Beau:
If you are a person who does not like to hear stories about crimes of a sexual nature, especially crimes against children, this would be a good episode for you to skip.
I really liked your article this week, Travis, about… Well, like as in hated… Your article about the GPS stuff. But for everybody who didn’t read it, what’s going on?
Travis:
There’s this really popular GPS vehicle tracker that apparently has almost no cybersecurity. It’s like the ultimate wince list of security vulnerability, isn’t it?
So what this means is that, in roughly 1.5 million vehicles around the entire world right now, if a hacker wanted to, they could pretty much not just track a vehicle, but also stop it, or take full control over it.
Beau:
That’s distressing.
Travis:
It is, yeah. And I mean, these GPS trackers are being used right now in Ukraine. So that’s obviously a great target of opportunity for Russia. They pretty much just make any vehicle with them a sitting duck.
Adam:
So what would you put on the wince list, Travis?
Travis:
One of the biggest ones is having a hard coded password.
Beau:
What?
Travis:
So all these devices have the same password by default, and they’re all hard coded, which means that they can’t really be updated.
Beau:
You can’t change the password.
Travis:
Yeah. I mean, I’d say one of the biggest things about it though, is that if I had an internet connected toaster, I would be distressed by how bad the security is in this. And in this case, it’s something that can actually control a car, or a fleet of cars.
Beau:
So you can’t even change the password? That’s crazy. So I’m going to have some fun with Adam on this one.
Travis:
Yeah, pretty much. If you ever just want to keep track of him, and then wait until he’s, say, in on some back woods road…
Beau:
Can I turn off his car right before he meets Ned Beatty in the woods?
Travis:
Yeah, pretty much.
Beau:
Haha.
Adam:
No Ned Beatty, he moved south.
Beau:
Okay. So you’re safe. Good. Well, I’m glad to hear you’re sort of safe, Adam. What are they doing to fix this GPS situation, Adam?
Adam:
They’re doing absolutely nothing.
Beau:
Travis, is that true?
Travis:
Yep. A hundred percent.
Beau:
What does nothing look like?
Travis:
Nothing is not responding to any notifications. There was a cyber security firm that found all these vulnerabilities, and they tried contacting the manufacturer of these devices, and they are not picking up the phone.
Beau:
Kind of like me.
Travis:
Yeah. And so the federal government actually tried just being like, “Hey guys, can you please fix this?” And still absolutely nothing.
Adam:
Is it possible that they disappeared?
Beau:
No, I don’t think it’s possible that they disappeared, but it’s an intriguing thought.
Travis:
Yeah. It’s a major device manufacturer based in China, that are simply just not taking any calls about the security holes.
Adam:
What can we do if they do nothing?
Beau:
Nothing.
Travis:
Disconnect the device.
Beau:
Your car?
Travis:
No, the GPS. [inaudible 00:03:33]
Adam:
But if you disconnect the GPS you’re going to not know where you’re going.
Beau:
I don’t think you can disconnect the GPS on your car.
Travis:
That’s what the federal government is recommending right now, is that they say, “If you have this device in your car, remove it immediately.”
Beau:
Damn.
Travis:
Yeah.
Adam:
Welcome to What the Hack, a show about hackers, scammers and the people they go after. I’m Adam, cyber moonraker.
Beau:
I’m Beau, cyber Luddite.
Travis:
And I’m Travis, cyber gold member.
Adam:
And today we welcome back filmmaker, dashing, rascal, BBC journalist, newly engaged and podcaster, Andrew Gold, to hear about his deep dive into the depths of the dark web.
So Andrew, we know in your work and your podcast you speak to a lot of extreme and controversial people.
Beau:
The internet is a place where things we are embarrassed by, in general, happen more. And that can be silly or can be incredibly dark. And you’re no stranger to investigating things that are more serious and nefarious online. Is that not right, Andrew?
Andrew:
People don’t like to say the word… I mean, can we say the word pedophile? The P word?
Beau:
Well, no, they’re not a protected class.
Andrew:
Because you guys don’t do the video, it’s just the audio. But the YouTube, they don’t like you saying it, because it’s one of those things that can get you demonetized. You won’t get ads on your thing because you said the P word. So people say the P word.
Other words like Epstein… You joke about Trump. Trump is fine. But Epstein because there’s so much conspiracy around it, YouTube tend to demonetize words like that. So you find yourself speaking in code all the time.
Travis:
Interesting.
Beau:
Yeah, that is interesting. Because we don’t monetize anything on YouTube. But I do have a Christmas ornament with a picture of Epstein on it, that says ‘this ornament didn’t hang itself’.
Travis:
Approved.
Andrew:
Well, don’t put that on YouTube. You’ll be instantly banned on YouTube for that. But pedophiles, as we say, or pedophiles, as you guys say, I was looking into that in Germany.
Whenever I get to a new place, it’s like, “Okay, what’s the crazy thing here?” I’ve done the UFOs and the exorcism, I’ve done abortion, I’ve done stuff in Columbia and all.
And then Germany, what’s the thing? And obviously the first thing you think of is Nazis, and there’s communists as well. And there’s like these villages where they have Nazis and communists and all.
And I’d looked into that for a while, and then I came to learn that Germany had the world’s only therapy, state sponsored, for pedophiles, where they never report them to authorities.
For example, if a pedophile went to see a doctor, or psychologist, or whatever it might be, in the US, the doctor would have to report them, or be… I think put in prison. I think you can go to prison for not reporting them. The same in Australia. Somebody listening can [inaudible 00:06:55].
Beau:
Now, this is an active pedophile, or is this a person who has fantasies?
Andrew:
That I’m not clear on. And even the doctors don’t seem to be clear on that. They just know that if there’s something that you think you should be worrying about… So it makes it very, very complicated. And in the UK you wouldn’t go to prison, the doctor, but you would be fired, or struck off, or whatever it might be.
So it sort of means these people… And as I think you are getting at… The ones who don’t offend, the non-offenders, have nowhere to go. So Germany’s point of view of that is, look, we’ve got these people. They’re not going to just disappear. They exist. New ones of them are being made all the time, whether we lock them up or not. And there are a lot of them who would never offend, but might do if they’re swayed by their own cognitive biases, that kind of thing.
And if they’re stigmatized, and they’re put in a corner somewhere, if they have no one to talk to who’s a professional, then they will just go on online chat stuff. And that’s not a good place for them, because they’ll speak to other people with their condition.
Beau:
No, and if they go down one of those rabbit holes on YouTube, they could find their… Yeah. I got it. Algorithms could even bring them to where they’re going.
Adam:
And then they get all worked up, and then they go out there and have to do what they do.
Beau:
But then I feel like I’ve seen movies, at least… I know I haven’t read about it, and I’ve certainly never met anyone… But I believe I’ve seen it in movies, or maybe it’s Law and Order, a television show, a police procedural… Where there’s a person who is a pedophile, and desperately doesn’t want to be one, and is suicidal because they can’t stop, or they try to get themselves caught on purpose.
So I mean, I can see why Germany might do that. In Sweden, it’s against privacy laws to say where a sex offender lives. Whereas in the United States, you have the right to know where a sex offender lives.
Adam:
Well, not only that, but if you sign up for a lot of credit and identity monitoring programs, one of the features of the programs is you get notified when a sex offender or a pedophile moves into your neighborhood.
Beau:
But I want to hear what happened in your travels in Germany.
Andrew:
I’ve become desensitized, in a sense, because I was looking into them for two years. I’ve written a book, which I’ve not yet tried to publish, because I just know it’s going to be insane.
But even my girlfriend, and my friends and stuff, we’re all desensitized, because we’ve had these conversations so much. And I need to remember, for a lot of people, it’s the first time hearing about it. For a lot of people, they’ve had experiences. I think one in nine girls in the US have been abused as children by pedophiles. It ruins their lives.
And the statistics are just so crazy obvious that it’s the worst thing that can happen to somebody. So that needs to be stated from the off, so nobody hears… Anyway, you know what I mean.
Beau:
I do.
David:
I wish people understood that… I mean, we generally don’t like the fact that there are pedophiles either. We didn’t ask for this. It’s something that a lot of people would be more comfortable ignoring, but when it’s you, it’s not really an option to ignore it.
Speaker 6:
This is David. He’s known as a non-offending pedophile. Someone who has a romantic and sexual attraction to kids, but says he’s never abused a child. He wants help, but getting it in the US is risky.
David:
When I was figuring this stuff out about myself, I decided that I couldn’t tell anybody, because I was pretty certain that, at best, they would desert me, and I’d lose a friend or whatever, and at worst, they’d tell absolutely everybody and I’d be…
Speaker 6:
It’d dangerous for you.
David:
It would be dangerous.
Andrew:
So I was just interested in looking into it, and just, what do we do? Because it’s one thing to just all be like, “Ah, I don’t want to talk about it,” but it’s still happening.
So that’s what this German clinic is trying to do. The bad side is, when these people come into therapy, it means that these therapists are then saying, “God, that guy looks like he might do something, and I’m just letting him back onto the street.” That is the downside of it. The good side is, way more of them are coming in.
And what they say is there are three types of pedophiles. One type is going to be psychopathic, and they are going to offend no matter what. And there’s not much we can do about them in terms of therapy. They’re just going to do what they’re going to do.
Speaker 7:
Lengthy prison sentences have been handed down to a couple who sold their son to pedophiles on the dark web for sex.
Andrew:
Then there are the ones who you were mentioning before, who would never do it, would never download child sexual abuse material. They would just never, ever do it. They struggle with their desires. And unfortunately they have a miserable, miserable life.
Again, they’re not needed in this therapy, because they’re not going to do anything anyway. The ones who need to go to the therapy are the ones in the middle somewhere, the ones who know how bad this is, they struggle with it, and they might give into their temptations and cognitive biases.
And that’s what this clinic does, is it disabuses them of those biases. Because they start to tell each other, “Oh, but you know, it’s not that bad. It happened to me. It happened to other people. And actually they quite enjoy it,” and that kind of thing. And they need to be told that’s what’s wrong.
So I got in touch with this clinic. I was really interested to see what it was all about. And they then asked a few of their patients if they wanted to get in touch with me.
They don’t even know their patients’ real names. They’ve all got email addresses that are x17@178… They’re just these mad, long keys.
Beau:
But Andrew, I have a question. So is this clinic doing the thing that I do with scammers? Just emailing people they suspect are pedophiles, and luring them with the possibility of fulfilling their pedophilia desires? I don’t know how say that. I don’t know what the right word for that is.
Andrew:
Yeah, I think when we talk about this, we have to accept and hope for forgiveness from listeners. We’re going to stumble over words, just because it is such a taboo subject, and we’re all trying to be really, really careful.
And I hope that people understand that. And I think you explained it fine. They use… You know those old… People still use them I guess, but like LimeWire and Napster. Are they P2P thingies? What are they?
Travis:
Peer to peer network is what it’s called. So there’s no one centralized server that you’re passing through. So it’s really just a network that’s created by whoever is connecting to it.
Beau:
Okay. So that’s a surplus safe place for people to have conversations they’d like to keep fairly private. [inaudible 00:13:36]
Travis:
Right. Because if you take down, say, one central server, one node or something like that, the network is still there.
Beau:
Interesting.
Andrew:
And to me, my childhood, that was the place to get some sort of remix of Britney Spears and Green Day and Oasis or something. That was really cool.
And it’s so sad to see that nostalgic piece of software now has sort fallen into the hands of a lot of these people, who are downloading child sexual abuse material.
They don’t call it child pornography at the clinic because pornography suggests there’s consent. Of course there isn’t, so child sexual abuse material is what they call it.
And they’re called… Well, in German, it’s [foreign language 00:14:17], which means don’t offend, don’t be an offender. And what they do is they put fake child sexual abuse material with titles that will entice these people. So they’ll download the video and then the video pops up.
Speaker 8:
[foreign language 00:14:35].
Speaker 9:
[foreign language 00:14:35].
Andrew:
But it doesn’t have any of that stuff in there. It just says, ‘You can come and get help. Help is here. We will support you. You’re not necessarily a monster or anything. We can help you. Come in. Here’s our phone number. Or come in into the office and speak to us, and completely, completely anonymous.’.
And they don’t take their names. They don’t take any information about them, in the hope that that will convince them to actually come in, and be brave enough.
And it’s hard to do that, because people still put graffiti outside the clinic, like ‘hang the pedos,’ ‘hang the pedophiles,’ and stuff like that. So it’s very hard for those people to walk through those doors, and go and get help. But they do.
And as I was saying, they got in touch with me. So a guy called Max got in touch. That’s the name he gave me. It’s not his real name. And it’s just a series of numbers and things as his email address. They’ve all got all sorts of coded stuff that I don’t really understand.
And he said, “I’m actually in Berlin.” That’s where I was living. He said, “I’m in Berlin today. Do you want to meet me at this address?”
So I went down to the address. I looked it up, and the address was a public swimming pool. It was a [foreign language 00:15:45], as they call it, which is a popular German place to go.
But it was just a very strange place, to me, to go and meet a guy with his condition, or illness, or whatever you might want to call it. I was just shocked.
So my heart was thumping out of my face. I was so stressed by this. But at the same time, it was like, “Okay, I’m a journalist. I’m supposed to go and do this kind of thing. I want to write a book about it. I want to make audio documentaries about it, and whatever.”
So I cycled down to this swimming pool place, and I go inside. And the closer I get, I’m just getting more and more nervous, because I’ve never knowingly met one of these people.
And I get into the swimming pool place, and he’s messaging me now, at this point. And he’s using an app called Threema. Do you guys know of Threema?
Beau:
I don’t, no.
Travis:
I don’t.
Beau:
Threema, it sounds like a German Telegram type thing? End-to-end?
Travis:
Secure messenger made in Switzerland.
Beau:
Okay. So it is an end-to-end encrypted.
Travis:
Yeah.
Beau:
Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought. Open source end-to-end encrypted instant messaging application for iOS and Android. Privacy by design. Yada yada yada. It’s exactly what a person who is breaking the law might be attracted to as a opportune way to communicate.
Andrew:
There you go. So I had to download Threema. And over the years I was communicating with a lot of these people, for like two years. It’s a weird thing to have in your phone, an app where, even when I didn’t use it for months at a time, whenever I used my phone, I saw it there in the corner. And it’s like a world where, if I click it, it’s a whole list of these dark, mysterious people, most of whom have never offended, but still it’s a very dark, scary place for me.
So this particular guy, Max… And it was my first time with any of these people… I was messaging on Threema, ‘Which one is you?’ And I saw him, and he’s wearing Speedos, and he looked like the stereotype. He was a bit overweight, so his stomach hang hung over his Speedos a bit. And he had long t-shirt on, and he was wearing a baseball hat or whatever.
And he was there with a little girl who was like 12 years old. So I was just like, “What on earth is going on?” So my first instinct was to just do that journalism thing. Well, my first instinct was run, but the second one was, “Okay, I’m going to just play it naive a little bit here.” Because I don’t know his name and anything that he does. I’m never going to be able to see this guy again. I need to make sure of things and earn his trust.
So I sat with him and talked, and then I said, “So who’s that girl?” Because the girl had gone off to swim. And he’s like, “Oh, I’m babysitting.” And I was like, “Right, okay. That’s mad that he’s babysitting.”
And then two other girls came over… “Hi Uncle Max. Can we have some sweets?” Or whatever. And he got them some candy. And I was like, “Who are they?” And he’s like, “I’m also babysitting them.”
And it emerged, there were two different mothers who were allowing their children to be babysat by him. He said that they knew about his condition and trusted him.
And I went and met one of the mothers, and it was all checked out. And she just said, “Look, I believe him, and he’s had a hard time in his life.” She was super left wing, and she had this feeling that these people were being stigmatized, and it wasn’t fair.
And I was like, “Look, that’s fine for you to have those views and everything, but you’re testing it out on your children. It’s not being tested out on you. It’s your children who are going to have to take that. And when they’re older, they’re going to have to look back and know that Uncle Max, who was taking them to the swimming pool all the time, while they were getting changed and stuff, was a pedophile.”
Beau:
Well, was a pedophile, or was a would-be pedophile, or an almost pedophile?
Andrew:
So he’s a pedophile, and those who offend are known as pedo criminals or pedo criminals.
Beau:
And so he was not a pedo criminal, he was a…
Andrew:
Yeah.
Beau:
Got you.
Andrew:
He said that when he was 16 something almost, sort of happened. Or when he was 17. But he was very vague about it. And that’s often the case. A lot of these guys, something happens when they’re coming to terms with their sexuality, when they’re 17 or 18… Or their illness… When they’re 17 or 18, and then they learn to be show more constraint. But he would probably call himself not a pedo criminal. It’s the whole mess.
Beau:
The liberal thing is interesting, because that’s the situation in Sweden. And I remember the first time I heard that there were privacy laws around sex offenders in Sweden, I was outraged.
