← Julian Dorey Podcast
Julian Dorey Podcast
#343 - JSOC Data Hacker Exposes Delta Covert Op & Investigates 2017 Vegas Shooting | Mike Yeagley
03:22:59
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- [00:00]
A
When I first started this, I was trying to establish transnational links. And Stephen Paddock goes and shoots up Jason Aldean concert in Vegas. You get that call at 10 o' clock at night. So I'm working with one of the analysts, detected devices that had dwelled at a place called Redstone Arsenal, which is where they teach explosives. And this is where intelligence and data can be very misleading. There was no link to transnational theories. They were FBI devices. For 20 years, we owned the airspace because we were basically intercepting cell phone signals. We even got Putin's spokesperson to address it. Wasn't tracking Putin. I was tracking his bodyguards as a means of if I can do it. You know, Kogi, he didn't stand a chance based upon how deep they were into his communications. His devices were all exploited. Over my travels, I have been in meetings with Arabs and Israelis. The Israelis are selling surveillance gear. And I gotta tell you, like, hey.
- [00:56]
B
Guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. All right, so I was on the phone with our mutual friend Tommy G. And he's like, join. You gotta talk to Mike Egl. He's out of his mind. So I was like, all right, say less. Let's do it. But I was looking at what you did. I was like, I've never talked to a guy like this before.
- [01:29]
A
It. It's not really that special. We all carry these mobile phones and these mobile phones bleed all sorts of data about everything that we do. Everywhere we go. It's gotten a little tighter. But when I first started this, and if you think about it, the, the kids across the river here that are doing mobile advertising and their skinny jeans and fancy socks, really some of the best geospatial intelligence analysts around, because they were taking these data sets, these very messy data sets and creating what are called audiences. People who have. Who are signaling, I'm in the market for a new car.
- [02:14]
B
Right.
- [02:15]
A
Based upon their patterns of life seem dwelling on a parking lot of a European car dealership. Boom. That's a signal package that up and they can sell it to Mercedes, Audi, Porsche. Say, here is somebody that is ready to go. Fitness lifestyle, fast food, dining, children, household dynamics. All of these things were foundationally became more targetable.
- [02:45]
B
Yeah.
- [02:45]
A
Based upon where you were going in. In the real world, when we're browsing, we have cookies. Everybody knows what a cookie is.
- [02:55]
B
Can you explain to people who don't.
- [02:56]
A
Cookie'S a little piece of Software, hopefully everybody's got them blocked. It's a little piece allow all the time.
- [03:04]
B
Damn it.
- [03:06]
A
It's just a little piece of software that sort of sticks on your browsing session and allows whoever, whatever site you're on to sort of track you from that site where you go on their site to where you go on other sites. The mobile devices came with this thing called an ad id, which was like a virtual cookie, this, you know, ones and series of ones and zeros. But that allowed apps, advertisers to track a single device based upon this advertising ID through time and space. So I see you at the gym, then I see you at, you know, organic food, grocery store.
- [03:49]
B
And this is because I hit like accept every time I download one of these apps or something like that.
- [03:54]
A
This is. Yeah, this is about your, locate your settings. You were allowing the app to, to track your location.
- [04:02]
B
Yes.
- [04:05]
A
And, and the interesting thing was, you know, back in the day, and I'm talking about 10 years ago when people were just completely ignorant, not by virtue, not by any fault of their own. You download a calculator app or a flashlight app. Flashlight app need to know where you are?
- [04:23]
B
No, but it would always ask.
- [04:26]
A
Or it didn't, it didn't have to ask.
- [04:28]
B
Oh, they didn't legally have to do it back then.
- [04:30]
A
No.
- [04:30]
B
Wow.
- [04:31]
A
Oh, yeah. So you're, you're, you're in an environment where it's constantly asking you, can I track you? Back in the day, which, you know, we talk about the, the rap how, how tech is just moving so fast. I'm talking 10 years ago, back in the day, not that long ago, these apps you download and install this app and all of the permissions would be set to accept. So you'd be bleeding your location data to some free ass app like a flashlight app, and they would then the app, because it was free or had no value that anybody was spending any money, they would take those data sets, package them up and sell them to this, you know, this deplorable broker, data broker community who would then create these audiences, these prepackaged groups of people based upon predilections of, of intent.
- [05:28]
B
Right. So when they. I have so many questions here. I don't want to get like too, too lost in the weeds, but we'll just kind of jump around a. When I would give my data to a flashlight app or something simple like that, even today, but back then as well, wherever it's applicable, am I just an IP address or a cell phone number or like serial number or am I Julian Dorey.
- [05:52]
A
You're mostly, you're mostly a benign identifier.
- [05:55]
B
Okay.
- [05:57]
A
An ad ID which is, you know, 17475 echo Bravo Charlie 1257.
- [06:04]
B
That sounds like my name.
- [06:05]
A
Yeah. And that's what they would use to maintain the protection of your identity. But as a browsing session, your identity was that, that identifier, that selector, if you have a direct relationship with the app, Uber, Amazon, you're logging in, they know exactly who you are and what you're doing on the app.
- [06:32]
B
Yes.
- [06:32]
A
But if it's, you know, this sort of a, an app that doesn't have, there's no reason to have that one to one relationship they have. They are identifying you based upon this ad id.
- [06:45]
B
Right. So that might be like the one thing where Apple has a little bit of privacy, where they're just like here's the number of the person rather than here's the full Apple ID and all that.
- [06:54]
A
Yeah. So in the advertising world or in the marketing world, they're not getting your phone number, they're not pull in your IMEI or your MZ or any of the other meta selectors from your device that are attributable to an identity. You have to subscribe to a mobile phone and that those, those, those selectors march right back to your identity. The ad ID is this privacy compliant way of cross app tracking you.
- [07:25]
B
Right.
- [07:27]
A
And you brought up Apple. So it's about three years, four years ago, Tim Cook declared a fatwa on data brokers.
- [07:35]
B
Oh, he's an actual fatwa. Remember that episode of Curb Fatwa.
- [07:39]
A
Yeah. Or the other one. There's another one.
- [07:43]
B
Oh, when they were fighting over the Palestinian chicken.
- [07:46]
A
That one too.
- [07:46]
B
Right?
- [07:47]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, the media or there had been stories about these data brokers and this suggestion that somehow the government was getting involved and you know, was targeting communities, disenfranchised communities. And so Tim Cook stepped in and Apple had a hypothesis that privacy would sell. And so they went all in on privacy. Similar. It was almost like the counterfactual to the car companies back in the day when they told, told Congress that safety doesn't sell. Privacy is sort of this modern day version of safety.
- [08:28]
B
I remember that ad that was fall 2021. We talked about it on the podcast back then.
- [08:33]
A
It was very effective. And so they've done. But let's keep, you know, everything is they can declare themselves the private phone, but what they've effectively done is just consolidated the duopoly between Google and Apple.
- [08:51]
B
Okay.
- [08:52]
A
All of the data that Apple isn't letting data brokers or an advertiser get directly. They're controlling that flow through something called app tracking. Transparency.
- [09:04]
B
Okay, before we get there, because, like, obviously the reason you come into this story and the reason Tommy G. Was interested in talking to you is because you came from the private side as someone who was in the marketing data business, which we'll talk about in a little bit, the exact details of that. But you realize that all these very publicly available tools, this, I don't know, like ad in or whatever, effectively.
- [09:27]
A
We never called it that, by the way, because it's just so gay.
- [09:31]
B
They all sound gay. Like Osint, Hu Mint. You know, it's like whenever I get like the military guys in here, they start dropping like the E4s and I'm like, guys, Yeah, I don't know what that is. You gotta tell me.
- [09:42]
A
18 echoes, right? So that was, that was something that got ascribed to it or somebody dropped that in there. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's creative because it's really. At the end of the day, we weren't doing anything related to advertising. It was slices of the data that made advertising more efficient that we were collecting.
- [10:03]
B
Yeah. So anyway, but you come into the story because you realize, hey, this is a public utility, meaning, like me, a private citizen can go get this information and then I can take that data set and extrapolate that into things that would be relevant to a place like, like a spy agency trying to watch, I don't know, other international leaders or whatever. So we're going to get to how all that came down. But I'm interested in you explaining the nuts and bolts things. And one of the examples you were given a few minutes ago about, you know, the kids across the river who put all this data together and then package it up and sell it. It's a great visual because when we think of pretty much any industry, there's a product, right? And of course there's a product with this. The product is us and our data and everything. But you look at things that are physical products that you can buy, you can put it in your house and you can see it. Right. You look at things that are softw software products like a Google. You pull it up on your phone and it's got advertisements on there and all the things you're searching for just works. Yeah, it's a product, Right. Most people, like, I couldn't name you. I know there's a billion of them. I couldn't name you. An ad middleman, data collection company Even though some of these places are, I'm sure, without a doubt, some of the biggest companies in America.
- [11:14]
A
Yeah, you wouldn't. You wouldn't. And there are, there are thousands of them and there are companies you've never heard of. Yeah, but they are the ones who know that you're Catholic, you go to the gym, you live here. You know, they have this foundational understanding, not just of what you're doing online on a browser, but where you go and what they are. The way they see that is they can attribute. Okay, you saw an ad online, and what was the effect of that ad? Did we actually see you, you know, visit a store or something like that? So it, it provided this new foundational understanding of human behavior, human geography.
- [12:06]
B
Right.
- [12:07]
A
And that's where the, the utility for the government seemed a natural fit.
- [12:17]
B
Yeah, because the government is using, of course, there's open source intelligence on things, but then they're using human intelligence on the ground, where they get assets, obviously, we know all about that. And then they're using data amalgamation that they create, but they weren't necessarily taking like the public utility of it and then using that as like a targeting mechanism. That's where you come in.
- [12:38]
A
Right.
- [12:38]
B
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- [14:21]
A
Yep. So 20 plus years in software in the sales, marketing, customer experience business. So I understood software.
- [14:32]
B
Right.
- [14:33]
A
The market in software that I spent all those years in was in data analysis and, and had some really good learning experiences with companies that were just either too early in the market, but understanding, okay, how do we make this work? You know, if I had the language that we have now to describe AI and large language models and machine learning, if I had that in 2006 when the value proposition for, for a national security app capability, if I had the language that we have now to describe the power of, of this thing to take a bunch of text based data and start learning about it, I might not be sitting here right now. And DARPA had it. Well, it was. And DARPA couldn't even come up with the right language.
- [15:35]
B
I believe you.
- [15:36]
A
There's a lot of, lot of interesting stories there.
- [15:41]
B
Put a bookmark on that show.
- [15:42]
A
Yeah. You know, so I have this, this experience where, you know, you're trying to find weak signals in, in data. Right. Back in the day, everything was sort of a proprietary data set. A data set that the organization you were selling to had all this data. They needed to slap a front end on top of it to make it easier for their analysts to make sense to navigate it.
- [16:10]
B
Yeah.
- [16:11]
A
Palantir. You've heard of Palantir?
- [16:13]
B
Never heard of him before. Wouldn't know. You don't work for them, do you?
- [16:17]
A
I don't.
- [16:17]
B
All right, that's.
- [16:18]
A
I don't think I could pass their employee test to determine how wicked smart you are.
- [16:24]
B
Right. I like this guy. He can stay.
- [16:27]
A
It's true.
- [16:28]
B
This podcast is sponsored by Palantir, by the way.
- [16:30]
A
Is it really?
- [16:30]
B
Yeah. It's not, no. He was about to leave.
- [16:40]
A
So I came from this ability to talk about data and analysis in a way that wasn't so much locked in the ones and zeros. But, you know, I could Sit across the table from somebody who knew even less about it than I did and explain to them why this mattered and why this was going to impact what we're doing in these frontier locations where, you know, you're trying to get heads or tails as to what's going on. And you can't fly, you know, you can't, you can't have airborne assets flying, collecting all of this stuff. You need something else that's sort of coming in to, to hydrate all of that information because it's way too obvious. I mean, it's just, it's. We can, and that was, you know, for 20 years. We own the airspace. We could fly and collect against anybody.
- [17:41]
B
Sure.
- [17:41]
A
Collected really good stuff because we were basically intercepting cell phone signals. Right. With these devices that would emulate a cell phone tower so we could attack these phones. But what about the signals? What about the phones that we don't know about? What about the, the populations that we're not able to understand their patterns of life, their movements, their centers of gravity? How can we get a better sense of what populations in Syria are doing or populations in Libya are doing or populations in Yemen? The, you know, the, the high traveled destination spots for the, for the first world.
- [18:20]
B
Right. Yeah. And I was going to take a vacation next summer.
- [18:23]
A
Yeah.
- [18:24]
B
We have a many coffee place down here. It's pretty good.
- [18:26]
A
I bet it is. Yemen. Have you ever been to a Yemen restaurant?
- [18:29]
B
That's what I said. I'm like, I didn't know this was a thing.
- [18:32]
A
Yeah, they feed you.
- [18:34]
B
They're great. I like them a lot.
- [18:35]
A
Yeah.
- [18:36]
B
But you know. Yeah, I don't know if I'm visiting there.
- [18:38]
A
Yeah. Probably not anytime soon.
- [18:40]
B
Right.
- [18:42]
A
So I understand how to, how to present the value proposition that breaks it down in a way where I'm not sitting here talking about, well, sir, you know, there are these demand side platforms and supply side platforms and ad tech and you know, by that time he's like asleep. Whatever.
- [19:03]
B
Yeah.
- [19:05]
A
So I talk about human geography and patterns of life and population movement and the ability to sort of do this at a really good deal for the taxpayer to get sort of this, this hyperlocal sense of how populations behave. All right, that all sounds good. Prove it. Which sort of leads into how all of this unraveled. I'm giving a presentation to an investor conference, buy side quant type, you know, alternative data. Like I'm going to give you the, I'm going to show you the weak signal in, in data you may have heard of, you know, quants like counting cars and parking lots to determine store traffic. Like, I'm going to show you this at a, at a, at a more precise level. It's like at a Four Seasons Hotel or Ritz Carlton.
- [20:06]
B
Ink Util goes to those things, Patagonia.
- [20:08]
A
And Priuses, you know.
- [20:10]
B
Huh.
- [20:11]
A
So sitting in the back, didn't even notice them. You know, I'm done with my presentation. Two dudes approach me and they look like 1 percenters from an MC. From a what, one motorcycle club.
- [20:24]
B
A motorcycle biker gang.
- [20:25]
A
They look like bikers. And John doesn't mind me talking about this because me and I are friends now, but sleeves, they look. They're not from Sandhill Road in, in the Valley, but they know data. And the questions they're asking me are really different. They're asking me about Libya, Yemen, Syria. Is there data as you've described from these places? I don't know. Want to find out. So as that story unfolds, I go to work and I start talking to these data companies as I've described, these audience attribution companies, data brokers. I have this cover for action where I'm facilitating analysis for an NGO who wants to know about populations that are refugees along the Syrian Turkish border. Backstop built out. I was talking about, you know, we need to know the, the distribution between men and women. We need to know what types of facilities we need to have for women. Like, I had this thing laid out, but these are data companies, so it was probably overkill. If I had bank, they were going to sell, I'm like, so. But this, you know, there we're not. You're not selling Nikes in. Along the Syria Turkish border. You're not advertising for Starbucks along the Syria.
- [21:59]
B
Hey, listen, they gotta sell some Grande Mochacinos. That's right, almond milk.
- [22:06]
A
And so, you know, they're like, yeah, we've got data. It usually ends up on the cutting room floor because nobody really. We're not monetizing it, nobody's advertising, but we have data. Like, all right, how much? One guy goes, how much you got? Like, ask a stupid question, I'm going to get. Yeah. So we go through, we go through the process. Get a, get a data set and start lighting up these areas. Like, you know, we've got millions of data points, with data point being a lat long observation of a unique device.
- [22:47]
B
Lat long observation of a unique device.
- [22:49]
A
Yeah. So this is. So you asked earlier about IP addresses.
- [22:52]
B
Yes.
- [22:55]
A
The apps are pulling location, your GPS location as your phone is detecting where it precisely is not an IP address which is sort of centroid to a city center or wherever. Wherever the cutout is. This is putting you, like, in this parcel.
- [23:14]
B
Yeah.
- [23:16]
A
Which. To get that. To get that distribution, that many observations of unique devices with that degree of precision. I was like, that was cutting edge. And so we're seeing all of this data, and it's like, all right, so what is the use case? Like, I haven't gotten there yet. And you know, like, okay, we can do this. This is kind of cool. But what's the use case? And so I'm sitting in my classified home office. Skiff.
- [23:56]
B
No, I was gonna say that.
- [23:59]
A
My home office in between my master bedroom and my daughter's room.
- [24:02]
B
Room. You're in mine right now.
- [24:04]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And yours is probably better. Yours probably soundproof, because I'm sitting in.
- [24:10]
B
We did kind of soundproof. It's nice in here. Yeah.
- [24:13]
A
So I'm sitting there like, okay, I have this data. I have this, you know, user interface, a geospatial user interface, a map. Like, I need a use case that's going to matter. I'm like, all right, where are devices that I know are at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? Where do they go next? Or where else in the world are they? So I draw a little geofence around Fort Bragg, hit play, and the map starts lighting up. You know, lots of. Lots of observations in and around the lovely Fayetteville, North Carolina. Right. But I'm seeing clusters in Syria.
- [25:05]
B
From Fort Bragg.
- [25:06]
A
From Fort Bragg.
- [25:07]
B
That's promising.
- [25:09]
A
So I'm like, this is interesting. What's this all about? So I light up, you know, I start examining, like, where are they? And they are located at this abandoned cement factory, Lafarge Cement factory. La Fars, it's a French company, and they were. They were manufacturing cement there. And if you think about the configuration of it, it's like the perfect forward operating base. Yeah.
- [25:43]
B
He put some bodies in cement. No one ever finds it.
- [25:46]
A
That's right. You got lots of room. And so I'm looking at this, and then I'm like, all right, let's see. Where do these devices that I know are attributable between Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where nothing goes on related to special operations?
- [26:07]
B
Nothing.
- [26:07]
A
Nothing.
- [26:08]
B
I didn't even know that.
- [26:08]
A
Yeah. Where JSOC is headquartered as well as Delta, they are located kind of down the road a little bit from. Okay, I understand that. Anyway. And it's like a Division 1 football facility.
- [26:34]
B
Yeah.
- [26:34]
A
Think about more, you know, professional football facility. It's if You've ever been to one.
- [26:39]
B
Of those, it's like, oh, they're nice.
- [26:40]
A
That's. They're nice.
- [26:41]
B
Yeah.
- [26:43]
A
So where. So these devices that are in Syria that are affiliated with Fort Bragg, where else are they? And I start seeing these devices at residential properties in a town called Southern Pines, North Carolina.
