Silicon Valley’s titans have decided that ruling the digital world is not enough.

Trey Goff, the chief of staff of the startup nation known as Próspera, tells WIRED that he and other Próspera representatives working under an advocacy group called the Freedom Cities Coalition have been meeting with the Trump administration about the idea in recent weeks. He claims the administration has been very receptive. In 2023, Trump floated the idea of creating 10 freedom cities. Now, Goff says that Próspera’s vision is to create “not just 10, but as many as the market can handle.”

Recent incidents indicate US is no longer characterizing Russia as a cybersecurity threat, marking a radical departure: ‘Putin is on the inside now’

A federal law enforcement source warns that monitoring could theoretically be used to gather political intelligence on federal employees, while the administration looks for more palatable reasons to terminate them later; similar to how law enforcement may obtain evidence that's inadmissible in the course of a criminal investigation, but then search for another evidentiary basis to file charges.

...Congress is baffled as to why Musk is doing all of this, and what he possibly wants from access to sensitive data including US Treasury records on social security numbers, bank routing and account numbers, healthcare data, and Department of Energy information on nuclear weapons. He has given free rein to a group of 20-ish boys — tech enthusiasts with no training or relevant experience — so they can “improve” things and harvest information.

Memo details how Elon Musk has orchestrated a stunning takeover of the U.S. government

Teams of young tech operatives are systematically dismantling democratic institutions and replacing them with proprietary artificial intelligence systems. Civil servants who raise legal objections are being removed. Government databases are being migrated to private servers. Decision-making power is being transferred from elected officials and career bureaucrats to algorithms controlled by a small network of Silicon Valley elites.

Certainly, people can debate policy issues and the virtues of candidates, but fact-checking is another matter. There is such a thing as truth.

Independent Russian media in exile are a vital line of defence against the Kremlin’s massive digital censorship project, which has an estimated budget of nearly 630 million euros, according to the latest report by The Fix and the JX Fund. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) urges European states, international donors, and tech giants to step up their support for these media outlets as they face unprecedented repression and major logistical, financial, and security challenges.

Hundreds of thousands of posts lauding Mr. Trump’s victory filled Truth Social, the social platform that the president-elect owns. Speculation about what the new administration would accomplish ran rampant on X, which is owned by Elon Musk. Gab, Parler and other right-wing social media sites were flooded with thousands of memes glorifying Mr. Trump.

The destabilisation in our information system that we woke up to in 2016 has now entered a wholly dangerous new reality: the merger of Silicon Valley and an authoritarian US state.

Digital security is as much of a mindset as it is a toolkit, and there are concepts to consider regardless of whether you're first getting started or you're a seasoned veteran. Before you start seeking out solutions, take a minute to step back and consider the whole picture of what you're trying to accomplish.

If people are naturally drawn to the image of human rights, to the language of democracy, to the dream of freedom, then those concepts have to be poisoned.

In Yanis Varoufakis’ latest book, the former Greek finance minister argues that companies like Apple and Meta have treated their users like modern-day serfs.

In an excerpt from his new book, The End of Reality, the author warns about the curses of AI and transhumanism, presenting the moral case against superintelligence.