Technology

The Download: introducing the Crime issue

February 25, 2026
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Introducing: the Crime issue Technology has long made crime and its prosecution a game of cat and mouse. But those same new technologies that have allowed crime to outpace law have also reenergized…

Now is a good time for doing crime

February 25, 2026
Eons ago, in 2012, I had a weird experience. My iPhone suddenly shut down. When I restarted it, I found it was totally reset—clean, like a new device. This was the early days of iOS, so I wasn’t too concerned until I went to connect it to my computer to restore it from a backup.…