The unusual should seem normal right now, and so I’m doing something unusual. Our “So, Bob” podcast about the unintended consequences of technology is usually heavy on outrage and dark topics like privacy and election hacking. But ever since co-host Alia Tavakolian and I have been stuck at home because [Keep reading]
In the first season of No Place to Hide, Duke students Carter Forinash and Jake Satisky cyberstalked Spoke Media founder Keith Reynolds — with his permission. The results of their research are sprinkled through episodes 1, 2 and 3. In this postscript, we talk with Carter and Jake about their [Keep reading]
Regular readers know that Harri Hursti, founder of Nordic Innovation Labs and internationally-famous cybersecurity expert, is a long-time source and friend. Harri has spent the past several years working on a documentary about U.S. elections called “Kill Chain,” which was released last month. Any educated American who cares about democracy [Keep reading]
Zoom is the hit software product of the coronavirus, and it’s easy to see why. We all need to connect right now, and Zoom is really easy to use. That’s also the problem. Whenever a technology is easy to use, it’s often easy to exploit. And Zoom is finding that [Keep reading]
Domestic abuse is all about power, and the age of coronavirus has created terrifying new weapons for abusers. They might withhold hand sanitizer, or use shelter-at-home orders to prevent victims from going to the grocery store, or outside at all. They might terrorize targets by threatening to cancel their health [Keep reading]
You’ve been “hearing” a lot of yelling lately on social media — about the president, about the virus, or if you’re lucky, about sports. You’ve probably read thousands of comments and wasted countless hours on some of these round-and-round-we-go discussions. Have you ever witnessed anyone change their mind? Not often. [Keep reading]
Since the 1973 oil embargo, and the nearly concurrent coining of the term “gridlock,” Americans have mused about telecommuting as the solution to many modern ills. When high-speed Internet began making its way into homes in the late 1990s, telecommuting seemed on the verge of a breakout. Why waste time [Keep reading]
Residents of Washington state’s Olympic Penninsula were given a scare Thursday night when an alarming message flashed across their TV screens in a bold, huge font: “RADIOLOGICAL HAZARD WARNING.” Local authorities — in this case, Jefferson County 9-1-1 services — quickly took to Facebook to identify the message as a [Keep reading]
The sharing economy has spawned some crazy ideas, but leaving the keys to your car IN your car and telling the world where it is might be among the most peculiar. That’s precisely how car sharing apps like Getaround, the AirBnB of rental cars, work. And while there are security [Keep reading]
One of the most ominous mysteries surrounding the massive Equifax hack in 2017 — that the stolen data does not appear to have been used for any crimes — has apparently been solved. The U.S. Justice Department said on Monday that the Chinese government was behind the notorious hack, indicting [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan