
Iran’s government imposed a near‑total internet shutdown on Jan 8, temporarily crippling even its domestic National Information Network (NIN). Researchers observed that the abrupt blackout deviated from the regime’s refined playbook, suggesting panic or technical failure. The NIN, controlled largely by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, aggregates communications, CCTV, facial‑recognition and app data into a comprehensive surveillance ecosystem. As connectivity slowly returns, the state is shifting to a whitelist model that treats internet access as a privileged service.

The Department of Homeland Security rolled out the Mobile Fortify app in spring 2025 to let ICE and CBP agents scan faces and generate candidate matches, but the technology cannot positively verify identities. Records show the tool has been used over...

A new Public Service Alliance report finds that state consumer‑privacy statutes fail to shield public employees from data‑broker exploitation, creating a "data‑to‑violence pipeline." The analysis of 19 laws shows no right for officials to compel redaction of personal details from...

A former employee of a crypto‑romance scam compound in Laos, calling himself Red Bull, leaked extensive internal documents exposing how pig‑butchering operations function. He described forced‑labor conditions, daily quotas, and a reward system that celebrates six‑figure fraud wins. After being captured...

The Department of Justice disclosed that operatives from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) may have improperly accessed and shared Social Security Administration (SSA) data. Internal emails show a password‑protected file containing roughly 1,000 individuals’ names and addresses was transmitted...