This episode, I speak with Jack Rhysider, host of DarkNet Diaries. We discuss the evolution of technology, and the rise of AI. Jack's passion for audio storytelling shone through as he shared how he crafts each episode of DarkNet Diaries, uncovering riveting stories of cybersecurity. We covered branding in podcasting, the impact of unique artwork, and how exciting collaborations arise in the podcasting world. We also dove into privacy concerns, China's ownership of TikTok, and the implications of data collection. Jack shared his insights on cybersecurity's impact on society and individuals, the importance of privacy in our tech-driven world, and what the future holds for DarkNet Diaries. Join us for this captivating (and sometimes scary) adventure through the realms of technology, podcasts, and privacy.

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Key Takeaways

0:02:14 - AOL's Attempt to Control Internet Access

0:06:45 - No-Code and AI Tools Evolution

0:10:20 - The Advantages of AI in Healthcare

0:16:18 - Endless Stories in Cybersecurity

0:22:41 - Journalists and Storytelling Opportunities

0:25:32 - Concerns About Privacy and Data Breaches

0:32:56 - Navigating Privacy and Cybersecurity Challenges

0:37:08 - Inspiring Online Privacy and Career Paths

Tweetable Quotes

"Even today, if you ask people what's the internet, they're going to say Google or a website. But there's more to it. I mean, Zoom isn't Google, right? The phone calls aren't Google, like there's a lot of things that are going on on the internet."

"I think the era of, I'm going to go to school and I'm going to get a job, and I'm going to have that job for life is over. We have to redefine ourselves every five or ten years and get a whole new skill set, because technology is advancing in a rapid way and it's not something you can just set for your life anymore."

"The 2000s is where we really ruined our privacy and it's going to take us decades to put that back together. Even when you trust a company like your healthcare provider, and then they have a data breach and now China knows everything about your health records, it's like why is this even a thing?"

Resources Mentioned

Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio by Jessica Abel - https://www.amazon.com/Out-Wire-Storytelling-Secrets- Masters/dp/0385348436

Extreme Privacy: What It Takes to Disappear by Michael Bazzell - https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Privacy-Takes-Disappear- America/dp/1093757620

DarkNetDiaries - https://darknetdiaries.com/

Jack on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-rhysider-02922a167/

Jack's Email - jack@darknetdiaries.com

Jack's Twitter - https://twitter.com/jackrhysider

Jack's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/darknetdiaries/

Jack's Facebook - http://facebook.com/darknetdiaries/

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Mentioned in this episode:

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Jack Reisider, host of Dark Net Diaries. Thank you for joining me on Podcast Junkies.

Happy to be here. I'm quite a podcast junkie myself.

Do you remember what the first one was that you ever listened to?

Oh man, I think it was a World of Warcraft podcast.

Okay.

This was like when the iPod just like came out and to get a podcast you had to get iTunes, download it, and then that's not enough to listen to it, you now need to connect your iPod up to it, sync it over, and that was not a simple task, it was not user friendly at all, and then you might be able to check it out, Right. So it was like a five step process and it was not a good show. And so I mean, I should say that I think I fell in love with NPR, right, this American life radio lab, this sort of thing, and I was listening to those radio shows a lot and just like so amazed when you you drive in somewhere and you get somewhere and it's a story about a suitcase which you never don't, you don't care about suitcases or something right.

But, you bark somewhere and you're like I got to hear how this suitcase gets and ends up where it's going or something, and you're totally glued, even though you're just sitting in your car, like listening to it. And so that's where I first realized the power of just audio storytelling. And of course, that all turned into podcasts later, but I think that's where I first fell in love with it.

And how long did you play World of Warcraft?

Oh, I played a lot of it. Yeah, it was a big obsession of mine. I only played for, like the original release and the first expansion, though, okay.

What's your first introduction to to tech on the internet that you can remember?

Yeah, I think my grandma somehow got a computer which was expensive and high tech, and I don't know why she was dabbling in it, but she was just like, oh, I'm going to try one of these, and I was like what's going on with this, and I got into it.

right, I was playing. I was playing video games on there, I was learning to type. Eventually we got AOL and got online and I just was in love. So I think I was curious about it and it was kind of a fun toy before the internet. But then once we got AOL and I connected to the internet, I fell in love with computers and I've been in love ever since. It's always just like so cool to just connect to the whole world and share ideas and see what everyone else is doing. It's amazing.

I think that was the one thing that AOL was trying to, sort of like a finger into dyke moment, trying to prevent people from seeing the other side of what was actually out there. And you had this veiled wall of the AOL chat rooms and all the little instant messages stuff that was going on. They were trying to create all these little channels for people to for specific topics, but what people really wanted to do is just get past that and just break out into the internet, which was like for me it was just like Egypt and pyramids and just like oh wow, like pages that would take like minutes to load.

Yeah, I forgot about that. Aol really did try to just keep you in their ecosystem. It's like we've got the internet right here, don't worry about going anywhere else. We've got the chat rooms, we've got the wikipedia like thing, you know, a little dictionary and some news, and that was it Like. Anything that AOL hosted is what AOL wanted to show you first and foremost. But you're right, it was advanced users that were Do you remember getting there.

You remember getting the CDs.

Yeah, I had the CD in the three hours and all that.

And so when did you discover or start to become aware of some of these hidden places in the internet or, like these, darker, darker spaces?

Yeah, I guess it was AOL, right. So these chat rooms. And somebody is like, oh, you know, there's IRC. And I was like, what's IRC in there? Like it's a different chat program. I was like, well, I got to check that out, right. And so now I'm like, oh wow, aol isn't, or the internet isn't just AOL, there's a lot more to it. And so IRC allowed me to connect to other things FTP servers and telnet servers and BBS boards, and I mean BBS is a bit different, that's a little bit of it. You got to disconnect from AOL and connect to it. But it was like, wow, there's, the internet is more than just a website. And I think a lot of people, even today, if you ask them what's the internet, and they're going to say Google or the website.

And there's more to it. I mean, zoom isn't Google, right? Yeah, the phone calls aren't Google, like there's just a lot of things that are going on on the internet, and so I was just like what are all the protocols, what are all the things people are doing and how people connecting? And it was fascinating to me. One of the first things I really got into was MUDS is multi-user dungeon and this is a text based version of World of Warcraft, basically right. So it's like you go and you say slash monster and then you type it in and then the monster attacks you for five points and you attack it for seven points and it just goes back and forth. It's like Dungeons and Dragons, but automatically calculating every attack and everything.

It was like Zork, wasn't it? You remember Zork?

Yeah, it was like Zork but this, so MUDS were online so you could go and attack other players and stuff. It was a lot of fun and like this was. I think that was port 6667 or something like I can't remember the port, but it was like. Now we've got other ports besides 80 and 443 and chat and stuff. So now, like, what else is going on out there? So it's just yeah, this is where I started. You know IRC, you get on IRC, there's a chat rooms. Now you've got the pirating chat rooms and the hacker chat rooms and all kinds of other things that are going to the phone freaker chat rooms.

Yeah, it was kind of a counterculture space.

When did you education wise, did you, did you realize that this is something you want to dig into and learn more about and get formally trained on? Are you self taught or like how that path, how that journey, go for you?

Yeah, absolutely. I was like I love computers, what can I do with this? And there was a school that was like we'll give you a bachelor's in computers If that's what you want. I was like, sure, let's go. So I did four years at a university studying computers, you know, getting a bachelor's of computer engineering, which is just a little bit about everything regarding computers, and I didn't really feel super smart in one area, which was kind of a I don't know. It gave me kind of a lull in my career. I'm just like what, am I a programmer, a system admin? Like I don't even know what. Am I a designer? Like what am I here? And I just didn't feel really confident in anything.

Was there aspects of it that you did like, that you wanted to dig in deeper and learn more about?

Yeah, I mean, I liked creating stuff and I like building, so I really wish I had better programming skills because I felt like everything I made looked like it was something Homer Simpson made. Right, it's kind of put together with duct tape and twine and stuff and like here's my website or something. Oh, that kind of sucks, but I wish I was better at it, right.

What's your take on all the tools now that make some of this stuff easy? First it was the no-code wave, but now it's a no-code plus the AI wave, which is pretty bonkers, and you see some of the stuff that's being created, and especially now with like chat, gpt-4s, getting everyone all excited. I'm wondering, you know, with your history and computers and kind of seeing trends like, what's your take on what's happening?

You know what I mean. When we were started, there was no, there was no help, there was no tools. There was a manual written by like somebody who has no skill at writing manuals and doesn't want to really help anyone, but it was their job. And it's like this manual sucks and everyone always points to it Like read the manual, man. I'm only kidding, it's not gonna work.

The whole series of books. What is it? O'reilly, or what was that? There was like all these books on every single operating system and every single PC. O'reilly, yeah.

Yeah, o'reilly did start making a whole bunch of more helpful books, but yeah, I think it was just really hard and as time goes on, things just get easier. It's like, oh well, you don't have to do the like, you know, I think the big, first big thing was WYSIWYG editors, right? So at first you had to type all the HTML and CSS and put everything exactly where you wanted. But now with the WYSIWYG editor, it's what you see, is what you get, which is drag and drop the buttons onto the page and just like it's designed visually instead of coding. And so that was like that. That we thought was gonna like wreck all the designers, you know futures like, oh, we just got this tool to do it. That made it easier, but you didn't really have that fine tune control and it was very bloated with the way it designed the website. So I think people are still typing out there websites by hand even today. So that didn't quite kill the industry.

