CYBER

It?s time for a new history of the internet, one that focuses on the recent revolutions that define the world we all live in. Social media has changed the way many of us live and work. It?s a world defined by a new economy of creators and influencers. The new media is here and it?s Extremely Online.

That?s the title of the new book from Taylor Lorenz, which is the untold story of fame, influence, and power on the internet. Lorenz is a columnist for The Washington Post and she joined us to answer all our questions about why Vine failed, Tumblr was the best social network, and what the future holds for everyone who lives and works in the era of social media-powered capitalism.

In the back half of the episode, Motherboard science reporter Becky Ferreira stops by to talk about UFOs and radioactive boars.

Pre-order Taylor's book here.

Stories discussed in this episode:

The Original 'Avocado Toast' Millionaire Is Back, And He Wants 'Pain In the Economy'

'Avocado Toast' Millionaire Very Sorry for Saying 'Arrogant' Workers Should Lose Jobs After Outrage

Here Is NASA's 36-Page Report Investigating UFOs

'The Truth Is Out There': The Emails NASA's UFO Investigators Got From Scientists and the Public

WTF Is Going On With 'Alien Corpses' Being Shown to Mexico's Congress?

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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.

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The heat is still here, but the summer will soon be over. Here at the precipice of fall I wanted to take a moment to reflect on one of the big stories that Motherboard covered this season: labor, strikes, and unions.

Here to tell us all about it is Motherboard labor reporter Jules Roscoe.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Instacart Tells Shoppers in Hurricane ?Bad Weather = Good Tips?

'It Feels Horrible': Amazon Workers Delivered Packages During Destructive Tropical Storm

Amazon Told Drivers Not to Worry About In-Van Surveillance Cameras. Now Footage Is Leaking Online

Ohio Man Charged for Shooting Amazon Driver Delivering to His House

Amazon Says It Doesn't 'Employ' Drivers, But Records Show It Hired Firms to Prevent Them From Unionizing

Teamsters UPS Union Wins Historic Contract, Likely Avoiding Gigantic Strike

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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. 

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It?s part two of our bittersweet episode of Cyber where we bid farewell to Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler. This week we do a deep dive into the Motherboard lore. The stories that broke us, the controversies that made us who we are. Come find out which popular web comic wrote a strip about us that?s aged like milk, how much horse shit you can buy for $10 in Bitcoin, why the director of Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story hates Motherboard, and why you should never bowl with someone who has ebola.

Vox Something Or Other

The Shitexpress video

Bowling with Ebola

The Chinese Mystery Seed Saga

Neil Blomkamp destroys his computers

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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. 

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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 like to walk out of a meeting with 8 missed calls from Disney on your phone.

Next week we?re talking about a webcomic, comments sections, and how much horseshit $10 in Bitcoin could buy a few years ago.

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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.

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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 researchers who?ve uncovered a backdoor in police radios.

Stories discussed in this episode:

DIY Scientists and Institutions Are Racing to Replicate the Room-Temperature Superconductor

Researchers Find ?Backdoor? in Encrypted Police and Military Radios

Defense Lawyers Push Judge to Reveal Secret Country that Helped FBI Wiretap the World

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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. 

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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 historian and master of secrets, Alex Wellerstein as well as journalist and critic Gita Jackson.

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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. 

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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 to screw over the workers who keep us all entertained.

With us today to talk about it is standup comedian and consummate host and presenter Adam Conover. If you?ve been following the strike at all you?ve probably seen some of his videos. If you?re a fan of great TV or podcasts, you may have seen his various TV shows or listened to his Factually! Podcast.

Stories discussed in this episode:

SAG Files Unfair Labor Practice Against Universal After It Trimmed Trees on Picket Line Without a Permit

Striking Writers Are on the Front Line of a Battle Between AI and Workers

How Long Will the Writers? Strike Last? An Expert Explains

The Hollywood Strike Will Affect Way More Than Movies and TV

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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.

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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 and Sound of Freedom.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Tim Ballard Has ?Stepped Away? From Operation Underground Railroad, Org Says

Anti-Trafficking Group With Long History of False Claims Gets Its Hollywood Moment

A Famed Anti-Sex Trafficking Group Has a Problem With the Truth

Inside a Massive Anti-Trafficking Charity's Blundering Overseas Missions

Anti-Trafficking Charity Operation Underground Railroad Has Another Murky Rescue Story

Operation Underground Railroad?s Carefully Crafted Public Image Is Falling Apart

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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. 

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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 Koebler.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Threads: The Motherboard Review

You Can't Look at Porn on Any Reddit Third-Party App Now

AI-Generated Books of Nonsense Are All Over Amazon's Bestseller Lists

The Reddit Protest Is a Battle for the Soul of the Human Internet

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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.

