Footballers' wives go to war over Instagram leaks, it turns out fake news is fine on Facebook (just so long as it's in a political ad), and things take a horrific turn in Japan, as a stalker uses a scary technique to find out where his pop idol lives.
All this and much much more is discussed in the latest edition of the "Smashing Security" podcast by computer security veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault, joined this week by The Cyberwire's Dave Bittner.
Visit https://www.smashingsecurity.com/150 to check out this episode’s show notes and episode links.
Follow the show on Twitter at @SmashinSecurity, or on the Smashing Security subreddit, or visit our website for more episodes.
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Warning: This podcast may contain nuts, adult themes, and rude language.
Theme tune: "Vinyl Memories" by Mikael Manvelyan.
Assorted sound effects: AudioBlocks.
Special Guest: Dave Bittner.
Sponsored By:
- Code42: Code42 provides data loss protection for when employees quit. 60% of employees who quit their jobs admit to taking data. Your organization's data is more portable than ever and you have employees leaving everyday. Most organizations rely on prevention but there are simply too many ways for data to leave.
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Links:
- Tweet by Coleen Rooney on Twitter.
- Tweet by Rebekah Vardy on Twitter.
- Prince Harry launches phone-hacking case against Sun and Mirror owners — The Guardian.
- Mark Zuckerberg: An Elizabeth Warren presidency would 'suck' for Facebook — CNN.
- In leaked audio, Mark Zuckerberg rallies Facebook against critics, competitors, and Elizabeth Warren — The Verge.
- Elizabeth Warren Facebook ad mocks Facebook's fact checking policies — Engadget.
- Graham getting thrashed by Garry Kasparov — @gcluley on Twitter
- Stalker zoomed in on Japanese idol's eyes to find out where she lived — Graham Cluley.
- Obsessed fan finds Japanese idol's home by zooming in on her eyes — AsiaOne.
- Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch - Nintendo Switch Trailer — YouTube.
- Funny English Idioms - and why we say them! — YouTube.
- Vice — Amazon Prime.
- Smashing Security merchandise (t-shirts, mugs, stickers and stuff)
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Transcript +
This transcript was generated automatically, and has not been manually verified. It may contain errors and omissions. In particular, speaker labels, proper nouns, and attributions may be incorrect. Treat it as a helpful guide rather than a verbatim record — for the real thing, give the episode a listen.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah, I have seen this sort of thing where if someone's broadcasting live, so you know the precise time of day, you can align that with the angle of the sun coming in. The shadows being— Yeah, the shadows being cast. You can know within a certain degree of accuracy where someone is. You can reverse engineer the angles and it can help you figure out where they are. Figure out a location.
ROBOT. Are you saying that all America had to do for all those years was say to Osama bin Laden, do you mind getting on Skype with us, or something like that, and they could have then found out where he was? Smashing Security, Episode 150: Liverpool Wags, Facebook Politics, and a Selfie Stalker, with Carole Theriault and Graham Cluley. Hello, hello, and welcome to Smashing Security, Episode 150. My name's Graham Cluley.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And I'm Carole Theriault.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And this jolly old— well, it is morning for our guest today, obviously. Dave Bittner from Hacking Humans and the Cyberwire.
DAVE BITTNER. You know, it is morning. In fact, I think I'm going to go and I'm going to go take a look out the window and just take a gander. There's a bright golden haze on the meadow. There's a bright golden haze on the meadow.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Is he pressed like clay?
DAVE BITTNER. The corn is as high as an Elephants high, and it looks like it's climbing clear up to the sky.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, what a beautiful morning.
DAVE BITTNER. It is a lovely morning here, actually. Thank you for having me. It's how I start every morning.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Was that you, Dave?
DAVE BITTNER. That was me.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Dave, can I ask you a question?
DAVE BITTNER. Yes.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Are you using our show to try and change careers? I mean, you know, I know we've got a substantial and influential audience out there of listeners.
DAVE BITTNER. I think the listeners would probably agree that I'm using your show to remind people why I'm in the career I'm in and not as a professional singer.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I think you sounded fantastic.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Kroll, what have we got coming up on the show this week?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, first, thanks to this week's sponsors: LastPass, Code42, and Immersive Labs. Their support helps us give you the show for free. Now on today's show, Graham, you take us to the land of sport and football, football or soccer for you Americans. Dave gets all political on our butts and shines a light on Facebook's underbelly. And I'm heading to Japan to share a story that might change how you snap your selfies. All this and loads more coming up on this episode of Smashing Security.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Now, chums, Fellows, friends, chums.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I like chums.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Chums. Chums is good. Okay.
CAROLE THERIAULT. My mom used to call me chum when I was little, so, you know, that's a good one. I'm going to give that one a thumbs up.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Okay, well, maybe we'll stick with that then. Now, chums, chums, we are joined today by podcast royalty, very much.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yes, you're welcome.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I mean, obviously, Carole, you appear not only on this show but also on Hacking Humans and CyberWire. Obviously, Dave, you're on Grumpy Old Geeks from time to time, Hacking Humans, Cyware, who knows what else you're on as well. And I imagine that you, like me, sometimes have a bit of a problem with the tabloids, the paparazzi trying to find out what we're up to, you know, just to fill up their tittle-tattle sheets with gossip.
DAVE BITTNER. It's a real burden.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes.
CAROLE THERIAULT. You're talking about your local village paper there, Graham?
GRAHAM CLULEY. That's right. So the parish news, when they come around, they're trying to fill up. That's what happens. And it happens to all sorts of other people as well. And as you know, I take an active interest in fitness and I'm a huge fan of sport, and one of my— one of my great loves is the fabulous game of football. And it has hit the news headlines and the IT security news headlines, not because of the footballers, but because of who they are married to. A couple of WAGs. Dave, are you familiar with the term WAGs?
DAVE BITTNER. I am not.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, it's a great term.
GRAHAM CLULEY. The term WAG first came up maybe like 10 years ago or so here in the UK. It stands for Wife, and girlfriend. And the top footballers representing England at the international competitions, they're all sort of, you know, sort of, mm, they're a bit, ugh, you know, they're all the, ugh, right? All the wives and girlfriends.
DAVE BITTNER. I know, I don't know what those sounds mean. Are those good sounds or bad sounds?
GRAHAM CLULEY. They're all a little bit pneumatic.
CAROLE THERIAULT. This is kind of people that Graham hangs out with.
GRAHAM CLULEY. They've got the Botox and they're beautiful, their long tresses and everything.
DAVE BITTNER. They are deliberately groomed. Yes.
CAROLE THERIAULT. To within an inch of their lives. Yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And they were called the WAGs. And they're very glamorous in a particular way. And for some reason, they all seem to come from Liverpool, as far as I can tell.
DAVE BITTNER. That's not true.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, a large number of them do appear to be Scouse. So if you can imagine, it's like, "Hey, alright, they're talking like that all the time. Alright, where's my leckie?" Etc., etc. Now, one of these ladies is called Colleen Rooney, and she is married to a real superstar of the English football team called Wayne Rooney. He was actually England's all-time record goalscorer. He used to play for Manchester United, now plays over in the States, which means basically he's retired.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Is he a good guy? Is he a good guy?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Wayne Rooney?
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah. Hmm.
GRAHAM CLULEY. He's been in the tabloids a lot. Various allegations of naughtiness.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I don't follow this at all, but I did have some inkling of that. Right, okay.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, yes.
CAROLE THERIAULT. You can go read it for yourselves.
GRAHAM CLULEY. A few scrapes with the law and a few, yes, encounters with other people other than his beloved Colleen, who I think he met when he was a schoolboy and has now had numerous children with. Of course, I mean, you and Wayne obviously have very busy lives. Um, how hard does it make it, particularly living in the public eye, being a mum?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Um, I wouldn't say it's, it's that hard because I don't make it hard for myself. I think you can pick and choose, you know. Some of the intrusions, quite hard sometimes, but you've just got to be a strong person and get on with it, you know.
GRAHAM CLULEY. So there's Coleen Rooney, and in the other corner of this battle is another WAG called Rebecca Vardy. Rebecca with a K, which to my opinion isn't.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I mean, I'm not sure you should call them WAGs just because they happen to be groomed wives. Yeah, I mean, WAGs is kind of like trophy wife, Dave. It's kind of like that.
DAVE BITTNER. And I don't see—
CAROLE THERIAULT. I mean, just because they happen to be married to footballers, I don't know.
DAVE BITTNER. So WAG is a derogatory term?
CAROLE THERIAULT. No, it is. It kind of is. Well, I think it is, certainly. So I don't know, whatever. Graham, you're getting into a lot of water here. I don't mean to bring all this up. I'm just, you know what, I'm just trying to keep you modern, keep you, keep you with the times.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, yeah, no, fair enough, fair enough. And in fact, I am going to share some information with you as to what one of these WAGs has been up to, which really has rather impressed me. And so she isn't fitting the sort of stereotype which people often paint. So what we are talking about is what the tabloids are now terming as WAGgy leaks, or maybe a case of Wagatha Christie solving a mystery. To my view, it's hand WAGs at dawn between the two of them because they've had a big falling out.
CAROLE THERIAULT. The two girls?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, exactly. Because for years, the tabloids have loved to write about Colleen Rooney, and Colleen has been getting rather upset about this, and she's been concerned as to, well, where are they getting all of these stories from about my private life?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, if they're fake, they're not getting them from anywhere.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, some of them maybe aren't fake, right? The ones she's been concerned about. And so what happened was that She perpetrated an elaborate sting in order to try and determine who may have been the leaker of her private information.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, Donald Trump might want to listen to this episode.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, Colleen Rooney runs a private Instagram account, a private personal one, as well as her sort of public one, I imagine.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Like almost every other person in the universe.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, I don't know if most people do. No? No, I think a lot of people just sort of do it publicly, don't they? But she was running a private one just for her inner circle of real friends rather than the masses, the unwashed civilians who are out there. And over the course of around about 5 months, she says that she was posting fake stories on her private Instagram account. And these were stories like things like she and her husband Wayne were trying to choose the gender of their next baby by getting treatment in Mexico, and she was going to return to hosting TV shows, or there'd been a flood at their mansion. All of these sort of things. And every time she posted a new fake story onto her Instagram account, they were appearing in The Sun newspaper as exclusives.
CAROLE THERIAULT. You know what's kind of weird about this, right? So she is posting these stories up, so effectively she is telling these lies about herself.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So she only has herself to freaking blame.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Ah, well, this is where she was really clever. Okay. She knew that only certain people were following her Instagram account.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Her private.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Her private personal one. Yeah. Where she was posting these things. So over time, as each story appeared in the sun, she would whittle it down.
CAROLE THERIAULT. She blocked one person.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Exactly.
CAROLE THERIAULT. To reduce it down to one.
GRAHAM CLULEY. No, she didn't. She did. She whittled it down one by one until there was just one person left in her list of people who could see her updates. And the next story she posted about the flood in her mansion Julie appeared in The Sun newspaper.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Dun dun dun!
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, it was a whodunit by the Rooney, you see. And so, and what she then did was then she went nuclear because obviously she was rather upset. And so she posted on Twitter about what she'd done. And then she kind of went, and the account was, drum roll, Rebecca Vardy, one of the other WAGs.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Her buddy. Right, before this? Presumably she was in the inner circle.
GRAHAM CLULEY. You would imagine so, right?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Right.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And so everyone went bonkers over this. Well, when I say everyone, everyone who follows this sort of tittle-tattle.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, okay.
GRAHAM CLULEY. But the tabloids obviously were absolutely fascinated about this because basically she doubted her. She hadn't gone to Rebekah and said, "Oi, what you doing with me private Insta stories?" or anything like that. And Rebekah Vardy, who was on holiday in Dubai.
DAVE BITTNER. As you do.
GRAHAM CLULEY. As you do. She's obviously rather upset about it. So she's denying everything. She's saying, well, it wasn't me. She says, over the years, various people have had access to my Instagram account.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, the Weinergate excuse. Yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Right.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And just this week, she says, I found I was following people I didn't know and have never followed myself. Because it turned out she was following a couple of the journalists at The Sun who had been writing those disputed stories. So The Sun had been getting these, this gossip, we don't know where from. It had then gone to Colleen Rooney and said, hey, we're going to write this story about you, do you want to confirm it or deny it?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Right.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And she always refused to answer it. So they've been publishing fake stories for months. She refused to confirm or deny because she was on her big whodunit to try and work out who was actually responsible for these things. So What do you think's going on here? Do you think it is Rebecca Vardy, or do you think there's another explanation?
DAVE BITTNER. Well, what would Rebecca's motivation be, right, to do this?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, I love it.
DAVE BITTNER. Does she need the money?
GRAHAM CLULEY. You're not just a great singer. No, of course she doesn't. She's married to a footballer.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Need is very relative, right? Need is very relative. And who knows how much the daily tabloids would pay for those little tidbits? It might be a new pair of shoes, a new pair of Louboutins.
GRAHAM CLULEY. So she has worked for The Sun in the past. She has, I think, written a column and things like that. Oh, so she's got contacts. And so she has contacts there, and she does follow a couple of The Sun journalists. A source at The Sun, according to The Guardian, has said that they've never paid her for any stories about Colleen Rooney. Now, of course, even if you're not paying someone, there might be other motivations. It may not just be financial. For instance, if you wanted a newspaper to only publish positive stories about you or to have a little bit of leverage over them, you might tempt them with gossip of your own about one of your pals.
CAROLE THERIAULT. No, you might try and give them news they might like, but of course these newspapers just want some dirt, right?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Even if it's not damaging, it might— they just may want something exclusive. Because there's a challenge, I think, these days for tabloid newspapers because so many celebrities are being so public about their private lives on social medias. It's harder and harder for the tabloids to get an exclusive. It's harder and harder. So if a tabloid journalist could access a close personal friend's Instagram account, that would give them that inside track as to what was really going on. But they wouldn't necessarily know if they were being fooled along the way.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And also it's free. They don't have to pay for the tip either.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, you might have to pay if you hacked the account. And of course—
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, you might have to pay in more ways than one.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Right. Yeah, yeah. And the British tabloids have been in trouble with that in the past. We've just seen the last few weeks Prince Harry has taken action against some of the British tabloids as well over allegations of phone hacking and all kinds of nefarious things. So it certainly isn't beyond those newspapers to do underhand things like that.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Absolutely not.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And at the moment, Rebecca Vardy's saying, it wasn't me. Maybe my account's been hacked. She says she has hired IT experts to investigate who might have had access to her Instagram.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Are you on the payroll? Is that why you're covering the story?
GRAHAM CLULEY. I can't. I can neither confirm or deny, Carole.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, NDAs, NDAs, of course.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I'll post it on my private Instagram.
DAVE BITTNER. Well, why did Carole Theriault choose to do all this publicly rather than—
GRAHAM CLULEY. Because she's pissed off.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, but it's still not a cool move though.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, yeah.
CAROLE THERIAULT. They're both douche moves.
GRAHAM CLULEY. You can understand in your rage doing it, can't you? No. I can. I can understand why someone— I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but if you feel that you've been betrayed by someone who's your friend, if you genuinely believe it was this person who's been selling stories about you, then maybe you would.
DAVE BITTNER. Do you think there's anything to Rebecca's claim that perhaps someone had the password to her account and was getting the information that way?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, it's certainly a possibility, isn't it? Because a lot of celebrities won't necessarily update their own Instagram accounts because they don't know how to spell, and so they get a PR person to do it for them. You know, it may well be that not everyone is doing it themselves. So it's certainly a possibility, and I think maybe Colleen shouldn't have raced to that assumption.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Okay, so, so, okay, so whatever. Yeah, what's the takeaway? I need the takeaway here because basically we're just seeing two people having a bit of a spat and doing it online, and it's a bit stupid.
GRAHAM CLULEY. What I like here, Carl, what I like here is that Coleen Rooney, who some people would have quite a low opinion of, I think she's used the privacy settings on Instagram in quite a smart way. I've got a sneaking regard for her, even though she went public and said it was this person without necessarily 100% proof. What a clever way of finding out who might have been leaking information about you and to be more cautious in future. Regarding that particular—
CAROLE THERIAULT. Why didn't she just say, "Oi, whoever is leaking info on me, stop it, I'm on to you"?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, yeah, she could have done that. And there are some up—
CAROLE THERIAULT. I think you have a crush on Colleen Rooney, don't you think, Dave? Don't you think that's what's going on?
DAVE BITTNER. Possibility. He certainly seems to be spending a lot of energy on this story that really doesn't affect anyone but these two ladies. Who am I to judge?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Hey, Graham!
CAROLE THERIAULT. Hey, Graham!
GRAHAM CLULEY. When do you think my Desi waits? Oh, she's here right now. Dave, what's your story for us?
DAVE BITTNER. Well, as you know, Facebook has been in a little bit of hot water lately for the problem they've been having with fake news.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, yes.
DAVE BITTNER. And Facebook has attempted to do a better job with this. They've hired more fact-checkers. Facebook has rules in place that say you cannot buy an ad on Facebook that has false information in it or lies and those things.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Right, right.
DAVE BITTNER. Part of the terms of service, if you go and buy an ad on Facebook, Facebook has the right to yank the ad if their fact-checkers find that your ad is false.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And it would stop, for instance, Russian trolls or bots and things like that doing these sort of things. I mean, that's presumably their hope.
