Robot wolves are now being used to scare bears away from Japanese schools, scientists have grown mini Neanderthal brains and plugged them into little robots, and snakes are quietly topping the lethality leaderboard while everyone keeps blaming sharks. This week, we bounce between wildlife deterrence, prehistoric brain tech, public health reality checks, and a cybersecurity story that proves the weakest link is still a human with a phone.
Japan’s Bear Problem, Solved With an 80s Horror Prop
We start in Japan, where bears have been wandering into places bears absolutely should not be, like schools and supermarkets. And in response, Japan has done what Japan does best. It built a robot that looks like it escaped from a low-budget monster movie and told it to guard the neighbourhood.
These “monster robot wolves” use sensors, lights, and noise to scare bears away. They have infrared detection, glowing LED eyes, and the general vibe of something you would not want to meet in a dark alley. It is funny on the surface, but the strategy is serious. If you can deter bears without harming them, you reduce risk for people and animals. It just happens to involve a robotic wolf that looks like it should come with a VHS tape.
Neanderoids, or, The Past Plugged Into a Robot
Then we head into the lab, where scientists have grown tiny Neanderthal brain organoids, nicknamed “Neanderoids”. They are small, strange-looking, and about as close as you can get to peeking into an extinct mind without doing anything that would get you chased out of the ethics committee meeting.
The part that really tips it into science fiction is the robot connection. These organoids have been linked to small crab-like robots, creating a bizarre old-meets-new setup where ancient biology is interacting with modern machinery. No, it is not a Neanderthal driving a robot around with intent and purpose. But it is a step toward understanding how Neanderthal brains developed and functioned, and it raises the kind of questions that start with “this is fascinating” and end with “should we be doing this”.
Snakes: The Deadly Animal Nobody Wants to Talk About
After that, we get a blunt reminder that the world’s most dangerous animals are not the dramatic ones. Snakes kill more people than sharks, hippos, and most of the creatures that get blamed in movies. And India, with its huge diversity of snakes and large rural populations, accounts for around half of global snakebite deaths.
This is not a fun fact. It is a public health problem. Snakebite deaths are often about access to treatment, fast response, and medical resources, not just the bite itself. The numbers are shocking, but the takeaway is practical. If you want to save lives, you do not need a bigger cage at the zoo. You need better healthcare systems where people actually get bitten.
The Hacker Who Used a Phone Like It Was 1998
Finally, we end with a cybersecurity story that is both hilarious and deeply depressing. A penetration tester managed to get network access not by cracking code, but by calling the company and convincing IT to hand over what he needed. No malware. No fancy tools. Just confidence, charm, and the ability to sound like someone important who was in a hurry.
It is a cheerful reminder that even the best security tech can be undone by basic human behaviour. You can build firewalls, run audits, and buy expensive software, but if someone can talk their way past the front desk, you are still in trouble.
So that is the week. Robot wolves versus bears, Neanderthal brain blobs plugged into robots, snakes doing the real damage, and a hacker who basically weaponised a phone call. Science is clever, messy, occasionally unsettling, and often funnier than it means to be.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Japan Bear Surge
01:20 Meet the Hosts
02:58 Robot Wolf Deterrents
06:37 Upgrades and Risks
08:27 Neanderthal Mini Brains
12:03 Brains Wired to Robot Crabs
13:31 Fascism and Underlings
15:51 Torture Battalion Data
21:46 Animal Killers Teaser
22:35 Mosquitoes Kill Indirectly
23:30 Snakes Top the List
23:40 Floods and Snake Spikes
24:13 India Snakebite Mystery
25:07 Verbal Autopsies Explained
26:51 Antivenom Access Problem
28:22 Next Deadliest Animals Rundown
28:56 Parasites and Kissing Bugs
31:07 Elephants and Hunter Karma
33:15 Bears, Sharks and Big Cats
35:06 Social Engineering Hack Story
38:40 Phone Calls Beat Security
39:05 Podcast Wrap and Callouts
SOURCES:
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/japan-robot-wolves-high-demand-075406454.html
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01533-8/abstract
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/489067/snakebite-antivenom-deaths
https://www.science.org/content/article/exclusive-neanderthal-minibrains-grown-dish
https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/05/14/to-gain-root-access-intruder-just-had-to-ask/5239853
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/18/world/americas/actually-democracy-dies-in-hr.html
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Rod: [00:00:00] Japan, 2526. Number of bear sightings nationally has reached 50,000. They're seeing bears everywhere. It's double the previous record of a, of a year or so back, so that's a lot. In April, some of the northern regions like Hokkaido, I love that island, they saw more than four times as many sightings being reported as the year before. And April's when the bears come out of your hibernation.
and there are pretty much daily reports of bears doing things like hanging out near schools, wandering into people's houses, which would be shocking,
sussing
out your local onsen and hot spring resorts, and my favorite, rampaging through supermarkets.
' cause
if you're a bear, you might as well. Since the year before, the number of bears captured and culled has nearly tripled.
14 and a half thousand, which is also an all time high. Oh, and also 13 people across Japan were killed by bears in that period, more than double the previous high. So people are a little on bear alert.
but now what we have is, I'm gonna call it the second most Japanese solution ever, 'cause the first solution would be you go hand to hand with your short sword in your sumo loincloth, take each bear out individually. But the next best actual and for [00:01:00] real solution,
robot
monster wolves
Will: It's time for a little bit of science. Yes. I'm Will Grant, an associate professor in science communication at the Australian National University.
Rod: I love the cadence. I'm Rod Lamberts, a, uh, 30-year SciComm veteran with a mind of a
a
teenage boy, which I'm prepared to bring to bear every episode.
Will: And today, as well as monster robot wolves, we also have for you, I'm gonna call this mashing up the sciences.
Rod: Ooh. I'm
I
gonna give you a bit of good news-ish about gluten.
Will: I've got some updates from my old friends in political science.
Rod: Old friends. And, uh, I've got a little fun with animals because animals are fun.
Will: And I'm gonna finish with a reminder that everything, everything, everything is human.
Rod: Sounds very speciocentric of
of you
Will: Well,
Monster [00:02:00] robot wolves. Yeah. Wow. Monster robot wolves. Wow. I'm so happy right now.
Rod: I...
Wait
till I show you photos.
Will: Okay, so bears are up.
Rod: Bears are up a lot.
Will: Do you know why?
Rod: Yes.
Will: Okay, good. '
But we won't tell the listener.
Rod: No, 'cause they have reasons.
Will: Okay, good. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. I'm
Rod: entirely sure it might have something to do with maybe your climate changes and getting warmer earlier and stuff or-
maybe
Will: Oh, I don't know ... or
Rod: because they like-
Will: Or just a, big bear season ...
Rod: they like Japanese
Will: people. Like the- there's been a, a boom in honey or something like that.
