CYBER

For almost two decades, Facebook has dominated headlines and the lives of its users. It’s been blamed for genocides, pointed to as a vector of disinformation, and depressed you as you scrolled past high school acquaintances that seem to be doing so much better than you.  But now its founder Mark Zuckerberg is obsessed with a virtual world no one wants, the company’s stock is down 70 percent o...

The killer robots are here and they’re not going away.  We’ve all seen footage of the cute robot dogs stumbling around with weapons strapped to their back, and loitering munitions (or so-called “suicide drones”) have become a fixture on the battlefield in Ukraine. There’s a general fear in the air that the near future will be populated by semi-autonomous killing machines. But killer robots ha...

America and political violence go together like George Lincoln Rockwell and a corncob pipe. There is a growing movement in the U.S., one that’s spreading online and probably in some of your neighborhoods. Far right extremist movements have a deepy history in America and there’s a new podcast from VICE that explores that history. It’s called American Terror and it’s hosted by a familiar voice: VICE...

We’ve all gotten a little too involved in a video game. I’ve talked repeatedly about how I’ve gotten lost in trying to complete maps in open world games like Assassin’s Creed . And there’s a million stories out there about kids who spent all their parents' money on upgrades in Farmville . But when I say the words State of Survival or Game of Thrones: Conquest , what comes to mind? Crappy ads on Fa...

On this episode of Cyber we talk about an old technology that suddenly feels very new. The bomb. That’s right, this episode is all about nuclear weapons. Thanks to Moscow’s war in Ukraine and Putin’s implicit and explicit threats to use them should Russian territory be threatened, everyone is afraid of nuclear weapons once again. Able Archer? Passé. Cuban Missile Crisis? Old news. These days it’s...

Apps have made our life so convenient haven’t they? With the push of a button you can order Postmates, book an Airbnb, or even call an Uber. But what happens when the apps stop taking your calls? What happens when they shut you out completely? It’s happening more and more. In a bid to increase user safety, companies like Airbnb and Uber are turning to third parties to run background checks for the...

Do you ever feel like you’re being played? Like the people who run the world have got you on a treadmill that’s feeding you just enough rewards to keep going. Gold stars on your attendance sheet at elementary school. Apps that encourage you to run by pretending you’re fleeing zombies. Bosses that keep track of everyone’s progress in a public spreadsheet, pitting employees against each other. As vi...

Hacks are increasing but the hackers are not necessarily getting more sophisticated. What do Twitter, Twilio, and Uber all have in common? They were all hacked by, in part, a conversation. In all three cases, the hack was helped along by social engineering. Someone contacted an employee of the company and tricked them into giving up the keys to the company. It doesn’t matter how fancy your 2FA sys...

Chess. Chess. Chess. You, the audience, quite literally asked for it. It’s the scandal that just won’t quit. On September 4 at a live Chess Tournament in St. Louis, chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen lost in a massive upset to young chess wiz Hans Niemann. This was not supposed to happen and almost immediately accusations and revelations about cheating have gotten wilder, involving AI driven cheatin...

AI art has gotten wildly popular over the past year. Programs like Midjourney and Dall-E are generating incredible images and incredible controversy. But these programs don’t exist in a vacuum. AI’s require billions of images to learn how and what to draw. Where are they getting those pictures? They’re hoovering them up on the internet. A place full of child porn, ISIS execution videos, and non-co...

You ever feel like somebody’s watching you? Well, on the internet, it’s often true. Every move you make on the internet generates reams of data that ISPs and data brokers sell on to on to a ton of people who may want to take a look. It’s a big business. One we don’t often see the inside of. One of the companies buying up all that data is Team Cymru who watches over all of it with a tool it calls A...

Groups on Telegram that used to primarily be interested in taking over people’s phones and online accounts have changed tactics. Now, they’re selling violence. And to cap off the week, a hacker we don’t know much about was able to steal the credentials of an Uber employee and access the company's back end. On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard staff writers Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Joseph...

This week on Cyber we’re going deep into recent stories of unidentified flying objects and Chess. The Pentagon has gotten big into investigating what it calls unidentified aerial phenomenon and a chess champion has been accused of cheating but the exact phenomenon he’s accused of remains unidentified. With me today to walk through all of this is Motherboard’s lovely editor-in-chief Jason Koebler.&...

