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413 episodes - English - Latest episode: 5 days ago - ★★★★★ - 92 ratingsThe podcast that tells true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world. We take listeners into the world of cyber and intelligence without all the techie jargon.
Every Tuesday and Friday, former NPR investigations correspondent Dina Temple-Raston and the team draw back the curtain on ransomware attacks, mysterious hackers, and the people who are trying to stop them.
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Episodes
144. Generative AI: Is it creative or just copying the rest of us?
July 02, 2024 07:00 - 27 minutesIn an encore episode, we look at the tension between AI and the work of humans from which it learns. Media companies like the New York Times and a roster of authors and artists have sued some of the makers of these generative AI models to try to get an answer to a very fundamental question: What do human creators own?
143. Mic Drop: Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins wants to change the relationship you have with information.
June 28, 2024 07:00 - 13 minutesBellingcat founder Eliot Higgins has been working with young people not just to show them how to sort fact from fiction, but to give them a reason to believe that truth can still empower the weak and hold the guilty accountable.
142. Meet Antibot4Navalny: the mysterious researchers exposing Russia’s war on truth.
June 25, 2024 07:00 - 30 minutesAntibot4Navalny is a small but mighty group of anonymous researchers calling out Russian disinformation — and punching way above their weight.
141. Legislative solutions for deepfake abuse finally begin to take shape
June 21, 2024 07:00 - 11 minutesOmny Miranda Martone has been working with a handful of Washington lawmakers for more than a year on legislation that would put an end to the impunity of deepfake abuse. The bill, known as the Defiance Act, is being fast-tracked through Congress with a rare procedure known as “hotlining” and it may land on the president’s desk as early as this fall.
140. Are solutions to deepfake abuse finally coming into focus?
June 18, 2024 07:00 - 29 minutesAfter years of shouting into the wind about deepfakes and deepfake porn, we take a look at some possible solutions that offer not just deterrence but accountability. Plus, something we rarely see these days: bipartisan agreement on a bill in Congress.
139. Mic Drop: GhostSec’s quest for redemption: their leader claims their life of crime is over.
June 14, 2024 07:00 - 12 minutesThe GhostSec hacktivist group used to be known for its cyberattacks against terrorist groups like ISIS. Then, last year, the group took an unexpected turn — it created GhostLocker and began launching ransomware attacks. We talk to the group’s leader about their work with cybercriminal gangs and why we should believe him when he says all that is now in the past.
138. Almost every cyber attack begins with a key ingredient: an Infostealer
June 11, 2024 07:00 - 32 minutesInfostealers commit close to the perfect crime. They sneak into your computer, grab your logins, passwords, and anything of value, and then delete themselves on the way out — victims don’t even know they’ve been robbed. We talk to the alleged co-founder of the Meduza infostealer and to some of the people intent on stopping this kind of attack.
137. Mic Drop: Inside a secret drone school in Ukraine
June 07, 2024 07:00 - 13 minutesAs Russian forces zero in on Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, drones are among the weapons that are coming to the rescue. We went to a secret drone academy where Ukraine is training its drone operators to help fend off the Russians while Ukraine awaits new arms from the U.S.
136. Money and fame — not just social change — are creating a new kind of hacktivist.
June 04, 2024 07:00 - 31 minutesA hacktivist group called the Belarusian Cyber Partisans rocked Belarus when it hacked into government servers and released secret police files and government wiretaps – the kinds of hacks we’re used to seeing by nation-states. They represent the changing face of hacktivism. Some hacktivists are becoming more professional, while others are falling prey to darker forces.
135. Mic Drop: Oren Etzioni has a way to help us sort fact from AI fiction
May 31, 2024 07:00 - 12 minutesOren Etzioni used to be one of those AI optimists. Now, not so much. In fact, he’s so worried about AI-manipulated content, he created a non-profit, TrueMedia.org, to help ordinary people sort AI fact from fiction.
134. Are autocrats winning the disinformation war?
May 28, 2024 07:00 - 30 minutesUS adversaries are on a propaganda offensive around the world. Earlier this month, the Council on Foreign Relations in DC convened a discussion about the changing landscape of disinformation campaigns with James Rubin, special envoy at the Global Engagement Center at the State Department, Jon Bateman from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Anne Applebaum, a staff writer at The Atlantic. CLICK HERE moderated the conversation, and here are some highlights.
133. Mic Drop: A surprising thing about war games and cyber attacks and why the military can’t trust AI
May 24, 2024 07:00 - 18 minutesWhen the Hoover Institution’s director of war gaming, Jackie Schneider, started organizing war simulations more than a decade ago, she assumed that participants would respond to cyber attacks the same way they responded to traditional weapons of war – but it turns out that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
132. Meet the guy who single-handedly took down North Korea’s Internet.
May 21, 2024 07:00 - 31 minutesWhen North Korea hacked Alejandro Caceres, he expected the U.S. government to rush to his defense. When they just shrugged, he took matters into his own hands.
131. Mic Drop: Could spoofing satellites become Russia’s new jam?
May 17, 2024 07:00 - 11 minutesOn the battlefields of Ukraine, Russia has become very adapt at electronic warfare — both jamming GPS satellites and spoofing satellite signals. We explain how it works and its ripple effects beyond the front lines.
130. A wrinkle in time: GPS jamming in Ukraine and its ripple effects
May 14, 2024 07:00 - 26 minutesA story about satellites, electronic warfare, and a team of American techies who MacGyver-ed a way to keep the power flowing in Ukraine.
129. LockbitSupp tells us: UK and US have got the wrong guy
May 10, 2024 07:00 - 13 minutesIn an interview, LockbitSupp, head of the Lockbit cybercrime operation, told us that the U.S., U.K. and Australia have the wrong guy — he’s not Dmitry Khoroshev, the 31-year-old Russian national they’ve charged with hacking. What’s more, he says more attacks are coming.
129. LockbItSupp tells us: UK and US have got the wrong guy
May 10, 2024 07:00 - 13 minutesIn an interview, LockbitSupp, head of the Lockbit cybercrime operation, told us that the U.S., U.K. and Australia have the wrong guy — he’s not Dmitry Khoroshev, the 31-year-old Russian national they’ve charged with hacking. What’s more, he says more attacks are coming.
129. LockBItSupp tells us: UK and US have got the wrong guy
May 10, 2024 07:00 - 13 minutesIn an interview, LockBitSupp, head of the LockBit cybercrime operation, told us that the U.S., U.K. and Australia have the wrong guy — he’s not Dmitry Khoroshev, the 31-year-old Russian national they’ve charged with hacking. What’s more, he says more attacks are coming.
128. Taking aim at Democracy: Russia’s Doppelgänger gang isn’t just targeting elections anymore
May 07, 2024 07:00 - 29 minutesIn a year that could bring a perfect storm of disinformation, meet Doppelgänger, a Russian-backed group seeking not just to shake up the world’s elections, but its institutions too.
127. Mic Drop: NSC’s Neuberger on mitigating cyber attacks: ‘We should be using an operational approach’
May 03, 2024 07:00 - 13 minutesThe White House’s top cyber official is keen to set minimum cybersecurity standards for industry, put contingencies in place in case cyberattacks are successful, and start looping ordinary people into an effort to make products secure by design.
126. The future of robotics from MIT’s "Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Labs Alliances" podcast
April 30, 2024 07:00 - 28 minutesAn episode from the ‘CSAIL Alliances Podcast’ from MIT CSAIL Alliances. Host Kara Miller talks with MIT robotics researcher and professor Daniela Rus about how we can use a new generation of robots to help humankind. Rus is the co-author of the new book, "The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots."
125. Mic Drop: The problem with the Nigerian economy has nothing to do with crypto
April 26, 2024 07:00 - 13 minutesBefore Nigerian authorities detained two mid-level Binance executives back in February, they were telling anyone who would listen that the cryptocurrency platform was manipulating the value of its currency, the naira. It turns out the more likely culprit is more than a decade of economic mismanagement. We explain.
124. The company man: US response to Nigeria’s detention of former IRS crypto investigator rankles federal agents
April 23, 2024 07:00 - 33 minutesA former American IRS investigator responsible for some of the earliest dark market takedowns has been in Nigerian custody since February. Neither Nigerian nor the US authorities seem to be distinguishing Tigran Gambaryan from Binance, the company where he works.