Exactly. So the bears are like, "Oh, we can have more babies 'cause there's more honey." Leave
Rod: them
Will: from the train. Yeah, exactly. Or something like that.
Rod: No, I've, I've been to Hokkaido a number of times and luckily in the winter, but the signs about bears are everywhere and I'm thinking, "I'm
glad
glad I'm
Will: not-" Ah. I, I watched the, the hikes that you can do through the mountains in Japan.
They look so, so gorgeous. You know, the summertime hikes and, and things like that, and it looks to me like, yeah, you want the bear whistle/rifle/ um, I don't know if it's a- Swatter ... honey trap. The bear swatter. The bear swatter.
Rod: No, what you're gonna want is your robot monster wolf.
Will: Okay. By the end
Rod: of this, you'll be convinced too.
2016, a [00:03:00] Hokkaido-based company called Ota Seiki,
they
started selling monster wolves mostly to farmers to protect them from
deers and
bears and stuff.
Will: Hang on, hang on. It still needs the word robot in there. You can't just sell- It is a robot,
Rod: yeah.
Will: Yeah, but you can't just say, "We're selling monster wolves."
Rod: Do you want a, uh,
uh... Oh, no,
we got a normal wolf or
for
$5 more- You
Will: can have a monster
Rod: wolf
I'll upgrade you to monster apparently they, they sell all right, but th- they didn't make millions of them, but they, they would protect the farms and keep away,
your
ravaging hordes of deer and boars. So these, these robots, they use infrared sensors to detect nearby animals, then they turn their head from side to side.
So- Their red flashing-
Will: Are they, are they moving? Are they moving or static? No. Okay.
Rod: No, uh, and as I will show you and, folks
at home, if you go and look at the show notes, the pictures are worth it.
They're definitely worth it. So yeah, it, it detects the animal, its head starts to go from side to side.
Its red flashing LED eyes go off. Apparently the tail has blue LEDs, I don't know why, and
but...
Or why they're lit up at
not
Will: red as well, or why they lit up at all. Do bears like head away from red or towards the blue or? I don't know.
Rod: Yeah,
I don't know.
But that's
Will: a [00:04:00] fact.
Rod: It's
Will: I was just wondering what color the d- the normal wolves light up and-
Rod: Oh, that's a good que- They're more, they're more beige.
Will: Yeah, okay.
Rod: Your beige strobe light. Very popular in the, the '90s. it blasts more than 50 kinds of recorded sounds, including wolf howls, human voices, electronic noises of random descriptions, and audible up to a kilometer away, at least to humans, I suppose. That's pretty emphatic.
Will: Yeah, but what about the poor villagers, like, living nearby and the howls of the monster robot wolves
Rod: Or no
Will: not-
Rod: Or the food
Will: What?
Rod: Well, no food. Oh, no, we'll become food.
Will: Yeah, sure. Okay.
sure. Okay.
out by no food. Oh, it's '
Rod: cause of the bear. I was thinking the original use for farmers.
Will: Oh, get ea- eaten by the bears. Yeah. So, so you're saying cope with the sounds, the terrible sounds of the monster robot wolves.
Rod: Rather than getting eaten by a bear.
Will: Yeah, sure. Okay. If
Rod: I had to choose one or the other, I'd-
Will: I don't know ... choose
Rod: C.
Will: No, I'd be like, I don't wanna be woken up at night by these howls.
Rod: No, just kill me and eat me.
Just not
Make it
and quick.
Will: What am I?
Rod: So initially, not surprisingly, these things were derided as a gimmick, and I will show you a photo, just one tick.
And there are good reasons for people [00:05:00] thinking it was a joke. I like the way it looks. So it looks quite bizarre. And being charitable, I'd say it looks a bit like your low budget '80s, uh, horror film special effects prop.
You
got artificial fur draped over pipe frame. It's attached to speakers, topped with a, quote, "menacing open-mouthed face," and of course it comes with batteries and solar panels.
So here you go. I'm just gonna zip through my high tech
iPhone. There's
images.
Will: Oh, that's great. No, they look lovely. Lovely. So
Rod: I don't
Will: think- Can, how, how much do they... Great, great. Wait,
Rod: wait, wait. This is even better. I mean, terrifying, right?
Will: I wonder if I could have one on my front yard for Halloween.
It looks like something- I'm gonna buy one for Halloween ... like your kids
Rod: did it. It looks like your kids did it.
Will: How mu- how much are they?
Rod: Four grand.
Will: 4,000 yen?
Rod: Nope.
Will: Oh.
Rod: Denari.
probably
US, um, and that's, they start yeah, US 4,000 starting price.
Will: I think my, my Halloween budget is increasing every year.
It's
Rod: probably about nine grand.
Will: I feel like I... Well. You're
Rod: like, "But sweetheart, it was really worth
Will: it." But you see- Think of the children ...
Rod: the blue LED on the tail. It's terrifying. So now they deploy [00:06:00] them everywhere, like near residential areas, near resorts, golf courses, construction sites, et cetera.
Everywhere
Will: I'm loving this because that means they're getting cheaper. Like the more that there is supply in the market, there's gonna be some competition, and I'm gonna get one for less than- It's
Rod: $399 drive away.
Will: But
Rod: they also say, um, at the moment people are waiting up to three months 'cause there's a backlog, 'cause-
Will: Oh
Rod: they're selling mega more than they used to or their demand is, is mo-
Will: Okay. You know that Alibaba or some Chinese knockoff ripo- Yeah ... rip- ripoff site is gonna get in there soon.
Rod: Except they'll get the LEDs reversed. So it'll be blue eyes- Well, yeah ... which is just totally useless-
Will: Patent pending ...
Rod: for track spares.
Will: If the eyes
Rod: are blue, it's quite erotic for them.
for them.
Um, so the company's now upgrading the device as well.
Here's
the upgrades.
They're
gonna put wheels on it- ... so it can chase animals or patrol specific paths. And I'll say again, for you listening at home, please look at the photo to really imagine exactly what it says and what you see in the photo, but with some wheels on it.
I'm thinking casters, like you get on the bottom of the, the worst table your parents ever had as a [00:07:00] portable. Um, they're also planning on developing a handheld version.
Will: A handheld version? Like,
Rod: like a wolf pup. I, I don't know how, 'cause this is pretty big. But this is for hikers, anglers, and of course your schoolchildren.
Will: Maybe it just makes the sounds
Rod: Maybe.
Will: Or you can put it at like a mask. You can put- A mask. Yeah ... while you're hiking. Yeah. You put on a, a wolf mask.
Rod: A werewolf mask. Arooga. My eyes are glowing. And of course, they're gonna explore artificial intelligence, cameras, et cetera.
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah. '
Rod: Cause, you know.
Will: Why not?
Makes
Rod: sense.
Will: Why not?
Rod: But
Will: ChatGPT, imagine you're a monster robot wolf- Well, and you're- ... and you have to scare off a bear. what do you do?