Today on Cyber we’ve got a special presentation: We’re talking about Motherboard’s science fiction short story collection Terraform one last time. This week’s episode is a recording of a live roundtable discussion with Cory Doctorow and Geoff Manaugh—both of whom have short stories in the collection—and Terraform editors Claire L. Evans and Brian Merchant. Want to learn the secret history of the L...

It seems like the Earth’s billionaires are desperate to escape the planet. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are looking to outer space. Mark Zuckerberg is looking to the inner space of virtual reality. So many billionaires are buying up land and luxury survival bunkers in New Zealand that it’s hard to keep track. Do they know something we don’t? Or do they just have the money to act on fears they themselv...

Woe to those who live in the path of a hypercane. What’s a hypercane? I’m glad you asked. In a frighteningly possible future you’ll be hearing more about them. As the planet warms and the climate changes, we’re in for all kinds of new and bizarre extreme weather systems. It’s a hurricane so big and so powerful it extends through several states. Today on Cyber, we’ve got something special. Another...

A new study in Nature Food has revealed, once again, the unprecedented danger of nuclear weapons. Built on the foundation of decades of research, it’s about the climate change and global famine that would follow even a limited nuclear exchange. The models are a terrifying warning. A limited war between Pakistan and India that uses just three percent of the world’s nuclear weapons could kill a thir...

Drone. The word has come to mean so many things. An eye in the sky. A hobbyist flying toy. A dangerous voyeur. A weapon of war. An enforcer. A worker. But a worker that’s maybe not as soulless as the name implies. As AI gets more sophisticated and the subroutines become rote… might it be possible to convert the electronic oppressor? Today on Cyber, we’ve got something special. Motherboard has publ...

Some days, it feels like all you can do is watch worlds burn. This is especially true for the millions of people living in hospice care. Health in the U.S. isn’t what it used to be. The population is aging and it’s not just the Baby Boomers. If you think Millennials will age more gracefully than their parents, well, I have a counselor I’d like you to speak with. It’s specially trained for the job...

We all get them. We all hate them. Spam. There was a time, long ago, when it was just your mailbox and your inbox that got hit with superfluous ads and scams. But now? My phone rings all day long and all of the calls are spam. All of them. If you’re not on my contact list, I’m not picking up. And the texts have gotten much much worse. Everyday is a new offering and every ping is spam. Did you know...

Some days, it feels like all you can do is watch worlds burn. This is especially true in the desperate small towns that pocket the parts of America some derisively call ‘Flyover Country.’ Today on Cyber, we’ve got something special. Motherboard is publishing a book! It’s called Terraform and it drops on August 16. It’s a collection of short stories about the near future and the dystopian present....

Last month, a hacker posted a trove of stolen documents online detailing the weird internal struggles of a little gaming company called Roblox. If you don’t know what Roblox is, just ask any child in America and they’ll explain it to you. The hacked documents contained fascinating insights into how gaming companies whose product depends on player freedom and creativity must navigate the treacherou...

A lot of stuff happened on the internet this week. Strange orbs fell from the sky and landed in Mexico. Thousands watched online as Nancy Pelosi’s plane slowly made its way to Taiwan. And the International Atomic Energy Agency called out Russia for making Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant a front in its war in Ukraine. It’s a grab bag episode of Cyber and we’re gonna get into it all with Mother...

Alex Jones, the slowly bloating Texan broadcaster, is currently on trial in Austin for peddling conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook massacre. Jones has already lost—the trial will eventually set damages.  Amid this, Jones’ companies are filing for bankruptcy and a new documentary about him is playing the festival circuit. He says this is all about the First Amendment. In a way, he’s righ...

If you haven’t heard, there’s a hot new condiment on the market that’s gone viral on TikTok. It’s called Pink Sauce and it’s been at the center of several controversies over the past few weeks. The sauce has been accused of making people sick, being a rip off of other condiments, and lying about its nutritional information. On this episode of Cyber we’re going to try to answer the question: why do...