CD204: ANJAN SUNDARAM - INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM - STRINGER FOUNDATION UPDATE

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Transcription provided by Podhome.fm
Created: 06/03/2026 19:24:56
Duration: 6006.126
Channels: 1

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Happy Bitcoin Wednesday, freaks. It's your host, Odell, for another Citadel Dispatch.

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The show focused on actual Bitcoin and freedom tech

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discussion.

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I'm recording now on June 3 at seventeen hundred UTC.

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The Bitcoin block height is nine five two two four two.

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We are at one five two three

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sets per dollar.

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The Bitcoin price is just under $66,000.

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Everyone's freaking out. Sentiment at all time lows. I don't know. Hang in there, guys. This is where this is where we make our bread. Just stay humble and stack sets about it. Bitcoin is needed now more than ever. Freaks, I know I haven't

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broadcasted

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for two weeks now. You know, summer's kinda slow. I've been focusing on family. I didn't really have

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any good conversations to do. And since this is a 100%

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audience funded show, we have no ads or sponsors. I'm not required

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by my advertising

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to do, like, three shows or four shows a week. So I try and only do shows when they're something interesting to talk about. I just couldn't find anything that I really wanted to talk about I thought was valuable or anyone good to come on. So that's why I've been going for the last two weeks. But we have a great show lined up today.

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I have a great show lined up next week, with the guys behind Tando,

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the

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the Kenyan Bitcoin

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app that makes it very easy to spend Bitcoin in Kenya. So I'm really excited about that. I think that'll be a lot of fun.

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As always, before we get started, all relevant links are still dispatched.com.

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Thank you to everyone who supported the show.

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The largest supporters of our last episode,

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which was about the attack on Bitcoin in South Africa, specifically self custody, which is continuing,

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unfortunately,

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but they're fighting the good fight. Money Badger zapped 21,000

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sats.

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PG Design zapped 10,000 sats. Mab twenty one

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zapped 10,000 sats. Ride or die freaks. Thank you, guys. And then we had shadowy badger

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zapped 7,777.

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Sick episode walls closing in. No KYC.

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Get involved. If you can't spare I know. Bear market. I know times are tough right now.

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You can't spare the stats. Easiest way to support the show

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besides donating your hard earned Bitcoin

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is by sharing with friends and family.

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Just take their phone, open the podcast app, search civil dispatch, press subscribe. They won't know what hit them. I think they'll find it valuable. Like I said, all relevant links are still dispatch.com.

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Last but not least,

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since I last spoke to you guys, I've really refined I've really refined

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my clanker news desk, which you can find at citadelwire.com.

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It's pulling from a 120 global sources right now. It's got a whole breaking news. I got a breaking news clanker that's constantly monitoring the situation for you, and it's tracking 400 open source projects.

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So if you wanna pay attention to what's going on in the world without wasting your time,

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without

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a bunch of different advertisements and engagement bait and bullshit,

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you can just go to silhouettewire.com.

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And I hope you find that helpful. And any feedback is also helpful because I'm constantly iterating in on it. Like I said, I got got three different clankers working on it right now. They're using all the top tier models.

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It's been kind of cool to to build it out. Anyway, freaks.

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Oh, and also, you can listen to sealdispatch.com.

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And also, you can listen to Seal dispatch and some other curated podcasts directly on to the wire. So maybe some people are listening to this show through there. I think right now, we've almost

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maybe when you listen to this, we'll probably have passed 17,000 visitors on the site, which is pretty cool. Anyway, we have a friend of the show, return guest,

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Anjan here.

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You heard from him last

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in December. That was civil dispatch one eighty seven. You might remember he's trying to build

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basically the open sets of independent journalism. This is basically a six month update on that show. So if you haven't listened to that show, maybe go back and listen to it. I assume most of you have, but he has some really great updates for us. How's it going on, John?

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Things are great, Odell. Thanks for having me.

