Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from dot
Speaker 1: com either and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strich
Speaker 1: and we have a special person joining us this week.
Speaker 1: Special persons. That makes it sound a little bit well,
Speaker 1: he's a special guest. There you go. And he is special.
Speaker 1: He's very special. He is he is our good friend
Speaker 1: and yours. Uh. He's the guy who tells you the
Speaker 1: stuff that they don't want you to know. Mr. Been Both. Hey, guys, thanks,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me on the show. I've
Speaker 1: got news from my co host Matt Frederick. Unfortunately, Matt
Speaker 1: is diligently working. Uh and right now he said he
Speaker 1: is here in spirit, um, but he can't be in
Speaker 1: here in person, right he he is. Actually, he had
Speaker 1: planned on joining us and this would have been a
Speaker 1: crazy four person podcast, something that has never been attempted
Speaker 1: ever in the history of the Internet. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if that's but yeah, no, very impressive, yes, at least
Speaker 1: the history of tech stuff at anywhere. So but unfortunately,
Speaker 1: as he is, he has slammed. He of course is
Speaker 1: also a video editor and uh, you guys might not
Speaker 1: know this. Uh, that takes some time. So but the
Speaker 1: reason we decided to bring Ben in is because you
Speaker 1: may remember if you listen to this show often. Back
Speaker 1: in April, Lauren and I did an episode about tour
Speaker 1: and the Deep Web, and at the end of the
Speaker 1: show we said, hey, guys, would you like to learn
Speaker 1: more about how you can actually surf the web anonymously?
Speaker 1: And all of you said yes, every single life. In fact, yeah,
Speaker 1: some of you voted more than once, which we appreciate
Speaker 1: the enthusiasm. So we have been trying to find the
Speaker 1: right time to to get together and have a discussion
Speaker 1: about what exactly it takes to really serve the web
Speaker 1: anonymously and and Ben, as we have all discovered, it's
Speaker 1: it's not it's not just a simple thing that you
Speaker 1: hit a little switch in your browser and you're good
Speaker 1: to go. Yeah. It's a situation where we quickly learn
Speaker 1: the difference between the concept of something being possible and
Speaker 1: the concept of something being plausible. Yeah, it is possible
Speaker 1: two access the web anonymously finger quotes if you're very,
Speaker 1: very careful and you take a lot of time and
Speaker 1: you do some things that we're going to talk about today. Uh,
Speaker 1: it is not plausible that you will succeed. It's not
Speaker 1: plausible certainly the more frequently you access the web, absolutely right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the more times you need to do it, the
Speaker 1: harder it's going to become for you to to to
Speaker 1: sustain that anonymity, and the more you want to do.
Speaker 1: If you're doing like one thing, that's fine. If you're
Speaker 1: trying to browse Netflix, it's not really Yeah, if you're
Speaker 1: logging into your Netflix account, really, uh, we have some
Speaker 1: bad news for you. Anything that involves the user name
Speaker 1: password probably not really the most anonymous of activities. But first,
Speaker 1: just as an overview, Yeah, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different reasons why someone might want to serve the web anonymously.
Speaker 1: Some are even completely legit. Yeah, there we can get
Speaker 1: the the the ones, the shady ones out of the way.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously if you're planning on doing something that
Speaker 1: is you know, not strictly speaking legal. Yeah, Like, uh, Lauren, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: you and I Matt decide that it's finally time that
Speaker 1: we robbed that bank, and then we say, okay, there
Speaker 1: are a couple of things we need to learn about
Speaker 1: banks and security cameras and escape routes and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: We would want to serve the web anonymously, but that is,
Speaker 1: as you said, just something we need to get away
Speaker 1: from at the top, because there are so many legitimate
Speaker 1: reasons that people not just in the United States, but
Speaker 1: around the world especially would have to serve the web anonymously. Right. So,
Speaker 1: for example, one of the one of the ones that
Speaker 1: you hear over and over our journalists reporters, right, people
Speaker 1: who perhaps have to communicate with a source and that
Speaker 1: source needs to remain anonymous in order for this this
Speaker 1: uh information exchange to happen, or to protect their own
Speaker 1: safety exactly. Yeah, we could be talking about someone who's
Speaker 1: giving a very high level security leak kind of information
Speaker 1: that really has the potential to affect millions of people.
Speaker 1: This is kind of like that Snowden situation, Edward Snowden,
Speaker 1: So you would definitely want to maintain that person's anonymity
Speaker 1: as well as you know, the communications that are going
Speaker 1: on between you until you are ready to publish a
Speaker 1: full story. Now, you know, responsible journalists are going to
Speaker 1: be doing things like making sure that the information they
Speaker 1: get is as verifiable as possible before moving forward. So
Speaker 1: it's not like we're just saying, you know, this is
Speaker 1: a way for people to spread misinformation, although that does happen,
Speaker 1: but is totally cromulent for journalists to want to have
Speaker 1: this kind of level of an emity when trying to
Speaker 1: to to coordinate the source of stuff. Sure, also in
Speaker 1: the tech sector, for example, if you're developing a new
Speaker 1: a new piece of technology, or a new iteration of
Speaker 1: a technology and you don't want other companies to know
Speaker 1: what you're up to, Yeah, yeah, I mean you know
Speaker 1: we how many times have we seen leaks from things
Speaker 1: like a supply chain where we learn about upcoming as
Speaker 1: Apple is probably the best example of this, right because
Speaker 1: everyone is so invested in learning what Apple's next product
Speaker 1: is that you've got an intense level of scrutiny on
Speaker 1: the entire supply chain from the point where they're building
Speaker 1: the chips to the screens to assembling the whole piece together,
Speaker 1: so that you can have security totally locked down at Apple,
Speaker 1: and somewhere else along the chain there might be a leak. Well.
Speaker 1: Even that that extends even to just the research and
Speaker 1: development phase where people are using the Internet for for
Speaker 1: legitimate purposes and they don't want that information getting out there.
Speaker 1: They want to have as much secrecy there as possible,
Speaker 1: especially if people are aware like Hey, you know Jem
Speaker 1: down the street. Did you know that Jem is like
Speaker 1: the head of product development for Apple's I phone. That
Speaker 1: would be like people, Oh, you don't say exactly, which
Speaker 1: is good that they're using such a non suspicious voice
Speaker 1: to to play it off. The news about Jim certainly
Speaker 1: should not be twirling your mustache. So there there are
Speaker 1: a number of other reasons as well, and in many
Speaker 1: cases these are these are things that might sound overly dramatic,
Speaker 1: but it really does happen. Internet access is not created
Speaker 1: equally by any means, and we're gonna explore some things
Speaker 1: that might sound foreign to a lot of viewers or
Speaker 1: excuse me, a lot of listeners who are not who
Speaker 1: are not acquainted with this. And one of the one
Speaker 1: of the biggest reasons that people would need anonymous internet
Speaker 1: access is something that's kind of um personally important to
Speaker 1: me for people to have this right. If you're in
Speaker 1: a country where government descent is not allowed, or where
Speaker 1: you can be penalized for going on you know, the
Speaker 1: Chinese version of Twitter or some short uh, then you
Speaker 1: need to be able to have some sort of safe
Speaker 1: way to do this, and um, unfortunately, many countries there's
Speaker 1: not really a legal way to do this. Sure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have a like, let's let's take the definition
Speaker 1: of human rights as say, would be defined by the
Speaker 1: United Nations. Okay, there are some countries out there that
Speaker 1: have have policies that kind of go against a lot
Speaker 1: of those definitions. And if you if you believe that
Speaker 1: humans actually possess these rights, whether they belong to one
Speaker 1: country or another, then you probably also believe that they
Speaker 1: need to have this kind of ability to remain anonymous
Speaker 1: and yet voice their concerns, their thoughts, to be able
Speaker 1: to assemble at least virtually, and be able to to
Speaker 1: tell that they are not a lone person in a
Speaker 1: sea of darkness. This kind of it does sound like
Speaker 1: we're going dramatic, but this is the Arab spring work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a literal situation that happens. You know, being
Speaker 1: able to share your ideas and also access information is
Speaker 1: so important and is denied to too many citizens of
Speaker 1: this world, and for those of us who live who
Speaker 1: are fortunate enough to live in places that at least
Speaker 1: ostensibly protect those human rights. Um, you know, there's still
Speaker 1: other things that we could become victim to. For example,
Speaker 1: just people who want to cause midschief or hackers who
Speaker 1: want to target you for one reason or another. Um
Speaker 1: and it may not even be that they want to
Speaker 1: target you specifically, but you just kind of want to
Speaker 1: avoid all of that and cut down on all that possibility.
Speaker 1: You may just want to serve the web anonymously because
Speaker 1: they're there are only certain things you want to have
Speaker 1: access to. You don't care about everything else out there.
Speaker 1: So it's not like you're gonna go on YouTube and
Speaker 1: watch a billion videos. It's not like you're gonna go
Speaker 1: on Facebook and update your status profile. All you want
Speaker 1: to do is be able to research something, read up
Speaker 1: on something, whatever, and that's it. You might want to
Speaker 1: be able to serve the web anonymously just to avoid
Speaker 1: the possibility that you're going to run into, you know, troublemakers.
Speaker 1: But here's the question then, right, and I think we've
Speaker 1: done a great job showing this, uh, this need and
Speaker 1: this legitimate interest in anonymous web us. Why is it
Speaker 1: so difficult? Why is it possible but not plausible? Okay? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, just the way the internet works makes
Speaker 1: it really really hard, right, because in order for you
Speaker 1: to be able to get any information to your computer,
Speaker 1: that information has to has nowhere to go, right. It
Speaker 1: has to know what pathway to take so that it
Speaker 1: gets from the server where it lives on to your
Speaker 1: computer so you can see it. Now. This is no
Speaker 1: matter what kind of service you're using on the internet,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to access something, as long as you're
Speaker 1: not just pushing stuff out and you're expecting to get
Speaker 1: something back, it has to know where to go. Uh.
