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Friday again??? Well, yes. Time for the weekly roundup! On this week’s podcast: Joseph and I discuss how a group of friends with some very specific skills hunted down a wanted sex trafficking ringleader. First we give you all the context for why Michael Pratt eventually ended up on the FBI's Most Wanted list, then we break down the hunt for Pratt, told through the eyes of the people who were there. In the subscribers-only section, Joseph explains how and why hackers are "Airbnb hopping." Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism. Have you gotten your tickets to our first anniversary party yet? It’s so soon and we’re so excited! Details here.  Illustration by Michelle Urra ‘LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND SAY MOIST THREE TIMES’Michael Pratt hid a massive sex trafficking ring called Girls Do Porn in plain sight on PornHub. I wrote about how Pratt went on the run from the FBI, and an unexpected crew of ex-military, ex-intelligence officers and a lawyer tracked him down using his love of rare sneakers and crypto. For the first time, the entire group tells their story—which involves rare Jordans, late nights at the club, and Redbull-Henny cocktails. DO NOT DISTURBSecurity at one Las Vegas hotel where many DEF CON attendees are staying is searching rooms specifically for hacker tools such as Flipper Zeroes, WiFi Pineapples, and soldering kits, according to a copy of security’s instructions. Joseph explains how a document provides more specifics on what security at Resorts World see as potentially damaging items. I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOUI spent some time gazing into internet strangers’ eyes on Eyechat, a video chatting service by developer Neal Agarwal that focuses only on the peepers. “I’ve always loved experimenting with ways of connecting strangers on the internet in ways that might feel a little awkward,” Agarwal told me. “When Omegle shut down, I started to wonder what the minimum amount of video contact was that would still feel meaningful.” TRACKI-NOA set of credentials related to the GPS tracking company Trackimo let a hacker access an internal troubleshooting tool and retrieve customers’ recent locations, Joseph wrote. Trackimo sells a GPS tracker that it says can be used for keeping tabs on family members, pets, vehicles, or expensive equipment, and the hacker said they gained access to Trackimo’s internal support system, found an email that included the password for the troubleshooting tool, and then used that to search for their own device and others. READ MOREResponding to “DEF CON Badge Maker Pulled Off Stage Amid Claims of Non-Payment and Failed Work,” Nathan Buuck wrote: "DEF CON says the developers ... included unauthorized code." The irony is delightful 🤣.
And commenting on “'She Turned Ghost White:' How a Ragtag Group of Friends Tracked Down a Sex Trafficking Ringleader,” Louis Klieger observed: “The consistent focus on Michael Pratt's gross and terrible smell really brings the whole picture together of just how gross and terrible the entire story is. Excellent writing, Sam.”
Moist! Moist! Moist! 
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss LLMs and languages, and a big data breach. JASON: As has been mentioned many times, I’ve been on vacation the last week, which has been amazing and very much needed. I’m popping in because I believe this is technically the last behind the blog before our one year anniversary, and wanted to just say again that we are endlessly thankful for all of the support you’ve given us. I am also grateful to Joseph and Sam for keeping the lights on this week; I have barely looked at the internet in like nine days. I do have a real behind the blog before I get into the sappy stuff. I wanted to talk briefly about how I did the reporting on my latest Facebook AI slop story, in which I found a lot of the people who are making bizarre AI on Facebook. Specifically, I wanted to talk about how I parsed a bunch of instructional videos in Hindi, Urdu, and Vietnamese, all of which are languages I do not speak. I probably watched about 10 hours of videos in Hindi for this article, and quickly scanned through dozens of videos that were much longer than that in total. Read the rest of Jason's Behind the Blog, as well as Joseph and Sam's, by becoming a paid subscriber.
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