Are algorithms helping—or handling—you? Frank and Dustin dive into how recommender systems, data brokers, and AI-powered platforms shape your news, drives, purchases, health, and even relationships. From TikTok fear-mongering to Cambridge Analytica, OPM’s breach fallout, Google Maps routing incentives, Amazon “sponsored” defaults, and Facebook’s engagement shift—this episode asks the hard question: are you in control, or are you being steered?We also hit the nuance: when AI spots tumors earlier and flags outbreaks faster, do the ends justify the data means? Echo chambers, algorithm “poisoning,” privacy laws (or lack thereof in the U.S.), and the real-world line between convenience and manipulation—plus the wild story of a nurse who could smell disease before doctors could test for it.🎧 Subscribe for sharp, funny, no-fluff cyber talk every week.💬 Drop your take: are you comfortable trading agency for convenience?—👥 Hosts: T. Frank Downs & Dustin Brewer🎙️ Podcast + clips: @LegitimateCybersecurity🧠 Subreddit: r/LegitimateCyber🔔 Like, subscribe, and share to beat the algorithm at its own game.Chapter Breaks00:00 – Cold Open: “If you’re not paying, you’re the product.”01:20 – TikTok: personalization vs. geopolitics02:37 – OPM breach & SF-86: the most intimate data spill04:08 – Data brokers & geolocation: finding anyone (even Congress)05:22 – The U.S. privacy gap (hello CCPA, goodbye federal law)06:11 – Shadow credit files: LexisNexis, GM telemetry & your insurance07:45 – Maps that nudge: are routes sold to brands?08:23 – Amazon’s “sponsored” defaults & subtle purchase steering09:39 – “Emergent behaviors” & divisive feed design10:53 – Can we trust any filter—and do we have options?11:30 – AI is code (and code is messy): hallucinations & ad-stuffed search12:27 – Living private vs. living miserable: the balance problem15:16 – Biased training data: we met the trainer and it’s us17:47 – Medicine wins: diagnostics vs. the data tradeoff19:30 – Joy Milne & “the smell of disease”: human pattern-finding#cybersecurity #algorithms #privacy #ai #databrokers #tiktok #opm #EchoChambers #RecommenderSystems #DigitalEthics #Nudging #LegitimateCybersecurity22:44 – AI for signals, humans for meaning23:34 – Robots, laundry… and the rental future24:57 – Do people want out of echo chambers?26:57 – Comfort vs. being “right”: why rage sells27:24 – Algorithm poisoning ethics: self-defense or sabotage?28:11 – The kindness trap: loneliness, AI compliments & harms30:16 – What practitioners should do: policy, guardrails, education32:25 – The inevitable? Choosing agency in a steered world33:16 – Outro: “If this was recommended to you…”