June 14, 2022 • 51 mins
Public wifi can be an enormously convenient thing -- it helps people dodge data charges in coffee shops, airports and other places around the globe. But how safe is it? Tune in to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
So it's not all true crime allegations of the paranormal
and very very spooky stuff here on stuff they don't
want you to know. In fact, sometimes we get pretty granular.
And I cannot remember how this when came about, but
I think we we had an off air conversations we
often do about things that bugged our paranoid minds, like
(00:23):
free WiFi. Yeah, like you know, we were at the
airport and we just said it says like you know,
we're looking at them that works available and goes airport
WiFi definitely legit and free log on now, yes, exactly.
I want to say this came up due to reporting
surrounding the Olympics and the Olympic Games, and maybe I'm wrong,
this was somewhere around there. I remember there were specific
(00:47):
reports about joining free WiFi when you're out to visit
the Olympic Games in another country. Yeah, and this this
is something that affects you in your own country, wherever
you live. We wanted to dive in and learn more
about it. So here it is free WiFi gambling with
your privacy. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies.
(01:11):
History is riddled with unexplained events you can turn back
now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
welcome back to the show. My name is Max, my
name is No. They often call me Ben. You are you?
(01:32):
This is stuff they don't want you to know. And
let's start with a question for those of you tuning in,
how are you listening to this show? And I don't
just necessarily mean like a boom box, which would be cool.
I don't know if our shows are on cassette yet
or are you downloading it? Have you streamed it? And
(01:52):
if so, where are you streaming it from. If you're
like most people, you have concerns about your data plan
on your phone and you probably want to use WiFi.
Holy Grail, I certainly do. If I'm going to listen
to a podcast, I download it through WiFi and then
throw it on my phone so I can have it
for later because I have trust issues. You know. Speaking
(02:13):
of trust issues, A T and T totally bamboozled me
out of my unlimited data plan to lower my bill
a little bit because I felt like it was a
little too high. And they're like, well, you know, if
you give up your limited data because you're clearly not
using it, we can give you this amount of data
and you know you'll be good as gold. Well, it
turns out that I exceeded just so every single month,
(02:33):
even with dolls pop. Yeah, So WiFi is huge because
these phone companies are tightening down data, so it's a
lot more restrictive these days. They have these plans, these
tiered plans, where you are paying for every little bit
of data that you use, much more so than in
the past. So the obvious choices to find WiFi anywhere
(02:54):
and everywhere that you possibly can. So a lot of
people would ask what is whyifi? It's one of those
things that the average human being just sort of accepts
as existing. You know, a lot of people own cars
but have no idea how they work. A lot of
people own phones, have no idea how they work. WiFi
is something that people just sort of accept. You're in
(03:17):
an airport, boom, free WiFi. It's great. You're you could
be at a restaurant, at a dentist office. There's a
pizza place next to our office that I go to
just because they have free WiFi. But what is this stuff?
WiFi is the name of any wireless networking technology that
uses radio waves to send out high speed network and
(03:39):
Internet connections, and it's it's such a cool little term,
almost like podcast, kind of a coined little buzz term.
And there is a organization, as it turns out, that
owns the rights to this trademark called the WiFi Alliance.
In a burst of creativity, Yes, uh, WiFi is a
registered trademark, and it's alliance specifically defines WiFi as a
(04:02):
wireless local area network w LAND products that are based
on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, where I
literally I Jonathan Strickland. By the way, I hope be
so glad to hear that. Um, their standards are at
two dot eleven. The greatest thing about WiFi is that
(04:24):
you no longer have to plug in the giant ethernet
cable to get access to that beautiful, sweet sweet Internet
with all the things that you love, all the the
podcasts and videos and everything you do on their. Uh,
that's the best part about it. So it uses radio
frequencies to transfer all the information of packets, all the
packets of information rather from your computer to the access
(04:46):
point to the Internet, essentially through all the chain of
servers that it goes through to get to its end
point and then right back through all that stuff through
the access point to your computer. Just a lovely little
handshaking can action. Yeah, this RF current hits and antenna
creating an electromagnetic field that's able to propagate through space.
(05:08):
That's so cool. That's so science fiction e you know,
uh right right it is. It's the magic that we
just sort of accept And a lot of a lot
of current society in the West is built on the
premise of just accepting things because they are. That way,
we drive these death machines a d plus miles an
(05:29):
hour and just accept that. Everyone will pretend those yellow
lines in the middle are doing something much smarter people
than I figured out how to use radio waves so
that I can go on Reddit dot com. Uh, and
I just accepted we stand on the shoulders of giants,
and every great invention you know is only uh is
(05:50):
only capable of being discovered or created because of prior inventions.
I guess we're getting a little spacey already, you know. Uh,
space is the place, my friend, Space is the place
you're you're killing it with the slogans lately, there is
a lot more space than stuff. Yes, Yeah, we received
a great was it a YouTube comment or an email
where where someone pointed out on our live show recording
(06:13):
that we released that the table. Yeah, I hit the
tables and were banging on and they're like, you do
realize that there's a lot more empty space in that
table than atoms, And I was like, absolutely, wow. So
to propagate through this mostly empty space, your WiFi connection
uses an electromagnetic field radio frequencies, and the primary job
(06:37):
of an access point is to broadcast this wireless signal
that your computer can detect and just like a radio,
just like searching for radio station can tune into. To
connect to an access point. To join a wireless network,
these computers or these devices have to be equipped with
wireless network adapters. Pretty simple, right, Yeah, And and the
(06:58):
great thing about it is it's not just your computer
that connects to it. It's anyone who can see the
network and has an adapter. Right, So who is anyone
within your lifetime listeners, Depending on how young or old
you are when you were born, you have probably seen
(07:18):
a precipitous rise in the amount of people hopping online.
Around of the world population has some sort of Internet connection.
It's got to the point where it's almost considered like
a human, right, I mean they're trying. There are all
these efforts to bring internet access to more rural areas
(07:39):
and you know, third world countries and things. I mean,
it's become this thing that we expect. Yeah, in less
than one percent of the globe had some kind of connections.
So in slightly less than two decades, we've gone from
one percent to nearly half of the world's population. Are
you guys part of the one percent with a like
(08:03):
a old, old old modem? Definitely? I think I may.
I think my parents may have had a O L.
We're you guys. Yeah, we had a o L and
we had compu Serve remember that. And I had a
friend who had Prodigy. Remember Prodigy. Not I am the
fire Starter, but the I am the Internet service pro
(08:24):
the same same people. Actually, seriously, No, that's a good
side gigh. Yeah, that's a that's a good site gig.
And if the band's Prodigy had been part of the
Internet service Prodigy, they may have met with more long
term success for a while. Because the number of Internet
(08:44):
users has increased tenfold from two thirteen. So what do
we mean when we say well, we mean that in
two thousand five, we reached the first time in history
that a billion people could get on the internet. Two
thousand ten, it was two billion, and then it was
three billion. And there's some really cool infographics you can grab.
(09:08):
Internet Live Stats is a pretty cool one if you
want to visit that, not while you're driving, if you're
driving as you listen to this. When you get a chance,
check out Internet live Stats. It will give you the
running tally of how many people have access to the Internet.
And the number just keeps going and going and going,
and it's a live ticker. It's pretty great. Right now,
it's at three point four oh one billion, thousand, three
(09:33):
nine and counting, yes and counting, and we'll come back
right well, so what we should do is come back
at the end of the episode and see how many
new listeners, how many new Internet users have joined us. So,
like we were staying at the top of the show,
beyond just expecting to have Internet access, which we do
part of our job, we definitely need it. Um, we
(09:56):
have come to a place where we expect that in
many public places, public settings, there's going to be free
and efficient wireless internet. Like what what kind of places?
Well's your I mean like cafes, for example, you know Starbucks.
It is part and parcel of the Starbucks model to
go there, get your seven dollar prapolatte, and you know,
(10:19):
enjoy some Internet surfing, whether it's on your smartphone or
your laptop or you're doing work. A lot of people
who work remotely like to go to coffee shops. You
are literally using this businesses internet access for your business
free of charge, and it gets you there, and it's
that's become kind of like a added benefit of like,
you know, going to certain stores like Target, for example,
(10:41):
they have free WiFi and they also have a little
cafe there. Beyond that, you've got airports, which Matt and
I were talking before the show. We've been doing a
bit of traveling lately and we're starting to realize that
airports have kind of wised up a little bit. They're
a bit of a captive audience at the airport, and
you know, you don't really have a choice as to
whether you hang out in that terminal or not. So
they don't always have free internet. L a X will,
(11:03):
for instance, they have a model where a user will
get one hour free and then need to pay for
additional time. I hope you didn't get delayed. In case
anyone's interested and want to know which airports do have
free wife WiFi, there is a site called air fair
watchdog dot com that has a WiFi access chart. Yeah,
(11:24):
so that you don't you don't get stuck out out there.
But you know what, we don't always have to be connected.
I'm just gonna say, you can bring a book hotels
though hotels. Hotels want you to have a pleasant stay.
They want everything to be just. So you're paying out
the nose for a hotel room, you're gonna get decent
internet access as part of your stay, unless you're in Alberton, Georgia. Uh,
(11:48):
I mean, I mean the access was there. It was there.
It was just snail's pace. It was like dial up speed.
