Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with Text Stuff from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome to Text Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland, and today I have a special treat
Speaker 1: for me and for you. I have kidnapped one of
Speaker 1: the other podcast teams here at How Stuff Works, not
Speaker 1: just a host, an entire team stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know represent yea, yeah, all right, and that's
Speaker 1: Matt and I'm Ben. As always, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: Listeners probably recalled that both Matt and I have appeared
Speaker 1: in different episodes in the past. That's correct, different episodes
Speaker 1: of tech stuff, some of the same episodes of stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, though, Yes, yes, there
Speaker 1: is a little bit of overlap for that. But we
Speaker 1: were super excited to hear about today's topic because it's
Speaker 1: been something that Matt and I have been talking about
Speaker 1: off air. Is that correct? Absolutely, This kind of technology
Speaker 1: that we're going to get into a little later. Uh,
Speaker 1: it piques our interest, you could say, yeah, mine as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the stuff they don't want you to know
Speaker 1: shows great show. If you guys haven't checked it out,
Speaker 1: you need to go and and check it out. Check
Speaker 1: check out how you guys are looking into various types
Speaker 1: of conspiracies, things that are happening below the surface level
Speaker 1: that people may not be aware of, and kind of
Speaker 1: sifting through the information to show which parts of it
Speaker 1: are you know, are really solid. You know, these are
Speaker 1: the things that we know for sure. And here's the
Speaker 1: conjecture that's been said about it. You guys do a
Speaker 1: great job with it. And as it turns out, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff out there that can really fuel
Speaker 1: that kind of kind of talk for good reason. And
Speaker 1: I typically am one of those more you know, I
Speaker 1: am a little are conservative and skeptical with my approach
Speaker 1: to these things. But this is a technology we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about today that I don't know how you could
Speaker 1: go to it being skeptical and say, oh, everything is fine.
Speaker 1: We are talking about sting ray or I AM s
Speaker 1: I catchers, and so stingray is the one that I
Speaker 1: think most people have heard about. That's the one that
Speaker 1: was brought up in a lawsuit in Arizona, UM. So
Speaker 1: I think that that is what most people think about
Speaker 1: when they hear I M. S I catchers, if they
Speaker 1: are aware of that term at all. But of course
Speaker 1: sting stingray is just one version of that, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about some of the other ones as well. So
Speaker 1: I am s I catchers stands for International Mobile Subscriber
Speaker 1: Identity catchers or locators, and that is a fancy way
Speaker 1: of saying. This is a technology that is able to
Speaker 1: intercept signals from cell phones, ostensibly so that uh a
Speaker 1: law enforcement official could locate a person based upon that
Speaker 1: person's cell phone signaling. And it does this, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about specifics in a bit, by mimicking a cell
Speaker 1: phone tower. So in other words, your cell phone is
Speaker 1: communicating with this device thinking that this is the actual
Speaker 1: part of the infrastructure that it would normally operate inside. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sort of the same way that were similar at
Speaker 1: least to the ways in which some animals have evolved
Speaker 1: to have camouflage that makes them appear to be a
Speaker 1: different type of creature, right. Yeah. And one thing that
Speaker 1: I just want to get this out so I don't
Speaker 1: uh moan and complain about it for the whole episode.
Speaker 1: If you ever lost a cell phone or had one
Speaker 1: stolen and had the sneaking suspicion that there might be
Speaker 1: a way for law enforcement to catch it, well, far radically,
Speaker 1: there is. It's just it's just they can't do that
Speaker 1: for everybody because so many people lose their cell phones
Speaker 1: or have them stolen, you know, as long as it's
Speaker 1: turned on right, right, yeah, and as long as well,
Speaker 1: and it also depends on a couple of other things too, Right,
Speaker 1: they have to have the if they're looking for your
Speaker 1: cell phones specifically, they kind of need to know a
Speaker 1: little bit more information, like they need to know something
Speaker 1: specific about that phone or to identify it versus all
Speaker 1: the other phones that will connect to it, right, right,
Speaker 1: because otherwise they just be like, well, it may be
Speaker 1: one of the phones here, and there are different ways
Speaker 1: of looking into that, right. It all depends on what
Speaker 1: the investigation is. And we'll we'll talk more about how
Speaker 1: it's used in investigations. So basically, this is a technology
Speaker 1: meant to help Again, ostensibly law enforcement tracked down the
Speaker 1: bad guys or counter terrorism officials to identify potential terrorist
Speaker 1: threats before they become a reality. That's what it supposed
Speaker 1: to be used for. There are a lot of people
Speaker 1: who have objected to it because it is it is
Speaker 1: taking a very wide approach to targeting something very specific,
Speaker 1: and that can be dangerous for the sting Ray its self.
Speaker 1: It costs between sixty eight thousand dollars and a hundred
Speaker 1: thirty five thousand dollars last I checked. Because there are
Speaker 1: two different models of the sting ray, there's the sting
Speaker 1: ray and sting Ray. To sting Ray two came out
Speaker 1: a few years ago. The sting ray obviously came out
Speaker 1: before that. Because we move in a chronological order, they
Speaker 1: haven't gotten to that quantum effect where the sequel comes
Speaker 1: out before the original. Um. Now it's made by a
Speaker 1: company called Harris Corporation out of Melbourne, Florida, and uh
Speaker 1: and this company makes a lot of technology that falls
Speaker 1: into this general category. Some of the products that they
Speaker 1: make are similar to sting Ray and do similar things
Speaker 1: to that device. Others are more specific and are meant
Speaker 1: to be used in conjunction with a gadget like stingray. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like a console, you know, like you've
Speaker 1: got your connect, you've got your you know, your your
Speaker 1: dance pad, You've got all these other things sort of
Speaker 1: the similar thing here, except the devices that Harris Corporation makes,
Speaker 1: some of them boost the signal catching ability of the
Speaker 1: basic technology, like the stingray some of them allow for
Speaker 1: better tracking technology. It all depends on the thing. But
Speaker 1: but you know, you may have heard some of the
Speaker 1: other names. Some of the other names that include trigger fish, kingfish, amberjack, gossamer, harpoon,
Speaker 1: and hail storm. Uh. And not only these are not
Speaker 1: types of stingray. These are all individual devices that work
Speaker 1: in a similar way to sting ray. Some of them
Speaker 1: copy the functionality of stingray, some of them go beyond that.
Speaker 1: In fact, trigger fish is particularly troubling. Um. But uh,
Speaker 1: sting rate self can be really troubling too, if you
Speaker 1: just do a simple upgrade to it. And then you're right.
Speaker 1: The all of these have things in common and that
Speaker 1: they all are meant to detect cell phone usage in
Speaker 1: some way and either identify it or locate it and
Speaker 1: or track it. Um. And it's how you use these
Speaker 1: in combination with one another that determines your ability to
Speaker 1: do that. Now, clearly we're talking about something that's mimicking
Speaker 1: a cell phone tower. You have to have it be
Speaker 1: mobile because otherwise you just have to hope that the
Speaker 1: bad guys happened to go across your part of town.
Speaker 1: You can't take it to them if it's not mobile right.
