Eric Brown: 0:05

You're listening to the Audit presented by IT Audit Labs.

Mandi Rae: 0:14

Hey, welcome back to the Audit, a podcast by IT Audit Labs. Today joining us is Eric Brown from IT Audit Labs and Matthew Wold, friend of the podcast and cybersecurity extraordinaire. Hi guys.

Eric Brown: 0:35

Hey, mandy, this is where I want to mention some of Matt's other nicknames, but I said I wasn't going to, so I won't.

Mandi Rae: 0:44

I want to mention some of Matt's other nicknames, but I said I wasn't going to, so I won't. Well, today we're going to call him Travel Matt because, in preparation for the upcoming spring break season, we're going to talk about cyber safe travel. So, joining us, Matt. Why don't you kick us off with some best practices from an expert and, if could I even call you an ethical hacker who would know exactly what to look out for?

Mathew Wold: 1:09

Thank you, I appreciate that. Thank you for having me on it. It's always a pleasure to be here. So you know, I was doing a little research as we kind of came into spring break and you know, as COVID was, I don't want to use the term slowing down a little bit, but it seems like more and more people are going out traveling now and I just thought it would be time to have some of those conversations about cyber, safe travel, things to think about before you go traveling, some steps and maybe some tips on what to do before, after and during your travel. So I put this presentation together. You know it turned out to be really relevant because when I originally put the presentation together, I wasn't planning on going on vacation, but now I am, and you know I'm following some of my own best practices as well, and you know I'm following some of my own best practices as well.

Eric Brown: 2:05

Did you get a phishing email that said that you had won a free trip? You clicked on it and now you're going.

Mathew Wold: 2:16

Yeah, and I fully expect to get on that flight later today.

Mandi Rae: 2:18

Well, good luck with that. Maybe after that you're going to meet a prince and inherit millions of dollars from a relative you never met.

Mathew Wold: 2:25

That would be the end to my perfect day. So you know, in the presentation you know I kind of go through some of these travel scams and I think you know knowing what to look out for is probably a big key to staying safe. You know we talked about fraudulent vacation sweepstakes that you could win. That's definitely one of them If you're going to go on vacation. There's a lot of things like fake airline websites offering discounts, fake rental homes, stuff. That sometimes is a little bit too good to be true. Those are always a red flag free vacation travel promotion If you just get a flight confirmation, especially if you're not planning on going on vacation. But if you are and you're getting emails from someplace that doesn't look right, it probably isn't right.

Mathew Wold: 3:25

Something that I definitely want to dive into a little bit here is when we talk about rental home fraud. So sometimes when you go to maybe book an Airbnb or something else, sometimes what happens is that that listing isn't actually available and so people have shown up, you know, expecting to get into these rental places and either it's not even a rental place or there's already somebody who is, you know, booked it for the exact same dates and now you have a big problem on your hand. Sometimes these rental places don't even exist at all, and so they're just, you know, completely fraudulent bookings and you know you show up for vacation and you have no place to stay. So I think it's really important to really know the site and the outfit that you're renting some of this stuff through. It's pretty important to use reputable sites.

Mandi Rae: 4:26

Especially now that hackers are using Photoshop.

Eric Brown: 4:30

Yeah, I was talking to someone the other day about some of the legitimate and I put that in quotes travel scams. But there was a Wall Street Journal investigation a couple of years ago into Orbitz, an online travel agency, and the claim was that they were showing higher-priced hotel rooms to Mac users compared with those who used Windows PC to access their site. So I think they did an investigation and Orbitz later admitted that it did have some sort of algorithm to target specific users based on what type of machine they were logging in from, and Mac users were being shown more premium rooms compared with Windows users, who were always shown the cheapest price room for a room first. So apparently they've removed that feature, but interesting nonetheless that these sorts of games are played by the quote-unquote legitimate companies.

Mathew Wold: 5:43

Yeah, and you know I'm glad that you brought that up. I read something around that as well, not specifically Orbitz, but just how, when you go to some of these travel places online that they'll either read other cookies on your computer to see what other sites that you shop at or sites that you visit and you visit, you know, and if you're, you know, going to a lot of high-end websites, they just automatically assume that you'll pay more for a vacation. And same thing, they'll, you know, show you higher price stuff. So I think I think that's really interesting, definitely something to to watch out for. You know, and how do you get around that? You know you could either, you know, clear cookies out first, or you know if you have a web browser extension that you know changes, you know that information. You know that you could probably get around it that way, yeah absolutely.

Eric Brown: 6:40

It's almost, like you know, a throwback to our dark web episode with Bill. You need tails and a VPN to just book travel tickets, just like you're getting onto the dark web, yeah exactly.

Mathew Wold: 6:55

It shouldn't have to be that difficult.

Eric Brown: 6:58

No.

Mathew Wold: 6:59

I guess that's where we're at. So I broke down a little bit of one of these travel scams which I was doing a little bit of reading online and it's really interesting kind of how it unfolded the attacker and social media is definitely a useful tool for attackers no matter what it is. Any sort of scam or attack like that. The attacker is always looking for opportunities opportunities and that goes for anything. But you know if they're specifically targeting travelers or, you know, maybe it's just a lack of a better word crime of opportunity. You know, maybe a scammer comes across like a Facebook post or something that somebody says you know they're going out of town. They see that and they start targeting that person. You know, doing some open source intelligence to start gathering some background information, getting more information about, maybe, where they're going and when they're going to be gone, and then, once they get all that information, you know, then they launch that attack and you know either it's some sort of phishing scam or you know some other sort of like smishing scam. But in the specific example that I saw, you know as a person who you know, just like what I was saying, is, you know, like a Facebook post, where the attacker had, you know, seen that with that they were going out of town and then did a whole bunch of research and, at the end of the day, what ended up happening is they sent emails to their family saying that they were on vacation and they couldn't use their phones and anything like that, and that they were in trouble and that they needed them to wire money to an account, not to contact them directly, and stuff. And so they're pretty smart about these kinds of things and how they use social engineering to try to manipulate people, friends and family and try to get them to send money. And so then these people came back home and their family was like, oh, is everything okay? And of course, they had no idea, and I mean, what a shame.

Mathew Wold: 9:14

It really starts with booking travel, right? That's kind of where the whole process starts, the whole being security minded. Um, you know, being security minded, you know when you go into travel and booking travels the first step in, you know I think it's important to book travel through a reputable company. You know if you, if you're booking travel, you know through someplace that you never heard of, you're not really sure what you're going to get, but you're going to go online and you book through, like Travelocity or Expedia, you, if you're gonna go online and you book through Travelocity or Expedia, they're pretty reputable as far as online goes. But there's other places too If you want to book through an actual person. I think Carson Wagonlet is a travel place where you can go in and book through. If you're a Costco member, you can book travel through Costco. So I think there's a lot of good companies that are a safe bet that you can book through.

