October 17, 2025 • 60 mins
The modern world is full of apps -- and we don't mean appetizers. Apps are tiny programs that can do countless neat, convenient things... often with a catch. As Ben, Matt and Noel discover in tonight's episode, some apps, even innocuous things for workouts and cycling, can lead to disastrous breaches of personal privacy and national security. This is the story of the Strava Leaks.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. And gentlemen, the numbers
came in. A lot of people are listening to the
show on an app.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Okay, yeah, makes sense. Sure, that's how Apple Podcasts was
born once as an.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
iTunes Yes, yes, And I wanted to maybe pop the
top on this one by by asking you, guys, what
is your favorite or least favorite app? Not to be
confused with appetizers. We're talking about the handy little programs
that do all sorts of stuff. Is a game? An app?
A game can be an app blatro Okay, yeah, yeah,
(01:23):
your nuts for the Blastro. It's very good. It's a
very good game. Highly recommend. Now there's some really good
useful ones. You know.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
I found someone turned me onto a free sampleer app
called sample Koala the other day, and it's just like
you can record straight off your phone, put it on
these little pads and then like sequence it and make
all kinds of fun little beeps and boops right on
your phones. I mean, apps are amazing, like they've come
such a long way. And I mean I even remember
in the earlier days there were some fantastic ones out there.
So I'm I'm an app head, no question.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
What about you, mett L and L Hawaiian Barbecue, I don't.
I just I'm looking at my phone and I'm just
gonna name so your.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Phone restaurant that has its own app? Or is it
more like a concept?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It's a it's a state of mind. Yeah no, but
for real lately, one of my favorite apps on my
phone is the Virgin Voyages app.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It's so exciting.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So you got.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, I'm supposed to know, we're all supposed to have
the app.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
You gotta check in, bro, you got to get the app.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
You gotta check in. I'll get the app. I'll get
the app. Yeah, what is that? What are you referencing there?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Are you doing a bit? Are you doing a bit?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Here?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
We're doing an organic mention.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
It's a really fun app where you can see all
the stuff you're gonna do on your true crime voyage
from October tenth of the fifteenth.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Hey wait, we're going on that. Yeah, that's correct. We're
going on an adventure on the high seas joined with
the legendary Tennessee pal Dylan Fakean as well as our
pure podcast Betrayal and Buried Bones. It's an event not
to be missed. We're going to see a shipwreck too,
but it won't be our ship important no.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yes, yes, now, guys, I just wanted to put that
out there as a fun little thing, right, but also
just to remind everyone that sometimes we put our locations
and the times we're going to be in those locations
on blast. We say it out loud, we put it
in a schedule, it goes on a website, we do that.
All kinds of other public figures do that. Just as
(03:16):
a reminder before we get into this.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
You can track our private jet if you want, like,
it's out there, is available.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
We're square times a million. That's the reality now.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
But the whole point is there there is a ton
of public information about where certain people will be at
what time that's out there, But then there are other
times when you do not want those locations and times
to be public.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, thank you for saying that, Matt, because you know
how I am about this stuff. It was really uncomfortable
for me to tell people where we were going to
be in advance. It's multiple days antithetical. Well, you know,
it's a rage.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
We'll be within these three points of this thing called
the Bermuda Triangle at any given time between the what.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Is it, the tenth and the fifteenth. Yeah, it's a
real trustful We hope it's worth it. Apps are amazing
because they really can help you, you know, in a way.
There are renaissance of learning new things. You can learn
a new language, you can identify birds, mushrooms, stars. I
know we're all big fans of the app Dark Skies,
(04:25):
which is cool. We also figure out why your plants
are dying, you know, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. We also
know that most of these apps are going to be
free or relatively inexpensive or as we'll find something called freemium.
A lot of them also have, to your point, Matt,
and added somewhat hidden feature, which is they collect as
(04:47):
much of your information as possible, including other activities outside
of the app on the same phone. So if you
were not careful, you can end up revealing much much
more than you intended. Have you guys seen this new
show The Paper The Office spinoff? It's good. It's about
a small.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Newspaper like website based kind of newspaper, and one of
the characters who is responsible for kind of maintaining the
data collection aspects of it, which she argues kind of,
you know, in a very dead pan way, is really
more where the money comes from than anything else, and says,
you know, so technically we're learning more about our readers
than they're learning from us.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
That's a note so insightful that I would consider it
now a parable. I can't wait to check out that show.
We know that no matter how innocuous an app may seem,
these little programs can do some sneaky things intentionally or
sometimes the worst unintentionally. This is the story of a
(05:51):
little app that a lot of our fellow conspiracy realist
are aware of, Strava. This is the tale of the
Strava leaks. And what better way to go to some
sponsors by saying always remember terms and conditions apply. Here
(06:12):
are the facts, but first Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
On October twenty eighth, twenty twenty, guys, we put out
our episode when We Become our Phones. This episode was
all about the ways in which your phone is tracking
your information and one of the primary things we talked
about there was real time location data right yep. And
then exactly four years, exactly to the day, four years
(06:39):
after that episode came out, the French website and publication
Lamond put out the thing we're going to be talking
about today. I just thought that was so strange, guys.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Well, and if I'm not mistaken, like it hasn't always
been the case that when you open a new app,
it asks you allowed to track.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Always only while using that only once.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
That's a relatively more recent development that is a direct
result of the kinds of things that you're talking.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And it also depends upon your country of origin as
to what kind of privacy laws apply. And jent just once,
I would love for us to correctly predict something good
and fun. Why are we right about all the bad?
(07:28):
Thank you for beeping me, Dylan, you know with the pandemic.
I love the chronological cycle that you noted there, Matt,
and I'm saying the word cycle on purpose because I
got to talk about Strava and this is an episode
(07:48):
based off of some news that you brought to a
strange news program. Maybe we get into it by just
explaining what Strava is. Have you guys subscribed? Do you
use it? I haven't. I mean I have been.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Maybe I've mentioned really into biking a lot lately, but
I have not gone down that particular rabbit hole. I
kind of just, you know, use my Apple Watch to
see how many calories I burned and what my elevation was.
But it seems like Strava gets a lot more granular
than that and uses geolocating to do so.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Oh but this is really good. You use your phone
and your Apple Watch to track your location in real
time and your health fitness stuff. Right, that's what That's
one of the big cool things that a phone can do, right,
because your Apple Watch can actually track stuff about your body.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Right. I am gonna diplomatically push back on the word
cool in that. Well, it depends on your perspective.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well theoretically, right, all is how it works.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yes, So yeah, I'm into that aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Yeah, it's something that works for me, and I'm very
aware of what the potential fallout could be down the road.
But it is one of those bargains with the devil
that you make where it's like, for the privilege of
having this information, I maybe am aware that it might
be exploited one day.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, but let's let's just talk about it that way,
because it is helpful for you, Noel, and and I
know a lot of people who use that kind of
thing where it's it's usually directly connected either to your
wrist or to something you wear in your chest.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
There's a version of it.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And HM. So you're the these apps like Strava and
whatever it is you're using, and the kind of the
the stuff that's already inside the phones when when it
comes to you, it's incredibly cool that we can that
we can track ourselves in our body and how it's
functioning for things like fitness right and and working out.
(09:41):
Strava is one of those apps. Correct, Isn't that primarily
what it is?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
And it's also like people who are really into cycling
and who are maybe even working towards competing in some
larger event. Those stats are very important a because you
can't like fake them, and it's it's very important that
you have metrics to show that you've done the work
to get to the thing and to like show to.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Show your work.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Basically, you know, while I'm certain there are ways to
game it, there is a certain sense within the communities
that rely on these things that you know, there is
a certain amount of like what's the word benefit of
the doubt?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
I guess that goes along with using them correctly. Yeah, yeah,
you guys are righting to jump in here. Just for
the basic definition. Strava is a social media platform meets
wellness app. It was founded in two thousand and nine
to track to earlier points and to a degree, to
(10:44):
gamify physical exercise. It comes to us from some Harvard alums,
some really smart guys named Michael Harvith, not Harvard associated,
but that's cool, nominative determinism, and a guy named Mark Gainey,
two very very bright guys. Strava takes its name from
the Swedish word strava with an umlaut over the first a,
(11:08):
which means to strive. So they kind of pulled a
Hogandau's situation because they're an American company, but they wanted,
you know, they wanted that European Ikea esque feel, and
like we were saying earlier, it first gains traction with
cyclist and it's a free app, right, and I love
that point you raised about competitive cycling. Now you can
(11:31):
see how the other folks are doing. Then it expands
to runners. Now we can not just PLoP our ones
and twos for a couple of miles and see our
speed and elevation and stuff. We can also recommend roots
or as they would call them, segments to one another,
and we can now track other forms of exercise via Strava,
(11:52):
including indoor stuff. People love this. They're leaderboards. Strava has
a version of likes, they're called kudos, and folks also
rightly with validity, love being able to track their progress and.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Just to say, another thing that Strava has is the
ability to flag users who potentially are being dishonest about
their runs.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
In you can flag people. You can't see who flagged you.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
There can be a complaint lies within the community, and
there are apparently some tells as to whether or not
someone is being dishonest about their run. You can kind
of measure I believe the burned calories or the elevation
whatever it might be with the distance and with like
the amount of time moving, and you can sort of
see if someone's duking the stats a.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Little bit because there's so much information out there that
can be leveraged and connected and Charlie Dade, you know,
and I think we're that when we're going to see
the idea about gitting up the numbers or goosing them,
as we've been saying recently, that goes to a special
case in Singapore. So what Drava is doing isn't entirely
(13:03):
you know, unique.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
There are tons of other apps like my fitness Pal
and different, maybe slightly less track track focused or distance
focused apps, but there are other ones that are very,
very similar to what Strava does. However, it is the
one of the most popular ones, especially in like we
were talking about the world that's cycling. By twenty twenty,
just over ten years into the launch, Drava ad fifty
(13:27):
million individual users with around three billion activities uploaded to
the app. It's also available in thirteen different languages.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
So yeah, amazing internet success story for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So let's talk about the mapping specifically, because I think
really that's what sets apart Strava for a lot of
other hundred apps. This concept of whenever you go out
for a workout, whether there's biking, running, whatever, you can
you have the option to track exactly where you go
in real time and then build out a whole essentially
(14:01):
a track of where you went starting point and an endpoint.
It's not always in the same place, but sometimes it
is that whole thing, that that feeling that users get
of sharing. Hey look at all the work I just
put in. Check it out and it just happened. I
just finished it. Or hey, look at the run I'm
(14:22):
going on right now, right that there's something there's something
so important in there that goes back to that when
we become our phones episode about wanting to share that
thing so that others recognize whatever it is that you're doing,
and then you get direct and immediate feedback, like real
time feedback sometimes about how awesome you are.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
It's really no absolutely the way you put it, I agree,
it's it's the kind of the case of Strava is
the kind of thing later Harvard grads are going to
study in business school. This is how you do it right,
They wrote the textbook. In this regard, we want to
be clear or at least. I think it's important for
(15:07):
us to say these apps can be extremely helpful to
so many people because working out is not a one
and done event. It takes time, dedication, routine, it takes discipline.