And I think a lot of these tools are. In my opinion, a lot of them are simply like proof of concept or just a basic version of something and they don't really have that richness to fulfill like a premium product kind of feeling. I've tried a couple no-code apps and to build a couple no-code apps and I'm just like, why are you calling this no-code when I'm still doing a lot of coding here? Like if I wanna connect to an API or a database or something, I've gotta go in there and I've gotta do a lot of coding to make that work. So I don't really understand how no-coding even calls itself that, because it's a lot of code to me still.

And then what's your take on what's happening with people being worried about losing their jobs with AI?

I think we've always had that Like as technology goes on, you're just like oh man, this is gonna totally change everything. I mean, I think there was a worry that the post office was thinking, oh well, email, nobody's ever gonna send a letter anymore. Like the post office is busier than ever, right.

Open seven days a week, yeah.

Yeah, I think it's just going to take us to a next level. I don't think it's going to wreck the job industry as much as we think. I think it's going to open up all kinds of new jobs. But there is some like I think the current state of AI is where it's kind of an idea generator. It's giving you like a Pinterest board kind of concept, Like here's some things I found and is like oh cool, I can build off that. But it's not like hey, here's a 400 page novel that's brilliant. Like no, like some of this isn't factual, Some of this doesn't make any sense, Like you start scrutinizing it and there's a lot of holes in it. So it doesn't quite give you a final draft yet and I think it'll get there. So with AI, I think my big thought here is it's going to be really, really helpful for us.

For the first wave, I mean, I think we're not in the first wave. We're kind of in. We've had AI. If you think about Halo or even World of Warcraft, those enemies in that game were programmed with AI right and so you're battling it out. I mean, I've played a computer chess game before. What is that? That's AI right. So it's not the first wave, but whatever wave we're in, I think it's here to deliver us quite a lot of like benefits. Right there, we're going to be able to see a doctor 24 seven, any moment of the day, without an appointment, because it's going to be an AI doctor and they're going to be better at diagnosing who we are, better at understanding who we are never taking a sick day and just being there for us.

They don't get tired.

Yeah, as much as we want. So it's going to be great to just have this, like at our fingertips, a doctor to contact at any moment. And so I think the first wave is really going to. We're going to see a lot of great stuff, and it is going to have some weird moments where people are going to I think the era of, well, I'm going to go to school and I'm going to get a job, and I'm going to have that job for life is over. I think we have to kind of look to redefine ourselves every five or 10 years and get like a whole new skill set, because technology is advancing in a rapid way and it's not something you can just set for your life anymore. You have to say, okay, well, there's this new system. I either learn that or I die. And so, yeah, you kind of have to just be more prepared for change in the future.

Yeah, that makes sense. So you're listening to these NPR shows. You get inspired by podcasts. What makes you think or gives you the idea that you want to start your own, and how do you think about a topic and what to start?

So I was a network security engineer for 10 years and I was listening. I was like defending networks and doing cybersecurity kind of stuff. And at the same time I'm listening to shows like this American Life and Radio Lab and I was like where is this American Life for cybersecurity stories? Because these stories are like high drama, high crime, big impact, hitting millions of people, causing million dollar thefts. These are all big stories and sometimes even the president gets on TV and it's like we're investigating the alleged Chinese hacking incidents or something you know. Like wow, even if the president is coming on the news to tell us this, this is worth like a really good story, like somebody should get this story, put it together and publish it, highly produced with music and interviews and journalist kind of method.

And I could not find it nowhere. I was like dude at this, why isn't anyone making this? So I just couldn't do it and I wanted it. I loved podcasts so much. I was really into podcasts at the time and I was like I got to give it a try. So it was to scratch my own itch.

And so I think I remember nearly as because I started with Libsyn and I know that I don't know if you're still with Libsyn, but I know Rob Walsh would would mention your show occasionally or something like that in those early days, because I think you're just getting started, or talk a little bit about the, the set of process, how you create the format for the show and what those early days were like.

Yeah. So I was highly inspired by Snap, judgment, radio Lab and this American life and I was like, ok, that's kind of the style here, but I'm just going to find cybersecurity stories and talk about that. And so, you know, finding the story Well, I need something that has drama, suspense, a twist is interesting, and then is, you know, hacker related. So you know, finding those stories was not so hard.

I've been paying attention to the news for a long time. There's a lot of really interesting stories. I mean, there's a story of you know, when anonymous attacked a hospital because they thought somebody was wrongly committed to the hospital, right, they were being held against their parents will, or something like that. And so they're like, we're going to attack the hospital. Well, you take a hospital down and now you got other patients that are getting you know, hit, and then what's crazy is that when the police say, ok, well, we think we know who it is, let's go to their house, the guy goes on the run. He gets a boat and takes off in the Caribbean Ocean or the Caribbean Sea, right, it's tries to run from the police in a boat. Like it's a crazy story.

But he was part of anonymous.

Yeah, and his girlfriend's on the boat, and it's just a wild. And then his boat gets shipwrecked out in the sea, oh my God. And the cruise ship comes by and sees the stress call and picks them up on a cruise ship and then get the rest on the cruise ship. I mean, this is like just one of the story that I'm seeing on the news that I'm like that's a great story right there. Yeah, so you know, let's find more stories like that, put it together. And then I was like well, how do people do this?

So I learned the book I bought was called Out on the Wire and this is interviews of people like Roman Mars and Jad Abham Rod and Guy Reglass you know the shows that I just mentioned earlier and they talk about how they've done storytelling in the past and how it works for them. So I was like this is it. This is my template. I mean they had formulas for how to tell a story. This is how to tell a story.

This is a story about X, but Y happens instead, and that puts you in the right frame set of like okay, we're not just going straight, for here's what happened. We got to start in one direction. Here's a story about a hacker trying to hack a hospital but instead he goes on the run and gets caught and he gets shipwrecked and all this kind of stuff right, it's like a twist in there. So you learn, like, how to add those twists, how to put those into context and make it interesting for the listener. So after reading that book I thought, okay, I think I have the basics, and I put together my first episode and I sent it to 10 friends and I was like what do you think? Is this something I should work on? And I think like seven of them didn't even open the email right. But the three that did, they were like oh, this is great, you need to make more of this. Go, go, go. And that was the encouragement I needed to let it rip.

How much time now goes into each episode.

Oh man, at least 40 hours of work.

Really Wow.

It's a lot of effort for each episode. I mean, I've got to research the story, I've got to find the guests or some, interview them and then write the narration and edit it together and assemble it and put the music in. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that goes in.

And are you still surprised that you're? It looks like you're at 133 episodes in so far, but in terms of the ability to find stories, or is it just because we're so connected? There's more people online. There's more people trying to take advantage of people that you feel like you'll never run out of stuff to talk about.

I'll never run out of stuff, that's for sure. There's endless stories there. The cybersecurity news is just flowing every day and it's crazy, fascinating how much is going on. I mean, you got North Korea hacking into Bangladesh Bank for a billion dollars right, Like trying to steal that. You've got NSA hacking into other countries and you know, taking over networks and stuff. And then you have teenagers just attacking each other and, you know, hitting Minecraft servers or something like that, you know. And then of course, there's money to be stolen and it's just endless stuff.

But what's kind of progressed through the time is, you know, at first nobody knew who I was. So I was, you know, tapping on a lot of shoulders how can you come talk on my show and like mostly crickets. But every now and then it would be, oh, okay, sure, but now I've kind of established myself. So now it's the opposite. People are approaching me saying I don't know who you are, but I just got out of prison and I've been told to talk to you. Like well, that's curious. What can I see? Your indictment. And I was like they're talking about you in prison.

That's great.

Yeah, well, I hacked, you know, I was accused of hacking Microsoft and Ubisoft, and they're like oh my gosh, okay, well, let's see what, let's hear it, you know. So those are the stories I like as well is, once it's all over and all the dust has settled, now let's go back to the beginning and tell it right. So here's a story now where it's like we can tell the whole thing how you got arrested and even all the prison time and what you're doing when you got out. And I think that's when the news is ready, that's when it's ripe. I really don't like news that's like well, that just has. I just have more questions now than ahead of any answers. It just doesn't make sense. Like nothing of this news story makes sense. Somebody needs to research this more. I can't stand that right. And then there's all this speculation Well, we think they did this and we think they did that, and we don't really know who did it or what they took. And like why are you even reporting this?

There's no story there yet. Yeah.

So I like to wait three years until we have the info, and then that's when I like telling it.

And then now that you've got this whole, like you know I've seen there's a lot of folks that are supporting you on each of these shows and you've got a long list of credits for people that are helping with everything from production to artwork to probably the research, and so what does this look like now from a? Is it turned into a business for you? And you've got merch, and so talk a little bit about how that's grown and how that's matured.

The show itself yeah, I think there's three money streams there's the ads and the episodes, there is Patreon subscribers and Apple podcast subscribers and shirts. So I think one of the things that I liked about other shows like Criminal, for example Criminal had Criminal was very inspirational to me as well, because this was a you listen to this American life or Radio Lab and the credits are so long. There's like 13 people working on every episode and I'm like I don't have 13 people here.

