Madison Square Garden, one of America’s most cherished privately run surveillance states, keeps a database of which celebrity Knicks fans and Taylor Swift’s wedding guests are LGBTQIA, as well as their “risk” level, according to a new report from Wired. In a statement to The A.V. Club, MSG called the report “inaccurate and false” and threatened legal action against the outlet.
Wired previously reported on the extent to which MSG surveils its patrons. The latest batch of docs released by the criminal hacking collective ShinyHunters revealed that MSG maintains a running database of “talent” hosted by the venue, rating them by “risk” level, to determine whether to give them free tickets. Even Knicks superfans and defenders of MSG’s obsessively paranoid owner James Dolan aren’t safe. Fat Joe, who called Dolan “Batman,” was labeled a “medium risk.” Unofficial star of the Knicks history-making championship run, Mariska Hartigay, is a “low risk.” Sonic The Hedgehog and Happy Endings star Adam Pally is “not to be hosted.” Five of Taylor Swift’s wedding guests were also evaluated by the Garden’s security. Never fear, Ice Spice, Michael Strahan, and Selena Gomez were all “low risk.”
The “talent” database is some 40,000 names deep, and a vast majority of them do not receive a risk evaluation. However, and for unknown reasons, the database tracks the race, gender identity, and sexual orientation of at least 93 celebrities, including Ricky Martin and Phoebe Bridgers, Wired reports. Whether Swift and Travis Kelce, who married at the venue on Saturday in a weird power flex to all the New Yorkers dying in the heat, required invitees to agree to such surveillance remains unconfirmed.
Aside from it being weird as hell that a sports venue keeps track of the sexuality of guests trying to watch the goddamn Knicks, the focus on LGBTQIA patrons is part of a larger pattern of paranoia. Last month, Wired reported that MSG went to great pains to alienate and remove a trans social media influencer who made their following as a diehard Knicks fan. She was tracked minute by minute by MSG security until she was eventually banned from the Garden, a lawsuit revealed. “They just seem overly interested in queer and trans people in their venue,” Evan Greer, director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future, told Wired.
Ironically, Dolan also owns the Sphere, which recently announced an upcoming slop-ified Rocky Horror Picture Show. We suppose they can use AI to de-queer the film while also keeping a close eye on the androgynous sexuality of the garter-belt enthusiasts who attend.
This article has been updated with a statement from Madison Square Garden.
Bonnie Tyler, the powerful voice best-known for her 1983 single “Total Eclipse Of The Heart,” has died. Her family confirmed the news with a statement on her website. “Bonnie’s family and team are heartbroken to announce that Bonnie unexpectedly passed away last night in hospital in Portugal as a result of the illness that she was being treated for,” it reads. “We will issue a further statement shortly but for now ask for privacy to deal with this tragedy.” Though her family did not share a cause of death, Tyler had already been experiencing health issues this year; in May, the singer was placed in a medically induced coma after emergency intestinal surgery. Tyler was 75 years old.
Though Tyler’s success in the United States peaked in popularity in the 1980s, she enjoyed a long career in Europe, from her first singles in 1976 to hits in the new millennium. In 2013, she represented the United Kingdom in Eurovision. Over the course of her career, Tyler was nominated for three Grammy Awards.
Born in Wales in 1951 as Gaynor Hopkins, Tyler got her first taste of the stage performing at open mics and talent shows. In 1975, she was spotted by a talent agent and signed to RCA. Her first hit, “Lost In France,” which peaked at number nine on the U.K. singles chart, came the following year. “[T]hen all of a sudden, I had all these nodules on my vocal cords – I thought my career was over,” she reflected to The Guardian in 2009. She ended up having surgery to remove them, and wasn’t supposed to talk for months. “But after I got my voice back, I went into the studio for the first time and started singing. The band said, ‘Woah, your voice sounds great.’ My voice was huskier than before, and had more of an edge.” Her first hit in the United States—”It’s A Heartache,” which hit number three on the Billboard Hot 100—came in 1977.
