Summer Retrospective 2022

Speaker 1: So first things first. What do we call this thing?

Speaker 2: I don't know. The summer retrospective? The the, hey, we made it? The I don't know. This could could have any number of names.

Speaker 1: The Scott's back from summer vacation tacular.

Speaker 2: Oh, the post COVID finally got out of my house, spectacular. Yes.

Speaker 1: Twenty twenty two

Speaker 2: Twenty twenty two.

Speaker 1: Colon. If you've never listened to Hacked, don't start with this one.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Definitely. Maybe not the best episode to get your feet wet on as this is gonna be pretty much just for for the people that listen to the show. So I and I've been here for a while.

Speaker 1: The sweatily making excuses for why we don't have an episode extravaganza.

Speaker 2: Let's talk about, the fact that I went away.

Speaker 1: Let's talk about the fact that you went away. Let's talk about the episodes that you missed while you were gone.

Speaker 2: Great idea.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Let's make a filler at the the vacation sandwich episode where you were on vacation. I'm about to go on vacation.

Speaker 2: If you haven't tuned out yet, you probably will.

Speaker 1: How was your trip, dude?

Speaker 2: Trip was good. Trip was good. Had a had a friend's wedding. Had to go to Italy. Also did some family time in Greece and, squeaked into Portugal and got a got a couple weeks on the wave surfing. So all in all, it was it was what it needed to be. Sounds awesome. Question.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Did you commit any cybercrimes while you were gone? Because that would solve this whole situation. We can skip this whole plan and just talk about the cybercrimes that you did abroad.

Speaker 2: Probably. Like, if we if we really break it down

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 2: The the the barrier at which people think you've committed a cybercrime has gotten so low as we've covered in previous episodes by, you know, people, like, viewing source on websites. Yep. Then, yeah, I probably definitely committed at least at least a dozen cyber crimes at some point.

Speaker 1: Yeah. You're now on the, like, most wanted list of, say, I don't know, the Greek government or something.

Speaker 2: Exactly.

Speaker 1: You'd source code on the site you weren't supposed to.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Or, like, you know, borrowed somebody's Wi Fi or, you know, maybe change my MAC address to get access to a paid WiFi or something like that. But who would do that?

Speaker 1: Yeah. You you connected you sat down in a Starbucks and now Interpol does wanna have a word with you.

Speaker 2: Exactly. The, I will say to all of our European listeners, at least any of the ones in Italy and Portugal, your guys' Internet is spectacularly bad compared to what we expect in North America.

Speaker 1: All doubt.

Speaker 2: And maybe it maybe it's just where maybe it's just where it was staying and where we were, but it's like I hadn't seen Internet speeds like that since, like, the early two thousands.

Speaker 1: Sort of a dial up energy?

Speaker 2: Like, we're talking, like, seven fifty kbps, not m b p s uploads and, like, 15 m b p s downloads. And it's like, you know, I'm sad that I don't have fiber so that I can't have a thousand by a thousand. It's like, they don't have it in my community yet, and I'm hoping that it comes. But it's like, I don't I don't like, I did some ping tests and stuff, and I was getting, like, 273 ping. I'm like, wow. And, like, I was hard lined in for some of that. So, anyway, that was that was probably the biggest shocker was just the the the difference in expectation and standards that we have. It seems in North America. Like, I know most of our colleagues in The States and stuff have fiber Google Fiber and giggy giggy, you know, connections. And, you know, Canada is just getting that stuff, and it seemed like I'm sure parts of Europe, I can imagine Germany and maybe Switzerland to have it, but Italy sure did not. So

Speaker 1: Alright. This is according to www.thelocal.it. Foreigners rank Italy worst in Europe for Internet and paying without cash. Italy ranked fifty seventh out of 68 countries around the world when foreign residents were asked to rate the ease of accessing high speed Internet. So you're not alone.

Speaker 2: Wow. I will say, and maybe this is just I don't know when that article is from, but paying without cash. Like, the iPhone tap and Android pay is accepted pretty much everywhere now. It was amazing. Like, I don't even think I pulled my wallet out of my pocket for, like, the entire trip. Like, only for a few peep things, but they accept phone tap at, like, everywhere. Greece, Italy, Portugal.

