Episode 254: Even If You're Not Online, You're Online

Summary

Podcast Summary: "What the Hack?"

Episode 254: Even If You're Not Online, You're Online
Host: Beau Friedlander
Date: June 2, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, host Beau Friedlander makes a house call to his friend Craig—a self-described “digital dabbler” and quintessential non-digital native—to explore what it means to be an “unwilling participant” in the data-driven, highly surveilled online world. Through personal anecdotes, a walk around Craig’s property, and in-depth conversation, the episode examines the friction between convenience and privacy, the evolution of digital tracking, the exposure of private information, and the lack of meaningful regulation over personal data. The discussion is grounded in Craig’s analog expertise and wariness about digital exposure, serving as a lens to explore systemic privacy issues all internet users face—even those trying to avoid being online.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction: The “Unwilling Participant” & Digital Life

• Beau sets the theme by referencing a T-shirt he saw online: “unwilling participant”—a term applied to our forced participation in the digital data economy.
  • “This week, we're going to... talk about what it means to be an unwilling participant in this, you know, digital data nightmare that we all live in.” (00:39)

The Analog Expert in a Digital Age

• Craig represents the majority of Americans who are not "digital natives." He’s a hands-on builder and former teacher; exemplifies analog skill.
• Even among his generation, Craig is an “outlier”—preferring practical knowledge over online interaction, reminiscent of pre-internet era expertise and self-reliance.
  • “He's not a digital native. If you use the standard generational definitions... north of 60% of Americans are not digital natives. But Craig... can make anything.” (02:35)

How Tracking Became Infrastructure

• The hosts narrate the history of web tracking—how technical “solutions” to web problems (like images loading from other servers, Netscape’s cookies) unintentionally enabled third-party tracking.
  • Audio flashbacks to the 90s: Adoption of Amazon, the emergence of cookies, and “invisible” image trackers forming the foundation of web surveillance.
  • “It wasn't because engineers set out to build a global surveillance system. It was because they were solving immediate technical problems and nobody was looking 10 years down the road.” (08:37)
  • “Nobody voted for it. Nobody signed the terms. It just became infrastructure.” (10:48)

The Reality of Online Exposure: Personal Data as Commodity

• Demonstration: Hosts look up Craig’s publicly available information (phone, age, address) online in seconds to show how easy it is to find anyone.
  • Greg: “Tell me how many times you see your information up there where someone might be able to find your phone number... What about age?” (26:47)
  • Craig: “That's terrible. It's just too much information out there.” (28:10)
• The Walmart/PlayStation voicemail scam as an example of how scammers use this data for targeting—especially older adults.
• The hosts reference “Have I Been Pwned” to show that even those who avoid most technology have still been “owned” by data breaches.
  • Beau: “Craig has been pwned. We checked that a while ago. But there’s a kind of pwning that happened back when the Internet was driving dirty with our data and... that can’t be undone.” (25:02)

The Illusion of Control and Why Laws Lag

• Even with opt-out laws (e.g., California Consumer Privacy Act), average users feel powerless to remove themselves from data broker sites.
  • Craig: “I think lots of people like me think [all this data] is dangerous, but just as a private citizen, feel powerless to do anything about it.” (30:29)
  • Greg: “So your point of view... is that it shouldn't be. But this is what happens when you let business interests run the show.” (31:10)

Analog Passions, Digital Vulnerability

• Craig’s absence from social media (“No Facebook, no X, nothing”) is a deliberate attempt to limit exposure, but still he can’t fully escape.
  • Craig: “I try to limit my exposure.” (31:10)
• Even “lurker” use (e.g., watching YouTube how-to videos) generates trackable data—feeding the very data economy he’d prefer to avoid.
  • Greg: “You're paying with your data. They are. So... you're paying with your data, and your data could be as simple as, I'm interested in fixing a 1956 chainsaw.” (39:04)

The Temptation of Convenience vs. Cost to Privacy

• The group discusses whether they’d pay (e.g., $5/month) to use platforms like YouTube in exchange for true privacy. Both say yes.
  • Craig: “Probably. Me too. Yeah... Five bucks and not do that creepy stuff.” (40:22)
• Recognition that public records—like home purchases, marriage licenses—were never protected “because nobody saw the Internet coming.”
  • Greg: “All this stuff that was presumed to be difficult enough to get that you wouldn't have a problem. It wasn't protected because nobody saw The Internet coming.” (42:23)

Broader Framing: Privacy Is Not Partisan—It’s a Collective Crisis

• Privacy shouldn't be a political issue; the lack of regulation is likened to the wild west, where early digital “49ers” staked claims before anyone could set boundaries.
  • Beau: “Privacy is not partisan. Privacy is a crisis that we have because when all this digital landscape started to form out of nothing, there were no police. How could there be?” (36:43)

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On feeling powerless:
  • Craig: “Lots of people like me think it's dangerous, but just as a private citizen, feel powerless to do anything about it.” (30:29)
• On the business of privacy:
  • Greg: “You're the byproduct of someone else's greed.” (35:58)
• On the “cost” of convenience:
  • Greg: “You're paying with your data... I would give you five bucks and not do that creepy stuff.” (39:10–40:22)
• On exposure:
  • Craig: “No, that's... that's terrible. It's just too much information out there.” (28:10)
• On regulation:
  • Beau: “There are no laws governing things that didn't exist when the laws were being written.” (44:54)
• On privacy as a right:
  • Beau: “This isn't political. This is personal. Privacy shouldn't be political. It never should be.” (45:02)

Actionable Takeaways and “Tinfoil Swan”

• Anyone can find your data in seconds—no hacking required, just public records and online search.
• Data removal is possible through sites like Spokeo, Whitepages, BeenVerified, etc., but is an ongoing process since data reappears frequently.
• Use opt-out tools and/or paid services (such as DeleteMe) to reduce exposure.
  • Beau: “If you want to know what your situation is, just go to the DeleteMe site... and do a free scan. If you remove these things, they come right back.” (46:17–46:30)

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Notable Segments & Timestamps

