We’re in Denial About the True Cost of a Twitter Implosion
Think of how devastating it was to the anti-vax influencers Alex Berenson and Robert Malone to be kicked off Twitter. They happened to be grifters. But if Twitter died, that…
Winging It: Inside Amazon’s Quest to Seize the Skies
Two former air employees recall items flying from Seattle to the Cincinnati hub, then back west to Portland—a two-and-a-half hour drive from its northern neighbor. While Amazon says it uses…
The Hunt for the Dark Web’s Biggest Kingpin, Part 6: Endgame
The direct ripple effects of that explosion of incriminating data, passed through so many institutions’ records, aren’t easy to track. But over the following years, Grant Rabenn, who served as…
The Hunt for the Dark Web’s Biggest Kingpin, Part 5: Takedown
Rabenn remembers the atmosphere of that war room as more dead silence and sweaty, anxious tension than eagerness or anticipation. He knew the possibility of achieving a Ross Ulbricht–style arrest…
Picture Limitless Creativity at Your Fingertips
Picture Lee Unkrich, one of Pixar’s most distinguished animators, as a seventh grader. He’s staring at an image of a train locomotive on the screen of his school’s first computer.…
The Hunt for the Dark Web’s Biggest Kingpin, Part 4: Face to Face
The FBI agent, thinking quickly, avoided eye contact with Cazes and walked directly past him to the door. In the seconds it took for Cazes to cross the room, seemingly…
The Big Fight Over 403 Very Small Wasps
the bottle held a thin broth, light brown, with some uncertain chunks of dark matter bobbing on top—a soup, maybe, but one that you’d never want to eat. Once it…
The Hunt for the Dark Web’s Biggest Kingpin, Part 3: Alpha Male
CHAPTER 6 RAWMEO By March 2017, the always aggressive Fresno prosecutor Grant Rabenn was ready to charge Alexandre Cazes with running AlphaBay. But his more cautious colleague Paul Hemesath wanted…
Inside Meta’s Oversight Board: 2 Years of Pushing Limits
Ultimately, the issue came up in a March 2022 meeting with Clegg, who seemed taken aback by the board members’ frustration. He promised to break the logjam, and a few…
The Hunt for the Dark Web’s Biggest Kingpin, Part 2: Pimp_alex_91
That legal request took weeks to bear fruit. Finally, one evening in the early weeks of January 2017, Ali was in the middle of a law school night class when…