And so I found Criminal, and Criminal basically has two people, and I was like, okay, I could do the work of two people. I don't think that's like totally out of line. And so that was very influential to me. I was like, okay, what is this show that made by two people sound like? And so I also noticed that they have unique artwork on every episode and they have this whole kind of brand and motif, and I was like this is really cool.

Where you know, an audio show doesn't necessarily need any artwork. And you even look at like the top three podcasts out there at the Daily Joe Rogan and stuff you should know, if you go to any of their websites, well, okay, so. So Joe Rogan's website is like the world's worst-looking website. It's absolutely zero artwork at all. It's just a listing of the episodes. Stuff you should know's website is absolutely zero effort as well, I mean, and these, these are the most popular podcasts in the whole world, right, yeah.

And so I was like that sucks, you guys really are missing like a golden opportunity here. But you do, you. And then the daily, like it's artwork, is just the daily. There's no information, there's no cool art or anything on there. So I was like, man, I don't like that, I don't agree with that. I want something that's got more style, more attitude, more flavor, brings you in, it sucks you in, it's curious, brings your curiosity out. And I also think of like there's some bands out there that have a real interesting style as well, like White Stripes, for instance, has like this red, white and black motif to it, and I don't know there's just something stylistic about it that is interesting.

It's like, oh yeah, it's branding, it's an identity.

Yeah. So I had a lot of creative ideas on visuals as well. So I took all that and I drew out the pictures and I concepted artwork and then I gave it to an artist who kind of make look great and then we got some really cool artwork and so I've been making that into shirts and I think people don't necessarily want to have their podcast, their favorite podcast, just big letters on their shirt, but maybe they want to support the podcast and be kind of in this cool like, if you know, you know kind of thing, and so I don't really even put my show's name on most of the shirts. I just have cool artwork and then they can still kind of, you know, support the show but then have cool shirts to just hang out with, without necessarily, you know, advertising. If they want, you know, it's up to them. So there's shirts with the name on it, shirts without, and, yeah, it does pretty good. There's shirts sell, you know, a few a day.

Yeah, I think what's interesting about the branding is, to your point, if you know, you know, and there's that one, you've got the bird with the CCTV as its head or something like that, which I thought was pretty cool, and then you got the soups.

Yeah, a lot of mashup ideas. Like one of my favorites is like a bunch of network cables and computer cables but decorated into like a flower bouquet, so it looks like flowers and stuff but it's just computer cables. And, yeah, like a bird with a camera head and some other stuff that.

So, based on the stories that you've told and you're getting these stories out into the open, do you have folks now news agencies or other shows contacting you to kind of get the inside scoop on some of these stories that a lot of people probably don't know about?

Yeah, I think there's a lot of people who I don't know. They've been given a story and they're just like I don't know where to start with this. But I'll ask Jack, as he seems to know like the ins and outs of this. So they're needing help on some stories of, like, what's going on in the dark. Meh, have you been there? I'm like, yeah, I'll tell you, I live there. Yeah, yeah, I do get some. I do get reached out by some journalists to help out on some stuff. I also get journalists contact me like, hey, I've got a story that I think would work really good on your show as well. So, yeah, I do get connected there and, yeah, I think it's. It's opened up a million doors to me. I didn't know I'd ever meet this many people or like go these many places with my podcast. This is really incredible. It's just way beyond all dreams or goals, like so far beyond.

So for the benefit of the listener, obviously, if you're just listening there and there's going to be no video anyway, but you do have your face hidden and I'm wondering when that started. Was that always a concern privacy for you? Or just because of the nature of the show? Or I'm just curious how that started to percolate in terms of, like, your visibility online.

Yeah, I mean a few things. You know, I've been putting stuff online for a while just because I've been online, right. So I made some videos and put them on YouTube and the sort of thing. And somebody liked the videos so much that they were like this is, you know, 10 years ago. They're like oh, I mean, I love what you're making, I'm your biggest fan. And I didn't reply. And so then they DM'd me on YouTube and I didn't reply. And so then they're like oh, I got to find this guy. So they like searched, like a mountain in the background or something, and they found out, like what city I was in, just based on that. And then, you know, they triangulated like, ok, well, he's, you know, next to this tree here or something, and it's like he's on the roof of his house in this shot. And they figured out exactly where I lived, oh my God. And then they looked up the county records and they were like, ok, this is the guy's name and this is where he lives. And then they took it just up further, like, well, we're wondering where he works. And so they found where I work and then emailed me at work hey, I'm your biggest fan, I love what you're making.

