Forbes - Welcome To The Wiretap

Plus: Border Patrol Spent $2 Million On Google Maps For A Massive Surveillance Tool

Welcome to Forbes’ The Wiretap newsletter. I’m Thomas Brewster, associate editor. We’re going to be keeping you abreast of all the most exciting, worrying and important stories across cybersecurity, privacy and surveillance. Concerned about Russian spies breaking into your inbox or causing carnage at power stations? Anxious that Facebook knows too much about you? Fascinated by digital crime and mega hacks? Whether you’re a CIO or an average Joe, we’ve got you covered, not just from Forbes’ own coverage, but from across the web. This is your one-stop-shop for everything cyber.

Must Reads

Apple and Google were ordered by the U. S. government to hand over names, phone numbers and IP addresses of thousands of gun scope owners who were using a single app. It was an unprecedented move at the time and remains so.

This wild investigation looks into Vince Ramos, who wanted Phantom Secure to be “the Uber of privacy-focused, luxury-branded phones,” but then the FBI started investigating him, writes Joseph Cox.

Andy Greenberg tells the story of Sandworm, a Kremlin-backed hacking group responsible for some of the most devastating cyber attacks in history.

The FBI has been ordering Sabre, a huge company sitting on much of the world’s travel booking information, to do “real-time” surveillance of suspects. The surveillance tool was previously unknown until this exclusive story revealed what’s been happening in secret for years.

Kashmir Hill lifts the lid on Clearview, a facial recognition company that has scoured the web for billions of face images to help cops catch criminals. Funded by Peter Thiel, Clearview was seen as a real threat to privacy, even if it’d proven useful for police.

What To Watch