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May 06, 2024
Darknet Diaries with Jack Rhysider | Episode #83
The podcast episode delves into the inception, evolution, and impact of the "Darknet Diaries," hosted by Jack Rhysider. It explores how Jack transitioned from a career in network and security engineering to creating a top-charting podcast that explores the hidden and often ominous aspects of the internet and cybersecurity. The discussion also touches upon the power of sto…
The podcast episode delves into the inception, evolution, and impact of the "Darknet Diaries," hosted by Jack Rhysider. It explores how Jack transitioned from a career in network and security engineering to creating a top-charting podcast that explores the hidden and often ominous aspects of the internet and cybersecurity. The discussion also touches upon the power of storytelling in cybersecurity, the educational impact of the podcast, and future trends in cyber threats and media representation.
Step into the shadows of the internet with Jack Rhysider, the master storyteller behind Darknet Diaries. In Episode 83 of Great Things with Great Tech, we go deep into the world of cyber security, exploring Jack's world of hackers, breaches, and the dark side of technology. Jack shares his journey from a security network engineer to the creator of one of the most captivating podcasts in the tech sphere, revealing how he brings the hidden stories of the internet to light.
Darknet Diaries was founded in 2017 and is a full time gig for Jack. We talk about techniques in captivating audiences and what worked in the early days of Darknet Diaries.
Topic Overview:
Explore the origins and evolution of Darknet Diaries.
Discuss the impact of the podcast on the cybersecurity industry and its listeners.
Uncover the complexities of narrating the secretive and intense stories from the digital underground.
Talking Points:
The Genesis of Darknet Diaries: How Jack Rhysider turned a side project into a full-time endeavor that tops podcast charts.
Crafting Engaging Stories: The process and challenges of making cybersecurity incidents both engaging and educational.
Impact on Cybersecurity Awareness: How the podcast has influenced public perception and awareness of cybersecurity.
Evolution of Cyber Threats: Discuss the changes in cyber threats and how they're depicted in media.
Future of Cybersecurity Storytelling: Speculate on the direction and innovations in how cyber narratives might evolve.
☑️ Darknet Diaries Web: https://darknetdiaries.com/
☑️ Jack's Blog: https://blog.lime.link/
☑️ Support the Channel: https://ko-fi.com/gtwgt
☑️ Be on #GTwGT: Contact via Twitter @GTwGTPodcast or visit https://www.gtwgt.com
☑️ Subscribe to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GTwGTPodcast?sub_confirmation=1
☑️ Subscribe to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Y1Fgl4DgGpFd5Z4dHulVX
• Web: https://gtwgt.com
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/GTwGTPodcast
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1519439787?mt=2&ls=1
☑️ Music: https://www.bensound.com
Transcript
RAW
in the depths of the pandemic a friend put me on to darket Diaries a chart topping podcast hosted by Jack Rider this podcast is dark talking about hackers breaches government activity activism cyber crime and everything that hides on the dark side of the internet but how did Jack build this starting from a side project to what is now his day job it's a privilege to have Jack on episode 83 of great things with great Tech hello and welcome to episode 83 of great things with great Tech the podcast highlighting companies doing great
things with great technology my name's Anthony speri and in this episode we're entering the dark side of the internet into the world of cyber security storytelling with one of the most intriguing podcasts in the infoset community today though we're not talking about a technology stack or a company but rather one of the best podcasts that brings the dark corners of the internet and security into the light through real life stories hacks attacks and the people behind them that podcast is darket Diaries and joining me today is
one of the best storytellers on the internet Jack Rider welcome to the show Jack hi thanks for having me I'm excited to be here yeah awesome not not as excited as I am to have you believe me but it's it's going to be great and I've been looking forward to this for so long but just before we get into the show so um as a reminder if you like great things with great Tech and would like to feature in future episodes please click on the link on the show notes head to the podcast platforms all hosted and
distributed by Spotify podcasts and YouTube as well um hit the like And subscribe button all that kind of stuff that we do say at the beginning of the show so with that quickly out of the way Jack firstly again thanks for being on but I it was interesting when I got you because I I thought you know how am I going to actually structure this do I do I change format the show or do we just treat the Dark Net Diaries as a company and give your background the origin story and that's definitely what I want to do so firstly just introduce yourself
and give a little bit of a background as to who who Jack was before darknet Diaries yeah I'm Jack recer I make the podcast Dark Net Diaries which at this point has um roughly like 800 600,000 800,000 downloads per episode and uh it's my full-time job and and I'm doing very well with it and so how did I get here I was uh I went to you know University to get a degree in computer engineering and from there became a network engineer and then SEC security engineer and I was I mean I was eventually really fascinated by podcasts
and wanted there to be a podcast that had this great level of Storytelling but talked about cyber security in ways of like you know a big breach or someone breaking into something it's it's high drama it's exciting there's some stuff going on there and it doesn't need to be Hollywood fakeness or invented there's some really cool stories that are real and I want those documented and I want those told in a very exciting way with a lot of music and high production and try to get the people who were there on the
show to tell me what happened and so that's what the show is and that's what I make yeah and you completely nail that and even from the first episode I went back and listened to the first episode um and you nailed the introduction and the music from the start and actually it was funny because I think as podcasts start usually if you listen to episode 1 versus 20 versus 100 they evolve and change a fair bit in terms of structure and the way that they're actually laid out and the music and whatnot but you
kind of nailed it from the start um how how did you but more importantly what was was there any particular incident that happened in your in your professional career where you went holy crap that's awesome or that's amazing in a in a in a negative way because obviously this world of cyber security isn't great for the people getting hacked or you know the people that are on the other side of it but there was one particular incident where you went I can make a show out of this well it wasn't so much like that but it was more
of not being able to get the people in my department to budge and I'm like there's some crazy stuff happening we really need to take security seriously and they're just kind of yawning falling asleep or even going so far as to say I don't think a a breach to our company would be that big of a deal and I was just like I've failed you in every level of trying to convince you how important this is right so how how do I convince someone else's manager to approve that budget to get that and that is kind of
what I have in my head as I'm writing certain episodes of like how important this is to your business to have a good security policy or whatever the case is and and and I think maybe there's something there that that falls in line for what you're asking yeah and I I think like Fast Forward today like even now in what I do like I've I've kind of shifted my narrative when I'm talking to you know cxxs and business owners to try and scare the out of them to try and make them aware that if you do have
an incident if you get attacked and you can't recover in the case of you know where we play the game at VH I want to make him aware that this is like your livelihood not just for the company not just for you know the revenue or the brand reputation but also for you like food on your table so I think it's interesting that you said that because I think what we're still trying to do today is we're trying to scare these guys to make sure they take this seriously yeah I think um another thing that kind of has got me going early on
was you know being part of the cyber security space as a security engineer um I wanted to get something going I was I wanted to be like an engineer or or not an engineer but like an entrepreneur or or some online business and I was throwing a lot of things at the wall trying and somebody told me at a uh at a conference that if you can explain complex things simply there is some money there or you know and and I was just like what does that mean like I I can explain things as clear as I possibly can but it's still it's just my
manager I'm talking to or my customers where's the extra money and I think that is one of the things that kind of allowed me to split off and do what I do because having that ability to explain some of these really difficult things in a way in in maybe layman's terms or in a way that anyone can understand is really interesting and and I also sprinkle in with that extra bit of okay well if you know this then maybe you want to learn this next thing or something so I still even provide something for somebody who
