It’s the classic story of a corporate giant swallowing up a darling startup into its ranks and destroying its core business. Originally a spawn of the Alphabet company—Google’s parent umbrella—Chronicle was a cybersecurity startup considered by many to be a game changer: it was going to leverage machine learning and Alphabet’s endless supply of malware samples and technical data via Google, and fuse it into an over the counter product that infosec units in companies all over the world could use ...
Nov 07, 2019•34 min•Ep. 49
The tale started with an encrypted phone company, Morroccan gangsters, the Scottish mafia, and a blogger. It ended with an assassination outside of a sex club in Amsterdam. Last week, Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox broke the news that MPC—a Scottish company that hawked special encrypted phones that could evade police surveillance—had been connected to the murder of crime blogger Martin Kok. Kok was a former criminal himself who had previously served a jail sentence for two murders. Kok’s crime ...
Oct 31, 2019•28 min•Ep. 48
The U.S. military prides itself on being one of the most powerful militaries on the face of the earth. The best trained, the best equipped with the latest wartech, the most mobile, with a power projection around the world. It’s why, sadly, as the Bureau of Investigative Journalism —which tracks U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Somalia—maintains that the American military has killed as many as over 12,000 people in targeted strikes since 2004. Of those numbers, close to 1,8...
Oct 24, 2019•50 min•Ep. 47
The operators of a site called Girls Do Porn have been indicted on charges of sex trafficking. Meanwhile, 22 women have sued the company, saying they were coerced into doing porn. How did the company get away with it for so long? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 17, 2019•27 min•Ep. 46
Neo-Nazi terrorists are taking a page from ISIS' playbook and carrying out calculated, horrific, mass casualty attacks all over the world to shock and scare of the public. And they’re taking another tip from the infamous terrorist group: using internet savvy and encrypted networks to spread propaganda, recruit new members, and ultimately orchestrate terrorism. They have even used famous jihadist images of Osama bin Laden in their propaganda and glorify ISIS videos. After a spate of high-profile ...
Oct 10, 2019•29 min•Ep. 45
The last few months have been decidedly horrible for rideshare apps Uber and Lyft, which were once the darlings of Wall Street investors who contributed billions of dollars in venture capital to help them disrupt an entire industry. Now, there’s trouble on the horizon. Lyft has been sued for sexual assault by at least 26 passengers in recent months. One driver was allowed to continue operating on the platform after a truly horrifying incident : He and several other men allegedly took a passenger...
Oct 04, 2019•28 min•Ep. 44
Catch the rat. Find the mole. It’s the classic scenario of a spy thriller. Recently, a top spy in the Five Eyes collective —the secretive espionage and intel sharing alliance between agencies in the U.S., U.K., Canada, New Zealand and Australia—was caught trying to sell top secret information. An FBI investigation of Phantom Secure , the encrypted cell phone provider which sold devices to Mexican cartels, uncovered a secret Canadian mole who allegedly offered its CEO Vincent Ramos intel on the i...
Sep 26, 2019•36 min•Ep. 43
In just a few taps and clicks, the system, made by a private company, shows where a car has been seen throughout the U.S. Tipped by a private investigator source, Joseph Cox broke the news that a powerful system used by an industry including repossession agents and insurance companies tracks cars across the US. Armed with just a car's plate number, the tool—fed by a network of private cameras spread across the country—provides users a list of all the times that car has been spotted. Follow Ben M...
Sep 19, 2019•26 min•Ep. 42
At the end of August, researchers at Google dropped a bombshell : they had discovered malicious websites that they said were indiscriminately spreading iPhone malware for years. At certain points the websites were even using zero day exploits; attacks that take advantage of vulnerabilities that Apple is not aware of. Apple subsequently confirmed what various media reports found: that the malicious sites were particularly geared towards hacking Uighur muslims, many of whom live in Western China u...
Sep 12, 2019•26 min•Ep. 41
By most accounts, the war in Yemen is a brutal and lethal tragedy of the modern world that has claimed the lives of thousands of people. With the backing of western military industrial power , the Saudi-led coalition has undertaken a relentless bombing campaign against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels that ousted President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and his regime from the capital Sanaa in 2015. Human rights watchers have accused the Saudis and its allies of war-crimes and a string of attacks against c...
Sep 05, 2019•25 min•Ep. 40
We’ve all heard of high profile hacks, like Stuxnet which basically took out the Iranian nuclear program, or that time when Seth Rogen’s stoner comedy made North Korea really, really pissed off and they hacked Sony. And the key to all of these hacks is malware, or software specifically and intentionally designed to damage computer systems. But one thing some people often ask themselves is: what is malware, exactly? Well, ultimately just some lines of code. On this week’s CYBER we have someone wh...
Aug 29, 2019•29 min•Ep. 39
Imagine a world where one of our most critical instruments of democracy, voting systems, are connected to the internet where they are potentially vulnerable to hacking. Well, thanks to the work of Motherboard contributor Kim Zetter, we now know that’s the reality we live in after she broke the story that researchers had found voting systems online, including systems in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Florida—all well known for being key swing states in presidential elections. But for years election off...
