Cyber is a show covering a diverse range of topics. We?ve covered everything from crypto to AI to online cults. If it touches technology or online culture, we?ll talk about it. That?s how you get an episode like today?s, which is both a deep dive into professional wrestling?s latest scandal and a discussion of the latest existential threat: nuclear weapons in space.

Vice features editor Timothy Marchman can do it all. First, Marchman walks us through the newest allegations against WWE boss Vince McMahon. It?s a civil case that may have wider ramifications for how the U.S. handles non-disclosure agreements. Then we get into a bit of Congressional kayfabe: the reports that Russia wants to put nuclear weapons in space.

Co-Defendant in Vince McMahon Sex Trafficking Lawsuit Says He Was a Victim Too

NDAs Vince McMahon Signed Behind WWE's Back May Be Worthless, Say Experts

Despite Denials, WWE Management Knew Wrestler Said She Had Been Raped on Military Base

WWE Wrestler Ashley Massaro Accused Vince McMahon of Sexually Preying on Wrestlers in Previously Unreleased Statement?

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An AI-generated Biden called voters in New Hampshire ahead of the primary and told them to stay home. X locked down the search term ?Taylor Swift? after AI-generated nudes of the pop giant flooded the platform. In the wake of both scandals, Congress has struggled with how to fight back against the flood of fake bullshit. Keeping the world from drowning in fakes affects all of us, but some of the cures sound worse than the sickness.

This week on Cyber, Motherboard Senior Editor Janus Rose and Fight for the Future?s Lia Holland come on to talk about the limits of legislation around AI-generated scams and abuse.

Stories discussed in this episode.

Congress Is Trying to Stop AI Nudes and Deepfake Scams Because Celebrities Are Mad

Taylor Swift Is Living Every Woman?s AI Porn Nightmare

?Palworld? Is Tearing the Internet Apart

An AI-Generated Content Empire Is Spreading Fake Celebrity Images on Google

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Ten years ago, Big Tech reached a peak. Facebook had wormed its way into the lives of billions of people. The mainstream news covered iPhones releases like they were Taylor Swift concerts. Elon Musk was promising to colonize Mars and fill the streets with self-driving cars. In 2024, the wheels have come off all these dreams. Musk has filled the sky with satellites, but no colonists, and constantly fights people on X. Self-driving cars are killing people. Apple has released a $3,500 VR headset that?s been met with middling reviews. And Facebook?s only recent innovation is eating its own tail to churn out massive profits.

How did it come to this? This week on Cyber, PR provocateur and tech critic Ed Zitron stops by to tell us about everything he saw at the Consumer Electronics Show, the problem with most tech journalism, and why we all turned against Big Tech. He?ll explore these topics more in depth on his new podcast, Better Offline, which launches later this month.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Better Offline

Rabbit AI Introduction Video

Where?s Your Ed At

How Tech Outstayed Its Welcome

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We live in a golden age of data. Every day, hacktivists release terabytes of data on sites like DDoSecrets, but sorting through it all requires some technical knowledge. What if you don?t know XML from SQL let alone how to write a simple Python script?

Micah Lee is the director of information security for The Intercept and he?s on Cyber today to talk about his new book: Hacks, Leaks, and Revelations. The book is a manual for people who want to learn how to parse and organize hacked datasets. It also contains stories of how Lee and others handled famous cases such as Blueleaks, neo-Nazi Discord chat rooms, and the Parler leak. If you?re not interested in diving into corporate or government secrets, you might learn something about how to protect your own data.

Hacks, Leaks, and Revelations: The Art of Analyzing Hacked and Leaked Data

Stories discussed in this episode:

How to Authenticate Large Datasets

Tech Companies and Governments Are Censoring the Journalist Collective DDoSecrets

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The unreliable narrator of After World, the new novel from author Debbie Urbanski, is an AI tasked with writing a book about Sen, the last human on Earth. In this world, humanity is done. The world is moving on without us and Sen was born for a purpose: to watch the planet change itself without humanity. After World is a story about artificial intelligence, climate change, and what we can hope to leave behind for our children in a doomed future. 

On today?s episode of Cyber, Emily and Matthew sit down with Urbanski to discuss all of it.

Stories discussed in this episode:

The original short story: An Incomplete Timeline of What We Tried

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According to the hype, artificial intelligence is changing everything. The truth is more complicated, but that doesn?t mean that companies and governments aren?t rushing to embrace the new technology. It?s even being used to update an old and destructive technology: nuclear weapons.

America is modernizing its force, Russia is building new kinds of nuclear weapons, and China is increasing its nuclear stockpile. At the same time, all three countries are looking to AI to outsource the dangerous and deadly work of apocalyptic destruction.

