December 23, 2021 • 53 mins
Tall Pockets hips the guys to a creepy doll named My Friend Cayla. Trusty Otter explores the potential dangers of Tornado Cash. Dark Sky asks for more information about that time Sears got involved in the global arms trade. All this and more in this week's listener mail.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. This podcast is
brought to you in part by seers without their consent.
(00:45):
It is time for our weekly listener male segment. This
one I am especially excited for because it is gonna
be pretty creepy. We're gonna go to some some creepy
things from your fellow conspiracy realists. And I've got to
(01:07):
tell you, while we were preparing for this, we've been
as open and transparent as we can about all our
weird secret projects that we have going on. But as
we were preparing for this, I just have to say, Uh,
it made my day to hear from so many people
reaching out with amazing ideas, reaching out with amazing follow ups,
(01:31):
and you really are maybe the end of this the arbitrary,
clentric lend of the year. Maybe it's making me be
a little sentimental, but I thought, um, I've just been
so impressed lately by the correspondence we're getting, you know
what I mean. We just had so many of you
do interesting things, which is probably my favorite aspect of it.
(01:54):
And you've experienced things that are you know, that I
have never experienced. And so when you call us with
a personal account, when you leave an email with a
personal account, it's just, uh, yeah, it brightens all of
our days because it gives us the gift of knowledge,
you know, something new, which is something I think we
all cherish moreen now Star Animation Icon that's like, think
(02:20):
about it in concrete terms, how how amazing is it
that we can do multiple episodes on the amazing potential
and the dangers of plastics and we can say, hey,
if you if you work with this firsthand, let us know.
And then we have people who have written to us
(02:40):
from those rarefied fields in very particular disciplines, so so
rarefied in fact that they have to write to us anonymously.
We've also had a lot of people speak with us
about the dangers of the surveillance state in which the
majority of humanity and money laundering in the art world. Yes,
(03:02):
all kinds of stuff. I'm telling you, fart is the future.
We did understand what's happening here. We did a illumination
Global Unlimited NOL one of our long time sponsors, big Fan.
We're all contractually fear them anyway. Yeah, we're contractually obligated
(03:25):
to both be big fans and fear of them, I think.
But the it was that was the only contract as
signing blood now that you mentioned it. But we we're
talking about the concept of privacy, which is relatively new
in its modern sense, and we're talking about the idea
of surveillance, and there's something you know inherently Creepy got
(03:46):
a great message about some issues with d I y
uh signal jammers and ring or nest cameras, and then
you know, it's it's towards the hollow days now. So
a lot of people, some of whom were in the
audience today, probably have a little elf doll on their
(04:07):
shelf to sort of normalize surveillance for their children, which
not to date, not to date, uh, the four of
us too much. But I don't think any of us
grew up with that, did you Guys? I can grow
up with it, but my daughter did. I had to
do it, uh, And I kind of resented it being
thrust upon me, to be honest, because it's yet another
(04:27):
lie that you have to kind of like, you know,
force upon your kids because they're aware of it, because
other kids talk about it and it's like a book,
it's at the store and stuff. So you know, I
just I don't really care for it, but you know,
eventually she there's a whole deal behind it, like you're
not allowed to touch it or it's magic will disappear,
you know. I mean, it's the most insidious kind of lie. Uh.
And you're right. We talked about this before. It really
(04:48):
is an enforcement of this kind of like nanny state.
It's one of Santa's little agents kind of like watching
you at all times. It does sort of give you
a little more peek behind the garden of how the
hell Santa could possibly keep surveillance and tabs on all
these kids at the same time, because it's got these
little stooges that do it for him. But yeah, none
of it's real. Yeah, this sort of normalization of surveillance
(05:11):
in someone's private home. They're private like sphere, and what
we found recently is a precedent for this kind of
thing on an even more or welly and level. And
maybe that's where we start today. What do you think, mat, Yeah,
let's do it. We're gonna go to a message from
(05:33):
Tall Pockets and we will get to you in one moment.
Tall Pockets, I just want to really quickly state that
children when they're in the age when they've got a
cell phone now, are aware that their parents can track
them to some extent or maybe have access to things
they do on that phone to some extent um. I think,
you know, there's no set range or age when a
(05:54):
child can have a cell phone or use a cell phone,
you know, for emergency purposes, to social media, to contact
parents and all kinds of things. But there's an age
range before that that you know, Again not to generalize,
but but having a stuffed doll or a doll toy
is generally before you get to cell phone level status
(06:15):
at that age. So we're talking about that early developmental
stage for many children here in this message from Tall Pockets,
and for me that's why, just as a spoiler, it's
so disturbing. Okay, Tall Pockets says, Hey, guys, call me
Tall Pockets if you like. If you ever wondered what
a mashup of stuff they don't want you to know
and ridiculous history would look like if orphan Annie came
(06:37):
face to face with spycraft. Are you picturing a princess doll?
Are you really wild? Anyway? My boyfriend and I visited
the Museum of Failure tonight. Not the actual Museum of
Failure because, as it turns out, it's permanently closed. Failed
or a brilliant business strategy anyway, alongside such notable gems
as the Zoom New Coke and the Monosky I don't
(07:00):
want to owe the Mono Ski brilliant. Uh, these were
complete failures. Uh. One that I had never heard of
the My Friend Kayla doll, available from to seen. This
Bluetooth enabled doll was marketed as the perfect friend. She
knows all about you, she listens to you. No, that's
(07:22):
not sinister in the least. These dolls would learn what
a child said and sink it to the Internet to
generate responses. Great, right, applause? Yeah. So, first of all,
that sounds like the Google Home that was in my
house as my son was growing up at a very
early age where he would just ask things, and I'm
sure it knew all kinds of things and knows all
(07:44):
kinds of things about my son. Um. But this in
doll form, oh, seems nefarious. So let's let's keep going
with what Sorry, that was Matt speaking. Let's go back
into what Tall Pocket says. The doll can talk about
movies and shows and other toys. It records what the
child says so it can maintain some semblance of a conversation.
(08:05):
No one would ever hack this or use it to
inundate kids with ads, or record their conversation and sell
it to companies to make more effective targeted ads. No,
they would, never they did. This is so unexpected. These
dolls are actually banned in Germany as they violate the
German Telecommunications Act and are considered a concealed espionage device,
(08:27):
and the Spy Museum Berlin has one on display. So
we've covered listening to recording conversations, selling private data to
marketing groups, and extra sneaky ad placements in the form
of a convo with your bff, Kala, Did I miss anything?
Oh right, it's a doll that's inherently creepy. I hope
you find this as fascinating and disturbing as I did.
(08:47):
Thank you for all the work you do. You guys
always make me laugh inappropriately in the office, much to
the alarm of my unassuming coworkers. And then tall Pockets
and as several very important links that we're going to
discuss today, as well as a picture of my friend,
Princess Kayla. It's amazing what she knows, it really is.
And before we find out exactly what she knows, guys,
(09:09):
what do you say we listen to an advertisement for
this ye, this friend of ours? Mr? Is it going
to be old timey? No? It is not. No, it
is not. Here we go sorry, that's the horror version.
(09:30):
Hold on one second, let me change that. Kayla those
millions of things baby gate cood a baby is called
the kid. Kayla knows millions of things and she plays
games with you too. You love memory match. I know
your favorite pudding is strawberry captics. How does she know that?
Kayla knows so much about you? And Kayla has a
(09:51):
new princess look and activity. It's like from the nineties
or something or what not. To Okay, I missed that.
I don't like that one bit it. It It reminds me
of It reminds me of the thing in Squid Game,
the the high um red light green light doll and
(10:14):
the little creepy song that she sings that vibe if
that doll itself knew everything about you. Uh, this is Oh,
this is insidious. Also full disclosure. Uh, Tall Pockets, if
you are the person I'm thinking of. Uh, thank you
so much for this letter, because I'm pretty sure we're
(10:35):
friends on the internet. Somehow I think Tall Pockets is
onto something. And I know we all three looked into
this and can confirm the story is true. But thank
you so much for writing in because I had not
heard of this. I'm just not a at that time
in my life, well at any time in my life.
(10:57):
I've just not been a guy who's particularly into you.
Uh dolls. Now I get it. There's no no shame
in that event, umastaks man. There's all kinds of stuff
that we can point to. Hear. My favorite thing, the
Tall Pockets sent us an article from the BBC News.
It is titled German parents told to destroy Kala dolls
(11:20):
over hacking fears. It was posted in February of seventeen.
It's an official watchdog in Germany that had literally told
all the parents out there in Germany that bought this
Kala doll to destroy them because they're dangerous, because they're
hacking vulnerabilities within them that can cause them to be
listening devices for nefarious folks. It's pretty amazing. It's the
(11:47):
Federal Network Agency. It's got a name that I cannot pronounce.
I bet you could, noll. Let's see, give it to me,
Matt bun bund Nets, Bunda's nets again tour Bundas Bunda Tour.
That is my best college try so there. It is
(12:09):
the bud to which oversees telecommunications. There are the folks
who said, hey, this is a bad thing, do not
do this. Um. But then, of course, at that time,
this group called the UK Toy Retailers Association came back with, hey, y'all,
this isn't a big deal. Come on, Caleb's fine. Do
you know why they said that? Because Caleb was a
(12:30):
massive seller, that she was extremely popular. She was kind
of the tickle me Elmo every day. Maybe it's so funny.
The tagline on the box is it's amazing what she knows.
It's inherently creepy. I mean. And also, do you remember
(12:51):
there's an episode this is totally black Mirrors Territory. There
was that episode with Ashley Oh, you know, played by um,
what's your name? Miley Cyrus and she was kind of
a sentient doll or whatever. And there's there's a twist
of the story. But also the subject of this email
is Chucky now with bluetooth. And when the updated the
child's play movies, what do you think they did? They
did exactly this. They made it a Bluetooth connected friendship
(13:16):
doll companion thing that you know, gets hacked and becomes
a murderer. Um, so yeah, average it's for the kids. Also,
I had shouted that out earlier too. It's amazing what
she knows, which is at the bottom of the box.