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Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. So I don't know where to start. I mean, I think the the big thing is

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the Stringer Foundation,

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aka the OpenSats for Independent Journalism. How how's it been going over there? It's

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I mean, thanks for having me in December. It was a great conversation.

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We've

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done so much since then. We had notably

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a full page in the New York Times last month announcing our inaugural

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25 finalists.

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They're incredible.

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50% women, 75% from the global South, 25 from the global North. They were chosen using our proprietary courage index,

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which measures

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how much risk or how much the journalist is doing relative to their resources, how brave they'd be. So everybody's eligible to apply. We got we hadn't, we hadn't compiled our results the last time we spoke, but last year when we opened our applications, we got seven seventy six journalists who applied from 129

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countries, 129 countries in 14 languages. And we used our courage index and our selection committee of, you know,

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top tier editors, journalists from Vietnam,

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Kenya,

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London,

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and Mexico,

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you know, sorted through those journalists, sifted through them, chose the top 25 who we published in the New York Times. And we basically since then

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built,

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I, you know, even if I say so myself, I think one of the most influential

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media networks in the world. We have now our board has the president of the International New York Times,

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the executive editor of Time Magazine,

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the chief growth officer of the Atlantic ninety second wide street, you know, leaders in media around the world, and they're all behind behind

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our journalists.

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We're super excited now to right

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now, our jurors are already

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in our high profile final jury is is looking at the 25 candidates evaluating them, and we'll announce

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our inaugural winners in November on another page in the New York Times, who is really backing us and supporting our work. Christian Amanpour is gonna have the winners on our show. We're organizing multiple forums, 92nd, White Street and other places to host dialogues,

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events. We're really excited about bringing the work of these journalists to the

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the broader public. And, you know, just just that announcement,

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just to give an example of the kind of

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impact we're having,

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one of our finalists was called in by his country's

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new environment prosecutor

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to ask him, who should we prosecute for environmental crimes? And so he was like he told her, and then he said, he asked why did you invite me and he said, well we saw your name on the New York Times announcement, we thought you have good information.

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That for us is like, you know, golden. We want to translate

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these brave journalists work into policy impact. And so countries, think tanks,

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building those partnerships, sending the journalists work through those pipelines so they reach the corridors of power and influence policymaking and ultimately benefit

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populations around the world. That's what we're about. And, you know, if I just summarize what we're up to, we're basically,

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in my view, solving

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a civilizational crisis. As you know, it's become

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easier than ever to distribute information,

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but the sourcing of truthful information, especially in the age of AI is harder than ever.

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Our journalists are more precious than ever, we want to build that frontline. We're building that frontline of brave journalists who are producing the truth and who are unfortunately

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lacking institutional support

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and visibility.

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That's awesome. Very productive six months, bro. I also have to say, you know, since you asked

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a coder

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listening to our last show, reached out to me and said, listen, anything you need you need, let me know. And so I was at a Human Rights Foundation hackathon in January, and I called him up before I went to the hackathon. I was like, you tell me how should I

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structure this hackathon? And he gave me advice, and we won. And we won the hackathon. And since winning the hackathon, he's basically

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built out the code we launched last week. Again, in the age of AI, I think we feel it's important to focus on physical security, human beings and their bodies.

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And so last week we launched sort of soft launched on the app store and Android. You can download it. It's called Kintab, K Y N T A B.

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That's the name of the app. It's a personal SOS, and it's built, it automates the techniques that I've used and war reporters have used to stay alive and stay safe. And the idea is, you know, we're testing with our initial cohort. Try it out. You can submit feedback within the app. We're very responsive. We're updating and making changes. And the goal is to then send it out to writers at risk, journalists at risk, you know, women in hostile places like Mexico, people worried about, you know, maybe ICE,

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people worried about being detained, kidnapped, their car being stopped. Basically, the fundamental

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principle is we can't trust our governments anymore. We can't trust our institutions. And so we need to rely on each other so you can send a personal SOS to your own network, trusted network.

