# Darknet Diaries

Darknet Diaries is an investigative podcast created by Jack Rhysider (/riːˈsaɪdər/), chronicling true stories about crackers, malware, botnets, cryptography, cryptocurrency, cybercrime, and Internet privacy, all subjects falling under the umbrella of "tales from the dark side of the Internet".
Launched in October 2017, episodes average around 30 minutes to an hour, each covering a single topic through original interviews, audio footage, and Rhysider's narration. The show's journalistic style has received widespread acclaim.

## Production

For the first 40 episodes, Rhysider was responsible for all of the research, writing, narrating, editing, sound design, publishing, marketing, and logistics. Later on, due to a passionate cult following, Rhysider was able to enlist the help of additional writers, researchers, editors, and graphic designers.
By December 31, 2018, Darknet Diaries had amassed more than 1.2 million downloads. In 2019 alone, it had more than 8.2 million downloads.

### Impact and real-life influences

Episode 17 ("Finn") was adapted and featured on the WNYC Studios podcast Snap Judgment.
Episode 32 ("The Carder") uncovered information about the criminal actions and subsequent investigation of Roman Seleznev.
Episode 27 ("Chartbreakers") was highlighted for its investigation into the manipulation of the Apple Podcasts Top Charts through a vast industry termed as "dark podcast marketing". Rhysider received and then subsequently released photos of the promoters themselves.

### Crossovers and appearances

Rhysider has made appearances on a variety of other programs, the most notable being Snap Judgment and the Lit Hub/Podglomerate Storybound.
Other podcast appearances include Smashing Security, The Many Hats Club, Brakeing Down Security, The Word From Mouth, InfoSec ICU, The Cyberwire, Podcast Business Journal Spotlight, Overnight America, Aidan Wheller Podcast and Audio Reviews, Getting into InfoSec, Grimerica, Cyber Speaks Live, and Chartable Radio.

