The Trump administration is launching a new program that will allow private firms to perform cyberattacks against foreign criminals, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The private firms would operate “under the control and oversight” of the federal government, giving them permission to surveil and disrupt criminal networks, according to a presidential memorandum published on Wednesday. […]
Surveillance tech company Flock is rolling out updates to address reports of cops across the country abusing its tools to stalk ex-romantic partners and others. CEO Garrett Langley is delivering a mea culpa, and in an interview with The Verge, says he’s changed his mind on what responsibility Flock bears for how law enforcement uses […]
President Donald Trump already holds a Republican majority in the agency tasked with regulating America’s communications systems. But with a new nomination to the Federal Communications Commission, he could move to shut out opposing voices altogether – albeit at a legal risk. The FCC is currently composed of two Republicans and one Democrat – Republican […]
Anthropic has pledged to start marking Claude-generated text and images with machine-readable data, in an effort to comply with European rules for AI transparency. “Generated text will carry embedded watermarks, and generated files will include digitally signed provenance metadata where supported,” Anthropic says on a new Claude support page. The changes are invisible to human […]
The era of set broadcast ownership limits is officially over, after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted Thursday to end the national ownership cap rule. The agency’s two Republicans, Chair Brendan Carr and Commissioner Olivia Trusty, voted to end the ownership cap, which restricts broadcast owners from holding stations that reach a combined more than […]
SoftBank contributed $50 million to the Trump Presidential Library in January, just months before announcing that it’s leasing land from the federal government to build a sprawling data center in Ohio. The Japanese company revealed the timing in response to a June letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Rep. Melanie […]
Today, I’m talking with Gaby Del Valle, a policy reporter here at The Verge, about the growing backlash against AI data centers. Gaby recently reported a fantastic piece about Hernando County, Florida, where last month the county commission unanimously approved a yearlong moratorium on data center construction. She attended a protest there organized by a […]
Texas announced new a audit on data centers that could slow approval for new facilities seeking to connect to the state energy grid. Governor Greg Abbott (R) on Monday directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to verify and audit new data center proposals, writing that […]
The European Union has ushered in some additional rules that aim to make it easier for people to identify chatbots and AI deepfakes online. The new transparency obligations under the bloc’s landmark AI Act came into effect on August 2nd, requiring companies to disclose when people are interacting with AI models, and if content has […]
The FBI, the EPA, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have stopped short of officially blaming Iran for a spate of cyberattacks on Minnesota’s water systems, but consensus is that Iran is likely behind them. That, of course, hasn’t stopped Donald Trump from sharing his own theory – that Governor Tim Walz is […]