# Best of wired.com on Kiwi News

Page: https://news.kiwistand.com/source/wired.com

47 stories from wired.com have been shared on Kiwi News since 20 April 2023, with 77 upvotes and 13 comments in total. The latest was shared on 8 September 2025. They are listed below, most upvoted first.

Summaries are AI summaries of the linked article.

## 1. An $8.4 Billion Chinese Hub for Crypto Crime Is Incorporated in Colorado

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/An-dollar84-Billion-Chinese-Hub-for-Crypto-Crime-Is-Incorporated-in-Colorado?index=0x6834cbe4263a619843da3fdb1d1b58591fb4e9a2e3af177c4a66f2b785455926afa13652
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/xinbi-guarantee-crypto-scam-hub
- Shared 26 May 2025, 6 upvotes, 0 comments

Elliptic reports that Xinbi Guarantee, a Telegram-based Chinese-language marketplace whose operator is registered in Colorado, facilitated at least $8.4 billion in transactions since 2022 before Telegram removed its accounts this week. Elliptic cofounder Tom Robinson says money stolen from scam victims likely makes up the "vast majority" of that sum. The market also offered money laundering for North Korean hackers, stolen data, harassment-for-hire and listings that appear to involve sex trafficking. Telegram banned many of its central channels and administrator accounts after WIRED made inquiries, though Robinson expects the operators to try to rebuild.

## 2. They Cracked the Code to a Locked USB Drive Worth $235 Million in Bitcoin.

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/They-Cracked-the-Code-to-a-Locked-USB-Drive-Worth-dollar235-Million-in-Bitcoin?index=0x65477d205ba5be556a1371063be7732c38bb684e3cf576cd6bc081300f76407b7981cf92
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/unciphered-ironkey-password-cracking-bitcoin
- Shared 5 November 2023, 5 upvotes, 0 comments

Hackers at the startup Unciphered say they have developed a technique to crack a decade-old IronKey encrypted USB drive that holds 7,002 bitcoins, worth about $235 million at current rates, but the drive's owner, Stefan Thomas, has declined their help. Unciphered demonstrated the method by unlocking a passphrase WIRED had set on a drive, after about 200 trillion guesses on a high-performance computer. Thomas told WIRED he has already been working with other experts and has a "handshake deal" with two other teams, while Unciphered director of operations Nick Fedoroff said, "Now we have to crack Stefan."

## 3. Sex Workers Took Refuge in Crypto. Now It’s Failing Them.

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Sex-Workers-Took-Refuge-in-Crypto-Now-Its-Failing-Them?index=0x64d40d1f9242cfcc283fe097a29b2680782ef9a66b42189687aeadf6a5c55687a6abfa61
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/sex-workers-crypto-failing-them
- Shared 9 August 2023, 4 upvotes, 0 comments

Sex workers turned to cryptocurrency to escape banking and payment restrictions, but the article reports that crypto is failing them because it still depends on the banking system. Allie Eve Knox and Allie Rae describe losing bank accounts and payment apps, with Rae saying no major bank would give her a business account. Crypto exchanges also ban sex workers, leaving them with money they cannot spend, and WetSpace, Rae's crypto-centric OnlyFans alternative, depends on a bank account that may be withdrawn. Mike Stabile of the Free Speech Coalition argues that campaigning for laws against banking discrimination is a better investment than building an alternative financial system.

## 4. Yes, That Viral LinkedIn Post You Read Was Probably AI-Generated

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Yes-That-Viral-LinkedIn-Post-You-Read-Was-Probably-AI-Generated?index=0x674eed3477ace0e13ee5aaaa368f721ccaa7e0a45a28773bb9dd8445eb1e574ef8b676de
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/linkedin-ai-generated-influencers
- Shared 3 December 2024, 3 upvotes, 2 comments

Over 54 percent of longer English-language LinkedIn posts are likely AI-generated, according to an analysis by the AI detection startup Originality AI, shared exclusively with WIRED. Originality scanned 8,795 public LinkedIn posts over 100 words long published from January 2018 to October 2024, and found that likely AI-generated posts spiked 189 percent after ChatGPT's release in early 2023 before leveling off. LinkedIn says it does not track AI use on the site, but says it works to identify low-quality and duplicate content and does not broadly promote it. Users interviewed by WIRED said they often use general-purpose models such as Anthropic's Claude to draft or polish posts.

## 5. Meet ZachXBT, the Masked Vigilante Tracking Down Billions in Crypto Scams

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Meet-ZachXBT-the-Masked-Vigilante-Tracking-Down-Billions-in-Crypto-Scams?index=0x671a484b6c40f0f9651d3a909725c3bc14ba1c9e43aa61267233b7ae848318aaddbba1e5
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/meet-zachxbt-243-million-crypto-theft
- Shared 24 October 2024, 3 upvotes, 0 comments

ZachXBT, an anonymous crypto investigator who works under that online handle, traced a $243 million bitcoin theft that WIRED describes as perhaps the biggest known crypto heist ever to target an individual. The funds were partly traced to the defunct Genesis exchange, and two alleged hackers, Malone Lam and Jeandiel Serrano, were identified and later arrested and charged. By his own count, his investigations have helped recover around $210 million in criminal crypto proceeds, and he has been funded mainly by crypto donations totaling about $1.3 million since 2021.

## 6. The Internet Archive’s Fight to Save Itself

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Internet-Archives-Fight-to-Save-Itself?index=0x66f7baf1023fdc6ef9c5f96f17f25c58f1039ad01da821c1fe7c44bb2e2945269a93f2e4
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/internet-archive-memory-wayback-machine-lawsuits
- Shared 28 September 2024, 3 upvotes, 0 comments

The Internet Archive, the San Francisco nonprofit founded by Brewster Kahle, faces legal battles that threaten its survival, including a lost appeal in Hachette v. Internet Archive this month. Publishers in that case argued the nonprofit infringed copyright by loaning out digitized books, while the Archive has relied on fair use defenses. The UMG Recordings case, brought by music labels, could prove existential, with potential fines running into the hundreds of millions. The Archive holds 835 billion web pages, 44 million books and texts, and 15 million audio recordings, and it has no immediate plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.

## 7. The $2.3 Billion Tornado Cash Case Is a Pivotal Moment for Crypto Privacy

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-dollar23-Billion-Tornado-Cash-Case-Is-a-Pivotal-Moment-for-Crypto-Privacy?index=0x66430e607143a66aa4f6e1bf7a3c6e385d1da41dda49761160b906c255838252890624dd
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/tornado-cash-money-laundering-case-crypto-privacy
- Shared 14 May 2024, 3 upvotes, 0 comments

A Dutch court found Tornado Cash cofounder Alexey Pertsev guilty of laundering $1.2 billion in crypto, well below the $2.3 billion prosecutors had alleged, and sentenced him to 64 months in prison. Dutch prosecutors argued that he made deliberate choices, including keeping a centralized web interface that 93.5 percent of users went through without safeguards, while stolen funds from 36 heists flowed through the service. His lead attorney, Keith Cheng, argued that users could bypass the website to reach the smart contracts directly, so blocking users there would have been pointless.

## 8. A Dangerous New Home for Online Extremism

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/A-Dangerous-New-Home-for-Online-Extremism?index=0x65b3aef137131492c3ae983b4926cf408577e644b065a0997edab6a51a94d5a0e9144e09
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/a-dangerous-new-home-for-online-extremism
- Shared 26 January 2024, 2 upvotes, 2 comments

Extremists could use Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), blockchain-based entities governed without central leadership, to build self-governed digital structures, and the author argues that policymakers have largely ignored this risk. The article notes that over 10,000 DAOs already manage billions of dollars and count millions of participants, most of them innocent in tone, though the Redacted Club DAO uses alt-right codes and conspiracy references. It warns that extremists could use DAOs for fundraising, plotting radicalization campaigns or attacks, and election interference while evading government regulation. Technology expert Carl Miller, who has long warned of DAO misuse, said that DAOs behave like companies but are not registered as legal entities, and only Wyoming, Vermont, and Tennessee have passed laws recognizing them.

## 9. I Hate My Friend

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/I-Hate-My-Friend?index=0x68bf47397b8a5dc365c51a8eaabc0978e0093761a2a15ea37f9c3ede608db112056ca187
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/i-hate-my-ai-friend
- Shared 8 September 2025, 2 upvotes, 1 comment

The Friend necklace, an AI pendant that listens to its wearer's surroundings and comments on them, is now on sale for $129 in the US and Canada, and WIRED writers Kylie Robison and Boone Ashworth found it snarky, unhelpful and socially disruptive after testing it for about two weeks. Robison says wearing it at an AI-industry event drew hostile reactions, including an accusation that she was wearing a wire, and she stopped wearing it outside her home or office. Ashworth describes the device, which runs on Google's Gemini 2.5 model, repeatedly insulting him during a work day and resetting its memory when its connection dropped.

## 10. Inside a16z’s boot camp for crypto startups

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Inside-a16zs-boot-camp-for-crypto-startups?index=0x6687142db095ccde3d261904035960ffaf132b0ba241d335c44d6e363d26d9e7e78f850e
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/inside-a16zs-boot-camp-for-crypto-startups
- Shared 4 July 2024, 2 upvotes, 0 comments

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) runs the Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), a 10-week, Y Combinator-style program that gives participants $500,000 in funding in exchange for an undisclosed amount of equity. Jason Rosenthal, head of CSX, says the firm is betting that crypto can produce era-defining software businesses, and the cohort's 25 startups were chosen to show crypto is useful beyond scams and speculation. The article notes that many generalist VCs have shifted attention to AI since the 2022 crypto downturn, while a16z has raised more than $7.5 billion across four crypto funds.

## 11. Everyone Is a Girl Online

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Everyone-Is-a-Girl-Online?index=0x6675d88690f4bc9eec51f2752787bd904e2d592e48b624e15d2be58dab16b172845e2400
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/girls-online-culture
- Shared 21 June 2024, 2 upvotes, 0 comments

The essay argues that the "girl" has become a dominant condition of online life, and that in the post-platform economy everyone is effectively a girl online, including men and even some AI systems. It draws on Andrea Long Chu's 2018 book Females, which defines the female as "any psychic operation in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another," and on Tiqqun's 1999 Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl. Bogna Konior, an assistant professor at NYU Shanghai, is quoted saying that girls are "closer to the machinic condition." The article concludes that the girl's apparent passivity is a chosen tactic for evading platform capture, not a surrender of agency.

