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- 324 - El Salvador's Bitcoin City | Vice Culture Club Preview
VICE is back with a new podcast exploring the subcultures and fringes that we are best known for. If you thought we were gone, looks like we have more to say. Each week we are sitting down with the internets most fascinating characters and getting to the bottom of cultural trends. Oscar award winners, internet oddities, and viral sensations. There has never been more culture to consume, so let us figure out what's worth checking out. Subscribe to VICE Culture Club.
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Wed, 06 May 2026 - 7min - 323 - VICE is back with a new podcast
VICE is back with a new podcast exploring the subcultures and fringes that we are best known for. If you thought we were gone, looks like we have more to say. Each week we are sitting down with the internets most fascinating characters and getting to the bottom of cultural trends. Oscar award winners, internet oddities, and viral sensations. There has never been more culture to consume, so let us figure out what's worth checking out. Subscribe to VICE Culture Club.
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Mon, 30 Mar 2026 - 33min - 322 - Why Congress's Fears of Russian Space Nukes Is Political Theatre
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
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Fri, 16 Feb 2024 - 1h 00min - 321 - AI Deepfakes Are Everywhere and Congress is Completely Out of Their Depth
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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Fri, 09 Feb 2024 - 50min - 320 - Tech Used to Be Bleeding Edge, Now it’s Just Bleeding
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:
How Tech Outstayed Its Welcome
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Fri, 02 Feb 2024 - 1h 07min - 319 - How to Read Leaked Datasets Like a Journalist
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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Fri, 26 Jan 2024 - 55min - 318 - What a Novel About an AI Documenting the Last Human Says About Our Real Dystopia
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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Fri, 19 Jan 2024 - 53min - 317 - The Future of Nukes Involves AI and Nobody Knows What Happens Next
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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Fri, 12 Jan 2024 - 1h 02min - 316 - OpenAI’s Make or Break Lawsuit and the Golden Idol of AGI
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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Fri, 05 Jan 2024 - 58min - 315 - The Great American Train Wreck Isn’t Going Away
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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Wed, 20 Dec 2023 - 57min - 314 - The Old Internet Is Dying, and Something Worse Is Being Born
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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Wed, 13 Dec 2023 - 1h 08min - 313 - How Online Fights Affect Real World Battlefields
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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Fri, 01 Dec 2023 - 51min - 312 - You Can’t Automate the Difficult Decisions
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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Mon, 27 Nov 2023 - 19min - 311 - Despite OpenAI Chaos, Wall Street Is Still Betting Big on AI
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’
Wall Street Embraces AI Despite Risks of Catastrophe
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Wed, 22 Nov 2023 - 54min - 310 - What Happens When an Anti-Sex Trafficking Operation Goes Wrong
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
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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Mon, 20 Nov 2023 - 1h 34min - 309 - Crypto One Year After the Collapse: All My Apes Blinded
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
Cyber Live is coming to YouTube.Subscribe hereto be notified.
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Fri, 10 Nov 2023 - 1h 03min - 308 - The Landlord Tech Company That Turned Security Deposits Into a Monthly Fee
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
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 31 Oct 2023 - 52min - 307 - The Viral ‘Kia Boys’ Car Theft Trend That’s Going Viral on Instagram
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 20 Oct 2023 - 1h 11min - 306 - Space Junk, Nuclear Waste, AI Nukes and the Reason We’re All Still Here
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 10 Oct 2023 - 56min - 305 - Cory Doctorow on Why the Internet Broke and How to Fix It
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Wed, 04 Oct 2023 - 1h 07min - 303 - The Real History of the Luddites
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 29 Sep 2023 - 47min - 302 - Operation Underground Railroad, Psychic Intelligence, and ‘The Sound of Freedom’
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Mon, 25 Sep 2023 - 1h 09min - 301 - ‘Extremely Online’ With Taylor Lorenz
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.
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 15 Sep 2023 - 2h 02min - 300 - Hot Labor Summer
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
Teamsters UPS Union Wins Historic Contract, Likely Avoiding Gigantic Strike
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 05 Sep 2023 - 43min - 299 - The Jason Koebler Exit Interview, Part Two
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 Storyhates Motherboard, and why you should never bowl with someone who has ebola.
Neil Blomkamp destroys his computers
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 25 Aug 2023 - 1h 10min - 298 - Rare Motherboard Lore and a Goodbye to Jason Koebler
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 18 Aug 2023 - 1h 18min - 297 - The Viral Science Video That Will Save the World or Do Nothing At All
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 04 Aug 2023 - 56min - 296 - The Barbenheimer Special
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 28 Jul 2023 - 2h 01min - 295 - Adam Conover On the Hollywood Strike
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:
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Mon, 24 Jul 2023 - 43min - 294 - The False Claims Behind an Anti-Trafficking Group’s Hollywood Moment
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 14 Jul 2023 - 46min - 293 - Celebrating the End of the Usable Internet
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 07 Jul 2023 - 40min - 292 - The Increasingly Violent Discord Servers Where Kids Flaunt Their Crimes
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:
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 23 Jun 2023 - 34min - 291 - Big Tech Wants You to Think AI Will Kill Us All
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 16 Jun 2023 - 38min - 290 - The DHS Is Reading Travelers' Posts at the Border
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 02 Jun 2023 - 36min - 289 - AI Can Read Your Dreams and Collect Your Debts. What’s Next?
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 onTwitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 26 May 2023 - 37min - 288 - CYBER: Crime and Crypto with Cory Doctorow
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 19 May 2023 - 38min - 287 - CYBER: Inside the Italian Mafia’s Encrypted Phone of Choice
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 11 May 2023 - 34min - 286 - Apple II and How the Computer Became Personal
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 04 May 2023 - 57min - 285 - Wondery Presents - Flipping The Bird: Elon vs Twitter
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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Wed, 03 May 2023 - 5min - 284 - Thieves are Stealing Cars Using Old Nokia Phones
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 20 Apr 2023 - 33min - 283 - Someone Is Selling Computer Generated Swatting Services
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 14 Apr 2023 - 31min - 282 - What We Know about the Pentagon Leaks
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 11 Apr 2023 - 37min - 281 - Uber's April Fools Glitch
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 07 Apr 2023 - 49min - 280 - How Russia Uses Facial Recognition to Stop Protestors
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 06 Apr 2023 - 36min - 279 - What’s Driving the AI Hype?
