I'm Travis Bader, and this is the
Silvercore podcast.
Join me as I discuss matters related to
hunting, fishing, and outdoor pursuits with the
people in businesses that comprise the community.
If you're a new to Silvercore, be sure to
check out our website, www.silvercore.ca where
you can learn more about courses, services and
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join the silver Corp club, which includes 10
million in north America, wide liability insurance,
which sure you are properly covered during
your outdoor adventures.
It previous episodes at the Silvercore
podcast, we've talked about situational
awareness and how to safely comport yourself
in everyday life.
Today.
We're delving into the world of
cybersecurity and open source intelligence.
Welcome to the Silvercore Podcast.
Nick Chernoff Travis.
Thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure.
So open source Intel.
First off, what is that?
And can you give us a little bit of
background that you have on the subject?
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a good question.
So, uh, open source intelligence is
essentially, uh, openly, publicly
available information.
If you're on social media, if you're writing
on blogs, blogs, anything online that we can gather
from just a basic, even Google search, social
media search that is in the realm of open
source intelligence.
And, and, uh, we are doing that
every single day.
You know, for those of you on social media,
when you go and look up a friend, significant
other, maybe someone you're diving to get
into a relationship with you are going
to find them and find their open li publicly
available information.
So, uh, it's a bit more of that and not just
social media and, and, you know, looking forward
to talking with that throughout today, uh,
about my background, I've been in the world
of school safety for about a decade, uh,
just over 10 years.
Um, Privileged to be in this field at
such a young age.
And, um, I've been able to travel north
America and presenting to law enforcement
school districts, uh, certain three-letter
agencies in the states, uh, regarding this
topic and specifically school safety.
Uh, so how do we gather openly publicly
information and identify worrisome behavior,
uh, to help protect schools, uh, as well,
I've also an eight year member with the Canadian
forces and the more of the reserve component
with the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada.
So in infantry,
right?
Yeah.
You got the shirt on, there could
be gone, right.
Always
representing, of course, of course.
So, you know, I've, I've got a very limited
background in open-source intelligence, just
in, you know, when we're hiring people
on, we're going to be taking a look at their
social media profile.
Uh, I'll go on to in British Columbia,
we've got court services online.
I'll take a look through there to see what
kind of background I can find if there's.
Uh, a criminal history or a history of, uh, civil
actions against somebody.
And, uh, we've a BC online as well.
And I can kind of pick around a little bit,
but that's about the extent of the sort of
open source intelligence set that I'm privy to.
Uh, what do you
usually do?
Yeah.
You know, that's, that's all great things that
we can use and you bring up actually, some, some
good points because we are now seeing,
uh, many employees.
Figuring out, you know, they'll look at
a paper, copy, resume.
I come apply for silver Corp.
You're going to see my background.
You're going to see my history.
It's all things that I've curated for your job, but
what am I doing online?
That's going to represent myself and
your organization.
And those are great things that I think many
organizations should do.
How are you being represented online?
But you know, when we are gathering open
source intelligence, we are monitoring
and identifying every social media aspect.
We're not just going in and finding
someone's Instagram account or someone's
Facebook account.
It's every little detail.
You know, when, when, uh, because of a part
of my role is, is when a school shooting happens
and I've been at the forefront investigating
many high profile acts of violence at schools
across north America.
We are digging into that killer's life when,
when they shoot up.
And we are monitoring all aspects.
So, uh, at our kind of command center within our
office, we have multiple TVs, every single social
media account available.
There are ways to actually go behind the
scenes and manipulate, uh, you know, and, and
find information even down to, if I have your
phone number, if I have your email address, I can
find a majority of your social media accounts
that are linked to you.
And it's quite fascinating because
when I am training law enforcement and,
and school district professionals, we have
them create social media accounts for
doing their searching.
Right.
We always tell them, you know, never searched
for somebody using your personal accounts
and, and they don't even think about.
Well, I'm going to download, you know, an
application like Snapchat on my phone and somebody
law enforcement members that are doing that.
If I have your phone number, all I have
to do is some certain techniques right now.
No, all your, your covert type accounts
and you're going to be burned like that.
Right.
Things to think about.
If I were to take a photo right now on
my smartphone, right?
The smartphone that we all have in front of us,
which I like to say is for convenience rather
than for security, right?
If you want to be really secure, go get a, go
get an old flip phone.
Don't put any applications on it.
Just use it as like a, uh, just a.
But when they're downloading applications
and, and they're, they're using these devices
to actually identify worrisome behavior, they
don't really understand that everything is
linked together.
If I have your email address, well, I can
run it through certain techniques online.
Uh, we call it a Boolean search operators or,
or Google dorking
Google dorking you haven't heard that.
I know the Boolean search
sometimes referred to as, as Google hacking,
but I can take your email address or what I know
about you and actually find if your email has
been in a data breach, which may actually, uh,
show me your passwords to your accounts.
Interesting.
So there's many things that we can
do outside of that.
Just the generic.
I'm going to see if they're on Facebook
or on Instagram or on social media.
So, so,
and just to be clear, this is the whole.
Whole thing behind this is that it is
open source, mean that it's open to anybody.
The techniques that you use could be used by
anybody out there more or
less.
Absolutely both the good and the bad.
And that's kind of why we know that.
And, and the biggest, uh, cause I run a full
day or I'll help run, uh, two days of training to
train law enforcement, to school districts,
how to identify worrisome behavior
through techniques that we've, we're, we're
providing to them to give them knowledge
and the tools to really keep our kids safe and
our community safe.
And yeah, these tools can be used by individuals
who are, you know, trying to find an
ex-wife or an ex-husband.
Uh, and there's quite invasive techniques.
If I'm a partner who, who maybe is suspecting
you of cheating, I could probably take your phone
right now because maybe I know the password we're
comfortable with that.
But did you know that through certain settings
on your phone, I can actually determine just
by having your phone, every place you've ever
been, how long you've been in those places?
When I drove in today, they keeps track of how
long it took me for my drive time, how long
I was in certain it's based on your special
on your iPhone, your significant locations.
Um, that necessarily isn't open source,
but you know, there's, there's definitely
tools that people in the wrong hands could use
for, for negative ways.
Well, okay.
So that would be like iPhone or a
Google Android phone.
Like they both do that.
Right?
Of course.
It doesn't matter what.
Uh, would you suggest to people that they go
in there and they turn certain settings off?
Yeah.
I mean, even down to, if, if you take a
photo from your phone right now and you have
a certain setting on, okay, I could be, I could
be, uh, an individual out there saying,
Hey, I hope you're having a great time.
You know, what are you up to send me a photo?
And I'll share a great story.
And I use this during training.
There was a gentleman on Craigslist, and this is
what I'm getting into.
What's known as metadata.
Think of data within the data.
You take a picture with your phone.
We see, and just focus on the photo, but us
kind of, you know, tech nerds and whatnot,
think about what's the information behind it,
because it was taken from a very smart phone.
So I could be like, Hey Travis, you know,
you could be like, I'm at my secret
hunting spot today.
I know, right.
Take, send me a photo.
Then I take your phone.
Uploaded into a metadata viewer, which gives
me the exact phone.
You've used the date and timestamp and
possibly GPS coordinates.
Right.
And so that's, that's invasive, but that's all
information that is now sent to me that I can
gather your now note now, hunting spot that they
made, you kept secret for the longest time.
And we don't understand that with every piece
of information that we send out there,
we're giving data within that and yeah,
go into your location settings on your phone.
There's a going to be an app on there that says
camera and beside that.
So if you go to settings privacy and then
location services on your iPhone, within your
location services, you see every app that's
using your location right beside that.
You're going to, and I want you to
focus on the camera.
If the camera says never, it means, well, it's
never embedding your GPS coordinates if it
says while using well, pretty much every photo
that you take, you embed your GPS, coordinates
you, go on your.
And the gallery on your phone.
There's a section that says places and
it's, it's a map that pinpoints where the
photos were taken.
That's great.
However, I always think of things about, okay.
What if that is a lot of information that
we're giving out?
It's cool to know, but it's kind of scary.
I like, I use the, the hunting analogy because
I will specifically go in and screenshot
my photos because I'm so paranoid at times.
So it was sending a picture out, like, did
I, did I remember to take my location services off?
Am I sending them something that's going to
have the, uh, the geotag associated with it?
So I'll take a picture.
I'll screenshot the picture, I'll crop
down, and then I'll send that spec crop
picture over it.
I love that.
You're still going to give little metadata on
the type of phone you've used and maybe the time
of screenshot, but, you know, I was going back.
I was going to share this story during
training and it was a, it was a, uh, uh, law
enforcement type file.
I worked with both, uh, law enforcements, um,
uh, north and south of the border in Canada,
in the states, uh, some over in the UK as well,
due to certain issues that are happening, but
there was a gentleman.
And when you upload photos on, on your
social media, It is good that social media
strips this metadata for the public, for the
pup, for the public.
Right.
So I can't go to your, you know, and,
and for those of you celebrating, um, uh,
you know, different holidays or whatnot, if
you could take a photo when you're having your
Thanksgiving or Easter dinner and you upload
it to social media, I can't take that photo
and figure out where you had that dinner.
So it strips the metadata, which is great.
There was a gentleman on Craigslist, okay.
He was selling his motorcycle.
And if you kind of know a bit about, uh,
human behavior and social engineering
and how to manipulate people, it's quite
easy to unfortunately take advantage of
individuals who just don't understand that
what is going on behind the scenes, a gentlemen
gets a message from someone else inquiring
on his motorcycle.
So a guy was on, on Craigslist, searching
for motorcycles.
This guy gets a message saying, Hey, I love
your motorcycle.
I'm very.
I'm very interested, but I'm not going
to waste your time.
I'm not going to waste my time.
I'm only going to those motorcycles that I am.
Uh, I'm interested in buying the only
reason I'm messing you.
This is because when I zoom into your photo
on Craigslist, I swear there's a scratch
on your gas tank.
The guy's like, absolutely not.
And you know, when you're just wanting
to sell something, you want to get rid of it
at any anyone who's at you take advantage
of, of human behavior with, wow, someone's
interested in this.