Speaker 1: I feel like we finally crossed that line. Because I remember even a few years ago, I'd be traveling down to The States, and it still felt like it was you're you're signing a a bill down there, which with all due respect, feels very old timey when you get used to tax.

Speaker 2: Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1: And now everyone's kind of kinda caught up a little bit. Like, now it's just we they skipped the chip and pin, and we're all we're we're all on tap now, which feels like exactly how it should be.

Speaker 2: Yeah. It's I'm sure the the hackability and the risks are bound with it. But, but but at the same time, it's sure as convenient. So isn't that the the truth of all cybersecurity is that convenience creates risk.

Speaker 1: Speaking of, I think our plan for this bad boy so we're gonna talk about the episodes that that you missed while you were gone. We're gonna talk about some stories that, you know, we didn't get to talk about while you were gone. We're gonna talk about some upcoming episodes.

Speaker 2: Let's go.

Speaker 1: And I kinda wanna do it out of order because there was one in particular that I was really excited to chat with you about. It's an episode we did about a month ago, and it concerns a gentleman by the name of Joe Grand and $2,000,000 in missing cryptocurrency.

Speaker 2: Yeah. The treasure hunt. Listen to this episode. Fantastic job.

Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2: I did I will say that, I was reading through some of the the reviews, the recent reviews on the show. Thank you for all the great reviews. But, one was from a user called doctor one zero eight who asked where I was. So I'm apologizing personally to you. I was on vacation, you know, it's been a long couple years felt like I had to get away. But I'm gonna try and give some input under these episodes to to bring it back around. So, yeah, yeah, the treasure hunt was great. Honestly, super sad that I missed it because, like, I feel like Joe and I are probably from the same era of hackers.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 2: Like, we kinda we probably rubbed shoulders in IRC channels at some point back in the day. And, like, the loft guys and the Cult of the Dead cow guys and all those guys kind of were floating around. Around. And when I was a teenager kind of coming up through through cybersecurity, and there were people that I looked up to. So so kinda sad I missed it, but it was a great episode. You know, very cool story, very cool, very cool solution to kinda bypass it and hack it. So so I thought it was great.

Speaker 1: We, we talk a lot about the loft in that episode. Question, what's the Cult of the Dead Cow, though?

Speaker 2: Cult of the Dead Cow was like I I don't know how they were connected. Maybe Loft came out of Call to the Dead Cow. I'm sure Joe would have a much better answer for this. Or if I spent one minute Wikipedia ing, I'm sure I'd get it. But Call to the Dead Cow kinda created some of the first notorious script kitty malware. They created, BackOrifice and BackOrifice UK, and they were kind of like like, I've mentioned them in earlier episodes before, but they're kind of things you'd sent to your friend or have run on a computer and they wouldn't show up as being on that computer, but then you had complete access to that computer remotely. Like, you Oh, wow. Open the, like, the CD drive and you could, like, just mess with people. Like, it wasn't ever really super malicious. It might had a keylog in it now that I think about it. But it was clearly, like, something built for script kiddies to, like, play with. And, you know, granted you could take that tool and and as you guys made reference in the episode, you know, you can use a hammer to build a house, or you can use a hammer to hurt somebody. And,

Speaker 1: yeah, sure.

Speaker 2: The same with this is is back orifice was like a tool to show people what could be done, but also, I'm sure you probably could use it for tons of bad.

Speaker 1: So Yeah. Sure.

Speaker 2: And and here we are, you know, twenty odd years later. And look what malware has become.

