CYBER
388 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 months ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsHacking. Hackers. Disinformation campaigns. Encryption. The Cyber. This stuff gets complicated really fast, but Motherboard spends its time embedded in the infosec world so you don't have to. Host Matthew Gault talks every week to Motherboard reporters about the stories they're breaking and to the industry's most famous hackers and researchers about the biggest news in cybersecurity.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Episodes
LastPass Isn’t Safe and Your Hiking App May be Tracking You
March 09, 2023 19:22 - 41 minutes - 33.1 MBIt’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 ...
The Great Balloon Panic Has Been Weird But Good for Balloon Hobbyists
March 07, 2023 20:04 - 41 minutes - 33 MBOn 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 th...
How Tubgirl Became a TikTok Sensation
March 02, 2023 20:35 - 49 minutes - 40 MBYouTube, 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 ep...
We Broke Into a Bank Account With an AI-Generated Voice
February 23, 2023 19:37 - 33 minutes - 31 MBBanks 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.
Voice Generating-AI Is Now the Plaything of 4Chan
February 09, 2023 21:35 - 39 minutes - 31.3 MBAI 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 polic...
What's the Deal With AI Seinfeld?
February 08, 2023 22:12 - 50 minutes - 40.6 MBWhat 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 episod...
One Man’s Obsession With Being 18 Forever
February 02, 2023 17:00 - 36 minutes - 29.5 MBWhat 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. M...
Iran’s AI-Powered Surveillance State
February 01, 2023 19:23 - 45 minutes - 36.3 MBOn 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 ...
What Was Havana Syndrome, the Mystery Illness that Hit American Spies?
January 27, 2023 22:02 - 49 minutes - 39.5 MBIn 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 ...
The Nextdoor Poster to Political Activist Pipeline
January 24, 2023 20:23 - 59 minutes - 47.4 MBWe'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 Amer...
Replika, the AI Chatbot Users Say Is Sexually Harassing Them
January 18, 2023 21:35 - 43 minutes - 34.6 MBReplika 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...
The Government Isn’t Coming for Your Gas Stoves
January 12, 2023 21:25 - 40 minutes - 31.8 MBRecent 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 w...
Hacking Digital License Plates
January 10, 2023 22:21 - 35 minutes - 28.5 MBEncrypted 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 Licens...
The Trans Dataset Built Without Permission and Stored Improperly
January 05, 2023 21:30 - 40 minutes - 32.1 MBFacial 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 conseq...
Cops and Courts Don’t Know How to Handle Apple’s AirTag Stalking Problem
December 14, 2022 21:06 - 35 minutes - 28.7 MBApple 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 E...
The Invisible Workforce that Makes AI Possible
December 09, 2022 19:44 - 31 minutes - 25 MBWe 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 tell...
The Online Prophet Whose Followers Keep Getting Arrested
December 06, 2022 21:57 - 59 minutes - 47.7 MBAn 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 prop...
Railroad Strikes and Killer Robots
December 02, 2022 18:32 - 53 minutes - 43.5 MBThis 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. The...
The Rise of the Robot Landlords
November 29, 2022 21:50 - 35 minutes - 28.6 MBLandlords. 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...
Taking Elon Musk Seriously
November 22, 2022 20:33 - 49 minutes - 39.8 MBWe 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 ...
Why ‘Community Feedback’ Doesn’t Work
November 16, 2022 21:03 - 49 minutes - 39.6 MBWe’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, Motherbo...
Who Is Sam Bankman-Fried, the ‘Savior’ Who Crashed FTX?
November 15, 2022 19:35 - 41 minutes - 33.3 MBHave 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-Fri...
How Sex Changed the Internet
November 10, 2022 22:00 - 49 minutes - 39.3 MBWithout sex there would be no internet. From the moment the servers spun up, users were trying to figure out how to use instant connection to pleasures themselves and each other. The history of sex and the internet are intertwined. And what feels like new problems in the space: banking woes, hate speech, harassment, and moral panics about children are all much much older than you think. That’s the subject of the new book How Sex Changed the Internet. It’s out on November 15 and it’s by Moth...
Social Media Is Dead
November 08, 2022 21:34 - 47 minutes - 37.7 MBWe’re living through the end of something. Facebook is the site where your older family shares racist memes, Twitter seems only capable of talking about itself, and Instagram can’t compete with TikTok. What started with Friendster and MySpace, social media, once felt like a totalizing on the internet. Now it’s dying. According to Motherboard writer Edward Ongweso Jr, social media isn’t dying. It’s already dead. So what monsters struggle now to be born? Stories discussed in this episode: S...
Why Concert Tickets Are So Expensive
November 03, 2022 19:30 - 41 minutes - 33 MBHave you tried going to a concert recently? What about a stadium show for a popular comedian? What did it cost? How was the Ticketmaster experience? Like everything else, the price of live event tickets is on the rise. But the reasons why aren’t as simple as inflation and the economy. Outrageous ticket prices are all about a business monopoly using an algorithm to outflank the secondary market. It’s a surreal story and here to tell it is Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler. Stories...
Watching Facebook Burn
November 01, 2022 19:21 - 47 minutes - 38.3 MBFor 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 of its peak and it has lost $800 billion of its market capitalization. Are we finally witnessing the...
The Killer Robot Future Is Already Here
October 28, 2022 14:00 - 42 minutes - 33.7 MBThe 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 have been here a long time. Did you know one of the first aerial drones was deployed more than 100 ye...
A History of ‘American Terror’
October 26, 2022 20:21 - 46 minutes - 37.2 MBAmerica 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 news correspondent and founding host of Cyber Ben Makuch. He stopped by Cyber to talk about th...
When the Video Game Reaches Out to Ask You to Spend More Money
October 20, 2022 14:27 - 32 minutes - 26.3 MBWe’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 Facebook? Weird looking games that are obvious money pits? Yes, but there’s something a little more i...
Nuclear War 101
October 13, 2022 19:35 - 49 minutes - 39.3 MBOn 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 all about hypersonics, tactical nukes, and even cruise missiles powered by a nuclear engine. At...
Inflection Is the Background Check Company Making Decisions for Uber and Airbnb
October 11, 2022 20:29 - 31 minutes - 25.5 MBApps 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 them. A lot of it is automated and the background checkers make a lot of mistakes. So what happens...
How Corporations and Governments Use Games to Control Us
October 04, 2022 16:09 - 42 minutes - 34.3 MBDo 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 video games have gotten more popular, the world of flesh and blood has adopted some of its aspect...
How To Protect Yourself From Social Engineering Hacks
September 29, 2022 20:45 - 29 minutes - 23.7 MBHacks 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 system is if an employee is just gonna give up their SMS codes to some rando on the phone. But wor...
The Chess Scandal Involving Butt Plugs, AI, and Accusations of Cheating
September 28, 2022 20:35 - 37 minutes - 30.2 MBChess. 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 cheating engines and buttplugs. Throughout it all, Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler has kept ...
AI Art is Powered by ISIS Executions and Non-Consenual Porn
September 23, 2022 16:09 - 30 minutes - 24.1 MBAI 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-consensual adult images. With AI it’s all garbage in, garbage out. So who controls this data and i...
Inside the Tool the US Military Is Using to Monitor Emails and Web Traffic
September 21, 2022 20:44 - 44 minutes - 35.7 MBYou 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 Augury. Who buys Augury? We’ve just learned a lot of agencies within the federal government. Cyb...
Uber’s Been Hacked and Sim Swappers Are Getting Violent
September 16, 2022 16:00 - 31 minutes - 25.6 MBGroups 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 Cox walk us through the latest in the world of cybersecurity. Stories discussed on this episo...
Our Latest UFO Obsession and the Chess Scandal Heard Round the World
September 14, 2022 16:18 - 45 minutes - 36.5 MBThis 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. Stories discussed in this episode: Congress Admits UFOs Not ‘Man-Made,’ Says ‘Threats’ Incre...
CYBER LIVE: Living in a Dystopia, We're All Luddites, Taking Life Back From Corporations (feat. Cory Doctorow)
September 07, 2022 16:48 - 56 minutes - 49.3 MBToday 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 Luddites? Find out if corporations can be bought off? Learn what it’s like to work with Netflix...
Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires
September 01, 2022 20:10 - 1 hour - 49 MBIt 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 themselves were instrumental in creating? Here today to help me answer that question is Douglas Rushko...
The Hypercane and Other Looming Climate Disasters
August 30, 2022 20:48 - 51 minutes - 41.6 MBWoe 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 short story from Motherboard’s first book: Terraform. Terraform editor Brian Merchant and speci...
A Nuclear War Would Starve the Planet
August 25, 2022 13:00 - 50 minutes - 40.8 MBA 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 third of the Earth’s population. In this special edition of Cyber, we talk about the study, its im...
A Hopeful Future Where Drones Become Farmers
August 23, 2022 19:21 - 41 minutes - 33.5 MBDrone. 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 published a book! It’s called Terraform and it’s out now. It’s a collection of short stories about ...
A Dystopia Where AI Runs U.S. Healthcare and Asks Patients to Die
August 18, 2022 21:20 - 48 minutes - 38.8 MBSome 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 and It knows all about you. It really does keep the cost of healthcare down. Today on Cyber, w...
Suing Spam Texters for Fun and Profit
August 15, 2022 19:19 - 32 minutes - 25.8 MBWe 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 that most of that spam is actually illegal and that you, yes you, can sue the companies sendin...
Listen to a Story from Motherboard’s First Ever Short Story Collection
August 11, 2022 13:00 - 44 minutes - 35.8 MBSome 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. With me today on the show are the book’s editors, Claire L. Evans and Brian Merchant as well a...
What the ‘Roblox’ Hack Revealed About Chinese Censorship and U.S. Content Moderation
August 09, 2022 20:57 - 31 minutes - 25.5 MBLast 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 treacherous waters of children, free speech, China, mass shootings, and content moderation. It’s a weird s...
Space Junk, Taiwan, and War at a Nuclear Power Plant
August 04, 2022 19:05 - 39 minutes - 31.5 MBA 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 Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler. Stories discussed in this episode: Fighting Around Europ...
Inside the Alex Jones Trial
August 02, 2022 20:54 - 35 minutes - 28.8 MBAlex 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 right. Defamation cases are about the First Amendment. On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Senior St...
Why TikTok Is Obsessed With Pink Sauce
July 29, 2022 17:06 - 31 minutes - 25 MBIf 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 does everyone ok TikTok seem to care about this pepto-bismol colored goop? With us today to talk...