curated news excerpts & citations
… trying to ‘unbury the lede’
Oz @ Medium: The $1.2 Billion Zoom Call: How a Live Deepfake Just Killed Biometric Security
Multi-national corporations are quietly abandoning 2FA and facial recognition, returning to analog passwords. Here is the terrifying anatomy of the biggest cyber heist in history.
If you work in corporate finance, IT, or cybersecurity, everything you thought you knew about identity verification changed last week.
For years, we were told that the ultimate defense against cyber fraud was biometric security. We enforced strict Two-Factor Authentication (2FA), implemented liveness checks for facial recognition, and trusted our own eyes and ears.
Then, a coordinated cyber cartel used a Real-Time Deepfake to steal $1.2 billion in a single afternoon.
This wasn’t a phishing email. This wasn’t a compromised password. This was a live, interactive video conference where a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) sat face-to-face with what looked and sounded exactly like his CEO.
(Oz @ Medium more…)
-
Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – June 20, 2026
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has become a metaphor for the Trump presidency. Beginning in early April, Trump boasted he was going to fix the reflecting pool after what he claimed was gross neglect by former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. …
The pattern Walz identified with regard to the pool applies also to Trump’s debacle in Iran. And not only is the reflecting pool defying his narrative, so are Iran and Israel.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Mary Geddry: Reality Refuses To Cooperate
Hormuz, green water, and one insulted Italian prime minister expose the limits of Trump’s performance politics.
(Mary Geddry more…)Broad Daylight News: The toll booth Iran built while Trump called Obama stupid
-
Insha Jalil Waziri @ Print: AI is not a threat, it will create more jobs, says Jeff Bezos
Skipping fears of mass unemployment, Bezos used his VivaTech panel to argue that an ‘artificial general engineer’ just creates more tasks.
(Insha Jalil Waziri @ Print more…)
-
Jonathan Larsen: UFC Plot Was Christian Extremism
To hear FBI Director Kash Patel and acting Attorney General Todd Blanche tell it, the five men charged with plotting an attack on Sunday’s White House competitive fighting event were solely politically motivated.
National media have downplayed the plot itself or at least its Christian dimensions, even though messages referred to “factions” and “militias” on alert to join in, targeting a range of famous and political names.
One suspect’s mother said others used Christianity to manipulate him. The group used biblical phrases, “shepherd” and “lions den.” The government, some believed, included demon worshipers who sacrifice children.
The most prominent and explicit references to Christianity and religious beliefs appear in filings by experienced law enforcement. These references fade until disappearing in the public statements of agency leaders.
The plot was to set off explosives at the White House event so that drones and snipers could pick off wealthy and powerful targets as they fled.
The role of Christianity in this plan isn’t to be found in any one document from the Justice Department or the FBI. But across the federal criminal complaints and affidavits, enough details appear to show that the scheme was not only planned, allegedly, by Christians, it was motivated at least in part by their Christianity and religious beliefs.
Some apparently used Christianity to motivate co-conspirators. The first filings in the case are specific and clear about Christianity’s role.
(Jonathan Larsen more…)
-
Lucian K. Truscott IV: Hegseth, anti-vaccine mania, and flu are a very bad mix
Secretary “99 Beers on the wall” Hegseth had a wonderful idea back in April: he lifted the decades-old mandate that all military personnel get vaccinated for flu. Naturally, he attacked the Biden administration for its “unrelenting war on our warriors on many fronts, including when it came to denying them simple medical autonomy and the freedom to express their religious convictions.”
…Now a major flu outbreak has occurred at a basic training facility at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, where Air Force recruits go through their initial training. More than 200 Air Force soldiers have been stricken with flu. Two have been hospitalized, and there has been one recruit death, although the cause of death has not been announced by the military. Since Hegseth lifted the requirement for soldiers to get flu shots, only about 40 percent of new recruits have opted to receive the vaccine. Previously, 100 percent of recruits were required to be vaccinated.
(Lucian K. Truscott IV more…)
-
Marisa Kabas: ICE is offloading seven concentration camp warehouses. What does it really mean?
Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting
resources tracking the “Andes” hantavirus outbreak
Apocalypse Early Warning System
Al Jazeera Death toll and injuries live tracker
ICE Accountability Project
Sergio Martínez-Beltrán, Ximena Bustillo, Jasmine Garsd @ NPR: Deaths of migrants in ICE custody hit record high under Trump
- April 16: Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt
- March 25: Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano
- March 16: Royer Perez-Jimenez
- March 14: Naseer Paktiawil
- February 25: Nurul Amin Shah Alam
April 1 – Jennifer Peltz and Jake Offenhartz @ AP: Death of a refugee left at a Buffalo doughnut shop by Border Patrol is ruled a homicide - January 24: Alex Pretti
- January 14: Heber Sanchaz Dominguez
- January 14: Victor Manuel Diaz
- January 9: Parady La
- January 7: Renée Good
- January 6: Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz
- January 5: Luis Gustavo Nunez Caceres
- January 3: Geraldo Lunas Campos
- December 31, 2025: Keith Porter
Suffering Under President Obama
NACDL Criminal Case Tracker
Texas Tribune: A Walk for Peace: photos of Fort Worth monks’ journey to Washington
Walk for Peace – Dhammacetiya – The Ancient Sacred Buddhist Scripture Stupas
Margaret Chase Smith: Declaration of Conscience
NPR: January 6, 2021: A visual archive
Accountability Initiative ICE List
GriftMatrix
Trump Action Tracker
Timeline: Tracking the Trump Justice Department’s Anti-Voting Shift
Tracking the Lawsuits Against Trump’s Agenda
Trump Pardons Database
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew
Wired: 6 Tools for Tracking the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Civil Liberties
Leave a Reply