DEF CON began as a rogue hacker meetup. Then came the prosecutors, the NSA, and the policy panels. This week on Click Here’s Mic Drop, how a game of "Spot the Fed" turned into an uneasy alliance—and what that says about crime, power, and trust in the digital age.

It started as a going-away party… and became the most legendary hacker conference in the world. This week, Jeff Moss—aka The Dark Tangent—tells us how DEF CON began, what it became, and why it still matters.

Australia wants to keep kids off social media. But to do that, it may have to crack open everyone’s digital ID. Privacy advocates say this isn’t just about protecting children– it is about rewriting the social contract for the rest of us.

An episode from "Arachnid: Hunting the web’s darkest secrets" from TVO Podcasts, the Investigative Journalism Bureau, The Toronto Star, and Piz Gloria Productions:

The images are out there—millions of them. Each one a crime scene, each one a permanent scar. But while the Internet forgets nothing, a group of survivors and digital sleuths are trying to change that. They’re challenging the world’s biggest tech platforms to stop looking the other way—and start deleting the evidence.

Dr. Stephen Xenakis has spent years treating veterans and pushing the bounds of psychiatry. Now, he’s asking if artificial intelligence could become a kind of digital therapist for veterans struggling with mental health. We return to our interview from earlier this year. 

What do you get when you cross a marine biologist with a machine learning engineer? Someone who is convinced that humpback whales may have something to say—and that artificial intelligence might be the tool to decode it. This week, we return to a story about interspecies communication, where tech meets tails and signals meet song.

Billionaire Frank McCourt wants to buy TikTok. Not to go viral—but to rewire the web. He says 170 million users could help him turn the Internet into something less addictive… and more democratic. Is that idealism, delusion… or both? As President Trump extends the deadline on the sale of the app, we return to our discussion with Frank McCourt.

An episode from "Understood: Who Broke the Internet" from CBC podcasts:

We were promised a digital utopia. What we got was a pay-to-play hellscape of pop-ups, bots, and algorithmic sludge. Writer and internet contrarian Cory Doctorow charts the internet’s slow descent—from open commons to corporate enclosure—and lays out a path to take it back.

Listen to the full series:

https://link.mgln.ai/ClickHere

In Russia, military families are cashing in on a wartime housing surge. Defense budgets are ballooning, property values are rising… and beneath it all, a troubling question: what happens when the war economy becomes just… the economy?

Before the war, Serhii Zenin played Metallica and joked with listeners on Ukraine’s Radio ROKS. Now he wears fatigues. And the station? It's still playing heavy metal—but now it’s also broadcasting news, coordinating aid, and holding the line in its own way. We return to a story where the frontlines and the airwaves meet.