Speaker 1: The thing I was thinking, I was imagined like you
Speaker 1: are trying to send a message to somebody, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, like I want to get a note specifically
Speaker 1: to Lauren. And Lauren has happened to take a trip
Speaker 1: where she's all the way out in California. And the
Speaker 1: way I've chosen to get the message to her is
Speaker 1: I've written the messaging code and I've left no identifying
Speaker 1: information on it whatsoever. I've even I've even used my
Speaker 1: right hand instead of my left hand to right the code,
Speaker 1: so my handwriting is disguised. I then wrapped that that
Speaker 1: message up in a little ribbon, tie it to a
Speaker 1: helium balloon, let it go, and hope that somehow the
Speaker 1: balloon finds its way to Lauren, that she is able
Speaker 1: to decode the message, able to decipher despite the fact
Speaker 1: that I've left no identifiable information in there about who
Speaker 1: sent the message, who it was, who wrote it, and
Speaker 1: then in turn be able to respond in a in
Speaker 1: a similar way and send that message back to me
Speaker 1: where it just magically makes its way to me. Clearly,
Speaker 1: that scenario is impossible, right, yeah, Yeah. The the real
Speaker 1: way that the Internet works is more like if the
Speaker 1: postal system was made entirely of clear boxes and and
Speaker 1: everyone passing the box along the route from you to
Speaker 1: whoever you're sending it to, you can see exactly what's
Speaker 1: going on in it unless you've taken some kind of
Speaker 1: step to you or to encrypted. Right, So, if if
Speaker 1: you have an encrypted message, let's say, then you've got
Speaker 1: a clear box which inside of it is a a
Speaker 1: an opaque box. So you know that there's a box,
Speaker 1: you know approximately how much information is there, and you
Speaker 1: know where it's coming from, and you know where it's
Speaker 1: going to because you have to have that address or
Speaker 1: else the data just doesn't go anywhere. It would just
Speaker 1: would you, It would go to that first stop on
Speaker 1: the internet, and then there'd be nowhere to go because
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have any information saying hey, send this message
Speaker 1: to this destination. So, because you have to have these
Speaker 1: IP addresses so that information can actually go to where
Speaker 1: it needs to go and get back to where it
Speaker 1: needs to get back to, that limits how anonymous you
Speaker 1: can be. Right now, that IP address can be assigned
Speaker 1: by an Internet service provider and it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: have anything to do with whatever machine you're on, right,
Speaker 1: the computer you're using does not necessarily it's not going
Speaker 1: to have the same IP address all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not like tattooed with barcode or something like that,
Speaker 1: but well, I mean probably it literally is. Barcode is
Speaker 1: not its IP address, right, right, So the that IP
Speaker 1: address is going to at least have a general idea
Speaker 1: of the geography that you are in, uh and based
Speaker 1: upon your habits what you use the Internet for, that
Speaker 1: might be enough. Just the general geography and and your
Speaker 1: pattern of using the Internet, that could be enough to
Speaker 1: identify who is using the Internet, because the way eyebrows
Speaker 1: the Internet could be extremely different from the way say
Speaker 1: Lauren does, and I highly suspect it is, I imagine,
Speaker 1: so aside from when we're researching the same topic. In
Speaker 1: that case, we think we find literally all the same articles.
Speaker 1: I am pretty sure that I watch a lot more
Speaker 1: YouTube videos about family surprising their kids with trips to
Speaker 1: Disney than Lauren does. I think you guys are about
Speaker 1: one for one on Corgy videos though. Corgy videos, yes,
Speaker 1: or I mean they rank highly on both sides, but
Speaker 1: they're they're sure there are anomalies. If you're only looking
Speaker 1: at Corgy video activity, then you might not be able
Speaker 1: to determine whether it's Lauren or whether which. Which is
Speaker 1: a great point because it goes back to earlier. We
Speaker 1: can all recall hearing the big stink in the United
Speaker 1: States about um the government tracking metadata, and people would say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, metadata is not a big deal. It's just
Speaker 1: stuff like the address and the time, and and it's
Speaker 1: more the it's more like the measurement of the pages
Speaker 1: of a book than the description of the story. However,
Speaker 1: from that, the reason it's important is exactly what you're saying, Johnathan,
Speaker 1: because it is possible to build um, not just a
Speaker 1: profile of a person, but to find the actual person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: from enough of that metadat Yeah, And and it doesn't
Speaker 1: take that much really, especially for particular types of meta data.
Speaker 1: For example, if you have like a zip code and
Speaker 1: maybe a car make and model, well that and and
Speaker 1: a gender, Well, then you've really got enough information to
Speaker 1: really narrow it down to a handful of people. Because
Speaker 1: you know that you've got a population within a zip code.
Speaker 1: The gender will divide that essentially in half, and so
Speaker 1: how many of those people have a two thousand and
Speaker 1: four Yeah, and then you have essentially really narrowed it
Speaker 1: down to a very small number of potential people. This
Speaker 1: is why it doesn't really require that much personal identifiable
Speaker 1: information to track it back to a specific person. Now,
Speaker 1: there's some things on the Internet that are not necessary
Speaker 1: for the Internet to work right or like, especially for
Speaker 1: web browsing. So, for example, cookies. Cookies are not necessary
Speaker 1: to make the web work, although you'll probably go to
Speaker 1: a page occasionally that says, this website uses cookies, and
Speaker 1: let us tell you how ye enable them so that
Speaker 1: this website will work the way it's supposed to. Cookies
Speaker 1: are just text files. They can include enough information that
Speaker 1: could be useful to the person using the website to
Speaker 1: customize your experience that the intent is so that if
Speaker 1: you keep going back to the same website frequently, it
Speaker 1: already knows things that you do and do not need,
Speaker 1: and so it will load much faster. It will give
Speaker 1: you more personalized experience, but it also means that there's
Speaker 1: some tracking that can happen there and identification that can
Speaker 1: happen there. So turning that off is probably something you
Speaker 1: would want to do if you want to be anonymous.
Speaker 1: I'll go into more about that in a bed. Oh, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: welcome back to Amazon based on your browsing preferences. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to hear this. Yeah, here are several calendars
Speaker 1: of quarkies. Okay, that's fair, that's fair. Uh, that I
Speaker 1: just recently made a purchase, so I was wanting to
Speaker 1: see if perhaps somehow it was going to tie into
Speaker 1: what I actually bought. But ows but not quite um
Speaker 1: And then things like like search engines can maintain activity logs,
Speaker 1: so and those will link back to an IP address.
