[00:00.560 --> 00:16.500]  Okay, my name is Steve Rombom, and apparently the talk that I'm going to be giving is databases and privacy, although I think it's going to go a little far afield of just databases and privacy.
[00:17.640 --> 00:19.260]  Two questions before I start.
[00:19.420 --> 00:23.740]  First of all, how many people have heard me speak at prior HOPE conventions?
[00:25.100 --> 00:26.100]  Okay, good.
[00:31.600 --> 00:53.720]  Although I disagree rather profoundly with a lot of things that the previous speaker said, one of the things that I do agree with is that availability of information, all types of information, to the average person is the primary thing today that either empowers us or disempowers us.
[00:53.720 --> 00:57.440]  As citizens, as individuals, as Americans.
[00:59.480 --> 01:12.020]  There are numerous types of data sources out there which either we can't access or we are unaware of their existence.
[01:12.820 --> 01:26.200]  Let me give you a little overview, theoretically, and then as soon as they've hooked this up, I'll select a couple of volunteer victims and I will show you what's available out there on the individual person.
[01:28.850 --> 01:53.610]  It is impossible, unless you are the Unabomber living in a shack somewhere in Montana, to avoid being catalogued and pigeonholed and having the most minute and personal details of your life recorded, usually against your will, and made available to third parties.
[01:53.610 --> 01:55.570]  It is almost always against your will.
[01:56.090 --> 01:57.350]  Let's take an average day.
[01:58.050 --> 01:59.490]  You talk on the phone.
[01:59.890 --> 02:01.790]  Who you talk to is recorded.
[02:01.930 --> 02:02.850]  Who your friends are.
[02:03.270 --> 02:05.370]  You make a purchase with a credit card.
[02:05.710 --> 02:08.030]  Your likes and dislikes are recorded.
[02:09.330 --> 02:12.590]  You use your credit card at a supermarket.
[02:12.950 --> 02:15.830]  Even what brand of cereal you like is recorded.
[02:16.330 --> 02:17.490]  You travel.
[02:17.890 --> 02:20.970]  And where you've gone and how long you've stayed there.
[02:21.110 --> 02:25.070]  And what movie you've watched on the hotel TV is recorded.
[02:26.830 --> 02:30.450]  You buy a metro card or use an easy pass.
[02:30.890 --> 02:33.690]  And where you've gone and when you've been there is recorded.
[02:34.590 --> 02:43.430]  With the new 911 enhanced cell phones, everywhere you've been during the day, if you've got a cell phone in your pocket, is a matter of record.
[02:43.430 --> 02:45.890]  And by the way, it's extraordinarily accurate.
[02:46.070 --> 03:04.170]  I can tell you that I'm aware of a divorce case where a guy was accused of adultery and he was able to prove by where his cell phone was during the period of time that he was supposedly philandering that he was not with the woman that he was supposedly cheating with.
[03:07.060 --> 03:11.460]  It goes much further than just the simple databases of which you're aware of.
[03:13.500 --> 03:17.000]  Imagine now you subscribe to magazines.
[03:17.780 --> 03:21.840]  Do you buy Soldier of Fortune magazine?
[03:22.140 --> 03:23.720]  Well, that has one connotation.
[03:24.080 --> 03:26.880]  Do you subscribe to Cat Fancy Journal?
[03:27.100 --> 03:28.480]  Well, you probably own a cat.
[03:29.040 --> 03:31.120]  Do you subscribe to Out magazine?
[03:31.560 --> 03:32.740]  Well, you're probably gay.
[03:39.120 --> 03:45.300]  There is nothing that is not categorized and recorded about your life.
[03:45.600 --> 03:58.820]  What you eat, where you go, who your friends are, how much money you make, your religion, your sexual orientation, your pets, your personal ownership of everything.
[03:59.700 --> 04:10.820]  Every time that you fill out a warranty card, every time that you travel somewhere, every time you make a credit card purchase, every time you turn your cell phone on, it goes into a database.
[04:14.100 --> 04:19.440]  Are you clapping in support of the databases or... Give me a second.
[04:23.770 --> 04:24.270]  A little bit more, if I can.
[04:24.270 --> 04:29.230]  It gets even more insidious when you learn about something called psychographics.
[04:30.090 --> 04:32.410]  It's a term that many of you have never heard.
[04:32.670 --> 04:35.510]  It is a remarkable field of study.
[04:35.750 --> 04:39.170]  It's now, by the way, a field of study that's of great interest to law enforcement.
[04:40.710 --> 04:42.110]  Let me give you an example.
[04:42.570 --> 04:51.330]  There was an actual study that determined about 15 years ago, one of the famous studies that if you study this field, you learn about.
[04:51.330 --> 04:56.830]  That people who own cats and drive Volkswagens like chunky peanut butter.
[04:57.530 --> 05:00.370]  How this was determined, I can't help you.
[05:01.010 --> 05:04.750]  But those of you that are interested, go to my company's website.
[05:04.750 --> 05:07.750]  We have it posted there, just as a curiosity.
[05:10.050 --> 05:30.210]  You can take seemingly unrelated information and based on the statistics of how these seemingly unrelated bits of information relate to other people can make a guess about anyone who fits in these pigeon holes.
[05:31.350 --> 05:33.350]  Do you live in a certain zip code?
[05:34.130 --> 05:41.510]  Do you drive a Subaru as opposed to a, gosh, I don't know, pickup?
[05:41.510 --> 05:47.990]  Do you live in Texas as opposed to Park Slope?
[05:48.610 --> 05:52.850]  There are conclusions that can very, very reliably be reached.
[05:58.150 --> 06:20.070]  Today, because of the advances in computer storage and computer speed and computing power, it is possible for anyone who wants to start a database company to have more computing power and more relational database ability than the CIA did 25 years ago.
[06:20.550 --> 06:24.150]  I can, for example, I'll tell you a true story.
[06:24.710 --> 06:25.870]  I'm an investigator.
[06:26.350 --> 06:34.110]  By the way, show of hands, how many people saw me listening to the speech and thought that they had won the Spot the Fed contest?
[06:34.650 --> 06:35.910]  Just a show of hands.
[06:38.770 --> 06:42.270]  I'm an investigator, and I conduct real investigations.
[06:43.970 --> 06:48.750]  I was working on a homicide case in Kerr County, Texas, a few years back.
[06:49.870 --> 07:03.370]  And the Sheriff's Department, which is actually one of the more capable Sheriff's Departments in Texas, was unable to determine who was living in a particular trailer park during a certain period of time.
[07:03.370 --> 07:07.390]  They were looking for potential witnesses to a similar event.
[07:08.510 --> 07:19.210]  We were able to take the Texas driver's license file, run it through my office's computers, and do a search by address, which the Texas DPS computers were not set up to do yet.
[07:20.570 --> 07:38.590]  Even with our office computers, we had enough computing power and enough storage space to take the entire database from the state of Texas, easily put it on a small fraction of a drive, index it by every word, and then just grep for the address or the range of addresses.
[07:39.070 --> 07:41.270]  And we were able to give that to the Sheriff's Department.
[07:41.450 --> 07:50.910]  They were able to actually find witnesses which allowed them to make a triple murder arrest, or contributed to them being able to make a triple murder arrest.
[07:54.900 --> 08:00.800]  Anyone now has the ability to purchase databases.
[08:01.560 --> 08:04.220]  Now, when I say the ability, I mean the computing ability.
[08:04.400 --> 08:09.380]  We're going to talk about the legal and financial ability in a second, which is where it gets really insidious.
[08:12.660 --> 08:18.660]  There are hundreds of databases out there, which in theory are public record.
[08:18.880 --> 08:20.100]  In practice, they're not.
[08:20.500 --> 08:25.020]  For example, if you want to buy the Louisiana voter registration file, you can.
[08:25.660 --> 08:27.420]  It will cost you $7,000.
[08:28.580 --> 08:32.640]  You must then have the ability to do something with this raw data.
[08:33.860 --> 08:41.280]  If you want to cross-reference that with Louisiana vehicle ownership, you can buy that database for $12,000.
[08:43.040 --> 08:51.540]  Between those two databases and the storage and the programming, you've probably spent about $25,000.
[08:52.380 --> 09:00.540]  Just those two simple databases are outside the financial wherewithal of the average individual.
[09:02.380 --> 09:04.220]  Let's talk about big companies.
[09:04.220 --> 09:22.210]  If you look at Target, Target Marketing Magazine, if you look at any mailing list company's catalog, you will see that available for private industry, and by the way, available today to the FBI.
[09:22.480 --> 09:31.340]  The FBI, as of a month ago, has started purchasing marketing lists and mailing lists financial institution lists.
[09:31.720 --> 09:43.500]  Whether that's legal or not, I don't know, but they're doing it supposedly to build a relational database that they claim will help them spot anomalies in people's behavior and catch terrorists a little easier.
[09:44.070 --> 09:47.570]  I've got the article with me if anyone wants to see it later.
[09:50.310 --> 09:57.510]  There are databases out there containing every magazine that every person purchases.
[09:57.710 --> 09:59.250]  In one database.
[09:59.890 --> 10:03.750]  There are databases of every single vehicle owner.
[10:03.950 --> 10:06.810]  For example, the one put together by Polk.
[10:07.230 --> 10:07.850]  R.L.
[10:08.010 --> 10:08.250]  Polk.
[10:08.250 --> 10:10.830]  Every single vehicle owner in the country.
[10:11.090 --> 10:30.790]  If you've ever gone to Carfax to check CARFAX.com, to check whether a car is a lemon, to see where it was previously registered, Carfax is able to do that because thanks to Polk, with which they're affiliated, they have every single motor vehicle in the country.
[10:32.810 --> 10:37.510]  ChoicePoint, Experian, TransUnion, the three big credit bureaus.
[10:37.650 --> 10:40.030]  Purchase every single driving record in the country.
[10:43.860 --> 10:51.560]  These databases are now being put together by cooperative groups into one massive database.
[10:52.300 --> 10:54.440]  One massive marketing database.
[10:54.820 --> 10:56.240]  One massive credit database.
[10:57.380 --> 11:05.380]  In theory, this is being done so you can establish marketing profiles for the convenience of the consumer.
[11:05.820 --> 11:20.320]  In theory, this is being done to better predict who's going to be a credit risk, who's going to declare bankruptcy, which in theory will allow banks to give preferential interest rates to people who aren't a risk.
[11:21.640 --> 11:36.760]  In practice, this data is available to all sorts of people that it shouldn't be available to, while not being available to you, occasionally to me.
[11:39.040 --> 11:46.420]  And most of the time, you're not even able to access the information that's available in databases on you personally.
[11:46.620 --> 11:48.240]  You're not able to check it for accuracy.
[11:48.560 --> 12:07.480]  You're not able to check it to determine if your credit score is correct, if your medical history, which is contained in a database, maybe not so accidentally called MIB, to see if the marketing profiles of you are accurate.
[12:11.050 --> 12:24.030]  I can tell you that I've done investigations where I have been given by the client, it doesn't happen often, but where I've been given by the client, an unlimited expense budget to investigate someone.
[12:24.950 --> 12:39.830]  And without leaving my office, I've been able to determine everywhere an individual has lived, where they work, where they worked, what they drive, their finances, their likes, their dislikes, their sexual orientation within a reasonable degree of error,
[12:39.830 --> 12:44.250]  their religion, who their friends are, and so on.
[12:45.770 --> 12:47.770]  Am I going to get an Ethernet connection here?
[12:48.770 --> 12:49.710]  Real soon?
[12:50.210 --> 12:51.130]  Real soon.
[12:54.520 --> 12:55.160]  No.
[12:55.580 --> 12:57.520]  Social engineering is not necessary.
[12:58.180 --> 13:12.620]  Social engineering and cracking as opposed to hacking and just about every other type of illegal access is the resort of a remarkably lazy person.
[13:12.880 --> 13:17.960]  I can get whatever I want, whenever I want it, if I've got the money to pay for it.
[13:18.640 --> 13:19.710]  It's just out there.
[13:20.000 --> 13:29.520]  Not only is it out there, but because I also was smart enough to start a marketing company, people beg me to buy it.
[13:29.680 --> 13:34.500]  The reason I have these magazines and these catalogs is because I get hundreds of them every month.
[13:34.500 --> 13:40.090]  Please buy our mailing list of affluent gay people.
[13:40.460 --> 13:40.820]  No, no.
[13:41.020 --> 13:43.520]  Please buy our mailing list of affluent gay people.
[13:43.940 --> 13:49.280]  Ours is less expensive and it's more NCOA-ed, which is post office updated.
[13:51.830 --> 13:58.320]  Some of the marketing lists are designed to be remarkably and frighteningly detailed.
[13:58.320 --> 14:01.280]  For example, there's a...
[14:06.070 --> 14:07.130]  You better be.
[14:17.000 --> 14:18.380]  I am an investigator.
[14:18.380 --> 14:19.340]  I'll find you.
[14:22.330 --> 14:25.830]  A little keyword sniffer being installed before I log in.
[14:26.110 --> 14:26.250]  Okay.
[14:29.370 --> 14:44.550]  There are databases with names like shotguns and pickups, which are people within a certain income range who live in the southern part of the United States and are considered to be blue collar.
[14:45.050 --> 14:48.210]  There are people... I don't name these databases.
[14:50.130 --> 14:56.350]  There are databases of people who have certain political orientation.
[14:56.350 --> 14:58.790]  You can buy the NRA database.
[14:59.150 --> 15:01.610]  You can buy the National Organization of Women database.
[15:01.990 --> 15:04.690]  You can buy the Soldier of Fortune mailing list.
[15:05.190 --> 15:22.930]  There is no company, no magazine out there that is decent and honorable enough to forego the remarkable amount of money available to anyone who's willing to sell their membership list or their mailing list.
[15:22.930 --> 15:25.990]  If you're a member of AARP, I've got it.
[15:26.470 --> 15:26.850]  I'm sorry?
[15:30.440 --> 15:33.940]  No, but I can call Eric and ask for somebody's address, so it doesn't matter.
[15:35.860 --> 15:38.080]  And it's not that big a database, unfortunately.
[15:38.380 --> 15:41.600]  Pretty much the entire subscriber list is in this room, so...
[15:43.100 --> 15:45.260]  I can reach you guys pretty easily.
[15:47.200 --> 15:52.280]  No, 2600, I think, probably does not sell their mailing list.
[15:52.540 --> 15:57.320]  And probably two-thirds of the names are bogus anyway, so it's not a good marketing list.
[16:01.250 --> 16:12.630]  If I have someone's identifiers, that's what they're known as, which is a complete name, ideally with a middle name or initial, an address.
[16:13.350 --> 16:16.590]  The Holy Grail, of course, is a social security number.
[16:16.970 --> 16:19.130]  A date of birth or a year of birth.
[16:19.390 --> 16:25.850]  With those four pieces of information, I can find out anything that I want to find out about you.
[16:26.170 --> 16:26.650]  Anything.
[16:27.490 --> 16:34.270]  There is no restriction on what I can conceivably find out.
[16:35.750 --> 16:40.090]  Now, there's two possible paths that can lead from that truth.
[16:40.250 --> 16:42.430]  The first is, we close everything to everyone.
[16:43.370 --> 16:44.950]  Let me tell you why that doesn't work.
[16:45.230 --> 16:47.270]  First of all, because I can get it anyway.
[16:47.850 --> 16:50.310]  I'm not supposed to be able to get your credit card bills.
[16:50.330 --> 16:51.570]  If I want to do it, I can.
[16:52.510 --> 16:54.730]  I'm not supposed to be able to get your phone bills.
[16:54.870 --> 16:56.310]  If I want to get them, I can.
[16:56.970 --> 17:00.530]  The bottom line is, there is no closed information.
[17:00.530 --> 17:08.730]  There are cops selling NCIC runs for $500 if you want to run somebody's criminal record at the federal level.
[17:09.250 --> 17:13.570]  I don't do that, but lots of investigators do.
[17:13.790 --> 17:15.510]  I don't do it because I don't need to do it.
[17:15.630 --> 17:22.370]  I own an online service that sells criminal records, which I'll show you if the guy comes back with my laptop.
[17:25.670 --> 17:29.630]  It is not possible to close information.
[17:29.850 --> 17:32.570]  It is not possible to restrict information.
[17:32.790 --> 17:36.650]  And I will tell you the key law of data gathering.
[17:37.050 --> 17:46.310]  Once you gather that data and put it in a database, it will be used for unintended reasons.
[17:46.970 --> 17:55.870]  It will be used either cleverly or nefariously, but it will be used and it will be mixed and it will be matched and it will be compiled.
[17:56.250 --> 17:58.990]  And that occurs on every level.
[17:59.150 --> 18:05.030]  Private industry, private investigation, government databases, private databases.
[18:05.450 --> 18:09.130]  In theory, your IRS report is sacrosanct.
[18:09.290 --> 18:12.350]  It's not even supposed to be shared with other governmental agencies.
[18:12.350 --> 18:29.870]  That went out the door about seven years ago when a place called FinCEN, Financial Center, was established, which mixes IRS records, passport applications, bank records, every type of financial information that anyone has on you.
[18:29.970 --> 18:42.490]  And will soon also, by the way, include private financial information like credit card purchases, like, oh gosh, type of bank services that are offered to you.
[18:42.650 --> 18:50.870]  If you're paying $20,000 a year in taxes, but you are a priority bank customer, your record will be flagged for an audit.
[18:51.130 --> 18:59.250]  And people will look and say, $20,000 a year, but $700,000 went through his bank account in the past, oh, month?
[18:59.250 --> 19:00.570]  We need to look at this guy.
[19:02.930 --> 19:04.270]  Sometimes that's for the good.
[19:04.470 --> 19:05.830]  It'll find a money launderer.
[19:05.890 --> 19:06.970]  It'll find a drug dealer.
[19:07.250 --> 19:12.250]  It'll find a guy receiving a $500,000 wire from Afghanistan.
[19:12.250 --> 19:23.690]  And by the way, just as an aside, unlike the previous speaker, this is completely off topic, but I'm compelled to say this.
[19:24.610 --> 19:30.650]  Unlike the previous speaker, I've been to many of these places around the world where the bad guys are.
[19:30.850 --> 19:32.750]  I was in the Middle East yesterday.
[19:34.290 --> 19:35.470]  You can call Eric.
[19:35.890 --> 19:36.950]  You can ask Eric.
[19:36.950 --> 19:39.630]  He called me there to make sure I was coming to speak.
[19:41.250 --> 19:42.430]  I've been to Cuba.
[19:42.690 --> 19:44.130]  I've been to communist countries.
[19:45.930 --> 20:02.590]  And the proof that the bulk of what this gentleman, well-meaning gentleman, but uninformed gentleman said is not true, is the fact that he was able to get up here, say it, wink, smile, make jokes, and 15 guys with Kalashnikovs didn't come from stage right and carry him away.
[20:05.170 --> 20:10.550]  With all this country's flaws, we're in pretty good shape.
[20:10.930 --> 20:21.670]  And, you know, when I was in Egypt, a lot of guys told me, you know, isn't it true that the bombing of the World Trade Center was really done by jewish people?
[20:21.890 --> 20:27.130]  Didn't Israel tell all the jewish people to stay home from work that day?
[20:28.090 --> 20:32.830]  That's something that's actually considered a truth in the Middle East.
[20:33.010 --> 20:33.250]  It's astounding.
[20:34.430 --> 20:34.530]  Huh?
[20:36.490 --> 20:37.210]  Yes, exactly.
[20:38.950 --> 20:40.790]  You know, there are people who believe everything.
[20:40.930 --> 20:46.270]  There are, I guarantee you, people in this room who believe that we didn't really land on the moon, that that was done in some Hollywood soundstage.
[20:47.090 --> 20:50.090]  I remember when I was growing up, I used to hear that all the time.
[20:54.570 --> 20:56.990]  Absolutely, it would have looked more like Star Wars.
[21:00.810 --> 21:03.130]  Okay, good, it wasn't that important anyway.
[21:04.650 --> 21:06.370]  No, I'll talk to you later.
[21:06.470 --> 21:08.570]  I don't want to digress this much.
[21:08.730 --> 21:19.910]  I just really felt compelled to say one mildly patriotic thing to sort of restore the karmic balance in the room after the last speaker.
[21:20.950 --> 21:23.210]  Now back to databases and privacy.
[21:25.630 --> 21:27.670]  Let's move on to the topic of the Internet.
[21:28.410 --> 21:48.550]  The Internet, in theory, makes more information available to us on a daily basis, more new information available to us on a daily basis, than was the sum total of all the knowledge in the world prior to the invention of computers.
[21:50.090 --> 21:51.190]  That's the theory.
[21:51.550 --> 21:56.530]  In practice, there is more crap out there and more badly indexed search engines.
[21:56.870 --> 22:12.750]  And for those of you who have searched for a professor's name and gotten 1,700 S&M websites as your first choices, you know what the problems are.
[22:13.570 --> 22:21.350]  I can tell you that much of the stuff out there is not unlike much of the stuff that you heard from the previous speaker.
[22:21.350 --> 22:28.110]  It's presented as fact, it's presented as authoritative, and it just ain't true.
[22:29.970 --> 22:31.530]  I just want to stop for a second.
[22:31.650 --> 22:33.170]  Who here is actually a staff member?
[22:34.770 --> 22:36.710]  Is anyone a staff member here?
[22:38.470 --> 22:39.530]  of the convention?
[22:43.040 --> 22:43.520]  Wow.
[22:45.100 --> 22:46.060]  Anarchy rules.
[22:50.940 --> 22:51.420]  Huh?
[22:52.180 --> 22:54.760]  Um, hey, are you working here?
[22:55.240 --> 22:56.320]  Give me a film, good to know that.
[22:58.620 --> 23:02.480]  Okay, because if there's a problem hooking it up, maybe we can...
[23:03.360 --> 23:04.380]  The backup is all done.
[23:04.380 --> 23:04.860]  Okay.
[23:05.380 --> 23:05.880]  Good.
[23:06.720 --> 23:12.120]  No, I mean, there's a certain point that I just can't continue without being able to do that.
[23:13.440 --> 23:14.380]  Very funny.
[23:16.220 --> 23:18.140]  No, you'll see what they put on me.
[23:21.910 --> 23:22.890]  Everybody's a comedian.
[23:33.770 --> 23:36.810]  For the record, Bill Gates bad.
[23:37.090 --> 23:38.490]  I've never been a PC guy.
[23:45.010 --> 23:47.290]  Now, before I do this, let me say two things.
[23:47.290 --> 23:50.330]  We set up a special account on a special website for this.
[23:51.150 --> 23:53.850]  Please do not try to hack in after I've left.
[23:54.090 --> 23:56.250]  There's $700 credit in the account.
[23:56.390 --> 23:57.390]  It's a separate website.
[23:57.970 --> 23:59.710]  All you'll be doing is pissing me off.
[23:59.830 --> 24:00.790]  There's nothing for you to get in.
[24:05.400 --> 24:09.880]  I need a victim who is willing to disclose his real name.
[24:14.690 --> 24:15.390]  Come here.
[24:16.810 --> 24:17.770]  You'll be sorry.
[24:36.430 --> 24:37.310]  Wait a second.
[24:37.990 --> 24:38.950]  I forgot the passwords.
[25:29.920 --> 25:31.740]  I am not a credit bureau.
[25:32.000 --> 25:33.700]  I don't have the resources of a government.
[25:33.900 --> 25:41.240]  But nevertheless, we were able to put together in my office a database over the past few years of six billion records.
[25:42.560 --> 25:43.920]  This covers the country.
[25:44.160 --> 25:44.660]  You can search.
[25:44.780 --> 25:46.300]  We've indexed by every word.
[25:46.460 --> 25:48.040]  You can search by person's name.
[25:48.300 --> 25:56.360]  If you're searching for a female and you don't know her current married name, you can search by just the first name and the date of birth, by address, by whatever.
[25:56.360 --> 25:57.240]  How old are you?
[25:57.620 --> 25:57.920]  19.
[25:58.760 --> 26:00.740]  See, you're too young to really show off on.
[26:01.080 --> 26:03.040]  You're not in enough databases yet.
[26:03.240 --> 26:04.500]  I need an older victim.
[26:05.200 --> 26:07.520]  Look, go sit down now that you've seen the passwords.
[26:08.240 --> 26:08.460]  Older?
[26:08.620 --> 26:08.800]  Older?
[26:08.940 --> 26:09.860]  How old are you?
[26:10.700 --> 26:11.140]  Okay.
[26:11.300 --> 26:12.540]  We'll see in a second if that's true.
[26:18.300 --> 26:19.600]  Bill Gates is in here.
[26:43.210 --> 26:45.670]  This is going to be really embarrassing.
[26:52.540 --> 26:54.000]  Oh, God.
[26:56.760 --> 27:01.580]  This is why I don't like Internet Explorer.
[27:03.000 --> 27:03.860]  I don't.
[27:04.020 --> 27:04.740]  I use Netscape.
[27:04.920 --> 27:06.440]  You guys started me up on Explorer.
[27:09.500 --> 27:11.060]  Do I have a connection here?
[27:11.300 --> 27:11.500]  Ah.
[27:12.060 --> 27:13.240]  He's waiting for the results.
[27:13.620 --> 27:13.840]  Okay.
[27:14.680 --> 27:19.760]  Believe it or not, there are 148 Jennifer Lees born as birth.
[27:20.500 --> 27:22.900]  Yeah, where do you live most of the time?
[27:23.820 --> 27:25.580]  Let's scroll down to New York.
[27:26.240 --> 27:27.080]  Jennifer H.
[27:27.840 --> 27:28.300]  Okay.
[27:28.880 --> 27:29.520]  By the way.
[27:30.300 --> 27:31.280]  Jennifer H.
[27:35.380 --> 27:37.120]  I don't do this for free, Bill.
[27:41.890 --> 27:42.350]  Wait a minute.
[27:42.430 --> 27:43.110]  What's your zip code?
[27:43.830 --> 27:44.470]  Which one?
[27:45.470 --> 27:45.950]  Oh, okay.
[27:46.870 --> 27:47.670]  Is that your datable?
[27:50.910 --> 27:51.230]  Ca!
[27:52.310 --> 27:52.750]  Whoop!
[27:53.470 --> 27:54.310]  Netscape, pal!
[27:54.310 --> 27:55.090]  Netscape.
[27:57.990 --> 27:58.910]  Is that you?
[27:59.330 --> 28:00.150]  Is that where you live?
[28:01.870 --> 28:03.150]  Something like that.
[28:03.950 --> 28:04.350]  Okay.
[28:05.170 --> 28:09.350]  Well, let me just show you a couple of scary things.
[28:10.110 --> 28:19.890]  The thing that says links allows you to link this record to all the other records in the database.
[28:20.910 --> 28:21.790]  For example.
[28:24.110 --> 28:25.590]  Man, this is a slow connection.
[28:27.210 --> 28:27.650]  Okay.
[28:27.750 --> 28:28.810]  There's an apartment number.
[28:29.010 --> 28:31.910]  Let's see who lives in that apartment with you.
[28:35.450 --> 28:37.450]  You live with a guy named Chaim Brody?
[28:37.450 --> 28:38.590]  I think it's a male name.
[28:39.370 --> 28:39.770]  I think it's a male name.
[28:40.570 --> 28:42.550]  Any of these people live with you?
[28:43.490 --> 28:43.890]  Okay.
[28:44.090 --> 28:46.970]  Let's search then by street address.
[28:47.470 --> 28:48.890]  That's the mailman you said?
[28:49.310 --> 28:50.470]  It's the mail address.
[28:50.770 --> 28:51.810]  If they don't, you know, like...
[28:54.470 --> 28:57.910]  I was going to say, if you were living with a guy named Chaim, good for you.
[29:00.630 --> 29:03.130]  I'm looking for a woman who lived with a guy named Chaim.
[29:04.050 --> 29:04.730]  These are...
[29:04.730 --> 29:05.970]  Oh, it must be a really big building.
[29:06.710 --> 29:06.990]  All right.
[29:07.090 --> 29:08.210]  Let's not monkey with that.
[29:08.390 --> 29:11.050]  But, in theory, we should find...
[29:11.550 --> 29:12.650]  I don't know about on this screen.
[29:13.170 --> 29:14.930]  Are they family named Lee?
[29:16.070 --> 29:16.530]  All right.
[29:17.170 --> 29:22.550]  Rather than spend years on this and bore everyone, I'm just going to go to the part that says Lee.
[29:26.320 --> 29:30.820]  This is a database that was ridiculously easy to make.
[29:31.240 --> 29:37.120]  It's voter registration, driver license, motor vehicle, and some other weird stuff.
[29:37.640 --> 29:38.200]  Lee, Lee, Lee?
[29:38.580 --> 29:40.700]  Parents don't vote, and they don't drive.
[29:40.920 --> 29:41.720]  Doesn't matter.
[29:41.900 --> 29:42.080]  All right.
[29:42.400 --> 29:43.020]  Doesn't matter.
[29:44.840 --> 29:47.240]  You'll note she said, doesn't vote and doesn't drive.
[29:47.520 --> 29:48.060]  There's mom.
[29:48.500 --> 29:49.200]  There's mom.
[29:49.920 --> 29:50.440]  There's dad.
[29:50.800 --> 29:51.260]  There's mom.
[29:51.480 --> 29:51.920]  There's dad.
[29:52.920 --> 29:54.440]  Irving Lehman, a friend of yours?
[29:54.440 --> 29:54.540]  Yes.
[29:56.100 --> 29:58.180]  Keep looking for people who like jewish guys.
[29:58.180 --> 29:58.760]  No luck.
[30:00.700 --> 30:01.180]  Okay.
[30:01.300 --> 30:02.100]  Let me close this.
[30:02.280 --> 30:03.320]  This, by the way...
[30:03.320 --> 30:04.760]  Which one is your mom?
[30:04.900 --> 30:05.480]  Or dad?
[30:05.780 --> 30:06.540]  My mom.
[30:06.720 --> 30:07.200]  Okay.
[30:08.220 --> 30:09.260]  This is your dad.
[30:09.980 --> 30:10.820]  Who's Adrian?
[30:12.000 --> 30:12.440]  Really?
[30:13.520 --> 30:14.000]  Okay.
[30:14.100 --> 30:16.040]  Apparently, you have a sister you didn't know about.
[30:19.080 --> 30:21.280]  Do you mind if I do your credit header in front of your body?
[30:21.280 --> 30:21.700]  Go ahead.
[30:22.980 --> 30:23.460]  Okay.
[30:27.490 --> 30:29.870]  Let me tell you what a credit header is.
[30:30.010 --> 30:38.190]  The purpose of this is to make you nervous enough and make you realize that there's so much information out there that can never be put back in the bottle.
[30:38.410 --> 30:40.370]  The genie can never be put back in the bottle.
[30:40.370 --> 30:46.750]  That for us to be a free and open and democratic society, everyone needs to have access to the information.
[30:47.430 --> 30:51.190]  Otherwise, it's going to get more and more and more restricted.
[30:53.230 --> 30:54.070]  Let's see.
[30:55.110 --> 30:55.830]  Fraud detection.
[30:55.830 --> 30:57.210]  I want to make sure it's really new.
[31:02.200 --> 31:03.560]  Credit records are restricted.
[31:03.900 --> 31:09.380]  Credit headers, however, which are called that because in theory, it's only the information on the very top of the header.
[31:10.360 --> 31:12.100]  That was a little too fast, wasn't it?
[31:12.140 --> 31:12.660]  That was fast.
[31:13.080 --> 31:13.380]  Okay.
[31:13.440 --> 31:14.540]  Is that your social security number?
[31:14.680 --> 31:14.880]  I did.
[31:15.520 --> 31:15.920]  Okay.
[31:19.180 --> 31:19.580]  Okay.
[31:19.580 --> 31:19.680]  Okay.
[31:20.140 --> 31:20.540]  What's...
[31:20.540 --> 31:21.260]  What's...
[31:21.260 --> 31:22.580]  Not my date of birth.
[31:23.560 --> 31:25.560]  Well, I had the correct date of birth.
[31:25.780 --> 31:26.680]  The bureau has...
[31:26.680 --> 31:27.140]  See?
[31:27.340 --> 31:28.440]  Better than the credit bureaus.
[31:29.320 --> 31:29.720]  Okay.
[31:29.880 --> 31:30.840]  You lived in California...
[31:30.840 --> 31:31.500]  In Massachusetts?
[31:32.000 --> 31:32.060]  Yes.
[31:32.240 --> 31:32.640]  Cambridge?
[31:33.040 --> 31:34.180]  Went to college there?
[31:34.400 --> 31:35.600]  No, I was supposed to say that.
[31:36.000 --> 31:36.220]  Uh-oh.
[31:36.380 --> 31:36.660]  DC.
[31:36.920 --> 31:37.540]  What are you doing in D.C.?
[31:38.340 --> 31:38.780]  I'll be good.
[31:38.780 --> 31:39.720]  I lived there for a summer.
[31:39.880 --> 31:40.160]  Doing?
[31:40.160 --> 31:41.580]  Working for a newspaper.
[31:41.840 --> 31:42.600]  Oh, that's okay.
[31:45.400 --> 31:46.200]  Washington Post.
[31:47.880 --> 31:48.280]  Eh...
[31:48.280 --> 31:50.860]  Well, the other paper would have been better, but...
[31:51.300 --> 31:52.100]  Washington Times.
[31:53.380 --> 31:54.180]  Personal preference.
[31:55.660 --> 31:58.040]  You don't have to look too far to find out my politics.
[31:58.260 --> 31:58.680]  Don't worry.
[31:58.820 --> 31:59.800]  You don't need a database.
[32:00.200 --> 32:01.020]  Just ask me.
[32:01.540 --> 32:03.280]  This is an example of what's out there.
[32:03.440 --> 32:05.360]  Now, you wouldn't happen to own any companies, would you?
[32:05.500 --> 32:05.680]  No.
[32:06.120 --> 32:06.360]  Okay.
[32:09.100 --> 32:09.660]  Uh...
[32:09.660 --> 32:10.700]  Thank you very much.
[32:11.240 --> 32:11.840]  I need an...
[32:11.840 --> 32:12.560]  A yet...
[32:12.560 --> 32:15.500]  I need a victim who's in business.
[32:19.340 --> 32:21.440]  No, in a real business.
[32:21.660 --> 32:22.680]  In a real business.
[32:29.800 --> 32:31.860]  In a real business.
[32:32.180 --> 32:38.860]  If you run Bill Gates on Internet Explorer, your laptop goes dead, smoke rises from it, you have no idea.
[32:40.140 --> 32:40.620]  Okay.
[32:41.220 --> 32:41.520]  Huh?
[32:43.620 --> 32:44.100]  Uh...
[32:44.100 --> 32:45.160]  I like Steve Jobs.
[32:45.340 --> 32:46.100]  I don't want to run him.
[32:57.980 --> 32:58.460]  Jack...
[32:58.460 --> 32:59.500]  Jack Valenti.
[33:00.160 --> 33:02.880]  Now, Jack, I know you have investigators in the room.
[33:04.480 --> 33:06.040]  Why don't I want to do that?
[33:06.040 --> 33:07.340]  Yeah, you can see it tomorrow, right?
[33:07.560 --> 33:09.540]  You can see it tomorrow, right?
[33:09.540 --> 33:09.860]  Yes.
[33:11.180 --> 33:12.420]  Oh, come on!
[33:12.980 --> 33:14.760]  You made the phone call to get the judge...
[33:15.580 --> 33:16.400]  To get explained.
[33:16.880 --> 33:17.860]  Sit there quietly.
[33:18.020 --> 33:18.740]  Everything will be fine.
[33:22.280 --> 33:22.640]  Right.
[33:22.940 --> 33:24.280]  Time for your three o'clock.
[33:25.020 --> 33:25.580]  Four o'clock.
[33:25.760 --> 33:26.060]  Okay.
[33:26.440 --> 33:27.240]  Jack Valenti.
[33:27.320 --> 33:28.200]  Well, let's run it by person.
[33:28.500 --> 33:30.380]  By the way, how do you spell Valenti?
[33:30.620 --> 33:31.740]  V-A-L-E-N-T-I.
[33:31.920 --> 33:33.020]  V-A-L-E-N-T-I.
[33:33.160 --> 33:34.460]  V-A-L-E-N-T-I.
[33:34.580 --> 33:35.500]  V-A-L-E-N-T-I.
[33:35.500 --> 33:35.800]  Is that your name Jack?
[33:36.080 --> 33:36.520]  Yes.
[33:36.960 --> 33:37.400]  Okay.
[33:38.260 --> 33:38.800]  Okay.
[33:39.080 --> 33:40.000]  This is a database.
[33:43.020 --> 33:44.800]  I see Jack.
[33:48.720 --> 33:51.360]  I assume he's in California, right?
[33:51.660 --> 33:52.920]  Let's speed this up.
[33:56.390 --> 33:57.210]  I heard...
[34:00.630 --> 34:01.970]  Four records.
[34:12.250 --> 34:17.110]  I assume the Ordway drugstore is because he has Winona Ride on it.
[34:17.110 --> 34:17.730]  Under contract.
[34:19.850 --> 34:20.610]  Sorry.
[34:20.990 --> 34:22.730]  I couldn't help myself.
[34:24.310 --> 34:27.070]  Every company is indexed.
[34:27.130 --> 34:28.650]  It's indexed by who owns it.
[34:28.810 --> 34:29.510]  What it does.
[34:29.810 --> 34:30.690]  Where it is.
[34:33.730 --> 34:34.490]  No.
[34:35.230 --> 34:36.930]  Whoever said that, no.
[34:37.330 --> 34:38.250]  And shame on me.
[34:40.990 --> 34:41.490]  Social...
[34:41.490 --> 34:45.290]  Well, apparently, he listed it as social services.
[34:45.290 --> 34:46.190]  That's not a problem.
[34:46.530 --> 34:46.810]  That's not a problem.
[34:47.970 --> 34:48.490]  Okay.
[34:49.890 --> 34:52.290]  And it was formed in 1922.
[34:54.930 --> 34:56.110]  That's pretty impressive.
[34:57.570 --> 34:59.610]  There's his phone number if you want to call Jack.
[34:59.790 --> 35:01.770]  And his middle name is...
[35:02.050 --> 35:02.310]  Joseph.
[35:03.210 --> 35:03.530]  All right.
[35:05.470 --> 35:07.210]  Just as an example.
[35:07.830 --> 35:09.150]  Just as an example.
[35:10.810 --> 35:11.630]  Stop that.
[35:11.770 --> 35:13.550]  I'm not running a social security number.
[35:15.150 --> 35:20.030]  Now, let me show you an example of one thing which...
[35:24.400 --> 35:25.440]  There are...
[35:25.440 --> 35:26.880]  Don't be so smart.
[35:26.980 --> 35:27.280]  You're right.
[35:29.100 --> 35:34.620]  As an example of what anyone can do, and trust me, I don't have the computing power...
[35:34.620 --> 35:36.100]  I'm going to need a number from you in a second.
[35:36.680 --> 35:39.080]  I don't have the computing power of a credit bureau.
[35:39.080 --> 35:43.400]  I don't have the financial resources of a governmental agency.
[35:43.800 --> 35:45.620]  But I want to show you what we've been able to do.
[35:45.720 --> 35:51.820]  We've been able to put together a combination of all of our in-house databases that have phone number information.
[35:52.680 --> 35:58.900]  With every decent web-based phone number database.
[35:59.660 --> 36:04.860]  With a direct link, a 24-hour updated link to all the phone companies.
[36:05.160 --> 36:09.760]  So also things like a Usenet text search and a web search and what have you.
[36:10.160 --> 36:12.880]  Which allows finding phone numbers.
[36:13.080 --> 36:18.500]  And it will find, by the way, about 60% of the non-published numbers in the country.
[36:18.500 --> 36:25.360]  Which answers, I think it was your question, as to how much monkey business we have to use to get confidential information.
[36:25.360 --> 36:26.300]  The answer is not much.
[36:26.340 --> 36:27.440]  You just have to know where to look.
[36:33.550 --> 36:36.290]  Are you guys, in the back, not able to hear me?
[36:43.650 --> 36:44.670]  This is a clip on?
[36:45.130 --> 36:46.390]  You swear this is a microphone?
[36:46.390 --> 36:46.530]  It's a microphone?
[36:47.650 --> 36:48.710]  It's a wire!
[36:49.010 --> 36:50.210]  In there.
[36:50.530 --> 36:51.010]  Okay.
[36:53.410 --> 36:55.110]  Um, is that working now?
[36:55.290 --> 36:56.570]  So I don't have to monkey with this?
[36:59.050 --> 36:59.530]  Alright.
[36:59.890 --> 37:01.150]  Can you guys hear me in the back?
[37:01.810 --> 37:01.970]  Yeah.
[37:02.250 --> 37:02.570]  Okay.
[37:03.550 --> 37:07.150]  Good idea, it only took the very end of my talk until you figured that out.
[37:08.490 --> 37:09.490]  Yeah, by the way.
[37:11.130 --> 37:11.870]  Hold on.
[37:12.910 --> 37:13.890]  Oh, man.
[37:15.030 --> 37:15.970]  Don't blame me.
[37:16.090 --> 37:17.390]  That's your connection.
[37:18.450 --> 37:18.850]  212.
[37:19.290 --> 37:19.810]  568.
[37:21.790 --> 37:22.310]  2034.
[37:23.970 --> 37:25.850]  Is that a listed number or not listed?
[37:26.190 --> 37:26.710]  Very listed.
[37:27.290 --> 37:30.030]  Very listed.
[37:32.150 --> 37:34.490]  Makes Steve look foolish if it doesn't come up.
[37:35.170 --> 37:36.190]  That's the URL.
[37:38.130 --> 37:38.770]  Everything.
[37:43.020 --> 37:47.320]  This is essentially a telephone tracing metasearch.
[37:47.480 --> 37:49.500]  That's the best way to explain it.
[37:50.760 --> 37:52.320]  Okay, first thing we do...
[37:54.240 --> 37:55.340]  Oh, I can't.
[37:55.460 --> 37:55.620]  Okay.
[37:56.100 --> 37:59.480]  Sorry, there's a limited screen here.
[37:59.620 --> 38:01.140]  I'll try to...
[38:06.120 --> 38:07.220]  Okay.
[38:08.060 --> 38:10.560]  Starts out by telling you which central office.
[38:10.560 --> 38:12.640]  That's just simple.
[38:13.620 --> 38:14.020]  Okay.
[38:14.200 --> 38:15.520]  Data Protection International.
[38:16.300 --> 38:17.620]  Is that the correct address?
[38:18.920 --> 38:19.380]  Okay.
[38:20.200 --> 38:21.720]  Ooh, is that you?
[38:22.380 --> 38:22.680]  Nope.
[38:23.450 --> 38:23.660]  Okay.
[38:23.780 --> 38:25.140]  Well, they're using your phone number.
[38:25.160 --> 38:25.680]  Who are they?
[38:25.910 --> 38:27.200]  They may have been the previous people.
[38:28.200 --> 38:28.640]  Okay.
[38:30.340 --> 38:30.780]  Okay.
[38:30.780 --> 38:32.640]  They were probably the previous people who had it.
[38:32.860 --> 38:33.180]  Okay.
[38:33.300 --> 38:36.020]  Now, archive telephones, you're right, they're the previous people.
[38:36.220 --> 38:46.480]  What we did was, as part of a joint project with a company called the Wingate Group, we bought up tapes from every telephone company, even the little telephone co-ops in the country.
[38:46.480 --> 38:48.160]  And we have about 24 years of tapes.
[38:48.700 --> 38:52.860]  And that's very valuable stuff for investigators if you want to break a cold case.
[38:53.180 --> 39:01.000]  Somebody comes to you and says, you know, this guy was wrongly convicted of murder that occurred on the corner of 87th Street and Broadway.
[39:01.000 --> 39:07.560]  And you need to know who was at 87th Street and Broadway 11 years ago, so you can go look for old witnesses.
[39:09.660 --> 39:11.700]  And I guess they were there.
[39:13.580 --> 39:14.500]  Let's see.
[39:15.280 --> 39:16.320]  Nothing in Usenet.
[39:17.160 --> 39:19.500]  See, apparently you're not controversial enough.
[39:19.700 --> 39:20.040]  Not yet.
[39:20.800 --> 39:25.000]  Do we have somebody here with a listed number who's controversial?
[39:31.620 --> 39:32.200]  Yeah.
[39:32.760 --> 39:33.180]  Yeah.
[39:36.640 --> 39:38.060]  Any other volunteers?
[39:44.450 --> 39:46.190]  I can't hear a word you're saying, pal.
[39:52.880 --> 39:55.880]  I think this is my cue to go into the question and answer segment.
[39:56.460 --> 40:01.480]  So you know what, why don't we turn on the mic and I'll go into...
[40:01.480 --> 40:03.640]  Because I really am running towards the end of my talk.
[40:03.760 --> 40:07.700]  I'm happy to talk to anybody on the side once this is over.
[40:10.200 --> 40:11.120]  But let's...
[40:11.120 --> 40:13.680]  What time do I have to...
[40:14.520 --> 40:14.980]  Really?
[40:15.540 --> 40:17.400]  Well, I didn't start till 20 a.m.
[40:18.940 --> 40:19.540]  Are you?
[40:20.360 --> 40:21.100]  How you doing?
[40:22.200 --> 40:23.440]  Can you give me 10 more minutes?
[40:23.840 --> 40:25.280]  Okay, I got 10 more minutes.
[40:26.100 --> 40:30.620]  That's the next speaker who's staring at me as I'm up here.
[40:31.720 --> 40:32.440]  10 minutes.
[40:33.980 --> 40:34.380]  Okay.
[40:34.540 --> 40:35.280]  No, no, no, no.
[40:35.400 --> 40:36.020]  Take a deep breath.
[40:36.140 --> 40:37.360]  Let this guy turn on the mic.
[40:39.140 --> 40:42.040]  I'm assuming it's going to be a valuable question.
[40:42.240 --> 40:43.680]  So let everyone hear it.
[40:44.240 --> 40:44.500]  All right.
[40:45.140 --> 40:46.920]  My question is this.
[40:47.080 --> 40:55.580]  If you're trying to trace somebody and they're calling from a cell phone, like from a 917-449-XXXX, how do you do that?
[40:55.580 --> 40:56.560]  I mean...
[40:56.560 --> 40:59.580]  First of all, hopefully you have numbers instead of the XXXXX.
[41:00.140 --> 41:02.260]  Well, I'm not going to give out a phone number, but...
[41:02.260 --> 41:02.520]  Okay.
[41:04.020 --> 41:07.500]  Every time you call an 800 number, it goes in a database.
[41:08.120 --> 41:12.280]  Every time you make an airplane reservation, it goes in a database.
[41:12.800 --> 41:16.940]  Every time you call your bank, it goes in your file.
[41:16.940 --> 41:18.000]  No, no, no.
[41:18.200 --> 41:19.200]  Listen, listen, listen.
[41:19.380 --> 41:20.460]  Let me answer your question.
[41:21.140 --> 41:29.900]  Just because cell phones are not in the phone book, doesn't mean that they're not in a multiplicity of databases.
[41:30.660 --> 41:33.040]  So there are two ways to get cell phones.
[41:33.240 --> 41:42.720]  First of all, every investigator, good investigator, bad investigator, knows somebody to call who for $25 will bust a cell phone number.
[41:43.480 --> 41:46.340]  I don't do that because it's a felony and I'm a big chicken.
[41:47.820 --> 41:52.920]  I also don't do it because I have access to most of the databases that your cell phone will go into.
[41:53.900 --> 41:57.460]  So the answer is, cell phone, no difference.
[41:58.140 --> 42:00.980]  Only protection, cell phone in a box.
[42:02.240 --> 42:04.940]  And by the way, that's literally what it's called in some places.
[42:05.200 --> 42:07.120]  And get rid of it after you've used it.
[42:07.320 --> 42:11.300]  Because you may think, oh, I've changed the SIM card.
[42:11.640 --> 42:14.040]  I've changed the activation card.
[42:14.260 --> 42:15.120]  It doesn't matter.
[42:15.240 --> 42:21.040]  The cell phone itself still has the same electronic serial number, which I guarantee you the people in this room know better than I do.
[42:21.040 --> 42:23.400]  I also know that when I call from out of state, I get a...
[42:23.400 --> 42:24.420]  Hold on, I...
[42:24.420 --> 42:32.080]  When I use my cell phone out of state and I call 800 number, they're only getting the number of the cell site, which is local to that area.
[42:32.160 --> 42:32.240]  They're wrong.
[42:32.560 --> 42:33.220]  It doesn't matter.
[42:33.740 --> 42:34.700]  You're just wrong.
[42:36.280 --> 42:39.840]  Your phone generates your number.
[42:40.260 --> 42:42.720]  Even though they're only getting the number...
[42:42.720 --> 42:55.900]  In fact, if you go, for example, to Canada with your phone, you will discover that your cell phone, which has caller ID blocked, will generate your correct phone number to everybody in Canada.
[43:02.240 --> 43:02.800]  Thank you.
[43:03.040 --> 43:05.740]  Okay, for those of you that can't hear the guy, he agrees.
[43:06.300 --> 43:07.220]  Did I answer your...
[43:07.220 --> 43:09.000]  Did I answer your question?
[43:09.700 --> 43:09.800]  No.
[43:10.740 --> 43:19.680]  If you're going to use your cell phone to, I don't know, crank your ex-girlfriend, threaten the president, use a pay phone.
[43:20.340 --> 43:23.160]  With all the databases and everything else they have...
[43:23.160 --> 43:24.940]  And by the way, don't threaten this president.
[43:25.760 --> 43:25.980]  Next.
[43:26.160 --> 43:30.540]  With all the databases and everything they have, why can't they track the bad guys?
[43:30.760 --> 43:32.180]  And why can't they really get them?
[43:32.360 --> 43:40.920]  They can, which is another area in which what I know and what the previous speaker thinks wildly diverge.
[43:40.920 --> 43:52.160]  If you believe that it's not possible for the FBI, the CIA, and the Air Force to have screwed up as badly as they did, you've never worked with federal government agencies.
[43:57.580 --> 44:00.540]  I didn't say that as an applause line.
[44:00.680 --> 44:02.500]  It scares the bejesus out of me.
[44:02.840 --> 44:07.820]  To be a desk officer of the CIA, and I've worked with CIA desk officers.
[44:07.820 --> 44:18.620]  To be a desk officer of the CIA, and a desk officer is someone who is responsible for overseeing the spying in a particular country or a particular region.
[44:19.180 --> 44:21.660]  You don't have to speak the language of that country.
[44:22.000 --> 44:25.020]  You don't even have to read the newspapers.
[44:26.000 --> 44:33.000]  I can tell you that I've closed cases originating out of Israel because I read Hebrew.
[44:33.000 --> 44:41.640]  I'm because the bonehead that was working on the case before me, whose responsibility it was to investigate something in Israel, could not read Hebrew.
[44:43.060 --> 44:43.580]  Yes.
[44:44.340 --> 44:47.520]  What happened on September 11th is because...
[44:48.360 --> 44:52.360]  First of all, because nobody expected September 11th, even though all the clues were there.
[44:54.340 --> 45:05.580]  It is not because of some massive governmental conspiracy, and George Bush has a secret stock holding in the construction company that's going to build the new World Trade Center or something like that.
[45:05.780 --> 45:11.980]  It's because our governmental agencies, for the most part, are run by boobs, yes.
[45:13.660 --> 45:15.320]  And I'm not running them down.
[45:15.320 --> 45:28.380]  The fact of the matter is I've worked with feds, not your friends, but I've worked with feds who have been terrifically dedicated, remarkably motivated, worked like dogs despite the fact that they are horribly underpaid.
[45:29.900 --> 45:31.920]  And the good guys are just...
[45:31.920 --> 45:41.360]  The capable people are so mangled by the bureaucracy that they run screaming at the private industry, which is why working for me are some great ex-feds.
[45:43.420 --> 45:44.040]  All right.
[45:44.520 --> 45:47.740]  I can probably take all four people's questions if you speak fast.
[45:48.260 --> 45:48.480]  Okay.
[45:49.280 --> 45:50.340]  One thing that you mentioned was...
[45:50.340 --> 45:50.660]  Not that fast.
[45:52.220 --> 45:59.700]  One thing that you mentioned was bringing equality to this whole equation by distributing these databases to everybody so that anybody can have access to them.
[45:59.700 --> 46:00.280]  No, no, no.
[46:00.400 --> 46:03.540]  Not by distributing, but by not restricting.
[46:03.860 --> 46:06.720]  I don't think that it's appropriate.
[46:06.720 --> 46:10.060]  Look, I'm an investigator.
[46:10.060 --> 46:14.360]  I make a lot of money because people don't have access to this data, and I do.
[46:14.680 --> 46:16.360]  And I think it's profoundly unfair.
[46:16.760 --> 46:23.560]  If you hire a nanny to watch your kids, you should be able to go and find out if that nanny has a criminal record or is a child abuser.
[46:23.800 --> 46:30.080]  If you hire somebody to drive a bus for your camp, you should be able to find out if the guy has a drunk driving arrest.
[46:31.380 --> 46:33.240]  And so on and so on.
[46:34.820 --> 46:36.940]  It's just common sense that...
[46:37.800 --> 46:40.420]  200 years ago, everybody knew everybody.
[46:40.840 --> 46:42.220]  You lived in a little village.
[46:42.980 --> 46:45.640]  You knew the guy living next to you.
[46:45.760 --> 46:46.660]  You knew his parents.
[46:46.800 --> 46:47.620]  You knew his grandparents.
[46:48.160 --> 46:50.800]  You probably inbred with your own first cousin.
[46:50.800 --> 46:51.980]  You knew everybody.
[46:53.520 --> 47:00.380]  Now, there's a guy living in your next door apartment from Washington who may be the Green River Killer for all you know.
[47:00.920 --> 47:05.860]  You need to be able to check people out when you have a legitimate reason to do something.
[47:05.860 --> 47:14.760]  I'm not saying you should be able to stalk your ex-girlfriend and track down where she's living after you called her 25 times in one night and she broke up with you.
[47:15.000 --> 47:27.440]  What I am saying is if you've got a legitimate reason to know about somebody, you shouldn't have to pay me $500 for the privilege of finding out really basic information about that individual.
[47:27.700 --> 47:29.600]  By the way, it's $500 to stalk.
[47:29.600 --> 47:30.060]  Yeah.
[47:30.300 --> 47:31.240]  Let me rephrase that question.
[47:31.460 --> 47:31.540]  Okay.
[47:31.900 --> 47:45.760]  If today you had unlimited budget and unlimited political power, what are the two things, or would you go more technical bent or would you open this up by technical, I mean through the system of politics?
[47:45.760 --> 47:47.340]  There's no new technology necessary.
[47:47.760 --> 47:48.000]  Zero.
[47:48.380 --> 47:48.980]  It's there.
[47:50.020 --> 47:50.440]  Right.
[47:50.440 --> 47:55.000]  The first thing I would do is if I was suddenly made Minister of Information.
[47:57.940 --> 47:59.660]  Okay, I'm Minister of Information.
[47:59.920 --> 48:13.560]  My first royal legislation is all governmental agencies who have databases that are considered public record, by public record I mean if you go into their office, they've got to give it to you.
[48:14.820 --> 48:19.400]  I would mandate that every single one of those databases within 12 months must be on the web.
[48:19.820 --> 48:22.620]  And must be searchable by all input criteria.
[48:27.390 --> 48:27.770]  Thanks.
[48:27.770 --> 48:30.810]  Which, by the way, is the reason why nobody is going to make me Minister of Information.
[48:36.150 --> 48:37.090]  Well, I'm sorry.
[48:37.190 --> 48:38.190]  I didn't get your name and address.
[48:40.510 --> 48:45.790]  I agree with you about all the data being collected on us is out there for the taking.
[48:45.950 --> 48:49.090]  For the people with the money, they have the ability to pull that information up.
[48:49.270 --> 48:53.490]  But as your example with Jennifer shows, there's a glut of information.
[48:54.010 --> 48:58.670]  And even with a name and a date of birth and a town, you still have problems.
[48:58.670 --> 49:02.010]  Okay, let me say that you're halfway correct.
[49:02.010 --> 49:06.470]  That's a bad example here because I didn't put in all the information she gave me.
[49:06.470 --> 49:11.470]  If I had her social security number, I would have just punched it in and I would have not gotten a data glut.
[49:11.610 --> 49:12.770]  I would have gotten an alternate record.
[49:14.330 --> 49:28.070]  So in most cases, data glut, not data glut, if you have input criteria that's accurate, you will be able to get very, very finely defined and frighteningly accurate information.
[49:29.910 --> 49:33.870]  The place where data glut kicks in is with you, not with me.
[49:33.870 --> 49:40.430]  When you're out there trying to define down your investigation, you have to wade through stacks of crap.
[49:40.770 --> 49:44.150]  And that's part of the inequity in the system.
[49:44.730 --> 49:47.090]  That's actually a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
[49:47.390 --> 49:55.330]  I can, for about $2, run Jennifer, get her social security number, feed that back in, and get everything I need.
[49:55.330 --> 50:03.270]  Get her date of birth, get her driving record, her vehicles, her mom, her dad, her boyfriends, or where she went to school, and so on and so forth.
[50:03.290 --> 50:04.790]  If you had enough information to start with.
[50:04.970 --> 50:06.270]  No, absolutely not.
