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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello there, everybody,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette,

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Speaker 1: and I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting next to me, as usual, with a sunny disposition,

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Speaker 1: is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey there, and today, unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: we have some serious things to talk about. Actually, we

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Speaker 1: have some pretty scary stuff to talk about. This this

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Speaker 1: I think is even scarier than our zombie computers and

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Speaker 1: Halloween shows combined. Really, yeah, I think so. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: we're gonna talk today about cyber war. Are It's not

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Speaker 1: pirate war, cyber war cyber war, so we're all we're

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Speaker 1: not talking about tron here um, nor are we talking

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Speaker 1: about war games, both of which are awesome movies, so

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Speaker 1: put them to the top of your Netflix que um. No,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about using computers to either spy upon, or

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Speaker 1: sabotage or otherwise inflict some sort of harm upon a nation. Um.

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Speaker 1: And this can be done by one of a dozen

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Speaker 1: different entities. That's the that's one of the scary things

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Speaker 1: about cyber war? Is that all? Right? So in classic warfare,

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Speaker 1: you know, usually you you would talk about two different

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Speaker 1: nations or perhaps two different factions within a nation fighting

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Speaker 1: one another. Pretty easy to identify who the parties involved are, right, normally, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because guys shooting at you, right, and normally they have,

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Speaker 1: you know, uniforms of some kind on you know, not

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Speaker 1: to shoot your own guy. Yeah, yeah, there's some there's

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Speaker 1: some general little rules that make it easier to know

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Speaker 1: which guys are the ones you're supposed to be shooting. Um.

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Speaker 1: Cyber war is not quite that clean cut. But the

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Speaker 1: problem with cyber war is that the attacks can come

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Speaker 1: from anywhere. They can come from another country. They can

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Speaker 1: come from patriots within another country that are acting on

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Speaker 1: their own. That could come from essentially a mercenary, a

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Speaker 1: hacker that's hired to do this sort of thing. Um.

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Speaker 1: That could come from someone who's just trying to cause

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Speaker 1: mischief and they don't have any other motives. Uh. So

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Speaker 1: it's an attack that can come from another country, or

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Speaker 1: that they can come from within the country that is

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Speaker 1: being attacked. I mean, you know, you're talking about uh

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Speaker 1: sort of a cyber terrorism in a way. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, hum, it could be somebody

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Speaker 1: sitting in his jammie, is in his living room in

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Speaker 1: the computer. You know, it doesn't need to be somebody out,

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Speaker 1: you know, skulking around the streets or you know, somewhere

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Speaker 1: in a foxhole. Heck, it could be someone parked in

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Speaker 1: your driveway hacking into your WiFi. Good point. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's that's why we're talking about how scary this is.

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Speaker 1: It's um and and on another level, it's also scary

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Speaker 1: because it takes so little, relatively speaking to uh, to

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Speaker 1: perform an effective cyber attack. Now, when you're talking about

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Speaker 1: a traditional attack on from one nation on to another,

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Speaker 1: you're talking about billions of dollars worth of of equipment,

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Speaker 1: of of personnel. Uh, you know, the things that have

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Speaker 1: to go behind a war machine. I mean, we're that's

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Speaker 1: a huge investment. When you're talking about cyber attacks, you're

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Speaker 1: talking about a computer and a computer connection. And you know,

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Speaker 1: you might have a couple of other little bells and

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Speaker 1: whistles to help you along, but you really you don't

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Speaker 1: necessarily need it if you know what you're doing and

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Speaker 1: you have the right software. So it's one of those things.

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Speaker 1: Wherefore a very low small entrance fee, I guess you

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Speaker 1: could say you could have a huge, huge impact. As

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Speaker 1: a matter of fact, your computer could be used to

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Speaker 1: carry out a cyber attack. Yes, if you've if you've

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Speaker 1: installed some kind of malware like a virus or a

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Speaker 1: worm that UH can turn your machine into a zombie.

