Hackers Stole Flock’s Camera Software, Revealing How the Company Tracks Cars and People
404 Mediaby Joseph Cox26d ago
This article was produced in collaboration with WIRED. You can read their version of the article here.
404 Media
404media.coadded August 2026
top 92%A Digital Fly Brain Has Taken Over the Internet
404 Mediaby Becky Ferreira26d ago
A digital fly brain has been trading bitcoin, parallel parking, exploring bisexuality, cutting doner kebab, playing games—including Minecraft, Doom, and Beat Saber—and generally lighting up social...
There’s a 100% Chance AI Agents Are Already Ruining the Internet
404 Mediaby Jason Koebler26d ago
For the last week, much of society has been focused on the idea that there’s a “more than 10 percent chance” AI could kill all humans within the next decade.
New York Seizes 12 Celebrity Deepfake Websites
404 Mediaby Samantha Cole27d ago
The New York District Attorney announced on Monday that it has seized 12 websites hosting AI-generated non-consensual intimate imagery, primarily of celebrities and public figures.
Cops Search Thousands of Flock Cameras for Reasons of ‘LMAO,’ ‘IDK,’ ‘Hehe,’ and ‘asdfg’
404 Mediaby Jason Koebler27d ago
Last summer, a cop with the Lake County, Indiana Sheriff’s Department used Flock’s surveillance search engine to look for a license plate across more than 19,000 cameras in 1,558 cities and towns.
Inside ‘Project Lily’: The Humans Reading Your ChatGPT Chats
404 Mediaby Joseph Cox27d ago
OpenAI is hiring hundreds of contractors who read a massive stream of real users’ ChatGPT prompts, with the prompts sometimes including sensitive personal information, 404 Media has learned.
Behind the Blog: How to Talk About AI Doom
404 Mediaby Samantha Cole11 Sept 2026
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss AI doomers, 9/11 posting, and Barbie.
Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg Claims He’s Back 'In Control'
404 Mediaby Samantha Cole11 Sept 2026
Less than 48 hours after announcing he was forcibly placed on a leave of absence by the Automattic board on Wednesday, Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg posted in a company-wide Slack channel claiming...
‘We Did Not Invite You.’ Citizens Rage at Town Hall Over Proposed Nuclear AI Data Center
404 Mediaby Matthew Gault11 Sept 2026
Representatives from the University of Michigan faced tough questions and a lot of vitriol from the citizens of Ypsilanti Township Wednesday night.
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg Put on 'Leave of Absence'
404 Mediaby Samantha Cole9 Sept 2026
On a company-wide Slack this morning, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg announced he has been put on a paid leave of absence.
Doctor Doom Thanked Seattle for All the Surveillance Cameras
404 Mediaby Matthew Gault9 Sept 2026
Doctor Doom took the podium at a Public Safety Committee meeting on Tuesday to thank the council for covering the city in surveillance cameras. “Doom took over Axon enterprises [...]
The Remnants of a Lost ‘Supercontinent’ Just Rewrote the History of Life on Earth
404 Mediaby Becky Ferreira9 Sept 2026
Scientists have identified the submerged remnants of a giant lost supercontinent that played a pivotal role in the explosion of complex life more than 500 million years ago, reports a study...
First ‘Take It Down Act’ Sentencing Puts Man Behind Bars for 15 Years
404 Mediaby Samantha Cole9 Sept 2026
The first man in the country to be convicted of violating the Take It Down Act was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday, after investigators found more than 3,000 real and AI-generated abuse...
'Tell Everyone:' A Man Died by Suicide After Talking to ChatGPT. His Former Partner Wants to Warn the World About AI
404 Mediaby Samantha Cole9 Sept 2026
If you or someone you know is struggling, The Crisis Text Line is a texting service for emotional crisis support. To text with a trained helper, text SAVE to 741741.
The Man on a Quest to Digitally Preserve America’s Public Restrooms
404 Mediaby Matthew Gault9 Sept 2026
For the last three years Jake Welch has been 3D scanning public restrooms and archiving their peculiarities on a website called The Restroom Archive.
A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans’ Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over
404 Mediaby Joseph Cox8 Sept 2026
Border Patrol is running secretive predictive policing units that analyze Americans’ financial activity and other data, then feed that intelligence to local police who pull people over who are not...
Flock Taught Cops How to Surveil No Kings Protesters
404 Mediaby Jason Koebler3 Sept 2026
Flock taught cops how they could surveil the No Kings protests and “small parades” using a mix of Flock’s technology and law enforcement’s own databases in a webinar last year.
How the Hell Did an Island Suddenly Appear, Then Vanish?
404 Mediaby Becky Ferreira2 Sept 2026
An island that appeared to suddenly materialize, then vanish, on Williston Lake in British Columbia over the summer was rediscovered on the massive reservoir on Monday.
A16z Says You Actually Love Social Media, Enshittification Isn’t Real
404 Mediaby Emanuel Maiberg2 Sept 2026
Yesterday a16z published an article in which NYU Professor of Design, AI and Media Theory Ruby Thelot argued that “enshittification,” or the concept that technology platforms get worse after they...
Texas Police Used AI to Write Report About Using Flock to Search for Woman Who Had Abortion
404 Mediaby Jason Koebler2 Sept 2026
The Texas sheriff’s office that used Flock to search more than 80,000 cameras nationwide for a woman who had a self-administered abortion used Axon’s Draft One AI tool to help write a police report...