From UFOs two, Ghosts and government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and I and Ben. Of course we are joined as always by our super producer, Noel Excellent Brown and most importantly you're here that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. But this is not like our usual episodes, right, Oh No, we had a fantastic opportunity. You and I got to view a documentary that has yet to come out almost it's almost out. We got to view it a little while ago. And we just got off the phone with somebody pretty special. Yes, our special guest today is Alex Winter. He is the director, producer, uh, the mastermind behind the documentary Deep Web. Alex Winter may be familiar to m of you for his acting career as well. He is Bill s Preston and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure as well as Bogus Journey. He also started Lost Boys and UH. More recently, you will recognize his two thousand thirteen documentary Downloaded. Yes, that's the story about Napster and Sean Fanning. Really really interesting documentary. You haven't seen it, I believe if it's on Netflix, or at least it was for a long time there. And as we put out this podcast today on a Friday, uh, this is the same day that Ross Olbrich, the alleged dread pirate Roberts of the Silk Road, is being sentenced. At this time, we have not heard what his sentence will be, but we were fortunate enough to sit down with Alex Winter who walked us through some of the biggest issues facing the online community and the average citizen today. So the first thing we want to know is how did you get to this story? What led you to the deep Web? Bud interested in online sort of growth of online communities from the beginning, you know, from the eighties when I first encountered them before the Web, and uh, it was pretty evident at that time that you know, these communities were going to have a massive impact, and that the Internet in general was going to have a massive impact. Um So I started investigating these communities, then eventually very closely tracked the Master rise and fall, and I was able to make a movie about that story which was Downloaded, which was mostly looking at Master from the position of global community and and it's and it's the implications of that. And so frankly, when I learned about the Silk Road, it seemed like here was the next kind of watershed moment in the kind of rise of global communities online. This was the first scale, doable meeting. A lot of people were using it. UM. There wasn't just a rarefied one off with a handful of people on. It was a scaling community. But it was anonymous, and that was new. So it was an anonymous community in a hidden corner of the Internet using a cryptocurrency that could be anonymized, which is bitcoin UM. And they were it was mostly being used for buying and selling trucks UM, and so that seemed like a good place to um to make a movie. And then Ross Selfrich was arrested in October, and at that point I chose to focus the story on on his his case specific So Matt, at this point, we're already hitting on one of the big issues in the Deep Web film, which is anonymity on the Internet. Right, I think we've talked about a lot, right, Yeah, And so we also asked Alex about this anonymity, the the unknown things there and we who dread Pirate Roberts is a question that a lot of people have been wondering. Right. You know the movie is about is as much about unknowns as it is about knowns, Right. I mean, that's what's interesting about it is what do we know? And so what I wanted to do was raise very pointed questions, which is, how do we enforce law and tried cases in the digital age? Um? You know, can and will radical technologies change policy, including drug war policy? Um? You know, what is privacy today? And how um does it impact the average citizen, you know, whether they're able to retain privacy and then how much privacy they should retain? Um, usual all questions that that um kind of strike at the heart of the solkerp case. So they were you know, questions I wanted to raise. I certainly didn't want to answer them, and I don't believe they're actually our answers for pretty much any of them at the moment. But I think you're very good questions to raise. Yeah, and uh, we agree. One of one of the things that I had read in an earlier interview you had done was the concept of an bitcoin and the economic ecosystem. Uh, the idea of a cryptocurrency anonymized as well. And what we were wondering is, uh, what effect would you, um, would you estimate that bitcoin may have in the future, especially regarding current existing currencies. UM, I think massive. I think cryptocurrencies, whether it's Bitcoin or some other protocol, are are here to stay. I think they're I'm not like a bitcoin evangelists. I'm not one of these sort of hedge fund people that you know, believes its goal to point oh um. But I think in a much more mundane way, it's um. It has a lot of really important uses micro nations that are able to circumvent putitive fees for moving money around the world. That makes a really big difference to your economy if you're a small nation. Bitcoin has really helped those economies in Africa and other places. Um. You know, the need for a much more streamlined form of digital currency is very useful there. And then you get into this whole other area with the blockchain and the underlying technology behind bitcoin and the blockchain as a whole host of uses, contracts and all sorts of things that I think are we're going to see are going to become the engine for other technology. And so I certainly while not thinking that bitcoin is is, you know, it is something that makes me excited because I think I think it's going to make me rich. I do think it's it's a huge mistake to underestimate, uh, the significant changes that are going to come as a result of technologies like bitcoin. So one of the central