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PODCAST

Phantom Bytes

Jash Saunders, Cowboy Supernova Productions

Phantom Bytes explores the eerie intersection of technology, cybercrime, and true-life mysteries, unraveling stories of digital ghosts, hackers, and sinister cyber threats that blur the lines between virtual terror and real-world intrigue. Welcome to the dark side of the digital age. Welcome to Phantom Bytes.

technology

All Episodes

00:09:43

"The Phantom Game and the Billion Accounts" (Urban...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/08/22

In the early 1980s, whispers spread of Polybius—an arcade game so strange it allegedly caused hallucinations, memory loss, and visits from men in black before vanishing without a trace. Was it a hoax, an experiment, or something darker? Decades later, another phantom emerged—this time all too real. Between 2013 and 2016, Yahoo suffered one of the largest data breaches in history, exposing billions of accounts and shaking the very trust of the digital world. In this episode of Phantom Bytes, we trace

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00:11:33

“From the Depths to the Data” (Project Azorian/the...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/08/18

Beneath the Pacific’s cold, crushing depths, a Soviet submarine lay silent—its secrets guarded by miles of black water. In the 1970s, the CIA set out to steal those secrets in one of the most audacious covert operations in history: Project Azorian. Disguised as a deep-sea mining mission, the Hughes Glomar Explorer reached for the wreck with a colossal claw, intent on pulling an enemy’s nuclear heart from the ocean floor.Decades later, the espionage battlefield has shifted to the digital deep. In

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00:11:09

“Breach at the Checkout” (The 2013 Target Breach)

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/08/14

On Black Friday 2013, millions of shoppers streamed into Target stores—unaware that each swipe of their card was being silently stolen. What began with a tiny HVAC contractor spiraled into one of the largest retail data breaches in history, exposing over 100 million people’s information. In this episode, Phantom Bytes traces the breach from a single phishing email to the resignation of Target’s top executives, revealing how a trusted vendor became the unwitting key to the kingdom. Along the way, we

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00:09:02

“The Room That Heard Colors” (Shadowban/Sensory...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/08/11

In the 1970s, a group of volunteers stepped into an all-white, silent, featureless room—only to emerge hours later shaken, disoriented, and forever changed. Stripped of sound, texture, and color, their minds began to fill in the blanks, conjuring phantom shapes, whispered voices, and visions no one else could see. Some claimed they could hear colors.In this unnerving episode of Phantom Bytes, we explore the strange science of sensory deprivation—and its eerie parallels in the digital world. From

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00:09:23

“The Voice in the Sink” (Accidental...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/07/07

What if your faucet whispered secrets? In this eerie full-length episode of Phantom Bytes, we investigate the strange phenomenon that gripped New York City in the 1960s—when residents claimed to hear music, voices, and even full radio broadcasts through their plumbing. But this wasn’t just urban legend. As it turns out, under the right conditions, metal pipes can act like makeshift antennas, turning a building’s water system into an accidental amplifier of distant signals.From leaking frequencies to

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00:07:28

S2E3 “Houston, Where’s the Footage?” (Apollo 11...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/06/30

What if humanity’s greatest moment… simply disappeared?In this haunting bonus episode of Phantom Bytes, we unearth the eerie true story of how NASA lost the original footage of the Apollo 11 moon landing. Deleted not by conspiracy, but by accident—erased during a magnetic tape recycling program meant to save money and storage space. Gone, too, were raw telemetry files and data vital to history.But was it just oversight, or something deeper? We explore how fragile our digital memories truly are, from

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00:11:00

S2E2 “It Camel Out of Nowhere” (Operation Aurora)

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/06/23

Long before firewalls and phishing attacks, a different kind of phantom haunted the American desert—a towering red beast, carrying a skeleton across the sands. Born from a bizarre U.S. military experiment with camels, the Red Ghost terrorized settlers and blurred the line between myth and reality. In this episode of Phantom Bytes, we follow the forgotten echoes of human ambition and carelessness to 2009, when the digital world faced its own invisible specter: Operation Aurora, a stealthy cyberattack

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00:13:10

S2 E1: “The Room That Waited” (Ethereum DAO Hack/The...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/06/16

A room made of amber vanished in the chaos of war.Centuries later, a digital fortune disappeared in silence.In this episode of Phantom Bytes, we trace the strange echoes between the lost Amber Room and the 2016 hack of the Ethereum DAO—a bold experiment in decentralized trust undone by a single, silent flaw in the code.As millions in Ether vanished, the blockchain fractured, history was rewritten, and the future of cryptocurrency was forever changed.Some treasures are stolen with fire.Others with

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00:07:25

BONUS: “The Clock That Lied” (NTP Spoofing)

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/06/12

In 2007, millions of clocks across Europe fell behind—by minutes—without warning. It wasn’t a software bug or solar storm. It was a political tug-of-war inside the power grid that warped the frequency used to measure time itself. In this eerie Phantom Bytes bonus episode, we explore the strange reality of clocks that listen to electricity, the silent drift that affected homes, factories, and trains, and how modern attackers now manipulate time through NTP spoofing and digital deception. Because when

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00:13:29

EP 12: The Great Cyber Showdown (Darkside and...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/06/09

A faceless adversary. A nation brought to its knees. In this episode, we trace the eerie echoes between a Cold War conspiracy and a ransomware attack that halted fuel across the East Coast—exposing the cracks in our most critical systems.

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00:08:19

BONUS: The Map That Killed Towns (Data Poisoning)

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/06/05

What if a place that never existed suddenly appeared… and then shaped the world around it?In this eerie deep-dive, Phantom Bytes unearths the strange tale of Agloe, New York—a fictional town invented by mapmakers as a copyright trap that somehow became real. But the story doesn’t stop there. From deepfake cartography and adversarial road signs to disappearing towns and data poisoning attacks, we trace how maps—once static and trustworthy—are now living, hackable systems. Today, a single corrupted

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00:10:29

EP 11: The Trojan Horse of the Internet (Zeus...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/06/02

A silent infiltrator. A trusted disguise. In this episode, we trace the digital footsteps of one of the most dangerous malware strains ever unleashed—hidden in plain sight, just like the horse that brought down Troy.

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00:05:08

BONUS: The Phantom Typist (Canadian Embassy)

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/05/29

In the 1970s, diplomats at the Canadian embassy in Moscow heard typewriters clicking… even when the room was empty. In this chilling Phantom Bytes bonus episode, we unravel the true story of Soviet-engineered typewriters modified to transmit every keystroke—an early form of hardware-based surveillance. From Cold War sabotage to modern firmware implants and invisible keyloggers, we explore how trusted devices can become silent traitors, one keystroke at a time.

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00:11:10

EP 10: The Digital Heist of the Century (Bangladesh...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/05/26

A billion dollars nearly vanished in one of the boldest cyber heists in history. In this episode, Phantom Bytes unpacks the 2016 Bangladesh Bank breach—a digital break-in so meticulously planned, it almost worked. Discover how a typo, a holiday, and a hacker’s patience collided in a global financial thriller.

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00:06:39

BONUS: What’s New, Pussycat? (Project Acoustic Kitty)

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/05/22

In the 1960s, the CIA tried to turn a cat into a listening device. It wasn’t satire—it was Project Acoustic Kitty, a real covert program that implanted microphones, transmitters, and antennas into a living cat’s body in hopes of eavesdropping on Soviet diplomats. In this strange and unsettling bonus episode of Phantom Bytes, we explore how this bizarre Cold War experiment reflects the modern truth of surveillance: from smart devices to listening toys, the absurd is no longer impossible—it’s

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00:12:44

EP 9: The Corporate Saboteur (Sony Hack/Operation...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/05/19

A chilling breach, a geopolitical ripple. In this episode of Phantom Bytes, we uncover the 2014 cyberattack on Sony Pictures—an unprecedented act of digital sabotage linked to North Korea. From spoofed emails to state-sponsored retaliation, and from leaked blockbusters to echoes of wartime deception, we explore how a single hack exposed the fragile seams of corporate cybersecurity. Paired with the masterclass of misdirection known as Operation Mincemeat, this episode traces the fine line between

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00:05:10

BONUS: The Signal No One Claims (Numbers Radio Stations)

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/05/15

They read numbers into the static—endlessly, eerily, without explanation. In this bonus episode of Phantom Bytes, we tune in to the mysterious world of numbers stations: Cold War-era radio signals that still broadcast to no one… or someone. From ghostly voices to coded commands, we explore how these signals laid the blueprint for the silent digital beacons that lurk in today’s malware and espionage operations.

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00:11:11

EP 8: The Hacktivist's Crusade (Anonymous/Guy Fawkes)

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/05/12

A faceless legion. A digital uprising. In this episode of Phantom Bytes, we trace the eerie origins and daring exploits of Anonymous—the decentralized hacktivist collective that blurred the lines between protest and cyber warfare. From the masked roots of Guy Fawkes to coordinated strikes on governments, corporations, and cults, this is the story of digital rebellion in the shadows of the internet.

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00:06:16

BONUS: Vulture Culture/The Clean Up Crew That...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/05/08

When India’s vulture population mysteriously collapsed, the consequences were deadly: festering carcasses, a surge in rabies, and ancient rituals left undone. In this eerie bonus episode of Phantom Bytes, we follow the chilling parallel between the vanishing of nature’s cleanup crew and the 2020 SolarWinds cyberattack—a digital poisoning that turned trusted monitoring software into a silent weapon. From dead skies to compromised networks, this story reveals what happens when the guardians we depend

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00:08:37

EP 7: The Phantom Phisher (Operation Phish...

Phantom Bytes ·

2025/05/05

A strange fossil stuns the scientific world. Decades later, a digital scheme fools thousands. From buried bones to forged emails, this episode traces the eerie echo between two worlds—where deception wears a trusted face, and belief becomes the perfect bait.

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33 results

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