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Speaker 1: Someone else can direct your computer to UH to send

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Speaker 1: email and a denial of service attack which basically floods

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Speaker 1: UM floods computers with spam and other and other requests

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Speaker 1: if you will for information. The thing is that doesn't

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Speaker 1: require any cost on the part of on the part

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Speaker 1: of the attack at all, because all the machines are

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Speaker 1: essentially donated, you know, from somebody else, right and the

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Speaker 1: And to make matters worse, UH, when when anyone in

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Speaker 1: authority tries to trace the source of the attack, they

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Speaker 1: might come to your computer and never find the person

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Speaker 1: who actually infected your computer in the first place. So

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Speaker 1: then you become the person of interest, the person who's

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Speaker 1: under suspicion for committing an attack, and the whole time

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Speaker 1: you were completely unaware. UM. Actually, that's another big, big

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Speaker 1: issue with the cyber warfare problem. Even when you can

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Speaker 1: detect an attack and trace it back, you can never

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Speaker 1: be a sure that the last place you you trace

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Speaker 1: it back to is in fact the original spot of

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Speaker 1: the attack, because there are these you know, there's there

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Speaker 1: are things like proxy sites, there are these zombie computers

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Speaker 1: where there's always the possibility that there's one more link

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Speaker 1: you haven't found yet that will take you back even further.

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Speaker 1: So that's uh, you know, if you if you uh,

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Speaker 1: if you were to detect, say an attack, and you say, well,

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Speaker 1: we've traced it back to China, you can never be

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Speaker 1: sure that that the Chinese government was behind it. It

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Speaker 1: could have been patriots in China who had the same

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Speaker 1: sort of goals as the government of China, but we're

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Speaker 1: acting on their own. Or it could have even been

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Speaker 1: a people in a totally different country that just managed

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Speaker 1: to use proxy sites in China to fool you into

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Speaker 1: thinking that's where the attack came from. So it's really insidious, um,

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Speaker 1: And you might wonder, well, how how vulnerable are we

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Speaker 1: to these sort of attacks? And I guess it really

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Speaker 1: depends on which system you're talking about, because you know,

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Speaker 1: the Internet is a network of networks, right right, So

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Speaker 1: any given network or any given computer could be the

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Speaker 1: weak spot, you know, and and there are just tons

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Speaker 1: of computers as part of the Internet. You know, every

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Speaker 1: time you were computer is hooked up for Internet access,

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Speaker 1: you become part of this giant cloud. Um So. And

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Speaker 1: then the really sophisticated crackers, those are the really nasty hackers.

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Speaker 1: Those are the ones who can find ways to manipulate

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Speaker 1: a network in ways that you know, most people don't

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Speaker 1: think of, right And and to give you an idea

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Speaker 1: of how vulnerable certain systems can be. Back in seven,

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Speaker 1: there was a secret experiment the Department of Defense commissioned

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Speaker 1: and it was called Eligible Receiver. I remember that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this isn't This was a kind of an eye opener

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Speaker 1: um Now, a lot of Eligible Receiver. A lot of

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Speaker 1: that mission remains classified, so we don't know all the details.

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Speaker 1: But what we do know is that part of the

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Speaker 1: the experiment involved getting a group of hackers together, giving

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Speaker 1: them some very basic computing hardware and software, and telling

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Speaker 1: them to try and break their way into the Pentagon's

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Speaker 1: computer system. And it took them three days using basic

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Speaker 1: computers and basic software. Uh, three days. Just for regular hackers,

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Speaker 1: these aren't necessarily the people who are who have a

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Speaker 1: you know, an actual motive to break into the Pentagon,

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Speaker 1: and the fact that they're part of an experiment. Right,

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Speaker 1: it's not like they have a government breathing down their

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Speaker 1: next saying we need access to this information. Uh. So

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Speaker 1: that's that's pretty sobering to think that within three days

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Speaker 1: one of the nation's most important computing systems was compromised,

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Speaker 1: even though it was an inside job and an experiment. Right. Well,

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Speaker 1: they there have been attempts to shore that up since then,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, they conduct regular exercises in order to

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Speaker 1: do that. In fact, there was one not that long ago.

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Speaker 1: Every year they there are students from Army, Navy, Air Force,

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Speaker 1: and the Coast Guarden Merchant Marine, as well as the

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Speaker 1: Naval Postgraduate Academy and the Air Force Institute of Technology.

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Speaker 1: And uh, basically it's it's uh undergrads were given the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to defend themselves from an attack by the n

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Speaker 1: s a UM and uh every year they undergo this experiment.

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Speaker 1: And uh, the West Point held out the longest and

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Speaker 1: they the Army got to defend their title. But they

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Speaker 1: were using Lenox computers. But this is apparently a normal thing. Um.

