[00:48.710 --> 00:50.530]  Nice, we have something to look forward to.
[00:50.870 --> 00:52.470]  All right, we're gonna go ahead and start.
[00:56.750 --> 00:58.430]  Can you believe that it's Sunday already?
[00:58.610 --> 00:59.310]  This is incredible.
[00:59.370 --> 01:10.150]  It goes so fast, and there's so much to do, and so many fantastic talks, workshops, performances, vendors, volunteer opportunities, just incredible.
[01:10.150 --> 01:16.390]  We have an action-packed day here today on Sunday at A New HOPE in 2022.
[01:17.050 --> 01:20.330]  It culminates in the evening with the closing ceremonies.
[01:20.330 --> 01:34.450]  I can let you in on an advanced secret, which is not only is the closing ceremony going to be kind of fun, number one, the 2600 store will be open after closing ceremonies, so if you didn't yet get your conference t-shirt, that's the time to do it.
[01:34.450 --> 01:37.050]  Also, we're gonna have a samba band.
[01:37.270 --> 01:43.450]  There'll be a party experience after the closing ceremony out in the, through the building, then out on the front plaza.
[01:43.890 --> 01:56.570]  But it doesn't end there because we need a lot of volunteers to help pack up and move out, so if you're able to stick around Sunday night, even Monday morning for the outbound trucking, we'd appreciate any time you might be able to spend.
[01:56.810 --> 01:58.390]  But don't think about that too much.
[01:58.570 --> 02:04.050]  Think now about the rest of the day, fantastic day talks, workshops, all that good stuff.
[02:04.050 --> 02:07.150]  Today's the final day of A New HOPE in 2022.
[02:07.730 --> 02:09.450]  This talk did get rescheduled.
[02:09.630 --> 02:12.110]  I appreciate that people are here first thing Sunday.
[02:12.470 --> 02:22.450]  We had, you know, some scheduling, last-minute scheduling issues, and so thanks also to our speaker for being flexible in the last-minute changes.
[02:22.670 --> 02:24.850]  So our first talk today on Sunday is by Greg.
[02:25.070 --> 02:30.050]  It's all about social psychonography, sending messages in the clear for fun and non-profit.
[02:30.370 --> 02:30.570]  Greg.
[02:35.560 --> 02:41.760]  So I filled this presentation with animated GIFs, and it's also done completely in LibreOffice.
[02:42.500 --> 02:46.880]  And the combination of these two things keeps making my computer want to crash, so we might have some pauses.
[02:47.760 --> 02:49.100]  But hi, I'm Greg.
[02:49.940 --> 02:52.200]  I don't have a hacker name.
[02:52.900 --> 02:54.700]  It's a long story that we'll get into.
[02:57.160 --> 02:57.760]  And wonderful.
[02:57.940 --> 02:58.320]  It's freezing.
[03:00.440 --> 03:00.820]  Yep.
[03:01.600 --> 03:02.480]  This is gonna throw off everything.
[03:02.920 --> 03:07.200]  So before we begin, like this started basically on the underground comedy circuit.
[03:07.500 --> 03:13.780]  Back when everybody got their vaccines and everything, and you're able to go back out into public, I saw a sign on a poll that said there was an open mic.
[03:14.040 --> 03:16.400]  And so I just kind of wandered in and started talking.
[03:17.900 --> 03:20.140]  And people didn't always like what I said.
[03:21.080 --> 03:27.220]  And so this talk is about what I call the idea that propaganda is the selective telling of truths.
[03:27.320 --> 03:32.460]  We have a society nowadays where people think they can just lie all the time.
[03:32.460 --> 03:37.340]  And then it's this kind of idea, I'm going to challenge you to prove me wrong.
[03:37.560 --> 03:38.540]  Just be exhaustive.
[03:39.080 --> 03:43.880]  And people forget that we live in this society where truth is an absolute defense against libel.
[03:44.240 --> 03:49.980]  So if you know things that are true about somebody, you can just be like, well, you know, GDPR is a European law.
[03:50.360 --> 03:52.740]  And I haven't been IRB certified in a while.
[03:52.740 --> 03:53.760]  So let's do this.
[03:54.240 --> 03:57.220]  But in all seriousness, in this talk, there's gonna be sex.
[03:58.900 --> 04:01.500]  Is it gonna freeze up every time I try and move a slide?
[04:03.000 --> 04:05.060]  There's gonna be some talk about drug use.
[04:06.540 --> 04:07.200]  Come on.
[04:07.360 --> 04:08.680]  This is gonna throw off the entire thing.
[04:09.980 --> 04:11.440]  It was not like this yesterday.
[04:14.980 --> 04:16.780]  Might be some discussions of violence.
[04:18.700 --> 04:20.400]  Come on, you can do it.
[04:22.460 --> 04:23.680]  Oh, we can't even see it.
[04:27.480 --> 04:28.620]  I mean, it is...
[04:29.720 --> 04:30.560]  I mean,
[04:36.090 --> 04:36.430]  I'm connected.
[04:37.090 --> 04:38.190]  Is this the correct cable?
[05:03.240 --> 05:04.880]  It's not the HDMI port, is it?
[05:09.850 --> 05:11.370]  So this is the cord, right?
[05:11.590 --> 05:12.030]  Yeah, yeah.
[05:12.070 --> 05:13.430]  And then...
[05:16.740 --> 05:18.700]  Unfortunately, not too many options up there.
[05:48.420 --> 05:49.600]  I don't know what to do.
[05:50.100 --> 05:51.580]  It's just not showing up on the screen.
[05:51.780 --> 05:53.820]  Like, I'm not AV expert.
[05:53.820 --> 05:55.260]  I asked somebody to give me a dongle.
[06:09.440 --> 06:10.320]  There we go.
[06:11.140 --> 06:12.100]  There we go.
[06:14.660 --> 06:16.540]  I'm sorry if you haven't seen that movie.
[06:16.700 --> 06:17.300]  I'm autistic.
[06:17.300 --> 06:18.440]  I make movie references.
[06:20.900 --> 06:23.380]  Also, it was gonna be a logic joke, but now I'm too frazzled.
[06:23.380 --> 06:24.680]  I think they more meant and or.
[06:25.580 --> 06:26.620]  I hope they did.
[06:30.380 --> 06:33.020]  So, welcome to Social Steganography.
[06:33.020 --> 06:36.120]  Sending messages in the clear for fun and non-profit.
[06:36.340 --> 06:40.020]  Or how I learned to stop worrying and love clear text.
[06:40.300 --> 06:42.260]  Big shout out to Dana Boyd.
[06:42.360 --> 06:51.160]  I completely forgot that in like 2010-ish, she wrote an entire blog post or like academic article or something about this idea of this social steganography.
[06:51.160 --> 06:54.000]  Like, people are going off on the social media and they're trying to say something.
[06:54.260 --> 07:00.200]  And then if your Catholic mother or whatever comes and sees what you've posted on the Internet, she's not gonna understand what she's reading.
[07:01.080 --> 07:02.640]  Those days are long over.
[07:02.760 --> 07:03.980]  I'm gonna say whatever I want today.
[07:05.440 --> 07:05.800]  So...
[07:05.800 --> 07:06.400]  Oh, yeah.
[07:06.460 --> 07:07.580]  I should maybe actually...
[07:07.580 --> 07:12.720]  I'm not sure if what was making it freeze was when I full screened it.
[07:12.820 --> 07:14.040]  So, I'm gonna see if I can make it bigger.
[07:15.860 --> 07:21.700]  I really don't actually like people who make a big deal about like, oh, no, I'm not allowed to trigger people.
[07:21.860 --> 07:23.060]  That's not nice.
[07:23.780 --> 07:25.340]  And it's not how you make friends.