123. Mic Drop: China seeks a Great Leap Forward in cyber
April 19, 2024 07:00 - 13 minutesChinese hackers are stepping up their game, according to Nigel Inkster, the former director of operations for Britain’s MI6. He says they are taking on a new swagger in cyberspace and borrowing things from a familiar playbook: a Russian one.
122. The UK-US unmasked a giant Chinese cyber operation but forgot one thing: to tell many of its victims
April 16, 2024 07:00 - 28 minutesThe US and UK made a splashy coordinated announcement last month about a years-long cyber espionage campaign by Chinese state-backed hackers. The US indicted seven, the UK leveled sanctions. They just neglected to do one thing --- let some of the victims know.
121. Mic Drop: A unusual peek inside a North Korean malware lab
April 12, 2024 07:00 - 10 minutesNorth Korea has a unique way of testing malware — they are less concerned about getting it right than getting it out… a kind of “smash-and-grab” approach to cyber attacks. Sentinel One’s Tom Hegel explains.
120. North Korea’s ScarCruft gang is behind some very crafty phishin’ campaigns
April 09, 2024 07:00 - 28 minutesNorth Korea may be best known for the Lazarus group’s epic cryptocurrency heists. But there’s another special unit of state-backed hackers who have a different specialty: spying on journalists, dissidents, and cybersecurity experts. We look at the ScarCruft gang and their very crafty phishing campaigns.
119. Mic Drop: Could an analysis of sound help save the jaguar in Costa Rica?
April 05, 2024 07:00 - 15 minutesEveryone is talking about the power of AI in conservation, but a professor at Arizona State University has found an even simpler, more elegant solution – and all you have to do is listen.
118. AI and the Holy Grail of conservation: Real-time monitoring
April 02, 2024 07:00 - 31 minutesCornell University’s Elephant Listening Project has been trying to get real-time monitoring of the Central African Republic’s forest elephants for years. FruitPunch AI and a roster of other AI researchers are closer than ever to making that a reality.
117. Mic Drop: The Big Chill: Nigeria, Binance battle likely to add to economic crisis
March 29, 2024 07:00 - 12 minutesMatthew Page from the London-based think tank Chatham House pulls back to look at the potential economic fallout between Nigerian government and Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.
116. Detained execs, a bold escape, and tax evasion charges: Nigeria takes aim at Binance
March 26, 2024 07:00 - 29 minutesThis week, Nigeria charged Binance and two of its executives with tax evasion in the latest twist in a month-long dispute between the cryptocurrency giant and the Nigerian government. Nigeria detained Binance’s regional manager and a former US federal agent for nearly a month after they flew to Abuja at the end of February to meet with officials there. Now, one executive has slipped away and the other has become a pawn.
116. Detained execs, a bold escape, and tax evasion charges, Nigeria takes aim at Binance
March 26, 2024 07:00 - 32 minutesThis week, Nigeria charged Binance and two of its executives with tax evasion in the latest twist in a month-long dispute between the crypto currency giant and the Nigerian government. Nigeria detained Binance’s regional manager and a former US federal agent for nearly a month after they flew to Abuja at the end of February to meet with officials there. Now one executive has slipped away and the other has become a pawn.
115. Mic Drop: Hear ye, Hear ye, the Hacker’s Court is in session
March 22, 2024 07:00 - 14 minutesWe talk to Analyst1 senior researcher Jon DiMaggio about how hackers settle their disputes – think People’s Court without all the robes.
114. Exclusive: LockBit ransomware leader says, ‘I felt like I was being hunted’ but they ‘can’t stop me’
March 19, 2024 07:00 - 27 minutesWe speak with the leader of one of the most prolific ransomware-as-a-service gangs the world has ever known — LockBit. Just weeks after Operation Cronos, a global police action against the group, LockBitSupp tells us about the takedown, his attempt to rebuild, and his plans for the future.
113. Exclusive: Embattled LockBit leader: ‘Now I want to create even more noise’
March 15, 2024 07:00 - 11 minutesOur interview of the week: LockBitSupp says his ransomware platform isn’t dead yet.
112. Inside the i-Soon papers and China’s secret world of hackers-for-hire
March 12, 2024 07:00 - 27 minutesNewly leaked files from a private Chinese hackers-for-hire company provide a fresh look into China’s “cyber industrial complex” – and it appears to be bigger and more mature than observers had previously imagined.
