← Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
Drop Dead Serious With Ashleigh Banfield
FBI Investigating Mysterious Internet Blackout the Night Nancy Guthrie Vanished
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B
So.
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A
So yesterday, if you were watching, you saw pictures of FBI agents from the violent crime task force, several of them walking through Nancy Guthrie's neighborhood and knocking on neighbors doors and asking a whole new round of questions. Okay, I'm in. I am down for this. Because sometimes it's fresh eyes, sometimes it's, we got something else, and we're running down a lead. And so now we need to go ask questions about the new thing that we just got from the thing. And so some of the neighbors didn't want to tell reporters what it was the agents were knocking on their door for, but some did. And several of the reports came back to people like, you know, Michael Ruiz, who's still with Fox news and stayed there, and Michael and Brian enten, who's with news nation and stayed there, and their producers, I mean, they're still working hard, even though the media got chased out by the sheriff who made them park in, you know, Phoenix and walk the desert to get to Nancy's home. Didn't work. So what the reports were that came back from the neighbors was that the agents were asking about what seems like a neighborhood wide outage. WI fi, Internet outage. Right around the time that Nancy went missing on February 1, around 12 in the morning, multiple people said they had an outage at that time. Bum, bum, bum. I mean, does that sound like a coincidence? Maybe. But I have some extraordinary intelligence on all of this and the notion of a wi fi jammer maybe doing this, wreaking havoc in the neighborhood. It isn't what you think. And wi fi jammers don't do necessarily what you think. They can do some things. But the guy that I'm about to talk to is one of the best in the business. When anything starts to make my eyes glaze over. When it comes to digital forensics and technology, Jake Green is the Guy I call, and he had the. He had the receipts and the answers. He had it all. And he's really, really schooled me on what might have happened at Nancy's front door, given the certain pieces of evidence that we know about, notwithstanding the stuff we don't know about. But damn, he's good. And he weighed in on the thing that was in the bad guy's pocket, on the suspect's pocket, because we've all wondered, is it the edge of an iPhone? Is it a walkie talkie? Is it a wi fi jammer? Well, you know, somebody with the kind of digital forensics background that Jake Green has, he has an idea, and it's a very intelligent look at this. And you're going to hear that in just a minute. Don't go away until you hear that. It's super interesting. Also, he has weighed in on the times in the timeline that we got from the sheriff. Remember, 1:47am Camera's disconnected, but 2:12am Person appears on the camera and we're all like, wait, what now? How does that work? If it's disconnected, how does camera. How does a person appear? Well, he's got what might be the most logical answer that I've heard so far. And it is. I don't know how I didn't think of it, but I don't think like he does. And so let me just give you a bit of a feel for the day. Brian Enten said that the FBI is looking into this possible Internet outage during the time that Nancy Guthrie went missing. One neighbor told Brian Entin that his ring camera history is mysteriously not available on the night that Nancy disappeared. And then Brian had these. These pictures from one of the neighbors of their. Of their ring cams. And you can see that they look like they're hardwired. So many people had questions about that. Well, if it's hardwired, why would. Well, you're going to hear why that matters and doesn't matter in just a moment. But he said something else that was super interesting. Brian Enten reported that the neighbor he talked to said that the cameras stopped working around the time that Nancy disappeared, but also that his dog woke up and needed to go outside at that exact same time. And that that is very unusual for that dog. I know when that's unusual. Atlas, God rest his adorable soul, I miss him so much. He almost never would wake up in the middle of the night and, you know, huff and puff at my face. He would literally come up to my bedside where I was sleeping, go Never more than that, but that was enough. And, you know, want to go outside only if he was sick. Right. So I. I get it if you're a dog owner, if, you know, you know, your dog has habits and patterns. And this guy said dog woke up right around the same time, wanted to go outside, that it was very unusual. So my spidey senses are going anyway, as for an entire neighborhood. And by the way, when I say neighborhood, I don't mean, you know, Miles. I mean, the reporting is just Nancy's immediate neighbors just within the street area. Right? Not all the streets, not the parking restriction. Nanos. So that is interesting that it's kind of targeted to this area. So, of course, my questions are, well, I'm a digital idiot, but can you just go bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, and shut them all off so that nobody catches my car going in and out, or can I just go bing at the head of the neighborhood to whatever devices they have in the neighborhood, you know, for Internet. Well, I'm an idiot. Jake is not. Jake will tell you exactly what might or might not have happened in a second. And then I got this from Matt Colson, who's with Arizona Family. They've been doing some really good reporting. If you haven't heard, I usually have to explain this very strange brand. Arizona Family is a brand name of a corporation that owns two television stations in Phoenix. And their reporters have been doing really, really good work. Mac has done good work. Brianna Whitney's done great work. Mac reported this. Sheriff Nano says he is not aware of any other search warrants that have been served for any other persons of interest in the Nancy Guthrie case besides the one in the rio Rico case February 10th and the one connected to Duluth Daly's home and car February 13th. Okay, two things. Are you effing kidding me? Come on. Come the f on. You must have had a search warrant for lots of stuff, right? Experts have even weighed in, saying, what about just Nancy's history for the last month? You should have been going through all of that search warrant for all of that detail to find out who she's been talking with, dealing with, fighting with, arguing with, whatever. Like, those should have been warrants. Maybe he misspoke. Maybe he misspoke when he said, you know, search warrants. Maybe he didn't. I don't know. I can't read this guy anymore. But it does back up what I heard from my source and reported just a couple days ago, and that is that there are very few leads that are enough to even reach the bar of getting a warrant. Right. Probable cause. So now that the sheriff is saying that, Matt Colson, it backs up the reporting from my. From my source the other day that they don't have even enough right now to get, you know, to get probable cause for a warrant. And. And the other piece of reporting was don't expect any of those raids anytime soon, the ones that we saw.
