Brian Barrett

From Ukraine to Iran, Hacking Security Cameras Is Now Part of War’s ‘Playbook’ New research shows hundreds of attempts by apparent Iranian state hackers to hijack consumer-grade cameras, timed to missile and drone strikes. Israel, Russia, and Ukraine have also adopted this trick...

Hacking internet-connected civilian security cameras for recon has become a standard operating procedure of modern warfare. First for Russia and Ukraine, now for Israel and Iran.

Your insecure internet-of-things surveillance system is now their targeting system.

www.wired.com/story/from-u...

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...

How Big Tech Is Powering Trump’s Immigration Crackdown A WIRED analysis shows that ICE and CBP have collectively spent at least $515 million on products from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Palantir in the last few years alone.

How much is Big Tech fueling the ICE crackdown? @carolinehaskins.bsky.social found at least $515 million worth of contracts from the last two years alone among Palantir, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

X Is Drowning in Disinformation Following US and Israel’s Attack on Iran WIRED has reviewed hundreds of posts on X that promote misleading claims about the locations and scale of the attack.

NEW

Within minutes of Trump announcing the launch of Operation Epic Fury, X was flooded with disinformation.

Almost all of the accounts sharing fake videos of the attack on Iran featured blue checkmarks, meaning X is profiting from this.

www.wired.com/story/x-is-d...

Shortly after the first set of explosions, Iranians received bursts of notifications on their phones, not from the government advising caution, but from a prayer timing app called ‘BadeSaba Calendar’ which has been downloaded 5 million times from the Google Play Store. The messages arrived in quick succession over a period of 30 minutes, starting with the phrase ‘Help Has Arrived’ at 9:52 am Tehran time. No party has claimed responsibility for the hacks. Screenshots shared with WIRED Middle East show messages urging Iranian military personnel to surrender their weapons with the promise of amnesty. It also urged army personnel to join “the forces of liberation” and to “defend your brothers.”

Airborne leaflet propaganda in 2026: hacked push alerts from a prayer timing app

www.wired.me/story/hacked...

Anthropic Hits Back After US Military Labels It a 'Supply Chain Risk' Anthropic says it would be “legally unsound” for the Pentagon to blacklist its technology after talks over military use of its artificial intelligence models broke down.

"This is the most shocking, damaging, and over-reaching thing I have ever seen the United States government do," said one former Trump administration AI policy adviser. The DoD has created an impossible mess:

OpenAI Fires an Employee for Prediction Market Insider Trading Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi are big business, and some Big Tech employees are testing boundaries by making trades based on insider knowledge.

OpenAI fired an employee for insider trading on prediction markets. from @knibbs.bsky.social

Wall Street Has AI Psychosis A “thought experiment” about the impacts of AI sent stocks tumbling earlier this week. It’s probably going to keep happening.

Here's why the market has a hair-trigger response to anything it hears about AI disruption--including speculative fiction from obscure sources. www.wired.com/story/wall-s...

Ryan Coogler's deal to regain ownership of SINNERS after 25 years was always smart but now it is extra extremely indispensably smart.

I'm so proud of the entire @wired.com team for four ASME nominations, including General Excellence. The most nominations for WIRED in at least a decade! Everyone here earned all of this and more, so today we brag!

Pentagon v. ‘Woke’ Anthropic; Agentic v. Mimetic; Trump v. the State of the Union Podcast Episode · Uncanny Valley | WIRED · February 26 · 31m

new Uncanny Valley pod out today (every thursday!) from me, @brbarrett.bsky.social, and @zoeschiffer.bsky.social! we talk about many important things and also perhaps the most important thing of all (survivor 50's premier and the season I'd most like zoe to watch)

Everyone Speaks Incel Now After migrating from misogynist forums to social media feeds, terms like “looksmaxxing” and “mogged” are now impossible to avoid.

Incel slang is now so ingrained in the mainstream discourse that its origins have been obscured. How did we get here?

SCOOP: A White House staffer appears to be operating the anonymous pro-Trump X account JohnnyMAGA with nearly 300,000 followers.

More here:
www.wired.com/story/a-whit...

Kalshi Suspended a California Politician and a YouTuber for Insider Trading Leading prediction market Kalshi has revealed details of two recent insider trading cases it flagged to authorities, giving a rare look at how the platform enforces its policies.

NEW: Kalshi announces details into two insider trading investigations. WIRED confirms that one suspended account belongs to California congressional candidate Kyle Langford: www.wired.com/story/kalshi...

The Mighty Milkshake Ducks

College Campuses Are in Upheaval Over Faculty Ties to Epstein From small art schools to large public universities, the new DOJ release of emails reveals just how deep the financier’s influence in academia went. Students are demanding accountability.

The Epstein documents released weeks ago are full of university administrators, professors, and trustees. With students demanding transparency and accountability from their schools, academia faces a nationwide reckoning over how it courts and indulges deep-pocketed benefactors.

The Righteous EV Owners Who Won’t Let Their Broken Cars Die Fisker went out of business in 2024, but its biggest fans want to bring the “right to repair” to the masses.

On the plight of Fisker Ocean owners, who discovered when the EV manufacturer that made their software-stuffed cars went bankrupt that they maybe never owned them at all

Now a group of very dedicated owners are fighting to take their EVs back

www.wired.com/story/the-ri...

‘Narco-Submarine’ Carrying 4 Tons of Cocaine Captured by Mexico's Navy Following increased surveillance and patrols of routes used by transnational drug-trafficking networks, Mexican authorities have seized approximately 10 tons of cocaine in the past week alone.

sometimes you just have to write a headline with “4 tons of cocaine” in it www.wired.com/story/narco-...

DHS Wants a Single Search Engine to Flag Faces and Fingerprints Across Agencies Homeland Security aims to combine its face and fingerprint systems into one big biometric platform—after dismantling centralized privacy reviews and key limits on face recognition.

NEW: Homeland Security officials are asking companies to help them combine all of their face and fingerprint systems together into one giant biometric platform.

Buttttttt it's unclear how workable this really is since DHS uses a wide mishmash of proprietary algos.

Metadata Exposes Authors of ICE’s ‘Mega’ Detention Center Plans Comments and other data left on a PDF detailing Homeland Security's proposal to build “mega” detention and processing centers reveal the personnel involved in its creation.

NEW: A Homeland Security PDF uploaded to the New Hampshire governor's website included notes and metadata that revealed the DHS personnel involved in its creation. @regret.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/metada...

Trump’s Commerce Secretary Loves Tariffs. His Former Investment Bank Is Taking Bets Against Them A subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, which is run by the sons of US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, is letting clients essentially bet that President Donald Trump’s tariffs will be struck down in cou...

Big day for Howard Lutnick's large adult sons

The War Over Prediction Markets Is Just Getting Started Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are booming, and so is a fight among regulators, lawmakers, and advocates over their legality.

The war over prediction markets pits Mormons and casinos against Democratic lobbyists and Donald Trump, Jr. from @knibbs.bsky.social

A $10K Bounty Awaits Anyone Who Can Hack Ring Cameras to Stop Sharing Data With Amazon The Fulu Foundation, a nonprofit that pays out bounties for removing user-hostile features, is hunting for a way to keep Ring cameras from sending data to Amazon—without breaking the hardware.

Want to make a quick $10K? Just hack a Ring camera
www.wired.com/story/a-10k-...

Donald Trump Jr’s Private DC Club Has Mysterious Ties to an Ex-Cop With a Controversial Past The Executive Branch has a reported membership list that includes Trumpworld elites like David Sacks. A WIRED review of corporate filings reveals an under-the-radar player: a notorious former DC polic...

SCOOP: MAGA's exclusive private club has an unusual figure in its inner circle—a former DC cop best known for a viral stop-and-frisk video that led to a lawsuit www.wired.com/story/magas-...

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.

I don’t think I’ve ever had so many people writing to me to ask about encrypted/secure/private tools for comms, collaboration, and organizing. So @lhn.bsky.social and I talked to experts and assembled this: the Wired guide to organizing in an age of surveillance. www.wired.com/story/how-to...

Mark Zuckerberg Tries to Play It Safe in Social Media Addiction Trial Testimony The Meta CEO stuck to a playbook of repetitive answers and buzzwords in a landmark trial in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

If there's one thing we learned from Mark Zuckerberg's testimony in a landmark social media addiction trial today, it's that YOU ARE MISCHARACTERIZING WHAT HE SAID. from @milesklee.bsky.social

This Defense Company Made AI Agents That Blow Things Up Scout AI is using technology borrowed from the AI industry to power lethal weapons—and recently demonstrated its explosive potential.

I want to be extremely clear that this system is an AI agent controlling other AI agents controlling OTHER AI agents which use drones to blow things up. from @willknight.bsky.social

Inside the Homeland Security Forum Where ICE Agents Talk Shit About Other Agents Forum members discuss their discomfort with mass deportation efforts, debate how federal agents have interacted with civilians, and complain about their working conditions.

Inside the Homeland Security Forum Where ICE Agents Talk Shit About Other Agents

@telliotter.bsky.social reports from inside yet ANOTHER ICE agent forum:

Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE The recent request goes against decades of precedent, and puts noncitizens at further risk of immigration enforcement actions.

SCOOP: ICE is asking Social Security for peoples' in-person appointment dates and times, and SSA staff are being told to give it to them. From me + @leahfeiger.bsky.social + @zoeschiffer.bsky.social @wired.com

wired.com/story/social...

Hi Joe! You asked ChatGPT the wrong question. As our story says, he donated $25 million to MAGA Inc (Trump super PAC) and another $25 million to Leading the Future (pro-AI super PAC), for a total of $50 million in pro-Trump and pro-AI donations. Hope this helps!