WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.280 JACK: Whenever I join a social media site or start an online video game, it always goes like this; 00:00:06.280 --> 00:00:13.360 I load up the web page, click sign-up, and then it asks me a question. What username do 00:00:13.360 --> 00:00:19.960 you want to be known as? [MUSIC] It never goes as planned. Maybe my first choice is Batman, 00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:25.120 so I try to make that my username, but the site says that username already exists. How about 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:33.240 Batman1989? No, definitely not Batman1989. So, I might try Admin. Nope, that’s not available, 00:00:33.240 --> 00:00:39.640 either. Then I might try Jack; nope. PapaShell; nope. C-3POwned; nope. KarateSkid; 00:00:39.640 --> 00:00:45.440 nope. Before I know it, I’m left with some goofy name like PumpkinSpiceSnorter, because it feels 00:00:45.440 --> 00:00:51.920 like that’s all that’s left. It’s really hard to find a good username that’s not already taken, 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:57.320 especially on places like Twitter and Instagram where there are hundreds of millions of people 00:00:57.320 --> 00:01:03.800 already registered there that have good names already. But what if there was a way to just 00:01:03.800 --> 00:01:14.577 steal an account name that you really wanted? Surely that would make it a lot easier, right? 00:01:14.577 --> 00:01:16.920 (INTRO): [INTRO MUSIC] These are true stories from the dark side of 00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:34.840 the internet. I’m Jack Rhysider. This is Darknet Diaries. [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] 00:01:34.840 --> 00:02:20.240 JACK: This episode is the story about the dark stuff that happened to Miles. 00:02:20.240 --> 00:02:23.160 We’ve changed his name because he wants to be anonymous about this. 00:02:23.160 --> 00:02:26.960 MILES: I’ve been around for a while. I’ve been designing 00:02:26.960 --> 00:02:32.880 sites and products on the internet for about the last sixteen years. 00:02:32.880 --> 00:02:36.680 JACK: Back in 2005, Miles was fascinated with technology and 00:02:36.680 --> 00:02:41.120 the web, and naturally was an early adopter to new sites like Twitter. 00:02:41.120 --> 00:02:44.520 MILES: As a part of that scene, you hear about things like what 00:02:44.520 --> 00:02:48.306 is this Twitter thing and why does this product look so horrible? 00:02:48.306 --> 00:02:52.520 JACK: [MUSIC] He joined Twitter in 2008 and yeah, it was pretty different then; same idea, 00:02:52.520 --> 00:02:59.000 just more clunky at how it looked and was used. But the thing is, Twitter only came out in 2007, 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:04.960 so in 2008, there weren’t a crazy amount of users there yet, which meant Miles could pick a really 00:03:04.960 --> 00:03:10.920 simple username if he wanted. So, when I joined Twitter, I first tried to register as Jack because 00:03:10.920 --> 00:03:16.760 that’s my name, but Jack was already taken by the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey. Miles considered 00:03:16.760 --> 00:03:21.760 his first name as his username, but that was taken, so he tried to think of another username 00:03:21.760 --> 00:03:27.280 to pick. At the time, he was doing some web design and had a certain animal in a lot of his designs. 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:32.640 I don’t want to say what animal but you can think like turtle or shark or owl or elephant, something 00:03:32.640 --> 00:03:38.620 like that. Miles was able to register for an account that had a simple animal name like that. 00:03:38.620 --> 00:03:44.186 MILES: So, I was able to get a pretty cool handle and got known for that on Twitter. 00:03:44.186 --> 00:03:47.840 JACK: [MUSIC] It is cool having a short and sweet name for your Twitter account, 00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:54.600 a common, single word, an animal that he really liked. Then a couple years later when Instagram 00:03:54.600 --> 00:03:59.920 came out, Miles was again an early adopter, getting on there before it became popular, 00:03:59.920 --> 00:04:04.840 and again he was able to register the same simple animal name on Instagram. 00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:10.160 MILES: Before you knew it, I had this name on Twitter and Instagram, 00:04:10.160 --> 00:04:13.840 and then I had it on Dribble and LinkedIn and Facebook. 00:04:13.840 --> 00:04:18.880 JACK: At this point, he fully integrated this animal into his personal brand. 00:04:18.880 --> 00:04:22.320 He wasn’t any kind of celebrity or influencer with millions of followers, 00:04:22.320 --> 00:04:27.720 but he did get over 10,000 followers on Twitter and 9,000 followers on Instagram. So, 00:04:27.720 --> 00:04:33.000 he was invested in the handle and keeping it tied to his online identity. Since it was short 00:04:33.000 --> 00:04:37.820 and sweet, [00:05:00] other people thought it was cool, too. Some even wanted to buy it. 00:04:37.820 --> 00:04:46.280 MILES: I’ve been asked probably 150 times, maybe more through DMs; can I buy your handle? 00:04:46.280 --> 00:04:50.440 JACK: That’s just it; as more and more people join Twitter and Instagram, 00:04:50.440 --> 00:04:55.240 it becomes increasingly harder to find a cool handle to register. So, 00:04:55.240 --> 00:05:01.320 an animal as the handle was becoming more valuable over time. These people might have wanted it 00:05:01.320 --> 00:05:06.120 for their own brand or business, or maybe they just thought it was cool and wanted to have it. 00:05:06.120 --> 00:05:09.520 MILES: It’s a property like a domain or anything else and so, 00:05:09.520 --> 00:05:12.106 people are gonna have all kinds of reasons. 00:05:12.106 --> 00:05:16.440 JACK: [MUSIC] But Miles suspects a lot of these requests weren’t legitimate 00:05:16.440 --> 00:05:20.040 and that people were trying to scam him out of his account, 00:05:20.040 --> 00:05:23.560 act like buyers but then just take it and not give him any money. 00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:25.760 MILES: I suspect, looking back, 00:05:25.760 --> 00:05:33.420 that a lot of these conversations were for people who were fishing for information. 00:05:33.420 --> 00:05:38.600 JACK: Mostly he told people no, he wasn’t interested in selling his account. But this 00:05:38.600 --> 00:05:44.400 one time in 2016, someone sent him a private message through Instagram 00:05:44.400 --> 00:05:49.080 offering to buy his account. The way the conversation went, it seemed pretty 00:05:49.080 --> 00:05:54.360 serious. He was at least interested in talking further, and so he suggested… 00:05:54.360 --> 00:06:00.060 MILES: Well, why don’t we move this over to text? So, I gave this person my phone number. 00:06:00.060 --> 00:06:03.880 JACK: Miles thought this was a good idea in the moment at least, because it seemed like 00:06:03.880 --> 00:06:10.665 their interest was legit, but instead of the deal moving forward over text, something else happened. 00:06:10.665 --> 00:06:13.760 MILES: [MUSIC] Within a matter of a couple of days, suddenly 00:06:13.760 --> 00:06:17.100 my phone wasn’t working. I had no phone service. 