Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben.
Speaker 4: We're joined as always with our super producer Alexis code
Speaker 4: named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You
Speaker 4: are here that makes this the stuff they don't want
Speaker 4: you to know. It is time for our weekly listener
Speaker 4: mail program, where we get to hear from the best
Speaker 4: part of the show, you and your fellow conspiracy realist.
Speaker 4: We are going to We're gonna hear from our friend
Speaker 4: Big Shucks, who appears to have accepted the nickname that
Speaker 4: we pitched. We're going to get an update on some
Speaker 4: very strange culty news. But before we do any of that,
Speaker 4: we got a cavalcade of voicemails, right because there are
Speaker 4: some interesting tips that came our way.
Speaker 2: We've been getting so many incredible messages thanks to everybody
Speaker 2: who's been calling in. Let's jump to a message from Sydney,
Speaker 2: who has an interesting idea about a weeding technique I'd
Speaker 2: never heard of.
Speaker 5: Hey, it's been a long time. This is Sydney. I
Speaker 5: just listened to your episode about the Mexican cartel. I
Speaker 5: think it was a strange news. You know, guys were
Speaker 5: talking about roundup, and I mean, I live in Iowa,
Speaker 5: so round up is literally everywhere around a pretty corn.
Speaker 5: We talk about it all the time. So many people
Speaker 5: defend it. My dad even defends it, and I'm like, Dad,
Speaker 5: I really don't want you to do you cancer and die. Anyways,
Speaker 5: you were talking about having to pull your weed's hand
Speaker 5: by hand. If you mix up Don Dishop in some water,
Speaker 5: it can also kill weeds in your garden or in
Speaker 5: your flowerbed. So that's a I guess. I don't know
Speaker 5: if Don Dishov is txting. I don't think it is,
Speaker 5: but that is a different it's an alternative for you.
Speaker 5: So yeah, there you go. Love you guys.
Speaker 2: Wow, Oh thanks so much. Sidney googling Don dish Soap
Speaker 2: tucks yes, Exac well, and and you says a weed killer, right,
Speaker 2: I've never heard of that. My gosh. If I can
Speaker 2: go buy one thing at Don dish Soap, a bucket
Speaker 2: and a means of spraying, then I'm into it, and
Speaker 2: I will do that rather than spray and all the
Speaker 2: chemicals they end up buying to get rid of these weeds.
Speaker 2: Super cool. I had never heard of that before. You
Speaker 2: may have mentioned Sidney say like hey again, like very
Speaker 2: much high again. Sidney has called in to us before.
Speaker 2: She told us a story about losing I believe it
Speaker 2: was her purse or her handbag on a form of
Speaker 2: mass transit, and just that what that entailed and what
Speaker 2: that was like. And we talked to her before about that.
Speaker 2: This concept of living in Iowa, which Sidney describes as
Speaker 2: the cancer capital of the world. And again she's at
Speaker 2: attributing that and a lot of other people attribute that
Speaker 2: to the large use of herbicides and pesticides that just
Speaker 2: hang out on the lands all throughout the farmland out
Speaker 2: there in Iowa. That freaked me out just thinking about that,
Speaker 2: living in that environment and then finding an alternative like
Speaker 2: this that appears to be non toxic, at least to
Speaker 2: everything I've seen on it.
Speaker 6: I did result of said Google was yes, done so
Speaker 6: does contain toxic ingredients oh something to the effect of
Speaker 6: a condition called acute aquatic toxicity. It does appear though
Speaker 6: that's certainly of a lesser order than roundup.
Speaker 2: So sheeez. Well, I mean it is allegedly killing plants,
Speaker 2: so that's probably not good or great. My big question
Speaker 2: was will it also kill your grass? And Sydney's response
Speaker 2: was a was, well, grass grows back. I'm not worried
Speaker 2: about that, So there you go.
Speaker 3: Maybe no use it on your vegetable garden.
Speaker 2: There you go, good call.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: Next, we've got a message from trash Panda with an
Speaker 2: intro take on those loyalty programs.
Speaker 7: All right, here we go, Hello STDWYTK crew. In some circles,
Speaker 7: I'm known as trash Panda. Recently, on an episode, you
Speaker 7: guys talked about grocery stores and meeting phone numbers in
Speaker 7: order to access deals. If you don't want to give
Speaker 7: your own phone number, I suggest you think about Jenny.
Speaker 7: I have used eight six, seven, five three oh nine
Speaker 7: at multiple different grocery stores over the years, and there
Speaker 7: is always an account, doesn't matter the area code. My
Speaker 7: local Ralphs, which I believe is Krager's on the East Coast,
Speaker 7: is actually transitioning to an app, so this trick does
Speaker 7: have a shelf life. Thank you for all the content,
Speaker 7: and y'all totally have my permission to use my voice
Speaker 7: and message if you see fit. Thanks a bunch, bye.
Speaker 4: Take you. Trash Panda all.
Speaker 3: Right, Kroger and Ralphs are the same thing.
Speaker 4: Kroger is in the midst of a huge I know,
Speaker 4: globd overlord move.
Speaker 6: This sounds to me like the way they call Carl's
Speaker 6: Junior Harty's in our neck of the woods, and that
Speaker 6: at Carls Junior you know in the West.
Speaker 3: Have to google that.