And I was with a friend who was much more liberal than I am, shockingly. And she was just like, “Absolutely not. They have every right to their privacy.” And it was a really intense, flinty position she took, because it included the possibility that she could be affected.
Andrew:
Yeah.
Adam:
Not good.
Beau:
Well, or good. If you really believe that privacy is privacy, then I suppose it is good. But I don’t believe in absolutes, myself. I believe in a slightly more wiggly reality than that.
Travis:
I think one thing that comes up, just going back to the peer-to-peer networks, is it’s a similar argument that I’ve heard on dark web monitoring, which is, in order to be able to get that information, in order to be able to get information to potentially help people, you need to be interacting on these forums where crime is necessarily happening.
Andrew:
Yeah. Well, that’s what it is. And I was on these message boards. I never ever saw anything that I wasn’t supposed to see, and I was always very clear with these people that I was a journalist, coming in.
And that caused a lot of friction sometimes, because these people feel very sorry for themselves. The message boards I’m talking about with a non offenders, so there’s like a thing you have to sign saying, ‘I will never share explicit material. I won’t encourage others to do so.’
And they are there to help each other. And they basically tell each other how lonely they are, and then they argue sometimes about what should be allowed, and what shouldn’t, and the morality, and things like that. And it can get a bit gross, I suppose.
But I was on there. And I guess they would see me sometimes as, “Oh, look at this normie, who’s able to have a nice life with his girlfriend, and able to have all this nice stuff.” So there was a little bit of friction there.
And I made a mistake at one point, because there was a kid who went missing, called Madeline McCann, in the UK. It was this huge story, because she was a particularly sweet girl.
Beau:
Yes.
Beau:
I remember too.
Andrew:
Very sweet girl, but also because she had white, upper middle class parents who were professionals. They were doctors and stuff. So it was this real feeling of, it could happen to anyone. And it became a huge, huge story. Some people said it was the parents, and I think that’s conspiracy, and it’s obviously horrible for them to have to hear that. But it was a huge thing.
And only recently, about a year or two ago, they feel like they might have gotten the perpetrator, who would’ve unfortunately taken her and killed her. And this is a guy called… I think it was Christian Brueckner, who is German, and in prison serving time for other such crimes.
So I, being the selfish journalist I am, and I thought, “Oh, I’m in Germany now, and I have this connection to all these people, and everybody’s saying it’s this guy at the moment, I’ve got an in here and I can break a big story.”
So I went back to my message board, which at the time I hadn’t been in for months. And I just said… Just a really quick message… “Hi guys. It’s me again. I was just wondering, do any of you guys know the pedophile Christian Brueckner, the pedophile who took this little girl away?”
And I left that message board for a few days. I sort of forgot about it. I went about my business or whatever, came back, went, “Oh yeah. That message board.” Clicked on it. Loads of messages from all of them, going crazy at me.
And I thought at first this would be because I had sort of suggested they might know him, because he’s an offender and they’re not. But what it was was because I had used the word pedophile to describe him.
And this Christian guy, he was in prison not just for child sexual abuse, but also for adult women. The suggestion being, he’s actually a psychopath who would take anyone, or at least a pedo criminal. But to call him a pedophile was really offensive to all these people.
Beau:
So they felt like a protected class in Germany.
Andrew:
Yeah.
Beau:
That’s super interesting. What’s also interesting is that this clinic’s using, essentially, a scam to get the patients to do something that’s good for them. And anyone can get scammed. And I think many of us, like me, I’m willing to be scammed. Please do it. Let me see what you got.
But the problem here is the nexus of that curiosity, whether you’re a journalist, or an agency trying to help people, and the digital world, because…
So let’s point out, you were using Threema, which we now know is this end-to-end encrypted messaging app. What happens? End-to-end just means that while you’re communicating with me, Andrew, no one else can snoop on what we’re saying to each other.
But our communications, stored on our respective devices, or in our storage online, on the cloud, wherever, those can be hacked and those can be discovered.
And all of these people on Threema, who think that they’re having a protected conversation about their very sensitive situation, are exposable, easily. We know that.
Andrew:
Interesting. And they don’t realize that.
Beau:
I don’t know. Hopefully they’ll listen to this podcast. I feel very ambivalent about the whole situation. So part of me is… I could see a white hat hacker going in there, Captain Justice style, and exposing them. So as ever, with online, it’s complicated.
