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Cybercrime / Privacy

Cybercrime / Privacy

Sugar High, part 4: The future of music is what we’ll make

July 28, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

A quick mental exercise: Imagine electricity were just discovered, and during the residential rollout, there were no rules.  No fire safety measures, no voltage standards, no common size for outlets. I imagine there’s one image that comes to mind.  FIRE!  Everywhere. That’s kinda what we’re hearing from some quarters about [Keep reading]

Bob Sullivan's podcast projects

A decade of heartbreaks: His identity has been used in hundreds of romance scams

July 23, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

I sat down at his table and he had probably 100 cards and letters and gifts and boxes and he said, ‘I bet there’s at least 500 …. This isn’t nearly all of it.’ And he really lost count. There were just stacks of love letters and gifts and cards, [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

As AI enteres the real world, it’s going to crash into the Plateau Effect

June 22, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

We just learned that Waymo is recalling about 4,000 self-driving cars because they can’t read highway construction signs. According to Road & Track, some Waymo cars “failed to recognize and drove past ramp closure signs into pre-planned freeway construction zones; Waymo recorded six of these events in April 2026 in [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

Artificial Intelligence needs a police blotter. Wait, it already has one!

June 3, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

In our world of black and white, it’s difficult to be a tech skeptic without being labeled a Luddite.  The Holy Grail is progress, so the thinking goes, and any pesky question asking threatens to stifle innovation.  Do you want us to lose to the Chinese!?!? It’s ok, I’ve been [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

Criminals impersonate doctor with deepfake ads, sell supplements. Could you tell?

May 1, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

Dr. Maurice Sholas has a beautiful, challenging calling — he cares for very sick children.  He takes on the saddest of cases, and works with families so kids with spina bifida or traumatic injuries can still “win” at life. For some, that means gaining the ability to visit the bathroom [Keep reading]

Bob Sullivan's podcast projects

What’s an amygdala hijack? And why is crafting a great cybersecurity tool?

April 14, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

The most dangerous hack is a brain hack.  And criminals are getting very, very good at that.  Meanwhile, I fear, the rest of us have spent precious little time learning to defend against brain hacks.  Hopefully today’s piece will help a little. Today I’m going to discuss an important way [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

Gas station hero stops crypto kiosk scams, again and again

March 13, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

Once in a while, a human being does the right thing and you wonder why it took so long I’ve long held the opinion that the only real use case for cryptocurrency is fraud; we can debate that.  Crypto kiosks, on the other hand, leave little room for discussion.  These [Keep reading]

Bob Sullivan's podcast projects

Sugar High, part 1: Is AI the Future of ‘Music?’ – a Debugger podcast with Tift Merritt

February 13, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

The next time you fire up your favorite streaming service, the music you hear might be made by a robot. Maybe you don’t care; you’re just looking for something to help you kill those 30 minutes on the treadmill.  But you should care. The sound you might not hear is [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

Want to cut your rent in half? The buy now, pay later ticking time bomb gets louder…

January 30, 2026 Bob Sullivan 0

Want to cut your rent in half? There’s a new, easy way to do that! Just pay the second half in two weeks. Sound crazy? Many landlords are offering this option now, just the latest incursion of buy now, pay later into consumers’ lives. If you haven’t yet encountered the [Keep reading]

Cybercrime / Privacy

That huge fake NFL ticket scam? It fueled an online sports betting addiction. And it’s going to get worse

December 8, 2025 Bob Sullivan 0

There’s been several celebrated scandals recently involving sports betting in the U.S. — pro basketball and baseball players are accused of manipulating prop bets in small but important ways.  But I want to talk with you today about a much less famous, but perhaps more important, online betting scandal: addiction. [Keep reading]

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About me

BOB SULLIVAN is a veteran journalist and the author of four books, including the 2008 New York Times Best-Seller, Gotcha Capitalism, and the 2010 New York Times Best Seller, Stop Getting Ripped Off! His latest, The Plateau Effect, was published in 2013, and as a paperback, called Getting Unstuck in 2014. He has won the Society of Professional Journalists prestigious Public Service award, a Peabody award, and The Consumer Federation of America Betty Furness award, and been given Consumer Action’s Consumer Excellence Award.

Bob Sullivan

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