Hacked

Heads up, the guy in the opening story survives — realized in editing it's kind of stressful if you don't know where that's going. In this chat episode we start with a coin toss on which story to start with, which leads us on an adventure into the world of America's favourite private security camera network, Flock, searchable by law enforcement without a warrant. Cool stuff.
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We start this chatty chat looking at the legacy of EternalBlue, an NSA-developed cyberweapon that leaked in 2017 and powered global disasters like WannaCry, to explain a new mobile threat called "Coruna." Just as EternalBlue likely escaped government chain of custody to become a tool for mass digital carnage, Coruna is a sophisticated iPhone exploit framework leveraging 23 vulnerabilities that has similarly migrated from elite surveillance into the hands of broader cybercriminal groups. This "EternalBlue moment" for mobile marks a shift where nation-state-grade tools, capable of silently hijacking devices via compromised websites, are now circulating freely in the wild.

Also, cute little Macbooks!
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In this chatty chat episode, we kick things off with a primer on one of the oldest methods of stealing money—made new again in the age of crypto: the $5 wrench attack. It’s a simple tactic, but it has enabled some surprisingly significant damage.

We also cover recent incidents, including the DJI robot vacuum hack, and wrap up with an in-depth discussion on AI harnesses.
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A lot of modern AI models have a kind of security guard layer that sits in front of them. Its job? A binary choice as to whether the prompt heading into the model is safe or not. Kasimir Schulz, a lead security researcher at HiddenLayer, has been researching how to trick these models. Their solution, a technique called "Echogram" involves words with such positive statistical sentiment — such overwhelming good vibes — that it flips that verdict.

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Two FBI agents. One room. One of them is the most damaging spy in U.S. history.

Robert Hanssen told a lot of lies — including a really weird one about booking the Beach Boys for the FBI. That lie didn’t matter all that much, but the others did. For 22 years, Hanssen sold America’s deepest secrets while hunting moles inside the Bureau.

With retirement looming, the FBI set a trap: a fake department, a fake job, and a young agent named Eric O’Neill placed three feet from the suspected spy.

This episode is our conversation with Eric O’Neill — the man tasked with spying on the spy — about lies, tradecraft, psychological warfare, and the sting operation into what the DOJ later called “possibly the worst intelligence disaster in U.S. history.”
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