Podcast Episodes

How ads weirdly know your screen brightness, headphone jack use, and location, with Tim Shott

Season 6 Episode 5

Something’s not right in the world of location data.

In January, a location data broker named Gravy Analytics was hacked, with the alleged cybercriminal behind the attack posting an enormous amount of…

Published on 9 months ago

Surveillance pricing is "evil and sinister," explains Justin Kloczko

Season 6 Episode 4

Insurance pricing in America makes a lot of sense so long as you’re one of the insurance companies. Drivers are charged more for traveling long distances, having low credit, owning a two-seater inste…

Published on 9 months, 3 weeks ago

A suicide reveals the lonely side of AI chatbots, with Courtney Brown

Season 6 Episode 3

In February 2024, a 14-year-old boy from Orlando, Florida, committed suicide after confessing his love to the one figure who absorbed nearly all of his time—an AI chatbot.

For months, Sewell Seltzer I…

Published on 10 months ago

Three privacy rules for 2025

Season 6 Episode 2

It’s Data Privacy Week right now, and that means, for the most part, that you’re going to see a lot of well-intentioned but clumsy information online about how to protect your data privacy. You’ll se…

Published on 10 months, 2 weeks ago

The new rules for AI and encrypted messaging, with Mallory Knodel

Season 6 Episode 1

The era of artificial intelligence everything is here, and with it, come everyday surprises into exactly where the next AI tools might pop up.

There are major corporations pushing customer support fun…

Published on 11 months ago

Is nowhere safe from AI slop?

Season 5 Episode 27

You can see it on X. You can see on Instagram. It’s flooding community pages on Facebook and filling up channels on YouTube. It’s called “AI slop” and it’s the fastest, laziest way to drive engagemen…

Published on 11 months, 2 weeks ago

A day in the life of a privacy pro, with Ron de Jesus

Season 5 Episode 26

Privacy is many things for many people.

For the teenager suffering from a bad breakup, privacy is the ability to stop sharing her location and to block her ex on social media. For the political dissid…

Published on 1 year ago

These cars want to know about your sex life (re-air)

Season 5 Episode 25

Two weeks ago, the Lock and Code podcast shared three stories about home products that requested, collected, or exposed sensitive data online.

There were the air fryers that asked users to record audi…

Published on 1 year ago

An air fryer, a ring, and a vacuum get brought into a home. What they take out is your data

Season 5 Episode 24

The month, a consumer rights group out of the UK posed a question to the public that they’d likely never considered: Were their air fryers spying on them?

By analyzing the associated Android apps for …

Published on 1 year ago

Why your vote can’t be “hacked,” with Cait Conley of CISA

Season 5 Episode 23

The US presidential election is upon the American public, and with it come fears of “election interference.”

But “election interference” is a broad term. It can mean the now-regular and expected forei…

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago