PODCAST · technology
Lock and Code
by Malwarebytes
Lock and Code tells the human stories within cybersecurity, privacy, and technology. Rogue robot vacuums, hacked farm tractors, and catastrophic software vulnerabilities—it’s all here.
Episodes
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A sextortion conspiracy killed his son (feat. John DeMay)
At just 17 years old, Jordan DeMay was murdered by strangers online. That’s how Jordan’s father, John DeMay, described what happened to his son four years ago. At home in Michigan, Jordan was readying for a weekend trip when he received a friend request on Instagram. The invite was sent by a user...
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A true tale of virtual kidnapping (re-air)
On Thursday, December 28, 2023, at 8:30 pm in the Utah town of Riverdale, the city police began investigating what they believed was a kidnapping. 17-year-old foreign exchange student Kai Zhuang was missing, and according to Riverdale Police Chief Casey Warren, Zhuang was believed to be…
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The AI plot to scan and destroy books (feat. Emanuel Maiberg)
If you want AI to tell you a story, it will. If you want that story to sound like one of your favorite authors, it can. And if you’re one of the authors that AI can imitate, you might be a little upset at what feels like theft. In 2024, the authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace...
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Loyalty points fraud is funding hacker holidays (feat. Kim Sutherland)
Crooks are taking a holiday. They’re counting on you to fund it. For decades, cybercriminals have stolen roughly the same types of data. Biographical and personal details—like Social Security numbers, birthdates, addresses, and phone numbers—can be stolen to commit identity fraud. Credit card...
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What happens to your data when you die? (feat. Tamara Kneese)
You will die. Your data will not. The afterlife of our information is a recent phenomenon, and some of the companies with the most to sort through are still just figuring it out. As far back as 2007, Facebook was forced to reckon with mass grief when users asked the company to maintain the…
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How to fake a data trail (and maybe lower prices) (feat. Chris Parr)
It may sound entirely bizarre but the prices you once paid for hotels, educational classes, or staplers could have all been higher because you used a Mac computer, lived in a certain zip code, or lacked an Office Depot in your neighborhood. No, really. In 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported…
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What's your data worth on the dark web?
Twenty years ago, a British mathematician named Clive Humby popularized a phrase that came to describe data’s relationship with the entire global economy: “Data is the new oil.” Pithy as the phrase sounds, it is undeniably true. Data steers decisions at businesses of every size. Data created...
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Trusting your kids online isn't enough
There is a lot going on right now regarding the safety of kids online. In the United States, the majority of state legislatures have passed age verification laws requiring a variety of websites to more rigorously verify the age of their visitors. In the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, Spain, and...
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This pay gap is programmed (feat. Veena Dubal)
Pay is personal for plenty of Americans, but a new distribution model that consumes vast quantities of worker data is turning pay into something else: personalized. For an increasing number of workers in America, the money they can expect to be paid on any given day, week, or month is unknown to...
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Deepfake porn sites are going offline (re-air) (feat. David Chiu)
If you weren’t taking deepfakes seriously before, it’s too late now to ignore them. According to new research from Malwarebytes, one in three people who use AI every day said it’s okay to generate pornography of people without their consent. Nearly 10 years ago, “deepfake” technology provided...
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Payment apps are watching what you say (feat. Rainey Reitman)
In the United States today, you can have your bank account closed, your credit cards cancelled, and your online payments revoked for any number of crimes, like funding terrorism, engaging in money laundering, or violating sanctions. Sensible, right? Well, you can also face financial ruin for...
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AI is distorting the Holocaust (feat. Clara Mansfeld)
In May of last year, a warning about AI came from somewhere unexpected: The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Posting publicly on social media, the museum warned about a Facebook account using generative AI to create fake images of people who died in the Holocaust. The people in said images were...
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Cyberattacks are raising your prices (feat. Eva Velasquez)
Your prices could be going up because of a little something that one group has started calling the “cyber tax.” Not a “tax” in any regulatory sense of the word, this newly named “cyber tax” is instead a consequence of the growing number of cyberattacks on small businesses. According to the latest...
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Big Tech can stop scams. They just don’t (feat. Marti DeLiema)
A dreadful thing happens far too often whenever an older adult falls for a scam: They get blamed for it. Not the scammers who lied and cheated their victim out of money. Not law enforcement for failing to recover funds. Not even the Big Tech companies that could have the most important role in...
