Huge Data Breach Leaves F.B.I. Scrambling, and Russian Attacks Destroy Millions of Books

From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Traci Mumford. Today's Tuesday, September 29th. Here's what we're covering. The FBI is scrambling to protect its staff after a criminal hacking group carried out what may be one of the worst breaches of sensitive government information in U.S. history. The group, known as Shiny Hunters, said it stole personal data on thousands of FBI staffers. And the bureau has sent out an internal memo saying it believes that every single employee may have had their data compromised. This hacking group has shared with The New York Times, among other news organizations, what they say is a sample of the data they got. And we can see names, dates of birth, social security numbers, home addresses, phone numbers. Spouses, their contact information, even numbers that are used for TSA pre-check flight boarding purposes, the whole digital life, therefore, of all these employees. My colleague Charlie Savage covers national security. Some of them have quite sensitive roles. They are listed in here as working on national security wiretapping or counter espionage, targeting Russia or China or. Big narcotics investigations that would involve dangerous cartels. And so this has several implications. And it's causing people who work in the FBI to freak out, quite understandably. The most obvious one is that if this were to become public, people fear that people that they arrested or are mad at them for some investigative activity could show up at their house, meaning to do harm to them or their families. Charlie says what matters most is what happens to them. And he says what matters most is what happens to the data next. The hacking group has said it has no plans to release it. But security experts worry it could end up in the hands of foreign governments or criminal groups who could use it to piece together the identity of undercover agents, putting them and larger FBI operations at risk. Before this breach, Shiny Hunters was best known as a group of highly skilled, English-speaking hackers who extort their victims for millions of dollars and brag about their exploits. The group has said it hacked the FBI as retribution for a public advisory the Bureau put out, claiming Shiny Hunters harassed and threatened its victims. The group has demanded that the FBI, quote, correct or simply remove the advisory. For its part, the Bureau said in a statement yesterday that it's, quote, working around the clock to investigate the cyber incident. And it's told employees to remain vigilant at work and at home. In the Middle East, new data shows that the amount of oil getting out through the Strait of Hormuz rose sharply this month, in what some experts say may be a sign Iran is losing its grip on the waterway. According to data from the tracking firm Kepler, about six million barrels were getting out a day in August, and that number jumped to roughly 10 million barrels a day in September. While that's still well-known, it's not clear how many barrels will be getting out in August. Well, below the roughly 16 million barrels a day that were getting out before the war, it's a significant sign of recovery. For the record, tracking the exact number of tankers can be difficult, since most of the ships turn off their transponders when they're going through the Strait to avoid being spotted by Iranian forces. The uptick in shipping traffic appears to have been encouraged by the U.S. military operation aimed at protecting tankers in the Strait. The U.S. has been using ships, helicopters, and planes to intercept Iranian attacks on boats carrying oil and gas. According to U.S. Central Command, the military has helped over 1,000 ships transit the Strait. But experts say that military protection requires significant resources and will be hard to maintain indefinitely. And they warn that Iran could still step up its attacks on ships and other energy infrastructure at any moment. As for what this all means, gas prices continue to be way above pre-war levels, since global demand is still higher than the supply. In Kyiv yesterday, a terrifying scene played out as a Russian drone smashed into the National Academy of Sciences in the middle of the workday. Videos showed the top two floors on fire, forcing people to crawl out of the windows as thick black smoke billowed around them. At least two people were killed. The institution is the heart of scientific research in Ukraine. It's responsible for nearly all the country's major scientific discoveries. And my colleague Kim Barker, who's based in Kyiv, says it's just the latest example of Russia striking a symbol of culture and education in the city. Recently, I walked through a book market in Kyiv that had been completely destroyed by a ballistic missile. It was just burnt books everywhere. And then I also went to a printing press that had been hit by a ballistic missile and, you know, hole in the ceiling, smelling like that burnt smell, burnt paper. Kim says in the last few months alone, Russian attacks have destroyed as many as 15 million books. By one count, that's half of all the books the country puts out each year. And she says watching all of that burn has really struck a nerve for people. A lot of what was destroyed was new books and a lot of textbooks written in Ukrainian, not in Russian, the language the Kremlin has tried to push on the country for decades. It's really only been since the full-scale invasion in early 2022 that Ukraine has said, no, new books are going to be published in Ukrainian. All learning is going to happen in the Ukrainian language. Even older folks who didn't speak Ukrainian have been learning Ukrainian. So the idea of like burning all these books and coming after all these new books in particular, people find it an attack on their language, on their culture, on learning, and on all the attempts that they've made to get out from underfoot of Russia and Russia's attempt to make people here speak the Russian language. About a decade ago, some revolutionary technology rolled out that made driving at night a totally different experience, except if you were in the U.S. In a lot of other countries, smart headlights hit the market that were capable of adapting much quicker than just you trying to flip your high beams on and off. Technically called adaptive driving beam headlights, they work by using GPS, cameras, and other sensors to adjust dozens of individually controlled LEDs that basically change the shape of the light on the road ahead of you, depending on the situation. For example, if you're coming up behind someone on a narrow two-lane highway, the system can prevent your lights from beaming onto the other driver's rearview mirror while still keeping the road around the other car lit up. At one point, a study from AAA found that widespread adoption of these headlights could prevent thousands of crashes a year. The federal government finally approved them for the U.S. a few years ago, though it's taken until now for automakers to start putting them on the market in a meaningful way. A growing number of brands have them on newer models, including Rivian, Audi, Tesla, and Volvo. Going forward, as more ADB headlights hit the road, one expert said he thinks drivers will notice a big difference, saying, quote, you'll no longer have to look off at a tree to save your vision because someone has coming toward you with their high beams on. And finally, there's been a hiring spree in the world of AI recently, with companies snapping people up, some with eye-popping offers. But what does everybody do at those companies? There was a time when you'd see software engineer, project manager, or chief technical officer listed on LinkedIn. If you look now, chances are you'll see something a lot more vague. Member of the technical staff. According to an analysis by Stanford University researchers, a staggering number of employees at tech giants are using that title on LinkedIn. 31% at OpenAI and 39% at Anthropic. Microsoft and XAI have plenty of members of the technical staff, too. In terms of the number of employees, there's a lot of people who are using that title at LinkedIn. But in terms of what's behind the ambiguity, there's several possible motivations. Keeping it general can keep competitors in the dark about a company's true structure. There's also the idea it can build a kind of camaraderie, we're all in this together vibe, by not focusing on rank. And then there's the idea that it plays into the company's public image, as innovation-focused, not profit-focused, even as they gear up for multi-billion-dollar public offerings. One Silicon Valley historian said it helps avoid sounding businessy, just like calling your huge tech company. a lab. Those are the headlines, but we've got a special bonus episode for you today, a deep dive Q&A on all things AI, where we answer questions that you sent us about the technology. You can find that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.