Security panic at the disco

There was one time I curved someone. I told them it was— actually, it was the truth, but they probably didn't— they thought I was a liar. And I was like, ah, I just had this puzzle I want to finish at home. It's like, honestly, I'm just going to sit inside and play a puzzle. Oh, do you need someone to help you with the puzzle? No, I want to do it by myself.

Also, to like invite yourself to a puzzle is like kind of wild.

Puzzling.

It's puzzling.

It is what it is. There you are.

She's back, everybody. I haven't heard Jazz make a pun like that in ages. Yeah, we're so back. You're listening to Off the VPN, the show where two work besties get real about working in tech. Hey, welcome to Off the VPN. I wish everybody just heard Jasmine's yawn 2 seconds before we entered the chat here. Oh, we got another one.

I'm trying to make it quiet because it is there.

It feels about talking to me. Yeah, like 7 times before you described it as it sounded like a lion. There was like a legit lion's roar at the end of her yawn. If you can imagine Leo energy, you know, I was thinking it's your Leo energy. Also in huge news, I need to share this thing that Jasmine also just said, like, what?

Oh no.

1 minute before recording, we were exiting out of other things that we need to do for our jobs in order to prepare for recording this episode. And I heard Jasmine go, goodbye, ChatGPT, see you later, boo.

Yeah, that's my main one from day one, you know? Like, yeah, I stand— I stand by ChatGPT. That's my man, my man, my man.

Lowkey, I have been replaced as Jasmine's work bestie, and it's been like months now, if not a full year, and I don't know what to do about it.

I mean, you get way less half-baked random thoughts sent your way, so I feel like that should at least, on a bandwidth standpoint, help you out.

I have more time during my day to like do other things.

Yeah.

Anyways, I have a story for you. Are you ready?

I am. I'm super ready. Let's, let's go. If I yawn, it's not a you thing, it's, it's me. It's me, I promise.

Okay, this story is, this story is a little weird. Okay, I can only summarize it as like a story about reading the room and why that matters. So our story today will take place in a very tech-centric city. So think lots of tech companies are headquartered here. Local meetups are happening on the regular. There's like community-based Slacks and Discords. Conferences happen in this city. Like you get it. There's, it's like a tech hub and right in the middle of all of this is our main character today, Aubrey.

Oh, hey Aubrey.

Yeah, you have any nicknames for Aubrey?

Maybe Ab-Ab?

Arboritum? That I will not be pronouncing multiple times on this podcast.

Ab-Ab Arboritum.

Why not like Obbs or something?

Oh yeah, no, that's good too. Not, you don't, you don't like Aubreydom? Okay. No, that's fine. No, I'm probably gonna still, it's sitting with me.

You do you. I, Aubreydom. I'm gonna stick to Aubrey.

All right. Aubz.

Okay. So Aubrey is someone who's been in the middle of this massive tech scene and like the, you know, has networked with a bunch of people both in person over the years and in Slack communities. And it's been about like 10 years. Now that she's been super integrated into this community. She happens to work for one of the best employers in the city out of like the many options that are available to her, and specifically she works in security. So one other thing about Aubrey is that she happens to be extremely extroverted. She's very outgoing, very friendly.

Mm-hmm.

And so when she happens to come upon a few extra tickets to a local event, Aubrey's decided to take to one of her community slacks to just post the tickets there.

That's nice of her, right?

Like, can't relate at all, but were they tickets to the Arboretum? They were not, but we will get there.

Yeah.

How do you feel about like inviting a bunch of randos potentially to an event that you're, uh, I'd give people a ticket.

Maybe I'd maybe put it in like a work channel or, um, I, I don't, I don't really, I'm not really part of like outside of communities. I'm not as active, but yeah, I would. Give people like tickets to something or something, especially if I had extras. Does that mean I'll hang out with them there? Probably not.

See, this is a great point, a relevant point, I would say.

Okay.

And then do you have any events that like you have in mind that you wouldn't send random people tickets to?

Anything that's— especially if this is like a tech-based community, this is tied to my career. I would definitely keep it to things that are very G-rated appropriate. Like maybe I would only send them to, I don't know, maybe there's like a, a sports game or an actual tech event. Otherwise I'd probably just send it to personal friends. Yeah. I wouldn't wanna send something that seemed a little sketchy, like outside of that. That's personally. My rule of thumb.

Yeah, I'm with you. I, and I think again, the important part is like making it sort of clear. Am I just giving you this ticket or am I giving you this ticket because I want to hang out and meet new people?

Oh yeah.

So remember this point because Aubrey goes into this thinking it will be great to meet some new people. This is how extroverted Aubrey is.

Oh, oh yeah. Okay, Aubrey.

Not using the nickname, I noticed.

Yeah, no, we're using her legal name.

I'm using her government name now. This local event happens to be a disco costume party.

Okay, interesting.

And Aubrey posts the invitation into a— it is like a tech-based community, but it's also like a sub, like even more of a subset of tech. It's like a hobby-based group.

So she posts.

Yeah. So she posts the tickets and the invitation in there and immediately gets a response. Someone messages Aubrey and without the specific details is apparently like, even in the very first message, like, very complimentary to Aubrey. So I guess Aubrey is a little bit active in this group, and so when this person saw Aubrey, you know, posted some tickets, this person just came in really hot and had a lot to say about Aubrey. I'm gonna let you name him since this guy will be— oh my God, will be a recurring character in today's story.

You know, you know I love naming characters. Well, I know I'm going— I'm feeling Ted. Ted. Do we like Ted? Aubrey Ted?

We can go for Ted. We can go for Ted. I'm watching Schitt's Creek right now, so I'm a little thrown because I don't—

I haven't watched that. Do we need a different name or do we— No, let's do it. Ted. We're rocking with Ted. All right, Ted it is. Teddy. Teddy and Arboretum.

I don't think you're gonna be screaming Teddy's name like that in a few minutes.

Oh no. All right, he got one.

He got one, that's it.

Oh no.

So Ted. Yeah, so good old Ted immediately making Aubrey feel weird, right? She's just like, oh, I just posted tickets, like, why are you messaging me like complimenting previous things that I've said in this hobby group? Like, she's getting the ick like real fast, right? Okay, so she thinks it's best to—

Ted's trying to throw moves on in a very career-focused thing. That's trying to shoot a shot at Aubrey. He is, and it's deeply inappropriate. This is not the space to do that.

It's not. But Aubrey knows what's up, and Aubrey's like, I'm going to set a very clear boundary here. And so she does. She basically says—

no, she didn't give him the ticket.

Hold on. She basically says Aubrey, hey, you are more than welcome to use this ticket. However, I will be going with other people and will be spending the night with them. Do you think that's clear?

Yeah, for sure.

I think that's super clear. So she's basically like, we won't be hanging out, but take the ticket. So yes, she does give him the ticket. Ted is like, okay, cool, I'm actually new to the area and I'm hoping to meet some new people. Thoughts on that?

Oh no, does Ted think when she meant I'm gonna be with people, like he thinks he's gonna meet all of these people she brought?

Maybe that is the case. Oh God.

Okay, all right.

Which sucks because we just agreed that her message was super clear, right? And then yet here's another interpretation of it potentially.

Yeah. I, I feel like I've been, I go through not this particular thing cause I don't give people tickets like that, but like it was being in those situations where someone's like, hey, like you're friendly to somebody and then like, oh, you wanna do something later? You wanna hang out? And I'm like, no. No, no thanks. Thanks for thinking of me, but yeah. Or I'll be like, oh man, I'm just super— I got a lot of things to do at home. That's what I, I really wanna stay inside. There was one time I curved someone. I told them it was actually was the truth, but they probably didn't. They thought I was a liar and I was like, ah, I just have this puzzle I wanna finish at home.

Knowing you, that is absolutely not a lie.

It wasn't a lie. That's, I was like, honestly, I'm just gonna sit inside and play a puzzle. Oh, do you need someone to help you with the puzzle? No, I want to do it by myself.

That will take away the fun.

My gosh, like, what part of that made it sound like you were invited?

Also, to like invite yourself to a puzzle is like kind of, kind of wild.

Puzzling. It's puzzling. That's what it is.

There you are. She's back, everybody. I haven't heard Jasmine make a pun like that in ages. Where's Sovag? Okay, so Aubrey's like, dude did not take the hint, or he just like didn't read my message, or my message wasn't clear. Like, whatever is going on, she doesn't care because Aubrey is busy. It's like the middle of the work day. She's like, whatever, I'll deal with this some other time. The messages keep coming though.

Stop, no way.

Yeah.

Is he talking to himself in her DMs?

Yes. No, not Ted. Ted.

Oh, Ted. Yeah, and Ted's just looking for some friends.

A little, a little too strong, a little too strongly, I would say. Ted, there are other ways, my guy. But yeah, the amount of messages that Ted is sending is like clearly crossing the line for what's appropriate. Like maybe we already crossed the line with like the extreme complimentary introductory DM, but now it's like, yeah, Aubrey has not answered Ted and he's just, he just keeps on going.

Time to find your nearest community administrator. Yes, it is.

We'll get there. So one other context for this specific Slack group that all of this is happening in, like the hobby group, is that it leans on the anonymous side, actually. So people have avatars. They generally are using Slack usernames that are not like first name, last name. They're not legal names. People are not using like personally identifying photos in any way. It's pretty anonymous, but throughout the day, our guy Ted breaks this sort of unspoken community code here and goes so far as to give Aubrey the following information. Information about where he works and then his phone number.

Oh man, I'd put that in White Pages so fast. I know where he lived. Does he live with his mom? Like, who, who, you know, I'd find out everything. I know that's— phone numbers are one of the most like that sensitive PII out there, man. Phone numbers, you can find anything out. I'd know what subscriptions this man has. I know everything. I know everything about my boy Ted. I wouldn't hesitate. I wouldn't hesitate. I'd send pics to my friends and be like, if I go missing, you know who it was. Is this based off of real life? Maybe not. You'll never know.

Did you—

sorry, I'm escalating.

I'm asking, did you write this post? Because it's me. Because hold on, so Aubrey is, if you remember, a security—

oh, so she got access to the databases.

All right, before, before querying the databases, Aubrey is just like, hey, you really shouldn't be giving out this information to strangers on here. Like, I know we're all like, this is a hobby group and there's some like fun and like levity involved, but you really shouldn't be doing that. She also just having all these messages come through, right, is like, I need to put Ted in this place a little bit. So she takes it a step further. She's like, I'm also like actually a pretty good hacker.

And stop, girl, no, this girl's about to put her black hat on. Like, she's She said, bet. She said, bet.

She did. And like, I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of people in this community who also probably have hacking skills. So like, in general, Ted, I would be a little bit more, you know, like concerned about the information you're giving out and like chill with that pretty much. Like, she's just like, yeah. Yeah, does this deter Ted? No, Ted didn't—

Ted didn't listen to any. I'm, I'm certain that the DM's only going one way at this point. Like, maybe the work— maybe it's not receiving it. Like, maybe something's broken. Maybe her Wi-Fi's been down. Actually, no, because she'd still receive the message. Something's broken. She should really talk to whatever company she's sending messages because clearly they're not reaching him.

Listen, I'd love to believe it's on her end, but it's not because Ted clearly reads this message. He actually latches on to the word hacking. Oh no. And gets real excited and is like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I have to tell you, I actually just finished a cybersecurity program and I'm trying to pivot out of sales and marketing into a technical cybersecurity role.

This guy's just not getting the memo. Okay. Yeah. All right, Ted. Not at all.

Day goes on. He— we're kind of in the same spot. Like, he just is talking to himself. Aubrey's like, I'm busy. Like, I put this— I told Ted, I put him in his place. I was like, stop telling me personal shit about you. That's not what this is for. And he continues to message her. She leaves all of these messages unread. Finally, our big day arrives. Disco costume party rolls around. And who does she see but Ted? They make immediate eye contact when he walks in, but Aubrey's like with her group of people.

How does she know it's Ted? Because they're anonymous, right? That they don't have pictures.

I love that you caught this detail. Look at you, you're so smart. Aubrey—

oh my gosh, thanks.

Aubrey is a hacker, Jasmine.

Stop.

She already found out everything she needed.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, Aubrey.

She's like, you gave me your phone number. That's say nothing less. Like, say no more.

Say no more. Reverse lookup. I know everything about you. Your mother's maiden name, all of it.

But he seemed to know what she looked like too.

Oh. Oh no.

So they make eye contact. And Ted does not immediately come over. In fact, Ted does a lap. So she like sees him go a different direction and he's gone for 10 minutes and she's like, okay, whatever. I'm gonna continue enjoying my disco costume party. But then she decides to check her phone and there's a message from Ted. Who else? Ted says, hey, I left early. You didn't seem keen on hanging.

See, see, here's the thing, Allison, and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not putting this on Aubrey. I would have blocked, I would have blocked this person the first, after the first thing, the problem. This is a learning lesson because these things never shake out. Like, clearly the one-way messaging thing is a thing because I Like, what do you do? There's, there's, you're just gonna like send him it again and he's still not gonna hear the boundary. Yeah. So yeah. Do you, do you think though that, I wonder if this, how much of this is like reading between the lines versus maybe this person has like an inability to read between the lines versus like how much did Aubrey set like a very, very clear, I don't wanna talk to you, like being really like brick over the head.

