Spies for Hire
In its quest to create a state where every person is monitored all the time, the UAE is hiring some of the world’s best cyberwarriors. Not all of these recruits know what they’re in for.
Sam Biddle
Sam Biddle is a technology reporter focusing on issues of surveillance, privacy, and corporate power. He was previously a senior writer at Gawker, and his work has also appeared in GQ, Vice, and the New York Times magazine, among other outlets.
Contacts:
- sam.biddle@theintercept.com
- @sambiddle.99 on Signal
- @sambiddle.com on Bluesky
- @samfbiddle on X
Posts:
Black Mirror’s New Season Is Excellent — and Disturbingly Close to Reality
One of Black Mirror’s great accomplishments is that it can make you feel rotten dread about the most mundane parts of your life.
When the Genius Men of Silicon Valley Suddenly Don't Seem So Smart
Tech acolytes are defending their relationship with a major Donald Trump surrogate and financial backer — and exposing how poorly they relate to situations outside the Silicon Valley bubble.
Ex-Yahoo Employee: Government Spy Program Could Have Given a Hacker Access to All Email
Yahoo’s scanning program provided the government with a custom-built back door into the company’s mail service — and it was so sloppily installed that it posed a huge privacy hazard for users, according to a former Yahoo employee.
Neighbor Describes NSA Contractor's Arrest: "I Thought the Third World War Started"
A neighbor describes FBI agents swarming the suburban Maryland home of NSA contractor (and accused information thief) Harold Martin III.
Yahoo Offers Non-Denial Denial of Bombshell Spy Report
Twenty hours after the Reuters story first broke, Yahoo's PR firm issues 29 words that almost certainly don't mean what they are intended to suggest.
Delete Your Yahoo Account
Reuters reports that Yahoo has designed a bespoke email-wiretap service for the U.S. government, making a Yahoo account a toxic surveillance liability.
Apple Logs Your iMessage Contacts — and May Share Them With Police
When you make a new text on your iPhone and enter a number, it gets sent to Apple, which logs it, according to a law enforcement document we obtained.
Who Decides When a Protest Becomes a Facebook "Disaster"?
Fifty scared humans and a software bot can tag any event with an ominous Facebook “safety check.”
Tech Money Lurks Behind Government Privacy Conference
At a recent government privacy conference, more than two-thirds of the research came from authors with financial ties to Google.