## 12. How a 27-Year-Old Codebreaker Busted the Myth of Bitcoin’s Anonymity

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/How-a-27-Year-Old-Codebreaker-Busted-the-Myth-of-Bitcoins-Anonymity?index=0x65ab8aeb906bfe376ec00ebb1db64393b24ed806879d7fd362f1517b3deb4ee8ca91251b
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/27-year-old-codebreaker-busted-myth-bitcoins-anonymity#intcid=_wired-verso-hp-trending_2f0ac575-b983-40fb-83f4-bd9f4e848c45_popular4-1
- Shared 20 January 2024, 2 upvotes, 0 comments

Sarah Meiklejohn, a UC San Diego graduate student, showed in 2013 that Bitcoin transactions could often be traced, contrary to the belief that the currency was anonymous. To test this, she made 344 purchases, bets and transfers with bitcoin over a few weeks, recording each sender and recipient address after examining the public blockchain. The excerpt says her work, which drew on a database of roughly 16 million transactions, helped set off a new era of crypto criminal justice, including the tracing that enabled major law enforcement seizures. The excerpt is drawn from the book Tracers in the Dark by Andy Greenberg.

## 13. Why It Took Meta 7 Years to Turn on End-to-End Encryption for All Chats

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Why-It-Took-Meta-7-Years-to-Turn-on-End-to-End-Encryption-for-All-Chats?index=0x657880b78ebc0b423d96d22daf2751dd2bd69cf8b7da390302b05235316e094f3a8d9081
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/meta-messenger-instagram-end-to-end-encryption
- Shared 12 December 2023, 2 upvotes, 0 comments

Meta is starting the full rollout of default end-to-end encryption for its Messenger and Instagram chats, after working toward the goal since 2016 and Mark Zuckerberg's 2019 promise. The feature is launching now for direct messages between two accounts, while group chats remain opt-in for now. Meta says it built the system on the Signal Protocol and vetted it internally and with independent experts, and it introduced Labyrinth, an encrypted storage protocol that keeps chat histories on its servers in a form the company cannot access. Law enforcement and child-safety groups have condemned the step, while privacy advocates have praised it.

## 14. The EU Just Passed Sweeping New Rules to Regulate AI

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-EU-Just-Passed-Sweeping-New-Rules-to-Regulate-AI?index=0x6574163c05060c89e0f515b9e795337f78d4eef34068a765cf0484dc4e056e44dd390ba6
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/eu-ai-act
- Shared 9 December 2023, 2 upvotes, 0 comments

The EU has reached a deal on the AI Act, a far-reaching law regulating the people building and using artificial intelligence that lawmakers hope will serve as a blueprint for the rest of the world. Negotiators from the Parliament, Council and Commission spent more than 36 hours on the legislation, which includes bans on certain biometric systems and the indiscriminate scraping of faces from the internet. Companies that do not comply can be fined up to 7 percent of global turnover, with bans taking effect in six months, transparency requirements in 12 months, and the full rules in around two years.

## 15. These Prisoners Are Training AI

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/These-Prisoners-Are-Training-AI?index=0x65094240ba2cd2f7427397e9c61d663c847231e25d9e2b0228028491308c1a66aa490161
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/prisoners-training-ai-finland
- Shared 19 September 2023, 2 upvotes, 0 comments

Finnish prisons are supplying inmates to label data for Metroc, a Finnish startup whose language model helps construction companies find newly approved building projects. Metroc founder and CEO Jussi Virnala said the idea came from the difficulty of finding native Finnish speakers for clickwork in a high-wage economy. Inmates at Hämeenlinna prison, where Marmalade is serving six years, are paid €1.54 an hour for three-hour shifts. Human Rights Watch's Amos Toh criticized the arrangement as part of a broader reliance on exploitable labor, while University of Helsinki researcher Tuukka Lehtiniemi is generally positive about it.

## 16. Scammers Used ChatGPT to Unleash a Crypto Botnet on X (Twitter)

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Scammers-Used-ChatGPT-to-Unleash-a-Crypto-Botnet-on-X-Twitter?index=0x64e39ffad3bd0287bc5cfad6f7a5232de8c4d717acb4e269a42f392f60f9161a7d4b504d
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/chat-gpt-crypto-botnet-scam
- Shared 21 August 2023, 2 upvotes, 0 comments

Researchers at Indiana University Bloomington discovered a botnet of 1,140 X accounts, which they named Fox8, that used ChatGPT to write posts promoting cryptocurrency websites. The researchers found it by searching for the phrase "As an AI language model," a response ChatGPT sometimes produces, and then manually identifying bot-operated accounts. Filippo Menczer, a Bloomington professor who worked on the research with Kai-Cheng Yang, says such bots may be more widespread and harder to detect, and that the botnet was apparently taken down after the team published its paper in July.

## 17. Remembering GitHub's Office

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Remembering-GitHubs-Office?index=0x6474e8e77ea1114b406b0f226716843db2523a24ebf6e4bd3a795e5b203d8a7cfe59379f
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/github-tech-values
- Shared 29 May 2023, 2 upvotes, 0 comments

GitHub's San Francisco headquarters, with its replica Oval Office, symbolized a tech culture now ending as the company closes its offices, but tech's core values remain worth applying to major social problems. GitHub, acquired by Microsoft in 2018, announced in February that it would lay off 10 percent of its employees and shut all offices when leases expired. The 55,000-square-foot office opened in 2013, and its Oval Office rug reading "In Meritocracy We Trust" was replaced after staff debated the word. Tech's best qualities, such as challenging institutional roadblocks, could address housing, public health, and education.

