@gstarr
same graham but over here now. Reporter/editor. Mostly tech, health care, media, business. TechCrunch, Adweek, DocumentedNY, TIME, Bloomberg, Business Insider, NYT, NYMag, &c. Here to share things I read. 🔗 https://graham.substack.com/
NEW: A former DOGE employee allegedly stole Americans' personal data from two large databases at the Social Security Administration, according to a new report.
The former employee allegedly put the databases on a thumb drive and wanted to use them at their new contractor job.
SCOOP: The iPhone mass hacking toolkit used by Russian spies was developed at U.S. military contractor L3Harris, former employees said.
The Coruna toolkit was used against Ukrainians and by Chinese cybercriminals, according to Google. But the toolkit was initially developed for Western governments.
NEW: Dutch intelligence services are warning of new hacking campaigns against Signal and WhatsApp users, including government and military officials, and journalists worldwide.
The social engineering techniques used are not new, but the fact that the Dutch are warning against them means they work.
“Rodríguez, who was in the car with her husband — a U.S. citizen — has been following all the legal steps to citizenship. In her job, Rodríguez has reported several stories that hold ICE accountable, and it’s unclear whether her detention was retaliation.” nashvillebanner.com/2026/03/05/j...
esoteric ebb is now OUT! i am happy to see it is receiving marks of "funny" and "good." chris wrote a lot of really excellent words and i was lucky to help edit and write as well! enjoy!!!
NEW: The FBI said it is investigating a hack on its networks.
The breach affected the FBI's systems to manage wiretaps and surveillace requests, according to CNN.
techcrunch.com/2026/03/05/f...
When ICE began its crackdown in Minneapolis, immigrants stopped showing up for emergency care, vaccinations, or routine health appointments. An underground medical care network sprung up, including volunteer “rapid response” teams for home visits. kffhealthnews.org/news/article...
This clip of the lad Josh Rocks throwing a piping hot 9-darter on his premiere league debut in front of an absolute raving mad home town Belfast crowd goes so hard. My wife asked if I was okay after I watched this
Odd what can happen when $200+ million isn't very much money to you
A little bit of wtf math: The amount Paramount is paying for Warner Bros. Discovery is 10x its total market cap
My “No chance that military strikes against Iran would lead to drawn-out war” shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt
BREAKING: Netflix says it won't raise offer to match Paramount's bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
Paramount will own Warner Bros. (and with it, networks like CNN)
“Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a Rohingya refugee from Burma, was nearly blind and spoke no English. He was dropped off by agents in Buffalo on the other side of town from his home.”
NEW: For months, I’ve been working on the story of Peter Williams, the former U.S. defense contractor who stole several hacking tools and then sold them to a Russian broker.
Here’s what we know about the case, what we still don’t know, and a peek behind the scenes at how I reported this story.
i do still have grahamstarrdotcombutinsteadofdotcomits.grahamstarrdotcomdotnet.com which is a great example of a URL that makes everyone upset
in a few way stupider examples, my terrible joke domains now also get blocked by Google.
the primary of which is beyonce.horse, though i had others, like faceboók.com and craigslist.fish, that i've let expire because they were too expensive to keep the domain while Google was blocking them
Blue Owl Capital, a minority investor in four NBA teams, is also involved in selling warehouses to DHS to be turned into detention centers, @bwd.bsky.social reports. www.readeyeblack.com/p/an-nba-inv...
“The officers have bad manner of speaking to residents... [and] treat the residents unhumanly,” wrote a 14-year-old who has been detained in the Dilley Detention Center in Texas for 20 days. “I don't want to [imagine] how they would act if they were unsupervised.”
www.propublica.org/article/ice-...
Here's a story I tried to write for 6 years, and one that took a sharp turn due to the Epstein files.
It's about a man who, until these files, was a near-total ghost.
He was an investor in EV startup Canoo. But he was also, apparently, Epstein's business partner.
techcrunch.com/2026/02/06/p...
Two of the staffers cut from The Washington Post yesterday: the reporters who cover Amazon and Blue Origin. techcrunch.com/2026/02/05/t...
While reporting this, I had something happen that's never happened. A comms rep for one of the co's disputed my reporting and said what I was telling them was untrue because it was not in Grok, xAI's chatbot.
I was looking directly at the files. And this person was using AI to challenge the truth.
cover of The Washington Post on Wednesday Feb 4, 2026. Headline on bottom, right: Musk wanted to hook users; his chatbot got more sexual
My story on Elon Musk cutting safeguards at xAI is on the front page of today's @washingtonpost.com. I’m also among 100’s of reporters laid off. I absolutely loved my job my brilliant coworkers & the thrill of reporting @ the center of forces upending the world: AI & Silicon Valley’s political power
Excellent chart in this Bloomberg story about the circular deals bailing out Musk's debt-ridden xAI (gift link) www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
The Washington Post laid off hundreds of the country's most dogged reporters today, who did indispensable work holding the powerful accountable at home & abroad. We are heartbroken.
Please share with anyone who cares about the future of journalism:
www.gofundme.com/f/standing-t...
Most of the Washington Post’s tech reporters were laid off today, including me. I have loved my time at the paper, which is where I wanted to work from age 15. I take some consolation in not being among the survivors who will have to work harder with less for fewer readers. On to better things.
I expected the cuts would be bad but I'm honestly stunned and sickened seeing how many great journalists the Washington Post just lost. People who nailed huge investigations, documented war zones, exposed horrific crimes, dropped all at once for failures they did not cause.
Whatever you think of the Washington Post at this moment, here's a chance to support the dedicated, hard-working journalists who were just laid off. If you have the means, your donation is most welcome. If you don't, a kind thought and maybe spreading the word to others is support enough 💙
Police used the city’s license plate readers to track a local writer’s movements, then issued a BOLO on him.
No charge, and he was the wrong suspect.
www.kcur.org/politics-ele...