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Okay. And then I learned something else on the Twitter on the x. And I don't usually just, you know, grab something from x and throw it up here, But I did some research on what I saw, checked it out, and it actually checks out. Just something to consider here. So February 1st was the crime, was the time of the crime. And everyone's been wondering, was this a robbery, a burglary that went bad, and. And et cetera. And somebody posted that the main 2026 Tucson gem, mineral and fossil showcase, basically the gem show, you know, happened in Tucson between January 28 and February 15. It showcases the largest. It is the largest event of its kind in the world, featuring more than 40 venues and over 2,000 vendors across the city. So January 28th to February 15th, that is right at the time that Nancy Guthrie is taken. And what this means is that the Tucson area was ripe with places that had lots of valuables elsewhere. Right. Gems all over the city. This is the largest event of its kind in the world, this Tucson gem show. So I can't really see that this is a rich environment to target Nancy Guthrie's home when everywhere else in Tucson. Two thousand vendors across the city, 40 venues, would be a hell of a lot better if that's what you were after, if you were after valuables. It's just something to consider. I'm only saying that, you know, learning about this, it's just another piece of the puzzle. Is it sat G, right? South American gang network that targets high end residences? Well, why would you. When the gems are everywhere else? Yeah. So it's just something to consider in the piece of who did this. And why? What was the motive? What was the reason? And who could have. Could have done this? So to that end, I want you to hear this great interview. Great. Doesn't even do the. Doesn't even do it justice. This spectacular interview with Jake Green. Every time I talk to him, I learn something. I learn a lot. And he talks to me like I'm five, which I love because I'm not really good at digital digital forensics. And I wanted to know everything about how a signal jammer, WI fi jammer might work and how it might or might not affect the neighborhood. G Given this latest news that we're learning about, all these neighbors saying right around the time that Nancy disappeared, they lost WI Fi, having the right people in your corner for life's biggest milestones makes all the difference. Like a friend who's there when you're house hunting or checking out a new ride, State Farm is there too, helping you choose the coverage you need. With a State Farm agent, you know someone is there to help you along the way. And with so many coverage options. And it's nice knowing you have help choosing a plan that fits your needs so you can continue celebrating all of life's milestones. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. So today I called Jake Green, who's just smarter than me in a million different ways. Jake Green's technical intro is that he is a tech operations manager for Invista Forensics, but basically he's a digital forensics guru and he breaks down some of the most complex technology for people like me so that I can understand. And when I heard about this neighborhood outage and the possibility that WI fi jammers might be at play, I asked him everything from A to Z about the possibilities here. And he had answers from A to Z. Have a listen. So tell me about these signal jammers and what they can do.
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B
So signal jammers is really a misconstrued or misconceptualized device. There are things that if you want on Amazon right now, you can buy one. So they are illegal to use in nefarious ways, but you can still buy and possess them. So when we look at whether it's a jammer or a signal interrupter or a WI fi deauthentication device, there are many different words, but really what it boils down to is these WI FI connections can be disrupted, especially on older devices, if you've ever set one up. I set up my ring camera and being a nerd, like, I pride myself in being good at setting up devices. Our ring camera was A nightmare to install because it operates on such an old version of WI fi technology. It's called 2.4 GHz. That network is old. We've since moved on to 5 GHz networks that are typically shorter ranges but higher signal strength. But when we operate at such a low, low limit, they can drop very easily. So these WI FI disruptions can occur because of what's called, called a deauthentication attack. Now that doesn't speak to what could be like a neighborhood wide IT outage, but there are pieces of technology on the market right now that if we went and purchased one and put some thought and effort into it, we could absolutely walk up to a house and walk, knock its WI FI offline.
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A
From what I understand, they are fairly low tech. But what does that mean?
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B
I think when we think of what is low tech, and nowadays is low tech means something that we can go watch a YouTube video about how to set up or read a couple blog posts. So it's not something that requires you to be a high level government spy. It's something that we could do in an afternoon if we had the parts sitting with us right here. We could actually go through, set up a WI FI disruption and knock our local WI fi offline.
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A
You and I are different for you, it would be an afternoon for me. And this is key because I look at this guy approaching the house on the doorbell cam and I think he's a. A buffoon. So given that there are differences between your technical savvy and my technical savvy, how difficult are these things to use?
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B
So I think going back to him being the buffoon is a part of me when I first saw the video. I agree. Like something just doesn't, it appears off now when he starts ripping plants out, trying to cover up the camera. Like if he's got a WI FI disruptor in his pocket, is he not trusting of that device? Does he think that the WI fi could still be on and that camera still operational? So something is definitely going on. This could be somebody that was put up to do this, somebody who's not very tech savvy. But these, the WI FI disruption devices, again, they're very easy. You could go watch a YouTube video right now about how to do it. The link that I sent your producers, that one, there is a YouTube link that goes to it that has since been removed. And perhaps it was removed because it is a nefarious act or could be potentially illegal. But in our country, the FCC does regulate what can and can't be used. So when you think of what is illegal, ham radios can be illegal. So high frequency use of those devices is illegal unless you are licensed to do it. So just because we have this device sitting on a table until we use it for that illegal step, you can absolutely possess it.
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A
So let's talk about the efficacy, because from what I understand, and again, a lot less than you. You got to be really close to the home or to the actual system in order to disrupt it, which means you're kind of already caught on the camera if you got to get that close.
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B
That's right. So it really depends on where that WI FI unit is established inside the house. And keeping in mind that the front of this house we saw, that brick facade. WI fi does not play well with thick devices like concrete or brick. So we may already have a weak signal to begin with. And just based on some of the pictures that we've seen, it does look like this is an older WI FI unit. I'm sorry, an older ring doorbell. So the signal strength on those is not nearly as good as the ones that if we bought a brand new unit today.