## 18. With a TikTok Ban Looming, Users Flee to Chinese App ‘Red Note’

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/With-a-TikTok-Ban-Looming-Users-Flee-to-Chinese-App-Red-Note?index=0x67869445dfe69f11e598065a88e2120a3c6e026350f96ebbb45ce104aa3d5188bb86eece
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/red-note-tiktok-xiaohongshu
- Shared 14 January 2025, 1 upvote, 3 comments

Thousands of TikTok users have moved to Xiaohongshu, the Chinese app whose name means "little red book," as a US Supreme Court decision on a law that could ban TikTok looms. As of Monday, Xiaohongshu was the top free app in Apple's US App Store, and the article reports that some newcomers say they joined to spite the US government's ban. Some users say they hope to rebuild their TikTok communities, while the app, which reportedly had over 300 million users and over $1 billion in 2024 profits, is also drawing curiosity from Chinese users, including David Yang, who said about a quarter of his feed was from TikTok refugees.

## 19. Free VPNs are a privacy nightmare. You shouldn’t download them

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Free-VPNs-are-a-privacy-nightmare-You-shouldnt-download-them?index=0x676d31ff7d0c5f912b36876dce194211fd2f713d2b4b637e3dfb5998a98470b7cbfec889
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/free-vpn-android-ios-privacy
- Shared 26 December 2024, 1 upvote, 1 comment

Free VPN apps often fail to protect users and can actively collect their data, according to this WIRED UK article, which advises against picking one at random from app stores. Top10VPN's Simon Migliano says that when the 150 top Android VPNs were first tested, as many as 25 per cent leaked data, and almost one in ten still did in follow-up tests. The article cites UFO VPN, whose 2020 database exposed logs, access records and plain-text passwords, and it recommends Windscribe and ProtonVPN as free options with solid security and transparency records.

## 20. 2025 Will Be Smart Glasses All the Way Down

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/2025-Will-Be-Smart-Glasses-All-the-Way-Down?index=0x6766c7da9b48e62b97845935445a0817aeb182d568478f446de15e1ae5c94222265dcff0
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/smart-glasses-all-the-way-down
- Shared 21 December 2024, 1 upvote, 1 comment

Smart glasses are presented as the most practical near-term wearable, while full augmented reality glasses remain hard to build. Ray-Ban Meta is described as the leading model, offering cameras, audio, Meta AI voice features and no built-in display, while Google's Android XR platform plans display-equipped glasses. Leo Gebbie of CCS Insights says AR "has kind of gone backwards a bit this year," and Anshel Sag of Moor Insights and Strategy notes that the successful AR and smart glasses companies were all acquired, so little came to market.

## 21. Under Meredith Whittaker, Signal Is Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Under-Meredith-Whittaker-Signal-Is-Out-to-Prove-Surveillance-Capitalism-Wrong?index=0x66cf7f1380f0aa365380b436ec7b733ed85812078c3b07a8de4c78a1eb9555ea53c27b85
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/meredith-whittaker-signal
- Shared 28 August 2024, 1 upvote, 1 comment

Signal president Meredith Whittaker describes the nonprofit messaging app as a deliberate counterpoint to surveillance-driven tech, and says it is now expanding toward a mass audience. The app is free, takes no investment, carries no advertising, and collects virtually no user information, according to the article. Whittaker says Signal is now critical infrastructure for militaries, dissidents, journalists and others, and that it needs to define its own story. Asked about a possible future move, she cited shifting political conditions and said jurisdictional flexibility is being considered, with the company focusing on the EU.

## 22. How Denmark’s Welfare State Became a Surveillance Nightmare

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/How-Denmarks-Welfare-State-Became-a-Surveillance-Nightmare?index=0x666dfa2f14b9ba59b71bb399d64a979ca7ce42a517ad8bd4bfa7e07fd42f09ab51021bc5
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/algorithms-welfare-state-politics
- Shared 15 June 2024, 1 upvote, 1 comment

Denmark's Public Benefits Administration has built an extensive data-mining system to detect welfare fraud, which the human rights group Justitia describes as mass surveillance. Annika Jacobsen, who heads the agency's data mining unit, argues that the algorithms only flag people for review by a human investigator, and that the agency's data use is proportional under European data protection laws. Documents obtained by Lighthouse Reports and WIRED show that Denmark's algorithms use variables including nationality, marital status and a "presumed partner" measure to identify possible concealed relationships. Of the nearly 50,000 cases selected in 2022, 8 percent resulted in some form of punishment.

## 23. Two Nations, a Horrible Accident, Urgent Need to Understand the Laws of Space

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Two-Nations-a-Horrible-Accident-Urgent-Need-to-Understand-the-Laws-of-Space?index=0x65cf55fbcda24e69eb3fca833afd88168ec02d934a5ad92c1cefea92493d3c3b1f1cbecc
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/two-nations-horrible-accident-urgent-need-laws-of-space-lachs-moot
- Shared 16 February 2024, 1 upvote, 1 comment

The article profiles the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition and argues that African and other global south students are racing to build expertise in space law before orbital disputes become more common. It says low Earth orbit is still legally "the province of all mankind" but is increasingly dominated by SpaceX's Starlink, which owns more than half of roughly 9,000 active satellites. Timiebi Aganaba, a professor at Arizona State University, helped start African student participation in the competition in 2011, and the University of Pretoria won the international championship in 2018. The piece also follows Namatai Katsande, a Midlands State University law student from Zimbabwe, who joined a team for the 2022 competition.