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Speaker 1: The Defense Department is only graduating eighties students a year

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Speaker 1: from schools of cyber war in the United States. According

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Speaker 1: to the New York Times article that I read about it,

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Speaker 1: um and if you're wondering, this is the fifty seven

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Speaker 1: Information aggress Or Squadron. They're based in Nellis Air Force Base,

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Speaker 1: and they are they they are, they are. They make

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Speaker 1: a point of doing this test every year, and um,

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Speaker 1: you know they it's one of those things where they

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Speaker 1: are making a conscious effort to attack and defend uh

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Speaker 1: computer networks. And apparently the uh you know, the nerds

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Speaker 1: are nerds everywhere, even at West Point um according to

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Speaker 1: the way, according to the way the article was written,

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Speaker 1: they get a little ribbing for being the geeks of

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Speaker 1: the group. But even the you know, the the future

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Speaker 1: officers that graduate from their know the importance of the

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Speaker 1: computer network because that's one of the very first things

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Speaker 1: they do. They're about to deploy these guys to Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, and the first thing they're

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Speaker 1: gonna do is set up a secure internet connection, and

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Speaker 1: they have to be ready to defend themselves against denial

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Speaker 1: denial of service attacks and uh another attacks. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're they're coming right out of the service academies with

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Speaker 1: knowledge of how to attack and to protect UM computer

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Speaker 1: networks military computer networks. Sure. UM. Usually we call those

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Speaker 1: sort of exercises red team attacks UM, where a group

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Speaker 1: is is designated to play the part of an UM

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Speaker 1: adversary and that's the red team. And the Red team's

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Speaker 1: job is to is to achieve their goals by whatever

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Speaker 1: means necessary. So in other words, you know, you're not

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Speaker 1: supposed to necessarily follow a certain protocol or rules. You're

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Speaker 1: supposed to be inventive and creative and try and find

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Speaker 1: new ways to to really compromise or defeat the other

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Speaker 1: team and UM, because that's exactly what the enemy is

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Speaker 1: going to do. You know, the enemy is not going

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Speaker 1: to play by rules necessarily, especially if you're talking about

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Speaker 1: enemies that you can't predict. I mean, they may not

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Speaker 1: even be directly involved with any other government or or

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Speaker 1: official agency. So UM. And and you know, we government

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Speaker 1: websites and our government web servers and and systems aren't

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Speaker 1: the only targets. One of the big targets in the

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Speaker 1: United States, and it's been in the news quite a

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Speaker 1: bit over the spring of two thousand nine is the

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Speaker 1: electric grid and UH part of the problem with that

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Speaker 1: is that systems like the electric grid and and some

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Speaker 1: water and fuel systems are using UM using the software

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Speaker 1: that that directly ties into hardware, and if you just

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Speaker 1: change a few settings, you can cause catastrophic damage to

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Speaker 1: the the equipment. UM. There was a video that was

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Speaker 1: on CNN for a while where some uh, some electric

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Speaker 1: utility experts showed that with just a couple of tweaks,

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Speaker 1: you could completely destroy a generator by changing some settings

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Speaker 1: through the computer system, and they essentially turned a generator

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Speaker 1: into a pile of scrap metal. UM. Yeah, it was

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Speaker 1: very sobering to me to see that, because not that

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Speaker 1: long ago the news broke out that the United States

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Speaker 1: Electric red certain parts of it. Anyway, UH has been

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Speaker 1: under attack by some cyber spies over the last several years,

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Speaker 1: and I don't really know who it is, right right right.

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Speaker 1: They've traced them back mostly to China and Russia. But again, um,

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Speaker 1: both China and Russia deny that they had anything to

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Speaker 1: do with it. But I mean, of course, the thing

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Speaker 1: is it, you know, those countries are are gradually becoming

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Speaker 1: more and more uh, computer centric, and it you know,

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Speaker 1: it could be anybody, It could be you know, it

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Speaker 1: could it could be that they are directly involved um

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Speaker 1: or it could be that it's groups of of individuals

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Speaker 1: within those countries, or like we said, it could even

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Speaker 1: be that the attacks are ultimately originating somewhere else, but

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Speaker 1: we're only able to trace them back as far as

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Speaker 1: Russia and China. So that's that's the other issue with

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Speaker 1: the Internet is that it is a global entity, and

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Speaker 1: so law enforcement officials only have so much authority to

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Speaker 1: pursue cyber attacks. You know, they can cross over borders

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Speaker 1: easily on the Internet, but law enforcement can't. They don't

