The Chaser Report - Hacks Work For Optus | Sami Shah

Episode Date: October 4, 2022

Sami Shah and Dom have had their details leaked in the Optus hack, so they see who else they can dox in retaliation. Plus Dom finds out about the time Sami almost spend thousands falling for a scam. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. We have Dom Knight and Sammy Schar once again. Hello. Hello. Look, we don't normally do this, but I forgot during our last intro to throw to an ad break. So he's an ad break. The Chaser Report, news you can't trust.

You can avoid those by going to chaser.com.com.com. podcast and it's I think it's $9 a month or some very small amount that we charge for the the VIP version. What do people get in the VIP version other than no ads? They get no ads and they get extra episodes but I haven't actually been here so I don't know if we've been putting them up. So sorry if we haven't but we'll get back to the, we're supposed to record daily episodes and an extra for the paying subscribers.

That said, if anyone of the subscribers is used to dealing with the chaser, they will know that we always fuck up on our promises. I've done that on my Patreon. I would make all this content and then I'm like, hi, remember me? Like, thank you for paying my rent. I have a subscriber to your Patreon and I expected absolutely nothing from the content that I did get in.

You put stand-up shows up on there. They're actually a bonus. Yeah, yeah. Are you with Optus? I am. I am with Optus. I've been working in a place so I'm not supposed to say what Telcom

and now I can actually vent on this. Let's talk about Optus. Fuck Optus. All right, so when did you get your email about the hack? Oh, that's a very good question. So the problem is I use Gmail and so it files all the occasionally important emails from people like Optus into the shit marketing updates bit, which is usually an enormously helpful thing. Yeah.

But on this occasion, we actually missed an important email. So I don't know. What I have been checking is whether I've got the email saying where certain your details have been leaked, in which case you're supposed to go and change your license details. But Optus being Optus, of course, we have no certain. They wouldn't know if our details have been leaked or not. They're fucking hopeless. Well, that's the crazy thing. So I only got the email a week after the leak happened.

We shouldn't even call it a leak or a hack. It was literally someone just discovering that you can go to one webpage on Optus's website and just download anything you want to. But here's the thing. Now what do I do? Like, should I switch from Optus? Because technically speaking, Optus is probably now after this more secure than anyone else in Australia. Yeah.

I presume all the other telcos are, like, laughing through their asses at Optus, but haven't actually bothered to patch their own massive floors. Right. Like, I don't know if I trust any of the others anymore. And then also, someone's got my passport, my driver's license, my everything. What do I do? I can't get a new passport. Well, you actually can.

It's just annoying and expensive. And the theory is, I figure that within the next week or so, the government's going to force Optus to pay for some of the shit, at which point the horse will have totally bolted. and all of our details will be out there. I mean, the New South Wales government have come up with a brilliant solution, which is that the customer service minister,

Victor Dominello, who's good with all this tech stuff in general. We've got a customer service minister. It's Orwellian. But anyway, he came out and was like, oh, don't worry, you can go to Service New South Wales, which is an ironically named organisation, but anyway, you can go to Service New South Wales

and change your details, it's fine. And then everyone went, Victor, we can get a new card number, but the driver's license number is the same. Guess which bit of information optus has about us? Yeah. The driver's license number, not the card number. So it's done absolutely nothing.

So I have the sense of, I don't care about my privacy anymore. I gave up. You know, everyone's like, oh, China will get your information. NSA will get your information. Facebook will get your information. I just assume everyone has my information now. I just assume that all my, everything is being watched. Everything's been hacked.

There is absolutely nothing in my life that I have any sale control over. And it's quite freeing to live that way. Are you on TikTok? No. But not because I have any security of privacy concerns. I just feel like I have the 44-year-old man, I have no business being on TikTok. Every time I go on TikTok, the things that the algorithm obviously serves me up, knowing that I'm a 44-year-old man.

And it's like, clearly you must be here for thirst traps. And then it's just way too young women in tights. And I'm like, I don't want to look at this. I shouldn't. It's weird and creepy. I don't want to be the guy who hangs out outside women's gyms or whatever. So I don't. Well, they said I want to be reminded.

by TikTok that I'm that guy. Yes, that I have that capacity to be that guy. No, I see where you're coming from because I must say, the thing is, what's optus going to do? I mean, I'm just going to get more calls from people pretending to be from the NBN when they're obviously not from the NBN. It doesn't seem that bad. I mean, I'd have to say kudos to Charles, who has absolutely no privacy at all, who gave

his phone number out on national television at one point. Did he get calls? Yes. Yes. Yes, so what happened was, one of the better pranks we've done in recent times, there was this whole thing in Sydney where there was a horse race called the Everest, and they put the barrier draw for the horse race on the Sydney Opera House. I projected it onto the Opera House, and Alan Jones organized it all.

And there was a lot of that Christ saying, of you're desecrating our cultural, you know, a cultural temple with your stupid horse racing, and Alan Jones got really stuck in and all that kind of stuff. So Charles projected Alan Jones as mobile number. onto the opera house. What he did was, it was quite clever, he had a projector in the truck,

and he drove into the bit of the opera house. You know how you can drive into something, then they'll make you turn around. Yes. While turning around, he stopped for a moment and projected the number onto the opera house. And it was hilarious.

It was something, I can't remember the first four digits, but it was 873, 873, which is the position on the AM dial of his old radio station. So hilarious. So he had to change that, thanks to us.

And then Terriane Kennelly, I think on Studio 10 or some equally annoying person, said Charles, how would you like it if your number was made public like that? And Charles said, okay. Is he going to have to change his number after this? What's your number? What's your number? 0419. 282.

282. Are you serious? 188? Yeah, that's my number. Is it? You can give me a call if you want. There you go. Paul, Charles.

There you go. Oh, here we go. Is that your phone number? No. Oh, somebody else is good. How about you answering? Hello. Oh, I've got lots of, oh, not.

Oh, look at all. One's from 666. Oh, too devil. No, I think they're telling Jones, actually. You got calls and texts for days of people going, you're a legend. Yeah. So it appealed to Charles's sense of self. And narcissism.

And narcissism, yeah, absolutely. And he got a few people who complain. But no, so he's, I mean, 0419-282-1-8. If you want to say hello to Charles I believe I'm allowed to give his number out whenever we want I did not know this is a feature we were offering That's great I should just put it on my Patreon No I'm I don't care about privacy

Because I've given up on trying to control it I'm I've just assumed they've all had this stuff But also like Alan Jones Like why I don't know He was on fucking Q&A Why was he on Q&A? Did you watch it? Of course not Nobody watches Q&A

Exactly It's 2012 too. Which has lower viewership numbers, his YouTube channel or Q&A? Who's giving whom a platform here? Actually, I presume he was there to boost Q&A. I presume that's what it was with his YouTube audience or whatever it's called. Okay, I thought maybe they were hoping that he'd bring some of his YouTube audience over to Q&A

because they need it. That's what I thought. Yeah, but I presume, I didn't say it, but I presume it went the way it normally guys, which is that lefties get very confused because there are some issues where you completely agrees with them. Like, I remember on fracking, on a few things. They're like, oh, Alan Jones is, because he's so strident that if he says something you agree with, he's going, oh, Alan, amazing. You're so articulately put. And then suddenly he goes back to some rant about, you know, political correctness or something. And then all the lefties were like, oh, that's right.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sure he had opinions about voice to parliament and all that, which no one needs to hear what Alan Jones thinks about any of those things. But yeah, I don't know. This whole optus thing has to be so confused because everyone's really upset and outraged and everything. by this, I just don't feel very bothered. But also, your details are probably public already. Like, I bet I could find you out of birth on the internet easily. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not a problem

and you can probably now find my... But also, like, it's like people are like and then they can hack into your accounts. And your phone number is... Your phone number is 0-414 hate Queensland. Everyone knows that. Yeah, of course. That's a given. I specifically pay $1,000 a month to

the government just to keep that number. Yeah, I don't know. Like, do you care? Now that all your information is out there. It just seems completely normal. I mean, I'm constantly getting calls from people who are, Hi, Dom. Do you want to hear about an exciting investment opportunity? I'm like, you're wasting your time on this for so many reasons.

I wouldn't say yes, even if I didn't have the money to invest in your stupid thing. I get calls from Muslim schools. Oh. And, yeah, and weird, I don't know why. I don't know how they know that I'm Pakistani. They've profiled you. They've profiled you, but not quite well enough. No, exactly.

But then also, I don't want to just be. rude to them or anything. I feel bad. So I just pretend like I'm a white guy who doesn't know what language they're speaking because they'll call up and they'll be like, Asalam ol'aikum and you're like, sorry. Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying. Sorry. Is that your Australian accent?

I don't know what it is. It's just like my generic white accent. Wow. Wow. You know, I'd get hung up on with that voice, I think. Yeah, it works. Never have to sign up to a Muslim school yet you know the Chaser report

news a few days after it happens I must say I my general approach is heavy handed sarcasm which which because of the cultural barrier that sometimes is in place it lasts for a good two or three minutes before the penny drops and they usually say fuck you would hang up

but I also feel bad for them I feel like yeah is doing a job and you know I mean to what extent it's a tough one for me because these are people who are obviously desperate and poor are we're doing this stuff but but they know they're committing fraud right like there are people people who are struggling who don't I mean I don't know what at what point they could get another job that didn't involve trying to rip people of I don't know how to feel

about that I mean we're you know where we're like satirists who ask people to pay money to our Patreon I'm pretty sure we're committing fraud at some point that's actually we're probably worse because we don't provide them the things that we're saying exactly on the moral scale i think they're less they're more defensible than we are yeah yeah look at least also they probably need the money to eat hang on so do we um yeah well i don't know yeah i wasn't that bothered because yeah like you i assume like i know the information's out there the amount of span that i get that has my name on it it's clearly out there already exactly yeah i just want what's the closest you've ever come to being scanned uh some of the first texts with links to like

your you got to pay your overdue i don't know whatever it was toll subscription or something like that, I really went for that. That did sound like the kind of, because it looked like, because I've got such low respect in the abilities of government authorities to send and send messages. It looked incredible. Like the typos looked authentically in each other than I was government to me. Okay.

That was pretty close. But no, I don't think I've actually been scammed than giving over money. I almost at one point gave $10,000. Like, I had my card out. And this was, so I had just moved to Australia. I'd been in Australia for six months or something at the time. We were living in Northam. My partner at the time had gone to work.

She used to go to work at 7.30 in the morning. I was getting my daughter ready for her school. And, you know, she's, I'm getting addressed super early in the morning. Phone rings. I answer the phone. And this guy says, we're calling from your student taxation office. And you've been found to be guilty of committing tax fraud. And we're sending the police over right now.

And I'm like, I've been to this country. six months and I didn't know about the tax stuff in Australia at all because in Pakistan you don't pay taxes so I've never paid taxes before until I moved to Australia so I'm like maybe I have accidentally committed tax fraud and I start panicking and I'm like listen I have to drop my kid to school can you at least wait until I drop my kid to school and come back and then you can arrest me like I don't understand what to do and it's a very important point I think people should be arrested only after dropping their kids at school that's why I figured it's less traumatizing for the kid is what I think. Anyway. And then

they say, yes, look, here's what you can do. There's a fee amount you're supposed to pay. If you pay that fee amount, we'll call the police, tell them not to come, and you can then maybe go down to the police station later and sort that out. I was like, what's a fee amount? And they're like, it's $10,000. And I was like, that's like most of our

savings at this point. We just moved to Australia. That's all we have left, really. Probably it's better than go to jail. And then I remember there's a friend of mine is a comedian in Perth, who's a tax guy. And I was like, oh, actually, let me call him up and I told this person I'm like hey let me just get my tax friend on he's

good with this stuff and they're like give us the number we'll talk to him so I give his number but here's where this grew up it's a man with a very heavy Indonesian accent on the other end right and I'm like thinking of Australia in the multicultural country it's so wonderful that the Indonesian guy is getting a job in the tax

department what a celebration about to go to jail and you were still very new to Australia in those days weren't you Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they basically, they, they say that man is now going to call you and tell you what to do next, your friend. And then they pretended to be my friend, but it was just the same guy with the same Indonesian accent now pretending. And I was like, that's when it fell apart.

But literally at that moment, I had my wallet out and my car already. So I. Which goes to show how often it must work. I mean, for that industry to actually exist, like they must get one. Like, oh, look, we're in quite a long way to this scam. already. Let's just pretend to be his friend. Hi, Sammy, this is your friend, Pete. Even they must have been like, he can't be this dumb.

I'm going to try and save him from himself by making this really obvious. But if he is this dumb, my God, we've just had a very good payday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would have earned that loss. Perfect person is what I think. Yeah, there we go. That's an amazing story. And so at what point did you realize that Australia wasn't that kind of multicultural paradise? Oh, just when I continued living here past the first six months, basically. Now, hang on, you said that there's no tax in Pakistan, you haven't never paid tax before.

No, there is tax. No one pays it. How? How? That sounds like a brilliant idea. I mean, basically what it is is the reason why Pakistan's a mess, right? Because there's no tax collection system that works. Yeah, there's no money for infrastructure or basic services. But as against that, you don't have to pay any tax.

Yeah, I would rather pay tax. I love paying tax. Look at everything I get for it. This is amazing. My Medicare is covered. and you know my child gets free like public school education the roads are good i will pay more tax happily if it means more free shit from the government i i have the opposite approach of tax that does sound quite good i mean that if only people who earn more than you make out of comedy if any

of them have the same view if any billionaires for instance were like yeah look you know what i'm happy to contribute to the society that's been so good to me don't make it about contributing to society people are inherently selfish i want to contribute more so i can get more free shit also I don't trust myself with money if you leave that money with me I'll just buy vintage watches or some dumb shit like that take 70% of my income

and give me everything free instead I'm down with that you know what they should have they should have something where let's say you're a very wealthy person and you don't manage to minimize your tax there's some sort of VIP lounge right like those people at the hospital

get the sort of trinket bullshit that they like there's a little waiting room with a velvet rope and the billionaires who pay actually pay tax to go in the VIP wedding room they don't get any better treatment they might get slightly better snacks or in fact any snacks

and a velvet rope why don't we con them the same way that like every private members club or whatever cons them well instead of penalising people for not paying tax if you reward people for paying tax you're more likely to get

people paying tax should we name things after them like if you pay that much tax you can have like a seat at the football stadium or maybe a really pissy park named after you. Like what would, I would, I would like a bench at any park. I don't even give a shit which park.

I want a bench named after me. I'd like a bench. I'd probably not going to pay enough tax to deserve one, but I might get like a pebble, you know, like a pebble garden. Yeah, yeah. You know, you can buy a star and have it in your name and it's bullshit and it doesn't actually happen,

but they should do that. Everyone gets a star. So Twiggy Forest and Jen and Reinhardt, if they actually pay enough tax, to fund a school. Would I want my child to go to Gina Reinhart public school? Oh, God. Yeah, that's true.

The Reinhardt Academy. She did write poetry, didn't she at one point, if I remember correctly. Yeah, no, there's some excellent stuff. Maybe she can have like an online scammy school named after her. I think so. I think we've solved taxes in Australia. Well done. Give them trinkets.

Thank you very much, Sammy. you can subscribe to Sammy's podcast News Weekly with an A and our Gary is from Road. We're part of the Acast, Creator Network. We'll catch you next time. Bye.