I can sell it.
I can make some money.
You know?
So the gentleman says there's no scratch.
Okay, fine.
You know what?
Just prove to me, here's my phone number.
Can you go down to your motorcycle in
your garage right now?
And if you don't mind doing that right now
and text me a photo.
So they've now gone from Craigslist
Craigslist, actually strips metadata to the
raw original format between a smartphone,
which keeps metadata.
Of GPS settings, unbeknownst to this
guy, just wanting to get rid of his motorcycle.
He sends a photo via text.
This gentlemen uploads the photo into a metadata
viewer figures out where this guy is selling.
It goes two nights later and steals the
motorcycle because he now has location based
on that image, right?
Just that easy.
It's that easy.
And it's, it's all about, you know, uh, we
didn't grow up in this world of technology
and social media.
We're playing catch-up a lot of individuals will
be like, well, okay.
I don't know.
I just use Facebook.
I just use social media, but they don't understand
there's way more out there from the states
to even Canada, when I'm searching for a killer
or understanding things about, about what they've
done, the way that I searched for somebody
in Canada is completely different from even
the U S I I'm going to challenge a lot of your
listeners right now.
Have you ever Googled yourself on.
And maybe you put in Travis Bader and
maybe you've just done that, but using
certain because Google, Google's very smart,
but it's quite lazy.
And I always like to say that because if you
search for your first and last name, Travis
Bader in Google, you're going to find everyone
by the name of Travis and everyone by the
name of Bader and not necessarily just find
you the next time you search for your name.
And this is serial listeners.
Search your name in quotation marks, right?
It actually narrows down your search.
It tells Google.
I don't want to final Travis's all beta, but
Travis Bader together.
Right?
Right.
And just little techniques like that
through Boolean search operators or, or Google
dorking techniques, I can use Google dorking
to actually find open wifi cameras within your
house, your ring camera.
If you don't change your default password,
there's a possibility that someone could
be accessing that if you don't change your
passwords, every few.
It's not a matter of if, but when something's
going to be breached and your passwords are
available through, you know, forums on the
dark web or, or, or deep web, or just a
basic Google search.
So,
and he, can't where you get, obviously
change your passwords.
Any router, you get changed, a password
on it, you know, Travis, you bring up a good
point with, you know, uh, change your passwords.
And, and the biggest question during my
training and, and I've, I've trained everyone
from school to police to, like I said, different
three-letter agencies.
And the big question is like, I can't keep track
of all my passwords.
I use the same password or a character off
for every other account because I
can't remember them.
Right.
Invest in a password, man.
Those are pretty safe for one, for the most
part, I encourage you to do some research.
Um, there's one called keep pass X, C K.
It's a little bit more advanced of a password
manager, but there are some out there that of
course are not the best, but I would encourage you
to do a bit of research.
You're also going to learn just that much
more in a password manager is essentially a
vault on your computer.
You then add all your accounts, all
your passwords.
I have probably over 60 accounts and I
have a different password for each one.
I don't want to remember each one, but
I remember one password to get in the door of
that password manager, which then I forget my
password to this account.
I go in reminder, bring it over, log
into my account.
It's a few extra steps, but that is the
first step passwords.
Two factor authentication.
Isn't huge.
It's huge.
Um, there's also something that, that
has been going around for a while called
SIM swapping, right?
Where the idea is I'll find your password.
I will then understand that you may have two
factor authentication on your phone.
I will then figure out information about you.
Maybe that I'm finding on your social media,
maybe that that's your, and I always like to
say, you're only as strong as the weakest
link within your friend network on social media.
So I may not be able to find information
on you, Travis, but do your spouse, kids,
whatever people that are close to you, are they
putting out information?
That's telling things about you
that I can gather.
Right?
Think of, think of down to the questions
that you could ask for your banking.
What's your mother's maiden name?
What's the street you live on?
I never used my right answer.
No, no, I don't
think
anybody should.
No one should, but change it something different
and don't have it on things that we can
find on social media.
But, but going back to SIM swapping is the
idea where I now find information on you.
I know your phone number.
I then maybe we'll call your cell phone provider,
pretending I'm you I'll answer questions that I'm
finding from your social media and say, Hey, I
need to swap out my.
Then that two factor authentication code.
Right.
And this is happening all over it.
And it, um, it's crazy how many, uh, young kids
are knowing about this.
What about SIM spoofing?
That should be pretty straightforward.
I guess if you have the, uh, the technology.
Yeah.
And like I said, anything is vulnerable through,
through, um, through, you know, manipulating
your, um, your location through various apps.
Right?
Right.
I can go and download a location, spoofing
app and make it like I'm somewhere else
around the world.
That's why it's important that you may not care
about your, your online security, because AI, I
don't have Facebook, but you have a smartphone,
you have email, you have other things.
And, and there's some folks out there who
have a lot of sensitive information on there.
Are you changing your email regularly?
And that's something that I always encourage,
you know, organizations that do have it in a
requirement every few months to be like,
this is mandatory of you changing
your email address, address or password.
Sorry.
Good question.
Or clarifying password.
Okay.
By the way, here's my new, uh, here's
my new email address every like few months.
No, that'd be that's too much.
That's yeah.
So know your, your, your password.
And this is something I do with my own
family because my grandparents, uh, bless
them, bless their heart.
96 years old.
Uh, Mike, both my grandma and grandfather, uh, and
they live on their own.
My grandpa is obsessed with investing.
He loves his email.
That's his main way of communication.
And, and I said, well, they may not care about
it, but they're online.
And, and I give you a story.
I was with my grandfather a few weeks ago.
They live, they live in Winnipeg here in Canada.
And I, uh, he, he told me he got a call from,
uh, apple, right?
He doesn't use an apple computer.
It's so it's so funny.
Cause my, my grandma has an Android phone that she
calls her, her iPhone.
It's not it's it's anyways, I just let
her do her thing.
But you know, 96 years old, my grandma's
texting me every day, works the iPhone.
Exactly.
And my grandfather was online and he goes, Nick,
you know what you just told me and share with
me about online security actually saved me.
And I got a call one day from a, they said they
were from apple and they said they need remote
access to my computer because they had,
they detected a virus.
And I said, well, what do you do.
I hung up and I say, that's fine.
And then what did you do after he goes, I went
to the apple website and called the support
number on the website and he, wasn't afraid
to just hang up and be like, and I, and that's,
that's important, right?
Sometimes we want to be nice on the phone and
be like, oh yeah, you knew where I got a call.
I had one of the best scams ever from actually.
It was after I got my, uh, my wifi put in at
my house from Telus.
Right.
And so the guy puts my wifi in.
He, he says that he's had everything
set up and he goes, Hey, you know, we're
just doing a survey.
You'll you might get a call in a few days
just to see how it was.
And, you know, give me, give me a
five-star rating.
And I was like, well, you did a good job.
So a few days later, I'm, I'm distracted.
I'm still kind of moving.
And, uh, I get a message from Telus.
It's like, this is an automated message.
We want to let you know that you will
be receiving a call shortly from Telus on
the experience that you just had setting
up your home internet.
I was like, cool.
Yeah, I'm expecting it.
Yeah.
So I pull over and I wait for the call within
five minutes clockwork.
I got.
Hi, is this, uh, you know, Nicholas, we
understand that you just had your, your, um, wifi
put into your house.
We just want to ask you just want to clarify
exactly that we are talking to you before we
go through the survey.
I was like, oh yeah, no problem.
I'm busy.
I just read it.
And so I'm, I'm distracted and they
go, can you, can you just confirm your
first and last name?
And I'm like this, and they're like, can you
confirm your email?
And I'm like this, and they're asking me
a few more questions that they would have
anyways, on file.
And then they're like, can you just confirm
your social and or social security number?
I was like, I started laughing.
I was like, you guys, this is good.
You guys did good.
This is a good scam, but this is what's
going to happen.
I'm going to hang up right now.
I'm going to call back.
And the lady's like, yeah, no problem.
We totally understand taking your security.
Uh, and she just kind of went with it.
I was like, and a lot of people would be like, oh,
you, you seem so nice.
Cause you know, people will hang up
your spam callers.
Right.
They'll hang up once they understand that
it's a scam, but anyone else who's not thinking
about that in busy moving would just be like, Okay.
Yeah.
Let's catch it.
Okay.
Let's just carry on.
Yeah.
Awareness.
Right.
We got to educate those who are not grown up in
this world, but, but, uh, but use devices.
Right?
So that awareness, like you're saying, okay.
Let's say I'm really cyber aware.
Right?
I've got a good sense about my passwords.
And you've talked about passwords prior to the,
uh, like key chain and these different volts and
things coming into play.
I would just use an algorithm, just a simple
algorithm that I can remember in my head
that would work off of whatever the application
that I'm I'm using.
And I just do add digits, add letters, front and
back, change digits and delighters around.
I just know, like, if I'm logging into, let's say
Gmail, that's going to have a certain password.
So if anyone figured out my algorithm, all
right, then I've done all my passwords.
Say that.
Right.
And you make it, you make a few good
points because yeah.
Um, create your own little algorithm.
Don't, don't use your pet's names,
your kids' names, something that will
bring it back to you.
If you're going to put a zero, maybe change
it with an O upper case, lower case,
things like that.
And, and it's important that you are changing
your passwords and I'll, I'll share something that
actually happened to a close friend of mine.
She gets.
And she actually was an email.
It was sent to her via email and it said, you
don't know who I am, but I know you, and I know
your password is this.
And they actually put her real password.
So she's like, what?
Yeah.
And then the rest of the letter says, and it
was actually, um, and I'll explain where it
came from in a second, but it kind of said, we
have been watching you through your camera.
We know what you were doing.
Right.
We have videoed everything and she's
like starting to sweat.
She's trying to think that I did, I do anything
in front of my camera.
I shouldn't be doing, but they have my password
and it's a well drafted.
Email.
Yeah, I got a call right away and I said, she
says, Nick, I need help.
Uh, someone hacked into my accounts, they
hacked into my camera, they have my password.
I said, let me guess they said that they
were watching you and filming you.
And, and they, and it kind of goes into like,
we know that you were on some pornographic
websites and we play on people's darkest fears.
Right.
I don't know if any of you are, if you've
heard or watched the episode on black mirror,
there is an identical there's identical
episode of that.
And people were just copying that.
Exactly.
But it was her password.
So how do they get it?
It's because she had her password for years.
It was in a known data breach and.
She didn't know about it.
I always encourage people to go to a website called
have I been poned P w N E D check for data breaches
or another website called monitor.firefox.com.
Or you actually put in your email in, and it'll
notify you when a known data breach has happened.
You know, things like that.
How do you set up, how do you set up
certain ability?
Because, um, you need to protect your own self.
Right?
And I have, I have these, you know, cause
my mom, my dad, my sister, they care only
because I care, they don't maybe really care.
So, you know, I have to set things up in their
behalf and be like, all right, mom, dad, we got
to change your passwords.
Like there's been a breach here.
And they're like, okay.
Yeah, we'll set it up.
And I said, please just don't, don't just
change one character off your password, like
create a good password.
So yeah, just little things like that.
But you know, I, I, when it gets into the
whole world of open source intelligence and
I, I think I told you this story, there's.
Uh, a forum online and many of the Chan boards
like four Chan or eight, eight Chan, which is
now eight con right.
Um, is a lot of, of, of time on people's
hands and, and through Reddit as well.
Right.
It's a great source of actually, if, if, if
you're ever interested in, in learning more
about, oh, scent open source intelligence,
go check out the, the, the, um, uh, on
Reddit, there's you just subscribe to,
to . And it actually shares with techniques,
all these things, which are quite easy to do.
Interesting.
But there was a story how, um, uh, and it
actually, if, if it's from, you know, Shyla
buff, Shyla buff.
So this is back when, when Trump was kind of
getting into politics and, and before he
came presidents and, um, what Charlotte
did is he has a sign.
It said, um, he will not divide us.
And he takes this sign, which is essentially
just a flag and he puts it up in the sky.
And he puts a live stream camera on it.
Now, no one knows where it is.
It's somewhere in the United States.
It is literally in a field somewhere
in the night in the United States.
He puts this flag in the sky.
Huge flagpole.
No one knows where it is.
He puts a livestream camera on the flag and
all you see is a flag and the sky, you see
clouds, passing planes, passing, birds, passing.
That's it.
So how does a group of individuals on
forums like Reddit find that flag?
Well, how do we use open source techniques?
Let's start by thinking it's a live stream.
You watch the live stream, which will
then narrow down sunrise, sunset.
Right.
Okay.
So from your sunrise and sunset on that live
stream, you're like, oh, that's definitely
not west coast.
It's still super sunny here.
It may be isn't central.
The sun, the sun is still shining over here
or maybe it's gone.
And so they, they narrow it down to, you know, uh,
one third of the United States saying it's gotta
be on the east coast.
So just from that alone, they've broken down where
it should be from there.
They're starting to listen to sounds and
see things in the sky.
There's planes going by.
There's actually a cool app on, uh, that you
can get it's called, I believe flighty
there's many, there's many apps that you
can actually monitor.
And, and this, this is actually what I was
doing during the, during the pandemic, because
all these flights being halted from China and
everything, and I'm still seeing flights
come in and it shows you a live stream of
exactly every flight that's in the air now.
So if you've ever looked up in the sky and you're
like, oh, I wonder where that flight is going.
There's an app for that.
You literally GPS coordinates on your
phone and you're like that app has, or that
plane is over top of me.
That that 7 47 is off to.
Or it's landing in Vancouver.
So they actually had people monitoring
the app and trying to figure out, you know,
where, you know, flights were coming, different
flight patterns, and it's quite remarkable.
It's getting these team together.
So they kind of narrow down a certain area and
then they hear frogs in the background and
they're like, okay, it's not probably not.
Or a certain type of insect.
And they're like, that is that there's someone
down there is like, oh, that's a native
insect to, to this area.
And so as they're starting to narrow it
down, they actually get a bunch of individuals
with their trucks.
Okay.
And they start driving everyone from certain,
certain cities that they live in that are, maybe
are close to where these types of animals are.
They go and they start to honk their horns.
So people on the live stream, so people in the.
Oh, I, I heard you.
I heard you over here and okay.
Everyone else be quiet and it hot or cold.
And then they finally narrow it down just by
everyone working together and certain open source
techniques or certain abilities, like, uh,
you know, monitoring the flights and, and
there's quite a extensive way that they were
able to work together to find information.
Right.
And, and, and I, you know, part of my role
within, within the military, as well as
working with, um, uh, influence activities and
psychological operations, um, we have, there's
a great task force here in, in Canada.
Um, and, and I, I work on the, on the kind of
the, the west coast here, but when I shared just
a basic presentation about how vulnerable
police can be military can be, um, and I share
a story where, um, uh, there was a certain,
uh, force overseas and this certain area, a
lot of the troops were, you know, had time off.
So what would they do?
They'd, they'd buy a phone from the.
That's the first red flag.
If you, if you want to buy a phone from
the area, like I'd have the us or Canada
ship their own phones.
And maybe there's just a lot of weird red
flags when I'm going to a place that I'm, you
know, occupying and all of a sudden I'm buying a
phone from there, right?
So that's a few red flags.
And then these, these, you know, 21,
22, 23 year olds, what are they doing?
Well, I'm in, you know, Eastern Europe, I'm
going to Ukraine pole in Latvia where some
of our Canadian troops are, and we're, I'm at
download Tinder, right.
I'm going to start swiping and find,
you know, and, and what were they doing?
The enemy was creating fake Tinder profiles.
That's brilliant to try to get information
from our troops cause this hot blonde or
maybe another force member is, is, is on.
And then they're saying, oh yeah, like
where are you located?
You know, where are you going next?
So we should, we shouldn't beat up.
Oh my God, I'm there as well too.
It's this catfish.
Right.
And that is, you know, I even said, you know,
I even said, I showed and this kind, kinda got
me in trouble a little bit, but it woke a bunch
of people up where, where, you know, some of
older individuals, they were like, uh, I said
within five minutes, I could probably bring
up a military member and share with you
things about their life.
And they're like, no, no, you can't,
you can't do that.
And of course in the military here
in Canada, we don't do any intelligence
or any gathering on our own folks.
So I used a military member as kind of
like a subject.
So I brought this military member and I
said, um, this is, you know what regimens he's
in his wife's pregnant.
This is his vehicle.
This is licensed play.
This is newborn.
Okay.
So here's the other thing.
How can I use that from a psychological standpoint?
Well, uh, maybe I know he's done.
Right.
Okay.
And, and for me, I'm a, uh, you know, I'm
somebody who, who just wants it, wants them
to crash and burn.
So I have fake profiles.
What stopping me while he's deployed.
He may not talk to his wife for, you know,
a few weeks, maybe a month, depending on what
he's doing, but what's stopping me from maybe
messaging his wife while he's gone from another
female fake account I've created right.
Saying, Hey, um, I just want to let you know
and introduce myself.
My name is so-and-so me and my husband
and I we've been, you know, having an affair
over the last a while.
I didn't understand that he was married.
I thought I'd let you know, even though I'm
falsifying this, but I'm just gathering
information I found in your social media.
Yeah.
What's going to happen when he calls home.
She has all of this anger and then they
can't be together.
And all of a sudden it's a mind game.
Like I'm not cheating.
And she's like, I got a cough.
I have the messages, I have this.
And now all the psychological mess up
in his mind while he's halfway across the world
trying to do a job.
And he's out in the battle space and he's
trying to defend, you know, watch his buddy
six and all this.
He's distracted for a second because
he's like, my wife's probably mad at me.
She's going to leave me, she, to me home.
Is she going to find someone else?
And, and it's just, you know, you're only as
strong as your weakest link and these are
things that we need to train our troops
before they go over.
Have you had a conversation with your
wife about this, about what could happen,
uh, about, about, Hey, I love, you know,
I, I just came back from Texas yesterday.
Right.
And I traveled to the states once a week.
Right.
I'm I'm in an airplane over a hundred, a
hundred, a hundred flights a year, traveling
to the states all over.
I did a day trip to Reno, Texas, back to
Reno or back to Texas and I'll go, you know,
Chicago, Denver, and that's a week for me.
Right.
A lot of air miles, by the way.
So, yeah.
And actually I gave him away actually
for Christmas a few years ago.
That was like my Christmas presents
in my family.
Wow.
But how are we having a conversation about,
and I love, you know, I love the state of Texas
and it's, it's awesome.
Right.
And so they're.
Proud military state.
And so you'll see a lot of the times like
bumper stickers, maybe the wafer or whatever,
driving saying, I'm a proud, I'm a proud member
of a current deployed us army, whatever.
And like, you're just telling me
that your husband's deployed right now.
And now you put a bumpers, it's just
like putting into the world of, uh, about
things about you.
So things that we don't really kind
of think about,
right.
A little soccer bowl, dangling from the
rear view mirror.
Exactly.
A little picture of the family.
I helping your family.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
I love that.
And, and these are things that we need
to start to train, you know, uh, I deal with
a lot of, uh, police who are undercover.
Um, I have a certain, uh, friend who is in
a certain three-letter agency down in the
states who newly retired, but he's,
he's been undercover or he was undercover
for a very long time.
And he was sitting in one of my classes and,
uh, He's at the very back and he puts his
feet up on the desk and it kind of leans back.
He's like, you want me to search myself on
Google and online, man, I've been undercover
for, you know, over a decade longer than that.
And I said, you don't think I can
find you online.
He's like, you're not going to find me.
And so we had myself and another analyst of
ours in the room and I suite, and I said,
challenge accepted.
And so I didn't have time then, but that
night I searched him and I found out where
he used to live when he was deep, undercover,
and different addresses and phone numbers.
And so I sent it to him.
I said, Hey, you know, he's now, you know,
shaved head bald.
And I said, Hey, I didn't know, you lived here
during the eighties.
You know, what, what does your hair
look like back then?
And he goes, how did he know?
I lived there.
Because it was a challenge and I wanted
to find information on you cause it was out
there and there in the states, there's a huge
database of people, search engines, right.
That are pretty robust.
They are down to where you live, right.
There's a website that, that if you want to
search yourself, if you're from the states,
mainly US-based website, it's called Spokio right.
Many websites like that, you know, um, family
tree now.com uh, all these other things.
And, and there's information about you,
even though you may not be on social media.
So we need to train our law enforcement who are,
who are deep, undercover, because guess what, if I
identify who you are, I'm going to find information
that may be blow your undercover, or it
could be just a generic general duty officer.
You could have your name badge right here.
You could pull me over and I could be like, oh,
officer so-and-so right.
I could grab your last name.
What's stopping me then from searching
you online.
And the next time you pull me over, I go,
oh, officer so-and-so.
I understand your, your kid goes to
school down the street.
Oh, your wife, wife works here.
You really want to give me that ticket.
And now they're in this predicament.
Like, so we have to understand that,
that it's not just maybe us it's maybe
especially we're in a law enforcement type
role or a military type role or whatever, even
just even just bumping down the street or, and
it seems somebody and, and, and, you know, then
maybe figuring out what your name is or you're in
line at a grocery store and your, uh, what's your
rewards number for file.
A lot of people will have their Starbucks
rewards or, or grocery store rewards based
on their phone number.
Yeah.
How many times are you blurted that out
for everyone to hear everyone, everyone.
Right.
So we need to start to think about these basic
things and not just for.
For those that we love around us.
And that's all, that's old understanding the,
how much we can gather from that open source
available information
like this idea has been around well Fort well,
before the internet, it's just open source
things that people can gather information on.
I remember hearing stories, my grandfather,
he was Vancouver police, and you would have
people parked out front.
And, uh, I remember my mom saying one
time, he just dragged a guy in, from a car
from outside, take him across the desk and
started laying into him.
I guess what you did back in the day.
I remember as a kid, uh, we we'd get phone
calls, even though were unlisted or my,
uh, my grandparents had phoned up and they
say, no, someone's looking for you.
They're trying, they're trying to find you.
So I give them your phone number, tell you
where they can find them.
There's always this.
This sense of privacy that everybody needs and
different people in more secure roles will need
a higher level of, uh, privacy because of the
people that they're going to be surrounded by.
But in today's day and age, we're not really
afforded that luxury of being able to say
all my, my phone number is unlisted, right.
Or I, when you're talking earlier about,
okay, you've got yourself sorted, you've
got your open source intelligence profile.
You've Googled yourself and it looks good.
What about your husband, your wife, your kids.
And I've told this story before in the podcast.
It was, I just did it for fun.
I mean, it was at a lawyer's office, was
doing some consulting for, and I was waiting
while the private investigator was chatting
with the lawyer and they're telling them
all about how they can't find this one woman
that they're supposed to be serving a warrant.
And while I'm waiting there in the side
room, I'm just kind of listening to him, the
conversation that's I started typing away
and I didn't find her through any of her own
accounts, but I found it through her child's
music teacher account.
And I said, um, you know, if, if you go there next
Thursday, at this time on swamp, she, a music
teacher that's going to be, and they were able to
find the person that way.
So let's say your completely squared away.
How do you square away those, those data
leaks or those privacy breach leaks at all
of your friends and relatives might have,
you know, um, for me personally, I, when
I first started this role, I was very, uh,
I'm deleting everything.
I'm going to get a new phone.
I'm going to start over with a new email.
I'm going to start on everything.
And then really for me, I had to, uh, you
know, I create a lot of burner accounts
just to learn about it.
But as I started to transition from fully
investigating to now taking the information
and doing training and development, I do have
an online presence.
Right.
I I'm active, you know, and the biggest,
the biggest one and the challenge for
me was LinkedIn.
Okay.
LinkedIn is.
Wealth of information on individuals.
And I was very reluctant to have it, but because
I was meeting and presenting to, to, uh,
you know, groups of, of different agencies down
in the states, different law enforcement, they're
always like, Hey, are you on LinkedIn?
Let's connect.
And now it's kinda my way of connecting.
So I had to I'm either fully in
you're either full.
Or full out.
You're not just, you don't just have like
a little bit in, cause you're in, right?
You got a presence.
You are no phone number, no, no email address,
no social media.
And even down in the states and uh, when you
buy a house or, or when you get, when you do
get a phone number, like there's, there's going
to be listed to you.
And there's a gentleman who's kind of a subject
matter expert who I look up to in this field.
Michael Buzzell, basil is his name.
Yeah.
He teaches people how to buy homes, uh, without
having their names attached to it, or kind
of disappear online.
Right.
Um, uh, Intel techniques.com is a
great website for four.
And I get no kickbacks or ties from that one site.
It just, I, I I've learned a lot from him.
So, so I w I want to share that
kind of love, but.
I it's just, you know, even, even right now,
you're like, Hey, let's, uh, let's take a photo
and you'll put it on your social media.
Okay.
That's great.
Promoting the podcast, promoting the great work
that you're doing, but are we going to take
a photo with all your little key features of,
of your electronics here?
Maybe there's something on the wall that, that
someone could zoom into.
And, and I don't think people really realize
that we're in the day and age where our kids and
I've seen time and time again, how many kids are
going into mom and dad's closet and finding their
military or, or, or, uh, uh, law enforcement
uniforms and putting that on or taking photos of,
you know, maybe different things or posting online.
But it's, it's having a conversation that we
know kids will be online these days, your kids.
Oh yeah.
But you can be online, but constant
communication, open dialogue to say, this is
what mom and dad do for.
And it may be cool to want to take a photo of
the inside of our house or a photo of our car
where you see a license plate, but I want you
to start to think how can that eventually
get us in trouble?
And it's all about training and awareness.
It's like, you know, when my kids go to
school, they will be K I don't want their name.
You know, if they're going to play sports,
uh, I don't want their name on a, on, on,
on the sports roster because all those
rosters get put online.
Right.
And I know exactly.
And I grew up playing junior hockey, university
hockey, and I loved it back in the day.
It was great.
But now you search my name.
You see where I lived at this time, you know, uh,
where I lived at that time, all the information
about you, my stats, how much I weigh, you know,
how tall I am, uh, what my hometown was, because
that's all information that is put out there.
So, I mean, there has to be a balance,
but I think at the end of the day, we're
always going to be on.
You find that small percentage that is not,
and doesn't want to be, and doesn't feel
the need to promote.
But if someone else close to you, like when
your kids grow up, are they going to want to
be on social media?
Probably.
If they're not, they're going to be
the only kids in class.
And that's the biggest thing we get from parents
is my kids, the only person in class who
doesn't have a phone.
Okay.
It is.
And, and you're a bad parent.
If you don't get your kid a phone.
Cause they're, they're, they're not
communicating nowadays.
Exactly.
But there's nothing stopping that you
can't consistently remind your kids.
About the vulnerabilities of, of what they're
posting and how they're posting it.
And we see kids all the time posting from inside
their bedroom, outside their school, uh, you
know, everything down to their school uniform
on just right away.
I've seen Mo you know, uh, the first day of
school parents are proud to send their kids to
school and they hold this little sign in
front of their house and say, you know, uh,
first day of school, and all of a sudden
you're saying, what school you go to, what
your favorite teacher is, you know, your
house address probably in the background.
And there's gotta be a fine balance, but I
think it comes down to just constant awareness
that what's in the background of photo.
What can we not put out there yet?
Don't, we're not, we're going to go on vacation.
I'm not telling the world I'm going on vacation.
Many people will, right.
Many people will be going away.
Oh, great.
Enjoying a great trip to, to Mexico.
Great.
Now I know your house is available to go into, so
there's, there's, you're either full, inner, full
up at the end of the day.
And I, and I don't really have an answer
to that other than just constantly.
What about the other side?
What if you just inundate the web with false?
Yeah, it's funny.
It's funny that you say that because there's a
lot of disinformation misinformation.
Why?
Because.
I've possibly created accounts.
Sure.
What information that is fully, you know, I
am I'm this height and I'm way this, what I
really weigh this, or my hometown's here, my
age is this, so yeah.
Uh, you can either just fully inundate with
misinformation about yourself and I, I, at
some point someone's gonna be like, Hey, I
don't really know that detail about this person.
I'm sure.
There's ways of finding it.
I'm sure there's other people's search engines
that maybe, but yeah.
Inundate and I, you know, it's funny in our
training, um, you know, I was in Texas, uh, someone
was like, I searched my name through this
platform that you gave us and everything's wrong.
And I was like, that's not a bad thing.
Do you want, do you want this to be accurate
about yourself so everyone could see
they're like, oh yeah.
And so, yeah, that's definitely inundate
inundate, right?
If it's already out there because the
internet may forget.
It never forgets, right?
There are third party websites, like, uh,
the, the Wayback machine archive dot I
S it used to be called Google cache data.
Um, uh, a search engine based out of Russia
called Yan decks.
I've heard of that one.
Yeah.
There's ways of implementing your
information, even though you may have deleted it
off your accounts and figuring out what they
have archive because they go and screenshot
everything that we do the way back machine.
Right.
You're your use that one so many times, right?
And, and your website is archived forever.
So good or for bad.
I mean, you can, you can, I'll use it for good.
I can go back and show how things were.
Let's say 10 years ago where we've grown or
somebody can say you used to advertise this.
I'm like, did I, I can go on, on,
yeah.
So, so yeah, at the internet may forgive,
but it never forgets.
So if you have information out there
and you're like, I need to get rid of this
all I'm like, okay.
So let's try to think of other ways.
If the internet is full of your information,
it's going to be decently easy to get it back.
So you make a great point.
Let's just inundate with everything we can.
So,
so let's say a school violence school
shooting something's happening or how.
How would your response to that be?
Cause I think I kinda brought this up before
and I was talking with Sonny from six sites
and I kind of delved in.
I said, I don't really know, but I think it's
got something about setting up geo-fences
yeah.
So, you know, everyone was big in the school
safety realm of social media monitoring.
Okay.
So you set up an electronic fence around
a school site and you keyword monitor on
a majority of social media applications.