[07:25.340 --> 07:29.200]  It's how you end up at DEFCON as like a 50-year-old guy who has no friends.
[07:31.020 --> 07:34.160]  Because, yeah, in all seriousness, extremism really worries me.
[07:34.280 --> 07:37.400]  I was a really reactionary 18, 19, 20, 21-year-old.
[07:37.580 --> 07:42.400]  People maybe knew me by the handle Greg Norc, G-R-E-G-N-O-R-C on the GameFAQs forums.
[07:42.400 --> 07:43.880]  I was unsupervised.
[07:44.480 --> 07:45.820]  Anyways, trigger warning.
[07:46.060 --> 07:48.320]  We may discuss in this talk some sex.
[07:49.220 --> 07:50.520]  Might discuss drugs.
[07:51.020 --> 07:52.400]  There might be some violence.
[07:53.400 --> 07:53.880]  And...
[07:53.880 --> 07:55.020]  This was when it started to freeze.
[07:55.020 --> 07:56.680]  That's why I was freaking out a little.
[07:56.880 --> 08:00.200]  There might be some Logan Act violations or discussion of them.
[08:00.440 --> 08:01.640]  Apparently, it's one of these things...
[08:01.640 --> 08:03.740]  It's like one of these laws that's on the books that they never enforce.
[08:03.920 --> 08:09.500]  It's like you're not allowed to sit in a basement in Appalachia and do your own foreign policy.
[08:09.680 --> 08:12.800]  It's like, well, you weren't supposed to hack my laptop.
[08:14.240 --> 08:16.560]  Anyways, about the speaker, three things.
[08:16.760 --> 08:19.200]  My legal name is Gregory.
[08:19.760 --> 08:20.840]  My hacker name?
[08:22.000 --> 08:22.520]  Greg.
[08:22.840 --> 08:24.260]  That's me on a boat in Seattle.
[08:24.640 --> 08:28.500]  I told them, on a boat in Seattle, you stop having elections.
[08:28.500 --> 08:30.540]  We're going to do whatever we want with the computer.
[08:30.860 --> 08:32.120]  It's a social contract.
[08:33.640 --> 08:35.720]  I'm a censorship circumvention expert.
[08:35.720 --> 08:40.740]  I put out a talk at the Hot Pets, which is an academic workshop.
[08:41.060 --> 08:42.740]  They have this thing if you're doing a PhD.
[08:42.860 --> 08:45.360]  They have this idea of what is peer-reviewed versus not.
[08:45.660 --> 08:50.200]  So if you do what's called a workshop, it's kind of like submitting to HOPE or DEFCON or whatever.
[08:50.420 --> 08:51.200]  You have peers.
[08:51.680 --> 08:52.800]  They review you.
[08:53.360 --> 08:57.140]  You go to a foreign country and eat a bunch of tapas and talk about it.
[08:57.400 --> 08:58.780]  But it wasn't peer-reviewed.
[08:58.900 --> 09:04.700]  And then if you try and take it further into the actual peer-reviewed venue, then they have this attitude of, like, I've seen this before.
[09:04.700 --> 09:06.080]  Well, it's like, well, what am I supposed to do?
[09:06.140 --> 09:08.400]  I've got to, you know, preview my methodology and all that.
[09:09.820 --> 09:12.400]  So, yeah, I did a master's thesis.
[09:12.400 --> 09:15.180]  It was called Why Johnny Can't Blow the Whistle.
[09:15.280 --> 09:18.520]  And we made that title before Snowden made privacy cool.
[09:20.140 --> 09:23.340]  Before that, I was an altar server at Our Lady of Grace.
[09:23.340 --> 09:25.620]  Our Lady of Grace closed.
[09:26.080 --> 09:27.640]  The Boy Scouts closed.
[09:27.940 --> 09:34.100]  This is what happens when you insist on a very weird, neoliberal version of economics.
[09:34.340 --> 09:35.940]  Everybody leaves Pittsburgh.
[09:35.940 --> 09:36.980]  That's where I'm from.
[09:37.220 --> 09:40.100]  I haven't been out of Pennsylvania for God.
[09:40.100 --> 09:40.820]  Oh, no.
[09:40.880 --> 09:44.040]  Well, I haven't been out of the country since before Trump took office.
[09:46.420 --> 09:47.560]  And I'm a former staffer.
[09:47.720 --> 09:51.000]  I was the staff technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology.
[09:51.200 --> 09:53.620]  I was the guy who got everybody onto two-factor.
[09:53.740 --> 09:56.180]  I was the guy who was teaching them how to spot phishing messages.
[09:56.180 --> 10:02.600]  And I was the guy who was told in about September of 2016, ah, you may have backed the wrong people in the primary.
[10:03.020 --> 10:04.220]  We're kind of done with you.
[10:04.380 --> 10:06.720]  And then, of course, you know, the election happened.
[10:07.140 --> 10:14.280]  By that point, I had put all my shit into a rider truck and moved back to Achalasia and just had this attitude of like, well, you know, you think you know more than me?
[10:14.540 --> 10:15.220]  Have fun.
[10:16.280 --> 10:22.920]  So, at that point, what I did was I took my Twitter handle and I changed it to Don't Be Nebby.
[10:22.920 --> 10:25.660]  And I went out to Las Vegas for DEFCON yet again.
[10:25.840 --> 10:27.360]  I've been going since DEFCON 17.
[10:28.320 --> 10:30.060]  The first one was a little bit awkward.
[10:30.120 --> 10:33.900]  I had an expungement that was arranged by a motorcycle gang.
[10:34.180 --> 10:36.800]  I did not know it was arranged by a motorcycle gang.
[10:36.800 --> 10:41.380]  I thought it was arranged by a therapist at my Catholic college who connected me with a lawyer.
[10:41.740 --> 10:44.040]  People don't just roll up on me and tell me these things.
[10:44.200 --> 10:50.760]  But it explained why some people who I thought were absolutely reprehensible would tell me that they liked my research because they want to be rude on the Internet.
[10:51.320 --> 10:52.660]  It's not why I like Tor.
[10:53.360 --> 10:57.640]  So anyways, we have three easy rules for influencing in cyberpunk America.
[10:58.140 --> 10:59.640]  The art of creative cyber nonfiction.
[10:59.820 --> 11:02.720]  I was thinking about going back to Pitt and doing an MFA in creative nonfiction.
[11:02.880 --> 11:04.660]  That was what I was originally going to do.
[11:04.960 --> 11:07.640]  And it's like, well, be an artist.
[11:07.940 --> 11:09.200]  There's not a lot of money in that.
[11:09.340 --> 11:11.740]  Turns out there's not a lot of money in being a PhD dropout either.
[11:12.380 --> 11:17.180]  But the three things, oh wait, four, are to be ambiguous.
[11:19.520 --> 11:20.960]  To tell selective truths.
[11:21.960 --> 11:22.700]  Consent matters.
[11:22.880 --> 11:23.600]  And we're going to get into this.
[11:23.660 --> 11:24.620]  This isn't like a sex thing.
[11:24.740 --> 11:27.520]  It's more about two-party consent and recording laws and things like that.
[11:27.600 --> 11:28.360]  Because these interplay.
[11:28.740 --> 11:35.280]  Because if you know when you can record someone, then you can take their words and play them back and make them own their evil.
[11:35.680 --> 11:38.440]  And then, of course, truth is an absolute defense against libel.
[11:39.280 --> 11:44.980]  I really don't like when people go around and think that they can just tell whatever lies they want and then you've got to prove that it was a lie.
[11:45.180 --> 11:49.940]  But conversely, it is extremely, extremely powerful if you're just willing to go, you know what?
[11:50.300 --> 11:51.440]  I'm sick of these people.