Speaker 1: So uh. One of the things that this is really
Speaker 1: helpful for as far as law enforcement are concerned, is
Speaker 1: that they can go to a part of town where
Speaker 1: they suspect someone is. They can put out their ears,
Speaker 1: listen for it, look to see if they have any
Speaker 1: hits that relate back to the target they're specifically looking for,
Speaker 1: and if not, they can move on to a different
Speaker 1: part of town. Um. That's also one of the drawbacks,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, at least from from the perspective
Speaker 1: of some people. Now let's see one other thing. Oh,
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention. Gossamer is one of the exceptions
Speaker 1: to this. Gossamer is not about tracking or locating cell phone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this is the one that freaks me out the most. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is not passive. Now, Gossamer is about denial of
Speaker 1: service attacks on a mobile phone. So it's about it's
Speaker 1: essentially a jammer. Now, this is great for all of
Speaker 1: the paranoid people in the audience. Are you getting bad
Speaker 1: reception or are you being gossamer? I actually, and and
Speaker 1: another thing to to mention. I didn't put it in
Speaker 1: our notes, but one of the things these devices typically
Speaker 1: can do, the stingray in particular, can do this is
Speaker 1: it can boost your the signal coming from your phone
Speaker 1: to connect to the tower. It can essentially say I
Speaker 1: need a stronger signal your phone. Then, even though you're
Speaker 1: not using it, like it's just in your pocket, there's
Speaker 1: no vibrating, there's no ringing, there's nothing going on, your
Speaker 1: phone starts sending stronger signals. This drains your battery. So
Speaker 1: if you're the paranoid persuasion, you may also think my
Speaker 1: phone's battery just won't even last like a full day anymore.
Speaker 1: And it might not be because your phone is old.
Speaker 1: It might be because you're getting you're getting sting rayed.
Speaker 1: You guys, I'm not kidding. That's happening to me right now. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Matt, but you should take more care when
Speaker 1: you are browsing on your phone. Also, Matt, Matt, I
Speaker 1: mean not to make you worried or anything, but you're
Speaker 1: definitely on some lists. So I mean you're on our
Speaker 1: list of favorite people. Yeah, there's one right there. So okay,
Speaker 1: So I love this idea about it being mobile. So
Speaker 1: if we take that paranoid example, uh, in the vast majority,
Speaker 1: virtually every time somebody has poor reception or poor battery life.
Speaker 1: It is never going to be something like this, But
Speaker 1: there is a very small chance that if you are
Speaker 1: a victim of this, you could literally have someone following
Speaker 1: you around, right, yeah, I mean, okay, to be fair,
Speaker 1: this technology we're talking about is at a level of
Speaker 1: expense where it's not likely to happen to you. And
Speaker 1: if you are someone who is either hanging out with
Speaker 1: questionable people or you yourself are engaged in some questionable activities,
Speaker 1: then you'd be more likely to have this actually target you. Now,
Speaker 1: because we know that law enforcement agencies across the United
Speaker 1: States and in other parts of the world have used
Speaker 1: this kind of technology, they're the they're the customers, they're
Speaker 1: ones that are purchasing the stuff from Harris Corporation. It's
Speaker 1: very possible you would come into contact with this, and
Speaker 1: it's not that you are being targeted, but you're still
Speaker 1: being affected because it's so broad. Yeah, it's like it's
Speaker 1: mimicking a cellphone tower. It's not mimicking a cell phone
Speaker 1: tower for a single phone. It's been making a cell
Speaker 1: phone tower for the broadcast range of that device. And
Speaker 1: so okay, so their mobile but what what would they
Speaker 1: look like if you just saw one. So they look
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh, I mean, if you've ever seen
Speaker 1: one of those servers, like it looks like just a
Speaker 1: basic computer with lots of ports on it. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like that. It's usually a little bit uh, stumpy looking,
Speaker 1: like it's not as wide as your typical server is.
Speaker 1: It's a little more narrow a little tall. But it's
Speaker 1: meant to fit into racks because you can, you know,
Speaker 1: end up pairing these with other technologies. But it's essentially
Speaker 1: a computer and you hook it up to a laptop,
Speaker 1: so you've got really the basic parts you have are
Speaker 1: the antenna, which is important because obviously it has to
Speaker 1: receive signals sent from cell phones um and a transmitter
Speaker 1: so that you can send stuff back through if you
Speaker 1: need to. You've got the computer itself, which is processing
Speaker 1: the signals and identifying where those signals are coming from,
Speaker 1: both what type of phone it is by you know,
Speaker 1: giving you the identification numbers of that phone, the phone
Speaker 1: number that's associated with that phone, and the location of
Speaker 1: that phone based upon some triangulation. You might actually have
Speaker 1: to physically move the technology around to get the triangulation.
Speaker 1: You could theoretically communicate with another cell phone tower, and
Speaker 1: by getting comparing numbers, you know you know you can
Speaker 1: generally tell the direction from which the signal comes and
Speaker 1: its strength. That gives you an idea of it's it's
Speaker 1: general location in that like you know roughly what distance
Speaker 1: it is from your your base station. So it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where if the signal gets stronger, it's
Speaker 1: closer to you, right, and if it's if it's if
Speaker 1: the signal, if the cell phone signal is getting weaker
Speaker 1: than you know that the target cell phone is moving away.
Speaker 1: If you were to move the van to a second
Speaker 1: location and do those measure a mints, then because you
Speaker 1: have the two points on a on one part of
Speaker 1: a triangle, the cell phones the third point, then you
Speaker 1: know where the person is. It's the same way that
Speaker 1: cell phone towers are able to give an approximation of
Speaker 1: where you are, even if your phone doesn't have GPS. Right,
Speaker 1: it's sending the signals and based upon the strength of
Speaker 1: the signal, how long it takes to get there, all
Speaker 1: of these sort of things, it can approximate where you are. Now.
Speaker 1: By by approximate, I mean within a few you know, meters,
Speaker 1: So it's not like as as a specific as GPS
Speaker 1: can be, but it's still good enough for law enforcement
Speaker 1: to hone in on a on a particular location and
Speaker 1: people can sent to the use of GPS. But yeah,
Speaker 1: uh So there's a question that I'm sure a lot
Speaker 1: of people are wondering, which is this stuff sounds kind
Speaker 1: of space a g but how how new? Is it
Speaker 1: not that new? Uh? The the information I found said
Speaker 1: that at least the giger Fish version of this technology
Speaker 1: has been in use since the late nineteen nineties, Like,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, And to keep keep in mind, like this
Speaker 1: technology has been in some form of development or another
Speaker 1: and been available to different types of agencies, specifically the
Speaker 1: FBI would be a big one. Um. And it's just
Speaker 1: that over the past few years it has become more
Speaker 1: common for local law enforcement to get their hands on this.
Speaker 1: Before it was something that only you know, the federal
Speaker 1: law enforcement officials were able to access. But now we're
Speaker 1: seeing local law enforcement. Not everybody's owning up to it,
Speaker 1: but we're seeing a lot of local law enforcement offices
Speaker 1: adopt this technology, and they're doing it in kind of
Speaker 1: a kind of a back door Shenanigan's way, I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: so uh, you know, these things can be pretty expensive,
Speaker 1: and obviously law enforcement has a budget that they have
Speaker 1: to answer to, so some of them are funding the
Speaker 1: purchase of this material by filing it under counter terrorism
Speaker 1: uh um strategies. Yeah. Essentially they say, we want to
Speaker 1: participate in this, you know, we want to make sure
Speaker 1: we help protect national security doing it on a local level. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then they get the federal grant to purchase this stuff.
Speaker 1: But then they're using it on a much broader scale.
Speaker 1: So it's not like they're not using it specifically for
Speaker 1: counter terrorism. They're using it in all sorts of cases.
Speaker 1: There was a story about a sheriff whose own vehicle
Speaker 1: got broken into and uh and whose phone was stolen,
Speaker 1: who decided to use this stuff to try and ostensibly
Speaker 1: to try and stop the the string of car break ins.
Speaker 1: Some people would say that perhaps it was more personal
Speaker 1: than that, but the point being that this was not
Speaker 1: a counter terrorism issue. This was you know, someone breaking
Speaker 1: and entering into cars, which is you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: a crime. But you people have been arguing, like what
Speaker 1: at what level of crime do you consider the use
Speaker 1: of this particular type of technology necessary to employ? Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially given the expense not just in financial terms, but
Speaker 1: in terms of manpower or time. So that's that's one problem,
Speaker 1: but it's my spider sense is telling me that you
Speaker 1: have a bigger problem. I've got so many problems with this,
Speaker 1: So let's let's talk about how it works first, because
Speaker 1: this is this is what leads into where the biggest
Speaker 1: problems that I have where the technology come from. So uh,
Speaker 1: to understand how this works, you've got to know how
Speaker 1: cell phone works, all right, And we're gonna be super
Speaker 1: high level here because I could do a full episode
Speaker 1: on how cell phones work, and you guys would be
Speaker 1: stabbing me because you're wondering why I've pulled you in UM.
Speaker 1: But typically the easiest way of explaining it as cell
Speaker 1: phones broadcast over radio frequencies, and you have cell phone
Speaker 1: towers that present a broadcast area. The towers are able
Speaker 1: to accept the incoming signals from a cell phone and
Speaker 1: outgoing signals that are going to cell phones within that
Speaker 1: UM service area. They're doing so over specific frequency to
Speaker 1: the phones. Your phone knows which frequency quote unquote knows
Speaker 1: which frequency to be in because there's a master control
Speaker 1: system that's telling the phone tune into this frequency so
Speaker 1: that you can receive and transmit information. Technically you're using
Speaker 1: too frequencies so you can receive and transmit at the
Speaker 1: same time. Then as you leave one cell phone service
Speaker 1: area and you're starting to get closer to another, then
Speaker 1: you have to be handed off right because if if not,
Speaker 1: once you move too far away from the base station,
Speaker 1: you would no longer have service. So this is similar
Speaker 1: to when you move into an area that doesn't have
Speaker 1: the towers that support the service you use. So if
Speaker 1: you're like an a T and T customer and you
Speaker 1: go into an area that's not supported by a T
Speaker 1: and T, then you're out of luck. Your phone becomes
Speaker 1: a brick, right, or whatever's on your phone, that's all
Speaker 1: you can use. So you have to have this handoff
Speaker 1: technology for one tower to hand off the the service
Speaker 1: to another tower as you're moving between them. So what's
Speaker 1: happening is your phone is constantly sending little signals even
Speaker 1: when it's not directly in use to to say here
Speaker 1: I am. It's essentially saying I'm here almost yeah, it's
Speaker 1: exactly like paying a server. It's doing this about every
Speaker 1: seven to fifteen seconds. So this is why even if
Speaker 1: you don't use your phone, the battery life gradually decreases.
Speaker 1: So the reason it does this is very important because
Speaker 1: if it didn't tell the cell phone towers, hey here
Speaker 1: I am, you would never get texts or cell phone
Speaker 1: or you never get a call. You couldn't you just
Speaker 1: play solitaire or whatever. Yeah, because because the system wouldn't
Speaker 1: know where your phone is, so it wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to send the signal like it doesn't when someone dials
Speaker 1: your number. It doesn't magically connect to your phone. The
Speaker 1: system has to be aware of where you are, and
Speaker 1: it has this constant game of Marco Polo to ensure
Speaker 1: that there's this seamless transition. Right because you as a person,
Speaker 1: you are mobile, so you can move from location to location.
Speaker 1: You are not always going to be next to the
Speaker 1: same cell phone tower all the time. So your phone
Speaker 1: has to constantly, like every seven to fifteen seconds, say
Speaker 1: I'm here. Because if you're in a car and you're
Speaker 1: traveling down the road, you're moving in and out of
Speaker 1: different you know, cell tower ranges, so the different cell
Speaker 1: towers have to be aware of where your phone is
Speaker 1: so that you can continue to receive messages, phone calls.
Speaker 1: That kind of stuff or make them. Yeah, the problem
Speaker 1: is that because of this technology, you know that this
Speaker 1: is what makes cell phones useful, but because of that
Speaker 1: same technology, it's also what makes this sting ray technology possible. So,
Speaker 1: because your phone is sending out these messages and your
Speaker 1: phone doesn't know where the next cell phone tower is,
Speaker 1: it's podcasting these little messages and the cell phone towers
Speaker 1: pick it up. Based upon the signal strength, the cell
Speaker 1: phone tower knows if you are moving toward it or
Speaker 1: moving away from it. The sting ray ends up mimicking
Speaker 1: the cell phone towers. So your little cell phone sends
Speaker 1: out a message and the stingray picks it up. Sting
Speaker 1: ray now knows where your phone is, or at least
Speaker 1: knows that your phone is in that area. As the
Speaker 1: signal gets stronger, the stingray knows that your phone is
Speaker 1: getting closer to it. If you have triangulated this, then
Speaker 1: it knows where you are. Or if you have one
Speaker 1: of the other devices that pair with the sting ray
Speaker 1: that can help track and locate, the sting ray knows
Speaker 1: where you are. There's a laptop that you would connect
Speaker 1: to this device that would give you the redoubt that
Speaker 1: would be useful for a human being because right now
Speaker 1: we're talking all about technology that and data that machines
Speaker 1: could use, but it's not useful to us because we
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to see it. But the laptop expresses
Speaker 1: that in ways that make it possible for you to see.
Speaker 1: Maybe with mapping software, it's plotting the location against a map,
Speaker 1: as well as identification of the phone numbers UM and
Speaker 1: the I D number that's unique to that particular mobile phone.
Speaker 1: So the issue here is that this this sting ray,
Speaker 1: well accept all of those incoming messages, all those Yeah,
Speaker 1: anything that's within the area that that the sensitivity of
Speaker 1: that antenna, it will pick that up. So is it like,
Speaker 1: is it just metadata? Well yes, originally, first it's just,
Speaker 1: first of all, just metadata, just metadata, because metadata you
Speaker 1: don't need very much of it to start making some
Speaker 1: very scary conclusions. You can start to really narrow down
Speaker 1: who a person is based upon some metadata routines what
Speaker 1: they do in the real world and when they do it,
Speaker 1: the phone numbers they might be in contact with at
Speaker 1: that time. The phone number of the device itself obviously
Speaker 1: would be very important. So let's say that you two
Speaker 1: YouTube and Ben you are you are. You are the cops. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you're in your van power Yeah, I know, it's not
Speaker 1: go crazy. You do not have a tank. We're not
Speaker 1: We're not in Swanny. Was Swanny? Wasn't it? I was
Speaker 1: thinking Swanny? By the way, listeners, is is just to
Speaker 1: the northeast of Atlanta. It's a little part of Metro
Speaker 1: Atlanta area. Um and they have a tank. So anyway,
Speaker 1: you are in a van. You have heard about tanks,
Speaker 1: but you do not currently own one. You've got plenty
Speaker 1: of donuts to get you through the day. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you are in law enforcement, and I am offending you,
Speaker 1: dear listeners, I'm merely poking fun. I love you guys
Speaker 1: at any rate. So you guys are are looking at
Speaker 1: the incoming messages that are being hit. We're on our laptop.
