77. SPECIAL FEATURE: ‘The internet is at the bottom of the sea’ from Things That Go Boom

Ilya Sachkov co-founded the cybersecurity company Group-IB to make the world safe from Russian-speaking cybercriminals. Then he asked Russian authorities to help round them up, and things went spectacularly wrong. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

22 Aug 202328min

Wave “goodbye” to those pesky emails from Nigerian princes and say “hello” to the latest generation of AI enabled email scamming. It’s smarter, faster and, by the way, looks like it’s coming from your boss. The only thing that might stop them? AI itself. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

15 Aug 202323min

We look at an American disinformation campaign that makes clear online abuse directed at women goes far beyond a couple of mean tweets. And, an update on a Syrian activist who was on the receiving end of a misinformation crisis of her own. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

8 Aug 202325min

Putting your data in the cloud used to be seen as the gold standard of information security. Why have your small IT team protect your data when the experts at Microsoft or Google or AWS can do it instead? And then in May, Chinese hackers broke into the Microsoft cloud, exposing not just a flaw in the code, but a glitch in company’s business model as well. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

1 Aug 202318min

Since our story on spyware in Mexico aired back in March, researchers have discovered a roster of Pegasus spyware infections on the phones of local journalists, activists, and even officials within the Mexican president’s inner circle. This week, we return to our deep dive on the use of spyware in Mexico and the revelation that the army created a secret military intelligence unit dedicated to its use. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

18 Juli 202324min

From WBUR's “Endless Thread" podcast, a story on a growing segment of artificial intelligence: immortalizing the dead through predictive AI text and how bots can help us understand grief. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

11 Juli 202334min

We revisit a sit-down interview we had with NSA contractor Reality Winner shortly after she spent 4 years in prison for passing a single classified document to a reporter. Given all the focus on classified documents and the way they’ve been handled in recent weeks, it seemed a good time to take another look at what happened to Reality. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

4 Juli 202322min