Nostr notes by Joseph Cox

People who believe LLMs are conscious are having one of the ...

2026-09-30T21:26:06Z

People who believe LLMs are conscious are having one of the biggest AI meltdowns yet because someone is running a Saw-like torture chamber for LLMs on GitHub. Just before we published, GitHub took it down. GitHub hasn't said why

https://www.404media.co/someone-torturing-llms-in-a-robot-prison-has-triggered-the-dumbest-debate-in-ai-yet/

New: USPS is to put cameras in its trucks that continuously ...

2026-09-30T16:16:14Z

New: USPS is to put cameras in its trucks that continuously record. This is to gather data on roads, signage, and to improve "community safety," the agency tells me. The cameras are marketed to capture passing license plates too, but don't run ALPR software
https://www.404media.co/usps-to-put-cameras-in-trucks-that-scan-roads-for-community-safety/

New: from 404 Media. The catastrophic FBI hack also exposed the ...

2026-09-23T22:16:36Z

New: from 404 Media. The catastrophic FBI hack also exposed the FBI's own hacking unit. The Remote Operations Unit is a highly secretive part of the FBI, responsible for making tools to break into peoples' devices. Some of their names and addresses are in the data https://www.404media.co/fbi-hack-exposed-fbis-own-hacking-unit-remote-operations-shinyhunters/

Channel 5/Andrew Callaghan probably broke the law in multiple ...

2026-09-08T18:30:18Z

Channel 5/Andrew Callaghan probably broke the law in multiple jurisdictions by giving his subscribers' email addresses to Hunter Biden, according to a data protection expert we spoke to. Channel 5's own privacy policy says it won't share data like this https://www.404media.co/channel-5-gave-hunter-biden-a-list-of-its-subscribers-emails-for-some-reason/

New: a secretive DHS predictive policing unit is analyzing ...

2026-09-08T13:13:45Z

New: a secretive DHS predictive policing unit is analyzing Americans' financial activity, feeding those names to police, then having cops pull them over. Not suspected of any particular crime

We're revealing the unit name too: Predictive Intelligence Targeting Team https://www.404media.co/a-secretive-dhs-predictive-policing-unit-is-analyzing-americans-financial-habits-and-pulling-them-over/

We got a live demo of the shirt that is designed to fool certain ...

2026-09-01T13:47:16Z

We got a live demo of the shirt that is designed to fool certain people detection systems.

Read more here: https://www.404media.co/this-digital-camouflage-shirt-confuses-ai-powered-surveillance-cameras/

Two cyber sleuths wanted to see if they could track down a ...

2026-08-31T15:45:56Z

Two cyber sleuths wanted to see if they could track down a Nigerian scammer. They made a child-looking social media account, immediately got messages. Tracked the scammers' IP address to Lagos, then got on a plane and found their doorstep

Watch more and subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=973m4leS25c

New: ICE plans to spend millions of dollars on Boston Dynamics ...

2026-08-28T14:06:23Z

New: ICE plans to spend millions of dollars on Boston Dynamics dog robots. ICE says this is to improve "officer safety." The robots can open doors, pick up objects, have 360 cameras, infrared vision, etc. Boston Dynamics didn't respond to question on its stance on ICE https://www.404media.co/ice-plans-to-spends-millions-on-boston-dynamics-dog-robots/

Software giant SAP stopped most hires and travel because of ...

2026-08-06T19:14:44Z

Software giant SAP stopped most hires and travel because of AI's soaring cost, and a current employee tells me those freezes are still in place a month later. That is, unless the travel or hires are to do with AI, of course.

https://www.404media.co/software-giant-sap-stops-most-travel-and-hiring-because-of-ais-soaring-cost/

New: Microsoft has introduced new limits to how much its ...

