CYBER
CYBER is a weekly podcast from Motherboard, VICE's tech and science outlet, that covers hacking, cybersecurity, disinformation, and encryption. Host Matthew Gault interviews Motherboard reporters and industry experts about breaking news and the biggest stories in the infosec world. The show aims to make complex cybersecurity topics accessible to a general audience.
Episodes
El Salvador's Bitcoin City | Vice Culture Club Preview
VICE is back with a new podcast exploring the subcultures and fringes that we are best known for. If you thought we were gone, looks like we have more to say. Each week we are sitting down with the internets most fascinating characters and getting to the bottom of cultural trends. Oscar award winners, internet oddities, and viral sensations. There has never been more culture to consume, so let us
VICE is back with a new podcast
VICE is back with a new podcast exploring the subcultures and fringes that we are best known for. If you thought we were gone, looks like we have more to say. Each week we are sitting down with the internets most fascinating characters and getting to the bottom of cultural trends. Oscar award winners, internet oddities, and viral sensations. There has never been more culture to consume, so let us
Why Congress's Fears of Russian Space Nukes Is Political Theatre
Cyber is a show covering a diverse range of topics. We’ve covered everything from crypto to AI to online cults. If it touches technology or online culture, we’ll talk about it. That’s how you get an episode like today’s, which is both a deep dive into professional wrestling’s latest scandal and a discussion of the latest existential threat: nuclear weapons in space.Vice features editor Timothy Mar
AI Deepfakes Are Everywhere and Congress is Completely Out of Their Depth
An AI-generated Biden called voters in New Hampshire ahead of the primary and told them to stay home. X locked down the search term “Taylor Swift” after AI-generated nudes of the pop giant flooded the platform. In the wake of both scandals, Congress has struggled with how to fight back against the flood of fake bullshit. Keeping the world from drowning in fakes affects all of us, but some of the c
Tech Used to Be Bleeding Edge, Now it’s Just Bleeding
Ten years ago, Big Tech reached a peak. Facebook had wormed its way into the lives of billions of people. The mainstream news covered iPhones releases like they were Taylor Swift concerts. Elon Musk was promising to colonize Mars and fill the streets with self-driving cars. In 2024, the wheels have come off all these dreams. Musk has filled the sky with satellites, but no colonists, and constantly
How to Read Leaked Datasets Like a Journalist
We live in a golden age of data. Every day, hacktivists release terabytes of data on sites like DDoSecrets, but sorting through it all requires some technical knowledge. What if you don’t know XML from SQL let alone how to write a simple Python script?Micah Lee is the director of information security for The Intercept and he’s on Cyber today to talk about his new book: Hacks, Leaks, and Revelation
What a Novel About an AI Documenting the Last Human Says About Our Real Dystopia
The unreliable narrator of After World, the new novel from author Debbie Urbanski, is an AI tasked with writing a book about Sen, the last human on Earth. In this world, humanity is done. The world is moving on without us and Sen was born for a purpose: to watch the planet change itself without humanity. After World is a story about artificial intelligence, climate change, and what we can hope to
The Future of Nukes Involves AI and Nobody Knows What Happens Next
According to the hype, artificial intelligence is changing everything. The truth is more complicated, but that doesn’t mean that companies and governments aren’t rushing to embrace the new technology. It’s even being used to update an old and destructive technology: nuclear weapons.America is modernizing its force, Russia is building new kinds of nuclear weapons, and China is increasing its nuclea
OpenAI’s Make or Break Lawsuit and the Golden Idol of AGI
The New York Times kicked off the holiday season by suing OpenAI and Microsoft. The paper of record believes that ChatGPT is violating various copyrights by using its articles as training data. It’s a landmark case that may end up before the Supreme Court and might change copyright law in America forever. This week on Cyber, Sharon Goldman of VentureBeat sits down with us to discuss the lawsu
The Great American Train Wreck Isn’t Going Away
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 Cyb
The Old Internet Is Dying, and Something Worse Is Being Born
As we slide into the winter holidays, Cyber is taking some time to relax with old friends and discuss the things that truly matter: the decline of the internet, creator culture, and the transcendent power of movies. This week on Cyber, Aftermath co-founder Gita Jackson stops by to talk about “Napoleon,” the death of film criticism, and what happens when a big name on YouTube plagiarizes you.S
How Online Fights Affect Real World Battlefields
Your posts matter more than you think. Social media has changed the way wars are fought and the internet has become a new battlefield. Twitter may be dying, but it still matters an awful lot to policy makers. TikTok is ascendent, but often because its content can be repurposed on other platforms. Telegram can give you the news on the ground, but only if you trust the sources.With all this inf
You Can’t Automate the Difficult Decisions
The tensions between security and operations and developer teams are the stuff of legend. DevSecOps is trying to change that, and automation is a big part of making it possible. But automation alone can’t overcome entrenched behavior. Joylynn Kirui shares how Microsoft is helping teams prioritize security without bogging down development.Follow and listen to Code Comments: https://link.chtbl.
Despite OpenAI Chaos, Wall Street Is Still Betting Big on AI
What happens when a for profit company is run by a non-profit board of directors who are ideologically opposed to the company’s product? You get something like what happened to OpenAI over the past week, which saw its board of directors sack CEO Sam Altman before eventually reinstating him and resigning. It’s a weird story that involves AI, predictions of the end of the world, strange pagan rites
What Happens When an Anti-Sex Trafficking Operation Goes Wrong
When “Alison” started working for Operation Underground Railroad, she wanted to make a difference in the lives of kids. She was a former Marine and social worker who’d seen the devastating effects that abuse could have on people. She wanted to stop it before it happened.She ended up with a broken orbital bone, bleeding and vomiting in a gym after a training exercise gone wrong. This week on Cyber,
Crypto One Year After the Collapse: All My Apes Blinded
It’s a bad time to be a crypto-person. Some of crypto’s biggest evangelists are facing serious federal jail time. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted on seven counts of wire fraud, securities fraud, and money laundering after a disastrous trial. Some owners of Bored Ape NFTs experienced vision injuries at a recent gathering. Prices are in the toilet and SEC regulators are circling.And yet,
The Landlord Tech Company That Turned Security Deposits Into a Monthly Fee
Rhino sounds like a good deal at first. When people move into a new apartment, they often have to pay a large lump sum security deposit to their landlord. For people who can’t pay, Rhino offers to bill them a little bit every month in lieu of the deposit. But there’s a catch: unlike security deposits, money sent to Rhino is never returned. The company uses algorithms to make the wealthy pay
The Viral ‘Kia Boys’ Car Theft Trend That’s Going Viral on Instagram
Kias and Hyundais are being stolen in America at an alarming rate. Using a screwdriver and a USB cable, it’s trivially easy to steal one. Kia and Hyundai blame social media, but the problem is so overwhelming that several cities are suing the car manufacturer for creating a crime epidemic by electing not to build a $100 anti-theft device into some models.This week on Cyber, Motherboard Reporter Aa
Space Junk, Nuclear Waste, AI Nukes and the Reason We’re All Still Here
There’s a lot of reasons to be worried about the future. Climate change, nuclear weapons, space junk, and World War III are all threats both present and long-term. But, every day, people are trying to make the world a better place. It lands them in weird situations like skinny dripping with Soviet officers at the height of the Cold War or getting drunk with engineers in North Korea.This week on Cy
Cory Doctorow on Why the Internet Broke and How to Fix It
Have you noticed your internet is …. kinda shitty? Does Spotfiy’s smart shuffle keep playing the same Cure song over and over again? Does a quick google search give you page after page of obvious advertisements? Want to leave Facebook behind but that one group chat keeps you checking in day after day?Well have I got the book for you. It’s The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. It
The Real History of the Luddites
Luddites! It’s a dirty word, right? One that’s become synonymous with anti-technology crusaders that want to return us to an idyllic past where everyone is free from their phones. But who were the Luddites? Where does the term come from? How has it been misused and do we, perhaps, need a little more King Ludd in all our lives?Brian Merchant is here to answer all our burning questions about Luddite
Operation Underground Railroad, Psychic Intelligence, and ‘The Sound of Freedom’
This summer, a movie called The Sound of Freedom took America by storm. The hero was Tim Ballard, the founder of an organization called Operation Underground Railroad. The movie depicted Ballard as an avenging hero who rescued trafficked children from a life of slavery. The truth, we’re all finding out, is something more complicated and a lot less heroic.Ballard left the organization around the ti
‘Extremely Online’ With Taylor Lorenz
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, a
Hot Labor Summer
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 Horri
The Jason Koebler Exit Interview, Part Two
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 G
Rare Motherboard Lore and a Goodbye to Jason Koebler
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
The Viral Science Video That Will Save the World or Do Nothing At All
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 rese
The Barbenheimer Special
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
Adam Conover On the Hollywood Strike
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
The False Claims Behind an Anti-Trafficking Group’s Hollywood Moment
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
Celebrating the End of the Usable Internet
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 Ko
The Increasingly Violent Discord Servers Where Kids Flaunt Their Crimes
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.youtub
Big Tech Wants You to Think AI Will Kill Us All
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
The DHS Is Reading Travelers' Posts at the Border
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
AI Can Read Your Dreams and Collect Your Debts. What’s Next?
