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- 2 weeks ago34 min
Public Interest Technology: Making Sense of Security in an AI World
Notes: The conversation begins with his path into teaching public policy, despite never having planned a conventional academic career, and why translating technical subjects for non-technical students became rewarding work. He explains the importance of analogies and memorable language when communicating difficult concepts, noting that terms such as “security theatre” can help audiences quickly grasp complex ideas before deeper nuance is added. The original meaning of security theatre was intentionally critical, though he later came to recognize that symbolic security measures can sometimes provide reassurance and psychological value even when they do little to reduce objective risk. Effective cybersecurity often depends on economics, incentives, usability, and human behaviour, not simply technical controls. He reflects on the development of fields examining both the economics and psychology of security. The discussion examines AI-generated content, manipulated images, and why many current concerns about authenticity are extensions of older problems that existed throughout the history of photography and media. He warns that conversational AI systems can create parasocial relationships in which users relate to corporations as though they were trusted companions or advisers. On harmful technologies, he argues that regulation remains one of society’s most effective tools, comparing AI governance to safety regulation in aviation, pharmaceuticals, and food systems. He emphasizes the need for more “public interest technologists” capable of translating between engineering, policy, and social science perspectives. AI is likely to enhance both cyber offenders and defenders. He suggests phishing and scams may scale through automation, while defenders will also use AI to detect fraud and patch vulnerabilities. The conversation also explores whether AI will deepen inequality through access to computing power, with a more optimistic view offered that increasingly efficient models may broaden access rather than restrict it. About our guest: Bruce Schneier https://www.schneier.com/ https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/bruce-schneier https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/ Papers or resources mentioned in this episode: Schneier, B. (2003). Beyond fear: Thinking sensibly about security in an uncertain world. Copernicus Books. Schneier, B. (2018). Click here to kill everybody: Security and survival in a hyper-connected world. W. W. Norton & Company. Schneier, B. (2023). A hacker's mind: How the powerful bend society's rules, and how to bend them back. W. W. Norton & Company. Schneier, B. (2025). Rewiring democracy: AI, governance, and the future of politics. MIT Press. Other: Public Interest Technology University Network https://pitun.org/ Bruce Schneier Essays and Writing https://www.schneier.com/essays/ The Cottingley Fairies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies Bicentennial Man (Film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicentennial_Man_(film) The Fifth element (Film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Element Thank you to the CICC (https://www.cicc-iccc.org) for enabling this interview. Mental note, next time don’t bring water in a plastic bottle.
- Apr 1, 202630 min
Who You Gonna Call?: Cybercrime Types and Expectations of Police Response
Notes: Cybercrime is often treated as a distinct phenomenon, but there are strong continuities with offline crime that are frequently overlooked. Digital technologies change behaviour and scale, but do not fundamentally alter the social dynamics underlying crime. There is a significant gap between the harms experienced by individuals and the institutions available to respond to those harms. Federal law enforcement has expanded cyber capabilities, but local and state-level responses to individual victimization remain limited. Private sector actors, particularly financial institutions, play a major role in responding to financially motivated cybercrime. Non-financial cyber harms, such as sextortion or image-based abuse, often fall outside both private and public response systems. In the absence of clear response pathways, private companies are emerging to fill the gap, sometimes exploiting victims seeking help. Public attitudes toward police in cybercrime contexts are shaped by perceptions that police do not care or are unable to help. These attitudes mirror broader perceptions of policing, indicating continuity between offline and online trust dynamics. Perceptions of police capability differ depending on the type of cybercrime: Computer-focused crimes (e.g., malware) are associated with lower perceived police usefulness Interpersonal cybercrimes (e.g., sextortion) are associated with higher perceived police relevance Perceived likelihood of victimization reduces confidence in police effectiveness, while fear increases it. Gender differences emerge, with men less likely to believe police can help in cybercrime contexts. A central problem is definitional ambiguity: There is no consistent definition of cybercrime across agencies This limits measurement, comparison, and policy design Reporting systems are fragmented and often poorly understood by the public. Cybercrime often involves chains of offences, making classification and response assignment difficult. Comparative research suggests that investment and coordination can improve public confidence, but large-scale successes do not always translate to individual-level trust. About our guest: Rachel McNealey https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-mcnealey-4b8720284/ Papers or resources mentioned in this episode: McNealey, R. L., Figueroa, C. I., & Maher, C. A. (2025). “Police can't help you”: Exploring influences on perceptions of policing cybercrime. Journal of Criminal Justice, 101, 102542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2025.102542 Hale, R., & Penzendstadler, N. (2025, March 20). Digital forensics firms promise help to sextortion victims. Some leave them worse off. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2025/03/20/digital-forensics-sexortion-blackmail-recovery-services/81934584007/ Other: Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3): https://www.ic3.gov/
