1 00:00:00,066 --> 00:00:03,126 The thing we advocate for is 2 00:00:03,216 --> 00:00:05,046 minimizing our digital footprints 3 00:00:05,046 --> 00:00:07,596 and stopping or, or minimizing 4 00:00:07,596 --> 00:00:09,456 the leakage of our personal data. 5 00:00:09,966 --> 00:00:11,136 And that will continue to 6 00:00:11,136 --> 00:00:13,536 benefit everyone who does that. 7 00:00:13,733 --> 00:00:16,929 If you are thinking long term and 8 00:00:16,929 --> 00:00:19,629 taking steps to always leave a minimal 9 00:00:19,629 --> 00:00:22,749 digital footprint, then in the future, 10 00:00:22,749 --> 00:00:24,909 whether it's a current administration 11 00:00:24,909 --> 00:00:27,489 or a future administration, doing 12 00:00:27,489 --> 00:00:30,969 something untoward with personal data, 13 00:00:31,269 --> 00:00:33,279 the less of it you have out there, 14 00:00:33,339 --> 00:00:35,079 the less you can be harmed by this. 15 00:00:35,269 --> 00:00:36,639 welcome to the Sovereign Computing 16 00:00:36,639 --> 00:00:39,059 Show, presented by ATL BitLab. 17 00:00:39,579 --> 00:00:41,519 I'm Jordan Bravo, and this is a 18 00:00:41,529 --> 00:00:43,249 podcast where we teach you how to 19 00:00:43,249 --> 00:00:45,259 take back control of your devices. 20 00:00:45,699 --> 00:00:47,689 Sovereign Computing means you own your 21 00:00:47,689 --> 00:00:49,879 technology, not the other way around. 22 00:00:53,579 --> 00:00:56,289 This episode is sponsored by ATL BitLab. 23 00:00:56,289 --> 00:00:58,099 ATL BitLab is Atlanta's 24 00:00:58,109 --> 00:00:59,429 freedom tech hacker space. 25 00:00:59,709 --> 00:01:00,829 We have co working desks, 26 00:01:00,849 --> 00:01:02,409 conference rooms, event space, 27 00:01:02,449 --> 00:01:04,069 maker tools, and tons of coffee. 28 00:01:04,819 --> 00:01:05,889 There is a very active 29 00:01:05,889 --> 00:01:06,909 community here in the lab. 30 00:01:06,959 --> 00:01:08,079 Every Wednesday night is 31 00:01:08,079 --> 00:01:09,629 Bitcoin night here in Atlanta. 32 00:01:09,939 --> 00:01:11,759 We also have meetups for cyber security, 33 00:01:11,769 --> 00:01:13,629 artificial intelligence, decentralized 34 00:01:13,629 --> 00:01:15,249 identity, product design, and more. 35 00:01:16,039 --> 00:01:17,989 We offer day passes and nomad passes 36 00:01:18,049 --> 00:01:19,739 for people who need to use the lab only 37 00:01:19,739 --> 00:01:21,549 occasionally, as well as memberships 38 00:01:21,549 --> 00:01:22,859 for people who plan to use the lab 39 00:01:22,859 --> 00:01:24,279 more regularly, such as myself. 40 00:01:25,719 --> 00:01:26,789 One of the best things about 41 00:01:26,799 --> 00:01:28,419 having a BitLab membership isn't 42 00:01:28,429 --> 00:01:30,469 the amenities, it's the people. 43 00:01:30,989 --> 00:01:32,049 Surrounding yourself with a 44 00:01:32,049 --> 00:01:33,629 community helps you learn faster 45 00:01:33,629 --> 00:01:34,819 and helps you build better. 46 00:01:35,059 --> 00:01:36,629 Your creativity becomes amplified 47 00:01:36,629 --> 00:01:37,709 when you work in this space, 48 00:01:37,749 --> 00:01:39,029 that's what I think at least. 49 00:01:39,969 --> 00:01:41,029 If you're interested in becoming 50 00:01:41,029 --> 00:01:42,479 a member or supporting this space, 51 00:01:42,599 --> 00:01:44,659 please visit us at atlbitlab. 52 00:01:45,029 --> 00:01:45,429 com. 53 00:01:45,729 --> 00:01:48,969 That's A T L B I T L A B dot com. 54 00:01:50,319 --> 00:01:51,609 Alright, on to our show. 55 00:01:57,322 --> 00:01:59,662 Welcome to the Sovereign Computing Show. 56 00:02:00,112 --> 00:02:02,602 I'm Jordan Bravo and I'm recording 57 00:02:02,602 --> 00:02:04,942 here today from the heart of Atlanta 58 00:02:04,972 --> 00:02:08,302 in a TL Bitlab with Steven de alarm up. 59 00:02:09,112 --> 00:02:12,202 And we wanna remind you that you can 60 00:02:12,232 --> 00:02:14,542 boost into the show with Fountain 61 00:02:14,542 --> 00:02:16,762 or another app, such as Pod verse. 62 00:02:17,032 --> 00:02:19,552 You can also email us at 63 00:02:19,552 --> 00:02:22,432 sovereign@atlbitlab.com. 64 00:02:22,432 --> 00:02:24,232 That's S-O-V-E-R. 65 00:02:24,577 --> 00:02:29,017 EIG gn@atlbitlab.com. 66 00:02:29,677 --> 00:02:32,257 And remember, we now can be found 67 00:02:32,257 --> 00:02:34,567 with the name Sovereign Computing. 68 00:02:34,567 --> 00:02:36,727 So if you can look in any of your 69 00:02:36,727 --> 00:02:39,427 podcast players, whether that's Apple, 70 00:02:39,427 --> 00:02:42,667 Spotify, et cetera, et cetera, and you 71 00:02:42,667 --> 00:02:44,347 will be able to find the search results 72 00:02:44,347 --> 00:02:46,927 for the Sovereign Computing Show, and 73 00:02:46,927 --> 00:02:48,697 you can subscribe there and you can 74 00:02:48,697 --> 00:02:50,407 listen in any app that you choose. 75 00:02:50,874 --> 00:02:53,364 It's been a few weeks since we've released 76 00:02:53,364 --> 00:02:56,904 an episode, and we apologize for that. 77 00:02:57,174 --> 00:02:59,154 We were getting a new 78 00:02:59,424 --> 00:03:01,494 production flow going. 79 00:03:01,494 --> 00:03:05,167 We have a new editor and, hopefully we 80 00:03:05,167 --> 00:03:06,847 will be able to return to our weekly 81 00:03:06,847 --> 00:03:09,067 schedule now, and you'll, you'll see them 82 00:03:09,402 --> 00:03:12,457 once a week, typically on the same day. 83 00:03:12,877 --> 00:03:14,531 But, we hope you'll stay tuned 84 00:03:14,531 --> 00:03:16,001 for a lot more good episodes 85 00:03:16,001 --> 00:03:16,901 coming up in the future. 86 00:03:18,701 --> 00:03:20,171 All right, today's, we have a 87 00:03:20,171 --> 00:03:22,571 few news articles that we want to 88 00:03:22,631 --> 00:03:24,671 take a look at, stuff that's been 89 00:03:24,671 --> 00:03:26,981 going on recently that's relevant. 90 00:03:27,491 --> 00:03:28,691 The first one we're gonna talk 91 00:03:28,691 --> 00:03:31,841 about is the, the headline is 92 00:03:31,841 --> 00:03:34,961 Trump Taps Palantir to Create 93 00:03:35,201 --> 00:03:37,931 Master Database on Every American. 94 00:03:38,801 --> 00:03:40,841 And if you haven't heard about this. 95 00:03:41,246 --> 00:03:44,096 the Trump administration is planning 96 00:03:44,096 --> 00:03:46,526 to collect data on Americans, 97 00:03:46,826 --> 00:03:48,836 and they are contracting with 98 00:03:48,836 --> 00:03:51,206 the company Palantir to do this. 99 00:03:51,536 --> 00:03:54,836 Palantir is a military contractor. 100 00:03:55,289 --> 00:03:56,729 the article that we have on the 101 00:03:56,729 --> 00:03:58,829 screen here is the new republic, new 102 00:03:58,829 --> 00:04:02,159 republic.com, and this is a pretty, 103 00:04:02,159 --> 00:04:06,659 uh, typical like left wing biased, 104 00:04:06,781 --> 00:04:09,511 publication, but just keep that in mind. 105 00:04:09,511 --> 00:04:13,081 However, it still is reporting facts here 106 00:04:13,081 --> 00:04:14,791 that are, you are gonna be the same no 107 00:04:14,791 --> 00:04:16,291 matter where you get the information. 108 00:04:16,591 --> 00:04:19,021 So there, this article injects its 109 00:04:19,021 --> 00:04:20,311 opinion a little bit here and there. 110 00:04:20,311 --> 00:04:22,411 You know, it says stuff like, far right, 111 00:04:22,411 --> 00:04:25,276 billionaire, Peter Thiel, da da, da. 112 00:04:25,501 --> 00:04:28,017 But the point is, Trump 113 00:04:28,017 --> 00:04:30,207 has enlisted the firm. 114 00:04:30,309 --> 00:04:32,829 founded by Peter Thiel to carry 115 00:04:32,829 --> 00:04:35,739 out his executive order for, 116 00:04:35,991 --> 00:04:37,646 instructing government agencies 117 00:04:37,646 --> 00:04:39,356 to share data with each other. 118 00:04:39,866 --> 00:04:44,306 And the, the danger here that we see 119 00:04:44,306 --> 00:04:48,626 at least is that this is a, another 120 00:04:48,626 --> 00:04:50,276 of the, we talked about this problem 121 00:04:50,276 --> 00:04:52,256 before when Doge was going through 122 00:04:52,286 --> 00:04:55,179 the, social security information. 123 00:04:55,509 --> 00:04:57,309 But the problem here is that this, 124 00:04:57,339 --> 00:05:00,579 they want to create a giant database 125 00:05:00,609 --> 00:05:03,399 of Americans, personal informations. 126 00:05:03,849 --> 00:05:07,899 And I, I think ostensibly this is for 127 00:05:07,899 --> 00:05:10,199 Trump to be able, to Trump and the 128 00:05:10,199 --> 00:05:12,899 administration to be able to crack 129 00:05:12,899 --> 00:05:15,629 down more on illegal immigration. 130 00:05:16,109 --> 00:05:18,569 I don't know what the supposed benefits 131 00:05:18,629 --> 00:05:21,169 of it would be, but the problem 132 00:05:21,199 --> 00:05:23,449 for people who care about privacy. 133 00:05:23,824 --> 00:05:26,944 Is that this is a large, 134 00:05:26,944 --> 00:05:30,094 centralized database of personally 135 00:05:30,334 --> 00:05:32,584 identifiable information and 136 00:05:32,584 --> 00:05:34,024 any database can be cracked. 137 00:05:34,264 --> 00:05:37,024 And the, bigger a database of information, 138 00:05:37,024 --> 00:05:38,854 the more of a centralized honeypot. 139 00:05:38,854 --> 00:05:40,024 It is a bigger of a 140 00:05:40,024 --> 00:05:42,454 target it is for hackers. 141 00:05:42,604 --> 00:05:44,887 and, you know, rogue agencies, 142 00:05:44,887 --> 00:05:46,077 rogue, governments, et 143 00:05:46,077 --> 00:05:48,567 cetera, that could leak it. 144 00:05:48,567 --> 00:05:48,867 And then. 145 00:05:49,497 --> 00:05:51,717 Once they do that, that's a huge 146 00:05:52,797 --> 00:05:55,107 treasure trove of, of personal 147 00:05:55,107 --> 00:05:56,187 data that they can share. 148 00:05:56,687 --> 00:05:58,427 Steven, do you have any thoughts on this? 149 00:05:59,084 --> 00:05:59,654 I don't know. 150 00:05:59,744 --> 00:06:00,704 I don't know that I'm 151 00:06:00,734 --> 00:06:02,624 nearly as alarmed by it. 152 00:06:02,971 --> 00:06:05,071 I don't know if that that's wrong of me, 153 00:06:05,071 --> 00:06:07,957 but, at least my read of this article is 154 00:06:07,957 --> 00:06:10,684 that, This is data that these government 155 00:06:10,684 --> 00:06:15,154 agencies already have and you know, 156 00:06:15,214 --> 00:06:19,234 it's like Palantir is just being tapped 157 00:06:19,234 --> 00:06:22,684 to help, like, organize this data and 158 00:06:22,684 --> 00:06:25,534 make it more accessible and, you know, 159 00:06:26,374 --> 00:06:28,354 easily searchable and all of that. 160 00:06:28,486 --> 00:06:32,289 So yes, the idea of a like woo, 161 00:06:32,469 --> 00:06:34,779 easily searchable master database 162 00:06:34,779 --> 00:06:39,159 on all US citizens sounds scary. 163 00:06:39,399 --> 00:06:42,219 Having said that, it's kind of like, 164 00:06:43,479 --> 00:06:46,059 are we gonna ask, it's like it, 165 00:06:46,059 --> 00:06:48,609 it's weird to ask an organization 166 00:06:48,789 --> 00:06:52,479 to like function ine effectively. 167 00:06:52,716 --> 00:06:53,179 I don't know. 168 00:06:53,179 --> 00:06:54,259 I guess it, it's like, it's just, 169 00:06:54,259 --> 00:06:56,389 it's rational for any organization 170 00:06:56,389 --> 00:06:59,419 to like, want to have its data easily 171 00:06:59,419 --> 00:07:01,999 searchable and indexable and all that. 172 00:07:01,999 --> 00:07:02,809 I mean, maybe that sounds 173 00:07:02,809 --> 00:07:04,219 naive of me to say that. 174 00:07:04,566 --> 00:07:06,036 so I don't know. 175 00:07:06,036 --> 00:07:07,806 I guess it's, I'm not saying I love it, 176 00:07:07,806 --> 00:07:10,386 it's just, it, it's sounds expected. 177 00:07:10,831 --> 00:07:13,591 I mean, I think we should really 178 00:07:13,591 --> 00:07:15,511 like to a certain degree you have, 179 00:07:15,511 --> 00:07:16,801 we have to get used to this sort 180 00:07:16,801 --> 00:07:18,841 of thing because, well actually 181 00:07:18,841 --> 00:07:20,071 this will be the second time today. 182 00:07:20,071 --> 00:07:21,691 I've said this on a podcast, but, 183 00:07:21,721 --> 00:07:23,237 I think when you look back at like, 184 00:07:23,237 --> 00:07:25,634 what happened with, with Doge, and, 185 00:07:25,634 --> 00:07:27,824 and you have like the speed at which 186 00:07:27,824 --> 00:07:29,864 they move with Doge was incredible. 187 00:07:29,894 --> 00:07:30,344 Right? 188 00:07:30,344 --> 00:07:31,994 And, and you had, um. 189 00:07:32,124 --> 00:07:33,684 You know, young people getting 190 00:07:33,684 --> 00:07:35,574 involved in government, young people 191 00:07:35,574 --> 00:07:38,394 with technical skills, using AI to 192 00:07:38,424 --> 00:07:41,874 move much quickly, process massive 193 00:07:41,874 --> 00:07:43,494 amounts of data very quickly. 194 00:07:45,324 --> 00:07:48,654 Doge moved quicker than we are used to 195 00:07:48,654 --> 00:07:52,074 government moving, and you know, we might 196 00:07:52,074 --> 00:07:54,684 have to get used to that being the norm. 197 00:07:55,344 --> 00:07:57,144 Like we're used to thinking of governments 198 00:07:57,144 --> 00:07:59,754 as being very slow moving things, I think. 199 00:07:59,844 --> 00:08:00,264 But. 200 00:08:00,351 --> 00:08:02,871 using AI and using technology 201 00:08:02,871 --> 00:08:04,671 and using more motivated people, 202 00:08:04,671 --> 00:08:06,501 that may not always be the case. 203 00:08:06,687 --> 00:08:08,787 and I think we might have to get used to 204 00:08:08,817 --> 00:08:12,087 the idea that like, especially when the 205 00:08:12,087 --> 00:08:14,187 pendulum swings and, you know, eventually 206 00:08:14,187 --> 00:08:15,507 we'll have a left wing president 207 00:08:15,507 --> 00:08:18,627 again, that next administration very 208 00:08:18,627 --> 00:08:21,171 well could, do the exact same thing. 209 00:08:21,171 --> 00:08:23,631 If they were motivated enough, they could, 210 00:08:23,944 --> 00:08:27,424 Put in very fast moving, highly motivated 211 00:08:27,424 --> 00:08:30,684 people with ais, who, you know, are, 212 00:08:30,684 --> 00:08:33,414 are able to make change very rapidly. 213 00:08:33,414 --> 00:08:34,764 So, I don't know. 214 00:08:34,824 --> 00:08:36,324 I, I'm not saying I love it, I 215 00:08:36,324 --> 00:08:38,964 just, it's kind of expected to me 216 00:08:38,964 --> 00:08:41,425 and I, I, you know, I don't know, 217 00:08:41,425 --> 00:08:42,294 I don't know if that makes sense. 218 00:08:43,434 --> 00:08:44,634 Yeah, I see what you're saying. 219 00:08:45,169 --> 00:08:47,324 I, I think this doesn't really change 220 00:08:47,324 --> 00:08:50,234 anything as far as advice goes. 221 00:08:50,594 --> 00:08:53,654 the thing we advocate for is 222 00:08:53,744 --> 00:08:55,574 minimizing our digital footprints 223 00:08:55,574 --> 00:08:58,124 and stopping or, or minimizing 224 00:08:58,124 --> 00:08:59,984 the leakage of our personal data. 225 00:09:00,494 --> 00:09:01,664 And that will continue to 226 00:09:01,664 --> 00:09:04,064 benefit everyone who does that. 227 00:09:04,261 --> 00:09:06,751 if you are thinking long term 228 00:09:07,081 --> 00:09:07,741 then and, 229 00:09:08,431 --> 00:09:11,101 and taking steps to always leave a 230 00:09:11,101 --> 00:09:13,801 minimal digital footprint, then in 231 00:09:13,801 --> 00:09:15,901 the future, whether it's a current 232 00:09:15,901 --> 00:09:18,301 administration or a future administration. 233 00:09:19,051 --> 00:09:22,261 Doing something untoward with personal 234 00:09:22,261 --> 00:09:25,141 data, the less of it you have out there, 235 00:09:25,201 --> 00:09:26,941 the less you can be harmed by this. 236 00:09:27,001 --> 00:09:27,121 Yeah. 237 00:09:27,301 --> 00:09:27,871 Or any of it. 238 00:09:29,011 --> 00:09:31,891 I, I'll tell a fun slash scary story 239 00:09:31,921 --> 00:09:35,671 that, about this kind of thing, and 240 00:09:36,131 --> 00:09:37,601 my background was doing a lot more 241 00:09:37,601 --> 00:09:39,611 marketing design work, like video and 242 00:09:39,611 --> 00:09:41,201 motion graphics and all that kinda stuff. 243 00:09:42,041 --> 00:09:43,517 And, the, with the, the company I 244 00:09:43,517 --> 00:09:45,227 worked for, we, you know, worked a 245 00:09:45,227 --> 00:09:47,267 lot more with like, tech companies 246 00:09:47,267 --> 00:09:50,087 or like B2B Tech products and stuff. 247 00:09:50,346 --> 00:09:51,571 I used to have to work on like a lot 248 00:09:51,571 --> 00:09:53,949 of videos and stuff that were for, 249 00:09:54,009 --> 00:09:56,782 Like kind of tech products, targeted 250 00:09:56,842 --> 00:09:58,912 at like, you know, governments and 251 00:09:58,912 --> 00:10:00,309 stuff like, you know, they might be 252 00:10:00,309 --> 00:10:03,752 marketed to, police or like emergency 253 00:10:03,752 --> 00:10:06,662 services or disaster response. 254 00:10:06,662 --> 00:10:08,732 Like, not all like bad stuff, right. 255 00:10:08,761 --> 00:10:10,651 obviously like a disaster response. 256 00:10:10,651 --> 00:10:11,851 I think you, you want that to be 257 00:10:11,851 --> 00:10:13,411 very coordinated and efficient. 258 00:10:13,981 --> 00:10:15,451 But I, I remember this one 259 00:10:15,451 --> 00:10:18,091 product I had to do a, a video 260 00:10:18,091 --> 00:10:20,311 for was very alarming to me. 261 00:10:20,341 --> 00:10:23,281 'cause when I was being shown the, like, 262 00:10:23,581 --> 00:10:25,921 videos and screenshots of the product, 263 00:10:25,921 --> 00:10:27,811 I was like, holy crap, they can do this. 264 00:10:28,111 --> 00:10:29,371 The reason I'm reminded of this 265 00:10:29,371 --> 00:10:31,754 particular product is because, it was, 266 00:10:31,814 --> 00:10:33,314 you know, they were telling me like, 267 00:10:33,374 --> 00:10:34,664 oh, you know, this, this is like. 268 00:10:35,339 --> 00:10:37,079 They're trying to compete with Palantir 269 00:10:37,079 --> 00:10:39,239 or they like, want to be like seen as 270 00:10:39,239 --> 00:10:41,339 like roughly analogous to Palantir. 271 00:10:41,699 --> 00:10:42,326 and so I was looking through this 272 00:10:42,326 --> 00:10:44,246 product and like basically, you know, 273 00:10:44,246 --> 00:10:45,866 you could just type in a person's name 274 00:10:46,136 --> 00:10:47,636 and it would just like pull up this 275 00:10:47,636 --> 00:10:51,596 like web of details about the person. 276 00:10:52,496 --> 00:10:53,576 It was very creepy. 277 00:10:53,576 --> 00:10:55,196 Like you could just type in somebody's 278 00:10:55,196 --> 00:10:58,196 name and it would generate this like 279 00:10:58,196 --> 00:10:59,876 chart for you and it would be like. 280 00:11:00,701 --> 00:11:02,021 So the name would be in the center, 281 00:11:02,321 --> 00:11:03,971 and then it would have like little like 282 00:11:04,091 --> 00:11:06,281 lines going out to different nodes and 283 00:11:06,281 --> 00:11:07,811 it would say like, these are all the 284 00:11:07,811 --> 00:11:10,211 addresses that this person's connected to. 285 00:11:10,361 --> 00:11:11,591 And then these are all the phone 286 00:11:11,591 --> 00:11:13,211 numbers that this person's connected 287 00:11:13,211 --> 00:11:15,071 to, and these are all the Twitter 288 00:11:15,071 --> 00:11:16,751 handles they're connected to, and, 289 00:11:16,751 --> 00:11:18,101 and so on, and so on and so on. 290 00:11:18,581 --> 00:11:20,201 Then it would map out and it would, 291 00:11:20,201 --> 00:11:21,881 it would like connect to them 292 00:11:21,881 --> 00:11:24,671 to like known associations like. 293 00:11:24,986 --> 00:11:26,996 For example, it might be like, like let's 294 00:11:26,996 --> 00:11:29,366 say you were connected to an address, 295 00:11:29,366 --> 00:11:31,166 will it also show you another person 296 00:11:31,166 --> 00:11:32,816 that was connected to that address too? 297 00:11:33,116 --> 00:11:37,196 Like, um, uh, you know, like might, 298 00:11:37,196 --> 00:11:38,546 maybe it was like a former roommate 299 00:11:38,546 --> 00:11:40,736 you had or someone who co-signed on 300 00:11:40,736 --> 00:11:42,746 the lease with you or whatever it was. 301 00:11:43,106 --> 00:11:44,336 Or maybe it was someone else 302 00:11:44,336 --> 00:11:45,476 who is also connected to the 303 00:11:45,476 --> 00:11:47,936 same phone number or whatever. 304 00:11:47,936 --> 00:11:50,276 And so like, this data has 305 00:11:50,276 --> 00:11:52,436 to exist in some form, right? 306 00:11:52,466 --> 00:11:52,706 Like. 307 00:11:53,321 --> 00:11:55,331 Either, you know, at the phone company 308 00:11:55,331 --> 00:11:59,771 or at, you know, uh, you know, if you've 309 00:11:59,771 --> 00:12:01,751 signed a lease for a, an apartment or 310 00:12:01,751 --> 00:12:05,081 whatever, um, you know, all this data, it 311 00:12:05,081 --> 00:12:07,061 has to already be out there, but I think 312 00:12:07,061 --> 00:12:08,681 it just makes it more easily searchable. 313 00:12:08,681 --> 00:12:10,721 But it was very just like alarming to me 314 00:12:10,721 --> 00:12:13,451 that somebody could just go, like, buy 315 00:12:13,451 --> 00:12:15,641 a product like this and it would be able 316 00:12:15,641 --> 00:12:18,251 to easily search all that information. 317 00:12:18,611 --> 00:12:21,011 And then could like present it in this 318 00:12:21,011 --> 00:12:23,781 nice, like easily digestible, graphic. 319 00:12:23,781 --> 00:12:25,941 So it's pretty alarming out there, 320 00:12:25,941 --> 00:12:27,441 like how much data is like, already 321 00:12:27,441 --> 00:12:29,601 out there and already in databases and, 322 00:12:29,871 --> 00:12:31,797 if a government wants to buy access 323 00:12:31,797 --> 00:12:34,647 to one of these products and like, you 324 00:12:34,647 --> 00:12:36,087 know, get all this stuff, they can, 325 00:12:36,237 --> 00:12:37,737 I, I guess what wasn't clear to me 326 00:12:37,737 --> 00:12:39,237 when I was working on the project was. 327 00:12:39,717 --> 00:12:41,907 Are they buying access to the data 328 00:12:41,967 --> 00:12:43,827 or are they providing the data 329 00:12:43,827 --> 00:12:45,507 and using the product to make the 330 00:12:45,507 --> 00:12:47,487 information more easily searchable? 331 00:12:47,907 --> 00:12:49,527 That's what I wasn't clear on, but 332 00:12:49,737 --> 00:12:51,567 yeah, these product exists and they've, 333 00:12:51,627 --> 00:12:53,277 they've been out there for a long 334 00:12:53,277 --> 00:12:55,917 time on the market, and this kind 335 00:12:55,917 --> 00:12:56,967 of goes back to something we saw on 336 00:12:56,967 --> 00:12:59,272 another podcast where it's like this, 337 00:12:59,277 --> 00:13:00,867 this thing has always been a problem. 338 00:13:00,867 --> 00:13:02,097 The amount of data that's out 339 00:13:02,097 --> 00:13:04,737 there and you know, your privacy. 340 00:13:04,892 --> 00:13:06,332 being leaked and compromised. 341 00:13:06,332 --> 00:13:08,162 We just only worry about it depending 342 00:13:08,162 --> 00:13:09,782 on how we feel about the president. 343 00:13:09,782 --> 00:13:11,402 But it's always a concern. 344 00:13:11,402 --> 00:13:12,332 It's always an issue. 345 00:13:12,679 --> 00:13:13,729 and I don't know, I 346 00:13:13,879 --> 00:13:14,989 just, I, I was alarmed. 347 00:13:15,079 --> 00:13:16,699 So anyways, that's my personal story. 348 00:13:17,989 --> 00:13:19,489 Roughly what year was that, 349 00:13:19,489 --> 00:13:20,539 that you saw that product? 350 00:13:21,289 --> 00:13:23,929 Uh, 2014, I think if memory serves. 351 00:13:23,989 --> 00:13:24,289 Okay. 352 00:13:24,289 --> 00:13:26,569 So you can imagine how in the past. 353 00:13:26,959 --> 00:13:27,769 12 years. 354 00:13:27,769 --> 00:13:29,539 It's only, or 12 ish years. 355 00:13:29,539 --> 00:13:30,199 11 ish years. 356 00:13:30,199 --> 00:13:31,699 It's only gotten, yeah, 11 years. 357 00:13:31,699 --> 00:13:35,419 A lot scarier with the, a advances 358 00:13:35,419 --> 00:13:36,919 in AI and data collection. 359 00:13:37,009 --> 00:13:38,029 Oh, I'm sure it has. 360 00:13:38,119 --> 00:13:39,529 I mean, that was supposed to be like 361 00:13:39,529 --> 00:13:41,149 cutting edge stuff at the time that it 362 00:13:41,149 --> 00:13:44,269 was like this thing identifies connections 363 00:13:44,269 --> 00:13:46,369 between people, places, and things 364 00:13:46,369 --> 00:13:48,769 that a human would have trouble doing. 365 00:13:48,979 --> 00:13:51,559 So now with like a agentic 366 00:13:51,619 --> 00:13:53,449 ai, it's probably even better. 367 00:13:53,824 --> 00:13:54,124 Oh yeah. 368 00:13:54,634 --> 00:13:55,774 I mean, you probably just type, 369 00:13:55,774 --> 00:13:57,964 like, you probably just upload like 370 00:13:57,964 --> 00:13:59,884 a blurry photo of somebody and it, 371 00:13:59,884 --> 00:14:01,384 you know, probably pulls up a full 372 00:14:01,384 --> 00:14:03,784 dossier and backstory and all that. 373 00:14:04,474 --> 00:14:04,834 I don't know. 374 00:14:05,704 --> 00:14:08,104 Well, with, with that thought, 375 00:14:08,124 --> 00:14:11,034 it's behooves us to stay vigilant. 376 00:14:11,664 --> 00:14:12,234 Yep. 377 00:14:13,479 --> 00:14:13,969 Alright. 378 00:14:14,094 --> 00:14:16,134 I, I think we've talked about this 379 00:14:16,434 --> 00:14:18,384 article All there is to talk about. 380 00:14:18,596 --> 00:14:20,576 the next one that we're gonna talk 381 00:14:20,576 --> 00:14:24,986 about is the headline is What's 382 00:14:25,076 --> 00:14:28,389 WhatsApp AI Mistakenly, let's see here. 383 00:14:29,259 --> 00:14:30,549 It's terrifying. 384 00:14:31,179 --> 00:14:32,469 WhatsApp AI Helper mistakenly 385 00:14:32,469 --> 00:14:33,699 shares user's number. 386 00:14:33,729 --> 00:14:35,229 I don't know why I said it in that voice. 387 00:14:36,189 --> 00:14:37,449 So, we've got the article on the 388 00:14:37,449 --> 00:14:39,189 screen for those of you watching 389 00:14:39,189 --> 00:14:40,779 and we'll of course have all of 390 00:14:40,779 --> 00:14:42,459 these links in the show notes. 391 00:14:42,849 --> 00:14:45,339 But the, the gist of this article is that. 392 00:14:45,684 --> 00:14:48,864 Some a, a WhatsApp user was using 393 00:14:48,864 --> 00:14:51,264 WhatsApp's built-in meta ai, which is 394 00:14:51,264 --> 00:14:53,484 provided by Meta, the parent company, 395 00:14:53,904 --> 00:14:58,314 and it, he asked for the phone number 396 00:14:58,314 --> 00:14:59,844 of somebody in his contacts, you know, 397 00:14:59,844 --> 00:15:03,744 he said, call so-and-so, and what 398 00:15:03,744 --> 00:15:07,614 the AI did was it pulled a number out 399 00:15:07,614 --> 00:15:10,554 of seemingly nowhere and called that 400 00:15:10,554 --> 00:15:12,324 number and it was the wrong number. 401 00:15:12,789 --> 00:15:14,499 But it wasn't just a random number, 402 00:15:14,529 --> 00:15:17,859 it was the number of another WhatsApp 403 00:15:17,859 --> 00:15:21,309 user, just a stranger to this person. 404 00:15:21,729 --> 00:15:23,379 But it was a real number and 405 00:15:23,379 --> 00:15:24,579 it was real WhatsApp user. 406 00:15:24,579 --> 00:15:26,319 So the question is, where 407 00:15:26,319 --> 00:15:27,759 did it get that phone number? 408 00:15:28,029 --> 00:15:30,309 It seems like it got it out 409 00:15:30,309 --> 00:15:31,869 of the WhatsApp database. 410 00:15:32,289 --> 00:15:35,409 And so the, if that, if, if it's not 411 00:15:35,409 --> 00:15:37,359 clear that why that's a big deal. 412 00:15:37,809 --> 00:15:39,309 The AI. 413 00:15:39,864 --> 00:15:42,954 Was somehow granted access to, uh, 414 00:15:43,134 --> 00:15:46,944 like if, if the AI has administrative 415 00:15:46,944 --> 00:15:49,164 access, let's say, on every user in 416 00:15:49,164 --> 00:15:51,924 the database, then the info from one 417 00:15:51,924 --> 00:15:54,354 user is being leaked to another user. 418 00:15:54,477 --> 00:15:56,847 Yeah, so the, the, basically what 419 00:15:56,847 --> 00:15:59,457 happened is the, if I understand the, 420 00:15:59,457 --> 00:16:01,917 uh, assistant, it was asking for the 421 00:16:01,917 --> 00:16:04,197 customer support phone number for some 422 00:16:04,197 --> 00:16:07,827 company, the Trans Penning Express, 423 00:16:08,127 --> 00:16:12,004 and then the AI came back with the 424 00:16:12,004 --> 00:16:14,704 phone number of, not the customer 425 00:16:14,704 --> 00:16:17,104 service, but another WhatsApp user. 426 00:16:17,899 --> 00:16:19,789 And so the concern is that 427 00:16:19,969 --> 00:16:24,319 the agent has like access to 428 00:16:24,319 --> 00:16:26,989 a database of WhatsApp users. 429 00:16:33,019 --> 00:16:34,429 Yeah, I think I explained it 430 00:16:34,519 --> 00:16:36,079 incorrectly, so thank you for that. 431 00:16:36,392 --> 00:16:38,522 the idea is this AI should have just 432 00:16:38,522 --> 00:16:40,592 been able to do a simple task for you. 433 00:16:40,592 --> 00:16:42,992 Like, Hey, look up the public 434 00:16:42,992 --> 00:16:45,722 number of this company, trans PanIN. 435 00:16:46,412 --> 00:16:47,612 And you know, that should be 436 00:16:47,612 --> 00:16:49,292 scrapable from the web that, 437 00:16:49,292 --> 00:16:52,742 or their Google Maps listing. 438 00:16:52,742 --> 00:16:54,842 You know, many places where you can find 439 00:16:54,842 --> 00:16:57,782 a company's public contact information. 440 00:16:58,262 --> 00:16:59,912 But instead, what the number that 441 00:16:59,912 --> 00:17:03,872 the AI dug up was a private WhatsApp 442 00:17:03,872 --> 00:17:07,802 user, which shouldn't be available. 443 00:17:08,162 --> 00:17:10,222 so the question is how did the 444 00:17:10,222 --> 00:17:12,472 AI get that number and then. 445 00:17:13,267 --> 00:17:15,667 When the user asked how, like, 446 00:17:15,667 --> 00:17:16,867 where did that number come from? 447 00:17:17,137 --> 00:17:19,897 The ai just kind of the chat agent 448 00:17:19,897 --> 00:17:22,147 just kind of backpedaled and said 449 00:17:22,147 --> 00:17:23,244 like, what are you talking about? 450 00:17:23,327 --> 00:17:24,167 I didn't do that. 451 00:17:24,707 --> 00:17:26,450 So it's a little, it's a little 452 00:17:26,455 --> 00:17:28,787 crazy like the AI gas lighting 453 00:17:28,787 --> 00:17:30,227 and trying to cover its tracks. 454 00:17:30,474 --> 00:17:32,464 but the weird thing about this is 455 00:17:32,584 --> 00:17:35,674 there's no good or definitive answer. 456 00:17:36,117 --> 00:17:37,317 there might be some follow 457 00:17:37,317 --> 00:17:39,207 up articles later on, but. 458 00:17:39,882 --> 00:17:41,892 From this article alone, we 459 00:17:41,952 --> 00:17:43,302 don't have any more information 460 00:17:43,302 --> 00:17:44,982 on where the AI got that number. 461 00:17:46,632 --> 00:17:48,012 Yeah, that is interesting. 462 00:17:48,162 --> 00:17:51,222 I mean, I think to to like 463 00:17:51,522 --> 00:17:52,667 it, it does say on here. 464 00:17:55,122 --> 00:17:56,952 Smith Hurst wanted to know why he had 465 00:17:56,952 --> 00:17:58,722 shared the private number, which it turned 466 00:17:58,722 --> 00:18:01,212 out belonging to James Gray, 44 property 467 00:18:01,242 --> 00:18:03,222 industry executive from Oxford Shaw, 468 00:18:03,222 --> 00:18:05,592 who is also a WhatsApp user and whose 469 00:18:05,592 --> 00:18:07,722 number appears on his company website. 470 00:18:07,872 --> 00:18:07,962 Ah-huh. 471 00:18:08,112 --> 00:18:09,822 So, I don't know if I understand the, uh, 472 00:18:09,822 --> 00:18:12,252 allegation that it's a private number, 473 00:18:12,342 --> 00:18:14,472 given that it is, does appear on the, 474 00:18:14,472 --> 00:18:17,146 the company website and, given that 475 00:18:17,146 --> 00:18:19,266 it's on a company website, it could be, 476 00:18:19,369 --> 00:18:20,749 given that it's on the, from a company 477 00:18:20,749 --> 00:18:22,009 website, it could have been pulled from 478 00:18:22,009 --> 00:18:24,349 a publicly available, like web search. 479 00:18:24,559 --> 00:18:26,539 Like in theory, if we want this like 480 00:18:26,539 --> 00:18:28,669 WhatsApp AI to be able to find stuff on 481 00:18:28,669 --> 00:18:30,889 the web, for us it, it has to be like 482 00:18:30,889 --> 00:18:33,109 an agent that's able, like, capable 483 00:18:33,109 --> 00:18:35,302 of like, either searching a database 484 00:18:35,302 --> 00:18:38,336 of like web search results or, query 485 00:18:38,336 --> 00:18:39,926 and Google or whatever on its own. 486 00:18:40,052 --> 00:18:41,612 so I think that just the fact that 487 00:18:41,612 --> 00:18:43,592 it's on the guys company website easily 488 00:18:43,652 --> 00:18:45,692 could easily explain how it got there. 489 00:18:45,962 --> 00:18:47,042 Or it could be like a 490 00:18:47,042 --> 00:18:48,452 database of WhatsApp users. 491 00:18:48,452 --> 00:18:49,142 I don't know. 492 00:18:49,172 --> 00:18:50,342 There, I, I think we don't really 493 00:18:50,342 --> 00:18:52,862 know, but that could be that in 494 00:18:52,862 --> 00:18:55,922 terms of like the AI covering its 495 00:18:55,922 --> 00:18:59,132 tracks, uh, I just wanna say, yeah. 496 00:19:00,002 --> 00:19:01,892 I did not see that part of the 497 00:19:01,892 --> 00:19:03,842 article where the, it says that this 498 00:19:03,842 --> 00:19:05,702 guy's number is public is a avail 499 00:19:05,762 --> 00:19:07,502 available on his public website. 500 00:19:07,892 --> 00:19:09,992 So to me that really lessens 501 00:19:09,992 --> 00:19:11,552 the impact of this story. 502 00:19:11,762 --> 00:19:15,602 You know, it's like you said, if you 503 00:19:15,602 --> 00:19:18,242 can scrape the web publicly and find 504 00:19:18,242 --> 00:19:21,606 the number, then it's less scary to 505 00:19:21,606 --> 00:19:23,586 me that, you know, the it, it didn't 506 00:19:23,586 --> 00:19:25,746 necessarily come from a private database. 507 00:19:26,256 --> 00:19:27,456 So, I don't know. 508 00:19:27,456 --> 00:19:28,926 It kind of feels like more 509 00:19:28,926 --> 00:19:30,636 of a nothing burger article. 510 00:19:32,946 --> 00:19:33,546 A little bit. 511 00:19:33,546 --> 00:19:35,196 I mean, it definitely indicative of how 512 00:19:35,196 --> 00:19:37,326 the general public perceives this stuff. 513 00:19:37,686 --> 00:19:39,516 Smither said he did not believe 514 00:19:39,516 --> 00:19:40,956 the chat bot and told it. 515 00:19:40,956 --> 00:19:42,756 Just giving a random number to someone 516 00:19:42,756 --> 00:19:44,946 is an insane thing for an AI to do. 517 00:19:45,321 --> 00:19:46,161 It's terrifying. 518 00:19:46,161 --> 00:19:47,601 Smithers said after he raised a 519 00:19:47,601 --> 00:19:48,681 complaint with meta, if they made up 520 00:19:48,681 --> 00:19:49,911 the number that's more acceptable. 521 00:19:49,911 --> 00:19:51,411 The overreach of taking an incorrect 522 00:19:51,411 --> 00:19:53,031 number from save data is, has 523 00:19:53,031 --> 00:19:54,531 access to his particular worrying. 524 00:19:54,771 --> 00:19:55,881 So I don't know. 525 00:19:55,881 --> 00:19:56,301 It's, 526 00:20:01,401 --> 00:20:04,011 I think when you look at how, 527 00:20:04,011 --> 00:20:05,511 like you brush up against the 528 00:20:05,511 --> 00:20:08,091 limitations of LLMs and agents. 529 00:20:09,021 --> 00:20:11,931 When we see stuff like this because they, 530 00:20:11,931 --> 00:20:14,751 like, they sometimes hallucinate stuff and 531 00:20:14,751 --> 00:20:17,691 they don't know how they hallucinate it. 532 00:20:17,721 --> 00:20:20,751 Like they, they just, they 533 00:20:20,751 --> 00:20:22,251 don't know, like, 'cause they're 534 00:20:22,251 --> 00:20:24,141 not like on all the time. 535 00:20:24,141 --> 00:20:25,221 They're not like a consciousness. 536 00:20:25,371 --> 00:20:27,591 They it, so they, they just sometimes 537 00:20:27,591 --> 00:20:30,771 hallucinate like bad answers to things. 538 00:20:30,771 --> 00:20:31,281 Right. 539 00:20:32,511 --> 00:20:35,331 And I think one thing, 540 00:20:35,361 --> 00:20:36,861 if you've ever tried to. 541 00:20:38,241 --> 00:20:41,451 Program anything that involves an LLM, 542 00:20:41,781 --> 00:20:43,287 like, you know, there's this idea of 543 00:20:43,287 --> 00:20:45,177 like, you can give it context, right? 544 00:20:45,177 --> 00:20:48,237 Like, so there's the prompt, which 545 00:20:48,237 --> 00:20:50,217 the surface level prompt might be 546 00:20:50,217 --> 00:20:52,144 me asking it, Hey, can you find 547 00:20:52,144 --> 00:20:53,434 the phone number of this company? 548 00:20:54,419 --> 00:20:55,924 But behind the scenes, there 549 00:20:55,924 --> 00:20:58,114 might be all kinds of other 550 00:20:58,114 --> 00:21:01,354 context being given to that LLM. 551 00:21:01,354 --> 00:21:02,764 That might be stuff like. 552 00:21:03,469 --> 00:21:04,849 You are a helpful agent. 553 00:21:04,849 --> 00:21:06,949 You always respond in a polite, 554 00:21:07,009 --> 00:21:08,689 you know, tone of voice. 555 00:21:08,799 --> 00:21:09,699 but there might also be 556 00:21:09,699 --> 00:21:10,659 deeper stuff in there. 557 00:21:10,659 --> 00:21:12,489 Like, never ever say 558 00:21:12,489 --> 00:21:14,799 this, never ever say that. 559 00:21:15,072 --> 00:21:17,022 there, there could be a whole list 560 00:21:17,082 --> 00:21:20,682 of complicated rules behind the scene 561 00:21:20,682 --> 00:21:22,362 that's not visible in that prompt. 562 00:21:22,932 --> 00:21:25,062 And, you know, that might make you 563 00:21:25,062 --> 00:21:26,562 think, well, I don't like that. 564 00:21:26,562 --> 00:21:27,912 I don't like the fact that there's 565 00:21:27,912 --> 00:21:29,952 all these rules that I'm not seeing. 