WEBVTT - TechStuff Tidbits: I Got Got 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.319 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:16.280 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:23.200 How the tech are you? So I got got by that? 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:27.880 I mean I regurgitated some tech news that I saw 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:30.960 without actually taking the steps to make sure there was 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:35.640 something substantial behind that tech news. And that's a failure 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:38.360 on my part. And it shows that critical thinking is 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.280 a skill that you have to actively practice. It's not 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:48.520 something that just magically happens. So what got me? Well, 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:52.080 recently in a tech News episode, I talked about how 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:57.600 the FBI and the FCC, both official US government agencies, 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:02.400 issued new warnings about using public charging ports for your 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:06.960 mobile devices, you know, ports in places like hotels and 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.920 airports and coffee shops, that kind of thing, and that 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:16.480 hackers could have potentially compromised those ports so that while 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:20.039 it appears that you're charging your phone or your tablet 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:25.679 or whatever, some nefarious criminal, probably wearing a hoodie, sitting 0:01:25.720 --> 0:01:29.000 in the dark someplace in front of a monochromatic computer 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.600 monitor that only can show green text, that person is 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.760 actively hijacking your phone and stealing all of your moneys 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:42.679 and stuff. In the parlance of cool security kids. This 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:48.320 practice is called juice jacking. That you have jacked the 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:54.640 charging station to spread malicious code. While this warning was recent, 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:59.520 there have been multiple incidents of authorities warning people against 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:02.760 using the these kinds of charging ports over the years. 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:06.160 Back in twenty nineteen, the District Attorney's Office of Los 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:11.399 Angeles County issued a similar advisory. Their warning red quote 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:17.400 travelers should avoid using public USB power charging stations in airports, hotels, 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:21.240 and other locations because they may contain dangerous malware end quote, 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.519 and the office went on to suggest that people use 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.200 AC power outlets and an adapter in order to charge 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:33.040 their devices and to avoid the possibility of someone compromising them. 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.120 And that wasn't the first such warning either. They go 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:41.280 back quite a way. Is because there were demonstrations as 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:45.960 far back as around twenty eleven twenty twelve at events 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:51.560 like Defcon that showed how a hacker could potentially compromise 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:56.320 a device using a malicious charging station. But here's the 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.040 reason I say that I got got. There are no 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:04.680 records of someone falling victim to juice jacking out in 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.720 the wild. There are no cases in which hackers have 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:13.080 taken over a public charging station, or created a fake 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.440 charging station that looks like the real thing, and then 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.480 use that to implant malware on devices in the general public. 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:25.799 Such a thing is technically possible, but it's tricky on 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.800 several levels. For one thing, a hacker would need physical 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.680 access to the area, and they would also need to 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:37.680 avoid notice while installing a malicious charging station. For stuff 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:41.200 that's built into things like tables and seating areas, I'm 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.080 thinking about like the long line of seats in an 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:48.560 airport waiting area, where you typically will have a little 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:52.240 station in between every couple of seats or so that's 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.440 hard to do. If you're in a high traffic environment 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.560 like an airport, it's tricky to get that access. It's 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:02.520 not impossible with little social engineering. You might pose as 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.280 like an IT maintenance person and you're there to repair 0:04:06.560 --> 0:04:11.680 or to upgrade a system, and maybe after a brief conversation, 0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:13.680 no one gives you much thought and you can go 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.760 about doing it. So it's not like it's impossible. You 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.680 could do it with a bit of effort. But that's 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:25.040 the first barrier, and there are other challenges as well. 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.800 Malware can spread via USB. That is true, like you 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:34.080 could connect two devices via USB and send malware from 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:39.600 one to the other. However, malware is not magically universal. 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.000 It's not like a skeleton key that works on every device. 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.960 This is one of those things that really gums up 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:52.200 the plot to Independence Day. Right Like in the movie 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:57.919 Independence Day, you have Jeff Goldbloom creating malware on a 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:03.000 Mac of all things, and then using that malware to 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.400 transfer over to the alien's computer systems to bring down 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:11.679 the alien defenses. Well, without knowing how the alien computer 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:16.159 systems work, and to build your own system that works 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:20.600 exactly that way, you can't do this. You cannot create 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:25.240 malware that just magically works to whatever hardware and operating 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:30.560 system environment it encounters. Malware is not that adaptable. Of course, 0:05:30.560 --> 0:05:33.200 you could argue, and I have heard this argument that 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:38.080 Mac computers are not actually the outpouring of work from Apple, 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:42.000 but in fact trace their lineage back to the crashed 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:46.720 Roswell alien ship, and that all computer systems were really 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.480 just built on alien technology. But then, how did you 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:52.960 figure out how the alien technology worked in the first place. 