Simple called Seen, this font will frustrate you, redacting both expected and surprising things, as it checks what you type in realtime against a list of flagged words and phrases employed by the Department of Homeland Security.

Security, shooting, nuclear and outbreak are all fairly obvious, but drill, cloud, wave and sick seem so common as to be functionally useless for monitoring purposes, at least in isolation.

A London design student originally from Slovenia, Emil Kozole developed Project Seen as part of an awareness-raising campaign about security and privacy in and beyond the United States. He wants people to wonder why some words were included in the first place, and ask whether they should have to worry about self-censorship around broad (and in many cases bland) terms.

His custom Adobe OpenType font takes the aforementioned list, revealed originally through a Freedom of Information Act Request, and blacks them out just as you would expect to see in a top-secret document. While not intended to be practical, it is certainly an interesting exercise – try typing a few ordinary paragraphs and see for yourself the potentially surprising results.

If you have ever wondered how and where the Department Homeland Security evaluates drones for real-world applications, this Freedom of Information Act request reveals some of the secrets behind the operations taking place at one of these rather mysterious locations. Not to be confused with its video game namesake, tracing back to Grand Theft Auto’s own digital Liberty City, this real-world test site is fascinating to learn about remotely but not somewhere you want to have an actual vehicular adventure.

For years, the government has been testing drones for everything from monitoring infrastructure and special events to patrolling harbors and supporting first responders. Run by Robotic Aircraft for Public Safety (RAPS), Liberty City and sites like it let local, regional and national governments deploy different models of drone and decide which best suit their needs. Like Gravesend in the UK (pictured above), officers and troops are also called in on the ground to interact in these remarkably complete but staged environments.

Variegated urban terrains help those overseeing the tests determine a drone’s ability to identify key objects and individuals in the built environment, distinguish assailants and perpetrators in complex situations and track persons through challenging architectural landscapes. Simulations revolve around everything from ordinary robberies to hostage situations and terrorist attacks. The goal, ultimately, is to figure out what (completely or partially) autonomous vehicle technologies will work both generally and around specific purposes, for applications ranging from emergency search-and-rescue to broader everyday surveillance. While the work they are doing in these places is not classified as such, it is still highly secretive and much of it still remains undisclosed after years of inquiry.

Submitted via MuckRock, the FOIA request behind the details featured here sheds light on the reasons and methods behind these processes and places. Per Shawn Musgrave, “The broad objective of RAPS is to determine whether drones can play a practical role in a broad range of public safety deployments. Such applications include law enforcement, firefighting, disaster response, and search-and-rescue. The RAPS testing program evaluates each drone model for ease of operation, durability and performance in simulated scenarios. Reviewers compile their findings into a database for first responders nationwide to use when weighing a drone purchase.”

The race for space has shifted gears in recent years with the rise of private programs, leaving a series of amazing space-related graveyards around the United States, which this photographer has spent 25 years exploring and documenting.

In his upcoming book, Abandoned in Place, Roland Miller takes readers on a “photographic exploration of the American space launch and research facilities that played a crucial role in the early period of space exploration. The goals of this project are to preserve and portray these abandoned, deactivated, and repurposed sites through photography that surpasses the official government approach to documentation and to lend historical and artistic insight to the subject.”

With special permission (and an escort every time), Roland has managed to visit locations including the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and the Kennedy Space Center as well as Cape Canaveral in Florida. His book features 100 full-color photos – the best and brightest of his extension decade-spanning collection.

The photographs cover all kinds of incredible objects and details, from cranes and gantries to blast doors, flame deflector tracks, launch rings and even lunar modules. The book will be released by the University of New Mexico Press and contain poems and essays alongside its rich imagery.

This project is part guide book and part historical document – it “serves not only as a documentary body of work, but also as an artistic interpretation of these historic sites. The blockhouses, launch towers, tunnels, test stands, and control rooms featured in Abandoned In Place are rapidly giving way to the elements and demolition. By my estimates, fully half of the facilities I have photographed no longer exist. The costs involved in restoring, maintaining, and securing these sites are enormous. Most of these historic facilities are located on secure military or NASA facilities, which drastically limits access by the public. Therefore, photography is the only practical method to preserve and portray these historic locations.”

“The facilities photographed in AIP portray one of the most historic and technical adventures of the last century–from our first unmanned flights beyond the atmosphere to landing men on the moon. A sense of the urgency of the space race is evident in many of the images. Signs and labels in the images reflect the technology of the era. The structures depicted also recall the darker threat of nuclear war. Some of the images describe a future that could have been if the cold war had heated up. These launch complexes, engine test stands, and wind tunnels are the Bunker Hills and Gettysburgs of the cold war. References to the Great Pyramids, Chichen Itza, Stonehenge, and other major archeological sites foreshadow the future of these modern ruins.”

China is full of strange stories of so-called ‘nail houses’ – homes of people who refuse to move to make way for a large development project. Still, this one was particularly unique: its owners held out while a whole major motorway was constructed on all sides.

Situated in Wenling, its owner Luo Baogen refused the compensation deal offered to him and the owners of over 400 nearby properties.  After a full year of waiting with his wife as they were hemmed in by highway, they finally accepted an improved offer from the government and moved.

In another similar situation, owner and occupant Wu Ping refused an offer (one out of nearly 250 in that case) to move, and found herself surrounded by a sunken pit as shopping mall developers began excavating prior to constructing a new shopping center. Structures in this situation are dubbed ‘nail houses’  because, like a nail wedged deep into a board, they can be stubborn and difficult to remove.

The story has unfolded fast, and people on both sides are furious. Within days of a successful test firing of the Liberator, this working 3D-printed weapon has attracted the attention of the United States government. 100,000+ downloads in,  the State Department has stepped in to try and stop further distribution.

Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed and his crew have been harshly criticized, both by those who wanted him to stand up to authority and others who wish he had never created or released the blueprint files in the first place.

Despite adamantly contending they would not cave to external pressure, Defcad – the site hosting the 3D gun and other illicit-object designs – now has a white-on-red warning at the top of the page summarizing the situation for visitors. None of this, of course, has stopped people from distributing the files in a variety of alternative venues.

On the one hand, it is entirely understandable that people would fear a future in which gun control is difficult or impossible thanks to ease of on-demand printing. Further, its parts and breakdown also make it easy to sneak through security checks, making it potentially more dangerous in some ways than a traditional firearm.

On the other hand, people can already make guns with the right shop equipment (better ones than those that can be currently printed), plus history has shown that fighting inevitable shifts in technology is an uphill battle. In tech, much like in war, sophisticated capabilities tend to win in the end, regardless of which side was ‘right’ to begin with. Information, as they say, wants to be free.