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Thomas Brewster

@iblametom

Security, surveillance and privacy reporter for

+

. Tip me! Signal: +447782376697. Email: tbrewster@forbes.com. Threema ID: S2XY9B9U

Londonforbes.com/sites/thomasbr…Born April 28Joined May 2010

5,061 Following

27.3K Followers

Thomas Brewster’s Tweets

Pinned Tweet

Thomas Brewster

NEW - In 2022, a pregnant woman was kidnapped, murdered and had her baby taken. The FBI says the killer searched a Facebook group of 6,500 for sharing kids items to find her potential victims. The FBI raided the group's data. Group members never knew.

A Murderer Targeted Pregnant Moms In A Private Facebook Group, Feds Say. Its Moderators Claim No...

An alleged killer joined a Facebook group for passing on kids’ items to find pregnant mothers and possibly kidnap them, according to a search warrant. Some moms in the group say neither the FBI nor...

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Thomas Brewster

A former Jigsaw staffer: "We're doing a whole range of things that are just super good for regulation, super good for society, and none of that apparently matters. "Apparently, if you're not making stupid, generative AI, you're useless."

Quote Tweet

SCOOP: Google Cuts Company Protecting People From Surveillance To A ‘Skeleton Crew,’ Say Laid Off Workers by @iblametom and Richard Nieva trib.al/4iGCaEY

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

SCOOP: Google Cuts Company Protecting People From Surveillance To A ‘Skeleton Crew,’ Say Laid Off Workers by

and Richard Nieva trib.al/4iGCaEY

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Thomas Brewster

"We believe this attack is a response by the Iranian government to a cartoon contest conducted by Charlie Hebdo... the magazine announced it would be holding an international competition for cartoons “ridiculing” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei."

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Thomas Brewster

Microsoft says an Iranian nation-state actor was behind a recent influence operation on the French publication Charlie Hebdo

blogs.microsoft.com

Iran responsible for Charlie Hebdo attacks - Microsoft On the Issues

Today, Microsoft’s Digital Threat Analysis Center (DTAC) is attributing a recent influence operation targeting the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo to an Iranian nation-state actor. Microsoft...

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Thomas Brewster

NEW - Google's Jigsaw team has been cut by between a third and a half. Jigsaw is Google's altruistic org that helps protect people from surveillance, hate speech and mis/disinformation. Ex-staff fear it's now a skeleton crew. W/

Google Cuts Company Protecting People From Surveillance To A ‘Skeleton Crew,’ Say Laid Off Workers

Jigsaw, which produces tools to protect people from surveillance and other threats, saw its staff slashed by at least a third amidst concerns its altruistic work is being shelved in favor of more...

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Thomas Brewster

What

saying?

Quote Tweet

Starting February 9, we will no longer support free access to the Twitter API, both v2 and v1.1. A paid basic tier will be available instead

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Thomas Brewster

A quite frankly excellent story from my

colleagues

and

going inside OpenAI and the (in some ways dangerous, in some ways incredible) revolution coming via generative AI:

Inside ChatGPT's Breakout Moment And The Race To Put AI To Work

Forbes spoke to OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Greg Brockman — and more than 60 other leaders, from Bill Gates to Fei-Fei Li — about the new wave of AI hype, driven by the viral popularity of ChatGPT and...

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

@katiedjennings

Back from maternity leave! First story is about the therapists at mental health startup Resilience Lab who voted to unionize today. The move comes two months after the company raised $15 million and fired 12 of its 200 therapists in the same week.

Therapists At Mental Health Startup Resilience Lab Vote To Unionize

The move comes after the startup, which raised $15 million in November, fired 12 therapists, changed the way the rest were paid and introduced new software to track patient progress.

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

Incredibly excited for the upcoming release of WONDER BOY: Tony Hiseh, Zappos and The Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley, by

and me. Thanks to Publisher's Weekly for today's review: "Readers will have a hard time putting this down."

Quote Tweet

Publishers Weekly

@PublishersWkly

Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley by Angel Au-Yeung, David Jeans. Read full review: pwne.ws/3Dy6eAV #PWROTD

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

News: OpenAI has launched its much-anticipated first subscription version of ChatGPT, called ChatGPT Plus. The company said in a blog post that it would charge users $20 per month, availably initially in the U.S. only forbes.com/sites/alexkonr tip

OpenAI Releases First $20 Subscription Version Of ChatGPT For Businesses

AI unicorn OpenAI is ready to make money off its popular AI chatbot released in November.

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

Scoop: After jumping back into the fray as Google battles OpenAI and ChatGPT, Google cofounder Sergey Brin has filed his first code request in years. The request was related to LaMDA, Google's natural language chatbot. With

Back At Google Again, Cofounder Sergey Brin Just Filed His First Code Request In Years

Largely absent from day-to-day operations since 2019, a code request filed on Jan. 24 appears to be his first in years.

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Thomas Brewster

Who else here was hiding their face so no one could see them crying on the sofa? When Richter's 'On The Nature of Daylight' kicked in... goddamn.

