REVEALED: 404 media | Rare Historical Photos

OpenAI Contractors Hired To Humanise ChatGPT Were Caught Using AI on the Job Despite Ban and Were Fired

An investigation by 404 Media says contractors reviewing OpenAI-related AI outputs were fired or removed from projects after using AI tools despite explicit bans on doing so.

International Business Times UK · Sep 28

Hacker Group ShinyHunters Claims FBI Breach as 5,000-Record Sample Raises Fears for Agents' Families

Hacker group ShinyHunters claims it breached FBI-related services and stole employee and applicant data, but the sample, alleged access route and wider scope remain unverified.

International Business Times UK · Sep 22

Intent not malicious, it's indifference: Thousands, if not millions, of books sent to AI woodchipper

François Picard is pleased to welcome investigative journalist Emanuel Maiberg, Co-founder of 404 Media. As we embark on AI's uncharted waters, Maiberg has made a most unexpected discovery:: the mass acquisition, dismemberment and scanning of rare books for use as training data. His investigation reveals a globalised and deliberately opaque…

France 24 · Sep 17

Border Patrol Is Secretly Tracking Americans' Money and Movements: U.S. Citizens Can Be Pulled Over Without Being Suspected of a Crime

Being a U.S. citizen does not appear to protect drivers from a secretive Border Patrol program that analyzes Americans' financial activity, tracks their movements and quietly asks local police to pull them over, even when they are not suspected of a specific crime.

Latin Times · Sep 9

Amazon's wanton destruction of rare books is a betrayal of the brand's origins

Fahrenheit 451 isn't a great look for the "Earth's biggest bookstore".

Creative Bloq · Aug 19

Secret tracking device placed in rare book ends up in Amazon processing facility — destroying books to train AI models is 'all' the Vegas warehouse does

404 Media placed an AirTag inside a shipment of 1,000 books, which landed at an Amazon facility that reportedly spends all day cutting the spine off of, and scanning, books.

Tom’s Hardware · Aug 18

Rare Books Shipment Tracked to Amazon AI Facility Where Books Are Allegedly Scanned and Destroyed

Amazon faces criticism for allegedly destroying books to digitise them for AI training, raising concerns about the preservation of physical culture and the ethics of AI data sourcing.

International Business Times UK · Aug 18

The privacy myth crumbles: Inside the iCloud+ flaws threatening Apple's most valuable promise

Recently uncovered bugs in Private Relay and Hide My Email have exposed a glaring truth: no single company can act as your sole privacy shield

TechRadar · Aug 14

Plaintiff busted trying to use AI prompt injection to win court case, hides text instruction in filing — demands AI model reviewing the text should side with him, rumbled because of strange white spaces in text

A self-represented plaintiff in a Connecticut court added a hidden AI prompt injection attack in their filing in a failed attempt to influence a decision. The court bars them from submitting documents electronically and instead must print them and hand to the clerk of court.

Tom’s Hardware · Aug 14

The Flock uprising is just the beginning

People are sick of tech billionaires trying to control our lives

Salon · Aug 14