Speaker 1: So let's say that you are using a computer, You've
Speaker 1: logged into the Internet, your computer has an IP address,
Speaker 1: and you start searching for various terms. This kind of
Speaker 1: goes back to that idea of the four of us
Speaker 1: are all searching about robbing a bank. Now that that information,
Speaker 1: if we're let's say we're all using Google because it
Speaker 1: makes it easier if we just go ahead and use
Speaker 1: an example, Google's maintaining this activity log of all four
Speaker 1: of us independently using Google to research everything that is,
Speaker 1: to research about robbing a bank, and then later on
Speaker 1: the lawn law enforcement officials, uh subpoena Google to get
Speaker 1: those activity logs so that they can see who it
Speaker 1: is in this geographic region that was looking for this stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that's again that's another reason why when you
Speaker 1: start talking about really being anonymous using the web, you
Speaker 1: have to shy away from all the convenient says that
Speaker 1: make the web so useful in situations where you're not
Speaker 1: as concerned about your anonymity. Yeah, that's a really great point,
Speaker 1: and that's something that, oddly enough, we were exploring both
Speaker 1: on this show and on car stuff, because there's this
Speaker 1: big idea about cars becoming connected to the cloud, right
Speaker 1: and the whole internet of cars knowing exactly where you
Speaker 1: are all the time, exactly exactly. And North has been
Speaker 1: parked outside of this dance club for a really long time.
Speaker 1: He's cutting a rug and that's how Jonathan's car would sound. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like to think that all my technology has has
Speaker 1: weird affectations in its speech, I hope so, because what
Speaker 1: else is the future would be no fun that you
Speaker 1: couldn't do. It would just be Yeah, it could all
Speaker 1: be like robot voice. But that gets old pretty quickly, right,
Speaker 1: So the um, the purpose of this this great thing
Speaker 1: called the Internet is inherently to share things that are
Speaker 1: easily seen. It is not to hide things. So it's already, um,
Speaker 1: it's already unsurprising if you think about it that it's
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to participate in something that is all
Speaker 1: about telling people's stuff in a way that doesn't it's
Speaker 1: a communications platform, and if you're if you're trying to
Speaker 1: be completely anonymous in a communications platform, that's tricky. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are obviously message boards out there that allow for
Speaker 1: complete anonymity and uh complete complete being an in air
Speaker 1: quotes which work really well over the radio. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's definitely one of those things where, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the the anonymity kind of can inhibit a
Speaker 1: lot of what makes the Internet so useful. So especially
Speaker 1: in these are modern Internet times, like as the Internet
Speaker 1: has grown in, big data has grown and and all
Speaker 1: these things we've we've been talking about websites storing information
Speaker 1: from you so that they can serve you better headlines
Speaker 1: that you're more likely to want to click on. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're you're evading the point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: that's a good way to say it. So with with this,
Speaker 1: we've we've painted the difficulty. We've talked about the reasons
Speaker 1: why you want to do it. So for all the
Speaker 1: people who wrote in and voted more than once saying yes,
Speaker 1: tell me how to surf anonymously? What? What? What would
Speaker 1: they do? You? Guys, I'm asking for a friend. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: then your friend needs to know that if if your friend,
Speaker 1: if he or she is truly determined to surf the
Speaker 1: web anonymously, he or she should be prepared to go
Speaker 1: to great lengths in order to do so, including if
Speaker 1: he or she plans on doing this more than once.
Speaker 1: Not using the same device burner, laptops, I like it, ye.
Speaker 1: Step Step one don't use your own device ever, No,
Speaker 1: not not connected to the internet anyway. Step one is
Speaker 1: don't use your own device. Step two is you probably
Speaker 1: don't want to use like a mobile device that connects
Speaker 1: to the Internet because it's likely registered to you or
Speaker 1: to someone you know, and most of them have some
Speaker 1: form of way of identifying where you are. So even
Speaker 1: if somehow you magically have a phone working where there's
Speaker 1: not a direct link between you and the phone, the
Speaker 1: fact that it is going to be able to determine
Speaker 1: where it is geographically, either just cell phone towers or
Speaker 1: it may have GPS enabled to that's going to give
Speaker 1: it even more specific location. Sure, you can turn three
Speaker 1: G or four G or whatever you have. You can
Speaker 1: turn satellite service off on your phone. However, then you
Speaker 1: need to be connected to WiFi, and you can't just
Speaker 1: connect to you I mean, you can't just call up
Speaker 1: Comcast and be like, hey, I'd like to get some Internet,
Speaker 1: but anonymously never mind. Yeah, that's a really good way
Speaker 1: to not get an account, right that, Not that I
Speaker 1: know personally. The same thing is true about just Internet
Speaker 1: service providers in general. Litering, Like like whether it's Comcast
Speaker 1: or whatever, whatever the i s P is, if you
Speaker 1: are trying to use your own, say your own setup
Speaker 1: at home, then automatically your I s P, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: and know exactly they know which account it goes to
Speaker 1: at any rate, So you know that means that it's
Speaker 1: narrowed down who could potentially be the person actually doing
Speaker 1: the searches. It's pretty much anyone who has access to
Speaker 1: your household, which is why if you're really trying to
Speaker 1: make this happen, ladies and gentlemen, you will need to
Speaker 1: find the most public computer possible. We're talking about libraries,
Speaker 1: cyber cafes, uh, college campuses. Yeah. Yeah, you want to
Speaker 1: be able to use a computer where uh the real
Speaker 1: First of all, there's a possibility that any number of
Speaker 1: individuals could have been using that ability, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's one of those safety and numbers kind of issues
Speaker 1: that kind of comes up a lot in in our discussion.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, so that's that's one thing you're and
Speaker 1: you don't want to use the same one twice in
Speaker 1: a row. So if your session is over and then
Speaker 1: you think, oh shoot, I need to go do something else,
Speaker 1: you probably need to go to a different site. In fact,
Speaker 1: a different site entirely, like not even on that same
Speaker 1: network would be the best choice for you. I mean, ideally,
Speaker 1: the scary thing is about this that the more you
Speaker 1: think about it, uh, the larger the scale becomes. Because then, yes,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be on the same site. Yes,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be on the same network. Do
Speaker 1: you want to be in the same city. Do you
Speaker 1: want to be in the you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: because it should be preferable to jump state borders really
Speaker 1: at that point, which which is a heck of a
Speaker 1: long drive just to uh, you know here in Georgia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe you should try to serve the web anominous anonymously
Speaker 1: from Rhode Island. Uh. And also you would you would
Speaker 1: probably want to still try and hide the IP address
Speaker 1: you're actually using, So you probably want to use a proxy. Proxies,
Speaker 1: by the way, come in all shapes and sizes, So
Speaker 1: some proxies you might see and you think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: this is perfect. I'm gonna go log into this proxy.
