Imagine driving down the road and your phone loses signal. Not just a lost signal, but it starts displaying SOS. Meaning no service configured at all. You can't make any calls, no data, no service. What goes through your head?

In this episode we hear from Ricky Handschumacher who learned how to slip inside a stranger’s phone, and would rummage through it looking for things he thought were valuable.

We also hear a story from Mark Kreitzman who started Efani because of people like Ricky.

Sponsors

Support for this show comes from DeleteMe. DeleteMe is a hands-free subscription service that will remove your personal information that’s being sold online to data brokers. Our mission is to provide everyone with the power to control their digital identity. We empower individuals and organizations to reclaim their privacy by removing personal data from online sources. For 20% off our privacy plans, please visit JoinDeleteMe.com/DarknetDiaries and use code: “darknet” at checkout.

This show is brought to you by Doppel. Doppel stops AI attacks with digital risk protection, human risk management, and email security on a unified social engineering defense platform. doppel.com

Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker. ThreatLocker is a Zero Trust Platform that gives organizations control over what can run and what users and devices can access. It combines prevention with real time detection and automated response, helping security teams stop unauthorized activity and quickly contain compromised machines. Learn how ThreatLocker can strengthen your defenses at threatlocker.com/Darknet.

View all active sponsors.

Sources

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7yLKVnQcNg&t=7s
• https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/getting-cheated-in-a-videogame-led-him-to-a-world-of-online-crime-874392e7
• https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/118/
• https://whatismyipaddress.com/mobile-security-sim-swapping

💾

The word Conti struck fear in IT departments across the world. It's a type of ransomware that you hope to never come across. Like most ransomware gangs, the Conti group fell apart. But what's special about this story is how it fell apart. Because it fell apart in a very public, messy, scandalous way. Featuring investigative journalist Geoff White and cyber threat researcher Alex Holden.

Sponsors

This show is brought to you by Doppel. Doppel stops AI attacks with digital risk protection, human risk management, and email security on a unified social engineering defense platform. doppel.com

This show is sponsored by Maze. Maze uses AI agents to triage and remediate cloud vulnerabilities by figuring out what’s actually exploitable, not just what’s theoretically risky. They remove the noise, prioritize vulns that matter, and manage remediation, so your team stops wasting time on meaningless vulns. Visit MazeHQ.com/darknet for more information.

Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker. ThreatLocker is a Zero Trust Platform that gives organizations control over what can run and what users and devices can access. It combines prevention with real time detection and automated response, helping security teams stop unauthorized activity and quickly contain compromised machines. Learn how ThreatLocker can strengthen your defenses at threatlocker.com/Darknet.

View all active sponsors.

Sources

Full list of sources on the show page: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/180/

💾

After 8 years, LOW is finally here. A story about the weight of being and the wreckage of waking up. Five episodes. Five descents. LOW is an audio journey into the unlit corners of human experience. Choices we made in the dark, the silences we carry, and what remains when we stop running from ourselves.

LOW a new Limited Series from the Jack Rhysider is now available for everyone to hear, where ever you get your podcasts.

💾

In this episode we follow up with Gabby and Justin from Episode 59 - two seasoned penetration testers who tell us a story about the time when they tried to break into a courthouse but it went all wrong, and what happened in the aftermath.

Sponsors

This show is brought to you by Doppel. Doppel stops AI attacks with digital risk protection, human risk management, and email security on a unified social engineering defense platform.
doppel.com

This show is brought to you by Sinch. Sinch is the cloud communications platform businesses build on to send SMS, make calls, and verify identity at scale — including the one-time codes and two-factor prompts that stand between an account and whoever's trying to get into it. Learn more at https://s.sinch.com/4xc8dnz

Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker. ThreatLocker is a Zero Trust Platform that gives organizations control over what can run and what users and devices can access. It combines prevention with real time detection and automated response, helping security teams stop unauthorized activity and quickly contain compromised machines. Learn how ThreatLocker can strengthen your defenses at threatlocker.com/Darknet.

View all active sponsors.

Sources

Full list of sources on the show page: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/179/

💾

Tomáš Jiříkovský, a primary defendant in a major Czech cryptocurrency-laundering investigation, has signaled for the first time that he may cooperate with authorities. Following a custody hearing, a court ruled that Jiříkovský must remain in detention due to flight risks and concerns that he retains control over undisclosed crypto assets. Current Status: Extended Detention The […]

After 8 years, LOW is finally here. A story about the weight of being and the wreckage of waking up. Five episodes. Five descents. LOW is an audio journey into the unlit corners of human experience. Choices we made in the dark, the silences we carry, and what remains when we stop running from ourselves.

LOW a new Limited Series from the Jack Rhysider will be releasing to the public for free soon, but you can hear it now as a Darknet Diaries Plus subscriber. Go to plus.darknetdiaries.com and subscribe for access to all five episodes of LOW along with twelve bonus episodes of Darknet Diaries and every episode ad-free.

💾

Nickolas Sharp worked for Ubiquiti, a company that makes networking equipment. He noticed that there were some security problems at work. He tried to point them out, but didn't feel like he was being listened to enough. What do you do when the company you work for isn't securing their software up to your standards? Well, he thought he needed to teach them a lesson, but in the end, he learned an even bigger lesson.

Sponsors

This show is brought to you by Drata. Drata is the trust management platform that uses AI-driven automation to modernize governance, risk, and compliance, helping thousands of businesses stay audit-ready and scale securely. Learn more at drata.com/darknetdiaries.

This show is sponsored by Material Security. Your cloud office (think Google Workspace or Microsoft 365) is the core of your business, but it’s often protected by scattered tools and manual fixes. Material is a purpose-built detection and response platform that closes the gaps those point solutions leave behind. From email threats to misconfigurations and account takeovers, Material monitors everything and steps in with real-time fixes to keep your data flowing where it should. Learn more at https://material.security.

Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker. ThreatLocker is a Zero Trust Platform that gives organizations control over what can run and what users and devices can access. It combines prevention with real time detection and automated response, helping security teams stop unauthorized activity and quickly contain compromised machines. Learn how ThreatLocker can strengthen your defenses at threatlocker.com/Darknet.

View all active sponsors.

Sources

Full list of sources on the show page: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/178/

💾

This is the story of the hacker known as "USDoD". When he was young he had a vengeance on the US, and this lead him down a road of continual data breaches, until he hacked into National Public Data, which is when his spree went one step too far.

Sponsors

Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker. ThreatLocker is a Zero Trust Platform that gives organizations control over what can run and what users and devices can access. It combines prevention with real time detection and automated response, helping security teams stop unauthorized activity and quickly contain compromised machines. Learn how ThreatLocker can strengthen your defenses at threatlocker.com/Darknet.

This show is sponsored by Maze. Maze uses AI agents to triage and remediate cloud vulnerabilities by figuring out what’s actually exploitable, not just what’s theoretically risky. They remove the noise, prioritize vulns that matter, and manage remediation, so your team stops wasting time on meaningless vulns. Visit MazeHQ.com/darknet for more information.

This show is sponsored by Sentry.IO. Sentry wants to help you monitor your environment for problems. They do error tracking, stack tracing, debugging, all so that your developers can diagnose, fix, and optimize the performance of their code. This makes it so developers ship more reliable code faster. Learn more at sentry.io.

View all active sponsors.

Sources

Full list of sources on the show page: https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/177/

💾

One day Nick got a visit from the FBI demanding he give them data on one of his customers. They asked for it in the form of a National Security Letter or NSL. Something wasn’t right about this letter. It seemed to violate the constitution. So he set out to change the law.

Learn more about Nicks work at calyxinstitute.org and phreeli.com.

Check out Cindy’s book Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance (https://amzn.to/4gXuK2J).

Sponsors

Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker®. ThreatLocker® is a Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform that strengthens your infrastructure from the ground up. With ThreatLocker® Allowlisting and Ringfencing™, you gain a more secure approach to blocking exploits of known and unknown vulnerabilities. ThreatLocker® provides Zero Trust control at the kernel level that enables you to allow everything you need and block everything else, including ransomware! Learn more at www.threatlocker.com.

Support for this episode comes from NetSuite. NetSuite gives you visibility and control of your financials, planning, budgeting, and of course - inventory - so you can manage risk, get reliable forecasts, and improve margins. NetSuite helps you identify rising costs, automate your manual business processes, and see where to save money. KNOW your numbers. KNOW your business. And get to KNOW how NetSuite can be the source of truth for your entire company. Visit www.netsuite.com/darknet to learn more.

This show is sponsored by Maze. Maze uses AI agents to triage and remediate cloud vulnerabilities by figuring out what’s actually exploitable, not just what’s theoretically risky. They remove the noise, prioritize vulns that matter, and manage remediation, so your team stops wasting time on meaningless vulns. Visit MazeHQ.com/darknet for more information.

View all active sponsors.

Sources

• https://www.democracynow.org/2010/8/11/gagged_for_6_years_nick_merrill
• https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/cases/u-s-nicholas-merrill-v-loretta-e-lynch-14-cv-9763-vm/
• https://clearinghouse.net/case/12966/
• https://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/dec/06/fbi-national-security-letter-gag-order-nick-merrill
• https://www.aclu.org/documents/national-security-letters
• https://www.eff.org/cases/re-matter-2011-national-security-letter
• Cindy’s Book: Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance

💾