already knows it to learn something more so it's not like I'm dumbing it down to a fifth grader level I'm speaking to you as an adult but I'm also adding even more in there and and I think there's something really unique about that that I was able to learn over time and and one of the things that I got good at was uh or how I learned it was um before starting the podcast I was blogging for about seven years yeah and this was where I would just kind of take some lessons learned from work or you know an
error code or something and I'd be like okay there's no there's no Google information about how to solve this error I've got to figure it out on my own and so I would just be like okay here's what I figured out what to do when you hit this error and so it's just kind of like self- notes and this became like well how do I how do I explain this like problem and then and just get to the answer as quickly as we can and not over complicating the situation or make you know when you're troubleshooting
something you really want to isolate the issue as well and so can I isolate this problem can I reproduce it and so I was going through these steps of this is a really complex problem but if you can isolate it to here it becomes much more simple and here's how you can do it and so years and years and years of just trying to explain things to the internet here's how to do this complicated thing as simple as you can is what kind of gave me that skill level to then do it in a podcast form i' be like you know
I've I've been explaining this Con for years I can explain it here as well and absolutely you do that I think that's one of the things that L made of the show is when you just you kind of explain what is in theory a fairly complex way to say breach a network right through the firewalls through the through the front end and then how they move laterally through you know Windows vulnerabilities or what or Linux vulnerabilities whatever it might be but you you explain that in a really you said it in a Layman's way without making
it sound you know too too simple so from my perspective of being a guy who's worked in the industry you know as I have and you know was blogging as well and to your point my blogs early on were all about from problems that I had in my line of work and then looking up and saying he actually no one's talked about that let's now create something where someone can actually improve or learn themselves so it's almost like creating from learning or learning by doing but your success in the show I think from my
perspective is being able to talk about some topics that people relate to in a way that is exciting through a story using great character building but then there's still the awesomeness of the technology that underpins it as well you still talk about the tech and that's what I love about the show yeah I love technology too oh yeah absolutely we wouldn't we wouldn't be in this business if we weren't doing it that's for sure so hey so the you founded the darket diary it started in 20177 uh and but you were still kind of
working at that time so how did you balance that out initially in terms of you know working full-time and then doing a podcast and then seeing it sort of slowly but surely gain momentum and take off yeah and I mean you were also mentioning like go back to episode one what uh you know that was some it s you you were telling me there was some craft and skill there and I think what was going on in those early days is I I really wanted to hear show like this where I wanted a really nice storytelling way of telling me the cyber
security news right so it's like True Crime means cyers cyber crime and I think a lot of cuttingedge news is leaves us with a more questions and answers we don't know who did it or what was impacted and all these kind of things and so you just kind of walk out of that new that article Without Really knowing much more but I'm the kind of I'm kind of a slow News Junkie so I'm like wait let's wait four years six years for all the pieces to fall on the floor and then I'll pick all that up and
I'll finally tell the story Soup To Nuts right we we have the beginning middle and end of this whole story We the person even goes to prison in the end and and it's all wrapped up with a bow right and those are the stories I'm looking for and I love because it really provides this really wonderful Trail to go through and find why someone did it and all this sort of thing so I was looking for that that didn't exist and that's why I made it so that I could hear it right um and and that was kind
of the the whole beginning of it and then when I was like oh I didn't really want to make it but I was like oh crap I I think I'm gonna have to make this because there's no one else making it and I really want it and I love podcast so I might as well go it go for it um and so I had the cyber security knowledge I I could explain things but I didn't have the storytelling aspect figured out and so that was something that I knew I had to focus on right I think a lot of podcasters are like well how do I podcast what mic do I get and
where do I host the files how do I make an RSS feed and all this sort of thing and and to me none of that was on my radar to begin with it was all about how do I make such a good compelling thing to listen to and I really don't care about the the mechanics of it that I can I'm sure I can figure out in a few hours or a weekend um it's really it's really putting in the content that's the most important so this is where I dived into who are the great storytellers of of that I looked up to and this was Ira
Glass from This American Life Roman Mars from 99% invisible Jad abam rod from Radio Lab even going back further rod sirling from Twilight Zone or okay yeah yeah there is even some other you radio shows that I I remember from when I was a kid Paul Harvey um I thought was a great Storyteller and so I was I was going back and like okay what are these what are the tricks that these people are doing to do great storytelling and you know they've done interviews they've they've they've spoken on stage whatever
the case is um there was a book that uh a lot of them have have been involved with called out on the wire and I read the book and it was very interesting on how how to tell a story right so this was a a craft and an art that I really needed to get good at and so starting in episode one I had probably read two or three books on just the Art of Storytelling before even picking up the microphone for the first time right so I wasn't even like concerned about any of those Logistics until I felt like I could do something and still when I was
ready to start on the first one I had no idea but what I what I just decided to do was copy it was like okay here is the exact formula that these other greates are using and and I I've heard them so many times that I'm like I know the Cadence of their voice I understand when they flip in and out of uh audio from a guest and when they narrate and when the music comes in and so I'm just going to basically take one of their episodes and try to take the structure and put in my show like talk the way they talk do the
Cadence the way they would everything just exactly like if I could be them but write this story instead how would they do it right and so it was really this this copycat version of of of making it and and I think that's the kind of the shoulders I stood on was you you said it was sounded good episode one sounded good well was because I did everything I could to copy it and then to kind of finish up this point is I copied over and over I copied uh all the all my favorites that I liked right so it's okay I tried Ira Glass then I tried
Roman Mars then I tried Jad Abron then I tried uh you know Malcolm Gladwell and all these other people that I thought Aaron minky was another influence of mine and I was just like I'm going to try each one of their Styles and then after I tried you know 20 different styles with different people that's when I finally developed my own voice and I had my own Comfort level and I took off in my own Direction and so it was really that those first 20 30 40 episodes were really just me going to school and learning it and practicing it the way
that they've done it before discovering how my style is and it's really a unique blend of it all and it's and it is unique at this point I feel like um I do something different than others you absolutely do I I haven't found anyone yet that does you know how you do it and the way that you construct the story I was going to I was going to actually say walking on the shoulder of giants we all kind of do that in a way don't we where we look at our heroes whether it be sport whether it be in business whatever
it might be and we just build on people's people success in what they do if if there was do you think that you are just hash pot of all of those people or do you feel there was one particular one that you are more like than any other oh at this point I think it's a it's a mash part of it all I don't think that anyone I I really went through phases to really try to be like one and then I just kind of took my favorite pieces and said nope I'm going to I mean some of the stuff was just so complex
like a radio lab for instance is very high paced and almost manic in their delivery and I just can't keep up that um that system and some other shows were just so well done as far as journalism goes interviewing five 10 20 guests just for one episode and I'm just like I can't get that many people I'm just one person here making a show right so it's just so complex but I would do that for one episode just to see what that's like to have four guests in one episode and put all their voices together to make