Rod: and
maximally scare off a bear. Well, I detonate. If I go nuclear, the bear is not coming back. But my real question about this is, you know how humans are really good at going, "We've got this real problem, so we're gonna solve it with this solution."
Will: Yeah.
Rod: And then the solution ends up becoming the problem.
Will: Oh, does it?
Rod: Well, I'm wondering
Will: if- Really? You, do you-
Rod: I know. I wonder if, if wolves will become attracted to Other wolves go, "Hmm."
Will: I want some of that.
Rod: Yeah. Like, "Oh, those glowy eyes. Ooh, that blue
tail. Mm."
So maybe, maybe there'll be more wolves, less bears
I don't know if they're actually wolves
Will: I've [00:08:00] got I've got a, a story of some lovely scientists who have drawn from a whole bunch of different sciences and say, "Let's see what happens when they come together."
Rod: No.
Will: Yeah, well, it's-
Rod: the,
But the... No, that's against the principles of all education and research.
Will: Look, we know that scientists often do.
You know, they often go, "Okay, what about a bit of geology and a bit of chemistry? What about a bit of physics and a bit of poetry?" It's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This- A
Rod: little bit of your astronomy and your food science.
Will: This one, this one, it tickles my fancy. So until now, researchers wanting to understand how our long departed friends and lovers and enemies, the Neanderthals, thought-
Rod: They're
Will: Oh, they're
Rod: here
Will: still here
well, they are, a little bit inside us, could only look at skulls. Like they could go- Oh, yeah ... "Okay, we can do maybe a little bit of, uh-" That's
Rod: That's
very
Will: small
Rod: sample.
Will: I'm, I'm ho- like I'm holding the skull in my brain. Like a scrotum. I'm, I'm, I'm holding
Rod: That was, that was
That was like a scrotum, like a weird finger
Will: movement.
Well, I'm imagining a Ne- Neanderthal skull is a bit like... No, it's a large scrotum. It's a- Why
Rod: are your fingers creeping me out?
Will: I don't know. It was inside the [00:09:00] brain's cavity, and I was like- Oh ... "What am I like?" I'm, I'm trying to imagine. So all, all that they could do so far is sort of, uh, look at the size and shape of a Neanderthal skull and go,
and go,
"All right, phrenology says this one's a criminal."
Definitely
Rod: likes weird
Will: books. This one has a bad relationship with its mother.
Rod: one
he's on, he eats onion cheese, but yeah.
yep But,
Will: but not a lot, and obviously this is a really important question- Mm ... 'cause we want to know how they think, you know, why they lost to us.
Rod: Yes.
And
Will: And
Rod: obviously the skull will not
not
tell us that.
Will: But now, the recent marriage of, um, you know, a couple of different, fields. first, we've got to collect ancient DNA from bones. Yes. And, uh, we have managed to collect some Neanderthal DNA from bones. Sure. Mash them up. But then, with CRISPR as a genome editor,
Oh ... uh,
we have, been able to then select a bunch of Neanderthal, genes.
Mm. Then we've been able to, we obviously- You, you, you, us. The, the, the People[00:10:00]
Rod: The
Will: on this show. So, uh, Alysson Muotri, uh, a geneticist from University of California San Diego has been- Yeah ... has been able to-
Yeah ... uh, grow some, what he's calling Neanderthal mini brains
Rod: Cool.
Will: And then,
Rod: Cool ... '
Will: cause,
'cause you're like, " There's a then?
There's a then?"
then.
next, his next step is They take a, a couple of months to grow. So he's, Wow ... cultured these,
Rod: these, uh,
Will: uh, mini brains or, well, organoids.
Rod: Cluster of cells?
Will: Cluster of cells that are- Or actual brain structures ... clus- cluster of ce- they're a cluster of brain cells.
Right. So we've, we've done this before for human brains.
Rod: And
them to computers and process them ...
Will: and connect it to the computers. Which is
Rod: fine.
Will: Which is fine. And so, um, Mutori has said, "Oh, actually, well, we could do ... We, now that we have Neanderthal DNA,"
and well, we have enough Neanderthal DNA, we can say this is, this is more Neanderthal than human.
Rod: Okay We've
Will: We've got a, we've got a bunch of indicators to say, you know, these parts of the genes, uh, are different to what the human genes are. Well,
Rod: Well,
if I've learned anything about this stuff from the movies, they probably used frogs.
Will: I don't think they did. I think they used [00:11:00] some human brains for
human brain DNA for this, for the rest of this. But, but anyway, there's like one DNA base pair that differs between Neanderthal gene and the modern human one. So we can say, "All right, well, we can, we can grow some little mini brains of Neanderthals," and call them plausibly, all right, this is how they're different from the human brains.
Rod: Neanderthlets.
Neanderthlets. Neander-
Will: Neander- Neanderthlets, yeah. now, uh, the meantime, as he's growing them, he's say, like, they're calling them Nean- Neanderoids, actually. Oh,
Rod: Calling
Will: Neanderoids?
Rod: them Neanderoids.
Will: Neanderoids. Um,
they can see a few differences. There's a few differences in the shape of how they're growing, but Mutori says, "We have no idea what that means."
Rod: means."
Will: Neander- the, the- Further research ... the Neanderoids have a popcorn shape, whereas the modern human cortical organoids are spherical. We have no idea what that means.
Rod: So they're bumpy.
Will: Yeah. The Neander- Neanderoid- Is
Rod: it the subunits or, or the
or the
cluster itself- Yeah ... that's coming out as like, oh.
Will: yeah.
It's-
Rod: Small or large popcorn. Mandelbrot set popcorn style in-
Will: Exactly ...
Rod: Tom Ingoe
Will: Fewer synaptic connections.
Rod: Sure, well, they're [00:12:00] dumb.
Will: that's what I was hoping.
Rod: Have you seen the jawline
Will: of these? He's... Exactly. But okay, so here's, here's the bit where I liked where they mashed up another science in here.
They're like, as you said, you know, connecting computers. The-- He's like, "No. Well, we can connect them to crab robots."
Rod: Duh.
Will: and so, and so the final phase of this research, we have previously, Muratori's team has detected oscillating electrical signals in the, modern human mini brains, and has begun wiring the organoids to the robots that resemble crabs- in the hope that they'll learn to control them. And so
Rod: Because Neanderthals famously had two large fronts for the limited six legs.
Will: And so now- High box scores ... and so, so the thing that Muratori is working towards is, he's got his collection of human mini brains and Neanderthal mini brains.
and he's gonna connect them each to robot crabs. Good.
Rod: And then open the door. See what they do. See you, kids.
Will: So ta-da
Rod: I'd...
I think the only takeaway from that is yes, [00:13:00] yes, yes, and keep doing it and, and not only crabs.
Will: There's-
Rod: You can put it in a robot
Will: wolf. There is a...
tree.
