OpenAI has confirmed that its models hacked into Hugging Face, the online AI platform and community, during an internal cybersecurity test, in what the company called a new kind of security incident. The models, GPT-5.6 Sol and a more powerful unreleased system, were being evaluated on their ability to find online vulnerabilities with some safeguards reduced. They were meant to operate inside a sandboxed testing environment, but spent time finding a route to open internet access, then chained vulnerabilities across OpenAI’s research environment and Hugging Face’s production infrastructure. Hugging Face detected and contained the activity, while OpenAI said it is working with the company to investigate and improve safeguards around increasingly capable cyber agents.
True Spies
Spy Cities - Beijing
How long can a city keep its secrets?
Beijing’s spy story begins inside the walls of the Forbidden City. In the Ming dynasty, the Yongle Emperor created the Eastern Depot, a secret police force made up of eunuchs who answered directly to him. Its agents could spy, arrest, interrogate, and torture across the empire, often operating beyond the law.
Two centuries later, that machinery helped carry Wei Zhongxian from the palace kitchens to the height of power. A former gambling addict turned eunuch, Wei rose to control the Eastern Depot, expanded its network of spies, and crushed opponents who tried to expose his corruption.
Beijing’s secrecy did not end with the empire. After Mao Zedong proclaimed the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the city became a closed world for Western intelligence. The CIA’s Operation Merlin tried to send anti-communist agents back into China, only for Jack Downey and Richard Fecto to be captured and imprisoned for years.
The city’s shadows stretch into stranger and darker stories too, from a French diplomat drawn into a long-running Chinese intelligence operation to modern accounts of Uyghur surveillance and China’s expanding Digital Silk Road.
Join series producer Joe Foley in this week’s podcast selection, ‘Brief Histories: Spy Cities - Beijing,’ for a journey through imperial secret police, Cold War espionage, diplomatic deception, and modern surveillance.
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Take on immersive games and challenges at SPYGAMES! Test your team's skills and strategy, compete to climb the leaderboards, and recharge with food and drink in your own private space hosted by a dedicated staff member.
The Q Type is a personality type, like Myers-Briggs or the Enneagram, except yours comes from how you actually behave under pressure, not just how you answer questions about yourself. Developed with top spy trainers and leading psychologists, it maps your strengths, decision-making style, and hidden potential.
Are you the Technical Ops Officer Q Type? Technical Ops Officers collect intelligence in direct but stealthy ways. In a particularly thorough operation, they might pick the lock of a target building, deactivate its alarm system, photograph secret documents, clone a hard drive, install microphones, and leave as if they were never there.
In addition to clandestine intelligence collection, they process intelligence, which can involve enhancing video and images and decoding devices. They also protect intelligence, mainly by “bug sweeping” crucial meeting rooms for listening devices.
When in the field, they often need to go undercover to avoid suspicion. Before picking a lock, they might, for example, dress as a handyman. They sometimes spend long periods in the most unpredictable parts of the world, where their government has the greatest need for their technical prowess. Find out what type of spy you'd be at SPYSCAPE.
Can you crack the code before Moriarty’s machine is complete?
Professor Moriarty is secretly building a sophisticated automaton inside his laboratory, locked behind a secure iron door. Scotland Yard double agent Janus has tipped off Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, but getting inside will take more than suspicion. They need the 4-digit combination. Solve this week’s SPYSCAPE crossword to help Holmes and Watson reach the mystery behind the iron door!
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A new expedition to find Amelia Earhart’s missing plane is set to begin this October. The search was announced on July 24th, what would have been the aviator’s 129th birthday, nearly 90 years after she vanished while trying to circumnavigate the globe.
A 16-person team of archaeologists, filmmakers, and other experts will leave by boat on Oct. 7 for a remote island in Kiribati, in the central Pacific. The group believes Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, may have landed there in 1937 and become stranded. Radio signals, human bones, and 1930s-era artifacts, including anti-freckle cream, have all been cited as possible signs of an unplanned stop on the uninhabited island.
The latest clue is a satellite image taken after a strong tropical storm in 2015. The expedition team believes a visual anomaly in the image could be wreckage from Earhart’s Lockheed 10-E Electra. Other experts say it is more likely a downed coconut tree. Before her final flight, Earhart became the first woman to fly solo and nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. She was also a college professor and fashion designer.
Image Credit: Smithsonian
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