Speaker 1: Yeah. It's pretty wild talking with Joe about what they were up to back then. And even, like, seeing that footage of them sitting in front of congress testifying, and the tone of that is, you know, there's this this looming threat. There's this extraordinary, you know, set of new challenges we're gonna face because of how we're using computers and what you can do with them. And yet the threat back then kinda seems really quaint by modern standards when you look at what they were worried about back then and what we're kinda dealing with now. It's like, oh, wow. We we came a really long way from Cult of the Dead Cow and LOFT and what they were worried about back then. It's just such a different ecosystem now.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, like, if and, like, he makes reference to this in in the interview, but, like, the hacker community and people that were in interested in cybersecurity were, like, I don't know, like, classic problem solver puzzle gamers. Totally. And, like, everybody was super open and super nice, and the community had, little zines and, you know, little hangouts in the in the Internet before we had dark webs. You know, we had overseas, and we had things like that. And it was just a different, I don't know, just a different place. And, you know, here we you know, and also, like, you think about what Congress was at that that time, you know, you've got a bunch of, like, old rich white people who don't even know what email is because they have, you know, administrative assistance for that. And, like, they don't even probably use computers in, like, their late nineties. They were probably, you know, people did all their typing. It was kind of before the Blackberry revolution of, like, mobile email and stuff. So, you know, you've got a bunch of, I don't know, Luddites for lack of better terms That are are just completely afraid of this unknown thing. And, like, you know, look at us now, you know, that was kind of at the beginning of Look at us now. A certain certain phase of the technological revolution. Like, look at us now. Like, there was barely any cybersecurity specialists back then Mhmm. That weren't hackers, you know. So it's like now there's a whole white hat army, you know, like, all of the intelligence agencies have huge departments. There's tons of subcontractors. Some of the biggest stocks in on the stock exchanges are, like, cybersecurity companies. Mhmm. You know, some of our great advertisers, whom we love greatly for supporting the show. You know, and and then that's it. It's just like the the times be different. And The times do be different. I I saw I saw and I with Joan a lot just, I think, just because, truthfully, we're we're from the same not I wouldn't say generation. He's a bit older than me. But, like, we're from the same generation of of hackers.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So There's, like, there's age generations and then there's Internet generations. Like, how were you active online at the same time? It's like you're kinda part of the same cohort at a certain point.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Like, we were probably reading the same things, you know, subs like, we probably yeah. Our lives probably overlapped in many ways back then. You know, it's just a a smaller world.

Speaker 1: The, this is an aside, but I think we've never quite reached the dizzying highs of username quality that there were back then because I'm looking at the Wikipedia for Cult of the Dead Cow, and it's nothing but hits. Everything is just named in such a great way. Grandmaster Rat. Like, they they all have really great Hectovismo, Ninja Strike Force, Mind Vol like, they're all great. I don't know why. I love how these names sound.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, they they're they were they were called handles back then. It's true. It is true. It was like all, I don't know. Yeah. Anyway, I could talk about the good old days forever, but the,

Speaker 1: Yeah. Sure.

Speaker 2: It was, very cool episode. Very cool, project and, like, a challenge. I could totally understand why he got baited in. I'm sure he was compensated for his work. Let's be honest. But, like Yep. At the same time, like, I I just could see why you'd be interested in taking it on, like, you know, hacking into something that's supposed to be unhackable and kind of a cool hardware hack. You know, it seems like I'm not really a hardware guy. I never really have been. I've dabbled a bit, but never been able to really get my head around all of it too much. I'm not an electrical engineer. I'm a computer engineer. So

Speaker 1: Yeah. The the compensation side of it, we talked about it a little in the episode, but I I found that so fascinating because it is such a it's like a quid pro quo thing. Mhmm.

Speaker 2: Like, you

Speaker 1: have a bunch of money locked inside of a box that I can open. The deal is obvious. If we get the box open, you give me a cut.

Speaker 2: Totally.

Speaker 1: And I and I kinda thought that once I figured out that's sort of how this all worked, my brain goes, oh, so now you're in this endless hunt for the biggest box you can crack open. Who's got the most crypto locked inside something? And when I asked him about it, he wasn't interested because it's like, well, I've solved this puzzle. This other puzzle is kinda different. Maybe I'll try that, but at a certain point, he doesn't want to keep solving the same puzzle over and over and over again. He wants to go make a pizza compass. He wants some new challenge, and I really admired that about him. He wasn't just chasing lost crypto now that he figured out he could make a buck doing it. He'd solve the puzzle, and he was sort of just on to the next thing.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I I I love that. I love that he's he's he's a he's a puzzle gamer.

Speaker 3: Exactly.