[11:51.460 --> 11:52.660]  I won't call them pedophiles.
[11:52.680 --> 11:54.180]  But people who met me as a child.
[11:54.320 --> 11:57.060]  Who feel that they can shape my career path.
[11:57.180 --> 11:58.560]  Shape my political choices.
[11:58.780 --> 11:59.960]  Shape my bodily decisions.
[12:01.440 --> 12:03.080]  And, well, anyways.
[12:04.800 --> 12:05.280]  Yeah.
[12:05.580 --> 12:07.540]  So, for example, when we talk about being ambiguous.
[12:08.120 --> 12:19.340]  Why do I have a screenshot of an article about Nixxiom with some highlighting about Richard Branson on the left and then a thank you for coming to my TED talk on the right with an image of Ted Kaczynski?
[12:20.120 --> 12:20.820]  Who knows?
[12:20.960 --> 12:22.160]  That's my right as an American.
[12:22.980 --> 12:24.220]  Again, be ambiguous.
[12:24.580 --> 12:30.440]  Own that on social media you are not required to explain what the f*ck you mean.
[12:30.940 --> 12:33.600]  There are these people, they want to be offended on purpose.
[12:33.760 --> 12:38.160]  They want to go find your social media and find something to be offended by.
[12:38.360 --> 12:46.140]  And they want to ask clarifying questions in bad faith so they can paint you as being aggressive, mentally ill, this, that, or the other.
[12:47.620 --> 12:58.900]  Meanwhile, I don't know if people know this, back in Appalachia, we had people who were going straight up onto the radio saying things like, oh, I think you should straight up shoot somebody if they mess with a statue of, like, Columbus or whatever.
[12:59.500 --> 13:03.140]  But if I make one little joke on Twitter, done.
[13:04.300 --> 13:04.900]  So, yeah.
[13:05.040 --> 13:05.740]  Be ambiguous.
[13:07.100 --> 13:12.440]  You know, like I'm talking now, just this kind of like, you know, I'm like this cool guy.
[13:12.440 --> 13:13.540]  I like standing around.
[13:13.940 --> 13:15.680]  Just, you know, make them uncomfortable.
[13:16.380 --> 13:17.920]  But also, be specific.
[13:18.420 --> 13:19.440]  Be specific.
[13:19.780 --> 13:21.860]  Show up in their mentions.
[13:23.000 --> 13:24.460]  So, I found this.
[13:24.840 --> 13:26.500]  The New York Daily News put this out.
[13:26.660 --> 13:29.200]  Giselle, I had this whole thing.
[13:29.200 --> 13:32.200]  I would always try and learn how to say the international student's name.
[13:32.200 --> 13:33.640]  I thought it was really disrespectful.
[13:33.640 --> 13:36.020]  They'd have somebody come over from China or India or whatever.
[13:36.280 --> 13:40.400]  And then they're learning English and they would just trade up tell them, like, we're not going to learn your name.
[13:40.400 --> 13:41.800]  Your name's like Carl or whatever now.
[13:41.940 --> 13:43.260]  I thought that was really f*cking offensive.
[13:44.180 --> 13:48.500]  But this Maxwell person, never, never going to learn how to say your name.
[13:50.160 --> 13:50.880]  But, yeah.
[13:51.320 --> 13:52.120]  They tweet out.
[13:52.260 --> 13:55.120]  They're like, the British socialist still have some friends.
[13:55.860 --> 13:56.860]  And then you show up.
[13:56.940 --> 13:58.320]  He's like, I think you mean socialite.
[13:58.460 --> 13:59.940]  And they have to delete the entire post.
[14:00.140 --> 14:01.420]  Like, that kind of energy.
[14:11.060 --> 14:11.420]  Yeah.
[14:11.520 --> 14:13.800]  I'd never been to Philadelphia even for a really long time.
[14:13.800 --> 14:14.520]  I went there.
[14:15.240 --> 14:16.580]  Nobody threw batteries at me.
[14:16.660 --> 14:17.700]  It's not as bad as you'd think.
[14:19.740 --> 14:20.420]  So, yeah.
[14:20.700 --> 14:21.860]  To give, like, the actual...
[14:22.320 --> 14:22.620]  Oh, sorry.
[14:22.720 --> 14:23.540]  What slide is this?
[14:31.970 --> 14:32.330]  Okay.
[14:32.430 --> 14:32.490]  Yeah.
[14:32.590 --> 14:33.330]  The origin story.
[14:33.650 --> 14:35.690]  So, I would go out to DEFCON 17.
[14:35.990 --> 14:38.470]  I was working at CMU in some random lab.
[14:39.610 --> 14:41.210]  And I didn't even get PTO.
[14:41.510 --> 14:42.930]  So, it's like I very rarely would take it.
[14:42.950 --> 14:44.170]  I was doing a ton of overtime.
[14:44.870 --> 14:46.790]  I was like, eh, can I take off for DEFCON?
[14:46.890 --> 14:48.370]  They're basically like, you want to not be paid?
[14:48.370 --> 14:48.690]  Sure.
[14:49.390 --> 14:49.970]  Go ahead.
[14:50.530 --> 14:51.570]  And I went out there.
[14:51.790 --> 14:53.830]  I had a little expungement.
[14:55.830 --> 14:57.710]  And I wasn't really supposed to be drinking.
[14:58.050 --> 15:02.730]  And they basically told me, you know, what we really don't want you to do is like drink 40 beers and fight somebody.
[15:02.830 --> 15:05.530]  But we want you to be professional network, all that good stuff.
[15:06.350 --> 15:13.050]  But at the time, if you were a DEFCON newbie, in order to get your hacker name and all that, you had to go up on stage and do a shot of alcohol.
[15:13.450 --> 15:16.450]  Now, number one, some people are like alcoholics or Muslims or whatever.
[15:16.570 --> 15:17.970]  They just don't want to drink alcohol.
[15:17.970 --> 15:19.510]  And it shouldn't be a combined thing.
[15:19.790 --> 15:23.870]  And then I come back at DEFCON 18 and it's like, well, I could do a shot if I wanted to.
[15:24.290 --> 15:26.230]  And, you know, like I'm free now.
[15:26.470 --> 15:32.690]  And some of the ex-Navy SEAL people who do their security or whatever came up and screamed in my face like, you're not a newbie.
[15:33.090 --> 15:36.230]  And so by that point, it's like, well, now I've graduated.
[15:36.230 --> 15:38.410]  I just have a bachelor's in information science.
[15:38.530 --> 15:39.810]  I don't want to become a librarian.
[15:39.810 --> 15:41.010]  I don't know what to do here.
[15:44.150 --> 15:44.870]  But, yeah.
[15:48.030 --> 15:49.730]  I forget where I was even going with this.
[15:50.050 --> 15:50.690]  Okay, yeah, okay.
[15:50.850 --> 15:52.910]  Now it's, of course, and now it's freezing.
[15:53.390 --> 15:53.570]  Okay.
[15:53.810 --> 15:54.430]  So, yeah.
[15:54.630 --> 15:58.490]  Around this time, you know, you've got Julian Assange coming out with the WikiLeaks.
[15:59.310 --> 16:02.290]  At the time, we didn't know that he was just a real jerk.
[16:02.290 --> 16:06.910]  But he's also a real jerk that we shouldn't invent crazy loopholes in the law.
[16:06.930 --> 16:09.050]  They're going to be used against people who aren't as big of jerks.
[16:09.150 --> 16:10.190]  That's all I'm going to say on that guy.
[16:11.430 --> 16:11.930]  So, yeah.
[16:12.090 --> 16:12.830]  What the f*ck, Greg?
[16:13.210 --> 16:14.270]  You know, what the f*ck kind of thing.
[16:14.690 --> 16:16.150]  Also, a lot of Americans references.
