Jack Rhysider
Creator and host of the Darknet Diaries podcast about hackers and cybercrime; former network security engineer
Jack Rhysider (Creator and host of the Darknet Diaries podcast about hackers and cybercrime; former network security engineer) has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include Online privacy, Darknet Diaries, AI agent security risks.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Online privacy
Rhysider says he registers with every website using a distinct email, password and often phone number to limit breach exposure.
“Every website I register with, I use a different email address and a different password and often even a different phone number”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 41:01
Rhysider says he knows of no Pegasus variant that has compromised an iPhone in Lockdown Mode.
“There hasn't been a known variant that's got into an iPhone using lockdown mode”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 31:58
Rhysider frames security as incremental, arguing even partial improvements are worthwhile.
“So if I improve my security by 10%, oh, that's worth it. If I can prove it by 40%, it's worth it”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 12:38
Rhysider says Superbox pirate TV devices contain malware that attacks home networks and should be discarded immediately.
“it's riddled with all kinds of really nasty malware. It's got stuff that's trying to get into all the devices on your home network”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 10:42
Darknet Diaries
Rhysider says his audio podcast reliably reaches about 500,000 listeners per episode and has been his full-time job for about five years.
“on the podcast, it's always like, I'm going to get 500,000 listeners every single episode”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 49:10
Rhysider says he deliberately waits years for hacking cases to conclude so he can tell complete stories.
“I'll wait four years, five years before then they'll catch the guy and arrest him and put him in prison”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 3:57
AI agent security risks
Rhysider says the main danger of OpenClaw lies in plugins and downloaded content that may be malicious.
“it's not so much OpenClaw itself that's the problem, but all the plugins that come with it”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 30:41
Rhysider warns that AI agents like OpenClaw see everything on a computer and that security lags features by a year or more.
“there's kind of a trailing thing where a year, a year and a half later, the privacy and security kind of catches up with the latest tech”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 30:23
Signal (messaging app)
Rhysider notes that message notifications logged by systems like Apple's could expose Signal content without Signal itself being hacked.
“it's not necessarily Signal being hacked. It's a problem with Apple logging too many notifications,”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 16:20
Rhysider believes Tucker Carlson's Signal leak more likely came from someone with access to the chat than from a hack of Signal.
“Maybe the person he sent it to forwarded on. Maybe that person had something. Maybe one of his assistants or something else”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 17:13
Dark web
Rhysider relays that a researcher he interviewed is convinced dark web hitmen are either scammers or federal agents.
“You're either hiring a Fed, and then you're in trouble, or you're hiring a scammer”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 7:34
Rhysider argues that onion addresses, like Bitcoin wallets, are self-generated and cannot be seized, unlike rented .com domains.
“those onion addresses are stuff that you generate, you create on your own and you don't have to go through a registrar, which means nobody can take it”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 5:42
Brave (web browser)
Rhysider considers Chrome, Safari and Edge the worst data collectors and uses Brave for its privacy focus.
“I think Chrome and Safari and Edge are the worst offenders of just collecting your data”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 47:01
Quantum computing
Rhysider argues quantum computing remains largely experimental and that preparing quantum-proof cryptography is sufficient for now.
“it's probably a good time to prepare like quantum proof cryptography for when that comes. But I think that's about all we should really focus on there”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 44:48
Anonymous (hacker group)
Rhysider believes Anonymous has faded, peaking around 2008, and has been replaced by the Com.
“I don't think so. I think comms kind of replaced them, right?”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 36:12
Bayrob malware case
Rhysider recounts that the Bayrob gang was undone partly because OTR on Jabber did not encrypt attachments.
“they sent an attachment and the attachment was not encrypted. Because OTR does not encrypt attachments”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 33:58
The Com (cybercriminal community)
Rhysider describes the Com as largely American or European teenagers targeting crypto holders, sometimes through violent kidnappings.
“a lot of times these are American or European teenagers, right?”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 22:59
Bitcoin
Rhysider says Bitcoin is traceable and prefers Monero and Zcash for privacy, which darknet markets increasingly accept.
“there's two coins that are more private than Bitcoin that I like, which are Monero and Zcash”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 21:38
Mass surveillance in the United States
Rhysider criticizes loopholes that let the U.S. government spy on people without warrants.
“there's a lot of loopholes where governments don't need to or our U.S. government doesn't need to get a warrant in order to spy on people”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 20:14
Telegram (messaging app)
Rhysider calls Telegram's claim to be a secure messenger a lie, noting group chats cannot be end-to-end encrypted.
“All of the group chats in Telegram are not end-to-end encrypted. You can't enable it to be end-to-end encrypted”
Digital Social Hour: Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042 (Jul 1, 2026) · Listen from 15:26
Appearances
Jack Rhysider Knows Everything They're Hiding | DSH #2042Digital Social Hour · Jul 1, 2026 · 49 min
Darknet Diaries creator Jack Rhysider tells Sean Kelly about hackers, the dark web, encrypted messaging, AI agent risks, cybercrime cases, and practical privacy habits.
Often appears with
- Sean Kelly · 1 shared episode