2026-08-04T16:46:04Z

New: Microsoft has introduced new limits to how much its engineers can spend on AI tools at work and told employees that maximizing AI use internally is not the company’s goal, according to an internal Microsoft email obtained by 440 Media.

https://www.404media.co/microsoft-tells-engineers-tokenmaxxing-is-not-what-we-are-optimizing-for/

Here is how one Flock employee originally got into the company, ...

2026-08-03T16:49:54Z

Here is how one Flock employee originally got into the company, then realized he was being lied to and had to quit

Watch the whole conversation and subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKYYpLC9u5I

You opened a credit card. ICE now knows where you live. ...

2026-07-22T13:19:34Z

You opened a credit card. ICE now knows where you live.

Here's how when you open a credit card your address leaves your bank, goes through middlemen companies, and ends up with ICE. ICE plans to use this data for immigration and 'voter fraud'. No warrant

More: https://www.404media.co/you-opened-a-credit-card-ice-now-knows-where-you-live/

New from 404 Media: ICE plans to pay Thomson Reuters $125 million ...

2026-07-17T15:37:47Z

New from 404 Media: ICE plans to pay Thomson Reuters $125 million for data to investigate what it calls 'voters fraud'. News comes day after Trump laying the groundwork to undermine the midterms. ICE says Thomson Reuters can continuously track millions of people.

https://www.404media.co/ice-to-pay-thomson-reuters-125-million-to-find-voter-fraud/

New from 404 Media: we've got leaks from Amazon, GitHub, ...

2026-07-02T12:28:10Z

New from 404 Media: we've got leaks from Amazon, GitHub, Adobe, Citi, and more. The big takeaway is that companies in all industries are suddenly throttling their employees' AI use because AI is actually too expensive. Cutting off access to some models entirely https://www.404media.co/companies-are-throttling-employees-ai-use-because-its-too-expensive/

Buy 404 Media's course: ...

2026-06-30T13:15:41Z

Buy 404 Media's course:

https://www.404media.co/how-i-bought-a-private-jet-by-selling-10-subscriptions-to-404-media/

New: Salesforce's internal AI leaderboard has teams competing ...

2026-06-18T13:26:35Z

New: Salesforce's internal AI leaderboard has teams competing for little trophies. The dashboards we've seen also track each team's use of specific AI tools. Employees worried use of AI, or lack thereof, will be used in their performance reviews because execs pushing

https://www.404media.co/salesforces-internal-ai-leaderboard-has-teams-competing-for-little-trophies/

"You want to snatch it from us again?" Here is how a ...

2026-06-08T14:07:12Z

"You want to snatch it from us again?"

Here is how a farmer donated land to a city to be turned into a park. Instead, the city sold the land and its now being turned into a massive data center

https://www.404media.co/a-farmer-donated-land-to-turn-into-a-park-the-city-is-building-a-massive-data-center-instead/

By saying he doesn't know about the leaked document we got ...

2026-06-04T22:38:11Z

By saying he doesn't know about the leaked document we got saying Microsoft wants to "make people addicted" to its new AI, CEO Satya Nadella shows he 1) does not know how to read or 2) does not know what is happening with some of the company’s highest-profile products https://www.404media.co/satya-nadella-not-sure-who-said-microsoft-wanted-to-make-addictive-ai-is-looking-for-guy-who-did-this/

Ads everywhere. Usage limits. Frustrating guardrails. Less model ...

2026-05-27T16:24:37Z

Ads everywhere. Usage limits. Frustrating guardrails. Less model choice. Users of the Character.AI chatbot app are revolting after a series of changes they say have made the app worse. This is what the future of AI actually looks like https://www.404media.co/lobotomized-character-ai-is-showing-what-ai-enshittification-looks-like/

I've used APK Lab for journalistic investigations for a long ...

2025-09-04T21:29:59Z

I've used APK Lab for journalistic investigations for a long time, it was especially useful for quickly finding what endpoints an app connected to, before I then went and AITM'd the traffic. Did this to find sketchy location data sharing. If anyone wants to provide access to a similar tool LMK