Identity theft gets a raise.
Dave Bittner: Hello, everyone. And welcome to N2K CyberWire's "Hacking Humans" podcast, where each week we look behind the social engineering scams, phishing schemes, and criminal exploits that are making headlines and taking a heavy toll on organizations around the world. I'm Dave Bittner, and joining me is Joe Carrigan. Hi Joe.
Joe Carrigan: Hi, Dave.
Dave Bittner: And our N2K colleague and host of the "T-Minus" podcast, Maria Varmazis. Hello, Maria.
Maria Varmazis: Hi, Dave, and hi, Joe.
Dave Bittner: We've got some good stories to share this week, but first, let's get to our follow-up. I want to start off with some -- Maria, Joe, I think it's fair to say, one of my favorite things to do on this show is to poke Joe.
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Maria Varmazis: No.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] I don't know.
Maria Varmazis: Raid baiting Joe?
Dave Bittner: Would it be fair -- in your list of ways you describe yourself, would one of them be excitable?
Joe Carrigan: Yes. [laughter] I would say excitable. I'm easily triggered if that's what you mean. Yeah, sure. There are things that really make me angry.
Dave Bittner: I was thinking about this --
Maria Varmazis: Grind your gears.
Dave Bittner: I was thinking about you the other day.
Joe Carrigan: Things I hate.
Dave Bittner: I was -- I was scrolling through the old book of the face, and along came something from the good folks at the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. And they said, "Okay. We promise this isn't rage bait, but the word 'irregardless' has been used since 1795. This is just a fact. Its inclusion in the dictionary is not a sign the English language is falling to pieces."
Joe Carrigan: Incorrect.
Dave Bittner: "Or proof of the educational system failing -- "
Joe Carrigan: Also incorrect.
Dave Bittner: " -- we include irregardless because it has been used by a large number of people for a long time with a specific and identifiable meaning. The fact that the word is generally viewed as non-standard or as illustrative of poor education is not important. Dictionaries define the breadth of the language and not simply the elegant parts at the top. Irregardless, we're sorry and/or you're welcome."
Joe Carrigan: Yes, that's very funny, Merriam-Webster. [laughter] Presiding over the decay of the English language. No, I get their point. Their point is -- their point is that language adapts over time, and people change it.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: And I heard a linguist talking about Appalachian dialect, Appalachian dialect. And I have family that's, you know, family members that are Appalachian and sometimes throw out Appalachian dialect words. And one time we were, after hanging out for a while, I actually used the word throwed in a sentence instead of threw. I said throwed, which I don't like doing. But because I had been steeped in the culture for a couple of days, it rubbed off on me a little bit. And, of course, my son, like everybody stopped, and my son looks at me and says, did you just say throwed?
Dave Bittner: They're waiting for their chance to pounce on you? [laughter]
Joe Carrigan: Right. They did, and they all start laughing. And I said, and this is probably one of my son's best jokes in his entire life, but I said, you know what? I'm just going to go off and live in the woods, and I'm not going to talk to anybody else. And my son goes, all right there, Henry David throwed.
Maria Varmazis: Wow.
Dave Bittner: Nice. [laughter]
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, he was like 12 when he made that joke to me.
Maria Varmazis: Dang.
Dave Bittner: Wow.
Joe Carrigan: Surprisingly well-read 12-year-old.
Maria Varmazis: Jeez. Like, wow. I've got to hand it to him.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, that was a good joke.
Dave Bittner: That's pretty good.
Joe Carrigan: I was mad, but I did compliment his wit. It was actually, that was a good joke.
Dave Bittner: All right.
Maria Varmazis: That is a good one.
Dave Bittner: You know, next week we'll do decimate.
Joe Carrigan: All right. Ah, yes.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, no.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] We have --
Maria Varmazis: We've moved on from chickens to grammar curmudgeons. Okay.
Dave Bittner: Well, speaking of chickens, Joe, I saw your lovely bride posted a photo on Facebook.
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Dave Bittner: Your chickens have been extra bountiful?
Joe Carrigan: Yes, they've been very busy. And I went out there one day, and there was this huge egg in one of the nesting boxes. And I'm like, man, this must have hurt, you know.
Dave Bittner: What did we have? Did an ostrich come visit?
Joe Carrigan: It was not that big. But, you know, maybe a duck that lays colored eggs.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, okay.
Joe Carrigan: All my eggs are -- they're not white. They're brown, green, pink.
Maria Varmazis: They're getting ready for Easter.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. Well, actually, two of the birds we have are called Easter Eggers.
Maria Varmazis: There you go.
Joe Carrigan: I couldn't tell you which ones they are, you know, because I haven't watched them lay eggs. But two of them are Easter Eggers, two of them are Olive Eggers, and two of them are Ameraucanas.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: And they are true Ameraucanas. They match the breed standards. So I may set them aside for a little while and take some of their eggs and try to breed these chickens. See if I can just make Ameraucana chickens.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: And who knows? If I'm successful, I might have some chicken down the road -- to eat, I mean.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Hmm. Um-hmm.
Joe Carrigan: I don't know how prepared I am to do that, though.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: But we'll find out.
Dave Bittner: Pets or food.
Joe Carrigan: Yes. So my wife cracked this egg open yesterday morning, actually, and it was a double-yolk egg. So there were two yolks inside, which is amazing.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Lucky, lucky.
Dave Bittner: The yolk was on her. [laughter]
Joe Carrigan: So, of course, me being the chicken nerd that I am, I immediately go to, could this -- would this have been a viable egg? Would, you know, would this have been twins? Would this have been two chicks in one egg?
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: What would have happened? And I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. Are double-yolk eggs viable for hatching chickens out?
Dave Bittner: Right. Can two chick embryos make it to full term inside the same shell?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, I don't know.
Dave Bittner: I wouldn't imagine so.
Joe Carrigan: I wouldn't imagine that it's possible.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, but who knows? You know.
Joe Carrigan: But I know when you're --
Dave Bittner: Life finds a way.
Joe Carrigan: Yes, that's right. As we learned from Jurassic Park.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] That's right.
Joe Carrigan: And actually, much of Michael Crichton's writing.
Dave Bittner: All right, well, we've got a little bit of follow-up here. Maria, do you want to do the honors here and read this for us?
Maria Varmazis: Sure. This one comes from our listener Michael. And he writes, "Hello. I recently listened to the latest episode of the 'Hacking Humans' podcast," thank you Michael, "and I wanted to bring up a point about the differing outputs between Doe" -- [laughter] I just mixed up the first of your names.
Joe Carrigan: Doe and Jave?
Maria Varmazis: Doe and Jave. [laughter] "between Joe and Dave on ChatGPT. Interestingly, this AI platform allows users to modify the personality of the model. For instance, I made my chatbots witty but strictly objective. This might have influenced the differences in their outputs on the show. Very respectfully, Michael." Gentlemen, what are your thoughts on that one?
Joe Carrigan: Entirely plausible.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, I think so. And I have --
Maria Varmazis: Have you done any modifications, or?
Dave Bittner: Well, I have some, what do they call them, GPTs, some specific instances. Because you can specify specific instances that you want to do specific things.
Joe Carrigan: Right, and they just maintain the context.
Dave Bittner: Right. So I have a specific instance that is designed to do strict attribution. So sort of try to head off any hallucination or anything like that. And it has, I don't know, eight or nine pages of instructions for how it's supposed to handle things.
Joe Carrigan: Really?
Maria Varmazis: Wow.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Now, when I asked the question on our last show, I was not using that model. I was using just the regular one. But what I don't know is, is it possible for the two to bleed into each other? Or, you know, has ChatGPT built a larger, broader model on my overall use so it kind of figures out how I like my answers to be?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, that's entirely possible. I have not done any fine-tuning on it aside from the voice for the voice interface.
Dave Bittner: Uh-huh.
Joe Carrigan: I found that remarkably useful. I was using it last night on the way home because, again, I'm in class, so we were talking about statistical things. And I needed a refresher on some -- And I just essentially opened it up, and it comes up like a phone call on the car's Bluetooth. And I just started asking it questions about statistics. And I go, oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I was asking about null hypotheses and alternative hypotheses and things like that. It was great.
Dave Bittner: So like having a study partner.
Joe Carrigan: Right, exactly. I use it for that a lot.
Maria Varmazis: Wow. As you drive, too, that's really making the most of your time.
Joe Carrigan: Yes. Well, I don't have a lot of time, Maria.
Dave Bittner: None of us do, Joe. None of us do. [laughter]
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. Somebody recommended some books to me on World War II, and I'm like, I really want to read those, but I just don't have the time. Then it occurred to me, my library system has audiobooks. I think I'll get them on audiobooks and see if I can listen to them on the way into work and the way out.
Dave Bittner: There you go. Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Have you heard of this thing called podcasts? Yeah, well -- A lot of people like to listen to those as they drive.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Hardcore history. Is that --
Joe Carrigan: That's the one I'm listening to right now, actually. I'm listening to the -- which is, by the way, one of the best podcasts I've ever listened to. Second only, maybe to this one.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] Okay.
Maria Varmazis: Well, they both start with HH.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: That's obviously the reason.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Right. People accidentally stumble upon ours when they're looking for that one.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: All right. Well, very good. And thank you, Michael, for sending in that kind note. We do appreciate it. And, of course, we'd love to hear from you. If there's something you'd like us to consider for the show, you can e-mail us. It's hackinghumans@n2k.com. [ Music ] All right, let's get to our stories here this week. I'm going to lead things off for us. My story comes from the folks over at The Register, and it's an article about payroll pirates and business social engineering. So I think when most people think about cybercrime, they're probably thinking about ransomware or maybe phishing emails. But this particular story starts with something a little more ordinary, which is a phone call to a help desk.
Joe Carrigan: Who makes the phone call?
Dave Bittner: Well, we're going to get to that.
Joe Carrigan: Okay.
Dave Bittner: So, back in December of 2025, so last year, a couple months ago, there was the threat research team at Binary Defense. They call themselves ARC Labs. They invested-cated [phonetic] a case -- they investigated a case, rather, that John Dwyer, who is the company's chief technology officer, says should get every organization's attention. So this had to do with a physician, a doctor. His paycheck was quietly redirected into a criminal's bank account. There was no malware. There was no flashy exploit, just pure social engineering and some weak processes within the organization. So the attackers began with compromised credentials that were tied to a shared mailbox at a health care facility. So file that away, shared mailbox, right?
Joe Carrigan: Okay.
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Dave Bittner: And the researchers weren't sure exactly how the credentials were stolen. There wasn't any evidence of phishing or anything like that. And so they suspect they might have been harvested in an earlier breach. But once the bad guys were inside that shared mailbox, they sat back and they observed. They bided their time. They studied the internal communications. They figured out who was who and who had authority to unlock their next step. And once they figured that out, they called the help desk. And the caller claimed to be a physician who was locked out of their account and unable to see patients. So what do we got here, Joe?
Joe Carrigan: We got a very urgent call.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: That is, the time horizon is now.
Dave Bittner: Yes.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, right.
Dave Bittner: Well, you know --
Maria Varmazis: That's about as big an emergency as it gets.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. I remember us talking about this, Joe, when you were at Hopkins downtown. That like, I remember you telling me that like if anything got in the way of doctors being able to do their doctor stuff, it wasn't in the way for long, right?
Joe Carrigan: Right. It got removed. That's correct.
Maria Varmazis: Especially at Hopkins, my goodness.
