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Thomas Brewster

@thomasbrewster.bsky.social
1.8K followers 271 following 290 posts

Forbes senior writer, covering privacy, surveillance and cybercrime. Editor of The Wiretap newsletter, featuring all of the above. Signal: tombrewster.48 - tips welcome.

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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Wouldn't you have preferred to see a bunch of robots dancing? youtube.com/watch?is=hk25DVZYUeuLvzeR&v=kPnN4IE_a98&feature=youtu.be
youtube.com
GENER8ION feat. Yung Lean Perform "STORM" | 2026 VMAs
YouTube video by MTV
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Amy Feldman @amyfeldman7.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Peptides like “tesa” and sermorelin are landing fitness fans in the hospital with allergic reactions. *NEW* from @iainmartin.bsky.social and me for @forbes.com www.forbes.com/sites/iainma...
forbes.com
Peptides Like ‘Tesa’ And Sermorelin Are Landing Fitness Fans In The Hospital With Allergic Reactions
A class of peptides that are meant to stimulate human growth hormone has been linked with a spat of severe allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock-like symptoms.
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 24/09/2026
Just when I think I can’t hate OpenAI and Sam Altman any more, new details come out about how ChatGPT helped a shooter plan one of the worst mass shootings in Canadian history in Tumbler Ridge, BC. OpenAI made an explicit decision not to report the user to authorities.
motherjones.com
ChatGPT helped the Tumbler Ridge school shooter focus on guns, tactics, and terror, our investigation reveals
OpenAI’s chatbot fed the shooter’s violent fantasies and planning up to the massacre.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
NEW - Irregular, the company we covered after it came out of stealth last year, has found itself at the center of rogue AI outbreaks over the spring and summer. Here the CEO tells me the companies involved need to hold their hands up to mistakes. www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...
forbes.com
The Startup At The Center Of Multiple Rogue AI Cyberattacks Admits It Made Mistakes
CEO of $450 million Israeli AI stress tester startup Irregular says the industry should hold its hands up to errors made in the summer of AI doom.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Not often reporting contributes significantly to a federal investigation into a Russian phone hacking business that worked with... federal investigators.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Well, holy shit... Back in 2017, I wrote a story about Oxygen Forensics and other Russian companies helping hack into iPhones and Androids for American gov. They were really not happy being called Russian. Now, the DOJ has indicted its leadership... Original story: www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Meet The Russians Helping The Feds Hack Silicon Valley
At a time when suspicions over Russia are at fever pitch, these Russian security firms are now a part of the U.S. government’s surveillance apparatus and sit on some of the nation’s most sensitive net...
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Zach Everson @zacheverson.com · 22/09/2026
"A Chinese Hacker Used AI To Attack 100+ Companies In One Of Largest AI Hacks Yet" @thomasbrewster.bsky.social for @forbes.com
forbes.com
Massive AI-Fueled Hack Hit 100 Companies In Days
Anthropic, DeepSeek and Moonshot AI agents carried out a wide-ranging cyberattack, obtaining 600,000+ credit card numbers in just a few days. It’s a worrying new milestone in cybercrime.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Both Anthropic and Cloudflare confirmed the accounts and attack infrastructure had been taken down. However, the researchers who uncovered the attacks say they're reestablishing servers and continuing to aim their AI at more targets.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
🚨NEW🚨 In an astonishing cyberattack, a Chinese-speaking hacker told AI agents powered by DeepSeek and Anthropic's Claude to go breach a bunch of retailers and hospitality companies. Within five days, the agents hacked 30+ websites and stole over 600,000 credit cards. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Massive AI-Fueled Hack Hit 100 Companies In Days
Anthropic, DeepSeek and Moonshot AI agents carried out a wide-ranging cyberattack, obtaining 600,000+ credit card numbers in just a few days. It’s a worrying new milestone in cybercrime.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
🚨NEW🚨 OpenAI/Anthropic safety partner Irregular tested an AI agent using Chinese model Qwen and tasked it with fixing a simple bug. It retrained and replaced the underlying model without approval or being asked to do that. Privacy and safety issues abound. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Another Rogue AI Agent? Test Of Alibaba's Qwen Goes Off-Script
In experiments by startup Irregular, one of Anthropic and OpenAI’s security testers, an Alibaba Qwen agent decided to retrain an entire model when it was asked to fix a basic software bug. The new beh...
