It Could Happen Here - CZM Book Club: Escape, part one

Episode Date: March 30, 2025

Margaret reads an anonymously authored speculative fiction story about what people could do if large scale roundups began, and discusses it with an anarchist technology enthusiast.See omnystudio.com/l...istener for privacy information.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey kids, it's me, Kevin Smith. And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith. That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version of me. And that's the name of our podcast, Beardless, D***less Me. I'm the old one. I'm the young one.
Starting point is 00:00:11 And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. Could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out.
Starting point is 00:00:23 It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless, D***less Me on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your kid. Could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out. It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless S***less Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. You get your podcast. Are your ears bored? Yeah. Are you looking for a new podcast that will make you laugh, learn, and say, que? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:00:38 Then tune in to Locatora Radio, Season 10 today. Okay. Now that's what I call a podcast. I'm Theosa. I'm Mala. The host of Locatora Radio, a radiophonic novela. Which is just a very extra way of saying a podcast. Listen to Locatora Radio Season 10 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Starting point is 00:01:00 get your podcasts. You Feeling This Too is a horror anthology podcast. wherever you get your podcasts. I'm crying! Please, no! Let me in! You're feeling this too. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. From the producers who brought you Princess of South Beach comes a new podcast, The Setup. The Setup follows a lonely museum curator, but when the perfect man walks into his life... Well, I guess I'm saying I like it. You like life, he actually is too good to be true. Listen to The Setup on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Cool Zone Media. Book Club. Book Club. Book Club. Book Club. Book Club. Book Club.
Starting point is 00:02:15 That'll never get old. Everyone loves it. Everyone loves thinking back to the era of when every conversation had to be on Zoom and you realized you couldn't sync anything. This is Cool Zone Media Book Club. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy, and this is the book club that you don't have to do the reading for because I do it for you. And this time, I mean that more than usual because I'm gonna do some reading
Starting point is 00:02:41 and then I'm gonna talk with my friend about that reading. I'm gonna talk to my friend Greg. Hi Greg, how are you? I'm doing well, how about you? I'm doing good. I'm up late so I have like energy, which of course is logical, and will serve me well. No, it isn't. I'm gonna crash really hard after we're done recording. But other than that, I'm okay. after we're done recording. But other than that, I'm okay. So the story that I want to read to you, Greg,
Starting point is 00:03:08 is a story that you've already read. And I know that because when I read this story, I reached out to you. Because my friend, Greg, for anyone who's listening, is let's call you an anarchist technology enthusiast. That's a normal thing to say. Is that a fair way to describe you? Yes. If it has a circuit, I probably opened it up or played with it or learned how it works.
Starting point is 00:03:34 Awesome. This is a science fiction story, rather a speculative fiction story that appeared on the website crimething.com earlier this week. It appeared on March 21st. If you want to go and read it yourself, it's at crimethink.com slash whatever stuff. I don't know, just search it. But don't Google it as we'll talk about. You should probably duck duck go it.
Starting point is 00:04:01 This is a story called Survival, a story about anarchists enduring mass raids. And it's a thought experiment. It's speculative fiction and kind of one of the oldest definitions of that, one of the oldest concepts of that, which is just literally, hey what would happen if? And what kind of like science and technology can we use to address a set of problems? And before we start, I'll say what I overall think is that I find this a really interesting thought experiment, but one that I have like, I had some maybe critiques of. And so that's why I decided then talk it through to you. And this is gonna be a two week thing because this is a slightly longer than normal story.
Starting point is 00:04:51 I don't know, Greg, what are your first thoughts going into this thing that people don't know what we're talking about yet? Yeah, I would say that my first thoughts are about the same. I think that it's always good to write out things, to imagine scenarios that you might be in so you can preemptively think through how you would deal with them.
Starting point is 00:05:08 I think that this story does a good job of that. And I think that part of the reason why I wanted to talk about this with other people is that I think we could go a little bit deeper and then maybe come out on the other end where people can think about it a little bit more in actionable way in their everyday lives as opposed to reading this and then You know going on to the next terrible thing of the day. Yeah, that's a good point
Starting point is 00:05:31 We had to start this late because I had just reinstalled everything on my computer and part of my process of dgoogling and I encourage people to not necessarily do exactly that but this is a really good encourage people to not necessarily do exactly that, but this is a really good moment in your life. Whoever you are, you probably interact with technology. You actually do because you're listening to this. And it's a good moment to readdress the ways that you do it. So this story, I'll just start reading it to you. It starts with a little preamble.
Starting point is 00:06:05 In November 1919, United States President Woodrow Wilson launched mass raids against the entire anarchist movement in the United States. Police simultaneously arrested thousands of anarchists in many different parts of the country, shutting down their newspapers, organizations, and meeting halls. That part's not fiction, just to interject.
Starting point is 00:06:27 That's just a thing that happened. If similar raids were to take place today, they would occur in a technological landscape involving mass surveillance and targeted electronic attacks. Those who survive would also have to adopt different tools. Section 1, escape. When the police battering ram hits his door at 411 a.m., Jake is in his boxers on the floor, playing an emulated side scroller.
Starting point is 00:06:56 The adrenaline hits, and within seconds, he has jammed his bedroom window open, sliding down into the backyard, and off in a run, his socks instantly soaked in the grass. He hears shouting, but doesn't look back to check if there are pigs looking out his window or chasing him from the side of the house. He jumps the back fence more awkwardly than he imagined, getting a splinter deep in his
Starting point is 00:07:18 left hand, but he ignores it and dashes over the roof of the neighbor's shed, trying to remember every detail of the surrounding blocks. In what feels like an instant, he's two blocks away, hiding behind some bushes as a squad car drives by. His breath sounds to him like the loudest thing in the world, and his mind spins as he imagines a neighbor coming out behind him. He's a nothing but boxers and muddy socks and his hand is dripping blood. Nothing happens.
Starting point is 00:07:48 The squad car crawls down another block. Time to move. Vera is almost home from work, listening to music in her headphones, when she comes around a bend and sees the corner of a SWAT van outside her punk house. She pivots immediately down another street, casually continuing her walk while pulling out her phone. She knows she should immediately turn it off, but first she texts a group chat, house being raided, and then turns it off. Maybe that warning will help someone. Many phone batteries remain active even when the
Starting point is 00:08:24 device is off, she knows. Right now, some lazy junior officer could be noticing the GPS or her network connection triangulating her as she moves away. Should she throw it? Should she abruptly stomp on her phone out here in the street? There's a drainage vent coming up. She could toss it in and keep walking. Vera hesitates. Her phone is encrypted, but against everyone's advice she uses a short password. If they dig it out of the drain, she doesn't know how to pry out the SD card.
Starting point is 00:08:56 Stomping on the whole device might draw attention and not even destroy the main memory. Time is of the essence, so she makes a hard choice quickly and tosses the whole thing in the drain. She's just a normal person on a walk. As she keeps walking away, Vera hears a car rolling up behind her slowly. It takes every ounce of willpower to keep walking normally, not to look back and terror. Maybe she should? Maybe she should just run for it. The car parks
Starting point is 00:09:26 behind her and there's the sounds of a mom unloading young kids. She's not being followed. Where to now? Julie and Maggie sit at their dining room table. I just want to point out that I'm not only reading this story because it has a character named Maggie in it, but that was a consideration and a bonus. I really appreciate everyone writing in Maggie's, Margaret's, and Magpie's. Julie and Maggie are sitting at their dining room table, struggling not to reflect panic at each other. Only one news outlet is even reporting the nationwide raids, and there's almost nothing there.
Starting point is 00:10:06 Messages saying, leave and then delete this group chat, keep popping up for both of them. Little spatters of reports on raids and then silence. A friend who is always too frantic is spamming everyone asking for updates. Then suddenly, she's silent. There's an hour of nothing. They trade terse updates with a friend who lives far away. Someone local suddenly appears online, but only to post a meme in a dead channel and then disappear. The same music plays on the same radio stations.
Starting point is 00:10:40 The wind blows through the trees. A cousin asks for advice with a preschool situation, totally oblivious. The local news does a puff piece about local business. The neighbors get a pizza delivery. And your favorite podcast is interrupted by advertisements. That's a thing that happens. It's totally in the story. I promise.
Starting point is 00:11:02 I totally didn't just, I added that. I added it right now. Here in the story. I promise. I totally didn't just, I added that. I added it right now. Here's the ads. Hey kids, it's me, Kevin Smith. And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith. That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version of me. And that's the name of our podcast, Beardless, D***less Me.
Starting point is 00:11:21 I'm the old one. I'm the young one. And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. Could be a family show.
Starting point is 00:11:33 We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out. It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless **** with me on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever. You get your podcast. Sonoro and iHeart's MyCultura podcast network present The Setup, a new romantic comedy podcast starring Harvey Guillen and Christian Navarro. The Setup follows a lonely museum curator searching for love,
Starting point is 00:11:56 but when the perfect man walks into his life, well I guess I'm saying I like you. You like me? he actually is too good to be true. This is a con. I'm conning you. To get the gelato painting. We could do this together. To pull off this heist, they'll have to get close and jump into the deep end together. That's a huge leap, Fernando, don't you think?
Starting point is 00:12:18 After you, Chulito. But love is the biggest risk they'll ever take. Fernando is never going to love you as much as he loves this doll. ["Judito"] Judito, that painting is ours. Listen to The Set Up as part of the MyCultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Starting point is 00:12:39 or wherever you get your podcasts. Are your ears bored? Yeah. Are you looking for a new podcast that will make you laugh, learn, and say, que? Yeah. Then tune in to Locatora Radio, season 10 today.
Starting point is 00:12:53 OK. I'm Diossa. I'm Mala. The host of Locatora Radio, a radio-phonic novella. Which is just a very extra way of saying a podcast. We're launching this season with a mini series, Totally Nostalgic, a four-part series about the Latinos who shaped pop culture in the early 2000s. It's Lala checking in with all things Y2K 2000s.
Starting point is 00:13:19 My favorite memory, honestly, was us having our own media platforms like Mundoz and MTV3. You could turn on the TV, you see Thalia, you see JLo, Nina Sky, Evie Queen, all the girlies doing their things, all of the beauty reflected right back at us. It was everything. Tune in to Locatora Radio Season 10. Now that's what I call a podcast. Listen to Locatora Radio Season 10 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told.
Starting point is 00:13:57 Join me every week as I tell some of the most enthralling true crime stories about women who are not just victims, but heroes or villains, or often somewhere in between. Listen to the greatest true crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. What ads, Greg, do you think that we should add here? It's probably for Signal. Yeah. An ad for Signal and potatoes and sweet potatoes and wearing a mask.
Starting point is 00:14:36 Those would all be good ads I would support. All right. Well, this is brought to you by all of those things. I know we'll talk about it a little bit more later, but Signal is having a moment right now in the news because of some major Ops-Sep fails on the part of the government. But it doesn't mean that Signal itself is broken. Everyone, Signal is the current most effective end-to-end encrypted thing. Honestly, the fact that our enemies use it is part of the evidence of that. Alright, but the story.
Starting point is 00:15:07 They're probably not going to come for us. We haven't done anything. Their confused dog is whining with shared nerves. Maggie keeps eyeing the go-bag by the door they packed together months ago. That afternoon, Julie had made a show of being a good sport, humoring her need to prep. Now all Maggie can think about is everything they're missing. Julie's passport has just expired. Can they get across the border?
Starting point is 00:15:34 If only they had done a dry run. They take the dog out on a walk, leaving all devices home, whispering potential plans to one another, trying not to draw attention as a jogger passes them by. When they get home, there's a private message on Instagram from a friend saying they're putting together a legal defense committee. First meeting will be public at a public park.
Starting point is 00:15:55 They're inviting some local liberal journalists as shields. Somebody at the local alt weekly says she's writing a story. There's a lawyer coming from a big name liberal thing. The internet keeps being really slow. Signal doesn't deliver messages and then suddenly delivers three all at once. Loading a lot of websites just returns errors. They're so sleep deprived with stress that when they finally crash together on the couch,
Starting point is 00:16:23 they sleep right through the defense committee meeting. A friend knocks loudly on their door and they nearly die of heart attacks, assuming it's the cops. His report back is terse. Almost no journalists showed. Most of the folks who went have been grabbed. One was driven down off her bike on her way home. An old liberal lawyer went to the county jail with a court order, and the cops just laughed
Starting point is 00:16:47 and arrested her. He's going underground, and he suggests they do too. But Julie and Maggie have a life. They have jobs, at least for now, as they've both called out sick. And they have a house. They're normal now, even law-abiding. Burn a few posters, donate a few books to the neighborhood little libraries, delete a few accounts. Maybe they can pass as upstanding citizens.
Starting point is 00:17:12 If we leave our shit here and stop paying, we'll lose everything we've built since poverty. Plus, have to pay some ridiculous fine. If they do get raided, maybe it'll just be a few days in lock-up, in and out, just a performance of a crackdown. The libs will get mad about the lawyers, surely. Neither of them has been able to cook since the raids first started, so they drive out together to grab pickup. Waiting for a light, Maggie stares at something on the side of the street and then leaps out of the truck's passenger side door without a word. Julie is frightened at first, then furious, but when she pulls the truck
Starting point is 00:17:51 over and heads back to Maggie, she sees her partner kneeling next to a homeless man, lying at an odd angle. We don't have our phones, we can't call a paramedic," she reminds Maggie. But then recognition dawns on her. It's one of their friends. Under the mess of blisters and swollen bruises, his eyes are open, staring at nothing. He lived in one of the first punk houses that was raided. He never went to anything besides some hardcore shows. He was just a baker.