one narrative Arc and that that was amazing but I don't know if I'll ever get there again because that took almost a year to create that episode right so there you go that's a long time between podcast yeah it's there's goals and then there's just okay I can't ever get there I'm just going to let that one go in the in the dust yeah and I think to be honest you know listening to that progression you've definitely have refined you know a lot of a lot lot of the delivery as well so it's not to say
that you haven't you know you've actually definitely refined this and work because we all we're all learning as we move ahead right and as we as we get along it's funny that um I think that I've probably purposefully or otherwise copied certain aspects of of what you do as well almost I'm not this isn't a storytelling podcast right so this is conversational interviewing type of scenario but I've been I've been playing with the start of the episode to try and get that hook and I love that
you you know the way that you tell almost like a random story that's not connected to the actual podcast I know you weren't doing that for it's not every episode right but I love that way that you actually just change it up it's a completely different story it's personalized and you jump into something different and then but the way that you change your voice and the way that you manipulate your voice as your tool like that's actually very very unique and very strong and I think that's where you
succeed pretty well and then obviously the moods that you put into it the music I mean that's something that I just I lots of people can't really achieve that so yeah you've done that research so so just terms of 2017 and then I believe you went kind of like fulltime in 2019 so that transition from thinking okay I've got a a side gig it's working pretty well I love it I love what what I'm doing it's making a little bit of money I suppose through sponsorship or whatever but how do you make that actual
decision to take to go all in and go right now day job's done this side gig is now my full-time job yeah I think I I had um the story is actually that I had some Bitcoin that I bought I had a b Bitcoin that I bought at $600 and I was like thought that was very risky back then when it bought when I bought it for that much but you know 2018 comes around it's at what 10,000 $220,000 for that Bitcoin so I was like I'm going to sell this Bitcoin this will give me like three months of spending cash and I can quit
my job and I could see if I can make some money in in this time right so that was the goal is give myself three month break from work so I quit my job they're like well what do you have lined up I'm like nothing uh and I just got my Bitcoin I'm cashing out here and so I cashed out the Bitcoin and took that three months of okay let's see if I can make some Ramen money by the end of this right just just just a little bit of scrap to because I know that in this world is this with with the leverage of
having technology on our side if you can make a penny that is such a big step out of making nothing right so then if you can make a penny maybe how do you make two pennies and how do you make a dollar and so you just kind of keep scaling it up and you can with that leverage you can you can grow the audience you can make bigger deals you can add more ads in whatever the case is but really just getting into that first okay I'm making a little bit is is a big deal and so could I get to that stage by the end of
three months that was kind of the rush and um yeah I did quite a bit of uh marketing and uh podcasting in that that time like it was a full-time Focus I was I'm going want to make it right this is my big chance at making something cuz by that point there were people maybe I had a few thousand listeners um but they were they were very excited about they were they were loving it right and when you have this passionate audience you know you're on to something because it's not just like oh we kind of like it or whatever it's
no this is amazing I waiting for the episodes yeah yeah and so that's what gave me the fuel that's that was kind of an unexpected thing too was like of all the rewards you thought you might get from this it really is just the passion from the audience who loves it gives you this um energy that you just never expected uh and and and it takes you places that you just didn't think you could ever get to um because like I said I thought I was making it for myself but now there's all these other people that
like it I'm just like oh my gosh uh this is kind of exciting and so yeah uh by the end of three months I was making I think my first ad deal which was not that much um a few hundred dollar yeah but it was enough to you know get me to one more month and which was you know now I'm making a few hundred more or whatever right and so I was able to get through that dip as I like to call it of you're your your your thing is just losing money losing money losing money um if you can get through it and then start rising up on the other end
then you've just got blue sky that you can go up to yeah I mean look I mean selling a Bitcoin back then did you have any regrets about I mean 600 to 20 grand that's a pretty good return on investment regardless right but you kind of look back at it and go oh maybe maybe I could have held on to that and maybe leverag something else a little bit no not at all because you know I didn't have enough Bitcoin for a Lamborghini which uh was is always a joke in crypto land of like you got Lambo money um but
no but this it did change my life right it gave me this Runway to to zoom off of and launch a whole new career and it's absolutely changed my life going in this direction making this podcast yeah and and as a company now I mean focusing on you know the about great things with great tech building on the podcasting boom um obviously you hit a pretty good sweet spot there with the pandemic and everything that kind of came in there and you you've ridden that wave I don't it's not a bubble it's definitely a wave
right it'll continue to grow um H how do you I mean now you've got production um you're you're you're definitely high quality you can see you've got graphics people that do um a lot of your artwork and whatnot so it's turned into this is it a company would you call it or is it still just a little ENT like or do you consider it to be a company oh sure it's it's a company I think uh 100% yeah it's a company that I'm I've got multiple um people that work with it and and for me
and and uh yeah I think of it as a business yeah and then just a sort of question that's probably a little bit interesting like do you think you can do it forever like what's what you know cuz I think from a career perspective we all kind of have career goals that we set um and if you asked me what I'd be doing in 5 years I probably couldn't answer that now but but what do you think like it's a question I probably would ask at the end usually but how do you say it how do you say it going down yeah so I mean I
think in early on as an entrepreneur what I wanted to do was create a SAS product right so this is something where I could charge a monthly fee to my users and that's like never update and it's like here's your here's your service I'm trying to do that right now I've got two I've got two on the Fly maybe they go off but yeah I know that feel could just you know wash my hands and be like cool I got this product I just need to do you know tech support for it and I don't have to like keep developing it and I
could go to the beach and you know work from there and and instead I have this thing where every single time I hit publish I've got to just start from scratch and I and yes I've got the momentum of like the audience behind me but I still every episode is brand new and so I have to find a new story and and write a whole thing and find the people to interview and all this kind of stuff so it it's an never ending work and so you're asking if I could do that forever no because it's exhausting it's
absolutely exhausting and I and I don't know how long I have it in me but I do have a lot of great ideas that I'd like to use what I have to bounce off the next thing and I fild up again yeah I think uh you know take Taking what you know I had that blog for seven years before starting the podcast and I was able to put banners all over that blog saying hey please listen to my podcast and I was getting a few clicks every day from people going there to say oh let's check out this podcast right and so if I
do start something new I have this big audience that I could try to take to the next thing and and I think as as anyone who's creating anything online should be aware of that of of you're probably not the this is probably not the first thing you've created whatever you're working on and you should probably look at who was looking at that last thing you created and see if you can move them over to this and if we get somebody here keep on keep them so that you can move them on to the next thing that you
create because they probably like you yeah exactly and I think like you you you've hit a point there about distribution and network effects right like um the seven Powers I listen to the acquired podcast um not more more so recently but I was big into them when they started um but they talk about the seven powers and in business and one of those is one of those is distribution the other one is Network effects and you've you've got both here effectively through the reach and brand power that you have build up so yeah you can do
