Dhruv Mehrotra

@dmehro.bsky.social

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Investigations with computers at WIRED. Previously: Reveal, gizmodo, eyebeamnyc |
[email protected] for tips

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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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Dhruv Mehrotra

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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Dhruv Mehrotra

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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Dhruv Mehrotra

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.

Reply to

Noah Shachtman

Thanks - means a lot.

Reply to

What the duck

Yeah? Tell me more?? [email protected] or dmehro.89 on signal

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...

We analyzed millions of coordinates to uncover where police sent drones and why. With cameras and zoom lenses powerful enough to capture faces clearly, they routinely fly over backyards, schools, homeless shelters, social services, and even the city's Planned Parenthood.

Most residents support the drone program, but some feel constantly watched. They avoid the public pool, their own backyards, and feel followed down the street. One man even ended up in the ER with severe anxiety and exhaustion from the perceived surveillance.

During the pandemic, drones broadcasted messages to homeless encampments, making unhoused residents we spoke to feel like they were living in a science-fiction dystopia.

Meanwhile, in an arrangement that makes some policy experts uneasy, former heads of the city’s drone program have gone on to work for drone makers, leveraging their contacts in law enforcement to help sell drone programs elsewhere.

Chula Vista may be the first department to widely adopt drones, but it’s definitely not the last. Programs like this have sprung up all over the country in recent years. In May, the NYPD announced its plans to use drones to respond to gunshot alerts generated from ShotSpotter.

This investigation has taken Jesse and I a year to report. DFR programs are the future of policing, I hope you read this story about some of the costs.

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Dhruv Mehrotra

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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Dhruv Mehrotra

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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Dhruv Mehrotra

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

This is exactly right. They siphon the data from ad exchanges

Reply to

Daniel Feldman

Interesting, we looked into this a bit. Apparently he had his own tower installed. I also imagine he set up some kind of network infrastructure so he and his guests had internet.

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.

Near Intelligence — a controversial company with known ties to the defense industry — tracked the devices on behalf of an unknown client. It amassed more than 10,000 coordinates from Epstein's visitors, likely siphoned from advertising exchanges, and exposed them online

The company tracked people visiting Epstein's island back to locations in 80 US cities: Mansions in gated communities in Michigan and Florida; homes in Martha’s Vineyard; a nightclub in Miami; across the street from Trump Tower; and on Epstein's other US properties

The data is extremely precise. It shows devices inside Epstein’s waterfront "temple" and on his beaches, pools, and cabanas scattered across his 71-acres island.

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Dhruv Mehrotra

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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Dhruv Mehrotra

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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Dhruv Mehrotra

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...