Speaker 2: I think it's Chris Kroger and Albertson's are the It's
Speaker 2: the big thing going on right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for now, and then we'll see what happens next year,
Speaker 4: next quarter. But yeah, I just want to take a
Speaker 4: second and trash Panda. First off, I want to say
Speaker 4: thank you so much for your awesome name. And I
Speaker 4: think we may have corresponded in the past, but this
Speaker 4: is a brilliant idea. I am all about discordiism and
Speaker 4: light fun anarchy. So let's wreck the.
Speaker 2: System anarchy in the USA. Another great song. So this
Speaker 2: one guy's got stuck in my head ever since we
Speaker 2: got this message. That old Oh what's the name of
Speaker 2: that group? Is two Tone Tommy two Tone No what's
Speaker 2: the what's the band that did eight six seven, five
Speaker 2: three oh nine?
Speaker 8: Got it? Got it?
Speaker 3: I got your number on the wall?
Speaker 2: Okay, you're right. Yeah, well I never knew the name
Speaker 2: in my head. I talked to trash Bandit for a
Speaker 2: little bit. She said she heard a rumor that that
Speaker 2: was actually a number that was on a bathroom wall
Speaker 2: that one of the bandmates saw. Noel, I just want
Speaker 2: to see if you had any music trivia with it.
Speaker 6: Well, I know that it's such a it's such an
Speaker 6: earworm that I don't think the number exits like they
Speaker 6: purposefully don't allow people to have that number because it
Speaker 6: would get called you know, yea nauseam.
Speaker 4: I can confirm that at least the way I have
Speaker 4: this is just me. But the way I had heard
Speaker 4: this rumor it did seem to have a lot of validity.
Speaker 4: I think there's an interview with its oh nice members
Speaker 4: of the band.
Speaker 2: But again, that's just that's awesome. According to trash BANDA,
Speaker 2: that phone number was disconnected no matter who had it
Speaker 2: or when after that song came out and was such
Speaker 2: a hit any phone, you just can't have that phone
Speaker 2: number anymore. But I guess with this system I.
Speaker 3: Don't call you.
Speaker 6: They don't cross reference your phone number to give you
Speaker 6: a Kroger account.
Speaker 2: No, not usually unless again, unless it starts moving towards
Speaker 2: the app thing. That's right, like we're talking about here,
Speaker 2: where then you you might have two factor authentication At
Speaker 2: some point or whatever. It seems like it will go
Speaker 2: out the window. But for now, this is a little
Speaker 2: hack that we can all use.
Speaker 6: And y'all, Ralphs is in the Kroger family of stores.
Speaker 6: It's like, you know, they you got to have brand
Speaker 6: recognition regionally, and for us, I guess it's Kroger on
Speaker 6: the West Coast, it's Ralphs.
Speaker 3: It's in the Big Lebowski for crying out loud.
Speaker 2: And the last message we've got for today comes from
Speaker 2: a Frame and this message has to do with our
Speaker 2: episode of Strange News. We're talking about cartels and moving
Speaker 2: high caliber weapons pretty much military weapons.
Speaker 8: Hey guys, it's say you frame again, and I want
Speaker 8: a way to day to call you. And I didn't
Speaker 8: really want to email this. Uh, but when you're talking
Speaker 8: about how the cartels and have access to military grade
Speaker 8: weaponry and are actively and it's being actively brought into
Speaker 8: Mexico and increasing violence they in leading to a lot
Speaker 8: of the fear mongeringe happening here around illegal immigration and drugs.
Speaker 8: That is not new. I don't do hard drugs anymore.
Speaker 8: I just smoke my weeds. Sometimes I'll take some mushrooms.
Speaker 8: I don't do anything else. I only really drink occasionally,
Speaker 8: and I just like beer, you know, or like a
Speaker 8: nice cocktail. I don't really like going too hard. I'm
Speaker 8: too old for that. But when I was in high
Speaker 8: school in twenty twelve and thirteen, I can tell you
Speaker 8: that it was easier for me to get a hand
Speaker 8: grenade in a Mac eleven than it was for me
Speaker 8: to get alcohol because I had access to cocaine. And
Speaker 8: when you have access to cocaine, you do and always
Speaker 8: have had access to everything. So everybody you know who
Speaker 8: does coke, if they played it cool enough and ask
Speaker 8: the right questions, they could get a hand grenade, They
Speaker 8: could get an RPG.
Speaker 9: Maybe their dealer doesn't want them to know the full
Speaker 9: extent of who they know because they don't necessarily trust them.
Speaker 9: But if you have access to hard drugs like cocaine
Speaker 9: and ecstasy, you have access to.
Speaker 8: Any and everything, from guns to people. The black market
Speaker 8: is just there and it's not. There's really very little
Speaker 8: separation in those organizations in between selling one product and another.
Speaker 8: And Operation Past and Furious. You guys certainly know about that.
Speaker 8: That was name dropped by my homeboy who had those
Speaker 8: hand grenades. He was like, you ever heard of Operation
Speaker 8: Past and Furious? And I was like, yeah, isn't that
Speaker 8: that thing people are mad at Obama about because they
Speaker 8: like gave guns to cartels to see where they smuggled
Speaker 8: them to see if they could catch them later. And
Speaker 8: he's like, yeah, once he hang in it, and that's
Speaker 8: how it all started. So it was just it was
Speaker 8: very las fair, very casual, just normal to him. It
Speaker 8: wasn't new, it wasn't a conspiracy, It wasn't mind blowing.
