How Hacks Happen

What is an NFT, and why would anyone want to buy one?  There are lots of reasons why someone might buy a certified JPG or other NFT, but there's no guarantee your NFT will increase in value or even retain the value you paid for it. In this episode, host Michele Bousquet talks about different kinds of NFTs on the market, how they compare to physical art items, and how fraudsters have found a rich source of free funds in NFT the...

The story of Silk Road, the underground website where you could buy and sell anything, is now part of internet lore. Customers could order everything from pot to meth and have it delivered to their door. Then came fake IDs, unregistered guns, poisons, and murder-for-hire. But wherever there's illegal activity and lots of money, violence isn't far behind. This episode takes you on a very quick tour of the rise and fall of ...

In October 21, 2021, Josh Renaud, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper, privately alerted a government authority that their website had vulnerabilities. In response, the governor of Missouri, Michael L. Parson, brought charges against the journalist for "hacking." This story would be hilarious if it wasn't true. Update: In July 2022, Josh Renaud was awarded The National Press Club press freedom award ...

You get an email telling you you've been billed for a product you never ordered, and when you call for a refund, you somehow you get an excess refund and have to send back the difference. Find out how scammers manipulate people into sending them "excess refund money" from a nonexistent refund, and what you can do to keep it from happening to others. Shout-out to YouTuber Kitboga for showing me how this scam works. 

Su...

What is Tor? In this episode, we demystify the Tor browser and how it relates to the Surface Web, the Deep Web, and the Dark Web. Maybe you want to use Tor, and maybe you don't. But in any case you'll know what it is, and will be able to decide if it's right for you.

Download the Tor browser at the official site
A great read about the dark web at Wired.com
Get the T-shirt! Fly your Tor flag.

What we can we learn about hacks, scams, and fraud from TV shows and movies? Plenty, as it turns out. Fictional shows, documentaries, podcasts, and other types of entertainment are a treasure trove of knowledge. Don't discount the education you can get about scams, con games, legal proceedings, police procedure, and other aspects of safety, all while being thoroughly entertained.

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The Tinder Swindler is a fascinating Netflix documentary about a serial  romance scammer who took each of his "girlfriends" for more than $100,000 each. In this episode,  we look at what we can learn from The Tinder Swindler, going beyond the easy "blame the victim" mentality to show how effective such scams can be, and to point out the individual red flags you should watch out for in any new romance.

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The hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014 was one of the most bizarre crimes of the decade. Instead of demanding money, the hackers threatened a terrorist attack on the USA if Sony didn't cancel the release of the film 'The Interview,' a comedy about two bumbling journalists who travel to North Korea and attempt to assassinate the country's Supreme Leader.  The release went forward anyway, and thankfully, ...

Why are older people so susceptible to scams? There could be a relationship to the music you loved in your teen years. Just as most of us have a Musical Peak in our teens, I propose that we also have a Technology Peak in our 20s-40s. Nudging our elderly relatives out of their Technology Peak,  and into the present, is the only way to break this pattern. And the only way to do it is by showing them.

References:

Stu...

What would you do if you found out someone was using your identity to take out credit cards, steal your tax refund, or even raid your bank account? Meet Tiffany, Pete, and Astrid, three victims of identity theft. Find out how each of them discovered the fraud, what they did to reverse the damage, and what they do now to prevent it from happening again.

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How are bike thieves like hackers? Both look for the same kinds of vulnerabilities, including easy-to-crack passwords. Would you leave your bike's combination at the default of 0000? Of course not. In the same way, you should change default passwords and use something that a hacker won't find easy to crack. Be safe out there!

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Black Friday, the day after American Thanksgiving, is traditionally one of the biggest holiday shopping days of the year. But hackers aren't going to take a holiday--they'll use Black Friday as an opportunity to try and scam you. If you get a text about an order or a gift card, don't tap the link! Instead, go to the retailer's site and see if there's a message for you. Let's all have a holly jolly holi...

You've heard of Bitcoin, but how does it work, and why are so many people talking about it? Let's talk about blockchain--the tech behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency--in plain English, including hashing, a key part of blockchain technology. We'll also talk about why people invest in cryptocurrency.

Resources for this episode
Development of blockchain:
"A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System&...

If anyone--the IRS, the electric company, the police--calls you and asks you to buy a prepaid Visa card or a gift card to pay your bill over the phone, it's not who you think it is. They'll tell you to scratch the numbers off the back and read them the numbers. This is a ploy by scammers to get money from you. Don't fall for it! 

This tip was inspired by a recent real-life story of a phone scam that terrified a woman ...

In July 2015, a very polite group of hackers called The Impact Team stole the data of over 30 million users from Ashley Madison, a website for cheating spouses, and threatened to dump it all over the dark web if the site wasn't shut down. The site stayed up, and the data went out. Learn about how hackers worldwide have used the data to blackmail users, the denials (and eventual resignations) of Ashley Madison executives, and t...

Let's look at the impact of credit card fraud, and talk about how they're stolen, and what you can do to keep your credit safe. Jiggle that cover, man!

Resources for this episode:

• Credit card safety: 8 tips to help keep you safe: https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-hackers-stole-millions-of-credit-card-records-from-target/
• Verizon 2020 Payment Security Report, available from https://www.verizon.com/business/resou...

Say No to the NSA! Until the mid-1970s, the National Security Agency held an iron grip on all research into computer-based cryptography in the USA. In this episode, we talk about how the NSA squashed all public research into cryptography in the 1950s and 1960s, but loosened its grip to work to develop the Digital Encryption Standard (DES) with IBM. Then, in the 1970s, mathematicians Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman, and others went...