John Edwards, Technology Journalist & AuthorApril 17, 20255 Min ReadTanapong Sungkaew via Alamy Stock PhotoDisinformation is on the rise as various media platforms make it easy for anyone to smear an enterprise for fun, strategic advantage, political gain, or even outright blackmail. Coping with this trend is proving to be both challenging and expensive. Disinformation is the deliberate spreading of false information with the intent to deceive or manipulate a target audience, often for political, economic or social gain, states Craig Watt, a threat intelligence consultant with cybersecurity firm Quorum Cyber. "This is different from misinformation, which is the sharing of false information without ill intent," he observes in an online interview. Disinformation can arrive in various forms, including propaganda, industrial sabotage, and conspiracy theories, says George Vlasto, head of trust and safety at Resolver, a unit of Kroll, a risk and financial advisory services firm. "The common theme is a narrative-based attack on a specific issue, entity or person," he notes via email. Disinformation Damage Disinformation can hurt an enterprise in several ways. Perhaps the most pernicious harm is reputational damage resulting from the spread of false information. "This can lead to a loss of trust among clients and partners," Watt says. "Erosion of trust can also manifest within the organization itself, affecting employee morale and productivity." Related:Direct financial losses can occur if false information is spread about a company’s financial stability, resulting in plummeting stock prices, Watt says. "Disinformation can also disrupt business operations if false information is disseminated regarding things such as supply chain issues." Specific disinformation can quickly metastasize into widespread misinformation, Vlasto warns. "If a particular piece of disinformation is widely shared by unwitting Internet users, it can rapidly become difficult to contain and may have a significant impact on brand reputation," he says. "Widely shared false allegations, even when disproved, can linger in the public imagination for a long time." A Growing Threat Disinformation is definitely on the rise, Watt says. "Technology advancements within social media and other digital platforms have made it easier to spread disinformation quickly and to a widespread demographic," he explains. "Additionally, advancements in artificial intelligence have enabled the creation of more sophisticated and convincing false content." Most ominously, disinformation is increasingly being weaponized as a tool for political and social manipulation, often by state-sponsored campaigns that aim to influence elections, destabilize societies, and undermine democratic institutions, Watt warns. Related:Protection Strategies The most effective way to protect against disinformation is to own the narrative, Vlasto states. "Monitor disinformation trends relevant to your sector and preempt these [falsehoods] with clear factual updates about your business," he says. Having a well-understood playbook in place to counter false narratives is also important, especially during significant political or business events, Vlasto says. "For example, if you're engaged in a sensitive M&A process, consider how you would respond to false information about the potential transaction," he explains. Protecting against disinformation involves a combination of awareness, critical thinking, and proactive measures, Watt says. Verify sources by checking their credibility and reputation before believing or sharing information, he suggests. "Information should also be cross-referenced across multiple reliable sources to ensure its accuracy." "Verify, verify, verify, and make sure the information is coming from the best and highest source," recommends Lisa Silverman, a senior managing director at risk and financial crimes advisory firm K2 Integrity. "If someone sends you something, ask where they got their information and, ideally, verify it through another -- hopefully an unbiased and trusted -- source." Related:If information seems truly wacky, double- and triple-check it, Silverman suggests. Yet also understand that seemingly preposterous information can sometimes be true. "We recently had a situation where a retired and very senior military officer had been reporting a piece of information about his career for about 10 years," she says. "When we undertook what we thought would be a routine verification as part of a larger project, that information turned out to be completely inaccurate." This revelation caused significant concern for the client, Silverman says, "yet the matter was eventually addressed without the public scandal that would have occurred if the facts had come out in a different way." Critical Thinking Watt advises individuals and teams to embrace critical thinking and to always be skeptical of sensational claims and clickbait headlines. "Before sharing any information, take a moment to verify its authenticity," he recommends. Sharing false information, even unintentionally, can contribute to the problem. Watt also recommends disinformation targets to report the fabrication to the operator of the platform where it was found. Vlasto believes that maintaining situational awareness is essential for spotting the migration of a narrative from the margins to the mainstream. "Like any risk mitigation strategy, the best way to deal with disinformation is at the greatest distance from your core interests," he suggests. "Don't wait until the digital barbarians are at the gate -- plan your response options in advance and ensure you have early visibility of emerging risks." Looking Forward "We can't control the intent of disinformation actors or the capabilities at their disposal," Watt acknowledges. "However, by gaining awareness of how disinformation tactics are employed, we can begin to halt the progress of these campaigns and contribute to the free sharing of legitimate content." About the AuthorJohn EdwardsTechnology Journalist & AuthorJohn Edwards is a veteran business technology journalist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and numerous business and technology publications, including Computerworld, CFO Magazine, IBM Data Management Magazine, RFID Journal, and Electronic Design. He has also written columns for The Economist's Business Intelligence Unit and PricewaterhouseCoopers' Communications Direct. John has authored several books on business technology topics. His work began appearing online as early as 1983. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, he wrote daily news and feature articles for both the CompuServe and Prodigy online services. His "Behind the Screens" commentaries made him the world's first known professional blogger.See more from John EdwardsWebinarsMore WebinarsReportsMore ReportsNever Miss a Beat: Get a snapshot of the issues affecting the IT industry straight to your inbox.SIGN-UPYou May Also Like

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This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. US office that counters foreign disinformation is being eliminated The only office within the US State Department that monitors foreign disinformation is to be eliminated, according to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, confirming reporting by MIT Technology Review. The Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI) Hub is a small office in the State Department’s Office of Public Diplomacy that tracks and counters foreign disinformation campaigns. The culling of the office leaves the State Department without a way to actively counter the increasingly sophisticated disinformation campaigns from foreign governments like those of Russia, Iran, and China. Read the full story. —Eileen Guo What is vibe coding, exactly? When OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy excitedly took to X back in February to post about his new hobby, he probably had no idea he was about to coin a phrase that encapsulated an entire movement steadily gaining momentum across the world. “There’s a new kind of coding I call ‘vibe coding’, where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists," he said. “I’m building a project or webapp, but it’s not really coding—I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works.”  If this all sounds very different from poring over lines of code, that’s because Karpathy was talking about a particular style of coding with AI assistance. His words struck a chord among software developers and enthusiastic amateurs alike.  In the months since, his post has sparked think pieces and impassioned debates across the internet. But what exactly is vibe coding? Who does it benefit, and what’s its likely future? Read the full story. —Rhiannon Williams This story is the latest for MIT Technology Review Explains, our series untangling the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. These four charts sum up the state of AI and energy You’ve probably read that AI will drive an increase in electricity demand. But how that fits into the context of the current and future grid can feel less clear from the headlines. A new report from the International Energy Agency digs into the details of energy and AI, and I think it’s worth looking at some of the data to help clear things up. Here are four charts from the report that sum up the crucial points about AI and energy demand.  —Casey Crownhart This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. We need targeted policies, not blunt tariffs, to drive “American energy dominance” —Addison Killean Stark President Trump and his appointees have repeatedly stressed the need to establish “American energy dominance.”  But the White House’s profusion of executive orders and aggressive tariffs, along with its determined effort to roll back clean-energy policies, are moving the industry in the wrong direction, creating market chaos and economic uncertainty that are making it harder for both legacy players and emerging companies to invest, grow, and compete. Read the full story. This story is part of Heat Exchange, MIT Technology Review’s guest opinion series, offering expert commentary on legal, political and regulatory issues related to climate change and clean energy. You can read the rest of the pieces here. MIT Technology Review Narrated: Will we ever trust robots? If most robots still need remote human operators to be safe and effective, why should we welcome them into our homes? This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which  we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The Trump administration has cancelled lifesaving aid to foreign children After Elon Musk previously promised to preserve it. (The Atlantic $)+ DOGE worker Jeremy Lewin, who dismantled USAID, has a new role. (Fortune $)+ The department attempted to embed its staff in an independent non-profit. (The Guardian)+ Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Evil Housekeeper Problem. (MIT Technology Review)2 Astronomers have detected a possible signature of life on a distant planet It’s the first time the potential for life has been spotted on a habitable planet. (NYT $)+ Maybe we should be building observatories on the moon. (Ars Technica) 3 OpenAI’s new AI models can reason with images They’re capable of integrating images directly into their reasoning process. (VentureBeat)+ But they’re still vulnerable to making mistakes. (Ars Technica)+ AI reasoning models can cheat to win chess games. (MIT Technology Review) 4 Trump’s new chip crackdown will cost US firms billionsIt’s not just Nvidia that’s set to suffer. (WP $) + But Jensen Huang isn’t giving up on China altogether. (WSJ $)+ He’s said the company follows export laws ‘to the letter.’ (CNBC)5 Elon Musk reportedly used X to search for potential mothers of his children Sources suggest he has many more children than is publicly known. (WSJ $)6 Local US cops are being trained as immigration enforcers Critics say the rollout is ripe for civil rights abuses. (The Markup)+ ICE is still bound by constitutional limits—for now. (The Conversation)7 This electronic weapon can fry drone swarms from a distanceThe RapidDestroyer uses a high-power radio frequency to take down multiple drones. (FT $) + Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense. (MIT Technology Review)8 TikTok is attempting to fight back against misinformationIt’s rolling out an X-style community notes feature. (Bloomberg $) 9 A deceased composer’s brain is still making music Three years after Alvin Lucier’s death, cerebral organoids made from his white blood cells are making sounds. (Popular Mechanics)+ AI is coming for music, too. (MIT Technology Review)10 This AI agent can switch personalities Depending what you need it to do. (Wired $) Quote of the day “Yayy, we get one last meal before getting on the electric chair.” —Jing Levine, who runs a party goods business with her husband that’s heavily reliant on suppliers in China, reacts to Donald Trump’s plans to pause tariffs except for China, the New York Times reports. The big story AI means the end of internet search as we’ve known it We all know what it means, colloquially, to google something. You pop a few words in a search box and in return get a list of blue links to the most relevant results. Fundamentally, it’s just fetching information that’s already out there on the internet and showing it to you, in a structured way. But all that is up for grabs. We are at a new inflection point. The biggest change to the way search engines deliver information to us since the 1990s is happening right now. No more keyword searching. Instead, you can ask questions in natural language. And instead of links, you’ll increasingly be met with answers written by generative AI and based on live information from across the internet, delivered the same way.  Not everyone is excited for the change. Publishers are completely freaked out. And people are also worried about what these new LLM-powered results will mean for our fundamental shared reality. Read the full story. —Mat Honan We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet 'em at me.) + Essential viewing: Sweden is broadcasting its beloved moose spring migration for 20 days straight.+ Fearsome warlord Babur was obsessed with melons, and frankly, I don’t blame him.+ Great news for squid fans: a colossal squid has been captured on film for the first time! 🦑+ Who stole my cheese?

Regulator commits to implementing report’s recommendations including improving workplace cultureArb has committed to implementing the recommendations of an independent commission which found too much responsibility and risk lies with architectural trainees on their route to registration. A report by the commission on professional practice experience (PPE) said too much responsibility given to trainees undermines the quality of their work experience. The study was funded by Arb after the regulator proposed removing the minimum two-year duration of PPE but decided after a consultation that this might not address the problems which arise for those looking to gain the required experience. Arb chair Alan Kershaw The report was written by a group of four commissioners, Ryder Architecture partner Peter Barker, associate professor at the Bartlett Felicity Atekpe, former Liberal Democrat adviser Polly Mackenzie and chaired by former Sheffield Hallam University vice-chair Chris Husbands. Arb has confirmed it will implement the report’s three headline recommendations to significantly improve workplace culture, ensure learning providers co-ordinate trainees’ acquisition of competency outcomes and to remove constraints to flexibility and innovation across the profession. However, the regulator said it is yet to make detailed decisions on how to approach individual actions, and said it will announce next steps this summer. Some actions recommended in the report include requiring all architects to undertake CPD on mentoring and deepening links between employers and education providers. It also called for Arb to describe individuals who are in initial education and training as “trainee architects”, and to set minimum standards for a new streamlined and standardised Record of Competency. Arb chair Alan Kershaw said: “The Commission’s evidence is extensive in demonstrating that too much responsibility and risk lies with trainees on their route to registration, that this is not fair nor efficient, and that it must change.  “Its report provides a compelling vision for how to improve the experience of those trainees and the opportunities to create that change. Such a transformation will be fundamental to how future architects achieve the competencies they need to deliver high quality architecture.  “We are grateful to the commissioners for the clear path they have set out for us now to consider and progress.”  Husbands added: “This report is the result of extensive engagement with a variety of stakeholders, and it reflects a shared recognition that we must do more to support trainees on their journey to becoming architects.  “The current system places too much burden on individuals, and change is both necessary and possible. Our recommendations offer a practical roadmap for reform - one that requires commitment and collaboration from all parts of the sector. We’re encouraged by ARB’s positive response and look forward to seeing this work progress.”