## 24. Iran’s Internet Blackout Adds New Dangers for Civilians Amid Israeli Bombings

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Irans-Internet-Blackout-Adds-New-Dangers-for-Civilians-Amid-Israeli-Bombings?index=0x68531ef0f087e04ba78517a029927e9eed30403b01536b81caf7f91ffb65dec7b61118b3
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/iran-internet-shutdown-israel
- Shared 18 June 2025, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Iran's internet has been severely restricted during the Israel-Iran conflict, cutting civilians off from news and loved ones, according to monitoring groups and digital rights analysts. Internet connectivity in Iran fell 54 percent on June 13, after Israel's Air Force bombed targets in Iran, according to Doug Madory of monitoring firm Kentik, with further drops of 49 percent on June 17 and 90 percent the following day. Witness analyst Mahsa Alimardani says the restrictions mainly serve the regime's goal of maintaining control over information, while Lukasz Olejnik of King's College London says shutdowns are largely ineffective against real state-level cyberattacks.

## 25. The Internet’s biggest-ever black market just shut down amid a Telegram purge

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Internets-biggest-ever-black-market-just-shut-down-amid-a-Telegram-purge?index=0x68258ce5f0231e2925ca894b15f42d2b0593e38eab55cf96da61738315ffa9bb7bbe0a36
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/the-internets-biggest-ever-black-market-shuts-down-after-a-telegram-purge
- Shared 15 May 2025, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Haowang Guarantee, a Telegram-based crypto crime marketplace also known as Huione Guarantee, announced it was shutting down after Telegram banned thousands of accounts and usernames that supported it. Elliptic, a crypto-tracing firm, reported that the market and its rebrand facilitated more than $24 billion in transactions by January, a figure it later put at $27 billion. Elliptic cofounder Tom Robinson called the takedown a huge win, though he said the operators of Xinbi Guarantee appear to be trying to relaunch on new Telegram channels and that Tudou Guarantee has seen a surge in new users.

## 26. The Madcap Rise of Memecoin Factory Pump.Fun

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Madcap-Rise-of-Memecoin-Factory-PumpFun?index=0x67895ebed08d4f3e4ae026246bf9c7ac567b6a5dd04ff3b22fa6765f336cfdaeaa79995e
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/madcap-rise-of-memecoin-factory-pumpfun
- Shared 16 January 2025, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Pump.Fun, a platform for launching memecoins, has become one of the fastest-growing crypto businesses, and cofounder Noah Tweedale says the team wants to build something that lasts. The article reports that third parties have said the platform brought in more than $350 million in revenue over its first 12 months through a 1 percent cut of trades, and that more than 5.5 million unique memecoins have been published on it. Pump.Fun has also faced a former employee's alleged theft of nearly $2 million in escrow funds, soft rug pulls, and a UK Financial Conduct Authority warning that led it to block UK residents.

## 27. The Top Cybersecurity Agency in the US Is Bracing for Donald Trump

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Top-Cybersecurity-Agency-in-the-US-Is-Bracing-for-Donald-Trump?index=0x6766c798a73d1bfa0eb8bb5ba23f2be7ad7dd7e973307eb0f77768256716baf45710e302
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/cisa-cuts-trump-2
- Shared 21 December 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

CISA employees are worried about how Donald Trump's return to office will affect the agency, according to interviews with four current staffers and another US cyber official who requested anonymity. Staffers expect the administration to scale back Biden-era corporate cybersecurity initiatives such as the secure-by-design campaign, and they fear changes to the agency's election security work. The article also reports that Kristi Noem, Trump's pick to lead DHS, rejected money from a DHS cyber grant program in 2023, and that CISA director Jen Easterly said she "could not be prouder" of the agency's achievements.

## 28. The Beginning of the End of Big Tech

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Beginning-of-the-End-of-Big-Tech?index=0x6748236a8914611fb7caa5afe661e51ef78ea6a7665ae193f246b1ade447f6195a674140
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-big-tech
- Shared 28 November 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Meredith Whittaker argues that Big Tech's dominance is weakening and that 2025 could mark the beginning of its end, giving way to open, independent alternatives. She cites the CrowdStrike outage of mid-2024, caused by corner-cutting at Microsoft, which disrupted critical infrastructure worldwide, and says AI's weak returns are worrying major investors such as Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital. She also points to Microsoft's Recall, which would capture screenshots of users' activity and which she says conflicts with growing demand for privacy, and proposes that state funding, such as Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund, support open infrastructure. She notes Signal costs about $50 million a year to run.

## 29. ‘Should Art Be Regulated by the SEC?’: NFT Artists’ New Lawsuit Seeks Answers

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Should-Art-Be-Regulated-by-the-SEC-NFT-Artists-New-Lawsuit-Seeks-Answers?index=0x66ce0cd7af2ec2b1b5f149a1e1d4e9389dfd98f3aee02543627f91d34f3138a1c12c8ec9
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/jonathan-mann-brian-frye-sec-lawsuit-nfts-art-securities
- Shared 27 August 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Musician Jonathan Mann and conceptual artist Brian Frye have sued the SEC in a Louisiana federal court, asking whether art sold as NFTs should be regulated as securities. The suit seeks a declaratory judgment that their planned NFT projects, one of 10,420 remix NFTs of "This Song Is a Security" and one of 10,320 NFTs on Ethereum, do not violate US securities laws. The complaint points to the SEC's 2023 settlements with Impact Theory, over $6 million, and Stoner Cats, which paid a $1 million fine, and argues that the SEC's actions could reach beyond NFTs to the art market. The SEC declined to comment, and it has 60 days from the filing date to respond.

