Tracking

Meta has paused a new company-wide program of tracking its employees’ computer usage which has been plagued by internal frustration.

The program was started only two months ago as part of an effort by Meta to gather data on how people used computers, including mouse clicks and keystrokes, that could be used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models.

It was met immediately with upset from employees who were to have their every online action at work tracked and recorded, but also concerned about where the data was going and how it would be protected.

Meta halted the program on Monday after realising some of the collected data had been left potentially accessible to anyone inside the company.

A Meta spokesman confirmed to the BBC that the program, named internally the Model Capability Initiative (MCI), was “on pause for now” as the company investigates the issue.

“We have no indication at this time that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees,” the spokesman added.

The pause follows weeks of blow-back from workers at the company, led by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, to being tracked at work.

In an initial response to worker frustration – which was displayed in part through a petition signed by nearly 2,000 Meta workers demanding that the MCI program be cancelled – Meta said it would allow workers to not be tracked for up to 30 minutes at a time.

“That was just an attempt at damage control,” one current employee told the BBC. The person asked not to be identified.

Another Meta employee, who also asked not to be identified, said that while a lot of technical workers inside the company are open to the idea of improving its AI models and being more competitive in a field dominated by Anthropic and OpenAI, the fact that tracking “was forced on us, there was no consent” left people angry.

“I’ve never seen morale here so bad,” the employee said.

In addition to the tracking program, frustration inside Meta has grown as it has done extensive layoffs, and reorganised many employees and their work around AI initiatives, on which the company is spending up to $145bn (£109bn) this year alone.

Employees have even openly insulted management, external in an internal meeting on the AI-driven changes, according to a report in Wired.

While Meta has long had a reputation in the technology industry as a company that frequently reorganises internal teams around new projects, the changes and spending in an effort to catch up on AI feels like “chasing your tail”, a person who recently left Meta after several years said.

“The direction this company is going in is depressing”, the former employee said. “Exhausting and depressing.”

For decades, satellites have provided critical data for military activities in active and non-active combat zones. One of the most significant integration of space-based technologies emerged in missile defense systems during the Cold War. Satellite constellations provided critical data on the launch sites and trajectories of ballistic missiles. The US Defense Support Program (DSP) was the first program to launch satellite constellations to detect heat signatures of Soviet ICBMs with infrared sensors. The Soviet Union launched the first generation of early warning systems under OKO satellite constellations against US missile threats. These systems of satellite constellations allowed both the US and the USSR to maintain a close watch over each other’s strategic capabilities and allowed for much needed early warning that upheld mutual deterrence between the two powers.

Fast forward to the current era, today’s missile defense systems have shown a very limited success rate against hypersonic missiles. The tracking and interception capabilities of current missile defense systems have remained effectively limited due to speed, maneuverability, and depressed flight of hypersonic missiles. Traditional missile defense systems have been outmaneuvered by hypersonic missiles, which increases the threat level due to their capability to reach and hit targets with a high success rate. Modern hypersonic missiles can still be detected with infrared sensing during their boost phase, but Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGVs) are extremely difficult to track and intercept primarily due to their maneuverability. The radar-evading capabilities of HGVs affect the strategic calculus by shrinking detection and reaction time duration during crises and conflicts.

As a remedy, the US has introduced the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensors (HBTSS) to counter the threat of HGVs and Hypersonic Cruise Missiles (HCMs). The HBTSS will be a major component of the US Golden Dome missile defense project. It is a layered network of command-and-control systems, interceptors, and space-based sensors to build an advanced layer of missile defense system. What makes HBTSS different from traditional missile defense systems is the satellite constellation, which provides real-time tracking data of missiles. Traditional defense systems like Space Based Infrared System (SBIR) could detect the launch of missiles, but HBTSS can detect, track, and possibly predict the target of the missile.

Because HGVs present a unique challenge due to low flight path and maneuverability and often operate under the coverage of conventional radars, which make it difficult for traditional defense systems to detect. HBTSS relies on space-based sensors, which can detect and track continuously from space. Theoretically, it can be called a space-based missile defense system reflecting the growing strategic importance of space in the military domain. It relies on an interconnected satellite network that can work as a kill web across the globe against the threat of hypersonic missiles.

HBTSS is an emerging strategic shift as it starts a new era of space weaponization with a layer of satellites for enhanced detection and tracking. A reliable space-based tracking system bolsters a state’s capabilities to deal with the threat of hypersonic missiles with improved early warning and missile tracking systems, and reduces the threat of surprise attacks from an adversary. Although missile forces hold great impact on deterrence stability, the induction of HTBSS will question the effectiveness of missiles during crises and conflicts if a more advance missile defense system is introduced. This will provide a wider view from space with more accuracy and precision, and increase the vulnerability of missile forces of states.

Because ground-based nuclear forces are considered vulnerable, many countries have developed second-strike capabilities, particularly at sea, to preserve deterrence even after absorbing an initial attack. But the development of HBTSS undermines the survivability of a state’s missile forces with an enhanced detection and tracking system. Even though the United States and Russia continue to maintain certain crisis management and risk reduction mechanisms, including hotlines and military deconfliction channels, the suspension of New START has weakened the broader framework of strategic stability. While in conflict-prone regions like South Asia, India and Pakistan possess a more limited and less institutionalized set of confidence-building measures (CBMs), making crisis management in South Asia particularly challenging due to emerging technologies.

