Speaker 1: Okay, all right, let's set the stage for this evening's
Speaker 1: classic episode. Fellow conspiracy realists, cast your memory back to
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. Nobody was really sure what would happen. Alexander
Speaker 1: Dugan had some ideas, he had some wishes on his
Speaker 1: wish list, and we got we got very We finally
Speaker 1: did an episode on something we had been talking about
Speaker 1: for gosh, more than a decade at this point, the
Speaker 1: idea of smart devices and surveillance. And I think this
Speaker 1: might have been the one that radicalized us a little bit.
Speaker 2: Maybe a bit tiny bit, because this is definitely a
Speaker 2: moment in time when, in real time, we realized just
Speaker 2: how much mass data collection was happening within our phones,
Speaker 2: not by necessarily the government, but by individual third party
Speaker 2: companies that we all say yes to when we down
Speaker 2: load their applications or we use their services.
Speaker 1: Who reads the terms and conditions right? Who reads down
Speaker 1: to paragraph seventeen of the agreement, especially when you're scrolling
Speaker 1: on a phone and you're in a hurry because you
Speaker 1: got to get the app dude.
Speaker 2: Well, then, but then when you combine that with companies
Speaker 2: potentially giving that information to governmental entities, and you combine
Speaker 2: that with actual governmental entities that have stated before or
Speaker 2: it's been leaked before stellar wind that communications on individual
Speaker 2: phones are being picked up, and even communications through the
Speaker 2: massive pipelines that go underneath the oceans.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a prism of conspiracy and it probably takes
Speaker 1: five eyes to see oo in full right. This is
Speaker 1: also this is also shot up for anybody who ever thought, oh,
Speaker 1: my phone is listening to me, the speakers take it
Speaker 1: up something, it's so much deeper.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Ben, I'm gonna say this so I
Speaker 2: say it on record. That is happening so much to
Speaker 2: me recently where it's that echo on the telephone. It's
Speaker 2: that thing where you're getting feedback when you're talking to
Speaker 2: one other person when you don't have the speakerphone on,
Speaker 2: or when you're using a Bluetooth headset that's got a
Speaker 2: microphone that's close to it, when you're talking on PlayStation.
Speaker 1: Oh buddy, oh man, Well, Matt, I'm with you there.
Speaker 1: If this is the year we get hauled off to
Speaker 1: the crazy house, that I think we'll be in the
Speaker 1: same uber because we're not paying for the ambulance.
Speaker 2: Is the joke anyway?
Speaker 1: Anyway, this is our classic episode twenty nineteen smart devices
Speaker 1: and surveillance.
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. Turn back now or learn this
Speaker 4: stuff they don't want you to know. A production of
Speaker 4: iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3: My name is no.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul, mission control deck and in spirit
Speaker 1: because today we have our returning super producer Seth Johnson.
Speaker 1: Everybody give him a hand. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. I was thinking about this. How
Speaker 1: many people, on average do you think are listening today's
Speaker 1: show on a cell phone or maybe on a laptop
Speaker 1: with another electronic device on in the background.
Speaker 3: M I would say many, if not most.
Speaker 2: I see. I'm thinking a lot of people probably have
Speaker 2: their phone in their pocket or on one of those
Speaker 2: cool little armbands when they're just yeah, oh yeah, dude.
Speaker 1: Runners or people who want to look like they have
Speaker 1: ran or will run somewhere in the future.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's so I should chase those people. Is that
Speaker 3: what you're saying? OK?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, give them, give them some steaks, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I think that's what's missing for joggers.
Speaker 3: I feel like that, you know. I feel like jogging
Speaker 3: is just practice for you know, running away from something,
Speaker 3: you know. I feel like these people are very paranoid.
Speaker 1: One of my this might be a hot take, but
Speaker 1: one of my very old and dear friends years back,
Speaker 1: you guys know him, he told me. He told me
Speaker 1: that one of the first signs of gentrification in a
Speaker 1: neighborhood was people running when no one's chasing them.
Speaker 3: Brilliant.
Speaker 1: He's a weird guy, but I thought it was a
Speaker 1: good point.
Speaker 3: I think so too so so.
Speaker 2: But the reason that we're even mentioning this, like multiple
Speaker 2: devices going on in the same audio space, is because
Speaker 2: that's one of the main things we're going to be
Speaker 2: talking about today, our devices and potentially monitoring them.
Speaker 1: So, right, are you addicted to your phone, your television,
Speaker 1: or your tablet? Are you one of the people, like
Speaker 1: many of us, who can't really hold a conversation without
Speaker 1: at least checking in on this thing. I'm guilty of that.
Speaker 3: He's literally doing it right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm kind of waving it around, do you
Speaker 1: find yourself tuning out, you know, when when the conversation
Speaker 1: is taking its course, and then finding yourself tuning into
Speaker 1: the closest device whatever that is, what like right exactly, So,
Speaker 1: just for the lay of the land, here, we have
Speaker 1: three laptops out open right now. We all have our
Speaker 1: phone somewhere near our person, and we have you know,
Speaker 1: a bevy of av equipment that is probably the most
Speaker 1: innocent of the contraptions here right in this room. And
Speaker 1: if you are one of those people who constantly finds
Speaker 1: yourself clicking in or dropping out of conversation, tuning into
Speaker 1: something else, you are not alone. Let's reiterate that, because
Speaker 1: at first it sounds kind of nice, right, it sounds
Speaker 1: kind of like ah, warm, fuzzy huggy time. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: think about it. You are not alone in multiple senses
Speaker 1: of the phrase. Here are the facts.
Speaker 2: Smartphones, smart devices, smart everything. Really it's everywhere, and you're
Speaker 2: probably working with one right now just because you need
Speaker 2: the technology to listen to this today. Let's look at
Speaker 2: the Pew Research organization. There, they've done you know, they
Speaker 2: do statistics like nobody else. It is estimated they say
Speaker 2: that more than five billion people have mobile devices, and
Speaker 2: over half of these connections are smartphones, so they're doing
Speaker 2: more than just making a connection via satellite to another
Speaker 2: phone somewhere or from you know, it's not a landline anymore.
Speaker 2: It is it's a phone. It's an encyclopedia. It's absolutely
Speaker 2: everything you could possibly do.
Speaker 3: It's like Ziggy from Quantum Leap. Yes, no, literally have
Speaker 3: that in our hands now. It doesn't quite predict the future,
Speaker 3: but it comes damn close.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And this is that's a global number, yes, throughout
Speaker 1: the world numbers. So more than half of the people
Speaker 1: alive today have one of these things. It's I'm holding
Speaker 1: up the phone again like a prop. It's one of
Speaker 1: technology's biggest breakthrough success stories of recent decades because just
Speaker 1: a few decades ago, no one had him.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Now five billion people have these, so get this.
Speaker 3: In the US specifically, we've got nine to ten or
Speaker 3: more Americans aged thirty four and under who have had
Speaker 3: a smartphone since twenty fifteen, while the ownership rate among
Speaker 3: the fifty and older age group has raisen from fifty
Speaker 3: three percent to sixty seven percent over the same period.
Speaker 3: One of my dearest oldest friends, who is in his
Speaker 3: early fifties very purposefully still has a dumb phone. Oh, Harry, Harry, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: very much on purpose. He just like he is old
Speaker 3: school in that way where he rejects a lot of
Speaker 3: this like over connectedness, and consequently he's a much more.