anything now because you've got this following so as long as it's still obviously in it's as long as it's still interesting to those people right you can't go and start a food truck as an example and you know say hey come come to my food truck I mean that might not get the audience that you're after I'm not sure why food truck but yeah it is surprising because you've got other podcasters like uh Sam Harris started a meditation app and I think Jay shett who was a podcaster started a meditation app and Joo willing
started a pants company and it's like well this this doesn't quite track in my head of who why these people are starting these alter apps um and doing all these other businesses or whatever right um oh look at Mr Beast he's put a chocolate bar out chocolates and so I think it might work that the food truck could work you know you never know in this world have you tasted those those chocolates because I have and my my kids have and they're like yeah it's not that it's Mr Beast but it's not that good so you know it's
like I don't want to Dish Mr Mr Beast live on on on the internet but man you know I I don't know about that chocolate thing um but that's absolutely him using his Network effects yeah he also started a hamburger virtual hamburger store so it's quite done yeah yeah so there you go so who knows you could do Jack Riders burgers or something moving forward um hey let's let's dive into a little bit more of I think it's a good segue into the guests and actual the structure of the show and it's because let's be
honest it's it's not called the darket diaries for for fun right like you you actually Di into some very serious um and dark places that sometimes you know it's very hard to listen to right and the subject matter is confronting um how how do you deal with that because I feel like it puts might put a lot of pressure on you especially when you're doing the research for the show like how do you kind of step aside from the subject matter that you're actually um researching sometimes to be able to
produce the show yeah I mean I I I try not to take it personally or put too much judgment on people that I have and just be like wanting to tell their story and and let it just kind of be out there on its own um but I do think about I don't know maybe maybe I have a tough time even grasping some of the negative consequences of some of these things and so I just kind of leave it there leave it there without going deep um yeah I mean there there's that funny quote that I use all the time which is like um either you die a hero or you
become a villain right like now now that I've interviewed all these people I know all the tricks for Bitcoin laundering and scamming and and ransomware and all this kind of stuff and it's like you know what I wonder I bet I could get away with all this now that I know how everyone gets caught and all this kind of stuff so I do think about that sometimes and I think in the last I don't know year I may have be become more ranty in some the things that I've been saying too like oh this really uh
ticks me off because of this or whatever and I I've I've had to pull some of that back and just like just yank it right out of the episode because it just gets too much and so I do try to I think just in general I try to take my third opinion on a lot of things right so if my first knee-jerk reaction is this is bad I then take a walk and I say hold on wait is it what am I not thinking about here okay so there's another aspect here that might not be so bad if they had done it this way and then I and then I
wait for like a third idea to pop in my head and then I'm like okay now I'm feeling more calm and I'm feeling more rational and we could look at it on this angle and you know if I start to balance it out in my head I I start to just give it more space and allow it to have its own freedom I suppose and uh I don't know that's uh that's some of the ways that I just look at some of those controversial topics as well yeah it's interesting that you say you feel that you've got a bit more ranty I definitely
picked up on that in Jim ha scam episode you you definitely went on a small tangent there where you got angry like piss I think you even said it pisses me off right that this happens um so I've seen that come out a little bit but I think it's also natural but it's good to be that way because you know this like I sort of alluded to at the start this people's lives are getting impacted directly with these sorts of scams and crypto crypto thefts and you know company attacks so you're you're it's you're
rightful to be angry at these things cuz we all should be right that people are so nasty that they want to try and scam people out of their life savings or ruin their lives through you know putting pictures of um pornography online or whatever it might be so I feel like it's kind of natural that you do feel that way so I kind of enjoy when you do that a little bit but I get that you have to be a little bit balanced by it because sometimes you are interviewing someone who's spent a bit of time in prison for
for for certain things that they've done and you know you don't want to I guess seem like you don't like these people or distrust them because of their past indiscretions because you having a conversation with them and the now and a lot of the people that you have on are reformed right and I think that's quite interesting that you have these criminals who are now reformed um who was the was it was it Brett Johnson um gollem gollem fun like I think that was over two episodes and that's one of my
favorite episodes because he was so raw and real talking about you know his wife his divorce and hooking up with a stripper and the the emotion that he went through was crazy but then at the bottom of it there was this technical discussion about him you know basically scamming and being and being a launderer well actually what that he did what was his what was his thing yeah he did IRS uh IRS claims for other people and took their money easy money right like great to your point like I I sat there thinking about that going man could
could I could we do this I wonder how many people on your on your show think that like I've learned a little bit here maybe I'll try it to that well I haven't had as far as I know I I people haven't come to me and said um oh I'm really uh you know inspired to go and do crime because of your show but I have had the hundreds of people come to me and say I'm really inspired to go into a career of cyber security and I just got my first job or passed my first certificate or whatever and I think that is really
an interesting place to kind of try to work with right it's if you look at like a lot of Educators online they're they're teaching things that are easily taught right here's something that's written in a textbook and I can teach you and that sort of thing I think inspiring people to get excited about something is not easily taught you can't just read a a book on how to do that um and so I think that there's something just magical about that to and you know I feel like I'm playing around with
people's chemicals in their brains in a lot of the way that I do the storytelling and this is something you know as I was Lear learning about storytelling this is something I took a lot of uh serious consideration of it's like okay how do you trigger oxytocin how do you trigger serotonin how do you trigger dopamine how do you trigger endorphins in a brain and what do those things feel like when you have the effects of these chemicals and there are storytelling techniques that can absolutely do all that and that is interesting because
then it's getting you motivated and excited and and feeling profound about certain things and and you feel smart about understanding certain things because of the way I lay it out for you and there there's something just magical about getting the new generation involved with this as well I love being able to reach the younger audience because if like they're going to grow up appreciating what I've done and to be able to have that connection with just the young crowd is just so magical and special because they're the next you
know they're the future and and and it's very difficult to reach them because they're off in their own you know frequency it's really difficult their bubble yeah yeah I remember when I realized I'm I'm just old um when I when I when I play cricket and I've got some cricket bats there that you can see at the background and it's a team game right and we play with people that I could I could be I'm 45 now I could play with a 15-year-old right massive spread and at certain point a couple of years
ago um guys were getting onto Snapchat and I was like oh I'm not on Snapchat and then one of the dudes turned around and said well that's cuz you're old and that that was realization where I'm like maybe I have to stop trying to connect with this generation just accept for what I am and that's offer a different type of experience to them and not try and be on their level right um because they are so different so if you're able to bridge that Gap through the podcast and inspire people to get into this very
very important part of of the world and it's going to be even more important moving forward and we'll finish on the threat landscape a little bit later on that's a good thing as well um but it's also a two-way street right so now now that I am on their radar and they respect and appreciate me I can hear from their stories right and so now I'm hearing about hearing about things that I would never have expected because you know me growing up I grew up in IRC and I grew up you know we would do things on