The peaceful use of outer space depends on the intent and actions of major powers. Sometimes measures taken for self-defense can also prompt a proportionate reaction in the form of countermeasures. The strategic impact of HBTSS on the missile forces may lead to more advance, fast, and lethal missiles for survivability. The development of HBTSS will not end the arms race, it will intensify the arms race with countermeasures.

I’VE been reporting on the darker side of Katie Price’s husband Lee Andrews since she married him back in January – and now believe his “kidnapping” is simply another brazen storyline he’s written to try and hoodwink her further.

And now it’s all unravelling faster than he could have imagined, with Katie finally admitting she is giving up on searching for him because (spoiler alert) she’s realised it’s all a massive lie.

For four months, I have been unravelling Andrews’ web of untruths – and it would be correct to say he absolutely loathes me now.

From day one, I have refused to let his lies get in the way of reporting the truth.

Every time a woman shared her story with me, he berated them and claimed he’d never heard of them – despite me having evidence to the contrary.

Those close to Katie have since sent vile messages to his ex, Alana Percival, who has gone through more with Andrews than I think anyone will ever know.

If she chooses one day to share the rest of her story, I would urge you to listen to her. I did, and it made me feel physically sick.

Andrews threatened that he had lodged criminal charges against me in Dubai, which would see me arrested if I ever landed in the country and said he was suing me for defamation, which, comically, he spelt “deformation”.

Andrews then bragged he was going to get me sacked before messaging me on social media with a meme calling me a “c**t.”

I replied, “Likewise,” because he really is.

Now Katie has finally admitted she’s given up on “searching” for her husband, and I know it is because she’s finally realised this entire “kidnapping” scenario is just another part of Andrews’ elaborate lies.

Over the past few days, I have taken numerous calls from people all over the world who wanted to share their experiences of Andrews.

People have claimed to me that Andrews owes millions to businesses from failed schemes and warned there are more women who willingly handed over cash to receive nothing in return.

The “kidnapping” scenario is worthy of a Hollywood film script.

But it’s not unusual for wrong ‘uns who, after realising the jig is up, introduce an elaborate narrative to try and distance themselves from the chaos they’ve left in their wake.

In my opinion, the events of the past seven days are all a narrative being spun by Andrews to be parroted out by Katie, whose friends insist has nothing to do with his lies.

Now she’s reached the end of her patience.

“Katie knows something isn’t right about this scenario deep down,” a friend told me.

“Lee was active on WhatsApp two days after he told her he was going missing. She has heard nothing and has just been ghosted.

“She was so panicked at the start, but now it’s become a drain on her. The people around her have warned that this isn’t normal and that it all seems a bit suspect.”

In my opinion, Andrews has been laying the groundwork for his exit from Katie’s life for some time.

Some weeks ago, a contact of mine was gossiping about Andrews and his seemingly endless stream of fibs – including that he’d boasted to Katie he was an international arms dealer.

I’d never heard that porker before, and I laughed as I regaled a story his ex-fiancee, Alana, who bravely spoke out to warn Katie off Andrews back in January, had told me about Andrews telling her he had worked for MI5.

Much like his now-debunked claims from his fictional CV, including that he worked for the Labour Party and was the Director of Philanthropy at the King’s Trust, I laughed it off and forgot about it.

But after seeing the messages Andrews sent Katie, where he claimed he had been kidnapped and taken to a “black site”, to me, it suddenly all started to make sense.

In my opinion, Andrews’ MO is twisting narratives in a bid to make out he is something he plainly isn’t.

Suggesting to Katie and others that he works in a more than shady industry as an arms dealer to me suggests he was laying the foundations that he worked in a dangerous underworld.

So when Andrews suddenly walked off the face of the earth on Thursday after telling Katie he had been arrested and was being taken to a “black site” – the name given to clandestine state-operated detention centres – naturally, she would believe it.

My esteemed boss Clemmie Moodie persuaded Katie to share the final desperate texts she received from Andrews in The Sun newspaper – and to me, his messages bear all the hallmarks of a man trying to pen a story with a better twist than some of Agatha Christie’s greatest works.

“Katie was basically told by Lee that he was involved in all sorts of business, and not all of it was savoury,” my contact explained.

“He told her he was an international arms dealer. It was something he openly boasted about.

“Lee made her think he had his fingers in all sorts of pies.

“So when he spun her a story about being kidnapped, she fell for it. Because, as far as Katie is concerned, this is the kind of world Lee has connections with and operates in.

“Now with everything that is coming out, she’s realising she may have been played for a fool.”

Far from being kidnapped, I firmly believe Andrews is now simply hiding out in Dubai – a country he cannot leave because, as Katie herself confirmed, he has a travel ban… even though Andrews went on to deny it.

Clemmie’s work uncovering his scam first hand, and the pressure piled upon him by the thousands of people invested in this story, has backed Andrews into a corner..

