The podcast that tells true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world. We take listeners into the world of cyber and intelligence without all the techie jargon. Every Tuesday and Friday, former NPR investigations correspondent Dina Temple-Raston and the team draw back the curtain on ransomware attacks, mysterious hackers, and the people who are trying to stop them.
In Russia, military families are cashing in on a wartime housing surge. Defense budgets are ballooning, property values are rising… and beneath it all, a troubling question: what happens when the war economy becomes just… the economy? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Before the war, Serhii Zenin played Metallica and joked with listeners on Ukraine’s Radio ROKS. Now he wears fatigues. And the station? It's still playing heavy metal—but now it’s also broadcasting news, coordinating aid, and holding the line in its own way. We return to a story where the frontlines and the airwaves meet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
While most of us were staring at the auroras lighting up our Instagram feeds last year, a small group of analysts at the Space ISAC were focused on something a little less… pretty. Think solar flares. Think sabotage. Think space debris with a grudge. This week, we revisit our story about the watchers who don’t get much attention. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
In this week’s CyberMonday crossover with WAMU’s 1A, we revisit a Click Here episode and take your calls—this time, about the cluttered chaos orbiting above us. Space debris isn’t just a cleanup problem. It’s a threat vector. What happens when an old satellite, long forgotten, becomes the perfect cover for a cyberattack? Or worse… a weapon? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Drones promised progress — as lifesavers in floods, storytellers in newsrooms, even assistants to archaeologists. But somewhere along the way, they took a darker turn. Now they hover over protests, shadow 911 calls and surveil our neighborhoods from above. Researcher Faine Greenwood discusses how we normalized the hum of surveillance — and why all this is starting to resemble something much more authoritarian. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
Today: A story about a technology that began in the fields — tracking cattle — and is now on the ankles of immigrants. It’s part of a program called “alternatives to detention.” And these ankle monitors, smartphone apps, GPS check-ins have changed. They’re not just tools to monitor. Increasingly, they’re being used to entrap. And for some immigrants, complying with the system means walking straight into ICE detention. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices...
A Chinese hacking group walked right into a trap. Not a firewall. Not a filter. A honeypot. This week, Amazon CSO Steve Schmidt explains how a digital decoy called MadPot helped expose Volt Typhoon—and why, in the age of AI, the real vulnerability isn’t software. It’s people. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
TRON was supposed to be just another Ethereum knockoff — faster, cheaper, maybe a little flashier. But over time, it's become something else entirely: the go-to blockchain for illicit finance. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Zoom was built for speed. But in its rush to connect us, it may have left a few doors open. This week, a cybersecurity expert walks us through how one of Zoom's most mundane features became a hacker's best friend — and why the weakest link in crypto isn't the blockchain … it's the person who thinks they're too smart to get scammed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Jake Gallen was a rising star in crypto. Then, after what seemed like a routine YouTube interview, his digital world unraveled. His NFTs? Liquidated. His social accounts? Hijacked. It turns out, the hackers didn’t need phishing links or fake job offers. They needed something much simpler: a Zoom invite. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Trump memecoin dinner looked like a political stunt. Maybe even a scam. But inside the crypto community, some saw something else: legitimacy. Today, we hear from one of crypto’s most thoughtful defenders. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Memecoins were born as Internet pranks — worthless by design, traded for laughs. But now they are buying real power, and a digital joke just slipped past the velvet rope straight into the Oval Office. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
For years, North Korea has quietly dispatched an army of IT workers overseas—not to innovate, but to infiltrate. Disguised as freelancers, they apply for jobs, breach systems, and wire stolen funds back to Pyongyang. This week, a rare conversation with one of them—a defector—about the regime’s digital underworld, and the personal toll of escaping it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
North Korea has built an artificial intelligence research center to supercharge its cyber operations, Unit 227. It’s a move that some experts say has been years in the making — and others say should scare us senseless. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
When Richard Hunter heard about Kentucky's generous crypto incentives, he packed up his bitcoin machines and pointed them south. He imagined a booming business, jobs for locals, and maybe — just maybe — a shot at redemption. But what he got … was a buzzkill. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Since the collapse of coal, Eastern Kentucky has lived through a procession of supposed revivals. Each new idea was treated as something close to salvation. We spent four days driving across the state and it became clear that things like crypto mining and AI data centers may not offer a break with history – just a continuation of it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Earlier this month, a photo of former national security advisor Mike Waltz sneaking a peek at his phone during a Cabinet meeting went viral. Micah Lee explains how that moment exposed a massive security flaw – and a possible backdoor into government chats. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Our first installment in a five-part series we're calling CyberMonday. As part of a show for 1A, we dive into one of our Click Here episodes and take calls from listeners. This week: DOGE is vacuuming up federal data and using it in ways that no one ever has before, with very little oversight. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Radio Free Asia has broken news on everything from a mystery illness in Wuhan to Uyghur detentions in northwest China. Now it is in the Trump administration’s crosshairs. We speak with Bay Fang, RFA’s president, about its battle to survive. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
The Trump administration is trying to defund Radio Free Europe… a kind of megaphone for democracy that’s been broadcasting since the Cold War. RFE Journalist Alsu Kurmasheva spent months in a Russian prison because of her work for the station and now she worries about what will fill the void, if it is silenced. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Military decisions used to take months — maybe even years. Cyberwarfare decisions can happen in milliseconds. Lt. General Charlie "Tuna" Moore, former deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, explains how soldiers without cyber skills are already a step behind. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
In late 2023, Nick Lawler got a call from someone claiming to be an FBI agent. The man said that the utility Nick ran in Littleton, Massachusetts, was the target of an elaborate, international hacking operation. It set off an unlikely series of events that involved a small community, Chinese state hackers and the quiet threat hiding in our most basic infrastructure. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Meet Mando: an IT guy by day, cybercrime fighter by night. And his mentor? One of the most prolific data thieves ever. Together, they’re rewriting the rules of digital justice. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
This week, how a global game of cat and mouse led to a friendship—and an unexpected redemption. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
This week, as national security agencies brace for deep cuts and digital expertise is shed from their ranks, we talk to former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon about what happens when intelligence is stuck in the past. She says the real danger isn’t what we don’t know—it’s what we stop trying to understand. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
DOGE says it’s rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. But in her first media interview, one insider at the U.S. Digital Service says DOGE’s “audit” felt more like a purge. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
While the world is weighing in on where the ethical boundaries of AI should lie, Heather Mellquist Lehto has partnered with someone who has very definite views on AI’s use: the pope. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Churches are turning to AI to craft sermons and draw in new believers. But when faith interacts with algorithms, does it change what we’re worshipping? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
More from our exclusive conversation with former NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone. He now leads the Institute of National Security at Vanderbilt and will convene a summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats next week. Think cyber warfare, AI, and disinformation and how they will shape wars in the future. He gave us a preview. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
This week, a rare sit-down with Gen. Paul Nakasone — former head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, and one of the key architects of America's modern cyber operations. Now out of government, he told us nothing was off-limits. So we asked about China. About AI. And about what the current Trump term could mean for the future of cyberwarfare. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