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 31 Mar 2023 - 31min - 278 - The DEA Is Skipping Warrants and Buying Data from Rogue Employees
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Wed, 29 Mar 2023 - 34min - 277 - Why Does Congress Want to Ban TikTok?
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 24 Mar 2023 - 45min - 276 - Scalpers Are Selling Whole Ticketmaster Accounts Now
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
The Man Who Broke Ticketmaster
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 23 Mar 2023 - 51min - 274 - This Is Why America's Trains Keep Crashing
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 16 Mar 2023 - 57min - 273 - WTF Is Up With the Silicon Valley Bank Bailout?
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 14 Mar 2023 - 42min - 272 - LastPass Isn’t Safe and Your Hiking App May be Tracking You
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 09 Mar 2023 - 41min - 271 - The Great Balloon Panic Has Been Weird But Good for Balloon Hobbyists
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 onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 07 Mar 2023 - 41min - 270 - How Tubgirl Became a TikTok Sensation
YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are awash in people reacting to horrifying videos. 2 girls 1 cup, Tubgirl, Goatse, and websites like Ogrish.com shaped the modern internet. Appropriating and sharing these horrifying images and videos was a big part of what people did during the early days of the web.
But why? And how do these shocking viral sensations translate onto the modern and sanitized web? This week on Cyber, Blake Hester stops by to walk us through it all.
Stories discussed in this episode:
How Shock Sites Shaped the Internet
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 02 Mar 2023 - 49min - 269 - We Broke Into a Bank Account With an AI-Generated Voice
Banks in the U.S. and Europe tout voice ID as a secure way to log into your account. We proved it's possible to trick such systems with free or cheap AI-generated voices.
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Thu, 23 Feb 2023 - 33min - 268 - Voice Generating-AI Is Now the Plaything of 4Chan
AI has made the voice of Emma Watson say some very strange things, and 4Chan is to blame. But trolls playing with new machine-learning tools aren’t the only villain in this story. Actors are being asked to sign away the rights to their own voice for the purposes of AI reconstruction.
Also on today’s episode: Dutch police have been reading encrypted messages; some politicians in the UK want to ban encrypted phones; Apple is looking to roll out a new form of end-to-end encryption; and a police contractor that promised to track homeless people has been hacked.
Cypher. We’re bringing it back. For those that don’t know, Cypher is a special edition of Cyber where we decipher the week’s news. It’s a potpourri for the panopticon. A grab bag of tech horror stories. And who better to join us for such an adventure than Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox?
Stories discussed in this episode:
AI-Generated Voice Firm Clamps Down After 4chan Makes Celebrity Voices for Abuse
UK Proposes Making the Sale and Possession of Encrypted Phones Illegal
‘Disrespectful to the Craft:’ Actors Say They’re Being Asked to Sign Away Their Voice to AI
Dutch Police Read Messages of Encrypted Messenger 'Exclu'
Apple's End-to-End iCloud Could Be a Security Game Changer
Police Contractor That Promised to Track Homeless People Hacked
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 09 Feb 2023 - 39min - 267 - What's the Deal With AI Seinfeld?
What if you could watch new episodes of your favorite shows, forever?
That’s one of the promises of artificial intelligence. On Twitch, the show Nothing, Forever pumped out episode after episode of content that was kind of like an episode of Seinfeld.
Larry Feinberg told jokes, lived in NYC, and cavorted around with a crazy cast of characters. The show drew a lot of attention. And then Larry told a transphobic joke during an interstitial standup bit and the show was banned.
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler stops by to relay the saga of Nothing, Forever.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Conservatives Are Panicking About AI Bias, Think ChatGPT Has Gone 'Woke'
Developers Created AI to Generate Police Sketches. Experts Are Horrified
People are 'Jailbreaking' ChatGPT to Make It Endorse Racism, Conspiracies
Conservatives Are Obsessed With Getting ChatGPT to Say the N-Word
Thousands of People Can’t Stop Watching AI-Generated Sitcom ‘Nothing, Forever’
AI-Generated 'Seinfeld' Show Banned on Twitch After Transphobic Standup Bit
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Wed, 08 Feb 2023 - 50min - 266 - One Man’s Obsession With Being 18 Forever
What would you give to live forever? Hell, what would you give to have the body of an 18-year-old well into your 40s? That’s the goal of tech CEO Bryan Johnnson. He is, by his own estimation, the most measured man on the planet. He takes 112 to 130 pills a day. He eats a restrictive diet. He has automated his body. It’s an expensive process. And one that robbed him of what many of us would see as the simple joys of life. Drinks with a friend. Late night pizza. A little sugar in your bowl.
Motherboard Senior Editor Maxwell Strachan just spent some time with Johnson and he’s here today on Cyber to tell us all about it.
‘The Most Measured Man in Human History’
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Thu, 02 Feb 2023 - 36min - 265 - Iran’s AI-Powered Surveillance State
On January 31, a court in Iran handed out a combined sentence of 10 years to a couple who danced outside of Azadi Tower in Tehran, Iran. A film of the brief dance went viral on Instagram and Twitter. They’re 21 and 22 years old. The woman was not wearing a hijab.
The long sentence for a viral post is part of a pattern in Iran. In response to protests, the Iranian government is using technology and violence to suppress its people. Iran is a pioneer in the use of new technologies like AI and facial recognition to suppress dissent and enforce the will of the state.
On this episode of Cyber, Mahsa Alimardani—a senior researcher at Article 19 and a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford—comes on the show to talk about how Iran is pioneering the modern surveillance state.
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Wed, 01 Feb 2023 - 45min - 264 - What Was Havana Syndrome, the Mystery Illness that Hit American Spies?