issues in this film are drugs, just in culture and specifically the Silk Road, this anonymous place where you could go and buy drugs online, and we wanted to ask Ali how this pertains to the larger context of the war on drugs in general. Well, I think that that technology um is continually changing policy, you know, and you know, the Internet is has a an ability to to speak for large numbers of people that may not have had a voice otherwise. So technology is the Internet is a very good litmus test for the kind of the voice of the people, as it were. And I think we're seeing a lot of issues come into play because of the Internet UM that relates to the Silk Road story. The drug war is certainly one of them. People feel the drug wars of failure and not four decades. It's very expensive, it largely results in and filling our prisons with non violent offenders. And there's a lot of resistance to the drug war, and a lot of people in the tech community believe that the Internet community believed that technology can help change policy around drugs. And then there's also privacy and anonymity tools, and it kind of growing movement around the belief that people are too vulnerable on the Internet and that there should be more privacy and anonymity online that would prevent things like the Sony hack from happening, and you know the Target and at the Blue Cross hacks. So those are also areas where people are taking matters into their own hands and creating technologies so that they can help change things and give them tools that they want. Um. As is often the case in in sort of bleeding edge progressive or idealistic movements like this, they're often either in direct opposition to the law, or ahead of the law or beyond the law. Um And that's where we encounter with the silk growth. So here is one of the biggest questions that here are some of the biggest questions that people have, which is how did Uncle Sam managed to get into the silk road. How did they narrowed down or find Ross albrick and what if anything to do these kinds of techniques have to do with stuff like Operation Anymous Well, Operation anymous was not about the Silk Road. Operation Anonymous was a year after Ross was arrested, and it was it was it took down the second Silk Road, silk Road two and the number. It was a global initiative between US and international law enforcement agencies, and that was targeting documents the darknet sites around the world, and the Silk Road too, um, which was just a copycat of the first Silk Road, just like you had Kazan lime Wire and you're telling all these copycasts after Master went down. UM, that's what that was, and that's what the Aonymous thing was. The UM. The finding of the Silk Road servers in the case of Silk Road one has been a matter of debate since it was first a matter of record in the court system. And we don't have a and fast answer to how those servers were located, and we may never have a hard and fast answer to how they were located, and maybe a perfectly reasonably legal answer, it's just we haven't been provided with one. And this UH This kind of goes back to the earlier point you had made about how many unknowns exist in the situation. Uh. To go back to our question about law enforcement on the web, one of the big questions that we and a lot of our audience had is is it possible to enforce the law in a global digital community. It's very very challenging. Um. You know what needs to primarily happen, which I would argue is happening, It's just happening slowly because there's an enormous amount of bureaucracy. Is there needs to be massive reform in search and seizure laws in the digital age? There needs to be massive reform in the legislative process and the constitutional process for what constants who it's appropriate? Uh Uh, you know, penetration of people's um, you know digital space and UM. That needs to happen with a warrant and how that warrant has obtained needs to be worked out in a in an adequate manner. And it's it's getting there. It's just getting there slowly. The use changes have come very very fast, and they are very big changes. And uh, certain aspects of law enforcement are well ahead of the curve. Let's not forget the government basically built the Internet. Um, and the government also paid for a tour and the tools that created the darknet all come from the government and government agencies. So it's not like they're completely behind the ball. But the government is big and it's and it's multi pronged. Right. So just because intelligence communities maybe really a depth in the Internet, it doesn't mean it. Civilian law enforcement is a dept at these technology tools. So there's like a big game of catch up that's going on, and that's kind of what we're watching happening. So on the day that this podcast will go live, it's going to be this Friday, that's the day that Russell is going to be sentenced, and we're reading the prosecution asked the judge to send a message with this sentencing. Um, what what do you think that message is going to be? You know, they it was a very it's a very interesting thing. I mean, I think that the prosecution is being extremely frank Frankly, I think that you know, I was in the courtroom for some of the trial and it was very clear that their intention, you know, which many people agree with, is to make an example of Ross and to say to the entire darkness community and the black market community, if you do this, you'll be punished to the fullest extent of the law. UM. I don't think it's a very common thing where you'll actually see the prosecution literally say that in print. You know, you know they're thinking it, but it was you know, interesting that they actually came right out and said it. Um. Uh not even come from the District attorney's office actually, but regardless, uh, you know, it's a it's a direct proclamation, it's a declaration of war against um, you know, the