- Mar 1, 202636 min
Disordered Sense-Making: Conflict Narratives in the Digital Era
Notes: Dr Samuel Tanner began his doctoral research examining war crimes and armed militias involved in mass violence in the Balkans, conducting extensive fieldwork and interviews with participants on multiple sides of the conflict. A central puzzle of his PhD research was not denial of violence, but how individuals who acknowledged their participation struggled to explain how they came to commit acts of mass violence. This led to an intellectual shift from viewing violence as purely intentional to understanding it as embedded in structures, representations, and processes of sense-making. Following a postdoctoral year at MIT working with political scientist Roger Petersen, Dr Tanner deepened his focus on the relationship between political violence, identity narratives, and institutional structures. After joining the Université de Montréal, he shifted toward research on policing and later co-led a major project examining right-wing extremism in Canada beginning in 2013. The Canadian project revealed that relatively few participants were “true believers.” Many were navigating economic precarity, cultural uncertainty, and political confusion, often influenced by moral or ideological entrepreneurs. Fieldwork in this area involved significant challenges, including surveillance, threats, cancelled interviews, and difficulties accessing participants. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Tanner and colleagues examined anti-restriction movements and observed how disinformation and fragmented information ecosystems shaped divergent interpretations of shared events. He argues that information is not neutral. Information produces order. The ways in which information is produced, amplified, and consumed shape how individuals interpret reality and coordinate socially. Social media platforms function as privatized public spaces, structuring discourse through governance mechanisms that are not democratically accountable. Dr Tanner’s more recent research focuses on the evolution of extremist discourse, particularly the emergence of “pop masculinism,” where gendered and anti-feminist narratives are embedded within popular culture, fitness culture, gaming aesthetics, and entrepreneurial self-discipline discourse. The “sigma” discourse operates as a gateway into broader manosphere ideologies by framing personal discipline and self-improvement in opposition to women, feminism, and equality discourse. Interviews with young men and women reveal perceptions of a growing gender gap, including feelings among some young men of status loss and lack of positive role models. Dr Tanner raises concern about the erosion of shared institutional facts and the desynchronization of social expectations, suggesting that social trust depends upon shared informational baselines. He argues for an expanded criminology attentive to digital environments, disinformation, and the governance of online prejudice, aligning with broader developments in digital criminology. Central to his work is the question: how do people make sense of their world when institutional anchors weaken and informational environments fragment? About our guest: Dr Samuel Tanner https://crim.umontreal.ca/repertoire-departement/professeurs/professeur/in/in15014/sg/Samuel Tanner/ Papers or resources mentioned in this episode: Tanner, Samuel & Gillardin, François (2025).Toxic Communication on TikTok: Sigma Masculinities and Gendered Disinformation.Social Media + Society, 11(1).https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251313844 Open access PDF:https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251313844 Leman-Langlois, Stéphane, Campana, Aurélie & Tanner, Samuel (2024).The Great Right North: Inside Far-Right Activism in Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press. (Book overview: https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.20829378) People mentioned in this episode: Jean-Paul Brodeur — Presses de l’Université de Montréal (institutional collection page) https://pum.umontreal.ca/collections/jean-paul-brodeur/ Roger D. Petersen — MIT Political Science profile https://polisci.mit.edu/people/roger-petersen Aurélie Campana — Univers
- Feb 1, 202625 min
Beyond “The Cybercriminal”: Understanding Diversity in Cyber Offenders