Speaker 2: You know? Bring him an interesting puzzle, and he'll play it. Yeah. It's like, I that's the that's the OG thesis of hackers. Yeah. You know? Go back to the manifesto back in the day. Yeah. So

Speaker 1: He'll never cancel his, like, New York Times crossword puzzle subscription, down millions of dollars in lost crypto because it's not interesting anymore. He's already solved that one.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker 1: There's another video. Again, another thing we didn't get to talk chat about in that one, but I thought it was super entertaining. If anyone hasn't made their way over to his YouTube channel, you gotta go. There was the video we talked about in that episode where they successfully crack a crypto wallet, but there's this other video. And it's he's helping out a guy who it's not a crypto wallet. It's a it's an old I think it's a Samsung smartphone. And there's a account, like, logged in on an app. I don't remember what the site is, Coinbase or one of those. And it's trying to bypass the security of a smartphone. That's the challenge of this video. And it is one of the most I I don't wanna give away how it ends. It is one of the most, like, intense emotional roller coasters I think I've ever gone through on on YouTube. It is an absolutely wild ride, man. You have to give it a watch.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Send me the link. I'll definitely watch that. His whole attitude, you know, about, you know, hacking for good and, you know, innovation and elevation of thoughts and kind of growth and the positive outweighing the negative, you know, I think just I don't know. Something about that resonates with me, and I hope it resonates with you, and I hope it resonates with this channel. So the, speaking of podcast, I left you here alone to make all of them aside from, you know, our advertising agency and all the jobs we have to do. So the, I think the next episode is, is a bit is a bit more about advertising.

Speaker 1: It really is.

Speaker 2: The Internet hitmen are a real thing.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Very, very sad end Yeah. Of the episode. Yeah. Didn't didn't didn't not that I didn't love the episode, but didn't feel great after it.

Speaker 1: Yeah. You and me both, man. I, there's, like, a longer version of that ending that is you can kinda just hear me getting sadder, and you can already hear me getting a little bit sad in that episode. And I was like, I gotta cut some of this out. This is, like, a weird, is this too personal? But it did bum me out. Like, it's

Speaker 2: The audible depression. Totally.

Speaker 1: I was like, I don't

Speaker 2: gotta Coming through.

Speaker 1: I don't gotta pass this on to the listeners. They get a little bit and get a little hint, some sprinkles, some sadness sprinkles, but it, it's a bummer ending to a really interesting story because, like, I talk about it now and I maybe you maybe you would have called this earlier, but I learned about the dark web. I learned you could buy illegal stuff on there. And like I say in the episode, I know some of that is real. I know you can buy some illegal stuff, so I assumed all of it was real.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: And it turns out it's not.

Speaker 2: That doesn't surprise me at all. Like, the the whole idea of, like, you just got conned. What are you gonna do about it? Mhmm. It's like, yeah. Yeah. That's brilliant. It's like, yeah. I guess, I'm not gonna, like, go to the police and be like, this person took $30,000 of my money and didn't kill my wife.

Speaker 1: What a jerk. Can you arrest him? The

Speaker 2: thing I wanna talk about this episode, which is something that you literally mentioned once, is that all of the details for this came out in a hack. Yeah. And I want more details on the hack.

Speaker 1: I know.

Speaker 2: I know you probably don't have them, but it's like I know. Was he targeted? Was it people that were maliciously after him? Or was it just a random BitLocker that they stole the files? Like, you know, where does the I'd love to know I'd love to know the details of the hack because I feel like the hack couldn't be I feel like it's too coincidental to just have happened. Maybe it did, but I don't know. Feels like maybe it was some cyber bandits, coming to the rescue of this professional hitman group or coming to rescue the world from this professional hitman group.

Speaker 1: Well, the hack was so interesting because a lot of the same a lot of the same users and stuff that were commenting on Aileen's stories when she started posting new stories about the Mesa mafia hack, a lot of those same accounts were coming out saying, oh, well, this hack isn't real. This is a fake hack. This is an attack on Mesa mafia. This isn't, you know, trying to sort of brush it aside a little bit, which would make a lot of sense if the hack was real. The question of who would target a fake Albanian organized crime syndicate, another fake organized crime syndicate? Like, is it the competition? Is it debunkers?

Speaker 2: Maybe not even another maybe not even another fake syndicate. Maybe a real syndicate. We actually do this for a living Sure.

Speaker 1: That had

Speaker 2: a far space. You're stealing our business.

Speaker 1: Well, then there's the the prickly third option, which is that at about that point in the story, I don't bring this up in the episode. We kinda cruise over this as a as a it would have been distracting.

Speaker 2: No. Bonus content.

Speaker 1: But since we're talking about it, a thing that occurred to me is that at roughly the time when that hack came out, lined up pretty well with when there was an influx of new Internet re like, yeah, Internet researchers starting to read into the base of mafia story. And a whole bunch of very computer security savvy folks starting to look into something, lining up with the moment when there was a giant document leak feels relevant to me. Can't really go any further than that, but it feels like pretty good timing.