Andrew:
If they’re sharing abuse material, then it’s only right that a hacker goes in and exposes that.
Beau:
Correct.
Andrew:
If they’re not, then I personally don’t think that would be a good idea to do, because they’re talking to help each other, not to offend. And then if a guy came in and exposed that…
My concern as a journalist was always, “What if I’m having one of these conversations, and one of these guys is horrible, or drunk, or whatever, and sends me something like that?” Then it’s on my phone, and then I’m worried. Do I delete it?
And it never happened. And they were very respectful with me, and they were very careful. They’re used to thinking of themselves as monsters. They’re talking to a journalist. It’s very rare they do that. They don’t want me looking at them as monsters. So they tried to give a as normal as possible of, “We’re just these people. We don’t do these things.” So there was no one like that. But it could have happened.
My girlfriend said to me, “You should talk to the police before you even investigate this, so they know you’re investigating it.” But I just thought, if I’m not doing anything wrong…
I suppose if they had sent something like that, maybe I would immediately call the police and then be like, “Look, I’ve just been sent this. I’m reporting it so you know.” I don’t know.
Adam:
Well, I got to tell you, this has been fascinating. And really appreciate you coming on our show. I also appreciate the fact that you allowed me to come on your show.
Andrew:
That was great.
Adam:
We had a lot of fun, and we did a little scaring is caring. But the things you’ve done… Amazing things. And please keep doing what you’re doing.
Andrew:
Oh, thank you.
Adam:
Because we need voices like yours out there. And we need British accents like yours out there as well. So I figure that you are the James Bond of documentaries.
Andrew:
Get out of here. Thank you.
Adam:
Thank you from all of us.
Beau:
So guys, it’s a cliche that if you go to prison for a crime against a child, you’re pretty much a dead man walking, right? This is heavy duty stuff.
And we all probably agree that they deserve a fate worse than whatever it is they get, even if it’s super bad. Because it’s a heinous crime to do a crime, especially a sexual crime, against a child.
Now, if you have a law enforcement agency or other people involved in rescuing kids out there, using scammer tactics, is it fair game?
Travis:
I think absolutely.
Beau:
Me too.
Travis:
I mean, really otherwise what you’re doing is you’re denying people that are not criminals, or that are not hostile governments, the same tools.
Adam:
All right. Beau, what about the entrapment issue here?
Beau:
Listen, if you’re going to fall for that particular bait, then you’re a criminal.
Travis:
Yep. Agreed.
Adam:
I’ll go with you on that, yeah.
Travis:
Yeah. A hundred percent.
Beau:
So what do we think in general? It sounds like the consensus is it’s okay for law enforcement to use scammer tactics to catch the right kind of bad guy.
Travis:
It is, but I think it really does require a fair amount of oversight.
Beau:
Adam, you have a degree in law. I mean, I imagine this brings up all sorts of 4th Amendment issues, in terms of search and seizure, and all that.
Adam:
Well, one of the big issues in all of this is, where do you draw the line? In other words, yes, for one particular class of criminal, the end justifies the means.
But when you get law enforcement agencies, sometimes they go, “Well, if it worked for this, let’s try it for this. And then this, and then this.”
Beau:
Which is why it probably isn’t allowed.
Adam:
Correct. And that’s why, as long as there’s the proper oversight, it’s not unjustified.
Beau:
Which means that it has to be somebody who’s a rogue cop, basically, doing it. No oversight. Or some sort of, as of yet, non-existent oversight.
I mean, because it’s one law. You either have one law that applies to everybody, regardless of what kind of criminal they are, or you have a Dirty Harry type, or Jackie Chan, depending on who you like better, going rogue and catching the bad guy.
Adam:
Make my day.
Travis:
Well, there’s a pretty big difference too, between law enforcement using surveillance powers, versus using bait. With the surveillance powers we’ve seen a significant creep there, where it started with saying that we need to wire tap the phones of terrorists. We need to wire tap these phones. Then it ended up becoming a lot more of a widespread surveillance there. That’s one thing, and that definitely does have the slippery slope.
When it comes to providing bait for people who are criminals, especially criminals of an especially heinous nature, that’s a little more cut and dried, at least as far as I’m concerned.
Beau:
But you get into the Minority Report. You remember that movie where their precogs could see a crime before it would happen. Into that murky territory where there’s an agency trying to catch a potential bad guy, trying to catch somebody who’s interested in this material, but has not yet crossed over to the dark side.
