The Host Unknown Podcast - Episode 173 - The Are We Still Doing This Episode

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

This Week in InfoSec (05:41) 2002: In response to a report which insinuated Mac is less vulnerable than Windows, Microsoft suggested few focus on discovering Mac vulnerabilities and that products with more customers will have more vulnerabilities reported.https://t.co/WOUUDOB0g6https://x.com/todayininfosec/status/1721895407545143382?s=20 Rant of the Week (11:09)Photos of naked patients and medical records have been posted online by extortionists who hacked a Las Vegas plastic surgery, driving victims to file a lawsuit claiming not enough care was taken to protect their private information.https://www.bitdefender.com/blog/hotforsecurity/women-sue-plastic-surgery-after-hack-saw-their-naked-photos-posted-online/  Billy Big Balls of the Week (20:48)A federal judge on Tuesday refused to bring back a class action lawsuitalleging four auto manufacturers had violated Washington state’s privacy laws by using vehicles’ on-board infotainment systems to record and intercept customers’ private text messages and mobile phone call logs.https://therecord.media/class-action-lawsuit-cars-text-messages-privacy Industry News (29:28) SentinelOne to acquire cybersecurity consulting firm Krebs Stamos GroupNATO allies express support for collective response to cyberattacksCouncil for Scottish islands faces IT outage after ‘incident’Mortgage giant Mr. Cooper using alternative payment options after cyberattackSerbian pleads guilty to running ‘Monopoly’ darknet marketplaceJapan Aviation Electronics says servers accessed during cyberattack Tweet of the Week (42:39)https://twitter.com/j4vv4d/status/1722916507653394575?s=61&t=0s-EyC1T6uSS3Lo_cyqI4w  Come on! Like and bloody well subscribe!

I think we're just going to rename this the fortnightly episodes, aren't we? Post Unknown is now fortnightly. Yeah. You know, that's not the point of this in-jab. You know, we kind of have a discussion rather than monosyllabic. I did not realize you'd hit record. Oh, come on. So now I have to pretend to be friends with you, I see. Yes, I'm afraid so. You've got to switch it on now. Okay, let's go. You're listening to the Host Unknown Podcast.

Hello, hello, hello. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening from wherever you are joining us. And welcome, welcome one and all to episode, I've got to check this, 182. 183. We've fast forwarded a lot. I tell you what're a bit uh premature in your uh ejaculation of that number there jeff i think um you know andy's not here today exactly he's he's not there for you to look at to calm you down please stop stop it's too early in the morning for this. And as you can tell, we don't have Andy because we don't have show notes at all. And we're starting at roughly the same time as usual. Jav guaranteed he would definitely be here at the allotted hour and turned up 25 minutes later. I am here. I am here. We started started recording i don't see the problem with anything

you know apart from you know the the timing thing anyway anyway jeff how was your week you've been off traveling again to um to exotic places and manchester i believe yes manchester i was in manchester yesterday um great place if you're unemployed, I suppose. But other than that, it was, no, I'm joking. I just took the train, went to the venue, left the venue, got on the train and came back to London again. Oh, you're such a professional. It was. I am so proud of myself. There weren't any delays. Unlike last week when I went to Edinburgh and I ended up with a 10-hour journey back from there because of train cancellations. And actually, hence why we didn't have a show last week, in fairness.

It was a bit of a cluster. It was a bit of a cluster. A slight. What I'm saying is you let me down twice. Now you know how your parents feel about you. Twice? I don't have a brother or a sister. Anyway, how's your week been, Tom? Yeah, not bad.

Not bad, actually. All at home again. Travel is next to nothing at the moment. Work is a little bit interesting, let's say. There's an awful lot going on. What did I do? Oh, I was in Newport for a dance competition. Wow.

Before you ask, I wasn't the one dancing. It was my daughter. So, you know, don't worry about that side of things. But that was very nice. Was she doing her dances that she does on TikTok? That really, like, I don't know what the term for it is, but the robotics. It's not even robotic, but it's like.