Yeah.

WWE style. Communication. Um, again, not putting on Aubrey, but there is— there are people who don't— aren't able to pick up on those, like, nuances. So I wonder how direct that communication is versus this being like— there's a line where it's hard between that, all right, being kind of like weird, creepy, you know. I mean, at the end of the day, Aubrey's boundaries are being crossed regardless.

1000%. And the answer is like, we don't really know. And that's kind of how it always, you don't always know that until you actually like, whatever, maybe she has to take it a little step further to like try and set the boundary even more than she already has and then see how that is responded to like that, like communication is just hard, period. And then getting into this level of communication where it's like, we're— I'm not sure if my cues are being read. Like, it just makes it even harder. So I—

but I—

but you're bringing up a really good point.

I mean, they got the body language cue. They said it doesn't seem like you want to hang out. We'll give that. Yeah, so that exists.

Yes, 1,000%. But it's like, you know, Aubrey's reading that and she's like, but I told you I was gonna be hanging out with other people and that you could just have this ticket, right? So it's like, it's just like a weird, it's just a weird position to be in.

Right.

Nevertheless, the next day comes around, uh, post disco party and Aubrey is like, this isn't sitting right with me. I'm going to send screenshots to the Slack group moderator and basically leave it up to them. To handle it how they see fit. And she's like, I'm just letting you know, this is what happened, this is how it made me feel, like, you, you go for it.

Repeat offender.

A few hours go by and Aubrey's like, let me just like look up this— let me just look up this guy again. I already like found out some information on him, but like, I'm gonna keep hacking. What's the deal? What's the deal?

So Aubrey is in her her CSI bag right now. Aubrey is in her CSI bag. She's like, I have a hunch and I'm going to— I'm gonna figure it out.

Yeah, she is. I will say Aubrey finds some stuff that we will not be discussing on this pod. Oh, I'm gonna— I'm gonna leave it there. But she finds some other things that we can discuss on the pod. One is her, his LinkedIn. She finds Ted's LinkedIn. Ted, if you recall, in addition to giving Aubrey his phone number, told Aubrey where he worked and who his employer was. Finds his LinkedIn, nowhere in sight. His current job has nothing to do with sales and marketing like Ted told her he was trying to pivot out of. And she sits back and she's like, okay, like there's more involved here. Like I was not only sent 1,000 messages, but there were lies in them. What are you thinking?

I think she had a gut instinct from the beginning. I mean, this is making me lean one way. This isn't just a story of misinterpreting communication. Like clearly this person is, I don't know, there's something wrong here. A different, like, lying about like where you work or where you're going is crazy. This, this is why you go full CSI when you get like a number. This is what happens.

This is precisely why she does see on the, his LinkedIn that he did do a cybersecurity program.

So, oh, okay.

That part is not a lie.

That's part of lying is you have to find shreds of truth for it to sound like a good lie.

I wonder how you know that.

I'm just kidding. Watching CSI.

Like, of course. Of course. But Aubrey's also just like, what is the point of lying? Like, I don't know this person.

What is the deal?

Two last points. She thinks, or she comes around to realize, you know what? I am like a cybersecurity queen. I am well known and well connected. This dude was probably just trying to like network with me in the weirdest way possible, but so I could do him a favor. She was just like, in her words, Broseph had no idea that he was showing— I'm not even gonna— I don't want to say this, but showing his ass to a woman well established in his field. Who might interfere with his tech pivot. Like, she was just like, you're gonna come at me and ask me for things, but also lie and then message me a thousand times? Like, there's no chance of me ever helping you now.

I don't know, I feel like the whole thing is so confusing. I don't really know what— the mind of Ted is an enigma. Clearly there's something off.

We need Ted's story.

You know what, I think I'm good. I think I'm good.

You don't want to do a part 2?

Uh, no, I, I think, I think I'm good. I think, I think I'm fine with not knowing what's going on in Ted's head.

Okay, one more thing.

Okay, there's more. Okay, so not only did— so to recap, yeah, shows up, notices you with a bunch of people, dips out. After doing a lap at a party, because that's not creepy, because clearly he's looking for her and that was the only reason to show up to this thing. But also, in addition, continued to like message. And then we find out that they lied about their backstory for no reason, and we, we don't know much more than that. Although they did take a cybersecurity training, so there's something, there's something there. Okay. So we're unsure what the intentions are here still. It's still murky.