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A
Wait, you can tell that just from looking at the bracket? But before, of course, they finally, you know, remove the bracket with their CSI teams. But just looking at the bracket, you could. It was an older.
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B
So. So having installed two of them myself, that sure looks like the old model that we have.
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Okay. All right. So again, you would have to get fairly close to the home and then fairly close to the. To what? The router in the home to be able to disrupt things.
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B
Correct? Yeah. So the. The ones that, if, again, if we were to buy this right now, it's not going to knock out the entire neighborhood block. It's going to isolate the network that it's trying to disrupt. And you've got to be fairly close. You've got to be within, I'd say, probably 20 or 30 meters from the house. So as you're walking up, there's definitely a chance that you're going to get caught on camera. But just knowing how these cameras operate, sometimes at night time, when the IR cameras kick on, you can hear either an audible click for the light turning on that you can't see, or the red lights may kick on. So this person, as they approached, may have been depending on a potential WI FI jammer in their pocket. But at the end, something happened, and it drew their attention to that. That camera on the front of the house.
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A
Yeah, I was sort of mesmerized by the guy coming up and approaching his left side, meaning he was going to the left side of the door. There's a. There's some decorative stuff on the wall there. And then eventually favoring the right side where the. Where the doorbell cam was, but didn't seem like he knew right away, as most, you know, practiced burglars do, to, you know, cover it, spray paint it, do something to it.
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B
That's right. I mean, most humans, as we walk up to a door, we know which side of the door to go to. Now, if it's a commercial setting, whether we push or pull is a different story. But a house, when we walk up to that front door, we should know which hand we need to reach out to grab the doorknob. We should know if we need to approach on the left or the right. Like, did he not know this WI FI camera was there, or was he just not ready for it?
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A
Well, I have a lot of questions about the signal jammers in general, and I'm going to ask you to. In a minute. I'm going to ask you about when you said, it doesn't take out the whole neighborhood. Well, what the heck could be the reason why so many of these neighbors are saying they had a neighborhood outage just within Nancy's area? But I'm going to ask that to you in a moment. Let me stick with this signal jammer business. When you leave the property, let's say you come in, you jam the WI fi, you do your bad business, and then you leave. Does everything come right back up as normal, or do you sort of leave a residual trail behind? Or do resets need to. I mean, this is my worst nightmare, right? Having to reset it because something happened the night before. What happens when the jammer leaves?
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B
Fortunately, it can be very localized and it's temporary. So once the WI FI connection make their handshake again, it can begin transmitting that video and audio signals back to be sent to Google. So it's not something that's going to last forever. We're not physically destroying the unit. This is just a temporary denial of service that's blocking that connection from occurring.
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A
So life kind of resumes when the bad guy leaves.
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B
That's right.
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A
There was a really good question that I saw on Twitter from somebody named Steve, Stephanie Live. She asked, could a jammer be flown in on a drone?
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B
I guess technically, yeah.
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A
But would it? Would it jam the drone operations?
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B
That's another question. That's. So if is if we are broadcasting a 2.4 GHz WI FI signal and we're blocking that same signal if the drone is operating on it. If we're not specifically targeting this house that we're going to. It could, however, most the available on the market devices right now. It's not going to block every 2.4 GHz network. It's going to be selective about which ones and which channels it's blocking on. So I guess theoretically, could it, yes. It all depends on if the same band is being used for the WI fi unit and the drone itself.
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A
I did some reading up on the jammers and I think CNET reported that they're not as daunting as they seem. Like, you know, we all clasp our pearls and freak out that, oh my God, our systems don't work anymore. Can you summarize why that is? That they're not the bogeymen we think they are.
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B
So if you look at how easy they are to set up, just it has a little display on it you can flip through, select the channels you want to try to block and intercept. They are something that is very common nowadays and they've been around for years. So WI fi technology is old in terms of digital forensics and technology itself. So because this is an older version of networking, the same thing with all of our home devices, they all, with the very exception of very few, operate on new modern bands of Internet or WI fi connections. So these 2.4 GHz networks, for a very long time we've understood those to be weaker of the two. So there is a boogeyman effect out there. It's just there are certain pieces of our technology that we rely on daily that can be very easily disrupted.
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A
So basically, if we just update our WI fi, we're one step ahead of the bad guys. Crappy jammers.
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B
So it's not just the WI fi, this is the physical devices themselves as well. So I've looked into doing it myself. I've got a couple of ring cameras at the house. With WI fi, you have to get like the latest, greatest. You have to upgrade everything your, your WI fi router that's broadcasting the signal. And then all of these endpoints are what we call Internet of things devices that are connected to it.
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A
The other question I had for you is how do these jammers affect Bluetooth? Because I was wondering if some of these cameras might operate on Bluetooth and might it disrupt your Bluetooth apparatus in the home as well?
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B
So just as really any wireless signal you can send competing signals, you can think of it that way. We're mimicking the Signal. We're putting a device in the middle that's intercepting and blocking those communications. So jammers themselves. When we think of them, that's like a person that we're having a conversation and somebody's screaming at the top of their voice and you can't hear what's going on. It's just a complete loss of signal. You can't understand.
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A
You're saying we're having a conversation and someone starts screaming. That's the jammer.
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B
Correct. That's a jammer.
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A
Can't hear. We can't hear the person we're talking to because someone's screaming close to us. That's the jammer.
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B
Correct. So with what we think happens, by
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A
the way, Jake, you know how I need you to talk to me like I'm five? Because you are that guy that has more degrees than a circle and I am that guy that basically types with two fingers.
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B
Yeah. So. But what we really think could have in the most likely scenario, this isn't some high level government system spy that's at the root of all this. Could it be? Absolutely. But there are things right now that we could still affect the same crime by purchasing items on Amazon.
