Technology has changed the way countries wage war, and today, we look at an app in Afghanistan that wanted to change the way people on the ground experienced it.

New legislation is seeking to designate some ransomware attacks as acts of terror. Former FBI agent John Riggi talks about the proposal and how it might change the battle against ransomware gangs.

In a recent conversation on WAMU’s 1A news magazine, Click Here host Dina Temple-Raston discusses the latest developments in the case of former IRS investigator Tigran Gambaryan. He now works for the cryptocurrency exchange, Binance. Nigerian prosecutors have charged Gambaryan, a middle manager at the company, for what they say are his employer’s transgressions. He’s been held in Nigeria since February.

When cryptocurrency burst on the scene in 2008, it was touted as anonymous — a boon to cyber criminals all over the world. Then a few mathematicians and some federal agents proved otherwise, in a way so big it birthed an industry. With a tip of the hat to Andy Greenberg’s new book “Tracers in the Dark,” we talk to them about how they did it.

Six months after demonstrators took to the streets of Iran hoping to end its draconian hijab laws and push for a change in the leadership, the protests have moved online — into a quiet civil disobedience campaign that leadership is finding hard to control.

Drones of all shapes and sizes are part of the war effort in the skies above Ukraine. Some are helping kill the enemy; others spy on formations and guide bombs to their targets. We take you inside a school meant to boost that effort by training women to fly them. Plus, a leading dark web hacking forum meets its demise.

In a recent conversation on WAMU’s nationally syndicated show 1A, we talked about lessons learned one year into the world’s first truly hybrid war. The conversation happened amid a report from Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center that found new worrying signs on the Russia-Ukraine cyber front. They believe Sandworm, a cyber military unit of Russia’s intelligence service, has been launching new phishing campaigns, cyber espionage operations, and is stepping up coordination with hacktivists groups.

We follow up last week’s episode on spyware and the Mexican military with a look at Guacamaya, the hacktivist collective that helped provide key documents that showed the army purchased Pegasus spyware used on human rights advocates and local journalists. Guacamaya isn’t just targeting Mexico, though. The group has been hacking into military servers all over Latin America, and its efforts have people asking: ¿Quién es Guacamaya? (Who is Guacamaya?)

A new report has published classified documents and internal memos that make clear the Mexican Army bought Pegasus spyware and systematically deployed it against journalists and activists in Mexico. R3D, a Mexican digital rights group, and University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, also found evidence of a formerly unknown military intelligence unit whose sole focus appears to be secret surveillance and deployment of spyware. Some of the sensitive material published in the report came from a massive hack into the Ministry of Defense by the hacktivist group Guacamaya last year. Click Here was part of a small group of journalists given early access to their findings.

Russia has deployed the Iranian-built Shahed drone to wreak havoc on Ukraine’s infrastructure. We speak to a man who is a kind of drone whisperer. After years of taking these Shahed drones apart, he says if you listen, they have amazing stories to tell.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case that will consider a 1995 law that shields social media companies from liability. Gonzalez v. Google could allow people to sue tech companies that use algorithms to sort through their content. Plus, we check in with Alexander Martin, The Record's UK editor, about his takeaways from the Munich Security Conference.

In a special Valentine’s Day episode, we look at the evolution of romance scams. They aren’t just about bilking lonely people out of their life savings anymore – scammers have diversified, and they’re making victims accomplices in a roster of cyber crimes from email scams and check fraud to money laundering.

At a time when an errant spy balloon has raised new questions about President Xi Jinping’s absolute control over all things Chinese, we take a look at how his regime quelled last year’s Covid protests and how an arsenal of digital weapons helped tighten his grip on power. Plus, facial recognition’s latest nemesis: knitwear.

In an ancore episode of Click Here's Mic Drop, we speak with the leader of one of the most prolific ransomware-as-a-service gangs the world has ever known — LockBit. We spoke to him weeks after Operation Cronos, a global police action against the group.

“Shoot The Messenger” from Exile Content Studio and PRX looks at what happened to the murdered Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The first weapon used against him was digital - a sophisticated spyware called Pegasus.

This week, Axon, the company that developed the Taser, is hosting a conference in Las Vegas called TaserCon. The event is billed as an opportunity to talk about law enforcement and public safety. Axon is expected to use the occasion to reintroduce a controversial plan: to put the company’s gun-equipped drones in police departments and schools to prevent mass shootings. And, cybercriminals’ new best friend: ChatGPT.

After spending more than a year undercover with the notorious ransomware gang LockBit, one researcher explains how the group revolutionized the business of ransomware.

Genshin Impact put the Chinese video gaming industry on the map. While the game has delighted players, it begs the question: Can China’s Communist Party and a massively popular video game peacefully co-exist?

We take a deep dive into a corner of the cryptocurrency economy that hasn’t (completely) tanked yet: Bitcoin mining. It is part cryptography, part math, and part luck.

An episode from “Exile” from the Leo Baeck Institute and Antica Productions. At the height of his fame, a shirtless, barefooted Albert Einstein escapes the bustle of Berlin for a simpler life. The best thinkers of the time gather at his beloved summer house in Caputh to laze by the water, swap ideas, and gossip. There, he can escape the pressures of global fame, but his summer haven can’t keep him safe from the growing Nazi threat rising in Germany.

At a time when Vladimir Putin is attempting to redraw the Iron Curtain, we revisit an earlier episode in which we take a trip back to the Soviet Union circa 1985 when four American musicians smuggled messages in and out of the Soviet Union — with music.

Sharing a special episode of another podcast, The Last Archive, a show about the history of truth -- or the lack thereof. Harvard historian Jill Lepore uncovers the secrets of the past the way a detective might. In this episode, Jill chats with Anna Kijas, a co-organizer of SUCHO: Saving Ukrainian Cultural History Online. Lepore and Kijas talk about her effort to preserve online resources that are at risk of disappearing because of the war in Ukraine. You can hear more episodes of The Last Archive at https://link.chtbl.com/clickherearchive 

We go back to an episode we did earlier this year about a gang of SIM swappers who are behind something called violence-as-a-service. Doxing or defacing websites, they told us, just doesn’t send enough of a message. So, they are throwing molotov cocktails or slashing tires of their rivals instead. Trouble is – it is getting more popular and commonplace and is bound to affect the rest of us.

“Big Brother: North Korea's Forgotten Prince” from School of Humans and iHeartPodcasts introduce you to the person who should have been North Korea’s leader – had he not been on the receiving end of what may be the 21st century’s most bizarre assassination plot.

The hack on Change Healthcare left hundreds, if not thousands, of providers without the ability to obtain insurance approval or payment for everything from prescriptions to surgeries, and it shed new light on a part of the health care system that is often overlooked. Dan Weissmann, the host of An Arm and a Leg podcast, speaks with reporters Brittany Trang of STAT News and Maureen Tkacik of The American Prospect about the hack and what it is telling us about antitrust concerns in the health care industry.

North Korea has launched an unprecedented number of missiles this month. So we bring you an encore episode about a team of researchers using open-source intelligence to track the hermit kingdom's nuclear ambitions. Plus, the Yanluowang ransomware group finds itself the victim of a leak.

Washington and the tech world have been talking about public private partnerships in cyberspace for decades. The NSA and Cyber Command have intelligence about attacks; cybersecurity companies have the means to block them. It looks like they are finally working together — not in the U.S, but in Ukraine.

Vice Society burst on the ransomware scene in early 2021, attacking a roster of government offices, hospitals and, notoriously, schools. But cybersecurity experts say the group isn't your typical ransomware operation: they're some of cyber crime's biggest posers, using old exploits on easy targets to give the illusion of greatness.

Ben Adida is the executive director of a voting technology non-profit that provides software and operational support to states during elections. He’s embarked on an almost impossible missile: to restore faith in our election system. The way he proposes to do that? With open-source software that everyone can see.

Nohemi Gonzalez was killed in the 2015 ISIS attacks in Paris and now is at the heart of a Supreme Court case that will reconsider a 1995 law that shields social media companies from liability. Gonzalez v. Google could allow people to sue tech companies that use algorithms to sort through their content.

The head of NSA and Cybercom Gen. Paul Nakasone and CISA director Jen Easterly came to the Council on Foreign Relations last week for a rare sit-down interview. They talked about hunt teams in Ukraine, public-private partnerships and threats ahead of the midterms, with Click Here host Dina Temple-Raston presiding over the session. Plus, one researcher bests Charming Kitten.

The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in Iran has ignited the most powerful protests the country has seen in years. In addition to violence, authorities have responded with a host of new tools to throttle mobile phone connections, block social media sites, and make it harder for people to organize. Plus, Iran's diplomatic kerfuffle over a cyber attack in Albania.