But what, exactly, does that look like? When it comes to nukes and AI, it?s time to embrace the horrors of uncertainty. This week?s guest is Edward Geist, a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. His latest book is Deterrence Under Uncertainty: Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Warfare.

It?s a conversation that?s both fascinating and frightening with one major theme: we don?t know nearly enough. ?One lamentable parallel between nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence is that both topics elicit an astonishing degree of magical thinking from otherwise intelligent people, including some with genuine expertise,? Geist wrote in his book.

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The New York Times kicked off the holiday season by suing OpenAI and Microsoft. The paper of record believes that ChatGPT is violating various copyrights by using its articles as training data. It?s a landmark case that may end up before the Supreme Court and might change copyright law in America forever. 

This week on Cyber, Sharon Goldman of VentureBeat sits down with us to discuss the lawsuit, the coming presidential election, and all the other big AI stories she?s watching in 2024.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Why NYT vs OpenAI Will Be the Copyright Fight to Watch in 2024

The 5 AI Stories I?m Waiting For in 2024

The Quest for AGI: Building Idols, Not a God

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On February 3, a train crashed in East Palestine, Ohio releasing toxic chemicals into the air. Almost a month later, another train owned by the same company also derailed in Ohio. That?s not all. Trains in Charlotte are running slower than they should. NYC can?t fit trains into its new station. The list goes on and on.

What the hell is going on with mass transit in America?

If you?re a long time Cyber listener, you might already know some of the answers to this question. That?s thanks to returning champion, Motherboard senior writer Aaron Gordon.

?It?s Going to End Up Like Boeing?: How Freight Rail Is Courting Catastrophe

East Palestine Derailment ?Foreseeable and Preventable,? Ohio Attorney General Lawsuit Alleges

24 Hours of News Shows America's Transportation Hellscape

The Worst Transit Project in the U.S. Is Officially Dead

Boston's Subway Was Running at Half Speed Because It Lost Paperwork

?We Had All the Issues That Town Has:? East Palestine Is Not the First or Last Derailment Disaster

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As we slide into the winter holidays, Cyber is taking some time to relax with old friends and discuss the things that truly matter: the decline of the internet, creator culture, and the transcendent power of movies. 

This week on Cyber, Aftermath co-founder Gita Jackson stops by to talk about ?Napoleon,? the death of film criticism, and what happens when a big name on YouTube plagiarizes you.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Please Stop Asking Me To Sue James Somerton

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Your posts matter more than you think. Social media has changed the way wars are fought and the internet has become a new battlefield. 

Twitter may be dying, but it still matters an awful lot to policy makers. TikTok is ascendent, but often because its content can be repurposed on other platforms. Telegram can give you the news on the ground, but only if you trust the sources.

With all this information flowing and everyone motivated by personal politics, who can you trust?

This week, Emerson T. Brooking joins Matthew and Emily to explain how online discussion shapes the reality on the ground in conflict zones. Brooking is a resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council and the co-author of LikeWar, a book about the weaponization of social media. 

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The tensions between security and operations and developer teams are the stuff of legend. DevSecOps is trying to change that, and automation is a big part of making it possible. But automation alone can?t overcome entrenched behavior. Joylynn Kirui shares how Microsoft is helping teams prioritize security without bogging down development.

Follow and listen to Code Comments: https://link.chtbl.com/codecomments?sid=podcast.cyber

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What happens when a for profit company is run by a non-profit board of directors who are ideologically opposed to the company?s product? You get something like what happened to OpenAI over the past week, which saw its board of directors sack CEO Sam Altman before eventually reinstating him and resigning. It?s a weird story that involves AI, predictions of the end of the world, strange pagan rites in Silicon Valley offices, and a Harry Potter fanfic.

Join us this week on Cyber as Motherboard senior editor Maxwell Strachan walks us through what the hell just happened and what it means for the future of AI.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Sam Altman Out at OpenAI ?Effective Immediately?

Everything You Need to Know About the Ridiculously Chaotic 'Coup,' Implosion, and Counter-Revolution at OpenAI

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, Who Crafted a Responsible Image, Is Pleading Guilty to Breaking Anti-Money Laundering Laws

Wall Street Embraces AI Despite Risks of Catastrophe

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When ?Alison? started working for Operation Underground Railroad, she wanted to make a difference in the lives of kids. She was a former Marine and social worker who?d seen the devastating effects that abuse could have on people. She wanted to stop it before it happened.

She ended up with a broken orbital bone, bleeding and vomiting in a gym after a training exercise gone wrong. This week on Cyber, Anna Merlan and Tim Marchman walk us through their latest reporting on Tim Ballard and Operation Underground Railroad.

Stories discussed in this episode

A Private Island, Downloads From God, and the 'Couples Ruse': Inside the Dangerous World of Tim Ballard's Operation Underground Railroad

Five of Tim Ballard?s Alleged Victims Have Filed a Lawsuit Against Him

Women Accuse Tim Ballard of ?Spiritual Manipulation, Grooming, and Sexual Misconduct?

A Century-Old, Debunked Theory Is Fueling the TikTok Moral Panic

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It?s a bad time to be a crypto-person. Some of crypto?s biggest evangelists are facing serious federal jail time. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted on seven counts of wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering after a disastrous trial. Some owners of Bored Ape NFTs experienced vision injuries at a recent gathering. Prices are in the toilet and SEC regulators are circling.

And yet, many crypto holders are holding out hope that the number will go up again soon. This week on Cyber, Jordan Pearson sits down with Matthew and Emily to talk about what the crypto landscape looks like one year after its collapse. The shocking news is that legitimate investment firms like BlackRock are still looking to get into the market, Paypal launched its own stablecoin, and crypto dreamers are still sure that the decentralized currencies will change everything.

Stories discussed in this episode:

NFT Owners Partying at ?ApeFest? Report Vision Injuries (Not From Looking at NFTs)

Elon Musk?s ?GrokAI? Is Beating the Competition In Generating Cringe

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Rhino sounds like a good deal at first. When people move into a new apartment, they often have to pay a large lump sum security deposit to their landlord. For people who can?t pay, Rhino offers to bill them a little bit every month in lieu of the deposit. But there?s a catch: unlike security deposits, money sent to Rhino is never returned.  The company uses algorithms to make the wealthy pay less than poorer people, some renters are still paying for places where they no longer live and no one, including landlords, can get the service on the phone.

This week on Cyber, Motherboard writer Roshan Abraham comes on to discuss his investigation into Rhino. 

Stories discussed in this episode:

How Landlord Tech Is Squeezing Renters Who Can't Afford Security Deposits

Tenants Are Suing Landlords for Allegedly Price-Fixing Rents with Software and the Feds Could Get Involved

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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Kias and Hyundais are being stolen in America at an alarming rate. Using a screwdriver and a USB cable, it?s trivially easy to steal one. Kia and Hyundai blame social media, but the problem is so overwhelming that several cities are suing the car manufacturer for creating a crime epidemic by electing not to build a $100 anti-theft device into some models.

This week on Cyber, Motherboard Reporter Aaron Gordon stops by to walk us through what?s really behind the viral crime wave.

?Kia Boys? Trend Fueling Nationwide Crime Wave Is Running Rampant on Instagram

What It?s Like To Own the Cars That Became a Viral Sensation To Steal

Kia and Hyundai Blame TikTok and Instagram For Their Cars Getting Stolen

U.S. Cities Have a Staggering Problem of Kia and Hyundai Thefts. This Data Shows It.

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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There?s a lot of reasons to be worried about the future. Climate change, nuclear weapons, space junk, and World War III are all threats both present and long-term. But, every day, people are trying to make the world a better place. It lands them in weird situations like skinny dripping with Soviet officers at the height of the Cold War or getting drunk with engineers in North Korea.

This week on Cyber, Dr. Jeffrey Lewis stops by to tell us all about the brave men and women who took a chance, reached out, and helped prevent the world from falling into oblivion. Lewis is a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies on the Nonproliferation and Terrorism Faculty. His new podcast, The Reason We?re All Still Here, explores the apocalypse with an air of hope for the future.

Go here to check out The Reason We?re All Still Here

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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Have you noticed your internet is ?. kinda shitty? Does Spotfiy?s smart shuffle keep playing the same Cure song over and over again? Does a quick google search give you page after page of obvious advertisements? Want to leave Facebook behind but that one group chat keeps you checking in day after day?

Well have I got the book for you. It?s The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. It?s a little bit history, it?s a little bit manifesto, and it?s all about one simple concept that can help us get out of this mess: interoperability.

Here with me today to discuss is the book's author, Cory Doctorow. Doctorow is a writer, activist, and journalist.

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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Luddites! It?s a dirty word, right? One that?s become synonymous with anti-technology crusaders that want to return us to an idyllic past where everyone is free from their phones. But who were the Luddites? Where does the term come from? How has it been misused and do we, perhaps, need a little more King Ludd in all our lives?