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A
So with the Bluetooth issues, I was wondering if it's possible. We've heard from the sheriff that Nancy's pacemaker separated from her Apple device at 2:28am and I just wondered. And that's Bluetooth. Right. And I was just wondering if a signal jammer may have jacked with that in any way. So that that piece of data 2:28am May not be as factual as we think.
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B
So Bluetooth's a little bit different. So for most residential WI fi units, we're constantly broadcasting our network out there for people to connect to. So when I think of our, our neighborhood, I can see all of our neighbors. I can guess at which one's theirs. With Bluetooth you have to turn that into pairing mode so there's not a constant connection that's being broadcast out there that you can could see readily. So I don't think it's the same. I think that physical disconnection is her getting out of Bluetooth range, which is significantly smaller than WI fi range.
- [26:39]
A
So you don't think that a jammer could have disrupted this data that we seem to think indicates Nancy was taken away at 228.
- [26:48]
B
That's, I think that Bluetooth drop is more likely physical separation from the devices, us walking away from it or being pulled away from it. I don't think this is technology Not a jammer.
- [26:57]
A
Well, now go to this whole entire neighborhood business because this just kind of blew my mind. From what I know, the little that I know about jammers, you don't sort of walk in James Bond style and darken a neighborhood and then, you know, do your business. It's very, very specific and very localized. You have to be very proximate to your target. So what do you think explains this very bizarre reporting? And Brian Enten was very clear. Possible Internet outage. FBI is looking at at the time that Nancy Guthrie went missing. One neighbor says his ring cam history is mysteriously not available. Now the night that she disappeared. So walk me through what you, what that says to you.
- [27:36]
B
So when we think of how our homes are set up, we have a home network, your neighborhood has a network and individual branches within that neighborhood. Now when we think of could this be a neighborhood wide, like specific spy level access? I mean it could be. It's in the realm of possibilities. But again, what was this Internet like before this incident? Did they constantly have issues? Were they constantly complaining, complaining to their Internet service provider because of these outages? Or is this an isolated event? Is this something that it just so happens that this neighborhood was experiencing an outage. So could there be some kind of physical disruption within the Internet service providers network? Yes, I think again, that's less likely. I think it may be an overstatement of what actually occurred.
- [28:25]
A
But even several neighbors, I mean, I want to say it's possible there's a coincidence. Right? But in my line of work, you know, coincidences are kind of rare. It's why juries are asked to use their noggin. Right. And their good sense. But you know, a lot of these neighbors have said to the FBI, well, let me say this. They are reporting back to reporters that the FBI is discussing with them this Internet outage that was just specific in Nancy's neighborhood. Very, very late at night, which is when most people were sleeping. You think it's really just we could chalk it up to coincidence or do you think there could be something more to it?
- [29:00]
B
So there should be breadcrumbs left behind on the Internet service providers in they should be able to tell did we lose connection connectivity to this block of devices. So this set of neighborhood homes. But given that, and I can think, in our neighborhood there are three or four Internet service providers that are, I mean, flip a coin on every single house of which one's in service there. But if this is all single, isolated, say it's just her block, her direct neighbors, perhaps there is some credibility.
- [29:30]
A
That's what's weird. It's kind of just in the vicinity of her home, as the reporting goes. It's the folks who are close to her, not a system wide community, just her little neighborhood.
- [29:40]
B
That's interesting. But again, like the Internet service provider should be able to say, yes, we lost connectivity to this section of devices
- [29:48]
A
within our network at no fault of our own.
- [29:50]
B
Correct.
- [29:51]
A
Meaning it's something out there that did it.
- [29:53]
B
Could be. But that's when you think of physically coming into the homes as some type of fiber connection or cable connection. So it's a physical, physical line running to the house. So that would require some kind of either interception from a hacking end or some kind of physical disconnection, damage to
- [30:11]
A
that infrastructure, to each and every one of the homes that was reporting a
- [30:15]
B
disruption, or if we think of it as a branch or stem of homes. But that should be something that it's not. You can't just simply unplug it and replug it. I guess in a possibility you could if you knew exactly what.
- [30:30]
A
And you gotta go up a pole, right?
- [30:32]
B
Well, you could either go up a pole or down into some of the green ground units that we see in our neighborhoods. If you get into that, could you potentially unplug something? Potentially, yes.
- [30:43]
A
It seems like it's becoming more and more implausible with each of these, you know, explanations. But I am still confounded by the fact that they all, at this particular time, this critical time, right around 1 o' clock in the morning, 2 o' clock in the morning, are reporting, you know, these outages. What also might explain the neighbor who said he lost all of his video that night and that it was unusual for him to lose all of his video.
- [31:11]
B
It's hard to say. That's again the typical WI FI band that we see being used for IoT Internet of Things and for our smart homes and our cameras is weak. And having seen the construction of the home in question, potentially it's the same there as we do have a thicker solid wall of concrete or brick. It's difficult to say of what could cause that outage.
- [31:37]
A
You know, it buoys me to hear you first throw out a term like IoT, which I glazed over. And then you just told me it was as simple as Internet of things like, thank you.
- [31:50]
B
This is all those little tiny devices in our home that requires an app for us to log into that gets connectivity to our networks. It's your smart homes, your doorbells, your refrigerator can be considered an IoT device. It's something that is becoming interconnected to our networks.
- [32:06]
A
And it's an acronym and I'm down for that. So let's talk about Google. The struggles that Google has had to scratch whatever data they could from whatever they had. Don't get me started on how weird it is that they had it at all. Because if I don't have a subscription, I'm not expecting y' all got anything on me. But they did and they were able to scratch some things, not all things. But would the jammer affect that too?