Speaker 1: You are looking specifically for a phone number associated with
Speaker 1: a suspect, a person of interest. You want to be
Speaker 1: able to track this person down, but so far have
Speaker 1: been unable to do so. You have heard that this
Speaker 1: person may in fact be in this particular part of town,
Speaker 1: which is why you have parked your van, And all
Speaker 1: you are doing is looking for a hit of that
Speaker 1: particular number as it moves through, and once you do,
Speaker 1: you then try to triangulate, you locate, and then your
Speaker 1: your send people out there to talk to this suspect
Speaker 1: or person of interest. Now that that alone, that sounds
Speaker 1: like that's okay. I mean, there might be some problems
Speaker 1: we have here, but you're specifically looking for the hit.
Speaker 1: You're not looking at the massive amount of information that's
Speaker 1: coming in. You're looking for something specific. Yeah, now, Matt,
Speaker 1: I know that, I know that, dude, I know, I
Speaker 1: know it's the pencil pushers who really are to blame.
Speaker 1: Don't don't, don't bust my chops um so at any rate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in this case, you are specifically looking for a particular
Speaker 1: phone number. It's a little more tricky if you don't
Speaker 1: know the number though, right Like now you're looking for patterns.
Speaker 1: Now you're looking specifically for activities that match what you
Speaker 1: suspect your target is already doing. You're also possibly looking
Speaker 1: to find out what phone numbers are being used in
Speaker 1: an area. Now, this is where it really gets tricky
Speaker 1: because some of these devices, not all of them, but
Speaker 1: the sting ray and the trigger fish included both can
Speaker 1: tell you if someone makes a call from within that
Speaker 1: area that the sting ray covers, you can see what
Speaker 1: number they called. Now now, at least with the basic
Speaker 1: sting ray, you can't listen in on the call. You
Speaker 1: just know the time, the UH number, and the duration
Speaker 1: of the call. Hold on. Sounds like we're getting to
Speaker 1: a point where we can listen to these calls the
Speaker 1: basic sting Yeah, okay, So remember when I said you
Speaker 1: can upgrade. So sting ray is it's a computer, is
Speaker 1: what it boils down to. I mean, it's more than
Speaker 1: a computer, but it has elements of a computer. It
Speaker 1: runs software. There is software that you can install on
Speaker 1: the sting ray that does allow you to listen in uh.
Speaker 1: There is fish Hawk, which is software that allows you
Speaker 1: to eavesdrop upon conversations. And there's also Porpoise. You might
Speaker 1: have noticed a theme I was gonna ask you about
Speaker 1: that they're in Florida. I guess that makes sense. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so the porpoise allows you to uh see texts that
Speaker 1: are sent through here. So it's again it's messages or
Speaker 1: phone calls that are sent from the phone out through
Speaker 1: the the sting ray that go on. Now, this obviously
Speaker 1: raises a lot of very tricky questions, particularly when it
Speaker 1: comes to basic rights, because if you are just taking
Speaker 1: in everything and you can potentially read all the text
Speaker 1: messages or listening on any of the conversations that are
Speaker 1: going through and remember this is just based on geography.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not targeting, you're getting everything. There's no
Speaker 1: probable cause, there's no probable cause, there's no warrant. So
Speaker 1: back back in our scenario, Ben and I in our readout, Well, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm driving, so Ben, you're alright, so you're the wheel man,
Speaker 1: get it so you can see. Then we'll be able
Speaker 1: to see all of this on a readout a Mett
Speaker 1: Look look at his number. It's been going back and
Speaker 1: forth in these two cell phone towers every freaking Thursday. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Or it could be Ben saying, hey, Matt, look this
Speaker 1: dufus over here thinks his girlfriend's gonna make him dinner tonight,
Speaker 1: and we already know she ain't gonna do that, right buddy,
Speaker 1: You guys are so good. Later of this comes out,
Speaker 1: so I'll just be stopped on the street. Uh that's
Speaker 1: funny until it happened, alright, So at any rate, Uh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean technically, if you have the right technology, right
Speaker 1: being the the appropriate one for this, uh, and you
Speaker 1: have the correct software on it, then you could be
Speaker 1: you could start filtering through you could potentially read anything
Speaker 1: that's coming through that that stingray device. So again, it
Speaker 1: would be any phone that was within that range of
Speaker 1: the antenna. Um you wouldn't necessarily I mean you probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't be storing at all. I mean you could if
Speaker 1: you had a large enough hard drive. That would be
Speaker 1: another thing you would need to have in your array
Speaker 1: of technology piling up very quickly. Yeah, and and so
Speaker 1: this is starting to sound probably very similar to the
Speaker 1: discussions we've had about the n s A. You know,
Speaker 1: the fact that they have been collecting cell phone data
Speaker 1: at the they're doing it at the provider level, right
Speaker 1: like they're there, they've got their years on this national
Speaker 1: or even global level, whereas we're really talking about very
Speaker 1: regional effects here. Yes, still very concerning. So how much
Speaker 1: how much information can it actually capture? Um? Well, you
Speaker 1: know it's here all right. Here's the thing. We don't
Speaker 1: know the full extent of what it can capture because
Speaker 1: secrets have to be kept for your safety from the
Speaker 1: creators of stingray or from the police departments. In the
Speaker 1: law enforcement, I'm just gonna say yes from both. So
Speaker 1: there was a story recently. I think it was I
Speaker 1: want to say it was Santa Clarat, California, but I
Speaker 1: could be wrong. It was a It was a town
Speaker 1: in California, however, that recently declined to purchase from Harris
Speaker 1: Corporation because they said there were agreements that they would
Speaker 1: have been forced to enter into that would prevent them
Speaker 1: from releasing any information about the product, even in the
Speaker 1: face of a Freedom of Information Act request. So an
Speaker 1: ironclad yes like a nondisclosure agreement to trump all nondisclosure.
Speaker 1: How the heck do you get around You mostly just
Speaker 1: drag your heels as long as possible and hope that
Speaker 1: the judge that ends up hearing any case about it
Speaker 1: is not savvy enough to understand the implications of this technology.