Brian Merchant is here to answer all our burning questions about Luddites and his new book Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech. He?s a technology columnist at the LA Times now. But Brian is as old school Motherboard as they come. We once made him eat Soylent for a month!

Buy Blood in the Machine here.

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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This summer, a movie called The Sound of Freedom took America by storm. The hero was Tim Ballard, the founder of an organization called Operation Underground Railroad. The movie depicted Ballard as an avenging hero who rescued trafficked children from a life of slavery. The truth, we?re all finding out, is something more complicated and a lot less heroic.

Ballard left the organization around the time Sound of Freedom premiered, following an investigation into his sexual misconduct. It?s a wild story involving the The Church of Latter Day Saints, a psychic channeling the Prophet Nephi, and serious criminal investigations.

Here to tell us about it are Vice?s own Anna Merlan and Tim Marchman.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Mormon Church Denounces Tim Ballard?s ?Morally Unacceptable? Activities

Tim Ballard?s Departure From Operation Underground Railroad Followed Sexual Misconduct Investigation

?Sound of Freedom? Producer Felt the Naked Breasts of Apparently Underage Trafficking Victim

Operation Underground Railroad Child-Rescue Missions Were Based on Psychic Intelligence

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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It?s time for a new history of the internet, one that focuses on the recent revolutions that define the world we all live in. Social media has changed the way many of us live and work. It?s a world defined by a new economy of creators and influencers. The new media is here and it?s Extremely Online.

That?s the title of the new book from Taylor Lorenz, which is the untold story of fame, influence, and power on the internet. Lorenz is a columnist for The Washington Post and she joined us to answer all our questions about why Vine failed, Tumblr was the best social network, and what the future holds for everyone who lives and works in the era of social media-powered capitalism.

In the back half of the episode, Motherboard science reporter Becky Ferreira stops by to talk about UFOs and radioactive boars.

Pre-order Taylor's book here.

Stories discussed in this episode:

The Original 'Avocado Toast' Millionaire Is Back, And He Wants 'Pain In the Economy'

'Avocado Toast' Millionaire Very Sorry for Saying 'Arrogant' Workers Should Lose Jobs After Outrage

Here Is NASA's 36-Page Report Investigating UFOs

'The Truth Is Out There': The Emails NASA's UFO Investigators Got From Scientists and the Public

WTF Is Going On With 'Alien Corpses' Being Shown to Mexico's Congress?

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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The heat is still here, but the summer will soon be over. Here at the precipice of fall I wanted to take a moment to reflect on one of the big stories that Motherboard covered this season: labor, strikes, and unions.

Here to tell us all about it is Motherboard labor reporter Jules Roscoe.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Instacart Tells Shoppers in Hurricane ?Bad Weather = Good Tips?

'It Feels Horrible': Amazon Workers Delivered Packages During Destructive Tropical Storm

Amazon Told Drivers Not to Worry About In-Van Surveillance Cameras. Now Footage Is Leaking Online

Ohio Man Charged for Shooting Amazon Driver Delivering to His House

Amazon Says It Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, But Records Show It Hired Firms to Prevent Them From Unionizing

Teamsters UPS Union Wins Historic Contract, Likely Avoiding Gigantic Strike

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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It?s part two of our bittersweet episode of Cyber where we bid farewell to Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler. This week we do a deep dive into the Motherboard lore. The stories that broke us, the controversies that made us who we are. Come find out which popular web comic wrote a strip about us that?s aged like milk, how much horse shit you can buy for $10 in Bitcoin, why the director of Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story hates Motherboard, and why you should never bowl with someone who has ebola.

Vox Something Or Other

The Shitexpress video

Bowling with Ebola

The Chinese Mystery Seed Saga

Neil Blomkamp destroys his computers

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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It?s a bittersweet episode of Cyber as we bid farewell to Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler. It?s a long episode so we?ve split it into two parts. This week you get some discussions about the topics of the day including Planet of Bass, Oliver Anthony, and the vibes-based economy. After that we start dishing all of Motherboard?s secrets, including how Jason came to work there and what it?s like to walk out of a meeting with 8 missed calls from Disney on your phone.

Next week we?re talking about a webcomic, comments sections, and how much horseshit $10 in Bitcoin could buy a few years ago.

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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Room-temperature superconductors are here! Maybe! Look, science is a liar sometimes, especially in the internet age. Motherboard science reporter Becky Ferreira is here to help us parse the truth from fiction of LK-99. It?s either one of the biggest science stories of our entire lives or ? just another science hoax.

Later in the show, Joseph Cox is stopping by to tell us about another group of researchers who?ve uncovered a backdoor in police radios.

