Episode notes
Revolut confirmed handing sensitive customer information to an unauthorized third party after fake requests came from a legitimate government email domain. Its funds and systems were unaffected, the company says. But who checked the request's authority? Also: a Google ad report meets a very different answer from Gemini; Automattic confirms Matt Mullenweg is back after the board put him on leave; and Airbnb challenges a six-room guesthouse's name. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Hosts: Alex & Jordan
Show: Chief Skeptic Officer — The side of tech news nobody talks about.
Drop: Daily at 7:00 A.M. America/New_York
Episode date: 2026-09-14
In this episode
The request that passed — TechCrunch reviewed Revolut's customer notification and obtained company confirmation. Identity-document copies and contact information were disclosed; some other sensitive records may also have been included. The number affected and the government agency remain undisclosed. A legitimate email domain cannot establish a request's legal authority.
The ad that passed — Chris Greening published a fake iPhone storage-warning ad and Google's response to his report. He says two reports were rejected, while Gemini identified the image as deceptive. A chatbot demonstration is not a moderation benchmark, but it exposes a question about the reporting process.
The board that backed him — Automattic confirmed Matt Mullenweg is chairman and CEO with board support, after putting him on leave earlier in the week. TechCrunch separately reports that he removed Slack administrators. The circumstances of the reversal and possible board changes remain unresolved.
The name worth defending — Airbnb is opposing the trademark application for bnb-side, a six-room guesthouse supporting an arts festival in Dorset, England. There is no ruling. The cost of defending or changing a name can burden a small business before the legal argument is settled.
Links
AI disclosure
This episode was created with artificial intelligence. Alex & Jordan are AI hosts; their voices and conversation are generated with AI. Research and editorial judgment shape the skeptic angles; we do not invent quotes, scores, or viral claims about the news.
Transcript
Alex and Jordan, turn by turn. Tap a line to jump in the player.
0:00
Alex
Revolut says fake government requests led it to hand over sensitive customer information.
0:05
Jordan
A developer says Google rejected his reports of an ad disguised as an iPhone warning.
0:12
Alex
Automattic confirms Matt Mullenweg is back as chief executive after the board put him on leave.
0:18
Jordan
Airbnb is challenging the name of a six-room guesthouse that helps fund an English arts festival.
0:26
Jordan
That's the board. Stay for the audit. We open those up. Today's Chief Skeptic Officer.
0:42
Jordan
What if there was an AI that researched the tech news, checked the sources, and asked what the tech news is not telling you?
0:51
Alex
That's us. I'm Alex.
0:53
Jordan
And I'm Jordan.
0:54
Alex
You're listening to Chief Skeptic Officer. The side of tech news nobody talks about.
0:59
Jordan
Every day at seven A.M. New York time. Wherever you get your podcasts.
1:04
Alex
Revolut, the financial app, confirmed it disclosed customer information after fraudulent government requests. I'm looking at TechCrunch's report. It reviewed a customer notification, and Revolut confirmed the incident.
1:18
Jordan
When you say information, are we talking about an email address?
1:22
Alex
More. Names, contact details, birth dates, and copies of identity documents, including passports or driving licences. The notification says the disclosure may also include verification selfies, statements and transaction histories.
1:37
Jordan
That's enough to make the next person pretending to be your bank sound very convincing.
1:43
Alex
It could be. Revolut says customer funds and its systems were unaffected. That assurance doesn't take those documents back.
1:51
Jordan
How did a fake government email get through?
1:54
Alex
That's the part to slow down on. The requests used a legitimate government agency email domain. That means the agency part after the at sign. The report doesn't establish how the sender used it, or which agency was involved.
2:09
Jordan
Oh. So my first thought, somebody misspelled a government address, doesn't fit what we know.
2:15
Alex
Right. We have to separate two checks. Does the email domain belong to a real agency? And does this particular request have legal authority? Those are separate questions.
2:26
Jordan
The building on screen is Revolut's headquarters. Inside an operation that size, somebody has to answer genuine legal requests. You can't just ignore every police email.
2:37
Alex
Agreed. A proper request needs a working route. But that route also needs a way to question who is asking, what law applies, and how much information they can receive.
2:48
Jordan
Before the files leave.
2:50
Alex
Before. Adding a warning afterward doesn't do the same job.
2:54
Jordan
Do we know how many people were affected?
2:57
Alex
Revolut calls it a limited number. It hasn't given a count in this reporting. It says it blocked the address and alerted the agency, law enforcement and regulators.
3:08
Jordan
So they blocked the... messages from that address. We still don't know what changed in the checks on the next request.
3:15
Alex
Exactly. I'd want evidence that another convincing government email would meet a stronger check.
3:22
Jordan
Because the customer gave those documents to prove who they were. The person asking for them should have to prove something too.
3:31
Jordan
This screenshot is an ad inside YouTube. It looks like an iPhone notice saying storage is full, with Yes and No buttons. Developer Chris Greening published it in a post yesterday. He says he encountered the ad months ago and reported it twice.
3:46
Alex
And Google's answer?
3:48
Jordan
Here's the reply he published. Google says it reviewed the report and found the ad didn't go against its policies.
3:56
Alex
A reassuring answer to the person selling the fake warning.
4:00
Jordan
What bothers me is the button. If I think my phone is asking a question, I'm making a different decision from clicking an ad. The design borrows trust from the phone itself.
4:10
Alex
Google's written policy explicitly prohibits ads that mimic system notifications and pop-up messages. So there is a rule covering that kind of design.
4:20
Jordan
Then why did the report fail?
4:23
Alex
We can't see the review process from this email. It doesn't establish whether a person reviewed it, which automated checks ran, or why the decision came out that way.