When someone mentions bomb drugs, gone
fight, kill due to restricted access now
to the APIs of Facebook and Instagram and
Snapchat and Tik talk.
You're not gathering the information on what once
was available to you.
Okay.
So we teach it to it from, from our, we
teach from a human standpoint of a human
gathering information rather than a software
machine generated report this fence.
So each application is going to be different.
So.
When a school shooting happens, God forbid
we have one of our analysts dedicated to,
and this is mainly the one application that you
can do it for Twitter.
Uh, today I was training folks from around north
America, uh, on how to set up an electronic
fence on Twitter, around your school
and keyword monitor.
Anytime someone mentions bomb, drugs, gunfight
kill, that can happen on Twitter, but for
Snapchat, which is usually a one-to-one
communication, it's a little bit harder,
but there's a website called map.snapchat.com.
You don't have to be logged into you can go
online and there's hot spots in certain areas.
So when the flooding was happening here in BC, I
went on map.snapchat.com.
There's going to be a hotspot over, you
know, the Abbotsford area or certain areas.
And you get a lens of, of people on the street,
uploading Snapchats.
And now you get to see those Snapchats
that someone else has put out there.
You're not going to see everything because you
have two options when you're Snapchatting to
send it to your friend individually, or upload
it to your kind of, uh, my story or have
it kind of sent out there in the world.
So you're not going to see everything, but
you're still finding data in every aftermath
of a school shooting.
The hotspot over that school is red.
It is on fire with everyone in an area on
their phones, right.
Go to a concert, go to event everyone's
on their phones.
Everyone's posting, you're going to get
some information.
And so you're going to go on map.snapchat.com
and you're going to see a lens of everything
that's happening.
The, the, and I was there about four days
before the Vegas.
All right.
I was, I was staying at the Mandalay bay four
days before when I leave.
Of course, that's when the terrible
act of violence happened in Vegas.
Right.
But when I was going on map.snapchat.com to
figure out what people are posting, what they
were actually doing was they were, they were
downloading, every video was posted and they're
actually building a timeframe based on when
things were posted to maybe when shots were
fired or, or, but they're all gathering it from,
from, from social media who knew that we could
go and find someone's posts to then build a
timeframe of the incident that just happened.
And, and, and on, on Instagram, right?
We can, there's, there's just so many
things that you can do with finding people.
Uh, every image that I come across, right?
A lot of times kids were having threats to schools
daily, unfortunately, across North Korea.
When a student makes a threat and post a photo
of a gun, all you see in their social media posts
is a gun, and they're like, don't come to
school tomorrow, right?
It's a pretty generic threat, especially
the language analysis.
Like there's no specificity in the
language, but that photo of the gun is concerning.
But if you conduct a reverse image search,
which means you take that photo 10.
Exactly.
And that's a website we use or Google images.
If you upload a Google and Google images or
into bing.com, uh, the image section or even
Yandex it'll scan.
And I, and I want you to start to think of Google,
Bing, Yandex tonight.
They're all different businesses.
They have a different way of, of indexing their,
their, their images.
If you upload that gun photo to Google being
Yandex, uh, whatever I, and it comes back with.
Yeah.
We also found this image being hosted
multiple other places on the internet.
Well, a possibly for that threat, it just went
down and we're having school districts shut
down, schools alone.
Just on that threat.
Don't come to school at Memorial.
Here's a photo of a gun.
That's, there's a lot more factors that need to
be taken in consideration if there was specificity
in that language.
And there was that image came back
like zero results.
I'm like, okay, we either, we have
a concern here.
Right?
And even something as simple as, as, uh,
ensuring police know that regardless of what
you do on social media.
So the big idea, you know, from parents to, to
educators, to schools is, oh, I deleted that post.
You did on your profile, but you don't think
Facebook or Instagram or Tik TOK stores, still
everything that you've done, every private
message you've ever sent on social media,
regardless of you delete.
Law enforcement can get back.
Right?
Right.
You, as a user of Facebook can actually,
whether you use Facebook or Instagram or any
platform, you can actually go into Facebook
through your settings, request everything that
Facebook has on you.
Right.
It's going to give you an and I was blown away
when I first did this.
Um, I requested information on
Facebook, on what they had about me.
And I've used Facebook for over 10 years.
My Facebook account now is dead empty.
I'm like, I don't want anything.
I don't use it.
It's, it's mainly to keep track of friends
around the world.
So I said, well, there's nothing on my profile.
They, they probably don't have anything.
And boy was I wrong.
They had every photo I've ever liked.
Every, every private message, every photo
uploaded, every video uploaded, every place
I checked in, they even had all of my private
messages and every contact in my phone.
Because when you download an application at
one time, you may have given it permission
or at one time it didn't need permission.
Did
it exactly think about the apps you downloaded?
People were just like, okay.
Okay.
I just want the app, but right.
Why is this app asking for access to my
contacts for convenience to go through your
phone, to figure out who else has the app?
So you can add them as friends saying, oh yeah.
Uh, you know, Nick from your contact list
also has Snapchat.
What'd you like to add them as a friend?
It's cause we're in the generation of,
of, I don't want to say being lazy, but
jeez convenience.
Exactly.
Right.
It's for convenience rather than for security,
but the minute you allow an app access to your
contacts, guess what?
They have their context.
So some of the three-letter agencies
that I'm going down and I'm keynote
presenting at.
And I tell them that they're like, Do you
know how many people in our phone are some quite
high up individuals in the intelligence world.
And I'm like, yeah, I
do get access
to that.
Exactly.
So there's, there's vulnerabilities there.
So just things to think about at the, of the day
it's awareness, there's actually a great, uh,
there's a great few documentaries online.
I listened to a podcast called, called
reply all it's a tech based focus podcast.
Uh, there's a great Netflix
documentary called the social dilemma.
If you've ever seen it on Netflix, it
just talks about how these applications
are really businesses, manipulating everything
we do daily huge, right.
And their algorithms and the way that
they're doing things.
So we're getting
that dopamine.
Exactly.
Whatever we can do to trigger that and
keep people on it.
Exactly.
So, well, what about that Netflix one with
the, uh, the cat killer.
Oh,
don't F with cats.
So that's actually a funny that you
bring that up.
Um, our organization actually just previous
to my, myself coming on, dealt with that because
what they don't share and I hope I don't get
in trouble for saying this, what they share,
what they don't share is, do you remember
where they sent, uh, the body parts to,
yeah.
One was a school year in Vancouver.
Did they say that in the, in a duck?
Okay.
I didn't know if they said that, but yeah,
that's why we were involved and they send
it to a school here.
They sent it to the politicians, but, but
everything that, those that, that I can't
remember her name and the other gentleman, same
where there, you know, what's the street pole
look like in Montreal and they're going on
Google maps and here's a gas station and the
view up like that.
Open source intelligence.
That's what I'm doing daily.
That is actually probably one of the
best documentaries that you can watch to really
understand how, you know, things that you
have in front of you can lead to finding you
like the wall sockets.
Uh, I think on one photo where like that's not
north American, that's European and right.
And things like that.
That's everything that we're doing and
that's open source intelligence to, to,
so there's going to be some computer algorithms
you can run through.
That'll be just AI learning.
You can say I'm looking for, I mean like apple
has it with your photos.
You can say a boat, you can type
into your search.
It'll show you all the things that was
a boat in there.
It's like, wow, that's pretty good.
Do they have the same sort of thing for,
uh, more of an open source or for search
of these things?
Or there
was a website that I think just became paid.
I only think it's actually a few dollars.
I think it's called PIM eyes pimp.
PIM eyes and you can run a picture of your face
and it actually scans the whole internet.
And I did this on myself and I was like, okay.
You know, I always test things on myself or, or
work colleague first.
And I was like, oh my goodness.
I did not know that photo.
It was like, you know, when I was like super
young, you know, they, they have photographers
at the club and, and I'm like 21.
And they're like, Hey, smile for the camera.
It's going to be put on our, our
promotion website.
And I'm like not thinking about it at the time.
And, and I'm like, they found that photo
from like 14 years ago, know that photo, right?
There's, there's many photos, there's many
photos that are out there and, and, um,
Yandex, a Russian based search engine has
great facial recognize.
Facial conditions is insane that we
have out right now.
That's publicly available that we have.
I remember watching a, um, uh, I think it was
a documentary or it may, could have been
a, uh, just a quick, uh, news clip on it.
I think it was over in China and they
had a guy and he said, okay, cool run.
You probably know this one better than I do.
Are you talking about the social score that
they have in China?
Are you talking?
Oh
no, no, no.
They said, okay, we're going to try this.
We have however millions of people over there
and we'll see how long it takes to find them.
And we're going to give them a headstart,
go run mind you.
They also have cameras everywhere, too.
Right.
And through facial recognition and this
guy, he was gone.
They give a big head, start, click,
go thing turns on.
And it didn't take any time at all
when they found the
guy.
And that's, that's the.
Oh, it's I look it on, on both sides.
It's like, Hey, at what point is there
the privacy to, to the monitoring of
citizens, to the big brother and everything
is talking about.
And I mean, I truly believe that if we
were just to have no agencies monitoring
what we're doing online, there's going
to be issues happening.
The reason why there's certain agencies, you
know, possibly, as I say, big brother is because,
well, it's really their job to keep us safe, but
we've elected people in.
Who've hired people to keep us safe and
yeah, and it's all information we're
putting out there.
And the facial recognition is
absolutely insane.
And, and, you know, I was just talking
about this, the social score in China, uh, you
as a citizen spit on the ground as you're
walking jaywalk, uh, you, um, do things
that maybe don't make you the best citizen.
This is.
This is actually black mirror.
This is a black mirror episode, but it's
happening in real life.
You get a social score, your score goes below
a certain amount.
You are possibly banned from flying or buying
this or buying that.
And it's all based on trying to keep it
citizens in line in line.
Right.
And that is a black mirror
episode that just gets scary.
I mean, all of it, all of it, the farther we
advanced it to this gets.
And get scariest like Ilan.
He talks about artificial intelligence.
He says like, that's one of the most
scary things around.
