Speaker 1: Welcome to the show, fellow conspiracy realist. We are returning
Speaker 1: to you with a very strange classic all the way
Speaker 1: from twenty eighteen, The story of Ghostnets.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is one of those long investigations that turned
Speaker 2: up with a really cool name for the bad guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. What if in the age of the Internet,
Speaker 1: you could create a new kind of army, something that
Speaker 1: used viruses and software viruses, malware, you know, the same
Speaker 1: way that other militaries use missiles and spies and bombs.
Speaker 1: You know. Looking at this back in from twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four from this vantage point, a lot of it is
Speaker 1: surprisingly prescient.
Speaker 2: It's weird how long ago twenty eighteen actually was. Stop
Speaker 2: when it comes to technological advancements and just where we
Speaker 2: find ourselves now, that was forever ago.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, yeah it was. However, we are airing this
Speaker 1: classic because we hope that you, like us, will find
Speaker 1: some strange things to appreciate from the vantage of the
Speaker 1: modern day. Because you're right, Matt, it was a long
Speaker 1: time ago.
Speaker 2: Yes, let's discover ghost net and ghost rat together right now.
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.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
Speaker 2: name is Nol.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined with our returning
Speaker 1: guest super producer, Casey Pegram. Most importantly, you are here
Speaker 1: that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is about war. What is it good for?
Speaker 1: A war that some people will tell you is just
Speaker 1: a few years in the distance.
Speaker 2: A ward that's already kind of happeningha.
Speaker 1: A war that other people will argue has already begun.
Speaker 1: Right here are the facts. So the state of war
Speaker 1: is changing in decades and centuries past. Most of us
Speaker 1: who are not hundreds of years have only seen this
Speaker 1: depicted in film right and photographs and such. In the
Speaker 1: past ages and past conflicts, there would be things like
Speaker 1: Napoleonic warfare. Napoleonic warfare is one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: the Civil War here in the US was such a
Speaker 1: bloody conflict. It's that thing where people line up in
Speaker 1: rows and they all hold guns or some kind of weapon,
Speaker 1: and then somebody in charge stands in the back and
Speaker 1: makes them all march toward each other and just continually
Speaker 1: shoot and see who's left standing at the end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a combination of the technology available to wage
Speaker 2: war and the rules that are set in place or
Speaker 2: agreed upon. Just as what is the correct thing to
Speaker 2: do in war?
Speaker 1: Right? Right? What is the ethical thing? The traditional thing?
Speaker 1: How much do we value the lives of the people
Speaker 1: we are sending to die? The answer in Napoleonic war
Speaker 1: is with value. So war has changed, as you said, Matt,
Speaker 1: and it is continually changing. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: wonderful things we've talked about on the show that come
Speaker 1: from war, usually advances in medical technology, but they're earned
Speaker 1: through horrific experiences, and there are lots of other non
Speaker 1: medical technological breakthroughs. Usually weaponize things that later have a
Speaker 1: civilian use.
Speaker 2: And that's everything from well, not really zippers, but kind
Speaker 2: of zippers, like clothing, really lots and lots of different
Speaker 2: types of and kinds of clothing, to what's something else, oh,
Speaker 2: velcrow food, yeah, food storage, just every upperware.
Speaker 1: Well, everything probably in some way descended.
Speaker 2: Comes from innovation from war because you have needs.
Speaker 1: So in this way, in just this relatively innocent, innovative way,
Speaker 1: one could argue that war is an economic necessity. The
Speaker 1: more realistic and way less inspiring ted talkie version of
Speaker 1: war's and economic necessity is the one that admits that
Speaker 1: despite all the ideological clap trap people are fed by
Speaker 1: their leaders, war is typically going to be about dominance
Speaker 1: and resource extraction, controlling the stage, the theater in which
Speaker 1: these blood drenched plays occur. And now we have moved
Speaker 1: past long past napoleonic warfare to what we would have
Speaker 1: considered modern warfare, which would be smaller groups of people
Speaker 1: or larger groups dividing into smaller groups, practicing things that
Speaker 1: were once seen as very dishonorable, like guerrilla tactics, you know, hide, shoot,
Speaker 1: avoid rents, and repeat and use information available to better
Speaker 1: target things. That's why we have now we live in
Speaker 1: a world of unmanned aerial vehicles that in theory are
Speaker 1: targeting specific threats and never getting it wrong, not once.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: A lot of the technology is very much one sided,
Speaker 2: which is why being at the top of the technology
Speaker 2: game is so important.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And it's hard to overstate that. And a
Speaker 1: lot of nations, even the very advanced nations, are working
Speaker 1: with these strangely uneven levels of sophistication computers in one
Speaker 1: part or in one department could be top notch, bleeding
Speaker 1: edge sci fi stuff that the public won't see for
Speaker 1: another ten to fifteen years. But the same country, maybe
Speaker 1: even in the same building, could have computers that are
Speaker 1: doing equally important tasks that are hopelessly outdated, like they're
Speaker 1: pre windows. They're on IBM, you know, like all the
Speaker 1: Hacker film screens in the nineties.
Speaker 2: The greens with the monocolored Yes, yeah, those do still exist,
Speaker 2: and Windows ninety five machines in highly important like water
Speaker 2: treatment plants, something as simple as that, even if it's
Speaker 2: not war.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't remember if which show this was on,
Speaker 1: but I think we did an episode before either here
Speaker 1: on car stuff about how distressingly easy it is to
Speaker 1: compromise infrastructure, like all the traffic If you were in
Speaker 1: the US and you're listening to this, unless you're in
Speaker 1: a very, very large city, the odds are that most
Speaker 1: of your traffic lights are controlled by a central thing,
Speaker 1: and you can you can hack into it, don't you're
Speaker 1: not telling you to.
Speaker 2: And the terminals are usually immediately there, next to right, So.
Speaker 1: You cannot just mess up one traffic light. You can
Speaker 1: mess up all of them.
