Border Crossings, Burner Phones, and Surviving Interrogation in China with Josh Summers from All Things Secured

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You know, you've watched enough crime TV shows,

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oh, I could just sit in that room.

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But when it's actually happening to you,

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you don't really know what to do with yourself.

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Today, I'm absolutely honored to bring all of you, Josh

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from All Things Secured.

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And we have a very information-dense discussion to have today

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about especially privacy when you travel,

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what your rights are,

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his story about how his devices were confiscated

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and how he was deported from China,

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and what that entire experience looked like,

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which was absolutely crazy to learn about,

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but it had some incredible lessons

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that I think nobody can be too careful about.

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From best practices when you're just at home

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to when you're traveling abroad and the different countries

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and what to look for when you go across the border

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and what you do at an airport

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and what Josh's advice is

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from his unfortunate firsthand experience,

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I think there's a lot of really good stuff here

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for everybody to learn.

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And of course, it's wonderful

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to always bring on another creator

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and check in on their content.

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And he does talk a little bit about how his content is influenced by his experiences.

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Without further ado, let's get to the interview with Josh.

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Josh, it is great to have you on our podcast, finally.

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I know you've had me on a couple live streams, and so now it's time to get you on here.

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How are you doing?

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I'm doing good.

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Hey, I feel really honored.

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It's not like there was an expected back and forth.

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So thank you even for inviting me, Henry.

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Yeah.

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I mean, last time I was like, hey, just give us a little time because we had so many to

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get through.

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And so we were actually, we're getting to turn around down a lot better on these interviews.

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So it's exciting because now we can do more timely things,

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which is not this one because this is about travel.

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It's a little bit more timeless

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and a little bit more evergreen, I think.

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So hopefully we're going to talk a lot about today

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about your travel journeys,

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maybe a little bit more of the horror stories

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and the things that people don't want to happen to them,

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what it looks like to navigate that situation.

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And I really want to get practical today

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and kind of see what you have to say about travel.

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See, I've traveled a lot for especially Techlore,

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but I've never had to deal with any issues.

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And so I don't have any of these stories to share with people and things to learn from myself.

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So I guess I'd love to just open it up to ask you what your living situation that you're comfortable sharing looks like.

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Because it seems like you travel a lot and it could be helpful context.

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You can switch around countries if it's not relevant, whatever you're comfortable sharing, of course.

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Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

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So me and my wife have been out in Asia just in general for over 20 years now.

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So it feels like it's been an eternity, basically most of our married life.

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And we started off in China, not because I necessarily wanted to move to China.

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And this was before, like this was back in early 2000s when the China-US relations really

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weren't that bad.

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And, you know, going out there didn't feel super, I don't know, like I would feel differently

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if I was trying to move out to China now versus when we were back in the early 2000s.

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But we stayed in China for about 10 years and not in the eastern side of China.

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So if you know anything about the geography of China, like the eastern side is all the big cities, all the like the wealth and all that stuff.

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And we were out on the western side.

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So we were closer to Kazakhstan than we were to Japan.

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And it was incredible.

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Like I loved it.

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I don't regret my time out there.

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But it was certainly some of the hardest living that I've ever had to do.

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Like it was not an easy place to live.

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We just loved it.

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We felt like we should be there.

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And so we were there for 10 years.

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And now I'm in Thailand through a series of events that I'll probably explain later on

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in this talk.

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Like, you know, we were kicked out of China.

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And so we eventually, not immediately, but we eventually found ourselves in Thailand.

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And so from here, you know, it's a great place for me.

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And I now have two boys to travel around, you know, to go to Europe, to go to different

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places in Asia, some places that we want to go, you know, like going down to Malaysia

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or going to the Philippines.

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And then some places that we don't want to go.

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You know, I had to make a visa trip to Laos and that wasn't my favorite country, you know.

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So like there are just, there's a lot of different border crossings that happen when there are just so many countries squashed together in Asia.

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And so that's kind of a, I got in a nutshell where we've been.

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Yeah.

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If I could ask, like why, like what about Asia?

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Like has you all kind of living there?

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Is it the culture?

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Like what do you enjoy about the area?

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Yeah, I think when my wife and I, her name's Tiffany, so when Tiffany and I first moved

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out to Asia, it was more just the adventure of it all.

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I had wanted to go to some Spanish-speaking country in South America, but we tried to go

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through the Peace Corps.

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Connecting for a couple was super hard, and so we ended up going out into Western China.

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And I had never spoken Chinese before.

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It wasn't like I had this innate desire to go out to Asia.

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It was just the right opportunity at the right time, the right connection for a person that

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needed, you know, we went out there as English teachers in the very beginning. So I don't think

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that there's like this great answer for why we were in Asia. But once we got here, I really fell in

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love with it. And I do think it is an acquired taste. It's also not for everybody. I love the

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food out here. I love the pace of life. I love the culture. And, you know, frankly, I love the cost

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of living. Like it is considerably cheaper to be out here and still comfortable. Like where we're

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in Thailand, like you can still have a good life, but without having to pay out the nose for it.

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Nice. Okay. So, you know, you said you got kicked out of China. So for those who haven't,

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I guess, heard the story, I think it could be good to just tell that

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for whatever happened. And then we can kind of dive into maybe some more specifics there.

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Yeah. I like to, I don't know, it feels like a frog in a boiling pot. If you've heard that

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analogy before, where it's, and I don't even know if it's true, but they say that if you don't throw

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a frog into a pot of boiling water, it'll immediately jump out because it recognizes,

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wow, that's super hot and it'll jump. But if you put a frog in water and then boil that water,

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it'll just sit there until it boils to death. And I feel like that's kind of my experience in China

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where if you had placed me in China in 2013, or actually, excuse me, 2018, when we were eventually

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kicked out, just that being my first experience, it would have been jarring. It would have been,

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I don't know if I could have handled it, the amount of surveillance, the amount of police,

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the amount of just not feeling welcome. But when we arrived in 2006 and then slowly kind of got used

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to all of that survey, like these changes that happened. And if you look back into China's

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history, you know, they had the Olympics in 2008 and there were some events that happened

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prior to that where there's just a little bit of unrest and then in 2009 there were some massive

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riots out in the region where we were living and that prompted a big clamp down a lot of police and

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there was just this tension between the Chinese people like Han Chinese is what we would call it

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like what you and I think of as Chinese and then the Chinese people that were actually more Central

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Asian think of like Tibet you know that that conflict over who actually is the original owner

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of Tibet. Well, that same thing happened in our region in Xinjiang where it was more just this

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ethnic conflict. And we as foreigners got a little bit in the middle of it. But one of the things that

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I got to do while I was out there was I went and did a lot of like travel vlogging, travel writing.

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I wrote for Lonely Planet back when that was a thing. And if anybody who's watching or listening

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to this is like younger than the age of 30, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. But

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like back before the internet, we used to travel with these big fat blue books, you know, that

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travel writers would, uh, would, you know, go and figure out what restaurants and hotels to go to.

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And, uh, and that was part of what I got to do. You're laughing. Like, do you know Lonely Planet?

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Oh, I, I invented Lonely Planet. No, no, I, I have no idea. So, um, I know a lot of,

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I've seen the YouTube demographics that those are like the only stats we have access to. So I know

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some people will know. Yeah. That's so funny. Yeah. So yeah, I mean like that kind of stuff,

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I got into travel writing.

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But what that meant was I was walking around a very politically sensitive region with a

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camera and with a figurative notepad, like talking to people, taking notes and doing

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all this stuff.

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And over time, that just put a huge target on my back.

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So not only was the political tension rising, China ended up setting up kind of these concentration

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camps for the local people that is still to some degree going on today.

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and then you had me over here just running around the province i wouldn't say naively but maybe a

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little bit naively with a camera and it wasn't i mean it came to a head in 2018 when the police

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just took me in i remember that it happened twice but the the big time the one that where we were

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eventually kicked out they came to my house with 18 no sorry it was 14 police officers and they read

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me my rights. My wife and my boys are sitting on the couch. They said they were getting me for

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espionage, which for the record, I am not, have not ever been, you know, I mean, everybody would

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say that, but like, I'm not a spy. I have no connection with my government, right? Like I

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don't, but just like, I can't convince you of that. I can't convince, you know, a foreign government

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of that for sure. And they took everything. They took my computer. They took all of my, like these

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little, you know, hard drives that you, or like flash drives that you use for your camera. They

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took my laptop, my phone, they took all of that stuff and they spent the next week interrogating me

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and combing through all of my devices and just trying to find any and everything that they could

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against me. Thankfully, they weren't able to prove that I was a spy because I'm not, but they didn't

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like me enough that they just, after the end of, it was a 17 day, it felt like forever, like long

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period, they just gave me my passport. They had taken my passport and my whole family's passport

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so we couldn't leave. And they returned our passports without charging us officially with

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anything. We had to sign some documents and then we were deported and told we could never return,

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at least for the next 10 years. That was our experience. And as I say it, I'm sure that a lot

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of people can listen to this and hear a lot of different things. It was without a doubt the

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scariest moment of my life. And I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I thought I was going to be taken

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away from my kids and my wife. They threatened me with 10 years in jail for something that I didn't

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do. And there was very little that could be done about it except for just hope and pray that they

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would change their minds. Yeah. No, it sounds super scary. And especially like, did you, like on day

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three, did you know at all it was going to be 17 days? Were you like, oh, I'm a sixth of the way

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through this or was it just kind of endless? Like I'm just kind of in this until whenever it's over.

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There's two questions that people usually ask. One is, did they physically abuse me in any way?

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And then two is, did you know, like you said, did you know? And the answer is no, we didn't know.

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As a matter of fact, when we started the process, they told me this is going to be multi-year,

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right? We're taking your passport. And so when you think that, it definitely changes your view of

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how things are moving forward and what life is going to look like. And then they did not physically

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abuse me, but there was a lot of like, in some ways I almost wish they had because

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that people can relate to a lot more than psychological abuse, which is what I think

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people that are trained interrogators, that are trained in that kind of stuff, that's what they're

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good at. I mean, like they're experts at this like psychological warfare. And I was completely

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unprepared. Like you think, you think you could stand up against, you know, you've watched enough

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crime TV shows. Oh, I could just sit in that room. But when it's actually happening to you,

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it's completely freaky and you're, you don't really know what to do with yourself.

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Yeah. I mean, I don't know what I would do. I mean, it's, it's not like a skill that I think

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is taught or something people normally think about. So yeah, what happened after that? And

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happened, I guess, prevention going forward? How possible is that to replicate in other countries?

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And are you concerned about this kind of thing happening in westernized countries? I know that's

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a big concern nowadays. So I have a lot of questions that I want to get into. But before

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then, just kind of what was next for you and what were the next steps just to round out that story?

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Yeah. So like I said, they gave me my passports back and then they dumped like most of our devices

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in our laps, save maybe one or two that they held onto. So I mean, that's everything from hard

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drives to my devices. And we got home and I contacted a security friend of mine and I didn't

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turn on any of these devices at all. And essentially we just ended up dumping every single one of them.

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There was just no way. I didn't know what they'd done with it. A little bit of context here too.

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And this was one of the things I was going to say, like security and privacy, like your best strategy.

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It's like that Mike Tyson quote, your best strategy and security and privacy is great until someone puts a gun to your head.

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Where when somebody comes to you and this happened to me and they were like, hey, listen, give us the password to all of these things on your computer or else we will take and put you in jail right now.

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Okay.

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You know, I'm in a foreign country.

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A lot of my rights are stripped.

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And that's another thing you'll probably hear me say a lot, Henry, is when you travel, one

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of the things that we give up is our right to have a right to a lot of these things.

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It's things that we fight for in our own country.

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And I believe that that is a good and a noble fight.

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But when we travel, we have to recognize that we don't inherently get that right as we move.

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Even though we represent whatever country that might have that right, I don't get those

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rights whenever I am in somebody else's country. And so they can demand those passwords from me.

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And they did. And they went through all of my stuff. I remember the moment they caught me,

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they caught me, they went through our house, right? They just sat us on the couch and they

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went through everything and they found this device. I don't know if you can kind of see it for those

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who might be listening. I know what that device, yeah. Yeah. For those listening, it's a USB flash

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drive with some pins on it to unlock it encrypted. Yeah. Like I keep my death file on here. This is

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like, if I die, my wife knows like this has all my stuff. They saw this and they like, it confirmed

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all of their suspicions that I was a spy. What normal person would have one of these things,

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at least in their mind. Right. And I, and I think that was the other thing I kind of learned is,

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is like, you know, not that our security and privacy practices put a big target on us or

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anything, but there are certain ways in which we can actually stand out in the way that we do things.

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Some of that can be good, but in some cases, especially when we're traveling internationally,

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that can come back to bite us. And this was one example of where that came back to bite me,

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where I think I'm doing a great job here. I'm keeping things that are super secure,

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that I don't want anyone else to have. And it just confirmed for them who they thought I was.

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Yeah. What I think about with this, I mean, this is the layer of anonymity slash,

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I guess even if you want to add a fourth one, obscurity,

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it's a really hard thing to kind of teach people about.

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But I think a more obvious one that was starting to get more tangible

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for people is in the cryptocurrency space.

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In the cryptocurrency space, we see a lot of individualized attacks.

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You know, like people get kidnapped.

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They literally get threatened to have to hand over their stuff.

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And so the big advice is like,

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you're not supposed to tell people you own crypto.

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Like that's like the whole thing.

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And the people who are on Twitter going,

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oh, look at all my Bitcoin that I have

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are probably not doing it very intelligently.

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but that's what you get when you buy a ledger device or a treasure device like when you get a

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hardware wallet you are signaling to the site that you purchase it from which ledgers site has been

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caught in a data breach now so everyone who ever bought a ledger back from like 2017 through whatever

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date until the breach happened that's public information which is a scary thought but even

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if someone just visits your house or law enforcement comes in if they see that that's

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that is an indication that you have some access to that.

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And so back when I was working at CakeWallet,

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they released something called Cupcake.

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And the whole concept of Cupcake is you take a second device,

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like an old device that's laying in your drawer,

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and you keep it offline,

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and that becomes your secondary hardware-assigned device.

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And the whole concept here is it's obscurity.

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No one would ever see a second phone and go,

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oh, that's used to hold cryptocurrency in a very secure fashion

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for someone who's holding millions of dollars in cryptocurrency, right?

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So it's true. People don't think about this. Sorry to go back to what you're saying.

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People don't think about the fact that some security tools actually are an indication and could raise suspicion.

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Not that it's right. I don't think either of us are saying that's right.

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But I think it should be something that's considered in some people's threat model, depending on their situation.

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So I'm sorry you had to deal with that firsthand.

255
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I mean, yeah, no, like it's part of my story. I don't mind like sharing those things.

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It was a definitely unique experience.

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One of the things I remember, this is where I see certain ways in which our life in China

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was a precursor to what we're seeing in the West.

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So an example of that is, you know, I'm walking around with my phone.

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I've got a prepaid plan on my phone.

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And mind you, this is 10 years ago.

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But still, I'm walking around and suddenly my phone stops working.

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Like, what?

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What's going on?

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You know, I can't make phone calls.

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I got no data.

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And like, you got to understand it.

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Like in places like China, it's amazing how good their cellular networks are because they

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never, like in the US, we first did everything over wire. And so all of our carriers were just

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slow to adopt the desire to really invest in that kind of infrastructure. Whereas places like China,

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just like, I remember being in the middle of the stinking desert and I still was sitting there

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watching YouTube videos. I had that good of cellular connection. So when connection goes out,

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it's not like, oh, am I in a dead spot? It's no, like, oh, something's wrong. So I top it up. I add

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more money, still nothing. So I go into my internet service providers, China Mobile, and I'm like,

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hey, what is going on here? And they look up my account. I'm like, oh, just so you know,

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the police have put a hold on your account. You've got to go over to the police station to get that

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hold released before we can do this. Was this before or after the incident?

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This is before the incident. So yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. I didn't clarify that. So this is just

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life beforehand. So I had to go over to the police station and they literally said, okay,

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we recognize that you've been getting on a VPN and we need you to delete all of your VPN. So they

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watched me sit there and delete all of my VPN apps. And then I had to go back, you know, get a sign

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off from them, go back so I could get my account reinstated and use my cell phone again. Now,

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I don't know what's to stop me from re-downloading VPNs again.

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Like I think I eventually did after a little while,

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but just this collaboration between the police

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and all the other entities that I dealt with.

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I mean, especially with, you know, like ISPs

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or with my mobile provider.

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Like I just, it was disconcerting for me at the time.

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And even as we talk about or look at news

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of what's happening around the world

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in regards to the legality of VPNs,

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can VPNs be used in order to evade any of these things that we're coming up against nowadays.

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I can see a time where we've got law enforcement working with mobile providers to make sure that

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if you are using a VPN, I'm not saying this is happening. I'm just saying this was my experience

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in China and it was kind of eye-opening. Oh my gosh, this is what happens whenever there is that

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connection between law enforcement and mobile providers or law enforcement and ISP. And it was,

298
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Yeah, it was weird, for sure.

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Yeah, I mean, so I have a few broader talking points.

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And I think this could be a good segue into the overall legality of things.

301
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And so I don't expect you to be a legal expert here.

302
00:20:21,420 --> 00:20:24,800
But you mentioned this concept of when you travel somewhere,

303
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you're giving up a lot of your rights.

304
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And I think that's a pretty universal concept.

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If you are not an American and you go to the U.S.,

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you have a lot less rights than Americans might.

307
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And if I'm an American and I fly to Germany for a conference, I have a lot less rights there as well.

308
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But what about citizens?

309
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So are you also American?

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Yes, I am.

311
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Okay.

312
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So when you go to the U.S. and you are an American citizen, how does that compare to the rights that a Chinese citizen would have in China?

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Do you see a discrepancy between what those two things look like?

314
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What would you say is overall a good starting point for a lot of people to understand the nuances of what their rights really are in these different contexts?

315
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Yeah.

316
00:21:08,090 --> 00:21:11,640
I wonder, because I think that we start with two different perceptions.

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So I think that with an American, we start with at least the perception.

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I'm not saying this is the reality, but at least the perception that we have a right to privacy and that we actually have privacy to some degree by default.

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And I would argue that that doesn't exist by default as much as we think it does.

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But still, there's kind of that perception that, hey, you know, we have, you know, that's

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why Apple promotes the privacy of their products.

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That's why, you know, privacy, you know, even Samsung, this privacy screen, like they've

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recognized that consumers care about the idea of privacy.

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Around the world, it's not quite the same.

325
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And I don't know if I would chalk that completely up to just politics.

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I think there's a lot of culture involved in that.

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We're a very individualistic society in the U.S., whereas you go most places in Asia,

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and I can only really speak from experience in China and Thailand, it is a very collective

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culture.

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There's this expectation that the good of the group is more important than the good of the

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individual.

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And this kind of bowing to that idea of that, that is what's expected.

333
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And so this right of privacy is not necessarily as default in the mindset of the people that I'm aware of in China and now in Thailand.

334
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And so dealing with that was a little bit different.

335
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So I would get frustrated by things that my friends in China were just like, what's the big deal?

336
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you know, after the 2009 riots in our region. So this was, if you look it up, just go 2009 riots,

337
00:22:50,300 --> 00:22:54,180
you know, China, and you'll see all this stuff happened out in that region where we were living.

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They did a couple of things. First of all, they shut off all international calling. You couldn't

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make an international phone call from our region. So just imagine like a state, like a province.

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And they shut off the internet. It was just an intranet within our region for 10 months.

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And I want you to think back, anybody like for yourself or anybody who's watching this

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right now, did you ever see anything about that on the news?

343
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Like there were snippets of it on the news, but like if the internet was cut in the state

344
00:23:23,780 --> 00:23:31,840
of California for 10 months, can you imagine the backlash and like how much like people

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would just be going nuts?

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But for the people of that region of Xinjiang, the idea that the internet was cut for the

347
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safety of everybody in the region was kind of just this given. So I, you know, going back to what

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you're saying, I don't know if I can speak much to the legality of any of that. All I know is that

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from a cultural perspective, I think there's a lot more acceptance of that kind of invasion of privacy

350
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for the good of the group that at least in the U.S., I don't think that is considered acceptable

351
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for a lot of us. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. And, you know, do you think that reflects

352
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that culture difference also kind of impacts downstream

353
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how surveillance technology is implemented.

354
00:24:15,420 --> 00:24:16,720
And you kind of hinted at this as well.

355
00:24:17,340 --> 00:24:18,820
This is something I wanted to ask about.

356
00:24:19,130 --> 00:24:22,500
I feel like China has no issue just calling people in saying,

357
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hey, we noticed you were using a VPN, delete it right now.

358
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:27,060
Hey, we have these cameras everywhere.

359
00:24:27,540 --> 00:24:30,640
It's very well known that there's a lot of surveillance technology in China.

360
00:24:31,110 --> 00:24:35,439
But I feel like in the US, people are quite disillusioned

361
00:24:35,460 --> 00:24:36,440
with all the surveillance.

362
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:37,820
Like people don't think about Flock

363
00:24:38,020 --> 00:24:39,980
until it's put in front of their face in a Super Bowl ad.

364
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:41,340
And then they go, oh, I hate this.

365
00:24:41,860 --> 00:24:43,640
But they otherwise would have never known about it.

366
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And so I think people in the US,

367
00:24:45,120 --> 00:24:46,560
it's happening a lot more passively.

368
00:24:47,500 --> 00:24:49,500
Governments secretly tap on private companies

369
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:50,620
like Google and collect it

370
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without ever notifying the user.

371
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So do you think that that reflects the cultures?

372
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:58,740
How do you feel about this overall relationship?

373
00:24:59,360 --> 00:24:59,960
Yeah, I do.

374
00:25:00,360 --> 00:25:01,260
I mean, you're right.

375
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,639
The surveillance is not hidden in any way

376
00:25:05,020 --> 00:25:12,040
in a place like China. It is very much in your face. The cameras, when I was living there back

377
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:20,240
in 2018, before I left, the camera system they had out there put flock to shame, right? They had

378
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:27,120
every inch covered by government-controlled cameras, right? So at least flock for better or

379
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:33,179
worse. It's not top-down government-controlled. Now, it is regulated, all that stuff, and I'm not a

380
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:38,060
big fan of it at all, but there is a little bit of a difference there. Where I was living,

381
00:25:38,140 --> 00:25:43,540
there were literally, we called them police substations. I don't know what the local term

382
00:25:43,740 --> 00:25:49,720
was, but it was like in the same way that there's a Starbucks in the US pretty much on every corner

383
00:25:50,340 --> 00:25:54,080
that you're driving. That's the way it felt like with these little police substations that would

384
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:59,359
handle the ingestion of all these cameras. When I was being interrogated, the amount of information

385
00:25:59,360 --> 00:26:07,680
that they knew on me about me and my goings and my communication was very eye-opening and shocking

386
00:26:08,260 --> 00:26:15,120
for me personally. But I think that the average Chinese citizen, again, kind of like,

387
00:26:16,300 --> 00:26:22,180
the chicken and the egg problem for me is more about, do they accept it because it's cultural

388
00:26:22,420 --> 00:26:28,119
or do they accept it because they know they have no recourse? Like them raising their voice about

389
00:26:28,140 --> 00:26:34,020
is going to do no good. It will only do harm to them and their potential prospects for a career,

390
00:26:34,620 --> 00:26:40,940
for anything like that. And so raising any sort of concern is not going to be of any value.

391
00:26:41,620 --> 00:26:47,920
So you just kind of have to go along with it. Whereas at least us in the US, we've got a

392
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:52,819
mechanism through which we can say, this flock stuff sucks. What are we doing? And there can be

393
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:59,180
at least a debate, hopefully a good debate, but there can be a debate in the public forum about

394
00:26:59,380 --> 00:27:04,840
whether this is a truly helpful thing or whether it's not. And I don't think those debates happen

395
00:27:05,540 --> 00:27:11,560
in other parts of the world. And frankly, I think they look at our debates as foolish.

396
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:18,979
Like they look in on the American debate over something like the flock privacy stuff as just

397
00:27:19,260 --> 00:27:23,020
us being fools just because there is so much infighting about it.

398
00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:29,240
Quick one, go into your email inbox right now and type in unsubscribe. However many hundreds or

399
00:27:29,500 --> 00:27:34,660
thousands of results you just got, that's how many companies have your real email address. So the

400
00:27:34,710 --> 00:27:39,040
moment any of them gets breached or quietly sells you out, it's your real inbox eating the spam,

401
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:46,119
the trackers, and the hackers forever. Addy.io is designed to fix this entire problem. The whole

402
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:52,040
idea is you stop giving out your real email address and instead hand every single site its own alias

403
00:27:52,220 --> 00:27:57,320
that just forwards to the inbox you already have think like apple hide my email except it's open

404
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:02,260
source and you can bring it to any email inbox and my favorite part is that once you get all your

405
00:28:02,500 --> 00:28:07,160
accounts using an email alias you can always swap the email provider behind the scenes like moving

406
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:12,599
from gmail to a private email provider without needing to update every single account's email and

407
00:28:12,620 --> 00:28:15,980
And it's possible because you're really just putting Addy in front of your email.

408
00:28:16,180 --> 00:28:17,540
It's like your email bodyguard.

409
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:18,880
This also offers a lot of protection.

410
00:28:19,090 --> 00:28:22,140
If a site starts to spam you or you show up in a data breach

411
00:28:22,310 --> 00:28:25,280
or you realize they sold your data because that one specific alias

412
00:28:25,490 --> 00:28:28,140
suddenly started getting junk, you just deactivate the alias.

413
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:30,520
It's fully open source, so you're not trusting a black box.

414
00:28:30,570 --> 00:28:33,280
And you can even self-host the entire thing if you're that kind of person,

415
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:34,560
which I know many of you are.

416
00:28:34,740 --> 00:28:35,420
It's on F-Droid.

417
00:28:35,470 --> 00:28:37,380
There are browser extensions and mobile apps,

418
00:28:37,410 --> 00:28:40,380
so you can spin up a fresh alias right as you're signing up for something.

419
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:43,400
And if you want to go all in, you can even use it with your own custom alias.

420
00:28:43,510 --> 00:28:46,240
It's free to start and they have a crazy generous free plan to get started.

421
00:28:46,580 --> 00:28:49,180
Visit Addy.io or just check them out down in the description.

422
00:28:49,290 --> 00:28:50,760
And thank you guys for sponsoring us.

423
00:28:51,160 --> 00:28:51,780
Now back to the video.

424
00:28:53,360 --> 00:28:57,320
So after this all happened to you, I want to get more into more like the practical side of things.

425
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:00,120
What have you changed in your life since then?

426
00:29:00,150 --> 00:29:01,880
I think, you know, people hear this story.

427
00:29:01,970 --> 00:29:05,180
I don't think it's hopefully something many of our listeners have had to deal with.

428
00:29:05,390 --> 00:29:06,920
If they're like, oh, well, that's scary.

429
00:29:07,700 --> 00:29:08,980
I don't want that to happen to me.

430
00:29:09,060 --> 00:29:13,600
if it does happen to me, I want to be prepared for it. What are kind of your main takeaway lessons

431
00:29:14,220 --> 00:29:17,380
from everything that happened to you that you would share with somebody else?

432
00:29:17,820 --> 00:29:22,740
Yeah. Well, like I said, the best privacy and security in the world breaks down when someone

433
00:29:22,780 --> 00:29:26,920
puts a gun to your head. There are obviously extreme measures that you can take on certain

434
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:31,879
things, but when somebody has a gun to your head, there's very little you can do. So I kind of want

435
00:29:31,900 --> 00:29:39,760
to separate out my particular event and circumstance was very unique in that it did feel like I had a

436
00:29:39,900 --> 00:29:46,020
gun to my head, but that experience did change the way that I cross borders. And I think that

437
00:29:46,460 --> 00:29:52,700
that intentionality for how you cross borders is important. I like to tell people that the way that

438
00:29:52,700 --> 00:29:59,020
you cross a border starts in the preparation before you board the plane, not once you land.

439
00:29:59,300 --> 00:30:01,340
And I think a lot of people have that mixed up.

440
00:30:01,410 --> 00:30:05,060
They're like, okay, once I land, that's when I'll just make sure that I've, you know, turned

441
00:30:05,130 --> 00:30:06,340
off my phone or whatnot.

442
00:30:06,780 --> 00:30:10,740
When it comes to, let's say, entering into China, if I'm advising somebody who's going

443
00:30:10,900 --> 00:30:15,580
in on business, like one of the things that I'm going to say is, you know, hey, if, unless

444
00:30:15,690 --> 00:30:20,000
you absolutely have to, for some reason, I'm not going to bring my regular phone.

445
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:26,840
I'm going to bring a secondary phone, a burner phone, if you will, into the country and only

446
00:30:26,860 --> 00:30:31,840
use, you know, I'm not, that phone's not going to have all of my personal stuff on it. I want to

447
00:30:31,940 --> 00:30:41,620
know because for people that are just general travelers, the most risky moment of your travel,

448
00:30:42,100 --> 00:30:47,940
of, of, of any, like the, the most, how would I say this? The, the most likely you are to have

449
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:53,320
something happen wrong with your data or with anything that you are, that you have personally

450
00:30:53,340 --> 00:30:58,440
with you is when you're crossing that border. So when you're going through customs, when you are

451
00:30:58,540 --> 00:31:03,300
in that airport or when you're crossing that land border, that's the time that you have to be most

452
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:07,420
concerned about. When I'm thinking about that, I'm thinking, okay, there's certain apps that I really

453
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:13,540
don't need to have. Like if I were to hand over this phone and somebody had my pin code and said,

454
00:31:13,700 --> 00:31:19,299
give, let me look through everything in here. Would I be comfortable doing that? I personally use

455
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:24,580
ProtonPass, but 1Password has this feature where they have travel mode, where you can actually turn

456
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:33,240
on travel mode and it will remove whichever vaults you have on it that are listed as not safe for

457
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:38,620
travel. So if I've got a business vault, I can keep my personal vault on there, but if I have a

458
00:31:38,710 --> 00:31:44,040
business vault or a super sensitive vault, I can make sure that those are removed before I travel.

459
00:31:44,620 --> 00:31:47,220
And then I can log out of any accounts that I might have,

460
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:50,480
or like I said, just have a travel specific device.

461
00:31:50,780 --> 00:31:52,000
But those are just a couple of the things

462
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:52,920
that I'm thinking through.

463
00:31:53,860 --> 00:31:54,080
Got it.

464
00:31:54,100 --> 00:31:56,900
And so pretty much your suggestion there is,

465
00:31:57,180 --> 00:31:58,340
hey, I got a phone.

466
00:31:58,500 --> 00:32:00,640
It's either my regular phone or a secondary device

467
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:01,620
if I have that luxury.

468
00:32:02,340 --> 00:32:04,120
And I only load onto it the bare minimum

469
00:32:04,180 --> 00:32:05,120
of what I need for the trip.

470
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,000
So probably boarding passes, not all of my passwords,

471
00:32:08,220 --> 00:32:10,680
not all of my messages, not all of my browsing history,

472
00:32:10,940 --> 00:32:12,340
just the bare minimum on that device.

473
00:32:12,860 --> 00:32:16,240
What about like computers and any other like privacy and security tools?

474
00:32:16,420 --> 00:32:18,960
Like, do you recommend having a VPN on there?

475
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:22,220
What's kind of your stack or what do you typically travel with?

476
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:26,800
Yeah, so I am going to have a VPN on all the devices.

477
00:32:27,300 --> 00:32:32,500
I essentially, what I think through is one, obviously I just said, what is on my device

478
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:37,440
that if I had to hand this device over, is there anything that I would absolutely not

479
00:32:37,620 --> 00:32:39,260
want somebody to have access to?

480
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:42,820
And then the second thing I actually think about is what would I feel like if this

481
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:47,580
got plugged into. And this is something that I've actually had happen to me multiple times,

482
00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:54,760
where I will be asked and compelled to take my phone and plug something into it and unlock it

483
00:32:55,010 --> 00:33:00,780
so that they can run some kind of scan. I don't know what that scan is exactly. I don't know what

484
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:05,020
they're scanning for. They won't tell me. And I don't know what they're uploading. And I've asked

485
00:33:05,620 --> 00:33:09,360
Apple, I've literally emailed them and this is years ago. So maybe things have changed,

486
00:33:09,460 --> 00:33:14,700
But I emailed them and said, if somebody plugs into my phone and I am compelled to put in

487
00:33:14,780 --> 00:33:17,300
my PIN number, what can they up?

488
00:33:17,780 --> 00:33:19,720
They're restricted on what they can upload.

489
00:33:20,420 --> 00:33:25,160
And the answer was, we assume that if you are giving your PIN code and making this a

490
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:29,660
trusted device that you can do basically anything, which kind of scares me.

491
00:33:29,940 --> 00:33:34,880
But again, when you're crossing a border or when you are going into an international territory,

492
00:33:35,500 --> 00:33:38,240
you may not have the right to say no to something like that.

493
00:33:38,500 --> 00:33:44,580
So I want to make sure that if I have a device, am I willing to have this thing plugged into?

494
00:33:45,020 --> 00:33:48,040
And that, you know, again, it's everybody's different.

495
00:33:48,300 --> 00:33:51,440
Everybody's threat model as they do this is going to be entirely different.

496
00:33:51,620 --> 00:34:01,140
It's more just how are you intentionally thinking about this travel and preparing instead of just getting caught once you're on the other side with, you know, not being prepared.

497
00:34:02,580 --> 00:34:02,700
Yeah.

498
00:34:02,700 --> 00:34:06,600
And then kind of going back to something we said earlier, do you ever think about obscurity for this as well?

499
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:11,540
Like, are you concerned if you have Tor browser on the device or you're using Veracrypt on something?

500
00:34:11,700 --> 00:34:16,639
Do you think, do you try to avoid tools that would set off too many flags if someone was to unlock a device?

501
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,320
Or is that not part of your concern anymore when you travel?

502
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:21,360
It is.

503
00:34:21,700 --> 00:34:23,600
I mean, I distinctly remember they came back.

504
00:34:23,740 --> 00:34:27,840
So this is going back into when I was being interrogated over those 17 days.

505
00:34:28,520 --> 00:34:30,320
And we were in house arrest at the time.

506
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:32,840
And I remember they'd taken all my devices.

