Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar

Dhruv Mehrotra

@dmehro.bsky.social

1181 followers 834 following 73 posts

Investigations with computers at WIRED. Previously: Reveal, gizmodo, eyebeamnyc | dhruv_mehrotra@wired.com for tips

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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...

0 replies 2 reposts 11 likes

Reposted by Dhruv Mehrotra

Reposted by Dhruv Mehrotra

Tim Marchman's avatar Tim Marchman @timmarchman.bsky.social
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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.

2 replies 28 reposts 83 likes

Reposted by Dhruv Mehrotra

Tim Marchman's avatar Tim Marchman @timmarchman.bsky.social
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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.

3 replies 63 reposts 116 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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...

0 replies 2 reposts 0 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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Thanks - means a lot.

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Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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Yeah? Tell me more?? Dhruv_mehrotra@wired.com or dmehro.89 on signal

1 replies 0 reposts 2 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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.

0 replies 6 reposts 33 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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.

1 replies 9 reposts 29 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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.

3 replies 18 reposts 47 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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.

1 replies 15 reposts 40 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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.

4 replies 8 reposts 42 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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.

4 replies 38 reposts 69 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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...

12 replies 183 reposts 299 likes

Reposted by Dhruv Mehrotra

Jason Koebler's avatar Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social
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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...

1 replies 13 reposts 40 likes

Reposted by Dhruv Mehrotra

Reposted by Dhruv Mehrotra

Spencer Ackerman's avatar Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social
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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.

8 replies 204 reposts 436 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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This is exactly right. They siphon the data from ad exchanges

1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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.

1 replies 1 reposts 4 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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

2 replies 26 reposts 54 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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.

0 replies 7 reposts 34 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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

1 replies 10 reposts 45 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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

1 replies 11 reposts 26 likes

Dhruv Mehrotra's avatar Dhruv Mehrotra @dmehro.bsky.social
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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...

10 replies 78 reposts 167 likes

Reposted by Dhruv Mehrotra

Electronic Frontier Foundation's avatar Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org
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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.

1 replies 40 reposts 75 likes

Reposted by Dhruv Mehrotra