WIRED has always been a publication about the future—about the forces shaping it, and the shape we’d like it to take. Sometimes, for us, that means being wild-eyed optimists, envisioning the scenarios that excite us most. And sometimes that means taking pains to envision futures that we really, really want to avoid. By giving clarity […]
The third update was most puzzling of all. The controls of the F-35, the one whose flight had brought Chowdhury into the Situation Room early that snowy Monday morning, had locked up. The pilot was working through every contingency, but at this moment, he was no longer in control of his aircraft. “If the pilot […]
Kim Jong-un acted quickly. On January 22, 2020, North Korea closed its borders with China and Russia to stop a new, mysterious virus from spreading into the country. At the time, what we now know as Covid-19, had killed just nine people and infected 400 others. More than a year later, the hermit kingdom’s border […]
In September of 2016, on a Hofstra University debate stage, journalist Lester Holt asked presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump how they’d improve American cybersecurity. When it came Trump’s turn to answer, he let loose a torrent of barely connected ideas about “the cyber.” The stream of consciousness started with how many admirals had […]
On Wednesday, I hosted a discussion with former secretary of defense Ashton Carter, who is now the director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. The conversation was part of WIRED’s CES programming, which tackled the biggest trends that will shape 2021, from medicine to autonomous driving to […]
They came prepared for war. Leroy Coffman parked his Red GMC Sierra pickup truck a stone’s throw from the US Capitol building at 9:15 am on January 6. Inside the truck, legal documents allege, were 11 Molotov cocktails containing a napalm substance, a handgun, shotgun, rifle, crossbow with bolts, several machetes, camouflage smoke devices, and […]
Still, Stalinsky said he comes down on the “take it down” side when it comes to violent extremism. His perspective was forged by years of monitoring activity by Islamic terrorists. The Islamic State, in particular, became notorious for its strategic use of social media in the 2010s. “This might sound crazy, but if it were […]
Our work on Rumor Control didn’t just start the week or two before the election. The preparation, the due diligence, the discipline that we developed was three-and-a-half to four years in the making. And so when that bad day came that all this disinfo was popping up, we were ready to go. Although again, when […]
1. ‘Our Numbers Grow Every Year’ On a misty November morning just after sunrise, I pulled up to a shooting range in central Texas with a borrowed AR-15 and a few hundred rounds of dubious-quality Russian ammunition that I’d ordered over the internet. I followed a pickup down a gravel road and over two cattle […]
In the aftermath of destructive riots that trashed the United States Capitol on Wednesday, the nation is grappling with questions about the stability and trajectory of US democracy. But inside the Capitol building itself, the congressional support staff is dealing with more immediate logistics, like cleanup and repairs. A crucial part of that: the process […]