Starting point is 00:18:23 They don't pick up their meal. They head home. Dog, go bag, some last-minute additional ideas, camping gear, encrypted backup drives, medicine, dry food, clothes, blankets. Phones and leftover devices smashed. House key hidden somewhere in the yard for a friend. Maggie looks at her cheap Casio watch. That's time. We need to go. That's the end of section one. And we're going to read section two today too. But first, we're going to talk about section one. And what should we talk about with it? So one thing that came up for me initially is that I'm not really familiar with the 1919 raids. And so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that.
Starting point is 00:19:11 Yeah. Okay. So there is one of the things that about this particular piece that I think kind of stood out to me as like not necessarily, it's a thought experiment, right? And it's projecting the idea of like, what if they came for the anarchists? And I think actually, as we go further into the piece, we'll learn that it's talking about like, what if they came for the radicals in general, right? In a big mass roundup that includes anarchists.
Starting point is 00:19:39 But there is a historical precedent for specifically coming after the anarchists. The first Red Scare was 1919, 19, I want to say maybe 18 as well, I'm not certain. And they often get called the Palmer Raids. And I don't have all my notes in front of me, which is terribly embarrassing because I had all the time in the world to have my notes in front of me, but I did not. But basically these were raids that came after primarily an immigrant anarchist group across the country, but especially in New York City,
Starting point is 00:20:11 and specifically Russian anarchists and Russian labor organizing around New York City. And there's all these like great photos. You can look up of like, well, there's one. There's this great photo of these like super dapper anarchists hanging out and they're like nice wool coats and nice hats and stuff waiting for deportation. Fashion is probably not the most important thing
Starting point is 00:20:32 when you look at that particular photo, but they do have nice fashion. That's really cool. Not the raids, but the fashion. Yeah. That's good context. Cause yeah, I think that this piece tries to open with that and contextualize, I believe also, you know, international policing was invented to hunt down anarchists
Starting point is 00:20:49 around the world. So. Yep. But nowadays, do we really feel that this is sort of like, like our anarchists a threat in this same way that they were in 1919? So it's kind of less about whether or not we are a threat and whether or not we're perceived as a threat. And a few years ago, like last Trump term, he absolutely was mentioning anarchists by name, although kind of in that catch all way of like these anarchists and Antifa, you know,
Starting point is 00:21:19 without any like, the whole thing that the government is always trying to do, and everyone's always trying to do is sort of pretend like we're not actually a specific ideological branch of socialism. It's just a catch-all word like terrorist or whatever and Why was it going on about that mostly because it bugs me but like I Think it's completely possible that they would come for like antifa I think personally a much more realistic threat model is what we're seeing now, which is coming after organizers, coming after people who are specifically related
Starting point is 00:21:51 to specific protest movements, which of course very much includes an awful lot of people that we know and care about who may be anarchists. Yeah, that's fair. But, okay, what else? Okay, so we got the context. Okay, so in the first scene, the person jumps out the window with no shoes and no pants and no shirt.
Starting point is 00:22:13 And it got me thinking sort of around how when we do preparedness, we're usually prepared for a disaster. And I think of it like, you know, one of the things that I keep in my bedroom is a fire extinguisher because I figure For most scenarios a fire extinguisher is going to be useful. But like in this case Maybe I need a pair of slippers by my bed Which in the if I'm woken up in the middle of the night Do I know where my shoes are or like do I have the right pants on? Definitely something to consider. I think if you're preparing with this particular throughout model
Starting point is 00:22:44 definitely something to consider, I think, if you're preparing with this particular threat model. And then, like, you know, how do we think about go bags a little bit differently? And, you know, I think most of the time when we do go bags, it's like, okay, you're going to be in a vehicle, you're going to be going to a shelter, but how does this change with this particular threat model? Yeah, I mean, like, one of the things that's nice about go bags is that they theoretically are useful for all kinds of situations. And like, most of the time for most people, and in general, I think including right now,
Starting point is 00:23:14 the primary purpose of a go bag is for disaster stuff, right? A wildfire is still a more realistic threat model for most people, including most people probably listening to this. Or like earthquakes, or I don't know. You just like really are antsy and want to get out of town or whatever. Or like your friend calls you frantic and needs your help and they are two states away and you're there like or you need to get here now please come and you're like well fortunately
Starting point is 00:23:43 everything I need to sleep in my car is in the bag right here plus my car. You know, so you can throw it in your car and get going. But I do think it's kind of interesting to think about this particular threat model with go bags and preparedness of the idea of kind of a more urban camping model, which is actually, I mean, it's literally my own background as a former travel kid or whatever, you know, I slept on a lot of rooftops and things like that. The idea of traveling to the tent was completely nonsensical to me because I was like,
Starting point is 00:24:16 tent, you put up a tent, they know where you are, you know, because I was just always sleeping illegally in different places. And so like the sleeping bag was the only object that really mattered to me out of all of that. Maybe a tarp if it's going to be really wet, but I wouldn't even string up the tarp. I would just taco in it. I'm not recommending this. I was like 20 years old, but like reading this particular piece has made me think more about threat models where you're like, okay, well I got to get it.
Starting point is 00:24:42 I got to go and I might need to sleep rough for a couple nights in different places. You know, what do I need for that? The shoe thing is really interesting to me. I wear boots and so like I'm not throwing on my boots to run away or whatever. And I'm like, oh, maybe my Crocs, you know, maybe that's the move or maybe like kind of slip on running shoes or whatever. But something that you brought up when we were talking about this beforehand was the or maybe like kind of slip on running shoes or whatever. But something that you brought up when we were talking about this beforehand was the kind of like,
Starting point is 00:25:15 well, it's not like crazy realistic to get out a window and out the backyard during a house raid. Yeah, I mean, I feel like in house raids, they surround the house and they try to, you know, shock you into compliance. So yeah, this person seems like they're very good at parkour, which is something I wish I was more limber for. I get the impression that this particular character is a graph kid and is a little bit used to, I'm going to move very quickly and stealthily. And I actually wonder, because when I watch videos of house raids, because I have a normal person's
Starting point is 00:25:45 brain and do normal hobbies, I don't think they always surround the house. I think that if they're doing like the full SWAT or whatever, they might, right? But I don't know. And so I think that there is a little bit of a like, I mean, a lot of this is just pure luck, right? This character is playing emulated side scrolling games at 4 or 14 a.m. or whatever it is. But yeah, I don't know. I do like thinking about this sort of different threat model as relates to our go-bags.
Starting point is 00:26:15 But I would actually say with this piece in general, right, this is less about we need to change our threat model to include this as what we're doing now and more like thinking about, well, this might come up. You know, we'll talk about it more when we get into the other sections about the different methods of communication and stuff, but it's like, it's not stuff that we should start doing now. Like, I don't think that I'm going to have to start sleeping with clothes on. I'd hate to start sleeping with clothes on. That's hate to start sleeping with clothes on.