That’s a real open question for me. I think that there’s questionable legitimacy there, that you’re saying, “Okay. I see you to be a potential or future criminal, and I want to reach out to you before you commit the crime.” I don’t know if I buy that.
Travis:
Well, in the example we were talking about here though, it’s someone who is trying to download explicitly stated material that is illegal. [inaudible 00:31:40] that being the bait there. So that at least shows motive.
Adam:
Oh, no. When you cross the Rubicon, you will have to face the furious, and justifiably so.
Beau:
Yep. Sorry guys, if you think that we’re liberals who are cool with that, we’re not. I don’t think anyone’s liberal enough for that topic. I mean, it’s beyond the pale for everybody.
Travis:
Well, it isn’t for Germany. I mean, they’re the ones who, in the example Andrew was telling us about, were doing that for getting them therapy ahead of time.
Beau:
No. And I told the story. In Sweden, they can’t understand how in America we publish the location of sex offenders. Because from the point of view of a lot of liberals in Sweden, that’s private information.
For me, I’m like, “Sorry. You just lost your right to private information when you moved into my backyard.”
Travis:
Agreed.
Adam:
This episode is a lot different than much of what we do on this show, but it’s important, because we all need to think about things that are going on online that we don’t really know about.
Travis:
Or want to know about.
Adam:
Well, there’s a difference between wanting to know about something and kind of needing to know about something.
Beau:
A hundred percent.
Adam:
So now it’s time for the tin foil swan, our paranoid takeaway that’ll help keep you safe online.
Beau:
So the tin foil swan is like the take home doggy bag, but tin foil, because we wear tinfoil hats.
Travis:
You know, I’ve still never actually seen a tin foil swan.
Beau:
Really?
Travis:
Yeah.
Beau:
That’s kind of weird. This week’s tin foil swan is one will all be familiar with. Adam, you ever say, “Boy, we really need a new grill,” and then the next thing you know, on your phone, all you see is ads for new grills? Does that ever happen to you?
Adam:
Well actually, when I say, “We really need a new grill,” the coolest thing is, somebody twinkles their nose, and all of a sudden a new grill appears.
Beau:
Well, we don’t all have personal assistants. But Travis, have you ever met anyone who’s quite sure their phone is listening to them?
Travis:
Oh yeah. And they’re right.
Beau:
So today’s tin foil swan is going to show you how to avoid having an app eavesdrop on you. Adam, open your phone.
Adam:
I’m opening my phone. Hold on. My phone is open.
Beau:
Okay. Now, I want you to go to settings. That looks like a little gearbox on your phone
Adam:
I’m at settings.
Beau:
Nicely done. Now look for this hand, that’s privacy. And I want you to go to privacy.
Adam:
There it is. Privacy.
Beau:
All right. Now you’re in privacy. You see all these cool things. One of them is microphone. Now, if you go to microphone, you’re going to see all the apps on your phone that have access to your microphone.
In my case, it was Google Maps, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Waze and WhatsApp. And I thought to myself, “Google Maps does not need access to my mic.” So I turned them all off.
And soon as we get off of this Zoom call, I am going to start talking about birthday cakes. And I want to see if I get ads for them. Because ordinarily I would.
But that is the tip, is go into your general settings, go to privacy, go to microphone, and make sure none of the apps that you use are listening to you.
And now, if you use Instagram or TikTok, and you have the mic sitting turned off, you won’t be able to make recordings with audio. So just bear that in mind if you decide to go that route. But that is a good tip for at least taking care of the parts of the phone where you do have some oversight.
Travis:
These are instructions for an iPhone or other iOS device, but the steps are similar in other devices too, especially with Android.
Beau:
Well, if you like the show, I hope you’ll consider sending me a pair of camouflage Crocs.
Travis:
Why?
Beau:
I like them.
Travis:
Weird.
Beau:
Or you could rate your review, because Adam likes that. But I think the Crocs are a good idea.
Travis:
But why would they be camouflaged?
Beau:
Because camo is cool. That’s why. Don’t ask me questions, mere mortal. I want them, and I shall get them from a loyal listener.
What the Hack with Adam Levin is a production of Loud Tree Media.
Adam:
It’s produced by Andrew Steven, the man with two first names.
Travis:
You can find us online at loudtreemedia.com, and on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @adamklevin
