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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Johnathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer here

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Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works, and I heart radio and I

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Speaker 1: love all things tech and today. As often is the

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Speaker 1: case with tech Stuff, even though I say I love

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Speaker 1: all things tech at the beginning of the show, it

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Speaker 1: begins with a caveat because I don't love everything. In

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Speaker 1: this particular story, it's a really shocking one. On January nineteen,

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Speaker 1: Reuter's published a long piece about a secret spy project

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Speaker 1: out of the United Arab Emirates. The project is called

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Speaker 1: Project Raven and how the agency that was overseeing Project

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Speaker 1: Raven had hired away hackers and cybersecurity experts, a lot

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Speaker 1: of them from America, including American citizens who had previously

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Speaker 1: worked for the United States National Security Agency or n

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Speaker 1: s A, which is a pretty big deal. So what

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Speaker 1: exactly is going on here? Well, in this episode, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to talk about the n s A and what

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Speaker 1: it does first before I get into Project Craven. And

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Speaker 1: I'm doing that for two real important reasons. One is

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Speaker 1: that Project Raven employed lots of former n s A

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Speaker 1: employees or contractors, and Project Craven appears to use many

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Speaker 1: of the same techniques that have been developed and relied

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Speaker 1: upon over at the n s A for many years.

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Speaker 1: Another is that while much of Project Raven is still

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Speaker 1: a mystery, we haven't seen all of the documents that

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Speaker 1: Reuters has referred to. That Reuters came in possession too

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Speaker 1: of some of these documents rather, but we haven't. I

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Speaker 1: haven't seen them all. But I figure that by understanding

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Speaker 1: what the n s A is and what it does,

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Speaker 1: we can extrapolate quite a bit to understand what Project

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Speaker 1: Raven is all about. So we're gonna start with talking

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Speaker 1: about the n s A and what they do, and

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Speaker 1: then switch over to Project Raven in more detail. So

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Speaker 1: the n s A formally became an agency back in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two, but the motivation for creating the n

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Speaker 1: s A dates further back. In fact, it dates back

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Speaker 1: to the First World War. A guy named Herbert Osborne Yardley,

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Speaker 1: who was a telegraph operator, served as a cryptographer with

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Speaker 1: American forces in France during World War One. This was

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Speaker 1: not unusual. A lot of telegraph operators worked in various

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Speaker 1: theaters of war, either as communications officers or cryptographers, and

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Speaker 1: he recognized that the United States really needed to step

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Speaker 1: up its game because he was handling communications from top

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Speaker 1: brass and he found that the American Command was using

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Speaker 1: codes that were outdated and or easy to break. He

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Speaker 1: even broke a few of them on his own. So

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Speaker 1: he advocated for a much wronger approach to cryptography, and

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Speaker 1: he would eventually become the lead of the so called

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Speaker 1: Cipher Bureau, sometimes also known as the Black Chamber. Pretty

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Speaker 1: ominous sounding name right there. This office would intercept messages

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Speaker 1: from around the world and attempt to decode them to

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Speaker 1: figure out what the heck is really going on out there.

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Speaker 1: And this practice was not universally accepted in government circles,

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Speaker 1: and the un S Secretary of State Henry L. Stimpson,

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Speaker 1: who served under President Herbert Hoover, famously pulled funding for

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Speaker 1: the office in nineteen nine. He found the very concept

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Speaker 1: of reading messages intended for other people to be abhorrent,

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Speaker 1: or at least that's what he said. He essentially made

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Speaker 1: a comment along the lines of a gentleman does not

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Speaker 1: read another gentleman's letters, so you wouldn't intercept someone's mail

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Speaker 1: and read what that was written. To them and then

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Speaker 1: pass it back along. That would be illegal, and he says, well,

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Speaker 1: the same thing should be true between nations. Now, there's

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Speaker 1: definitely a healthy debate that we could have about whether

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Speaker 1: or not the methods used by the Black Chamber were

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Speaker 1: justifiable or ethical. According to the Saturday Evening Post, this agency,

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Speaker 1: the Black Chamber was known for making deals with telegraph

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Speaker 1: companies to get access to communications across those companies infrastructures.

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Speaker 1: So it would be a lot like the news that

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Speaker 1: broke in when Edwards Snowden revealed that the n s

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Speaker 1: A had agreements or had essentially strong armed major internet

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Speaker 1: companies in order to get access to electronic communication companies

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Speaker 1: like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, and Microsoft, among others. Now, we're

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Speaker 1: going to get back to that, but anyway, my point

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Speaker 1: is something's never changed, right. This was originally back in

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Speaker 1: uh the nineteen twenties with telegraph companies, and then you

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Speaker 1: fast forward to the twenty tens and you find out

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Speaker 1: the same things going on, but now with internet companies.

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Speaker 1: You also realized that Yardley's response to the office getting

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Speaker 1: shut down was to write a tell all book about

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Speaker 1: the Black Chamber. It essentially said, well, if you're gonna

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Speaker 1: if you're going to close out the Cipher Bureau, then

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Speaker 1: I'm going to write a book about all the stuff

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Speaker 1: we did. And he effectively spilled the secret beans to

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Speaker 1: the world, much like Edward Snowden did in although to

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Speaker 1: be fair, uh, Yardley was doing it kind of out

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Speaker 1: of spite, whereas Snowden apparently was doing it because he

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Speaker 1: had strong feelings that the um the practices of the

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Speaker 1: n s A were We're against freedom, really against a

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Speaker 1: certainly against an expectation of privacy. So history really does

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Speaker 1: repeat itself in some ways. Well. While the Black Chamber

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Speaker 1: was in the process of getting shut down, in nine,

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Speaker 1: the United States Army opened up its own intelligence gathering

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Speaker 1: office called the Signal Intelligence Service or s i S.

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Speaker 1: The s I S took possession of the files that

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Speaker 1: Yardley's office had generated during its operations, so they got

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Speaker 1: hold of the Cipher Bureau files. This new office became

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Speaker 1: the core of the n s A when President Truman

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Speaker 1: formally created the agency in nineteen fifty two. According to

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Speaker 1: the n s a's own website, the purpose of the

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Speaker 1: agency is to end i quote, save lives, defend vital networks,

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Speaker 1: advanced US goals, and alliances and protect privacy rights. That

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Speaker 1: last one is kind of interesting to me. The n

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Speaker 1: s A is part of the Department of Defense, so

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Speaker 1: it is no longer a branch of the army or

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Speaker 1: any specific branch of the military. It's part of the

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Speaker 1: Department of Defense overall. It's meant to gather intelligence, both

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Speaker 1: foreign and domestic, largely through signal processing or intercepting electronic

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Speaker 1: means and radio means of communication. But you might wonder

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Speaker 1: what the heck is the difference between the n s

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Speaker 1: A and the other intelligence agencies, because we talk a

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Speaker 1: lot about different intelligence agencies and it's pretty easy to

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Speaker 1: get them all confused. So you've got the c i

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Speaker 1: A or the Central Intelligence Agency. That agency focuses on

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Speaker 1: foreign intelligence, and it's mostly concerned with the kind of

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Speaker 1: spy stuff we associate with the movies, though in reality

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Speaker 1: it's rarely anywhere near as glamorous or as easy to follow.

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Speaker 1: Things get a lot more messy and a lot less

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Speaker 1: um flashy in real life. But this is the agency

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Speaker 1: that oversees covert ops and counterintelligence efforts in other countries

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Speaker 1: and passes information along to the executive branch of the government.

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Speaker 1: For those of you not in the United States, the

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Speaker 1: executive branch would include the president and the presidential staff.

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Speaker 1: The FBI, or the Federal Bureau of Investigations, fills a

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Speaker 1: similar role, but for domestic concerns, so stuff that happens

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Speaker 1: inside the United States and usually involving US citizens. It's

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Speaker 1: also the lead law enforcement agency and focuses a lot

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Speaker 1: on counter terrorism and just investigations in general. So this

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Speaker 1: is the agency that was famously profiled in the X Files,

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Speaker 1: although obviously that was a real work of fiction anyway,

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Speaker 1: the n s A is mostly concerned with making and

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Speaker 1: breaking codes, so it focuses on ways to communicate secretly,

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Speaker 1: and they do this in order to keep us interest

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Speaker 1: safe and also how to break all the other codes

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Speaker 1: that are out there so that we know what the

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Speaker 1: heck is going on. And they do this both for

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Speaker 1: foreign communications and domestic communications, which leads critics to point

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Speaker 1: at the n s A and say they're spying on you,

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Speaker 1: and the n s A might say, sure, we have

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Speaker 1: all your data, but we don't look at it unless

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Speaker 1: you have given us a reason to look at it.

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Speaker 1: Fun times. We'll touch on that a little more a

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Speaker 1: bit later. There's also one other agency, in the intelligence community.

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Speaker 1: I feel that I should mention which is the Defense

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Speaker 1: Intelligence Agency or d i A. You don't tend to

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Speaker 1: hear about this a lot in the United States, especially

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Speaker 1: if you're just you know, a citizen, a civilian. This

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Speaker 1: is part of the Department of Defense, just like the

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Speaker 1: n s A is, and this agency focuses specifically on

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Speaker 1: military intelligence and combat support. So, uh, that's why you

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Speaker 1: don't tend to hear it in your day to day

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Speaker 1: life as a civilian. It's really a military application. Until recently,

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Speaker 1: the general public in the United States had not heard

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Speaker 1: a whole lot about the n s A, with a

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Speaker 1: couple of famous exceptions, and this was something the agency

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Speaker 1: itself took advantage of. The CIA and FBI are far

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Speaker 1: more prominent in the American psyche, there typically romanticized in

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Speaker 1: popular culture as the stuff of spies and crime investigations. Now,

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Speaker 1: when the n s A was first formed in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, it was effectively a secret organization that was

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Speaker 1: not publicly disclosed. In fact, there was a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a joke that n s A stood for no

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Speaker 1: such agency. However, the nature of communications and the widespread

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Speaker 1: use of cipher in cryptography, and the growing ranks of

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Speaker 1: an SSAY employees meant that by the late nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: it was pretty much impossible to maintain that the n

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Speaker 1: s A was non existent or even trying to keep

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Speaker 1: it a shadow organization. It became clear at that point

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Speaker 1: that there was such an agency, although a lot of

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Speaker 1: people still didn't really understand what it was doing, so

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Speaker 1: the n s A activities weren't widely communicated or understood

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Speaker 1: among the general public. There were a few spikes and awareness,

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Speaker 1: as I alluded to earlier in the mid nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, there was a

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Speaker 1: major one. There was a Senate investigation that revealed that

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Speaker 1: the n s A had been intercepting telegrams leaving or

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Speaker 1: entering the United States, including correspondence between American citizens, and

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Speaker 1: it was a program called Project Shamrock. Another shocking revelation

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Speaker 1: was that the n s A had been monitoring communications

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Speaker 1: between civil rights leaders during the nineteen sixties, including Martin

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Speaker 1: Luther King Jr. And a couple of U. S senators

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Speaker 1: as well. There were records that the agency was also

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Speaker 1: keeping tabs on people who objected to the United States

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Speaker 1: being involved in the Vietnam War, and all of this

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Speaker 1: led to Congress establishing a new set of guidelines that

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Speaker 1: the n s A would have to follow, and it

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Speaker 1: was meant to restrict how and when they could collect information.

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Speaker 1: It was called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or FISA

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Speaker 1: f i s A. To get permission to spy on

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Speaker 1: American citizens, the n s A would first have to

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Speaker 1: get permission from a special court established just for that purpose.

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Speaker 1: It was called a surveillance court or an intelligence court.

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Speaker 1: This wasn't quite the same thing as securing a warrant

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Speaker 1: through a normal court, but it was a check on

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Speaker 1: the NSA's power. They couldn't just wantonly start listening in

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Speaker 1: on people and and have it be legal. So things

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Speaker 1: pretty much went that way for the next couple of

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Speaker 1: decades until September eleven two one. That's when we had

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Speaker 1: the terrorist attacks here in the United States that were

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Speaker 1: so devastating, and in the wake of that, the President

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Speaker 1: of the United States at that time, George W. Bush,

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Speaker 1: expanded the n s a s powers and authorized the

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Speaker 1: agency to monitor communications, including phone calls and emails, of

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Speaker 1: American citizens without having to secure a warrant. From this

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Speaker 1: surveillance court first, the idea being that this would speed

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Speaker 1: things up and potentially prevent further catastrophe. But the flip

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Speaker 1: side of that was there was no oversight. There there

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Speaker 1: were no checks on this power. The New York Times

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Speaker 1: broke a story about this warrantless wire tapping program in

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Speaker 1: two thousand five, and then a couple of years later,

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Speaker 1: under tremendous political pressure, President Bush ended the practice. But

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Speaker 1: then we get to when a former contractor with the

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Speaker 1: n essay someone who had worked with the c i

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Speaker 1: A before that, a guy named Edward Snowden, dumped an

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Speaker 1: enormous amount of information on the world, revealing that the

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Speaker 1: n s A had been gathering data about telephone calls

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Speaker 1: and Internet communication between millions of Americans in widespread operations.

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Speaker 1: The n s A attempted to mitigate the impact of

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Speaker 1: this revelation, uh in part by saying that while it

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Speaker 1: was in fact gathering all this information, no one was,

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Speaker 1: you know, actually looking at the information unless they needed to,

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Speaker 1: in which case they totally said they were securing permission

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Speaker 1: first from a top secret court that couldn't publish its decisions.

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Speaker 1: This might sound like a get off of jail free

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Speaker 1: card to you, and a lot of people criticized this approach,

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Speaker 1: the idea that the n s A could go to

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Speaker 1: a secret court and get approval without having to reveal

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Speaker 1: any of this to anybody, and then do a search

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Speaker 1: on all this data that likely would include stuff about

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Speaker 1: you in it, and anything they turned up they could

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Speaker 1: potentially focus on and and use in some way further

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Speaker 1: down the road. That was pretty disturbing. So they were

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Speaker 1: think the information like crazy, but they said, we aren't

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Speaker 1: going to search it or look for anything specific unless

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Speaker 1: we already have approval. This still was not really comforting

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Speaker 1: to a lot of people. It wasn't something that many

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Speaker 1: people found justifiable. There were a lot of complaints and

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Speaker 1: criticisms um and it also it involved an increase in

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Speaker 1: resentment toward companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, companies that were

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Speaker 1: at least in appearance, cooperating with the n s A. However,

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Speaker 1: I covered a lot of this back in when the

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Speaker 1: news first broke, So rather than go over all that again,

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Speaker 1: we'll just move on. And this was the super fast

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Speaker 1: overview of n s A. Obviously, there's tons of stuff

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Speaker 1: we could talk about. You could do a full mini

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Speaker 1: series about the n s a no problem. And if

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Speaker 1: I were to do that, I would have to bring

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Speaker 1: Ben Bolan on because if you want to talk about

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Speaker 1: people who know stuff that they don't want anyone else

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Speaker 1: to know, they know, he's the guy to go to.

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Speaker 1: Right now, let's take a quick break and when we

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Speaker 1: come back, we'll cover the story that inspired this particular episode.

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Speaker 1: But first a word from our sponsor. On January nineteen,

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Speaker 1: as I said earlier, Reuters published a special report. The

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Speaker 1: title of that special report is Inside the U a

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Speaker 1: e S Secret hacking team of US mercenaries. It is

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Speaker 1: an amazing read. I highly recommend you seek it out. Now.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to cover the basics of that piece in

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Speaker 1: this episode, but I wanted to give special mention to

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Speaker 1: journalists Christopher Byng and Joel Schekman who wrote the piece.

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Speaker 1: Most of the article focuses on Lori Stroud, who is

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Speaker 1: an x n s A employee through who later on

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Speaker 1: worked with the n s A through a security contractor

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Speaker 1: as well, who then landed a position with a United

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Speaker 1: Arab Emirates top secret program Project Raven. Stroud has the

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Speaker 1: distinction of being involved in that massively publicized n s

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Speaker 1: A league from as well so Nut's backtrack a bit.

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Speaker 1: Stroud started as a direct employee of the n s

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Speaker 1: A back in two thousand three. Then in two thousand

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Speaker 1: nine she officially left as being an n s A

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Speaker 1: employee and came back to work for the n s

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Speaker 1: A as a contractor of a part of a team

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Speaker 1: of cybersecurity and intrusion experts or you could call them

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Speaker 1: hackers if you like, who worked as a consultant to

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Speaker 1: the n s A. H The consulting company she was

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Speaker 1: working with was called Booze. Alan Hamilton's still is called Booze.

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Speaker 1: Allen Hamilton's still exists. So she was still working for

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Speaker 1: the n s A, but as a contractor rather than

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Speaker 1: as a full time employee. She could actually make a

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Speaker 1: lot more money doing essentially the same work as she

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Speaker 1: had been doing before. And it was Stroud who actually

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Speaker 1: recommended that Edwards Snowden be brought on her team at

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Speaker 1: the n s A. And I've already explained how that

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Speaker 1: turned out anyway, after Snowden shocked the world by leaking

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Speaker 1: all the information on what the n s A had

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Speaker 1: been up to and then fled the United States, understandably,

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Speaker 1: Stroud's team from Booze Allen Hamilton's was pretty much persona

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Speaker 1: non grata at the n s A. No one was

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Speaker 1: really keen to work with them. They they ended up

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Speaker 1: bearing a lot of the responsibility because they had recommended

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Speaker 1: Snowdon to be put on the n s A team

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Speaker 1: in the first place, So that doesn't reflect well when

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Speaker 1: your recommendation turns around and purposefully dumps a ton of

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Speaker 1: top secret information. Stroud received an offer from another former

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Speaker 1: NSA agent named Mark Buyer to work through a different

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Speaker 1: security consulting firm, this one called cyber Point, and Stroud

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Speaker 1: would be able to work on a prestigious cyber security

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Speaker 1: project overseas in Abu Dhabi, and she took the offer.

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Speaker 1: He said it was very attractive, so she leaves Booze

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Speaker 1: Allen and joins CyberPoint. Stroud is then sent to Abu Dhabi,

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Speaker 1: and upon arriving, she was initially told her job was

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Speaker 1: going to be in counter terrorism, so essentially she would

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Speaker 1: work with other experts to detect intrusion attempts on the

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Speaker 1: ua ES government servers, so if anyone was trying to

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Speaker 1: hack in, she was supposed to be part of the

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Speaker 1: team detecting that sort of stuff. Determining who was doing

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Speaker 1: it and blocking them. She would also be in charge

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Speaker 1: of patching vulnerabilities. This was just meant to be a

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Speaker 1: defensive project. And she also found out her office was

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Speaker 1: going to be in a converted mansion in Abu Dhabi.

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Speaker 1: The facility is called the Villa, and it all seemed

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Speaker 1: too good to be true, and upon arrival she was

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Speaker 1: brought into two different briefings back to back. The first briefing,

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Speaker 1: which according to Reuters, has been referred to as the

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Speaker 1: Purple briefing, was pretty much the story I just told

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Speaker 1: you that Stroud was told before she came on board

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Speaker 1: that she would be working to protect the ua ES

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Speaker 1: computer and communications infrastructure. Upon the conclusion of that briefing, however,

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Speaker 1: she was told that whole story was just a cover story,

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Speaker 1: that that wasn't really what she would be doing. And

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Speaker 1: then she was told what her real purpose was and

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Speaker 1: she was received the second briefing, which was dubbed the

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Speaker 1: Black briefing. Now, this is a top secret project that

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Speaker 1: was meant to be denied by anyone working in the

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Speaker 1: u A government as even existing. The team at Reuters, however,

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Speaker 1: actually got hold of a copy of the materials used

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Speaker 1: in the black briefing. Those materials concerned the U a

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Speaker 1: e S National Electronic Security Authority, or in e s

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Speaker 1: A NISSA. It's essentially the U a e S version

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Speaker 1: of the n s A here in the United States.

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Speaker 1: So according to Reuters, the information in this briefing outline

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Speaker 1: the true purpose of Project Raven and that it was

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Speaker 1: meant to be quote offensive operational division of NISSA end quote.

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Speaker 1: So that means instead of trying to detect intrusions and

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Speaker 1: plug security vulnerabilities, Strold would actually be working with a

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Speaker 1: team dedicated to spying on other people too, gathering data

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Speaker 1: on them, to intercepting communications and deciphering those communications. But

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Speaker 1: that's pretty much what she was doing at the n

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Speaker 1: s A, so it wasn't like this was a huge

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Speaker 1: change in what she had been doing leading up to

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Speaker 1: this point. In fact, that was the whole reason why

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Speaker 1: she was hired. NISSA would supply the team of Project

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Speaker 1: Raven with a list of people that it said were

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Speaker 1: enemies of the UAE government. Then the Project Raven team

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Speaker 1: was tasked to gather as much information on those people

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Speaker 1: as they possibly could. They would track their movements using

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Speaker 1: location data. They would build out what amounted to be

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Speaker 1: dossiers on each of those people, electronic dossiers and just

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Speaker 1: amount huge amounts of information that could potentially be used

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Speaker 1: by other parts of the UAE government. And let's talk

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Speaker 1: about that for a second. The government of the United

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Speaker 1: Arab Emirates is a little complicated if you're looking at

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Speaker 1: it from the perspective of an American like me, you know,

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Speaker 1: compared to the American system of government. Now, for those

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Speaker 1: who aren't that familiar, the name of the nation implies this.

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Speaker 1: The UAE is not just a single unified people. It's

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Speaker 1: actually a collection of seven monarchies or emirates kingdoms. Two

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Speaker 1: of those are ruled by the same royal family and

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Speaker 1: the others are ruled by different families. So you end

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Speaker 1: up even though you have seven emirates, you have six

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Speaker 1: ruling families. So the six rulers, the six heads of

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Speaker 1: those ruling families are collectively the Federal Supreme Council of

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Speaker 1: the u a E. In addition to that Council, there

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Speaker 1: is a Council of Ministers that's led by the Prime Minister.

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Speaker 1: More on that in a second. And there's also a

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Speaker 1: group of leaders called the Federal National Council. Uh. Some

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Speaker 1: of the members of this council, they're about forty people

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Speaker 1: in it total. Some of them are appointed and some

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Speaker 1: of them are elected. Uh. And then there's the Federal

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court, which is very similar to the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: in the United States, at least in theory. The Federal

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Speaker 1: Supreme Council, that group of leaders technically elects a president

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Speaker 1: and a vice president to oversee the entire United Arab Emirates.

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Speaker 1: Practically speaking, however, the president is the head of the

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Speaker 1: ruling family of Abu Dhabi called Al nah Jan. The

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Speaker 1: vice president and the prime minister. The same person is

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Speaker 1: the head of the ruling family of Al Maktoum, that

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Speaker 1: as the royal family that oversees Dubai. Now, there are

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Speaker 1: no political parties in the u A. In fact, they're

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Speaker 1: illegal in the u A, and ultimately everyone in the

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Speaker 1: government is there on the pledge sure of the ruling families.

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Speaker 1: There's not really a democratic process here. The elected members,

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Speaker 1: you know, I mentioned that though, that that forty member

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Speaker 1: Federal National Council, some of them are elected. Those elected

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Speaker 1: members are only advisors. The only people who have any

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Speaker 1: legislative authority are appointed. So again, all power ultimately comes

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Speaker 1: from these ruling families. The government of the u a

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Speaker 1: E has drawn criticism regarding how it operates, and the

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Speaker 1: UAE government is eager to get more information on those

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Speaker 1: who do criticize the government. They are not particularly well

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Speaker 1: looked upon by the u a E. Before a Project Raven,

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Speaker 1: the u a E largely relied on primitive means to

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Speaker 1: spy on these identified enemies to get electronic data on them.

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Speaker 1: So typically in the old days, NISSA that that a

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Speaker 1: agency would send an operative to get physical access to

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Speaker 1: a targets computer or mobile device and install monitoring software

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Speaker 1: on it. So you actually have to get to that

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Speaker 1: person's computer and then install some malware. That's actually a

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Speaker 1: pretty tricky challenge, even if the target happens to live

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Speaker 1: within the borders of your country. But some of u

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Speaker 1: a es identified enemies are foreigners who live abroad, so

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Speaker 1: getting physical access to their machines wasn't always practical or

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Speaker 1: in some cases wasn't even possible, and that's where we

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Speaker 1: get to Project Raven. The u a E wanted people

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Speaker 1: who had experience designing malware that could monitor communications and

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Speaker 1: then send reports back to h Q on an ongoing basis,

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Speaker 1: so the government formed Project Raven in two thousand nine. Initially,

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Speaker 1: the plan was just to hire on American experts to

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Speaker 1: design and lead the program for between five to ten years,

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Speaker 1: and the goal would be to pass on that that

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Speaker 1: knowledge and skill set to to mentor Imarati intelligence officers

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Speaker 1: so that they could then take over the program from

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Speaker 1: that point and run it themselves. So then they would

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Speaker 1: phase out the American operatives from Project Raven, and the

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Speaker 1: u a E. Wanted people who understood how to infiltrate

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Speaker 1: a machine remotely, which, as it turns out, often depends

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Speaker 1: largely upon social engineering. Now, I've talked about social engineering

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Speaker 1: several times on this show, but just to remind you

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Speaker 1: what it's all about. It's a term for a broad

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Speaker 1: range of strategies that are all meant to manipulate a

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Speaker 1: person using social interactions, rather than trying to brute force

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Speaker 1: your way into a computer system. It's much much easier

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Speaker 1: to trick someone into voluntarily sharing their login information with

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Speaker 1: you than it is to brute force your way into

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Speaker 1: the typically secure system. So, for example, you might pose

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Speaker 1: as an I T professional who has been higher on

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Speaker 1: to install updates to a computer and say, I need

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Speaker 1: to install this update, give me your log in so

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Speaker 1: I can put it on there and then I'll be

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Speaker 1: off your way. But in reality, what you're doing is

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Speaker 1: installing malware to spy on a person's every move. In

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Speaker 1: the case with Project Raven, one of the stories they

434
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:21,080
Speaker 1: told was some operatives who posed as human rights activists

435
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:25,360
Speaker 1: who were sympathetic to the missions of other activists target

436
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: activists people the u a A had identified as being

437
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:31,560
Speaker 1: enemies of the state, and it was all in an

438
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 1: effort to win over their confidence and trick them into

439
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: installing malware, and it worked. We've seen this sort of

440
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 1: stuff work lots of times and lots of different applications.

441
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 1: Project Raven received directives to focus on people who were

442
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:49,440
Speaker 1: known to speak out against the UAE government. Project Raven

443
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: would monitor social media and gather data about people who

444
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: had said critical things about the UAE and the monarchies.

445
00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 1: Stroud relayed that it wasn't her team that ever made

446
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: a decision and to go after anyone or to take

447
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 1: action against someone. They were just there to dig up

448
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: dirt and occasionally trick people into installing malware. Now that

449
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:12,879
Speaker 1: sounds a little bit like a justification to me something

450
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:15,680
Speaker 1: that someone might cling to in order not to get

451
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 1: too wrapped up and how involved you are in the

452
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 1: overall big picture stuff. But it also was away for

453
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: the u a E to separate the operatives in Project

454
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: Raven from any actions so that the Raven activities wouldn't

455
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:32,360
Speaker 1: stand out too much. There was a plausible deniability element there.

456
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:35,120
Speaker 1: The u a E likely didn't want to draw any

457
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: attention to these operatives from especially not from the international community,

458
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: and probably not from the n s A in particular,

459
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 1: because anything that would target, say an American citizen, would

460
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 1: immediately jump up on the n s AS red flag

461
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 1: list of this is unacceptable. You can't use American operatives

462
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: to help spy on Americans. Defensive measures are one thing,

463
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:05,240
Speaker 1: but actively spying on people as another. Another interesting point

464
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: in the report is how Stroud seemed able to deal

465
00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 1: with the realities of her work as long as it

466
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: didn't involve targeting American citizens. Monitoring the activities of a

467
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: British journalist, for example, seemed like fair game, but when

468
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 1: it came to doing the same to American citizens, she

469
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:25,320
Speaker 1: felt that was a betrayal. And I find this particularly

470
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: interesting that somehow a person's citizenship makes an action against

471
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 1: them either acceptable or not acceptable. That as long as

472
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 1: it's not against the people from my own country, this

473
00:28:36,359 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: is okay. But once it is people from my own country,

474
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:43,120
Speaker 1: it's not okay. Never mind if the other countries are

475
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: allied with the home country or not. In two thousand fifteen,

476
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: the UAE told Project Raven employees that if they wanted

477
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 1: to continue on with the program, they would need to

478
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:59,080
Speaker 1: join a UAE cyber defense company called Dark Matter. So

479
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 1: this was the u A saying we're handing over control

480
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: of Project Raven to a different consulting firm. This consulting

481
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,160
Speaker 1: firm is Dark Matter, and if you want to stay on,

482
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:10,640
Speaker 1: you need to sign on with them. Over the next

483
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 1: couple of years, the American team members were digitally sequestered

484
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 1: from some of the Project Raven operations, and by that

485
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 1: what I mean is they were not given full access

486
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:24,600
Speaker 1: to all of the information that Project Raven was gathering.

487
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: The Americans made up a good percentage of the operatives

488
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 1: in Project Raven who were intercepting communications and gathering data,

489
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 1: but they weren't the only ones. There were a lot

490
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: of citizens of the Emirates who were there too. Who

491
00:29:38,440 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: were also working on this, and there were some information,

492
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: some files that the American team was specifically told don't

493
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: look at this stuff, this isn't for you. There were

494
00:29:50,800 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: these Immaradi only collections of data, which led to concern

495
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:58,200
Speaker 1: among the American team that maybe some of the targets

496
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 1: of Project Raven could be the Americans, which would put

497
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: them in a pretty tight spot. And as it turns out,

498
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: they were right to be worried. I'll explain more in

499
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,480
Speaker 1: a second, but let's take another quick break to thank

500
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: our sponsor. As it turns out, Stroud's work earned her

501
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 1: a promotion to lead analysts, and while doing her job,

502
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: she started noticing some troubling trends. She found files dedicated

503
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 1: to American targets, including several journalists. She brought that to

504
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: the attention of her superiors. Because the American operatives had

505
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: been reassured that the program would not target American citizens,

506
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: she was reprimanded because she looked into these areas that

507
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: the Americans were told don't look here, and she had

508
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 1: looked there. She her her job as lead analysts gave

509
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 1: her the access um and but she didn't technically have

510
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 1: permission to look at that Her manager, who had convinced

511
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:03,239
Speaker 1: her to take the job in the first place, had

512
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: said that any targeting of Americans was only to be

513
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: handled by non American staff on Project Raven, but that

514
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:13,480
Speaker 1: hardly seems comforting. Stroud was initially put on leave after

515
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: she brought this stuff to the attention of her superiors,

516
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 1: and her passport was confiscated, which had to have been terrifying.

517
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: She was stuck in the U a e. For about

518
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: a couple of months before the government allowed her to leave,

519
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:29,320
Speaker 1: and upon her return to the United States, she quickly

520
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 1: sought out the FBI to tell them about what was

521
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: going on, and then, presumably at some point around that

522
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: same time, approached the journalists from Reuters to start sharing

523
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 1: her story with them. And this is where we start

524
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: to get into a very tough series of questions. And

525
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not being flippant about this. I really

526
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: do think these are difficult questions to answer. The very

527
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: nature of intelligence and counter intelligence is fraught with ethical issues.

528
00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: So on the one hand, they're definitely governments or organizations

529
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 1: and people out there who, through their goals and methods,

530
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: may cause harm to entire populations and even entire countries

531
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: and knowing what they're up to is absolutely key in

532
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 1: making sure that harm doesn't actually happen to prevent it

533
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 1: from happening. On the other hand, it's very easy to

534
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 1: get sloppy with this, to over extend this capability and

535
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 1: to loop in people who are just living their lives

536
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 1: or you know, here in America, we at least in theory,

537
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 1: have have a dedication to freedom of the press and

538
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: freedom of speech. So people who speak up for causes

539
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 1: they believe in, if they're not inciting people to violence

540
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 1: or are advocating for destruction of any sort, if they're

541
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: advocating for change, like human rights activists are. In the

542
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 1: American perspective, that's totally within their rights and that should

543
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: be supported. But that's not the way it is all

544
00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 1: over the world. Laurie Stroud's line, the line she drew

545
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 1: where she said everything before this is pretty much okay.

546
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: That line stopped at targeting American citizens. Now someone else

547
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 1: might have a different line. They might extend their boundaries

548
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 1: to include people from other nations. Uh, but you know,

549
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 1: not for terrorists, but maybe for people who are human

550
00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: rights activists or are criticizing a government but not calling

551
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:29,360
Speaker 1: for an overthrow or revolution or something. Those people might say, well, no,

552
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna include those in my line to

553
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 1: not just people from my own country, but people who

554
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: aren't doing any active harm but are advocating for change.

555
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,080
Speaker 1: A third type of person might say, Nope, everyone's fair game.

556
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: I was paid to do a job and I'm just

557
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: gonna do my job. And that leads to another series

558
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:50,000
Speaker 1: of questions. There's this idea of taking on this sort

559
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 1: of work on a contract basis for governments other than

560
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 1: your own home country. Is that ethical? If you were

561
00:33:57,000 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 1: to renounce your citizenship and you became the citizen as

562
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 1: inn of another country, I think you could easily argue

563
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 1: that you no longer hold any allegiance to your former homeland,

564
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 1: and now your new home is what you will. You

565
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:14,840
Speaker 1: have allied yourself too, But assuming you remain a citizen

566
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:18,399
Speaker 1: of Country A, would it then be okay to join

567
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: an intelligence agency and country B. Even if countries A

568
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 1: and B are allies, that still seems a little questionable,

569
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 1: particularly if, as your role as an intelligence officer in

570
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:35,319
Speaker 1: country BE occasionally requires you to spy on people in

571
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:39,080
Speaker 1: Country A. Project Raven was originally intended to be a

572
00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:42,120
Speaker 1: program in which the experts from America would share those

573
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:47,600
Speaker 1: knowledge and all those skills with Amiradi intelligence agencies. But

574
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:51,839
Speaker 1: even that little bit of a gray area what would

575
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: be problematic in some cases. I mean, if they were

576
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 1: to share any any sort of practices that were considered

577
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:02,800
Speaker 1: top C secret and therefore not practices the n s

578
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:06,839
Speaker 1: A would be terribly keen on other countries getting hold of.

579
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: That's a problem all in itself. The fact that Reuters

580
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: used the word mercenary in the headline for their peace

581
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 1: that has a lot of implications. Mercenaries hold no allegiance

582
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: to any particular authority. They go where the money is,

583
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 1: so a mercenary might work for one side in a

584
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: conflict and then switch sides to the opposition with no

585
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,279
Speaker 1: thought about it other than the money's right. Related to

586
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 1: the story is the revelation that the UAE apparently took

587
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: advantage of a security vulnerability in iPhones that used to exist.

588
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 1: It has since been patched, So according to c net,

589
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: the UAE government purchased this app from some unnamed outside country.

590
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 1: So someone else developed it, and then the u A

591
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 1: government bought it, and the original programmers created a tool

592
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 1: called car the mom that exploited the vulnerability in the

593
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: iPhone by sending a message through the native I message

594
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 1: app on iPhones. So, according to reports, all you had

595
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: to do was send one of these messages through the

596
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,399
Speaker 1: I Message app to the target iPhone and that would

597
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: be enough to compromise the target iPhone. From then on,

598
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: Karma would gather data including messages, email, location information, and

599
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: photos from the iPhone and automatically send it back to

600
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 1: the spies. This operation happened from seventeen. It did come

601
00:36:35,000 --> 00:36:37,920
Speaker 1: to an end, but that's because Apple issued a security

602
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:41,520
Speaker 1: patch that fixed some of those vulnerabilities in sen and

603
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:45,040
Speaker 1: it limited the usefulness of Karma. While Apple had already

604
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: fixed this problem, and it's possible that Apple did this

605
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 1: withhout even knowing that Karma existed. The news that it

606
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: was in widespread use in the UAE was another blow

607
00:36:56,160 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: against the company, which is also reeling from the revelation

608
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,680
Speaker 1: that a security flaw in the FaceTime video calling app

609
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 1: on iPhones can allow someone to listen in on a

610
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: person's iPhone just by making a video call, even if

611
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 1: the other person didn't accept the incoming call. So let's

612
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: say you use FaceTime to call somebody they haven't taken

613
00:37:16,239 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 1: the call, it would activate the microphone, so you could

614
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:24,800
Speaker 1: listen in on the target iPhone microphone, which is pretty

615
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: scary stuff. I'm gonna do a full episode about that

616
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,120
Speaker 1: in the future. I have a guest I want to

617
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: bring on to have a discussion about this. In the

618
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 1: wake of this Reuter's report, the Committee to Protect Journalists,

619
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 1: which is a nonprofit headquartered in America and it promotes

620
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,520
Speaker 1: freedom of the press around the world, issued a statement

621
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:48,400
Speaker 1: criticizing Project Raven and the targeting of journalists in particular.

622
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 1: A coordinator at the organization said, quote, what we've learned

623
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: about Project Raven raises significant concerns over the links to

624
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,719
Speaker 1: which the UAE will go in targeting journalists, and the

625
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:05,320
Speaker 1: involvement of former US intelligent officials is also disturbing. Immaradi

626
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 1: officials must stop targeting the press at home and abroad,

627
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:11,840
Speaker 1: and the US must make it clear to their allies

628
00:38:12,160 --> 00:38:16,880
Speaker 1: that hacking journalists phones is not a legitimate counter terror strategy.

629
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: End quote. Now, I wish I had an answer to

630
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:24,240
Speaker 1: how it would be best to conduct intelligence and counterintelligence

631
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: operations because the stakes can be very, very high. They're

632
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 1: certainly high for the people who are under surveillance, and

633
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:34,279
Speaker 1: it's potentially high for millions of people depending upon the

634
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 1: specific situation. My main takeaway from this story is that

635
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:41,719
Speaker 1: it's important to guard your own security as best you can.

636
00:38:42,480 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 1: Is best to practice smart secure behaviors, use stuff like

637
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: VPNs and encryption whenever possible. Don't trust that services that

638
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 1: depend upon your data for business will be ethical and

639
00:38:55,760 --> 00:38:58,480
Speaker 1: how they handle that data or careful in how they

640
00:38:58,520 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 1: handle it, and someone else might get hold of it.

641
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:04,400
Speaker 1: And remember that even if an agency or organization is

642
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:08,799
Speaker 1: not actively doing bad things against people, in general, agencies

643
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:12,680
Speaker 1: and organizations are made up of people, and individual people

644
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,279
Speaker 1: may behave in ways that are outside the perhaps the

645
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:19,840
Speaker 1: parameters of the respective organizations. I'll give you a specific

646
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: example back in One of the many stories that came

647
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: out in the wake of this data dump about the

648
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,160
Speaker 1: n s A was that there were some n s

649
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: A employees who had been misusing the tools developed for

650
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 1: the widespread wire tapping project for their own personal benefit.

651
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: So n s A was saying, yes, we're gathering all

652
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:44,479
Speaker 1: this data, but we're not looking at it. We're only

653
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 1: interested in specific information at any given time, and when

654
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,399
Speaker 1: we are, we go through the proper procedures to make

655
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: sure all the teas acrossed, all the eyes are dotted,

656
00:39:55,040 --> 00:39:58,279
Speaker 1: and then we will conduct our investigation. So sure we've

657
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:00,680
Speaker 1: got the evidence already, but we won't get it until

658
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 1: we've got the proper authority to do so. But that

659
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:06,800
Speaker 1: did not stop some members of the n s A

660
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:10,520
Speaker 1: staff from using those very same tools to spy on

661
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: specific people they knew personally, like ex lovers or a spouse.

662
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: So while the agency could have been as good as

663
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:26,920
Speaker 1: its word and said, yes, we aren't doing anything unethical

664
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:28,719
Speaker 1: with this, we're following all the rules that have been

665
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:32,719
Speaker 1: set down. Nothing outside of that as being done. Even

666
00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:36,240
Speaker 1: if they're telling the truth about that people in the agency,

667
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 1: we're overstepping their bounds and abusing this tool because they

668
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: were people and because the tool let them do that.

669
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 1: So even if you trust in governments, let's say that

670
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: you know you, you're like I, I believe ultimately that

671
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 1: the people in the government are good people. I'm going

672
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:56,799
Speaker 1: to trust them. Remember, not everyone working in those governments

673
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: happens to be trustworthy, and they may take advantage of

674
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 1: tools even if the overall government is on the up

675
00:41:03,200 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 1: and up about it, so be careful out there. I

676
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: wanted to cover this because it reminds us of how

677
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 1: important information is, how it can be used as a

678
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,920
Speaker 1: weapon against us, even if we haven't done anything wrong,

679
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:21,920
Speaker 1: and that we should keep that in mind and not

680
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:27,080
Speaker 1: be too cavalier about how we, you know, store data,

681
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 1: how we access data, the kinds of technologies we use,

682
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: the kind of services we use. It's good to keep

683
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: this in mind because you never know when it's going

684
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 1: to come back to hunt you in some way, even

685
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 1: if again, you haven't done anything wrong. You don't have

686
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: to have done anything wrong for you to end up

687
00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 1: on a list somewhere. It's possible this podcast has put

688
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: me on a list somewhere. It's possible this podcast has

689
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:50,799
Speaker 1: put me on multiple lists. But the only list I

690
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 1: really care about is that wonderful list that lives in

691
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 1: your heart. Favorite Podcasts hosted by Jonathan Strickland. I hope

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00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: this one's in the top three. That wraps up this

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00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: episode of tech Stuff. If you have any comments or questions,

694
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 1: maybe you've got a suggestion for a future episode, send

695
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:10,040
Speaker 1: me an email the addresses Text Stuff at how stuff

696
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: works dot com, drop on by our website that's over

697
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:17,120
Speaker 1: at tech Stuff podcast dot com. You'll find the archive

698
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 1: of episodes there, as well as other ways to contact us.

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00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:21,919
Speaker 1: Don't forget the head over to the merchandise store that's

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00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:25,200
Speaker 1: t public dot com slash tech stuff. Every purchase you

701
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 1: make goes to help the show, and we greatly appreciate it.

702
00:42:28,120 --> 00:42:31,160
Speaker 1: And I'll talk to you again on the q T

703
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics.

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Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com