Speaker 3: Did you ever see that episode of mcguiver where he
Speaker 3: like uses like a credit card and sticks it inside
Speaker 3: and you know, he opens up the traffic box and
Speaker 3: he like gets the lights to change on command by
Speaker 3: like you know, using some kind of plastic device to
Speaker 3: like break the circuit. I can't remember that what he did,
Speaker 3: it was very mcgivory, but yeah, he called he basically
Speaker 3: it was kind of messed up because he actually caused
Speaker 3: a pretty catastrophic looking pile up.
Speaker 4: And as like mcguiver, that's not cool.
Speaker 1: You don't kill mcguver y. Yeah, uh that's and that
Speaker 1: is for the record, the original mcguiver, the good one,
Speaker 1: hot take. Yeah, sure, fine, no regrets, but it's true
Speaker 1: where we have uneven progress as a species, especially in
Speaker 1: this field, and according to prominent think tanks like the
Speaker 1: Rand Corporation, this new face of war, we're evolving past
Speaker 1: guerrilla tactics, past just sending people out with good human
Speaker 1: intel or sigent signal intelligence.
Speaker 2: And it's less about who has the biggest gun.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, It's more about who has the best information.
Speaker 1: So all of the think tanks are more or less agreeing.
Speaker 1: In this post nuclear society, we have everybody still has nukes, right,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people you don't want to use them.
Speaker 1: That's political suicide. So now we're trying to find better
Speaker 1: ways to steal, bag or borrow information, and that leads
Speaker 1: us to something called strategic information warfare. This is the
Speaker 1: term the US eggheads prefer to use. It has another
Speaker 1: term in other places. It's one subgenre of what we
Speaker 1: would call asymmetrical warfare. If we're three different nations, sorry,
Speaker 1: if we're four different nations and we're in a conflict
Speaker 1: and one of us, Matt, let's say you're America and
Speaker 1: you have the world's most powerful navy.
Speaker 2: I most certainly do.
Speaker 1: There's no reason for US other countries to spend billions
Speaker 1: and billions and billions of dollars trying to catch up
Speaker 1: with you when we can just leapfrog you and build
Speaker 1: a battleship killer or an aircraft carrier killer, something that
Speaker 1: is less expensive to build and almost impossible for you
Speaker 1: to defend against.
Speaker 3: Matt, why are you always flexing that superior navy and air.
Speaker 2: Force because I can print dollars getting a little too.
Speaker 4: Big for them pants.
Speaker 2: You'll never know my black budgets.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's true. It's all true. And Matt, you know,
Speaker 1: those are great pants Matt.
Speaker 4: Has they have their American flag pants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Matt's taking awaaring his uncle Sam outfit just twenty
Speaker 1: four seven, which just has to weird out your kid.
Speaker 2: You know. He comes to love it and he calls
Speaker 2: me Sammy. He says, Sammy, what are we doing today?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, we're gonna find some natives and we're
Speaker 2: gonna take all their landowna their blankets with the plague. Oh,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I think I was roll playing a little
Speaker 2: too hard. Now, America there for it. America is great.
Speaker 1: Well, America is a country, and all countries have blood
Speaker 1: on their hands. I would challenge anybody. It's the name
Speaker 1: one that does not.
Speaker 4: That's actually my favorite song of the moment.
Speaker 1: It's called Country Blood, Country Blood by Toby Keith. That
Speaker 1: sounds great. Sounds Uh sounds great Toby Keith. Uh probably
Speaker 1: would fit oddly enough. This is soft track, but Toby
Speaker 1: Keith would fit in more into psyops, right, propaganda warfare.
Speaker 1: If you want to freak out people in foreign country,
Speaker 1: play your own music really loud, sounds very patriotic, and
Speaker 1: then play it for hours like the Barney so has
Speaker 1: often been used when law enforcement is making a siege
Speaker 1: of some kind of compound or commune anyway. So now
Speaker 1: we've got the basic logic, why bother to try to
Speaker 1: build a battleship when you can build something that kills
Speaker 1: a battleship, or you can build something that teaches you
Speaker 1: how to kill a battleship, and you can do it
Speaker 1: for a lot less money. This is why we get
Speaker 1: this is how we get to information warfare. This is
Speaker 1: why hacking is so important. Stealing information from another country
Speaker 1: or from another business, you know what, forget about Uncle Sam.
Speaker 1: Let's just say go to Northrop Grumming, figure out what
Speaker 1: they've got going on, right, And there are a million
Speaker 1: ways to do it.
Speaker 2: And I just would say hacking that that kind of
Speaker 2: tactic really is an underdog tactic because it's it requires
Speaker 2: that there is someone that has something that is worth stealing, right,
Speaker 2: And I completely see that logic, I understand it's it's God,
Speaker 2: I don't want to get into it too much, but
Speaker 2: the psychology of a suicide bombing or a kamakaze, right
Speaker 2: when you get into that idea of we do not
Speaker 2: have the technology to meet this group in warfare. Like
Speaker 2: you're saying, battleships and build battleships, but we can do
Speaker 2: something that destroys a battleship.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 2: And that's essentially what this is. We cannot build this thing,
Speaker 2: but we can take the information, and we can know
Speaker 2: what you're doing, and we can basically use some of
Speaker 2: the other guerrilla tactics and things because now we know
Speaker 2: what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's absolutely correct. And the US in particular is
Speaker 1: seen as very vulnerable to these sorts of hacking attempts
Speaker 1: because operational security is such a tough thing for the
Speaker 1: world's largest military to be. You know, it's it's like
Speaker 1: you could get ninety here on something, but that other
Speaker 1: ten percent is devilishly difficult. And this is where we
Speaker 1: see the emergence of things that have been called, often
Speaker 1: by various journalists pundits I think I even did it
Speaker 1: a few years back, have been called hacking armies, state
Speaker 1: sponsored well kind of kind of a state sponsored groups
Speaker 1: used to compromise the security of rival governments, obtain intelligence,
Speaker 1: and in a lot of cases target high value individuals
Speaker 1: such as officials in the military, key industries, or officials
Speaker 1: in political campaigns and so on. So for example, of
Speaker 1: that super producer Casey Pegram is a general and he
Speaker 1: has some kind of he has some kind of intimate
Speaker 1: knowledge of something, then he would be he would be
Speaker 1: a target worth looking as an individual. Good news is
Speaker 1: most people are not most people. He just it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: The primary thing is where you work and what your
Speaker 1: position is there, and maybe maybe maybe if you're related
Speaker 1: to somebody really important. And the thing is, most of
Speaker 1: these hacker armies operate in their home countries in a
Speaker 1: way that their sponsors, their patrons can claim plausible deniability
Speaker 1: if they're caught or suspected. So there was that Russian
Speaker 1: botnet army that influenced Western social media. The story broke
Speaker 1: in the wake of the previous presidential election. But this
Speaker 1: botnet army was active on things, on a lot of
Speaker 1: things for much longer, you know, like even on subreddits,
Speaker 1: which is weird, and definitely on YouTube, which is weird.