It's so legit. This one's got Neanderthal in it. I don't want it.
Rod: You
Will: You pay me Every now and again, I see a data set, that researchers have pored over and I go, " That's great."
Rod: That's that YouTube channel you're on, data sets over which researchers have pored.
Will: Uh, you know, data sets, yeah. An interesting data set can tell you very interesting things. This study looks at a particular data set that came out of Argentina
So some researchers here, two German political scientists, Adam Scharpf and Christian Glasel- Is
Rod: the answer always fascism?
Will: Uh, well, in there, yes. Yes, yes. No, the answer is not fascism, but their question was, why fascism? What's going on? Oh, really? Okay.
Rod: Okay.
Okay.
Will: So the essential line here is that, um, any totalitarian, authoritarian, fascist regime needs a whole bunch of people to sustain it, to [00:14:00] keep it going, to make it move.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: you got the guy, I think nearly always a guy, at the top.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: You got your, you know, your- Others ... your Mussolini and, your Putin, and your, all of that, driving things at the top. Then they have their friends, the next level down, that are sort of, you know, they, they're getting a good deal out of everything.
Who...
Rod: Can you name any of Mussolini's next level down people? 'Cause I just- Oh ... I cannot. Not one.
Will: Oh, well, look at, I c- I can name them. Just- You
Rod: don't wanna make me look bad.
Will: I just don't,
Rod: Thank you
Will: make you look bad. I
Rod: appreciate that.
Will: No. You
Rod: think Hitler, you go, "Sure, there's Goebbels and Goring, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
Mussolini?
Will: Yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
Rod: blah. Some Italian guy- ... and another one. I
I
have no idea.
Will: no, I can't. I can't. But, but yes, so you know, looking at them now, I mean, if we look at some of the authoritarian regimes around now-
Rod: Mm.
Will: so Vladimir Putin, he's got the o- the oligarchs, the people that are- Oh
that are really benefiting from his regime. Yeah. You know, he might dole out big political favors. You get to control the oil industry. You get to control whatever. So we understand that. Like, political scientists have understood, yeah, there's, there's a whole bunch of people that benefit [00:15:00] enormously- Yeah
from these authoritarian regimes. Yeah. But what about the people all throughout the rest of the regime that are really needed to keep things going? Mm. and, uh, this study, it came from a really interesting insight. So one of the people that, that's driving the study, he was just talking, to someone who had lived through Argentina's dark times, um, in the '70s and '80s.
Uh, it was the Dirty War, I think it wa- it's pretty, pretty commonly called that. Mm-hmm.
Rod: Mm.
Will: and someone had said to him, "Oh, all those other people, they were just idiots. Just idiots." And- What? Mm-hmm,
Rod: yep, the entire country other than those guys.
Will: Well, no. It's actually interesting. So Scharpf said, "What, what do you mean by idiots?
Like, are they, are they, like, as in they're, they're deluded, or they don't know about..." And he's like, "No, no, actually, they were the dumb ones, the really dumb ones."
Rod: Like IQ of 90.
Will: Actually, not quite IQ, but yes. So what we've got here- What? So the-- Scharpf said, "Oh, well, could we actually find this out?" And so he went and dug into Argentinian, promotion, [00:16:00] military promotion records.
So it goes back to, like- Related with
Rod: stupidity.
Will: Well, no, it goes back to the late 1800s. Yeah.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: and it means that he got all of the military officers' graduation ranks
Rod: Mm-hmm
Will: then their promotions and retirements going back 100 years, and definitely covering the period of the dirty war in the '70s and '80s.
Right. So he can find, okay, they leave the military academy- Yeah ... and you know that there's, like, the star performers, the, there's the kids that get the high distinctions and, you know, top of the class, all of that. Like you and me. Indeed. Indeed. And, and you too, listener. but then there's the other people that get, you know, the next rank down, the next rank down, the next...
And,
Yeah.
you know, so, so they know how they graduated the military academy. Okay. Then they can look at, okay, where did you go? What, what battalions did you go to? how, ...how quickly you got promoted. Yeah. In good times, in times when the state is functioning well and it's not terribly authoritarian, you expect that the ones that come out of the academy towards the top are likely to go on to have stellar careers.
They'll get promoted quickly. They'll do really well. In bad times,
Rod: Oh ... in
Will: [00:17:00] times- Mm ... that gets entirely flipped around. Oh. So the ones that come out of the academy are doing really poorly tend- That's not like
Rod: a general to me ...
Will: tend to, tend... Indeed. Indeed. Well, not quite general. Not quite general. First, they have to make their way through other methods.
Ah. And the other methods are what makes you really sad because, because this, and the article I was reading on this, you know, there was a nice New York Times article on this.
on this.
it said the book the, the German political scientist wrote, it reads like what you might get if you crossed Hannah Arendt's, Hannah Arendt's, ideas about the banality of evil with a business school guide on how to, how to get the most out of low performers.
Rod: Russian horror
Will: film. Oh, that's horrible. So basically all of the dumbest people in the, in the graduating class
Rod: dumbest people in the, in
Will: They all went into, you know, the places where they can do lots of evil. And so they, in Argentina in particular, they ended up in the Army Intelligence Battalion 601. Uh,
Rod: can we just pause for [00:18:00] the irony?
You, dumb as fuck, into intelligence. Yeah.
you go. It makes
It makes
Will: perfect sense. Well, clearly intelligence doesn't quite mean- It
Rod: doesn't what it says
Will: on the tin. And there, they are able to get ahead,
Mm-hmm ... uh,
when they
can go and do all the things that other people might not do, either because, either because the, the star performers had ethics, or the star performers had-- could critique a system, or the star performers had other pathways to going ahead in life.
Mm-hmm.
Rod: it.
Will: And so this data has shown, time and time again-
Rod: Yeah
Will: Yeah ... that the worse an officer's academic record was at the academy-
Rod: Mm
Will: more likely he was to join the torture battalion.
the torture
inside, the lowest performers were assigned to the most brutal units, carrying out the day-to-day tasks- Yeah
of torture and murder.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: work that was so morally repugnant that it carried a serious risk of both social stigma and psychological trauma. But
Rod: trauma.
But-
Will: that meant career awards, rewards for it were the most valuable. So as a stint as a monster could rehabilitate the most disastrous underperformer. [00:19:00] Was
Rod: there anything about they more or less traumatized than others?
than others?
Because-
Will: Were they mo- Well, that is-
Rod: The reason I ask is, let, let's say they were. Let's say they were, on average, fairly traumatized anyway by having gone
gone
through this. That's even worse. These are the people they're promoting, the people who've got PTSD and all kinds of Um-
wacky shit
of
hiding ...
Will: well, let's- If
Rod: that's the case ...
Will: let's assume, Ah, now that's an interesting question. Mm. I really don't have the answer to
Rod: that. Does,
Will: does, does moral responsibility and ethical responsibility to others correlate with either- GPS ... either learning or intellect? I don't know.
Rod: Well, and then you've got the-
you got the confounds of sociopathy and
Will: So, so there, there, there would definitely be the psychopaths that want to be in there, and that...
I think they're a different category. Sure.
Rod: Yeah. Um,
Will: but these are the people that can't get ahead otherwise- Yeah ... and they're like, "Okay, well I'll do the, dirty work."
Rod: I'll mangle people, make me a colonel.
Will: Yeah, um,
Rod: It's good to see the dumb people can
Will: get ahead though. I mean, you know, the upside of that, equal opportunity to- The, the, the parallel that The New York Times article drew is, have you [00:20:00] seen stuff about the standards
Rod: department?
Will: that are required to enter,
ICE,
department? No, uh, Trump's ICE,
Rod: There aren't
Will: and custom- There are people
Rod: who wanna be in, yeah.
"Here's five grand, you gotta use your own car."
Will: Yeah. Isn't
Rod: Isn't that it?
Will: that it? Basically. Basically. Don't, don't take that as a recruitment ad right now. Well- But, um-
Rod: Well,
It's accidentally-
Will: But this- ... probably accurate ... but, but what this is arguing is that I, I would assume a good democratic, well-founded regime actually- Yeah
actually wants people promoted on merit, and wants people that are actually able to talk back to the system. But an authoritarian regime is like, "Nah, we want the people that have no other paths to go, 'All right, well, I'm either too dumb or too outside the system, and I will-
Rod: Too lacking in imagination
Will: I will do the terrible things.'"
Rod: Yeah, I don't... Whether do they want them or they just like, they recognize these are the people who want... Like, those are the underlings who want those chiefs.
Will: I think they are in a place where, like- They just
Rod: wanna know what it is.
Will: No. Like, so, so the, the bosses will say, "Yep, these people wanna get ahead,"
Rod: Mm-hmm.
Will: A-
many people do.
Many people are like, "I, I wanna earn some more money," you know?
Rod: Sure. "
Will: And I want a stable job." [00:21:00] And so they're saying, "All right, the thickos will be the ones that, um-"
Rod: On the torture call. And
Will: it
Rod: And it
looks really good on your Tinder profile. "I'm not just in the torture call, I'm in charge of a subset. I just do teeth."
Oh,
Will: stop it. Stop it, this is horrible.
Rod: I've thought this through.
You brought it up. I'm just, I'm an innocent victim running with the information I've been given.
Will: So, so here, here... No, this is what I did think. Yeah. This is why, this is why it is nice when, institutions in society that protect us- Mm ... you know, uh, our militaries or our police and things like that, when there are standards for entry, and that those are well-maintained.
Because- Mm ... then it stops people from having these other dodgy pathways where you can say, "Oh, you can get ahead by just doing a bit of torture." There you go.
Rod: Hard to argue.
Hard to
Will: go
Rod: So in fun with animals this week, and there's virtually one every week, I'll ask you a question. When it comes to being, you know, murdered or killed, what animal scares you the most?
Will: It's sharks.
Rod: Sharks?
Will: Well, only because, I mean, I read the book of sharks when I was a kid,
Rod: Ah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah. So you [00:22:00] informed yourself
Will: of the terror ... and, and like, yes. Yes.
Rod: Mm.
Will: They are the monster of the deep.
Rod: Well, they are. That's not even a metaphor or anything
Will: No, no, no. That's what they chose.
Rod: They actually
Will: are.
Like, like when they lined up before Noah's Ark and they said, "What's your nickname?" "I wanna be the monster of the
Rod: deep." One of these teeth and then get... Yeah. Oh, yeah, and like they've got that conveyor belt of teeth. You crack one another, just pops
Will: up. Yes. That is so cool though.
Rod: Wild. Wild. Um, okay. If we take out humans, because yes, we're animals and blah, blah,
blah, everyone knows that.
blah, blah, everyone knows that.
Um, according to the 2023 global league table of animal killers-
Will: Oh, yeah. Do you want me to guess?
Rod: Oh, you can name me the top one
Will: even. Yeah, it's mosquitoes.
Rod: Absolutely. So mosquitoes, yes. And according
Will: to- Yeah, but it, I mean, I, that's a lie 'cause it's not like the mosquitoes go and do killing. Like a shark is like, "No, I want to, I wanna chop you in half
Rod: they
Will: eat you quickly."
Rod: No, they think, they think I'm hungry. Not I wanna kill you. They think I'd like to
Will: eat. Yeah, but I want, I want you all inside me. The mosquito doesn't say, "I want all of you."
Rod: Dude, you know we're
recording?
the
90,000 people on Twitch right now going,
things
have changed." yeah, mosquitoes, [00:23:00] but yeah, you know, by their act-
Will: Yeah, yeah ...
Rod: you know, they transmit your, your parasites and
Will: your-
Rod: Yeah ... malarias, et cetera.
Will: I think a mosquito is like, "Don't worry about it, man. I'm pretty benign. I'm just taking a little bit of blood."
It's bullshit. And yes, alongside the mosquito comes some things.
Rod: So they kill you. But if it's not humans and, and insects,
what's
the next one? What's at the
Will: top? Ooh, ooh. What do
Rod: you reckon is the top of the list?
Will: I feel like it's gotta be hippopotamus.
Rod: Yeah, you would feel
that.
Will: that. Well, it was more just because I, I thought it's gotta be a little bit surprising, and I know hippopotamus kill a lot of people.
Um- Well-
Rod: w- we'll
get to them ...
Will: oh, okay. dogs.
Rod: No. Snakes.
Will: Ah.
Rod: Uh, allegedly 100,000 a year
die
from snakes
Will: globally. 100,000? What the
Rod: fuck are you talking about? 100,000 people.
Will: Have I told you the story about the snakes in the flood?
Rod: Yeah. Or is this biblical?
Will: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is, this is just from, um...
Well, it's, it, there's, there's a study on this, but I think, and I don't have the data with me.
Rod: Mm
Will: Mm. Um, but in, say, flood situations, Bangladesh or something like that- Yeah ... people definitely die from the flood, but a lot of people, potentially most people, die from the snakes that [00:24:00] come down in the flood. And have you ever seen a snake swimming in a flood?
It's, it's terrifying. Like it's, like- Oh, they're on to something- And, and, yeah, exactly ... they're gonna manage. And, and these things are just heading for people, and it's, there's a, there is a, a known giant spike in snake deaths when there's a giant flood.
Rod: Well, this is not unrelated, 'cause my question to you then, 100,000 globally, half those deaths are in one country.
Will: Mm. Guess
Rod: the
the
country. Not Bangladesh.
Will: Well, it's not Australia 'cause, um, while our snakes are deadly-
Rod: We don't get 50,000
Will: people ... we, we, we would notice that. We would- It would be less ... and not Bangladesh.
