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352 episodes — Page 3 of 8

Mic Drop: Russia’s unexpected wartime real estate boom
In Russia, military families are cashing in on a wartime housing surge. Defense budgets are ballooning, property values are rising… and beneath it all, a troubling question: what happens when the war economy becomes just… the economy? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Return to Ukraine’s Radio ROKS: Heavy metal (and hackers) for brothers in arms
Before the war, Serhii Zenin played Metallica and joked with listeners on Ukraine’s Radio ROKS. Now he wears fatigues. And the station? It's still playing heavy metal—but now it’s also broadcasting news, coordinating aid, and holding the line in its own way. We return to a story where the frontlines and the airwaves meet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Guardians of the Galaxy are sitting in Colorado Springs
While most of us were staring at the auroras lighting up our Instagram feeds last year, a small group of analysts at the Space ISAC were focused on something a little less… pretty. Think solar flares. Think sabotage. Think space debris with a grudge. This week, we revisit our story about the watchers who don’t get much attention. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The space debris strikes back
In this week’s CyberMonday crossover with WAMU’s 1A, we revisit a Click Here episode and take your calls—this time, about the cluttered chaos orbiting above us. Space debris isn’t just a cleanup problem. It’s a threat vector. What happens when an old satellite, long forgotten, becomes the perfect cover for a cyberattack? Or worse… a weapon? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Predator mode
Drones promised progress — as lifesavers in floods, storytellers in newsrooms, even assistants to archaeologists. But somewhere along the way, they took a darker turn. Now they hover over protests, shadow 911 calls and surveil our neighborhoods from above. Researcher Faine Greenwood discusses how we normalized the hum of surveillance — and why all this is starting to resemble something much more authoritarian. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
ICE leans on high tech monitoring to make quotas
Today: A story about a technology that began in the fields — tracking cattle — and is now on the ankles of immigrants. It’s part of a program called “alternatives to detention.” And these ankle monitors, smartphone apps, GPS check-ins have changed. They’re not just tools to monitor. Increasingly, they’re being used to entrap. And for some immigrants, complying with the system means walking straight into ICE detention. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Catching a tempest in a honeypot
A Chinese hacking group walked right into a trap. Not a firewall. Not a filter. A honeypot. This week, Amazon CSO Steve Schmidt explains how a digital decoy called MadPot helped expose Volt Typhoon—and why, in the age of AI, the real vulnerability isn’t software. It’s people. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The blockchain that criminals love
TRON was supposed to be just another Ethereum knockoff — faster, cheaper, maybe a little flashier. But over time, it's become something else entirely: the go-to blockchain for illicit finance. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: The ego exploit
Zoom was built for speed. But in its rush to connect us, it may have left a few doors open. This week, a cybersecurity expert walks us through how one of Zoom's most mundane features became a hacker's best friend — and why the weakest link in crypto isn't the blockchain … it's the person who thinks they're too smart to get scammed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

An illusion of control
Jake Gallen was a rising star in crypto. Then, after what seemed like a routine YouTube interview, his digital world unraveled. His NFTs? Liquidated. His social accounts? Hijacked. It turns out, the hackers didn’t need phishing links or fake job offers. They needed something much simpler: a Zoom invite. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: In crypto’s defense
The Trump memecoin dinner looked like a political stunt. Maybe even a scam. But inside the crypto community, some saw something else: legitimacy. Today, we hear from one of crypto’s most thoughtful defenders. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

All the president’s meme coins
Memecoins were born as Internet pranks — worthless by design, traded for laughs. But now they are buying real power, and a digital joke just slipped past the velvet rope straight into the Oval Office. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: A former North Korean IT worker speaks
For years, North Korea has quietly dispatched an army of IT workers overseas—not to innovate, but to infiltrate. Disguised as freelancers, they apply for jobs, breach systems, and wire stolen funds back to Pyongyang. This week, a rare conversation with one of them—a defector—about the regime’s digital underworld, and the personal toll of escaping it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