Dave Bittner: Right. So this is an urgent call. The names all matched. The access level checked out. And so the help desk reset this person's password and their multi-factor authentication. And just like that, the attacker had full access to a legit account. From there, the hacker authenticated through the healthcare's virtual desktop infrastructure. They registered new devices. Then they logged in, and they changed the direct deposit details to an attacker-controlled account. So basically, what happens is, whenever this physician gets paid, the money, instead of going to his account, goes to the bad guy's account.
Joe Carrigan: Right. And I imagine because they had the level of access they did, they were able to delete any email notifications that were sent.
Dave Bittner: Right. And they point out in this article that because the login came from inside the company's trusted environment, the security tools just saw what looked like a normal internal user.
Joe Carrigan: Yep.
Dave Bittner: And there were no alarms. There were no red flags. They were only tipped off when the physician called and said, why haven't I been paid?
Joe Carrigan: Yes. Where's my money? [laughter]
Maria Varmazis: Oh, my God. Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Right. Right. So I think the point here is that, in this case, it wasn't just about hacking systems. It was about hacking identity.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: And they're talking about how a lot of organizations consider identity to be the new perimeter. When the attackers come after a trusted person, the perimeter of defenses might not matter.
Joe Carrigan: Yes, absolutely.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, because I was thinking as you were describing this, I'm going, this almost sounds like you could describe it as if it was like an insider threat, but it's not. That's not what an insider threat means. But it's -- but if this -- if this was a legitimate person with bad intentions, it sort of would match that kind of idea of you wouldn't see the call coming from inside the house.
Dave Bittner: Right. Right. Yeah. So it's a way that the bad guys were able to get in and pretend to be the insider, which, in a way, makes it an insider threat. It's a threat from someone who has insider access and privileges.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, but they shouldn't be there to begin with. They've already made the intrusion.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Yeah. It's not a disgruntled employee, which is like that classic insider, but it's -- yeah, it's a bit of a Russian nesting doll situation. [laughter]
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: So I want to swing back around to this notion of shared mailboxes. They say that shared mailboxes create risk because if one set of credentials is compromised, that can be a launchpad for all sorts of impersonation and privilege escalation. And I think a lot of organizations use, you know, shared mailboxes for convenience. I know we have a couple that we use, you know, here for CyberWire stuff, for landing places for people sending us PR things. And, you know, there's all kinds of things.
Joe Carrigan: It has been years since I did any exchange or email administration.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: But what does a shared mailbox get you that an alias or a mailing list doesn't get you? Like, you know, you can create, in Exchange and Outlook, you can create a mailing list that then just sends email to whoever you need it to go to.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And I'm wondering if there's -- even if they had compromised an email account that had access or received mail from that mailing list, would the outcome have been the same?
Maria Varmazis: Is the setup for one significantly easier than the other?
Dave Bittner: Yeah, I don't know.
Maria Varmazis: [inaudible 00:15:35] for the process, I'm wondering?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, I don't know. I think setting up a mailing list is very easy.
Dave Bittner: But I guess the thing that maybe having a shared email box lets you do is that any of the people who have access to that email box can email from that email address.
Joe Carrigan: Right. And then they can --
Maria Varmazis: Everyone can see what's been sent.
Joe Carrigan: Exactly. Or read.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. And I'm also imagining a mailing list requires more maintenance from the IT team because people have to be added and removed all the time, right, as employees come and go. Shared inbox: Hey, a new person just joined. Here's the credentials for the shared inbox. Just add it to your account or something.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: It's much less overhead.
Dave Bittner: Right. But in this case, it was a window into the organization.
Joe Carrigan: Right. And their processes.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, let them gather all that information to then go after a high-value target. So they also point out, they say, "Obviously, payroll and HR platforms are high-value targets. And direct deposit changes shouldn't be considered just administrative updates. They are financial events. So they should trigger some kind of a red flag or extra level of scrutiny." They say that "Organizations should treat payroll changes like wire transfers with confirmation mechanisms, temporary holds, and fraud review workflows." So I think that makes sense. They say, "The technology to do that already exists. The gap is often process." I think that's right on.
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Maria Varmazis: Yep.
Joe Carrigan: I'll agree with that 100%.
Maria Varmazis: That's often the case. Yeah. Yeah.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. And then finally, they say, "When criminals target paychecks, every employee on Earth becomes a potential victim."
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: And, yeah, that's true. It's true. All right. That's my story for this week. We'll have a link to that in the show notes. Maria, what do you have for us?
Maria Varmazis: Oh, this -- I love this story. It's about authors and artists. So this one makes me happy, but sad that it's happening. But so this story actually comes from the New York Times via a first-person story from memoir author Dan Barry, who was talking about something that he flagged very quickly as a scam when he started receiving very flattering emails about a book that he had written 20 years ago that was long out of print, praising his work in excruciating or impressive level of detail. And in these emails that he was getting, he was also receiving offers of complimentary help to promote these books. And for a split second, he was going, oh, someone is finally recognizing the genius of this old work of mine that's been long put in the garbage bin.
Joe Carrigan: My talent!
