Podcast: The FBI Was Hacked. We’ve Seen the Data
404 Media Joseph Cox
404 Media says it saw data from a huge FBI hack, including info on employees and spouses. The same episode also digs into a surveillance firm pushing facial recognition for Flock cameras.
Based on reporting by 404 Media, Joseph Cox — read the original for the full story.
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This week’s 404 Media podcast opens with Joseph’s reporting on what the outlet calls a massive FBI hack. The breach, as described here, involves data on FBI employees and their spouses, and 404 Media says it broke the story and has kept tracking it.
That’s the first half of the show: a leak with real-world consequences, and not just because it touches the bureau itself. When employee and family data is in play, the story stops being abstract very quickly.
After that, Jason shifts to a different kind of power grab. A surveillance company is telling police it wants to bolt facial recognition onto Flock camera data, which is exactly the sort of pitch that sounds neat in a sales deck and unnerving anywhere else.
The subscribers-only section moves to Muse, Meta’s new agentic AI, and the twist there is that humans are still doing some of the work behind the scenes. Very on-brand for this era: the machine talks big, and people quietly mop up the gaps.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
The pattern here is ugly and familiar: sensitive data gets exposed, then surveillance vendors show up with a fresh feature request. That’s not progress, it’s a business model with better branding. Privacy keeps getting treated like the thing to negotiate after the sale.
Read more about this at: 404 Media