Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Mashable Selects Look Up Say More Top creators, ranked Gift Ideas For Everyone On Your List Creator Playbook In My Bag AI at School Safety Net Versus Trending Now All Series An officer's use of Flock cameras was'unconstitutional,' judge rules Chase joined Mashable's Social Good team in 2020, covering online stories about digital activism, climate justice, accessibility, and media representation. A federal judge has sided with growing public sentiment that Flock cameras pose an unconstitutional surveillance risk, as the nation continues its campaign to get the tech out of its cities. In a decision issued Oct. 1, federal judge Sara E. Hill ruled that a Tulsa County Deputy Sheriff violated constitutional protections by using a cross-state network of Flock cameras to track a vehicle heading toward the California border. The case involved a woman named Melisa Kyle, who was arrested by Oklahoma officials for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. Kyle was apprehended by the Deputy, who worked for the Drug Enforcement Administration, while driving through Tulsa.

Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more Say More Trending Now Mashable Selects Creator Playbook Back to School Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net Versus All Series Have AI apocalypse warnings reached critical mass? Everyone from Bernie Sanders to Sam Altman is freaking out -- but is the average American? A data center town hall in Michigan. Jacob Coxon, the 27-year-old researcher who split his time between OpenAI and Anthropic on pre-training research, announced his resignation from Anthropic last week on X with a lethal thread. Neither company is acting responsibly, he wrote.

Fox News Digital traces how pro-China socialist groups moved from anti-Trump, anti-Israel protests into technology messages that spread to conservatives and libertarians.

Plus: Meta's embrace of AI is making employees miserable. Here's what you need to know about the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak Last week, eight passengers aboard a Dutch-flagged cruise ship contracted a type of hantavirus transmitted by rats. But health experts stress that this situation is nothing like the coronavirus outbreak in 2020. The Andes virus is known to spread between people, and there are no specific antiviral treatments or vaccines. Yet transmission appears to require a specific form of contact that the cruise ship fostered. Here's what you need to know about the outbreak--and why experts believe it can be contained .

Outside OpenAI's headquarters, a handful of people gathered on Monday holding pieces of colorful chalk. They got down on their knees and started writing messages on the sidewalk. Please no legal mass surveillance. At issue was a business deal that the company recently signed with the Department of Defense, following the Pentagon's sudden turn against Anthropic . OpenAI will now supply its technology to the military for use in classified settings, the sorts that may involve wartime decisions and intelligence-gathering--an agreement, many legal experts told me, that could give the government wide-ranging powers.

Ring faces privacy backlash over its AI-powered'Search Party' feature, which uses outdoor cameras to track lost dogs and is enabled by default. PCWorld reports that Ring ended its Flock partnership but remains committed to expanding'Search Party' despite surveillance concerns from its Super Bowl ad. A leaked email from Ring founder Jamie Siminoff suggests the AI tracking feature may extend beyond pets to broader applications. Ring's been in damage-control mode ever since its now-infamous "lost dog" Super Bowl ad, furiously spinning the sinister imagery of digital "bounding boxes" locking in on a wayward pooch and a simulated aerial view of dozens of homes scanning the neighborhood. Rather than giving off warm fuzzies--your Ring camera can help find lost dogs!--the Super Bowl ad gave off serious "big brother" vibes to many viewers.

In addition to affordability, New York City's mayor-elect will be forced to reckon with the NYPD's sweeping mass surveillance operations. New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani may have an ambitious policy agenda, but overhauling the self-governing and deeply dysfunctional behemoth that is the New York City Police Department is not on the list. Mamdani surprised supporters by asking current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to stay on after his inauguration early next year. Tisch, a technocrat heir to a vast real estate fortune, clashes with Mamdani on several fronts, including policy (she believes New York State's bail reforms caused rising crime) and the geopolitics that inevitably make their way into New York City's streets. One area where Mamdani is guaranteed to clash with Tisch is on the NYPD's massive technical surveillance apparatus and intelligence-gathering methods, which have metastasized since 9/11 to levels that rival the capabilities of a midsize country.

What does recognising a Palestinian state mean? Why have Spain, Italy sent ships to assist the Gaza flotilla? Who are the artists speaking out against the war? Why has Microsoft cut Israel off from some of its services? Microsoft has announced that it has withdrawn some of its services from the Israeli army, following an investigation that raised concerns that Israel may be violating the company's terms of service by using its artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services to spy on millions of Palestinians throughout Gaza and the West Bank.

Why have Spain, Italy sent ships to assist the Gaza flotilla? Israel's mass surveillance: Microsoft blocks the army from using its software United States tech giant Microsoft has cancelled some services it provides to the Israeli military over concerns it is violating its terms of service by using the firm's cloud computing software to spy on millions of Palestinians, the company's vice chair and president Brad Smith confirmed. Smith wrote in a Thursday blog post that the company had "ceased and disabled a set of services" to a unit within the Israeli Ministry of Defence in response to an August 6 joint investigation by The Guardian newspaper, +972 Magazine, and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call. Unit 8200 is the Israeli military's elite cyber warfare unit responsible for clandestine operations, including collecting signal intelligence and surveillance. The investigation by journalists revealed that following a 2021 meeting between Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Unit 8200's leader Yossi Sariel, an agreement was reached to collaborate on moving large volumes of sensitive intelligence material into the company's Azure platform.

After 25 years at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cindy Cohn is stepping down as executive director. In a WIRED interview, she reflects on encryption, AI, and why she's not ready to quit the battle. After a quarter century defending digital rights, Cindy Cohn announced on Tuesday that she is stepping down as executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Cohn, who has led the San Francisco-based nonprofit since 2015, says she will leave the role later this year, concluding a chapter that helped define the modern fight over online freedom. Cohn first rose to prominence as lead counsel in, the 1990s case that overturned federal restrictions on publishing encryption code. As EFF's legal director and later executive director, she guided the group through legal challenges to government surveillance, reforms to computer crime laws, and efforts to hold corporations accountable for data collection. Over the past decade, EFF has expanded its influence, becoming a central force in shaping the debate over privacy, security, and digital freedom. In an interview with WIRED, Cohn reflected on EFF's foundational encryption victories, its unfinished battles against National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance, and the organization's work protecting independent security researchers.