About this episode
The hacker group Lizard Squad ruined Christmas for a lot of people last year when it hacked into Sony and Microsoft servers and rendered new PlayStations and Xboxes temporarily unusable for online gaming. Soon after, the hackers starting selling an inexpensive program that anyone could use to block a Web site. Vauhini Vara, a contributor to The New Yorker ’s Web site, talked to Vinnie Omari, a hacker who has been associated with Lizard Squad, about the group. This week concludes Jill Lepore’s three-part story about a woman’s search for the biological father she never knew. He was known as Big Brown, a Greenwich Village street poet whose work Bob Dylan described as “the best poetry I ever heard.” This final installment of “The Search for Big Brown” explores the connection among Brown, Dylan, and rap. David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker , speaks with Gloria Steinem about Hillary Clinton, Black Lives Matter, and a fundamental question for activists: which comes first, changing hearts or changing laws? Steinem also talks about her new memoir, “ My Life on the Road ,” and why she decided to change her book’s title. And staff writer Rebecca Mead discusses two of her current obsessions: the soundtrack to the Broadway hit “ Hamilton ,” and a classic novel by a man without children that offers surprising insights on motherhood.