They should be a, a, an oversight body to
watch what we're doing
there was.
And I just, I read this in the news and I, in
no way have had time to follow up with this.
Um, but they were saying that there was an, uh,
a bot that they created artificial intelligence
and it actually.
I don't know what it did is it spent some
time online or it, it, it fed it some, you
know, forums to look at.
And they said that the bot actually came
out to be a little bit racist and homophobic.
I remember, you know, the AI is just there's.
We always hear those horror stories and
what's that one with will Smith, right?
Where I think that's camera, what it's called.
People are probably screaming into
the mic right now.
Maybe it's that movie, but yeah,
it's, it's the world.
And, and, you know, I travel a lot.
I'm I'm I was just spent a week on the road
and, and some days I'm gone for three weeks,
some days I'm gone for a month, some days I
literally just go to the states for, for a
day and a half, right.
Over a hundred flights a year.
And a lot of the time I'm like, Hey,
I have to pay bills.
I have to, I have to, you know, log into
different accounts when I'm on the road.
I have to, uh, people are probably going
through the airport.
Rushing logging into their banking on the
open wifi in the, in the, in the airport, sending
some money to an account, paying their bills, not
even thinking about it.
Somebody could be going to a Starbucks and,
and sitting down at the Starbucks, connecting
to wifi and logging into passwords, checking
their social media.
But what I could do if I was nefarious minded,
nefarious minded is by up, what's called a
wifi pineapple, right?
I could be sitting in my truck, literally in the
parking lot of Starbucks, I could be plugging it
in and doing my thing.
I can have my computer going.
I can name my wifi, pineapple Starbucks.
You're going to see possibly two Starbucks
pops up, but the amount of people that go through
there, they might just click the first one.
And it could be mine.
You're connected to the internet, but it's
connected to me giving you internet, right.
Or there's multiple ways of doing this, but it's
essentially kind of.
Key logging, right.
What you're doing, what passwords
you're putting in.
You may be thinking you're just checking
Facebook, but really I'm actually seeing
what you're doing in the backend.
So, you know, I always suggest, you
know, you're using a VPN or definitely,
definitely do not.
Like when I go to my hotel and I live in a
hotel for like a week, I gotta go, I gotta do my
banking on my computer.
I hotspot off my phone or I'll just
do it off my phone.
I'm not connected.
Exactly.
Right.
So little things like that, right.
Where we need to be aware of.
Do we know if so key logging?
Of course, if I have a direct key logger,
I remember years ago I had, when he could plug
in the computer, plug it into the, in line with
your, your, uh, keyboard there and every keystroke
would be locked.
And then you can key log through programs and like
monitoring or specter software type type things
that you can install.
But yeah.
If you auto-populate a password, something
that's stored from your key chain.
That's a good question.
I wonder that's a good question.
And I, that is actually a really good question.
I,
because if they're using a has to, um,
I guess it depends on how it transmits
and how it goes.
I, I want to say no because you're
not actually putting a password.
It's just auto-populating but I, I couldn't, I
couldn't confirm or deny that I never, and by
the way, I never tell anyone to, you know,
save your passwords on your devices.
Like if I have your computer right now
and you're like, huh, go to the washroom.
Uh, you know, if you're bored, just
go on my computer.
I can go to the settings on your internet
and figure it out.
Accounts you have saved your passwords for, and
then get into actually open up your passwords
through your browser.
So I had actually a work colleague.
Uh, he used my, I was away for like a week.
He came up from the states, uh,
sat at my computer.
He logs out of my email logs into his.
Okay.
Right.
And then I was like, I was like, there was
someone else logged in and I was like,
so I go through my settings on my computer.
I figured out, uh, the account he used and he
actually had saved his password because he was
like inspector tools.
No, it's actually through your settings, it's
through your settings on your browser.
Uh, because when you, auto-populate a
password, you go save password stars, right?
Yeah.
It shows with stars, but in the backend settings
of your internet, you can actually view your
password that way.
So I, I messaged him.
I go, Hey man, uh, use my computer.
He goes, yeah, thanks.
You know, I know you were gone.
And I said, and I just shut this password.
And he's like, excuse me.
And I said, you know, a clear, clear history
before you leave.
Yeah.
Um, and, and don't auto-populate and save
your passwords, right?
That's for convenience rather than for security.
And, and sometimes you'll need to know the password
to the computer to do that, but just little
things like that, right.
You go in, uh, the, the best, the funniest
thing is, you know, I got to go get a new
phone, uh, tomorrow.
I guarantee, and this happens every time I'm
at an apple store, you get, uh, you get that mom
and dad running around, getting their phone,
you get the kid at one phone, testing it out,
but what does he do?
And he's logging into his Facebook or
his Instagram there.
I need to save it and keeps it open.
And I'm like, okay.
Right.
Like, so yeah, you gotta, you gotta be mindful
on what you're doing and logging in and into
what, what devices.
And so these kids just, they just want to check
their Facebook or social media, but then it's
logged in and maybe all your personal, and
so, yeah, don't auto save your passwords
essentially as well.
You
know, I guess it's less on the open source side
when the people start going in, in that area.
It's just human error, right?
Totally.
Yeah.
I remember I had a, um, there was one law
firm that I was doing some work for and a,
they called me up and they said there's, uh,
a woman came in and she was having problems
with her husband, wanted to divorce him.
And the lawyers do the first thing that
lawyers typically will do is pour a lot of
cold water on you.
Right.
Try and get some, some common sand syndrome.
It's going to cost a lot.
It's going to be a difficult process.
It's gonna, anyways, they go through this
whole thing and she says, well, I got money and she
pulls out a can, so big water cash inside here.
Like what
then?
Like, like an actual, like paint
cans, tin cans.
I think
from what it was relayed to me, it was like a
soup can or something.
Right.
And what if a cast, like, where'd you get this?
Oh, my husband, he's got a whole bunch of these.
Right.
Okay.
What's going on?
And he started digging a little bit anyways,
say, um, I, uh, they contacted me on, on
some of the work that needed to be done.
And then I spoke to some of the security agencies
that we do work with and they just needed to
do a detail on, on the individual and the place.
Of course she gave permission.
They go in, but the.
Everything, uh, thumb drives and it tells
you what's been put on, what's been taken off,
uh, there's uh, little tidbits of information
with data timestamps, your toaster, right?
Like everything that they can, they go in there and
they securely properly image these things.
So that's a little less on the open source,
but from a privacy standpoint, um, also
I guess, knowing who you're with right.
Would be, would be a good situation or
your buddy there goes, luckily you're honest.
And you tell them like, look, don't, don't use
your password like this, but that's a, uh, it does
bring up a really good
point.
So, Travis, you, you, I thought about a story
here because do you ever, what do you do with
your phones when you, when you, when you get.
And you may be different for, you may be different
than most so, but everyone else thinking,
I guarantee you, your folks listening, they're
like, well, that's a 500, $700 phone.
I'm going to resell it.
Yeah.
Nope.
Not, not
one.
I can show you where they all are
and I'll show you.
I have probably 50 that, that phone that
has to go back to work and I'm going to be
like, ah, we should just, you know, because
criminals were going to like garage sales or,
or buying fax machine.
Think of when you think of your fax
machine or your.
How much personal information you are
sending through that,
your scanner and fax machine, they are so
poorly encrypted for the most part that you
can pull that data off.
Yes.
Yeah.
So I sell my phone.
I plug in, I buy for 10 grand, a celebrate kit.
Okay.
Celebrate a lot of time.
Law enforcement will use that to extract
data off devices, right?
Every photo that you take on your phone,
even though you delete it can still
possibly be extracted.
There's.
There's a lot of information.
I sell my phone to the wrong person, even
though I factory reset it, there's still ways
of possibly getting back that information.
And I have a good friend of mine.
Who's also with me in, in, in certain, uh, with
the , uh, influenced activities in, in, uh,
here within the military.
That's what he specializes in.
Right.
And, uh, so you plug in this celebrate.
And criminals, we're getting information
from facts, scanners, and, and now they're,
they're exploiting people who have, you know,
just want to get rid of their equipment and
make money off of it.
But unbeknownst to these individuals,
these criminals are getting some pretty
sensitive information.
Think of all the checks, all the documents, all
the information you scan, think about contents on
your phone, and now you have these individuals
extracting all that data.
Well, okay.
Back could crumble a business
from what I understand, I, and maybe law
enforce is going to have different tools, but the
I-phones particularly now every generation
that comes out a simple factory reset on that
can, can be very, very difficult to retrieve any
information.
Yeah.
And that's, and that's something that, that
is definitely, if you're going to sell
your phone right.
Factory reset it.
I, uh, It is going to be, it is starting
to be a lot harder.
Um, the iPhones are getting very, um,
very privacy focused.
I mean, even, even back to the San Bernandino
shooting though, uh, I, I, they couldn't get
backdoor access, so it wouldn't give them no,
because that's a, that would be bad on their
end for all users.
So they had to go to a third party,
which eventually kind of got through.
And so, yeah, there's, I mean, there's always
ways of getting through to things or information,
depending on how much money you spend on
these celebrated kits.
But, you know, the basic thing is I phones
are, are definitely a great phone, uh,
your apple computers.
Um, but
Peter, however, because we've dealt
with a few of these X years, a company here
locally, TCS forensics, parent used to own it.
I believe he sold it now.
Um, anyways, we've worked with them on
some files and, uh, We had, I remember one
in particular fellow wiped the, uh, the
computer then through a bleaching software on
there, but there's still a lot of information
that can pull up.
I I'll tell you right now, like w hopefully
work, lets me keep this phone and dispose
of it on my own.
Like, it's, it's going to go in the microwave or
it's going to go, uh, you know, uh, I'm gonna have
a bonfire on the weekend.
It's going to kind of go in there.
I going to get rid of it in, in a,
in a certain way.
I'm never, never going to sell a phone.
And a lot of times it's $500 you could
get from that.
But
what's $500 in the grand
scheme of things and don't get me wrong.
It, no one may do any harm to it.
Like some kid could buy it.
They're like, yeah, I just put my, get
my SIM card, do this, but who knows?
You don't want to be.
