CYBER

It’s a bittersweet episode of Cyber as we bid farewell to Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler. It’s a long episode so we’ve split it into two parts. This week you get some discussions about the topics of the day including Planet of Bass, Oliver Anthony, and the vibes-based economy. After that we start dishing all of Motherboard’s secrets, including how Jason came to work there and what it’s...

Room-temperature superconductors are here! Maybe! Look, science is a liar sometimes , especially in the internet age. Motherboard science reporter Becky Ferreira is here to help us parse the truth from fiction of LK-99. It’s either one of the biggest science stories of our entire lives or … just another science hoax. Later in the show, Joseph Cox is stopping by to tell us about another group of re...

We’ve got a super sized Cyber for you today that’s all about the two hottest movies in theaters. One is a mythological take on the creation of the modern world and the devastating weapons that ushered it in. The other is about an idol forged from plastic that came to dominate that world. That’s right. It’s Barbenheimer time. Emily Lipstein is co-hosting with me and we’re joined by nuclear historia...

It’s a brutally hot summer, a great time to cool off in an air conditioned movie theater or to catch up on some of those TV shows you’ve had on your list forever. But did you know the people who make the fine entertainment you know and love are on strike? Both writers and actors are picketing, trying to get a fair shake out of the studios and companies that bet big on streaming and used the shift...

A movie about a Mormon anti-trafficking activist made headlines when it beat Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny at the box office. But Sound of Freedom’s box office numbers aren’t all they’re cracked up to be and the group behind the movie, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) has a long and troubled history. Motherboard Senior Staff Writer Anna Merlan joins us this week on Cyber to explain OUR...

It feels like the old internet is breaking apart and no one is sure where to go. The first three pages of search results on Google are dreck. Reddit is shutting down the third party apps that make it usable. AI generated content is flooding beloved old websites. This might just be the end of the usable internet. On this episode of Cyber, we talk it all out with Motherboard editor-in-chief, Jason K...

Discord and Minecraft servers are part of an ecosystem where young people brag about crimes. SIM swapping, cryptocurrency, extortion, and violence-for-hire are all part of an disparate online community where people gather to swap stories and videos about crime. It’s called The Comm, and this week on Cyber, Motherboard reporter Joseph Cox comes on the show to tell us all about it. https://www.youtu...

Did you know that AI is set to automate as many as a third of your tasks ? In the future we’re all going to be saving a lot of time. That’s as long as no one invents artificial general intelligence that fires all the nukes or turns us all into paperclips . Which, some experts seem to think, will surely happen . Today we’re gonna talk about hype. Not the exciting kind of hype, but Criti-Hype, a kin...

Customs and Border Protection is scanning people’s social media, the feds have arrested some swatters, and the FTC has ordered Ring to cough up a fine. This week on Cyber, Motherboard’s premier cyber crime reporter Joseph Cox is back to walk us through the latest in privacy violations done by Washington and the private sector. We’ll also take another look at the criminal world of SIM swappers and...

Is there anything artificial intelligence can’t do? Debt collectors want AI to push people into coughing up what’s owed. An AI created photo of an attack on the Pentagon generated a minor panic. There’s an AI that can read your mind and the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, just testified before Congress. This week on Cyber, Motherboard reporter Chloe Xiang comes on to walk us through the...

Crypto and crime, crime and crypto. They go together like spreadsheets and tax evasion. When cryptocurrency hit the scene it was, according to its evangelists, going to usher in a world of decentralized currency and free everyone from the shackles of oppressive central banks. Turns out it’s also been a pretty great way to launder money. It’s also the subject of the new book Red Team Blues , a nove...

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 ca...

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...

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 Sp...

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...

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 Swattin...

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...

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. Moth...

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 autho...

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 t...

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 c...

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 f...

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 an...

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...

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...