Speaker 1: Then from the the perspective of anyone outside of my browser,
Speaker 1: it's going to look as if the proxy is the
Speaker 1: computer that's doing all the searches. Right. So, Ben, let's
Speaker 1: say you are in our bank robbery scenario. You log
Speaker 1: into a proxy, you start searching information because you're gonna
Speaker 1: be the bagman. You need to know what a bagman
Speaker 1: is because you actually don't know. You agree to it
Speaker 1: without actually knowing what the definition of the term one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just yes ended and now I'm like the intern
Speaker 1: in this. You didn't want to admit to the other
Speaker 1: people that you didn't know what a bagman to look
Speaker 1: cool like, I'm like, I you about proxies. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: now you've gone to look up the definition of bagman.
Speaker 1: We don't have any dictionaries nearby. So you know, you're thinking,
Speaker 1: I gotta get online. You log into a cyber cafe
Speaker 1: and you go use a proxy, so that instead it
Speaker 1: looks like the proxy computer is the one that's doing
Speaker 1: the rees ur So that way, if someone ever starts
Speaker 1: to try and trace it back, they're going to go
Speaker 1: to this proxy, but they're not going to get to you,
Speaker 1: at least in theory, because a proxy could very well.
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, they know that you are
Speaker 1: using the service. Otherwise, again, the communication can't ultimately get
Speaker 1: to your computer. It's just somebody else too. To Lauren's
Speaker 1: earlier comparison, it's just somebody else carrying that clear box
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah. So if the proxy keeps activity logs,
Speaker 1: then there's the potential that law enforcement could trace back
Speaker 1: to that proxy and then service subpoenas saying we want
Speaker 1: to see all the activity logs, so we can figure
Speaker 1: out which individual user used this proxy service to get
Speaker 1: access to this information. And this has happened. This is
Speaker 1: not a theoretical thing. Law enforcement has gone to VPNs
Speaker 1: and two proxies and said, okay, give us the paperwork,
Speaker 1: tell us who was here in the afternoons googling bagman.
Speaker 1: There's there's no guarantee either that a proxy is going
Speaker 1: to encrypt information for you, So it may very well
Speaker 1: be that again that pathway leads to the proxy, but
Speaker 1: there might be enough information anyway for them to be
Speaker 1: able to identify that Ben in fact, was the one
Speaker 1: doing all the searches. So vpn tends to be a
Speaker 1: better choice because VPNs do encrypt a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: So the problem with VPNs, of course, is that first
Speaker 1: of all, you've got to pay into them, so again
Speaker 1: there's a connection between you and the vpn um and
Speaker 1: depending upon the VPNs policy, that may end up becoming
Speaker 1: an issue because even if we're not talking about bank rubbing,
Speaker 1: if we're instead we're talking about Ben is in a
Speaker 1: foreign country and he's trying to get a message out
Speaker 1: to his family, that's a that's an issue rights for
Speaker 1: the redeeming example that, uh, why why am I the guy?
Speaker 1: Why can't you be in Turkmenistan? Well, because I I
Speaker 1: don't really leave my house. I think statistically speaking, you
Speaker 1: are of the three of us here the most likely
Speaker 1: to did see you, like walking down Morland taking a
Speaker 1: wrong turn and ending up there. I mean, that's true.
Speaker 1: I have a terrible sense of direction, Like it just
Speaker 1: hits a little wormhole and goes from goes from downtown Atlanta,
Speaker 1: Georgia to other people. Yeah, people do have to have
Speaker 1: UM communications that way. But even with all we've done
Speaker 1: now is we're talking about ways to UM raise the
Speaker 1: to make it more inconvenient. Now, if you want to
Speaker 1: go the next step, so we're talking about you're you're
Speaker 1: using some sort of proxy service, whether it's VPN or
Speaker 1: an actual web proxy to hide. But let's say that
Speaker 1: you want to go even further. One thing you've got
Speaker 1: to be concerned about is the computer you are actually
Speaker 1: on the device you're using at that moment. So if
Speaker 1: you are at a public place like a library, and
Speaker 1: you're logging into a computer, and you want to make
Speaker 1: sure that all of your activity on that computer does
Speaker 1: not stay there so that the you know, let's say
Speaker 1: that they get access to the actual physical computer you used,
Speaker 1: they could track back who you are that way, right,
Speaker 1: So you want to be able to disable the cookies
Speaker 1: on that browser. You don't want anything coming back. You
Speaker 1: want to disable things like Flash and Java because these
Speaker 1: programs can often have identifiable information sent along, stuff that
Speaker 1: doesn't even seem to be necessary for whatever it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing within the context of the web page.