[16:16.430 --> 16:20.230]  I did not watch the Americans until like 2018.
[16:21.250 --> 16:23.670]  But some of these feds really like to quote that thing.
[16:23.670 --> 16:24.010]  Yeah.
[16:26.130 --> 16:26.570]  Yeah.
[16:26.570 --> 16:27.350]  So, what the f*ck?
[16:27.490 --> 16:29.050]  What we're talking about is three things.
[16:29.190 --> 16:31.170]  Cults, crypto, and cognitive psychology.
[16:31.830 --> 16:43.730]  What I did back in 2016 is I completely delete my Facebook because I was talking about maybe doing something with a clearance and they tell me, well, if you want to do a security clearance, you're going to have to fill out what's called an SF-86.
[16:44.210 --> 16:49.030]  And everybody who's on that Facebook friends list is going to be listed as a foreign contact.
[16:50.150 --> 16:51.370]  Well, wait a second.
[16:51.370 --> 16:54.370]  I built my career on being a censorship circumvention expert.
[16:54.530 --> 16:59.630]  Some of these people don't necessarily want to broadcast that they know me, to put it mildly.
[16:59.630 --> 17:06.050]  Some of them are from countries like, say, Iran or hopefully not North Korea.
[17:06.650 --> 17:10.990]  And so, it was a thing where I come back to Appalachia.
[17:11.150 --> 17:12.070]  Trump has been elected.
[17:12.490 --> 17:13.650]  I delete the Facebook.
[17:13.890 --> 17:24.470]  And then what I did is I started going down to the township library, teaching myself how to hack again, really abusing that Wi-Fi, and using the interlibrary loans to get like 20 different books on Ted Bundy.
[17:25.190 --> 17:29.690]  Ted Bundy's big secret, by the way, he did a bunch of volunteer work for the Republicans.
[17:30.190 --> 17:39.610]  He got somebody to write him a letter to go to law school, and then he went to a shit-tier law school in like Utah or something, and then had a mental breakdown that even at shit-tier law schools, you have to do work.
[17:39.690 --> 17:41.570]  You just won't ever work off the debt.
[17:42.950 --> 17:43.550]  So, yeah.
[17:43.830 --> 17:44.430]  Be ambiguous.
[17:46.090 --> 17:46.750]  Selective truths.
[17:50.710 --> 17:55.450]  So, the idea here, and I'm articulating poorly, is what I call a sin flood.
[17:55.590 --> 17:56.210]  S-I-N.
[17:56.410 --> 17:58.390]  Basically, you're just throwing facts at people.
[17:58.530 --> 17:58.830]  Rapid.
[18:00.410 --> 18:01.350]  And it's just like...
[18:01.350 --> 18:14.570]  To give context, because I'm realizing not everybody spent their time binging the Americans and trying to pass the OSCP, this character is talking to her KGB handler, who is like a full-on Stalinist.
[18:15.210 --> 18:17.290]  And apparently, I forget what the plot line was.
[18:17.310 --> 18:18.470]  They put her kids in danger or something.
[18:18.530 --> 18:20.390]  She's like, I'm going to murder the KGB or something.
[18:21.870 --> 18:23.030]  That one's a bit too much.
[18:24.150 --> 18:26.190]  Or, conversely, you can flip it around and be specific.
[18:26.450 --> 18:28.110]  You avoid references.
[18:28.250 --> 18:30.030]  You speak simply.
[18:30.150 --> 18:31.510]  You use logic.
[18:31.810 --> 18:32.190]  Or.
[18:32.430 --> 18:32.710]  And.
[18:32.830 --> 18:33.270]  Not.
[18:33.430 --> 18:36.530]  And rapidly escalate if they misunderstand on purpose.
[18:36.810 --> 18:38.650]  So, here we've got a scene from the Americans.
[18:39.330 --> 18:45.010]  The character on the bottom, he's not in like the little, you know, phone room, communications room or whatever.
[18:45.010 --> 18:48.770]  And he's trying to ask something of one of the communications people.
[18:49.130 --> 18:50.190]  So, the guy opens his door.
[18:50.330 --> 18:55.390]  He says, is President Reagan personally scaling our walls in his cowboy hat?
[18:56.110 --> 18:56.490]  No.
[18:57.490 --> 18:59.390]  Never knock on my radio room door again.
[19:00.050 --> 19:03.470]  That's what I'm talking about when I say be specific if you want to be a good propagandist.
[19:03.650 --> 19:06.550]  I sent out this meme at one point when I had my Twitter.
[19:06.550 --> 19:13.370]  Later, I had the city of Pittsburgh police come and bang on my door and claim that Vanguard had done a wellness check on me.
[19:13.430 --> 19:19.370]  At the time, I thought it was because I sold shares out of a Vanguard account, but it may have been a reference to some neo-Nazi group.
[19:19.510 --> 19:20.250]  I don't know.
[19:20.410 --> 19:20.990]  I don't care.
[19:25.270 --> 19:27.570]  Or, you know, another example of this.
[19:27.710 --> 19:33.330]  I was the author of, oh, there should be an E there, but I was working on this quite late.
[19:35.350 --> 19:36.590]  Pedagogy of the Depressed.
[19:36.730 --> 19:40.670]  This was an article I wrote about being a special education student in the 90s.
[19:41.590 --> 19:51.450]  Boing Boing was going to bring those comments back, import them in, and decided not to because, it's my understanding, they're just embarrassed about what went down.
[19:51.870 --> 19:53.690]  They didn't pay me for the article.
[19:53.690 --> 19:55.450]  They put it out at like 6 a.m.
[19:55.610 --> 19:57.330]  without giving me a final say-so on it.
[19:57.810 --> 20:04.270]  And then some of my old teachers showed up in the comments section to basically question whether I should...
[20:04.270 --> 20:05.950]  Well, you can't see the scar here.
[20:06.250 --> 20:09.550]  Or if somebody was telling me earlier, they were telling me about somebody who...
[20:09.550 --> 20:15.230]  I won't name them because I won't want to violate their privacy, but apparently before they died during COVID, they were doing a bunch of cocaine.
[20:16.890 --> 20:17.330]  Anyways.
[20:18.850 --> 20:19.850]  Case study time.
[20:20.170 --> 20:20.970]  Consent matters.
[20:22.550 --> 20:26.270]  So, I got a lot of phone calls during COVID.
[20:26.910 --> 20:31.190]  People have this attitude in Pennsylvania of it's a two-party consent state.
[20:31.610 --> 20:38.150]  So, I can say whatever the f*ck I want on the phone, and then you can call the police and maybe they'll do something about it kind of thing.
[20:39.150 --> 20:42.810]  It's a very manipulative thing to do.
[20:43.010 --> 20:48.370]  You should not be changing what you say based on whether somebody could record you.
[20:48.370 --> 20:51.210]  You shouldn't be engaging in this weird gaslighty behavior.
[20:51.870 --> 20:55.450]  And the thing is, you can flip that around.
[20:55.610 --> 20:58.890]  Because remember, felons can't own guns.
[20:59.170 --> 21:05.250]  To put this into context, a lot of this energy bubbled up during the insurrection, but it had been going for a while.
[21:05.570 --> 21:09.810]  So, we've got these people who just kind of act insane.
[21:10.270 --> 21:14.830]  And then, they do so many things that could get them locked up.
[21:14.830 --> 21:16.790]  And I don't understand why we tolerate it.
[21:18.750 --> 21:23.090]  So, back when I worked in D.C., I told them on the way out, I was like, you should be more worried about free expression.
[21:23.270 --> 21:25.530]  You should be more worried about people using their First Amendment rights.
[21:25.550 --> 21:28.890]  You're obsessed with this idea, like, I might not write you a letter of recommendation.