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Speaker 1: necessarily have the authority to pursue an investigation beyond the

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Speaker 1: borders of you know, whatever their jurisdiction is. So that

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Speaker 1: also makes life much more complicated when you're talking about

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Speaker 1: fending off cyber warfare attacks. Yeah, you know, uh, it

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Speaker 1: wasn't even that long ago that some countries were complaining

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Speaker 1: of real cyber attacks launched on their inner infrastructure, like

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Speaker 1: Estonia not too long ago, and uh they were blaming

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Speaker 1: the Russians for that attack. But that was back in

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Speaker 1: in two thousand seven, all those years ago. Yeah, all

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Speaker 1: those both years ago. Yeah, well, you know they say

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Speaker 1: that Internet time is sort of like dog years. It's

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Speaker 1: about that would make it about fourteen years ago in internet,

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Speaker 1: so I guess so, um yeah. And then of course

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Speaker 1: there's the example of the Dalai Lama's office that the

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Speaker 1: Tibetan office that was UH. They knew they were being watched.

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Speaker 1: They were absolutely certain that their systems had been compromised UM,

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Speaker 1: and they hired a Canadian firm to investigate. In the

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Speaker 1: Canadian firm found that indeed, there there were programs installed

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Speaker 1: upon the Dali lamas Uh computer systems, and that it

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Speaker 1: appeared to be coming from an offshore island off the

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Speaker 1: coast of a China. And the software even included UM

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Speaker 1: controls that would allow people on the other end to

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Speaker 1: activate audio and video software UM and hardware so that

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Speaker 1: they could turn on if the computer had a webcam

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Speaker 1: or a microphone, they could turn it on and turn

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Speaker 1: it into a remote listening station, so they could actually

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Speaker 1: spy on the goings on of these offices remotely. UM. So,

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Speaker 1: I mean, this is a very real problem worldwide. It's

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Speaker 1: not just something that we have to worry about in

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Speaker 1: the United States or or you know, any other specific nation.

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Speaker 1: It's it's pretty much if if you have computers, there's

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Speaker 1: a good chance there's another party somewhere that's really interested

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Speaker 1: in finding out what you know and what you don't

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Speaker 1: know and what you're up to. Yea, And um there's

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Speaker 1: there's even another component to it that I know we

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Speaker 1: were gonna stick, uh mainly to talking about how you

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Speaker 1: could use computers to launch computer attacks. But um, another

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Speaker 1: facet of this that I think is interesting was sort

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Speaker 1: of relates to a blog post I wrote in early

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Speaker 1: April UM on the tech Stuff blog that that talked

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Speaker 1: about the Moldovan pro democracy protesters and they weren't launching

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Speaker 1: computer attacks, but what they were doing was using uh

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Speaker 1: social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to coordinate their

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Speaker 1: efforts sort of like flash mobs. They could go ahead

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Speaker 1: and use computer networks like those and uh text messaging

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Speaker 1: to discuss where and when they were going to organize

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Speaker 1: and meet and hold a demonstration. So that's um, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's you know, relying on the network staying up and

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Speaker 1: rather than taking them down. But UM, I just it's

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Speaker 1: just kind of funny because you know, you don't think

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Speaker 1: of you think of Facebook and Twitter or something we

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Speaker 1: use for fun or to to keep up with people

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Speaker 1: and just another way that you can use them to Actually,

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Speaker 1: I mean those could those could just as well have

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Speaker 1: been used to hold a violent, you know attack on someone. Say,

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Speaker 1: you know, meet at this corner at one forty in

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Speaker 1: the afternoon. Uh, you know, and have everybody show up

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Speaker 1: and start fighting. Well, if the law enforcement is unaware

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Speaker 1: of it or the military forces are unaware of it,

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Speaker 1: you know, that could be a devastating attack, and it

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Speaker 1: could be used by virtually anybody. Sure, and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: the dangers of these attacks go beyond just damaging a

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Speaker 1: network or shutting down a system. UM. One of the

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Speaker 1: big fears that that a lot of security folks have

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Speaker 1: is that what if you were to coordinate a physical

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Speaker 1: attack with a cyber attack. So what if you were

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Speaker 1: to target a major city and first you bring down

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Speaker 1: the city's power grid through a cyber attack, and then

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Speaker 1: you couple that with an actual physical attack link bombs

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Speaker 1: or or whatever, and that UM together, that would cause

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Speaker 1: a real panic because suddenly you have an entire population

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Speaker 1: that that doesn't have access to UM information the way

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Speaker 1: they normally would, and yet there is obviously chaos going on.