507
00:34:33,060 --> 00:34:36,000
So like we would go home, you know, thankfully go home every night.

508
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:37,960
And we didn't have anything to do.

509
00:34:38,060 --> 00:34:39,060
Like you can't stream anything.

510
00:34:39,100 --> 00:34:40,360
We don't have any devices, right?

511
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:46,340
So we would like, it was a very offline week for us, but they would come back to me and

512
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:52,879
I had a folder on my computer that was entirely encrypted that I kept stuff in and they brought

513
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:55,700
the computer to my door and said, type in the password.

514
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:57,040
We need to look in here.

515
00:34:57,620 --> 00:35:02,240
And it was, it was things that, you know, I wanted to stay safe, but it didn't really

516
00:35:02,500 --> 00:35:03,380
matter that they saw.

517
00:35:03,900 --> 00:35:11,600
But I think the point being, they recognized this is a particularly sensitive folder.

518
00:35:11,900 --> 00:35:13,360
You've obviously secured it.

519
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:15,320
So we want you to open this.

520
00:35:15,980 --> 00:35:20,380
And there were probably plenty of other things on the computer, but they found that one folder

521
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:21,340
that had been encrypted.

522
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:23,280
And that is what they honed in on.

523
00:35:23,620 --> 00:35:26,460
Just the same like they honed in on this little USB stick.

524
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:30,380
And they were convinced that this had everything that I wanted to hide on it.

525
00:35:30,420 --> 00:35:38,660
Those are the type of things where if it's easy to stand out, like if it really stands out, you're probably going to grab the attention of somebody who's searching for something.

526
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:51,420
Do you think there's a strategy there for people to have, let's say, a honeypot where they have something that they know looks the most interesting that has nothing interesting in it to kind of just be like, no, it's not a big deal?

527
00:35:52,980 --> 00:35:55,420
Yeah, I mean, that's certainly a strategy you could use.

528
00:35:55,430 --> 00:35:56,660
I haven't thought about using that, though.

529
00:35:56,740 --> 00:35:57,040
That's funny.

530
00:35:57,520 --> 00:35:58,360
Okay, yeah, I was just curious.

531
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:09,320
I guess another question I think people might be thinking about, you're sharing this advice, and I've traveled to Europe at this point probably like 10 different times for different trips, mostly work.

532
00:36:09,570 --> 00:36:10,620
I've never dealt with any of this.

533
00:36:10,960 --> 00:36:12,440
I've never taken this too seriously.

534
00:36:12,590 --> 00:36:18,380
I do basic hygiene, but I've never brought strictly a secondary device when I'm going to Europe.

535
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:23,460
So I guess the question here is, do you think that this should be universal travel advice?

536
00:36:23,700 --> 00:36:28,300
Would you tell me, Henry, it could always happen, you don't know, and you should probably always be ready for it?

537
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:31,940
or do you think that this should be done selectively per country,

538
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:34,760
depending on the likelihood in which this could happen?

539
00:36:35,720 --> 00:36:37,160
Yeah, I think it's a hybrid answer

540
00:36:37,860 --> 00:36:40,680
because obviously your experience of traveling to Europe

541
00:36:40,740 --> 00:36:43,700
is a lot different than my experience of traveling to Malaysia

542
00:36:44,180 --> 00:36:46,660
or to Laos or to some of these countries

543
00:36:47,100 --> 00:36:49,700
where their law enforcement and their privacy,

544
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:53,000
they don't take it as seriously as you would in a place like Europe.

545
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:57,300
So I think there is something to this idea that where you're going,

546
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:03,560
obviously matters in how you prepare an approach for international travel. So going to a place like

547
00:37:03,700 --> 00:37:10,580
Germany, I'm going to probably not be as on high alert as I would going to Vietnam or Laos or,

548
00:37:10,830 --> 00:37:14,720
you know, one of these other countries that I'm closer, or even down into some places in Africa

549
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:20,760
or the Middle East, right? Like it's going to make a difference in how I plan. That being said,

550
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:28,740
I do believe that as with anything privacy and security related, you never have to worry

551
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:31,740
about the worst case scenario until the worst case scenario happens.

552
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:37,380
It's not that it could never happen in Europe, you know, crossing a border in Switzerland

553
00:37:37,410 --> 00:37:38,240
or anything like that.

554
00:37:38,410 --> 00:37:40,780
I would still be intentional about it.

555
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:45,260
It's just you don't necessarily have to be as on high alert in certain places.

556
00:37:45,650 --> 00:37:47,540
So I think it's probably a mixture of the two.

557
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:48,980
Got it.

558
00:37:49,460 --> 00:37:53,480
I guess another question that came up, you know, when they did the whole phone scan thing,

559
00:37:53,860 --> 00:37:58,200
if I just whip out the secondary device I don't care about and I just say, yeah, sure, go for it,

560
00:37:58,620 --> 00:38:03,040
is that good enough? Or do they typically collect all devices and it's quite a thorough process and

561
00:38:03,050 --> 00:38:06,820
they want you to scan each one? Or I know you can't ever count on something because I know

562
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:11,100
there's different degrees in which they're going to, you know, want to investigate,

563
00:38:11,220 --> 00:38:15,939
but in that specific scenario for you. Yeah. I mean, I did have friends that would carry around

564
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:21,760
two phones. And, you know, as long as you gave them a phone, they were happy, you know, that

565
00:38:21,820 --> 00:38:27,120
because you got to keep in mind, these guys, it's not like they're the top dog. The ones that are

566
00:38:27,250 --> 00:38:31,040
actually implementing this are just the low man on the totem pole who've been told, all you got to do

567
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:35,420
is plug this in. If something beeps or if something, you know, like if there's some, you know,

568
00:38:35,720 --> 00:38:40,700
notification that there's something on here, then we have protocol, but they just wanted to do their

569
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:44,900
plug-in and they know that everybody has a phone. So if you pretend like you don't have a phone,

570
00:38:44,940 --> 00:38:47,040
then they'll be a little concerned.

571
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,480
But yeah, I don't think that it would be a problem

572
00:38:51,100 --> 00:38:53,140
if you had two phones and then you just hand it over

573
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:55,920
the dummy phone or the one that doesn't have anything on it.

574
00:38:56,800 --> 00:38:56,880
Nice.

575
00:38:57,180 --> 00:38:58,400
Is there a destination today

576
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:00,400
that you would never bring your primary phone to?

577
00:39:01,540 --> 00:39:03,620
Oh, I mean, yeah, China,

578
00:39:03,740 --> 00:39:05,880
I would never bring my primary phone to.

579
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:09,560
I mean, there are definitely places in India

580
00:39:09,780 --> 00:39:12,760
I would potentially be a little wary.

581
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:16,640
It's not that I don't like people in China or I don't like India.

582
00:39:17,020 --> 00:39:25,380
It's more just what is the posture of the government towards foreigners and towards digital privacy.

583
00:39:25,860 --> 00:39:31,020
And I would say that that doesn't necessarily always reflect in the kindness of the people that you meet.

584
00:39:31,020 --> 00:39:32,880
So the Chinese people are wonderful.

585
00:39:32,930 --> 00:39:34,380
The Indian people are wonderful.

586
00:39:34,410 --> 00:39:42,900
But I wouldn't necessarily take my primary device into China, into India, a number of places, you know, even in Southeast Asia.

587
00:39:43,220 --> 00:39:50,180
It's just really hard because even places like Vietnam are just becoming like this hot spot for digital nomads to go and do work.

588
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,180
And they're trying to promote that view of who they are.

589
00:39:53,500 --> 00:39:55,740
And yet it's still a communist country.

590
00:39:56,280 --> 00:40:09,300
And they're still like their view towards privacy is not what we would be, what we would consider acceptable, at least from our point of view, but definitely even from a Western point of view.

591
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:11,780
I'm trying to think of any other countries off the top of my head.

592
00:40:12,180 --> 00:40:19,120
I think I would be very careful in a lot of places in the Middle East and even in parts of Africa as well.

593
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:20,980
I think I would be very careful.

594
00:40:22,340 --> 00:40:22,600
Got it.

595
00:40:23,200 --> 00:40:28,300
Is there kind of a silent risk that a lot of people listening probably don't realize?

596
00:40:29,220 --> 00:40:33,520
Is there something that you see people do all the time when they travel that you're like,

597
00:40:34,780 --> 00:40:36,120
that's probably something they should think about?

598
00:40:37,160 --> 00:41:00,340
Yeah. So check-ins are actually a really important part of travel that I think a lot of people don't think about. And I'll give you an example. I was once out, I was filming something out in Western China and like it was morning, it was this festival and the police took me and they took me to a police station. This was the first time that they had really taken me in.

599
00:41:00,740 --> 00:41:02,720
Sounds like you recorded a Borat movie.

600
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:06,780
You know, they got arrested when they recorded the original Borat something like 70 times.

601
00:41:07,130 --> 00:41:08,620
How many times were you arrested in China?

602
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:11,820
Just these two main times.

603
00:41:12,050 --> 00:41:12,200
Okay.

604
00:41:13,740 --> 00:41:18,060
Because I don't know which stories are different, but it's like, whoa, you got arrested a lot.

605
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:20,580
Or not arrested, but like taken in.

606
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:21,040
Yeah, taken in.

607
00:41:21,410 --> 00:41:23,360
Again, it's that frog in the boiling pot.

608
00:41:23,430 --> 00:41:28,400
Like after a little while, you just get used to the police constantly like coming up to you and asking you.

609
00:41:28,500 --> 00:41:32,960
And this was just one time where they took me in and it was early in the morning and

610
00:41:33,180 --> 00:41:39,580
they kind of freaked me out because I knew my wife wouldn't worry about me or think about

611
00:41:39,620 --> 00:41:44,400
me until maybe 6 p.m. when I was supposed to come home from work.

612
00:41:44,740 --> 00:41:48,800
So I kind of freaked out a little bit because I was like, what if, you know, and I started

613
00:41:48,900 --> 00:41:51,360
going through all of these things because I didn't know what was going to happen.

614
00:41:52,460 --> 00:41:57,579
What I mean by this check-in idea is that there's a lot of times that we find ourselves

615
00:41:57,580 --> 00:42:00,800
when we're traveling, like going from point A to point B.

616
00:42:01,090 --> 00:42:02,480
And there's things that could happen.

617
00:42:02,530 --> 00:42:03,600
You could get in a wreck.

618
00:42:03,990 --> 00:42:06,320
There could be something that happens to you.

619
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:08,340
And when we're in our home country,

620
00:42:09,180 --> 00:42:10,760
there are a lot of things that we might know

621
00:42:11,130 --> 00:42:12,620
how to handle or what to do.

622
00:42:13,240 --> 00:42:15,620
But when we are traveling internationally,

623
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:18,000
we might not think about that as much.

624
00:42:18,500 --> 00:42:20,560
And so one of the things that I recommend,

625
00:42:20,910 --> 00:42:23,480
and really this is more of a physical safety thing

626
00:42:23,610 --> 00:42:26,500
as opposed to a digital safety type of thing.

627
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:32,120
But it's like, okay, if I know that I'm going to be going from here, I'm taking a bus, you

628
00:42:32,140 --> 00:42:37,140
know, to go into the mountains, I'm going to text somebody, you know, outside of the

629
00:42:37,310 --> 00:42:40,320
country or a friend in the country and just say, hey, just so you know, I'm jumping on

630
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:40,760
a bus.

631
00:42:41,070 --> 00:42:42,880
I should arrive at 8 p.m.

632
00:42:43,020 --> 00:42:44,040
I'll text you when I get there.

633
00:42:44,090 --> 00:42:49,540
If I don't text you, can you just like do something like reach out, find out what might

634
00:42:49,540 --> 00:42:50,060
have happened?

635
00:42:50,350 --> 00:42:55,199
Because I think there's a lot of times where, you know, a day will go by if something has

636
00:42:55,200 --> 00:43:01,680
happened. And because there was no check-in process in place, there's just a higher risk of

637
00:43:02,520 --> 00:43:06,400
physical harm or losing that sense of safety. Does that make sense?

638
00:43:06,820 --> 00:43:10,760
It does, yeah. So what you're suggesting is anytime you travel or doing anything that's

639
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:16,040
sensitive, have at least a trusted buddy or person in your life where you have an established

640
00:43:16,300 --> 00:43:20,240
system for. I mean, it's no different. You go to Disney World, you go to an amusement park,

641
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:21,560
Disneyland, the mall, wherever.

642
00:43:22,340 --> 00:43:23,220
And if you all get lost,

643
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,200
you have a place to be at 1 p.m.

644
00:43:26,820 --> 00:43:27,100
Exactly.

645
00:43:27,350 --> 00:43:28,520
Is that kind of what you're suggesting?

646
00:43:29,260 --> 00:43:30,500
Yeah, 100%.

647
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:31,280
Cool.

648
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:33,440
As you were talking, I also looked it up.

649
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:34,720
So it's run-ins with the law

650
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:37,500
that Sacha Baron Cohen had in the original Borat.

651
00:43:37,660 --> 00:43:39,780
And it's cited as dozens of times.

652
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:43,800
Like 50 to 100 is kind of the numbers I'm seeing.

653
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:45,640
Oh my gosh, that's hilarious.

654
00:43:45,940 --> 00:43:48,540
But I just wanted to make sure I got that somewhat right.

655
00:43:48,900 --> 00:43:50,440
So maybe that's what they thought you were doing

656
00:43:50,900 --> 00:43:52,820
for China with your camera

657
00:43:52,980 --> 00:43:56,560
and then Lonely Explorer?

658
00:43:56,840 --> 00:43:57,660
Lonely Planet, yeah.

659
00:43:57,860 --> 00:43:59,040
Lonely Planet, thank you, yeah.

660
00:44:01,240 --> 00:44:02,920
You're making me feel old, Henry.

661
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:03,440
Am I that much older than you?

662
00:44:03,440 --> 00:44:04,660
I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to.

663
00:44:04,940 --> 00:44:05,380
I'm sorry.

664
00:44:06,880 --> 00:44:08,060
The last thing I kind of want to get into

665
00:44:08,340 --> 00:44:09,460
before a little bit more about you

666
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:11,780
is kind of the global view of this.

667
00:44:11,900 --> 00:44:13,560
I feel like Americans have this view

668
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:15,540
that China is this surveillance state.

669
00:44:16,380 --> 00:44:17,880
It is this evil place.

670
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:18,920
They have these weird ideas.

671
00:44:19,130 --> 00:44:20,040
We don't like that, right?

672
00:44:20,720 --> 00:44:21,520
I'm generalizing here.

673
00:44:21,520 --> 00:44:22,640
I don't feel this way about it.

674
00:44:22,650 --> 00:44:26,120
But I feel like this is not an uncommon thing I hear on the news

675
00:44:26,540 --> 00:44:29,500
and the way that Chinese culture is portrayed in Western culture.

676
00:44:30,500 --> 00:44:34,760
How do you personally view Western surveillance and Western privacy?

677
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:39,520
And do you see similar concerns happen in the U.S. as you've seen in China?

678
00:44:39,860 --> 00:44:41,760
Or do you think they are still quite different?

679
00:44:42,140 --> 00:44:43,580
Like you've lived in both places.

680
00:44:43,790 --> 00:44:45,040
You have a lot of firsthand experience.

681
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:49,300
You've dealt with firsthand kind of the Chinese arm of this.

682
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:53,600
And so I think you're an interesting person to ask this question and add some perspective

683
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:58,000
because I actually have seen quite polarizing takes about this.

684
00:44:58,660 --> 00:44:58,860
Yeah.

685
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:04,560
I would say that one, whatever you think of the Chinese government and the way that it

686
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:12,080
approaches personal privacy, individual rights, any of this that we see when we are even as

687
00:45:12,240 --> 00:45:15,440
Westerns when we think of China, they're not hiding anything.

688
00:45:15,620 --> 00:45:20,220
they don't they well i'm sure they're hiding plenty of things but when it comes to surveillance when

689
00:45:20,220 --> 00:45:24,880
it comes to personal privacy and all that stuff they're they've got their cards out on the table

690
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:32,120
and and and to us like some weird degree i actually admire that like they're not hiding the fact that

691
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:35,920
we are monitoring everything that's going on with cameras we're not trying to hide it from you

692
00:45:36,260 --> 00:45:41,039
we're not going to hide the fact that we have a back door into tiktok and every other major company

693
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:46,960
in this country, that's where the government, that's what we do. Like it is a, it is in plain

694
00:45:47,820 --> 00:45:54,080
sight so that everybody knows that this is what's happening. What I see as a difference in the U.S.

695
00:45:54,180 --> 00:46:01,440
is I see so many similarities in what is actually happening. The difference is that in one country,

696
00:46:01,900 --> 00:46:05,839
it's just out in the plain and out in the open. Everybody knows, everybody talks about it, it's

697
00:46:05,860 --> 00:46:12,300
fine. They don't talk about it, but it's just there. Whereas in the U S like we're shocked

698
00:46:13,060 --> 00:46:19,980
when we find out that, Oh, they were monitoring us. Oh, they did have some deal with a big tech

699
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:24,720
company where they were getting it from like, this is blowing our minds. We, we were under the

700
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:31,239
impression that this wasn't the case. And so I, I don't think that there is a huge difference

701
00:46:31,800 --> 00:46:34,140
in what's actually happening.

702
00:46:34,420 --> 00:46:35,720
It's just this perception

703
00:46:36,300 --> 00:46:38,400
and this we're putting our cards on the table

704
00:46:38,660 --> 00:46:40,920
versus we're kind of just going to sneak around

705
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:42,940
and not talk about it.

706
00:46:42,940 --> 00:46:45,820
I think to me, that seems like the biggest difference.

707
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:47,460
Which one do you,

708
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:50,360
I guess one doesn't have to be more of a problem

709
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:50,920
than the other,

710
00:46:51,060 --> 00:46:55,460
but do you find that kind of that U.S. approach

711
00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:57,140
thinks to be a bit dangerous?

712
00:46:57,860 --> 00:47:00,140
I mean, my thought goes to just the unaware,

713
00:47:00,380 --> 00:47:04,040
Like, you know, something we talk about is people don't realize just how invasive it is.

714
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:06,340
The educational piece is really big.

715
00:47:06,460 --> 00:47:11,040
Trying to actually get people to realize how massive this problem is is very difficult to do.

716
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:15,560
And I feel like that is partly because it's just people don't see it.

717
00:47:15,620 --> 00:47:19,700
So do you think that, what do you think are just kind of the downstream effects of this approach to it?

718
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:24,000
Yeah, I mean, I think part of the downstream effects is a lack of accountability.

719
00:47:24,740 --> 00:47:29,700
When there's not transparency on what's actually happening, there can't be accountability on the other end of it.

720
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:32,080
And that in itself is extremely dangerous.

721
00:47:32,580 --> 00:47:33,880
And I think we're dealing with obviously,

722
00:47:34,160 --> 00:47:37,560
or also two different mindsets where I think in China,

723
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:40,040
the pervasive feeling of the common person

724
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:41,640
that I'm aware of is more of,

725
00:47:42,060 --> 00:47:43,240
there's nothing I can do about it.

726
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:45,140
And this is just the way it is.

727
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:48,800
What I see and run into more often than not

728
00:47:48,900 --> 00:47:51,620
on the US or on the Western side is,

729
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:52,840
I've got nothing to hide,

730
00:47:53,080 --> 00:47:55,420
or privacy is already broken anyway.

731
00:47:55,780 --> 00:47:56,520
What does it even matter?

732
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:58,940
Like, you know, you've run into that plenty yourself.

733
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:03,960
They both share this bit of, I don't know, just kind of giving up a little bit.

734
00:48:04,190 --> 00:48:09,180
But I sense both of that on both sides of the, you know, both China and on the Western side.

735
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:10,540
Yeah.

736
00:48:10,790 --> 00:48:12,060
Yeah, I made a video about this recently.

737
00:48:12,300 --> 00:48:25,420
My over analysis of it is I think it's a cognitive dissonance because I think it's too uncomfortable for people to admit it's something they value.

738
00:48:26,260 --> 00:48:29,000
But they feel hopeless and they can't do anything about it.

739
00:48:29,060 --> 00:48:32,180
I think that's really what it's, because it's easier to say,

740
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,100
eh, it's gone, throw your hands up, I can't do anything about it.

741
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:38,720
It's easier to say that and kind of pretend you don't care about something

742
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:41,280
or that you're hopeless or it's no longer in your control

743
00:48:41,780 --> 00:48:43,860
than it is to realize you actually still have control.

744
00:48:44,120 --> 00:48:47,020
You can fight, but it's going to be a hard uphill battle

745
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:49,220
and you need to do a lot to do something about it.

746
00:48:49,220 --> 00:48:50,820
I think that's a harder reality for people.

747
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:52,680
So I understand where it comes from.

748
00:48:52,680 --> 00:48:56,800
I don't think people are lazy or stupid for this, but it makes me sad.

749
00:48:56,860 --> 00:48:59,880
especially when, because I think it's the most damaging thing you can do.

750
00:49:00,500 --> 00:49:02,380
Because there are people who do want to take the fight.

751
00:49:02,660 --> 00:49:04,040
They watch our content, right?

752
00:49:04,340 --> 00:49:05,260
They are active.

753
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:06,520
This is something they take seriously.

754
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:10,040
And then they see these comments or people pushing back saying,

755
00:49:10,140 --> 00:49:10,980
well, why do you care?

756
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:11,540
You're stupid.

757
00:49:11,940 --> 00:49:14,860
And it's like, well, if you're not going to care,

758
00:49:15,020 --> 00:49:16,560
just let other people care.

759
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:18,820
It's okay.

760
00:49:19,020 --> 00:49:19,840
Just let them do that.

761
00:49:20,420 --> 00:49:23,420
Them existing doesn't have to impact your ability to not care.

762
00:49:25,380 --> 00:49:26,220
It's hard for me.

763
00:49:26,300 --> 00:49:30,460
But I think we're seeing the worst of it because we get all the comments and we get all the feedback from people.

764
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:31,800
Yeah, definitely.

765
00:49:32,340 --> 00:49:32,780
And I agree.

766
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:35,420
I saw that video and I thought you did a really good job with that.

767
00:49:35,640 --> 00:49:39,060
Like it's a tough road to navigate, I think, for a lot of people.

768
00:49:39,300 --> 00:49:40,420
And I think you're right.

769
00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:49,200
That cognitive dissonance of just I think I care, but if there's no hope anyway, then what do I do with this?

770
00:49:49,460 --> 00:49:49,840
I don't know.

771
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:51,500
Yeah, it's hard.

772
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:56,360
I hope that people can see the content we put out and realize,

773
00:49:57,280 --> 00:49:59,900
oh, you can literally do three things in five minutes

774
00:50:01,180 --> 00:50:03,120
that will give you a huge amount of ownership

775
00:50:03,300 --> 00:50:04,320
over your digital relationship.

776
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:08,180
Just installing an ad blocker opts you out of 80%

777
00:50:08,240 --> 00:50:11,000
of the surveillance economy, which is the backbone of so much

778
00:50:11,220 --> 00:50:14,280
of at least the American and the westernized privacy concerns.

779
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:17,920
If you're no longer getting Google trackers, Facebook trackers,

780
00:50:18,040 --> 00:50:20,840
TikTok trackers, Snapchat trackers on any of the websites out there,

781
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:27,680
you're blocking ads, that alone solves a huge amount of your problem. And then from there,

782
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:32,300
it's easy. So I don't want to say it's easy. I don't want to like over, I don't want to oversell

783
00:50:32,310 --> 00:50:36,160
it, but it's just frustrating. You know what's funny, Henry, is it's like, you could probably

784
00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:41,340
talk about that until you're blue in the face. But if I were to just express to people the fact that,

785
00:50:41,540 --> 00:50:47,159
you know what, when my wife and I sit down to watch Amazon Prime at night, I don't have to go

786
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:53,380
through ads. And people go, wait, what? How do you do that? That is what we're, you know, like,

787
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:58,740
that's how it works. Yep. It works. I mean, I never tell anyone about Signal being private in

788
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:02,460
my real life. I'm just like, hey, this is like a really cool experience. This is where I chat with

789
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:08,180
people. I can send like Snapchat, like photos to you, like disappearing messages. And it works

790
00:51:08,400 --> 00:51:14,279
between iOS and Android. And they're like, cool. All right. I'll see you there. It works. So it's

791
00:51:14,300 --> 00:51:19,960
sad, but it works. I wanted to ask you about your channel. So you obviously talk about security and

792
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:22,980
privacy. I mean, the channel is called All Things Secured, but I think it expands a little bit

793
00:51:23,050 --> 00:51:29,160
beyond that. When did that happen? Was starting that channel, was that at all inspired from your

794
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:34,900
experiences? I guess I'm not as familiar with the origins of your channel. And so I kind of wanted

795
00:51:35,060 --> 00:51:40,240
to learn a little bit about that before we start. Yeah, it was 100% based on my experience in China.

796
00:51:41,220 --> 00:51:46,680
twofold. First of all, it started off as just like a VPN thing, which is almost embarrassing to say,

797
00:51:47,440 --> 00:51:52,420
you know, just because I like, not that I was a VPN chill. It's the fact that I literally used a

798
00:51:52,620 --> 00:51:57,020
VPN every day while I was in China because of censorship and I couldn't even check email

799
00:51:57,230 --> 00:52:01,840
without a VPN. So I got to know VPNs really well. And I, you know, would review them and do all that

800
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:06,480
stuff. And then I was like, you know, there's more to this that I care about than just VPNs.

801
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:08,260
And so that's when I rebranded it.

802
00:52:08,380 --> 00:52:13,920
And, and, but I think the real shift happened when I was in the midst of those interrogations

803
00:52:14,300 --> 00:52:20,020
and just realizing like the questions they were asking, it's like, man, they were really

804
00:52:20,380 --> 00:52:20,760
watching me.

805
00:52:21,300 --> 00:52:27,740
Like I didn't understand to the degree to which I was being surveilled, um, and how

806
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:29,040
they were going about.

807
00:52:29,220 --> 00:52:32,680
And, and, and also some of the things they didn't know, which was surprising to me, you

808
00:52:32,680 --> 00:52:35,680
know, like I, I thought that they knew all of these things about me.

809
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:40,400
We tend to think that the government just has, you know, reams and reams of data on us.

810
00:52:40,540 --> 00:52:47,060
I don't think that it's as deep as we think it is, but I do think it is wider than we

811
00:52:47,290 --> 00:52:50,060
realize in terms of our privacy being invaded.

812
00:52:50,230 --> 00:52:52,620
And so that is where it initially started.

813
00:52:53,180 --> 00:52:58,680
And, you know, Henry, I'll be, I try to be as open and honest with you as I can.

814
00:52:58,750 --> 00:53:04,479
Like I look up at the people like you or Naomi, or like, there's a lot of people that I look

815
00:53:04,500 --> 00:53:09,140
up to that I consider 10, 20 times smarter than I am.

816
00:53:09,660 --> 00:53:14,860
Like my core, the people that I want to talk to when I'm talking from the all things secured

817
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:20,640
side of stuff, I want to talk to the people that are like my parents or that are, that

818
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:24,680
are just that generation that that's recognizing something's off.

819
00:53:24,940 --> 00:53:30,139
I don't like something, but I'm not exactly sure what it is, or I'm writing my passwords

820
00:53:30,160 --> 00:53:35,920
down. And I really don't think this is secure, but I don't like the idea of a password manager is

821
00:53:36,180 --> 00:53:43,000
still kind of relatively new to me. So I'm not necessarily speaking to the same audience that I

822
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:47,240
think that I, that you might be speaking to and that I, you know, that there are, that are just

823
00:53:48,300 --> 00:53:56,239
diehard privacy and security enthusiasts. I'm trying my best to speak and to explain things

824
00:53:56,680 --> 00:53:59,720
to a group of people that I think are extremely vulnerable,

825
00:53:59,970 --> 00:54:03,160
that hopefully recognize that there are things that they can do differently,

826
00:54:03,560 --> 00:54:06,640
and then try to give them practical ways to change that.

827
00:54:07,620 --> 00:54:08,560
Yeah, thanks for the kind words.

828
00:54:09,030 --> 00:54:10,380
And a lot of those go back your way too.

829
00:54:10,820 --> 00:54:13,360
For those vulnerable people, what are kind of your starting points?

830
00:54:14,180 --> 00:54:17,060
Like if people are listening and they are that vulnerable group,

831
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:19,800
or they know people in their life that are that vulnerable group,

832
00:54:19,960 --> 00:54:22,300
what are like the three things that you typically start with?

833
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:27,400
Well, the first thing that I start with, and the kind of comments that I get on my stuff

834
00:54:27,630 --> 00:54:29,820
is like, I've got stuff on securing your iPhone.

835
00:54:30,540 --> 00:54:35,620
Or this week, I'm going to be putting out a video on how to secure your open AI account

836
00:54:35,770 --> 00:54:36,560
for ChatGPT.

837
00:54:36,720 --> 00:54:39,500
And the privacy purist is going to comment on that.

838
00:54:39,720 --> 00:54:40,560
Why use open AI?

839
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:41,280
You're dumb.

840
00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:43,920
Yeah, I know.

841
00:54:43,990 --> 00:54:44,320
I know.

842
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:45,100
Yeah.

843
00:54:45,500 --> 00:54:45,720
Sorry.

844
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:47,100
And I get it.

845
00:54:47,300 --> 00:54:47,680
Like, right?

846
00:54:47,720 --> 00:54:49,020
I get that feeling.

847
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:51,360
I don't necessarily disagree with it.

848
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:56,240
But I also don't agree that, you know, everybody has to just abandon everything that they've

849
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:56,800
ever used.

850
00:54:56,840 --> 00:54:57,880
But I think that's the point.

851
00:54:57,960 --> 00:55:02,240
It's like, I think that there's a progression that people can take and that progression

852
00:55:02,360 --> 00:55:06,160
does not have to be as drastic as it feels, right?

853
00:55:06,320 --> 00:55:12,060
So just secure your open AI account and turn off model, you know, make sure that the model

854
00:55:12,180 --> 00:55:13,580
training is not part of that, right?

855
00:55:13,720 --> 00:55:20,519
And like add it to FAQ, like just these progression, this progression of steps instead of just

856
00:55:20,520 --> 00:55:26,900
thinking, okay, this is it. I'm moving to Graphene and I'm deleting Facebook and that's what I have

857
00:55:26,900 --> 00:55:32,880
to do. I think there doesn't have to be that all or nothing mentality. Yeah, I agree. I think

858
00:55:33,740 --> 00:55:38,560
the reality is most people aren't going to be installing different operating systems and

859
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:42,840
migrating away from the tools that they use day to day. And so there needs to be a discussion.

860
00:55:43,130 --> 00:55:46,059
You need to meet them where they're at and go, well, if you're going to be using these tools

861
00:55:46,060 --> 00:55:50,320
anyway, here are at least some things that will make it better. And down the road, if you want

862
00:55:50,540 --> 00:55:55,480
other options, then that's the whole world for you that exists. But I definitely think that

863
00:55:56,720 --> 00:56:02,440
it's hard. It's hard to reach both audiences, as I'm sure you know. And it's hard to do resources

864
00:56:02,660 --> 00:56:08,220
for all the above. So I think it's great to have different points to target depending on where

865
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:12,639
people are in their journey. Or for some people, it's not a journey, I suppose. But I think it

866
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:17,180
should be a journey. People might not know they're on the journey, but I think everyone is technically

867
00:56:17,420 --> 00:56:21,020
on this journey of digital safety, whether they know it or not. If they have a password on any of

868
00:56:21,100 --> 00:56:25,680
their accounts, they're on the journey. So it's just a matter of helping them out on that journey

869
00:56:25,730 --> 00:56:30,180
and trying to make it better. So I think it's a great approach. For you, how do you see privacy

870
00:56:30,440 --> 00:56:35,380
differently? And this is maybe a good segue because a lot of people, and I guess the more

871
00:56:35,580 --> 00:56:41,219
intense privacy community, more absolute about things, they're going to go, oh, you're using open

872
00:56:41,220 --> 00:56:44,160
AI, yeah, you're like, what are you, single IQ?

873
00:56:44,999 --> 00:56:46,860
They're going to say a lot of mean things.

874
00:56:47,680 --> 00:56:48,300
It's ridiculous.

875
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:52,400
It's quite frustrating, actually, for me to see.

876
00:56:53,099 --> 00:56:55,800
I laugh about it because when I see it, I just think it's so ridiculous.

877
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:57,420
But it is actually really unfortunate.

878
00:56:57,520 --> 00:57:00,340
And I hope people stop that because it really pisses me off.

879
00:57:00,770 --> 00:57:03,020
But now I'm forgetting my question.

880
00:57:04,279 --> 00:57:09,080
For you personally, I think to a lot of privacy absolutists,

881
00:57:09,090 --> 00:57:11,060
they see the privacy issues with OpenAI,

882
00:57:11,220 --> 00:57:12,140
which are very real, right?

883
00:57:12,300 --> 00:57:14,200
Like we know that OpenAI is not,

884
00:57:14,840 --> 00:57:17,540
by many different measurements, an ethical company,

885
00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:19,240
especially when it comes to user data.

886
00:57:19,540 --> 00:57:22,420
A lot of these AI companies are not very ethical with user data.

887
00:57:22,620 --> 00:57:24,140
And so that is a real thing.

888
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:26,200
But you might go and look at this and go,

889
00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:28,320
well, if I'm getting weather nearby

890
00:57:28,680 --> 00:57:30,600
and I'm looking up recipes

891
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:33,800
and I'm putting that through OpenAI or Cloud or Gemini,

892
00:57:34,280 --> 00:57:36,500
I don't care when the Chinese government takes my devices

893
00:57:36,580 --> 00:57:37,220
and they see that.

894
00:57:37,420 --> 00:57:38,660
That's just not my concern anymore.

895
00:57:39,140 --> 00:57:41,360
So I'm not saying that's your stance on things specifically,

896
00:57:41,780 --> 00:57:43,420
but I guess that's what I'm getting to is like,

897
00:57:43,490 --> 00:57:44,880
do you see privacy differently now?

898
00:57:44,960 --> 00:57:47,860
You're like, oh, now that I've actually had my devices taken from me

899
00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:49,440
from a government that didn't like me,

900
00:57:49,610 --> 00:57:52,020
these are the things that now I actually value from here.

