As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran continues, we look at how the Pentagon is using artificial intelligence in its operations. The system, known as Project Maven, relies on technology by Palantir and also incorporates the AI model Claude built by Anthropic. Israel has used similar AI targeting programs in Iran, as well as in Gaza and Lebanon.

Craig Jones, an expert on modern warfare, says AI technology is helping militaries speed up the “kill chain,” the process of identifying, approving and striking targets. “You’re reducing a massive human workload of tens of thousands of hours into seconds and minutes. You’re reducing workflows, and you’re automating human-made targeting decisions in ways which open up all kinds of problematic legal, ethical and political questions,” says Jones.

A tragic story has emerged from northern Israel that combines shocking allegations, powerful families, and claims of online censorship. Shoshana Strook, 34, daughter of Israeli National Missions Minister Orit Strook, was found dead in her home after publicly accusing her parents and brother of sexual and ritual abuse dating back to her early childhood.

The claims, including alleged trafficking and involvement in so-called paedophile ceremonies, have ignited debates online as reports and social media posts appear to vanish from Google searches.

As her story spread online, users reported that news about Shoshana was being scrubbed or buried. Social media platforms and search engines appeared to remove or downrank posts, leading to speculation about deliberate censorship. Comments across forums highlighted comparisons to high-profile abuse cases elsewhere, pointing to elite networks and abuse cover-ups.

Security researchers had publicly documented the network behind it in October 2024, and Microsoft removed the Edge version in February 2025, stating that it was "malware." Meanwhile, Google didn't remove the extension until March 2026, months after it had been running malicious code on over a million browsers.

What do you think about Ecosia? I have a habit of using Ecosia as the default search engine. And I do this because a while ago I was looking for a private and ethical alternative to Google.

In my view, Ecosia is a very ethical organization committed to its mission of acquiring money to finance natural restoration projects. I admit that I haven't looked into it in depth so far, but they have a habit of releasing transparency reports.

The problem, if you can call it that, is that Ecosia isn't very private, since it sends data to Bing to make it work. However, I think there's good reason to trust the Ecosia organization even with this. After all, in their marketing, they're concerned about creating a private search engine, or at least collecting only minimal data. So maybe it's not so private now, but and in the future?

They have already shown themselves to be committed to their mission and that is why I trust them.

Not sure if it fits here, but I found no community that distinctly focuses on phone repair/data extraction. I hope this is fine.

Recently, my phone's display died. I am trying to save the data.

I bought a more advanced OTG hub that should allow connecting the mouse and an external display. It also has a USB-C power input so the phone doesn’t have to power everything itself. The phone is connected to the hub via USB-C as well.

However, I haven’t even managed to get that setup working with my current phone (CMF Phone 2 Pro). I enabled the “Improve OTG Compatibility” option, but the hub still doesn’t appear to work, even though it’s advertised as being compatible with smartphones and other OTG devices: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GD7G9HS9

At this point I’m unsure whether the problem is me, the adapter, or possibly an issue with the display I’m trying to use (though the display works fine with other devices).

Any ideas? If OTG is not the right way, I am open for other suggestions. I am not really interested in repairing the phone, I just need the data.

EDIT Why Otg?: I thought of OTG for data extraction, because attaching a display and a mouse should enable me to use the phone again assuming that it is just the display that is broken. In order to verify my correct OTG setup, I attempted it first with my working phone which did not work.

The Washington, DC-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH) said it tracked posts that explicitly dehumanised, excluded, and incited violence against Muslims from 1 January to 5 March.

On the day the war began, the volume of such posts surged from just under 2,000 per day to more than 6,000, the report said. "Reposts dramatically amplify the visibility of harmful content, allowing it to spread far beyond the original accounts that generated it."

With reposts included, "the total mention volume of Islamophobic content rises to 279,417, representing an 11-fold amplification of the harmful original posts".

The content examined by CSOH encompassed a wide swath that included everything from personal hate-fuelled opinions to calls for lawmakers to institute strict anti-Muslim policy, including a "Muslim Exclusion Act" and the deportation of all Muslims.

An investigation into the AI bots that appeared on Reddit after they partnered with OpenAI.

Key points:

• The bots post a lot of links to products and services which appear to be adverts but are not marked as such.
• Many of these links are for Sam Altman's World ID.
• Reddit added terms on AI advertising to their business page around the time the bots appeared.
• The bots also make up stories about dead mothers, depression, drug addiction, eating disorders, medical conditions and mental health issues.