August 19, 2025 • 51 mins
It's no secret that modern automobiles are incredibly convenient. Ben, Matt and Noel are big fans. Cars these days are almost like rolling computers, chock-full of GPS capabilities, infotainment systems, back-up cameras, security systems connected to the cloud and so on. But there's a potential dark side to all this convenience, and some oberservers are becoming increasingly concerned about what corporations and governments may do with this technology over the long term. In this oddly prescient Classic episode, the guys ask: Are we entering a world where Big Brother can brick your car the same way some tech companies can brick your gadgets?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realist friends and neighbors. You got two bends,
you get a Matt here, So shout out to our
guest super producer, Bend the sleeping dog Hacket. Matt. Remember
when you and I.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Were owners of cars that were old and awesome.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And analogue to a great degree. Oh man. So in
twenty twenty, amid the lockdown of the COVID nineteen pandemic,
we got increasingly suspicious, even more so about the surveillance state.
Car prices were going through the roof. That continues to
be the case, and cars themselves were changing. They were
(00:46):
not you know, the old beaters that you and I
grew up with. They were instead and are almost like
rolling computers.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Oh yeah, rolling super censor. It's crazy all the things
new vehicles can sense around them and have an awareness of,
and stop your car if you're getting too close, if
you're accelerating too fast towards a wall or another car.
Of the things that it can sense that you're doing
(01:17):
with your gas pedal and your steering wheel, where your
hands are, what your eyes are doing.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, facial recognition when and where you're going to or
from a place point.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
A to Z.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
The metadata about it. Your car may know more about
you than your partner. In twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Five, Well, my car, my car knows my fingerprint, Ben,
and it won't access my information unless I put my
fingerprint in. And it's not an expensive car, which scares me.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
It should, Yeah, it's It's an incredibly creepy intersection of
big brothers, surveillance and of technology that perhaps the public
doesn't understand even now. And in twenty twenty we asked ourselves,
are we entering a world where outside forces can control
(02:18):
not just monitor you, but control your actions through the
vehicle that you paid a ton of money for. A
world in which maybe a third party entity can brick
your car render it inoperable. Maybe you're driving the wrong
direction during a politically tense time or protest. Maybe you
(02:40):
have to have your fingerprint to start stuff. Oh my gosh,
this one I think made both of us get pretty
luddite pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yep, So hop in your Nissan, put this episode on,
and about three quarters of the way through you might
pull over to the side of the road and get out.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noah.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer, Paul Michigan control Decat most importantly, you
are here and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know coming to you live ish in the
midst of a global pandemic. We've been getting a We've
been getting a lot of feedback, a lot of responses
(03:52):
from our fellow listeners regarding our latest update on COVID nineteen.
We appreciate these check ins. We want to hear from
you as always. You specifically, you are the most important
part of this show's let's check in with each other. Noel, Matt, Paul,
(04:13):
how do you guys? Do it much the same?
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Pretty?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I love that you said live.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Ish it is.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
My mind immediately went too, Well, at least we're alive,
So that's maybe where the ish part comes in. Yeah,
but I don't know. I feel like I'm with you.
I feel all of your individual warmths emanating from my screen,
and honestly, I look forward to this. It kind of
is the thing that breaks up the monotony and feels
like real human contact.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Maybe this is the new way, but if it is,
I'm okay with that as well as we can hang out.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yes, things are going pretty well over here. My wife
recently had a quarantine birthday and we were able to
utilize the old hangout for that, which was really nice.
You know, just getting like you said, no old, to
see a face and hear a voice of someone familiar
is really comforting right now. But I would counter that
(05:06):
with I was forced, it was necessary for me to
take a trip physically to a grocery store just momentarily,
and the anxiety that I felt just walking near any
other person. It's pretty harrowing that I feel that personally,
(05:27):
and I you know, I'm assuming we all are feeling
that at this moment. So I would just say, connect
with whoever you can virtually right now.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
It's interesting, Like I mean, even like taking walks, like
I've been going to the park and trying to get
out and stuff, and I live near a park and
people are keeping their distance and being respectful, but there
is that weird feeling when you're passing a little too
close to somebody where you almost look at them suspiciously,
or you hold your breath even or like cross on
the other side of the street, some weird impulse that
I'm not used to feeling, and it's a very alien
(05:59):
thing for me. But I'm kind of having to get
used to it, which I don't want to get used to.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
It, don't.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I don't know how else to describe it.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Probably the last mode of transport that will remain open
for most people in the United States is going to
be the automobile. You know, like domestic flights will get
increasingly sparse, right I think Delta, for instance, has maybe
(06:29):
a ten percent demand for flights. Now. A lot of
international borders are closed for maritime and air traffic. But
here in the US, we still have the amazing capacity
to literally wake up and if you want drive across
(06:50):
an entire continent. It's tough to do it in a day,
but you can drive from sea to shining Sea. You
won't be stopped at a state border. You won't have to,
you know, apply to enter Maine, for instance, or California.
I mean, this country is so huge that many US residents,
the four of Us included, have never been to all
(07:13):
fifty states. This is amazing and unusual. The US is
a car culture and people are appreciating it more and more.
Now many of our fellow listeners have been, you know,
getting cabin fever and driving out to rural areas just
to get some vitamin D from sunshine, just to be
(07:35):
out and around nature. But today's question is will this
continue to be the case? The car, the opportunity afforded
to us by the automobile is a tremendous amount of freedom.
But will big brother get under your hood? Here are
(07:56):
the facts. Auto manufacturers are increasingly moving vehicles online. If
you buy a car that was made in Ballpark the
last eight years or so, you probably have any number
of neat electronic capabilities right like touch screens, onboard satellite navigation,
(08:18):
these customized bespoke updates to the music you like, the
podcast you listen to the news that some AI or
algorithm thinks you prefer. I know that two of us
recently bought vehicles. Noel, you bought a vehicle a while back.
I have one now. I finally had to say goodbye
to my Monte Carlo and I sat when I sat
(08:41):
in my current vehicle for the first time, I felt
like I was in the future. I could just touch
stuff and things happened. That's amazing. You know, I went
from not having like power windows to all of a
sudden having this thing that will you know, kind of
nanny state me if it thinks I'm backing up in
too aggressive a manner. I mean, what are you guys
(09:03):
experiences when you're driving?
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Well, first off, Ben, you're bearing the lead. What kind
of car did you get? I don't even think I
know about this.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I refuse to disclose. Now are you serious? I have
a Ford Escape, oddly ironic or perhaps apt as a
car name, and these are troubled times.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Plenty of room for your bug out bag too, in
the back of a Ford Escape.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Love that.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I have a Honda Fit, which is, you know, a
little less roomy than an Escape, but still has a
nice little hatchback and plenty of room for all my
dirty laundry and empty gym bag, which I have pledged
to turn into a bug out bag after that episode,
I'm going to take our own advice. But yeah, it's
the first time I ever had a backup camera, first
(09:49):
time I ever had a car that was very digitally driven.
For sure, no question about it, and it is an adjustment.
It's convenient. But as we get into this topic today,
we're going to see that there are some potential and
various possibilities that can go along with that.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Is this is an idea that that you thought up first, Matt,
I mean, not the idea of digitally connecting cars, but
you raised the issue that this is a growing concern
for a lot of people. It's a convenience, but it's
also a concern. You know, anybody who has a web
connected car is encountering all these NATO digital capabilities. But
(10:32):
we're also seeing the capability to limit the performance of
a vehicle, such as engine governance. Right, that's an old technology.
For instance, people in the US and Latin America undoubtedly
know the Bluebird school buses. You guys know the big
yellow honkers that for some reason still don't have seat belts.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I was about, it's always blown my mind.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
How is that? Okay, the driver has a seat belt,
which I think is weirdly unfair and not reassuring. But
those engines have governor switches on them, meaning they can't
while the engine itself can power the vehicle to go
at a pretty high rate of speed, there are safeguards
(11:18):
put in to prevent it from reaching that speed, and
you can engineer via software limits on your engine's performance if,
for instance, you don't want your vehicle to go over
eighty miles per hour, for instance, if you want to
(11:38):
keep it at a certain speed for let's say economical
concerns or safety concerns. The FOURD escape that I have,
for example, has something called my key technology, And when
you have this limit programmed in, depending on which key
you use, the touch screen right when you get around
(12:01):
seventy nine miles an hour, the touch screen will pop
up and it'll say your speed is limited by the
my key. In an ideal world, this helps parents keep
their kids from hot rodden around over the speed limit
and straight into a fender bender. It also helps owners
of fleets manage their individual vehicles, from truck companies to
(12:23):
rental empires like Hurtz or something. Again. In an ideal world,
remote control over your vehicle makes the world a safer place.
But we do not live in an ideal world.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
No we don't. Let's imagine. You know it's not going
to be too much of a stretch. Let's imagine if
you would a world in which government or even worse,
a private entity can render your vehicle useless, absolutely brick
that thing the way a company might do that to
your phone, or you know, rendering your phone obsolete. More
(13:00):
and more updates come out the idea of planned obsolescence,
or in the same way as your video game console
or PC, you might start to feel a little long
in the tooth as a digital updates begin to outpace
the hardware.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well yeah, and also imagine a world where a tiny
little device connected up to your vehicle, no matter how
old it is, to your onboard diagnostics port, could track
all of your movements, everywhere you've ever been, where you
are right now, how fast you're going. Imagine that some
(13:41):
tiny little device could do that, installed by anyone, or
a very similar device that is just magnetically placed underneath
your vehicle by whoever, can see exactly where you are,
where you're going at any time, when you're going home,
when you're going to work, all of your routes that
you generally take. Imagine that you'd only have to spend
(14:04):
forty dollars to someone would only have to spend forty
dollars to know exactly what you do every day, and
then you don't even need that device anymore because of
the technology we're discussing here, it's already inside your vehicle
if you have a newer one. The big question here
is how are we going to balance the freedoms that
(14:27):
we hold so dear, like we said at the top,
being able to just drive wherever you want, whenever you want,
because you are a person who has freedom. How are
we going to balance that with all of these new
technologies and possible control mechanisms that are being developed and
are already in place.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Ask yourself, how long can you drive? When and where
you wish? We'll tackle that question after a word from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy, the increasing interconnectivity.
(15:10):
Dare i say the hyper interconnectivity of vehicles to the
web brings a ton of convenience and it brings a
load of worrying potential. This is a phenomenon that was
once hailed as the Internet of Things. Our good pal
Jonathan Strickland covered this in depth on tech Stuff if
you would like to learn more about it. But we
(15:34):
know again, we say this every time we run into
a developing technology episode. We know again that technology always
outpaces legislation. Currently, governments around the world are scrambling to
catch up with the things that your software in your
(15:54):
car can do. In fact, these concerns have already reached
the highest court in the United States back in January
of twenty thirteen. Think about that. Seven years ago, the
Supreme Court weighed in on GPS tracking of vehicles in
a case called the United States versus Jones. What happened there?
(16:16):
What was the gist?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Well, let's jump in really quickly and just talk about
those GPS devices. So a single, tiny little GPS device.
There are so many of them out there on the
market for their consumer level grade. Again, they're fairly cheap,
they're extremely effective. It's a tiny little device, generally with
(16:38):
a magnet on the bottom. It goes or is placed
most commonly underneath the chassis or on the bottom of
the chassis of a vehicle, the metal parts underneath, and
it's placed there in many cases by a private investigator
or by a law enforcement officer. It will be placed
(16:59):
to track a person of interest, whether it's in an
infidelity case or you know, tracking perhaps a narcotics someone
who is assumed to be within the narcotics trade. For
any number of reasons. You place this device underneath a vehicle,
and then that device is connected up through the same
(17:22):
thing that your cell phone uses, the same networks that
your cell phone uses to connect everything, and through the
GPS system, and it will tell that whoever is tracking
that vehicle exactly where it is, where it's going, where
it's been. It just knows everything about that vehicle. Now,
(17:42):
when there's this case that we're about to discuss, has
to do with what happens when someone finds a GPS
tracker on their vehicle, their personal vehicle.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Right right exactly. There are a couple of different ways
that these things can work. There are real time updaters,
and then there are also updaters that just log transport.
And the tricky thing about those is that the person
using that GPS device has if it's not real time updating,
(18:20):
they have to physically go and take the device back,
plug it into a system, and then download the information.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, but generally the ones that are used now, even
the cheapest ones, it just connects to an app on
a phone and it's updates are being sent continuously exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
The technology is there in this case. In the twenty
thirteen case of the United States versus Jones. Police placed
a GPS tracker on the car, on the chassis, like
you said, Matt, of someone that they suspected was selling cocaine.
They suspect did this person was selling cocaine because this
(19:03):
person was selling cocaine. You know, I'm not the chief Justice.
I'm not bound by the same rules of legality, so
we can just say it. They had probable cause, They
had reasonable suspicion, you know what I mean. They weren't
just walking around parking lots going I don't know that
Honda Civic looks like that spoiler is suspicious. Let's see
(19:24):
what that guy's getting into. The police had received a warrant.
They were legally allowed to do this, but they were
only allowed to do it under certain constraints, and they
exceeded those constraints. There were two constraints. First, they were
only allowed to monitor this vehicle for a specific length
(19:46):
of time, and secondly, they were only allowed to monitor
it for a particular geographic region. They went over the
limit on both of those. They exceeded the geography and
they exceeded the length of time. The federal attorney argued
that there is no expectation of privacy when you are
(20:06):
traveling on public roads. It's kind of like how you
have no right to tell somebody not to take a
photograph of you if you are in a crowded public space.
If you go to a park for a concert or
something like that, and someone on stage takes a picture
of the entire audience, then you do not have the
(20:28):
right because you are in a public space. You do
not have the right to pull that photograph. You have
no rights to it. However, the Supreme Court agreed with
the defense attorney because the defense attorney claimed this was
a violation of this client's Fourth Amendment right, and that
the Fourth Amendment again is the right against unlawful search
(20:51):
and seizure. So they're saying this was a violation of
personal privacy despite the fact that this vehicle was traveling
on public roads.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
That's crazy, right, That concept that there's no expectation of
privacy when traveling on public roads. I mean, I get it.
I think it's just the knowing that when you're inside
your vehicle. Noel, I don't know if you feel this
way you feel. I think this is just a psychological
thing that we've discussed before on this show you feel
(21:23):
very much that you are in this private space.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
Yeah, it's sort of an illusion of privacy, though, isn't it,
because it's exactly aren't the tinted windows even kind of illegal?
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Like, isn't that a thing past a certain tent level? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Past a certain So that's almost I mean again, I'm
not the two ideas are intertwined. But you know, there
is an expectation that law enforcement should be able to
see into your vehicle to make sure you're not doing
anything illegal right while you're driving, And so that expectation
of privacy is absolutely an illusion for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So here's another thing I want to bring up with
you guys. Okay, So, in another case that happened pretty recently.
This has to do with property rights. A man who
was suspected of selling methamphetamines also had a GPS placed
on his vehicle. And in this case, the man discovered
(22:20):
it after ten days or somewhere around ten days, and
the you know, the police officers are getting all the
information and tracking it, and then all of a sudden,
the trackers, the GPS stops putting out data. They suspect
that the man has taken you know, removed it from
his vehicle, discovered it and removed it. So they then
(22:43):
get a warrant, another warrant because they had to get
one in the first place, right to put the GPS
on his vehicle. They got another warrant to search I
think it was his parents' house and the surrounding areas,
like some of the surrounding areas to find the GPS
because they were charging him with theft of property. No,
(23:05):
if you found of our ben if you found a
GPS device on your vehicle, would you remove it or
would you just leave it there?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
No, you put it on another vehicle. That's obvious.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
There's a there's a this comes up a lot in
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saw that they call them Lowjacks.
I think that's actually a brand, but I think it's
sort of like one of the most popular like car
tracker things that are used for theft prevention that like
individuals can buy or there may even come stock in
certain cars. But they call it that a lot in
the show. And I wonder if it's sort of like
(23:37):
calling a you know, a mimiograph machine, a xerox, or
like you know, calling a soda coke or something like that.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
But internet Internet search of Google exactly, but Jack was
first first, Uh, commercially available.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
That's that that makes sense exactly. So no to your
to your question. It reminds me of getting your car booted.
For example, Let's say you get your car booted.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
To me, that is, you know, unjust seizure of my
property because it's usually by a private entity rather than
some law enforcementiency. And then they put a sticker on
your window that you know, tells you the number of
calls they can come back, and then you can pay
them and they take it off. On the flip side,
if I found someone had placed something on my vehicle,
(24:22):
I you know, feel like it was be my right
to remove it, in the same way it'd be my
right to remove a boot if I was so inclined.
But the similarly, they would probably charge you with destruction
of property if you remove one of those.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's correct. And we have to we
have to note here this will be important later in
this episode. We have to note that both cases Matt,
the case you brought up and the Supreme Court case
mentioned earlier, both of them focus on crime. They don't
focus on, for instance, a private investigator that's where we
(24:57):
get to a gray area, right we They don't focus
on maybe a jilted lover or something like that. They
don't focus on a helicopter parent. But all of those
scenarios come into play. Currently, if you're a driver and
you have concerns about this, first off, you're absolutely right,
(25:22):
you're not crazy to be concerned about it. But the
law here in the US seems to be trending toward
your side for now, but there's still serious questions. One
of the first ones would be what about GPS vehicle
tracking confined to a specific group like a company fleet.
(25:44):
Currently there are no federal laws and no state laws
that expressly forbid the use of GPS vehicle tracking for
commercial purposes. So you drive a Cisco truck and it's
the company truck, then they can they can track you.
They can do whatever they want. Because it's not your
(26:05):
it's not your vehicle you drive like you rent a
car for instance, then your car or the car you're
driving can absolutely be monitored, and there's a very valid
argument that it should because it's someone else's property. Think
about it like a work laptop or a work cell phone.
Your employer can both monitor your usage of that device,
(26:30):
and if they desire, they can flip a switch and
restrict your capabilities. Like if you if you are using
a work phone and putting any private data on there,
it is It is simply naive to think that that
is somehow still your data. Your company, your big brother,
(26:51):
whatever your corporate overlord is. They have it. They legally
have it. Now.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Well, it's the same way of the expectation of privacy
and emails with work emails. I mean, you know it
would be a bad look. But if the powers that
be wished to do so, they could find out what
we discuss in our emails at work, couldn't they.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I hope so our puns are on fire. We are
good at those. And yeah, you're absolutely right. So why
should a vehicle logically be any different. It shouldn't. There's
no valid case that a company car should be any
different from a company laptop. But let's take it away
from that. Let's say it's not a vehicle that you're
(27:33):
using for work. Let's say it's not a vehicle you're renting.
Let's say you own a car, but you don't own
it outright, You, like million of other people in the world,
are paying off a car loan. Let's say here in
the US, you have the average monthly car payment just
right now, in twenty twenty, the average monthly car payment
(27:56):
is going to be three hundred and eighty one dollars
a month for a used car, recently a recent model
used car. It's going to be five hundred and thirty
dollars a month. If you, for some reason bought a
new car, Why did you do that? Why did you
buy a brand new car? That's sorry, let's cut past
my car stuff, ted talk, but please don't don't buy
(28:19):
a brand new car. What happens if you can't make
that payment, if you are three hundred and eighty one
or five hundred and thirty dollars short for a month,
what happens then? I mean, maybe you paid on time, right,
but there was some kind of grimlin on the wing
of the web that interfered, and whomever is in charge
of your loan, or whoever your lean holder is, they
(28:42):
don't see that payment in your system. What happens?
Speaker 4 (28:46):
It's a good question. I mean, you know, it's the
classic model of this is that they come and repoe it,
or they send someone to your home or your place
of business to repossess the car. But this would be
a much more quickly executable form of this, and it
could happen for a much less egregious infraction. It would
(29:08):
take a lot to get your car repote But like
you said, Ben, if you miss one payment, all of
a sudden, they flip a switch and master control and
you know, you try to start up your car, or
you use your what is it my key or whatever,
your keyless entry and nothing happens. You know, they literally
have put the kibosh on you driving your car because
(29:28):
of what could very well have been a clerical error.
Maybe you're stranded in the middle of nowhere, you know,
I mean, who knows. I mean I would hope there
would be recourse that you could reach out and sort
it all out. But yeah, that's absolutely possible.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Clunk clunk, wamp wamp. Nothing happens when you try, when
you try to start, even if you're in an emergency. Right,
imagine a message plays on your sound system, your cutty
touch screen pops up and you are informed that this
vehicle will not operate until payment is registered, and if
payment is not registered in X number of days, the
(30:01):
lean holder will take possession of your vehicle. Should it
be legal for that authority to automatically shut off your car? Like,
let's say you're escaping a disaster scenario. You know what
I mean, what if? What if this is a system
in place when the next hurricane hits Louisiana and someone
(30:22):
is trying like hell to get out of the way
of disaster, but because of three hundred and eighty one dollars,
they're stuck there and the water's rising. I mean, that's
an extreme example, but it's possible.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Oh absolutely, it is an extreme example, but it is
creepy to imagine it happening that way. The most common
way this occurs is that, let's say you've purchased a
vehicle from a smaller company or you know, a smaller
car lot somewhere that's probably used. Very often those vehicles
(30:59):
will have a hidden GPS tracker attached to that vehicle,
and very very commonly, it's what we were talking about before.
You're the same place where a lot of like if
you go get your emissions tested, you're onboard Diagnostics PORT
or OBD two. A lot of times that's where if
(31:21):
you're going to get emissions. Sometimes you'll get someone plugging
into that port, You're whoever is running your missions test
will plug into there. It gets all the information on
your vehicle of what's occurring. The most common thing that
will occur here is that the owner of that vehicle,
the car lot, the car used, car dealer, will have
(31:44):
something attached on that port and they will be able
to track your vehicle wherever it goes. In the case
that we're outlining here, you miss a payment, depending on
what the contract looks like that you signed, so if
you miss two payments, probably they would be able to
know exactly where your vehicle is at three am on
(32:04):
any given day, and a tow truck would be able
to pick it up without you having any idea that
it happened.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Until until you see that empty parking spot, right and yeah,
and it's gone. Yeah, And this is this is just
the beginning. We're starting with a microcosmic example. We're gonna
pause for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll
be back with the larger and perhaps more troubling implications.
(32:36):
And we're back, So let's go bigger. What about state
control of vehicles? As a matter of fact. Instead of
going bigger, let's go sci fi everybody, get your movie
voices on in a world, et cetera. Remember those old
scenes so common in TV and film where there's this
gung ho police officer or detective and they're chasing a
(32:59):
bad guy and they gotta catch up with the bad
guy and they see usually in a film, it's like
a slick, badass nineteen seventies muscle car, but the you know,
our Dudley do right is chasing the bad guy. And
then they see somebody roll up in a cool car
and they're like, get out, I'm comment deering the vehicle,
and they hop in and there's a montage and a
(33:21):
chase scene, and everything ends with a happy note and
they've caught the purp. Imagine a world where an authority
can hop into your car and then say the right
passcode to your car system and boom, it's off to
the races. You never enter the equation. They just used
your car for state business. Imagine where that's legal. Better yet,
(33:44):
imagine a world where a municipal, state, or federal authority
can say shut down all civilian vehicles in the case
of unrest, you know, like a riot, like a pandemic.
That's a little close to home. But like a pandemic,
like an natural disaster, or a protest for instance, or
(34:05):
maybe shut it down because there is a state sanctioned
violent activity. A central authority with the right kind of
networking could do this. And that's that's one of the
things about autonomous vehicle systems that I wish we were
talking about more often now. Autonomous vehicles will objectively save
(34:29):
lives if you have If you have a city where
every car is functioning in a network system, there are
going to be fewer deaths, there are going to be
fewer vehicular injuries, but there are also there are also
going to be tremendous opportunities for whomever big brother or
(34:49):
little brother is to just you know, shut down the city.
You don't have to shut down the whole city. If
there's a if there's a neighborhood that is maybe prot
testing something and you don't want media coverage and you
don't want people physically getting out of that neighborhood to say, hey,
they're killing us all because we're some you know, like
(35:10):
we have a religion or an ethnicity to which this
government or authority objects. Then you can just shut down
the cars and you can blockade the roads, you can
turn off traffic. We're not there yet, but the technology
is on the way. It's closer than you think, and
it always starts with the best of intentions.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I have a feeling we're going to learn about it
in like two months from now, a month from now,
after everybody's trying to get back to normal, and then
the pandemic gets worse and then they just shut off
all the cars. Sorry, it's a little.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Nikes, Matt, Yeah, sorry, Yeah. It makes me think of
like a positive implementation of this in like science fiction
is there's an anime show called Psychopaths that is about
like these cops that have these particular guns that will
not get they will not activate for lack of a
better term, unless they detect certain characteristics in a subject,
(36:09):
Like they won't allow you to, you know, use lethal
force on a subject unless they meet certain criteria. And
the gun can literally like look up the person's background,
and it's sort of like pre crime kind of like
in a minority report. But it's similar where like you know,
it's bricked, the gun's bricked unless you it gives it's
given the go ahead from HQ right to be used.
(36:31):
Similar with with cars, it could be used for positive stuff,
like maybe it could detect that someone's had too much
alcohol and the car won't function. Right, Maybe there's a
way that, like you know, would actually prevent people from
being their worst enemies, which people often do. They know
they shouldn't drive, but they're drunk and it makes them
feel like they're invincible, so they do stupid stuff. If
the car itself would not allow you to drive it,
(36:52):
that would be a positive use of this kind of technology.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Right, And it could potentially detect like a key code
or something that was invalid or didn't have a special
you know, secondary authentication process to it, so you could
prevent theft perhaps, I mean, there's there's there are possible
things there that could be good.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, well this is this is a funny story. Is
Larry David moment with my my old money Carlo. Now
you guys, you guys know this because it's made me
late to shows before. But my car had a malfunction
in the security system, so that every so often, not
(37:37):
every time, but every so often I would try to
start the car and it would be convinced I was
trying to steal it because the authentication didn't work, and
so I would have to do a reset of the system,
which was very easy to do, but it took about
ten minutes. So sometimes I would just be ten or
twelve minutes late because my car decided that I was
(38:00):
trying to commit grand theft auto yourself, Oh myself, this
isn't this is a known issue with Chevy's. But the
implications are right. You know, the technology has always been
a double edged sword. It's always been the darkness that
stares back at us. It's always been the gun that
(38:21):
fires at the person wielding the gun, you know what
I mean, ever since the days of fire right. It
can keep you warm, it can burn you. That is
the same thing with every single piece of technology humanity
has ever made. We just we don't make stuff that
cannot also be used for terrible things. And right now,
(38:43):
Big Brother, whether you want to call Big Brother a manufacturer,
a private software service, or a government, they won into
your vehicle and they're already inside, you know what I mean. Like,
how terrifying is it that Facebook can have OS and
software in a vehicle. I don't know if there's a
(39:04):
solid Facebook OS for a vehicle right now, but the
app alone is scary enough. And the initial arguments for
this are some of the ones we've outlined. The first argument,
of course, is valid, and it's let's keep people safe.
We want to keep an eye on you, not to
stop you, not to hinder you, but to help you.
And then there's the other idea, Hey, let's make things
(39:28):
uniquely enjoyable. Oh you're you're a fan of explosions in
the sky. Here's some other music you might like on
your drive. You know what I mean, in the sky?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
What such good driving music?
Speaker 1 (39:43):
That's true, It's true, it really is. Actually, then the
idea is, the third idea is somewhat aspirational. Let's build
a better system. We're not in your car because we
want to track your GPS because we want to monitor
and because we want to use that data to affect
your insurance premiums. Or we want to use that data
(40:06):
to figure out where and when we can stop traffic.
Let's use that data in aggregate to figure out where
we should build more lanes on a road system, or
where we should put a new stoplight. You know what
I mean, You're helping the greater good. That's the argument.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, Or you know, on the previous one to that,
like if you took those last two. Who's listening to
stuff they don't want you to know? And where?
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yes, that's true, that's true. Look, Pandora's jar is already unscrewed,
you know what I mean, The badger's out of the bag.
If there was a canary in the coal mine of this,
the canary is dead. The canary was asphyxiated long ago,
probably back in the late nineties. And the stuff they
(40:58):
don't want you to know is this. There was already
damning evidence that cars are hackable. And this evidence is
older than you think. This is not twenty twenty stuff.
This happened years ago.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
Yeah, a twenty fifteen remote hacking demo really shook up
the automotive industry. Major automakers responded by creating the Automotive
Information Sharing and Analysis Center AUTO ISACK ISAAC. Yeah, okay,
I'll go with ISAC. And this was designed or the
(41:32):
intent was to research and discuss best practices for securing
this stuff, for actually implementing cybersecurity and vehicles.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
So let's quickly, Ben, just go over this a little bit.
In that twenty fifteen example, I believe I can't remember
it was wired or who it was, but there was
a journalist that was there and experienced what it was
like to have his vehicle remotely controlled, fully remotely controlled.
(42:03):
Because the computer, the onboard computers are sophisticated enough at
this point to where with that you know, always on,
always connected technology, they were able that the hackers or
the demonstrators here were able to break. We're able to
(42:24):
turn on every electronic piece of equipment within the vehicle,
every component, to slow the car down, speed the car up,
to control the steering. Even it was really terrifying. The
only upside to the whole thing was that the demonstrators,
the hackers, it required them to have physical access to
(42:46):
the vehicle before they could implement that full control. In
twenty fifteen, right in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
In twenty fifteen, right, yeah, you're on the money man,
because the issue here is that that twenty fifteen car
was like many vehicles, effectively air gapped, meaning there must
have been some sort of physical interaction at the time
of the hack or before the hack was implemented. But
(43:15):
now it's twenty twenty, and it would be naive to
assume this technology and all the vulnerabilities it brings will
not be exploited. If you're listening to this now, whether
you love cars or you hate them, or you are
ambivalent to them, you don't care about their presence. You
(43:35):
need to be aware. Big brother, whatever big brother you
want to specify, is already in your new car. And
they are going to tell you that they are preventing
hackers from hurting you. And when they say that, they
are telling the truth. But like Emily Dickinson says, they're
telling the truth, but they're telling it slant because they
(43:56):
are also fully capable of doing everything. Those hackers would
do every single thing, they just haven't done it yet,
at least officially. And and that's that's where we are.
You know, we are. We are as a species, as drivers,
as car owners, and as pedestrians. We are entering a world. Uh.
(44:21):
We're entering a new normal. There's no turning back. This
is going to happen. It's already happening.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
You know, Elvis has left the building and uh and
now uh, now you have to wonder if this technology exists,
what will it be used for? And what what will
the motivations be, what will the fallout be, what will
the consequences be? We want to hear from you we
have a lot of we have a lot of truck
drivers in our audience. We have you know, a lot
(44:50):
of our fellow listeners are driving and deliveries. A lot
of us love road trips.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
We are a car culture.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
You know, as So, where do you think this is going?
What have you seen? Like? I would love to hear
if anybody has been affected by this already. If you're
driving for a fleet and maybe you're your administrator knew
some stuff about you that surprised you and they were like, oh, hey,
you know Jane or John Jorgensen. It's it's interesting, you
(45:20):
made way better time to Denver than you did last week.
And you're like, what, how did you know I was
in Denver last week? I wasn't driving my work truck.
I was driving my own car.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
So this is something I want to bring up right
here towards the end. If you are feeling just uneasy
about this whole concept of you know, someone whoever it is,
for any reason, watching where you go, what you do,
and all of that in your vehicle, I would say,
(45:52):
go go out to your car, your vehicle, whatever it is,
check that diagnostic port, look underneath your chassis, take a
little look anywhere on metal surfaces, underneath your vehicle, or
in compartments, because these these things are very tiny. Mm hmmm,
they can fit really anywhere where there's a check. The
wheel well, Yeah, wheel well is really a really good
(46:14):
place to check.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
The really clever one from Better Call Saw was it
was inside of a gas cap assembly. He had to
pop it off with us with a screwdriver, and before
he found it, he disassembles his entire car before having
an aha moment when he realizes it's inside of the
actual gas cap. So yeah, very very small, and you're
just gonna keep getting smaller, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
So yes, do that check that all of that stuff.
Don't disassemble your car, please. But again, like here's the
other thing. If you're so worried about that, maybe don't be.
Because if you are like almost every person who drives
a vehicle, you travel with a cellular phone of some kind,
(47:00):
and you are transmitting, you know, unless you're extremely careful,
and even if you are extremely careful, you're likely transmitting
every place you go, you know, how fast you're going,
how long you stay at those places. The data that
exists around that device is far more terrifying than the
ones that could be in your vehicle.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Well said, Well said. So that's that's our show for today.
But just because the episode ends doesn't mean the show ends.
We want to hear from you. If you're driving right
now and you are inspired to contact us, wait until
you're out of your car and find us. We're on
(47:42):
the internet. We're all over it. You can find us
on Facebook, you can find us on Instagram. You can
find us on Twitter, not just as a show, but
as individuals.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
If you would like to find me, you can do
so on Instagram. I am at how Now Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
And I am on Twitter at benbullan HSW. I am
on Instagram in a burst of creativity, calling myself at
Ben Bolin.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
You can find me on Instagram. I am Matt Frederick.
There's an e in there underscore, iHeart and Yeah. I
haven't posted in a long time, but maybe I'm gonna
start posting pictures of oh, I don't know, close up
shots of my backyard. That's pretty much it right now.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
I want to see that yellow submarine cut out and
it's full glory, Matt, oh yeah, with you posing behind it,
peeking through the little portholes. Can you do that for us.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Sure, but only if I can get Only if you
guys will give me permission to photoshop your faces in there,
because there are four holes, so I could get all
four of us in there.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
That'd be great. I get full permission. Ben.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Oh yeah, yeah, I think that chicken has flew the coop. Man.
You have many, many pictures of our faces. All I
would ask is a personal favor, is that you try
to find one where where I at least don't look sketchy.
I know that's that's a tall milkshake.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
All right, Okay, so if Matt gets one thousand new followers,
he will post this picture.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Please don't follow, make it.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
Happen one thousand.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Here's the one thousand and beyond. We also have a
like if you're a person who says, wow, guys, you
just talked about how scary the internet is, I'm terrified
to do that. I don't want to be on the internet.
We get it. You can contact us a different way.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
We have a phone number, that's right. It is one
eight three three std w y TK.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
We've been getting tons of amazing messages since all of
this stuff has been going down. Thank you to everyone
who has reached out. You know thinking about you, Wayne. Yes,
I have been getting your messages thinking about Ben. You
know you were mentioning truck drivers or fleet vehicle drivers.
(50:05):
We've been getting a ton of people writing in about that.
I'm going to share with you guys, one particular call
we got in from someone thinking hard about the broader
implications of our current situation and his like completely salient
(50:25):
arguments about why we could be in a very dangerous
position with regards to the United States and China. Just
so many great, great things coming in. Thank you to everyone.
Thank you, continue please.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
And if none of that quite bags your badgers, if
you hate phones, if you hate social media, never fear, friends,
fellow conspiracy realists, we have one way you can always
get at us every day of the year until we
get black bagged twenty four to seven, and that is this.