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
insane reporting
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
🚨NEW🚨 Apple slams Meta for its role in getting the DOJ to launch an antitrust probe into smartphone industry monopolization, previously-unreported court filing shows. It's also after Mark Zuckerberg's communications, potentially including those with Joe Rogan. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Apple Slams Meta’s Role In DOJ iPhone Antitrust Investigation
Apple alleges Meta is refusing to provide documentation in the DOJ’s iPhone monopoly suit, despite being a key player in helping the Justice Department put together its case in the first place.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
🚨NEW🚨 Apple slams Meta for its role in getting the DOJ to launch an antitrust probe into smartphone industry monopolization, previously-unreported court filing shows. It's also after Mark Zuckerberg's communications, potentially including those with Joe Rogan. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Apple Slams Meta’s Role In DOJ iPhone Antitrust Investigation
Apple alleges Meta is refusing to provide documentation in the DOJ’s iPhone monopoly suit, despite being a key player in helping the Justice Department put together its case in the first place.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Agree with most of this: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/o... Smart regulation, urgently.
nytimes.com
Opinion | This Is Really Bad
We can no longer pretend that A.I. is safe.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
UPDATE: The sheriff who was targeted says he's disappointed Facebook couldn't stop the AI-nudified images of him going up. And that the offender was allowed to remain on the site. If there's a zero-tolerance approach, surely those posting AI nudes as a form of harassment should be expelled?
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Sorry but if we're going to go in hard on AI companies, we need to do better than going off of a single word in a job ad and some podcast interviews to claim they're building some anti-activist panopticon. I won't link to the article to which I'm referring.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
A related thought: If AI isn't clearly boosting labour productivity, hasn't cured any diseases, but is really powerful when helping people do horrible stuff, not to mention its predilection for going rogue and hacking things... what's it good for again?
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
🚨NEW🚨 A man repeatedly posts AI-generated nudes of senior Virginia cops on Facebook. A woman has Disney World pictures from when she was 11 turned into CSAM, posted on FB. Meta says its detection tools aren't perfect. A loophole for harassers remains open. www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...
forbes.com
Man Posts AI-Generated Nudes Of Cops On Facebook
Meta admits its detection tools aren't perfect as AI-generated nudes are used to harass Virginia police and a Utah woman, according to court documents seen by Forbes.
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
New: a secretive DHS predictive policing unit is analyzing Americans' financial activity, feeding those names to police, then having cops pull them over. Not suspected of any particular crime We're revealing the unit name too: Predictive Intelligence Targeting Team www.404media.co/a-secretive-...
404media.co
A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans' Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over
404 Media is revealing the name of Border Patrol's predictive policing units, which analyze financial data and have local cops pull people over. The people are not suspected of any particular crime.
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Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
🧵New: Last month, researchers found 50 paid ads on Meta’s platforms that included AI-generated child sexual abuse. Meta said most of these ran before it rolled out new moderation AI. Since then, Meta has ran another 250+ of these ads. One used an image of a minor from a European royal family
wired.com
Meta Failed to Catch Hundreds of AI Child Abuse Ads. Some Included Images of Real Kids
Images of real children—including a member of a European royal family—were used to create some of the 350 ads containing child sexual abuse. Lawmakers say they plan to investigate.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Well, I agree the shit out of this, especially the sign off.
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Luke Kennard @lukekennard.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
“September is a terrifyingly expensive month.” - T S Eliot if he’d had school age kids
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
For the many who have no idea who I am, I was the reporter who showed Flock breaking the law 2 years ago, revealed SignalTrace that same year, profiled the company for a magazine feature last year and had the company apologise for his comments this summer. Amid many other surveillance scoops.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
For the many who have no idea who I am, I was the reporter who showed Flock breaking the law 2 years ago, revealed SignalTrace that same year, profiled the company for a magazine feature last year and had the company apologise for his comments this summer. Amid many other surveillance scoops.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Had a seven week break for paternity. Back Monday. Feed me stories please. Signal is best: tombrewster.48
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Emanuel Maiberg @emanuelmaiberg.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
We put a tracking device in a shipment of rare books acquired by an anonymous buyer. It ended up at an Amazon facility where the company scans books for training data and destroys them in the process: www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...