darknet markets. UM. It's a tricky thing, right because whatever we want to say about Ross and what Ross did or didn't do, he didn't create the ensuing drug markets, and he's not responsible for what's going on um in those markets. So hopefully the judge will not uh tack more time onto his sentence for crimes that he didn't commit. It would be unfair. UM. But I think that really the message underlying all of this is just we feel we, meaning you know, the government law enforcement, feel very threatened by rapidly evolving technologies that we can't control. UM. We feel very threatened by the criminality that can occur within those technologies, and because it's very difficult for us to police that world, because it's very difficult for us to catch people in that world. When we do catch one, we really need to present them to everybody and then and then make an example out of them. And I think that's what the letter is saying, So, Alex, one of the toughest things for me in watching this documentary was seeing brouss Older's parents and how they reacted to the whole situation, how they're dealing with it in in almost real time. UM, I can't I couldn't help but feel terrible for them. I know, I know, I agree. UM, I think that you know for me, and I think it comes across in the movie is I have a great deal of compassion for Rossy's family. You know, how can you not? And they're caught in a really, really horrible situation and they're having to educate themselves around extremely complex ideas very quickly. UM, how can you not have compassion for them? It doesn't mean you side with with um one side of the other. You know, you follow what you know, and in this case, what we know is very little. I think that's pretty clear in the movie, but you can absolutely have compassion for those people, which we did. Yeah, we we love gray areas on this show, and that's kind of what it's talking about. So here's another question. What do you think that the audience of Deep Web and and our audience at large could do to further educate themselves about the intersection between anonymity, privacy, and government surveillance. I think that that the very first thing that most people need to be aware of is that their privacy is on a certain level in their hands, so they should the first thing they should do is not the cavalier about their privacy. It's kind of like watching someone else have a car accident and saying, well, it doesn't matter how I drive because I'm never going to have a car accident. And then of course you do, because we all do um. And it takes that collision, that that that physical um, you know, life experience to get most people to wake up to any kind of responsibility or change. And I think that, you know, the notion of having to safeguard your digital life is so overwhelming to most people just figured out how to get their voicemail to work, that it just becomes something they get resigned about and I don't think all of this is in their hands. And the government you know, also has to work out legislation that makes more sense. And you know, as I said before, reformed certain seizure laws and deal with warrants and how all of those work. And I think it is to be a bit more, a bit more let up from the government law enforcement side, not coming down so hard on privacy and encryption tools, which are only going to keep getting stronger, and God knows we need them. I mean, if you've lived through getting hacked, I have several times your entire life completely sucked out from under you. Um you don't need to have that to happen to you more than once. Before you you start using encryption tools and privacy tools, and you start using better passwords and a password app, and you know, maybe encrypted text and maybe even encrypted phone, and under certain circumstances all of what, you're easier and easier every day. UM So I would say, you know, first of all, it's a it's an attitude adjustment. It's the attitude that you know what, this notion that if I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear is really really destructive and erroneous, and you do. Everybody has something to hide, and you wear clothes because you you want the privacy of of not exposing your body. You have a door in your bathroom because you'd like to be able to go to the bathroom in private. I know that all sounds very flippant, but it really isn't. I think that it's a very short step from that kind of that sort of take it it as a given notion of what privacy means to being a human being. To your medical records, the photographs of your children, your social Security number, your letter that you wrote to your first girlfriend that's like scanned on your computer. You know, painful family information that's gone back and forth and you and your loved ones over the years. That those are things that you want to hide. Fair Enough, it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. You're being a criminal, and so you do have something to fear. You have both something to find hide and something to fear. Man, Alex, you're hitting on all these points that I was like, Okay, here's the follow up thing. Oh no, he's getting Oh wait, here's a note. Oh he's getting that too. Because we we've covered some of this, uh, some of these topics a lot in the past, and the reaction, immediate reaction we get from many people is that whole I got nothing to hide, come on that we needed The government needs to keep us safe and they need to know so they need to know. So. Should our audience also be concerned with private companies buying, tracking, and selling the data of us in our audience? Yes, I think that that is is um a very big part of the problem. UM and well, I would maintain that the law enforcement is a coming upon them to figure out how to do their job without dismantling my privacy. It is I can comment as well upon corporations to figure out how to you know, please