- [27:00]
B
Oh, still here.
- [27:01]
A
Still here. But Southern Pines, North Carolina is a really nice sort of upscale residential community where if you make a few extra bucks and you're in the army, you can afford to live there. All of this, like, I have no a priori knowledge. I am not looking for Delta operators. I didn't know what Southern Pines meant. No idea.
- [27:28]
B
But you're sitting like in your house with your daughter's bedroom, right?
- [27:32]
A
She's sleeping next door, looking at open.
- [27:34]
B
Source information going, am I about to find the fucking DaVinci Code? Like, is this it?
- [27:40]
A
I'm thinking, all right, so what is the use case here? And I don't really know what I have, which is the beautiful thing about this stuff, because you go in with like, I'm going to prove something and you'll make it work. I didn't know really what I was looking at. Develop that, those. Those location points such that, you know, I'm seeing contractors from other military bases. I'm seeing how they are moving into Syria, their routes. So they all sort of start at Fort Bragg, and then some guys go to this airport and other guys go to this airport, and they all end up making cement in northern Syria. So. And that's where I have this meeting that's been written about. And I'm about to step, you know, like, as things are about to get hot, because nobody has any idea about this. And so my partner, my government, a civilian government employee, the biker dude that approached me at the Four Seasons without his Patagonia and radius in the parking lot.
- [29:01]
B
I like this guy.
- [29:02]
A
Yeah. John Fritchley, like. And he is not in government anymore, which is one of the. Read into that what you want, but he's one of the guys now. He works. He's.
- [29:11]
B
Yeah, big air quotes there.
- [29:12]
A
He's. He's making bank as a. As a sales guy.
- [29:15]
B
Right?
- [29:18]
A
You know, I'm showing him, you know, I have this PowerPoint sort of built out like that I can click through quickly. He's looking at it, you know, he's like, let it rip. This is. We need to know. This is. This is why we are doing this.
- [29:36]
B
Were you uncovering. I'm tracking here as best I can. Were you essentially uncovering that? Like, we Were using military and some say, intelligence related operations that we were doing through a concrete company over in Syria. And because you track the neighborhood in North Carolina that says, oh, they're definitely a little higher level military there, you were able to say, hey guys, we're doing shit undercover. And if I have this tool and I'm sitting in fucking Saudi Arabia and I don't like you, I can use this against us to unload it.
- [30:07]
A
If I can do it. We must assume that an adversary can do.
- [30:11]
B
Right.
- [30:12]
A
And so that was the, that was the. This is what we've. This is what. Commercial data without any real. We weren't tar. I wasn't targeting anybody. I was. Let's see what we can figure out.
- [30:27]
B
Yeah.
- [30:28]
A
And so the use case became Counterintelligence Opsec identity management, but more of a operational security use case.
- [30:38]
B
And you had never really done anything ever involved in the government before. You'd just been in the software business, essentially.
- [30:44]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:45]
B
Okay.
- [30:46]
A
Yeah.
- [30:46]
B
So this is like a whole new world for you out of nowhere.
- [30:49]
A
For the, for the, for the special operations community. 100% like, as I said, you know, your delta. So what does that mean? I mean, I kind of knew, right. But it just. This was not. I was not coming from that community knowing what I was looking for.
- [31:08]
B
Got it.
- [31:09]
A
Which is why this southern. These Southern Pines Residences where I'm like. And here's a house in Southern Pines, North Carolina. Anyway, so I'm going through this and I, And I can see like at first, you know, it's a typical presentation. People are barely paying attention and I'm like walking through my methodology and, you know, and la farce and that's, you know, I kind of. I see, oh, this, this got their attention. Oh, hello. And then the next slide is. And I, you know, these are the. These are residences that are attributable to the Lafarge cement factory. And you know, everybody gets a little closer and they're. One guy's looking at it and he, you know, the two guys start whispering to each other.
- [31:57]
B
Did you with him at all? Like, oh, you guys are paying attention now?
- [32:01]
A
Yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't dialed in enough to know what I knew.
- [32:06]
B
Okay.
- [32:08]
A
And then the meeting went. Didn't go high and Right. But it was sort of like, stop. How are you doing this? I just told you how I was doing it and you weren't paying attention. But the immediate, you know, you know, they were. Their learning systems or their, Their perception was, I must have hacked, intercepted, engineered or stolen data in Order to do this, I'm like, I didn't do any of those things.
- [32:45]
B
Let's go back to the first part presentation. Yeah, I bought it. That's not how. So how expensive was it to buy like that iteration?
- [32:53]
A
600,000 bucks.
- [32:56]
B
The previous wallet I used over the past 12 or 13 years was so bulky, clunky and terrible. I don't know why I never changed it. Well, actually I do. It's because I'm lazy and didn't think to change it until my friends at Ridge sent me over theirs. The Ridge wallet is unique and slim and fits into any pocket absolutely seamlessly. This modern design is going to hold up to 12 cards plus cash and you can push them right out from the bottom to get what you're looking for. It's like a deck of cards in a way. And in case I wasn't holding that up close enough to the camera, Ridge is made with premium materials like aluminum, titanium and carbon fiber. Don't worry, it's a wallet, not a submarine trying to see the Titanic. If you know, you know. And Ridge is so confident in this wallet product that it has a lifetime warranty. You heard that right. This is literally the last wallet you'll ever have to buy. The Ridge wallet comes with over 50 different colors and styles to choose from. And did I mention it also has RFID blocking technology? That's right. This thing is going to keep you safe from digital pickpocketers as well. Ridge isn't just about wallets either. They create premium everyday carry essentials like key cases, suitcases, rings and more that are built with the same sleek, durable design. No matter what you pick, Ridge is going to give you free shipping with a 99 day risk free trial and a lifetime warranty on all their products. For a limited time, our listeners are going to get 10 off at Ridge using promo code Julian at checkout. Just head to ridge.com link in description below. Use code Julian and you're all set. After your purchase, Ridge is going to ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them I sent you.
- [34:29]
A
So you know, people say gave you that money again. Yeah, this is jsoc.
- [34:33]
B
Okay.
- [34:33]
A
Yep, yep. Yeah, no, this was not this going.
- [34:38]
B
To say send me money. Yeah, I need some.
- [34:40]
A
Yeah. So. So this was like the initial sort of proof of concept. A little bit of money. Let's see what this can do. And all right, so you have hyperlocal awareness of the movements of of special mission unit operators.
- [35:03]
B
Yeah.
- [35:04]
A
Who get, you know, trained on all this stuff. And counterintelligence and opsec and all of these things. And they're like, so you're telling me that all of this was put together without any a priori knowledge? You didn't have any cheats or shortcuts? Shortcuts or hacks? And I'm like, my only hack was, I know Fort Bragg. That was all I needed as my seed. Location. China, you know, they know there's no secret.
- [35:32]
B
They own land all around it.
- [35:33]
A
That's right. The United front work department. They buy it.
- [35:37]
B
Yeah. They're watching from the farm.
- [35:38]
A
Yeah, yeah. And talk about that. And so. And that was sort of the. Okay, you've. You haven't proven anything yet, but we're paying attention.
- [35:53]
B
They probably thought you were Mossad or something.
- [35:55]
A
They thought I was a charlatan. They thought I was a snake oil salesman. I mean, they said it like, one guy said it to my face and walked out. Like, I don't.
- [36:04]
B
Even after you got the name of the place and their addresses. But how could you be a charlatan? That's insane.
- [36:10]
A
You're familiar with remote viewing? One guy accused me. He's like, are you doing that remote viewing stuff?
- [36:17]
B
So we. So you're like, so you're admitting that's real?
- [36:22]
A
I mean, I was like, no, this is. I promise you, I'm a deep thinker. But, you know, not like that.
- [36:30]
B
Let's get Elizondo in here, test him out, see what's.
- [36:32]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we've started to build that out a little bit, and this has all been documented, and there's nothing. And this is, you know, going back almost 10 years ago, it's going to say, so we've gotten much better at all of this. The platform, you know, the devices have gotten much better at just not protecting special Mission unit operators and spies and case officers, just for population, for humanity. The platforms of the devices have gotten better with. With privacy and not making it so easy for just anybody to start doing this.
- [37:09]
B
Can you explain how they've done that? Like some key ways.
- [37:12]
A
Yeah. So anything where, for example, every time you open up an app and it gives you a, you know, 70 boxes to check to provide permissions as a matter of getting that app to work on your phone, as opposed to the app just loading on your phone and having all of those permissions set like, and do cross, cross app tracking your location, all of that stuff.
- [37:39]
B
But people, to be clear, though, and I'll speak for myself, but I'm sure I speak for a lot of people listening Right now there's some apps, when they ask, like if a flashlight app or something like that ass, I'm like, yeah, that. But then there's other apps, like maybe off the top of my head, like a navigator app or something like, can we know your location? Like, yeah, you have to know my location or it doesn't work. So that stuff is all still, we're still all hitting yes to that.
- [38:01]
A
And I, this is, this is the, the choice that we have to make. Like when I, when I'm, when, when I have 3% battery and it's raining outside and I need an Uber, I don't want to be fucking around trying to get my drop a pin and all this shit. I want it to work. So I make that trade off and I, we have this trust because Uber's relationship or any app where you, you have that trust, like your, your data is important and they're not going to be, you know, selling it to anybody and everybody. They don't need to, firstly, it's too valuable, but they're not going to be doing that. And you have to make those, you have to make those choices. But you're right when you want, when, when location is fundamental to the app's functionality. Yeah, that's, that's a choice. That's a choice to make.
- [38:53]
B
So how do our, how does our government now would like the special forces guys and stuff like that adequately defend against this when those guys, you know, they have a life too, so they have a phone, they use Uber and stuff like that. How, how do they set it up so that if they are using those services, you can't track them to Lafarge anymore?
- [39:12]
A
Yeah. So this is what we have to understand as societies. The capitalization behind being able to segment us into cohorts, into audience groups, that cap structure is so huge that there isn't a silver bullet that's going to defeat that. It's just, it's just, it's, there's just nothing, there's just nothing that'll allow you to fully fight back. I mean, you're going to tell me that there's, you know, something you can do on your phone to defeat Google?
- [39:52]
B
No.
- [39:52]
A
And even when, you know, when a new privacy regulation comes online, you know, their ability to pivot into other ways and methods of understanding sort of your device behavior and activity through all sorts of means. I mean, these things are emitting so much telemetry, telemetry data, you know, it's, you know, they're packaging up telemetry packs and at you know, 2:00 clock in the morning, if you were observing the processing the, the CPUs of your device, all of a sudden it would, you know, you would be like what the. What. What's going on? Because it's, you know, it's transmitting diagnostic information about the device. You know, there was, when did, when did we have the Beijing Olympics? Was it oh wait, 20, the 2020, which got pushed to 2022, but it was supposed to be in 2020 in Beijing because.
- [40:57]
B
Or was that Hong Kong in 08? I don't remember.
- [41:00]
A
Anyway, so the most recent Olympics in Beijing, they, they every athlete, all of the Olympic. You know, if you were part of the, if you were part of the Olympics, if you were going to go and spectate, you had to download an app and if you look at what that. And there was no, you know, select which permissions you want to allow to be to be collected. It was your location, your battery power, processing power, what apps you have open the full gamut of device behavior. And so, all right, I can understand, you know, like all of these conveniences that we, we convince ourselves that it's more convenient to let tech do these things. So I'm just going to let it, Autumn, I'm just going to automate it and let it know, you know, where I am. So that, so they're, you know, we could, we could make the case that knowing precise location as you're navigating venues is somehow, you know, to allow access or control or. But at the end of the day, if you look at the data that this app is collecting, they'd be able to segment the differences between the Australian ski team's device usage from the New Zealand's ski team. And it could be this weak signal like their battery power at these times is at this level and they're. What is that signal? I don't know if there's a signal there, but over time and collected in context with maybe other things, you know, now do we know that there's unusual, there's something unusual about this cohort based upon some non obvious indicator that doesn't make sense to anybody else. But when you layer that in with other things, that is a signal of intent.
- [43:03]
B
Imagine if I like this is one thing I think that gets lost on, on people when, when you have this conversation because people think like, oh well, there's a million things going on. How could it be figured out so easily? First of all, you guys have incredible tools to do it. Secondly, we now literally have AI to help do it. So Even before that.
- [43:20]
A
That is. That shit is faster.
- [43:23]
B
Yep.
- [43:23]
A
Than a Stasi trained Roomba on Adderall.
- [43:28]
B
Stasi train Roomba on. So wait, the Stasis are training Roombas too? Do I need to know about that? I haven't bought a Roomba. It kind of freaks me out. But I shouldn't do that.
- [43:40]
A
It's. It's really fast. So at scale to think as a human, and you asked earlier about what can, you know, what can operators or. Or sensitive cohorts do.
- [43:51]
B
Yeah.
- [43:52]
A
It's happening so fast. And if you look at the litany of things that you should be concerned about, we don't have the cognitive capability to manage all of this.
- [44:01]
B
That's. Exactly.
- [44:02]
A
Especially if we are operating.
- [44:05]
B
Yes. You can't think about like fucking 150 apps on your phone.
- [44:09]
A
You're not sitting there like, you know.
- [44:10]
B
Right.
- [44:11]
A
So it's, It's. It's not a solution. And there's not much to sell. When I, you know, talk to these communities, it's about understanding, you know, what is it, what am I. What am I communicating, what am I saying about myself when I do these things?
- [44:31]
B
And at least being able to use it against the adversaries too. So there's a level playing field.
- [44:35]
A
So this is so because of podcasts and because of the availability of former Tier 1 operators to appear on podcasts. You've had a few, and I'm. This is not a criticism. I don't want to get into that.
- [44:50]
B
Yeah. Lee was tracking our podcast every time they were here. He's like, oh, there he is.
- [44:55]
A
Right. That's right.
- [44:56]
B
That in Jersey again.
- [44:57]
A
But if you think about it, the. The tactical cohort, or the tactical audience, which is now access to the lifestyle of an operator, what they wear, how they dress, where they go, how they talk, all of these things, has created this new group of consumer who aren't operators, but they wear all the shit and they buy all the guns and they go to the gun ranges and they drive trucks and they do all of this stuff. That is the operator lifestyle. Yes. So for that community, we now have cover ballast. So you're contributing to the operational security of.
- [45:48]
B
All right. Yeah, I'm okay with that.
- [45:49]
A
Yeah. I like protecting, but it's like, you know, 20 years ago. Be familiar with 511, the clothing store. I know 7 11, 5 11. You know, 511 would not be. It's like this Carhartt. I've been wearing Carhartt since 1993. Nobody, you know, you were either a working man to wear Car. Now it's like.
- [46:12]
B
It's back.
- [46:13]
A
It's fashion.
- [46:13]
B
Oh, it's back. They wear it on, like, they wear it at Fashion Week.
- [46:17]
A
Yeah. Crazy. Yeah, yeah. What's his name? Wrote a song about it.
- [46:24]
B
Kanye.
- [46:25]
A
Was it Kanye?
- [46:26]
B
And I mean, he's written a song about a lot anyways, but, you know.
- [46:29]
A
I won't go down that. But 511 is like this tactical, you know, clothing store. 20 years ago, like, they would never have had a storefront, you know, suburban Washington, D.C. and now everybody's wearing 5 11.
- [46:44]
B
Yep, I see what you're saying.
- [46:47]
A
You know, and so this tactical lifestyle, the interest in it by virtue of the availability, you know, to hear these guys talk, to see what they wear, it's kind of like, you know, I want to be a cool guy, too.
- [47:02]
B
Yeah.
- [47:04]
A
So that provides this sort of this. A little bit of operational. Because an adversary is going to be like, all right, unless I see, you know, all of these, you know, unless I'm able to observe them at overt known government facility. Like, I don't know what I'm looking at is that an operator? Is that just a guy that can afford to look like one?
- [47:23]
B
Yeah.
- [47:25]
A
So, you know, there are. It's. It's not all bad.
- [47:31]
B
And everyone had like. That's the thing. There's like mutually assured blackmail, tracking, destruction, in a way, around the world. Now when you're talking about, like, the best intelligence agencies, they got your handful, because especially when you're talking about publicly available information, they all can get access to it as long as they know how to read the language. Now, thanks to guys like you, like, they can all do it on each other. It still puts in danger the quote unquote chess pieces that are on the board, though, because you know that that's a risk. You know, if you're setting up an intelligence operation now, you know, your guys still carry iPhones or something. Now, there are some things. This is. I'm very not well read in this, so please just fill in and correct me where I'm wrong. But, you know, I've heard about things like they'll make guys carry Faraday cages and stuff like that. But again, that come to me. I would assume that comes back to the question of, like, giving up the convenience of even having the thing in the first place.
- [48:28]
A
Yeah, the. The Faraday bags. So here's. This is. And this is really sort of into the weeds. But so I see a device behaving in a certain way, and then all of a sudden, I don't See it, it's. It's a Monday afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, normal people, their devices are functioning. I'm able to see signal throughout the day. Checking, checking Instagram off. But these devices that are in the Washington D.C. area from time to time or at very specific times are not emitting any signal. That's a jump. But you know, like if you're looking for that non obvious indicator, like what devices? If I've got a million devices that behave in a very predictable manner and then I've got 100 devices that exceed that predictable parameter, I'm interested in those hundred devices.
- [49:37]
B
Right.
- [49:37]
A
Because somebody dropped it in a Faraday bag.
- [49:40]
B
So I just had in Joe Weil, who's Weil, who's the CEO of that Israeli spyware phone, the unplugged phone. I joke. It's, you know, it is kind of run through Israel. But anyway, so he was explaining that when they've used this for some of the tactical guys like out in the field and stuff like that, they have to have a product that creates a false signal so that they don't stand out for that very reason you just said.
- [50:07]
A
Yep. So you, if. So when, when you need your device to continue a pattern of life.
- [50:15]
B
Right.
- [50:15]
A
Or a, you know, a technical pattern of life, you need to, you're posting and you're doing shit on Instagram like once an hour. You need that device to continue to behave that way, which is, you know, there's a lot to go into that to, to scale it and make it work. But that's the kind of thing you want to maintain that degree of normalcy or usualness.
- [50:44]
B
Yeah.
- [50:44]
A
You don't want to be that unusual device in and around Fayetteville, North Carolina, Virginia Beach, Washington D.C. tyson's Corner. That does weird things.
- [50:54]
B
Yep.
- [50:55]
A
So how do we maintain that degree of normalcy? And, and the idea, the concept that privacy has sort of developed into this normal. Like you're not hiding something. If you are into data privacy, that's become a normal sort of trait. Feature cover. Again, it's because normal people are using Proton Mail and Signal.
- [51:21]
B
Yeah.
- [51:22]
A
And all of these VPNs. VPNs. It is a normal behavior, even if you're not hiding cheating, dealing drugs or whatever. Right.
- [51:31]
B
I don't do any of those things.
- [51:33]
A
Definitely not. Well, we'll talk because I, I may have some other thoughts on that for you based upon your patterns of life. Oh, okay. All right.
- [51:45]
B
Those days are behind me.
- [51:46]
A
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, again, maintaining that posture of normalcy through privacy, which you know, that's one of the, if you think about, you know, your personal pillars of privacy, like what is your privacy stack? I use a vpn. Okay. Make sure you're using the right one, not one that's free or developed and hosted in Romania. Use one that's from Switzerland.
- [52:12]
B
Yeah.
- [52:13]
A
You know, an email service that's based in Switzerland. What is your privacy stack look like? Because.
- [52:21]
B
Why Switzerland? Because it's literally Switzerland because of, you.
- [52:24]
A
Know, in terms of their data privacy laws. It, you know, it's rooted sort of in that mindset of their banking. What they were for banking. They have, they have become for, for data privacy.
- [52:37]
B
Got it. Okay. Shout out Switzerland.
- [52:39]
A
Yeah. You know, they, they, they don't have a de facto compliance agreement for data seizures.
- [52:50]
B
Love that.
- [52:53]
A
And you know, Switzerland has always sort of had this, this posture of, of secrecy. Right? Yeah. You need to launder money.
- [53:01]
B
That's where you go.
- [53:02]
A
You're not laundering it in Hoboken.
- [53:04]
B
That allegedly.
- [53:05]
A
But yeah, yeah, you're gonna go to Switzerland.
- [53:08]
B
I know a couple guys.
- [53:09]
A
Yeah, yeah, you're gonna. So you, you know, everybody should have their sort of pillars of privacy for a whole host of reasons that is more about personal dignity and autonomy and, and identity than anything else. It's not about hiding. And so, you know, you look at some of the, the operating systems or the unplugged phone as, all right, if I'm going to upgrade my privacy game, maybe I want to, maybe I want to go down this route.
- [53:45]
B
What do you. Let's actually get a little specific though, just because I literally had Joe in here, the CEO of Unplugged. What do you think of that?
- [53:53]
A
I think it's so, from, from the personal, you know, from a personal individual perspective, I think it's, it's all about preference and how, how deep you want to go. And I think from, you know, an operational perspective, the more we can move tech to tech that is commercially overt in that it's not going to look weird if I have some essen science and technology directorate built phone that does weird things. It doesn't look like 10,000 other devices. If, if we can, if we can mirror all of the tech that is commercially available that provides covert communication or protected communication against an adversary that is looking for that outlier. Well, it's hard to look for an outlier amongst thousands or millions versus an outlier. Like, I've never seen this messaging app before. Oh, and I see four other devices that are communicating there and you know, they're staying two blocks away from the US Embassy That's.
- [55:11]
B
Now you're speaking my language. As far as like where I was going in my head when I was talking with Joe about what the intentions of like Joe and Eric Prince might be and like viewing, seeing as Erik Prince founded it and he's like a long time, you know, defense military guy and all that. I could see him thinking, I don't know this, but I could see him like, all right, well if we could get like 5% of the marketplace, that's enough noise. It's enough noise to make our point. 01% we actually care about. Blend in.
- [55:39]
A
I think that that's whatever that market share is.5% against the, the Apple, Google duopoly. That'd be, that's like something that'd be like if I, you know, there are 10 million kids wearing sneakers. If I can just corner 1% of that, I'll be rich. That's.1% is hard.
- [55:58]
B
Oh, of course. I'm not even talk, by the way, like, yeah, I'm sure that's part of it too. It's a business. They're trying to make money. So yeah, that'd be great for them in, in their goals. But I'm even talking about it from like the second order effect of. All right, well, Eric Prince blowing up people in Haiti right now. So at the government's behest. And he's thinking about projects like that that involved intelligence and protecting people. And it's like if we had more of these funds on the ground, they could blend in.
- [56:23]
A
And there are plenty of businesses, legitimate, not props and you know, intelligence entities, but like legitimate businesses where protecting data and communications is essential. Of course, investment banking you're doing, you're, you're the investment banker that's fucking organizing the, the private planes and the meeting places between company that's going to acquire and company that's getting acquired. You don't want, that's the arbs to come in and play that against you. You want to protect that. You want to have secure reading rooms, you want to have the ability to share documents without, you know, without anybody intercepting them. The movie business is really good at this. Where they need, you know, they're on location and they need the exfil, you know, the dailies from their next billion dollar blockbuster with Tom Cruise. They don't want those intercepted.
- [57:22]
B
That's right.
- [57:24]
A
So there are lots of, there are many commercial applications where secrecy is essential that create that market share, where we're proliferating within the consumer industry to create that ballast, that noise that somebody who's operational, carrying this phone, can't tell the difference between them. Or an investment banker or somebody that's protecting intellectual property or pharmaceutical research.
- [57:57]
B
Oh, there's so much of it. You're making an amazing point. You look at any major industry, doesn't matter what it is, even to take, even take the conspiratorial hat off. Just regular business that has to happen when there's a lot of dollars and cents on the line. It's a form of intelligence. It's business intelligence. People can go and bet on that if they find something out. That's how the public markets work. I mean, they're not supposed to do that, but you know what I mean.
- [58:20]
A
You know, my commercial side of the business, I work with a lot of hedge fund managers.
- [58:24]
B
I was just going to bring it up. These guys will put fucking drones over farms in China to find out if, you know, Apple's making a new chip.
- [58:31]
A
And you know what's really great about they all want their. They all want, like their own little CIA right there.
- [58:36]
B
That's good for you. Mike's like, yeah, I'll be $3 million I could get.
- [58:41]
A
Yeah, yeah, it's. It's amazing. Like, they all want their guy. If you ever watched Billions. Billions. They all want their Iceland.
- [58:50]
B
Oh, dude, that show is, Is, you know, scarily realistic on some things. Not all of it, but like.
- [58:57]
A
Yeah, they all want their fixer, their guy who can do.
- [59:01]
B
Yeah.
- [59:02]
A
And you look like you beat the.
- [59:04]
B
Out of people too. I like that. Yeah, that's good. Right as he's saying that, he pulls out.
- [59:12]
A
So, so there are the, the, the shift that is occurring that started, you know, when commercial data became, you know, the community became aware of its, of its risk and of its power. And we do a lot. We did a lot of stuff not, you know, cowering in the corner. We used it.
- [59:32]
B
Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that.
- [59:39]
A
Moving to that sort of commercial mindset. Not everything has to be a black box built by Q. We need to sort of. In this data environment where maybe you've heard people talk about something called ubiquitous technical surveillance. Uts.
- [59:57]
B
Actually, I have heard uts. Uts, but fill me in on this.
- [60:00]
A
Yeah, so you. It's everything that we've talked about, but the community refers to it as ubiquitous technical surveillance. So it's the cameras, the WI fi, sniffers, ad tech, everything that's sort of ambient. You know, the Stasi trained Roomba on Adderall, particularly in environments where surveillance is just part of the deal. UTS has has made it such where it's like, I'm gonna go down the street and I'm, I am, I can never consider myself black. So instead of, you know, I can run an eight hour surveillance detection route and there's no physical surveillance. I don't have, you know, guys following me, but they're following me through my phone.
- [60:55]
B
Right.
- [60:56]
A
Or through proof of presence based upon the cameras, WI fi, sniffers, everything that sort of makes, that talks to each other. Talks to each other. Yep. And so part of that risk is, okay, so maybe I got away with something today, but when that gets outed, the adversary is going to roll back that tape to see every other person you met with, every place you went. And that's, you know, that's, that's problematic because you may not even see what, what you did that revealed or outed your asset.
- [61:32]
B
Oh, it only takes one split second, one step in the wrong, the wrong place and the whole thing's going, yeah, absolutely. How much do you know about. Because like you, you 10 years ago got pulled into this world and then suddenly we're like the guy to talk to on and we'll get.
- [61:48]
A
It's really when you, when you're sitting at a table with a bunch of like PhDs and SIG enters and, and they're like, Mike Eagley is the subject matter expert on. And you're like, you like the drew me. I'm. I. It's, you know, that's, those are, those are moments where you're like, okay, am I, am I really that guy? Shit.
- [62:16]
B
Right. But point being, you did become the guy, right? And so that, that's going back 10 years and then you get thrust in this world and again we'll go through some of the different things that happen there. But like now, you know, through your job and through the people you get access to in the jobs you're on, you're also, I'm sure naturally learning, learning about all the other you didn't know about that. You know how data is collected, technology, all those things. And you've become an expert on that over the years. So how much is it applicable to say like if someone's using their phone in a restaurant, right? Some random lady right there, not associated with anyone, she's just some lady. And like you're an important person. You're sitting at that table talking to someone. Is there a spy agency that's in her phone and listening to what you're saying? Like, does that kind of thing exist? I don't want to say ubiquitously but far more commonly than we might think.
- [63:08]
A
Probably, I mean, probably not the random person that's in proximity. But so this is, you know, everybody's is sort of focused on the principle or the target or the, the, the leader. Right. As a means of extracting or targeting information. But these people, and they are locked down like you're not going to hack, you know, Trump's phone.
- [63:35]
B
They're not.
- [63:36]
A
If he. Even now, they're not. It's just I'm going to go on good faith assumption that somebody has made it such that his phone is a no fail mission. Like, you know, it's not going to get okay, anything's possible.
- [63:51]
B
But I've heard about some interesting phone calls he makes. That's just why. Yeah, I'm wondering.
- [63:56]
A
But it's the people that around him that are probably not as OPSEC sensitive tracking Putin. So, you know, there were headlines that we were tracking Putin.
- [64:09]
B
You were tracking Putin?
- [64:11]
A
Wasn't tracking Putin. I was tracking his bodyguards.
- [64:13]
B
Were you doing this from your bedroom again?
- [64:16]
A
Yeah.
- [64:17]
B
Oh, that's awesome.
- [64:17]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you Slava.
- [64:20]
B
Gotcha.
- [64:21]
A
And when that came out, we even got Putin's spokesperson to have to address it. So anyway, that was.
- [64:29]
B
So he said in Russian, like death.
- [64:32]
A
He got. They didn't name me. If I had gotten. I think, I think there was one interview where he was like, I don't know who this, you know, he, he totally destroyed my name. But I don't.
- [64:42]
B
Fucking Mike Yeagley, motherfucker.
- [64:44]
A
Pay this man. Pay this man his money. That was a great movie.
- [64:52]
B
Oh, the best kids got Alligator blood, can't get read.
- [64:58]
A
What was the word? He's like, check, check stick. He just goes, oh yeah.
- [65:04]
B
Where he's like all night this.
- [65:07]
A
Yeah, pee. This man needs money.
- [65:10]
B
I love that. You know that, that's great. So, yeah, the Oreos in the ear. Yeah, that's right.
- [65:15]
A
Yeah.
- [65:15]
B
Yeah.
- [65:18]
A
So I think it's, it's anything is possible. I also think that, you know, the media environment is such that every day of the week there's some new thing that we need to be worried about. The most recent one is, you know, WI fi signals as a, as a way of detecting identity based upon body fat. Yeah.
- [65:41]
B
What, What?
- [65:42]
A
Yeah, so the density. So you know, Bluetooth and WI fi are measured based upon these rizzy signals, you know, transmit, bounce back, like what is the time. And some lab, some university came up with a way of, of being able to detect your body composition as a means of. This is just an example. Like you would have to have sort of collected so much data to be able to start determining body types and, you know, figuring out who's who from. From those signals. But every day, you know, I. And I get my phone lights up with, did you see this? Like, what do we. What do you want? What are we going to do about it? You know, some company, some research lab has proven that you can detect identity based upon the body fat or body density of an individual based upon the Rizzi signals.
- [66:38]
B
So wait, that actually does. I'm just adding something in my head. Tell me if I'm like cooking the wrong thing here, but I've been wondering. Recently, I've talked about on some podcasts about things that I know verifiably. I never typed into Google and I never said out loud. Some things I thought in my head, some things I couldn't remember if I thought in my head. But ads would show up that spoke directly to that thing. And now that I'm thinking about it, most of the ones I'm thinking about are stuff that have to do with like little injuries or knickknacks or like stuff to do with my health or obviously, like, it can detect I'm moving and I'm in pretty good shape and stuff. I wonder if that is a part of the data tracking.
- [67:22]
A
Could, could be. I would say I get this question a lot where, you know, in fact, the Secretary of State, who is. And I like him, and I think he's Rubio. Rubio, Yep. He was talking to a group. I was there and he was lamenting the fact that he's taking. He's learning Italian, he's doing it online using, you know, Babel or one of these online language.
- [67:50]
B
Antonio, Margarita.
- [67:52]
A
Yeah, he's gonna start and he was talk about how now I'm getting all these ads, you know, in Italian or travel to Italy. And you know, how. How does that. How did that happen? And I would like to think that our Secretary of State, who is negotiating our data sovereignty, you know, bilateral agreements, would know better. And maybe he was just being glib, but it's not a great question. The point being there's probably. There is no. There's probably something that you did or there is something within your data streams that has predictable value that landed that ad on your phone based upon some very benign signal. But in the, but in the algorithm world, that signal is, you know, red alert. Like he is. He is managing an injury. He is. He is primed for us to advertise. Whatever. Yeah, there's. There's always something trying to do a forensic breakdown of that is. Is hard because it is. It can be such a weak signal.
- [69:04]
B
Like could, you know, or they could be using like. Because that's crazy.
- [69:08]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, if you use any of these home, you know, smart home things where you're talking to Alexa. Yeah, I don't either. You know, you're. It's not. You're talking to Amazon's infrastructure.
- [69:25]
B
Yes.
- [69:26]
A
You don't own that shit. Like, you're going to talk to Alexa. Alexa is going to print your voice. It's learning from your language. It's predicting your times of when you're telling it to play music or turn the lights off or whatever you're asking it to do. You're feeding a large language model that Amazon will use against you to advertise to you when you are on the Amazon app. And Amazon is like a $4 billion advertising business.
- [69:53]
B
That's it.
- [69:54]
A
I mean, I was gonna say it's been around for two years. Three years.
- [69:58]
B
That's it.
- [69:59]
A
Four billion.
- [70:00]
B
It's only been around for two, three years.
- [70:02]
A
Their advertising business.
- [70:04]
B
Really.
- [70:05]
A
So Amazon been around forever?
- [70:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [70:07]
A
They're. And you know, they, they stand up, you know, like we're, we're good at this. Let's turn it into a business. So their demand side, their, their advertising business alone contributes $4 billion.
- [70:19]
B
Yeah, first of all, I didn't know that was only two years old. Secondly, 4 billion even seems like that's going to be 40 billion in two seconds or should already be. I mean, it's like because they own. I mean, look, I ain't gonna lie. Amazon's incredible.
- [70:30]
A
So think about it this way. Amazon can, you know, used to go. You used to be you'd go like on Google, search for stuff.
- [70:37]
B
Yeah, fuck that.
- [70:38]
A
Now you're just, you're searching. So Amazon sees you at the point of interest how you sort of navigate and do product selection to the point of sale. Yeah, they have that full visibility. And this is. This kind of upended Facebook's ad business because Facebook's or meta's promise was, you know, somebody looking at a, you know, cute cat videos is, is predictive of some other than, you know, other than they like cats and. But right. Cat videos don't sell advertising don't sell product. Understanding like this is a person who is buying whatever dog food, lunchables, you've got kids, you know, whatever you are buying is indicate, is an indicator of your lifestyle. Amazon has the full visibility of that. They understand this is urgent. Oh yeah, going on.
- [71:38]
B
I have no doubt Amazon knows everything.
- [71:40]
A
And that's, you know, that's, you know, that's called sort of the first party data market, where in the early days you had, you didn't have a segmentation of third party data, data brokers and first party data, you know, Uber Amazon, you just had this amalgamation of, of data. And everybody was trying to figure out how do we monetize this, how do we sell product through these data sets? And because of privacy, because of people getting smarter and because of AI companies that otherwise were like selling data because they had no other means of valuing it, they're like, this is gold. Oh yeah, all the metaphors. Data is the new oil. They've figured out why and how to use it for the, for the benefit of their business.
- [72:34]
B
Yeah, I feel like data it, I've heard the oil line a lot. But data, as far as the way it's been monetized and used technically with people's approval now, but like, let's be honest, not really it. Then when you think about how it's packaged and put back in front of you to tempt you with everything, including things that maybe you shouldn't be doing or shouldn't be a part of, in a lot of ways, they're creating like the new smoking in a way. You know, they're, they're creating the constant scrolling because you're constantly getting things customized to you. It's not just the social feeds customizing content. That is because that is literally using these data companies to do that.
- [73:17]
A
So back in the day when everything was retail, I mean the science behind a physical retail store just in time or impulse purchasing, like those end caps and shit that's at the register.
- [73:29]
B
Yep.
- [73:30]
A
That wasn't, you know, like it was just an afterthought. It's, let's put candy where you know, the kid's gonna start begging for the candy bar and the mom's, you know, trying to check out like, fine, here you go. There's a reason why that shit's there. There is science behind it. Just like there's science in how an online store is configured.
- [73:50]
B
Absolutely. To capture share wallet, what colors sell things. Like, you know what I mean? Like you go to the food store. Like, I don't ever go to the food store anymore. Amazon actually delivers it right to my door. But I eat very clean. So when I went down the shore this summer, I had to stop at the food store a couple times. And I realized consciously afterwards I never went to the middle aisles for stuff, I think I went for one bag of brown rice. Right. But everything I was getting, I'm like, wow, I am really doing the natural thing because everything in the middle is all the fucking process stuff that has the red, blue, all the nice colors that makes you go, oh, I want to buy this.
- [74:23]
A
Yep. There's a reason for that. And that goes back to, you know, Sam Walton setting up Walmart and how to, how to maximize that experience for the customer and maximize spend from the customer.
- [74:37]
B
Right.
- [74:39]
A
So I think it's, it's, I think as, as citizens, as people, we just need to be aware of these things as a means of not, not taking personal agency for granted or thinking that I'm just gonna let somebody else do my thinking.
- [75:03]
B
Well, that's the thing. And you pointed this out correctly yourself a little bit ago. There's always a line somewhere. Even for the most conscious people, that line of convenience just because of the way the world is set. And I'd actually liken the psychology similarly to like a parent these days if they have a 16 year old and they still don't let them on social media, I get that as a, like a, that seems like a smart move. But then it sets them behind in, in their social circles forever. And you're like, over the kid.
- [75:32]
A
Yeah.
- [75:32]
B
Even though you have the right intention. You know, and it's a similar psychology when you're like, I know I don't want to give my data anywhere, but that means I also literally can't do anything that I have to do to have a functional place in society every day. You know, how do you find, even if you find that balance, aren't you still kind of accidentally accomplishing the same ends that we're talking about?
