Public wifi can be an enormously convenient thing -- it helps people dodge data charges in coffee shops, airports and other places around the globe. But how safe is it? Tune in to learn more.
So it's not all true crime allegations of the paranormal and very very spooky stuff here on stuff they don't want you to know. In fact, sometimes we get pretty granular. And I cannot remember how this when came about, but I think we we had an off air conversations we often do about things that bugged our paranoid minds, like free WiFi. Yeah, like you know, we were at the airport and we just said it says like you know, we're looking at them that works available and goes airport WiFi definitely legit and free log on now, yes, exactly. I want to say this came up due to reporting surrounding the Olympics and the Olympic Games, and maybe I'm wrong, this was somewhere around there. I remember there were specific reports about joining free WiFi when you're out to visit the Olympic Games in another country. Yeah, and this this is something that affects you in your own country, wherever you live. We wanted to dive in and learn more about it. So here it is free WiFi gambling with your privacy. From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events you can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Max, my name is No. They often call me Ben. You are you? This is stuff they don't want you to know. And let's start with a question for those of you tuning in, how are you listening to this show? And I don't just necessarily mean like a boom box, which would be cool. I don't know if our shows are on cassette yet or are you downloading it? Have you streamed it? And if so, where are you streaming it from. If you're like most people, you have concerns about your data plan on your phone and you probably want to use WiFi. Holy Grail, I certainly do. If I'm going to listen to a podcast, I download it through WiFi and then throw it on my phone so I can have it for later because I have trust issues. You know. Speaking of trust issues, A T and T totally bamboozled me out of my unlimited data plan to lower my bill a little bit because I felt like it was a little too high. And they're like, well, you know, if you give up your limited data because you're clearly not using it, we can give you this amount of data and you know you'll be good as gold. Well, it turns out that I exceeded just so every single month, even with dolls pop. Yeah, So WiFi is huge because these phone companies are tightening down data, so it's a lot more restrictive these days. They have these plans, these tiered plans, where you are paying for every little bit of data that you use, much more so than in the past. So the obvious choices to find WiFi anywhere and everywhere that you possibly can. So a lot of people would ask what is whyifi? It's one of those things that the average human being just sort of accepts as existing. You know, a lot of people own cars but have no idea how they work. A lot of people own phones, have no idea how they work. WiFi is something that people just sort of accept. You're in an airport, boom, free WiFi. It's great. You're you could be at a restaurant, at a dentist office. There's a pizza place next to our office that I go to just because they have free WiFi. But what is this stuff? WiFi is the name of any wireless networking technology that uses radio waves to send out high speed network and Internet connections, and it's it's such a cool little term, almost like podcast, kind of a coined little buzz term. And there is a organization, as it turns out, that owns the rights to this trademark called the WiFi Alliance. In a burst of creativity, Yes, uh, WiFi is a registered trademark, and it's alliance specifically defines WiFi as a wireless local area network w LAND products that are based on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, where I literally I Jonathan Strickland. By the way, I hope be so glad to hear that. Um, their standards are at two dot eleven. The greatest thing about WiFi is that you no longer have to plug in the giant ethernet cable to get access to that beautiful, sweet sweet Internet with all the things that you love, all the the podcasts and videos and everything you do on their. Uh, that's the best part about it. So it uses radio frequencies to transfer all the information of packets, all the packets of information rather from your computer to the access point to the Internet, essentially through all the chain of servers that it goes through to get to its end point and then right back through all that stuff through the access point to your computer. Just a lovely little handshaking can action. Yeah, this RF current hits and antenna creating an electromagnetic field that's able to propagate through space. That's so cool. That's so science fiction e you know, uh right right it is. It's the magic that we just sort of accept And a lot of a lot of current society in the West is built on the premise of just accepting things because they are. That way, we drive these death machines a d plus miles an hour and just accept that. Everyone will pretend those yellow lines in the middle are doing something much smarter people than I figured out how to use radio waves so that I can go on Reddit dot com. Uh, and I just accepted we stand on the shoulders of giants, and every great invention you know is only uh is only capable of being discovered or created because of prior inventions. I guess we're getting a little spacey already, you know. Uh, space is the place, my friend, Space is the place you're you're killing it with the slogans lately, there is a lot more space than stuff. Yes, Yeah, we received a great