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josephcox.bsky.social
Hacking/crime/privacy journalist. Author of DARK WIRE, buy here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/joseph-cox/dark-wire/9781541702691/#preorder Co-founder of 404 Media. Signal: +44 20 8133 5190. Email: [email protected]
841 posts 50,746 followers 688 following
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Posts 47 Comments 2

on top of everything else, the purging of any mention of DEI from government sites is a gigantic waste of time and taxpayer dollars. not very "efficient" to do this! www.404media.co/the-bigotry-...

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

New from 404 Media: source familiar with engineers spending days of their time scanning .gov sites for "transgender" and other terms. "It is not efficient to take engineers off their work to scan old content for any keywords this new administration hates." www.404media.co/the-bigotry-...

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

For this week's Behind the Blog, our weekly subscribers-only segment, I wrote about researchers using a chatbot to dig through a data leak and treating it as gospel www.404media.co/behind-the-b...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

New from 404 Media: Ziff Davis, owner of sites including IGN, CNET, and PCMag, quietly removed DEI language from its website. Also no longer lists CEO Vivek Shah as a part of "CEOs for Gun Safety." We obtained internal messages www.404media.co/ziff-davis-d...

submitted 2 days ago • 4 comments

New from 404 Media: a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon has been sued for not telling his patients that hackers stole their nude photos. Turns out hackers targeted the plastic surgeon twice; surgeon didn't immediately tell the victims. Instead they found the nudes online www.404media.co/beverly-hill...

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

New: a public library ebook service is removing AI-generated books from its platform after a 404 Media investigation. We found public libraries were being swarmed with low quality AI-generated books. Now going to change. www.404media.co/public-libra...

submitted 2 days ago • 7 comments

REVEALED: we identified the operator of an overtly racist X account, "GlomarResponder," as ICE Assistant Chief Counsel James Rodden, based on an overwhelming number of biographical details matched through publicly available documents, other social media activity, and courtroom observation.

submitted 3 days ago • 992 comments

New from 404 Media: Meta is suing an alleged violent extortionist for holding Instagram accounts hostage. The alleged extortionist admitted as much on a podcast appearance, said made more than $600,000 a month through it www.404media.co/meta-lawsuit...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

The 404 Media Podcast is out, this week: - DOGE's website exposing backend, lets anyone update it - lawyers caught using AI in filings on case where someone's house burned down - subscribers-only: the true crime documentary series where all of the murders are AI www.404media.co/podcast-doge...

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

New from 404 Media: a Musk ally has demanded administrative access to Notify.gov, a system that lets the government text the public. The access would give them large swathes of the publics' personal data too. A worker has resigned in protest rather than give access www.404media.co/musk-ally-de...

submitted 4 days ago • 186 comments

Government contractors are trying to buy iPhone hacking tech from us, 404 Media, but we're not hackers :( :( :( www.404media.co/why-is-a-gov...

submitted 4 days ago • 17 comments

A government contractor that works with the Air Force, Navy, Department of Energy etc wants to buy some iPhone hacking tech for a military customer. So, they asked us? A group of journalists? Sure why not. More here: www.404media.co/why-is-a-gov...

submitted 4 days ago • 6 comments

New from 404 Media: anyone can push updates to the Doge.gov site. Two sources independently found the issue, one made their own decision to deface the site. "THESE 'EXPERTS' LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN." www.404media.co/anyone-can-p...

submitted 8 days ago • 40 comments

New from 404 Media: a true crime documentary YouTube channel went viral for its wild stories about grizzly murders, other cases. Except, all of the stories, murders, photos, etc are AI generated. On truth, entertainment, and what matters in 'true' crime: www.404media.co/a-true-crime...