## 30. The Slow-Burn Nightmare of the National Public Data Breach

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Slow-Burn-Nightmare-of-the-National-Public-Data-Breach?index=0x66c2f7ae49b4745fd1b8fa8d286b4c56c71d3fe324ef16a1e966f17d95fddbd5ab0a3c05
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/national-public-data-breach-leak
- Shared 19 August 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

The background-check service National Public Data acknowledged a breach this week, just as a trove of the stolen data leaked publicly online after months of ambiguity. A hacker known as USDoD had offered the data on cybercriminal forums in April for $3.5 million, claiming 2.9 billion records, and samples later proved at least partly legitimate. Security researcher Troy Hunt found about 134 million email addresses in circulation, though many were paired with inaccurate personal information, and no email addresses appeared in the Social Security number files. Jeremiah Fowler warns that the risk may take years to materialize.

## 31. Thousands of Corporate Secrets Were Left Exposed. This Guy Found Them All

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Thousands-of-Corporate-Secrets-Were-Left-Exposed-This-Guy-Found-Them-All?index=0x66b932b81cb9b04c14bb4b6816823a533de0d70dfbbe1588a0250e5c0987ccf4fa347023
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/secret-hunting-bill-demirkapi
- Shared 11 August 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Security researcher Bill Demirkapi unveiled at Defcon that he used VirusTotal's data to find more than 15,000 active developer secrets, along with 66,000 websites with dangling subdomain issues. The exposed secrets included usernames and passwords linked to Nebraska's Supreme Court IT systems, Stanford University Slack access details, and more than 1,000 OpenAI API keys. Demirkapi argues that unconventional large data sources can reveal such trivial vulnerabilities at scale. He said GitHub and Amazon Web Services did not provide him with a direct reporting channel, so he used GitHub's secret scanning by uploading the secrets to notes.

## 32. Don’t Fall for CrowdStrike Outage Scams

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Dont-Fall-for-CrowdStrike-Outage-Scams?index=0x669bc2c9e752ac30839df924249234865d1f965d10ebd9a693fb05ef66dd8b0e67288b40
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/crowdstrike-outage-support-scams
- Shared 20 July 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

CrowdStrike is warning that scammers are exploiting the global outage caused by its faulty Falcon software update, which crashed Windows computers running the product on Friday. Researchers began seeing attackers reserve domain names and build websites for fake "CrowdStrike Support" scams aimed at customers and others affected by the chaos. Attackers have been sending phishing emails, making impersonation phone calls, and selling software tools that claim to automate recovery, while some falsely claim the outage was a cyberattack. CrowdStrike founder and CEO George Kurtz urged people to deal only with official representatives, and Brett Callow of FTI Consulting said customers should be prepared for such exploitation.

## 33. ‘SimCity’ Isn’t a Model of Reality. It’s a Libertarian Toy Land

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/SimCity-Isnt-a-Model-of-Reality-Its-a-Libertarian-Toy-Land?index=0x66991117b587c23f498216a3ca71bbc44fb8e63ed3727584ec190570525d0cd43af181fc
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/simcity-libertarian-toy-land
- Shared 18 July 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

SimCity is less an insight into reality than a libertarian toy land, shaped by the free-market biases of the urban models that inspired it. Designer Will Wright's game drew on urban models by engineer Jay Forrester, whose 1971 book Urban Dynamics recommended dropping regulations for the free market, and whose Concord, Massachusetts, zoning advice drove housing prices sky-high. SimHealth, a 1994 hospital-management game, had a clear libertarian bias, and Paul Starr, a Clinton health care adviser, said it contained so much misinformation that no one could evaluate real policies with it.

## 34. Inside a Violent Gang's Ruthless Crypto-Stealing Home Invasion Spree

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Inside-a-Violent-Gangs-Ruthless-Crypto-Stealing-Home-Invasion-Spree?index=0x667fb81b0facf3c2e07dc652db6f123c7997d284eeaf16d4d70fcd0cb7ad5cd359a2ee3b
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/crypto-home-invasion-crime-ring
- Shared 29 June 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

A Justice Department announcement reported the conviction of Remy Ra St. Felix, a 24-year-old Florida man who led a crypto-focused home invasion gang that attacked 11 victims across four US states. The article's central focus is the group's campaign of violence, which prosecutors describe as likely the worst crypto-focused serial extortion case of its kind in the US. The gang's only confirmed physical theft was more than $150,000 in Bitcoin and Ether taken from an elderly North Carolina couple. Prosecutors said the men threatened, beat, tortured, and kidnapped victims to obtain their crypto access.

## 35. Perplexity Is a Bullshit Machine

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Perplexity-Is-a-Bullshit-Machine?index=0x66731e638579ebe26e83d9e466d7eac5b781788f4498ed1e5fa55a87a2d547a2c2162026
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/perplexity-is-a-bullshit-machine
- Shared 19 June 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

WIRED's investigation concludes that Perplexity, an AI startup that Forbes has accused of copying its content, scrapes websites that have blocked its crawler and produces some inaccurate summaries. WIRED and developer Robb Knight found that an unpublicized IP address linked to Perplexity hit Condé Nast properties at least 822 times in three months, even though Perplexity says it respects the Robots Exclusion Protocol. In one test, the chatbot falsely claimed WIRED reported that a California police officer had committed a crime. CEO Aravind Srinivas called the questions a "deep and fundamental misunderstanding" but did not dispute the specifics of the reporting.