Notes:Dr Bekkers describes his academic pathway from psychology to criminology and explains why his research focus has consistently been on offenders and their behaviour rather than on offences or technologies.Cybercrime offenders are often portrayed as a homogeneous group of highly skilled hackers, but research shows they are a heterogeneous population with distinct motivations, skills, and pathways into crime.A key distinction can be made between financially motivated cybercrime, such as online fraud, and more technically complex cyber-dependent crimes such as hacking, DDoS attacks, and website defacement.Financially motivated cybercrime offenders often resemble traditional offline offenders and may commit both online and offline crimes, with similar risk factors, peer influences, and personality profiles.Technically skilled cyber offenders tend to show different characteristics, including higher levels of self-control and intrinsic motivations such as curiosity, challenge, and skill development.Research suggests that traditional criminological theories still help explain some forms of cybercrime, particularly financially motivated offences, while other forms require additional or adapted theoretical approaches.Gaming environments may act as pathways into certain forms of cybercrime by facilitating skill development, exposure to deviant peers, and access to illicit online forums, though gaming may also be protective in some contexts.Parental supervision and open communication may play a role in shaping online behaviour, similar to the role of guardianship and social control in offline offending.Law enforcement responses differ depending on the type of cybercrime, with financially motivated offences often handled by local police and more technical crimes investigated by specialized units.Dr Bekkers highlights the need for longitudinal research and greater engagement with offenders to better understand pathways into cybercrime and to inform prevention and intervention strategies.About our guest:Dr Luuk Bekkershttps://www.thuas.com/research/research-groups/team-cybercrime-cybersecurityhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/luuk-bekkers-79621b162/Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:Bekkers, L. M. J., Moneva, A., & Leukfeldt, E. R. (2025). Distinct group, distinct traits? A comparison of risk factors across cybercrime offenders, traditional offenders and non-offenders. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2025.2546311Bekkers, L. M., Holt, T. J., & Leukfeldt, E. R. (2025). The psychological correlates of cybercrime offending: Exploring the self-control/social learning relationship in serious cyber-dependent crime. European Journal of Criminology, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14773708251378356Bekkers, L. M. J., Holt, T. J., & Leukfeldt, E. R. (2025). Exploring the factors that differentiate individual and group offenders in cyber-dependent crime. Journal of Criminal Justice, 101, 102522. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2025.102522
- Jan 1, 202649 min
Systematically Improving Cybersecurity Training
Notes:Julia Prümmer describes her transition from legal psychology into cybersecurity research and how psychological methods shape her approach to cybersecurity training.The discussion explores the role of systematic reviews in mapping what a research field actually knows, rather than relying on highly visible or frequently cited studies.Findings from a large-scale systematic review of cybersecurity training methods are discussed, highlighting the diversity of training approaches used across the literature.The episode examines results from a meta-analysis assessing the overall effectiveness of cybersecurity training and the gap between improvements in precursors such as knowledge and intentions versus observable behaviour.Julia explains why many cybersecurity training programmes lack explicit behavioural theory and rely on trial-and-error design choices.A key theme is the distinction between cybersecurity behaviours that require active engagement, such as phishing detection, and behaviours that may benefit from habit formation, such as screen locking or password management.The conversation draws on research into email habits and phishing susceptibility to illustrate how habitual behaviour can increase vulnerability in certain contexts.Julia discusses the use of psychological theory, including habit formation and implementation intentions, to design and evaluate cybersecurity training interventions.The episode concludes with reflections on the future of cybersecurity training research and the need for behaviour-specific, theory-informed models.About our Guest:Julia Prümmerhttps://www.universiteitleiden.nl/medewerkers/julia-prummer#tab-1https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-prümmer-376778159/Papers or resources mentioned in this episode Prümmer, J., van Steen, T., & van den Berg, B. (2024). A systematic review of current cybersecurity training methods. Computers & Security, 136, 103585.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2023.103585Prümmer, J. (2024). The role of cognition in developing successful cybersecurity training programs: Passive vs. active engagement. In D. D. Schmorrow & C. M. Fidopiastis (Eds.), Augmented cognition. HCII 2024 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 14695, pp. 185–199). Springer.https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/handle/1887/4093101Prümmer, J., van Steen, T., & van den Berg, B. (2025). Assessing the effect of cybersecurity training on end-users: A meta-analysis. Computers & Security, 150, 104206.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2024.104206Vishwanath, A. (2015). Examining the distinct antecedents of e-mail habits and its influence on the outcomes of a phishing attack. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(5), 570–584.https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12126Other If this topic of training as an intervention to reduce susceptibility to cybercrime, you might also enjoy the recent Episodes 123, 116, 110, 106, 60, and 59 that are all on related topics. If you are brave you can even go right back to Episodes 6, 7 and 8, there is a lot to listen to.
