Lore in the Machine: Forgotten Tech History

Daina Bouquin

Every line of code has a story. Most of us just never hear it. The computing history behind the technology you use every day is stranger than you think.

Episodes

  1. 4 DAYS AGO

    A Ritual to Secure the Internet

    Four times a year, a small group of people pack their bags and fly to a secure facility in Virginia or California. They submit to retina scanners and palm readers. They enter a metal cage inside a signal-proof room. They turn physical keys in unison. They are not spies. They are volunteers. And they are there to perform a ritual that keeps the internet's core directory from being poisoned.  If you build a master key for the internet, who do you trust to hold it? In this episode The Ceremony of the Keys - the 700-year-old nightly ritual at the Tower of London, and what it has to do with cyber securityThe Crypto Officers - who they are, and what they carryThe Ritual - over 100 scripted steps, a self-destructing lockbox, and a laptop with no memoryThe things that went wrong - because they do Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Like an Empty Kaleidoscope""Single Lane Tunnel""The Absurd""Iconoclast" Additional Notes This episode is the follow-up to Episode 5: "Poison in the Cache." You don't need to have heard it first, but it rewards the listen. If you want to see this ritual for yourself, you actually can. Because the root signing relies on radical transparency, every step is scripted, filmed, and published for the world to see. The next ceremony is scheduled for April 30, 2026. The full list of ceremonies is available via the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.  -- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a history podcast about the hidden stories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

    12 min

  2. 17 MAR

    Poison in the Cache

    Every time you type a web address, you're trusting a directory. A vast, invisible system that translates the names you know into the numbers that actually move data across the internet. You trust it the way a town trusts its well. In 2008, a security researcher named Dan Kaminsky discovered that the well had no lid. In this episode DNS - what the Domain Name System is, and why it mattersDan Kaminsky - security researcher and internet advocate Cache poisoning - the class of attack Dan Kaminsky found hiding in the internet's foundationThe patch - a secret meeting, fierce competitors, a deadline, and a synchronized global fixTrudy Kaminsky - Dan's mother, and a legend in her own right Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Closest Strangers""Single Lane Tunnel" "The Dweller on the Threshold""A Different World by Night"  Additional Notes You can watch Dan Kaminsky explain the DNS flaw he found here. An audio only version is available here. He gave this talk at Black Ops 2008 after his original Black Hat presentation. -- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a history podcast about the hidden stories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

    8 min

  3. 3 MAR

    Lipstick and Runes

    Look at your phone settings. There's a small angular icon there that you've probably never thought about much. It's a bind rune showing two characters from the ancient Younger Futhark alphabet, fused together. It's on billions of devices worldwide. How that symbol ended up there is two stories, separated by half a century, that have no business belonging together. One starts with a Hollywood actress listening at a dinner table full of fascists. The other starts with two engineers bombing a pitch meeting and ending up in a Canadian pub. In this episode Hedy Lamarr - after the cameras and the dinner partiesThe patent - a collaboration and what the Navy said about itTwo engineers in a pub - a failed pitch meeting and a conversation about Vikings and a Danish king Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Morning Bell" "Noctivagant (Orchestral Version)" "Moonlit Skyline"-- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a history podcast about the hidden stories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

    11 min

  4. 3 MAR

    Down the Rabbit Hole: Drink Me, Eat Me, README

    Every software project has one. It's easy to scroll past. Most of the time it's just a manual telling you system requirements, installation steps, and known bugs. But the README file owes a debt to Lewis Carroll, and a quiet trick built into its name that has been manipulating computers for decades. In this episode, we follow the README from its earliest appearances through the conventions that made it a standard, and to the programmers who decided it could be much more than documentation. In this episode Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - the literary origin programmers point to as inspirationThe ASCII trick - the quiet reason README is written in all capitalsThe printer in the woods - a README that went somewhere unexpected Further reading README file entry in the Jargon File Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Dasein" "Scarecrow" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Found Poetry" by James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0-- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a history podcast about the hidden stories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

    8 min

  5. 3 MAR

    The Bug, The Cat, and The Wooden Mouse

    On December 9th, 1968, a Stanford researcher named Douglas Engelbart took the stage in San Francisco and showed a thousand computer professionals something they had never seen: text editing, clickable links, and video conferencing, all controlled by a small wooden block with a wire trailing out the back. The audience gave him a standing ovation. One witness said he was "dealing lightning with both hands." But the mouse didn't begin with Engelbart. In this episode, we follow the surprisingly tangled history of the world's most common computer peripheral and its origins as a Cold War secret. We'll also find out why your cursor is tilted at a 45 degree angle. In this episode The Mother of All Demos - the 1968 presentation that changed computing, and the device at the center of itDATAR - a classified Cold War radar project, and an unlikely contribution to computing historyThe Rollkugel - a German parallel invention and a patent rejectionXerox PARC and Apple - how the mouse finally reached the world Episode Music James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"Brocken Spectre""Shape of a Gun" "Hedgehog's Dilemma""Eternal Light"-- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a history podcast about the hidden stories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

    10 min

  6. 3 MAR

    UFOs, Model Trains, and Code's 'Sacred Syllable'

    Every programmer knows foo. It's the placeholder name, the stand-in variable, the "insert name here" of software development. But where did it actually come from? In this episode, we trace the history of foo and bar in programming back through three unlikely chapters: a Depression-era comic strip, a WWII air squadron, and a group of MIT students who built a computer underneath a model train set. It's a story that runs through hacker culture, computing folklore, and one very strange corner of World War II history. Along the way, we find out what any of it has to do with "bar." In this episode Bill Holman and Smokey Stover - a 1930s comic strip and the catchphrase that accidentally entered the computing lexiconThe Foo Fighters - not the band; the original phenomenon, and the airmen who named itThe Tech Model Railroad Club - MIT's legendary hacker origin story, and why their emergency switch matters more than you'd think Episode music  George L. Cobb,  Public Domain"Procrastination Rag (1927)"James Opie / Nihilore, CC BY 4.0"The Illusion of Cold""Man Alone Chimes the Hour"-- Support the show Lore in the Machine is a history podcast about the hidden stories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

    9 min

  7. SEASON 1, EPISODE 1 TRAILER

    Trailer: Unexpected Stories from Computing History

    Every function, framework, and flicker of code has a story.     Introducing Lore in the Machine, a new podcast hosted by Daina Bouquin that uncovers the hidden histories and surprising origins woven into the fabric of computing. Join us as we look beyond the glass screens to find the jokes, late-night desperation, and impossible dreams that built our digital world.    The first episodes are loading. Find Lore in the Machine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Support the show Lore in the Machine is a history podcast about the hidden stories living inside the tools we use every day. Hosted by Daina Bouquin. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It really helps others find the show. You can follow the show on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.

    2 min

Trailer

About

Every line of code has a story. Most of us just never hear it. The computing history behind the technology you use every day is stranger than you think.

Information