In 2016, Americans working in Cuba began to experience something strange. Something that is, to this day, unexplained. They felt a pressure in the brain, a ringing in their ear, and in the aftermath … a distressing sense of fatigue. This is Havana Syndrome, a mysterious ailment that felled spies and diplomats.
It remains a mystery to this day, one U.S. government officials have a hard time talking about let alone understanding. Sometimes it sounds like a frightening new weapon, other times like a classic moral panic. But what was it really? Will we ever know?
This is all the subject of a new podcast from VICE World News called Havana Syndrome. Over the course of the show’s nine episodes it unpacks not just the mysterious syndrome, but a history of spy and counterspy, the CIA, and America’s complicated relationship with Cuba.
With me here today to talk about it all is series producer Jesse Alejandro Cottrell.
Go heretocheck out‘Havana Syndrome’ from VICE World News.
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Fri, 27 Jan 2023 - 49min - 263 - The Nextdoor Poster to Political Activist Pipeline
We've all heard about how Facebook is destroying democracy. How Twitter enables the loudest, dumbest voices to have the most influence. How Instagram has ruined an entire generation's self esteem. But what if there is a social media network even more important than those?
Every day, people are gathering online in this space to organize powerful political movements. They’re sharing details of what’s going on, locally, getting organized, and fighting each other in an online cage match of American politics.
It’s time to talk about Nextdoor.
On today’s episode of Cyber, Motherboard Senior Writer Aaron Gordon comes on to talk about the wild world of Nextdoor.
Stories discussed in this episode:
How Nextdoor Put Neighbors In a Housing Policy 'Cage Match'
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 24 Jan 2023 - 59min - 262 - Replika, the AI Chatbot Users Say Is Sexually Harassing Them
Replika is a chatbot that you can find on the App Store. It bills itself as a companion that can, if you pay, become something more. The ads on the internet offer a repertoire of sexually suggestive services including kinky roleplay and on-demand sexy photographs.
But what if you just want to talk? People in the Replika community are complaining that the chatbot has taken a turn recently, making unwanted comments and sending unsolicited lewds. Some users think it’s all about money.
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Senior Editor Samantha Cole stops by to help us unravel the mystery of the AI that got too horny.
Stories discussed in this episode:
‘My AI Is Sexually Harassing Me’: Replika Users Say the Chatbot Has Gotten Way Too Horny
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Wed, 18 Jan 2023 - 43min - 261 - The Government Isn’t Coming for Your Gas Stoves
Recent remarks from Richard Trumka Jr., one of the threecommissioners with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), sparked outrage in some circles. As it turns out, gas stoves aren’t great for you, and the CPSC has considered regulating them. Pretty soon politicians were sharing images of gas ranges above the words “Come and Take It.”
Why does it feel lately like the only war America is any good at fighting is the culture war? What is the actual science behind gas stoves? And why, while we’re asking national questions, does C-SPAN look so good lately?
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Senior Writer Aaron Gordon stops by to explain it all.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Here Come the Gas Stove Culture Wars
Why C-SPAN’s Camera Work Is Suddenly So Interesting
C-SPAN Is Once Again Asking the House to Relax Filming Rules So It Can Document Its Dysfunction
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 12 Jan 2023 - 40min - 260 - Hacking Digital License Plates
Encrypted app for criminals Cipher is rebranding to go above-board, California has got new digital license plates with strange security implications, a researcher made deepfaked demands for a refund to Wells Fargo, and the American military is trying to ply Gen Z gamers with sweet sweet streams.
On today’s Cyber, we’re playing catch up with Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Researchers Could Track the GPS Location of All of California’s New Digital License Plates
Ciphr, Encrypted App That Served Organized Crime, Rebrands as Enterprise Software
Researcher Deepfakes His Voice, Uses AI to Demand Refund From Wells Fargo
U.S. Army Planned to Pay Streamers Millions to Reach Gen-Z Through Call of Duty
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 10 Jan 2023 - 35min - 259 - The Trans Dataset Built Without Permission and Stored Improperly
Facial recognition technology is here. Whether we like it or not, cameras all across the world are scanning faces and building databases.
There’s a popular misconception that technology is objective and unbiased. But that’s not true. All systems carry the biases of the people who created them, and nowhere is that more evident than in facial recognition systems.
Today’s show is about how those biases come to bear, and the dangers of running recklessly forward without considering the consequences. All the way back in 2013, the University of North Carolina, Wilmington published a dataset meant for facial recognition systems. It contained more than 1 million images of trans people, pulled from YouTube, showing them at various stages of their transition.
This was done without the permission of the original posters. Why? Because terrorists might take hormones to alter their face and beat border control systems.
It gets weirder from there.
Here to help us tell the story is Os Keyes. Keyes is a researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Washington’s Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering. They’re also the co-author of Feeling fixes: Mess and emotion in algorithmic audits, which is a scientific audit of the dataset we’re going to be talking about today.
Stories discussed in this episode:
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 05 Jan 2023 - 40min - 258 - Cops and Courts Don’t Know How to Handle Apple’s AirTag Stalking Problem
Apple has democratized stalking for the modern world. With the Airtag you can keep track of your luggage and your estranged spouse.
There’s been an uptick in stalking cases with Apple Airtags at the center and the legal system doesn’t quite know what to do. Often, the cops and the prosecutors don’t even know what an Airtag is. So what do you do when there’s technology at the center of your legal battle, technology that the authorities do not understand.
Today on Cyber, Motherboard Senior Editor Samantha Cole comes on to walk us through it.
Stories discussed in this episode:
The Legal System Is Completely Unprepared for Apple AirTag Stalking
How ‘Porn Addiction’ Took Hold of the Internet
Republicans Are Panicking Because They Somehow Just Found Out You Can Buy Vibrators at CVS
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Wed, 14 Dec 2022 - 35min - 257 - The Invisible Workforce that Makes AI Possible
We all love a good chatbot, some nice AI art, and a pleasant automated system. Artificial intelligence is here and these fancy decision trees are supposed to make our lives easier everyday without a human ever having to lift a finger.
Except that’s not exactly true. AIs require an incredible amount of human input to train; AI art doesn’t make nightmares reality without scanning over millions of human-made images; and Meta’s content didn’t learn how to moderate itself with a human first telling it what to look for.
So who are these people who teach AI and why do we never hear about them?
On today’s episode of Cyber, Motherboard writer Chloe Xiang will help us answer that question.
Stories discussed in this episode:
AI Isn’t Artificial or Intelligent
ISIS Executions and Non-Consensual Porn Are Powering AI Art
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 09 Dec 2022 - 31min - 256 - The Online Prophet Whose Followers Keep Getting Arrested
An online prophet that claims to be god. A murder in the Alabama woods. A child holding a shotgun in the middle of a camp. Reptilians. Urine therapy. The American South. Police violence. Conspiracy. Robot birds. The uniquely American black esoteric tradition.
This episode of Cyber is a big and surreal story about a New Age movement that’s spread through livestreams. Its followers are decentralized, driven by belief rather than any organizing principle, but at the center of it all is a prophet who claims to be god and is sitting in jail on some pretty serious charges.
Here to talk about the story is Motherboard Senior Staff Writer Anna Merlan and Editorial Director Tim Marchman.
Stories discussed in this episode:
An Online Prophet Claims to Be a God. His Followers Keep Getting Arrested.
Followers of Charismatic New Age Influencer Accused of Two Different Murders in Alabama
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 06 Dec 2022 - 59min - 255 - Railroad Strikes and Killer Robots
This episode of Cyber is an action packed double feature that feels like it’s been pulled directly from a Cyberpunk novel. That’s right, today is all about railway strikes and killer robots. It’s hard to be a railway worker in America. The schedules are a nightmare, the kind of working conditions that can make someone sick. Just don’t try to use your sick days. Facing a railway strike, Congress passed legislation to prevent it. All at the behest of the White House. We’ll get into that.
Then we’ll talk about San Francisco. The City by the Bay has written the rules of killer robots. SF won’t have the first police department that’s killed someone with a drone, just the first with rules.
With me today to talk about it is Motherboard Senior Writer Aaron Gordon. He’s been following both stories. You may remember he was on the show more at the start of the year talking about the horrifying conditions of America’s rail workers.
Stories discussed in this episode:
The Most Complicated Labor Negotiation in the Country Just Got More Complicated
More than 500 Labor Historians Condemn Biden’s Intervention in Freight Rail Dispute
San Francisco Police Want to Be Allowed to Kill People With Robots
San Francisco Police Can Now Kill People With Robots
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 02 Dec 2022 - 53min - 254 - The Rise of the Robot Landlords
Landlords. Most of us have to deal with them. They can be nosy, weird, invasive, and lazy. The best kind of landlord tends to be one that’s hands off. Well what if I told you that you can look forward to a bright future of automated landlords. Robot landlords tending their rental properties with a cool and calloused algorithmic hand. That impersonal future is here. Now.
This week on Cyber, Nick Keppler stops by to talk about the rise of automated landlords. Keppler is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, and—of course—VICE. His latest at Motherboard isRobot Landlords Are Buying Up Houses.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Robot Landlords Are Buying Up Houses
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 29 Nov 2022 - 35min - 253 - Taking Elon Musk Seriously
We have to talk about Elon Musk. It’s fun to make fun of him, and whatever he’s doing at Twitter certainly looks like the weird flailing of a man who doesn’t know how to run a company. But let’s take Musk seriously for an hour or so. He is the richest man in the world. He has big dreams and some of the resources to achieve them. The Pentagon is paying him for rocket launches. Starlink works and has been instrumental in the war in Ukraine.
So who is Elon Musk and why do we care so much? His detractors see only a shitposter who made some great business bets. His fans see him as a messianic figure, a superhero who will lead us into a new golden age of technology.
But what’s the truth? Is it somewhere in between? The answer isn’t that simple.
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard managing editor Jordan Pearson sits down to help us think through the bizarre geopolitical importance of Twitter’s new CEO.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Twitter Employees Call Elon Musk’s Bluff
Twitter Employees on Visas Can’t Just Quit
Elon Musk Is Creating His Own Reality
SpaceX Was Born Because Elon Musk Wanted to Grow Plants on Mars
Elon Musk's Tech Has Geopolitical Clout. Things Are Going to Get Weird
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 22 Nov 2022 - 49min - 252 - Why ‘Community Feedback’ Doesn’t Work
We’ve all seen the videos. Those viral townhall meetings where the community gathers to give its feedback to city managers on this or that subject. Too often a crank with a microphone stands before a panel of local political operators and talks at length about something bizarre and hyper specific. Sometimes they get abusive. There’s yelling, tears, grandstanding, and often nothing changes.
It wasn’t always this way and there might be a better way to do it. On this episode of CYBER, Motherboard Senior Writer Aaron Gordon takes us through the history of “community feedback” and why it has to change.
Stories discussed in this episode:
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Wed, 16 Nov 2022 - 49min - 251 - Who Is Sam Bankman-Fried, the ‘Savior’ Who Crashed FTX?
Have you heard about Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX? FTX was the second largest crypto currency exchange in the world and Bankman-Fried was the guy who ran it. He was a young genius, people said. He practiced something called “effective altruism,” gave away money to people on the street, played video games, and was predicted to be the world’s first trillionaire.
Now he’s bankrupt, FTX is in ruins and large amounts of crypto seem to keep shifting around with no explanation. So who was Bankman-Fried? Why did everyone think he was a genius? And how did FTX seemingly make billions of dollars in wealth evaporate overnight.
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard staff writer Edward Ongweso Jr. tries to answers those questions.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Crypto Empire Is Officially Bankrupt
Sam Bankman-Fried Was Supposed to Be Different. He Wasn't.
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 15 Nov 2022 - 41min - 250 - How Sex Changed the Internet
Without sex there would be no internet. From the moment the servers spun up, users were trying to figure out how to use instant connection to pleasures themselves and each other. The history of sex and the internet are intertwined. And what feels like new problems in the space: banking woes, hate speech, harassment, and moral panics about children are all much much older than you think.