Rod: No.
Will: I've run out of countries. India.
Rod: Yes.
Will: It's a big country. India. It's a big country and, uh- You've
Rod: been there, so obviously
Will: and they have snake charmers, so.
Rod: And snakes.
Will: Well, so there you go. So there you go. It is
Rod: India, and-
Will: They're losing 50,000 snake charmers a year.
Rod: This is
just the
the professional snake charmer. They're all
Will: employed. What are
Rod: the circumstances? By playing with really dangerous snakes, get my face near them? Mm.
Yeah.
Sympathies
difficult.
difficult. Now this apparently, this is worth going into. I mean, I'm gonna tell you more of the league table. This Indian one is [00:25:00] kind of intriguing.
I
I mean, snakes, A, I did not expect them. There's no way I'd put snakes that high on the list. B, half in one country, horrifying. So apparently official reports in India, they record only about 1,000 death from snakebite a year.
But researchers apparently more recently dived in and estimated they use things like health,
household
death surveys and something I'd never heard of before, verbal autopsies.
Will: Doesn't sound nearly as much fun.
Rod: No, not really. Like what, huh?
Will: I hope they're talking to the dead person.
Rod: Yeah.
Will: It's like- Wait, hey
how did you die?
Rod: you go?
What happened? No, apparently, like the World Health Authority, it's a method used to determine the cause of death through interviews with the deceased person's next of kin or family. Yeah, sure. So you talk to people and go, "Why
go,
Will: did
Rod: Keith die?" Yeah.
Will: It's a hell of a lot cheaper.
Rod: It would be.
Will: And you can get a humanities grad to do it rather than a, a, a medical-
Rod: Medical science ... yeah. Yeah, yeah. And also if the body's rotten
it's harder to
Or tops the fire
Will: True Or
Rod: burnt. So they did this and they said India had over 20, uh, 2000 to 2019, 1.2 million snakebite deaths, so about 58,000 a year. [00:26:00]
Will: Mm.
Rod: 58,000 a year.
Nearly half of these people between 30 and 69. Over a quarter- Nice ... what? Children under 15.
That's pretty gross. Most in rural areas, shock horror, the poorer areas with less facilities. And apparently the risk of an Indian dying from snakebite before age 70 is one in 250 across the country.
but
But of course it's more concentrated in some areas versus others.
So that's pretty-
Will: Yeah ...
Rod: bad.
Many die in villages, they're on farms- Yeah, sure ... or on the way to hospital because until recently you didn't have to report, uh, snakebite deaths or causes of death according to snakebite. They're not officially in the system.
Will: Well, in fairness, what are you gonna do?
Rod: Tell people.
Will: No, but I mean it's not, it's like if you die from, like a badly designed tractor- Mm ... then it's like, okay, well we should fix the tractor. Tractor accident. But, but snakes are snakes are snakes. Like, we get it.
Rod: But then you've got to think about, here's, here's where it gets interesting or continues.
antivenoms.
Mm-hmm.
Will: Mm-hmm.
Rod: Where do you put them? What kind? How many? Et cetera. Yeah. Without that data-
Will: Yeah, I know, I get it ...
Rod: you don't... I mean, you do data.
Will: Yeah. [00:27:00] You're a
Rod: data guy. You're dated. So, um, snake venoms obviously differ from one species to another, therefore antivenoms often have to match or are some more all-purpose ones coming up.
It's
also really expensive to produce. They're hard to buy. They're hard to keep reliably stocked And out in the rural areas
Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course
Rod: But also apparently they were saying in these situations, a person gets bitten, they then have to recognize-
Will: Yeah ...
Rod: the dangers,
reach
a hospital in time.
Will: Yeah, yeah.
Rod: When they get there, they should-- they need to have the right antivenom.
Will: I, I think Look, just to think about this objectively- Horrible ... India, India has a very large population. Yes. Uh, there are many places where there are a lot of snakes. A lot of people in there live in rural areas that are, they, they are quite distant from any of the facilities that would, would allow treatment here.
Yep. Like I, I think this is not a hard country to guess thinking backwards,
Rod: like- No, not at all. And, and I mean also then you get to the point where if they get to a place at all that has it,
it's
like, well, can you afford it?
Will: Yeah, of course. Of course. Probably not. Yeah.
Rod: So
on and on it goes. So the people most at risk are also the people least able to pay-
Will: Yeah, yeah, of course
Rod: least access to resources. Yeah,
Will: yeah. No, 100%.
Rod: So [00:28:00] the story behind that I won't go into because there's a whole 'nother segment-
Will: And there's a lot of... there would be a lot of barefoot in, amongst these farmers. Yes. Like I, I assume most of these farmers are farming barefoot, and so they- Yep ... you're at risk.
Rod: Um, and
look, and the, the story behind the antivenoms and what's going on now is quite fascinating, but this is about the, the lethal.
table. I
I just had to talk about that because that whole
thing
with 100,000 snake deaths and stuff-
Will: Yeah ...
Rod: half being in one country just kind of broke my brain a bit. But anyway, so snakes are the champs if you take out mozzies and people.
Will: Yep.
Rod: Snakes are the champs.
Who
comes next?
Will: Hippopotamus.
Rod: Dogs.
Will: I, I... There you go. I did
Rod: say dogs.
Will: Dogs.
Rod: 40,000 a year.
40,000
Will: year globally. 40,000. Is it rabies? What are we-
Rod: I don't know. K- dog-- k- eat- eating, eating. Attacking
I think like just mauling
Will: You didn't- They didn't
Rod: tell me that.
Will: They didn't tell me
Rod: that
Will: Like pet dogs or wild dogs?
Rod: I think, yes. of them are probably pets or working dogs.
Will: Or is it people have died and they're just seeing the dogs eating them?
Rod: And they're
Will: like- Like- ...
Rod: that probably killed him
Will: that, that it must have killed him.
Rod: Yep,
That's
what it is. So there's some flaws in the data. Next
Freshwater snails
Will: What? [00:29:00] What? How... No, they've got to have a bacteria or something like that- Yeah ... or, or they get inside your
Rod: ding-dong. Schistosomiasis.
Will: Oh yeah, that's the one. Yeah. Yeah. What does it do?
Rod: it gives you
bad,
horrible fevers and stuff that can kill you. And I like one of the other names for it is snail fever.
But
yeah, they, they basically
truck
this parasite around through freshwater systems and people get it in them and
them, and
obviously it's a less developed world problem as most horrible things are.
Next,
you'll
know this for sure.
Will: Hippopotamus.
Rod: Yep. No. Triatoma bug.
Will: What?
Rod: The kissing bug they call it, because it apparently likes to bite your face. Not kissing.
Well, not the way that I was taught to do
Will: No, it's a bug. It's, yeah. It's a
Rod: bug. But it carries a, uh, a, a parasite
called
Chagas or something, and it's in their poo.
And so they bite your face, the poo goes in-
Will: Oh ... you can
Rod: get like serious heart disease, digestive
Will: problems. I, I, just wanna pause for a second. That's great. biosecurity for Australian listeners, the rest of the, the rest of the world, maybe New Zealand, you're our brothers and sisters in this. Oh, yeah.
Rod: They care.
Will: Um-
Yes
we care about it. The rest of the world, they, I don't think they care that much. But it bloody, like I, just it bloody matters. I don't want [00:30:00] any of these kissing bugs coming in and eating my face.
Rod: Well, they take a bite and they shit in the hole and then you die, or at least get really-
Will: Is that how it works?
Rod: Potentially.
Will: Oh.
Rod: Or they-
Will: That's worse ... they poo around- Like why do they have to be so gross about it? I
Rod: don't want it for them, it's actually
respect
Will: respect. I don't want that.
Rod: You just don't understand their culture. Man. So judgmental. so next on the list, sandflies.
Will: Yeah, they're bloody annoying. I can believe dying to, dying from sandfly.
Have you been to bloody Fraser Island? You know, you just get sandfly. You fucking
Rod: haven't bloody been to bloody Fraser Island,
bastard. Poo
shit.
Will: Sorry, a bit of Queensland there.
Rod: No, I, I was getting
Will: that.
Rod: A
A bloody dingo got in the way of my- Yeah ... outdoor second story house thing. then roundworms. So that's 5,000 sandflies, 4,000 roundworms, so intestinal parasite, blah
so intestinal paraly-
blah.
The next one I love 'cause of my star
Scorpios.
Will: sign, Scorpio. Sagittarians?
Rod: Yes. Yeah, yeah.
no, Virgos.
no Virgos.
Will: Death by
Rod: 3,000 people a
people a year die [00:31:00] by the hand of virgins. You know, Scorpios 3,000. And I mean-
Will: Wow
Rod: Wow
never thought about that. You don't get another like animal, large
proper
animal until number 10, and that is?
Will: Hippopotamus. Elephants. Oh, Jesus Christ.
Rod: 1,000. Do you- So we're gonna get, we're gonna, we're gonna get there though.
Will: Did you, did you see, did you see the... Well, how far down the list? Is this like an 80, 80 person list? Like Jesus Chr- No ... great podcast content. But anyway- No, elephants kill it ... did you, did you see the guy that died from an elephant the other day?
Like a big game hunter. No. And he was squished by, squished and trampled to death. And it's like-
Rod: He was trying to kill the elephant?
Will: Like, yeah, he was trying to kill them. Yeah, fuck you. And, and it's like big game hunter, oh, it, it's just like the justice of that. Oh, it's the-
Rod: And you use every time you're like, "I'm mauled to death by a lion."
Will: Oh. Why? Because you're
Rod: trying to shoot it. Oh. '
Will: Cause, 'cause I, 'cause I- Oh. You know, I, I would respect, I would respect if someone's like, "I'm a big game hunter, but I only use my hands." I'm like, all right. Or a
Rod: knife in the teeth. I'll give you a small knife. Yeah. 'Cause they've got claws.
Will: No, if they had sharpened claw, like if sharpened fingernails, like you can do.
You know, if you, if you're like-
Rod: Get away.
Will: Get away. Get away No, I just feel like it's gotta be even. [00:32:00] Like you can't- It's
Rod: not even. I think one knife versus every koran alone, that's pretty even.
Will: No. No. No. You're the one choosing to do it and go into this. Like, I'm just saying it's body to body, and you gotta be nude.
You gotta be nude.
Rod: Well, obviously
Will: nude. Like-
Rod: Otherwise it's not
Will: Like I just, I just feel like- I don't
Rod: need a hit for that ...
Will: a- anything- Ooh ... well, I'm taking a giant rifle and I'm shooting from... What are you doing? Th- nothing. Bare handed and nude. But if you kill an elephant bare hands nude, like, all right.
Rod: Oh,
Will: Well, you
Rod: shoot it in the nude too.
I mean, I only shoot guns naked because otherwise
Will: they get-
Rod: it's
Will: No, shooting nude doesn't count. Shooting nude doesn't count. No? No, it doesn't. It
Rod: doesn't. I feel, I feel
awkward
So we'll just get to the end. I'm just gonna give you a few guesses. Which is higher? Which is more? Okay. Okay. Which is more? Spider or jellyfish?
Will: Oh, jellyfish, definitely.
Rod: Absolutely. 100 versus 50.
Will: Oh, really? Yeah.
Rod: Yeah.
Now I love that cluster-
Will: It's interesting that spiders are so much lamer than snakes.
Rod: I know.
Will: Like-
Rod: By miles ...
Will: like we have some kickass spiders.
Rod: We do.
Will: but-
Rod: They're murdering feckers ...
Will: but when you think about it, they're actually pretty friendly.
Rod: You don't hear a lot about spider deaths.
Will: Yep. No, [00:33:00] no,
Rod: That's 'cause they're
it
Will: covering it up. I mean, what would it be-- Maybe it'd be different if like a spider had tempted Eve to eat the apple. I mean, that'd be cool. Like- Ooh.
Rod: Ooh.
Ooh.
Like a cross between Big Bang Theory and dry
Will: humping.
Rod: So next we have a cluster.
one group is bees, wasps, and hornets, they come together. Or
hippos.
Bees, wasps, and hornets or hippos?
Will: Oh, it's bees, wasps, and hornets.
Rod: It is.
Will: Yeah.
Rod: 500
to-
Will: But you can't group them. That's, that's ridiculous. Well,
Rod: they did.
Will: No, that's ridiculous.
Rod: I didn't-- Like they did not supply the disaggregated data for-
Will: Mm
Rod: jerks.
Bears
or sharks?
Will: Oh, bears versus sharks.
Rod: Bears
versus Sharks.
versus sharks. There's a movie. Uh-
Will: Or
Rod: three movies in the franchise ...
Will: I don't know. It feels like there's a lot of sharks these days in Australia.
Rod: Well, there, there always have
been,
Will: been. No, there's more these days.
Rod: Oh,
yeah,
Will: because of- Yeah ... they eat
Rod: junk food now, they breed more
Will: prolifically.
They do. They do. They, they-- And yeah, they've, they've got a taste for the humans.
Rod: So you're saying sharks?
Will: Yeah.
Rod: Yeah. Bears?
Will: Ah.
Rod: But-
Will: Is it polar bears?
Rod: Probably all Japan.
Will: Is it polar bears? That's
Rod: the one
in Japan.
with Japan. Is it polar
bears?
bears?
Will: Squeezed
you [00:34:00] know I'm gonna get me some cool polar bear scars.
Rod: you are.
Last one. Gray wolves or big cats?
Will: Oh, uh- I
Rod: mean your giant moggie-
Will: I don't reckon... No, your, your like your lions and your tigers ...
Rod: and bears. Yeah, your lions, tigers-
Will: It's lions and tigers ... ocelots. Well, what-- We're really cramming together species. Like, why don't we just do reptiles versus mammals? Insects, reptiles, mammals, and it's like, wow.
Rod: Don't talk to me about it. Talk to sources in our show notes. They'll tell you.
Will: Mm.
Rod: Anyway, I thought it was kind of fun. Anyway, so the takeaway from this is basically for me, all animals wanna kill us.
Will: Yep.
Rod: And
help India get
get better access
to
anti-venoms and stuff. That'd be good. That taught me that.
Will: That's nice.
Rod: I'm not usually humanitarian, but this time I am.
Will: You basically are.
Rod: Yes
Will: I, I build this story to you as everything is human.
Rod: Sounds sexy
Will: well, no, it, connects with a bunch of things that I've been thinking where so often we invest in technological solutions- Yes ... but the problems, are between the keyboard and the chair.
Rod: The user
Will: interface.
Rod: between the [00:35:00] key... some reason, I've heard that a lot from you
End
hmm,
on
Will: me You,
Rod: you
Will: Look. So
Rod: mean to me.
to me.
Will: So this story comes from, the site The Register, where they've got a column called Pwned, but with a P. I don't know how to pronounce it.
Rod: Pwn- Pwned
Will: Pwned. Pwned.
Rod: Pwned. Pwned.
Will: Pwned. No, I don't think it's a, it's a pronounceable word, 'cause you don't say it out loud. Pwned.
Rod: pownid. Pownid.
Will: pwned. Pwned.
Rod: Yep.
Will: I already... I, I just love this. I just, I just love it. Yeah. Our sad story comes from Brandon Dixon, who currently serves as chief technology officer and co-founder of an AI security firm.
Rod: Uh-huh.
Will: In a prior life, Dixon was a penetration tester for hire.
Rod: Aha.
I've been there.
Will: And he saw some things that made, well, made the author of this, uh, article's hair stand on end. Ugh. Okay. During one pen te- pen testing assignment-
Rod: Pen testing.
Will: Pen testing, penetration testing. So this is basically, you know, for hire. That's
Rod: what you say.
it
Will: For hire. people will say, "Can you penetrate my systems, without me knowing?"
Rod: No Even without anesthetics
Will: So the goal here is to, is to test how vulnerable, your system is to a ha- l- l- a white hat [00:36:00] hacker. Basically, the black hat hacker- Oh, that's dream ... the black hat hacker- That's dream ... is, going in to steal your data. The white hat hacker is gonna go in and say, " I went in very easily.
You should probably," you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Give me $40
Rod: million.
Will: So you'd like to be a white hat hacker? I don't
Rod: I don't
Will: know. you actually might really enjoy, and I'll give you a job description in, in the end here. Anyway. during one pen testing assignment, Dixon tried to find out how easy it would be to steal someone's account using social engineering.
Rod: Ooh ...
Will: now, just to- Ooh ... give you a definition here. So social engineering is a form of hacking that basically looks at the problem between the keyboard and the chair, the human, Now-
Rod: I'm a Nigerian
Will: prince ... so the argument, you know, y- obviously there is hacking that goes by, you know, you go through the internet, keyboard warrior, you, you know, click the buttons and you're, you know, going through the modems and all that kind of stuff, and that's cool.
Rod: Yeah, brute f- force, yeah, passwords
Will: and- Yeah, passwords and stuff like, all of that sort of stuff. Yeah. But the other way through is to go through the human that uses the computer.
Rod: I'm a Nigerian prince.
Will: well yes, maybe, but... So the answer, the register says,
[00:37:00] "Barely
an inconvenience." Dixon telephoned IT security for this company that he was doing a pen testing on.
Oh,
Rod: shit.
Will: He telephoned them. He just, he's called up IT- Someone ... and pretended that he was head of security who had lost his password
when they asked him challenge questions, you know, this is like- Why, where did
Rod: you lose it?
Will: What's... No, no, like, what's y- No, like, what's your mother's maiden name?
Rod: Jean.
Will: He said he had forgotten the answers to those also. Didn't
Rod: even try.
Will: And he said, "I would like the password to be reset to this password." He gave it over the phone, and they did the reset for him. Fuck me. After that, he was to be able to get into the network and do whatever he wanted.
I just, it's a tiny story, but it does- These are good ones though.
It, it, it cracks me up, like- Oh. Okay, so to... this is a modern story. So to break into networks, sometimes all you have to do- Hello ... is, is say, "Hi, I'm really sorry. I've-" "I'm a bit of a duffer." "A bit, bit of a duffer here." "I'm a bit of a duffer." "You know, silly old me, I've lost my password, and-" "And
Rod: before you [00:38:00] ask me,
I
I don't remember my security questions."
"To, to be honest, I was quite drunk when I did them.
them.
It was like, it'd been a long week."
Will: I, I really do, I, I would love to have the recording of this to hear. Oh. You know, how, how sort of charming, disingenuous you have to be, like-
Rod: Bored. 100%, I mean, just, the right amount of bored.
Will: and there, there is this little bit where they're like, maybe the IT department are like, "Ah, this guy's probably like a boss guy, and we be- we don't wanna piss him off," or something like that.
"This
Rod: guy could be testing us, don't be-" Oh, oh, that's the instinct. "This is probably a boss guy, so do whatever he says with, to completely incredulity.
Will: Ah." So here, another instance, and there are so many of these in so many different fields. We invest so much in technical capabilities when there is, there is a vast meat problem right there.
The
Rod: answer is always pick up
phone. Just
phone. Just pick up the phone. Reach out to people.
Will: I do love the idea. You know, you, you...
me ... realistically,
that's it. You know, Millennials, Gen Z, you wanna hack something? Pick up the phone. [00:39:00] That's horrifying. Like, that's all you have to do. No, I've been on this program for four years.
Rod: I'm
Will: not
Rod: gonna call someone.
Will: I'm disgusted. A Little Bit of Science is the podcast where you get your little bit of science. Yes. And then you pass it on to your friends. You tell them all about the, how snakes are very dangerous.
Rod: And how easy it is
to hack IBM if they ex- to
Will: And you tell them to listen to the podcast as well. Yes.
You say, "Bloody listen to it."
Rod: And rub it on your body.
Will: Yeah.
Rod: Yeah. '
Will: Cause podcast lotion is the best lotion.
Rod: And then what you do is you say, "I've got something to tell you boys. I'm gonna email you at cheers@alittlebitofscience-" .
Will: com.au
Rod: Slash.
Will: Jesus.
Rod: No, it's
Will: not slash Jesus. No
Rod: slash Jesus.
Will: There's no slash Jesus.
Well, I'm
Rod: On
stars on every app. Every app
