57,000 fake drug Spotify podcasts removed
Spotify found and removed 57,000 fake podcast episodes promoting illegal drugs including opioids and modafinil, with 94% having zero plays.
Snapshot · This Week in Tech (Audio)
TWiT 1088: Model Not Available - Anthropic's Fable Shutdown & Apple's Siri Update
Explore episode
Jun 15, 2026
Where this was said
Trump Phone Is a Rebadged HTC, FCC Wants to Kill Burner Phones
At 2:15:20 · chapter starts 2:10:20
iFixit's teardown of the Trump phone confirmed long-standing suspicions by physically swapping the mainboard of a Trump phone into an HTC U24 Pro chassis and vice versa — both devices worked, proving they share the same SoC, form factor, and board. The phone is manufactured in Shenzhen, China. Christina Warren adds that the entity building it is likely an ODM licensed under the HTC name, as the real HTC was largely acquired by Google. The FCC pivot draws sharp criticism: the agency wants telecoms to collect government IDs from all prepaid phone customers, which Christina argues won't stop spam or criminal activity — bad actors will just use fake IDs — but will create a new surveillance apparatus for domestic abuse survivors, journalists, and privacy-conscious users.
North Korean hackers: 47% of tech intrusions
A CrowdStrike report found North Korean hacking group Famous Chollima accounted for 47% of all state-backed intrusions targeting the US tech sector.
North Korean Hackers Now Own Half of US Tech Intrusions
CrowdStrike found that North Korea's Famous Chollima hacking group — posing as remote workers and recruiters — accounted for 47% of all state-backed intrusions at US tech companies from April 2025 to May 2026. Half of all hands-on-keyboard attacks at US tech companies are North Korean.
57,000 Fake Drug Podcasts on Spotify
Spotify removed 57,000 fake podcast episodes promoting opioids, modafinil, and crypto on unregulated sites — with 94% having zero plays. The podcasts are almost certainly AI-generated, marking a new vector for automated drug trafficking.
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