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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.youtube.com/watch?v=KoDl73J5EJY

Stories discussed in this episode:

Bloodied Macbooks and Stacks of Cash: Inside the Increasingly Violent Discord Servers Where Kids Flaunt Their Crimes

Firebombs and Shootings: The Rise of IRL Harassment and Violence as a Service

'The Comm': The Group Linked to a Nationwide Swatting Rampage

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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. 

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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 kind of techno doomerism we?re often fond of here at Motherboard. Social media, biogenetics, Artificial Intelligence. These things could ruin us all. At least ? that?s what people tell you when they?re selling something.

Lee Vinsel is a professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech and the host of the People & Things podcast. His Medium post that caught our eye is: You?re Doing it Wrong: Notes on Criticism and Technology Hype.

Stories discussed in this episode:

You?re Doing It Wrong: Notes on Criticism and Technology Hype

The Open Letter to Stop 'Dangerous' AI Race Is a Huge Mess

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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.

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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 auto-swatters.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Homeland Security Uses AI Tool to Analyze Social Media of U.S. Citizens and Refugees

'The Comm': The Group Linked to a Nationwide Swatting Rampage

FTC Orders Ring to Pay $5.8 Million in Refunds For Surveilling Customers, Failing to Stop Hackers

Russian FSB Accuses U.S. of Hacking Thousands of iPhones in Russia

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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. 

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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 big headlines in the world of AI.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Debt Collectors Want To Use AI Chatbots To Hustle People For Money

Verified Twitter Accounts Spread AI-Generated Hoax of Pentagon Explosion

AI Reconstructs 'High-Quality' Video Directly from Brain Readings in Study

Worried About Sending Your Data to a Chatbot? 'PrivateGPT' Is Here

OpenAI Tells Congress the U.S. Should Create AI 'Licenses' to Release New Models

We?re recording CYBER live on Twitch. 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. 

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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 novel from writer Cory Doctorow. In Red Team Blues a 67 year old forensic accountant finds himself at the center of a crypto-crime mystery that takes him from the heights of silicon valley to the depths of the Tenderloin. This week on Cyber, Doctorow walks us through a brief history of the valley and why he wrote three books about an old accountant during the pandemic.

Doctorow is the author of more than two dozen books and too many articles to count. He?s currently blogging at pluralistic.net.

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. 

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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.

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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. 

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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

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 Horny

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.

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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 Wars

Why C-SPAN?s Camera Work Is Suddenly So Interesting

C-SPAN Is Once Again Asking the House to Relax Filming Rules So It Can Document Its Dysfunction

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.

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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 Plates

Ciphr, Encrypted App That Served Organized Crime, Rebrands as Enterprise Software

Researcher Deepfakes His Voice, Uses AI to Demand Refund From Wells Fargo

U.S. Army Planned to Pay Streamers Millions to Reach Gen-Z Through Call of Duty

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.

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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 Permission

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.

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Apple has democratized stalking for the modern world. With the Airtag you can keep track of your luggage and your estranged spouse.

There?s been an uptick in stalking cases with Apple Airtags at the center and the legal system doesn?t quite know what to do. Often, the cops and the prosecutors don?t even know what an Airtag is. So what do you do when there?s technology at the center of your legal battle, technology that the authorities do not understand.

Today on Cyber, Motherboard Senior Editor Samantha Cole comes on to walk us through it.

Stories discussed in this episode:

The Legal System Is Completely Unprepared for Apple AirTag Stalking

How ?Porn Addiction? Took Hold of the Internet

Republicans Are Panicking Because They Somehow Just Found Out You Can Buy Vibrators at CVS

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.

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We all love a good chatbot, some nice AI art, and a pleasant automated system. Artificial intelligence is here and these fancy decision trees are supposed to make our lives easier everyday without a human ever having to lift a finger.

Except that?s not exactly true. AIs require an incredible amount of human input to train; AI art doesn?t make nightmares reality without scanning over millions of human-made images; and Meta?s content didn?t learn how to moderate itself with a human first telling it what to look for.

So who are these people who teach AI and why do we never hear about them?

On today?s episode of Cyber, Motherboard writer Chloe Xiang will help us answer that question.

Stories discussed in this episode:

AI Isn?t Artificial or Intelligent

ISIS Executions and Non-Consensual Porn Are Powering AI Art

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.

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An online prophet that claims to be god. A murder in the Alabama woods. A child holding a shotgun in the middle of a camp. Reptilians. Urine therapy. The American South. Police violence. Conspiracy. Robot birds. The uniquely American black esoteric tradition. 