the Pirate Bay and then Anonymous showed up on the scene and all this kind of thing but what are the kids doing now I don't know and so it's really nice to have this connection with them to to get that ear on the tracks and say what is the hot thing what's going on and it's crazy some of the stuff one of my most downloaded episodes It's called Dirty comms and it's about teenagers who are stealing crypto and scamming people in crypto and um stealing Roo and I'm like what in the world is Roo and so
it's just a wild it's a wild thing to see these teenagers making scam websites specifically for kids who get a a a gift card on Christmas morning and they're like we want to get we want to steal the K's K Card other 15-year-olds and it's just a so crazy it is and hopefully these kids are the ones that actually write themselves and become the entrepreneurs of the future rather than going down going down the past of starting Revel or some sort of you know ransomware company which a lot of them
kind of do as well right but you made a really interesting point it triggered me a bit um so my son's a massive into Minecraft right he plays it almost he plays it too much I'll just be honest with you um but he came to me and he said dad this guy's cheating and I'm like it's a cheater it's an admin and it's cheating I go man like it can't happen in gaming like sure there's bugs and stuff but the developers wouldn't allow the cheating in the games cuz that's just not cool right and then I
listen to your player cheater Dev spy episode which goes into the ins and outs of being able to literally buy cheats for games and do some crazy things where they can see through walls or get powerups but it's like they're playing in a different reality of the game versus what other people are playing so they're able to cheat that blew my mind and then I was able to go to my son and say uh yeah you're actually right and I believe you now before I was like doesn't happen yeah yeah I do see that
sometimes too as where people were able to connect with a kid in a two way because they're like I didn't know the kids were doing that these days I mean that one was really the thing that surprised me there is I knew there were cheats in games but there were cheats that are streamable cheats which means the people who are watching your stream don't see the cheats that you see see the real version of what the game sees and then only you as a stream as a person on your side of the screen can see the cheats and so people don't think
you're cheating even though you're doing it live on stream that blew my mind and to your point there's where there's money in that because if they're a twitch stream or whatever there's money in that so if they can be an awesome at the game and that's why they do it and that's I think fundamentally if you look at the psyche of humans you know all humans whether playing games or in business some people just want to find a way to get ahead and to make money right and I think that's
that's a really good example of it um it's kind of like just inbuilt into our human nature unfortunately to try and take those shortcuts isn't it yeah and I think you know since this is great things with tech I'd like to just add in here that I don't like to become a fossil when it comes to Tech and I thought I was going in that direction where I wasn't really refreshing my an understanding of technology and this sort of thing and I even thought okay whenever we get rid of the keyboard
that's going to be the last of me because I can't handle this like you know wave your hand or whistle a certain thing in order to communicate with this computer I need to be able to type on a keyboard and in fact give me a mouse I can't even like go with a trackpad like everything was just I don't want to like leave that um but I I realize that that's I'm going to be left L left in the dust there and I want to do the exact opposite when something is weird or cringey online or I don't understand
it that's the stuff I want to leave into and especially when it's Tech related um you know one of the latest that I can just recall is nfts right that was weird that didn't make any sense I was like no way this is the dumbest thing and then I was like I need to buy this because I don't understand it I want to understand this and that brought me into such a world that not only introduced me to a whole new bunch of security Concepts and a whole new group of community and and stuff like that but it also brought me
like so many more stories for the episode because people are stealing and hacking and doing all kinds of social nfts and making tons of money and then there's this whole world of just cyber criminals in the NT space and I'm just like holy cow and they're making millions and millions and millions and so I wouldn't have understood any of that and just thought it was like oh that's just weird that's just what kids are doing and I'm not going to be part of that but because I'm dumping I'm
ducking into all these places that don't make sense to me and and it is awkward it is weird because I do feel like the old fossil a lot of times at these Tech conferences and stuff where I don't know what anybody's talking about but I really want to and I and I lean in and I try to in order to stay fresh and I want to always keep that freshness and in fact people ask me like what phone or operating system do you use I use it all I use Linux and and Windows and Mac and I just keep cycling through it and and I
don't stop there I use Android and iPhone and and all these other uh operating systems that I can just start switching it up and I and I try not to even stay stuck on one programming language if I make something with a programming language I'll then say okay that's cool now I'll try a new programming language and I just want to always be relevant always be learning yeah always be learning and not be stuck in any sort of technology and and that's just kind of my ethos going forward with uh into the future as well and to a
certain extent what you're doing there and then if you reproduce that understand that knowledge in the show you're actually helping guys like me as well learn as well I love talking to people on the show because I learn stuff about the technology their Crea that's part of why I love doing it because I'm learning as I'm going as well speaking to way smarter people than I am to understand what they're doing with technology better and then also to your point um you know just being able to
learn a little bit I'm I'm petrified of of of being stagnant and not understanding the Technologies as I go forward as a as a technologist myself am I going to reach a point where I to your to your worry do I stand still and that's it and then all of a sudden I just have to give it up um I think we all have to make that decision though as we go through our careers like at what point are we comfortable with not knowing everything and just being comfortable with what we know but still being understanding of the technology at
at a superficial level yeah yeah it's um fun to keep learning I think and I think you know if I had a message for younger crowd it would be don't get stuck in any technology can understand that this is a stepping point to the next technology that hasn't come out yet and you can use your skill from what you have here to get to the next Rong and and and don't get stuck on this Rong yeah all right I wanted to talk just about a concept or an interesting thing that happens to me when I'm listening to podcast so I'm
look I've written a list of my favorite episodes of darket Diaries and what's really interesting is that I can place myself specific so here's my thing about podcasts I consume podcasts as I'm walking or doing a run right outside I can't consume them while I'm on my computer while I'm doing gym work if I'm on a plane I can't consume them I've got a very particular place where I actually get the most out of podcast and that's on my run and my walks so what's really
interesting though I'm looking at the kick episode which to be fair that kick was probably one of your your darker episodes I'm not sure if you had one that you think was was darker than that one because of the subject matter there but I think it was because of the the way you were delivered it subject matter I remember specifically almost to the street that I was walking on because I'd just come back from overseas it was about May 2022 I hadn't had Co yet I went to Vegas for our first conference
got Co on the way back and I was isolating in a hotel and I was walk I vividly remember getting out because I had to get out and your your show like that episode if I remember a certain line or a certain part of that show I could tell you what street I was on it's a really weird thing that I do and I've do it with most podcasts but I think that way allows me to consume and I know that they're really sinking in at that point so I know that the episodes are a massive impact on me at that point because if I can go back to a point in
time where I'm walking I can think about the the content that tells me that number one it's it's interesting number one it's delivered number two it's delivered really well and number three I'm learning so I don't know if that's weird or anything but no I do the same exact thing when I'm doing yard work and stuff I'll I'll you know walk past that bush later on a month later and I'll remember exactly what show listen to when I was trimming that push last time okay so maybe it's maybe it's not just