submitted 9 days ago • 3 comments

New from 404 Media: we've identified which specific company is powering the surveillance of U.S. military personnel through location data. It's Eskimi, an Adtech company you've probably never heard of but which has a massive presence in the advertising ecosystem www.404media.co/eskimi-2/

submitted 10 days ago • 4 comments

New from 404 Media: Employees working at DOGE have been ordered to stop using Slack while government lawyers attempt to transition the agency to one that is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Means DOGE will be even more secretive and unaccountable www.404media.co/doge-employe...

submitted 17 days ago • 93 comments

New from 404 Media: inside the gov meeting where Musk ally laid out plans for data sharing across gov/AI. We got audio. In the call an employee pushed back and said the plan would be “illegal.” Musk ally said “we should still push forward and see what we can do.” www.404media.co/things-are-g...

submitted 18 days ago • 250 comments

New from 404 Media: Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries, forcing librarians to sort through a functionally infinite number of books to determine what is written by humans and what is generated by AI. www.404media.co/ai-generated...

submitted 18 days ago • 35 comments

are the e/acc people aware that republican allies want to put them in jail for downloading AI models?

submitted 19 days ago • 7 comments

A senator is proposing jail time for people who downloaded DeepSeek. 20 years in jail, million dollar fine, or both. www.404media.co/senator-hawl...

submitted 19 days ago • 82 comments

New from 404 Media: 'forbidden words'. Github commits reveal how software engineers working on behalf of the government are purging federal databases. Shows not just removing terms, but building blunt-force tools to remove banned material www.404media.co/forbidden-wo...

submitted 19 days ago • 4 comments

NEW: @josephcox.bsky.social obtained details on how the Air Force is using generative AI as part of a big new contract ... uhhh, sort of. Here are the docs: www.404media.co/air-force-do...

submitted 19 days ago • 1 comment

New from 404 Media: Air Force documents on its test of a generative AI company are just whole pages of redactions. I did go into the company's Discord and saw someone listed as "AI Implementation, Information Warfare" praising the product though www.404media.co/air-force-do...

submitted 19 days ago • 1 comment

New from 404 Media: the CDC website is being actively purged to comply with Trump's DEI order. CDC employee tells us they were ordered to have their preferred pronouns deleted from their email signatures www.404media.co/the-cdcs-web...

submitted 20 days ago • 8 comments

New from 404 Media: Musk's DOGE agency has brought in an HR consultant focused on "non-woke" DEI "aligned with our faith." Stephanie Holmes association with DOGE not previously reported. Says DEI should not be about critical race theory but "diversity of thought" www.404media.co/musks-doge-b...

submitted 21 days ago • 11 comments

New from 404 Media: sellers of Anom, the FBI's secretly backdoored encrypted phone, have pleaded guilty. This means the confidential human source who provided the FBI with the Anom company in the first place will not be named at trial. Was going to be revealed. www.404media.co/sellers-of-a...

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

Here's the video archive for our recent FOIA Forum, where we showed people how to pry records from and about the federal government. Concrete examples of FOIAs that have worked for us, out-of-the-box things to request, appeals, novel ways to target an agency, more www.404media.co/heres-the-vi...

submitted 22 days ago • 1 comment

New from 404 Media: "everything I say leaks," Zuckerberg says in leaked meeting audio. Also said DeepSeek will not affect Meta as badly as it has affected the valuations of companies like OpenAI and Nvidia. www.404media.co/zuckerberg-s...

submitted 23 days ago • 18 comments

Huh, a new declassified CIA guide to sabotaging fascism has suddenly gone viral www.404media.co/declassified...

submitted 24 days ago • 16 comments

according to the CEO of Anthropic our choices are American AI dystopia or Chinese AI dystopia www.404media.co/anthropic-ce...

submitted 24 days ago • 22 comments

OpenAI is furious that DeepSeek might have stolen all of the data OpenAI stole from all of us www.404media.co/openai-furio...

submitted 24 days ago • 39 comments

The 404 Media Podcast is up! This week: - all about the DeepSeek hype (and what it misses) - metadata reveals US government memos authored by Project 2025 people - subscribers-only: GitHub shows government purging of info in real time Apple/Spotify/YouTube: www.404media.co/podcast-the-...

