Elon Musk’s attempts to buy Twitter have sent ripples through the social media platform. There is a story here about panic, the limited reach of social media, and the increasingly fuzzy nature of the private/ public space … but I think all that is a surface level analysis. For me, the more interesting story is the corporate what lies just underneath. You see, Musk is the richest man not because he invented anything wonderful and world changing. No, he’s rich because he’s good at making money. He...
Apr 28, 2022•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Drones are here to stay. The U.S. Military may have pioneered the art of using drones in a war zone, but America’s cops are pushing the tech on the homefront. From the Boston Dynamics dogs taking temperatures in Hawaii to quadcopters patrolling the skies, the cops are very interested in drone tech. One of the big companies in the field is Skydio. It advertises itself directly to police officers and has cultivated relationships with departments across the country. This week on Cyber, host Matthew...
Apr 26, 2022•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Are you using two-factor authentication for all your accounts? Do you have Apple Pay or another service hooked up to a bank card? Well, so do criminals. It’s the growth of a scheme Cyber first reported on about six months ago. Thanks to bots that help criminals trick you into giving up your 2FA codes, they're now able to set up links between Apple Pay bank cards. It’s shockingly easy to do and, bizarrely, shockingly hard to stop. On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Staff Writer Joseph Co...
Apr 21, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Trains, trains, trains. You might not think of them very often but they make America run. Getting stuff from point A to Point B is more than a full time job. Our world runs on logistical supply chains that are supported, in large part, by freight trains. But what happens if the people doing those jobs don’t get much sleep? What happens when the company running the trains implements systems that deprive its already weary workforce of much needed Zs? This week on Cyber, Motherboard Senior S...
Apr 19, 2022•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Every week we publish multiple incredible stories on Motherboard. This week there were so many that we couldn’t decide which one we wanted to focus on. So. We’re gonna do something a little different for this episode. That’s right, we’re going full Cipher. If you’re familiar with the show, Cipher is that infrequent segment we do where we decipher the week’s biggest tech stories. On this episode of Cyber we answer the questions: Is it illegal to run a private Club Penguin server? How is T-Mobile ...
Apr 15, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Police records reviewed by Motherboard show that, as security experts immediately predicted when the product launched, this technology has been used as a tool to stalk and harass women. Of the 150 total police reports mentioning AirTags, in 50 cases women called the police because they started getting notifications that their whereabouts were being tracked by an AirTag they didn’t own. Of those, 25 could identify a man in their lives—ex-partners, husbands, bosses—who they strongly suspected plan...
Apr 12, 2022•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Close your eyes. Imagine it's 2010. You’ve just learned about something called Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency. You spend $50 and get 50 of the coins, thinking the whole thing is funny. Cut to 2022. What you spent around 50 bucks on in 2010 is now worth 2 million dollars. There’s just one problem. You need a password to access that 2 million and 2010 was a long time ago. It’s a problem plaguing the world of cryptocurrency: an epidemic of millionaires unable to access their cash. But there are options....
Apr 07, 2022•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast For many, playing video games for a living is a dream come true. Whether you’re streaming on Twitch or doing speedruns for charity, there are viable ways to earn a living playing video games. But get NFTs and the blockchain in the mix and, well, you’ve got a whole different system. Today we’re gonna talk about Axie Infinity, the most popular of the so-called ‘play-to-earn’ games. The promise of Axie and others is that you can earn money simply by playing the game. But how much? Is Axie fun? How ...
Apr 05, 2022•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve got a special presentation on the show for you today, an interview with Yuliana Shemetovets, the spokesperson for a group of ethical hackers going to war with Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. They’re called the Cyber Partisans and they’re responsible for hacks against the Lukashenko regime. Lukashenko is a die-hard Putin ally who has been in charge of Belarus since 1994. In that time, the country has become more unstable. Protestors have disappeared from the streets and Belarus ha...