And because we don't have Ted's version, it's going to remain murky. But I will leave you with one last detail. The moderators get back to Aubrey and they're like, huh, this is actually— this is a repeat offender, and we're now officially going to take action and kick Ted out of this group.

Wow. So I wonder like what they were trying to do. That's the thing is I, I wanna believe like the nice part of me is like maybe they're just not able to read the air, but there's just some weirdness here that makes it hard to feel like it— there's not some something more nefarious.

Yeah.

I don't like it. I don't like it.

I don't like it either, but I think Aubrey is the real hero of this story by officially being like, I am going to report this and hopefully make sure this doesn't happen to anybody else.

Yeah. Like, like a true security mindset. Yeah.

Like a true CSI expert.

Listen, I told you this, one of my mantras is that I'm not above snitching.

Oh yeah, I know.

So I, I stand with Aubrey on this one, especially if they were bothering other people. That's, it's kind of sad cuz you wanna create safe communities, but it's good that the moderators took action and took her seriously.

Yeah.

I hope that somebody corrects that behavior or figures out what the situation is there cuz that's. Yeah, that's not super great.

Yeah, it's a little, I mean, it's difficult, right? This is like a voluntary hobby group. It's not like working at a company where you have HR and you have like a code of conduct and all of those things. This is just like real stuff that happens in the broader tech industry. And yeah, does this type of behavior get corrected? Maybe sometimes. Maybe not.

Wow. Well, that's depressing.

Usually you do that at the end of these episodes, and I'm like, well, here's the silver lining.

So you're the positive one of the two of us, I think.

Well, not right now. I need you to bring— I need you to bring that energy. Bring us back.

Yeah, I mean, the good news is that she was taken seriously, and I think that this has a narrative on like just any, you know, where a lot of people wanna like create community in tech and you wanna be connected. To your point, it's not like an HR system and you're not fully protected. And there is like some level of consciousness you need to have about yourself with being more public and more visible in a community of people. And so I also think it's good that she was security conscious of not sharing a lot of personal information because you don't really know who's watching. Yeah, because that would be weird. Also, sometimes you try to do a nice thing, just don't give disco tickets out, man. Like, just— yeah, just bite the cost.

Bite the cost. Bring your mom. Or—

this is actually an ad provided by StubHub— uh, just resell your tickets on StubHub.

All right, don't be giving out your phone number to random people.

You could actually have a burner. Don't ask me. Don't ask more questions. There's a burner phone app.

Keep going.

So you can—

please, please keep going.

I swear I'm hearing like sirens in the back every time I say something on this pod today. Yeah, there's a burner phone app that you can get This has been around for a very long time, and you could create numbers, um, on it, and you can actually give people different numbers. So Allison, if at any point, like, I don't want to use this as an example, like, you could have your own number, but if there's someone else, like, I met, I could give them a number that's like a shell number, basically. And so they can call me, text me, whatever on it. And then if I'm like, yeah, you know, you like block people. This is like a serious block. Cause you don't just block them, you delete the number. So your number no longer even exists. All bridge to you are there. So it's another way to have some privacy.

It's like a digital credit card, but for, but for phones.

Yeah. But for phone numbers. Yeah.

I don't know. Like, I don't know who needs that in this case. Ted, Ted certainly doesn't mind giving out his real number, but yeah.

I mean, just, just saying if you wanted to. For share, correspond in a, in a safer way over SMS specifically. You want a different protocol and you don't want to just use Discord or Slack or whatever. That's, that is an alternative, is a burner phone.

No ad coming? You don't have the name of the app?

Hiya? No, I'm just kidding. That's a different one. I have another app that if you call me, I have a robot pick up for me and it asks you who you are and then it asks me if I wanna answer it afterwards. So I have random like voice messages and stuff of like people who gave up. But yeah, it'll be like, who are you?

You get to listen to that? Cuz my phone does that too for just like through Google. I can, when I get an incoming call, I can It will basically be like, is this urgent? Do you have to get through to Allison right now? It doesn't use my name.

That's cool.

Yeah, but you get to hear the people like trying.

That's funny. They get irritated sometimes. It's really funny. Actually, my brother, for some reason it did it to him and it was very hilarious because he's just like, why do you have a robot?

You're like, I don't want to talk to people.

What do you mean? I'm like, what? Listen. You know, should have gave him my burner phone.

On that note, everybody go enjoy your burner phone numbers. Be safe out there and don't lie about your employment situation.

Which, or if you do, don't get caught.

Better advice.

I'm just kidding.

I don't care. Better advice.

Better advice. All right.

See you next time.

Thanks for listening to Off the VPN.

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