## 36. I Spent a Week Eating Discarded Restaurant Food.

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/I-Spent-a-Week-Eating-Discarded-Restaurant-Food?index=0x666df6bd3166c46d9af59c9d95ed4bccf7187bb4ea7f9e2a6c7bb9acf8c3074918f6a779
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/too-good-to-go-app-week-food-waste
- Shared 15 June 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Too Good To Go, a Danish app for buying surplus restaurant and shop food at discount, is presented here as a way to reduce food waste, though the writer found it offers little direct proof of environmental impact. Over a week, the writer ate only food rescued through the app, paying between £3 and £6 per bag, with meals collected in person. Wowshee owner Ahmed El Shimi says the app helps cut his stall's waste by around 60 percent, while the app's CEO, Mette Lykke, says food waste contributes 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. The writer says the app reports a vague "avoided" CO2 figure without explaining how it is calculated.

## 37. AI Is Apple’s Best Shot at Getting You to Upgrade Your iPhone

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/AI-Is-Apples-Best-Shot-at-Getting-You-to-Upgrade-Your-iPhone?index=0x66695ae87250ec070b932506ad7d5a4bdc7bc3a70af1a603a38b6f46f0a0c9324789dbc5
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/ai-is-apples-best-shot-at-getting-you-to-upgrade-your-phone
- Shared 12 June 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Apple announced Apple Intelligence at its annual developer conference, a suite of AI features for iPhone, iPad and Mac that the article describes as a possible driver of an upgrade cycle. The features will run only on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, certain iPad Pro and Air models, and Macs with M1 chips or later, and Apple has not said why older devices are excluded. Wedbush Securities managing director Dan Ives tweeted that an AI-driven iPhone upgrade cycle could start with the iPhone 16. The article notes that Apple's iPhone sales fell 10 percent year over year in the January through March period, and that IDC reported 309.4 million used smartphone shipments in 2023.

## 38. Musi Won Over Millions. Is the Free Music Streaming App Too Good to Be True?

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Musi-Won-Over-Millions-Is-the-Free-Music-Streaming-App-Too-Good-to-Be-True?index=0x663a2c221614a55db234599e4baf3f643f3857c6ebe819ba0ab3277f144372428c37506b
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/free-music-streaming-app-musi-too-good-to-be-true
- Shared 7 May 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Musi, a free music streaming app that sources its content from YouTube, has grown into a popular service among young users, but its legality is now being questioned by record labels and industry groups. According to WIRED's reporting, Sensor Tower estimates more than 66 million downloads since launch, with 8.5 million in 2023 alone. Vevo says it plans to take action against the app, while YouTube says it allows third-party apps to use its APIs only when they follow its terms of service. Musi did not respond to requests for comment.

## 39. Apple’s Vision Pro Headset Shows the Future of Computing Is Bulky and Weird

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Apples-Vision-Pro-Headset-Shows-the-Future-of-Computing-Is-Bulky-and-Weird?index=0x65ae287fcb4204e8415c1d546e8f666fc8cb7f21f6b9cf13bd7d8cfc2d0aa0877a418ec0
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-vision-pro-hands-on-january-2024
- Shared 22 January 2024, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Wired's reviewer spent about 30 minutes with Apple's Vision Pro mixed-reality headset and finds the technology impressive but is not sold on its bulky design. The $3,500 device runs visionOS, operates without a paired device, and is controlled by eye gaze and finger taps, with preorders starting January 19 and sales beginning February 2. The reviewer says the headset was comfortable after adjusting the headband, but the external battery pack, which lasts about two hours, is an inelegant solution. The reviewer hopes the technology will eventually shrink into normal-looking glasses.

## 40. Police Can Spy on Your iOS and Android Push Notifications

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Police-Can-Spy-on-Your-iOS-and-Android-Push-Notifications?index=0x657165a73653372e4621913ec04c97300693e7130a0110692216b7b195e77a91e595a39a
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/apple-google-push-notification-surveillance
- Shared 7 December 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Governments can demand that Apple and Google share metadata tied to push notifications on iOS and Android, according to Senator Ron Wyden and court records reviewed by WIRED. Wyden's letter to the US Department of Justice asks to let Apple and Google discuss such government requests with users, which he says the government has required them to keep secret. The records can reveal which apps a person has used, when they received notifications, and the phone linked to an account, though not notification content. Apple says it will detail these requests in its next transparency report, and Google says it already includes them in its transparency reports.

## 41. The Israel-Hamas War Is Drowning X in Disinformation | WIRED

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Israel-Hamas-War-Is-Drowning-X-in-Disinformation-or-WIRED?index=0x65245bcc4456ec703b0f83d2d81c3ac077d16d9fba8f9e1bbb549a84a0a2c444e7483595
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/x-israel-hamas-war-disinformation
- Shared 9 October 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Researchers and OSINT experts say X was flooded with disinformation about the Israel-Hamas conflict in the weekend after Hamas's attacks on Israel, making verified information hard to find. Justin Peden, an OSINT researcher known as the Intel Crab, says old videos, repurposed footage and fake images were boosted, while on-the-ground sources were not amplified. Elon Musk recommended two accounts that the article describes as known spreaders of disinformation, and his post was viewed over 11 million times before he deleted it. Emerson Brooking of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Research Lab links the problem to changes Musk has made to the platform, including firing most staff who handled disinformation.