And so I had this like kind of scare early on of, wow, the internet is a scary place and people are just going to stalk me in ways that I am not comfortable with. So I really tried to pull back from that. I started blurring my face, not showing locations, learning more about OSIT and techniques, right so, where you can use open source tools to find this information, and one of the really helpful books to me is called Extreme Privacy what it Takes to Disappear and it just really helps you get that extra layer between you and the internet so that the people online can't necessarily identify you or find you or whatever. And I think that I think we should all have that level of concern instead of just like, okay, I've lost all my privacy, here you go. Here's my kids pictures and what they're doing and my sexual orientation and where I live, and here's the vacations I'm going at.

Yeah, it's amazing how invasive it is in terms of what people ask for. And what are your thoughts on TikTok? Because obviously I'm not on it and I think part of the reason is because of the privacy and the fact that it's China watching and getting scans everybody's face, which is really creepy, and I'm just curious, you know, having an inside track to see what's possible. You know what are some of the concerns that people probably take for granted that they probably should be worrying a little bit more about? Yeah, I mean, I don't like it.

I'm very much present on Twitter, instagram, facebook, linkedin, reddit, discord, but not on TikTok, right? And this is because Facebook is like an American company, so they're going to do some evil things. They're going to spy on us and collect our data and collect like a million things. I think Spotify might even be one of the biggest offenders. Apple does it too. Google, Like. They're just collecting tons and tons and tons of our behavior. Like it's not just like your age and stuff, but like if you ask for your information from Spotify, they'll give it to you and they'll be like you listen to this song for five seconds and then you totally switch to a different genre and try three songs there and then went to a different. Like like they know everything that you've ever done to give you that kind of here's what we think you might like next kind of thing, and that is kind of nice to be like. Oh, this is cool and that's what TikTok does so good is. After you like four or five videos. They're just like we know everything about you and we're going to give you videos you love like for endless amounts of time. And it's just like how are you giving me such good stuff. This is amazing, and that's really what their sweet sauce is is how they can know this stuff about you and deliver it to you in a great way. So they do have a really cool platform, but, yeah, it's Chinese owned, and so what's the threat here with China?

Well, china hacked into the OPM database, so this is the Office of Personnel Management. I think it was 12 million US government employees. Data was collected and put into the hands of Chinese. They hacked into Marriott, they hacked into Anthem. They hacked into the Experian no, equifax. So Equifax, the data.

The Credit Bureau yeah, credit Bureau had a data breach and it turned out to be China, and China wants as much information on as many Americans as possible and they are sucking it up private personal data and using it for I don't know what, but they're actively doing that. And so now you've got this TikTok company, a Chinese based company, that are in the hands of millions of people, in the pockets, in the private areas of millions of people in the US. Of course, china is absolutely going to be like if you want to continue doing business in China, we want that data and they really don't have an option other than to give it up to the Chinese government. So, in my opinion, absolutely 100% of that data is being shared with the Chinese government and used I don't know to carry out nefarious plans, and I don't like that, so I do not want to be part of TikTok for that reason.

Yeah, I think if when you watch movies like the social dilemma and you see like the algorithm at work to create posts and create fake accounts, to drum up like narratives of sides fighting against each other, if you think about the bigger picture, what would China love more than just to have US citizens like fighting each other over, like Republican versus Democrat or pick the flavor of the battle. But if you can sort of like artificially create that anger with people with social media posts and you know what makes people angry and you know what people like and, to your point, like you're learning all these things about people's behaviors and music and attitudes and you've got their face and stuff, it's really crazy. You don't really have to go too far or be too creative to be thinking about what's possible and what could be done, because I think what they've said now is like there's no more land wars, everything's gonna be fought online. You're disabling like electrical grids and all this sort of stuff.

Yeah, I did an episode similar to that called PSYOP, where we talk about how the US government, the US army in particular, does psychological operations against other enemy nations and one of the things that some nations have done is tried to get one nation to attack another so that they don't have to go to war with that nation. Right, it's not even a proxy war, it's just like let's just make these two fight to waste their resources, which makes us in a better position. So, yeah, I mean stuff like that absolutely is going on.

I was listening to your recent episode with Connor and just the quick recap, but I'll encourage folks to check it out and I'll provide a link to it. But essentially someone who's posing as this guy to apply for a job using this guy's like resume and he jumped on the call with the recruiter and he got to listen in the background while this guy was pretending to be him, it's like I don't even think that I'm aware that stuff like this happens. But I mean, obviously it's in your sphere all the time, but just like people are just going out of their way and they don't have to work too hard to kind of use existing resources and use your own information for their own benefit, which is so creepy when you think about it. But it's happening nonstop. If you think about just like robocalls and people praying on like the elderly and stuff like that. It's like how do you even like sleep at night with the stuff that you know?