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That's pretty cool. I love the ride or die freaks showing up. Is it public who that audience

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member is? Oh, sure. I mean, I don't think he asked me to keep it confidential. His name is he runs snow services

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in out of Indonesia.

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Awesome.

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I love it. Working together as a day. Freaks globally. I mean, I I've looked at, you know, I get like very basic

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RSS feed analytic numbers, like where people are listening from, and it's pretty cool. Dispatch is truly global. It's it's there's, like, six countries where people don't listen. You know, it's, a 150 plus countries,

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which is just awesome. It's a global movement of ride or dies. Okay. There's a lot to unpack there. First, let's start with Stringer,

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and then we can go into the app a little bit.

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This this courage score, what is the courage score?

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So it's a courage index, and it's a way of leveling the playing field. We have, like, five variables

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or criteria.

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You know,

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how much is a journalist persisting in the face of harassment and danger, you know, threats, that kind of stuff. So interesting stats there. Twenty two percent of the journalists who applied to us have received death threats. Forty eight percent risk of active risk of imprisonment, those kinds of, you know, threats and risks.

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How much have they persisted and how much bravery have they shown on that front? So how does that work? Are they like completing a multiple

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choice? Are they completing like a survey when they submit their application? Or Yes. So we designed the initial application,

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a very lean application. We designed it based on this Courage Index. And basically the journalists through their answers, which are narrative answers and multiple choice, they have to choose a multiple choice,

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you know, answer multiple choice questions. How many times you've been arrested, stuff like that. Yeah. Like, you know, yeah, like a general one. Then we asked them in a narrative, in a text box to give details. So how many times you've been arrested, who, how, because each journalist, each country is different. And so we parse both of those and we use that journalist input to self score, to create a self scoring. And then our jury around the world from Vietnam and Kenya and everywhere, they assess how accurate the journalists are, have self scored themselves

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based on their narrative information that they've given us. And so we were able to sift out the journalists who are, you know, maybe over promoting Yeah.

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Embellishing. And, and, know, the, the reality is the vast majority of journalists are

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self deprecating. Don't, they don't see themselves as heroes. They don't value and recognize how much risk they're taking and they tend to underscore themselves. Often we're, you know, bumping them up. And those are the journalists who get, you know, first dibs

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at being in the top 100 or the top 25,

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and so that's one of the criteria, you know, the how much you've persisted despite the risks, but there's also how much are you amplifying marginalized voices,

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what kind of power are you holding accountable, abusive power, like who are the powers, are they local powers, are they you know national, global,

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what's the scale, what's the scale of your impact of the issues that you're covering,

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you know, again, there are sometimes journalists,

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you know, will consider

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a local river contamination of a river to be a local issue, but, you know, if the company contaminating the river is a global mining company listed on a, you know, global stock exchange, and that's a global issue. And so Right. We're often having to also

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elevate their work, that's part of our job. You know, these people are on the front lines, they're deep, deep, their noses are deepened on local conflicts. They're putting their lives at risk. And our job is to elevate them to the global stage. We've built partnerships with we're developing partnerships with the New York Times and Time Magazine and other outlets of foreign policy just to get their work paid, published and paid them to get paid, and these kinds of things, it's actually, you know, we're helping one of the most entrepreneurial

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customer segments in the world. These people all could have been working at big companies earning a lot of money, but they chose to do journalism to serve the public,

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and I find

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that if you give them a little bit of help, a little bit of resources,

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they multiply that out like, you know, 10x, 100x, they're

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it doesn't take that much work or effort to unlock a lot of potential. And that's what I'm I'm seeing already, and I'm really excited about.

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I love that. Yeah. I mean, I I think the the courage index is clever because,

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I mean,

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you I think you said nearly 800 applications,

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like, 770

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plus applications.