Speaker 1: Disable all that. If you really want to go super spy,
Speaker 1: then you should also probably load a program onto like
Speaker 1: a USB flash drive that will allow you to boot
Speaker 1: the computer into a separate operating system than the one
Speaker 1: the computer natively runs that is specifically geared to allow
Speaker 1: you to log into something like tour the Onion router.
Speaker 1: So there are such things. There are such devices that,
Speaker 1: or such programs you can put onto a USB device
Speaker 1: like the Amnesia Incognito Live system also known as TAIL.
Speaker 1: That's a Linux based stripped down operating system. Really, all
Speaker 1: it's meant to do is, you know, you would you
Speaker 1: would turn the computer off, which is already going to
Speaker 1: be an issue in a public library. Trust me, you
Speaker 1: plug this USB thumb drive into the into the port,
Speaker 1: turn the computer back on. It will boot from the USB,
Speaker 1: so instead of running its normal boot system, it will
Speaker 1: go to the USB for it, load the stripped down OS.
Speaker 1: That's just launching this tour uh interface, and then you
Speaker 1: could access what you needed. Turn everything off again, unplugged
Speaker 1: the USB, turn it back on, and then you're gone.
Speaker 1: Even the first idea, Yeah, you probably exfoliated thoroughly to
Speaker 1: get rid of all possible Right. It sounds it sounds
Speaker 1: like we're being silly, but no, if you seriously are
Speaker 1: talking about doing everything you possibly can to preserve anonymity,
Speaker 1: this is like the level of extreme you have to
Speaker 1: go to because there's so many different ways to leave
Speaker 1: behind traces. Yeah. Absolutely, And I'm really glad that you
Speaker 1: said that, because when when we talk about this, this
Speaker 1: booting up, in this turning off the computer and having
Speaker 1: and turn it back on, one thing that a lot
Speaker 1: of you are probably realizing out their listeners is that
Speaker 1: some libraries will check for an I d uh. It's true.
Speaker 1: We can again scale this up. Maintaining anonymity requires more
Speaker 1: than just the use of software. Of consider a closed
Speaker 1: circuit television, right, and this this sounds like some tinfoil
Speaker 1: stuff to people. But uh, just for comparison, one of
Speaker 1: the most observed populations in the world is the population
Speaker 1: of the United Kingdom. According to the Telegraph, there's one
Speaker 1: surveillance camera there for every eleven to fourteen people. So
Speaker 1: that means that no matter what you do, uh, just
Speaker 1: in your day to day walking, even if you never
Speaker 1: leave your house. And and I should tell you that
Speaker 1: there's a fair percentage of those cameras that aren't connected
Speaker 1: to anything, but there are enough of them that are
Speaker 1: connected to something that Yeah, that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: There are dummy cameras a lot of the UK, but
Speaker 1: that that's one of those things like if you panopticon,
Speaker 1: it's great. Yeah, because if you think you're being watched,
Speaker 1: then you're more likely to behave yourself. That's kind of creepy,
Speaker 1: that's the idea, but that's totally the idea. Sure, sure,
Speaker 1: And just because you happen to live in a country
Speaker 1: that doesn't have such a widespread governmental program does not
Speaker 1: mean I mean, here in the U S. They're cameras everywhere,
Speaker 1: but they're mostly privatized, or I mean some cities do
Speaker 1: have a lot of traffic cameras or stuff like that
Speaker 1: in a local level. But I mean, but also the
Speaker 1: number of cameras that are watching you every time you
Speaker 1: step into a mall or Disney World or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Are just a lot of cameras, just the cameras that
Speaker 1: are owned by private citizens that aren't doing they're not
Speaker 1: trying to observe you. They're they're they're taking selfies. Are
Speaker 1: taking Yeah no, I'm just telling like people, there's stuff
Speaker 1: where and this you have no idea what kind of
Speaker 1: a security they may or may not be used. So
Speaker 1: that information may end up becoming public publicly available because
Speaker 1: they're uploading it to Twitter or something. Yeah. Sure, sure
Speaker 1: if if Ben is down in internet cafe searching for
Speaker 1: whatever bank robbery related stuff he's searching for, and Matt
Speaker 1: across the tree across the street is taking a selfie
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, hey, isn't that Ben, And he's
Speaker 1: he's and he's tagged his selfie as my bank robbing
Speaker 1: adventure with Ben. The cat is out of the bagman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there we go. That's nice. But that's that is a
Speaker 1: really good point. So if you wanted to be completely anonymous,
Speaker 1: one of the things you would have to worry about
Speaker 1: is your appearance, and now it would look so as
Speaker 1: silly as it's may sound. Uh, it would be better
Speaker 1: to vary your appearance while you're access in these different sites,
Speaker 1: which just sounds bizarre to me. If if I had
Speaker 1: to do that, if I had to be anonymous, if
Speaker 1: any of us had to be that anonymous, wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be time for us to really sit down and have
Speaker 1: have a come to I would definitely need to start
Speaker 1: questioning my life choices. Yeah, like what led me to
Speaker 1: this point where I can't let anyone know that I'm
Speaker 1: looking up a recipe for Scotch eggs? And if the
Speaker 1: world itself had reached that point, then you sit there
Speaker 1: and say, we have become one of those dystopian science
Speaker 1: fiction novels that I used to love because I thought
Speaker 1: of it as a warning for what the future could be.