• Opening Theme and Setup: (00:08–01:19)
• Digital Tracking Origins & Infrastructure: (03:49–10:52)
• Chainsaws and Analog Expertise: (11:18–16:47)
• Demonstrating Personal Data Exposure: (26:19–29:00)
• The Privacy Tradeoff Conversation: (39:04–43:23)
• Policy & Regulation, “Digital Wild West” Analogy: (36:42–38:55)
• Final Takeaway and “Tinfoil Swan”: (45:01–46:52)

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Summary Table

| Topic | Timestamp | Speaker(s) | Key Point/Quote | |----------------------------------------------|-------------|----------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Introduction & “Unwilling Participant” | 00:39 | Beau | Introducing the theme: forced participation in the digital data economy | | Web Tracking as “Infrastructure” | 08:37 | Beau | “It wasn't because engineers set out to build a global surveillance system...” | | Data Exposure Example | 26:47 | Greg | “Tell me how many times you see your information up there...” | | Reactions to Privacy Loss | 28:10 | Craig | “That's terrible. It's just too much information out there.” | | Powerlessness of Individuals | 30:29 | Craig | “Feel powerless to do anything about it.” | | Willingness to Pay for Privacy | 40:22 | Craig, Greg | “Would you be willing...?” / “Probably. Me too. Yeah.” | | Regulation & “Digital Wild West” Analogy | 36:43 | Beau | “Privacy is not partisan... there were no police...” | | Takeaway: Steps to Remove Data | 46:17–46:30 | Beau | “Go to join Delete Me... opt out pages... they pop right back up...” |

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Final Thoughts & Episode Tone

The conversation is natural and accessible, blending nostalgia, mild cynicism, humor, and personal warmth. Beau and Greg, through Craig’s experiences, underscore how “driving dirty” is not limited to individuals—big tech and data brokers have been doing it for decades, reshaping concepts of privacy without user consent or awareness. The sense of resignation among analog experts like Craig is countered with cautious optimism that, with more awareness and pressure, meaningful change (legal or grassroots) is possible.

Key Message:
You may try to stay offline, but your data (and your vulnerability) endures. Empower yourself with awareness, opt-out tools, and advocacy—even if it feels Sisyphean.

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For those who haven’t listened: This episode will leave you better informed, a little paranoid, but with practical next steps for taking back a bit of your privacy, even as the digital world tries to keep you unwillingly online.

Transcript

[Greg]

Greg.

[Craig]

Good afternoon. How are you?

[Greg]

Hey, good to see you. Where we. Where do we go?

[Craig]

Let's go inside.

[Beau Friedlander]

Oh, into the house.

[Craig]

House, yeah, sure.

[Beau Friedlander]

All right.

[Craig]

Say hi to Nancy.

[Greg]

Sure.

[Beau Friedlander]

I keep seeing an ad on Instagram for a light blue T shirt with the caption, unwilling participant.

[Craig]

Seeing this. This is sort of cool.

[Greg]

No, I haven't seen it. Did you just build this a couple years ago?

[Craig]

Look at this.

[Greg]

Oh, so you can grill in the What? Oh, shut up.

[Beau Friedlander]

I have to admit, I'm a little tempted to buy that T shirt. This week, we're going to do a house call to my friend Craig and talk about what it means to be an unwilling participant in this, you know, digital data nightmare that we all live in. I'm Beau Friedlander, and this is what the hack, the podcast that asks, in a world where your data is everywhere,

[Greg]

how do you stay safe online?

[Beau Friedlander]

Did you set that lamppost?

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

Did you put the electricity to go into it?

[Craig]

Yeah. And I built the lamppost.

[Greg]

All right, let's go.

[Beau Friedlander]

No, I have another one.

[Greg]

I got another one that. Why is it a good lamppost?

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

All right, let's go look.

[Craig]

Yeah, the lamppost is a real colonial design. As you can tell, Nancy and I are into real colonial style stuff, but. Yeah, but I want to have everything, so it's little or low maintenance. So this is all made out of Azek, so all I have to do is wash it. It looks like brand new.

[Greg]

Does it get. Does it get green if you don't?

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, but. But you can see how I tapered this.

[Greg]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And this is all. All glued. There's, you know, electricity goes right up through and see this little thing here?

[Greg]

Yeah.

[Craig]

22 inches.

[Greg]

What is that? Oh, you wrote 22 inches on it.

[Craig]

22 inches from this corner.

[Greg]

Yeah.

[Craig]

There's my water. The water shut off, so I never have to remember. All I have to do is come out here. I know it's out here someplace. I look at what I scratched in there. If we ever had did have to turn the water main off. It's right there.

[Beau Friedlander]

Craig is one of my favorite people. Like on Earth. He's not a digital native.

[Interviewer (1980s segment)]

Can you explain what Internet is That

[Craig]

little mark with the A and then the ring around it at. See, that's what I said case that she thought it was about.

[Narrator/Archive Voice]

Yeah.

[Beau Friedlander]

If you use the standard generational definitions, he's in the majority there. Right. North of. 60% of Americans are not digital natives. But Craig. Craig's an outlier even among his analog cohort. You see Craig can make anything. He's a former teacher turned contractor. I call him MacGyver, which is ridiculous because I've never even watched MacGyver. Whoa, your blueberries are crazy.

[Craig]

Oh, the blueberries looking great. Look, look at that one over there. Now one of tomorrow's projects is I gotta put the bird netting up. We take the bird netting down every year because you want the bees to go in and pollinate. Look at how loaded this is.

[Greg]

Look at that one.

[Craig]

Yeah, I know.

[Beau Friedlander]

That one's nuts. Unwilling participant. It's a slippery position to take when it comes to our digital lives. The age old friction between convenience and privacy. It's always there. I say age old, dumb. It's not that old. Dates back to the days when the Internet started to become aware of its earning potential.

