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A Brooklyn man is heading to federal prison for twelve years after orchestrating a Coinbase phishing scheme that netted him sixteen million dollars. He convinced roughly one hundred victims across the country that their accounts had been compromised, then walked away with their funds. It's a reminder that social engineering remains one of the most effective tools in a fraudster's kit.
Turning to the question of artificial intelligence and accountability, the BBC is asking whether big tech has quietly slipped back into its move fast and break things mindset. Despite very public pledges around AI safety, examples of chatbots and automated systems behaving badly are arriving faster than companies can explain them away. The gap between promise and product is widening, and users are noticing.
And in a story that tells you something about where the ad economy is heading, Meta's advertising platform was used to funnel Polish Android users toward malicious apps on Google Play. Poland's computer emergency response team documented over twelve hundred paid Meta ads tied to a toll fraud operation, with nearly nine hundred of them promoting apps designed to quietly drain money from users' phone bills. Six apps contained confirmed fraud components.
That's where things stand today. Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