Speaker 1: You can appeal for national security I think right, well,
Speaker 1: that's essentially what they say is that if we were
Speaker 1: to tell you what the capabilities of this technology were,
Speaker 1: then the bad guys would be able to work around it,
Speaker 1: thus making the technology useless and we'd only be getting
Speaker 1: your boring text messages instead of the bad guys stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: it's okay, just to play the advocate here, that kind
Speaker 1: of reasoning, which is incredibly slippery and dangerous, It does
Speaker 1: make sense if you think again about the ostensible purpose, right,
Speaker 1: the the idea that this stuff could be rendered useless
Speaker 1: if it wasn't a secret. But also, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say the word I'm going to say is convenient. It's
Speaker 1: a convenient reason. Well, and it's it's yeah, when you
Speaker 1: have like a rubber stamp that's a secret, then how
Speaker 1: do you have oversight? How can you make certain that
Speaker 1: the figures that have been put into authority positions in
Speaker 1: order to help the citizens, how can you make sure
Speaker 1: that they are doing that that duty that they've been
Speaker 1: they've been tasked with, as opposed to abusing it or
Speaker 1: misusing it, maybe not even abusing it on purpose, but
Speaker 1: perhaps through you know, no no maliciousness, have been using
Speaker 1: it incorrectly. And there have been arguments that judges have
Speaker 1: allowed this kind of technology to be used because the
Speaker 1: explanations they were given about what the technology did were
Speaker 1: purposefully vague and limited, so that they would not know
Speaker 1: the full extent of what this technology does. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, here's where we're going to kind of transition
Speaker 1: into more of the policy stuff, because you know, that's
Speaker 1: really why I got you guys to come on here.
Speaker 1: The technology we've kind of covered, you know, the very
Speaker 1: basic ideas that it's a man in the middle kind
Speaker 1: of attack. The reason why I brought you on here
Speaker 1: is because this is my own personal perspective, my own opinion.
Speaker 1: But my opinion is that this technology is dangerously close,
Speaker 1: if not identical, to the concept of issuing a general warrant,
Speaker 1: which is precisely what the Fourth Amendment was supposed to
Speaker 1: protect us from. So the idea being that here in
Speaker 1: the units dates by the way, this technology is being
Speaker 1: used in other places. In fact, one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that I brought it up is because recently Sky News
Speaker 1: was reporting about how it's being used in the UK. Uh.
Speaker 1: It had been thought to have been used in the
Speaker 1: UK for a while, but now there's kind of essentially
Speaker 1: ironclad evidence that yes, it's being used as the UK. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the reason why, uh, you know, I brought you
Speaker 1: guys in as this this idea of one of the
Speaker 1: founding principles of the United States of America was that
Speaker 1: the colonists didn't they weren't so crazy about the British
Speaker 1: coming up and going into every single house looking for
Speaker 1: a specific person, with no reason to suspect that the
Speaker 1: person of interest was actually in the houses they were stopping.
Speaker 1: It's just a general blanket search, right, So search and seizure,
Speaker 1: the idea being that we're looking for this person. This
Speaker 1: person is is bad and so you have no rights
Speaker 1: until we find this person. So we're gonna go to
Speaker 1: your house and turn it upside down looking for this person.
Speaker 1: If they're not there, too, well, okay, well good for you,
Speaker 1: too bad for us. We're gonna go do it to
Speaker 1: the next family. Ah. Yeah. So this approach of using
Speaker 1: a device to pull in all incoming data, even if
Speaker 1: you're looking for a really bad person, you're getting everything,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't seem that different to me than the
Speaker 1: approach of there's this bad person out there, we're going
Speaker 1: to go through everybody's house until we find that person.
Speaker 1: So for me, there're a couple of things you have
Speaker 1: to establish. One of them is does that data that
Speaker 1: you're sending out belong to you? Is it really yours
Speaker 1: or you know, is it the companies that you're using
Speaker 1: just to ostensibly send the information to a cell tower
Speaker 1: to another person. Um. And then for me, if you
Speaker 1: look at things like when the Boston bombing occurred, and
Speaker 1: then the search for the Sarnive brothers afterwards, and when
Speaker 1: the police were going through and essentially doing what you're saying,
Speaker 1: searching through, how is yeah, with just it's not really
Speaker 1: a general warrant, but something kind of similar to that
Speaker 1: where yeah, I mean they didn't have a they didn't
Speaker 1: have a warrant for each specific house they went through,
Speaker 1: which they're supposed to if if I mean, your rights
Speaker 1: as a citizen are supposed to say, listen, if you
Speaker 1: don't have a warrant, you cannot come into my house.
Speaker 1: That is a constitutional right guaranteed to me. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the old, the old ticking time bomb reasoning, which I
Speaker 1: find fairly disingenuous. Uh. When the idea we heard it before,
Speaker 1: with the idea of using torture to obtain some sort
Speaker 1: of confession or insider information, where people would say, well,
Speaker 1: torture is not ordinarily allowed, but if there is a
Speaker 1: bomb that is going to go off in a set
Speaker 1: amount of time, and we have one person who knows
Speaker 1: the information in custody, then shouldn't we torture somebody to
Speaker 1: save a hundred people or whatever the number is. And
Speaker 1: this what what's similar to me about this is that
Speaker 1: this encounter is um so many ways to bend rules
Speaker 1: that are that exists for a reason, as you said,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't really provide a way to bend those
Speaker 1: rules back to their original shape. I mean, Jonathan, I
Speaker 1: can think of already, uh, several scenarios wherein this gild
Speaker 1: get sticky very quickly. Matt. I love that you mentioned. Uh.
Speaker 1: It might not be the person actually using the phone, right,
Speaker 1: It might be someone else, uh took a phone right
Speaker 1: and used it as a burner. But the person, the
Speaker 1: innocent person whose name is uh tied to that number
Speaker 1: that I d they're going to be automatically suspect number
Speaker 1: one or maybe even public enemy number one. Another question
Speaker 1: is what if? What if this search? Right? So let's
Speaker 1: go back in, Um, Matt, you and I are still cops, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: your FBI, your special investigator. Right you came in, you said,
Speaker 1: I'm taking over this investigation. I got a little flip
Speaker 1: phone because I'm from the later seasons of X Files.
Speaker 1: Right exactly right, black suit, black tie, whole thing, and
Speaker 1: you say that we are looking for you know, insert
Speaker 1: bad guy's name here. Uh. And while we're looking though, however, uh,
Speaker 1: there are our search, our vacuum cleaner approach brings in
Speaker 1: another number that pings on your radar because you were
Speaker 1: already suspicious of one person doing, you know, a federal
Speaker 1: level crime. So this person who we were not looking for,
Speaker 1: just showed up. What happens then, Uh, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously I got to take over the investigation. I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of episodes of various crime dramas, and that's
Speaker 1: what the That's the only thing the FBI is around
Speaker 1: to do is to push the local police force out
Speaker 1: of this was well, you have to keep putting your
Speaker 1: sunglasses on and taking them off. Occasionally you just hear
Speaker 1: the who, Well, I've got a are you kind of
Speaker 1: like that? Unless you want to answer no, no, I
Speaker 1: The only answer to that I have is that I
Speaker 1: would imagine that at least until there are some strong
Speaker 1: precedents set in in court about the actual use of
Speaker 1: this technology, what it really can do, and whether or
Speaker 1: not it truly is constitutional to use it in the
Speaker 1: way that it's being used, I would imagine at least
Speaker 1: until that happens, the FBI acts on that act on
Speaker 1: that information because if there if no one has come
Speaker 1: out and said you can't do that, they're going to
Speaker 1: do that. And I don't mean to cast aspersions on
Speaker 1: law enforcement in the FBI. I realized that they have
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult and very high stakes jobs, right and in
Speaker 1: order for them to be able to do those jobs
Speaker 1: in an increasingly complex technological world, there are some very
Speaker 1: tough questions we have to answer. But the problem I
Speaker 1: have is that these are questions that that seem to
Speaker 1: already have been answered in the past. We just haven't
Speaker 1: applied the answer yet, or people judges in particular, haven't
Speaker 1: understood the implications of this technology, and that we're seeing
Speaker 1: some civil liberties fade away as a result or get less,
Speaker 1: you know, like like it's like you are protected against this,
Speaker 1: except in all of these other newer situations, many of
Speaker 1: which we cannot legally tell you about because national security, right,
Speaker 1: because if we told you about how we're violating your
Speaker 1: civil liberties, then the bad guys would win. Like, well, technically,
Speaker 1: if you're telling me that my civil liberties are being violated,
Speaker 1: but you can't tell me how the bad guys have one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's an interesting deliminate is one that we keep
Speaker 1: running into. And this is not the first time. I
Speaker 1: love that you mentioned there's precedent through about this throughout history.