Leeds University Source:&nbsp Shutterstock The Architects Registration Board (ARB) has approved three ‘new-style’ master’s qualifications at the University of Leeds, which are not based on Parts 1-3 The courses are the first to be green lit since the ARB proposed reforming architectural education by moving away from Parts 1 to 3 and scrapping the requirement for a minimum two years of professional practical experience.  The University of Leeds will offer a two-year MArch course, whereby students must meet the ARB’s competency outcomes, as well as two five-year integrated architecture and engineering courses. One of the courses includes a paid year-long industrial placement.  Students of the five-year integrated masters will receive an MArch and an MEng, meaning they will be able to become registered professional architects, civil and structural engineers or building services engineers.Advertisement However, while graduates of the course will have met the ARB's Academic Outcomes, they will still need to meet its Practice Outcomes before being able to register as an architect. All three University of Leeds courses have been approved by the regulator’s accreditation committee, but will only be formally confirmed following a statutory advisory consultation with relevant professional bodies. The courses will open for direct entry and internal transfer from September 2025.  ARB chair Alan Kershaw said: ‘We’re thrilled to see the first new-style degrees reach this stage of the accreditation process, including two integrated qualifications that will take students from their undergraduate degree through to a master’s that meets our academic outcomes.  ‘This represents real progress in our work to modernise architectural education and training, and shows how innovative learning providers can make the most of the flexibility opened up by ARB’s education reforms.’ Advertisement University of Leeds architecture lead Justin Lunn said: ‘[Our] new integrated programmes … are the realisation of a long-held vision to create a unified approach to education with a goal to produce graduates who have expertise across disciplines, allowing them to be more effective and collaborative professionals from the beginning of their career.  ‘We’d been at an advanced stage of planning for Part 2 as an addition to our Part 1 course when ARB’s education reforms were announced, and we realised that they were an opportunity to implement an improved offer.’ RIBA board chair Jack Pringle commented: ‘We are clear that creating new, more flexible and affordable routes to becoming an architect is a must, to ensure the profession is inclusive and representative of more sections of society. ‘Widening access to architecture also helps maintain the skills and talent pipeline to meet future housing and infrastructure needs, so we very much welcome new integrated courses. ‘We are particularly keen to see the development of a five-year admission to registration route emerging as a viable educational model, and will work with schools and the ARB to support this development. ‘We also look forward to working with schools of architecture to ensure that all new routes to the register work for students, universities and employers alike.’ 2025-04-17 Will Ing comment and share

Amid a pause before a possible trade war, an expert weighs in on what consumers may see and pay in the near future.

April 17, 20253 min readNorth America May Be Dripping Away Deep under the MidwestA long-lost slab of Earth’s crust may be pulling away the bottom of the oldest part of North America, scientists sayBy Meghan Bartels edited by Andrea Thompson Victor Josan/Alamy Stock PhotoSomething very strange appears to be happening deep, deep beneath the Midwest and Ohio Valley.North America’s geological core has persisted for billions of years—it’s what scientists call a craton, a massive block of continental rock that withstands the natural recycling system of plate tectonics. Typically, scientists think of cratons as unchanging, nigh on eternal. But new research published on March 28 in Nature Geoscience suggests that a long-lost geological plate may be siphoning rock from the bottom of the North American craton, eroding it from below, right under our feet.Such a scenario would not be unprecedented—scientists have evidence that the North China craton thinned dramatically millions of years ago—but it would certainly be surprising and intriguing to study in real time. “Cratons are the oldest cores of continents, so they have been sitting near the Earth’s surface for billions of years,” says Claire Currie, a geophysicist at the University of Alberta, who was not involved in the new research. “They’ve persisted through time, so this is quite unusual.”On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.The scientists behind the new research had no intention of finding an eroding craton, according to study co-author Junlin Hua, a geophysicist at the University of Science and Technology of China. The team merely wanted to apply a new, more precise analysis technique to the data gathered by North America’s rich network of more than 6,000 seismometers in hope of seeing the continent in more detail than ever before.The work relied on the seismometer network’s observations of more than 200 earthquakes, each of which produced multiple types of seismic waves. These waves are affected in specific ways by changes in the material they pass through—for example, there are particular effects when that material is relatively cold or warm or strong or weak. By analyzing the waves, scientists can reverse engineer a map of Earth’s innards, Hua says. And the researchers sought to conduct this work in a way that would account for every wiggle in the trove of seismic data, a laborious process.A map produced by the authors ofa new study in Nature Geoscience shows the relative seismic velocity of material that is 200 kilometers below Earth’s surface and located around the base of the North American craton. Cratons are characterized by high seismic velocity. On this map, blue represents rock through which seismic waves travel faster; red represents rock through which seismic waves travel more slowly. The black dashed line outlines the borders of the North American craton.Nature Geoscience, Hua et al.It was months into the analysis when Hua started to recognize that the work was turning up something surprising. The craton itself looked normal enough: a slab of dense rock, about 200 kilometers thick, through which seismic waves traveled relatively fast—what scientists refer to as high-seismic-velocity material—that abruptly transitioned to material with lower seismic velocity as the craton gave way to younger rock.But beneath part of the craton—underneath much of the Midwest and Ohio Valley—something strange was happening. Here, a patchy pattern of material with that same high seismic velocity sagged to a depth of nearly 600 kilometers, almost to the lower mantle. Those measurements, Hua says, suggest that in this area, North America’s craton is dripping downward into the mantle in a way he and his colleagues didn’t expect and couldn’t quite explain.What got them unstuck was considering a relic of geological history that lies hidden below North America: remains of the Farallon plate. This was an oceanic plate that stretched between the Pacific and North American plates some 100 million years ago, when the dinosaurs were at their peak. Most of the Farallon plate was eventually shoved beneath North America. Its remnants linger in the lower mantle, some 800 kilometers below Earth’s surface, and indeed showed up in the cross sections of seismic velocities that Hua and his colleagues made.A diagram demonstrates the researchers’ theory for what’s happening underneath the North American craton. The material in the map shown above sits near the top of the areas illustrated in this diagram,where the layer labeled “Cratonic lithosphere” bulges downward into the upper mantle. The Farallon slab (purple), sinks down through the lower mantle. Between the two stretches a relatively narrow region where cratonic material is dripping down, fed by horizontal movement at the base of the entire craton.Nature Geoscience, Hua et al.When the scientists used computer modeling to test theories of what could pull cratonic material downward, the Farallon slab was key: drips formed only when the slab was incorporated into the model. Hua calls the slab “a big sinker” that pulls material off the craton and down into Earth.Right now, Currie says, this is just a hypothesis—but one that she calls “intriguing.” Currie would like to see other signals of the cratonic drip—for example, is the surface of Earth being pulled down at all over this region? She would also like to see stronger explanations for how the craton gets pulled down into material denser than it is because it ought to float above such material.Still, the research is a surprising glimpse of activity in an environment that scientists have long considered unchanging, Hua says. “The continent is not something static,” he says. “It has a dynamic component.”