We have a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they don't
(51:23):
want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realist friends and neighbors. You got two bends,
you get a Matt here, So shout out to our
guest super producer, Bend the sleeping dog Hacket. Matt. Remember
when you and I.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Were owners of cars that were old and awesome.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And analogue to a great degree. Oh man. So in
twenty twenty, amid the lockdown of the COVID nineteen pandemic,
we got increasingly suspicious, even more so about the surveillance state.
Car prices were going through the roof. That continues to
be the case, and cars themselves were changing. They were
(00:46):
not you know, the old beaters that you and I
grew up with. They were instead and are almost like
rolling computers.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Oh yeah, rolling super censor. It's crazy all the things
new vehicles can sense around them and have an awareness of,
and stop your car if you're getting too close, if
you're accelerating too fast towards a wall or another car.
Of the things that it can sense that you're doing
(01:17):
with your gas pedal and your steering wheel, where your
hands are, what your eyes are doing.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, facial recognition when and where you're going to or
from a place point.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
A to Z.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
The metadata about it. Your car may know more about
you than your partner. In twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Five, Well, my car, my car knows my fingerprint, Ben,
and it won't access my information unless I put my
fingerprint in. And it's not an expensive car, which scares me.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
It should, Yeah, it's It's an incredibly creepy intersection of
big brothers, surveillance and of technology that perhaps the public
doesn't understand even now. And in twenty twenty we asked ourselves,
are we entering a world where outside forces can control
(02:18):
not just monitor you, but control your actions through the
vehicle that you paid a ton of money for. A
world in which maybe a third party entity can brick
your car render it inoperable. Maybe you're driving the wrong
direction during a politically tense time or protest. Maybe you
(02:40):
have to have your fingerprint to start stuff. Oh my gosh,
this one I think made both of us get pretty
luddite pretty quickly.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
Yep, So hop in your Nissan, put this episode on,
and about three quarters of the way through you might
pull over to the side of the road and get out.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noah.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer, Paul Michigan control Decat most importantly, you
are here and that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know coming to you live ish in the
midst of a global pandemic. We've been getting a We've
been getting a lot of feedback, a lot of responses
(03:52):
from our fellow listeners regarding our latest update on COVID nineteen.
We appreciate these check ins. We want to hear from
you as always. You specifically, you are the most important
part of this show's let's check in with each other. Noel, Matt, Paul,
(04:13):
how do you guys? Do it much the same?
Speaker 4 (04:16):
Pretty?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I love that you said live.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Ish it is.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
My mind immediately went too, Well, at least we're alive,
So that's maybe where the ish part comes in. Yeah,
but I don't know. I feel like I'm with you.
I feel all of your individual warmths emanating from my screen,
and honestly, I look forward to this. It kind of
is the thing that breaks up the monotony and feels
like real human contact.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Maybe this is the new way, but if it is,
I'm okay with that as well as we can hang out.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yes, things are going pretty well over here. My wife
recently had a quarantine birthday and we were able to
utilize the old hangout for that, which was really nice.
You know, just getting like you said, no old, to
see a face and hear a voice of someone familiar
is really comforting right now. But I would counter that
(05:06):
with I was forced, it was necessary for me to
take a trip physically to a grocery store just momentarily,
and the anxiety that I felt just walking near any
other person. It's pretty harrowing that I feel that personally,
(05:27):
and I you know, I'm assuming we all are feeling
that at this moment. So I would just say, connect
with whoever you can virtually right now.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
It's interesting, Like I mean, even like taking walks, like
I've been going to the park and trying to get
out and stuff, and I live near a park and
people are keeping their distance and being respectful, but there
is that weird feeling when you're passing a little too
close to somebody where you almost look at them suspiciously,
or you hold your breath even or like cross on
the other side of the street, some weird impulse that
I'm not used to feeling, and it's a very alien
(05:59):
thing for me. But I'm kind of having to get
used to it, which I don't want to get used to.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
It, don't.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I don't know how else to describe it.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Probably the last mode of transport that will remain open
for most people in the United States is going to
be the automobile. You know, like domestic flights will get
increasingly sparse, right I think Delta, for instance, has maybe
(06:29):
a ten percent demand for flights. Now. A lot of
international borders are closed for maritime and air traffic. But
here in the US, we still have the amazing capacity
to literally wake up and if you want drive across
(06:50):
an entire continent. It's tough to do it in a day,
but you can drive from sea to shining Sea. You
won't be stopped at a state border. You won't have to,
you know, apply to enter Maine, for instance, or California.
I mean, this country is so huge that many US residents,
the four of Us included, have never been to all
(07:13):
fifty states. This is amazing and unusual. The US is
a car culture and people are appreciating it more and more.
Now many of our fellow listeners have been, you know,
getting cabin fever and driving out to rural areas just
to get some vitamin D from sunshine, just to be
(07:35):
out and around nature. But today's question is will this
continue to be the case? The car, the opportunity afforded
to us by the automobile is a tremendous amount of freedom.
But will big brother get under your hood? Here are
(07:56):
the facts. Auto manufacturers are increasingly moving vehicles online. If
you buy a car that was made in Ballpark the
last eight years or so, you probably have any number
of neat electronic capabilities right like touch screens, onboard satellite navigation,
(08:18):
these customized bespoke updates to the music you like, the
podcast you listen to the news that some AI or
algorithm thinks you prefer. I know that two of us
recently bought vehicles. Noel, you bought a vehicle a while back.
I have one now. I finally had to say goodbye
to my Monte Carlo and I sat when I sat
(08:41):
in my current vehicle for the first time, I felt
like I was in the future. I could just touch
stuff and things happened. That's amazing. You know, I went
from not having like power windows to all of a
sudden having this thing that will you know, kind of
nanny state me if it thinks I'm backing up in
too aggressive a manner. I mean, what are you guys
(09:03):
experiences when you're driving?
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Well, first off, Ben, you're bearing the lead. What kind
of car did you get? I don't even think I
know about this.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I refuse to disclose. Now are you serious? I have
a Ford Escape, oddly ironic or perhaps apt as a
car name, and these are troubled times.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Plenty of room for your bug out bag too, in
the back of a Ford Escape.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Love that.
Speaker 4 (09:28):
I have a Honda Fit, which is, you know, a
little less roomy than an Escape, but still has a
nice little hatchback and plenty of room for all my
dirty laundry and empty gym bag, which I have pledged
to turn into a bug out bag after that episode,
I'm going to take our own advice. But yeah, it's
the first time I ever had a backup camera, first
(09:49):
time I ever had a car that was very digitally driven.
For sure, no question about it, and it is an adjustment.
It's convenient. But as we get into this topic today,
we're going to see that there are some potential and
various possibilities that can go along with that.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Is this is an idea that that you thought up first, Matt,
I mean, not the idea of digitally connecting cars, but
you raised the issue that this is a growing concern
for a lot of people. It's a convenience, but it's
also a concern. You know, anybody who has a web
connected car is encountering all these NATO digital capabilities. But
(10:32):
we're also seeing the capability to limit the performance of
a vehicle, such as engine governance. Right, that's an old technology.
For instance, people in the US and Latin America undoubtedly
know the Bluebird school buses. You guys know the big
yellow honkers that for some reason still don't have seat belts.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
I was about, it's always blown my mind.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
How is that? Okay, the driver has a seat belt,
which I think is weirdly unfair and not reassuring. But
those engines have governor switches on them, meaning they can't
while the engine itself can power the vehicle to go
at a pretty high rate of speed, there are safeguards
(11:18):
put in to prevent it from reaching that speed, and
you can engineer via software limits on your engine's performance if,
for instance, you don't want your vehicle to go over
eighty miles per hour, for instance, if you want to
(11:38):
keep it at a certain speed for let's say economical
concerns or safety concerns. The FOURD escape that I have,
for example, has something called my key technology, And when
you have this limit programmed in, depending on which key
you use, the touch screen right when you get around
(12:01):
seventy nine miles an hour, the touch screen will pop
up and it'll say your speed is limited by the
my key. In an ideal world, this helps parents keep
their kids from hot rodden around over the speed limit
and straight into a fender bender. It also helps owners
of fleets manage their individual vehicles, from truck companies to
(12:23):
rental empires like Hurtz or something. Again. In an ideal world,
remote control over your vehicle makes the world a safer place.
But we do not live in an ideal world.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
No we don't. Let's imagine. You know it's not going
to be too much of a stretch. Let's imagine if
you would a world in which government or even worse,
a private entity can render your vehicle useless, absolutely brick
that thing the way a company might do that to
your phone, or you know, rendering your phone obsolete. More
(13:00):
and more updates come out the idea of planned obsolescence,
or in the same way as your video game console
or PC, you might start to feel a little long
in the tooth as a digital updates begin to outpace
the hardware.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well yeah, and also imagine a world where a tiny
little device connected up to your vehicle, no matter how
old it is, to your onboard diagnostics port, could track
all of your movements, everywhere you've ever been, where you
are right now, how fast you're going. Imagine that some
(13:41):
tiny little device could do that, installed by anyone, or
a very similar device that is just magnetically placed underneath
your vehicle by whoever, can see exactly where you are,
where you're going at any time, when you're going home,
when you're going to work, all of your routes that
you generally take. Imagine that you'd only have to spend
(14:04):
forty dollars to someone would only have to spend forty
dollars to know exactly what you do every day, and
then you don't even need that device anymore because of
the technology we're discussing here, it's already inside your vehicle
if you have a newer one. The big question here
is how are we going to balance the freedoms that
(14:27):
we hold so dear, like we said at the top,
being able to just drive wherever you want, whenever you want,
because you are a person who has freedom. How are
we going to balance that with all of these new
technologies and possible control mechanisms that are being developed and
are already in place.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Ask yourself, how long can you drive? When and where
you wish? We'll tackle that question after a word from
our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy, the increasing interconnectivity.
(15:10):
Dare i say the hyper interconnectivity of vehicles to the
web brings a ton of convenience and it brings a
load of worrying potential. This is a phenomenon that was
once hailed as the Internet of Things. Our good pal
Jonathan Strickland covered this in depth on tech Stuff if
you would like to learn more about it. But we
(15:34):
know again, we say this every time we run into
a developing technology episode. We know again that technology always
outpaces legislation. Currently, governments around the world are scrambling to
catch up with the things that your software in your
(15:54):
car can do. In fact, these concerns have already reached
the highest court in the United States back in January
of twenty thirteen. Think about that. Seven years ago, the
Supreme Court weighed in on GPS tracking of vehicles in
a case called the United States versus Jones. What happened there?
(16:16):
What was the gist?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Well, let's jump in really quickly and just talk about
those GPS devices. So a single, tiny little GPS device.
There are so many of them out there on the
market for their consumer level grade. Again, they're fairly cheap,
they're extremely effective. It's a tiny little device, generally with
(16:38):
a magnet on the bottom. It goes or is placed
most commonly underneath the chassis or on the bottom of
the chassis of a vehicle, the metal parts underneath, and
it's placed there in many cases by a private investigator
or by a law enforcement officer. It will be placed
(16:59):
to track a person of interest, whether it's in an
infidelity case or you know, tracking perhaps a narcotics someone
who is assumed to be within the narcotics trade. For
any number of reasons. You place this device underneath a vehicle,
and then that device is connected up through the same
(17:22):
thing that your cell phone uses, the same networks that
your cell phone uses to connect everything, and through the
GPS system, and it will tell that whoever is tracking
that vehicle exactly where it is, where it's going, where
it's been. It just knows everything about that vehicle. Now,
(17:42):
when there's this case that we're about to discuss, has
to do with what happens when someone finds a GPS
tracker on their vehicle, their personal vehicle.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Right right exactly. There are a couple of different ways
that these things can work. There are real time updaters,
and then there are also updaters that just log transport.
And the tricky thing about those is that the person
using that GPS device has if it's not real time updating,
(18:20):
they have to physically go and take the device back,
plug it into a system, and then download the information.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, but generally the ones that are used now, even
the cheapest ones, it just connects to an app on
a phone and it's updates are being sent continuously exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
The technology is there in this case. In the twenty
thirteen case of the United States versus Jones. Police placed
a GPS tracker on the car, on the chassis, like
you said, Matt, of someone that they suspected was selling cocaine.
They suspect did this person was selling cocaine because this
(19:03):
person was selling cocaine. You know, I'm not the chief Justice.
I'm not bound by the same rules of legality, so
we can just say it. They had probable cause, They
had reasonable suspicion, you know what I mean. They weren't
just walking around parking lots going I don't know that
Honda Civic looks like that spoiler is suspicious. Let's see
(19:24):
what that guy's getting into. The police had received a warrant.
They were legally allowed to do this, but they were
only allowed to do it under certain constraints, and they
exceeded those constraints. There were two constraints. First, they were
only allowed to monitor this vehicle for a specific length
(19:46):
of time, and secondly, they were only allowed to monitor
it for a particular geographic region. They went over the
limit on both of those. They exceeded the geography and
they exceeded the length of time. The federal attorney argued
that there is no expectation of privacy when you are
(20:06):
traveling on public roads. It's kind of like how you
have no right to tell somebody not to take a
photograph of you if you are in a crowded public space.
If you go to a park for a concert or
something like that, and someone on stage takes a picture
of the entire audience, then you do not have the
(20:28):
right because you are in a public space. You do
not have the right to pull that photograph. You have
no rights to it. However, the Supreme Court agreed with
the defense attorney because the defense attorney claimed this was
a violation of this client's Fourth Amendment right, and that
the Fourth Amendment again is the right against unlawful search
(20:51):
and seizure. So they're saying this was a violation of
personal privacy despite the fact that this vehicle was traveling
on public roads.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
That's crazy, right, That concept that there's no expectation of
privacy when traveling on public roads. I mean, I get it.
I think it's just the knowing that when you're inside
your vehicle. Noel, I don't know if you feel this
way you feel. I think this is just a psychological
thing that we've discussed before on this show you feel
(21:23):
very much that you are in this private space.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
Yeah, it's sort of an illusion of privacy, though, isn't it,
because it's exactly aren't the tinted windows even kind of illegal?
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Like, isn't that a thing past a certain tent level? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Past a certain So that's almost I mean again, I'm
not the two ideas are intertwined. But you know, there
is an expectation that law enforcement should be able to
see into your vehicle to make sure you're not doing
anything illegal right while you're driving, And so that expectation
of privacy is absolutely an illusion for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So here's another thing I want to bring up with
you guys. Okay, So, in another case that happened pretty recently.
This has to do with property rights. A man who
was suspected of selling methamphetamines also had a GPS placed
on his vehicle. And in this case, the man discovered
(22:20):
it after ten days or somewhere around ten days, and
the you know, the police officers are getting all the
information and tracking it, and then all of a sudden,
the trackers, the GPS stops putting out data. They suspect
that the man has taken you know, removed it from
his vehicle, discovered it and removed it. So they then
(22:43):
get a warrant, another warrant because they had to get
one in the first place, right to put the GPS
on his vehicle. They got another warrant to search I
think it was his parents' house and the surrounding areas,
like some of the surrounding areas to find the GPS
because they were charging him with theft of property. No,
(23:05):
if you found of our ben if you found a
GPS device on your vehicle, would you remove it or
would you just leave it there?
Speaker 1 (23:13):
No, you put it on another vehicle. That's obvious.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
There's a there's a this comes up a lot in
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saw that they call them Lowjacks.
I think that's actually a brand, but I think it's
sort of like one of the most popular like car
tracker things that are used for theft prevention that like
individuals can buy or there may even come stock in
certain cars. But they call it that a lot in
the show. And I wonder if it's sort of like
(23:37):
calling a you know, a mimiograph machine, a xerox, or
like you know, calling a soda coke or something like that.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
But internet Internet search of Google exactly, but Jack was
first first, Uh, commercially available.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
That's that that makes sense exactly. So no to your
to your question. It reminds me of getting your car booted.
For example, Let's say you get your car booted.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (24:01):
To me, that is, you know, unjust seizure of my
property because it's usually by a private entity rather than
some law enforcementiency. And then they put a sticker on
your window that you know, tells you the number of
calls they can come back, and then you can pay
them and they take it off. On the flip side,
if I found someone had placed something on my vehicle,
(24:22):
I you know, feel like it was be my right
to remove it, in the same way it'd be my
right to remove a boot if I was so inclined.
But the similarly, they would probably charge you with destruction
of property if you remove one of those.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, yeah, that's that's correct. And we have to we
have to note here this will be important later in
this episode. We have to note that both cases Matt,
the case you brought up and the Supreme Court case
mentioned earlier, both of them focus on crime. They don't
focus on, for instance, a private investigator that's where we
(24:57):
get to a gray area, right we They don't focus
on maybe a jilted lover or something like that. They
don't focus on a helicopter parent. But all of those
scenarios come into play. Currently, if you're a driver and
you have concerns about this, first off, you're absolutely right,
(25:22):
you're not crazy to be concerned about it. But the
law here in the US seems to be trending toward
your side for now, but there's still serious questions. One
of the first ones would be what about GPS vehicle
tracking confined to a specific group like a company fleet.
(25:44):
Currently there are no federal laws and no state laws
that expressly forbid the use of GPS vehicle tracking for
commercial purposes. So you drive a Cisco truck and it's
the company truck, then they can they can track you.
They can do whatever they want. Because it's not your
(26:05):
it's not your vehicle you drive like you rent a
car for instance, then your car or the car you're
driving can absolutely be monitored, and there's a very valid
argument that it should because it's someone else's property. Think
about it like a work laptop or a work cell phone.
Your employer can both monitor your usage of that device,
(26:30):
and if they desire, they can flip a switch and
restrict your capabilities. Like if you if you are using
a work phone and putting any private data on there,
it is It is simply naive to think that that
is somehow still your data. Your company, your big brother,
(26:51):
whatever your corporate overlord is. They have it. They legally
have it. Now.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Well, it's the same way of the expectation of privacy
and emails with work emails. I mean, you know it
would be a bad look. But if the powers that
be wished to do so, they could find out what
we discuss in our emails at work, couldn't they.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I hope so our puns are on fire. We are
good at those. And yeah, you're absolutely right. So why
should a vehicle logically be any different. It shouldn't. There's
no valid case that a company car should be any
different from a company laptop. But let's take it away
from that. Let's say it's not a vehicle that you're
(27:33):
using for work. Let's say it's not a vehicle you're renting.
Let's say you own a car, but you don't own
it outright, You, like million of other people in the world,
are paying off a car loan. Let's say here in
the US, you have the average monthly car payment just
right now, in twenty twenty, the average monthly car payment
(27:56):
is going to be three hundred and eighty one dollars
a month for a used car, recently a recent model
used car. It's going to be five hundred and thirty
dollars a month. If you, for some reason bought a
new car, Why did you do that? Why did you
buy a brand new car? That's sorry, let's cut past
my car stuff, ted talk, but please don't don't buy
(28:19):
a brand new car. What happens if you can't make
that payment, if you are three hundred and eighty one
or five hundred and thirty dollars short for a month,
what happens then? I mean, maybe you paid on time, right,
but there was some kind of grimlin on the wing
of the web that interfered, and whomever is in charge
of your loan, or whoever your lean holder is, they
(28:42):
don't see that payment in your system. What happens?
Speaker 4 (28:46):
It's a good question. I mean, you know, it's the
classic model of this is that they come and repoe it,
or they send someone to your home or your place
of business to repossess the car. But this would be
a much more quickly executable form of this, and it
could happen for a much less egregious infraction. It would
(29:08):
take a lot to get your car repote But like
you said, Ben, if you miss one payment, all of
a sudden, they flip a switch and master control and
you know, you try to start up your car, or
you use your what is it my key or whatever,
your keyless entry and nothing happens. You know, they literally
have put the kibosh on you driving your car because
(29:28):
of what could very well have been a clerical error.
Maybe you're stranded in the middle of nowhere, you know,
I mean, who knows. I mean I would hope there
would be recourse that you could reach out and sort
it all out. But yeah, that's absolutely possible.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Clunk clunk, wamp wamp. Nothing happens when you try, when
you try to start, even if you're in an emergency. Right,
imagine a message plays on your sound system, your cutty
touch screen pops up and you are informed that this
vehicle will not operate until payment is registered, and if
payment is not registered in X number of days, the
(30:01):
lean holder will take possession of your vehicle. Should it
be legal for that authority to automatically shut off your car? Like,
let's say you're escaping a disaster scenario. You know what
I mean, what if? What if this is a system
in place when the next hurricane hits Louisiana and someone
(30:22):
is trying like hell to get out of the way
of disaster, but because of three hundred and eighty one dollars,
they're stuck there and the water's rising. I mean, that's
an extreme example, but it's possible.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Oh absolutely, it is an extreme example, but it is
creepy to imagine it happening that way. The most common
way this occurs is that, let's say you've purchased a
vehicle from a smaller company or you know, a smaller
car lot somewhere that's probably used. Very often those vehicles
(30:59):
will have a hidden GPS tracker attached to that vehicle,
and very very commonly, it's what we were talking about before.
You're the same place where a lot of like if
you go get your emissions tested, you're onboard Diagnostics PORT
or OBD two. A lot of times that's where if
(31:21):
you're going to get emissions. Sometimes you'll get someone plugging
into that port, You're whoever is running your missions test
will plug into there. It gets all the information on
your vehicle of what's occurring. The most common thing that
will occur here is that the owner of that vehicle,
the car lot, the car used, car dealer, will have
(31:44):
something attached on that port and they will be able
to track your vehicle wherever it goes. In the case
that we're outlining here, you miss a payment, depending on
what the contract looks like that you signed, so if
you miss two payments, probably they would be able to
know exactly where your vehicle is at three am on
(32:04):
any given day, and a tow truck would be able
to pick it up without you having any idea that
it happened.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Until until you see that empty parking spot, right and yeah,
and it's gone. Yeah, And this is this is just
the beginning. We're starting with a microcosmic example. We're gonna
pause for a word from our sponsor, and then we'll
be back with the larger and perhaps more troubling implications.
(32:36):
And we're back, So let's go bigger. What about state
control of vehicles? As a matter of fact. Instead of
going bigger, let's go sci fi everybody, get your movie
voices on in a world, et cetera. Remember those old
scenes so common in TV and film where there's this
gung ho police officer or detective and they're chasing a
(32:59):
bad guy and they gotta catch up with the bad
guy and they see usually in a film, it's like
a slick, badass nineteen seventies muscle car, but the you know,
our Dudley do right is chasing the bad guy. And
then they see somebody roll up in a cool car
and they're like, get out, I'm comment deering the vehicle,
and they hop in and there's a montage and a
(33:21):
chase scene, and everything ends with a happy note and
they've caught the purp. Imagine a world where an authority
can hop into your car and then say the right
passcode to your car system and boom, it's off to
the races. You never enter the equation. They just used
your car for state business. Imagine where that's legal. Better yet,
(33:44):
imagine a world where a municipal, state, or federal authority
can say shut down all civilian vehicles in the case
of unrest, you know, like a riot, like a pandemic.
That's a little close to home. But like a pandemic,
like an natural disaster, or a protest for instance, or
(34:05):
maybe shut it down because there is a state sanctioned
violent activity. A central authority with the right kind of
networking could do this. And that's that's one of the
things about autonomous vehicle systems that I wish we were
talking about more often now. Autonomous vehicles will objectively save
(34:29):
lives if you have If you have a city where
every car is functioning in a network system, there are
going to be fewer deaths, there are going to be
fewer vehicular injuries, but there are also there are also
going to be tremendous opportunities for whomever big brother or
(34:49):
little brother is to just you know, shut down the city.
You don't have to shut down the whole city. If
there's a if there's a neighborhood that is maybe prot
testing something and you don't want media coverage and you
don't want people physically getting out of that neighborhood to say, hey,
they're killing us all because we're some you know, like
(35:10):
we have a religion or an ethnicity to which this
government or authority objects. Then you can just shut down
the cars and you can blockade the roads, you can
turn off traffic. We're not there yet, but the technology
is on the way. It's closer than you think, and
it always starts with the best of intentions.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I have a feeling we're going to learn about it
in like two months from now, a month from now,
after everybody's trying to get back to normal, and then
the pandemic gets worse and then they just shut off
all the cars. Sorry, it's a little.
Speaker 4 (35:46):
Nikes, Matt, Yeah, sorry, Yeah. It makes me think of
like a positive implementation of this in like science fiction
is there's an anime show called Psychopaths that is about
like these cops that have these particular guns that will
not get they will not activate for lack of a
better term, unless they detect certain characteristics in a subject,
(36:09):
Like they won't allow you to, you know, use lethal
force on a subject unless they meet certain criteria. And
the gun can literally like look up the person's background,
and it's sort of like pre crime kind of like
in a minority report. But it's similar where like you know,
it's bricked, the gun's bricked unless you it gives it's
given the go ahead from HQ right to be used.
(36:31):
Similar with with cars, it could be used for positive stuff,
like maybe it could detect that someone's had too much
alcohol and the car won't function. Right, Maybe there's a
way that, like you know, would actually prevent people from
being their worst enemies, which people often do. They know
they shouldn't drive, but they're drunk and it makes them
feel like they're invincible, so they do stupid stuff. If
the car itself would not allow you to drive it,
(36:52):
that would be a positive use of this kind of technology.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Right, And it could potentially detect like a key code
or something that was invalid or didn't have a special
you know, secondary authentication process to it, so you could
prevent theft perhaps, I mean, there's there's there are possible
things there that could be good.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, well this is this is a funny story. Is
Larry David moment with my my old money Carlo. Now
you guys, you guys know this because it's made me
late to shows before. But my car had a malfunction
in the security system, so that every so often, not
(37:37):
every time, but every so often I would try to
start the car and it would be convinced I was
trying to steal it because the authentication didn't work, and
so I would have to do a reset of the system,
which was very easy to do, but it took about
ten minutes. So sometimes I would just be ten or
twelve minutes late because my car decided that I was
(38:00):
trying to commit grand theft auto yourself, Oh myself, this
isn't this is a known issue with Chevy's. But the
implications are right. You know, the technology has always been
a double edged sword. It's always been the darkness that
stares back at us. It's always been the gun that
(38:21):
fires at the person wielding the gun, you know what
I mean, ever since the days of fire right. It
can keep you warm, it can burn you. That is
the same thing with every single piece of technology humanity
has ever made. We just we don't make stuff that
cannot also be used for terrible things. And right now,
(38:43):
Big Brother, whether you want to call Big Brother a manufacturer,
a private software service, or a government, they won into
your vehicle and they're already inside, you know what I mean. Like,
how terrifying is it that Facebook can have OS and
software in a vehicle. I don't know if there's a
(39:04):
solid Facebook OS for a vehicle right now, but the
app alone is scary enough. And the initial arguments for
this are some of the ones we've outlined. The first argument,
of course, is valid, and it's let's keep people safe.