Speaker 1: And you have to wonder what their priorities are. But
Speaker 1: according to Russia, the actual Federated States of Russia, their
Speaker 1: official position is yet not with us. You know, if
Speaker 1: they were doing some pro Russia only pro Russia is
Speaker 1: personal feeling, not like we're not paying them to do it.
Speaker 1: It's just they just like us so much, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're doing it out of their own fields.
Speaker 1: And we have not paid it. And this is a
Speaker 1: very familiar line from Russia. It's oddly enough, it's one
Speaker 1: we don't see us too often on the US side,
Speaker 1: because the US has a really bad time as a
Speaker 1: really tough time getting the top notch hackers often.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, just.
Speaker 1: Because mainly because of the drug use policy for security clearance,
Speaker 1: which I think they've walked back. So maybe it's I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe the really good US hackers are just
Speaker 1: all completely secret and never commented on. Maybe the US
Speaker 1: has a group of patriotic hackers, but Russia is clearly
Speaker 1: playing paying these people, paying and playing paying to play
Speaker 1: these people. So also, thank you man. So now we
Speaker 1: have to ask about the other countries who has the
Speaker 1: most effective hacker army. Most people, most of us in
Speaker 1: the West, would just, like an a knee jerk reaction, say, well,
Speaker 1: it's the USA. Obviously, it's the USA. Partner. You know,
Speaker 1: we have the we've got the money, we've got the means,
Speaker 1: we've got the motives, America bald eagles, rock flag and eagle.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, but America hasn't been an underdog for
Speaker 2: a long time.
Speaker 1: And I think you raised a very important point regarding
Speaker 1: that perspective. So then maybe other people would say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's it's Russia. Clearly it's Russia. They would say, look,
Speaker 1: it's we know about the botnet. It's Russia. And then
Speaker 1: other people would say, no, no, you guys are being ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Pay attention. Look past the illusion of the single nation state.
Speaker 1: Look at international surveillance. These cooperatives like five Eyes, which
Speaker 1: is terrifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's that's a bunch of countries working together,
Speaker 2: combining forces and then saying, hey, we got all this land,
Speaker 2: and we got all this sea around the land. Let's
Speaker 2: just monitor.
Speaker 1: Everything, and let's do it in such a way that
Speaker 1: we're never actually technically breaking our own domestic laws.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just happened to share some information.
Speaker 1: It's brilliant. It is so immoral and brilliant.
Speaker 2: We've all got Gmail drafts open in accounts that we
Speaker 2: share right.
Speaker 1: Right, oh for portray us. So with all this stuff,
Speaker 1: the problem is people tend to overlook the role of
Speaker 1: China's digital superspies. And we want to be really careful
Speaker 1: in this episode because there's so much when the nationalism
Speaker 1: stuff comes into play, there's so many people fall in
Speaker 1: this slippery slope of racism, you know, and jingoism. And
Speaker 1: it's important to note that even the smallest countries are
Speaker 1: full of people with different viewpoints. Very very very rarely
Speaker 1: does an entire country move in lockstep and agree on something.
Speaker 1: You know, is there are a ton of people here
Speaker 1: in the US that completely don't think China is a threat,
Speaker 1: don't want some sort of war, and that problem that
Speaker 1: that variety of views is even larger in China. But
Speaker 1: they're also probably they're also probably the biggest culprit or
Speaker 1: biggest propagator of digital warfare today.
Speaker 2: And we've seen that already in when we were talking
Speaker 2: about infiltration and corporate infiltration and the use of getting
Speaker 2: into systems, taking intellectual property from other countries and then
Speaker 2: kind of building your own version of it. China. Again,
Speaker 2: it's hard to even speak about it, but groups in
Speaker 2: China have a very long history of doing.
Speaker 4: This that's almost like on the level of corporate Esponi and.
Speaker 2: Is corporate, but then if you imagine it we're just
Speaker 2: kind of moving it over a couple of steps to
Speaker 2: military espionage in this way.
Speaker 3: Especially since because, like you said at the top of
Speaker 3: the show, so much of the technology is created at
Speaker 3: the military level before it, you know, ends up in
Speaker 3: the public sphere.
Speaker 4: So it's just a way of like getting proprietary technology early.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And one of the main factors here is that China
Speaker 2: is home to one point four billion people. It's the
Speaker 2: most populous country, and they've been doing this for a long,
Speaker 2: long long time. They see it's right, and it's hard
Speaker 2: to even speak about it.
Speaker 1: Well, China is that they and the stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know of this episode.
Speaker 2: It is China's government.
Speaker 1: We could call it the PRC if that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that is that is good? The People's Republic
Speaker 2: of China. Yeah. Yes. And they also made something. They
Speaker 2: created a program, a group of networks and a network
Speaker 2: of people that is doing something and it's called.
Speaker 1: Ghost Net. Oh, GhostNet pretty good? Huh yeah, great, Dame.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: At least that's what it's called.
Speaker 3: Isn't that the the name of a Mission Impossible movie?
Speaker 3: Or is that that Ghost Nation?
Speaker 1: Ghost It's something?
Speaker 4: Rogue Nation?
Speaker 3: What was it called I thought ghost protocol, ghost protocol maybe,
Speaker 3: and there was also like a Tom Clancy video game
Speaker 3: called ghost Recon I believe nice.
Speaker 1: So we we have to we have to figure out
Speaker 1: what that is. Hey, god, it's impossible. Okay, it's ghost protocol,
Speaker 1: ghost protocol.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of that. Are you a fan of that?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: They're fun so much running, a lot of running and jumping,
Speaker 3: and you know, you can really tell that Cruz takes
Speaker 3: doing his own stunts very seriously. There's a lot of
Speaker 3: one takes, you know, not a lot of cutting, slicing
Speaker 3: and dicing.
Speaker 2: That's good stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's still not as dangerous as again, to return
Speaker 1: to our original tone, ghost net. But what is it?
Speaker 1: We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor. Here's
Speaker 1: where it gets crazy. So commercial fisher fishing people, members
Speaker 1: of the commercial fishing industry who listen to the show.
Speaker 1: It's a shout out to a very specific part of
Speaker 1: the demographic here.
Speaker 2: Deadly as catch.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, you all will be familiar with ghost net.
Speaker 1: From a different perspective, ghost net can mean one of
Speaker 1: two things in the world of commercial fishing. Ghost nets
Speaker 1: or ghost gear are lost or discarded fishing nets that
Speaker 1: float through the ocean, and every year they trap and
Speaker 1: kill millions and millions and millions of marine animals. It's
Speaker 1: a tragedy. The ocean ecosystem is collapsing. Your grandchildren may
Speaker 1: not be able to eat fish. But that's the story
Speaker 1: for another day.
Speaker 2: Which what are you gonna do? Go out there and
Speaker 2: capture all the nets?
Speaker 1: Yeah, good luck, good luck. You try to capture the net,
Speaker 1: but the net will capture you. Did it without making
Speaker 1: it a Soviet Russia joke, at least in the world
Speaker 1: of hacking, however. The ghost Net no Spaces is a
Speaker 1: sophisticated program operating in China designed to capture information from
Speaker 1: Ministries of Foreign Affairs, embassies, international organizations, high value target
Speaker 1: type individuals, news media institutions and NGOs non government organizations.
Speaker 2: Basically high value everything.
Speaker 1: So how do we find out about this?
Speaker 3: So ghost net was discovered when the office of Get This,
Speaker 3: the Dali Lama in Darmasala, India, contacted experts to investigate
Speaker 3: if this facility was being bugged, and a researcher at Cambridge,
Speaker 3: a guy named Ross Anderson and also Shashir not Garaga
Speaker 3: at the University of Illinois wrote this about this event.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 3: The Office of the Dalai Lama started to suspect it
Speaker 3: was under surveillance while setting up meetings between his Holiness.
Speaker 4: I wish people will call me his Holiness. That'd be awesome.
Speaker 4: What do you have to do to get that title?
Speaker 5: You have to be the Dali Lama or maybe a
Speaker 5: pope their holiness. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, his Holiness and
Speaker 5: foreign dignitaries. They were looking to surveil these meetings between
Speaker 5: His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and foreign dignitaries, so they
Speaker 5: sent an email invitation on behalf of the Dalai Lama
Speaker 5: to a foreign diplomat, but before anyone was able to
Speaker 5: follow up with a phone call, the diplomat's office was
Speaker 5: contacted by the Chinese government and Warren not to go
Speaker 5: ahead with the meeting.
Speaker 1: So this is important because it means one of two
Speaker 1: things happened. Either when the Office of the Dalai Lama
Speaker 1: sent that email, the government of China knew what was happening, right, yes, somehow,
Speaker 1: or when the embassy received the email, the government of
Speaker 1: China found it and knew what was happening.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they had one side of it. At least one.
Speaker 1: Side right, and so mister Nagaraja travels to Dharamsala. Then
Speaker 1: September of two thousand and eight, I believe and discovers
Speaker 1: that the Tibetan computer system had been breached from inside China.
Speaker 1: These computers contained details about the locations of refugees, Tibetan
Speaker 1: refugees and the location of schools that were possible targets
Speaker 1: for the Chinese. Assimilation is one way to say it,
Speaker 1: assimilation tactics, but also the repression of Tibetan culture. So
Speaker 1: they got hacked and then they launched into an investigation
Speaker 1: that took almost a year before they reached their conclusions.
Speaker 2: Yes, in two thousand and nine, it was a ten
Speaker 2: month investigation by the Monk Center for International Studies in Toronto,
Speaker 2: and they revealed that this thing, ghost net, not only
Speaker 2: taps into their emails, but it also turns them into
Speaker 2: giant listening devices.
Speaker 1: Like a like an Amazon Alexa, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh my god, or a Google Home or whatever
Speaker 2: else you've just got sitting in your living room like me.
Speaker 3: Wait, wait to like but like a reverse that thing, right,
Speaker 3: because it's not it's not assisting you, it's not personally
Speaker 3: assisting you. It's more personally helping itself to your information
Speaker 3: and passing it on to whoever has.
Speaker 1: Control, which which Alexa is doing as well.
Speaker 4: Right, we just have the illusion that we control it.
Speaker 1: Just don't get intimate around it. And here's a fun
Speaker 1: one for the one who has one of these devices
Speaker 1: in your house as you're listening to this podcast. Uh,
Speaker 1: I'll do the one for Alexis someone do the one
Speaker 1: for Google. Don't know what happens, hey, Alexa, tell us
Speaker 1: Amazon's official privacy policy. It's not gonna do it. No,
Speaker 1: there's no way to make it happen.
Speaker 4: Hey Google, when's Lady Gaga's birthday?
Speaker 1: I feel like that's way less important.
Speaker 2: That's you, Hey Google, erase all of your records? There
Speaker 2: you go.
Speaker 4: I just can't do that, you know, I can't do that?
Speaker 2: All right? Whatever?
Speaker 1: Google, Hey Alexa, play desposito.
Speaker 3: No, do you realize we've alienated literally everyone that's listening
Speaker 3: to us on any of the devices right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, that's part of the show. And I don't
Speaker 1: think it'll work if you're listening to it all one
Speaker 1: of those devices already.
Speaker 2: I don't. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: Write in and let us know and we hope that
Speaker 1: that harmless prank hasn't done anything. The only reason I
Speaker 1: bring it up is because those listening devices themselves are
Speaker 1: notoriously imperfect at answering questions. There's a wealth of research
Speaker 1: going on now to make these devices better at answering questions.