227 new reasons to worry about North Korea
North Korea has built an artificial intelligence research center to supercharge its cyber operations, Unit 227. It’s a move that some experts say has been years in the making — and others say should scare us senseless. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Blockchain buzzkill — one miner’s lament.
When Richard Hunter heard about Kentucky's generous crypto incentives, he packed up his bitcoin machines and pointed them south. He imagined a booming business, jobs for locals, and maybe — just maybe — a shot at redemption. But what he got … was a buzzkill. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Crypto in Kentucky: The next extraction
Since the collapse of coal, Eastern Kentucky has lived through a procession of supposed revivals. Each new idea was treated as something close to salvation. We spent four days driving across the state and it became clear that things like crypto mining and AI data centers may not offer a break with history – just a continuation of it. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Encrypted-ish: The problems with a Signal knockoff
Earlier this month, a photo of former national security advisor Mike Waltz sneaking a peek at his phone during a Cabinet meeting went viral. Micah Lee explains how that moment exposed a massive security flaw – and a possible backdoor into government chats. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

DOGE and its handling of federal data
Our first installment in a five-part series we're calling CyberMonday. As part of a show for 1A, we dive into one of our Click Here episodes and take calls from listeners. This week: DOGE is vacuuming up federal data and using it in ways that no one ever has before, with very little oversight. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: America’s soft power in Asia – unplugged
Radio Free Asia has broken news on everything from a mystery illness in Wuhan to Uyghur detentions in northwest China. Now it is in the Trump administration’s crosshairs. We speak with Bay Fang, RFA’s president, about its battle to survive. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Radio Free Europe: When the signal fades
The Trump administration is trying to defund Radio Free Europe… a kind of megaphone for democracy that’s been broadcasting since the Cold War. RFE Journalist Alsu Kurmasheva spent months in a Russian prison because of her work for the station and now she worries about what will fill the void, if it is silenced. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Gen. Charlie "Tuna" Moore: Cyber Wars Don’t Wait for Consensus
Military decisions used to take months — maybe even years. Cyberwarfare decisions can happen in milliseconds. Lt. General Charlie "Tuna" Moore, former deputy commander of U.S. Cyber Command, explains how soldiers without cyber skills are already a step behind. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Volt Typhoon comes for Littleton
In late 2023, Nick Lawler got a call from someone claiming to be an FBI agent. The man said that the utility Nick ran in Littleton, Massachusetts, was the target of an elaborate, international hacking operation. It set off an unlikely series of events that involved a small community, Chinese state hackers and the quiet threat hiding in our most basic infrastructure. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: The Hackalorian: A careful student strikes back
Meet Mando: an IT guy by day, cybercrime fighter by night. And his mentor? One of the most prolific data thieves ever. Together, they’re rewriting the rules of digital justice. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

A young hacker, and the Life of PII
This week, how a global game of cat and mouse led to a friendship—and an unexpected redemption. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Former Deputy DNI Sue Gordon: ‘it is conceivable that the world order has already been broken’
This week, as national security agencies brace for deep cuts and digital expertise is shed from their ranks, we talk to former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon about what happens when intelligence is stuck in the past. She says the real danger isn’t what we don’t know—it’s what we stop trying to understand. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

USDS insider says DOGE’s audits are like nothing she’s ever seen
DOGE says it’s rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse. But in her first media interview, one insider at the U.S. Digital Service says DOGE’s “audit” felt more like a purge. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: AI’s unexpected Roman holiday
While the world is weighing in on where the ethical boundaries of AI should lie, Heather Mellquist Lehto has partnered with someone who has very definite views on AI’s use: the pope. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