Many took it as a sign of what was to come when Donald Trump invited tech industry billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk to sit in the front row at his second-term inauguration in January. The “broligarchy,” as it’s come to be known, had arrived. And with it, a clear real estate trend is emerging: Those tech bros are getting serious about putting down roots in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg, who was recently revealed as the buyer of a $23 million mansion with a 10-minute commute to the White House, is but the latest of the Silicon Valley magnates flocking to the area’s high-end homes, making ripples in the luxury real estate market as well as in politics.Though they already had some presence in the capital, the influx of big-name tech billionaires has grown rapidly since Trump was reelected. In November, former eBay president Jeff Skoll bought a $17 million estate in the DC suburbs. Next was David Sacks—the White House’s newly minted AI and crypto czar and a member of the “PayPal Mafia”—who paid $10.3 million for a DC residence in January. And then came Zuckerberg, whose recent purchase reportedly marked the city’s third-most expensive home sale on record. They join Bezos, who bought the largest house in DC in October 2016 for $23 million; PayPal cofounder and original Facebook investor Peter Thiel, who paid $13 million for his piece of DC real estate in 2021; and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who since November 2023 has owned a $15 million mansion where Jacquline Kennedy once lived. Musk, who has captured the most headlines of the so-called broligarchy via his Trump administration position in the new Department of Government Efficiency, reportedly sleeps in his DOGE office.Elon Musk has been sleeping in his office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, according to People. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesRealtors explain the tech titans in DC trendSeveral realtors confirmed to AD that they had noticed the deluge of industry titans buying in the area, reflecting an overall increased interest in the priciest homes DC has to offer. “We’ve had the highest concentration of luxury sales we’ve seen in the Capital Region. The uptick started pretty much right after the election results were announced in early November 2024,” says Daniel Heider, who reportedly held the listings for the homes that Zuckerberg and Sacks bought. “Last year alone, 87 properties closed above $5 million—a 64% increase from the year prior—and 10 of those exceeded the $10 million mark, reflecting a 67% year-over-year jump,” DC real estate veteran Kimberly Casey tells AD. According to Axios, half of 2024’s top 10 most expensive sales in the area closed in December, just after Trump was elected.Coveted neighborhoods that are close to the White House, like Georgetown and Kalorama, are starting to creep up in price as a result. “So many of these transactions are what we refer to as ‘market makers.’ The pricing ceiling has been raised, and new pricing trends have begun and show no signs of slowing down,” Heider explains. Some experts are hesitant to draw conclusions just yet; DC real estate veteran Bryan Cantio notes we still haven’t seen the effects of this trend play out, though he acknowledges the influx has the potential to make a significant impact on the market. “We haven’t seen any real spikes in price increases yet, but if this trend continues, we will within the next 12–18 months,” Cantio tells AD.

RED FLAGS: Has DOGE Been Infiltrated By a Russian Spy Network?DOGE staffer tied to close ally of Vladimir Putin; Another ex-staffer is grandson of KGB spy; New IRS nominee was Hunter Biden WhistleblowerSign up for free regular updates or subscribe to our annual plan at 33% off the normal price - for a limited time. Yesterday, we reported on actors using Russian IP addresses to breach the National Labor Relations Board immediately after DOGE engineers obtained "God-tier" access. According to whistleblower Daniel Berulis the intruders used newly created DOGE credentials and techniques “consistent with sophisticated Russian intelligence operations.” His claims are supported by cybersecurity experts. Berulis’ lawyer also claims the IP addresses and DOGE were connected to Starlink, which he says, is a direct link to Russia. A Network with Ties Now even more troubling ties to Russia’s intelligence services and Vladimir Putin’s inner circle have surfaced. Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, a 19-year-old coder who left DOGE after details of his work history surfaced, but we can now reveal is the grandson of Valery Martynov, a KGB agent who spied for the US and was executed by the KGB. Coristine was previously fired from a cybersecurity company for giving company documents to a competitor. A Telegram account linked to him reportedly solicited hacking services online, and he founded a company with Russian-registered domains, including one offering an AI bot for Discord targeting the Russian market. Despite this background, Coristine was seen within multiple US government agencies like USAID, DHS, CISA, and the State Department before eh was fired. Coristine may no longer be at DOGE, but another Russian national who is tied to Vladimir Putin is still on the DOGE payroll. Sanctioned Oligarch with Putin TiesSam Corcos, is the CEO of a health-care tech company with SpaceX ties. His wife Varvara Russkova Corcos, worked at GVA Capital, a VC front for sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleyman Kerimov, a close ally to Vladimir Putin. At DOGE, Corcos attempted to retrieve "detailed taxpayer and vendor information" from the IRS, spearheading an "omnibus" agreement to grant various government agencies access to taxpayer data, that led to the resignation of the IRS commissioner. While there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Russkova Corcos, her connection to a firm used by a Putin-linked oligarch while her husband seeks extensive access to sensitive data warrants attention.Intense Interest in IRSKeep reading with a 7-day free trialSubscribe to Narativ with Zev Shalev to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.Already a paid subscriber? Sign in

A new report has claimed that Ubisoft is working on a new battle royale that's "heavily inspired by Apex Legends". It is apparently being worked on under the project name "Scout", and has been in development for a few years. Read more