- [75:51]
A
If in some places you can't buy a two dollar cup of coffee without having the stupid app on the phone.
- [75:58]
B
Right.
- [75:59]
A
You can't get on public transit without having an app or paying without, you know, cashless society. So what do you do? Well, you've got to just, you can't, I don't think you can have a monolithic attitude. I think you have to understand what all of this means and, and just, and, and know that you are in control. Not the, not the tech companies that really benefit from compliance.
- [76:31]
B
Yes.
- [76:32]
A
And conformity.
- [76:35]
B
Yeah. Now let's actually go back to that because you were saying very early on when you were going through some of the, I don't know, the pipeline here or whatever, it obviously all comes back to, as we know, like the apples and the Googles of The world. So everything you've been breaking down since then is a lot of the middleman thing in this industry that's forming these people who pull the data and sell it. But like focusing on, let's say, Google for a minute, what is their responsibility these days for the infrastructure that we've created as far as like how ubiquitous everyone's data is, Are they, are they completely in the wrong still or are they trying to make some improvements to, that the government's not making them do to improve people's ability to have some privacy?
- [77:26]
A
I don't think in their charter they have obligated themselves to humanity's cause of, of self autonomy and governance. I don't believe that's in their charter.
- [77:40]
B
I don't think it is either. What is their, their charter is like something really weird again. Yeah, I forget what it, it was like, oh my God, what was Google, do no harm. Do no harm. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [77:52]
A
Which, you know, the, the, the kids at, at, at Google use that as their justification to do that. Walk out in that, that protest over Project Maven, which Google was helping the Department of Defense basically categorize a bunch of images, you know, to do for image rec. Right.
- [78:14]
B
Image rec.
- [78:15]
A
Image recognition.
- [78:16]
B
Oh, recognition, yeah.
- [78:17]
A
So you've got a drone that's, that's doing full motion video, flying over, you know, whatever, and you're tagging, you know, that's a car, that's a, that's a truck with a technical.
- [78:30]
B
And Department of Defense was having them do this.
- [78:32]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [78:33]
B
I mean the Department of Defense probably created them. So.
- [78:35]
A
Yeah. So I mean, this was, this is like. But this is how by the time the Joint Artificial Intelligence center or whatever the hell they call themselves now could have figured this out. It's, this is, they need to, they need to be able to pull in a Google to do these kinds of things because they'll, they'll forget more than, you know, the Department of War will ever know.
- [78:57]
B
Yeah.
- [78:59]
A
So in terms of, you know, we are, it is a, it is a business relationship between consumer and Google, consumer and Amazon. You know, I'm not forced to use Google.
- [79:16]
B
Right.
- [79:17]
A
But you know, you're going to make choices.
- [79:19]
B
But they're also, and this is, this is the thing about the system, I say this is someone who really likes capitalism and thinks it's the best system of all. It still has its flaws. Right. And so Google, unfortunately, through their quarterly forced reporting, is incentivized to have to constantly grow. It's in the charter of any company that you have to, you know, serve your shareholders and stakeholders, which goes back to.
- [79:47]
A
They are their business is correct. Capturing intent, behavior and being able to do to productize that.
- [79:56]
B
Absolutely.
- [79:57]
A
That is like, it's a, there's a, you know, it's, we call these things super apps. So you've got your Google Mail, Google Maps, calendar, a bunch of different. Right. They're all effectively the same. You know, it's an integrated application infrastructure. And you know, that is, that is Google's responsibility to their shareholders.
- [80:21]
B
And this is where I feel like we make it to black and white space sometimes when we righteously complain about some of the things these companies do, which I do all the time. But you know, the in the intonation can become like, oh, they're evil. And everyone that works there is Eagle evil. I just Googled it. There's 187,000 employees at Google. I guarantee you most of them aren't evil right now. Are there? Probably a few who are. I'm sure that's just the law of numbers. But it's like the intention may be not even bad or good. Just like, all right, let's get to the next quarterly. How are we improving our business? Meaning it's at least not a bad intention, but the road to hell being paved there on the way is what has led to so many of these problems that we're fucking 40 shoots down the slippery slope on.
- [81:05]
A
Yeah, how do we pull ourselves up from that nose down position?
- [81:08]
B
How.
- [81:10]
A
You know, this is. I talk to privacy maximalists all the time and I'm like, are you going to stand behind the press release that Google releases that says we are now going to charge $15 a month to use Google apps because of all of these data privacy regs and you know what we can't do to provide a free app? Are you going to be the ones to say that's a good thing? Because I can tell you that consumers, when, when Google says it's going to now cost you $15 a month to use all of this stuff because we are, we have to make money. But if we can't advertise and we can't do all of these things, who's, who's, who's going to take accountability for that and talk about, you know, talk about rioting in the streets when you have to Pay, you know, 10 bucks to log into Instagram as a means of protecting your data, you're going to have, you're going to have riots.
- [82:09]
B
I agree. Because it adds up. You get a family of four, we can all do math. And you, you think about economically, where so many people in the country are, you know, living paycheck to paycheck. These are things that they have been trained to have as a part of their life for free for decades.
- [82:24]
A
Yep.
- [82:25]
B
You can't just unring that bell. It's a utility and it's, it, you.
- [82:30]
A
Know, it's not free.
- [82:34]
B
You're the product.
- [82:35]
A
You are the product, and that's, that's part of the deal. And should, you know, do we wind back to the point where we don't have mobile devices in our, you know, all of those conveniences, do we put that back in the bottle? No, that's not, that's not realistic. But I think from, from the operational community, from, from the intelligence community, there are, there are as many opportunities as there are vulnerabilities.
- [83:04]
B
Can you explain what you mean? I think I know what you mean.
- [83:07]
A
Yeah. So if we can, if we can extract very detailed awareness information at lower risk, lower cost, lower risk to life about places we're interested in, governments we're interested in, communities we're interested in, versus having to deploy case officers who are going to convince somebody to commit treason. And if we can, if we can use it to our advantage as opposed to constantly, you know, seeing the lurking shadows of it. I think that this is the future of, of collection, you know, and this goes beyond sort of open source. It's like, no, we want to have the relationships with the companies that provide, you know, SCADA devices for, you know, facilities. We want to be able to understand those, those data sets. We want to be able to tap into the App Store in Iran.
- [84:14]
B
That would be nice. Yeah, yeah.
- [84:16]
A
We want to be able to access commercially WeChat data.
- [84:23]
B
That would also be good.
- [84:25]
A
All of these things. That's kind of the future of commercial intelligence, of commercial data as a means of. This goes beyond, you know, populating sort of the CIA factbook about demographics. This is, you know, this is a more specific output. So these are the, these are the opportunities the community has to sort of come to grips with. There is no defeat button to ubiquitous technical surveillance. It is what it is. It's ambient. It's, you know, it's, you're not going to, you're not going to figure out a way of. There's no trade craft to defeat it. You know, back in the Cold War, you know, they had these things, this thing called Moscow Rules, which was a, was, you know, tradecraft overhaul to be able to operate in Moscow. And they did all sorts of cool Stuff like what? Do you ever see the movie Argo?
- [85:29]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [85:30]
A
So that character was sort of a concealment expert. I think it was called the Jack in the Box, where if you, you roll out of the embassy and you know that they're on your tail, Russians, the Soviets are going to follow you.
- [85:51]
B
Right. You got to wave to them.
- [85:52]
A
You pull out of the embassy, you're doing, you know, you make a right. You've timed it. And you know that when I make that right hand turn, I'm going to have five seconds where they're not going to be able to see me. So the guy in the passenger seat bails out, car keeps going. They push a button. I think it was called Jack in the Box. And up pops a silhouette.
- [86:20]
B
Yeah. Oh, my God.
- [86:22]
A
And to the, to the, to the Soviets tailing, it looks like. Yep. Two people are in that car. Meanwhile, you know, they've created a, a gap to be able to, to go do their thing.
- [86:33]
B
That's genius.
- [86:34]
A
So, you know, those were the types of things that you could get away with when it was physical and you had the, you know, you had, you were operating against humans, operating against pervasive AI and data. Just, it's harder. So we just have to get more clever in how we do things and where we do things. And the COVID needs to be perfectly normal and legit.
- [86:59]
B
Yeah.
- [87:00]
A
And we can do that by understanding, like, it's perfectly normal and legit for somebody who may be affiliated with the US Embassy to be in a coffee shop with somebody who is doing nuclear research. How do we, how do we create that overlap so that from a data perspective, it looks perfectly normal?
- [87:19]
B
How would you do that?
- [87:22]
A
So understanding it's, it's not a. You have to, you have to go deep into those patterns of life and look for those overlaps. So I use this scenario, or talk about the scenario a lot. There was a, an asset who was really into those rock climbing walls.
- [87:41]
B
Mm.
- [87:44]
A
And so aligning a case officer who's also into rock climbing, who could build that pattern of life, who could. I got a better story. I got a better story for you.
- [87:54]
B
All right, let's do a better one.
- [87:55]
A
Mike, I'm back. We're going to roll back to my prove it scenario. I'm a hockey player, but you are legit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [88:06]
B
You look like a hockey player.
- [88:08]
A
Yeah. So, you know, played through, took it as far as one could go, as far as I could take it.
- [88:16]
B
You went to the NHL?
- [88:17]
A
No, no, no. I tap. I, I, my.
- [88:20]
B
You're supposed to Say, yes, I would have given it to you.
- [88:22]
A
It didn't. But it's when you see, like, guys you've played with. Like, I played peewee hockey with Jeremy Roenick.
- [88:31]
B
Love, dude. I'm a Flyers fan.
- [88:33]
A
I love seven. Yeah. So. And he was like, we knew. You just. You just knew. Yeah. Anyway, so there's this thing called lunch puck where, you know, new at lunchtime, it's pick up hockey. I'm doing my data analysis of the Russian embassy, and I see that I got four guys that play hockey and they go. They play, you know, lunch puck in Russia? No, in D.C. at the rink where my men's league team plays.
- [89:13]
B
And these are Russians.
- [89:14]
A
These are Russians. They're attached to the embassy. You know, they're. And so the, the hypothesis is, all right, if I know that they are going to be at this rink and I have every reason to be there, like, I know how to put on my skates, I know how to hang out in the locker room. I know how to do all this stuff.
- [89:34]
B
You're like, put me in, coach, let's go.
- [89:36]
A
I'm like, can I. Can I put myself in a locker room with four Russian dudes at the appropriate time and be able to, you know, like, develop a relationship with them playing hockey? Because you've got that. You've already. You already have that commonality.
- [89:59]
B
Yes.
- [90:00]
A
And took me, it took on the third day here, you could smell them coming before they got. You could smell the cigarette smoke on their clothes before they even got in the locker room. I'm like. And so, you know, this would be something that they call a bump.
- [90:19]
B
Yes.
- [90:20]
A
So if I wanted to bump somebody and I knew what their patterns of life were, and I wanted to have somebody who could, who already had commonality with them to be able to strike up a conversation about hockey. And I'm, you know, I'm sitting in the locker room with them. I'm like, you guys Russians?
- [90:39]
B
You just said it like, yeah, you want some fucking pierogies? That.
- [90:43]
A
Yeah. I was in the Soviet Union in 80, in the 80s, playing hockey. So, you know, just bonding, right? This is the kind of shit we can do with this type of data. We can put the right person in the right space to be able to not approach somebody and say, hey, you want to sell out your country? But have that.
- [91:07]
B
Yes.
- [91:07]
A
More of a natural flow. And this was again, you know, and I took selfies with them. I'm like, here they are. Here's their, you know, here's where they come from. The Wisconsin Avenue Embassy. Here are the routes they take. And I was able to affect this on my third try because I couldn't. There wasn't any consistency. Like, it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday was, you know, some days it was Monday, some days it was Tuesday. On the third day of placing myself in a location where I knew they frequented. Here they come.
- [91:41]
B
My friend Jim Diorio has been on the show a bunch. He was a West Point special ops guy and then ended up FBI and did, like, a lot of undercover work. He has a phrase where he said, politeness and familiarity breed access, and you're basically creating all the familiarity. You got that done before they go.
- [92:00]
A
Through the door without having to develop it or pretend, you know, like, I know how to tape up my shin pads. I'm not, like, figuring it out. Right. I'll bet that's where my equipment isn't all brand new, you know? And I get out there, it was like I had every reason, and it was just a test.
- [92:20]
B
Yes.
- [92:21]
A
Could I do this? Is this. Is this doable? And. Yeah, it's doable.
- [92:28]
B
You ask him for some nuclear codes.
- [92:29]
A
I was like, you know, it's kind of like in Slap Shot when the guy approaches the Hansons and says, are you guys brothers? You know, I'm like, are you guys Russians?
- [92:44]
B
I love the Russians.
- [92:45]
A
Absolutely. Big fan. Yeah.
- [92:46]
B
Big fan around here.
- [92:47]
A
Yeah. And they, like. They sucked. I was. I'm like, you guys are Russians.
- [92:51]
B
They weren't good.
- [92:52]
A
They weren't. They weren't.
- [92:53]
B
They were great at hockey. It's cold and out there.
- [92:55]
A
It's disappointing. That's.
- [92:56]
B
Wow.
- [92:57]
A
So.
- [92:57]
B
But you're still playing. You're doing a lot of pickup.
- [92:59]
A
Not so Covid. Like, took my league out of. Of action, and I just. I. I would.
- [93:04]
B
We gotta get it back.
- [93:05]
A
I would have to drive, you know, and it's, like, late, and I'm. I'm at a point now where I'm not going out on Sunday night at midnight.
- [93:13]
B
Oh, that's a lot. Yeah.
- [93:14]
A
I'm like, no, not.
- [93:15]
B
Yeah. That's the thing about, like, the hockey lifestyle. The kids who come up playing that mad respect. They learn crazy discipline because they're up at 4am going to ranks five days a week.
- [93:27]
A
Yep.
- [93:28]
B
I mean, that's why they're so tough too. I think I'm convinced of that.
- [93:30]
A
I mean, I talked about Jeremy Roenick, so his dad was like, the assistant coach, but he. Wally didn't know how to skate, so.
- [93:37]
B
Oh, really?
- [93:37]
A
Yeah. But he was on the bench. And this is back in the day, like, all three coaches smoking cigarettes drunk from the night before. It was like old time, you know? You know, you get. You get your bell rung. It's like, shake it off.
- [93:52]
B
Yeah, shake it off.
- [93:53]
A
It's a hockey player.
- [93:54]
B
What's a concussion?
- [93:55]
A
Yeah. But nice family. And he was. He was just a nice, like, nice kid. Even though people were already at that time, like, you know, showing him how important he was.
- [94:06]
B
Yeah, no, he was really, really. That. That's the thing in Philly. Like, we worship our sports teams and. And the Philly fans are great at being able to sniff out scumbags and people that are full of. And then they're great at being able to sniff out the guys who are like, yo, one of us.
- [94:23]
A
Yeah.
- [94:24]
B
Ronick was one of those guys because he had played a lot of his career with the Blackhawks and other teams before, and when he got to Philly, it was like, who's a Philly guy? People are like, we with this guy.
- [94:32]
A
Yeah.
- [94:32]
B
You know the kind of dude that would go out to the bar with the fans after the game.
- [94:36]
A
Yep.
- [94:36]
B
Down to earth guy.
- [94:37]
A
Really? Like, very down. It was. It was an experience.
- [94:41]
B
Yeah. That's cool that you played with him growing up.
- [94:43]
A
Yeah.
- [94:44]
B
You play with some other guys, too, at some point, I imagine.
- [94:46]
A
Yeah. Probably guys you hadn't heard of, but I went to boarding school in Massachusetts, so we had a couple guys drafted.
- [94:57]
B
You go to Exeter?
- [94:59]
A
I went to Governor Dumber Academy.
- [95:01]
B
Governor Dumber, Yeah.
- [95:03]
A
Now it's. They're the branding experts they brought in. You know, the branding experts came in and said, we probably. But William Dumber was one of the founding. He bequeathed his farm back in the 1700s with the name, too.
- [95:17]
B
Wow.
- [95:18]
A
But so we put a couple kids into the NHL.
- [95:26]
B
So that's cool.
- [95:28]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [95:29]
B
So one. One of the things I was wondering, though, because, like, I'm always thinking about where data can be sucked up. And now I'm talking to someone who's worked with this from, like a intel encounter. Intel aspect of it by showing this to the government. And again, we're going to come to some of the specific stories on that soon. But if you're someone who works at any level of the government, you could just be someone who works at the State Department. You're not a spy undercover there. You're just a regular kind of administrator. Whatever it is, you have access at some point to something that's worth something for sure. It's just a part of the job. So if on. When your daughter's on spring break, you guys Decide to take a trip to France, like a friendly country or something like that, they still, you know, we all gather intel on each other. As far as the countries go, like, every country's doing it to each other. When. When they land at the airport, aren't there tools that every piece of data in their phone is just sucked up into the ether right there?
- [96:31]
A
Yeah. Are you. Are you referencing France specifically?
- [96:35]
B
No, but I know the French are pretty fucking good.
- [96:38]
A
Okay, so if you've. Have you. Have you flown into Charles de Gaulle?
- [96:42]
B
I haven't. I lived in Italy, but I never went to France.
- [96:44]
A
Okay. All right. And other airports. And I can talk about the Emirates, which are really good, too. So at Charles de Gaulle, when you are queuing up to go through border control, you are in this. It's. It doesn't make any sense, but you are like, you know, walking. You're doing this loop to get to. To. To queue up for the, for the line. And what they are doing is you are passing through WI fi sniffers, which are collecting your Mac address. And each time you do a pass by, it's. It's basically a quality check. Like. Yep, same device. Yep. Seeing it again on this pass. Seeing it again on this pass. As a means of. Okay, so when you queue up and you present your passport, we have your passport and we also have device identifiers about you when you are, you know, if you are a government employee, like, firstly, you know, and they. They do briefings before you travel as to what you should do and shouldn't do. But, you know, a lot of these countries take electronic. They. They have converged electronic signatures to append right to your passport. So a Mac address or an AD ID or some benign character can be attached, right, to an identity with a picture. It is what it is. The Emirates, the Emiratis were contemplating looking at somebody's credit report. And if you present yourself and you are, you know, in your 40s and your credit report is like a page long, that's a. That's a red flag, because if you're in your 40s, your credit report is going to be like 15 pages long. They weren't looking at the content of the report. They were looking at the density of it. To detect or to determine, to predict. Like, this is what's normal and this is what's abnormal there.
- [98:52]
B
Wow. The way you got to create legends now. If you're, like, trying to create a.
- [98:57]
A
Spy, it's like, no, it's not doable.
