2:00

and the Puppy's Game. Oh, that's right. I

2:03

know we put this in terms of

2:05

what our favorite episodes are, but you

2:07

know some of these things that we

2:10

talked about were pretty gruesome, ugly, heart-wrenching.

2:12

So it's more the episodes that

2:14

stood out. For sure. Several of the

2:17

stories this year revolved around

2:19

romance scams. What was your

2:21

take on the romance scams this year, Adam? Well,

2:24

I mean you had a certain situation

2:26

for people lost their entire life savings.

2:29

Even though we touched on romance scams

2:31

for several episodes, none of

2:33

the romance scams were exactly the same.

2:35

They were extremely varied. The tactics used

2:37

by the scammers were varied. And

2:39

the way that the guests that we had on

2:42

were impacted were also completely different in each circumstance.

2:45

Many of the people who get tricked

2:47

by these romance scammers, they

2:50

become addicted to them. Yeah, that

2:52

was actually one of the really striking

2:55

things about the episode with April, whose

2:58

mom was addicted to her scammer. So

3:06

let's just go back over a little bit

3:08

of the story here again, and

3:11

that is your mom finds out

3:13

she has ovarian cancer. Understandably,

3:16

she's feeling lonely. She turns to

3:18

online dating. I remember laying on

3:20

the couch watching TV. She sent me the picture of

3:22

him and said, I've been dating

3:24

online and this is the man I've met. And

3:26

how long did it take before

3:28

he started to ask for money?

3:31

Hmm, that was probably eight

3:33

months or so. She ended

3:35

up giving him 350,000. Whoa. And I didn't realize it

3:38

was 350,000

3:40

until after she died. We got ahold of her phone and we went through

3:45

all the text messages and all the

3:48

lies she told. We thought that were lies. We

3:50

confirmed that it was all

3:52

lies. Just like a drug

3:54

addict would lie to their family. It's it

3:57

just gets so ugly. These victims turn

3:59

into people. that you don't recognize anymore.

4:02

And what happened if you think about it,

4:04

it's both sides of an investment. You have

4:06

the scammer who's making the investment because he

4:09

or she thinks there's a pot of gold

4:11

at the end of the rainbow, which in

4:13

this case was the case. And

4:16

then you have the victim who is,

4:18

if you need help, I'm here to help you

4:21

because they're investing in their

4:23

end of the relationship because they wanted to go

4:25

the distance. So Adam, I have

4:28

to say that if you asked

4:31

me for money, I wouldn't

4:33

hesitate to give it to you because

4:36

I know you're good for it. And

4:39

I think that's a big part

4:41

of how these scammers work. They

4:43

always are the banker, the diamond

4:45

mine owner. It does seem that

4:47

one feature of this is

4:49

a rich person who somehow is

4:51

not liquid and needs

4:53

help. Is that always the case, April? Always

4:56

the case. And

4:58

I think that they've noticed that

5:00

mom was a widow. See, she

5:02

just got money from life insurance.

5:05

Yeah. Yes. That

5:07

happened to your mom. Your mom just kind of walked

5:09

into it, although she found

5:11

him. He found her. Do

5:13

we know how that started? He

5:16

found her on plenty of fish.

5:19

You know, one thing I'm still grappling with

5:22

being angry at my mom and right

5:24

before this interview today, I was thinking

5:26

about it, you know, looking back

5:28

on my life, the mistakes

5:30

I've made in my life all

5:33

involved my heart and men.

5:37

And so I try to keep that in mind

5:39

when I'm when I'm remembering what

5:41

happened to being angry at her that, you know,

5:43

I've made a lot of mistakes in that department,

5:45

too. So that's for my own mental health. If

5:48

I had all the money back I

5:50

ever spent on sending flowers to people

5:52

who weren't interested in me, I would

5:54

be a very wealthy man right now.

5:56

I'd be able to buy a new

5:58

truck. I got

6:00

asked, so what happened when

6:03

your mom realized she'd been scammed? Did

6:06

she stop sending a money? I assume she

6:08

did, but was there any attempt to get

6:10

that money back? Well,

6:13

that part of the problem was once

6:16

they figure out that they are being scammed, they

6:18

think that they're smart enough that they can out-scam

6:20

the scammer. So she kept talking to them so

6:22

she could get that money back. And I told

6:24

her, you're not, that money is gone. You're not

6:26

going to get it back. Just end it now.

6:28

And she would not. Oh,

6:31

then what happened? So

6:33

then she became a money mule. Even

6:36

if you don't have any money, they still

6:38

have things that they can do with you. And that

6:40

is that they've taken the money that they're getting from

6:43

other victims and they want to run it through you

6:45

and have you run it through other bank accounts and

6:47

different things, gift cards and things to make it

6:50

look more legitimate. And she

6:52

became a money mule. What was it? What

6:54

did they have her doing in terms of them? How

6:56

did they get the money to

6:58

her? And what were they asking her to do? They

7:01

would open up bank accounts and close

7:03

them right away once she got

7:05

the money and sent them to

7:07

another bank. And then they would also,

7:10

they would do weird things like send her a

7:12

computer and then they'd have her sell the computer and

7:14

then send the money. It was just they always

7:16

had money coming in and going out somewhere.

7:19

So how long did that go on

7:21

before this thing finally ended? We'll

7:25

see. From the beginning of the scam

7:27

to the end, it was two years

7:30

because right when the pandemic hit

7:33

is when she died. If she would not

7:35

have died, she still would have been doing

7:37

it. You

7:41

know, I could see

7:43

it happening. I've seen it with my

7:45

friends in codependent relationships with people who

7:48

were really bad for them. They

7:50

accept behavior and situations that

7:52

are just not acceptable. But

7:54

the way that that woman

7:56

became addicted to her scammers,

7:59

it was. It was like watching somebody, you

8:01

know, might as well be hitting a

8:03

crack pipe. One of the other ones that stood out to

8:05

me was Brian Denny, because he wasn't necessarily the victim of

8:07

a scam, but scammers kept on using

8:10

his likeness. So

8:15

how did you first discover that you were unknowingly

8:17

involved in a scam? Well,

8:20

it was like a bucket of cold water was all at

8:22

once. They're like, I was just

8:25

leaving the army. I was updating

8:27

my LinkedIn profile as a lot of people

8:29

do. I've never had one. And so I

8:32

got a contact very quickly from a lady in

8:34

Canada. And she said, Hey,

8:36

I'd like to talk. I'm looking at your profile. And

8:39

I, I was naive enough still. So

8:41

I said, yes. I said, here's my phone number. If you'd like to

8:43

talk, give me a call. And

8:45

I really, quite frankly, I just assumed it was all

8:48

about a job or something. They were, they were looking

8:50

for an army guy to do. And,

8:53

uh, she reached out and said, Hey, you

8:55

know, I think we've been, we've had a

8:57

conversation over the last couple of, uh, couple

8:59

of weeks. I'm like, no, um,

9:02

I hadn't been talking to anybody and, and

9:04

I asked her to explain. And she said, well, you

9:07

and I have been talking and I'm going to send

9:09

you some pictures. She sent me several pictures

9:11

that I recognized as me off, uh,

9:14

off of Facebook and some army

9:16

photos that the army had taken of me when

9:19

I was deployed. And, uh,

9:21

and then she said, I'm going to send you a pair of tickets.

9:23

She sent me plane tickets that had my name

9:26

on them, where I was flying into Montreal. She

9:28

said, you're supposed to be in Syria right now. Now,

9:38

I can't imagine that this woman didn't

9:40

sound somewhat intense

9:43

at this point. Sounds like she was put through

9:45

the middle a little bit. She

9:47

was contacting you essentially

9:49

because she felt you were a scoundrel. Am

9:51

I right? I think she

9:53

was trying to put the pieces together. I think

9:55

she had been told by her

9:58

daughter, Hey, this isn't. real,

10:00

you're not talking to this

10:02

guy. And her daughter with

10:04

on LinkedIn found my image

10:07

and said, this is the guy that

10:10

you're talking to. That

10:12

says he's talking to you, but I'm sure

10:14

it's not that guy. And she reached out.

10:16

In fact, she was quite, quite decent about

10:18

it. She quickly came around to the, yep,

10:20

I've been scammed without a lot of evidence

10:22

without me having to go to some strong

10:24

links to explain that to her. And, and

10:27

a lot of people don't get to that quickly.

10:29

But yeah, she, she put it together pretty quick.

10:31

And, and she said, go to Facebook,

10:33

put your name in the search bar and see what

10:36

happens. And I did. And they

10:38

were double digits. My

10:40

pictures and fake profiles that came

10:42

up. Yeah,

10:52

he was the victim of a scam, though. He

10:54

was just a different sort

10:56

of victim. He was, he was,

10:58

he should have, he really should just have

11:00

sued for name, image, and likeness. And, you

11:02

know, the scammers should have been giving him

11:04

a piece of their take. Now, he

11:07

was also a very honest guy and a law

11:09

and order guy. So obviously he's not going to

11:11

do that. And he just emerges

11:14

a, a scammer, a

11:17

maquette for the

11:19

person that everybody's looking for. And he,

11:21

his family, took an enormous amount of grief

11:23

from, I mean, imagine as a, you,

11:26

you come in the house and your spouse comes, you

11:29

say, I got another call that

11:31

you're having an affair with so and

11:33

so. It's like, no, I'm not. Well,

11:35

that's where the addiction thing comes into

11:37

play again too, because he, if he's

11:39

saying this isn't accurate, this isn't correct.

11:41

Some of the people that were getting strung along

11:44

by scammers refused to believe that they refused to

11:46

believe him or his wife, that that

11:48

was a FOTY profile online. And I thought that

11:50

was just fascinating in a very sad

11:52

sort of way. But another

11:54

feature of these romance

11:56

scams, of course, was

11:58

the massive hemorrhaging of

12:00

my... leaving accounts and

12:03

I didn't think that was possible. I

12:06

thought maybe someone would get taken for a

12:08

thousand dollars or something or you know playing

12:10

fair but we learned otherwise this year. No

12:13

we had Shreya Donna, $450,000 in a cryptocurrency

12:18

scam that started as a

12:20

romance scam. The other thing that

12:22

started out with Shreya was that she

12:24

wasn't necessarily just handing over money into a

12:26

crypto scam, they had set up a phony

12:28

app that made it look like she was

12:31

making money. Shreya,

12:38

how did this lead to a request for

12:41

money? Did he ask you to help with

12:43

the cancer treatments for his uncle or what?

12:45

No, so this was very sophisticated so

12:47

not for a second I thought I

12:49

was giving this guy any money. So

12:52

here's how it started. He started talking about

12:55

shared hopes and dreams like he was serious

12:57

and Shrashatra Kolkmurd retirement plans. Very quickly he

12:59

led on that he was really well to

13:01

do like he was going to be able

13:04

to retire in one or two years. What

13:06

was my plan? I have a regular tech

13:08

job. I told him that I was not

13:10

in the realm of possibility for me at

13:12

which point he said you know dream bigger

13:15

I'm here now that I'm here you know

13:17

I make a lot of money trading cryptocurrency

13:19

I could teach you and then

13:21

I was like I'm not really interested but then

13:24

as he kept talking more and more

13:26

about shared dreams about how nice it

13:28

would be to have freedom and flexibility

13:30

to retire earlier to travel more together

13:32

one of our common hobbies was

13:34

travelling I had taken two years off to

13:36

just travel the not off but as a

13:38

digital nomad to travel the country so we talked

13:40

a lot about travelling. So I

13:42

decided I would learn so he sent me

13:45

he said it's completely okay start

13:47

small this is your own account it's your money

13:49

you know I'm just gonna teach you what to

13:52

what kind of trades I make so he

13:54

sent me this link to this app

13:57

and I thought I downloaded what I thought

14:00

was so far the publicly

14:02

listed bank crypto trading platform.

14:04

But turns out it was

14:06

the mirror app. So, so

14:09

just for our listeners who are listening, you're

14:12

saying that this

14:14

person directed you to an

14:16

app to invest in

14:19

on a platform

14:21

that was itself completely

14:23

fraudulent, but very, very

14:26

believable. Nothing about

14:28

it was real. It just looked very real to

14:30

me. It had customer service,

14:32

all the branding, all the logos, everything that

14:34

you would think of. And

14:36

the first couple of times, you know, I put

14:39

in $1,000, $1,000 became $1,250. I

14:43

could bring all my money back

14:45

to my bank. So the money went from

14:47

my bank to Coinbase to this exchange.

14:49

The fact that Coinbase let me transfer

14:52

to this exchange made me feel like,

14:54

okay, this is okay. Soapy's cryptocurrency

14:56

platform and the fact that I could

14:58

transfer back from this exchange to Coinbase

15:00

to my bank account the first couple

15:02

of times really helped me feel

15:04

like this is real and this is my money

15:07

in my account. And what a nice person. He's

15:09

just teaching me how to accelerate

15:11

my retirement plans. That's how the money

15:13

part of it started. But I never

15:15

thought I was giving him money. I

15:17

thought it was my money in

15:20

my own account. And this had two

15:22

factor authentication and everything behind it too.

15:24

So this sounds like it

15:27

was a really sophisticated scam overall. Yeah.

15:29

You could transfer the money that you made

15:32

to your bank account and you actually saw the

15:34

money there. Well,

15:36

that reminds me of three card Monty, the way that

15:38

they play these tricks on the street where you win,

15:41

you win, you win, you win, and then they

15:43

flip a switch and you start

15:45

losing. What happened in

15:48

this process? So I'm guessing you

15:50

didn't keep winning all the time.

15:54

No, here's the thing. So the first couple

15:56

of transactions, I got my money back and

15:58

then he started telling. me that there's

16:01

this things called large stable note, which

16:03

in crypto world means something like a

16:06

investment opportunity that short lived and I needed

16:08

to build a certain amount of capital in

16:10

this trading account, the crypto trading

16:12

account that I could take advantage of it.

16:15

So I started putting in more of my

16:17

savings into this crypto trading

16:19

account and he

16:21

would set up like, you know, at night, he

16:24

would set up times where he would be like,

16:26

okay, now we trade, he'll tell me exactly what

16:28

trade to make. So buy this much for five,

16:30

five minutes by, you know, so tell me what

16:32

to do. And I would do exactly that in

16:34

the app. And I would see my money multiply,

16:36

like I would feel like, okay, I put in

16:38

20,000 today, it

16:40

became, you know, 28,000. So and

16:43

what happened was after a while, I did not

16:45

start putting it back in my bank account, he

16:47

encouraged me to build the balance up so that

16:50

I could make bigger trades. I realized it was

16:52

a scam when after I had built up a

16:54

lot of capital and made a lot of gains,

16:56

I lost for 50,000. I

17:04

guess the key takeaway here when you talk

17:07

about these kinds of scams is money. But

17:09

then again, of course, there are some people that

17:11

will tell you that's a problem in relationships as

17:13

well. Well, I don't

17:15

know. I think that, you know, there's

17:17

the there, it is a problem in

17:19

relationships, especially when one person has more

17:21

money than the other. But we're not

17:23

talking about that. We're talking about somebody

17:25

who seemed to be creating

17:30

a situation of trust,

17:32

where it became possible to steal

17:35

a sizable amount of

17:37

money. And it seems

17:39

as though he was working on that

17:42

from day one. Yeah, and it just

17:44

goes to show that they were intelligent

17:46

people, they were well educated, they were

17:48

not really just completely naive. That

17:50

shows exactly how vulnerable anyone is to the

17:52

sort of scam or scams in general. Adam,

18:00

you guys know I'm a bit of a

18:02

privacy geek, if you will. Oh yeah. Yeah,

18:04

you are. Yeah, totally. I really just don't

18:06

like the idea that just about anyone can

18:08

find you online, can find out where you

18:10

live or your email address, your phone number,

18:12

anything. I just think that entire idea is

18:14

super creepy. There's so much of my data

18:16

already out there, but is there something that

18:18

you can do? Yeah, actually, you

18:21

can use Delete Me. Delete Me is a service

18:23

that pretty much does the heavy lifting for you,

18:25

where they go to all the data brokers that

18:27

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18:29

pull your data and delete it on a regular

18:31

basis. I use it, I like it, and they

18:33

make it quick, easy, and safe to remove your

18:36

personal data online. We know with these data brokers,

18:38

they can accumulate huge amounts of your personally identifiable

18:40

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18:42

hands of a bad actor, that opens you up

18:45

to a lot of risk. And

18:47

if you act now, you can

18:49

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19:11

for what the heck. And we thank

19:13

you for supporting Delete Me and what

19:15

the... Lauren.

19:19

Mike. So we host a podcast for

19:21

Wired called Gadget Lab. We do. We

19:24

do. Yes, that is correct. Tell

19:26

the good people more about it. Well, I think the

19:29

good people should definitely tune in every week because they get

19:31

to hear me roasting you. I know.

19:33

All right. No, really what Gadget Lab

19:35

is, is Mike and I tackling the

19:38

biggest questions in the world of technology.

19:40

I like to think of it as

19:42

the best of Wired's journalism, but in

19:45

audio form. We cover the big news

19:47

of the week in Techland, but we

19:49

also offer our expert analyses and opinions

19:52

on all things consumer tech, whether that's

19:54

mobile apps, hardware, startups, cryptocurrency. Mike, what's

19:56

been a recent highlight episode for you?

19:58

We did a deep dive on the... group behind the

20:00

massive Okta hack. We also had a

20:03

great conversation about web3 and the metaverse.

20:05

What stands out for you? Never metaverse you didn't

20:07

like. I

20:10

really enjoyed our recent podcast about Peloton.

20:13

And recently the legendary tech journalist Kara Swisher

20:15

joined us to talk all about Elon Musk

20:17

and the future of Twitter. So

20:19

I guess we should tell people how they can listen to our pod.

20:21

We release a new episode of Gadget Lab

20:24

every week and you can listen and follow

20:26

us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you

20:28

pod. This

20:36

year we had some topic

20:38

experts who came in handy. No,

20:41

they sure did. One in particular was Dan

20:43

Simons, who wrote the book Nobody's Fool. And

20:46

he was talking about how people

20:48

tend not to ask a lot of questions.

20:50

They tend to believe what's in front of them

20:53

and never think about what am I not seeing. So

21:01

I think the one, if there's one big

21:03

point here, it's that it's

21:06

really easy to look at a scam

21:08

from the outside and say, yeah, the

21:10

person who fell for it, they were gullible, they didn't

21:12

spot the red flags they should have. But

21:14

in reality, we all can be targeted

21:17

because all forms of deception take advantage

21:19

of how we think and reason by

21:21

default in naturally good ways. So

21:23

I think one thing that

21:26

we try and focus on is what is it

21:28

that leads us to be deceived by looking at

21:30

commonalities across many forms of deception as opposed to

21:33

going into depth and looking at why

21:35

somebody fell for a particular scam. He

21:46

was a great guest and his book was excellent. If you

21:48

like the subject matter of the show, I'd highly recommend it.

21:51

Yeah, I mean, maybe one

21:53

of the better episodes this year. That's saying

21:55

a lot because we had a lot of

21:57

very interesting people on. really

22:00

made me think twice about the

22:02

psychology of being scammed because it

22:05

seems to me like it, you

22:07

know, to go back to

22:09

the addiction idea, there's something about

22:12

going down the rabbit hole that is

22:16

kind of appealing or unavoidable for some people.

22:19

They gotta touch this hot stove, I don't know.

22:22

Well, what Dan was talking about is how, when

22:26

you're presented with something that is either very

22:28

different than something you're used to or

22:30

completely in line with the way you

22:32

believe about something, you have a

22:34

tendency not to look behind it. You

22:37

have a tendency to accept it, that

22:39

your mind is also trying to

22:41

be very efficient and sometimes the

22:43

fastest answer is in your mind

22:45

the best answer and it may not be. Yeah,

22:48

and there's also a strong element of wish fulfillment that

22:50

we say pretty often, if something sounds too good to

22:52

be true, it is. And that's easy

22:54

to say if you're looking at that externally, but for a lot

22:56

of people, something sounds too good to be true, that

22:58

is really tempting, that is the stove that they wanna touch.

23:05

Another expert we had on was David Meiman. David

23:07

Meiman kind of scared the shit out of Adam,

23:10

I think, because of the whole

23:12

driver's license thing. In

23:18

late 2020, the beginning of 2021, we

23:21

started to see how things were exploding

23:24

and diffusing all around the country. And

23:27

of course, one of the things that we've

23:29

seen playing a very important

23:31

role in the diffusion of

23:33

those application was the

23:36

fake driver licenses that the

23:38

criminals were able to manufacture

23:40

very cheaply, very

23:42

quickly in very high

23:44

quality. In many of

23:46

the applications, we've seen the criminals presenting

23:49

a driver license, a

23:52

fake driver license with an identity on it. And

23:54

we've seen how they

23:56

used the driver license to

23:58

simply type in and request. all

24:00

the information they needed to record on

24:03

the Department of Labor, of

24:06

all the relevant states, websites, and

24:08

simply getting improved in

24:10

very high rates. We started to

24:13

see criminals selling tutorials of how

24:15

to bypass some of the security

24:17

mechanisms that many states

24:19

embraced and deployed in the

24:21

context of their verification

24:23

process. And we

24:26

started shouting all over the place, hey, these

24:28

guys know how to bypass this

24:31

company's security mechanism and that company's

24:33

security mechanism. And

24:35

unfortunately, we didn't get too much attention

24:37

to our calls. I think

24:39

one of the biggest questions I have, and I know it's

24:41

not really possible to get inside every scammer's head, but

24:44

what was motivating them? Between identity theft and

24:46

the government program scams and the like? Yeah,

24:48

I mean, at the end of the

24:50

day, they want money. But

24:52

what about the guys doing the tutorials and the like? So

24:56

those guys were doing tutorials that you have

24:58

to understand. And at this point, and

25:01

even earlier, right, when we were talking about 2020, we

25:04

were talking about a very sophisticated supply chain.

25:07

So we're not talking about the teenagers

25:09

who are looking to just kill some

25:11

time. And so they submit this fraudulent

25:13

application trying to get some money from

25:15

the government. No, we're not there anymore.

25:17

And we weren't there in 2020. We

25:19

were experiencing the

25:21

operation of very sophisticated

25:23

supply chain, which

25:26

had access to our identities,

25:29

took our identities, manufactured fake

25:31

driver licenses with the criminal

25:33

images, bypassing all the security

25:35

mechanisms that you can imagine

25:37

in order to get this

25:39

money. So profit is the

25:42

number one reason for why these guys

25:44

are doing this. Now, we do have

25:46

folks who are simply there for the

25:48

three. What we are seeing

25:50

out there, the amount of money we're seeing

25:53

out there, we

25:55

are talking about folks doing this for

25:57

profit. It's easy. There's really no deterrence

25:59

right now. So the probability that

26:01

they will be caught for their

26:03

operation and go to jail is

26:05

relatively low In terms

26:08

of potential profits these guys can

26:10

make millions of dollars and invest

26:13

Not a whole lot of time in the

26:15

operation And if you're listening guys out there

26:17

and you're gonna go and try your hand

26:19

at some of these crimes Just remember that

26:21

David and the whole crew at what the

26:23

hack get 25%

26:26

of everything you bring in so we'll take

26:28

that Vyvanmo Earth for Bitcoin But only 25%

26:31

come on last time we tried to

26:33

take more it we ended up almost

26:35

becoming violent criminals again It's

26:42

a surprisingly low-tech thing but so much

26:44

of your identity is tied to just

26:46

a little rectangular piece of plastic Well,

26:49

and if you have someone's driver's

26:52

license you can do something like

26:54

steal their vacant lot On

26:56

the Atlantic Ocean that you could do My

27:00

least favorite thing this year was part of my

27:02

favorite episode which was I called Travis

27:04

Do you remember what I said to you Travis when I was

27:07

on my way home from New Jersey the second time? I don't

27:10

think I can use the exact language on the show. Yes,

27:12

you can you can always be bleeped Adam

27:15

needs to hear it. I Think

27:18

uh, don't get me fired Replace

27:21

the hack and what the heck with the

27:23

f-word. I think what I said was I

27:25

quit I'm done. Yeah Here

27:28

you are So

27:31

what happened was Adam calls and he's like

27:33

it happened again What

27:36

happened? Well, we should start at the beginning

27:41

Test test one two one

27:43

two testing. Hello. Hello

27:46

testing one two. Hello. Hello.

27:48

Hello. Boom. Boom So

27:56

I saw I have a property in Manilow, New Jersey,

27:59

it's a hundred linear feet on the ocean.

28:01

It's vacant because the house

28:04

was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.

28:06

And it's been in our

28:08

families for many years. It was purchased

28:10

back in 1983. And after Hurricane Sandy,

28:16

the property's been vacant, I

28:19

got a call from my co-owner and

28:21

we both agreed that we would list the

28:23

property and that he would contact a local

28:25

broker because he grew up in the area.

28:28

And he called back to me and said, the property's already

28:31

listed. Well, first of all, Adam

28:34

likes a scam the way

28:36

a fat kid likes cake. And he, you know, so

28:40

this thing was spiritual

28:42

catnip. Sorry to mix my metaphors, but

28:44

he was really excited. I

28:47

got a call from Adam, as I often

28:49

do, and occasionally

28:52

he'll say, free London! Or he'll

28:55

say something, but this time you said, I

28:57

got scammed. Or I'm getting scammed. You're

29:00

going to love this, Beau. You're going to love this.

29:02

I think that is what he said. You're going to love

29:04

this. It was like a men's warehouse ad, but it

29:06

was for us. And so

29:08

Adam calls me and says, there's,

29:11

someone's trying to steal the

29:13

property of Mennelokun. I actually,

29:15

you know, I like to say that he was like, you

29:17

must go to New Jersey and you must do this. But

29:20

honestly, I volunteered

29:22

because I thought I was, I was

29:25

the second coming of Dateline, you know, go

29:27

and go down there and catch the criminal.

29:29

I was pretty excited because I

29:31

realized we could actually use this

29:34

for the show. And

29:38

I go to the place

29:41

to get a recording. Hey

29:43

man, how are you? Now, how does this work? I

29:46

mean, that's the big question. Normally when

29:48

you're going to sell a property, call Realtor

29:51

and they do all the MLS stuff, which

29:53

is the listing that makes it appear on

29:55

Zillow and realtor.com and Redfin and all the

29:58

other places. And Honestly,

30:01

I've sold a few properties and it's a mystery

30:03

to me how it works, but it works. And

30:06

I also have to say, I've never

30:09

had to pass any kind of

30:11

identity authentication, never. We

30:14

went to the FBI, we contacted

30:16

the realtor, we let the realtor know that

30:18

they should leave the listing up because we

30:20

didn't want to tip off the scammer that

30:23

we knew what was going on. And

30:26

the FBI came back after an

30:28

initial investigation, they said, really not sure there's a

30:30

lot that we can do, but it's

30:33

up to you, you're the property owner. So

30:35

if you want to pull the listing and

30:38

relist it or do what, it's your property,

30:40

do whatever you think is the right thing to do. So

30:44

we pull down the listing. We

30:47

then talk about officially listing

30:49

the property. And lo and behold,

30:52

I get a call from a second realtor who

30:54

asked me if I'm Adam Levin. I

30:57

go, yes, I am. And

30:59

he said, well, didn't you

31:01

just list your property with me? And I

31:03

said, no, I did not list my property.

31:05

Who are you? And the story tracks very

31:07

similar to the first one. I meet the

31:10

realtor on the beach. Good, how are

31:12

you? Good, how are you? Good,

31:16

how are you? Good, how are you? Good, how

31:18

are you? Pretty cool, I got to say. My

31:20

first thought is, why is Adam selling this? The

31:23

guy tells me about it. And

31:25

then we go and we sit in his car. We

31:28

call the guy. Please

31:42

leave your message for 407. Bupkis, crickets.

31:51

Yes, go, go, go, go, I go. Drive five

31:53

hours, I get there. He

31:55

hasn't told me that they pulled the listing. Now, what

31:58

do you think the criminal's going to think when sees

32:00

the listing's gone. Chink is up, right? You

32:02

think he's going to answer the phone from the realtor? No.

32:07

I could have killed him. Now

32:10

with that question, I think the biggest issue

32:13

here is how do realtors, how do the

32:15

people responsible for selling our properties confirm they're

32:17

actually talking to us? I

32:19

mean, we ran into this problem and we were trying

32:21

to convince the realtors I was the

32:24

real Adam Levin. So

32:26

I googled Adam

32:29

Levin and then I emailed the

32:31

real Adam Levin and

32:34

said, hey, I just got

32:41

off the phone with my attorney. He

32:43

said I need to make 100% sure that

32:46

you are who you say you are because

32:48

I'm not going to make the same mistake twice, right? So

32:53

I googled him, I googled

32:55

the books he's wrote, I

32:57

googled his podcast, your podcast,

33:01

I googled just his information

33:03

in general. So I made

33:05

a question sheet for myself. So I

33:08

made like five or six questions on

33:10

this question sheet. I was going to

33:12

ask him when he called me in the morning and I

33:14

was just going to wrap these questions out of it to

33:16

make sure that he was, it was

33:18

like, who were your parents? Where

33:21

did you go to? Where did you go pre grad? Where did

33:23

you go post grad? You wrote a book. What was the logo

33:25

on the book? And it was like,

33:28

I made sure that I had, I was going

33:30

to be asked the right questions and he answered

33:32

them like that, that, that really quick. So I

33:34

knew he was using the thumbprint with the lock

33:37

in the middle of it. Yes, that one. Yes.

33:39

So I wanted to make smart. Yeah.

33:42

Yeah. So he asked.

33:44

Oh, he passed. He passed blind

33:46

fellows. Absolutely. Here's my question. Yes.

33:50

Pretend for a second. I'm

33:52

fake out of my mind. Okay. I

33:55

go online. I figure I think. Right

34:00

I look at his book How

34:04

do you know you still don't have fake out mother

34:08

Well, that's why I Okay,

34:11

so that that's why I wanted

34:14

to ask him these questions quick Just

34:16

like anything bang bang bang. Yeah, no,

34:18

no exactly. I need him to go

34:21

grab a phone and He

34:23

went really fast. Yeah, and I say you're satisfied.

34:25

I can tell you I've known him for 12

34:27

years I

34:30

know he owes that property. I

34:32

remember when the house got eaten up by

34:34

her candy. Yeah No,

34:41

we were very lucky to catch this thing in

34:44

the early stages of practically

34:46

a non-crime crime Because

34:49

we caught it and pulled the listing

34:51

off the market before someone sold it

34:53

out from under me Yeah,

34:55

I mean it wasn't practically a non-crime crime It wasn't

34:57

on crime crime the other thing that stood out there,

34:59

too Is I know we've been trying to get a

35:02

scammer on the phone for a while and that

35:04

was the event that Bo you finally got to Hello,

35:14

hey Adam, how are you? Good

35:19

good. Um, yeah, so I was just

35:21

um wondering if you had

35:23

time to discuss the one offer that came

35:25

in Okay,

35:29

yes, let's do that stop

35:31

and Then we called

35:33

a guy up and I'm so relieved

35:35

when he answers and he sounds not like he

35:37

would be friends with the realtor You

35:40

know, it doesn't sound like it sounds like a different

35:43

walk of life Yeah,

35:46

of course my community's closing So

35:49

they can close in 30 to 45 days.

35:51

That's pretty standard hard to hear He's

35:54

intentionally down talking low talking saying

35:57

as few words as possible knowing

36:00

full well that anything he says will

36:02

be recorded probably. I don't have

36:04

any problem with that. All

36:06

right, I'll talk to you soon. I

36:12

was very excited about that. And he really did

36:14

sound like a scammer, didn't he? Well,

36:18

you know, I still

36:21

feel bad about suggesting that

36:24

family realtors that we met

36:28

were actually the scammers. But I

36:30

was just beside myself with who

36:32

done it. It was

36:34

very exciting. And I kind

36:37

of preferred the idea that I was in the

36:39

room with the scammers and that

36:41

I might get shot and turned into humble

36:43

pie. Well,

36:46

Beau, come on now. To be fair,

36:48

we do accuse each other of being

36:50

a scammer pretty much every episode. Or

36:52

accidentally giving scammers how-to lessons. HSUBS

37:00

News correspondent Major Garrett, host of the podcast Agent

37:02

of Betrayal, The Double Life of Robert Hanson. During

37:06

the Cold War, FBI agent Robert Hanson traded

37:08

classified secrets to the Kremlin in exchange for

37:10

cash and jewels. In

37:13

the podcast, you'll hear from Hanson's closest friends,

37:15

family members, victims, and colleagues for

37:18

the most comprehensive telling of who Robert Hanson

37:20

really was. Binge the issue of being the

37:22

fastest, even though he's still on

37:24

the list. We had some journalists

37:26

in here. We had Kashmir Hill

37:29

talking about the dangers of

37:32

facial recognition technology. So from

37:34

your book, it sounds like there were

37:37

companies that actually had either the resources

37:39

or the technology, or both,

37:41

to do fish and fish. And I think that's a

37:44

good question. I think that's

37:46

a good question. And I think

37:48

that's a good question. And I think that's

37:50

a good question. And I think that's a good question.

37:54

I think that's a good question.