Starting point is 00:26:47 That's really just the main problem for me. Makes total sense. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And then, okay, there was another thing that I was thinking about right at the very end. They're like, and then he puts on, I think it's a, I don't remember which character it is.
Starting point is 00:26:59 Someone has their Casio watch. And specifically, I think they're flagging that it is a like full function, non- non smart watch. I thought that was kind of clever Yeah, I mean I prefer calculator wristwatch if if I have to pick but wait Do you really have a calculator wristwatch? I don't I'm posing right now, but I Think it is useful just to think of like, okay, how can I? Tell time without my cell phone and I think like the cell phone does occupy a very large space. And I think as we're thinking about and we can go into sort of the phone
Starting point is 00:27:31 and like being attached to your phone. But, you know, it's like, do you have a map in your car? Like I've thought about getting sort of a a road atlas, for example, just in case like I don't have GPS service, because. And also, I've been in situations where GPS has thrown me on the road that is completely covered in snow and I'm like, oh, oh, maybe I need to know how to get out of here. But I keep a road atlas of my vehicle. I actually use it as my example whenever I watch because again, I have normal person
Starting point is 00:28:01 hobbies whenever I watch like rightwing people's vehicle bug out vehicle prep stuff on YouTube, which to be clear, I don't look for the right-wingers. It's just an overwhelming majority of the people who are like, check out my truck, it's full of stuff, are right of center. And they all have these back of seat mounted AR-15 mounts to put their AR-15 on the back of their seat.
Starting point is 00:28:28 And I'm like, that's the pocket that the Atlas goes in. Think in your life about the number of times you've needed an Atlas versus the number of times that you've needed not only an AR-15, but a truck AR-15 ready for rapid deployment. Like that's a non-thing as far as I can tell. Like if you are going to be rapidly using your rifle in a vehicle, you're in a war and you're not the driver. So yeah, whenever I see those, I always am like the map pocket. You covered the map pocket. So yeah, get a road Atlas. This podcast is brought to you by road atlases
Starting point is 00:29:15 and Rand McNally or whatever. Yes, exactly. But yeah, I think we can go into the section. So they for getting the character's name, but they they see the house is being graded and they automatically realize that like, oh So they, I'm forgetting the character's name, but they see the house as being graded and they automatically realize that like, oh wait, I'm carrying a tracking device on me. And then there's this tension within the piece around what should I do with this? So they first talk about the phone being encrypted, but using a short password,
Starting point is 00:29:39 which the good advice is use an alphanumeric password that is sufficiently long. Now for our phones, you mostly open it one-handedly. You probably are doing something else. And like most of us probably either use face unlock, there's fingerprint ID unlock, which those are pretty secure, except for if somebody is physically takes your face or your finger and puts it on there. Also I believe that the police are allowed to force you into biometric unlocking
Starting point is 00:30:05 a phone whereas they're not allowed to, well they're like theoretically not supposed to force you into passwords. Yeah so I mean I think the reality here is that most people probably have like a four digit passcode for their phone. And then the piece also mentions an SD card. I'm unaware of, I think there's like four phones that are currently on the market that have SD cards. Most of the mainline phones don't. And so the data is on the phone. It is not removable. You can't remove the battery of a phone. Even when a phone is off, it can be tracked. These are just facts. So one thing and kind of going back to the go bags and like I think having a Faraday bag is something that that would be useful as well for people is like if you want your phone to be more off or at least
Starting point is 00:30:52 not traceable being able to just throw it into a bag could help it at least not contact other radios but there's also operating systems so these are all android based you know, iOS is is what it is. And, you know, there is questions of whether or not the standard encryption algorithms have backdoors that the police can access. But there is a an OS called Graphene OS that is commonly recommended, but it does like it, it does de Google you. So if that is what you're trying to do, you're trying to get away from Gmail and all that, you will get there. And Graphene OS only runs on the latest Google hardware,
Starting point is 00:31:31 like the Pixel line of phones, just because they want to keep it very up to date and not have to support a ton of phones. So it's like the three latest phones or something like that. So if you are sufficiently paranoid and you want to play around with this kind of stuff, I recommend that. But there's also other ones like there's Lineage OS, which is another alternative
Starting point is 00:31:48 OS for Android phones that you can choose not to download Google apps or not. And then Calix OS, which is another project that's doing similar goals. So I think it's interesting with phone security because like none of the things that you're talking about to my understanding none of those stop the basic your phone is a tracking device thing right like theoretically all they're capable of doing is like limiting bad actors from accessing the data on your phone is that a fair way to put it yeah and and I would say that you know data encryption in general is really good for maybe not always like, oh, I'm trying to avoid law enforcement, but if my phone is stolen, I don't want my credit
Starting point is 00:32:30 card or my files in the hands of somebody who could use it. And I think there was a piece I was reading that was related to phone security that suggested treat your phone like an encrypted landline and only connect to it over Wi-Fi, not cell phone networks. Then that particular device would never get that triangulation data from the cell networks, which is interesting. And then it would have, you know, you have signal on that phone and then it just never leaves your house and then it's never on your person.
Starting point is 00:33:01 But again, I think that that is a perfect scenario when most of us are gonna, we like the convenience of having a cell phone. We like to be able to look up things and talk to our friends. I also think it's a different threat model. I think that's the threat model of like, which many, maybe you, dear listener,
Starting point is 00:33:22 in the current context are a person who does valiant crime, let's say, right? And in which case, absolutely. And I recognize the point of the more people have secure practices, the more that they can't pick people out as like, ah, this person probably does crime because they do this thing. But I would say that like for most people, I think in the current threat model, like the odds of me needing to take a call from my sick family member while I'm out for 12 hours is like that's more important to me than like that my cell phone hasn't pinged off
Starting point is 00:34:06 of any towers recently in the average scenario. And so like, and I think that that's what's interesting about this particular thought experiment piece is that it's presenting a like, well, all of that shits out the window. And if all of that stuff's out the window, then you're just like in a totally new terrain. And so I think that there's, I don't it's it's it's complicated but I really do
Starting point is 00:34:29 like that I like that they point out that they're like okay I'm gonna throw my phone down the sewer now and all of that which I don't think is a bad idea if that is what you're paranoid about I didn't I didn't have sort of an issue with that exactly yeah but I do think sort of understanding the limits of the technology you're carrying on you I think is important. And be aware when you are bringing a listening device to somewhere.