[21:29.270 --> 21:32.110]  I might say that you should never work in public policy again.
[21:32.230 --> 21:33.690]  It's like, well, you know what?
[21:33.690 --> 21:40.410]  If you continue on this path, they are going to come with guns into the Capitol and try and just take over Congress.
[21:40.890 --> 21:42.350]  And that's actually what they did.
[21:44.570 --> 21:45.170]  So, yeah.
[21:45.270 --> 21:51.850]  In all seriousness, if you are in Pennsylvania, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, you've got this two-party consent thing going on.
[21:51.990 --> 21:53.050]  But it's kind of useless.
[21:53.250 --> 21:55.330]  People are, you know, doing SS7 and all this good stuff.
[21:56.110 --> 21:56.810]  Consent matters.
[21:57.310 --> 21:58.510]  SS7 is a thing.
[21:58.770 --> 22:00.250]  We had a thing back in Pittsburgh.
[22:01.510 --> 22:07.150]  The Health Department and 211 learned that calls were intercepted at a carrier level.
[22:07.150 --> 22:11.630]  So, we had this thing going on where some poor bastard's trying to get, like, food stamps or whatever.
[22:11.790 --> 22:14.250]  And then some phone scammer jacks the call.
[22:15.370 --> 22:18.730]  Apparently, what they were doing is they'd actually get them the food stamps or whatever, allegedly.
[22:19.050 --> 22:20.570]  And then also take the information.
[22:20.670 --> 22:23.210]  But sometimes they'd straight up just take their information and hang up on them.
[22:24.510 --> 22:26.210]  These calls never made it to 211.
[22:26.330 --> 22:27.150]  Like, this is a thing.
[22:27.430 --> 22:32.910]  Imagine that you are, like, sitting in a coffee shop and a literal f*cking Nazi comes up and harasses you.
[22:33.050 --> 22:34.650]  You start walking down the street.
[22:34.650 --> 22:35.810]  You try and call 911.
[22:36.450 --> 22:40.090]  And then the call goes to, like, some random person on your street.
[22:40.330 --> 22:44.430]  Like, somebody sitting in, like, a lawn chair on the corner rather than going to 911 dispatch.
[22:44.910 --> 22:46.870]  That was the life I was living during COVID.
[22:48.670 --> 22:49.450]  And, yeah, I don't know.
[22:49.490 --> 22:50.750]  I guess I should call the FBI or something.
[22:50.810 --> 22:53.090]  They don't seem to give a f*ck about anything except running up on the Capitol.
[22:53.850 --> 22:56.350]  So, again, this is where we start getting into the good stuff.
[22:56.470 --> 22:57.390]  Getting into the good stuff.
[22:59.090 --> 23:00.510]  So, you know, here's an example of this.
[23:00.830 --> 23:02.290]  Propaganda is a selective telling of truth.
[23:02.410 --> 23:05.030]  This idea of throwing people, putting them on tilt.
[23:05.670 --> 23:06.590]  Oh, because I forgot that.
[23:06.670 --> 23:09.250]  I had also told people, like, welcome to the cyberpunk helpscape.
[23:09.490 --> 23:10.130]  Learn poker.
[23:10.450 --> 23:11.410]  Like, learn a trade.
[23:11.610 --> 23:13.850]  Because, you know, there's not going to be computers for a while.
[23:15.250 --> 23:16.570]  So, this is a real thing.
[23:16.570 --> 23:17.790]  I walk into a graveyard.
[23:17.950 --> 23:20.270]  I'm telling somebody, like, I'm sick of these Nazis.
[23:21.270 --> 23:25.550]  And, you know, they're just like, we're going to make this woman senior advisor to the Norwegian military.
[23:27.390 --> 23:30.710]  I've got an expungement from knife crime for a lawyer I found via a therapist.
[23:30.870 --> 23:32.910]  I was in some kind of motorcycle club.
[23:33.150 --> 23:44.430]  And after that, I started my PhD where I focused on designing usable anonymity tools for dissidents in oppressive places like the Middle East and Midtown Manhattan, Occupy Wall Street.
[23:44.590 --> 23:49.530]  By the way, they are unionizing the Starbucks in Bloomfield, Little Italy and Pittsburgh.
[23:49.870 --> 23:50.910]  So, hell yeah.
[23:51.150 --> 23:53.190]  One of my first girlfriends was a Starbucks barista.
[23:53.430 --> 23:55.170]  They need to treat them better.
[23:57.690 --> 23:58.910]  Here's another good one.
[23:59.210 --> 24:04.430]  I told the head of some weird obscure lab they need to stop busting drug dealers and go after the pedophiles.
[24:04.550 --> 24:08.110]  Then some dumb feds got their heads blown off shortly after in Florida.
[24:08.110 --> 24:09.230]  Did people see this?
[24:09.350 --> 24:10.210]  The Sunrise shooting?
[24:10.370 --> 24:14.470]  Biggest loss of FBI since 9-11 apparently.
[24:15.250 --> 24:19.470]  They were going and raiding some absolute bad person.
[24:20.050 --> 24:22.590]  And this was like two months after I had this conversation.
[24:22.690 --> 24:24.210]  I was absolutely f*cking livid.
[24:24.310 --> 24:27.670]  I literally walked my ass down to a university and just like, why?
[24:27.970 --> 24:33.290]  Why do you care about like some guy who's selling shrooms on the Internet when these f*cking people...
[24:33.290 --> 24:34.710]  Because I don't know if people know this.
[24:34.810 --> 24:36.310]  Tour used to be really slow.
[24:36.310 --> 24:39.930]  It was really f*cking useless when I started doing this usability research.
[24:40.110 --> 24:41.370]  They've added a lot of capacity.
[24:41.730 --> 24:45.170]  I didn't really play around on the dark web very much.
[24:45.250 --> 24:49.610]  I was more interested in it as like an open source intelligence tool, a censorship circumvention tool.
[24:49.970 --> 24:55.890]  And when I was attempting OSCP, I went out onto the dark web and some people are real assholes and deserve to die.
[24:59.280 --> 25:01.560]  So yeah, this is from Hard Candy, by the way.
[25:01.860 --> 25:02.900]  This is...
[25:03.520 --> 25:04.240]  What's her face?
[25:04.520 --> 25:07.280]  She's pointing the gun at the guy telling him, you know, hang yourself.
[25:07.780 --> 25:08.740]  That's the end of the movie.
[25:11.320 --> 25:11.920]  Consent matters.
[25:12.100 --> 25:12.860]  I'm not a lawyer.
[25:13.800 --> 25:15.740]  So let's talk about the state for a minute.
[25:16.060 --> 25:17.820]  This on the left is a meme I made.
[25:17.900 --> 25:18.880]  I didn't make the one on the right.
[25:20.680 --> 25:21.660]  So this is Greek.
[25:22.460 --> 25:23.400]  Render unto Caesar.
[25:23.980 --> 25:25.140]  Because I meet a lot of these people.
[25:25.200 --> 25:26.720]  They think that taxation is theft.
[25:26.920 --> 25:27.920]  And it's like, well, okay.
[25:28.400 --> 25:31.180]  I think you can move to Syria and live in the autonomous zone or whatever.
[25:35.430 --> 25:36.390]  This is something I found.
[25:36.390 --> 25:38.990]  I was at the hospital visiting my dad at one point.
[25:39.030 --> 25:42.610]  And I pulled up that they've got these Bible verses.
[25:42.610 --> 25:44.930]  I think this is actually a really interesting concept, this idea.
[25:45.090 --> 25:45.730]  Render under Caesar.
[25:46.030 --> 25:46.790]  Render under God.
[25:46.970 --> 25:48.670]  Like, this idea, you have to have something.
