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Company

404 Media

404 Media is an independent, subscription-funded news outlet covering technology, cybersecurity, hacking, and digital rights.

Known aliases

  • 404
  • 404media
  • 404 Media
  • 404media.co

Current stories

securityConfirmed2 publishers

OpenAI lets advertisers target ChatGPT users by uploaded email, phone number or Android ad ID

OpenAI lets advertisers target ChatGPT users by uploaded email, phone number or Android advertising ID, according to 404 Media's tests. Prompts that users may assume are private are a targeting input too.

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers
Builder
Builder 15%
Operator
Operator 43%
Investor
Investor 42%

Reality

Evidence68
Adoption50
Hype gap+10
Incentives40
Confidence65
securityConfirmed5 publishers

Accenture limits central funding for Claude to $29 a month per employee

Accenture told employees it will centrally fund only $29 a month per person for Claude Enterprise from October 1, 404 Media reported. Some of those employees had been spending as much as $1,000 a month.

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 24%
Operator
Operator 44%
Investor
Investor 32%

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives40
Confidence65
securityConfirmed10 publishers

Trump cancels Hegseth's livestream of Nidal Hasan's firing-squad execution

Trump said Thursday that Nidal Hasan's Dec. 3 firing-squad execution will not be livestreamed, reversing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The Pentagon says the two are aligned and the execution still goes ahead.

Perspective Coverage

10 publishers
Builder
Builder 10%
Operator
Operator 73%
Investor
Investor 17%

Reality

Evidence74
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives55
Confidence74
securityOne report1 publisher

OpenAI's ChatGPT ads use the live conversation on Free and Go plans, with personalization on or off

OpenAI is rolling out ChatGPT ads to eligible Free and Go users in selected regions, matched in part to the current conversation. A work prompt typed into a personal free account falls inside that matching, though OpenAI says advertisers do not receive chats.

Publishers:gadgetreview.com

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+20
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence45
securityOne report1 publisher

Decomp.dev shuts down, citing AI projects its administrator can no longer tell from human-led ones

Decomp.dev, the video game decompilation site, is shutting down because its administrator cannot tell human-led projects from AI ones. 404 Media's report relies on the pseudonymous admin's post and does not include a count of AI-assisted projects.

Publishers:404media.co

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+25
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
securityOne report1 publisher

Graylark says its Raven AI can find a property from an indoor photo

Graylark says its Raven AI matches an indoor photo to a specific property from visual cues alone, with no GPS data needed. Malwarebytes, relaying 404 Media, reports that Miami-Dade and Los Angeles police agencies have bought access.

Publishers:malwarebytes.com

Reality

Evidence35
Adoption20
Hype gap+25
Incentives60
Confidence45
buildOne report1 publisher

Meta fixed a spike in reported KVM escapes before launching its Muse agent

Meta engineers responded to a spike in reported KVM escapes shortly before launching Muse, 404 Media reported in October 2026. The issues were fixed before launch, a dev.to summary says, and no exploit details are public.

Publishers:dev.to

Reality

Evidence30
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+35
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
securityOne report1 publisher

Police AI tool Raven can now match a room photo to a rental listing

Graylark added interior-photo geolocation to Raven, its police AI tool, across what its CEO called millions of short-term rental units. The LAPD and Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office bought access earlier, 404 Media reported.

Publishers:404media.co

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption25
Hype gap+15
Incentives55
Confidence40
securityOne report1 publisher

Graylark's Raven traced interior photos to named Airbnb, Vrbo and Zillow listings in its own demos

Graylark Technologies says its Raven tool can geolocate interior images across millions of short-term rental units, according to CEO Daniel Heinen. 404 Media previously reported that LAPD and Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office bought Raven access, and the interior matches it checked come from Graylark's own demo videos.

Publishers:404media.co

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption20
Hype gap+25
Incentives65
Confidence50
securityOne report1 publisher

Wyden presses White House drug office to release its 2024 MITRE review of plate-reader surveillance

Sen. Ron Wyden wants the White House drug office to publish a 2024 MITRE privacy review covering its federal plate-reader database. His letter puts a senator's name behind 404 Media's finding that city plate data from Flock, Axon and Motorola cameras reaches federal databases through local agreements.

Publishers:404media.co

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives60
Confidence50
productOne report1 publisher

ICE emails show its investigations unit readying voter roll data for a Palantir-supported tool

ICE emails list six states as enriched by its investigations lab and pending entry into ELITE, a Palantir-supported targeting tool. Palantir says voter roll data has never been integrated, so the records show a deportation tool being prepared for voter rolls.

