Perspective.

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/anthropic-vs-the-pentagon-ai-ethics-collide-with-government-power/

Anthropic vs. The Pentagon: AI Ethics Collide With Government Power

Can the Pentagon blacklist an American business for refusing to build killbots? The federal government demands tight controls for you, but wants unrestricted power for itself.

We can, therefore we must.

https://pogowasright.org/allstate-must-face-privacy-lawsuit-over-cellphone-tracking-of-drivers/

Allstate must face privacy lawsuit over cellphone tracking of drivers

Jonathan Stempel reports:

Allstate must ‌face a privacy lawsuit accusing the home and auto insurer of illegally tracking drivers through their cellphones without consent, using their data to raise premiums or deny coverage, and selling the data to other insurers.

In a decision on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Daniel in Chicago said drivers in the proposed class action can try to prove that Allstate violated the Federal Wiretap Act by monitoring their travel locations, trip distances, speed, acceleration, braking, phone usage and attention to the road, and tried to monetize that data to boost profit.

Read more at Reuters.

Tools of war.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/03/hacked-app-part-of-us-israeli-propaganda-campaign-against-iran.html

Hacked App Part of US/Israeli Propaganda Campaign Against Iran

Wired has the story:

Shortly after the first set of explosions, Iranians received bursts of notifications on their phones. They came not from the government advising caution, but from an apparently hacked prayer-timing app called BadeSaba Calendar that has been downloaded more than 5 million times from the Google Play Store.

The messages arrived in quick succession over a period of 30 minutes, starting with the phrase ‘Help has arrived’ at 9:52 am Tehran time, shortly after the first set of explosions. No party has claimed responsibility for the hacks.

It happened so fast that this is most likely a government operation. I can easily envision both the US and Israel having hacked the app previously, and then deciding that this is a good use of that access.

(Related)

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/04/iranian_hacking_attempts_ip_cameras/

'Hundreds' of Iranian hacking attempts have hit surveillance cameras since the missile strikes

Multiple Iranian hacking crews have been targeting internet-connected surveillance cameras across Israel and other Middle Eastern countries since the war started on February 28, according to Check Point security researchers.

… The countries targeted in these digital intrusion attempts - Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Cyprus, and Lebanon - are the same ones that have seen significant missile activity linked to Iran.

How modern war is waged.

https://databreaches.net/2026/03/03/israeli-spies-hacked-every-traffic-camera-in-tehran-to-plot-killing-of-irans-ayatollah-ali-khamenei/?pk_campaign=feed&pk_kwd=israeli-spies-hacked-every-traffic-camera-in-tehran-to-plot-killing-of-irans-ayatollah-ali-khamenei

Israeli spies ‘hacked every traffic camera in Tehran to plot killing of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’

Maira Butt reports:

Israeli spies hacked nearly every traffic camera in Tehran for years in order to monitor the movements of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in an unprecedented intelligence-gathering campaign, according to a report.

Officials surveilled highly trained and loyal security guards, bodyguards and drivers of senior Iranian officials  to pick up on their “pattern of life”, the Financial Times reported.

This real-time data, including from cameras focused on Khamenei’s personal compound, was encrypted and transmitted back to servers in Tel Aviv and southern Israel.

They were able to determine where the guards would park their cars via an infiltrated security camera facing the Ayatollah’s home.

Read more at The Independent.

(Related)

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/03/iran-cisa-cybersecurity-war-threat.html

The lead U.S. cyber agency is stretched thin as Iran hacking threat escalates

As the fighting in the Middle East roars on, cyber experts are increasingly warning of online attacks from Iran on U.S. businesses and infrastructure.

“From a timing perspective, it’s now or never,” said Pavel Gurvich, founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup Tenzai. “In that sense, the danger is meaningfully higher.”

Gurvich said Iran may have stored capabilities and is waiting for a high-risk moment to launch.

Perspective.

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/californias-age-verification-law-is-a-civil-liberties-test/

California’s Age-Verification Law Is a Civil Liberties Test

The law classifies user identities at the operating system level. Once embedded, that regulatory architecture of control is easy to expand and difficult to roll back.

Confusing at best… (If we can’t spy on them we can’t protect them?)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly2m5e5ke4o

TikTok won't protect DMs with controversial privacy tech, saying it would put users at risk

TikTok will not introduce end-to-end encryption (E2EE) - the controversial privacy feature used by nearly all its rivals - arguing it makes users less safe.

… But critics have said E2EE makes it harder to stop harmful content spreading online, because it means tech firms and law enforcement have no way of viewing any material sent in direct messages.

The situation is made more complex because TikTok has long faced accusations that ties to the Chinese state may put users' data at risk.

… But the company has now told the BBC it believes the technology prevents police and safety teams from being able to read direct messages if they needed to.

It confirmed its approach in a briefing to the BBC about security at its London office - saying it wanted to protect users, especially young people, from harm.

Another slice of privacy…

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/03/chatbot_data_harvesting_personal_info/

Chat at your own risk! Data brokers are selling deeply personal bot transcripts

… These extensions may silently intercept users' communications with AI services like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek. They can do so by overriding the browser's native fetch() and XMLHttpRequest() functions in order to capture every prompt and every response.

"This data is captured from real people's private AI conversations via browser extensions, stored in a vector database, and exposed via API to authenticated customers," said Dryburgh in his report. "The panelists have pseudonymized IDs (SHA-256 hashes) but the content of their conversations is stored verbatim and searchable — and many prompts contain real names, dates of birth, medical record numbers, and diagnosis codes."

(Related)

https://www.bespacific.com/cbp-tapped-into-the-online-advertising-ecosystem-to-track-peoples-movements/

CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements

404 Media [no paywall]: “Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought data from the online advertising ecosystem to track peoples’ precise movements over time, in a process that often involves siphoning data from ordinary apps like video games, dating services, and fitness trackers, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document obtained by 404 Media. The document shows in stark terms the power, and potential risk, of online advertising data and how it can be leveraged by government agencies for surveillance purposes. The news comes after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) purchased similar tools that can monitor the movements of phones in entire neighbourhoods. ICE also recently said in public procurement documents it was interested in sourcing more “Ad Tech” data for its investigations. Following 404 Media’s revelation of that ICE purchase, on Tuesday a group of around 70 lawmakers urged the DHS oversight body to conduct a new investigation into ICE’s location data buying…”

Perhaps the President it not all powerful…

https://www.bespacific.com/trump-administration-to-drop-defense-of-law-firm-sanctions/

Trump Administration to Drop Defense of Law Firm Sanctions

Follow up to Trump Using Another Executive Order to Take Revenge on Law Firms – See also

• The New York Times – “The Trump administration on Monday abandoned its attempts to impose potentially crippling executive orders against law firms that refused to capitulate to the president, walking away from its appeal of victories the firms had won against the White House. With a brief due this week, Justice Department lawyers told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that they were no longer interested in pursuing the cases and were voluntarily asking the court to dismiss them. The decision is the White House’s most significant acknowledgment that the executive orders cannot be successfully defended in court. The move is particularly striking given that some firms opted to reach deals in a bid to head off executive orders that President Trump’s Justice Department said it would no longer stand behind. The battle over the executive orders had roiled the legal establishment and led many firms to submit to Mr. Trump rather than face the existential threat his directives represented. The orders barred the firms from government business and suggested that their clients could lose government contracts, spurring widespread panic in the legal profession…”

• WSJ.com / paywalled  – Justice Department plans to withdraw appeals defending punitive executive orders issued by the president, people familiar with the matter said..

• Reuters …The Trump administration plans to drop its appeals ‌defending executive orders ‌that sanctioned four major U.S. law firms, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The U.S. Justice Department is expected to abandon appeals to trial-court rulings against the actions targeting Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie and Susman Godfrey, the report said.

• See also Washington Post via MSN – Justice Dept. plans to abandon defense of orders targeting law firms. The Trump administration is planning to abandon its effort to punish several law firms that hired President Donald Trump’s perceived foes or took on cases he disliked, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move would effectively admit defeat and leave Trump’s sanctions on the firms lambasting his executive orders as unconstitutional and retaliatory… ”

• CNN – Trump administration drops suits against law firms with ties to Democrats and other Trump foes

Another ‘punishing those who don’t kowtow’ issue?

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/pentagon%27s-anthropic-designation-won%27t-survive-first-contact-with-legal-system

Pentagon’s Anthropic Designation Won’t Survive First Contact with Legal System

On Feb. 27, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic—the maker of the AI model Claude—a supply chain risk to national security. This came immediately after a Truth Social post from President Trump directing "EVERY Federal Agency" to “IMMEDIATELY CEASE” using Anthropic's technology. Hegseth’s designation includes a six-month transition period during which Anthropic will continue providing services to the military during the transition. Anthropic, in turn, has vowed to “challenge any supply chain risk designation in court.”

The escalation capped off a turbulent week. The dispute between the Pentagon and Anthropic over two usage restrictions in Anthropic's military contract—prohibitions on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance—had been building since January, when Hegseth's AI strategy memorandum directed that all Department of Defense AI contracts adopt standard "any lawful use" language. Hegseth met with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei earlier in the week and threatened to invoke the Defense Production Act to compel the company's cooperation. But on Friday the Trump administration had apparently dropped the DPA threat in favor of something more dramatic: a formal supply chain risk designation and a government-wide ban.