404media.co
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
New: An "expert witness" in a $61 million lawsuit over an industrial explosion that killed three people and destroyed 200 homes used ChatGPT to write his report for the court. He prompted ChatGPT to "show how 3M is 0% at fault for the explosion at Watson Grinding" www.404media.co/show-how-3m-...
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I keep forgetting to tell folks that I’m on and off work with paternity this year for my (insert random number) child, hence why my output and response times are a little slower than normal. Still, if you have a great tip, don’t be shy about getting me on Signal.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 21/07/2026
FalcoNet “can be concealed within the vehicles, hidden in a backpack for on-foot missions or attached to a helicopter. It’s the same technology as the infamous Stingray, one of the original cell-site simulators made by defense giant L3Harris.”
forbes.com
Israel’s Palantir Rival Is Selling $1 Million Spy Vans To U.S. Cops
Cognyte, which sells technology to snoop on phone locations largely in Israel and Europe, is making inroads in America by tricking out trucks with spy tech.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
For whatever reason Axon is yet to do or authorise a data-driven, independent, controlled study on the efficiency of the tech. There has been one such study so far from Manchester, NH, and it showed zero time savings, even when officers said they thought they experienced them.
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Jake Williams @malwarejake.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
The number of criminal defendants who will (rightfully) claim hallucinations introduce reasonable doubt is going to be incalculable. Even taking Axon's claims at face value, any savings will be offset by higher prosecution costs dealing with these claims.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
🚨NEW🚨 The $35bn police tech giant Axon claims its AI massively speeds up cops’ report writing time. I got public records showing one of its AI tools introduced errors into reports, “dramatically” increasing the time it takes to finish them. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Axon Says AI Police Reports Save Time. Public Records Show They Get Facts Wrong
More than 600,000 police reports have been written with help from Axon’s AI tools. Public records obtained by Forbes show that they can introduce errors that cops have to spend time editing out.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
🚨NEW🚨 Well, this is a first for me: A surveillance company CEO says sorry. Flock's chief Garrett Langley says it was a "mistake" to label activists tracking the spread of its surveillance technology "terrorists." His comments come amid a rising public backlash. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Flock CEO Apologizes For Calling Activists ‘Terrorists’
As a movement against $8.3 billion Flock Safety’s license plate readers gathers momentum, company CEO Garrett Langley tells Forbes he shouldn’t have called non-violent activists “terroristic” organiza...
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
🚨NEW🚨 Well, this is a first for me: A surveillance company CEO says sorry. Flock's chief Garrett Langley says it was a "mistake" to label activists tracking the spread of its surveillance technology "terrorists." His comments come amid a rising public backlash. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Flock CEO Apologizes For Calling Activists ‘Terrorists’
As a movement against $8.3 billion Flock Safety’s license plate readers gathers momentum, company CEO Garrett Langley tells Forbes he shouldn’t have called non-violent activists “terroristic” organiza...
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Anna Tong @annatonger.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
People can't get OpenAI or Anthropic shares. Instead, they're buying used OpenAI employee sweatshirts on eBay for $250. Or used Anthropic t-shirts for $120. Inside the secondary market for AI swag. It's a bubble inside of a bubble. www.forbes.com/sites/annato...
forbes.com
The Booming Secondary Market For Used OpenAI and Anthropic Swag
You might not be able to get in on the IPO, but you can still get the hoodie. With AI startups like OpenAI and Anthropic in private hands, people are paying $250 for used sweatshirts on eBay to cospla...