- Dec 1, 202533 min
The Human beneath the Hoodie: Profiling pathways into cybercrime
otes:Melissa completed her PhD after two decades of operational work, bringing a pracademic perspective to cyber profiling and offender pathways.Her research focuses on understanding the human behind the keyboard through developmental history, motivation and lived experience.Initial motivations among hackers often centre on curiosity, challenge seeking and belonging rather than financial gain.Many participants reported early interest in technology, solitary online activity and experiences they described as destabilising events.Melissa distinguishes between lawful and criminal pathways using indicators such as modifying games, low self-control and a history of property offending.Her work highlights misunderstandings about intent, the role of gamification and the abstraction of harm when offending takes place online.She argues that cybercrime is a societal problem requiring early education, parental and teacher capability building and partnerships with tech and gaming companies.Diversion programs are essential to guide youth with technical interest toward prosocial cybersecurity roles rather than criminalisation.About our guest:Dr Melissa Martineauhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-martineau-369bb5258/https://www.captechu.edu/webinar-series-melissa-martineauPapers or resources mentioned in this episode:Martineau, M. (2023). The pathways of cyber dependent offenders. Journal of Cybercriminology, 3(3), 32.https://www.mdpi.com/2673-6756/3/3/32Martineau, M. (2024). Distinguishing lawful and criminal hacker trajectories. Journal of Cybercriminology, 4(4), 45.https://www.mdpi.com/2673-6756/4/4/45Other:Dr Martineau wanted to share something called PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) which is a helpful guideline designed to improve the reporting of systematic reviews. You can find out more about it here. http://www.prisma-statement.org
- Nov 1, 20251h 4m
Courses, Clicks and Consequences: Empiricizing Enterprise Security
Episode Notes:Dr Ho describes an empirical research agenda focused on how security actually operates in organisations. He explains his experience with getting this research off the ground to allow them to perform the research in this setting.Study setting and scope: eight-month randomised controlled trial at UC San Diego Health involving ~19,500 employees and ten distinct phishing campaign lures.Annual awareness training: the study found no significant relationship between how recently staff completed the mandated course and their likelihood of failing a simulated phishing campaign.Embedded training (when someone clicks a phishing simulation and is immediately redirected to training): the measurable improvement was very small (≈2% reduction in failure rate) and varied significantly by lure and engagement.Engagement challenge: The vast majority of embedded-training sessions were extremely short or incomplete, a key factor in explaining limited effect size.Variability of lure difficulty: Some phishing lures elicited very low click-rates (~1.8%) while others up to ~30.8%, indicating that the phishing stimulus matters as much as, or more than, the training intervention.Practical takeaway: Organizations should treat training (especially annually mandated modules) as only one part of a broader defence strategy, and design empirical measurement systems (including controls, realistic lures, and sustained engagement) before assuming large effect sizes.About our Guest:Dr Grant Ho Profile: https://cs.uchicago.edu/people/grant-ho/Papers or resources mentioned in this episode:Ho, G.; Mirian, A.; Luo, E.; Tong, K.; Lee, E.; Liu, L.; Longhurst, C.A.; Dameff, C.; Voelker, G.M. (2025). Understanding the Efficacy of Phishing Training in Practice: A Randomized Controlled Trial at a Large Health Organisation. Presented at the IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy (May 2025). Full PDF: https://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~grantho/papers/oakland2025_phishing-training.pdfOther: I mentioned some figures about the spending on cybercsecurity education and training, You can find those here. Canadian Survey of Cyber Security and Cybercrime (CSCSC)https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=5244Get convenient Excel Tables of the Statistics from 2017 and 2019. https://www.serene-risc.ca/en/statistics-canadaOther Other:Dr Ho was great to chat with and has a long history of researching phishing, Some of his older work that is more technical in nature, as