Speaker 8: He just had access to things from the militaria that
Speaker 8: they were bringing over the border so it would be
Speaker 8: smuggled and they could track it and try to figure
Speaker 8: out where the smuggling roots were. That's it. They've been
Speaker 8: doing it since like the eighties. Obama just got in
Speaker 8: trouble for it because he got in trouble for the
Speaker 8: things that but he didn't start it. It's been going
Speaker 8: for a long time. It's gonna go for a while.
Speaker 8: That's my personal experience with it makes me very uncomfortable
Speaker 8: to think about in the past how easy it was
Speaker 8: for me to get that stuff. Have a good day.
Speaker 3: Gud Wow, never thought of that perspective. That's very interesting.
Speaker 4: A frame always comes in with the best stuff, man.
Speaker 2: Dude, A frame you guys, if you're listening out there,
Speaker 2: you have no idea how often a frame calls in
Speaker 2: with stover just like, oh, well, that's amazing, but this
Speaker 2: isn't the A frame show a frame. You can't have
Speaker 2: amazing things every time, but you do every time. We
Speaker 2: have several several of you out there do that where
Speaker 2: it's just bangers every time. I don't have any personal
Speaker 2: experience with this stuff, guys, but I you know, hearing
Speaker 2: that from somebody who has had experience, who's gone through it,
Speaker 2: who just this concept of if you have access to
Speaker 2: that specific drug I guess cocaine as a dealer, I
Speaker 2: guess then potentially you have access to other things. I
Speaker 2: don't know. That to me feels like an exaggeration, but
Speaker 2: maybe it's not. I don't know.
Speaker 6: Depends on what level of the supply chain you're at. Yeah,
Speaker 6: if you're like a lower level dealer. You know, the
Speaker 6: person above you is dealing with the big shots or
Speaker 6: the top dogs or whatever, you know, who deal with
Speaker 6: the manufacturers and or importers. Perhaps I would think they
Speaker 6: would at that level have that kind of access, but
Speaker 6: I don't know that it would necessarily trickle down all
Speaker 6: the way.
Speaker 4: Crime is like any other business enterprise, right, Ultimately, for longevity,
Speaker 4: one must diversify. You know, it's quite I think it's
Speaker 4: quite rare for the typical to Nole's point, the typical
Speaker 4: what they would call street level drug dealer to say, sorry,
Speaker 4: I only sell okay, I would make money off of you,
Speaker 4: but you're looking for the wrong thing. Because way back
Speaker 4: when when my ancestors started, you know, snowblow and suns,
Speaker 4: we decided we would only sell one thing. The finest
Speaker 4: artists in cocaine. Now they're gonna sell you weed. They're
Speaker 4: going to sell you whatever can be sold. And then,
Speaker 4: just like hotels diversify the avocados, then they are going
Speaker 4: to diversify into other means of income. And there is
Speaker 4: a very strong argument that criminalizing this stuff the way
Speaker 4: the US does further empowers those criminal endeavors. But you know,
Speaker 4: Congress isn't asking us about it.
Speaker 2: Do you think there will be like, I don't what
Speaker 2: bespoke cocaine brands in years. Oh that's so crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I can already imagine the Apple like stores that will
Speaker 2: pop up across the world.
Speaker 4: The further up the hierarchy you go, right, the more
Speaker 4: interesting these criminal products can get. I mean, shout out
Speaker 4: to Pablo Escobar for introducing the hippopotamus to his part
Speaker 4: of the Americans where they're still around. I mean, he
Speaker 4: was at the top. I don't to be clear, I
Speaker 4: don't think if we went to our average street level
Speaker 4: dealer and said, like, hey, great work on the cocaine.
Speaker 4: What are your prices on hippos? Do you have price
Speaker 4: breaks if we get like one apiece?
Speaker 2: You know, well, I guess if you are talking about Okay,
Speaker 2: let's just say it's the probability of someone answering yes
Speaker 2: to the question, Oh, hello, sir or madam, do you
Speaker 2: know where I might acquire a military armament Corporation Model ten,
Speaker 2: which is just the MAC ten. If someone could answer
Speaker 2: yes to that, you can, I guess in this case,
Speaker 2: someone who's in the dealings that are described there by
Speaker 2: a frame, it would probably be a higher probability. I
Speaker 2: don't know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: No, you got to think about prohibition as well. Right,
Speaker 4: that's a great comparison. So in the days of alcohol
Speaker 4: prohibition in the United States, organized crime was also making
Speaker 4: money running guns. It's just another income stream and typically
Speaker 4: as a rule, organized crime is not going to be
Speaker 4: too discriminating against it, like we romanticize the mob where
Speaker 4: they say, oh, we're not doing drugs, we just do
Speaker 4: gambling and racketeering or whatever. But more and more often
Speaker 4: they diversify, so it makes sense that you would be
Speaker 4: able to connect the drugs and the.
Speaker 2: Firearms, devisify, diversify your vice. Well, thank you to everybody
Speaker 2: who again called in and everybody we just listened to.
Speaker 2: There we'll be right back with more messages from you.
Speaker 6: And we have returned with another piece of listener maw
Speaker 6: amissive from you.
Speaker 3: Yes, you.
Speaker 6: In this case, we have a message, as Ben pointed
Speaker 6: out at the top of the show, from Big Shucks.
Speaker 6: Really appreciate you adopting the nickname. I'm just gonna jump
Speaker 6: right into it. This is about being robbed in a
Speaker 6: more tech ye kind of way. Let's jump right in. Hello,
Speaker 6: my fellow handsome travelers. That is very kind. In the
Speaker 6: most recent podcast episode, I heard you may be doing
Speaker 6: an episode related to credit cards, so I would like
Speaker 6: to share some interesting info about them, if you haven't
Speaker 6: already heard. I was at a bar when I first
Speaker 6: heard about these long range skimmers. I started chatting with
Speaker 6: the guy next to me, and he told me a
Speaker 6: story about how his company credit card had been skimmed,
Speaker 6: but not the normal way. He hadn't even used his
Speaker 6: card on any device in the taxi, he used an
Speaker 6: app to pay for the ride. The only way they
Speaker 6: found the guy is because his company called him about
Speaker 6: twenty to thirty minutes after the taxi ride to downtown
Speaker 6: Seattle and they asked him about a purchase of very
Speaker 6: expensive jewelry.
Speaker 3: Yikes.
Speaker 6: Police were able to get there pretty quick and found
Speaker 6: the guy still in the store and arrested him. Apparently,
Speaker 6: there is a group within the SEATTLEPD that specifically deals
Speaker 6: with these kinds of issues. What you might think of
Speaker 6: as a card scammer is a bit different from what
Speaker 6: happened in the above story. While normal card skimming is
Speaker 6: a big problem, there are other devices that can be
Speaker 6: quite a good distance away from your card. If your
Speaker 6: card has RFID capabilities, it can be copied either with
Speaker 6: smaller devices similar to the Flipper zero, or by big
Speaker 6: devices placed in the trunks of taxis. Now, I'm not
Speaker 6: trying to harp on taxi drivers here. These devices can
Speaker 6: steal credit card info while just walking around an area
Speaker 6: with the scammer placed.
Speaker 3: In a backpack. And yeah, links to a video showing
Speaker 3: just that.
Speaker 6: Here's a quote from a blog entry on butterflymx dot com.
Speaker 6: Long range RFID skimmers don't need to be directly next
Speaker 6: to an RFID credential to read its information. Instead, most
Speaker 6: skimmers can read from a distance of up to nineteen
Speaker 6: inches or fifty centimeters. Here's a kicker, However, users can
Speaker 6: boost the power of an RFID S camera with antennas
Speaker 6: or other long range transmission technologies to try to collect
Speaker 6: data from further away. Then he linked to an article
Speaker 6: from hackaday dot com RFID readers snoops cards from three
Speaker 6: feet away.
Speaker 3: And here's the thing as well. You can legally buy
Speaker 3: these devices online. Just a quick Google search and you
Speaker 3: will find them.
Speaker 6: And then linked to literally a place on online where
Speaker 6: you can buy something called a UHF RFID small integrated reader.
Speaker 6: So I guess it exists under the auspices of kind
Speaker 6: of being a card reader, perhaps for mobile use. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's it's it's not that in case, it could be,
Speaker 6: but and it's only three thirty four eighty with fifty
Speaker 6: seven ninety nine in shipping, so not cheap.
Speaker 3: But hey, I mean, think of think of all the
Speaker 3: card numbers you could steal. No, don't, don't do that.
Speaker 3: That's gross.
Speaker 6: MythBusters and Act was forced by the big credit card
Speaker 6: legal teams to not air an episode re guarding RFIDs
Speaker 6: in credit cards, and then linked to an article in
Speaker 6: the Register myth Busters Our Idea episode acts after pressure
Speaker 6: from credit card firms. I don't know if you guys
Speaker 6: have heard about this. I certainly had not. It seems
Speaker 6: as though a request for interview with the Texas Instruments
Speaker 6: Company is what led to this this episode being shut down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember hearing about this one.
Speaker 4: Do you remember this, yes, quite vividly.
Speaker 2: It was a big deal because it was one of,
Speaker 2: if not the only, episode that they got shut down about.
Speaker 4: Right, because the issue is, first off, it's terrible pr
Speaker 4: for credit card companies and for the consumer finance industry
Speaker 4: in general. As as you know, Big Chucks, and also
Speaker 4: it shows people how on out non cure our stuff is.
Speaker 4: You know, just like just like think about when you're
Speaker 4: driving on the road and the only thing stopping people
Speaker 4: from careening into you is an agreed upon system of
Speaker 4: pretending painted lines are barriers. It's a social contract. There
Speaker 4: is a social contract that says your credit card accounts
Speaker 4: and your tap to pays and your pins are safe.
Speaker 4: I got to tell you, Noel and fellow conspiracy realist
Speaker 4: Big Shucks, especially tuning in Big Shocks, already knows about this.
Speaker 4: But one thing that is very handy for these is
Speaker 4: RFID blocking, you know wallet.
Speaker 6: That's what I got to Yeah, and actually that Butterfly
Speaker 6: MX kind of Techi blog entry that they linked to
Speaker 6: has all kinds of details on how to protect yourself
Speaker 6: against this technology, which has existed longer than we might think.
Speaker 6: This stuff can be amplified to pick up these these numbers,
Speaker 6: this data and store it in the form of a
Speaker 6: text document or a text entry. There's a whole system
Speaker 6: that can be put together. Like again, you don't buy
Speaker 6: the thing and it does the whole job for you. You
Speaker 6: got to have a little bit of know how like
Speaker 6: there was one description of one that involved using an
Speaker 6: r duino kind of little microcomputer thing. So it's like,
Speaker 6: you know, you can get away with doing this stuff
Speaker 6: and having those uhf RFID small integrated reader because it
Speaker 6: does technically have a legitimate.
Speaker 4: Use sure like pin testing.
Speaker 6: Right when you pair it with other stuff, it can
Speaker 6: be bad news. But again, the amplification part of it too,
Speaker 6: that's requires a little bit of know how you know,
Speaker 6: to get that kind of like repeater or whatever to
Speaker 6: make it like I read. I did read though that
Speaker 6: while this stuff is scary and it can be you know,
Speaker 6: amplified it, when you amplify it like that, it's not
Speaker 6: as precise. It's sort of just like casting a real
Speaker 6: wide net, and it can be interfered with by regular
Speaker 6: old electromagnetic interference and radio signals and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 6: So chances are are this isn't how you're gonna get calm.
Speaker 3: How you're gonna get ripped off.
Speaker 6: It's going to be by one of those more traditional
Speaker 6: skimmers or some phishing kind of exercise you know that's
Speaker 6: trying to steal your digital currency, or again, yeah.
Speaker 2: Just one of the hacks that's already happened.
Speaker 6: There is your data being leaked by the company that's
Speaker 6: purported to have you know, been a good steward of it.
Speaker 4: Also there you know, the main skeleton key in these
Speaker 4: sorts of shenanigans is always going to be social engineering, right,
Speaker 4: leveraging that expectation of safety and privacy, So be careful
Speaker 4: with that, you know, there are other things got to
Speaker 4: say it, h This is always endlessly fascinating to a
Speaker 4: lot of us listening this evening. Yes, you can teach
Speaker 4: yourself to do this online, but that I'm sure this
Speaker 4: does not apply to any of our fellow listeners. Do
Speaker 4: be aware that if you are researching this stuff online
Speaker 4: and you somehow get involved with shenanigans, the authorities are
Speaker 4: going to pull your search history and they will know.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's interesting too.
Speaker 6: I mentioned this is this idea of like, you know,
Speaker 6: requiring some technical know how to kind of jury rig
Speaker 6: some of the stuff together. But now that I'm looking
Speaker 6: a little deeper into this product that's available on Ali Express,
Speaker 6: it already has the antenna. It looks like a router basically,
Speaker 6: So again, maybe there's a legitimate use for this, but
Speaker 6: I don't know, is an Ali Express kind of like
Speaker 6: ull notorious for being sort of a hub forgetting stuff
Speaker 6: you're maybe not supposed to have.
Speaker 4: Well, it's all the intention in the application of the technology.
Speaker 4: Like again to the point I'm making here, like you
Speaker 4: can teach yourself to do this stuff in an afternoon.
Speaker 4: Legitimate testing For anybody who's wondering what pen testing is.
Speaker 4: Pen testing is a portmanteau for penetration testing. So you
Speaker 4: can help a company or a client evaluate how secure
Speaker 4: their electronic systems are.
Speaker 6: Or your own network, you know, I mean if you
Speaker 6: want it to right, if you've got some people have
Speaker 6: RFID fobs that gain you act says, to your home,
Speaker 6: to your property, to private areas, you know, perhaps safes,
Speaker 6: so maybe you would be doing this to pintest your
Speaker 6: own facilities.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yep, completely valid.
Speaker 2: And buddy of mine is he has been for a
Speaker 2: long time in security, like network security for large enterprise companies,
Speaker 2: and he does that with his home system. He routinely
Speaker 2: tries to figure out if I wanted to, how could
Speaker 2: I get in, And then he's he's constantly plugging holes
Speaker 2: and and he knows what he's doing. So it's like
Speaker 2: it's it's basically there's there's a never ending series of
Speaker 2: issues that come up when when hardware meets software right,
Speaker 2: and I think this is going to be a just
Speaker 2: an exciting, little ongoing battle that we're going to be
Speaker 2: having for the rest of our human lives.
Speaker 6: One of the recommendations too, on the Butterflymax article, this
Speaker 6: seemed to be sort of geared towards like rental property
Speaker 6: owners or maybe even landlords of like apartment complexes or
Speaker 6: you know, maybe developers. Was as kind of like sort
Speaker 6: of like is this better or worse? Moving more towards
Speaker 6: smartphone based access, like we have to our office. There's
Speaker 6: an app, but it does require two factor authentication and
Speaker 6: you do have to get this key provided to you
Speaker 6: that will expire, and it isn't I guess it is
Speaker 6: our FID triggered. But there are layers that even give
Speaker 6: you access and it requires you know, password at tree,
Speaker 6: using like single signing kind of stuff for your whole company.
Speaker 3: So again, surely there's a way to backdoor that as well.
Speaker 3: But interesting stuff. It's also what I didn't realize and
Speaker 3: looking into this, is that this.
Speaker 6: Stuff has been around a lot longer than one might think,
Speaker 6: especially for being something that maybe some of us hadn't
Speaker 6: been hipped to yet.
Speaker 4: It's an old war again yet. I'll tell you one
Speaker 4: of my favorite the Guiver just for funzies project, there
Speaker 4: is one way to absolutely prevent skimming at a at
Speaker 4: a long range or from several feet away, and it's
Speaker 4: it's like a nuclear option. Just you could just build
Speaker 4: an EMP like a one use electromatic electromagnetic pulse device
Speaker 4: and you can fit these inside of an altoy ten.
Speaker 4: Like you can build these. They're going to completely screw
Speaker 4: up everything else as well, so you know you're not
Speaker 4: gonna have your phone's not gonna work either.