As the wrangling continues over classified documents former President Trump took to his Florida home, we take a second look at the case of Reality Winner, the NSA contractor who served time in prison for passing a classified document to a reporter. We had a rare interview with her in February.

The town whose name has become synonymous with Russian atrocities in Ukraine is rushing to digitize information about the dead --- not just to identify them and give families closure --- but to hold Russians accountable for the wanton brutality in Bucha. Plus, scandal in the elite chess world.

Young people who have been making millions hacking mobile phones — known as SIM swappers — have found a new way to intimidate and harass their rivals. They call it “violence-as-a-service” or “IRL jobs,” and it includes a Telegram channel where they can order brickings, firebombings, and even shootings in the real world.

Chinese hackers are stepping up their game, according to Nigel Inkster, the former director of operations for Britain’s MI6. In an encore episode of Mic Drop, he says Chinese hackers are taking on a new swagger in cyberspace and borrowing things from a familiar playbook: a Russian one.

The talk of DEF CON 2022 was the handiwork of a white hat hacker named Sick Codes. On stage, he demonstrated how he broke the digital locks of a John Deere tractor. He did it with such ease, it made people start to wonder: just how hack-able is the world’s agriculture sector?

Hydra was a darknet superstore. It started out as an online illegal drug site and morphed into a billion-dollar business with codes of conduct, customer support, and legal and medical services. It had started offering money laundering services when German authorities finally shut it down in April. Now people are asking: who or what will replace it?

Back in April, cybersecurity officials discovered the notorious “Industroyer” malware in the Ukrainian electrical grid. It might have been the scariest infrastructure hack since malware destroyed centrifuges at an Iranian uranium enrichment plant in 2010 – were it not for a TGIF miracle. Plus, a visit with the IT Army of Ukraine and a different kind of information operation.

At a time when Vladimir Putin is attempting to redraw the Iron Curtain, we take a trip back to the Soviet Union circa 1985 when four American musicians smuggled messages in and out of the Soviet Union — with music. Plus, DefCon’s answer to those alien transmissions.

We first spoke with Russian business owner Stanislav back in early March, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Almost six months later, we check back in with him to see how he’s doing, and look at a new report that suggests the Russian economy is cratering. Plus, inside a massive breach affecting a police database in Shanghai. 

Thousands of satellites watch the world from above. We offer a mystery story about an infamous North Korean video, a team of very observant researchers, and a search for the truth.

Carine Kanimba’s father may be one of the most famous Rwandans on earth – Paul Rusesabagina. He was the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines, and he sheltered more than 1,200 Rwandans during the 1994 genocide. Now his daughter is at the center of a Capitol Hill inquiry into the proliferation of commercial spyware, a particular program called Pegasus, and the future of the company that created it.

An encore performance of one of our favorite episodes about LAPSUS$, a cyber extortion gang that convinced the world its low-tech hacking operations were really high-impact heists. Plus, we hear how two high school computer geeks almost brought down IBM’s computer center in Manhattan.

Earlier this year, the CBC's Nothing is Foreign podcast reported on how El Salvador's promise of a cryptocurrency paradise runs up against reality.

An encore performance of one of our most popular episodes. Five years ago, a Mississippi woman named Latice Fisher was charged with murdering her stillborn child. The evidence against her: a controversial 400-year-old test and the search history on her cellphone.

In an encore episode, we report on a specific kind of cyber attack targeting big industrial systems that is coming back into fashion: it’s called a ‘living off the land’ attack. What makes it particularly scary is that unlike traditional attacks in which bad actors break into a system and plant malicious code, in living off the land attacks, there’s nothing to find — bad actors leverage what’s already in the network.

Last August, the Darknet Diaries host Jack Rhysider did a story about the NSO Group’s most famous product — Pegasus — a surveillance program which has the ability to turn just about anyone’s phone into a pocket spy.

The Conti ransomware group appeared to be on ropes earlier this year when its internal chat logs went public –revealing the inner workings of a hacking cartel. Then, the gang surprised everyone by launching a cyber attack against Costa Rica aimed at overthrowing its government. Plus, what happens when a company actually wants to talk about being the target of a ransomware attack - how much will they say?

For years, North Korea was known for making such a perfect counterfeit hundred-dollar note, the Treasury Department had to change how it printed them. Now, North Korea is all about crypto – and it has been cooking up all kinds of crazy schemes in order to get the Big Score. Plus, we hear from a two-time North Korean defector.