From the government's perspective, Claude does pose some concerning vendor reliability issues. But the specific actions Hegseth and Trump took have serious legal problems. The designation exceeds what the statute authorizes. The required findings don't hold up. And Hegseth's own public statements may have doomed the government's litigation posture before it even begins.

Once upon a time we had this thing called privacy…

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/03/llm-assisted-deanonymization.html

LLM-Assisted Deanonymization

Turns out that LLMs are good at de-anonymization:

We show that LLM agents can figure out who you are from your anonymous online posts. Across Hacker News, Reddit, LinkedIn, and anonymized interview transcripts, our method identifies users with high precision ­ and scales to tens of thousands of candidates.

While it has been known that individuals can be uniquely identified by surprisingly few attributes, this was often practically limited. Data is often only available in unstructured form and deanonymization used to require human investigators to search and reason based on clues. We show that from a handful of comments, LLMs can infer where you live, what you do, and your interests—then search for you on the web. In our new research, we show that this is not only possible but increasingly practical.

Perspective.

https://stratechery.com/2026/anthropic-and-alignment/

Anthropic and Alignment

This is not an Article about the campaign being waged by the U.S. against Iran, but it’s a useful — and timely — analogy. There is a never-ending debate that can be had about the concept of International Law and who might be violating it. Some will argue that the U.S. is in violation for the attacks; others will note that Iran has been serially violating International Law with both its overt actions and its support of terror networks for my entire life.

What is important to note is that the entire debate is ultimately pointless: the very concept of “international law” is fake, not because pertinent statutes and agreements don’t exist, but because their effectiveness is ultimately rooted in their enforceability. That, by extension, means there must be an entity to enact such enforcement, with the capability to match, and such an entity does not exist.

Perspective.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/trumps-way-war

Trump’s Way of War

Iran, Venezuela, and the End of the Powell Doctrine

War hacking: A long shot, but only one of many I’m sure…

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/iran-strikes-2026/card/israel-hacked-popular-iranian-prayer-app-to-urge-defections-resistance-wtYyb29CmKrTXoJBIV3C

Israel Hacked Popular Iranian Prayer App to Urge Defections, Resistance

Israel hacked a popular Iranian prayer app to send notifications to potentially millions of phones Saturday morning urging the country’s military personnel to defect from the regime and join a fight to liberate the country, according to people familiar with the matter.

Toward AI recognition?

https://journal.carjj.org/index.php/AR/article/view/182

Legal protection of AI works in the absence of a human author

This research addresses the challenges posed by artificial intelligence (AI) to traditional intellectual property frameworks, particularly in cases where creative or innovative works are produced without a direct human author. As AI systems become increasingly capable of self-learning and independently creating content, they challenge the fundamental legal assumption that authorship—and therefore legal protection—is exclusive to human beings. This research critically examines the capacity of current intellectual property laws to accommodate AI-generated works, the possibility of recognizing AI as a legal entity, and the implications of this for attribution and legal liability. Through a comparative legal analysis encompassing civil, Anglo-Saxon, and selected Arab legal systems, the research highlights the shortcomings and inconsistencies in existing legal frameworks. It advocates for the development of a specific legal framework that reflects the realities of the digital age, including a redefinition of the concept of "innovation" and the application of the principle of "responsible human agent." Ultimately, the research calls for a shift in legal philosophy that balances the need for legal certainty with the rapidly evolving nature of technological advancements in the field of intellectual property.

Do we move fast enough or too fast?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756061626000091

Intelligent justice: AI-driven forensics and legal process for criminal justice reforms

The accelerated development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in the field of criminal justice has triggered a paradigm shift in forensic science and legal procedures. The research, Intelligent Justice: AI-Driven Forensics and Legal Process for Criminal Justice Reform, critically examines the application of AI technologies in offering enhanced accuracy, efficacy, and fairness in forensic and judicial procedures. Informed by an interdisciplinary approach, the research discerns the necessity of balancing technological progress with essential values of justice, legality, and procedural rights.

The paper maps the modern landscape of AI technology in criminal law, from algorithmic risk profiling to predictive policing and legal analytics. Using the chosen case studies, the study illustrates the ability of AI systems to generate more precise evidence and accelerate investigation procedures.

Despite the benefits bestowed, the use of artificial intelligence raises serious legal and ethical issues. Some of the most important ones include uncertainty in algorithmic decision-making, the existence of possible biases within forensic algorithms, challenges of admitting evidence, and threat to procedural safeguards. In this research, it is recommended that a robust regulatory and normative framework be put in place to govern the use of AI within criminal justice settings with a strong emphasis on transparency, accountability, and human oversight. In promoting the notion of "Intelligent Justice," the paper contends that AI not merely must improve present practice but prove a force for reform, most importantly in advancing crime prevention, protecting rights, and enhancing a rehabilitative theory of justice.