- [99:00]
B
Oh, my God.
- [99:00]
A
Yeah. So then that goes back to the point of, you know, how do you operate in a denied area, hostile environment? You're not. Cover is just, it's too flimsy. There's no way to backstop it with. Well, your cover only has a two page credit report. Nobody in their 40s has a two page credit report. You've had a couple mortgages, you've had a, you know, you've got a bunch of credit cards. Your credit report is going to be, should be 15 pages.
- [99:27]
B
Do they use dead people though? Meaning like, do they do like, I don't know, CIA or something? If they're trying to send someone into fucking, you know, Saudi Arabia?
- [99:38]
A
Yeah.
- [99:39]
B
Could they find, if it's a 42 year old case officer, could they find a mid-40s, you know, deceased person that had a credit report and try to tie that report to them? Even if they change the name, Assuming.
- [99:50]
A
That the Saudis don't have access to, to vital records and death certificates. I think it's, I think it's, it's too risky based upon. I know that, I know that Google wouldn't buy it. I know that your mobile network operator wouldn't buy your bill. Your, your attempt to, to, to sort of fraudulently spoof behavior. I just, I don't think it's. The future of intelligence operations is.
- [100:18]
B
Now this might get in. This is a really specific question and the chances that you actually would have been involved in this probably aren't high. But I don't know. I'm just thinking of like an enormous international incident that occurred where there was like a investigation afterwards in, in 2018, you, I believe it was 2018, you had the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in the Turkish. In the Saudi embassy in Turkey. And there's, you know, some security camera footage of guys who win it. Obviously we see him go in and then we see some other dudes in suits go in who landed on a certain plane from a certain place obviously. And then we see them coming out, but we never see the body. We just see bags or anything. But hypothetically, given the fact that those guys were all carrying electronic devices, is this is after you started blowing the whistle on this stuff? I would imagine at that point the United States probably had the ability to track where those people were going and track exactly where that bag ended up possibly.
- [101:19]
A
Yeah, I was not on that.
- [101:22]
B
Okay. That's what I would say too, if I were.
- [101:24]
A
Yeah. But it's, it's possible, you know, Khashoggi was, his devices were all exploited, so he didn't, he didn't stand a chance based upon how, how deep they were into his communications.
- [101:53]
B
Right.
- [101:55]
A
Which is. I have. Over, over my travels, I have been in meetings with Arabs and Israelis.
- [102:09]
B
Oh, they meet together.
- [102:13]
A
And it was, I was ready for, like, we're, it's a, it's a, it's a buyer's meeting. We are. The Israelis are selling surveillance gear.
- [102:23]
B
Of course they are.
- [102:23]
A
And the country that I was working.
- [102:27]
B
With was buying from the Israelis.
- [102:30]
A
From the Israelis openly. And I got to tell you, like the Israelis, it was. Inshallah. And it was the, the, the, the, the, the. The king's representative was an Air Force general, and it was, you know, very, the 802 guys were very, like, deferential. Yes, General. Yes, sir. You know, and they're in, you know, like, there is no hiding, you know, we, we knew who they were and it. I was expecting there to be some, you know, conflict. Not at all.
- [103:06]
B
So, like, the Israelis obviously are excellent at creating various forms of technology. They create a lot, like, a lot of the VPNs are based there. Spyware is based there. We're going to talk about Pegasus in a second. Obviously, that's a controversial one that, that comes up a lot. But, like, why would a major, especially. But any country, but a major Arab country trust people who have demonstrated an incredible ability to make technology that they house in their own country for intel purposes so they can keep their nation alive, who a lot of people around them want dead? Like, why would they trust that and buy that?
- [103:49]
A
They did because it's the best.
- [103:55]
B
That's so interesting.
- [103:56]
A
It was, it was, it was eye opening. And so everything that you, you know, read about, like that these people, they can't get along. You know, the Israelis were speaking Arabic.
- [104:05]
B
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [104:06]
A
You know, but the, the, the collection, the intercept collection kit that they were purchasing, and this is, you know, 50, 60 million dollars worth of gear. The, the business relationship was as cordial as, as you would have it. It was surprisingly cordial.
- [104:31]
B
Wow.
- [104:33]
A
The Arabs, you know, they knew, we need to get a deal. We need this, we need this gear. This is the best stuff that's on the market. So let's figure it out.
- [104:43]
B
Okay, let's, let's take that quick tangent, though, and talk about Pegasus. And I don't know how much you've dealt with it personally or in your endeavors or whatever, but you have this technology that literally it can just send a text to the phone. You don't even have to open it, and boom, they're in and they can open I remember Nick Castellucci, my friend who's a hacker. Tell me about this in episode 72. He's like, they're in.
- [105:07]
A
Yeah.
- [105:07]
B
I'm like, just. Just from saying I don't have to do anything. They're in. He's like, yeah, they're in. Like, how crazy is that, that something like that was created and can be operated with impunity around the world?
- [105:22]
A
Yeah, I. I don't really have anything to say about that other than, like, that's the kind of. That we should be doing.
- [105:32]
B
Okay, there's the second question. Do we do this and people don't know about it?
- [105:36]
A
Sure. Yeah. Yep.
- [105:38]
B
So it's. It's back to. It comes back to. And it's not just us either. It probably comes back to a little bit of mutually assured blackmail, destruction.
- [105:47]
A
I think. I think it's as tech. As capability evolves, it's one of. It's one of those seductive, like, yeah, we can do this, so let's do it. And I. And. And when it's an adversary. Yeah, absolutely. We should be doing it.
- [106:14]
B
Yeah. But that's the thing. Even you and I both know. You probably know a lot better than me because you've at least seen this world. Like, everybody does it on each other, even friends, you know, like Britain spies on us, and we spy on Britain.
- [106:28]
A
So when it gets. When you cross the line is when. And the work that I was doing was a cyber CT program. And my first rfi, My first tasking was a group of people in another country. Okay, partner country. And I'm doing my research, and it's like, this woman's a school teacher. This is a Catholic priest. This guy is a lawyer. What do they all have in common? They were very vocal in dissent of a corrupt government. And we're prepared. We're preparing, doing all the engineering to sort of attack this group. And they. They. They were thought leaders. Like, they were the. The center of gravity that could have.
- [107:26]
B
Online.
- [107:27]
A
Online in the public square. Like, they were known in this. In this ass. Opec, but small little African country. And I'm like, all right, so let's make sure that there's something that I'm not seeing here before I get all righteous. But that's what they were. They were political dissidents. And, you know, the type of person that we want to support. Not somebody to attack and discredit.
- [108:05]
B
Oh, meaning they were used. I don't. I just use this term as, like, a term not to, like, attack, but, like, useful idiots for whatever, you know.
- [108:14]
A
They, they were freedom, like legitimate, legit.
- [108:17]
B
We.
- [108:18]
A
This is a corrupt government. You know, our people live on a dollar a day and so let's amplify them. The president is like, you know, just bought his next, you know, took a, took a delivery of like three Maybachs.
- [108:29]
B
Yep.
- [108:31]
A
And so they're advocating for, you know, equality and, and attacking corruption. The president of that country reaches out to his partners in the Middle east and says, can you help me with this? And they're like, we got it.
- [108:53]
B
Now how did they help him with that?
- [108:57]
A
I don't know if they went that far, but they're probably, they're probably. They were silenced.
- [109:07]
B
What kind of methods might they use to prison?
- [109:11]
A
Trumped up charges. But, you know, we know where you're going to be. We know who you're communicating.
- [109:17]
B
Right.
- [109:18]
A
So here's, here's the network like.
- [109:19]
B
Got it.
- [109:20]
A
We're expanding that network. Got it.
- [109:22]
B
Okay.
- [109:23]
A
This was, this was written about and because they, this country hired a bunch of, you know, IC US types to go stand this thing up. And it was just, it was bad.
- [109:40]
B
Who is the most notorious user of data for intelligence purposes around the world? I'm talking countries.
- [109:50]
A
China.
- [109:51]
B
By a lot.
- [109:52]
A
Yeah. Why? Because their policies, you know, if, if put it to you this way. If, if the, if, if there was a explicit policy without warrants or probable cause, but yet Google, Amazon, Apple, you had their cloud, their, their storage systems and the, and went into their, their storage systems and then that same data would go into a government storage system or the government, the US Government had access without, you know, probable cause or.
- [110:30]
B
Which they would never do.
- [110:31]
A
Which they would never do.
- [110:32]
B
Right.
- [110:33]
A
In, in the prc. Those, those data sets are, it is, it is just part of the.
- [110:44]
B
They own it.
- [110:44]
A
They own it.
- [110:45]
B
Yeah.
- [110:45]
A
Yep.
- [110:46]
B
And they don't let a lot of our companies operate in there either.
- [110:50]
A
Yeah. So this is, this is one of those things when we're negotiating with, you know, we're doing a bilateral discussion with, with China, we don't have access either legally or, or otherwise. Our companies aren't monetizing WeChat users. The Chinese, the great firewall prevents that because they have always known the importance of data as a national asset. This insidious TikTok discussion.
- [111:27]
B
Insidious.
- [111:28]
A
I mean, it. Just because it's gone on for so many years, it shouldn't be lost on anybody that the ban came into. Finally came into a. Got a floor vote when the algorithm was indicating consensus or trending negatively towards a certain country that wasn't going to have it, that's when the vote became serious. Been talking about it for five years, going back to the first Trump administration.
- [112:00]
B
You wouldn't be talking about Israel, would you?
- [112:02]
A
Oh, yeah, I was. And so, but, but, you know, we don't have reciprocity with China in terms of understanding the patterns, profiles, behaviors of TikTok users in Beijing.
- [112:21]
B
Right.
- [112:22]
A
And that, to me is just, that's acceptable.
- [112:25]
B
Yes.
- [112:26]
A
Who's. Who is advocating and negotiating these deals and having these, these discussions with, with, with a nation like the prc.
- [112:37]
B
Think about it, though, Mike, too. Like, this is the point that I think gets lost. Like, we make all these jokes righteously so about, you know, name your favorite congressman here who's suddenly worth $120 million from stock trades because they get inside information. But then think about all the ones who aren't doing it, like, as deliberately and openly like that. Who, you know, they're on a $150,000 a year salary, but, you know, to them then being worth 3, 4 million dollars, that's a lot of money. Right. So you take a little bit of money through some weird lobbying in the background, and suddenly you're going to vote for things that maybe affect China downstream through three other types of votes in a good way and us in a bad way.
- [113:19]
A
This is, this is the story that's, you know, like, okay, Congressman Sanders, help me understand how you have amassed this.
- [113:29]
B
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Relax, relax, Mike. Hold on.
- [113:31]
A
Yeah, this constellation of real estate and net worth. Really good financial advice.
- [113:39]
B
Democratic socialism. Emphasis on Democratic.
- [113:42]
A
Yeah. Larry David should, should play Bernie Sanders. When. Oh, I mean, they sound like. I can't tell the difference.
- [113:49]
B
Have you seen him on SNL do it?
- [113:50]
A
Has he done it? Oh, yeah.
- [113:52]
B
Oh, my God. He's incredible.
- [113:54]
A
So it's already been done. I think that when, when these things happen right in front of us and we try to assign all of this complexity and explanation to understand what common sense would say. The fixes in. Why is this happening the way it is? You know, you know, you have a congressman who couldn't point to Israel on the map, and next thing you know, they're the biggest.
- [114:22]
B
God sent them.
- [114:23]
A
My biggest friend.
- [114:24]
B
That's right.
- [114:25]
A
Israel. Like, what was, what was in that manila envelope.
- [114:28]
B
Yeah.
- [114:29]
A
That was slid across the desk. And, you know, friends look after friends.
- [114:33]
B
Here's. Here's the thing, Mike. And this is the part of the conversation that pisses me off that we don't have, because it's legitimate to have all this conversation and wonder what the. Is going on. But like, you know, there's so many things we can point to that Israel has done in the past that are just wrong. There's a long list of that. And it's like, what the are we doing here? And then you look at like the APAC thing and stuff like that and yeah, point to them. But they're using the system that we set up and allowed them to use and allow them to use all of our people in D.C. let them do this. So let me just stick myself in their shoes. If I were a country that had 10 million people and I had a friend over there that had 350 million with the greatest military in the world, I'd invest in a system that allows me to do it as well. And let me even bring this back to China. And I want to read what we pulled up there. Joe, that was good. We'll get that in a minute. But to pull this back to China, you mentioned the TikTok thing as well, which we're going to talk about that and the ties to Israel in a second. But with China, it's like, I hate communism. I think it's terrible. This is one place, though, I always point out, I'm like, they got a little advantage right here because the government is communist and therefore their people don't have any freedom. They can do something once in a while that's actually positive. For example, turn off TikTok on all their kids feeds at 9:00 clock and before 9:00 clock when they're watching the feed instead of like titty videos and, and like that, like our kids are watching here, they're watching nature videos and science videos.
- [115:59]
A
Learning. But yeah, physical.
- [116:00]
B
Right.
- [116:01]
A
Entropy in physics.
- [116:02]
B
Right.
- [116:02]
A
Yeah.
- [116:02]
B
So they, and they already count really well over there and do math better. And I said they're ahead of the curve. That's actually scientific why that is. But like you look back at our country and it's like they get to use the freedom of our democracy against itself to fight their own battles. And it blows my mind.
- [116:17]
A
Yeah, yeah. The. I think that they, they built an app they didn't invent. You know, like Instagram had been around for a long time. They just, they looked at. And their algorithm feed is informed by interaction. How do you. Do you watch the full length of the video? Are you fast forwarding? Are you rewinding? That's their, the signal that they use to, to amplify and tailor other stuff to you. It's really pretty, pretty smart. But engagement with, with that stuff is, is. Is how they do it and, and.
- [116:59]
B
Then they train you on it.
- [117:01]
A
They, they rewire your brain.
- [117:02]
B
Yes.
- [117:03]
A
Which is, you know, which is a thing.
- [117:05]
B
Yep.
- [117:07]
A
To, you know, you have to elevate those dopamine levels each and every time and that, you know, it's hard to point to and say, look at the algorithm. Like, okay, show me algorithmically where this is happening. We know it's happening, but this is the, this is the, the, the consequences that we will certainly feel in 20 years.
- [117:30]
B
100. Well, I mean, we're already seeing it, but like in 20 years. You're absolutely right. Like, what are the, how much worse did.
- [117:36]
A
Downstream effects generationally, you know, when we're able to sort of look at progress or development. I mean, we could start on the, the torture that kids today are going through because of this stuff. The isolation. Yes, exactly. It's, you know, are we gonna, are we just gonna kind of look at it and say, yeah, it's too bad, or do we look at it and say, you know, there needs to be, there needs to be. Something needs to happen.
- [118:06]
B
Yes.
- [118:08]
A
You know, Discord did not kill Charlie Kirk. You know, the, the, the, the dumbest people on the planet talking about Nazism and fascism and that Trump is both. Did not kill Charlie Kirk. Tyler Robinson, an isolated kid going through some serious psychological issues, killed Charlie Kirk. And what caused that isolation? I think, I think we have gotten to a point where there's a, there's a generation that if they don't get their way, they can't figure out how to move forward to the point where they believe that they are the, the one standing in between, you know, righteousness and evil.
- [119:04]
B
They want to be a hero.
- [119:08]
A
You know, how much, how much are we going to accept when you've got a 22 year old kid in a romantic relationship with a cisgendered male who's transitioning to female and not wonder, not call that out as. There's some, there's some trauma there, there's something 100. Because that's not. I mean, because at the end of the day, he's trying to find himself in a heterosexual relationship, but he's going about it really, really through the back door. Sorry, that's going to be a short. Right there.
- [119:46]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [119:47]
A
I can't. You have to, like, that's. We'll see. But you get my point.
- [119:51]
B
Like.
- [119:51]
A
Yes, we sort of look at these things and. All right. Isolation and this notion that my community is, you know, a thousand people that I'll never meet that I don't know, that really don't care about me, but this is my community.
- [120:08]
B
Correct.
- [120:09]
A
Like, we're humans. We, we want physical struggle and we want physical interactions. And, you know, the, the platforms have inserted, have wedged themselves in between what is our natural sort of state of, of, of being humans.
- [120:26]
B
By the way, though, not to put my tinfoil hat on here too much, but it is interesting that in this modern warfare world we're living in, which is warfare of the mind and information and technology. Right. Where everyone's on the battlefield, regardless of whether you're a kid or an adult or a civilian or in the military, whatever it might be. You know, I'm just saying if I wanted to, to create a downstream generation of trauma, I, you know, I might, I might let something leak from a lab and make everyone freak the out and send them home for a couple years.
- [121:04]
A
That was the AB test.
- [121:05]
B
Right. You know, that's what it feels like.
- [121:07]
A
Let's see what they do. I think that there's, you know, to, To. If you read.
- [121:17]
B
Keep that mic close, by the way.
- [121:18]
A
Yes, sir. If you read things that Xi Jinping says chaos is to their benefit.
- [121:28]
B
Yes.
- [121:29]
A
Injecting chaotic, chaotic circumstances is an advantage that they seek to exploit. And, and that's, you know, that's how they're waging geopolitical warfare.
- [121:47]
B
Yes.
- [121:49]
A
And they get to sort of stand off as, as the reasonable perspective. And that's. I think they're playing a different game than we're playing because we're still sort of mapped to this rule of law. And that's such a shame, doing what's right. I mean, you want to talk about fentanyl.
- [122:11]
B
Oh, or the reverse Opium War.
- [122:14]
A
I mean, how do. How. So the tariffs were the enforcement mechanism of a presidential finding from January that basically called out the CCP's involvement. Complicity in fentanyl, something that kills 200,000Americans.
- [122:33]
B
Per year, probably even more. Yeah.
- [122:36]
A
We can't even track it. That's right. So let's just call it 200,000. How do we sit down and have a bilateral discussion with a nation that is tangentially adjacently involved in the destruction of American families and think that that's okay because.
- [123:00]
B
Well, actually, I don't know if it's a because, but it's very interesting to have that conversation. This is where it gets complicated when we're using Afghanistan or for many years there used Afghanistan and its poppy fields to send an inordinate amount of heroin into Iran and Russia and maybe even China. But the ones I hear are irregular. Iran and Russia. So it's like you're sitting across the table yelling at a country righteously, so who's doing it to you very clearly, but you're also doing it to other people. And that's where it gets weird. It's like, you know, like, is this the price we pay? And as an American citizen, I'm like that, by the way. But this is the world that these guys, bureaucracy plays in.
- [123:47]
A
And if, and if we have politicians or people at the State Department that have made those decisions, then I don't know how to describe that as anything but evil.
- [124:00]
B
I agree with you 100%.