submitted 24 days ago • 1 comment

Some of the OPM memos ordering federal employees to return to offices and ordering hiring freezes were written by people who worked on Project 2025, according to metadata on the documents www.404media.co/opm-memos-to...

submitted 25 days ago • 8 comments

New from 404 Media: the hackers behind the massive AT&T/Snowflake breach mined the stolen records for data associated with the Trump family, Kamala Harris, and Marco Rubio's wife. Shows how catastrophic this breach was, massive natsec risk www.404media.co/hackers-mine...

submitted 26 days ago • 2 comments

DeepSeek mania is driving the AI world crazy. Is the bubble popping? are we now slaves to Chinese AI? is Nvidia over? don't think so, no, and probably not www.404media.co/deepseek-man...

submitted 26 days ago • 17 comments

New from 404 Media: we spoke to a Pornhub exec all about its bans across the American south, the trend of trad wives on Pornhub, and much more. Article and full podcast here: www.404media.co/podcast-porn...

submitted 26 days ago • 7 comments

On this week's edition of The Abstract, our weekly roundup of the wildest scientific studies: - peeing is socially contagious in chimps - variety in coyote diets - new rainbow of bioluminescent hues - Norway pines www.404media.co/peeing-is-so...

submitted 28 days ago • 3 comments

Going on @majorityreport.bsky.social in five minutes to talk about decentralized social media and resisting the tech oligarchy - come hang out! www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcdV...

submitted 30 days ago • 1 comment

Jason is live here rn www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcdV...

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

The Trump administration is taking down sites about gender identity all over the internet - Social Security Administration site page - Information about gender identity removed from the admin's main LGBTQIA+ site - Department of Labor one - State Department page gone www.404media.co/trumps-admin...

submitted 30 days ago • 56 comments

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg “loved” an AI-generated slop image of a horse made out of bread posted by a spam page that also posts AI-generated images of amputated children and circumvents Facebook’s algorithm to link users offsite to ad-laden AI-generated content farms www.404media.co/zuckerberg-l...

submitted 31 days ago • 20 comments

Tomorrow (Thursday) at 1PM EST we are doing our new FOIA Forum, where we will teach you live how to pry records from the federal government (also via state). Subscribe now to get the livestream link, I will email it tomorrow morning (also archived for later viewing) www.404media.co/our-new-foia...

submitted 31 days ago • 2 comments

New from 404 Media: hundreds of subreddits, including some of the most popular, are considering banning all links/content/screenshots from X/Twitter. r/NFL, r/hockey, r/baseball, r/nba, r/formula1, r/ComicBookMovies, r/MadeMeSmile, so many more. Some already have. www.404media.co/hundreds-of-...

submitted 31 days ago • 2296 comments

TikTok Says It’s Not Censoring ‘Free Palestine’ Comments. Users See Something Different www.404media.co/tiktok-free-...

submitted 31 days ago • 9 comments

The 404 Media Podcast is out! This week: - the TikTok ban and the need for more decentralized social media - GeoSpy, the AI tool that can geolocate photos for cops (or stalkers) in seconds - subscribers-only: Nokia's wild design documents Apple/Spotify/YouTube: www.404media.co/podcast-tikt...

submitted 31 days ago • 1 comment

A bug in Cloudflare (and just the nature of how CDNs work) let an attacker learn the broad location of Discord, Signal, Twitter users by just sending them an image, according to a security researcher. It works because check which data center cached the image www.404media.co/cloudflare-i...

submitted 32 days ago • 101 comments

If you're looking for more wondrous news, every Saturday we publish The Abstract, a roundup of the most mind bending scientific studies that week from one of the best science writers in the industry. This week: - octopus brains - missing moon craters www.404media.co/the-moon-got...

submitted 32 days ago • 2 comments