CYBER

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 WarrantThe 'Insanely Broad' RESTRICT Act Could Ban Much More Than Just TikTokHere is the FBI’s Contract to Buy Mass Internet DataCops Sue Afroman for 'Emotional Distress' After He Made Music Videos of Botched RaidWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 OnlineBanning TikTok Is Unconstitutional, Ludicrous, and a National EmbarrassmentFollow Motherboard on TikTok to see the Congressional footageWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 InsteadTicketmaster Cancels Public Sale for Taylor Swift Tickets Because It Already Sold Them AllBlink-182 Tickets Are So Expensive Because Ticketmaster Is a Disastrous Monopoly and Now Everyone Pays Ticket Broker PricesThe Man Who Broke TicketmasterWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show. Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.Hosted on Acast. Seeacast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we’re sharing an episode of The Hustle Daily Show — a daily dose of irreverent, offbeat, and informative takes on business & tech news.In this episode, they take a look at how getting stuff for “free” affects consumer behavior. Why do we care so much when a crummy t-shirt gets shot out of a cannon at a sporting event? It's all about the power of "free," a price point that makes us feel high and act so irrationally that we forget that even free stuff comes with a cost.And to really get at the heart of the story here, Hustle writers Zachary Crockett and Mark Dent focus on 3 wildly different areas: free grocery store samples, free shipping, and free online content.If you like what you hear, search for The Hustle Daily Show in your favorite podcast app. Like the one you’re using right now ;) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 Alleges24 Hours of News Shows America's Transportation HellscapeThe Worst Transit Project in the U.S. Is Officially DeadBoston'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 DisasterWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 ImplodedAre 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 on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 OfficialTwitter’s Most Important Anti-Censorship Tool Is Currently Dead‘Escape From Tarkov’ Roiled By Severe Cheating AccusationsLastPass Shouldn't Be Trusted With Your PasswordsWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 ShootdownsWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 InternetWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 AbuseUK 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 AIDutch Police Read Messages of Encrypted Messenger 'Exclu'Apple's End-to-End iCloud Could Be a Security Game ChangerPolice Contractor That Promised to Track Homeless People HackedWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 HorrifiedPeople are 'Jailbreaking' ChatGPT to Make It Endorse Racism, ConspiraciesConservatives Are Obsessed With Getting ChatGPT to Say the N-WordThousands of People Can’t Stop Watching AI-Generated Sitcom ‘Nothing, Forever’AI-Generated 'Seinfeld' Show Banned on Twitch After Transphobic Standup BitWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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’We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 here to check out ‘Havana Syndrome’ from VICE World News.We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 HornyWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recent remarks from Richard Trumka Jr., one of the three commissioners 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 WarsWhy C-SPAN’s Camera Work Is Suddenly So InterestingC-SPAN Is Once Again Asking the House to Relax Filming Rules So It Can Document Its DysfunctionWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 PlatesCiphr, Encrypted App That Served Organized Crime, Rebrands as Enterprise SoftwareResearcher Deepfakes His Voice, Uses AI to Demand Refund From Wells FargoU.S. Army Planned to Pay Streamers Millions to Reach Gen-Z Through Call of DutyWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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:Facial Recognition Researcher Left a Trans Database Exposed for Years After Using Images Without PermissionWe’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch live during the week. Follow us there to get alerts when we go live. We take questions from the audience and yours might just end up on the show.Subscribe to CYBER on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.