Speaker 2: Thoughtful person than a lot of people that I know
Speaker 2: you well. After this episode, most of us are going
Speaker 2: to want to switch back. I know, I know Verizon
Speaker 2: where I am offers a flip phone.
Speaker 1: Option, so Nokia's never break too Well, there you go.
Speaker 2: It seems more and more like a good option. We'll
Speaker 2: get into it.
Speaker 1: Though, because it doesn't just stop with smartphones. We also
Speaker 1: are talking about smart TVs, and yes, Matt, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1: This may well ruin some some people's day, but this
Speaker 1: is important to know. So we checked out STATISTICA when
Speaker 1: we wanted to find some more stats and specs on
Speaker 1: smart TVs. The global TV set unit sales are projected
Speaker 1: to increase from two hundred and twenty nine million units
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen to two hundred and fifty nine million
Speaker 1: by twenty twenty. That's pretty nuts, because you know, televisions
Speaker 1: shouldn't be this sort of disposable resource. They never were, right,
Speaker 1: but now more and more people are buying TVs more
Speaker 1: and more frequently.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have a smart TV that is made
Speaker 3: by Amazon. I'm sure it's made by some third party
Speaker 3: manufacturer overseas.
Speaker 2: It is Amazon.
Speaker 3: You know why though, you guys, because it was dirt
Speaker 3: cheap and it's it works great, and I likely interconnectedness
Speaker 3: of it. But we'll get into some of the features
Speaker 3: that this well you call it a feature, it's really
Speaker 3: more like a bug. No, literally a listening surveillance feature,
Speaker 3: but just not for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, feature bug is in the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 3: That's absolutely right, And in this case, the eye of
Speaker 3: the beholder is big data.
Speaker 1: Yeah. As of twenty eighteen, seventy percent of the television's
Speaker 1: being sold across the planet are smart TVs. And a
Speaker 1: smart TV at the most basic explanatory level, is a
Speaker 1: television that combines a lot of features one would associate
Speaker 1: with a computer. Right, So, if you like no own
Speaker 1: a smart TV, you can watch your favorite shows, but
Speaker 1: you don't have to just watch them when they're on.
Speaker 1: You can also you know, dial it up on demand
Speaker 1: for instance. You can connect it with your phone.
Speaker 3: Not to mention, you can it's very customizable. You can
Speaker 3: combine all of the different services into one kind of
Speaker 3: widget box, let's call it. Where you have your Netflix,
Speaker 3: you got your Hulu, you got your Amazon, which obviously,
Speaker 3: my Amazon TV leans pretty heavily on the global search
Speaker 3: on My Amazon TV searches like all of Amazon, and
Speaker 3: it gives you products, it gives you TV shows, it
Speaker 3: gives you other stuff that's in your set of apps
Speaker 3: or subscriptions, but very much leaning toward the Amazon side
Speaker 3: of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the most important thing about a smart TV, when
Speaker 2: we call it that, is that it's able to communicate
Speaker 2: with your network or the network that it's attached to,
Speaker 2: and could possibly see all of the other devices that
Speaker 2: are attached to that network.
Speaker 1: Could possibly sure this is This is true though, so
Speaker 1: Android is probably the most widely used operating system among
Speaker 1: smart TVs, but that by no means should be taken
Speaker 1: to indicate that other oss aren't in there. iPhones are
Speaker 1: in there as well. Apple has a hand in this.
Speaker 1: And while smart device addiction is real, especially when we
Speaker 1: talk about mobile devices, it's I think we should bracket
Speaker 1: that as the subject of its own episode in the future,
Speaker 1: assuming we don't get black backed or disappeared there's more
Speaker 1: to the story behind the purposefully addictive technology. Here. You see,
Speaker 1: while we stare into that electronic abyss, even though we
Speaker 1: might not know it, sometimes things in that abyss, in
Speaker 1: this sort of black mirror, are staring back at you.
Speaker 2: And we'll get into that right after a quick word
Speaker 2: from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. So we talked about smart devices.
Speaker 1: They're popular. Everybody loves them. They're the hottest thing since
Speaker 1: fresh baked sliced bread. Whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do all the stuff we need, they do.
Speaker 1: All the stuff we want too writ But with smart
Speaker 1: devices comes the concept of surveillance. And we've talked about
Speaker 1: this a little bit before at our previous episodes on
Speaker 1: big data, big data, whatever your preference may be.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and if you're worried about you know your
Speaker 2: smart device is tracking you or anything, and you still
Speaker 2: have one of these Amazon echoes or maybe a Google
Speaker 2: personal assistant like a home or something plugged in and
Speaker 2: turned on, you can stop worrying. They've already got you.
Speaker 2: It's over. It's just too late. Yeah, we're having a
Speaker 2: little bit of fun. There's that's not fully true. You
Speaker 2: think that's fun, Matt, But there is some sand to
Speaker 2: this idea, and we're gonna get into it a little
Speaker 2: bit later.
Speaker 3: Remember back when PDA's were a thing. Sure, personal digital assistance. Yeah,
Speaker 3: now we have robot overlords that are like doing our bidding?
Speaker 3: But are they really? Are we not really just doing
Speaker 3: their bidding?
Speaker 2: Oh? God?
Speaker 1: Right, it's like the old oh Man. There's so many
Speaker 1: weird ways to go with this. But we should talk
Speaker 1: about the nuts and bolts too, right, because we know
Speaker 1: our smart devices have to keep track of the user.
Speaker 1: You have GPS, you have the ways app or something
Speaker 1: you're driving, you have Lyft, you have Uber, what have you?
Speaker 3: You know, all things that make the stuff function and
Speaker 3: make it convenient for you.
Speaker 1: And then there are also a lot of apps that say, hey,
Speaker 1: we want permission to access your microphone or your location,
Speaker 1: and you're like, wow, Candy Crush, this is getting serious.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm picking that as an example that's not one. Okay, great, Well,
Speaker 1: at least we have candy Crush to remain as a
Speaker 1: sacrosanct example of good programming. But when our smart devices
Speaker 1: are keeping track of us, the kind of surveillance that
Speaker 1: they have is, as we can tell, squarely aimed at
Speaker 1: tracking our preferences. Let me figure out what you like
Speaker 1: says your mobile device such that I can give you
Speaker 1: better offers make it easier for you to say yes
Speaker 1: to things in the future. And that's why if you
Speaker 1: were on our Facebook group, here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 1: You'll see You'll see all the strange, insidious examples ranging
Speaker 1: from hilarious to disquieting about how just how these algorithms
Speaker 1: can hone in. I think, Noel, you posted a meme
Speaker 1: recently that was Facebook related.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did.
Speaker 3: It was one of these great Simpsons memes where it
Speaker 3: was just an image of like Bart Simpson in bed
Speaker 3: and Homer leaning in really creepily like eyeball to eyeball,
Speaker 3: and it was I think Homer was labeled as Facebook
Speaker 3: ads and Bart was labeled as things I said out
Speaker 3: loud but never actually Google searched or whatever.
Speaker 1: Or some people even say I was just thinking about this.
Speaker 3: It definitely started a conversation of people giving examples of
Speaker 3: these things. And I've experienced it too. We have a
Speaker 3: lot of advertisers that like vet stuff through us, and
Speaker 3: sometimes I feel like I just say it or like
Speaker 3: I'm talking to you guys about it, and I've never
Speaker 3: even like read copy or seen an email or gone
Speaker 3: to the site. Next thing, you know, Facebook's serving me
Speaker 3: up you know, tushy or whatever. That bad example. But
Speaker 3: like you know, you know I'm talking about You've seen it,
Speaker 3: have them?
Speaker 2: Sure? No, there's a reason for that. So, you know,
Speaker 2: we get into why what are the motives behind all
Speaker 2: of this surveillance. We kind of talked about a little
Speaker 2: bit tracking our preferences and everything, but honestly, like what
Speaker 2: are you going to do with all of that? If
Speaker 2: you if you start to really think about and understand
Speaker 2: what the economic model is behind all this stuff, you
Speaker 2: realize that it's because we, you, me, each of us,
Speaker 2: We are the batteries of the economic system, its products.
Speaker 2: It's literally the matrix. We are living in the matrix everybody.
Speaker 2: We are inside our pods. Our pods consist of your
Speaker 2: smartphone and your smart TV and all the things you
Speaker 2: interact with your laptop. That is us. We are the
Speaker 2: byproducts of a lifestyle obsession, a fight club.
Speaker 3: No, and here's the thing too, we mentioned I mentioned
Speaker 3: this off air. I got that Amazon TV because it
Speaker 3: had a lot of features, It had really high resolution,
Speaker 3: and it was dirt cheap and TV prices way down,
Speaker 3: and as we saw at the beginning of the show,
Speaker 3: TV sales way up. And I think you can't ignore
Speaker 3: that there's an exchange going on there with like we're
Speaker 3: giving up this part of ourselves in exchange for cheaper
Speaker 3: and better, more efficient technology.
Speaker 1: Well, one must ask at a certain point, one must
Speaker 1: ask where the income for where the company is actually
Speaker 1: arriving from. We've mentioned before one of my favorite examples,
Speaker 1: and I won't go into it now because longtime listeners
Speaker 1: have already heard this for a time. Target the corporation,
Speaker 1: the retail store was not making most of its money
Speaker 1: off of selling people baby toys and trousers. Do people
Speaker 1: still say trus trousers? Okay, sure, knickerbockers whatever. They were
Speaker 1: making the bulk of their income, a huge proportion of
Speaker 1: it from selling their security system infrastructure to other companies,
Speaker 1: kind of like the way McDonald's makes most of its
Speaker 1: money through real estate. So it's okay to sell a
Speaker 1: television at a phenomenal loss, right when you know you're
Speaker 1: going to recoup that money and then some on something else.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what's happening at the televisions. Would
Speaker 1: you agree?
Speaker 3: I mean, It sure seems like that to me.
Speaker 1: So we know, we know that no matter who you are,
Speaker 1: no matter where you are in this wide world or
Speaker 1: just orbiting yourround it, you have something that really wants
Speaker 1: to be your friend, wants to be your best friend,
Speaker 1: your teacher, your mother, your secret lover, to quote Homer Simpson.
Speaker 1: And this thing that can't wait to be your best
Speaker 1: friend is called the advertising industry. It's had its eye
Speaker 1: on you for a while. It already knows a lot
Speaker 1: about you, right Matt.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, it knows a great deal about you. But
Speaker 2: it wants to go deeper. It wants to go a
Speaker 2: therapist style on you. He wants to know what you love,
Speaker 2: what do you hate, who do you trust? And also
Speaker 2: how much liquid cash can you get your hands on
Speaker 2: in the short term. Now, okay, again we're joking a
Speaker 2: little bit, but you get the point. For real. They
Speaker 2: want to know how much you can spend and what
Speaker 2: you would want to spend it on if you absolutely could,
Speaker 2: right now, if somebody just popped something in front of
Speaker 2: your face, right now, what is the number one thing
Speaker 2: you would buy? Because we'll find it and we will
Speaker 2: show it to you and you will buy it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and companies just gobble up all of this data
Speaker 3: because the level of technology that we're at right now
Speaker 3: isn't quite as sophisticated as they would like. We're getting there,
Speaker 3: they're certainly pushing it every day, but right now it's
Speaker 3: just kind of like a throwing everything at the wall
Speaker 3: and seeing what sticks approach.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Artificial intelligence, it turns out, in this regard at least,
Speaker 1: is not that intelligent and it needs a ton of help.
Speaker 2: So it's efficient as all hell, but it is not.
Speaker 2: It cannot make the connections a lot of times unless
Speaker 2: it is helped out by a human user.
Speaker 1: Still a black box, though great example works.
Speaker 3: I often get served ads for things that I've already bought.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, I was gonna say too. That's like it's
Speaker 1: we're at the stage where in the Terminator franchise, the
Speaker 1: original cyborgs were easily discernible from organic humans, right because
Speaker 1: it's a bit ridiculous. There's not any human advertiser who
Speaker 1: would say, well, this person just bought a toilet, so
Speaker 1: you know what, they need five more toilets.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: That's like, like, what's gonna happen? Are you gonna are
Speaker 1: you gonna just bought a toilet. You'll see an ad
Speaker 1: for it, and then you'll go, no, I don't know,
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll just treat myself. It's it's bizarre.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe you're a contractor. Maybe it thinks we're all
Speaker 2: contractors and we're all building out bathroom fair points.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we know that, we know that companies have
Speaker 1: a lot they want to do with this data, even
Speaker 1: if they can't entirely get the rubber to meet the
Speaker 1: road and practice. And we'll we'll expand that picture in
Speaker 1: a frightening way a little bit later, but for now,
Speaker 1: let's think of it this way. Companies give all the
Speaker 1: data they can get their hands on, even the stuff
Speaker 1: you would think is unimportant. They give all of that
Speaker 1: equal weighting. When it comes to picking it up. There's
Speaker 1: nothing that gets ignored if it's able to be monitored
Speaker 1: and captured. And that's because AI programs, as we said,
Speaker 1: just aren't that intelligent yet. They are efficient, mat but
Speaker 1: they're not that intelligent. Like think about home surveillance systems.
Speaker 1: You have a you know, Noel, You and I probably
Speaker 1: have Amazon Echoes, yes, yeah, and you have a Google
Speaker 1: Home or something like that.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 1: Okay, so these home surveillance systems, which is the correct
Speaker 1: term for them. These home surveillance systems have these uh,
Speaker 1: these assistants, these programs that will guess at what they
Speaker 1: think you said, but they still frequently missed the mark.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, right, But they.
Speaker 3: Also aren't listening and I think in theory and unless
Speaker 3: you say that wake word right, whatever that might be.
Speaker 2: No, they are always listening. Oh hey, the because they
Speaker 2: have to hear the wake word.
Speaker 1: I love doing this. Let's prank someone who's listening to
Speaker 1: one of those in their house right now. Alexa no play,
Speaker 1: Alexa play, don't please? Don't the remix are the origin
Speaker 1: We're kidding, We're kidding. I hope we're all still friends
Speaker 1: with our with our various devices. But but we say
Speaker 1: this to point out that these things are far from perfect.
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of people employed by these companies,
Speaker 1: human listeners, right, just like many of us listening today,
Speaker 1: who are tasked with going through these things and seeing
Speaker 1: listening to the recording that someone said and then seeing
Speaker 1: what the assistant thought they said, and then reconciling the
Speaker 1: two to build a better mouse trap for your personal information.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that is where we get into the Amazon
Speaker 2: Echo story out of Bloomberg that we were going to
Speaker 2: talk about, and that is the fact that there are
Speaker 2: thousands of Amazon employees and contractors who, like Ben said,
Speaker 2: are tasked with literally listening to what the microphone recorded
Speaker 2: in your living room. So if so, you're asking Noel
Speaker 2: about is is it always listening? Yes, the microphone is
Speaker 2: always turned on. As long as you've got your Alexa
Speaker 2: plugged in or your Google Home plugged in, that mic
Speaker 2: is on and it is listening. It doesn't record anything
Speaker 2: until you say Alexa or computer or Echo or whatever.
Speaker 3: The key, right is the wavecord? Yeah, sure, But which
Speaker 3: is a creepy phrase in and of itself if you
Speaker 3: ask me.
Speaker 2: But that is literally an open mic sitting in your house.
Speaker 2: It's a hot mic, and that is where it gets
Speaker 2: really creepy. But it also gets really creepy. Like, Okay,
Speaker 2: on the surface, it makes complete sense. It's what Ben
Speaker 2: was saying. It's quality assurance, right, it's trying to make
Speaker 2: that AI better. It's an educational thing for the system.
Speaker 2: But below the surface, like if you really break it
Speaker 2: down and you take away some of the words that
Speaker 2: are in there that make it feel like a fun
Speaker 2: and exciting new thing. There is this mic in your room.
Speaker 2: It's recording information things that you're saying in your private home,
Speaker 2: and it's sending it to some person that you've never met.
Speaker 2: And then this stranger is going to transcribe exactly what
Speaker 2: you said in your living room. Then it's going to
Speaker 2: feed it back in that system, so that when that
Speaker 2: mic here's you talk again, it knows exactly what you said.
Speaker 3: But again, it's only after you've said the wakeword. It's
Speaker 3: not They're not transcribing all your conversations in your living room.
Speaker 3: It's all in theory stuff that you are attempting to
Speaker 3: communicate to the device of Otherwise it wouldn't be any
Speaker 3: use to them, it wouldn't help them improve the algorithm
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 2: But my point here is that that is how it functions,
Speaker 2: according to the way the creators want it to function
Speaker 2: right now. Made this device on. Yes, that is the
Speaker 2: forward facing thing. And I'm not saying Amazon is doing
Speaker 2: anything illegal or you know, scary like that, but there
Speaker 2: is there is an easy route there to exploit that
Speaker 2: microphone that's in your living room.
Speaker 3: That's sure. So you're saying, maybe if someone a bad
Speaker 3: actor let's say, got a hold of this, or do
Speaker 3: you think Amazon could potentially be the bad.
Speaker 1: Actor Amazon's partners. Let's let's say, let's foreshadow it that way,
Speaker 1: Amazon's Amazon's buddies, the folks in bed with it. But Matt,
Speaker 1: what's interesting to me about this is that you are
Speaker 1: talking in terms of an above the surface level. Yes,
Speaker 1: my spider sense tells me you've got to below the surface.
Speaker 2: Take, No, well below the surface. Take is just in
Speaker 2: my mind, the reality of the situation of We've talked
Speaker 2: about it before on here. We kind of hit it
Speaker 2: a couple times in this episode already, just that we
Speaker 2: are literally bugging ourselves. And you know, and you think,
Speaker 2: when you think about a world in which perhaps the
Speaker 2: powers that be end up ruling, Let's just say this
Speaker 2: United States that we live in. Let's say that some
Speaker 2: group comes along and takes over. And now it is
Speaker 2: illegal in this land to do X. And let's say
Speaker 2: your family or your living situation is X. Now there
Speaker 2: is a microphone in your living room or your kitchen
Speaker 2: or wherever it is, and if you're just having a
Speaker 2: regular conversation about what your life is and what you
Speaker 2: are doing, but it is illegal in this land, and
Speaker 2: there's a mic in there, right, there's potential that there
Speaker 2: you could be abused in some way or persecuted.
Speaker 3: That's all reminds me of the telescreens in nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 3: which were like on this on one level, seen as
Speaker 3: like a luxury and as like a really cool technological
Speaker 3: gadget where you could watch all of these whatever entertainment
Speaker 3: so wished. But it was a two way thing. It
Speaker 3: was monitoring you. But there's a certain acceptance of it,
Speaker 3: you know, like it's not secret monitoring. Everyone knows they're
Speaker 3: being monitored. They just know to stay in line and
Speaker 3: not fall outside of the party, you know, doctrine or whatever.
Speaker 3: And we've kind of found ourselves in a very similar
Speaker 3: situation where like complicit in our own surveillance.
Speaker 1: Or well was nothing if not prescient in that regard.
Speaker 1: There's a there's here's a real life example or something
Speaker 1: that could play out plausibly. And this is heavy stuff.
Speaker 1: So imagine that you live in a country that is
Speaker 1: least economic developed country economically developed country, and that country
Speaker 1: has an authoritarian government and they have strict religious laws
Speaker 1: of one sort or another. Let's say that for a
Speaker 1: time there was a different regime, and you were maybe
Speaker 1: in a same sex relationship, and you and your partner
Speaker 1: lived lived your normal, everyday life. Right. You just happen
Speaker 1: to have your device because you like to hear music
Speaker 1: when you cook. Who doesn't like that? But then the
Speaker 1: regime changes, and now again same sex relationships are forbidden
Speaker 1: or haram or whatever. And now that stuff that you
Speaker 1: said that got hoovered up into the cloud, now it
Speaker 1: makes you complicit in what that government sees as a crime.
Speaker 1: And that means that, according to that government, the stuff
Speaker 1: that you did, which was perfectly fine, your relationship was
Speaker 1: perfectly fine until someone retroactively decided it wasn't. And now
Speaker 1: because you wanted to hear the remakes to ignition, now
Speaker 1: just because of the conversation that occurred around that time,
Speaker 1: now you are in hot water and there's not a
Speaker 1: recourse to help you. That's a terrifying possibility. Matt. You
Speaker 1: were telling us off air that at least some companies
Speaker 1: like Amazon attempt to quell those fears by publicly stated
Speaker 1: there are hard constraints on how long an echo can
Speaker 1: record something.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, And again to Amazon's defense, I am
Speaker 2: being completely conspiratorial in this and it's just one of
Speaker 2: those weird foresight things that both men and I were
Speaker 2: talking about there. But Amazon has stated that only a
Speaker 2: fraction of one percent of interactions with their devices actually
Speaker 2: gets transcribed in this way by a human, by a
Speaker 2: human where it gets sent off. They transcribe at the
Speaker 2: center back in since the beginning of twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 2: this is by the way, from August of twenty nineteen
Speaker 2: from the ambient, so eight months of transcribing had had
Speaker 2: gone through and only point two percent of all requests
Speaker 2: to Alexa had actually been transcribed. So that's very a
Speaker 2: very very small number of conversations that actually get listened
Speaker 2: to and transcribed.
Speaker 1: Interesting how they put it in percentage though, because putting
Speaker 1: it in percentage can make something something seems smaller than
Speaker 1: it is in reality.
Speaker 3: Right, it's a massive sample size, right, That small percentage
Speaker 3: is actually a massive.
Speaker 1: Number, right, Right, It just sounds a little more reasonable.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the great thing. When you say, hey, whatever,
Speaker 2: Alexa gonna do it, You're gonna do it. Spread it
Speaker 2: out enough. But when you do that, generally you ask
Speaker 2: a very short request or a very short question or
Speaker 2: something to that effect, and then.
Speaker 3: It does the thing and then like that window of
Speaker 3: monitoring is over kind of.
Speaker 2: Right, generally, yeah, it lasts for about two seconds, that's
Speaker 2: the average. So when somebody is transcribing, that's literally all
Speaker 2: all it says.
Speaker 3: You can they make good money doing that?
Speaker 1: Or is it like they know it's Amazon, They're not
Speaker 1: getting paid very well at all?
Speaker 3: Is it sort of like we as a company, we
Speaker 3: do a lot of transcribing interviews and stuff. You think
Speaker 3: it's very similar to that. You think even outsource it.
Speaker 3: They couldn't.
Speaker 2: It is contractors.
Speaker 3: It is contractors.
Speaker 2: Some of its contractors, some of its employees got it.
Speaker 1: And this practice has no currently has no real legal
Speaker 1: constraints because, as we know, technology always outpaces legislation tale
Speaker 1: as old as time. However, I get the feeling that
Speaker 1: a lot of us were sort of aware that something's
Speaker 1: off with these home assistants, or that there is some
Speaker 1: kind of transaction at play. If it's not terrible, if
Speaker 1: it's something we're okay with, we knew there was still something.
Speaker 1: And you can hear, you know, when things go wrong
Speaker 1: in nine one one calls and all these other spooky
Speaker 1: stories about things going south with Google or Amazon. But
Speaker 1: what about the other devices. We have some news for
Speaker 1: you about smart TVs. Look around your room or wherever
Speaker 1: you happen to find yourself, is there a TV in there?
Speaker 1: Things are about to get very interesting for you. After
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 2: All right, we're back. Let's jump in to something we
Speaker 2: learned about thanks to New York Times in a twenty
Speaker 2: eighteen article about filing. New York Times, they are not failing.
Speaker 1: I don't believe, I mean not after this bump. I
Speaker 1: mentioned this article in the gang Stalking episode. So you're welcome,
Speaker 1: New York.
Speaker 2: Yes you did, Ben. Ben did bring this up, and
Speaker 2: we decided we were going to look into it, and
Speaker 2: we did, and now we can't look away forever. So
Speaker 2: it's a thing called Samba TV. That sounds fun Samba TV, it.
Speaker 3: Sounds really funny. Know what else sounds finn I'm gonna
Speaker 3: skip down just just a tad. How does this sound
Speaker 3: to you?
Speaker 1: Guys? Hey?
Speaker 3: How about you want to interact with your favorite shows,
Speaker 3: get recommendations based on the content you love, connect your
Speaker 3: devices for exclusive content and special offers. How about Samba
Speaker 3: Interactive TV lets you engage with your TV in a
Speaker 3: whole new way. That sounds great sounds.
Speaker 2: Damn good.
Speaker 3: I'm into that.
Speaker 2: So what is Samba TV?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Hey man, what's Samba TV?
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll tell you. It is a software, a piece
Speaker 2: of software that is present in a lot of television models,
Speaker 2: some models from nearly a dozen smart TV brands. And
Speaker 2: again this is as of late twenty eighteen. That has changed.
Speaker 2: There are more included now, but it is Sony Sharp Phillips,
Speaker 2: a lot of that, all the hits, all the head
Speaker 2: ones in this software. In particular, it identifies what is
Speaker 2: being watched on the monitor the television by literally analyzing
Speaker 2: the pixels displayed and then comparing that data to a
Speaker 2: set of known media that exists out there.
Speaker 3: It's a similar way like audio things or even YouTube
Speaker 3: things are flagged for copyright violations.
Speaker 2: Yes, but in this case it is the end user
Speaker 2: that is the actual piece of hardware that is being monitored.
Speaker 1: Right, And this was always coming Nielsen ratings, like the
Speaker 1: Nielsen Institution wanted this.
Speaker 2: Yes, there needed to be a way to find out
Speaker 2: who was watching what when, and in particular, when you're
Speaker 2: saying about who, it means everybody who is around, not
Speaker 2: just that this household is watching something. But here's the
Speaker 2: idea you're viewing history is then in part used to suggest,
Speaker 2: as Noel was saying, as the flowery language there that's
Speaker 2: actually present in the PR from Samba TV.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they wrote that copy.
Speaker 3: Of Well it's not only the PR, it's the opt
Speaker 3: in message.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's used to suggest the next content that
Speaker 2: Samba TV believes you will yourself enjoy. But that is
Speaker 2: not all that Samba TV does. It also identifies all
Speaker 2: the other devices that are connected to the same network
Speaker 2: through which it is accessing the internet.
Speaker 1: So your friend comes over, they have a phone with
Speaker 1: Wi Fi. Now they're in the loop as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, if you are Netflix and chilling or whatever the
Speaker 2: kids call it these days at somebody else's house or
Speaker 2: apartment and Samba TV is there, it knows that you're
Speaker 2: there because it can identify your device and the Mac
Speaker 2: address and all those things.
Speaker 3: And here's the thing. This company claims that it is
Speaker 3: adhering very closely to privacy guidelines set forth by the
Speaker 3: Federal Trade Commission, that it does not directly sell any
Speaker 3: of this data. Instead, at tizers can pay the company
Speaker 3: to kind of guide the hand of the ads in
Speaker 3: the placement, which which makes sense. Doesn't sound too insidious, right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's directing ads to the other devices that are
Speaker 2: present who they believe are watching the television program right.
Speaker 1: Right, right, And so your opt in stuff happens at
Speaker 1: the television right at the TV, but it doesn't happen
Speaker 1: at your smartphone necessarily if you walk into someone else's house.
Speaker 3: And so, how do they get around the legality of
Speaker 3: other people? Like, are they automatically part of your opt
Speaker 3: in when they's.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying, there's not informed consents. Interesting and
Speaker 1: also think about this, this technology is amazing. If our
Speaker 1: species was less of a garbage fire, we could use
Speaker 1: this to do wonderful things for you know, say someone's
Speaker 1: mental health, right, and someone's like, okay, I see you've
Speaker 1: watched Faces of Death four nine times in a row.
Speaker 1: I'd like to recommend the Great British Bacon Show. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: You do a better job with your content consumption? No,
Speaker 3: it's totally true. And when you let's say you plug
Speaker 3: in your new smart TV and it has Samba on it,
Speaker 3: it will present you with that very flowery language that's
Speaker 3: the opt in message. There is a giant terms of
Speaker 3: service and privacy policy. You know page that you can
Speaker 3: peruse if you wish. I believe it's sixty five hundred
Speaker 3: words for the terms of service and four thousand words
Speaker 3: for the privacy policy. But why would you even bother
Speaker 3: doing that when you can interact with your favorite shows,
Speaker 3: get recommendations based on the content that you love.
Speaker 1: That terms of service is a real page turner.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, But why would you want to do
Speaker 3: that when this seems so innocuous and you just want
Speaker 3: to start playing your Fallout four?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, to see, that's not the real insidious thing
Speaker 2: here is that Let's put yourself in the position of
Speaker 2: you've spent let's say the last couple of months saving
Speaker 2: up money because you really, you know, you need to
Speaker 2: get this new TV. You're really excited about it. You
Speaker 2: finally get it right, and you're installing it your you know,
Speaker 2: your hands are all sweaty because you know Fallout four,
Speaker 2: the next playthrough is about to happen. You're like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, this is I'm so excited. You plug this
Speaker 2: thing in, you start going through the initialization process, the
Speaker 2: Samba thing pops up, and you know you can you
Speaker 2: literally have to decide if you're going to spend an
Speaker 2: hour parsing through all of that legal ease or if
Speaker 2: you're gonna get to whatever it is you're you wanted
Speaker 2: to get to, and most people just click enable and
Speaker 2: move forward. It has nothing to do with the flowery
Speaker 2: language or anything like that. It says enable, Okay, yes,
Speaker 2: this gets me to the next thing. Just click and enable,
Speaker 2: And that is exactly what most people do.
Speaker 1: Right on the order of an estimated ninety percent, A
Speaker 1: vast majority of people do click enable. And once this
Speaker 1: stuff is up and running, it's a katie bar the
Speaker 1: doors they used to say in Days of your Samba
Speaker 1: sees everything that is displayed on the monitor, regardless of
Speaker 1: what you're watching or playing or how you're displaying it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you're watching TV. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you're watching a film. It doesn't matter if you're
Speaker 1: broadcasting a home video.
Speaker 2: Right yeah, it could be literally anything, you know, if
Speaker 2: you are broadcasting a home video of something that you
Speaker 2: wouldn't want anyone else to see, Samba TV is analyzing it.
Speaker 2: It isn't necessarily matching up with any known media. Sure,
Speaker 2: but if you broadcast the same kind of home videos,
Speaker 2: Let's say I your kids, maybe a romantic video you
Speaker 2: made with your partner. I mean, honestly, who knows. That's
Speaker 2: again taking a little bit further than the known technology
Speaker 2: or the known reasons for using it. But it could
Speaker 2: be used in the future by someone to figure out
Speaker 2: very personal, intimate things about you. But it's sort of like.
Speaker 3: When we read about the NSA and the way the
Speaker 3: NSA was monitoring people's phone calls. They weren't recording the
Speaker 3: actual audio. They were just capturing the metadata so they
Speaker 3: knew how long a call lasted, or like you know
Speaker 3: who this web of interconnectedness or whatever, it's similar with this.
Speaker 3: It's not like they're recording actually what you're streaming. They're
Speaker 3: just capturing the data of what it is, how long
Speaker 3: you watched it for, et cetera, of the pixels of
Speaker 3: the pixels.
Speaker 1: Right, So this, okay, this is true. Even if we
Speaker 1: want to be as skeptical or I should say, as
Speaker 1: credulous as we can, and if we take those pieces
Speaker 1: of State of pr copy at their word, this still
Speaker 1: has a ton of hilarious, cartoonish vulnerabilities. You can learn
Speaker 1: too much about people and there's no way for the
Speaker 1: end user to stop it. Other than try to opt out.
Speaker 1: But opting out it doesn't delete all the stuff that
Speaker 1: has already learned about you. Are we being paranoid perhaps,
Speaker 1: or perhaps we should introduce you to Alfonso. Oh God,
Speaker 1: I love that Alfonso.
Speaker 2: Okay, So to break this down thus far, we've got
Speaker 2: our personal assistance that always are on Slicious no matter
Speaker 2: if we're saying the keywords or not. They have their
Speaker 2: microphone on and they are listening. They aren't necessarily recording
Speaker 2: all the time, but they are. Now you have your
Speaker 2: smartphone over there that is literally watching what you're watching too,
Speaker 2: and it is making informed decisions about what you watch
Speaker 2: and sending ads to all the devices in your house. Now,
Speaker 2: let's say you're on one of those devices. Let's say
Speaker 2: it's an Android device. Let's say you went to the
Speaker 2: Google Play whatever it is app store thing, and you've
Speaker 2: downloaded some apps and some games. Well a lot of
Speaker 2: these apps and games, not all of them, but a
Speaker 2: lot of them have partnered with this thing called Alphonso.
Speaker 2: So this is a really interesting little piece of software
Speaker 2: that's attached to these apps, and what it will do
Speaker 2: is prompt you to enable the use of your microphone.
Speaker 1: Right and these would be things that do not ostensibly
Speaker 1: need that kind of access. Pull three D beer pong,
Speaker 1: trick shot, real bowling, strike ten pen, you know these
Speaker 1: kind of word salady names, little fun waste of time apps.
Speaker 2: Well, and not just those some anti spying software. There's
Speaker 2: a ton of apps out.
Speaker 1: There right because it's it's this Alphonso is app agnostic. Yes,
Speaker 1: So here's what happens. Here's why they want that microphone access.
Speaker 1: Because when you're using this app, or when you grant
Speaker 1: this app microphone access, Alfonso can figure out what you
Speaker 1: happen to watch by identifying audio signals and television ads
Speaker 1: and shows and even matching that information with the places
Speaker 1: people visit and the movies they see really quickly. Here
Speaker 1: is how it works. So we're all hanging out, we're
Speaker 1: watching some television show that we're into. Let's go with lost,
Speaker 1: something with commercials. So when the show switches to commercial,
Speaker 1: there is a pitch an audio signal that goes out
Speaker 1: to the room. You cannot hear it, your pets cannot
Speaker 1: hear it, your kids cannot hear it. No one can
Speaker 1: hear it, and no one is supposed to hear it.
Speaker 1: It's only for your phone's and that's what they do.
Speaker 1: They communicate with your phone, and then the phone will
Speaker 1: also let people know via Alfonso. The phone will let
Speaker 1: the users of the app, the real app. The users
Speaker 1: of Alfonso understand who is in that room, where they
Speaker 1: came from, maybe where they're going, and what they would
Speaker 1: like to buy. That's not what you sign up for
Speaker 1: when you walk. You know, you go to a potluck
Speaker 1: at your friend's house to watch some kind of film. Right,
Speaker 1: and how many apps are we talking here?
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so according to the New York Times, there
Speaker 2: were over two hundred and fifty apps on the Google
Speaker 2: Play Store with this feature. Right, And if you want,
Speaker 2: if you head over to the Google Play Store and
Speaker 2: you type in quotations Alfonso Automated. That's A L P
Speaker 2: H O N S O A U T O M
Speaker 2: A T E D, and you will find all of
Speaker 2: the various apps that have this thing installed. But then
Speaker 2: if you if you look at an interview with some
Speaker 2: Alfonso people, they said that there are thousands of apps
Speaker 2: that they've partnered with and they didn't want to disclose
Speaker 2: all of them because they have competitors who are trying
Speaker 2: to basically get in on their territory. Yeah, approach their territory.
Speaker 3: Remember when spyware was a big concern. This is like
Speaker 3: some next level spyware.
Speaker 1: This is spyware.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's like different, right, It's like it literally
Speaker 3: is opt in, right, it's spying on you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy, and now we know it's cyclical. So
Speaker 2: it's all of the devices functioning together in this web
Speaker 2: of trying to figure out what you want the most
Speaker 2: and how to display that thing to you most effectively.
Speaker 1: I guess Staltz effect. Yeah. This also, this problem becomes
Speaker 1: complicated even further when we realize that private entity institutions
Speaker 1: are not the only actors in this sphere. Indeed, they
Speaker 1: may be some of the more innocuous. I love that
Speaker 1: you mentioned spywaar or NOL, because the best spywear right
Speaker 1: now is being built not by private industry but by
Speaker 1: state actors. We mentioned Amazon's partners, right, Amazon's partners using
Speaker 1: the data. Amazon's partners are alphabet soup intelligence agencies or
Speaker 1: strongly thought to be so, especially.
