AI surveillance, security lapses, dark web sleuthing, and foreign influence: Best infosec long reads 10/24/26

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10/24/2026: This week’s long reads cover the AI-powered surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border, security fails that allow unauthorized access to the Flock surveillance network, a pioneering DEA investigator who tracked down dark web drug dealers, calls for US-China arms control agreements to limit AI-powered cyberweapons, and how to help Americans recognize and resist increasingly sophisticated foreign influence operations.

Trump’s ‘Smart Wall’ of A.I. Cameras Is Watching the Border, and More Than a Million People

The New York Times's Bora Erden and Nicholas Nehamas reveal how the Trump administration is drastically expanding a network of AI-powered surveillance towers along the US-Mexico border even as an investigation finds that the technology can monitor residential neighborhoods, schools, and millions of people on both sides of the border, with no transparency about its effectiveness or privacy safeguards.

The towers make up one of the largest visual surveillance programs operated by the federal government. They can see much farther than the Flock license plate readers that have been criticized as privacy invasions.

And the A.I. technology means the towers can watch their surroundings 24 hours per day, operating with far greater efficiency than cameras monitored by humans, who tire and get distracted.

Hilton Beckham, an assistant commissioner of public affairs at Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement that the new towers were “essential to border security.”

“Any capability that improves an agent’s awareness and ability to assess potential risks helps protect agents, migrants and the public,” she said.

She added that the agency “employs technology while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests.”

C.B.P has the ability to black out certain areas on camera feeds, shielding them from view, according to people with direct knowledge of the program who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss law enforcement matters. But it can remove those restrictions at any time.

The agency did not answer questions about where or how often it uses this feature.

In privacy guidelines, C.B.P. says that it can share surveillance footage with local, state and federal law enforcement authorities — and even foreign governments. The agency also acknowledges that people near the border cannot “opt out” of being surveilled, noting the risk that those who are “engaged in First Amendment protected activities” or are “complying with the law” could be recorded.

Officials did not provide information that would demonstrate how well the towers worked, such as how many times they had helped catch migrants or drug smugglers.

The towers are just one part of a vast surveillance system at the southern border. C.B.P. also employs drones, license plate readers, trail cameras, ground sensors and even blimps. Officials are working to build a single technology platform where agents can see data from all of those sources.

Opinions in border communities about the new towers vary. Some residents welcome them after millions of migrants crossed during the Biden administration. Others see them as potentially violating their civil liberties.

“We don’t want to be surveilled by our government,” said Gene Belmares, a Republican former city councilman from Laredo, Texas, who urged members of his party to imagine the towers under the control of Democrats.

But few border residents interviewed by The Times knew what the towers did or how powerful they were. Most thought they were cell towers or radar equipment.

As part of the long-running push for a virtual smart wall, C.B.P. installed hundreds of towers with standard surveillance technology over the past two decades.

Some of these efforts were expensive failures, in part because agents were expected to monitor too many cameras at once. A.I. towers were designed as a solution. The government began testing them in 2018.

C.B.P. now operates at least 350 A.I. towers, both in remote and populated areas. The Times was able to locate 209 of these towers, and found that at least 180,000 U.S. residents and 850,000 people in Mexico live within their view.

They stretch from California, where there is one at the end of the Pacific Crest Trail, to the Texas gulf coast, where another watches Starbase, Elon Musk’s company town. They sit on federal land or plots leased from local governments and private owners.