Two-factor authentication is simple and easy to use, right? Whenever you log in to your email, work account, or social media platform you get a text message or email asking you to confirm your identity.  It’s easy and safe and we’re all using it. Right? Well … the numbers don’t look good. Information Security professionals are always trying to get their clients to adopt multi-factor authentication, but the clients don’t seem to be listening. Twitter recently disclosed that the number of accounts using 2FA is only 2.3%, a depressingly tiny number. Especially given the amount of security breaches we’ve seen lately. A recent T-Mobile breach is said to affect nearly 50 million customers.Here to walk us through the merits 2FA is Rachel Tobac. Tobac is a hacker and the CEO of SocialProof Security, a company that aims to get your organization politely paranoid. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’ve played video games online, it’s happened to you. You’re holding it down in the warzone, helping your squad score a dub when suddenly your head explodes and there’s no way anyone on the enemy team could have known where you were let alone make the shot that killed you.Do you just suck or could it be … a hacker?Claiming a hacker killed you instead of taking the L with dignity is a time honored tradition in gaming. But in a lot of online shooters and Call of Duty in particular, hacking has become ubiquitous. The issue is so prevalent that Activision literally can’t remove them from the game fast enough and the people selling the hacks are running out of stock.Here to walk us through the dark side of Call of Duty is Motherboard staff writer Joseph Cox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Double agents are a Cold War trope. An American spy has *gasp* secretly been working for the Soviets the whole time. These days, you’re more likely to run into a double agent in the world of corporate information technology. Sometimes hackers are selling company secrets while helping the very corporations they exploit.Andrey Shumeyko was one such double agent. The hacker cruised the digital hangouts of people who bought and sold the secrets of Apple. Facing financial pressure and—to hear them tell it, a sense of guilt—they reached out to Apple.Things didn’t go quite as Shumeyko expected.This is the story of Apple’s Double Agent, brought to you by Motherboard’s Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Ophir Harpaz, a security researcher at Guardicore. Her first hack was to reverse engineer the classic Windows game Minesweeper. Her goal was to force the program to put flags on all squares with mines—as soon as the board shows up. That essentially makes it incredibly easy to beat the game. That exercise changed her life. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we're doing things a little differently.VICE's 2030 Fellow Samir Ferdowsi spoke with Setareh Soroush, The Women's Rights Director for Middle East Matter's, a community of online activists aiming to bring untold stories and news from the region across borders and in front of Western audiences.We sat down with Soroush to find out how the organization works, and what being a Middle Eastern activist in a volatile and sometimes, downright dangerous digital landscape looks like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s an old story with a new twist. A top administrator of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops resigned after someone leaked information about their private life. Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill left his post after a Catholic oriented Substack accused him of being a frequent user of Grindr.Simple on the surface, but our obsession with the sex live’s of the clergy is masking something darker. How, exactly, did the Substack know that Monsignor. Burrill was using Grindr? How many of our apps are spying on us and collecting this kind of data? And just how easy is it for a viscous third party to get hold of that data for nefarious ends.Here to answer those questions and more is Motherboard staff writer Joseph Cox. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’ve tried catching an Uber recently you may have noticed that prices and wait times are worse than they’ve ever been. Rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft didn’t fare well during the pandemic and now that restrictions are easing, drivers just aren’t coming back.Motherboard Staff Writer Edward Ongweso Jr spent some time talking to Uber drivers to find out what’s going on. He’s here to tell us what he found out, but here’s a preview: Uber and Lyft Can’t Find Drivers Because Gig Work Sucks. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fascists love to perfect a look. Hugo Boss’ Nazi Uniforms, the striking headquarters of the Italian Fascist party, and the sleek presentation of Islamic State’s Dabiq all have one thing in common—they’re visually striking.So too with today’s extremists. Neo-Nazis from Atomwaffen Division to the Order of the 9 Angles have a certain aesthetic flair. And that’s largely down to a few influential artists. VICE extremism reporter and Cyber host Ben Makuch recently went in search of ‘Dark Foreigner:’ The Artist Who Fueled a Neo-Nazi Terror Movement.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A heat dome in the Western part of the continent reached 117 degrees. A town in British Columbia burned to the ground, and temperatures in Europe are shattering records. Climate change is here and it’s killing us. But it’s not just the heat. It’s the humidity. That’s why scientists are studying “wet bulb conditions”— or temperatures at which humans spontaneously die.What, exactly, are “wet bulb” conditions and when do we need to start worrying about them? Can we do anything to stop them? Are people already dying? Here to answer these questions and more is Motherboard intern Audrey Carleton, who has been covering this for the site. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More than 1,800 years ago, Marcus Aurelius wrote, “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly.” If you’ve ever thought the same before logging into social media, you aren’t alone. In addition to being Emperor of Rome, Aurelius is one of the founders of Stoicism—an ancient philosophy that’s recently become widely popular among the Silicon Valley elite.But what do ancient Roman philosophers have to do with billionaire tech bros like Jack Dorsey? A lot, it turns out. Vice Senior Staff Writer Shayla Love wrote the ultimate stoicism explainer and she’s here with us today to talk about what it means that the world’s rich and powerful are turning to ancient texts for life advice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.