Speaker 2: So we could just say that the positive bite outweigh the negative on that one?

Speaker 1: Yeah. I would say so too.

Speaker 2: Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1: As people to grift on the Internet goes, you couldn't pick a better group of people. Like, as victims go, there there aren't fewer sympathetic victims.

Speaker 2: No kidding. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I would you know what's funny? As someone I was listening to the episode, I had the same inclination that it seemed too convenient to be to be coincidence.

Speaker 1: Yeah. It it almost certainly isn't. But it's one of those things in the story where you're like, well, do I take a seven minute detour to unpack the the genesis of this hack that turns the story, or do we just sort of accept that it happened and pay forward? But you do miss it. You wanna know, like, where did this this big data dump come from? Who's out there hacking the base of mafia? Because that's probably a pretty interesting story too. So I guess if anyone out there listening knows anything about that, please do get in touch.

Speaker 2: Well, I think, like, the last episode that I did before I went on vacation, we talked about, private investigators. Mhmm. You know, the new era of digital private investigators, and I feel like this this fits the mold. The army of Internet con con people is growing at a severe rate too, so I'm not sure if this is gonna slow down or speed up.

Speaker 1: As long as those stories keep coming, we'll keep telling them.

Speaker 2: Keep making a show. Speaking of stories, there was one thing, in the treasure hunt episode you made mention of it it made me laugh. You you said something along the lines of, like, well, there's many famous stories of people losing money in crypto. And you were talking about them losing their, like, USB key, but to me, it also played as, like, you know, people just losing boatloads of money in cryptocurrency. And I was, like, well, this this is accurate. And I was, like, and then I started thinking I was Yeah.

Speaker 1: There's a lot of ways you can reach out.

Speaker 2: Thinking and I was, like, we could probably make another podcast that is a weekly that just talks about an active crypto grift or crypto hack or, like, there's so much negative energy going into and coming out of the crypto space, it seems, like, it's just insane. Like, if you just Google crypto hack, you get, like, top 10 hacks of 2020. You know, $2,400,000,000 have been stolen this year, and, like, you just get so much. Like, it seems like every time I open the news, it's like some crypto con or hack has been busted, and it's like, wow.

Speaker 1: I remember a couple months ago, I was, like, trying to dig around for a story for the show. And I was like, oh, let's do one of these crypto hacks. There wasn't that much meat on the bones. I was like, oh, let's do all the crypto hacks that have happened since the last episode. And I, like, swung past having too much content. I went from not having enough in the one story being like, this is just silly. Yeah. Like, like, does each one of these things get sixty seconds? That's not very that's not very fun to listen to.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: I don't even know what to say about them. It's like, yeah. It's just the ecosystem is rife with fraud is kind of an unsatisfying conclusion to a story.

Speaker 2: Well and, like, we're recording this on, like, the twenty seventh, twenty eighth. And that Do Kwon, the Terra Luna coin guide

Speaker 1: Terra coin.

Speaker 2: Just got, like, red noticed by the, Yeah. Anyway, like, big big crazy stuff going on. Like, Solana, I think, this summer got, like, people were just stealing wallets full of crypto. Anyway, this it's like an endless an endless field of I don't even know how to wrap that up.

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Speaker 2: Oh, you know what we should do?

Speaker 1: Hit me. We should talk

Speaker 2: a bit about the show and what's happened with the show, where we're at with the show, where we're where we're the some of the successes the show has seen, some of the beautiful patrons that have been with us for a long time. Let's let's let's brag about those people. That's true. Like Jimmy, who's been with us since 11/06/2020.

Speaker 1: Oh, Jimmy.

Speaker 2: And is our single largest patron. So thank you, Jimmy. And the you know, there's some some other people who have been with us, you know, since the since the relaunch, you know, since the the our COVID project took form. Michael, Megan Star Trek, Tim Yow, Sampa Gurney. And a lot of these people were patrons in, like, the first couple days of the show relaunching and, you know, that means a lot. So Yeah.

Speaker 1: It really does. There's also, like, a bunch of folks who were I'm not gonna speak for you. I'm bad at Twitter, but we do have a Twitter. And there's some folks on Twitter who are incredibly generous in, like, I don't know, just, like, hyping the show and commenting on it seems like telling folks about it. Like Torben Storm Jensen, and Daryl Knutsen both immediately come to mind. I know there's others, but I don't know. I just if we're if we're making space to thank people for supporting Hackt

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone on Twitter who has gone out of their way to to share an episode or to hype it up. It does it does not go unnoticed.

Speaker 2: Yeah. We went from from relaunching the show, you know, the we still had our old episodes up and they were still getting listens, you know. Apparently, they were were good enough to listen to. But to today and we're, you know, we crossed the million download mark a while back. Yep. And I think we're trending probably gonna be closer to 2,000,000 downloads a year. So the show has really grown, and, you know, again, we can't be more appreciative of all your support and your positive reviews and comments and downloads and all that stuff. It really helps the show. It helps Jordan and I, you know, get up in the morning. So do you have our chartable up?

Speaker 1: Oh, well, how are we doing? I know we were we've been hanging out in the Spotify tech top 20 for the last little while, which makes me, Yeah. That just makes me very happy.

Speaker 2: In The USA, we're eighteenth just fell from seventeenth. In Great Britain, we're twelfth. Australia, we're often, top 20. Germany, we're top 30. You know, Apple Podcasts, just just, this week, we hit sixty ninth in The USA tech. Mhmm. I'm queuing you to say nice, but you're not Nice. Why can't it? There you go. Nice. Nice. Noise. So

Speaker 1: I didn't read the number because it was high. I read the number because it was good, please.

Speaker 2: But yeah. And we're often, it doesn't have our current Canadian link, our current listing in Canada's thing, but we're often charting in Canada. So things are good. We're charting in most most countries that the podcast is in. So we're we're happy for the support and really means a lot. So I know I've said that, like, three times, but it's the truth.

Speaker 1: It does mean a lot.

Speaker 2: It does. Do we want to talk about

Speaker 1: Stories that happened over the summer.

Speaker 2: We could talk about the GTA six leaks.

Speaker 1: Oh, man. K. They're cool. Yeah. That's pretty fun.

Speaker 2: And they tie back to one of our episodes. Yeah. We can't publish their names.

Speaker 1: Can't publish their names.

Speaker 2: About lapses, and they just arrested a 17 year old who is apparently linked to lapses.

Speaker 1: Yeah. The the police in London, who I believe did the arrests the original lapses arrests that we talked about in that episode mid April this year, in the wake of the Rockstar Games and Uber hack, have arrested, another teenager who is suspected of involvement in that breach. That breach has been fascinating for me hanging out on the Internet because it sort of just reveals how, how do I put this, iffy people's understanding of game development is. I know you have thoughts and experience with this, Scott, but just folks saying, like, no. One of the first things you do when you develop a game is develop the graphics. These leaks are how the game will look.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, Jordan. And you also have experience with video game development, and you probably know that as BS.

Speaker 1: It's, it's it's certainly a hot a hot take. It's an interesting take. I don't know if it's an accurate take. I feel pretty bad for those rock star devs. Like, you've been working on what's probably gonna be one of the biggest games of all time. You're grinding on it. It's probably gonna be sick. You're working on a what's hopefully a magnum opus, and then, like, oh, some teenager in London just comes along and, like, kicks out some development footage. That is a bad day at work. Yeah.

Speaker 2: But you know what? It made me excited because I love GTA five. I thought it was one of the best games ever. And when I saw GTA six, knowing how the how the sausage is made, I was not worried at

Speaker 1: all. That's true.

Speaker 2: So I was like, this looks great. As long as they retain It's gonna be cool. Multiple character control like they had in GTA five. Yep. I think which I think was and if you don't know this already, that is the best thing you did in GTA five. So please do not get rid of it. Please put it in every game you ever make because sometimes I just wanna fly a guy into the middle of the ocean and I don't wanna swim back. So, I just wanna change to another player and do something else stupid.

Speaker 1: I just wanna talk.

Speaker 2: And let him swim himself back. So, please make sure that there's multiple character control in this one.

Speaker 1: It was, the rumor this is not a gaming podcast. We should start a gaming podcast. The rumor is that it's like a Bonnie and Clyde type story, where it's like a couple. I I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's gonna be what it turns out to be, but I think that's such a cool evolution of the, like, trio that you saw in Grand Theft Auto five. I think, I'm very excited for that game, and I'm very and just this this lapses teenager hack has only got me more excited.