## 42. How Neuralink Keeps Dead Monkey Photos Secret

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/How-Neuralink-Keeps-Dead-Monkey-Photos-Secret?index=0x651f027e0bf99c6975f30cb1a2b1ab333982d83939551246473352f500a8335ede684b83
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/neuralink-uc-davis-monkey-photos-videos-secret
- Shared 5 October 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments

WIRED reports that UC Davis has withheld hundreds of photos of Neuralink's experiments on macaques at the California National Primate Research Center, citing public-interest and safety concerns, while the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine sues for their release. The article describes a monkey, euthanized on September 13, 2018, whose brain swelled and ruptured after a toxic adhesive around a Neuralink implant leaked internally, and says USDA treated the violation as a "teachable moment" with no penalty. Emails and records show Neuralink controlled what UC Davis could disclose, and the school says Neuralink's video content was stored on its own infrastructure. Neuralink did not respond to WIRED's request for comment.

## 43. Predictive Policing Software Terrible at Predicting Crimes

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Predictive-Policing-Software-Terrible-at-Predicting-Crimes?index=0x651ef1ee3a0e0ba117dbf445f352a4f7a6555c28c43739f3bbb9021aad1d21a8d1a83058
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/plainfield-geolitica-crime-predictions
- Shared 5 October 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Geolitica's predictive policing software was right less than half a percent of the time for the Plainfield, New Jersey, police department, according to an analysis by The Markup. Of 23,631 predictions generated between February 25 and December 18, 2018, fewer than 100 lined up with a reported crime of the predicted type in a location not patrolled by Plainfield police. Plainfield captain David Guarino said the department rarely used the software and later dropped it. Geolitica is ceasing operations, and SoundThinking has hired its engineering team and is acquiring some of its intellectual property.

## 44. The end of Airbnb in New York

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-end-of-Airbnb-in-New-York?index=0x64f82c1845d6e706fe609e4ef537566f13a3f07aaac997d9ebeead0ad7cb627627b7608d
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/airbnb-ban-new-york-city
- Shared 6 September 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Local Law 18, which took effect in New York City this week, requires all short-term rental hosts to register with the city and limits eligible hosts to those who live in and are present at the property, with a two-guest cap. Airbnb calls the rules a "de facto ban" on its business, and a judge dismissed the company's lawsuit against the city in August. The city's Office of Special Enforcement had granted 257 registrations out of more than 800 applications reviewed as of late August, and Airbnb says unregistered reservations from December 2 onward will be canceled and refunded.

## 45. Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino Is Teetering on the Glass Cliff

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Twitter-CEO-Linda-Yaccarino-Is-Teetering-on-the-Glass-Cliff?index=0x646e280dbe70241d8a4bfaec0533aca5ad1df0fc86c8e4debf0534d85b398d2e8ceff9e1
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-linda-yaccarino-glass-cliff?mbid=social_twitter
- Shared 24 May 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Linda Yaccarino's appointment as Twitter CEO fits the "glass cliff" pattern, in which women are more often placed in top jobs at organizations in crisis, according to researchers quoted in the article. Christy Glass, a sociologist at Utah State University, calls Musk's challenge to Twitter "the perfect storm," and Alexander Haslam, who co-coined the term, says companies in trouble often choose radically different leaders to signal change. The article reports that Twitter's earnings fell 40 percent by December, two months after Musk's acquisition, citing The Wall Street Journal. Coco Brown of the Athena Alliance says Yaccarino's bravery should be applauded whether or not Twitter can be saved.

## 46. Stack Overflow Will Charge AI Giants for Training Data

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Stack-Overflow-Will-Charge-AI-Giants-for-Training-Data?index=0x6441e39b500914446dc65b1dd8ae1347f0f0a0023d6b82c0e922c094429d10688f34ab33
- Source: https://www.wired.com/story/stack-overflow-will-charge-ai-giants-for-training-data
- Shared 21 April 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Stack Overflow plans to begin charging large AI developers for access to its 50 million questions and answers as soon as the middle of this year, according to CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar. He says the revenue is vital to keeping users and high-quality information on the site, and that companies building commercial products on community sites should be compensated. The move follows Reddit's announcement that it will begin charging some AI developers starting in June. Chandrasekar also says LLM developers are violating Stack Overflow's Creative Commons license by failing to attribute contributors.

## 47. The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin (2011)

- Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/The-Rise-and-Fall-of-Bitcoin-2011?index=0x6441c2cb70a12cb76ae3bbfa2a8707d8f753d8c60d46eed9f3e2b2514fac59eb3e35006c
- Source: https://www.wired.com/2011/11/mf-bitcoin
- Shared 20 April 2023, 1 upvote, 0 comments

Wired's 2011 feature traces Bitcoin from its anonymous creation by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 to its surge in price during 2011. The article says Nakamoto's design solved the double-spending problem by replacing a central clearinghouse with a public ledger, the block chain, maintained by miners who receive newly issued coins. Early adopters included Gavin Andresen, who bought 10,000 bitcoins for $50, and Laszlo Hanyecz, who paid 10,000 bitcoins for two Papa John's pizzas. Nakamoto vanished in late 2010, and by June 2011 the currency's price had risen to about $27.