What the Hack?

You’ve heard how the compounds work. This week we go inside one—through the eyes of Small Q, an Ugandan musician who was trafficked in and got out—also: Erin West of Operation Shamrock on the bigger picture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christopher Anderson has spent thirty years in high-stakes situations—war zones, sinking boats, the current White House. What he’s learned about the information people don’t know they’re giving away is the privacy lesson you need to hear.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of Time Magazine’s Women of the Year and a vocal advocate for diversity in tech, Tracy Chou built Block Party after discovering firsthand that the platforms have no real incentive to protect you from the people who want to harm you.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jim Clemente built a career reading criminals. FBI special agent, behavioral profiler, Unabomber case, the hit series Criminal Minds. Then someone bought his debit card number on the dark web, linked it to a peer-to-peer finance app, and cleaned him out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Flock Safety says their cameras have never been hacked. Benn Jordan and Jason Koebler watched themselves on one from their homes. This week: a deep dive into the vulnerabilities, the no-opt-out tracking, and a simple question: Does any of it makes us safer? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No deep fake here. This week, Al Franken does his own impersonations of Bernie Sanders, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, Sherrod Brown and Susan Collins in this mock Senate Hearing featuring Siri (played by the actual voice-over talent Susan Bennett) and Al’s fellow SNL alum Laraine Newman playing the part of Alexa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Benn Jordan—musician, acoustic scientist, and one of the sharpest minds on surveillance technology—joins 404 Media’s Jason Koebler and the ACLU’s Jay Stanley to trace how surveillance went ambient— and what it means when everyone’s being watched. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feeling watched? Join us as Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark breaks down the new reality of digital surveillance. From school apps to AI scams, we dive into how companies collect your data and how to take control of your online privacy. The war for privacy is real—and it's a fight you can't afford to lose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Online fraud isn’t just annoying. It’s a national crisis, one that may have drained $158 billion from the U.S. economy last year alone. In this episode, AARP’s Kathy Stokes joins us to explain how fraud has evolved into a sophisticated, global operation and why we’re still blaming the victims instead of stopping the crime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

MGM lost $100 million in 2023. Then Caesars paid $15 million ransom. A few phone calls shut down Vegas, highlighting the destruction that one fast talker can unleash in a zero trust environment. This week we explore what that means in the here and now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we're going to the movies. Virginia Heffernan joins us to talk about Groundhog Day (the movie), surveillance, and why online systems reward repetition over reflection and connection with a special cameo by marketing maestro Seth Godin. Magic + Loss: https://virginiaheffernan.substack.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After exposing the scam compounds and human trafficking behind today’s fraud economy, we follow the money, the power, and the few pressure points—from crypto seizures to sanctions—that might actually help spell the end of Southeast Asian scam compounds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You’ve seen the scam texts. This week we go inside a global scam economy to expose human trafficking networks, lawless economic zones, and fortified compounds where victims are forced to target victims in a world of crime bosses and corrupt politicians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bob Lord (Yahoo, DNC, CISA) and Lauren Zabierek (Harvard’s Belfer Center, CISA) don't think cybersecuirty (or lack of it) should be the customer’s problem. Drawing parallels to Ralph Nader’s fight against unsafe cars, they explain how to fix the root of the problem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former cybercrime kingpin Brett Johnson didn’t just break the law; he built the tools still used by criminals today. He's back for another episode to check in and unpack why cybercrime works, how defenses fail, and the way life itself is often the ultimate "in" for an attacker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From AI regulation fights and North Korean laptop farms to Nigerian campus cults, the human toll of online crime, and the death of online anonymity it's time to review the year in cyber stories—the good, the bad, the unimaginable, and what to do when "they" come for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A deadbolt clicks. This email, that voice--they sound all right. Then things go sideways. This week, 911 Cyber CEO Marc Raphael joins the pod to explore how AI makes scams faster, smoother, and harder to spot, and what you can do to stay hard to hit in the new threatscape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you stay safe online? (Wrong answers only.) Avoid public Wi-Fi, QR codes, charging stations. Cyber OG Bob Lord (Yahoo, DNC, CISA) wrote an open letter tackling the real harm caused by bad advice, and offering a better path with proven practices to stay safe online.Check out https://www.hacklore.org/letter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sextortion scams targeting teenage boys doubled this year—and Paul Raffile says the platforms knew it was happening. Learn how Instagram's default settings let criminals to weaponize friends lists for blackmail, and how social media continues to fail the children it claims to protect. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The giant glittering scam and fraud trap of the holidays is here. Beau reunites with former co-hosts Adam Levin and Travis Taylor to talk about about fake websites, why gift cards are still a huge vector for fraud, and how to avoid the many pitfalls of the season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeff Williams on the business of moving money: who gets blocked, what slips through, and why checking the right boxes doesn’t always mean a win in the nascent AI-powered sanctions compliance space. From fentanyl money to shell companies, we follow the (often filthy dirty) money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a young engineer uncovered a sizeable click fraud situation at Google, he discovered a bigger problem; namely, the perverse ingenuity that drives online fraud and scams. "Big Breaches" author Neil Daswani joined us to talk click farms, data breaches, AI exploits, and the big picture of cybercrime today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cybercrime expert Gary Warner joins to discuss Nigerian confraternities, the "campus cults" rooted in idealism that morphed into a multi-billion dollar transnational organized crime network. Learn about the "money blessing," the coded language and insider access, and the elite thug playbook for exploiting trust. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When scammers tried to steal Graceland, it seemed like a fluke, but deed fraud is very much on the rise. Del Denney of the Land Trust Company explains how criminals steal homes and how to stop it from happening to you. Plus, we revisit Adam Levin's wallet ripper about a twice-targeted beachfront property. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Forensic expert Heather Barnhart (SANS Institute) decoded Osama Bin Laden's phones and helped convict quadruple murderer Brian Kohberger. Learn how surviving her own harassment fueled her mission, plus the digital "pattern of life" hack and simple steps to combat AI deepfakes and stay safe online. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marketing visionary Seth Godin explains how the Internet got hijacked by an attention-stealing spam economy that keeps us in an endless loop of badly targeted marketing. Godin's anti-spam playbook: demand companies earn your attention with awesomeness, and break the digital slop loop that broke the Internet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A locked account. A call for help. What happened next left Tony questioning everything he thought he knew about the Internet. This week is about trust, technology, and how quickly things can unravel when those we count on aren’t who they seem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Former federal prosecutor Tom O’Malley takes us inside the strange, high-stakes world of modern fraud—where victims are presumed guilty, families lose fortunes, and the fight against global crime rings starts at home. Three lessons that could make a difference. Voting: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signal4_finalists_finalistnotification_092325&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2025/individual-episodes/genre/thought-leadership Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every click, swipe, and post fuels the data economy. Credit cards, apps, even maps—our lives are scraped, stitched, and sold. It feels like a heist, and sometimes it is. Identity Theft Resource Center CEO Eva Casey-Velasquez insists the picture isn’t entirely bleak. This week we talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of data brokers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It started with a slow roll of weird emails and phone calls. And then award-winning filmmaker Dan Sturman found himself in the crosshairs of serious hackers. With parallels to another case of mistaken identity and an assist from security expert Reuben Moretz, this week we explore bad social engineering. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feeling watched? Join us as Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark breaks down the new reality of digital surveillance. From school apps to AI scams, we dive into how companies collect your data and how to take control of your online privacy. The war for privacy is real—and it's a fight you can't afford to lose. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A fake Microsoft pop-up cost Ken Westbrook’s mom her life savings. But they scammed the wrong family. Westbrook is former CIA. These days he’s sounding the alarm on how foreign crime rings steal billions from Americans with smishing campaigns, scareware, and gift cards. We talked about solutions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this second installment of our DEF CON two-parter, we talked to SocialProof Security CEO Rachel Tobac about how and why people are often the weakest link in so many cybersecurity protocols and how making yourself a harder target will cause most threat actors to move on to an easier mark. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

At DEF CON’s Social Engineering Village, contestants have 22 minutes to charm real employees at real companies into revealing real details that could lead to a breach. We step inside the booth to see how persuasion, improv, and psychology fuel both ethical hacking and the rise of cybercrime worldwide. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kurtis Minder knows the dark web better than most—and he’s not just watching from the sidelines. As a ransomware negotiator, he’s helped victims talk their way out of seemingly impossible situations. This week, we explore how cybercriminals operate, what makes them tick, and what you need to know to avoid becoming their next target. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A not-entirely innocent moment at a concert set the internet on fire. But what if that was just a symptom of a bigger problem? New York Times journalist Kashmir Hill, author of Your Face Belongs to Us, helps us explore the chilling reality of ambient surveillance, and how facial recognition could be the end privacy as we know it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Online fraud isn't just annoying; it's a national crisis. Last year alone, it may have siphoned $158 billion from the U.S. economy. This episode features AARP's Kathy Stokes, who reveals how fraud has morphed into a sophisticated, global operation and what's being done to fight back against this evolving threat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fortune Magazine's Amanda Gerut offers a deep dive into the secret army of remote IT workers funding North Korea's nuclear ambitions. Explore the hidden world of laptop farms, the criminal identity theft targeting freelancers, and the shocking human cost. It's a chilling scheme with law enforcement and freelancers trapped in the crossfire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Ben Winters, director of AI and Privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, for a front-row seat to the chaotic world of AI regulation where dirty data, aggressive lobbying, and public confusion drive a "winner takes all" vibe. From shady therapy bots to data-fueled discrimination, Ben reveals the urgent need to create guardrails for AI before it jumps the tracks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kristin got scammed because she didn't want to give a puppy mill her business. This classic digital scam has it all: fake breeders, phony shipping agents, and a non-existent air-conditioned crate. Kristen reveals how her scammers used trust, urgency and emotion, to close the deal. Listen to her story and what you can do to avoid getting duped yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you have never listened to Chris Hutchins explain how to get free travel, you’ve probably been paying too much for your vacations. Turns out, a threat actor was listening to him and stole his miles. Download this week’s episode to hear how he hacked the situation to score even more points. (This episode originally airdropped September 26, 2022.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices