Reply All - #94 Obfuscation

Episode Date: April 12, 2017

This week, we debut a new segment designed to help you calibrate your anger in a changing world. Plus, how to cloak yourself from all the people who are now allowed to see your internet browsing history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Gimlet, this is a reply all. I'm Alex Goldman. And I'm PJ Vote. And this week, we are debuting a new segment. Is that true? It is true. Okay, so here's the deal. Right now, we are living in a time

where the amount of things that I am supposed to be mad about on a given day has greatly outpaced my ability to be mad or even pay attention to all of them. Right. And so we're interested in a new segment called, Why is everybody so mad? And do I have to be mad also? which is where you go find out about something.

And then we rate it from one to ten. And we decided people have to care about it. Obviously, I asked Matt Farley to do a theme song for it. There's an information overload. Everybody's ready to explode. Fake news. Strong views. So many sides which one to choose.

I don't want to lose. I'm so confused. Oh, oh. Is everyone so mad? And do I have to be mad also? If you notice that all of these segments we have. It's like, Alex has to go do the work and then you have to sit in the studio and hear him talk about it. No, I haven't really noticed that. Anyway, the thing that last week I asked you to go

check out is this ISP thing. Everybody on the internet. And like actually everybody. It was like the progressives who are terrified about Russia, but also like people on Breitbart. Like the political spectrum in America was super mad saying, oh, Trump and the Republicans just passed this new law. And now like your ISP, like Comcast, Verizon, whoever, they're. They, you know, they're, you. can now just spy on your browsing history. And so last week, I just asked you, do I have to care about this? Does anybody have to care about this?

If so, how much? If not, great. What have you learned? Okay. That's a tall order, man. I love to not care. All right. So let me just clarify what actually happened.

In October of last year, the FCC under Obama passed a bunch of privacy rules that would have made it so internet providers like AT&T and Verizon can't sell your purse. personal information to advertisers. Unless you give them permission. And those rules were set to go into effect at the end of this year. Okay.

But then a couple weeks ago, Congress was like, we don't need these privacy rules. We're going to kill them. And that is what people are upset about. Yes. So the people who are freaked out are freaked out because right now, your internet provider can basically see every site you visit. Even if you clear your browsing history.

Even if you clear your browsing history, they have this list, and they're allowed to hang on to it if they want to. They're allowed to sell it if they want to. So the first thing I wanted to know was like, why did Congress kill these privacy rules in the first place? So I went straight to the source. I went to Congress. I watched the Senate debate about this bill. And before it even starts, this guy has to get up on the Senate floor and say just the title. of the resolution. Resolution providing for consideration of the joint resolution, Senate

Trent Resolution 34, providing for congressional disapproval under Chapter 8 of Title V, United States Code, of the rules submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to protecting the privacy of customers of broadband and other telecommunications services. So everyone starts shuffling around to get in their places on the Senate floor, and while I'm waiting for it to start, C-SPAN, play. this delightful classical music. How long is a hearing like this? Hours. You watched all of it?

I watched about an hour and a half. Good enough for me. So Jeff Flake, he's a senator from Arizona. He sponsored this bill. He gets up on the floor. Mr. President, I rise in support of my resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act. And he lays out this defense

of getting rid of these rules. Now, Congress needs to repeal these privacy restrictions in order to restore balance to the Internet ecosystem and provide certainty to consumers. What does that mean? Basically what he's saying is the companies like Facebook and Google can already sell your personal information.

And it's just unfair that internet providers like Verizon and AT&D can't do it also. Everybody should be able to get your data and sell it. But the difference is I'm under no obligation to use Facebook and Google if I don't want to. Right. Also, like as much information as Google has something that is a little bit reassuring is they don't have everything. Like the ISP has everything. Right.

So I wanted to talk to Senator Flake. Both he and his 23 co-sponsors, all of them declined or did not get back to me. Okay. I also emailed every internet service provider I could think of. The only people I got on the phone with were Comcast, and the woman who answered the phone was like, I am very overwhelmed by the request for comment on this particular bill. What you can do is read our blog post. That's basically every company's official stands.

Okay, but then what do the blogger? say? Is it just like we're not going to sell your stuff even though we're allowed to? Well, what they actually say is that they don't collect your sensitive data, like health care information, information about your kids, and they don't sell that. So after trying to reach like three dozen people, there was only one person who agreed to talk to me. Howard Waltzman, I'm the general counsel for the 21st century privacy coalition. And can you tell me what the 21st century privacy coalition does? We're a group that advocates on behalf of Internet service providers in the privacy and data security area.

So basically it's an interest group that's funded by Internet service providers. And what Howard said to me was, like, look, all the Republicans did was undo rules that hadn't even taken effect yet. Preventing these rules from going into effect, don't give the ISPs like new rights to do different things with your data than they already have. According to Howard, there's enough regulation already. This is totally unnecessary. In general, when you look at the Internet and you look at how the Internet has flourished over the last 20-plus years, I don't think the Internet would have flourished in a way that it has if consumers didn't trust how their information was being handled online. But I mean, okay, I am a consumer and I don't trust the way that my information is being handled online. I'm very paranoid about it.

And as far as I know that... Do you use the Internet? Very aggressively. Well, then you, I mean, you may be concerned about it. You may take steps to protect your information, but you're not so concerned about it that you're not using the Internet. Well, okay. First of all, I do a podcast about the Internet, so that I have no choice, have to use it in order to do the podcast. But second of all, it's like the Internet is very necessary.

in order to function in the modern world. But that doesn't mean that I'm not somewhat uncomfortable. I understand that some advertising needs to exist in order for the internet to work, but that does not mean that I'm not concerned about it. Okay. I mean, I already get served quite a bit of ads in my internet browsing and in my day-to-day.

Does this mean that ISPs will feel emboldened to serve me more ads based on my browser? housing habits? ISPs will have the same requirements they've had for the past 25 months. So, no, I don't believe they'll feel more emboldened to do anything. So Howard's point is that these companies are responsible, they do right by their customers, and we should just trust them. But the people who are mad about these rules being killed are like, actually, we should not

trust them because they have exhibited some extremely sketchy behavior in the past. like installing spyware on your phone that collects all of your browsing history and your keystrokes or Jeremy Galula, who worked for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told me, they will just put new ads smack dab

in the middle of websites. They would add extra ads into the thing? Yes, they would add ads, so you had ads in your ads. You know, there was an example where somebody went to the FCC website. We're talking, you know, a government agency. And there was an ad for boots, just right smack in the middle of the page.

You can bet the FCC he did not partner with anyone to sell boots from their web page. Which companies did that? Like big ones? Or was it like, I'm pretty sure it was a- Bimble Corp. I'm pretty sure it was a big one. Give me just a second. Okay, so AT&T and Charter have both done it.

Whoa. Yeah. When Charter was doing it, they sold it as, quote, unquote, enhanced internet service. Oh, go to it. Hell. Oh, I'm not going to say George Orwell, but come on. So, as you might imagine, the EFF is not super happy that these rules have been repealed by Congress. And do they, I mean, not that you would have asked them this question necessarily, but like, on the scale from like, Oh, I did ask them this question. Oh, really? I asked, I asked Jeremy, I said, okay, on a scale of

one to 10, I was going to say global warming to dropping your least favorite starburst. Here's what I said. I said on a scale of 1 to 10, orange, by the way. One being your favorite blogger resigning. Uh-huh. Resigning is very... From his blog. Okay.

10 being, the internet is shut down forever. Where does it fall? Where does this fall? I would probably call it, uh, being honest, the internet isn't broken, but I would call it probably like a seven. A seven? Yeah, seven or an eight. That's pretty bad.

I think it's pretty bad. bad, yeah. Okay. I feel like I'm starting to see the worst case scenario here. I think that it genuinely sucks that I get my internet and my cable from the same place and they collect information about what I watch from my cable box and what I'm searching for on my internet. I don't like that. It's icky. Like for you as a single human living in the world, the worst that comes of this is like you're getting served ads for something private and weird. You know, and like your wife walks in the room and she's like, oh, why are you getting so many ads for like divorce pills or whatever and you're like ah right and i feel like the other thing actually is just what if they collect all this data on you intending to sell it and then

somebody hacks them and then like hackers have your browsing history that seems pretty unlikely knock on wood why i just think that okay i mean it's just like every company has data breaches every month you know what i mean that doesn't feel that unlikely to me okay fair enough and They can anonymize stuff, but, like, you anonymize stuff, but, like, things that were made anonymous often become unanonymous just through, like, context. Yeah. Like, this person, Google searches Alex Goldman a lot and lives in New Jersey. Like, you know what I mean? I don't Google search myself a lot.

Yes, you do. No, I don't. Yes, you do. Give me your computer. I'm going to type in A in Google and see what the first thing that comes up is. No, I want to say. Go ahead. A.

Herb news. Okay. L. Alpha Bay Market. E? Alex Jones contact info. You really don't. Alex G.

Whoa, man, you really don't. Alex Goldman only comes up if I search Alex G. And then it's you looking up your Wikipedia page, which I'll give you a pass on. Okay. So that's the future you're looking at. It's me doing that. So, having learned all these things, where are we on? the scale.

One to ten, do I have to care about this? I kind of feel like this is around a four. I do think that this is going to lead to companies doing creepy new targeted advertising. But if that's like the worst thing they're going to do, I feel like it's annoying. It's not life-changing. Okay. Okay.

I'm not going to care about this. I'm going to keep my head in the sand. But because I thought that I might be incredibly blind. laissez about this. I convened what I like to call the panel of four. It is four experts that might have differing opinions. Okay. And I didn't tell any of them what I was calling them about. So first up, we have Paul Ford, who is the co-founder of the Digital Product Studio Postlight and an old school super nerd. Hey, Paul, this is Alex Goldman. How are you? Oh, hey. I'm just about to get on a bus. Oh, okay. On a scale of one to ten, how bad do you think that the FCC's privacy

repeal was. Oh, boy. I was probably a seven. Adrian Chen, writer for the New Yorker. Hmm. Well, I have not been following it very closely, but I would say five. Kashmir Hill, journalist at the Gizmodo Media Group. I knew you were going to ask this. I'm going to give it a six. And Jane McGee, retired graphic designer.

On a scale of one to ten, yes. How worried are you about the Trump administration's repeal of the FCC privacy regulations that took place last week? Ten. Mom. You're really ten worried? Ten worried means like, in my mind, if you're ten worried, you're like staying up all night. Okay, I'm not staying up all night.

All right. Are you having panic attacks? I am, but for different reasons. Eight worried? Are you losing your appetite? That'll never happen. Okay, so you're eight-worry. I think it's a bit of an overreaction.

Overreact. That's my MO. I'm totally cool with your mom being on the panel of experts. I'm not totally cool with you convening a panel of experts and then berating one of them for their answer. Look, we have a special relationship. I'm allowed to say that. But let's say, for sake of argument, you are a Jane McGee. You are very worried about this. It bums you out. All you want to do is just figure out a way that the ISPs can't actually track you.

Okay, so what do you do? So there's a couple things. The first is any website that says HTTPS on it. Uh-huh. So there's two kinds of websites. Secure. Secure, which is the S. And Huta P.

And. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Huttapah. I mean, we're ostensibly a tech show, man. Ostensibly. The S websites, your ISP will be able to see you go there, but it won't be able to see you do anything there.

Anyway, the other much more secure way to protect yourself is a VPN. And if you don't know what a VPN is. Virtual private network. Very good. I used to use them sometimes in Canada because when I lived in Canada, I couldn't watch American Netflix. And the VPN made it so Netflix couldn't tell where I was connecting from. Yeah, a VPN is basically a connection to a computer that's located somewhere else.

So when you're browsing the internet, it looks like your traffic is coming from that computer instead of yours. So those are the two obvious ways to hide yourself online. But I discovered another one, which is actually kind of absurd and pretty great. It's designed by this philosopher named Helen Nissenbaum. She's a philosopher. Yes. And Helen said that this thing happened to her. She said, you know, in 2005 I was working on this ethics study with these guys.

And I found out that Google was storing all of my searches. And I was like, oh, like, why would they do that? And I said, oh, this is really disturbing. I'm not so happy that Google or the other search companies are keeping a full record of all my searches because some of them I find to be quite intimate. And my colleagues, who are computer scientists, they said, it's on their servers. So, of course, they're maintaining your search queries. I said, is there anything I can do about it?

Can I say, no, I don't want you to? and they said, well, of course not, because they just collect the searches. So it's theirs to keep. It's so great because it's just like, it's almost like the same way like a joke is like a carpenter and a doctor walking to a bar. It's like these computer scientists were like technically were able to do this. And so of course we're going to. But she's a philosopher. She's like, but why?

Yeah. So she thought about this for a while. She got really mad about it. And then she came up with this like great big idea to save privacy. So do you know what? Do you know what radar chaff is? Yes. It is stuff that planes shoot out so they don't get picked up on radar.

Right. It's like little pieces of shrapnel that have like aluminum on them so they make a radar go crazy. Right. It's like there's planes everywhere. Right. And the program that Helen made is basically like radar chaff for the internet. It's this program called Track Me Not. What Track Me Not does is it automatically sends search queries to whichever site

you have it installed in in the background. So I actually installed Track Me Not on my computer, and it works for any website. So say you're on Amazon and you're looking for cat food and whatever cat toys, it will also in the background be doing random searches on that site. I don't even notice them.

Let me see. This is a log of all this, on the right hand side, a log of all the searches it's doing in the background right now. On your computer. Yeah. So it's like, New $100 in box, David McLaughlin, CNN had Donald Trump solved?

That's great. Yeah. They actually, it looks realer than I thought. Yeah, well, they've designed it to make it look like a person doing real searches, so it confuses Google. So it works? Great question. Do you know the answer? No one knows the answer.

Google's not going to tell you if your Google tricking bot works. She's also worked on another plugin that's called AdN. nauseam. Uh-huh. And it's a plug-in that when you go to a website automatically clicks on every ad on the page. Oh, that's amazing. Right. So it's like this guy loves cars and jacuzis and blah, blah, you just seem like a hyper-consumer.

Totally. And Helen sees this as like part of a larger movement that she calls the obfuscation movement. So ad nauseum obfuscates you from advertisers. Track me not obfuscate you from places where you type in searches. And this guy, Dan Schultz, after all this stuff happens, in the past couple weeks, made this program called Internet Noise, which obfuscates you from ISPs by randomly visiting websites. I love that because I go back and forth between being cynical and not.

But like, I just like the idea that instead of being mad, I like the idea that you're just like, no, this is going to be like hand-to-hand combat. You know what I mean? Right. Okay, that is it for our first edition of Why Is Everyone So Mad and Should I Be Mad Also? Here is where we're leaving this. four out of ten. According to you, Alex Goldman,

if people feel upset with that, they should direct it to you, Alex Goldman. PJ agreed, though, so I think that he... I don't recall that. And if you're interested in, like,

slightly anonymizing yourself, get a good VPN, or if you want to do it in a more artistic, weird way, try obfuscation. You can use internet noise, ad nauseum,

and track me not. And we'll put links in the website. We'll put links in the website where you'll be tracked. Okay. After the break, Dan tries to teach a salmon to find gold, and two humans reach total transcendence. Stick around.

Welcome back to the show. It's April, which means everybody here at Reply Al is making preparations for what for us is the biggest holiday of the year. Email debt forgiveness day. As we all know, email debt forgiveness day is April 30th. It's the one day of the year where if there is someone who you were supposed to email and you didn't because you felt anxious and you let it go on too long, and then before you knew it, too much time had passed really say anything. Email debt for goodness day is the day we're allowed to just email that person as if no time has passed at all. It is an opportunity to free ourselves from doubt and regret.

And as we talked about it, the show, we realized that there was one person who really needs email debt for going to stay. And that person is also one of our show's editors, Mr. Jorge Just. How many people do you think you have in your head right now, like avatars of people who are disappointed because you owe them an email? If I start to think about it. about them? Like, it gets crowded. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know those photographs of Woodstock? Yes.

Mm-hmm. Just like, yeah, except they're all frowning. And they're not enjoying peace love and music. Yeah, they're, like, covered in mud, and they haven't eaten in three days, and they're angry about it. There's this one person in particular who already felt really bad about. His friend Chris Collin. Chris is a journalist. He's a professional writer, which means that normally he is completely capable of writing his own emails. But at a party a while ago, Jorge and Chris made this weird bargain where Jorge agreed to write two emails on Chris's behalf for Chris. But Jorge didn't do it.

He didn't do it the next day. He didn't do it the next week, the next month, and pretty soon a year had passed. And in that year, Jorge has been feeling really terrible. And so we decided to try to take care of it in the studio in preparation for email debt forgiveness day. And I just have to say, Jorge just his whole demeanor changed. He looked like a person who is in actual physical pain. Do you want to try to just call Chris? Yeah, let's, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes.

Yes, I think we should call him. All right, let's call him. Hello? Hey, Chris. Hey. So, Chris, I'm here with Jorge. Oh, also, this is PJ. Hi, PJ.

Hi, hi, Jorge. Hello. Can I just ask you some questions? Yeah. Do you remember a party 12 months ago where bartering occurred? That's not how I remember it. I remember this party being two years ago, Jorge. So what happened two years ago?

I had a birthday party. The theme was bartering. You had to barter for something, and then you would get something in exchange. It was your birthday party. Yeah, it was my birthday party. Man, that's different and worse than what I had heard. What did you hear? Oh, there was your wife's birthday party.

Jorge, why would you say that? To lighten my psychic glowed. It was my birthday party, but I remember that he had a really excellent idea, which was he would write two emails that I really didn't want to write. That sounds great. That sounds really generous. Well, yeah. I mean, I like to think that he got something pretty good.

Jorge, do you remember what you got? I think I got four tickets to the theater. No, it was a really good idea. I can't remember if Jorge knew that I was the kind of guy who could really use that. I like to think it was sort of a targeted offer. Right now, I'd like to think that you aren't the kind of guy who could really use that, Because that would also lighten my psychic load. Wait, are you saying that this has been hanging over you?

Because I feel like it's been hanging over me. I feel like you, like you have owed me these emails, and it's been just one more thing. It's like a third email that I've needed to write. Like it had the opposite effect of what it was supposed to have. It was like, oh man, no, I should write Jorge and give him his assignments, but I haven't. but I haven't gotten around to it. So you thought this was your fault? Yeah.

No, I felt like he gave me this really. Well, you know, it's like when you have like a Groupon certificate and you just like, you realize it's been like four years and you haven't used it. It just sort of, it's that species of guilt. Well, that's exactly why we called. What's going to happen? Orie, do you want to tell him? I forgive you.

Wait a second. think it's like a thing where you forgive me. I'm not saying I did wrong by you. I'm just saying I haven't taken advantage of your very sweet offer, but I don't think that was like a crime against you. Yes, I feel like I owe you. Yes, this has been hanging over me. Like I'm a bad person who says he's going to do something and then doesn't do it. I mean, but technically you definitely do owe me something. I think two things actually. Two things, yeah. Do you have two emails that you still want written for you? Or at this point it would be better just like scuttle the whole deal? You couldn't pay me to scuttle this deal. I mean, is there one that comes to mind right now?

Yeah. I've got like literally decades old, a decade old collection of emails that it would be nice for him to deal with. Like strangers who wrote me notes and I, and they were so sweet. that I wanted to write like really meaningful replies, and I just didn't. What's the worst one? Well, I wrote a story about a man named Randy who subletted an office from me when I was not going to be in the office. And he was an older guy, super eccentric. And every time I would see him, he would like have some new scheme about like

training a Malaysian raven to tell. whether a man was wearing a hat or not. He had once been in Alaska and he had tried to teach salmon to find gold for him. He had a lot of skis. He was a really fascinating guy. And he was living, I realized he was living at this office that I had rented to him. It started to become clear that he was sort of quasi-homeless. And the other people at the office were getting increasingly,

upset about it. And I just sort of felt like, I don't know, I got sort of caught in the middle of this whole thing and I was sort of, I was sticking up for him and I felt like it was, it was a, it was about San Francisco. It was like a referendum on what was happening in San Francisco in this very micro way. The funky people were getting edged out. And then one day I got a call that Randy had died. And, uh, and it turned out my business card was the only thing they found in his pockets. So Chris wrote an article in the newspaper about Randy. He wrote about Randy's scheme to open a hot dog hut in Thailand and his plan to build the world's first million-gallon aquarium.

And when the article was published, people who'd known Randy wrote to Chris, people who wanted to share their memories of Randy and say how much the article had meant to them. And I just couldn't, I never got around to writing back to them. I don't know how to explain how I'm such a horrible person. I just, they just like sat there. And it was like one year and then it was two years. And then now it's a decade. Well, it's not that you're a horrible person.

It's that you don't do it at first because you want to do it really well. And then the longer you wait, the better it has to be. Right. And so starting on day two, it just becomes more and more impossible every day. Yes, that's true. It's snowballs. Yeah. I know a guy who's really good with emotional snowballs.

Okay. All right. Oh, my God. I mean, I can't even tell you how. I really feel like I would lose 10 pounds if you wrote back to these people. I would be happy to do this. Okay, just due diligence here. Tell me, are you going to write quick little notes?

Sorry, bro. Didn't get a chance to write back to you that. Or are you going to really, are you going to sweat this as much as I have been meaning to sweat this? I mean, before you ask that question, I will admit I was just going to send the shruggy emoticon. But, yeah, we will write these emails. I can't wait to see what I write. So that conversation was Monday. Jorge turned around the emails on Tuesday.

Chris made his changes and sent them out to the people who'd been waiting on them for nearly a decade. By the end of the day on Tuesday, both of them, I'm happy to report, are now free of all, worry, pain, and anxiety. They walk around beaming, like they've achieved a kind of transcendent because they have. If you would like to join them in that transcendent state, email that for your email debt for GERDustay is April 30th. We hope you will use it to unburden yourself of female debt. Also, if you have just a huge email debt story, something that's been weighing you down, we want to hear about it. You can send us an email at reply all at gimbledmedia.com. Use the subject line email debt so we know to look for it. Maybe we'll call you and talk to you

about it on the show. Also, if you want more information about email debt for goodness day, we made a webpage for it. It's at emaildeat.com. Reply all is hosted by me, PJ Vote, and Alex Goldman. Our show is produced by Shruthy Pinnaminani Fia Bannon, Chloe Prasinos, and Damiano Marquetti. Production assistance from Sharina On. We're edited by Tim Howard and Jorge Just. We were mixed by Rick Kwan. Special thanks to Dylan Moss and Emily Kennedy.

Our theme music is by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Our ad music is by Build Buildings. And our theme song for our new segment, Why Is Everybody So Mad and Do I Have to Me Mad? Also, it's written by Matt Farley, as many of our best songs are. Matt is available to write custom songs for you for a reasonable fee. Just check out his website. it's moturn, M-O-T-E-R-N-Media.com.

Our logo is by Matt Lubchansky. Matt Lieber is the first cookout of the year. You can visit our website at reply-all.com. You can find more episodes of the show on iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your choice. Thank you for listening. We'll see you in two weeks.

Reply-all is produced by Breakmaster Cylinder. Welcome once again to yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, now where our boss, Alex Bloomberg, finds stuff on the internet and comes. to us to explain it to him. All right. So I have this tweet and it says, Cuckball, Cuckball, Cuckball, Cuckball, Manosphere, fortune, cuckball. Fee-Bowd, do you know what this tweet means?

Yeah. Alex Goldman. Yes. Nazneen. Yeah. Shruthy. Yes. Damiano?

Yes. Schneider. Really? Chloe Prasinos. Yes. Matt Farley. Fia Bannon. Yes.

Kalila Holt. Yeah. Tim Howard. Zardulu. You get used to it. Uh, Alex Bloomberg. Do you know what this tweet means? I do not.

All right, let's get into it. So, the internet is kind of like a nightmare cesspool that is full of offensive stuff. Got it. It seems like we're... Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All right.