He initially managed to shrug off the criticism.

But after he publicly humiliated Katie live on Good Morning Britain, and she publicly turned on him for the first time, I believe Andrews realised he had entered uncharted waters and knew it was time to get out.

Katie has not heard from Andrews since the early hours of Thursday morning, when the live location he shared with her on WhatsApp turned off – along with, it seems, the phone he used to contact her.

But I know Andrews uses multiple phones, and we know he was online and using one of them on Saturday evening.

Today, an even wilder twist – with Andrews going back on Instagram to follow another woman – adds to my theory.

Andrews had an escape route planned. And now he’s out – he’s moving on to someone else.

This man is in hiding, and he will stay there for as long as it is physically possible.

I’m not sure even Andrews, who probably could get a PhD in deception, could lie himself out of this one.

On March 11, the Thai cargo ship Mayuree Naree was struck by two projectiles while crossing the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important waterways located between Iran and Oman. A fire broke out in the engine room, and while 20 sailors were rescued, three remained trapped inside the stricken vessel. Their remains were found weeks later when a specialised rescue team boarded the vessel, which had run aground on the shores of Iran’s Qeshm island.

At about the same time, a “shadow fleet” of tankers continued to navigate the very same waters safely. Operating with fake flags, disabled signals and unspecified destinations, this covert armada survived because it operates outside the traditional rules of maritime trade.

Iran threatened to block “enemy” ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz – a crucial chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil – in the wake of the United States-Israeli war launched on February 28. Soon, navigation through the strait was disrupted amid fears of attacks.

Following a temporary ceasefire on April 8, the United States imposed a full naval blockade on Iranian ports on April 13. Theoretically, traffic through the strait should have come to a complete halt.

However, tracking data reveals a remarkably different reality.

An exclusive Al Jazeera open-source investigation tracked 202 voyages made by 185 vessels through the strait between March 1 and April 15, navigating both under fire and across blockade lines.

The numbers behind the shadows

To understand how the strait operated under extreme pressure, Al Jazeera’s Digital Investigative Unit monitored the waterway daily, cross-referencing vessel International Maritime Organization (IMO) numbers with international sanction lists from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United Nations. An IMO number is a unique seven-digit figure assigned to commercial ships.

Of the tracked voyages, 77 (38.5 percent) were directly or indirectly linked to Iran. Notably, 61 of the ships transiting the strait were explicitly listed on international sanctions lists.

The investigation divided the conflict into three distinct phases to map the fleet’s behaviour:

• Phase 1: Open War (March 1 – April 6): 126 ships crossed the strait, peaking at 30 vessels on March 1. Among these, 46 were linked to Iran.
• Phase 2: The Truce (April 7 – 13): 49 ships crossed during this fragile pause. More than 40 percent of these vessels were tied to Iran, including the US-sanctioned, Iranian-flagged Roshak, which successfully exited the Gulf.
• Phase 3: The US Blockade (April 13 – 15): Despite the explicit naval blockade, 25 ships crossed the strait.

Breaking the blockade

When the US blockade took effect, the shadow fleet adapted immediately.

The Iranian cargo ship “13448” successfully broke the blockade. Because it is a smaller vessel operating in coastal waters, it lacks an official IMO number, allowing it to evade traditional sanction-monitoring tools. The vessel departed Iran’s Al Hamriya port and reached Karachi, Pakistan.

Similarly, the Panama-flagged Manali broke the blockade, crossing on April 14 and penetrating the cordon again on April 17 en route to Mumbai, India.

The investigation uncovered widespread manipulation of Automatic Identification System (AIS) trackers. Vessels such as the US-sanctioned Flora, Genoa and Skywave deliberately disabled or jammed their signals to hide their identities and destinations.

Fake flags and shell companies

To obscure ultimate ownership, the shadow fleet heavily relies on a complex web of “false flags” and shell companies. The investigation identified 16 ships operating under fake flags, including registries from landlocked nations like Botswana and San Marino, as well as others from Madagascar, Guinea, Haiti and Comoros.

The operational network managing these ships spans the globe. Operating firms were primarily based in Iran (15.7 percent), China (13 percent), Greece (more than 11 percent) and the United Arab Emirates (9.7 percent). Notably, the operators of nearly 19 percent of the observed vessels remain unknown.

The toll of a parallel system

Despite the intense military pressure, energy carriers dominated the traffic, with 68 ships (36.2 percent) transporting crude oil, petroleum products and gas. Ten of these tankers were directly linked to Iran. Non-oil trade also persisted, with 57 bulk and general cargo ships crossing during the open war phase, 41 of which were tied to Tehran.

Before the war, at least 100 ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz daily. Today, a staggering 20,000 sailors are trapped on 2,000 ships across the Gulf – a crisis the International Maritime Organization described as unprecedented since World War II.

A shadow Iranian fleet, meanwhile, has been navigating seamlessly as part of a parallel maritime system born from 47 years of US sanctions on Tehran. Washington slapped sanctions on Tehran following the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-Washington ruler Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The two countries have had no diplomatic ties since 1980.