Me Maybe I'm not weird and it's not no I've heard this from a lot of people actually there you go and I think the podcast genre is probably something that probably lends itself to that more than say this music or whatever because it is superficial learning of like you're sucking it in almost subconsciously at the same time while doing other things it's a really interesting thing um I wanted to just ask you just to round out the episodes like if you had a favorite episode or a couple of favorite episodes
what would they be I just want to mention as well my favorite for sure is the jewel that you did on the NSO and the Pegasus software I found that just technically really interesting and scary I think those two episodes I think it was episode 99 and 100 and they were something episode 100 just crossed a million downloads and it's the second most downloaded one we have other than dirty comms which is just slightly higher um I think why do you think that is why do you think that episode is is resonates so well I think NSL is uh
kind of a lightning rod of and Pegasus of of just the tech hacker space and stuff you know the the cyber security because it's like well hold on this is a SP stalkerware for sale and it's being sold by a company and it's not shut down like this it's a strange Endeavor and I don't know they they they kind of clearly come off as bad guys and that's not always clear maybe I don't know yeah it's it's a wild one it's there's a there's a lot but who knows are they bad guys it's it's a
funny one that I left that episode thinking like are these guys actually doing providing a service that's used for effectively a purpose that could be looked at as being good or are they just fundamentally evil and you know that's that was kind of how I left that those two episodes and that's probably the aim of it right that's the angle that you know you're trying to get out by telling the story as well yeah I leave it up to you on that one um it's does sound like they I mean the implications I think there's just
this shadowy group that you you start guessing at what the implications are here and it's like well did they knowingly Target this person or that and if they didn't then that means they don't have control over their own software like if they're you know licensing their software to some country and then that country is doing it well they don't really know who the targets are but if they're but if they're the ones who have to do it and the country's like here's who we want to Target and
they know that targeting like I don't know a prince or a journalist like if you're if you're hitting Civil Society that's where the that's where the problems start happening you're you're attacking protesters you're you're getting into journalists or or something that isn't they aren't criminals they aren't threats to the nation they aren't any anything that would be under National Defense but the government is not happy with them and so now they're assisting corrupt governments and you
start to wonder where their moral line is are they just there to make money or are they there startop stop crime and they'll say we're there to stop crime we've that they've stopped all this terrorist attacks and stuff but it's like yeah but what about this journalist here and this one here like Jamal kogi supposedly spied on by Pegasus and this is a this guy showed up assassinated right so did the Pegasus have some sort of play in determining where his whereabouts were in order to get him
assassinated and did the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia tell Ando to do this and all this kind of stuff so you you start guessing at all these things and it becomes quite an interesting company just to say whoa this exists in the world like this is this is a mod I get like Future Shock sometimes when I'm just like I can't believe this stuff is going on yeah and and and there's no one really there to stop them or say no to you could sanction them but it's still like in some other country and what do
it's really tricky yeah and you've you've you've definitely been recently I've noticed big on identity theft privacy and whatnot and you know do we my my thought process on this I'm kind of like an accepting type of guy and I go look we're in this world where the technology is so good I mean someone could be watching this stream live now and we wouldn't really know about it effectively right or on your phone and I know people take a lot of precautions with their security like you right like
you're obviously you know not showing your identity and that's that's interesting as well but you do it for a particular reason people know that I interviewed one of our field C at the company who slightly Alters his images online so that he can't they can't be used for any facial recognition fraud you know so people are kind of getting into this world but I'm probably too accepting of it where I just kind of go well if someone wants to know what I'm doing they probably can find out right
um so why kind of try and hide it I mean obviously you sit on the other side of that fence but where do you think we are at that particular Point Banks can know everything about us they know what we buy they know know our habits even shopping centers they know what what we're going to buy every morning every Wednesday I get an email from or a message on my app with my local grer they know what I'm buying on a Wednesday morning because I've done it for the last six months so where do you think we
are with that yeah I don't like that at all I mean um I don't know about Australian laws but in the US we uh have the Fourth Amendment right and so this is your right to private your your per your belongings and your papers and your property is is supposed to be private unless um the government gets a warrant to be able to search through your papers and P and property and uh there's not a lot of War there I mean there's no warrants to this sort of thing and so there's this thing called the third party doctrine
that comes into play which is well if you're willingly sharing your data with this company then that doesn't need a warrant for us to get that data uh they already you already gave it to them so we can just take it and this is a kind of an issue right so you you you're using your credit card because some places only accept credit card they don't accept cash and and so it's like okay you can I'll purchase something here but now it's like well we now we have your your name and your address and
we know everything and we're going to share that because we can and it's ah I don't like this it's it's not uh it's I think it's a violation of our privacy I think it's a violation of maybe the Constitution you know I I I think Mass collection of data and mass buying is does not have a warrant and these are warrantless searches and and collection of data and it does not make sense to me it seems like a violation and so I think that if I am not going to be the one who takes care of my own privacy that no one
else is right so companies aren't going to take my privacy seriously the government's not going to take my privacy seriously so it's now on me to do that and I do a lot to to do that I I try to uh use private uh private apps and private secure chats and endtoend encryption and um even a a security phone like right now I have graphine OS as my phone because it's taking Google out entirely and I'm very restrictive on what where my data is and I think a lot of us are sharing our data with these companies and that's
where most of it gets out right so it's it's really on me to pull back and be like oh you need my phone number to sign up for this cool no problem I'll make a VoIP number and I'll give you that and then I'll just like never check that number again and I'm signed up for this service now so I do a lot to get keep remain private online yeah keep keep a couple of steps ahead and the funny part is it only those sorts of um the realization that your data is being kept at that level only happens sometimes if there's some sort
of breach right like there's been a couple of big ones that we've had in Australia with medical providers who basically there was an open API that wasn't um authenticated correctly and someone got in and basically was able to expose all the data put it on the darket jump on the Thor router and you're able to see it and it's only then that you're realizing how exposed we are um and I know a lot of people get outraged by that but there's ALS there's also a sense of inevitability that's just going
to happen more and more right and we're going to finish a little bit on that threat landscape as well I don't want to kind of preamp that too much um what I do want to talk about and this is something that I alluded to at the beginning of the show is a bit of a story because I think it leads itself well to the whole world of scamming the time that I got scammed um and I haven't told this story ever because I'm embarrassed by it right so in a very short sort of to Long didn't read method of it I was got really during the
pandemic when I by the way it's when I started listening to darket Diaries um I was also doing the heavy crypto stuff the defi stuff and the salana chain and actually funny you talk about nfts because I somehow sold an nft of a picture that my daughter drew which was like a little doggy and I called them Soul doggies and I put them on this salana version of openc that was just booming and someone bought it for like five so and I was like what the hell and it was just but I imagined it because it was at the opening and people were just