Aug 22, 2019•25 min•Ep. 38
For over 25 years, hackers, spies, cops, Silicon Valley bros, technologists and even politicians descend upon Las Vegas, Nevada for what’s become the pre-eminent hacker conference in the entire world: Def Con. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aug 15, 2019•19 min•Ep. 37
Two years ago, Marcus Hutchins, better known by his hacker name ‘MalwareTech,’ was at the Las Vegas International Airport awaiting his flight back home to the United Kingdom (UK). He was hungover and coming back from Def Con, the biggest hacker conference in the world. And that’s when the feds came in and nabbed him . But earlier that same year the 23-year-old security researcher was hailed as a global hero for stopping the spread of the WannaCry ransomware worm , which disabled companies and ev...
Aug 08, 2019•18 min
Did you know you could make money watching Netflix trailers on your phone? Did you know that people have earned close to $2,000 a month programming hundreds of phones to watch Netflix trailers, video game trailers, celebrity gossip shows, and sports? But the trick is, no one is really watching. This is what’s called phone farming. Just imagine rows upon rows of phones , with fans cooling them that simulate the engagement of a real human. On this week’s episode of CYBER, Motherboard’s Joseph Cox ...
Aug 01, 2019•15 min•Ep. 35
The last time Phineas Fisher agreed to an interview with Motherboard, they made us recreate the whole thing with a puppet . This time around, Phineas Fisher—one of the world’s most wanted hackers—wanted to make a statement on CYBER to deny he’s an agent of the Kremlin. Phineas Fisher is the hacker’s hacker that nobody knows. In fact, nobody even knows if they are just one person, or several people. All we know is Phineas Fisher has hacked, embarrassed, and exposed some of the world’s most powerf...
Jul 25, 2019•17 min•Ep. 34
A Silicon Valley company with a history of CIA funding , a suite of highly sought after intelligence software tools , and a gallivanting billionaire founder with connections to the Trump Administration is set to become one of the biggest IPOs in recent memory . Yet many outside of the infosec world don’t even know its name or that it even exists—a sharp difference Palantir doesn’t share with other similar-sized startups based out of the Silicon Valley. But Palantir’s surveillance software, which...
Jul 18, 2019•19 min•Ep. 33
In the span of six seconds and 20 gunshots and three dead bodies hit the ground of a Nissan dealership in Texas. And somebody was tracking one of their cell phones remotely. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 11, 2019•13 min•Ep. 32
For years, Google’s internet freedom moonshot Jigsaw has gotten glowing attention for its ambitious projects. But current and former employees, along with leaked documents and internal messages, reveal a grim reality behind the scenes. Motherboard's Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai tells us about his months-long investigation into Jigsaw and its "toxic" workplace culture. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 02, 2019•22 min•Ep. 31
For decades, experts have known that a simple alphanumeric password isn't enough to secure our identities online, but nothing has changed. In this episode, we’re talking to Wendy Nather , a veteran of the infosec world who knows a thing or two about identity and authentication. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 27, 2019•20 min•Ep. 30
Last week a video of Mark Zuckerberg emerged online. The video showed Facebook's CEO speaking to the camera in his office, but what he was saying didn’t seem right. This deepfake of Mark Zuckerberg was perhaps the biggest troll of Facebook in recent memory, but will it change anything? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 21, 2019•27 min•Ep. 29
On this week’s episode of CYBER, Joseph Cox and Motherboard EIC Jason Koebler discuss the breach of a Customs and Border Protection contractor that exposed pictures of drivers in Pennsylvania, and the implications for the future of data retention. This story comes on the cusp of groundbreaking attempts by the CBP to use facial recognition software along the border and collecting visitors social media information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 13, 2019•26 min•Ep. 28
On this week’s CYBER host Ben Makuch sat down with Dutch politician Marietje Schaake to discuss the future of cyberweapons, how governmental regulation on spyware should mirror the conventional arms industry, and how Brexit might make Britain a haven for commercial surveillance companies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 07, 2019•25 min•Ep. 27
Ben Makuch sits down with one of InfoSec’s only true celebrities: The Grugq (who recently added the name ‘Thaddeus’ to his Twitter account , which has over 100,000 followers.) For the uninformed, the Grugq is a South African hacker, security research, OPSEC expert and highly entertaining Twitter follow with a history of being an exploit broker that has a rolodex of government contacts (he once claimed in Forbes to be taking in over $1 million in a single year skimming a fee off of exploit sales ...
May 30, 2019•43 min•Ep. 26
In this week's CYBER podcast, we spoke to VICE News reporter William Turnton, who just spent a week in China as part of a bizzarre Huawei junket. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 21, 2019•30 min•Ep. 25
On this week's episode of CYBER, we spoke to Robert Lee, a former NSA analyst and infrastructure hacking expert, about the state of critical infrastructure, the threats it faces, and why there's still no need to panic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 14, 2019•26 min•Ep. 24
Elizabeth Roper, the chief of the cybercrime and identity theft bureau in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office explains how one of the country’s most important prosecutors goes after cybercriminals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 07, 2019•33 min•Ep. 23
In this week’s CYBER podcast, we spoke about Motherboard’s scoop on a hacker who breached two GPS tracking companies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 30, 2019•22 min•Ep. 22
In this week's CYBER podcast, we sat down with Edward Snowden to talk about his life in Russia, WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and press freedom in the United States and beyond. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 22, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 21
This week, CYBER speaks to Freddy Martinez, one of the members of Unicorn Riot, an activist and media collective that’s been tracking and exposing nazis, racists, and other far-right people on the internet. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 15, 2019•35 min•Ep. 20