If you have a sedentary job, you might well find
apps like this crucial to your routine because you can
see and feel and to that earlier point you raised, Matt,
(15:31):
share the result of your labor. It's a motivating factor.
It is gamified. Last time I biked three miles, let's
see if I can get four in around the same
amount of time.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Well, and I guess, just to Matt, you kind of
already made this clear. But in this case, the tracking
isn't like a byproduct. It is the products, and it
is not a bug. It is absolutely a feature. And
you can look at other people's profiles and you look
at their routes as a way of like, oh, I
might want to do that routes, not like necessarily as
(16:02):
a way of stalking them per se.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
But of course there's the dark side of all of them. Yeah,
Like I say, you share the segment share of the recommend.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, let's say you're a biker and you're in a
town that you're not used to being in, but you've
got a bike, you have access to a bike, you
want to go out for the day. It's way more
helpful to see where people are going because we know
how dangerous it is to be on a bike in
a lot of places. You know, and maybe you don't
understand how strenuous of a ride something is going to
be or where it's going to lead. Look at Strava. Hey,
(16:32):
now I've got three or four potential routes I can
take and it's going to be a great day.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
And Strava says, don't worry. This is relatively anonymous, relatively
caveat asterisk. People loved this concept of the app, and
it changed as it grew, which always happens. I believe
was May of twenty twenty, really, as the pandemic lockdown's
hitting fever pitch, the company updates its terms and con
(17:00):
they get that freemium model going. They say, look, we've
been busting our hubs for everybody. We've been really flexing
our calves to help out our fellow cyclist and people
doing exercise, but we have not made a profit yet.
We do so much stuff we gotta make Yeah, we
(17:20):
got to make a little money, we got to pay
the blood price. So because the US first, right, right, yeah,
then you get the money, right And so they say, look,
you can technically still use the app for free, but
for the advanced features aka the things people love about Strava,
you're going to have to subscribe. So some of the
(17:43):
stuff that was free is now only available with a
paid subscription, and any new features we have are also
going to only be available if you cough up some
scheddar or scooch out some scratch or another fun word
for paying money. Coughing up cheddar sounds scary. Coughing up
(18:05):
cheddar sounds like a medical condition. Why don't we give
the direct quote from Strava about this change.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
A few of our free features that are specially complex
and expensive to maintain, like segment leader boards, will now
become subscription features. See I'm doing it like the way? Yeah,
make it sound like? Are you sweet?
Speaker 5 (18:26):
He's vaguely Swedish?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, yeah, but not really. And from now on, more
of our new feature development will be for all subscribers.
We'll invest the most in the athletes who have invested
in us.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Right that last lines a banger? Also well done? I
think on the on the recap there, Matt, I love
the voice. I want to know more about this character.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
So can I just ask to if I, as a
new user, want to get the free version, what does
that mean for me?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Now you get the base model?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Son, Yeah, you get shamed. Are your fellow cyclists you
invest You can't see the leader board? Bro? I forgot
you can't.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
You gotta give? How are you going to invest in yourself?
Speaker 3 (19:09):
You don't invest in us, Bro, We invested the athletes
who invest in us.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
If that's the site you gotta give, it's.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
The cycle of life. Okay. We can't afford the sound cube.
So these moves are always going to be controversial among
the user base. Mainly, these things are controversial because people
don't dig it when something that was free becomes a regular,
recurring cost. Right. That's a huge problem on the internet
(19:38):
and internet services in general. But Cyclist magazine was super
into this because to that earlier point, cycling has been
a huge part of Strava from the jump, and they
even asked a fellow Strava user, a psychologist named Ben Dowman,
to weigh in on this and his quote. Ben's quote
(20:02):
is pretty fascinating. So uh, let's see who wants who
wants to do a character voice for this Nolie, you
got one. I'm gonna do sort of an ed game voice.
From the outside.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
As a user myself, Strava's communication has been very parent
child sorry.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
The show.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
He sounds like the old man from Family Guy. It's
a choice.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
We have had free access to Strava's functions for a
very long time, and now it feels like we are
having our favorite toy taken away from us with no
room for discussion on negotiation.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
You just gotta get no discussion or negotiation.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Just give Look at Dildon, he gives yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
He's a lot of people give you hit me in
the cup City customers, but I mean yeah. People weren't
super happy about it. Strava still soldiered on, and it
maintained that despite the leaderboards the social aspects of the service,
they did not have a side gig profiting off personal data. Specifically,
(21:08):
Strava's then global marketing director Simon Klima stated, subscription has
always been at the heart of Strava, making up the
vast majority of our revenue. We do not sell personal
information before and we do not sell it now. It's
reassuring to hear, and this is something we have to know,
(21:32):
Like a lot of companies of this genre and size
are still going to be pretty cagey about the specifics
of their data how it's used internally, that those kind
of stats are their secret sauce, right.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Just like twenty three and meters. We're not going to
use your person. Sorry, everything's fine, but it does make
sense right where the subscription itself and the money coming
in from that would be enough for a time, it
would show enough growth and as more and more people
who are using the app regularly start to give, then hey,
(22:06):
the company is profitable. The problems come and they need more.
So you either got to get more users, increase your price,
or find another stream.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Mmmmm yeah, because you got to get those year over
year profits. This is so par for the course, and
we got to say it. As a private entity, Strava
is fully within its legal rights. But the second issue,
the reason we're here tonight, it's not about what Strava
intentionally may or may not do with user data. It's
about the unintentional consequences the user security. What happens when
(22:41):
things go pair shaped as our pals, Pete and Boss
would say what happens when things go wrong? We talked
in the past. You know, another episode this reminds me
of is an ongoing conversation we had about the idea
of a world without secrets, a world in which social apps, hackers,
the information age all combine and amalgamate to erode the
(23:03):
concept of privacy and push every individual, willingly or not,
into the public sphere. I believe, Matt it was you
earlier said the idea of being public figures. Right, We're
looking at a world wherein everyone to some degree is
a public figure, even if that's not what they want.
(23:23):
It's another step in the rabbit hole. You know. Strava
was and is a gold mine for sensitive information. We
could argue it was inevitable. It was simply a matter
of time before some of that information leaked.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Oh yeah, because those public figures we're talking about, they
don't want to be seen at all times. They want
to be seen at the times they want to be seen, right,
the profitable times, the times when they're out doing the
official stuff. The thing we got to remember about people
(23:58):
who have a lot of power or are are that public,
they often have teams of people around them, wouldn't you say, guys.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Oh gosh, you handlers, They would be called I guess.
And also those appearances that you're talking about, they go
to a great lengths often to make them seem natural
and organic, but they are vetted.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
There's hair and makeup.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
There's all of these aspects that lead to the rollout
of this very public event. And that's part of the
reason that I mean, it's interesting because you have things
like Twitter that sort of opened a lot of celebrity
life up in a way that wasn't or at least
didn't seem so vetted and so polished. But now there's
(24:37):
almost this backlash against that because the pendulum swung too
far in that direction, right hmmm, I mean, you know
what I mean, not backlash against that, but it's just like,
I think we are back to a bit more of
a time where it's a little bit more cautious. There's
a little bit more caution going into some of these
events and these sort of perceived public appearances.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
There is an intense on go social debate over what
should or should not be behind the proverbial curtain. So again,
was the strava gold mine just inevitably going to get leveraged.
We'll learn more afterword from our sponsors. Here's where it
(25:23):
gets crazy, all right. We talked about this in the
strange news story you brought us bat earlier this year.
Data from Strava has become a security concern, not once,
but multiple times, and it's because it's part of an
economy of scale thing. Really, it's extremely popular with so
(25:43):
many folks to your point about cyclist Noll, including celebrities, royalty,
members of the world's security and military services. I think
one example we had earlier a precedent for what happened
with this company Strava, is you know the guys who
send off well intentioned emails from their deployment at a
(26:07):
nuclear sub I miss you, Grandma. We're right around Malta.
Things are heating up. You know. That's that's a rough thing.
That's well intentioned, but it can tell too much information
to the bad guys. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Well. Yeah, when Facebook brought around its idea that hey,
you can check in to a physical location wherever you go,
and then imagine that the public figure themselves. Who if
we're imagining an individual right that let's say President isn't
going to go check in on Facebook when they go somewhere, right,
not going to happen, but somebody in the entourage might
(26:45):
somebody you know who's just a tertiary figure that's in there,
or maybe even perhaps a security official, right, somebody who's
on staff as security. They might check in a little
later after the gig's done.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Or In November of twenty seventeen, Strava created a public
global heat map and you can see all kinds of
pictures of this. It collected two years of movement data
from all the users around the world from twenty fifteen
to twenty seventeen. And then just a few months later,
it's January of twenty eighteen, and this awesome kid, Nathan.
(27:25):
I hope it doesn't offend you if I call you
a kid. He's twenty years old. He's an Australian international
security student. His name is Nathan Ruser r User, and
he notices something bizarre. He's our first public Charlie Day
in this situation. He says, hang on this heat map.
It's not updating live, it's not real time information, but
(27:49):
it is mapped military bases across the planet. Because people
are sharing their recommended roots, their segments. You know, they
want their kudos, their likes, and you can see you
can see as a result of this movement tracking you
you can see the roots for everything from US bases
(28:11):
in Syria and Afghanistan to the hm n B Clyde,
which is the Royal Navy base that has the UK's
nuclear arsenal. You can see it. We've got an example
here from a US base in Afghanistan in the Hellman's Province.
This comes directly from Strava's global heat map. Do you
(28:33):
want to describe what it looks like here? It looks
like a line drawing and the brighter lines are the
more well traveled roots.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, it looks like a grid system of of you know,
a small base. It's tough to know. Are these interior
or exterior routes? Right? Are there any doors involved here?
It does look exterior to me. And then it's got
what looks like maybe a small airstrip or something that
the person has run around in a bit of a
(29:06):
more organic shape rather than the straight grid lines in
the other parts.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, maybe I like the airstrip idea met because maybe
that's where you can get your quick quarter mile in.
Do that a couple of times, and it's one of
the brighter lines. So also want to shout out Nathan
for keeping it so falcon it is interviews. He was
talking with the BBC and he later said, look, I
(29:33):
just looked at it and I thought, oh hell, this
should not be here. This is not good. So I
went and told the public.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Well, let's talk about what this really means. So if
you've got a map like this of a military structure,
do you think this would be that helpful? Is somebody
planning something?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Oh yes, yeah, very helpful, thank you Strava.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
But don't we all have like Google maps and things,
and if somebody wanted to cause harm at a military base,
you can find a military base, look at it from
above and see pretty much this, right.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, it's not like world governments and terrorists don't already
know where all the bases are. Even black sites get
clocked eventually. Shout out to our previous episodes on that
and like you're saying, there, Matt, sattech can provide clear
pictures of any exposed compound, right, Okay, yeah, so Strava's
heat map is an added benefit. These they're the sprinkles
(30:36):
on the sandwich, right Because it displays levels of activity
via increasing light, which reveals which of those military buildings
are the most frequented, and it also tells you the
roots that soldiers would take in and around the compound.