00:06:17.100 --> 00:06:22.080 JACK: He was driving in his car when he first noticed. The little icon on 00:06:22.080 --> 00:06:26.680 his phone that shows the signal strength just said No Service. He couldn’t make a 00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:31.640 call. He couldn’t get data over the network. It was like his phone had been disconnected. 00:06:31.640 --> 00:06:34.920 MILES: It was really bewildering. At first, 00:06:34.920 --> 00:06:38.220 I’m not thinking I’ve gotten hacked; I think something’s wrong with my phone. 00:06:38.220 --> 00:06:42.840 JACK: So, he drove home to figure out what was going on. He didn’t have a landline anymore, 00:06:42.840 --> 00:06:46.740 so he just connected his phone to WiFi and was able to message a friend. 00:06:46.740 --> 00:06:52.120 MILES: I generally think it’s weird that we call these devices our phones because it’s one of the 00:06:52.120 --> 00:07:01.080 least-used apps on this device, and yet when it disappears, it was really unsettling to not quite 00:07:01.080 --> 00:07:07.200 have the flexibility I needed to get ahold of the people that I needed. So, that was interesting. 00:07:07.200 --> 00:07:12.840 JACK: Yeah, suddenly having a phone that’s only able to work on WiFi is weird. You’re 00:07:12.840 --> 00:07:17.960 no longer able to get data or make calls when away from home, or if there was an emergency 00:07:17.960 --> 00:07:22.080 when he was out, he wouldn’t be able to call for help, either. He needed to get this fixed, 00:07:22.080 --> 00:07:28.305 so he called up AT&T, his provider at the time. He asked them why does my phone have no service? 00:07:28.305 --> 00:07:33.600 MILES: [MUSIC] Oh, you called earlier and you changed your SIM information. No, 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:38.360 I didn’t. That was really unnerving. 00:07:38.360 --> 00:07:45.120 JACK: At that moment he realized someone hacked his phone, but how’d they do it? Well, 00:07:45.120 --> 00:07:50.040 inside all phones is a little removable card with circuitry on it. These are called SIM cards, 00:07:50.040 --> 00:07:54.440 and this SIM card is what activates your phone on the cellular network. Without it, your phone 00:07:54.440 --> 00:07:58.960 won’t work. When you register your phone to a cell provider, you give them your SIM card information, 00:07:58.960 --> 00:08:04.280 and they’ll tie that to your phone number. When you go to switch phones or if you lose your phone, 00:08:04.280 --> 00:08:08.960 you’ve got to tell the cell provider to use this new phone with your phone number. So, 00:08:08.960 --> 00:08:13.240 the phone number gets tied to that new SIM card. Well, as you can see, 00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:18.560 this can be abused. Someone who wants your phone number can impersonate you. They can 00:08:18.560 --> 00:08:22.760 call your mobile provider and say hey, I just got this new phone; can you switch service 00:08:22.760 --> 00:08:30.920 to that? If they’re able to trick the mobile provider, they just took over your phone number. 00:08:30.920 --> 00:08:36.320 But how bad would it be if someone took your phone number? Well, really bad, 00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:41.320 actually. Our phone numbers are often used as a backup recovery method or a 00:08:41.320 --> 00:08:46.320 way to identify us. To start, what if you lose the password to your e-mail address? It’s not 00:08:46.320 --> 00:08:51.040 like they can e-mail you a recovery link or something, since you can’t read e-mails. So, 00:08:51.040 --> 00:08:55.680 often e-mail providers will store your phone number. In case you need to recover the password, 00:08:55.680 --> 00:09:00.360 they’ll just send you a text to verify your identity, because the e-mail provider assumes 00:09:00.360 --> 00:09:05.960 only you will have access to that text. Well, in this case, someone SIM-swapped Miles’ phone 00:09:05.960 --> 00:09:11.640 number over to theirs, and proceeded to do a password recovery on his Gmail account. They got 00:09:11.640 --> 00:09:17.200 the text to confirm their identity and reset the password. Once you’re in someone’s e-mail account, 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:21.800 it’s all downhill from there. You can issue password resets on pretty much any other 00:09:21.800 --> 00:09:26.280 account they have, since they’ll likely send you an e-mail to change the password. 00:09:26.280 --> 00:09:32.520 MILES: They got into Twitter, they got into Instagram, they got into Gmail. So, 00:09:32.520 --> 00:09:35.906 obviously that’s really [00:10:00] disconcerting. 00:09:35.906 --> 00:09:39.600 JACK: [MUSIC] Can you imagine how scary and frustrating this must have felt, 00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:45.500 to lose your phone number, to be locked out of your e-mail, Twitter, and Instagram? 00:09:45.500 --> 00:09:52.840 MILES: When you don’t have any idea what’s going on and you haven’t been exposed to this world, 00:09:52.840 --> 00:10:01.200 it’s really unsettling. You don’t realize how critical your data can be to your sense 00:10:01.200 --> 00:10:07.740 of wellbeing and how easily you can be manipulated when somebody uses it. 00:10:07.740 --> 00:10:13.080 JACK: They tried his bank account too, but couldn’t get in, which I guess is somewhat good 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:19.200 news. But actually, this was my first guess on why someone would SIM-swap him, to go after his money, 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:23.160 because something I’ve seen quite commonly is that criminals will go after people who they 00:10:23.160 --> 00:10:27.200 know have a lot of Bitcoin, because if you can get into someone’s Bitcoin account, you 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:33.440 can quickly transfer everything out and there’s no way to undo that. The honey attracts the bees. So, 00:10:33.440 --> 00:10:37.920 if someone is tweeting on social media about how many Bitcoin they own or something, then a social 00:10:37.920 --> 00:10:43.040 engineer could try to figure out their phone number and e-mail address and stuff like that, 00:10:43.040 --> 00:10:46.880 and then do a SIM-swap to take control of their phone number and take control 00:10:46.880 --> 00:10:51.200 of their e-mail address, and then find out if their crypto-currency is stored on an exchange, 00:10:51.200 --> 00:10:57.680 and if so, maybe do a password recovery to get into the exchange and then empty the whole wallet. 00:10:57.680 --> 00:11:03.640 But Miles here didn’t have Bitcoin, so that wasn’t the motive for whoever hacked into his phone. But 00:11:03.640 --> 00:11:08.920 Miles was lucky, because he was a web designer and socialized with other people in tech and had a 00:11:08.920 --> 00:11:15.785 few friends that worked at Twitter and Instagram. He reached out and asked if they could help him. 00:11:15.785 --> 00:11:18.880 MILES: [MUSIC] They could see the logs, they could see how this happened and so, 00:11:18.880 --> 00:11:23.440 they were able to reverse the direction of what had happened. 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:25.520 JACK: Since they knew Miles personally, 00:11:25.520 --> 00:11:29.680 they were able to turn back the clock on his accounts. They reset them to the way 00:11:29.680 --> 00:11:35.460 they were before the hack. That was Instagram and Twitter, though. Gmail was a little harder. 00:11:35.460 --> 00:11:45.020 MILES: I was able to retrieve that, but it took a lot of verification work and two or three days. 00:11:45.020 --> 00:11:51.320 JACK: Okay, crisis averted. He was able to get everything back and his phone number, 00:11:51.320 --> 00:11:54.780 but it did take him a few days to sort this all out. 00:11:54.780 --> 00:12:00.700 MILES: The big question in there would be what – in my Gmail, what did they take? 00:12:00.700 --> 00:12:05.680 JACK: Yeah, that is a major concern. Think of all the stuff that comes through your e-mail; 00:12:05.680 --> 00:12:09.320 bank statements, credit reports, receipts for things you’ve bought online, 00:12:09.320 --> 00:12:13.380 your taxes, maybe. The idea got Miles’ attention. 00:12:13.380 --> 00:12:18.800 MILES: There probably wasn’t anything hyper-private or that I was terrified they 00:12:18.800 --> 00:12:24.880 were going to have or some business secret or some bank details that I can think of, 00:12:24.880 --> 00:12:28.960 but the number of times that you just e-mail somebody a password or something 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:34.100 like that thinking oh, it’s behind Google, it’s fine, and that stuff is vulnerable. 00:12:34.100 --> 00:12:37.440 JACK: Realizing this, Miles did a couple of things to tighten up his 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:41.480 security. He started using a password manager. He switched cellphone carriers 00:12:41.480 --> 00:12:45.480 to a new number and with this new provider, he added extra security too, 00:12:45.480 --> 00:12:49.280 because this happens so much that some mobile providers are now allowing you to make a PIN 00:12:49.280 --> 00:12:54.540 code. This is a number that you must know in order to change anything on your mobile plan. 00:12:54.540 --> 00:13:00.080 MILES: I’m a designer. I’m relatively technical. You’d call me internet-savvy, 00:13:00.080 --> 00:13:03.760 but I am not a developer and I’m not well-versed 00:13:03.760 --> 00:13:07.420 in cyber-security. This whole experience has made me more so. 00:13:07.420 --> 00:13:09.840 JACK: He felt more secure with this, 00:13:09.840 --> 00:13:14.080 but was realistic at the same time. He knew that social engineering was a thing 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:18.865 and that the phone companies could still be vulnerable to someone trying to trick them. 00:13:18.865 --> 00:13:21.560 MILES: [MUSIC] Somebody could convince somebody or somebody could have somebody 00:13:21.560 --> 00:13:26.220 on the inside or something like that, so there’s some trouble there. 00:13:26.220 --> 00:13:31.480 JACK: Unfortunately for Miles, there was some trouble on the horizon. It seemed like 00:13:31.480 --> 00:13:36.240 this was happening because of that simple Instagram and Twitter username that he had, 00:13:36.240 --> 00:13:41.000 and someone else wanted that. Lots of people, actually. Stay with us, 00:13:41.000 --> 00:14:49.080 because after the break, there’s more trouble that comes his way. [00:15:00] [MUSIC] I think 00:14:49.080 --> 00:14:53.360 now might be a good time to tell you more about Miles’ home life. He has kids that 00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:59.640 are kinda older and he has an ex-wife, and he’s currently living with his girlfriend. In 2019, 00:14:59.640 --> 00:15:05.380 Miles’ nightmare happened again. He looked at his phone and saw there was suddenly no service. 00:15:05.380 --> 00:15:12.000 MILES: The individual attempted a SIM hack and I was able to intercept much more quickly ‘cause 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:18.800 I knew what was happening this time. So, I was on the phone with T-Mobile immediately. 00:15:18.800 --> 00:15:23.960 JACK: He was on this so quick that nobody was able to hack into any of his accounts. 00:15:23.960 --> 00:15:27.640 But this time it was different; this time, whoever was trying to take over 00:15:27.640 --> 00:15:33.400 his phone was persistent, and they started calling Miles over and over, 00:15:33.400 --> 00:15:38.060 but he didn’t answer. [MUSIC] So, then they started texting him ugly threats. 00:15:38.060 --> 00:15:42.240 MILES: So, they contacted me and began telling me things 00:15:42.240 --> 00:15:46.960 like if you don’t release your Instagram handle, 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:52.900 then we’ll start going after your son. What does that mean? What does going after my son mean? 00:15:52.900 --> 00:16:01.200 JACK: Whoa, whoa, whoa, release your Instagram handle or we’ll go after your son? I guess 00:16:01.200 --> 00:16:07.800 this makes it clear what the motivation of this person is. They want his Instagram handle. That 00:16:07.800 --> 00:16:15.120 was the main driver behind all this harassment and this SIM-swap, at least. But of course, 00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:20.720 no way, no way would you or I and definitely not Miles – we’re just not gonna give up our 00:16:20.720 --> 00:16:27.160 Instagram handle because someone’s threatening us over texts, right? But shoot, this person 00:16:27.160 --> 00:16:33.600 was showing Miles that they know his son’s mobile number and was threatening to mess with it next. 00:16:33.600 --> 00:16:43.080 MILES: I was getting pretty upset and wigged out and trying not to relate back to them with threats 00:16:43.080 --> 00:16:50.400 or excitement. But they kept pushing and kept telling me that they were going to go after my son 00:16:50.400 --> 00:16:57.280 and they were going to make it really bad for me. I consider myself a fairly strong-willed person, 00:16:57.280 --> 00:17:04.040 but this was terrifying. As soon as somebody started bringing in family and my children, 00:17:04.040 --> 00:17:09.000 it was just a really terrifying feeling to have somebody attacking you in that kind of way. 00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:16.360 JACK: It was a mean, harsh tactic, but Miles didn’t cave to these demands. Of course not; 00:17:16.360 --> 00:17:21.465 he understands tech and security enough to know how to secure the phones in his whole family. 00:17:21.465 --> 00:17:27.240 MILES: [MUSIC] But I kept pushing back and worked with T-Mobile to lock it down. 00:17:27.240 --> 00:17:31.560 JACK: Miles was not only able to recover from this SIM-swap attempt, but made sure 00:17:31.560 --> 00:17:36.980 every phone in his account had a PIN code and no changes to his service could be done without it. 00:17:36.980 --> 00:17:43.160 MILES: I shut that down, locked everything up, and just kinda tried to recover. 00:17:43.160 --> 00:17:48.760 JACK: Although his accounts didn’t get compromised this time, the scary threats 00:17:48.760 --> 00:17:55.120 drained Miles. He also wondered, how did they get to him this time? Because he switched phone 00:17:55.120 --> 00:17:58.960 providers and got a new phone number, and he didn’t give this phone number out to anyone 00:17:58.960 --> 00:18:04.960 who was interested in buying this handle. So, this attack just came out of nowhere. He figured that 00:18:04.960 --> 00:18:09.560 info like his new phone number was probably out there on the internet. A hacker just had 00:18:09.560 --> 00:18:14.520 to spend a little time figuring out what his real name is and then digging this stuff up, 00:18:14.520 --> 00:18:20.480 because keeping your personal information off the internet is really hard. Your stuff is scattered 00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:26.040 all over the place; addresses, employment history, your family relationships, and phone numbers. 