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Speaker 1: And uh that that really is the true definition of terrorism. There,

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Speaker 1: you're you're inspiring terror in the victim. UM. Now would

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Speaker 1: this be nationwide? Probably not. For one thing, the electric

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Speaker 1: grid is really much a pretty much a regional kind

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Speaker 1: of thing. UM. But it's something that every region could

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Speaker 1: theoretically be vulnerable to without the right security measures in place. Um. I. Now,

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Speaker 1: that sort of attack obviously would have to come from

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Speaker 1: a much more organized group. UM. It would have to

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Speaker 1: come from a country or organization that had a strong

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Speaker 1: financial backing to be able to fund the physical side

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Speaker 1: of the attack. UM. So that that narrows down the

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Speaker 1: list of possible suspects who could do that. But it's

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Speaker 1: still within the realm of possibility. And it's one of

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Speaker 1: those things that you know, keep security people up at night.

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Speaker 1: Sure sure UM. And you know, I'm really not certain

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Speaker 1: what we're going to be able to do short of

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Speaker 1: pulling all the plugs um to make it an impost

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Speaker 1: complete and utter impossibility that they could carry out those

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Speaker 1: kinds of attacks, because UM, it's just going to require

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Speaker 1: constant monitoring and searching for vulnerabilities. That's why the the

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Speaker 1: efforts of those who are participating in those um those

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Speaker 1: computer security uh war games. If you will. Um, they're

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Speaker 1: they're so important because they're searching, they're actively searching for

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Speaker 1: those vulnerabilities in the system and try, you know, to

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Speaker 1: try to find ways to patch them up before they

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Speaker 1: can be hacked into. But um, you know, I think

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Speaker 1: that any time that you update those systems, you're going

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Speaker 1: to open up new vulnerabilities and new problems. And you know,

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Speaker 1: it's just one of those things where the people who

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Speaker 1: whose job it is to pay attention to it are

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Speaker 1: just going to have to stay constantly vigilant to prevent

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Speaker 1: something like that from happening. And it is even more

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Speaker 1: complicated when you think that, you know, not every system

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Speaker 1: runs on the same software or operating system or whatever,

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Speaker 1: so some of them are proprietary and uh and and

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Speaker 1: so you might find something that works as a great

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Speaker 1: security measure for one system, but it's not at all

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Speaker 1: applicable to any other. So it is a huge challenge.

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Speaker 1: I mean, well, what's the response to that. Do you

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Speaker 1: go ahead and try and standardize everything so that hopefully

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Speaker 1: the same measures will work across the board. Because if

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Speaker 1: you do that and someone does find a vulnerability, suddenly

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Speaker 1: they've got a vulnerability that works across all systems. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's a yeah, it's a double edged sword,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's there are no easy answers. We've got

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Speaker 1: people who are way smarter than I am working on this,

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Speaker 1: UM and I wish them the best because this is

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00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:12,479
Speaker 1: this is scary stuff. Now. Are we all in danger

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Speaker 1: of something like this happening anytime soon? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: not I'm not staying up at night worrying the next

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Speaker 1: day about that's going to be the day when the

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Speaker 1: cyber war attack is going to happen. But it's I mean,

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Speaker 1: it is possible. It's just not necessarily something that you

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Speaker 1: know that I'm gonna have to worry about on a

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Speaker 1: day to day basis. Well, the more systems come online

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Speaker 1: UM in more places around the world, I think it's

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Speaker 1: going to be it becomes sort of like you know,

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Speaker 1: aerial assaults were after you know, that became a real

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Speaker 1: possibility in the twentieth century. It's it's going to be

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Speaker 1: something that a well planned military strategy is going to include.

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Speaker 1: You've got your ground troops, you know, air, sea, and internet.

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Speaker 1: Anything that can take down the computer network, the computer

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Speaker 1: the communications network, the power grid all at one time.

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Speaker 1: If you can do that, then you know you'll panic

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Speaker 1: the citizenry, and that just gives you a better chance.

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Speaker 1: I can pretty much guarantee that just about every modern

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Speaker 1: nation in the world has some sort of plan like

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Speaker 1: that in place. Um, and I can also guarantee that

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Speaker 1: they're not going to share that because that kind of

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Speaker 1: defeats the purpose of the plan. Yeah, but you know,

363
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Speaker 1: my internet connection goes down plenty without anybody attacking it.

