Foundering

By the time he was 27, Hector Monsegur had become one of the most notorious hackers on the internet. With the vigilante group Anonymous and its offshoot LulzSec, he launched attacks against multibillion-dollar companies and governments around the world. But then he got caught. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Aki Ito and Brad Stone bring you his story in its entirety, in two episodes. Part 1 recounts Hector's childhood as he fell in love with the internet, and gradually descended into the world of cybercrime. Part 2 traces his complicated journey to rebuild his life.

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By the time he was 27, Hector Monsegur had become one of the most notorious hackers on the internet. With the vigilante group Anonymous and its offshoot LulzSec, he launched attacks against multibillion-dollar companies and governments around the world. But then he got caught. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Aki Ito and Brad Stone bring you his story in its entirety, in two episodes. Part 1 recounts Hector's childhood as he fell in love with the internet, and gradually descended into the world of cybercrime. Part 2 traces his complicated journey to rebuild his life.

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Decrypted returns on March 6 with a brand new season. Here's a sneak peek of what's in store. We'll be releasing new episodes every Tuesday starting next week. 

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This week, Brad and Aki have a special announcement: Decrypted will be on break for the next few weeks. The team's already hard at work on a bunch of new stories for 2018, and we promise they'll be worth the wait. In the meantime, happy holidays! We'll be back with weekly episodes in February. 

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Cryptocurrencies have exploded in 2017. But while prices are surging, transactions are facing long delays because the networks are flooded with traffic. This is the problem facing the Ethereum network, which, along with its digital currency ether, has quickly become the world's No. 2 cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. And one man, Vlad Zamfir, has a plan to fix it. This week, Bloomberg's Matthew Leising and Brad Stone speak to Zamfir about his big dreams for Ethereum and how his project (codenamed Casper) could pave the way for masses of ordinary internet users to join in the craze.

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From a young age, Cyrus Massoumi knew he wanted to become rich one day. In 2012, he figured out how: by creating an inflammatory, hyper-partisan news site that used Facebook to make its articles go viral. This week, Bloomberg Technology's Sarah Frier and Aki Ito talk to Cyrus about how MrConservative.com's success sparked a frenzy of other sites like it. Cyrus watched the phenomenon snowball—until one day he realized he had created a monster.

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When Francisco Riordan suspected his company of breaking the law last year, he secretly reached out to federal regulators. His actions helped set in motion events that left Rothenberg Ventures subject to a government investigation and multiple lawsuits -- and according to Francisco, cost him his own job. This week, we're re-broadcasting this May episode, in which Francisco first went public with his role as a whistleblower. At the end, you'll hear a recent conversation between Decrypted's Aki Ito and Francisco, who give us an update on his life. There's valuable advice here for people who are considering calling out their own employers for bad behavior.

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For a decade, Ken Sena has had a classic Wall Street job as an equity analyst, which means he researches companies to help investors decide which stocks to buy and sell. Last year, he met developer Bryan Healey, who helped build the AI assistant Alexa at Amazon. The two of them embarked on a curious challenge: to make a computerized version of Ken that can dole out its own stock recommendations. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Alistair Barr and Julie Verhage meet Ken and Bryan's creation. What does their breakthrough mean for the future of Ken's profession? And will we all soon be taking investment advice from robots? 

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A few months ago, Bloomberg Technology's Adam Satariano found an unflattering video of himself going viral on Instagram. Someone had filmed him riding the train, furiously typing on his phone. That discovery and his quest to get the video deleted got Adam thinking about the changing nature of online privacy. This week on Decrypted, we meet the man behind SubwayCreatures, the popular Instagram account that briefly featured the video of Adam. As internet companies face growing pressure to police more of what's on their platforms, Adam and Aki Ito ask: do we want these businesses to become the editors of our digital lives?

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Fake news, Russia and the U.S. election: It's been one of the biggest stories over the last year. Last week, it all came to a head as Congress summoned representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter to explain how Russia used their platforms to sway the minds of American voters. This week on Decrypted, Bloomberg Technology's Sarah Frier, Gerrit De Vynck and Joshua Brustein discuss how we got here and what consequences these tech giants could face as lawmakers prepare to take action.

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