But that's neither here nor there. Well, I was gonna
say just a quick story, just a quick story. We
had ami fi uh one of these little access points
to use wireless uh data like through Verizon or another
(12:09):
service like this, and that was what ten times faster
easily to make fair of those little boxes do kind
of kick um. But then we've got like other places
like museums, aquariums, hospitals, libraries. More and more, we're having
outdoor access that's even provided by cities. So let's do
a hypothetical situation. Let's say Matt, you're going to be
(12:33):
our main character, and Nolan I are going to tell
the story of what happened to you. Uh, let's say,
you know, let's let's begin it this way. One day,
one afternoon, a traveler named Matt Frederick arrives at the
(12:53):
Colorado Airport and he just sits down in one of
the terminals who mentioned earlier. No, do you remember specifically
what he was doing. Oh? Sure, he had a little
time to kill, and he wanted to maybe catch up
on his social media, looking at his stock tickers, maybe
check his his bank account in foe, make sure that
(13:13):
his cash flow is good for the sweet trip that
he was about to go on. And he got his
frat his frailte in hand, laptop in lap like you do,
and it up, opens it up, bam, pay dirt. You
know what's interesting here for our traveler is that he
notices there are several free WiFi points. Two of them
(13:39):
say free public WiFi. One of them says, just airport
WiFi looks good. Let's click on this one, and that's
how they get his bank account information, that's how they
get his log in for Twitter, for Facebook, for or
(14:00):
let's see what else. You want my trade trade? Yeah, uh,
farmers only, Yeah, and you know whatever else. And it's
because there's this illusion of safety, and it's the same
illusion of safety that we find when people are driving
at high speeds on the highway right in traffic. The
convenience of WiFi, just like the convenience of driving on
(14:23):
an interstate, often leads us to mistakenly believe that it's
got to be safe. Everybody else is doing it right.
There are certain rules you have to follow, and everyone's
following them. That's because we live in a society that
teaches us if something, if you're in a public place
and there are multiple people doing something, then you are
somehow safe. But that is also the exact reason a
(14:45):
hacker would choose a terminal at the Denver airport to
set up something that just says airport WiFi or free WiFi.
I haven't checked the charpnel, but it's quite possible that
all three of those points are just separate hackers. Yeah,
it's a perfect hunting ground. And then and they're like
we need Matt Frederick's Twitter. Yeah, I think of the
(15:09):
change we could affect. Yeah, I wish I had a Twitter,
so that would make sense. Yeah, I'm gonna start one
for this You're gonna start one for this episode. So
you know, we had talked at the top of the
show about Mr Robot, who's working with us on this episode.
And one thing that is really cool. You guys were
(15:29):
hipped to Mr Robot before I was. But in the
very first episode is a mild spoiler alert, we see
an example of WiFi gone wrong. If you have not
watched the first episode of Mr. Robot Season one, the
pilot episode, go and check it out before you listen
(15:50):
to this. Uh, if you've seen it, then here we go.
Oh wait, wait, if you haven't seen it, go ahead,
we'll wait. Okay, you're back. So, at some point in
the past, the main character that we identify with in
Mr Robots Elliott. He notices that there's this free WiFi
at this place called Ron's Coffee that seems to be
(16:10):
a large chain of coffee shops that exist in his world,
his immediate vicinity, and this WiFi is great. Oh man,
it is so good. It's fast. In fact, let's hear
a little clip something I like coming here because your
WiFi was fast. I mean, you're one of the few
spots that has a fiber connection with gigabit speed. It's good,
(16:33):
so good. It scratched that part of my mind, part
that doesn't allow good to exist without condition. So I
started intercepting all the traffic on your network. That's when
I noticed something strange. That's when I decided to hack you.
I know you run a website called Plato's Boys. You're
(16:56):
using tor networking to keep the servers anonymous. You made
it really hard for any wanted to see it, but
I saw it. The Onion routing protocol. It's not as
anonymous as you think it is. Whoever is in control
of the exit notes is also in control of the traffic,
which makes me the one in control. And you see
Elliott discovers that the owner hosts a massive horn site,
(17:21):
the worst kind, from his server in the cafe, and
he thinks that he's hiding this because he's using something
that we've talked about before, tour the Onion router, the
Onion routing protocol, like you said, Ben, something we discussed before. Uh,
it's got some weird ties and I think we'll get
into it a little later on exactly how it functions. Um,
(17:42):
but it's supposedly or it's meant to anonymize traffic Internet traffic. Yes,
but a little known fact about tour for a lot
of people who assume that it is safe. When we
did our stuff on the Silk Road, you know, we
learned that tour was originally create did by the US government. Yes,
(18:02):
and there there are a set of servers amongst the
Onion router that are the endpoint, the the the last
server in the chain, the exit nodes. They're they are
referred to as exit nodes. And we have seen historically
in two thousand seven and two thousand eleven a couple
(18:23):
other times, we've seen that if you choose and you're
operating one of these exit nodes, you can spy on
any and all traffic that goes through that server. It's
a it's a code between the volunteer operators that run
these things that say, hey, this is all anonymous, We're
not going to spy on these people. In the end,
(18:44):
it's about trust, whether or not you trust I'm saying
this correctly. The volunteers who run this stuff. So Elliott,
in a very deadpan, monotonous way, explains to Ron of
Ron Coffee how he hacked the WiFi and took control
(19:05):
of these exit notes, meaning he could watch all the
traffic because he wondered why this WiFi connection in particular
was so extraordinarily fast, and he found out why. And
as he is telling this guy's stuff, he tells him
there's a strange there's like a dark humor to it
when he tells him, you know, usually I do this online,
(19:28):
but I'm working on my people's skills, so i wanted
to come tell you in person. And yeah, he says,
I wanted to do this one a f K right, yes,
and uh and what does a f K stays on
the same as I R L I R in real
life or away from keyboard. AFK was a great thing
to use back in the day. I did not know that. Yeah, well,
for mmrpgs, that was a huge thing, like like we're
(19:50):
just saying let b RB Well, um, now, so this
character that was obviously like an example of a white
hat hacker where he is using his skills and you know,
hacking this WiFi network to shut down somebody doing something
terrible and using this technology too horrible abusive ends. What
we're talking about for this episode largely is these black
(20:13):
hat hackers who just want to steal your stuff or
just affect chaos in some way or another, and people
just want to see the world burn. But what I
want to know is how vulnerable are we at the airport?
How vulnerable is Matt at the Denver terminal? Could this
happen in real life? And we'll get right into my
(20:36):
vulnerabilities right after this word from our sponsor. Here's where
it gets crazy. The answer is absolutely yes, this could
(20:59):
happen in real life. Absolutely yes, we are as vulnerable
as we allow ourselves to be. Yeah, the same things
as we said to make free WiFi so convenient also
make it potentially and in many cases likely dangerous. Most
the most specific thing is that no authentication is needed.
(21:20):
Your computer just says, hey, can I ride this ride
this crazy internet train with you? And the access point says,
oh yeah, hop on. There's room for everyone. Yes, and
everyone includes people who are interested in taking your stuff,
your personal information, any other kind of info that you're
(21:41):
sending across that signal, compromising photographs for instance, little texts
or chat messages you're having anything like that. Yes, So
there are dangers for our hypothetical traveler who happens to
be named Matt Frederick. He let's see, we outlined a
couple of places he went to, so they have access
to his personal information. But it doesn't stop there. They
(22:03):
can also install a thing that will follow him like
a shadow, and it will see what he does when
the hackers not around, even logs, key strokes. I mean,
they're any number of little, you know, wormy type things
that can be installed remotely on someone's machine that can
capture all kinds of input. It can hijack the camera.
(22:26):
I mean, it's sort of all all bets are off,
and depending on the security, the network itself can be subverted. Yeah,
So that the airport WiFi one that is the actual
connection that the Colorado Airport is set up, could then
be malicious or dangerous. If I was gonna be that hacker,
I would name mine. This is the real airport WiFi. Yeah, yeah,
(22:52):
I would name mine super Okay, fun time, free beer.
What what could go wrong? But with the emphasis on
free beer. Okay, So there's there's another issue that happens
that this reminds me of and that's a t M skimming, oh,
you know, because it works in a similar way. If
(23:13):
someone is skimming and a t M, what they're doing
is installing a very small piece of hardware, usually something
that looks legit, that still allows you to interface with
the bank or even at a gas station, and it
allows you to buy gas, to access your banking information,
pull cash out, make a deposit, etcetera. But it sets
(23:34):
a middleman between it so that it's also capturing your information.
And they leave these things on and they come back
and they scoop it out, and you don't know until
you become a victim of identity theft. These attacks are
more common than you might think because the price of
(23:55):
the technology is, as you know, is going down. The
software is available to anyone who wants to find it,
and there are more and more people who have these
skill sets. So what what type of threats are we
talking about? What? What? Who is out there trying to
(24:16):
take over Matt Frederick's life at the Denver Airport. Well,
I have identified a couple of my potential assailants here
and I've given them, uh maybe some names that aren't official,
but I'm going to call them some things. The first
one would be sniffers just looking around, Oh what is that?
What's what's that over there? Reminds me of just kind
(24:37):
of a dog that's going around the airport, just trying
to see what everything is, giving a little sniff. Is
this worth my time? Over here? Is that? Some? Is that?
Some old pizza? And maybe some banking information? Um. These
these people will use some kind of application or a
program that they would just run from their computer that
then connects up to the access point and they're going
(25:01):
to capture, you know, as much of the traffic as
they want. You can you can break it down sometimes
depending on the application, or you can just gather everything.
And it is very disturbing if you just do a
cursory search on the internet like hacking, WiFi hacking tools,
and the number that shows up. There's lists and lists
(25:22):
of you know, there was like a list of twenty
of the best WiFi hacking tools and they're simple to use.