566 00:21:30,912 --> 00:21:33,042 But from a security perspective, if we 567 00:21:33,042 --> 00:21:35,112 want this agent in the background to go 568 00:21:35,112 --> 00:21:37,662 run around and like scurry around finding 569 00:21:37,662 --> 00:21:39,882 information for us, we have to have 570 00:21:39,882 --> 00:21:41,622 some of these rules in the background. 571 00:21:41,652 --> 00:21:43,422 'cause like, one, it's just not useful. 572 00:21:43,572 --> 00:21:44,922 Sometimes these rules are put 573 00:21:44,922 --> 00:21:46,992 in place to, you know, give it 574 00:21:46,992 --> 00:21:48,762 a, a, a certain good output. 575 00:21:48,932 --> 00:21:50,282 but in other, other times you 576 00:21:50,282 --> 00:21:52,742 actually have situations where like. 577 00:21:53,402 --> 00:21:55,862 You know, people can really get sensitive 578 00:21:55,892 --> 00:21:58,292 information by talking to these chat bots. 579 00:21:58,292 --> 00:22:00,422 Like we've had multiple demonstrations 580 00:22:00,782 --> 00:22:03,062 at the AI meet up here at Bitlab, 581 00:22:03,392 --> 00:22:04,742 where people have demonstrated like 582 00:22:04,832 --> 00:22:06,992 jailbreaking ais and like, I mean, you 583 00:22:06,992 --> 00:22:08,402 can just, you can Google search of, you 584 00:22:08,402 --> 00:22:10,562 can just find all kinds of examples of 585 00:22:10,862 --> 00:22:14,312 just bizarre information that LLMs will 586 00:22:14,312 --> 00:22:17,132 leak if you give them the right prompts. 587 00:22:17,192 --> 00:22:19,412 So, given that this agent. 588 00:22:19,727 --> 00:22:21,167 Is probably hooked up to 589 00:22:21,167 --> 00:22:22,127 some kind of database. 590 00:22:22,127 --> 00:22:23,567 It has access to something. 591 00:22:23,957 --> 00:22:26,114 There's probably rules, coded into 592 00:22:26,114 --> 00:22:27,937 it about like, into the prompt that 593 00:22:27,937 --> 00:22:30,157 we can't see that, that, you know, 594 00:22:30,367 --> 00:22:32,407 guard what it can and can't do. 595 00:22:32,517 --> 00:22:34,077 so I don't know. 596 00:22:34,077 --> 00:22:35,517 I, if I had to guess here, 597 00:22:35,697 --> 00:22:37,557 what's probably happening is 598 00:22:37,557 --> 00:22:39,117 the reason why it's giving such. 599 00:22:39,687 --> 00:22:42,987 Like kind of bullshit explanations for 600 00:22:43,197 --> 00:22:44,997 why it gives the information is there's 601 00:22:44,997 --> 00:22:48,207 probably rules in the coded into the 602 00:22:48,597 --> 00:22:51,717 context so that we can't see that govern 603 00:22:51,717 --> 00:22:53,272 what it's allowed to say to customers. 604 00:22:53,832 --> 00:22:56,952 I. Yeah, something like never admit 605 00:22:56,982 --> 00:23:00,222 to anything illegal or private or that 606 00:23:00,222 --> 00:23:01,842 you did anything that would violate 607 00:23:01,842 --> 00:23:03,822 users' privacy or blah, blah, blah. 608 00:23:04,152 --> 00:23:04,602 Yeah. 609 00:23:04,602 --> 00:23:05,862 And, and also like, you don't 610 00:23:05,862 --> 00:23:08,232 want, you don't want WhatsApp users 611 00:23:08,382 --> 00:23:11,652 being able to gain the AI into 612 00:23:11,682 --> 00:23:15,042 divulging critical backend secrets. 613 00:23:15,042 --> 00:23:16,932 Like, you don't want some kind of prompt 614 00:23:17,232 --> 00:23:19,992 where the WhatsApp agent tells you 615 00:23:20,022 --> 00:23:22,092 like, I'm, I'm oversimplifying this. 616 00:23:22,377 --> 00:23:24,537 But you don't want something where the 617 00:23:24,537 --> 00:23:27,807 WhatsApp agent can like tell you what 618 00:23:27,807 --> 00:23:30,267 version of database software they're 619 00:23:30,267 --> 00:23:34,707 running or, you know, grant access to 620 00:23:34,707 --> 00:23:36,927 areas of the data information that the 621 00:23:36,927 --> 00:23:38,817 user's not supposed to have access to. 622 00:23:39,237 --> 00:23:40,707 And some people have like really, you 623 00:23:40,707 --> 00:23:42,957 know, found security loopholes where they 624 00:23:42,957 --> 00:23:46,137 can convince agents and LLMs to give them 625 00:23:46,137 --> 00:23:47,817 information they're not supposed to get. 626 00:23:48,792 --> 00:23:50,649 So I don't know that would, that would be, 627 00:23:50,649 --> 00:23:52,599 that's my read on what's going on here. 628 00:23:52,599 --> 00:23:54,309 But I, I don't know. 629 00:23:55,629 --> 00:23:58,596 I'm not a agent expert and, I 630 00:23:58,596 --> 00:24:01,146 don't know how WhatsApp's AI works. 631 00:24:01,146 --> 00:24:02,812 I'm just, piecing this together 632 00:24:02,812 --> 00:24:05,632 based on, you know, the, you know, 633 00:24:06,382 --> 00:24:08,512 my experience, you know, working 634 00:24:08,512 --> 00:24:11,872 with a, you know, ai, APIs and stuff. 635 00:24:13,462 --> 00:24:14,302 That's interesting. 636 00:24:14,692 --> 00:24:17,902 So what is the upshot of all of this? 637 00:24:18,622 --> 00:24:22,102 Number one, if, if you haven't 638 00:24:22,102 --> 00:24:25,072 listened to our episode on Instant 639 00:24:25,072 --> 00:24:27,772 Messengers messaging apps, please go 640 00:24:27,772 --> 00:24:29,452 back and do So, we talk extensively 641 00:24:29,452 --> 00:24:33,832 about WhatsApp and the, um, metadata 642 00:24:33,832 --> 00:24:36,382 collection that it, it does as an app. 643 00:24:36,652 --> 00:24:38,422 And then you wanna, if you add 644 00:24:38,422 --> 00:24:40,282 on top of that, the meta AI 645 00:24:40,282 --> 00:24:42,052 that is now built into WhatsApp. 646 00:24:42,771 --> 00:24:44,597 you're gonna run into the same issues. 647 00:24:44,597 --> 00:24:49,157 So all of your, the, the AI likely 648 00:24:49,157 --> 00:24:52,607 has access to the same metadata or, or 649 00:24:52,607 --> 00:24:54,617 at least a, a portion of the metadata 650 00:24:54,617 --> 00:24:58,787 that, um, the WhatsApp app itself has. 651 00:24:59,537 --> 00:25:04,337 And so I, I just personally, I don't 652 00:25:04,337 --> 00:25:07,247 like using WhatsApp because of all 653 00:25:07,247 --> 00:25:09,677 of the metadata being collected. 654 00:25:10,607 --> 00:25:13,577 And I know that it's profitable for meta. 655 00:25:13,827 --> 00:25:16,167 so I, you know, this article doesn't 656 00:25:16,167 --> 00:25:18,237 really change anything in my opinion. 657 00:25:18,687 --> 00:25:19,677 It's kind of a weird 658 00:25:19,677 --> 00:25:22,797 quirk, but I don't know. 659 00:25:23,007 --> 00:25:24,217 It's kind of a, like I said, it 660 00:25:24,217 --> 00:25:25,507 doesn't change anything for me. 661 00:25:26,047 --> 00:25:26,797 Yeah. 662 00:25:28,177 --> 00:25:28,597 Yep. 663 00:25:30,157 --> 00:25:30,697 All right. 664 00:25:30,997 --> 00:25:32,317 Well, let's take a look at our, the 665 00:25:32,317 --> 00:25:34,267 next article that we have today. 666 00:25:34,357 --> 00:25:34,747 Ooh. 667 00:25:35,377 --> 00:25:36,637 This one is. 668 00:25:36,797 --> 00:25:40,037 meta the company and Yandex, which if 669 00:25:40,037 --> 00:25:42,287 you aren't familiar with Yandex, Yandex 670 00:25:42,287 --> 00:25:45,257 is a company that is Russian based. 671 00:25:45,527 --> 00:25:47,657 They, they fulfill the same role 672 00:25:47,657 --> 00:25:49,847 that Google fulfills here in the us. 673 00:25:49,847 --> 00:25:52,697 They are a search engine and map 674 00:25:52,697 --> 00:25:54,377 software and stuff like that. 675 00:25:54,947 --> 00:25:56,574 So what this article says is that, 676 00:25:56,574 --> 00:26:00,171 meta and Yandex were shown to be. 677 00:26:01,401 --> 00:26:04,581 Exploiting Android phones and 678 00:26:04,647 --> 00:26:08,457 tracking data and users browsing 679 00:26:08,457 --> 00:26:11,367 habits based on a, a little hack. 680 00:26:11,727 --> 00:26:13,797 And for those of you who might know a 681 00:26:13,797 --> 00:26:16,917 little thing about web development, local 682 00:26:16,917 --> 00:26:22,137 host is the name of the website, quote 683 00:26:22,137 --> 00:26:24,507 unquote, that's just your local machine. 684 00:26:24,939 --> 00:26:26,979 this only takes place on Android. 685 00:26:26,979 --> 00:26:29,469 So if you are an iOS user, 686 00:26:29,889 --> 00:26:31,419 you are not affected by this. 687 00:26:31,659 --> 00:26:34,929 But on Android, there were certain native 688 00:26:34,929 --> 00:26:38,242 Android apps, that from Meta and Yandex, 689 00:26:38,332 --> 00:26:40,122 and I think they list the meta apps. 690 00:26:40,152 --> 00:26:40,512 Here. 691 00:26:40,512 --> 00:26:42,042 It was Instagram. 692 00:26:42,382 --> 00:26:43,752 do you see the other ones? 693 00:26:44,179 --> 00:26:45,439 Uh, let's see. 694 00:26:45,709 --> 00:26:46,489 Might have been up. 695 00:26:46,909 --> 00:26:47,449 Yeah. 696 00:26:54,259 --> 00:26:54,499 Oh yeah. 697 00:26:54,499 --> 00:26:54,859 Here we go. 698 00:26:54,859 --> 00:26:56,899 We found that native Android apps, 699 00:26:56,899 --> 00:26:58,879 including Facebook, Instagram, and 700 00:26:58,879 --> 00:27:00,919 several Yandex apps, including maps 701 00:27:00,919 --> 00:27:03,319 and browser, silently listen on fixed 702 00:27:03,319 --> 00:27:05,599 local ports for tracking purposes. 703 00:27:06,529 --> 00:27:09,469 Yeah, so if you have the Facebook 704 00:27:09,469 --> 00:27:11,239 app install on Android, the 705 00:27:11,299 --> 00:27:13,699 Instagram app install on Android. 706 00:27:14,164 --> 00:27:16,924 Or, um, these other Yandex apps. 707 00:27:17,224 --> 00:27:19,504 Then what they were doing was, normally 708 00:27:19,504 --> 00:27:21,874 Android has a little bit of sandboxing 709 00:27:21,874 --> 00:27:23,757 and, there's barriers put in place to 710 00:27:23,757 --> 00:27:27,177 prevent apps from listening to other apps. 711 00:27:27,417 --> 00:27:30,507 And so what the Instagram app and 712 00:27:30,507 --> 00:27:32,847 the Facebook app were doing was 713 00:27:32,847 --> 00:27:35,937 taking advantage of if you are 714 00:27:35,937 --> 00:27:37,197 in your mobile browser and you 715 00:27:37,197 --> 00:27:40,347 visit a site and it, it had a. 716 00:27:41,157 --> 00:27:43,497 Meta tracking cookie in it, the 717 00:27:43,497 --> 00:27:46,917 cookie would then run in your browser 718 00:27:46,917 --> 00:27:49,737 in the background and report data 719 00:27:49,737 --> 00:27:52,947 back to the, and back to the native 720 00:27:52,947 --> 00:27:55,734 apps like your, um, Instagram and, 721 00:27:55,794 --> 00:27:56,724 I'm sorry, what was the other one? 722 00:27:56,724 --> 00:27:57,384 The Facebook app. 723 00:27:57,384 --> 00:27:57,534 Yeah. 724 00:27:57,534 --> 00:27:57,864 Yeah. 725 00:27:58,134 --> 00:28:00,864 And, and so by using this little hack, 726 00:28:00,864 --> 00:28:03,384 they were able to break out of these, 727 00:28:03,384 --> 00:28:05,454 these privacy sandboxes that the. 728 00:28:05,814 --> 00:28:07,314 Operating system's supposed to have in 729 00:28:07,314 --> 00:28:10,014 this case, and it was basically able to 730 00:28:10,914 --> 00:28:13,674 track all of your, or not all, but it was 731 00:28:13,674 --> 00:28:16,164 able to track a lot of your web surfing 732 00:28:16,344 --> 00:28:18,504 and browsing habits within that browser. 733 00:28:18,504 --> 00:28:24,024 So this was, um, and when, when this 734 00:28:24,024 --> 00:28:26,154 article was published, and this is kind of 735 00:28:26,154 --> 00:28:28,524 like a research, very technical article, 736 00:28:28,524 --> 00:28:31,244 but, a security researcher did this and 737 00:28:31,244 --> 00:28:33,944 was able to discover it and replicate it. 738 00:28:34,934 --> 00:28:38,384 They, the response from meta was that 739 00:28:38,384 --> 00:28:41,114 they are, they just quietly stopped 740 00:28:41,114 --> 00:28:43,904 doing it, at least in this, these 741 00:28:43,904 --> 00:28:46,094 instances, but they never, as far as 742 00:28:46,094 --> 00:28:47,834 I know, I've been following this, they 743 00:28:47,834 --> 00:28:51,734 have not responded or apologized or 744 00:28:51,734 --> 00:28:53,384 said, we're not gonna do it anymore. 745 00:28:53,474 --> 00:28:54,434 They just stopped doing it 746 00:28:54,434 --> 00:28:55,664 in this particular case. 747 00:28:56,024 --> 00:28:57,284 Now, that doesn't mean that they couldn't 748 00:28:57,284 --> 00:28:59,504 try doing it again in the future or, or 749 00:28:59,564 --> 00:29:02,684 a slightly modified technique, but, um. 750 00:29:03,374 --> 00:29:05,714 They've been doing this for many years. 751 00:29:05,714 --> 00:29:08,954 Yandex has been doing it since 2017 752 00:29:09,194 --> 00:29:12,329 and Facebook has been doing it since. 