Speaker 6: Like when mc guiver hacked that like traffic light box
Speaker 6: to create a diversion and causes like a multi car
Speaker 6: pile up.
Speaker 3: I always wanted to be a little bit chaotic, you know,
Speaker 3: not evil.
Speaker 6: I don't know, I forget the archetypes, but to your point,
Speaker 6: been there in terms of other maybe hacky type ways.
Speaker 6: If you don't want to get one of those walls,
Speaker 6: you can just wrap your cards in tinfoil, which goes
Speaker 6: back to the whole tinfoil hat thing about guarding your
Speaker 6: brain against penetration from whatever, you know, infiltration by aliens
Speaker 6: or whatever it might be. But apparently you know, it
Speaker 6: is a pretty decent shield, but not very convenient and
Speaker 6: maybe a little.
Speaker 3: Embarrassing you ripping your card out of the store.
Speaker 6: Not nearly as esthetic as that cool wality you guys
Speaker 6: pulled out.
Speaker 4: Oh man, I don't know, Like, here's the thing too.
Speaker 4: And this is why I'm so glad you're bringing this up.
Speaker 4: Big shucks. In coming years, not having security literacy is
Speaker 4: going to be like being a literate is today, right,
Speaker 4: if you have any younglings, if you have any kids
Speaker 4: you're raising. It's especially in a time where the erosion
Speaker 4: of privacy is being so aggressively normalized by the powers
Speaker 4: that be, it's important to know that you have to
Speaker 4: be the author of your own privacy, right. You have
Speaker 4: to be the author of your own security to an
Speaker 4: astonishing degree, especially in this look. It just it sounds
Speaker 4: weird because for people who are not like Matt's friend,
Speaker 4: a security expert, you don't really think of a lot
Speaker 4: of this stuff because it's invisible until you see it
Speaker 4: through a ux on a screen, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: And that that assumption is easily easily leverage. This is
Speaker 4: making me even more paranoid. Maybe it's because the coffee's
Speaker 4: kicking into but no, what advice would you give to
Speaker 4: people who are hearing about this for maybe the first
Speaker 4: time and thinking, crap, what do I do? Should they
Speaker 4: go get a wallet? Should they get the tinfoil's get
Speaker 4: the sick wallet?
Speaker 6: Those things look bad ass. I want to get one
Speaker 6: now too, And they really are kind of becoming the norm.
Speaker 6: They are these kind of stretchy sort of cardholder things
Speaker 6: where it's got lots of cool you know, little pockets
Speaker 6: and niches. But this technology is built in. Yours is
Speaker 6: a little different, Matt, Matt, it looks more like a
Speaker 6: regular wallet. Well, yours isn't as cool looking as Ben's.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, Matt, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, if you want to go onto the radar,
Speaker 2: you just get one of niche should go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't want you don't want one that looks cool.
Speaker 4: The reason this one is the way it is is
Speaker 4: because very few people see it.
Speaker 6: Oh, fair enough, I'm just saying I have seen those
Speaker 6: types before, Ben, I have toyed with getting one, and
Speaker 6: I just didn't pull the trigger. But now, after hearing this,
Speaker 6: because again I knew about skimmers. I knew about a
Speaker 6: lot of this stuff. I know about the long range stuff.
Speaker 6: But again, not to give you a sense of false complacency.
Speaker 6: There is a whole section on this article and a
Speaker 6: couple that I've seen where it's not an exact science.
Speaker 6: They can't target you and shoot a laser at you.
Speaker 6: It's sort of casting a wide net, and chances are
Speaker 6: if you're outside and you're walking around and someone's not
Speaker 6: coming right up on you and you know, bumping into you,
Speaker 6: it's gonna be a little bit hard for them to
Speaker 6: do it, even with those repeaters.
Speaker 4: If someone is executing something above a certain level of
Speaker 4: precision like that means they have thought about this, or
Speaker 4: they're aiming for you specifically, then you have other problems.
Speaker 6: That's for damn sure, you got a stalker on your hands.
Speaker 6: They're gonna take you for all your worth.
Speaker 2: Well, that sounds exciting.
Speaker 3: Be anonymous, Oh Matt, you's SICKO. No, man, it's true.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know a lot of people say, oh,
Speaker 6: be careful an ex country, you're gonna get robbed or
Speaker 6: you're likely to get mugged. I have found that the
Speaker 6: best solution to that is just to blend in. Don't
Speaker 6: make a scene, don't make a big show of yourself,
Speaker 6: look like you belong there. Maybe that's easier said than done,
Speaker 6: but I think all three of us, when traveling roughly
Speaker 6: know how to do that. And knock on wood, I've
Speaker 6: never been victimized in this way, and I hope never
Speaker 6: to be. But just don't don't make yourself a target,
Speaker 6: that's all. It's not to say like they were asking
Speaker 6: for it, nothing like that. Just you know, it's smart
Speaker 6: to be able to kind of blend in.
Speaker 3: That's all. Thank you, big shucks.
Speaker 6: Let's take a quick break here worth more sponsor, and
Speaker 6: then come back with one more message from you.
Speaker 4: And we have returned with an update for something that
Speaker 4: I can't believe we missed earlier. So we'll give you
Speaker 4: the part from twenty twenty three, and then we'll follow up.
