Who's wearing the pyjamas while they take down North Korea's internet? Is it a case of cop or cosplay in Oregon? And what's to fear about the metaverse?
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/261 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.
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Links:
- Space Station Photos Show North Korea at Night, Cloaked in Darkness — National Geographic.
- North Korea Hacked Him. So He Took Down Its Internet — Wired.
- North Korean hackers attempt to hack security researchers investigating zero-day vulnerabilities — Hot for Security.
- Woman ‘Tricked’ to Believe She Was a D.E.A. Agent Trainee, Official Says — New York Times.
- Alleged DEA imposter in Portland took woman on ‘ride-alongs,’ had her flash fake badge to find informants among homeless people, complaint says — Oregon Live.
- Meta forced to add ‘personal boundaries’ to the Metaverse after woman was sexually harassed in virtual reality — The Independent.
- Horizon Worlds metaverse app could pose danger for kids, experts say — Washington Post.
- The metaverse has a groping problem already — MIT Technology Review.
- Sexual harassment in the metaverse? Woman says she was virtually raped — USA Today.
- Talking Telephone Numbers Breakdown w/ separated Transmission & Talkback audio — YouTube.
- 2013 Tony Awards Director On FIRE!!! — YouTube.
- Ghosts — BBC iPlayer.
- Chateau Snavely — A terrible Fawlty Towers remake from 1978, with Betty White.
- Amanda's By the Sea — A terrible Fawlty Towers remake from 1983, with Bea Arthur.
- Payne — A terrible Fawlty Towers remake from 1999, which doesn't star anyone from The Golden Girls.
- Couples Therapy — BBC iPlayer.
- Couples Therapy trailer — YouTube.
- 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.
GRAHAM CLULEY. They actually described that he was sat in his living room watching alien movies on TV, dressed in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. This sounds like you, Dave. Is this you, Dave?
DAVE BITTNER. Oh yeah, right, sure, right now. I mean, you're describing me to a tee. I'm, uh, yeah, except I'm not wearing pajama bottoms.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Are you munching away on corn snacks in your slippers?
DAVE BITTNER. My keyboard is covered with Dorito dust.
UNKNOWN. Yep. Smashing Security, Episode 261: North Korea Hacked, DEA Cosplay, and Horizon Worlds Drama with Carole Theriault and Graham Cluley. Hello, hello, and welcome to Smashing Security, Episode 261. My name's Graham Cluley.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And I'm Carole Theriault.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And this week, Carole, we are joined by friend of the show and podcast supremo. It's Dave Bittner from the CyberWire. Hello, Dave.
DAVE BITTNER. Hello, hello. Good to be back.
CAROLE THERIAULT. The crowd goes wild.
GRAHAM CLULEY. D-Dog is in the house.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah. First time in 2022.
DAVE BITTNER. Yes, very exciting. You guys take those nice long winter breaks. I'm jealous of your European vacation modes.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Do you have an editor and a producer at your side?
DAVE BITTNER. I do, yes, actually.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Nice.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Interesting. We don't.
DAVE BITTNER. All right, so we all have our things.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Exactly. How about we thank this week's sponsor, 1Password and Baramundi. It's their support that helps us give you this show for free. Now coming up in today's show, Graham, what do you got?
GRAHAM CLULEY. I'm gonna be explaining why Kim Jong-un isn't happy with a particular US hacker.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Okay, 'cause he loves all the other ones. Okay, Dave, what about you?
DAVE BITTNER. I have the story of a woman who was scammed into believing that she was a DEA agent.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, wow.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And I'm gonna tell you guys to don your tinfoil hats because we are entering the metaverse. All this and much more coming up on this episode of Smashing Security.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Now, chums, chums, the end of last month, something rather curious happened. Our friends in North Korea began to experience some problems regarding their connection to the outside world.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Okay.
GRAHAM CLULEY. On several different days, practically all of North Korea's websites were inaccessible, which I don't know about you, but I found really frustrating.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Didn't notice, Dave?
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah, that one slipped by me, oddly, yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. You don't have a favourite North Korean website in your bookmarks as your homepage or anything like that? You don't do that?
DAVE BITTNER. Not in the top 10, certainly, no.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Right, okay.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Graham, was it inaccessible to the people of North Korea?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Ah, no, it wasn't. No, it appears that if you were inside North Korea, you were all right and you could access them. But if you were outside, you couldn't. Of course, the outside world had no way of really knowing that because you couldn't really ask anyone inside North Korea, hey, can you get to your website or not? Because the internet was down. But you wouldn't have been able to get to, for instance, Naynara. Now, Naenara is, how can I describe it? It's basically Kim Jong-un's Tumblr page. It's where he's posting up GIFs of Steven Seagal and Slash Fiction and missives from his government. No, he's not. He is, yes. It's like a LiveJournal site. Yes, it's where they communicate with the other people in North Korea about what's going on over there. And when they looked a little bit more into what was going on with all these North Korean websites, it appears that there was a router at the heart of the country's internet infrastructure that had been paralyzed. And as a consequence, North Korea's ability to communicate digitally with the outside world was cut off.
CAROLE THERIAULT. That's gotta be really, really scary if an entire country is cut off like that.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, Let's, come on, look, it's North Korea, right? North Korea's internet is probably a little bit like the travel agent down the bottom of your street. Oh, I don't know. It's not going to be, no, but seriously.
DAVE BITTNER. Somebody hanging out a window with a Pringles can antenna, right?
GRAHAM CLULEY. It's not like, it's not like, you know, everyone has got a smartphone is accessing the internet all the time. It's not like there are hundreds of tech firms out there who have to be connected to the internet. It's Yeah, I don't know.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I don't know. But I do know that South Korea is like, you know, top dog when it comes to it. I realise, but it's their closest neighbour.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, it is. Yeah. Okay. South Korea, very sophisticated, very into the internet and all the rest of it.
DAVE BITTNER. Quite—
CAROLE THERIAULT. North Korea, not so much.
GRAHAM CLULEY. North Korea, not so much. If you look at a satellite picture, this is the thing that people do is they show you a satellite picture of the Korean peninsula at night. And you see all these lights in South Korea, because it's lit up and emblazoned. And then there's this weird gap, which is of course North Korea, because no one's got the lights on.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. I'm—
GRAHAM CLULEY. yeah. Right. Right. So if you do manage to hack North Korea and take it off the internet, it might be a little bit like, you know, taking down the local newsagents.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Are you suggesting that the world wouldn't notice because it's such a small blip in terms of traffic?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, well, I think people would notice because of course there's lots of people who are watching North Korea, right? Rather like criminology, you would have Kim Jong-unology. You want to know what's going on inside North Korea because North Korea quite often does things which draws attention to itself. For instance, last month.
DAVE BITTNER. Really?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, yes. So last month they ran a series of missile tests. Seen how far they could fling these things. The latest thing they have are hypersonic missiles that, according to the experts, are harder for targeted countries to detect and intercept in a timely fashion. So this is what Kim Jong-un is saber rattling about at the moment. He's like, now I've got some really, really quick missiles to send out. So you might think—
DAVE BITTNER. Not quite the flex he thinks it is.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And so you might think that, well, who could have been responsible for this attack on North Korea's internet? And a possible culprit might be US Cyber Command or maybe another country's state-backed hacking agency.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Or anybody anywhere?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Exactly.
DAVE BITTNER. Right.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Because as an article in Wired explains, the truth is rather stranger because they say that it wasn't state-backed hacking agency who did this. They say it was one American dude. They actually described that he was sat in his living room watching alien movies on TV, dressed in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms. This sounds like you, Dave. Is this you, Dave?
DAVE BITTNER. Oh yeah, right, sure. Right now, that's, yeah, I mean, you're describing me to a tee. I'm, yeah, except I'm not wearing pajama bottoms, but yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Are you munching away on corn snacks in your slippers? Absolutely. Absolutely.
DAVE BITTNER. I've just, my keyboard is covered with Dorito dust.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yep.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Is your online handle P4X?
DAVE BITTNER. Well, I can't reveal that.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Okay. Well, we are looking for P4X because why I'd say that, by the way, P4X is not his real name. In case you're wondering.
CAROLE THERIAULT. How did they know he wasn't wearing pants?
GRAHAM CLULEY. He was wearing pants. Oh, well, how did they know that? He was wearing pajama bottoms. We're talking about Dave. We don't know what Dave's wearing.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Okay.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Okay. No, I understand.
CAROLE THERIAULT. How do we know what he was wearing, this hacker, he or she, whatever?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, this hacker has told Wired magazine. And Wired, I'm sure, have confirmed and verified all of these facts. They probably went on a webcam with him and said, "Well, let's see your trousers.
DAVE BITTNER. You claim to be in pajama bottoms." He got up for a bathroom break and the jig was up.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah. Journalist's like, "Finally, a human angle." Now, what has P4X?
GRAHAM CLULEY. By the way, P4X, I think that's hacker speak for Pax. I think the 4 is an A, and Pax, of course, means peace, doesn't it? So I think they've tried to be a bit clever there with the leet speak. But P4X, P4X.
CAROLE THERIAULT. You're like Columbo when it comes to that stuff.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I am. Exactly. So, old school. Now. Why has P4X done this? Well, if you think back to January 2021, it was widely reported that North Korea had targeted cybersecurity researchers in the rest of the world. What North Korean spies had done is they reached out to experts in the community via email, Twitter, they created LinkedIn profiles, they posed— Yeah, they posed— as security researchers and they said, "Hey, hey, hey, we're doing a bit of investigation into a zero-day vulnerability. Can we work with you? Can we join forces to do this?" And so you might have got crawled. You know, maybe you did. Maybe you got a message from James Willy.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know.
GRAHAM CLULEY. James Willy was one of these LinkedIn profiles and he reached out to people saying, "No, let's work on this zero-day vulnerability." And if you weren't careful, you would not notice that the proof of concept code that Willy shared with you to test a vulnerability actually contained a backdoor that would install itself onto your computer and allow North Korean-backed hackers to see what else you were working on and what else you might discover in the future. 'Cause if you are working on vulnerabilities normally, if that's your thing, if you're a bug hunter, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really valuable information to the spies in North Korea? They would love to get their paws on those and maybe exploit the zero days you found against other nations.
CAROLE THERIAULT. My knowledge of this is that this, I mean, it doesn't happen for North Korea all the time, but there's a lot of people that shouldn't have their mitts on this kind of source code and not collaborate, that try to collaborate often with bona fide researchers. So it's a constant vetting process of, yes, we're able to share this information with these people.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah. So P4X says he was one of the researchers who was targeted in this way. There he was, sat in his pajamas, eating his corn snacks and presumably recording a new episode of the Cyber Wire. And although—
DAVE BITTNER. Oh, don't get me started, Graham. Don't get me started. Shots fired. Don't make me do another cooking segment. I'll do it. I'll do it.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And although he claims he didn't fall for the attack, he was really frustrated. He was like, "Ooh, ooh." And you know what he was frustrated about? He was annoyed that the US powers that be hadn't done more in reaction to the North Korean attack. He thought they should have done more publicly or privately in response to this attack against security researchers. And so he took it upon himself to take out North Korea's internet.
DAVE BITTNER. Little international vigilante justice.
CAROLE THERIAULT. The scary thing is, is that he actually succeeded.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, scary for North Korea. He said it was quite an elementary penetration test. He's like the sort you do against the small or medium-sized firm. So like I was saying, it's not necessarily the most sophisticated. He says he found numerous known but unpatched vulnerabilities. In North Korean computer systems. And that's why he's able to launch this denial of service attack and mess around.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Can I have a conspiracy theory?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Mm-hmm.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So, I imagine the CIA now are super pissed off because of course they've known about all these vulnerabilities and have been secretly snarfling information from them just to keep everything calm and cool and keep an eye on everything. And now he's sounded the alarm bell, so North Korea's gonna lock down everything and they won't have any visibility.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, I think that actually is a really valid viewpoint. I think that is quite possible. You still sound surprised.
DAVE BITTNER. It's plausible.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I am quite surprised. Well done, Carole. Oh my God. No, I do think that's a genuine problem. And that is a problem generally with vigilantism on the internet, isn't it? Is that if loads of people go wading in who normally shouldn't be, they might damage existing operations which have been put in place to investigate criminal groups or to gather information on terrorists or on rogue nations. And evidence could be destroyed as a result, or indeed investigations impeded. So I think you're absolutely right. Now he says he hasn't published details of the vulnerabilities, but I think you're right. He has basically waved a flag to the North Koreans going, "Yoohoo, Kim Jong-un!" 'Woohoo, maybe you want to patch a little bit better,' which, you know, is a bit of a nuisance really, isn't it?
CAROLE THERIAULT. I might recommend that he not travel to North Korea anytime soon.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, I think—
CAROLE THERIAULT. It's not a hotspot destination, okay?
DAVE BITTNER. Good, good, good, Carole. Good tip. Good travel tip, Carole. Great. Make sure his travel agent will take note of that. That's good. It's a destination. Yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I think people aren't traveling much anyway.
DAVE BITTNER. Honey, honey, what do you think? Is it Disney World this year or North Korea? The travel agent needs an answer.
GRAHAM CLULEY. So this chap, this chap, he says he wants to recruit more people to the cause. Right. And cause trouble for North Korea. So he's launched a site on the darkweb called Funk.
DAVE BITTNER. Oh.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And the FUNK project, F-U-N-K, stands for F.U. North Korea.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Maybe I'm just too risk-averse. I mean, do we know how old this guy is? No, we don't know anything about him other than he wants to jam.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, you're risk-averse. You're saying don't go to North Korea. I would actually argue that maybe someone could be paid by North Korea to come to you, Carole, if they knew who you were. They're not gonna wait for you to show up at the airport.
CAROLE THERIAULT. They don't need to come meet me, okay?
GRAHAM CLULEY. No.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Unless they just wanna be nice and friendly and share recipes.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And Dave has said he's not P4X, so not saying anything.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So we're none the wiser. Sorry, listeners.
GRAHAM CLULEY. We love North Korea. Can we just stress that at this point? In fact, we're sponsored this week by North Korea.
DAVE BITTNER. By the North Korean Tourism Board. Come for the peaceful nights where you can get lots of sleep because there are no lights.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Dave, what have you got for us this week?
DAVE BITTNER. So my story this week is actually a social engineering story. Sergeant Matthew Jacobson, he is an officer with the Portland, Oregon Police Bureau, and he was out and about in the course of his day as a professional police officer, and he saw a man and a woman. They were standing near a silver Dodge Charger, and he noticed that this Charger had red and blue lights like a police car does, like an undercover police car would have. And the trunk was open, and inside the trunk he saw a tactical vest that had a patch on it that said DEA Police. So Sergeant Jacobson says, "Ah, these are my people." He goes over and introduces himself. Butt bumps.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah, exactly. Butt bumps.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, you know.
DAVE BITTNER. Boing. Yeah, they exchange a doughnut or two.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I don't think that's reached my part of Oxford.
DAVE BITTNER. So he asks them if they are indeed federal agents with the DEA. And the man, this is a man and a woman, the man whose name is Robert Golden, said that they were indeed feds. Well, something didn't sit quite right with Sergeant Jacobson. So he reached out to the DEA, and they verified that there was no one named Robert Golden who was a DEA agent.
CAROLE THERIAULT. It's because he didn't do the right butt bump, right? He just said, "We're feds," and the other guy was like, "That's not how we do it, actually, guy." Right.
DAVE BITTNER. Instead of a secret handshake, it's a cheek brushing. So, turns out that this gentleman, Mr. Golden, was an imposter. He had been pretending to be a DEA agent, and he had all kinds of stuff in the car here. They found handcuffs, badges, holsters. I love this part. They found an AR-15 style rifle.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Crikey.
DAVE BITTNER. Because America. But it turned out that it wasn't actually an AR-15. It was a BB gun.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, I thought you were gonna say water pistol.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah, so it was gonna be Nerf gun or something, right?
DAVE BITTNER. Okay. Right. So, he told the authorities, once the jig was up, he told the authorities that he had purchased all of this stuff on eBay and Amazon, because you can buy DEA patches and things like that. But he claimed that he and his female companion were into cosplay. Cosplaying as federal agents.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Jesus.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I actually believe it. I believe it.
GRAHAM CLULEY. That is plausible. Well, yeah, of course. You know, it's a little bit of fun, isn't it?
DAVE BITTNER. He told the investigators that he used the red and blue lights on his car simply to get through traffic faster. And that— as you do, right? I mean, who wouldn't do that? And also—
CAROLE THERIAULT. It's not my fault they get out of my way and think I'm in an emergency. It's not my fault.
DAVE BITTNER. No, no.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah.
DAVE BITTNER. And also, he wanted his neighbors to think that he was a DEA agent so that they would leave him alone, so that he'd be safer So they would think that he was this. Now, here's where it really gets interesting because—
GRAHAM CLULEY. What? Yeah, because it's been totally dull so far, Dave. Yeah.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah, I told you that to tell you this. So the woman who was with him, who is not named here because evidently she is a victim, she believed that he was a DEA agent.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, so he suckered her.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah, she had been going to school studying law enforcement. And he had taken her under his wing and claimed to be training her to be an agent. She went out on ride-alongs.
CAROLE THERIAULT. In his fake cop car.
DAVE BITTNER. In his fake cop car. They went and evidently they talked to, allegedly, they talked to homeless people who he said were informants.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, I thought you were going to say the homeless people were in cosplay as well. They were just cosplay homeless people.
DAVE BITTNER. No. Well, by all accounts.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Hundreds of people around the city were in on it.
DAVE BITTNER. And she was hook, line, and sinker, went along with this.
GRAHAM CLULEY. How long was she going along with this for? How long was she duped?
DAVE BITTNER. Over a year.
GRAHAM CLULEY. A year? Yep.
CAROLE THERIAULT. You know what? I can see that. I can see that. She liked him, she believed his job, and why would he lie about that? And why would he have so much stuff if he was lying? Because it makes him a psycho. What? What?
GRAHAM CLULEY. So what was he gaining from this? What was he— what was—
DAVE BITTNER. well, you're moving too quick.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Think of all the fake phone calls he was faking in front of her. Gotta go, Mike needs me.
DAVE BITTNER. You know, well, and they talk about that in, in the article here. They say that he, he would talk about his DEA colleagues like Anderson and Luis, and there was no Anderson, there was no Luis.
CAROLE THERIAULT. You wouldn't believe Luis today had another 14 sandwiches. I keep telling him to go on a diet.
DAVE BITTNER. Right.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, gosh.
DAVE BITTNER. So no charges have been placed against her. He's rung up on charges of impersonating a federal officer. And as many questions as I have about her being strung along for a year, I really want to be careful not to blame the victim here. Yeah, I agree.
GRAHAM CLULEY. But?
DAVE BITTNER. Well, so the question I have is, how did this begin? How did he lead her into this? It doesn't seem to be any romance angle to this, which, you know, is— I was thinking about the scene from the movie True Lies where the guy pretends to be a secret agent to attract the woman. So there's that. I thought maybe this had that angle, but none of the reporting seems to indicate that. It seems she was just— sincerely thought she was on a career path to being a DEA agent, and this guy strung her along. And I suppose was just sort of getting off on the power of it all, the feeling like an important person who hadn't done the work.
GRAHAM CLULEY. You know what? I think maybe— I think it's a bit wrong that they're actually charging the guy. Here's what I think actually happened. I think, and this is completely plausible.
DAVE BITTNER. I'm listening.
GRAHAM CLULEY. We've all had awkward conversations, right? Where there's been a breakdown in communication, one person has made an assumption, and after a while, through sheer politeness, you can't correct them anymore. So for instance, someone in a conversation with me, if I was at a party or something, they might get the impression that I was a ballet dancer or a lion tamer. And after, you know, there's a bit of confusion for a while. And after a while, it's almost too embarrassing to correct them and say, actually, no, I'm a podcaster instead, right? Similarly—
CAROLE THERIAULT. Are you walking around though with a lion taming outfit everywhere? With your fists? And lions behind you?
DAVE BITTNER. He's just cosplaying. I mean, as you do.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Exactly. I've got a wooden chair in my hand. Exactly.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Wearing a leather vest.
GRAHAM CLULEY. A whip. No, I'm just thinking that maybe, maybe she came to him and sort of said, "Oh, I wish I bumped into a DEA guy. You know, he could take me for rides along." What do you know? And he just out of a bit of fun, just out of a bit of cosplay said, Why don't we just pretend that I am for a bit? And she didn't quite hear that bit of the conversation. And his roleplay began. And before you know it, you're both out there doing it. I mean, you're both innocent. You're both guilty. I just— it's not like he's done anything wrong. It's just a bit of fun, isn't it? Okay.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So, wow.
DAVE BITTNER. I don't know. I don't—
CAROLE THERIAULT. impersonating a police officer is—
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah, and packing heat, I think, is a good start.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Even in BB gun form.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Right.
CAROLE THERIAULT. BB gun form.
GRAHAM CLULEY. But all he's doing is going out and chatting to the homeless and talking about Anderson and Lewis occasionally. You know, I just, it feels like she's kind of got permission. Do you wanna be his mate? Hmm?
CAROLE THERIAULT. You sound interested. Do you wanna be his mate? We could probably hook him up.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I'm just thinking if there's a vacancy in his car now, maybe I could go for the ride-along. Right on.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, you're happy to play the game.
DAVE BITTNER. Perfect buddy cop movie right here.
GRAHAM CLULEY. If it gets through the traffic quicker, turn the lights on.
DAVE BITTNER. So the magistrate judge, interestingly, has released Mr. Golden.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Thank you.
DAVE BITTNER. He has a number of conditions imposed on him. He has to maintain a full-time job. He has to limit his travel to Oregon and participate in counseling and a mental health evaluation.
CAROLE THERIAULT. He has to have a full-time job.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah. That's not with the DEA.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah, yeah. Right. Carole. What have you got for us this week?
CAROLE THERIAULT. We enter the land of Mark Zuckerberg, known as the Metaverse.
DAVE BITTNER. Oh, goodies.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So the simulated digital environment is a place where people can meet, play games, flirt. I don't know, do whatever. I'm not really clear. I haven't been in. And in December, Meta, the umbrella company formerly known as Facebook— people are going to have tattoos. Remember when Prince changed his name? RIP Prince. But he changed his name to a symbol. Yeah, that's gonna happen here. I'm seeing it. So they opened up access to their virtual reality social media platform for 18+, right? Called Horizon Worlds. And in this world, up to like 20 avatars can get together at a time and explore, hang out, build stuff within the virtual space. Again, I have no idea what they do in there.
GRAHAM CLULEY. It's all over my— Dave, you're the young one amongst us. Is this all resonating with you?
DAVE BITTNER. I have kids and the oldest of my two kids does have an Oculus, which I have tried out. So I have experienced a little bit of this. I haven't done this sort of free metaverse kind of thing, but I've done some of the virtual things.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And have you gone into like the digital avatar of a DEA agent, for instance? Have you sort of— is it like cosplay?
DAVE BITTNER. I have done the lion tamer. One, and I have to say it's a lot of fun. No, actually, the most interesting one I did was one where you could sit on stage next to Elton John while he was doing a concert. Just sit next to his piano and look around, and you look into the wings and there's the tech people, and you look out in the audience, and it's really something.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Wow.
CAROLE THERIAULT. See, this is not what this story is about, sadly, because things don't seem to be warm and fuzzy according to MIT's Technology Review. So this all started with during a testing for Horizon World, a beta tester reported that she'd been groped by a stranger.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I'm a bit confused. So this is groped in the metaverse? So you're digitally groped, but not digitally as in fingers, but it's sort of, right. So do you feel that? Or are you just told on the screen someone has just patted your bottom?
DAVE BITTNER. I imagine you'd see someone come up to you in this virtual world and you'd see their little hands slapping against parts of your body that you didn't want them slapping, I would imagine.
GRAHAM CLULEY. So you could have spanked Elton's piano, for instance, or something like that, or played some bum notes.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, started playing and get him really upset.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yes. Right.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Right.
DAVE BITTNER. Yes. Yes.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Mm-hmm.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So after this incident, The Verge reported that she said on Facebook, sexual harassment is no joke on the regular internet, but being in VR adds another layer that makes the event more intense. Not only was I groped last night, but there are other people there who supported this behavior. So she's not happy. Meta's internal review of this digital groping incident found that the beta tester should have used a tool called Safe Zone. That's part of the suite of safety features built into Horizon Worlds, they say.
DAVE BITTNER. So it's her fault.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, that's what I hear too. It says safe zone— safe zone is a protective bubble that users can activate when feeling threatened. Like, you know, within it, no one can touch them, talk to them, or interact with them in any way until they signal that they would like the safe zone lifted. The thing is— okay, so keep that in your pocket. The thing is, obviously, this woman is not the solo victim to reported problems. Other women complained of abusive harassment on the platform, one being Nina Jain Patel, a psychotherapist who conducts research on the metaverse. She wrote a post on Medium late last December saying, talking about the surreal nightmare of being gang raped in Horizon Venues.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh my goodness.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And she said it happened so fast and was so shocking that she didn't have time to switch on any of the safety features. Like she froze. Now, 3 days ago, okay, months after, uh, the first instances were reported, the Independents say that Meta has been forced to add a 4-foot-wide personal boundary that's on by default in order to stop avatars coming in close contact with each other.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Okay.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And my, my thought was like, why wouldn't you do that at beta launch?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Right.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Like, why wouldn't you just have like, everyone has like a 5-foot, you know, radius around them so you can interact and chat, but you know, we're going to keep it, we're going to go in slow.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Especially during a global pandemic, it should really be a couple of meters, shouldn't it?
DAVE BITTNER. Well, you just need permission to touch each other. Just same thing. Is it okay if I hug you? No. All right. I mean, just like in real life.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I mean, there's a lot of people that maintain that porn built the internet, right? That without porn, we wouldn't have developed so many technologies. I just wonder if they're trying to say, you know, like, leave leave that door a little bit ajar saying it's 18+, you know, let's just try and let people figure out what they can do with this. It'll be fun.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, there's a big difference between a bit of flirtation and kinkiness, isn't there? And unwanted attention and assault. I tend to agree with you. I think if anything is going to make the metaverse popular, it probably is going to be something a bit saucy. But this isn't saucy. This is just violence and aggression, isn't it?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Exactly.
DAVE BITTNER. Right. It's assault.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah.
DAVE BITTNER. I mean, mutually consenting adults is one thing, but if, if you go to visit this place to just check it out and you get dogpiled by a bunch of people, how is that?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah, totally.
GRAHAM CLULEY. But yeah, but I think you make a very good point, which is how come Facebook— I refuse to call them Meta, stupid name— how come the company formerly known as Facebook didn't predict that their systems would be abused in this way.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I know, and I wonder why anyone's even worried because, you know, our metaverse overlord, he's rarely, if ever, been in hot water for mishandling data or PII or looking the other way when people screamed about disinformation or propaganda or targeting vulnerable users with inappropriate ads. I mean, right? I trust the Zuckster.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Conspiracy theory, conspiracy theory. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, conspiracy theory. So what if the metaverse is just such an obviously diabolically dumb idea anyway. Who on earth would possibly want to log into it? That they think, oh, well, the way to get us lots and lots of coverage is to allow, you know, no holds barred messing around and naughtiness up there and aggression and all the rest of it, because then we get loads of column inches and maybe more people will check us out. End of conspiracy theory. Ding, ding, ding, ding. End of conspiracy theory.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Okay, well, can I just take this one step further? Right?
GRAHAM CLULEY. Right.
CAROLE THERIAULT. So There's a lot of talk about people going on Horizon Worlds and interacting with what seems to be definitely children. Young children, as young as, like one of them said, as young as 9.
GRAHAM CLULEY. What?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yes. So one 56-year-old user of Oramus says, every session I've seen kids who sound very young. A lot of them are being rude, waving their hands in people's faces and jumping around. So they're just being dicks, basically.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah, kids.
DAVE BITTNER. Right, right, right.
CAROLE THERIAULT. But the problem with all this is the key difference that Horizon Worlds is it's labeled as adults only. So as a result, Meta can forego parental controls and guardrails that they normally use for younger users, like disabling chat functions that Minecraft or Roblox have implemented. Instead, it focuses on empowering adults to control their own experience by muting, blocking, and reporting bad actors. But the thing is, is once the headset is tied to an adult's Facebook account, anyone who puts on the headset gets access to all the apps and the experiences regardless of their age rating, because it's free to download and there's no additional age verification. And one last problem, this is all according to Washington Post, great article, all in the show notes, is the tech, right? How many parents are familiar with Horizon Worlds or VR headsets? And unlike phones, computers, or gaming consoles, VR headsets have no external display so parents can see what their kids are up to. And there's no record of their kids' interactions on them. So effectively, they're not enforcing an age limit, they're declaring one. And our friend Zuckster is turning the other cheek, a bit like a digital Jesus.
DAVE BITTNER. Isn't it the same as access to porn in that I don't think kids who are under 18 have any real meaningful challenge to seeing the things they want to see online, even though technically, you know, they're supposed to click through and say, yes, I'm 18, and in they go.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I think that actually just yesterday I was reading that I think it's in the UK, all porn sites now have to do age verification before accessing any of the content. So basically ID, and there's like a whole issue on that one, right? But Interesting.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Carole, I don't know anything about the metaverse, but I've learned a lot from this session. And it feels to me like the biggest incentive for getting on the metaverse would actually to be to do the kind of thing that these kids are doing. They're going on and they're acting like dicks, right? Waving your hand. I mean, that is the only fun you can probably have on the metaverse. But what happens is older middle-aged people are the ones who shell out all the money for these headsets, like Dave, who there he was enjoying himself, just tickling Elton John's ivories. And after he's got over that thrill, it's then his children who think, "Oh yeah, I want to try that on because then I can dick around and waste some time and just be rude with my mates." If only the DEA imposter from Portland had discovered the metaverse, he could have been playing there and everything had been legal, legal.
DAVE BITTNER. Yes.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh goodness, you're right.
CAROLE THERIAULT. It sounds so fun. Can't wait. Can't wait for the metaverse. So great.
DAVE BITTNER. Good times.
GRAHAM CLULEY. It's almost like we script the show.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Good times.
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GRAHAM CLULEY. And welcome back. Can you join us at our favorite part of the show? The part of the show that we like to call Pick of the Week.
CAROLE THERIAULT. 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 you wish. It 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.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Excellent.
GRAHAM CLULEY. It is a YouTube video. It is a video of a TV program which was broadcast in 1995. Called Talking Telephone Numbers with two stars of British TV, Phillip Schofield and Emma Forbes.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And what was the show?
GRAHAM CLULEY. It's called Talking Telephone Numbers. It's like a— you ring in, you answer questions, you can win a prize. Yeah, you can win thousands on this competition. Now, this isn't just a recording of the TV show, because what they've actually done is they've put on up on YouTube a version of the TV show, including the talkback from the gallery. So what's happening in where the director and the vision mixer and other people are?
DAVE BITTNER. Yep, in the control room.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yep, yep. In the control room during this live TV show. And if you check out the link which I'm putting in the show notes, you'll see a link to YouTube. And what I'm asking people to do is just scroll forward You can watch the regular show as it went out because something bad happens during the show. But at about, I think it's about 14 minutes and 59 seconds or something, things go badly wrong and all hell breaks loose.
DAVE BITTNER. Yeah, let me tell you, this, this hit home for me. I've been in this world. I've been in the control rooms. And the person who really screwed this up is the VTOP. That's the videotape operator. I have worked professionally as a videotape operator. I have—
GRAHAM CLULEY. You have screwed up?
DAVE BITTNER. You know, I was trying to think, have I ever— I think the biggest screw-up I ever did as a VT operator was forgetting to roll record at the beginning of a show. So typically, a VT operator has two jobs. One is to record the program, and the other is to do the playback, which is what was screwed up in this case. And I think there have been times when we've been 30 seconds into the show and I said, oh crap, I didn't hit record. So that's bad, but I don't recall ever screwing up playback as badly as this person did. I've seen it happen, and the reactions in the control room really ring true. It is pandemonium. I have a little PTSD watching this, because it's— I mean, when you're live, when you're live and something bad like this happens, it's— how do you recover? It's all just out there.
GRAHAM CLULEY. So even on the live TV, just to explain to people who haven't yet seen it, even in a live TV program, there may be segments which are pre-recorded on videotape, as it was then. And so they're trying to play a segment which is about 5 minutes, including a comedian and a little skit. And for some reason it does a blub blub blub. It just instantly goes through.
DAVE BITTNER. I'll tell you what the reason is. The VT operator hit the wrong button or leaned on the machine or something. Thought a lot of times you'd have multiple machines going and you would think you're doing something on one machine and you would hit the wrong button on the wrong machine, just not thinking. And that's— Wow. And there you go.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, it really struck home to me what an incredibly difficult job it is to be the people up in that gallery who are shouting out all the cuts for the cameras, you know, go to the— At one point you get a music performance by the group, The Human League, and this woman who's sort of counting the beat and telling the cameras when to change, when to change. It's astonishing how stressful this job is.
DAVE BITTNER. Really?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Do you think it's more difficult than being an air traffic controller?
DAVE BITTNER. I'd say they're comparable.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Really?
GRAHAM CLULEY. I mean, you could probably play poker.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I would never want to be an air traffic controller. I would happily, happily be a poker player.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I would never want you to be an air traffic controller.
DAVE BITTNER. No.
GRAHAM CLULEY. That would be disastrous.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I'd be like, I'm just going for lunch.
DAVE BITTNER. There's a phenomenal video like this of a successful one of these where someone is directing the opening number of the Academy Award. I can't remember if it's the Academy Awards or the Tonys. And it is a phenomenal bit of live TV choreography in the control room itself. And yeah, it's amazing. When you're part of this, and it's going well, it is exhilarating. When it goes bad, it is just heart-wrenching.
GRAHAM CLULEY. And I also thought the actual presenters who obviously didn't hear everything that was going on in the gallery, although they were being communicated to occasionally, you know, to cover some of the problems. They're very good at looking professional and covering up all the goofs and apologizing. You actually hear them swearing at the end of this video after they're off air.
CAROLE THERIAULT. That's how I knew it was authentic. Yeah.
GRAHAM CLULEY. But anyway, I enjoyed it very much. So I've put links in the show notes and you can go and check out Philip Schofield and talking telephone numbers from 1995.
CAROLE THERIAULT. A good Pick of the Week, Greg.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Thank you. Dave, what's your Pick of the Week?
DAVE BITTNER. My Pick of the Week is a television programme. This is actually a production of the BBC and it's called Ghosts. For my friends in the US, CBS recently made their own version of this, an American version of Ghosts. I would say go with the BBC version. I'd say that pretty much, that's generally good advice no matter what.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Is it a bit like when America remade Fawlty Towers? And they also remade Sherlock Holmes. No, they didn't. Did they really? They did. No. Oh yes, go and remake it. Oh, I'll say, links in the show notes.
DAVE BITTNER. I mean, it doesn't always go bad. We remade The Office and that stood on its own.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah, that was all right. That was all right. Yeah, the American Fawlty Towers is an abomination.
DAVE BITTNER. So this show is about a young couple who inherit a mansion from a long-lost relative, and they decide that they're going to try to fix this place up and turn it into a bed and breakfast or something like that. But it turns out that this mansion is teeming with ghosts. And one of the funny things about the ghosts is that it's a variety of ghosts from all different periods of history. One of them is a Neanderthal. Up until modern day. And through a series of events, one of the two of the young couple can see the ghosts and can interact with them and the other can't. And she has to convince him that she's not crazy, that she can see the ghosts and The ghosts don't like each other generally. It's a fun, funny comedy, interesting setup. So I recommend it. It's a clever show. It's on the BBC. Here in the US, it's on HBO Max, and it's called Ghosts. And that is my pick of the week.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, I've watched quite a few episodes, maybe 3 or 4. Yeah. And I think it's great. I can't remember the name of the main actress in it. It drives me nuts because she's like a famous comedy actress and I can't remember her name at all. But she's fantastic. It's a cute, cute little show. And it's something you could watch with kids, I imagine. I mean, I didn't see anything in it that seemed outrageous, but I haven't watched it all.
DAVE BITTNER. [Speaker:JEFFREY R. EPSTEIN] I think so. I think one of the ghosts is a politician who got— his demise came from a sex scandal, but it's nothing explicit.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Anyway, worth checking out, Graham, especially you might enjoy it.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, okay. Yeah, no, I've never heard of it. Carole, what's your pick of the week?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, interestingly enough, mine is also something that's currently airing on the BBC on iPlayer. It's a Showtime docuseries production called Couples Therapy. Have any of you guys watched it or heard of it?
GRAHAM CLULEY. I've heard of it. I haven't seen it.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Oh, well, obviously the show is right up my street. I mean, A, sticky pickles. I mean, I have my own fictional dilemmas every week. And the structure is part like fly-on-the-wall documentary. So there's like a therapist with a couple and they're going through their dramas. And you're kind of like, you know, sitting in the background eating popcorn, watching all of this. But there's also a kind of the constructed premise of a typical reality show. So you're kind of following couples through the whole series.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Because this is real people with real relationships who've chosen to go on a TV show to talk about, right? Okay.
CAROLE THERIAULT. But it's not— see, it's beyond that. So there's that, but then there's also like these scenes where they're in their house kind of just acting, you know, doing their stuff. And there's obviously a cameraman in there or camera person in there with a screen. So I'm kind of like, are they acting? Are they not acting? But the dilemmas seem very very real, and the couple's relationships feel real. So, but I'm totally easily duped by this kind of stuff. So, you know, listeners, you tell me. Um, but you're following several couples, and they're stuck in whatever yucky relationship situation they're facing. And over many weeks with this therapist, you learn about all kinds of personal stuff with them, but you also see how the therapist nudges them into different ways of thinking effectively to get them unstuck. Like any good story, there's something that hooked me here completely. At actually 2 minutes and 33, I stopped it and then texted a bunch of girlfriends saying, "Oh my God, I'm hooked. I'm hooked already." And it's because of this one character called Mao. And I just couldn't believe that a man like that existed, but he does hold his character the whole way through this series.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Mao as in Mao Zedong? As in Chairman Mao? Is that true?
CAROLE THERIAULT. As in M-A-U. So I sent you guys a clip, which he's in. So I'll put that in the show notes as well. So no one can— you can dip your toe. What did you think of that character?
DAVE BITTNER. Graham, you first.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Well, I thought he was entirely reasonable with his requests for sex 3 times a day.
DAVE BITTNER. Seemed like a nice guy.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Every single day.
DAVE BITTNER. I mean, who among us hasn't been in a relationship hasn't shared that frustration, right?
GRAHAM CLULEY. I thought he was a very understanding, empathetic individual. And very—
CAROLE THERIAULT. Do you know the clip that plays at 2 minutes 33 in is actually worse than the clip that's on YouTube as the trailer.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Oh, right.
CAROLE THERIAULT. It literally is just like, oh my God. But I think it's a kind of twisted logic. If you watch this stuff, and you either go, oh my God, thank God I'm not in that situation. Oh, we're not so bad, honey. And you have a little kiss. Yeah, I mean, everything's great. Right? Or you're in a really horrific situation and you're watching this and go, Jesus, peas and pickles, I need therapy pronto.
GRAHAM CLULEY. So you think, oh, I wish I was dating Mal instead of my current partner. You think, oh my God, he's better than you.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, if he keeps going the way he is, I'm sure he'll be free very soon.
DAVE BITTNER. So what is this? What is Mal's specific problem with his wife here, Carole Theriault?
CAROLE THERIAULT. She has a problem with him just saying, can you just stop ignoring and disrespecting me constantly and ignoring me and treating me like I'm a piece of shit? And he's like, "Look, this is the way I am.
GRAHAM CLULEY. I'm a dismissive kind of guy." And you are a piece of shit.
CAROLE THERIAULT. And I just want more sex. So, you know, so yeah, he's fun. So Couples Therapy, BBC iPlayer, also wherever you get Showtime stuff. I'm finding it quite popcorn munchy worthy. So that's my pick of the week.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Wow. How's about that?
DAVE BITTNER. I can't do those kinds of shows. I just have too much, I don't know, too much empathy, I guess. I just can't do it. It makes me anxious.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I think that's why you should do it. You should expose yourself to become less anxious about these things.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Sorry, are you suggesting that Dave appears on the show? Is that what you're saying?
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, he can. He'd be great. I would definitely watch if Dave was on the show.
DAVE BITTNER. That's what every relationship needs is to be broadcast.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Yeah, 3 terrific picks of the week this week. Well done, everybody. And it just about wraps up the show. Dave, I'm sure lots of our listeners would love to follow you online, find out what you're up to. What's the best way for folks to do that?
DAVE BITTNER. You can find me on Twitter. It's @Bittner, B-I-T-T-N-E-R. And aside from that, just go to thecyberwire.com and everything's there.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Marvelous. And you can follow us on Twitter @SmashingSecurity, no G. Twitter @LastPass, and we also have a Smashing Security subreddit. And don't forget to ensure you never miss another episode. Follow Smashing Security in your favorite podcast app, such as Overcast, Apple Podcasts, and Google Podcasts.
CAROLE THERIAULT. A ginormous shout out to this episode's sponsors, 1Password and Baramundi, and to our wonderful Patreon community. It's thanks to them all the show is free. For episode show notes, sponsorship information, guest list, and the entire back catalog of more than 260 ish episodes, check out smashingsecurity.com.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Until next time, cheerio. Bye-bye.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Bye-bye.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Bye-bye.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Well, there you go, gentlemen.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Thanks, Dave. No bother.
DAVE BITTNER. My pleasure.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Always a pleasure.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Great stories, Dave.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Great stories.
CAROLE THERIAULT. Great, great pick of the week. Great story.
GRAHAM CLULEY. Marvelous.
CAROLE THERIAULT. I'm going to stop recording. Click.
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