musk, Zuckerberg, and Trump. @peard33.bsky.social took a deep dive into the vulnerabilities local authorities never imagined: www.wired.com/story/crossw...

😂 bsky.app/profile/timm...

FOIA scoop (no paywall): The day Renee Good was killed, a Minnesota state police official repeatedly texted a FBI agent. He wanted to co-manage the crime scene & ensure his agents were included in interviews. For at least 2 days, maybe longer, the FBI didn't respond:
www.wired.com/story/the-fb...

This Is How Trump Is Already Threatening the Midterms WIRED surveyed the ways the Trump administration is working to manipulate this year’s midterm elections.

NEW:

You may have heard about Trump's efforts to undermine trust in the elections with the SAVE America Act.

But here I highlight how this is just one part of a broader effort to manipulate the midterms, and how that could have long-lasting effects on US democracy

www.wired.com/story/this-i...

What adults lose when kids are banned from social media Banning kids on social media today will hurt tomorrow's internet.

"All this policy around keeping kids off the internet is couched in language of protecting them...But there is a piece of it that is inherently rooted in the idea that they have nothing valuable to add to society or that there's no point in listening to them." www.businessinsider.com/kids-parenti...

Iranians Don’t Have a Missile Alert System, So Volunteers Built Their Own Warning Map The crowdsourced website and app Mahsa Alert provides citizens in Iran with crucial information amid the country’s ongoing war with the US and Israel—and an internet blackout.

NEW with @lhn.bsky.social: The US claims to have struck more than 9,000 sites in Iran, but the war is taking place in an information void.

Iranian volunteers are mapping confirmed strikes and warning citizens about potential strike targets, as the country enters its 26th day without the internet

The Danger Behind Meta’s Decision to Kill End-to-End Encrypted Instagram DMs Meta blamed users for not opting into the privacy-protecting feature. Experts fear the move could be the first major domino to fall for end-to-end encryption tech worldwide.

Meta is cutting end-to-end encryption for Instagram DMs, potentially setting a very problematic precedent in the industry. And they announced it in a way that was also extremely insulting to their users ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ www.wired.com/story/the-da...

Signal’s Creator Is Helping Encrypt Meta AI Moxie Marlinspike says the technology powering his encrypted AI chatbot, Confer, will be integrated into Meta AI. The move could help protect the AI conversations of millions of people.

"As is always the case with unencrypted data, it will inevitably end up in the wrong hands" www.wired.com/story/signal...

DHS Ousts CBP Privacy Officers Who Questioned ‘Illegal’ Orders Department of Homeland Security leaders removed top privacy officers who objected to mislabeling government records to block their public release, WIRED has learned.

Scoop: DHS ousted multiple privacy officers at CBP after they questioned orders to purposely mislabel records about government surveillance to prevent their release under FOIA.

This is the most bizarre interaction I've ever had with an HHS spokesperson.

From my story on CDC's pivot to "shared-decision making" for vaccines, with insight from @jennifernuzzo.bsky.social and @jakescottmd.bsky.social: www.wired.com/story/why-rf...

A Possible US Government iPhone-Hacking Toolkit Is Now in the Hands of Foreign Spies and Criminals A highly sophisticated set of iPhone hijacking techniques has likely infected tens of thousands of phones or more. Clues suggest it was originally built for the US government.

A full iOS exploitation toolkit, "Coruna," has been found in the wild, hacking iPhones that visited infected websites, used by Russian spies targeting Ukrainians and thieves targeting Chinese crypto holders. And it may have been originally created for the US government. www.wired.com/story/coruna...

Attacks on GPS Spike Amid US and Israeli War on Iran New analysis shows that attacks on satellite navigation systems have impacted some 1,100 ships in the Middle East since the US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28.

an update on current GPS jamming activity in the Strait of Hormuz, by @mattburgess1.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/gps-at...

really excellent/wild story bsky.app/profile/kimz...

How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance From threat modeling to encrypted collaboration apps, we’ve collected experts’ tips and tools for safely and effectively building a group—even while being targeted and tracked by the powerful.

It's hard enough to figure out your own threat model and how to approach your own digital privacy and security, but it's even more overwhelming to try to think it through for bigger groups. @agreenberg.bsky.social and I put together this guide as a starting point www.wired.com/story/how-to...

Reminder that the Washington Post lost 250,000 subscribers, more than most outlets will ever have, after its decision not to publish an endorsement in the last election. www.npr.org/2024/10/29/n...

That kind of cowardice, not AI or whatever, is what's "drastically reshaping" readers' expectations.

FBI Couldn’t Get into WaPo Reporter’s iPhone Because It Had Lockdown Mode Enabled Lockdown Mode is a sometimes overlooked feature of Apple devices that broadly make them harder to hack. A court record indicates the feature might be effective at stopping third parties unlocking some...

New from 404 Media: the FBI has been unable to get into the iPhone of raided Washington Post journalist because the phone had Lockdown Mode enabled. Apple markets Lockdown Mode mostly to stop spyware like NSO. Here, a real world example of it stopping access too www.404media.co/fbi-couldnt-...

New survey reveals how security researchers and journalists experience legal and criminal threats Over 100 security researchers and journalists answered our survey and told us how they experienced threats for doing their work. Here are some of the top takeaways.

ICYMI: Yesterday we published the results of a survey of 100+ security researchers and journalists asking about the legal and criminal threats they face for doing their jobs.

A very interesting takeaway: While legal & criminal threats are common, most of our respondents *did not* give in to them.

An AI Toy Exposed 50,000 Logs of Its Chats With Kids to Anyone With a Gmail Account AI chat toy company Bondu left its web console almost entirely unprotected. Researchers who accessed it found nearly all the conversations children had had with the company's stuffed animals.

The AI-chat-enabled stuffed toy Bondu invites little kids to have intimate conversations with it, like an LLM imaginary friend. It also exposed virtually all their chats on a web interface with no security. Anyone with a Gmail account could log in and read transcripts. www.wired.com/story/an-ai-...

Can Woke 2 Go IRL? Even Thomas Chatterton Williams Thinks It’s Possible The very intellectual and the very online have an answer for why Trump’s cultural revolution hasn’t really taken root. They’ve also got memes.

my magnum opus on woke 2 has arrived!!! (magnum wokus?) thank you to @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social and @kattenbarge.bsky.social for providing your thoughts on the matter www.vanityfair.com/culture/stor...

Attack Against Poland's Grid Disrupted Communication Devices at About 30 Sites The hackers behind a cyberattack that targeted Poland's grid infrastructure in December disabled communication devices for at least 30 sites across a number of energy facilities in different parts of ...

Hackers behind cyberattack against Poland electric grid in Dec disabled communication devices for at least 30 sites across a number of energy facilities in country. They rendered the devices - known as remote terminal units or RTUs - not only inoperable but also unrecoverable

He Leaked the Secrets of a Southeast Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive A source trapped inside an industrial-scale scamming operation contacted me, determined to expose his captors’ crimes—and then escape. This is his story.

Last year, a human trafficking victim trapped in a crypto scam compound in the Golden Triangle region of Laos contacted me. He then proceeded to leak to me a huge collection of the compound's internal materials.

Then he had to get out alive. This is his story.

🧵👇 www.wired.com/story/he-lea...

Revealed: Leaked Chats Expose the Daily Life of a Scam Compound’s Enslaved Workforce A whistleblower trapped inside a “pig butchering” scam compound gave WIRED a vast trove of its internal materials—including 4,200 pages of messages that lay out its operations in unprecedented detail.

Red Bull felt compelled to expose this apparatus that is enslaving and victimizing so many. The documentation he provided to @agreenberg.bsky.social offers key insight into these destructive institutions. It was a privilege to review this data with @wired.com colleagues www.wired.com/story/the-re...

He Leaked the Secrets of a Southeast Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive A source trapped inside an industrial-scale scamming operation contacted me, determined to expose his captors’ crimes—and then escape. This is his story.

Human trafficking to scam compounds in SE Asia is a catastrophe for forced laborers and their scam victims worldwide. One individual, Red Bull, gave @agreenberg.bsky.social incredible insight into the situation over months from inside. Then he attempted an escape www.wired.com/story/he-lea...

For This Influencer, Rejection Is the New Perfection

for The New York Times, I wrote about the 1,000 Rejections Challenge and why getting comfortable with "no" is more useful than resolutions about becoming the perfect version of yourself www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/a...

149 Million Usernames and Passwords Exposed by Unsecured Database This “dream wish list for criminals” includes millions of Gmail, Facebook, banking logins, and more. The researcher who discovered it suspects they were collected using infostealing malware.

NEW: A database left accessible to anyone online contained tens of millions of login credentials from Gmail, Facebook, Apple, OnlyFans, crypto accounts, and more. @lhn.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/149-mi...

Trump officials consider skipping premier cyber conference after Biden-era cyber leader named CEO Jen Easterly, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under Biden, was named CEO of RSAC Conference Thursday.

Officials in ONCD, NSC and CISA discussed potential plans to no longer attend after Jen Easterly, the former CISA director under Biden, was named as CEO of RSAC Conference on Thursday:
www.nextgov.com/people/2026/...

Hundreds of Millions of Audio Devices Need a Patch to Prevent Wireless Hacking and Tracking Flaws in how 17 models of headphones and speakers use Google’s one-tap Fast Pair Bluetooth protocol have left devices open to eavesdroppers and stalkers.

a big load of earbuds, headphones and speakers need updating to patch vulnerabilities that could be exploited to hijack audio, take over mics for eavesdropping, or even in some cases for location tracking www.wired.com/story/google...