The Code Breakers

Yvette Schmitter
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Code Breakers exposes the AI systems quietly crushing human potential before you even know they existed, from hiring algorithms that screen out brilliant candidates to financial AI that denies loans based on zip codes rather than qualifications. Host Yvette Schmitter, CEO who has audited AI across hundreds of organizations leading the protection of 2M+ users, delivers raw investigations into algorithmic bias, breakthrough stories from innovators refusing to let machines write their destiny, and the exact frameworks you need to fight back when AI gets wrong. This podcast delivers actionable intelligence that puts control back in your hands, because your potential becomes a promise to be kept, not a prediction to be made.

Episodes

  1. GTG 1002: When AI Stopped Being the Assistant and Became the Weapon

    24 NOV

    GTG 1002: When AI Stopped Being the Assistant and Became the Weapon

    Thousands of requests per second. That's how fast the AI worked when Chinese state-sponsored hackers jailbroke Anthropic's Claude Code in September 2025. Scanning networks. Writing exploit code. Harvesting credentials. Exfiltrating data. At a speed "simply impossible" for human hackers to match. GTG-1002 targeted thirty organizations including tech companies, financial institutions, chemical manufacturers, and government agencies. Multiple successful breaches. The AI performed 90% of the work autonomously, with humans involved in only 10 to 20% of operations, mostly just to approve major decisions. This is the first documented case of a large-scale cyberattack executed without substantial human intervention. First documented, meaning this is the first one we know about. The hackers tricked Claude into thinking it was doing legitimate penetration testing for a cybersecurity company. Role-play tactics. Carefully crafted prompts. Once Claude believed the setup, it executed everything else independently. Reconnaissance. Vulnerability discovery. Writing exploit code. Lateral movement through networks. Credential harvesting. Data analysis. Exfiltration. At machine speed. Anthropic took 10 days to detect what was happening. 10 days of "eventually detected" while the attacks ran. But the nightmare goes deeper. This episode exposes the brutal economics nobody wants to confront: Stanford economist Charles Jones concluded that spending at least 1% of global GDP annually on AI risk mitigation can be justified. That's roughly $300 billion. Actual global spending on AI existential risk mitigation according to software engineer Stephen McAleese is a little over $100 million. We're spending 0.03% of what economists say is justified. Not 3%. Not 0.3%. Zero. Point. Zero. Three. Percent. The irony is devastating: The entire justification for not instituting AI guardrails is that we can't slow down innovation. We have to beat China. And then China used our AI to hack us. At machine speed. With minimal human intervention. They jailbroke the tool from the company that markets itself as the "safety-focused" AI lab. Meanwhile, Microsoft just shipped agentic AI features for Windows 11 with a warning at the top: "Only enable this feature if you understand the security implications." The documentation confirms these AI agents have access to Documents, Downloads, Desktop, Videos, Pictures, and Music folders, and warns that "AI applications introduce novel security risks, such as cross-prompt injection, where malicious content can override agent instructions, leading to data exfiltration or malware installation." Cross-prompt injection. The exact vulnerability that enabled GTG-1002. Microsoft knows this. They documented it. They warned about it. And they're shipping it anyway. What does your actual defensive infrastructure look like post-GTG-1002? No mandatory AI security audits before deployment. No standardized threat taxonomies for agentic AI attacks. No required safety testing for autonomous capabilities. No accountability mechanisms for jailbreak vulnerabilities. No independent oversight of AI security claims. No public incident reporting requirements. But adversaries are operating at machine speed while defenses operate on warnings and voluntary compliance. And version 2.0 is coming. GTG-1002 had flaws. Claude hallucinated during attacks, claimed credentials that didn't work, overstated success. These operations had technical limitations and still breached government agencies. Now imagine the next iteration with better prompt engineering, more sophisticated jailbreak techniques, improved autonomous decision-making, coordinated attacks using multiple AI agents simultaneously. No hallucinations. No limitations. Pure, efficient, machine-speed exploitation. Yvette Schmitter breaks down the path forward. We know how to fix this. We're just choosing not to. Fund AI safety like the national security crisis it is. Because GTG-1002 already happened.