Maria Varmazis: Right. But thankfully, within that split second, he went, oh, this has got to be a scam. I mean, he identified it right away. And he figured that out well, which is how this article starts. But his main question was, why? Because, you know, authors famously have a lot of money.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: So. Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: [inaudible 00:18:35] was just like Stephen King, billions of dollars piled up.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. To just go after people with no monies. Yeah. So he was just wondering why and how widespread of a problem is this? So he did some digging into specifically the world of scams targeting authors. And he found that the scam method, of course, using AI to blast these out en masse, was that they do often open with these very polished, personalized email about work that has often gone unnoticed, with very specific themes from the books. Sometimes it's been pulled from blurbs or reviews if some exist. Other times it's just, I don't know, if they're just finding a preview somewhere. And then these emails will impersonate real publishing professionals and organizations, and on top of it, will link to very legitimate-looking fake websites that impersonate legitimate institutions. So one of the ones that he found in his digging was one called the -- it was a National Book Foundation website, but the site was totally fraudulent. But if you looked through it and clicked around, you would have no reason to think that this was fake in any way. And over the course of many different levels of correspondence with these scam emails, you'll eventually get to the ask, which is, of course, for money, a substantial fee for marketing or proofreading or other such service that, of course, was never actually rendered with a person that doesn't actually exist. But, of course, there is a money ask in this because real foundations that do these things don't offer such services. But anyway, of course, if a person does actually pay the small fee for marketing or whatever, the victim then gets completely ghosted, and nothing is ever given to them. And the fee is just taken, and the scammer runs with it. And it was just interesting that apparently in the publishing world, there are so many different variations on this, but they all sort of follow that same script. But different flavors of this one can be fake literary marketers that are promising exposure, everyone's favorite word in the arts world.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Right. [laughter]
Maria Varmazis: Private reading communities that sell positive reviews for a mere $20 per review, which sounds like really easy marketing fee. Honestly, that's pretty cheap for a marketing fee. Fake book clubs that charge appearance fees. That should never be a thing. But yes, that's a thing that these scammers are saying. Impersonations of famous authors that are offering mentorship. Again, not a thing that ever should be offered for a price. And then there's even bogus republishing deals with fake licensing or insurance fees. So if you're a self-published author, which there are many in this world, and, you know, there's something wrong with that, a lot of times it seems sort of a mark of legitimacy if you then get picked up by a real publishing house. So these scammers know that people are waiting for that golden ticket moment of, hey, someone's noticed my brilliant work, and maybe now I'm going to be a real author.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: So it's a very -- it's a long-running industry problem. Variations of this have existed as long as the vanity press has existed. But AI has, of course, put these on firehose blast. And they're going after, specifically, the aspiring and self-published author subset, which also is going gangbusters right now.
Dave Bittner: Right, right.
Maria Varmazis: So it's just it feels very mean because these scams are targeting a lot of these authors and securities about maybe not feeling as legitimate as they'd like to be. And then a lot of times these folks are working in isolation and/or don't really know how the legitimate market is supposed to work because there's a lot of communal knowledge that gets shared, I think, by, quote-unquote, "legit published authors" that self-published authors don't get access to. So it's just like -- it's amazing that just these little $20 scams here and there are, I guess, adding up enough that scammers feel that this is worth going after. But there's a little layer to this that I wanted to also mention, that this is certainly not the only industry that I really would not have expected to get hit but is. Apparently, medical professionals and scientific research communities have also been getting hit with scams like this for a lot. I think we've talked about this a little bit lately, about fake scientific papers or journals soliciting lower-level academics for them to submit their papers for a hefty fee. I think, Joe, you mentioned that.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, this has happened to me. I got published a few times when I was working at Hopkins. And as soon as I got my first publication into a real conference proceedings, I started getting emails from all over the world inviting me to submit papers to obscure conferences. I just ignored them.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. And that was -- I see a lot of chatter on social media about this, especially from the scientific community, that they're getting multiple of these scams a day. But the being asked to speak at conferences that don't exist scam apparently is the sort of new twist on this one. And it is getting some folks because, again, the websites for these conferences, even legitimate conferences, the websites aren't always that great. So a sort of weird-looking conference website is not always a tell. But people are flying to these locations all over the world and showing up for a conference that doesn't exist on their own dime, of course, and finding out when they arrive at the hotel to speak, that the hotel is like, what conference are you talking about? We have no such record of that here. Or worse, the hotel itself doesn't exist. That one is -- I've heard a few of that one as well. But this scam has been going on long enough that, actually, the journal, Nature -- THE journal, Nature -- actually did a whole expose about this in 2024 about predatory conferences. So it's just, again, it's just getting a lot worse, and people have been saying, oh yeah, I used to just be able to ignore these. Or my spam filter would catch them, and they would never make it to my inbox. But now people are getting flooded with them practically daily because, I guess, spam filters aren't able to keep up or recognize, with the sophistication that these campaigns have now, that they are spammy. So the personalization-at-mass scale is just making it very difficult to stop these scams in their tracks. So, yeah, it's preying on people's hopes and ego and a little bit of their fears, but mainly that vulnerability that I need to be recognized for success. And that's just a very hard one to get around because people's livelihoods depend on that level of recognition.
Dave Bittner: Well, I was wondering, is there a certain degree of pre-filtering that could happen here? And I don't want to be unkind. But a person who self-publishes already believes that other people are interested in what they have to say.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Right?
Maria Varmazis: Maybe.
Joe Carrigan: But they also have, you know, they also have sales numbers.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Because you can self-publish a book with Amazon. They'll actually print the book up and sell it to people.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And, of course, you can sell it on their platform as well, their Kindle platform.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: And then they never have to print anything.
Dave Bittner: Right. Yeah, and there's print-on-demand publishers that just do as many as are ordered and so on. But I guess my question is, you know, if you're already primed to think highly enough of yourself that other people are going to be --
Joe Carrigan: Oh, I see what you're saying.
Dave Bittner: -- interested in what you have to say, does that prime you for these people coming in and reinforcing that notion and saying people really do want to hear what you have to say?
Maria Varmazis: Well, yeah, I could see that. I mean, I could see that. I mean, I've used self-publishing before. I have books published that way mainly because I just don't want to try and go through the actual, extraordinarily arduous process of working with a publisher.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Because that is just an incredibly difficult process that takes a super long time, and I'm impatient.
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Maria Varmazis: But I would, if I got an email like this, I would go, this is definitely not legit because there's no way anyone would have heard of the stuff that I did. But there are many people that I think you're absolutely right, Dave, would go, oh, yes, this is that moment I've been waiting for. I just knew someone needed to recognize my brilliance.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] I get a version of this in my inbox probably two or three times a week, and it's podcast-related. And you've probably seen this too, Maria. It says -- it says, "Hello."
Joe Carrigan: I get them from time to time as well.
Dave Bittner: Do you get them, Joe?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. I get them on LinkedIn.