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.000 We're going down a rabbit hole. I don't need to 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:59.600 the point being that malware does not magically adapt to 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:03.440 its environment. It needs to be designed for that environment. 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:06.479 So for malware to work, a hacker has to design 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.839 it for a particular operating system, and malicious code that 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.720 works on Windows machines generally won't work on say, Android 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:18.599 devices or iOS devices, So creating the back end that 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:23.280 is responsible for injecting malware into the targets is also 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.040 hard to do. Your average hacker isn't going to have 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:28.880 access to the tools to build something that is effective 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:33.640 against multiple platforms. Such things do exist, but they are 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:38.159 expensive to develop and to deploy. We're talking like stuff 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:43.680 that state backed hackers are getting paid tens of thousands 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.679 or hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to develop 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:50.359 and deploy. Your average hacker just doesn't have access to 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:54.680 this kind of stuff. Now, maybe the hackers really just thinking, oh, 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.040 most folks have an Android device, so I'm just going 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.120 to build something for that, and I'm not going to 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.400 worry about the IOA users. Or maybe they're thinking, my 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:06.520 preferred targets are iPhone users because they're known to use 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:09.800 their devices to do things like make purchases more frequently, 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.120 and they might target iOS devices and not worry about 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.080 the Android users, and so in other words, they're just 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:21.360 narrowing their pool of targets from the get go. That's possible, 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.200 but it gets more granular even than that, because a 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:29.080 lot of attacks aren't just operating systems specific. They are 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.880 hardware specific. For attacks that are really good at infiltrating 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:40.040 and converting target devices into hacker devices. So let's say 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:42.480 you have a Pixel phone and the person next to 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:45.200 you has a Samsung Galaxy phone, and you both charge 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:49.600 it into one of these compromised charging stations. Well, the 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.760 malware might work on them, but not on you, because 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.640 the malware needs to exploit specific quirks of the Galaxy 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:59.080 phone the hardware itself that the Pixel just doesn't have. 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.720 The can be really impressive in this case. There are 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:07.400 examples of security experts who have created devices that can 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:13.200 turn a particular model of phone into a hacker's plaything 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.760 in just seconds, but only under those specific parameters. It's 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:19.520 not like if you plugged it into a different phone 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:21.400 it would still work. No, it only works in that 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:26.000 one device, compromising or creating a public charging station in 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.280 the hopes that someone with that specific model of phone 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:32.760 plugs into that specific charging station. That's the sort of 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.360 gamble that's just not likely to pay off. But there's 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.560 even more technical challenges we need to talk about. Modern 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:44.000 smartphone operating systems will alert users to a requested file 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:46.840 transfer when you connect it to another device like a computer, 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.600 and users then have to acknowledge and allow that file 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.720 transfer to actually happen. So if you were to plug 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:57.240 your device into one of these hacker controlled charging stations 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:00.920 and their intent was to inject malware on your device, well, 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:04.240 your phone would essentially say, hey, bud, listen that thing 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:06.960 what you got me plugged into? It wants to send 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.680 a file your way? You cool? And you just choose Nah, 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:12.560 bra I ain't cool, and then boom, no malware gets 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.599 pushed to your device. Now could hackers figure out a 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:20.600 way to bypass this, Well, technically yes, there could be 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.720 a zero day vulnerability that no one but the hackers 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:27.679 know about. There are tools in the cybersecurity field that 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:30.040 do this sort of thing, but they typically require an 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:34.760 extended contact with the device, as ours technicup points out 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:38.520 the security tool gray Shift, which is designed to access 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:40.800 lock devices in order to pull data. It's the kind 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:45.640 of thing that law enforcement agencies would end up purchasing 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.960 and using. This tool can require up to three days 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.240 with a device in order to actually be able to 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.240 pull data from it. So unless you're posted up to 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.120 this charging station for several days in a row, you're 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.600 not likely to have that problem. Now, I will say 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.640 that this does add more complexity to the operation. It's 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.920 also really expensive. The gray Shift tool costs around thirty 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:12.360 grand to use, plus security updates from companies like Google 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.240 or Apple can shut down the methodology that gray Shift 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:18.320 uses to pull data in the first place, which means 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:21.199 it's back to the drawing board. This will only work 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.319 as long as the vulnerability exists, and if the vulnerability 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.960 is patched well, then that door is shut. Right. So, 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:31.560 as operations get more complex and expensive, the likelihood of 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:38.319 encountering them begins to approach zero. Okay, we're on the precipice, 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:40.560 so we're going to take a quick break. When we 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:44.400 come back, I will talk about why I say I 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:58.120 got got okay. Before the break, I said that as 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.120 the complexity and expense of an operation increases, the likelihood 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:05.480 that you're going to encounter it approaches zero. As it 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:08.079 turns out, zero is where we end up. At least 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.520 that's where we are when it comes to hijacked recharging 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:12.920 stations that are in the public there is a total 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:17.160 lack of documented cases in which it has happened. Now, 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.920 this was an article that I used for This is 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.560 from Ours Technica I mentioned earlier. It was written by 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.560 Dan Gooden. He went so far as to really look 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:28.640 into this rather than do what I did, which was 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.319 just repeat an advisory without looking into it further. So 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.440 Gooden did the right thing. Then I screwed up. And 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.760 when we look back at that twenty nineteen advisory that 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.480 was issued in Los Angeles, we see a similar issue. 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:46.680 So Gooden's talking about the more recent FBI and FCC 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.320 joint advisory. But if we look at the Los Angeles 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:52.760 one and you just do a quick search on it, well, 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:55.320 it brings up a Snopes page. It has been so 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:57.400 long since I've been on Snopes. I used to go 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.240 to that website all the time. And the Snopes judgment 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:05.280 comes down to this being a quote unquote mixture of 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:09.960 truth and falsehood. So the Snopes page mentions that tech 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.120 Crunch had previously reached out to the Los Angeles County's 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:18.120 chief prosecutor to ask about any cases involving juice jacking. 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:22.040 They said, well, how many instances have you encountered of 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.240 this practice, and the office said that they hadn't, They 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.720 had no documented cases. And so then tech Crunch said, so, 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.440 what's up with pushing out an advisory for something that 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.839 you don't even have evidence of happening, And they said, well, 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:40.079 it is really part of an awareness building campaign for security. 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:42.920 And again this gets back to the fact that it 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.400 is technically possible to do, and maybe a user would 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.960 even click through an acknowledgement of a filed transfer thinking 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:54.040 it was just another step toward charging, and thus allow 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.160 their phone to be compromised. But the fact remains there 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.199 still are no documented cases of juice jacking out there, 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.600 And when you think about the difficulty of the task 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:05.760 and the small number of successful hits that you're likely 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:08.199 to get as a hacker, you start to see why 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.360 it's not really a thing. It could be a thing, 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:14.760 but so far it's not. And let's take it from 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:17.360 the hacker point of view. Let's say that your goal 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:22.120 is to infect as many devices as possible for whatever reason. 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:26.319 Maybe you're trying to get your malware to a specific target, 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.680 but you don't have access to that target, so instead, 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:32.960 you're thinking, well, I'll just infect as many devices as 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:37.360 I can so that someone somewhere possibly passes this malware 0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.720 to my actual target. It's kind of a long shot, 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.200 sort of a long play strategy, but it's also something 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:46.920 that we have seen in the past, particularly with state 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.840 backed malware attacks. Stucksnet was technically this kind of approach, 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:57.320 although it was through secondary targets. We assume it was 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:01.560 the United States and Israel targeting some specific companies that 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:07.520 were supplying software to the Iranian nuclear power program, and 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.480 that because they could not access the nuclear program itself, 0:14:12.840 --> 0:14:18.120 US and Israel we assume targeted the suppliers for that 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:22.040 nuclear power program. That's all. They got the malware to 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:25.840 the targeted destination. So that is something that does happen. 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:29.720 But more likely the hacker's motive is just to infect 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.120 devices in order to harvest data or perhaps get access 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.960 to stuff like bank account information and that kind of thing. 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.360 So how do you go about doing this if you're 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:41.760 the hacker, Well, one thing you could do is run 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:47.120 a really broad phishing campaign. You're casting a really wide net. 