Speaker 1: But I maintained that there's some questions they are simply
Speaker 1: refusing to answer. Oh yes, such as privacy questions. What
Speaker 1: happens to those recordings if you do think you have
Speaker 1: erased them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the built in answers to a lot of those
Speaker 2: questions have changed, especially as they get as they become
Speaker 2: memes online. By the way, we just forgot to mention Siri,
Speaker 2: the one that's like sitting on the desk and looking
Speaker 2: at Siri right there, there's one in my pocket. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Casey's got one out there, pretty sure. Oh lord, yep.
Speaker 2: They're just in everybody's pocket now.
Speaker 1: So it's true we have become the eyes and ears
Speaker 1: that we feared our parents did. But the thing about
Speaker 1: this program, ghost Net, is that it did not even
Speaker 1: have the It did not even have the the pretense
Speaker 1: of control or privacy concerns. It didn't even have the
Speaker 1: theater of that that we see in Amazon and Google
Speaker 1: because there was there was that no need. People weren't
Speaker 1: supposed to know about this. The report stopped short of
Speaker 1: outright accusing the government of the PRC for creating this network,
Speaker 1: and instead they said everything, but they said the vast
Speaker 1: majority of these attacks originate from inside China. What they
Speaker 1: meant was, all of these attacks originate from inside China.
Speaker 2: But they could be independently operating. They just happened to
Speaker 2: be in China.
Speaker 1: Right right, right. Someone is very patriotic, and they say,
Speaker 1: you know what, not only am I a supremely talented
Speaker 1: computer whiz, but I'm also not just patriotic, but I'm
Speaker 1: plugged into the internal, often unstated policy goals of the
Speaker 1: Chinese military and government just because I like the country
Speaker 1: so much. So I'm just going to do this even
Speaker 1: though the government has come forward and said that it's
Speaker 1: a crime to go to jail due to breaking the
Speaker 1: laws of the country I love, and the country I
Speaker 1: love is going to put me into You know what
Speaker 1: I mean is it's a lot of that's a lot
Speaker 1: of It's just a lot in general to try to digest. Right,
Speaker 1: So again, we have to be fair. It's unclear whether
Speaker 1: they're independent or state sponsored. But that goes back to
Speaker 1: the idea of plausible deniability. And another thing that's important
Speaker 1: here too is that it's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: lower simmer because a lot of other countries like Russia,
Speaker 1: the US, Israel, or whatever, will have cyber attacks or
Speaker 1: digital attacks that are blatantly violent, targeting things and in
Speaker 1: many cases have a little bit of a little bit
Speaker 1: of a style on them, a little bit of swag,
Speaker 1: so that despite official deniability, it can be an open
Speaker 1: secret about who did this. Like stuck'snet, clearly Israel US
Speaker 1: right to cripple or at least mitigate the progress of
Speaker 1: the Iranian nuclear program, Russia taking out various power grids
Speaker 1: and then saying, oh, no, it's very sad.
Speaker 2: That's weird. Well, yeah, a lot of times what at
Speaker 2: least I'm seeing, And please write in and correct me
Speaker 2: if I'm incorrect about this, Oh I will, Because with
Speaker 2: these kinds of cyber attacks and security threats, where the
Speaker 2: or originating or the area where an attack originates physically
Speaker 2: is harder. It's becoming harder and harder to understand or
Speaker 2: to verify, I guess, so you really have to look
Speaker 2: at motive, like you're saying, ben like who what power
Speaker 2: would want this to happen or want this area to
Speaker 2: be infected or you know, this sector in this military
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: And then is this some weird star trek four D
Speaker 1: level chess. It's interesting because one researcher said, this could
Speaker 1: be happening in China without the knowledge of any Chinese nationals.
Speaker 1: We can't forget that there are no clean nor ethical
Speaker 1: intelligence agencies. That's not how intelligence works. Instead, Okay, so
Speaker 1: Ronald Dibart, one of the researchers said, and I quote here,
Speaker 1: we were a bit careful about it, knowing the nuance
Speaker 1: of what happens in subterranean realms. Whoa you could tell
Speaker 1: this guys, yeah whatever. This could also well be the
Speaker 1: CIA or the Russians. It's a murky realm. We're lifting
Speaker 1: the lid on, right, And at first I was very
Speaker 1: skeptical about that, but it's a really good point, yes,
Speaker 1: because if you wanted to make the government of China
Speaker 1: look bad, dysreputable, or terrible, then just send some of
Speaker 1: your own dirty boys in there to do an operation.
Speaker 4: Gotta get them dirty boys on the scene.
Speaker 1: I know, I like that phrase. So The US has
Speaker 1: also repeatedly warned about China's increasing capabilities in the realm
Speaker 1: of electronic warfare. But we're I don't know, we're setting
Speaker 1: the context. We should probably walk everyone through how this happens,
Speaker 1: because right now, the way it happens might surprise you.
Speaker 1: It feels relatively simplistic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know what, let's take a word from
Speaker 2: our sponsor and then we'll go through the what an
Speaker 2: attack looks like. Okay, so the GhostNet is attempting to
Speaker 2: infect you. Here's what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: First, you get an email, Casey, can we get an
Speaker 1: email cube? But it's an email from someone you know.
Speaker 1: It's not like, what's a made up name?
Speaker 2: Uh, Lauren vogelbamb.
Speaker 1: That's a great example. Actually, Okay, let's say it is
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogela is someone you know. So you get this
Speaker 1: email from someone you know, maybe someone you work with,
Speaker 1: maybe a family member, but it's someone you trust, and
Speaker 1: most importantly, it's someone that you have had a previous,
Speaker 1: ongoing conversation with via these email addresses. And the email
Speaker 1: itself is not going to be something blatantly like a scam.