- [124:06]
A
Because there's no, you know, and, and for years, you know, we would play this game where we would insist upon, you know, progress in them scheduling these precursors. And they would say things to us like, yeah, we're working on it. And our markers of success were, you know, we're going to have ongoing, continued conversations and we're going to keep in touch and have more frequent conversations, zoom calls and like that. And it's like, okay, so when are the adults going to step in and say, this is unacceptable? If we were seeing fentanyl related casualties in McLean, Virginia, Potomac, Maryland, Bethesda, Maryland, Anthony Blinken would not be cosplaying.
- [124:58]
B
That's right.
- [124:58]
A
A rock star in Ukraine singing about the plight of the Ukrainian youth. That's right, he would be because he lives in McLean, Virginia. But because these are happening in Appalachia and the inner cities, it's like, it's a cost of business.
- [125:17]
B
That's right. Yeah. That's how they think.
- [125:20]
A
That's. And that, you know, it's, it's how they negotiate. Whether it's, whether we're talking about data or American lives, they are negotiating with a China first attitude. And if that means, you know, 200,000Americans are going to die per year and that causes chaos within that country, great casualty. Yep. That's, that's what we're here to do.
- [125:41]
B
Yep, yep.
- [125:43]
A
So. And I know that, you know, there are a lot of people who are trying to do the right thing in government.
- [125:54]
B
I'll bet there are.
- [125:58]
A
But you've got this political elite that rules the day.
- [126:03]
B
I've always said this, Mike. It's like it's, it's this weird paradox we have. Right. When you look at human history just over time, objectively, statistically, we're at overall the best time ish. In human history. Everything's gotten better from a basic level since the beginning.
- [126:19]
A
It's progress.
- [126:20]
B
Progress. Right. Meaning if we're going to really dumb it down. Good has won more than evil. Obviously there's been evil times. So evil wins sometimes, but like over the long haul, good wins. The problem is there's something about evil where it has a much easier time winning in the short term. I've never been able to mathematically balance sheet this in my head, but this is the reality and I always give the example. If I have a hundred people in a room and 99 of them are good and 1 of them is evil, there is a chance something really bad could happen in there. But if I have a room where there's 99 evil people and one good person. Person, there's a zero percent chance something good is going to happen in there.
- [127:00]
A
Yep.
- [127:00]
B
You know what I mean?
- [127:01]
A
Yep. It's the barrier of entry to entry for evil is much. It's a smoother glide. Glide.
- [127:08]
B
Yes.
- [127:09]
A
Than.
- [127:10]
B
So I, I think you make a really good point there. There's a lot of people who probably do want the right thing, even if it's not in their backyard and their kid didn't die of an overdose or something. But there's just enough people in the elite part of it who are like, yeah, them, but that's the thing. Like if those people, if it happened on their door and suddenly their kid died, they'd be changing their different.
- [127:30]
A
Like I said, you know, let's, let's move. You know, it's. When. Who was it that sent the illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard?
- [127:40]
B
Oh, like Texas and Florida.
- [127:42]
A
Yeah.
- [127:42]
B
And I listen, I supported that.
- [127:45]
A
The government of Martha's Vineyard was, you know, on. Before. Before they got all of their busloads of immigrants.
- [127:58]
B
Yeah. Take a sip there. We're good. Take that little intermission, everybody.
- [128:03]
A
You know, this is about human rights and. But the minute it landed in there on the, on the shores of Martha's Vineyard, that was not like that. No, no, we didn't mean this put the methadone clinic in McLean, Virginia.
- [128:18]
B
Yeah.
- [128:18]
A
The residents of McLean, Virginia aren't going to have it.
- [128:21]
B
Yeah. I remember in Bayhead, New Jersey, where I don't spend any time. I, I had a friend, though, who lived in a town right next to there. There's a yacht club there called the.
- [128:36]
A
The Bayhead Yacht Club.
- [128:37]
B
Like the kind of place that doesn't let like Jews and blacks in, like real old school.
- [128:42]
A
Yeah.
- [128:43]
B
And Right, right. Not on the yacht club, but in like the houses next to it where people are probably members of it. There were like giant signs during 2020 that are like, black Lives Matter.
- [128:54]
A
Yeah.
- [128:54]
B
And I'm just like, you probably don't even know any black people, Right? But you're lecturing all of us on whatever you're lecturing us. And it's like, dude.
- [129:04]
A
Yeah.
- [129:05]
B
Sometimes people just. The lack of owning a mirror is incredibly apparent.
- [129:10]
A
Yeah, yeah. Or it's like the Ukrainian flags.
- [129:13]
B
Can I center you just a little more?
- [129:15]
A
Sorry.
- [129:15]
B
I want you comfortable.
- [129:16]
A
I just.
- [129:16]
B
Watching the camera.
- [129:17]
A
I just need to stretch my legs.
- [129:18]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [129:20]
A
You know, prior to Ukraine, people couldn't pick it out on a map.
- [129:24]
B
Now. Now they're now throwing the flags in there.
- [129:27]
A
They got everything.
- [129:28]
B
Yeah.
- [129:30]
A
What are the priorities? You know, we got a Ukrainian flag flying in front of your house, but on the 4th of July, you don't have an American flag.
- [129:38]
B
It's crazy that they made that a political statement. It's so nice.
- [129:43]
A
But again, Gad sad refers to some of this stuff as parasitic thinking and parasitic mindsets. And I think we have a lot of that.
- [129:52]
B
I think he's right about that. Yes.
- [129:53]
A
You know, it's. It's. These are smart people. They're not technically crazy, but they've been infected by something that just. They. They see things differently.
- [130:05]
B
I think part of it is a little bit of belonging.
- [130:08]
A
Yeah.
- [130:08]
B
I think people want to feel like they're a part of some. It's not the whole explanation, to be clear people, but part of it is they want to feel like they're a part of something. And especially in the COVID era, where people got separated from society and they could get behind keyboards and talk to people who thought like them in 280 characters or less online, they're like, this sounds good. Now they throw up a sign that says whether it's in their bio or they actually physically put it in their yard that says, I'm a part of the team. Look at me. It's like a beacon in your window.
- [130:33]
A
When you have. When you. Your life has no meaning or you can't really feel like it has meaning, whatever that is, you're going to find artificial meaning in your life and you're going to invent crisis and things that you need to be all invested in in order to give your life some. Some degree meaning.
- [130:54]
B
So I don't. I want to come back to this just because we had it. You had brought this up, but. But Joe had been pulled this up over here. If you didn't hear. This is going to be coming out within a couple weeks of when we record. But as of the time of this recording, Elon Musk is no longer the richest man in the world. It's a guy named Larry Ellison who is the founder of Oracle and now the 80% owner or whatever somewhere in there. Correct me in the comments please, of Tik Tok. So this is from WikiLeaks on Twitter. Take that as you will, but it says Israeli aligned billionaires seize Tik Tok in battle for US narrative control. The White House has announced that the for sale of Tick Tock will be finalized this week. The new ownership, led by Larry Ellison, the largest individual donor to the idf, which is the Israeli Defense Forces, will take control of US user data and the algorithm which the White House says will be. Does that say retrained or retained?
- [131:44]
A
Retained.
- [131:44]
B
Okay, retrained. Ellison, who made his fortune developing Oracle, a database system he originally built for the CIA, that's nothing crazy about that, already controls cbs, Paramount, mtv, Comedy Central, Showtime, Nickelodeon, which makes kids shows as well as channel. They're probably like have the IDF like shooting people on there. As well as Channel 10 in Australia and Channel 5 in the UK. Ellison is also expected to finalize control over Warner brothers discovery, including CNN, HBO and the Discovery Channel before the end of 2005, even before the forced sale is finalized. Censorship of Tick Tock content critical of Israel, including of the deal itself, has reached extreme levels as the platform moves to align with its prospective new owners. Fox, a Murdoch asset, is also seeking to join the Ellison consortium, a move that could enable cross promotion between Fox and TikTok, further tightening the Israeli aligned information bubble. Disproval of what Israel is doing in Gaza has has risen to 60% of the US population, nearly double the approval rate of 32%. So I don't need to read the whole thing here. My whole thing is like, I understand this is, this is a very controversial issue in the Middle East. I understand that there's wrong, that this whole history has a lot of complexity here, but we can see things that need to be reported on that are wrong right now. There are, there are people in the Israeli government who, I'm just quoting what they say out loud. You can watch the videos who are calling for an ethnic cleansing of Gaza, which under the conventions in Geneva is a part of genocide. We can see that even if we put a governor on the data, quote unquote, coming out of Gaza because of some of the sources that give it, whether they're saying 70,000 people are dead, you want to divide that in half and call it 35,000 people. It's the same problem here. People of one race are being exterminated by People of another race, which is a genocide. Right. And our issue comes into the fact that the current government there, which is elected by a minority people in Israel, it's the other thing that doesn't get talked about here. The government is in charge, is supported passively or aggressively by some of our people in our country. So when people then see the tick tock to your point, which was, you know, long touted as like a CCP asset, correctly so by the way, that you know, we needed to take control of, but no one ever did. The minute that it suddenly became a problem for Israel, well, now we're taking control of it. And people have heard, people have heard that leaked call with like Jonathan Greenblatt and some of the other guys. This was like right after October 7th where he said, we, we don't have a generation problem. We have a, we don't have a left or right problem. We have a tick tock problem. And then you see that this becomes a thing. You know, if I were Larry Ellison and I'm not, and I really actually wanted to prove that, hey, let's let information be. I would hire someone who is not pro any side and I would, I would do what X does and show that free speech is painful. I mean, when I scroll through X, it's not great for my mental health, but I know the alternative is worse. You know what I mean?
- [134:49]
A
Yep.
- [134:49]
B
Like how it's happening right in front of us. It's kind of crazy.
- [134:56]
A
We, it, we are our own Attorney General stepped into the most insidious thing I've ever heard a politician say. When Justin Trudeau discussed the truckers and people who had improper thoughts that needed to be criminalized.
- [135:14]
B
That's right. Crazy.
- [135:16]
A
So when we start segmenting what is acceptable, proper, and it's a government that's telling, look at what's going on in the uk you got people, oh, it's nuts. You got people in prison for talking, you know, saying should we really be investing in Ukraine or should we really be. And they're, they're getting, getting a knock and talk on their door. I don't, I think that keep that mic up after any, when we see this all the time, whenever there's some incident, the rush is instead of attacking the incident, the shooting, we create these complex scenarios as to how to address it and fix it.
- [136:01]
B
Yes.
- [136:02]
A
And after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, there was a rush to, we need to regulate this hate speech because both sides do it. And the minute you accept that you, you have pushed the button, the activate button on Deprecating humanity, deprecating, you know, the, the moral existence, not morality. The, the moral, the reason why humans exist, which is we are free will, free beings, free of thought. So to try to inject some complex speech control sort of distracts us from the fundamental issue. It, it, it makes it. We're so confused about what we're arguing for, we forget like, okay, let's talk about the shooter or let's talk about what is happening on the ground in Gaza as opposed to all of these complex scenarios that most people can't follow. Which is good because there's somebody's, somebody smarter than me is figuring this out. And, and that's, you know, we can't say that anymore. We don't use those words anymore. You know, to, to, to suggest that, you know, people do things because of the, the adversarial rhetoric. Again, you know, that fits right into the, you know, that fits right in. And if you accept that premise, it fits right into this scenario of you need big government to come in and fix it.
- [137:44]
B
Yep.
- [137:45]
A
And you need elites to tell us what we can say, what we can't say. You know, if stupid. Some of the dumbest people on the planet want to equate politicians or Charlie Kirk to Adolf Hitler. Okay, if we should be able to read that as this is the stupidest person on the planet and it, and it insults and demeans real victims of these regimes.
- [138:10]
B
Absolutely.
- [138:13]
A
But instead of calling that out for what it is, it's like, no, both sides need to tone it down.
- [138:17]
B
No, it's crazy.
- [138:19]
A
So I think we get ourselves all bottled up in, in, in these bureaucratic fixes, which doesn't address the mental health crisis that occurs when kids are locked in their rooms watching porn all day long.
- [138:34]
B
Yeah. I wonder, wonder what downstream effects that could have.
- [138:38]
A
I'm sure it's all good. Yeah.
- [138:40]
B
And, and like we're not. It's every generation. Whether you were a kindergartner when it happened, whether you were a fourth grader when it happened, like Kobe coming in, eighth grader, 10th grader, 12th all the way through. I've even seen it affect adults. I've talked about this before. Like the weird thing, Mike, is when I was doing, when I was building this podcast, I started, started building it March 13, 2020, the first day of quarantine. So a part of my job is people are coming in and out. I get to sit with people and socialize with them forever. So I'm social, but I was separated from the world in my parents house, just grinding and building. So when I moved up here and was, like, kind of outside more again, I started to see patterns of, like, just regular people you pass on the street and, like, the lack of base communication that would occur. People would, you know, walk out of your way. They didn't used to do it like that as much, or people would automatically look down every time you pass them, Even if you pass them every day in the same exact way.
- [139:38]
A
Yeah.
- [139:38]
B
And I was just like, that is. And these are adults. These are people that weren't in college, you know, when this hit, or high school or anything like that. I'm like, this is. This is societally wide.
- [139:48]
A
Yeah, it is.
- [139:49]
B
Separated us.
- [139:50]
A
The. We've lost the ability to look people in the eye because it makes us uncomfortable either, you know, to do it. I mean, the good thing about COVID There was a good thing about it, and that is it. It created an environment where the truly insane amongst us would let us know that they're insane when they're sitting in their car by themselves with a mask on.
- [140:14]
B
Yes.
- [140:15]
A
That was. That's, you know, just let us know you're coming.
- [140:19]
B
I still see it. I saw a doordash driver doing it yesterday. I was like, dude.
- [140:25]
A
Or they're walking out. They're outside by themselves. There isn't a person near them, and they've got a mask on now. Maybe they've got, you know, allergies or something. And I shouldn't. I shouldn't, you know, be. But.
- [140:34]
B
I know. But I'm looking at this. I'm like, dude, you survived Somalia, and you're wearing a mask in 2025. And the, like, come on.
- [140:42]
A
But at least they're letting you know, like, I am. I am really crazy with my. With my. With my mask.
- [140:48]
B
Yeah. But I do want to bring this back. Back around to what you ended up getting all the way deep into in government. Because it's pretty wild. Like, you laid it out. You were the accidental, in a way, like, whistleblower of, like, hey, fellas, this shit's publicly available. Here's lafarge. All your Delta guys are going there, and the government at first comes to you. They try to. Some people say you're a charlatan. Other people are like, you must have bought this or whatever. And then eventually, like, you prove, no, this is. This is available. You as a private citizen, though, being pulled in now to, like, contract. What did they. What did they say to do? Did they say, mike, come in and show us all of our vulnerabilities? Or did they come in and more say, Mike, show us all the ways we can use this against them.
- [141:29]
A
Well, I wish that's what they did. So I think as, as the community became more aware, they. It's sort of like an oversimplification, you know, now we have these data feeds. We have it figured out. It's like, no, you had it. You have it figured out for what it was in 2015. You know, what is that environment like today? And are you evolving at the pace the technology evolves, or are you still looking at data sets that have been truncated because of privacy, that have been, you know, that have just. The power of them has, has deprecated a little bit by virtue of time. And we knew that was going to happen. So we need to keep advancing this and instead of catching up, how do we get in front of it, how do we understand what's coming down, what's. What's coming at us? How do we, how do we prepare defensively for it? How do we prepare offensively for it? You know, the thing, the thing that troubles me is that we have people who are responsible for procuring millions of dollars worth of data, but they've never worked in a data business. They don't know, like the ins and outs. They don't really know what to look out for. They don't really know what they're supposed to be purchasing, but yet they're, you know, they're running the show. And I think that that's. If, if data is everything that people will metaphorically declare as the next oil, we should probably have some wildcatters that understand this shit.
- [143:35]
B
I would say so.
- [143:40]
A
So, you know, this is kind of, this is, this is what happens in big bureaucracies. You know, they sort of push button and say, yeah, we have this figured out. We're buying this data. And, and you know, check that box. Are you looking at the next sources of data? Are you invoking case offs? Are you, are you fielding case officers who you know, can. Data scientists who can win a bar fight? You know, they can talk Python. We talked about Palantir a little.
- [144:15]
B
Not much.
- [144:16]
A
We brought it up.
- [144:17]
B
Yeah. So I don't trust them as far as I can throw them.
- [144:21]
A
Palantir arrived like one day. Palantir was a character in what J.R. told.
- [144:30]
B
Yeah, yeah, Lord of the Rings.
- [144:32]
A
The next day it was, you know, you have thousands of these kids with their black Palantir T shirts on running around socom. How do the ha. How did that happen? The Antichrist, Alex Karp, whether it was him. So you Know, here's how we're going to market. We're going to send people who understand the customer's problem. The customer's problem, we know, is we have all these data sets and I don't have a common operating picture of, of, of what's going on in my area of responsibility. So instead of dispatching sales guys to, you know, talk and, and look sharp in a suit and, you know, they dispatched these forward deployed engineer types who could. Okay, sir, I understand your problem. If you give me access to some sample, you know, or to some of your data holdings, we'll. We'll solve this for you in a day or two or three. And they did. Now, they did it in a way that locked the customer into Palantir with reformatting the data into a structure that could only be read by Palantir. But they solved the problem. I think that was a good go to market strategy. I think the government could learn a little bit from that. So instead of dispatching somebody who has a degree in, you know, the cultural mating standards and habits of, you know, indigenous societies as a case officer, like, you know, case officer who can write Python.
- [146:07]
B
Right.
- [146:08]
A
Might be, you know, in this, in this marketplace, might be helpful to have somebody who understands these things because you're going to talk to assets who are data scientists.
- [146:18]
B
Yeah.
- [146:18]
A
Like, what do you have access to? You know, how do we do that? How do we, how do we pull that out? Let's write some API scripts. Let's make that happen. So I think that this is the kind of thing, like, how do we fill these gaps in, in what our operational reach is into this commercial data environment.
- [146:41]
B
So when you were first pulled in now, by the way, with this mic, just keep it, like, in front of you so you're not like, talking over it like that or anything. Just always have a point there. But when you were first, like, brought in, they said, all right, Mike, at least, like, come in here. Who was doing that? Was it a specific agency? Was it like, like a consortium of people? You obviously talked about the guys who talked to you at the Four Seasons who wanted it. Like, were they your emissaries in?
- [147:05]
A
Yeah. So at the time, he was 29, he was a government C. He was a civilian J employ employee.
- [147:15]
B
What was this guy's name again? John.
- [147:16]
A
John Fritchley.
- [147:18]
B
Got it.
- [147:18]
A
Yep. This guy was relentless. And he was, he was. He just didn't take no for an answer. And he could talk to. He had no fear. We briefed Scotty Miller early on CG of JSOC okay. And it was, you know, you got a 28 year old kid talking to the CG of JSOC and it was like, sir, this is what we need to do. This is the future. You know, so it was people like that who were able to at career risk because people were probably telling him to stand down. You know, a room full of people calling his sales guy a Charlotte and snake oil salesman. A lot of, A lot of people would say that didn't go very well. So, you know, we'll maybe reconvene in a few months or pick this back up next year. We have had people in government that could see through that and push through it at career risk or to really know professional benefit to themselves. It wasn't like he got a promotion out of it, but it was, you know, he was running the Joint Intelligence Brigade, the JIB at jsoc, which was their sort of their intelligence capability. And he pushed through. And there were others that. As this interagency coalition grew to include the FBI, Supervisory Special Agent Jeff Crocker, who is not an FBI agent that you want to be sitting across the table from in an adversarial relationship. He's 6, 5, 6, 6, but like you're not. This is what we want FBI agents to be what we expect them to be. He is no longer with government. He is no longer. He retired. Okay, but didn't have to retire, but, you know, he just sort of was like, I'm, I'm done.
- [149:36]
B
There's a lot of guys special from the FBI that were thinking that for several years there.
- [149:40]
A
Yep, he is one of them. I've had enough, I've seen enough.
- [149:43]
B
Yep.
- [149:43]
A
You know, I, I can continue banging my head against the wall or I can, you know, and he was a guy who, we're still trying to prove this out as an FBI tool. And Stephen Paddock goes and shoots up Jason Aldean. Concert in Vegas. Vegas, yeah. I don't know if I was the first guy he called, but it was within hours. You know, you get that like call at 10 o' clock at night.
- [150:11]
B
They wanted you working on the Las Vegas shooter in 2017. Yep. Did you?
- [150:16]
A
Yep.
- [150:17]
B
Okay. That's a very, very highly controversial, debated shooting because it's one of. And I feel like this has not happened a few times since then, but it's one of those like, ah, something happened. Nothing to see here. No worries. Oh, by the way, a security guard that went on Ellen the next day, he's gone. No hurt, no one heard from. Other people are dead. What. What the happened there?
- [150:40]
A
We were trying. I was trying to establish transnational links because he was married to a Filipino woman and he had traveled to the Philippines.
- [150:48]
B
Paddock.
- [150:49]
A
Yeah. Was there connection to counter. Was there a terrorism connection? Couldn't establish. It established the travel patterns to the Philippines, but nothing that indicated that there had been. That there was this, like, ongoing link. It's funny, like I said, this was early days and this is where, you know, intelligence and data can be very misleading. So I'm working with one of the analysts, kind of like training in real time. I step away for a minute and this, this analyst is like. People are hovered around his workstation, looking at his. At his screen and they're, you know, looking. They had detected. Granted, this is a day after the shooting occurred. They detected. They observed devices that had dwelled at a place called Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, which is where they teach kinetics and explosives and eod. And so they were rushing like somebody was at his house who has proficiency in explosives. And I'm like, I look at it, holy shit. That's. That's. That's a big deal. Okay, so this is, this is the day after. So he's dead. Where are those devices now? Those devices were on another job because they were FBI devices and they were about to, like, ring the alarm that, you know, there's some connection between, you know, radicalized American who knows how to blow shit up because he spent regular time at Redstone Arsenal, which is where, if you're going to be an EOD tech, that's where you go to do your training across, you know, dod, FBI, atf. That's where they train.
- [152:59]
B
It's not sketchy at all, though, you.
- [153:01]
A
Know, but it was, you know, take a breath before you, you know, you're going to be the hero. Like time. This is the day after. He has two houses. The other, the other guy that, that got a knock and talk was his landscaper who was mowing the grass both of his homes. And he was, you know, like an illegal immigrant who had spent time in El Salvador. But we could not. There was no link to transnational terrorism in that.
- [153:33]
B
What about the fact that there, you know, even if there wasn't a link to transnational terrorism, why did this. Why did they push the story under the rug? And why were witnesses based. I mean, let's call it what it is. Disappeared.
- [153:49]
A
Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.
- [153:52]
B
Like, how did your. So they pull you in the day after you're pulling up this data, they're like, oh, my God. Was he working with someone inside on the government? And you're like, like, no, this is actually overlapping data. That makes sense because that's where all these people would go. And he went there for training. That makes sense. At what point, like, how many days after did they say, okay, we've had enough of your services, thank you?
- [154:12]
A
Once. It was almost once the special agent in charge handed it back over to Vegas Metro because there's no federal statute for the FBI to investigate. You know, they. They left their forensic team to. To assist, but once there wasn't a terrorism link, it was done.
- [154:36]
B
Yeah, there's some weird story out there. I guess I can't shoot anything down. No pun intended. But I can't say that nothing's off the table or whatever with that because it's so ambivalent. And we literally got nothing out of it. The guy died obviously there and everything. You know, there was some theory, though, that maybe the Saudis did it or something like that. I forget. What was that, Joe? Someone was like in town or something, and they're like, oh, MBS might have wanted him dead because this is when he was taking power, or wasn't he.
- [155:09]
A
On the same floor?
- [155:11]
B
Something like that. I don't remember all of it. And I'm gonna it up so people in the comments, I'm sure, can help me out, because, you know it. But, like, were you ever asked to look into anything like that?
- [155:20]
A
It. If there was some. If there was, we were looking at the hotel and trying to establish who was there when he was there, and he was there a lot. Was there any overlap with anything that just wasn't normal?
- [155:32]
B
Right.
- [155:32]
A
There. Was there repeated overlap or was there similar overlap? Couldn't establish anything. You know, there were foreigners there when he was there, but they were tourists.
- [155:47]
B
Now. So basically, when you're getting pulled in, though, at these points, like, it sounds like you were just like, oh, that's the guy. Whenever something happens, like, oh, go to him. He's the. He's the data guy. It seems like it was like that for a while.
- [156:01]
A
Yeah. Because in. In at. With the Bureau, at a guy who was like all hands on, you know, any capability that we have, we're bringing, I'm bringing to the fight with the. With the bureaucracy, with the, you know, at the executive level. Would they have been thinking like that? Probably not. But this is a guy who was, you know, sort of tasked at the. Out of the Washington field office with advancing new capability, and he was all in.
- [156:27]
B
Right. But that's a Domestic thing. At what point do you start getting pulled into the international type stuff?
- [156:33]
A
It happened.
- [156:35]
B
So what was, are you allowed to talk about like what the first one was? Roughly.
- [156:40]
A
So I will tell. How about this high profile hvt, High value target. Yep. We are. The assault force is basically on the X and right up until sort of the, the point of engagement we're doing what's called the slant. Trying to understand women, children, men understanding and communicating like, hey, you've got 18 non combatants in there and I was off by one. There were 17.
- [157:31]
B
So what happened?
- [157:32]
A
17 people didn't get killed. Gave them time to say, all right, we can't go in there. We have, we have women and children so we need to be, we need to give them an opportunity to.
- [157:49]
B
Oh, okay. All right. That meant. Sorry, that took a minute. So I registered. So technically you overestimated by one. Which if you're going to do you want to be on that side rather than the other side?
- [157:57]
A
I mean I was off by one and I think it was because they, there was like a second device that was used by, I don't remember, but it was off by one non combatant.
- [158:07]
B
To fight on the conservative end.
- [158:09]
A
Yeah. Yep. And as they were coming out, they're like, he's, he's in there, he's in the back room. He has, you know, he has an AK and the wife has an ak and they're, they are not coming out. Like they were giving the assault force intel as they were coming out with their hands up. And the, the, the, the terp is like communicating to the assault force commander like this is what you've got. Wow. And that was like they are, they are about to engage and like real time, here's what I'm seeing, here's what I think you need to, you need to be thinking about because this guy.
- [158:56]
B
Shopped at Nordstrom's and that one shopped at Tick Tock or whatever and I got him.
- [159:00]
A
It's, it's exactly, it's like, no, this is definitely a female. And then that, this is definitely a kid. And you know, they're, they're operating at different times and it's probabilistic, but it's like, you know, here's, here's what's probably going on on the other side of those walls.
- [159:20]
B
Now are, are you, are you operating remote from your bedroom on this one or are you actually like in an official place while this is going down?
- [159:26]
A
Yeah, this is, this was the great thing about this is that those, those requirements were sort of, like, they weren't. We had a little bit of flexibility in how information was being shared.
- [159:46]
B
So, like, your daughter's in there, like, watching tv, and you're watching Get Blown up, and you're like, nice.
- [159:53]
A
Not like, I wasn't. You know, I'm not wearing headphones, and.
- [159:56]
B
You know, it's like, dad's on Xbox again. Yeah, no, I'm not.
- [160:01]
A
Yeah. Yeah, but those. Those were the. Those were the good times. Like, this is how this is supposed to work.
- [160:08]
B
Yes.
- [160:10]
A
And, you know, I hate this, but, you know, did it save lives? It maybe.
- [160:15]
B
Probably. I mean, I would count 17 right there. That's pretty good.
- [160:18]
A
You know, it's got to feel good.
- [160:21]
B
When innocent people, you know, aren't being taken off the board. That's a huge problem.
- [160:24]
A
Got them. Got them out, you know, had them sort of. Okay, here's. Here's what we need to do. And we need to be. We need to be counting, you know, more than a dozen before.
- [160:36]
B
Right.
- [160:40]
A
And that's. That's one that, you know about. Yeah, I mean, the. The hvt.
- [160:46]
B
Like, that's one that got publicly.
- [160:47]
A
Yeah.
- [160:48]
B
So Baghdadi.
- [160:49]
A
I don't know.
- [160:50]
B
No, I didn't like that.
- [160:52]
A
No.
- [160:53]
B
That looked like a guilty. No.
- [160:55]
A
Joe, pull the tape back.
- [160:56]
B
We got the really good cameras now. Can see the souls in your eyes.
- [160:59]
A
I'm sure you've seen the. The. The comparison between, oh, Obama and Trump.
- [161:06]
B
Abcar Abag Daddy is dead.
- [161:11]
A
It was great.
- [161:12]
B
They just walked through the front door, and then Obama's, like, in a mission. It's like that ju. Position is insane.
- [161:18]
A
He just Talked for, like, 30 minutes.
- [161:20]
B
Oh, my God. It was insane. It's.
- [161:22]
A
It's.
- [161:22]
B
It's one of the funniest press conferences I've ever seen. But that. That's wild. So you're like. You get. It's almost like, to go back to a hockey analogy, not to, you know, talk down what you were doing in the private sector selling ads and doing well for yourself. But it's like, you know, you're playing in the men's league, and a scout comes by and goes, hey, Flyers need a center tonight. And you're like, all right, cool. What's the family cup game?
- [161:49]
A
Zamboni driver who's also a goalie, gets. Gets. You know, you got your gear. You got your. Your gear, right? Get it on.
- [161:57]
B
So what does that feel like when you went, like, did you ever. This is all happening fast. You're getting pulled into all these things. Like, did you have a moment where you step back and you're like, whoa. Like, I'm. I'm the dude. Like, this is crazy.
- [162:11]
A
At the time, probably not talking about it, and like, okay, that was unusual. Or that doesn't happen all the time. Just taking a step back and when you sort of look at it, okay, I did this. This missing person, this, you know, this event. Like, yeah, I know about. I know how that unfolded and was tangentially, you know, read in to those things. But I don't think it ever really hit that, like.
- [162:43]
B
Right.
- [162:43]
A
This is cool. It was kind of like, yeah, of course. What do you need?
- [162:48]
B
What about now, though? I mean, now you got to be like this.
- [162:52]
A
Wow. Yeah. I mean, looking back on it, but it's sort of how. What I. What I. What I see or what I notice is how quickly a capability can be the hottest thing around, and a couple of, you know, a couple of upgrades to technology and it's. Yeah, it's okay, right? What's next? Like, we can't. We can't, you know, survive or sort of rest on those laurels about what we did yesterday. Like, what's. What's happened and what's. What's the new thing? That's.
- [163:27]
B
Yeah. How does this translate?
- [163:28]
A
That's going to give us operational advantage, sort of push back on this China, on this China Dragon. And so I was sort of a, you know, it was more of a generalist. Like, I was willing to. Or I was, you know, whatever the. Whatever the issue is, like, get me involved.
- [163:50]
B
Right.
- [163:50]
A
Just let's, like, eliminate these.
- [163:51]
B
These.
- [163:54]
A
Scenarios. And now I think I'm a little bit more focused on what I think, where I think I can push back on this generational challenge that we've got with. With the ccp.
- [164:11]
B
Okay, before I get to the CCP thing, what was the Putin thing? When did you get pulled into that? Because the way I understand it, you were. You were tracking people like security guards and stuff around him, which could then geolocate where he was. So if you can say who pulled you in, when did they pull you in, and what were you doing?
- [164:31]
A
Yeah, so that was a. Let's. Let's. Let's build a demo that people will understand from. Not just a counterterror use case, but more of a geopolitical. You know, here's a. Here's a modern society and a modern leader. What can we. How can we detect signals about him? There was. There was no. That was not an operational tasking. That was. Let's see if we can do this. What, what, again? How do we Explain. How do we decomplex something so that people who are really involved in the. The like Russia station or Moscow station, or how do we. How do we frame this in a way that's relevant to them? So it was more like, let's. Let's, you know, we did it for GRU and fsb, the Russian intelligence agencies. Wagner group.
- [165:41]
B
Oh, Prigozhin, did you blow up that plane?
- [165:43]
A
Yeah. That was.
- [165:44]
B
That was you?
- [165:44]
A
Yeah.
- [165:45]
B
You hit the button.
- [165:46]
A
That had to be fun. But understanding Wagner's deployment, particularly in the African continent, you know, how many. How many boots do they have on the ground there? And what is that a signal of in terms of, you know, order of battle? Where do we see them? Where do we see the Wagner jet as a signal of. Okay, we haven't seen. What is it? Why is it in this country? What is that signal again? And that's, you know, invert the use case. If I want to know, if I'm interested in knowing who's investing in what, who's playing golf together as a. It's not a. It's not a fact. I don't know what it means, but I know that this. This event, this co. Location occurred. What is. What can I infer from and what.
- [166:40]
B
Can I now build on top of that? Where I start to build causation into the correlation?
- [166:45]
A
You know, then you. You. Then you look at what's going on in the news, you know?
- [166:48]
B
Yes.
- [166:49]
A
Oh, my gosh. That. Now that these two isolated data points come together and tell a story, that's.
- [167:02]
B
Who do you think that was?
- [167:04]
A
Which one?
- [167:05]
B
When the. When.
- [167:06]
A
When the plane.
- [167:07]
B
Plane goes boom.
- [167:09]
A
I mean, I think everybody, you know, he. He stepped out of. He stepped over. He got over his skis.
- [167:14]
B
Yeah, that one. I. I felt like that was straightforward.
- [167:17]
A
And if. And what did he think he was flying back to negotiate, you know, some kind of power structure? Really? You know, you're the, like, head of Wagner. How did you not see that coming?
- [167:29]
B
That. Can we pull that guy up head. A wet. Prigozhin had a Wagner their group. He was the most Mike Ehrman trout, like a I've ever seen in my life. You know, from Breaking Bad. He's like the same guy, except Russian.
- [167:40]
A
Does he drive the old police? The old Buick police.
- [167:43]
B
That's what I pictured a minute. Look at him. Said like if Mike were Russian. That's him.
- [167:49]
A
Yeah.
- [167:50]
B
Yeah. He went rip.
- [167:52]
A
Oh, Walter.
- [167:53]
B
That's it.
- [167:54]
A
Yeah, Walter.
- [167:56]
B
Crazy. So you would use the same tools, like, where are people shopping? Geofences. Where are they Going, what are their patterns of life? To track data on these phones that were 917-8456 or whatever. But you could then over time put together, be like, ooh, 917-8456 and 17454 are always coming together at this area that's around where the security is. So they must both be security agents. And then you could use that to be like, like, okay, well, maybe our intelligence says they're always within 50ft of Putin, therefore he's always within 50ft of where these two things are blinking. That's it.
- [168:34]
A
Yep. Yep.
- [168:35]
B
Wow.
- [168:36]
A
Yep.
- [168:37]
B
And that's during the war going on, too.
- [168:40]
A
So that was pre 2022.
- [168:42]
B
That was pre.
- [168:45]
A
So predicting. We talked to the Secret Service about this. You know, they're the protective. Their advanced teams would basically project where Trump was or where the President was going to be. Yeah, it was, it was, it was Trump first. First term.
- [169:07]
B
Right.
- [169:09]
A
Based upon, I can segment Secret Service agents. And when I see this group in these areas doing their advanced work, their scout work, even if it's not on the schedule, it is a predictive indicator that, you know, the President is going to be at this hotel, he's going to travel these routes.
- [169:30]
B
Yep.
- [169:33]
A
As a means of if I can do it, so too can somebody that wants to, you know, get, get involved in the disruption. So, you know, the, the, the canvas, you know, data is a can is. You've got a canvas. It really is, is about letting that data sort of tell the story that is there.
- [169:59]
B
Yes.
- [170:02]
A
You can see all sorts of things if you want to see, you know, I want to find the bad guy. So I am going to declare, you know, a device that's at a former, you know, at a, at a bad guy's house as some kind of, you know, collusion with. When it's really, you know, law enforcement device. Like you can see all sorts of things, but you have to, you have to sort of pull it back. And what is it, what is that story telling that. And it's kind of like when you see those pictures where there's a picture inside of a picture and you have to sort of kind of blur your eyes and then you see the other picture.
- [170:43]
B
Yes.
- [170:43]
A
Whatever that's called. You kind of have to think about data like that. It's pull, pull the lens back a little bit and let that, let those data points tell you what's. Yeah. Let it tell us what's probable and what's not. And that's, you know, in a lot of these things, it's like, I don't think there's a methodology for determining non combatants versus combatants in a, in a, in a facility. But when you think about it from the perspective of an advertiser is going to want to know in a household how many devices are owned by children and how many devices are owned by adults and what's the smart tv. You're going to segment those things, apply those same analytical methodologies, change the names to protect the innocent. And you know, you've got a, you've got a targeting app.
- [171:36]
B
It's crazy how easily you'd be able to tell such a complex story. Because, like, if I just think about, like, I post on social media very randomly, but let's say I decided for two weeks that I were going to post on every platform, whether it's a post or a story, depending on the platform, I was going to post at 3, 5 and 7pm every time, and I was going to post something, let's keep it really simple, of the studio or something happening in the studio.
- [172:10]
A
Yeah.