It's like a ballerina stroke robotic thing. It wasn't that one. She did that at Comic-Con, actually, the week before on the main stage. And she won a prize. She won tickets for the next Comic-Con. That's amazing. Well done. I know, right?

But, no, this was more on her sort of dance, dance side. So, yeah, it was really good to see her. It was really good. Very good. I love how when you spoke about work, you said interesting. And immediately I started thinking, like, what would so very British say about that? When someone asks you, how was your day?

And interesting. And what are all the definitions that come out? It's an utter clusterfuck. Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's basically a clusterfuck. Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's basically a way of saying that I just don't want to talk about it anymore. Yes, okay. Let's move swiftly on.

Yes, let's move on. Talking of things we don't want to talk about, shall we see what we've got coming up for you today? This week in InfoSec proves beyond a doubt that Macs don't get viruses. Rant of the week is, well, it's basically got lots of photos of naked people in it. Billy Big Balls is talking about cars snooping on you. Industry News gives us the latest and greatest security news stories from around the globe and tweet of the week we haven't decided on yet. We probably won't do it

because Andy didn't do the show next week. I think it would probably be a fair comment, right? Lame. He's lame. He's let us down yet again. He is. He is. Absolutely. And so since he's not here, why don't you take

this next one? What? You're doing this week. Well, why don't you take this next one, Jeff? What? You're doing this week. Well, you know, you take the stance of saying that Microsoft is silly. I talk about how Mac is so much better. It's a quite simple one, right? Go for it. This week in InfoSec. I mean, I could do it, but then I'd be carrying almost all of the show.

Today, we take you back a mere 21 years to 2002. Did I get the calculation right? Brilliant. Thank you. Yeah, you did. I still put the calculator noise in though. Yes. In response to a report which insinuated that Mac is less vulnerable than Windows, Microsoft suggested a new focus on discovering Mac vulnerabilities and that products with more customers will have more vulnerabilities reported.

Who would have ever thought? It's like, you know, I could come up with... Can you say it more simply? Because you said proportionally, we're about the same. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's like compared to Graham and Carole in their smashing security, we have far fewer hate comments left and disappointed listeners. We do. We do. We have very, very few, just I don't know what their position in Microsoft was, but they said, our main point here is that although only about 3% of systems are running macOS, the proportion of attacks suffered by this system is 60 times less than this. There are also relatively few known vulnerabilities of Mac OS, as stated in the news release. And then Dan Kuznetsky said,

breaking into Mac isn't something that gets a hacker kudos in his or her community. Breaking Microsoft gives that person the ego dollars that they depend upon. Wow. So there's no kudos in breaking into Mac, I suppose. Is that still true, Tom? Do you know what? I don't think so. I mean, certainly the endpoint protection vendors wouldn't agree with you there, would they? And we're going to talk about them later. But I find it fascinating that they say that, you know, Mac has only got like 3% of the market. And even then, there's 60 times less than 3% of, you know, vulnerabilities out there in the market.

They're saying like there's just nothing out there. It's almost like they're saying Macs don't get viruses. Yeah, almost, almost. nothing out there so it's almost like they're saying Macs don't get viruses yeah almost almost what what I find interesting about the the second statement by Dan Kaczynski about um you know there's no kudos to the hackers uh in their community for breaking into Mac yeah and I think this is an example of where it's kind of like you oversimplify the issue. Because the assumption here is that there's only one reason that people would hack into any system for. Whereas we know that's completely not true, at least not today.

There are many reasons. Yes, some people are doing it for kudos. Some people are doing it for a bug bounty. Other people are doing it for pretty, pretty nefarious things. Some people are doing it for a bug bounty. Other people are doing it for pretty, pretty nefarious things. You know, and so, you know, there's a whole bunch of things where, like, you know, being public about the fact that you've broken into things where people like as an industry were really bad at oversimplifying things and saying, oh, people only doing it because they're a kid in their mom's basement somewhere and they're bored and they're only doing it to brag to friends. And there's lots and lots of reasons. I think recent history has shown that, you know, it's a it's a far more nuanced affair than, you know, sometimes we'd like to believe.

far more nuanced affair than, you know, sometimes we'd like to believe. Yeah, absolutely. It's a much more, much more nuanced than that, isn't it? It's, it's, it's, I just love how these, these, you know, news bylines just make everything so sort of binary for want of a better term. It's almost like they're looking for viewers, you know, they're trying to sort of, know bait viewers in yeah anyway thank you jav for this week's this week in infosur the host unknown podcast orally delivering the warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you pee yourself. Do you know what I get? I remembered this morning from a couple of weeks ago when we had Graham on,

when you weren't here, and we played the same jingle all the way through. Did you? I haven't heard that. Do you know what? I giggled to myself again this morning about that. It was hilarious. It was the one that said, in your face, to smash in. And it was the only jingle we played. It shows what a child I am because I was lying in bed this morning.

Think about it. Just giggling away. Anyway, anyway, but no, no new news there. Right. Shall we move on to,

yes, this week's rant, I think And it's me It's you Listen up! Rant of the week It's time for Mother F***ing Rage And before we start Although you can't see this through the medium of podcast

Jav just pointed at three pictures he had in his in the background of his of his um of his office of airwolf the 18 van and the ghostbusters ecto-3 must say it looks very very good the people who gave you that must must consider you an adequate friend they do they do actually if i look at my my background now and this is like now we're really delving off out of podcast territory there's a there's a dismantled iphone in a in a frame there's a tiny arcade machine there's this picture and then there's a a movie poster of like indiana jones and the temple of doom but it's sort of like an animated sort of like cartoonish thing. And they're all given to me by some of my adequate friends indeed.

Indeed, adequate friends. People who will look back at you at the end of their lives and think of you as just someone they once knew. It's, you know, the power of love, right? Oh, wow. You actually, you know, I think your Alzheimer's will not even allow those memories. So, you know, we'll see how it goes.

But anyway, rant you go off unless the blood vessel bursts before then. Right, rant. So photos of naked patients and medical records have been posted online by extortionists who've hacked a Las Vegas plastic surgery location, driving victims to file a lawsuit claiming not enough care was taken to protect their private information. What kind of malcontent little piece of crap do you have to be to do something like this i just find this just shocking so uh it was reported on the news that hankinson's

sewn plastic surgery in las vegas uh been sued for harm resulting from a data and privacy breach after hackers claimed they gained access to patients names contact details dates of birth social security numbers driver license information medical history consultation notes and photographs it's happened uh they became aware of it earlier this year february 23rd 2023 um the plastic surgery firm claimed that it had quickly taken steps to investigate the validity of the claims, assess the nature and scope of the activity, etc. However, according to the class action suit that's been filed, they're accused of not doing enough to implement adequate and reasonable cybersecurity procedures and protocols necessary to protect patients sensitive information i kind of get that i mean you know we need to sort of find a full story here but uh you know talk about kicking kicking someone while they're down right um so one of the victims uh claims that she was contacted via text in late march by one of the

hackers who threatened to distribute her stolen information unless she paid a ransom now this uh this information obviously all sensitive because it includes you know social security numbers uh banking details you know all the stuff that we talked about driving license numbers data but but it also include will include um pictures and photographs before and after surgery and as we know much uh plastic surgery is you know it's carried out on intimate areas of the body these pictures are going to be thrown out there um by people by by just uh just the scum of the earth. It's bad enough to hack in and sell personal information like bank details and things like that. But to sell this kind of stuff is just another step down.

When this particular victim refused to cooperate, they were shared with her friends colleagues and neighbors now hopefully um you know at least it didn't add in there and enemies because i think then her enemies may have done something to do at least you know friends neighbors and colleagues would have sort of perhaps taken a far more um how can i put it uh sensitive view to this but um uh but yeah it was just just the fact that they're doing it amongst their immediate you know peer group as well another victim received threatening emails in july linked to a website containing naked pre and post operation photos of herself was told that she'd have to pay $800

ransom if she didn't want the photograph shared with her co-workers and friends and many many others of this so we're seeing obviously you know major attacks against companies and you know hundreds of thousands and millions of pounds being asked and then the reuse of that data against the the victims themselves the actual victims themselves paying a lot less but there's a lot more of them um the impact this has on people you know the one quote is i didn't even want to leave my house i didn't even want to talk to anybody um that you know this is there's an impact on on a business and also on the people within that business as well. But the personal impact when it's done like this is just unmeasurable or immeasurable.

So the FBI is investigating, obviously, and according to victims, it succeeded in taking down the website, sharing the photos and personal information it's reported that last month new claims are being published because let's face it you just chop off one head and two more grow in its place um and was saying that the plastic surgery office was refusing to cooperate and more patient details would be released um oh god i do you wantav? Tell me I'm wrong here, but this is just horrible. Horrible, horrible. And it's not new, don't get me wrong here, but it's just horrible. As much as I'd like disagreeing with you

and telling you you're wrong... It's almost like I chose my own story this week. Yes, it's almost, almost. It's just so diabolical, isn't it? Diabolical, that's a, yeah, absolutely. It's just so infuriating that you have, see the data's the data that gets leaked all the time and breached and people don't even care

much about it yeah regulators will come down on the thing and what have you but when you make it so personal to the victims and you really you know we this is something that you know we underestimate the actual sheer mental cost of these things on on the victims when it's something so personal we we saw something like that happen um a few years ago when ashley madison was breached yes and uh you know there was cases of like you know a couple of cases of people unaliving themselves and uh you know it's it's something that it really brings home that, while there are a lot of just general data that people don't care about, like, oh, someone's got my driving licence. Oh, dear, what a pain.

You know, that's okay. But when it's something like intimate photos, your very private medical records or your personal feelings and stuff like that, then it becomes quite quite serious and i think this is like it's it's terrible for the for the victims and i think it also reflects really bad on uh the security industry as a whole and like this is where we've got to, whilst many of us, when we started off, we were just like firewall admins or setting permissions on a file directory structure or monitoring for password misuse.

We're now quite, the industry is responsible for a lot, lot more. We're responsible for a lot in people's lives because nearly everything's an app now so um you know it's something that needs to be taken seriously and i think this is where the industry as a whole needs to really mature and move away from those petty bickering or arguments within as to whether password should be is a 12 character password as good as a 16 character password and forget that, move on and really think of the fundamental, like what are we doing here?

Why are we doing it? And how can we protect people at large? Otherwise it's going to like all come crumbling down. Do you know what it pains me to say, but sage words, do you have sage words? Rant of the week. If good security content were bottled like ketchup,

this podcast would be the watery juice which comes out when you don't shake properly. In a niche of our own, you're listening to the award-winning Host Unknown podcast. All right, and here's a story that I've chosen for you, Jav. So today's Billy Big Balls are the automakers, according to the story.

Who calls them automakers? I mean, like car manufacturers? Americans. Yes. Okay. Yes, that's right. They put gas in their automobile. Anyway, a federal...

They could be mobile manufacturers and they can hang them above babies' beds. No, but they're too big. They get in the way of the AK-47s. So anyway, a federal judge on Tuesday refused to bring back a class action lawsuit alleging four car manufacturers who violated Washington State's privacy laws by using vehicles on board infotainment systems

to record and intercept customers' private text messages and mobile phone call logs. So this is what the case was. The plaintiff said, like, you know, the car, when you pair it through Bluetooth or through the Android Auto or Apple Play, it was intercepting and storing everything that the user then could not delete. But law enforcement or I spew someone could then go and like query it or what have you. But the Seattle based judge ruled that the practice does not meet the threshold for an illegal privacy violation under state law. violation under state law, handing a big win to automakers Honda, Toyota, Volkswagen, and General Motors. The judge then drove out in his brand new Hummer, which... No, in his European Mercedes, probably.