Speaker 2: Legedly, especially thanks to that early cash injection.
Speaker 1: Right, exactly so. According to a Washington Post article from
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, the United States government has already turned theoretical
Speaker 1: exploits and vulnerabilities in this kind of stuff into functioning
Speaker 1: attack tools. One of these goes by the objectively badass
Speaker 1: name Weeping Angel. Weeping Angel is specifically meant to target
Speaker 1: Samsung TVs. This is just a small, microcosmic example, and
Speaker 1: this is at least what it was doing two years ago,
Speaker 1: according to WikiLeaks after infestation, Weeping Angel places a target
Speaker 1: TV in a fake off mode so that the owner
Speaker 1: believes the TV's off when it's still on. And then
Speaker 1: in this fake off mode, the TV operates as a bug,
Speaker 1: recording conversations in the room and then sending them over
Speaker 1: the cloud to a covert CIA server. This sounds bonkers.
Speaker 1: This sounds bananas. I can't believe it's real.
Speaker 2: Why would anybody ever be paranoid? Right?
Speaker 1: Why would they?
Speaker 2: That's crazy?
Speaker 1: And I hope whomever is listening to this around a
Speaker 1: smart television has unplugged their headphones and is listening on speaker.
Speaker 2: You know, Okay, look everything, I just have to say this,
Speaker 2: everything we've been discussing today, If if you are of
Speaker 2: a certain mind, perhaps like myself quite a lot, quite frequently,
Speaker 2: it could lead you down a dark pathway where it
Speaker 2: feels as though there's surveillance everywhere and you're being targeted
Speaker 2: in some way. We can assure you this is not
Speaker 2: just about you, no matter what you may think or
Speaker 2: no matter what you may believe. Sure it is, it's
Speaker 2: mass it's everybody, and again it is not necessarily nefarious.
Speaker 2: But it's real.
Speaker 1: I that's a matter of perspective. There is a certain
Speaker 1: self importance or self aggrandizing that occurs when people are
Speaker 1: suffering from paranoid delusions. Right, But being paranoid about this
Speaker 1: sort of stuff does not make you delusional. It means
Speaker 1: that you have unfortunately turned over the rock and you've
Speaker 1: seen the thing squirming in the darkness beneath. This is
Speaker 1: very real stuff.
Speaker 2: I love that, and I also am terrified by it.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's not all bad. I mean, there
Speaker 3: are ways of kind of at least stemming some of
Speaker 3: this stuff a little bit. Right, Yeah, So, how to
Speaker 3: Geek actually has an easy to follow a guide on
Speaker 3: how to stop Google Home from recording you all the time.
Speaker 3: Google Home has a thing where it actually saves your
Speaker 3: voice memos. You can check that out. You have to
Speaker 3: opt in for constant recording allegedly, while you can if
Speaker 3: you're an existing user opt out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the that's the whole thing. They've updated their
Speaker 2: terms of service basically Google Home has right and actually
Speaker 2: Amazon has done something similar there where you have more
Speaker 2: choices now. But if you're an A I think, if
Speaker 2: you're a legacy user, you actually can't get out of
Speaker 2: some of the agreements you already signed into. Yeah, somebody
Speaker 2: fact checked me on that, but I recall reading that
Speaker 2: this morning. Here's the good thing. Remember Samba TV we
Speaker 2: were talking about it felt so creepy. Literally, all you
Speaker 2: have to do is say disable when you get to
Speaker 2: that screen and you're installing your TV. That's all you
Speaker 2: have to do and you're done.
Speaker 3: Do you really not think it has something like why
Speaker 3: do you think people are so prone? Ninety percent? Is
Speaker 3: such a massive like amount? Like, are so prone to
Speaker 3: click enable.
Speaker 1: Because you've got a new toy and you want to
Speaker 1: take full advantage because it's presented, like I said, as
Speaker 1: this lovely way of like making this a better experience
Speaker 1: for you the user.
Speaker 3: Why wouldn't I want that?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 2: And it's a menu that you have to click through, right,
Speaker 2: So think about it this way. If it's on enable,
Speaker 2: so you your cursor is on enable. When the screen
Speaker 2: pops up, you'd have to go down to terms of service,
Speaker 2: down to privacy policy, down to learn more, down one
Speaker 2: more to disable the clicks. The as stupid as that sounds,
Speaker 2: and you know, benign as five clicks or four clicks,
Speaker 2: people will take the easier route and just say, okay, fine.
Speaker 1: Enable, I'm in a hurry. I can't do I got
Speaker 1: MF places to be, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It's true.
Speaker 1: So it's it is true, and it's an exploit not
Speaker 1: just of technology, but an exploit of our own hardwired physiology.
Speaker 1: Our brains are built to function this way, right, and
Speaker 1: this leads us to some conclusions in what is very
Speaker 1: much an ongoing events right. The first conclusion is that
Speaker 1: there are some issues remaining. There's a lack of accountability.
Speaker 1: One of the primary issues in this conversation is the
Speaker 1: utter lack of accountability on the part of private institutions
Speaker 1: as well as government agencies. It is not difficult to
Speaker 1: imagine these companies cooperating with intelligence agencies, further exacerbating the
Speaker 1: legal pitfalls involved. And again it's important to point out
Speaker 1: just as a cheap skate. It's important to point out
Speaker 1: that the people getting their data gathered are not paid
Speaker 1: for that information, quite the opposite it used to be.
Speaker 1: You know, what's that old adage. We always said, if
Speaker 1: you're not paying for it, you are not the customer,
Speaker 1: you're the product. Yes, right, But now the pendulum swings
Speaker 1: a little bit further in the wrong direction in my opinion,
Speaker 1: because we are paying for these services. We are paying Amazon,
Speaker 1: we're paying Google to spy on us to whatever end,
Speaker 1: and we are we are not accounting not only for this,
Speaker 1: we're not accounting for the larger problem, which is that
Speaker 1: insurance companies aggregate this information, your financial institutions aggregate this information,
Speaker 1: and there is nothing that stops them from cooperating together
Speaker 1: to build a footprint of you close enough. The idea
Speaker 1: is that this footprint, this digital impression of you, will
Speaker 1: one day have the fidelity such that it can predict
Speaker 1: future actions you will take.
Speaker 3: So you're saying that it could in theory be used
Speaker 3: against you, Yes, very much.
Speaker 2: So we're saying they're going to make Android versions of
Speaker 2: you knowl' I'm cool with that.
Speaker 3: That's what some help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's not gonna be about you anymore. No, No,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be Amazon.
Speaker 1: And and and it's it's fascinating when you think about it,
Speaker 1: because now I know.
Speaker 3: You're not joking. It's it's it's like a shape of
Speaker 3: me that is my data, you know, like it's out
Speaker 3: there in the matrix. It's a null shaped data cluster.
Speaker 1: Or a Matt shaped data cluster, a Seth shaped cluster,
Speaker 1: Seth shaped cluster.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a band.
Speaker 1: Yes, it does like a tasty treat, it does. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's maybe a it's maybe like a hostess thing.
Speaker 1: So we are brilliant ideas for desserts to treat the side.
