404 Media 🕸️

"The risk/benefit calculus of providing free & open access to individual genetic data in 2025 is very different compared to 14 years ago."

Everyone wants to look cool in a leather jacket and lead one of the most valuable companies in the world, but not everyone can pull it off.

“Go away.” – Mexican tetra.

This week, we discuss getting fooled, the 'one big story' of the week, and Ghibli.

A new court document shows the FBI raced to stop hackers moving the ransom Caesars paid, with authorities freezing much of the extortion payment.

As a real video of someone in a Pikachu suit at a protest goes viral, an AI-generated “photo” is fooling a lot of people.

The internet is flooded with AI-generated images in the style of Studio Ghibli, whose founder said “I would never wish to incorporate this technology into my work at all.”

“A couple smiling on a beach at sunset, associated with Hawaii doctor incident.”

No phone, no app, no encryption can protect you from yourself if you send the information you’re trying to hide directly to someone you don’t want to have it.

Encryption can’t protect you from adding the wrong person to a group chat. But there is also a setting to make sure you don’t.

What the 23andMe bankruptcy means for privacy; the website doxing Tesla owners; and that crazy Signal group chat story.

The hottest use of AI right now? Dora the Explorer feet mukbang; Peppa the Pig Skibidi toilet explosion; Steph Curry and LeBron James Ahegao Drakedom threesome.

A new bill introduced by Angela Paxton, wife of Texas AG Ken Paxton, would impose privacy-invading age verification requirements on online sex toy retailers.

AI-generated audio of Vance saying Musk is “cosplaying as a great American leader” has been played more than 2 million times on TikTok alone.

There is no way to know what a buyer will want to do with the reams of genetic information it has collected. Customers, meanwhile, still have no way to change their underlying genetic data.

Last week 404 Media reported a website called ‘Dogequest’ was doxing Tesla owners. The site administrators appear to have launched a clone of the interactive map on the dark web too.

The Mozilla Foundation says 30 companies should block web scrapers from ShadowDragon, an ICE contractor.

This week, we journey into the human brain and find some disturbing stuff in there.

This week, we discuss doxed Teslas, the concept of "amplification," and how we'd much rather be looking at cooking videos than all this mess.

Automatic license plate readers, Instagram captions, and fingerprints.