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PODCAST

What the Hack?

"What the Hack?" is the award-winning true cybercrime podcast--the place to hear memorable stories and get good advice. Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: [DeleteMe ](https://joindeleteme.com)

true crime

All Episodes

43:04

Episode 272: You Should Be Unsettled: Meta and Teens

What the Hack? ·

2026/10/06

When she was 12, Ava Smithing's Instagram algorithim led her from bikini ads to eating disorder content. Meta settled for $17 billion recently, but what's actually changed? Not enough. Oh and the new rules mean sharing even more personal information.Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

48:06

Episode 267: No Price Tag for You!

What the Hack? ·

2026/09/01

Fictitious discounts. payday markups. AI setting airfares in real time. Investigative reporter Derek Kravitz, Grace Gedye (Consumer Reports) are joined byDavid Dayen to expose the algorithms that decide if you pay more or less than your neighbor for the exact same thing.Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.comLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

48:41

Episode 266: How Much Is Surveillance Pricing Costing...

What the Hack? ·

2026/08/25

Welcome to the infuriating world of surveillance pricing. Chris "the Producer" Parr created a digital nobody to find out whether companies would charge the new him less. What he found was stranger. So how much does what companies know about you affect what you pay?Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

52:37

Episode 265: Surveillance In America, Pt 1:...

What the Hack? ·

2026/08/18

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.Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

46:57

Episode 261: Aaron Parnas on the Firehose of Our...

What the Hack? ·

2026/07/21

Aaron Parnas is the Walter Cronkite of Substack. He has millions of followers who follow him on every platform to get his just-the-facts reporting, but even the most trusted voice on TikTok has some thoughts when it comes to our collective privacy.Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit:https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

48:41

Episode 260: Jackals of Trust: A Short History of...

What the Hack? ·

2026/07/14

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.Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

52:35

Episode 259: Capture The Flag!

What the Hack? ·

2026/07/07

Ethan Merritt is an WTH alum, but the last time he was on the pod he was the target. This time, he asked for it: Find four flags using only publicly viewable data. Social media posts, podcasts, leaked passwords, a cat-tree video. Listen to hear how we did.Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

45:56

Episode 258: Fighter Pilot Cadet Turned Hacker, She...

What the Hack? ·

2026/06/30

A teenager rage-hacks a Tetris leaderboard and becomes a millionaire by 18. Now Tal Kollender breaks into companies for a living—and fixes whatever made that possible. We talk about that and Anthropic's Mythos, which is a cyber idyll for our time.Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

44:59

Episode 257: Seth Godin's Anti-Spam Playbook: Be Awesome

What the Hack? ·

2026/06/23

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. Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

43:04

The Colonel & the Catfish

What the Hack? ·

2026/06/16

A retired Army Colonel becomes the unwitting face of thousands of romance scams. Bryan Denny has been breaking the hearts of people he's never met for years. What do you do when hundreds of crime rings are using your face? Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

43:04

Episode 255: How Kindness Works in The Scammer's...

What the Hack? ·

2026/06/09

She said her name was Clara Harper from Chase Bank. She argued with a police officer. She needed gift cards. Brian Ward shares the three times his 85-year-old father got scammed — and why the most unsettling thing wasn't the con. It was how reasonable it all sounded.Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

51:02

Episode 254: Even If You're Not Online, You're Online

What the Hack? ·

2026/06/02

Craig doesn't have Facebook. He's not a gamer. He builds things, fixes things, grows things, has an assortment of antique chainsaws. So why is his name, age, address, and phone number sitting on a website right now available to anyone who knows his name?Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

46:46

Episode 253: When the Bait Bites Back

What the Hack? ·

2026/05/26

A former military guy goes viral, but not in the way he'd hoped. With fake profiles popping up by the dozen using his photos to scam lonelyhearts out of money, Ethan Merritt did what we all fantasize about from time to time: he scammed the scammer.Make yourself harder to find, harder to hit: https://joindeleteme.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

49:31

Episode 250: Becky Holmes and the Future of Fraud

What the Hack? ·

2026/05/05

Online fraud isn't just getting smarter, it's getting personal. Becky Holmes, author of "The Future of Fraud," traces con artists from ancient Rome to AI-powered scam compounds, and asks a question for our post-breach reality: Is Trust dead?Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

45:47

Episode 249: The End of the Constitution Had to Start...

What the Hack? ·

2026/04/27

Sen. Ron Wyden, the longest-serving member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the ACLU’s Kia Hamadanchy and Marcy Wheeler explain why the deadline to reauthorize Section 702 of FISA may be the most important privacy vote in a generation—and what you can do about it.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

49:19

Episode 248: Open Source Intelligence and the Death...

What the Hack? ·

2026/04/21

Data as duh-duh. It's all is out there—indexed, sold, and weaponized. Open source intelligence turns public records into a hacker's playground, your LinkedIn profile is dangerous, but you can still claw back a little privacy before it's gone for good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

47:50

Episode 247: Ghost Murmur and the Real Assault on...

What the Hack? ·

2026/04/14

The whisper: A downed U.S. pilot was located by tracking his heartbeat from 40 miles away. Real, or fake news to rattle Iran? Benn Jordan and physicist Chad Orzel help us separate the science fiction from the real threats we all face right now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

en

51:39

Episode 246: Trafficked: Part Three, Asian Scam...

What the Hack? ·

2026/04/07

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

en

48:14

A Professional Noticer of Things

What the Hack? ·

2026/03/31

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

en

50:26

Episode 244: Inside Tracy Chou's Block Party for...

What the Hack? ·

2026/03/24

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

en

249 results

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