[25:48.870 --> 25:52.230]  Even if you're doing this Burning Man crap, we're all going to give each other beads.
[25:52.670 --> 25:55.870]  Well, you know, you've got to give some of the beads to, like, the guy who runs a camp or whatever.
[26:00.980 --> 26:03.900]  Basically means there's no such thing as free money from the government.
[26:04.060 --> 26:04.460]  Not truly.
[26:04.680 --> 26:08.880]  Now, we can set things up that if you're having hard times, we've got, like, a social safety net.
[26:10.300 --> 26:13.420]  But it also means purchase private security.
[26:14.300 --> 26:16.380]  I was at a protest at one point.
[26:16.540 --> 26:18.960]  I do not go to protests.
[26:19.220 --> 26:22.240]  I have designed technologies to enable them.
[26:22.480 --> 26:27.820]  But if I am at a protest, it is because I think they're literally going to start shooting.
[26:28.340 --> 26:30.920]  It means this is on, like, Donkey Kong.
[26:31.180 --> 26:33.660]  We need things to change.
[26:33.780 --> 26:35.120]  And that's what ended up happening.
[26:35.120 --> 26:39.240]  They had a literal riot outside the former mayor of Pittsburgh's house.
[26:39.620 --> 26:40.940]  Well, not a literal riot.
[26:41.120 --> 26:42.620]  They went and had a peaceful protest.
[26:42.760 --> 26:44.280]  They started tear gassing the shit out of them.
[26:44.820 --> 26:48.260]  One of the people who got tear gassed apparently now is, like, the mayor's secretary or something.
[26:48.280 --> 26:49.660]  So that's f*cking hilarious.
[26:50.260 --> 26:52.100]  And we've got a new mayor of Pittsburgh now.
[26:52.100 --> 26:52.720]  He's black.
[26:53.060 --> 26:57.420]  Because people kept telling me, you know, you aren't, like, involved in your community.
[26:57.420 --> 26:59.480]  Maybe you should do some volunteer work for the Democrats.
[26:59.780 --> 27:01.200]  You're too far to the left.
[27:01.660 --> 27:02.440]  It's like, whatever.
[27:10.180 --> 27:13.560]  And, again, truth is an absolute defense against libel.
[27:14.080 --> 27:16.520]  The UK style is you've got to prove you're correct.
[27:16.520 --> 27:17.400]  And that's difficult.
[27:18.160 --> 27:19.500]  There was a whole case about this.
[27:19.560 --> 27:20.360]  This McLibel thing?
[27:20.440 --> 27:20.900]  Look it up.
[27:21.640 --> 27:24.120]  Because, again, I really cannot emphasize enough.
[27:25.680 --> 27:27.540]  I've got wounds.
[27:27.920 --> 27:29.540]  Like, literal wounds.
[27:30.060 --> 27:31.660]  Because of some of the crap that's gone down.
[27:31.680 --> 27:33.160]  Because of the things I've said on the Internet.
[27:33.160 --> 27:35.800]  Not things like everybody should get in an oven.
[27:36.140 --> 27:37.700]  But things positive.
[27:38.700 --> 27:45.700]  And I'm really, really sad that I do not have the traffic and analytics data that I would have liked to show during this presentation.
[27:46.100 --> 27:52.300]  Because, apparently, if you get knocked off Twitter and you do your takeout, the one thing you don't get is that view data.
[27:52.300 --> 27:53.040]  How many people?
[27:55.420 --> 27:58.440]  Because I can't articulate this well because I don't have the data anymore.
[27:58.620 --> 28:02.660]  But there would be situations where maybe you only get, like, three, four, five hearts.
[28:02.920 --> 28:04.180]  Maybe one retweet.
[28:04.380 --> 28:06.840]  But you're getting, like, 500,000 views.
[28:07.040 --> 28:08.080]  It's like, they saw that.
[28:08.580 --> 28:10.440]  Like, the Jane Maxwell one.
[28:10.600 --> 28:11.920]  Where it's like, I think you meant socialite.
[28:12.200 --> 28:13.600]  A lot of people saw that tweet.
[28:15.600 --> 28:19.580]  And then the other thing is, we have this post-Columbine threat model.
[28:19.840 --> 28:22.360]  Somebody's going to interact with me when I don't want them.
[28:23.100 --> 28:25.700]  Greg is going to come and he's going to DM me.
[28:25.780 --> 28:27.500]  Or he's going to show up at my house or something.
[28:27.660 --> 28:29.420]  And this is our entire model.
[28:29.600 --> 28:34.120]  It's like, we're going to make sure that you do not interact with somebody without their permission.
[28:35.200 --> 28:38.140]  And that's how we've structured all of this neoliberal society.
[28:38.340 --> 28:39.260]  So flip it around.
[28:39.700 --> 28:40.600]  Repeat after me.
[28:40.720 --> 28:41.660]  This is your new mantra.
[28:42.140 --> 28:43.840]  Karen, I'm not your caregiver.
[28:44.180 --> 28:45.900]  And I'd prefer not to interact.
[28:47.100 --> 28:53.640]  You need to take this language that these weird alt-right people have developed and flip it back on them.
[28:53.900 --> 29:04.500]  If you run into somebody from, say, your old Catholic church who feels entitled to comment on how you're living your life, just say to them, why do you feel the need to come and touch me just because you met me as a child?
[29:04.660 --> 29:10.780]  What is it, by the way, with people who went to Catholic churches in the suburban Pittsburgh that they'll just walk up and start rubbing your head and stuff?
[29:10.880 --> 29:11.700]  It's like, it's weird.
[29:11.840 --> 29:12.320]  Don't do that.
[29:15.420 --> 29:20.280]  But one thing I am really interested in is I hear all these people, they talk about the idea of states' rights or whatever.
[29:21.320 --> 29:24.080]  So how does that intersect with a computer?
[29:24.760 --> 29:29.300]  Because, you know, as most people know, when you send packets, they're crossing state lines most of the time.
[29:30.760 --> 29:34.180]  So maybe we can apply this model more if you're hosting a server in Pennsylvania.
[29:34.400 --> 29:35.540]  That's when things get interesting.
[29:35.700 --> 29:39.500]  And this is when the talk goes from being more of a 4chan rant to actually being substantive.
[29:40.700 --> 29:52.080]  So, no conviction shall be had in any prosecution for the publication of papers relating to the official conduct of officers or men in public capacity or to any matter proper for public investigation or information.
[29:52.080 --> 30:02.520]  So to give you a specific example, distributed denial of secrets, one of the things that they published was a list of people in, I think it was Oaf Keefers or a few other right-wing groups.
[30:03.060 --> 30:09.400]  And then our Pittsburgh City Paper did an article about how some of them were police officers or employees of the city and things like that.
[30:10.100 --> 30:15.020]  I think it's really interesting to sort of flip this states' rights thing around and go like, Oh, you know what?
[30:15.200 --> 30:16.300]  Yeah, I'm for states' rights.
[30:16.440 --> 30:19.340]  Let's put the f*cking onion server in Pennsylvania and blow your shit up.
[30:21.140 --> 30:22.080]  Here's another good one.
[30:22.200 --> 30:23.800]  You know how we were talking about two-party consent?
[30:24.460 --> 30:26.960]  There's a part of the PA code.
[30:27.140 --> 30:31.400]  They say exceptions to prohibition of interception and disclosure of communications.
[30:31.760 --> 30:43.300]  Any victim or witness to a crime of violence that may even just may occur, now you can start recording calls.
[30:43.460 --> 30:49.380]  So imagine that you've got somebody who phoned you up and they say, for example, I don't want you going to protests.
[30:49.840 --> 30:53.560]  And if you go to a protest, I'm going to come and run you over with my car.
[30:54.560 --> 30:58.060]  And then you get really angry and you report them to the FBI or whatever.