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WIRED @wired.com · 17/07/2026
A statement from WIRED leadership.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 14/07/2026
An amazing quote from Lindsey Graham in this Atlantic story. It really captures an essential truth about politics that too few people ever really come to terms with. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Icymi from yesterday
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Vas Panagiotopoulos @vaspanagiotopoulos.com · 14/07/2026
Cognyte, which sells technology to snoop on phone locations largely in Israel and Europe, is making inroads in 🇺🇸America by tricking out trucks with spy tech, writes @thomasbrewster.bsky.social. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Israel’s Palantir Rival Is Selling $1 Million Spy Vans To U.S. Cops
Cognyte, which sells technology to snoop on phone locations largely in Israel and Europe, is making inroads in America by tricking out trucks with spy tech.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
🚨 NEW 🚨 An Israeli spyware maker banned by Meta and panned by civil rights activists has been selling $1 million spy trucks to American police. It's been especially successful in border states, with a $5m deal in Texas. It bills itself as the affordable Palantir. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Israel’s Palantir Rival Is Selling $1 Million Spy Vans To U.S. Cops
Cognyte, which sells technology to snoop on phone locations largely in Israel and Europe, is making inroads in America by tricking out trucks with spy tech.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Another thing of note here: The use of fake cell towers (simulators) on wheels is not always done with a warrant. Warrantless use is permitted in somewhat nebulous "emergency" situations.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Per Cognyte's own PR, such deals pave the way to sell more of its tech into the US. Among Cognyte's other products are predictive AI, social media surveillance, and an SS7 tool for finding a phone with just a number. It's also invested in adint, which gets user locations from mobile ads.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
🚨 NEW 🚨 An Israeli spyware maker banned by Meta and panned by civil rights activists has been selling $1 million spy trucks to American police. It's been especially successful in border states, with a $5m deal in Texas. It bills itself as the affordable Palantir. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas...
forbes.com
Israel’s Palantir Rival Is Selling $1 Million Spy Vans To U.S. Cops
Cognyte, which sells technology to snoop on phone locations largely in Israel and Europe, is making inroads in America by tricking out trucks with spy tech.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Personal news: I’m announcing my retirement as chief proselytiser for the dumpster fire.
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
New: there is a major vulnerability with Apple’s Hide My Email feature that lets attackers discover peoples’ real emails. Verified it works on my own email. We’re not disclosing how it works because Apple has not fixed it. But Apple has known for more than a year www.404media.co/apple-hide-m...
404media.co
Apple ‘Hide My Email’ Vulnerability Reveals Peoples’ Real Email Addresses
”Hide My Email users deserve to know that it may be possible for attackers to discover their hidden email addresses,” the person who reported the issue said.
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Are we all just losing our collective minds? Wtaf are we doing?
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
🚨NEW🚨 The company behind China's new Mythos rival is known to send vulnerabilities to Beijing intelligence agencies via a national database. It's alleged China keeps some bugs from the database to use in cyber espionage. Hence US has labelled it a natsec threat. www.forbes.com/sites/the-wi...
forbes.com
Qihoo 360: The Cyber Giant Behind China’s Mythos Rival
A Chinese cybersecurity giant with various ties to China's cyber surveillance agencies claims to have developed a powerful AI to rival Anthropic's Mythos.
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Cynthia Brumfield @metacurity.com · 29/06/2026
I missed this, but I'm glad to see that Om got the mainstream coverage he deserved. Om Malik, Whose Blog Shaped How Silicon Valley Saw Itself, Dies at 59 www.nytimes.com/2026/06/26/t...
nytimes.com
Om Malik, Whose Blog Shaped How Silicon Valley Saw Itself, Dies at 59
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Thomas Brewster @thomasbrewster.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
"Everything is three times the size" is not the complement you think it is, America.
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Ron Deibert @rondeibert.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Israeli surveillance company Cellebrite ended sales to Russia in early 2021. A few months later, Russia used its tech to search a prominent opponent of the regime, new @citizenlab.ca research indicates. www.forbes.com/sites/thomas... @thomasbrewster.bsky.social
forbes.com
Russia Hacked Dissident’s iPhone With Cellebrite Tech, Records Show
Israeli surveillance company Cellebrite ended sales to Russia in early 2021. A few months later, Russia used its tech to search a prominent opponent of the regime, new research indicates.
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