AI’s divine intervention
Churches are turning to AI to craft sermons and draw in new believers. But when faith interacts with algorithms, does it change what we’re worshipping? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Nakasone on Vanderbilt's future of war summit
More from our exclusive conversation with former NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone. He now leads the Institute of National Security at Vanderbilt and will convene a summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats next week. Think cyber warfare, AI, and disinformation and how they will shape wars in the future. He gave us a preview. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Exclusive: Gen. Paul Nakasone says China is now our biggest threat
This week, a rare sit-down with Gen. Paul Nakasone — former head of the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, and one of the key architects of America's modern cyber operations. Now out of government, he told us nothing was off-limits. So we asked about China. About AI. And about what the current Trump term could mean for the future of cyberwarfare. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Jon Clay: Minority Report meets cyber… pre-cogs sold separately
Trend Micro's Jon Clay explains how artificial intelligence has turned a Hollywood fantasy into a real cybercrime fighting-tool … and it's already working in Taiwan. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Zelensky playbook: Ukrainian lessons for Taiwan
So how do you prepare for a war that hasn’t yet started? We take you inside a naval war game for Taiwan that unfolded in a very unlikely place: Las Vegas. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Kelly Shaw’s job got hacked – by DOGE
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is supposed to keep us safe from cyber threats, but now its own employees are under attack—this time from sweeping layoffs. We speak with a CISA manager caught in what has been dubbed the Valentine’s Day massacre… and examine what this could mean for our cybersecurity future. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Is Trump making the US more cyber vulnerable?
When news came that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have paused U.S. offensive cyber operations against Russia, it made headlines around the world. But experts say the Trump team is doing something behind the scenes that could be more harmful. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Frank McCourt wants TikTok to help him reinvent the internet
Billionaire Frank McCourt doesn’t want to buy TikTok for its algorithm and addictive videos. He wants its 170 million American users to help him fundamentally change the Internet. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The TikTok ban, China, and national security
Click Here host Dina Temple-Raston speaks with 1A's Jenn White about the latest on the TikTok ban, what’s next in the possible sale of its American arm, and whether the app is really a threat to national security. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Aidan Raney's secret mission.
Aidan Raney does threat analysis for Farnsworth Intelligence, a company he founded. When one of his clients got caught up in a North Korean IT worker scheme, Aidan set out on a little mission: to infiltrate one of these operations and understand how it worked. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Meet the “Kyles” — North Korea’s secret IT warriors
North Korea has a secret army of workers applying for remote IT jobs around the world. They collect paychecks, sometimes steal company data, and answer to a boss who isn’t at company headquarters, he’s sitting in Pyongyang. We hear about one named Kyle. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Anne Neuberger on AI: ‘We have to challenge ourselves to be first’
We sat down with former deputy national security advisor Anne Neuberger on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference to talk about everything from Chinese AI startups like DeepSeek to the competition for the future world order. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Ron Deibert: ‘We’re living in a Philip K. Dick novel.’
As his new book “Chasing Shadows” hits bookstores this month, Ron Deibert tells us about how he and his team of digital sleuths at The Citizen Lab have been holding purveyors of high-tech surveillance to account. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Mark Zaid’s ‘red badge of courage’
Earlier this month, Mark Zaid heard that the Trump administration had revoked his security clearances. Mark, best known for being the go-to lawyer for whistleblowers in the intelligence community, now appears to be part of a growing list of people President Trump perceives as disloyal. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Could AI help ER doctors and medics make better decisions?
A mass shooting in Las Vegas a few years ago helped pave the way for a new DARPA program that is asking a very thorny question: Could doctors and medics make better life-and-death decisions with a little help from AI? Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: The man behind a Binance exec’s Nigerian detention
Nigerian authorities detained a mid-level Binance executive named Tigran Gambaryan for eight months last year. Some observers say officials hoped to extract millions of dollars in fines from the company. Others maintain they just wanted to send a message. Matthew Page from Chatham House gives us some backstory. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Company Man: Binance exec detained in Nigeria breaks his silence
Former IRS investigator Tigran Gambaryan went to Nigeria on a quick trip to sell Nigerian officials on the utility of cryptocurrencies. He ended up detained there for eight months. On today’s show, an exclusive interview with Tigran about his detention, and how he got out. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: The algorithm will see you now - AI and psychiatry
Dr. Stephen Xenakis, a psychiatrist and retired Army brigadier general, has always had an open mind when it came to cutting-edge technology. Now he’s looking at AI to see if it can help doctors treat veterans struggling with mental health. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

SPECIAL FEATURE: ‘With AIs Wide Open’ from IRL: Online Life is Real Life
An episode from IRL: Online Life is Real Life from Mozilla and PRX: Are today’s large language models too hot to handle? Bridget Todd, host of the IRL: Online Life is Real Life podcast, digs into the risks and rewards of open sourcing the tech that makes ChatGPT talk. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Tracking a Ghost
Law enforcement agencies have been disrupting criminal gangs by intercepting their encrypted communications. Jamie O’Reilly of the cybersecurity company Dvuln talks about an Aussie effort to track Ghost. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Knights of Old and a ransomware joust
For 150 years Knights of Old, a U.K. logistics company, survived everything from two world wars to Brexit. Then a ransomware group called Akira stormed the company's networks. In just a blink of an eye, everything changed. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Mic Drop: Australia’s attempt to keep kids off social media
Australia is trying to use age-gating to keep kids under 16 off social media. John Pane, at Electronic Frontiers Australia, is worried that kids won’t be the only people losing something. He says privacy as we know it is also in the crosshairs. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Australia takes aim at encrypted apps
Session, a little known encrypted messaging app out of Australia, thought it would help the world keep its communication private—and then a new law threatened their plans. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices