Wizard Spider

The REKK Wreck

Heads up if there's more cat meows and talking over each other than we normally let fly, this is a summer episode with less editing than you've ever heard! We kick this one off with a story of a fraud ran from a telegram channel and a scheme to use something very mundane to steal millions; refunds. We discuss REKK and the rise of refunding, human-oid objects, Mythos, and several other strange tech tales. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

The Bad "Bet"

Or the very good bet, depending on how you think about it. In this episode, we start by discussing the strange, fast-moving world of prediction markets — platforms where you can bet real money on whether a head of state gets removed from power, whether a country gets invaded, whether the Fed raises rates — and where the prices themselves are supposed to be the point, a real-time probability signal generated by the crowd. Then we get to the case that just blew a very large hole in that theory: a Polymarket account called "Burdensome-Mix" that turned $33,000 into $409,881 in about a week, betting on the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — and the active-duty Green Beret who allegedly made those trades while participating in the raid that made them pay out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Wizard Spider

Investigative journalist Geoff White has spent a lot of time inside the leaked communications of Conti — the Russian ransomware gang that ran like a corporation, hit Ireland's national health service, extorted the Costa Rican government, and pulled in $180 million in a single year. Geoff joins us to break down how Conti operated, the internal moral debate over hitting hospitals, the jewellery heist that spooked them into apologizing to Saudi royals, and how he tracked down rare video of the gang's elusive alleged boss, a man almost nobody had ever seen. It's a preview of his new BBC series Cyber Hack, dropping June 1st. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

REvil Redux

We return to one of the more interesting ransomware as a service stories of the last few years; the story of REvil and it's recently (allegedly) named operator. Also the big mythical thing that happened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]

Birds of a Feather Panopticon Together

Heads up, the guy in the opening story survives — realized in editing it's kind of stressful if you don't know where that's going. In this chat episode we start with a coin toss on which story to start with, which leads us on an adventure into the world of America's favourite private security camera network, Flock, searchable by law enforcement without a warrant. Cool stuff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices [https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices]