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on I toting and I was also on stitching fo Hi David Stecco, Hi
David Flora. My name is David Flora. My name is Dave Stecco.
Any other questions? Do we make it clear enough? If I get one
more email addressed to Benjamin Flora, I will lose my mind. I hope
we can put an end to it. We get one at all addressed to
Benjamin, how are you guys doing? Hm? Hmm, okay, that
was too much overshared Dave. How are you doing? I'm doing good.
Well, I'm tired. I've been uh packing up and moving out, lots
of packing. I drive truckloads of my possessions to Iowa, then I drive
right back. So I'm really good at driving. Haven't crashed at all.
Good, pretty good at packing and moving, not very good at getting enough
sleep, but I'm really good at podcasting. Do you have anything to sleep
on these days? For this week? I do, But on Friday,
I am moving all of my large furniture like that will be the last real
move. Everything else will be just a bag with enough clothes for the week,
just to finish out work and stuff. I think, because I can't
live without it for a week. I think I'll keep my computer on my
desk. But the desk breaks down totally flat, and that'll be that.
It'll be that. Chicago, Yep, big f you to the second city.
You're the third rate second city. Second. So yeah, so that's
that's my story. Well, I've got a pretty sweet set up going on
over at my new home in Iowa City. You've got the luxury of planning
out your recording space, yeah, which is pretty great. Yeah, we've
had to a simple our our stuff on the on the fly, and yeah,
it's been a Frankenstein it as we go. It's been an iterative process.
That's how i'd put that. That's how that's how i'd put that.
Uh. But you're not here to hear about setting up a new no awarding
space, and you're here to hear some weird from some weird guys. Well,
guess what your wish is coming true? Unlucky no extra lucky Laura.
Yes, as I so often say, damn what they've one? Well,
Dave, this episode, we're gonna be talking about the dark web. WHOA.
All right, So you're gonna have some dark web. All right,
First, you're gonna start with some surface web. Okay, I know what
you're thinking. That's not what I came here for. We'll guess, Well,
we gotta start somewhere. We're gonna start at the surface web. Then
boom, we're gonna crack through the base and none of that. You think
you're in the dark web, you're wrong. You're in the deep web.
You haven't gotten there yet. You got to dig through a whole lot of
deep web and then boom, there's the rich chocolate. Decent of the doc
web and chocolate. It is yeah, enough to kill a dog. Yeah,
and that dog is called your sense of innocence or your belief in human
decency. Both. Lets you want to you want to just dive in.
Yeah, just let's just dip the tip and let's just get it in there.
That's better. Yeah, let us gentlemen. That was the second version
of that intro somehow, to my mind, better than the first. Well,
it was less subjectionable somehow, probably not. This is this has been
a listeners suggestion. In fact, a few folks have asked us to go
over it. So here we are get into it, digging through it.
Interesting stuff. It's something that I'm not sure that a lot of people are
aware of. Yeah, I think that they are approximately aware of. It's
something that comes up in the news sometimes. Anyone who has ever heard a
new story about like a silk road, you know that stuff will pop up.
But I think past that, I don't know. I think people know
what's out there, but everyone it's you know what, At least to my
experience in college, it's like knowing that there's drugs. In college, I
didn't know anyone who had drugs. I had no way of knowing how to
get to drugs. That's how cool I was in college. Yeah, And
to me it's like that. It's it's like, oh, I know it's
out there, but I don't know anyone who how would I how do you?
Right? Right? Yeah? I think it's It's one of those things
that people don't hear a lot about, but when they do, it's kind
of like, oh, yeah, I believe that. You know what I
mean, Okay, of course you know the Internet. It's a huge thing.
Yeah, the Internet itself in the capital I Internet, something like um
one billion individual websites now operate on it or something like that. Really,
you don't think that's true. No, it's just that's that's just sad.
That's a tragedy. I'm disappointed to hear that. I think of think of
how many pages those sides have too in GeoCities, how much black pages with
white text? Oh? Too much? One is too much. I mean.
In today's internet world, you can find just about anything to buy,
watch, or learn about. But the Internet we see and use every day
is just a part of a larger network structure, one most people, like
we said, never think about or know that they even use. Yeah,
the Internet is so much bigger than you might think, and this vastness of
size makes it relatively simple to hide data and fly under the radar. Yep.
The ease of dodging search engines and perhaps even government agencies and businesses has
also led some folks to believe the underbelly of the Internet holds a breadth of
shadowy dealings and sinister activity, a breadth, A breadth that's like a breath
and bread yet the same time delicious chance and necessary necessary for life. Drug
running, counterfeiting, human trafficking, child pornography, hitmen for higher terrorist sales,
and dogs and cats living together and even murtherer theater, oh are allegedly
rampant there. Some people even think at the very deepest part of it,
a homicidal psychopathic artificial intelligence lives and controls more of the world each day.
Whoa is? What? That is? That? What's responsible for the juggalos?
Psychopathic computer AI? What? What? That's what's his name? Krunkut
Crunt, That's that's just that's all crunt. That's all, It's just that's
it's just crunt. At the very bottom of the Internet, Well, there's
nothing but Crunt, if do you if I haven't said it before, I
feel like I have do yourself a favor. Google Crunt k r u n
T. He's the world world's best to juggalo who tries to scare you.
But guess what, He's still got some emotional and sexual stuff to work out
and it's all going to come out. It's just one of Dave's favorite videos
of all time, easily top five Internet and I don't know what could possibly
kick it out of there, puppies. So if you start looking into this
supposedly seedy sector, you'll hear terms like deep web, shadow web, mariannas
Web, and dark web BA Mariano's Web Mariano's which is really just a web
ring of Italian restaurants and coupon sources to grocery stores. Yeah, and what's
more unnerving than the bottom of the ocean floor of the Internet. We currently
have limited, if any technology to dive down and observe and record what might
be lurking down there. Are you guys getting this metaphor? Because we are
running with it, just waiting to drag us to horrors unknown to mankind.
We'll be climbing inside a digital bathist escape. I hope we don't get the
binary bends upon our surfacing from this deep underwater metaphor. It could be anything
and might be everything, or so the legends go. Yeah, we'll be
strapping ourselves into the submersible rationality and diving into the murky depths of misconceptions bapiscape
to find out just what the dark web is, if there's a difference between
that and the deep web and what is actually going on, and try to
get to the fact behind the fiction. We're not even in that category this
year, are we We're always in that category. Oh, I don't know.
I mean, I don't know full guess what I love not paying attention
to. All Right, let's let's let's get back to where some of the
stuff started. I mean, that's a good place to begin, right,
Well, you didn't have to go all the way back to the nineteen nineties
for that, which I don't. I wish I could. I was in
junior high in in nineteen ninety. It's fifteen years old. I'd already killed
two men. I was on the run. You've written this before for one
of your fantasy football I think I may have that that's story may have got
into a fantasy football post, which is which is why we're offering the blurry
photos Fantasy football League. We're terrible a football, but boy, we like
to spinny yarn man. I wonder if the nineties were as she as today's
seems. What if we were our age in the nineties that we are right
now. I wonder if and we're dialed into, like, you know,
what's going on in the world and politics and threats to humanity and in the
environment and stuff, like everything in the nineties was awesome exactly. That's what
I'm saying. You're like, no, I don't want to go back there.
That's what I'm That's why I'm like, yeah, oh I go back
there. I don't want to go back there. And I'll tell you why,
with some real with some obvious exceptions. It's an entire decade, some
obvious inceptions, with some rubious humbleptions connections. The music in the nineties was
terrible. Jesus, yep, that's the reason to stay here. I have
more reasons. Oh okay, uh food, what po bad? Uh?
Could you with the knowledge you have now go back to the nineties and enjoy
video games with the exception of the Nintendo sixty four, which is ever green
and perfect. Super Nintendo was great. I loved Super Nintendo. I don't
know. I'll say this, I wouldn't want to go back. You can
stay here and burn God. But oh man, so does that mean that
you'd like buy shares in Yahoo, sell them, buy them again, sell
them again, or use your Yahoo shares to buy Google shares or just hang
out? What We'll just buy Google? At that point, it wasn't that
huge, Well couldn't you. I think you would have to because Google didn't
go public until it was already like Google with a capital G. So you'd
have to like hang out with those guys. I guess if I went back
to the nineties, I'd become a computer nerd, Like I'd have to dogie
howser it and then and then just like hang out near those guys so that
they had to hire me to work at their gurgle. That's that's our episode
though. Yeah, what would we do? Jesus, what a dumb would
we do in this decade? What a bunch of tragic speculation? And I
know I because you guys are way more clever than we are in the in
the moment, like the emails, I'm gonna get like, really, that's
the best you could come up with, you two birds in the moment.
Yes, that's the best we could come up with. Well, when you
finish your time machine, I'll sit down and really think about it and we'll
have a better plan. I just I don't I don't know. The thing
that I get hung up on is what I enjoy it as much as I
did when you know, when I was younger, because I definitely did not
give a shit about politics or the world or however thing was tied together.
I'd probably go to a ton of rukassault concerts, okay and Tiger Trap,
say, some of the music was pretty good. But what was going on
back in the nineties is that the US intelligence operations we're looking for a way
to hide all of the president's blowjays, blows like you, I know you
committed in an uncommitted all at once. The key is to thread the needle
and only disguise the least offensive words. That's what's hard about it. I
think I think I would have opted for b jobs. I like blow Jay's
all right, sounds like I get it all right. No, they were
looking for a way to protect online communications since online activities can and probably are
tracked and recorded and therefore traceable. Yeah, I mean back when al Gore
was busy in the in his blacksmith shop hammering out with hot iron and tongs
and a hammer. The architecture of the Internet, like anonymity or privacy just
didn't enter into the picture whatsoever. No one gave a f They were like,
I don't know, just make it work. It's just for you know,
universities or military bases to talk to each other. Who why would that
have to be private? Slide whistle sound. Now. The problem that this
created that they figured out pretty quickly, since they had built a network architecture
that had little to no ability to provide privacy. There were things, you
know, the sender and receiver of data could be traced and you could figure
out who said what and to whom. Well, it's the United States freaking
government. They instantly were like, uh, what if we want to use
this to not let anybody know where that's happening? We want to spy on
people. The problem being well, we just built the inner and it's built
and it's out there now and it's done. So how do you solve this
problem. The only way the government could, We'll build another NetWorld to take
end. So the Naval Research Laboratory developed a system which quote allowed for bidirectional
communications over the Internet where the source and destination cannot be determined buy a midpoint.
Uh yeah. So this this new system, they built what it's called
an overlay network. It sits upon the existing architecture, but it is it
is instead of things going from A to C, you can send things from
A to B, B to C. Now now you've disguised you've altered that
midpoint. We were just talking about the midpoint that everybody can see. Yeah,
you've you've that midpoint. You've moved it out of the the the Internet
that everyone knows and moved it into this overlay network. Yeah, the SAVAN
Delay network. With a little boost from DARPA. Nineteen ninety seven, they
set up what was known as the Onion Routing Project, which will will explain
in detail in just a bit. This is also shortened to t O R
which everybody just says tour yep. And they launched that in September of two
thousand and two, and I think I think, yeah, I think everyone
with that passing knowledge of how this works, knows that that tour is involved.
There is a tour here, tour in thore. I didn't Yeah,
I didn't know a thing about Tour until I did this research. I knew
that to get to access the dark Web you had to have a tour client
because it was the only way to mask your access. And yeah, I
knew that. And literally that is where that sidewalk ends. Obviously, as
a government created network for anonymity that only the government had access to, the
anonymity soon became moot as people could tell when connections came from that network,
so they decided to open it up to everyone to create true anonymity. So
what would happen is if they've got this this built over, this overlay network
that they're using to anonymously access regular websites and things like that, well those
websites still see the requests for data even if they don't know where they came
from, even if it's anonymous. So suddenly they're getting all these requests for
data that are coming from these anonymous sources. And if the United States government
is the only people who has access to this, well then then they know
exactly who the hell's doing it? Do you just want a free look from
the fbhid? Right, So it's that there's health No one knows. It's
totally anonymous. But I'm the only one who knows how to make their signal
anonymous. But who knows, you know. And so to fix this,
they had to to hide their shark in the water. They had to fill
the tank with other sharks, they had to bring all they had to make
it public. They had to allow the public access to this, to fill
the channel with functionally background noise, to have all these tons and tons of
requests so you don't know which one was from an entity seeking information. One
was just from seventeen year old in Boise. Yeah, the great town.
But yeah, a great town for Laura. A great town but with good,
good people that deserve fun podcast entertainment, all right. Tour is probably
the best known overlay network routing network out there. But there are a bunch
like a bunch. Yeah, So let's get familiar with the terms that you're
going to hear in this realm, such as deep web, dark web,
dark net, meat meat web, meet wad, and frylock. There is
a difference between deep and dark web. Yes, although people commonly use one
for the other. Those people are idiots. They're wrong dummies. You'll find
tons of infographics showing it all as an iceberg. I don't know if you
you saw that, but did. There's just picture after picture of It's like,
this is the layer that you can see, this is the layer under
the surface. This is the part that sinks ships. Yeah, this is
the part that's made up entirely of loose lips. And this is where the
heart of the sea lie. Oh yeah, that's stupid old lady chucked it
over the side. Stupid old lady. I hope that she enjoys her active
emotional closure when she can't afford her house payments when she gets back to land
because she didn't know she's going to die. Then spoilers that old bitch dies
and they cut medicare, probably because Bill Paxson saw her chuck that amulet and
was like, I'm gonna make it look like an accident, you greasy old
bag. I wish James Cameron had called me for advice about them. It
turns out that the ship captain it's still Bill Paxson's character from Weird Sciences.
He's Chet the Apple God I'm gonna let us get through this episode. Let's
start with Tour. Yeah, we just talked about it again, the onion
router, Davos, the overlay network. WHOA, No. But more specifically,
it's encryption in the application layer of a communication protocol stack, nested like
the layers of an onion. WHOA, why don't you back that truck up
and run over this raccoon one more time? Really, because I don't think
running over it's going to do any anything. Tour encrypts the data, including
the destination IP address, multiple times, and sends it through a virtual circuit
comprising successive randomly selected Tour relays. Each relay decrypts a layer of encryption to
reveal only the next relay in the circuit in order to pass the remaining encrypted
data onto it. The final relay decrypts the innermost layer of encryption and sends
the original data to its destination without revealing or even knowing the source IP address.
Wow, so we'll give you a minute to uncross your eyes. Right.
So that's that's that's a brilliant solution of the problem. So at each
juncture, the data data being carried is never revealed, only the next location
where the data is being routed, and it is only in that last So
if you wanted to trace data from one of these tour connections, you could
only trace it to the previous node where it was decrypted and revealed before being
sent. So you're really only going to get one, you know. I
don't know how many times it goes through this process, probably hundreds, but
you're you're certainly never going to get back to the source of it. Yeah,
which is pretty brilliant. I like to think of it as a house
probably made of pumpkins. I mean, you know, but it's got like
six doors on the outside to get in, so it randomly chooses one of
those doors to walk inside. And then there's a room with six doors on
it, and it randomly chooses one of those doors to go in, and
then there's another room with six doors on So it's like but it never says,
oh, I came in from door number two on that room, and
I came in from door number five on the outside. You only know work.
You only see it, like open the door and come in. I
would say that it's like a Tutsie pop where the Tutsi roll center is the
data and it just keeps handing that pop to people and they just lick a
little bit off, and then once they lick it, they know who to
give it to now, and each person licks it and then knows who to
give it to, And finally the last person gets just to taste to titsy
and knows that the next person to give it to is who's supposed to go
to. And that person says thanks for doing all the hard work and just
nibbles that sweet chewy chocolatey thanner canny chat dot org, everybody Facebook page.
Yeah, so that's what tour is. Yep. And let's talk about the
dark net and clear net. Let's just talk about this. I do love
it because it's this isn't This is firmly in the realm of the nerds in
computer times that things have dramatic knemes, overly dramatic names. Dark net.
Yeah, you couldn't just call it the alt net. You couldn't call it
the the other net. No, this has this is the dark net,
neck beer, and it's not the light net. It's the clear net right
too. Yeah, but it's because you can see everything tours how you get
into a dark net. Yeah, it's it's the access point and it's it
doesn't like you said before, it doesn't have to be. It's much the
same way you have. You kind of have your choice of of of search
h thank you, much like you have the choice of search engines now you
you could use Google or Dahoo or as jeeves. There are multiple clients that
do this exact same thing. I would say tours by far the most popular.
Sure, it's like the Google of routing. Yeah, exactly. Um.
Now, overlay networks, of course, like we said, are encrypted,
and that's what makes them dark nets. Yeah, and the opposite being
sce webs which is a surface web, which is an unencrypted network, or
clear net yeah, or clearweb. This is my bad. I've written I've
written clearweb and clear neet on here, and now I'm confused. Here's the
thing, there's no difference. It's just like who said what. Some people
like to say Internet, some people like to say the Worldwide webs. Yeah,
it's don't matter, it's clear, it's clear and since it's darknet,
I guess we'll go with clear neet. But that's that's the an unencrypted network
or what's known as the surface web, which is anything you can access through
a search engine on John Q computer, yep Q computer, Google's I have
saw ron can land upon is on the clearnet right, which is also known
as the surface web. Search engines index data and locate, slash, follow
domains and hyperlinks to find results. Are you still with us? Guys?
You guys doing all right? It'll it'll, it'll get better, and it'll
really piss you off soon. We probably let me help you out. Let
me help you out, all right? Oh, got the bit of that
accent right now? Well, it's token back computers and intranets and dark webs
all right now, we're back to it. Is that good little taste?
Yeah, that's what they come here for, right you drive us Richard dreyfith
here that's what they actually come out from. Um now, from what I
read, it's estimated that only zero point zero three percent of the Internet is
accessible via search engines right now, real quick, I want to point out
that this number is a popular number to throw out there in this research.