[50:06.270 --> 50:10.650]  I can start with a name and an approximate age and define it downward.
[50:11.750 --> 50:21.090]  And by the records that I'm getting, sift and filter, and this is not a particularly difficult process.
[50:21.470 --> 50:29.170]  With just her name, Manhattan, and her approximate age, I could have defined it down to where I had her social security number within 10 minutes.
[50:29.170 --> 50:31.350]  And after the talk, if you want to see me do it, I'll do it on you.
[50:31.850 --> 50:32.130]  Okay.
[50:32.650 --> 50:34.270]  By the way, in less than 10 minutes, Paul.
[50:34.610 --> 50:35.050]  Thanks.
[50:36.530 --> 50:41.610]  You mentioned earlier that you can track things such as subway card usage, Metro card usage.
[50:41.850 --> 50:50.350]  I can't, but the MTA does, and I have subpoenaed that information in connection with cases.
[50:50.590 --> 50:50.810]  Yes.
[50:51.030 --> 50:55.390]  I'm curious, how do you track that information if it wasn't purchased over the phone or by credit card?
[50:55.650 --> 50:56.670]  Because, you know, up to...
[50:56.670 --> 51:02.590]  Well, in the case where I did it, a guy was arrested and we had his MTA card in evidence.
[51:02.870 --> 51:03.010]  Okay.
[51:04.650 --> 51:18.990]  But first of all, I got to tell you, today, the majority, the majority of MTA cards and EasyPass are purchased by credit card or by personal or company check.
[51:19.530 --> 51:21.290]  Very few people pay cash these days.
[51:21.390 --> 51:22.350]  Now, let me tell you something else.
[51:22.350 --> 51:27.670]  Going back to the whole discussion about databases, I can have MTA do a run.
[51:27.870 --> 51:33.790]  Let's say I know where you work and where you live and one other criteria, any criteria.
[51:34.370 --> 51:40.230]  I can see what MetroCard went to these places on a regular basis, and I got your MetroCard.
[51:40.730 --> 51:44.630]  So, I mean, it's not a question of Big Brother.
[51:44.870 --> 51:53.770]  It's a question of a lot of little brothers and little sisters that, when they're combined, essentially allow me to know everything about you.
[51:54.050 --> 52:01.790]  And by the way, for the people who are going to come to me afterwards and say, well, I do everything with cash, I'm not in any database.
[52:03.070 --> 52:04.010]  Let me tell you something.
[52:04.370 --> 52:05.790]  That puts you in a database.
[52:07.250 --> 52:07.890]  No!
[52:08.610 --> 52:11.450]  I'm telling you this as a professional investigator.
[52:12.330 --> 52:16.750]  Anybody who's not in a database makes people nervous.
[52:16.750 --> 52:18.190]  So, they put them in a database.
[52:22.370 --> 52:22.870]  Hi.
[52:23.170 --> 52:25.970]  Quick two-prong question about the psychographics.
[52:26.450 --> 52:34.890]  One, I've read articles about people who talk about, you know, minor forms of civil disobedience where, you know, trade your little, you know, key food card with other people.
[52:35.350 --> 52:36.190]  Screw up their database.
[52:36.390 --> 52:37.690]  Is that anything more than symbolic?
[52:39.270 --> 52:40.290]  Hopeless and meaningless.
[52:40.710 --> 52:41.070]  Okay.
[52:41.530 --> 52:42.170]  Fair enough.
[52:42.390 --> 52:46.450]  You know, it's like people who use PGP to send messages to their girlfriend.
[52:46.450 --> 52:47.810]  I love you.
[52:47.930 --> 52:48.870]  I'll see you at the movies.
[52:50.150 --> 52:50.670]  Anybody?
[52:52.630 --> 52:53.510]  All right.
[52:54.050 --> 52:54.550]  Okay.
[52:54.650 --> 52:55.550]  I have to just say something.
[52:56.130 --> 53:03.130]  When I checked in, they gave me this threat assessment thing, which says that I'm only a guarded threat.
[53:03.930 --> 53:07.890]  I told them, after my speech, you are going to have to upgrade me to severe.
[53:08.310 --> 53:10.350]  And I am a severe threat.
[53:16.420 --> 53:21.900]  But you'll notice, you'll notice as a professional investigator, I can be undercover.
[53:24.710 --> 53:35.400]  And the related question was, for those of us, and I'm sure this applies to a lot of the people in this room, a lot of us, I'm sure, have either political views or something that would very easily show up on a database that we...
[53:35.400 --> 53:38.580]  I know I can think of things for myself that I might want to show up.
[53:38.730 --> 53:44.540]  Is that something that is a meaningful form of being counted?
[53:44.540 --> 53:48.860]  Don't, don't obsess on databases.
[53:49.420 --> 53:58.980]  If somebody is investigating you, they can call up anybody you go to school with and say, give some bogus pretext, social engineering.
[53:59.440 --> 54:02.880]  And yes, I do use social engineering when it's legal.
[54:03.780 --> 54:07.300]  And social engineering is legal about 97.3% of the time.
[54:07.600 --> 54:19.360]  The only thing you can't do is identify yourself as someone you're not, or a profession that requires a license, for example, a doctor, a lawyer, a law enforcement officer, that sort of thing.
[54:19.820 --> 54:22.560]  Social engineering will get me that with a phone call.
[54:22.920 --> 54:24.400]  Why do I have to monkey with databases?
[54:26.460 --> 54:28.840]  And by the way, we do know who you are.
[54:29.750 --> 54:34.460]  Yes, you mentioned earlier that free access to personal information is important for democracy.
[54:34.750 --> 54:36.280]  Could you please elaborate on that?
[54:40.640 --> 54:42.900]  Yeah, a real easy question to end with.
[54:44.380 --> 54:45.980]  Yeah, I'd be happy to.
[54:46.080 --> 54:48.920]  I would feel a little more comfortable if you hadn't read it off of a palm palm.
[54:55.120 --> 54:56.080]  There are...
[54:57.840 --> 55:01.560]  There is very little that is not known.
[55:02.680 --> 55:05.620]  There is very little about politicians that's not known.
[55:05.620 --> 55:09.040]  There is very little about bad individuals that's not known.
[55:09.320 --> 55:13.280]  There is very little about the world in general that's not known.
[55:14.700 --> 55:20.740]  But the actual access to this information is severely limited.
[55:21.240 --> 55:31.840]  You know, I remember a few years ago, a movie was made about a family that developed a cure for a terminal illness for their son.
[55:32.900 --> 55:33.920]  Thank you.
[55:33.920 --> 55:34.660]  Thank you.
[55:34.960 --> 55:39.220]  And this cure had been known for 500 or 600 years.
[55:39.680 --> 55:42.680]  It just wasn't out there in an available way.
[55:42.880 --> 55:51.800]  It was probably in a medical research database or a Newsnet database that you have to pay $1,000 a year to subscribe to.
[55:51.800 --> 55:54.240]  It's just not available to the average person.
[55:54.420 --> 55:55.720]  That's an extreme example.
[55:56.760 --> 56:05.700]  A simpler, a better example is, let's say for example, I am searching for my runaway daughter.
[56:07.600 --> 56:09.340]  I am an average person.
[56:09.700 --> 56:13.260]  I don't have access to every state's database.
[56:14.400 --> 56:20.440]  My daughter, when she turned 18 after she ran away, got a driver's license in Oregon.
[56:22.820 --> 56:25.880]  I have to either go to an investigator and pay him money to find this.
[56:26.220 --> 56:30.380]  Or I have to ask the police to find her, beg the police to find her.
[56:30.540 --> 56:32.100]  They won't do it because she's an adult.
[56:33.820 --> 56:37.260]  Or if this information is open, I find my daughter.
[56:37.980 --> 56:39.420]  I hire a nanny.
[56:41.760 --> 56:45.360]  I can either hire an investigator to check her out for 500 bucks.
[56:47.380 --> 56:53.360]  Or if the information is open, I find out that she has a child assault case in a neighboring state.
[56:55.040 --> 57:05.840]  Every bit of information, or the vast, vast majority of everything that you might reasonably need to know in your life is there.
[57:06.060 --> 57:07.220]  It's available.
[57:07.740 --> 57:10.680]  You know, there's a saying, there's nothing new under the sun.
[57:10.680 --> 57:13.620]  Not to bring in a biblical reference to a hacker convention.
[57:14.040 --> 57:14.280]  I can't!!!