Starting point is 00:34:54 Yeah. I think that's just, yeah. On a place that just keeps track of everything you do. Although all cars from like what 2014 onwards also do that. But we could, we'll talk about that maybe a different point yeah anyway all right well is that it for good section one you want to start in section two yeah it's sweet section two resources Jake has been tagging and dumpster diving for years so he knows his
Starting point is 00:35:24 neighborhood pretty well. Just as he's noticed what gets cleaned and what does not, he's noticed what gets moved and what does not, what gets paid attention to and what does not. There's a moss-covered rock in a local park that never gets moved. No one even goes near it. There's a roof of an abandoned building
Starting point is 00:35:42 littered with garbage. Long ago, Jake took two plastic bottles and sealed each inside a ziplock bag with a small amount of cash and two USBs each. Then he buried one bottle in the dirt underneath the rock and taped another bottle underneath a non-functioning vent on the roof of an abandoned building. In each bottle, one USB contains an encrypted key pass X database with the distinct login information of every online account he has,
Starting point is 00:36:12 as well as a VeraCrypt encrypted folder with various files he wants to make sure he never lost, scans of his IDs, photos of friends, including a GPG key pair. He has encrypted both with a passphrase of five randomly chosen dictionary words committed to memory. Veritable Sasquatch humdinger locality peeps. He has practiced this every night for weeks,
Starting point is 00:36:38 building all kinds of associations and mnemonics. Unencrypted on the drives are executable files to install keypassx, veracrypt, and gpg on any new computer. On the other USB is a full install of the tails operating system. Jake knows he looks a mess in his boxers and muddy socks, but he gets to the park and digs up the bottle without a squad car seeing him or some vigilante neighbor raising a fuss. The twenty and two tens inside will have to be enough. Luckily, there's a small houseless encampment nearby, and an old lady is willing to part
Starting point is 00:37:15 with a sweater for ten. A free box happens to have a too large pair of sneakers. He desperately tries to make his boxers look like shorts and walks to a thrift store, quickly emerging with a backpack, a t-shirt, a baseball cap, and a pair of pants. A visit to a corner store bathroom with a razor and hair dye, and his appearance is at least a little different. He buys a cheap first aid kit for the splinter in his hand. With his cash broken into change, he can catch a bus across town.
Starting point is 00:37:49 When Jake gets near the first house of comrades, not only are the cops there, but his friends are still in their underwear and hog-tied on the lawn. A cop is violently molesting a friend of his under the pretense of a search while others laugh. Jake keeps moving. At the second house there are no squad cars but the front door is visibly missing. Jake notices someone sitting in an unmarked car across the street. He keeps walking. The third house he tries belongs to a largely apolitical friend. It's a struggle to try
Starting point is 00:38:22 and get him not to proclaim surprise loudly on the front porch and not to talk near devices. I just need to borrow a couple hundred, man. Then I'll be out of your hair. I never saw you. You never saw me. Please. Jake leaves with a hundred, a filled water bottle, a better hoodie, a better pair of shoes with dry socks, and a dusty old laptop. It's not enough bus fare to get to the border. He needs a sleeping bag, but REI has been implementing stronger anti-theft policies, and the longer he fucks around town, the more likely he is to get stopped. He's terrified of facial recognition and tracking software on the buses, and his thrift store
Starting point is 00:39:04 baseball cap isn't going to protect him forever. He scopes out the city bus terminal from some distance, but it looks like this one checks ID, and there's a cop wandering around. Instead, he catches a city bus out to a distant suburb on the edge of rural two-lane roads, trying to hitch. Hopefully, the cops out here aren't actively looking for him and won't harass a hitchhiker. A state patrol car passes him without incident. He has no success for hours and it starts to grow dark, so it's back to the city.
Starting point is 00:39:37 Worried about cash, in the middle of the night he climbs the roof of his second stash, but it's missing. Probably the tape eroded months ago and it fell off. Hope the person who found it could use the cache. If they opened one of the USBs, it would just prove cryptic, no way to ever learn what was encrypted. It's a cold night, sleeping rough without a sleeping bag. And in the morning, Jake takes refuge in the back of a cafe where
Starting point is 00:40:05 he still has enough cash for a warm drink. He takes out the dusty old laptop from his friend and the Tails USB, booting it and accessing the internet over Tor. The connection to the Tor network has trouble, so he chooses configure connection and selects different bridges until he finds one that works. A few anarchist counter-info sites are reporting the raids, but a surprising number of sites are down entirely. Local news says almost nothing besides statist blather. Social media is trash with speculation from those least informed.
Starting point is 00:40:41 Foreign no-blogs and indie media sites have the most relevant reporting. Signal is down, something about centralized architecture. Comments speculate about international law. But it doesn't matter right now. RiseUp allegedly melted their servers with thermite during a raid and we're all arrested. Protonmail has apparently been collaborating, injecting spyware onto users' devices. And some people are surprised by this? Wire is temporarily unavailable. A few people leave links urging people to use the various apps or tools Jake's never heard of. But do you know what they should use, Greg?
Starting point is 00:41:19 For all of their secure communication, they should use whatever's advertised next. Hey kids, it's me, Kevin Smith. And it's me, Harley Quinn Smith. That's my daughter, man, who my wife has always said is just a beardless, d***less version of me. And that's the name of our podcast, Beardless, D***less Me. I'm the old one. I'm the young one. And every week we try to make each other laugh really hard. Sounds innocent, doesn't it? A lot of cussing, a lot of bad language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid.
Starting point is 00:41:50 Could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out. It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless, S***less Me on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Are your ears bored?
Starting point is 00:42:01 Yeah. Are you looking for a new podcast that will make you laugh, learn and say, Gah? Yeah. Are you looking for a new podcast that will make you laugh, learn, and say que? Yeah! Then tune in to Locatora Radio Season 10 today. Okay! I'm Dioza. I'm Mala.
Starting point is 00:42:14 The host of Locatora Radio, a radiophonic novela. Which is just a very extra way of saying a podcast. We're launching this season with a mini-series, Totally Nostalgic, a four-part series about the Latinos who shaped pop culture in the early 2000s. It's Lala checking in with all things Y2K 2000s. My favorite memory honestly was us having our own media platforms like Mundos and MTV3. You could turn on the TV, you see Talia, you see JLo, Nina Sky, Evie Queen, all the girlies doing their things,
Starting point is 00:42:50 all of the beauty reflected right back at us. It was everything. Tune in to Locatora Radio Season 10. Now that's what I call a podcast. Listen to Locatora Radio Season 10 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 00:43:07 Sonoro and iHeart's MyCultura podcast network present The Setup, a new romantic comedy podcast starring Harvey Guillen and Christian Navarro. The Setup follows a lonely museum curator searching for love. But when the perfect man walks into his life... Well, I guess I'm saying I like you. You like me? He actually is too good to be true. This is a con. I'm conning you to get the Delano painting. We could do this together. To pull off this heist, they'll have to get close and jump into the deep end together. That's a huge leap, Fernando, don't you think? After you, Chulito. But love is the biggest risk they'll ever take.
Starting point is 00:43:49 Fernando is never going to love you as much as he loves in this job. Chulito, that painting is ours. Listen to The Set Up as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer, host of the podcast,
Starting point is 00:44:12 The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. Join me every week as I tell some of the most enthralling true crime stories about women who are not just victims, but heroes or villains, or often somewhere in between. Listen to the greatest true crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back.
Starting point is 00:44:48 Other people debate the technical merits, but he has a hard time understanding. One new app is blowing up pretty quickly, lots of people attest to it being good, but this seems mostly based on them finding it easy to use. One person says they are still trying to use a smartphone, but then goes quiet. One account that was quiet for a while starts speaking differently. In the comments section on a formerly obscure site, someone says, This is Big C. I'm free. A group of us are forming up at a secure location. Contact me through a secure channel.
Starting point is 00:45:23 Jake knows that this is Cookie, a local organizer. After a little struggle, Jake manages to get the most popular new encrypted communication apps temporarily installed on his Tails instance. He joins one of the public channels that some comments encouraged using. It's basically like Telegram or Discord,
Starting point is 00:45:43 a flood of posting and arguing. Folks who survived the raids using these new accounts try to imply who they are without saying it openly. It's an amateur hour shit show of oblique flailing. Remember that one time we did that one thing? I was the one that wore green. Turns out one of the worst assholes in the scene was still free and he is using the opportunity to crow.
Starting point is 00:46:06 Even when the crude, only you would know X games, imply an account as a given comrade, Jake knows that such details could simply be copy-pasted from a compromised device via some man-in-the-middle attack, where the cops sit between two parties, relaying their messages back and forth as if they're the other person. There is not enough to trust in an internet post to meet up. Vera walks immediately to the house of her old friend Kat. She scopes the front from down the street, notices Kat Subaru is missing, and makes her way in through the backyard. Vera has held on to a spare key for years, but their friendship is almost entirely offline. Vera has held onto a spare key for years, but their friendship is almost entirely offline. They don't even bring devices when they hang out.
Starting point is 00:46:48 As far as the outside world knows, Cat is just another park ranger doing ecological restoration. Ten years ago, they burned down a condo together. Vera cries and trembles the second she closes the back door behind her, falling into a fetal position. Kat's house is pristine, beautiful, safe. Vera rocks back and forth, trying to remember breathing exercises. Has her heart always been this loud? Is she dying? After an eternity, she gets up and starts doing stretches and exercises.
Starting point is 00:47:24 She pictures herself punching through the faces of the cops back at her house. She knows she needs to work out the adrenaline. Kat's house is like a warm security blanket. Everything is just right. Vera lies on the floor of the living room for hours, not moving, listening way too attentively to the sounds of cars going by. Is Kat even in town? Should she make something from her food in the pantry?
Starting point is 00:47:51 The slow crunching sound of Kat's Subaru coming to rest in the driveway is an immense relief. Kat is surprised about the raids, but she grasps the severity, hugs Vera, and tries to throw lentils and veggies in an instapot while listening and asking questions. While dinner cooks, Kat brings out an old laptop she rarely uses and they check the major news sites together, careful not to enter search terms or anything that might flag.
Starting point is 00:48:18 In some sense, it's a relief to learn the raids were beyond just Vera's house. They're not targeted at Vera specifically, but no one seems to have been released yet, so it's clearly not safe to leave. Kat makes up a futon for Vera in the basement. Of course you can stay the night. You can stay as long as you need. Vera takes off her earrings and places them carefully beside her work bag. In each earring is a tiny sliver of a USB stick. Each of them is just like Jake's.
Starting point is 00:48:52 Encrypted keypass X database, encrypted file system, GPG keys, installation executables for VeraCrypt and keypass X. In the morning, Vera will investigate what can be done with Kat's laptop. Julie and Maggie make three stops before heading out of town, first at Julie's bank where she successfully empties most of her account into 5,000 in cash. But at Maggie's bank, the teller disappears for a long while and doesn't come back. You know what? Never mind. I'll go to a different bank, Maggie says to another teller,
Starting point is 00:49:29 using her best imitation Karen voice. They drive off, heads on a swivel for cop cars. Finally, they slip a note into a friend's mailbox, explaining where to find their house key and some instructions for their lease. They collect every credit or debit card they have and tape them together under a seat, never to be used again. They take off quickly, back roads to avoid license plate readers than long
Starting point is 00:49:57 country roads. It's hard to navigate without their phones. Each of them picks a personality type and fashion style that signals no political or subcultural allegiance. They make up a backstory about how they're friends and try to bicker in convenience stores to avoid looking queer. They pick up a bumper sticker they'd otherwise be livid at and slap it on. At a campsite 200 miles away, they go through all their remaining belongings. They have a tarp, a tent, two sleeping bags, a gallon jug of water, a Sawyer microfiltration
Starting point is 00:50:31 water purifier, a five-gallon bucket of rice and beans, a camp stove, a couple pads, trashy books for boredom. They end up buying basic comforts like folding chairs with their cash reserves. It's just a camping trip until it isn't. They go on a hike with their dog and talk about communities they can flee to. A land defense occupation that became permanent. A log cabin squat built deep off of any path on federal land. A friend's organic farm with some partially abandoned yurts.
Starting point is 00:51:06 They discuss the pros and cons of various cults they know. In the end, they drive to the furthest option, the organic farm. The drive is long. On a thin winding back road, they stack up behind a long line of cars. Local vigilantes are performing an inspection to check for antifa. A middle-aged white lady with an AR waves them through cheerily, stay safe out there. The next town has a small rally for democracy along the central drag, besides an Arby's. A couple dozen
Starting point is 00:51:42 liberals in folding chairs hold cardboard placards making puns about the suspension of a cable news channel. At a gas station, Julia overhears two men confidently talking about the investment opportunities in real estate being opened up as all the cockroaches are removed. One night they sleep in their car in a Walmart parking lot on the advice of a friendly night auditor at a cheap motel. New regulations, I can't take a cash deposit, and there's this thing I gotta enter your IDs into that wires them nationally. When they finally arrive at the farm and are allowed past the gate, there are already 15
Starting point is 00:52:21 other people there, extended family of the owning couple, plus a couple of woofer hippies, and two coteries of obvious radicals who are cagey and cold to anyone they don't know. Everyone is antsy. Different groups cook different food. Panicked envy flickers in some eyes. Two weeks in and Julie keeps to herself. Maggie spends her time trying to suck up to the owners and befriends an autistic nerd with one of the other radical
Starting point is 00:52:49 groups. An old balding white dude in a black hoodie keeps snapping at their dog. A trip into town for bulk food goes badly after the nerd insists on wearing a mask and a confrontation breaks out with a local. A backed-up toilet in the farmhouse makes the owners dour for a couple days. One night, the situation boils over and folks start openly talking about the raids. There's fury over who has a device and who can be trusted to have a device. Who is putting everyone else in danger? Who has a right to be here?
Starting point is 00:53:22 Who has a right to anything? After someone brings up land back, someone else screams, who do you think you're fooling? Who are your people exactly? You're not indigenous, you're as white as me. And an awkward physical fight breaks out. The next morning there are immigration police visible in the distance at the neighboring farm. One of the hippies finds three young girls hiding down by the river and rushes them into one of the plastic yurts everyone else is hiding in.
Starting point is 00:53:50 Dogs bark in the distance. Julie joins the couple that owns the farm in meeting the immigration agents. Her dog barks at theirs, and they put them away. The immigration agents are some of the newly deputized conspiracy heads that barely have any training. And Julie is able to find common cultural ground with them, ranting about how genetically modified organisms are poisoning the land, leaning hard into the persona she's studiously
Starting point is 00:54:15 built on the road. The wannabe genocide heirs laugh at her jokes and leave, waving back to her. The girl's white uncle was allowed to remain, a nasty gash across his forehead. The rest of the family is being taken to one of the deportation camps where people die of dehydration. He's profoundly grateful for the rescue of his nieces. Over the next month, the adjacent farms begin to merge.
Starting point is 00:54:44 A dugout hiding spot becomes a tunnel network. Maybe it'll suffice to hide folks if cops return. Some new folks arrive, fleeing other things. Tensions break down, relationships begin to form across the groups. One of the quieter members starts opening up, giving lectures on centropic agriculture, and an array of projects rapidly consume all the spare land across the farms. As people get busy developing personal domains and projects to be invested in, the overall vibe improves dramatically.
Starting point is 00:55:18 Food gets pooled. People become more open about what devices they held onto, but it doesn't matter as much because all of the old internet is gone. A few specific corporate sites remain accessible, white listed by telecoms for the sake of commerce, but almost everything else is gone. You can get Amazon deliveries and send Gmail, but it's impossible to reach Wikipedia,
Starting point is 00:55:41 much less Athens Indymedia or any no blogs. The farm establishes a consensus on how devices are to be used. The owners maintain all of their devices in the farmhouse, air-gapped from everyone else. News stories and everything else are downloaded to a USB by one person for an hour every day, then passed around the three laptops everyone else shares. There's one burner cell phone for the whole farm, bought with cash at one of the last Walmarts where that is possible. It's kept turned off and wrapped in plastic bags under a rock five miles away along the
Starting point is 00:56:16 side of the road. It's for emergencies and strictly overseen usage. No one will put its SIM card in or turn it on near the farm or its stashed location. Having swapped out plates and tags, Julie and Maggie occasionally drive into the local town. They sit behind a cafe in their truck while it's closed at night and tap into the still active wifi
Starting point is 00:56:40 with their laptop running tails. Signal is long gone. Tour is totally inaccessible, even using the latest smuggled bridges. On the plain internet, they've managed to register two Gmail accounts using the farm's collective burner phone. How can they find other comrades?
Starting point is 00:56:58 How can they talk with them? Well, if you wanna know, you're gonna have to wait till next Sunday. But what you don't have to wait for is me and Greg talking about this chunk. Okay, and so section two that we just listened to, so much more happened. And okay, the first thing I want to say, just sort of flag, there's a piece where they're like, oh, the autistic nerd. And I'm like, okay, we've all met that or maybe we are that or whatever.
Starting point is 00:57:28 And then it was like, oh, then they wore their mask to the store and refused to not. And I just want to like the flag that I'm like, and could have been phrased a little differently about making the autistic character be the one who does that. I don't know, whatever. Maybe that's me being too Twitter-brained about it. And I don't know the... I have no idea about the neurodivergence or non-neurodivergence of the author of this piece. But okay, I have a bunch of questions about this part. And this is the part where I'm like, this is the part where I brought you on.
Starting point is 00:58:02 I think I'm going to be a USB drive kingpin now, and that's what I'm investing in. So it's going to be after the raids, we'll all need lots of USB drives. I know. And it's interesting because we're going to need lots of mostly small USB drives. Small USB drives. I think we're going to need a couple of big ones to have lots of legally purchased media on. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:58:24 And. Yeah. And. Okay. So there's a bunch of different programs they talk about. They talk about key pass X, they talk about Vera crypt. They talk about GPG and they talk about tour. Where do you want to start? Well, um, and they also talk about tails, which is just, we can, we can go through, why don't we talk about what each of these things are,
Starting point is 00:58:45 just for the uninitiated. So KeyPassX, which is to be clear is defunct now, thanks for pointing that out. KeyPassX has turned into a new project, KeyPassXC. So if you're looking around for it, it's now called that. And so that is generally a password manager. And so I strongly recommend that anybody listening to this, start using a password manager,
Starting point is 00:59:05 use a different password for every single one of your accounts. And this is not advice as a radical, this is advice as a person who uses computers. If one of your accounts gets popped and you use the same password for everything, all your accounts are popped and also use two factor authentication.
Starting point is 00:59:19 Okay, spill over. But KeyPass XC is an encrypted database of all of your passwords. So you use one big password that you hopefully memorize, and then you never have to remember your other passwords. Now, there's some advantage to this from another perspective is like, you don't really know your passwords. So if like somebody were to ask you, hey, what's your email password? You're like, I don't know. And you can legitimately say that you don't know. But I think it's good practice to use a password manager.
Starting point is 00:59:49 So that's what the KeePassX or KeePassXC is. Veracrypt is an application that is used to encrypt files or drives. And so if you wanted to encrypt a large piece of something, you would use Veracrypt and be able to decrypt it like that. GPG is another way to encrypt messages or files that the emphasis is on asymmetric encryption, which I will go with a little nerd moment.
Starting point is 01:00:15 In asymmetric encryption, you have a public key and a private key. You keep the private key to yourself and you're able to share your public key out to anybody. And then they, somebody else to share your public key out to anybody and then they and somebody else will use your public key to encrypt something intended for you. Now one of the most common ways that this is used is through email. There's been applications in the past like Enigmail to make this more easy for people but just know that GPG is used for encrypting files or messages and that sort of
Starting point is 01:00:44 thing. But it's quite manual. It's a process where you have to set up your keys, you have to set up and maintain a public and a private key pair. It's also kind of like a pain in the ass, like just frankly. Yes. And the reason it's fallen out of favor.
Starting point is 01:00:59 If you ever hear anyone talking about PGP, pretty good privacy, that's kind of the closed source version of this. And what people actually use is GPG, which stands for, wait, you told me what it stands for. GPG is GNU Privacy Guard, which the difference is, is PGP is closed sourced, GPG is open source. So the code for, my understanding is that they're functionally the same under the hood. But one is open source and one one is not.
Starting point is 01:01:28 The reason people have moved to things like signal or end to end encrypted email things like proton mail is which is only end to end encrypted if the originating source is also an encrypted mail provider. But the reason people have moved to that is not just so that they can invite journalists into their chats, but that's gonna be a dated reference soon. It might already feel dated to you. You might be sick of people talking about it. Anyway, is that Signal is just so much easier to use.
Starting point is 01:02:00 And I actually think that there is a, for most people in most situations the ease of use isn't just a like convenience it's actually literally more secure because it's harder to fuck up it's really easy to fuck up GPG however as the rest of this piece is gonna later get into there might be situations where it's kind of the only thing going. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:02:27 Because you kind of can't, you can't kill this one. Yeah. And then also the piece mentioned TOR, which stands for the onion router. It's bundled as a browser, but it is a way to route your traffic through many different other computers that are on the Tor network. So where your traffic is coming from and where it exits is not easy to track. And then Tails OS is a operating system that runs as a live USB drive that enables you to utilize Tor without having to install it onto a computer.
Starting point is 01:03:01 You plug in the USB drive, you boot it up and it launches the operating system. And when you turn the computer off, everything is wiped. So it doesn't leave data behind unless you tell it to. But yeah. Yeah. So a lot of tools are brought up. Okay. My other big question about this section is they talk about the big easy convenient tools going down.
Starting point is 01:03:27 For example, they mention ProtonMail has been injecting spyware onto people's computers. And to be clear, ProtonMail doesn't really have a, they're not really our comrades, but they're also not American. And so from my point of view, and maybe I'm being naive, I'm a little bit like stuff that's not American is going to have like way less of an interest in cooperating with a fascist American government. But maybe I'm being naive about that. Yeah, I don't I don't know about that. I do know that ProtonMail was involved in some court cases
Starting point is 01:04:06 where they gave up IP information, but they didn't give up message data because again, they didn't have it. Because ProtonMail is an email provider that does end-to-end encrypted emails by default. You don't even have to think about it if you're emailing another ProtonMail account, which is nice.
Starting point is 01:04:28 The theme of security in this day and age is that it's a lot of like you don't see it, but it's happening behind the scenes. Signal does this proton mail does it. But again, it's a centralized service and we don't know what pressure they may get in the future. Yeah. No, that's a good point. Okay. And then specifically the talking about signal going down like that that is kind of one of the key pieces to this particular thought experiment is that
Starting point is 01:04:50 signal as a centralized thing has gone down and I want to ask you about how How realistic is that? So my understanding is that in the 2019 That signal was taken down in Iran, and I think it had been taken down other times before, along with the entire internet at times in Iran. Iran has the advantage,
Starting point is 01:05:15 at least from the government standpoint, of having a internet that's very easy to turn on and off. My understanding is that in the United States, that'd be a lot harder. And so a general internet going down scenario would look a lot more like the ISPs themselves, either blocking or throttling traffic. The cell phone providers are actually easier to shut down. And there's an example in 2011 during the Oscar grant protests in the San
Starting point is 01:05:40 Francisco Bay Area, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, BART, shut down their cell phone service on the underground tunnels because they thought that activists were using that to coordinate their protests. They were able to do this because they own the entire cell phone network that was underground. You don't get cell phone networks from above ground, and so people had no service at that time.
Starting point is 01:06:02 Signal itself going down though, again, I don't know the details of how Signal is hosted. But if it's not distributed enough, you could just shut down a few of the servers, depending on it. But I do imagine, given the fact that Signal is open source, that if something like that were to happen,
Starting point is 01:06:19 you might see people be spinning up their own versions of Signal. And I think that the piece also talks about, like, oh, there's these other apps that come up. And I think that the piece also talks about like, oh, there's these other apps that come up and who knows if they're good or not. And you would definitely see that. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:31 There's reasons to assume that like in crisis, people are gonna try to figure out other ways to get around things and you'll have to use your best judgment. But I don't think it's unwarranted that Signal could go away, but I think it would, given the fact that we've seen also government officials utilizing signal,
Starting point is 01:06:49 maybe that's an advantage in the realm of like, maybe it is critical infrastructure in this way where we wouldn't see it attacked in that way. And like Tor, for example, is used by the CIA. Yeah. They have a vested interest in not shutting down the Tor network.
Starting point is 01:07:05 Yeah. Yeah, I'm under the impression that Signal is both an app that you can use and also a protocol, like a system by which to do similar things, and that the Signal protocol is used in other end-to-end encryption. Well, like WhatsApp, for example. No, yeah, fair enough.
Starting point is 01:07:23 So WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol, which is the encryption protocol that Signal uses. And it's actually the largest deployment of the Signal Protocol because in the US, WhatsApp is used a little bit less, but across the world, it's much more prevalent. So. Okay. And then actually, it's probably worth distinguishing. Then why is Signal more secure than WhatsApp? I think it's an issue of trust for me. I don't have the details right now, but like
Starting point is 01:07:47 WhatsApp is owned by Facebook. Yeah. And so there's, there's reasonable, you know, suspicions of like, are they keeping things the right way? That's personal paranoia is. And I, and I think one of my caveats to this whole piece is that you all should be doing your own research. if you're listening to this and trying to take advice. We express some opinions, we express some details, but at the end of the day, you're going to make your own choices. And maybe WhatsApp is actually the better option for you because you have family internationally and having access to that encryption is super important. Okay. Well, I think that kind of covers these two sections. Is there anything I'm missing?
Starting point is 01:08:27 Anything we're missing? No, I think that that's good. It's always fun to talk about this stuff. Yeah. All right, we'll come back next week and we're gonna talk about the second half of this story. And also, if you're listening and you're like, wait a second, this isn't the barrel will send what it may.
Starting point is 01:08:44 That's because I interrupted my own book to talk about this because it felt more timely, but within a couple of weeks, I'll get back to telling you the adventures of Danielle Kane on Book Club. But in the meantime, take care of each other because we gotta talk to you soon. It could happen here as a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening. language. It's for adults only. Or listen to it with your kid. Could be a family show. We're not quite sure. We're still figuring it out. It's a work in progress. Listen to Beardless, S***less Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Are your ears bored? Yeah. Are you looking for a new podcast that will make you laugh, learn, and say, Geh? Yeah. Then tune in to Locatora Radio Season 10 today. Okay!
Starting point is 01:10:05 Now, that's what I call a podcast. I'm Theosa. I'm Mala. The host of Locatora Radio, a radiophonic novella. Which is just a very extra way of saying... A podcast! Listen to Locatora Radio Season 10 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Starting point is 01:10:24 From the producers who brought you Princess of South Beach comes a new podcast the setup. The setup follows a lonely museum curator but when the perfect man walks into his life. Well, I guess I'm saying I'm like you you like me he actually is too good to be true. This is calling to get the. This is a con. I'm conning you to get the Dilama painting. We can do this together. Listen to The Set Up on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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