Publishers:wired.com

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption12
Hype gap+8
Incentives58
Confidence55
securityOne report1 publisher

Bodycam footage shows a Tulsa deputy running Flock searches a federal judge later ruled unconstitutional

Footage obtained by 404 Media shows a Tulsa deputy scrolling 79 plate-reader hits on a driver whose Flock search a federal judge ruled unconstitutional. The judge threw out the Flock evidence and everything the car search found, including more than 91 pounds of meth.

Publishers:404media.co

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence60
securityOne report1 publisher

GrayKey maker claims seized iPhones can stay in AFU through Apple's 72-hour reboot

Magnet Forensics tells police in a leaked video that GrayKey can hold seized iPhones in After First Unlock state through Apple's 72-hour reboot. If it holds, police need only reach a seized phone before the reboot and can unlock it on their own schedule.

Perspective Coverage

4 publishers
Builder
Builder 39%
Operator
Operator 52%
Investor
Investor 9%

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+30
Incentives60
Confidence45
securityOne report1 publisher

Meta rushed fixes for KVM escapes into its Muse AI agent before launch

Meta began fixing KVM escapes in its Muse AI agent on August 27, 11 days before launch, an internal post seen by 404 Media shows. Each agent's VM holds its owner's email and account access, so a break-out would reach other users and Meta's own systems.

Reality

Evidence62
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives55
Confidence58
securityOne report1 publisher

Meta scrambled to patch Muse VM escapes that could have reached its internal databases

Meta found several pre-launch flaws in its Muse AI agent, one of which could let an ordinary user escape its KVM sandbox into internal databases, 404 Media reports. Users give Muse access to their own accounts, so its hypervisor is what keeps each tenant apart from Meta's systems and from other users.

Publishers:404media.co

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives
Not scored
Confidence50
securityOne report1 publisher

arXiv limits researchers to two submissions a month to protect its volunteer moderators

arXiv now limits each researcher to two submissions a calendar month and three active at once to curb a flood of AI-written papers. Moderators who once throttled heavy submitters at their own discretion now apply one fixed rule to every account.

Publishers:404media.co

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption65
Hype gap+12
Incentives40
Confidence60
investOne report1 publisher

Flock's local camera buyers carry the risk of federal searches like CBP's 80,000-camera pilot

Customs and Border Protection accessed more than 80,000 Flock cameras in a 2025 pilot, one police department's without its knowledge. The cities and campuses that pay for the cameras are left answerable for searches they may never see.

Reality

Evidence50
Adoption65
Hype gap+20
Incentives40
Confidence55
securityOne report1 publisher

VIDIZMO pitches police on running facial recognition across Flock and Axon footage

VIDIZMO pitched Johnson City, Tennessee police in May on facial recognition across Flock and Axon footage in one platform. Flock's pledge against face recognition covers its own devices; VIDIZMO's route starts with clips an agency exports itself.

Publishers:404media.co

Reality

Evidence72
Adoption5
Hype gap+45
Incentives70
Confidence62

Earlier coverage

  1. Invisible 3-point text in a Connecticut docket: the ingest layer is the attack surface

    Build · August 15, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  2. An AirTag puts Amazon's name on the book-pulping supply chain

    Product · August 18, 2026 · Confirmed4 publishers

  3. An AirTag in a book shipment reveals what legally clean training data actually costs

    Invest · August 19, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers

  4. Hundreds of contractors read ChatGPT chats behind a filter tuned for identifier fields

    Build · September 14, 2026 · Confirmed4 publishers

  5. Flock's on-camera software classifies people, bicycles and bumper stickers

    Product · September 17, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers

  6. Flock's ALPR firmware hard-codes an API key that anyone can pull from a public image

    Security · September 16, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  7. ShinyHunters reportedly pivoted from a recruiting server to FBI agent records

    Product · September 22, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers

  8. ShinyHunters pins its claimed FBI breach on an unpatched PeopleSoft RCE

    Security · September 23, 2026 · Confirmed14 publishers

  9. ShinyHunters claims 2 to 3 terabytes of FBI personnel data from an Oracle PeopleSoft flaw

    Leadership · September 23, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers

  10. Flock's roadside camera kept its own decryption key on an unencrypted partition

    Build · September 18, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers

  11. Hackers found the key to a Flock camera's video inside the camera

    Product · September 16, 2026 · One report1 publisher

  12. Abuse teams now face automated clients signed in as the customer

    Security · September 15, 2026 · One report1 publisher

  13. Hundreds of OpenAI contractors read whole ChatGPT conversations to score the model's replies

    Security · September 14, 2026 · Confirmed2 publishers