Dave Bittner: Okay. I get them in my inbox, and it says, "Hello, Dave. Just the other day, I was listening to your podcast, 'Hacking Humans.' I particularly enjoyed the part where you talked about scams and frauds. I'm wondering if you're interested in marketing this to more people. Let me know." You know, and so they're all the exact same template.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: And I get them about any show that I'm on or I've done or even shows -- Actually, what's funny is I get them about shows that I haven't done for years.
Maria Varmazis: Yes.
Dave Bittner: So they're just scraping through the old --
Maria Varmazis: The bin.
Dave Bittner: -- libraries, the bin.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, I get, just like with Dan, a book that of his he had written 20 years ago that he said the top of the story was in the remnants bin of which is it's like [laughter] it's basically, you know, the one where they tear the cover off, and they put it in the back of the store. And it's 50 cents. Please take it. Yeah, I get stuff like that or, you know, people saying, what's it like to host a show that I only guested on? Stuff like that. [laughter] Oh, gosh.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Obvious errors there. But if they had gotten the details correct, I don't know. Maybe it could appeal to my ego and make me think, oh. I don't know.
Joe Carrigan: Point of order. You should never buy a book that's had the cover torn off. So what happens there is they tear the cover off. And they send the covers back to the publisher, and the store gets refunded for the purchase of the book. And the author doesn't get any credit for it, any money. So yeah, they're supposed to just destroy the books, but you're right. Some of them don't.
Dave Bittner: This is a common thing in comic books, I remember, where, you know, they're supposed to send the covers back and destroy the comic books. But what a lot of comic book stores would do is bundle up two or three comics in a bag that don't have their covers on them. And, you know, you get them super cheap. But they're, you know, they weren't popular to begin with. [laughter]
Joe Carrigan: Right now.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Sometimes it's the only way you can afford to buy these things. So you're not supposed to buy those books. But --
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: All right. Interesting stuff for sure. We will have a link to that story in the show notes. Let's take a quick break here to hear from our sponsor. We'll be right back after these messages. [ Music ] And we are back. Joe, you are up. What do you got for us?
Joe Carrigan: I got some good news today, Dave. I don't know if it's all good news. I mean, it's not as good as I'd like it to be, but it's pretty good news.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: So, a while ago, we were doing stories on gold bar scams.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And here's how this works. Usually, the target is an elderly person. They get a phone call or an email that says, hey, your bank account has been compromised. You need to give us custody of all your money, but we want it in gold. That's the best way for you to move it to us. So we're going to have a courier show up at your house. And he's going to take your gold and keep it safe for you.
Dave Bittner: Mm-hm.
Joe Carrigan: Of course, the gold is gone when you give it to them. We were wondering, what happens to that gold? Where does it go?
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: Well, there are some gold bar scammers getting busted. And a lot of this is happening out of Texas. And I looked on the FBI's website. They had stories about the Maryland scams, but they're happening everywhere. But on January 29th, there was a raid at two stores, one in Irving and one in Frisco, Texas, which are both suburbs of Dallas. And they raided these jewelry stores, arrested two people, and took a bunch of gold and cash into custody. And across Texas, depending on which story you read, the victims have lost somewhere between $55 million and $74.5 million in these gold scams. So the Texas -- the Collin County Sheriff was very interested in busting some of these guys. The federal, state, and local police were all involved in this. And they set up a task force from the Collin County Sheriffs and began arresting suspected couriers around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. And they were charged as part of being part of this scam. And eventually they wound up getting into the network here. And they found out that these stores were buying this gold from the couriers and then melting it down into jewelry, primarily bracelets. Or they were exporting it from the country. They were sending it somewhere else.
Dave Bittner: Mm-hm.
Joe Carrigan: So in this first raid on the 29th, three people were arrested, and they had an armored car come and haul away all the evidence. But they also got some forensic evidence, and they exposed more of the network.
Dave Bittner: Oh, okay.
Joe Carrigan: So on the 25th of February, there were three more raids. One of a company called Malani, M-A-L-A-N-I, Jewelers. They had a location in Decatur, Georgia, and Richardson, Texas, also a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth, and the Orlando Gold Refinery in Florida.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: These -- they conducted these raids and arrested 20 people. And again, they said that the stolen gold was subsequently sold to these jewelry stores, including Malani Jewelers and Salma Jewelers, which is, I guess, one of the earlier raided ones. I couldn't find a reference to it. But they -- these companies were also accused of operating illegal gold melting operations.
Dave Bittner: Huh. I didn't know that was a thing.
Joe Carrigan: I didn't know that was a thing either. So I looked up -- looked up the illegal gold mining. I actually asked Google, is it illegal to melt gold?
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And it is generally not illegal unless -- there are a few restrictions, like you can't -- there are some gold coins you can't melt. For jewelry and scrap, there's no federal regulations. But if you intend to commit fraud of any kind, that's illegal. Also, by the way, melting pennies is now illegal, old pennies.
Dave Bittner: Really?
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, because an old penny that's made out of solid copper is now worth more than one cent.
Dave Bittner: Oh, yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So that's been illegal since 2007.
Dave Bittner: It's interesting because, as you were describing this story, I was thinking that gold is kind of, I don't know if it's singularly unique, but I guess any of these precious metals that you can alter their form without them losing any value.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Right? Which you can't do with paper money. You can't do with a painting. You can't do with a diamond, right? But gold, you can just melt down into any shape you want it to be.
Joe Carrigan: That's right.
Dave Bittner: And it's just as valuable as it was before.
Joe Carrigan: In some cases, more valuable because you're paying for the artisan and craftsmanship. You know, the jewelry business is tough, Dave. It's very competitive. There's lots of jewelers out there. So if you can eliminate, you know, the cost of gold and just scam people out of their life savings and get that gold --
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: -- then you really made this an all-profit operation.
Dave Bittner: Well, and there's so many of these cash for gold places that have popped up all over the place.