## Episodes

| No. | Title | Subject(s) | Duration | Release date |
| 1 | The Phreaky World of PBX Hacking | | 0:14:01 | September 1, 2017 |
| 2 | The Peculiar Case of the VTech Hacker | VTech: 2015 data breach | 0:23:20 | September 15, 2017 |
| 3 | DigiNotar, You are the Weakest Link, Good Bye! | DigiNotar With guest Gervase Markham | 0:25:44 | October 10, 2017 |
| 4 | Panic! at the TalkTalk Board Room | TalkTalk 2015 data breach Carphone Warehouse: Data protection issues | 0:38:23 | October 15, 2017 |
| 5 | #ASUSGATE | | 0:25:07 | November 1, 2017 |
| 6 | The Beirut Bank Job | | 0:29:19 | November 15, 2017 |
| 7 | Manfred (Part 1) | Cheating in online games | 0:23:16 | December 1, 2017 |
| 8 | Manfred (Part 2) | Cheating in online games | 0:28:08 | December 1, 2017 |
| 9 | The Rise and Fall of Mt. Gox | Mt. Gox Jed McCaleb Mark Karpelès | 0:28:53 | December 15, 2017 |
| 10 | Misadventures of a Nation State Actor | | 0:33:25 | January 1, 2018 |
| 11 | Strictly Confidential | | 0:19:32 | January 15, 2018 |
| 12 | Crypto Wars | | 0:28:30 | February 1, 2018 |
| 13 | Carna Botnet | Carna botnet | 0:33:18 | February 15, 2018 |
| 14 | #OpJustina | | 0:25:21 | March 1, 2018 |
| 15 | Ill Tills | | 0:33:21 | April 1, 2018 |
| 16 | Eijah | | 0:35:40 | May 1, 2018 |
| 17 | Finn | | 0:45:19 | June 3, 2018 |
| 18 | Jackpot | | 0:21:05 | July 1, 2018 |
| 19 | Aurora | | 0:30:29 | August 1, 2018 |
| 20 | mobman | mobman, purported author of Sub7 | 0:46:23 | August 15, 2018 |
| 21 | Black Duck Eggs | | 0:28:19 | September 1, 2018 |
| 22 | Mini-Stories: Vol 1 | | 0:39:41 | September 15, 2018 |
| 23 | Vladimir Levin | | 0:28:22 | October 1, 2018 |
| 24 | Operation Bayonet | Operation Bayonet AlphaBay Hansa | 0:39:12 | October 15, 2018 |
| 25 | Alberto | | 0:42:35 | November 1, 2018 |
| 26 | IRS | Disclosure of information and theft of $50 million from the IRS | 0:35:21 | November 15, 2018 |
| 27 | Chartbreakers | Manipulation of Apple Podcasts rankings | 0:47:14 | December 1, 2018 |
| 28 | Unit 8200 | Unit 8200 | 0:48:35 | December 15, 2018 |
| 29 | Stuxnet | Stuxnet | 0:41:06 | January 8, 2019 |
| 30 | Shamoon | | 0:35:21 | January 22, 2019 |
| 31 | Hacker Giraffe | | 0:56:02 | February 5, 2019 |
| 32 | The Carder | Roman Seleznev | 0:39:29 | February 19, 2019 |
| 33 | RockYou | RockYou 2009 data breach | 0:40:33 | March 5, 2019 |
| 34 | For Your Eyes Only | | 0:51:54 | March 19, 2019 |
| 35 | Carbanak | | 0:40:14 | April 2, 2019 |
| 36 | Jeremy from Marketing | | 1:01:14 | April 16, 2019 |
| 37 | LVS | | 0:28:23 | April 30, 2019 |
| 38 | Dark Caracal | | 0:54:44 | May 14, 2019 |
| 39 | 3 Alarm Lamp Scooter | | 0:50:24 | May 28, 2019 |
| 40 | No Parking | | 1:00:28 | June 11, 2019 |
| 41 | Just Visiting | | 0:49:16 | June 25, 2019 |
| 42 | Mini-Stories: Vol 2 | | 0:54:15 | July 9, 2019 |
| 43 | PPP | | 1:00:51 | July 23, 2019 |
| 44 | Zain | Zain Qaiser FBI MoneyPak Ransomware | 0:34:46 | August 6, 2019 |
| 45 | XBox Underground (Part 1) | Xbox Underground | 1:19:19 | August 20, 2019 |
| 46 | XBox Underground (Part 2) | Xbox Underground | 1:22:29 | September 3, 2019 |
| 47 | Project Raven | | 1:01:49 | September 17, 2019 |
| 48 | Operation Socialist | Operation Socialist Regin Quantum insert | 0:48:40 | October 1, 2019 |
| 49 | Elliot | | 0:47:17 | October 15, 2019 |
| 50 | Operation Glowing Symphony | | 1:11:10 | October 29, 2019 |
| 51 | The Indo-Pak Conflict | | 0:46:49 | November 12, 2019 |
| 52 | Magecart | Web skimming: Magecart 2018 British Airways cyberattack | 0:48:05 | November 26, 2019 |
| 53 | Shadow Brokers | The Shadow Brokers | 0:50:04 | December 10, 2019 |
| 54 | NotPetya | Petya (malware) With guest Andy Greenberg | 0:57:01 | December 24, 2019 |
| 55 | Noirnet | | 0:17:37 | December 25, 2019 |
| 56 | Jordan | | 0:44:10 | January 7, 2020 |
| 57 | MS08-067 | Conficker | 0:58:32 | January 21, 2020 |
| 58 | OxyMonster | Dream Market Opioid epidemic in the United States Fentanyl | 1:00:42 | February 4, 2020 |
| 59 | The Courthouse | | 1:20:52 | February 18, 2020 |
| 60 | dawgyg | | 0:43:08 | March 3, 2020 |
| 61 | Samy | Samy Kamkar Samy (computer worm) Evercookie SkyJack | 1:01:11 | March 17, 2020 |
| 62 | Cam | | 1:01:56 | March 31, 2020 |
| 63 | w0rmer | Higinio Ochoa | 0:56:55 | April 14, 2020 |
| 64 | The Athens Shadow Games | Greek wiretapping case 2004–05 Kostas Tsalikidis | 1:14:44 | April 28, 2020 |
| 65 | PSYOP | | 1:13:55 | May 12, 2020 |
| 66 | freakyclown | | 0:53:47 | May 26, 2020 |
| 67 | The Big House | | 0:40:54 | June 9, 2020 |
| 68 | Triton | Triton (malware) | 1:11:48 | June 23, 2020 |
| 69 | Human Hacker | | 1:04:50 | July 6, 2020 |
| 70 | Ghost Exodus | | 0:56:45 | July 21, 2020 |
| 71 | FDFF | | 1:08:16 | August 2, 2020 |
| 72 | Bangladesh Bank Heist | Bangladesh Bank robbery | 0:36:47 | August 16, 2020 |
| 73 | WannaCry | WannaCry ransomware attack | 0:44:51 | September 1, 2020 |