Speaker 1: And now the future is that. Then then you have
Speaker 1: a serious like okay, what now moment? But beyond that,
Speaker 1: I mean, you also have to think about the other
Speaker 1: devices that you own and whether you probably don't want
Speaker 1: to carry them with you when you're like, you don't
Speaker 1: want to have a smartphone with you, right, You certainly
Speaker 1: don't want to wear your fit. Now you don't want
Speaker 1: to you don't want anything that's got Bluetooth on it. Like. Uh,
Speaker 1: and and we didn't even mention this, but I should
Speaker 1: go back and point this out to when you go
Speaker 1: and you're using some other places uh internet. H. Let's
Speaker 1: say that you do have like a super cheap notebook
Speaker 1: and you're just going to use it this one time.
Speaker 1: You you've planned it out, this is this is you're
Speaker 1: you're going to send some messages. Maybe you are in
Speaker 1: like a foreign country and you just you have to
Speaker 1: get this information out and this is this is your
Speaker 1: best chance. If you're going someplace that's using WiFi, then
Speaker 1: you also have to remember there are programs that can
Speaker 1: sniff it. Essentially, they're looking for the messages that are
Speaker 1: going between your computer and the the the wireless router
Speaker 1: in that business, right, you want a hard connection for better? Yeah,
Speaker 1: hard connection is better. Or you want to have a
Speaker 1: way of making sure that you're encrypting any information that's
Speaker 1: coming between your computer and going to the router, Like
Speaker 1: if it's encrypted to a point where anyone listening in, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they can grab the data but they can't
Speaker 1: make sense of it, then you're better off, which is
Speaker 1: probably realistically the best you can hope for. There are
Speaker 1: some fantastic encryption programs out there, um, there are also
Speaker 1: some fantastic code breaking programs out there right, and there's
Speaker 1: some that are classified. We don't know their capability. And
Speaker 1: it's always an arms race encryption. Yeah, yeah, it's that's
Speaker 1: just the nature of it. It pushes encryption forward, but
Speaker 1: also pushes hacking forward. For example, the fact that now
Speaker 1: we have graphics processors that have multiple cores. That's well,
Speaker 1: a lot of hackers used to try and break encryption.
Speaker 1: They just they write up a program, or more frequently,
Speaker 1: they download a program that someone else's written that will
Speaker 1: do a brute force attack, but they're doing it by
Speaker 1: dividing up the attack among multiple processor cores. So something
Speaker 1: that would traditionally take, you know, a hundred years for
Speaker 1: a computer to crack, because you've got other processor cores
Speaker 1: and they can all work on it in parallel. The
Speaker 1: more cores you have, the less time it's going to
Speaker 1: take you to actually break that encryption. That's kind of
Speaker 1: a scary world, but it's it's the world that's that,
Speaker 1: you know. It's it's one of the tradeoffs of having
Speaker 1: this amazing technology that lets me go online and get
Speaker 1: my my avatar blown away by a sniper for thirty
Speaker 1: second time. Hey, that guy's camping. Don't be it's a
Speaker 1: legitimate strategy. Yeah it is, it is, but it did not.
Speaker 1: Camping is not a legitimate strategy. Oh my gosh, are
Speaker 1: you the sniper? Have you been anonymously? Actually, Lauren is
Speaker 1: the sniper. She likes to go to the end of
Speaker 1: the map and in a nice little crow's nest area
Speaker 1: and pick people off. I circulate. Okay, well, that's that's
Speaker 1: true sniper tactics. That sniper's work. You fire and then
Speaker 1: you change locations, kind of off on a tall I
Speaker 1: have something important that we we should remember to see.
Speaker 1: And yes, that I forgot one of the biggest disadvantages.
Speaker 1: Let's say everything works out. You have a spot on
Speaker 1: disguise and and there you are and your poncho and
Speaker 1: your sombrero at the library monocle and your crazy makeup
Speaker 1: to prevent any kind of facial recognition to yah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you just just forget eight and a half yards, right,
Speaker 1: let's do this. If right really doing it, And there
Speaker 1: you are checking out your your bank robbery stuff or
Speaker 1: whatever it is Matt's doing over there, and then you say, uh.
Speaker 1: Then then you say, oh, okay, I'm in. I have
Speaker 1: X amount of time that I can spend here. And
Speaker 1: that's when you realize that accessing the web anonymously it's
Speaker 1: pretty slow. Oh yeah, yeah, because you're routing that traffic
Speaker 1: through a proxy or VPN before it even gets to you.
Speaker 1: That does end up adding a lot of time. So
Speaker 1: if you're using something like Tour, if you've ever used Tour,
Speaker 1: then you may think like, man, this is just crawling today.