Yes. So there were cases before and what know what have you and you know while this is a a shocking um uh sort of ruling i think i think you know i don't know how the judge or how the rule look i'm not a lawyer so i don't know how the law works but it just feels very wrong that, you know, many car – it says at the end of this article, many car manufacturers are selling car owners' data to advertisers as a revenue-boosting tactic, according to earlier reports. Oh, dear. And automakers are exponentially increasing the number of sensors they place in cars every year with little regulation of the practice.

I think this is one of the things. This is where it comes down to like, you know, a Billy Big Balls sort of thing is the car manufacturing industry and how little regard they have of their customers' privacy or security or anything like that. or anything like that. I mean, we've had like the big cases already about like, you know, well, how do you patch a car when there's a vulnerability discovered and everyone's like, I don't know, take it to the dealer. Yeah, how's that really going to work? But now the fact that they're just doing – I mean, you know, I think a lot of people might be okay with the idea if it meant

that the car was heavily subsidized you know you could buy a brand new mercedes for 10k but it's going to sell some of your data okay maybe some people can live with that but the fact that you know it's a bit like TVs, right? TVs used to be a minimum of a grand for a big flat panel screen, right? Now, it's like 250 quid from Sainsbury's for a 32 or a 42 inch. That's because they're monetising your data. What you're paying for is the cardboard box. And that's a price that, well, that we've kind of walked into, in a sense. But those in the know will go and search out as dumb a TV as possible.

And it's still there. You just have to pay more for it. Car prices haven't gone down. No, they haven't. They've gone up, if anything. And when you look at the other stories of like, we've covered some of these in the past, where like, they come with all the features enabled but you have to pay a subscription so if you want heated seats or heated

steering wheel grip you have to pay a subscription uh you know if you want to unlock unlock the extra horsepower that your engine has pay a subscription it's it's it's fine i mean i'm just i'm just pretty sure it's going to get to a stage where, like, you're going to get into the car, turn the ignition on, and it's going to be like, please watch this ad before we can start your journey. Please watch this ad before you can depress the brake. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Would you like to stop quicker? Yeah. This journey was sponsored by NordVPN. Who had one job and we still know where you are. Yeah, exactly. Oh, well. Good old car manufacturers. Yeah, this is a bizarre one.

I'll be really interested to see how the European Union handles this, because obviously the European Union is a little bit more forward-looking, a little bit more consumer-focused, etc. And I noticed that in that list, although there was Japanese and American, Although there was Japanese and American, I think in like Toyota and Honda, the US side is virtually independent per se. It's a massive independent organisation of its own. But, you know, companies, you know, like I say,

the European car manufacturers, are they going to be trying to do the same thing as this? Will the courts stop them? VW was on the list. Oh, VW was. Oh, right. Okay. In which case that negates my point entirely.

But maybe this is just a case of, in that case, of the laws trying to catch up with the technology in place. Good stuff. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But we'll see. We'll see. I don't know.

It does seem wrong that you can't sell your car and remove your data from it. I don't know see the thing is like lots of people are lazy anyway and they don't even if there is a facility to remove it it's like when you get into a rental car and you see all the previous people that have paired their phones with it and what have you so you know who who's had it and not and what have you but yeah but they're idiots right you know exactly yeah they deserve it no but there should be an easier i mean let's could you know just get a just drive your car between two massive magnets maybe i don't know what what could possibly go wrong nothing i think that's a genius idea. Brilliant. Reset to factory settings. De-gauss your car.

Oh, dear. We'll see. We'll see. I don't know. It's a... Right. Let's move on. As soon as I can find the button that allows us to move on,

I'm completely lost here oh jeez nothing wrong nothing new with that grandad Billy Big Balls of the Week People who prefer other security podcasts are statistically more likely to eject USB devices safely. For those who live life dangerously, you're in good company

with the award-winning Host Unknown podcast. Do you have the time to live dangerously, Jeff? No, but I have time to go over to the... The line's not in the show notes. To our friends over at the InfoSec PA Newswire, who are busy bringing us the latest and greatest security stories from around the globe. News stories.

News stories. Yes, from around the globe. Come back from holiday, Andy, please. Industry news. Sentinel-1 to acquire cyber security consulting firm Krebs Stamos Group. Industry news. Sorry, sorry.

NATO allies express support for collective response to cyber attacks. Industry news. Council for Scottish Islands face IT outage after incident. Industry news. Mortgage giant Mr Cooper using alternative payment options after cyber attack. Industry News. Serbian pleads guilty to running monopoly darknet marketplace. Industry News. Japan aviation electronics say server servers access during cyber attack. Servers accessed during cyber attack.

Industry news. And that was this week's... Industry news. Huge if true. Huge if true. Well, shorter than usual, but huge if true. Yes. So, I'm not going to go for the obvious in one right away, but council for Scottish islands faces ITLTG after incident.

Is the incident that they couldn't find the tenants? I have no idea. I love how when you were reading out the story, you done air quotes as you said the word incident. And which is why I could see what no one else could see. as you said, the word incident, which is like I could see, but no one else could see. Yeah, but when you do it, there's an inflection in your voice as well at the same time, right? And you have to do it to get the inflection. It's kind of like when you say the word beard, you have to do the hand motions for the word beard.

Ah. It's like when I do the hand motion when I say Tom Langford. Yeah, my wrist is caught rsi now because of that but okay ah you can apologize to the duchess for that one um right so uh sent Sentinel One to acquire cybersecurity consulting firm Krebs Stamos Group. This is interesting. Because Sentinel One is being kicked around the media at the moment quite a lot. Right. You know, dropping share price, massively dropping share price, accused of irregularities and then being backtracked and all that sort of thing and then you've got you know the krebs stamos group which you know chris krebs obviously um famously fired by tweets by trump although that's probably in fairness a badge of honor in the yes

grand scheme of things right um and mr stamos um you know famously at the helm of two, three major front page breaches and stuff although no indication there but it's a really interesting combination because the Greg Stamos group is not huge anyway is it? No. It's only what

20, 30 people. Well no they had 18 but then they laid off six of their employees in May. Oh, that's right. Yes, yes, that's right. They've only got about 12. But the new area is going to be called Pinnacle One. Pinnacle One. It will focus on helping today's executives understand the realities

of operating in the modern global business landscape through unparalleled intelligence, insight, and transformative risk management strategies, which if you want to translate it to normal speak, it's just a couple of consultants, I think, telling you what's what. Or described as a think tank for hire. Oh, wow. Isn't that what yeah exactly so if you can find them and if and if you can hire them you know yeah what is what is the 18th thing I don't know I don't know but you know what it's a weird one because so when you look at tech companies tech tech who are like VC funded and everything,

they stay away from anything that isn't scalable. And consulting is not scalable, not without hiring more people and everything. Everything wants to be, you may need to make it, what is it? A SKU, a sales unit or whatever. Yeah, an SKU, yeah. A sales something unit or whatever it is, yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah so everything has to tie into the the thing and when they start a product exactly it needs to be a product and if

it's not a product it doesn't scale vcs don't like it because you can't 10x that you can't 100x that it's not going to take you on to a higher valuation and everything. So it feels kind of like two financially struggling companies coming together to maybe make it an attractive acquisition target for someone, possibly. Someone else. Someone else. Maybe like the Mandiant Group, potentially. Someone else, maybe like the Mandiant group, potentially. Are they just buying the names, you know, like Mandiant group, right?

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. But Krebs will be the chief intelligence and public policy officer at Sentinel-1. And Stamos will serve as chief trust officer. Because we all trust Stamos. So maybe it's going for the please. The please? Please don't put me in prison. Yeah.

No, no. The one that Andy always talks about from. Oh, from, yes, from How I Met how i met your mother how i met your mother yes um yeah you've you're extremely highly paid but when it all goes wrong you're you're you're in the frame for it you're the scapegoat yes yes um yeah that's interesting But yeah, interesting, interesting. I liked this other story, mortgage giant Mr. Cooper using alternative payment options after cyber attack. Yeah. So they were hit by cyber attack. And I think if I'm a criminal,

this is just beautiful because you would reach out to as many customers as you can saying, hello, Mr. Cooper here. As you've seen, we now accept Bitcoins only as the payment, so please put your money into this wallet. I mean, how bad is that? Yeah. I mean, what Mr. Cooper should be doing is working with, to be frank,

a competitor in the market, but saying you take the money yeah you know on our behalf we'll give you one percent of it because hey or whatever we'll pay you for it but actually that's got to be worth it just to sort of show that you're doing the right thing for your customers because despite the name mr cooper is a massive organization they rebranded from something like global enterprises or whatever to mr cooper to be more sort of down with the kids as it were but they're a huge organization and you know it's not going to take many um uh malicious links for people to use for it to to hit the front page news right so they need to be doing something a little bit better

than this they do they do so so they they actually said like in in the article they said like the the different options they're offering are phone mail service western union money gram and there's also a one-time web payment option but these are like one-way transactions there's no tracking there's no like you know clawback if it goes to the wrong account there's these are like western union has been used by criminals for years because you just send it and they cash it out and they they disappear yeah that's right. This is really bizarre. In 2020, well, nearly 24, actually. Exactly. And, you know, this is how they're...

We'll be sending Jeff from accounts around to your house. Yes. Just, you know, hand him a cheque made out to Jeff. Exactly. That would be great, you know, because obviously we can't use our bank accounts right now. Yeah, yeah. That's basically what this is.

It is, it is. So interesting to see how that goes, and hopefully they'll get that sorted out sooner rather than later. I mean, ideally what they should do is just say, look, well, until we sort out our systems, take a three-month mortgage payment holiday. And then just get them to take the hit for it, right? Yeah. Yeah.

But I did see something because a lot of Americans will pay by check on a, you know, on a monthly basis, you know, not the automatic, you know, direct debit that we have, etc, is not as common as it is over here. Because if this happened over here our payments would still be made the bank would take the payments you know whereas over there it's it's problematic and so you know people are literally going to potentially go in and go into arrears rather than pay the wrong people. Does anything work properly over there? I mean, I'd say this.

It does seem to be a little bit half-assed. Maybe our American brethren and... Brethren and sistren? Is that a thing? I don't know. But our American folks over there can actually tell us about this. I mean, obviously, America is the greatest country in the world. Obviously. Obviously. But it does seem that like chip and pin only came in

and then you do chip and pin and you still have to sign and stuff like that, you know. Yeah, yeah. You know, or you use contactless and you still have to put your pin code in. And, you know, there's weird stuff. And maybe we've just got it completely wrong. Maybe we're just, you know, looking at this through the wrong lens but yeah you know one it would be nice

to get some post from people you know hey let us know you're listening uh and two it'd be just fascinating to find out a little bit more and that's coming from you and me you've been to the us a lot right yeah yeah exactly i know it's it's one thing like it's a great place to visit but the more i i spend time there it's like i don't know if i could actually live here it just seems far too complicated yeah canada maybe i like canada i don't know i've never been canada actually have you not no no i've just so in halif are the two places I've been to, but Halifax is lovely. Lots of British flags flying, so I love it. Yeah.

You know, I saw this YouTube clip the other day. There's a train in Canada that goes across the country. It takes 96 hours. Ooh. And it's like... And I thought, that looks really nice. The Trans-Canada Railroad, I think, maybe that's it. Wow.

It's about like, you know, three, four grand. But it's really luxury inside. I mean, like if you pay for the for the upgraded one you get your own little apartment like room in there like a hotel room with a shower and everything and then they have like a sort of like half upstairs thing with a glass sort of roof oh i've seen pictures like that yes it's like one of the biggest trains in in the world it's like in terms of length and size and everything so i think it goes vancouver i think i saw a film about that with chris is it chris evans yes yes because you can either be at the back and fight your way forwards or you can live at

the front in luxury yeah or and defend your base yeah and you know defend your your privilege yeah i like the sound of that exactly exactly but on that note thank you that was uh this week's industry news we're not lazy when it comes to researching stories no we're just energy efficient like and subscribe to the host unknown podcast for more esg adjacent tips okay i think we've come to the end there because we we um we failed to find anything on Musk's new Twitter X. I have found a tweet. You've found something, have you?

I have. Let me just... So play the tune and I'll send you the link. Okay, no worries. In which case, it's now time for this week's... We always play that one twice. ...Tweet of the Week. Have you seen it?

Where did you send it? On the thingy. So, do you want to read it out? Okay, yeah, hang on. I'm getting there. I'm getting there. So, this comes from friend of the show although we may well disown him sooner or later it says on the host unknown tv uh sorry on the at host unknown tv and at tom langford is in full-on

anti-american finance mode that's hilarious that is hilarious isn't it it's very meta isn't it wow i mean i tell you what this this javad malik fella he's gonna have to sleep with one eye open it's like inception isn't it you can't find something just write it yourself just write it yourself i mean this is fresh this is fresh i mean this is this this also gives away the time at which we do the podcast which is could be problematic oh dear let's quickly delete it then no you know it reminds me of this story this guy he he edited he was going to get interviewed by the new York Times or something like that. So he went on Wikipedia and edited his thing to say he's the foremost expert in whatever crypto.

So let's just say, for example. And then New York Times quote, reference the article that Wikipedia and said he's the world's most expert and then he went back and changed that link to refer to the new york times post article and saying like as quoted whether i am the world's foremost expert in in crypto so that's what i'm doing that is brilliant that is brilliant i'm gonna do that next time of course i'll have to get a wikipedia entry first but yeah you're not allowed to create your own Wikipedia entry, or is it just frowned on? Is that right?

I don't know. So we need to create each other's? Yes, I think that's it. Which could be quite difficult. It's a bit like throwing Mama from the train scenario right here. The crisscross, yes. Yes. I'll get ChatGPT to write something up

about you Well, actually yes, because it'll probably be better than what you would write about me Right, thank you, that was Tweet of the Week And we come stumbling, crashing and tripping over to the end of the show. Jav, thank you very much.

We made it. Who needs this Andy fella anyway, right? Oh, yeah, except for the show notes, for the comedy, for the flowing sense and everything. So come back soon, Andy. Yeah, please do, actually. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right.

Yes. No, you're supposed to say something, aren't you? No, I'm not saying it because you guys have just like culturally appropriated my sign off. You know, we've stolen it. That's all. Oh, stolen it? You're not even like, you know, denying it. This is like, you know like typical British activity, isn't it? There's evidence. British? How dare you call Andy British? I know, I know.

But he's like your house Brit. He's like, you know, I don't know. It's just he does your binding for you. I'd stop now before I put a tweet out about you. It's all right. No one reads Twitter anymore. No one cares about Twitter. Just don't put it on Mastodon and that's all.

This is very true. This is very true. Right. Stay secure. Whatever. Liar. Stay secure. You've been listening to The Host Unknown Podcast. Liar. Stay secure. you a bigger soundboard with those massive buttons on it saying press here for jingle

press here for jingle press here for this you know it's just the don't forget to unmute do you know what the the soundboard i've got on my stream deck at home is great but it works sometimes it's as other times it's only like today and so i'm going to use the built in one it's all over the place it's all over the place. Anyway, like we get paid for this. If the audience don't like it, then get the money back. Exactly. We haven't even got a bloody Patreon going. I know, but that's just like the digital equivalent

of sitting there with a pot and saying, spare any change. Yeah, go on and change, Governor. Yeah, instead of a Sharpie and a piece of cardboard to write it on you just like do a podcast i mean what's the difference that's right yeah we'll dance for we'll dance for money we know we'll humiliate ourselves exactly i jump for cash bitch although till now we've been doing it for free yeah something wrong