753 00:29:12,434 --> 00:29:13,364 let's see. 754 00:29:15,764 --> 00:29:18,764 I don't know, I think, I think I read 755 00:29:18,764 --> 00:29:19,964 earlier that they've been doing it 756 00:29:20,114 --> 00:29:23,114 since at least the beginning of 2024. 757 00:29:23,504 --> 00:29:24,254 But if you go to the 758 00:29:24,254 --> 00:29:25,544 very top of this page. 759 00:29:25,844 --> 00:29:27,704 You'll see that they say there's 760 00:29:27,704 --> 00:29:30,494 an update as of June 3rd, 2025. 761 00:29:30,914 --> 00:29:32,984 The meta Facebook pixel script 762 00:29:32,984 --> 00:29:34,694 is no longer sending any packets 763 00:29:34,694 --> 00:29:37,094 or requests to local host. 764 00:29:37,574 --> 00:29:40,484 So essentially, Facebook 765 00:29:40,484 --> 00:29:41,804 stopped doing this. 766 00:29:41,841 --> 00:29:43,327 it says Yandex has also stopped 767 00:29:43,327 --> 00:29:44,527 the practice we described below. 768 00:29:45,697 --> 00:29:48,877 So the, this is very shady. 769 00:29:48,937 --> 00:29:49,927 Obviously. 770 00:29:50,287 --> 00:29:51,817 It should come as no surprise 771 00:29:51,817 --> 00:29:53,557 to any of us at this point. 772 00:29:53,557 --> 00:29:53,767 That. 773 00:29:54,292 --> 00:29:56,182 Meta is doing everything in 774 00:29:56,182 --> 00:29:57,982 its power to track users. 775 00:29:58,372 --> 00:30:00,292 That is their business model, right? 776 00:30:00,292 --> 00:30:02,392 They sell ads, that's their 777 00:30:02,392 --> 00:30:04,342 primary revenue stream. 778 00:30:04,642 --> 00:30:06,532 So that's what they're gonna do. 779 00:30:06,532 --> 00:30:08,992 You know, meta is gonna meta. 780 00:30:09,102 --> 00:30:11,502 the fact that they stopped doing it in 781 00:30:11,502 --> 00:30:14,082 this particular instance doesn't really 782 00:30:14,082 --> 00:30:15,432 give me any assurance that they're not 783 00:30:15,432 --> 00:30:17,922 gonna do it again in the future or do it 784 00:30:18,012 --> 00:30:20,262 on other apps or with other techniques. 785 00:30:20,982 --> 00:30:23,871 But, I would say if you have the 786 00:30:23,871 --> 00:30:27,111 Facebook app installed on Android or 787 00:30:27,111 --> 00:30:28,881 you have the Instagram app installed 788 00:30:28,881 --> 00:30:32,391 on Android, consider uninstalling it. 789 00:30:32,451 --> 00:30:36,711 If you need to use these spyware laden, 790 00:30:36,771 --> 00:30:39,741 uh, services, you can use your browser. 791 00:30:40,161 --> 00:30:42,051 And, and one other thing 792 00:30:42,056 --> 00:30:43,056 about the Instagram app. 793 00:30:43,926 --> 00:30:46,896 This is not in this article, but we know 794 00:30:46,896 --> 00:30:51,246 that the Instagram app was using the 795 00:30:52,026 --> 00:30:54,306 microphone permission in the background 796 00:30:54,636 --> 00:30:56,316 without explicit user permission. 797 00:30:56,316 --> 00:30:58,096 Like it was just, asking for 798 00:30:58,096 --> 00:30:59,686 it on upon install or, or like 799 00:30:59,686 --> 00:31:01,066 that was the default permission. 800 00:31:01,306 --> 00:31:03,016 And this is why you, you get so many 801 00:31:03,016 --> 00:31:05,236 stories of people who say, oh yeah, 802 00:31:05,236 --> 00:31:07,666 I was having a conversation about 803 00:31:07,666 --> 00:31:09,796 something I've never talked about before. 804 00:31:10,096 --> 00:31:11,446 Or my friend recommended something 805 00:31:11,446 --> 00:31:13,066 to me, and next thing you know, 806 00:31:13,246 --> 00:31:14,956 I'm seeing ads for it on Instagram. 807 00:31:14,956 --> 00:31:15,376 Right? 808 00:31:15,496 --> 00:31:17,926 These are the creepy phone spying things. 809 00:31:18,466 --> 00:31:21,306 So it's good to be explicit and specific 810 00:31:21,816 --> 00:31:23,632 phones, like when we say our phone is 811 00:31:23,632 --> 00:31:26,122 spying on us, it's a very vague statement. 812 00:31:26,122 --> 00:31:26,692 Like, well, what do you 813 00:31:26,692 --> 00:31:27,622 mean the phone is spying? 814 00:31:27,622 --> 00:31:29,122 Is the operating system spying? 815 00:31:29,122 --> 00:31:31,402 Is there a hardware listening 816 00:31:31,402 --> 00:31:33,442 device plugged into it? 817 00:31:33,442 --> 00:31:35,482 Is it a particular app? 818 00:31:35,632 --> 00:31:38,272 And so in many cases, it is an app. 819 00:31:38,707 --> 00:31:41,107 And in many cases, that app is Instagram. 820 00:31:41,361 --> 00:31:44,294 I don't know if Facebook does this 821 00:31:44,294 --> 00:31:46,244 as well, the Facebook native app 822 00:31:46,244 --> 00:31:48,164 on Android, it's quite possible. 823 00:31:48,164 --> 00:31:48,554 It does. 824 00:31:48,554 --> 00:31:51,314 It wouldn't surprise me, but if you 825 00:31:51,314 --> 00:31:53,264 have either of these apps installed on 826 00:31:53,264 --> 00:31:55,544 Android, consider getting rid of them. 827 00:31:55,664 --> 00:31:56,737 if you have to use these 828 00:31:56,737 --> 00:31:58,987 services, consider using 829 00:31:58,987 --> 00:32:00,787 them in your mobile browser. 830 00:32:00,787 --> 00:32:01,837 That'll give you protection 831 00:32:01,837 --> 00:32:02,977 from these kinds of things. 832 00:32:05,197 --> 00:32:07,501 And so was this like, this was 833 00:32:07,501 --> 00:32:10,311 like the, Instagram app on Android 834 00:32:11,121 --> 00:32:15,201 could send a request to your 835 00:32:15,201 --> 00:32:17,181 browser while you're using it? 836 00:32:17,424 --> 00:32:18,834 I believe what was so. 837 00:32:19,749 --> 00:32:21,339 Insidious about this particular 838 00:32:21,339 --> 00:32:23,979 technique is that it could just do 839 00:32:23,979 --> 00:32:25,539 it in the background constantly. 840 00:32:26,409 --> 00:32:27,159 Oh, so you didn't even need 841 00:32:27,159 --> 00:32:28,989 the Instagram app open, right? 842 00:32:29,229 --> 00:32:29,949 Oh, that's weird. 843 00:32:30,159 --> 00:32:30,489 Yeah. 844 00:32:31,389 --> 00:32:31,479 Ugh. 845 00:32:32,799 --> 00:32:33,189 Okay. 846 00:32:33,249 --> 00:32:34,029 Well that's gross. 847 00:32:34,764 --> 00:32:36,549 I, I agree. 848 00:32:38,709 --> 00:32:39,099 Okay. 849 00:32:39,099 --> 00:32:40,599 Yeah, so basically this thing is 850 00:32:40,599 --> 00:32:42,759 just like spying on your traffic. 851 00:32:42,819 --> 00:32:43,419 Nice. 852 00:32:45,519 --> 00:32:46,599 Yeah, it's pretty fucked up. 853 00:32:49,584 --> 00:32:49,824 Hmm. 854 00:32:51,984 --> 00:32:53,964 Well, don't use Facebook 855 00:32:53,964 --> 00:32:55,014 and Instagram, everybody. 856 00:32:56,124 --> 00:32:56,574 Yep. 857 00:32:56,724 --> 00:32:58,554 And if you're interested in the 858 00:32:58,824 --> 00:33:00,504 nitty gritty technical details, this 859 00:33:00,504 --> 00:33:02,094 article goes into pretty good detail. 860 00:33:02,094 --> 00:33:04,311 They have a, a, video that shows them, 861 00:33:04,791 --> 00:33:07,011 like screen sharing, the Android app 862 00:33:07,041 --> 00:33:09,051 with monitoring the network requests. 863 00:33:09,081 --> 00:33:10,041 And you can see. 864 00:33:10,431 --> 00:33:13,341 Just a stream of all of the websites 865 00:33:13,341 --> 00:33:15,591 that they're visiting and how the, the 866 00:33:15,681 --> 00:33:18,381 Instagram app has direct access to that. 867 00:33:18,921 --> 00:33:19,791 Yeah, that's creepy. 868 00:33:24,051 --> 00:33:25,941 This is very, very detailed report. 869 00:33:26,001 --> 00:33:26,541 I love it. 870 00:33:26,541 --> 00:33:27,081 Mm-hmm. 871 00:33:30,531 --> 00:33:30,681 Yeah. 872 00:33:30,681 --> 00:33:32,931 This person knows their stuff. 873 00:33:32,931 --> 00:33:34,371 Maybe we should give 'em a shout out. 874 00:33:35,181 --> 00:33:36,801 What's the author's name? 875 00:33:36,801 --> 00:33:37,491 Uh, well, I think it's 876 00:33:37,491 --> 00:33:38,511 actually a lot of people. 877 00:33:43,326 --> 00:33:44,806 Yeah, this is like, they have a, you 878 00:33:44,806 --> 00:33:47,476 can reach the entire team, local mess at 879 00:33:47,476 --> 00:33:51,526 pm Do me authors are Anna Kath, garish, 880 00:33:51,646 --> 00:33:55,846 una Kar, cio, Velina Rodriguez Nuna. 881 00:33:55,876 --> 00:33:58,756 We are Sakara and Tim Lumin. 882 00:33:58,756 --> 00:34:00,736 So it looks like a lot of PhD students 883 00:34:00,736 --> 00:34:02,929 and some professors, a lot of them have 884 00:34:02,929 --> 00:34:06,319 a, they look like they work at this same. 885 00:34:06,394 --> 00:34:09,994 An organization called I-M-D-E-A networks. 886 00:34:10,414 --> 00:34:11,671 I'm not familiar with that, but 887 00:34:11,761 --> 00:34:13,411 it's probably a research institute. 888 00:34:14,251 --> 00:34:15,241 Yeah, I think so. 889 00:34:16,771 --> 00:34:18,061 Anyway, the link will 890 00:34:18,061 --> 00:34:19,111 be in the show notes. 891 00:34:19,261 --> 00:34:20,401 Check it out if you're interested. 892 00:34:23,491 --> 00:34:24,991 Alright, the last article we 893 00:34:24,991 --> 00:34:26,851 want to take a look at today is. 894 00:34:27,089 --> 00:34:29,699 the headline is Ford Wants Patent 895 00:34:29,699 --> 00:34:32,489 for Tech, allowing Cars to Surveil 896 00:34:32,489 --> 00:34:34,379 and Report Speeding Drivers. 897 00:34:35,099 --> 00:34:37,199 The headline kind of says it all, 898 00:34:37,529 --> 00:34:40,349 but this has not been created yet. 899 00:34:40,379 --> 00:34:42,749 This is not an actual product in the 900 00:34:42,749 --> 00:34:46,289 wild, but a patent has been filed with 901 00:34:46,289 --> 00:34:49,169 the US Patent and Trademark Office, 902 00:34:49,409 --> 00:34:52,799 and it is, the idea is that they. 903 00:34:53,339 --> 00:34:58,289 The car itself can report on the speed 904 00:34:58,409 --> 00:35:01,829 of the car to police, and so basically 905 00:35:02,369 --> 00:35:05,339 you might be going above the speed limit 906 00:35:05,399 --> 00:35:08,039 and your car tells the police on you. 907 00:35:08,129 --> 00:35:11,129 So it sounds very dystopian. 908 00:35:11,279 --> 00:35:15,659 I sincerely hope that this 909 00:35:15,689 --> 00:35:17,279 doesn't actually become a thing. 910 00:35:17,519 --> 00:35:18,899 I hope that if it ever 911 00:35:18,899 --> 00:35:20,159 did become a thing that. 912 00:35:20,534 --> 00:35:22,184 People would just revolt 913 00:35:22,184 --> 00:35:23,864 and refuse to buy it. 914 00:35:24,284 --> 00:35:26,774 But you know, people 915 00:35:26,774 --> 00:35:27,674 are kind of oblivious. 916 00:35:27,674 --> 00:35:30,734 So what do you think says the patent 917 00:35:30,734 --> 00:35:32,924 explicitly states this idea for a 918 00:35:32,924 --> 00:35:35,594 system is specific for application 919 00:35:35,594 --> 00:35:37,994 in law enforcement vehicles such as 920 00:35:37,994 --> 00:35:39,799 the Ford Police interceptor, as it 921 00:35:39,824 --> 00:35:41,594 would automate a capability that law 922 00:35:41,594 --> 00:35:43,724 enforcement already have in used today? 923 00:35:43,876 --> 00:35:44,986 That, so it looks like it's more 924 00:35:44,986 --> 00:35:46,846 targeted at being inside of law 925 00:35:46,846 --> 00:35:49,246 enforcement vehicles specifically. 926 00:35:49,246 --> 00:35:50,716 I guess it's just that Ford makes 927 00:35:50,716 --> 00:35:53,296 consumer cars and police cars. 928 00:35:55,216 --> 00:35:57,496 Yeah, I, I mean, it sounds 929 00:35:58,096 --> 00:36:01,306 plausible, but also I'm skeptical. 930 00:36:02,621 --> 00:36:04,546 You could install it as a feature 931 00:36:04,546 --> 00:36:07,836 in cars and then, you could, uh, set 932 00:36:07,836 --> 00:36:10,169 it up so that, Uh, governments could 933 00:36:10,169 --> 00:36:13,159 pay people to, narc on speeders. 934 00:36:13,819 --> 00:36:15,499 So you could actually get, you could 935 00:36:15,499 --> 00:36:18,139 actually get paid for sharing the data 936 00:36:18,139 --> 00:36:19,969 from your car with law enforcement 937 00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:21,769 and narcing on everyone around you. 938 00:36:22,099 --> 00:36:22,459 Yeah. 939 00:36:22,459 --> 00:36:24,949 It would be like a government app that's 940 00:36:25,039 --> 00:36:27,589 in the similar vein of ways, except 941 00:36:27,594 --> 00:36:30,079 instead of reporting to other ways users 942 00:36:30,079 --> 00:36:31,939 that Oh, there's a speed trap up ahead. 943 00:36:31,939 --> 00:36:32,509 Watch out. 944 00:36:32,569 --> 00:36:34,456 Yeah, you're reporting, Hey 945 00:36:34,516 --> 00:36:36,166 cops, here's this person. 946 00:36:36,166 --> 00:36:36,676 Speeding. 