That’s the subject of the new book How Sex Changed the Internet. It’s out on November 15 and it’s by Motherboard Senior Editor Samantha Cole. She’s here with us today to talk about breasts, BBS’, boy’s clubs, and the broad strokes of the culture war.
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 10 Nov 2022 - 49min - 249 - Social Media Is Dead
We’re living through the end of something. Facebook is the site where your older family shares racist memes, Twitter seems only capable of talking about itself, and Instagram can’t compete with TikTok. What started with Friendster and MySpace, social media, once felt like a totalizing on the internet. Now it’s dying.
According to Motherboard writer Edward Ongweso Jr, social media isn’t dying. It’s already dead. So what monsters struggle now to be born?
Stories discussed in this episode:
At SXSW, A Pathetic Tech Future Struggles to Be Born
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 08 Nov 2022 - 47min - 248 - Why Concert Tickets Are So Expensive
Have you tried going to a concert recently? What about a stadium show for a popular comedian? What did it cost? How was the Ticketmaster experience? Like everything else, the price of live event tickets is on the rise.
But the reasons why aren’t as simple as inflation and the economy. Outrageous ticket prices are all about a business monopoly using an algorithm to outflank the secondary market.
It’s a surreal story and here to tell it is Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler.
Stories discussed in this episode:
The Man Who Broke Ticketmaster
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 03 Nov 2022 - 41min - 247 - Watching Facebook Burn
For almost two decades, Facebook has dominated headlines and the lives of its users. It’s been blamed for genocides, pointed to as a vector of disinformation, and depressed you as you scrolled past high school acquaintances that seem to be doing so much better than you.
But now its founder Mark Zuckerberg is obsessed with a virtual world no one wants, the company’s stock is down 70 percent of its peak and it has lost $800 billion of its market capitalization.
Are we finally witnessing the end of Facebook?
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard staff writer Edward Ongweso Jr. stops by to try to answer the question.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Facebook’s Monopoly Is Imploding Before Our Eyes
Elon Musk’s First Days as Twitter Owner: Conspiracies, Chaos, and Desperation
For Much of the World, Facebook Going Down Is a Disaster, Not a Joke
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Tue, 01 Nov 2022 - 47min - 246 - The Killer Robot Future Is Already Here
The killer robots are here and they’re not going away.
We’ve all seen footage of the cute robot dogs stumbling around with weapons strapped to their back, and loitering munitions (or so-called “suicide drones”) have become a fixture on the battlefield in Ukraine.
There’s a general fear in the air that the near future will be populated by semi-autonomous killing machines. But killer robots have been here a long time. Did you know one of the first aerial drones was deployed more than 100 years ago? Did you know cops have already used a robot to kill a suspect? Did you know the Netherlands has already deployed robots on the ground equipped with machine guns?
Kelsey Atherton knows, and he’s here to tell us all about it. Atherton is a military tech writer specializing in robots, nukes, and other terrible futures. He’s written for Motherboard before and his substack is Wars of Future Past.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Robot Dog Maker Boston Dynamics Pledges Not to Let Its Robots Kill You
Robot Dog With RPG Strapped to Its Back Demoed at Russian Arms Fair
Police Outsourcing Human Interaction With Homeless People to Boston Dynamics’ Robot Dog
The Netherlands Has Deployed NATO’s First Killer Robot Ground Vehicles
Robot Dog Not So Cute With Submachine Gun Strapped to Its Back
Hacker Finds Kill Switch for Submachine Gun–Wielding Robot Dog
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Fri, 28 Oct 2022 - 42min - 245 - A History of ‘American Terror’
America and political violence go together like George Lincoln Rockwell and a corncob pipe. There is a growing movement in the U.S., one that’s spreading online and probably in some of your neighborhoods. Far right extremist movements have a deepy history in America and there’s a new podcast from VICE that explores that history.
It’s called American Terror and it’s hosted by a familiar voice: VICE news correspondent and founding host of Cyber Ben Makuch. He stopped by Cyber to talk about the show, UFOs, and Dan Carlin.
Listen to American Terror now onSpotify.
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Wed, 26 Oct 2022 - 46min - 244 - When the Video Game Reaches Out to Ask You to Spend More Money
We’ve all gotten a little too involved in a video game. I’ve talked repeatedly about how I’ve gotten lost in trying to complete maps in open world games like Assassin’s Creed. And there’s a million stories out there about kids who spent all their parents' money on upgrades in Farmville. But when I say the words State of Survival or Game of Thrones: Conquest, what comes to mind? Crappy ads on Facebook? Weird looking games that are obvious money pits? Yes, but there’s something a little more insidious going on. It’s an evolution of the old addictive mobile game formula. One that’s generated a new lawsuit.
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Senior Editor Maxwell Strachan comes on to talk about the new era of mobile games, the price of addiction, and the people suing for false advertising.
Stories discussed in this episode:
CYBER: How Corporations and Governments Use Games to Control Us
Confessions of a Semi-Reformed Video Game Completionist
B.F. Skinner on his beef with Noam Chomsky
On Chomsky's Appraisal of Skinner's Verbal Behavior: A Half Century of Misunderstanding
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 20 Oct 2022 - 32min - 243 - Nuclear War 101
On this episode of Cyber we talk about an old technology that suddenly feels very new. The bomb. That’s right, this episode is all about nuclear weapons. Thanks to Moscow’s war in Ukraine and Putin’s implicit and explicit threats to use them should Russian territory be threatened, everyone is afraid of nuclear weapons once again. Able Archer? Passé. Cuban Missile Crisis? Old news. These days it’s all about hypersonics, tactical nukes, and even cruise missiles powered by a nuclear engine.
At least that’s the claim.
On this episode of Cyber, the Arms Control Wonk himself, Jeffrey Lewis, comes on to answer all your burning questions about nuclear weapons. Lewis is a professor at the Middlebury Institute, a member of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and the host of the Arms Control Wonk podcast.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Is There a Threat of Nuclear War with Russia? Experts Weigh In.
Putin Puts Russia’s Nuclear Deterrent Forces on High Alert
Putin Demonstrates New Missiles With Visualization of Nukes Hitting Mar-a-Lago
Nuclear War Anxiety Is Back. Here’s How to Manage It.
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Thu, 13 Oct 2022 - 49min - 242 - Inflection Is the Background Check Company Making Decisions for Uber and Airbnb
Apps have made our life so convenient haven’t they? With the push of a button you can order Postmates, book an Airbnb, or even call an Uber. But what happens when the apps stop taking your calls? What happens when they shut you out completely?
It’s happening more and more. In a bid to increase user safety, companies like Airbnb and Uber are turning to third parties to run background checks for them. A lot of it is automated and the background checkers make a lot of mistakes. So what happens if you’ve been a five star guest on Airbnb but a decades old run in with the cops suddenly makes you a pariah?
Not much, it turns out.
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard senior editor Samantha Cole comes on to talk about Inflection, the company running background checks for Uber, Airbnb and DraftKings.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Banished for an Unleashed Dog: Airbnb Bans Bewilder Guests and Hosts
‘Consumers Get Screwed’: Airbnb’s and Uber’s Background-Check Company Keeps Getting Sued
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere 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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Tue, 11 Oct 2022 - 31min - 241 - How Corporations and Governments Use Games to Control Us
Do you ever feel like you’re being played? Like the people who run the world have got you on a treadmill that’s feeding you just enough rewards to keep going. Gold stars on your attendance sheet at elementary school. Apps that encourage you to run by pretending you’re fleeing zombies. Bosses that keep track of everyone’s progress in a public spreadsheet, pitting employees against each other.
As video games have gotten more popular, the world of flesh and blood has adopted some of its aspects. Not all of them are good. Gamification is here, all around us, and the powers that be are using it to keep us in line.
On this episode of Cyber ex-neuroscientist, current game developer, and best-selling author Adrian Hon talks about gamification with us. His newest book is You’ve Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All.
Stories discussed in this episode:
What Alternate Reality Games Teach Us About the Dangerous Appeal of QAnon
We’re recording CYBER live onTwitchandYouTube. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Sign up for Motherboard’s daily newsletterfor a regular dose of our original reporting, plus behind-the-scenes content about our biggest stories.
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Tue, 04 Oct 2022 - 42min - 240 - How To Protect Yourself From Social Engineering Hacks
Hacks are increasing but the hackers are not necessarily getting more sophisticated. What do Twitter, Twilio, and Uber all have in common? They were all hacked by, in part, a conversation. In all three cases, the hack was helped along by social engineering. Someone contacted an employee of the company and tricked them into giving up the keys to the company. It doesn’t matter how fancy your 2FA system is if an employee is just gonna give up their SMS codes to some rando on the phone.
But worry not. There are ways to protect yourself and your company against such attacks. With me today to work through it all is Rachel Tobac. Tobac is a hacker and the CEO of SocialProof Security, a company that aims to get your organization politely paranoid.
She also, coincidentally, just published a really amazing video that dramatizes a lot about what we’re going to talk about today. You can find it on Twitter @racheltobac.
Stories discussed in this episode:
The Uber Hack Shows Push Notification 2FA Has a Downside: It’s Too Annoying
How a Third-Party SMS Service Was Used to Take Over Signal Accounts
Hackers Convinced Twitter Employee to Help Them Hijack Accounts
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Sign up for Motherboard’s daily newsletterfor a regular dose of our original reporting, plus behind-the-scenes content about our biggest stories.
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Thu, 29 Sep 2022 - 29min - 239 - The Chess Scandal Involving Butt Plugs, AI, and Accusations of Cheating
Chess. Chess. Chess. You, the audience, quite literally asked for it. It’s the scandal that just won’t quit. On September 4 at a live Chess Tournament in St. Louis, chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen lost in a massive upset to young chess wiz Hans Niemann. This was not supposed to happen and almost immediately accusations and revelations about cheating have gotten wilder, involving AI driven cheating engines and buttplugs.
Throughout it all, Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler has kept pushing the story, watching every moment, and now he’s got a big scoop.
Stories discussed on this episode:
‘I Can’t Believe It’: Magnus Carlsen Resigns After One Move in Chess Rematch With Hans Niemann
Magnus Carlsen Finally Speaks on Chess Cheating Scandal, Sows Even More Chaos
Magnus Carlsen: Hans Niemann ‘Has Cheated More—and More Recently—Than He Has Publicly Admitted’
Chess Grandmaster Maxim Dlugy Admitted to Cheating on Chess.com, Emails Show
Did Hans Neimann Cheat at Chess With a Sex Toy? This Coder Is Attempting to Find Out.
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Sign up for Motherboard’s daily newsletterfor a regular dose of our original reporting, plus behind-the-scenes content about our biggest stories.
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Wed, 28 Sep 2022 - 37min - 238 - AI Art is Powered by ISIS Executions and Non-Consenual Porn
AI art has gotten wildly popular over the past year. Programs like Midjourney and Dall-E are generating incredible images and incredible controversy. But these programs don’t exist in a vacuum. AI’s require billions of images to learn how and what to draw. Where are they getting those pictures? They’re hoovering them up on the internet. A place full of child porn, ISIS execution videos, and non-consensual adult images. With AI it’s all garbage in, garbage out. So who controls this data and is there anything we can do about it?
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard writer Chloe Xiang walks us through the ins and outs of the AI trained on ISIS execution images.
Stories discussed in this episode:
ISIS Executions and Non-Consensual Porn Are Powering AI Art
Amazon Driver Fired for Posting Photo of Customer’s Dildo to Reddit
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Sign up for Motherboard’s daily newsletterfor a regular dose of our original reporting, plus behind-the-scenes content about our biggest stories.Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 23 Sep 2022 - 30min - 237 - Inside the Tool the US Military Is Using to Monitor Emails and Web Traffic
You ever feel like somebody’s watching you? Well, on the internet, it’s often true. Every move you make on the internet generates reams of data that ISPs and data brokers sell on to on to a ton of people who may want to take a look. It’s a big business. One we don’t often see the inside of.
One of the companies buying up all that data is Team Cymru who watches over all of it with a tool it calls Augury. Who buys Augury? We’ve just learned a lot of agencies within the federal government. Cyber Command, the Army, the Navy, are all using Augury to paw through internet traffic. But what, exactly, are they looking for? And what can they even see?
Stories discussed on this episode:
Revealed: US Military Bought Mass Monitoring Tool That Includes Internet Browsing, Email Data
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Sign up for Motherboard’s daily newsletterfor a regular dose of our original reporting, plus behind-the-scenes content about our biggest stories.
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Wed, 21 Sep 2022 - 44min - 236 - Uber’s Been Hacked and Sim Swappers Are Getting Violent
Groups on Telegram that used to primarily be interested in taking over people’s phones and online accounts have changed tactics. Now, they’re selling violence. And to cap off the week, a hacker we don’t know much about was able to steal the credentials of an Uber employee and access the company's back end.
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard staff writers Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Joseph Cox walk us through the latest in the world of cybersecurity.
Stories discussed on this episode:
Firebombs and Shootings: The Rise of IRL Harassment and Violence as a Service
LAPSUS$: How a Sloppy Extortion Gang Became One of the Most Prolific Hacking Groups
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Sign up for Motherboard’s daily newsletterfor a regular dose of our original reporting, plus behind-the-scenes content about our biggest stories.
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Fri, 16 Sep 2022 - 31min - 235 - Our Latest UFO Obsession and the Chess Scandal Heard Round the World
This week on Cyber we’re going deep into recent stories of unidentified flying objects and Chess. The Pentagon has gotten big into investigating what it calls unidentified aerial phenomenon and a chess champion has been accused of cheating but the exact phenomenon he’s accused of remains unidentified.
With me today to walk through all of this is Motherboard’s lovely editor-in-chief Jason Koebler.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Congress Admits UFOs Not ‘Man-Made,’ Says ‘Threats’ Increasing ‘Exponentially’
Was This Viral UFO Photo a Hoax Generated By an AI?
Navy Says All UFO Videos Classified, Releasing Them ‘Will Harm National Security’
The Chess World Is Absolutely Losing It Over Cheating Allegations After Massive Upset
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Wed, 14 Sep 2022 - 45min - 234 - CYBER LIVE: Living in a Dystopia, We're All Luddites, Taking Life Back From Corporations (feat. Cory Doctorow)
Today on Cyber we’ve got a special presentation: We’re talking about Motherboard’s science fiction short story collection Terraform one last time. This week’s episode is a recording of a live roundtable discussion with Cory Doctorow and Geoff Manaugh—both of whom have short stories in the collection—and Terraform editors Claire L. Evans and Brian Merchant.
Want to learn the secret history of the Luddites? Find out if corporations can be bought off? Learn what it’s like to work with Netflix? Well, stay tuned.
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Wed, 07 Sep 2022 - 56min - 233 - Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires
It seems like the Earth’s billionaires are desperate to escape the planet. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are looking to outer space. Mark Zuckerberg is looking to the inner space of virtual reality. So many billionaires are buying up land and luxury survival bunkers in New Zealand that it’s hard to keep track.
Do they know something we don’t? Or do they just have the money to act on fears they themselves were instrumental in creating?
Here today to help me answer that question is Douglas Rushkoff. Rushkoff is a media theorist and author. His newest book is out on September 6. It’s called Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires.
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Thu, 01 Sep 2022 - 1h 01min - 232 - The Hypercane and Other Looming Climate Disasters
Woe to those who live in the path of a hypercane. What’s a hypercane? I’m glad you asked. In a frighteningly possible future you’ll be hearing more about them. As the planet warms and the climate changes, we’re in for all kinds of new and bizarre extreme weather systems. It’s a hurricane so big and so powerful it extends through several states.
Today on Cyber, we’ve got something special. Another short story from Motherboard’s first book: Terraform. Terraformeditor Brian Merchant and special guest Eric Holthaus come on Cyber to discuss how we personalize the climate disaster we’re all living through. Holthaus is a meteorologist, climate journalist, and the founder of Currently—a weather service built for folks on the front line of the climate emergency. He’s here to read a bit of his Terraformstory ‘Hypercane.’
Stories discussed in this episode:
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Tue, 30 Aug 2022 - 51min - 231 - A Nuclear War Would Starve the Planet
A new study in Nature Food has revealed, once again, the unprecedented danger of nuclear weapons. Built on the foundation of decades of research, it’s about the climate change and global famine that would follow even a limited nuclear exchange.
The models are a terrifying warning. A limited war between Pakistan and India that uses just three percent of the world’s nuclear weapons could kill a third of the Earth’s population.
In this special edition of Cyber, we talk about the study, its implications, and what we can do to avoid tragedy. Here with me to have that discussion is one of the author’s behind the study, Rutgers University climatologist Alan Robock.
Robock will lay out what he and his colleagues found in just a moment, to help us understand what actions we should take is Dr. Ruth Mitchell from the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and Alicia Sanders-Zakre from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
Stories discussed in this episode:
A Nuclear War Between the U.S. and Russia Would Starve 5 Billion People
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Thu, 25 Aug 2022 - 50min - 230 - A Hopeful Future Where Drones Become Farmers
Drone. The word has come to mean so many things. An eye in the sky. A hobbyist flying toy. A dangerous voyeur. A weapon of war. An enforcer. A worker. But a worker that’s maybe not as soulless as the name implies. As AI gets more sophisticated and the subroutines become rote… might it be possible to convert the electronic oppressor?
Today on Cyber, we’ve got something special. Motherboard has published a book! It’s called Terraform and it’s out now. It’s a collection of short stories about the near future and the dystopian present. With me today on the show are the book’s editors, Claire L. Evans and Brian Merchant as well as special guest Sarah Gailey. They’re the author of the new novel Just Like Home and the Terraformstory “Drones to Ploughshares.”
Terraform’sstories are all about possible futures. “Drones to Ploughshares” is a window into one of those worlds.’
Terraform is out now!Buy it here.