They'll they'll break the security on the WiFi and just
let you run amok. Uh. And then there are other
types right like gatherers might be after you, and these
people are almost like bounty hunters, so they'll take steps
(25:45):
to track your activity for a third party. This is
something we talked about earlier in an episode with our
buddy Jonathan. Yes, targeted advertising. Yeah, so it can be
done in several ways. Having a email address or phone
number required to access a server, requiring a share on
(26:06):
social media, or a similar action where you're required to
log into another site before using the service, or and
this is always a red flag to me, requiring you
to download something to access the WiFi. And of course cookies,
which we've talked about before and are not as cool
in the internet world as they are in real life.
Sweet sweet cookies? Is that a cookie monster? What's the
(26:32):
other kind? So this is delicious sounding too, it's called
they're called honeypots. Um. So word to the wise, never, never,
not ever, never, don't just don't do this thing wherein
you connect to an unfamiliar, unlocked WiFi hotspot like Ben's
not even super okay, Yeah, that's that's that's red flaggy
(26:55):
if you ask me, this is just it's it is
a complete and utter crapshoot. We're gambling with your privacy,
your personal information, because while not every unlocked access point
is malicious, every functioning malicious. Access point is unlocked. It's
a trap, that's right. There are a couple of other
(27:15):
things here that we we should walk through real quick.
So we're talking before about data interception right easily captured
by eavesdroppers even within a few hundred feet, and their
reach extends further if they have directional antennas. Then of
course d O S right denial of service. Everyone shares
the same unlicensed frequencies, making competition inevitable in populated areas.
(27:38):
That's why sometimes if you're at an airport and super crowded,
you're gonna have worse Internet access. Crap service, CREP service.
They're clogging up the tubes with all their wifis the
Internet tubes because that's how the Internet runs in tubes.
You really sold me on that one. Rogue access points.
(28:02):
So that's when a business network is penetrated by an unknown,
unauthorized access point, and that's on the business end. That's
something that a lot of corporations and such are very
concerned about. For example, our internet here at the office
is so tightly locked down that we sometimes have trouble
(28:25):
doing certain things, connecting to certain services. Um even doing
like a one to one connection with another with an
outside party, whether it's like a you know, Skype type
connection or like a more direct video chat connection. If
we're trying to do like a really high end um
high quality video stream where we're connecting one piece of
(28:45):
hardware to another piece of hardware, there are certain um
things about our firewall and you know lack of open
ports that completely prevent us from doing that. And it's
because of this exact reason. So to even get on
our wireless here at the offer, which is different from
plugging in and being you know, jacked into the network
through a land um, we have to have these specific
(29:07):
files on our computer that have various credentials that we
don't actually enter. Their called certificates, and they have to
be authenticated every time you log into our WiFi here.
So there is we do have a public WiFi that
people who are visiting can access, but it has a
lease on it where you can only sort of like
if you go to Starbucks and it tells you that
(29:27):
you get you to password and it will expire. Your
session will expire in two hours and you have to
get a new password. Same with this, but yeah, the
corporations are particularly concerned about this stuff and they act
accordingly right, and they're also misconfigured access points, their endpoint attacks,
their evil twin ap s fraudulent access points that can
(29:48):
advertise the same network name as a legit hotspot or
business land and cause UH other WiFi clients to connect
with them. So one of the strange things about this
is that it's easier and easier for people who want
to do this sort of stuff to do it. You
can find tools that will do a lot of the
(30:09):
heavy lifting for you, like Carmetta, disploit and UH these
things like listen to nearby clients, discover s s I
d s they're willing to connect to, and automatically start
advertising those and once they connect then d n S
and d h c P are used to route the
client traffic through the evil twin where a local web
(30:30):
mail file server executes those men in the middle attacks
that we're talking about. And there are different ways to well,
there are different ways to lessen the likelihood of this
stuff working. And companies, in particular, as you said, Noel
spend a lot of scratch on this Lota moola butter cheese,
(30:51):
what's another word for money. Deno Dinero spent a lot
of Robert de Niro Scrilla, so much of that money. Uh,
and what what we have nol Nichols. I feel like
you think I need Yeah, I need a better I
think you do. I don't. I mean, you know what
(31:12):
the pound is tanking, you can just take over that. Yeah,
well we're gonna put a pin on it and send
your suggestions to us. Uh. We do want to establish
also that we are not ourselves hackers, white hat nor
black hat. And a lot of people for those of
you listening who are familiar with this, let's say you
work in network security or something, or let's say you
(31:35):
are a white hat or a black hat. Uh what
what you're probably irritated by will be the so called
script kitties who just borrow, borrow code and and use
it themselves without making it. Like you said, man, I mean,
there's an insane amount of resources out there for people
(31:56):
that just want to dabble in this stuff. But it
was you. I'm sorry, Matt. You're just saying that you found,
like you know, ready made little apps, a little ex
executable files for probably Windows and MACNUS Linux that you
can just download and you know, give it a try,
and it's it's total fair weather novice hacking, and it
(32:16):
you know, like you said, people that really devote a
lot of time and effort to this, I'm sure doing
some hard eye rolls thinking about those folks just kind
of like hopping in and dipping their toes. And again
not saying that we support doing this stuff, but there are,
as we talked about with the Mr Robot examples, interesting
uses of this technology and of these you know, of
(32:37):
exploiting these vulnerabilities. But the point of this show, I think,
is to give people information they need to protect themselves
from malicious intent, right. And this is one of those
things where we'll have a lot of people say we'll
just use common sense, but common sense itself, and I
think anybody can attest to this. Common sense itself is
(32:59):
a rather uncommon trade, especially when people feel that they
are already again in a safe place, public place, a
bunch of people. Crime doesn't happen like that. Crime happens
in dark alleys, right, Crime happens to other people. Crime
happens to other people. Right. So let's face facts. Most
of us will continue to use public WiFi, either for
(33:20):
its convenience or out of necessity. What if anything can
we do to protect ourselves. The best way to stay
safe while you're using a public WiFi network, it's one rule.
Don't do anything on there that you wouldn't be comfortable
doing with the pope standing directly behind you and watching
your screen. Hello, what what? What the Yeah? I can explain,
(33:49):
they doesn't look holy. Well, this is a subreddit. It's
called it's called funny. Yeah. You see that. That's a
kangaroo just like person. Pretty cool guy. Yeah, that was
that was all right? To be fair, we have a
very accepting pope, right picture, perhaps a slightly you know,
(34:12):
more judgmental post or a pope with a pad and paper,
just writing. Nothing worse than a pope with a pad.
Pope with a pad, which was originally the name of
our podcast. I'm kidding, but yeah, that's that's a great point.
I assume that everything is public. I would add that
just for the record. Uh, the best way to avoid
(34:32):
that kind of stuff is to not use it at all.
But you'll want to and sometimes you'll have to. If
you do, confirm the exact name of the access point
at any given location, and be very very very aware
similar names that are they are not quite the same
usually those are the most dangerous, right, Yeah, and then
(34:54):
you know you can also use if you're on a laptop,
you can also use browser tools to prevent unwanted cookie,
the other tracking techniques, and there's some stuff that's a
little more advanced but worth your time to do as well. Yeah.
Big one that's offered now is HTTPS, which is just
the hypertext transfer protocol that you know, and this is
(35:15):
pretty great. There's an extra layer of security when you
use HTTPS. There are some browsers like Chrome that have
options that will say always use HDT. In other words,
as the prefix to the U r L you're visiting.
You can't type that in, but but if you do that,
then the protocol is more secure. Uses transport layer security.
(35:35):
The previous iteration of this was secure sockets layer. And
doing this just adds an extra layer of authentication with
your communication. Wow, some of these words strung together like this,
it's it's pretty fun. Extra communication authentication, authentication of your
communication across the nation, regardless of mobile device or PC,
(35:59):
MAC pers ways. Yes, but the great thing about using
a browser that says hd GPS always on is that
when you're not on a secure site like that, it
lets you know, and you can get the heck out
of there if you want to. So then there's another
(36:24):
thing that you've heard about, probably, which is VPN, a
virtual private network. What is a VPN. Well, a VPN,
virtual private network can be used in several different ways,
and UM, like Matt, I do not purport to be
an expert in all things, all the minutia of of
these various Internet tools. But what I can't tell you
(36:48):
is that the VPN essentially reroutes your signal through a
third party more or less, so instead of being a
direct connection between you the wireless not your network you're
connecting to, and the Internet being provided, you are sent
out and then back in through this third party tool,
which is the virtual private network. Using that, you can
(37:12):
do several things. For example, if you were using a
VPN at home, you might do it to get around
UM certain region restrictions for content. For example, so like
if you want to watch a clip on the BBC
that is only meant for people in the United Kingdom,
(37:32):
you could conceivably use a VPN to make it look
like you are in the United Kingdom and then you
can access that content it will not be restricted to you.
You can also use it to anonymize your browsing. So if,
for example, if you're God forbid downloading torrents or illegal
pirated content um you know, we all know that Internet
(37:53):
service providers get reports of that stuff, and they can
pay you for it, and they can send you a
letter a cease and desist, you know, they they will
serve you that letter that HBO or whoever sends to them.
By using one of these VPNs in this way, you
can disguise your IP address somewhat exactly, and none other
thing is perfect. But a VPN in a public WiFi
(38:15):
setting essentially acts as an additional layer of encryption for
your for your data. The thing is, though, like many things,
there are free versions and there are pay versions. More
often than not, the free versions are really just proxies.
