Put the gift card down. There's a new kid on the block to solve your gift-giving woes: enter the subscription box. Here are some of our favorite options for gifting. If you buy something using our links, WIRED may earn a commission.wired.trib.al/Bek9vZj 1/8
For the plant Mom in your friend group, we recommend the Horti Plant Subscription. Each box comes with one plant, a puck of potting soil, and tips and advice for caring for them. 📸: Horti wired.trib.al/oUiVHjT 2/8
Add a dash of hocus pocus to the festive season with a Goddess Provisions box. It includes five to seven products, like crystals and other ritual tools. Your witchy (vegan, cruelty-free) loving friends will be spellbound. 📸: Goddess Provisions wired.trib.al/v3HeUFc 3/8
The way to someone's heart is always through their stomach; this year score points with the Universal Yums Snack Box. It includes food from a different country each month and a booklet with trivia and games. 📸: Universal Yums wired.trib.al/i99lVfE 4/8
Give me coffee, or give me death! Possibly a touch extreme, but if you’re buying for an ardent caffeine consumer, then look no further than a Mistobox Coffee Subscription.📸: Mistobox wired.trib.al/Gzu0PBT 5/8
For the logophile in your life, sign them up for a Book of the month subscription. Each month there are five new books to choose from. The base subscription cost covers one book, but you can add additional books. 📸: Book of the month wired.trib.al/ArF7yn3 6/8
The holidays are for everyone, including your pets. So, why not treat your favorite member of the household (don’t lie) to a special something. We recommend the Barkbox for canine companions. 📸: Barkbox wired.trib.al/C6UQkeR 7/8
Subscribe to WIRED for less than $1 per month and get unlimited access to our longform features, buying guides, and tech news wired.trib.al/VvH7v7p 8/8
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DOGE is knitting together data from the Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration, and IRS that could create a surveillance tool of unprecedented scope. wired.com/story/doge-col…
The scale at which DOGE is seeking to interconnect data, including sensitive biometric data, has never been done before, raising alarms with experts who fear it may lead to disastrous privacy violations. wired.com/story/doge-col…
“They are trying to amass a huge amount of data,” a senior DHS official tells WIRED. “It has nothing to do with finding fraud or wasteful spending … They are already cross-referencing immigration with SSA and IRS as well as voter data.” wired.com/story/doge-col…
American police are spending hundreds of thousands on Massive Blue’s unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on “college protesters,” “radicalized” political activists, and suspected traffickers.
Massive Blue calls its product Overwatch, which it markets as an “AI-powered force multiplier for public safety” that “deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and engage criminal networks across various channels.”
404 Media obtained a presentation showing some of these AI characters. These include a “radicalized AI” “protest persona,” which poses as a 36-year-old divorced woman who is lonely, has no children, is interested in baking, activism, and “body positivity.”
The audit covers DOGE’s handling of data at several Cabinet-level agencies, including:
–the Departments of Labor, Education, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services
–the Treasury
–the Social Security Administration
–the US DOGE Service (USDS) itself wired.com/story/gao-audi…
It's being carried out after congressional leaders’ requests and is centered on DOGE’s adherence to privacy and data protection laws and regulations.
A Congressional aide said the requests followed media reports on DOGE’s incursions into federal systems. wired.com/story/gao-audi…
Dozens of federal employees tell WIRED that Trump's federal return to office order has resulted in chaos (including bad Wi-Fi and no toilet paper), with productivity plummeting and public services suffering. wired.com/story/federal-…
One effect of all this, many federal employees tell WIRED, is that they are travelling long distances in order to spend all of their time in virtual meetings.
A Treasury employee says they spend most of their time at the office on video calls as well. wired.com/story/federal-…
It isn’t just traveling to work to sit on Zoom calls—it’s that there may be no place to take the call, or no working internet to connect to it.
WIRED granted employees anonymity to speak freely about their experiences. wired.com/story/federal-…
SCOOP: Elon Musk’s DOGE has plans to stage a “hackathon” next week in Washington, DC. The goal is to create a single “mega API”—a bridge that lets software systems talk to one another—for accessing IRS data, sources tell WIRED. wired.com/story/doge-hac…
DOGE ops have repeatedly referred to the company Palantir as a possible partner in the project, sources tell WIRED.
SCOOP: Shortly after senior Trump officials discussed the bombing of Yemen in a Signal group chat that just happened to include the Atlantic's editor in chief, a subset of the group feasted at a secret dinner featuring Trump where guests were asked to pay $1 million apiece to join. wired.com/story/trump-of…
The date was Saturday, March 15. President Donald Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago estate attending a “candlelight” dinner that wasn’t on his public calendar. On the lawn outside, luxury cars were on display: a Rolls Royce was parked near a Bugatti and Lamborghini.
Earlier that day, the United States had bombed Yemen, targeting Houthi leadership. At least 53 people, including children, were killed.