    25 min
  2. The Sharepoint Nightmare That Just Hit America's Nuclear Arsenal

    9 NOV

    The Sharepoint Nightmare That Just Hit America's Nuclear Arsenal

    Foreign hackers just walked into the facility that produces 80% of America's nuclear weapon components. They used SharePoint. The same Microsoft SharePoint your marketing team uses to share quarterly reports was protecting nuclear weapon manufacturing data. In August 2025, the Kansas City National Security Campus was breached through two unpatched SharePoint vulnerabilities. Attribution remains unclear between Chinese nation-state groups and Russian cybercriminals, but the implications are terrifying: adversaries now have potential access to precision requirements, tolerance specifications, and supply chain data for America's nuclear arsenal. This episode exposes the brutal reality of cybersecurity in critical infrastructure. The exploitation timeline: 6 days from patch to active exploitation. 11 days from public proof-of-concept to real-world attacks. The average time from disclosure to exploit availability is now less than one day. While foreign hackers move at digital speed, American nuclear facilities move at bureaucratic speed. We fired nuclear safety experts through DOGE "efficiency" cuts, then got breached because we couldn't patch basic vulnerabilities fast enough. But the nightmare goes deeper. Industrial control systems run on Windows XP-era vulnerabilities. Production floors shut down without USB drives plugged directly into CNC machines. Zero-trust options exist but almost no one implements them. SCADA systems controlling power grids, water treatment, and nuclear facilities were built when cybersecurity meant a locked door. And while everyone panics about SharePoint patches, millions of Americans are voluntarily downloading AI browsers that make SharePoint look secure. Perplexity's Comet, OpenAI's ChatGPT Atlas, and Opera Neon promise convenience while security researchers warn of "systemic challenges" from prompt injection attacks that leak data and perform unauthorized actions automatically. On November 5th, Google researchers confirmed hackers have crossed the Rubicon: weaponized AI malware called PromptFlux and PromptSteal that uses large language models to rewrite code, evade detection, and generate malicious functions on demand. Russian military hackers used PromptSteal against Ukrainian entities. The fundamentals haven't changed: validate inputs, separate templates from user data, restrict permissions, apply multi-layered defenses. But we're deploying AI systems that can write code and control industrial processes while failing to implement Computer Science 101 secure coding practices. Yvette Schmitter breaks down what actually needs to happen. Stop pretending incremental improvements will fix fundamental problems. Get back to basics before we automate our way into the next catastrophe. Fix the fundamentals before you automate the failures. Because this breach was entirely predictable. The next one will be worse.

    21 min
  3. When Your Snack Becomes A Weapon

    26 OCT

    When Your Snack Becomes A Weapon

    When Your Snack Becomes A Weapon Monday night in Baltimore: 16-year-old Taki Allen finishes football practice, eats Doritos with friends outside school. Thirty seconds later, eight police cars surround him with weapons drawn. All they found was the chip bag. The AI Catastrophe: Omnilert's gun detection system flagged Taki's Doritos as a weapon. Security cleared it. But Principal Smith didn't get the memo and called police anyway. Eight units responded to a threat that no longer existed. The Defense That Reveals Everything: Omnilert claims the system was "working as intended." Translation? A system designed to see guns everywhere successfully traumatized a student eating snacks. The District That Got It Right: Charles County uses identical technology with zero false positives. The difference? Only trained security professionals review alerts - not principals with panic buttons. The Brutal Truth: AI doesn't understand context. It sees pixels, not people. When you optimize for threat detection over accuracy, you build paranoia software that turns everyday behavior into potential emergencies. Yvette breaks down the cascading failures: AI flagged chips, communication failed, protocols collapsed, and armed officers confronted an innocent teenager. The human cost of "maximum sensitivity" algorithms that see danger in everything. The Uncomfortable Reality: We're automating panic and teaching kids to fear being visible. For Black students, eating snacks outside school now joins the list of activities that can trigger armed police response. This isn't about one false positive. It's about every AI system deployed without asking: "What happens when this goes catastrophically wrong?" The answer: Eight cops pointing guns at kids holding chips.

    26 min
  4. The World's AI Wake-Up Call

    22 OCT

    The World's AI Wake-Up Call

    While Silicon Valley celebrates funding rounds, the world is preparing for algorithmic warfare. The Data That Should Terrify Every CEO: → 34% globally more concerned than excited about AI → Black women's unemployment hits 7.5% - fastest spike this year → 19% of high schoolers in romantic relationships with AI chatbots → Accenture fires 11,000 for "not adapting to AI," then hires 80,000 consultants to teach others The Uncomfortable Truth: AI systems learn from biased historical data, creating automated discrimination at digital speed. Those most harmed by algorithmic bias are least likely to know these systems exist. The Leonidas Moment: "Future generations won't remember our quarterly earnings. When they dig through the digital ruins of our algorithms, what will they find? Monuments to our courage or our complicity?" Yvette's challenge hits different: Transform "impossible" into "inevitable." The algorithms we build today will outlive us all. From her audit work protecting 2 million people from algorithmic discrimination to saving clients $50M+ in compliance costs, Yvette proves 85% of AI bias is fixable with the right framework and commitment. The question isn't whether we can build ethical AI. It's whether we have the will to do it.

