★ Media · Essay · July 2026
The Cicada That Sells You a Hoodie
A page called “Cicada 6601” is circulating as if Anonymous posted it. Anonymous didn’t. It fails both provenance tests — a single self-branded source, zero corroboration — and shows why “referenced by Anonymous” is a laundering phrase. The attribution matters more than the cipher.
Read it → · brandonmyers.net/writing/cicada-6601
★ Building · Essay · July 2026
Seventy Dollars, Twelve Hours
I hacked Claude Code onto Telegram — a full coding agent I drive from my phone, every action gated behind a tap. In twelve hours it burned $70 of API and did a week of senior work: restored downed services, closed a live security hole, redeployed production, shipped writing, traced an investigation. The model was never the bottleneck. The interface was.
Read it → · brandonmyers.net/writing/seventy-dollars-twelve-hours
★ Investigation · Synthesis · the capstone
Everything Leads to Google
The cipher, the mesh, the surveillance series, the foreign-influence files, the pile-on economy — I traced what all of it has in common. Every investigation on this site, launched years apart for different reasons, terminates at the same doorway. Not a conspiracy. A gravity well. On the one company that decides what is findable — and therefore what is real.
Read the synthesis → · brandonmyers.net/writing/everything-leads-to-google
★ Investigation · SEO forensics · 3-part series + disavow file
The Pile-On: A Mullvad Investigation
A Mullvad co-founder really did fund the far right. I traced what the internet did with the story: the pile-on economy, the conspiracy that wasn't, and the one real black-hat network under it — two hubs, ~125 compromised sites, ~20,000 spam links, fully documented with a ready-to-file disavow list. Three parts and the receipts, one link.
Read the investigation → · brandonmyers.net/writing/the-pile-on
★ Build · personal · July 2026
The Agent in My Pocket
A full coding agent I drive from my phone — running on hardware I own, the top-tier model on a flat subscription, every action gated behind my yes, every task metered. On owning your tools instead of renting them by the token.
Read it → · brandonmyers.net/writing/agent-in-my-pocket
★ Investigations · public-interest · source-verified
The Investigations
A standing body of investigations into how power joins up, surveils and influences — the data state and the influence machine. Built from public records, tiered confirmed / reported / alleged, adversarially fact-checked, and disciplined to credit who broke what and correct the myths as plainly as the findings.
★ The complete file · July 2026
The Influence Machine
How a foreign government bought an AI-era propaganda operation in Washington — the American commentators (Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens) it named in its own DOJ filings, the four open questions those filings raise, and the far weaker regime that lets the same conduct vanish in Britain. Built from primary records; every claim tiered; the boundaries kept in view.
★ The capstone · everything, in one frame · + PDF
The Whole Picture: What It All Adds Up To
Everything found and how it actually connects: two machines — one that surveils and sorts, one that persuades — bound not by a conspiracy but by one pattern, the oversight switched off. As careful about what is not connected (no Parscale–Palantir, no Thiel web) as about what is. The single place to start — with a downloadable PDF.
Read the capstone → · brandonmyers.net/writing/the-whole-picture
★ Latest · June 2026 · The AI-influence beat
The First Wave: How States Started Buying AI-Output Shaping
The bigger frame — bigger than any one person. Governments have begun paying to manipulate what AI tells you: Israel’s FARA-registered contract is the first disclosed case; Russia’s ‘Pravda’ network is the only state peer; a commercial “generative engine optimization” industry and a settled poisoning science enable it — while the AI platforms stay silent. With the operatives profiled (SparkFire, the ‘Esther Project’ gap) and the one honest caveat — does it work? — kept in full view.
Read the investigation → · brandonmyers.net/writing/the-first-wave
★ Featured · July 2026 · UK companion
The Other Theatre: Israeli State Influence in Britain
The same state that must register and disclose its influence operation in the US (Parscale’s FARA file) runs one in Britain too — the 2017 Shai Masot affair, closed by the Foreign Office with an apology and no inquiry. Why you never had to know: the UK’s new registration scheme reserves its teeth for Iran and Russia. Tiered, primary-sourced, boundary in view — with a one-page briefing for Parliament.
Read it → · + download the 1-page PDF briefing