Early on the morning of September 2, 2024, a Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line train was the scene of a random and horrific mass shooting. Four people were shot and killed on a westbound train as it approached the suburb of Forest Park. The police swiftly activated a digital dragnet—a surveillance network that connects thousands…
On a bright morning last April, a surveillance plane operated by the Colombian military spotted a 40-foot-long shark-like silhouette idling in the ocean just off Tayrona National Park. It was, unmistakably, a “narco sub,” a stealthy fiberglass vessel that sails with its hull almost entirely underwater, used by drug cartels to move cocaine north. The…
“We’re out of airspace now. We can do whatever we want,” Jean-Paul Thorbjornsen tells me from the pilot’s seat of his Aston Martin helicopter. As we fly over suburbs outside Melbourne, Australia, it’s becoming clear that doing whatever he wants is Thorbjornsen’s MO. Upper-middle-class homes give way to vineyards, and Thorbjornsen points out our landing…
When Sam Zahr first saw the gray Rolls-Royce Dawn convertible with orange interior and orange roof, he knew he’d found a perfect addition to his fleet. “It was very appealing to our clientele,” he told me. As the director of operations at Dream Luxury Rental, he outfits customers in the Detroit area looking to ride…
The threats started in spring. In April 2024, a mysterious someone using the online handles “Waifu” and “Judische” began posting death threats on Telegram and Discord channels aimed at a cybersecurity researcher named Allison Nixon. “Alison [sic] Nixon is gonna get necklaced with a tire filled with gasoline soon,” wrote Waifu/Judische, both of which are…
Anton Cherepanov is always on the lookout for something interesting. And in late August last year, he spotted just that. It was a file uploaded to VirusTotal, a site cybersecurity researchers like him use to analyze submissions for potential viruses and other types of malicious software, often known as malware. On the surface it seemed…
Commercial nuclear reactors all work pretty much the same way. Atoms of a radioactive material split, emitting neutrons. Those bump into other atoms, splitting them and causing them to emit more neutrons, which bump into other atoms, continuing the chain reaction. That reaction gives off heat, which can be used directly or help turn water…
How large is a large language model? Think about it this way. In the center of San Francisco there’s a hill called Twin Peaks from which you can view nearly the entire city. Picture all of it—every block and intersection, every neighborhood and park, as far as you can see—covered in sheets of paper. Now…
Last spring, 3,000 British soldiers of the 4th Light Brigade, also known as the Black Rats, descended upon the damp forests of Estonia’s eastern territories. They had rushed in from Yorkshire by air, sea, rail, and road. Once there, the Rats joined 14,000 other troops at the front line, dug in, and waited for the…