[Narrator (Jeff Bezos segment)]

Who would have guessed that one of the hottest stocks of all time, one of the fastest growing companies in history, would be a bookstore? That's right, books. One of the oldest products made by man. We didn't. That's because we didn't predict the revolution led by 35 year old Jeff Bezos, a self described nerd who almost overnight has become one of the richest men in the world and made many of his investors instant millionaires. That's because his revolution created a new way of buying things by computer over the Internet. And we have been lining up by the millions. He calls his company Amazon.com, earth's biggest bookstore.

[Beau Friedlander]

Yes, Amazon was a big deal, but non digital natives took a minute to adopt that way of shopping. That clip dates back to the 90s when computers were about as common as radios were in 1920.

[Narrator/Archive Voice]

This is KD K A of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

[Beau Friedlander]

That was actually the first radio broadcast back in 1920.

[Narrator/Archive Voice]

We'd appreciate it if anyone hearing this broadcast would communicate with us as we are very anxious to know how far the broadcast is reaching and how it is being received.

[Interviewer (1980s segment)]

It seems everybody is interested now in home computers. Well, so far home computers are just a fraction, a small fraction of those being sold in the United States. But because our technology is growing by leaps and bounds, computers can help us with a lot of household items for grown ups as well as for the kids. What are you going to use it for mostly?

[Greg]

Well, probably schoolwork and because they have like cartridges that could teach you stuff and math and stuff. I'm interested in having something that I can use a word processor with.

[Interviewer (1980s segment)]

What do you want to do that for?

[Greg]

Primarily for typing and working at home.

[Consumer Counselor Phyllis Eliasberg]

Use it for Trying to develop ways to make money.

[Beau Friedlander]

The early Internet was simple. Mostly text, mostly links. Then images arrived, and with them, an engineering breakthrough. Instead of storing every single image on your own server, which made downloading them torture on a dial up account, you could just tell a browser where to find it and let it fetch the file from somewhere else and wait a year or two for it to appear. It saved bandwidth, it saved money, and nobody thought twice about it. Around the Same time, in 1994, engineers at Netscape, remember Netscape, were trying to solve problem baked into the web's basic architecture. It had no way to remember you between clicks. So every time you went to a site, it treated you like a total stranger. Every single time. So an Etsy engineer named Lou Montulli invented something called the cookie, the digital kind, the tiny little text file that let a site remember who you were, kept you, logged in, preserved a shopping cart for you. And yeah, as with all things online, it was about money.

[Consumer Counselor Phyllis Eliasberg]

Have you been thinking about buying a home computer? With Christmas and Hanukkah just a few months away, your children, maybe some older children, may have already put them on their most wanted lists. There is plenty to think about before you buy a home computer. And consumer counselor Phyllis Eliasberg is here to give you a look at what you could buy or what you should buy or what you shouldn't buy individually,

[Beau Friedlander]

neither innovation was controversial. Together, they created something nobody really intended. Then came the more or less collective realization that these remote images didn't need to be visible. Huh? Like why tracking?

[Greg]

That's why.

[Interviewer (1980s segment)]

If you can wait a few years, you may be able to find a better bargain.

[Craig]

The home market should evolve fully by 1985.

[Interviewer (1980s segment)]

Are we going to see a decrease in prices as computers become more popular?

[Craig]

There'll be a decrease in price, but you'll tend to see more for your money.

[Interviewer (1980s segment)]

Well, not only will there be a decrease, you'll get more for your money, as the man said, but you have

[Podcast Host Reza Satchew]

to know when you're.

[Beau Friedlander]

An advertising network could embed a microscopic transparent one by one pixel, like an image into a web page. You couldn't see it, but your browser could. For those of you who think that came way later, I guess you're right, depending on what you're thinking. Because we're talking about the late 90s, that that tech has been around for a while. And once browsers could automatically retrieve content from outside servers and automatically send you your cookie identifying information along with those requests, the foundation for modern web tracking was set.

[Greg]

So the, the trap that we're all

[Beau Friedlander]

ensnared in as unwilling participants. That was already in place by the late 90s. It wasn't because engineers set out to build a global surveillance system. It was because they were solving immediate technical problems and Nobody was looking 10 years down the road and nobody was asking if any of it should be regulated. The opportunity didn't stay hidden for long. Third parties realized they could piggyback on those microscopic pixels. Not the website you chose to visit, but invisible companies embedded inside it. Advertising networks, data brokers. Data brokers, analytic firms, organizations you'd never heard of and never consciously agreed to interact with. Now there was a brief moment of panic in the late 90s again when the public figured out what cookies were doing. And so that you know, browsers then added the pop up warning with fun pop up warning give you but but the but the web was growing way too fast again, there were no laws.

[Greg]

Again, if you left that feature on,

[Beau Friedlander]

your screen was filled with dozens of unclosable pop ups.

[Greg]

Now if you feel like you can't go online without having to click on endless pop up messages about what happens to your information, you are definitely not alone.

[Beau Friedlander]

Users didn't choose tracking right. They, they were fatigued into submission. Unwilling participants. They turned the warnings off just to make the web usable again. Unwilling participants. And that brings us to today. When you load a typical webpage. Dozens. It's not dozens. Sometimes it's thousands of these. Third parties may be watching. Thousands, hundreds, whatever. They see what you click, they see what you linger over with your mouse, what you searched for and where you go next. They observe the entire session. It is what creates that sense of deja vu when you're online. The Internet is not listening to you. Well, not directly. It's just clocking absolutely everything about the way that you are online. And that gives it all it needs to know to tell you here's the

[Greg]

grill you're looking for.

[Beau Friedlander]

Nobody voted for it. Nobody signed the terms. It just became infrastructure. Infrastructure.

[Greg]

Infrastructure is something that's usually regulated right.

[Beau Friedlander]

It's usually federal. Not here. And that's the problem.

[Greg]

Show me your chainsaws.

[Craig]

Well here we got to look at. We got two, two sets. In this shed are the real antiques. It's sort of dark in here. Now these are the ones that's probably the newest one. That's probably about a back in the corner there. That's about a 19. These are in the 40s through the 50s.

[Beau Friedlander]

The Internet is cool, right? Craig even thinks so.

[Greg]

He could be one of the guys

[Beau Friedlander]

you see on YouTube explaining how to fix a 1940s chainsaw. But he's not that guy because he's fixing a 1940s chainsaw.

[Greg]

That one back there looks like it weighs 50 pounds.

[Craig]

Oh, this one here, this, this. This is a home light. I think the date on that was made in about 1957.

[Beau Friedlander]

The one that says easy on it.

[Craig]

Yeah, easy. Okay. And as I remember as a little kid when my dad was building our house, it was either that one or one that looks like it in my mind's eye when I was a little kid, and that I've run that one. They're deafening. No anti vibration and everything. Yeah, yeah, it's really amazing. So.

[Greg]

And what's the deal with this canoe?

[Craig]

Oh, that's that my canoe that I bought. I was in sixth grade, restored it. This is an old town wood canoe, and it needs another restoration, you know, 60 years later, so. And there's nothing like a wood canoe.

[Beau Friedlander]

We are all spoiled by the advantages of having access to everything ever recorded. Basically, the entire contents of the Library of Congress, as well as the fabled Library of Alexandria. That's an ancient Egyptian version that goes way back. And in every post anyone ever flung blindly into the social media, verse based on fact, fiction, political friction and vibe with the entirety of everything you might want to know, just one finger tap away from a screen near you. The magic is undeniable. Automated magic.

[Greg]

Poof.

[Beau Friedlander]

No longer do you need your cousin's math tricks or the trivia repository tripping off your Aunt Selma's tongue like so many unicorns of omniscience. YouTube knows a lot of the same stuff my buddy Craig knows. And if he doesn't, you put it into an LLM. And it does. And with AI now knitting it all together right into these usable outputs, I fixed my Omni boiler with one recently. It's possible technology has finally caught up

[Greg]

with the Craigs of the world.

[Beau Friedlander]

Possible. The MacGyvers, the savants of doing things. Maybe.

[Greg]

What's that outboard engine over there?

[Craig]

Oh, that's.

[Greg]

That looks pretty old. Is that an outboard engine or is that a chainsaw?

[Craig]

No, that's a chainsaw in the back over there.

[Greg]

No, the one with the yellow.

[Craig]

Oh, the yellow. Now, that's a. That's an early weed whacker. A West Bend engine on it. Get out of here. Yeah. Yeah.

[Beau Friedlander]

Why?

[Greg]

You just like it.

[Craig]

Yeah, a friend of mine had this stuff and I was. You know, it's pretty interesting stuff.

[Greg]

You posing me in here?

[Craig]

No. Yeah. Let me show you the good chains

[Beau Friedlander]

Craig's universe matters here. He has crammed more projects onto his property than you can shake a stick at. And it's all bristling with years of trial and error, lessons learned, focused intelligence. And no, I'm not going to put you in touch with him because he's semi retired.

[Craig]

The tractor that you put me onto, the zero.

[Greg]

Oh, with the knobby wheels.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

Oh, that's a lot better.

[Craig]

Yeah, it tears it up. You couldn't use this if you're a landscaper, but.

[Greg]

No, no, no, no. I mean even with the soft, even with the flat ones, it tears it up.

[Craig]

So there's the chainsaws that the daily users, small, medium and large.

[Greg]

Okay, you use that red one there. Yeah, yeah, that one's huge.

[Craig]

Yeah, those are.

[Greg]

What is it?

[Craig]

That's a John's red.

[Greg]

Oh wow.

[Craig]

They don't make them anymore, but I think they're great size. And up here are all old home lights. These are from the 60s and 70s. That one there is just about identical to the one my father in law had when I, when I first met him.

[Beau Friedlander]

Craig learned how to do all his tree cutting and wood processing from his father in law. That's who taught him to paint anything arborist related bright orange because otherwise tools get lost in the old tool colored woods of southern Connecticut. I think it might also be the guy who taught Craig to brand all his stuff with his initials so as to avoid having it be mistaken from something easy to steal. Craig taught me the same trick.

[Craig]

These I run these.

[Greg]

Are these all 20 inch bars or.

[Craig]

No, this, this is 16. This is a 20 here. There's a 20.

[Beau Friedlander]

That's a 36 or something.

[Craig]

That's, that's probably about a 26, 28.

[Greg]

Nice.

[Craig]

And over there is a 36.

[Greg]

You do have a 36.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg]

That's good to know.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg]

If you ever want to get rid of that big oak.

[Craig]

That's a beast. These are all.

[Greg]

How many horsepower is that thing? CC?

[Craig]

I don't know.

[Beau Friedlander]

CC?

[Craig]

Well, the 30, the 36 inch bar, that's probably about 100 CC saw. That's a, that's a home light. This is when Homelight was a really good brand and they were made right down in Port Chester, New York right across the border with Craig.

[Beau Friedlander]

You get the feel for the hyperlocal because it's real. It's not generated by an AI or cascaded in real time by search technology. He has lived in the same area his whole life. When he says across the border, he means the State line between Fairfield County, Connecticut and Westchester County, New York. And he is a unique example of the expertise that can be accomplished by a person who doesn't get distracted and sticks to his passions. One of his passions is inventing things. If you're listening. And working patents. He has a snow proof mailbox. And. And his Mona Lisa, of course, is the storage bumper that he built on the back of his truck.

[Greg]

That was. No.

[Beau Friedlander]

What?

[Greg]

Oh, yeah, this. It's time for us to talk about this. So for anyone listening who feels like

[Beau Friedlander]

making a buck,

[Greg]

we're about to. We're about to blow your minds.

[Beau Friedlander]

All right, I'm at the back of a.

[Greg]

What is this, a Chevy?

[Beau Friedlander]

Must be a Chevy.

[Craig]

Yeah. 2007 Chevy 3500 Silverado diesel.

[Greg]

Okay, this is not the.

[Beau Friedlander]

Did you buy this or did you make this bed?

[Craig]

No, the bed I bought, but it was all aluminum because I wanted it to last a long time. But it did not hold paint, so I wrapped it with aluminum diamond plate. And everybody thought I got a brand new truck, but I didn't. I just wrapped it.

[Beau Friedlander]

Nice paper.

[Greg]

So what's back here?

[Craig]

Well, look at the bumper.

[Beau Friedlander]

This is your bumper?

[Craig]

Yeah, this is my bumper. And I built this to store stuff because, you know, when you're in construction, you always have stuff you want to tie into your truck. So I've got ratchet ties, I've got. I've got shrink wrap. I got, you know, a lockable cable here. I've got jumper cables in here, tow chain. So I built a bumper to hold all that stuff.

[Greg]

So. So

[Beau Friedlander]

that looks totally illegal.

[Greg]

Are you driving dirty?

[Craig]

No, no, no.

[Beau Friedlander]

I am going to give Craig the benefit of the doubt when it comes to driving dirty or not. I have certainly been guilty of it.

[Greg]

And.

[Beau Friedlander]

And not that long ago when a friend of mine gifted me a 1974 Country Squire Station wagon with the same engine as the old F150s. Driving dirty is a weird phrase. It's sort of libertarian. I'm going to do this thing that isn't hurting anyone, but isn't strictly speaking legal either. Here's where the rubber hits the road when it comes to our data. Big tech has been driving dirty for years.

[Greg]

Hello. Todd gets down here.

[Craig]

Years ago, I was on a building committee for a big church project, multi million dollar project. And I was the chairman of the committee. And I said at the committee meeting to some of the people that are very digitally astute, I said, you guys have a lot of skills in these particular areas. They can run computers, they can, you Know, do everything on a computer or on their phone. I said I would not trade those skills for the skills I have for anything because, you know, my stuff is irreplaceable. Everybody can learn those things at some point. But what I've got, and I know I can, I can do, you know, I can build practically anything I can from the finest trim work to running heavy equipment to running chainsaws. And I've done lots of it, you know, so gardening.

[Greg]

You know that shed out there?

[Craig]

Yep.

[Greg]

Did you have drawn drawings for that shed?

[Craig]

No. You know, usually when I'm going to build something, I'll just knock out a little sketch myself just so I can come up with a material list and that kind of thing.

[Greg]

So you knew you would use beaded board there but you knew that you would use some kind of.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Greg]

But you didn't have that's far as you went?

[Craig]

No, I just knocked out a little sketch just out of my head to say, I think this is going to look nice, you know, and proportions are good, so.

[Greg]

And you needed a place to prop a little duck.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's right.

[Greg]

Is that a duck dead?

[Craig]

Yeah, a little duck.

[Greg]

Yeah, it looks like that duck got shot.

[Beau Friedlander]

All this goes to say that if the lights went out tomorrow, if we had a major infrastructure attack on the power grid, it's not beyond the pall of reason to think that could happen.

[Greg]

We are at war with a country that has really good hackers.

[Beau Friedlander]

And if that were to happen, okay, let's just say Craig would not be sidelined by a lack of access to the Internet. But when it comes to scams, he is, like all of us, an unwilling participant in the digital marketplace where our data drives vast economies of scale that beggar the imagination. And that makes him an older adult, a not only digital non native, but a digital dabbler. A person who uses what he uses to hone in on things he already knows and hear what other people know about it. He's not, he's not really looking for anything, but he'll dabble and sometimes get something and that makes him vulnerable.

[Greg]

So what were you looking, what were you looking for on your phone?

[Craig]

Oh, I just found. I just got something today. A voicemail came through which I didn't pick up because I didn't recognize the number and a message was left. 1945 for PlayStation 5 and 3D headset has recently been placed on your Walmart account, registered in your name and phone number. If you did not make this purchase, press 1 now to cancel the order or Immediately call us back at the same number to speak with our Walmart support. A pre authorized purchase of $919.45 for PlayStation 5 and 3D headset has recently been placed on your Walmart account, registered in your name and phone number. If you did not make this purchase, press 1 now to cancel the order or immediately call us back on the same number. Thank you.

[Greg]

I see it. Let see it. All right, paste. There's the phone number.

[Beau Friedlander]

Okay, so this is the crap we all get all the time. If you listen to the series we did on the scam compounds of Southeast Asia, you know that these scams are being perpetrated by giant organizations. And the actual person making the call is often the victim of another kind of scam. They've been human trafficked, so it's, it's, it's hard to say what actually is sitting there on your phone in the form of a text or a call.

[Greg]

And I'm gonna search it. Let's see what we got.

[Beau Friedlander]

Barbara Brett.

[Greg]

Address and phone number. Stanford education.

[Beau Friedlander]

Well, it doesn't pop up immediately as a scam.

[Greg]

So my first thing is like, I do those things first, right? And there's no scam scam there. That's not a scam. But what it is a scam is. Let's go this way. How old are you?

[Craig]

71.

[Greg]

Are you?

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Greg]

Pretty fancy.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

I had no idea. I thought you were at least 83. So you're 71 and you spend a lot of time gaming on things like PlayStation.

[Craig]

None. None, yeah.

[Greg]

What about. What's the other thing they were selling you? Some sort of 3D goggles?

[Craig]

I forget. Yeah, but I don't, I don't ever use any of this stuff. I don't use gaming. I've never played a game on my phone. Any kind of game on the computer?

[Beau Friedlander]

Nothing you know about? Have I been pwned? That's have I been pwned.com. it's a site that allows you to check if your personal data like email addresses, phone numbers or passwords have been compromised in a data breach. It was created in 2013 by a guy named Troy Hunt to give people a safe way to monitor their digital footprint. When a company gets hacked, cybercriminals often leak or sell the stolen databases, which contain millions of usernames, emails and passwords. On the Dark Web, Troy Hunt collects these publicly exposed data dumps, verifies them, and loads them into a database. And here's how you experience it. You enter your email or your phone number on the homepage. That's it. The site cross references it with billions of leaked records and gives you a status green. Good news. No pwnage found. Your data hasn't appeared in any breaches. Unlikely. And read oh no. Pwned. And your information's been found. And it tells you what? Passwords, birth dates, geographic locations, where it was exposed, all that. And if you're wondering about the word pwned, it comes from the Internet gaming world. It just from being owned, it's a typo turned into pwned. So being pwned means your security has been compromised or defeated because we've all been owned as unwilling participants in this digital mayhem we call the Internet. Craig has been pwned. We checked that a while ago. But there's a kind of pwning that happened back when the Internet was driving dirty with our data and. And that can't be undone. Or at least not easily.