The location data can extend beyond the base too, which
(30:59):
means you can see the commonly used exercise roots or
regularly patrolled roads. Because a lot of people probably did
the thing, so many other folks do. They just clicked
yes on the terms and conditions and they never checked
their privacy settings.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Oh dude, or maybe someone turns it on, like puts
the walk on. I'm just going for a walk, right,
but it's part of my exercise, so I'm gonna bank
it now. I'm just walking through the facility. But that
makes sense in my head, I'm thinking all exterior, But no,
that would that would totally check out. You could walk
into the most sensitive parts and now they've got a
(31:35):
map on how to get to.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Them, as long as you can bring your phone right
or but then they've got the watch situation as well,
Like there's a way you know, when you click.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
The watch for a workout, you can do an indoor
walk or an outdoor walk or whatever. The type of
activity might be, and people that are really into like
making sure they're banking that stuff. To your point, Matt,
they're always gonna put that in it in there and
make sure that it's counting that down. So you know
that for that period of time when you're on the
(32:06):
move in a certain indoor facility, that's a pretty easy
thing to identify, you know what that durn frames.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
And if you can't have the phone, then you obviously
can't have the smart watch either. Yes, it's definitely and
it also shows us another advantage that doesn't really fix
the problem, because if you've got the map of everything else,
you've got the heat map of the rest of the place.
You know where the black hole is right, you know
(32:33):
where the skiff is or whatever other sensitive stuff. So
if someone is a bad actor, a bad guy, they've
got to be in their bonnet, they get a badger
in their bag, they want to attack something, Strava's heat
map could accidentally give them the chance to plan the
perfect aggression, you know, knowing how to get in, where
(32:54):
to go immediately, where to hit with maximum impact, and
then how to ghost out successfully afterwards. Strava potentially gave
some really bad guys for really awesome gifts. Wow.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, and it's not just the military basis, right, because
you have to imagine this could be any building anywhere,
even let's say a chateau somewhere in the mountains out.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Right, perhaps a chalet in Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, this is a true story, this the Swedes.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, but yeah, like, but it's weird to think of
it that way because it could also be maps, if
you're in a mountainous region, maps to get to that place, right,
and then you could see an alternate way to get
to that facility or that even again, just that house
that is not marked by people walking on it regularly, exactly.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
And this is why our pal Nathan went public with
this quickly. Just like a white hat hacker, which he
says he's not. He's connecting dots and he realized that
if he was connecting these, someone else probably was doing
the same thing or had. And to their credits, Strava
responded very quickly. Their CEO, James Quarrels said Strava is
(34:17):
committed to working with military and government officials to address
these concerns, and then additionally said we're going to simplify
our privacy features so that the end user has a
better understanding, a more clear understanding of what they are
or are not publicizing to the world at large. But
(34:37):
at this point, the horse has left the lamp, the
jen is out of the barn, the badger's out of
the bag. More Shenanigans are on the way. We've got
so many more examples to get to. Should we take
a break for a word from our sponsors here, because
I know we're all darkly fascinated by how many things
(34:59):
went wrong? I think we must, and we've returned. In
a similar case to the Afghanistan stuff and to the
Royal Navy stuff. Military bases in Israel fell to a
similar security vulnerability, but it was different because this goes
(35:24):
to Nol's earlier point about hacking stuff right or acting
in bad faith. I wasn't aware of this. You can
upload fake roots or segments suggested roots to a region,
and then when you upload that, if people engage in,
if they use it right a route that you have
(35:46):
never actually run. You're just laying out this thing as
an if. Then if a local user decides to take
this track, you, the segment poster can learn earned the
identities or past routes of those users. Who fell for
your your fake trail, your fake grift.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
Oh snap, I didn't know you could do that.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
You know, well, if that's intense and that seems like
the route that would be taken. But I didn't think about.
Let's say you're targeting some public official, right and you
know that they live because they're a public official in
some around some area close by to this one place.
You could physically, using the app, go and run near
(36:34):
that area. Just create those things as well. But I
didn't even know you could upload a fake one.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
You could just dumb me up a fake one.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
Yeah, that's insane.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Here's my daily run to the best swimming area in Diego, Garcia.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Because you could correlate users who use it, I'm saying
you can. You can find the identities of people that
may actually be in the facility or connected to the
public official your targeting, even.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
If they've maxed out their privacy settings.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Jesus.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
But like Strava's not canceled.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
I mean people are still using it, Like this didn't
tank My companys and millions of people fascinating that a
scandal to the of this magnitude isn't enough to you know,
topple an organization like this, I think because many folks
kind of look at it the way I do, where
it's like occasionally there's going to be some things that
(37:29):
go wrong and it's still worth it to me, you know,
for the benefits that I get from it.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
To take that risk, I would have I would have
shout out all of us. All you guys all are
fellow conspiracy realist who are getting in their Strava time
right now as you're listening to the show, Thanks for
letting us ride along with you. Don't don't hang up
on Strava yet, but you got to hear some more stuff.
(37:54):
I just think this is an interesting experience for those
of us who are, you know, running treadmiller in the
streets or or on a bike or a stationary bike,
doing whatever you're doing.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Especially those people using Garman Connect right now. Yeah, because
that those folks are getting sued by Strava, and Strava
is saying, hey, you can't make any more stuff Garmin
because you're using our heat map stuff.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Yeah you're using it, yeah, our heat maps and for
the people and maybe the terrorist and maybe the talkers.
But so twenty twenty three and please, please please keep
your Strava going as you're listening, folks. Twenty twenty three
was also a tough year for Strava because people found
(38:39):
heat map data could reveal the home addresses of active
users in remote areas. And there's a there's a paper
you can read about this online for free for now
from some three very smart people in the Carolinas, and
they walk through the process, which gets a little bit complicated,
(39:01):
but it's still disturbing, especially because a lot of people
who live in remote areas are doing so on purpose
because they don't want to be identified, doxed and hunted down.
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, let's go over the timeline again quickly, guys, just
so we understand how much stuff has really is accumulating
right here for Strava. Right nine, we said is when
it gets created. Twenty seventeen is the first big scandal.
Twenty twenty two is the thing where the Israel bases
get revealed. Now we're in twenty twenty three and we're
(39:38):
figuring out, oh God, anybody and everybody is going to
get revealed here. Surely there's not more.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Oh surely there is, right that? I mean?
Speaker 5 (39:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Then then same year Strava was used to identify a
native of Raleigh, North Carolina who lit a Trump one
lawn sign on fire. So you know, like we've all
seen political yard signs, this guy lit what up.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And like the Strava route put him.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
The Strava route put him, They got him, he got popped,
he got jammed up. We're not saying it's right to
burn stuffed out.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
No, And I do think it's worth mentioning in this conversation.
Some other kind of examples of this, like ring cameras
that are you know, app connected, and there are various
kind of murky layers to the privacy surrounding them, and
like to what degree can authorities essentially co opt your
(40:42):
ring feed in ways that could even potentially compromise you
if you've done something wrong. The key there being if
you've done something wrong. Because I always say that I
really don't care too much whether these companies are tracking
me because I'm not out there breaking the lawn and
burning down Trump.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Signs and things.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
You know, well, it's just on who you're hanging with.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Absolutely true, and I hear you're app There's no question
that I hear you.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Guys. The the Kevin Bacon rule of Hoover and intelligence
is like you said, Matt, I think that's a concern,
and Noel to your point, while I hear you on that,
one of the one of the bigger concerns is what
if something becomes wrong later.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
That's also very, very true, and I completely understand, especially
in the world we're living and now, associations could come
back to haunt you various things. Any you know how
granular is it going to get in terms of like
where were you at this particular time, did you go
to a place that is now a known whatever?
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Like, guys, let's think about Ice And that's exactly right.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
That's a huge concern. Yeah, Ice and Strava apps, Ice
and Strava apps.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
We you know exactly where this guy runs. We'll just
put a van strategically located.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
It's so hairy man.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Can we get to the public figures thing? Because this
is I think we're getting into the territory where the
really maybe scary stuff. This is all scary stuff, but
this is like just the fact that right now you
can go to a website called rollcall dot com and
you can look at President Donald Trump's calendar, the official
(42:17):
public calendar. There are a bunch of places online where
you could find that public calendar. I think white House
dot gov has a version of it deep in there
somewhere you can see what the official scheduled events are
for the President of the United States. Right, you can
see the same thing for let's say Emmanuel Macron, the
president of France.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Justin Trudeau back in the day.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah, most of these extremely public figures, especially government officials,
are gonna have some kind of public facing schedule of events,
including times. So it's not just on this day we're
doing that. It's this is at nineteen hundred hours, we're
going to be.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Here Atlanta three pm. We're going to celebrate National Route
to Bega Day, and the Vice President is going to
be in attendance from three fifteen to three forty five exactly.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Well today, just to use this exact thing on Elisi
E l y see dot FR, I can see that
Emmanuel Mcron at sixteen hundred hours today on October sixth,
is going to be having a meeting with the Council
of Ministers. That's happening today. But what we don't know
is what's happening immediately after that, where the president is
(43:32):
going to go right, we don't know that part.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
We don't until we lead Dodd Strava. In October of
twenty twenty four, journalists at Lemones but we can't say
enough good stuff about them. They discovered that Strava had
exposed unknowingly the locations and activities of world leaders because
of their security teams. The folks who travel with big
(43:58):
name political figures like US presidents or Manuel Macron or
Justin Trudeau. You know, those guys tend to be in
pretty good shape. And when they're not at work, they're
working out because they got to be ready.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
We're saying the security teams, right.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
The security teams were logging their stuff.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Yeah, that was used to then track the proximity to
the public figure they were in charge.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Of, right, one hundred percent. Yes, you're correct, And so,
as Matt mentioned in our earlier Strange News program, Strava
fitness data also revealed private locations of people who, yeah,
I guess they're public figures. They're more like high value targets,
the Swedish royal family. And this all came from the
security teams who were like, all right, I've got you know,
(44:46):
I've got Dylan on the next shift. So I got
to get my steps in. You know, I'm gonna take
a run, I'm gonna move some weights, and taking the
run or taking the bike is really where you get
that that crunchy corner brownie of opset.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, well yeah, but what we're talking about the King
and queen, right, the King and queen and where they
personally vacation, so behind.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
The curtain the stuff I don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
You're not supposed to know that at all. And the
security person is just as you said, doing something innocent,
trying to get some exercise when he's not he or
she is not officially on duty. And that single act
allowed Leamond and anybody else who was interested to go, oh,
they must be up there at that giant mansion slash
(45:37):
castle the.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
People. So okay, we gotta be fair, all right, this
is it, Dylan. I'm say I'm cursing so much in
this episode. Please beat me here. This is a huge gup.
This is like a bad thing to happen. And Strava,
in their defense, absolutely did not tend this. They played
(46:01):
no active, knowing role in setting up possible attacks. They're
just a successful business that is already doing the thing
adolescent businesses do, which is you expand you acquire competitors
other companies, you make more features, you get more money.
You're about that bag. That's what Strava is doing. And
(46:22):
Strava has made multiple public statements for each of these
reported incidents. In the case that we mentioned earlier, doxing
people in remote locations, they came out with a pretty
strident public statement, which I suggest we read just in
the interest of objectivity and fairness.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
For sure, the safety and privacy of our community is
our highest priority. We've long had a suite of privacy controls,
including map visibility controls that give users control over what
they share and who it's shared with.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
And it continues. They say Strava does not track users
or share data without their permission. When users share their
aggregated de identified data with the heat map and Strava Metro,
they contribute to a one of a kind data set
that helps urban planners as they develop better infrastructure from
(47:20):
people on foot and bikes, and makes it easy to
plan routes with the knowledge of the community. This interview
is over, y'all.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
Really, I know, urban planners, I mean yeah, I mean
we need we need some more sidewalk over here.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
We need some over there.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
True, that's all true, but it's a little bit of
a reach.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
It's like, I get it. I'm just saying, it's like
that DMZ video about how the Korean War is great
for birds. It seems to be missing the root of
me of the matter. Yes, sir, just so. It's the
wrong vegetable and wrong badger in the bag here, and
I love that. We also notice something sneaky. Putting the
(48:02):
onus on the consumer always always tail as old as time,
classic pr move.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
We didn't expect those security personnel to share their stuff? Silly?
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Oh secret service? Am I right? What else? What else
they're playing? Food? Oh jesus h. Anyway, it seems it
does seem that Strava. I don't know what you guys think,
but it seems that Strava is making good faith efforts
to mitigate the security risk here, but they're doing so
while still ensuring the success and growth of the company,
(48:39):
more users, more subscription fees year over year. Capitalism pays
the blood price, you know, and tries not to end
up in the stone chair. So will these two goals
ever become mutually exclusive? Will the promise or the drive
the necessity of profit on the horizon. Will it get
(49:00):
them to cut corners on the security concerns and put
the put the responsibility and accountability even more on the
end user. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
I don't know, man. The private vacationing area for the
royal family is one thing, because they're not going to
be there that often, right, They're just going to be
hanging out there for a couple of weeks and.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
A year maybe, and they own tons of places that
they barely visit.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And there's going to be
a ton of security there hence all the running, right
and on all the folks who are currently off duty
because they're way more on duty. But when you imagine
the location of someone's personal domicile, their house where they live,
the address where one of these people lives, like the
(49:47):
Prime Minister of Sweden's private address where you go home
and try and sleep sometimes after doing a bunch of work,
imagine that that location becomes at risk because not only
is it information about physically where it is, what the
address is so someone can just get there, you've also
now got routes that security personnel take around that house, right,
(50:14):
And that's where somebody who just has ill will but
doesn't have a lot of planning. It's not going to
be crazy helpful for This is only really helpful for
the people that you know, imagine a serial killer that's
extremely organized, somebody who is focused and is going to
use that data for bad things. That's the actually dangerous
(50:36):
person or group of people, and this is what helps them.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
Yeah, this is tasty, tasty stuff. It also, you know,
it doesn't take a state sponsored hacker, It doesn't take
any of that amazing secret in sa tech to gather
this information. You just have to be determined and have
the time and an Internet connection. That is the frightening part.
(51:01):
Anybody with enough time to connect the dots could have
arrived at similar conclusions as soon as the heat map hit,
and probably well before that if they were active in
if they were active on Strava. And that's why our pal,
the kind of the hero of the story, Nathan Russer,
moved so quickly to report this to the public. I
(51:22):
think one thing that may be reassuring for us to
share fellow conspiracy realists, especially folks on Strava. Right now,
as of this moment, as of this recording Monday, October sixth.
There have been no verified attacks that have been proven
to have leveraged data from Strava or data whatever, Tomato tomatow,
(51:45):
But it does seem there's a storm on the horizon
because Strava is not unique. There are other like one
of us was saying earlier, there are other things that
track and share in much the same manner. Countless apps
are taken your information to do similar stuff, and once
they get big enough, economy of scale kicks in. You
can make another world map. That's right. I aggregate all
(52:07):
that stuff together.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
It's and then but then you see the state of
the world in so many countries right now. Guys. I
haven't been looking closely at France at all, but because
of Lamond in this episode, I ended up just, oh, well,
what's going on in France right now? Like politically and
all that good stuff. And then you see, you know,
another prime minister that was appointed for only a year
(52:31):
just resigned, like literally I think today or the past
couple of days. There's there's kind of chaos happening and
changing of guard happening across the world, but in not
normal ways that we would see in democracies right.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Right, not the peaceful passage of power.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
It's happening all over the place. And then you just
imagine this kind of information is out there, and it
doesn't take long to see the motivations that someone might
have to take act Like we've been describing today.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Right, the barriers are much lower now you can get touched, folks.
It's just true.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
It's scary, man, because it speaks to just a larger
kind of state of chaos that we're entering.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Yes, absolutely, it's a storm on the horizon by all
all metrics we can tell, and by now obviously in
this brave new world, we should each carry a healthy skepticism,
if not outright paranoia about apps in general, especially things
linked to your mobile devices, those obscure terms and conditions
(53:38):
about how your stuff gets recorded, stored, and shared. I
know we're all fans of, you know, very specific ways
of learning. We're fans of very specific apps as a result,
and Noel, thank you again for hipping me to Dark
Skies for a great primer on this of stuff on
(54:00):
Strava in particular. In the larger issue, do check out
Undercode Testing's article how Strava data leaks are endangering world
leaders a cybersecurity wake up call. The issue is real.
I mean, these things are so convenient, that's true. But
I think we can argue in this case the convenience
(54:21):
itself is becoming the conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (54:24):
Sure, yeah, But I guess just to bring up what
I mentioned earlier about like this is not have we
seen a market decrease in subscribers to the service as
a result of this news.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
I don't think so. No. Similar to the hit they
took with the move to a subscription model, they encountered
a dip, but it's still like it's similar to Facebook.
People are just going to be sandboxed in. They're going
to be using it. You're, as you said, you're a
competitive biker. Maybe like I'm, I'm a competitive biker. I'm
gearing up to really do some stuff. Then I need
(55:00):
those stats. I need that context, and that's what people
are doing well.
Speaker 4 (55:04):
And again I'm not maybe I am willfully putting on
blinders to some of this stuff, But as soon as
we get done recording this, I'm going to download that.
I mean, I'm into it, I think, and I don't
necessarily see a willful effort to like defraud their users.
I think what we're talking about is a bigger picture
(55:25):
issue with tracking, a bigger picture issue with what this
stuff can be.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
Used for by these bad actors.
Speaker 4 (55:32):
Yes, by the way, yeah, whoa, Well they can become buddies.
Speaker 3 (55:37):
Is that a thing? Are you? Are you Strava buddies?
Speaker 2 (55:40):
You should be? Can I tell you this, guys, I've
never once turned on the fitness tracking on my phone occasion.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Location tracking, yes, one hundred percent. But I've never once
turned the other stuff on. But there was a time
when I would turn off location services unless I absolutely
needed it, and like I was gonna take use Google
Maps for something, right right, But I've stopped doing that
now because.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
It hasn't it yeah, the.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Way that things require it now. So then it just
made me feel so complacent about like, fine, I'll freaking
leave it on. Yeah, Like that is the thing that
is really scary.
Speaker 3 (56:19):
It's also Yeah, the strangest breaches of privacy or the
strangest things in general become normalized so quickly. That's an
amazing thing about humanity. It's also a very frightening thing
about the human experiment, and we have to remember it
will become increasingly inconvenient to hold the line on your
(56:42):
personal information. And I know we're all very we all
have principles about that us listening along right now too.
But there's a prime movement to erod that sense of
privacy in personhood. That's what's happening. They can convenience is
the conspiracy. That's the stuff they don't want you to know.
(57:04):
You can find us on the iHeartRadio app. By the way,
promise trick you that much. Terms and conditions apply. We
can't wait to hear your thoughts, folks. Thanks so much
for tuning in. Thanks as always to our super producer,
the real star of the show, Dylan, the Tennessee pal
Fake and Dylan. Before we before we throw to some CTAs,
(57:26):
how do we do man?
Speaker 7 (57:27):
Excellent, excellent job. I've had some experience with Strava.
Speaker 5 (57:31):
Oh can you tell us?
Speaker 7 (57:33):
I was using it for biking for a while. The
thing that got me should have been the privacy concerns,
but it was when they made their feed non chronological.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Got it the algorithm?
Speaker 7 (57:44):
Oh yeah, I wanted to see the most interesting stuff first.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
Oh my god, dude, you know what got me about Strava.
It is recently I don't know if you guys know this,
but there's a company out there called Garmin, and back
in nineteen ninety one they gave us this thing called
a GPS you could use in your boats and your
cars and everything else, and incredible.
Speaker 3 (58:07):
It saved us in the national radio quiet zone. That's right.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Yeah, see a garment man. Well, Strava has come out
and they are suing the pants off a garment because
Garmin makes their own stuff, as we alluded to earlier,
specifically their own hardware like a watch, so you're it's
supposed to be able to do the same things. And
Strava is saying, hey, you are patent infringing us and
you are now sued.
Speaker 3 (58:29):
Oh no, that's a reach. That feels like you're shaking
our stuff. Yeah, that's like walking into a sports game
and seeing somebody else with a baseball cap and saying,
you piece of crap. I'm the one who wears baseball hats.
I'm gonna sue you. I mean, it is true, but
(58:50):
you know, tech and patents are already such a sticky
wicket and that might be a show for another day
if you want to learn more about patent law out
our surprisingly not boring series on Ridiculous History where we
talk all about ips and patents and if you want
to make our day, fellow conspiracy realist, we would love
(59:13):
to hear your thoughts, especially Strava users and especially people
who object to Strava. Find us online, call us on
the phone. You can send us an email. You sure can.
Speaker 4 (59:22):
You can find ut the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we
exist on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it
gets crazy, on x FKA, Twitter and on YouTube with
video content galore for your perusing enjoyment on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3 (59:34):
However, we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three STDWYTK. Before you call, turn those letters into numbers.
That's just a pro tip. When you do call, give
yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we
can use your name and message on the air. If
you would like to send us a message via email,
oh you can do that.
Speaker 3 (59:56):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence.
Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Actually we're writing back now to personally thank everybody who
reached out with such kind words post snuff Film episode
so if you wrote to us about that, keep your
eyes on the email. We will be with you very soon.
(01:00:19):
Join us out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Stuff they Don't 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.
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 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. And gentlemen, the numbers
came in. A lot of people are listening to the
show on an app.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Okay, yeah, makes sense. Sure, that's how Apple Podcasts was
born once as an.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
iTunes Yes, yes, And I wanted to maybe pop the
top on this one by by asking you, guys, what
is your favorite or least favorite app? Not to be
confused with appetizers. We're talking about the handy little programs
that do all sorts of stuff. Is a game? An app?
A game can be an app blatro Okay, yeah, yeah,
(01:23):
your nuts for the Blastro. It's very good. It's a
very good game. Highly recommend. Now there's some really good
useful ones. You know.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
I found someone turned me onto a free sampleer app
called sample Koala the other day, and it's just like
you can record straight off your phone, put it on
these little pads and then like sequence it and make
all kinds of fun little beeps and boops right on
your phones. I mean, apps are amazing, like they've come
such a long way. And I mean I even remember
in the earlier days there were some fantastic ones out there.
So I'm I'm an app head, no question.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
What about you, mett L and L Hawaiian Barbecue, I don't.
I just I'm looking at my phone and I'm just
gonna name so your.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Phone restaurant that has its own app? Or is it
more like a concept?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It's a it's a state of mind. Yeah no, but
for real lately, one of my favorite apps on my
phone is the Virgin Voyages app.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It's so exciting.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So you got.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, I'm supposed to know, we're all supposed to have
the app.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
You gotta check in, bro, you got to get the app.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
You gotta check in. I'll get the app. I'll get
the app. Yeah, what is that? What are you referencing there?
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Are you doing a bit? Are you doing a bit?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Here?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
We're doing an organic mention.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
It's a really fun app where you can see all
the stuff you're gonna do on your true crime voyage
from October tenth of the fifteenth.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Hey wait, we're going on that. Yeah, that's correct. We're
going on an adventure on the high seas joined with
the legendary Tennessee pal Dylan Fakean as well as our
pure podcast Betrayal and Buried Bones. It's an event not
to be missed. We're going to see a shipwreck too,
but it won't be our ship important no.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yes, yes, now, guys, I just wanted to put that
out there as a fun little thing, right, but also
just to remind everyone that sometimes we put our locations
and the times we're going to be in those locations
on blast. We say it out loud, we put it
in a schedule, it goes on a website, we do that.
All kinds of other public figures do that. Just as
(03:16):
a reminder before we get into this.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
You can track our private jet if you want, like,
it's out there, is available.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
We're square times a million. That's the reality now.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
But the whole point is there there is a ton
of public information about where certain people will be at
what time that's out there, But then there are other
times when you do not want those locations and times
to be public.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Yeah, thank you for saying that, Matt, because you know
how I am about this stuff. It was really uncomfortable
for me to tell people where we were going to
be in advance. It's multiple days antithetical. Well, you know,
it's a rage.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
We'll be within these three points of this thing called
the Bermuda Triangle at any given time between the what.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
Is it, the tenth and the fifteenth. Yeah, it's a
real trustful We hope it's worth it. Apps are amazing
because they really can help you, you know, in a way.
There are renaissance of learning new things. You can learn
a new language, you can identify birds, mushrooms, stars. I
know we're all big fans of the app Dark Skies,
(04:25):
which is cool. We also figure out why your plants
are dying, you know, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. We also
know that most of these apps are going to be
free or relatively inexpensive or as we'll find something called freemium.
A lot of them also have, to your point, Matt,
and added somewhat hidden feature, which is they collect as
(04:47):
much of your information as possible, including other activities outside
of the app on the same phone. So if you
were not careful, you can end up revealing much much
more than you intended. Have you guys seen this new
show The Paper The Office spinoff? It's good. It's about
a small.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Newspaper like website based kind of newspaper, and one of
the characters who is responsible for kind of maintaining the
data collection aspects of it, which she argues kind of,
you know, in a very dead pan way, is really
more where the money comes from than anything else, and says,
you know, so technically we're learning more about our readers
than they're learning from us.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
That's a note so insightful that I would consider it
now a parable. I can't wait to check out that show.
We know that no matter how innocuous an app may seem,
these little programs can do some sneaky things intentionally or
sometimes the worst unintentionally. This is the story of a
(05:51):
little app that a lot of our fellow conspiracy realist
are aware of, Strava. This is the tale of the
Strava leaks. And what better way to go to some
sponsors by saying always remember terms and conditions apply. Here
(06:12):
are the facts, but first Yes.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
On October twenty eighth, twenty twenty, guys, we put out
our episode when We Become our Phones. This episode was
all about the ways in which your phone is tracking
your information and one of the primary things we talked
about there was real time location data right yep. And
then exactly four years, exactly to the day, four years
(06:39):
after that episode came out, the French website and publication
Lamond put out the thing we're going to be talking
about today. I just thought that was so strange, guys.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Well, and if I'm not mistaken, like it hasn't always
been the case that when you open a new app,
it asks you allowed to track.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
Always only while using that only once.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
That's a relatively more recent development that is a direct
result of the kinds of things that you're talking.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
And it also depends upon your country of origin as
to what kind of privacy laws apply. And jent just once,
I would love for us to correctly predict something good
and fun. Why are we right about all the bad?
(07:28):
Thank you for beeping me, Dylan, you know with the pandemic.
I love the chronological cycle that you noted there, Matt,
and I'm saying the word cycle on purpose because I
got to talk about Strava and this is an episode
(07:48):
based off of some news that you brought to a
strange news program. Maybe we get into it by just
explaining what Strava is. Have you guys subscribed? Do you
use it? I haven't. I mean I have been.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Maybe I've mentioned really into biking a lot lately, but
I have not gone down that particular rabbit hole. I
kind of just, you know, use my Apple Watch to
see how many calories I burned and what my elevation was.
But it seems like Strava gets a lot more granular
than that and uses geolocating to do so.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Oh but this is really good. You use your phone
and your Apple Watch to track your location in real
time and your health fitness stuff. Right, that's what That's
one of the big cool things that a phone can do, right,
because your Apple Watch can actually track stuff about your body.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Right. I am gonna diplomatically push back on the word
cool in that. Well, it depends on your perspective.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well theoretically, right, all is how it works.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yes, So yeah, I'm into that aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
Yeah, it's something that works for me, and I'm very
aware of what the potential fallout could be down the road.
But it is one of those bargains with the devil
that you make where it's like, for the privilege of
having this information, I maybe am aware that it might
be exploited one day.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Well, but let's let's just talk about it that way,
because it is helpful for you, Noel, and and I
know a lot of people who use that kind of
thing where it's it's usually directly connected either to your
wrist or to something you wear in your chest.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
There's a version of it.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And HM. So you're the these apps like Strava and
whatever it is you're using, and the kind of the
the stuff that's already inside the phones when when it
comes to you, it's incredibly cool that we can that
we can track ourselves in our body and how it's
functioning for things like fitness right and and working out.
(09:41):
Strava is one of those apps. Correct, Isn't that primarily
what it is?
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Yes, it is.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
And it's also like people who are really into cycling
and who are maybe even working towards competing in some
larger event. Those stats are very important a because you
can't like fake them, and it's it's very important that
you have metrics to show that you've done the work
to get to the thing and to like show to.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Show your work.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Basically, you know, while I'm certain there are ways to
game it, there is a certain sense within the communities
that rely on these things that you know, there is
a certain amount of like what's the word benefit of
the doubt?
Speaker 3 (10:21):
I guess that goes along with using them correctly. Yeah, yeah,
you guys are righting to jump in here. Just for
the basic definition. Strava is a social media platform meets
wellness app. It was founded in two thousand and nine
to track to earlier points and to a degree, to
(10:44):
gamify physical exercise. It comes to us from some Harvard alums,
some really smart guys named Michael Harvith, not Harvard associated,
but that's cool, nominative determinism, and a guy named Mark Gainey,
two very very bright guys. Strava takes its name from
the Swedish word strava with an umlaut over the first a,
(11:08):
which means to strive. So they kind of pulled a
Hogandau's situation because they're an American company, but they wanted,
you know, they wanted that European Ikea esque feel, and
like we were saying earlier, it first gains traction with
cyclist and it's a free app, right, and I love
that point you raised about competitive cycling. Now you can
(11:31):
see how the other folks are doing. Then it expands
to runners. Now we can not just PLoP our ones
and twos for a couple of miles and see our
speed and elevation and stuff. We can also recommend roots
or as they would call them, segments to one another,
and we can now track other forms of exercise via Strava,
(11:52):
including indoor stuff. People love this. They're leaderboards. Strava has
a version of likes, they're called kudos, and folks also
rightly with validity, love being able to track their progress and.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Just to say, another thing that Strava has is the
ability to flag users who potentially are being dishonest about
their runs.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
In you can flag people. You can't see who flagged you.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
There can be a complaint lies within the community, and
there are apparently some tells as to whether or not
someone is being dishonest about their run. You can kind
of measure I believe the burned calories or the elevation
whatever it might be with the distance and with like
the amount of time moving, and you can sort of
see if someone's duking the stats a.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Little bit because there's so much information out there that
can be leveraged and connected and Charlie Dade, you know,
and I think we're that when we're going to see
the idea about gitting up the numbers or goosing them,
as we've been saying recently, that goes to a special
case in Singapore. So what Drava is doing isn't entirely
(13:03):
you know, unique.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
There are tons of other apps like my fitness Pal
and different, maybe slightly less track track focused or distance
focused apps, but there are other ones that are very,
very similar to what Strava does. However, it is the
one of the most popular ones, especially in like we
were talking about the world that's cycling. By twenty twenty,
just over ten years into the launch, Drava ad fifty
(13:27):
million individual users with around three billion activities uploaded to
the app. It's also available in thirteen different languages.
Speaker 5 (13:36):
So yeah, amazing internet success story for sure.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So let's talk about the mapping specifically, because I think
really that's what sets apart Strava for a lot of
other hundred apps. This concept of whenever you go out
for a workout, whether there's biking, running, whatever, you can
you have the option to track exactly where you go
in real time and then build out a whole essentially
(14:01):
a track of where you went starting point and an endpoint.
It's not always in the same place, but sometimes it
is that whole thing, that that feeling that users get
of sharing. Hey look at all the work I just
put in. Check it out and it just happened. I
just finished it. Or hey, look at the run I'm
(14:22):
going on right now, right that there's something there's something
so important in there that goes back to that when
we become our phones episode about wanting to share that
thing so that others recognize whatever it is that you're doing,
and then you get direct and immediate feedback, like real
time feedback sometimes about how awesome you are.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
It's really no absolutely the way you put it, I agree,
it's it's the kind of the case of Strava is
the kind of thing later Harvard grads are going to
study in business school. This is how you do it right,
They wrote the textbook. In this regard, we want to
be clear or at least. I think it's important for
(15:07):
us to say these apps can be extremely helpful to
so many people because working out is not a one
and done event. It takes time, dedication, routine, it takes discipline.
If you have a sedentary job, you might well find
apps like this crucial to your routine because you can
see and feel and to that earlier point you raised, Matt,
(15:31):
share the result of your labor. It's a motivating factor.