their showholders and make a profit without dismantling my private see. I think that those are equal issues as far as the private citizens are concerned. And these concerns bring us to a larger point a question that we and others have continually asked, which is, are we at some sort of Malcolm Cladwell style tipping point in regard to privacy for the average person? I guess by which I mean, are we at a point where privacy may become extinct? Or are we at a point where there might be a new understanding or a new widespread appreciation of privacy. Uh No, I do not think that we are at the end of privacy. I would actually argue the exact opposite. I think that we are about in the in the wake of the Snowden revelations and the Sony hack, and the Target hack and and the poor chance happening, we are at the beginning of a boom in the privacy business. We are at the beginning of the industrialization of privacy in the digital space. And it will be, it will be cheap, will be ubiquitous, it will be it will be uh something that the average user doesn't have to think about, and their emails will be able to encrypt, their phones will be able to encrypt, their text to be able to encrypt. They wanted to think twice about it, my grandmother will do it. Um And that's the world that we're entering. I think, by no means are we saying good by the privacy. I think that on me on the opposite extreme, I think people are about to take their privacy back in a very big way. Fantastic, Thank you so much for this opportunity, and we can't wait for our listeners to check out the deep web. Great, thanks you guys. I appreciate it. Wow. Wow, that's cool man. Yeah and inspiring. Now, just so everybody knows, Uh, I think it's it's fairly clear that you and I and and maybe NOL have a horse in the race here. Of course, because we make our living doing shows online. So ease of access but also privacy are personal issues. Uh, you know, we take that concern with us when we leave the office. But uh, now it's time for uh, for another interview, the interview we do at the end of every show. Now. Oh yes, no, yes, hey Noel, did you catch the interview we just did. I did catch it. I was sitting here the whole time. It's true. Did uh were there any questions that you think we we should have asked Mr Winter? No, I don't think so. I mean, you guys really seemed to cover it, and he had some really interesting things to say. Yeah, and we're going to see how this shakes out. We're probably gonna need to do an update on on this after we hear about the trial. Uh. So we've been dealing with some big issues. Let's get to another Let's let's get to something with a little bit of lightheartedness, a little levity. What do you say, man, Yeah, this is something that Ben and I have been discussing for a long time. Now, we've gone We've gone back and forth through emails. We've had a bit of a twitter war. We ought to flame war. Um oh, man, I think I think we just need to ask. No. Well, yeah, you know. No, you're the tiebreaker. So whenever Matt and I disagree on something, we we come to you when we defer to your wisdom. Okay, you do it, Matt, All right. No, you're familiar with a euro? Yes, a euro euro? Would you consider that a sandwich? Yeah? What? No, dude, it's a wrap. Why do you always take his side wrap? Wrap? A wrap fully encompasses the sandwich material. A a euro is has a taco at best, you know, it's like half a rap. Yeah, I still no tacos a taco, but I mean a euro is not a rap. I feel like you guys are persecuting me. Okay. It has all of the requirements for a sandwich, except where some people would say there's only one piece of bread to it. It needs to maybe needs to be What about an open face sandwich? You guys, we're not going to solve this problem in this episode. I think we're gonna have to ask for our listeners input, tell us your favorite kinds of sandwiches, but more importantly, uh, let us know what you think about privacy online. It was inspiring. Uh that's the word I keep coming back to to talk with Alex Winter about the future of technology, and and I was, I don't know about you, Matt, but I was, UM, it really meant a lot to me to hear a message that, um, privacy is coming back to the people. Right. Oh yeah, Well, I I don't want to get it give anything away, but as we said before, Bennett, I got to see this documentary already, and there's a segment towards the end. I won't give it away, but in interviewing some people who are working on the very thing, that very thing right now, and it's pretty pretty cool, I think. Uh, I don't know that that made me walk away from it with a hopeful feeling, which doesn't happen with documentaries very often. All Right, and we hope that you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Again, a massive thank you to Alex Winter for uh, for giving us really a brilliant explanation. Oh yeah, all throughout the interview. And oh and if you are interested in seeing deep Web, you can check it out on epics on the on May thirty one, that's Sunday. That's Sunday as we record this. And we'd like to know what you think. Is this, um, this big brother kind of stuff? I mean, that's that's not even a theory, that's what it is. Given the Snowdon revelations that Alex mentioned earlier. Is this a necessary evil? Do world governments need this level of scrutiny or monitoring? Right? Um, that's a tough question. Yeah, and we'd like to hear your take on it. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. You can check out This podcast is long, as well as every other podcast we've ever done on our website, Deep Breath w W dot Stuff they don't want you to know dot Com. Oh man, that was great. I've been practicing. And if you want to skip all that stuff and just send us an email and tell us what you think, you can reach us. We are conspiracy at how stuff Works dot Com. From one on this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.