- [32:32]
B
So we should potentially see from the connectivity side, we should see some packet loss. We should see what's that packet loss. So packet loss is when we think of how data is sent and received, it's in chunks. So we could potentially see that we lost chunks or we didn't receive them in the correct order or we just lost it for a certain amount of time in general. So packet loss is typically associated with these deauthentication attacks is we're intercepting them, we may just completely lose that signal. So we're, we may have that drop in service. So if you think of like when your Internet goes out, you can still be broadcasting that WI fi signal, but the Internet itself is not connected. So your local network may still work, but the Internet, when you're reaching out to go to Google or to Amazon, all of those pieces may not be available.
- [33:24]
A
So this kind of makes sense then because they've been very cagey about what they've told us. You know, one of these images indicates that it might have been taken on a different date. And yet the sheriff won't confirm that and actually keeps, you know, throwing cold water on it. Even though every single journalistic outlet that's covering the story has sources that says otherwise.
- [33:48]
B
Yeah, so whenever we're carving for data, we're going back into potentially data that has been rolled off the back end. So we don't keep all of our data forever. It would be a mountain of data. Once that data goes to either be rewritten over or go to be deleted. When we're carving back from that, we have the potential to only get bits and pieces. And we may not have every single bit and piece to have a completely playable video. And that's why we may only have screenshots, we may only have a few seconds of video available. And the other really important piece to think about is from the Internet service provider's end of whoever's feeding Internet to this home, those logs that they have access to don't last forever either. So it's something that if we're more than a month out from the incident, those logs may have rolled off the back end already, and we may no longer have access to them.
- [34:38]
A
Yeah, well, luckily they got them, I guess, within two weeks of the incident. And we're working feverishly up until that time.
- [34:45]
B
So that was. That was with Google. So that was with Google. Definitely. We got something back from Google. But if they didn't know about this potential Internet outage, the Internet service provider may no longer have those. Those records are going to show the connectivity issues.
- [34:59]
A
Oh, that's unfortunate. Gosh, you'd think that they'd have them within 30. We're at, what, day 34 now. Yeah. You think that they would keep them at least that long? Yeah, for crimes, you know, because your job is forensics, and that stuff makes it into courtrooms all the time. And they seem to have records and logs that go back years. But you're saying that it could be just a matter of days.
- [35:21]
B
So the basis of a lot of the logs that we use in really, any digital investigation from Internet service providers are billing records. So it is a proof of service. So that's what they want to be able to support that. If they get sued that they say, hey, our Internet was out, they can and say, no, you had connections just like on our cell phone plans. The number of minutes we used is still calculated, but the details maybe not so much correct, but the finite details of, hey, we lost connectivity to our WI FI signal or Internet connection for this few minutes, that may not be kept for years, months or years. So it may be a matter of days.
- [35:56]
A
So one of the things that's been kind of like gnawing at me is this picture that you've seen closeup of the suspect's pocket and whatever the hell is sticking out of it. For some, it looks like the edge of an iPhone. Others have said, no, you don't rob a house with your pockets wide open and your iPhone hanging half out. And most front pockets can fit an iPhone. Others have said, it looks like the antenna of a walkie talkie to me. And then I wondered about signal jammers. And as I don't know much about signal jammers, what do you think is in that pocket?
- [36:28]
B
So there's really no way to tell. Even the images that we've blown up and circled, they're still very, very pixelated. Could it match what we would think of a possibility of an antenna? Possibly. I don't see a cell phone there. I see that it appears that it's something physically sticking out out of the pocket. I think there are plenty of antennas that I can think of in our office right now that could potentially match with the. This looks like. And one of those being a WI FI antenna.
- [36:59]
A
Really? A WI fi jammer antenna, you mean?
- [37:02]
B
So, so the antennas on, on some of the available marketplace jammers, they look exactly like you'd see on a WI fi unit in your home.
- [37:11]
A
So it would look like that. That picture potentially.
- [37:13]
B
Yep.
- [37:14]
A
Another detective weighed in and said, For 35 years I carried one of them damn walkie talkies in my pocket. And that's exactly how it hangs. That's exactly, exactly how it sticks out. And the antenna never can fit in the pocket. So he was dead set on the fact that it was a walkie talkie antenna.
- [37:30]
B
But I could tell you from my days of carrying a Motorola walkie talkie that one looks a little bit too thick. However, when it is thick like that, I would expect it to be some type of WI FI antenna.
- [37:42]
A
So do you think that might be a jammer?
- [37:44]
B
It's possible it's some type of connectivity device, I think. Think.
- [37:50]
A
And of course it wouldn't matter if he was jamming the WI fi. Well, it didn't seem to matter anyway because you know that the images are. Are there? Some of them. But I guess he wouldn't have known then that she didn't have a subscription. Because if you don't have the subscription, you're probably not as concerned. Unless of course, you're worried they're just going to wake up.
- [38:11]
B
Right, that's. That's absolutely right. That's. I think it's important to note that the way these ring cameras record is it's not straight to the cloud. It's actually being stored on the device before being sent to the cloud. So that video can locally cache or download and then be broadcast up to the cloud. So just because we have that signal loss, we may only get bits and pieces. And again, it's very similar to we're trying to get things back from the server side of back end data that's available. But as it's in that flow of data from recording the video to living on the device in some kind of memory platform and then transferred up to the cloud, we can still have some of that, we call it in the industry called cache images. So they're stored locally. So that could be another explanation as to why we see just bits and pieces.
- [39:03]
A
So the thing that I've been really curious about is, and I have differed with everybody on what this suspect is doing when he comes up with the foliage, I believe he's grabbing it with his fists because you can see him with the fist formation when he's holding it. And I think he's using the vine to try to tug the. The camera off from its. From its mount. Because there's very little space between those cameras and the. The mount. There's only like a. Like almost like the width of a quarter.
