Today we’re sharing an episode of The Hustle Daily Show — a daily dose of irreverent, offbeat, and informative takes on business & tech news. In this episode, they take a look at how getting stuff for “free” affects consumer behavior. Why do we care so much when a crummy t-shirt gets shot out of a cannon at a sporting event? It's all about the power of "free," a price point that makes us feel high and act so irrationally that we forget that even free stuff comes with a cost. And to really get at the heart of the story here, Hustle writers Zachary Crockett and Mark Dent focus on 3 wildly ..read more

In America the trains never seem to run on time. On February 3, a train crashed in East Palestine, Ohio releasing toxic chemicals into the air. Almost a month later, another train owned by the same company also derailed in Ohio. That’s not all. Trains in Charlotte are running slower than they should. NYC can’t fit trains into its new station. The list goes on and on. What the hell is going on with mass transit in America? If you’re a long time Cyber listener, you might already know some of the answers to this question. That’s thanks to returning champion, Motherboard senior writer Aaron Gord ..read more

Collapse. It’s the word on everybody’s lips. Silicon Valley Bank and Signature are no more. The banks, folks, they’ve collapsed. But don’t worry, these aren’t your typical banks. SVB and Signature were not the kinds of places working class folks were holding checking accounts. These were massive institutions that propped up America’s ailing tech sector. If you’ve been hustled by an NFT startup in the past year, there’s a good chance it had deposits at SVB. But now they’re gone and, after some panic, it looks like America’s blessed institutions are working as intended. The Federal Deposit Insu ..read more

It’s Cipher time, baby. It’s that infrequent style of Cyber we do where we decipher Motherboard’s tech coverage in a potpourri for the panopticon age.  On today’s episode we’ve got a little bit of everything. A popular hiking app reveals that, once again, we just can’t trust private companies with our data. But what about our passwords? Surely a company that bills itself as a secure way to remember all those logins is secure right? Nope! Also, Twitter ditches Tor and, just for fun, another wonderful story about cheating in online video games. Motherboard’s own Joseph Cox is here to walk ..read more

On February 4, 2023, an F-22 fighter jet committed the first air to air kill in the weapons history. It was an alleged Chinese spy balloon near Myrtle Beach. In the days that followed the F-22 would score another kill, this time against a mysterious floating object above the Yukon. But this second object hadn’t come from China. Hobbyists, in fact, think it might be one of their balloons. Across the world there is a small but dedicated group of people who love launching tiny balloons into the sky. It’s been a weird month for the community. What with the fighter jets patrolling the sky and con ..read more

YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are awash in people reacting to horrifying videos. 2 girls 1 cup, Tubgirl, Goatse, and websites like Ogrish.com shaped the modern internet. Appropriating and sharing these horrifying images and videos was a big part of what people did during the early days of the web. But why? And how do these shocking viral sensations translate onto the modern and sanitized web? This week on Cyber, Blake Hester stops by to walk us through it all. Stories discussed in this episode: How Shock Sites Shaped the Internet We’re recording CYBER live on Twitch and YouTube. Watch liv ..read more

Banks in the U.S. and Europe tout voice ID as a secure way to log into your account. We proved it's possible to trick such systems with free or cheap AI-generated voices. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

AI has made the voice of Emma Watson say some very strange things, and 4Chan is to blame. But trolls playing with new machine-learning tools aren’t the only villain in this story. Actors are being asked to sign away the rights to their own voice for the purposes of AI reconstruction. Also on today’s episode: Dutch police have been reading encrypted messages; some politicians in the UK want to ban encrypted phones; Apple is looking to roll out a new form of end-to-end encryption; and a police contractor that promised to track homeless people has been hacked. Cypher. We’re bringing it back. Fo ..read more

What if you could watch new episodes of your favorite shows, forever? That’s one of the promises of artificial intelligence. On Twitch, the show Nothing, Forever pumped out episode after episode of content that was kind of like an episode of Seinfeld. Larry Feinberg told jokes, lived in NYC, and cavorted around with a crazy cast of characters. The show drew a lot of attention. And then Larry told a transphobic joke during an interstitial standup bit and the show was banned. On this episode of Cyber, Motherboard editor-in-chief Jason Koebler stops by to relay the saga of Nothing, Forever. S ..read more

What would you give to live forever? Hell, what would you give to have the body of an 18-year-old well into your 40s? That’s the goal of tech CEO Bryan Johnnson. He is, by his own estimation, the most measured man on the planet. He takes 112 to 130 pills a day. He eats a restrictive diet. He has automated his body. It’s an expensive process. And one that robbed him of what many of us would see as the simple joys of life. Drinks with a friend. Late night pizza. A little sugar in your bowl. Motherboard Senior Editor Maxwell Strachan just spent some time with Johnson and he’s here today on Cyber ..read more