| 74 | Mikko | | 1:09:28 | September 15, 2020 |
| 75 | Compromised Comms | | 0:35:07 | September 29, 2020 |
| 76 | Knaves Out | 2014 JPMorgan Chase data breach | 1:25:10 | October 13, 2020 |
| 77 | Olympic Destroyer | 2018 Winter Olympics hack With guest Andy Greenberg | 0:47:02 | October 27, 2020 |
| 78 | Nerdcore | Nerdcore With guests YTCracker, Ohm-I, and Dual Core | 1:18:08 | November 10, 2020 |
| 79 | Dark Basin | Citizen Lab Dark Basin | 0:56:18 | November 24, 2020 |
| 80 | The Whistleblower | | 0:50:10 | December 8, 2020 |
| 81 | The Vendor | | 1:17:59 | December 22, 2020 |
| 82 | Master of Pwn | Pwn2Own | 1:05:09 | January 5, 2021 |
| 83 | NSA Cryptologists | | 1:22:56 | January 19, 2021 |
| 84 | Jet-setters | | 1:12:20 | February 2, 2021 |
| 85 | Cam the Carder | | 1:16:34 | February 16, 2021 |
| 86 | The LinkedIn Incident | 2012 LinkedIn Hack | 0:55:00 | March 2, 2021 |
| 87 | Guild of the Grumpy Old Hackers | | 0:50:30 | March 16, 2021 |
| 88 | Victor | | 0:42:43 | March 30, 2021 |
| 89 | Cybereason: Molerats in the Cloud | | 0:57:35 | April, 6, 2021 |
| 90 | Jenny | | 1:11:29 | April 13,2021 |
| 91 | webjedi | | 0:58:57 | April 27, 2021 |
| 92 | The Pirate Bay | | 1:46:13 | May 11,2021 |
| 93 | Kik | The fight against child porn on Kik | 1:34:18 | May 25, 2021 |
| 94 | Mariposa Botnet | | 0:44:08 | June 8, 2021 |
| 95 | Jon & Brian's Big Adventure | | 1:16:25 | June 22, 2021 |
| 96 | The Police Station Incident | | 0:55:39 | July 6, 2021 |
| 97 | The Pizza Problem | | 0:47:49 | July 20, 2021 |
| 98 | Zero Day Brokers | | 0:50:13 | August 3, 2021 |
| 99 | The Spy | | 1:13:44 | August 17, 2021 |
| 100 | NSO | Pegasus | 1:12:53 | August 31, 2021 |
| 101 | Lotería | | 1:12:57 | September 28, 2021 |
| 102 | Money Maker | | 1:21:52 | October 12, 2021 |
| 103 | Cloud Hopper | | 0:52:25 | October 26, 2021 |
| 104 | Arya | | 1:19:41 | November 9, 2021 |
| 105 | Secret Cells | | 1:12:41 | November 23, 2021 |
| 106 | @Tennessee | | 0:47:39 | December 7, 2021 |
| 107 | Alethe | | 0:57:18 | December 21, 2021 |
| 108 | Marq | | 0:48:21 | January 11th, 2022 |
| 109 | TEAMPOISON | TeaMp0isoN with guest MLT | 1:00:07 | January 25th, 2022 |
| 110 | Spam Botnets | | 1:11:39 | February 8th, 2022 |
| 111 | ZeuS | | 0:48:35 | February 22nd, 2022 |
| 112 | Dirty Coms | | 1:31:00 | March 8th, 2022 |
| 113 | Adam | | 0:54:13 | March 22nd, 2022 |
| 114 | HD | | 1:18:03 | April 5th, 2022 |
| 115 | Player Cheater Developer Spy | | 0:40:42 | April 19th, 2022 |
| 116 | Mad Dog | | 1:15:54 | May 3rd, 2022 |
| 117 | Daniel the Paladin | | 1:11:41 | May 17th, 2022 |
| 118 | Hot Swaps | | 1:28:04 | May 31st, 2022 |
| 119 | Hot Wallets | | 0:57:24 | June 14th, 2022 |
| 120 | Voulnet | | 0:32:45 | June 28th, 2022 |
| 121 | Ed | | 0:41:51 | July 26th, 2022 |
| 122 | Lisa | | 0:49:19 | August 23rd, 2022 |
| 123 | Newswires | | 0:49:02 | September 6th, 2022 |
| 124 | Synthetic Remittance | | 0:19:50 | September 20th, 2022 |
| 125 | Jeremiah | | 0:49:14 | October 4th, 2022 |
| 126 | REvil | | 1:03:53 | October 18th, 2022 |
| 127 | Maddie | | 0:54:04 | November 1st, 2022 |
| 128 | Gollumfun (Part 1 of 2) | | 1:01:00 | November 15th, 2022 |
| 129 | Gollumfun (Part 2 of 2) | | 1:18:48 | November 29th, 2022 |
| 130 | Jason's Pen Test | | 0:45:36 | December 13th, 2022 |
| 131 | Welcome to Video | Episode about the Welcome to Video case | 1:10:08 | December 27th, 2022 |
| 132 | Sam the Vendor | | 1:19:23 | April 4th, 2023 |
| 133 | I'm the Real Connor | | 0:42:48 | May 2nd, 2023 |
| 134 | Deviant | | 1:30:46 | June 6th, 2023 |
| 135 | The D.R. Incident | | 0:46:02 | July 4th, 2023 |
| 136 | Team Xecuter | | 1:28:08 | August 1st, 2023 |
| 137 | Predator | Episode expands on and relates to the article Flight of the Predator | 1:10:46 | September 5th, 2023 |
| 138 | The Mimics of Punjab | | 0:48:18 | October 3rd, 2023 |
| 139 | D3f4ult | | 1:21:49 | November 7th, 2023 |
| 140 | Revenge Bytes | | 1:28:52 | December 5th, 2023 |
| 141 | The Pig Butcher | | 0:59:27 | January 2nd, 2024 |
| 142 | Axact | | 0:56:30 | February 6th, 2024 |
| 143 | Jim Hates Scams | | 1:09:54 | March 5th, 2024 |
| 144 | Rachel | | 1:05:46 | April 2nd, 2024 |
| 145 | Shannen | | 1:05:43 | May 7th, 2024 |
| 146 | Anom | | 1:07:47 | June 4th, 2024 |
| 147 | Tornado | | 1:15:21 | July 2nd, 2024 |
| 148 | Dubsnatch | | 1:32:34 | August 6th, 2024 |
| 149 | Mini-Stories: Vol 3 | | 0:51:22 | September 3rd, 2024 |
| 150 | mobman 2 | Episode refers back to Episode 20 (mobman) to revisit the sub7 malware story. | 0:46:20 | October 1st, 2024 |
| 151 | Chris Rock | | 1:01:02 | November 5th,2024 |
| 152 | Stacc Attack | | 0:56:07 | December 3rd,2024 |
| 153 | Bike Index | | 1:04:19 | January 7th, 2025 |
| 154 | Hijacked Line | | 1:09:58 | February 4th, 2025 |
| 155 | Kingpin | | 1:12:03 | March 4th, 2025 |
| 156 | Kill list | | 1:06:41 | March 18th, 2025 |