Yeah, I know right. Well, it's one of those things you either die a hero or you become a villain. I live long enough to be a come ofillion. I mean, you got to like just notice it and be like, okay. So how am I protecting myself against that and what am I doing here to watch out for that sort of thing? And so I think tax fraud is a big thing. A lot of people are filing taxes on your behalf and getting a tax return for you, but it's going into their pockets. So filing taxes early and putting a pin on your tax system I think that's possible, so that you have to have that in order to submit it and freezing your credit so that people don't take credit on your name. Cause, when you're talking about identity fraud, what can people do? They can take loans out on your name or do things as you, and yeah. So it's interesting to just kind of go into how that's done and what to do against it.

How do you think about where you're at in terms of, like, your relationship to privacy and as you start to obviously continue to have conversations? Do you feel sometimes it feels like a tidal wave and it's hard to even like think about what you can do to stop some of it? But I know you mentioned the book as well, but do you have, like close friends constantly hitting you up for like suggestions on what to do to protect themselves?

Yeah, I think the ones that hit me up are the worst stories. Right, it's like I had an ex husband or boyfriend that's constantly putting malware on my phone and won't leave me alone and has a tracker on my car and all this awful stuff. That's just like constantly keeping track, and how do I get rid of this? Oh my gosh, this is a big deal. And so then that's scary to think that your biggest threat is a person who's sleeping in the bed with you. Maybe not now, but if this relationship goes sour, or maybe it is now too, because sometimes that's happening, where husbands don't trust their wives or something like that, even though the husband is the one who's cheating. Yeah, so there's a lot of people who ask me for a lot of crazy things. Another funny thing is like people are asking me like, hey, can you hack into my girlfriend's stuff? Oh man, let's talk about this. Okay, this is not gonna end well for you, it's. You're not gonna get the information you want. You're not gonna be happy.

There's a bigger problem at play if that's a request that you have. So what has this done for you, like, personally, when you think about you know, when you got started in network security, I'm sure you saw stuff there that was probably like if people only knew how easy it was is to break into some of these companies' systems. You know which you knew firsthand, and you know the joke is like the admin password is admin for all these systems, and so you know the complexity of these sort of things is getting more and bigger, and so how do you think about where we are in the world in terms of like? Is this just something that we have to live with because of the nature of technology and how easy it is to do these things, that they'll always be bad people that just have access to more sophisticated tools to do them?

Oh, yeah, I think there's always gonna be bad people, and it creates kind of an unfair dynamic too, because you've got these bad people who are using this to their advantage and the good people don't quite do that typically, right. So, like you know, election rigging, for example, like the good people aren't gonna be rigging elections with, the bad people might, and so it's like, oh my gosh, this is like how do you fight this war? One side has an unfair advantage of, they don't mind. There's a quote from the TV show, the secret ingredients crime like oh, okay, that's how we're getting away with this. Yeah, I mean, when you add crime into it, it really does make everything difficult, like, isn't it? You're not allowed to do that, okay, but I'm breaking the rules, I'm gonna do it anyway. Oh man, well, I guess we didn't think somebody was gonna break the law.

Yeah, do you get to see like a flip side of this and I know the show is called Dark Knight Diaries but do you ever get to see like a positive side to some of the stuff that's happening or some of these stories that end up, you know, doing something good or maybe even just creating a spotlight on something that people didn't know much about?

Yeah, I mean, the way I like to look at security is it's kind of like the brakes of a car. You don't wanna think of brakes of a car as the things that slow you down and stop you. What's great about the brakes of a car is that it lets us go fast. We would never go over 20 miles an hour if we didn't have brakes. We'd be like, whoa, you're not gonna be able to stop this thing, so don't get going quick on there. But because we got good brakes, we can go fast. We can go 100 miles an hour and we're fine. That's totally fine.

We'll be safe and that's what I think is great, right? So security gives you that ability to go fast and do crazy things online, because we can do it in a safe way. The first time when somebody said here you can buy something online, enter your credit card, I was like no way. But now it's like so ubiquitous to what we do every day. That is because of security. Security enabled us to allow us the safety to put our credit cards online and our data online, and we just can't let it slack because we see how bad that can go if it does.

Have you inspired any of your friends or close friends to become more private with their online presence, given their relationship to you or given what they've heard on the show?

Well, I definitely the listeners have reached out out quite a bit and been like why did not know how bad I was at doing this? And I'm so glad that I heard you, because now I'm like taking it seriously or I have you know, like we gave this episode to our boss and now our boss has a proof budget for us to secure our stuff. And people have changed careers to be like I've always been curious and interested in computers. I didn't know I could hack for a living and that was the thing that I can do, cause I mean people pay hackers to get in to see if they're vulnerable, right. So you have this penetration testing model and so now you could just hack for a living and be a professional hacker and that's great. You can have a lot of fun doing it. So, yeah, people are just like did not know that there is a whole career path here that you can do and love that. I'm sharing it with them.

