The Download: DOGE’s tech-enabled destruction, and Meta’s brain AI for typing

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.

Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Evil Housekeeper problem

—Dan Hon is principal of Very Little Gravitas, where he helps turn around and modernize large and complex government services and products.

In trying to make sense of the wrecking ball that is Elon Musk and President Trump’s DOGE, it may be helpful to think about the Evil Housekeeper Problem. It’s a principle of computer security roughly stating that once someone is in your hotel room with your laptop, all bets are off. 

It’s incredibly hard to protect a system from someone—in this case, the evil housekeeper, DOGE—who has made their way inside and wants to wreck it. 

This administration is on the record as wanting to outright delete entire departments. But, if you can’t delete a department, then why not just break it until it doesn’t work? That’s why what DOGE is currently doing is such a massive, terrifying problem. Read the full story. 

Meta has an AI for brain typing, but it’s stuck in the lab

Back in 2017, Facebook unveiled plans for a brain-reading hat that you could use to text just by thinking. “We’re working on a system that will let you type straight from your brain,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared in a post that year.

Now the company, since renamed Meta, has actually done it. Except it weighs a half a ton, costs $2 million, and won’t ever leave the lab. Still, it’s pretty cool. Read our story to learn why.

—Antonio Regalado

How the tiny microbes in your mouth could be putting your health at risk

—Jessica Hamzelou

This week I’ve been working on a piece about teeth. Well, sort of teeth. Specifically, lab-grown bioengineered teeth. Researchers have created these teeth with a mixture of human and pig tooth cells and grown them in the jaws of living mini pigs.

Part of the reason for doing this is that although dental implants can work well, they’re not perfect. They don’t attach to bones and gums in the same way that real teeth do. And around 20% of people who get implants end up developing an infection called peri-implantitis, which can lead to bone loss.

It is all down to the microbes that grow on them. There’s a complex community of microbes living in our mouths, and disruptions can lead to infection. But these organisms don’t just affect our mouths; they also seem to be linked to a growing number of disorders that can affect our bodies and brains. If you’re curious, read on.

This story is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 DOGE staffers are feeding sensitive federal data to AI systems
It’s just one of many alarming security lapses at this point. (WP $)  
+ The courts are slamming the brakes on some of Trump’s executive orders. (NBC)
+ The trauma and anguish this is all causing is a feature, not a bug. (New Yorker $)
+ And it’s really got nothing to do with saving money either. (Vox)

2 Thousands of sick people worldwide are being abandoned mid-trial 
Due to the US abruptly withdrawing funding via USAID. (NYT $)

3 Last month was the hottest January on record 
Which was a shock, as scientists expected the La Niña weather cycle to cool things down. (FT $)

4 DeepSeek is sending sensitive data over unencrypted channels 
This really doesn’t look good. (Ars Technica)
+ US lawmakers are pushing to ban DeepSeek from government-owned devices. (WSJ $)
+ DeepSeek might not be such good news for energy after all. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Google had to re-edit a Super Bowl advert for its AI tool  Read More