This episode of Cyber is a big and surreal story about a New Age movement that?s spread through livestreams. Its followers are decentralized, driven by belief rather than any organizing principle, but at the center of it all is a prophet who claims to be god and is sitting in jail on some pretty serious charges.

Here to talk about the story is Motherboard Senior Staff Writer Anna Merlan and Editorial Director Tim Marchman.

Stories discussed in this episode:

An Online Prophet Claims to Be a God. His Followers Keep Getting Arrested.

Followers of Charismatic New Age Influencer Accused of Two Different Murders in Alabama

Suspects in Bizarre ?Off-Grid? Alabama Shooting Posted About New Age Conspiracy Theories, Followed a Controversial Content Creator

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.

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This episode of Cyber is an action packed double feature that feels like it?s been pulled directly from a Cyberpunk novel. That?s right, today is all about railway strikes and killer robots. It?s hard to be a railway worker in America. The schedules are a nightmare, the kind of working conditions that can make someone sick. Just don?t try to use your sick days. Facing a railway strike, Congress passed legislation to prevent it. All at the behest of the White House. We?ll get into that. 

Then we?ll talk about San Francisco. The City by the Bay has written the rules of killer robots. SF won?t have the first police department that?s killed someone with a drone, just the first with rules.

With me today to talk about it is Motherboard Senior Writer Aaron Gordon. He?s been following both stories. You may remember he was on the show more at the start of the year talking about the horrifying conditions of America?s rail workers.

Stories discussed in this episode:

The Most Complicated Labor Negotiation in the Country Just Got More Complicated

Once Again, Rail Workers Lose

More than 500 Labor Historians Condemn Biden?s Intervention in Freight Rail Dispute

San Francisco Police Want to Be Allowed to Kill People With Robots

San Francisco Police Can Now Kill People With Robots

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.

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Landlords. Most of us have to deal with them. They can be nosy, weird, invasive, and lazy. The best kind of landlord tends to be one that?s hands off. Well what if I told you that you can look forward to a bright future of automated landlords. Robot landlords tending their rental properties with a cool and calloused algorithmic hand. That impersonal future is here. Now.

This week on Cyber, Nick Keppler stops by to talk about the rise of automated landlords. Keppler is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, and?of course?VICE. His latest at Motherboard is Robot Landlords Are Buying Up Houses.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Robot Landlords Are Buying Up Houses

Among the Landlords

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.

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We have to talk about Elon Musk. It?s fun to make fun of him, and whatever he?s doing at Twitter certainly looks like the weird flailing of a man who doesn?t know how to run a company. But let?s take Musk seriously for an hour or so. He is the richest man in the world. He has big dreams and some of the resources to achieve them. The Pentagon is paying him for rocket launches. Starlink works and has been instrumental in the war in Ukraine.

So who is Elon Musk and why do we care so much? His detractors see only a shitposter who made some great business bets. His fans see him as a messianic figure, a superhero who will lead us into a new golden age of technology.

But what?s the truth? Is it somewhere in between? The answer isn?t that simple.

On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard managing editor Jordan Pearson sits down to help us think through the bizarre geopolitical importance of Twitter?s new CEO.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Twitter Employees Call Elon Musk?s Bluff

Twitter Employees on Visas Can?t Just Quit

Elon Musk Is Creating His Own Reality

SpaceX Was Born Because Elon Musk Wanted to Grow Plants on Mars

Elon Musk's Tech Has Geopolitical Clout. Things Are Going to Get Weird

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.

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We?ve all seen the videos. Those viral townhall meetings where the community gathers to give its feedback to city managers on this or that subject. Too often a crank with a microphone stands before a panel of local political operators and talks at length about something bizarre and hyper specific. Sometimes they get abusive. There?s yelling, tears, grandstanding, and often nothing changes.

It wasn?t always this way and there might be a better way to do it. On this episode of CYBER, Motherboard Senior Writer Aaron Gordon takes us through the history of ?community feedback? and why it has to change.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Thank You For Your Feedback

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.

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Have you heard about Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX? FTX was the second largest crypto currency exchange in the world and Bankman-Fried was the guy who ran it. He was a young genius, people said. He practiced something called ?effective altruism,? gave away money to people on the street, played video games, and was predicted to be the world?s first trillionaire.

Now he?s bankrupt, FTX is in ruins and large amounts of crypto seem to keep shifting around with no explanation. So who was Bankman-Fried? Why did everyone think he was a genius? And how did FTX seemingly make billions of dollars in wealth evaporate overnight.

On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard staff writer Edward Ongweso Jr. tries to answers those questions.

Stories discussed in this episode:

Sam Bankman-Fried?s FTX Crypto Empire Is Officially Bankrupt

Sam Bankman-Fried Was Supposed to Be Different. He Wasn't.

FTX Founder: ?I Fucked Up?

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.

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