00:18:26.040 --> 00:18:29.280 MILES: Once you have one piece of information, then you get your second, 00:18:29.280 --> 00:18:32.600 and then as soon as you have your second, it becomes orders of magnitude, 00:18:32.600 --> 00:18:36.700 easier to continue developing a profile and adding information. 00:18:36.700 --> 00:18:42.000 JACK: Miles thinks that’s what happened to him; the hacker spent some time putting together a 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:48.305 target profile, then they were able to launch an informed social-engineering attack on him. 00:18:48.305 --> 00:18:53.120 MILES: [MUSIC] They were able to get ahold of T-Mobile and manipulate their 00:18:53.120 --> 00:18:58.000 way in through either doing it in person or doing it over the phone, 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:02.160 and convince somebody to change out the SIM for them. 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:07.400 JACK: It seems like this shouldn’t be possible, especially since Miles had all the extra security 00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:13.520 in his account, but it still happened. The hacker might have come up with some crazy story like I’m 00:19:13.520 --> 00:19:18.400 on vacation and lost my phone, and since I’m away from home, I don’t have that PIN code that 00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:23.840 I was supposed to have. Eventually, the phone rep just gave in and was probably being nice, maybe 00:19:23.840 --> 00:19:29.200 empathetic, and just said okay, we’ll switch your phone. [00:20:00] Because he didn’t like getting 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:34.900 hacked, one thing Miles looked into was removing all his personal information off the internet. 00:19:34.900 --> 00:19:40.200 MILES: What I now know is the amount of work that would be necessary for me to 00:19:40.200 --> 00:19:48.600 expunge the internet of my personal details is an enormous chore and honestly probably 00:19:48.600 --> 00:19:52.880 something that a normal individual like me would have a hard time doing. 00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:57.440 JACK: He’s a guy who works in tech. He’d have to lock down his social media accounts, 00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:02.800 scrub through all the public records and websites, and purge his info from internet archives like the 00:20:02.800 --> 00:20:08.640 Wayback Machine and archive.org. Even though it was a tedious endeavour, he still gave it a try. 00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:14.240 MILES: I had had some help removing some identifying information from 00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:20.080 cyber-security expert, sort of a friend of a friend, and had done some work there 00:20:20.080 --> 00:20:25.180 to remove some of that kind of available information, but it’s a drop in the bucket. 00:20:25.180 --> 00:20:30.160 JACK: Still, he felt better about his security after the second hack. [MUSIC] He had extra 00:20:30.160 --> 00:20:34.320 protections put in place on his phone account and got some of his info cleaned up from the 00:20:34.320 --> 00:20:39.800 web. He was using two-factor authentication on all his social media accounts. For a while, 00:20:39.800 --> 00:20:44.280 all was good and quiet. The security measures that he put in place were 00:20:44.280 --> 00:20:51.880 holding. No suspicious activity for a while, but then in early 2021, 00:20:51.880 --> 00:20:57.240 something happened that he didn’t prepare for. It happened on a Friday night. 00:20:57.240 --> 00:21:02.520 MILES: My girlfriend and I are sitting on the couch. It’s like, 10:30 at night, 00:21:02.520 --> 00:21:08.000 getting close to being ready to head to bed. We get a knock on the door, 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:14.160 and we’ve got a couple of pizzas showing up. [MUSIC] We didn’t order pizza. 00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:21.520 JACK: But the delivery guy is like, is this your name? Yes. Is this your address? Yes. 00:21:21.520 --> 00:21:27.400 Is this your phone number? Yes, but that’s an old phone number that he stopped using 00:21:27.400 --> 00:21:34.680 after his phone got SIM-swapped a few years ago. Suddenly, this pizza was super creepy. 00:21:34.680 --> 00:21:36.360 MILES: I immediately thought okay, 00:21:36.360 --> 00:21:41.340 this is a hack. This is happening again and this is some new schema. 00:21:41.340 --> 00:21:43.660 JACK: Miles tells the guy there’s been a mix-up. 00:21:43.660 --> 00:21:47.320 MILES: You’re gonna have to tell your manager we didn’t order any pizza. The 00:21:47.320 --> 00:21:52.160 guy was totally bewildered and went away. Within about thirty minutes, 00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:58.040 we had another order, different company; same thing. Within another thirty minutes, 00:21:58.040 --> 00:22:02.720 by about 11:30, we were already asleep in bed; same thing. 00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:07.880 JACK: What the heck is going on here? Three pizzas in one night that he did 00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:13.120 not order? Was this some kind of screw-up? Like, was someone accidentally putting his 00:22:13.120 --> 00:22:16.800 name and address down instead of their own when they were trying to order pizza? 00:22:16.800 --> 00:22:20.920 MILES: I thought yeah, maybe that happened, but then three in a row? Like, 00:22:20.920 --> 00:22:27.586 who’s gonna order three orders of pizza and make the same mistake over and over? 00:22:27.586 --> 00:22:32.600 JACK: [MUSIC] Miles was convinced that this was an attack on him of some kind, 00:22:32.600 --> 00:22:38.360 and was remembering all these old SIM-swaps that had happened in the past. But who was 00:22:38.360 --> 00:22:45.920 doing it and why? No one had reached out to him to demand anything. The last time 00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:52.520 he had a threat about his Instagram handle was in 2019, a year and a half earlier. So, 00:22:52.520 --> 00:22:56.980 the next day, he got in touch with the pizza companies to try to figure out what happened. 00:22:56.980 --> 00:23:02.680 MILES: We reached out to the management the next day, and all that they said is that it was 00:23:02.680 --> 00:23:08.460 an internet order that was placed using this phone number and this address and your name. 00:23:08.460 --> 00:23:12.000 JACK: Hm, not much to go on there. It just looked like these orders were 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:16.320 coming from Miles and this chat with the pizza companies didn’t help much, 00:23:16.320 --> 00:23:20.600 because more pizzas started showing up later that day. 00:23:20.600 --> 00:23:24.180 MILES: We received three or four more orders. 00:23:24.180 --> 00:23:28.640 JACK: Which they just had to turn all those pizza deliveries away. You should understand 00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:33.160 that none of these orders were pre-paid; every one of them was supposed to be paid when the pizza was 00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:38.760 delivered to the house, so all these pizza places were really annoyed as well for making a pizza, 00:23:38.760 --> 00:23:43.400 driving it out, and then not getting paid for it. Things kept getting worse. 00:23:43.400 --> 00:23:50.240 MILES: My girlfriend started getting phone calls from pizza companies saying hey, we have 00:23:50.240 --> 00:24:00.120 a delivery for your address, and it’s for 11:45 at night. Are you sure that this is you? We’re saying 00:24:00.120 --> 00:24:05.540 good lord, no. That’s not us. We’re not trying to order pizza at the endth hour of the night. 00:24:05.540 --> 00:24:09.640 JACK: Now they had his girlfriend’s number and were harassing her? Still 00:24:09.640 --> 00:24:12.880 nobody was demanding anything from Miles. There were no suspicious 00:24:12.880 --> 00:24:16.920 DMs or texts or e-mails saying why any of this is happening. 00:24:16.920 --> 00:24:21.280 MILES: The fact that it was to my girlfriend and not me started really wigging me out, 00:24:21.280 --> 00:24:27.920 and this is when I knew my suspicions were confirmed that it was somebody trying to hack 00:24:27.920 --> 00:24:32.320 us, [00:25:00] but we hadn’t had any [MUSIC] communication from any hacker at this point. 00:24:32.320 --> 00:24:38.440 JACK: The pizzas kept coming to his house for two whole days. 00:24:38.440 --> 00:24:42.480 MILES: My girlfriend’s freaking out; this seems really weird, what’s happening, 00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:52.200 and the anxiety is going up. Then my parents text me and say hey son, 00:24:52.200 --> 00:24:57.760 sorry, we’ve got bad news; we just got a pizza delivery for you here at our house in Colorado. 00:24:57.760 --> 00:25:01.880 JACK: Which, his parents aren’t even in the same state of where Miles lives. So, 00:25:01.880 --> 00:25:03.580 did your parents pay for the pizza? 00:25:03.580 --> 00:25:10.640 MILES: No, no. They just – they sent the pizza away. Frankly, it was a strange feeling ‘cause 00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:16.640 it’s pizza and it’s cash-on-delivery, so it’s not like somebody’s paying for this pizza, right? 00:25:16.640 --> 00:25:20.440 JACK: Oh, they – can you do that still? I didn’t know that was possible. 00:25:20.440 --> 00:25:24.460 MILES: Agreed. I have no idea how this is a reality. 00:25:24.460 --> 00:25:28.720 JACK: This is a lot of wasted pizzas at this point, and I wonder if anyone 00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:32.720 ever got to eat any of those. So, they all go to bed Saturday night, 00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:38.145 not sure what’s going to happen. But then, sure enough, the next day… 00:25:38.145 --> 00:25:44.360 MILES: [MUSIC] My girlfriend gets this text from a number that we don’t recognize, 00:25:44.360 --> 00:25:50.720 and it says, ‘Tell your boyfriend to let go of his Instagram handle or the pizza doesn’t stop.’ 00:25:50.720 --> 00:25:57.120 JACK: Miles’ suspicions were confirmed. This was all about his Instagram handle, 00:25:57.120 --> 00:25:59.260 the one with the animal name. 00:25:59.260 --> 00:26:01.760 MILES: We were just freaked out. 00:26:01.760 --> 00:26:07.640 JACK: Why is someone so interested in getting control of an Instagram account with only 9,000 00:26:07.640 --> 00:26:13.400 followers? Well, this brings us to the world of [MUSIC] OG accounts. OG stands 00:26:13.400 --> 00:26:17.960 for Original Gangster, but it really just means that these account handles are short and sweet. 00:26:17.960 --> 00:26:22.400 Like I was saying, his Instagram account was a short animal name like owl, shark, 00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:27.080 elephant, or turtle, just a single, common word, and Instagram handles like that are 00:26:27.080 --> 00:26:32.680 in high demand. People will sometimes pay good money for accounts like that. Imagine a company 00:26:32.680 --> 00:26:37.080 or influencer with that animal in their brand; they’d probably be more than happy 00:26:37.080 --> 00:26:41.880 to have a short and sweet username like that, because it adds a little prestige, like wow, 00:26:41.880 --> 00:26:47.560 how’d you get that account? So, when there’s a demand for short usernames like this in the world, 00:26:47.560 --> 00:26:53.160 there’s a marketplace for it, and one of these marketplaces is called ogusers.com, 00:26:53.160 --> 00:26:57.280 and you can go there and see all kinds of accounts for sale with cool names. 00:26:57.280 --> 00:27:04.280 But this is not always the cleanest place. People see how certain accounts go for pretty good money, 00:27:04.280 --> 00:27:09.320 and they try to obtain these accounts to sell them. I’m looking at the site right now, 00:27:09.320 --> 00:27:13.960 and there’s an Instagram account on there for sale for like, a few thousand dollars. So, 00:27:13.960 --> 00:27:19.120 if someone can hack into a phone or an account and take it over, they can flip 00:27:19.120 --> 00:27:27.760 it on this site for pretty good money. So, now you see whoever was harassing him was probably 00:27:27.760 --> 00:27:34.000 doing it to make money off his account, and that’s all they cared about. But this case is 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:40.360 strange to me because they weren’t trying to hack his account or take it over in any way, 00:27:40.360 --> 00:27:46.800 because all his security measures held up. [MUSIC] So, whoever this was resorted to bullying him and 00:27:46.800 --> 00:27:52.820 harassing him in hopes that he would give up his account to make the harassment go away. 00:27:52.820 --> 00:27:57.320 MILES: On the outside it seems like oh, this is just pizza; what’s the big deal? 00:27:57.320 --> 00:28:03.460 But when you don’t know what this person can access – and there’s just nothing I can do. 00:28:03.460 --> 00:28:07.040 JACK: To make things more stressful, Miles had been researching this kind 00:28:07.040 --> 00:28:11.300 of harassment on the web. He was getting worried what the harasser might do next. 00:28:11.300 --> 00:28:17.200 MILES: We had uncovered that this sort of thing can lead to swatting and fire-trucking. 00:28:17.200 --> 00:28:22.240 JACK: Which means the harasser can call the cops or the fire department to your house. They might 00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:26.040 say something like oh, my neighbor’s house is on fire; please and come and help, or that you’re 00:28:26.040 --> 00:28:30.120 standing in the street waving a gun around, threatening people. Speaking of the police, 00:28:30.120 --> 00:28:34.760 Miles did file a police report with his local PD. When he got on the phone with them, he filled them 00:28:34.760 --> 00:28:39.400 in on everything and told them that in the past, his phone had been SIM-swapped a few times and now 00:28:39.400 --> 00:28:44.040 they’re harassing him to try to get his Instagram account. The police just said something like… 00:28:44.040 --> 00:28:49.460 MILES: You have this handle and it’s worth money? It was perplexing to them. 00:28:49.460 --> 00:28:53.600 JACK: Miles didn’t think the local PD could do anything to help him. They 00:28:53.600 --> 00:28:57.800 just don’t have resources to find a mysterious harasser who might be in 00:28:57.800 --> 00:29:01.420 another country. But he wanted to get the whole thing noted on the record. 00:29:01.420 --> 00:29:04.960 MILES: So, I filed a report. They said there was really nothing that they can 00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:08.660 do. They suggested filing a report with the FBI. 00:29:08.660 --> 00:29:10.400 JACK: So, he did that, too. 00:29:10.400 --> 00:29:17.520 MILES: You go through a specific cyber internet crime URL, and you fill out a 00:29:17.520 --> 00:29:22.620 really long form that I don’t think does anything and I doubt anybody has seen it. 00:29:22.620 --> 00:29:27.440 JACK: All Miles got was an auto-reply e-mail. He never heard anything back from the FBI, 00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:30.760 which [00:30:00] made him feel like he was on his own. The police couldn’t do anything and 00:29:30.760 --> 00:29:35.200 the FBI probably won’t do anything. It wasn’t like there were millions of dollars involved 00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:42.265 or there was any threat to national security. It was just harassment and bullying by pizza. 00:29:42.265 --> 00:29:45.760 MILES: [MUSIC] I’m sure there are way bigger fish to fry, 00:29:45.760 --> 00:29:52.120 but that’s where these particular genre of hackers can fly below the radar. 00:29:52.120 --> 00:29:58.080 JACK: So, what would you do in this situation? Would you give up your OG Instagram account to 00:29:58.080 --> 00:30:03.520 make the pizza stop or would you say no way, what’s mine is mine; go away. We’ve 00:30:03.520 --> 00:30:09.200 called the police and the FBI already. Miles and his girlfriend thought about this exact 00:30:09.200 --> 00:30:14.960 problem. They decided not to reply to their harasser which they’re pretty sure was a guy. 00:30:14.960 --> 00:30:21.960 MILES: On Sunday she didn’t write back, and then he says okay, I guess the pizza continues. 00:30:21.960 --> 00:30:23.640 JACK: They weren’t joking. 00:30:23.640 --> 00:30:25.180 MILES: The pizza keeps coming. 00:30:25.180 --> 00:30:29.100 JACK: Car after car kept pulling up to their house. 00:30:29.100 --> 00:30:35.800 MILES: We put a sign on our door that said we did not order pizza. 00:30:35.800 --> 00:30:43.640 Go away. Do not deliver. Here is the police case ID that we’ve filed, 00:30:43.640 --> 00:30:50.480 and reference that if you need to. Some people ignored it and rang anyway. It was a nightmare. 00:30:50.480 --> 00:30:56.520 JACK: More and more pizzas kept coming. Then, more people were getting harassed. 00:30:56.520 --> 00:31:01.520 MILES: It’s now also coming to my ex-wife and our kids. 00:31:01.520 --> 00:31:05.440 JACK: They lived in the same town but at a different address. Miles 00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:11.060 is not sure how this harasser got their information, but he did not like this. 00:31:11.060 --> 00:31:14.920 MILES: It’s one thing for adults to be involved, but as soon as my kids are involved, 00:31:14.920 --> 00:31:23.680 it amplifies things massively. One of my kids has a disorder that really amps him up, 00:31:23.680 --> 00:31:28.440 so his fear factor just went through the roof, and that was really uncomfortable. 00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:35.680 JACK: So, I ask you again listener, what would you do now? You’ve called the police. You’ve acted 00:31:35.680 --> 00:31:41.720 like this hasn’t bothered you and tried to ignore the harasser, but now your kids, ex-wife, parents, 00:31:41.720 --> 00:31:48.640 and girlfriend are being harassed, too. It’s been four solid days of pizzas coming to your house, 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:54.440 all because you have an Instagram account that doesn’t even have 10,000 followers. How much more 00:31:54.440 --> 00:32:00.480 harassment can you take? Keep in mind, this is the third time someone has targeted you specifically 00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:06.280 to get control of your Instagram account, so even if you fight this one off, there’s inevitably 00:32:06.280 --> 00:32:14.800 going to be another. Your anxiety and anger and stress grows with every ring of the doorbell. 00:32:14.800 --> 00:32:16.980 MILES: [MUSIC] I just gave up. I was done. 00:32:16.980 --> 00:32:24.720 JACK: I hate this. This is so sad and depressing that the harasser won this battle, 00:32:24.720 --> 00:32:30.640 that this worked. This shouldn’t work. Something should have saved him. I don’t know, security, 00:32:30.640 --> 00:32:35.560 police, Instagram, the phone companies, the pizza places. I hate that no one was 00:32:35.560 --> 00:32:40.800 there to help him fight this and that he lost. He lost because the harasser 00:32:40.800 --> 00:32:46.520 pushed him to his limit and there was no recourse he had. He got in touch with a 00:32:46.520 --> 00:32:51.080 friend he had at Facebook, and they helped him get in touch with the Instagram team, 00:32:51.080 --> 00:32:55.520 and he told the Instagram team everything that happened; the pizza, the threats… 00:32:55.520 --> 00:33:02.280 MILES: I told them I’m done. I don’t – having a cool Instagram handle is not worth it to me 00:33:02.280 --> 00:33:06.400 compared to the possibility of this being able to happen again and again, 00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:11.600 and the unrealistic expectation that I’m going to expunge the internet of 00:33:11.600 --> 00:33:15.140 all of my personal details for this to not be able to happen in the future. 00:33:15.140 --> 00:33:20.040 JACK: He didn’t want this person to have his Instagram account, so he was just going to get 00:33:20.040 --> 00:33:25.920 Instagram to lock his account permanently so nobody could have it. But this created 00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:32.380 a new problem; his harasser saw that his account was locked, and that made him mad. 00:33:32.380 --> 00:33:36.080 MILES: He said okay, I’m gonna take your Twitter handle now, 00:33:36.080 --> 00:33:42.026 too. I can see that you got Instagram involved. 00:33:42.026 --> 00:33:46.400 JACK: [MUSIC] Losing his Instagram account, that was something Miles had already made up 00:33:46.400 --> 00:33:52.440 his mind on, but he really wasn’t ready to lose his OG Twitter account, too. So, 00:33:52.440 --> 00:33:58.260 he got back control of his Instagram account and was preparing to give it to his harasser. 00:33:58.260 --> 00:34:03.920 MILES: I was exhausted. I was done. I’m ready to trade this in. I’m ready to just walk away. 00:34:03.920 --> 00:34:08.080 JACK: Miles figured out that if he stopped fighting, gave up his account, and got 00:34:08.080 --> 00:34:13.560 Instagram to back off, the hacker would leave his Twitter account alone. So, he worked with 00:34:13.560 --> 00:34:19.080 Instagram to move his account to a new handle, not the short and sweet one that he used to have; 00:34:19.080 --> 00:34:25.880 some long, ugly one. That way he could keep all his pictures and followers and DMs and whatever, 00:34:25.880 --> 00:34:30.320 but then he would just give a freshly-made [00:35:00] new account to his harasser. 00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:35.720 Once he got everything moved around, he gave the password over to his harasser. He wanted 00:34:35.720 --> 00:34:40.500 this to be a clean break, and he didn’t want to do anything more to upset his attacker. 00:34:40.500 --> 00:34:45.360 MILES: I mean, I didn’t care if the account got banned in a year, 00:34:45.360 --> 00:34:51.840 but I didn’t want them to ban the account now and then him say oh, you got Instagram to ban 00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:56.880 the account. I guess the pizza continues, or I guess you’re gonna get swatted. 00:34:56.880 --> 00:35:01.300 JACK: Or worse; go after his bank account, steal his money, or wreck his life in some way. 00:35:01.300 --> 00:35:05.720 MILES: I didn’t know how capable this individual was. I just didn’t 00:35:05.720 --> 00:35:11.426 want to push the limit. I wanted it to be done. 00:35:11.426 --> 00:35:16.000 JACK: [MUSIC] So, once Miles had the OG account cleared out and a new password, 00:35:16.000 --> 00:35:19.700 he reached out to the hacker and when he messaged the guy, he had a little request. 00:35:19.700 --> 00:35:23.480 MILES: I just said listen, I’ve got this password; I’m ready to give it to you, 00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:29.600 but do you mind if I dig in here with you a little bit? I want to know, why did you do this? What’s 00:35:29.600 --> 00:35:38.360 in it for you? How did you do it? He said yeah, sure, we can go over it right now. I said yeah, 00:35:38.360 --> 00:35:44.040 this is the third time your community has done this to me and I’m tired. He said, 00:35:44.040 --> 00:35:48.920 I never knew about the first two attempts. Police didn’t give a fuck because it’s basically only 00:35:48.920 --> 00:35:54.640 harassment unless they swat you. He says yeah, you’re in the magic middle where it’s 00:35:54.640 --> 00:36:01.520 too weird for cops and too small for FBI. It’s a sad reality. It’s fascinating to me; 00:36:01.520 --> 00:36:08.200 he says it’s a sad reality like he knows that this is a problem. It’s a loophole. 00:36:08.200 --> 00:36:14.800 JACK: Man, that is a sad reality, and it confirmed what Miles already suspected. The police couldn’t 00:36:14.800 --> 00:36:20.880 help and the FBI probably won’t help. This kind of harassment flies under the radar. 00:36:20.880 --> 00:36:26.400 Miles texted with his bully for like, a whole hour, and talked about all kinds of stuff like 00:36:26.400 --> 00:36:31.280 that Instagram handles are probably the highest value accounts, followed by TikTok, and that’s why 00:36:31.280 --> 00:36:35.880 this guy was so interested in Miles’ Instagram and not his Twitter, and there’s other ways to harass 00:36:35.880 --> 00:36:42.480 people like sending taxis instead of pizzas, or even prostitutes. Miles even asked what’s the 00:36:42.480 --> 00:36:48.560 best TV representation of this kind of hack? The attacker said oh, you should watch MTV’s True Life 00:36:48.560 --> 00:36:53.200 Crime series. There’s an episode called the $5 Million Hack, and it goes over what SIM-swapping 00:36:53.200 --> 00:36:59.780 is pretty clear. But maybe the most surprising of all, Miles found that this attacker works in tech. 00:36:59.780 --> 00:37:06.480 MILES: This guy works for a cyber-security company and this is a hobby for him, 00:37:06.480 --> 00:37:08.660 which is just completely bizarre. 00:37:08.660 --> 00:37:12.840 JACK: Yeah, that does seem odd. You’d think someone who worked in cyber-security might 00:37:12.840 --> 00:37:18.280 spend their nights helping people, not exploiting them. Or if they were going to exploit someone, 00:37:18.280 --> 00:37:22.360 it should be some evil corporation or something; not the little guy. 00:37:22.360 --> 00:37:28.880 MILES: He’s telling me things that are sort of what you would tell your friend, 00:37:28.880 --> 00:37:31.800 and he became really – very buddy-buddy. 00:37:31.800 --> 00:37:36.840 JACK: Because the tone was getting friendlier, Miles decided to level with the guy. 00:37:36.840 --> 00:37:43.280 MILES: I said, you realize this was extremely – this was very difficult and I was put in a very 00:37:43.280 --> 00:37:50.000 difficult, vulnerable position. He sort of laughed it off and said yeah, isn’t it funny 00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:54.940 how anxious people get? As though he wasn’t talking to somebody he had just done it to. 00:37:54.940 --> 00:37:57.760 JACK: As they wrapped up this text thread, Miles, 00:37:57.760 --> 00:38:02.820 who seems like a nice guy, maybe too nice, left things on good terms with this person and said… 00:38:02.820 --> 00:38:07.360 MILES: Okay, well, I’m gonna give you this password. Hey, and if you want to keep in touch, 00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:11.680 let me know. I’m always interested in continuing to learn more. Frankly, 00:38:11.680 --> 00:38:16.880 I am. I want to learn. I want to be more adept at this and 00:38:16.880 --> 00:38:22.026 be able to take care of myself and my kids and my family more successfully. 00:38:22.026 --> 00:38:25.360 JACK: [MUSIC] So, Miles passed everything over to his harasser. The guy’s plan was 00:38:25.360 --> 00:38:29.160 to resell it as quickly as possible. That way if the account got banned 00:38:29.160 --> 00:38:32.900 or hijacked again down the line, it would be someone else’s problem at that point. 00:38:32.900 --> 00:38:39.280 MILES: It’s weird to be on this side of it now and not have as much fear 00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:47.320 or anxiety about it. But it’s over. If it started again, I would – it would be back. 00:38:47.320 --> 00:38:51.320 JACK: I doubt Miles ever expected to hear from his harasser again, 00:38:51.320 --> 00:38:56.480 but then he got sent another text message with a crazy proposal, too. 00:38:56.480 --> 00:39:03.040 MILES: He reached out maybe a week later and said hey, it’s me again. I know you’re probably asleep, 00:39:03.040 --> 00:39:09.160 but I got a deal for you. Hope you’re doing well, though. Which is insane. Basically, 00:39:09.160 --> 00:39:14.440 I’ll sum it up for you; when you wake up – and I’ll give you your handle back. I’ll take hours 00:39:14.440 --> 00:39:21.680 of my time to gain information on every possible website I can think of off of the internet for me, 00:39:21.680 --> 00:39:27.200 if you can give me an Instagram username that’s been inactive for forever with your 00:39:27.200 --> 00:39:32.160 connections [00:40:00] at Instagram. It’s not something super insane, so I don’t think it should 00:39:32.160 --> 00:39:37.380 be a problem. It would be a personal account for me so it wouldn’t be sold or anything. 00:39:37.380 --> 00:39:39.600 JACK: Whoa, this is bizarre. 00:39:39.600 --> 00:39:46.560 MILES: Something about this banter we had had made him feel like now we’re buddies and connected, 00:39:46.560 --> 00:39:54.920 and you know, for me, I try – I’m trying to use my brain to empathize with him and imagine what 00:39:54.920 --> 00:40:01.240 it’s like being in his shoes. He seems like maybe he’s a younger guy and has a different perspective 00:40:01.240 --> 00:40:07.426 on all this stuff, but that was bizarre to me. I couldn’t believe that had happened. 00:40:07.426 --> 00:40:11.720 JACK: [MUSIC] Because, they weren’t buddies; this was a conversation between the attacker and the 00:40:11.720 --> 00:40:17.320 victim, no matter how friendly the tone was over messaging. Miles didn’t have another Instagram 00:40:17.320 --> 00:40:23.120 account to offer in order to get his account back. Miles occasionally checked up on his old 00:40:23.120 --> 00:40:28.640 Instagram account for a while. For a few weeks, the account was active and had zero followers, 00:40:28.640 --> 00:40:34.160 then suddenly went off Instagram entirely. Right now, that account just says ‘Sorry, 00:40:34.160 --> 00:40:38.560 this page isn’t available.’ So, it seems like Instagram may have detected all this 00:40:38.560 --> 00:40:45.040 and removed it somehow or banned it, which means all this drama for nothing. Now nobody seems to 00:40:45.040 --> 00:40:51.920 own this thing. I texted this harasser myself multiple times for days, but never got anything 00:40:51.920 --> 00:40:56.720 back from them. They ignored me altogether. I think they probably use some service that lets 00:40:56.720 --> 00:41:00.000 them get a new phone number whenever they want, and when they were done with Miles, 00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:06.920 they deleted their numbers and moved on. What a strange way to bully people online now, right? 00:41:06.920 --> 00:41:16.800 MILES: Completely bizarre. If you think about it from a point of view of a video game and you 00:41:16.800 --> 00:41:29.520 abstract away the humanity, right, if you think away the humanity into something like a character, 00:41:29.520 --> 00:41:38.920 and if you justify that it’s only pizza and it’s annoying because you’re not able to empathize with 00:41:38.920 --> 00:41:47.040 somebody, that they might think well, yeah, it’s just pizza now but what’s next? If you can kind of 00:41:47.040 --> 00:41:54.480 just sit there in that space and you think about it as a internet handle, not as somebody’s – like, 00:41:54.480 --> 00:42:03.560 I’ve spent years cultivating this brand. Is it worth tens of thousands of dollars? Probably not, 00:42:03.560 --> 00:42:11.240 but it’s meaningful. But to him, it was just a game. It was just a way to extract something that 00:42:11.240 --> 00:42:18.280 he could probably make a few thousand dollars in Bitcoin and move onto the next handle. 00:42:18.280 --> 00:42:22.880 JACK: I had a chance to chat with Nicole Beckwith from the last episode about this. 00:42:22.880 --> 00:42:26.440 If you’re not familiar, Nicole was in IT security and then became a cop and 00:42:26.440 --> 00:42:29.920 investigated a lot of cyber-crime while as a police officer and as a 00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:34.720 Secret Service task force officer. She gets frustrated when she hears stories like this. 00:42:34.720 --> 00:42:41.240 NICOLE: Your typical officer that goes through the police academy, there is no course for 00:42:41.240 --> 00:42:47.160 cyber-crime. They don’t even explain the basics, which has to change. It’s no longer okay to not 00:42:47.160 --> 00:42:53.840 be tech-savvy as a police officer. They really need to have courses in the police academy that 00:42:53.840 --> 00:43:01.960 explain what an IP address is and social media and how you can look at profiles and forensics 00:43:01.960 --> 00:43:08.440 and OSINT investigations on that. That was the course. It was a half-day course – I tried to 00:43:08.440 --> 00:43:14.680 make it several days but was shot down – that I put together for officers and that I still do 00:43:14.680 --> 00:43:22.120 to this day. They need to understand all of this and they don’t. It’s so frustrating for me to hear 00:43:22.120 --> 00:43:29.520 time and time and case and case again that I filed a police report; they never followed up with me. 00:43:29.520 --> 00:43:35.560 In fact, there was a local case where a female submitted that she was being 00:43:35.560 --> 00:43:41.480 stalked and harassed on social media and this person was saying like, I’m coming after you, 00:43:41.480 --> 00:43:48.480 I’m gonna get you. It sat on the shelf of the police department. She was eventually murdered by 00:43:48.480 --> 00:43:56.400 this person. If they would have just understood how to get that information – and it makes me 00:43:56.400 --> 00:44:01.800 so mad just saying this, but if they would have understood how to get that information, 00:44:01.800 --> 00:44:07.560 she would likely still be alive today. It’s unacceptable in my opinion, 00:44:07.560 --> 00:44:17.520 and as an officer and as somebody who is in this field, it’s no longer an option. It has to be a 00:44:17.520 --> 00:44:23.840 baseline for every officer in the United States to understand how to get this information and how 00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:32.540 to work those cases. [00:45:00] I’m fighting the system and trying to ensure that that happens. 00:44:32.540 --> 00:44:36.300 JACK: Do you have any recommendations for anyone listening and in this situation? 00:44:36.300 --> 00:44:42.840 NICOLE: Yeah, so, a couple things. One, if you are a police department and you are listening to this, 00:44:42.840 --> 00:44:50.200 I’m on Twitter; @NicoleBeckwith. I’m on LinkedIn; /NicoleBeckwith. Find me. I 00:44:50.200 --> 00:44:56.640 will conduct – I don’t care if it’s virtual, I don’t care if it’s in person – free of charge to 00:44:56.640 --> 00:45:03.480 your agency training on all of this. I have half-day courses, I have full-day courses, 00:45:03.480 --> 00:45:09.520 I have week-long courses. I will offer that free of charge for your entire agency. Just 00:45:09.520 --> 00:45:14.760 ask me for it. But then additionally for the victims that are being harassed, 00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:21.680 that are – constantly have to deal with this, you do have recourse and you can – if you go 00:45:21.680 --> 00:45:27.720 to your local police department and it sits and nothing is being done, take it to the next step; 00:45:27.720 --> 00:45:33.960 file a complaint with the – with IC3, the Internet Crime Complaint Center the FBI runs. 00:45:33.960 --> 00:45:39.600 You can also take it to your local FBI – you can take it to your local Secret Service. Don’t be 00:45:39.600 --> 00:45:52.137 afraid just because they’re a federal agency to call them. That’s what they’re there for. 00:45:52.137 --> 00:45:54.560 (OUTRO): [OUTRO MUSIC] Thanks so much to Miles for sharing your story. I hope you 00:45:54.560 --> 00:45:58.840 can keep your Twitter account for a long time and this never happens to you again. I’m an 00:45:58.840 --> 00:46:03.840 independent creator who loves bringing this show to you free of charge every two weeks, 00:46:03.840 --> 00:46:08.200 but what really helps me keep on that schedule are my Patreon supporters. These are the people 00:46:08.200 --> 00:46:13.360 who donate money to the show every month to help keep the WiFi on and the stores glowing. If you 00:46:13.360 --> 00:46:18.920 want to show your support for this show, please visit patreon.com/darknetdiaries and consider 00:46:18.920 --> 00:46:24.720 donating. Thank you. This show is made by me, the pumpkin spice snorter, Jack Rhysider. This episode 00:46:24.720 --> 00:46:29.440 was produced by the chair-spinning Charles Bolte, sound design by the colorful Garrett Tiedemann, 00:46:29.440 --> 00:46:33.960 editing help by the gum-chewing Damienne, and our theme music is by the paper airplane pilot 00:46:33.960 --> 00:46:39.560 Breakmaster Cylinder. Even though I have paper hands when it comes to holding cryptocurrency 00:46:39.560 --> 00:46:54.640 and diamond hands when it comes to holding paper currency, this is Darknet Diaries.