[Greg]

Give me your phone one more time. I'm going to show you something else.

[Craig]

So

[Greg]

one of the beautiful things. All right, let's see what happens if we do this. I'm going to give myself a break because I know this town you live in. I'm going to put it in here. All right, let's just do that.

[Beau Friedlander]

Seems fair.

[Greg]

All right. Okay Craig, tell me, tell me how many times you see your information up there where someone might be able to find your phone number. Keep going.

[Craig]

There's a wrong one. That's going. Okay, there's one phone number.

[Greg]

Name.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's got my. That's the home phone.

[Greg]

What about age?

[Craig]

Age. It's got my age. Yep.

[Greg]

All right, so here's the problem, Craig. A scammer sees that and they go, this dude probably has a Walmart account. He probably doesn't play with, probably doesn't have a PlayStation.

[Craig]

That's right.

[Greg]

And so the whole name of the game is getting you to click.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

Right. So the best way to do it is like, you know, you're not gonna hear like oh that's preposterous.

[Beau Friedlander]

Yeah, click.

[Greg]

It's all about that.

[Beau Friedlander]

Click.

[Greg]

But I'm sort of more curious about like you and I have known each other a while and we always have good conversations and we are ideologically different. Some ways we're very similar, but different in others. What do you think of the fact that your name and phone number are that easy to find in some company selling it?

[Craig]

No, that's. That's terrible. It's just too much information out there.

[Greg]

When you see your name up there, I Mean, was this the first time that you saw it there? No.

[Craig]

No.

[Greg]

So you're aware that that's.

[Craig]

Oh, I'm totally aware that that's out there. Yep.

[Greg]

And it's just a question, not really

[Beau Friedlander]

understanding how to get it out of there.

[Craig]

That's correct.

[Greg]

Well, we're gonna solve that today. As you know, it's one of the. One of the fringe benefits of having a friend in the hair removal business. But, you know, so

[Beau Friedlander]

there are laws,

[Greg]

and there's a law in California right now that is allowing people to opt out and they can go fill out a form and have their stuff removed. What. What do you. What is your take on? I mean, do you just assume your stuff is there when you.

[Craig]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Beau Friedlander]

Does it?

[Greg]

But does it. Why? Why?

[Craig]

Because just. Just the age that we're in, you know, I think seems like that information is out there and you're known.

[Greg]

Okay, that sounds like you listen to what the heck.

[Craig]

Yep, we do.

[Greg]

Yeah. So. So, Right. But like. And do you think you would have. Did you know that before you were kind of more aware of this issue

[Craig]

as a. Oh, yeah, I think I've known this, you know, for a number

[Beau Friedlander]

of years, and that's what I want to get at.

[Greg]

So.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

Why. Why is this not sort of top of the platform for all the politicians out there? Because it seems like red meat to me.

[Craig]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

[Greg]

So what's the deal? Like, why. Why. Why is it just. You're like, okay, that's just the way it is. I'm just curious to know, you know, California has this law, liberal state with a big, you know, red state piece of it, but they have this law. It flew right through. A lot of states are starting to pick up on us and start to say that privacy matters on some level or another. But

[Beau Friedlander]

is it just a question of.

[Greg]

Maybe I could ask you this because you are. MacGyver. Is there something like this in history where people just didn't understand? Is like the Corvair. Is this like the Corvair, where people didn't understand that what they made was dangerous in some way, you know, until it was already being used in a dangerous way?

[Craig]

No, I think lots of people like me think it's dangerous, but just as a private citizen, feel powerless to do anything about it? You know, I think, you know, I think many of the politicians are in the back pocket of the industries that promote all this stuff. And so as a private citizen, you know, myself, it's like, you know, sort of powerless.

[Greg]

So your point of view on this information being everywhere for everyone is that it shouldn't be. But this is what happens when you let business interests run the show.

[Craig]

Yeah, that. Yeah, that's what I would say. Yep. You know, for instance, I'm not on any social media platforms. No Facebook, no X, nothing. You know, just because I don't want my information out there, you know. You know, it's. I know it's a small thing and a lot of stuff is known about me anyway, but I try to limit my exposure.

[Greg]

Why? Why does that matter?

[Craig]

Well, I don't think that, you know,

[Greg]

there's stuff on Facebook that you might want to buy. Might be.

[Craig]

Might be. Yeah, that would be. That would be good. You know, my wife is on Facebook and I, you know, I look at her stuff, but I never need to buy something. Yeah, I never, I never, I don't post anything or anything like that, so.

[Narrator/Archive Voice]

Yep.

[Greg]

And. But that's just because you're busy, isn't it?

[Craig]

Yeah, I am busy, but that's not a. You know, I'd rather spend my time doing other things. So.

[Greg]

So you don't get targeted much then, I would imagine.

[Craig]

I hope not.

[Greg]

No, you don't. No. I know why you don't get targeted. Because you have chainsaws out in your shed and you have trucks and you're busy using them.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

And. And, and you always have a dumpster in your yard.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Greg]

Because you're doing some job that requires it.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

And. And to me, like, you know

[Craig]

what

[Greg]

has happened and you know, this. I don't even know if you think this is interesting, but, like, from when I'm interested in doing something like a construction project on my property, I'll start looking up stuff and within a week, everything in my social media is about that thing.

[Craig]

Well, I'll even get ads just on my emails for different things. It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy.

[Greg]

But you know why that's happening? Because you, you Google it and then Google sells your information too.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

So we know that. But like, the thing I'm. I guess I'm trying to get at is like this, the low information. You actually live in a low information world. You grew up not terribly far from here.