From UFOs two, Ghosts and government cover ups. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and I and Ben. Of course we are joined as always by our super producer, Noel Excellent Brown and most importantly you're here that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. But this is not like our usual episodes, right, Oh No, we had a fantastic opportunity. You and I got to view a documentary that has yet to come out almost it's almost out. We got to view it a little while ago. And we just got off the phone with somebody pretty special. Yes, our special guest today is Alex Winter. He is the director, producer, uh, the mastermind behind the documentary Deep Web. Alex Winter may be familiar to m of you for his acting career as well. He is Bill s Preston and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure as well as Bogus Journey. He also started Lost Boys and UH. More recently, you will recognize his two thousand thirteen documentary Downloaded. Yes, that's the story about Napster and Sean Fanning. Really really interesting documentary. You haven't seen it, I believe if it's on Netflix, or at least it was for a long time there. And as we put out this podcast today on a Friday, uh, this is the same day that Ross Olbrich, the alleged dread pirate Roberts of the Silk Road, is being sentenced. At this time, we have not heard what his sentence will be, but we were fortunate enough to sit down with Alex Winter who walked us through some of the biggest issues facing the online community and the average citizen today. So the first thing we want to know is how did you get to this story? What led you to the deep Web? Bud interested in online sort of growth of online communities from the beginning, you know, from the eighties when I first encountered them before the Web, and uh, it was pretty evident at that time that you know, these communities were going to have a massive impact, and that the Internet in general was going to have a massive impact. Um So I started investigating these communities, then eventually very closely tracked the Master rise and fall, and I was able to make a movie about that story which was Downloaded, which was mostly looking at Master from the position of global community and and it's and it's the implications of that. And so frankly, when I learned about the Silk Road, it seemed like here was the next kind of watershed moment in the kind of rise of global communities online. This was the first scale, doable meeting. A lot of people were using it. UM. There wasn't just a rarefied one off with a handful of people on. It was a scaling community. But it was anonymous, and that was new. So it was an anonymous community in a hidden corner of the Internet using a cryptocurrency that could be anonymized, which is bitcoin UM. And they were it was mostly being used for buying and selling trucks UM, and so that seemed like a good place to um to make a movie. And then Ross Selfrich was arrested in October, and at that point I chose to focus the story on on his his case specific So Matt, at this point, we're already hitting on one of the big issues in the Deep Web film, which is anonymity on the Internet. Right, I think we've talked about a lot, right, Yeah, And so we also asked Alex about this anonymity, the the unknown things there and we who dread Pirate Roberts is a question that a lot of people have been wondering. Right. You know the movie is about is as much about unknowns as it is about knowns, Right. I mean, that's what's interesting about it is what do we know? And so what I wanted to do was raise very pointed questions, which is, how do we enforce law and tried cases in the digital age? Um? You know, can and will radical technologies change policy, including drug war policy? Um? You know, what is privacy today? And how um does it impact the average citizen, you know, whether they're able to retain privacy and then how much privacy they should retain? Um, usual all questions that that um kind of strike at the heart of the solkerp case. So they were you know, questions I wanted to raise. I certainly didn't want to answer them, and I don't believe they're actually our answers for pretty much any of them at the moment. But I think you're very good questions to raise. Yeah, and uh, we agree. One of one of the things that I had read in an earlier interview you had done was the concept of an bitcoin and the economic ecosystem. Uh, the idea of a cryptocurrency anonymized as well. And what we were wondering is, uh, what effect would you, um, would you estimate that bitcoin may have in the future, especially regarding current existing currencies. UM, I think massive. I think cryptocurrencies, whether it's Bitcoin or some other protocol, are are here to stay. I think they're I'm not like a bitcoin evangelists. I'm not one of these sort of hedge fund people that you know, believes its goal to point oh um. But I think in a much more mundane way, it's um. It has a lot of really important uses micro nations that are able to circumvent putitive fees for moving money around the world. That makes a really big difference to your economy if you're a small nation. Bitcoin has really helped those economies in Africa and other places. Um. You know, the need for a much more streamlined form of digital currency is very useful there. And then you get into this whole other area with the blockchain and the underlying technology behind bitcoin and the blockchain as a whole host of uses, contracts and all sorts of things that I think are we're going to see are going to become the engine for other technology. And so I certainly while not thinking that bitcoin is is, you know, it is something that makes me excited because I think I think it's going to make me rich. I do think it's it's a huge mistake to underestimate, uh, the significant changes that are going to come as a result of technologies like bitcoin. So one of the central issues in this film are drugs, just in culture and specifically the Silk Road, this anonymous place where you could go and buy drugs online, and we wanted to ask Ali how this pertains to the larger context of the war on drugs in general. Well, I think that that technology um is continually changing policy, you know, and you know, the Internet is has a an ability to to speak for large numbers of people that may not have had a voice otherwise. So technology is the Internet is a very good litmus test for the kind of the voice of the people, as it were. And I think we're seeing a lot of issues come into play because of the Internet UM that relates to the Silk Road story. The drug war is certainly one of them. People feel the drug wars of failure and not four decades. It's very expensive, it largely results in and filling our prisons with non violent offenders. And there's a lot of resistance to the drug war, and a lot of people in the tech community believe that the Internet community believed that technology can help change policy around drugs. And then there's also privacy and anonymity tools, and it kind of growing movement around the belief that people are too vulnerable on the Internet and that there should be more privacy and anonymity online that would prevent things like the Sony hack from happening, and you know the Target and at the Blue Cross hacks. So those are also areas where people are taking matters into their own hands and creating technologies so that they can help change things and give them tools that they want. Um. As is often the case in in sort of bleeding edge progressive or idealistic movements like this, they're often either in direct opposition to the law, or ahead of the law or beyond the law. Um And that's where we encounter with the silk growth. So here is one of the biggest questions that here are some of the biggest questions that people have, which is how did Uncle Sam managed to get into the silk road. How did they narrowed down or find Ross albrick and what if anything to do these kinds of techniques have to do with stuff like Operation Anymous Well, Operation anymous was not about the Silk Road. Operation Anonymous was a year after Ross was arrested, and it was it was it took down the second Silk Road, silk Road two and the number. It was a global initiative between US and international law enforcement agencies, and that was targeting documents the darknet sites around the world, and the Silk Road too, um, which was just a copycat of the first Silk Road, just like you had Kazan lime Wire and you're telling all these copycasts after Master went down. UM, that's what that was, and that's what the Aonymous thing was. The UM. The finding of the Silk Road servers in the case of Silk Road one has been a matter of debate since it was first a matter of record in the court system. And we don't have a and fast answer to how those servers were located, and we may never have a hard and fast answer to how they were located, and maybe a perfectly reasonably legal answer, it's just we haven't been provided with one. And this UH This kind of goes back to the earlier point you had made about how many unknowns exist in the situation. Uh. To go back to our question about law enforcement on the web, one of the big questions that we and a lot of our audience had is is it possible to enforce the law in a global digital community. It's very very challenging. Um. You know what needs to primarily happen, which I would argue is happening, It's just happening slowly because there's an enormous amount of bureaucracy. Is there needs to be massive reform in search and seizure laws in the digital age? There needs to be massive reform in the legislative process and the constitutional process for what constants who it's appropriate? Uh Uh, you know, penetration of people's um, you know digital space and UM. That needs to happen with a warrant and how that warrant has obtained needs to be worked out in a in an adequate manner. And it's it's getting there. It's just getting there slowly. The use changes have come very very fast, and they are very big changes. And uh, certain aspects of law enforcement are well ahead of the curve. Let's not forget the government basically built the Internet. Um, and the government also paid for a tour and the tools that created the darknet all come from the government and government agencies. So it's not like they're completely behind the ball. But the government is big and it's and it's multi pronged. Right. So just because intelligence communities maybe really a depth in the Internet, it doesn't mean it. Civilian law enforcement is a dept at these technology tools. So there's like a big game of catch up that's going on, and that's kind of what we're watching happening. So on the day that this podcast will go live, it's going to be this Friday, that's the day that Russell is going to be sentenced, and we're reading the prosecution asked the judge to send a message with this sentencing. Um, what what do you think that message is going to be? You know, they it was a very it's a very interesting thing. I mean, I think that the prosecution is being extremely frank Frankly, I think that you know, I was in the courtroom for some of the trial and it was very clear that their intention, you know, which many people agree with, is to make an example of Ross and to say to the entire darkness community and the black market community, if you do this, you'll be punished to the fullest extent of the law. UM. I don't think it's a very common thing where you'll actually see the prosecution literally say that in print. You know, you know they're thinking it, but it was you know, interesting that they actually came right out and said it. Um. Uh not even come from the District attorney's office actually, but regardless, uh, you know, it's a it's a direct proclamation, it's a declaration of war against um, you know, the darknet markets. UM. It's a tricky thing, right because whatever we want to say about Ross and what Ross did or didn't do, he didn't create the ensuing drug markets, and he's not responsible for what's going on um in those markets. So hopefully the judge will not uh tack more time onto his sentence for crimes that he didn't commit. It would be unfair. UM. But I think that really the message underlying all of this is just we feel we, meaning you know, the government law enforcement, feel very threatened by rapidly evolving technologies that we can't control. UM. We feel very threatened by the criminality that can occur within those technologies, and because it's very difficult for us to police that world, because it's very difficult for us to catch people in that world. When we do catch one, we really need to present them to everybody and then and then make an example out of them. And I think that's what the letter is saying, So, Alex, one of the toughest things for me in watching this documentary was seeing brouss Older's parents and how they reacted to the whole situation, how they're dealing with it in in almost real time. UM, I can't I couldn't help but feel terrible for them. I know, I know, I agree. UM, I think that you know for me, and I think it comes across in the movie is I have a great deal of compassion for Rossy's family. You know, how can you not? And they're caught in a really, really horrible situation and they're having to educate themselves around extremely complex ideas very quickly. UM, how can you not have compassion for them? It doesn't mean you side with with um one side of the other. You know, you follow what you know, and in this case, what we know is very little. I think that's pretty clear in the movie, but you can absolutely have compassion for those people, which we did. Yeah, we we love gray areas on this show, and that's kind of what it's talking about. So here's another question. What do you think that the audience of Deep Web and and our audience at large could do to further educate themselves about the intersection between anonymity, privacy, and government surveillance. I think that that the very first thing that most people need to be aware of is that their privacy is on a certain level in their hands, so they should the first thing they should do is not the cavalier about their privacy. It's kind of like watching someone else have a car accident and saying, well, it doesn't matter how I drive because I'm never going to have a car accident. And then of course you do, because we all do um. And it takes that collision, that that that physical um, you know, life experience to get most people to wake up to any kind of responsibility or change. And I think that, you know, the notion of having to safeguard your digital life is so overwhelming to most people just figured out how to get their voicemail to work, that it just becomes something they get resigned about and I don't think all of this is in their hands. And the government you know, also has to work out legislation that makes more sense. And you know, as I said before, reformed certain seizure laws and deal with warrants and how all of those work. And I think it is to be a bit more, a bit more let up from the government law enforcement side, not coming down so hard on privacy and encryption tools, which are only going to keep getting stronger, and God knows we need them. I mean, if you've lived through getting hacked, I have several times your entire life completely sucked out from under you. Um you don't need to have that to happen to you more than once. Before you you start using encryption tools and privacy tools, and you start using better passwords and a password app, and you know, maybe encrypted text and maybe even encrypted phone, and under certain circumstances all of what, you're easier and easier every day. UM So I would say, you know, first of all, it's a it's an attitude adjustment. It's the attitude that you know what, this notion that if I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear is really really destructive and erroneous, and you do. Everybody has something to hide, and you wear clothes because you you want the privacy of of not exposing your body. You have a door in your bathroom because you'd like to be able to go to the bathroom in private. I know that all sounds very flippant, but it really isn't. I think that it's a very short step from that kind of that sort of take it it as a given notion of what privacy means to being a human being. To your medical records, the photographs of your children, your social Security number, your letter that you wrote to your first girlfriend that's like scanned on your computer. You know, painful family information that's gone back and forth and you and your loved ones over the years. That those are things that you want to hide. Fair Enough, it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. You're being a criminal, and so you do have something to fear. You have both something to find hide and something to fear. Man, Alex, you're hitting on all these points that I was like, Okay, here's the follow up thing. Oh no, he's getting Oh wait, here's a note. Oh he's getting that too. Because we we've covered some of this, uh, some of these topics a lot in the past, and the reaction, immediate reaction we get from many people is that whole I got nothing to hide, come on that we needed The government needs to keep us safe and they need to know so they need to know. So. Should our audience also be concerned with private companies buying, tracking, and selling the data of us in our audience? Yes, I think that that is is um a very big part of the problem. UM and well, I would maintain that the law enforcement is a coming upon them to figure out how to do their job without dismantling my privacy. It is I can comment as well upon corporations to figure out how to you know, please their showholders and make a profit without dismantling my private see. I think that those are equal issues as far as the private citizens are concerned. And these concerns bring us to a larger point a question that we and others have continually asked, which is, are we at some sort of Malcolm Cladwell style tipping point in regard to privacy for the average person? I guess by which I mean, are we at a point where privacy may become extinct? Or are we at a point where there might be a new understanding or a new widespread appreciation of privacy. Uh No, I do not think that we are at the end of privacy. I would actually argue the exact opposite. I think that we are about in the in the wake of the Snowden revelations and the Sony hack, and the Target hack and and the poor chance happening, we are at the beginning of a boom in the privacy business. We are at the beginning of the industrialization of privacy in the digital space. And it will be, it will be cheap, will be ubiquitous, it will be it will be uh something that the average user doesn't have to think about, and their emails will be able to encrypt, their phones will be able to encrypt, their text to be able to encrypt. They wanted to think twice about it, my grandmother will do it. Um And that's the world that we're entering. I think, by no means are we saying good by the privacy. I think that on me on the opposite extreme, I think people are about to take their privacy back in a very big way. Fantastic, Thank you so much for this opportunity, and we can't wait for our listeners to check out the deep web. Great, thanks you guys. I appreciate it. Wow. Wow, that's cool man. Yeah and inspiring. Now, just so everybody knows, Uh, I think it's it's fairly clear that you and I and and maybe NOL have a horse in the race here. Of course, because we make our living doing shows online. So ease of access but also privacy are personal issues. Uh, you know, we take that concern with us when we leave the office. But uh, now it's time for uh, for another interview, the interview we do at the end of every show. Now. Oh yes, no, yes, hey Noel, did you catch the interview we just did. I did catch it. I was sitting here the whole time. It's true. Did uh were there any questions that you think we we should have asked Mr Winter? No, I don't think so. I mean, you guys really seemed to cover it, and he had some really interesting things to say. Yeah, and we're going to see how this shakes out. We're probably gonna need to do an update on on this after we hear about the trial. Uh. So we've been dealing with some big issues. Let's get to another Let's let's get to something with a little bit of lightheartedness, a little levity. What do you say, man, Yeah, this is something that Ben and I have been discussing for a long time. Now, we've gone We've gone back and forth through emails. We've had a bit of a twitter war. We ought to flame war. Um oh, man, I think I think we just need to ask. No. Well, yeah, you know. No, you're the tiebreaker. So whenever Matt and I disagree on something, we we come to you when we defer to your wisdom. Okay, you do it, Matt, All right. No, you're familiar with a euro? Yes, a euro euro? Would you consider that a sandwich? Yeah? What? No, dude, it's a wrap. Why do you always take his side wrap? Wrap? A wrap fully encompasses the sandwich material. A a euro is has a taco at best, you know, it's like half a rap. Yeah, I still no tacos a taco, but I mean a euro is not a rap. I feel like you guys are persecuting me. Okay. It has all of the requirements for a sandwich, except where some people would say there's only one piece of bread to it. It needs to maybe needs to be What about an open face sandwich? You guys, we're not going to solve this problem in this episode. I think we're gonna have to ask for our listeners input, tell us your favorite kinds of sandwiches, but more importantly, uh, let us know what you think about privacy online. It was inspiring. Uh that's the word I keep coming back to to talk with Alex Winter about the future of technology, and and I was, I don't know about you, Matt, but I was, UM, it really meant a lot to me to hear a message that, um, privacy is coming back to the people. Right. Oh yeah, Well, I I don't want to get it give anything away, but as we said before, Bennett, I got to see this documentary already, and there's a segment towards the end. I won't give it away, but in interviewing some people who are working on the very thing, that very thing right now, and it's pretty pretty cool, I think. Uh, I don't know that that made me walk away from it with a hopeful feeling, which doesn't happen with documentaries very often. All Right, and we hope that you enjoyed this episode as much as we enjoyed making it. Again, a massive thank you to Alex Winter for uh, for giving us really a brilliant explanation. Oh yeah, all throughout the interview. And oh and if you are interested in seeing deep Web, you can check it out on epics on the on May thirty one, that's Sunday. That's Sunday as we record this. And we'd like to know what you think. Is this, um, this big brother kind of stuff? I mean, that's that's not even a theory, that's what it is. Given the Snowdon revelations that Alex mentioned earlier. Is this a necessary evil? Do world governments need this level of scrutiny or monitoring? Right? Um, that's a tough question. Yeah, and we'd like to hear your take on it. You can find us on Facebook and Twitter. You can check out This podcast is long, as well as every other podcast we've ever done on our website, Deep Breath w W dot Stuff they don't want you to know dot Com. Oh man, that was great. I've been practicing. And if you want to skip all that stuff and just send us an email and tell us what you think, you can reach us. We are conspiracy at how stuff Works dot Com. From one on this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff.