Security editor, TechCrunch
Signal: zackwhittaker.1337
My stories: techcrunch.com/author/zack-whittaker
My newsletter/blog: this.weekinsecurity.com
Zack Whittaker
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Trump's Team Is Not Qualified to Use FISA
emptywheel.net/2026/06/09/t...
FCC is trying to kill burner phones: www.404media.co/fcc-wants-to...
NEW: Days after WIRED revealed that Meta had embedded an unreleased facial-recognition system in software distributed to more than 50 million users, the company appears to have removed it.
www.wired.com/story/meta-r...
Massachusetts votes to pass new #privacy rights bill that bans sale of precise location data - techcrunch.com/2026/06/08/m...
The FCC wants to legally force telecoms to collect new and renewing customers’ government issued identity number and physical address, impacting everyone from the privacy-conscious to domestic abuse s...
Democrats should do more than refuse to reauthorize FISA 702 until Trump pulls his bid to put Bill Pulte in charge of the Office of Director of National Intelligence. Todd Blanche's history of lying a...
The code WIRED identified is gone from the latest version of Meta AI, the companion app for the company’s smart glasses. Meta won’t say why or whether it’s coming back.
The bill is expected to blanket ban companies and startups from selling people's precise location data across the state.
extremely innovative
In this deep-dive for this.weekinsecurity.com, I explore some of the common but sneaky ways that governments obtain our personal data, from reverse-engineering who was at the scene of a crime to snooping on the push alerts that apps send to your phone. Plus: How to block some of this surveillance.
Nothing.
TechCrunch
Zack Whittaker
Dhruv Mehrotra
Karl Bode
Jason Koebler
Microsoft told me it's notified a "small number of customers" who may have pulled password-stealing malware from several of its GitHub repos, while many affected repos are still down.
I've asked for a specific number. Even a "small number" of Microsoft's many, many customers could be significant.
My this.weekinsecurity.com newsletter is out, featuring hacks affecting 20,000+ Instagram users, password manager Dashlane, and wearable ring maker Ultrahuman.
Plus: A surge in ClickFix attacks, and story about a CIA officer allegedly caught with $40M in gold bars at his home is eyebrow raising. 👀
Elizabeth Joh
Zack Whittaker
Zack Whittaker
Meta fixed the bug that let anyone trick its Meta AI chatbot into resetting the password on Instagram accounts that didn't have two-factor authentication.
So what prevents like the FBI from setting up an AI and collecting confessions?
Discover some of the most common ways that authorities, police, and spies obtain your personal data, and how you can prevent it from ending up in their hands.
Okay, NOW it asks me to confess to the crime. Well, it’s the robot lawyer, it probably knows best.
I appreciate that it thanked me “for being straight with [it]”. I’m helping!
Microsoft shut down dozens of GitHub code repositories for Azure and AI coding tools after a reported hack.
Thousands of Instagram users hacked by abusing Meta's AI chatbot, hackers stole Dashlane password vaults, Ultrahuman ring maker breached, a surge in ClickFix attacks, a CIA officer allegedly stole $40...