37:56

I think that's a good question. I think that's

37:58

a good question. implications

38:00

of it. Did that just open things up

38:02

for Clearview? When I first heard

38:05

about Clearview AI, a lot of people,

38:07

you know, thought it was a technological breakthrough

38:09

that they did this. I think Google and

38:12

Facebook and decided that they didn't want to

38:14

release it, you know, that it was too

38:17

dangerous or too legally

38:19

risky. And what

38:22

has happened in the last few

38:24

years is open source technology

38:26

and much more

38:28

sharing of kind of these

38:30

computer techniques. So for somebody

38:33

who has just, you know,

38:35

some technical savvy, they can take

38:37

these powerful AI technologies

38:39

and if you, you know, have the

38:41

computing power and the ability to

38:43

store a lot of data, I mean, you can

38:45

do really radical things and so that's what happened

38:48

with Clearview AI. It's the kind of building blocks

38:50

were there and it was just a

38:52

matter of being willing

38:54

to cross that ethical line and put

38:56

this all together and they

38:58

did. So

39:03

we had Major Garrett from CBS who

39:05

has the podcast Agent B. Creel which

39:07

is the story of Bob Hanson, the

39:09

highest ranking FBI official ever

39:12

to be prosecuted successfully for selling

39:14

secrets to the Russians. You're

39:18

familiar with the phrase culture eats

39:20

strategy for breakfast. I

39:23

don't think I've seen a better example. The

39:25

fact that the FBI culture was so lax

39:28

and and complacent about their security

39:30

but it does, it is a

39:33

culture thing. And part of

39:35

the culture was a grandiosity about

39:38

themselves. We're the FBI. We don't do things like that.

39:40

We don't do, no, no, no. We don't

39:43

even misrecruit. Like we know we net we

39:45

net we never blow it in recruitment. We

39:48

never blow it in promotion. We never

39:51

blow it in our way of moving

39:53

people around or understanding the criminal mind

39:56

or understanding why people go bad and we

39:58

just we don't misunderstand anything. And

40:00

that grandiosity created, I think,

40:03

a very significant blind spot.

40:15

And one thing, I think Nicole Pearl-Roth sort of

40:17

wins the MVP here too, because she was in

40:19

her third trimester of pregnancy, I think eight and

40:21

a half months prior when we were speaking to

40:23

her. One

40:30

of the things that you talk about in the epilogue of

40:33

your book is something that

40:35

we often discuss in Call Security by

40:37

Design. You don't call it that, but

40:39

you do discuss the crucial mission, crucial

40:41

thing that everyone needs to be thinking

40:43

about in the industrial sector

40:46

and military. But to

40:48

build security from

40:50

the very beginning, from the very first line

40:52

of code you write, you're

40:54

thinking about security and

40:57

keeping zero-day exploits out.

41:00

That ship has sailed already for AI, hasn't

41:02

it? Yeah.

41:06

No, I'll tell you something interesting that's not in

41:08

the book, which is I would ask zero-day

41:10

brokers I came into contact with for the book.

41:13

At the end of our interview, I'd always ask the same question,

41:16

is there anything you haven't been able to break?

41:19

And one of

41:21

them who's in the book, Adriel Desotel said, yeah,

41:23

there actually is one Green Hill Software.

41:25

I think they're based in Santa Barbara. You should talk

41:27

to them. So I reached out to them and

41:30

I thought, oh, this will be good for my epilogue, you know. A

41:32

woman, a female journalist drives down the coast

41:35

on Highway 1 to Santa Barbara

41:37

to the sort of Shangri-La of

41:39

Secure by Design. They

41:42

never got back to me, but then my book came out

41:45

and I heard from them a lot saying, basically,

41:47

why weren't we in this book and why haven't

41:50

we talked yet? Well, the guy who runs

41:52

Green Hill is Dan O'Dowd. So

41:54

he's become famous recently as being the

41:56

guy who has been calling out

41:58

Elon. and Tesla

42:01

for self-driving cars. Yes,

42:03

yes, yes, yes. So his whole thing

42:06

was, listen Nicole, I wish I could tell you there

42:08

was some magic to our

42:10

software, why it's so secure, but

42:12

it's really because one of our first customers was

42:16

the Pentagon. They wanted us to design an

42:18

operating system for other

42:20

missile delivery systems and

42:22

so we, in writing this operating

42:24

system, we were just checking,

42:26

we were moving very slowly, we were

42:29

operating almost like a month, a month

42:31

like focus on security and

42:34

minimalism and stripping

42:36

down the code to

42:38

its fundamental basics, always

42:41

with the question, am I checking my work?

42:44

Because if this software has any bugs

42:46

in it, then this missile delivery

42:48

system could be used against us. So with

42:50

that use case in mind, we designed the

42:52

software and it ended up getting the highest

42:54

security rating from the NSA and others and

42:56

he was saying this is the approach, essentially,

42:58

we're never going to take it to everything,

43:01

we can't roll back on Windows and most

43:03

commercial software, but this is the approach we

43:06

should be taking to things like autonomous

43:09

vehicles, the power grid,

43:11

our pipeline network, our water storage,

43:14

etc. and treatment. And so

43:16

I'm not surprised he's been out there on this

43:18

campaign calling out Elon self-driving car

43:21

software. That is

43:23

a future. I think there are some

43:25

systems that as a society would

43:27

rate if we could have conversations and say

43:29

that is so sacred, we

43:32

don't need artificial intelligence in our

43:34

water treatment facilities. We

43:36

don't need artificial intelligence in some parts of

43:38

the pipeline, but anyway, that's just like a

43:41

dream that will never happen. One

43:48

of my favorite favorite lines takeaways from from

43:50

one of our shows was the show that

43:52

we deal with Michelle Dennedy. Oh, I know

43:54

what he's gonna say. He's so obsessed. Go

43:56

ahead. I am. I am. I love this

43:59

line. Well, so I

44:01

will tell you something that is a

44:03

bit controversial. And so

44:05

I will call it my

44:07

panties rule. So

44:13

now that I don't have a PR department, I get to

44:15

call it what it is. So

44:18

I call it my panties rule. I say,

44:21

make your passwords like your panties. Now

44:25

you have to follow these three rules together. Make

44:28

them exotic. So use

44:30

weird passwords. Change

44:34

them frequently. And that's where it

44:36

gets controversial because when you change

44:38

them frequently, you have to keep

44:41

them exotic. Right. Right.

44:44

And don't share them with other people. Because

44:46

that's gross. Okay. That's

44:49

true. So you have to follow them all together,

44:52

all those three rules. I am exotic.

44:55

Change them frequently and don't share

44:57

with others. I like that. Because

44:59

it's gross. Yeah. Because

45:01

we are talking about cyber hygiene here. We're

45:03

talking about good hygiene. And

45:07

we can't end the year without talking about the puppy

45:09

scam. That's right. The story that

45:12

Holly brought us about her friend Carl. Carl

45:15

was scammed out of a few hundred

45:17

dollars trying to get a new puppy

45:19

for him and his wife who was

45:21

going through some medical difficulties. And

45:23

even though at the end of the day it wasn't their life savings, the

45:26

amount of time and effort and energy that

45:28

they lost while going through all this was

45:30

a lot. But the episode had a

45:32

surprise ending. So

45:39

Holly, after all of this, did Carl and his wife

45:41

ever get a dog? No, they

45:43

did not, sadly. And

45:46

they were out the

45:48

200 to the puppy

45:50

nanny, the 250 for the vet

45:52

visit, the 300 for the initial

45:56

deposit. So they were out $750. And

45:59

where the... stopped was the puppy nanny

46:01

and this is a key. The puppy

46:04

nanny had a family emergency. His daughter

46:06

had an accident and he had to

46:08

go to the hospital and

46:10

so he was going to ship the

46:12

puppy to them in care of a

46:14

trucking company. Of course the trucking company

46:17

turned out to be non-existent but the

46:19

trucking company because it was a

46:21

big truck they needed $1,100 for a special crate to put the

46:26

puppy in to make sure that he

46:28

traveled safely. It just

46:31

gets worse and worse. Well and

46:33

then if you go to the Better

46:35

Business Bureau website there are many many

46:38

times this crate, this special crate is

46:40

brought up. It's part of the scam

46:42

and a lot of people end up

46:44

paying for that. So when that came up,

46:47

Carl put the brakes on and said wait

46:49

we're getting taken here. This is going down

46:51

a rabbit hole

46:53

and we're going to just keep throwing money

46:55

at this thing. They stopped

46:57

and they looked up the shipping company, found

47:00

out it wasn't real. They looked up the

47:02

address, found out it wasn't real, tried

47:04

to message people and they didn't get

47:06

any replies to their messages and pretty

47:08

soon they were blocked on the Instagram.

47:11

You know I looked up the

47:13

Instagram recently and today

47:17

like even yesterday it wasn't

47:19

blocked. Today that Instagram account

47:21

is down. How's Carl's wife doing

47:23

by the way? Well she's

47:26

had multiple surgeries and she has more

47:29

ahead of her and so it

47:31

would have been awesome to have this little dog

47:33

for her so I hope

47:35

they find another dog that'll work.

47:39

And how are they emotionally? You know

47:42

it's been a few weeks now. I think

47:44

first it was kind of shock and then

47:46

anger after that and then you

47:51

know kind of resigned it how

47:54

things can go bad in the world. Alright Holly

47:57

here's what I'm going to do because I feel terrible

47:59

about this whole thing. Are

48:01

you ready? I'm going

48:03

to buy them a dog. Oh my gosh, that's

48:06

so awesome. I'm going to cry. I mean, well

48:08

listen, Oprah gave away cars, so I figured buying

48:10

a dog. You get a dog. You get a

48:12

dog. My dog just came in here when he

48:14

announced that. He's excited too. This

48:17

is great. Thank you so much. I can't

48:19

wait to share that news. So thank you. Wow.

48:22

Holly, thank you so much. And

48:24

thank Carl for giving

48:27

you his story. Holly, it's been

48:29

such a pleasure to have you on the show. We

48:31

thank you. We thank Carl and his wife and we

48:33

hope that she feels better soon. And

48:36

it's been great getting to know you. Thank you so much.

48:38

I was happy to be here. I

48:41

can't wait to tell him he's going to be the first phone call

48:43

when we come up here. Guess

48:47

what? I

48:53

have great news. I just did

48:55

the podcast and Adam, he is

48:59

going to get you guys a dog. No.

49:02

Yes. Oh my God. Yeah.

49:05

Oh my God. How's this happening?

49:07

How's this happening? Well, it's incredible. It's amazing.

49:10

I'm gobsmacked here. I

49:18

have no idea why Adam just decided

49:20

to do this, but I just want

49:22

to say Adam, thank you. My husband

49:26

and I are so grateful

49:29

and it is the most beautiful

49:31

gift you could give us in

49:33

our lives right now. It means so much

49:35

to us. And

49:39

I just wish I could say thank you in

49:41

a million different ways, but I hope you know

49:43

from the bottom of our heart, really,

49:47

this is a life changer

49:49

for us. And

49:51

we so appreciate what

49:53

you've done. What

50:01

the Hack with Adam Levin is available wherever

50:04

you get your podcasts. If you like it,

50:06

consider rating us on your favorite podcast service

50:08

or writing a review. What

50:15

the Hack with Adam Levin is a production

50:18

of Loud Dream Media. You can find us

50:20

online at adamlevin.com and on Instagram, Twitter, and

50:22

Facebook at AdamKLevin. Loud

50:33

Dream.