Maria Varmazis: Like that's always a sign of things going super well.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Right, right. Here's a place for you to liquidate your assets for cash.
Maria Varmazis: I remember when -- it seems to go in cycles. They pop up when things are going super well. And then they go away, and then they come back again when the same things happen.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. I mean, it is a challenge. You know, I know, when my father passed away, he had some gold things, you know, from him, from my mother. And it's hard to know what the right thing to do with them is because it's one of those situations where like I don't know anything about jewelry.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: So how do I know? How do you find someone who you can trust? And so you ask around, and hopefully you know someone who knows someone but --
Joe Carrigan: I don't trust anybody in the jewelry business.
Dave Bittner: No?
Joe Carrigan: I just don't.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: You know? And my wife and son have both been in the jewelry business and, you know, we were having a family conversation.
Maria Varmazis: [laughter] I'm going to try not to read into that too much, Joe, because --
Dave Bittner: Or so they said.
Maria Varmazis: -- a little bit of a needle scratcher in there.
Joe Carrigan: They both worked for -- they both worked for retail jewelers. So they knew all -- you know, they got the gemology certificates and everything. But one of the things my wife was absolutely insistent upon, my son as well, is they were both saying, you can't stamp gold that isn't 14 karats with a 14-karat stamp. And my father-in-law and I both looked at my -- this -- the first conversation we had, I said, I guarantee you can do that. I absolutely guarantee you can stamp -- I can stamp aluminum with a 14-karat gold stamp.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] Right.
Joe Carrigan: I'll bet I have no problem doing that.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: Give me a 14 gold stamp -- a 14-karat gold stamp, and I will stamp whatever you want. I'll stamp a thing of cookie dough.
Maria Varmazis: Wait, wait, Joe. I think that -- are you talking about physically stamping a thing? Or are they just saying in theory the law says that you're not supposed to do this?
Joe Carrigan: In theory, the law says, that's what they mean. They mean you're not supposed to do that.
Maria Varmazis: Right, but you're meaning physically, can I just stamp a thing? Of course, you can stamp anything.
Joe Carrigan: Right. And you have no guarantee that somebody hasn't done that to a piece of maybe what they call 8-karat gold, right? Which isn't actually gold in the United States. It's something else. It's like a gold alloy. But you can't sell anything less than 10 karats in the United States, which, by the way, means there are 24 karats of gold -- a 24-karat gold item is 100% gold. A 12-karat gold item is 50% gold.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: So, you know, you could make a 12-karat gold item and stamp it with a 14-karat gold thing, no problem, and there's no way the layperson is going to be able to walk up and tell, which is why I never trust jewelers.
Maria Varmazis: Okay.
Dave Bittner: I'm sitting here as we're talking. I'm looking at my wedding ring and I --
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Unfortunately, my eyes are no longer good enough for me to see anything that's etched in it.
Joe Carrigan: I need a magnifying glass.
Dave Bittner: Yes, exactly.
Joe Carrigan: So I bought one of those.
Dave Bittner: But one thing I do remember about gold from my childhood, and, Joe, you and I are old enough that, I don't know if this happened to you, but when I was in high school, part of science class is that we would just freely play with mercury.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, I'm so jealous.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. [ Multiple speakers ]
Dave Bittner: Like, I wanted to fill a swimming pool with this stuff to see, like --
Joe Carrigan: See if it floats?
Dave Bittner: Well, to see if I can get to the bottom, you know.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Joe Carrigan: Hey, you get to the bottom, and that's where you'll stay.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. There was never any mention of it being a neurotoxin or anything like that. We were just, you know, scooching it around on tables and so on and so forth. But --
Maria Varmazis: Good old quicksilver.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. What I remember is one of my classmates, she had a gold ring. And so we were seeing all the different things that would float on top of mercury. So you could float a quarter on top of a little container of mercury. So she took a gold ring and put it in the mercury and did not know that mercury and gold are reactive to each other.
Joe Carrigan: And mercury will dissolve gold.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. In this case, it just made the gold highly brittle.
Joe Carrigan: Oh, really?
Dave Bittner: Yeah. So she took the ring out. Like she -- it isn't like it bubbled and, you know, exploded or was a big flash of smoke.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: It didn't seem like anything was wrong. But when she took the ring back out, you know, wiped it off with a paper towel, and then went to put it back on her finger, it just cracked.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Wow.
Joe Carrigan: The gold is a flexible element.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: So you take that out.
Maria Varmazis: It's soft, yeah.
Dave Bittner: Right. So it turns out there is a process by which you can get your gold back, but it is neither easy nor inexpensive.
Maria Varmazis: It's an alchemy.
Dave Bittner: We had a valuable lesson that day about --
Maria Varmazis: It's alchemy. You take some lead, [laughter] then you have to give them something of equal value in there.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Yeah. But nowadays, I mean, sheesh, somebody, you know, spills a little drop of mercury in the science classroom, and the school is a Superfund site.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, the hazmat team comes in.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] Right, right.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. I never got to do that. I remember hearing -- I remember my science teachers telling us that we used to do stuff like that, but we learned that that was a bad idea.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: I actually didn't get the opportunity to play with gold -- or mercury, but I did get the opportunity to have radioactive elements in the classroom.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] Yes. Yes. There's old science kits that came with them.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah. We made wine. I think that's probably a bad idea that we did fermentation experiments to make bad, bad wine. [laughter]
Joe Carrigan: But yeah, you can also ferment other stuff. You can ferment milk into cheese pretty easily.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Lots of things you can do that with.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah, you know, but yeah, but we did grape juice. And I'm thinking, looking back on it, I'm going, yeah, we could have done cheese. We could have made yogurt.
Dave Bittner: Probably wouldn't float these days. I remember --
Maria Varmazis: No.
Dave Bittner: I remember in elementary school, a kid brought in a shotgun for show and tell. [ Laughter ]
Maria Varmazis: That is the most American thing I can possibly think of.
Dave Bittner: And nobody thought anything of it.
Maria Varmazis: Of course not.
Dave Bittner: Like his dad came in with the gun, you know, so it was all --
Maria Varmazis: Oh, my God. [laughter]
Dave Bittner: It was all --
Maria Varmazis: [Singing] America.
Dave Bittner: This is a Winchester, you know, aught 40, or I don't know anything about guns.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, my God.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] Whatever.
Joe Carrigan: So I asked my father -- My father had this old replica of a Kentucky war rifle. It was a black powder gun. It was -- I think it was.45 caliber, so it wasn't actually a real Kentucky war rifle, which was.50 caliber. And I said, hey, I'm going to do this at show and tell. I have to -- or not show and tell. It was an instructive speech on how to pack and fire a black powder rifle.
Dave Bittner: Uh-huh.
Joe Carrigan: Can I take the gun to school today? Right? Because I had already had plans for this, right? And I didn't clear it with him until the day of the speech. And my dad looks at me and goes, "What are you, nuts? No, you can't take a gun to school." And then, of course --
Dave Bittner: Not anymore.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. [ Laughter ] When I went to high school -- Did you have this? I went to high school in eastern Montgomery County, which was very rural when I was growing there.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: And you'd pull up to the school like in October, and half the pickup trucks in the parking lot had shotguns or rifles in the windows.
Maria Varmazis: Yep. And that was the case even for me in the early 2000s in Massachusetts, where I grew up.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Maria Varmazis: Which sounds nuts, given our gun laws. But that was actually, when hunting season started, that was pretty normal. And I can't even imagine that being a thing now.
Joe Carrigan: And if I'm not mistaken, it was the gun racks in the window were to comply with state law, that if you had a gun in your window in your car, you were going to -- going to go hunting with it. You had to have that gun visible --
Dave Bittner: Yes.
Joe Carrigan: -- for when you got pulled over.
Dave Bittner: Yes.
Maria Varmazis: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: That is true. I know -- Well, I know, for example, in Virginia, our neighboring state to the south, that's true with sidearms as well. Like, if you're traveling with a sidearm, it has to be in a place that's visible. So like unloaded. And again, I'm not an expert when it comes to firearms.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: But I had a friend who was, and we were going like camping somewhere where there was an issue with, potentially, problems with big, mean animals.
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Dave Bittner: And so this guy brought his sidearm, and I remember him telling me when we got in his truck, you know, this is why this revolver or whatever it was, I'm sure it was like a 9mm, is going to sit on the cushion between the two of us.
Joe Carrigan: He's going to use a 9mm on a bear?
Dave Bittner: Well, I don't know, Joe.
Maria Varmazis: I'd like to see him try.
Joe Carrigan: Not a good idea.
Dave Bittner: I don't know. But anyway, yes. All right. So --
Maria Varmazis: That's a hell of a tangent.
Joe Carrigan: We are way off topic here.
Maria Varmazis: Wow.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Joe Carrigan: Anyway, they busted some of these guys' [inaudible 00:43:26].
Dave Bittner: All right.
Maria Varmazis: Long story short.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. Hopefully they're the -- one of the -- one of the law enforcement officers I was reading said we've only gotten back $400,000 from these people. We're hoping that that number goes up now.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Joe Carrigan: So they have seized millions of dollars in gold. And, you know, with 23 arrests, hopefully, some people will spend a lot of time making big rocks into small rocks, especially in Texas.
Dave Bittner: Right [laughter]. All right. We'll have a link to that story in the show notes. Joe, Maria, it is time for our Catch of the Day. [ Soundbite of reeling in fishing line ] [ Music ]
Joe Carrigan: Dave, our Catch of the Day comes from the Scambait subreddit. Keanu Reeves wants to talk to somebody.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, Keanu!
Dave Bittner: That's right. So turns out in this case, Keanu really wants to talk to you, Maria.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, me?
Dave Bittner: Yes, yes.
Maria Varmazis: Oh, my God.
Dave Bittner: And so why don't you read the part in blue here? I will be Keanu.
Maria Varmazis: I'm such a fan, Keanu. Okay, so "Hello. You said hello on my X feed. Any reason you reached out to me? Smiley face."
Dave Bittner: "Yes, dear. I said so. How are you doing today?"
Maria Varmazis: "I'm fine. And you?"
Dave Bittner: "Nothing, actually. I was absolutely going through some profile things before I came across your wonderful profile here on X, and also your passionate compliment, and with likes on my fan pages. Hope you don't have any problems at all if we had to get to know each others better, because I guess that you must be surprised communicating with me and also receiving a reply from me." Here on this -- Oh, sorry -- "a reply from me here on this, my official second private X feed."
Joe Carrigan: Official second private X feed.
Maria Varmazis: Official private -- Hmm. "What likes on your fan page?" Oh, this person is not me, clearly. "I must admit I don't know much about you."
Dave Bittner: "Okay, that's nice. What is your full name, sweetie? I am Keanu Reeves, a Canadian actor, musician, and producer, renowned for my best roles in major action franchises like The Matrix and John Wick. I was born in Beirut and raised in Toronto, and also overcame a challenging childhood of dyslexia to pursue acting, gaining fame for my versatile performances in both blockbusters and independent films."
Maria Varmazis: "You didn't answer my question?"
Dave Bittner: "Haven't you watched a movie called Matrix or John Wick before?"
Maria Varmazis: "No, I think I saw you in Brokeback Mountain. My friend's daughter watches SpongeBob, and I think you're in that one. And I saw you in a film with Diane Sawyer, RIP, sad face, Jack Nicholson, and Frances McDormand. You were also in Much Ado About Nothing, which I saw in a movie theater."
Joe Carrigan: Diane Sawyer, not dead, by the way.
Dave Bittner: "Why didn't you holla at me?"
Maria Varmazis: You ho-olla? Ola?
Dave Bittner: Ola? Is that what it's supposed to be?
