Bob Sullivan’s podcast projects

Bob is currently the host of AARP’s The Perfect Scam podcast. Listeners ride along weekly as scam victims and professional con artists tell their stories. A 2023 Webby award winner

Debugger is a podcast about technology and democracy, produced with help from Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics.

Breach is a deep-dive audio documentary that investigates history’s biggest hackers. Bob is co-host with Alia Tavakolian of Spoke Media. Season 1 uncovers the role of Russia in the massive Yahoo hack; Season 2 examines the comedy of errors that led to the Equifax breach. Sponsored by Carbonite. A Shorty Award finalist.

No Place to Hide is a 6-episode miniseries examining the state of privacy in America, from abusive digital police tactics to abusive romantic partners who hunt down victims through cyberspace. Bob co-hosts with Spoke Media’s Alia Tavakolian. Part fiction, part non-fiction. Sponsored by Intel.

“So, Bob?” is a weekly investigation of the unintended consequences of technology.

LATEST EPISODES

Podcast: Follow a sextortion scam unfold as it ends in unimaginable tragedy

April 19, 2025 Bob Sullivan 0

Jordan: Please, bro….It’s over. You win, bro. Dani: Okay. Goodbye. Jordan: I am KMS RN….which stands for, I’m killing myself right now….because of you. Dani: Good. Do that fast or I will make you do it. I swear to God. And that message … was the last one that he sent to [Keep reading]

Cruel, relentless online criminals leave behind enduring scars for family, friends too

March 19, 2025 Bob Sullivan 0

How relentless and cruel are online criminals? I recently heard a story about an elderly victim whose family took his phone and Internet access away so he could not longer talk to the criminals who were stealing his money. So they hired a taxi driver who traveled an hour to [Keep reading]

Yes, you can invest in whisky. But this man lost everything

February 10, 2025 Bob Sullivan 0

You can invest in anything, so of course, you can invest in whisky. I was surprised to learn recently how “easy” that is, however. And, like all things that seem easy, there’s a catch. As with all non-traditional investments, there is little regulation. And when there’s little regulation, there are [Keep reading]

They’re finding dead bodies outside scam call centers; it’s time to sound the alarm on fraud

June 3, 2024 Bob Sullivan 0

“The cartel just very quickly, easily, and efficiently made an example of them by leaving their body parts in 48 bags outside of the city….They’re good at making high profile, gruesome examples of those who would defy them.” I’ve spent many years writing about Internet crime, so I don’t spook [Keep reading]

As job scams soar, a new set of victims emerges — small businesses

April 26, 2024 Bob Sullivan 0

Imagine getting a flurry of emails and calls from angry people claiming you’ve stolen their money — by promising them a job that doesn’t exist. And you have no idea who they are, or why they are calling. Work-from-home scams aren’t new, but I’ve seen enough data points lately that [Keep reading]

Scam victim put gold bars into stranger’s car; 1 in 10 a victim in the past year

April 3, 2024 Bob Sullivan 0

Maybe you heard recently about a personal finance reporter, Charlotte Cowles, who was the victim of a scam and wrote about it for her employer, The Cut. The headline for the story was dramatic: “The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger.” In [Keep reading]

Veterans targeted by scams need our help; be their ‘battle buddy’

March 12, 2024 Bob Sullivan 0

Imagine spending years driving a Humvee around a war zone at 5 mph, using only your eyes in a valiant attempt to spot homemade roadside bombs…risking your life minute by agonizing minute to save the lives of your fellow soldiers…only to come home and find you are targeted by criminals [Keep reading]

Why Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal made social media imposter problem harder to fix

December 18, 2023 Bob Sullivan 0

Kevin Long: My job could be done in a nanosecond with a computer program that we had in place before, and just because of the way that they’ve changed their rules after the Cambridge Analytica Scandal … all the networks readjusted their access point for the data. And it … [Keep reading]

Famous NatGeo wildlife photographer sick of social media imposter scams; pleads for help from Big Tech

December 11, 2023 Bob Sullivan 0

Paul Nicklen is a world-famous wildlife photographer. He’s won pretty much every major award shooting polar bears, leopard seals, and other rare animals in some of the world’s coldest, most menacing climates for National Geographic. Naturally, he has a massive following on social media, particularly on Instagram where you can [Keep reading]

Follow human trafficking victim’s efforts to escape a scam compound

November 14, 2023 Bob Sullivan 0

Troy: They have a quota of a certain amount of money that they have to steal or obtain. And oftentimes those quotas are very, very high, like nearly impossible. And so they get either beaten, shocked with these uh electric shock sticks or cattle prods. If it’s really bad they [Keep reading]

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