James Ball is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author, fellow of the think-tank Demos, and the political editor of The New World.

He has worked as the global editor of TBIJ, a special correspondent at BuzzFeed UK and special projects editor at The Guardian, where he played a key role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the NSA leaks by Edward Snowden.

His most recent book, "The Other Pandemic: How Qanon Contaminated The World", was published by Bloomsbury in July 2023. He is researching a PhD on how legal systems interact with AI, at UCL Laws.

3 episodes of the Smashing Security podcast:

• 471: This AI worm just rewrote its own rules · Jun 10, 2026
• 465: This developer wanted to cheat at Roblox. It cost millions · Apr 29, 2026
• 455: Face off: Meta’s Glasses and America’s internet kill switch · Feb 19, 2026