901
00:57:52,180 --> 00:57:53,860
These are things that maybe I thought I would value,

902
00:57:53,970 --> 00:57:55,420
and these are things that I now value,

903
00:57:55,720 --> 00:57:57,080
and that might reflect your threat model

904
00:57:57,240 --> 00:58:00,520
and the way that you see privacy and what you prioritize personally.

905
00:58:00,620 --> 00:58:05,060
I don't know the exact question I'm getting to here, but yeah.

906
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:07,740
I mean, I think I follow a little bit of where you're coming from.

907
00:58:08,000 --> 00:58:14,180
I am much more interested in a distribution of security and privacy over a lot of different

908
00:58:14,820 --> 00:58:16,880
mediums in order, like strategically.

909
00:58:17,270 --> 00:58:21,360
So what I mean by that is like, I'm not necessarily going to run away from Google Drive.

910
00:58:21,710 --> 00:58:24,580
I kind of have to use it for certain applications.

911
00:58:25,930 --> 00:58:31,520
And I recognize that it's, you know, there are privacy implications for using something

912
00:58:31,760 --> 00:58:36,000
that where the, you know, the encryption key is held by the company itself as well.

913
00:58:36,320 --> 00:58:40,720
I'm still going to be able to use that, but I want to distribute in a strategic way how

914
00:58:41,280 --> 00:58:42,900
I'm controlling my own data.

915
00:58:43,440 --> 00:58:49,780
And so I want to use something like ProtonDrive in order to store that data that I think is

916
00:58:50,140 --> 00:58:50,740
most secure.

917
00:58:50,850 --> 00:58:56,480
And so again, it's not that I'm going to throw away my phone altogether anytime that I go

918
00:58:56,620 --> 00:58:57,180
into China.

919
00:58:57,780 --> 00:59:01,679
That's not my, like, it's not that, okay, now because I believe in privacy, I'm just

920
00:59:01,700 --> 00:59:07,400
going to forego any and all benefits of a mobile device, which is pretty much essential in travel

921
00:59:07,780 --> 00:59:12,340
nowadays, right? You got to have maps, you got to have, you know, some kind of way to call any

922
00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:17,600
translations, do all that stuff. So I'm not going to get rid of that, but I am going to compartmentalize

923
00:59:17,700 --> 00:59:23,040
and make sure that what I am using in that situation, it's only the data that's necessary

924
00:59:23,300 --> 00:59:28,320
for that particular use for going into that particular country. And the same thing for,

925
00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:34,600
you know, when I'm using, I do use OpenAI and I've tested a lot of different models. And part of it

926
00:59:34,700 --> 00:59:40,880
is not just this, oh, I just use OpenAI because it's the first one. It's that I want to kind of

927
00:59:41,160 --> 00:59:45,500
keep ahead and understand what is actually happening in this world because everything

928
00:59:45,620 --> 00:59:51,860
is changing so fast. But I'm not going to upload my bank statement. I'm not going to upload any kind

929
00:59:51,860 --> 00:59:57,380
of document that is going to be, and I probably even still have given it a lot of context about me,

930
00:59:57,620 --> 01:00:00,200
But I'm very, very careful about what I say.

931
01:00:00,430 --> 01:00:02,280
It hopefully does not know where I live.

932
01:00:02,430 --> 01:00:06,240
It doesn't know a number of different things that are personal to me.

933
01:00:06,290 --> 01:00:09,440
And so I'm not trying to go off grid.

934
01:00:09,930 --> 01:00:13,680
I am trying to compartmentalize as best I can.

935
01:00:13,770 --> 01:00:15,520
And there's always going to be flaws in that.

936
01:00:15,720 --> 01:00:21,380
There's always going to be ways that I'm improving or changing the tools that I use to compartmentalize.

937
01:00:21,530 --> 01:00:26,540
But I want to be intentional about where I am putting my data.

938
01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:28,980
what kind of data I'm giving and to whom.

939
01:00:30,000 --> 01:00:31,900
And the more that I can be intentional about that,

940
01:00:31,990 --> 01:00:33,180
I think the better off I'll be.

941
01:00:34,160 --> 01:00:36,500
Yeah, I think what you're saying is quite practical

942
01:00:36,720 --> 01:00:38,340
and a lot of people will relate to it.

943
01:00:38,420 --> 01:00:39,540
I mean, the two key words,

944
01:00:39,540 --> 01:00:40,980
I think there are control and intention.

945
01:00:41,720 --> 01:00:44,440
I think that's really what privacy is about

946
01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:45,500
when you get to it.

947
01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:47,280
It's like, are you being intentional

948
01:00:47,380 --> 01:00:48,600
with what data you're giving someone

949
01:00:48,670 --> 01:00:51,220
and are you aware of what they're getting from it

950
01:00:51,220 --> 01:00:52,320
and what you're getting from it?

951
01:00:52,420 --> 01:00:55,660
I just recorded the second version of Go Incognito

952
01:00:55,670 --> 01:00:56,580
a couple months ago now.

953
01:00:56,640 --> 01:00:59,240
and the way that I pose this

954
01:00:59,620 --> 01:01:01,320
is looking at things as relationships

955
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:03,560
so when you open a Google account

956
01:01:03,720 --> 01:01:04,920
when you upload something to Google Drive

957
01:01:05,050 --> 01:01:06,660
you're forming a relationship with Google

958
01:01:07,140 --> 01:01:09,160
and it's important to just understand

959
01:01:09,600 --> 01:01:11,360
what is Google getting from this transaction

960
01:01:11,490 --> 01:01:13,080
and what are you getting from this transaction

961
01:01:13,220 --> 01:01:14,780
in this case you're probably getting convenience

962
01:01:15,420 --> 01:01:16,680
you might get really good collaboration

963
01:01:16,980 --> 01:01:18,220
with other people who are using Google

964
01:01:18,460 --> 01:01:20,720
and in exchange Google is going to get information

965
01:01:20,850 --> 01:01:21,480
about your browser

966
01:01:21,800 --> 01:01:24,379
they're going to get information about who you're collaborating with

967
01:01:24,380 --> 01:01:27,560
and maybe that network, tie it to your central Google account, etc.

968
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:30,960
And so as long as you're aware of those concerns

969
01:01:31,600 --> 01:01:32,940
and you're aware of what you're uploading

970
01:01:33,020 --> 01:01:34,200
and you're okay with that,

971
01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:36,940
that is a consensual relationship, right?

972
01:01:37,060 --> 01:01:39,480
You are consenting to that, you're in control of the situation.

973
01:01:39,820 --> 01:01:41,820
But I think the problem that a lot of people have nowadays

974
01:01:42,240 --> 01:01:44,580
is they just use everything, they upload everything to everything

975
01:01:44,840 --> 01:01:46,960
and they have no control over this.

976
01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:48,020
They're just being exploited.

977
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:51,360
They're in abusive relationships, kind of, in a way,

978
01:01:51,480 --> 01:01:52,700
because they're not aware of what's going on.

979
01:01:54,600 --> 01:01:59,020
I think the analogy I use is it's the equivalent of their partner cheating on them this whole time.

980
01:01:59,640 --> 01:02:04,700
Because the partner's not being honest, the partner is sharing their data with other people.

981
01:02:06,720 --> 01:02:08,080
And it's an analogy.

982
01:02:08,590 --> 01:02:10,020
I just felt the need to share it, I suppose.

983
01:02:10,460 --> 01:02:11,780
But I really liked what you shared.

984
01:02:12,050 --> 01:02:13,320
I think it's very practical.

985
01:02:13,430 --> 01:02:16,400
And I think for most people, 80 plus percent of people,

986
01:02:16,810 --> 01:02:21,020
it would make an astronomical difference for the privacy and security issues that we see nowadays.

987
01:02:21,080 --> 01:02:28,700
If they just were better aware of things, compartmentalized when needed, and just had privacy in some layer of their life, I think that would be all we need.

988
01:02:29,500 --> 01:02:38,480
Henry, I'm curious for you, like how do you balance that desire for, you know, privacy and kind of just your stack?

989
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:48,260
And then, like, I don't know about you, but I'm constantly getting emails of new tools or new this or like other things that could make it more private.

990
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:51,840
You use this. How do you find that balance?

991
01:02:52,850 --> 01:02:55,180
Yeah, it's hard. I'm sure you deal with this too.

992
01:02:55,720 --> 01:02:57,280
The job makes things quite hard.

993
01:02:58,390 --> 01:03:04,300
I could probably have a much better, easy-to-operate tech stack behind the scenes

994
01:03:04,550 --> 01:03:07,440
if I didn't have such publicity with my work.

995
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:10,060
It comes with drawbacks.

996
01:03:10,320 --> 01:03:12,360
But overall, I'm quite happy with where it's at.

997
01:03:12,360 --> 01:03:13,700
It requires some sacrifices.

998
01:03:13,770 --> 01:03:17,120
It requires leaning into some Apple devices for work,

999
01:03:17,380 --> 01:03:21,480
which I don't know if I would ever buy if I just had just me and my personal life.

1000
01:03:21,580 --> 01:03:23,020
And I think that's something I hear a lot in our audience.

1001
01:03:23,340 --> 01:03:25,320
It's like, yeah, a lot of people have jobs,

1002
01:03:25,500 --> 01:03:27,900
and those jobs require certain devices for them.

1003
01:03:28,060 --> 01:03:29,700
But that is compartmentalization, right?

1004
01:03:29,820 --> 01:03:32,320
You're allowed to have work devices as long as you're aware

1005
01:03:32,360 --> 01:03:33,940
and you built that relationship for work.

1006
01:03:34,460 --> 01:03:36,580
So I think it's kind of like what you alluded to,

1007
01:03:36,660 --> 01:03:38,860
is I have these relationships in different parts of my life.

1008
01:03:39,000 --> 01:03:42,320
Some of them are a lot more private and a lot more robust

1009
01:03:42,440 --> 01:03:43,840
that I don't talk about much on the channel

1010
01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:46,080
because I don't want people to know about them.

1011
01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:54,380
But also, for other things, it's a lot more careless because it needs to be careless because that's how stuff gets done.

1012
01:03:54,480 --> 01:03:59,280
And that's those services I need to lean into to make sure that we get our message out there for people.

1013
01:03:59,420 --> 01:04:01,520
And so it's a tough thing to balance.

1014
01:04:02,080 --> 01:04:03,940
I'm sure you deal with that as well, if I had to guess.

1015
01:04:04,140 --> 01:04:06,240
I'm sure every YouTube creator does.

1016
01:04:07,120 --> 01:04:07,320
Yeah.

1017
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:16,720
Well, and even like for me, even just having a wife and kids, like I try to be very careful about not posting or publishing even the region.

1018
01:04:17,130 --> 01:04:20,320
Like I don't mind saying where I'm at, you know, that I'm in Thailand.

1019
01:04:20,720 --> 01:04:23,800
But like beyond that, I really don't go too much further than that.

1020
01:04:23,800 --> 01:04:25,920
I don't try not to show my kids.

1021
01:04:26,700 --> 01:04:28,540
You know, I want to protect.

1022
01:04:28,900 --> 01:04:31,180
And I've heard this a lot from, you know, other people.

1023
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:40,380
Not that I'm a big celebrity or anything, but even at this level, I think that it's important for me to take and protect my kids and their own privacy.

1024
01:04:41,400 --> 01:04:42,120
Yeah, it's a thing.

1025
01:04:42,220 --> 01:04:44,300
I mean, I've been recognized on the street now a few times.

1026
01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:47,560
Definitely at conferences is where, which makes sense.

