Dhruv Mehrotra

@dmehro.bsky.social

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Investigations with computers at WIRED. Previously: Reveal, gizmodo, eyebeamnyc |
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NEW: Perplexity was using a secret AWS-hosted virtual machine to scrape the web. Major newsroom we spoke to observed its IP address in their server logs. Now Amazon is investigating. w/ @couts.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/aws-pe...

Amazon Is Investigating Perplexity Over Claims of Scraping Abusewww.wired.com AWS hosted a server linked to the Bezos family- and Nvidia-backed search startup that appears to have been used to scrape the sites of major outlets, prompting an inquiry into potential rules violatio...

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NEW: We traced the IP address that appeared to be scraping WIRED for Perplexity back to an AWS-hosted virtual machine. Amazon was not super jazzed. @dmehro.bsky.social and I have the scoop: www.wired.com/story/aws-pe...

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Perplexity, the billion dollar AI-powered search startup, plagiarized an article @dmehro.bsky.social and I wrote about how Perplexity is a bullshit machine. IP law experts say the company could be open to defamation and infringement claims and be sacrificing Section 230 protections by bullshitting.

Perplexity Plagiarized Our Story About How Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machinewww.wired.com Experts aren't unanimous about whether the AI-powered search startup's practices could expose it to legal claims ranging from infringement to defamation—but some say plaintiffs would have strong cases...

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New from me and @dmehro.bsky.social: Despite claiming it isn’t, Perplexity, the billion dollar AI search startup Forbes has accused of plagiarism, is scraping websites, including WIRED, from which developers have tried to block its crawlers.

Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machinewww.wired.com A WIRED investigation shows that the AI search startup Perplexity is surreptitiously downloading your data.

NEW: Perplexity is ignoring the Robots Exclusion Protocol (robots.txt), using a secret server to regurgitate news articles and investigations that take reporters years to create, often without giving us credit. W/ @timmarchman.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/perple...

Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machinewww.wired.com A WIRED investigation shows that the AI search startup Perplexity is surreptitiously downloading your data.

ICYMI: New investigation into the US first and largest police drone operation Police in a border city deployed drones to investigate 20,000 911 calls—from noise complaints to murder. They have amassed hundreds of hours of footage above residents not involved in crimes www.wired.com/story/the-ag...

The Age of the Drone Police Is Herewww.wired.com A WIRED investigation, based on more than 22 million flight coordinates, reveals the complicated truth about the first full-blown police drone program in the US—and why your city could be next.

NEW: Police in a border city deployed drones to investigate 20,000 911 calls—from noise complaints to murder. They have amassed hundreds of hours of footage above residents not involved in crimes The poorer the neighborhood, the more exposure residents faced www.wired.com/story/the-ag...

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Scoop: I obtained the contract Samsung requires independent shops to sign to buy phone repair parts from them. It requires: - "Daily" dumps of customer data - The "immediate destruction" of any phones a shop comes across that has third-party parts www.404media.co/samsung-requ...

Samsung Requires Independent Repair Shops to Share Customer Data, Snitch on People Who Use Aftermarket Parts, Leaked Contract Showswww.404media.co The contract requires repair shops to "immediately disassemble" devices that have parts "not purchased from Samsung."

NEW: Eventbrite’s algorithm recommends listings selling opioids and fentanyl to people searching for addiction recovery events. www.wired.com/story/sex-dr...

Eventbrite Promoted Illegal Opioid Sales to People Searching for Addiction Recovery Helpwww.wired.com A WIRED investigation found thousands of Eventbrite posts selling escort services and drugs like Xanax and oxycodone—some of which the company’s algorithm recommended alongside addiction recovery even...

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theappeal.org/locked-in-pr...

Locked In, Priced Out: How Prison Commissary Price-Gouging Preys on the Incarceratedtheappeal.org The Appeal's 9-month investigation uncovered prison commissaries’ exploitative, inconsistent systems with inside prices up to five times higher than in the community and markups as high as 600 percent...

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It’s becoming increasingly clear that Gaza isn’t only the site of a genocide. It’s a laboratory for the future of warfare — one that fulfills the horrific promise of mass surveillance that we who worked on the Edward Snowden trove warned about a decade ago.

Kill Lists In The Age of Artificial Intelligencewww.forever-wars.com Israel's

A big takeaway that getting lost in the Epstein of it all is that the machinery developed to serve us targeted ads is allowing companies, contractors, and governments to engage in mass surveillance. Absent laws to stop this from happening, we will see ad tech continue to be used in unintended ways

A data broker tracked the devices of visitors to a private island where Jeffrey Epstein allegedly assaulted and trafficked countless women and girls. The data, exposed online, details precise coordinates where hundreds live and work in the US www.wired.com/story/jeffre...

Jeffrey Epstein's Island Visitors Exposed by Data Brokerwww.wired.com A WIRED investigation uncovered coordinates collected by a controversial data broker that reveal sensitive information about visitors to an island once owned by Epstein, the notorious sex offender.