Speaker 1: But that's because yeah, the process that tour uses and
Speaker 1: go back and listen to our Tour episode if you
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about it. But the
Speaker 1: process that uses, while it is uh a pretty secure
Speaker 1: um approach, recently we've found out that not necessarily completely
Speaker 1: secure approach UM, but that that does take time because
Speaker 1: instead of it going from the regular route it would
Speaker 1: across the Internet if you were just using the surface Web,
Speaker 1: it has to do all these jumps from one node
Speaker 1: to the next through a circuit of nodes before it
Speaker 1: can finally get to you. And that's on top of
Speaker 1: just the regular traffic it would normally do well. Luckily,
Speaker 1: you're you're not again, you're you're probably not browsing Corgy
Speaker 1: videos viator. I hope not, because you will be waiting
Speaker 1: far too long for the adorable nous to come and
Speaker 1: hit you in the face. Or at least that's what
Speaker 1: Big Corgy wants you to think. That's that's that's both
Speaker 1: terrifying and and just absolutely you know, as it's a
Speaker 1: slightly shorter Clifford the Red Dog. Yeah, I welcome our
Speaker 1: our Corky overlords, cork overlords lords at any rate. The
Speaker 1: message you have to take home here is that the
Speaker 1: Internet is meant, like Ben said, as a communication device,
Speaker 1: as something where people are accessing and sharing, and in
Speaker 1: order to do that you have to give up some
Speaker 1: anonymity in order for it to be effective and easy
Speaker 1: to do. It doesn't mean that you absolutely must give
Speaker 1: up all anonymity. It does not mean that you cannot,
Speaker 1: at least upon occasion, UH do your best to cover
Speaker 1: all of your digital tracks and have a reasonable expectation
Speaker 1: of being you know, pretty much under the radar. But
Speaker 1: in order to do it, as like that's the way
Speaker 1: you access the web, it's really not practical, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's not practical. At all and for everyone listening in
Speaker 1: this UM. First one, I say, guys, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me on your show. It's always it
Speaker 1: always makes my day. UM. And I want to special
Speaker 1: message to any of your listeners. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: already know this. Incognito mode just doesn't leave a trace
Speaker 1: on your computer. Everybody knows what you're looking at. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, because the router that your computer is
Speaker 1: going to everything is clear. Like you know, you the
Speaker 1: when you type in www dot corgis rob Banks dot com.
Speaker 1: The router knows that that's the website you went to.
Speaker 1: Your sp knows. Yeah, everyone knows, and they know which
Speaker 1: I p which, which computer looked up that information. The
Speaker 1: only thing that is is being white clear is your browser. Right.
Speaker 1: That's just so that other people in your house cannot
Speaker 1: immediately access the information. Like Jonathan's got a real corgy
Speaker 1: problem and I'm going to prove it by looking at
Speaker 1: search history. Oh he's been using incognito mode boiled again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the only time that works, right that machine. So
Speaker 1: I just wanted to save anybody the trouble and also
Speaker 1: disclaimer for anyone listening in that might be working for
Speaker 1: a government agency. I have not planned Rabba Bank, nor
Speaker 1: do I ever planned Rabba Bank. I do, however, have
Speaker 1: a soft spot for quirkies, and I'll go on record
Speaker 1: with that one. I mean, Ben actually helped produce an
Speaker 1: episode about why you shouldn't rob banks over on brain stuff.
Speaker 1: It's the perfect cover. You just ruin everything. Well once,
Speaker 1: once you do learn the definition of bagman, it'll all
Speaker 1: just kind of fall into place. Well, Ben, thank you
Speaker 1: for for joining us. And also, guys, if you haven't
Speaker 1: listened to stuff they don't want you to know, are
Speaker 1: gone to see the videos and the incredible work that
Speaker 1: Ben and Matter are doing. You definitely got to check
Speaker 1: it out. It's some phenomenal stuff. There will be a
Speaker 1: companion episode to this episode you're listening to right now,
Speaker 1: on stuff they don't want you to know, which will
Speaker 1: we will be recording almost immediately after we sign off
Speaker 1: of this episode. So if you couldn't, if you didn't
Speaker 1: get enough, if you thought, I have got to hear
Speaker 1: these three people talk more about anonymity and the deep
Speaker 1: Web and things of that nature, and Coregs will probably
Speaker 1: somehow make an appearance. We can't promise that. Maybe we'll
Speaker 1: have worked out the coregies in our system by then
Speaker 1: go check that out it. Uh, you'll definitely if you
Speaker 1: enjoyed tech stuff, there's gonna be tons of episodes on
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know that are really
Speaker 1: going to appeal to you. Absolutely. In that next episode,
Speaker 1: I wanted to put in we will go more into
Speaker 1: that tour thing that we alluded to, the recent problems
Speaker 1: that tour has had and and some of the reasons
Speaker 1: why even using tour does not completely protect you, which
Speaker 1: which is pretty fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you want to know more about that, well
Speaker 1: then you're gonna have to subscribe to another podcast. But
Speaker 1: that's okay, because it's an awesome podcast and you should
Speaker 1: be subscribing to it already. But yeah, you can find
Speaker 1: all of their content I believe at stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know dot com. Yes, absolutely excellent. Um,
Speaker 1: and uh, their YouTube channel I believe is a conspiracy stuff.
Speaker 1: We have like three names because we're trying to be
Speaker 1: an anonymous show on the internet. Yeah, it does help
Speaker 1: to be a really good on YouTube. Change your identity
Speaker 1: every twenty or thirty minutes. Yeah, you guys know that
Speaker 1: when people asking some publics, we say that we're YouTube. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's fair, all right. Well then, well that's all for
Speaker 1: our show today, guys. Thanks Ben for wrapping up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you guys have any suggestions for future topics that
Speaker 1: we can cover on tech Stuff, send us an email
Speaker 1: that addresses tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can drop us a line on Tumbler, Twitter,
Speaker 1: or Facebook or handle it. All three is tech Stuff
Speaker 1: hs W and we'll talk to you again. Released for
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