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:49.840 This approach requires a little work on the back end, 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:53.600 but not a whole bunch it's relatively light work compared 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:56.800 to other methods, and it can touch a large number 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.200 of people. Like you can't really predict who's going to 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:04.320 see it necessarily, but you can target millions if you want, 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:07.360 and all the people who encounter the effort, maybe only 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:09.560 a few are likely to fall for it, but still, 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.480 if your attack is seen by tens of millions of 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.200 people and you get just a couple of percentage points 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.160 worth of victims out of it, that's still a lot 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.120 of victims. Another thing that you could do is you 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:26.400 might set up at a public space and either compromise 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.280 the local public Wi Fi or you create a hot 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.520 spot of your own and you pose as public WiFi. Now, 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.880 all the wireless traffic going through your hotspot is yours 0:15:37.880 --> 0:15:40.640 for the sniffing, and you don't have to tamper with 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:44.040 any physical hardware in the area to do it. I mean, 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.480 you could if you wanted to try and actually compromise 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:50.400 the physical routers and such of the space, But if 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.240 you wanted to just set up an alternative that looks official, 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.680 you don't even have to touch any of the infrastructure 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.840 that's already there. Now, the downside to this approach is 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:04.000 that you are very location based, so your pool of 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:07.000 targets is much smaller. But the good news is you're 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.760 likely to have a much higher percentage of hits within 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:14.240 that small pool, so your goal is still met. Both 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:19.000 of those methods are lower risk and higher reward than 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.720 hijacking a public charging station, and you don't have to 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:26.240 worry so much about the devices themselves giving you away 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.120 by alerting the user that something hinky is going on. 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:33.560 So from a return on investment perspective, it makes way 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.040 more sense to do a different approach than to rely 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:41.520 on a physical connection between your malware injection system and 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:46.880 target devices, unless, and this is a big exception, we're 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:52.080 talking about targeting a specific person or specific group. So 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:55.600 if you're the equivalent of James Bond, and it's your 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:57.840 job how to figure out to you know you're going 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.880 to compromise the phone that's belonging to, say, the ambassador 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.320 of fre Donia, that's a made up nation in the 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:07.600 Marx Brothers movie Duck Soup. Well, maybe you do install 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:11.000 some hardware in an attempt to access that device. Maybe 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:15.360 you do create some fake charging stations, you get access 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.720 to a space that the Ambassador of Fredonia is going 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:23.119 to be in and you put in these compromising devices 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:28.520 in that space. So if we're talking about a potentially 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:34.240 high value target like a politician or the CEO of 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:39.119 a prominent company, or maybe really high profile journalists or 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:43.639 something like that, well then they might encounter something that 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.960 is similar to a fake charging station, but most of 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:49.760 us won't because the trouble of making it and to 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.600 keep it up to date as devices get security updates 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.760 is just way too much work for way too little reward. 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.159 So it sounds like the threat of juice jacking is 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.879 similar to what we hear every year as Halloween rolls around, 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:04.800 or at least I used to hear it that parents 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:06.719 need to check every single piece of candy to make 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.159 sure some malicious person hasn't hidden poison or razor blades 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.520 in there. Now, in the case of poison, there's no 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.680 documented evidence of that ever happening, but there have actually 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.280 been a few cases of people putting pins or other 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.439 sharp objects into stuff like apples at Halloween, though it 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:23.560 often ends up turning out that it was a kid 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.560 doing it purposefully to drum up drama. So in other words, 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.560 the awareness campaign becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that convinces 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:32.639 people to do the thing that the warning is about. 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.879 So end result here, The type of attack mentioned in 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.720 the FBI and FCC warnings is technically possible, but it's 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:42.800 not practical. Not a wide deployment, and not as a 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:44.920 way to create a wide spectrum attack that's going to 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.680 hit a lot of targets. It's technically difficult to pull off. 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:51.720 It requires access to infrastructure that isn't necessarily easy to get. 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:56.040 As security patches go out, the methods become ineffective. It's 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.800 expensive to develop and deploy. So is it possible someone 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:01.720 could do this and that people could fall a victim 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:05.760 to it? Yeah, but so impractical that it's extremely unlikely 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.359 to happen. There are lots of other security threats that 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.840 are far more pressing, so it's kind of weird that 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.920 we even get these warnings. I'm actually not sure what's 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.600 driving the push for that unless there is some top secret, 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:21.359 highly classified document containing countless cases of juice jacking that 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:25.480 for some reason are not allowed to be acknowledged. That's 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:27.119 the only way I could figure that this is a 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:30.119 real problem. It doesn't look like it actually is, so 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.680 my apologies for being part of this machine of spreading 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:35.960 a message that really isn't that important. I should have 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:38.920 checked further into it. I could give you all excuses, 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.119 like how I'm the only person writing and researching this show, 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.720 but that's kind of lane. So instead, I'll just remind 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.720 you critical thinking is important, even when I forget to 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:51.320 do it myself. That's all. I hope you're all well, 0:19:51.680 --> 0:20:01.040 and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:05.680 is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.240 the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:10.240 your favorite shows.