Speaker 2: So wait. We got a bit about we got a bit no. No. Not not moving that. We're staying on lapses because

Speaker 1: Stay at the lapses.

Speaker 2: The lapses I don't know if you remember that story, but the big thing was it came down to Okta or Okta or however the fuck you say it. Okta. Okta. Okta. You

Speaker 1: got scolded for that one.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And they were claiming that they had, lapses that maybe compromised Okta. So the early indicators, I don't know how public these are are that they got in through Okta again. But they didn't come through they didn't they didn't, like, have backdoor access or anything, but they like No. They were apparently, theoretically, this is just what I've heard. This is all hearsay. So Yeah. Okta's legal department, please don't call and try and assume.

Speaker 1: Speculate wildly, Scott. Do it.

Speaker 2: Speculate well. I'm speculating wildly from this moment on. But they were apparently doing like brute, like, so I don't know if you ever used Okta, but if you when you log in, it sends you essentially a verification token to your phone for a single or double factor authentication.

Speaker 1: Mhmm.

Speaker 2: And they were apparently like brute forcing people these tokens until somebody just responded yes. So, kind of like Oh. So, like the you're kind of just pounding like you just send somebody 12 of these things and you send 50 people 12 of them, and just hope somebody hits, yes, that's me, rather than just ignores it. So, apparently, the theoretically high speculation, what I've heard, total hearsay is that's what it was. Like, there's a whole rip down of lapses and Okta and how potentially that's was the big connect for them that got them into so much stuff. And then, apparently, that's how this hack occurred was through Okta, but not not through any kind of escalated permissions or anything like that. But they actually got through by just figuring out a fault in humans, like, buzzing every every apartment in an apartment building waiting for somebody just to hit open. They essentially did that. They took an old a technique is old as apartment buzzers.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And implemented it with double factor authentication.

Speaker 1: A technique is old as apartment buzzers. I I've developed a theory since you've been talking about this, and it's rooted in the fact that

Speaker 2: Speculate wildly.

Speaker 1: Well, I'm rolling up my sleeves. People can't can't see it, but they're they're rolled up. Okay. So the city of London police arrested a bunch of teenagers, minors, again. And I feel like this, you got a 17 year old who's going right back to the same well. He's gonna use a similar version of the same hack they did, but this time against two new companies. This feels like getting in another two hacks right under the wire. Like, I'm 17 years old. Next year, the the fallout of these is gonna be so much worse for me, so I'm just gonna knock out two more. I know I can do it. I have a way in. I'm going for it. I think he's, these are pre birthday hacks is my theory.

Speaker 2: You you are speculating wildly. I like it. Because he because he even did this somewhere or they who, you know, whomever did this hack. Mhmm. They were demanding a ransom too, were they not? Oh. They were gonna leak the footage and the source code and stuff unless they were paid out, which is a similar structure to some of those hacks in that episode, wasn't it?

Speaker 1: There was a ransom in the previous episode. I hadn't read about this one having a ransom though. That's fun. Yeah. Or, like, that's interesting.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Apparently apparently, they were indirect. The whomever controlled the the leak Yeah. Was in direct contact with Rockstar, apparently. And was like, being like, I'm gonna leak the game and the game code and all this stuff. And, apparently, some of the leaks that we saw were like proof of proof of action. Like, you didn't pay? You don't believe I have it? Then here. Here's a bunch of development footage.

Speaker 1: Oh. This is, not to get dark but in the in the hostage movie, this is the finger in the box that shows up to prove that they're not they're not messing around kind

Speaker 2: of thing.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Too dark?

Speaker 2: This is this is what this is what I've read and heard. Yeah. No. No. No. I like it. That way, it's the truth.

Speaker 1: That's fascinating.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: And it makes you wonder. These like, these leaks are always so interesting to me because sometimes it's catastrophic, and it can totally debilitate a project and mess up how you promote the whole thing and kinda destroy something. In other situations, the leak of a thing before it comes out is part of the promotional activity.

Speaker 2: A 100%.

Speaker 1: Because a lot of folks have talked about, you know, that iPhone showing up in a bar a week before the big keynote address, you know, how it ended up there, this sort of convenience of the timelines. I know that happened recently with, a certain VR headset that shall remain unnamed. There was a little bit of speculation about the the timing behind it, and you kinda wonder. It's like, oh, I don't I don't get that sense about this. I buy the premise that this is a hacker releasing a little bit of footage to prove that they're not messing around, as part of a negotiation, but they're both fun. Both options are great.

Speaker 2: Well, the the other thing too is, like, it I don't know. It worked for me. I got excited that the game is coming. Two. Two. I loved that, like, a ton of other, video game studios Mhmm. Were like, yeah. You wanna see early development footage of that game you love? Yeah. That was great. Like,

Speaker 1: Busted Ass Horizons.

Speaker 2: I can't remember who made Control.

Speaker 1: Control. I saw that one. That was really cool. I like that. That's solidarity being like, no. All of our shit stinks before we're done. Like, none of this looks right until we're finished with it. I really appreciate that.

Speaker 2: Yeah. If you've if you've ever been, and both of us thankfully have, been a part of releasing a game, it is Mhmm. It is a chaotic process and it is things let's just say that when people complain about certain video games and them not working right Mhmm. I do the opposite and I celebrate all the things that do work right. Because when you see when you have massive massive games and they have, like, one little glitch in them, it's like, do you understand how big Yeah. This game is? Like, there's millions of lines of code. Millions and millions. And, like, one little thing is having a weird interaction. It's, like, that's not that like, as far as things go

Speaker 1: It's pretty

Speaker 2: good. Pretty good. Like, you know, we're talking Sigma six here.

Speaker 1: There's one fruit fly in this entire skyscraper, scraper, and it was infested yesterday. Like, we we got rid of Yeah. All of them, and there's one left and you're complaining about it.

Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. So to anybody that listens to the show that's a a software developer, especially a video game developer, I empathize with you.

Speaker 1: And We see you.

Speaker 2: We see you. You do great work. So

Speaker 1: I think that's it. I think that's this the summer summer retrospective filler episode twenty twenty two vacation sandwich colon looking back on a fun summer episode. I think that's it. I think that's the whole thing.

Speaker 2: Well, your summer's not over. You're about to go on vacation.

Speaker 1: I am about to go on vacation.

Speaker 2: You got you got a you got a little bit a little bit of fun left in this one. I know I'm going biking this weekend. Gonna try and squeeze in some last thing before the snow falls on us.

Speaker 1: Got a little bit summer left ahead of us. But, thank you for making it. To everyone who is still here who made it to the end Oh my god. Of our summer tacular filler episode, thank you. Means the world to us.

Speaker 2: If by any chance you appreciate these kind of winged social style episodes, let us know on social. We'll we'll read the tweets. Hopefully, we'll like them. Maybe we'll get back to you. No promises. But it would mean a lot just to know whether this whether people made it this far

Speaker 1: You don't.

Speaker 2: Or whether you liked it or not. We're we're always we're always in discussion about whether we wanna start doing a bit more of a conversational, maybe mid month show versus less of the story structured ones, and and it would be good great to get a little bit of feedback from the the audience. So if you guys have any strong thoughts on that, please feel free to hit us up on Twitter.

Speaker 1: Some of the best insights about how to make this thing better have come from people alternatingly suggesting things we could do and calling out stuff they don't like it when we do. So we thrive on feedback. I think from both of our professional feed like, backgrounds, we really thrive on feedback. So keep it coming. Thank you for making it to the end of this bad boy, and we will catch you in the next very normal episode of Hacked. Whoops. No. We won't because we're still here to thank our newest patrons on Patreon, Noosh and Mark Horsfield. We really do appreciate your support. That's patreon.com/act. That's patreon.com/act. It's a great great way to support the show. Also, since someone brought it up on, I don't know if it was the comments or Twitter, I'm not sure, two two comments saying we need to start posting a, a way to get in touch with us, and b, where we get the music, because that's a normal thing that podcasts do. If you wanna get in touch with us, you can reach us at get@hackedpodcast.com. That's the email. That's the way you reach out. Get@hackedpodcast.com. I think we have a Facebook. We do not use it. Do not send that a message. And then in terms of the music, that's that's all us. The, all of Hacks, including the music you're listening to now, the music you're at the episode is custom scored by by us. So, if you if you like it, we're just just fire us a message, and we can we can hook you up. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you in the next one.

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