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Speaker 1: So and I occasionally lose power if I sneeze too hard,

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Speaker 1: so or maybe I blackout. It's one of the two

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Speaker 1: either way. Alright, then I'm done. I'm yeah, that's all

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Speaker 1: I have that divulge to the public. Now that we've

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Speaker 1: scared the pants off of you, it's time for listener

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Speaker 1: me fitness knows that scares the pants off me. And

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Speaker 1: you know what, in retrospect, the alarm noise is probably

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Speaker 1: not the most appropriate one to play the podcast holbably not.

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Speaker 1: I apologize, folks, I should have picked something like Kittens

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Speaker 1: Purring Kittens. Well, today's listener mail comes from Tom from Kansas.

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Speaker 1: When I call a radio station to try and win

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Speaker 1: a contest, would I have an advantage if I were

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Speaker 1: closer to the radio station, or closer to a tower

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00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,520
Speaker 1: that's closest to the station. Sometimes when I call, I

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00:22:21,560 --> 00:22:25,320
Speaker 1: never get through. Who's getting through? And why? Um? Tom,

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Speaker 1: I was getting through? No, Seriously, I used to have

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Speaker 1: like the bat phone into the local radio station. I

381
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 1: won so many tickets from that station that they actually

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Speaker 1: had to say, Hey, how long has it been since

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00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:40,359
Speaker 1: the last time you won. I'd be like sixty two days,

384
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 1: and your your policies is sixty hands them over? Um.

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Speaker 1: Does it help if I could just see you doing that?

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Speaker 1: Does it help if you're closer now? Does it help

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00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:56,679
Speaker 1: if the tower is closer. No, these signals are moving

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Speaker 1: really really fast. Um. Otherwise you couldn't have a conversation

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Speaker 1: normal time. Exactly. These signals are moving essentially at the

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Speaker 1: speed of light, um, or close enough to it. Because

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Speaker 1: if you if they weren't moving that fast, if when

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00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:14,200
Speaker 1: you spoke into the phone, the person on the other

393
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 1: end would experience a really long delay and then they

394
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:18,680
Speaker 1: would hear you, and then they would speak, and you

395
00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:20,880
Speaker 1: would hear a really long pause, and then you would

396
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:23,760
Speaker 1: hear them and then you'd speak. That's not how it happens.

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Speaker 1: Conversations have happened in near real time, so we're talking

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Speaker 1: about really really fast signals. Now, what is happening, Tom,

399
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:34,320
Speaker 1: is that the radio station has only so many incoming

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Speaker 1: lines available. After that, you're going to get a busy

401
00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: signal and those lines are going to fill up pretty quickly,

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Speaker 1: especially if the radio station has a large audience. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you have a switchboard with with ten lines and

404
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Speaker 1: switchboard two people are calling in, that means two sixty

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00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:55,600
Speaker 1: five people are getting a busy signal or an all

406
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:59,359
Speaker 1: circuits are busy recording, which is probably what you're hearing.

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Speaker 1: And that's what I always heard when I called in,

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Speaker 1: you know, until I worked for a very specific company

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Speaker 1: that had a particular phone system. That's why I used

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00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:12,160
Speaker 1: to get to I don't know what it was about

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Speaker 1: that phone system. I think it was nothing at all.

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Speaker 1: I think it was just luck and coincidence. So I

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Speaker 1: don't think it was I don't think there was any causation.

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Speaker 1: There might have been correlation, but no causation um at

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Speaker 1: any rate. Um. All I can say is keep trying.

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Speaker 1: Lines are open, um. But yeah, if as soon as

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Speaker 1: the line does go open, someone else is trying to call.

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Speaker 1: It's going to fill up really quickly. It's really just,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of a crapshoot. All right then, all right, Tom,

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Speaker 1: thanks for writing in. If any of you have any

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Speaker 1: questions you'd like answered right in at tech stuff at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Remember, you can find out

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00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,879
Speaker 1: all about fun activities like cyber war at how stuff

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00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:58,159
Speaker 1: works dot com. Well, I was trying to, you know,

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00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 1: lighten up the mood after that podcast, and we will

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00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this

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00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:09,480
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

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00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 1: dot com And be sure to check out the new

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Speaker 1: tech stuff blog now on the house stuff Works homepage,

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Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready, are you