Speaker 1: I mean back when it was just the post office,
Speaker 1: right uh. There there were still these ongoing debates about
Speaker 1: what kind of right to privacy should someone expect when
Speaker 1: they're using the postal system. But you also mentioned advocacy groups,
Speaker 1: So is there some organized opposition to There's quite quite
Speaker 1: a lot. There's a lot of disorganized opposition too. But
Speaker 1: the organized opposition includes like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the
Speaker 1: f E F f UH, there's the American Civil Liberties Union,
Speaker 1: the a c l u uh, there's EPIC there. There
Speaker 1: are all these different groups that are all about privacy
Speaker 1: and civil rights that have identified problem areas with this technology,
Speaker 1: some of which have been they've kind of some of
Speaker 1: them have couched their arguments, largely because they say, we
Speaker 1: can't come out and say how strongly strongly we feel
Speaker 1: about this because of the secrecy involved. Without knowing everything,
Speaker 1: we we don't want to suspect the worst. But we
Speaker 1: can't discount it either because you won't tell us what
Speaker 1: it does or how it's being used. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: but there there are a lot who are saying you
Speaker 1: need to have rules set in place on how this
Speaker 1: technology can be used, if in fact it is legal
Speaker 1: to use it at all. So, for example, perhaps before
Speaker 1: you use this you have to secure a warrant that
Speaker 1: specifies who you are looking for and and narrows that
Speaker 1: down to a point where you can't just throw out
Speaker 1: a net and everybody who's caught in the net, their
Speaker 1: lives are turned upside down for the duration of you
Speaker 1: sorting out which person is the one you actually are
Speaker 1: interested in. But they'll never know the collateral damage isn't
Speaker 1: really collateral if they have no idea, Well, they might
Speaker 1: not ever know. And you know, you could argue that
Speaker 1: in a world where you never know that this is
Speaker 1: happening and it's never affecting you. Stick with me. If
Speaker 1: you're in a world where you you don't know that's
Speaker 1: happening to you and it's not having any noticeable effect
Speaker 1: on your life, ultimately you might be able to go
Speaker 1: to sleep at night and think, well, it doesn't really matter,
Speaker 1: because if it is not affecting my life, then I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't want it to happen, and I'm still going
Speaker 1: to protest it happening because I don't think it's right.
Speaker 1: But if it doesn't have a noticeable effect on my
Speaker 1: life at the end of the day, when I draw
Speaker 1: my last breath, it hasn't really made a difference. Who cares.
Speaker 1: But we might also live in a world where sometimes
Speaker 1: it does affect us, even if we are perfectly innocent
Speaker 1: in all in the eyes of the law. Let's just
Speaker 1: throw out some examples of the n S A for
Speaker 1: for instance, like a person who decides to use the
Speaker 1: n S as wide array of of surveillance techniques to
Speaker 1: look in on an ex girlfriend. That's exactly the scenario
Speaker 1: I was going to bring up. If you and I
Speaker 1: back in our scenario, I decided to go back and
Speaker 1: use the machine for a little bit because we parked
Speaker 1: to get some coffee or something, and I see a
Speaker 1: number that I recognize pop up. Yeah, and I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 1: what is my ex wife's new husband talking about? Oh,
Speaker 1: and then blah blah blah blah blah. There you go
Speaker 1: down the rabbit hole into weird personal things. Then, and
Speaker 1: this is the thing, it's it's you know, the technology
Speaker 1: allows that to happen, and humans being human are going
Speaker 1: to do it right. Like it's it's not a question
Speaker 1: of whether the technology itself is good or bad because
Speaker 1: it's a tool. Uh, you might say, is it a
Speaker 1: tool that is appropriate? Is there any is there are
Speaker 1: there appropriate use cases for this tool? And if so,
Speaker 1: how are they defined? I think that's the important step.
Speaker 1: We have to come to the conclusion of does this
Speaker 1: tool make sense? If so, in which contexts does it
Speaker 1: make sense? And how can we be certain that in
Speaker 1: any given use case it fits those contexts? And if
Speaker 1: it if we can answer all those to our satisfaction, fine,
Speaker 1: I question whether that's possible particular technology. But but the
Speaker 1: problem is that people they'll behave outside of that, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, if there is the capability of someone to
Speaker 1: do this, you know, use this technology in a selfish,
Speaker 1: possibly harmful way, for then someone will do it. It's
Speaker 1: not a question of if, it's a question of when
Speaker 1: and how frequently and uh, because we've seen it with
Speaker 1: the n s A. It's again, you know, you have
Speaker 1: to remember that at the end of the day, they're
Speaker 1: real human beings in charge of using this technology, and
Speaker 1: real human beings have real motivations that happen every single
Speaker 1: day of their lives. Just like you and me. We
Speaker 1: we go through our lives and we realize, oh man,
Speaker 1: if only I knew what was going on in that
Speaker 1: person's head. Oh wait, I could figure it out because
Speaker 1: I've got access to this technology. It happens, right, it does.
Speaker 1: One thing immediately that we could say that might be
Speaker 1: a glimmer of hope with this is that many of
Speaker 1: the surveillance technologies or proprietary systems rather do have strict
Speaker 1: usage logs where wherein you know, any user with an
Speaker 1: I D dis tract, So, uh, Lieutenant Frederick would be
Speaker 1: pinned up for they would say, hey, lieutenant, why were
Speaker 1: you running uh private in the police force? Have you
Speaker 1: militarized the entire police force for several years in the future.