Mathew Wold: 10:16

When booking travel online, I think it's really important to have a safe online connection. Probably shouldn't be booking travel through, you know, your Starbucks Wi-Fi connection or over some random you know internet connection. You probably want to. You know, book it at home where it's safe. And then you know just monitoring all your travel accounts before your trip. You know monitoring during and after your trip too, for any suspicious activity, but just keeping an eye on it so that way if you start getting weird emails that you can take some sort of action or dig into it a little bit.

Eric Brown: 10:56

Many credit card companies these days too offer that fraud protection where you can spin up a virtual credit card number to use for a particular site, which is nice. And a lot of credit card companies too have no charge for international purchases. So if you're going internationally you wouldn't pay a surcharge to the credit card company for using that card overseas. I know in the past there was not as many credit card companies doing that, so you had to try to find the right card when you're going to travel, but I think now most of them do. But it's always wise to check with your credit card company, and it also used to be that you'd have to notify them, I think, before you traveled. But now the algorithms are such that at least the ones I use don't require that pre-notification for travel. I don't know if either of you have experienced that.

Mathew Wold: 12:02

Yeah, in the past I've had to do that, but I think you're right with the way the algorithms work these days, you know, when I went to San Diego, or even when I was in Vegas, I didn't have to do any of that. So I think it's smart enough now that you don't need to. Yeah, but yeah, I think that was a really good call too, about you know the the credit card companies and spinning up a virtual virtual card, cause you know that that could definitely be, you know, a big saver for somebody. You know if you're using that virtual card and you know if you're. If your credit card company doesn't offer that, there is other services like Privacycom that offer that ability. So that way, you know, you can spin up your own virtual credit card and use that as well. So, yeah, I think that's definitely good to remember.

Eric Brown: 12:58

Yeah, that's a good tip about the Privacycom the privacycom.

Mathew Wold: 13:07

I know that, um, you know, for my, not every single credit card works for privacycom. Um, I knew somebody who was trying to use it and the credit card that they had. They couldn't register it in privacycom. So I guess that's kind of a bummer something to to think about if it, if it's not working for you working for you, maybe your credit card doesn't support that. Along with the idea of just being safe online and using reputable businesses, protecting trip details is always a great idea too. Knowing what you should and shouldn't share online is definitely a huge plus.

Mathew Wold: 13:44

I'm in the boat where social media is not really my thing, but even if it was, I wouldn't post anything online about you know I'm going. You know on vacation on such and such dates, or you know where I'm going to go, or anything like that. I would just keep that to myself, but scammers tend to to use that, that information, to to target you. Um, you know. So I would say that you know if you're gonna, if you have to share the those trip details. You know maybe, uh, maybe, it's something that you share over the phone with. You know a trusted loved one, or you know like a trusted friend or something. If you are going to share that information online, maybe try not to use specifics.

Mandi Rae: 14:34

I know people on their social media that have like a trip countdown and like even put in a map and they are so communicative about their travels. I worry for them for this specific reason. Like they're live posting during their trip, they're taking pictures of their hotel, their key card, their door their room number, I mean just really promoting every last bit of it.

Eric Brown: 15:04

It's like a black mirror episode. Yeah, that is scary. I mean just really promoting every last bit of it. It's like a Black Mirror episode. Yeah, that is scary.

Eric Brown: 15:12

One of the things I've done recently when I've gone on some larger trips is to keep a paper copy of all of the things, just in case you're on a little bit longer of a plane ride, phone's not charged, get to a foreign country and then you're trying to fill out the paperwork. Sometimes you've got to fill out paperwork to get into the country and go through customs and they like to know the address that you're staying at, things like that and if, for whatever reason, you can't get to it on your phone or computer, it's nice to just have that paper backup that you know you keep secure, but with just the details of where you're going to be and then some contact information on how to get in touch with if you're staying at, you know, say, a person's house or an Airbnb or something like that, how you would get in touch with them if, for whatever reason you know you couldn't get into the property or what have you.

Mathew Wold: 16:11

Yeah, what's your thoughts on? You know, when I was doing this research, there's a lot of organizations that were saying, you know, even having like photocopy backups of things like passports, driver's license, birth certificates, anything like that, just in case that documentation gets stolen while you're away, what are your thoughts on having a paper photocopy backup of that?

Eric Brown: 16:38

So I had a situation. I was in Italy a couple of years ago. I was in Italy a couple of years ago and there was a situation where the passport went through the washing machine and it was a couple of days before we were coming back home, so I didn't have enough time to go to the embassy and deal with all that rigmarole. So I was like, well, let's just roll the dice and see what happens. And fortunately it was intact enough to still have the picture and things like that. It was just like the. You know, it had gotten wet, so it was starting to come apart and the customs agent was like, oh, this went through the wash. So he kind of made light of it.

Eric Brown: 17:27

But I did have a copy. I took a picture of it and had a copy of it on my phone as well, but it didn't come to using that. The paper copies are probably a good idea if you have a safe place to keep them. I don't know that I'd bring my birth certificate, but I do know in some countries they will take your passport from you when you get to the hotel. So it might be nice to have that paper backup in case something happened there. What do you think, mandy?

Mandi Rae: 18:06

Trying to keep track of paper or anything is so stressful to me. I'm so thankful for my phone and the app. I feel like it simplified travel so much that I'm not as good with the backup solution, so I'm taking some pointers from you guys on this call.

Mathew Wold: 18:22

Yeah, I would say that you know, I like the idea of having having it backed up digitally, like on your phone. You know the my worry there. There is like what if you know what, if you drop your phone in the ocean or you know something happens to it and then all of a sudden you know, now you have nothing.

Mandi Rae: 18:38

I'm usually a super chill traveler where, like, I'll even roll up to the airport dangerously late and just confidence my way through stuff. But then the minute I get through the security line I feel like I check for my id and my phone like 7 000 times.

Eric Brown: 18:56

So paper stuff I just can't even think of it yeah, I know I was just going to say that some places use a mobile passport control now and I'm talking international travel so you don't necessarily have to fill out all of that paperwork. There is an app on the phone for it and it makes it a little quicker to get through customs, to get through customs and then, of course, if you do all of the things that you can do, like CLEAR and some of those international travel programs where you pay a little bit of money, go through additional screening months ahead to get on an approved list, so to speak, and then you have facial recognition to get into the country, rather than, yeah and I think the US is starting to do that more as well at least the last time I came through it's been a little while, but they had facial recognition. They scan that picture on your passport and then some form of facial recognition when you're going through to talk to that agent.

Mandi Rae: 20:07

I can't wait till we're in the place where it's just like a retina scan, like you get to the ATM retina scan. Here's your money. You get to the airport retina scan, get on the plane.

Eric Brown: 20:19

That would be nice.

Mathew Wold: 20:21

Yeah, it sounds like maybe a little work up front saves you a lot of the back end if you go through that clear process and stuff.

Eric Brown: 20:28

Yeah, it is. I think there's some people may not want to go through it because they take your fingerprints and go through the processing of that and then probably share those fingerprints with other organizations, because I don't think it's a government organization that's doing it. It's some sort of private NGO that has a relationship with TSA and such. But for most of us we've been fingerprinted in the system for a variety of work reasons, so it's not that big of a deal. But I can imagine some people might not want to go through it.

Mathew Wold: 21:09

Yeah, Kind of like when you submit your DNA to like ancestrycom and the fine fine print says that they could share that, that DNA information out with other organizations. Right yeah.

Mandi Rae: 21:23

I think it's only those of us in the security realm are the ones who are like we're not doing this. We read fine print.

Mathew Wold: 21:31

Yeah, I mean to Eric's point, though I mean for anything that's work related, that involves like sieges and whatever. You've been fingerprinted already.

Mandi Rae: 21:42

A fingerprint doesn't scare me, but you don't need my DNA.

Mathew Wold: 21:46

Yeah, that's fair. So you know I have some things that you know that I think maybe should be done before travel. And you know, I think it's important that you know, you think about any electronic equipment that you're going to take. You know with you Because anything that you take you're going to take. You know with you because anything that you take you're going to need to to manage it. And you know if you take it, protected, I think is kind of the key phrase there, but you know. So just making sure that any electronics you know are kind of handled before you leave.

Mathew Wold: 22:21

So some some important things you know to do are are backing up any sort of files off of that device, you know, just making sure that if you like that phone, if you end up losing it, that all the data is backed up. So backing up files. Updating any devices to the latest OS versions, and then not just the operating systems but also applications, but also applications. So any applications that need to be updated, make sure you update those. Confirming that your antivirus software is updated with the latest virus definitions. Installing any sort of software that you're going to need. So definitely you want some VPN software so that way you can connect securely when you're out. You know, maybe even some device recovery software so that way you know if you, if you misplace your phone, you can you can locate it using strong passwords. I know we talk a lot about password safety and multi-factor authentication. So just enabling that stuff on accounts, you never know where you're going to be when you need to log into something and you know having multi-factor, multi-factor authentication is always a great idea. You know we kind of talked about international travel and you know, when you talk about installing software, a really great application is the US Department of State Smart Traveler application. There's a lot of stuff that, if you're going to do international travel, that that application provides to people, provides to people.

Mathew Wold: 23:48

And then just removing any sensitive data, you know, anything that you wouldn't want anybody else to see probably should pull it out of your devices, any unnecessary applications that you really don't need. Those applications can be, you know, a gateway into that device if it were to get compromised. So you know, maybe that application has some sort of flaw in it, you know. So just getting rid of anything that you're not going to use. And then you know, just disabling, like location tracking, you know, so that way like the old Foursquare when it used to just automatically like track your location and update. You know, send updates to Facebook and stuff like that. You know, checking you in places, just disabling that kind of stuff, uh, you know disabling that is triggering that like should have been named like the stalker app.

Eric Brown: 24:43

Does that still exist? Do people?

Mathew Wold: 24:45

still use that.

Mandi Rae: 24:46

I don't even know if foursquare is around anymore I don't think it's relevant, but it that's a good thing yeah, but you know facebook.

Mathew Wold: 24:56

I think facebook has that ability too. Where you know it'll, it'll check you in places again. I'm not a social media user, so I'm not the best person to talk about Facebook.

Mandi Rae: 25:08

You're not wrong All social media platforms. I don't know if you can continue to share your location with friends, but you can absolutely check in places and live stories seem to be such a growing trend right now that it'd be hard to avoid where you are when you're living your life out loud on social media.

Mathew Wold: 25:27

Yeah, it's just, that's always just so scary. So, you know, I think, turn it off in general, but you know, especially if you're going to go traveling that's my personal opinion. And then you know anything like personal hotspots. You know, if you don't need it to be on, turn it off. Same thing with like bluetooth. I know that. Uh, you know, if you have bluetooth heads, headphones or something like that and you and you want to use them, turn bluetooth on for for that, and but then as soon as you're done, I think you should turn it back off and then keeping track of your luggage with uh, like air tags, for instance.

Eric Brown: 26:07

Uh is pretty cool, right? You could see if you put it in in your checked luggage and and even your the luggage that you carry on in case it gets misplaced. It's kind of cool to be able to just open up the app and see exactly where that luggage is. I know I've enjoyed waiting at the luggage carousel and the luggage is still somewhere out on the tarmac, so you know it's not going to be getting to the carousel for a while. You've got time to go to the bathroom or grab a cup of coffee or something like that, and then, of course, if it does get lost or misplaced, it might be a little easier to find it.

Mathew Wold: 26:43

I think that's a really interesting use of an air tag. I didn't I didn't think about that, but now that you say that, yeah, I think that's you know. If your luggage got misplaced, you know you could, I suppose, use that to find out where it is, too yeah absolutely.

Mandi Rae: 27:01

My parents recently took a trip. They had a cruise with um recently took a trip. They had a cruise with um. Multiple flights to get to their destination and they watched as their plane took off and their luggage did not, following this exact thing.

Mathew Wold: 27:18

So no one got there and was disappointed at the luggage carousel like they knew it the minute they took off, like well junk wasn't there a story recently, maybe like a couple weeks ago, where somebody had an air tag and either a package or luggage or something and it got misplaced and they were able to find out that it was at some employee's home, maybe, Maybe it was a UPS package and they were trying to get it back. And finally they just went on UPS on their Twitter feed and they posted a picture of the AirTag location and they said something like UPS, I want my package back. And then UPS responded like I guess they had been trying to get the package back for a while and this was like their last resort measure and they posted it and they said they wanted it back and finally UPS I mean it was only like a couple of hours and they they messaged the person and they were able to to get the package from the from the UPS employee's house.

Eric Brown: 28:27

Wow, it's unfortunate you have to resort to public shaming to get your stuff back.

Mathew Wold: 28:38

Yeah, huh.

Eric Brown: 28:40

I know, though, just talking about wireless too and not to do too much product naming, but I know Firewalla is one. There's probably others, but Firewalla makes a small personal firewall device that you can essentially connect your hotspot to the Firewalla and then connect wirelessly your other devices to that Firewalla, so it acts as a firewall for your devices that are behind it, which is kind of cool. If you're in an unknown place and you have a couple of devices that you want to connect to it, you could be assured that those are relatively secure behind that firewall device, and then you're just using that as a gateway out to the Internet.

Mathew Wold: 29:24

Talking about hotspots, that's something that you know is going to come up here later, but you know, I think it's really important to you know there's a cost associated with that, of course, but it's not as much as it used to be, you know. So I think it's really important that people, you know, don't connect to any sort of public Wi-Fi and my kids have iPads and they always want to connect and watch movies and game and all that stuff, and so, taking my own advice, I went out last week and I ended up getting a personal hotspot. I went out last week and I ended up getting a personal hotspot, you know, configuring that. I think that firewall idea is really good too, because on, like on a personal hotspot, there isn't any sort of firewall protection. You know, it's just that open connection out to the Internet. So probably a smart idea to put something like that on there.

Eric Brown: 30:22

And you could do something similar with your cell phone provider, where you can get an international plan for data with your most major cell phone providers. It's like a pay-per-day or a pay-per-use. I think it's more expensive but not necessarily unreasonable. Just to add that in for a short duration of time and then you can also if you're going to be on a vacation I know it works in most of Europe you can get a hotspot at the airport in country. That would give you five or ten gigs of data, something like that, for a pretty reasonable cost and with, depending on the, the uh company that you're using, they can ship you the device beforehand or you can pick it up, usually at the airport, and then when you're done you just ship it back. You know when you're, when you're done with your vacation and then when you're done, you just ship it back.

Mathew Wold: 31:28

You know when you're done with your vacation, but I've done that in the past as well and that's worked out pretty good. Yeah, and you know, when we talk about, like the US Department of State, you know we talk a lot about travel advisory levels. You know countries have. You know like a level one, two, three or four, and, uh, you know level four countries are. You know they're like do not travel countries, but you know if you, if you need to travel there, you could still do it, and I think that idea of having some other you know like service in another country is a really great idea.

Mathew Wold: 32:03

You know, personally, maybe I would take that a step further where if I was going to, if I had to go to a level three or a level four country, maybe I'd get a completely throwaway phone, maybe even a separate SIM card, and take that with me. I've heard that when you go into some countries that you're required to turn over all of your electronics and that sometimes they'll just openly connect them and download the data. They have. You unlock them so that way they can access the data. And I think that's really interesting and scary at the same time that if you want to enter the country, that you have to turn over everything and unlock it.

Eric Brown: 32:48

It's just that's a bit much yeah feels impressive yeah, yeah, I'm like the guy who's going with at least two phones and probably three laptops. If I, if I have to whittle it down to two, I will, but but yeah, that's ridiculous.

Mandi Rae: 33:07

I was going to say you're always rolling with multiple pieces of technology.

Eric Brown: 33:12

Too many.

Mathew Wold: 33:12

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I think you know, if you're just traveling within the US or maybe you're just going to like a level one country, you know, getting you know some sort of like other data plan, I think it's a great idea. But I mean, has anybody ever gone to like a non-level one country?

Eric Brown: 33:36

I've been to a level two and probably a level three, but never a level four.

Mandi Rae: 33:41

You're pretty uncultured because I don't even know where you get this level scale. So, moving on, I'm going to be uncultured because I don't even know where you get this level scale.

Mathew Wold: 33:50

So, moving on, well, you can. If you go to the US Department of State website, they have a part of their website where you can select the country that you're going to go to and it'll tell you what the travel advisory level is.

Mandi Rae: 34:07

I also want to be like.

Eric Brown: 34:08

Hey, like this YouTube if you're on the same page as Mandy.

Mandi Rae: 34:11

So, thank you for teaching us.

Eric Brown: 34:12

Well, you know, the level fours are like North Korea, Iran, stuff like that.

Mathew Wold: 34:18

Yeah, but you know I haven't admittedly, I haven't done really any international travel outside of North America, so you know, just Canada for me. But, um, you know, as I was going through the the different, uh, travel advisory levels and stuff, I was reading um a lot more of the in-depth information that the department of state posts there and there's some really interesting information because they talk a lot about things that us, as Americans, wouldn't think would be a big deal. It's like a serious crime over in other countries and you can obviously go to jail in that country for doing some of that stuff. And I was just reading through it and I thought, wow, is anybody who's going to travel internationally should read through this, because a lot of this stuff is just a no-go over there. You know you get yourself into a lot of trouble. That's a good point.

Mathew Wold: 35:21

Yeah, dating app on your phone is frowned against. Or, you know, having um pictures that we may not think are, um, a big deal over there. You know it's, it's a crime, like it's. It's just you can't. You can't do it, yeah.

Eric Brown: 35:42

So and Mandy, you've probably been to a level four country before, like, for example, mexico, has states in it that are considered level four, some of which is level four is do not travel, like, for example, sinaloa, due to crime and kidnapping is a do not travel. But then you may have other states in Mexico that are a level three, which is reconsider travel, or a level two, exercise increased caution and, for example, a reconsider travel, which would be a level three, like the state of Baja California, which is in Mexico. It's due to crime and kidnapping that they're saying. You know, just use extreme caution when going there.

Mandi Rae: 36:34

Well, I have been to Mexico, so you got me, and next time I'll use the US Department of State smart traveler site Awesome.

Mathew Wold: 36:45

Thanks, you know we talked about you know making sure that all of your stuff is backed up and I think it's important just you know backing it up to you know some sort of cloud storage. You know if you have you know an Apple device, you can upload that to the Apple Cloud. Same thing with Google. If you don't have either of those or you have a lot of data, you could back up something to like Backblaze. And if you don't have cloud storage, backing it up to either like a flash drive or some sort of external hard drive, maybe leaving it at home in a safe what do you think about those hotel safes?

Eric Brown: 37:22

Have you ever tried to access one? Have you ever tried to access?

Mathew Wold: 37:26

one. I've used one a long time ago when I was naive and thought that I was the only person in the world that had the code. But not anymore, after reading that anybody in the hotel staff can get access to the backup code, which makes sense, right? Because if somebody puts something in there and forgets the code, they're going to have to get it out of there. So not not secure at all. Yeah, probably more more secure.