Speaker 4: So a fellow conspiracy realist going by the moniker hey
Speaker 4: Lee h e y l Ee writes to us in
Speaker 4: October and says the following, thanks for the many laughs
Speaker 4: I've had so far. As a new listener, I began
Speaker 4: listening to stuff they don't want you to know earlier
Speaker 4: this year. I just began listening to companies started by cults.
Speaker 4: Two this evening while doing the worst job in the world,
Speaker 4: washing dishes, and before long I was laughing again. And
Speaker 4: Haley wants us to put in a trigger warning here
Speaker 4: for CSA and essay and creepy cult content. So pause
Speaker 4: for a second for anybody who has listeners tonight, who this,
Speaker 4: who might find this content objectionable. All right, here we go,
Speaker 4: So Hailey says, I was born and raised in a
Speaker 4: religious cult usually referred to by researchers and other outsiders
Speaker 4: as the two by twos. Some of us who escaped
Speaker 4: call them bunheads, laugh or cry. Others call them the Friends,
Speaker 4: the Way, the Truth, the Gospel, and so forth. In
Speaker 4: spite of their best efforts, they did not succeed in
Speaker 4: my indoctrination. I got out at age fifteen, and I
Speaker 4: am still an atheist. I was abused in nearly all
Speaker 4: the ways by parents and their version of the clergy. Recently,
Speaker 4: there has finally been some exposure in more mainstream press
Speaker 4: of the CSA and essay so rampant for such a
Speaker 4: small population round or less than seventy five thousand worldwide.
Speaker 4: There have been many excellent articles, books, and websites at
Speaker 4: all for at least thirty years, produced mostly by former members. However,
Speaker 4: the cult still maintained invisibility to the general public overall.
Speaker 4: And I want to pause here because check me on this, guys,
Speaker 4: keep me honest. I don't think we've talked about the
Speaker 4: two by twos yet it.
Speaker 3: Does not ring a bellt to me.
Speaker 6: I am looking at this Vice article that you linked
Speaker 6: out to Ben, and this is some shadowy, creepy stuff
Speaker 6: that is unfamiliar to me.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The Vice article comes to us courtesy of Haylee by
Speaker 4: Ada Merlin. A nameless until their religious sect is being
Speaker 4: rocked by a massive sexual abuse scandal. SA stands for
Speaker 4: sexual abuse, CSA stands for child sexual abuse. Hailey goes on,
Speaker 4: before we get too much into this cult, which I
Speaker 4: think will be an episode in the future. Haley goes
Speaker 4: on and says, I've noticed you all are very gracious
Speaker 4: when talking about cults and religion.
Speaker 3: Just heard.
Speaker 4: I am not implying Christianity as a cult per se
Speaker 4: in this episode I'm listening to right now, for example,
Speaker 4: And no one would ever say that Christianity or Catholicism
Speaker 4: or a cult. But I assure you, gentlemen, there are
Speaker 4: a lot of us who do consider them cults, regardless
Speaker 4: of their size or how long they've succeeded in normalizing
Speaker 4: their unprovable fantasies. Is a strong language with their cannibalistic
Speaker 4: vampire mimicking all the silly hats and sashes and dresses,
Speaker 4: and we say that out loud to anyone who can hear.
Speaker 4: A quick, legitimate way to assess whether or not a
Speaker 4: cult is a cult is to apply doctor Stephen Hassan's
Speaker 4: bite model. And this is just to catch people up.
Speaker 4: The byte model is something we talked about a little
Speaker 4: bit earlier, but.
Speaker 3: It's a mnemonic.
Speaker 4: It stands for behavior, information, thought, and emotion and how
Speaker 4: those things are controlled. And I think we're familiar with this,
Speaker 4: not just in stuff they want you to know, but
Speaker 4: in some of our other endeavors.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and especially some of the serial killer things, the
Speaker 2: at least that I've looked at in the past. These
Speaker 2: killers have often attempted to control those very things over
Speaker 2: their victims, like when they've got them captive prior to
Speaker 2: killing them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and check out our video on how to start
Speaker 4: a cult. So it's pretty old now, but it's still
Speaker 4: unfortunately holds up because the rules for these things don't
Speaker 4: really change. Unfortunately. You can find more about the byte model,
Speaker 4: which is quite a quite a good room brick to
Speaker 4: look at over on Freedom of Mind dot com and
Speaker 4: thank you again to Haley for the link. Haley also
Speaker 4: has some other links that they've sent to us Daily
Speaker 4: dot dot com, Daily dot dot com Advocates for the
Speaker 4: Truth dot com. These are both great resources if you
Speaker 4: or a loved one have been have found yourself involved
Speaker 4: with something like the two by twos, or indeed any
Speaker 4: organization with cltic leanings. Here's the thing. We received a
Speaker 4: follow up correspondence from you, Hailey, and you added the following.
Speaker 4: Quite recently, the FBI has begun investigating and recently sent
Speaker 4: out a news alert on two x two specifically asking
Speaker 4: for victims and witnesses to report what they know. So
Speaker 4: Haley has asked us on behalf of all the victims
Speaker 4: of this organization to spread the word. FBI dot gov
Speaker 4: has the word out. You can read more as Hayley says,
Speaker 4: on the BBC and the CBC, which you know we're
Speaker 4: big fans of the CBC. Obviously, I would recommend reading
Speaker 4: a piece by George Wright over on BBC, the FBI
Speaker 4: launches probe into a church and then reading on CBC
Speaker 4: historical sexual abuse charges filed against BC minister British Columbia
Speaker 4: minister belonging to a church with no name by Karen Larsen.