947 00:36:37,366 --> 00:36:39,046 Give him a ticket, arrest him. 948 00:36:40,666 --> 00:36:41,086 Yeah. 949 00:36:41,236 --> 00:36:42,406 And then eventually that would 950 00:36:42,406 --> 00:36:43,936 solve the speeding problem 951 00:36:43,936 --> 00:36:45,496 because no one would speed. 952 00:36:45,526 --> 00:36:46,606 'cause they would know that they 953 00:36:46,606 --> 00:36:48,286 were always, you know, because 954 00:36:48,286 --> 00:36:50,206 everyone would be sharing the data 955 00:36:50,206 --> 00:36:51,766 because they would want to get paid. 956 00:36:51,766 --> 00:36:53,026 And so no one would speed. 957 00:36:53,026 --> 00:36:54,046 Is that, I don't know. 958 00:36:55,216 --> 00:36:55,666 Yeah. 959 00:36:55,816 --> 00:36:56,806 Who, who knows? 960 00:36:57,346 --> 00:36:58,696 It kind of reminds me of. 961 00:36:59,416 --> 00:37:01,246 Have you seen the movie Minority Report? 962 00:37:01,306 --> 00:37:01,396 Mm-hmm. 963 00:37:01,636 --> 00:37:01,756 Yep. 964 00:37:02,086 --> 00:37:04,276 Well, in that movie there's a, it's in the 965 00:37:04,276 --> 00:37:06,536 future and there's, driverless cars, like 966 00:37:06,536 --> 00:37:08,966 self-driving cars, but they're ubiquitous. 967 00:37:08,966 --> 00:37:10,316 You know, every car on the road is a 968 00:37:10,316 --> 00:37:12,236 self-driving car, and there's a scene 969 00:37:12,236 --> 00:37:13,406 where the main character played by 970 00:37:13,406 --> 00:37:16,256 Tom Cruise is running from the cops. 971 00:37:16,256 --> 00:37:17,636 You know, he's been wrongfully accused 972 00:37:17,636 --> 00:37:20,036 of some crime, and there's a chase scene. 973 00:37:20,321 --> 00:37:23,201 And he gets out of his, he, he's 974 00:37:23,201 --> 00:37:25,361 in a self-driving car and it's like 975 00:37:25,361 --> 00:37:27,701 a high speed car chase thing, but 976 00:37:27,701 --> 00:37:29,111 these cars are driving themselves. 977 00:37:29,351 --> 00:37:31,331 So he, he gets outta the car 978 00:37:31,511 --> 00:37:32,711 and he's standing on top of 979 00:37:32,711 --> 00:37:34,271 it as it's driving itself. 980 00:37:34,276 --> 00:37:36,401 And he's, and he's in traffic surrounded 981 00:37:36,401 --> 00:37:38,021 by all these other self-driving cars, 982 00:37:38,081 --> 00:37:40,211 and he's hopping from car to car. 983 00:37:40,301 --> 00:37:41,411 And it's just sort of like a 984 00:37:41,411 --> 00:37:43,481 river of self-driving cars. 985 00:37:43,486 --> 00:37:43,496 Yeah. 986 00:37:43,721 --> 00:37:45,851 And then, uh, it goes over to the side, 987 00:37:45,851 --> 00:37:48,041 like these cars aren't confined to. 988 00:37:48,566 --> 00:37:49,556 Just driving on the ground, 989 00:37:49,556 --> 00:37:50,876 like they can drive on walls. 990 00:37:50,876 --> 00:37:52,916 So the road starts going vertically, 991 00:37:52,916 --> 00:37:54,536 and now he's hopping from like 992 00:37:55,046 --> 00:37:57,116 vertical car to vertical car. 993 00:37:57,116 --> 00:37:59,726 And it's, so I'm just, I'm picturing 994 00:37:59,726 --> 00:38:01,526 the a, a future in which we all 995 00:38:01,526 --> 00:38:03,596 have, like, cars that just report 996 00:38:03,596 --> 00:38:05,636 on everything and are self-driving 997 00:38:05,636 --> 00:38:07,226 and like, we just are completely 998 00:38:07,226 --> 00:38:09,026 taken out of the loop as humans. 999 00:38:09,116 --> 00:38:10,166 Yeah, it could be. 1000 00:38:10,252 --> 00:38:12,082 I think the future is, uh, with, 1001 00:38:12,082 --> 00:38:14,422 uh, driverless cars, you know. 1002 00:38:14,917 --> 00:38:16,567 Which is, there's good, there's good 1003 00:38:16,567 --> 00:38:18,097 things and there's bad things to that. 1004 00:38:18,517 --> 00:38:19,117 Yeah. 1005 00:38:19,567 --> 00:38:22,424 I just fear the, surveillance 1006 00:38:22,454 --> 00:38:24,524 technology packaged with them. 1007 00:38:26,174 --> 00:38:27,164 Yeah, totally. 1008 00:38:27,224 --> 00:38:28,604 But it's, it's where it's going. 1009 00:38:28,604 --> 00:38:29,984 So you gotta, you gotta get the 1010 00:38:29,984 --> 00:38:32,084 compound off the grid out in the 1011 00:38:32,084 --> 00:38:33,614 middle of nowhere with the, the 1012 00:38:33,614 --> 00:38:35,804 diesel pickup truck and, you know. 1013 00:38:37,484 --> 00:38:37,814 Yeah. 1014 00:38:37,814 --> 00:38:39,974 Well, you, you people who 1015 00:38:39,974 --> 00:38:41,444 are interested in privacy. 1016 00:38:42,074 --> 00:38:43,904 What they can do with regards to 1017 00:38:43,904 --> 00:38:46,964 automobiles is you can actually 1018 00:38:46,964 --> 00:38:50,024 buy older cars of course, but 1019 00:38:50,024 --> 00:38:51,584 not everybody wants to do that. 1020 00:38:52,304 --> 00:38:55,484 There is a new car coming out that 1021 00:38:55,484 --> 00:38:58,964 has, that explicitly is advertises 1022 00:38:58,964 --> 00:39:00,674 itself as not having all of this 1023 00:39:00,674 --> 00:39:03,104 newer technology, meaning newer 1024 00:39:03,104 --> 00:39:04,634 surveillance technology as well. 1025 00:39:04,942 --> 00:39:06,292 Okay, so this is the, the 1026 00:39:06,292 --> 00:39:07,582 car I was looking for. 1027 00:39:08,092 --> 00:39:11,362 Toyota has a 10 th $10,000 pickup 1028 00:39:11,362 --> 00:39:14,812 truck and uh, what is it called here? 1029 00:39:14,812 --> 00:39:18,202 The, to Toyota Hilux. 1030 00:39:18,352 --> 00:39:20,032 H-I-L-U-X. 1031 00:39:20,032 --> 00:39:21,172 Hilux pickup. 1032 00:39:21,712 --> 00:39:22,132 Yeah. 1033 00:39:22,132 --> 00:39:23,722 And so the idea is that this is 1034 00:39:23,722 --> 00:39:26,512 a no frills truck pickup truck. 1035 00:39:27,082 --> 00:39:29,332 And it's very basic. 1036 00:39:29,332 --> 00:39:31,612 Doesn't have any of the, um, a 1037 00:39:31,612 --> 00:39:35,212 lot of modern, extra features, but 1038 00:39:35,212 --> 00:39:36,682 it's just a basic pickup truck. 1039 00:39:37,282 --> 00:39:39,202 And this is, I guess this is 1040 00:39:39,202 --> 00:39:41,182 meant for low GDP markets, which 1041 00:39:41,182 --> 00:39:43,612 is like fancy way of saying other 1042 00:39:43,612 --> 00:39:45,502 countries where they have less money. 1043 00:39:46,702 --> 00:39:49,217 But privacy minded people have 1044 00:39:49,217 --> 00:39:50,842 looked at this and thought, Hey, 1045 00:39:51,382 --> 00:39:53,512 I'm interested because it has. 1046 00:39:54,037 --> 00:39:56,557 None of the modern technology in it that 1047 00:39:56,677 --> 00:40:00,037 is now so often used for spine, you know, 1048 00:40:00,037 --> 00:40:03,277 it doesn't have the computer tracking on, 1049 00:40:03,307 --> 00:40:06,181 um, location and, all of that other stuff. 1050 00:40:06,181 --> 00:40:09,451 So I, this is just a fun aside, I wanted 1051 00:40:09,451 --> 00:40:13,861 to mention, Hmm, the future for private 1052 00:40:13,921 --> 00:40:17,371 privacy respecting automobiles is 1053 00:40:18,391 --> 00:40:21,031 difficult, but not hopeless, I would say. 1054 00:40:21,386 --> 00:40:21,466 Hmm. 1055 00:40:22,996 --> 00:40:23,896 Yeah, that's cool to see. 1056 00:40:26,626 --> 00:40:29,806 But, you know, I, I don't know. 1057 00:40:29,948 --> 00:40:32,108 it's an interesting like thing 1058 00:40:32,108 --> 00:40:33,308 for me 'cause I, I, I do just 1059 00:40:33,308 --> 00:40:34,628 think that, you know, the future 1060 00:40:34,628 --> 00:40:36,278 is going to be like driverless. 1061 00:40:36,278 --> 00:40:37,328 There's just, I don't, I just 1062 00:40:37,328 --> 00:40:39,068 don't see like, there's so much 1063 00:40:39,068 --> 00:40:40,658 momentum heading in that direction. 1064 00:40:40,658 --> 00:40:41,228 I don't see it. 1065 00:40:41,228 --> 00:40:43,808 Not, so the, the big thing for me 1066 00:40:43,808 --> 00:40:45,518 is can somebody make a dry roadless 1067 00:40:45,518 --> 00:40:48,608 car that's like private 'cause. 1068 00:40:49,538 --> 00:40:50,948 You know so much of them right now, 1069 00:40:50,948 --> 00:40:53,108 like involve them, like being kind of 1070 00:40:53,108 --> 00:40:55,388 like a software as a service thing. 1071 00:40:55,898 --> 00:40:58,160 And eventually it'll be interesting to 1072 00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:00,020 see if we can get to the point to where 1073 00:41:00,050 --> 00:41:02,990 you can have a driverless car that's 1074 00:41:02,990 --> 00:41:06,155 totally compatible with society and yet, 1075 00:41:06,590 --> 00:41:09,145 you know, also maintains your privacy. 1076 00:41:10,075 --> 00:41:12,475 I want a sovereign driverless car. 1077 00:41:12,505 --> 00:41:12,805 Yeah. 1078 00:41:14,440 --> 00:41:17,410 And obviously for a long time we're still 1079 00:41:17,410 --> 00:41:20,440 going to be able to take the wheel and, 1080 00:41:20,440 --> 00:41:24,460 uh, intervene as a human, but I could 1081 00:41:24,460 --> 00:41:26,530 see a time in the future that comes when 1082 00:41:26,530 --> 00:41:29,350 there is no steering wheel at all and 1083 00:41:29,350 --> 00:41:31,660 you're just completely at the mercy of 1084 00:41:31,660 --> 00:41:35,200 the car, in which case it's so important 1085 00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:38,860 for the car to work for you, the owner, 1086 00:41:39,100 --> 00:41:42,550 not some other company or organization. 1087 00:41:42,970 --> 00:41:45,070 Similar to how we advocate on, 1088 00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:48,010 on our computers and our phones 1089 00:41:48,010 --> 00:41:49,810 and other computing devices. 1090 00:41:49,810 --> 00:41:51,250 We want them to be under our 1091 00:41:51,250 --> 00:41:53,650 control and working for us. 1092 00:41:54,430 --> 00:41:56,680 The dream is that if we get to 1093 00:41:56,680 --> 00:41:59,020 a a stage where everybody's got 1094 00:41:59,020 --> 00:42:01,060 driverless cars, we would also be 1095 00:42:01,060 --> 00:42:03,160 able to do that with our vehicles. 1096 00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:03,640 Yeah. 1097 00:42:05,740 --> 00:42:06,100 All right. 1098 00:42:06,100 --> 00:42:06,760 I don't have anything 1099 00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:08,320 else to add on this topic. 1100 00:42:08,556 --> 00:42:10,776 I wanna get into a few things today. 1101 00:42:11,136 --> 00:42:13,056 So it's been a, it's been several 1102 00:42:13,056 --> 00:42:14,916 weeks since we had an episode, and 1103 00:42:14,916 --> 00:42:17,796 I wanted to just check in and give a 1104 00:42:17,796 --> 00:42:20,346 few updates on some of my sovereign 1105 00:42:20,346 --> 00:42:23,016 computing journeys in the wild. 1106 00:42:23,288 --> 00:42:25,328 the first thing I wanna talk about is 1107 00:42:25,328 --> 00:42:29,348 call is when you have to use a phone 1108 00:42:29,348 --> 00:42:31,418 number to sign up for a, a website. 1109 00:42:31,418 --> 00:42:33,218 Let's say you're creating a, a new. 1110 00:42:33,683 --> 00:42:36,203 Google account or anywhere that 1111 00:42:36,203 --> 00:42:38,093 requires a phone number just to create 1112 00:42:38,093 --> 00:42:40,223 the account, just to move forward in 1113 00:42:40,223 --> 00:42:42,713 your interaction, but you, but there's 1114 00:42:42,713 --> 00:42:44,393 really no good reason for them to 1115 00:42:44,393 --> 00:42:46,343 actually need your real phone number. 1116 00:42:47,003 --> 00:42:49,343 I use a, a couple of services 1117 00:42:49,343 --> 00:42:50,783 that I highly recommend. 1118 00:42:51,233 --> 00:42:55,343 One is called text verify.com and 1119 00:42:55,343 --> 00:42:57,773 the other is SMS for sats.com. 1120 00:42:57,983 --> 00:42:59,243 But I'm just gonna focus on Text 1121 00:42:59,243 --> 00:43:00,623 Verify because they essentially 1122 00:43:00,623 --> 00:43:01,733 provide the same service. 1123 00:43:02,783 --> 00:43:05,723 And what it does is you create a free 1124 00:43:05,723 --> 00:43:09,383 account and then you, you can buy credits. 1125 00:43:09,473 --> 00:43:11,521 So yes, it is a paid service, 1126 00:43:11,522 --> 00:43:13,022 and you can do that with Bitcoin. 1127 00:43:13,022 --> 00:43:14,522 You could top up your balance 1128 00:43:14,582 --> 00:43:15,782 pay with Bitcoin, you could also 1129 00:43:15,782 --> 00:43:17,372 pay with credit card, et cetera. 1130 00:43:18,482 --> 00:43:20,582 And once you have a balance, you 1131 00:43:20,582 --> 00:43:24,092 can then generate a one time phone 1132 00:43:24,092 --> 00:43:26,882 number, real phone number that is 1133 00:43:26,882 --> 00:43:28,892 used solely for the purpose of getting 1134 00:43:28,892 --> 00:43:30,812 a two factor authentication code. 1135 00:43:31,127 --> 00:43:33,167 So I'm signing up for Google, 1136 00:43:33,167 --> 00:43:35,297 let's say, or Ticketmaster. 1137 00:43:35,477 --> 00:43:37,097 They've got all these examples 1138 00:43:37,097 --> 00:43:38,147 listed on their website. 1139 00:43:38,537 --> 00:43:40,367 Tinder, Yahoo, PayPal, 1140 00:43:40,397 --> 00:43:43,127 Uber, Walmart match.com. 1141 00:43:43,217 --> 00:43:45,137 DoorDash, when you sign up for 1142 00:43:45,137 --> 00:43:47,267 any of these sites, they ask for a 1143 00:43:47,267 --> 00:43:48,677 phone number so that they can send 1144 00:43:48,677 --> 00:43:50,627 a one time code to just so you can 1145 00:43:50,747 --> 00:43:52,427 complete your account creation. 1146 00:43:52,907 --> 00:43:54,527 And what you can do instead is 1147 00:43:54,737 --> 00:43:57,047 you log into text verified you 1148 00:43:57,047 --> 00:43:58,847 generate a one time number. 1149 00:43:59,237 --> 00:44:01,217 You paste it into whatever service 1150 00:44:01,217 --> 00:44:03,077 is asking for it, and then it gives 1151 00:44:03,077 --> 00:44:04,427 you that one time code and text 1152 00:44:04,427 --> 00:44:06,167 verified and boom, you're done. 1153 00:44:06,167 --> 00:44:07,067 You never have to use that 1154 00:44:07,067 --> 00:44:09,527 number again, and they don't 1155 00:44:09,527 --> 00:44:11,567 have your personal information. 1156 00:44:12,077 --> 00:44:15,407 So even if you have VoIP numbers 1157 00:44:15,437 --> 00:44:16,877 that are private that we've talked 1158 00:44:16,877 --> 00:44:19,007 about in previous episodes, go check 1159 00:44:19,007 --> 00:44:20,657 those out for more information. 1160 00:44:21,287 --> 00:44:22,607 Those are still. 1161 00:44:22,982 --> 00:44:24,452 Costly to spin up, you 1162 00:44:24,452 --> 00:44:25,382 know, they're not free. 1163 00:44:25,581 --> 00:44:27,921 so these text verified disposable 1164 00:44:27,921 --> 00:44:30,261 numbers provide a really economical 1165 00:44:30,261 --> 00:44:32,541 way of getting one time numbers right. 1166 00:44:32,541 --> 00:44:36,921 It's, it's maybe, um, 25 cents for 10 1167 00:44:36,921 --> 00:44:38,511 cents or something like that for a one 1168 00:44:38,511 --> 00:44:40,311 time number rather than where you have 1169 00:44:40,371 --> 00:44:43,791 to buy a reusable number and then spin it 1170 00:44:43,791 --> 00:44:46,731 up, pay for it, and then destroy it and 1171 00:44:46,731 --> 00:44:48,561 get another one that's, it's a lot more 1172 00:44:48,711 --> 00:44:50,451 costly and less efficient to do that. 1173 00:44:52,521 --> 00:44:54,411 Any, any thoughts on this? 1174 00:44:54,411 --> 00:44:54,891 Steven? 1175 00:44:55,135 --> 00:44:56,215 have you ever used this before? 1176 00:44:56,245 --> 00:44:57,235 I have not used it. 1177 00:44:57,265 --> 00:45:00,290 What I have been, using lately, 1178 00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:01,490 the, is like, kind of on a 1179 00:45:01,490 --> 00:45:04,257 related topic is, simple login. 1180 00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:06,060 and, uh, we've talked about that, you 1181 00:45:06,060 --> 00:45:07,410 know, previously in terms of giving 1182 00:45:07,410 --> 00:45:09,300 emails and it's like a, a similar problem. 1183 00:45:09,300 --> 00:45:10,560 You go up to a place, they need 1184 00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:11,910 your phone number for something. 1185 00:45:12,390 --> 00:45:14,130 Or want your phone number for something? 1186 00:45:14,310 --> 00:45:16,447 I've been, going, you know, started going 1187 00:45:16,447 --> 00:45:19,350 to the gym more recently and, uh, been 1188 00:45:19,350 --> 00:45:21,240 trying out like different gyms and stuff 1189 00:45:21,240 --> 00:45:23,760 and like, they, they all just have this 1190 00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:28,020 like, just atrocious onboarding experience 1191 00:45:28,020 --> 00:45:29,250 or like, even if you just want a day 1192 00:45:29,250 --> 00:45:32,160 pass, they like, want all this personal 1193 00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:33,990 information and they, they make you fill 1194 00:45:33,990 --> 00:45:36,000 it out at like a tablet at the front. 1195 00:45:36,527 --> 00:45:36,707 oh God. 1196 00:45:36,707 --> 00:45:37,877 It's the most annoying shit. 1197 00:45:38,044 --> 00:45:38,794 you know, for the email 1198 00:45:38,794 --> 00:45:39,664 I've been really happy. 1199 00:45:39,664 --> 00:45:41,104 Previously, I was just been using 1200 00:45:41,104 --> 00:45:43,054 Simple Login and the web browser. 1201 00:45:43,264 --> 00:45:44,164 Now I've actually started 1202 00:45:44,164 --> 00:45:45,304 using the app on my phone. 1203 00:45:45,304 --> 00:45:47,554 I found it really a delight to use because 1204 00:45:47,884 --> 00:45:50,254 if somebody demands an email from me 1205 00:45:50,854 --> 00:45:53,074 through a required input field, I can 1206 00:45:53,074 --> 00:45:54,844 pull out the Simple login app and spin 1207 00:45:54,844 --> 00:45:57,064 up a, a new one and, you know, maybe 1208 00:45:57,064 --> 00:45:58,714 type in the name of the gym or whatever. 1209 00:45:59,134 --> 00:46:00,574 And, uh, so it's been super easy. 1210 00:46:00,574 --> 00:46:01,804 I've been very pleased with it. 1211 00:46:01,864 --> 00:46:03,664 I haven't had any issues with using it. 1212 00:46:03,890 --> 00:46:05,240 and if you're already paying for a simple 1213 00:46:05,240 --> 00:46:07,280 login through like your proton or a 1214 00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:09,830 la carte or whatever, it's very easy. 1215 00:46:09,830 --> 00:46:11,300 And they have a nice feature too if you do 1216 00:46:11,300 --> 00:46:13,070 need, if you need to give it to somebody 1217 00:46:13,070 --> 00:46:14,840 so that they can type it in, like somebody 1218 00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:16,580 behind a counter, they have an option 1219 00:46:16,580 --> 00:46:17,960 where you can make the email and then 1220 00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:19,820 press the button to like, just bring up 1221 00:46:19,820 --> 00:46:21,860 a screen on your phone that just displays 1222 00:46:21,860 --> 00:46:23,540 that email, which is really handy. 1223 00:46:23,540 --> 00:46:24,590 'cause then you can flip the phone 1224 00:46:24,590 --> 00:46:26,090 around and just show them the email. 1225 00:46:26,269 --> 00:46:28,129 I did have an experience recently 1226 00:46:28,129 --> 00:46:30,829 checking into a hotel where I tried 1227 00:46:30,829 --> 00:46:32,539 to type in one of my simple login 1228 00:46:32,539 --> 00:46:35,209 emails and the tablet, the self check 1229 00:46:35,209 --> 00:46:37,879 in tablet, just thoroughly rejected 1230 00:46:37,879 --> 00:46:42,289 my email because, um, it was like, not 1231 00:46:42,469 --> 00:46:44,839 Gmail, at Gmail or at Yahoo, like it 1232 00:46:44,839 --> 00:46:46,609 was set to like only check for like 1233 00:46:46,609 --> 00:46:48,589 primary domains, which is so annoying. 1234 00:46:48,994 --> 00:46:50,790 But I was just, polite, but 1235 00:46:50,790 --> 00:46:51,780 persistent with the person. 1236 00:46:51,780 --> 00:46:52,740 No, that's my email. 1237 00:46:52,740 --> 00:46:53,640 And they're rejecting it. 1238 00:46:53,670 --> 00:46:54,360 This isn't, you know, 1239 00:46:54,420 --> 00:46:55,140 they're like, okay, cool. 1240 00:46:55,140 --> 00:46:56,610 I'll check you in manually. 1241 00:46:56,730 --> 00:46:56,970 Yeah. 1242 00:46:57,060 --> 00:46:57,780 They did it. 1243 00:46:57,780 --> 00:46:59,630 So, but yeah, I, I haven't tried text 1244 00:46:59,630 --> 00:47:01,370 verified yet, but I'd like to try it. 1245 00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:03,320 'cause I've had pretty good luck with 1246 00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:05,540 Simple Login and being able to just 1247 00:47:05,540 --> 00:47:07,580 very quickly make a fresh email for 1248 00:47:07,580 --> 00:47:09,320 every single business that I go to. 1249 00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,180 So it would be nice to, I don't know, 1250 00:47:11,180 --> 00:47:13,060 try ever, phone numbers as well. 1251 00:47:13,630 --> 00:47:15,670 I'm a big fan of Simple Login as well. 1252 00:47:18,670 --> 00:47:19,000 All right. 1253 00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:20,020 Yeah, check out text 1254 00:47:20,020 --> 00:47:21,610 verify.com at anytime. 1255 00:47:21,610 --> 00:47:25,100 You need to create, have a one-time, uh, 1256 00:47:25,130 --> 00:47:27,830 phone number, and then if text verified 1257 00:47:28,220 --> 00:47:29,450 is not working for you, for whatever 1258 00:47:29,450 --> 00:47:31,520 reason, SMS for SATs is a backup. 1259 00:47:31,817 --> 00:47:32,477 the next thing I wanted 1260 00:47:32,477 --> 00:47:35,147 to talk about is in our. 1261 00:47:35,192 --> 00:47:38,042 Yeah, previously in our episode on phone 1262 00:47:38,042 --> 00:47:39,992 numbers and, and getting private and 1263 00:47:39,992 --> 00:47:43,052 sovereign phone numbers, I talked about 1264 00:47:43,052 --> 00:47:46,532 how I was currently using Mint Mobile 1265 00:47:46,982 --> 00:47:49,579 and they used to be able to, they, I 1266 00:47:49,579 --> 00:47:51,889 used to be able to buy a sim and refill 1267 00:47:51,889 --> 00:47:55,712 the EIM by, paying online anonymously 1268 00:47:55,742 --> 00:47:59,132 by using Bit Refill where I'd, I'd 1269 00:47:59,132 --> 00:48:00,947 buy a vanilla Visa card with bitcoin. 1270 00:48:01,472 --> 00:48:02,702 And then I would use that vanilla 1271 00:48:02,702 --> 00:48:05,252 visa to pay for my Mint mobile eim. 1272 00:48:06,362 --> 00:48:08,912 A couple months ago, mint Mobile, 1273 00:48:08,972 --> 00:48:11,372 mint Mobile stopped accepting 1274 00:48:11,372 --> 00:48:12,992 those vanilla Visa cards. 1275 00:48:13,029 --> 00:48:14,559 they didn't explicitly say 1276 00:48:14,559 --> 00:48:15,489 they would stop doing it. 1277 00:48:15,489 --> 00:48:17,139 They just, I tried to pay for it, 1278 00:48:17,139 --> 00:48:19,179 and the account just kept failing. 1279 00:48:19,539 --> 00:48:20,709 I tried multiple times with 1280 00:48:20,709 --> 00:48:22,239 different cards and it kept failing. 1281 00:48:22,809 --> 00:48:24,219 So I came to the conclusion that they 1282 00:48:24,219 --> 00:48:26,169 are just not accepting that anymore. 1283 00:48:26,559 --> 00:48:28,359 So what I did was I went to. 1284 00:48:28,749 --> 00:48:31,089 A Best Buy in person and I bought a 1285 00:48:31,089 --> 00:48:35,409 physical Mint mobile sim card, and I 1286 00:48:35,409 --> 00:48:37,869 was able to pay for that in cash without 1287 00:48:38,349 --> 00:48:40,569 any identifying information, and that 1288 00:48:40,569 --> 00:48:42,729 worked great, except for I don't want 1289 00:48:42,729 --> 00:48:44,529 to have to do that every three months. 1290 00:48:44,559 --> 00:48:47,499 It was a three month SIM card, and so I 1291 00:48:47,499 --> 00:48:49,689 had to go back after three months, I try. 1292 00:48:49,689 --> 00:48:51,699 I went back and I tried to buy 1293 00:48:51,699 --> 00:48:53,859 a 12 month sim because I figure. 1294 00:48:54,609 --> 00:48:56,769 I'm okay with going once a year and 1295 00:48:56,769 --> 00:48:58,479 buying a sim in person if it, if I 1296 00:48:58,479 --> 00:49:01,509 get a fast bandwidth and I get to pay. 1297 00:49:01,509 --> 00:49:04,749 And honestly turns out they do not 1298 00:49:04,749 --> 00:49:06,549 sell them for 12 months in person. 1299 00:49:06,549 --> 00:49:08,619 I don't know if they previously did and 1300 00:49:08,619 --> 00:49:09,969 don't do it anymore, or if they just 1301 00:49:09,969 --> 00:49:12,879 never have, but it wasn't available. 1302 00:49:13,449 --> 00:49:15,479 So, I got another three month 1303 00:49:15,539 --> 00:49:16,859 just to, since I was already 1304 00:49:16,859 --> 00:49:19,289 there, but I, I started doing some 1305 00:49:19,289 --> 00:49:21,179 more research on other options. 1306 00:49:24,044 --> 00:49:25,514 One option I found is a company 1307 00:49:25,514 --> 00:49:27,404 called Cloaked Wireless. 1308 00:49:27,914 --> 00:49:31,634 They, they have, anonymous eims data eims, 1309 00:49:32,714 --> 00:49:34,634 very similar to silent link where you can 1310 00:49:34,634 --> 00:49:37,634 pay for these with Bitcoin anonymously. 1311 00:49:38,024 --> 00:49:39,990 However, I tried it out 1312 00:49:39,990 --> 00:49:41,580 and I do not recommend it. 1313 00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:44,280 The bandwidth was incredibly slow, 1314 00:49:44,340 --> 00:49:45,690 even slower than silent link. 1315 00:49:45,690 --> 00:49:47,400 So for me, that was just not 1316 00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:48,990 acceptable as a daily driver. 1317 00:49:49,407 --> 00:49:51,447 so I, I went back to my physical mint 1318 00:49:51,447 --> 00:49:54,357 sim, but I was still looking for an 1319 00:49:54,357 --> 00:49:56,187 alternative so that I wouldn't have 1320 00:49:56,187 --> 00:49:58,347 to buy a new one every three months. 1321 00:49:58,587 --> 00:50:01,497 And what I found is that at and t 1322 00:50:01,527 --> 00:50:04,077 also sells prepaid sim cards, and you 1323 00:50:04,077 --> 00:50:05,847 can get 12 months of that at a time. 1324 00:50:06,477 --> 00:50:10,497 So when my mint, my current mint is 1325 00:50:10,497 --> 00:50:13,620 expired, and that'll be fairly soon. 1326 00:50:13,950 --> 00:50:15,540 I'm going to try out the 1327 00:50:15,540 --> 00:50:16,710 at and t prepaid sim. 1328 00:50:17,145 --> 00:50:19,065 And I will let you know on the next 1329 00:50:19,065 --> 00:50:20,865 episode or, or when I've done that, 1330 00:50:20,955 --> 00:50:23,505 I'll report back and, uh, that might 1331 00:50:23,505 --> 00:50:26,039 be a good option for eims going forward 1332 00:50:26,039 --> 00:50:27,689 or for physical sims going forward. 1333 00:50:29,459 --> 00:50:30,419 Any thoughts on that? 1334 00:50:30,809 --> 00:50:31,169 Not really. 1335 00:50:31,229 --> 00:50:31,859 Sounds good to me. 1336 00:50:32,069 --> 00:50:32,579 Okay. 1337 00:50:33,015 --> 00:50:33,975 the other thing I've been 1338 00:50:34,065 --> 00:50:37,875 getting into is I set up a new 1339 00:50:37,875 --> 00:50:40,815 self-hosting app on my home server. 1340 00:50:41,025 --> 00:50:42,285 It's called Albi Hub. 1341 00:50:42,675 --> 00:50:44,055 And for those of you who haven't 1342 00:50:44,055 --> 00:50:47,475 heard of this, it's a way of having a 1343 00:50:47,475 --> 00:50:50,865 lightning node and some other ancillary 1344 00:50:50,865 --> 00:50:52,335 services tied to your lightning 1345 00:50:52,335 --> 00:50:55,725 node in a, in a really easy package. 1346 00:50:55,935 --> 00:50:57,495 So it's got a nice ux, you 1347 00:50:57,495 --> 00:50:58,935 can spin it up real quickly. 1348 00:50:59,250 --> 00:51:02,197 It's got, several LSPs liquidity 1349 00:51:02,197 --> 00:51:03,727 service providers or lightning service 1350 00:51:03,727 --> 00:51:05,887 providers that you can choose from. 1351 00:51:06,277 --> 00:51:08,257 And, um, it makes it super simple 1352 00:51:08,257 --> 00:51:10,687 to open a channel, have inbound 1353 00:51:10,687 --> 00:51:12,997 liquidity, set all of that stuff up. 1354 00:51:12,997 --> 00:51:14,887 It's very easy. 1355 00:51:15,217 --> 00:51:16,298 I think it was a delight to use. 1356 00:51:16,303 --> 00:51:18,997 So I, if you're interested in setting up 1357 00:51:18,997 --> 00:51:20,497 a lightning note and maybe you thought 1358 00:51:20,887 --> 00:51:22,117 this is a little difficult, I don't 1359 00:51:22,117 --> 00:51:24,337 know what to do, check out Albi hub. 1360 00:51:24,547 --> 00:51:25,747 Very nice experience. 1361 00:51:26,124 --> 00:51:26,717 one of the. 1362 00:51:27,167 --> 00:51:29,027 Features that I'm able to use with 1363 00:51:29,027 --> 00:51:31,937 Al Beh hub is now I can have self 1364 00:51:31,937 --> 00:51:33,857 custodial boosts in streaming. 1365 00:51:34,097 --> 00:51:36,587 So instead of having to use Fountain fm, 1366 00:51:36,587 --> 00:51:38,807 which is is nice for not having to set 1367 00:51:38,807 --> 00:51:40,817 anything up, but it is a custodial wallet, 1368 00:51:41,207 --> 00:51:43,970 I now have, through my self-hosted Al Beh 1369 00:51:43,970 --> 00:51:48,170 hub, the ability to plug my pod verse app. 1370 00:51:48,170 --> 00:51:49,400 And that's a, that's a 1371 00:51:49,430 --> 00:51:50,750 podcasting app that has. 1372 00:51:51,214 --> 00:51:53,794 podcasting 2.0 features, I'm able 1373 00:51:53,794 --> 00:51:56,254 to plug my auth information into 1374 00:51:56,254 --> 00:51:58,924 there and now I can stream and 1375 00:51:58,924 --> 00:52:01,054 boost to podcasts that I'm listening 1376 00:52:01,054 --> 00:52:03,094 to completely from my self-hosted 1377 00:52:03,094 --> 00:52:05,794 node node running on my own server. 1378 00:52:07,144 --> 00:52:08,224 So that's pretty cool. 1379 00:52:08,464 --> 00:52:09,394 Great experience there. 1380 00:52:09,394 --> 00:52:10,354 Once it's all set up. 1381 00:52:11,299 --> 00:52:14,449 The other self-hosting lightning related 1382 00:52:14,449 --> 00:52:17,929 thing that I've got set up now is I've set 1383 00:52:17,929 --> 00:52:19,729 up my own self-hosted lightning address 1384 00:52:19,729 --> 00:52:23,119 server and Noster name verification. 1385 00:52:23,119 --> 00:52:24,649 You might, those of you who are 1386 00:52:24,679 --> 00:52:26,779 noster aficionados might know 1387 00:52:26,779 --> 00:52:29,779 this as the nip NIP zero five. 1388 00:52:30,979 --> 00:52:33,709 Uh, standard and that just, it allows 1389 00:52:33,709 --> 00:52:37,129 you to have a human readable name that 1390 00:52:37,129 --> 00:52:39,319 looks like an email address for your 1391 00:52:39,464 --> 00:52:43,129 noster nub, which is a long string 1392 00:52:43,129 --> 00:52:44,719 of characters that nobody ever wants 1393 00:52:44,719 --> 00:52:46,699 to type out or have to say out loud. 1394 00:52:47,089 --> 00:52:50,575 So, for example, if my email ad, if my 1395 00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:53,065 domain name that I own is bravo.com, 1396 00:52:53,335 --> 00:52:55,765 I could have a lightning address. 1397 00:52:55,765 --> 00:52:57,955 That's jordan@bravo.com. 1398 00:52:59,185 --> 00:53:01,195 And I could also have a noser 1399 00:53:01,225 --> 00:53:03,415 address, that's jordan@bravo.com. 1400 00:53:03,835 --> 00:53:05,845 And so if somebody is going 1401 00:53:05,845 --> 00:53:07,435 to send me Lightning, they can 1402 00:53:07,435 --> 00:53:09,295 just send it toJordan@bravo.com. 1403 00:53:09,295 --> 00:53:10,975 They don't have to request an 1404 00:53:10,975 --> 00:53:12,205 invoice from me and have it be 1405 00:53:12,205 --> 00:53:14,095 an interactive back and forth. 1406 00:53:14,485 --> 00:53:16,525 And then for Noser, likewise, you 1407 00:53:16,525 --> 00:53:19,105 could look me up@jordanatbravo.com. 1408 00:53:19,815 --> 00:53:21,855 bravo.com is not actually my domain 1409 00:53:21,855 --> 00:53:24,015 name, so don't look me up with that. 1410 00:53:24,075 --> 00:53:26,115 Uh, I just using that as an example. 1411 00:53:27,420 --> 00:53:28,680 One last thing I wanted to say about 1412 00:53:28,680 --> 00:53:30,480 this, this self-hosted lightning address 1413 00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:33,900 thing, it's called Rust Dress, and our 1414 00:53:33,900 --> 00:53:36,780 own Natasha here at Bitlab wrote it. 1415 00:53:37,020 --> 00:53:38,940 Oh, and it is called Rust Dress because 1416 00:53:38,940 --> 00:53:41,040 it is a lightning address written 1417 00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:42,660 in rust, the programming language. 1418 00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:45,000 So, uh, yeah, I set it 1419 00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:46,740 up and it was super cool. 1420 00:53:46,740 --> 00:53:48,360 I got it up in a couple hours of 1421 00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:50,859 tinkering and now I'm a fully. 1422 00:53:51,664 --> 00:53:53,944 Self custodial self-sovereign 1423 00:53:53,944 --> 00:53:55,894 light, not lightning address, 1424 00:53:55,954 --> 00:54:00,724 having Bitcoin or nice rust dress. 1425 00:54:00,724 --> 00:54:01,744 I did not know he made that. 1426 00:54:01,744 --> 00:54:02,374 That's cool. 1427 00:54:03,364 --> 00:54:05,284 And I am currently, for those of you who 1428 00:54:05,284 --> 00:54:08,344 are Nick's nerds, I'm currently working on 1429 00:54:08,344 --> 00:54:12,634 packaging his rust dress application to be 1430 00:54:12,634 --> 00:54:15,334 available in the nix packages repository. 1431 00:54:15,544 --> 00:54:17,194 So it's as simple as doing like 1432 00:54:17,194 --> 00:54:19,204 a single command and nix and 1433 00:54:19,204 --> 00:54:20,314 it would install it for you. 1434 00:54:20,434 --> 00:54:20,854 Oh, nice. 1435 00:54:20,854 --> 00:54:21,099 That's cool. 1436 00:54:21,709 --> 00:54:23,299 Then it would just install it and you'd 1437 00:54:23,299 --> 00:54:25,759 be able to run it from your Nick system? 1438 00:54:25,939 --> 00:54:26,419 Yep. 1439 00:54:26,869 --> 00:54:28,549 Or any system that's running 1440 00:54:28,549 --> 00:54:29,479 the Nicks package manager. 1441 00:54:29,479 --> 00:54:29,929 Got it. 1442 00:54:30,589 --> 00:54:30,799 Yeah. 1443 00:54:30,799 --> 00:54:31,909 And then from there, I guess you just 1444 00:54:31,909 --> 00:54:34,549 need to expose the ports properly to 1445 00:54:34,549 --> 00:54:36,559 the outside world and all of that. 1446 00:54:36,799 --> 00:54:37,309 Yep. 1447 00:54:37,519 --> 00:54:37,939 Suite. 1448 00:54:41,934 --> 00:54:43,099 So that's everything that I've 1449 00:54:43,099 --> 00:54:45,679 been up to lately in terms of cyber 1450 00:54:45,679 --> 00:54:48,259 computing, self-hosting, and privacy. 1451 00:54:48,727 --> 00:54:49,890 anything that you wanted 1452 00:54:49,890 --> 00:54:52,350 to check in with Steven? 1453 00:54:52,350 --> 00:54:54,060 Any, what have you been working on? 1454 00:54:54,090 --> 00:54:56,430 Anything related to this topic? 1455 00:54:57,180 --> 00:54:58,350 Oh, not really. 1456 00:54:58,717 --> 00:55:00,577 yeah, I mean, I think all of my fun 1457 00:55:00,577 --> 00:55:02,827 anecdotes I've sprinkled in throughout 1458 00:55:02,827 --> 00:55:05,227 the rest of, uh, rest of this episode. 1459 00:55:05,617 --> 00:55:08,077 So yeah, I think that's 1460 00:55:08,077 --> 00:55:09,667 probably it for me for today. 1461 00:55:10,822 --> 00:55:11,722 All right, cool. 1462 00:55:12,202 --> 00:55:14,692 Well, that's all we have for today. 1463 00:55:14,752 --> 00:55:15,922 We wanna remind you that 1464 00:55:15,922 --> 00:55:17,482 you can boost into the show. 1465 00:55:17,482 --> 00:55:18,802 We'd love to hear from you. 1466 00:55:18,992 --> 00:55:20,159 that would be the 1467 00:55:20,159 --> 00:55:21,599 Sovereign Computing Show. 1468 00:55:21,629 --> 00:55:23,219 You can look it up on Fountain 1469 00:55:23,669 --> 00:55:25,409 and you can use Fountain to Boost. 1470 00:55:25,409 --> 00:55:26,759 You can also use other apps 1471 00:55:26,759 --> 00:55:28,139 to boost like Pod verse. 1472 00:55:28,199 --> 00:55:30,209 I'm particularly enamored 1473 00:55:30,209 --> 00:55:31,349 of that one at the moment. 1474 00:55:31,739 --> 00:55:33,239 You can also email us 1475 00:55:33,269 --> 00:55:37,709 sovereign@atlbitlab.com and. 1476 00:55:37,829 --> 00:55:37,889 Yeah. 1477 00:55:38,579 --> 00:55:40,289 Anything else you wanted to add, Steven? 1478 00:55:40,739 --> 00:55:41,154 No, I don't think. 1479 00:55:41,294 --> 00:55:42,029 No, I think so. 1480 00:55:42,209 --> 00:55:42,779 I think I'm good. 1481 00:55:43,319 --> 00:55:43,799 Alright. 1482 00:55:43,799 --> 00:55:44,729 Thanks a lot everyone. 1483 00:55:44,729 --> 00:55:45,539 We'll see you next time. 1484 00:55:45,599 --> 00:55:46,379 Catch you later. 1485 00:55:47,752 --> 00:55:48,892 Hey, thanks for listening. 1486 00:55:49,032 --> 00:55:50,402 I hope you enjoyed this episode. 1487 00:55:50,672 --> 00:55:51,802 If you want to learn more about 1488 00:55:51,802 --> 00:55:53,502 anything that we discussed, you can 1489 00:55:53,502 --> 00:55:55,262 look for links in the show notes 1490 00:55:55,462 --> 00:55:56,762 that should be in your podcast 1491 00:55:56,772 --> 00:55:59,542 player, or you can go to atlbitlab. 1492 00:55:59,542 --> 00:56:01,282 com slash podcast. 1493 00:56:01,882 --> 00:56:03,202 On a final note, if you found 1494 00:56:03,202 --> 00:56:04,992 this information useful and you 1495 00:56:04,992 --> 00:56:06,722 want to help support us, you can 1496 00:56:06,722 --> 00:56:08,712 always send us a tip in Bitcoin. 1497 00:56:09,092 --> 00:56:10,922 Your support really helps us so that we 1498 00:56:10,922 --> 00:56:13,052 can keep bringing you content like this. 1499 00:56:13,382 --> 00:56:13,942 All right. 1500 00:56:14,022 --> 00:56:14,672 Catch you later.