How do you feel about your own privacy, given the changes you've had to make because of, I mean, that story you just shared about that person? Track you down is scary enough in and of itself, and I think it's always weird when I see people posting like photos of their kids online. I was like man, if you only knew what people could probably do with that information. So I probably err on the side of like worrying too much. But what's your relationship with just privacy in general been since you've started the show and was it like now?

Yeah, I think the bigger I get, the more popular my show gets, the more private I want to become and the less I don't know mouthy. I get online as well, right, you start talking about things that are you're passionate about on Twitter or something, and you start running into like a big war with other people, and so I'm just like you know what. I don't want to spend my time doing that today. I'm just gonna not say anything, right? So yeah, and it's kind of weird because it's like, well, I had this big personal win in my life or terrible thing that happened or something, and I really can't share photos or things about it because it might be too personal, and so, yeah, there's ups and downs to it. It's nice to have that privacy and to flex it when I want, and I think that's I'd rather be an anonymous wealthy person than a famous, not anonymous person.

So like.

I don't need my face to be recognized on the street, or my name or anything like that. I just want people to like the craft I make.

It's really interesting because you know we talk a lot of people who are actors and performers that have this audience that loves them and hates them, I guess over time and a lot of them you know you'll see over the years. They just kind of like be careful what you ask for, because they've got the wealth, but they have it through the visibility they have. And audiences can be very fickle and trolls abound. New ones are created every day. So I think there's something to be said for doing what you're doing in relative privacy.

Yeah, definitely. It's a much better thing if you can do it is to try to be private on them.

Do you find or make time to disconnect yourself from tech? It's a challenge for me because I love technology, I love computers, I love everything that it's done, even this show podcasting I want to podcast agency. So it's been like it's opened up so many doors for me. But I realized sometimes a lot of the meaningful connections I make throughout the week are through a screen. And even my girlfriend loves nature. She's the one who gets me out and about and I have to make a conscious effort to live in that world or connect in that world, more so because of the pervasiveness of screens. And I'm wondering what that's been like for you.

Yeah, I struggle with the same thing. It's easy to just get on the screen and stick on the screen and have a lot of screen time, but it's important to go outside and face to face with others and get out in the world. So yeah, I play guitar and go do runs and get outside.

So if you end up releasing anything, any music, it'll be under an alias.

I assume I don't necessarily, I don't think I'm good enough to release anything, but I might play some background music in the episode or something.

Okay, yeah, just curious just as we wrap up, like what is are you excited about the future of the show and what are you working on?

Yeah, that's. Oh, I've got some really good episodes coming out, so some big ones, just like stories that are just really big, that I've been like well, I think I need to skill up a bit before I can work on this one, because this is just gonna require many interviews and a lot of time and just really you gotta be good at what you're doing to go on a big story like that. So I've got some big ones that I've been working on and I'm really excited. It took a while for people to come out of the woodwork as well to talk about it. So it's like, if you ask me what my dream guest would be, it's always that one that would never, ever, ever do an interview ever in their life. But it's like, okay, I think my story needs to be out there, I'll tell it, you know. So it's like I'm wanting the Russian hackers to be on the show or the you know Iranian hackers or something like the government ones, like if that could ever be, but that's never gonna be right. So those are like where I want, and I haven't quite got there yet. But yeah, there's some really good stories I'm working on. So there's that, and I feel like I should write a book at some point just for people to have on their shelves and to be like what the fans can get into, and that kind of legitimizes you a little bit more.

I think with podcasts, like, even if a podcast is bigger than, say, a news agency or a TV show, people just still don't like give it that credit. Like the mass media, the news media feels like they're above it. They feel like they're more prestigious or bigger because they've got more. They don't even have more eyes and more listeners. This show there's quite a bit of shows out there that are bigger than, say, a TV show or a popular news agency. Yeah, it's interesting to kind of find a way to legitimize podcasting and I think that is through writing a book. Sometimes, I think once you write a book then you got other people that are, you know, like news agencies and stuff might be asking you for an interview and stuff like that.

Yeah, that's a good point, and you've got the team there to do some pretty interesting work on the graphics, for I'm picturing some sort of graphic easy vibe.

Yeah, it's gonna be really cool. Yeah, I do wanna do more graphical stuff, so maybe some animation or something might be in the future as well.

Yeah well, Jack, thanks for jumping on. I know you had some technical difficulties in the beginning, which is hilarious always when it comes to podcasting, but I just wanted a little peek into your world and have any share that with my listeners. So I really appreciate you taking the time and a big fan of the work you're doing.

Thanks Harry, Nice meeting you.

Okay, take care.