Speaker 1: We are all in this together. We are looking at
Speaker 1: the end of privacy as we recognize it. And that's
Speaker 1: sort of tricky. That sounds more dramatic than it really is,
Speaker 1: because the concept of privacy as we know and enjoy
Speaker 1: it today is relatively recent. Yes, right, and everything we've
Speaker 1: learned indicates that type of privacy we idealize may end
Speaker 1: up becoming a short lived fat to future historians. We're entering.
Speaker 1: You know, Matt, you and I talked about this a
Speaker 1: long time ago. An inequality of privacy, Right, Privacy is
Speaker 1: a new currency. Some of the world's most influential, powerful,
Speaker 1: successful people still have this kind of privacy, right yeah.
Speaker 2: A weird example is just think about how much it
Speaker 2: costs to get a good tint on your windows. I'm
Speaker 2: not kidding. I'm not kidding. If you see someone drive
Speaker 2: by with perfectly tinted like the darkest windows you've ever seen,
Speaker 2: that is expensive. Well, and that's literally privacy just in
Speaker 2: your car anyway.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I feel like something going on is your car, Okay.
Speaker 2: No, no, I'm just saying that that amount of privacy
Speaker 2: just to be on the road driving costs money, right yeah.
Speaker 2: And if you think about really good shutters on a
Speaker 2: home or something like that, in those little examples, it
Speaker 2: takes quite a bit of means to protect yourself just
Speaker 2: from someone viewing with their eyeballs where you are at
Speaker 2: any time. And then if you apply that to the
Speaker 2: digital space, it gets more and more expensive.
Speaker 1: It's creating something very similar in nuts and bolts and
Speaker 1: the mechanics of it to the infamous sesame credit that's
Speaker 1: occurring in the Chinese mainlanes precisely. And I'm not being
Speaker 1: alarmist about this, and I don't you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want people to be any more frightened. That is absolutely appropriate.
Speaker 1: You should be a little We're at the Pandora problem right.
Speaker 1: Once the Pandora's jar is unscrewed, once the lid is off,
Speaker 1: there is no going back. There were some rumblings in
Speaker 1: Congress about investigating what is essentially a smart TV spir ring,
Speaker 1: but the advantages of keeping the technology in play for
Speaker 1: now seem to outweigh the problems of consent and the
Speaker 1: fact that consent is not occurring, and the fact that yes,
Speaker 1: this could and up with your with your information from
Speaker 1: other places, such that it might affect your ability to
Speaker 1: get a car loan, It might affect where you can live.
Speaker 1: This can get very dirty, very quickly.
Speaker 3: It's a slippery slope, and especially once I mean, what if,
Speaker 3: like we can't opt out anymore, you know, if if
Speaker 3: that goes away, Like are we really owed that right
Speaker 3: to opt out? Like it's sort of like almost a
Speaker 3: pr move to allow us to opt out, Like you
Speaker 3: could very easily say, as the manufacture of a product,
Speaker 3: say well, if you don't want us to have your data,
Speaker 3: don't buy the products. Like it's sort of almost a courtesy.
Speaker 3: If you think about it to allow people to opt
Speaker 3: out of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but what it could just.
Speaker 3: Are you owed a fancy television?
Speaker 1: But it's no, but are you owed? And are you owed?
Speaker 1: Are you required to participate in some of these systems
Speaker 1: insurance one is required to.
Speaker 3: Do so absolutely, that's different, I think. But I guess
Speaker 3: what I'm saying is, like with the television, all these
Speaker 3: are gadgets that, like you could not necessarily call necessities.
Speaker 2: Well, think about think about most people with a steady job,
Speaker 2: think about email communication nowadays, or an app that's used
Speaker 2: wherever you work or you know there. You have to
Speaker 2: have some kind of connection like that. You really do,
Speaker 2: and with most of these devices, you're going to run
Speaker 2: into these issues.
Speaker 1: Or add to that the compounding complicating factor that for
Speaker 1: the for a huge proportion of people who have mobile phones,
Speaker 1: it's their only way to access not just the Internet,
Speaker 1: but it's their primary tool for any financial dealings like
Speaker 1: people's lives hinge on this thing. Yes, so I see
Speaker 1: both sides of that, But here's what I think we
Speaker 1: can end with. We can say it's not just the
Speaker 1: United States. Way back in twenty seventeen, when WikiLeaks released this,
Speaker 1: they showed that digital spine is going to continue to grow.
Speaker 1: It's not going to go away.
Speaker 2: We're talking about the Weeping Angel thing, right right.
Speaker 1: Weeping Angel and specific which again is just for Samsung
Speaker 1: TVs and it's relatively low tech. You have to put
Speaker 1: a USB stick in there, but now you don't. Now
Speaker 1: it's now it's a whole different thing. You know, anybody
Speaker 1: got sort of irritated when you bought a new cell
Speaker 1: phone and it had stuff pre installed that you can't move.
Speaker 1: Think about this times a thousand. That's what's happening. That's
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. And it's not just happening in
Speaker 1: the US. Other advanced nations China, Russia, Britain, Israel and
Speaker 1: so on are creating newer, more robust, powerful tools to
Speaker 1: do this, and any any nation that can gain access
Speaker 1: to this kind of spying technology is going to do so,
Speaker 1: and they can do it through a web of private industry.
Speaker 1: There are no laws. This is wild West, and it's
Speaker 1: very bad. It's very bad for the people who are
Speaker 1: not at the top of the food chain.
Speaker 2: And with that, we all threw away our devices. We
Speaker 2: got out our acoustic guitars or ukuleles and started Kumbaya.
Speaker 1: I started writing my version of roth Water Emerson's on Nature.
Speaker 2: Right, that's correct. I got our my Jimbei out and
Speaker 2: we just started playing.
Speaker 3: Finger symbols from the Yeah.
Speaker 2: And we just you know, commune with nature for the
Speaker 2: rest of our lives and watch the sunset dissipate over
Speaker 2: the horizon.
Speaker 3: Had an ashram in Quebec.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then we all woke up and went back
Speaker 2: to work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. And hey, listen, I'm just being Devil's
Speaker 3: aavogaated about like are you owed a smart TV? And
Speaker 3: I agree it's a great question. Well with the phone though,
Speaker 3: You're right, the phone is for many an affordable entry
Speaker 3: point to the Internet because it doubles as a you know,
Speaker 3: a crucial communication device and a way to access the Internet,
Speaker 3: which we can all agree is a necessity for things
Speaker 3: like banking everything, you know, everything starts on the Internet,
Speaker 3: the Web, of course. But I would argue that for
Speaker 3: the things like, you know, an Alexa, do we do
Speaker 3: we need an Alexa? Maybe maybe for accessibility? Maybe maybe
Speaker 3: that's a thingy for like people with disabilities, and Alexa
Speaker 3: could be a very important addition to a home for others.
Speaker 3: I think it's more of a luxury and sort of
Speaker 3: like a neat little gadget.
Speaker 2: You know, you're absolutely right, and you all nobody needs
Speaker 2: a smart television monitor right, But very soon the only
Speaker 2: available televisions will be smart televisions, at least ones that
Speaker 2: are easily purchased.
Speaker 3: I think what I was getting at when Ben talked
Speaker 3: about the sesame credit and the slippery slope of all
Speaker 3: this is what if there does come a time where
Speaker 3: you can't opt out anymore. Just by buying the thing
Speaker 3: and installing it in your home, you're opting in. The
Speaker 3: Only way to opt out is to not buy it,
Speaker 3: or to buy something else.
Speaker 2: There you go, or live in the woods.
Speaker 1: And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't
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