A practical guide to using AI chatbots without handing over everything you tell them, built on interviews with Johns Hopkins cryptographer Matt Green and Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike. It explains why a chatbot is a better honeypot for your secrets than text messages ever were — most are set by default to store what you say, with few limits on training, sharing, or handing it to a court — and walks through the options that actually reduce the exposure.
Why I recommend it: The clearest plain-language explanation of why this matters, and the best thing to read before you pick any of the tools above. Marlinspike's line is the useful one: the private things people used to text are now the things they tell an AI, and the protections have not caught up. One flag — WIRED meters free articles, so if you hit a sign-in wall, tell me and I will note it on this entry.
Axon's own documentation for its policing technology, covering AI features, body cameras, software, robotics, TASER devices and VR training. Free to read.
From the site: Explore Axon product guides by technology area, including AI, cameras, software, robotics, TASER weapons, and VR training.
Why I recommend it: Worth reading if you want to know what police surveillance and AI tools actually do, in the vendor's own words. This is company documentation, not an independent assessment.
Investigative reporter Yael Grauer writes on privacy, security, surveillance and the craft of tech journalism.
From the site: Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Yael Grauer's thoughts about privacy, security, hacking, surveillance, journalism, and sometimes miscellany.
Why I recommend it: Worth following if you care about surveillance and privacy work, or want to see how a reporter builds those stories.
Engineering and policy writing from Palantir on data platforms, government deployments, defence technology and how the company approaches privacy controls.
Why I recommend it: Read it critically — it is a company blog on a contested subject, which makes it useful primary material for understanding the industry's own arguments.
CreativeApplications theory piece on predictive capital — how forecasting systems and data models shape markets, labor and creative practice, and who benefits from prediction.
Why I recommend it: Dense but rewarding — helpful vocabulary for talking about data and power without sounding alarmist.
MIT economics working paper analyzing how automation technologies can be used to expand state surveillance and repression, and the economic conditions that make that more likely.
Why I recommend it: Dense, but the argument matters: the same tools sold as efficiency are also control tools. Read the introduction and conclusion first.
Coverage of law firm founder John Morgan boasting on a podcast about camera-based monitoring of remote staff, after which 23 employees quit within the first week.
Why I recommend it: Monitoring policy is culture policy. Ask in interviews how remote work is measured - output or surveillance - and treat the answer as data about how you would be managed.
Wired's weekly security roundup covers OpenAI, Anthropic, and 100+ companies cosigning a letter warning that organizations have mere months to prepare for AI-enabled cyberattacks. The piece also tracks rogue AI agent hacking incidents, attacks on over 100 U.S. water systems, license-plate-reader surveillance abuse, Meta's $16.7B child-safety settlement, and ICE buying robot dogs — a snapshot of where AI, surveillance, and critical-infrastructure security collide.
From the site: OpenAI, Anthropic, and more than 100 companies have cosigned a letter saying that everyone else has mere months to prepare for AI-enabled cyberattacks.
Why I recommend it: A stark signal that AI-enabled cyberattacks are no longer hypothetical. The cosigned letter from OpenAI and Anthropic calling for a 'collective response' is exactly the kind of industry accountability move worth watching — pair it with the Hugging Face incident reporting and the water-system attacks to see how AI agents are already being used offensively. Useful for anyone tracking the gap between AI capability and AI governance.