Speaker 2: So these's a really interesting organization.
Speaker 4: Yeah, dates back to the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just the idea that there's no churches really
Speaker 2: and there's no written doctrine, right, so when someone goes
Speaker 2: up and preaches, it's just word of it's oral preaching. Right.
Speaker 4: It's also incredibly malleable as a.
Speaker 2: Result, exactly, oh man, in the schism. I'm just looking
Speaker 2: at here at some of the schisms over time. This
Speaker 2: is a deep dive for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think this is an episode because Haley, as you said,
Speaker 4: we do need to spread the word about these kinds
Speaker 4: of organizations, because organizations that thrive in the shadows or
Speaker 4: work best without transparency or public knowledge, they lose power
Speaker 4: when there is transparency, They lose power when there is accountability.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: This story is as you said, Matt, it's just absolutely wild.
Speaker 4: It reminds me a little bit of the finders or
Speaker 4: the garbage eaters, remember those, right, And they kind of
Speaker 4: had that same amorphous quality they describe themselves as just
Speaker 4: maybe like the movement or the Brethren, things like that.
Speaker 4: It's strange, though, how large these things can grow without
Speaker 4: much public knowledge about it, Like how do you think
Speaker 4: people find out about these things? Is it just you know,
Speaker 4: do they target people who are at a low point
Speaker 4: in their life? Do they just encourage the current members
Speaker 4: to reproduce? That sounds like what happened to you, Haley,
Speaker 4: because you say half my kid or western North Carolina
Speaker 4: Blue Ridge Mountain folks and born and raised in this cult.
Speaker 4: So maybe maybe that's part of it. Like how do
Speaker 4: you indoctrinate you know, outsiders?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean it sounds like it's a
Speaker 2: roving thing to where you would just go house to
Speaker 2: house and have a conversation the way some other religious
Speaker 2: movements do. A group of them showed up in my
Speaker 2: house earlier today. Actually not this group, but a different.
Speaker 6: Christ of Latter day Saints or different several there's several
Speaker 6: there are.
Speaker 3: You're right, now, you're right.
Speaker 4: But you know, shout out to the musical, the Book
Speaker 4: of Mormon.
Speaker 3: That was all part of their you know, initiation. I
Speaker 3: guess more or less is going door to door like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I do want to give.
Speaker 4: Like we talked about the Church of LDS in past
Speaker 4: Strange News listener mail or episodes, but to be very clear,
Speaker 4: they are different from the two by twos very much.
Speaker 4: So I'm bringing up the Book of Mormon because the
Speaker 4: most amazing thing to me about that was when I
Speaker 4: saw it in the playbill. The actual Church of Jesus
Speaker 4: Christ of Latter day Saints had advertisements in here. They
Speaker 4: helped fund the play, and they've got this beautiful ad
Speaker 4: where they say you've seen the play, now read the book.
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, that's funny, well done. That's
Speaker 3: good marketing, man.
Speaker 4: That's good marketing. But hopefully raising awareness of the two
Speaker 4: by twos in the future will help bring some bring
Speaker 4: some much needed justice, bring some closure to these folks.
Speaker 4: And again, you know, like you can tell folks, we
Speaker 4: have a lot of research to do to dive into
Speaker 4: this one. And with that in mind, I suggest maybe
Speaker 4: we we end with one brief letter from Home and
Speaker 4: then we get back on the case.
Speaker 3: What do you guys think it? Okay?
Speaker 4: With that vote of confidence, here is one letter from Home,
Speaker 4: courtesy of Carrie Letters from Home it's just similar to
Speaker 4: some of the voicemails we get. It's just quick tips
Speaker 4: or nice things. How you doing, how you folks, that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff. So Carrie says, Hya and I lived
Speaker 4: in Vietnam a number of years ago and Nesley was everywhere.
Speaker 4: Their campaign was to convince new mums not to breastfeed,
Speaker 4: but to buy their formula, which was available in small
Speaker 4: shops owned by poor locals locked up in captains with
Speaker 4: the promise of money. It was absolutely disgraceful. Keep focusing
Speaker 4: on these stories, it matters. And I think that's because
Speaker 4: we recently had a classic episode about Nessley published.
Speaker 3: And I remember that.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Carrie, Thank you to everybody for tuning in.
Speaker 4: Thank you to Sydney trash pandat a frame, thank you
Speaker 4: to Big Chucks. Makes my day that we were able
Speaker 4: to give someone a nickname, you know, pretty sweet. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and thank you of course to Hayley. We are on
Speaker 4: the case. We will be returning very soon with more
Speaker 4: strange news, more messages from you, more stuff they don't
Speaker 4: want you to know. Most importantly, before we go, folks,
Speaker 4: big favor, do you want to join up with us?
Speaker 4: Do you want to share some stories or some leads
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Speaker 4: are Conspiracy Stuff on YouTube, where we have video content
Speaker 4: rolling out every single week.
Speaker 3: On xfkaa Twitter, and also on Facebook. We have our
Speaker 3: Facebook group He's where It's Crazy.
Speaker 6: You can also find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff
Speaker 6: Show on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 4: Hey.
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Speaker 4: The spirit of reviews. Thank you for bringing that up, Matt.
Speaker 4: Before we get to the email, we'd like to thank Ian.
Speaker 4: The Phoenician in particular wrote a wrote a very kind
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