Speaker 1: It's actually going to be pretty pretty nuanced and sophisticated,
Speaker 1: so it wouldn't be an email from Lauren. By the way,
Speaker 1: for longtime listeners, you all you all know her from
Speaker 1: our previous episode on Diamonds. We'll probably have her on
Speaker 1: the show a little bit later as well. Longtime friend
Speaker 1: of our show, personal friend of all of us, host
Speaker 1: of Savor correct brain stuff. So maybe we receive an
Speaker 1: email from her and it says instead of like, hey, omg,
Speaker 1: lull click this crazy link, it says something like.
Speaker 2: Because that's pretty blatant.
Speaker 1: We've all seen those nouns, right, kitty emoji, right right,
Speaker 1: it says something like it says, suddenly, hey, Ben. Earlier
Speaker 1: last week, we were talking about, uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: were talking about the differences between types of camels, or
Speaker 1: between lamas and al pockets. And I'll think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I talked about that. I found this great interviewer. I
Speaker 1: found this great article about this, and I thought you
Speaker 1: would like to read it, like, oh man, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I want to learn more about lamas a pacas. I'm in, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll pacas whatever. I need to know these things. And
Speaker 1: then you click on a word documentary PDF that's there,
Speaker 1: and when it opens up, it is actually about the
Speaker 1: difference between lamas and our pockets.
Speaker 2: Ye, And it actually opens up with word or whatever
Speaker 2: in Adobe.
Speaker 1: And it looks legit and you read it and you
Speaker 1: think like, oh, what a great friend. Following up on that.
Speaker 4: This operates as expected. Nothing amiss here.
Speaker 1: Not at all. But if we could get a sound
Speaker 1: cue that indicates a pivotal shift in tone here.
Speaker 4: But that was good man.
Speaker 1: What's actually happening as you're reading this is that a
Speaker 1: virus is downloading very quickly into your computer. This virus,
Speaker 1: a trojan, often a trojan called ghost rats, will allow
Speaker 1: the hackers based in China, access to your camera, your microphone,
Speaker 1: access to screenshots, access to your files, and it will
Speaker 1: also be able to log keystrokes. That last part is
Speaker 1: incredibly important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, key logging. Let's just I think we glossed over
Speaker 2: it a little bit. Ben Ghost Rat G H zero
Speaker 2: S T R A T.
Speaker 3: I love that Forrest Whitaker movie Ghost Rat in the
Speaker 3: Way of the Samurai.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Jim Jarmush directed number.
Speaker 2: It was a little slow for me, but overall I
Speaker 2: enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: It's gonna say ghost Dog, Okay, I think there is
Speaker 3: a did the soundtrack though, and stuff that I want
Speaker 3: you to know.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so this this thing happens. You're learning about
Speaker 1: Loma's alpacas and then you are unwittingly becoming a an
Speaker 1: alexa for these people. You're like a node a serie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a node. And ghost Rat itself is interesting because
Speaker 1: it was very, very successful. We also should mention, Noel,
Speaker 1: I think you alluded to this a little bit earlier,
Speaker 1: that this occurs in the civilian world as well. Numerous voyeurs, hackers,
Speaker 1: people with a crush or something. We'll hack into a
Speaker 1: victim's webcam just to watch them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. We're talking about this on air off air,
Speaker 1: but not to steal nuclear secrets or something. What's different
Speaker 1: here with ghost Rat and with ghost net is a
Speaker 1: their names are way cooler and b Civilian webcams are
Speaker 1: not typically going to give away things like troop movement
Speaker 1: or the new design for a jet engine, or nuclear
Speaker 1: payloads and their locations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll just call those ghost creeps.
Speaker 1: Those are just ghost creeps. The Chinese government again officially
Speaker 1: denies any involvement with cyber Spine. Spokesman for the Chinese
Speaker 1: embassy in London in two thousand and nine, when this
Speaker 1: was first breaking news, said Beijing had also fallen victim
Speaker 1: to hackers and dismissed this report as part of the
Speaker 1: Dali Lama's media and propaganda campaign. So it was just
Speaker 1: a it was a frame job by the Dali Lama himself. Wow,
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's how he It wasn't the numerous
Speaker 1: allegations and proven instances of human rights abuses by the PRC.
Speaker 1: Note he said that he thought the best way to
Speaker 1: go at them would be a hacking accusation. Interesting, so
Speaker 1: they said, this is smoke and mirrors, this is nothing,
Speaker 1: pay no mind. But the problem is that a long
Speaker 1: long time before that, the Chinese government decided to make
Speaker 1: control of information one of them the main parts of
Speaker 1: the country's policy. In two thousand and three, at the
Speaker 1: tenth National People's Congress, the Chinese Army, which is controlled
Speaker 1: by the Party. Very important difference here, the Chinese Army
Speaker 1: announced the creation of information warfare units and a general
Speaker 1: at the time, Dai ching Ming, said internet attacks would
Speaker 1: always run in advance of any military operation to cripple enemies.
Speaker 1: Said that in two thousand and three, and then in
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine they're saying, we would never do
Speaker 1: anything like that. The Dali Lama is trying to get
Speaker 1: in your head. Yeah, Westerners.
Speaker 2: Well it's really interesting in two thousand and three that's announced.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to imagine how many full scale military conflicts
Speaker 2: China has engaged in up into this time, and really
Speaker 2: all I can think of is the South China Sea stuff,
Speaker 2: but it's not really full military engagements. No, where they've
Speaker 2: performed into internet attack in front of an actual military advance.
Speaker 1: Well, they just said military operation, and a military operation
Speaker 1: can also be a domestic operation or an operation on
Speaker 1: the border.
Speaker 2: So largely intelligency, it could be as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, so it doesn't have to be an out
Speaker 1: and out war, but it could easily be just like
Speaker 1: you're saying, a series of small conflicts in the South
Speaker 1: China Sea as they attempt to enlarge their maritime border
Speaker 1: or excuse me, get everybody else to agree with what
Speaker 1: they feel like their maritime border is that government feels.
Speaker 1: So it's strange because we're hearing conflicting reports from government
Speaker 1: officials depending on the situation. The Pentagon has been obsessed
Speaker 1: with this and quite uncomfortable with it. They conducted a
Speaker 1: number of investigations and one of the reports that they
Speaker 1: issued said that Chinese progress in this sphere is pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: They're scared, but they were impressed.