DAVE BITTNER. That's the hope. And what Facebook is suggesting here is that ads go through a fact-checking process before they are permitted to run on the platform.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Right, so they have an algorithm that runs and kind of goes, does it meet any of these criteria which makes it dodgy? And if it does get dodgy, it would go into a quarantine where human eyes might look at it and make a call, for example.
DAVE BITTNER. Right. And there may even be actual real-life human beings who take a look at some things. I know, crazy to think about, but it's possible. So, as you know, we're really ramping up for the 2020 presidential election campaign over here.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Is it fun?
DAVE BITTNER. Oh, it's so much fun. So much, so much fun. And by fun, I mean not fun at all.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry. We're in a similar shipboat. So yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I thought my story was quite fun by that definition, by the way. Can I just say that?
DAVE BITTNER. So as you also probably know, one of the front runners on the Democrat side is Senator Elizabeth Warren.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, yes.
DAVE BITTNER. And she is running for president. She's doing quite well in the polls these days.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah. She's leading the opposition, isn't she?
DAVE BITTNER. She is. At the moment, she is.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, is she ahead of— She had out of old Joe Biden.
DAVE BITTNER. She's a few points ahead right now, yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, is she? Oh, I didn't know that.
DAVE BITTNER. Now, she has been direct in her criticism of Facebook. In fact, she says that she wants to break up Facebook. She says Facebook has too much power, and so she's been overt in saying that Facebook, if she becomes president, one of the things she's going to work on is trying to break up Facebook.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And wasn't there a leak from Zuckerberg saying that he really didn't like that idea of Warren's at all, that would really kind of mess up their plans. I can't remember the exact words, but it looks like—
GRAHAM CLULEY. I'm not sure there'd have to be a leak. I imagine they're quite open about they're not very keen on that.
DAVE BITTNER. But I think they had an all-hands meeting and someone recorded it without permission and the audio leaked and so on and so forth. Yeah. So Elizabeth Warren was taking issue with some of the ads that Donald Trump is running, among them one that's critical of Joe Biden and Joe Biden's son. And there are several ads that Trump's been running that have been fact-checked and surprise, wait for it, are false.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So what do these ads say?
DAVE BITTNER. Well, for example, one of the ads says that Democrats are going to repeal the Second Amendment and take away your guns.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Right.
DAVE BITTNER. Right. And there are no Democrats who are saying that.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Right.
DAVE BITTNER. So, so I mean, that's the most basic one. But there's a, there's one where he goes after Joe Biden saying that he tried to give a billion-dollar bribe to Ukraine, which there's no, it's simply not so. So Elizabeth Warren has taken issue with this and Facebook Facebook responded and said, "We have an exemption for political ads where political ads do not have to be true." Right.
CAROLE THERIAULT. There's a lot of countries that really love that model.
GRAHAM CLULEY. You're not allowed to tell fibs in Facebook ads unless you're a politician, whereupon it becomes almost compulsory, is basically what Facebook is saying right now.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Correct. So people are never supposed to tell the truth in their posts, otherwise it gives away too much information. And in the ads— Everything should be okay. Good. It's a great model.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah. There have been court cases about this on broadcast media where I believe it was a federal judge who said that in broadcast media, the FCC cannot police this, that if a politician wants to put a lie out on a TV commercial, that's fine because it's up to the voters to decide. It's not up to the government and the FCC to decide what political speech can go out. That it's a—
CAROLE THERIAULT. I'm fucking sorry, but that's just insanity, isn't it? Is it just me? Like, how is it that that's allowed? That it's okay for politicians to go out and just talk shit?
DAVE BITTNER. Well, this judge thinks the greater hazard is that you could find yourself in a situation where a politically motivated FCC could prevent political speech, political free speech, from happening at all.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah, I can see the other side of the argument of this, Carole, is— and you don't necessarily want one group tasked with, well, you decide whether this is true or not, and you be the arbiter as to whether this is something which can be brought up.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I would say, stop talking about the opposition. Why don't you just focus on you and talk about what you're going to do, and you let them talk about what they want to do, and you let the press do their job to find the dirt?
DAVE BITTNER. Well, and I think part of what we're dealing with here is that up until now, that's pretty much what happened. But we've got a different situation with politicians have, particularly Donald Trump, has gone to a place where he just says things.
GRAHAM CLULEY. It's a little bit feisty over there, isn't it? Yeah.
DAVE BITTNER. And so it's all happening at a different level than I think any of the norms had been established to deal with before. So Elizabeth Warren, to prove her point, to kind of make her point with Facebook, started running ads on Facebook that say that Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg are promoting and have endorsed Donald Trump. And so that's the headline in these ads that she's paying for and running, saying, breaking news, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg endorsed Donald Trump.
GRAHAM CLULEY. That's a bit ballsy, isn't it?
DAVE BITTNER. And then right after that, it says this is not true, but here's the point we're trying to make, that if we can buy an ad that says this thing that is completely untrue, 'And Facebook has no guardrails in to prevent us from doing this. Is this a good or a bad thing?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Please discuss amongst yourselves.' The irony, of course, is that they paid for those ads, so Zuck wins.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Right.
DAVE BITTNER. Well, and there's another component of this is that there are TV stations who refuse to run ads that have blatant lies in them, and they are allowed that discretion.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Good.
DAVE BITTNER. So what Elizabeth Warren is saying is that, hey, Facebook, 'Your track record ain't exactly that great when it comes to protecting us from misinformation. Maybe you could do a little better here.' Facebook is pushing back and saying, 'No, we're on the free speech side of things, and so we're going to let you say anything you want as long as it's political speech.' Drives me nuts.
CAROLE THERIAULT. It bugs me a little bit because it's a bit clickjacky. So I don't like that aspect of it. However, I think it's a clever political move to highlight because it seems to be very much in the political sphere at the moment. There's a huge focus on tech, right? Surveillance, privacy, these are big, big issues right now. And so to call attention to that is an important thing. I mean, that's what we try and do the show for, right? Get people to pay attention to this stuff. So I'm kind of torn.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I mean, you say it's sort of clickjacky, what, or clickbaity, what she's done, but I, I think it's just smart, really. If you're going to get people's attention, you need a good headline. Otherwise people are going to think, oh, it's very, you know, a bit dull, this academic.
