News
Hacker Shows How to Get Free Laundry For Life
Michael Orlitzky was sick of the washer and dryer machines in his building. So, he found an alternative to paying.
Scammer Allegedly Makes $600,000 a Month Holding Instagram Accounts Hostage
The case of Unlocked4Life, who outed himself on Adam-22's No Jumper podcast, shows how Instagram account scammers have escalated to violence and intimidation too.
Podcast
Podcast: Google, Reddit, and the Robots.txt Rebellion
We go long on robots.txt, AI scraping, and what it means for search and the web today. Also, a leaked document shows a multibillion dollar AI company scraped YouTube videos from specific creators, and we discuss Skibidi.
News
AI ‘Friend’ Company Spent $1.8 Million and Most of Its Funds on Domain Name
AI companion Friend appears to have spent most of its funds on buying friend.com.
News
Hacker Breaches Pharma Giant Bausch Health, Wants to Extort DEA
The data includes DEA numbers used for ordering controlled substances. 404 Media contacted Bausch about the data breach last week.
News
Skibidi Toilet Copyright Takedown Request to Garry’s Mod Is Very Dumb
A copyright takedown request against Garry’s Mod is a violation of the modding culture that made Skibidi Toilet possible.
News
Hacker Shows How to Get Free Laundry For Life
Michael Orlitzky was sick of the washer and dryer machines in his building. So, he found an alternative to paying.
Microsoft
How a Microsoft App is Powering Employee Surveillance
Microsoft Dynamics 365 uses AI-generated performance metrics to single out individual workers, a new report has found.
AI
Websites are Blocking the Wrong AI Scrapers (Because AI Companies Keep Making New Ones)
Hundreds of sites have put old Anthropic scrapers on their blocklist, while leaving a new one unblocked.
Behind The Blog
Behind the Blog: Winning Awards and Cranky Babies
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 winning awards, sim swapping dumpster fires, and push notifications for infants.
News
How the FBI Is Hunting North Korean Hackers Who Attacked U.S. Healthcare System
A recently unsealed court document shows the FBI has obtained multiple warrants to read the contents of email inboxes used by suspected North Korean hackers.
News
Navy Ad: Gig Work Is a Dystopian, Unregulated Hellscape, Build Submarines Instead
The same government that has failed to regulate gig work has simply opted to agree that it is bad and to use those working conditions to recruit for the military.
AI
AI Video Generator Runway Trained on Thousands of YouTube Videos Without Permission
A leaked document obtained by 404 Media shows company-wide effort collected thousands of YouTube videos and pirated content for training data.