Five for Fighting 5/1/09

Five hauntings from the other side of technology.

“There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday.

The company says an unnamed third-party provider was compromised. Trading has resumed, and Polymarket says affected traders will be made whole.

Two US senators say the Trump administration is breaking the law by withholding the FISA court decision while it presses Congress to renew America’s most sweeping surveillance program.

To escape the chaos of her Russian childhood, Lili Infante became an American law enforcement prodigy. She pioneered the DEA’s investigations of the dark web—never suspecting who she’d find hiding there.

The US government’s Tradewinds initiative has made it easier to throw millions of dollars at “nontraditional” defense contractors, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.

A judge ordered Abdulrahman Alfozan to remain in custody, likening the Saudi government’s offer to secure the former OpenAI engineer’s release to a “blank check.”

Tropical Storm Isaias is set to become the basin’s first hurricane of the season, bringing life-threatening rain and storm surge to the Gulf Coast.

Castelion—a next-generation defense tech company—is building a facility in Rio Rancho Estates that documents show could pose a major fire and chemical hazard to neighboring communities.

This week on Uncanny Valley, we go behind the scenes of our Nathan Fielder cover story, unpack tech billionaires’ generous promises, and discuss the suspicious letters sent to US election offices.

Warhound came out of stealth on Wednesday with $200 million in funding and a mission to create “elite working dogs” equipped with "advanced body armor."

Sold by its trailer as a gag reel, Tom Cruise’s strangest movie may be the most unsettling portrait of our tech and climate moment yet.