[Craig]

That's correct. Yeah.

[Greg]

Right.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Greg]

And you are obviously not a digital native.

[Craig]

Right.

[Greg]

And you have worked, you know, as a teacher and you've worked as a guy in construction.

[Narrator/Archive Voice]

Right.

[Greg]

As a guy in construction who's not marketing. Because you don't need to. There's no. They don't have a handle on you.

[Craig]

No. That's not. I believe that's true.

[Greg]

And when you want to learn how to do something now. Well, I kind of know that you. You're like, I already know how to do all this stuff.

[Craig]

Yeah. But a lot of things. It's interesting you mentioned that.

[Greg]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Even though I've done lots of different things, do all my own automotive work and work. Work on a lot of different things, even tasks that I've done before, I'll go to YouTube and look it up because it might save me some time or there might be somebody that's done this that has a better way to do it or something. And, you know, so I look at stuff, YouTube all the time, and YouTube is social media. It is, yeah.

[Greg]

I mean, it doesn't seem like it is because you're not making comments.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Greg]

But it is. And Google owns it. And Google's paying attention to what you're looking at. That's how you're getting those ads. Basically the opposite of what happens when you go online and you Google your name and the town you're from and you find there's your age, there's your phone number, there's your email address. That's where your house is. That's how much your house is worth. You know, all very personal stuff. The flip side of that is you are the opposite of, like. You're like kind of just a hapless. You give me the word. Because I don't want to say the word that came to mind. So what would you call that? Like, what do you call that when there's, like, a person who's like. You know what I was gonna say? So I don't want.

[Craig]

No, no, I don't. I don't know what you're.

[Greg]

I was gonna say helpless victim, but I think it's wrong.

[Craig]

No, it's not a victim. I don't feel like a victim at all.

[Narrator/Archive Voice]

No.

[Greg]

But it's like a casualty of a business.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

It's like, not even that. It's like you're the byproduct of someone else's greed. So now I want to note that you said, which doesn't mean you agree with me, but I know you all love to know. Recently had Senator Ron Wyden on the podcast, and someone

[Beau Friedlander]

I know who is

[Greg]

conservative said, why do you have so many liberals on the show? And I said, I don't. And they said, you do. And I said, I don't. And we went back and forth, and it was like two kids punching each other in the arm in the playground. But the fact of the matter is, it's not true. And the what. What is true is privacy is not partisan. Privacy is a crisis that we have because when all this digital landscape started to form out of nothing, there were no police. How could there be? How can you police something that doesn't exist? And so, as happens like it did in the Wild west, people were like, no cops. Why are there no cops? Because there's no boundaries.

[Beau Friedlander]

There's no property.

[Greg]

There's no nothing. People are just laying claims and that we just. We are all, like, sitting here. The. The after effect of these digital 49ers staking claims on what they said was more, no man's land obviously belonged to Native Americans. Belonged to somebody. They. They just didn't want that gold or didn't know about it or didn't use it, or maybe they liked it where it was. But the fact is, like, they're digital 49ers and we're. I don't know. Do you see. You see where I'm going with that, at least?

[Craig]

Oh, I think so. Yeah.

[Greg]

Yeah. So we're at a point now where we need these laws. Like, okay, this got figured out. Got figured out badly. There were no cops. People did whatever they wanted. Some of this stuff should be illegal. All right, we talked about a few things right now. Let's just go through them. We talked about the fact that you want to use this service called YouTube so you can hone your skills. I totally understand that. How do you feel about the amount of money that costs you? Does it cost you anything to go on YouTube and hone your skills?

[Craig]

Well, not directly. Not that I'm aware of, you know, but I'm sure, you know, YouTube has to make some money, you know, and

[Greg]

you've served you ads. And the thing is that's. You're paying with yourself.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

You're paying with your data. They are. So let me ask you another question about that, since you're paying for your data. I mean, you're paying with your data, and your data could be as simple as, I'm interested in fixing a 1956 chainsaw.

[Beau Friedlander]

Yeah.

[Greg]

And there's a dude who did it.

[Craig]

Right.

[Greg]

That gives him a lot of information. I can probably sell him a Kubota. I can probably sell him this, I can sell him that. I can smell a million things. He probably would love to have a skid steer. So. So. And then, you know, if you then Google how to fix the skid steer, like, nope, he already has a skid steer. Then they'll go on, but they're getting information every time you look at those videos, and. And then they're making money off of it. So you're getting the information, but you're paying with information they're making money off of.

[Narrator/Archive Voice]

Right.

[Greg]

Should that be legal?

[Craig]

That's an interesting question, because they're invading my privacy to do that.

[Greg]

Yep. So would you be willing to pay $5 a month for the service to use YouTube and have them not do that?

[Craig]

Probably Me, too. Yeah.

[Greg]

Yeah, In a heartbeat. I'd be like, oh, you want five bucks and you won't do that creepy stuff? Yeah, yeah, I would give you five. Five bucks and not do that creepy stuff. All right. That's one of the things we talked about. All right, you want to go. You want to go online and Google stuff. You're looking to. You're on a new job, and you're looking for materials. And this is a dumb question for you because you always go to the same place, but let's say you're doing a job on mission because you've done that. You go to different places, and you don't know the hardware stores, you don't know the supply places, so you're googling. Do you want to be able to do that without Google knowing that they probably will even know that you're on mission? Because you probably Googled the group that you're doing the mission with. You probably. They figured out they know that's where you went, because now you're there and you're looking for wood or for whatever. You're looking for Sheetrock or. Should that be legal?

[Craig]

No, I don't think it should be. You know, here again, how to put those guardrails in.

[Greg]

We just have to say we don't like it.

[Craig]

No, we don't like it. No, we don't like it.

[Greg]

We don't like it. I think you heard it now. So finally, you have daughters. I have daughters.

[Beau Friedlander]

Do you know what?

[Greg]

I really am not comfortable with some faceless, nameless site saying where they live, how old they are. Like, okay, should it be legal?