Speaker 1: He's not a rookie, he's a private all right. Well, anyhow,
Speaker 1: whatever your position would be, you know, there would be
Speaker 1: somebody over you, ideally who would say, hey, we noticed
Speaker 1: that you were searching this number which is not part
Speaker 1: of it, and you went pretty in depth. So so
Speaker 1: that's one thing. But then again it relies, as you said,
Speaker 1: on the policy on the system. I'd like to take
Speaker 1: the danger even further because one of the most dangerous
Speaker 1: potential things about the n s A program and possibly
Speaker 1: Stingray and it's other accoutrement, is the idea that this
Speaker 1: could be used by corrupt people with access to the
Speaker 1: technology to do things like smear campaigns, to do blackmail,
Speaker 1: or even extortion. And the most frightening thing to me,
Speaker 1: although it is it is offensive, the idea that an
Speaker 1: innocent person's uh terrible late night you up text messages
Speaker 1: might be collected and saved for posterity, it's more frightening
Speaker 1: that this could be used to curtail people who were
Speaker 1: fighting against it. Yeah, I mean, there's there's that possibilities. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, granted this would a lot of that responsibility
Speaker 1: falls on the Harris Corporation and how they deal with
Speaker 1: the orders. I imagine that they mostly, I mean before
Speaker 1: they were really working with the FBI and some military
Speaker 1: companies or military organizations I should say, um, and it
Speaker 1: was only relatively recently, in the last maybe five to
Speaker 1: ten years, that they started really working with the local
Speaker 1: law enforcement agencies. UM. I don't know what there are
Speaker 1: other customers are like or who they are, but you
Speaker 1: could presumably I mean even if even if it's not
Speaker 1: made by Harris Corporation, because it's out there and because
Speaker 1: people know about it, then that's enough for someone to say, hey,
Speaker 1: let's pour some money into making one of these of
Speaker 1: our own so we can spy on people in the CIA,
Speaker 1: or the CIA might say let's use it so we
Speaker 1: can spy on people in other countries. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: definitely a difficult, difficult subject. It's tricky, uh. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously spying throughout history has all been about let's find
Speaker 1: out what they know without letting them know. We know.
Speaker 1: At some point you're like, well, if we if we
Speaker 1: assume that the premise that spies are necessary is true,
Speaker 1: then these other technologies need to exist for us to
Speaker 1: be able to do that. Yeah, but maybe maybe you
Speaker 1: would argue that spying is not something that should happen
Speaker 1: in the first place. Okay, this this is something that
Speaker 1: I know we really wanted your opinion on. Okay for
Speaker 1: a while, so have we? And we asked Alex Winter
Speaker 1: the same question. Is a filmmaker made the Deep Web.
Speaker 1: Have we reached the point of no return with technology?
Speaker 1: Has technology rendered the concept of individual privacy obsolete? Or
Speaker 1: will it do. So, Okay, well this is super complicated, right, Sorry,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a great question. It's a great question.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, you have stuff like this, the
Speaker 1: technology specifically meant to intercept and perhaps even uh not
Speaker 1: just not just intercept in the sense of finding out
Speaker 1: who is talking to whom, but what they are saying. Right,
Speaker 1: You've got that technology, that one thing, and you could
Speaker 1: argue that as long as that technology exists, then privacy
Speaker 1: might only be an illusion. It might be something you
Speaker 1: believe you have, but in reality, your information is being
Speaker 1: collected somewhere. And of course we know that anything we
Speaker 1: post or call or text through or whatever, it's going
Speaker 1: through an infrastructure. So there is at least one entity
Speaker 1: out there that has the access to it. The question
Speaker 1: is whether anyone is looking at it or if it's
Speaker 1: just if it's just a conduit. Right, So you could
Speaker 1: argue that privacy is just an illusion in that case.
Speaker 1: There's another argument to make that has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with surveillance. Facebook. Twitter, we are we are voluntarily sharing
Speaker 1: more and more of our lives, Instagram, Pinterest, really anything
Speaker 1: you can think of where you are allowed a platform.
Speaker 1: People are taking advantage of it. YouTube, another great example periscope.
Speaker 1: So you're you're volunteering to share a lot more information
Speaker 1: and you don't necessarily think while you're doing it, this
Speaker 1: could potentially put other things in my life at risk
Speaker 1: of becoming public knowledge, whether it's because you're not paying
Speaker 1: enough attention or you just don't realize how much information
Speaker 1: you are revealing every time you post something. Um So,
Speaker 1: you could argue in that case, privacy might also be
Speaker 1: an illusion, not because there are all these ways of
Speaker 1: staring at what's really going on, but because we're actually
Speaker 1: giving everything away and we're just not aware of it.
Speaker 1: We're not aware of the consequences of what we our
Speaker 1: own actions happened to be um I would argue we
Speaker 1: haven't gone too far in the sense that we could,
Speaker 1: if motivated to do so and given the authority to
Speaker 1: do so, reverse a lot of the things that have
Speaker 1: and happening. The question of whether that's a reality or not,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of like the pie in the
Speaker 1: sky optimistic idealism, the idea that people could actually be
Speaker 1: motivated to take action, specifically through voting and through campaigning,
Speaker 1: and through bringing things to attention and getting the word
Speaker 1: out there and getting people behind the argument, Hey, we
Speaker 1: need to address this, and we need to have an
Speaker 1: addressed to our satisfaction, not just it's secret. You can't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's possible, I think it would be really hard,
Speaker 1: and I don't even though I think it's possible, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's the plausible outcome. If I'm being perfectly honest, Um,
Speaker 1: it would require enormous changes in momentum among vast, huge
Speaker 1: entities out there that are bigger than any one person is.
Speaker 1: So even if you let's say that you have an
Speaker 1: ideal candidate for president of the United States in mind,
Speaker 1: someone that you truly believe has the best interests of
Speaker 1: the citizens at heart and wants to protect constitutional rights.
Speaker 1: So they want to do right by the citizens and
Speaker 1: make sure that the things they do truly do protect
Speaker 1: them and do so in a way that follows the rules.
Speaker 1: Even if that person exists and has put into the
Speaker 1: position of president, you still have everything else that from
Speaker 1: the local level to n s A TOI you know,
Speaker 1: organizations that do not directly answer to the president. It's
Speaker 1: not like the president is capable of changing everything by
Speaker 1: flicking a wand in fact, they're not supposed to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. That's why they have the position
Speaker 1: of president. Yeah. So uh, this is why until I
Speaker 1: become benevolent dictator, we're going to have these problems. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you've you've been saying that more and more often.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the posters that you've put up around the office.
Speaker 1: Uh they're they're a little bit stark. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I you know, I think there might be a bit
Speaker 1: too Soviet. Yeah. I mean, it would help if they
Speaker 1: were in English. But there's a lot of like crush
Speaker 1: this thing beneath the boot. I just like I thought
Speaker 1: the fist looked really like empowering and now I oh man,
Speaker 1: it does. It does look good. It does. The style
Speaker 1: is nice. You're both on a list now, alright, so
Speaker 1: ut any rate? No, but this is this was the
Speaker 1: reason why why did you guys on here is because
Speaker 1: I know you guys. I assume you feel similarly to
Speaker 1: to what I've stated. But I mean, if there's if
Speaker 1: I have in any way misconstrued, I would I definitely
Speaker 1: want you to have the opportunity to address it. Well,
Speaker 1: I will let Ben finish this idea that I'm going
Speaker 1: to start. But when we spoke with Mr. Winter, he
Speaker 1: had a surprisingly positive outlookture of privacy. That's wonderful, he did.
Speaker 1: The people that he's been speaking with and communicating with
Speaker 1: in his research on this subject of the deep web.
