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.