4:33
Jordan
Greening also asked Gemini, Google's AI chatbot, about the ad. His article shows its chat answer calling the ad misleading.
4:41
Alex
That chat answer didn't remove the ad. And the screenshot alone doesn't tell us what happened after someone clicked it.
4:47
Jordan
Sure, but Google has a model that can spot the... that spotted it in this example. Why can't the report reach a useful result?
4:55
Alex
That's fair. A model producing a sensible answer once doesn't tell us how reliably it would screen millions of ads. We also don't have enough detail about that chat to measure its accuracy.
5:06
Jordan
I don't need a perfect model to expect a useful appeal. This person took the trouble to report a warning that impersonates his phone. Twice.
5:16
Alex
And received a decision that doesn't explain the apparent conflict with Google's rule.
5:21
Jordan
That gap matters more to me than a demonstration of what Gemini can recognise.
5:27
Alex
Then the test is whether a report like this reaches somebody, or some process, that can check the evidence and correct the decision.
5:36
Jordan
Yes. If Google shows us smarter AI, I want to know whether the person reporting the deceptive ad gets a better answer.
5:45
Alex
There's a reversal at Automattic, the company behind WordPress dot com. After its board placed Matt Mullenweg on paid leave earlier in the week, the company confirmed on Saturday that he's back as chairman and chief executive, with what the company calls full board support.
6:03
Jordan
That reverses the paid leave we discussed last week. The board is the group meant to oversee the company and its boss.
6:11
Alex
Yes. The return is confirmed. I'm reading the company's statement in TechCrunch. What hasn't been clearly explained is why the board acted, or what changed its position.
6:22
Jordan
Could be a disagreement they resolved. Does a messy week automatically mean the board has no power?
6:28
Alex
No. Boards can reconsider. But there's another reported detail that makes the practical power question worth asking.
6:35
Alex
TechCrunch says multiple sources told it Mullenweg removed other administrators from the company's Slack, its workplace chat system, during the dispute. That's reporting from sources, separate from the company's confirmation that he's back.
6:48
Jordan
So he controlled the place where staff were talking while the board was trying to change who led them?
6:54
Alex
According to that reporting. Slack access doesn't establish who controls the whole company, or prove why he returned. It shows one practical conflict during the handover.
7:05
Jordan
I can see why you stopped there. In a meeting, someone says the boss is on leave. Then staff open the company chat and the boss still decides who can manage it.
7:16
Alex
That's where I'd ask about access rules during a leadership dispute. Who can manage staff accounts while the board decides what happens next?
7:25
Jordan
And this is Automattic we're talking about. People running an independent WordPress website aren't all customers of this company.
7:31
Alex
Correct. People can also use and run the WordPress software independently. We shouldn't turn one company's board dispute into a claim that every WordPress site changed hands.
7:42
Jordan
But for employees inside Automattic, the practical question is who they answer to tomorrow.
7:49
Alex
And what this week actually resolved. I was going to say who has control, but we only have that one reported example involving chat access.
7:58
Jordan
That's a reasonable request. The statement tells us who's back in the chair. It leaves staff and customers to guess what the fight changed.
8:06
Alex
An explanation of the handover rules would tell them more than another statement that everybody supports the boss.
8:14
Jordan
A six-room guesthouse on the Isle of Portland, in Dorset, England, is called bnb-side. It opened in twenty twenty-four to help fund the b-side arts festival. Airbnb is opposing its application to legally register the name, according to today's Guardian report.
8:31
Alex
There hasn't been a ruling. Losing a registration application wouldn't, by itself, order the guesthouse to change its name.
8:38
Jordan
Right. But the festival is already spending time defending it. Legal letters started arriving in May.
8:44
Jordan
The people in this photo are festival director Rocca Holly-Nambi and guesthouse manager Cat Wightman. The blue windows we just saw belong to their guesthouse.
8:53
Alex
Size alone doesn't decide a trademark case. A small business can still use a name that confuses customers.
9:00
Jordan
Do you think somebody would mistake this for Airbnb?
9:04
Alex
I can't decide that from the photo. Airbnb argues there could be confusion, damage to its reputation, or a misleading suggestion that the guesthouse is an official Airbnb service.
9:16
Alex
The Guardian says b-side is asking the Intellectual Property Office to reject the opposition. That's the UK body handling the trademark dispute. The article explicitly says no ruling has been made.
9:29
Jordan
I'm glad that's in there. A headline about a big company taking on a tiny business can make the outcome sound settled.
9:36
Alex
And defending a brand can be legitimate. We need the actual decision before declaring the legal argument empty.
9:43
Jordan
I know. I'm thinking about my parents' hardware store. Even with help, taking time out to explain your business to lawyers is time somebody has to find.
9:53
Alex
In this case, lawyers are helping the festival without charging fees. That reduces one part of the burden.
10:00
Jordan
It does. But there can still be questions to answer and uncertainty to plan around. The festival says rebuilding the name would be costly if it had to change. I was going to call it a bill, but some of that cost never arrives on an invoice.
10:14
Alex
The report says Airbnb was approached for comment. It doesn't include a response from the company.
10:20
Jordan
So we shouldn't claim to know what it wants beyond the legal opposition.
10:25
Alex
We can ask whether the process lets a small business defend its name without the effort of defending it becoming a reason to give up.
10:34
Jordan
Because a guesthouse can run out of time and attention before anyone decides who is right.
10:40
Alex
That's our audit for today. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. Chief Skeptic Officer, every day at seven A.M. New York time.
10:48
Jordan
Tell us what you're skeptical about. Drop it in the comments. The angle you can't stop chewing on.
10:54
Alex
Stay curious. Stay skeptical.
10:57
Jordan
Doubt both.