But there's a second thing, which is like a comic
book speech speech bubble. Yes, that says I know so
(13:38):
much about you. It's just this is the kind of
thing that would make me leave a store. Actually, yeah,
it's super weird. Oh but it's kids safe, guys, because
there's a logo on the bottom that says so so
it's fine. It does it does say it's kids safe. Well,
this is just something I want to remind us as
we're thinking about this. We are all now used to
(13:59):
the Amazon and Google and all the other devices in
our homes that just listen to us at all times
and you know, respond when we address them. But Google
Home didn't come out. It wasn't released until this thing
came out in so it's an early adopter of this
kind of technology where you can just say things to
(14:20):
it and ask it questions. It then queries you know,
Google or the Internet and comes back with an answer.
This thing Kayla looking at you with these eyes that
I'm looking at right now in my screen that I'm
feeling very uncomfortable about. She's just talking to you and
telling you all the answers that you have as a child.
And if you go back to that BBC article I
(14:41):
just want to talk about. I think it's called Vivid
Toy group. They were the ones who distributed Kayla my
friend Kayla or Princess Kayla, my friend, Princess Kayla whatever,
she has all kinds of a k A s. They
release some statements back in seventeen that we're just saying, yes,
we're aware of this kind of abuse of our technology, right,
hacking that has occurred. These are isolated incidents. Nobody needs
(15:03):
to worry about this stuff. It's not a big deal.
They were just you know, one offs. But then, of course,
when the Federal Network Agency comes back through and says, no, no, no, no, no, y'all,
we gotta we gotta kill Kala with fire. Uh, you know,
it's pretty serious. Agreed. Agreed. I mean to say the
quiet part out loud. This is a new avenue of
(15:26):
espionage quite potentially, right. I'd be surprised if it didn't happen.
The bluetooth stuff is relatively insecure. You could also just
imagine how many high level conversations parents have around their children, right,
you know, maybe there's a maybe there's a kid playing
with their Kala doll while the parents are talking and
(15:50):
one of them works at an embassy somewhere. Oh hey,
how is your day at work? Nah? These Russians again,
crimea is gonna be a thing in a few years,
and no one's listening in Ukraine will be a thing
as well. Like that information could be valuable and it
could be very easy to find. Um, I don't know, man,
(16:11):
surveillance and children. Uh, surveillance via children is an effective
and in my opinion, highly unethical strategy. Like consider consider
how much YouTube algorithms learn. Right, there are a lot
of parents or who have to you know, you want
to distract your kid for a second again, set still
in focus, and then they're they're in the hands of
(16:35):
a video service that has its algorithms tuned to what
they like, creating a feedback loop. It's crazy. You can
indicated this to the top of the story map. But
Bluetooth is notoriously vulnerable, right in terms of like you know,
a way in people's systems, especially when it was you
know early on them early on the morning, that that
(16:57):
isn't necessarily early. But you know, every with every update,
more things get fixed, right, more vulnerabilities with any software
indoor hardware that you're dealing with. What is it the
that same agency told uh Sudich Zitong Daily that Kayla
quote amounted to a concealed transmitting device, which was illegal
(17:19):
under an article of the German telecom's law. So how
big she got? How big do you think Kayla got
in Vienna before it got shut out with That's what happened.
Somebody from the agency received one as a gift or
(17:40):
something and was just playing with it and then realized,
like in some moment late at night after her daughter
had gone to bed, and she's sitting there, you know,
just looking at the thing and trying to figure it out,
and then it just starts talking to her, and it's
a somebody from the opposition. Yea. It was the same
with like those kind of bluetooth nanny cams or whatever,
(18:02):
anything that's like broadcasting on that type of more or
less open um. You know, I have frequency, I guess
you'd call it. You can intercept those super easily and
monitor a feed coming out of one of those cameras,
or you could broadcast onto them. Yeah, dangerous stuff. Thank
you so much, Tall Pockets for we're reaching out to
(18:22):
us and sending us this is just fascinating story. Um.
I will now be forever horrified by that face of
my friend Princess Kayla. Congratulations. We'll be right back with
another message from you. Uh not you, Tall Pockets. Sorry,
we did your thing, but but you and we're back
(18:48):
with another piece of mail or correspondence, whatever you want
to call it from you the public. The conspiracy realists
of the world. And this one is also about privacy,
about privacy in terms of money, cold hard cash or
or actually crypto currency. Um. This message comes from the
(19:11):
what is it the fearful order? No, not trusty, the
trust the honor of course, thank you, Ben. This one
comes to us from the trusty otto. I'm just gonna
get right into it. Greetings, gentlemen. After listening to your
recent show on money laundering, I pondered about other ways
that groups are using to clean their funds. With the
boom of cryptocurrencies in the past five years, the government
(19:32):
has no way to regulate these different transactions. They're working
on it, though, aren't they. Um, While all transactions are
being recorded in the blockchain, and those record records will
still be there when the government does create some regulation. Uh.
There are ways around it. I know you mentioned in
f t s and how they might be used, but
there's still another way. Tornado cash is one way that
(19:55):
is most worrisome. When someone who obtains cryptocurrency, either through
illicit activities or lawful ways, Uh, they can put some
of those funds into these this Tornado cash system. Now
they will not be able to remove that money right away.
The longer they weigh and the more money they put
in by others, it makes it very difficult to see
whose funds are who's and when they remove them or not.
(20:16):
It's like an IOU system. I'm sure I'm missing some
of the intricacies of the system as I'm no expert,
but this is a basic overview to the best of
my knowledge. I definitely see the other use for some people,
but with the recent thefts of ethereum, the kind of
system will ensure that those bad actors will just have
UH to wait to cash out. I know that some
(20:36):
markets will not allow the sale of these stolen ethereum,
but if they are allowed to put it into Tornado
cash um, it is as good as gone. Anyways, I
love the show and the three of you guys always
have space in my playlist. UH keep those investigations and
look forward to hearing your take on this. Cheers the
trustee otter Um. So we don't have to go too
(20:57):
much into this, but just a quick refresher. When we
day that you know, blockchain or like you know, regular
cryptocurrency transactions aren't anonymous. It's sort of the way like
when you know, we found out all the ways that
the CIA were monitoring, you know, phone calls of American citizens,
not necessarily with data they could attribute directly to an
(21:17):
identity one to one, but they could see all these patterns.
They can see this number called this number, and that
number called that number, and then by analyzing it, you
can kind of see repetitions in the pattern and kind
of get a sense of who is who if you
even know who one person that you're monitoring is. It's
the same with the blockchain. Blockchain, you know, transactions have
a unique you know, key or set of kind of
(21:40):
letters and numbers that are associated with whatever wallet they
are coming from, you know, to or from, and if
you know who one of them is, then over time
you can kind of figure out who others are that
are you know, being transacted with. It's called um I
guess you'd call it metadata where it's not directly giving
you the identity of the person. Although if you are
using cryptocurrency exchange, you do have to have some sort
(22:03):
of identification to be, you know, to join that exchange
and to buy stuff from it, So it wouldn't be
that far of a leap for the government to petition,
you know, those organizations to get that information. So there
are ways to stay kind of anonymous using cryptocurrency on
the internet, um, but it does require some effort. Uh.
So it's not inherently like some people might say or think,
(22:24):
um anonymous. But with this system or this standard I guess,
or this like you know app or whatever you wanna
call it tornado cash, it's correct what trust the odor
is saying that it's essentially combining mixing different transactions so
that it's it doesn't like read as a single transaction. Again,
I'm not an expert either, but it is something that
(22:45):
is a little bit troublesome because it does make it
much much much more difficult to trace the kind of
chain of custody uh and the you know, the providence
of these kinds of transactions. So it's definitely something um
the government would probably will not be into. But as
we know, legislation hasn't even caught up to cryptocurrency in
(23:05):
a way they can even really do anything about it yet.
So these develop these developers out there that are already
figuring out ways to deal with the future when regulation
does come down, so they can hide there, you know,
um piles of cryptocurrency away from the government or at
the very least um be able to kind of you know,
store them and then cash out away from the watchful
(23:28):
eye of Uncle Sam and not have to pay taxes,
let alone if this money is being used in black
market activities like human trafficking or you know, serious drug
transactions or whatever. So UM And it's interesting because this standard,
or this Tornado Cash is actually launching a much more
(23:48):
you could call it mainstream kind of like standardized thing
on a sub strata kind of of the blockchain called
Layer two that is where a lot of these like
date decentralized finance projects take place UM on different UM
like there's Polygone, there's all these other standards in their
L two, which is like not the traditional regular blockchain.
(24:12):
It's like almost like a you know, if you could
look at the web and then you've got the dark Web.
It's like almost like their parallel kind of ledgers that
are happening at the same time, but it's a different standard.
So essentially they're rolling out something on something called the
Arbitrum layer to UH network that will allow people to
directly use this Tornado Cash standard to mask their transactions. UM.
(24:39):
It is considered a fully decentralized ethereum so that's the basis,
you know, that's the coin that you would use to
try to to disguise these transactions. They're calling it a
decentralized Ethereum Mixer Protocol UH, and it apparently masks the
path that the coin takes from center to receiver UM,
allowing you to who have completely private transactions without the
(25:03):
need to use other more kind of privacy focused coins
that require you to do a lot more like exchanging
and like you have to pay fees every time you
do those UM and also layer two networks on this
Ethereum standard are very very fast and have very low
fees UM while also benefiting from the you know, uh
(25:24):
security and decentralization that Ethereum you know as a standard offers.
So this is a little bit troublesome. You know, there's
a great article uh from Shrimpy Academy that helped helped
break it down for me as someone who's also not
an expert on this. We know that blockchain technology can
(25:46):
hide your identity, but it cannot hide the trace of transactions.
Tornadoes cash is is what's called non custodial, meaning that
there's not there's not someone who is an overall authority watching.