## Reception

When describing the show's style and presentation, various media outlets have drawn comparisons between Reply All and This American Life, with The Irish Times writing, "Darknet Diaries is...where storytelling is mixed with investigative techniques to provide a strong narrative with real people at its core." The New York Times wrote, "Though the episodes are often startlingly short, condensing stories into 30 minutes that could easily justify a full hour, Rhysider’s hypnotic narration and deep expertise creates results that are never less than gripping."
The Boston Globe called Darknet Diaries "a true-crime podcast with no blood [and] no bodies...[leaving] you wondering why there aren't more hacks, breaches, and cyber-crime."
Miranda Sawyer of The Observer highlighted the podcast's reported "small disasters" of online life, writing: "Neatly edited and charmingly presented by Jack Rhysider, the podcast does occasionally stray into nerdiness, but it’s chock-full of real-life examples of when our virtual lives fail."
Vulture magazine listed Darknet Diaries among its list of "52 of the Best True-Crime Podcasts", following what they deemed as "the post-Serial boom", citing how "some of these [cybercrimes] may hit a little too close to home" while also advising listeners: "Cover your laptop camera, throw that iPhone in the river, and hang out in that weird no-reception corner of your home."

## Awards

* Runner-up in the 2018 Discover Pods Award for Best Technology Podcast
* Winner of the 2018 Quartz Casties for Best Technology Episode
* Winner of the 2019 European Security Blogger Awards for Best New Cybersecurity Podcast