was it a YouTube comment or an email where where someone pointed out on our live show recording that we released that the table. Yeah, I hit the tables and were banging on and they're like, you do realize that there's a lot more empty space in that table than atoms, And I was like, absolutely, wow. So to propagate through this mostly empty space, your WiFi connection uses an electromagnetic field radio frequencies, and the primary job of an access point is to broadcast this wireless signal that your computer can detect and just like a radio, just like searching for radio station can tune into. To connect to an access point. To join a wireless network, these computers or these devices have to be equipped with wireless network adapters. Pretty simple, right, Yeah, And and the great thing about it is it's not just your computer that connects to it. It's anyone who can see the network and has an adapter. Right, So who is anyone within your lifetime listeners, Depending on how young or old you are when you were born, you have probably seen a precipitous rise in the amount of people hopping online. Around of the world population has some sort of Internet connection. It's got to the point where it's almost considered like a human, right, I mean they're trying. There are all these efforts to bring internet access to more rural areas and you know, third world countries and things. I mean, it's become this thing that we expect. Yeah, in less than one percent of the globe had some kind of connections. So in slightly less than two decades, we've gone from one percent to nearly half of the world's population. Are you guys part of the one percent with a like a old, old old modem? Definitely? I think I may. I think my parents may have had a O L. We're you guys. Yeah, we had a o L and we had compu Serve remember that. And I had a friend who had Prodigy. Remember Prodigy. Not I am the fire Starter, but the I am the Internet service pro the same same people. Actually, seriously, No, that's a good side gigh. Yeah, that's a that's a good site gig. And if the band's Prodigy had been part of the Internet service Prodigy, they may have met with more long term success for a while. Because the number of Internet users has increased tenfold from two thirteen. So what do we mean when we say well, we mean that in two thousand five, we reached the first time in history that a billion people could get on the internet. Two thousand ten, it was two billion, and then it was three billion. And there's some really cool infographics you can grab. Internet Live Stats is a pretty cool one if you want to visit that, not while you're driving, if you're driving as you listen to this. When you get a chance, check out Internet live Stats. It will give you the running tally of how many people have access to the Internet. And the number just keeps going and going and going, and it's a live ticker. It's pretty great. Right now, it's at three point four oh one billion, thousand, three nine and counting, yes and counting, and we'll come back right well, so what we should do is come back at the end of the episode and see how many new listeners, how many new Internet users have joined us. So, like we were staying at the top of the show, beyond just expecting to have Internet access, which we do part of our job, we definitely need it. Um, we have come to a place where we expect that in many public places, public settings, there's going to be free and efficient wireless internet. Like what what kind of places? Well's your I mean like cafes, for example, you know Starbucks. It is part and parcel of the Starbucks model to go there, get your seven dollar prapolatte, and you know, enjoy some Internet surfing, whether it's on your smartphone or your laptop or you're doing work. A lot of people who work remotely like to go to coffee shops. You are literally using this businesses internet access for your business free of charge, and it gets you there, and it's that's become kind of like a added benefit of like, you know, going to certain stores like Target, for example, they have free WiFi and they also have a little cafe there. Beyond that, you've got airports, which Matt and I were talking before the show. We've been doing a bit of traveling lately and we're starting to realize that airports have kind of wised up a little bit. They're a bit of a captive audience at the airport, and you know, you don't really have a choice as to whether you hang out in that terminal or not. So they don't always have free internet. L a X will, for instance, they have a model where a user will get one hour free and then need to pay for additional time. I hope you didn't get delayed. In case anyone's interested and want to know which airports do have free wife WiFi, there is a site called air fair watchdog dot com that has a WiFi access chart. Yeah, so that you don't you don't get stuck out out there. But you know what, we don't always have to be connected. I'm just gonna say, you can bring a book hotels though hotels. Hotels want you to have a pleasant stay. They want everything to be just. So you're paying out the nose for a hotel room, you're gonna get decent internet access as part of your stay, unless you're in Alberton, Georgia. Uh, I mean, I mean the access was there. It was there. It was just snail's pace. It was like dial up speed. But that's neither here nor there. Well, I was gonna say just a quick story, just a quick story. We had ami fi uh one of these little access points to use wireless uh data like through Verizon or another service like this, and that was what ten times faster easily to make fair of those little boxes do kind of kick um. But then we've got like other places like museums, aquariums, hospitals, libraries. More and more, we're having outdoor access that's even provided by cities. So let's do a hypothetical situation. Let's say Matt, you're going to be our main character, and Nolan I are going to tell the story of what happened to you. Uh, let's say, you know, let's let's begin it this way. One day, one afternoon, a traveler named Matt Frederick arrives at the Colorado Airport and he just sits down in one of the terminals who mentioned earlier. No, do you remember specifically what he was doing. Oh? Sure, he had a little time to kill, and he wanted to maybe catch up on his social media, looking at his stock tickers, maybe check his his bank account in foe, make sure that his cash flow is good for the sweet trip that he was about to go on. And he got his frat his frailte in hand, laptop in lap like you do, and it up, opens it up, bam, pay dirt. You know what's interesting here for our traveler is that he notices there are several free WiFi points. Two of them say free public WiFi. One of them says, just airport WiFi looks good. Let's click on this one, and that's how they get his bank account information, that's how they get his log in for Twitter, for Facebook, for or let's see what else. You want my trade trade? Yeah, uh, farmers only, Yeah, and you know whatever else. And it's because there's this illusion of safety, and it's the same illusion of safety that we find when people are driving at high speeds on the highway right in traffic. The convenience of WiFi, just like the convenience of driving on an interstate, often leads us to mistakenly believe that it's got to be safe. Everybody else is doing it right. There are certain rules you have to follow, and everyone's following them. That's because we live in a society that teaches us if something, if you're in a public place and there are multiple people doing something, then you are somehow safe. But that is also the exact reason a hacker would choose a terminal at the Denver airport to set up something that just says airport WiFi or free WiFi. I haven't checked the charpnel, but it's quite possible that all three of those points are just separate hackers. Yeah, it's a perfect hunting ground. And then and they're like we need Matt Frederick's Twitter. Yeah, I think of the change we could affect. Yeah, I wish I had a Twitter, so that would make sense. Yeah, I'm gonna start one for this You're gonna start one for this episode. So you know, we had talked at the top of the show about Mr Robot, who's working with us on this episode. And one thing that is really cool. You guys were hipped to Mr Robot before I was. But in the very first episode is a mild spoiler alert, we see an example of WiFi gone wrong. If you have not watched the first episode of Mr. Robot Season one, the pilot episode, go and check it out before you listen to this. Uh, if you've seen it, then here we go. Oh wait, wait, if you haven't seen it, go ahead, we'll wait. Okay, you're back. So, at some point in the past, the main character that we identify with in Mr Robots Elliott. He notices that there's this free WiFi at this place called Ron's Coffee that seems to be a large chain of coffee shops that exist in his world, his immediate vicinity, and this WiFi is great. Oh man, it is so good. It's fast. In fact, let's hear a little clip something I like coming here because your WiFi was fast. I mean, you're one of the few spots that has a fiber connection with gigabit speed. It's good, so good. It scratched that part of my mind, part that doesn't allow good to exist without condition. So I started intercepting all the traffic on your network. That's when I noticed something strange. That's when I decided to hack you. I know you run a website called Plato's Boys. You're using tor networking to keep the servers anonymous. You made it really hard for any wanted to see it, but I saw it. The Onion routing protocol. It's not as anonymous as you think it is. Whoever is in control of the exit notes is also in control of the traffic, which makes me the one in control. And you see Elliott discovers that the owner hosts a massive horn site, the worst kind, from his server in the cafe, and he thinks that he's hiding this because he's using something that we've talked about before, tour the Onion router, the Onion routing protocol, like you said, Ben, something we discussed before. Uh, it's got some weird ties and I think we'll get into it a little later on exactly how it functions. Um, but it's supposedly or it's meant to anonymize traffic Internet traffic. Yes, but a little known fact about tour for a lot of people who assume that it is safe. When we did our stuff on the Silk Road, you know, we learned that tour was originally create did by the US government. Yes, and there there are a set of servers amongst the Onion router that are the endpoint, the the the last server in the chain, the exit nodes. They're they are referred to as exit nodes. And we have seen historically in two thousand seven and two thousand eleven a couple other times, we've seen that if you choose and you're operating one of these exit nodes, you can spy on any and all traffic that goes through that server. It's a it's a code between the volunteer operators that run these things that say, hey, this is all anonymous, We're not going to spy on these people. In the end, it's about trust, whether or not you trust I'm saying this correctly. The volunteers who run this stuff. So Elliott, in a very deadpan, monotonous way, explains to Ron of Ron Coffee how he hacked the WiFi and took control of these exit notes, meaning he could watch all the traffic because he wondered why this WiFi connection in particular was so extraordinarily fast, and he found out why. And as he is telling this guy's stuff, he tells him there's a strange there's like a dark humor to it when he tells him, you know, usually I do this online, but I'm working on my people's skills, so i wanted to come tell you in person. And yeah, he says, I wanted to do this one a f K right, yes, and uh and what does a f K stays on the same as I R L I R in real life or away from keyboard. AFK was a great thing to use back in the day. I did not know that. Yeah, well, for mmrpgs, that was a huge thing, like like we're just saying let b RB Well, um, now, so this character that was obviously like an example of a white hat hacker where he is using his skills and you know, hacking this WiFi network to shut down somebody doing something terrible and using this technology too horrible abusive ends. What we're talking about for this episode largely is these black hat hackers who just want to steal your stuff or just affect chaos in some way or another, and people just want to see the world burn. But what I want to know is how vulnerable are we at the airport? How vulnerable is Matt at the Denver terminal? Could this happen in real life? And we'll get right into my vulnerabilities right after this word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. The answer is absolutely yes, this could happen in real life. Absolutely yes, we are as vulnerable as we allow ourselves to be. Yeah, the same things as we said to make free WiFi so convenient also make it potentially and in many cases likely dangerous. Most the most specific thing is that no authentication is needed. Your computer just says, hey, can I ride this ride this crazy internet train with you? And the access point says, oh yeah, hop on. There's room for everyone. Yes, and everyone includes people who are interested in taking your stuff, your personal information, any other kind of info that you're sending across that signal, compromising photographs for instance, little texts or chat messages you're having anything like that. Yes, So there are dangers for our hypothetical traveler who happens to be named Matt Frederick. He let's see, we outlined a couple of places he went to, so they have access to his personal information. But it doesn't stop there. They can also install a thing that will follow him like a shadow, and it will see what he does when the hackers not around, even logs, key strokes. I mean, they're any number of little, you know, wormy type things that can be installed remotely on someone's machine that can capture all kinds of input. It can hijack the camera. I mean, it's sort of all all bets are off, and depending on the security, the network itself can be subverted. Yeah, So that the airport WiFi one that is the actual connection that the Colorado Airport is set up, could then be malicious or dangerous. If I was gonna be that hacker, I would name mine. This is the real airport WiFi. Yeah, yeah, I would name mine super Okay, fun time, free beer. What what could go wrong? But with the emphasis on free beer. Okay, So there's there's another issue that happens that this reminds me of and that's a t M skimming, oh, you know, because it works in a similar way. If someone is skimming and a t M, what they're doing is installing a very small piece of hardware, usually something that looks legit, that still allows you to interface with the bank or even at a gas station, and it allows you to buy gas, to access your banking information, pull cash out, make a deposit, etcetera. But it sets a middleman between it so that it's also capturing your information. And they leave these things on and they come back and they scoop it out, and you don't know until you become a victim of identity theft. These attacks are more common than you might think because the price of the technology is, as you know, is going down. The software is available to anyone who wants to find it, and there are more and more people who have these skill sets. So what what type of threats are we talking about? What? What? Who is out there trying to take over Matt Frederick's life at the Denver Airport. Well, I have identified a couple of my potential assailants here and I've given them, uh maybe some names that aren't official, but I'm going to call them some things. The first one would be sniffers just looking around, Oh what is that? What's what's that over there? Reminds me of just kind of a dog that's going around the airport, just trying to see what everything is, giving a little sniff. Is this worth my time? Over here? Is that? Some? Is that? Some old pizza? And maybe some banking information? Um. These these people will use some kind of application or a program that they would just run from their computer that then connects up to the access point and they're going to capture, you know, as much of the traffic as they want. You can you can break it down sometimes depending on the application, or you can just gather everything. And it is very disturbing if you just do a cursory search on the internet like hacking, WiFi hacking tools, and the number that shows up. There's lists and lists of you know, there was like a list of twenty of the best WiFi hacking tools and they're simple to use. They'll they'll break the security on the WiFi and just let you run amok. Uh. And then there are other types right like gatherers might be after you, and these people are almost like bounty hunters, so they'll take steps to track your activity for a third party. This is something we talked about earlier in an episode with our buddy Jonathan. Yes, targeted advertising. Yeah, so it can be done in several ways. Having a email address or phone number required to access a server, requiring a share on social media, or a similar action where you're required to log into another site before using the service, or and this is always a red flag to me, requiring you to download something to access the WiFi. And of course cookies, which we've talked about before and are not as cool in the internet world as they are in real life. Sweet sweet cookies? Is that a cookie monster? What's the other kind? So this is delicious sounding too, it's called they're called honeypots. Um. So word to the wise, never, never, not ever, never, don't just don't do this thing wherein you connect to an unfamiliar, unlocked WiFi hotspot like Ben's not even super okay, Yeah, that's that's that's red flaggy if you ask me, this is just it's it is a complete and utter crapshoot. We're gambling with your privacy, your personal information, because while not every unlocked access point is malicious, every functioning malicious. Access point is unlocked. It's a trap, that's right. There are a couple of other things here that we we should walk through real quick. So we're talking before about data interception right easily captured by eavesdroppers even within a few hundred feet, and their reach extends further if they have directional antennas. Then of course d O S right denial of service. Everyone shares the same unlicensed frequencies, making competition inevitable in populated areas. That's why sometimes if you're at an airport and super crowded, you're gonna have worse Internet access. Crap service, CREP service. They're clogging up the tubes with all their wifis the Internet tubes because that's how the Internet runs in tubes. You really sold me on that one. Rogue access points. So that's when a business network is penetrated by an unknown, unauthorized access point, and that's on the business end. That's something that a lot of corporations and such are very concerned about. For example, our internet here at the office is so tightly locked down that we sometimes have trouble doing certain things, connecting to certain services. Um even doing like a one to one connection with another with an outside party, whether it's like a you know, Skype type connection or like a more direct video chat connection. If we're trying to do like a really high end um high quality video stream where we're connecting one piece of hardware to another piece of hardware, there are certain um things about our firewall and you know lack of open ports that completely prevent us from doing that. And it's because of this exact reason. So to even get on our wireless here at the offer, which is different from plugging in and being you know, jacked into the network through a land um, we have to have these specific files on our computer that have various credentials that we don't actually enter. Their called certificates, and they have to be authenticated every time you log into our WiFi here. So there is we do have a public WiFi that people who are visiting can access, but it has a lease on it where you can only sort of like if you go to Starbucks and it tells you that you get you to password and it will expire. Your session will expire in two hours and you have to get a new password. Same with this, but yeah, the corporations are particularly concerned about this stuff and they act accordingly right, and they're also misconfigured access points, their endpoint attacks, their evil twin ap s fraudulent access points that can advertise the same network name as a legit hotspot or business land and cause UH other WiFi clients to connect with them. So one of the strange things about this is that it's easier and easier for people who want to do this sort of stuff to do it. You can find tools that will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, like Carmetta, disploit and UH these things like listen to nearby clients, discover s s I d s they're willing to connect to, and automatically start advertising those and once they connect then d n S and d h c P are used to route the client traffic through the evil twin where a local web mail file server executes those men in the middle attacks that we're talking about. And there are different ways to well, there are different ways to lessen the likelihood of this stuff working. And companies, in particular, as you said, Noel spend a lot of scratch on this Lota moola butter cheese, what's another word for money. Deno Dinero spent a lot of Robert de Niro Scrilla, so much of that money. Uh, and what what we have nol Nichols. I feel like you think I need Yeah, I need a better I think you do. I don't. I mean, you know what the pound is tanking, you can just take over that. Yeah, well we're gonna put a pin on it and send your suggestions to us. Uh. We do want to establish also that we are not ourselves hackers, white hat nor black hat. And a lot of people for those of you listening who are familiar with this, let's say you work in network security or something, or let's say you are a white hat or a black hat. Uh what what you're probably irritated by will be the so called script kitties who just borrow, borrow code and and use it themselves without making it. Like you said, man, I mean, there's an insane amount of resources out there for people that just want to dabble in this stuff. But it was you. I'm sorry, Matt. You're just saying that you found, like you know, ready made little apps, a little ex executable files for probably Windows and MACNUS Linux that you can just download and you know, give it a try, and it's it's total fair weather novice hacking, and it you know, like you said, people that really devote a lot of time and effort to this, I'm sure doing some hard eye rolls thinking about those folks just kind of like hopping in and dipping their toes. And again not saying that we support doing this stuff, but there are, as we talked about with the Mr Robot examples, interesting uses of this technology and of these you know, of exploiting these vulnerabilities. But the point of this show, I think, is to give people information they need to protect themselves from malicious intent, right. And this is one of those things where we'll have a lot of people say we'll just use common sense, but common sense itself, and I think anybody can attest to this. Common sense itself is a rather uncommon trade, especially when people feel that they are already again in a safe place, public place, a bunch of people. Crime doesn't happen like that. Crime happens in dark alleys, right, Crime happens to other people. Crime happens to other people. Right. So let's face facts. Most of us will continue to use public WiFi, either for its convenience or out of necessity. What if anything can we do to protect ourselves. The best way to stay safe while you're using a public WiFi network, it's one rule. Don't do anything on there that you wouldn't be comfortable doing with the pope standing directly behind you and watching your screen. Hello, what what? What the Yeah? I can explain, they doesn't look holy. Well, this is a subreddit. It's called it's called funny. Yeah. You see that. That's a kangaroo just like person. Pretty cool guy. Yeah, that was that was all right? To be fair, we have a very accepting pope, right picture, perhaps a slightly you know, more judgmental post or a pope with a pad and paper, just writing. Nothing worse than a pope with a pad. Pope with a pad, which was originally the name of our podcast. I'm kidding, but yeah, that's that's a great point. I assume that everything is public. I would add that just for the record. Uh, the best way to avoid that kind of stuff is to not use it at all. But you'll want to and sometimes you'll have to. If you do, confirm the exact name of the access point at any given location, and be very very very aware similar names that are they are not quite the same usually those are the most dangerous, right, Yeah, and then you know you can also use if you're on a laptop, you can also use browser tools to prevent unwanted cookie, the other tracking techniques, and there's some stuff that's a little more advanced but worth your time to do as well. Yeah. Big one that's offered now is HTTPS, which is just the hypertext transfer protocol that you know, and this is pretty great. There's an extra layer of security when you use HTTPS. There are some browsers like Chrome that have options that will say always use HDT. In other words, as the prefix to the U r L you're visiting. You can't type that in, but but if you do that, then the protocol is more secure. Uses transport layer security. The previous iteration of this was secure sockets layer. And doing this just adds an extra layer of authentication with your communication. Wow, some of these words strung together like this, it's it's pretty fun. Extra communication authentication, authentication of your communication across the nation, regardless of mobile device or PC, MAC pers ways. Yes, but the great thing about using a browser that says hd GPS always on is that when you're not on a secure site like that, it lets you know, and you can get the heck out of there if you want to. So then there's another thing that you've heard about, probably, which is VPN, a virtual private network. What is a VPN. Well, a VPN, virtual private network can be used in several different ways, and UM, like Matt, I do not purport to be an expert in all things, all the minutia of of these various Internet tools. But what I can't tell you is that the VPN essentially reroutes your signal through a third party more or less, so instead of being a direct connection between you the wireless not your network you're connecting to, and the Internet being provided, you are sent out and then back in through this third party tool, which is the virtual private network. Using that, you can do several things. For example, if you were using a VPN at home, you might do it to get around UM certain region restrictions for content. For example, so like if you want to watch a clip on the BBC that is only meant for people in the United Kingdom, you could conceivably use a VPN to make it look like you are in the United Kingdom and then you can access that content it will not be restricted to you. You can also use it to anonymize your browsing. So if, for example, if you're God forbid downloading torrents or illegal pirated content um you know, we all know that Internet service providers get reports of that stuff, and they can pay you for it, and they can send you a letter a cease and desist, you know, they they will serve you that letter that HBO or whoever sends to them. By using one of these VPNs in this way, you can disguise your IP address somewhat exactly, and none other thing is perfect. But a VPN in a public WiFi setting essentially acts as an additional layer of encryption for your for your data. The thing is, though, like many things, there are free versions and there are pay versions. More often than not, the free versions are really just proxies. They don't actually offer the full layer of security that a proper VPN offers. They just reroute your your your traffic traffic exactly, and they log everything that you do, all of your browsing habits, and they sell it off to third parties. That's how these free sites support, you know, the work that they're doing. A pay VPN will encrypt your stuff and they claim you never know a hundred resent that they don't store your information, that it is destroyed, that no one has access to it. So those are definitely things to consider it. If you're traveling a lot, there's a lot of places you can do some research on. In fact, Gizmoto has a great article called VPNs, What they do, how they work, and why you're dumb for not using one. Um I recommend that highly for which ones to go with, and a little more in depth explanations of what VPNs are. Careful How I say this because I don't want to let the let the badger out of the bag just yet. But another thing that I think we should always emphasize about VPNs is that it's not just for you know, pornography or getting the latest Star Wars film right without having to pay to see in the theater. In parts of the world where access to information is restricted, such as the use of social media in some places because it's associated with protests or it's associated with coup's, VPNs are crucial for people to be able to communicate with the world at large or to visit sites that have been banned. That is a really good point. Something that hadn't even really considered. But sure, like in China, I mean, where you don't get access to certain sites that give you unbiased, let's say, or at least biased in a different direction versions of the news. I mean that is pretty important to being a you know, fully uh informed member of the global community. And it's it's it's almost a form of protests to be able to say, hey, we reject this restriction and we're able to use this technology to equip ourselves with the information we need. Yeah, I think that's I think that's a good point because often this will be painted as one of those what you need VPN for? Huh, will you do it? Will you do it? Will you do it? You know, if you're not doing something wrong us regular connection, let me just see what you're doing. Come on, let me just see it. Why are you ashame that? What are I looking at? My son? No? Look, because it's a came but the shows you an no VPN, VPN show me our history, my son, I can't come on man. So then uh, then there's another aspect here that we we talked about briefly, which is the tour right the onion router U. There are issues here that Elliott stated in our example from Mr robot right, volunteer operators maintain most of these tour network's final set of servers right the exit notes. And this excludes the course servers run by law enforcement, sure sure, because they are used. There are other private tour servers that can be set up, um, but the vast majority ones. If you're just a user and connecting up, you're going through one of these, uh, one of these that has volunteers an operators who are just you're just trusting that they're going to keep it anonymous, right right, And as we said, it's easy to see the traffic flowing through these servers if you control an exit node. So one of the questions that you might have listening to this will be the following the question that we get asked often, who exactly are they in this situation we're talking about compromising public WiFi. There's more than one they, uh, there are many of them, and often one thing that one thing that I dislike is that often this will be painted as oh, here is an individual who has low morals or just likes to mess with people because their statistic or their board, or they had a bad childhood. But The thing is, it's not necessarily an individual. Yes, there are many individuals doing that, some of whom maybe listening to this show. And if so, I hope to stay on your good side, Hank the hacker, We mean you no ill will Yeah, big fans actually. And then the thing that doesn't get talked about as often but should be talked about more is that they're organized rings of people doing this. And I don't just mean private organizations. State sponsored hacking like this is real, it is continual. Make no mistake if the country you live in has an active interest in surveillance and hacking, and it doesn't matter which country it is, and the US is no better than the other countries that you might hear about doing state sponsored hacking. One example would be UH hackers using hotel internet to steal nuclear secrets. Is a great article in Gizmoto from two thousand fourteen, so this is old stuff. There was an elite team of possibly state sponsored hackers that were in full trading WiFi networks, although that they wouldn't have that much luck in Alberton. They were infiltrating WiFi networks, probably to steal nuclear secrets and the security researchers who discovered this called the cyber spies Dark Hotel, and their efforts to track down this group we're tenacious. But the further they went, the more disturbing stuff they discovered. These people were insanely talented. They're some of the members were traced back to South Korea, but at the time of writing, they still weren't, at least publicly sure what these people were doing and why and this Ben do you remember Winter Olympics so stuff? Yeah, and tell me about it. Well, it sounds very similar to to what you're talking about, where there were reports coming out of American media that if you're using the y fi in restaurants around Sochi while you're at the Olympics, there's a very high chance that you're going to get hacked. There's a lot of fear about that stuff. So there's also you know, this group Dark Hotel is still active as of March of They also have a goth band on the side. They have a goth band on the side. It's kind of a Prodigy all over again. Wait, wait, is this real? It could be excited, it could be Maybe maybe you should ask them what kind of music they like. Okay, those of you who don't know Matt and haven't maybe seen him. He is so goth right now. Guyliner for days. Uh yeah, So Dark Hotel is still active. They were reported exploiting a Chinese telecom. I'm not condoning these actions, but the three of us feel that it is important to be aware of the situation that you're in when you're in an airport, and also to be aware that governments are doing this. Don't let the don't let the Sunday News or whatever fool you into thinking it's just a couple of missing thropes in every airport. Now, I would imagine the government is doing things like this anyway and anywhere they can, well, especially in airports. I mean, you're you're gonna want to have a lockdown on every packet that goes to and from within an airport from the user. And airport is great because it has instant distance baked in yep, so uh, you know which terminal you're at and probably where you're sitting right and then you're gone, so it's not like there's someone in the cafe with you anymore. So we hope that you have enjoyed this episode, and we would like to hear from you if you have any war stories about free WiFi, or you have any tips or tricks that you think your fellow listeners should hear. And to prove that we have ears, what listen and eyes, Let's see, we'd like to jump into a little thing we like to call shot at Corners. Our first shout out goes to Paula. She and her thirteen year old nephew. You guys are going to space camp in July. Another another person writing in to let us know they're they're excited to go to space Camp. She's so happy about it. She's been dancing a jig for several days. She said, Well, Paula, we're dancing a little jig for you right now. Nola's but I am nodding my head rhythmically. Space camp is cool. I'm sorry, We'll take you, I promise. Do you want to go so much? Okay, Well, while we're getting our stuff together for space Camp, let's hear from Chase from Alabama. Chase says, uh It doesn't believe in the Illuminati per se, but wants us to further explore the connections between separate groups we've covered in the past. The Builderberg's skull and bones, Trilateral commission, central banks, etcetera, all of which are real all and all of which have been accused of doing some shady things. So to take a page from the book of Beyonce and perhaps some up chase his position. Y'all haters corny talking that Illuminati mess, but I think it warrants further exploration, So we're gonna do that thing. Yep. Finally we have one from Daniel who wants us to take a look at the French alchemist and author Fulconelli who allegedly attempted to warn a French physicist about the potential dangers of weaponized nuclear fission in nineteen thirty seven. Fascinating, and he claimed that it had been used on humanity before. And this is one interesting customer. Yeah, that's right. He even goes into the great work and trying to find that place that all alchemists search for, where you can it's a point, some point where you can access all of space and time at once, all that has ever existed and will never exist, traveling without moving. Yeah, tie hm as a flat circle. He allegedly found this and and was able to truly access it at least, you know, according to articles written about him. If you haven't listened to our episode on alchemy, we had a guest, dear friend of Ben's and now the show, Mr Damian Patrick Williams. We had a fantastic conversation about um the nature of alchemy, and then there's a nice companion episode we did on the same day about technology and its relationship with the occult. As are some of my favorite episodes. I really recommend going back into the archives and checking those out. And this concludes our Gosh, but wait, as Billy Mays was wont to say during his glory days, there is more. This is usually the part of the show where we talked about our Facebook and Twitter and ask you to check it out because you'll see suth that doesn't make it onto the air for one reason or another. You'll also see us actively taking suggestions where conspiracy up at Those were also on Instagram. Now that's right, and we are conspiracy stuff show there and you guys, we haven't done this before, but we would really appreciate it. Wherever you listen to the podcast, be at iTunes, Stitcher, We're now on Spotify, We're on Google Play, tons of places you can get it. Leave us a review. I mean that really helps the algorithm. It helps more people find out about the show, and you know, it makes us feel good in our hearts a need that every time we get a review, our boss goes up to this thing he painted on the wall. You know how they're like fundraisers for schools and stuff where they'll have you know, like a thermometer with the levels of money. Well, ours is the level of likelihood of us being fired. And if it gets to the top, and we've been very close to the top for a while, then boom, we're out here. So every like, every review ticks us down just a little bit further away from being fired. Because, as Ben Is said in the past, the biggest investment that you make and the show is with your time. So we would really really appreciate if you would take just a little more of your time and say how do you you feel about the show? All Right, we said we were gonna do it. The active Internet users in the world right now total comes to three billion, four hundred and one million, one hundred and twenty one thousand, five hundred and forty and counting. And that's the end of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode. You can get into contact with us in a number of different ways. One of the best is to give us a call. Our number is one eight three three st d w y t K. If you don't want to do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.