CAROLE THERIAULT. It's misleading. It's a misleading headline.
GRAHAM CLULEY. But it's not because—
CAROLE THERIAULT. And how many people just read headlines and just carry on?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, but the way Facebook would present it is that you would have the opening paragraph or whatever, which would be visible there. And you would see that it was from her.
DAVE BITTNER. There are some folks, for example, over on TechCrunch, they're saying Facebook should ban campaign ads altogether. Just be done with it.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Agree.
DAVE BITTNER. Don't allow them at all.
CAROLE THERIAULT. If it refuses to take the responsibilities of a publisher, then what the heck are they doing here?
GRAHAM CLULEY. But right now and for the next year or so, a lot of Facebook's income is going to be coming from these political campaigns, aren't there? There's going to be a huge amount of advertising being spent, I would think there.
DAVE BITTNER. But Carole, I think you hit the nail on the head there when you said they don't want to take responsibility as a publisher. I suspect Facebook is still making the argument that they are not a publisher, that they are a platform.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And therefore they're not responsible for any of the content they just said to everyone around the world that has an account.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Their pipe, just like the pipe which brings water to us, or indeed which moves the sewage as we shit in our toilets out into the sewers. That's what Facebook is, and that's what's spreading through Facebook all the time. Fecesbook, as I sometimes mistype it. Well, I think it's— I mean, regardless of your politics, I think why not use the methods available to get your message out there? She specifically has an issue with Facebook. Facebook says it's not really a problem. And so she's saying, well, do you have a problem with this?
CAROLE THERIAULT. And Trump's using it the same way as well. You know, she's maybe not lied in it, but she lied in a way in the headline because she missed, you know, she was misleading. And that, I think, hurts the moral high ground that maybe they were going for. I'm just saying, should have played it maybe just a bit more straight up.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I'm just impressed that a 70-year-old presidential candidate or prospective presidential candidate has been able to work out how to run an ad campaign on Facebook. I think that's quite impressive. Sorry, is that ageist?
DAVE BITTNER. Oh, it's a good thing she's not from Liverpool, right?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yep, she'd never figure out that.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Do we know what her heritage really is? Do we?
DAVE BITTNER. Do we?
GRAHAM CLULEY. That might be next. That's true. She might claim to be a Beatle, who knows?
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hey, Mark, stop running all those ads.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Carole, Carole, you know, yes, raise the tone a bit. What have you got for us this week?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, we're heading to Tokyo, Japan for a crazy-ass story with some very useful takeaways for all you selfie lovers out there. Now, this story starts with a Mr. Hibiki Sato and 20-year-old female pop idol. You see, 26-year-old Hibiki Sato is said to be a big, big fan of this pop idol.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Ah, you are talking about Ina Matsuoka, I believe, aren't you?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Am I?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, I think you are, because she is a young member. I think she's about 21, and she's a member of a J-pop group, Japanese pop group called— now excuse me here, Japanese listeners— Tenshi Tusukinyokeni Yomi are the name of the group.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So that's it. That's it. So, quote, avid fan is how local Japanese news reports described his feelings for this pop star, right? And on September 1st, he finally got the chance to meet her as she headed home from the train station. Now, how would you guys expect a fan to behave upon meeting their celeb pop idol, their, you know, the person they adore the most?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Hello, I listen to the podcast all the time.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Is this what you expect people to do to you?
GRAHAM CLULEY. No, no, that's when they meet you. They love you.
CAROLE THERIAULT. No, I've never had anyone breathe like that at me.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Thank God.
DAVE BITTNER. How did you act when you met, crossed paths once again with Garry Kasparov recently?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh yes, we haven't talked about that. Yes, I bumped into Garry Kasparov last week. Marvelous. I was, I was, I kept very cool, but then got incredibly thrashed at chess.
DAVE BITTNER. Yes, I will say.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I did manage to get a little weak in the knees. I did. Well, yeah, I always do. I always feel a little bit, you know, if I meet one of my idols.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, you might be a little shy, right? And you might be a little tentative in your approach, and you might say nice things to them or give them something nice or say something nice.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Please come on my podcast. Please come on my podcast, right?
CAROLE THERIAULT. You might beg.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, that's right, I did. Yes.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And maybe Hibiki Sato wanted to do these things but instead ended up arrested for suspicion of indecent behavior. Now, warning, what I'm about to tell you is a little— is downright shitty.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So as our pop idol walks home from our local train station, Mr. Sato allegedly approached her from behind, covered her mouth with a towel, frog marched her back to her condominium in Tokyo, and then he reportedly pulled her down from behind, groped her, and injured her. Okay, now excuse me, this sounds a little bit more than indecent behavior, doesn't it, to you? Like, it's like assault. There's kidnapping, holding her against her will in her own home. Yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Can you imagine? How horrific would that be? Just horrendous.
DAVE BITTNER. Well, and is there no one who sees this man leading this woman with his hand over her mouth that would intervene?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, right. So I was wondering, like, how did Mr. Sato find this pop idol? And how did he know where she lived? Right? And the answer will literally blow you away. Well, actually, not the short answer. The short answer is social media. But how he got her private details from her public posts beggars belief, because there's no mention of hacking involved here, right? He didn't socially engineer her password out of her or anything like that, but he did make use of her public social media profiles. You know, get this, Dave. He studied her public photographs for selfies. Now selfies are actually kind of great because they're often close-ups, right? So the surroundings that might give away your location can be kind of easily hidden by your gob or your hair or whatever.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Your ears.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Your ears.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Some people's faces, yes.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Now in this case, there doesn't seem to have been any background, just a headshot. But she had this curious reflection in her eye, Dave. It's like he could learn something more about her, something hidden. QCSI, magnify, enhance, enhance. He zoomed in on the selfie.
