Our cover this week is about the power of open-source intelligence. New sensors, from humdrum dashboard cameras to satellites, are examining the planet and its people as never before. Hobbyists and experts are using information from these resources to solve riddles and unearth misdeeds with astonishing speed. Satellite imagery is being used to document ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. Photographs are yielding geographical clues that help stop the trafficking of children. Nanosatellites are tracking boats that fish illegally. States can be humbled—open-source intelligence proved that Russia shot down a Malaysian airline over Ukraine in 2014 and provided evidence of the scale of China’s internment of the Uyghurs. The decentralised and egalitarian nature of open-source intelligence erodes the power of traditional arbiters of truth and falsehood, in particular of governments and their spies and soldiers. For those who believe that secrecy can too easily be abused by people in power, that is good news.

The Taliban intensified their assault on Afghanistan’s cities, with fighting raging in Herat, the country’s third-largest, Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, and Kandahar. The Taliban also claimed responsibility for a bomb attack at the home of the defence minister in Kabul. The jihadists have been emboldened by the imminent withdrawal of American forces from the country.

Another challenge to traditional banking is emerging from “buy now, pay later” (BNPL), which enables shoppers to spread their payments for goods, sometimes with no interest or credit check but a fee for late instalments. Square, a payments firm run by Jack Dorsey, has offered to buy Afterpay, based in Melbourne and a global pioneer in BNPL, for $29bn, Australia’s biggest-ever takeover. Regulators have expressed concern about BNPL’s lax lending rules. The industry has ballooned during the pandemic. Apple is said to want to enter the market.