Joe Carrigan: No, it's holla. Holla like holla?
Dave Bittner: Yeah, holla.
Maria Varmazis: Holla. But he spelled it like Ola.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah, he spelled it like Ola, right.
Maria Varmazis: Ola? I meant the movie. I don't know. I meant the movie.
Dave Bittner: "You don't have to always believe in whatever you see about me online socially because the social media doesn't really say the true about situations that actually occur, so that is why you should stay and stick to me so you can have legit and genuine friendships and private selfies and things from me that you can never find on the internet. That will make you believe and trust me because I actually want to clear your doubt and make you believe that you are now lucky to be communicating with me."
Joe Carrigan: There is nothing in the world that could convince me I'm actually talking to you.
Maria Varmazis: The dude is just like the unsaid -- the subtext to the script. He's just making it text. It's amazing. "I haven't read anything about you in ages, except a short note with information about Dogstar is playing on a festival in Norway this summer."
Dave Bittner: "Yes, you are right. Well, I don't always get active here on X for some security reasons for the whole now. but am into it now just to ensure that I safeguard and protect and keep them, most of my beloving fans, with kind hearts, safe and protected. By the way, hope my messages isn't bothering or disturbing you at all at the moment."
Maria Varmazis: "Not at all."
Dave Bittner: "Okay, that is great. I had like you to still also tell me a little much more about yourself."
Maria Varmazis: Oh my gosh, right. All right, so they wrote blah, blah, blah. So the whole spiel here, I guess I'll just go real fast. "I don't know exactly what you want to know, so I'll just share some of the basic facts. I've been working as a manager in the fuel equipment industry for many years. But now I'm -- " Oh, my God. "But now I'm following a lifelong dream, and I'm taking a completely different path and are studying to be a psychotherapist. I'm happy to pursue my dream, and I'm grateful that I'm financially independent and able to take this path now, and I don't need to work on the side. I'm 55, divorced, and no kids by choice. I live alone in a suburb of Oslo. And you?"
Dave Bittner: "That is a beautiful place because you look so pretty, far more than your age, to be honest."
Maria Varmazis: "Okay. Well, you are a bit older than me, so maybe you are used to women older than me too."
Dave Bittner: "I want you to know that I can't wait for us to really travel to places and get to explore in Oslo, your best eating spa for us to visit. I had like too."
Maria Varmazis: "Eating spa?"
Joe Carrigan: Sounds awesome.
Dave Bittner: "Age is just totally a number, and it doesn't matter at all in a friendship. All that matters is the inner beauty and with conscience and wisdom that was given to me."
Maria Varmazis: "Eating spa?"
Dave Bittner: "Whenever I feel like eating what is light. What is your hobbies and favorite color of food and your favorite movie of mine you actually like?"
Maria Varmazis: "I like swimming, drawing, drinking wine and talking to my friends, music, writing, crosswords. I don't have a favorite color or food since I am no longer a kid. [laughter] Like I said, I haven't seen many of your films, but I guess Brokeback Mountain." He's not in Brokeback Mountain.
Joe Carrigan: No, he's not.
Dave Bittner: "Hello, my dear fan. How are you?"
Joe Carrigan: Starting over again?
Dave Bittner: "Thank you for being a fan -- "
Maria Varmazis: Buffer overflow.
Dave Bittner: " -- and linking to my page and movie activities. God bless you. I sent you a request on here. You're a very beautiful woman, and you seem like a nice person that I would love to know more about because I always see your comment and likes on my X. Most of my fan pages post nature has a reason for all purpose. Don't worry. As time goes on, we would actually get to interact well and know each other better if you won't be a problem with you, my dear." Let's just end it there.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah. This thing goes on for pages.
Maria Varmazis: Pages. And she doesn't let up on the what the heck does eating spa mean? I love that she doesn't let go of that.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Let's go to the eating spa.
Joe Carrigan: At one point in time, the guy says it means spaghetti. [laughter]
Maria Varmazis: An eating spa, otherwise known as a restaurant?
Dave Bittner: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Lost in translation.
Joe Carrigan: Keanu Reeves has zero social media presence deliberately.
Dave Bittner: Is that right?
Joe Carrigan: Yes.
Maria Varmazis: Yes.
Joe Carrigan: So if you ever get anything on social media from somebody claiming to be Keanu Reeves, it is not Keanu Reeves.
Dave Bittner: What if it's just a private one-on-one, Joe?
Joe Carrigan: Nope.
Maria Varmazis: A private second communication channel.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] That's right. The other thing I love about this is that Keanu evidently doesn't know anything about punctuation.
Joe Carrigan: Right.
Dave Bittner: Because everything is a run-on sentence, and it just goes on and on and on.
Maria Varmazis: No.
Dave Bittner: Well, it seems like she was playing with him.
Joe Carrigan: Yeah.
Dave Bittner: So she knew what was up, so good for her.
Maria Varmazis: Eating spa.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. All right. Well, if there's something you'd like us to consider for our Catch of the Day, we would love to hear from you. Our email address is hackinghumans@n2k.com. And please don't be disappointed if you do send us something and it doesn't show up on the show. We do read everything that's sent to us. We do consider everything. But some things, just for a variety of different reasons, either they don't work very well in the spoken word, or they just don't fit what we're talking about any week. But, you know, don't fret if that comes to pass.
Maria Varmazis: We still love you.
Dave Bittner: We still love you. We see everything, and we do appreciate the effort. So thanks to everyone who sent something in, even if it didn't make it on the show. All right. That is "Hacking Humans" brought to you by N2K CyberWire. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing world of cybersecurity. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to hackinghumans@n2k.com. This episode is produced by Liz Stokes. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. We're mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Trey Hester. Peter Kilpe is our publisher. I'm Dave Bittner.
Joe Carrigan: I'm Joe Carrigan.
Maria Varmazis: And I'm Maria Varmazis.
Dave Bittner: Thanks for listening. [ Music ]