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 b
CYBER: Crime and Crypto with Cory Doctorow
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
CYBER: Inside the Italian Mafia’s Encrypted Phone of Choice
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 cal
Apple II and How the Computer Became Personal
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
Wondery Presents - Flipping The Bird: Elon vs Twitter
When Elon Musk posted a video of himself arriving at Twitter HQ carrying a white sink along with the message “let that sink in!” it marked the end of a dramatic takeover. Musk had gone from Twitter critic to “Chief Twit” in the space of just a few months but his arrival didn’t put an end to questions about his motives. Musk had earned a reputation as a business maverick. From PayPal to Tesla to Sp
Thieves are Stealing Cars Using Old Nokia Phones
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 th
Someone Is Selling Computer Generated Swatting Services
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
What We Know about the Pentagon Leaks
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 i
Uber's April Fools Glitch
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.Mother
How Russia Uses Facial Recognition to Stop Protestors
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
What’s Driving the AI Hype?
Love it or hate it, you can’t escape artificial intelligence. People are using Midjourney to make viral photos of Donald Trump’s arrest and the Pop’s puffy coat. Redditors are creating entire fake historical events and backing it up with AI-generated photos. Silicon Valley seems to think this tech is the next big thing, with Google and Microsoft betting big on it and some people begging everyone t
The DEA Is Skipping Warrants and Buying Data from Rogue Employees
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 com
Why Does Congress Want to Ban TikTok?
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 fi
Scalpers Are Selling Whole Ticketmaster Accounts Now
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
This Is Why America's Trains Keep Crashing
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
WTF Is Up With the Silicon Valley Bank Bailout?
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
LastPass Isn’t Safe and Your Hiking App May be Tracking You
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 rem
The Great Balloon Panic Has Been Weird But Good for Balloon Hobbyists
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
How Tubgirl Became a TikTok Sensation
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
We Broke Into a Bank Account With an AI-Generated Voice
Banks 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
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 e
What's the Deal With AI Seinfeld?
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
One Man’s Obsession With Being 18 Forever
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
Iran’s AI-Powered Surveillance State
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
What Was Havana Syndrome, the Mystery Illness that Hit American Spies?
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
The Nextdoor Poster to Political Activist Pipeline
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
Replika, the AI Chatbot Users Say Is Sexually Harassing Them
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 un
The Government Isn’t Coming for Your Gas Stoves
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 i
Hacking Digital License Plates
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
The Trans Dataset Built Without Permission and Stored Improperly
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
Cops and Courts Don’t Know How to Handle Apple’s AirTag Stalking Problem
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 ba
The Invisible Workforce that Makes AI Possible
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 hum
The Online Prophet Whose Followers Keep Getting Arrested
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 decentra
Railroad Strikes and Killer Robots
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 pa
The Rise of the Robot Landlords
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 Kep
Taking Elon Musk Seriously
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 ha
Why ‘Community Feedback’ Doesn’t Work
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’
Who Is Sam Bankman-Fried, the ‘Savior’ Who Crashed FTX?
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 la
How Sex Changed the Internet
Without 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
Social Media Is Dead
We’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
Why Concert Tickets Are So Expensive
Have 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
Watching Facebook Burn
For almost two decades, Facebook has dominated headlines and the lives of its users. It’s been blamed for genocides, pointed to as a vector of disinformation, and depressed you as you scrolled past high school acquaintances that seem to be doing so much better than you. But now its founder Mark Zuckerberg is obsessed with a virtual world no one wants, the company’s stock is down 70 percent of
The Killer Robot Future Is Already Here
The killer robots are here and they’re not going away. We’ve all seen footage of the cute robot dogs stumbling around with weapons strapped to their back, and loitering munitions (or so-called “suicide drones”) have become a fixture on the battlefield in Ukraine.There’s a general fear in the air that the near future will be populated by semi-autonomous killing machines. But killer robots have
A History of ‘American Terror’
America and political violence go together like George Lincoln Rockwell and a corncob pipe. There is a growing movement in the U.S., one that’s spreading online and probably in some of your neighborhoods. Far right extremist movements have a deepy history in America and there’s a new podcast from VICE that explores that history.It’s called American Terror and it’s hosted by a familiar voice: VICE
When the Video Game Reaches Out to Ask You to Spend More Money
We’ve all gotten a little too involved in a video game. I’ve talked repeatedly about how I’ve gotten lost in trying to complete maps in open world games like Assassin’s Creed. And there’s a million stories out there about kids who spent all their parents' money on upgrades in Farmville. But when I say the words State of Survival or Game of Thrones: Conquest, what comes to mind? Crappy ads on Faceb
Nuclear War 101
On this episode of Cyber we talk about an old technology that suddenly feels very new. The bomb. That’s right, this episode is all about nuclear weapons. Thanks to Moscow’s war in Ukraine and Putin’s implicit and explicit threats to use them should Russian territory be threatened, everyone is afraid of nuclear weapons once again. Able Archer? Passé. Cuban Missile Crisis? Old news. These days it’s
Recommended
The Daily Conspiracy Podcast
2819 Church
Markus Schulz presents Global DJ Broadcast
Bad Friends
The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Joe Rogan Experience
Beat and Speak by Cisco English
Les Santiago Boys
Speak And Shine English
Speak Local - English Listening and Speaking
Legal Off the Leash
Beyond the Syllabus: Pedagogy and Purpose