- [39:29]
B
I was going to say maybe an eighth of an inch. Yeah. Because if you get water behind them, they are going to be trash really quickly. So that's. They are typically held very firmly to the wall, I think, possibly. But I think anyone in their right mind is going to know that a vine that we pull off of a flower bed or a lawn probably not going to be strong enough to rip something off the wall.
- [39:49]
A
So I would think so, too. But this guy doesn't see. He's my. He's MacGyver at this point. He's looking all over the place.
- [39:54]
B
And the way he's carrying the pistol, it's. It's strange.
- [39:57]
A
There's a lot of that.
- [39:58]
B
Yeah.
- [39:58]
A
So my question is if. Well, he did get the. He did get the camera off the mount. Number one, there are no wires. So it's battery, Right?
- [40:08]
B
Well, so it can either be a battery unit or we can have a power signal that comes in through, that runs directly to the doorbell itself. So all doorbells require some type of power connection. So it doesn't have to be battery operated. Some are. Mine is hardwired to my home and it's not hardwired for connections.
- [40:27]
A
Yeah, I can't see any hardwires there where it was left off. It just looks as though it's clean and there's nothing. There's no portals, there's no wires, there's nothing.
- [40:35]
B
I'd have to go back and look. I cannot remember what the crime scene shot looks like.
- [40:40]
A
Let me ask you this. If it is battery, I think it is just from my observations of the same photos. But if it's battery operated. Michael Ruiz from Fox News Channel reported that there were glass particles found below that he could see glass fragments below the. The device at the front entrance. My source said that the cameras were smashed, so that would. That would line up. But if it's battery operated and he took it in his pocket somewhere, obviously he didn't smash it all there. Not all the detritus is there. Took it somewhere and then smashed it and destroyed it, wouldn't we have some record of that? Camera moving in some way, or at least something to tell us where it might be.
- [41:21]
B
So we're not going to have like a GPS signal for it. You could have the recordings from inside a pocket if we're carrying it, but as soon as we lose connection to that home's WI fi, that that video is gone forever.
- [41:34]
A
So the best you could get is literally the hand over it, stuffing it in the backpack, carrying it, and then within about, you know, 20 yards, off you go, it's done.
- [41:41]
B
Correct? Yeah.
- [41:42]
A
So that's not helpful. Well, maybe it is. We don't know whether they have something like that.
- [41:46]
B
That's right.
- [41:46]
A
That might have seen said that there is taking it to a vehicle and you get a wheel or something. Who knows? But so the scratching capabilities, they wouldn't be affected in any. When I say the scratching, for those who have missed some of the episodes, what Google was doing was scratching like each layer of an onion off the video to try to get to something that might have ended up on her doorbell cam that night. And they got the images that they showed us. Maybe more, we don't know. But the scratching efforts that Google did would not have been affected by a WI FI jammer necessarily.
- [42:18]
B
Correct. Now, that's the second that WI fi connectivity resumes, we're going to start broadcasting video again.
- [42:25]
A
Next question. If he had that, let's just say that is a WI FI jammer in his pocket. Don't know, but let's just say. And it needs to be powered. Right. Is it the same kind of thing that you can plug it into your car and keep it powered up and therefore, as he's driving, might it leave some kind of a popcorn trail as to what the egress from the neighborhood and the, you know, entry to the neighborhood was as well?
- [42:48]
B
Yeah. So these, these are simply. You can either use a micro USB connection or a USB C connection, just like we charge our phones. So the available units that I can think of off the top of my head, they don't have some cellular connection and they typically don't have Bluetooth. Bluetooth chips in them. I'm sorry, GPS chips in them. These are all. They're kind of isolated devices. So they have the ability to transmit and receive signals, but they're not like cell phones. They operate differently.
- [43:17]
A
So they're not handshaking to each house as it's driving by.
- [43:21]
B
Correct? Correct. They're typically not.
- [43:23]
A
And each house as it's driving by, look, they're pretty far set back on their properties. But. And I'm guessing That they're, I think from what I've read these jammers are like 30ft kind of reach. Is that about right?
- [43:35]
B
And the ones that, that we're describing today are ones that we would be isolated to hurt this single house. We identify which network we want to block and we block that when we disrupt it. It's not like a 2.4 GHz signal for every single WI FI unit out there. We are being very specific and intentional about the device that we're targeting, which is the WI fi unit that would be inside this home.
- [43:57]
A
Meaning you got to stand out there and dial and figure it out until it's going to do like you're actually doing work outside the home on your device until you realize you got a hit.
- [44:04]
B
But that may also be something that you pre plan. You may come back to the scene multiple times. You may say, hey, yep, she is broadcasting at 2.4 GHz. We know what the WI fi name is. We're going to try to intercept and block that signal.
- [44:16]
A
Well, there is this reporting that it's possible he was casing the place given the fact that there's reporting these images are on different nights. So you think that's a possibility?
- [44:23]
B
Definitely possibility.
- [44:25]
A
So it's less possible then that as you're driving out you're, you're interrupting, tearing
- [44:31]
B
up all the neighbors. That's right, yeah, that's very unlikely.
- [44:34]
A
There's nothing that you would be able to do in your business, digital forensics to say, oh look, there's some weirdness happening, you know, as you head west.
- [44:41]
B
Yeah, not necessarily, no. But I can think of like with our cell phones, I've had many cases that we're able to see somebody riding in a car and their phone may keep track of all of these homes that it's connecting to that are broadcasting signals. And you can actually pinpoint point where this person physically drove. And so those are those breadcrumbs that we talk about of points in time that we can say that this device was operating near this WI FI unit. With the available deauthentication devices for WI fi tax, those do not have that same capabilities.
