Security News This Week: The Cybersecurity Apocalypse Is Coming in'Months,' AI Giants Warn Plus: Hackers target over 100 US water systems, ICE puts in an order for robot dogs, and you'll never guess what "MrChildPorn" was arrested for. You may have noticed that Flock Safety's automatic license plate reader cameras--and the cops who misuse them--are getting a lot of coverage lately. This week, WIRED found a particularly wild case: A cop in Alpharetta, Georgia, was accused of searching for the license plate of a coworker dozens of times after an affair between the two ended, according to internal documents obtained by WIRED. The same police department where the former lovers worked also shared the data captured from its Flock cameras with more than 2,000 police departments, colleges, and other organizations across the United States, and accessed data from more than 1,300 entities in exchange. Also at the intersection of love and surveillance, background-check company PeopleFinder is making use of its extensive dossiers on people to start a new dating site called Stud or Dud.

Twenty-seven people have been killed and almost 400 evacuated after a Russian strike hit a warehouse near Kyiv, triggering a fire and a series of explosions. Regional governor Tymur Tkachenko said a further 42 people, including four children, were injured after the Russian drone strike in the Bucha district. An investigation has been launched into whether ammunition was being stored at the site, where search and rescue operations were ongoing early on Saturday. Meanwhile, Tkachenko said a 14-year-old was killed in a separate attack in the Boryspil district as President Volodymyr Zelensky reported overnight strikes across several regions. In Russia, local officials say two people have been killed and 21 injured in strikes in the Belgorod and Rostov regions in the past 24 hours.

AI-generated child sexual abuse material possession is protected by the First Amendment, a federal appeals court ruled, citing Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition precedent.

Data privacy advocate Brittany Kaiser warns that restrictions on AI data centers could force American companies to process sensitive data abroad, raising national security concerns.

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Politics Trump's Trade War Is the Latest Middle Finger to Senate Republicans It was about to be a good week to be a GOP candidate. Then Trump did what Trump does. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month. Welcome to this week's edition of the Surge, which was off last Saturday so will now catch you up on the previous week's news: . August "silly season" continues with the usual slapstick stories about international trade wars and a possible Russian attack against NATO.

Look Up Say More Switch Off Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Creator Playbook Mashable Voices Trending Now Mashable Selects Safety Net Versus Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List In My Bag All Series Shannon Connellan is Mashable's Senior Editor, General Assignments, based in London. She has been Mashable's UK Editor (and still manages the illustrious UK team) and Australia Editor, but emotionally, she lives searching for . A Tomatometer-approved critic, Shannon writes about entertainment, tech, social good, science, culture, and Australian horror, and loves to nerd out with movie stars, filmmakers, and TV creators . Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Television Critics Association, as well as a Tomatometer-approved critic. Kristy Puchko is the Entertainment Editor at Mashable. Based in New York City, she's an established film critic and entertainment reporter who has traveled the world on assignment, covered a variety of film festivals, co-hosted movie-focused podcasts, and interviewed a wide array of performers and filmmakers. All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an affiliate commission.

What is Iran's Pickaxe Mountain? Six months into the war with Iran, it is worth taking stock of what has actually changed around the Gulf. After Iran's June 2025 missile strike on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, I argued that the years ahead would be more perilous for the Gulf and that deeper defence cooperation and integration would eventually become unavoidable. Earlier this month, I wrote here that the Gulf could no longer rely entirely on the old security toolkit and would need to build more of a security ecosystem of its own. So far, events have borne out the broad direction of both arguments.

The Loss of Control Observatory monitors reports made by AI users on the social media platform X (image shows models posing as computer programmers). The Loss of Control Observatory monitors reports made by AI users on the social media platform X (image shows models posing as computer programmers). Incidents of AIs escaping users' control to lie, ignore instructions and pursue goals in harmful ways have hit a new high, according to research that also suggests the severity of deception and misalignment is worsening. Analysis of real-world loss of control incidents involving AI models flagged by businesses and individuals almost doubled in July compared with June, with more than 300 cases in the month, according to the Loss of Control Observatory, which monitors reports made by AI users on the social media platform X. The observatory was set up with funding from the UK government's AI Security Institute (AISI) and began tracking AIs slipping free from their users' instructions last November.

'Things are going to change massively in two or three years when AI is integrated into everything,' said one senior executive. 'Things are going to change massively in two or three years when AI is integrated into everything,' said one senior executive. The infrastructure AI race has centred on the need to build datacentres, and to ensure they have access to the huge water and energy supplies required to cool and supply the computational power to train and run AI models. However, as adoption spreads, the UK's broadband and mobile networks will be expected to carry an immense volume of AI-related traffic produced by consumers and businesses. While the UK has addressed its previously embarrassing status of having one of the slowest broadband speeds in Europe, as BT's Openreach and other service providers cover the country with full-fibre connections, efforts to upgrade the nation's 5G mobile networks are not keeping pace.