It is gamified. Last time I biked three miles, let's
see if I can get four in around the same
amount of time.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Well, and I guess, just to Matt, you kind of
already made this clear. But in this case, the tracking
isn't like a byproduct. It is the products, and it
is not a bug. It is absolutely a feature. And
you can look at other people's profiles and you look
at their routes as a way of like, oh, I
might want to do that routes, not like necessarily as
(16:02):
a way of stalking them per se.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
But of course there's the dark side of all of them. Yeah,
Like I say, you share the segment share of the recommend.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, let's say you're a biker and you're in a
town that you're not used to being in, but you've
got a bike, you have access to a bike, you
want to go out for the day. It's way more
helpful to see where people are going because we know
how dangerous it is to be on a bike in
a lot of places. You know, and maybe you don't
understand how strenuous of a ride something is going to
be or where it's going to lead. Look at Strava. Hey,
(16:32):
now I've got three or four potential routes I can
take and it's going to be a great day.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
And Strava says, don't worry. This is relatively anonymous, relatively
caveat asterisk. People loved this concept of the app, and
it changed as it grew, which always happens. I believe
was May of twenty twenty, really, as the pandemic lockdown's
hitting fever pitch, the company updates its terms and con
(17:00):
they get that freemium model going. They say, look, we've
been busting our hubs for everybody. We've been really flexing
our calves to help out our fellow cyclist and people
doing exercise, but we have not made a profit yet.
We do so much stuff we gotta make Yeah, we
(17:20):
got to make a little money, we got to pay
the blood price. So because the US first, right, right, yeah,
then you get the money, right And so they say, look,
you can technically still use the app for free, but
for the advanced features aka the things people love about Strava,
you're going to have to subscribe. So some of the
(17:43):
stuff that was free is now only available with a
paid subscription, and any new features we have are also
going to only be available if you cough up some
scheddar or scooch out some scratch or another fun word
for paying money. Coughing up cheddar sounds scary. Coughing up
(18:05):
cheddar sounds like a medical condition. Why don't we give
the direct quote from Strava about this change.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
A few of our free features that are specially complex
and expensive to maintain, like segment leader boards, will now
become subscription features. See I'm doing it like the way? Yeah,
make it sound like? Are you sweet?
Speaker 5 (18:26):
He's vaguely Swedish?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, yeah, but not really. And from now on, more
of our new feature development will be for all subscribers.
We'll invest the most in the athletes who have invested
in us.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Right that last lines a banger? Also well done? I
think on the on the recap there, Matt, I love
the voice. I want to know more about this character.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
So can I just ask to if I, as a
new user, want to get the free version, what does
that mean for me?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Now you get the base model?
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Son, Yeah, you get shamed. Are your fellow cyclists you
invest You can't see the leader board? Bro? I forgot
you can't.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
You gotta give? How are you going to invest in yourself?
Speaker 3 (19:09):
You don't invest in us, Bro, We invested the athletes
who invest in us.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
If that's the site you gotta give, it's.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
The cycle of life. Okay. We can't afford the sound cube.
So these moves are always going to be controversial among
the user base. Mainly, these things are controversial because people
don't dig it when something that was free becomes a regular,
recurring cost. Right. That's a huge problem on the internet
(19:38):
and internet services in general. But Cyclist magazine was super
into this because to that earlier point, cycling has been
a huge part of Strava from the jump, and they
even asked a fellow Strava user, a psychologist named Ben Dowman,
to weigh in on this and his quote. Ben's quote
(20:02):
is pretty fascinating. So uh, let's see who wants who
wants to do a character voice for this Nolie, you
got one. I'm gonna do sort of an ed game voice.
From the outside.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
As a user myself, Strava's communication has been very parent
child sorry.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
The show.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
He sounds like the old man from Family Guy. It's
a choice.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
We have had free access to Strava's functions for a
very long time, and now it feels like we are
having our favorite toy taken away from us with no
room for discussion on negotiation.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
You just gotta get no discussion or negotiation.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
Just give Look at Dildon, he gives yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
He's a lot of people give you hit me in
the cup City customers, but I mean yeah. People weren't
super happy about it. Strava still soldiered on, and it
maintained that despite the leaderboards the social aspects of the service,
they did not have a side gig profiting off personal data. Specifically,
(21:08):
Strava's then global marketing director Simon Klima stated, subscription has
always been at the heart of Strava, making up the
vast majority of our revenue. We do not sell personal
information before and we do not sell it now. It's
reassuring to hear, and this is something we have to know,
(21:32):
Like a lot of companies of this genre and size
are still going to be pretty cagey about the specifics
of their data how it's used internally, that those kind
of stats are their secret sauce, right.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Just like twenty three and meters. We're not going to
use your person. Sorry, everything's fine, but it does make
sense right where the subscription itself and the money coming
in from that would be enough for a time, it
would show enough growth and as more and more people
who are using the app regularly start to give, then hey,
(22:06):
the company is profitable. The problems come and they need more.
So you either got to get more users, increase your price,
or find another stream.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Mmmmm yeah, because you got to get those year over
year profits. This is so par for the course, and
we got to say it. As a private entity, Strava
is fully within its legal rights. But the second issue,
the reason we're here tonight, it's not about what Strava
intentionally may or may not do with user data. It's
about the unintentional consequences the user security. What happens when
(22:41):
things go pair shaped as our pals, Pete and Boss
would say what happens when things go wrong? We talked
in the past. You know, another episode this reminds me
of is an ongoing conversation we had about the idea
of a world without secrets, a world in which social apps, hackers,
the information age all combine and amalgamate to erode the
(23:03):
concept of privacy and push every individual, willingly or not,
into the public sphere. I believe, Matt it was you
earlier said the idea of being public figures. Right, We're
looking at a world wherein everyone to some degree is
a public figure, even if that's not what they want.
(23:23):
It's another step in the rabbit hole. You know. Strava
was and is a gold mine for sensitive information. We
could argue it was inevitable. It was simply a matter
of time before some of that information leaked.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Oh yeah, because those public figures we're talking about, they
don't want to be seen at all times. They want
to be seen at the times they want to be seen, right,
the profitable times, the times when they're out doing the
official stuff. The thing we got to remember about people
(23:58):
who have a lot of power or are are that public,
they often have teams of people around them, wouldn't you say, guys.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Oh gosh, you handlers, They would be called I guess.
And also those appearances that you're talking about, they go
to a great lengths often to make them seem natural
and organic, but they are vetted.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
There's hair and makeup.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
There's all of these aspects that lead to the rollout
of this very public event. And that's part of the
reason that I mean, it's interesting because you have things
like Twitter that sort of opened a lot of celebrity
life up in a way that wasn't or at least
didn't seem so vetted and so polished. But now there's
(24:37):
almost this backlash against that because the pendulum swung too
far in that direction, right hmmm, I mean, you know
what I mean, not backlash against that, but it's just like,
I think we are back to a bit more of
a time where it's a little bit more cautious. There's
a little bit more caution going into some of these
events and these sort of perceived public appearances.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
There is an intense on go social debate over what
should or should not be behind the proverbial curtain. So again,
was the strava gold mine just inevitably going to get leveraged.
We'll learn more afterword from our sponsors. Here's where it
(25:23):
gets crazy, all right. We talked about this in the
strange news story you brought us bat earlier this year.
Data from Strava has become a security concern, not once,
but multiple times, and it's because it's part of an
economy of scale thing. Really, it's extremely popular with so
(25:43):
many folks to your point about cyclist Noll, including celebrities, royalty,
members of the world's security and military services. I think
one example we had earlier a precedent for what happened
with this company Strava, is you know the guys who
send off well intentioned emails from their deployment at a
(26:07):
nuclear sub I miss you, Grandma. We're right around Malta.
Things are heating up. You know. That's that's a rough thing.
That's well intentioned, but it can tell too much information
to the bad guys. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Well. Yeah, when Facebook brought around its idea that hey,
you can check in to a physical location wherever you go,
and then imagine that the public figure themselves. Who if
we're imagining an individual right that let's say President isn't
going to go check in on Facebook when they go somewhere, right,
not going to happen, but somebody in the entourage might
(26:45):
somebody you know who's just a tertiary figure that's in there,
or maybe even perhaps a security official, right, somebody who's
on staff as security. They might check in a little
later after the gig's done.
Speaker 3 (26:59):
Or In November of twenty seventeen, Strava created a public
global heat map and you can see all kinds of
pictures of this. It collected two years of movement data
from all the users around the world from twenty fifteen
to twenty seventeen. And then just a few months later,
it's January of twenty eighteen, and this awesome kid, Nathan.
(27:25):
I hope it doesn't offend you if I call you
a kid. He's twenty years old. He's an Australian international
security student. His name is Nathan Ruser r User, and
he notices something bizarre. He's our first public Charlie Day
in this situation. He says, hang on this heat map.
It's not updating live, it's not real time information, but
(27:49):
it is mapped military bases across the planet. Because people
are sharing their recommended roots, their segments. You know, they
want their kudos, their likes, and you can see you
can see as a result of this movement tracking you
you can see the roots for everything from US bases
(28:11):
in Syria and Afghanistan to the hm n B Clyde,
which is the Royal Navy base that has the UK's
nuclear arsenal. You can see it. We've got an example
here from a US base in Afghanistan in the Hellman's Province.
This comes directly from Strava's global heat map. Do you
(28:33):
want to describe what it looks like here? It looks
like a line drawing and the brighter lines are the
more well traveled roots.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yeah, it looks like a grid system of of you know,
a small base. It's tough to know. Are these interior
or exterior routes? Right? Are there any doors involved here?
It does look exterior to me. And then it's got
what looks like maybe a small airstrip or something that
the person has run around in a bit of a
(29:06):
more organic shape rather than the straight grid lines in
the other parts.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Yeah, maybe I like the airstrip idea met because maybe
that's where you can get your quick quarter mile in.
Do that a couple of times, and it's one of
the brighter lines. So also want to shout out Nathan
for keeping it so falcon it is interviews. He was
talking with the BBC and he later said, look, I
(29:33):
just looked at it and I thought, oh hell, this
should not be here. This is not good. So I
went and told the public.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Well, let's talk about what this really means. So if
you've got a map like this of a military structure,
do you think this would be that helpful? Is somebody
planning something?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Oh yes, yeah, very helpful, thank you Strava.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
But don't we all have like Google maps and things,
and if somebody wanted to cause harm at a military base,
you can find a military base, look at it from
above and see pretty much this, right.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Yeah, it's not like world governments and terrorists don't already
know where all the bases are. Even black sites get
clocked eventually. Shout out to our previous episodes on that
and like you're saying, there, Matt, sattech can provide clear
pictures of any exposed compound, right, Okay, yeah, so Strava's
heat map is an added benefit. These they're the sprinkles
(30:36):
on the sandwich, right Because it displays levels of activity
via increasing light, which reveals which of those military buildings
are the most frequented, and it also tells you the
roots that soldiers would take in and around the compound.
The location data can extend beyond the base too, which
(30:59):
means you can see the commonly used exercise roots or
regularly patrolled roads. Because a lot of people probably did
the thing, so many other folks do. They just clicked
yes on the terms and conditions and they never checked
their privacy settings.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Oh dude, or maybe someone turns it on, like puts
the walk on. I'm just going for a walk, right,
but it's part of my exercise, so I'm gonna bank
it now. I'm just walking through the facility. But that
makes sense in my head, I'm thinking all exterior, But no,
that would that would totally check out. You could walk
into the most sensitive parts and now they've got a
(31:35):
map on how to get to.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Them, as long as you can bring your phone right
or but then they've got the watch situation as well,
Like there's a way you know, when you click.
Speaker 4 (31:45):
The watch for a workout, you can do an indoor
walk or an outdoor walk or whatever. The type of
activity might be, and people that are really into like
making sure they're banking that stuff. To your point, Matt,
they're always gonna put that in it in there and
make sure that it's counting that down. So you know
that for that period of time when you're on the
(32:06):
move in a certain indoor facility, that's a pretty easy
thing to identify, you know what that durn frames.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
And if you can't have the phone, then you obviously
can't have the smart watch either. Yes, it's definitely and
it also shows us another advantage that doesn't really fix
the problem, because if you've got the map of everything else,
you've got the heat map of the rest of the place.
You know where the black hole is right, you know
(32:33):
where the skiff is or whatever other sensitive stuff. So
if someone is a bad actor, a bad guy, they've
got to be in their bonnet, they get a badger
in their bag, they want to attack something, Strava's heat
map could accidentally give them the chance to plan the
perfect aggression, you know, knowing how to get in, where
(32:54):
to go immediately, where to hit with maximum impact, and
then how to ghost out successfully afterwards. Strava potentially gave
some really bad guys for really awesome gifts. Wow.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, and it's not just the military basis, right, because
you have to imagine this could be any building anywhere,
even let's say a chateau somewhere in the mountains out.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Right, perhaps a chalet in Switzerland.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, this is a true story, this the Swedes.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, but yeah, like, but it's weird to think of
it that way because it could also be maps, if
you're in a mountainous region, maps to get to that place, right,
and then you could see an alternate way to get
to that facility or that even again, just that house
that is not marked by people walking on it regularly, exactly.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
And this is why our pal Nathan went public with
this quickly. Just like a white hat hacker, which he
says he's not. He's connecting dots and he realized that
if he was connecting these, someone else probably was doing
the same thing or had. And to their credits, Strava
responded very quickly. Their CEO, James Quarrels said Strava is
(34:17):
committed to working with military and government officials to address
these concerns, and then additionally said we're going to simplify
our privacy features so that the end user has a
better understanding, a more clear understanding of what they are
or are not publicizing to the world at large. But
(34:37):
at this point, the horse has left the lamp, the
jen is out of the barn, the badger's out of
the bag. More Shenanigans are on the way. We've got
so many more examples to get to. Should we take
a break for a word from our sponsors here, because
I know we're all darkly fascinated by how many things
(34:59):
went wrong? I think we must, and we've returned. In
a similar case to the Afghanistan stuff and to the
Royal Navy stuff. Military bases in Israel fell to a
similar security vulnerability, but it was different because this goes
(35:24):
to Nol's earlier point about hacking stuff right or acting
in bad faith. I wasn't aware of this. You can
upload fake roots or segments suggested roots to a region,
and then when you upload that, if people engage in,
if they use it right a route that you have
(35:46):
never actually run. You're just laying out this thing as
an if. Then if a local user decides to take
this track, you, the segment poster can learn earned the
identities or past routes of those users. Who fell for
your your fake trail, your fake grift.
Speaker 5 (36:08):
Oh snap, I didn't know you could do that.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
You know, well, if that's intense and that seems like
the route that would be taken. But I didn't think about.
Let's say you're targeting some public official, right and you
know that they live because they're a public official in
some around some area close by to this one place.
You could physically, using the app, go and run near
(36:34):
that area. Just create those things as well. But I
didn't even know you could upload a fake one.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
You could just dumb me up a fake one.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
Yeah, that's insane.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Here's my daily run to the best swimming area in Diego, Garcia.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Because you could correlate users who use it, I'm saying
you can. You can find the identities of people that
may actually be in the facility or connected to the
public official your targeting, even.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
If they've maxed out their privacy settings.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Jesus.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
But like Strava's not canceled.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
I mean people are still using it, Like this didn't
tank My companys and millions of people fascinating that a
scandal to the of this magnitude isn't enough to you know,
topple an organization like this, I think because many folks
kind of look at it the way I do, where
it's like occasionally there's going to be some things that
(37:29):
go wrong and it's still worth it to me, you know,
for the benefits that I get from it.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
To take that risk, I would have I would have
shout out all of us. All you guys all are
fellow conspiracy realist who are getting in their Strava time
right now as you're listening to the show, Thanks for
letting us ride along with you. Don't don't hang up
on Strava yet, but you got to hear some more stuff.
(37:54):
I just think this is an interesting experience for those
of us who are, you know, running treadmiller in the
streets or or on a bike or a stationary bike,
doing whatever you're doing.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Especially those people using Garman Connect right now. Yeah, because
that those folks are getting sued by Strava, and Strava
is saying, hey, you can't make any more stuff Garmin
because you're using our heat map stuff.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Yeah you're using it, yeah, our heat maps and for
the people and maybe the terrorist and maybe the talkers.
But so twenty twenty three and please, please please keep
your Strava going as you're listening, folks. Twenty twenty three
was also a tough year for Strava because people found
(38:39):
heat map data could reveal the home addresses of active
users in remote areas. And there's a there's a paper
you can read about this online for free for now
from some three very smart people in the Carolinas, and
they walk through the process, which gets a little bit complicated,
(39:01):
but it's still disturbing, especially because a lot of people
who live in remote areas are doing so on purpose
because they don't want to be identified, doxed and hunted down.
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah, let's go over the timeline again quickly, guys, just
so we understand how much stuff has really is accumulating
right here for Strava. Right nine, we said is when
it gets created. Twenty seventeen is the first big scandal.
Twenty twenty two is the thing where the Israel bases
get revealed. Now we're in twenty twenty three and we're
(39:38):
figuring out, oh God, anybody and everybody is going to
get revealed here. Surely there's not more.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Oh surely there is, right that? I mean?
Speaker 5 (39:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Then then same year Strava was used to identify a
native of Raleigh, North Carolina who lit a Trump one
lawn sign on fire. So you know, like we've all
seen political yard signs, this guy lit what up.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
And like the Strava route put him.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
The Strava route put him, They got him, he got popped,
he got jammed up. We're not saying it's right to
burn stuffed out.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
No, And I do think it's worth mentioning in this conversation.
Some other kind of examples of this, like ring cameras
that are you know, app connected, and there are various
kind of murky layers to the privacy surrounding them, and
like to what degree can authorities essentially co opt your
(40:42):
ring feed in ways that could even potentially compromise you
if you've done something wrong. The key there being if
you've done something wrong. Because I always say that I
really don't care too much whether these companies are tracking
me because I'm not out there breaking the lawn and
burning down Trump.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Signs and things.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
You know, well, it's just on who you're hanging with.
Speaker 4 (41:01):
Absolutely true, and I hear you're app There's no question
that I hear you.
Speaker 3 (41:04):
Guys. The the Kevin Bacon rule of Hoover and intelligence
is like you said, Matt, I think that's a concern,
and Noel to your point, while I hear you on that,
one of the one of the bigger concerns is what
if something becomes wrong later.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
That's also very, very true, and I completely understand, especially
in the world we're living and now, associations could come
back to haunt you various things. Any you know how
granular is it going to get in terms of like
where were you at this particular time, did you go
to a place that is now a known whatever?
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Like, guys, let's think about Ice And that's exactly right.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
That's a huge concern. Yeah, Ice and Strava apps, Ice
and Strava apps.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
We you know exactly where this guy runs. We'll just
put a van strategically located.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
It's so hairy man.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Can we get to the public figures thing? Because this
is I think we're getting into the territory where the
really maybe scary stuff. This is all scary stuff, but
this is like just the fact that right now you
can go to a website called rollcall dot com and
you can look at President Donald Trump's calendar, the official
(42:17):
public calendar. There are a bunch of places online where
you could find that public calendar. I think white House
dot gov has a version of it deep in there
somewhere you can see what the official scheduled events are
for the President of the United States. Right, you can
see the same thing for let's say Emmanuel Macron, the
president of France.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Justin Trudeau back in the day.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
Yeah, most of these extremely public figures, especially government officials,
are gonna have some kind of public facing schedule of events,
including times. So it's not just on this day we're
doing that. It's this is at nineteen hundred hours, we're
going to be.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Here Atlanta three pm. We're going to celebrate National Route
to Bega Day, and the Vice President is going to
be in attendance from three fifteen to three forty five exactly.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Well today, just to use this exact thing on Elisi
E l y see dot FR, I can see that
Emmanuel Mcron at sixteen hundred hours today on October sixth,
is going to be having a meeting with the Council
of Ministers. That's happening today. But what we don't know
is what's happening immediately after that, where the president is
(43:32):
going to go right, we don't know that part.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
We don't until we lead Dodd Strava. In October of
twenty twenty four, journalists at Lemones but we can't say
enough good stuff about them. They discovered that Strava had
exposed unknowingly the locations and activities of world leaders because
of their security teams. The folks who travel with big
(43:58):
name political figures like US presidents or Manuel Macron or
Justin Trudeau. You know, those guys tend to be in
pretty good shape. And when they're not at work, they're
working out because they got to be ready.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
We're saying the security teams, right.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
The security teams were logging their stuff.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Yeah, that was used to then track the proximity to
the public figure they were in charge.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Of, right, one hundred percent. Yes, you're correct, And so,
as Matt mentioned in our earlier Strange News program, Strava
fitness data also revealed private locations of people who, yeah,
I guess they're public figures. They're more like high value targets,
the Swedish royal family. And this all came from the
security teams who were like, all right, I've got you know,
(44:46):
I've got Dylan on the next shift. So I got
to get my steps in. You know, I'm gonna take
a run, I'm gonna move some weights, and taking the
run or taking the bike is really where you get
that that crunchy corner brownie of opset.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, well yeah, but what we're talking about the King
and queen, right, the King and queen and where they
personally vacation, so behind.
Speaker 3 (45:14):
The curtain the stuff I don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
You're not supposed to know that at all. And the
security person is just as you said, doing something innocent,
trying to get some exercise when he's not he or
she is not officially on duty. And that single act
allowed Leamond and anybody else who was interested to go, oh,
they must be up there at that giant mansion slash
(45:37):
castle the.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
People. So okay, we gotta be fair, all right, this
is it, Dylan. I'm say I'm cursing so much in
this episode. Please beat me here. This is a huge gup.
This is like a bad thing to happen. And Strava,
in their defense, absolutely did not tend this. They played
(46:01):
no active, knowing role in setting up possible attacks. They're
just a successful business that is already doing the thing
adolescent businesses do, which is you expand you acquire competitors
other companies, you make more features, you get more money.
You're about that bag. That's what Strava is doing. And
(46:22):
Strava has made multiple public statements for each of these
reported incidents. In the case that we mentioned earlier, doxing
people in remote locations, they came out with a pretty
strident public statement, which I suggest we read just in
the interest of objectivity and fairness.
Speaker 4 (46:45):
For sure, the safety and privacy of our community is
our highest priority. We've long had a suite of privacy controls,
including map visibility controls that give users control over what
they share and who it's shared with.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
And it continues. They say Strava does not track users
or share data without their permission. When users share their
aggregated de identified data with the heat map and Strava Metro,
they contribute to a one of a kind data set
that helps urban planners as they develop better infrastructure from
(47:20):
people on foot and bikes, and makes it easy to
plan routes with the knowledge of the community. This interview
is over, y'all.
Speaker 4 (47:28):
Really, I know, urban planners, I mean yeah, I mean
we need we need some more sidewalk over here.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
We need some over there.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
True, that's all true, but it's a little bit of
a reach.
Speaker 3 (47:40):
It's like, I get it. I'm just saying, it's like
that DMZ video about how the Korean War is great
for birds. It seems to be missing the root of
me of the matter. Yes, sir, just so. It's the
wrong vegetable and wrong badger in the bag here, and
I love that. We also notice something sneaky. Putting the
(48:02):
onus on the consumer always always tail as old as time,
classic pr move.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
We didn't expect those security personnel to share their stuff? Silly?
Speaker 3 (48:16):
Oh secret service? Am I right? What else? What else
they're playing? Food? Oh jesus h. Anyway, it seems it
does seem that Strava. I don't know what you guys think,
but it seems that Strava is making good faith efforts
to mitigate the security risk here, but they're doing so
while still ensuring the success and growth of the company,
(48:39):
more users, more subscription fees year over year. Capitalism pays
the blood price, you know, and tries not to end
up in the stone chair. So will these two goals
ever become mutually exclusive? Will the promise or the drive
the necessity of profit on the horizon. Will it get
(49:00):
them to cut corners on the security concerns and put
the put the responsibility and accountability even more on the
end user. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
I don't know, man. The private vacationing area for the
royal family is one thing, because they're not going to
be there that often, right, They're just going to be
hanging out there for a couple of weeks and.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
A year maybe, and they own tons of places that
they barely visit.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And there's going to be
a ton of security there hence all the running, right
and on all the folks who are currently off duty
because they're way more on duty. But when you imagine
the location of someone's personal domicile, their house where they live,
the address where one of these people lives, like the
(49:47):
Prime Minister of Sweden's private address where you go home
and try and sleep sometimes after doing a bunch of work,
imagine that that location becomes at risk because not only
is it information about physically where it is, what the
address is so someone can just get there, you've also
now got routes that security personnel take around that house, right,
(50:14):
And that's where somebody who just has ill will but
doesn't have a lot of planning. It's not going to
be crazy helpful for This is only really helpful for
the people that you know, imagine a serial killer that's
extremely organized, somebody who is focused and is going to
use that data for bad things. That's the actually dangerous
(50:36):
person or group of people, and this is what helps them.
Speaker 3 (50:40):
Yeah, this is tasty, tasty stuff. It also, you know,
it doesn't take a state sponsored hacker, It doesn't take
any of that amazing secret in sa tech to gather
this information. You just have to be determined and have
the time and an Internet connection. That is the frightening part.
(51:01):
Anybody with enough time to connect the dots could have
arrived at similar conclusions as soon as the heat map hit,
and probably well before that if they were active in
if they were active on Strava. And that's why our pal,
the kind of the hero of the story, Nathan Russer,
moved so quickly to report this to the public. I
(51:22):
think one thing that may be reassuring for us to
share fellow conspiracy realists, especially folks on Strava. Right now,
as of this moment, as of this recording Monday, October sixth.
There have been no verified attacks that have been proven
to have leveraged data from Strava or data whatever, Tomato tomatow,
(51:45):
But it does seem there's a storm on the horizon
because Strava is not unique. There are other like one
of us was saying earlier, there are other things that
track and share in much the same manner. Countless apps
are taken your information to do similar stuff, and once
they get big enough, economy of scale kicks in. You
can make another world map. That's right. I aggregate all
(52:07):
that stuff together.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
It's and then but then you see the state of
the world in so many countries right now. Guys. I
haven't been looking closely at France at all, but because
of Lamond in this episode, I ended up just, oh, well,
what's going on in France right now? Like politically and
all that good stuff. And then you see, you know,
another prime minister that was appointed for only a year
(52:31):
just resigned, like literally I think today or the past
couple of days. There's there's kind of chaos happening and
changing of guard happening across the world, but in not
normal ways that we would see in democracies right.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
Right, not the peaceful passage of power.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
It's happening all over the place. And then you just
imagine this kind of information is out there, and it
doesn't take long to see the motivations that someone might
have to take act Like we've been describing today.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Right, the barriers are much lower now you can get touched, folks.
It's just true.
Speaker 2 (53:09):
It's scary, man, because it speaks to just a larger
kind of state of chaos that we're entering.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Yes, absolutely, it's a storm on the horizon by all
all metrics we can tell, and by now obviously in
this brave new world, we should each carry a healthy skepticism,
if not outright paranoia about apps in general, especially things
linked to your mobile devices, those obscure terms and conditions
(53:38):
about how your stuff gets recorded, stored, and shared. I
know we're all fans of, you know, very specific ways
of learning. We're fans of very specific apps as a result,
and Noel, thank you again for hipping me to Dark
Skies for a great primer on this of stuff on
(54:00):
Strava in particular. In the larger issue, do check out
Undercode Testing's article how Strava data leaks are endangering world
leaders a cybersecurity wake up call. The issue is real.
I mean, these things are so convenient, that's true. But
I think we can argue in this case the convenience
(54:21):
itself is becoming the conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (54:24):
Sure, yeah, But I guess just to bring up what
I mentioned earlier about like this is not have we
seen a market decrease in subscribers to the service as
a result of this news.
Speaker 3 (54:37):
I don't think so. No. Similar to the hit they
took with the move to a subscription model, they encountered
a dip, but it's still like it's similar to Facebook.
People are just going to be sandboxed in. They're going
to be using it. You're, as you said, you're a
competitive biker. Maybe like I'm, I'm a competitive biker. I'm
gearing up to really do some stuff. Then I need
(55:00):
those stats. I need that context, and that's what people
are doing well.
Speaker 4 (55:04):
And again I'm not maybe I am willfully putting on
blinders to some of this stuff, But as soon as
we get done recording this, I'm going to download that.
I mean, I'm into it, I think, and I don't
necessarily see a willful effort to like defraud their users.
I think what we're talking about is a bigger picture
(55:25):
issue with tracking, a bigger picture issue with what this
stuff can be.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
Used for by these bad actors.
Speaker 4 (55:32):
Yes, by the way, yeah, whoa, Well they can become buddies.
Speaker 3 (55:37):
Is that a thing? Are you? Are you Strava buddies?
Speaker 2 (55:40):
You should be? Can I tell you this, guys, I've
never once turned on the fitness tracking on my phone occasion.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (55:48):
Location tracking, yes, one hundred percent. But I've never once
turned the other stuff on. But there was a time
when I would turn off location services unless I absolutely
needed it, and like I was gonna take use Google
Maps for something, right right, But I've stopped doing that
now because.
Speaker 3 (56:04):
It hasn't it yeah, the.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Way that things require it now. So then it just
made me feel so complacent about like, fine, I'll freaking
leave it on. Yeah, Like that is the thing that
is really scary.
Speaker 3 (56:19):
It's also Yeah, the strangest breaches of privacy or the
strangest things in general become normalized so quickly. That's an
amazing thing about humanity. It's also a very frightening thing
about the human experiment, and we have to remember it
will become increasingly inconvenient to hold the line on your
(56:42):
personal information. And I know we're all very we all
have principles about that us listening along right now too.
But there's a prime movement to erod that sense of
privacy in personhood. That's what's happening. They can convenience is
the conspiracy. That's the stuff they don't want you to know.
(57:04):
You can find us on the iHeartRadio app. By the way,
promise trick you that much. Terms and conditions apply. We
can't wait to hear your thoughts, folks. Thanks so much
for tuning in. Thanks as always to our super producer,
the real star of the show, Dylan, the Tennessee pal
Fake and Dylan. Before we before we throw to some CTAs,
(57:26):
how do we do man?
Speaker 7 (57:27):
Excellent, excellent job. I've had some experience with Strava.
Speaker 5 (57:31):
Oh can you tell us?
Speaker 7 (57:33):
I was using it for biking for a while. The
thing that got me should have been the privacy concerns,
but it was when they made their feed non chronological.
Speaker 3 (57:42):
Got it the algorithm?
Speaker 7 (57:44):
Oh yeah, I wanted to see the most interesting stuff first.
Speaker 2 (57:48):
Oh my god, dude, you know what got me about Strava.
It is recently I don't know if you guys know this,
but there's a company out there called Garmin, and back
in nineteen ninety one they gave us this thing called
a GPS you could use in your boats and your
cars and everything else, and incredible.
Speaker 3 (58:07):
It saved us in the national radio quiet zone. That's right.
Speaker 2 (58:11):
Yeah, see a garment man. Well, Strava has come out
and they are suing the pants off a garment because
Garmin makes their own stuff, as we alluded to earlier,
specifically their own hardware like a watch, so you're it's
supposed to be able to do the same things. And
Strava is saying, hey, you are patent infringing us and
you are now sued.
Speaker 3 (58:29):
Oh no, that's a reach. That feels like you're shaking
our stuff. Yeah, that's like walking into a sports game
and seeing somebody else with a baseball cap and saying,
you piece of crap. I'm the one who wears baseball hats.
I'm gonna sue you. I mean, it is true, but
(58:50):
you know, tech and patents are already such a sticky
wicket and that might be a show for another day
if you want to learn more about patent law out
our surprisingly not boring series on Ridiculous History where we
talk all about ips and patents and if you want
to make our day, fellow conspiracy realist, we would love
(59:13):
to hear your thoughts, especially Strava users and especially people
who object to Strava. Find us online, call us on
the phone. You can send us an email. You sure can.
Speaker 4 (59:22):
You can find ut the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we
exist on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it
gets crazy, on x FKA, Twitter and on YouTube with
video content galore for your perusing enjoyment on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3 (59:34):
However, we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (59:37):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three STDWYTK. Before you call, turn those letters into numbers.
That's just a pro tip. When you do call, give
yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we
can use your name and message on the air. If
you would like to send us a message via email,
oh you can do that.
Speaker 3 (59:56):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence.
Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Actually we're writing back now to personally thank everybody who
reached out with such kind words post snuff Film episode
so if you wrote to us about that, keep your
eyes on the email. We will be with you very soon.
(01:00:19):
Join us out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Stuff they Don't 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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