Stories discussed in this episode:

DIY Scientists and Institutions Are Racing to Replicate the Room-Temperature Superconductor

Researchers Find ?Backdoor? in Encrypted Police and Military Radios

Defense Lawyers Push Judge to Reveal Secret Country that Helped FBI Wiretap the World

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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We?ve got a super sized Cyber for you today that?s all about the two hottest movies in theaters. One is a mythological take on the creation of the modern world and the devastating weapons that ushered it in. The other is about an idol forged from plastic that came to dominate that world.

That?s right. It?s Barbenheimer time. Emily Lipstein is co-hosting with me and we?re joined by nuclear historian and master of secrets, Alex Wellerstein as well as journalist and critic Gita Jackson.

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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It?s a brutally hot summer, a great time to cool off in an air conditioned movie theater or to catch up on some of those TV shows you?ve had on your list forever. But did you know the people who make the fine entertainment you know and love are on strike? Both writers and actors are picketing, trying to get a fair shake out of the studios and companies that bet big on streaming and used the shift to screw over the workers who keep us all entertained.

With us today to talk about it is standup comedian and consummate host and presenter Adam Conover. If you?ve been following the strike at all you?ve probably seen some of his videos. If you?re a fan of great TV or podcasts, you may have seen his various TV shows or listened to his Factually! Podcast.

Stories discussed in this episode:

SAG Files Unfair Labor Practice Against Universal After It Trimmed Trees on Picket Line Without a Permit

Striking Writers Are on the Front Line of a Battle Between AI and Workers

How Long Will the Writers? Strike Last? An Expert Explains

The Hollywood Strike Will Affect Way More Than Movies and TV

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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A movie about a Mormon anti-trafficking activist made headlines when it beat Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the box office. But Sound of Freedom?s box office numbers aren?t all they?re cracked up to be and the group behind the movie, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) has a long and troubled history.

Motherboard Senior Staff Writer Anna Merlan joins us this week on Cyber to explain OUR and Sound of Freedom.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Tim Ballard Has ?Stepped Away? From Operation Underground Railroad, Org Says

Anti-Trafficking Group With Long History of False Claims Gets Its Hollywood Moment

A Famed Anti-Sex Trafficking Group Has a Problem With the Truth

Inside a Massive Anti-Trafficking Charity's Blundering Overseas Missions

Anti-Trafficking Charity Operation Underground Railroad Has Another Murky Rescue Story

Operation Underground Railroad?s Carefully Crafted Public Image Is Falling Apart

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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It feels like the old internet is breaking apart and no one is sure where to go. The first three pages of search results on Google are dreck. Reddit is shutting down the third party apps that make it usable. AI generated content is flooding beloved old websites.

This might just be the end of the usable internet. On this episode of Cyber, we talk it all out with Motherboard editor-in-chief, Jason Koebler.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Threads: The Motherboard Review

You Can't Look at Porn on Any Reddit Third-Party App Now

AI-Generated Books of Nonsense Are All Over Amazon's Bestseller Lists

The Reddit Protest Is a Battle for the Soul of the Human Internet

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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Discord and Minecraft servers are part of an ecosystem where young people brag about crimes. SIM swapping, cryptocurrency, extortion, and violence-for-hire are all part of an disparate online community where people gather to swap stories and videos about crime. It?s called The Comm, and this week on Cyber, Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox comes on the show to tell us all about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoDl73J5EJY

Stories discussed in this episode:

Bloodied Macbooks and Stacks of Cash: Inside the Increasingly Violent Discord Servers Where Kids Flaunt Their Crimes

Firebombs and Shootings: The Rise of IRL Harassment and Violence as a Service

'The Comm': The Group Linked to a Nationwide Swatting Rampage

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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Did you know that AI is set to automate as many as a third of your tasks? In the future we?re all going to be saving a lot of time. That?s as long as no one invents artificial general intelligence that fires all the nukes or turns us all into paperclips. Which, some experts seem to think, will surely happen.

Today we?re gonna talk about hype. Not the exciting kind of hype, but Criti-Hype, a kind of techno doomerism we?re often fond of here at Motherboard. Social media, biogenetics, Artificial Intelligence. These things could ruin us all. At least ? that?s what people tell you when they?re selling something.

Lee Vinsel is a professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech and the host of the People & Things podcast. His Medium post that caught our eye is: You?re Doing it Wrong: Notes on Criticism and Technology Hype.

Stories discussed in this episode:

You?re Doing It Wrong: Notes on Criticism and Technology Hype

The Open Letter to Stop 'Dangerous' AI Race Is a Huge Mess

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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Customs and Border Protection is scanning people?s social media, the feds have arrested some swatters, and the FTC has ordered Ring to cough up a fine. This week on Cyber, Motherboard?s premier cyber crime reporter Joseph Cox is back to walk us through the latest in privacy violations done by Washington and the private sector. We?ll also take another look at the criminal world of SIM swappers and auto-swatters.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Homeland Security Uses AI Tool to Analyze Social Media of U.S. Citizens and Refugees

'The Comm': The Group Linked to a Nationwide Swatting Rampage

FTC Orders Ring to Pay $5.8 Million in Refunds For Surveilling Customers, Failing to Stop Hackers

Russian FSB Accuses U.S. of Hacking Thousands of iPhones in Russia

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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Is there anything artificial intelligence can?t do?Debt collectors want AI to push people into coughing up what?s owed. An AI created photo of an attack on the Pentagon generated a minor panic. There?s an AI that can read your mind and the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, just testified before Congress.

This week on Cyber, Motherboard reporter Chloe Xiang comes on to walk us through the big headlines in the world of AI.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Debt Collectors Want To Use AI Chatbots To Hustle People For Money

Verified Twitter Accounts Spread AI-Generated Hoax of Pentagon Explosion

AI Reconstructs 'High-Quality' Video Directly from Brain Readings in Study

Worried About Sending Your Data to a Chatbot? 'PrivateGPT' Is Here

OpenAI Tells Congress the U.S. Should Create AI 'Licenses' to Release New Models

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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Crypto and crime, crime and crypto. They go together like spreadsheets and tax evasion. When cryptocurrency hit the scene it was, according to its evangelists, going to usher in a world of decentralized currency and free everyone from the shackles of oppressive central banks. Turns out it?s also been a pretty great way to launder money.

It?s also the subject of the new book Red Team Blues, a novel from writer Cory Doctorow. In Red Team Blues a 67 year old forensic accountant finds himself at the center of a crypto-crime mystery that takes him from the heights of silicon valley to the depths of the Tenderloin. This week on Cyber, Doctorow walks us through a brief history of the valley and why he wrote three books about an old accountant during the pandemic.

Doctorow is the author of more than two dozen books and too many articles to count. He?s currently blogging at pluralistic.net.

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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We talk a lot about encrypted phones on Cyber. Everyone loves a secure communication channel that no one can peer into. But some companies, well, if there?s criminal activity going on they?re gonna sell you out. And the cops have gotten very good at setting up honeypots and hacking into existing networks.

But there?s one encrypted service out there that is, as far as we know, still secure. It?s called No. 1 Business Communication and it?s a favorite of the Italian Mafia. On this episode of Cyber, Joseph Cox comes on to explain how and why No. 1 Business Communication has survived in a world where authorities have shut down the competition. 

Stories discussed in this episode:

Inside the Italian Mafia?s Encrypted Phone of Choice

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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If you?re watching or listening to this show you?re probably doing it on a device that owes its very existence to the Apple II. But these days we remember the iPhone, 90s era Windows, and even the Macintosh as these big benchmark moments in widespread adoption of tech.

But all those devices wouldn't be here if it weren?t for the little Apple II board that could and the people who turned a hobbyist curiosity into a fundamental part of every household in the world.

That story is the subject of the new book The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal. This week on Cyber, author Laine Nooney comes on to talk about The Apple II Age and how the little machine ushered in a new world of personal computing. Nooney is also an assistant professor of Media and Information Studies at New York University and the founding editor of ROMchip: A Journal of Games Histories.

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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When Elon Musk posted a video of himself arriving at Twitter HQ carrying a white sink along with the message ?let that sink in!? it marked the end of a dramatic takeover. Musk had gone from Twitter critic to ?Chief Twit? in the space of just a few months but his arrival didn?t put an end to questions about his motives. Musk had earned a reputation as a business maverick. From PayPal to Tesla to SpaceX, his name was synonymous with big, earth-shattering ideas. So, what did he want with a social media platform? And was this all really in the name of free speech...or was this all in the name of Elon Musk?

From Wondery, the makers of WeCrashed and In God We Lust, comes the wild story of how the richest man alive took charge of the world?s ?digital public square.?

Listen to Flipping The Bird: Wondery.fm/FTB_Cyber

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It looks like a bluetooth speaker or an old Nokia cellphone. But that?s a disguise. Inside these small devices is everything car thieves need to break into your vehicle. There are telegram channels now where, for a few thousand dollars, you can buy a device that will break into a car in seconds.

Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox is here on Cyber this week to walk us through it.

