We start this episode with Joseph's latest fly-on-the-wall investigation into the Com, the nebulous online entity and culture that is linked to some of the most high profile and brazen data breaches in recent history. Joseph sat in their chatrooms while rival hackers and criminals doxed and physically robbed one another. A true melding of digital and physical crime. After the break, Jason breaks down why some researchers are calling out Google on some of its AI science research. In the subscribe...
Apr 17, 2024•38 min•Ep. 34
We start the episode with an announcement: we've brought on our first 404 Media fellow Jules Roscoe! They did amazing work at Motherboard, and we're stoked to have them on board to cover labor for us and getting our work to audiences wherever they are. As for this week's stories, we start with Jason's wild one about grifters who are taking influencer's videos, deepfaking an AI face onto them, and then driving people to OnlyFans-style accounts. After the break, Sam talks about the couple who have...
Apr 10, 2024•43 min•Ep. 33
This is a super fun episode with a lot of labor themes throughout. Jason starts off by describing the totally wild Xz backdoor which, in a way, was an open source labor issue. Then Emanuel takes us through how AI might be sneaking into the peer-review process. Then in the subscribers-only section, Sam explains why a major journal has decided to stop the use of an infamous image in its papers. The Xz Backdoor Highlights the Vulnerability of Open Source Software—and Its Strengths ChatGPT Looms Ove...
Apr 03, 2024•40 min•Ep. 32
A jam packed episode this week. First, Jason explains how a 'study' that says surveillance company Flock is “instrumental in solving 10 percent of reported crime in the US” is heavily flawed. He got a bunch of internal emails and spoke to those involved. After the break, Sam and Emanuel tell us how people are being pushed to far sketchier parts of the web after Pornhub pulled out of Texas. Then in the subscribers-only section, Jason and Joseph detail how they dug into the new owners of Deadspin,...
Mar 27, 2024•48 min•Ep. 31
Shrimp Jesus. Shrimp Jesus. Shrimp Jesus. That is what the first story is about! We now have robust academic research into the mass of AI-generated garbage flooding Facebook. Jason takes us through what this era of Facebook means. After the break, Sam explains why Pornhub pulled out of Texas. In the subscribers-only section, Joseph shows how two of the biggest safe lock manufacturers in the world have put backdoors into their products. Facebook’s Algorithm Is Boosting AI Spam That Links to AI-Ge...
Mar 20, 2024•45 min•Ep. 30
Somehow we filled a whole hour and it felt like five minutes! First Joseph explains his deep story on how hackers and fraudsters are injecting themselves into the electronic prescription system to order mountains of drugs. Then Emanuel breaks down how 404 Media, bizarrely, is included in a fake Netflix trailer that was probably made for the benefit of the Russian state. Then in the subscribers-only section, the group chats about ElevenLabs, and how Emanuel bypassed the company's "no-go voice" po...
Mar 13, 2024•45 min•Ep. 29
We go long (and play some bonus audio) for Jason's story inside the wild world of TikTok and Instagram hustlers who are using AI to swarm platforms with automatically generated garbage content. Some of them are making a killing in the process. After the break, we talk about Sam's story on Etsy sellers stealing fan fiction writers' work. Then in the subscriber-only section, Jason breaks down why a right to repair victory in Oregon is a massive deal for Apple globally. Inside the World of TikTok S...
Mar 06, 2024•48 min•Ep. 28
Tumblr and WordPress are set to sell posts to OpenAI and Midjourney. And cops are wearing body cameras in libraries. In this episode, Jason, Sam, and Emanuel try to explain what it means for OpenAI and Midjourney to scrape Tumblr's posts, broader chaos at the company, and whether AI is going to run out of things to ingest. Then we talk about the war on libraries, which is taking place all over the country. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choi...
Feb 28, 2024•48 min
New format alert! We are experimenting with publishing additional interview episodes! These will not replace the normal weekly show. Rather, we'll upload an interview with people we find interesting whenever we feel a good opportunity comes up. Subscribers as usual get early and ad-free access. This episode is with Byron Tau, an investigative journalist and author of the new book Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government is Creating a New American Surveillance State. Josep...
Feb 27, 2024•35 min•Ep. 27
A ton of stuff to talk about this week. We start with Jason and Emanuel's dive into how a deepfake nudify app rocked a high school. We got a copy of the police report, and more than anything else it shows we're simply not ready for what deepfakes will mean for ordinary people. Then Joseph talks about uncovering a network of fake funeral livestream scams on Facebook. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about Jason and Sam's very serious investigation into whether a certain brand of vibrator ...