Mathew Wold: 38:00

If you know it's a non-hotel person that breaks into your room, then I suppose you know it's just up to them trying to guess your four digit code. But you know, one of the things that kind of came up in some of this research was you know, if you do have to leave like a phone or something inside of a safe, you know they suggested taking out the SIM card, if that's possible, or removing the battery, if you can do both of those things. And then, you know, just throw them in your pocket, because you know phone batteries are usually pretty small and that sim card is, you know, just that tiny little wafer. You know that at least then if somebody you know a hotel person came and got in there, there wouldn't be any way to power on that phone. And even if they did that, sim card would be gone as well. So I think that's pretty, pretty good advice, right?

Eric Brown: 38:50

I mean, there's not much more you can do, unless you're gonna hide it someplace in the room, which I suppose you could do there's that dark map diaries episode where I think they were um poker players and like online poker players and the one person had put things in his. He had his laptop in his room and he had, I think, other stuff in his safe. I listened to it a while ago so I'm not fully recalling, but he did have an unauthorized access entry into his room and someone had fiddled with his computer and, I think, got into his safe. But it might have been nation state level stuff, but that's not an excuse for it yeah, and I think they make a lot.

Mathew Wold: 39:41

There is a slide in the slide deck that shows it. But there is a device that you can, that you can buy, to put into a safe like that and, um, basically you can put a like a padlock or something on it. So that way, even if somebody did know the code you know and they tried to get into it, you could still lock it and, uh, you know, you could probably just throw that in a carry-on and bring it with you or, you know, just throw it in a bag. So there's some ways around that to keep it safe. But while you're out and traveling, maybe you're stopping by a coffee shop, maybe you need to jump online real quick.

Mathew Wold: 40:23

Something that probably everybody has heard of these days is VPN software. I think this is still a really great solution just to have on your phone in case you need it. These days, vpn software is fairly inexpensive. If you're using a VPN software that's free, using a VPN software that's free, more than likely you're the product. That VPN company is probably collecting your information and then selling it to third-party organizations. So I would steer clear of anything that's free. But there's a lot of good solutions out there. There's Mozilla's VPN service. That's a little bit newer. I've never used that one service that's a little bit newer. I've never used that one. But there's ExpressVPN, nordvpn and ProtonVPN. I've used those ones. They're pretty good?

Eric Brown: 41:17

I'm not sure, eric. What's your choice of VPN software these days? No, I like all of these. I like what Proton is doing, and I think all of these ones that you've mentioned here don't log either, which is important. I think it was Proton that recently went through a third party audit that proved that they don't have logging capabilities, or if they do have logging capabilities, they're not turned on. Another one is private internet access. I've used that in the past. That one seems pretty good. I look for ones that have a global distribution of servers, and preferably ones in countries that I'm traveling to. Yeah, like you said, there's a lot out there.

Mathew Wold: 42:01

Yeah, that's a good point too, because you probably need to know or make sure that you're going to have access in that country, because I know that NordVPN doesn't have some of the servers and stuff that ExpressVPN has, and vice versa too. So, yeah, I think that's a good call out, making sure that it's going to work wherever you're going. We talked a little bit about removing sensitive data. You're going, you know we talked a little bit about removing sensitive data. You know, I think maybe sometimes people you know just initially think of maybe like photos that would be sensitive, and you know I'd say that there's probably more sensitive data than just photos.

Mathew Wold: 42:39

You know, if you have documents maybe they're like financial documents or, I guess, anything that you wouldn't necessarily want someone to download you know keeping those off of your phone. There are some I don't know if Erica or Mandy, if you've ever used one of these, but there are some like third party applications that will do like almost like a locker, like an encryption locker, on the device where you can store data and then you need to have a six-digit passcode or a fingerprint or something to get into it and then access those documents. Have you ever used software like that before?

Eric Brown: 43:19

I've heard about that type of software when it came to some applications on jailbroken iPhones. Back in the day I know a buddy of mine had an app that you could play sounds of a different location so you could be on the phone and then you could play the sound of like a train station behind you so it sounded like you were in the train station when you were talking on the phone. Um, which was kind of funny. And then there was some sort of like hidden applications where it looks like it's a calculator and you put in the right um code and it gets to a private address book or something like that. I haven't seen anything recently but I imagine those things still exist.

Mathew Wold: 44:14

Yeah, I have an application called OneSafe and it's specifically designed for putting documents inside of it and, you know, keeping it encrypted. So I use that a lot to store any sort of um, you know, documentation that that I don't want just sitting on the phone in case it ever got lost or stolen or, you know, god forbid, somebody were was to hack it and download that data. So, you know, I was just kind of thinking that you were going to keep your travel documents. Maybe try to keep them in an application like that, just in case the phone was compromised some way that they couldn't get a hold of a scanned passport document or something. Yeah, that makes sense for sure. Document or something yeah, that makes sense for sure. Yeah, any sort of like text messages. I suppose you know if you've had a conversation that you know you wouldn't want anybody to read or you wouldn't want it leaked out there, maybe deleting those messages, any contacts, you know, if you don't want to be necessarily associated with somebody if it, if it ever got out, you know, maybe maybe get rid of those. Change the contact information, maybe, um, and then any apps. So you know, maybe maybe get rid of those. Change the contact information, maybe, and then any apps. So you know when, when we were talking about going to other countries, and you know where dating apps you know are aren't aren't seen very positive. You know maybe getting rid of those, you know, before you leave.

Mathew Wold: 45:43

And then I think you know there's some really good tips about. You know how to stay safe while you're traveling and I almost feel like you know you could probably do a whole podcast on. You know physical personal safety while you're traveling. That's probably a ton of stuff you could talk about there, but you know for for this, we'll just focus on things. You know digital to keep safe, you know, but auto-connecting is a big thing that you should turn off and I think we talked a little bit about that. You know those things like NFC and Wi-Fi. You know the ability to airdrop or I think Android has nearby share turning that kind of stuff off.

Mathew Wold: 46:30

We talk a lot about Wi-Fi auto-connecting and when you think about things like the Wi-Fi pineapple and attacker tools like that you definitely don't want, especially when you're on vacation, you don't want your phone auto-connecting to something like a pineapple. And then you don't want especially when you're on vacation, you don't want your phone auto-connecting to something like a Pineapple, and then you don't realize that it's connected there, and now you're just handing over information to an attacker. Yeah, that's good too. Yeah, I am bringing my Pineapple with on vacation, are you really?

Eric Brown: 47:05

Yeah, I figure, I know know. Oh, what's that? No, go ahead. I was gonna say, mandy, don't you usually bring your ponagachi?

Mandi Rae: 47:15

that's what I was just gonna ask matt if he has a ponagachi that he's gonna bring my ponagachi is um already attached to my backpack.

Mathew Wold: 47:24

Yep, nice, that will be coming with as well. I figure you know I got a lot of time by the pool where I'm just hanging out. I might as well, you know, fire up the pineapple and see what happens.