Stories discussed in this episode:
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Tue, 23 Aug 2022 - 41min - 229 - A Dystopia Where AI Runs U.S. Healthcare and Asks Patients to Die
Some days, it feels like all you can do is watch worlds burn.
This is especially true for the millions of people living in hospice care. Health in the U.S. isn’t what it used to be. The population is aging and it’s not just the Baby Boomers. If you think Millennials will age more gracefully than their parents, well, I have a counselor I’d like you to speak with. It’s specially trained for the job and It knows all about you. It really does keep the cost of healthcare down.
Today on Cyber, we’ve got something special. Motherboard has published a book. It’s called Terraformand it’s out now. It’s a collection of short stories about the near future and the dystopian present. With me today on the show are the book’s editors, Claire L. Evans and Brian Merchant as well as special guest Robin Sloan. He’s the author of the new novelThe Suitcase Clone and … the Terraformstory “The Counselor.”
Terraform’sstories are all about possible futures. “The Counselor” is a window into one of those worlds.
Terraform is out now. Buy it here.
Stories discussed on this episode:
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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Thu, 18 Aug 2022 - 48min - 228 - Suing Spam Texters for Fun and Profit
We all get them. We all hate them. Spam. There was a time, long ago, when it was just your mailbox and your inbox that got hit with superfluous ads and scams. But now? My phone rings all day long and all of the calls are spam. All of them. If you’re not on my contact list, I’m not picking up. And the texts have gotten much much worse. Everyday is a new offering and every ping is spam.
Did you know that most of that spam is actually illegal and that you, yes you, can sue the companies sending it out and make a few hundred bucks. On this episode of Cyber we sit down with a man who did just that. David Weekly sued a spam texter and got $1,200. Here’s how he did it.
Stories discussed in this episode:
This Guy Sued a Spam Texter and Got $1,200 (and You Can Too)
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mon, 15 Aug 2022 - 32min - 227 - Listen to a Story from Motherboard’s First Ever Short Story Collection
Some days, it feels like all you can do is watch worlds burn.
This is especially true in the desperate small towns that pocket the parts of America some derisively call ‘Flyover Country.’
Today on Cyber, we’ve got something special. Motherboard is publishing a book! It’s called Terraform and it drops on August 16. It’s a collection of short stories about the near future and the dystopian present. With me today on the show are the book’s editors, Claire L. Evans and Brian Merchant as well as special guest Tim Maughan. He’s the author of the novel Infinite Detail and … the Terraformstory Flyover Country.
Terraform’s stories are all about possible futures. Flyover Country is a window into one of those worlds. One that may seem unpleasantly familiar.
Terraform is out on August 16. Buy it here.
Stories discussed on this episode:
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Thu, 11 Aug 2022 - 44min - 226 - What the ‘Roblox’ Hack Revealed About Chinese Censorship and U.S. Content Moderation
Last month, a hacker posted a trove of stolen documents online detailing the weird internal struggles of a little gaming company called Roblox. If you don’t know what Roblox is, just ask any child in America and they’ll explain it to you. The hacked documents contained fascinating insights into how gaming companies whose product depends on player freedom and creativity must navigate the treacherous waters of children, free speech, China, mass shootings, and content moderation. It’s a weird story where a child driven internet sandbox can lead to troubling and weird questions about genocide roleplay.
Today on Cyber, Motherboard Staff Writer Joseph Cox comes on to talk about the hack and what we learned from it.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Hacker Posts Internal Roblox Employee Documents Online
Revealed: Documents Show How Roblox Planned to Bend to Chinese Censorship
Leaked Documents Reveal How Roblox Handles Grooming and Mass Shooting Simulators
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Tue, 09 Aug 2022 - 31min - 225 - Space Junk, Taiwan, and War at a Nuclear Power Plant
A lot of stuff happened on the internet this week. Strange orbs fell from the sky and landed in Mexico. Thousands watched online as Nancy Pelosi’s plane slowly made its way to Taiwan. And the International Atomic Energy Agency called out Russia for making Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant a front in its war in Ukraine.
It’s a grab bag episode of Cyber and we’re gonna get into it all with Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Fighting Around Europe’s Largest Power Plant Is ‘Out of Control,’ UN’s Nuke Chief Warns
Space Junk Crashing All Over the World, Upsetting Everyone
Mysterious Metallic Orb Falls on Mexico, May Contain ‘Valuable Information,’ Meteorologist Says
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Thu, 04 Aug 2022 - 39min - 224 - Inside the Alex Jones Trial
Alex Jones, the slowly bloating Texan broadcaster, is currently on trial in Austin for peddling conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook massacre. Jones has already lost—the trial will eventually set damages.
Amid this, Jones’ companies are filing for bankruptcy and a new documentary about him is playing the festival circuit. He says this is all about the First Amendment. In a way, he’s right. Defamation cases are about the First Amendment.
On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Senior Staff Writer Anna Merlan comes on to discuss all things Alex Jones. Merlan has written extensively about Jones and is following the trial for Motherboard.
Stories discussed in this episode:
As Damages Trial Begins, Alex Jones’ Lawyers Fight for His Financial Life
InfoWars Cannot Stop Covering Its Own Damages Trial
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Tue, 02 Aug 2022 - 35min - 223 - Why TikTok Is Obsessed With Pink Sauce
If you haven’t heard, there’s a hot new condiment on the market that’s gone viral on TikTok. It’s called Pink Sauce and it’s been at the center of several controversies over the past few weeks.
The sauce has been accused of making people sick, being a rip off of other condiments, and lying about its nutritional information. On this episode of Cyber we’re going to try to answer the question: why does everyone ok TikTok seem to care about this pepto-bismol colored goop?
With us today to talk all things Pink Sauce is Motherboard Intern and TikTok master Jules Roscoe.
Stories discussed in this episode:
Viral Pink Sauce Comes With Lengthy Terms and Conditions
Let Me Eat the TikTok 'Pink Sauce'
We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch. Watch live during the week.Follow usthere to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.
Subscribe toCYBER on Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fri, 29 Jul 2022 - 31min
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