News & Resources
Event Blog & Archives
Stay updated with all the latest news, insights, and highlights from our Divi event. Here, you’ll find in-depth articles, speaker spotlights, behind-the-scenes stories, and tips to help you make the most of your Divi experience.
CBP Security Breach: Facility Access Codes Exposed Through Public Study Platform
Sensitive CBP facility access codes and operational procedures were exposed through public Quizlet flashcards, highlighting vulnerabilities in government training protocols.
Cannabis Legalization: How America Reversed Decades of Prohibition
The legal status of cannabis in the United States has undergone one of the most dramatic policy reversals in modern American history. A plant that was classified alongside heroin as a Schedule I substance — officially deemed to have no accepted medical use and a high...
Power Grid Down Drill To Be Conducted By US Government
Power grid vulnerabilities are finally garnering some attention by government officials. An electrical grid joint drill simulation is being planned in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Thousands of utility workers, FBI agents, anti-terrorism experts, governmental...
Egyptian Sphinx of Mycerinus Unearthed in Ancient Israel
In the ruins of Tel Hazor, an ancient Canaanite city in northern Israel, archaeologists uncovered something that had no obvious reason to be there: the paws and inscribed base of a 4,000-year-old Egyptian sphinx bearing the name of Pharaoh Mycerinus, the ruler who...
Syria Chemical Weapons Debate: Intelligence Gaps and Doubt
The question of who was responsible for chemical weapons attacks during the Syrian civil war remains one of the most contested intelligence disputes of the 21st century. From the first allegations in 2013 through subsequent incidents, the official narratives presented...
Kerry and Assad: How US Allies Become Enemies Overnight
Few images capture the contradictions of American foreign policy more starkly than a senior U.S. official dining warmly with a foreign leader who would later be characterized as a monster deserving of military intervention. The arc of John Kerry’s relationship...
Augmented Reality for First Responders: Promise and Peril
When Google Glass launched, most coverage focused on consumer novelty — hands-free photos, glanceable notifications, and the social awkwardness of wearing a computer on your face. But behind the hype, a more serious application was taking shape: augmented reality...
How VR Heartbeat Sync Triggers Out-of-Body Experiences
The boundary between self and environment seems solid — until science finds a way to dissolve it. Researchers have discovered that synchronizing a virtual reality display with a person’s own heartbeat can reliably trigger out-of-body experiences, opening new...
Famous Geniuses and Their Drugs: From Freud to Steve Jobs
Throughout history, some of the most celebrated minds in science, technology, and mathematics have had well-documented relationships with psychoactive substances. While no responsible analysis would claim that drugs cause genius, the frequency with which brilliant...
How Your Cell Phone Tracks Every Move You Make
The mobile phone in your pocket is more than a communication device. It is a tracking beacon that broadcasts your location to cell towers, Wi-Fi networks, and potentially to anyone with the technical capability and legal authority — or lack thereof — to intercept that...
DARPA Brain Recorders in Classrooms: Neuroscience or Surveillance?
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has a long history of funding technologies that begin as military tools and gradually migrate into civilian life. When DARPA issued a solicitation calling for the development of a low-cost portable brain recording device...
California APPS Program: Inside the Gun Confiscation System
California pioneered one of the most aggressive gun confiscation programs in the United States with its Armed and Prohibited Persons System, known as APPS. The program cross-references firearm purchase records against databases of individuals who have become legally...
Spies Who Got Less Time Than Chelsea Manning
When Chelsea Manning received a 35-year prison sentence for leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, many observers noted a striking disparity: individuals convicted of deliberately selling secrets to hostile foreign governments had frequently received lighter...
Decoding NSA Doublespeak: What Officials Really Mean
Intelligence officials have developed a remarkable linguistic toolkit for discussing surveillance programs in ways that technically avoid outright lies while systematically misleading the public. Understanding this vocabulary of misdirection is essential for anyone...
Michael Hastings was afraid his car was tampered with
As details about journalist Michael Hastings’ death remain unanswered following the release of a coroner’s report, a neighbor says the late reporter was afraid to get in his own car hours before he died in high-speed crash June 18 in Hollywood. Hastings, 33, was...
GCHQ Destroyed Guardian Hard Drives to Suppress NSA Leaks
When British intelligence officials supervised the physical destruction of computer hard drives in the Guardian newspaper basement, they inadvertently created one of the most powerful illustrations of government overreach in the digital era. The episode revealed not...
Musharraf Indicted in Benazir Bhutto Assassination Case
The indictment of former Pakistani president and military ruler Pervez Musharraf in connection with the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto marked a watershed moment in Pakistani politics. For the first time, a former army chief faced criminal charges for acts...
Why the Guardian Destroyed Snowden Hard Drives for GCHQ
In the summer of 2013, a scene unfolded in the basement of the Guardian newspaper offices in London that would become one of the most striking symbols of the tension between press freedom and state power in the digital age. Under the watchful eyes of intelligence...
Facial Recognition Surveillance: How Governments Track You
Facial recognition technology has rapidly evolved from a speculative concept into one of the most powerful surveillance tools available to governments worldwide. What was once confined to science fiction is now deployed at airports, public events, street corners, and...
Princess Diana Death: SAS Soldier Allegation and the Conspiracy That Endures
In 2013, a new allegation emerged that reignited one of the most enduring conspiracy theories surrounding the British establishment: that the Special Air Service, Britain's elite special forces unit, was involved in the death of Princess Diana in 1997. The claim...
Obama Administration Controversies: Broken Promises and Executive Overreach
Every presidential administration generates controversy, but the Obama years produced a particularly extensive catalog of policy decisions, broken campaign promises, and executive actions that drew criticism from across the political spectrum. What made these...
YouTube Removed Press TV After ADL Lobbying: A Free Speech Case Study
In the summer of 2013, YouTube deactivated the official account of Press TV, the Iranian state-funded English-language news network, without providing a public explanation. The move came shortly after the Anti-Defamation League publicly stated that it had contacted...
NSA Dismisses Thousands of Privacy Violations as Minuscule Errors
Following the explosive revelation that the National Security Agency had committed 2,776 privacy violations in a single year, the agency mounted a public defense that relied heavily on minimization — arguing that the number of errors was trivial compared to the vast...
Why Bugging Out to the Woods Will Likely Get You Killed
Among the most persistent fantasies in the preparedness community is the idea that when society collapses, a person can simply grab a bag, head for the nearest forest, and live off the land indefinitely. This plan is so deeply embedded in survivalist culture that it...
Why Sen. Feinstein Is Wrong About Who’s a “Real Reporter”
The very fact that developing a crisp, clear definition of journalist is difficult should signal to Congress that it might not be equipped to wade into the uncharted waters of deciding who is a journalist. EFF August 9, 2013 During the Senate Judiciary Committee’s...
TSA VIPR Teams: How Suspicionless Searches Spread Beyond Airports
The Transportation Security Administration, an agency most Americans associate with airport screening lines, quietly expanded its operations far beyond terminal checkpoints in the years following its creation. Through its Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response...
Anonymous is not anonymous
A good friend emailed me the other day to ask if I thought using Tor's network and software is truly as secure as everyone thinks. My immediate reply was no, I don't think Tor or any other so-called anonymizing service is truly secure. If you want absolutely...
John Kerry: ‘This Little Thing Called the Internet … Makes It Much Harder to Govern’
Speaking to State Department personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia, Brazil, on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry said that “this little thing called the Internet … makes it much harder to govern.” He also said that “ever since the end of the Cold War, forces...
Lavabit Shutdown: The Email Provider Who Chose Prison Over Surveillance
In August 2013, Ladar Levison made a decision that would define his career and become a landmark moment in the fight for digital privacy. Rather than comply with a secret government surveillance order, Levison shut down Lavabit, the encrypted email service he had...
The Man Who Rewrote His Credit Card Contract and Beat the Bank
In a case that delighted consumer advocates and frustrated corporate lawyers in equal measure, a Russian man turned the tables on a major bank by rewriting the terms of a credit card agreement — and getting the bank to sign it without reading. The story became an...