so we didn't talk about in the episode, but in the case that it might be interesting to you, here are some links: Ho, G., Sharma, A., Javed, M., Paxson, V., & Wagner, D. (2017). Detecting Credential Spearphishing Attacks in Enterprise Settings. In Proceedings of the 26th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security ’17), Vancouver, BC, Canada, August 16-18, 2017. USENIX Association. ISBN 978-1-931971-40-9.PDF: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity17/sec17-ho.pdf USENIX+2USENIX+2Presentation page: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity17/technical-sessions/presentation/hoUSENIX+1Ho, G., Cidon, A., Gavish, L., Schweighauser, M., Paxson, V., Savage, S., Voelker, G. M., & Wagner, D. (2019). Detecting and Characterizing Lateral Phishing at Scale. In Proceedings of the 28th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security ’19), Santa Clara, CA, USA, August 14-16, 2019. USENIX Association. ISBN 978-1-939133-06-9.PDF: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/sec19-ho.pdf USENIX+1Presentation page: https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19/presentation/ho <a href="https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19/technical-sessions?utm_source=chatgpt.
- Oct 1, 202544 min
The many minds of MITRE: building multidisciplinary human insider-risk research
Trigger warning: This episode includes discussion of suicide in the context of researching measurable predictive indicators and the lack thereof in the context of cyber. Episode NotesDr Caputo's path from social psychology to applied security, including intelligence analysis and building a behavioural-science team at MITRE.What MITRE is: a not-for-profit operating six federally funded R&D centres that provide independent, public-interest research alongside government.Why early “indicator” hunting on endpoints often chased the last bad case; shifting to experiments and known-bad/created-bad data to learn patterns of behaviour change.The LinkedIn recruiter field experiment: ethically approved creation of recruiter personas, staged outreach in three messages, and follow-up interviews to understand reporting barriers.What user-activity monitoring can and cannot tell you; the role of human judgement and programme design.Insider-risk is not only “malicious users”: designing programmes for negligent, mistaken or outsmarted behaviours as well.Current lines of work include improving employee recognition and reporting of malicious elicitations and exploring whether insider-risk telemetry offers early signals of suicide risk.Why multidisciplinary teams beat solo efforts in insider-risk operations.About our guest:Dr. Deanna D. Caputo MITRE Insider Threat Research & Solutions profile: https://insiderthreat.mitre.org/dr-caputo/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-deanna-d-caputoPapers or resources mentioned in this episode:Caputo, D. D. (2024). Employee risk recognition and reporting of malicious elicitations: Longitudinal improvement with new skills-based training. Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1410426/full MITRE Insider Threat Research & Solutions. (2025). Suicide risk and insider-risk telemetry overview. https://insiderthreat.mitre.org/suicide-risk/ MITRE. (2024). Managing insider threats is a team sport. https://www.mitre.org/news-insights/impact-story/managing-insider-threats-team-sport MITRE Insider Threat Research & Solutions. (2024). Capability overview two-pager (PDF). https://insiderthreat.mitre.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MITREInTResearchSolutions-CapabilityTwoPager-24-0659_2024-02-01.pdf MITRE Insider Threat Research & Solutions. (2024). Insider Threat Behavioural Risk Framework two-pager (PDF). https://insiderthreat.mitre.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/MITREInTResearchSolutions-InTFramework_TwoPager-24-0674_2024-03-18.pdf
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About Cybercrimeology
Cybercrimeology is a podcast about cybercrime, its research and its researchers. We talk to top researchers from around the world to learn about different forms of cybercrime and their research. We learn about cybercrime theory, organized crime online, Darknet drug markets, cybercrime awareness and crime prevention, technology-facilitated intimate partner violence and much more. The podcast has been running since November of 2019 and there is still so much to learn. I am happy to have you along for the journey into this fascinating subject.
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