- [172:11]
B
You could imply, like, if I did that for four days, you could imply that in all likelihood, unless I'm delaying every single post, which some people do, by the way, I'm probably in this studio during those times. That's literally like two variables. Now, think about you looking at 40, 000 variables. The only difficult part is the beginning where you gotta like, be like, all right, what, what are the 5, 000 that actually matter? Let's get rid of the 35 that don't. But once you do that, you're like, you can paint it down to someone's blood type.
- [172:44]
A
Yeah, Crazy. Yeah. What type of apps are they using? It's a big signal. What times are they using them? You know, device goes dark during, you know, at seven o' clock at night and comes alive again at five in the morning. That's probably a child who goes to bed early and is up at the crack of dawn ready to go. And segmenting that from a, from a lens of probability, not fact, that's the way to do it.
- [173:17]
B
How easy is it with publicly available information to get from a number to a name?
- [173:22]
A
A phone number?
- [173:24]
B
No, to get from their. Well, actually, I didn't even think of that.
- [173:28]
A
Aside from some. From the metadata.
- [173:29]
B
From the metadata to someone's literal name, this is the person. We can identify them down to their picture and their age and everything.
- [173:36]
A
Yeah. Yes.
- [173:38]
B
Easy.
- [173:39]
A
Not easy, but you can do it. Yeah.
- [173:41]
B
So when you were looking, hypothetically, when you're looking at some of those Russian Security guards. You could translate who they.
- [173:48]
A
Literally easier, you know, so go. That goes back to like the Southern Pines, North Carolina. Like, yeah, I, I have the property records to know, right? How. What the mortgage is, who it is. Secret Service agents, like, they all live in Fredericksburg or they live south of D.C. or west of D.C. you know, I can, I can, with high degree of confidence, tell you what their names are and what their wives names are. You know, Russia's, you know, property records and doing that. But when you start seeing these, the patterns, you can, you can start segmenting, you know, staff who are, you know, like his assistants versus protective detail. They have very different patterns of life. See protective detail at like, you know, Jiu Jitsu studios. Yeah, you didn't see the cook at, you know, doing mma, where they go to, you know, you see them at training facilities. So you're able to say, this is not the cook. This is. This is where they have a. Arrange and, you know, those kinds of things. Same with, you know, our own. Our own people.
- [175:13]
B
Have you been. Have you been asked to train like, some of our own people on the things a guy like you is looking for?
- [175:20]
A
Yeah, all the time. Yeah, we do a lot of training on this. And it's like, I can show you. I can magnify the problem. All day long. I can tell you, you know, when four people leave the White House to go direct to Dulles, and then I see them in Brussels, a lot of, you know, a lot of D.C. people are going to go into NATO headquarters. But when four go direct from the White House to NATO, if I'm an adversary, those four devices are far more interesting to me. Because they just came from the White House.
- [175:58]
B
That's right.
- [176:00]
A
What is the meaning behind that? I don't know, but it's different from everybody else that is, you know, in Brussels, that dwells at the State Department all day long, or, you know, the Pentagon all day long. These four came from the White House. Who. Who are they? Yeah, that's the kind of thing where, like, I'm showing you this. If I can do it. An adversary is picking you guys up from the minute you get off that plane. And they're going to be on you until you. Until you leave.
- [176:35]
B
God, like you were saying earlier, there's so many things you have to consider now it's not even possible to. So, you know, you're. You're operating at a loss. No matter where you are and what you're doing, no matter what job you're doing at all times, it's Just about minimizing as much risk as possible.
- [176:48]
A
Especially as Americans where we let our data get swept up by anybody. Guarantee you, like, we're not doing this, you know, against Xi Jinping's protective detail because their data is controlled.
- [177:10]
B
We can't get to it at all.
- [177:12]
A
Not, not through the, not through the commercial markets like we were doing earlier.
- [177:20]
B
On like pre, like 07 kind of deal. Yeah, right.
- [177:23]
A
Yeah. I mean, you have to, at some point somebody's going to be interested in a WeChat data set that is available.
- [177:37]
B
WeChat is effect for people out there. It's effectively their do everything app in China.
- [177:41]
A
Their super apps.
- [177:42]
B
Yep.
- [177:42]
A
There, you know, you, you do not survive in, in China without it. Yeah, the, the diaspora communicates with relatives back home on it. It's just, it's right, it's, it's, it's almost, I don't know if there's a mandate that you have to have it, but, you know, that's where your social credit score and everything else is sort of derived from.
- [178:06]
B
By the way, I already know I'm going to have to have you back because there's a lot of things we're not going to get to today. Like you're bringing shit up and I'm just like not going to stop you. But there's like a million questions on basically every topic you brought up that we could go down a lot of tangents. So people, when there's things we haven't covered, we'll get a chance to do that in the future. But you keep bringing up China. It's come up a few times in this conversation, in different contexts. We talked about certainly the things we see, like the TikTok thing that was going on forever. We know what that is. But like, we've also talked about the fact, as you just alluded to again, that their infrastructure is basically closed off. A lot of our Google hasn't even been there since like 08. You know, they steal a lot of our technology as well and then rebuild it. That's why you have the Chinese Tesla, the Chinese, whatever, you know, the different Chinese companies that do it. But you keep talking about without hesitation, this is the number one threat. This is the number one threat. And to state the obvious, they have the second highest GDP in the world just slightly behind us. They have an enormous population, they have enormous innovation, scale and control, unfortunately, because the CCP controls the country. But like, what, what are the things that maybe people like me don't think about as much that you've had access to that you're like, that's a huge issue and we're not paying attention to it. And here's what we got to do.
- [179:24]
A
Yeah. So China has something called the United Front Work Department, UFWD. The UFWD's charter is to spread the gospel of how great China is throughout the world through ambassadors. China, Chinese citizens who live outside of China.
- [179:52]
B
Yeah.
- [179:53]
A
So the UFWD is the button that they push to activate Chinese citizens who live overseas. Article 7 of the Chinese Intelligence Law stipulates that every Chinese citizen and if you're ethnic Chinese, you're Chinese.
- [180:18]
B
Huh.
- [180:21]
A
Article 7 of the China Intelligence Law obligates citizens to support and assist China's intelligence activities when called upon. I think that this explains when we read about Chinese tourists who get lost and confused and end up driving 500 yards into the compound in Virginia beach and say they just got lost and they want to take a selfie.
- [180:58]
B
Asian lady driver. Sorry everyone, nothing to see.
- [181:01]
A
Good luck everybody. When you have Chinese citizens flying drones over Vandenberg Air Force Base at the launch of a Falcon Falcon 9 rocket, total coincidence. When you have Chinese citizens driving around and mapping military installations in the Philippines with lidar gear and stingrays or MZ catchers and they are, they are sort of careless. They are not mss, they are amateurs. But they've got millions of them. Yeah. All over the world.
- [181:45]
B
They buy land everywhere.
- [181:47]
A
So it can be, you know, low level kid that's going to drive onto a sensitive, onto a military base, capture a couple pictures. That buys them prestige, credibility back home. Even if they don't collect any useful, valuable intelligence, it's like your obligation to try. And sometimes they, and they're the, the elites within the UFWD that are buying land. They, they go, they get, they get awarded at the annual sales conference in Beijing for their efforts and their work and what they, what they have accomplished. They get recognized. They get a photo op with Xi Jinping himself. So when, when we contemplate the counterintelligence challenge from China, we have to recognize this isn't going to be like catching MSS operators. These are people that are on, you know, they're dual sits, they have, you know, they're lawful permanent residents, they own a business. But let's not, you know, let's not try to see something beyond the tourist who drive zone 2 dev groups compound, take pictures and, and claims that they get lost.
- [183:28]
B
So this is much more of a throw out an industrial size fishing net from a freighter and pull up whatever you can versus like Try to take out a really nice rod and catch the price sailfish.
- [183:42]
A
You never know what you're going to get right. And, and this is, I think, something that we underestimate because how do you. How does the FBI manage that? They can't open up a case. But when we see these organizations like the American China Friendship Association.
- [184:05]
B
Oh, that sounds great.
- [184:08]
A
You know, that's. That should be a counterintelligence target, and I'm sure it is. But when they, you know, they, they will metastasize inside of city councils. They will buy lots of property, lots of land. This, this is the kind of thing that we can, we can track through data, but again, we need policy and prosecution instead of, you know, don't do that again.
- [184:47]
B
You know what? I feel like sometimes I don't know what you would say to this, but to be clear, I am against any country that's not America peddling influence in any way. Surreptitiously. Not surreptitiously, whatever. In this country, we focus so much, and righteously so, on some things, on like the Israeli stuff that's happening right now because there's literally this war going on.
- [185:13]
A
But that's kind of very ugly. That's kind of new. The, the attention. Of course, that is not, you know, it was almost like if you discussed it or even brought up suspicion, oh, yeah, you were an anti Semite, right? And, you know, but I think this is.
- [185:30]
B
Yeah, that ship is sailed. But you're absolutely right. It's a new phenomenon because of what's happened over there in the last couple of years. And people are like, what the fuck is this and why are we funding this? That said, sometimes I wonder, like, just like stepping out at 30,000ft, I'm like, okay, a lot of these things I'm seeing are true. And like, yeah, this influence, that's crazy. And we should stop this and stop that 100%. But like the whole Internet, which has a lot of accounts that operate behind keyboards and you don't know where they come from, is specifically pushing just this one, which. It's like they landed on a thing that's actually a problem and said, everybody look at that. And then I feel like that is also cover for other places that are doing in different ways, different methods, the same thing. And so, by the way, like, when I see that this was happening through TikTok for a long time, not to take the side of like Larry Ellison buying it now, to be clear, I think the answer's in the middle. But like, I'm like, oh, why, why were they making sure that was pushed while they're in this case, China, while they're doing shit like this, and no disrespect to Israel, they certainly have a lot of power, but like China's got a fucking $20 trillion GDP, you know, billion people.
- [186:48]
A
If, if our, if we were as adamantly invested in confronting the China problem as we are invested in Israel, Israel's security, that'd be, that would be, that would be a thing.
- [187:08]
B
Yeah.
- [187:11]
A
And this is politics and you know, the grown ups are at the table and this is how, this is how it's being. So it's being done. It's the reality. Even though I would like it to be differently. Different. That's what it is. So what's it going to take for our focus to call out like everything. Fentanyl. And you brought, you brought the point up earlier like we are not innocent.
- [187:38]
B
That's right.
- [187:39]
A
We want to know why we have a, an Iranian problem. It goes back to 1953.
- [187:44]
B
That's right. We put the shine power, Kermit Roosevelt.
- [187:47]
A
Right. We decided that this, you know, the elected president, prime minister was not sufficiently cooperative. And so.
- [188:00]
B
Listen, he wasn't. All right. He wasn't.
- [188:03]
A
Did you know that his, the Shah secret police was a joint effort between Mossad and CIA?
- [188:10]
B
I actually didn't know the Mossad connection there, but I was well aware CIA was involved. Interesting.
- [188:15]
A
Yep. So standing up and building that police force. Anyway. But this is, you know, like how did we get here with Iran or.
- [188:24]
B
Right.
- [188:24]
A
Ukraine or you know, map it back. Okay. Yeah. We don't have the benefit of, of future, of being able to see in the future. But there are third order of effects when we try to do something that, you know, country that we share a lot of the same values and they're educated and you know, like how many Iranian doctors who were here when their parents had to flee in 79, you know, you have a lot in common with. Sure. This is not a country that at a population level we should be at war with the Ayatollah. Different story. Theocracy is different story. But if, if, if some foreign country decided, let's just say for a moment that Hillary Clinton was elected president and some foreign country said that's unacceptable, we need to overthrow that. Even though I'm not a supporter of Hillary Clinton, I'd be incensed by another country coming in saying, we're going to organize, reorganize your politics.
- [189:30]
B
That's right.
- [189:32]
A
You know, death to America. Yeah, I'd be Pissed too. If America messed with my country. Even, you know, the Ayatollah, at least he's ours.
- [189:41]
B
Yeah, I understand what you're saying.
- [189:44]
A
You know, as opposed to the Shah.
- [189:45]
B
You mean the Shah. Right, right, Yeah.
- [189:47]
A
I mean, the Ayatollah was obviously like, he's our. He's our choice. As an Iranian. As an Iranian, speaking from the perspective.
- [189:59]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [189:59]
A
He may not be great, but we.
- [190:02]
B
I got you.
- [190:02]
A
We had the agency to be able to insert him as opposed to the Shaw. Which is.
- [190:07]
B
Right.
- [190:07]
A
It was our revolution. We did it. So I think that this is.
- [190:11]
B
Yeah, that's where it gets weird. It's like, all right, we're not great at nation building over here. You know what I mean? And like, to your point, you got to see it from the perspective of people who want to handle their own business on some things. Does that mean you isolate yourself from the world and ever get involved in anything? No, I would say it's just my argument here. It's amazing to me, even though, like, we fucked up things with Russia in the decades since and some of the rebuilding and stuff like that, that's a separate conversation. The way the Soviet Union fell was not, you know, this like invasion of the Soviet Union or throwing a nuke at them or some shit like that. It was getting as much ideological resources into 15% of the population. That's all it took. Yeah, it was. 15% of the Soviet population was enough to then rise up and overthrow it from within. Like, if you're gonna do it and get involved. Yep, there, there's your model. Like, tear down that wall. You know what I mean? Like, why don't we do more of that, like, ideological subversion in Iran? Man, you got a lot of material to work with there. I would think you've had fucking 45.
- [191:20]
A
Years to do it, right? Yep, yep. Radio Free Moscow. That, that actually worked. And I also, instead of, you know, rhetoric and strong language and, and you know, you know, summits, like, we built sdi, sdi, Strategic Defense Initiative, Star Wars.
- [191:43]
B
Oh.
- [191:45]
A
We over powered them with innovation. So when Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavik and Gorbachev's demand or terms for nuclear disarmament included the Americans Reagan divesting from sdi and Reagan said not happening. It was kind of like, okay, we're never going to be able to compete with them militarily. Which sort of speaks to the strength through power narrative. But it was innovation that, you know, is like, was legit and real and kind of a, hey, you know, build nukes all you want. We have sdi, which negates your arsenal.
- [192:37]
B
Right.
- [192:38]
A
And that was like, all right, how do we compete with this? We need to. That was the beginning of sort of the ratchet down for the, for the Soviet Union, you know, and we didn't negotiate. Like, Reagan had a fine line. Like, that is non negotiable.
- [192:56]
B
Yeah.
- [192:56]
A
And we are willing to walk.
- [192:58]
B
No, I was, he was, listen, on that, on that issue, we, I mean, definitely a successful presidency in that respect. He was very, very good on that issue.
- [193:07]
A
So I, I worked with Admiral John Poindexter for a little bit back in 96, 97. And I'm in his, we're sitting in his study.
- [193:17]
B
You worked with him in 96 or 97?
- [193:19]
A
It was 96.
- [193:20]
B
What were you doing?
- [193:20]
A
It was, this was the ADARPA program.
- [193:25]
B
Just, Just talk with someone. Well, yeah, just, you know how it. I was in the hallways at darpa.
- [193:31]
A
You know, but we're sitting in the study, in his study at his, at his home in, in Rockville, Maryland. And he has this picture of. They're at Reykjavik and Reagan is sitting in like a, a chair with his glasses on the bridge of his nose with like papers, and Poindexter is clearly talking to him. And I'm like, did the enormity of that moment, you're sitting there like Gorbachev is in the next room. They kind of had a break, like, all right, we need to go and sort of. And, and you know, that picture was kind of the moment where they decided, like, it is not negotiable. SDI is non negotiable. And Poindexter had a lot to do with that as his national security advisor pre Iran Contra. Like, did the enormity of, like, you're sitting there and Ronald Reagan is kind of looking at you like, are you full of shit? You know what you're talking about? And you are, as his national Security advisor, giving him this advice about your negotiation with the Soviets. Like, that was a moment of, you know, clarity, right. That you were able to, you were able to push through, but really interesting guy.
- [194:52]
B
So why were you in the hallways at DARPA in 96?
- [194:56]
A
Just, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm not there a lot, but I'm there enough.
- [195:04]
B
Yeah, but this is 96.
- [195:05]
A
This is, I'm sorry, 2006. Not 96, 2006.
- [195:09]
B
But that's still 10 years before you.
- [195:10]
A
Have the little post, you know, shortly after 9, 11.
- [195:15]
B
Right, but this is like 10 years before you figure out the whole Fort Bragg data thing. So what?
- [195:23]
A
Doing data stuff.
- [195:25]
B
Doing data stuff.
- [195:26]
A
So.
- [195:26]
B
So you were a good candidate to figure out the Fort Bragg.
- [195:29]
A
I mean, I might have had a head start.
- [195:31]
B
Right. Yeah. I might have wanted to mention that out front.
- [195:35]
A
There was this. This move to, like, can we correlate travel records, rental car records, things like that, to be able to predict terrorist or unusual activity.
- [195:48]
B
Okay. DARPA was working on this. Interesting.
- [195:51]
A
Yep. Everybody at that time. Everybody.
- [195:54]
B
Yeah. Yeah. In some way, it's just darpa. You always think of, you know, the wonder projects, like something that's hypersonics. Yeah, exactly. Like, you don't really think of them. They're a separate bucket from, like, what you think about with CIA or NSA or something like that. All right, I'm gonna. When. When you come back, we're gonna have to do darpa. We're gonna go way deeper on China. We're going to do a lot of Palantir. We're gonna have to do a lot of AI stuff which we didn't talk about today. I could think of, like, some Saudi stuff I want to get to with you. There's other stuff we got to come back to and ask a few more questions, too. But in the meantime, real quick, what is your. You know, this last decade now, like, today, I imagine through your private company, you're still doing some of this work and advising on it. Obviously, you've kind of mentioned that, but, like, what does your family think about, like, what you got going on? Like, you're the big swinging dick, and not at all with data.
- [196:47]
A
Not at all.
- [196:48]
B
Not in your house, no. That's a shame.
- [196:49]
A
Not at all.
- [196:51]
B
No.
- [196:51]
A
I mean, it's. You're. It's decent. Like, everybody's got. Everybody's got a hustle. Everybody's important doing stuff, so.
- [197:01]
B
Okay, you know, I'll take your word for it. All right. Well, Mike, this has been quite eye opening.
- [197:06]
A
Yeah. Today we're surprised we didn't get into Epstein. That's.
- [197:09]
B
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There's, like a million things to get to. I. I'm gonna get there. So here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna be putting this out in. I think we're gonna put this out in like a week or two. I'm gonna put this one out quick, and then people are gonna respond to this, and I'm gonna get your ass back here very quickly.
- [197:25]
A
Sounds good?
- [197:25]
B
All right, I'll be here. All right.
- [197:27]
A
Thanks, brother.
- [197:27]
B
Thank you. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace. Thank you guys for watching the episode. If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. They're both a huge, huge help and if you would like to follow me on Instagram and X, those links are in my description below.