The 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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Investigators have been chasing the Russian-speaking cyber gang for years — and they’ve stayed just one step ahead. Threat researcher Zach Edwards lays out why bringing gangs like this to justice has always been so hard.
Episode • 10 September 2024 • 37m and 13s
Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership may have smashed TVs in the 1990s, but these days their embracing slickly-produced videos and social media influencers to try to rehab their image abroad. Afghan anthropologist Omar Sharifi unpacks whether its working.
Episode • 6 September 2024 • 14m and 23s
Technology has changed the way countries wage war, and today, we look at an app in Afghanistan that wanted to change the way people on the ground experienced it.
Episode • 3 September 2024 • 33m and 30s
New legislation is seeking to designate some ransomware attacks as acts of terror. Former FBI agent John Riggi talks about the proposal and how it might change the battle against ransomware gangs.
Episode • 30 August 2024 • 17m and 1s
Sky Lakes Medical Center in south central Oregon never imagined it could be on the receiving end of a ransomware attack. Then Ryuk put them in the crosshairs.
Episode • 27 August 2024 • 34m and 53s
Just a stone’s throw from the NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, the National Cryptologic Museum displays dozens of rarely seen code breaking machines that, quite literally, changed the course of history. We take a tour and chat with the museum’s affable director, Vince Houghton.
Episode • 23 August 2024 • 15m and 47s
For years now, the Internet has trafficked in things that are more mean than fun. Disinformation, online bullying, and a general malaise are all over social media. We talk to former Stanford Internet Observatory Research Director Renee Diresta about her new book “Invisible Rulers” and ask why, ahead of the DNC Convention, the Dems’ new unbearable lightness has gone so viral.
Episode • 20 August 2024 • 31m and 26s
We talk with Unit 221B’s Allison Nixon about young cybercriminals, radicalization, and the search for self in the virtual world.
Episode • 16 August 2024 • 17m and 19s
This isn’t your typical hacker tale. The one about boy meets computer, boy loves computer, boy weaponizes computer to commit crimes. This is about what comes after that.
Episode • 13 August 2024 • 37m and 33s
The latest on disinformation researcher Nina Jankowicz’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News — and why the Dominion Voting Machine settlement doesn’t necessarily help her case.
Episode • 9 August 2024 • 15m and 12s
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