We want to keep an eye on you, not to
stop you, not to hinder you, but to help you.
And then there's the other idea, Hey, let's make things
(39:28):
uniquely enjoyable. Oh you're you're a fan of explosions in
the sky. Here's some other music you might like on
your drive. You know what I mean, in the sky?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
What such good driving music?
Speaker 1 (39:43):
That's true, It's true, it really is. Actually, then the
idea is, the third idea is somewhat aspirational. Let's build
a better system. We're not in your car because we
want to track your GPS because we want to monitor
and because we want to use that data to affect
your insurance premiums. Or we want to use that data
(40:06):
to figure out where and when we can stop traffic.
Let's use that data in aggregate to figure out where
we should build more lanes on a road system, or
where we should put a new stoplight. You know what
I mean, You're helping the greater good. That's the argument.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Yeah, Or you know, on the previous one to that,
like if you took those last two. Who's listening to
stuff they don't want you to know? And where?
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yes, that's true, that's true. Look, Pandora's jar is already unscrewed,
you know what I mean, The badger's out of the bag.
If there was a canary in the coal mine of this,
the canary is dead. The canary was asphyxiated long ago,
probably back in the late nineties. And the stuff they
(40:58):
don't want you to know is this. There was already
damning evidence that cars are hackable. And this evidence is
older than you think. This is not twenty twenty stuff.
This happened years ago.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
Yeah, a twenty fifteen remote hacking demo really shook up
the automotive industry. Major automakers responded by creating the Automotive
Information Sharing and Analysis Center AUTO ISACK ISAAC. Yeah, okay,
I'll go with ISAC. And this was designed or the
(41:32):
intent was to research and discuss best practices for securing
this stuff, for actually implementing cybersecurity and vehicles.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
So let's quickly, Ben, just go over this a little bit.
In that twenty fifteen example, I believe I can't remember
it was wired or who it was, but there was
a journalist that was there and experienced what it was
like to have his vehicle remotely controlled, fully remotely controlled.
(42:03):
Because the computer, the onboard computers are sophisticated enough at
this point to where with that you know, always on,
always connected technology, they were able that the hackers or
the demonstrators here were able to break. We're able to
(42:24):
turn on every electronic piece of equipment within the vehicle,
every component, to slow the car down, speed the car up,
to control the steering. Even it was really terrifying. The
only upside to the whole thing was that the demonstrators,
the hackers, it required them to have physical access to
(42:46):
the vehicle before they could implement that full control. In
twenty fifteen, right in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
In twenty fifteen, right, yeah, you're on the money man,
because the issue here is that that twenty fifteen car
was like many vehicles, effectively air gapped, meaning there must
have been some sort of physical interaction at the time
of the hack or before the hack was implemented. But
(43:15):
now it's twenty twenty, and it would be naive to
assume this technology and all the vulnerabilities it brings will
not be exploited. If you're listening to this now, whether
you love cars or you hate them, or you are
ambivalent to them, you don't care about their presence. You
(43:35):
need to be aware. Big brother, whatever big brother you
want to specify, is already in your new car. And
they are going to tell you that they are preventing
hackers from hurting you. And when they say that, they
are telling the truth. But like Emily Dickinson says, they're
telling the truth, but they're telling it slant because they
(43:56):
are also fully capable of doing everything. Those hackers would
do every single thing, they just haven't done it yet,
at least officially. And and that's that's where we are.
You know, we are. We are as a species, as drivers,
as car owners, and as pedestrians. We are entering a world. Uh.
(44:21):
We're entering a new normal. There's no turning back. This
is going to happen. It's already happening.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
You know, Elvis has left the building and uh and
now uh, now you have to wonder if this technology exists,
what will it be used for? And what what will
the motivations be, what will the fallout be, what will
the consequences be? We want to hear from you we
have a lot of we have a lot of truck
drivers in our audience. We have you know, a lot
(44:50):
of our fellow listeners are driving and deliveries. A lot
of us love road trips.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
We are a car culture.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
You know, as So, where do you think this is going?
What have you seen? Like? I would love to hear
if anybody has been affected by this already. If you're
driving for a fleet and maybe you're your administrator knew
some stuff about you that surprised you and they were like, oh, hey,
you know Jane or John Jorgensen. It's it's interesting, you
(45:20):
made way better time to Denver than you did last week.
And you're like, what, how did you know I was
in Denver last week? I wasn't driving my work truck.
I was driving my own car.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
So this is something I want to bring up right
here towards the end. If you are feeling just uneasy
about this whole concept of you know, someone whoever it is,
for any reason, watching where you go, what you do,
and all of that in your vehicle, I would say,
(45:52):
go go out to your car, your vehicle, whatever it is,
check that diagnostic port, look underneath your chassis, take a
little look anywhere on metal surfaces, underneath your vehicle, or
in compartments, because these these things are very tiny. Mm hmmm,
they can fit really anywhere where there's a check. The
wheel well, Yeah, wheel well is really a really good
(46:14):
place to check.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
The really clever one from Better Call Saw was it
was inside of a gas cap assembly. He had to
pop it off with us with a screwdriver, and before
he found it, he disassembles his entire car before having
an aha moment when he realizes it's inside of the
actual gas cap. So yeah, very very small, and you're
just gonna keep getting smaller, you know.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
So yes, do that check that all of that stuff.
Don't disassemble your car, please. But again, like here's the
other thing. If you're so worried about that, maybe don't be.
Because if you are like almost every person who drives
a vehicle, you travel with a cellular phone of some kind,
(47:00):
and you are transmitting, you know, unless you're extremely careful,
and even if you are extremely careful, you're likely transmitting
every place you go, you know, how fast you're going,
how long you stay at those places. The data that
exists around that device is far more terrifying than the
ones that could be in your vehicle.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Well said, Well said. So that's that's our show for today.
But just because the episode ends doesn't mean the show ends.
We want to hear from you. If you're driving right
now and you are inspired to contact us, wait until
you're out of your car and find us. We're on
(47:42):
the internet. We're all over it. You can find us
on Facebook, you can find us on Instagram. You can
find us on Twitter, not just as a show, but
as individuals.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
If you would like to find me, you can do
so on Instagram. I am at how Now Noel Brown.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
And I am on Twitter at benbullan HSW. I am
on Instagram in a burst of creativity, calling myself at
Ben Bolin.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
You can find me on Instagram. I am Matt Frederick.
There's an e in there underscore, iHeart and Yeah. I
haven't posted in a long time, but maybe I'm gonna
start posting pictures of oh, I don't know, close up
shots of my backyard. That's pretty much it right now.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
I want to see that yellow submarine cut out and
it's full glory, Matt, oh yeah, with you posing behind it,
peeking through the little portholes. Can you do that for us.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
Sure, but only if I can get Only if you
guys will give me permission to photoshop your faces in there,
because there are four holes, so I could get all
four of us in there.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
That'd be great. I get full permission. Ben.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Oh yeah, yeah, I think that chicken has flew the coop. Man.
You have many, many pictures of our faces. All I
would ask is a personal favor, is that you try
to find one where where I at least don't look sketchy.
I know that's that's a tall milkshake.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
All right, Okay, so if Matt gets one thousand new followers,
he will post this picture.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
Please don't follow, make it.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
Happen one thousand.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
Here's the one thousand and beyond. We also have a
like if you're a person who says, wow, guys, you
just talked about how scary the internet is, I'm terrified
to do that. I don't want to be on the internet.
We get it. You can contact us a different way.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
We have a phone number, that's right. It is one
eight three three std w y TK.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
We've been getting tons of amazing messages since all of
this stuff has been going down. Thank you to everyone
who has reached out. You know thinking about you, Wayne. Yes,
I have been getting your messages thinking about Ben. You
know you were mentioning truck drivers or fleet vehicle drivers.
(50:05):
We've been getting a ton of people writing in about that.
I'm going to share with you guys, one particular call
we got in from someone thinking hard about the broader
implications of our current situation and his like completely salient
(50:25):
arguments about why we could be in a very dangerous
position with regards to the United States and China. Just
so many great, great things coming in. Thank you to everyone.
Thank you, continue please.
Speaker 1 (50:40):
And if none of that quite bags your badgers, if
you hate phones, if you hate social media, never fear, friends,
fellow conspiracy realists, we have one way you can always
get at us every day of the year until we
get black bagged twenty four to seven, and that is this.
We have a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they don't
(51:23):
want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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