TechStuff Classic: A Stingray Operation

know on the show. And that's because stingrays are a type of surveillance tech used by law enforcement agencies that trick your cell phone into thinking they're talking to an actual cell phone tower. Let's listen in. We were super excited to hear about today's topic because it's been something that Matt and I have been talking about off air. Is that correct? Absolutely? This kind of technology that we're going to get into a little later. Uh piques our interest.

You could say, yeah, mine as well. Uh. You know, the stuff they don't want you to know shows great show. If you guys haven't checked it out, you need to go and and check it out. Check check out how you guys are looking into various types of conspiracies, things that are happening below the surface level that people may not be aware of and kind of sifting through the information to show which parts of it are you know, are really solid. You know, these are the things that

we know for sure. And here's the conjecture that's been said about it. You guys do a great job with it. And as it turns out, there's a lot of stuff out there that can really fuel that kind of kind of talk for good reason. And I typically am one of those more you know, I am a little more conservative and skeptical with my approach to these things. But this is a technology we're gonna talk about today that I don't know how you could go to it being

skeptical and say, oh, everything is fine. We are talking about sting ray or I M. S I catchers, And so sting ray is the one that I think most people have heard about. That's the one that was brought up in a lawsuit in Arizona, UM. So I think that that is what most people think about when they hear I M. S I catchers, if they are aware of that term at all. But of course sting stingray is just one version of that, and we'll talk about

some of the other ones as well. So I am s I catchers stands for International Mobile subscriber identity catchers or locators, and that is a fancy way of saying. This is a technology that is able to intercept signals from cell phones, ostensibly so that a law enforcement official could locate a person based upon that person's cell phone signaling. And it does this, and we'll talk about specifics in

a bit, by mimicking a cell phone tower. So in other words, your cell phone is communicating with this device thinking that this is the actual part of the infrastructure that it would normally operate inside. Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of the same way that are similar at least to the ways in which some animals have evolved to have camouflage that makes them appear to be a different type of creature. Right. Yeah. And one thing that I just want to get this out so I don't uh moan

and complain about it for the whole episode. If you ever lost a cell phone or had one stolen and had the sneaking suspicion that there might be a way for law enforcement to catch it, well, theoretically there is.

It's just it's just they can't do that for everybody because so many people lose their cell phones or have them stolen, you know, as long as it's turned on right, right, Yeah, and as long as well, And it also depends on a couple of other things too, Right, they have to have the if they're looking for your cell phones specifically, they kind of need to know a little bit more information, like they need to know something specific about that phone or to identify it versus all the other phones that

will connect to it, right, because otherwise they just be like, well, it maybe one of the phones here, and there are different ways of looking into that. Right. It all depends on what the investigation is and we'll we'll talk more about how it's used in investigations. So basically, this is a technology meant to help Again, ostensibly law enforcement tracked down the bad guys or counter terrorism officials to identify potential terrorist threats before they become a reality. That's what

it's supposed to be used for. There are a lot of people who have objected to it because it is it is take making a very wide approach to targeting something very specific, and that can be dangerous for the sting ray its self. A cost between sixty eight thousand dollars and a hundred thirty five thousand dollars last I checked. Because there are two different models of the sting ray. There's the sting ray and sting Ray. To sting Ray two came out a few years ago. The sting ray

obviously came out before that. Because we move in a chronological order, they haven't gotten to that quantum effect where the sequel comes out before the original. Um. Now it's made by a company called Harris Corporation out of Melbourne, Florida, and uh and this company makes a lot of technology that falls into this general category. Some of the products that they make are similar to sting ray and do similar things to that device. Others are more specific and

are meant to be used in conjunction with gadget like stingray. Yeah. Yeah, you know, it's like a console. Are like you've got your connect, you've got your you know, your your dance pad, You've got all these other things sort of the similar thing here, except the devices that Harris Corporation makes. Some of them boost the signal catching ability of the basic technology like the stingray. Some of them allow for better

tracking technology. It all depends on the thing. But but you know, you may have heard some of the other names. Some of the other names that include trigger fish, kingfish, amber jack, gossamer, harpoon, and hail storm. Uh. And not only these are not types of stingray. These are all individual devices that work in a similar way to sting ray. Some of them copy the functionality of sting ray, some of them go beyond that. In fact, trigger fish is

particularly troubling. Um. But sting ray it self can be really troubled too if you just do a simple upgrade to it. And then you're right. All of these have things in common and that they all are meant to detect cell phone usage in some way and either identify it or locate it and or track it. Um. And it's how you use these in combination with one another that determines your ability to do that. Now, clearly we're

talking about something that's mimicking a cell phone tower. You have to have it be mobile because otherwise you just have to hope that the bad guys happened to go across your part of town. You can't take it to them if it's not mobile, right. So, Uh. One of the things that this is really helpful for as far as law enforcement are concerned, is that they can go to a part of town where they suspect someone is.

They can put out their ears, listen for it, look to see if they have any hits that relate back to the target they're specifically looking for, and if not, they can move on to a different part of town. Um. That's also one of the drawbacks, as it turns out, at least from from the perspective of some people. Now, let's see one other thing. Oh, I forgot to mention. Gossamer is one of the exceptions to this. Gossamer is not about tracking or locating cell phone, but this is

the one that freaks me out the most. Yeah, this is not passive. Now, Gossamer is about denial of service attacks on a mobile phone, so it's about it's essentially a jammer. No, this is great for all the paranoid people in the audience. Are you getting bad reception or are you being gossamer? I actually and another thing to to mention. I didn't put it in our notes, but

one of the things these devices typically can do. The stingray in particular can do this is it can boost your the signal coming from your phone to connect to the tower. It can essentially say I need a stronger signal your phone. Then, even though you're not using it, like it's just in your pocket, there's no vibrating, there's no ringing, there's nothing going on, your phone starts sending

stronger signals. This drains your battery. So if you're the paranoid persuasion, you may also think my phone's battery just won't even last like a full day anymore. And it might not be because your phone is old. It might be because you're getting you're getting sting rayed. You guys, I'm not kidding. This happening to me right now. Well, I'm sorry that you should take more care when you

are browsing on your phone. Also, Matt, Matt, I mean not to make you worried or anything, but you're definitely on some lists. So I mean, you're on our list of favorite people. But yeah, there's one right there. So okay, So I love this idea about it being mobile. So if we take that paranoid example, in the vast majority, virtually every time somebody has poor reception or poor battery life,

it is never going to be something like this. But there's a very small chance, yeah that if you are a victim of this, you could literally have someone following you around, right, Yeah, I mean, okay, to be fair, this technology we're talking about is at a level of expense where it's not likely to happen to you. And if you are someone who is either hanging out with questionable people or you yourself are engaged in some questionable activities,

then you'd be more likely to have this actually target you. Now, because we know that law enforcement agencies across the United States and in other parts of the world have used this kind of technology, they're the they're the customers there once they're purchasing the stuff from Harris Corporation, it's very possible you would come into contact with this and it's not that you are being targeted, but you're still being affected because it's just so broad. Yeah, it's like it's

mimicking a cell phone tower. It's not mimicking a cell phone tower for a single phone. It's mimicking a cellphone tower for the broadcast range of that device. And so okay, so their mobile but what what would they look like if you just saw one? So they look kind of like, uh, I mean, if you've ever seen one of those servers, like it looks like just a basic computer with lots

of ports on it. It's kind of like that. It's usually a little bit uh stumpy looking like it's not as wide as your typical server is a little more narrow a little tall, but it's meant to fit into racks because you can, you know, end up pairing these

with other technologies. But it's essentially a computer and you hook it up to a laptop, so you've got really the basic parts you have are the antenna, which is important because obviously it has to receive signals sent from cell phones um and a transmitter so that you can

send stuff back through if you need to. You've got the computer itself, which is processing the signals and identifying where those signals are coming from, both what type of phone it is by you know, giving you the identification numbers of that phone, the phone number that's associated with that phone, and the location of that phone based upon some triangulation. You might actually have to physically move the

technology around to get the triangulation. You could theoretically communicate with another cell phone tower and by getting comparing numbers, you know, you know you can generally tell the direction from which the signal comes and its strength that gives you an idea of it's it's general location in that like you know roughly what distance it is from your

your space station. So it's one of those things where if the signal gets stronger, it's closer to you, right, and if it's if it's if the signal, if the cell phone signal is getting weaker, than you know that the target cell phone is moving away. If you were to move the van to a second location and do those measurements, then because you have the two points on a on one part of a triangle, the cell phones the third point, then you know where the person is.

It's the same way that cell phone towers are able to give an approximation of where you are, even if your phone doesn't have GPS. Right, it's sending the signals and based upon the strength of the signal, how long it takes to get there, all of these sort of things,

it can approximate where you are now. By by approximate, I mean within a few you know, meters, So it's not like as as a specific as GPS can be, but it's still good enough for law enforcement to hone in on a on a particular location and people can sent to the use of GPS. But yeah, so there's a question that I'm sure a lot of people are wondering, which is this stuff sounds kind of space a g but how how new? Is it not that new? Uh?

The the information I found said that at least the trigger fish version of this technology has been in use since the late nineteen nineties. What uh. Yeah, And to keep keep in mind, like this technology has been in some form of development or another and been available to different types of agencies, specifically the FBI would be a big one. Um. And it's just that over the past few years it has become more common for local law

enforcement to get their hands on this. Before it was something that only you know, the federal law enforcement officials were able to access. But now we're seeing local law enforcement. Uh not everybody's owning up to it, but we're seeing a lot of local law enforcement offices adopt this technology, and they're doing it in kind of a kind of a backdoor Shenanigan's way, I would say, yeah, we'll be back with more of this classic episode of tech stuff

after this quick break. So, uh, you know, these things can be pretty expensive, and obviously law enforcement has a budget that they have to answer to. So some of them are funding the purchase of this material by filing it under counter terrorism uh um strategies. Yeah. Essentially they say we want to participate in this, you know, we want to make sure we help protect national security doing it on a local level. Uh And then they get the federal grant to purchase the stuff. But then they're

using it on a much broader scale. So it's not like they're not using it specifically for a counter terrorism they're using it in all sorts of cases. There was a story about a sheriff whose own vehicle got broken into and uh and whose phone was stolen, who decided to use this stuff to try and ostensibly to try and stop the the string of car break ins. Some people would say that perhaps it was more personal than that, but the point being that this was not a counter

terrorism issue. This was you know, someone breaking in and entering into cars, which is you know, that's that's a crime. But you people have been arguing, like, what at what level of crime do you consider the use of this particular type of technology necessary to employ? Yeah, especially given the expense not just in financial terms but in terms of manpower or time so that's that's one problem, but it's my spider sense is telling me that you have

a bigger problem I've got. I've got so many problems with this, So let's let's talk about how it works first, because this is this is what leads into where the biggest problems that I have where the technology come from. So, uh, to understand how this works, you've got to know how cell phone works, all right, And we're gonna be super high level here because I could do a full episode on how cell phones work and you guys would be stabbing me because you're wondering why I pulled you in UM.

But typically the easiest way of explaining it as cell phones broadcast over radio frequencies, and you have cell phone towers that represent a broadcast area. The towers are able to accept the incoming signals from a cell phone and outgoing signals that are going to cell phones within that UM service area. They're doing so over specific frequency to

the phones. Your phone knows which frequency quote unquote knows which frequency to be in because there's a master control system that's telling the phone tune into this frequency so that you can receive and transmit information. Technically, you're using two frequencies so you can receive and transmit at the

same time. Then as you leave one cell phone service area and you're starting to get closer to another, then you have to be handed off right because if if not, once you move too far away from the base station, you would no longer have service. So this is similar to when you move into an area that doesn't have the towers that support the service you use. So if you're like an A T and T customer and you go into an area that's not supported by A T

and T, then you're out of lock. Your phone becomes a brick, right or whatever's on your phone, that's all you can use. So you have to have this handoff technology for one tower to hand off the the service to another tower as you're moving between them. So what's happening is your phone is constantly sending little signals even when it's not directly in use to say here I am It's essentially saying I'm here. Yeah, it's exactly like paying a server. It's doing this about every seven to

fifteen seconds. So this is why even if you don't use your phone, the battery life gradually decreases, so the reason it does this is very important because if it didn't tell the cell phone towers, hey here I am, you would never get texts or cell phone or you never get a call. You couldn't you just play solitaire or whatever. Yeah, because because the sis stone wouldn't know where your phone is, so it wouldn't be able to send the signal like it doesn't when someone dials your number.

It doesn't magically right connect to your phone. The system has to be aware of where you are and as this constant game of Marco polo to ensure that there's this seamless transition, right because you as a person, you are mobile, so you can move from location to location. You are not always going to be next to the same cell phone tower all the time. So your phone has to constantly, like every seven to fifteen seconds, say

I'm here. Because if you're in the car and you're traveling down the road, you're moving in and out of different you know, cell tower ranges. So the different cell towers have to be aware of where your phone is so that you can continue to receive messages, phone calls, that kind of stuff, or make them. Yeah. But the problem is that because of this technology, you know that this is what makes cell phones useful, but because of that same technology, it's also what makes this sting ray

technology possible. So, because your phone is sending out these messages and your phone doesn't know where the next cell phone tower is, it's broadcasting these little messages and the cell phone towers pick it up. Based upon the signal strength, the cell phone tower knows if you are moving toward it or moving away from it. The sting ray ends up mimicking the cell phone tower. So your little cell phone sends out a message and the stingray picks it up.

Sting ray now knows where your phone is, or at least knows that your phone is in that area. As the signal gets stronger, the sting ray knows that your phone is getting closer to it. If you have triangulated this, then it knows where you are. Or if you have one of the other devices that pair with the sting ray that can help track and locate, the sting ray

knows where you are. There's a laptop that you would connect to this device that would give you the redoubt that would be useful for a human being, because right now we're talking all about technology that and data that machines could use, but it is not useful to us because we wouldn't be able to see it. But the laptop expresses that in ways that make it possible for

you to see. Maybe with mapping software. It's plotting the location against a map, as well as identification of the phone numbers UM and the I D number that's unique to that particular mobile phone. So the issue here is that this this sting ray, we'll accept all of those incoming messages, all those things. Yeah, anything that's within the area that that the sensitivity of that antenna, it will pick that up. So is it like, is it just metadata?

Well yes, originally, first it's just, first of all, just metadata, just metadata, because metadata you don't need very much of it to start making some very scary conclusions. You can start to really narrow down who person is based upon some metaday, their routines, what they do in the real world, and when they do it, the phone numbers they might be in contact with at that time. The phone number

of the device itself obviously would be very important. So let's say that you two YouTube and Ben you are you are? You are the cops? Okay, you're in your van the power. Yeah, I know, not go crazy. Do we have a tank? You do not have a tank. We're not We're not Swanny. Was Swanny? Wasn't it? I was thinking I Swanny. By the way, listeners, is is just to the northeast of Atlanta. It's a little part of Metro Atlanta area. Um and they have a tank. So anyway, you are in a van, you have heard

about tanks, but you do not currently own one. You've got plenty of donuts to get you through the day. By the way, if you were in law enforcement, and I am offending you, dear listeners, I'm merely poking fun. I love you guys at any rate. So you guys are looking at the incoming messages that are being hittop. You're looking specifically for a phone number associated with a suspect, a person of interest. You want to be able to track this person down, but so far have been unable

to do so. You have heard that this person may in fact be in this particular part of town, which is why you have parked your van, And all you are doing is looking for a hit of that particular number as it moves through. And once you do, you then try to triangulate, you locate, and then your your send people out there to talk to this suspect or person of interest. Now that that alone, that sounds like that's okay. I mean, there might be some problems we

have here, but you're specifically looking for the hit. You're not looking at the massive amount of information that's coming in. You're looking for something specific. Yeah, and now, Matt, I know, I know that, dude, I know, I know. It's the pencil pushers who really are to blame. Don't don't, don't bust my chops um so at any rate, Yeah, in this case, you are specifically looking for a particular phone number. It's a little more tricky if you don't know the

number though, right Like now you're looking for patterns. Now you're looking specifically for activities that match what you suspect your target is already doing. You're also possibly looking to find out what phone numbers are being used in an area. Now, this is where it really gets tricky because some of these devices, not all of them, but the sting ray and the trigger fish included both can tell you if someone makes a call from within that area that the

sting ray covers. You can see what number they called. Now, now, at least with the basic sting ray, you can't listen in on the call. You just know the time, the number, and the duration of the call. Hold on. It sounds like we're getting to a point where we can listen to these calls basic sting ray. Yeah. Okay, So remember when I said you can upgrade. So sting ray is it's a computer, is what it boils down to. I mean, it's more than a computer, but it has elements of

a computer. It runs software. There is software that you can install on the sting ray that does allow you to listen in. There is fish Hawk, which is software that allows you to eavesdrop upon conversations. And there's also Porpoise. You might have noticed a theme I was gonna ask about. They're in Florida, that makes sense. But anyway, so the porpoise allows you to uh see texts that are sent through here. So it's again it's messages or phone calls that are sent from the phone out through the the

sting ray that go on. Now, this obviously raises a lot of very tricky questions, particularly when it comes to basic rights, because if you are just taking in everything and you can potentially read all the text messages or listening on any of the conversations that are going through. Then remember this is just based on geography. You know, you're not targeting, you're getting everything. There's no probable cause,

there's no probable cause, there's no warrant. So back in our scenario, Ben and I in our readout, well, okay, I'm driving, so Ben, you're alright, so you're the wheelman, get it so you can see. Then we'll be able to see all of this on a readout. A Matt, look, look at his number. It's been going back and forth from these two cell phone towers every freaking Thursday. Yeah.

Or it could be Ben saying, hey, Matt, look this duphus over here thinks his girlfriend's gonna may can dinner tonight, and we already know she ain't gonna do that, right buddy, You guys are so good at after this comes out, it's so I'll just be stopped on the street. We've got more to say in this classic episode of tech stuff.

After these quick messages, that's funny until it happened, alright, So at any rate, uh yeah, yeah, I mean technically, if you have the right technology right, being the the appropriate one for this, uh, and you have the correct software on it, then you could be you could start filtering through you could potentially read anything that's coming through that that stingray device. So again, it would be any

phone that was within that range of the antenna. Um you wouldn't necessarily I mean you probably wouldn't be storing at all. I mean you could if you had a large enough hard drive. That would be another thing you would need to have in your array of technology piling

up very quickly. Yeah, and so this is starting to sound probably very similar to the discussions we've had about the n s A. You know, the fact that they have been collecting cell phone data at the they're doing it at the provider level, right like they're there, they've got their ears on this national or even global level, whereas we're really talking about very regional effects here. Yes, still very concerning. So how much how much information can

it actually capture? Um, well, you know it's here all right. Here's the thing. We don't know the full extent of what I can capture because secrets have to be kept for your safety from the creators of sting ray or from the police departments. In the law enforcement. I'm just gonna say yes from both. So there was a story recently. I think it was I want to say it was

Santa Clara, California, but I could be wrong. It was a It was a town in California, however, that recently declined to purchase from Harris Corporation because they said there were agreements that they would have been forced to enter into that would prevent them from releasing any information about the product, even in the face of a Freedom of Information Act request. So an iron clad in yes, like

a nondisclosure agreement to trump all nondisclosure. How the heck do you get aroun A. You mostly just drag your heels as long as possible and hope that the judge that ends up hearing any case about it is not savvy enough to understand the implications of this technology. You

can appeal for national security, I think right. That's essentially what they say is that if we were to tell you what the capabilities of this technology were, then the bad guys would be able to work around it, thus making the technology useless and we'd only be getting your boring text messages instead of the bad guys stuff. Well, it's okay just to play the advocate here that kind

of reasoning, which is incredibly slippery and dangerous. It does make sense if you think again about the ostensible purpose, right, the the idea that this stuff could be rendered useless if it wasn't a secret. But also, I'm just gonna say the word I'm going to say is convenient. It's a convenient reason well, and it's it's yeah, when you have like a rubber stamp that's a secret, then how

do you have oversight? How can you make certain that the figures that have been put into authority positions in order to help the citizens, how can you make sure that they are doing that that do that they've been they've been tasked with, as opposed to abusing it or misusing it, maybe not even abusing it on purpose, but perhaps through you know, no no maliciousness, have been using

it incorrectly. Uh. And there have been arguments that judges have allowed this kind of technology to be used because the explanations they were given about what the technology did were purposefully vague and limited, so that they would not know the full extent of what this technology does. So, in other words, here's where we're going to kind of transition into more of the policy stuff, because you know, that's really why I got you guys to come on here.

The technology we've kind of covered, you know, the very basic ideas that he's a man in the middle kind of attack. The reason why I brought you on here is because this is my own personal perspective, my own opinion. But my opinion is at this technology is dangerously close, if not identical, to the concept of issuing a general warrant, which is precisely what the Fourth Amendment was supposed to

protect us from. So the idea being that here in the United States, by the way, this technology is being used in other places. In fact, one of the reasons that I brought up is because recently Sky News was reporting about how it's being used in the UK. Uh. It had been thought to have been used in the UK for a while, but now there's kind of essentially ironclad evidence that yes, it's being used as the UK. Yeah.

So the reason why, uh, you know, I brought you guys in is this this idea of one of the founding principles of the United States of America was that the colonists didn't they weren't so crazy about the British coming up and going into every single house looking for a specific person, with no reason to suspect that the person of ed was actually in the houses they were stopping. It's just a general blanket search, right, So search and seizure. The idea of being that we're looking for this person.

This person is is bad and so you have no rights until we find this person. So we're gonna go into your house and turn it upside down looking for this person. If they're not there, too, well, okay, well good for you, too bad for us. We're gonna go

do it to the next family. Ah. So, this approach of using a device to pull in all incoming data, even if you're looking for a really bad person, you're getting everything, and it doesn't seem that different to me than the approach of there's this bad person out there, we're going to go through everybody's house until we find that person. So for me, there are a couple of things you have to establish. One of them is does

that data that you're sending out belong to you? Is it really yours or you know, is it the companies that you're using just to ostensibly send the information to a cell tower to another person. Um, and then for me, if you look at things like when the Boston bombing occurred, and then the search for the Sarnative brothers afterwards, and when the police were going through and essentially doing what

you're saying, searching through houses. Yeah, with just it's not really a general warrant, but something kind of similar to that, where yeah, I mean they didn't have all they didn't have a warrant for each specific house they went through, which they're supposed to if if I mean, your rights as a citizen are supposed to say, listen, if you don't have a warrant, you cannot come into my house.

That is a constitutional right guaranteed to me. Yeah, it's the old, the old ticking time bomb reasoning, which I

find fairly disingenuous. Uh. When the idea we heard it before, with the idea of using torture to obtain some sort of confession or insider information, where people would say, well, torture is not ordinarily allowed, but if there is a bomb that is going to go off in a set amount of time, and we have one person who knows the information in custody, then shouldn't we torture somebody to

save a hundred people or whatever the number is. And this with what's similar to me about this is that this encounters um so many ways to bend rules that are that exists for a reason, as you said, and it doesn't really provide a way to bend those rules back to their original shape. I mean, Jonathan, I can think of already, uh several scenarios wherein this gig gets sticky very quickly. Matt. I love that you mentioned, Uh.

It might not be the person actually using the phone, right, It might be someone else, uh took a phone right and used it as a burner. But the person, the innocent person whose name is uh tied to that number that I d they're going to be automatically suspect number one or maybe even public enemy number one. Another question is what if? What if? This search? Right? So let's go back in, Um, Matt, you and I are still cops, Jonathan, your FBI, your special investigator. All right, you came in,

you said, I'm taking over this investigation. I got a little flip phone because I'm from the later seasons of X Files, right exactly right, black two, black tie, whole thing. And you say that we are looking for you know, insert bad guy's name here. Uh. And while we're looking though, however, uh, there are our search our vacuum cleaner approach brings in another number that pings on your radar because you were already suspicious of one person doing, you know, a federal

level crime. So this person who we were not looking for, just showed up. What happens then, Uh? Well, I mean, obviously I gotta take over the investigation. I've seen a lot of episodes of various crime dramas, and that's what the That's the only thing the FBI is around to do is to push the local police force out of this was my case. That's the way you have to keep putting your sunglasses on and taking the Occasionally you just hear the who yeah, yeah, Well I've got a

scenario kind of like that. Unlessing, Jonathan, do you want to do? Answer no, No, I did. The only answer to that that I have is that I would imagine that at least until there are some strong precedents set in in court about the actual use of this technology, what it really can do, and whether or not it truly is constitutional to use it in the way that

it's being used. I would imagine at least until that happens, the FBI acts on that act on that information, because if there if no one has come out and said you can't do that, they're going to do that. And I don't mean to cast aspersions on lawn enforcement of the FBI. I realized that they have incredibly difficult and very high stakes jobs, right and in order for them to be able to do those jobs in an increasingly complex technological world, there are some very tough questions we

have to answer. But the problem I have is that these are questions that that seem to already have been

answered in the past. We just haven't applied the answer yet, or people judges in particular, haven't understood the implications of this technology, and that we're seeing some civil liberties fade away as a result or get less, you know, like like it's like you are protected against this except in all of these other newer situations, many of which we cannot legally tell you about because national security, right, because if we told you about how we're violating your civil liberties,

then the bad guys would win. Like, well, technically, if you're telling me that my civil liberties are being violated, but you can't tell me how the bad guys have one. Yeah, it's it's an interesting deliminate is one that we keep running into. And this is not the first time. I love that you mentioned there's precedent through about this throughout history.

I mean back when it was just the post office, right. Uh, there were there were still these ongoing debates about what kind of right to privacy should someone expect when they're using the postal system. But you also mentioned advocacy groups, So is there some organized opposition to there's quite quite a lot. There's a lot of disorganized opposition too. But the organized opposition includes like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the e F E f UH, there's the American Civil Liberties Union,

the a c l u UH, there's EPIC. There are all these different groups that are all about privacy and civil rights that have identified problem areas with US technologies, some of which have been they've kind of some of them have couched their arguments, largely because they ay, we can't come out and say how strongly strongly we feel about this because of the secrecy involved. Without knowing everything,

we we don't want to suspect the worst. But we can't discount it either because you won't tell us what it does or how it's being used. Um, you know, but there are a lot who are saying you need to have rules set in place on how this technology can be used, if in fact it is legal to

use it at all. So, for example, perhaps before you use this you have to secure a warrant that specifies who you are looking for and and narrows that down to a point where you can't just throw out a net and everybody who's caught in the net, their lives are turned upside down for the duration of you sorting out which person is the one you actually are interested in. But they'll never know the collateral damage isn't really collateral if they have no idea, Well, they might not ever know.

And you know, you could argue that in a world where you never know that this is happening and it's never affecting you, stick with me. You're in a world where you you don't know that's happening to you and it's not having any noticeable effect on your life. Ultimately, you might be able to go to sleep at night and think, well, it doesn't really matter, because if it is not affecting my life. Then I mean, I don't want it to happen, and I'm still going to protest

it happening because I don't think it's right. But if it doesn't have a noticeable effect on my life at the end of the day, when I draw my last breath, it hasn't really made a difference, who cares. But we might also live in a world where sometimes it does affect us, even if we are perfectly innocent in all in the eyes of the law. Let's just throw out some examples of the n S saver, for instance, like a person who decides to use the n S as wide array of of surveillance techniques to look in on

an ex girlfriend. That's exactly the scenario I was going to bring up. If you and I back in our scenario, I decided to go back and use the machine for a little bit because we parked to get some coffee or something, and I see a number that I recognize pop up, and I'm just like, oh, what is my ex wife's new husband talking about? Oh, and then blah blah blah blah blah. There you go down the rabbit hole into weird personal things. Then, and this is the thing.

It's it's you know, the technology allows that to happen, and humans being human are going to do it right. Like it's it's not a question of whether the technology itself is good or bad because it's a tool. Uh, you might say, is it a tool that is appropriate? Is there any is there are there appropriate use cases for this tool? And if so, how are they defined? I think that's the important step. We have to come to the conclusion of does this tool make sense? If so,

in which context does it make sense? And how can we be certain that in any given use case it fits those contexts? And if if we can answer all those to our satisfaction, fine, I question whether that's possible particular technology. But but the problem is that people they'll behave outside of that, right. I mean, if there is the capability of someone to do this, you know, use this technology in a selfish, possibly harmful way, for then someone will do it. It's not a question of if.

It's a question of when and how frequently and uh, because we've seen it with the n s A. It's again, you know, you have to remember that at the end of the day, they're real human beings in charge of using this technology, and real human beings have real motivations that happen every single day of their lives. Just like you and me. We we go through our lives and we realize, oh, man, if only I knew what was

going on in that person's head. Oh wait, I could figure it out because I've got access to this technology. It happens, right, it does. One thing immediately that we could say that might be a glimmer of hope with this is that many of the surveillance technologies or proprietary systems rather do have strict usage logs where wherein you know, any user with an I D dis tract. So, uh, Lieutenant Frederick would be pinned up for they would say, hey, lieutenant,

why were you running by the way? Uh? Private in the police force, have you militarized the entire police force? Yes, several years in the future. He's not a rookie, he's a private all right. Well, anyhow, whatever your position would be, you know, there would be somebody over you, ideally who would say, hey, we noticed that you were searching this number which is not part of it, and you went pretty into So so that's one thing, But then again it relies as you said, on the policy on the system.

I'd like to take the danger even further because one of the most dangerous potential things about the n s A program and possibly Stingray and it's other accoutrement, is the idea that this could be used by corrupt people with access to the technology to do things like smear campaigns,

to do blackmail, or even extortion. And the most frightening thing to me, although it is it is offensive, the idea that an innocent person's uh terrible late night you up text messages might be collected and saved for posterity, it's more frightening that this could be used to curtail people who were fighting against it. Yeah, I mean there's there's that possibilities. Well, I mean, grant this would a lot of that responsibility falls on the Harris Car operation

and how they deal with the orders. I imagine that they mostly I mean before they were really working with the FBI and some military companies or military organizations I should say, um, And it was only relatively recently, in the last maybe five to ten years, that they started

really working with the local law enforcement agencies. UM. I don't know what there are other customers are like or who they are, but you could presumably, I mean, even if even if it's not made by Harris Corporation, because it's out there and because people know about it, then that's enough for someone to say, hey, let's pour some money into making one of these of our own so we can spy on people in the CIA, or the CIA might say let's use this so we can spy

on people in other countries. I mean, it's definitely a difficult, difficult subject. It's tricky, uh, I mean, obviously, spying throughout history has all been about let's find out what they know without letting them know we know. So at some point you're like, well, if we if we assume that the premise that spies are necessary is true, then these other technologies need to exist for us to be able

to do that. Yeah, but maybe you will, maybe you would argue that spying is not something that should happen in the first place. Okay, this this is something that I know we really wanted your opinion. Okay for a while, so have we? And we asked Alex Winter the same question. He's a filmmaker made the deep webs. Have we reached the point of new return with technology? Has technology rendered

the concept of individual privacy obsolete or will it do so? Okay, well this is super complicated, right, Sorry, it's a great question. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of this text stuff classic episode right after we take this break. On the one hand, you have stuff like this, the technology specifically meant to intercept and perhaps even uh not just not just intercept in the sense of finding out who is

talking to whom, but what they are saying. Right, You've got that technology, that's one thing, And you could argue that as long as that technology exists, then privacy might only be an illusion. It might be something you believe you have, but in reality, your information is being collected somewhere. And of course we know that anything we post or call or text through or whatever, it's going through an infrastructure. So there is at least one entity out there that

has the access to it. The question is whether anyone is looking at it or if it's just if it's just a conduit. Right, So you could argue that privacy is just an illusion in that case. There's another argument to make that has nothing to do with surveillance. Facebook. Twitter, we are we are voluntarily sharing more and more of our lives. Instagram, Pinterest, really anything you can think of where you are allowed a platform people are taking advantage

of it. YouTube another great example, periscope. So you're you're volunteering to share a lot more information and you don't necessarily think while you're doing it. This could potentially put other things in my life at risk of becoming public knowledge, whether it's because you're not paying enough attention or you just don't realize how much information you are revealing every

time you post something. Um So, you could argue in that case, privacy might also be an illusion, not because there are all these ways of staring at what's really going on, but because we're actually giving everything away and we're just not aware of it. We're not aware of the consequences of what we our own actions happened to be um I would argue we haven't gone too far in the sense that we could, if motivated to do so and given the authority to do so, reverse a

lot of the things that have been happening. The question of whether that's a reality or not, I mean, that's kind of like the pie in the sky optimistic idealism, the idea that people could actually be motivated to take action, specifically through voting and through campaigning, and through bringing things to attention and getting the word out there and getting people behind the argument, Hey, we need to address this, and we need to have it addressed to our satisfaction,

not just it's secret. You can't know. I think it's possible, I think it would be really hard, and I don't even though I think it's possible, I don't think it's the plausible outcome. If I'm being perfectly honest, Um, it would require enormous changes in momentum among vast, huge entities out there that are bigger than any one person is.

So even if you let's say that you have an ideal candidate for president of the United States in mind, someone that you truly believe has the best interests of the citizens at heart and wants to protect constitutional rights, so they want to do right by the citizens and make sure that the things they do truly do protect them and do so in a way that follows the rules. Even if that person exists and has put into the position of president, you still have everything outs that it,

like from the local level to n essay too. You know, organizations that do not directly answer to the president. It's not like the president is capable of changing everything by flicking a wand in fact, they're not supposed to be able to do that. Doesn't have the position to president us. Yeah. So, uh, this is why until I become benevolent dictator, we're going to have these problems. Yeah, you know, you've you've been saying that more and more often. I I appreciate the

posters that you've put up around the office. Uh they're they're a little bit stark. I don't know, I you know, I think they might be a bit too Soviet. Yeah, I mean, it would help if they were in English. But there's a lot of like crush this thing beneath the boot. I just like the fist looked really like empowering. And now I oh it does man, it do? Yeah,

it does. You're both on the list now, alright, so any rate, No, but this is this was the reason why why did you guys on here is because as I know you guys, I assume you feel similarly to to what I've stated. But I mean, if there's if I have in any way misconstrued, I would I definitely want you to have the opportunity to address it, well, I will let Ben finish this idea that I'm going to start. But when we spoke with Mr. Winter, he

had a surprisingly positive outlook privacy. That's wonderful he did the people that he's been speaking with and communicating with in his research on the subject of the deep web. He's finding that there are a lot of people who are freely focused on encrypting data and finding ways to encrypt almost all communication that is done from a private person's level, so that a company that is even handling

your data won't be able to decrypt it. Right. So, in other words, the the the company that handles it, it literally is just the conduit. It cannot it cannot see the content and most it will see where it's coming from and where it's going, but beyond that not

what the actual information is. He used the phrase. One phrase I remember that he used was a renaissance of privacy, which which I found inspiring because the the old argument of well, if you have nothing to worry about, what you're worried about hiding, right, it's kind of silly when you consider that we do live in a world now where let's say, Jonathan, let's say that you as an FBI agent, love the part of towner and so much.

You said, you know what, guys, I'm gonna pull up my tent stakes from Langley and I'm gonna come down here, and I am gonna I'm gonna live here, and a matter of fact, I'm gonna run for city commissioner because I think, uh, this kind of stuff needs to be dealt with in a public eye. And then all of a sudden, all of this stuff, every time you had used your phone in that region got leaked by somebody.

Or maybe you're running for sheriff, right, because we do know that the sheriff's uh, at least in the Cab

County once played to corrupt the game here. Yeah, well, or or even just something that, like, you know, a mistake that you make at some point, and it may be it may be one that you you know, it could be that something you consciously did, or not even a conscious mistake, something that due to your actions has accidentally happened, and that you have already taken care of it, You have fixed whatever problems there are, whatever the nature of that thing is, you have you know, you've done

your time. However that I'm that might be for something like that to like, let's say that you do want to run for a local, local position and it has no bearing whatsoever on your ability to carry out your duties. We live in a world now where that stuff comes back, I mean, like big time comes back. And none of us are saints. You know, no one, No one has gone through life completely unsullied. Even if you, you know, are have the best of intentions. Something has happened at

some point in your life. Maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but that can be bad enough. Yeah, that's true. I I do want to say, Um, I really enjoyed I always enjoy being on the show, And um, I don't want to speak for you, mat but I'm I'm grateful that hates it. Yeah, I'm grateful that we got it horrible for me. You guys, you would be so impressed by vast ability to silently weep.

We sit in this room, salty salty beard. But the only thing I would add to what we were saying is that I love that we were talking about how we are not casting aspersion on the individuals working in law enforcement, which is so often an incredibly thankless job,

a fatally at times thankless job. And when you're when you are representing the good guys, right, the force of the force of crime prevention in our society, then the thing is that the game you are playing is stacked against you because the bad guys, whomever they may be,

do not have to follow the same rules. So I while I think that, while I think that it's often easy, at least in our fuel, for people to demonize law enforcement as a faithless entity rather than a group of human beings, I do completely believe that this is horrible technology. I don't see a lot of cases of it being successful. The a c l U has tried their best to make a map of all the police areas they're using this, but they still they had to say that this map

is incomplete. This is, I believe, very very close to a kind of Pandora's box. Because as we know, the price of technology continually decreases. Right, So what happens when it's a steam gray as the price of a PS four, Well, I mean you know it's it's being made in such limited amounts. I mean you have to have the demand there, and you have to have I would imagine there will also be laws that will limit the use of this because you have the giant phone companies that will lobby

very hard. They don't want the ability for someone to spoof a cell phone tower to fall into the hands of an average citizen. Their their business depends upon that not happening. You're not the average citizen. No, No, I'm the future benevolent dictator of the new World Order. I think you need a tank the I think you don't need a tank on speed pial. Yeah, yeah, but they yeah, this is this is fantastic and I really appreciate the

opportunity to let more people know about this. Yeah, And like I said, this technology has been around for a while. In fact that the stingray stuff really started hitting headlines a couple of years ago, back in that's when I was really starting to get noticed and keep in mind, and then use more than a decade before that. So it's it's good to be aware of it. It's good

to ask these questions. And like I said, we may at some point come to a point where we are able to answer the questions I've been asking, to a point where maybe I would be like, Okay, I understand that in the world we live in the reality of the world we live in that under these situations, this might be an acceptable use of the technology. Uh, it's just right now we haven't. We don't have those answers because of secrecy. So yeah, it's it's it's definitely something

to be aware of. H I. I don't want to be a fearmonger or anything like that, but um, it is important that you know about it because I mean, it's it's out there. Whether you know or not, it is there, so it's better to know. All right, Well, guys, thank you so much for joining the show. Obviously you can find Matt and Ben's work at Stuff. They don't want you to know. Well, I hope you feels weird to say this. Enjoyed that classic episode about law enforcement

surveillance always a tricky thing to talk about. And if you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach out to me. The best way to do so is on Twitter. The handle for the show is text Stuff H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,