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Lock and Code

Lock and Code tells the human stories within cybersecurity, privacy, and technology. Rogue robot vacuums, hacked farm tractors, and catastrophic software vulnerabilities—it’s all here.

technology tech news

All Episodes

36:32

Re-air: What teenagers face growing up online

Lock and Code ·

2023/09/11

In 2022, Malwarebytesinvestigated the blurry, shifting idea of “identity” on the internet, and how online identities are not only shaped by the people behind them, but also inherited by the internet’s youngest users, children. Children have always inherited some of their identities from their parents—consider that two of the largest indicators for political and religious affiliation in the US are, no surprise, the political and religious affiliations of someone’s parents—but the transfer

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51:29

"An influx of Elons," a hospital visit, and magic...

Lock and Code ·

2023/08/28

Becky Holmes is a big deal online.Hugh Jackmanhasinvited her to dinner. Prince Williamhastold her she has "such a beautiful name." Once, Ricky Gervais simplyneededher photos ("I want you to take a snap of yourself and then send it to me on here...Send it to me on here!"hemessaged on Twitter), and even Tom Cruise slipped into her DMs (though he was a tad boring, twice asking about her health andmore often showing a core misunderstandingof grammar).Becky has played it cool, mostly, but there's no

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37:34

A new type of "freedom," or, tracking children with...

Lock and Code ·

2023/08/14

"Freedom" is a big word, and for many parents today, it'sa word that includes location tracking.Across America, parents are snapping up Apple AirTags, the inexpensive location tracking devices that can help owners find lost luggage,misplaced keys, and—increasingly so—roving toddlers setting out on mini-adventures.The parental fear right now, according to The Washington Post technology reporter Heather Kelly, is that "anybody who can walk, therefore can walk away."Parents wanting to know what their

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40:11

How Apple fixed what Microsoft hasn't, with Thomas Reed

Lock and Code ·

2023/07/31

Earlier this month, a group of hackers was spotted using a set of malicious tools—thatoriginally gained popularity with online video game cheaters—to hide their Windows-based malware from being detected.Sounds unique, right?Frustratingly, it isn't, asthe specific security loophole thatwas abused bythe hackers has been around for years, andMicrosoft's response, or lack thereof, is actually atelling illustration of the competing security environments within Windows and macOS. Even more perplexing is

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38:45

Spy vs. spy: Exploring the LetMeSpy hack, with maia...

Lock and Code ·

2023/07/17

The language of a data breach, no matter what company gets hit, is largely the same. There's the stolen data—be it email addresses, credit card numbers, or even medical records. There are the users—unsuspecting, everyday people who, through no fault of their own, mistakenly put their trust into a company, platform, or service to keep their information safe. And there are, of course, the criminals. Some operate in groups. Some act alone. Some steal data as a means of extortion. Others steal it as a

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43:08

Of sharks, surveillance, and spied-on emails: This is...

Lock and Code ·

2023/07/03

In the United States, when the police want to conduct a search on a suspected criminal, they must first obtain a search warrant. It is one of the foundational rights given to US personsunder the Constitution, and a concept that has helped create the very idea of a right to privacy at home and online.But sometimes,individualized warrants are never issued, never asked for, never really needed, depending on which government agency is conducting the surveillance, and for what reason. Every year,

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42:08

Why businesses need a disinformation defense plan,...

Lock and Code ·

2023/06/19

When you think about the word "cyberthreat," what first comes to mind? Is it ransomware?Is it spyware? Maybe it's any collection of the infamous viruses, worms, Trojans,and botnets that have crippled countless companies throughoutmodern history.Inthe future, though, what many businesses might first think of is something new: Disinformation.Back in 2021, in speaking about threats to businesses, the former director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs,told news

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43:47

Trusting AI not to lie: The cost of truth

Lock and Code ·

2023/06/05

In May, a lawyer who was defending their client ina lawsuit against Columbia's biggest airline, Avianca, submitted a legal filing before a court in Manhattan, New York, that listed several previous cases as support for their main argument to continue the lawsuit.But when the court reviewed the lawyer's citations, it found something curious:Several were entirely fabricated.The lawyer in question had gotten the help of another attorney who, in scrounging around for legal precedent to cite, utilized

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51:01

The rise of "Franken-ransomware," with Allan Liska

Lock and Code ·

2023/05/08

Ransomware is becoming bespoke, and that could mean trouble for businesses and law enforcement investigators.It wasn't always like this.For a few years now, ransomware operators have congregatedaround a relatively new model of crime called "Ransomware-as-a-Service." In the Ransomware-as-a-Service model, or RaaS model, ransomware itself is notdelivered to victims by the same criminals thatmake the ransomware. Instead, it is used almost "on loan" by criminal groups called "affiliates" whocarry out

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41:01

Removing the human: When should AI be used in...

Lock and Code ·

2023/04/24

In January, a mental health nonprofitadmitted that it had used Artificial Intelligence to help talk to people in distress.Prompted first by a user's longing forpersonal improvement—and the difficulties involved in that journey—the AItool generated a reply, which, with human intervention, could be sent verbatim in a chat box, or edited and fine-tuned to better fit the situation. The AI said:“I hear you. You’re trying to become a better person and it’s not easy. It’s hard to make changes in our lives,

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46:13

How the cops buy a "God view" of your location data,...

Lock and Code ·

2023/04/10

The list of people and organizations that are hungry for your location data—collected so routinely and packaged so conveniently that it can easily reveal where you live, where you work, where you shop, pray, eat, and relax—includes many of the usual suspects.Advertisers, obviously, want to send targeted ads to you and they believe those ads have a better success rate if they're sent to, say, someone who spends their time at a fast-food drive-through on the way home from the office, as opposed to

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38:10

Solving the password’s hardest problem with passkeys,...

Lock and Code ·

2023/03/27

How many passwords do you have? If you're at all like our Lock and Code host David Ruiz, that number hovers around 200. But the important follow up question is:How many of those passwords can you actually remember on your own?Prior studiessuggest a number that sounds nearly embarrassing—probably aroundsix.After decades of requiring it, it turns out that the password has problems, the biggestof whichis that when users are forced to create a password for every online account, they resort tocreating

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48:05

"Brad Pitt," a still body, ketchup, and a knife, or...

Lock and Code ·

2023/03/13

Becky Holmes knows how to throw a romance scammer off script—simply bring up cannibalism.In January, Holmes shared on Twitter that an account with the name "Thomas Smith" had started up a random chat with her that sounded an awful lot like the beginnins stages of a romance scam. But rather than instantly ignoring and blocking the advances—as Holmes recommends everyone do in these types of situations—she first had a little fun."I was hoping that you'd let me eat a small part of you when we

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59:18

Fighting censorship online, or, encryption’s latest...

Lock and Code ·

2023/02/27

Government threats to end-to-end encryption—the technology that secures your messages and shared photos and videos—have been around for decades, but the most recent threats to this technology are unique inhow they intersect with abroader, sometimes-global effort to control information on the Internet.Take two efforts in the European Union and the United Kingdom. New proposals there would require companies to scan any content that their users share with one another for Child Sexual Abuse Material, or

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44:47

What is AI ”good” at (and what the heck is it,...

Lock and Code ·

2023/02/13

In November of last year, the AI research and development lab OpenAI revealed its latest, most advanced language project: A tool called ChatGPT.ChatGPT is so much more than "just" a chatbot. As users have shown with repeated testing and prodding, ChatGPT seems to "understand" things.It can give you recipes that account for whatever dietary restrictions you have. It can deliver basic essays about moments in history. It can—and has been—used to cheat by university students who are giving a new meaning

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46:03

A private moment, caught by a Roomba, ended up on...

Lock and Code ·

2023/01/30

In 2020, a photo of a woman sitting on a toilet—her shorts pulled half-way down her thighs—was shared on Facebook, and it was shared by someone whose job it was to look at that photo and, by labeling the objects in it, help train an artificial intelligence system for a vacuum.Bizarre? Yes. Unique? No.In December, MIT TechnologyReviewinvestigated the data collection and sharing practices of the company iRobot, the developer of the popular self-automated Roomba vacuums. In their reporting, MIT

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53:40

Fighting tech’s gender gap with TracketPacer

Lock and Code ·

2023/01/16

Last month, the TikTok user TracketPacer posted a video online called “Network Engineering Facts to Impress No One at Zero Parties.” TracketPacer regularly posts fun, educational content about how the Internet operates. The account is run by a network engineer named Lexie Cooper, who has worked in a network operations center, or NOC, and who’s earned her Cisco Certified Network Associate certificate, or CCNA.In the video, Cooper told listeners about the first spam email being sent over

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43:01

Why does technology no longer excite?

Lock and Code ·

2023/01/01

When did technology last excite you? If Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is to be believed, your own excitement ended, simply had to end, after turning 35 years old. Decades ago, at first writing privately and later having those private writings published after his death, Adams had come up with "a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies." They were simple and short: Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a

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47:18

Chasing cryptocurrency through cyberspace, with Brian...

Lock and Code ·

2022/12/19

On June 7, 2021, the US Department of Justice announced a breakthrough: Less than one month after the oil and gas pipeline company Colonial Pipeline had paid its ransomware attackers roughly $4.4 million in bitcoin in exchange for a decryption key that would help the company get its systems back up and running, the government had in turn found where many of those bitcoins had gone, clawing back a remarkable $2.3 million from the cybercriminals. In cybercrime, this isn't supposed to happen—or at

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151 results

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