What It’s Like to DM With Russian Hackers

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In this episode, April Glaser is joined once again by co-host Siva Vaidhyanathan, director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. They start by talking about the Sri Lankan government’s shutdown of Facebook and WhatsApp after the Easter attacks on churches and hotels.

Then, they talk to Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, a staff writer for Motherboard and producer for CYBER, a Motherboard podcast about hacking. In their conversation, Franceschi-Bicchierai talks about the time he corresponded directly with hackers who infiltrated the servers of the Democratic National Committee. Those hackers initially tried to pass themselves off as a lone Romanian hacker named Guccifer 2.0.

Then, Slate writer Rachelle Hampton joins the show to talk about her cover story, “The Black Feminists Who Saw the Alt-Right Threat Coming.”

Don’t Close My Tabs:

“The Black Feminists Who Saw the Alt-Right Threat Coming”

Podcast production by Cameron Drews.

You can follow and April @Aprilaser and Siva @sivavaid. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.

If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

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