Mandi Rae: 47:36

Well, if you haven't checked, it out yet episode 11,. You could pull a Jaden with that Ponegachi.

Eric Brown: 47:41

Yeah, oh, and take it on the airplane. Yeah, If it's already attached to your backpack. Backpack, that'll be an interesting one on the airplane yeah, I'm just gonna let it run.

Mathew Wold: 47:49

I got my, uh, my like 30 000 milliamp battery. I figure that'll be enough to get me from a to b and still have battery left over. Yeah, uh, you know. And avoiding public computing, public charging, public-fi we talked about that one, but I think one of the things that I mentioned in this presentation that I think a lot of people don't think about or don't even know about is public charging. Right, and the really interesting thing is that if you plug your cell phone into one of those hotel lamps where it has the USB port, it seems really convenient, right? You don't need to plug anything into the wall if you just have the cable, but people can put electronics into that stuff. And all of a sudden, you plug it into charge and it starts downloading data.

Eric Brown: 48:45

Maybe it sends it someplace via wi-fi or you know, maybe that sounds like a black mirror episode and speaking of that, what do you guys think about when you're doing these trips using vrbo or airbnb? Um that there isn't some sort of nanny cam weirdness going on while you're staying there? Do you check for that? What do you look for to make sure you're not being spied on?

Mandi Rae: 49:21

I feel more vulnerable to being spied on at gym changing rooms or tanning salons or public restrooms so I guess I really haven't put a lot of thought into like a guest room at a hotel. I personally haven't stayed at an Airbnb where the owner was still there or it was someone else's home.

Mathew Wold: 49:46

Gotcha, yeah. So my wife went to Florida last year and her and her friends rented an Airbnb and that's one of the first things I told her is look for anything suspicious, because they do that right. You can hide one of those little pinhole cameras somewhere. I mean they sell so much stuff that has pinhole cameras. You know they have like the usb, um, you know like the, the wall charger that has a camera in it. I mean, everything can hide a camera these days. But I think also don't they sell a device that you can use? It has like a red, like an infrared light or something on it and you can shine it around the room and the camera lens will reflect and you can spot it when you look through the device. Interesting.

Eric Brown: 50:40

Is there anything?

Mandi Rae: 50:40

you do, Mr Brown.

Eric Brown: 50:42

No, I guess the only thing I do in hotels when I'm in other countries is just be cognizant of the peephole in the door and put something over it if it doesn't have a built-in cover to it. I had a buddy of mine who was traveling to India years ago and he heard a noise in the hallway outside of his room. Long story short, it turned out somebody was out there using one of those door scopes it's kind of like a way to reverse look through a peephole on his room and um, ever since then I was like, well, it's probably just better, because usually the way hotel rooms are set up, like you know, you can look in that peephole and see the whole room. Um, but uh, just putting something over that peephole is just adds a little bit of uh security, and I usually uh put the blinds down too if they have those blinds that you know, one's like a sheer blind and then one's a blackout. I'll just put the sheer one down during the day isn't it crazy?

Mandi Rae: 51:51

This could probably be its own broadcast, but there's so much reality television and so much content available online, people are still spying on people in hotel rooms and Airbnbs. It's so perplexing to me, because there's so much available that people want you to see. Why are we seeking out other opportunities?

Eric Brown: 52:18

It could be just the danger factor of it, I don't know.

Mathew Wold: 52:24

The taboo-ness of being a voyeur. Yeah, yep, voyeur, that's the word I was looking for well stated yeah I'm sure that if you google airbnb like spy camera, I'm sure you probably just find a ton of articles where people have found, you know, some sort of spy device in airbnbs and that'll be your next episode of the Audit.

Mathew Wold: 52:53

Sometimes hotels may have, like the lending chargers or you know, cables and stuff. So if you forget your stuff you can just go down to the front desk and, you know, borrow something you know, and it may even be something as innocuous as like a USB cable, but but you know they sell USB cables that have all of that hardware built right into the cable. So I mean you can't even trust a cable these days.

Eric Brown: 53:19

That's a good point too, to pack extra cables and chargers to be able to get on a variety of power types.

Mathew Wold: 53:27

Yeah, I think, if, if, if it's not yours, if you didn't bring it or you didn't buy it at an electronic store or something, don't even connect to it, and then they have. You've probably seen this too. It's like the OMG cables and they have one that's. Or like the USB killer USB stick and the cable now that can kill USB. You know so, you plug it in and all of a sudden you know it just destroys whatever device you plugged in. You know just to be malicious.

Eric Brown: 54:04

Oh, sends an electric current to it Right.

Mathew Wold: 54:08

Yep. So yeah, so much stuff out there that you have to avoid. You know, and I think you know just kind of. On this last topic here of of guarding devices, we talked a lot about, you know, locking up devices when you, when you leave them behind, and removing the sim cards and stuff. But I think it's important to just power down devices when they're not in use. I did, I read even where they were saying that if you're going to go through devices when they're not in use, I read even where they were saying that if you're going to go through like security, if you're in another country and you're going through checkpoints or any sort of you know security location, that you should power those devices off. So that way, you know, it's much more difficult to try to power them on and copy data from them or, you know, to get into those devices. Sure, maybe you know, maybe just some extra food for thought there. Does, uh, does anybody connect their phones to rental cars when you're, when you're out, when you're on vacation? I believe I have before through.

Eric Brown: 55:06

Bluetooth. I believe I have before through.

Mathew Wold: 55:09

Bluetooth Did you? When you were done, did you go through and like unpair it?

Eric Brown: 55:18

Yeah, I'd like to say I have 100% of the time, but I can't say that because I'm not sure I don't share my contacts or anything through Bluetooth like you can in some cars. But that is a good reminder to do that.

Mandi Rae: 55:36

That is an interesting feature in a rental car and it's surprising they wouldn't disable it, because it's really easy to make the mistake to allow it to download your contacts.

Eric Brown: 55:47

Yeah, well, even your destinations too, right, like, like you know, when some sometimes you can get a loaner car if your car is being worked on for an extended period of time or you know a rental car as well and you go in and you look and you can see the history of where the people before you that have had the car have traveled to, which is interesting, especially if you're doing like a turo, if you guys have ever done that where you know you're, you're using somebody else's car and and paying them for it. It's kind of like um, airbnb for cars yeah, I haven't ever done that, but I heard about it.

Mathew Wold: 56:30

Yeah, I haven't either, so maybe now we talk about returning home Sounds great, okay. So I think following good cyber hygiene while you're out is a really great idea. When you come home, there's a bunch of things that you need to do as well, and I think a lot of this is you know, kind of goes back to what you do before you leave, but maybe just more of like a cleanup stance, you know, or cleanup idea, you know, when you get back, you know. So you know it's important to again update antivirus software. You know. So you know it's important to again update antivirus software.

Mathew Wold: 57:31

You know, run any sort of scans just to make sure that you know, when you're, if you connected to that Wi-Fi. You know if you left that that device alone in a hotel room for a while. You know that. You know. You run that A-B scan, make sure that, sure that the machine is clean. You know, I don't know, eric, when you go on vacation, when you come back, do you ever just wipe the machine? Do you have a machine that's specifically designed, you know, just for travel and then that's all it's used for? Or how do you do that? Like? What kind of steps do you take?

Eric Brown: 57:50

I have not done that, but maybe my profile might be a little different, because I use a cloud-hosted PC when I can, when I'm away. So that kind of maybe mitigates the need for that, because I'll just connect to that cloud device and do my work there and keep anything off of my local machine.

Mathew Wold: 58:17

Yeah, I hadn't thought about that, but that's an interesting idea. Do you use just something like a Paperspace instance or something along those?

Eric Brown: 58:27

lines yeah, I've used Paperspace and do use Paperspace. I've got just a regular computer there, but also like a cracking computer there. And then for work I've got a Windows 11 machine up in Microsoft's cloud so they call it a cloud PC which works pretty well. But then for other customers where they provide computing equipment for me to use while I'm working with them, I'll typically either take that with me, if it aligns with their policy, or if I don't plan on doing any work with them, I'll leave that computer behind.

Mathew Wold: 59:21

Sure, yeah, I think that's a really good point and I think if you're just an everyday user, if you have the means to do some sort of cloud computer while you're gone, that's probably the best thing to do. I think that's a great idea. Then you can either just spin it down at the end of your vacation or you could just reset it.

Mandi Rae: 59:48

If it has that ability to do some sort of point in time reset, yeah, Well, when I go to level four countries, I bring a burner phone and I keep all my electronic devices at home.

Mathew Wold: 1:00:05

Yeah, I mean that's a good plan. Maybe have a burner laptop too.

Mandi Rae: 1:00:14

It would be awesome to be that cool.

Mathew Wold: 1:00:16

Yeah, I know, when I took my last trip I just set up my laptop and then I just took an image of it and then went on vacation, did my thing, and then when I came home I just reloaded the image and just try to mitigate any sort of issues that way, just in case something had happened.

Mandi Rae: 1:00:39

That's really smart and good precautions.

Eric Brown: 1:00:43

Yeah, do you VPN back into your home lab at all?

Mathew Wold: 1:00:56

your home lab at all. I do, yeah, yep, yep, I've, I've done that too. Um and uh, you know it's really nice because then you know all of my network traffic is going through. You know that secured connection, um, I have access to. You know all of my. You know Proxmox VMs and you know I can use one of those machines. I have home automation too. So you know I can, I can control some of that stuff as well. So, yeah, nice.

Mathew Wold: 1:01:21

So I think you know, once you return home, you know another big thing is shredding boarding passes. You know, I guess I I shouldn't be shocked, but you know there's, there's, there's barcodes on all of that stuff, and while I've never scanned one, I guess there's a wealth of information in that barcode and so you wouldn't necessarily maybe want somebody getting a hold of that and getting your personally identifiable information from that boarding pass or those luggage tags, or boarding pass for that matter. So just getting rid of those if you can. And then I think, once you return home, it's a great opportunity to then share any sort of social media stuff letting people know how your vacation was, where you went, sharing any photos, talking about all the fun you had, sharing any photos, you know talking about all the fun you had. And then you know, just keeping an eye on, you know those devices, if you, you know if you weren't able to reset you know a phone or a tablet or something, just making sure that you know if it, if weird things start happening, you know windows opening and closing on their own or the battery draining super fast. You know that might be an indicator that the device is compromised.

Mathew Wold: 1:02:37

Keeping an eye on any sort of you know financial accounts that you use. So if you, you know, did use a credit card or even a debit card while you're out, you know, just, I guess I would say, monitor that a lot more closely. You know, just to make sure that everything looks normal. And then just keeping an eye on your email too, Just, uh, so that way, if, if you get any sort of um, like hotel bills or any receipts or um, you know, like invoice stuff from from when you were on vacation, you know saying that there's still an outstanding balance, that you contact anybody before just paying it, because that could definitely be a scam still.

Eric Brown: 1:03:20

And there's examples of I guess you could call them legitimate scams in the country as well, and I'll give an example of that when I went to Iceland. Renting a car if you're going to go anywhere other than Reykjavik is pretty necessary to do to get around the country, and rental cars are really expensive in Iceland, for whatever reason Two to three times what they would be in the US. But you can find some deals where they're cheaper and they're off airports. But these companies are unscrupulous in how they either charge for insurance or they scam you on damage that's on the car when you return the car. So if you do go to a country like this Costa Rica is another one where they can get a little funny with the car rentals and it's another one of those things where, if you go off airport and rent at a cheaper place, you just want to make sure you take really good pictures.

Eric Brown: 1:04:39

If, if it's rained out and the car is wet, ask for a towel, wipe it off and take really detailed pictures of um of the car, the paint from all sides, hood, back top because they will try to say, oh well, there's a scratch on the car. But another thing you could do is you know, again use that virtual credit card and then if they try any of that post-return fee gouging, you can just cancel that virtual card. But it's something to be cautious of and and I doesn't happen in in all countries but read the reviews beforehand before you travel a lot of people will talk about it, complain about it, share their experiences and it's probably better just to rent from a reputable place and pay a little bit more than go through the rigmarole when you're returning the car and in a hurry to get back to the airport, to the airport. They're very well versed at these scams and they know that you're under time pressure, especially if it's an off-site rental facility and you know it's well-practiced social engineering.

Mathew Wold: 1:06:03

Yeah, do you ever take a picture of like the odometer, like the dash, the dash stuff as well?

Eric Brown: 1:06:10

Okay, the dash, even if I'm renting something locally like from a Home Depot using their vehicle to. You know it's like 20 bucks or 30 bucks for 90 minutes. You know you just need to haul some stuff around. I take a picture of exactly where the gas is, the odometer. I take pictures of the outside of it. You know it only takes, you know, a minute to do all those pictures and that way you've got proof. You know, when you return it, that nothing happened.

Mathew Wold: 1:06:42

Yeah that's another. That's a good tip. So we've talked a lot about things to do once you return home, and I think that ties in really well with a lot of the things that you should do before you go traveling and while you're traveling, and I think one of the biggest things is just maybe doing a little bit of research. Um, with your vacation, you know, before you leave, um, you know we talked a lot about um, you know, doing some research, uh, on who to who to book travel through, like when you're going to stay someplace. Um, you know, making sure that you know your, your, your stay is, you know a legitimate stay, that if you're doing Airbnb, that it's you know a legitimate place. You know if you're going to use a car rental company, to do some research there as well.

Mathew Wold: 1:07:40

So I think that's one of the big things just doing a little work ahead of time to make sure that everything is legitimate. And then doing work to make sure that all of your devices are backed up, you're ready to travel with them, you know where you're going and what you can and leaving behind and maybe who has access to those and what you're sharing online. So just being really careful there as well, and then once you get home, just making sure that you have all of your electronics with you. So make sure you have that before you leave, make sure that you have it when you get back. You know, just kind of doing a little cleanup work after that and then you know you can have the fun part of sharing all that information on social media if that's your thing.

Eric Brown: 1:08:40

Thanks, matt. We've talked about a lot today and really appreciate your time. Before we wrap up what's your favorite place to travel to? We wrap up what's your favorite place to travel to?

Mathew Wold: 1:08:50

You know I've been to San Diego so many times. It really is one of my favorite places. The weather just always seems to be so nice, so currently that's my, that's my go-to destination.

Eric Brown: 1:09:03

Nice, cool, yeah, lots of lots of fun stuff to do in San Diego?

Mandi Rae: 1:09:11

Good breweries there too. How about you, mandy? I always like to say my favorite place is probably one I've never been, but, like we've been talking about, with travel restrictions, I've definitely have a new fondness for being able to just jump on a flight and go to Vegas, whether it be for DEF CON or for the weekend, and so that is a place I often frequent.

Eric Brown: 1:09:33

Oh, very cool.

Mandi Rae: 1:09:34

How about you?

Eric Brown: 1:09:35

I would say my current favorite place is. I really did like Iceland, I have to say Really cool country, lots to see and do, a lot of outdoor activities, great food and fun people. Really just a great trip overall.

Mandi Rae: 1:09:57

I've always had it on my bucket list to check out peak northern light season in Iceland. Was that something you got to see?

Eric Brown: 1:10:06

It wasn't. I was there a little bit before they were really active. I guess they're active all the time, but before they were really active I didn't quite make that season and it was cloudy a lot of the time that I was there, but overall a really great trip, really great trip.

Mandi Rae: 1:10:27

That'll be an excuse to get to go out again.

Eric Brown: 1:10:31

That's the more I sit with it.

Mandi Rae: 1:10:38

My favorite travel destination has to be Colorado.

Eric Brown: 1:10:39

Lived there for a little while, and so it's really nice to get to go back out. Colorado's a great place, and I'm going to amend mine, mandy, just to say anywhere where there's a direct flight is a place that I'd like to go. I do not like airport transfers.

Mandi Rae: 1:10:55

I agree. I used to travel in a previous role and I was home a week, gone a week, and so I loathe the airports.

Eric Brown: 1:11:05

Well, we had a lot of fun today, and Mandy too. Thank you for your time as well. Always fun to chat, um and again, matt, thanks again. I'm sure we'll have you on again soon, but um, yeah, that was uh. Travel safe with Matt Wold and the folks at IT Audit Labs. Thanks again, thanks for having me.

Mandi Rae: 1:11:32

Hi, okay, matt Wold, would you mind if we put the presentation on our website so people could view it? It's okay to say no.

Mathew Wold: 1:11:45

Sure, it doesn't bother me.

Mandi Rae: 1:11:47

That would be the only other thing I could use, so I won't rebrand it or change it at all, but Casey has been working on the platform to tie together episodes and related content or things we recommend, so this would be really complimentary Sure.

Mathew Wold: 1:12:01

I can email it over to you and it's a really good prezo, thanks Great.

Eric Brown: 1:12:05

Did you guys have fun with it?

Mandi Rae: 1:12:08

I enjoyed this topic and that's why I was like, Ooh, I'll come to this one.

Eric Brown: 1:12:11

It's Mr Wold Right, and now Matt gets to travel for real, so that's cool.

Mathew Wold: 1:12:18

Yep, yeah, you know, I called my. I usually call my mom on the weekends, while my mom and dad and you know we were talking about traveling and stuff and they were good enough to join the the library one. It was the only one that they've been to and so, uh, my mom was kind of grilling me on on if I was taking some of my own advice. So how?

Mandi Rae: 1:12:39

sweet when you sent me the library link. Um, my parents were going on a cruise in a couple days, so I sent it to them too and I was like watch this. It's for old people at Ramsey County Library like you guys are in that group yeah, that's awesome.

Mathew Wold: 1:12:54

I think it's just a topic that you know, we don't, we don't think of very much, and so you know I had a lot of fun doing the research on it and, um, I feel like there's probably so much more that could have gone into it. Um, but yeah, I just hope. I hope people can can get something out of it.

Mandi Rae: 1:13:11

You weren't wrong about Googling Airbnbs with hidden cameras, Like there was a lot of juicy content there, but by the time I got it pulled up we had transitioned and I didn't want to belittle the point, but that's an entertaining thing to do if y'all are ever bored.

Eric Brown: 1:13:26

Yeah, oh, wow, okay, like people's horror stories.

Mandi Rae: 1:13:31

Yep, oh, wow, okay, like people's horror stories. Yep, there's stories. And then there's also, you can tell, annually around, like the May June timeframe, different entities are articulating how to look for cameras or how to court because of the cameras that were placed strategically throughout the property that they felt compromised. They're nasty. Yeah.

Eric Brown: 1:13:59

That's got to get better cameras, that's what happens when you buy the cheap shit.

Mandi Rae: 1:14:05

I I don't go to tanning salons often but I bring them up because I that was one of my first jobs. I worked in one and a competitor to our franchise got busted in a huge sting about the same thing. Because you know, at tanning salons if you ever go to like get ready for a mexico trip or something, a lot of people you know pre, pre be in the sun because they want to you know, get that tan yeah, pre-game, pre-game, um, anyhow, but they're pretty much like.

Mandi Rae: 1:14:34

some of them don't even have drywall, you know, they don't have ceilings, and so this guy was literally there's just holes with cameras in them, watching people prepare to get in the tanning bed and watching people while in the tanning bed, and that really boosted our business when all his salons got shut down. Well, we'll protect your, protect yourself from weirdos. Yup, that's the name of the game.

Mathew Wold: 1:15:01

Thank you, I will.

Eric Brown: 1:15:05

Bye guys, have a good weekend.

Mandi Rae: 1:15:07

You too.

Eric Brown: 1:15:08

Later Bye MoneyRedecom.