Speaker 1: He's finding that there are a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are freely focused on encrypting data and finding ways to
Speaker 1: encrypt almost all communication that is done from a private
Speaker 1: person's level, so that a company that is even handling
Speaker 1: your data won't be able to decrypt it. Right. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, the the the company that handles it,
Speaker 1: it literally is just the conduit. It cannot it cannot
Speaker 1: see the content. At most, it will see where it's
Speaker 1: coming from and where it's going, but beyond that not
Speaker 1: what the actual information is. He used the phrase. One
Speaker 1: phrase I remember that he used was a renaissance of privacy,
Speaker 1: which which I found inspiring because the the old argument
Speaker 1: of well, if you have nothing to worry about, worried
Speaker 1: about hiding, right, it's kind of silly when you consider
Speaker 1: that we do live in a world now where let's say, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: let's say that you as an FBI agent of the
Speaker 1: part of town and so much. You said, you know what, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pull up my tent stakes from Langley, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come down here, and I am gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna live here, and a matter of fact, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: run for city commissioner because I think, uh, this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff needs to be dealt with in the public eye.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, all of this stuff,
Speaker 1: every time you have used your phone in that region
Speaker 1: got leaked by somebody. Or maybe you're running for sheriff, right,
Speaker 1: because we do know that the sheriff's uh, at least
Speaker 1: into Cab County once played played a corrupt game here, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: or or even just something that, like, you know, a
Speaker 1: mistake that you make at some point, sure, and it
Speaker 1: may be it may be one that you you know,
Speaker 1: it could be that something you consciously did, or not
Speaker 1: even a conscious mistake, something that due to your actions
Speaker 1: has accidentally happened, and that you have already taken care
Speaker 1: of it, You have fixed whatever problems there are, whatever
Speaker 1: the nature of that thing is, you have you know,
Speaker 1: you've done your time. However that that might be for
Speaker 1: something like that to like, let's say that you do
Speaker 1: want to run for a local local position and it
Speaker 1: has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to carry out
Speaker 1: your duties. We live in a world now where that
Speaker 1: stuff comes back, I mean, like big time comes back.
Speaker 1: And none of us are saints, you know, no one,
Speaker 1: no one has gone through life completely unsullied. Even if
Speaker 1: you you know or have the best of intentions, something
Speaker 1: has happened some point in your life. Maybe you were
Speaker 1: just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but
Speaker 1: that can be bad enough. Yeah, that's true. I I
Speaker 1: do want to say, Um, I really enjoyed I always
Speaker 1: enjoy being on this show, And um, I don't want
Speaker 1: to speak for you, Matt, but I'm I'm grateful that
Speaker 1: hates it. Yeah, I'm grateful that for me. You guys,
Speaker 1: you would be so impressed by that's ability to silently
Speaker 1: weep in this room. But salty, salty beard. But the
Speaker 1: only thing I would add to what we were saying
Speaker 1: is that I love that we were talking about how
Speaker 1: we are not casting aspersion on the individuals working in
Speaker 1: law enforcement, which is so often an incredibly thankless job,
Speaker 1: a fatally at times thankless job. And when you're when
Speaker 1: you are representing the good guys right, the force of
Speaker 1: the force of crime prevention in our society, then the
Speaker 1: thing is that the game you are playing is stacked
Speaker 1: against you because the bad guys, whomever they may be,
Speaker 1: do not have to follow the same rules. So I
Speaker 1: while I think that, while I think that it's often easy,
Speaker 1: at least in our field, for people to demonize law
Speaker 1: enforcement as a faceless entity rather than a group of
Speaker 1: human beings, I do completely believe that this is horrible technology.
Speaker 1: I don't see a lot out of cases of it
Speaker 1: being successful. The a c l U has tried their
Speaker 1: best to make a map of all the police areas
Speaker 1: they're using this, but they still they had to say
Speaker 1: that this map is incomplete. This is I believe, very
Speaker 1: very close to a kind of Pandora's box because, as
Speaker 1: we know, the price of technology continually decreases, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what happens when it's a stingray is the price
Speaker 1: of a PS four? Well, I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's being made in such limited amounts. I mean, you
Speaker 1: have to have the demand there and you have to
Speaker 1: have I would imagine there will also be laws that
Speaker 1: will limit the use of this, because you have the
Speaker 1: giant phone companies that will lobby very hard. They don't
Speaker 1: want the ability for someone to spoof a cell phone
Speaker 1: tower to fall into the hands of an average citizen
Speaker 1: that their their business depends upon that not happening. But
Speaker 1: you're not the average citizen. No, No, I'm the future
Speaker 1: benevolent dictator of the New World Order. I think you
Speaker 1: need a tank. I think the the you can need
Speaker 1: a tank on speed dial. Yeah, yeah, but they yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is fantastic and I really appreciate the
Speaker 1: opportunity to let more people know about this. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: like I said, this technology has been around for a while.
Speaker 1: In fact that the sting ray stuff really started hitting
Speaker 1: headlines a couple of years ago, back in that's when
Speaker 1: it was really starting to get noticed. And keep in
Speaker 1: mind it's been used more than a decade before that. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's good to be aware of it. It's good
Speaker 1: to ask these questions. And like I said, we may
Speaker 1: at some point come to a point where we are
Speaker 1: able to answer the questions I've been asking, to a
Speaker 1: point where maybe I would be like, Okay, I understand
Speaker 1: that in the world we live in, the reality of
Speaker 1: the world we live in that under these situations, this
Speaker 1: might be an acceptable use of the technology. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: just right now, we haven't. We don't have those answers
Speaker 1: because of secrecy. So yeah, it's it's it's definitely something
Speaker 1: to be aware of. I I don't want to be
Speaker 1: a fearmonger or anything like that, but um, it is
Speaker 1: important that you know about it because I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's out there. Whether you know or not, it is there,
Speaker 1: so it's better to know. All right, Well, guys, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining the show. Obviously you can
Speaker 1: find Matt and Ben's work at stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know, a show that I titled that's true.
Speaker 1: It's true, It's all true. You can also, ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: find Jonathan on more than a few of our episodes.
Speaker 1: That's true as well. So much truth right now, you guys. Yeah, Yes,
Speaker 1: one thing before we go, I just want to recommend
Speaker 1: to everyone. This is a little something that I'm going
Speaker 1: to start doing today, in fact, because of this conversation.
Speaker 1: Go go down to your local magic shop by as
Speaker 1: much flash paper as you possibly can and do all
Speaker 1: of your communications solely on a flash paper and just
Speaker 1: keep lots of lighters handy. Yeah, so essentially tell people
Speaker 1: you know, the message will not self destruct, but you
Speaker 1: will yourself will need to destroy the message once upon
Speaker 1: receiving it, and hower is yours. Yeah, and then all
Speaker 1: the all these problems are solved. I had a great
Speaker 1: time hanging out in that van with you, guys. Came out.
Speaker 1: It's pretty awesome. Guys. I'm sorry I took your case
Speaker 1: away from you. It's okay, jerk move al right, guys. Well,
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: whether it is a subject or a guest I should
Speaker 1: have on the show, maybe someone I should interview, anything
Speaker 1: like that, or just a comment on what we had
Speaker 1: to say here today, send me a message. The email
Speaker 1: is tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or
Speaker 1: you can drop me a line on Twitter or Facebook
Speaker 1: or tumbler at all three. I use the handle of
Speaker 1: text Stuff H s W. And I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: guys again really soon. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit houstock works dot com.