The war in Ukraine isn’t just happening on the ground, it’s also happening in cyberspace. It’s under reported and little understood, but just as the resilience of Urkainian’s kinetic defense is grinding against Russia, so too is the war online.Which is funny, because Russia is supposed to be good at this. At least … that’s what we all used to think. Hell, maybe it even used to be true. But now a team of volunteer hackers called the Ukraine IT Army is defending Kyiv and striking back against Moscow.This week on Cyber, Motherboard staff writer Lorenzo Franchesci-Biccherai takes us into the Ukraine IT Army.Stories discussed in this episode:Inside Ukraine’s Decentralized Cyber ArmyRussia Released a Ukrainian App for Hacking Russia That Was Actually MalwareWe’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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Let’s talk about that hot new topic screaming from the lips of Tech’s hottest billionaires: birth rates.For some time, Elon Musk’s pinned tweet was about the declining birth rates in the United States. A man of conviction, Musk has sired at least ten children. Now Marc Andreesen of Andreessen Horowitz is in on the act. He recently went on Joe Rogan and had a wide ranging conversation that covered birth rates and eugenics.So why are some of the richest people alive obsessed with the U.S. having more kids? On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard staff writer Edward Ongweso Jr. comes on to talk about longtermism and America’s history of being weird about who gets to have kids.Stories discussed in this episode:Why Are Elon Musk and Marc Andreesen Obsessed With Birth Rates?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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For years criminal organizations around the world were buying a special phone called Anom. The pitch was that it was completely anonymous and secure, a way for criminals to do business without authorities watching over their shoulder. It turned out that the whole thing was an elaborate honeypot and that the FBI and law enforcement agencies around the world were listening in. They’d help develop the phones themselves.The fallout from that revelation is ongoing and, here at Motherboard, we’ve just learned how the phones work. On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Senior Staff Writer Joseph Cox comes on to discuss the code that powered the Anom phone.Stories discussed in this episode:This is the Code the FBI Used to Wiretap the WorldWe Got the Phone the FBI Secretly Sold to CriminalsFBI's Backdoored Anom Phones Secretly Harvested GPS Data Around the WorldWe’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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can’t scroll 1 inch on the internet these days without someone trying to sell you something. Facebook and Google rake in millions of dollars on advertising alone. When we talk about Ad Tech, those are the names that move through our mind. Not many people think about Disney. But they should.On today’s Cyber, Motherboard staff writer Joseph Cox comes on to talk about how Disney became a big player in the digital world of advertising. We begin with a set of surreal videos that use the Muppets and Star Wars to talk directly to advertisers. Want to hear Muppets extol the virtues of targeted advertising? Stick around.Stories discussed in this episode:Leaked Videos Show Disney Is the Biggest Ad Tech Giant You've Never Heard OfWe’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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that will have far reaching consequences about the power of the federal government to fight climate change. How did the landmark ruling even end up in front of the Justices, why did they decide to rule on it, and what will the consequences be for the environment and the country?On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Staff Writer Aaron Gordon sits down to answer all these questions and do more than a little ranting.Stories discussed in this episode:Supreme Court Kneecaps Federal Government’s Ability to Fight Climate ChangeDemocrats Are Not Going to 'Vote Harder,' Primaries ShowHere's What America Looked Like Before the EPAWe’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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, upsetting decades of precedent and ushering in a weird new world of conflicting laws and a lack of bodily autonomy for many women in the country. It’s a decision that will affect life in the U.S. in ways we’re only starting to comprehend. This week on Cyber we’re going to look at one small piece of all this: tech, data, and censorship. With me today is Motherboard Senior Editor Samantha Cole. She’s been working on a number of stories about period tracking apps and data and she’s here to walk us through how the Roe decision is not just a blow against bodily autonomy, but also against privacy.Stories in this episode:The #1 Period Tracker on the App Store Will Hand Over Data Without a WarrantHere’s What Period Tracking Apps Say They Do With Your DataTech Companies Won't Say If They’ll Give Cops Abortion DataFacebook Is Banning People Who Say They Will Mail Abortion PillsWe’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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What do landlords talk about behind closed doors, among other landlords? Motherboard staff writer and Cyber host Matthew Gault attended in St. Louis recently. Landlords traded gossip, talked about raising rents, and tried to sell each on books and online classes. Outside of the convention, rents hit record medians, the COVID moratorium is ending, and a lot of tenants simply can’t afford to put a roof over their head.On this week’s episode of Cyber, Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler interviews Matthew about what it’s like to attend the 21st Annual Mr. Landlord.com National Landlord Convention.Stories discussed on this episode:Among the LandlordsWhere People Pretend to Be 'Landchads' and Make Fun of 'Rentoids'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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Reply guys. Maybe you’ve got one, maybe you are one. If you’re a public person online, and especially if you’re a woman, you tend to attract a few fans or detractors who respond to every single thing you post. Sometimes those interactions can be obnoxious. Sometimes, they can be so much worse.Today’s Cyber is about a reply guy from hell, a person who—for almost two decades—has used the internet to wage sustained harassment campaigns against multiple women. It’s a bizarre and disturbing story that involves Twitter DMs, revenge porn, and Animal Crossing.On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Senior Staff Writer Anna Merlan walks us through the story of the man who has been harassing women online for almost 20 years.Stories discussed on this episode:These Women Say One Man Terrorized Them Online for Years. Then, They Decided to Band TogetherWe’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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Artificial intelligence. It’s in your headlines and on your social media feed. AIs like Midjourney and DALL-E have filled my Twitter feed with algorithmically generated nightmare images of Tony Soprano as a Roman Emperor and Bigbird participating in the January 6 riots.At the same time, the press has become enamored with the story of Blake Lemoine, a Google engineer who the company let go after Lemoine insisted the LaMDA chatbot was sentient. Are we at the beginning of the AI apocalypse? Have our machines finally become sentient?Simply: no. And conversations about AI outpacing human artists and chatbots becoming sentient are part of a tired news cycle around AI. They also mask the actual dangers of the technology we should be watching out for.On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard Senior Editor Janus Rose walks us through the real and imagined terrors of Artificial Intelligence.Stories discussed on this week’s episode:Technologists Are Using AI to ‘Expand’ Famous Works of ArtGoogle's AI Isn’t Sentient, But It Is Biased and TerribleThe AI That Draws What You Type Is Very Racist, Shocking No OneWe’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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crypto is the wild west. Decentralized finance is the purview of the rich and the risk-taker. There’s millions to be had, but it’s easy—often too easy—to lose everything. If you read Motherboard you know that big and wild hacks are common. Maiar went offline recently after hackers stole $113 million from it. The Osmosis exchange just lost $5 million to hackers. And those are just the stories Motherboard reported on this week.If you’re an investor, an exchange, or a private holder, who do you turn to when your crypto is being stolen? The authorities are so far behind it’s funny. No, remember, this is the wild west. Sometimes the only thing that can handle a black hat is a white hat.Today we’re gonna meet one of the vigilante white hat hackers who saves crypto from thieves… by stealing it before they can.With me today is Motherboard Senior Staff writer Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, who wrote about the phenomenon on the site and LP, one of the white hats who hacks millions in crypto before thieves can get to it.Stories discussed in this episode:Meet the Vigilantes Who Hack Millions in Crypto to Save It From ThievesWe’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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.