They don't actually offer the full layer of security that
(38:36):
a proper VPN offers. They just reroute your your your
traffic traffic exactly, and they log everything that you do,
all of your browsing habits, and they sell it off
to third parties. That's how these free sites support, you know,
the work that they're doing. A pay VPN will encrypt
(38:57):
your stuff and they claim you never know a hundred
resent that they don't store your information, that it is destroyed,
that no one has access to it. So those are
definitely things to consider it. If you're traveling a lot,
there's a lot of places you can do some research on.
In fact, Gizmoto has a great article called VPNs, What
they do, how they work, and why you're dumb for
not using one. Um I recommend that highly for which
(39:20):
ones to go with, and a little more in depth
explanations of what VPNs are. Careful How I say this
because I don't want to let the let the badger
out of the bag just yet. But another thing that
I think we should always emphasize about VPNs is that
(39:41):
it's not just for you know, pornography or getting the
latest Star Wars film right without having to pay to
see in the theater. In parts of the world where
access to information is restricted, such as the use of
social media in some places because it's associated with protests
(40:02):
or it's associated with coup's, VPNs are crucial for people
to be able to communicate with the world at large
or to visit sites that have been banned. That is
a really good point. Something that hadn't even really considered.
But sure, like in China, I mean, where you don't
get access to certain sites that give you unbiased, let's say,
(40:23):
or at least biased in a different direction versions of
the news. I mean that is pretty important to being
a you know, fully uh informed member of the global community.
And it's it's it's almost a form of protests to
be able to say, hey, we reject this restriction and
we're able to use this technology to equip ourselves with
(40:47):
the information we need. Yeah, I think that's I think
that's a good point because often this will be painted
as one of those what you need VPN for? Huh,
will you do it? Will you do it? Will you
do it? You know, if you're not doing something wrong
us regular connection, let me just see what you're doing.
Come on, let me just see it. Why are you
ashame that? What are I looking at? My son? No? Look,
(41:07):
because it's a came but the shows you an no VPN,
VPN show me our history, my son, I can't come
on man. So then uh, then there's another aspect here
that we we talked about briefly, which is the tour
right the onion router U. There are issues here that
(41:28):
Elliott stated in our example from Mr robot right, volunteer
operators maintain most of these tour network's final set of
servers right the exit notes. And this excludes the course
servers run by law enforcement, sure sure, because they are used.
There are other private tour servers that can be set up, um,
(41:51):
but the vast majority ones. If you're just a user
and connecting up, you're going through one of these, uh,
one of these that has volunteers an operators who are
just you're just trusting that they're going to keep it anonymous,
right right, And as we said, it's easy to see
the traffic flowing through these servers if you control an
exit node. So one of the questions that you might
(42:14):
have listening to this will be the following the question
that we get asked often, who exactly are they in
this situation we're talking about compromising public WiFi. There's more
than one they, uh, there are many of them, and
(42:36):
often one thing that one thing that I dislike is
that often this will be painted as oh, here is
an individual who has low morals or just likes to
mess with people because their statistic or their board, or
they had a bad childhood. But The thing is, it's
not necessarily an individual. Yes, there are many individuals doing that,
(42:59):
some of whom maybe listening to this show. And if so,
I hope to stay on your good side, Hank the hacker,
We mean you no ill will Yeah, big fans actually.
And then the thing that doesn't get talked about as
often but should be talked about more is that they're
organized rings of people doing this. And I don't just
mean private organizations. State sponsored hacking like this is real,
(43:23):
it is continual. Make no mistake if the country you
live in has an active interest in surveillance and hacking,
and it doesn't matter which country it is, and the
US is no better than the other countries that you
might hear about doing state sponsored hacking. One example would
(43:45):
be UH hackers using hotel internet to steal nuclear secrets.
Is a great article in Gizmoto from two thousand fourteen,
so this is old stuff. There was an elite team
of possibly state sponsored hackers that were in full trading
WiFi networks, although that they wouldn't have that much luck
in Alberton. They were infiltrating WiFi networks, probably to steal
(44:10):
nuclear secrets and the security researchers who discovered this called
the cyber spies Dark Hotel, and their efforts to track
down this group we're tenacious. But the further they went,
the more disturbing stuff they discovered. These people were insanely talented.
They're some of the members were traced back to South Korea,
(44:34):
but at the time of writing, they still weren't, at
least publicly sure what these people were doing and why
and this Ben do you remember Winter Olympics so stuff? Yeah,
and tell me about it. Well, it sounds very similar
to to what you're talking about, where there were reports
(44:56):
coming out of American media that if you're using the
y fi in restaurants around Sochi while you're at the Olympics,
there's a very high chance that you're going to get hacked.
There's a lot of fear about that stuff. So there's
also you know, this group Dark Hotel is still active
as of March of They also have a goth band
(45:20):
on the side. They have a goth band on the side.
It's kind of a Prodigy all over again. Wait, wait,
is this real? It could be excited, it could be
Maybe maybe you should ask them what kind of music
they like. Okay, those of you who don't know Matt
and haven't maybe seen him. He is so goth right now.
Guyliner for days. Uh yeah, So Dark Hotel is still active.
(45:43):
They were reported exploiting a Chinese telecom. I'm not condoning
these actions, but the three of us feel that it
is important to be aware of the situation that you're
in when you're in an airport, and also to be
aware that governments are doing this. Don't let the don't
(46:03):
let the Sunday News or whatever fool you into thinking
it's just a couple of missing thropes in every airport. Now,
I would imagine the government is doing things like this
anyway and anywhere they can, well, especially in airports. I mean,
you're you're gonna want to have a lockdown on every
packet that goes to and from within an airport from
(46:24):
the user. And airport is great because it has instant
distance baked in yep, so uh, you know which terminal
you're at and probably where you're sitting right and then
you're gone, so it's not like there's someone in the
cafe with you anymore. So we hope that you have
enjoyed this episode, and we would like to hear from
(46:47):
you if you have any war stories about free WiFi,
or you have any tips or tricks that you think
your fellow listeners should hear. And to prove that we
have ears, what listen and eyes, Let's see, we'd like
to jump into a little thing we like to call
shot at Corners. Our first shout out goes to Paula.
(47:12):
She and her thirteen year old nephew. You guys are
going to space camp in July. Another another person writing
in to let us know they're they're excited to go
to space Camp. She's so happy about it. She's been
dancing a jig for several days. She said, Well, Paula,
we're dancing a little jig for you right now. Nola's
but I am nodding my head rhythmically. Space camp is cool.
(47:33):
I'm sorry, We'll take you, I promise. Do you want
to go so much? Okay, Well, while we're getting our
stuff together for space Camp, let's hear from Chase from Alabama.
Chase says, uh It doesn't believe in the Illuminati per se,
but wants us to further explore the connections between separate
groups we've covered in the past. The Builderberg's skull and bones,
(47:54):
Trilateral commission, central banks, etcetera, all of which are real
all and all of which have been accused of doing
some shady things. So to take a page from the
book of Beyonce and perhaps some up chase his position.
Y'all haters corny talking that Illuminati mess, but I think
it warrants further exploration, So we're gonna do that thing. Yep.
(48:17):
Finally we have one from Daniel who wants us to
take a look at the French alchemist and author Fulconelli
who allegedly attempted to warn a French physicist about the
potential dangers of weaponized nuclear fission in nineteen thirty seven. Fascinating,
and he claimed that it had been used on humanity before.
And this is one interesting customer. Yeah, that's right. He
(48:40):
even goes into the great work and trying to find
that place that all alchemists search for, where you can
it's a point, some point where you can access all
of space and time at once, all that has ever
existed and will never exist, traveling without moving. Yeah, tie
hm as a flat circle. He allegedly found this and
(49:03):
and was able to truly access it at least, you know,
according to articles written about him. If you haven't listened
to our episode on alchemy, we had a guest, dear
friend of Ben's and now the show, Mr Damian Patrick Williams.
We had a fantastic conversation about um the nature of alchemy,
and then there's a nice companion episode we did on
(49:25):
the same day about technology and its relationship with the occult.
As are some of my favorite episodes. I really recommend
going back into the archives and checking those out. And
this concludes our Gosh, but wait, as Billy Mays was
wont to say during his glory days, there is more.
This is usually the part of the show where we
(49:46):
talked about our Facebook and Twitter and ask you to
check it out because you'll see suth that doesn't make
it onto the air for one reason or another. You'll
also see us actively taking suggestions where conspiracy up at
Those were also on Instagram. Now that's right, and we
are conspiracy stuff show there and you guys, we haven't
(50:08):
done this before, but we would really appreciate it. Wherever
you listen to the podcast, be at iTunes, Stitcher, We're
now on Spotify, We're on Google Play, tons of places
you can get it. Leave us a review. I mean
that really helps the algorithm. It helps more people find
out about the show, and you know, it makes us
feel good in our hearts a need that every time
we get a review, our boss goes up to this
(50:32):
thing he painted on the wall. You know how they're
like fundraisers for schools and stuff where they'll have you know,
like a thermometer with the levels of money. Well, ours
is the level of likelihood of us being fired. And
if it gets to the top, and we've been very
close to the top for a while, then boom, we're
out here. So every like, every review ticks us down
(50:52):
just a little bit further away from being fired. Because,
as Ben Is said in the past, the biggest investment
that you make and the show is with your time.
So we would really really appreciate if you would take
just a little more of your time and say how
do you you feel about the show? All Right, we said
we were gonna do it. The active Internet users in
the world right now total comes to three billion, four
(51:18):
hundred and one million, one hundred and twenty one thousand,
five hundred and forty and counting. And that's the end
of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or
questions about this episode. You can get into contact with
us in a number of different ways. One of the
best is to give us a call. Our number is
one eight three three st d w y t K.