And there's a great example in this article about how
simple and full proof the design of this Tornado cash
(26:09):
thing is. If you are um, let's say you they
have a great example in this Let's say you are
tracking down a hacker and this hacker stole something using
a specific type of strategy like a flash loan exploit
tryna have to get into. You can search for the
address that holds the stolen assets using something called ether scan,
(26:34):
and then maybe you find that they use Tornado cash
to launder the money. You're only like real data point
is that address, and then knowing the amount the hackers stole,
and if they're mixing up in Tornado cash, which is
as you said, well, it's a it's a more complex
version of a coin mixer, a token mixer, a thing
(26:55):
that already existed. But so like, let's say you know
that they took fifty ethereum somehow, and then you are
trying to figure out how how to find it. Then
you could say maybe you say, well, let me look
at every trade that was for the amount of fifty ethereum.
But if they're clever, they would just do transactions for
(27:17):
ten ethereum, and they would do that five times, and
that makes it a much more common transaction. And then
it gets mixed up with all these other addresses of
people who might have had a similar con uh, similar
interaction or transaction, and then it becomes impossible to find
the person because they're using something called smart contracts. Uh.
(27:40):
These accept deposits made an ethereum, but they get withdrawn
to other addresses, so there's no real way of knowing
who the original center is unless you've got some good
you know, I don't know, you've got some outside variables. Yeah,
this is this is tough because it's it's gonna be
used for crime, right, we could say that, right, that's
(28:03):
like I mean, I don't see, well, I don't see
what any other reason for it to exist. Right. No,
I hear you guys speaking Latin to me, and all
I hear is crime. This is crime. This is all
to do crime and get your money in crime. That's
literally your crime money. Okay, great, I know what a
(28:26):
blockchain is now, I know that. I guess Now you
can mix that chop and you can get your money
out of the blender somehow. Like Yeah, it's like a
delightful game of crime twister. You know, well, also I
have to wave the flag here. It is possible, you know,
if you are coordinating protests and an authoritarian state, if
(28:49):
you are attempting to I'm just listening to possibilities. If
you are attempting to escape a situation of domestic violence
or something like that with someone who is tyrannically controlling
your income, which is a thing excusing people do, then
uh there there, I would say they are non crime
(29:13):
uses for this technology. But got also a math side
on this one is I would say I would say
that would be the exception and not the rule. Right, Yeah, Unfortunately,
as that's probably accurate. You know, um, it's interesting because,
as you said at the very top of this story,
(29:33):
nal um, and as I'm sure you know, trust the order,
the regulatory bodies are still kind of like strange cats
sniffing this new world of crypto, and they need to
figure out how to maintain their status quo, and they
also want to figure out, let's be honest, how to
(29:54):
make their percentage off it. That's one of their main concerns. Unfortunately,
book industry and banking and public industries like governments. So
at this point, though the tornado already came through like this,
this kind of approach, How would you stop it? Like,
(30:14):
the only way I could see somebody, some institution addressing
this in an effective manner, it would depend on new
regulations being imposed. So something that says like, Okay, if
you were in the world of crypto, you have to
be somehow registered in some way, which sovereign powers could
(30:37):
require people to do that, or they could try and
then you would Maybe it's a thing where certain activities
are sus so like if you use any kind of
coin mixing service, you have to you have to answer
to some country's version of the of the alphabet gang
and they're like, hey, I noticed you. Uh noticed you've
(31:01):
been mixing your coins. Look back on your social media. So, um,
some real red flags there. Now that's true. It could
be it could definitely become a signifier in and of itself, uh,
that that activity is going on, and then therefore it
could be compelling They could compel you to justify it
in some way. I don't know. Like again, the technology
(31:22):
that the government is using and the legislation is still
very very slow on the draw. I mean, even like
I think Biden announced some initiative that was going to
start attempting to tax things like n f T s
and um, you know crypto hold things. But even that
wouldn't go into effect until next year. Um. And you know,
I know people that have been in this space for
like a decade, you know, people who have genuinely made fortunes.
(31:46):
So what happens when it all comes crashing down? You know,
there have to be things in place for folks like
that to protect themselves. Yeah, you gotta get up you know. Well,
also that those regulations may happen sooner because because the
Biden administration has decided that. Remember during their campaign they
were like, we're gonna cancel student loans. Uh, and I
(32:10):
think it was last night or today they announced we
meant we were not going to do that, so pay
up right. So yeah, so like maybe they could. Maybe
they're going to get their lawyers on crypto instead. Maybe
that's the plan. Well, it's definitely a plan. Um. But
I think our plan for now should take a quick
break here from we're from our sponsors and then come
(32:31):
back with one more piece of listener mail. And we
have returned. Our next piece of correspondence comes from the
one and only Dark Sky here's what dark Sky had
to say in your recent Listener Mail episode about death
(32:54):
at Groom late who touched briefly on international arms dealing.
This seems like a good tie to share something I
found quite by accident recently, out of general curiosity. I
was viewing the wiki page for Sears as in the
nearly defunct US retail chain. We know it well, dark Sky.
Somewhere on Wikipedia, I can't find it now, there was
(33:15):
a reference to a subsidiary of Sears called Sears World Trade.
Long story short, Apparently Sears World Trade was involved in
international arms steels and possibly providing cover for U. S
intelligence operations. This would have been in the early and
mid nineteen eighties. Here's a quote, says dark Sky from
one of the Sears board members at the time. That
(33:38):
name sure seems familiar. We received periodic reports on Sears
World Trade as an entire company, but I don't personally
remember being briefed on those particular activities. Said as I'm
sure you can tell by the voice I'm doing. Donald Rumsfeld,
former Secretary of Defense, who was serving on Sears board
at the time of the interview. And then dark I
(34:00):
goes on to share a couple of links to dig
into and concludes with an adam boy for us, saying,
great show, keep it up, Thanks so much, Dark Sky,
and keep the correspondence coming. Oh man, you touched a
nerve dude. Sears the pre pandemic. The office that we
all worked in was an old and historic Sears. On
(34:21):
another show that our crew does, Ridiculous History, we explored
the history of that building and Sears in general. If
you are not from the US, you may not be
familiar with this department store, but in its heyday, it
was the Walmart of its time. It was ubiquitous. You
(34:42):
could order everything from like shoelaces, two guns, to entire
houses from Sears and they would just ship it to
wherever you happen to be at. So I have to say,
I am I am surprised that I'm surprised we didn't
talk about it in our earlier episode, but also at
(35:04):
the same level, I don't know how you guys feel.
I'm not surprised that Sears was doing this. What what
about you guys? Initial reactions before we break down what
Dark Sky is referencing here. They're very good at selling
things and at least they had people on board who
were excellent at that. Well, they also invented catalog culture
and essentially not only sold things, but sold the concept
(35:27):
of the kinds of the kind of lifestyle you should
have that required certain things. You know. They sort of
invented like the American dream and sold it to the
American people essentially. And in this case, if your lifestyle
is you know, being a warlord or you know, running
a military in a different country that maybe doesn't have
access to a ton of weapons manufacturing, they did a
(35:50):
good job for showing them what life could be like. Yeah, yeah,
fingers on a hand. As we've said before, the higher
you get in any hierarchy, the smaller your circle becomes.
And also, uh, at the same time, as countertuitive as
it may sound, you are also more likely to have
(36:10):
ven diagram contacts with other industries. Right, Like the the
average person working in a factory making widgets might not
know the person who makes gadgets, but the guy who's
in charge of that factory probably does know the guy
(36:30):
or the person excuse me, who runs the gadget factory.
That's just an unfortunate side effect of the tribalism of
the species. And that's this is where it gets interesting
because Dark Sky sent us this great article. I feel
like this is a fun I feel like this would
be a fun live episode for us to do. But
we want to introduce you to the the Gucci Maine
(36:54):
of this story with Sears. It's guiding Frank Carlucci. Uh,
if you are a if you're a fan of reading
about US politics and you can get really deep in
the weeds, you might remember this guy as the national
security advisor for a time to former President Ronald Reagan.
(37:16):
After Carlucci left his job as the National Security Advisor,
he got hired on it Sears to run this subsidiary
the Dark Sky mentioned Sears World Trade. Sears World Trade,
let's just unpack these matrociaka dolls. Sears World Trade had
(37:37):
its own subsidiaries, and one of those subsidiaries, the Singing Oversaw,
had the name International Planning and Analysis Center Incorporated, a
name that is just just beige and blase enough to
be suspicious. Who was in charge of that Who was
a charge of that center? A retired four star general
(37:59):
named j Ames Allen, along with twelve other former military officers.
They provided this subsidiary of a subsidiary of sears. Look
at those proxies, admire those nesting dolls. They provided advice
on how to sell anti aircraft missiles, how to sell
(38:21):
transport planes, are flight simulators, radar, and trailers to the
US and Canada. So they were talking with private industry
like defense manufacturers, and they were they were pulling contacts,
which is what a lot of the uh A lot
of the public service folks who go to the dark side,
(38:42):
that's what they end up doing. Their nepotism is their
uh CV, their resume. You know, I mean what we
have on paper here at least over the span of
time since this was going down and what was the eighties? Correct, Yeah,
that's great. You know, I'm I'm making references to warlords
and you know, selling selling weapons in other places that
(39:03):
maybe maybe enemies of Western powers or something like that.
But in this case they are talking about the US
and Canada. When we know about something like this, I
always have the suspicion that it goes deeper and it
goes further out to more nefarious things. That doesn't necessarily
mean that it's true, just because I feel that way,
(39:24):
just putting that out there, I feel, you man, that's
a fair like gut check that everybody has to what
do we do in D and D. You got a
role initiative and you've got a role for constitution. You
have to make sure that we're not going too far
down a rabbit hole of conjecture versus a rabbit hole
of fact. But there's there's a lot of stuff that
(39:47):
doesn't look good for this, one of the main things
being that when this story broke in the mid nineties,
I think around eighty six or so. When this story broke,
Sears response was, Oh, yeah, we it's a small part
of the company and uh uh, we're gonna sell it anyway.