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Police are using DNA to create hypothetical face renderings—then using these images as a clue to base investigations on. If this wasn't bad enough, police in California ran one of these images through face recognition tech.

Cops Running DNA-Manufactured Faces Through Face Recognition iswww.eff.org In keeping with law enforcement’s grand tradition of taking antiquated, invasive, and oppressive technologies, making them digital, and then calling it innovation, police in the U.S. recently

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In case it might be useful to anyone else, I just wrote a quick Chrome extension to download all PDFs on CourtListener when there are multiple attachments to one docket entry. https://github.com/molly/courtlistener-download

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Infinitely proud to have worked on this massive investigation with Lighthouse Reports, which just a few minutes ago won a 2024 Sigma Award. Congrats to everyone on this team! www.wired.com/story/welfar...

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seems pretty bad!! also reminded of the disinterest when I pitched a very basic NYC-specific followup to the Wired Shotspotter data story, basically ineffective surveillance devices all over a city was seen as a non-story

I missed this part of the story. Pretty convenient how pervasive surveillance is used to justify ubiquitous surveillance. “The federal court’s decision says that video cameras have become ‘ubiquitous,’ and have therefore diminished our expectations of privacy.”

The Feds Can Film Your Front Porch for 68 Days Without a Warrant, Says Courtgizmodo.com A federal court says your privacy is diminished due to the proliferation of video cameras throughout society.

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Civilian oversight of the NYPD has always been limited, underfunded, and imperfect. But this administration is slashing funding, forcing the CCRB to stop investigating whole categories of police misconduct:

Eric Adams: Defund the Police Oversight - Hell Gatehellgatenyc.com The Civilian Complaint Review Board's budget has been so decimated that it has already stopped investigating whole categories of police misconduct.

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Excited to show off the cover for my book The Highest Law in the Land! Out in September. Pre-order now! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/707263...

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Reply to

Matt Novak

Every major tech innovation of the past 15 years is just, what if we paid people less money

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NEW: Registered Agents Inc. has for years allowed businesses to register under a cloak of anonymity. A WIRED investigation found that this includes registering companies under fake personas. @williamturton.bsky.social and @dmehro.bsky.social have the scoop: www.wired.com/story/regist...

Inside the Shadowy Firm Pushing the Limits of Business Privacywww.wired.com Registered Agents Inc. has for years allowed businesses to register under a cloak of anonymity. A WIRED investigation has found that its secretive founder has taken the practice to an extreme.

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NEW: A leaked document reveals the locations of ShotSpotter microphones around the globe, which have been kept secret from both the police that use the system and the public. @dmehro.bsky.social and Joey Scott have the scoop: www.wired.com/story/shotsp...

Here Are the Secret Locations of ShotSpotter Gunfire Sensorswww.wired.com The locations of microphones used to detect gunshots have been kept hidden from police and the public. A WIRED analysis of leaked coordinates confirms arguments critics have made against the technolog...

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NEW: Leaked data analyzed by WIRED’s @dmehro.bsky.social reveals the secret locations of ShotSpotter sensors around the globe, and the communities most directly impacted by the surveillance. www.wired.com/story/shotsp...

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NYC ShotSpotter Walking Tour/Scavenger Hunt, who's down

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last chance (?) to read @dmehro.bsky.social's and my reportage/art piece on buying sat pix of Tonopah www.vice.com/en/article/g...

The One Place in the US Google Earth Stopped Mappingwww.vice.com For eight years, Google Earth didn't update its satellite image of a military installation in Nevada. So we bought one ourselves.

NEW: A leaked document obtained by WIRED details the locations of tens of thousands of ShotSpotter sensors embedded in communities around the planet www.wired.com/story/shotsp...

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about to drop a banger @dmehro.bsky.social scoop...

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We fully expect to receive a takedown demand for this story. We also think the stakes of this anti-censorship battle are too high not to publish it anyway.

A collection of people with direct and indirect links to the Indian firm Appin Technology have used legal threats to erase reporting on its alleged hacker-for-hire past. Now, a group of anti-censorship voices is working to make that strategy backfire. www.wired.com/story/appin-...

A Startup Allegedly ‘Hacked the World.’ Then Came the Censorship—and Now the Backlashwww.wired.com A loose coalition of anti-censorship voices is working to highlight reports of one Indian company’s hacker-for-hire past—and the legal threats aimed at making them disappear.

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I'm not normally one to complain about these kinds of things, but it would have been nice for CNN to link to @dmehro.bsky.social's scoop, which broke the news of this arrest five days before it was public www.wired.com/story/torswa... www.cnn.com/2024/01/31/u...

17-year-old alleged ‘serial swatter’ charged after police say he made threats throughout the ...www.cnn.com A teenager “serial swatter” from California is believed to be responsible for hundreds of swatting incidents and bomb threats throughout the US according to a pretrial detention motion. Now h...