Quote Tweet

In a recent interview, showrunner Craig Mazin revealed that the original cut of Episode 3 of The Last of Us was 2 hours long, saying that while watching it he "cried so hard that at one point, I actually said out loud, 'Ow.' I mean, it hurt. I cried so hard; it hurt."

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Thomas Brewster

Sign up here for the full story: forbes.com/newsletter/the

Quote Tweet

Thomas Brewster

Later in The Wiretap, a story on an extraordinarily successful scammer going by the name Alen Watson, using one of the oldest tricks in the book on very rich people: telling them their computer has been hacked and they need to move their money into crypto exchanges to secure it.

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Thomas Brewster

Later in The Wiretap, a story on an extraordinarily successful scammer going by the name Alen Watson, using one of the oldest tricks in the book on very rich people: telling them their computer has been hacked and they need to move their money into crypto exchanges to secure it.

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

Forbes changed the way we value unicorns to bring inline with market conditions. Revaluing them knocked nearly $100 billion off their founders' fortunes. Great job by

via

Fallen Unicorns: Startup Billionaires Nearly $100 Billion Poorer Than A Year Ago

These 44 founders have lost half their wealth and are nearly $100 billion poorer than a year ago. Twelve are no longer billionaires.

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

Scoop: Laid off Alphabet employees at Google got better severance packages than those at "Other Bets" like Verily and Waymo. Those units got 12 weeks plus 1 week for each year at the company, while Googlers got 16 weeks plus two weeks for each year.

Laid Off Googlers Got More Severance Than Workers At Alphabet’s ‘Other Bets’ Like Waymo And Verily

Alphabet laid off more than 12,000 employees, giving Googlers a base of 16 weeks of severance. Other units got less.

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

Basically all of the world's biggest tech companies are listed as FTX creditors in a new, 115-page document filed to Delaware bankruptcy court yesterday. We've reached out to all of them for comment.

FTX Owes Money To Every Major Tech Company, Including Google, Meta, Amazon And Apple

And don’t forget Microsoft, Netflix, TikTok and LinkedIn …

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Thomas Brewster

"We hacked the hackers," FBI says. Infiltrated the Hive network, were passing decryption keys to victims over the last half year or so.

Quote Tweet

New —> FBI seizes extortion site of Hive ransomware gang. US officials estimate that Hive ransomware has extorted et least $100 million from victims worldwide cnn.com/2023/01/26/pol

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

New —> FBI seizes extortion site of Hive ransomware gang. US officials estimate that Hive ransomware has extorted et least $100 million from victims worldwide

FBI seizes website used by notorious ransomware gang | CNN Politics

The FBI has seized the computer infrastructure used by a notorious ransomware gang which has extorted more than $100 million from hospitals, schools and other victims around the world, US officials...

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Thomas Brewster

Amazon/Google/Microsoft just laid off a load of people right?

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@bailey_bickley

Come work with me :) NSA is undertaking one of its largest hiring surges in 30 years with openings for 3,000+ new employees. It's a vibe nsa.gov/Press-Room/New

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Thomas Brewster

Just finished this and it's excellent. Brilliant investigative journalism with actual payoffs! Go listen now.

Quote Tweet

Janhoi McGregor

@janhoi_mcgregor

In 2021 scammers made off with $16m by flogging a fake #SquidGame crypto token. @CiaranOConnor and I set out to track them down. This is the hunt for the Squid Scammers, an @ITNProductions & @audibleuk original. All episodes: audible.co.uk/pd/Squid-Scam- Some details

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Thomas Brewster

Who knew? Great reporting from Alan here.

Quote Tweet

Auto pollution doesn’t end at the tailpipe. Dust from tires is a top source of microplastic waste and kills coho salmon because of a chemical additive #6PPD #coho #pollution #microplastic #tires

via @forbes forbes.com/sites/alanohns

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

high altitude spy jon christian

Here's our story about how the work of CNET's AI journalist has demonstrated deep structural and phrasing similarities to material previously published in Forbes, Investopedia and elsewhere, without giving credit

CNET's AI Journalist Appears to Have Committed Extensive Plagiarism

CNET's AI-generated articles appear to show deep structural similarities, amounting to plagiarism, with previously published work elsewhere.

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Thomas Brewster

ICYMI yesterday

Quote Tweet

Thomas Brewster

NEW - In 2022, a pregnant woman was kidnapped, murdered and had her baby taken. The FBI says the killer searched a Facebook group of 6,500 for sharing kids items to find her potential victims. The FBI raided the group's data. Group members never knew. forbes.com/sites/thomasbr

Show this thread

Thomas Brewster Retweeted

Thomas Brewster

Meta also failed to remove the alleged murderer's fake profile until I told them it was still online on Friday. This was a high-profile killing from October, so it's unclear why Facebook took nearly three months to take it down.

A Murderer Targeted Pregnant Moms In A Private Facebook Group, Feds Say. Its Moderators Claim No...

An alleged killer joined a Facebook group for passing on kids’ items to find pregnant mothers and possibly kidnap them, according to a search warrant. Some moms in the group say neither the FBI nor...

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

What in the actual ...

Quote Tweet

Thomas Brewster

NEW - In 2022, a pregnant woman was kidnapped, murdered and had her baby taken. The FBI says the killer searched a Facebook group of 6,500 for sharing kids items to find her potential victims. The FBI raided the group's data. Group members never knew. forbes.com/sites/thomasbr

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

Katharine Schwab

@SchwabKatharine

Truly one of the most harrowing, disturbing stories I've worked on. Don't miss it.

Quote Tweet

Thomas Brewster

NEW - In 2022, a pregnant woman was kidnapped, murdered and had her baby taken. The FBI says the killer searched a Facebook group of 6,500 for sharing kids items to find her potential victims. The FBI raided the group's data. Group members never knew. forbes.com/sites/thomasbr

Show this thread

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

@katiedjennings

Terrifying story on many levels from my colleague

Quote Tweet

Thomas Brewster

NEW - In 2022, a pregnant woman was kidnapped, murdered and had her baby taken. The FBI says the killer searched a Facebook group of 6,500 for sharing kids items to find her potential victims. The FBI raided the group's data. Group members never knew. forbes.com/sites/thomasbr

Show this thread

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

A Murderer Targeted Pregnant Moms In A Private Facebook Group, Feds Say. Its Moderators Claim No One Told Them. on.forbes.com/60123ZhO8 by

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Thomas Brewster

"The fact that you're collecting information about this group, and frankly, if there's a potential murderer in this forum, it's probably a good thing for these people to know."

Quote Tweet

Thomas Brewster

NEW - In 2022, a pregnant woman was kidnapped, murdered and had her baby taken. The FBI says the killer searched a Facebook group of 6,500 for sharing kids items to find her potential victims. The FBI raided the group's data. Group members never knew. forbes.com/sites/thomasbr

Show this thread

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Thomas Brewster

Meta also failed to remove the alleged murderer's fake profile until I told them it was still online on Friday. This was a high-profile killing from October, so it's unclear why Facebook took nearly three months to take it down.

A Murderer Targeted Pregnant Moms In A Private Facebook Group, Feds Say. Its Moderators Claim No...

An alleged killer joined a Facebook group for passing on kids’ items to find pregnant mothers and possibly kidnap them, according to a search warrant. Some moms in the group say neither the FBI nor...

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Thomas Brewster

Wow. That's some power these folks have with the click of a button. More amazing TikTok revelations from

Quote Tweet

Emily Baker-White

Our latest: Employees at TikTok and ByteDance have access to a secret back-end button that can make any video go viral, immediately pushing it to more viewers. The practice, which TikTok has never disclosed, is known internally as “heating.” forbes.com/sites/emilybak

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

Rashi Shrivastava

@RashiShrivast18

Microsoft plans to roll out OpenAI's generative technology such as ChatGPT across all its products including Microsoft Office. Experts say it could be the "silver bullet that could change the paradigm between Google Docs and Microsoft Word."

Google Docs Is More Popular Than Microsoft Word. But ChatGPT Could Change That.

Experts say ChatGPT could be a game-changer for Microsoft, as it reportedly plans to roll out the technology across Office products including Word, PowerPoint and Outlook, catapulting it ahead of...

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Thomas Brewster Retweeted

‘Fake It 'Til You Make It’: Meet Charlie Javice, The Startup Founder Who Fooled JP Morgan forbes.com/sites/alexandr

and

have dug through filings, hours of recordings of Javice, and dozens of interviews for this profile of Frank founder Charlie Javice 🧵

‘Fake It 'Til You Make It’: Meet Charlie Javice, The Startup Founder Who Fooled JP Morgan

“There were definitely times where I painted a rosier picture than things truly were,” Frank founder Charlie Javice said months before JP Morgan bought her startup for $175 million.

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Thomas Brewster

I wrote about Bitzlato's ransomware problem back in 2021. Fun. forbes.com/sites/thomasbr

Quote Tweet

The Department of Justice has announced the arrest of Anatoly Legkodymov. Legkodymov, the Founder and Majority Owner of Bitzlato Ltd, is accused of laundering more than $700,000,000 in illicit funds from ransomware groups and Hydra Marketplace More info: justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/f

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Thomas Brewster

Re

and

story on the

findings on the gov's TRAC financial database, here's a section of a search warrant that sums up the database. One thing not noted in the story: telephone numbers are in TRAC too.

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Thomas Brewster

Hey Twitter people - here's the All Writs Act order we got unsealed by taking the government to court. Enjoy: documentcloud.org/documents/2357

Quote Tweet

Thomas Brewster

With @rcfp we also got another surveillance order on travel supplier Sabre unsealed in late December. Shows an order for two-years prolonged snooping on a fugitive's global travel. As @FoxCahn notes, such orders last way longer than your typical wiretap (30 days). twitter.com/iblametom/stat…

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Thomas Brewster

Also, if there's one thing we've learned from how bad Lord of the Rings was, it's that no amount of money or technology can save you from a fucking terrible script.

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Thomas Brewster

Is there a recording of this?

Quote Tweet

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and one of the largest individual donors in US politics, just referred to Greta Thunberg as part of the “autistic children’s brigade” in his Oxford address.

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