1027
01:04:47,700 --> 01:04:51,300
You know, when you go to a security privacy-focused conference, people recognize you.

1028
01:04:51,500 --> 01:04:55,420
But I've been at Starbucks and like someone just goes, I know you from somewhere.

1029
01:04:56,460 --> 01:04:59,080
And then I go, never seen you before.

1030
01:05:00,100 --> 01:05:02,560
And then they kind of walk away and they're confused.

1031
01:05:03,080 --> 01:05:05,220
So I don't know if that's happened to you yet.

1032
01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:06,320
Have you been recognized?

1033
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:07,800
I've had it once or twice.

1034
01:05:08,160 --> 01:05:10,240
Yeah, it's not, living out in Asia,

1035
01:05:10,400 --> 01:05:12,140
it doesn't happen quite nearly as often though.

1036
01:05:12,840 --> 01:05:13,480
Yeah, it's weird.

1037
01:05:13,660 --> 01:05:15,020
It's always like, I don't know what to say.

1038
01:05:15,200 --> 01:05:17,140
And obviously I'm not comfortable with it really

1039
01:05:17,340 --> 01:05:18,760
because I don't want to be,

1040
01:05:19,100 --> 01:05:21,240
but I want to get my message out to more people.

1041
01:05:21,420 --> 01:05:23,020
So then that means more of that.

1042
01:05:24,860 --> 01:05:26,400
And it's a hard relationship.

1043
01:05:26,600 --> 01:05:27,240
I don't like it.

1044
01:05:28,120 --> 01:05:28,520
Exactly.

1045
01:05:29,060 --> 01:05:36,160
No, it's like I have Instagram on my phone and I've got, you know, and I use YouTube and it's not because I love Instagram.

1046
01:05:36,520 --> 01:05:40,900
I really don't enjoy using Instagram and I've still got a long way to go growing that.

1047
01:05:40,900 --> 01:05:46,240
But still, it's like, it's like, okay, that's where the audience, that's where the people that I want to reach are at.

1048
01:05:46,820 --> 01:05:51,380
And so I'm going to try to find them on that place and see if I can share a message there.

1049
01:05:52,220 --> 01:05:52,380
Yeah.

1050
01:05:52,550 --> 01:05:54,240
I just watched the internship again yesterday.

1051
01:05:55,420 --> 01:05:56,900
The comedy, I think it was 2013.

1052
01:05:57,920 --> 01:05:58,780
Robert De Niro, I think.

1053
01:05:58,960 --> 01:06:01,620
first off in the way that they portray Google

1054
01:06:01,800 --> 01:06:04,640
as this like, because I mean, back then Google was cool.

1055
01:06:04,820 --> 01:06:06,740
Even when I watched that movie, I was quite young,

1056
01:06:06,940 --> 01:06:09,260
but Google is like this force for good.

1057
01:06:09,820 --> 01:06:11,220
Their motto is still don't do evil.

1058
01:06:11,700 --> 01:06:13,400
They're like, we need to give people the information

1059
01:06:13,680 --> 01:06:17,480
and like decentralized knowledge, powerful messages.

1060
01:06:18,340 --> 01:06:19,120
And it didn't age well.

1061
01:06:19,120 --> 01:06:21,280
I think there's no way in hell Google with a straight face

1062
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:23,060
would ever say they're trying to be an ethical company,

1063
01:06:23,180 --> 01:06:25,060
even themselves, I don't think they would say it.

1064
01:06:25,580 --> 01:06:28,740
But in the movie, the whole thing is like,

1065
01:06:28,860 --> 01:06:31,400
we need to invent a photos app

1066
01:06:31,800 --> 01:06:32,780
where I take a photo

1067
01:06:33,600 --> 01:06:35,360
and it instantly shares it on the line.

1068
01:06:36,820 --> 01:06:38,400
And I'm going to call it exchange-a-gram,

1069
01:06:38,720 --> 01:06:39,880
exchange-gram or something.

1070
01:06:39,990 --> 01:06:40,960
And so when you said Instagram,

1071
01:06:41,120 --> 01:06:41,880
I just thought of that

1072
01:06:41,930 --> 01:06:42,680
because it was on the mind.

1073
01:06:42,720 --> 01:06:43,180
That's funny.

1074
01:06:43,520 --> 01:06:44,760
Well, Josh, thank you so much

1075
01:06:44,790 --> 01:06:45,700
for being on the podcast.

1076
01:06:45,990 --> 01:06:47,120
I know we got a little rambly

1077
01:06:47,120 --> 01:06:47,680
at the end there,

1078
01:06:47,860 --> 01:06:48,820
but I think there was a lot

1079
01:06:48,830 --> 01:06:50,260
of practical advice for people

1080
01:06:50,480 --> 01:06:51,280
that I hope can make

1081
01:06:51,290 --> 01:06:52,540
their travel experiences better.

1082
01:06:52,610 --> 01:06:53,420
And I think your story

1083
01:06:53,600 --> 01:06:54,840
is just really, really enlightening.

1084
01:06:54,970 --> 01:06:56,180
It can hopefully get people

1085
01:06:56,380 --> 01:06:57,640
just more aware of what's going on.

1086
01:06:57,780 --> 01:07:00,360
And I think it's true that things can be fine one day

1087
01:07:00,390 --> 01:07:01,460
and then out of nowhere they're not.

1088
01:07:01,510 --> 01:07:02,920
And so at least thinking about that

1089
01:07:02,970 --> 01:07:04,320
and being intentional for that day

1090
01:07:04,420 --> 01:07:06,440
is always a good thing to be proactive about.

1091
01:07:06,720 --> 01:07:08,320
Maybe next time, I think a good conversation

1092
01:07:08,640 --> 01:07:09,520
could be family stuff.

1093
01:07:09,670 --> 01:07:11,300
I think that's another topic

1094
01:07:11,600 --> 01:07:13,000
that people are quite curious about

1095
01:07:13,130 --> 01:07:15,780
is like, what does the tech world look like

1096
01:07:15,780 --> 01:07:17,860
when you have a family and you also value privacy?

1097
01:07:18,320 --> 01:07:19,800
And I'm sure that's another thing.

1098
01:07:19,830 --> 01:07:21,680
I don't know if you've talked about that on your channel yet,

1099
01:07:21,900 --> 01:07:23,380
but that could be a good talking point.

1100
01:07:24,080 --> 01:07:24,280
Yeah.

1101
01:07:24,720 --> 01:07:26,320
There was another lady I had on,

1102
01:07:26,610 --> 01:07:27,560
I did an interview with,

1103
01:07:27,700 --> 01:07:30,040
And she was very much into that.

1104
01:07:30,840 --> 01:07:31,000
Yeah.

1105
01:07:31,400 --> 01:07:32,780
I'll try to get you on for that again.

1106
01:07:32,820 --> 01:07:33,620
I think that'd be interesting.

1107
01:07:33,740 --> 01:07:35,080
If you guys want to see that, let me know.

1108
01:07:35,200 --> 01:07:36,480
But thank you so much for being here.

1109
01:07:36,840 --> 01:07:39,380
And definitely share how people can connect with you.

1110
01:07:39,660 --> 01:07:40,700
Because I'd love to send them your way.

1111
01:07:40,700 --> 01:07:44,860
Yeah, I mean, the best place is either on YouTube or Odyssey with all things secured.

1112
01:07:45,280 --> 01:07:49,200
I am on Instagram, but I'm still learning my way around that.

1113
01:07:49,440 --> 01:07:51,640
So more just on the YouTube and Odyssey side.

1114
01:07:52,220 --> 01:07:52,360
Yeah.

1115
01:07:52,560 --> 01:07:56,220
I mean, you're on Instagram to reach people on Instagram, not to send people to Instagram.

1116
01:07:56,480 --> 01:07:59,140
So we don't need to, you're not on Instagram for this podcast.

1117
01:08:01,320 --> 01:08:01,680
Good point.

1118
01:08:02,540 --> 01:08:02,640
Yeah.

1119
01:08:02,810 --> 01:08:05,180
And I guess, I think, I don't know if you ever figured this out.

1120
01:08:05,180 --> 01:08:06,400
I think you're still on PeerTube too.

1121
01:08:06,890 --> 01:08:07,540
So I think.

1122
01:08:07,660 --> 01:08:08,000
I might be.

1123
01:08:08,100 --> 01:08:10,180
I tried reaching out to him and he didn't reply back.

1124
01:08:10,460 --> 01:08:10,700
But anyway.

1125
01:08:11,000 --> 01:08:11,120
Okay.

1126
01:08:11,220 --> 01:08:11,300
Okay.

1127
01:08:11,450 --> 01:08:12,960
Well, maybe on PeerTube as well.

1128
01:08:13,660 --> 01:08:15,240
We'll try to get links for everything in the description.

1129
01:08:15,470 --> 01:08:17,980
So check out Josh if you guys want to see more of Josh's content.

1130
01:08:18,250 --> 01:08:22,140
And especially, I guess, for friends and family, it's probably really good stuff for them as well.

1131
01:08:22,460 --> 01:08:24,080
So thank you, Josh, for your time.

1132
01:08:24,240 --> 01:08:25,460
And I guess we'll have you on next time.

1133
01:08:26,060 --> 01:08:27,240
Appreciate it, Henry. Thanks so much.

1134
01:08:27,790 --> 01:08:27,920
Yeah.

1135
01:08:28,520 --> 01:08:32,080
This one was a lot of fun to do, not only because Josh is another creator,

1136
01:08:32,230 --> 01:08:36,580
and so we can always talk a little bit backstage about kind of our experiences and how that's going.

1137
01:08:36,710 --> 01:08:41,560
But also, this is a story that I haven't heard in a full-length interview from Josh about.

1138
01:08:41,670 --> 01:08:45,100
And so I really wanted to get his experience, get the lessons from it.

1139
01:08:45,100 --> 01:08:47,980
And so that way, all of us can act a bit more accordingly.

1140
01:08:48,089 --> 01:08:50,259
And hopefully, we don't have to go through what Josh did.

1141
01:08:50,680 --> 01:08:54,539
So I hope that all of us walked away with quite a bit of practical advice

1142
01:08:54,540 --> 01:08:56,819
when it comes to when we just travel to other countries,

1143
01:08:57,140 --> 01:09:00,400
even if it's just for vacation with our families or for work,

1144
01:09:00,799 --> 01:09:02,740
or especially if you're in a region

1145
01:09:03,060 --> 01:09:05,759
where you should be a little bit more aware of these issues,

1146
01:09:06,100 --> 01:09:06,920
even when you're at home.

1147
01:09:07,240 --> 01:09:09,740
Hopefully Josh's advice applies to you there as well.

1148
01:09:10,160 --> 01:09:11,759
I want to give a huge thank you to Josh.

1149
01:09:11,880 --> 01:09:14,060
I also want to thank you all for coming in and listening

1150
01:09:14,440 --> 01:09:17,660
and just valuing your own protection a little bit better out there.

1151
01:09:17,740 --> 01:09:19,560
It also keeps the people around you safe.

1152
01:09:19,920 --> 01:09:22,759
And if you want to support what we do and keep these podcasts going,

1153
01:09:23,259 --> 01:09:25,600
Check out how to become a Techlorian down in the description.

1154
01:09:25,740 --> 01:09:27,859
We have a private signal group that I'm active in.

1155
01:09:27,859 --> 01:09:29,920
I also have my own private RSS feed.

1156
01:09:30,279 --> 01:09:32,400
And you also get featured in the outro of our videos.

1157
01:09:33,000 --> 01:09:33,700
Thank you all for listening.

1158
01:09:34,180 --> 01:09:35,600
And I'll see you next time on Techlor.