DAVE BITTNER. On screen.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And what's this? He says, he wonders, he looks at the reflection, he tries to reverse it, right? And suddenly sees it's a train station. So what's our buddy do? He hits the Google Maps and tracks down the exact station based on its appearance. From the reflection in her eyes.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I can see it in your eyes. I can see it in your smile.
CAROLE THERIAULT. That is not a stalker song, okay? It is. I'm really upset with you that you keep bringing this up. It's not a stalker song. It's a love song. It's one of the greatest love songs of all time. And you're destroying it, and it's not fair.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Mr. Adams, Mr. Adams, come see what's happening in art class.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I wouldn't do this to one of your top songs. So our guy looks at the other public pics she has on her social media and is able to figure out where she lives using Street View again. And it must have been really useful because he reportedly looked at how she positioned her curtains and how the light shone through her windows in her pictures to find her house.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I mean, okay, this guy is obviously a creep and unpleasant and, you know, something needs to happen to him. But at the same time, Really clever, right? If you wanted to get information about someone, if you wanted to know—
CAROLE THERIAULT. I'm just marvelling at every single nefarious act that we talked about this week.
GRAHAM CLULEY. If you were a detective, for instance, and you were trying to find a criminal and they'd posted up their pictures, then this kind of thing— looking at their curtains and the line of the light— I mean, it's clearly obsessive, but— What do you think? But at the same time, it's Quite remarkable, isn't it? That all of that can be got from a picture. I mean, we've heard about—
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, these were videos from inside her apartment, right? She has videos in her public, you know, from inside and thinking probably this is safe. You know, this is not giving away— this is not giving away any geolocation information. My curtains are closed. There's no landmarks outside.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah, I have seen this sort of thing where if someone's broadcasting live, so you know the precise time of day, You can align that with the angle of the sun coming in, the shadows being cast. You can know within a certain degree of accuracy where someone is based on— you can reverse engineer the angles and it can help you figure out a location.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Are you saying that all America had to do for all those years was say to Osama bin Laden, 'Do you mind getting on Skype with us?' or something like that. And they could have then found out where he was.
DAVE BITTNER. Who's to say that's not how they did it, Graham?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Anyway, right, back to me. So this whole story, um, has— is it kind of a one-in-a-million situation for me, or one-in-10-million situation? So I don't think we should live in fear that they know that we're all at risk now of everyone deep diving into each of our photos that we might have. But I think there's a few things that we can take away, you know, that there's a few teaching moments here. One is, you know, make sure your profile is private and think about what you put on your online, you know, your open profile. I think your story, Graham, talked to that as well.
GRAHAM CLULEY. But these are celebrities, aren't they? Part of it is maintaining their image through social media.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, no, but there's, there's— so there are things that we can take away for those of us that don't make a living by getting our name out there, right? There's things that they can do. So one would be to lock down your public profile and to think about what's there. The Japanese newspaper that was reporting on this story advised people not to make V signs with their hands, as Japanese people apparently often do in photos, because fingerprints could be stolen. So isn't this great that we have so many megapixels now that someone can magnify our exact fingerprint?
GRAHAM CLULEY. You can turn your two fingers the other way around, like we, the English do.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, like we do in English do.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, exactly.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Right.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Maybe that's the thing we need to kick off again.
DAVE BITTNER. Do they do that in Liverpool? Good, good. There was a thing, I don't know, a couple years ago where someone demonstrated that with a high-quality DSLR, you could take a picture of someone's hand. Yes. And get their fingerprints. You remember that one?
GRAHAM CLULEY. That's right.
DAVE BITTNER. Yes. Yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Happened with a German politician, I think, wasn't it? It was the Berlin Computer Club who did that. Yeah. Extraordinary.
CAROLE THERIAULT. But to your point, Clue, right? If you're a public profile, it gets a lot tougher. Like you and me and Dave, all three of us, our voices are out there, and there's videos of us doing talks and panels and whatnots. And so how, as a public figure, do you keep yourself—
GRAHAM CLULEY. but Carole, even if you're not a public figure, right, if you are in a relationship and it goes sour and you had an abusive partner or something and they wanted to know where you had now moved to, then potentially they could find a selfie of you or something like that and be able to Maybe what we need is some system. I mean, it sounds kind of crazy. Maybe we should have something which sort of anonymizes the pupil of your eye. Maybe you should be able to run a filter just like you run an Instagram filter to make you look like a cat.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Just wear sunglasses, Graham. Could be easier.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Like Bono, right? You could do that.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. But what if you're wearing mirrored sunglasses? That's not gonna work so well, is it? That's gonna be the opposite.
DAVE BITTNER. Oh yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. It's gonna be even worse. What about, oh, what about red eye? Remember, we used to have this problem with everyone's eyes being red and looking like vampires. That would be the fix. We need to bring that back.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Bring back red eye. Boom.
DAVE BITTNER. It reminds me there's a scene in the movie Top Gun where Thom Cruise is wearing mirrored sunglasses and you can see the entire film crew reflected in his glasses. It's wonderful.
CAROLE THERIAULT. This week, there was some show somewhere of surveillance clothing, so anti-surveillance clothing. I think one of them had almost like a face mask that was not shaped like a face, almost like a bee helmet made of some kind of plastic. And to try and change your facial shape, and it would also reflect light upon photography or however the camera was taking the shot.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I think there was some suggestion they might use this sort of thing in Hong Kong as well, where obviously there are lots of protests going on at the moment.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So obviously in this cake, this guy was a a freaking nut job, right? But yeah, I think maybe more normal people, people towards the middle of the normal spectrum, might get themselves into a place where they're, you know, they might have stalkery behavior a little bit, right? They may not know though. I wonder if a stalker knows they're being stalkery. Like, do they need a checklist? They have that for drinkers, right? Do you drink more than twice a week? Yes. Do you enjoy drinking? Yes. Do you drink alone?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes. You know, so you answering for yourself here, or what?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, to that question, do you want to drink alone, you might say, oh, sometimes, or on occasion. Like, surely that is understood in the question. It's not like you're drinking every single time you're alone.
DAVE BITTNER. Do you find yourself zooming into photos of your favorite podcast hosts far more than—
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yes, looking in their tiny, tiny eyes, their beady little dark, soulless eyes, right, staring back at me, right?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Rude.
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GRAHAM CLULEY. And welcome back and join us on our favorite part of the show, the part of the show that we like to call Pick of the Week.
CAROLE THERIAULT. For the 150th time, Pick of the Week.
DAVE BITTNER. Pick of the Week.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Pick of the Week is the part of the show where everyone chooses something they like. Could be a funny story, a book that they've read, a TV show, a movie, a record, a podcast, a website, or an app. Whatever they wish. Doesn't have to be security-related necessarily.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Better not be.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, my pick of the week this week is not security-related. Good. I have been a single dad this weekend. My wife is away. I've been looking after my child. And that means I thought, oh my goodness.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So normally you don't do that, right?
GRAHAM CLULEY. No, no, no. I'm just asking.
CAROLE THERIAULT. You're pointing it out.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Very 1990s. No, I'm very, I'm very, I'm very up to date with these sort of things. And, uh, So I'm very good. But I thought, you know, he may be missing his mum. And so I thought, well, what can we do to distract him? And I thought, maybe we need to splash out some money on a video game.
CAROLE THERIAULT. That's such a dad move.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Exactly. I thought this will be good for me. It'll occupy him for hours. I can get some work done.
DAVE BITTNER. How can I throw money at this problem?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. That's, yeah.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Graham doesn't normally, Graham's actually pretty tight with money, actually. He doesn't throw his money around.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Outrageous.
CAROLE THERIAULT. He's not a generous person.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Thank you very much, bro. I think you were trying to back this up.
CAROLE THERIAULT. You're fiscally frugal.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Just, yeah.
CAROLE THERIAULT. What? I'm being complimentary.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I bought a game for the Nintendo Switch called Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch.
DAVE BITTNER. Ooh.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Now, it was a bit expensive, Carole, to your point. It was astonishingly expensive.
CAROLE THERIAULT. How much was it?
GRAHAM CLULEY. It was £49.99.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, I thought most games were that price.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, really? Oh, no.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Most like big games. This is a big game.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I normally try and buy a game for about about £4. But anyway, so— See?
CAROLE THERIAULT. To my point, guys. Fiscally frugal.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Exactly. But Ni no Kuni is a Japanese game. It first came out years and years ago for PlayStation 3. It's now available for Windows, PS4, and Switch as well. And this is the thing which I thought might appeal to you. It's animated by Studio Ghibli, who—
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, I love them!
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, they are the people behind My Neighbour Totoro, and Spirited Away. It has a great orchestral soundtrack. And basically, you are this character, and it's a bit emotional actually at the beginning of the games. First half an hour. Oh, God.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Did you cry in front of your son?
GRAHAM CLULEY. I didn't cry, but he did warn me. He actually said, because he'd watched videos of the game in the past, and he said, "Dad, something bad's about to happen." So, he put a comforting hand on my knee to get me through it. Basically, the hero's mother dies. There's a tragic accident.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And nice game to get while his mum's away.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, indeed. Well, that's— I didn't know all this. I didn't know all this.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Jesus. You see, Dave, honestly.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Anyway, he goes into a parallel universe.
DAVE BITTNER. Please, please just tell me whatever's going on, your wife is not vacationing in Liverpool.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Jeez. Anyway, you gain a little gang and you go on fights and adventures, but the whole thing is like an animated cartoon. You know, not just the cutscenes. Where's the money?
CAROLE THERIAULT. It's the question we need to know.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I think it is. I mean, I think, oh, okay, it is a lot of money, but then you think, well, how much do you spend at a restaurant? And you will get, I will get so many hours of childcare in through this.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And how long does it take you to eat, right?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Exactly. It only takes 2 minutes to eat something, but it just takes— Whoa! That would explain a lot of things. Anyway, so my pick of the week is Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, and I will put a link to the trailer in the show notes so you can check it out yourself. But I thought this is quite good, quite good, right? Yeah, liked it. Dave, what's your pick of the week?
DAVE BITTNER. Well, my pick of the week is something I selected because this show, it's not just educational, it's kind of a cultural exchange, right? I mean, I come on this show and you teach me all sorts of things about about football and Liverpool.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Wags.
DAVE BITTNER. Yes, and all sorts of wags. I come away learning all sorts of interesting things. So when this YouTube video came across my algorithmically created list of YouTube videos, I said, this is the one for Smashing Security. And it's called Funny English Idioms and Why We Say Them. Gentleman named Jules who leads us around London and explains why we say certain— or why you say certain things that you do. So I thought, as an American, a Canadian, and an Englishman walk into a bar and learn about funny English idioms, perhaps you particularly, Graham, would enjoy this and perhaps be able to lend your your thoughts on this, whether Jules is on to something here or not.
GRAHAM CLULEY. So, okay, I've checked out the video and very entertaining it was too. What idioms were there in the video which we use but you hadn't heard of or were surprised by? Do you remember?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Tits up?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Let's see.
DAVE BITTNER. Well, there seemed to be a lot of emphasis on going to the bathroom.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, that is a large part of being British. Yes.
DAVE BITTNER. Spending a penny.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes. One of them. Yes.
DAVE BITTNER. You spend a penny.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, yes.
DAVE BITTNER. That sort of thing.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Dropping the kids off at the pool. That kind of thing. Pointing Percy at the porcelain. Yes. That kind of thing.
DAVE BITTNER. We also use the phrase, you could hear a pin drop, but it was fun to learn the origin of that one.
GRAHAM CLULEY. That's the interesting thing, isn't it? Is because there are these phrases which are used all around the world like that. And this video explained it. And there was another one which was where the origin of the word tip comes in, as in tipping a waiter, for instance. I never knew that. It's just, oh, that's jolly interesting. What a wonderful language this is.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Steve Fry's written a book on this as well, on idioms, I think. I can't remember what it's called.
DAVE BITTNER. Sent to Coventry. That's— I didn't know that one.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Which one? Say again?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Being sent to Coventry.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I don't even know what that means.
GRAHAM CLULEY. It's when people aren't allowed to talk to you. You send them to Coventry. Or when you— yes, you're sort of banishing them. It's like, I'm not talking to you. Send them to Coventry.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Gosh.
DAVE BITTNER. On the wagon. We do use that one here.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah. So this gentleman, Jules, has several videos with these English idioms and they're quite fun. So that is my pick of the week. There you go.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Terrific.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I'll check it out.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Lovely. Nothing better than the English language, is there? I mean, other than— obviously other languages are available. I don't ostracize.
CAROLE THERIAULT. It's like, yeah, best language ever. Do you speak all languages?
DAVE BITTNER. Right, right.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I've not tried every language. Uh, Carole, what's your pick of the week?
CAROLE THERIAULT. So my pick of the week this week is a movie, Graham, one that I got you to watch for the show.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes, you did.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So you, you can talk about it too. It's called Vice. It stars Christian Bale. Um, it came out earlier this year and I only got to see it last week, however. So this is a film about the ruthless political force that was former VP Dick Cheney and his rise to power. And Dick Cheney is played perfectly horridly by Christian Bale in this, as only Christian Bale can be. Yes, yes, as only Christian Bale can be. Yeah, exactly. It's just, he just— that kind of tense, dark energy something. So Cheney is a political beast. I mean, I always knew this, but I think this movie kind of crystallized it a little bit more, ties it together in a way that makes you kind of think, huh. And he is kind of said to have operated most comfortably in the shadows, right? And this movie certainly highlights that. So The Guardian— I went and looked back at a few reviews, and they kind of slated it. They gave it a 3 out of 5.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, really?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah. And I, I disagree. I think the flow of the documentary is curious. And okay, it's a bit jerky, but I kind of like that jerkiness. It's a bit like being in a car with a novice driver, you know. You pay extra special attention and notice things you wouldn't normally It's not really a documentary, it's sort of like a dramatized biography. It's a film, it's a drama, dramatery, docudrama.
GRAHAM CLULEY. You told me, you told me you'd seen this film and you'd quite liked it, and I thought, oh, sounds a bit dry. I thought, is this going to be a worthy sort of biography? A bit like, um, when, um, Anthony Hopkins did, did Nixon.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Like the shit I normally listen to, Noam Chomsky stuff, and that sort of dry, boring—
GRAHAM CLULEY. I don't know what you're Anyway, in fact, it was very funny and very stylishly done. I really enjoyed it, and I thought it was darn clever at points and totally kept my attention. I thought I didn't fall asleep more than, you know, I knew you wouldn't.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I knew you wouldn't. It is funny, it's quirky, and it doesn't paint a very pretty picture of Cheney as a politician. No, I felt it showed him quite well as a father. And as a husband, I thought he certainly looked— played the part of the family man as far as the—
GRAHAM CLULEY. close to the end. Yeah, he sort of blotted his copybook a little there, didn't he?
CAROLE THERIAULT. But anyway, I'd say check it out if you're into these kind of, you know, political behind-the-scenes stuff. What happened? Here's a viewpoint. Stuff I kind of love. Check out Vice. It's on Amazon Prime at the moment. And they'll put a link in the show notes.
GRAHAM CLULEY. It was very stylish. Really enjoyed it. Yeah, thank you, Carole. Good pick of the week.
DAVE BITTNER. Check it out.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, yeah, do. It's great, it's great.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Give it a thumbs up. Well, that just about wraps it up for this week. Dave, I'm sure lots of our listeners would love to follow you online or find out where you are broadcasting. They probably already do this, but what's the best way for folks to do that?
DAVE BITTNER. Uh, go to thecyberwire.com, and I am also on Twitter @Bittner, B-I-T-T-N-E-R.
GRAHAM CLULEY. So cool just having your son name as an early adopter. Yeah, I, I, I, every time I see Bitdefender, I think that's a ransomware. I should have had just Graham Cluley. Um, you can follow us on Twitter at Smashing Security, no G. Twitter wouldn't allow us to have a G. And you can also join in the conversation about the show on Reddit. Just look for the Smashing Security subreddit up there.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And once again, thanks to this week's Smashing Security sponsors: Immersive Labs, LastPass, and Code42. Their amazing support helps us give you this show for free. And thank you, lovely listeners and supporters. Check out smashing.com for past episodes, sponsorship details, and info on how to get in touch with us.
GRAHAM CLULEY. You said smashing.com rather than Smashing Security.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, I did? Check out smashingsecurity.com for past episodes, sponsorship details, and info on how to get in touch with us.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Until next time, cheerio, bye-bye. Bye.
DAVE BITTNER. So long.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Farewell.
DAVE BITTNER. Auf Wiedersehen. Goodbye. We're not going to do that again.
GRAHAM CLULEY. So I just have to write an apology to the people of Liverpool now because I feel like I've—
DAVE BITTNER. I think, yeah, they're definitely not going to give you the key to the city.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I think Liverpool has— there's some marvelous people who've come from Liverpool, right? Obviously, John Paul George and Ringo. Ken Dodd came from Liverpool. And it's a super cool city.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And you—
GRAHAM CLULEY. have you ever been there, Carole?
CAROLE THERIAULT. No, no, of course I freaking have.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Have you? I haven't. Really?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, well, why are you bitching about it?
GRAHAM CLULEY. I'm not bitching about it. I have not said anything negative about them. All I've said—
CAROLE THERIAULT. guys, just forgive him, he talks out of his ass.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, that's charming, but true. Do you get this kind of abuse on your podcast, Dave?
CAROLE THERIAULT. He wishes for it, right?
DAVE BITTNER. That's like that joke. I don't come here for this abuse. Oh, where do you usually go?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah.
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