404 Media

3 Oct 2026

The estimated lifespan of the outer solar system has been downgraded from 100 billion years to just a few billion years, according to a study that probed “terminal instability” during the Sun’s

2 Oct 2026

Flock’s nationwide network is quickly “approaching dragnet-type law enforcement practice” and the cop should have got a warrant, the judge wrote.

2 Oct 2026

The massive FBI hack; a company wants to add facial recognition onto Flock; and Muse in some cases is actually just people.

2 Oct 2026

This week, we discuss inbox slop, Claude cults, and more.

1 Oct 2026

A look at the state of student journalism in light of the Cornell sexual assault case, and much more.

1 Oct 2026

As the Cornell 7 case highlights the importance of student journalism, public records reveal how schools try to censor on-campus news outlets.

1 Oct 2026

Magent Forensics, the owner of the GrayKey phone unlocking tool, says it can bypass an iPhone rebooting feature that was locking cops out.

30 Sep 2026

The "AI Torture Chamber" has opened an upsetting and absurd window into the effective altruist obsession with "model welfare."

30 Sep 2026

"Do you watch the news? Do you listen to the radio? Do you read anything about what's going on in the world?” one of the judges asked the lawyer, who submitted false testimony and witnesses after

30 Sep 2026

USPS says the cameras, put on USPS truck dashboards, will scan roads, signs, and more.

30 Sep 2026

Cloudflare, Google, and Proton were among the "dominant" infrastructure providers to sites dedicated to hosting abusive content, the study found.

30 Sep 2026

How local cops are forced to feed their license plate data to the feds, the two loudest birds on the planet, and a very strange video from the FBI.

30 Sep 2026

How the federal government built a massive database of license plate reader data through an anti-drug trafficking program.

29 Sep 2026

The bare-throated bellbird and the red-legged seriema join the white bellbird in the winner’s circle of the loudest birds on Earth, with calls exceeding 120 decibels—louder than a chainsaw or

29 Sep 2026

CEO who wants to add facial recognition to Flock cameras says it's "the way the world will have to be."

29 Sep 2026

A surveillance company wants to "close the gap" that Flock won't do, by pitching facial recognition on its cameras.

29 Sep 2026

The team used frontier LLMs with no prior training data navigate a simple parking lot course.

28 Sep 2026

ShinyHunters, the group that stole data on “all FBI employees” including addresses and details on their spouses, told 404 Media on Monday “Since the very beginning we had made our decision that

28 Sep 2026

Facial recognition is everywhere now. Soon it's going to be right in your face, too.

28 Sep 2026

Human contractors are reviewing Copilot users’ prompts and uploaded images, according to internal documents obtained by 404 Media. The contractors are also bombarded with users’ requests for

26 Sep 2026

Scientists have discovered that Earth-like microbes could potentially survive conditions inside Enceladus’s subsurface ocean, and that detecting signs of life on the moon may be easier than

25 Sep 2026

"One’s like a happy or upbeat sad song if that makes any sense, and one’s a sad, sad song. I think one’s in a minor key, one’s in a major key, but I’m not a music professional."

25 Sep 2026

This week, we discuss some small changes, an AI song, and internet soup.

25 Sep 2026

Microsoft and OpenAI admit it; how we got AI slop onto a real band's Spotify page; and AI agent spam is here.

24 Sep 2026

The beta for the hotly anticipated World of Warcraft: Forever has been marred by fans of the streamer Asmongold who have filled the game’s public spaces with spam and slurs. To fix the issue, a

24 Sep 2026

Cops followed EJ Carrion home and arrested him in his drive way one week after he said 'bullshit' at a county meeting in Texas.

23 Sep 2026

The FBI's Remote Operations Unit (ROU) is a highly secretive team of hackers making exploits and tools to break into target’s devices. Some of its members just got exposed.

23 Sep 2026

Scientists discovered that diseased fruit flies lived longer when they were removed from Earth’s magnetic field, while healthy flies had shorter lifespans, in a first-of-its kind experiment with

23 Sep 2026

Citizens of Springfield, Missouri showed up to a city council meeting to discuss the city’s Flock contract. The mayor shut them down and arrested two people for ‘disruption of meetings of city

23 Sep 2026

Wealthy countries with many daily AI users tended to fear more for the future in what Gallup called the 'Paradox of the Worried West.'

22 Sep 2026

A sample of 5,000 alleged agents seen by 404 Media includes names, addresses, phone numbers, and details on FBI employees' spouses.

22 Sep 2026

"This has potential for so much negative PR. It could portray us as ‘their AI is not good enough so they still need humans’ kind of coverage for this launch."

22 Sep 2026

OpenAI has thousands and thousands of contractors helping improve the company's AI models. Multiple contractors have been fired for using AI to train the AI.

21 Sep 2026

Sherry Turkle's latest book, Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines, comes out on September 29.

21 Sep 2026

404 Media is filing public records requests around the country to find out how cops are using Axon's ALPRs. Here is how you can do that too.

19 Sep 2026

Some 600 million years ago, the supercontinent Gondwana produced a colossal mountain range that helped set the stage for all modern complex life, according to a new examination of tiny ancient rocks.

18 Sep 2026

404 Media and The Intercept talk about how private companies empower government surveillance, and how AI is used in warfare.

18 Sep 2026

This week, we discuss just doing it, machines that eat the internet, and an eavesdropping watch.

17 Sep 2026

"Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions."

17 Sep 2026

Flock ran searches for “coexist bumper sticker,” “white truck with a trump sticker,” and “Star of David,” apparently to demonstrate what cops shouldn't search for.

17 Sep 2026

Samuel Tunick allegedly wiped his GrapheneOS phone before CBP officials could search it, in what has become a high profile civil liberties case. Now Georgia State University has rescinded a job offer

17 Sep 2026

Guitar Center's 'Open for Legends' contest page was seemingly unmoderated for hours on Wednesday.

17 Sep 2026

A glaring loophole in digital music distribution makes it very easy to piggyback on the talent of real artists with AI generated music.

16 Sep 2026

The contractors reading real ChatGPT users' prompts; the big out-and-back-in around Automattic; and a16z thinks enshittification isn't real.

16 Sep 2026

While people around the U.S. are tearing down Flock cameras, one group of hackers went a step further: extracting the camera's software too.

15 Sep 2026

iLands and its AI agents are doing completely useless tasks, then begging for money.

15 Sep 2026

Three felonies have suddenly become two second-degree misdemeanors.

15 Sep 2026

How to make a fly play Doom, Minecraft, Beat Saber, parallel park, trade bitcoin, cut doner kebab, and more.

15 Sep 2026

“AI agents” now have enough power and permission to be extremely annoying online.

14 Sep 2026

New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a press conference on Monday that the sites included 1,200 people’s likenesses in “hyper-realistic” sexual imagery.