We we might sell it to some other company, Okay,
(40:09):
we might sell it to the people who run it now,
which is chefkas. But then there was also the second
aspect of sketchiness. Here is the deniability factor. Rumsfeld said,
Oh yeah, I don't I don't remember doing that, And
people at Sears were like, oh, is that with that subsidiary?
(40:30):
Was doing it? Just so small? And you know about that? Yeah,
that's crazy, which is which is kind of like I
heart media saying podcast huh, that's wild. We didn't know
our podcasts, Yeah, we didn't know our podcasting arm was
doing podcasts anyway, so they're doing down there in Atlanta.
(40:52):
Then what was the name of the division again, The
name of the first subsidiary is Sears World Trade. The
name of the subsidiar that was doing the international arms
trade consulting is International Planning and Analysis Center Incorporated or iPad,
which is clearly a subsidiary of Illumination Global Unlimited. Right, Well,
that's our show, folks, Thanks so much for tuning. We
(41:15):
shouldn't be talking about Oh no, no, no, no, you're right,
you're on the money. Uh, well, they're They're evolved in
pretty much every company I think at some point. Again,
but this is this is fascinating because if you're interested
in the history of Sears, please do check out that
ridiculous history episode. But also I think this is indicative
(41:36):
of just how much of a reach this place had.
And And to me, okay, so I'm torn hashtag Natalie
and Bruglia. I'm wondering, like, what is the primary player
in this Sears World Trade situation was? Was it Sears
making a lot of money? I would imagine not. I
(42:00):
I think it made less than one percent of their
sales for quite a while what it seems to me like,
and this is without doing an episode on this, what
it seems to me like is some shady consulting was
going on and it had the Sears brand name attached
as kind of a cover or uh, you know, like
a sheet pelt for a wolf. What do you guys think?
(42:23):
Am I off base there? I feel like around the money,
I'm looking down at the bottom of this Washington Post
article titled Carlucci supervised arm Advisors at Sears. Wow, from
hip going down all the way to the bottom of it,
and it's exactly what you're referencing. They're talking about Sears
World Trades revenue, Sears Roebucks, which you know, the above them,
(42:47):
and then I P. A c. Total revenue of Sears
Roebuck was forty point seven billion dollars in and then
I P. A c. Only made three point five million
only Well, I mean, but think about that a huge
amount of money. But think about the difference. Like you're
(43:08):
talking about this tiny little arm, this thing within the
thing made that small amount. You can only imagine that
this is it exists there for a reason that they
haven't stated, in my mind, for for them to keep
around a thing. That's that's that's small and not divert
those resources somewhere else where. They can clearly be making
(43:28):
lots more money. Lets me know, or at least sets
off my alarms that this is important to them for
some other reason. Oh yeah, oh yeah, man. And there's
there's another. There's another piece of the puzzle. This is
not quite the bow on the Christmas gift, but let's
call this the rapping for the present dark sky. You
(43:49):
also sent in a great article from the Nation, which
is when the first things are popped up to me
as well. And this article is from two thousand and two,
and it talks about the further adventures of our man
Frank car Lucci. He's so car Lucci right now. He
went on from Sears World Trade and I Pack to
(44:13):
become the chairman of a returning guest on our show,
the car Lysle Group Fellowship. Yes, zero poop involved, this
is true. Oh man, Carlucci runs deep. So let's check
(44:33):
this out. So if you want to learn more about
the car Lysle Group, I mean, you can go to
their official website if that's you know. If you're into
airbrush art, go to their website and read there about
us UH. If you are into learning more about the controversy,
check out a Wired article of from twenty ten by
(44:55):
Spencer Ackerman which talks about the reach of car Lysle Group.
Because the car Lysle Group, amongst there there are many
other things. It's not been officially censured for this, but
there's compelling evidence or circumstantial evidence that they're also deep
(45:15):
in the arms trade. And before car Lucci went to
the Reagan administration and Captain, before car Lucci went to Sears,
and before car Lucci went to the car Lysle Group,
he had a job at another company. The company that's
what we call it on this show. So from C
(45:36):
I A to the executive branch to your favorite department
store if you were alive, you know, if you're alive
during its heyday two, an incredibly powerful global investment firm.
It's just more and more I'm wondering more and more.
I'm wondering, like who is really voting in this country,
(45:57):
by which I mean who is affecting the decisions of policy?
And it's so hard not to be cynical, you know
what I mean, It's so hard not to think that
these are fingers on a hand and I'm not saying
this is how everything works, but I'm saying in this case,
I think Dark Sky is onto something. I think Sears
(46:17):
just got caught up because their their name looked clean.
You know, dude, there's so many dots to be connected here.
I need a conspiracy board. Yeah, yeah, you kill it
at the conspiracy boards though, You're amazing at that. Oh.
I can mock him up, to shoot him on video,
for sure. I can make fake ones all day. Let's
do it. But I need somebody out there that can
(46:38):
actually connect these dots from Rumsfeld and Sears to all
of these things. Roosevelt when he brought Carlucci on, and
then Rumsfeld when he's in off you know, in office
essentially um hanging out in the upper echelons like you
talked about that, those closed circles at the top. I mean,
(46:59):
I just want to follow Rumsfeld and then we'll follow
car Lucci. Somebody out there put those two together. Oh.
Car Lucci was also, by the way, kicking it with
Project for New American Century. Shout out to them. Yeah,
on the US Taiwan Business Council. Uh. He was a
member of the board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation.
I'm telling you, man, it's deeper than wrapped. It's quote
(47:23):
at press. Uh. He was on the Drug Policy Alliance. Oh,
I mean this guy, Oh my god, this guy had
I don't know if he had many interests, but he
had a lot of organizations that he used to push
his interest He was really on the Drug Policy Alliance. Yeah, yeah,
for sure, he was on the Drug Policy Alliance back
(47:44):
in oh he was a member of the honorary board
that dates back to two thousand and ten. Uh. He
passed away in and you know, at this point we
cannot a thickly draw hard conclusions about what Carlucci's motivations were,
(48:08):
you know, or what what led him to be connected
with so many organizations, some of which are remained pretty controversial,
I would say in the modern day. But we can
say that there are a lot of thoughts to connect.
This is awesome, Dark Sky, thank you so much for
sending this. Uh. I would love to dig in more
(48:30):
and see if this is an episode. I think there's
something cool about that. But anyhow, that's how that's why
we shouted out sears in the beginning. So we're gonna
holiday for listener mail. But I have a surprise for us,
Matt Noel, I mean it's not really a surprise. I
mentioned it off air, but we got an actual letter.
(48:51):
I'm covering the address looked at it yet, No I
was waiting for you guys, So we have no idea
what's inside there. True surprise, all right, We just know
that our friend Eric Eric sent this. And if you're
on our Facebook group, here's where it gets crazy. Then
you've heard from Eric. Uh So, all right, so here
(49:13):
we go. Here's the cover's gonna well, I guess we'll
have to narrate this. Oh no, this birthday cards late
and it is a dashing looking pig on a motorcycle
wearing a helmet. Safety first. Uh and the letter reads,
oh oh whoa, we got swagged, we got stickers. Okay.
(49:33):
The letter reads Matt Nolan ben I apologize for this
coming later than I expected. I just wanted to say
happy birthday to you all. So this from August, I guess,
and thank you for all of the wonderful shows you make.
Will we all have wonderful birthdays? Sincerely, E P. S.
I hope you enjoy the stickers. Just don't fight over
(49:53):
who gets which d I a stickers. So okay, I'll
do show you these, um and we can distribute these
when we hang out off air. But we've got some
happy birthday stickers. We've got a great project paper clip sticker.
I don't know if you can see it. Uh yeah,
(50:15):
and we've got it's pad away here Unicorn with its
midsection removed, shooting lasers out of his eyes to Unicorn.
Uh Denvertic. It's the Denver sculpture from the airport. It's
the Denver Intergalactic Astro Astro Park established. Uh. So we've
(50:36):
we've got these, and thank you so much. Eric. That's
so cool you guys. We got an actual letter. Yeah,
thank you Eric. That's really kind of really cool stuff.
Appreciate the wishes and the stickers. I will take whichever
of the three. You guys don't want to look at
all these? Okay, yeah, we got we have an embarrassment
(51:00):
of sticker riches and Saul thinks that Eric, I have
an embarrassment of sticker, like just like corded stickers, because
I got my in my old age. I'm just afraid
of like sticking things on things. Um. Back in the
back in my younger years, I would just stick a
sticker on anything. Now I just have piles and piles
of unused stickers. But maybe I'll be a news resolution
(51:20):
of mine. I'm gonna change that behavior started sticking up
the whole you know world. Were you a bumper sticker
guy at one point? Oh no, I despise bumper stickers.
That is a real pet peeve of mine. But you know,
cool little cutout stickers. And my kid actually just got
a really cool electric guitar for her birthday. She just
turned thirteen, and she's already stickering it up. So maybe
(51:42):
I'll donate some of these to her, cause that's that's awesome.
And thank you again to Tall Pockets, Thank you to
trust the Otter, thank you to the the Dark Sky, thank
you to Eric, and thank you to everyone who has
tuned in over the years. We can't wait to hear
from you, specifically you if you want to be a
(52:03):
part of this show, well, spoiler, you're already a part
of the show. But if you want to share a
message with your fellow conspiracy realist, let's team up. Let's collaborate.
Dare I say, let's conspire. We try to be easy
to find online. Let's try you can find us on
the internet. We are on Facebook, we are on Twitter,
We are on YouTube under the handle conspiracy Stuff. On Instagram,
(52:24):
you can find us under the handle at conspiracy stuff.
Show Yes and if you want to use your mouth
and your phone to contact us, you can dial one
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three minutes say whatever you'd like and give yourself a
cool nickname. We can't wait to say it. Just let
(52:44):
us know if we can use your voice and message
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worth of things to say, and maybe links or some
other information you want to share that's more easily typed. Instead,
send us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy
at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want you
(53:19):
to Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. This podcast is
brought to you in part by seers without their consent.