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Killer robots are here. Now what? (feat. Peter Asaro)
Big news: Lock and Code is nominated for a Webby Award! You can help us win the People’s Voice Award by voting here. --- We have to talk about killer robots. No, not the Terminator, and not some Boston Dynamics robot run amok. We have to talk instead about a technological reality that is very…
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This is all it takes to stop a train (feat. Rachel Swan)
Forget the runaway train thrillingly shot in Buster Keaton’s 1926 film “The General,” and never mind the charging locomotive rescued by actors Denzel Washington and Chris Pine in the 2010 film “Unstoppable,” as there’s a far more frequent (and far less heart-pounding) railcar drama happening…
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Won't you see my neighbor? (feat. Matt Guariglia)
On February 8, during the Super Bowl in the United States, countless owners of one of the most popular smart products today got a bit of a wakeup call: Their Ring doorbells could be used to see a whole lot more than they knew. In a commercial that was broadcast to one of most reliably enormous...
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What can't you say on TikTok?
A funny thing happened on TikTok last month, and its brought allegations of censorship, manipulation, and control. It was the week of January 22, and after a long legal battle, TikTok had finally—for the first time in its company history—moved its ownership to new, American stewards. But with the...
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Is your phone listening to you? (feat. Lena Cohen) (re-air)
In January, Google settled a lawsuit that pricked up a few ears: It agreed to pay $68 million to a wide array of people who sued the company together, alleging that Google’s voice-activated smart assistant had secretly recorded their conversations, which were then sent to advertisers to target…
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One privacy change for 2026
When you hear the words “data privacy,” what do you first imagine? Maybe you picture going into your social media apps and setting your profile and posts to private. Maybe you think about who you’ve shared your location with and deciding to revoke some of that access. Maybe you want to remove a…
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Enshittification is ruining everything online (feat. Cory Doctorow)
There’s a bizarre thing happening online right now where everything is getting worse. Your Google results have become so bad that you’ve likely typed what you’re looking for, plus the word “Reddit,” so you can find discussion from actual humans. If you didn’t take this route, you might get served...
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ALPRs are recording your daily drive (feat. Will Freeman)
There’s an entire surveillance network popping up across the United States that has likely already captured your information, all for the non-suspicion of driving a car. Automated License Plate Readers, or ALPRs, are AI-powered cameras that scan and store an image of every single vehicle that...
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Pig butchering is the next “humanitarian global crisis” (feat. Erin West)
This is the story of the world’s worst scam and how it is being used to fuel entire underground economies that have the power to rival nation-states across the globe. This is the story of “pig butchering.” “Pig butchering” is a violent term that is used to describe a growing type of online...
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Air fryer app caught asking for voice data (re-air)
It’s often said online that if a product is free, you’re the product, but what if that bargain was no longer true? What if, depending on the device you paid hard-earned money for, you still became a product yourself, to be measured, anonymized, collated, shared, or sold, often away from view? In...
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Your coworker is tired of AI "workslop" (feat. Dr. Kristina Rapuano)
Everything’s easier with AI… except having to correct it. In just the three years since OpenAI released ChatGPT, not only has onlife life changed at home—it’s also changed at work. Some of the biggest software companies today, like Microsoft and Google, are forwarding a vision of an AI-powered...
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Would you sext ChatGPT? (feat. Deb Donig)
In the final, cold winter months of the year, ChatGPT could be heating up. On October 14, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the “restrictions” that his company previously placed on their flagship product, ChatGPT, would be removed, allowing, perhaps, for “erotica” in the future. “We made ChatGPT...
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What does Google know about me?
Google is everywhere in our lives. It’s reach into our data extends just as far. After investigating how much data Facebook had collected about him in his nearly 20 years with the platform, Lock and Code host David Ruiz had similar questions about the other Big Tech platforms in his life, and…
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What's there to save about social media? (feat. Rabble)
“Connection” was the promise—and goal—of much of the early internet. No longer would people be separated from vital resources and news that was either too hard to reach or made simply inaccessible by governments. No longer would education be guarded behind walls both physical and paid. And no...
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Can you disappear online? (feat. Peter Dolanjski)
There’s more about you online than you know. The company Acxiom, for example, has probably determined whether you’re a heavy drinker, or if you’re overweight, or if you smoke (or all three). The same company has also probably estimated—to the exact dollar—the amount you spend every year on dining...
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This “insidious” police tech claims to predict crime (feat. Emily Galvin-Almanza)
In the late 2010s, a group of sheriffs out of Pasco County, Florida, believed they could predict crime. The Sheriff’s Department there had piloted a program called “Intelligence-Led Policing” and the program would allegedly analyze disparate points of data to identify would-be criminals. But in...
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How a scam hunter got scammed (feat. Julie-Anne Kearns)
If there’s one thing that scam hunter Julie-Anne Kearns wants everyone to know, it is that no one is immune from a scam. And she would know—she fell for one last year. For years now, Kearns has made a name for herself on TikTok as a scam awareness and education expert. Popular under the name...
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“The worst thing” for online rights: An age-restricted grey web (feat. Jason Kelley)
The internet is cracking apart. It’s exactly what some politicians want. In June, a Texas law that requires age verification on certain websites withstood a legal challenge brought all the way to the US Supreme Court. It could be a blueprint for how the internet will change very soon. The law,...
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How the FBI got everything it wanted (re-air, feat. Joseph Cox)
For decades, digital rights activists, technologists, and cybersecurity experts have worried about what would happen if the US government secretly broke into people’s encrypted communications. The weird thing, though, is that it's already happened—sort of. US intelligence agencies, including the...
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Is AI "healthy" to use?
“Health” isn’t the first feature that most anyone thinks about when trying out a new technology, but a recent spate of news is forcing the issue when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). In June, The New York Times reported on a group of ChatGPT users who believed the AI-powered chat tool…
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Corpse-eating selfies, and other ways to trick scammers (feat. Becky Holmes)
There’s a unique counter response to romance scammers. Her name is Becky Holmes. Holmes, an expert and author on romance scams, has spent years responding to nearly every romance scammer who lands a message in her inbox. She told one scammer pretending to be Brad Pitt that she needed immediate…
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The data on denying social media for kids (feat. Dr. Jean Twenge) (re-air)
Complex problems often assume complex solutions, but recent observations about increased levels of anxiety and depression, increased reports of loneliness, and lower rates of in-person friendships for teens and children in America today have led some school districts across the country to take...
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What does Facebook know about me?
There’s an easy way to find out what Facebook knows about you—you just have to ask. In 2020, the social media giant launched an online portal that allows all users to access their historical data and to request specific types of information for download across custom time frames. Want to know how...
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How Los Angeles banned smartphones in schools (feat. Nick Melvoin)
There’s a problem in class today, and the second largest school district in the United States is trying to solve it. After looking at the growing body of research that has associated increased smartphone and social media usage with increased levels of anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and...
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The AI chatbot cop squad is here (feat. Emanuel Maiberg and Jason Koebler)
“Heidi” is a 36-year-old, San Francisco-born, divorced activist who is lonely, outspoken, and active on social media. “Jason” is a shy, bilingual teenager whose parents immigrated from Ecuador who likes anime, gaming, comic books, and hiking. Neither of them is real. Both are supposed to fight...
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Did DOGE "breach" Americans' data? (feat. Sydney Saubestre)
If you don’t know about the newly created US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), there’s a strong chance they already know about you. Created on January 20 by US President Donald Trump through Executive Order, DOGE’s broad mandate is “modernizing Federal technology and software to…
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Is your phone listening to you? (feat. Lena Cohen)
It has probably happened to you before. You and a friend are talking—not texting, not DMing, not FaceTiming—but talking, physically face-to-face, about, say, an upcoming vacation, a new music festival, or a job offer you just got. And then, that same week, you start noticing some eerily specific...
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What Google Chrome knows about you, with Carey Parker
Google Chrome is, by far, the most popular web browser in the world. According to several metrics, Chrome accounts for anywhere between 52% and 66% of the current global market share for web browser use. At that higher estimate, that means that, if the 5.5 billion internet users around the world...
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How ads weirdly know your screen brightness, headphone jack use, and location, with Tim Shott
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 data online as proof. Though relatively unknown to most of the public, Gravy Analytics is big in...
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Surveillance pricing is "evil and sinister," explains Justin Kloczko
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 instead of a four, being on the receiving end of a car crash, and—increasingly—for any number of...
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A suicide reveals the lonely side of AI chatbots, with Courtney Brown
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 III had grown attached to an AI chatbot modeled after the famous “Game of Thrones” character...
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Three privacy rules for 2025
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 see articles about iPhone settings. You’ll hear acronyms for varying state laws. And you’ll probably...
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The new rules for AI and encrypted messaging, with Mallory Knodel
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 functions onto AI chatbots, Big Tech platforms offering AI image generation for social media posts,...
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Is nowhere safe from AI slop?
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 engagement. Like “click bait” before it (“You won’t believe what happens next,” reads the trickster...
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A day in the life of a privacy pro, with Ron de Jesus
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 dissident advocating against an oppressive government, privacy is the protection that comes from…
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These cars want to know about your sex life (re-air)
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 audio through their smartphones. There was the smart ring maker that, even with privacy controls put...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Lock and Code tells the human stories within cybersecurity, privacy, and technology. Rogue robot vacuums, hacked farm tractors, and catastrophic software vulnerabilities—it’s all here.
HOSTED BY
Malwarebytes
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Lock and Code have?
Lock and Code currently has 171 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Lock and Code about?
Lock and Code tells the human stories within cybersecurity, privacy, and technology. Rogue robot vacuums, hacked farm tractors, and catastrophic software vulnerabilities—it’s all here.
How often does Lock and Code release new episodes?
Lock and Code publishes regularly with 171 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Lock and Code?
You can listen to Lock and Code on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Lock and Code?
Lock and Code is created and hosted by Malwarebytes.
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