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We talk a lot about encrypted phones on Cyber. Everyone loves a secure communication channel that no one can peer into. But some companies, well, if there’s criminal activity going on they’re gonna sell you out. And the cops have gotten very good at setting up honeypots and hacking into existing networks. But there’s one encrypted service out there that is, as far as we know, still secure. It’s called No. 1 Business Communication and it’s a favorite of the Italian Mafia. On this episode of Cyber, Joseph Cox comes on to explain how and why No. 1 Business Communication has survived in a world where authorities have shut down the competition.  Stories discussed in this episode: Inside the Italian Mafia’s Encrypted Phone of Choice 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.

If you’re watching or listening to this show you’re probably doing it on a device that owes its very existence to the Apple II. But these days we remember the iPhone, 90s era Windows, and even the Macintosh as these big benchmark moments in widespread adoption of tech. But all those devices wouldn't be here if it weren’t for the little Apple II board that could and the people who turned a hobbyist curiosity into a fundamental part of every household in the world. That story is the subject of the new book The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal. This week on Cyber, author Laine Nooney comes on to talk about The Apple II Age and how the little machine ushered in a new world of personal computing. Nooney is also an assistant professor of Media and Information Studies at New York University and the founding editor of ROMchip: A Journal of Games Histories. 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.

When Elon Musk posted a video of himself arriving at Twitter HQ carrying a white sink along with the message “let that sink in!” it marked the end of a dramatic takeover. Musk had gone from Twitter critic to “Chief Twit” in the space of just a few months but his arrival didn’t put an end to questions about his motives. Musk had earned a reputation as a business maverick. From PayPal to Tesla to SpaceX, his name was synonymous with big, earth-shattering ideas. So, what did he want with a social media platform? And was this all really in the name of free speech...or was this all in the name of Elon Musk? From Wondery, the makers of WeCrashed and In God We Lust, comes the wild story of how the richest man alive took charge of the world’s “digital public square.” Listen to Flipping The Bird: Wondery.fm/FTB_Cyber Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It looks like a bluetooth speaker or an old Nokia cellphone. But that’s a disguise. Inside these small devices is everything car thieves need to break into your vehicle. There are telegram channels now where, for a few thousand dollars, you can buy a device that will break into a car in seconds. Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox is here on Cyber this week to walk us through it. Stories discussed in this episode: The Car Thieves Using Tech Disguised Inside Old Nokia Phones and Bluetooth Speakers 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.

Automation is making everyone’s lives easier, including people who call in fake bomb threats on crowded public locations. We live in a world where pranksters and criminals can summon a massive police presence with the click of a few buttons. On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard staff writer Joseph Cox is here to tell us all about it. Stories discussed in this episode: A Computer Generated Swatting Service Is Causing Havoc Across America Smart Garage Company Fixes Vulnerability by Breaking Customers' Devices Hackers Can Remotely Open Smart Garage Doors Across the World IRS Wants to Buy Internet Mass Monitoring Tool 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.

Top Secret classified Pentagon documents leaked on a Minecraft Discord server. The pages of documents contain sensitive information about troop placements in Ukraine, rumors about allies, and—weirdly—a character sheet for a tabletop roleplaying game.  On this episode of Cyber, host Matthew Gault takes a back seat and lets Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler interrogate him about what’s in these classified Pentagon documents. Pentagon’s Ukraine War Plans Leaked on Minecraft Discord Before Telegram and Twitter Leaked Pentagon Docs Share Wild Rumor: Kremlin Plans to ‘Throw’ Putin’s War While He’s Getting Chemo Leaked Classified Documents Also Include Roleplaying Game Character Stats 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.

A terrible April Fool’s day glitch screws over Uber drivers, tenants in California are striking back against landlords, and private banks: do we need them? Today’s episode of Cyber is a cypher, that infrequent version of the show where we decipher some recent tech news. It’s a potpourri for the panopticon age. A grab bag of tech horrors, a not so gentle reminder that our work is not yet done. Motherboard reporter Roshan Abraham is here to talk about it all. 'Screwed': Uber Claws Back Double Pay from Drivers After April Fools Glitch Tenants of America's Biggest Landlord Form Union to Fight Evictions, Rent Hikes Want to Curb City Crime? Evict Fewer Tenants, Study Says Private Banks Are In Crisis. What If They Were Public Banks? 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.

Facial recognition systems are here. They’ve been deployed extensively along America’s southern border and in its cities. Authoritarian regimes in Iran and Russia are using the technology to crack down on dissidents and what’s going on in Moscow right now paints a horrifying picture of how dangerous the tech has become. On this episode of Cyber, Lena Masri is here to talk about it. She’s the author of a new report at Reuters about how Putin uses facial recognition to curb dissent. Stories discussed in this episode: Facial recognition is helping Putin curb dissent with the aid of U.S. tech U.S. Hardware Is Fueling Russia's Facial Recognition Crackdown on Anti-War Dissidents AI Use by Cops, Child Services In NYC Is a Mess: Report 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.

Love it or hate it, you can’t escape artificial intelligence. People are using Midjourney to make viral photos of Donald Trump’s arrest and the Pop’s puffy coat. Redditors are creating entire fake historical events and backing it up with AI-generated photos. Silicon Valley seems to think this tech is the next big thing, with Google and Microsoft betting big on it and some people begging everyone to pause development for six months. Is AI changing the world? With us here today to try to answer that question is Motherboard reporter Chloe Xiang. Stories discussed in this episode: People Are Creating Records of Fake Historical Events Using AI ChatGPT Can Replace the Underpaid Workers Who Train AI, Researchers Say The Open Letter to Stop 'Dangerous' AI Race Is a Huge Mess 'He Would Still Be Here': Man Dies by Suicide After Talking with AI Chatbot, Widow Says AI Theorist Says Nuclear War Preferable to Developing Advanced AI 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 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 Warrant The 'Insanely Broad' RESTRICT Act Could Ban Much More Than Just TikTok Here is the FBI’s Contract to Buy Mass Internet Data Cops Sue Afroman for 'Emotional Distress' After He Made Music Videos of Botched Raid 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.

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 Online Banning TikTok Is Unconstitutional, Ludicrous, and a National Embarrassment Follow Motherboard on TikTok to see the Congressional footage 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 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 Instead Ticketmaster Cancels Public Sale for Taylor Swift Tickets Because It Already Sold Them All Blink-182 Tickets Are So Expensive Because Ticketmaster Is a Disastrous Monopoly and Now Everyone Pays Ticket Broker Prices The Man Who Broke Ticketmaster 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. Seeacast.com/privacy for more information. 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 Alleges 24 Hours of News Shows America's Transportation Hellscape The Worst Transit Project in the U.S. Is Officially Dead Boston'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 Disaster 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.

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 Imploded Are 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 Official Twitter’s Most Important Anti-Censorship Tool Is Currently Dead ‘Escape From Tarkov’ Roiled By Severe Cheating Accusations LastPass Shouldn't Be Trusted With Your Passwords 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 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 Shootdowns 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.

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 Internet 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.

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 Abuse UK 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 AI Dutch Police Read Messages of Encrypted Messenger 'Exclu' Apple's End-to-End iCloud Could Be a Security Game Changer Police Contractor That Promised to Track Homeless People Hacked 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.

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 Horrified People are 'Jailbreaking' ChatGPT to Make It Endorse Racism, Conspiracies Conservatives Are Obsessed With Getting ChatGPT to Say the N-Word Thousands of People Can’t Stop Watching AI-Generated Sitcom ‘Nothing, Forever’ AI-Generated 'Seinfeld' Show Banned on Twitch After Transphobic Standup Bit 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.