(00:45):
It is time for our weekly listener male segment. This
one I am especially excited for because it is gonna
be pretty creepy. We're gonna go to some some creepy
things from your fellow conspiracy realists. And I've got to
(01:07):
tell you, while we were preparing for this, we've been
as open and transparent as we can about all our
weird secret projects that we have going on. But as
we were preparing for this, I just have to say, Uh,
it made my day to hear from so many people
reaching out with amazing ideas, reaching out with amazing follow ups,
(01:31):
and you really are maybe the end of this the arbitrary,
clentric lend of the year. Maybe it's making me be
a little sentimental, but I thought, um, I've just been
so impressed lately by the correspondence we're getting, you know
what I mean. We just had so many of you
do interesting things, which is probably my favorite aspect of it.
(01:54):
And you've experienced things that are you know, that I
have never experienced. And so when you call us with
a personal account, when you leave an email with a
personal account, it's just, uh, yeah, it brightens all of
our days because it gives us the gift of knowledge,
you know, something new, which is something I think we
all cherish moreen now Star Animation Icon that's like, think
(02:20):
about it in concrete terms, how how amazing is it
that we can do multiple episodes on the amazing potential
and the dangers of plastics and we can say, hey,
if you if you work with this firsthand, let us know.
And then we have people who have written to us
(02:40):
from those rarefied fields in very particular disciplines, so so
rarefied in fact that they have to write to us anonymously.
We've also had a lot of people speak with us
about the dangers of the surveillance state in which the
majority of humanity and money laundering in the art world. Yes,
(03:02):
all kinds of stuff. I'm telling you, fart is the future.
We did understand what's happening here. We did a illumination
Global Unlimited NOL one of our long time sponsors, big Fan.
We're all contractually fear them anyway. Yeah, we're contractually obligated
(03:25):
to both be big fans and fear of them, I think.
But the it was that was the only contract as
signing blood now that you mentioned it. But we we're
talking about the concept of privacy, which is relatively new
in its modern sense, and we're talking about the idea
of surveillance, and there's something you know inherently Creepy got
(03:46):
a great message about some issues with d I y
uh signal jammers and ring or nest cameras, and then
you know, it's it's towards the hollow days now. So
a lot of people, some of whom were in the
audience today, probably have a little elf doll on their
(04:07):
shelf to sort of normalize surveillance for their children, which
not to date, not to date, uh, the four of
us too much. But I don't think any of us
grew up with that, did you Guys? I can grow
up with it, but my daughter did. I had to
do it, uh, And I kind of resented it being
thrust upon me, to be honest, because it's yet another
(04:27):
lie that you have to kind of like, you know,
force upon your kids because they're aware of it, because
other kids talk about it and it's like a book,
it's at the store and stuff. So you know, I
just I don't really care for it, but you know,
eventually she there's a whole deal behind it, like you're
not allowed to touch it or it's magic will disappear,
you know. I mean, it's the most insidious kind of lie. Uh.
And you're right. We talked about this before. It really
(04:48):
is an enforcement of this kind of like nanny state.
It's one of Santa's little agents kind of like watching
you at all times. It does sort of give you
a little more peek behind the garden of how the
hell Santa could possibly keep surveillance and tabs on all
these kids at the same time, because it's got these
little stooges that do it for him. But yeah, none
of it's real. Yeah, this sort of normalization of surveillance
(05:11):
in someone's private home. They're private like sphere, and what
we found recently is a precedent for this kind of
thing on an even more or welly and level. And
maybe that's where we start today. What do you think, mat, Yeah,
let's do it. We're gonna go to a message from
(05:33):
Tall Pockets and we will get to you in one moment.
Tall Pockets, I just want to really quickly state that
children when they're in the age when they've got a
cell phone now, are aware that their parents can track
them to some extent or maybe have access to things
they do on that phone to some extent um. I think,
you know, there's no set range or age when a
(05:54):
child can have a cell phone or use a cell phone,
you know, for emergency purposes, to social media, to contact
parents and all kinds of things. But there's an age
range before that that you know, Again not to generalize,
but but having a stuffed doll or a doll toy
is generally before you get to cell phone level status
(06:15):
at that age. So we're talking about that early developmental
stage for many children here in this message from Tall Pockets,
and for me that's why, just as a spoiler, it's
so disturbing. Okay, Tall Pockets says, Hey, guys, call me
Tall Pockets if you like. If you ever wondered what
a mashup of stuff they don't want you to know
and ridiculous history would look like if orphan Annie came
(06:37):
face to face with spycraft. Are you picturing a princess doll?
Are you really wild? Anyway? My boyfriend and I visited
the Museum of Failure tonight. Not the actual Museum of
Failure because, as it turns out, it's permanently closed. Failed
or a brilliant business strategy anyway, alongside such notable gems
as the Zoom New Coke and the Monosky I don't
(07:00):
want to owe the Mono Ski brilliant. Uh, these were
complete failures. Uh. One that I had never heard of
the My Friend Kayla doll, available from to seen. This
Bluetooth enabled doll was marketed as the perfect friend. She
knows all about you, she listens to you. No, that's
(07:22):
not sinister in the least. These dolls would learn what
a child said and sink it to the Internet to
generate responses. Great, right, applause? Yeah. So, first of all,
that sounds like the Google Home that was in my
house as my son was growing up at a very
early age where he would just ask things, and I'm
sure it knew all kinds of things and knows all
(07:44):
kinds of things about my son. Um. But this in
doll form, oh, seems nefarious. So let's let's keep going
with what Sorry, that was Matt speaking. Let's go back
into what Tall Pocket says. The doll can talk about
movies and shows and other toys. It records what the
child says so it can maintain some semblance of a conversation.
(08:05):
No one would ever hack this or use it to
inundate kids with ads, or record their conversation and sell
it to companies to make more effective targeted ads. No,
they would, never they did. This is so unexpected. These
dolls are actually banned in Germany as they violate the
German Telecommunications Act and are considered a concealed espionage device,
(08:27):
and the Spy Museum Berlin has one on display. So
we've covered listening to recording conversations, selling private data to
marketing groups, and extra sneaky ad placements in the form
of a convo with your bff, Kala, Did I miss anything?
Oh right, it's a doll that's inherently creepy. I hope
you find this as fascinating and disturbing as I did.
(08:47):
Thank you for all the work you do. You guys
always make me laugh inappropriately in the office, much to
the alarm of my unassuming coworkers. And then tall Pockets
and as several very important links that we're going to
discuss today, as well as a picture of my friend,
Princess Kayla. It's amazing what she knows, it really is.
And before we find out exactly what she knows, guys,
(09:09):
what do you say we listen to an advertisement for
this ye, this friend of ours? Mr? Is it going
to be old timey? No? It is not. No, it
is not. Here we go sorry, that's the horror version.
(09:30):
Hold on one second, let me change that. Kayla those
millions of things baby gate cood a baby is called
the kid. Kayla knows millions of things and she plays
games with you too. You love memory match. I know
your favorite pudding is strawberry captics. How does she know that?
Kayla knows so much about you? And Kayla has a
(09:51):
new princess look and activity. It's like from the nineties
or something or what not. To Okay, I missed that.
I don't like that one bit it. It It reminds me
of It reminds me of the thing in Squid Game,
the the high um red light green light doll and
(10:14):
the little creepy song that she sings that vibe if
that doll itself knew everything about you. Uh, this is Oh,
this is insidious. Also full disclosure. Uh, Tall Pockets, if
you are the person I'm thinking of. Uh, thank you
so much for this letter, because I'm pretty sure we're
(10:35):
friends on the internet. Somehow I think Tall Pockets is
onto something. And I know we all three looked into
this and can confirm the story is true. But thank
you so much for writing in because I had not
heard of this. I'm just not a at that time
in my life, well at any time in my life.
(10:57):
I've just not been a guy who's particularly into you.
Uh dolls. Now I get it. There's no no shame
in that event, umastaks man. There's all kinds of stuff
that we can point to. Hear. My favorite thing, the
Tall Pockets sent us an article from the BBC News.
It is titled German parents told to destroy Kala dolls
(11:20):
over hacking fears. It was posted in February of seventeen.
It's an official watchdog in Germany that had literally told
all the parents out there in Germany that bought this
Kala doll to destroy them because they're dangerous, because they're
hacking vulnerabilities within them that can cause them to be
listening devices for nefarious folks. It's pretty amazing. It's the
(11:47):
Federal Network Agency. It's got a name that I cannot pronounce.
I bet you could, noll. Let's see, give it to me,
Matt bun bund Nets, Bunda's nets again tour Bundas Bunda Tour.
That is my best college try so there. It is
(12:09):
the bud to which oversees telecommunications. There are the folks
who said, hey, this is a bad thing, do not
do this. Um. But then, of course, at that time,
this group called the UK Toy Retailers Association came back with, hey, y'all,
this isn't a big deal. Come on, Caleb's fine. Do
you know why they said that? Because Caleb was a
(12:30):
massive seller, that she was extremely popular. She was kind
of the tickle me Elmo every day. Maybe it's so funny.
The tagline on the box is it's amazing what she knows.
It's inherently creepy. I mean. And also, do you remember
(12:51):
there's an episode this is totally black Mirrors Territory. There
was that episode with Ashley Oh, you know, played by um,
what's your name? Miley Cyrus and she was kind of
a sentient doll or whatever. And there's there's a twist
of the story. But also the subject of this email
is Chucky now with bluetooth. And when the updated the
child's play movies, what do you think they did? They
did exactly this. They made it a Bluetooth connected friendship
(13:16):
doll companion thing that you know, gets hacked and becomes
a murderer. Um, so yeah, average it's for the kids. Also,
I had shouted that out earlier too. It's amazing what
she knows, which is at the bottom of the box.
But there's a second thing, which is like a comic
book speech speech bubble. Yes, that says I know so
(13:38):
much about you. It's just this is the kind of
thing that would make me leave a store. Actually, yeah,
it's super weird. Oh but it's kids safe, guys, because
there's a logo on the bottom that says so so
it's fine. It does it does say it's kids safe. Well,
this is just something I want to remind us as
we're thinking about this. We are all now used to
(13:59):
the Amazon and Google and all the other devices in
our homes that just listen to us at all times
and you know, respond when we address them. But Google
Home didn't come out. It wasn't released until this thing
came out in so it's an early adopter of this
kind of technology where you can just say things to
(14:20):
it and ask it questions. It then queries you know,
Google or the Internet and comes back with an answer.
This thing Kayla looking at you with these eyes that
I'm looking at right now in my screen that I'm
feeling very uncomfortable about. She's just talking to you and
telling you all the answers that you have as a child.
And if you go back to that BBC article I
(14:41):
just want to talk about. I think it's called Vivid
Toy group. They were the ones who distributed Kayla my
friend Kayla or Princess Kayla, my friend, Princess Kayla whatever,
she has all kinds of a k A s. They
release some statements back in seventeen that we're just saying, yes,
we're aware of this kind of abuse of our technology, right,
hacking that has occurred. These are isolated incidents. Nobody needs
(15:03):
to worry about this stuff. It's not a big deal.
They were just you know, one offs. But then, of course,
when the Federal Network Agency comes back through and says, no, no, no, no, no, y'all,
we gotta we gotta kill Kala with fire. Uh, you know,
it's pretty serious. Agreed. Agreed. I mean to say the
quiet part out loud. This is a new avenue of
(15:26):
espionage quite potentially, right. I'd be surprised if it didn't happen.
The bluetooth stuff is relatively insecure. You could also just
imagine how many high level conversations parents have around their children, right,
you know, maybe there's a maybe there's a kid playing
with their Kala doll while the parents are talking and
(15:50):
one of them works at an embassy somewhere. Oh hey,
how is your day at work? Nah? These Russians again,
crimea is gonna be a thing in a few years,
and no one's listening in Ukraine will be a thing
as well. Like that information could be valuable and it
could be very easy to find. Um, I don't know, man,
(16:11):
surveillance and children. Uh, surveillance via children is an effective
and in my opinion, highly unethical strategy. Like consider consider
how much YouTube algorithms learn. Right, there are a lot
of parents or who have to you know, you want
to distract your kid for a second again, set still
in focus, and then they're they're in the hands of
(16:35):
a video service that has its algorithms tuned to what
they like, creating a feedback loop. It's crazy. You can
indicated this to the top of the story map. But
Bluetooth is notoriously vulnerable, right in terms of like you know,
a way in people's systems, especially when it was you
know early on them early on the morning, that that
(16:57):
isn't necessarily early. But you know, every with every update,
more things get fixed, right, more vulnerabilities with any software
indoor hardware that you're dealing with. What is it the
that same agency told uh Sudich Zitong Daily that Kayla
quote amounted to a concealed transmitting device, which was illegal
(17:19):
under an article of the German telecom's law. So how
big she got? How big do you think Kayla got
in Vienna before it got shut out with That's what happened.
Somebody from the agency received one as a gift or
(17:40):
something and was just playing with it and then realized,
like in some moment late at night after her daughter
had gone to bed, and she's sitting there, you know,
just looking at the thing and trying to figure it out,
and then it just starts talking to her, and it's
a somebody from the opposition. Yea. It was the same
with like those kind of bluetooth nanny cams or whatever,
(18:02):
anything that's like broadcasting on that type of more or
less open um. You know, I have frequency, I guess
you'd call it. You can intercept those super easily and
monitor a feed coming out of one of those cameras,
or you could broadcast onto them. Yeah, dangerous stuff. Thank
you so much, Tall Pockets for we're reaching out to
(18:22):
us and sending us this is just fascinating story. Um.
I will now be forever horrified by that face of
my friend Princess Kayla. Congratulations. We'll be right back with
another message from you. Uh not you, Tall Pockets. Sorry,
we did your thing, but but you and we're back
(18:48):
with another piece of mail or correspondence, whatever you want
to call it from you the public. The conspiracy realists
of the world. And this one is also about privacy,
about privacy in terms of money, cold hard cash or
or actually crypto currency. Um. This message comes from the
(19:11):
what is it the fearful order? No, not trusty, the
trust the honor of course, thank you, Ben. This one
comes to us from the trusty otto. I'm just gonna
get right into it. Greetings, gentlemen. After listening to your
recent show on money laundering, I pondered about other ways
that groups are using to clean their funds. With the
boom of cryptocurrencies in the past five years, the government
(19:32):
has no way to regulate these different transactions. They're working
on it, though, aren't they. Um, While all transactions are
being recorded in the blockchain, and those record records will
still be there when the government does create some regulation. Uh.
There are ways around it. I know you mentioned in
f t s and how they might be used, but
there's still another way. Tornado cash is one way that
(19:55):
is most worrisome. When someone who obtains cryptocurrency, either through
illicit activities or lawful ways, Uh, they can put some
of those funds into these this Tornado cash system. Now
they will not be able to remove that money right away.
The longer they weigh and the more money they put
in by others, it makes it very difficult to see
whose funds are who's and when they remove them or not.
(20:16):
It's like an IOU system. I'm sure I'm missing some
of the intricacies of the system as I'm no expert,
but this is a basic overview to the best of
my knowledge. I definitely see the other use for some people,
but with the recent thefts of ethereum, the kind of
system will ensure that those bad actors will just have
UH to wait to cash out. I know that some
(20:36):
markets will not allow the sale of these stolen ethereum,
but if they are allowed to put it into Tornado
cash um, it is as good as gone. Anyways, I
love the show and the three of you guys always
have space in my playlist. UH keep those investigations and
look forward to hearing your take on this. Cheers the
trustee otter Um. So we don't have to go too
(20:57):
much into this, but just a quick refresher. When we
day that you know, blockchain or like you know, regular
cryptocurrency transactions aren't anonymous. It's sort of the way like
when you know, we found out all the ways that
the CIA were monitoring, you know, phone calls of American citizens,
not necessarily with data they could attribute directly to an
(21:17):
identity one to one, but they could see all these patterns.
They can see this number called this number, and that
number called that number, and then by analyzing it, you
can kind of see repetitions in the pattern and kind
of get a sense of who is who if you
even know who one person that you're monitoring is. It's
the same with the blockchain. Blockchain, you know, transactions have
a unique you know, key or set of kind of
(21:40):
letters and numbers that are associated with whatever wallet they
are coming from, you know, to or from, and if
you know who one of them is, then over time
you can kind of figure out who others are that
are you know, being transacted with. It's called um I
guess you'd call it metadata where it's not directly giving
you the identity of the person. Although if you are
using cryptocurrency exchange, you do have to have some sort
(22:03):
of identification to be, you know, to join that exchange
and to buy stuff from it, So it wouldn't be
that far of a leap for the government to petition,
you know, those organizations to get that information. So there
are ways to stay kind of anonymous using cryptocurrency on
the internet, um, but it does require some effort. Uh.
So it's not inherently like some people might say or think,
(22:24):
um anonymous. But with this system or this standard I guess,
or this like you know app or whatever you wanna
call it tornado cash, it's correct what trust the odor
is saying that it's essentially combining mixing different transactions so
that it's it doesn't like read as a single transaction. Again,
I'm not an expert either, but it is something that
(22:45):
is a little bit troublesome because it does make it
much much much more difficult to trace the kind of
chain of custody uh and the you know, the providence
of these kinds of transactions. So it's definitely something um
the government would probably will not be into. But as
we know, legislation hasn't even caught up to cryptocurrency in
(23:05):
a way they can even really do anything about it yet.
So these develop these developers out there that are already
figuring out ways to deal with the future when regulation
does come down, so they can hide there, you know,
um piles of cryptocurrency away from the government or at
the very least um be able to kind of you know,
store them and then cash out away from the watchful
(23:28):
eye of Uncle Sam and not have to pay taxes,
let alone if this money is being used in black
market activities like human trafficking or you know, serious drug
transactions or whatever. So UM And it's interesting because this standard,
or this Tornado Cash is actually launching a much more
(23:48):
you could call it mainstream kind of like standardized thing
on a sub strata kind of of the blockchain called
Layer two that is where a lot of these like
date decentralized finance projects take place UM on different UM
like there's Polygone, there's all these other standards in their
L two, which is like not the traditional regular blockchain.
(24:12):
It's like almost like a you know, if you could
look at the web and then you've got the dark Web.
It's like almost like their parallel kind of ledgers that
are happening at the same time, but it's a different standard.
So essentially they're rolling out something on something called the
Arbitrum layer to UH network that will allow people to
directly use this Tornado Cash standard to mask their transactions. UM.
(24:39):
It is considered a fully decentralized ethereum so that's the basis,
you know, that's the coin that you would use to
try to to disguise these transactions. They're calling it a
decentralized Ethereum Mixer Protocol UH, and it apparently masks the
path that the coin takes from center to receiver UM,
allowing you to who have completely private transactions without the
(25:03):
need to use other more kind of privacy focused coins
that require you to do a lot more like exchanging
and like you have to pay fees every time you
do those UM and also layer two networks on this
Ethereum standard are very very fast and have very low
fees UM while also benefiting from the you know, uh
(25:24):
security and decentralization that Ethereum you know as a standard offers.
So this is a little bit troublesome. You know, there's
a great article uh from Shrimpy Academy that helped helped
break it down for me as someone who's also not
an expert on this. We know that blockchain technology can
(25:46):
hide your identity, but it cannot hide the trace of transactions.
Tornadoes cash is is what's called non custodial, meaning that
there's not there's not someone who is an overall authority watching.
And there's a great example in this article about how
simple and full proof the design of this Tornado cash
(26:09):
thing is. If you are um, let's say you they
have a great example in this Let's say you are
tracking down a hacker and this hacker stole something using
a specific type of strategy like a flash loan exploit
tryna have to get into. You can search for the
address that holds the stolen assets using something called ether scan,
(26:34):
and then maybe you find that they use Tornado cash
to launder the money. You're only like real data point
is that address, and then knowing the amount the hackers stole,
and if they're mixing up in Tornado cash, which is
as you said, well, it's a it's a more complex
version of a coin mixer, a token mixer, a thing
(26:55):
that already existed. But so like, let's say you know
that they took fifty ethereum somehow, and then you are
trying to figure out how how to find it. Then
you could say maybe you say, well, let me look
at every trade that was for the amount of fifty ethereum.
But if they're clever, they would just do transactions for
(27:17):
ten ethereum, and they would do that five times, and
that makes it a much more common transaction. And then
it gets mixed up with all these other addresses of
people who might have had a similar con uh, similar
interaction or transaction, and then it becomes impossible to find
the person because they're using something called smart contracts. Uh.
(27:40):
These accept deposits made an ethereum, but they get withdrawn
to other addresses, so there's no real way of knowing
who the original center is unless you've got some good
you know, I don't know, you've got some outside variables. Yeah,
this is this is tough because it's it's gonna be
used for crime, right, we could say that, right, that's
(28:03):
like I mean, I don't see, well, I don't see
what any other reason for it to exist. Right. No,
I hear you guys speaking Latin to me, and all
I hear is crime. This is crime. This is all
to do crime and get your money in crime. That's
literally your crime money. Okay, great, I know what a
(28:26):
blockchain is now, I know that. I guess Now you
can mix that chop and you can get your money
out of the blender somehow. Like Yeah, it's like a
delightful game of crime twister. You know, well, also I
have to wave the flag here. It is possible, you know,
if you are coordinating protests and an authoritarian state, if
(28:49):
you are attempting to I'm just listening to possibilities. If
you are attempting to escape a situation of domestic violence
or something like that with someone who is tyrannically controlling
your income, which is a thing excusing people do, then
uh there there, I would say they are non crime
(29:13):
uses for this technology. But got also a math side
on this one is I would say I would say
that would be the exception and not the rule. Right, Yeah, Unfortunately,
as that's probably accurate. You know, um, it's interesting because,
as you said at the very top of this story,
(29:33):
nal um, and as I'm sure you know, trust the order,
the regulatory bodies are still kind of like strange cats
sniffing this new world of crypto, and they need to
figure out how to maintain their status quo, and they
also want to figure out, let's be honest, how to
(29:54):
make their percentage off it. That's one of their main concerns. Unfortunately,
book industry and banking and public industries like governments. So
at this point, though the tornado already came through like this,
this kind of approach, How would you stop it? Like,
(30:14):
the only way I could see somebody, some institution addressing
this in an effective manner, it would depend on new
regulations being imposed. So something that says like, Okay, if
you were in the world of crypto, you have to
be somehow registered in some way, which sovereign powers could
(30:37):
require people to do that, or they could try and
then you would Maybe it's a thing where certain activities
are sus so like if you use any kind of
coin mixing service, you have to you have to answer
to some country's version of the of the alphabet gang
and they're like, hey, I noticed you. Uh noticed you've
(31:01):
been mixing your coins. Look back on your social media. So, um,
some real red flags there. Now that's true. It could
be it could definitely become a signifier in and of itself, uh,
that that activity is going on, and then therefore it
could be compelling They could compel you to justify it
in some way. I don't know. Like again, the technology
(31:22):
that the government is using and the legislation is still
very very slow on the draw. I mean, even like
I think Biden announced some initiative that was going to
start attempting to tax things like n f T s
and um, you know crypto hold things. But even that
wouldn't go into effect until next year. Um. And you know,
I know people that have been in this space for
like a decade, you know, people who have genuinely made fortunes.
(31:46):
So what happens when it all comes crashing down? You know,
there have to be things in place for folks like
that to protect themselves. Yeah, you gotta get up you know. Well,
also that those regulations may happen sooner because because the
Biden administration has decided that. Remember during their campaign they
were like, we're gonna cancel student loans. Uh, and I
(32:10):
think it was last night or today they announced we
meant we were not going to do that, so pay
up right. So yeah, so like maybe they could. Maybe
they're going to get their lawyers on crypto instead. Maybe
that's the plan. Well, it's definitely a plan. Um. But
I think our plan for now should take a quick
break here from we're from our sponsors and then come
(32:31):
back with one more piece of listener mail. And we
have returned. Our next piece of correspondence comes from the
one and only Dark Sky here's what dark Sky had
to say in your recent Listener Mail episode about death
(32:54):
at Groom late who touched briefly on international arms dealing.
This seems like a good tie to share something I
found quite by accident recently, out of general curiosity. I
was viewing the wiki page for Sears as in the
nearly defunct US retail chain. We know it well, dark Sky.
Somewhere on Wikipedia, I can't find it now, there was
(33:15):
a reference to a subsidiary of Sears called Sears World Trade.
Long story short, Apparently Sears World Trade was involved in
international arms steels and possibly providing cover for U. S
intelligence operations. This would have been in the early and
mid nineteen eighties. Here's a quote, says dark Sky from
one of the Sears board members at the time. That
(33:38):
name sure seems familiar. We received periodic reports on Sears
World Trade as an entire company, but I don't personally
remember being briefed on those particular activities. Said as I'm
sure you can tell by the voice I'm doing. Donald Rumsfeld,
former Secretary of Defense, who was serving on Sears board
at the time of the interview. And then dark I
(34:00):
goes on to share a couple of links to dig
into and concludes with an adam boy for us, saying,
great show, keep it up, Thanks so much, Dark Sky,
and keep the correspondence coming. Oh man, you touched a
nerve dude. Sears the pre pandemic. The office that we
all worked in was an old and historic Sears. On
(34:21):
another show that our crew does, Ridiculous History, we explored
the history of that building and Sears in general. If
you are not from the US, you may not be
familiar with this department store, but in its heyday, it
was the Walmart of its time. It was ubiquitous. You
(34:42):
could order everything from like shoelaces, two guns, to entire
houses from Sears and they would just ship it to
wherever you happen to be at. So I have to say,
I am I am surprised that I'm surprised we didn't
talk about it in our earlier episode, but also at
(35:04):
the same level, I don't know how you guys feel.
I'm not surprised that Sears was doing this. What what
about you guys? Initial reactions before we break down what
Dark Sky is referencing here. They're very good at selling
things and at least they had people on board who
were excellent at that. Well, they also invented catalog culture
and essentially not only sold things, but sold the concept
(35:27):
of the kinds of the kind of lifestyle you should
have that required certain things. You know. They sort of
invented like the American dream and sold it to the
American people essentially. And in this case, if your lifestyle
is you know, being a warlord or you know, running
a military in a different country that maybe doesn't have
access to a ton of weapons manufacturing, they did a
(35:50):
good job for showing them what life could be like. Yeah, yeah,
fingers on a hand. As we've said before, the higher
you get in any hierarchy, the smaller your circle becomes.
And also, uh, at the same time, as countertuitive as
it may sound, you are also more likely to have
(36:10):
ven diagram contacts with other industries. Right, Like the the
average person working in a factory making widgets might not
know the person who makes gadgets, but the guy who's
in charge of that factory probably does know the guy
(36:30):
or the person excuse me, who runs the gadget factory.
That's just an unfortunate side effect of the tribalism of
the species. And that's this is where it gets interesting
because Dark Sky sent us this great article. I feel
like this is a fun I feel like this would
be a fun live episode for us to do. But
we want to introduce you to the the Gucci Maine
(36:54):
of this story with Sears. It's guiding Frank Carlucci. Uh,
if you are a if you're a fan of reading
about US politics and you can get really deep in
the weeds, you might remember this guy as the national
security advisor for a time to former President Ronald Reagan.
(37:16):
After Carlucci left his job as the National Security Advisor,
he got hired on it Sears to run this subsidiary
the Dark Sky mentioned Sears World Trade. Sears World Trade,
let's just unpack these matrociaka dolls. Sears World Trade had
(37:37):
its own subsidiaries, and one of those subsidiaries, the Singing Oversaw,
had the name International Planning and Analysis Center Incorporated, a
name that is just just beige and blase enough to
be suspicious. Who was in charge of that Who was
a charge of that center? A retired four star general
(37:59):
named j Ames Allen, along with twelve other former military officers.
They provided this subsidiary of a subsidiary of sears. Look
at those proxies, admire those nesting dolls. They provided advice
on how to sell anti aircraft missiles, how to sell
(38:21):
transport planes, are flight simulators, radar, and trailers to the
US and Canada. So they were talking with private industry
like defense manufacturers, and they were they were pulling contacts,
which is what a lot of the uh A lot
of the public service folks who go to the dark side,
(38:42):
that's what they end up doing. Their nepotism is their
uh CV, their resume. You know, I mean what we
have on paper here at least over the span of
time since this was going down and what was the eighties? Correct, Yeah,
that's great. You know, I'm I'm making references to warlords
and you know, selling selling weapons in other places that
(39:03):
maybe maybe enemies of Western powers or something like that.
But in this case they are talking about the US
and Canada. When we know about something like this, I
always have the suspicion that it goes deeper and it
goes further out to more nefarious things. That doesn't necessarily
mean that it's true, just because I feel that way,
(39:24):
just putting that out there, I feel, you man, that's
a fair like gut check that everybody has to what
do we do in D and D. You got a
role initiative and you've got a role for constitution. You
have to make sure that we're not going too far
down a rabbit hole of conjecture versus a rabbit hole
of fact. But there's there's a lot of stuff that
(39:47):
doesn't look good for this, one of the main things
being that when this story broke in the mid nineties,
I think around eighty six or so. When this story broke,
Sears response was, Oh, yeah, we it's a small part
of the company and uh uh, we're gonna sell it anyway.
We we might sell it to some other company, Okay,
(40:09):
we might sell it to the people who run it now,
which is chefkas. But then there was also the second
aspect of sketchiness. Here is the deniability factor. Rumsfeld said,
Oh yeah, I don't I don't remember doing that, And
people at Sears were like, oh, is that with that subsidiary?
(40:30):
Was doing it? Just so small? And you know about that? Yeah,
that's crazy, which is which is kind of like I
heart media saying podcast huh, that's wild. We didn't know
our podcasts, Yeah, we didn't know our podcasting arm was
doing podcasts anyway, so they're doing down there in Atlanta.
(40:52):
Then what was the name of the division again, The
name of the first subsidiary is Sears World Trade. The
name of the subsidiar that was doing the international arms
trade consulting is International Planning and Analysis Center Incorporated or iPad,
which is clearly a subsidiary of Illumination Global Unlimited. Right, Well,
that's our show, folks, Thanks so much for tuning. We
(41:15):
shouldn't be talking about Oh no, no, no, no, you're right,
you're on the money. Uh, well, they're They're evolved in
pretty much every company I think at some point. Again,
but this is this is fascinating because if you're interested
in the history of Sears, please do check out that
ridiculous history episode. But also I think this is indicative
(41:36):
of just how much of a reach this place had.
And And to me, okay, so I'm torn hashtag Natalie
and Bruglia. I'm wondering, like, what is the primary player
in this Sears World Trade situation was? Was it Sears
making a lot of money? I would imagine not. I
(42:00):
I think it made less than one percent of their
sales for quite a while what it seems to me like,
and this is without doing an episode on this, what
it seems to me like is some shady consulting was
going on and it had the Sears brand name attached
as kind of a cover or uh, you know, like
a sheet pelt for a wolf. What do you guys think?
(42:23):
Am I off base there? I feel like around the money,
I'm looking down at the bottom of this Washington Post
article titled Carlucci supervised arm Advisors at Sears. Wow, from
hip going down all the way to the bottom of it,
and it's exactly what you're referencing. They're talking about Sears
World Trades revenue, Sears Roebucks, which you know, the above them,
(42:47):
and then I P. A c. Total revenue of Sears
Roebuck was forty point seven billion dollars in and then
I P. A c. Only made three point five million
only Well, I mean, but think about that a huge
amount of money. But think about the difference. Like you're
(43:08):
talking about this tiny little arm, this thing within the
thing made that small amount. You can only imagine that
this is it exists there for a reason that they
haven't stated, in my mind, for for them to keep
around a thing. That's that's that's small and not divert
those resources somewhere else where. They can clearly be making
(43:28):
lots more money. Lets me know, or at least sets
off my alarms that this is important to them for
some other reason. Oh yeah, oh yeah, man. And there's
there's another. There's another piece of the puzzle. This is
not quite the bow on the Christmas gift, but let's
call this the rapping for the present dark sky. You
(43:49):
also sent in a great article from the Nation, which
is when the first things are popped up to me
as well. And this article is from two thousand and two,
and it talks about the further adventures of our man
Frank car Lucci. He's so car Lucci right now. He
went on from Sears World Trade and I Pack to
(44:13):
become the chairman of a returning guest on our show,
the car Lysle Group Fellowship. Yes, zero poop involved, this
is true. Oh man, Carlucci runs deep. So let's check
(44:33):
this out. So if you want to learn more about
the car Lysle Group, I mean, you can go to
their official website if that's you know. If you're into
airbrush art, go to their website and read there about
us UH. If you are into learning more about the controversy,
check out a Wired article of from twenty ten by
(44:55):
Spencer Ackerman which talks about the reach of car Lysle Group.
Because the car Lysle Group, amongst there there are many
other things. It's not been officially censured for this, but
there's compelling evidence or circumstantial evidence that they're also deep
(45:15):
in the arms trade. And before car Lucci went to
the Reagan administration and Captain, before car Lucci went to Sears,
and before car Lucci went to the car Lysle Group,
he had a job at another company. The company that's
what we call it on this show. So from C
(45:36):
I A to the executive branch to your favorite department
store if you were alive, you know, if you're alive
during its heyday two, an incredibly powerful global investment firm.
It's just more and more I'm wondering more and more.
I'm wondering, like who is really voting in this country,
(45:57):
by which I mean who is affecting the decisions of policy?
And it's so hard not to be cynical, you know
what I mean, It's so hard not to think that
these are fingers on a hand and I'm not saying
this is how everything works, but I'm saying in this case,
I think Dark Sky is onto something. I think Sears
(46:17):
just got caught up because their their name looked clean.
You know, dude, there's so many dots to be connected here.
I need a conspiracy board. Yeah, yeah, you kill it
at the conspiracy boards though, You're amazing at that. Oh.
I can mock him up, to shoot him on video,
for sure. I can make fake ones all day. Let's
do it. But I need somebody out there that can
(46:38):
actually connect these dots from Rumsfeld and Sears to all
of these things. Roosevelt when he brought Carlucci on, and
then Rumsfeld when he's in off you know, in office
essentially um hanging out in the upper echelons like you
talked about that, those closed circles at the top. I mean,
(46:59):
I just want to follow Rumsfeld and then we'll follow
car Lucci. Somebody out there put those two together. Oh.
Car Lucci was also, by the way, kicking it with
Project for New American Century. Shout out to them. Yeah,
on the US Taiwan Business Council. Uh. He was a
member of the board of Trustees of the RAND Corporation.
I'm telling you, man, it's deeper than wrapped. It's quote
(47:23):
at press. Uh. He was on the Drug Policy Alliance. Oh,
I mean this guy, Oh my god, this guy had
I don't know if he had many interests, but he
had a lot of organizations that he used to push
his interest He was really on the Drug Policy Alliance. Yeah, yeah,
for sure, he was on the Drug Policy Alliance back
(47:44):
in oh he was a member of the honorary board
that dates back to two thousand and ten. Uh. He
passed away in and you know, at this point we
cannot a thickly draw hard conclusions about what Carlucci's motivations were,
(48:08):
you know, or what what led him to be connected
with so many organizations, some of which are remained pretty controversial,
I would say in the modern day. But we can
say that there are a lot of thoughts to connect.
This is awesome, Dark Sky, thank you so much for
sending this. Uh. I would love to dig in more
(48:30):
and see if this is an episode. I think there's
something cool about that. But anyhow, that's how that's why
we shouted out sears in the beginning. So we're gonna
holiday for listener mail. But I have a surprise for us,
Matt Noel, I mean it's not really a surprise. I
mentioned it off air, but we got an actual letter.
(48:51):
I'm covering the address looked at it yet, No I
was waiting for you guys, So we have no idea
what's inside there. True surprise, all right, We just know
that our friend Eric Eric sent this. And if you're
on our Facebook group, here's where it gets crazy. Then
you've heard from Eric. Uh So, all right, so here
(49:13):
we go. Here's the cover's gonna well, I guess we'll
have to narrate this. Oh no, this birthday cards late
and it is a dashing looking pig on a motorcycle
wearing a helmet. Safety first. Uh and the letter reads,
oh oh whoa, we got swagged, we got stickers. Okay.
(49:33):
The letter reads Matt Nolan ben I apologize for this
coming later than I expected. I just wanted to say
happy birthday to you all. So this from August, I guess,
and thank you for all of the wonderful shows you make.
Will we all have wonderful birthdays? Sincerely, E P. S.
I hope you enjoy the stickers. Just don't fight over
(49:53):
who gets which d I a stickers. So okay, I'll
do show you these, um and we can distribute these
when we hang out off air. But we've got some
happy birthday stickers. We've got a great project paper clip sticker.
I don't know if you can see it. Uh yeah,
(50:15):
and we've got it's pad away here Unicorn with its
midsection removed, shooting lasers out of his eyes to Unicorn.
Uh Denvertic. It's the Denver sculpture from the airport. It's
the Denver Intergalactic Astro Astro Park established. Uh. So we've
(50:36):
we've got these, and thank you so much. Eric. That's
so cool you guys. We got an actual letter. Yeah,
thank you Eric. That's really kind of really cool stuff.
Appreciate the wishes and the stickers. I will take whichever
of the three. You guys don't want to look at
all these? Okay, yeah, we got we have an embarrassment
(51:00):
of sticker riches and Saul thinks that Eric, I have
an embarrassment of sticker, like just like corded stickers, because
I got my in my old age. I'm just afraid
of like sticking things on things. Um. Back in the
back in my younger years, I would just stick a
sticker on anything. Now I just have piles and piles
of unused stickers. But maybe I'll be a news resolution
(51:20):
of mine. I'm gonna change that behavior started sticking up
the whole you know world. Were you a bumper sticker
guy at one point? Oh no, I despise bumper stickers.
That is a real pet peeve of mine. But you know,
cool little cutout stickers. And my kid actually just got
a really cool electric guitar for her birthday. She just
turned thirteen, and she's already stickering it up. So maybe
(51:42):
I'll donate some of these to her, cause that's that's awesome.
And thank you again to Tall Pockets, Thank you to
trust the Otter, thank you to the the Dark Sky, thank
you to Eric, and thank you to everyone who has
tuned in over the years. We can't wait to hear
from you, specifically you if you want to be a
(52:03):
part of this show, well, spoiler, you're already a part
of the show. But if you want to share a
message with your fellow conspiracy realist, let's team up. Let's collaborate.
Dare I say, let's conspire. We try to be easy
to find online. Let's try you can find us on
the internet. We are on Facebook, we are on Twitter,
We are on YouTube under the handle conspiracy Stuff. On Instagram,
(52:24):
you can find us under the handle at conspiracy stuff.
Show Yes and if you want to use your mouth
and your phone to contact us, you can dial one
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will hear Ben's voice some music, and then you have
three minutes say whatever you'd like and give yourself a
cool nickname. We can't wait to say it. Just let
(52:44):
us know if we can use your voice and message
on the air. If you've got more than three minutes
worth of things to say, and maybe links or some
other information you want to share that's more easily typed. Instead,
send us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy
at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want you
(53:19):
to Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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