It's like winning the lottery.
It may never happen, but this is the lottery
you don't want to win.
Right.
So with open source, I guess, whereas
looking at before, we're talking about
artificial intelligence and learning software
to be able to help scan.
But when we talk about the don't F with cats,
that's just lots of people out there, or with
the Shiloh buff one with the, uh, this is a lot of
people on Reddit looking at, do Osen agencies
rely on crowdsourcing information.
I'll tell you right now, when a shooting happens,
I have somebody monitor Reddit for Chen eight
con there's another site called Kiwi farms,
because especially on Reddit, there's almost
like a, I like to call it the Reddit bureau
of investigation.
It's, it's probably a bunch of individuals that
you would picture, you know, drinking mountain
Dew and mom, and dad's basement with a lot of
time on their hands.
Yeah.
It's just, but these, oh, I've met some of these
individuals who are just.
Geniuses.
Yeah.
And so this one analyst may not think they're
doing a lot, but I say scan that like, just
keep refreshing these forums because these
individuals, kids, adults, they're just
bombarding these pages with everything they're
finding it is we are just relying because we
have our analysts doing the same thing and we're
finding the same and maybe more, or maybe
not enough, but I say, you will sit and refresh
this page for the next few hours and you will
document everything you find, even though we
may have document over here, but there is going
to be information that like literally when the
name of the shooter is announced, people are
going to their page.
They're finding the killer's profile because
within no time at all, Facebook, Instagram,
they're deleting these, these people off.
They're also applying upload to the archive.
Exactly.
Right.
I remember when I was investigating and
working at the, uh, uh, the Christchurch
New Zealand shooter.
Right.
Okay.
My job was to find the manifest.
That's that was my sole job.
I fist scanning these forums.
I found it on this, the, uh, Kiwi farms
going to the link.
It was literally linked to this one,
this one page, um, for no time at all.
And I got there just a little bit,
not fast enough.
So I'm like, well, okay.
It's.
It's not hosted there anymore.
I found a link though.
So what did I do?
Put that link way back machine way back machine.
What they did is is they, they screenshot
everything on the internet and they noticed
that there was a lot of individuals going
to this, this one page.
So it must be important that you read of
themselves there.
They had screenshot the whole amount of Festo
and I'm getting content back, but I relied on
someone posting the link to it from a crowdsource
page, like this thing.
So yeah, we are definitely using it.
And I, and I guarantee police are doing
the same thing.
Other agencies are doing the same thing
and it would be silly not to, it's like having
someone do the work for you and, and there's
some smart individuals out in this field.
So yeah, Reddit and all these different
forums, I'd be careful on the four channels
and the eight cons.
It's really the cesspool of the internet.
Not, not good.
Content goes, they're kind of more, more
to read it, but yeah.
Um, I think it was called a Cicada.
There is a, uh, there is a picture that went
out on the internet.
One.
And anyways, they, I, I think it turned out to
be a great big online puzzle and they're
trying to, they're hiding clues within information
and they just go in behind the picture.
They look at the metadata, they find
something and they ended up working themselves
all the way, all the way around the world
to try and solve the I'll put a link to it,
a cicadas, something really interesting
sort of thing.
But it kind of reminds me about, uh, this whole
crowdsourcing effort for, for intelligence.
And when we talk about these guys who are
drinking the mountain Dew and in mom's
basement, man, I don't know, they got the
time on their hands.
They can do some devastating thing.
With a little bit of knowledge and time.
Yeah.
And that, and that's it they've, you know, they
have, that's what they dedicate their lives to.
And they have a lot of time it's just
passionate to them.
And, uh, if you're not relying on crowd source
data for sometimes these intelligence gathering,
then, then you're missing key pieces to the puzzle.
Right.
So here's
one, uh, maybe just a little bit off topic,
but a more of a personal thought on it would be.
You talk about in the military.
And I believe recently in Canada, we had a, a news
announcement in regards to COVID information
that was being released.
Did you read any about that?
What specifically?
I believe that was specifically stated that,
um, it was, uh, uh, I ain't measures were used
in order to gain COVID.
Compliance COVID
vaccine.
Again, I didn't read that.
I thought you were referring to
something else that happened out east.
Uh, but, uh, I what'd you read back to you, so it
sounds more interesting.
I don't know if I, I don't know if I want
to bring this up.
It's a certain issue that happens, uh, in,
uh, in more of the east coast of Canada.
I'll leave it at that.
Uh, but yeah, I mean, I think every single
day when you and I are influencing people's
activities, the news, the, the people you meet
on the streets, um, and, and whatever way you look
at it, it could be, how do we get the most amount
of people vaccinated so they can be kept safe
and, and maybe there is a component to it.
I know that the Canada's, uh, Canada doesn't do.
That type of work on our citizens.
Doesn't do that type of
the news release set was that the actually did.
And I don't know if it was a bit of a training
exercise to see how effective they could be
added or what all the details were, but it was,
it was plastered up in a
bunch of different plans.
I don't know if I want to speak, speak
specifically to that.
Cause I don't know full details.
I may know what you're referring to, but you
know, um, you know, every single day we're, we're,
we're being manipulated.
Um, you know, I, I even, um, I even was applying
for a job once and I figured if I'm going
into this interview, they know about me.
Why not figure out what I can about them.
Right.
And so, you know, through some basic searches and
figuring out maybe who the hiring manager is.
W I want this person that liked me.
I want this job, right.
If I come to you and, and, you know, even, even
coming out in him, he going out on a date on
the weekend, or you're going to, what's stopping
me from going into an interview or on a date
or whatever to search for that, that hiring
manager to figure out his or her likes dislikes.
And maybe I just spend my conversation a
way to say, oh yeah, you know, what do you
like to do for fun?
I just bought a boat and I like to go boating.
You want a boat?
That's, that's crazy.
And you're just starting to relate to somebody and
you get back into this more social engineering
aspect and biohacking.
Yeah.
And, and there's, you know, there's some,
there's some great, um, great individuals that
I follow on Twitter.
And on different forums who specialize in, in,
in social engineering, biohacking, uh, open
source intelligence and, and, um, you know, I'm
always learning from them because they're
coming out with new techniques and tactics.
And, um, I think that's the biggest
thing is you're ever interested in, in
this type of field.
Type in online, you know, open source intelligence
techniques, what is social engineering?
And you're going to be like, that's
social engineering that if someone did
that to me and I didn't even realize it
and nefarious, and it can be used for
nefarious means, but it's not necessarily
no, not necessarily.
And I, every, every job interview that I'm
going into or every, Hey know, possibly a
new client I'm meeting, I'm, I'm searching them.
You better believe I'm going to search
them online to figure out who they are, uh,
uh, you know, what they're about and what
their interests are.
So maybe I can just even connect with them
just that much more.
Right.
All right.
So I think it
makes sense.
And we have the tools and the ability to do
it, to not use that I think would be a.
A little foolhardy.
Yeah.
And you know, I think we have a lot of catching
up to do with our, our, uh, different
agencies to, you know, going into the RCMP
Depot training league.
It's important for them to be.
And I don't know if they do, I'm not,
I'm not a member.
And I can only imagine they're, they're playing
catch up, but training these officers in depth
that you know, what you're doing online can
come back to haunt you.
What you're doing online.
Hey, like I always, I always have, uh,
when I'm talking to parents and the parents
are like, yeah, my kid wants a phone
and wants to do this.
And, or even kids come and talk to me and say,
you know, I really want to be a law enforcement
officer when I grow up.
I said, that's great, very rewarding job, but
what are you doing now?
So when 10 years comes up and you're
in that undercover role, something you're
doing now, doesn't come back to haunt you.
And they're like, I didn't think about that.
Right.
And it's always, what's, it's always kind of
way back in the day, we would make one mistake
and there's been, you know, politicians or
individuals going into, into that politics.
Who've done something like 10 years ago, but
we know the opposing party is going to find
it and they don't even run because they're
like, oh, it's gonna haunt me down the road.
And we've seen that happen through
different Paul Paul.
I know I was just going to say it, you
know, it's happened to some people, right.
Uh, to, to, to some individuals in various
political roles.
And, and I always like to say.
You're going to make mistakes.
If you're online, you're going to make mistakes,
but let's just hope that mistake doesn't come
back to haunt you down the road or, or being
used in a, in a bad way.
And I, I shared the story as well with,
uh, you know, how important it is to
train your kids, right?
Talk to your kids about what they're posting.
There was a family on vacation and, uh, and
I guarantee, and then for those of you that
are listening, if you have your own kids, ask
them, ask your own kids.
If you, if they know everyone in their
friends list on social.
Um, your, your kids are gonna come back
and maybe lie to you and say, yeah, I do.
But if they have like hundreds of kids
following them and they're like 15, 16,
like, do we really think our, our kids know, like
really know every single one of those, those kids
in their friends list.
So there's a story of a family they're
going to Mexico.
Okay.
So mom and dad take family and a few of
the kids in it and ACU the kids, friends, and
another couple, they go on vacation and
parents that are just there to drink my tea.
I sit on the beach and have a good time, right?
Yeah.
What are the kids doing?
Well, I want to get to the resort.
I want to take a photo.
I want to show to my friends that I'm
on vacation while they're at home.
You know what they're doing, whatever.
Um, and so the kids rush, they start
to post online.
And a few days in one of the kids receives a
message from a, a boy that she's had in her
friends list for her for years, but never actually
met them in real life.
And this boy.
Oh, my gosh, you are you're in
Mexico right now.
I was there last year at this time.
I've actually, I still stayed at the exact
same resort as you and, and down the road, you
should try ziplining at this one place and rock
climbing across the way.
And there's a sea doing place down the road.
And that is I'm so jealous.
We just couldn't afford it this year and
take tons of photos.
And when you get back, maybe we should finally
find time to hang out.
And the girl's like, oh, wow.
Like, yeah, for sure looking kid,
let's go hang out.
And the boys like, well, what are you home?
I'll make time.
And put it put time aside to make time for you.
And then the girl's like, I'll be home Saturday.
I can't wait.
Yeah.
She goes back.
They invoice, enjoy her vacation and they
come home Saturday.
Well, rested go in the door only to find
that their places been broken into this kid.
Even if he was a kid.
Never been to the resort, sees a photo
of him at the resort.
What's a quick Google search.
What's cool in the area.
Right.
And just sharing things that he's probably
reading on like different reviews, but really just
wanting to know when you're going to be home.
I don't care about you.
I don't want to meet you.
I don't care.
I've never been there.
Right.
So things like that.
And, and you want to go on vacation posts when
you get back, do you do things like that?
Your kids are going to want to post
because they want to prove that they're
having a good time.
But yeah, we gotta be careful on those
types of things.
So this, okay.
There's a, a Twitter post, a went
around one time.
And, uh, I dunno if it was a stage comical
thing or what, but this guy he's like,
oh, look at how much weight they've lost.
Right.
He takes a picture of the scale.
Right.
Then the next day you see.
Ah, shit.
How do I delete a post?
Cause he stand on the scale, making his
reflection in the glass, but I, I guess from the
comical side, I, what if somebody goes out there
and they put something online and they're
like, oh shit, I didn't realize that there's
stuff in the reflection.
Right.
Or whatever.
Um, obviously the internet won't forget,
but are there some quick go-tos that people
should be looking at at sort of like maybe
tidying up things of the
yeah.
And you know, if that guy like literally right
away, was he, he posted within a minute or two
later, he deletes like chances are, there's
going to be very minimal people to see it.
Right.
But maybe he, like, he posts the gym, he does
his full hour and a half workout and he comes
back with all these missed messages and
he's like, uh, awkward, um, Who knows how many
people that saw that are going to screenshot.
I like that's, that's comical.
You share it with
everyone.
You're going to screenshot it.
It's just, it's just human nature and how
easy it is to screenshot.
Um, I always tell kids and there's a, there's
a, uh, actually I was investigating a, uh,
a kid in front of a school, um, who had
a gun in front of the school and I didn't
know what school it was.
And so what do I do?
I go to Google maps, do that little street view.
I figure out the, I knew the community, but there
is like 10 schools in that community an hour
and a half later as I'm circling every school.
So I have the photo up on one screen.
I have three monitors.
I have the photo of one screen and I'm literally
going Google maps around the photo to figure.
Okay.
That's that looks like the school.
There is the, the playground
that's the school.
And so we go, we get security footage.
We figure it out from there, but you can
probably hide your hide.
Uh, and I give another story.
A, a young girl had her, her mom.
Okay.
Got like an old school Volkswagen beetle.
Okay.
She is posting on the, on the inner driveway
sitting on the vehicle, like look at the,
look at the karma, just Scott, but she's
posting on the street.
No, no house riders in the background,
but she lived on a corner and on the
corner on her lawn was.
Street signs at the top.
So I take the street signs, I plug it
into Google maps, spin it around.
And now I have the front door of her house.
Right.
So, you know, we have to think about, you
know, what are you taking a photo of?
And I literally just takes a few seconds.
What's.
What's on the table.
Like during COVID we saw a huge, huge increase
in people just wanting to take photos of their,
with their home setup.
There was a, a teacher who took a photo of
her, of her desk.
She got a, she had it, she got a kitten.
She, she fostered a kitten during COVID and,
uh, you know, it didn't have a home to go to, and
it was at the shelter.
So she's like, ah, y'all foster this kid.
She takes a photo of her desk, but off the
side where a few log-in usernames and passwords.
And so she sends it to her class.
It's literally an elementary school, like
grade six or seven class.
She goes, I can't wait to share with you on zoom,
my cat and the kids.
Like, what is this?
Kid's like, I don't care about the cat.
I see the passwords where they're supposed to
logs into the calendar.
It just takes a second.
Right.
There's there's ways of, of, of going onto your
social media and actually going to the back end
through inspect element, extracting the photo and
possibly getting a higher resolution of that image.
So yeah, I see kids all the time where
blur out your license.
Because, especially in the states, I can
run your, your license plate through various
license plate readers to figure out information
about your, your plates are what you, uh,
here in Canada, it's a little bit different.
What's in the background.
Like I could take a photo of you right now,
but over your right shoulder, there's, you
know, possibly your, your business license
to the back, or I could zoom into just it's
situational awareness, but what's in that photo,
that's going to give away information about you
slow down and have some disciplines.
We're so
fast to do things in it, put it out there
and get the likes and comments and validation.
And, uh, you know, adults could be just
as bad for this.
And, and it, it really just takes
that extra second.
Uh, I love my mom because you know, when I'm
doing remembrance day, when I'm doing certain
things, like I don't, I don't want her to post
photos of me in uniform.
Because God forbid I ever have to go and deploy
or do something she's in connected to me.
And I don't want her, you know, just in
unified, just maybe just don't want it
on hers, her profile.
And so she, I love her and what she
started to do this, she actually, um, she
sends me every photo.
She wants to upload it.
She goes, is this okay to upload?
Like, it's crazy.
And I'm like, oh, I'm like, bless
your soul mom.
Like, this is awesome.
And she'll she'll and I'll be like, Hey,
just look out for this.
And she goes, oh my God, I didn't even see that.
Right.
There's like a sticky note off to the corner.
That's like very blurry, but zoom in a little
bit and make it out.
It's just, what's around you.
Right.
So yeah, just take that few extra seconds to
just think slow it down.
Yeah.
A lot of information.
And I know we're just scratching
the tip of this.
Is there anything that we should be talking about?
Is there anything else that we haven't
talked about that we should really
think about getting
it.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good question.
There, there is a lot of information and really
it comes down to, I mean, some of you could be
listening and be like, well, the cast is great
knowledge, but like, I don't have the time.
I don't, I don't have, uh, I have so many
things going on already.
And I, I think it just starts with having
a conversation with yourself about how
you're going to better protect yourself, having
a conversation with your kids, significant
others, depending on what role you're in, uh,
what your job is, uh, having a conversation
about what they're putting out there for me.
Um, I, I, I have an iPhone.
I text my friends, but I also use
apps like signal.
I use an app called confide depending on
the conversation I want to have with sometimes
people around the world.
Confide is one of those apps where I message you
to read your message.
I actually have to scroll down the
screen and every line disappears as I scroll
past the next line.
Interesting.
When I want to reply to you, there's no
constant thread.
If I want to scream.
You only get one line.
I get nothing.
So I get kicked out of the app, right?
When I go to the grocery store and I, they say,
what's your number for your store rewards?
I don't give them my Friel phone number.
Right.
I have some, I have a, I have a fake number
in my head that I use.
And then I'll go from there.
I mean, yeah, there is a, still a vulnerability
with that because maybe some, maybe someone else
could use your number and they say, you know, what
is the name behind it?
And maybe the, so you just also be careful
situation awareness.
When I go into a hotel, I spend more than
enough time in hotels.
I have a card I carry with me because every
time I go to a hotel, they ask welcome,
sir, uh, you know, welcome to this hotel.
What's your name?
And or email or phone number for records for
your file to look you up.
Right?
So on this card, I have three lines, my full
name, my phone number and my email and I place it,
I place it down and they say, okay, thank you.
I take it back after when they give me a room key
and this has happened many of times, there's a
big line of people that are like, all right.
You know, and I'll say, please, don't
say my name out loud.
Not cause I tinfoil hat wearing individual.
I just, I don't know.
Who's behind me.
Right.
I then say when they're about to give me my car,
Um, thank you, please.
Don't say my number of my room out loud.
Cause a lot of times I'll be like, all right, so
Nick, you know, you're on room, uh, you're on floor
for, at a, you know, four 16 and I'm like, and I've
had to do the awkward, like, do you mind
giving me a new room?
Because, uh, now you've just told the
whole line, my right it's kind of awkward.
And I, I get kind of, you know, especially when I
don't sleep for, for a long time on the road.
I remember, uh, there was somebody that was,
uh, uh, you know, all old, busy and old.
I'll just kind of rushed to their room and
they're grabbing things out of their wallet and
they're grabbing things from here and there.
And the guy's like, you know, what's your
phone number for, for looking you up.
And there, he just blurting it out loud
and I'm standing there and I'm like, I just
want to go to bed, but I'm going to make this
a teachable moment.
And I blurred it back to the guy and
the guy looks at me and he's like, what.
Ah, you just, I thought you were telling me
your phone number.
Well, now I have it.
And he's like, oh, that's weird, man.
And I talked about what I do and, um, for,
uh, there's a great website called blur.
Blur is, uh, a, uh, car masking service.
It's a paid for app paid for a service
where you put in your credit cards or other
information you use that kind of drop dead
number that then forwards to your real kind of
credit card number.
Uh, no one, no one really has my real email.
I mean, I'm sure you can get it, but if, if you
want my email, I give you a, uh, forwarding email,
third 33 mail.com go to 33 mails, sign up, put in
your real email address.
And then it allows you to create a kind of
a drop dead 40 Neal.
Let my email could literally be you
have like your unique username, but I could,
I could have my email.
You're like, what's your email.
It could be like, oh, it's Travis Bader at.
And then whatever my username is.
And you're like, what?
But it could be whatever you want.
So when, when I start getting spam
from Starbucks or whatever, I can just
drop it, get a new one, things like that.
So invest into your numbers, invest into
your email addresses and, and maybe just do
a bit of research, how to protect myself with,
you know, different tools and tactics when it comes
to, or even just even just searching what is
open source intelligence, because it may open
up your mind to other things or capabilities.
And you're like, I didn't know that
someone could do that.
Right.
And so then it may spark your knowledge into
learning a bit more.
And, and if, uh, if, uh, if anyone has any
questions, I'm sure they can reach out to you.
I'd be more than happy to, to kind of, uh, talk
with them or guide them in the right direction
with just really.
At the end of day situation awareness
and understanding what we're putting out there.
And those close to us are also putting out there.
I'm going to put some links up on YouTube.
I'll put links up through the podcast.
And if people who are listening to this have
questions and would like to hear more.
I'm sure we could probably arrange a time
to go through those in a future podcast.
Nick, thank you so much for taking the
time to be here on the
silver.
Appreciate it.
Thanks Travis.