The wrong machine
The weekend despatch: American companies, hired by the White House to break into computers overseas. Off Angola’s Lisima Plateau, a survey team’s palm-sized beetles and blue spiders. + Who is Rustie?
Developments
- The U.S. government has signed up private firms to hack criminal networks abroad. But how do you really know whose systems you’re breaking into?
- In Colombia, the last four people missing since the earthquake turn up alive, and the governor calls off the search. … In Ecuador, a gunman kills the prosecutor who was working on the drone attacks against three fishing boats. … & Biologists explore one of Africa’s last biological dark zones and find some 70 creatures science had no record of.
From the files
- How did a criminal industry worth tens of billions entrench itself in Cambodia? Jacob Sims on the nexus of organized crime and autocracy in Southeast Asia.
- Why do temperatures keep rising—even after they cool off? Rachel Cleetus on rising temperatures, billions in damages, and the climate’s uncertain future.
Features
- Why is the White House calling its political opponents “national security” threats? Andrew Preston on the 86-year history of a curious rationale.
Books
- Is Beijing right that electoral systems are for lesser nations? Dongxian Jiang, Why China Needs Democracy.
Music
- Who is Rustie?
- & New tracks from him, Overmono, FLO, Hana Stretton, & Roy Montgomery x Martha Skye Murphy.
+ Weather report
- A hurricane hits Hawaii’s Big Island for the first time in 150 years …