    16 min
  5. The Algorithm That Can't See Excellence

    26 SEPT

    The Algorithm That Can't See Excellence

    While you're listening to this, an AI system just rejected your company's next breakthrough hire. Meet Aliyah Jones: Brilliant in every way. Perfect resume. Applied to 300 jobs. ZERO callbacks. Then she changed ONE thing: her name. Aliyah → Emily (blonde LinkedIn photo). Same qualifications. Same experience. Same skills. Result? Interview city. THE SHOCKING TRUTH: 98% of Fortune 500 companies use AI hiring systems trained on decades of biased data, then marketed as "objective technology." In this explosive episode, host Yvette Schmitter exposes: 💀 The Trillion Dollar Shell Game – How AI companies profit billions by automating discrimination while claiming fairness 🎯 "Clone Your Best Worker" – The actual pitch AI companies use (if you historically hired white men from elite schools, guess what the algorithm recommends?) ⚖️ The "Jared & Lacrosse" Algorithm – An employment attorney audited one "fair" system. Top success indicators? The name "Jared" and playing high school lacrosse. Translation: White, male, wealthy. 🔄 Closed Loop Discrimination – Biased data → biased algorithms → biased decisions → new biased data. Discrimination with compound interest. 🛡️ The Guardian Protocol Solution – While competitors fight over "qualified" talent, discover hidden innovators they systematically miss REALITY CHECK: If today's hiring algorithms existed decades ago, they would have filtered out Katherine Johnson, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, and Yvette herself. Every breakthrough that doesn't happen because its creator was algorithmically eliminated = massive opportunity cost. YOUR POWER: Whether you're CEO or intern, job hunting or hiring – you can demand explanations, audit systems, refuse "the computer says no" as final answers. THE CODE BREAKER CHALLENGE: 1. Find ONE AI system affecting your life 2. Ask: "How does this make decisions about me?" 3. Can't get answers? Document it 4. Email: info@thecodebreakers.ai First 100 people get FREE AI Bias Detection Toolkit. Your next breakthrough opportunity might be getting filtered out RIGHT NOW by an algorithm that thinks the past predicts the future. AI isn't magic. It's math. Math can be audited, questioned, and changed. Join the army at www.thecodebreakers.ai Welcome to the revolution.

    15 min
  6. Why I Built Code Breakers: My Battle with Biased Systems

    23 SEPT

    Why I Built Code Breakers: My Battle with Biased Systems

    What happens when AI systems become digital guidance counselors crushing dreams before they can take flight? Host Yvette Schmitter reveals the shocking moment that sparked her mission to expose algorithmic bias destroying human potential worldwide. THE BREAKING POINT: When Yvette asked AI to create her action hero avatar, it generated Jensen Huang's face instead of hers. A Black female tech CEO rendered invisible by the very systems she helps build. If AI can't see her, what is it doing to vulnerable students and job seekers? THE BRUTAL REALITY: Right now, algorithms are telling brilliant Black teenagers to skip medical school for community college. AI systems steer Latina math geniuses toward retail management. These aren't glitches - they're features designed to limit dreams before they can soar. THE SYSTEMIC PROBLEM: For over 400 years, gatekeepers posted monsters at the gates of medicine, engineering, and nation-building. Now we've uploaded that same bias to the cloud and scaled it to millions of decisions per second. Research shows AI prediction algorithms systematically underestimate success for Black and Hispanic students, predicting failure even when they ultimately graduate and excel. THE RESISTANCE: But every person who succeeds despite algorithmic predictions commits algorithmic resistance. Every breakthrough proves the systems wrong. Every giant who reveals themselves despite the predictions becomes evidence that rewrites the code. THE MISSION: Code Breakers exposes how AI perpetuates bias while showcasing humans proving algorithms dead wrong. This isn't just about fixing broken systems - this is about preventing AI from breaking humanity. Because your potential isn't a prediction to be made. It's a promise to be kept.

    16 min
  • 6 Episodes

About

Code Breakers exposes the AI systems quietly crushing human potential before you even know they existed, from hiring algorithms that screen out brilliant candidates to financial AI that denies loans based on zip codes rather than qualifications. Host Yvette Schmitter, CEO who has audited AI across hundreds of organizations leading the protection of 2M+ users, delivers raw investigations into algorithmic bias, breakthrough stories from innovators refusing to let machines write their destiny, and the exact frameworks you need to fight back when AI gets wrong. This podcast delivers actionable intelligence that puts control back in your hands, because your potential becomes a promise to be kept, not a prediction to be made.

Information

  • Creator
    Yvette Schmitter
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    6
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © @2025 All Rights Reserved
  • Show Website
    The Code Breakers
  • Provider
    Yvette Schmitter