like seagulls picking at whatever they at the time and they were just buying it just because oh that looked like a dog and but if I showed you the picture you'd go how was how's that worth a, you know what I mean um but it was that type of time so to the point about greed and just diving in human nature I was like I've got to get in this and I got in it pretty pretty hard and I was part of a project with a friend of mine who I'd worked with previously and I trusted this guy and we were on telegram um and
the project was just starting and we were doing pretty well and I got this message on a Friday afternoon saying hey Anthony um I need some money for a marketing um payment that I that I need I'll pay it back in a couple of hours but I need like A2 or $3,000 what have you got so deep down I knew that it was something was up but it's like it's him like on telegram it's his user name it's it looks like him it's reading like him cool okay it is him so I reluctantly transferred money to this account so
around about 5,000 USD um and he said cool thank you um I I will return the money in a little bit and I'm like cool no worries so the a day passed and I'm like okay this is a bit strange now that I haven't heard from the guy I went to my son's birthday I remember this very vividly and then I remember was thinking this is not right so I messaged the account back again and all of a sudden it basically came back with us and not found and straight away my heart sank like I knew that I'd been scammed and I
was just like how the hell could you have let yourself get scammed you're in this world you understand the risks you talk about it with with with you know cxxs and it was the most embarrassing moment of my life and I've never talked about it before for because I was just surprised that I got done and then what happened afterwards is I learned about the way that people can basically spoof accounts on telegram almost with impunity like with absolute impunity and that telegram was a cesspool for this sort of stuff um what what do you think
about that because I know that there's the shame that I still carry about that and I'll be honest with you um the actual guy that he was pretending to be in his good heart he actually looked after me he actually um refunded some of that money straight to me because he was felt so bad about me getting scammed right so it wasn't like I lost the money and did I really have it because it was crypto money as well but what do you think about that story because I know the shame that I still carry with that
well I I think these are these are lessons we learn on the internet um I I bought I tried to buy something on eBay when I was young and they canceled the auction and then messaged me directly saying hey I still have it if you send me the money through Western Union I'll send it to you and I was like cool and so I sent $1,000 for this camera and I never got it because I was just a scammer the whole time and so this has really kind of shaped me as well of like okay now as I go into every transaction online let me double check that this is
the right way to do it and and on the in the right place and so it kind of takes away your innocence as well of like oh I could just trust the people that I'm seeing here no you can't trust anybody you need to verify this sort of thing and so I bet you know that was such a learning process for you that I bet it's going to be very difficult to scam you from here on out because you're very aware of of it it can happen to anyone including you and you should be extra careful and and and you'll probably take extra steps now
of anything like this or or be extra cautious and and I think this I think this helps us all I think uh people have lost a lot more than what you lost and I feel you know a lot worse than you than than for compared to you um so you may have gotten off easy with that got off very easy I reckon yeah um but it also is an ethical issue or it's an interesting thing to try to tackle of whether or not your friend would give you the money because you were such a nice friend that if he asked you for $5,000 you're like sure here you go and
that has got to be such a sweet thing for him to hear right just like wow you would have given me that money that is such a sweet thing to do I can't believe you're that nice of a friend I feel bad that some I I mean I don't even know where the ethical line is there who's right to to pay for it or whatever and I don't think he absolutely need to pay for it but it was an impact to you I don't know it's it's a wild thing and and and that comes up in my head well like I guess to that extent like I told
this before we jumped on the recording is that I when you said that you'd be on the podcast my actual first instinct was is this the real Jack resider you know what I mean am I getting am I getting kind of punk here right um and even the the first Twitter DM I was like okay is this really him so you're right it's absolutely made me more untrustworthy to a certain extent or more wary about this world that we live in because people are just out to scam you you know front and center all the time and I I think it's
obviously a good list lesson to learn it's a good lesson for anyone listening out there just just to be extra cautious on that um to add on to sorry to add on to telegram here for a minute um well first of all I don't think telegram is a secure messaging app now it it calls itself one and I don't agree and I think there are a lot of criminals who use it thinking it is but it's it's definitely not so by default the chats you have on there are not end to end encrypted um telegram the company can
see these chats uh you'd have to go to an extra step in order to encrypt it to the way that they can't see it but then all group chats are not end to end encrypted and so telegram can see inside all the chats there and if they're calling themselves a secure messaging app this is not this sounds like uh false I can call you out on that that's not true yeah and so there's that and yeah it does flock a lot I don't know why it's such a popular thing for the for the the hackers out there but they
absolutely are going crazy over it and um I get a lot of messages right like I said these teenagers are messaging me like hey can we talk on on telegram where it's safe I'm like you did you don't know anything it's the wrong one man yeah so signal is what I recommend signal is and and encrypted even the group chats and if you're messaging from one person to another only you and them can see the message signal cannot see it so if so if there's a subpoena to Signal they can't look in there uh the cops
can't look in there there's no way to look in there and if signal gets breached or hacked and all the data gets stolen like you said that's really eye openening when it's a whole bunch of stuff that a company has on you signal wouldn't have any of that because it's encrypted and you don't they don't have the key to show you to show anybody so go ahead take as much as you want that's just all gibberish but the story that I wanted to share was that recently I'm I'm I I go
on uh telegram just alert like to Chuck into some of these circles and stuff but not really to have a jack Reider presence on there but recently someone came to me from my Discord and said hey are you on Telegram and is this your username at Jack Reider I was like no I don't have Jack at Jack Reider and so they're like well that person at Jack Reider just scammed me for $50,000 and are you sure feel B yeah so I was like yeah it's not me I didn't do it and so now I had to like take these allegations and figure out
what to do about it so I go on Telegram and I'm like hey what's up who are you and he's like oh hi how do I know you're the real Jack I said it doesn't matter if I'm the real Jack what are you doing with this name because I know who the real Jack is and I don't need to prove it to you and so it turns out he's a fan of the show and and he likes me and all this sort of thing but I'm like you can't be be scamming in my name because now I've got to deal with this crap and
I'm busy I got stuff to do I don't want to be trying to deal with allegations against me because you're scamming in my name and was this his way of getting on the show like was this his way of trying to prove that he is good enough to be on the show and St listen uh let's go in HS you know I'll give you a percentage of the stuff I'm scamming like no it's not going to work like that so I had to tweet the other day like I don't own these accounts because somebody on telegram is using my name there and I
can't do anything about it oh man that's that's crazy that's wild hey and do you know what so what I actually do and I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do but I absolutely do get a lot of enjoyment out of it now that I know and can recognize a scammer like even on WhatsApp when they come through like the the scam girlfriends that come through and trying to trying to say hey what are you doing like you know and trying to sort of get you from that love perspective I will I I won't for the
most part depending on how busy I am I'll actually ride with it for a while and because I know that if I'm wasting their time if I'm taking 10 20 an hour of their time I know that's time they're not scamming other people right so I take I take great pleasure in doing that actually and and obviously that's what what Jim hate scams has made a whole career out of and and a popular show out of right is kind of riding that to the extreme but even in that little period if I can grab them and try and say that
I'm going to do it all transfer the money I'll do this and if I can take 30 minutes of their time that's awesome for me and then at the end I use some very colorful Aussie vernacular language which we're very popular for and I just basically tell them how much of a low life dog they are trying to scam people right so most people just basically say you and and I'll I'll move on to the next but some people go why you being so mean why why you using that language it's well you're you're trying to scam people out
of their money man and I get great I get a great sense of accomplishment out of that maybe too much I don't know all right last thing and and and we've kind of it flows on very nicely we're we're entering into a really confronting exciting time with all the technology that exists today in the world um specifically around generative AI technology right the Landscapes just just fundamentally accelerated and changed over the last 12 months and you've touched on it on a few of your previous episodes around the
sophistication of modern scams and the attacks that are happening are just getting more and more real to the point where you almost can't tell if the person you're talking to is who it is right um where do you see that going cuz I know you've you've got like the good intentions of humanity you know and you think it's going to be all positive for Humanity and we're going to accelerate and I I feel that as well I feel like technology will take us to great places and I'm really excited for it but on the
flip side I'm kind of scared about this sort of Technology coming out so where where does Jack Rider see that in the in the now and versus where it's going to be in a couple of years is yeah I think I always default to just trying to be an optimist and you know when you're an optimist you could be in a terrible situation that you can say well there's nothing positive here and if you just you could just change your mindset and be like well if I can't if I can't change the situation I could change my
mindset and if I could change my mindset then I can do something uh positive with this situation right so I can't change the tech landscape but I can change how I view the tech landscape and if I view it in a positive way then hey I'm going to be able to um I don't know have more fun with it have more exciting right and and and so I think I think uh Tech is really going to improve us in a big way like just if you think about playing chess against somebody who has a computer available right so like a
human versus a person with a computer the person with a computer is going to be a million times better a chess player it doesn't matter which person on the planet so the uh the the ability for computers to help us in this massive way for specific tasks is incredible it's like no question you should want this on your side to do whatever it is you're doing because it's just a million times better compared to just you trying with nothing and so that that's where I'm I'm like okay I got an ally I got to be an
ally with this cool computer thing to keep it on my side and and to use it as a tool in my world um but yes uh as far as people getting fake uh phone calls or video calls or whatever and it's not being really them that is a that is an interesting thing so I just think that the technology that's coming out today is definitely giving us or giving people new weapons to use to attack with but I think at the same time the technology also gives ability to detect those weapons or defend against that right so
when you have I think well you know when chat GPT first came on my radar people were using it to identify bugs in smart contracts on the blockchain and that could be used to make millions of dollars with because like oh my gosh there's this bug and so with that smart Pap again yeah like out you know like very quickly after that I was seeing things like co-pilot get created and co-pilot is there to help you create code and I was like well I sure hope the first thing co-pilot does is look over your shoulders look for bugs and help
you secure Co or create uh secure code it it does some of that it's not quite the primary thing there but I I I think this is probably where we need to be um you know working together right so it's it's developing the the the security tools as fast or faster than developing the weapons to exploit those tools and there's always this going to be I don't know an arms race in some way of who's going to develop the next exploit and then how do we detect that and and figure out a way to defend against it
and I think it it it just goes back and forth Just naturally over the last few Decades of course and uh we're still in that kind of space so how can you detect uh deep fake or AI voice when you think oh that's my mom on the phone or you know if your mom getting a call thinking it's you on the phone but it's not you it's a scammer um I think we should put captas in the phone so he's like you mention that yeah yeah before you before you uh connect you got to solve this capure no I think yeah
you talked about you talked about like a a sort of sort of certificate transfer or something like that some sort of digital identity to make sure that there's something that passes between the video chat to make sure that it is you so we're basically talking about SSL certificates for video effectively something like that yeah there could be some sort of uh there's identity mechanism that we'll have to adopt going forward like uh if I have control over these this identity then that's connected to this phone number or
whatever and then I can I know that you had that right so yeah I think we can probably work with something like that and then initially getting that identity set up is is interesting I I don't know and I it then comes back to wait a minute there's this digital privacy stuff that I'm concerned of I don't want like some governmen issued identity saying this is yours that you have to use online everywhere you go very similar to maybe how India does things um that's a tricky uh because I don't
want my real identity linked to all my purchases or all the things I'm saying online it becomes really tricky you're talking about basically Two Worlds colliding effectively there like and how much of one does the other one impact and vice versa how much do you give away that's that's a trick of it and I've used the terminology the pointy end of the stick is getting pointier with regards to the level of the threat landscape and what we're doing I mean I I was doing some research a couple of weeks ago and on
the dark dark dark web if you can connect to a Thor router a Thor router and you'll be able to buy an un guarded or an unprotected version of chat gbt worm gbt which will create the mware code for you right and you can pay $0 and basically you've got the capability to create a bit of code that's going to do some nasty stuff to a business if you want right so it's not these big groups that are able to do that anymore if someone's got the inclination to try and be a bit greedy and make money they can
pay 70 and have the capability right there and get something pretty good out of it right and be able to potentially succeed MH yeah there's a there's a real threat that's a you know like having I don't know I'm trying to think of a a technology that just had no value and it was just dangerous like agent orange maybe I don't know like some some terrible uh you know nerve gas that just had no no positive value right if everyone had this ability to just drum it up in their living room and say here
we go we can uh we can all create this how safe is that world is it is it just a matter of time before somebody leashes it on the the city or or the state or whatever um that is probably true um and so how do we combat against having the wrong information out there that is a very tricky bit and and it then starts competing against uh free speech and what's available and what needs to be shushed up and who's the one controlling the shush and it's a very difficult world and so it's very exciting to kind of see
what's going on out there and yeah like I said I think each time one side gets ratcheted up the other side is going to be able to ratchet up as well like uh I I think it's probably the same with um if there's you know postquantum quick cryptography is going on now where Quantum the I mean the idea here which I I kind of understand a little bit more about it and think the idea is silly but an idea of there being you know all encryption being destroyed once a quantum computer computer gets loose and
well now all encryption is destroyed um start we got to start again yeah but now you've got a quantum computer that can make new kinds of encryption and so you could do something that maybe it couldn't we're just stipping it we're just stipping ahead aren't we we're and I think that's the end all of this technology game there's an acceleration happening um we can use it for good and evil it's just a race and you know um in that you get great stories as well to be fair so you can for the so you're going
to continue to have some really good um stories on darket Diaries but hey I think that that's a good point to wrap up it's been a great chat I've really we've gone through some different areas we've talked about how you started the company because it is a company and that's the whole point of this and you've built yourself on great technology which is what we're about so Jack I really appreciate you being on um I just say thanks and um I hope a lot of people got out some new stuff and this
is episode 83 of great things with great Tech this has been Jack Rider and thanks for being on the show yeah thanks for having me I had a lot of fun being here awesome [Music]
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