(51:41):
If you don't want to do that, you can send
us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at
i heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you
to know is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
So it's not all true crime allegations of the paranormal
and very very spooky stuff here on stuff they don't
want you to know. In fact, sometimes we get pretty granular.
And I cannot remember how this when came about, but
I think we we had an off air conversations we
often do about things that bugged our paranoid minds, like
(00:23):
free WiFi. Yeah, like you know, we were at the
airport and we just said it says like you know,
we're looking at them that works available and goes airport
WiFi definitely legit and free log on now, yes, exactly.
I want to say this came up due to reporting
surrounding the Olympics and the Olympic Games, and maybe I'm wrong,
this was somewhere around there. I remember there were specific
(00:47):
reports about joining free WiFi when you're out to visit
the Olympic Games in another country. Yeah, and this this
is something that affects you in your own country, wherever
you live. We wanted to dive in and learn more
about it. So here it is free WiFi gambling with
your privacy. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies.
(01:11):
History is riddled with unexplained events you can turn back
now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello,
welcome back to the show. My name is Max, my
name is No. They often call me Ben. You are you?
(01:32):
This is stuff they don't want you to know. And
let's start with a question for those of you tuning in,
how are you listening to this show? And I don't
just necessarily mean like a boom box, which would be cool.
I don't know if our shows are on cassette yet
or are you downloading it? Have you streamed it? And
(01:52):
if so, where are you streaming it from. If you're
like most people, you have concerns about your data plan
on your phone and you probably want to use WiFi.
Holy Grail, I certainly do. If I'm going to listen
to a podcast, I download it through WiFi and then
throw it on my phone so I can have it
for later because I have trust issues. You know. Speaking
(02:13):
of trust issues, A T and T totally bamboozled me
out of my unlimited data plan to lower my bill
a little bit because I felt like it was a
little too high. And they're like, well, you know, if
you give up your limited data because you're clearly not
using it, we can give you this amount of data
and you know you'll be good as gold. Well, it
turns out that I exceeded just so every single month,
(02:33):
even with dolls pop. Yeah, So WiFi is huge because
these phone companies are tightening down data, so it's a
lot more restrictive these days. They have these plans, these
tiered plans, where you are paying for every little bit
of data that you use, much more so than in
the past. So the obvious choices to find WiFi anywhere
(02:54):
and everywhere that you possibly can. So a lot of
people would ask what is whyifi? It's one of those
things that the average human being just sort of accepts
as existing. You know, a lot of people own cars
but have no idea how they work. A lot of
people own phones, have no idea how they work. WiFi
is something that people just sort of accept. You're in
(03:17):
an airport, boom, free WiFi. It's great. You're you could
be at a restaurant, at a dentist office. There's a
pizza place next to our office that I go to
just because they have free WiFi. But what is this stuff?
WiFi is the name of any wireless networking technology that
uses radio waves to send out high speed network and
(03:39):
Internet connections, and it's it's such a cool little term,
almost like podcast, kind of a coined little buzz term.
And there is a organization, as it turns out, that
owns the rights to this trademark called the WiFi Alliance.
In a burst of creativity, Yes, uh, WiFi is a
registered trademark, and it's alliance specifically defines WiFi as a
(04:02):
wireless local area network w LAND products that are based
on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, where I
literally I Jonathan Strickland. By the way, I hope be
so glad to hear that. Um, their standards are at
two dot eleven. The greatest thing about WiFi is that
(04:24):
you no longer have to plug in the giant ethernet
cable to get access to that beautiful, sweet sweet Internet
with all the things that you love, all the the
podcasts and videos and everything you do on their. Uh,
that's the best part about it. So it uses radio
frequencies to transfer all the information of packets, all the
packets of information rather from your computer to the access
(04:46):
point to the Internet, essentially through all the chain of
servers that it goes through to get to its end
point and then right back through all that stuff through
the access point to your computer. Just a lovely little
handshaking can action. Yeah, this RF current hits and antenna
creating an electromagnetic field that's able to propagate through space.
(05:08):
That's so cool. That's so science fiction e you know,
uh right right it is. It's the magic that we
just sort of accept And a lot of a lot
of current society in the West is built on the
premise of just accepting things because they are. That way,
we drive these death machines a d plus miles an
(05:29):
hour and just accept that. Everyone will pretend those yellow
lines in the middle are doing something much smarter people
than I figured out how to use radio waves so
that I can go on Reddit dot com. Uh, and
I just accepted we stand on the shoulders of giants,
and every great invention you know is only uh is
(05:50):
only capable of being discovered or created because of prior inventions.
I guess we're getting a little spacey already, you know. Uh,
space is the place, my friend, Space is the place
you're you're killing it with the slogans lately, there is
a lot more space than stuff. Yes, Yeah, we received
a great was it a YouTube comment or an email
where where someone pointed out on our live show recording
(06:13):
that we released that the table. Yeah, I hit the
tables and were banging on and they're like, you do
realize that there's a lot more empty space in that
table than atoms, And I was like, absolutely, wow. So
to propagate through this mostly empty space, your WiFi connection
uses an electromagnetic field radio frequencies, and the primary job
(06:37):
of an access point is to broadcast this wireless signal
that your computer can detect and just like a radio,
just like searching for radio station can tune into. To
connect to an access point. To join a wireless network,
these computers or these devices have to be equipped with
wireless network adapters. Pretty simple, right, Yeah, And and the
(06:58):
great thing about it is it's not just your computer
that connects to it. It's anyone who can see the
network and has an adapter. Right, So who is anyone
within your lifetime listeners, Depending on how young or old
you are when you were born, you have probably seen
(07:18):
a precipitous rise in the amount of people hopping online.
Around of the world population has some sort of Internet connection.
It's got to the point where it's almost considered like
a human, right, I mean they're trying. There are all
these efforts to bring internet access to more rural areas
(07:39):
and you know, third world countries and things. I mean,
it's become this thing that we expect. Yeah, in less
than one percent of the globe had some kind of connections.
So in slightly less than two decades, we've gone from
one percent to nearly half of the world's population. Are
you guys part of the one percent with a like
(08:03):
a old, old old modem? Definitely? I think I may.
I think my parents may have had a O L.
We're you guys. Yeah, we had a o L and
we had compu Serve remember that. And I had a
friend who had Prodigy. Remember Prodigy. Not I am the
fire Starter, but the I am the Internet service pro
(08:24):
the same same people. Actually, seriously, No, that's a good
side gigh. Yeah, that's a that's a good site gig.
And if the band's Prodigy had been part of the
Internet service Prodigy, they may have met with more long
term success for a while. Because the number of Internet
(08:44):
users has increased tenfold from two thirteen. So what do
we mean when we say well, we mean that in
two thousand five, we reached the first time in history
that a billion people could get on the internet. Two
thousand ten, it was two billion, and then it was
three billion. And there's some really cool infographics you can grab.
(09:08):
Internet Live Stats is a pretty cool one if you
want to visit that, not while you're driving, if you're
driving as you listen to this. When you get a chance,
check out Internet live Stats. It will give you the
running tally of how many people have access to the Internet.
And the number just keeps going and going and going,
and it's a live ticker. It's pretty great. Right now,
it's at three point four oh one billion, thousand, three
(09:33):
nine and counting, yes and counting, and we'll come back
right well, so what we should do is come back
at the end of the episode and see how many
new listeners, how many new Internet users have joined us. So,
like we were staying at the top of the show,
beyond just expecting to have Internet access, which we do
part of our job, we definitely need it. Um, we
(09:56):
have come to a place where we expect that in
many public places, public settings, there's going to be free
and efficient wireless internet. Like what what kind of places?
Well's your I mean like cafes, for example, you know Starbucks.
It is part and parcel of the Starbucks model to
go there, get your seven dollar prapolatte, and you know,
(10:19):
enjoy some Internet surfing, whether it's on your smartphone or
your laptop or you're doing work. A lot of people
who work remotely like to go to coffee shops. You
are literally using this businesses internet access for your business
free of charge, and it gets you there, and it's
that's become kind of like a added benefit of like,
you know, going to certain stores like Target, for example,
(10:41):
they have free WiFi and they also have a little
cafe there. Beyond that, you've got airports, which Matt and
I were talking before the show. We've been doing a
bit of traveling lately and we're starting to realize that
airports have kind of wised up a little bit. They're
a bit of a captive audience at the airport, and
you know, you don't really have a choice as to
whether you hang out in that terminal or not. So
they don't always have free internet. L a X will,
(11:03):
for instance, they have a model where a user will
get one hour free and then need to pay for
additional time. I hope you didn't get delayed. In case
anyone's interested and want to know which airports do have
free wife WiFi, there is a site called air fair
watchdog dot com that has a WiFi access chart. Yeah,
(11:24):
so that you don't you don't get stuck out out there.
But you know what, we don't always have to be connected.
I'm just gonna say, you can bring a book hotels
though hotels. Hotels want you to have a pleasant stay.
They want everything to be just. So you're paying out
the nose for a hotel room, you're gonna get decent
internet access as part of your stay, unless you're in Alberton, Georgia. Uh,
(11:48):
I mean, I mean the access was there. It was there.
It was just snail's pace. It was like dial up speed.