[30:58.340 --> 31:02.200]  And it all boils down to basically he said versus she said kind of thing.
[31:02.720 --> 31:10.540]  So then imagine you start recording this person's calls and then they're going to be like, Oh, well, you're in Pennsylvania, so I want to hit you with a felony for recording me threatening you.
[31:11.840 --> 31:19.620]  There is a long, long, long list of offenses in Pennsylvania that make you able to suddenly record those phone calls.
[31:21.400 --> 31:22.200]  Eco-terrorism.
[31:22.600 --> 31:23.360]  That's interesting.
[31:25.240 --> 31:26.660]  I'm not even going to list all these off.
[31:26.780 --> 31:28.580]  But there are so many exceptions.
[31:28.780 --> 31:32.620]  And the thing is, I have had conversations with these milquetoast Democrats for over 10 years.
[31:32.760 --> 31:35.840]  They are obsessed with this idea that they can say whatever they want on the telephone.
[31:36.040 --> 31:38.480]  It's protected by this legal mechanism.
[31:39.280 --> 31:41.880]  And then they have like this offline thing that they can do.
[31:41.880 --> 31:45.140]  I don't know if any of you have ever worked for like an NGO or a law firm.
[31:45.480 --> 31:48.980]  But you'll see people like picking up the phone and talking to each other as they're emailing.
[31:49.040 --> 31:50.120]  They have like this back channel.
[31:50.320 --> 31:51.900]  It's the most annoying crap.
[31:52.880 --> 31:54.340]  And then here's another good one.
[31:56.160 --> 31:57.720]  Intent to deprive thereof.
[31:57.880 --> 32:04.400]  A person commits an offense if they unlawfully access or exceed their authorization with the intent to deprive.
[32:05.080 --> 32:07.800]  So, you know, for example, let's say you're somebody from Internet Archive.
[32:07.960 --> 32:09.340]  And you're willing to pull a bunch of shit down.
[32:10.080 --> 32:13.480]  Maybe find a library in Pennsylvania to do it.
[32:13.580 --> 32:15.400]  Because as I'm reading this, I'm not a lawyer.
[32:16.440 --> 32:19.700]  But as I'm reading, again, I really can't emphasize enough, I'm not a lawyer.
[32:21.040 --> 32:29.420]  But it sounds to me like they're saying if you're just doing something like scraping, that this is giving you some pretty good legal basis for it not being a computer crime.
[32:30.900 --> 32:35.840]  And again, we've also gotten the state constitution that we're allowed to, you know, do these things about public officials.
[32:39.460 --> 32:42.800]  And then they have this thing here, I need to find out about this.
[32:43.260 --> 32:47.420]  Attorney General shall have concurrent prosecution jurisdiction.
[32:49.100 --> 32:53.440]  I'm not clear if that means that the Attorney General can also prosecute.
[32:54.200 --> 32:58.520]  Or if it means they can override the more local county district attorney.
[32:59.420 --> 33:09.640]  But to be clear, because I'm realizing I flew through a lot of this a lot more quickly than I intended.
[33:13.780 --> 33:25.160]  To put it all together, what I'm trying to get at is this idea is we've got a state constitution in Pennsylvania that seems to protect the right to scrape information from the Internet.
[33:25.640 --> 33:29.760]  It seems to say that if you're interacting with a computer system...
[33:30.300 --> 33:30.700]  Sorry.
[33:32.580 --> 33:35.140]  When I tested this, it was not...
[33:40.880 --> 33:48.420]  We've got a situation where, at least if you're in Pennsylvania, according to the state constitution and combining that with...
[33:48.420 --> 33:53.620]  Because again, we're going to read our state constitution, and that should be informing the laws back and forth.
[33:54.500 --> 33:58.620]  So it looks to me like they're saying if you're not depriving somebody, if you're not knocking a server offline...
[34:02.200 --> 34:03.320]  It even seems to me...
[34:03.320 --> 34:03.700]  Because look at this.
[34:03.800 --> 34:08.280]  It's saying unlawfully accesses or exceeds authorization with intent to deprive.
[34:09.340 --> 34:18.200]  So does that mean that if I am, you know, doing some web application testing, fuzzing, doing a little Nmap scanning, things like that...
[34:18.200 --> 34:24.760]  A lot of the things that we've really argued about at the federal level about this idea of what is, like, good security research...
[34:24.760 --> 34:34.900]  It sounds like it's written in plain English in the PA code that if you're not depriving somebody, if you're not crashing their system, if you're figuring out a bug or something, you're good.
[34:38.390 --> 34:46.290]  And, you know, I'm sorry I rambled a bit, but again, this was really kind of...
[34:46.290 --> 34:59.860]  I wasn't even sure if I should do this talk, but I am frankly just completely, completely tired of this model of policy, civil society, whatever...
[35:00.720 --> 35:05.860]  Where we need to hide basic things like, I'm queer...
[35:05.860 --> 35:07.020]  I'm just speaking for myself.
[35:07.200 --> 35:10.200]  I'm queer, I'm autistic, I'm a trauma survivor.
[35:10.480 --> 35:18.860]  I have bounced from precarious position to precarious position for over ten years trying to put things together so that things like distributed denial of secrets can occur.
[35:19.160 --> 35:20.560]  The WikiLeaks stuff...
[35:20.560 --> 35:22.740]  They were doing the Swiss bank stuff a while back.
[35:23.000 --> 35:23.920]  That was good.
[35:24.100 --> 35:25.260]  That guy went off the rails.
[35:27.660 --> 35:31.260]  What I'm gonna do is...
[35:34.400 --> 35:35.640]  I think what I'll do is I'll open it up.
[35:35.760 --> 35:36.500]  Does anybody have questions?
[35:37.220 --> 35:37.940]  Because this is...
[35:37.940 --> 35:38.180]  Yeah, sure.
[35:38.180 --> 35:39.020]  I have a question.
[35:47.260 --> 35:48.460]  I don't think the microphone's on.
[35:49.140 --> 35:50.960]  I don't know what happens with the microphone.
[35:53.240 --> 35:54.300]  So I'll just talk to you.
[35:55.180 --> 35:59.480]  Before you were talking about a specific incident where you...
[36:04.300 --> 36:04.800]  Oh, yeah.
[36:05.000 --> 36:05.420]  I'm sorry.
[36:05.500 --> 36:08.280]  I wasn't able to get into this as much because, again, I lost my Twitter.
[36:08.340 --> 36:09.050]  I don't have a lot of these things.
[36:09.160 --> 36:14.660]  But the idea is that when you're doing, like, let's say you're sending an email, you're speaking in the clear.
[36:15.170 --> 36:16.520]  Like, people seem to...
[36:16.520 --> 36:20.200]  Like, the forward emails around and also just on the protocol level.
[36:20.260 --> 36:21.260]  It's a clear text protocol.
[36:21.800 --> 36:24.130]  And then you have this thing with SS7.
[36:24.260 --> 36:26.200]  I don't think I articulated this well.
[36:27.360 --> 36:28.740]  It used to be...
[36:28.740 --> 36:31.960]  I saw the Paget...
[36:31.960 --> 36:35.880]  I'm purposely avoiding the first name because I can't remember what their new one is.
[36:35.880 --> 36:37.240]  I don't want to dead name somebody.
[36:38.540 --> 36:38.940]  The...
[36:38.940 --> 36:42.260]  But they did this talk about intercepting cell phone communications a long time ago.
[36:42.340 --> 36:44.880]  And it used to be that the equipment was really expensive.
[36:47.540 --> 36:53.160]  And now it's moved to this model where anybody who has about five grand can set up an MV...
[36:53.160 --> 36:55.630]  What's called an MVNO, like a mobile reseller.
