logo
episode-header-image
Dec 2021
12m 2s

Inside the massive (and unregulated) wor...

TED Tech
About this episode
What is a weapon in the Information Age? From microscopic "smart dust" tracking devices to DNA-tracing tech and advanced facial recognition software, journalist Sharon Weinberger leads a hair-raising tour through the global, unregulated bazaar of privatized mass surveillance. To rein in this growing, multibillion-dollar marketplace that often caters to customers with nefarious intents, Weinberger believes the first step is for governments to classify surveillance tools as dangerous and powerful weapons.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Yesterday
How Texas became America’s biggest producer of wind energy
This is the surprising story of how Texas – rich in oil and gas – became America's biggest producer of wind energy. For our first episode, Ryan and Anjali talk with Pat Wood, once George W. Bush’s right hand man and head of Texas's Public Utility Commission, to uncover the innova ... Show More
26m 59s
Oct 3
Inside a dark web kill list | Carl Miller
Who pays for an assassin on the internet? Dark web researcher Carl Miller spent years tracking down the answer to this question. In this chilling talk, he shares how he uncovered real kill orders placed online by seemingly ordinary individuals — and gives an unsettling look at wh ... Show More
16m 25s
Sep 26
Interview: The plant-based coating that is eliminating food spoilage | Jenny Du
If food waste were a country, it’d be the third highest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions after China and the US, says Apeel Senior VP of Operations Jenny Du. Following her talk at TED2025, Du sits down for a conversation with host Sherrell Dorsey on how her lab is creating pla ... Show More
20m 51s
Recommended Episodes
Dec 2020
What is a weapon in the Information Age? | Sharon Weinberger
From microscopic "smart dust" tracking devices to DNA-tracing tech and advanced facial recognition software, journalist Sharon Weinberger leads a hair-raising tour through the global, unregulated bazaar of privatized mass surveillance. To reign in this growing, multibillion-dolla ... Show More
12m 2s
Jan 2021
Online manipulation on a global scale
Social media influence by governments and political parties is a growing threat to democracies according to the 2020 media manipulation survey from the Oxford Internet Institute. In the last year social media manipulation campaigns have been recorded in 81 countries, up from 70 c ... Show More
43m 49s
Apr 2020
NSO Employee Abused Phone Hacking Tech to Target a Love Interest
Back in 2013, between the many revelations on mass surveillance abuses by the NSA coming from the trove of Snowden leaks, Americans also learned agents at the signals intelligence agency were snooping on their love interests. Dubbed LOVEINT (a play on ‘Love-Intelligence,’ apparen ... Show More
28m 57s
Apr 2019
Twitter Beats and Grows, Google’s ‘Wing’ Gets Okay from FAA, Family Offices Take More Risk
Jitendra Waral, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Internet & Consumer Products Analyst and Selina Wang, Bloomberg News Global Technology Reporter, discuss Twitter topping first-quarter sales projections and reporting strong user growth, bolstered by changes to its social-media servic ... Show More
36m 32s
Oct 2017
Reaper looks like a criminal booter on the Chinese black market. BadRabbit shows some moves. Catch-All malicious Chrome extension. Android currency miners in Google Play. Indictments in Russia probe.
In today's podcast, we hear that the Reaper botnet is still quiet, and looking like a booter-for-hire. BadRabbit shows some odd stealth, and some interesting strategic selectivity. A malicious Chrome extension steals everything you put on a website. Currency miners on phones seem ... Show More
14m 40s
Jul 2019
GandCrab hoods may be back with new ransomware. Video-on issues. Broadcom-Symantec talks are off, for now. Treason or just business? Robo-calls. A decryptor for Ims0rry ransomware.
The retirement of GandCrab’s hoods may have been exaggerated. Video conferencing tools RingCentral and Zhumu may have picked up Zoom’s issues in the tech they licensed. Broadcom’s projected acquisition of Symantec is on hold, at least for now. One Silicon Valley executive calls a ... Show More
21m 29s
Sep 2023
Cyberespionage in East and Southeast Asia, for both intelligence collection and domestic security, Spyware tools tracked. Shifting cyber targets in Russia’s hybrid war. Securing the Super Bowl.
The Gelsemium APT is active against a Southeast Asian government. A multi-year campaign against Tibetan, Uighur, and Taiwanese targets. Stealth Falcon's new backdoor. Predator spyware is deployed against Apple zero-days. An update on Pegasus spyware found in Meduza devices. There ... Show More
30m 50s
Feb 2021
The War with Algorithms: Why Your Next Security Strategy Includes A.I. and Machine Learning
The image of a hooded individual illuminated by the glare of a computer screen hacking into a company’s network is the classic picture of what a cyber attack looks like. The reality, though, is these attackers are almost never a one-man band, but rather a sophisticated team armed ... Show More
40m 57s
Jul 2022
The profound tech consequences of Roe v Wade
Professor Gina Neff and Eva Blum-Dumontet investigate how individuals and tech companies should react to abortion becoming illegal in parts of the US. David Martin Ruiz from the Eurpoean consumer group BEUC explains what it calls Google's "fast track to surveillance" for its user ... Show More
22m 59s
Jul 2021
Analyzing the Impact of A.I. and Technology on Society and Cybersecurity
Technology is advancing at pace never seen before and the newest tech, applications and widgets are being widely adopted at an even quicker rate. Just look at A.I. and machine learning tools,which are now used to identify things once thought unimaginable — whether it's to figure ... Show More
49m 58s