Feb 21, 2024•46 min•Ep. 26
We've got a real variety this week. First, Emanuel talks about Paradox.ai, a tool that massive brands like McDonald's, CVS, and FedEx are using to screen job applicants. It uses a bit of AI, but really this is more of a labor story. Then Jason breaks down Stract, an open source search engine that is trying to do search better than the increasingly bad experience of Google. In the subscribers-only section, the group goes long on how a viral story about a botnet of toothbrushes turned out to not b...
Feb 14, 2024•38 min•Ep. 25
This week we start with Joseph's investigation into OnlyFake, an underground website that lets anyone generate convincing photos of fake IDs at the click of a mouse. Joseph successfully used one of these to bypass the identity verification process at a cryptocurrency exchange. This really will have massive implications for crime and cybersecurity more generally. After the break, we have a double feature with a story about AI audio porn and then a likely low tech response to the ongoing deepfake ...
Feb 07, 2024•48 min•Ep. 24
(I went in and fixed the audio issue! Please make sure your podcast client has the latest version downloaded. Okay, back to working on an investigation now, thank you for bearing with us) This week's episode is a banger. First, we go long with Sam and Emanuel, the two journalists who have followed deepfakes and generative AI more closely than anyone. Their latest piece talks about what is going to happen next: a clampdown in the AI and social media industries that may be an overcorrection, with ...
Feb 01, 2024•51 min•Ep. 23
We're doing something a little different this episode. For the whole free section of the podcast, we're talking all about the degradation of Google. That includes AI-generated articles making their way onto Google News, and how researchers found that, yes, Google search really is getting worse. This is a long, rich, and fun discussion. Then in the subscribers-only section, Joseph breaks down his latest investigation into a phone spying capability that is monitoring billions. Google (to their cre...
Jan 25, 2024•51 min•Ep. 22
Well, that was a pleasant surprise: Google has formally endorsed right to repair! Jason not only broke this news but then had a long conversation with Google about why it made the change (spoiler: it was the concerted effort of consumers, activists, and journalists). Jason explains why this change matters in the first part of the show. After the break, Sam takes us through a pretty unusual court case and what it means for online dating. Then in the subscribers-only section, Joseph talks about a ...
Jan 17, 2024•34 min•Ep. 21
Jason decided to publish our first story minutes before recording, so here is some hot off the presses material. That piece was about scam ads on YouTube involving deepfaked celebrities. After the break, Sam discussed a very bizarre FOIA response from Texas. Then in the subscribers-only section, Jason tells the long and very entertaining saga of the Polish hackers who fixed a bunch of trains, and faced legal threats in response. Deepfaked Celebrity Ads Promoting Medicare Scams Run Rampant on You...
Jan 10, 2024•39 min•Ep. 20
We are back for 2024! We hit the ground running this week with a story about charges against a man for allegedly orchestrating a massive, nationwide Airbnb scam. Then Sam speaks about how Pornhub is blocking access to visitors in North Carolina and Montana, who are now (predictably) using VPNs as a workaround. Then in the subscribers-only section we talk about the life and death of the encrypted app Wickr. RIP Wickr. Real Estate ‘Visionary’ Allegedly Behind Massive, Viral Airbnb Fraud Charge I A...
Jan 04, 2024•37 min•Ep. 19
In this week's show, we start with a couple of articles about how companies might *actually* be listening to conversations through smart device microphones to target ads. Plenty of questions remain, but we discuss everything we know so far. After the break, Sam explains a new Stanford study which has resulted in one of AI's most important datasets being taken offline (check the article itself for a clarification on Google's connection to the story which we learned after recording). In the subscr...
Dec 21, 2023•46 min•Ep. 18
A really bizarre mystery this week. We broke the news that a man somehow flew into LAX without a ticket or passport and DHS is totally stumped. Who knows how he got there? No one, apparently. Then Sam breaks down the latest Patreon ban hammer against a misunderstood community. In the subscriber's only section, Joseph explains a massive mistake by Verizon potentially put a person's physical safety at risk, and what this means for why he doesn't use a phone. Civitai and OctoML Introduce Radical Ne...
Dec 13, 2023•38 min•Ep. 17
A content warning for the free section of this episode. Emanuel explains a massive investigation of his into how Civitai, the a16z funded AI platform, generated images that “could be categorized as child pornography,” according to internal Slack chats and more. This is a difficult, complicated, but important story. I'll leave it at that. Then in the subscriber's only section, we talk about Jason's investigation into pickleball turf wars. Remember to check out the video archive of our recent FOIA...
Dec 06, 2023•47 min•Ep. 16
So much drama this episode but with an important message behind it all. For the first half, Sam and Jason break down their stories about Eduards Sizovs, a tech conference founder who listed a fake, "auto-generated" woman as a conference speaker. Sizovs is also behind a highly popular woman-in-tech account. There are layers here. After the break, Jason explains how Plex is leaking users' viewing habits to one another. Then in the subscribers-only section, Joseph runs us through how an established...
Nov 29, 2023•49 min•Ep. 15
Well that was a lot of drama in the world of OpenAI. Fear not, we have a unique angle on how the person in the running to be OpenAI's new CEO was a character in a Harry Potter fanfic that was written deliberately as a recruiting tool to the effective altruist movement. That's definitely a sentence. After the break Sam talks about how Twitter is pushing sex workers into a black hole, then in the subscribers-only section Joseph explains how he found that SIM swappers are gambling stolen Bitcoin at...
Nov 23, 2023•42 min•Ep. 14
We recorded this immediately after publishing some breaking news: we discovered that venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is funding Civitai, an AI marketplace we've repeatedly shown is an engine for nonconsensual AI porn. Just this week Emanuel reported Civitai had introduced a "bounty" system, that financially rewards people for making AI-models of specific targets. We talk about both stories in the first section of the podcast. Then after the break of this episode of "The Emanuel M...
Nov 15, 2023•37 min•Ep. 13
This week goes in all sorts of directions. First, Joseph runs through his in-depth article on Fusus, a surveillance company that took over one small American town with AI-powered cameras. Now, they're everywhere, both in the U.S. and increasingly abroad. After the break, Sam tells us how attendees of an NFT conference got more than they bargained for, and ended up getting (temporarily) blinded (literally). In the subscribers-only section, Joseph and Jason discuss their just published piece about...
Nov 08, 2023•36 min•Ep. 12
We're shaking things up with a new format! As well as the two stories available to all listeners, we have a third discussion at the end which is only for paying subscribers. We explain why at the top of the show. As for this week's articles, first Emanuel explains how YouTube is making money off a livestream of an open air drug market. After the break, Jason and Emanuel discuss their two stories about Israel-Palestine and the lack of archiving efforts and freedom of information. In the subscribe...
Nov 01, 2023•46 min•Ep. 11
For the first half of the show, we talk about a couple of stories around the Israel-Palestine conflict. First, Instagram "sincerely apologizes" to Sam for its auto-translations which added the word "terrorist" to sentences containing the word "Palestinian." Then, Joseph and Emanuel talk about their article about how verified Twitter accounts have taken the term "OSINT" and used it to spread their own garbage information. After the break, Joseph takes us through another story of his: a fascinatin...
Oct 25, 2023•41 min•Ep. 10
Content warning for the first half of the episode because it touches on violent themes. Emanuel takes us through how so-called AI detectors are, instead of clearing up the fog of misinformation around the Israel-Palestine conflict, may actually be making everything much worse. A crucial story for these ongoing events. Then after the break, we change gears and Jason explains a trademark dispute in the film photography community. Spoiler: everyone is mad. AI Images Detectors Are Being Used to Disc...
Oct 18, 2023•44 min•Ep. 9
This episode is a fun one. First, Sam takes us through her story about generating images of SpongeBob and 9/11 with Bing's AI. Why? Because a bunch of people found a way to create similar images even though they shouldn't be possible under Microsoft's own policies. After the break, we turn into an economics podcast. Jason breaks down what exactly happened when a bunch of credit card maxers (people who try to gather as many credit card points as possible) over saturated the market for Travis Scot...
Oct 11, 2023•42 min•Ep. 8
This week we start with a super interesting set of stories about how a small community has found a glitch in YouTube. It lets the group upload basically anything it wants to the platform with little fear of the clip being deleted. That includes explicit videos which were on YouTube for weeks at a time. Emanuel spoke to those responsible. After the break, Jason explains how he got emails showing that the LAPD wants a "partnership" with food delivery robots. The reason? These robots are constantly...
Oct 04, 2023•41 min•Ep. 7
Holy moly that's a big ol' episode. Jason is back and tells us how ticket scalping actually works on a technical level, and how Ticketmaster benefits from scalping. Sam then explains how AI chatbots with no limits are letting people explore their sexuality safely (please note a content warning for that one for discussions on sexual themes and violence). After the break, Joseph talks about a TikTok account that may be the next evolution in clout-chasing: an account that uses facial recognition te...
Sep 27, 2023•56 min•Ep. 6
