Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. And gentlemen, the numbers
Speaker 3: came in. A lot of people are listening to the
Speaker 3: show on an app.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, makes sense. Sure, that's how Apple Podcasts was
Speaker 2: born once as an.
Speaker 3: iTunes Yes, yes, And I wanted to maybe pop the
Speaker 3: top on this one by by asking you, guys, what
Speaker 3: is your favorite or least favorite app? Not to be
Speaker 3: confused with appetizers. We're talking about the handy little programs
Speaker 3: that do all sorts of stuff. Is a game? An app?
Speaker 3: A game can be an app blatro Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: your nuts for the Blastro. It's very good. It's a
Speaker 3: very good game. Highly recommend. Now there's some really good
Speaker 3: useful ones. You know.
Speaker 4: I found someone turned me onto a free sampleer app
Speaker 4: called sample Koala the other day, and it's just like
Speaker 4: you can record straight off your phone, put it on
Speaker 4: these little pads and then like sequence it and make
Speaker 4: all kinds of fun little beeps and boops right on
Speaker 4: your phones. I mean, apps are amazing, like they've come
Speaker 4: such a long way. And I mean I even remember
Speaker 4: in the earlier days there were some fantastic ones out there.
Speaker 4: So I'm I'm an app head, no question.
Speaker 2: What about you, mett L and L Hawaiian Barbecue, I don't.
Speaker 2: I just I'm looking at my phone and I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna name so your.
Speaker 3: Phone restaurant that has its own app? Or is it
Speaker 3: more like a concept?
Speaker 2: It's a it's a state of mind. Yeah no, but
Speaker 2: for real lately, one of my favorite apps on my
Speaker 2: phone is the Virgin Voyages app.
Speaker 3: It's so exciting.
Speaker 2: So you got.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm supposed to know, we're all supposed to have
Speaker 3: the app.
Speaker 5: You gotta check in, bro, you got to get the app.
Speaker 3: You gotta check in. I'll get the app. I'll get
Speaker 3: the app. Yeah, what is that? What are you referencing there?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 3: Are you doing a bit? Are you doing a bit?
Speaker 2: Here?
Speaker 3: We're doing an organic mention.
Speaker 2: It's a really fun app where you can see all
Speaker 2: the stuff you're gonna do on your true crime voyage
Speaker 2: from October tenth of the fifteenth.
Speaker 3: Hey wait, we're going on that. Yeah, that's correct. We're
Speaker 3: going on an adventure on the high seas joined with
Speaker 3: the legendary Tennessee pal Dylan Fakean as well as our
Speaker 3: pure podcast Betrayal and Buried Bones. It's an event not
Speaker 3: to be missed. We're going to see a shipwreck too,
Speaker 3: but it won't be our ship important no.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, now, guys, I just wanted to put that
Speaker 2: out there as a fun little thing, right, but also
Speaker 2: just to remind everyone that sometimes we put our locations
Speaker 2: and the times we're going to be in those locations
Speaker 2: on blast. We say it out loud, we put it
Speaker 2: in a schedule, it goes on a website, we do that.
Speaker 2: All kinds of other public figures do that. Just as
Speaker 2: a reminder before we get into this.
Speaker 4: You can track our private jet if you want, like,
Speaker 4: it's out there, is available.
Speaker 3: We're square times a million. That's the reality now.
Speaker 2: But the whole point is there there is a ton
Speaker 2: of public information about where certain people will be at
Speaker 2: what time that's out there, But then there are other
Speaker 2: times when you do not want those locations and times
Speaker 2: to be public.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for saying that, Matt, because you know
Speaker 3: how I am about this stuff. It was really uncomfortable
Speaker 3: for me to tell people where we were going to
Speaker 3: be in advance. It's multiple days antithetical. Well, you know,
Speaker 3: it's a rage.
Speaker 4: We'll be within these three points of this thing called
Speaker 4: the Bermuda Triangle at any given time between the what.
Speaker 3: Is it, the tenth and the fifteenth. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 3: real trustful We hope it's worth it. Apps are amazing
Speaker 3: because they really can help you, you know, in a way.
Speaker 3: There are renaissance of learning new things. You can learn
Speaker 3: a new language, you can identify birds, mushrooms, stars. I
Speaker 3: know we're all big fans of the app Dark Skies,
Speaker 3: which is cool. We also figure out why your plants
Speaker 3: are dying, you know, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. We also
Speaker 3: know that most of these apps are going to be
Speaker 3: free or relatively inexpensive or as we'll find something called freemium.
Speaker 3: A lot of them also have, to your point, Matt,
Speaker 3: and added somewhat hidden feature, which is they collect as
Speaker 3: much of your information as possible, including other activities outside
Speaker 3: of the app on the same phone. So if you
Speaker 3: were not careful, you can end up revealing much much
Speaker 3: more than you intended. Have you guys seen this new
Speaker 3: show The Paper The Office spinoff? It's good. It's about
Speaker 3: a small.
Speaker 4: Newspaper like website based kind of newspaper, and one of
Speaker 4: the characters who is responsible for kind of maintaining the
Speaker 4: data collection aspects of it, which she argues kind of,
Speaker 4: you know, in a very dead pan way, is really
Speaker 4: more where the money comes from than anything else, and says,
Speaker 4: you know, so technically we're learning more about our readers
Speaker 4: than they're learning from us.
Speaker 3: That's a note so insightful that I would consider it
Speaker 3: now a parable. I can't wait to check out that show.
Speaker 3: We know that no matter how innocuous an app may seem,
Speaker 3: these little programs can do some sneaky things intentionally or
Speaker 3: sometimes the worst unintentionally. This is the story of a
Speaker 3: little app that a lot of our fellow conspiracy realist
Speaker 3: are aware of, Strava. This is the tale of the
Speaker 3: Strava leaks. And what better way to go to some
Speaker 3: sponsors by saying always remember terms and conditions apply. Here
Speaker 3: are the facts, but first Yes.
Speaker 2: On October twenty eighth, twenty twenty, guys, we put out
Speaker 2: our episode when We Become our Phones. This episode was
Speaker 2: all about the ways in which your phone is tracking
Speaker 2: your information and one of the primary things we talked
Speaker 2: about there was real time location data right yep. And
Speaker 2: then exactly four years, exactly to the day, four years
Speaker 2: after that episode came out, the French website and publication
Speaker 2: Lamond put out the thing we're going to be talking
Speaker 2: about today. I just thought that was so strange, guys.
Speaker 4: Well, and if I'm not mistaken, like it hasn't always
Speaker 4: been the case that when you open a new app,
Speaker 4: it asks you allowed to track.
Speaker 3: Always only while using that only once.
Speaker 4: That's a relatively more recent development that is a direct
Speaker 4: result of the kinds of things that you're talking.
Speaker 3: And it also depends upon your country of origin as
Speaker 3: to what kind of privacy laws apply. And jent just once,
Speaker 3: I would love for us to correctly predict something good
Speaker 3: and fun. Why are we right about all the bad?
Speaker 3: Thank you for beeping me, Dylan, you know with the pandemic.
Speaker 3: I love the chronological cycle that you noted there, Matt,
Speaker 3: and I'm saying the word cycle on purpose because I
Speaker 3: got to talk about Strava and this is an episode
Speaker 3: based off of some news that you brought to a
Speaker 3: strange news program. Maybe we get into it by just
Speaker 3: explaining what Strava is. Have you guys subscribed? Do you
Speaker 3: use it? I haven't. I mean I have been.
Speaker 4: Maybe I've mentioned really into biking a lot lately, but
Speaker 4: I have not gone down that particular rabbit hole. I
Speaker 4: kind of just, you know, use my Apple Watch to
Speaker 4: see how many calories I burned and what my elevation was.
Speaker 4: But it seems like Strava gets a lot more granular
Speaker 4: than that and uses geolocating to do so.
Speaker 2: Oh but this is really good. You use your phone
Speaker 2: and your Apple Watch to track your location in real
Speaker 2: time and your health fitness stuff. Right, that's what That's
Speaker 2: one of the big cool things that a phone can do, right,
Speaker 2: because your Apple Watch can actually track stuff about your body.
Speaker 3: Right. I am gonna diplomatically push back on the word
Speaker 3: cool in that. Well, it depends on your perspective.
Speaker 2: Well theoretically, right, all is how it works.
Speaker 3: Yes, So yeah, I'm into that aspect of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's something that works for me, and I'm very
Speaker 4: aware of what the potential fallout could be down the road.
Speaker 4: But it is one of those bargains with the devil
Speaker 4: that you make where it's like, for the privilege of
Speaker 4: having this information, I maybe am aware that it might
Speaker 4: be exploited one day.
Speaker 2: Well, but let's let's just talk about it that way,
Speaker 2: because it is helpful for you, Noel, and and I
Speaker 2: know a lot of people who use that kind of
Speaker 2: thing where it's it's usually directly connected either to your
Speaker 2: wrist or to something you wear in your chest.
Speaker 3: There's a version of it.
Speaker 2: And HM. So you're the these apps like Strava and
Speaker 2: whatever it is you're using, and the kind of the
Speaker 2: the stuff that's already inside the phones when when it
Speaker 2: comes to you, it's incredibly cool that we can that
Speaker 2: we can track ourselves in our body and how it's
Speaker 2: functioning for things like fitness right and and working out.
Speaker 2: Strava is one of those apps. Correct, Isn't that primarily
Speaker 2: what it is?
Speaker 3: Yes, it is.
Speaker 4: And it's also like people who are really into cycling
Speaker 4: and who are maybe even working towards competing in some
Speaker 4: larger event. Those stats are very important a because you
Speaker 4: can't like fake them, and it's it's very important that
Speaker 4: you have metrics to show that you've done the work
Speaker 4: to get to the thing and to like show to.
Speaker 3: Show your work.
Speaker 4: Basically, you know, while I'm certain there are ways to
Speaker 4: game it, there is a certain sense within the communities
Speaker 4: that rely on these things that you know, there is
Speaker 4: a certain amount of like what's the word benefit of
Speaker 4: the doubt?
Speaker 3: I guess that goes along with using them correctly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: you guys are righting to jump in here. Just for
Speaker 3: the basic definition. Strava is a social media platform meets
Speaker 3: wellness app. It was founded in two thousand and nine
Speaker 3: to track to earlier points and to a degree, to
Speaker 3: gamify physical exercise. It comes to us from some Harvard alums,
Speaker 3: some really smart guys named Michael Harvith, not Harvard associated,
Speaker 3: but that's cool, nominative determinism, and a guy named Mark Gainey,
Speaker 3: two very very bright guys. Strava takes its name from
Speaker 3: the Swedish word strava with an umlaut over the first a,
Speaker 3: which means to strive. So they kind of pulled a
Speaker 3: Hogandau's situation because they're an American company, but they wanted,
Speaker 3: you know, they wanted that European Ikea esque feel, and
Speaker 3: like we were saying earlier, it first gains traction with
Speaker 3: cyclist and it's a free app, right, and I love
Speaker 3: that point you raised about competitive cycling. Now you can
Speaker 3: see how the other folks are doing. Then it expands
Speaker 3: to runners. Now we can not just PLoP our ones
Speaker 3: and twos for a couple of miles and see our
Speaker 3: speed and elevation and stuff. We can also recommend roots
Speaker 3: or as they would call them, segments to one another,
Speaker 3: and we can now track other forms of exercise via Strava,
Speaker 3: including indoor stuff. People love this. They're leaderboards. Strava has
Speaker 3: a version of likes, they're called kudos, and folks also
Speaker 3: rightly with validity, love being able to track their progress and.
Speaker 4: Just to say, another thing that Strava has is the
Speaker 4: ability to flag users who potentially are being dishonest about
Speaker 4: their runs.
Speaker 3: In you can flag people. You can't see who flagged you.
Speaker 4: There can be a complaint lies within the community, and
Speaker 4: there are apparently some tells as to whether or not
Speaker 4: someone is being dishonest about their run. You can kind
Speaker 4: of measure I believe the burned calories or the elevation
Speaker 4: whatever it might be with the distance and with like
Speaker 4: the amount of time moving, and you can sort of
Speaker 4: see if someone's duking the stats a.
Speaker 3: Little bit because there's so much information out there that
Speaker 3: can be leveraged and connected and Charlie Dade, you know,
Speaker 3: and I think we're that when we're going to see
Speaker 3: the idea about gitting up the numbers or goosing them,
Speaker 3: as we've been saying recently, that goes to a special
Speaker 3: case in Singapore. So what Drava is doing isn't entirely
Speaker 3: you know, unique.
Speaker 4: There are tons of other apps like my fitness Pal
Speaker 4: and different, maybe slightly less track track focused or distance
Speaker 4: focused apps, but there are other ones that are very,
Speaker 4: very similar to what Strava does. However, it is the
Speaker 4: one of the most popular ones, especially in like we
Speaker 4: were talking about the world that's cycling. By twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: just over ten years into the launch, Drava ad fifty
Speaker 4: million individual users with around three billion activities uploaded to
Speaker 4: the app. It's also available in thirteen different languages.
Speaker 5: So yeah, amazing internet success story for sure.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about the mapping specifically, because I think
Speaker 2: really that's what sets apart Strava for a lot of
Speaker 2: other hundred apps. This concept of whenever you go out
Speaker 2: for a workout, whether there's biking, running, whatever, you can
Speaker 2: you have the option to track exactly where you go
Speaker 2: in real time and then build out a whole essentially
Speaker 2: a track of where you went starting point and an endpoint.
Speaker 2: It's not always in the same place, but sometimes it
Speaker 2: is that whole thing, that that feeling that users get
Speaker 2: of sharing. Hey look at all the work I just
Speaker 2: put in. Check it out and it just happened. I
Speaker 2: just finished it. Or hey, look at the run I'm
Speaker 2: going on right now, right that there's something there's something
Speaker 2: so important in there that goes back to that when
Speaker 2: we become our phones episode about wanting to share that
Speaker 2: thing so that others recognize whatever it is that you're doing,
Speaker 2: and then you get direct and immediate feedback, like real
Speaker 2: time feedback sometimes about how awesome you are.
Speaker 3: It's really no absolutely the way you put it, I agree,
Speaker 3: it's it's the kind of the case of Strava is
Speaker 3: the kind of thing later Harvard grads are going to
Speaker 3: study in business school. This is how you do it right,
Speaker 3: They wrote the textbook. In this regard, we want to
Speaker 3: be clear or at least. I think it's important for
Speaker 3: us to say these apps can be extremely helpful to
Speaker 3: so many people because working out is not a one
Speaker 3: and done event. It takes time, dedication, routine, it takes discipline.
Speaker 3: If you have a sedentary job, you might well find
Speaker 3: apps like this crucial to your routine because you can
Speaker 3: see and feel and to that earlier point you raised, Matt,
Speaker 3: share the result of your labor. It's a motivating factor.
Speaker 3: It is gamified. Last time I biked three miles, let's
Speaker 3: see if I can get four in around the same
Speaker 3: amount of time.
Speaker 4: Well, and I guess, just to Matt, you kind of
Speaker 4: already made this clear. But in this case, the tracking
Speaker 4: isn't like a byproduct. It is the products, and it
Speaker 4: is not a bug. It is absolutely a feature. And
Speaker 4: you can look at other people's profiles and you look
Speaker 4: at their routes as a way of like, oh, I
Speaker 4: might want to do that routes, not like necessarily as
Speaker 4: a way of stalking them per se.
Speaker 3: But of course there's the dark side of all of them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like I say, you share the segment share of the recommend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's say you're a biker and you're in a
Speaker 2: town that you're not used to being in, but you've
Speaker 2: got a bike, you have access to a bike, you
Speaker 2: want to go out for the day. It's way more
Speaker 2: helpful to see where people are going because we know
Speaker 2: how dangerous it is to be on a bike in
Speaker 2: a lot of places. You know, and maybe you don't
Speaker 2: understand how strenuous of a ride something is going to
Speaker 2: be or where it's going to lead. Look at Strava. Hey,
Speaker 2: now I've got three or four potential routes I can
Speaker 2: take and it's going to be a great day.
Speaker 3: And Strava says, don't worry. This is relatively anonymous, relatively
Speaker 3: caveat asterisk. People loved this concept of the app, and
Speaker 3: it changed as it grew, which always happens. I believe
Speaker 3: was May of twenty twenty, really, as the pandemic lockdown's
Speaker 3: hitting fever pitch, the company updates its terms and con
Speaker 3: they get that freemium model going. They say, look, we've
Speaker 3: been busting our hubs for everybody. We've been really flexing
Speaker 3: our calves to help out our fellow cyclist and people
Speaker 3: doing exercise, but we have not made a profit yet.
Speaker 3: We do so much stuff we gotta make Yeah, we
Speaker 3: got to make a little money, we got to pay
Speaker 3: the blood price. So because the US first, right, right, yeah,
Speaker 3: then you get the money, right And so they say, look,
Speaker 3: you can technically still use the app for free, but
Speaker 3: for the advanced features aka the things people love about Strava,
Speaker 3: you're going to have to subscribe. So some of the
Speaker 3: stuff that was free is now only available with a
Speaker 3: paid subscription, and any new features we have are also
Speaker 3: going to only be available if you cough up some
Speaker 3: scheddar or scooch out some scratch or another fun word
Speaker 3: for paying money. Coughing up cheddar sounds scary. Coughing up
Speaker 3: cheddar sounds like a medical condition. Why don't we give
Speaker 3: the direct quote from Strava about this change.
Speaker 2: A few of our free features that are specially complex
Speaker 2: and expensive to maintain, like segment leader boards, will now
Speaker 2: become subscription features. See I'm doing it like the way? Yeah,
Speaker 2: make it sound like? Are you sweet?
Speaker 5: He's vaguely Swedish?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but not really. And from now on, more
Speaker 2: of our new feature development will be for all subscribers.
Speaker 2: We'll invest the most in the athletes who have invested
Speaker 2: in us.
Speaker 3: Right that last lines a banger? Also well done? I
Speaker 3: think on the on the recap there, Matt, I love
Speaker 3: the voice. I want to know more about this character.
Speaker 4: So can I just ask to if I, as a
Speaker 4: new user, want to get the free version, what does
Speaker 4: that mean for me?
Speaker 2: Now you get the base model?
Speaker 3: Son, Yeah, you get shamed. Are your fellow cyclists you
Speaker 3: invest You can't see the leader board? Bro? I forgot
Speaker 3: you can't.
Speaker 2: You gotta give? How are you going to invest in yourself?
Speaker 3: You don't invest in us, Bro, We invested the athletes
Speaker 3: who invest in us.
Speaker 2: If that's the site you gotta give, it's.
Speaker 3: The cycle of life. Okay. We can't afford the sound cube.
Speaker 3: So these moves are always going to be controversial among
Speaker 3: the user base. Mainly, these things are controversial because people
Speaker 3: don't dig it when something that was free becomes a regular,
Speaker 3: recurring cost. Right. That's a huge problem on the internet
Speaker 3: and internet services in general. But Cyclist magazine was super
Speaker 3: into this because to that earlier point, cycling has been
Speaker 3: a huge part of Strava from the jump, and they
Speaker 3: even asked a fellow Strava user, a psychologist named Ben Dowman,
Speaker 3: to weigh in on this and his quote. Ben's quote
Speaker 3: is pretty fascinating. So uh, let's see who wants who
Speaker 3: wants to do a character voice for this Nolie, you
Speaker 3: got one. I'm gonna do sort of an ed game voice.
Speaker 3: From the outside.
Speaker 4: As a user myself, Strava's communication has been very parent
Speaker 4: child sorry.
Speaker 2: The show.
Speaker 4: He sounds like the old man from Family Guy. It's
Speaker 4: a choice.
Speaker 6: We have had free access to Strava's functions for a
Speaker 6: very long time, and now it feels like we are
Speaker 6: having our favorite toy taken away from us with no
Speaker 6: room for discussion on negotiation.
Speaker 2: You just gotta get no discussion or negotiation.
Speaker 5: Just give Look at Dildon, he gives yeah.
Speaker 3: He's a lot of people give you hit me in
Speaker 3: the cup City customers, but I mean yeah. People weren't
Speaker 3: super happy about it. Strava still soldiered on, and it
Speaker 3: maintained that despite the leaderboards the social aspects of the service,
Speaker 3: they did not have a side gig profiting off personal data. Specifically,
Speaker 3: Strava's then global marketing director Simon Klima stated, subscription has
Speaker 3: always been at the heart of Strava, making up the
Speaker 3: vast majority of our revenue. We do not sell personal
Speaker 3: information before and we do not sell it now. It's
Speaker 3: reassuring to hear, and this is something we have to know,
Speaker 3: Like a lot of companies of this genre and size
Speaker 3: are still going to be pretty cagey about the specifics
Speaker 3: of their data how it's used internally, that those kind
Speaker 3: of stats are their secret sauce, right.
Speaker 2: Just like twenty three and meters. We're not going to
Speaker 2: use your person. Sorry, everything's fine, but it does make
Speaker 2: sense right where the subscription itself and the money coming
Speaker 2: in from that would be enough for a time, it
Speaker 2: would show enough growth and as more and more people
Speaker 2: who are using the app regularly start to give, then hey,
Speaker 2: the company is profitable. The problems come and they need more.
Speaker 2: So you either got to get more users, increase your price,
Speaker 2: or find another stream.
Speaker 3: Mmmmm yeah, because you got to get those year over
Speaker 3: year profits. This is so par for the course, and
Speaker 3: we got to say it. As a private entity, Strava
Speaker 3: is fully within its legal rights. But the second issue,
Speaker 3: the reason we're here tonight, it's not about what Strava
Speaker 3: intentionally may or may not do with user data. It's
Speaker 3: about the unintentional consequences the user security. What happens when
Speaker 3: things go pair shaped as our pals, Pete and Boss
Speaker 3: would say what happens when things go wrong? We talked
Speaker 3: in the past. You know, another episode this reminds me
Speaker 3: of is an ongoing conversation we had about the idea
Speaker 3: of a world without secrets, a world in which social apps, hackers,
Speaker 3: the information age all combine and amalgamate to erode the
Speaker 3: concept of privacy and push every individual, willingly or not,
Speaker 3: into the public sphere. I believe, Matt it was you
Speaker 3: earlier said the idea of being public figures. Right, We're
Speaker 3: looking at a world wherein everyone to some degree is
Speaker 3: a public figure, even if that's not what they want.
Speaker 3: It's another step in the rabbit hole. You know. Strava
Speaker 3: was and is a gold mine for sensitive information. We
Speaker 3: could argue it was inevitable. It was simply a matter
Speaker 3: of time before some of that information leaked.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because those public figures we're talking about, they
Speaker 2: don't want to be seen at all times. They want
Speaker 2: to be seen at the times they want to be seen, right,
Speaker 2: the profitable times, the times when they're out doing the
Speaker 2: official stuff. The thing we got to remember about people
Speaker 2: who have a lot of power or are are that public,
Speaker 2: they often have teams of people around them, wouldn't you say, guys.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, you handlers, They would be called I guess.
Speaker 4: And also those appearances that you're talking about, they go
Speaker 4: to a great lengths often to make them seem natural
Speaker 4: and organic, but they are vetted.
Speaker 3: There's hair and makeup.
Speaker 4: There's all of these aspects that lead to the rollout
Speaker 4: of this very public event. And that's part of the
Speaker 4: reason that I mean, it's interesting because you have things
Speaker 4: like Twitter that sort of opened a lot of celebrity
Speaker 4: life up in a way that wasn't or at least
Speaker 4: didn't seem so vetted and so polished. But now there's
Speaker 4: almost this backlash against that because the pendulum swung too
Speaker 4: far in that direction, right hmmm, I mean, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean, not backlash against that, but it's just like,
Speaker 4: I think we are back to a bit more of
Speaker 4: a time where it's a little bit more cautious. There's
Speaker 4: a little bit more caution going into some of these
Speaker 4: events and these sort of perceived public appearances.
Speaker 3: There is an intense on go social debate over what
Speaker 3: should or should not be behind the proverbial curtain. So again,
Speaker 3: was the strava gold mine just inevitably going to get leveraged.
Speaker 3: We'll learn more afterword from our sponsors. Here's where it
Speaker 3: gets crazy, all right. We talked about this in the
Speaker 3: strange news story you brought us bat earlier this year.
Speaker 3: Data from Strava has become a security concern, not once,
Speaker 3: but multiple times, and it's because it's part of an
Speaker 3: economy of scale thing. Really, it's extremely popular with so
Speaker 3: many folks to your point about cyclist Noll, including celebrities, royalty,
Speaker 3: members of the world's security and military services. I think
Speaker 3: one example we had earlier a precedent for what happened
Speaker 3: with this company Strava, is you know the guys who
Speaker 3: send off well intentioned emails from their deployment at a
Speaker 3: nuclear sub I miss you, Grandma. We're right around Malta.
Speaker 3: Things are heating up. You know. That's that's a rough thing.
Speaker 3: That's well intentioned, but it can tell too much information
Speaker 3: to the bad guys. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, when Facebook brought around its idea that hey,
Speaker 2: you can check in to a physical location wherever you go,
Speaker 2: and then imagine that the public figure themselves. Who if
Speaker 2: we're imagining an individual right that let's say President isn't
Speaker 2: going to go check in on Facebook when they go somewhere, right,
Speaker 2: not going to happen, but somebody in the entourage might
Speaker 2: somebody you know who's just a tertiary figure that's in there,
Speaker 2: or maybe even perhaps a security official, right, somebody who's
Speaker 2: on staff as security. They might check in a little
Speaker 2: later after the gig's done.
Speaker 3: Or In November of twenty seventeen, Strava created a public
Speaker 3: global heat map and you can see all kinds of
Speaker 3: pictures of this. It collected two years of movement data
Speaker 3: from all the users around the world from twenty fifteen
Speaker 3: to twenty seventeen. And then just a few months later,
Speaker 3: it's January of twenty eighteen, and this awesome kid, Nathan.
Speaker 3: I hope it doesn't offend you if I call you
Speaker 3: a kid. He's twenty years old. He's an Australian international
Speaker 3: security student. His name is Nathan Ruser r User, and
Speaker 3: he notices something bizarre. He's our first public Charlie Day
Speaker 3: in this situation. He says, hang on this heat map.
Speaker 3: It's not updating live, it's not real time information, but
Speaker 3: it is mapped military bases across the planet. Because people
Speaker 3: are sharing their recommended roots, their segments. You know, they
Speaker 3: want their kudos, their likes, and you can see you
Speaker 3: can see as a result of this movement tracking you
Speaker 3: you can see the roots for everything from US bases
Speaker 3: in Syria and Afghanistan to the hm n B Clyde,
Speaker 3: which is the Royal Navy base that has the UK's
Speaker 3: nuclear arsenal. You can see it. We've got an example
Speaker 3: here from a US base in Afghanistan in the Hellman's Province.
Speaker 3: This comes directly from Strava's global heat map. Do you
Speaker 3: want to describe what it looks like here? It looks
Speaker 3: like a line drawing and the brighter lines are the
Speaker 3: more well traveled roots.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like a grid system of of you know,
Speaker 2: a small base. It's tough to know. Are these interior
Speaker 2: or exterior routes? Right? Are there any doors involved here?
Speaker 2: It does look exterior to me. And then it's got
Speaker 2: what looks like maybe a small airstrip or something that
Speaker 2: the person has run around in a bit of a
Speaker 2: more organic shape rather than the straight grid lines in
Speaker 2: the other parts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe I like the airstrip idea met because maybe
Speaker 3: that's where you can get your quick quarter mile in.
Speaker 3: Do that a couple of times, and it's one of
Speaker 3: the brighter lines. So also want to shout out Nathan
Speaker 3: for keeping it so falcon it is interviews. He was
Speaker 3: talking with the BBC and he later said, look, I
Speaker 3: just looked at it and I thought, oh hell, this
Speaker 3: should not be here. This is not good. So I
Speaker 3: went and told the public.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about what this really means. So if
Speaker 2: you've got a map like this of a military structure,
Speaker 2: do you think this would be that helpful? Is somebody
Speaker 2: planning something?
Speaker 3: Oh yes, yeah, very helpful, thank you Strava.
Speaker 2: But don't we all have like Google maps and things,
Speaker 2: and if somebody wanted to cause harm at a military base,
Speaker 2: you can find a military base, look at it from
Speaker 2: above and see pretty much this, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not like world governments and terrorists don't already
Speaker 3: know where all the bases are. Even black sites get
Speaker 3: clocked eventually. Shout out to our previous episodes on that
Speaker 3: and like you're saying, there, Matt, sattech can provide clear
Speaker 3: pictures of any exposed compound, right, Okay, yeah, so Strava's
Speaker 3: heat map is an added benefit. These they're the sprinkles
Speaker 3: on the sandwich, right Because it displays levels of activity
Speaker 3: via increasing light, which reveals which of those military buildings
Speaker 3: are the most frequented, and it also tells you the
Speaker 3: roots that soldiers would take in and around the compound.
Speaker 3: The location data can extend beyond the base too, which
Speaker 3: means you can see the commonly used exercise roots or
Speaker 3: regularly patrolled roads. Because a lot of people probably did
Speaker 3: the thing, so many other folks do. They just clicked
Speaker 3: yes on the terms and conditions and they never checked
Speaker 3: their privacy settings.
Speaker 2: Oh dude, or maybe someone turns it on, like puts
Speaker 2: the walk on. I'm just going for a walk, right,
Speaker 2: but it's part of my exercise, so I'm gonna bank
Speaker 2: it now. I'm just walking through the facility. But that
Speaker 2: makes sense in my head, I'm thinking all exterior, But no,
Speaker 2: that would that would totally check out. You could walk
Speaker 2: into the most sensitive parts and now they've got a
Speaker 2: map on how to get to.
Speaker 3: Them, as long as you can bring your phone right
Speaker 3: or but then they've got the watch situation as well,
Speaker 3: Like there's a way you know, when you click.
Speaker 4: The watch for a workout, you can do an indoor
Speaker 4: walk or an outdoor walk or whatever. The type of
Speaker 4: activity might be, and people that are really into like
Speaker 4: making sure they're banking that stuff. To your point, Matt,
Speaker 4: they're always gonna put that in it in there and
Speaker 4: make sure that it's counting that down. So you know
Speaker 4: that for that period of time when you're on the
Speaker 4: move in a certain indoor facility, that's a pretty easy
Speaker 4: thing to identify, you know what that durn frames.
Speaker 3: And if you can't have the phone, then you obviously
Speaker 3: can't have the smart watch either. Yes, it's definitely and
Speaker 3: it also shows us another advantage that doesn't really fix
Speaker 3: the problem, because if you've got the map of everything else,
Speaker 3: you've got the heat map of the rest of the place.
Speaker 3: You know where the black hole is right, you know
Speaker 3: where the skiff is or whatever other sensitive stuff. So
Speaker 3: if someone is a bad actor, a bad guy, they've
Speaker 3: got to be in their bonnet, they get a badger
Speaker 3: in their bag, they want to attack something, Strava's heat
Speaker 3: map could accidentally give them the chance to plan the
Speaker 3: perfect aggression, you know, knowing how to get in, where
Speaker 3: to go immediately, where to hit with maximum impact, and
Speaker 3: then how to ghost out successfully afterwards. Strava potentially gave
Speaker 3: some really bad guys for really awesome gifts. Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's not just the military basis, right, because
Speaker 2: you have to imagine this could be any building anywhere,
Speaker 2: even let's say a chateau somewhere in the mountains out.
Speaker 5: Right, perhaps a chalet in Switzerland.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a true story, this the Swedes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, like, but it's weird to think of
Speaker 2: it that way because it could also be maps, if
Speaker 2: you're in a mountainous region, maps to get to that place, right,
Speaker 2: and then you could see an alternate way to get
Speaker 2: to that facility or that even again, just that house
Speaker 2: that is not marked by people walking on it regularly, exactly.
Speaker 3: And this is why our pal Nathan went public with
Speaker 3: this quickly. Just like a white hat hacker, which he
Speaker 3: says he's not. He's connecting dots and he realized that
Speaker 3: if he was connecting these, someone else probably was doing
Speaker 3: the same thing or had. And to their credits, Strava
Speaker 3: responded very quickly. Their CEO, James Quarrels said Strava is
Speaker 3: committed to working with military and government officials to address
Speaker 3: these concerns, and then additionally said we're going to simplify
Speaker 3: our privacy features so that the end user has a
Speaker 3: better understanding, a more clear understanding of what they are
Speaker 3: or are not publicizing to the world at large. But
Speaker 3: at this point, the horse has left the lamp, the
Speaker 3: jen is out of the barn, the badger's out of
Speaker 3: the bag. More Shenanigans are on the way. We've got
Speaker 3: so many more examples to get to. Should we take
Speaker 3: a break for a word from our sponsors here, because
Speaker 3: I know we're all darkly fascinated by how many things
Speaker 3: went wrong? I think we must, and we've returned. In
Speaker 3: a similar case to the Afghanistan stuff and to the
Speaker 3: Royal Navy stuff. Military bases in Israel fell to a
Speaker 3: similar security vulnerability, but it was different because this goes
Speaker 3: to Nol's earlier point about hacking stuff right or acting
Speaker 3: in bad faith. I wasn't aware of this. You can
Speaker 3: upload fake roots or segments suggested roots to a region,
Speaker 3: and then when you upload that, if people engage in,
Speaker 3: if they use it right a route that you have
Speaker 3: never actually run. You're just laying out this thing as
Speaker 3: an if. Then if a local user decides to take
Speaker 3: this track, you, the segment poster can learn earned the
Speaker 3: identities or past routes of those users. Who fell for
Speaker 3: your your fake trail, your fake grift.
Speaker 5: Oh snap, I didn't know you could do that.
Speaker 2: You know, well, if that's intense and that seems like
Speaker 2: the route that would be taken. But I didn't think about.
Speaker 2: Let's say you're targeting some public official, right and you
Speaker 2: know that they live because they're a public official in
Speaker 2: some around some area close by to this one place.
Speaker 2: You could physically, using the app, go and run near
Speaker 2: that area. Just create those things as well. But I
Speaker 2: didn't even know you could upload a fake one.
Speaker 3: You could just dumb me up a fake one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's insane.
Speaker 3: Here's my daily run to the best swimming area in Diego, Garcia.
Speaker 2: Because you could correlate users who use it, I'm saying
Speaker 2: you can. You can find the identities of people that
Speaker 2: may actually be in the facility or connected to the
Speaker 2: public official your targeting, even.
Speaker 3: If they've maxed out their privacy settings.
Speaker 2: Jesus.
Speaker 3: But like Strava's not canceled.
Speaker 4: I mean people are still using it, Like this didn't
Speaker 4: tank My companys and millions of people fascinating that a
Speaker 4: scandal to the of this magnitude isn't enough to you know,
Speaker 4: topple an organization like this, I think because many folks
Speaker 4: kind of look at it the way I do, where
Speaker 4: it's like occasionally there's going to be some things that
Speaker 4: go wrong and it's still worth it to me, you know,
Speaker 4: for the benefits that I get from it.
Speaker 3: To take that risk, I would have I would have
Speaker 3: shout out all of us. All you guys all are
Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realist who are getting in their Strava time
Speaker 3: right now as you're listening to the show, Thanks for
Speaker 3: letting us ride along with you. Don't don't hang up
Speaker 3: on Strava yet, but you got to hear some more stuff.
Speaker 3: I just think this is an interesting experience for those
Speaker 3: of us who are, you know, running treadmiller in the
Speaker 3: streets or or on a bike or a stationary bike,
Speaker 3: doing whatever you're doing.
Speaker 2: Especially those people using Garman Connect right now. Yeah, because
Speaker 2: that those folks are getting sued by Strava, and Strava
Speaker 2: is saying, hey, you can't make any more stuff Garmin
Speaker 2: because you're using our heat map stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah you're using it, yeah, our heat maps and for
Speaker 3: the people and maybe the terrorist and maybe the talkers.
Speaker 3: But so twenty twenty three and please, please please keep
Speaker 3: your Strava going as you're listening, folks. Twenty twenty three
Speaker 3: was also a tough year for Strava because people found
Speaker 3: heat map data could reveal the home addresses of active
Speaker 3: users in remote areas. And there's a there's a paper
Speaker 3: you can read about this online for free for now
Speaker 3: from some three very smart people in the Carolinas, and
Speaker 3: they walk through the process, which gets a little bit complicated,
Speaker 3: but it's still disturbing, especially because a lot of people
Speaker 3: who live in remote areas are doing so on purpose
Speaker 3: because they don't want to be identified, doxed and hunted down.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go over the timeline again quickly, guys, just
Speaker 2: so we understand how much stuff has really is accumulating
Speaker 2: right here for Strava. Right nine, we said is when
Speaker 2: it gets created. Twenty seventeen is the first big scandal.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty two is the thing where the Israel bases
Speaker 2: get revealed. Now we're in twenty twenty three and we're
Speaker 2: figuring out, oh God, anybody and everybody is going to
Speaker 2: get revealed here. Surely there's not more.
Speaker 3: Oh surely there is, right that? I mean?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Then then same year Strava was used to identify a
Speaker 3: native of Raleigh, North Carolina who lit a Trump one
Speaker 3: lawn sign on fire. So you know, like we've all
Speaker 3: seen political yard signs, this guy lit what up.
Speaker 2: And like the Strava route put him.
Speaker 3: The Strava route put him, They got him, he got popped,
Speaker 3: he got jammed up. We're not saying it's right to
Speaker 3: burn stuffed out.
Speaker 4: No, And I do think it's worth mentioning in this conversation.
Speaker 4: Some other kind of examples of this, like ring cameras
Speaker 4: that are you know, app connected, and there are various
Speaker 4: kind of murky layers to the privacy surrounding them, and
Speaker 4: like to what degree can authorities essentially co opt your
Speaker 4: ring feed in ways that could even potentially compromise you
Speaker 4: if you've done something wrong. The key there being if
Speaker 4: you've done something wrong. Because I always say that I
Speaker 4: really don't care too much whether these companies are tracking
Speaker 4: me because I'm not out there breaking the lawn and
Speaker 4: burning down Trump.
Speaker 3: Signs and things.
Speaker 2: You know, well, it's just on who you're hanging with.
Speaker 4: Absolutely true, and I hear you're app There's no question
Speaker 4: that I hear you.
Speaker 3: Guys. The the Kevin Bacon rule of Hoover and intelligence
Speaker 3: is like you said, Matt, I think that's a concern,
Speaker 3: and Noel to your point, while I hear you on that,
Speaker 3: one of the one of the bigger concerns is what
Speaker 3: if something becomes wrong later.
Speaker 4: That's also very, very true, and I completely understand, especially
Speaker 4: in the world we're living and now, associations could come
Speaker 4: back to haunt you various things. Any you know how
Speaker 4: granular is it going to get in terms of like
Speaker 4: where were you at this particular time, did you go
Speaker 4: to a place that is now a known whatever?
Speaker 3: Like, guys, let's think about Ice And that's exactly right.
Speaker 5: That's a huge concern. Yeah, Ice and Strava apps, Ice
Speaker 5: and Strava apps.
Speaker 2: We you know exactly where this guy runs. We'll just
Speaker 2: put a van strategically located.
Speaker 3: It's so hairy man.
Speaker 2: Can we get to the public figures thing? Because this
Speaker 2: is I think we're getting into the territory where the
Speaker 2: really maybe scary stuff. This is all scary stuff, but
Speaker 2: this is like just the fact that right now you
Speaker 2: can go to a website called rollcall dot com and
Speaker 2: you can look at President Donald Trump's calendar, the official
Speaker 2: public calendar. There are a bunch of places online where
Speaker 2: you could find that public calendar. I think white House
Speaker 2: dot gov has a version of it deep in there
Speaker 2: somewhere you can see what the official scheduled events are
Speaker 2: for the President of the United States. Right, you can
Speaker 2: see the same thing for let's say Emmanuel Macron, the
Speaker 2: president of France.
Speaker 3: Justin Trudeau back in the day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of these extremely public figures, especially government officials,
Speaker 2: are gonna have some kind of public facing schedule of events,
Speaker 2: including times. So it's not just on this day we're
Speaker 2: doing that. It's this is at nineteen hundred hours, we're
Speaker 2: going to be.
Speaker 3: Here Atlanta three pm. We're going to celebrate National Route
Speaker 3: to Bega Day, and the Vice President is going to
Speaker 3: be in attendance from three fifteen to three forty five exactly.
Speaker 2: Well today, just to use this exact thing on Elisi
Speaker 2: E l y see dot FR, I can see that
Speaker 2: Emmanuel Mcron at sixteen hundred hours today on October sixth,
Speaker 2: is going to be having a meeting with the Council
Speaker 2: of Ministers. That's happening today. But what we don't know
Speaker 2: is what's happening immediately after that, where the president is
Speaker 2: going to go right, we don't know that part.
Speaker 3: We don't until we lead Dodd Strava. In October of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, journalists at Lemones but we can't say
Speaker 3: enough good stuff about them. They discovered that Strava had
Speaker 3: exposed unknowingly the locations and activities of world leaders because
Speaker 3: of their security teams. The folks who travel with big
Speaker 3: name political figures like US presidents or Manuel Macron or
Speaker 3: Justin Trudeau. You know, those guys tend to be in
Speaker 3: pretty good shape. And when they're not at work, they're
Speaker 3: working out because they got to be ready.
Speaker 2: We're saying the security teams, right.
Speaker 3: The security teams were logging their stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was used to then track the proximity to
Speaker 4: the public figure they were in charge.
Speaker 3: Of, right, one hundred percent. Yes, you're correct, And so,
Speaker 3: as Matt mentioned in our earlier Strange News program, Strava
Speaker 3: fitness data also revealed private locations of people who, yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess they're public figures. They're more like high value targets,
Speaker 3: the Swedish royal family. And this all came from the
Speaker 3: security teams who were like, all right, I've got you know,
Speaker 3: I've got Dylan on the next shift. So I got
Speaker 3: to get my steps in. You know, I'm gonna take
Speaker 3: a run, I'm gonna move some weights, and taking the
Speaker 3: run or taking the bike is really where you get
Speaker 3: that that crunchy corner brownie of opset.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, but what we're talking about the King
Speaker 2: and queen, right, the King and queen and where they
Speaker 2: personally vacation, so behind.
Speaker 3: The curtain the stuff I don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: You're not supposed to know that at all. And the
Speaker 2: security person is just as you said, doing something innocent,
Speaker 2: trying to get some exercise when he's not he or
Speaker 2: she is not officially on duty. And that single act
Speaker 2: allowed Leamond and anybody else who was interested to go, oh,
Speaker 2: they must be up there at that giant mansion slash
Speaker 2: castle the.
Speaker 3: People. So okay, we gotta be fair, all right, this
Speaker 3: is it, Dylan. I'm say I'm cursing so much in
Speaker 3: this episode. Please beat me here. This is a huge gup.
Speaker 3: This is like a bad thing to happen. And Strava,
Speaker 3: in their defense, absolutely did not tend this. They played
Speaker 3: no active, knowing role in setting up possible attacks. They're
Speaker 3: just a successful business that is already doing the thing
Speaker 3: adolescent businesses do, which is you expand you acquire competitors
Speaker 3: other companies, you make more features, you get more money.
Speaker 3: You're about that bag. That's what Strava is doing. And
Speaker 3: Strava has made multiple public statements for each of these
Speaker 3: reported incidents. In the case that we mentioned earlier, doxing
Speaker 3: people in remote locations, they came out with a pretty
Speaker 3: strident public statement, which I suggest we read just in
Speaker 3: the interest of objectivity and fairness.
Speaker 4: For sure, the safety and privacy of our community is
Speaker 4: our highest priority. We've long had a suite of privacy controls,
Speaker 4: including map visibility controls that give users control over what
Speaker 4: they share and who it's shared with.
Speaker 3: And it continues. They say Strava does not track users
Speaker 3: or share data without their permission. When users share their
Speaker 3: aggregated de identified data with the heat map and Strava Metro,
Speaker 3: they contribute to a one of a kind data set
Speaker 3: that helps urban planners as they develop better infrastructure from
Speaker 3: people on foot and bikes, and makes it easy to
Speaker 3: plan routes with the knowledge of the community. This interview
Speaker 3: is over, y'all.
Speaker 4: Really, I know, urban planners, I mean yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: we need we need some more sidewalk over here.
Speaker 2: We need some over there.
Speaker 5: True, that's all true, but it's a little bit of
Speaker 5: a reach.
Speaker 3: It's like, I get it. I'm just saying, it's like
Speaker 3: that DMZ video about how the Korean War is great
Speaker 3: for birds. It seems to be missing the root of
Speaker 3: me of the matter. Yes, sir, just so. It's the
Speaker 3: wrong vegetable and wrong badger in the bag here, and
Speaker 3: I love that. We also notice something sneaky. Putting the
Speaker 3: onus on the consumer always always tail as old as time,
Speaker 3: classic pr move.
Speaker 2: We didn't expect those security personnel to share their stuff? Silly?
Speaker 3: Oh secret service? Am I right? What else? What else
Speaker 3: they're playing? Food? Oh jesus h. Anyway, it seems it
Speaker 3: does seem that Strava. I don't know what you guys think,
Speaker 3: but it seems that Strava is making good faith efforts
Speaker 3: to mitigate the security risk here, but they're doing so
Speaker 3: while still ensuring the success and growth of the company,
Speaker 3: more users, more subscription fees year over year. Capitalism pays
Speaker 3: the blood price, you know, and tries not to end
Speaker 3: up in the stone chair. So will these two goals
Speaker 3: ever become mutually exclusive? Will the promise or the drive
Speaker 3: the necessity of profit on the horizon. Will it get
Speaker 3: them to cut corners on the security concerns and put
Speaker 3: the put the responsibility and accountability even more on the
Speaker 3: end user. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know, man. The private vacationing area for the
Speaker 2: royal family is one thing, because they're not going to
Speaker 2: be there that often, right, They're just going to be
Speaker 2: hanging out there for a couple of weeks and.
Speaker 3: A year maybe, and they own tons of places that
Speaker 3: they barely visit.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And there's going to be
Speaker 2: a ton of security there hence all the running, right
Speaker 2: and on all the folks who are currently off duty
Speaker 2: because they're way more on duty. But when you imagine
Speaker 2: the location of someone's personal domicile, their house where they live,
Speaker 2: the address where one of these people lives, like the
Speaker 2: Prime Minister of Sweden's private address where you go home
Speaker 2: and try and sleep sometimes after doing a bunch of work,
Speaker 2: imagine that that location becomes at risk because not only
Speaker 2: is it information about physically where it is, what the
Speaker 2: address is so someone can just get there, you've also
Speaker 2: now got routes that security personnel take around that house, right,
Speaker 2: And that's where somebody who just has ill will but
Speaker 2: doesn't have a lot of planning. It's not going to
Speaker 2: be crazy helpful for This is only really helpful for
Speaker 2: the people that you know, imagine a serial killer that's
Speaker 2: extremely organized, somebody who is focused and is going to
Speaker 2: use that data for bad things. That's the actually dangerous
Speaker 2: person or group of people, and this is what helps them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is tasty, tasty stuff. It also, you know,
Speaker 3: it doesn't take a state sponsored hacker, It doesn't take
Speaker 3: any of that amazing secret in sa tech to gather
Speaker 3: this information. You just have to be determined and have
Speaker 3: the time and an Internet connection. That is the frightening part.
Speaker 3: Anybody with enough time to connect the dots could have
Speaker 3: arrived at similar conclusions as soon as the heat map hit,
Speaker 3: and probably well before that if they were active in
Speaker 3: if they were active on Strava. And that's why our pal,
Speaker 3: the kind of the hero of the story, Nathan Russer,
Speaker 3: moved so quickly to report this to the public. I
Speaker 3: think one thing that may be reassuring for us to
Speaker 3: share fellow conspiracy realists, especially folks on Strava. Right now,
Speaker 3: as of this moment, as of this recording Monday, October sixth.
Speaker 3: There have been no verified attacks that have been proven
Speaker 3: to have leveraged data from Strava or data whatever, Tomato tomatow,
Speaker 3: But it does seem there's a storm on the horizon
Speaker 3: because Strava is not unique. There are other like one
Speaker 3: of us was saying earlier, there are other things that
Speaker 3: track and share in much the same manner. Countless apps
Speaker 3: are taken your information to do similar stuff, and once
Speaker 3: they get big enough, economy of scale kicks in. You
Speaker 3: can make another world map. That's right. I aggregate all
Speaker 3: that stuff together.
Speaker 2: It's and then but then you see the state of
Speaker 2: the world in so many countries right now. Guys. I
Speaker 2: haven't been looking closely at France at all, but because
Speaker 2: of Lamond in this episode, I ended up just, oh, well,
Speaker 2: what's going on in France right now? Like politically and
Speaker 2: all that good stuff. And then you see, you know,
Speaker 2: another prime minister that was appointed for only a year
Speaker 2: just resigned, like literally I think today or the past
Speaker 2: couple of days. There's there's kind of chaos happening and
Speaker 2: changing of guard happening across the world, but in not
Speaker 2: normal ways that we would see in democracies right.
Speaker 3: Right, not the peaceful passage of power.
Speaker 2: It's happening all over the place. And then you just
Speaker 2: imagine this kind of information is out there, and it
Speaker 2: doesn't take long to see the motivations that someone might
Speaker 2: have to take act Like we've been describing today.
Speaker 3: Right, the barriers are much lower now you can get touched, folks.
Speaker 3: It's just true.
Speaker 2: It's scary, man, because it speaks to just a larger
Speaker 2: kind of state of chaos that we're entering.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, it's a storm on the horizon by all
Speaker 3: all metrics we can tell, and by now obviously in
Speaker 3: this brave new world, we should each carry a healthy skepticism,
Speaker 3: if not outright paranoia about apps in general, especially things
Speaker 3: linked to your mobile devices, those obscure terms and conditions
Speaker 3: about how your stuff gets recorded, stored, and shared. I
Speaker 3: know we're all fans of, you know, very specific ways
Speaker 3: of learning. We're fans of very specific apps as a result,
Speaker 3: and Noel, thank you again for hipping me to Dark
Speaker 3: Skies for a great primer on this of stuff on
Speaker 3: Strava in particular. In the larger issue, do check out
Speaker 3: Undercode Testing's article how Strava data leaks are endangering world
Speaker 3: leaders a cybersecurity wake up call. The issue is real.
Speaker 3: I mean, these things are so convenient, that's true. But
Speaker 3: I think we can argue in this case the convenience
Speaker 3: itself is becoming the conspiracy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, But I guess just to bring up what
Speaker 4: I mentioned earlier about like this is not have we
Speaker 4: seen a market decrease in subscribers to the service as
Speaker 4: a result of this news.
Speaker 3: I don't think so. No. Similar to the hit they
Speaker 3: took with the move to a subscription model, they encountered
Speaker 3: a dip, but it's still like it's similar to Facebook.
Speaker 3: People are just going to be sandboxed in. They're going
Speaker 3: to be using it. You're, as you said, you're a
Speaker 3: competitive biker. Maybe like I'm, I'm a competitive biker. I'm
Speaker 3: gearing up to really do some stuff. Then I need
Speaker 3: those stats. I need that context, and that's what people
Speaker 3: are doing well.
Speaker 4: And again I'm not maybe I am willfully putting on
Speaker 4: blinders to some of this stuff, But as soon as
Speaker 4: we get done recording this, I'm going to download that.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm into it, I think, and I don't
Speaker 4: necessarily see a willful effort to like defraud their users.
Speaker 4: I think what we're talking about is a bigger picture
Speaker 4: issue with tracking, a bigger picture issue with what this
Speaker 4: stuff can be.
Speaker 3: Used for by these bad actors.
Speaker 4: Yes, by the way, yeah, whoa, Well they can become buddies.
Speaker 3: Is that a thing? Are you? Are you Strava buddies?
Speaker 2: You should be? Can I tell you this, guys, I've
Speaker 2: never once turned on the fitness tracking on my phone occasion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: Location tracking, yes, one hundred percent. But I've never once
Speaker 2: turned the other stuff on. But there was a time
Speaker 2: when I would turn off location services unless I absolutely
Speaker 2: needed it, and like I was gonna take use Google
Speaker 2: Maps for something, right right, But I've stopped doing that
Speaker 2: now because.
Speaker 3: It hasn't it yeah, the.
Speaker 2: Way that things require it now. So then it just
Speaker 2: made me feel so complacent about like, fine, I'll freaking
Speaker 2: leave it on. Yeah, Like that is the thing that
Speaker 2: is really scary.
Speaker 3: It's also Yeah, the strangest breaches of privacy or the
Speaker 3: strangest things in general become normalized so quickly. That's an
Speaker 3: amazing thing about humanity. It's also a very frightening thing
Speaker 3: about the human experiment, and we have to remember it
Speaker 3: will become increasingly inconvenient to hold the line on your
Speaker 3: personal information. And I know we're all very we all
Speaker 3: have principles about that us listening along right now too.
Speaker 3: But there's a prime movement to erod that sense of
Speaker 3: privacy in personhood. That's what's happening. They can convenience is
Speaker 3: the conspiracy. That's the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: You can find us on the iHeartRadio app. By the way,
Speaker 3: promise trick you that much. Terms and conditions apply. We
Speaker 3: can't wait to hear your thoughts, folks. Thanks so much
Speaker 3: for tuning in. Thanks as always to our super producer,
Speaker 3: the real star of the show, Dylan, the Tennessee pal
Speaker 3: Fake and Dylan. Before we before we throw to some CTAs,
Speaker 3: how do we do man?
Speaker 7: Excellent, excellent job. I've had some experience with Strava.
Speaker 5: Oh can you tell us?
Speaker 7: I was using it for biking for a while. The
Speaker 7: thing that got me should have been the privacy concerns,
Speaker 7: but it was when they made their feed non chronological.
Speaker 3: Got it the algorithm?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I wanted to see the most interesting stuff first.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, dude, you know what got me about Strava.
Speaker 2: It is recently I don't know if you guys know this,
Speaker 2: but there's a company out there called Garmin, and back
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one they gave us this thing called
Speaker 2: a GPS you could use in your boats and your
Speaker 2: cars and everything else, and incredible.
Speaker 3: It saved us in the national radio quiet zone. That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, see a garment man. Well, Strava has come out
Speaker 2: and they are suing the pants off a garment because
Speaker 2: Garmin makes their own stuff, as we alluded to earlier,
Speaker 2: specifically their own hardware like a watch, so you're it's
Speaker 2: supposed to be able to do the same things. And
Speaker 2: Strava is saying, hey, you are patent infringing us and
Speaker 2: you are now sued.
Speaker 3: Oh no, that's a reach. That feels like you're shaking
Speaker 3: our stuff. Yeah, that's like walking into a sports game
Speaker 3: and seeing somebody else with a baseball cap and saying,
Speaker 3: you piece of crap. I'm the one who wears baseball hats.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna sue you. I mean, it is true, but
Speaker 3: you know, tech and patents are already such a sticky
Speaker 3: wicket and that might be a show for another day
Speaker 3: if you want to learn more about patent law out
Speaker 3: our surprisingly not boring series on Ridiculous History where we
Speaker 3: talk all about ips and patents and if you want
Speaker 3: to make our day, fellow conspiracy realist, we would love
Speaker 3: to hear your thoughts, especially Strava users and especially people
Speaker 3: who object to Strava. Find us online, call us on
Speaker 3: the phone. You can send us an email. You sure can.
Speaker 4: You can find ut the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we
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Speaker 4: gets crazy, on x FKA, Twitter and on YouTube with
Speaker 4: video content galore for your perusing enjoyment on Instagram and TikTok.
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