I saw it for this for that that search engines can only access point oh
three percent of the Internet. And I also saw it in another place that
said point oh three was the percentage of the dark web that's used for nefarious
stuff. So it's like a fun, weird number that everyone keeps picking.
Yeah they so, so forgive us if if if you find out it's point
seven percent of the Internet, We're not going to the penalty box. You
can just suck it. Well, not not going and I don't care if
the number is different, but then go to jail for it, won't do
it. Uh So, So that begs obviously the question is what are we
doing with the other ninety nine and change percent of the of the Internet.
And that leads us into questions of the deep well, which is also hidden,
but not quite so nefariously. Sure, this is um things that are
behind paywalls. It's really it's all of the clear net that that Google can't
quite put its thumb on. But it's it's data. It's um back pages
for uh a tumbler um, all of the all the information that isn't necessarily
posted on the page, but all the extra data for image files and and
audio things and all those bits and pieces that bake up the Internet that aren't
what's really on display upfront. Yeah, and basically it's just the part of
the web that's not indexed by search engines. Yeah, yeah, you can't
go straight to it and uh and search engines aren't going to look for it.
So and as you can imagine, Yeah, that is the biggest part
of the Internet. Yeah, also called invisible or hidden web. And like
you said, it's it's password protected stuff. Banking, Netflix, streaming services,
things like that are are on their unlisted web pages, anything that's not
publicly accessible, meaning it's a fucking huge place. I wonder what the what
the percentage of web traffic is just Netflix. Oh I don't I mean,
I don't think it's like sixty, but I mean I wouldn't be surprised to
see it like in the teens. Sure, yeah, I think it's I
think gets taken a big piece of that pie. Seems like that's a it's
a common thing to have nowadays. That's just a guess. I don't know.
But to my mind, if I was on a game show and they
ask, that's what I would say. Those of you who are five dollars
patrons for our Patreon and got our Chrono Knots episode, that's a deep web.
Yeah, I sent you an unlisted place. Oh look at you dabbling
in the deep Web, drawing our listeners into a world of shadow deep web,
dangling candy of the chrono knots getting to unmarked digital van Now y'are spars.
It's very exciting. That's you're in the deep web. Yep, you're
in the deep web. Now get your water wings playing with the big boys,
now, okay, Prince of Egypt. It was estimated in two thousand
and one to be around five hundred times larger than the surface web. That's
fifteen years ago, bra, So God only knows how big it is now.
I don't think even God knows. He ain't talent. There's so much
information contained there and search engine simply can't sift through enough of the of the
data to bring meaningful parts to the surface. So and that's why you hear
all that about SEO search engine optimization. Yeah, it is. It is
an attempt to lift your data to the top of the flotsam pile in the
section of the clear net that is searchable and indexed by Google. So you're
you're you're fighting against every other piece of data to make yours more relevant to
a search engine. Yeah, and that people pay a ton of money for
that. Yet that you can get I guess certified or just be a search
engine optimization person. Yeah, you know you can. You can get it
there and advise companies on how to how to do that, you know,
how to make their websites better and stuff. It's crazy. We have it
on our word press. Yeah, that's why we always all of our tweets
have a hashtag metallic because that just helps hashtag boobs, hashtag for twenty blaze
it yes, oh yeah, hashtag RM still relevant. Yeah, actually still
you would be amazed. This guy's really still draw a lot on the Internet.
So then underneath this gigantic layer of of inaccessible fat that will call the
deep web lives the dark web. Now, this is the ship that's buried
on purpose. This is addresses that Tour can locate that are deliberately set for
only anonymous connection. You cannot use your regular browser and ever get to these
things. It's only for Tour connections or some specific yes, or or a
similar client. Yeah. Um, and so you can. And there are
search engines within there was what was the one that was it? Duc duct
God, Yeah, I've used that before. Yeah, it's just it's just
a search engine. Yeah, and you don't need to software to get to
dog go, right, it's just living there and it's it's untraceable, like
it doesn't store any of your search information. Yeah, so that's that's all
that is. So that is where people are listing their their their web their
sites and or more accurately, their services because they're yeah, and and I
mean, and some of them are totally legit. They're just people who don't
want anybody knowing who's coming or going. Some people just don't like that.
I get it, it makes sense to me, but I mean, the
point being is that there's a lot of very big websites that have a presence
on the dark Web that you can access through that they they want to beat
money, and you know, it's also a little more secure for them,
exactly. Some people like that extra level of security of everything being anonymous.
They don't want anyone knowing what they're buying and when they're buying it and having
ads tailored into their brain. Um. And so there's a section of it
that's totally legit and legal, and there is another whole section of it,
and we're gonna get to it in a bit, but it's where all the
murder is for higher and the drugs that fuel the murders, and also the
videos of the person committing the drug field murders. Yeah. Yeah, it's
it's made out to be a pretty sinister place, the old dark Web.
Yeah, but it's the thing that I don't want to jump jump ahead on
it. But the thing that I like about the dark Web it's just like
the regular Web. It's my favorite part of it, except that you need
specific software to access it. Right, But I mean when I say that
it's just like the regular Web, it's it's it's not like, oh you
downloaded tour well, welcome, welcome, neo, you've crossed over. Everyone's
just as shitty and pill yeah. Yeah, And people are just as inclined
to lie to you and steal your money on the on that side of the
web as they are anywhere else, more inclined because you have less recourse.
So that is true. I do enjoy that part of it. Well,
we'll get to it. So then under the dark Web is another report parted
layer where only the most hackerman of neckbeards can dwell. You're only allowed to
sit at your compute. You have to be wearing your guy fox mask and
a trilby and a Trilby, and make sure you turn the lights out and
lock the door because Mom will come out with chicken nuggets. Magic the Gathering
mouse pad, all right, knock that some more at all. I like
Magic the Gathering. But listen, I'm painting a picture and in the dark
light, you can just make out the edges of my little pony friendship his
magic poster on the wall. I don't get that. I've never gotten that
now it's because you're a functioning him and be okay, um, I apologize.
I apologize to her, my apologize. I apologize to the browny contingent.
I don't understand your lifestyleingent. I don't understand their lifestyle that until like
the last few years. I mean, maybe it's that new, but I've
never known anybody. Okay, we're sorry. We are definitely too old.
I promise you that. Okay, uh, I'm sorry about stepping on the
portrait that you were painting. This was a beautiful word mural. Back to
my word mural, mouth quilt, mouth quilt. Underneath that lies the merry
honest web allegedly, which is the quote seabed of the deep web, because
Mike, that was what I called it. He just quoted me. Yeah,
I quote I quote Flora on that. It's because boy, there's You're
right that the nautical metaphor just never runs out of steam. Um. It's
said to be the where all the highly classified, uh super secret and I'm
talking like recipe for chicken in a bucket, location for recipe. Yeah,
the location of Atlantis. Uh, that's Tesla's living down there with all of
his He's a digital entity now everything. Uh, it could doctor peppers h
oh yeah, twenty three herbs and spices and spices, and could be the
location of not another network, but of an actual AI called Cameo. Cameo
c A I M EO. Yeah. Sure, and that's that AI's name.
Oh uh who that was brought to sentience by the collective consciousness of four
chan and nine gag. They made it horrible, baby that no one could
draw. Somebody wrote in to us about four chan and we'll be getting to
that and listener mail but oh can't wait, can't wait? Okay, um,
but yeah, like that, just the the weight of all that digital
information bearing down on this burgeoning AI made it self aware or sentient maybe,
Yeah, and it's gonna fuck up the Internet. And it's where you get
ninan cat and um all kinds of memes. He's a meme generator. I
don't made that part up. Well, I believe it, although I I
wish you hadn't left out a couple of more things that's uh, that's located
in the mariannae Web, like, um, you know, Vatican documents and
Illuminati rights and the reason why you suck? Do you wish? Do you
wish I hadn't left those out? The pantsize of your mom. My mom
is trim, she works out now, just the collective your mom, Yeah,
Carl Jung's your mom. That makes it worse. Wow. So there
could be a highly evolved AI down there. Huh, that's the rumor.
Mariannas Web Yeah, named after the Marianna Trench. Yeah. They just threw
an s on there because I think it's like revelation revelations. Yeah, let's
uh, let's let's lead us into the meaty center of this shepherd's pie.
Yeah. Terror, Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna float
back up from the Mariannas Marianna Trench, however you like it. Marianna's Marianna's
Barbecue Bar They've got good food there, he said, with the thousand yards
stare of a weary man. It's good food. It'll Sustainia'll get you through
that that hard part of the day called lunch. It'll nourish you, weak
and withered body. Are you? Are you asking for money or trying to
bang me? Sir? Something in the eyebrows has really keep trucking. So
this is the theory that the dark web is the epicenter of the world's new
criminal underground. You want it, you can find it. Illicit drugs,
child pornography, stolen credit card numbers, human trafficking, weapons, exotic cannibals,
assassins, the spice, milange, anything, and much of it's purchased
with everyone's favorite digital bullshit Bitcoin, well flora, Bitcoin a completely legitimate source
of currency for anonymous transactions. How much how much bitcoin did you get back
in oh nine when it was super cheap? How much bitcoin did you get?
Brother? Because I got a bunch of bitcoin now I'm rich. You
you tried to get bitcoin and it didn't work. I tried to mine a
bitcoin and it didn't work. You just you just ran the servers for all
kinds of illicit pornography. That's all you did. I downloaded the bitcoin mining
client and I ran which is pornography, and I ran it for like four
months, and and for it to work you just have to look at pornography
for hours every day. The four month thing is is you're not making that
up. No, that's I did run it for four months and I didn't
get it believably well because I forgot. It was just running in the background
forever. Yeah, but you should get something. Yeah, I didn't four
months. Like you could. You could do the same thing for fucking SETI
and at least know that you're contributing to something there very true about you know
what I think I'm about due to read download SETTI at home. I like
that they stop Setti. Is it still going? Of course it's still going,
all right, I don't know. Actually, well, listen, Bitcoin,
which you love, is basically an encrypted digital currency. It's good for
transactions of all kinds, but most importantly, it also allows for anonymity.
And it's just worth a ton. You got it on time, Floria.
No one can trace a purchase, illegal or otherwise. So congrats, you
fake fucking cryptocurrency cuts. You created digital de narrows at a thin air that
allow children and other innocent people to be bought and sold, molested, and
trafficked by the most insanely despicable pieces of fucking human trash juice the world has
ever suffered. Way to go Bitcoin, Good job, everybody. What about
the flat Earth? There's love bitcoin? Yep, they sure do. Yeah,
that's how they buy all their fucking albums, get them digitally through bitcoins.
I want the currency created out of fucking thin air, but no flora.
I mean, there's some pretty solid economic underpinning so those wise, it
wouldn't stick around. I mean, poke, do you know that? Poke?
Poke with a stick? Somebody, Oh man, I don't even know
where I'm Somebody took bitcoins and bought World of Warcraft gold and then sold that
gold on the World of Warcraft market back in the when it was going and
made like a ton of money off that. You just you make it up
and then you scam people by giving them this bullshit and then you get to
and they laundered it through the World of Warcraft. I don't I don't know
how they got the bitcoin the first place. Maybe they mined it, like
like you you said, because at first you didn't need to exchange actual American
dollars for it. No bitcoin, that was the thing by the time I
tried it, Like bitcoin has a function like as time goes by, bitcoins
are harder and harder to mind, which is one of the reasons that they
thought bitcoin was a scam because only the people who were on the inner circle
could mind bitcoins when it was easy. And then as time goes by us
as more people get aware of it, the ability to extract bitcoins from these
data chunks gets harder and harder and hard What does that even mean? Mine
bitcoin? Where the hell's the cave that the bitcoins are are? It's propagating
in that you take your digital fucking pick acts and hack away at It's a
giant chunk of of of a situation, and your computer has to solve sa
equation. It is a big chunk of numbered data that your computer has to
sort through and solve. It's a it's a very difficult math problem, and
it takes your computer long time to get through it, and it's churning through
this this chunk of data, eroding it until finally the bitcoin falls out of
it. Bunny's ass, but what's important is that they're worth a ton of
money and you exchange them for things as much as you like they're used.
You should have gotten it's a dark weib. You should have gotten someone getting
was good. Should have ground floorida. You know what what's funny about this
is that I understand why they use it on the dark web, that you
know it's completely anonymous and nobody can track it because it's fucking fake. But
how the fact that the minute they translate that into real money or scam people
into giving them money for it or orcraft gold or whatever, that's when it's
like, no, this has crossed a line. So you're you don't care
as long as as long as it stays in this like nebulous digital realm.
It's the part it's like monopoly. It's like playing a monopoly at that's the
part where Flynn comes back out of the game grid on Tron and comes back
to the real world. You're like, no, you get the back in
there, Flynn, you're a fake fucking currency and get out of here.
I don't care how cool your fucking arcade is. Nope, he can.
He can come out and stuff. It's just when he tries to use a
pie. He reaches by a coke when he reaches into his e wallet,
then it's yeah, and he throws out a little cubes. They're just little
cubes. And then he's like, I'll tell I want a Snickers and a
bottle of coke and they're like, sorry, sir, we only have cans
at this and oh man, I love this because well, I mean,
but it's no different than like, you know what about like those um what
do they call him? The where the where? The sad ladies on a
bed and you just pay digital money to have her douche? Is this entrapman?
Are you trying to trap me? And say no? But you know
what I mean, there's the thing on yes, cam girls, that was
the phrase I was looking for. That's all over the deep web, oh
yeah, but yeah, but it's also in the regular web where those people
because you convert your money into like a currency, right yeah, but it's
it's just trying to get you to confirm that I and no, I see
what you're saying. But it's it's like the games too. It's like freemium
games where you can pay money to get donuts. Yeah, the in game
currency and stuff. But that was too self contained. Though. You're right,
You're right, because it's just it's just direct money going in. It's
as though if if if in one of those games, you could earn credit
towards a house. Yeah, well, you know things like Second Life,
people sell real estate for a huge amount of money, real world money.
Um. Eve Online, Um, you always hear those those stories. I
never played the game. I've got some friends who do. Apparently it is
quite the hobby. Um. You know where people will spend you know,
ten twelve, eighteen months infiltrating a company just to take it down from the
inside, steal all their digital currency, and and I mean, and these
things have real world values. There are there are there are markets in which
you can buy and sell things in video games, and it exists for a
lot of video games. Yeah, but I see, I see what your
what your issue is this? So like even in a world of Warcraft eve
online, people are putting money out of their bank account into buying something online.
You see the money go in, and so when the money comes back
out, who the cares? I know where that you know that money started
as living in the real world and ended up in the real world. Is
your is your objection that the money is general. It's it's coming out of
the digital world, and somehow it's created in the digital world, yes,
and coming out as real money. But yeah, yeah, it's Are you
sure it's you're just not mad that you didn't get some like when the getting
was good. I sure assure you that is not the case. Ladies and
gentlemen. I am your advocate here and I am trying to get him as
riled up as I can with this. I am doing everything I can to
try to get him to flip out more. People say, I know,
it's fun. People might argue that, well, the bitcoin has to come
from somewhere, somebody had to have put a dollar amount in to get a
bitcoin. No, no, that's not the case, because, like you
said, you can sit there and mine or whatever and just think it's created.
Yeah. Now, the saving grace of this is that it's wildly fluctuates
in price. It's not backed by any country or government, right, and
so you could spend a lot of money to get a lot of bitcoins and
then like the next day and they're worthless. I have not read any of
the articles, but there have been a lot of headlines, and I think
NPR's Planet Money just released an episode about it. I haven't listened to you
yet, but there's there's there's are do ones going on with bitcoin. In
the last month or so, I thought it was dying. But here's the
thing, Oh, I guess it's not. Bitcoin is just like any other
fiat currency. It's value lies in the declaration of value that it lies in.
So really, I mean, it's just like all currency anymore, exactly.
You know, there is no gold standard anymore, but at least you
have what resembles some kind of guidelines or restrictions that are placed upon a government
to create currency. If they want to create more currency than they you know,
they there's got to be some kind of checks and balances to that well,
and I would say that I would argue that bitcoin has those maybe because
because the rate at which you can extract bitcoin, the amount of bitcoin is
fixed, and the rate at which more bitcoin is made available gets lower over
time as more people are involved in trying to extract it. But there's still
nothing that backs it up in terms of I don't even want to say capital.
There's nothing that backs it up and guarantees it a little bit. It
isn't. Yeah, it's not, which is why it can fluctuates so insanely.
Anyway, because this episode is now about bitcoin, gotcha, I just
can't fish yet. God, that was great. Let's see where were we?
Oh yeah, fucking human trash juice. Yeah, and this stuff does
happen. It's true, there is. You're gonna have to you're gonna have
to remind people where we left eye because we really went on a side tap
with all with the child pornography, the molest the molestation, all that stuff
that is true. Yeah, there is an unknown number of animal abuse and
pedophile sites on the dark Web, including communities where people share child pornography and
even techniques on how to molest and manipulate. And it is it is horrifying
the numbers on this because the government, I mean like it's not like just
because it's it's on the darknet that no one can touch it. The government,
like the like law enforcement agencies are working in Yeah, you know they
are. They are. It's it's not the wild wild West and no one
can do anything about it. Some of these some of these child porn sites
and rings when they're when they're taking down, they don't have like five thousand
members or ten thousand members, hundreds of thousands, which is horrifying. Of
thousands of walking, breathing logs of fresh excrements. Yeah, that call themselves
human beings that are are members of these anonymous sites. Yeah, and you
know what I mean, real quick side note, because we need one,
right, that's that's like the biggest fear of a police state, a totalitarian
state government is that the cops could barge into your house, slap some cuffs
on you, throw you in jail or or god knows where in Chicago.
You'll never be heard from again because that that's happened. Yeah. What is
that called the hot hot home in house. Yeah, something like that.
Yeah, but they can just barge in here, throw you in jail,
and then afterwards plant a bunch of child porn on your computer and then say
that you're a you're a child molester, and then you know, of course
the media sniffs up that, and that's that's like, that's a side note
that has another to do it. I feel I feel like you started with
something and then and then then you then it took sort of a really you
don't think that that's like the easiest way for if they want to imprison somebody,
they just they put child porn on their their computers. Wouldn't it be
easier just to drop a bag of heroin next to them? They could do
that. Yeah, I'm just But if it's a person who has no drug
history or use, or doesn't seem like a heroin addict, I think child
porns their go to I don't know. That just freaks me out. And
that's a totalitarian state, and that's that's your fascist minute. The more you
know, super below sound it is such a thing even possible? Yes it
is, Maybe it is. I'm trying to get the sound effects going.
A researcher for Cracked spent months undercover in one of these uh to file communities
and was naturally horrified by her experience. It's unbelievable. I wouldn't do that.
I don't care what my job is. Yeah, because that shit's in
your head and it's never leaving. Yeah, I can't. I can't fathom
it. I just I can't come to terms with it makes no sense to
me. How and for there to be so many people that are this sick?
And how do you be? How do you how do you be a
police? Officer, How do you do your job as an underconvert investigator like
earning? You really have to want to catch these acts, right, because
you have to like earn people's trust, right, you have to go along
with what you're seeing in slight that they have handbooks for this. It's unbelievable.
I just I can't. I can't fathom it. I cannot even put
myself in in the shoes of someone who finds a child sexually appealing. You
know what I mean? Yes, I do, I hope so. Yeah.
I loudly and clearly agree with your antipathy. I almost feel like the
lady doth protest too much at this point, but I mean, I'm sorry,
I'll protest that. Yeah, that's it's just gross, it's sickening.
But if you U, if you want to buy somebody's identity from their HBO
go password to their social Security number and the name of their first pet,
you can do so for pennies, I mean, not like a specific person.
You know, you can people buy lists, you know. I mean,
I don't. I just don't want to oversell like the It's not like
somebody seeking you out. Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean, but people
do sell I mean people all those um uh skimmers, those digital information skimmers
they put on ATMs. This is how those people monetize that they have all
this data. They have numbers and pin pin codes. Yeah, it's not
like they then go to an ATM. They sell that information on the dark
web. This is where you get you know, there are lists of people,
social security numbers, for identity, theft, bank account information. This,
say, is where all that all that information is exchanged and monetized.
Crazy drugs yep, yep, of course easy. The Silk Road yep was
a darknet market, perhaps the most famous online black market out there. Yeah,
I think easily the most famous. I think. I think that if
if you asked a thousand people name one thing on the dark web, they
would all say that. Well, actually somebody would apparently out of those thousand
people, like a couple of hundred would say kitty porn sites, I guess.
But but yeah, this was This was site where drugs were bought and
sold as we're weapons, jewelry, and other various goods to a much lesser
degree, but it was mainly drugs. It was created in twenty eleven and
administered by someone under the handle dread pirate Roberts. Yet it A couple other
players in the game were Smedley and Variety Jones aka Simon with a C.
I think Smedley's interesting. A lot of this stuff has very libertarian bents to
it, and I just wonder if that was a Smedley Butler reference. Matt
Isn't Isn't Smedley also the sidekick to Captain Hook that's me, sme, You're
right, never mind Smedley. I like the name Variety Jones, though,
YEA. In October of twenty thirteen that the FBI arrested Ross Ulbricht in San
Francisco, fingering him as dread Pirate Roberts. He was indicted, and in
a twenty fifteen letter, Albert stated that his actions through Silk Road were committed
through libertarian idealism hawk scream and that quote Silk Road was supposed to be about
giving people the freedom to make their own choices end quote, and admitted that
he had made a terrible mistake that ruined his life. Yeah. Well,
one of his terrible mistakes was trying to ruin other people's eyes. He'd tried
to hire hitmen. That's what they say, Yeah, that's what they say
now. On May twenty nine, twenty fifteen, Albrich was given five sentences
to be served concurrently, including two for life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Silk Road was closed down after his arrest, but not two months later
a second version was launched, again helmed by dread Pirate Roberts. You get
it. Yeah. It was shut down in November twenty fourteen, and another
black market site changed its name to Silk Road three. Silk Road reloaded and
opened in January twenty fifteen. Road Harder. Yeah, so the Silk Road
is just it shall never die and dread Pirate Roberts will be passed on you
know. Well, I mean one of the fun things about the dark web
is that nobody owns out anything. There's no copyright law. So it's like,
oh, did someone closed that McDonald's. I'm McDonald's. Yeah, he
made this, I made this. Yeah. You could just claim, you
know, steal the artwork from the original page, make it, make it
look approximate, and then now their revenue stream is my revenue stream. Hooray
yep. And I don't even think I don't I don't get the feeling that
the those things are even like stolen assets. I feel like it's people who
were involved but not pinched in the previous iteration, are like, all right,
turn the hose back on again. Yeah, Or somebody that's got a
site that's not quite as as popular, but then they see that opportunity and
they seize it. Yeah, And I think, I mean, for I
don't, I don't know. I'm conflicted. Like, on the one hand,
this guy was just running a website that sold a bunch of illegal stuff.
I don't think that like multiple life sentences without parole seems right. But
this guy probably moved more product than most Mexican drug lords, probably was responsible
for as many deaths through because worth killing, you know. So you know,
it's like in bitcoin, just because just because it happens through a digital
mediation. And I can see how they're like, no, no, no,
this guy was running a drug empire. This guy was involved in weapons
trafficking, sex trafficking, you know, all these other things, I mean
anything, you know, And so you're like, oh, no, this
guy was running a criminal empire. Um, you don't get to claim,
uh, these guns, you know, these colors don't run. And I'm
a libertarian at the end of it um because it's the people whose images he
was selling, the the poor young boys or young girls that are getting trafficked
through his website. They didn't get to make the libertarian choice for to make
their own mistakes. They were they were bought and sold, you know.
So as at first I was like, stupid government trying to make an example
of a guy, And then you think it through and you're like, no,
this guy was really enabling a lot of pieces of ship right, These
pieces of could not have been ambulatory on their own. Yeah. So now
now that I think about it, I'm like, yeah, all right,
Okay, I'm cool with it. I'll go justice system right for once.
Onto the truth, Dave, Oh, just the truth is only the Internet
can provide. We've poked around at it, but the truth is the deep
web. The deep web is not scary. No, it's just boring,
boring data. There's nothing like the only thing that's hidden in the deep web
is just stuff that you need to pay money to see. Yeah, yeah,
student loan repayments and right sally me all that. Whenever Chrome auto loads
all your information when you're buying something online, you know, it's yeah,
and the dark web is pretty small. Yes, even so, there is
terrible ship that goes down on it, but it's not the nefariously dangerous criminal
underground the media loves to salivate over. It's not going to come up through
the toilet and kidnap your baby for the sex trade. You don't know that,
all right. According to the Tour Project, about two million people per
day used Tour, and one and a half million of those use hidden sits.
In the grand scheme of things, seven plus billion people. Yeah,
no, it's it is not wildly popular. Either people don't know about it,
or they're scared to use it, I feel like, or they just
don't know how Yeah. I mean I saw one thing I saw had a
really interesting usage chart for Tour and how it was just like very flat,
very low usage. And then boom, the arrested indictments for the Silk Road
goes up on the news hub. Blame usage goes through the roof because people
just didn't even know it was there. Then the news stories let people know
it's there, everybody jumps on, and then it like Peter's off again,
but it's still kept about half of those people. Yeah, it's it's kind
of like leveled back out again, but it about doubled or maybe tripled its
prior usage just for having that exposure even after the peak or off the baseline,
is about two or three times what it initially was. I wonder if
you do business on the deep web, if you do business on the Silk
Road or Silk Road five Silk Road, Homecoming or whatever whatever it's called.
Now, how do you get the stuff? They send it to you?
They just they just you think they just mail it or do you have to
meet in an alley at at midnight, or like I think they just send
it to you, is what I think. But I don't know. I
don't have any idea. Do you think they have their own version of UPS?
I doubt it. Well, so that's that's the bottom line there,
Artificial intelligence, Dave. I think that along with the Marianna's trench or web,
I think it's just a ghost story told by nerds. There's no real
evidence that an AI exist, nor that there is a Marianna's Web or bottom
of the Internet. There is evidence, I think that it may be a
hoax or a troll though, loll yeah, it's it's exactly like no matter
how whatever you're looking into, someone'll be like, Oh, there's a thing
just beyond it, and that's where all the real ship is. That's like
the kind of like wispy asked, half mustache seventeen year old tells a thirteen
year old, Oh, well, I guess what you know? My friend
he goes into this deeper web that's called deepest web. Yeah, and that's
where like people buy cyborg parts. And my friend was going to get his
arm replaced, but then his mom found out and he got ground in pretty
serious. So yeah, AI, AI doubt it, thank you. How
about black markets? Is there any truth to their being black black markets?
Well, we told you about the guy that got arrested for right, how
about that string a black market? Yeah, they assuredly do exist. Unfortunately,
assassination networks where you could go get a hitman for hire, what do
you think? Uh? This is where I think the internet, the dark
Internet is just like every other internet. You you might get the guy you're
after, or you might just get someone who wants your money and knows you
can't go to the cops because you're trying to buy a murder. Yeah,
I would imagine that it's probably a seventy five to one ratio scammer to assassin,
Yeah, somewhere in that ballpark. Yeah. I don't think you can
just just hire a murderer on the internet and expect that to work out for
you. I think what you'll what most of the time, you'll I mean,
if it's the regular rene you what you ended up as hiring your own
personal blackmailer. Yeah, like, hey, remember when you ask me to
kill somebody, could you send me more money please? Geez? But in
the anonymous sense, yeah, they just take the money and they're like du
says, Hell, I'd do that. I'd set up shop as a killer,
except for I'd set up shop as a pet assassin. Even that,
Ross Olbricht was indicted on six counts of hiring hitman, though he wasn't actually
prosecuted for it. Sites that purport to be hitman for higher have turned out
to be fake or trolls. It's a big thing to do, like you
just said, just set up shop and easy money. Man, Hell,
I'd do it. Yeah. There are also stories that you can find live
murder on there on the deep web. Oh yeah, what do they call
those things? The red room? There you go where? Yeah, you
can. It's like a cam girl, but the worst form where it's like
you can just watch someone get tortured and or killed right right? That real
though, I feel like that that also has I mean, listen, it's
the Internet. It's happened somewhere on the Internet. I'm sure it's happened,
sure, but I don't think it's like a thing. Well, they there
was one site that marketed a red room in which they posted a date and
time for a live torture and execution of a supposed ISIS member. When the
time came, a video started showing a plate of bacon, delicious bacon,
Islam cryptonite, and that's all they showed. It was a huge troll,
Matt. Many sites are set up just to make money and scam criminals apparently.
How about speaking of old diphs there? How about terrorism sales? There
may be sites which helped fund or coordinate terrorist activity, but there are only
shreds of evidence that the Islamic State in particular is using the dark web that
they've found. A couple apparent fund raising sites, highlighted by The Washington Post,
had managed to raise exactly zero bitcoins after being live for a while.
Maybe they just set their computers to mining, and four months later they just
didn't have anything. This gave up. It's worth pointing out that both these
sites simply claimed to be funneling the cash to the terrorist group and could easily
have been fakes. The one Islamic extremist dark web site to actually generate any
revenue raised only twelve hundred dollars earlier in the year. Even that site,
though, doesn't explicitly mentioned the Islamic state. So yeah, it's hard to
tell. Yeah, I there's a couple of good sources for how things like
Isis does their their funding. Um, the somebody actually smuggled out an Isis
city budget or one of the towns that they are controlling. It was their
internal budget. And how they're you know, how they're paying for everything,
and uh, it's mostly through private property seizures. I think that's the line's
share of it. Most of the neighboring countries have done a pretty good job
of shutting down the illicit oil sales that were funding them early on, and
it's still you know, a trickle, get it, but mostly it's internal
property seizures and eventually they're just gonna you know, you would go to reseize
the property you seized. You know, it's yeah, you read out of
resources at the point. I know I already mentioned it. But there's a
there is a really good Planet Money episode about how the economics of isis work,
the data stealing, the fact that your private info could be for sale
and site somewhere. I mean that that is true to a degree that it's
as small in the grand scheme of things, probably a small number of people
that are affected by this, but huge caches of account data being sold on
the dark Web from eight websites including Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn have been
found. In some cases, those accounts came from privacy breaches at the web
companies themselves. In other cases, data thieves were able to steal information directly
from users. That's what you're talking about, the skimmers and stuff. Ye,
so you know that that stuff does go on on there, not an
incredible mind boggling, fear mongering amount. But and then the old child porn,
Yes, unfortunately that that does go on there. But some good news,
the FBI and other organizations are getting better at tracking down and finding these
sick, putrid motherfuckers. In October of twenty fourteen, a Brazilian dark web
pedophile site was seized, in fifty five people were arrested. In May of
twenty fifteen, Australian police went public about an operation that had shut down a
site with forty five thousand members Jesus and also I mean krake K. And
also in twenty fifteen, the FBI shut down a site called Playpen, which
had over two hundred thousand members. Son of a fuck. It's mostly done
by undercover work by the agencies that investigate it. H Yeah, no thanks,
I just I find it hard to believe that there are that many people
that are into kids stuff, you know what I mean. The world is
the worst place that anyone ever suspects it is. And the world is the
worst place in the world. Yeah, and we are on the darkest timeline.
So yep, this has been established. All this crap is available on
the clear web, the clear net, child porn, terrorist forums, personal
data markets, stolen credit cards. It's already out there. It's within reach
without need tour or special software. Yeah, you just get caught faster.
Yeah. Yeah. The problem with anonymous web services is also the beauty of
them. It's meant to be unrestricted where folks can have privacy and protect their
anonymity in an ever shrinking social world. But that also means it's nearly impossible
to track down true criminals and offenders. It's ironic then, that the US
intelligence branches created Tour to essentially help catch criminals, but the system helps those
same criminals hide. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that they used that
they made Tour to help them catch criminals. They well, maybe not made
Tour to help themselves do without anyone knowing what they're doing, which is a
thousand different things. And but opening up to the public meant opening it up
to criminals, you know. I don't think it's not like they were using
Yeah, I think that they wanted to use it for military communications, for
any any thousand things. I don't think when they made it, they're like,
guys, it's time to solve some crimes. We need to make an
overlay network. I think that they probably had in mind that they could help
stop some crime. I mean, if they're able to, for lack of
a better term, spy on people that they suspect, you know, might
be harboring some illegal activity, I think that had to be there somewhere on
the plate. Maybe I don't feel like the Naval Research Lab does a lot
of criminal justice work, is my guess. I think they just did it
so that they could have clandestine communications. I don't think they had any They
just wanted to be able to do their You think they built tour in order
to just talk to each other they could do well, ao Aoil Messenger.
I think they did. They built it so that they could so that they
exchange data and information without anyone knowing Aoil Messenger. Yes, yes, absolutely
they I don't think without anybody seeing what they're Yeah, I don't think for
one second they're like, guys, it's time to clean up this internet we
just created. I'm not you're you're putting words in my mouth. I'm not
saying they wanted they wanted to be the sheriff of net Town. Yeah.
I maybe I'm too cynical there. I don't I don't think that they don't
think that that could have been something like an icing on the cake for them,
like, oh, we could also use this to look at to prove
that people are doing illegal activity without making without them knowing that we're looking at
them. No, I mean because I mean, I think you get like
into an or a Burroughs thing, where like you you make an anonymous overlay
network so that you can catch people who are trying to do things on an
anonymous overlay network. The other people aren't weren't on the anonymous overlay you you
kept people on the non anonymous overlay network, the regular network. So they
you think they built Tour to help police the clear Net, not specifically,
but it was a part that it was something that they could use it for.
I guess I still don't think that's why they made it, but I
think that they It's like building a car. Someone He's like, yeah,
you could go there. I didn't build this car to drive there, but
sure go for it, right right, Yeah, sure you can play music
on that. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, I'm
sure that they found ways to use it, but I don't think that was
It wasn't the sole purpose. And that's what I'm not what I'm trying to
say either. So anyways, I don't know. I guess if you worked
for the Naval Research Lab, you can tell us if that was in the
agenda anywhere at all. But we've we've sat here and said, how how
bad the deep web is and and then the worst, there's nothing good about
it, And then we and then we say, it's not that bad.
It's oh, it's it's just got this and this, it's that bad.
It's just got child pornography on it, torture clamps. But it actually does
have some silver linings in the fact that it promotes true liberty and exchange of
information and ideas. It's home to alternate search engines, email services, file
storage, file sharing, like all that stuff, whistle blowing sites, you
know, things that provide a safer meeting ground for political dissidents and any one
else who might find themselves on the fringes of society. Think of citizens of
countries with oppressive leaders or strict societies. China is pretty controlling of the Internet
usage and stuff. They've got what's called the Great Firewall, brilliant, but
you know this, this is a way for them to circumvent that and share
their ideas and safely and securely communicate with the risk of the world. So
do you think it's worth it? No, But then again, I just
don't use it, so you know, I personally, I mean I think
it's a net zero. Actually no, I think it's a net loss.
I kind of do too. Yeah, I don't think that it. I
understand like the the ideal of being like, no, this is true freedom.
You get to choose you want. People are fin ansals in their garbage.
Yeah, and so they will choose terrible, terrible things way more than
they'll choose good things garbage cheese. Yeah, they're just so. Now I
think it's a net loss. I think that I'm not I'm not a I
don't dig it. Yeah, with all the crap that can go on and
never be found out, you know, right, I don't think it's worth
having anonymity. I mean now what I would what I would love is if
it was set up as some sort of gigantic honeypot where it's like, okay,
all you degenerate sh birds, this is where everything's free and no one
can ever find you. And then you know, surprise, screaming eagles,
American Justice Plank and all those you know. But like so like playpen right,
for example, that is multiple arrests, a giant porn ring. But
would there have been two hundred thousand people on a non anonymous site. No,
that's so it's like it creates some it doesn't create it, but it
enables something. It enables that's a perfect word. It enables a lot more
activity than actually gets punished and taken down. That's that's kind of how I
see it too. It's that's my opinion of it. I don't know.
Maybe our listeners. I'm positive we have listeners who use it. I never
do. I'm as ignorant as could be on it, but that won't stop
me from voicing my opinion because I have a podcast. Well, yeah,
I'd be interested to hear if somebody argues that it is something worthwhile and you
take the good of it along with the child poorn, right, you know?
So well, I thought this was interesting because I didn't know anything about
it. So I'm happy to have done the research learned about it, and
I hope that you out there listening have learned something too. Yeah, about
the world that we live in. Learned a lot about bitcoin, learned a
lot about Flora. Like to swear it sounds like a song starting. Don't
don't forget the phrase sick putred that came up. Don't forget that sick putrid
motherfucker's Oh sorry, my bad. A truncated the quote. So that's the
dark web for you. Yeah in a oh man, very shadowy, filthy,
filthy, degenerate, garbage, juice nutshell. I just hate people now,
just hate them, you know what? You know what, I don't
hate puns? Flore you go. Have you seen this, uh this sitcom?
Well, could you describe it to me? It's a came out in
the eighties, but it's it's a show about an artificial intelligence that is adopted
by a wealthy family and the Shenanigans. It's all about the shenanigans that this
AI gets into, like burning down their computers and finding secret Internet pathways.
It's the deep webster wow, starting a little emmanuel Lewis yea as the AI.
That's good. I thought you were going with different strokes because pretty much
the same premise, and I was, I was like, how's he getting
how's he gonna get it now? Webster. By the way, the British
version is called different Blokes too rot. Hello, mister Drummond. What's that?
Na? What's all? What's all right? Um? You know,
there's a lot of people are sick and tired of the I don't know,
the bio agricultural industry in general. You've got GMOs. You've got growth hormones
and beef, you've got over saturated antibiotic usage and poultry and even you know,
they think that even things like uh, milk is not even safe.
They think that it's affecting people's bodies. There's a huge push for just organic
raw milk, unpasteurized milk. And yeah, it's it's a huge thing.
And the problem is is it's illegal in most places. And uh now,
now, now my punt has a follow up story. But but there is
a place you can go online for people to get a hold of it,
you know, without getting in any federal problems and just you know, buying
an anonymously via the internet. It's called the Milk Road fun story. I
think it was West Virginia. I think it was West Virginia. I'm not
sure about which state. The city council, I think it was voted to
have to overturn the ban on. I should look. I mean, I
don't have enough facts, but I know this happened. City council, City
council of West Virginia, City council of it West Virginia. It could have
been statewide. Maybe it was statewide. Anyway, they overturned the ban on
raw milk because it used to be illegal, because they wanted it pasteurized,
and um, all the state legislators, I think it wasn't the state level
who were trying to get this thing pushed through for god knows what reason.
They celebrated by, you know, in front of the cameras. They all
toasted with a glass of raw milk. They all got sick as it couldn't
come to work for days. Suck at ignorance, wow, and then blow
it out your ass for three days. Have you ever had raw milk?
No? What did I just tell you? Man? Ass? Blow?
Well? But days you know you see uh farmers drinking fresh out the teeth
or the pail, not a whole glass or anything, but just taste in
it or just just licking the tip a little swarting it in your mouth,
licking the I love you're in your indignity, No, you idiot? All
right, I got one more. Okay, you might like this place.
It's a bar where you can find any alcoholic beverage known demand sweet, even
the illegal ones and ones that are basically pure grain alcohol. It's called ever
clear, neet nice, get tore up, oh, doubled up. You
know, it's not only professional killers that you can hire. You can actually
hire good professionals using the dark web. As a matter of fact, in
some cities, through the dark web, you can contact private firefighters to come
and protect your house or you're building. It'll probably come to that sooner or
later. Um. But the thing is is that it's still illegal because they're
not city licensed, and you can be indicted for the companies called murder for
fires. They kill fires, kill them, murder for fire spons I hope
somebody jumped. I hope nobody wrecked a car. You know, there there
is one more uh level. You think that the layer, You think that
that's uh, that's the end of it. I always think that's the end
of it. Are the lowest you can get. But there's a darker,
sinister, scary layer in the episode, and they say that sentient life exists,
and you can tell it's there by the evidence of listener. That's why
I'm that's sukoing back to see your family. Well, I think we could
still work it out, but we just had to spend some time. I
think we just need to spend some time apart because there are certain things I
still need to set to rights. There are certain problems that until I put
to bed, Mitsuka will not come back to base. Like you think.
You think I can't hear your John Zillah, Yes, so a bit you
cost me my marriage from people of Mecca. John Zilla. Hello, Oh
no trouble in in Mitsuko town. Oh yeah, it's the only kind of
trouble I know. I don't know it's insert phrase I love Mitsuko trouble.
John writes. It is with utmost regret that I must press full charges against
one day Flora, whoa suck it? Oh my god, this is like
the one in ten time that it's you not me, You not me.
During the most recent podcast on Saint Germain, David mentions that the subject of
said podcast was sighted near Mount Shasta, Washington, when in fact, Mount
Shasta is in my home state of sunny California. You let me down,
Flora, and it hurts, that is all. Oh naga, John Zilla
just burned and toasted your butterballs. I guess I stand by that phrase.
That was a word, Jazz, I stand by it. Well, it
burned, it toasted your butterballs. Yep. I can't loll your my way
out of this one. I got that wrong. Yeah, okay, I'm
calling it now so that we remember next episode penalty Box. Okay, you
should write it on the white board. Yeah, thanks John Zillah, thank
you, John Zilla. Dave, we've heard from Jannis. Janie says,
howdy, hell guys, Hello, we've gained the top spot in his podcast
list. Yes, yes, I wish that you could just see the slow,
emphatic fist pump at this point, you guys should know I also listened
to you in the sauna. Well nude, nice sweating it out with Dave
and David. It's all right, get a nice sheen. Yannis is a
lawyer that dabbles in various other things. A lawyer, A lawyer, lawyer,
a lawyer. Yeah, I'm not making fun of how you said it.
I was trying to say it differently than when I said it. It
sounded very similar. He's got a fascination paranormal ever since The X Files robbed
him of sleep in the early nineties. Yeah, he says, among things
I do is homebrewing. Actually, do you guys reckon, there's any chance
I could mill you some without being blacklisted? Well blacklisted by who? You
know what? Yannis? If you can if you can lawyer your way,
yeah, into sending us alcohol didn't by all means why not drink it?
Thanks, don't get yourself in trouble. I don't know what the laws on
that are. We're not worth that, no, I mean we're not the
lawyers here, lawyers. You're making me self conscious, just being stupid.
I'm planning to finally visit the States in twenty seventeen, so band due to
mailing some beer would be hinterkific levels of depressing it. Yeah, yeah,
don't look into it. Yeah, look check one of them, the law
books that you bought, so you have a law library. Just don't get
yourself in trouble on our account, right, well, happily digitally, hoist
a glass to you. And then Jannis goes on to uh tell us about
what sleep deprivation can do now that he finds himself in military service. Thanks
putin and U a poetic little recounting of the silhouettes that he see. He's
going on for forty eight hours without sleep. Boy, no, thank you
sounds creepy. I hope you do get some sleep there, and yeah,
he says, ps. Literally, no one reads Marvel comics here to get
a Doctor Doom reference or DC comics. Literally, the only comics in print
are Donald Duck. Now Janie, if you'll remember, is from Latvia and
and we had to we had to throw out the lat Varia Doctor Doom reference
when oh first heard from Rannie. But yeah, Yanni's good to hear back
from. You're glad you're still listening. We just actually connected with another Latvian
not too long ago through the Dark Myths collective. Chris Stops does a little
podcast called The Eastern Border Yeah, which which is very interesting and I don't
know, maybe I don't want to say, do you two knew each other?
Obviously that's stupid. But to connect with two Latvians we assume there's eighteen
people in Latvia is pretty impressive. Yeah here anyways, look up the Eastern
Borders. See what you think of that. Yeah, but thanks for writing
yea, yeah, thanks. Jannis got one here from Vote the Odious Quiet
Charity Vote Why Vote Right. Hey gents, Hi, I've been going through
some old podcasts and thought you might like to any of them as to pun
a little trip through memory lane. Okay, let's do it or not?
First, if you have a moth ball in this hand and a moth ball
in that hand. What do you have? Mothman's undivided attention? Odious the
paranormal art of contacting spits for the mere purpose of sexual pleasure. Channelingus.
A Cambridge educated a cultistant poet kept having his stash stolen by flocks of big
birds. Sort of ward them off, he put out in Alice scarecrow,
the really dumb form of huge scaly humanoids leptardians. Oh that's just too much.
It's simply bogy. But that's all I got. Rites Vault the Odious.
Thank you, thanks Vault. Quick shout out to Trudy, Oh,
Trudy, Trudy Rhoda shout out experiences, Oh, sleep visits, sleep visiting
other people in particular. That's kind of cool. We don't have time to
go over all of them, but she says, I want to even found
myself inside a dog, which caused me some confusion. I would say that,
yes, that would be confusing. I was on my back and the
dog was laid on its side. I was trying to put my hands down
to my sides and push myself into a sitting position, but I just couldn't
do it. It wasn't until I rolled to the side and saw Paul that
I realized what was going on. That one woke me up pretty quick too.
I was like, Wow, I'm a dog and then oh my god,
I'm trapped inside a dog's body. All this makes me wonder about what's
really going on when people have night terrors or visited by shadow people, and
is waking up in the experience or not. I think people really need to
wake up spiritually because if they can't perceive it, they have no chance of
defending themselves. That's a pretty good point. Yeah. Anyways, I love
the show. Keep up the good works. Thank you, Trudy, Thanks
Try, thanks for writing into Sure Up Next, Great care fancy Faced they
run it around on his kidy fief eaten wet food, Daly, if you've
got draft food, you can drink gizpe. Great cat fancy Feast, and
a kid King of Halloween. I feel like the ballad singing and the beatboxing
weren't weren't mission on? Hell No, I liked it exactly. How that
was a great cat fancy Feast. How the hell are you well? How
to rights? Good news? Bad news? Oh? No, good news?
Thank you very much for finally giving me my King of Halloween certificate.
The live show was great, and hang out afterwards was even better. That's
how old this email is. Email is, email is That's how old this
email is. It's from April. Yeah, but we're through April. Yeah,
we got one more and we're just mail bag it again and try to
Oh yeah, tighten that buttle you know that old phrase. Now to the
bad news an episode sixty three A at around one hour, three minutes and
forty seconds approximately, Stecco says that he will go into the penalty box every
episode and tell great Cat gets his certificate. So, by my cat,
that makes an even eighty episodes. Oh well, you got me dead to
rights. But let me tell you, and let me tell you the Trump
car to have up my sleeve. I'm a fucking liar. I lied to
you. That was a falsehood, a non truth, a deliberate obfiscation of
that which is real. He you'll never catch me, Hey, my dirty
liar. Oh I really wish somebody would animate me. Oh thanks, Greg
Cat. Sorry I lied to you, but make no mistake that was a
lie. Oh man, Yeah, he put that thing in a very nice
frame. Yeah, it's gorgeous and finally, Dave, we've heard from the
rish Daggle. O'sh daggle. How's it been. I, in lieu of
one of my ridiculously overwrought puns, I thought I'd share a story. Instead,
had a strange coincidence that made me double take while I was listening to
the Bullstone Alcoholywood episode. In it, the four of you were talking about
the gentleman who was caught driving drunk and when stepping out of his vehicle,
cow eyeballs fell out of his pant legs. Oh yeah, which was since
proven to be totally bullish. While the story is gross and a hoax,
sad face, and you all acquitted yourselves well by making endless jokes about cow
eyeballs in anuses that sounds like us. Yeah. What will make this story
stick in my head forever is that I saw an advertisement on a bus stop
bench that merely said, kneed eyeballs right now as I was what right as
I was in the middle of all of you all talking about eyeball soup.
It's lucky I was nearly at work, because that took me over the edge
of laughing so hard I was crying. I assume the ad was about the
power of advertising on the bench space, But now I can't help thinking there's
just this crazy guy with an ice cream scoop and a dream who has an
upstart company. Eye bye. I love that because it's what are the odds
of that? Synchron city Brother? Thanks a young old pervert. What a
that's that's that's a great story. It's great when the when the stars align,
h sometimes it makes you you forget that we're on We're in the darkest
time line. That's right. Oh you know what stars need to aligne five
of them on iTunes and you can make that happen. Segue. I'm in
love with the sag Thanks for putting us over three hildos on the Yeah,
eating that's a giant chunk. Yeah, that's great. We also are over
the halfway mark to thirteen hildos. It's true on the Facebook. You've ever
heard of that? It's a big deal. Yeah, it's a guy named
Mark. Though I thought it was a good idea, you won't shut off
about it. Follow us on Twitter, blurry underscore photos, go to audible
trial dot com slash blurry photos. Get yourself a free book. Get us
a Fiscal High five four. What are you listening to? I am on
Song of Susannah in the Dark Tower series. Sounds awesome, going well,
got this one in one more book ago and I'll be done with old Stephen
King. Yeah, just in time for Idris Elba and uh, fuck it
all up, Matthew McConaughey's in there now. I'm actually fine with Idris Elba
and McConaughey casting, all right. I just I don't think they're gonna do
from like Gun Slinger to Dark Tower, right. I think they're gonna do
something new here. I mean, listen, when when is a Stephen King
film adaptation? Never gone awry? Yeah? I think you're gonna be fine
real quick. We've gotten a few emails, Facebook messages, pigeons, Hogwarts,
owls in from you guys, just saying very nice things like we helped
you get through some some stuff. We guys are awesome. We yeah,
we we We've been there and been something that that you've you know, could
rely on or at least get a smile from when you're going through some hard
times and know that we we appreciate you as well, and we love hearing
about that, not not about you going through bad stuff that we can help.
Yeah, it's it's it's good to know that we're able to help in
whatever way that we indirectly can. And that's awesome. So thank you guys
for that, Thanks for letting us know. And and hey, you know,
you guys are the you guys are the real heroes on that. You
guys some tough and you guys are working through it, and of course I'm
impressed by that. Yeah, this is this is the reason we do it,
that that that you guys, we can we can bring a smile to
you, help you take your mind off of the darkest timeline, right.
Yeah, And and Flora has to put up with me every day, so
he's kind of a hero. He's feeling your pain pretty directly. He's taking
a lot of bullets on your behalf. So yeah, I want to take
a second to mention dark Myths dot Org. It's the podcast collective that we
are we are new proud members of. They're glorious and weird and they smell
like beef and cheese, delicious beef and cheese, fresh beef and cheese,
fresh beef, aged cheddar Dark Myths Collective. You can find a lot of
really cool podcasts on there, and in particular want to point you towards the
Lone Gunman Podcast. It is not a podcast for would be assassins. Correct.
It's hosted by Rob Clark, and it is, as he puts it,
purely his own opinion, examining the available evidence and testimony pertaining to the
assassination of jfk looking at history in a new light. And he's got a
little clip for us. Here is a bulletin from CBS News in Dallas,
Texas. Three shots were fired at President Kunterday's motorcade in downtown Dallas, Dallas.
What's up, everybody? This is Rob Clark from the Lone Gunman Podcast.
And if you're enjoying the show that you're listening to right now, then
I invite you to check mine out. Is a true crime history based podcast
where you examine all kinds of conspiracy theories, the players, the places,
the people surrounding the assassination of our thirty fifth President, John F. Kennedy.
We debunk miss because there's a lot of fake people, fake things,
fake information out there trying to mislead you from the truth. Does this sound
like an assassin to you? I work in that building. Naturally if I
work in that building. Yes, man. That the famous words of Lee
Oswald, I'm just a passy. Was he innocent or guilty? Tune in
and find out darkness dot org, iTunes, Stitcher, tune in, radio,
spreaker, Thank you so again. That's the Lone Gunman. Darkmouth's collective
at darkmouth dot org. Check them out org. Uh and and perhaps the
biggest news just confirmed today. We're doing a country album. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. We just got the information from the small folks at
Patreon and they said, time to put on some fringe and uh boot scoot
coma boogie. Yep. We we have surpassed our goal, thanks to you
glorious patrons, and we will be producing a paranormal country music album. And
I suspect you're sinking well cool, When can I expect that? Shut up?
Okay, we just figured out we're doing it seriously, seriously, seriously,
seriously. I've I've been playing guitar, but I don't know, I
probably need to brush up on other instruments. Here's here's a fun fact.
I've been going doing a lot of driving between Chicago and Iowa City, which
is about a four hour drive. I've been using the time to um come
up with country songs. Yeah, it's a good use of your time.
Yeah you want to hear one? Yeah, let's go. It's been six
long year since it probe me and the rear, Damn damn Aliens snatch me
off back of my John Dear. So there you go. There's a free
free free song teasers with song Pleaser. It's right and uh oh Chicago Podcast
Cooperative. We had a ton of fun at their offices. We got to
hang out with them and some swell folks from WB Easy. Got to play
a ton of fun video games. Oh yeah, I had a ton of
fun, not video games, ton of a ton of good food. Well
yeah, thank you to Chicago Podcast Car. But it was it was a
good time and Max Tempkin knows how to throw a party. They as always.
We we love everything they do for us and make sure you go listen
to some of their shows like Friendshipping with Gin and Chin. Yeah, super
popular. They're super nice. Yeah, very nice. We met them there.
That should probably do it. For this acoustic episode, it's unplugged episode
of Blurry Photos. For this episode, I have been the dark David Flora.
Now I've been Dave, no more tour, Stecco no more talked.
Well, that's been too long hours since this started. This pod by