This exposes a booming, organized industry of literary scams that lure authors with flattering outreach - fake book clubs, phony agent and publisher offers, and bogus book-to-film deals - then ask for modest-sounding fees. It opens with an author's encounter: a purported Seattle life-drawing group invited her to a Zoom discussion, then asked for a “contribution fee,” used mixed identities and what looked like AI prompts, and hosted participants whose voices and profiles didn’t match. Many authors receive similar pitches that sound carefully tailored, often promising Goodreads clout, reviews, or media placements; some fall for amounts ranging from roughly $55-$350 up to several hundred dollars more.
The investigation shows this is not amateur predation but a global, corporate-style operation. A high-profile PageTurner scheme defrauded more than 800 writers of about $48 million, with funds laundered through the Philippines; individual losses include hundreds of thousands. Watchdogs document scams routed through Nigerian and Pakistani intermediaries, detailed spreadsheets tracking outreach and outcomes (one titled “LinkedIn Outreach 2026” listed 403 targets), and payment trails via PayPal to third parties. Scammers exploit authors’ desire for recognition and retirement savings, use AI to personalize praise, and run departments with deliverables, salaries and reporting - making literary fraud a lucrative, sophisticated threat that major writers’ organizations are now warning about.
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A PHP vulnerability currently has no working exploit, despite many fake PoCs circulating online. LLMs have falsely been portrayed as able to develop exploits, but practical testing shows no effective attack exists yet. (eliastaylor.com)
The Trump administration denaturalized two individuals who obtained U.S. citizenship by hiding their criminal activities. The move aims to revoke citizenship from those who gained it through fraudulent means. (justice.gov)
Meta's new enterprise terms state that if its AI makes a mistake, the customer is legally responsible. The terms also expand liability to content from partners and give Meta rights to scrape and use user content. (cio.com)
A vulnerability in HTTP/3 implementations allows remote clients to cause servers to allocate excessive memory by exploiting QPACK header compression. Seven of ten tested implementations are vulnerable, with some already patched to prevent resource exhaustion. (foxio.io)
Oracle has issued a security alert for CVE-2026-91403, affecting multiple Java and GraalVM products. Patches are available for supported versions, and Oracle recommends upgrading to ensure security. (oracle.com)
Help desks are increasingly targeted by social engineering attacks to reset MFA accounts. Effective verification methods for remote staff and contractors are being explored to prevent breaches. (news.ycombinator.com)
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