In this edition: inside a cyberscam compound, behind bars but ahead of the times, up into the beyond, away from home, and under the night sky.
Andy Greenberg
Posted inEditor's Pick
He Leaked the Secrets of a Southeast Asian Scam Compound. Then He Had to Get Out Alive.
“A source trapped inside an industrial-scale scamming operation contacted me, determined to expose his captors’ crimes—and then escape. This is his story.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Epic Rise and Fall of a Dark-Web Psychedelics Kingpin
“Interdimensional travel, sex with aliens, communion with God. Anything is possible with just a sprinkle of DMT. Akasha Song’s secret labs made millions of doses—and dollars—until the feds showed up.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Untold Story of a Crypto Crimefighter’s Descent Into Nigerian Prison
“As a US federal agent, Tigran Gambaryan pioneered modern crypto investigations. Then at Binance, he got trapped between the world’s biggest crypto exchange and a government determined to make it pay.”
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we have stories from David Roth, Dhruv Mehrotra and Andy Greenberg, Thomas Dai, Cameron Maynard, and Katherine Rundell.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The School Shootings Were Fake. The Terror Was Real
“The inside story of the teenager whose ‘swatting’ calls sent armed police racing into hundreds of schools nationwide—and the private detective who tracked him down.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Millions of Vehicles Could Be Hacked and Tracked Thanks to a Simple Website Bug
“Researchers found a flaw in a Kia web portal that let them track millions of cars, unlock doors, and start engines at will—the latest in a plague of web bugs that’s affected a dozen carmakers.”
Posted inQuotes
How a Hacker Named P4x Took Down North Korea’s Internet
North Korea hacked him. Things got personal.
Posted inNonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Franklin Foer, Andy Greenberg, Jerry Saltz, Sara Selevitch, and Kyle Buchanan.
Posted inBusiness & Tech, Crime, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
The ‘Accidental Hero’ Who Saved the Internet from WannaCry
“That’s when her son came upstairs and told her, a little uncertainly, that he seemed to have stopped the worst malware attack the world had ever seen.”