111. Mic Drop: Arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis on North Korea’s new BFF in Moscow
March 08, 2024 08:00 - 15 minutesOur interview of the week — a one-on-one with arms control policy expert, Jeffrey Lewis.
110. North Korean Missiles in Ukraine and Kim Jong-un’s new swagger
March 05, 2024 08:00 - 27 minutesWe talk to a team of open source analysts and weapons inspectors who have pieced together how Pyongyang avoided sanctions to get Russia missiles it needs for the battle in Ukraine and look at why Kim Jung-un is feeling he’s got his groove back.
109. Mic Drop: FBI Director Wray on the latest wave of nation-state cyber threats
March 01, 2024 08:00 - 14 minutesOur interview of the week — a rare one-on-one with FBI Director Christopher Wray.
108. Exclusive: FBI Director Wray talks takedown operations, nation-state hackers, and growing threats in cyberspace
February 27, 2024 08:00 - 26 minutesFBI Director Chris Wray sat down for a rare interview with Click Here to talk about Operation Dying Ember, the uptick in nation-state hacking, and how just about everyone is now in hackers’ crosshairs.
107. SPECIAL FEATURE: ‘In the cockpit with AI’ from In Machines We Trust
February 20, 2024 08:00 - 28 minutesAn episode from ‘In Machines We Trust’ from MIT Technology Review. How we train fighter pilots—both real and artificial—is undergoing a series of rapid changes. In order for these systems to be useful we need to trust them, but figuring out just how, when and why remains a massive challenge. Jennifer Strong reports on how AI is being used to teach human pilots to perform some of the most dangerous and difficult maneuvers in aerial combat.
106. Facial recognition software could help solve America’s missing person problem. Why hasn’t it?
February 13, 2024 08:00 - 32 minutesSome 600,000 people are reported missing in the U.S. every year. Thousands of bodies lie unclaimed and unidentified in American morgues. Facial recognition software could put a name to these faces, so why hasn’t it?
105. Jordan’s wave of spyware infections
February 06, 2024 08:00 - 31 minutesA report published last week by Access Now revealed that since 2019 nearly three dozen journalists, human rights officials and political activists in Jordan have had their phones infected with spyware. The documentation of the widespread use of NSO’s Pegasus spyware in the Kingdom isn’t just rattling civil society, but raising new questions about how to stop its proliferation.
104. Generative AI: Is it creative or just copying the rest of us?
January 30, 2024 08:00 - 30 minutesToday’s generative AI knows how to write, compose music, and even create works of art. But it learned to do all these things by training on data made by human creators, without asking their permission. Now independent artists and giant media companies are fighting back and -- if they prevail -- it could fundamentally change the human-AI relationship.
103. Dr. Dolittle never spoke whale, AI just might
January 23, 2024 08:00 - 28 minutesSome data scientists and acoustic biologists have joined forces to see if artificial intelligence can ferret meaning out of non-human language. And one of their early subjects is a perennial favorite: humpback whales.
102. Cyber Av3ngers and their unlikely targets
January 16, 2024 08:00 - 27 minutesWe take a look at the part of the Israel-Hamas war that is harder to see – the battle raging in cyberspace. Hacktivists are joining forces with Iran-backed operators to target victims with gossamer connections to Israel.
101. Bug bounties with Chinese characteristics
January 09, 2024 08:00 - 28 minutesVulnerabilities and exploits are the building blocks of hacking. We look at how China is flipping the script on how the world thinks about both.
100. The 2023 cyber year in review
January 02, 2024 08:00 - 24 minutesIn a recent conversation on WAMU’s nationally syndicated news show 1A, Click Here’s Dina Temple-Raston looks back on cyber in 2023 and discusses what we might expect in the year ahead.
99. Meet the hackers
December 26, 2023 08:00 - 55 minutesHackers and cybercriminals may not be so different from the rest of us after all. We talk to three real life hackers from an early dark market entrepreneur to an accidental recruit to the latest addition to the FBI’s most wanted list.
98. Lessons from the world's first hybrid war
December 19, 2023 08:00 - 54 minutesUkraine is the world’s first truly hybrid war, and the battle is raging on two fronts --- on the ground and in cyberspace. What does the conflict mean for the future of war?