Gabriel Custodiet | Privacy, Personal Security, & Freedom In The Digital Dystopian Age

00:01 The Higher Side Chats doesn't start with underwear ads or guilt-tripping donation pleas, nor would I ever commit the cardinal sin of podcasting and interrupt the flow mid show to shill you an unrelated sponsor. But the free first hour episodes do have to start with a little PSA before we get into it to ever so quickly remind slash inform listeners both old slash new that you're about to get into what I'm sure is a great first hour of high level interview but that means you're missing half the show If you like what we do around here, get yourself a THC Plus membership and listen to the full two hour interviews as they were really designed to be and I know that you would enjoy them most. Give a little and actually get more in return of the thing your actually engaging with

00:45 5 episodes every month, plus forum access, community comments, downloads to all the closing cover songs a Plus Show RSS feed to use with any private RSS feed supported app and the occasional joint session bonus shows which include messages you might leave me about your own theories experiences or otherworldly encounters at TheHigherSideChats.com slash voicemail If you're not quite sure, if you just want to feel us out or if you're only here for this particular episode. No worries! New first-time subscribers get a 7 day free trial when you sign up at thehiresidechats.com Cancel any time Try it out because its so important to feed the things you want to grow and starve the things that gotta go And with that said lets get on with it already huh?

01:38 In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed the nation through a series of radio broadcast known as the Fireside Chats. His aim was to reassure the common man that our society would recover from its troubled times. From 1930 and I deal with a different kind of fire For a new era of worldly frustration we offer a fresh conversation. I'm Greg Carlwood These are The Hireside Chats Here we go, Hireside Chatters just trying to stay sane in an insane world. From sunny San Diego I'm Greg Carlwood and as we get dragged deeper into an all things digital age the benefits are very clear for the controller class and the sorcerers of Silicon Valley but what are the real benefits for you?

02:23 Because as far as I can tell, the future is about connecting as much of your property as possible to a data-extracting centralized corporate consortium hellbent on digital domination with their finger on the kill switch of pretty much everything. From your electric car to your bank account to eventually the smart lock on your habitation pod just in case you ever step out of line And whether it's being in Washington DC on the 6th of January, donating to a group protesting vaccine mandates or simply being Russian. Examples of the full court press by The Big Machine are happening at an ever increasing pace And even if you find some justification in a couple of those examples, it's certainly a steep slippery slope. Pile on a slew of high-profile data breaches like the Equifax debacle, cell phone surveillance, invasive marketing techniques and a never ending game of Whack-a-Mole when it comes to compromised credit cards... ...and it becomes obvious that the reasons to tighten up our digital footprint reclaim our privacy and reflect on how much this stuff we even want in the first place are in no short supply!

03:26 Well, today we're talking to Gabriel Custodiette the man of mystery behind the powerful and well-produced show The Watchman Privacy Podcast. As well as the book, The Watchman Guide to Privacy Reclaim Your Digital Financial and Lifestyle Freedom. And his privacy newsletter all of which can be found at watchmanprivacy.com And I think this is a conversation that's long overdue around here so let's get into it! The passionate privacy advocating podcaster digital dystopia dissident and true guardian angel of the anonymous the watcher of the Watchmen Gabriel welcome to the higher side Well, hello Greg. That was quite the introduction I applaud you for that nice to be here Nice to have you here Thanks for doing it intros are all just part of the old nine-to-five at this point But I do try to get them psyched up and thinking along the lines of the topic at hand

04:17 And before I forget, a big shout out to Monica Perez of the Propaganda Report for this suggestion. Online privacy is a big deal made even more obvious by the signs of the times and like exercise we probably know there's work to do in this area but many of us get lazy or some are ignorant of just how exposed they might be Although as I've listened to your show, it's been very motivating to make the very important effort in this area. And a good place to start is probably with the reasons people should prioritize privacy in their digital and physical lives. Some reasons might be obvious others less so but what would you say in that regard? To get the ball rolling here why should people be more concerned about their privacy

05:06 Yeah, well I think in your introduction that Greg you hit on a number of points and your crowds the crowd that I tend to talk to doesn't tend to need a lot of convincing to pursue privacy. Of course we know that there are all kinds of enemies out there whether that is big tech whether that is the government and anything in between but I'll just offer a few useful statistics to make you reconsider if you're not treating privacy as you should We have for example 2021, $6 trillion of cybercrime. This happens when people do not have great security on their accounts. We can talk about that more but anyway, six trillion dollars of cybercrime you have scams a plenty through email phone You name it many of my clients these days are people who just say hey My bank account has been emptied. My coinbase account is gone basically and so this is

06:04 a good reason to be concerned about your privacy. Of course, as you mentioned Big Tech is surveying so many things about us and that information ends up among their employees, among their government friends and can be used in any manner of ways we live especially if you live in the US You live in a place that in which one in 20 people will spend time in jail That's a pretty high number. A lot of these for non-violent crimes, this is what I call the legal industrial complex so there are all kinds of examples of privacy as protection. If i look at this a little bit more fundamentally, I see that the private mind, the individual mind, is the fundamental essence of reality which is what I like to say

06:52 In other words, the only thing we can be certain of is that we have our own private minds. Everything is filtered through them and so by preserving privacy it's not just about protection. It's about pushing away the things that are online or in the media or wherever they are and focusing more on cultivating yourself your personality which is incredibly important to understand what's going on in the world. So just some very basic We send to be private i'm happy to expand on any of that. No i think that's a great start and of course the easier we make it for the system to get its hooks into us the easier we are to manipulate and control,

07:32 I heard you say in a previous interview that you don't have to tell people and oppressive regimes or people who are gay and some countries where that's illegal about the importance of privacy maybe we've been spoiled a little bit or conditions i might say, do think that. You know nothing can hurt us here in the land of the free but so often that doesn't seem to be the case i've heard many stories of people who didn't even really think they did anything wrong and end up getting caught up in the system and digital footprint is usually a part of, the case made against them.

08:09 Yeah, absolutely. So we have the statistics of the people that were killed by governments in the 20th century alone it's I think around 250 million people and that doesn't include world wars so the government has always been the greatest enemy of people just statistically speaking and so you're right you don't have to tell people in oppressive countries or the people who live in one of the 10 countries where for example it's illegal to be gay And you're using something like Facebook, which can guess your sexual orientation in frankly a matter of minutes or a matter of clicks. So there's all kinds of things that can go wrong it's just a matter of kind of recognizing those fully and in our safer societies Of course You can say for example when America sends so many people to jail That's not necessarily safe

09:03 when police officers can pull you over and if they see that you're carrying cash, and you can't prove that it's yours. They can confiscate that we have civil forfeiture in the United States. It's not as freedom loving as it once was and that as we would like to believe so yeah putting up a layer of privacy around you is a way to help you protect your finance your physical person and everything in between Yes, great points and we've also all heard that phrase obey what I say not what I do. And that's so true for a lot of the upper crust specially in this area Silicon Valley guys like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates

09:44 They've made comments about not letting their own kids engage with their products the way the public is encouraged to, which should be pretty telling. And privacy is a part of that and guys like Zuckerberg who have been the chief offenders might tell us hey privacy shouldn't be no big deal too yeah but if you look at Zuckerberg's life he seems to care quite a bit about it for himself. Yeah I start my book by saying how Mark Zuckerberg said several years ago that privacy is no longer social value. And then he proceeded to buy all of the estates adjacent to his own in Silicon Valley, and also the next year I believe bought a private island for his family so it's pretty clear

10:24 I mean, to anybody why privacy is important and a good social value. It gives you protection that gives you peace of mind. It lets you develop as a person and your right thought the technology surrounding us. And there's a great short video that I recommend people it's called in shadow. I'm sure your audiences some of your audiences is familiar with that It starts and basically has these overlords who present to all the people this device, this phone. And they're just totally mesmerized them of course scientifically we know that the screens that you're looking at the apps that you use are all designed to be psychologically exploitative and so being private is not simply a matter of downloading the right app pressing the right buttons on your iPhone to set up some privacy settings it is a matter of securing for yourself

11:14 a private sphere around you that pushes out. A lot of the white noise so that you can develop and can be more informed about what's going on when you're on the Internet by using an ad blocker such as Ublock Origin, you're blocking a lot of the nonsense that would otherwise distract you and the YouTube ads that would try to sell to you and distract you. So privacy is a matter of cultivating yourself as much as anything. Mm hmm. And that's a great point we discussed another episodes how we are just so bombarded with input these days that is hard to even think it is hard too.

11:55 flex your mental muscle to conceive of how you might get out of that job, you hate and do something on your own because it's just constant distractions and bright shiny loud things being thrown in our face. And I think that's by design but as you've said privacy is defense against the state i mean that motivates me we We see the way the world seems to be going and i don't wanna make it any easier for him so even though i can tend to be lazy i am trying to reclaim my privacy just out of spite just for trying to not make this new world easy for them to implement and.

12:35 Let's just get this out of the way, but the common response people give when talking about this stuff is well I don't have anything to hide so it's no big deal or i don't even mind a little catered advertising in exchange for the convenience. But what do you say to these sorts of comments that you probably hear? Yeah what I tend to tell them is first of all you do have a lot to be afraid of we've talked about...or here's another statistic one The average American commits three felonies per day, and that is not a testament to how evil or unlawful. Well I guess how unlawful they are but just no matter of how many laws are on the books period right? This again goes back to the illegal industrial complex we have statistics that one third of all divorce hearings reference Facebook at some point and so there are all kinds of things that can...that you should be fearful of

13:31 What have you said in the privacy of your own home, in a private messenger talking to somebody else? That could be misconstrued. That when presented before an emotional jury who is deciding your fate what have you purchased on Amazon and your Amazon history that could be subpoena by a savvy judge and also presented to that emotional jury maybe a book on privacy but yes And of course, Greg any online account you're using whether that's for a bank or your coinbase account or anything else. If that is compromised if you're not using two-factor authentication if you have a weak password maybe you're not using Password Manager if you have fallen victim to some kind of phishing scam then somebody really can wipe you out so these people who say that they have nothing to hide

14:21 There are many examples, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum that contradict that. Right and maybe people shouldn't ask if they have anything to hide but rather ask if they have anything to protect? I think that's right Sometimes I tend to say that talking about privacy is the wrong question. Of course, we have a right to privacy if by rightly means something granted to us by the universe or by God. We don't need government to grant us privacy in fact, a government granting privacy would be the opposite of privacy because they would have to know things about us. We would have to be a dutiful citizen in order for us be applicable for such a privacy law. But yes, I don't think that is the right question to ask. I think the question to ask is why do you need to know anything about me?

15:07 And because you could be this or you could be that. Well, I throw it back at them and they say well okay You want my ID? Because I might be a bad person will show me your ID Why should I be dealing with you in the first place and so yeah It's important not to concede the point Initially and to do what you just did which is to kind of turn the question on its head Yes, and there are a couple of quotes I've heard you use before. I wanted to make sure we set them here too but one of them is if you give me six lines written by the hands of the most honest men i'll find you something in their that would hang him and the other is show me the man and i'll show you the crime both obviously speaking to this same kind of theme that

15:51 The laws are so strict and so numerous that of course you're gonna violate them, and particularly honest people who want to speak boldly in the face of a oppressive government which we have despite some peoples unawareness of it. But speak to these quotes a little bit more and maybe you can attribute them to their sources because I didn't write that down but talk about that a bit Well, a French statesman Cardinal Richelieu said that give me six lines from the hand of the most honest of men and I will find something in them which will hang them. And then the other line about show me the man and I'll show you the crime is a Soviet politician blanking on his name at the tip of my tongue but the point stands which is that the law is determined by people who are not ourselves

16:43 who are in Congress or in Parliament, or wherever they are. And they're making laws based on all kinds of things. Some of them a small percentage are psychopaths so they literally do not even have the psychological ability to conceive of other people. A lot of them are doing it for all kinds of reasons and these are the laws that we live with and the truth is Greg if you think about it just talking to the average person not even getting into conspiratorial territory what is illegal today? Or has been in recent months that maybe wasn't a couple years ago For example, wearing a mask all over the place. Claiming that there are two and only two sexes if you live in Canada today that is illegal! You can go to jail ultimately for making that claim because you're discriminating against others so all of these laws that are on the books are subject to change people who have donated to various causes today might simply be you're invested in Russia and someone well that's a reason to come after you

17:44 So the laws, unfortunately on the books change quickly. And that is a very important reason why you should be concerned about it. I like to also use the example you have The Diary of Anne Frank right? Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who was hiding in an attic Well who are they hiding from? They were hiding from the police because in Nazi Germany To Be Jewish was illegal. To not turn in your Jewish neighbor Was illegal and the morally correct thing to do in that kind of society would be to break the law. So a lot of people think that government law is correlated at all with what is morally good, and unfortunately that's not true and increasingly it quite the opposite.

18:27 Great points and what would you say about the way the world is trending weather it's the things were saying internationally like in china that seem to be. Rolling out here to some degree or no we just recently saw in canada mean the trend seems to be using, any and all digital exposure against you i mean when you say that happening more and more on even individual or even fully national basis Yeah, we are definitely entering into the digital age where just going to a restaurant sometimes these days. Oftentimes these days you have to have a phone number to be put on their waiting list and there's just so many automated systems today and that is the direction that anybody who's in charge wants it to go in because if you have data and you have statistics then you can make decisions based on that and you can control people based on that perfect example is central bank digital currencies

19:25 These are in the works, they're being talked about all the time. There are many countries around the world which aren't just around the corner from introducing them China already has introduced a central bank digital currency to a limited degree we've seen how it works in China which is that if you don't follow the rules If you play too many video games, if you do anything that state does not want you to do then you can get a lower social credit score Which means that you will have a reduced ability to travel around to leave the country To buy certain things And so you can easily see how a system like that, where if things are automated, where you have a central bank digital currency which is issued by the Federal Reserve in the United States and laws could be attached to that by Congress of course. That all kinds of decisions could be made to lock people out of the financial system for saying what the higher side chat says on a daily basis or what anybody else does. So I don't like the direction

20:25 that the world is going in the digital age. Of course, we have tools also in the digital world. We have cryptography, we have end-to-end encryption, we have things like Bitcoin which are excellent ways to get around the state so as always it is a two way battle But certainly in the upcoming years, I think we're going to see with AI coming about with more automation of tollbooths or whatever the case may be a cashless society coming on. That is going to be a real struggle and we're going to certainly have to be aware of the tools at our disposal if we want to be able to circumvent this i mean even just today i haven't really been able to get into the news because i was preparing for this but, i'm seeing a lot of headlines that no biden is signaling the central bank digital currency they're gonna give it another go. It was in the first coven relief bill and it didn't make it and the digital dollar so of course they can keep

21:19 Push it as far as they can until they get what they want and we saw a huge change during covid where we had the double whammy of a so-called coin shortage coupled with a just general disdain for cash cuz it's dirty and carrying germs. It's just funny how things that seem unrelated end up serving this agenda to corral us in the digital finances and, any episode we talk about central bank digital currencies you say yes i'm gonna be internet based and as simple as possible and convenient and probably mandatory but also inclusive. And that's funny because they use the word inclusive but it's kind of exactly the opposite right

22:02 Well, yeah. Inclusive is one of these words that people throw around when they want to include everybody except you and so right we are totally inclusive right? Except for people who believe in this, people who say that and all these kind of people who have views that are opposed to our own So yeah, when I said that central bank digital currencies will be inclusive That will be the language that the rulers will be using They'll say that this will include more people in the system because it's so convenient. People don't need a bank anymore, it's just on their phone things of this nature and that will lure a lot of people in who like the convenience and of course privacy and self-sovereignty require some effort not as much effort I think as people might expect but they do require some effort they certainly require being aware and the people who are losing their privacy have bought into convenience

22:54 They want a financial app to have access to their bank accounts, to tell them how much they're spending and all the rest instead of just a little bit of discipline. Maybe a basic spreadsheet or something like that. And so central bank digital currencies will be very convenient. So convenient! Let's say the Federal Reserve needs to do some more stimulating of the economy and they give you each person a couple thousand dollars. As many people have said well they can say but you have to spend this within 30 days because it's all about spending in Keynesian economics, right? So you have to spend this and this amount of time. You can only do it at these particular stores we saw Of course during the last couple of years that certain small retailers went out of business because either they were non-essential or for all kinds of other reasons The big companies of course are the fascist lackeys and partners of the government so they get their preferential treatment That's why they love regulations because they can afford this kind of thing And so

23:52 Yeah, where was I going? Sorry. I got off track. Oh well, I do. I was just...I agree with that point that you just made that big companies like the regulations because they can afford to comply and others can't but it was about inclusion right so the central bank digital currencies when they are rolled out they will have all these compelling reasons for them and they're going to make it so simple so people will be lured into giving in and giving up their cash and there are alternative ways of paying And that will be, I think Greg a very serious moment for humanity. The central bank digital currencies they are really looming threats on my mind and to get around that of course you should certainly buy things that you don't want to be public knowledge now rather than later. You should be part of communities and learn how to buy things

24:43 between each other, just start on Craigslist build communities this kind of thing. You should start to be conversant with how cryptocurrencies work whether or not you agree with investing in them you should be aware of how they work so that you can start to use them and just start to be aware of what's coming and realize that this is the future and you can starts to plan around. Good advice! And also when it comes to what's coming we've all heard the World Economic Forum That line, you will own nothing and you'll never be happier. And... You have talked about rental culture and the always online way of being. These are staples now in the software space but it seems like they will be expanded I mean that's basically the point of the metaverse as i see it It's like if you wanted to spy on someone and you only had bugs and cameras in one room of their house

25:38 you would encourage them to be in that room as much as possible twenty four seven if you could add me that's what the digital space is like that one room in your house where your always surveilled so spend a little time there as possible but talk was about rental culture. Maybe in the software space where you see it going and of course always online pretty obvious that we don't always need to be online unless of course, we use Adobe. Right well look around look at your phone look at your computer look at your browser what are the services that you are using a lot these days? A lot of them probably require an account

26:17 In other words, you are renting space on that company's servers or in that company's kind of space to do what you need to. And meanwhile they are surveying there in control of this. For example the Microsoft service agreements over the last couple of years has said that if you use I believe it's hateful language on any of their platforms so Greg that could be your using Microsoft Office 365 on your browser and you use hateful language, well that is grounds to be kicked off of the service. And so when you are a renter when you're using an online service and always online service like Microsoft Office 365, you are beholden to all of the quickly changing rules of that company. You might be limited as to what you can say on that platform. You might not actually own the thing you are typing. And so I encourage people as much as possible

27:17 to avoid these kind of programs, to avoid if you can the digital version of Photoshop. If you can manage go to a free and open source option that is on your computer that you own that is not reporting back to the mothership, that is not interconnected with all these third parties That's why I use Linux as an operating system and I use a lot of the free software that comes on Linux. I type up all my documents on LibreOffice, which is not reporting so much back to the mothership which is open source so that we can see what is going on which is by default more private because it's made by privacy respecting people. And when I type that thing and save it on my desktop

27:58 that is not being saved on some company's servers somewhere for them to look at and scrape. We know that Dropbox scans all of the files that are on their service, and they say that they're looking for child pornography and all the rest of course but what they're looking for is the thing that they don't want you using on their service at any point in time, and these things can change quickly so that's why I tell people you need to be in control of your software gravitate towards Linux and don't use something like a Chromebook. Avoid big tech solutions, look for open source options right now I'm looking at a note taking software called Standard Notes this is a great alternative to the other note-taking software that people might use and so it's simply a matter of being aware that when you are using an online software that requires an account from a big tech company you're the renter right? And as the renter you do not own this

28:56 and you are being surveyed by the person who actually owns it because there's always an owner at the end of the day. And if they're the owner, they can control in certain cases what you say, what you can't say, and whether you own the thing I'm with you and we have clearly thoroughly explained why the effort is worth making and you peppered in a little advice there but i know when it comes to the basics you do have five first steps to get someone back on the road of reclaiming that privacy what are those first five things. The first one is not very sexy, and I admit that. But it is simply to stop giving out information by default. Now I say that to a lot of people on the end what they usually say as well hold on. I need something to download that takes care of this for me. I need some kind of system that takes care my privacy for me. I need to know like some people will say that I need a government that Is going to protect my privacy? The problem with that, Of course, is that it's metaphysically impossible. Privacy is something

29:54 that exists when things are not being given to you, right? When there's no third parties involved with you. That is when privacy exists and so in order to do that you need to do more things for yourself and you certainly need to stop giving out your information by default what I mean by that i mean You go to your mechanic and you start fresh because your current mechanic has some of your information the next time you go to a mechanic you take off your license plate perhaps you give them fake information you can use a fake phone number There's a public one that a lot of people use. If you call it, it reads your story in Spanish. That number is 720-865-8500 so a lot of people on the privacy community use that. You have that number prepared and give them only the information they want to get when they go to the dentist. Find one that only needs cash from you. Don't give them your social security number or any real information. Only what they need, pay in cash, be on their way

30:55 When you're online, of course you simply have fewer accounts and just be careful about the information given to they need to know your real birthdate. Do they need to have your real email address? There are alternatives when I recommend is 33 male dot com which allows you to create basically unlimited sub email addresses that connect to you something worth looking into if I were to explain it would take a couple of minutes but basically finding ways to give out less of your information too first of all give out less information. And second of all, when you can to use services like 33 mail that allow you to give out something that is not your real information and so that's the first thing is simply to reject by default somebody asked for your ID You say why do you need this? I don't get this out. I'll show it to you but don't scan it any combination of that just stop giving this stuff out now once you've done that I recommend people get a paid VPN

31:54 A VPN is a piece of software that essentially hides your current IP address. Your IP address is the address connected to you whenever you access the internet, so your internet service provider Comcast for example has an IP address for you and they can see what websites you visit and what you're basically doing on the internet to a large degree. And of course any websites that you visit such as YouTube they can see oh this person using this IP address and they get a rough sense of actually where you're located. And that, of course could be subpoenaed of Comcast and your actual identity could be found so it's very exposing to be using the internet unprotected So I recommend people get a paid for VPN and to use that whenever you use the Internet whether that's on your phone or your computer some i recommend are ProtonMail, Mulvad NordVPN ExpressVPN these are some good options third i would say

32:51 use private messengers to communicate. Stop using standard SMS, stop if you can using Apple Messenger. Apple Messenger is good but it is not perfect when I say private messenger. I'm talking about a messenger that uses end-to-end zero knowledge encryption which basically means that only you and the other person gets that message And this is verified because we're looking for messengers that are open source. In other words, where the code source is available for anybody to see so that we can actually see what's going on behind the scenes or people who are good at this stuff can see what's happening behind the scenes. Some private messengers I recommend our element signal session and wire. I'm sure that some of you have a signal account. That's the most popular right now

33:45 Another important thing about private messengers, which you should definitely use. Communicate 99% of your information through private messengers just give up WhatsApp, give up Facebook Messenger, give up SMS move to one of these they have a lot of robust features. You just need to migrate your own community to start using them and another important thing about messengers because we've seen in the news recently signal messages from people who are involved in the insurrection of the capital have been viewed And my understanding is that was true. They were viewed because if somebody gets your phone, such as law enforcement, they can just go through your apps CEO here's signal private messenger what were they saying? And therefore another really important feature of a private messenger is expiring messages

34:31 So you can set on signal, I know for sure expiring messages of an hour a day. Four weeks i think is the longest and so you can set that up so that the messages that you send expire on your end and on the end of the person who is receiving the message And so this kind of great forgotten feature of private messaging Those are the first three Greg in addition to that I would say use a password manager. A password manager is simply another software tool which allows you to organize your passwords, to create a long randomly generated password for your accounts which is impossible for a person to create themselves it's impossible for human to create truly random passwords and if you can remember your password basically it is not good enough so have the password manager do that for you when I recommend this keypass XC

35:25 If you have to have it across multiple devices, you can use one called Bitwarden. And after you download one of these go back into your accounts change it to something that the password manager generates for you which is a lot stronger and this is a great step forward for the security of your accounts It also has a notes section on the password manager and I just kind of leave my security question notes which should also be randomly generated long random things And after you have the password manager, I would also lock down your accounts with two factor authentication. We can make this point five to factor authentication. What is what does that mean? It basically means that when you log on to your bank they need your user ID They need your password which you just created a long random one with your password manager keypass XC

36:19 And in addition to that, they need a third thing. So this gives you an extra layer of protection so they need a third thing. A lot of times people will set that up to be SMS text message. That's better than nothing but a better way of going about it is to download and application called Authy and this will generate code for you that you would input into your bank in this instance. So I know this gets confusing, here's how it works you go to your bank you log it says we need the code being sent to Authy so you'd go to your Authy app which is on your phone in front of you give them the code and then you can get into your account and you want to set this by default in your settings You want to always have to do this when you login if you're doing something like that Greg your accounts will be pretty darn well locked down from any hacker scam artist

37:09 you will not be part of this $6 trillion in cybercrime statistic. Sorry, I know I went on a long time there feel free to follow up on anything I said. Hey it's all good it's all about the guests here and that's great information sometimes the right resources are the best medicine because people get in this mindset of oh it's inconvenient It's a giant hassle to go through more and more hoops But really I think the Internet's pretty addictive so if you have a few more hoops to go through maybe you end up picking up a book instead or going for a walk or hike instead. I don't think it's all that bad to have it be slightly difficult to access things that are psychologically addicting

37:54 And maybe there are other resources here to talk about. I noticed that you didn't mention Telegram, I think that's probably because it's not fully end-to-end encrypted would that be the reason? It is not end-to-end encrypted by default so a lot of people are just on their chatting way and That is not enabled So...I would definitely enable that if you're using Telegram Fair enough. And what about other things people can engage in? Maybe they're more advanced than the beginner stuff, but I've got friends who have become advocates for something called a pie hole that goes between your computer and your router. Talk about some advanced things that people could get into if they really want to dive into taking this seriously. Yeah! A pie hole is...is a rabbit hole you can go down.

38:48 A more straightforward thing now that you have the VPN software running on your computer, you could try to put that onto your router so that all of the traffic flowing from your internet is mediated by the VPN. Right? This is useful for a couple of reasons when you turn on your computer there's a split second where your VPN software is not connected where your computer information is being exposed to the Internet You also have the fact that certain things like a video game console do not have a way for you to download a VPN application. And so having a VPN at the level of your Internet router can make sure that all traffic is filtered through there, so that's one thing you can consider. I also talked to people about an amnesic operating system called Tails. So well first of all if you have not yet dabbled in Linux which is an alternative operating system to Windows 10 and Mac OS

39:45 Linux is definitely the place that you want to go first for any serious but fairly sophisticated, somewhat complicated route towards digital privacy. You've got to move to Linux I tend to make it easy for people and recommend to them a version of Linux called Linux Mint which will be very familiar to people who are coming from Windows 10 or Mac OS Very simple use there are some things that are quite different like installing programs can be a hassle But besides that, most people are using their computer 95% of the time to go on an internet browser. And Linux Mint will certainly help you do that for people who want to go beyond Linux Mint and get something really nitty gritty private there are some other options You could try downloading Linux Debian. Here's where we get to the interesting one

40:36 try something called Tails. Tails is a Linux distribution and basically you install this sucker on a USB drive, and it exists only on the USB drive. You plug it into a computer start up the computer and it will boot up Tails and you can do your stuff as soon as you either pull out the USB or shut it down It wipes all evidence that that operating system ever existed everything is just wiped away. It only ever existed on the RAM of your computer It never touched a hard drive or anything like that. And so it's not very conducive to productivity, though you can make it a little bit more permanent but people who are on the run or they live in an oppressive regime, you can use Tails and I forgot the most important feature which is that everything on the Tails browser is filtered through the Tor network. The Tor network is a popular worldwide network which works in some ways like a VPN. In other words your IP address is filtered

41:34 through other addresses along the way. So, the entirety of Tails is filtered through the Tor network which gives it everything you do on it that is connected online added protection. These are a couple examples. Of course you can dabble in the Tor browser itself since we're talking about Tor. The Tor browser is simple to download. It's a modified version of Firefox browser so should be familiar to a lot people and just go to the Tor website download the browser and you will be using it. And the Tor browser basically routes your IP address through various points in the world, each of which does not have complete information of the other one. So it has an addition some ways to mask your fingerprint online so when we're online websites can detect things about us they can see how many cores a processor or computer is

42:33 They can see where we're located if we're not using the VPN. They can see all kinds of things about our use you can go to a website called deviceinfo.me and you can see all the things that a browser can know about you. The Tor Browser also in addition to hiding your IP address obfuscates the fingerprint. So for people who really want to have some privacy when they're searching for things, you definitely want to go through the Tor browser so those are just a few things that people who want a little bit more intermediate-to-advanced options should definitely explore Right on yes a proper browser is certainly important as our search engines. Funny thing i just saw this morning again before we recorded that duck duck go has come out and publicly said that they're going to start the ranking russian propaganda whatever they define to be russian propaganda and that's a blow because a lot of people,

43:32 Conventionally think that duck go is a better alternative to google and you know people who are in the now would say that it isn't really and clearly this demonstrates that isn't but the tour browser is also search engine other other search engines you would recommend. Yeah there's a lot of what she just said first of all I would say that's disappointing that duck is doing not that privacy search engine than a lot of people like and use. And that I believe is the default search engine of the Tor browser, which is not itself a search engine. And so what we see though with that example Gregg is that so many companies have seen this in the last couple of days last couple of weeks

44:17 like to play politics. They have to, right? I read an article about how the PlayStation store no longer sells to Russians now of course Russians can't use their visa cards and such anyway so maybe that was an easy decision for the PlayStation store but we see all these companies who feel like they have to deny people service based on whatever the political agenda at the time is... We've seen that from the woke establishments in the last couple of years, the last few years but especially in the last couple. Now we see that with anything at all connected to Russia right? If you have a Russian last name I guess that is grounds these days for something bad to happen to you right and so you of course want to be aware of this stuff as you are. In terms of alternatives to search engines that's something I've actually been meaning to look back into what I tend to do...I use a lot of DuckDuckGo

45:13 But one thing that I'll do is, I'll simply go to the second and third and fourth page. I think the statistics are 90% of people maybe more never go beyond the first page of search results. That's a mistake out of the best stuff. A lot of the deal listed stuff, of course is lower down the list you can search for things instead of on DuckDuckGo on a website like BitChute or Odyssey, or some of these other alternative big tech video websites where they are themselves search engines. And you can find some different results I have in the past recommended the search engine Yandex which is Russian by the way So oh dear but simply as a way to get different information right? Yandex to get different information

46:01 Sometimes I'll use Bing and occasionally, I'll use Google. And so just pile them up on your bookmarks and test them all out and kind of experiment for yourself and see what you're getting. Word-of-mouth is very powerful. A lot of people that i've talked to recently don't go to websites anymore they are in telegram groups or discord groups. I talked to a guy yesterday who's heavy into Bitcoin he says yeah he never reads the news not at all he goes to his telegram group and they're sharing all any important story. And that's where he goes for the truth, and so there are all kinds of options just be aware of that you have forums, you have discord groups, you have telegram groups that you can find, you have

46:46 groups in the private messenger matrix, which I referenced previously. You can get part of different communities, of course these subreddits have a particular topic and these are just different ways to find access to different information which will give you a better sense of what's going on. Yeah because there is a lot of guardrails on what we should be looking at these days so they say and in terms of the big conflict I am just so sick of seeing elites get off on who can make whose citizens suffer more while they go on with their lives pretty much undisturbed and i think that's a trend that is only going to get worse going forward

47:31 But in terms of groups i did wanna kinda hold on that because for a conspiracy themed podcast i am always getting people asking me like. Where's the THC community and honestly I just have not focused all that much on creating them. Yes there is a subreddit you can't really trust reddit, there is fan run facebook group...I'm not even on Facebook and I think a lot of our coolest listeners probably aren't either! And our discord server which was started up by a listener also just got nuked so thats gone

48:07 We have a members only forum that we can control and it's hosted with someone at least for now is not shown any signs of violating neutrality. But then i hear about things like mastodon and matter most you mentioned matrix i've heard about that What are your thoughts on the best systems to make a secure encrypted community for an audience like this? Like, where should I center on telling people hey come here if you want to engage with other listeners and form out of network. And we can also be more private. Yeah that's good question i think those two are actually contradictory If you want something to be open and part of the community so that people can go back and read previous messages and all the rest

48:54 it is not going to be private. There's really no way to do that and usually the way encryption works is, its best when it's just one or two people communicating with each other maybe a larger group than that so that's a really tricky thing The best thing to do in our situation is to make sure everybody is using good operational security they're doing the VPNs and they're making sure to have a good solid browser that's not remembering history and cookies and all the rest of something we haven't talked about yet and to make sure that they have an anonymous name, and they know not to reveal information about themselves. If they post a photo, they make sure to put it through a EXIF tool which removes any of the metadata just making in anonymous community where these people cannot be traced back to their real identity. And so you'll see this a lot in the dark web or on hacker forums

49:51 and other nefarious parts of the Internet. These are public, you can go to them right now. These people are interested in privacy. They realize that if you have a forum or some kind of community like this it's not possible and they just do their best to obfuscate any information that they put online. And so, of course what your referencing is the fact that its hard to trust any single provider because at some point there's somebody in charge and they're beholden to someone else maybe using Amazon web servers web services. And so there's all kinds of third parties involved, I think that a forum if you have a large enough community, a form that you host on your website can be a good option provided that you go to the work of securing nothing because if that is compromised, your compromising a whole lot and so you got to be careful about that

50:46 But besides that, yeah. I think in-person communication of course is really great if you can arrange local meetups. That's an old fashioned thing but that's really good. But something like Telegram is probably the best you can do to be honest. You have a company that doesn't take down things for the most part and people can communicate there some privacy involved at least And yeah, you just have to approach it anonymously so that things cannot be traced back to you. I think the best thing you can do sometimes and always be looking for the next thing. Absolutely! It is up to the individual don't trust any system protect yourself the VPN and the username those are things done at the user level that keeps you

51:36 more anonymous when you're online i have people who pay for the subscriber portion of my show with prepaid credit cards or with crypto, people also send me cash in the mail and then they engage through encrypted email service and i don't really know who they are so. I'm open to all that kind of stuff it's just like the community That is engaging with that is quite small i know some podcasts that have tried to go completely crypto and i don't know the adoption is there yet it just seems like really tough to. to be any kind of content creator and go that full on route but just don't trust any system even people in systems with the best intentions it is up to you to be responsible for making yourself anonymous. And I also wanted to throw in a little about our phones, I know there are ways that people talk about to convert say an Android phone to a more private experience maybe have some advice on the smartphone front

52:41 Yeah, the first thing to say about phones is that they are more than any other device we have designed to be social. To be communicating with other bigger systems and so by default they're hard to make private So you have a phone that has a camera facing both ways potentially A built in microphone They have operating systems that are designed for integration of various apps There was a Wall Street Journal article couple years ago found that Facebook was, or there was like 12 apps on a phone that were sharing information with Facebook. It was like a menstrual tracking app and all kinds of stuff you don't want to be sharing information so that's how these phone operating systems are designed they're designed to be highly integrated because if you think about it Gregg a phone is kind of a child's tool in many ways it's designed to

53:38 the kind of Wizard of Oz technology where you don't have to understand a line of code. Well, we haven't had to understand that for a long time. You don't have to understand how to do a lot of things. You just click the nice shiny buttons right? You don't even have to type anymore. You just click here and click here and sign away this and sign away that. And that's how these phones are designed. So the first thing I tell people is look, you don't need your phone as much as you think. Um, I actually gave up my phone for a month to see what would happen and I made my calls via my computer, and I used the private messengers that are talked about which are also available on a computer. And you can talk to video and all the rest of these good things. So just learn to do less with your phone. A lot of people treat this as this is my digital life don't make that the fulcrum around which your life pivots get a laptop. I recommend people to track down a cheap acer laptop few hundred dollars and put Linux on there

54:35 make that the fulcrum of your life, communicating sharing whatever you want to do. But don't make the phone and if you have a phone and you really want to do better with it Of course have fewer apps on there You don't need a YouTube app when you can just go to a browser such as Firefox focus is a good browser on a phone brave is a browser that is on the phone, also a computer. You don't need the YouTube app just go to your browser and go to YouTube manually. The same for weather right you don't need the weather app there's so many apps that you don't need and that are a security and privacy risk. So be minimalist do more things with fewer applications in terms of converting a phone into a more privacy friendly phone. The main way to do that is if you have an Android phone too

55:29 install either Lineage OS or Graphene OS onto the phone. So these are essentially Linux operating systems for your phone, it's a little bit involved, it's a little bit complicated you're definitely going to want to watch a few guides on this but basically what that can do Graphene OS by the way is only for Google Pixel phones, but what it does is it strips out all the Google stuff. So it's actually sounds counterintuitive But it works in the end so if you have a google pixel You could use graphene OS otherwise you could see if your phone is compatible with lineage os? but what both of these do is they strip out the Google services from the Android right anytime you create the android phone in order to download anything you have to Have a google account

56:13 because you have to go to the Play Store. That's where you get all of your applications from and Lineage OS and GrapheneOS get around that, they have their own stores, and they don't have all these analytics going back to Google so that is an excellent way to have some more privacy on your phone but at the end Greg when it comes to phone privacy it goes back to your location when a phone is working properly that is you are communicating with cell towers and the satellites around you, which is why you want a phone right when you're not on Wi-Fi. And you need to use the Internet? Well these are pinpointing your location too within a few meters and these SIM cards have identification numbers which are tied to your name if you bought this in your name with Verizon or something which is why if you want a really private phone you would get a SIM card such as Mint Mobile in cash from a store

57:08 and don't give any real information when you sign up. But in that case, when you are sharing your location with the satellites in the area okay they see that somebody is here but they don't know who you are so at least there's not...but what I consider to be the most revealing thing about phones is simply that geographical location and in order to get around that it's kind of difficult. You could use a Faraday bag which blocks all signals, but that means you can't use your phone. So what some people recommend is okay well I have my phone but i keep it in a Faraday bag when I'm a certain distance away from my house then I will take it out and use it as its meant to be used which is as a travel device You could do it like that or you could yeah It's a tricky system and it's really hard to have a phone and use it as that thing we love which allows us to connect on the internet from anywhere while also being private in all ways

58:10 But a couple of other things, Greg. Because I'm belaboring the point here which is that you can block your microphone a little bit when you're not using the phone by using a device called a mic lock which you can buy on Amazon it's basically like a severed microphone cord and so the device thinks that you have a microphone connected So it's not listening to you essentially right? Wow And so that's one thing you can do and just unplug it whenever you want to use cover up your cameras, of course. I recommend that with they have these phone camera covers or you can just use a piece of electrical tape which is kind of what these stickers are anyway if you're doing not everything i've suggested then you're going to be in certainly a better spot but make no mistake your phone can be used to harm you we've seen this in the last couple of years where people's location can show if they're a bioterrorist who's wandering and a place they shouldn't especially in places like

59:08 South Korea, where your phone is intimately tied to your identity. You can't really do the Mint Mobile route because it's tied to your government ID when you get a phone places like Nigeria or I believe like that as well so this is not an option for some people but if you live in a place where you can buy a phone SIM card with cash So that it's not attached to your name from the start then That is a good place to start and you should definitely take advantage of that Good advice, good advice. And man this has just been super informative you are a great example of what I'm always preaching which is

59:47 You can be your own boss, you can find a niche that you care about and just hammer it home and be the best for that particular thing. And it seems like you've really got that down I've also heard you say you don't need an employer run your own business and have your previous employer be a client which is a great flip on the traditional script but before I cut you loose tell the people what they should know about your privacy guide, the podcast, the newsletter all the good stuff you got going on. Okay so I would first direct people to Amazon The Watchman Guide To Privacy that's where a lot of my ideas are summarized in a convenient 240 pages sorry about Amazon you can buy that privately if you use a gift card create a new Amazon account send it to an Amazon locker be careful about the email address that you use because

1:00:39 they can ban new accounts like this. So just be careful or you can just buy it in your normal account, nothing wrong with that Amazon just makes it easy to self publish so that's the Watchman guide to privacy I have the podcast and that's just basically a overview of all aspects of private living digital privacy phone privacy physical privacy That's really the place to start and it is beginner friendly for sure though we definitely get into more intermediate and some advanced topics. I mean, that's the best privacy book. That's why i wrote it because there was a lack of substance about all aspects of privacy and things were not necessarily beginner-focused. My desire is to teach and explain things as clearly as possible. That's what I do in that book. The podcast is the Watchmen Privacy Podcast. We have some radical guests who expand

1:01:31 the repertoire of privacy techniques and talk about some really interesting things. We're talking about cryptocurrency recently for this month, and I have a Bitcoin Privacy course actually coming out as well you can find that at bitcoinprivacycourse.com will teach you how to own and use cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as they were actually intended which is not something that most people do when they have it in their Coinbase account and such And yeah i think that's where I would leave people I thank you for letting me share these ideas with your audience, Greg. Yes! I think this was a much needed topic. I appreciate your time we know what they're trying to do and we see how society is being steered so we need to make it as hard for this digital dystopia to manifest as we can and you are at the forefront of helping people to do that So really appreciate what you do thanks for taking the time and take care

1:02:32 Thank you. My pleasure, bye! I love it this is a guy who picked his lane and his own in the road and thanks to Monica Perez of The Propaganda Report for the good recommendation i know Gabriel is looking for more shows to spread the word on so podcast hosts that might be listening hit him up but i like what he's got going on i like the brand i like his imagery which i am using for this show by the way And he's even got a good voice for being the privacy watchman. Gabriel Custodiat, if that is his real name seems almost destined to do this kind of work A lot of good information though you might have heard me shoehorn in a little shade thrown at Adobe He actually has a show where he goes deep into Adobe but they are an example Of one of these companies where you can't buy the product anymore It's a yearly subscription

1:03:27 And if something happens to your login, you can't use it at all. You must be signed in and online at all times. That has certainly caused problems for me before! Somehow I got logged out... My password wouldn't work...I have a show to record in 10 minutes... Shouldn't have to deal with that. I'm nervous about going on the road and trying to do my wrap-ups for the April shows while I'm not home because of exactly that It's just annoying Big Brother style policies because these companies get too big and they think, well we can annoy our customers because what else are they going to use? And luckily new things do emerge and rise up. They don't get nearly as much attention you have to seek them out...and I should! And i gotta take the time to start testing out all these systems

1:04:17 But the software subscription model, it always kind of bothered me but it wasn't really until these companies started signing on for these ESG principles where I thought okay this really is the final straw. And those ESG principles environmental social and corporate governance you can look it up there's so many corporate infographics out there and articles But it was Adam Curry who first brought this up in the interview we did last year. It's very real, its social credit scores for corporations and if you don't bend over backwards on all these issues then you're not investable! And we know how consolidated wealth is in this world so if the top 20 firms use this metric and you get on their bad side good luck to ya! We've seen this recently but its how they coordinate so swiftly whenever they need too like the Russia thing

1:05:13 So when Adobe decides to take a look at the content I make using their systems, well...I'm locked out of my account. So instead of just waiting for that day, I should get in there and find the alternatives We should stop putting up with this stuff Something I mentioned in yesterday's joint session show was that even our editor sent this show back with a little note about being more motivated to reclaim some power and privacy in his life And I agree We're leaving ourselves vulnerable. We're giving our money to the bad guys we have smaller alternatives that have been built who want to fulfill this need but we still use Gmail and I'm totally guilty! i got a ProtonMail account several months back, but when i did my inbox import it was too large then they wanted to charge me for the rest and i just got annoyed But gmail's free because they get to spy on me so what $799 really?

1:06:13 We know what's coming, we know the digital dystopia that they want to build and we know the tools they're going to use to build it. So let's use what we know! Reclaim some of our internet sovereignty and put a wrench in the gears as they say. But great episode off-the radar and unexpected unless you listened to that joint session last night I spilled the beans on all the April shows actually Become a Plus Member to get those occasional bonus shows made out of the voicemails I get from you guys at TheHigherSideChats.com slash voicemail Leave me a message there anytime you want And, of course, Plus Members hear the full two-hour interviews I do with all these great guests not just the first hour

1:06:58 And why is it not hypocritical for me to criticize Adobe subscription when I have my own? Well, with THC you pay for ongoing content month after month. Not the same program year after year! And you have the ability to download all of the Plus shows and listen to them however you want they are yours and when you cancel your subscription You still have them...you just lose access to new shows going forward So I'm doing what i can to make the deal tasty and sweet. Just come on in and take a bite with the seven day free trial, and you will see just how much you're missing because an hour with these great guests is not enough! Oftentimes we're barely even past introductions... We go deeper it gets more raw and we get to those tasty morsels that the other one-hour shows just don't have time for

1:07:52 Today's Plus Show got into other ways that are pushing us into digital and how it hurts us, the history of privacy, medical records privacy in current trends, privacy in an economic crisis, creeps and psychopaths. And let me just say Gabriel's episode about psychopaths is top notch you would like that one We also talked about arming against cancel culture and de-platforming for content creators, upcoming technologies and trends to make your digital life more difficult to secure. Why torrenting is not the moral hazard the corporations want us to think it is? And why digital deletion is a myth. A lot of people think oh I'll just delete all my profiles and I'll back out of all this eventually...and that's not the way it works

1:08:46 But lots to learn, lots to like. You gotta help me help you and sign up at thehighersidechats.com Thanks to all the people who do, ya make my world go round! I'm going to include some links to some of things mentioned and some other things not mentioned We have the Tor browser Some email alternatives And you should also know about noagendaphone.com If you have an Android phone they will show on that website or i believe can even do it for you how to convert to the Graphene OS privacy-centric operating system. And they even show you the steps to disable 5G! Hallelujah!! So now is the time, I hope your jazzed up and willing to take the plunge...I like the idea of making a game out it Think of yourself as being monitored by spies because you are

1:09:40 and you have to outsmart them, and move in the digital shadows. It can be kind of fun! At least that's what I'm telling myself Not much to say in Hireside News but watch out for me adding a Denver meetup to the calendar very soon For the night most likely of Tuesday April 5th if my wife and I with the baby can make the 10-hour drive on Monday from San Diego to Vegas to Grand Junction Well, the following night we plan to meet some friends for dinner and then settle on a brewery to wander over too and have a THC meetup. I also plan to have one in Dallas probably April 14th or 15th that's gonna be a little more up in the air but also something that's gonna have to kind of be added last minute because I'd have to absolutely know that I can be someplace

1:10:36 But look out for that if you're interested as well. But what is on the calendar? Well, I've been putting episodes out pretty fast lately so the next few are still ones that i have mentioned before but funny enough tonight April 1st Denver gets higher at The Blue Moon Brewery 12 people have already RSVP'd man! I think that's the most I've seen we had about 40 at The San Diego Meetup but... We didn't even have a meet up calendar at that point And I just hope you guys are ready to come out twice in a week! Also, another little side note but Mario's Double Daughters in Denver was actually the site of the very first time I ever tried to do a meetup. I think I only did it through Twitter...I was on a trip with some buddies and we thought hey let's give it a shot and it was quite successful that was several years ago anyway April 3rd

1:11:32 Also simpatico with this episode, we have the THC slash Propaganda Report crossover at Brewer's Tap and Table in Waltham Massachusetts. And then April 6th in Seattle at Chucks and April 9th The Inland Empire Observers of the Inverted at Smoky Canyon Barbecue in Riverside I love that people are getting together i love that i'm seeing multiple meetups in the same cities, i'm seeing recurring monthly meetups this is how we build out the network this is how. We make sure we have people and our lives that are willing to see us going to contribute to our mental health at a time when the next lockdown comes or it's a violation of the rules to have human contact

1:12:26 Don't get caught with your pants down next time. Come meet your new friends or start a Meetup of your own, HiresideMeetups.com and that's the show! Tune in to The Watchman Privacy Podcast he really does do a great job and I'll see you next time. I've done my part Your move privacy violators internet spies and agents of the digital dystopia...your fucking move You know the plan has always been to hack your brain MKUltra's trying to drive you insane. They'll explode your heart if they think that's what it takes You think I'm answering the phone, well I ain't You gotta keep the curtains drawn cause you don't want anyone thinking you're at home Well you're not! You should tape the mail slot

1:13:20 And baby if I seem withdrawn Let me say it's cause' I just don't wanna go and get whacked Maybe you should know that The trauma affects you like it does everyone It's just the game plan, it's what the world has become They want a pat down and a swap Don't you see what's going on? Well now you know You're better keeping on your own Cause you can see The masters lie too much Oh baby, you can only trust yourself And if you think the system's out of touch It is and you can only trust yourself I hope you know the elite aren't your friends They'll suck out everything from you in the end If for some reason you think I might be wrong

1:14:23 I wonder where you got that opinion from You gotta keep the curtains drawn Cause you don't want anyone thinking your at home Well, your not. You should tape the mail slot And baby if i seem withdrawn Let me say it's cause I just dont wanna go and get whacked Maybe you should know that The trauma affects you like it does everyone It's just a game plan, it's what the world's become They want a pat down and a swap Don't you see what's going on? Well now you know You're better keeping on your own Cause' you can see Basterds lie too much Oh baby, you can only trust yourself

1:15:15 And if you think the system's out of touch It is and you can only trust yourself You might think that these problems are small Or maybe they aren't registering at all Now they know you're naive and vulnerable You won't believe all of the stunts that dealt Cause you can see, The masters lie too much Oh baby, you can only trust yourself And if you think The system's out of touch It isn't. You can only trust yourself

1:16:22 Cause you can see the masters lie too much Oh baby, you can only trust yourself And if you think the system's out of touch It is and you can only trust yourself And that is another show complete! Remember, as much as you enjoyed this which is just the free first hour I hope you'll become a Plus Member to hear the full two-hour interviews. You also can engage with other Plus Members in the comments and the forums and you'll find your answer to one of the most common questions I get which is where can I find those cover songs that you use at the end of the show? Well they are free downloads for Plus Members too

1:17:08 And without Plus Members, I can't hire the occasional musician to bring these odd cover song ideas to fruition. Plus members are how I'm able to do what I do without ads and without the big machine being on my back! We can fit so much more into a two-hour interview and I'd do my best to make it worth your time and money." The conversation only gets deeper, weirder, and more controversial in that private hour. How could it not be the way things are going? But the best way to sign up is at TheHigherSideChats.com, where new first-time subscribers always get a free 7 day trial because I'm just that confident! There's no PayPal on the website but if you need to use PayPal then sign up through Patreon and you get all of the same episodes

1:17:51 Our website is a credit or debit system, but you can also scope out the other options like a few various cryptos. Cash or check mailed to the P.O box and I'll even barter with most people if you have your own business and produce something nice that my wife or kid or taste buds might like But the architects of consensus reality have made it clear that these themes and topics aren't really welcome on the main stage. And so this is how we secure a little counterculture corner for ourselves, and I hope you'll join PLUS because that's the only way it works! Besides, you can cancel any time right on your profile page. The most common concern I hear is people just being unsure if THC Plus will work with their podcast app and the answer is probably yes! But if not we have several high-level app recommendations for whatever phone you use and the website is made for mobile too

1:18:43 We're trained to tip a waitress for bringing us a sandwich, but that tip doesn't give you access to a second sandwich. Really I'm not asking for any more than that and think I offer better service. Come get your second serving of tasty conspiracy goodness in exchange for that small token of your appreciation. Beyond that let it also be known we have grown and survived as long as we have by word-of-mouth I don't care so much about social media likes or follows, but tell the right people about THC. And not just listeners but the high level figures who are better suited to sit down with me than most other hosts. And if you can help me with any of these things i can work to bring you better shows which is just a win-win for both us! Informative entertaining and action packed

1:19:27 It also never hurts to thank a guest you liked if you have the time either. We want them know people are listening so they're willing to come back down the road too! Thank YOU for spending some time with me and cheers to a better tomorrow!