Joseph Menn
Washington Post reporter covering hacking, disinformation and what’s left of privacy. Author of books on the Cult of the Dead Cow, organized criminal hacking, and Napster. Pulitzer co-finalist 2024. Signal joemenn.01
- Reposted by Joseph MennWOW. The Trump admin said they will review social media and deny immigration benefits to people saying antisemitic claims. They're even trying to deport people with green cards on alleged claims of antisemitism. Anyway, here's a tweet from an Afrikaner they flew here on Monday.
- Incredible. No notes.
- Reposted by Joseph MennThe worst happened. We were DOGE’d. Our NSF funding is gone. So now there’s nothing stopping me from sharing Expert Voices Together, a crisis response system for US-based researchers and journalists facing harassment. It's a true passion project. 🧵 1/ expertvoicestogether.org
- I spoke with Science about scholars—myself included—self-censoring. In my case, my team and I feared losing our NSF funding for Expert Voices Together (expertvoicestogether.org), a program, ironically, built to support researchers and journalists under attack. www.science.org/content/arti...
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- Reposted by Joseph MennMeta is bending over backwards to find reasons to argue it should not delete Kanye's Nazi song from Instagram reels, where it is thriving www.404media.co/kanyes-nazi-...
- Reposted by Joseph MennStarted / Going
- The revised edition of Cult of the Dead Cow is coming this December! New cover, new members, new urgency. Cow more than ever!
- Reposted by Joseph Menn#ICYMI: Records show that the 25-year-old DOGE engineer owned as much as $715K in stock in companies — including Tesla, Apple, Alphabet and Alibaba — on the CFPB’s “Prohibited Holdings” list for staffers to prevent conflicts of interest.
- Reposted by Joseph MennWe’re still trying to figure out why a library would need a “flying palace”
- Ok but it’s really a present for Christmas AND his birthday.
- Happy Mother’s Day to all, even the haters and the losers.
- Reposted by Joseph Menn/2 It’s important we get this right to assess accurately whether there are operational and command problems with the Navy and out of respect for hardworking naval personnel and for that workhorse of American air superiority, the F-18 Lemming.
- Reposted by Joseph MennToday, our client Rümeysa Öztürk was released on bail from ICE detention in Louisiana, and she will return to New England to continue her studies. 📸 Giancarlo D’Agostaro
- Reposted by Joseph Menn"His argument is factually and legally nuts, but it's worth explaining *why.*" www.stevevladeck.com/p/148-suspen...
- Thiel now trying to install his pick for vice Pope.
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- Reposted by Joseph Mennsee it's a regular pope but then you top it with yellow mustard, onions, relish, a dill spear, tomato slices, sport peppers, celery salt
- Not too late to dibs Pope George Ringo.
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- I keep telling people how dangerous my profession is. nypost.com/2025/05/07/m...
- Reposted by Joseph Mennomg she deleted this post on IG lmaooo
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- Reposted by Joseph Menngender reveal, the baby is goth
- BREAKING: Black smoke at Vatican, no pope elected www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...
- Reposted by Joseph MennExclusive: A series of internal government messages obtained by The Post reveal how U.S. embassies and the State Department have pushed nations to clear hurdles for U.S. satellite companies, often mentioning Starlink by name.
- Reposted by Joseph MennI don’t mean to alarm anyone, but the orcas now have two F/A-18 Hornets
- New from us at the Post: DOGE is ignoring privacy rules to pool data on Americans, exposing all to greater risk of hacking and political retribution. GIFT LINK: wapo.st/4iNmtLZ
- Reposted by Joseph Menn“A federal jury on Tuesday ordered the best-known maker of government spyware to pay a record-setting $167M for hacking more than 1,000 people through WhatsApp messages in a stunning cap to six years of litigation.” www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2... @washingtonpost.com @joemenn.bsky.social
- Reposted by Joseph MennI am a modded version of a messaging app, Signal I’ve conversations confidential, archival, and criminal I know the DoD guys, and I make their chats transmissible From Pentagon to Tel Aviv, data protection: minimal
- Despite misleading marketing, Israeli company TeleMessage, used by Trump officials, can access plaintext chat logs. My findings are based on TM SGNL's source code, and they are corroborated by hacked data micahflee.com/despite-misl...
- Reposted by Joseph MennNSO to pay almost 168 million in damages! Congrats to WhatsApp on this historic (yes, historic) jury verdict against NSO Group! This is also a win for all the researchers, advocates & victims who have been tirelessly exposing NSO's abuses & advocating for justice! www.accessnow.org/press-releas...
- Story updated with comment from Meta and NSO. Huge day in this long battle.
- In a stunning defeat for the #spyware industry, an Oakland jury has directed Pegasus maker NSO Group to pay Meta's WhatsApp $167 million in punitive damages for routing its attacks through the company's servers. GIFT LINK wapo.st/4jLGYKz
- I are confused
- Trump: "I could announce 50 to 100 deals right now because I'm the shopkeeper and I keep the store. I know what countries are looking for and I know what we're looking for and I can just set those terms and they can go shopping or they don't have to go shopping, because everybody wants to shop here"
- Reposted by Joseph Menn
- In a stunning defeat for the #spyware industry, an Oakland jury has directed Pegasus maker NSO Group to pay Meta's WhatsApp $167 million in punitive damages for routing its attacks through the company's servers. GIFT LINK wapo.st/4jLGYKz
- Reposted by Joseph MennTulsi Gabbard, the DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, used the same easily cracked password for different online accounts over a period of years, according to leaked records reviewed by WIRED scoop by @timmarchman.bsky.social www.wired.com/story/tulsi-...