But that's neither here nor there. Well, I was gonna
say just a quick story, just a quick story. We
had ami fi uh one of these little access points
to use wireless uh data like through Verizon or another
(12:09):
service like this, and that was what ten times faster
easily to make fair of those little boxes do kind
of kick um. But then we've got like other places
like museums, aquariums, hospitals, libraries. More and more, we're having
outdoor access that's even provided by cities. So let's do
a hypothetical situation. Let's say Matt, you're going to be
(12:33):
our main character, and Nolan I are going to tell
the story of what happened to you. Uh, let's say,
you know, let's let's begin it this way. One day,
one afternoon, a traveler named Matt Frederick arrives at the
(12:53):
Colorado Airport and he just sits down in one of
the terminals who mentioned earlier. No, do you remember specifically
what he was doing. Oh? Sure, he had a little
time to kill, and he wanted to maybe catch up
on his social media, looking at his stock tickers, maybe
check his his bank account in foe, make sure that
(13:13):
his cash flow is good for the sweet trip that
he was about to go on. And he got his
frat his frailte in hand, laptop in lap like you do,
and it up, opens it up, bam, pay dirt. You
know what's interesting here for our traveler is that he
notices there are several free WiFi points. Two of them
(13:39):
say free public WiFi. One of them says, just airport
WiFi looks good. Let's click on this one, and that's
how they get his bank account information, that's how they
get his log in for Twitter, for Facebook, for or
(14:00):
let's see what else. You want my trade trade? Yeah, uh,
farmers only, Yeah, and you know whatever else. And it's
because there's this illusion of safety, and it's the same
illusion of safety that we find when people are driving
at high speeds on the highway right in traffic. The
convenience of WiFi, just like the convenience of driving on
(14:23):
an interstate, often leads us to mistakenly believe that it's
got to be safe. Everybody else is doing it right.
There are certain rules you have to follow, and everyone's
following them. That's because we live in a society that
teaches us if something, if you're in a public place
and there are multiple people doing something, then you are
somehow safe. But that is also the exact reason a
(14:45):
hacker would choose a terminal at the Denver airport to
set up something that just says airport WiFi or free WiFi.
I haven't checked the charpnel, but it's quite possible that
all three of those points are just separate hackers. Yeah,
it's a perfect hunting ground. And then and they're like
we need Matt Frederick's Twitter. Yeah, I think of the
(15:09):
change we could affect. Yeah, I wish I had a Twitter,
so that would make sense. Yeah, I'm gonna start one
for this You're gonna start one for this episode. So
you know, we had talked at the top of the
show about Mr Robot, who's working with us on this episode.
And one thing that is really cool. You guys were
(15:29):
hipped to Mr Robot before I was. But in the
very first episode is a mild spoiler alert, we see
an example of WiFi gone wrong. If you have not
watched the first episode of Mr. Robot Season one, the
pilot episode, go and check it out before you listen
(15:50):
to this. Uh, if you've seen it, then here we go.
Oh wait, wait, if you haven't seen it, go ahead,
we'll wait. Okay, you're back. So, at some point in
the past, the main character that we identify with in
Mr Robots Elliott. He notices that there's this free WiFi
at this place called Ron's Coffee that seems to be
(16:10):
a large chain of coffee shops that exist in his world,
his immediate vicinity, and this WiFi is great. Oh man,
it is so good. It's fast. In fact, let's hear
a little clip something I like coming here because your
WiFi was fast. I mean, you're one of the few
spots that has a fiber connection with gigabit speed. It's good,
(16:33):
so good. It scratched that part of my mind, part
that doesn't allow good to exist without condition. So I
started intercepting all the traffic on your network. That's when
I noticed something strange. That's when I decided to hack you.
I know you run a website called Plato's Boys. You're
(16:56):
using tor networking to keep the servers anonymous. You made
it really hard for any wanted to see it, but
I saw it. The Onion routing protocol. It's not as
anonymous as you think it is. Whoever is in control
of the exit notes is also in control of the traffic,
which makes me the one in control. And you see
Elliott discovers that the owner hosts a massive horn site,
(17:21):
the worst kind, from his server in the cafe, and
he thinks that he's hiding this because he's using something
that we've talked about before, tour the Onion router, the
Onion routing protocol, like you said, Ben, something we discussed before. Uh,
it's got some weird ties and I think we'll get
into it a little later on exactly how it functions. Um,
(17:42):
but it's supposedly or it's meant to anonymize traffic Internet traffic. Yes,
but a little known fact about tour for a lot
of people who assume that it is safe. When we
did our stuff on the Silk Road, you know, we
learned that tour was originally create did by the US government. Yes,
(18:02):
and there there are a set of servers amongst the
Onion router that are the endpoint, the the the last
server in the chain, the exit nodes. They're they are
referred to as exit nodes. And we have seen historically
in two thousand seven and two thousand eleven a couple
(18:23):
other times, we've seen that if you choose and you're
operating one of these exit nodes, you can spy on
any and all traffic that goes through that server. It's
a it's a code between the volunteer operators that run
these things that say, hey, this is all anonymous, We're
not going to spy on these people. In the end,
(18:44):
it's about trust, whether or not you trust I'm saying
this correctly. The volunteers who run this stuff. So Elliott,
in a very deadpan, monotonous way, explains to Ron of
Ron Coffee how he hacked the WiFi and took control
(19:05):
of these exit notes, meaning he could watch all the
traffic because he wondered why this WiFi connection in particular
was so extraordinarily fast, and he found out why. And
as he is telling this guy's stuff, he tells him
there's a strange there's like a dark humor to it
when he tells him, you know, usually I do this online,
(19:28):
but I'm working on my people's skills, so i wanted
to come tell you in person. And yeah, he says,
I wanted to do this one a f K right, yes,
and uh and what does a f K stays on
the same as I R L I R in real
life or away from keyboard. AFK was a great thing
to use back in the day. I did not know that. Yeah, well,
for mmrpgs, that was a huge thing, like like we're
(19:50):
just saying let b RB Well, um, now, so this
character that was obviously like an example of a white
hat hacker where he is using his skills and you know,
hacking this WiFi network to shut down somebody doing something
terrible and using this technology too horrible abusive ends. What
we're talking about for this episode largely is these black
(20:13):
hat hackers who just want to steal your stuff or
just affect chaos in some way or another, and people
just want to see the world burn. But what I
want to know is how vulnerable are we at the airport?
How vulnerable is Matt at the Denver terminal? Could this
happen in real life? And we'll get right into my
(20:36):
vulnerabilities right after this word from our sponsor. Here's where
it gets crazy. The answer is absolutely yes, this could
(20:59):
happen in real life. Absolutely yes, we are as vulnerable
as we allow ourselves to be. Yeah, the same things
as we said to make free WiFi so convenient also
make it potentially and in many cases likely dangerous. Most
the most specific thing is that no authentication is needed.
(21:20):
Your computer just says, hey, can I ride this ride
this crazy internet train with you? And the access point says,
oh yeah, hop on. There's room for everyone. Yes, and
everyone includes people who are interested in taking your stuff,
your personal information, any other kind of info that you're
(21:41):
sending across that signal, compromising photographs for instance, little texts
or chat messages you're having anything like that. Yes, So
there are dangers for our hypothetical traveler who happens to
be named Matt Frederick. He let's see, we outlined a
couple of places he went to, so they have access
to his personal information. But it doesn't stop there. They
(22:03):
can also install a thing that will follow him like
a shadow, and it will see what he does when
the hackers not around, even logs, key strokes. I mean,
they're any number of little, you know, wormy type things
that can be installed remotely on someone's machine that can
capture all kinds of input. It can hijack the camera.
(22:26):
I mean, it's sort of all all bets are off,
and depending on the security, the network itself can be subverted. Yeah,
So that the airport WiFi one that is the actual
connection that the Colorado Airport is set up, could then
be malicious or dangerous. If I was gonna be that hacker,
I would name mine. This is the real airport WiFi. Yeah, yeah,
(22:52):
I would name mine super Okay, fun time, free beer.
What what could go wrong? But with the emphasis on
free beer. Okay, So there's there's another issue that happens
that this reminds me of and that's a t M skimming, oh,
you know, because it works in a similar way. If
(23:13):
someone is skimming and a t M, what they're doing
is installing a very small piece of hardware, usually something
that looks legit, that still allows you to interface with
the bank or even at a gas station, and it
allows you to buy gas, to access your banking information,
pull cash out, make a deposit, etcetera. But it sets
(23:34):
a middleman between it so that it's also capturing your information.
And they leave these things on and they come back
and they scoop it out, and you don't know until
you become a victim of identity theft. These attacks are
more common than you might think because the price of
(23:55):
the technology is, as you know, is going down. The
software is available to anyone who wants to find it,
and there are more and more people who have these
skill sets. So what what type of threats are we
talking about? What? What? Who is out there trying to
(24:16):
take over Matt Frederick's life at the Denver Airport. Well,
I have identified a couple of my potential assailants here
and I've given them, uh maybe some names that aren't official,
but I'm going to call them some things. The first
one would be sniffers just looking around, Oh what is that?
What's what's that over there? Reminds me of just kind
(24:37):
of a dog that's going around the airport, just trying
to see what everything is, giving a little sniff. Is
this worth my time? Over here? Is that? Some? Is that?
Some old pizza? And maybe some banking information? Um. These
these people will use some kind of application or a
program that they would just run from their computer that
then connects up to the access point and they're going
(25:01):
to capture, you know, as much of the traffic as
they want. You can you can break it down sometimes
depending on the application, or you can just gather everything.
And it is very disturbing if you just do a
cursory search on the internet like hacking, WiFi hacking tools,
and the number that shows up. There's lists and lists
(25:22):
of you know, there was like a list of twenty
of the best WiFi hacking tools and they're simple to use.
They'll they'll break the security on the WiFi and just
let you run amok. Uh. And then there are other
types right like gatherers might be after you, and these
people are almost like bounty hunters, so they'll take steps
(25:45):
to track your activity for a third party. This is
something we talked about earlier in an episode with our
buddy Jonathan. Yes, targeted advertising. Yeah, so it can be
done in several ways. Having a email address or phone
number required to access a server, requiring a share on
(26:06):
social media, or a similar action where you're required to
log into another site before using the service, or and
this is always a red flag to me, requiring you
to download something to access the WiFi. And of course cookies,
which we've talked about before and are not as cool
in the internet world as they are in real life.
Sweet sweet cookies? Is that a cookie monster? What's the
(26:32):
other kind? So this is delicious sounding too, it's called
they're called honeypots. Um. So word to the wise, never, never,
not ever, never, don't just don't do this thing wherein
you connect to an unfamiliar, unlocked WiFi hotspot like Ben's
not even super okay, Yeah, that's that's that's red flaggy
(26:55):
if you ask me, this is just it's it is
a complete and utter crapshoot. We're gambling with your privacy,
your personal information, because while not every unlocked access point
is malicious, every functioning malicious. Access point is unlocked. It's
a trap, that's right. There are a couple of other
(27:15):
things here that we we should walk through real quick.
So we're talking before about data interception right easily captured
by eavesdroppers even within a few hundred feet, and their
reach extends further if they have directional antennas. Then of
course d O S right denial of service. Everyone shares
the same unlicensed frequencies, making competition inevitable in populated areas.
(27:38):
That's why sometimes if you're at an airport and super crowded,
you're gonna have worse Internet access. Crap service, CREP service.
They're clogging up the tubes with all their wifis the
Internet tubes because that's how the Internet runs in tubes.
You really sold me on that one. Rogue access points.
(28:02):
So that's when a business network is penetrated by an unknown,
unauthorized access point, and that's on the business end. That's
something that a lot of corporations and such are very
concerned about. For example, our internet here at the office
is so tightly locked down that we sometimes have trouble
(28:25):
doing certain things, connecting to certain services. Um even doing
like a one to one connection with another with an
outside party, whether it's like a you know, Skype type
connection or like a more direct video chat connection. If
we're trying to do like a really high end um
high quality video stream where we're connecting one piece of
(28:45):
hardware to another piece of hardware, there are certain um
things about our firewall and you know lack of open
ports that completely prevent us from doing that. And it's
because of this exact reason. So to even get on
our wireless here at the offer, which is different from
plugging in and being you know, jacked into the network
through a land um, we have to have these specific
(29:07):
files on our computer that have various credentials that we
don't actually enter. Their called certificates, and they have to
be authenticated every time you log into our WiFi here.
So there is we do have a public WiFi that
people who are visiting can access, but it has a
lease on it where you can only sort of like
if you go to Starbucks and it tells you that
(29:27):
you get you to password and it will expire. Your
session will expire in two hours and you have to
get a new password. Same with this, but yeah, the
corporations are particularly concerned about this stuff and they act
accordingly right, and they're also misconfigured access points, their endpoint attacks,
their evil twin ap s fraudulent access points that can
(29:48):
advertise the same network name as a legit hotspot or
business land and cause UH other WiFi clients to connect
with them. So one of the strange things about this
is that it's easier and easier for people who want
to do this sort of stuff to do it. You
can find tools that will do a lot of the
(30:09):
heavy lifting for you, like Carmetta, disploit and UH these
things like listen to nearby clients, discover s s I
d s they're willing to connect to, and automatically start
advertising those and once they connect then d n S
and d h c P are used to route the
client traffic through the evil twin where a local web
(30:30):
mail file server executes those men in the middle attacks
that we're talking about. And there are different ways to well,
there are different ways to lessen the likelihood of this
stuff working. And companies, in particular, as you said, Noel
spend a lot of scratch on this Lota moola butter cheese,
(30:51):
what's another word for money. Deno Dinero spent a lot
of Robert de Niro Scrilla, so much of that money. Uh,
and what what we have nol Nichols. I feel like
you think I need Yeah, I need a better I
think you do. I don't. I mean, you know what
(31:12):
the pound is tanking, you can just take over that. Yeah,
well we're gonna put a pin on it and send
your suggestions to us. Uh. We do want to establish
also that we are not ourselves hackers, white hat nor
black hat. And a lot of people for those of
you listening who are familiar with this, let's say you
work in network security or something, or let's say you
(31:35):
are a white hat or a black hat. Uh what
what you're probably irritated by will be the so called
script kitties who just borrow, borrow code and and use
it themselves without making it. Like you said, man, I mean,
there's an insane amount of resources out there for people
(31:56):
that just want to dabble in this stuff. But it
was you. I'm sorry, Matt. You're just saying that you found,
like you know, ready made little apps, a little ex
executable files for probably Windows and MACNUS Linux that you
can just download and you know, give it a try,
and it's it's total fair weather novice hacking, and it
(32:16):
you know, like you said, people that really devote a
lot of time and effort to this, I'm sure doing
some hard eye rolls thinking about those folks just kind
of like hopping in and dipping their toes. And again
not saying that we support doing this stuff, but there are,
as we talked about with the Mr Robot examples, interesting
uses of this technology and of these you know, of
(32:37):
exploiting these vulnerabilities. But the point of this show, I think,
is to give people information they need to protect themselves
from malicious intent, right. And this is one of those
things where we'll have a lot of people say we'll
just use common sense, but common sense itself, and I
think anybody can attest to this. Common sense itself is
(32:59):
a rather uncommon trade, especially when people feel that they
are already again in a safe place, public place, a
bunch of people. Crime doesn't happen like that. Crime happens
in dark alleys, right, Crime happens to other people. Crime
happens to other people. Right. So let's face facts. Most
of us will continue to use public WiFi, either for
(33:20):
its convenience or out of necessity. What if anything can
we do to protect ourselves. The best way to stay
safe while you're using a public WiFi network, it's one rule.
Don't do anything on there that you wouldn't be comfortable
doing with the pope standing directly behind you and watching
your screen. Hello, what what? What the Yeah? I can explain,
(33:49):
they doesn't look holy. Well, this is a subreddit. It's
called it's called funny. Yeah. You see that. That's a
kangaroo just like person. Pretty cool guy. Yeah, that was
that was all right? To be fair, we have a
very accepting pope, right picture, perhaps a slightly you know,
(34:12):
more judgmental post or a pope with a pad and paper,
just writing. Nothing worse than a pope with a pad.
Pope with a pad, which was originally the name of
our podcast. I'm kidding, but yeah, that's that's a great point.
I assume that everything is public. I would add that
just for the record. Uh, the best way to avoid
(34:32):
that kind of stuff is to not use it at all.
But you'll want to and sometimes you'll have to. If
you do, confirm the exact name of the access point
at any given location, and be very very very aware
similar names that are they are not quite the same
usually those are the most dangerous, right, Yeah, and then
(34:54):
you know you can also use if you're on a laptop,
you can also use browser tools to prevent unwanted cookie,
the other tracking techniques, and there's some stuff that's a
little more advanced but worth your time to do as well. Yeah.
Big one that's offered now is HTTPS, which is just
the hypertext transfer protocol that you know, and this is
(35:15):
pretty great. There's an extra layer of security when you
use HTTPS. There are some browsers like Chrome that have
options that will say always use HDT. In other words,
as the prefix to the U r L you're visiting.
You can't type that in, but but if you do that,
then the protocol is more secure. Uses transport layer security.
(35:35):
The previous iteration of this was secure sockets layer. And
doing this just adds an extra layer of authentication with
your communication. Wow, some of these words strung together like this,
it's it's pretty fun. Extra communication authentication, authentication of your
communication across the nation, regardless of mobile device or PC,
(35:59):
MAC pers ways. Yes, but the great thing about using
a browser that says hd GPS always on is that
when you're not on a secure site like that, it
lets you know, and you can get the heck out
of there if you want to. So then there's another
(36:24):
thing that you've heard about, probably, which is VPN, a
virtual private network. What is a VPN. Well, a VPN,
virtual private network can be used in several different ways,
and UM, like Matt, I do not purport to be
an expert in all things, all the minutia of of
these various Internet tools. But what I can't tell you
(36:48):
is that the VPN essentially reroutes your signal through a
third party more or less, so instead of being a
direct connection between you the wireless not your network you're
connecting to, and the Internet being provided, you are sent
out and then back in through this third party tool,
which is the virtual private network. Using that, you can
(37:12):
do several things. For example, if you were using a
VPN at home, you might do it to get around
UM certain region restrictions for content. For example, so like
if you want to watch a clip on the BBC
that is only meant for people in the United Kingdom,
(37:32):
you could conceivably use a VPN to make it look
like you are in the United Kingdom and then you
can access that content it will not be restricted to you.
You can also use it to anonymize your browsing. So if,
for example, if you're God forbid downloading torrents or illegal
pirated content um you know, we all know that Internet
(37:53):
service providers get reports of that stuff, and they can
pay you for it, and they can send you a
letter a cease and desist, you know, they they will
serve you that letter that HBO or whoever sends to them.
By using one of these VPNs in this way, you
can disguise your IP address somewhat exactly, and none other
thing is perfect. But a VPN in a public WiFi
(38:15):
setting essentially acts as an additional layer of encryption for
your for your data. The thing is, though, like many things,
there are free versions and there are pay versions. More
often than not, the free versions are really just proxies.
They don't actually offer the full layer of security that
(38:36):
a proper VPN offers. They just reroute your your your
traffic traffic exactly, and they log everything that you do,
all of your browsing habits, and they sell it off
to third parties. That's how these free sites support, you know,
the work that they're doing. A pay VPN will encrypt
(38:57):
your stuff and they claim you never know a hundred
resent that they don't store your information, that it is destroyed,
that no one has access to it. So those are
definitely things to consider it. If you're traveling a lot,
there's a lot of places you can do some research on.
In fact, Gizmoto has a great article called VPNs, What
they do, how they work, and why you're dumb for
not using one. Um I recommend that highly for which
(39:20):
ones to go with, and a little more in depth
explanations of what VPNs are. Careful How I say this
because I don't want to let the let the badger
out of the bag just yet. But another thing that
I think we should always emphasize about VPNs is that
(39:41):
it's not just for you know, pornography or getting the
latest Star Wars film right without having to pay to
see in the theater. In parts of the world where
access to information is restricted, such as the use of
social media in some places because it's associated with protests
(40:02):
or it's associated with coup's, VPNs are crucial for people
to be able to communicate with the world at large
or to visit sites that have been banned. That is
a really good point. Something that hadn't even really considered.
But sure, like in China, I mean, where you don't
get access to certain sites that give you unbiased, let's say,
(40:23):
or at least biased in a different direction versions of
the news. I mean that is pretty important to being
a you know, fully uh informed member of the global community.
And it's it's it's almost a form of protests to
be able to say, hey, we reject this restriction and
we're able to use this technology to equip ourselves with
(40:47):
the information we need. Yeah, I think that's I think
that's a good point because often this will be painted
as one of those what you need VPN for? Huh,
will you do it? Will you do it? Will you
do it? You know, if you're not doing something wrong
us regular connection, let me just see what you're doing.
Come on, let me just see it. Why are you
ashame that? What are I looking at? My son? No? Look,
(41:07):
because it's a came but the shows you an no VPN,
VPN show me our history, my son, I can't come
on man. So then uh, then there's another aspect here
that we we talked about briefly, which is the tour
right the onion router U. There are issues here that
(41:28):
Elliott stated in our example from Mr robot right, volunteer
operators maintain most of these tour network's final set of
servers right the exit notes. And this excludes the course
servers run by law enforcement, sure sure, because they are used.
There are other private tour servers that can be set up, um,
(41:51):
but the vast majority ones. If you're just a user
and connecting up, you're going through one of these, uh,
one of these that has volunteers an operators who are
just you're just trusting that they're going to keep it anonymous,
right right, And as we said, it's easy to see
the traffic flowing through these servers if you control an
exit node. So one of the questions that you might
(42:14):
have listening to this will be the following the question
that we get asked often, who exactly are they in
this situation we're talking about compromising public WiFi. There's more
than one they, uh, there are many of them, and
(42:36):
often one thing that one thing that I dislike is
that often this will be painted as oh, here is
an individual who has low morals or just likes to
mess with people because their statistic or their board, or
they had a bad childhood. But The thing is, it's
not necessarily an individual. Yes, there are many individuals doing that,
(42:59):
some of whom maybe listening to this show. And if so,
I hope to stay on your good side, Hank the hacker,
We mean you no ill will Yeah, big fans actually.
And then the thing that doesn't get talked about as
often but should be talked about more is that they're
organized rings of people doing this. And I don't just
mean private organizations. State sponsored hacking like this is real,
(43:23):
it is continual. Make no mistake if the country you
live in has an active interest in surveillance and hacking,
and it doesn't matter which country it is, and the
US is no better than the other countries that you
might hear about doing state sponsored hacking. One example would
(43:45):
be UH hackers using hotel internet to steal nuclear secrets.
Is a great article in Gizmoto from two thousand fourteen,
so this is old stuff. There was an elite team
of possibly state sponsored hackers that were in full trading
WiFi networks, although that they wouldn't have that much luck
in Alberton. They were infiltrating WiFi networks, probably to steal
(44:10):
nuclear secrets and the security researchers who discovered this called
the cyber spies Dark Hotel, and their efforts to track
down this group we're tenacious. But the further they went,
the more disturbing stuff they discovered. These people were insanely talented.
They're some of the members were traced back to South Korea,
(44:34):
but at the time of writing, they still weren't, at
least publicly sure what these people were doing and why
and this Ben do you remember Winter Olympics so stuff? Yeah,
and tell me about it. Well, it sounds very similar
to to what you're talking about, where there were reports
(44:56):
coming out of American media that if you're using the
y fi in restaurants around Sochi while you're at the Olympics,
there's a very high chance that you're going to get hacked.
There's a lot of fear about that stuff. So there's
also you know, this group Dark Hotel is still active
as of March of They also have a goth band
(45:20):
on the side. They have a goth band on the side.
It's kind of a Prodigy all over again. Wait, wait,
is this real? It could be excited, it could be
Maybe maybe you should ask them what kind of music
they like. Okay, those of you who don't know Matt
and haven't maybe seen him. He is so goth right now.
Guyliner for days. Uh yeah, So Dark Hotel is still active.
(45:43):
They were reported exploiting a Chinese telecom. I'm not condoning
these actions, but the three of us feel that it
is important to be aware of the situation that you're
in when you're in an airport, and also to be
aware that governments are doing this. Don't let the don't
(46:03):
let the Sunday News or whatever fool you into thinking
it's just a couple of missing thropes in every airport. Now,
I would imagine the government is doing things like this
anyway and anywhere they can, well, especially in airports. I mean,
you're you're gonna want to have a lockdown on every
packet that goes to and from within an airport from
(46:24):
the user. And airport is great because it has instant
distance baked in yep, so uh, you know which terminal
you're at and probably where you're sitting right and then
you're gone, so it's not like there's someone in the
cafe with you anymore. So we hope that you have
enjoyed this episode, and we would like to hear from
(46:47):
you if you have any war stories about free WiFi,
or you have any tips or tricks that you think
your fellow listeners should hear. And to prove that we
have ears, what listen and eyes, Let's see, we'd like
to jump into a little thing we like to call
shot at Corners. Our first shout out goes to Paula.
(47:12):
She and her thirteen year old nephew. You guys are
going to space camp in July. Another another person writing
in to let us know they're they're excited to go
to space Camp. She's so happy about it. She's been
dancing a jig for several days. She said, Well, Paula,
we're dancing a little jig for you right now. Nola's
but I am nodding my head rhythmically. Space camp is cool.
(47:33):
I'm sorry, We'll take you, I promise. Do you want
to go so much? Okay, Well, while we're getting our
stuff together for space Camp, let's hear from Chase from Alabama.
Chase says, uh It doesn't believe in the Illuminati per se,
but wants us to further explore the connections between separate
groups we've covered in the past. The Builderberg's skull and bones,
(47:54):
Trilateral commission, central banks, etcetera, all of which are real
all and all of which have been accused of doing
some shady things. So to take a page from the
book of Beyonce and perhaps some up chase his position.
Y'all haters corny talking that Illuminati mess, but I think
it warrants further exploration, So we're gonna do that thing. Yep.
(48:17):
Finally we have one from Daniel who wants us to
take a look at the French alchemist and author Fulconelli
who allegedly attempted to warn a French physicist about the
potential dangers of weaponized nuclear fission in nineteen thirty seven. Fascinating,
and he claimed that it had been used on humanity before.
And this is one interesting customer. Yeah, that's right. He
(48:40):
even goes into the great work and trying to find
that place that all alchemists search for, where you can
it's a point, some point where you can access all
of space and time at once, all that has ever
existed and will never exist, traveling without moving. Yeah, tie
hm as a flat circle. He allegedly found this and
(49:03):
and was able to truly access it at least, you know,
according to articles written about him. If you haven't listened
to our episode on alchemy, we had a guest, dear
friend of Ben's and now the show, Mr Damian Patrick Williams.
We had a fantastic conversation about um the nature of alchemy,
and then there's a nice companion episode we did on
(49:25):
the same day about technology and its relationship with the occult.
As are some of my favorite episodes. I really recommend
going back into the archives and checking those out. And
this concludes our Gosh, but wait, as Billy Mays was
wont to say during his glory days, there is more.
This is usually the part of the show where we
(49:46):
talked about our Facebook and Twitter and ask you to
check it out because you'll see suth that doesn't make
it onto the air for one reason or another. You'll
also see us actively taking suggestions where conspiracy up at
Those were also on Instagram. Now that's right, and we
are conspiracy stuff show there and you guys, we haven't
(50:08):
done this before, but we would really appreciate it. Wherever
you listen to the podcast, be at iTunes, Stitcher, We're
now on Spotify, We're on Google Play, tons of places
you can get it. Leave us a review. I mean
that really helps the algorithm. It helps more people find
out about the show, and you know, it makes us
feel good in our hearts a need that every time
we get a review, our boss goes up to this
(50:32):
thing he painted on the wall. You know how they're
like fundraisers for schools and stuff where they'll have you know,
like a thermometer with the levels of money. Well, ours
is the level of likelihood of us being fired. And
if it gets to the top, and we've been very
close to the top for a while, then boom, we're
out here. So every like, every review ticks us down
(50:52):
just a little bit further away from being fired. Because,
as Ben Is said in the past, the biggest investment
that you make and the show is with your time.
So we would really really appreciate if you would take
just a little more of your time and say how
do you you feel about the show? All Right, we said
we were gonna do it. The active Internet users in
the world right now total comes to three billion, four
(51:18):
hundred and one million, one hundred and twenty one thousand,
five hundred and forty and counting. And that's the end
of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or
questions about this episode. You can get into contact with
us in a number of different ways. One of the
best is to give us a call. Our number is
one eight three three st d w y t K.
(51:41):
If you don't want to do that, you can send
us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at
i heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you
to know is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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