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So last week, I said "it's the last weekly roundup of 2025." But I was wrong, there was one more to be had! It's a miracle. On the podcast this week: Flock exposed a bunch of AI-powered cameras that zoom in on people as they walk by, and a recap of some of our biggest stories this year. In the section for subscribers at the Supporter level, some of our personal recommendations of what we’ve enjoyed this year. And in this week’s interview episode, Jason and Marisa Kabas share notes about doing journalism without a big newsroom, how the media business has changed over the last decade, and why sources often prefer to talk to journalists who don’t work for mainstream media. Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.
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For just a few more days you can buy a gift subscription for 25% off. Give the gift of 404 Media! WHEN YOU’VE BEEN BAD OR GOODFlock left livestreams and administrator control panels for at least 60 of its AI-enabled Condor cameras around the country exposed to the open internet, where anyone could watch them, download 30 days worth of video archive, and change settings, see log files, and run diagnostics. We watched Condor cameras zoom in on a woman walking her dog in a park in suburban Atlanta; a camera followed a man walking through a Macy’s parking lot in Bakersfield; surveil children swinging on a swing set at a playground; and film high-res video of people sitting at a stoplight in traffic. In one case, we were able to watch a man rollerblade down Brookhaven, Georgia’s Peachtree Creek Greenway bike path.  Gif via 404 Media NICE TRYArchivists saved and uploaded copies of the 60 Minutes episode new CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss ordered be shelved as a torrent and multiple file sharing sites after an international distributor aired the episode. The moves show how difficult it may be for CBS to stop the episode, which focused on the experience of Venezuelans deported to El Salvadorian mega prison CECOT, from spreading across the internet. Bari Weiss stopped the episode from being released Sunday even after the episode was reviewed and checked multiple times by the news outlet, according to an email CBS correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi sent to her colleagues.  Screenshot from The Free Press YouTube channel. RETRO IS THE FUTUREContributor Janus Rose writes: “There’s a genuine excitement in peoples’ expressions these days when I mention physical media. Lately I’ve been talking about the cheap walkman I bought on a recent trip to Tokyo, and the various little shops where I hunted for music on cassettes. Unlike in Europe and the US, physical media never went out of vogue in Japan, and many people still have a strong preference for shopping in-person. This made Tokyo the ideal place to rediscover my love of portable analog music... This kind of music discovery delights people when I describe it to them. Sometimes they start telling me about rediscovering their old CD collection, or wanting to track down an old iPod Classic to experience their music library away from the surveillance and excess of big tech platforms.”  Courtesy Janus Rose SOUNDS LIKE MY HOMETOWNScientists have discovered a hotspot of weird marine life more than two miles underwater in the Arctic, making it the deepest known example of an environment called a gas hydrate cold seep, according to a new study in Nature Communications. Researchers found the thriving ecosystem some 2.2 miles under the Greenland Sea using a remote operated vehicle during the Ocean Census Arctic Deep EXTREME24 expedition in 2024. Gas hydrate seeps are patches of seafloor that releases large amounts of gasses, such as methane; the newly discovered site is more than a mile deeper than any previously documented gas hydrate.  Image: UiT / Ocean Census / REV Ocean GETTIN’ SHREKXYContributor Matthew Gault writes: “I am starting to think I will never receive my personalized, likely AI-generated horny Shrek Christmas ornaments I purchased from Wear and Decor. I had hoped the indecent and probably unauthorized Shrek ornament depicting the green ogre getting a blowjob would arrive before Christmas and, ideally, before I traveled home for the holidays. I doubt that’s going to happen. I think I’ve been rooked. The ornament depicts Shrek, his eyes wide and a smile on his ogre lips, as a long haired Fiona descends upon his crotch. ‘Let’s get Shrekxy and save Santa the trip,’ reads a caption above the scene on the online retailer Wear and Decor read. There was space at the bottom where I could personalize the ornament with the name of myself and a loved one, as if to indicate that I was Shrek and that Fiona was my wife.”  Image via Wear and Decor. Replying to Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves, Andrew Brandt writes: “Feature creep in ALPRs, where the city or entity is sold one set of capabilities and then the company turns on a completely different and unexpected set of capabilities, is an argument that can be made to some elected officials they will listen to. Nobody likes the idea of being followed at all times. Yes, if cameras were everywhere, many more crimes of opportunity could be solved, but is a panopticon society one we want to live in? Was the TV show ‘Person of Interest’ a warning, or just another Torment Nexus that someone thought they could develop as a fun new product?”
And replying to Archivists Posted the 60 Minutes CECOT Segment Bari Weiss Killed, Chloe writes: “I truly cannot fathom how a journalist could look at all this horrifying footage from CECOT and decide not to go to air. Why did Weiss even become a journalist...? If she ever was, she's not anymore. Shameful.”
BEHIND THE BLOGThis 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 our recommendations for the year. SAM: Whenever we shout out a podcast, book, TV show, or other media or consumable product on our own podcast or in a Behind the Blog, you guys seem to enjoy it and want more. To be totally real with you, I get a ton of great recommendations from you, the readers and listeners, all year long and am always learning a lot from the things you throw in the comments around the site and on social media. The 404 Media community has good taste. We talked through some of our top recommendations of the year in this week’s podcast episode, but here’s a more complete list of what each of us has enjoyed this year, and thinks you might also find worth digging into. Read the rest of Sam's Behind the Blog, as well as Joseph, Jason, and Emanuel's, by becoming a paid subscriber.
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