Stories discussed in this episode:

The Car Thieves Using Tech Disguised Inside Old Nokia Phones and Bluetooth Speakers

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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Automation is making everyone?s lives easier, including people who call in fake bomb threats on crowded public locations. We live in a world where pranksters and criminals can summon a massive police presence with the click of a few buttons. On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard staff writer Joseph Cox is here to tell us all about it.

Stories discussed in this episode:

A Computer Generated Swatting Service Is Causing Havoc Across America

Smart Garage Company Fixes Vulnerability by Breaking Customers' Devices

Hackers Can Remotely Open Smart Garage Doors Across the World

IRS Wants to Buy Internet Mass Monitoring Tool

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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Top Secret classified Pentagon documents leaked on a Minecraft Discord server. The pages of documents contain sensitive information about troop placements in Ukraine, rumors about allies, and?weirdly?a character sheet for a tabletop roleplaying game. 

On this episode of Cyber, host Matthew Gault takes a back seat and lets Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler interrogate him about what?s in these classified Pentagon documents.

Pentagon?s Ukraine War Plans Leaked on Minecraft Discord Before Telegram and Twitter

Leaked Pentagon Docs Share Wild Rumor: Kremlin Plans to ?Throw? Putin?s War While He?s Getting Chemo

Leaked Classified Documents Also Include Roleplaying Game Character Stats

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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A terrible April Fool?s day glitch screws over Uber drivers, tenants in California are striking back against landlords, and private banks: do we need them?

Today?s episode of Cyber is a cypher, that infrequent version of the show where we decipher some recent tech news. It?s a potpourri for the panopticon age. A grab bag of tech horrors, a not so gentle reminder that our work is not yet done.

Motherboard reporter Roshan Abraham is here to talk about it all.

'Screwed': Uber Claws Back Double Pay from Drivers After April Fools Glitch

Tenants of America's Biggest Landlord Form Union to Fight Evictions, Rent Hikes

Want to Curb City Crime? Evict Fewer Tenants, Study Says

Private Banks Are In Crisis. What If They Were Public Banks?

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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Facial recognition systems are here. They?ve been deployed extensively along America?s southern border and in its cities. Authoritarian regimes in Iran and Russia are using the technology to crack down on dissidents and what?s going on in Moscow right now paints a horrifying picture of how dangerous the tech has become.

On this episode of Cyber, Lena Masri is here to talk about it. She?s the author of a new report at Reuters about how Putin uses facial recognition to curb dissent.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Facial recognition is helping Putin curb dissent with the aid of U.S. tech

U.S. Hardware Is Fueling Russia's Facial Recognition Crackdown on Anti-War Dissidents

AI Use by Cops, Child Services In NYC Is a Mess: Report

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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Love it or hate it, you can?t escape artificial intelligence. People are using Midjourney to make viral photos of Donald Trump?s arrest and the Pop?s puffy coat. Redditors are creating entire fake historical events and backing it up with AI-generated photos. Silicon Valley seems to think this tech is the next big thing, with Google and Microsoft betting big on it and some people begging everyone to pause development for six months.

Is AI changing the world? With us here today to try to answer that question is Motherboard reporter Chloe Xiang.

Stories discussed in this episode:

People Are Creating Records of Fake Historical Events Using AI

ChatGPT Can Replace the Underpaid Workers Who Train AI, Researchers Say

The Open Letter to Stop 'Dangerous' AI Race Is a Huge Mess

'He Would Still Be Here': Man Dies by Suicide After Talking with AI Chatbot, Widow Says

AI Theorist Says Nuclear War Preferable to Developing Advanced AI

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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In America, no one can protect you from a transportation employee being paid off by the feds.

The Drug Enforcement Agency has a single remit: to prosecute America?s long-failed war on drugs. Joseph Cox is on today?s episode of Cyber to talk about one its shadier practices and the senators who want answers from the Department of Justice. It turns out that the DEA has been paying Amtrak and commercial package companies to act as informants and supply data on customers without having to get a warrant.

Stories discussed in this episode:

The DEA Bought Customer Data from Rogue Employees Instead of Getting a Warrant

The 'Insanely Broad' RESTRICT Act Could Ban Much More Than Just TikTok

Here is the FBI?s Contract to Buy Mass Internet Data

Cops Sue Afroman for 'Emotional Distress' After He Made Music Videos of Botched Raid

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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America is thinking about banning the most popular social media app in the world. TikTok has exploded in the past few years and whether you love it or hate it, you can?t deny its huge influence.

Legislators in America are concerned about that influence, especially because of TikTok?s connections to China. On Thursday, TikTok?s CEO testified before the House?s Committee on Energy and Commerce and fielded questions about the app, its connection to China, and what it might be doing to America?s children.

It was a shitshow.

Motherboard?s Social Media Manager, Emily Lipstein, is on this episode of Cyber talking about.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Congress Shocked to Discover 10 Year Olds Check the ?I?m Over 18? Box Online

Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional, Ludicrous, and a National Embarrassment

Follow Motherboard on TikTok to see the Congressional footage

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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It?s almost impossible to get retail priced tickets to The Cure?s newest live tour. Fans are, once again, turning to the secondary market despite the band?s insistence that Ticketmaster shut it down. 

This week on Cyber, Joseph Cox and Motherboard Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler take us into the world of the ticket scalper, where whole Ticketmaster accounts are being sold in bulk and a ?verified fan? is just someone the algorithm approves of.

Stories discussed in this episode:

The Cure Tried to Stop Scalpers. Brokers Are Selling Entire Ticketmaster Accounts Instead

Ticketmaster Cancels Public Sale for Taylor Swift Tickets Because It Already Sold Them All

Blink-182 Tickets Are So Expensive Because Ticketmaster Is a Disastrous Monopoly and Now Everyone Pays Ticket Broker Prices

The Man Who Broke Ticketmaster

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. 

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In America the trains never seem to run on time. On February 3, a train crashed in East Palestine, Ohio releasing toxic chemicals into the air. Almost a month later, another train owned by the same company also derailed in Ohio. That?s not all. Trains in Charlotte are running slower than they should. NYC can?t fit trains into its new station. The list goes on and on.

What the hell is going on with mass transit in America?

If you?re a long time Cyber listener, you might already know some of the answers to this question. That?s thanks to returning champion, Motherboard senior writer Aaron Gordon.

Stories discussed in this episode:

East Palestine Derailment ?Foreseeable and Preventable,? Ohio Attorney General Lawsuit Alleges

24 Hours of News Shows America's Transportation Hellscape

The Worst Transit Project in the U.S. Is Officially Dead

Boston's Subway Was Running at Half Speed Because It Lost Paperwork

?We Had All the Issues That Town Has:? East Palestine Is Not the First or Last Derailment Disaster

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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Collapse. It?s the word on everybody?s lips. Silicon Valley Bank and Signature are no more. The banks, folks, they?ve collapsed. But don?t worry, these aren?t your typical banks. SVB and Signature were not the kinds of places working class folks were holding checking accounts. These were massive institutions that propped up America?s ailing tech sector. If you?ve been hustled by an NFT startup in the past year, there?s a good chance it had deposits at SVB.

But now they?re gone and, after some panic, it looks like America?s blessed institutions are working as intended. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is gonna clean all this up. But should they?

On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Managing Editor Jordan Pearson sits down to answer the question.

Stories discussed in this episode:

How Silicon Valley's Bank Imploded

Are Failing Banks About to Destroy the Economy?

OK, WTF Is Up With the Government Bailing Out the Tech Industry?

WSJ Wonders: Did Silicon Valley Bank Die Because One Black Person Was on Its Board?

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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It?s Cipher time, baby. It?s that infrequent style of Cyber we do where we decipher Motherboard?s tech coverage in a potpourri for the panopticon age. 

On today?s episode we?ve got a little bit of everything. A popular hiking app reveals that, once again, we just can?t trust private companies with our data. But what about our passwords? Surely a company that bills itself as a secure way to remember all those logins is secure right? Nope! Also, Twitter ditches Tor and, just for fun, another wonderful story about cheating in online video games.

Motherboard?s own Joseph Cox is here to walk us through all of it.

Stories discussed in this episode:

AllTrails Data Exposes Precise Movements of Former Top Biden Official

Twitter?s Most Important Anti-Censorship Tool Is Currently Dead

?Escape From Tarkov? Roiled By Severe Cheating Accusations

LastPass Shouldn't Be Trusted With Your Passwords

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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On February 4, 2023, an F-22 fighter jet committed the first air to air kill in the weapons history. It was an alleged Chinese spy balloon near Myrtle Beach. In the days that followed the F-22 would score another kill, this time against a mysterious floating object above the Yukon.

But this second object hadn?t come from China. Hobbyists, in fact, think it might be one of their balloons. Across the world there is a small but dedicated group of people who love launching tiny balloons into the sky.

It?s been a weird month for the community. What with the fighter jets patrolling the sky and constant reports of UFOs. On this week?s Cyber, Motherboard reporter Becky Ferreria stops by to talk about the amateur balloonists who lived through the great balloon panic of 2023.

Stories discussed in this episode:

'Unfortunate and Amusing': Balloon Enthusiasts Undeterred by U.S. Air Force Shootdowns

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.

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