[Craig]

No. No. Absolutely not.

[Greg]

Now, here's the bigger problem is those sites are populated with information. I bet this is gonna. This is the hard part. By publicly available information that the government makes available. So it's like your wedding license, your. You know, your. Your. When you buy a house.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Greg]

All this. This. This stuff. All this stuff that was presumed to be difficult enough to get that you wouldn't have a problem. It wasn't protected because nobody saw The Internet coming.

[Craig]

That's true.

[Greg]

The Internet's here now. Should that stuff be protected?

[Craig]

Yeah, I think. I think it should be. There's just too much out there for everybody to get, so.

[Greg]

So is it bad?

[Craig]

Yeah. But the flip side is, you know, it is interesting because sometimes if I do a search on. For instance, I just bought my little Toyota Tacoma a couple years ago, and I was looking for some. Some accessory that I wanted to buy, and it. Something popped up, something to the effect of like, hidden features on your Tacoma that you don't know about. Which that was pretty helpful because I clicked on that, you know, and it showed me some stuff that otherwise I wouldn't have been aware of.

[Greg]

So that's the flip side.

[Craig]

Yeah, exactly.

[Greg]

Like you get they. The YouTube knows how to make their service valuable to you so that you're willing to make that trade. Yep. Is there. Is there. Do you still think that with. They do should be illegal?

[Craig]

Yeah, I do. Yeah.

[Beau Friedlander]

Greg and I hung out till I knew it was probably his bedtime, which

[Greg]

I'm not going to.

[Beau Friedlander]

I'm not going to embarrass him and say how early that is, but early he. He gets up at like 4 or 5. He had to get up early the next day. Grandkids were coming over. They were putting blueberry netting up. He probably had some other project. He has three different versions of the same tool to do, you know, whatever that job might be. On the drive home, I kept thinking about Craig, the unwilling participant when it comes to things digital. At least the guy who built the drainage system around his house. He dug it himself, who scratched 22 on his lamp post and a little directional line so that the next owner would know where the water shut off is. It's that guy I'm talking about. And that's the whole thing. This isn't a story about people who don't know how the world works. It's a story about people who know exactly how it works and still can't get their hands around it because it's not playing by the rules. The Internet was built by people like Craig, actually, but with digital chops. And they have been driving their creations around unlicensed since the early days of the Internet. There are no laws governing things that didn't exist when the laws were being written.

[Greg]

Of course. Right.

[Beau Friedlander]

This isn't political. This is personal. Privacy shouldn't be political. It never should be. It needs it, but it needs politicians to stand up to the folks who fund their campaigns and. Yep. You know, are driving dirty all over the place with our lives online. Don't like it? Good. You shouldn't do something about it. Write to your local lawmakers. Opt out whenever you can. Now it's time for the Tinfoil Swan, our paranoid takeaway to keep you safe on and offline. You watched me pull up Craig's name, age, phone number and address in about. I don't know if it was 15 seconds. No seconds real quick. No hack required. Just his name and the town he's lived in his whole life. The file was assembled from public records, open records that are scraped, that shouldn't be scrapable by companies, but they are. Whoever left that Walmart voicemail almost certainly used something exactly like it to confirm that Craig was worth calling, that he was 71, that he would react to something about gaming, yada yada yada. So you know, you know what I'm going to say here. Go to join Delete Me if you. If you want to start free, you can. You know, Spokeo white page has been verified intelli. They all have opt out pages.

[Greg]

It's a lot of work.

[Beau Friedlander]

If you want to know what your situation is, just go to the Delete me site. Joined DeleteMe.com and do a free scan. If you remove these things, they come right back. They pop back up just as fast as things are scanned on open source.

[Greg]

So, so it is easier to have

[Beau Friedlander]

someone do it for you, but it can be done by yourself. Just be open, be ready and stay safe and, and, and get your information offline because it really does matter. All right, talk to you next week. Thanks so much. This episode of what the Hack was produced by me and Andrew Stephen, who

[Greg]

also did the editing.

[Beau Friedlander]

What the hack is a production of Delete Me, which was picked by the New York Times Wirecutter as the number one personal information removal service. You should be using it already. If you're not and you want to, well, you can.

[Greg]

Here's what to do.

[Beau Friedlander]

Go to joindeleteme.com/wth. That's joindeleteme.comwth and get 20% off, I kid you not. 20%.

[Greg]

20% off.

[Beau Friedlander]

That's joindeletemo.comwth now stay safe out there. See you around.

[Podcast Host Reza Satchew]

Have you ever wondered why Reese Witherspoon founded hello Sunshine? Or where Kevin o' Leary got his start? Or even how Alex Earle became the most accessible founder to someone who may not even consider this space? Enter the Founder Mindset, a new podcast from Harvard Business School Foundry, hosted by me, Reza Satchew. As a leading educator in entrepreneurship. I've built multiple high profile companies and mentored thousands of students and founders through the realities of starting and scaling ventures and with the Founder Mindset. I'm sharing those lessons with you by sitting down with world class entrepreneurs including Witherspoon, o' Leary and Earl plus Tim Ferriss and many more to break down exactly how they commit, decide and build for impact. These aren't surface level interviews. Each episode I challenge my guests to revisit their toughest moments, their boldest decisions and the mindset that carried them through. Follow the Founder Mindset wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Host Bill Kerr]

From artificial intelligence to the gig economy to global volatility, the economy is changing at a dizzying pace. Enter the Managing the Future of Work podcast, the chart topping and critically acclaimed podcast from Harvard Business School. Hosted by me, Bill Kerr, and by Managing the Future of Work project, come Co Chair Joe Fuller. This show explores technology trends, demographic changes, the rise of the care economy, and many other forces transforming the landscape of work. We'll highlight the insights of business leaders, technologists and experts like Business Roundtable's Kristin Silberg on corporate workforce strategy and Khan Academy founder Sal Khan on AI education and the future of work. With more than two and a half million downloads and close to 300 episodes, there is something for everyone. Follow HBS Managing the Future of Work on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening now.