Mar 31, 2022•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast There are thousands of people still trapped in Ukraine and trying to flee. Millions are internally displaced and many are crossing the Polish border and finding refuge. But, for foreign students stuck in Ukraine, it can be much much more difficult to leave. A war zone is a terrible place to be no matter who you are, but these foreign students are facing unprecedented challenges. Thankfully, there are people trying to help. That’s the subject of the Motherboard story “ Inside the OSINT Operation ...
Mar 29, 2022•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Stories of the death of religion in America are overblown. If you’re in the right part of the country, there are vibrant Christian communities developing apps, working in Christian-startups, and spreading their faith on Instagram and YouTube. There is a whole community and culture just outside of the mainstream using tech in all sorts of wild and interesting ways. This week on Cyber, we explore the weird world of evangelical tech with Corrina Laughlin. She is a professor of media studies at Loyo...
Mar 25, 2022•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast It started with SIM swapping and escalated into hacks of Okta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and EA. They’re LAPSUS$, a hacking collective that’s been the boogeyman of big corporations for the past few years. People have wondered about their motivations and identities. Now, seven of them have been arrested. They’re mostly teenagers who used unsophisticated methods to get the better of some of the world’s most powerful companies. On today’s episode of Cyber, Motherboard staff writer Joseph Cox walks us thro...
Mar 24, 2022•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast We all type it. Some of us say it. Three little letters. L O L. Whether you’re laughing out loud or softening the blow of bad news, it’s so ubiquitous in the English speaking world that it’s almost become punctuation. But where did it come from and does it have a strict definition? If you know anything about linguistics, you may already know the answers to those questions. Motherboard senior staff writer Shayla Love knows. She’s here today to talk about the origins of the phrase that’s part of o...
Mar 17, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast The internet encourages the best and absolute worst of human behavior. Online led hate campaigns and conspiracy theories are often more than just frivolous distractions. They can ruin lives. In the U.S., I think the Gamergate movement from 2015 and 2016 opened a lot of people’s eyes to what was brewing under the surface of some of the darker places online. If Gamergate didn’t, then Qanon certainly did. But, across the Pacific Ocean, the people of Korea had a pretty good idea of how the internet ...
Mar 16, 2022•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jason Koebler and Jordan Pearson talk about CRYPTOLAND, Motherboard's brand new documentary series about all things cryptocurrency. Watch CRYPTOLAND now at www.youtube.com/motherboard (please!!!) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mar 11, 2022•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Amazon. The company none of us can seem to get away from. Whether you’re a Prime member or just surfing the web on sites hosted by AWS, the company is inescapable. But it’s worse when you work for them. Especially if you’re an independent contractor running delivery vans. It’s a job where crushing debt, sudden shifts in policy, and impossible demands are the norm. These Amazon Delivery Service Partners, or DSPs, are key to Amazon's dominant position, and the way many people are able to get...
Mar 09, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler discuss various website defacements, leaks, and hacks associated with Russia's war in Ukraine. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mar 01, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast There are a lot of companies out there willing to sell shady customers the tools they need to spy on just about anyone. All over the world software vendors like Hacking Team and NSO Group will help you break into a cellphone or read an email you’re not supposed to. But that might soon be changing. On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard senior staff writer Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai joins host Matthew Gault to talk about spyware vendors. It’s the subject of Lorenzo’s new piece , “The US Crackdo...
Feb 24, 2022•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast The internet has created an explosion in audio and video captured from the frontlines of war zones. As Russia escalates the conflict in Ukraine, it’s also pushing propaganda harder than ever. But there’s so much information available online, and so many people willing to call bullshit on propaganda, that it’s hard to make a believable video that justifies a war these days. That hasn’t stopped Russia from trying. On today’s episode of Cyber, Motherboard journalist Matthew Gault sits down with Mot...
Feb 23, 2022•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Cops love technology. From robot dogs to drones to Ring cameras to tasers to facial recognition software, America’s police are often early adopters of the world’s newest dystopian tech. How does it happen? Often the tech companies are actively pitching police departments on stuff they say will make the cops’ life easier. Every month, conferences across the country are stuffed with tech companies and officers breaking bread and cutting deals. What goes on at these conferences, exactly? This week ...
Feb 17, 2022•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Roblox is one of the most popular and profitable video games ever created. Unless you’ve got kids, there’s a decent chance you’ve probably never heard of it. What makes it so engaging is that it’s a place where players develop and sell their own games and items. There is an internal economy and culture built around it. Roblox is , dare I say, a metaverse all its own. Lurking at the edges of that metaverse is a group of people called Beamers. With so many items floating around the Roblox ec...
Feb 15, 2022•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2016, someone hacked the crypto exchange Bitfinex and made off with 120,000 BTC. At the time, the bitcoins were worth $65 million. Now they’re worth around $5 billion. On February 7, authorities in the U.S. arrested Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan. The charge? Allegedly the couple laundered around $1 billion in stolen Bitcoin. As news of the charges spread, journalists began to dig into the couple and discovered that Morgan was extremely online . A wannabe rapper, Morgan has po...
Feb 10, 2022•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Motherboard Senior Staff writer Anna Merlan joins to talk about where disinformation comes from and whether we can stop it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 08, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast The late 80s and early 90s were a golden age of free stuff on the internet. If you could afford the equipment and the access, you could find just about any piece of software you wanted without paying for it. And also a lot of pictures of naked people. The Bulletin Board System, or BBS, was the lifeblood of this freewheeling time. It didn’t last long. This week on Cyber we’re bringing you the story of Rusty ‘n’ Edie’s BBS: the Friendliest BBS in the World. Here to tell the tale is Motherboard Sen...
Feb 03, 2022•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s been a wild few weeks for crypto and NFTs. The whole market took some hits, but the crypto markets especially have seemed to spiral. At the same time, there’s been so many hacks , stolen Apes , and ransomed tokens that it’s hard to keep track of them all. This week on Cyber, we go through it all. Who lost what and how? Also, what is it about the blockchain that makes it so vulnerable to hacks and schemes? Motherboard senior staff writer Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Motherboard Senior E...
Jan 27, 2022•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast What do you picture when you read the word “hacker?” I always see Cereal, Matthew Lillard’s character, from the movie Hackers . A dude with weird hair, intense need to make information free, and copies of 2600 magazine scattered around his dank apartment. That image is, and always was, a fantasy. What hackers are, and what they’ve become, is complicated. The word was once synonymous with “criminal,” but through years of activism and hard work, that’s changed. Now, “hacker” means so much mo...
Jan 20, 2022•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Signal, the app, is synonymous with security. The end-to-end encrypted messaging platform is a go-to for discerning people who want to keep their communications private. Just remember to turn on the vanishing messages feature. But it’s CEO is stepping down. Moxie Marlinspike is out and Whatsapp’s Brian Acton is in. Motherboard staff writer Joseph Cox is on the show this week to talk to us about the changes at Signal, the history of end-to-end encryption, and what Marlinspike thinks of web3...
Jan 13, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Popcorn time, a place where millions of people gathered everyday to watch low-res streams of their favorite films, is dead. Or is it? According to Motherboard Editor-in-Chief Jason Koebler, rumors of the demise of the Netflix of Piracy have been greatly exaggerated. According to Jason, Popcorn time is likely unkillable . It’s the first Cyber back after the holiday break and there’s a lot to talk about. After Jason and Matthew run through a brief history of pirating things online, they turn their...
Jan 07, 2022•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Deadly storms swept through parts of the U.S. last Friday, killing at least 90 people. Six of those worked in an Amazon warehouse in Illinois. As the deadly tornado hit the warehouse, the walls fell inward, the roof collapsed. Moments before his death, worker Larry Virden texted his girlfriend to say “Amazon won’t let us leave.” If you’ve ever worked retail or shipping during the holidays, you know that what is a restful period of joy and relaxation for much of the world is a stressful nightmare...
Dec 17, 2021•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast In which we go deep on ConstitutionDAO, and DAOs in general. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 10, 2021•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
