May 5, 2009 7:22 AM

Five for Fighting 5/5/09

* G.I. missing in Afghanistan * How To: Track a terrorist, with pebbles * Vid: Jet Pack! * Piracy war’s strange friends * More social science at war

* G.I. missing in Afghanistan
* How To: Track a terrorist, with pebbles
* Vid: Jet Pack!
* Piracy war's strange friends
* More social science at war

Noah Shachtman is a contributing editor at WIRED and a contributing writer for The New York Times’ opinion section. Shachtman previously served as editor in chief of Rolling Stone, where he led the storied outlet to a Polk Award and its first-ever Emmy nomination. Before that, he was the editor in ... Read More

Contributing Editor

TopicsFive for Fighting Danger Room

WIRED Ghost Stories

Five hauntings from the other side of technology.

The Pentagon Hopes to Speed Up ‘Kill Chain’ AI Buys With 5-Minute Videos

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

Maddy Varner

Mistral Says Its AI Model ‘Le Chonk’ Has Leapfrogged China in the Open-Weight Race

The French AI lab claims its latest release matches or outperforms even the best models from DeepSeek and Z.ai in coding and cybersecurity.

Joel Khalili

What to Know About China’s Top-Secret Spaceplane

This week, the Pentagon released a full-resolution image of the vehicle, the capabilities of which remain rather mysterious.

Stephen Clark, Ars Technica

Inside the Exclusive Nathan Fielder Interview

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.

Brian Barrett

The PHP Meltdown Shows How AI Makes Bugs More Exploitable

Security researchers used AI tools to help uncover years-old vulnerabilities in the PHP web scripting language. Then the AI-assisted attacks began.

Lily Hay Newman

How a Contractor’s Claude Agent Got Into the Pentagon

This week on Uncanny Valley, we also discuss Anthropic’s IPO filing and the volunteers gearing up to counter ICE at the midterms.

Brian Barrett

Encryption Is Getting Squeezed From All Sides

Canada’s planned surveillance law is the latest grim step in a series of threats to encryption that are spreading around the world.

Matt Burgess

She Was the DEA’s Premier Crypto Detective. The Clues Led Straight to Her Own Family

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.

Joshuah Bearman

9 WIRED-Approved Gifts for the Techie in Your Life

Don’t buy a loved one something you wouldn’t want for yourself. These are the must-haves that tech enthusiasts have on their wish lists this year.

Luke Larsen

Shaq Got Hacked. Now He’s Pitching for a VPN

At a recent event for security firm NordVPN, NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal revealed that he got hacked—and warned the public about the need to “have control of their own information.”

Lily Hay Newman

‘This Is Not a Drill’: Critical PHP Vulnerabilities Are Setting the Internet on Fire

The PHP Foundation has revealed two serious vulnerabilities that could impact millions of websites. Security experts warn that failure to quickly patch the flaws could have dire consequences.

Matt Burgess