404 Media

Company3 stories

August 17
1:16 PMIndustryReach 55
Amazon is buying up physical books and destroying them for AI
Amazon has been caught buying physical books in bulk, shipping them to a Las Vegas facility, and cutting off their bindings to scan them for AI training before destroying the originals. An investigation by 404 Media used an AirTag to track a book to the warehouse, and Amazon later confirmed the operation is used to improve products like its Nova models. It underscores how tech giants are scrambling for pristine, pre-AI text as internet data runs dry.
July 27
1:48 PMIndustryReach 52
Claude chats are showing up on Google Search
Anthropic’s Claude is exposing user conversations and creations directly in Google search results through public share links, according to 404 Media. Users who shared links likely didn't realize they were indexable, leaving seemingly private chats searchable by anyone. Why it matters: It highlights a major privacy blind spot where sharing defaults quietly turn private AI chats into public data.
February 5, 2024
2:38 PMIndustryReach 55
AI-generated fake IDs are easily bypassing crypto exchange checks
Journalists at 404 Media just exposed an underground site using neural networks to churn out convincing fake IDs in minutes. A reporter used one generated ID to successfully bypass identity verification on a crypto exchange, signaling massive new challenges for cybersecurity.

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