Speaker 2: And I said, China has made steady progress in recent
Speaker 2: years and developing offensive, nuclear, space, and cyber warfare capabilities,
Speaker 2: the only aspects of China's armed forces that today have
Speaker 2: the potential to be truly global.
Speaker 1: So what they're saying there is that right now the
Speaker 1: Chinese government, the Chinese military, the capacities that they have
Speaker 1: in terms of military hardware are are making them a
Speaker 1: regional power. Right in the economic sphere. They are truly
Speaker 1: a global power, but if it comes down to you know,
Speaker 1: guns and bombs and explosions, they can control a region,
Speaker 1: but they can't lock down a globe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they're focusing on nuclear, space and cyber which
Speaker 2: are the three things that can reach pretty much anywhere
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 1: They also are are building out a bluewater navy, yeah,
Speaker 1: which is I think we talked about this in the past.
Speaker 1: So there are not to get two in the weeds
Speaker 1: with it, but there are three ways to rate the
Speaker 1: navy of a country. The first is brownwater. Brownwater navy
Speaker 1: is mainly at the coast. The second is greenwater. The
Speaker 1: greenwater Navy can project force to other closer areas in
Speaker 1: the region. It can go across a sea or something
Speaker 1: like that. Right. A bluewater navy, which there are very few,
Speaker 1: is able to project force anywhere across the globe. The
Speaker 1: US is the biggest bluewater navy, which is why you
Speaker 1: hear about the US being involved in all sorts of
Speaker 1: maritime conflicts around the world. It's kind of where Britain
Speaker 1: was during its days of naval glories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, chances are chances and days of naval Yeah.
Speaker 4: No ideas of naval glory and naval gazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what it feels like, just.
Speaker 2: The idea that there could be numerous, let's call them,
Speaker 2: naval units deployed in anywhere in the world at any time,
Speaker 2: and there probably are because there are bases. There are
Speaker 2: naval bases throughout the world.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: We've got our stuff just parked and we've got the
Speaker 2: supercarriers essentially that are out there that can just be
Speaker 2: a base wherever you want it to be.
Speaker 1: Yes, the US has eleven supercarriers, which are exactly if
Speaker 1: you describe matt they're moving naval bases and now I
Speaker 1: think because of twenty eighteen, officially China only has one
Speaker 1: overseas logistics base. I think it's in Africa, and it
Speaker 1: does have an aircraft carrier, or it's building one. It's
Speaker 1: either building it or it's just built it. The point
Speaker 1: is that stuff takes a much longer time ye become
Speaker 1: to reach fruition. But this hacking stuff where all you
Speaker 1: need or all you need are a few vulnerabilities in
Speaker 1: one in one place and a few very very smart
Speaker 1: people within internet connection in another. So everybody else's research,
Speaker 1: all other government's research indicates this is the goal of China.
Speaker 1: If so, this is the stuff that the Chinese government
Speaker 1: doesn't want you to know because they maintain that this
Speaker 1: is not happening, depending on who they talk to. Because
Speaker 1: as we know, if you're a politician, you're making a
Speaker 1: speech to a domestic audience, it's very different from what
Speaker 1: you'll say to the United Nations most times, well.
Speaker 3: Totally, I mean, like a good example is with Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: who recently did a speech for the United Nations and
Speaker 3: caught some flak in the form of a little bit
Speaker 3: of a laughing at a statement that he made. That
Speaker 3: is not the kind of reception he would be even
Speaker 3: as like a kind of controversial president. Any president would
Speaker 3: be used to speaking in front of a more friendly
Speaker 3: domestic audience, let alone an audience of their base.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's usually why. One thing unusual about that
Speaker 1: speech I was alluding to is that he was he
Speaker 1: was speaking with the same talking points he would use
Speaker 1: for his domestic base. Yeah doesn't fly right, Yeah, which
Speaker 1: other which other presidents usually wouldn't do, regardless of what
Speaker 1: country they are representing. But this means that right now, technically,
Speaker 1: officially on the record is isually we cannot say the
Speaker 1: government of China is currently sponsoring a ton of ongoing
Speaker 1: attacks to compromise various businesses and countries.
Speaker 2: We can't even say that they did it in two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing, right, multiple attacks. Most of these attacks,
Speaker 1: especially ghost NETT, but also with these other the programs
Speaker 1: have been traced to an island in China called Hainan,
Speaker 1: and this island is home to a signals intelligence facility
Speaker 1: run by the government. Is also home to the third
Speaker 1: Technical Department of the People's Liberation Army. Which is their
Speaker 1: cyber one of their cyber warfare places. So it may
Speaker 1: not be sponsored by them. May maybe yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you could tell that. I don't believe it, that's my opinion.
Speaker 1: But it's certainly in the same neighborhood, so maybe it's
Speaker 1: someone who works there and is so patriotic that they're
Speaker 1: doing this on their free time somehow. And keep in
Speaker 1: mind that ghost Net happened ten years ago, has discovered
Speaker 1: ten years ago, So whatever is out there now is
Speaker 1: whatever the successors are, they're far beyond that, and they're
Speaker 1: probably far beyond most of the technology available to citizens
Speaker 1: here in the West. One of the servers was verified
Speaker 1: to be a Chinese government server, So for people who
Speaker 1: believe this PRC, that's a smoking gun. Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's just for a little bit of perspective. This
Speaker 2: is two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine when
Speaker 2: this is occurring, when computers across the globe and sensitive
Speaker 2: areas were turned into Amazon alexis. That occurred five years
Speaker 2: before the Amazon Alexa premiered. So so whoever is doing
Speaker 2: this was way ahead of the game, way way ahead
Speaker 2: of the game, and they.
Speaker 3: Figured out you think maybe some of the technology that
Speaker 3: goes into like these lists, these Alexas and these personal
Speaker 3: assistants may have had its origin and military technology.
Speaker 2: I didn't say that. I don't think like a bugging
Speaker 2: device was the reason companies wanted you to have a
Speaker 2: bugging device in your home. I don't think military applications
Speaker 2: of bugging devices had anything to do with voluntary bugging devices.
Speaker 3: Just so we're on the same page, I mean, it
Speaker 3: is just an extension of like stuff like Facebook, where
Speaker 3: we just you know, no one even needs to surveil
Speaker 3: us anymore because it is dumping all our information out
Speaker 3: into the interwebs, right, So why would it not be
Speaker 3: a logical next step that we would just actively and
Speaker 3: voluntarily install bugging devices in our own homes, you know,
Speaker 3: using our ingenious powers of free will, right right.
Speaker 1: And the spookiest thing of it all is, you know,
Speaker 1: to the point we just made, we don't know whatever's
Speaker 1: happening now, technologically speaking, in terms of surveillance, we might
Speaker 1: not know about it for another ten five ten years.
Speaker 1: And ghost Neet, as far as we know, has been
Speaker 1: responsible for a minimum of one two hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: five computer system attacks on embassies for ministries, government offices
Speaker 1: pretty much every exile center for the Dalai Lama in London, India,
Speaker 1: and New York City. It's only one of multiple similar
Speaker 1: operations running out of China. There are tons, and they
Speaker 1: all have really cool names.
Speaker 3: Just on the side take away from today's episode Ghost
Speaker 3: Neet just kind of spooky.
Speaker 1: Unlike other nations which tend to practice overt attacks, you know,
Speaker 1: crippling power grids, China's programs seem much more focused on
Speaker 1: just collecting sensitive information so that other parts of the
Speaker 1: military can act on that. That's so far at least,
Speaker 1: and odd mixed signals are coming. In twenty fifteen, then
Speaker 1: President Obama with President Xi Jinping, who will be president
Speaker 1: of China for a long long time now, to address
Speaker 1: a range of issues. And they talked about economic espionage.
Speaker 1: And when they talked about that, they said they reached
Speaker 1: an agreement. They said neither government, the PRC, nor the
Speaker 1: US will conduct or support cyber enabled theft of business
Speaker 1: secrets that would provide competitive advantage to their commercial sectors. Importantly, disturbingly,
Speaker 1: they did not agree to restrict government espionage because most
Speaker 1: countries are cool with that, or most countries won't come
Speaker 1: out against it. Because they all do it exactly.
Speaker 2: You can't be against something that you that everybody knows
Speaker 2: you're doing.
Speaker 1: Sure, you can against all kinds of stuff. And that's
Speaker 1: the thing, of course I would I would propose to
Speaker 1: you all and everyone listening, that all countries also support
Speaker 1: theft of business secrets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. It's just you can't. You're not
Speaker 2: going to put the rubber stamp of your country on it.
Speaker 2: You can. You've got a million different ways to obfuscate
Speaker 2: who's actually doing that.
Speaker 1: That's true. And I don't know this is more of
Speaker 1: a socio philosophical perspective here. But the reason I think
Speaker 1: all countries will also support or attempt to commit industrial
Speaker 1: LESBIONA is because I think it's increasingly misleading and a
Speaker 1: myth to pretend that business and government are separate. In
Speaker 1: many cases, it just doesn't make sense. I mean, look
Speaker 1: at Russian oligarchs for the most part, and the function
Speaker 1: of Russian governance. Look at the largest companies in the
Speaker 1: largest countries, and many times there's just so much bleedover
Speaker 1: from who controls what that While it's comforting to say
Speaker 1: that businesses and governments may be separate, while it's technically
Speaker 1: supposed to be the case in practice, it really isn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean you can donate as unlimited funds to
Speaker 2: a campaign, when you can get government contracts for just
Speaker 2: a number of military applications and other applications, when there's
Speaker 2: a revolving door between business and government, I totally feel you.
Speaker 1: And I'm saying it's I think you. I'm not even
Speaker 1: I'm not even specifically talking about the US so talking
Speaker 1: about well, I know global phenomenon, And.
Speaker 2: I guess what I'm just saying is when you can
Speaker 2: use the United States as an example like the one
Speaker 2: for in a lot of ways, is the leader or
Speaker 2: at least the main bully when we're doing it, then
Speaker 2: it seems like you probably do it, or it's happening
Speaker 2: everywhere else.
Speaker 1: And then the question is what to do next? Do
Speaker 1: you want to fight against it? Do you want to
Speaker 1: do you want to fight against it? Do you want
Speaker 1: to join the empire right? Or do we just think
Speaker 1: about changing your password? Run in a couple of virus checks.
Speaker 1: You'll probably be able to catch anything from two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine. You know, even even something like Norton Anti
Speaker 1: virus can find that. But what about the twenty eighteen stuff.
Speaker 2: You just gotta kind of hope, cover up your cover
Speaker 2: up your cameras. Yeah, as much as you can take
Speaker 2: out the mics, because there's really no way to stop
Speaker 2: that mic from getting turned on.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In case, yeah, you just have a white noise generator.
Speaker 2: It's like shitting on your monitor where the mic is.
Speaker 1: Well, we want to we want to hear what you think, folks. No,
Speaker 1: obviously we are not ourselves professional black nor white hat hackers,
Speaker 1: but we want to know if you believe there's propaganda
Speaker 1: involved here? Is the government of China really sponsoring these things?
Speaker 1: Are they just patriotic hackers? Is the West making it
Speaker 1: look worse than it is to justify future military action?
Speaker 2: What kind of programs is the West doing right now
Speaker 2: to places like China? Do you have any info on that?
Speaker 2: Tell us and not? You can tell us anonymously, Yeah
Speaker 2: you can, you can.
Speaker 1: You cannot tell us anonymously Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'd love to. We'd love to hear from you. You can
Speaker 1: find us on Here's where it gets crazy, But you
Speaker 1: can contact us anonymously, at least anonymously to us are
Speaker 1: our long serving the hapless intern at the NSA we'll
Speaker 1: probably know everything about you.
Speaker 2: Shout out to you, Matt. Hopefully you've made it that far,
Speaker 2: and that's the end of this classic episode. If you
Speaker 2: have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
Speaker 2: get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
Speaker 2: One of the best is to give us a call.
Speaker 2: Our number is one eight three three STDWYTK. If you
Speaker 2: don't want to do that, you can send us a
Speaker 2: good old fashioned email.
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