- Gift link: wapo.st/4m39WqL
- NEW: Sen. Ron Wyden calls for Justice Dept. probe of White House message-archiving tool after two reported hacks of TeleMessage. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
- NEW: Sen. Ron Wyden calls for Justice Dept. probe of White House message-archiving tool after two reported hacks of TeleMessage. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
- Pro wrestling impresario would like to know where Harvard “students” come from and halts all grants.
- Reposted by Joseph MennNEW: TeleMessage, the Signal knockoff used by Mike Waltz and potentially other gov officials to archive group chats in plaintext, has suspended all services after it was hacked *at least twice.* @404media.co reported a hack last night; a different hacker also broke in and gave me evidence.
- San Francisco has changed. The developer is going to charge inmates 10k a month for a double bunk.
- The tool used by White House officials to archive Signal chats has been hacked by someone who acquired stored chats by other government officials. www.404media.co/the-signal-c...
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- Reposted by Joseph MennNothing important here. Just a publicly-traded company disclosing to investors that it’s attempting to bribe the President of the United States by buying his cryptocurrency in order to influence his trade policy.
- Reposted by Joseph MennSovereignty defeats Journalism is a bit on the nose.
- Hardcoded credentials in the Signal archiving tool used by the White House is a five-alarm security dumpster fire.
- The source code for the TM SGNL apps (basically a backdoored version of Signal used by Trump officials) is public! Since it's open source, I've pushed it to github for easier research micahflee.com/heres-the-so...
- Reposted by Joseph MennI've been traveling so forgive me for not posting this yesterday, but: That Signal clone app for archiving messages that Mike Waltz has been using, TeleMessage? It's unlicensed. Signal was unaware of its existence until they saw it in that Reuters photo. There's no known security vetting.
- Pretty much the plot of every teen slasher movie.
- Reposted by Joseph MennTwo airliners abandoned landing attempts at Washington’s Reagan National Airport on Thursday afternoon when an Army Black Hawk took a “scenic route” near the flight path and circled the Pentagon before landing at a military heliport.
- Reposted by Joseph MennBREAKING: A federal judge has permanently BLOCKED the entirety of Trump's executive order targeting the law firm Perkins Coie. Doc storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... Related coverage www.allrisenews.com/p/jenner-tru...
- Reposted by Joseph Mennwait, in the *palantir alum slack*
- NEW: A DOGE recruiter took to a Palantir alum Slack to say he's hiring for a "DOGE orthogonal" project that will use AI to "free up" tens of thousands of federal workers; he was met with emoji of clowns and a man licking a boot. This is by @carolinehaskins.bsky.social and @telliotter.bsky.social
- Reposted by Joseph MennNew - Trump plans major downsizing at U.S. spy agencies The CIA plans to cut 1,200 positions, along with thousands more from other parts of the U.S. intelligence community. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
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- Reposted by Joseph MennNew from 404 Media: Mike Waltz has inadvertently revealed the obscure app the government is using to archive Signal messages. Made by a company called TeleMessage. Use of the Signal clone raises questions about how messages being secured, what classification of info www.404media.co/mike-waltz-a...
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- Reposted by Joseph MennMark Zuckerberg says Meta's chatbots will supplement your real friends: "The average American has fewer than 3 friends ... but has demand for ... 15 friends" (h/t x.com/romanhelmetg...)
- Reposted by Joseph MennThis exchange is so very telling. Trump repeatedly claims the photoshopped MS-13 on Kilmar Abrego Garcia's knuckles is real, Terry Moran keeps telling him it isn't, prompting Trump to say this: "I never heard of you. I picked you. You’re not being very nice. He had MS-13 tattooed... Just say yes!"
- Reposted by Joseph MennExtremely good article describing Russia's brutal detention system – torturing people in various ways to extract forced confessions, described as "part of Russian war policy" www.washingtonpost.com/world/intera... Part of #ViktoriiaProject, see hashtag for more reporting
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- Reposted by Joseph MennIn the law firm executive order cases, DOJ takes the position that an injunction barring implementation will only be enforceable against the govt agencies named in the complaint. So Perkins Coie just amended its complaint to name all the relevant fed agencies. The case caption is now 40 pages long.
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- Reposted by Joseph MennNever seen anything like the power outage hitting Spain/Portugal right now. Regions of Spain, Portugal, France hit. Mayor of Madrid tells residents to stay home if they can. Traffic lights out. ATMs, too. Airports dark. "The interruption was due to a problem in the European electricity grid"
- Reposted by Joseph MennNew from 404 Media: the age of realtime deepfake fraud is here. Scammers in Nigeria are using realtime deepfakes to change their race, facial hair, gender, more to appear as someone else on video calls. Results very realistic now. Also tricking verification systems www.404media.co/the-age-of-r...
- Reposted by Joseph MennAnd now, a note on Bill Owens who, until this past week, was the executive producer of 60 Minutes. We’ll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.
- Well making it to Mars is also a desperate gamble, so www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
- Ukraine peace efforts fail as Trump posts “Vladimir, stop” instead of safe word.
- Former CISA Director Jen Easterly calls out the vast silence of cyber defenders after the executive order targeting her predecessor Chris Krebs and the unexplained firing of the NSA director. (From LinkedIn)
- I believe this is what they call a break glass moment. www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...
- Hope to meet some of you next week.
- Reposted by Joseph MennNew: We analyzed Trump's meme coin - At least 27 crypto wallets have picked up $100 million worth of $TRUMP coins since his team said the top holders would join him for an "intimate private dinner." Huge profit for Trump; "the most brazenly corrupt thing a President has ever done" wapo.st/4iAatO1
- Most transparent administration ever. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/t...
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- Best of intentions, I'm sure, but if you had to pick one administration to compile a list of autistic kids and Jewish professors, would it really be this one?
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