But the song that would truly break through in the United States came years later with “Total Eclipse Of The Heart.” At that point, as People reported in 1983, Tyler had already been considered a one-hit wonder with “It’s A Heartache.” But “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” marked the first collaboration between Tyler and songwriter Jim Steinman, which ended up providing her most recognizable hits in the U.S. “I never thought it had a prayer as a single,” Steinman said about “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” in a contemporary interview. “It was an aria to me, a Wagnerian-like onslaught of sound and emotion. I wrote it to be a showpiece for her voice.” The two would work together again for “Holding Out For A Hero,” which appeared on the Footloose soundtrack.
Tyler didn’t achieve any hits in the U.S. after the mid-1980s, but her success continued in Europe through the 1990s. In 2003, she recorded a duet version of “Total Eclipse Of The Heart” with singer Kareen Antonn in French, titled “Si demain… (Turn Around).” The recording was a major success in the country and reinvigorated her career in France. In 2013, Tyler represented the U.K. in Eurovision with the song “Believe in Me,” and placed 19th. Her final album, The Best Is Yet to Come was released in 2021. While promoting the album, she was proud of how consistently she had worked throughout her singing career. Her only extended break, she said, had been when she recovered from her vocal nodules. “Apart from that, I’ve worked all my life,” she told Goldmine. “And loved every minute of it, too.”
A software developer made a Chrome and Firefox extension called Knockoff that automatically hides, grays out, or filters products from sketchy brands on Amazon, which highlights just how many shady brands are on the platform and how commonly they show up on searches for basic items.
In just a few minutes of using the extension, Knockoff dimmed product listings for screwdrivers made by “SUNHZMCKP,” spoons made by “SACATR,” and a lamp made by “ROTTOGOON.” In a tweet announcing the extension, developer Josh Pigford wrote “Sorry to brands like WNPETHOME, EHEYCIGA, YXYL, LU&MN, JOYIN, TOMY, GODONLIF, YOOJEE, LINGTENG, LANEIGE, VISCOO, BIODANCE, COOFANDY, BALENNZ, TOSY, and LUENX.” The extension can also hide all sponsored product listings. The extension quickly went viral as a much-needed filter for people who still use Amazon and, for those who don’t use Amazon because of its horrendous labor practices and other concerns, it is evidence of what an incredible wasteland the platform has become.
In a video call, Pigford told me that he had been thinking about making Knockoff for a while but that he finally decided to do it last weekend. “I was cutting the grass and about to get my trimmer out to do some weed eating, and it wouldn’t crank. So I decided to get some specific tools, and I searched for them and was like ‘What are these brands? Am I going insane?’ I just wanted something from a common brand or something I was familiar with,” he said. “I was like ‘man, I’ve gotta build something.’”
Pigford said that Knockoff is essentially building a list of brands to allow or not allow, and that it uses several different criteria to do this, including looking at the names of the brands: “Basically number of consonants, number of vowels, how they are grouped together, whether they’re in all caps or not,” he said. This means that brands like “EHEYCIGA” will be automatically added to the filter list. But the list of blocked brands is intended to be determined by its community of users, and any user can ask the extension to allow or block any specific brand for themselves. The project builds on previous similar attempts to highlight sketchy brands on Amazon, including one called AmazonBrandFilter and The Markup’s Amazon Brand Detector. The extension also allows anyone who has downloaded it to report potentially sketchy brands and to report brands that have been accidentally flagged as knockoffs.
The extension runs locally and doesn’t require an account to use, and doesn’t send data back to any server. It is free. “I stand to benefit nothing directly economically, it’s a nice little tool I wanted to make,” Pigford said.
Knockoff is pretty useful whether you use Amazon or not. For those who don’t use Amazon, it highlights a problem repeatedly shown by Joe Biden’s Federal Trade Commission in an antitrust lawsuit against the company, which is that much of Amazon is pay-to-play, with brands needing to buy ads or placement boosts in order to be featured at the top of search results. The platform has also become an algorithmic and financial race to the bottom, with companies stealing others’ designs, jamming their product pages with keywords that will perform well in search, and creating fly-by-night brands to try to end up at the top of search results.
“There was somebody who sent me a screenshot from using the extension and the first 20 items or something were all grayed out. Like there were all these knockoff brands before they could find a legitimate item,” Pigford said. “It’s like, OK, that about sums it up.”
“I think people want control over what it is that they're seeing on the internet,” he added. “This sort of gives some control back to just getting everything shoved in your face. It’s like fighting back against the algorithm to some extent.”
JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, PNC, and other major banks have reportedly explored acquiring Fiserv's debit-card networks, STAR and Accel, in a move that could help them bypass federal caps on debit-card transaction fees. A law limits the fees big banks can charge merchants, but only if the transactions are routed through an outside network. There are no caps on these interchange fees over a bank-owned network, however. The Wall Street Journal reports: When Capital One Financial bought Discover Financial in a $50.6 billion deal, it got a network that cut out the need for a middleman in card transactions and allowed it to deal more directly with merchants. Now, big banks are looking on with envy because owning a network can mean exemption from a federal law that caps debit-card fees. Those fees collectively amount to billions of dollars each year across the industry, but banks have long complained the government-defined cap limits their ability to offer customers debit-card rewards and other services. Some have been exploring a small deal that could upend the rules, though they are worried about political backlash if they try.
Big banks including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and PNC Financial Services Group have in recent months held preliminary and tentative discussions about a deal to acquire a network owned by the financial-technology company Fiserv, according to people familiar with the matter. There is no certainty a deal will happen. Several of the banks that looked at the Fiserv network have already decided it would be unlikely for them to move forward, some of the people said. Some have privately expressed concern that such a deal could prompt backlash from lawmakers, regulators and merchants, the people added.
A criminal complaint against alleged Scattered Spider member Peter Stokes revealed that Microsoft can associate Windows activity with a persistent "Global Device ID," which investigators used to link his PC to online activity connected to a hack. While unique device IDs are common, the case has raised privacy concerns because the identifier can apparently persist across updates, has no simple opt-out, and may allow Microsoft to connect a Windows installation to activity on third-party services. PCMag reports: Last week, the U.S. announced it had extradited 19-year-old Peter Stokes from Europe for allegedly being a member of the notorious hacking group Scattered Spider. But the case stands out because Microsoft played a key role in linking Stokes to the suspected hacking crimes, according to an unsealed criminal complaint. Stokes allegedly hacked an unnamed luxury jewelry retailer in May 2025 while using a VPN. The 39-page criminal complaint shows the FBI used Microsoft records to discover that his IP address was associated with a Microsoft device identifier known as Global Device ID (GDID).
"According to a Microsoft representative, a Global Device Identifier in the Windows ecosystem is a persistent, device-level identifier designed to uniquely identify an installation of a Windows operating system on a device, either a physical device (e.g., a mobile phone or laptop) or virtual machine, across certain Microsoft services and scenarios," the complaint explains. The global device ID isn't exactly surprising, given that it's standard practice to assign a unique ID to each account or device so a tech provider can recognize and distinguish between them. But the complaint reveals Microsoft can associate the GDID with third-party services and the timing as well, giving Redmond a way to theoretically track a user's online activity. In other words, Redmond might be able to track the online activity of your Windows PC without third-party browser cookies.
Stokes was discovered exploiting a web development tool called ngrok to bypass the jewelry retailer's network defenses. The complaint says Microsoft had records showing that on May 12, 2025, at 19:21 UTC, the GDID associated with Stokes' computer "accessed, among other ngrok pages, 'https://dashboard[.]ngrok.com/signup,' the ngrok page to set up an ngrok account." The document adds that Microsoft records also showed the GDID accessing "multiple sites" from servers at Tzulo, a web hosting provider, to help pull off the hack. Hence, the fact that federal investigators used the Microsoft identifier to nab a suspected hacker is raising concerns that it could be abused for other surveillance purposes. "Microsoft Windows is surveillance software," cybersecurity expert Matthew Hickey alleged in a tweet.
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