Perspective.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-economics-of-technological-change

The Economics of Technological Change

What history and models can (and can’t) tell us about AI

Perspective.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/trump-iran-gamble-vaez

Trump’s Iran Gamble

How the Latest Strikes Risk Opening a Pandora’s Box in the Gulf

All wars will start like this.

https://databreaches.net/2026/02/28/israel-plunges-iran-into-darkness-with-largest-cyberattack-in-history-during-attack-against-iran/?pk_campaign=feed&pk_kwd=israel-plunges-iran-into-darkness-with-largest-cyberattack-in-history-during-attack-against-iran

Israel plunges Iran into darkness with largest cyberattack in history during attack against Iran

The Jerusalem Post reports:

As fighter jets and cruise missiles struck IRGC command centers, a parallel front reportedly paralyzed the Islamic Republic from within. Reports on Saturday, February 28, 2026, indicated that Iran entered an almost complete digital fog, in what appeared to be a large-scale cyberattack accompanying Operation “Roar of the Lion.”

Critical infrastructure, official news sites, and security communications systems reportedly stopped functioning, leaving the leadership in a communications blackout at home and abroad.

NetBlocks confirmed on Saturday that internet connectivity in Iran plunged to an extremely low level, reaching 4% of normal traffic, signaling an almost total shutdown of nationwide access.

Read more at The Jersusalem Post.

Because we want to use the nasty stuff…

https://www.makeuseof.com/trump-bans-anthropic-from-government-use/

Trump bans Anthropic from government use after company refuses to lift AI safeguards

(Related)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pentagon-anthropic-dario-amodei-cbs-news-interview-exclusive/

Anthropic CEO says he's sticking to AI "red lines" despite clash with Pentagon

(Related)

https://fortune.com/2026/02/27/openai-in-talks-with-pentagon-after-anthropic-blowup/

OpenAI strikes a deal with the Pentagon just hours after Trump orders the end of Anthropic contracts, and hours after a staff all-hands

Clean out all those anti-Trump voters?

https://pogowasright.org/trumps-doj-sues-kentucky-four-other-states-for-voter-data/

Trump’s DOJ sues Kentucky, four other states for voter data

McKenna Horsley reports:

The U.S. Department of Justice is suing five additional states, including Kentucky, for not providing voter registration data, including sensitive information such as driver’s license and Social Security numbers.

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, said in a Thursday statement that he would “not voluntarily commit a data breach” of Kentuckians’ private information without a court order.

The DOJ is now suing 29 states and the District of Columbia for the information, which it has said it would use to ensure clean voting rolls in the states.

Read more at Hoptown Chronicle.

Will this impact customs ‘inspections?’

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/02/victory-tenth-circuit-finds-fourth-amendment-doesnt-support-broad-search-0

Victory! Tenth Circuit Finds Fourth Amendment Doesn’t Support Broad Search of Protesters’ Devices and Digital Data

In a big win for protesters’ rights, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit overturned a lower court’s dismissal of a challenge to sweeping warrants to search a protester’s devices and digital data and a nonprofit’s social media data.

The case, Armendariz v. City of Colorado Springs, arose after a housing protest in 2021, during which Colorado Springs police arrested protesters for obstructing a roadway. After the demonstration, police also obtained warrants to seize and search through the devices and data of Jacqueline Armendariz Unzueta, who they claimed threw a bike at them during the protest. The warrants included a search through all of her photos, videos, emails, text messages, and location data over a two-month period, as well as a time-unlimited search for 26 keywords, including words as broad as “bike,” “assault,” “celebration,” and “right,” that allowed police to comb through years of Armendariz’s private and sensitive data—all supposedly to look for evidence related to the alleged simple assault. Police further obtained a warrant to search the Facebook page of the Chinook Center, the organization that spearheaded the protest, despite the Chinook Center never having been accused of a crime.

The district court dismissed the civil rights lawsuit brought by Armendariz and the Chinook Center, holding that the searches were justified and that, in any case, the officers were entitled to qualified immunity. The plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU of Colorado, appealed. EFF—joined by the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University—wrote an amicus brief in support of that appeal.

In a 2-1 opinion, the Tenth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of the lawsuit’s Fourth Amendment search and seizure claims. The court painstakingly picked apart each of the three warrants and found them to be overbroad and lacking in particularity as to the scope and duration of the searches. The court further held that in furnishing such facially deficient warrants, the officers violated “clearly established” law and thus were not entitled to qualified immunity. Although the court did not explicitly address the First Amendment concerns raised by the lawsuit, it did note the backdrop against how these searches were carried out, including animus by Colorado Springs police leading up to the housing protest.