- [45:14]
A
Jake green, it's day 34. If that guy had a cell phone on him, we'd catch him by now, wouldn't we?
- [45:20]
B
It's very hard to say, especially in dense urban areas. Think about how many other thousands of phones are in that same connectivity area.
- [45:27]
A
Not that many, honestly. This is a really like these neighbors are all 4 acre, you know, 1 to 4 acre lots. So and, and the, and the cellular service is terrible apparently in that area as well. But I wouldn't think there'd be so many at 1:47 in the morning.
- [45:44]
B
Possibly. Yeah, it's when we, if law enforcement was to do what's called a tower dump and pull all of the devices that are connected to those antennas during this time period. Yeah, if he had a cell phone on him, it should be there. We should be able to see it.
- [45:57]
A
Unless it was turned off like Coburger.
- [45:59]
B
Possibly.
- [45:59]
A
Yeah, possibly. What's that? Possibly business.
- [46:02]
B
That's. Any other connections if perhaps they had previously connected to our WI fi and we're still broadcasting. Your phone has the ability to connect over cellular connections and WI fi and Bluetooth, airplane mode typically doesn't turn off WI fi and it typically doesn't turn off Bluetooth connection. So you're still blocking broadcasting and receiving. Next time you're on a plane, put. When you put your phone in airplane mode and you're still on the ground, pull up Google Maps. You still can get a GPS signal even in airplane mode.
- [46:30]
A
It's why when you're driving and you're in low cell service, you can still get waves.
- [46:36]
B
That's exactly right.
- [46:37]
A
But so that's airplane mode. And I was very interested to hear that because your apps are still going and all the rest. But when you turn your phone off, it becomes a brick, doesn't it?
- [46:45]
B
It can. So modern iPhones specifically go into what's called a low power state. So my iPhone sitting on my desk right now, if I was to turn it off, there is still what's called a near field communication that if I bring another cell phone close to it, it can actually communicate with my device. I say that as a client's calling me.
- [47:04]
A
Well, but you say that and then first thing I think of is that he got near Nancy and her bedside table has her iPhone on it. That's our thought is that's where her iPhone was. So that's possible that there'd be a connection there.
- [47:16]
B
It's at such a very high level within Apple's communication protocols of how they operate. The way we've seen this in digital forensics is when I have a, when I want to send a kill command to my phone to wipe it remotely, say I lose it, it gets stolen. If I log in and say, hey, next time you see this phone, wipe it. That near field communication signal is what is used when another iPhone comes near it. So it's not going to log every iPhone that it's near. But it's going to, it has the ability to still communicate even when knock
- [47:47]
A
on the door of it kind of.
- [47:49]
B
Yeah, Y.
- [47:50]
A
Well, okay, I'm just assuming that that work has been done, that they've taken Nancy's phone and checked to see if any bad guy with a phone turned off came near it for this near field signal.
- [48:04]
B
So it's going to really depend again on did the phone wasn't an Apple phone, if it was a Google phone or an Android, we're not going to be able to see those logs.
- [48:12]
A
I think it's an iPhone. Well that's.
- [48:14]
B
Well for Nancy's phone, yes. But for our suspect's phone, if they're not in a communication channel together, we're not going to have those logs. We're not going to be able to see what was near.
- [48:26]
A
These are pretty rare, aren't they? In burglaries? I mean I know Sat G, the South American gang Network there, they're using signal jammers in the high end neighborhoods that they, that they knock off. But generally speaking, using these jammers, it's, it's pretty rare still, isn't it?
- [48:42]
B
I think it's more common than we think.
- [48:44]
A
Oh really?
- [48:45]
B
Absolutely. And again, if we hop on Amazon right now, we could probably have it in two day shipping. So ready to go on Sunday.
- [48:52]
A
For anybody who's watching right now who's worried about all this, you can hardwire your devices, you can hardwire your security system and then you have no concern at all about this, right?
- [49:02]
B
That's right. Then we're only concerned with losing power. So the other very strong pieces that you can do to try to prevent this is don't use aged WI fi bands like 2.4 GHz. Get devices that have 5 GHz connections. Enable the highest level of WI FI protections you can. So it's called WP3. We want to enable those to give us the best shot of staying ahead of all of these types of attacks. And then for all of our home devices, our cell phones and our computers is keep your operating systems up to date. That's always one of the very first line of attacks is when we have old devices running old operating systems, they're very easy to get into.
- [49:46]
A
Yeah, it's all this digital hygiene that most the of of us just don't do either because we don't understand it. It's a massive project and it's like cleaning your closet. I'll get to it at some point, you know, but it's really critical.
- [49:57]
B
Absolutely.
- [49:58]
A
So one Last question for you, and I don't know that you have the answer because I haven't been able to find anybody with the answer yet. And that is that the sheriff, in all of the weird language that he gives us, gave us a timeline that said at 1:47am Her Nest cam was disabled, disconnected. And at 2:12am Someone appeared, a person appeared on a camera. And so I'm trying to make heads or tail of that.
- [50:26]
B
Can you really. The only thing is they wanted to make sure their, their WI fi deauthentication device was ready to go. So they rode by, checked it from the street, was able to hit that WI FI unit and make sure that it was actually receiving that signal, and then came back a little bit later and hoped it was still working.
- [50:45]
A
And it wasn't.
- [50:46]
B
Right? That's exactly right, is when they walked up, it was definitely not working.
- [50:51]
A
Okay, so in plain English that means that they may have tested the jammer at 147 and it's disabled because it's jammed. They drove away for whatever reason and then came back at 2:12 and it had reignited again and was back up and running and now captured this image.
- [51:08]
B
That's right. And perhaps when he, perhaps when he walked up, it wasn't running in his pocket.
- [51:13]
A
Okay, yeah, I didn't think of that. So it's possible the 2, the, the 212. So TMZ had a report a while ago from a, from a law enforcement source that said that the image that you see with him in the backpack and the menacing ski mask is at 212, which I kept thinking, okay, well that's fine, but what happened at 147? And now that would make sense if a jammer was used.
- [51:34]
B
Gotta, gotta case the scene before you go to it.
- [51:37]
A
Do you think a jammer was used
- [51:38]
B
here, given the, the odd shaped antenna looking thing in his pocket? I mean, that could also be just a regular old off the shelf walkie talkie. So it could be something we, we could use. But I mean, given that we've lost signal, I would think less likely. It's very hard to say. It's. I think it's in the realm of possibility, but it's very difficult to say definitively and scientifically.
- [52:03]
A
Here's one other question. If this scenario that you've described, 147, the jam happens 2:12, or maybe he goes back around the backside of the property at that point and does business around the back and then comes back around the front, and at 2:12 he thinks it's Jammed. And he walks up. Maybe that's why he's so nonchalant, because he doesn't believe that the camera's actually going, but he wants to make double, triple, sure. And get that thing off the mount. However, he ended up doing it. And I think he smashed it because my source said he smashed it and there's glass below and it's missing.
- [52:33]
B
Yeah. Like, what is the. What is the easiest way for us to terminate this device is take a hammer to it. Like, just break it. Especially if you're going to go in and kidnap somebody, why wouldn't you just break it? I mean, you're going to leave. They're going to know she's missing. And a hammer is not going to leave DNA evidence behind unless you leave the hammer. But if we just smash that device, I think that would have been the most logical way of doing this. Instead of trying to implement technology or
- [53:00]
A
those obnoxious little fingers that we saw him groping the camera with those gloved hands, hopefully covered in his saliva from
- [53:08]
B
the bite light or sweat or anything else that could potentially leave DNA behind.
- [53:12]
A
Yeah. Lots of people don't realize putting your gloves on, you still do things. You still touch your seat of your car and you're, you know, and. And your hair and your face and your wiper, you know, whatever it is. And thank God for that, because there's a dumb criminal born every day. Jake Green, thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate my conversations with you, because everything you say is new to me and I appreciate it.
- [53:32]
B
Glad to do it. Thanks, Ashley.
- [53:34]
A
All right, so that is where we stand. On Friday, March 6th, we're wrapping up week five, which is just, you know, listen, as I started this podcast by saying, don't freak out. The case is not going cold. It is not cold. But I will say this. Remember during the Idaho investigation, after those four innocent kids were killed, we wondered if the police were bungling idiots or if they knew what they were doing. And they don't have anybody. And it's week five and it's week six, and that's how long it took to find Bryan Coburger. It took until week six. And it was a tiny speck of really shitty DNA on that knife sheath. Right. It wasn't a perfect sample, but they went to OTHRAM Labs in Texas. And Othram, with their incredible skills at the forefront of DNA technology, they were able to extract a profile. It was enough of a profile to not go to codis. And why would it be Brian Coburger? Wasn't an offender at that time. He is now. But they went through the familial and the IgG methods, right? They went through investigative genetic genealogy and they found him. And it took more than six weeks. So I, I just cur. I caution you, I urge patience. I think they're going to solve this. I don't think that one guy can outsmart the entire U. S. Government. And the pima county sheriff's department, those homicide detectives, look, they're working really, really hard and they are working together with the FBI, and so with all the technologies that we have and all the abilities and all the focus and all the eyeballs on this case, I think we're going to solve it. You know, you all the true crime community, you helped to find gabby petito. And without you, we may never have found her. Okay, So I do believe that with all of your eyeballs, with all of the focus and energy of the authorities and the law enforcement personnel who are working on this, I think we're going to find this guy. Yeah. Prosecuting him, it might be tricky, right? But it's not to say it can't happen. And to that I want to say this, and this is a very personal message. I want to talk to the girlfriend or former girlfriends of whoever that fucking guy is, Right? You recognize him? You know it's him, right? You recognize the body shape, the bend, the way he walks, the maneuver, the clothes? Probably the clothes. The ski mask, you might have seen that, too. That back, you really recognize that. You probably saw that if you're a current girlfriend. This is your guy? Yeah, this is your guy. Seriously, I got news for you. You're going nowhere fast with this guy. Yeah, there's no honor among thieves and lovers. And you know something? If he's prepared to do this, you don't matter. And you never really will, even though you think you do. But you know what does matter? A million dollars. That sister is going to change your life. A million dollars that's going to change your life. But this fucker, he's never going to make a million dollars. He is never going to be dedicated to you. He's got something wrong. And that something wrong will apply to you. If not now, one day. 1-800-call FBI. It's a million dollars. 1, 800, call FBI girl and to the other girls, take a closer look. You know him. You may have gone to school with him. You may have dated him. He may have annoyed you at some time, but if you did, you know who he is. Don't be worried about him. Don't fear him. The million dollars will be all the security that you need. 1-800- call FBI. Girls, come on. You know who he is. Just look closer. And even if you think it's possible, call 1-800-FBI. Somebody is going to turn this son of a bitch in, right? And if you're protecting him, just ask yourself a really big question. Why? Why is it really worth it? Because you know what's worth it? A million dollars. You'll have that. But he, he's never going to get you that. And he's never going to make you feel safe because you know he's got this in him. 1-800- call FBI. Thank you everybody for watching. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being a part of this community. If you haven't already, please hit subscribe and join. Join our club as well. I'm going to be doing some member events in the near future, as well as some videos that are just private for the members. And just a great thanks to all of you. Let's solve this thing. Please, all of us. We can do this. And remember one thing. If you forget everything else, the truth isn't just serious, it's drop dead serious.
- [58:25]
B
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A
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