[36:57.590 --> 36:58.400]  So basically...
[36:58.400 --> 37:01.280]  And then you combine that with some of the stuff I read about...
[37:01.280 --> 37:03.820]  If you read some of the stuff on the intercept in a few other places.
[37:04.130 --> 37:07.820]  When they broke into Belgicom, they took some of the data they took.
[37:08.210 --> 37:10.540]  If you read about how 4G encryption is done.
[37:10.710 --> 37:13.360]  There's this one, like cryptographic primitive or whatever.
[37:13.940 --> 37:14.520]  That that...
[37:14.520 --> 37:15.170]  Like, if you have...
[37:15.170 --> 37:16.170]  It's encrypted.
[37:16.480 --> 37:17.230]  But if you have like...
[37:17.230 --> 37:19.380]  There's like one primitive that's like from the manufacturer.
[37:19.550 --> 37:21.070]  Another from something else and you're combining them together.
[37:21.610 --> 37:24.040]  That basically they stole the thing that when you combine them together.
[37:24.150 --> 37:25.820]  Like, you could decrypt communications basically.
[37:25.820 --> 37:31.840]  Basically, just like if you had a WPA-PSK network, if you get that key, to kind of oversimplify.
[37:32.420 --> 37:39.780]  So basically, people have this mental model of, if I'm walking around, if I'm using 4G or whatever, it might be a little more secure to make a telephone call.
[37:39.900 --> 37:41.550]  I would run into people in Washington, D.C.
[37:41.610 --> 37:44.440]  They'd be like, oh, I don't have a smartphone.
[37:45.400 --> 37:47.500]  I've just got this 2G no key attitude.
[37:48.420 --> 37:54.040]  So that's what I'm talking about when I'm talking about speaking in the clear, is the idea is sometimes you will very purposefully...
[37:54.040 --> 37:55.730]  I will give you a specific example.
[37:56.590 --> 37:58.500]  I felt like I was being stalked.
[37:59.380 --> 38:03.900]  So I send a text message to somebody saying, meet me, coffee shop A.
[38:04.960 --> 38:06.230]  You know, you're going to pick me up.
[38:06.400 --> 38:07.650]  We're going to go someplace.
[38:07.840 --> 38:08.920]  We're going to have ourselves a nice little date.
[38:10.130 --> 38:11.650]  Then I text them on Signal.
[38:12.400 --> 38:13.500]  Actually changed my mind.
[38:13.980 --> 38:15.300]  We're going to coffee shop B.
[38:16.500 --> 38:18.500]  And that one I had to get on a bus to go to.
[38:18.960 --> 38:21.110]  So then it's like I walk out of my apartment.
[38:21.110 --> 38:24.320]  I go in front of where I was supposed to meet somebody.
[38:24.500 --> 38:26.690]  I've got weirdo McStalker sitting outside.
[38:27.020 --> 38:29.230]  And on a long enough timeline, I notice things like this.
[38:29.840 --> 38:35.190]  And then you immediately get onto a bus and go just like two streets over and get off at the other place.
[38:35.480 --> 38:44.050]  Now, what has to happen is if it's not like an intelligence service, if it's just like weird ass, like QAnon type people, they're not that organized.
[38:44.050 --> 38:47.960]  So then this person has to get up from where they were previously and come to you.
[38:48.280 --> 38:52.880]  So the idea is sort of that there are these people that they abuse their access.
[38:54.050 --> 38:58.150]  That it's my perception that what people are doing is like you saw the thing with Twitter, right?
[38:58.230 --> 39:00.050]  Where people were abusing access to DMs or whatever.
[39:00.250 --> 39:04.040]  I think when you see something like that at one company, it's happening at all of them.
[39:04.480 --> 39:06.670]  And I think that you're also having things like...
[39:06.670 --> 39:09.670]  I was just discussing with the Belgicom thing that basically often people can...
[39:09.670 --> 39:11.340]  Like, I don't think that just happened at Belgicom.
[39:11.380 --> 39:13.400]  I think that's happened with a lot of mobile carriers.
[39:14.050 --> 39:17.900]  And so one thing you could do is you could throw a VPN on your phone.
[39:17.940 --> 39:20.110]  But then you're funneling all the traffic through a VPN.
[39:20.420 --> 39:25.110]  We had a criminal case I read about back in Appalachia.
[39:25.150 --> 39:27.610]  There was a guy who was uploading CSAM to the dark web.
[39:27.880 --> 39:30.710]  And apparently he was using a VPN when he did this.
[39:30.710 --> 39:36.630]  If you read, if you're using Tor over a VPN, like you're collapsing everything...
[39:36.630 --> 39:37.190]  Oh, sorry.
[39:37.400 --> 39:38.980]  You're collapsing everything together.
[39:39.400 --> 39:40.690]  Tor is circuit-based.
[39:40.900 --> 39:45.190]  If you open up Tor and I go to like CNN.com and I go to Al Jazeera.
[39:45.440 --> 39:48.920]  I'm like doing my, you know, daily like read the news from seven different perspectives.
[39:49.280 --> 39:50.420]  Everybody does this, right?
[39:50.520 --> 39:51.340]  You read Russia Today.
[39:51.340 --> 39:55.170]  You read NPR and then you read Al Jazeera to make sure you understand the world.
[39:55.860 --> 39:56.050]  Yeah.
[39:59.190 --> 40:01.980]  So, yeah, like is this making sense?
[40:02.090 --> 40:10.110]  This idea of, number one, that when you are speaking in the clear, how to really communicate effectively.
[40:10.400 --> 40:12.000]  And again, a lot of this got dropped.
[40:12.110 --> 40:21.460]  I was going to talk a lot about some techniques that I developed to sort of, what if like your actual phone is being examined by like border guards, something like that.
[40:21.460 --> 40:24.070]  Sort of like preparing for like a trip Moscow to China.
[40:24.750 --> 40:27.340]  I decided not to talk about those techniques.
[40:27.500 --> 40:29.040]  That's why this talk is all over the place.
[40:29.130 --> 40:32.020]  I decided not to publicly discuss a lot of that.
[40:32.170 --> 40:38.170]  Because what ended up happening is I went down to CMU and I told somebody, you know, I just got laid off.
[40:38.480 --> 40:39.980]  Sick of these Epstein people.
[40:40.570 --> 40:43.880]  I want to go to Vietnam because they have a visa.
[40:44.090 --> 40:46.650]  So they check if you're some kind of Epstein guy before you arrive.
[40:47.230 --> 40:51.960]  And then I want to maybe do like a Moscow to Beijing train or something like I want to be like a travel writer.
[40:54.090 --> 40:58.800]  And I then I told them, you know, please, you know, start busting these pedophiles instead of the drug dealers.
[41:00.050 --> 41:05.880]  And then I started just, I don't know, I got a medical marijuana card and just started listening to a lot of techno.
[41:06.320 --> 41:07.920]  It's not been a good COVID for me.
[41:08.340 --> 41:09.340]  Any other questions?
[41:16.230 --> 41:17.750]  Was it at least a good talk?
[41:18.710 --> 41:19.110]  Okay.
[41:29.820 --> 41:34.620]  If there are no other questions, I'm probably just going to wrap up a little early rather than eat up people's time.
[41:34.820 --> 41:36.520]  But I really appreciate people bringing me out.
[41:36.700 --> 41:39.860]  If anybody wants to talk afterwards, more serious conversation.
[41:40.520 --> 41:52.280]  I'd love to talk about censorship circumvention, talk about encryption, talk about privacy, talk about security, and how we can get these friggin Nazis to quit trying to stop having elections.
[41:52.280 --> 41:53.360]  That would be a really bad idea.
[41:53.520 --> 41:54.980]  We're going to turn off your power if you do that.