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I mean, OpenSets,

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we've had over 2,000 applications,

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and we've approved 400,

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over 400 grants. And if you're not like in the weeds and see it, like, it's just hard to appreciate

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how difficult it is to sort through all of that and to vet it. And OpenSets, like we have an advantage in that a lot of it is code, right? So it's, you actually have something like relatively hard and objective to look at. Obviously, journalism isn't like that. So it's clever

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to

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try and create at least some kind of objective rubric,

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like measuring score to look at. I mean, obviously, also have to bet it. And I do

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that. That's clever. That's a clever way. That's a clever way of handling. So then you have 25

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people that you've recognized, I guess, as, like, almost, like, finalists. Does so does New York Times did they donate that space, or they make you pay for it? No. No. No. No. No. They they totally donated it.

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Full page in the weekend edition, April 11. Yeah.

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There it's just a sign that Angie Salisberger, the chairman of the New York Times wrote wrote in personally to say how grateful he was for the work we're doing, how much we're filling a gap, you know A huge gap. Yeah. And doing important work. You know, it's been great to see that the media leadership,

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we're all journalists. They're also humble. You know, the New York Times is the most prestigious publication in the world. You know, AG told me, you know, of course we can't be everywhere. We recognize that there's a humility. There's an understanding that we all need to work together and yeah, we're filling this huge gap.

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And yeah, man, my math

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major roots helped design that courage index and make it as efficient as possible

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to to, you know, you're right.

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To process a huge number of applications and, you know, it's it to give another example, a friend of mine, he's won a Pulitzer for the New York times and he's an old friend, a mentor. He asked me, can I apply? And I was like, of course, man, you can, but the bar is going to be higher because you have the full weight of the New York times behind you. And you're not like an Angolan journalist who's going to be denied food you know, his land taken away, bank account emptied, kids kicked out of school, that that won't happen to you, so you gotta hit the ball out of the park, and we'd have had some candidates like that. One of our finalists is a journalist from Ukraine, and she works for the public broadcaster, so she has a regular salary, She has,

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you know, backup infrastructure from the broadcaster,

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but she puts her body on the eastern frontline in Ukraine. And that's that's the kind of bar that we are setting,

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and many journalists are hitting that bar and deserve the recognition and

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extra support. And so it leveled the playing field in an interesting way. 50% of our finalist list is female,

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75% from the global South. We didn't have to fudge that or, you know, do some affirmative action kind of mechanism

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to get those kinds of statistics. We, it just happened naturally.

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You know, these women, 50% of our list are the best journalists in the world. They happen to be women. Many of them are from Africa. They happen to be from Africa. And there's nothing else.

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Why do you think what is?

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I mean, if if your courage score isn't weighting,

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like giving women more courage than men, which I take you at face value for,

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I do not think you're lying about that. Why are there more women?

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Do you have any

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inclination there?

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Because there must be some downstream

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cause,

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for

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that to be the case.

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If it's that heavily weighted.

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So it's fiftyfifty. Right? It's I think it's 45% women 48% women. Oh, okay. Too misunderstood.

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Yeah. Fair enough. So there's no cost. It's No. They're It's just gender breakdown.

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Yeah. It's just it's matching

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global demographics for gender

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and for global south global north. Like, you know, 75% of the world's population is global south, that's how the two I came up in on this. I thought you said 75% women.

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Yeah. Yeah. No. Makes sense. So it's basically just like it's a it's a micro it's a representation

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of population.

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That's what it is. That's it. Yeah. That's it. That's pretty cool. And I think, you know, in recent years, more women have been doing frontline reporting

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just because of how the field's changed.

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I think Historically, it was male dominated, right? Yeah. Because anything that was like more violent oriented or threat

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based, right, was just male dominated.

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Exactly. And I think we're getting, we're seeing now very interesting women's stories about, you know, the kinds of courage that they show, the kinds of spaces they can enter, which are different from where men can enter, you know, they can enter women's groups or homes in Afghanistan, places like that, or talk talk to warlords in different ways. You know, Mike's wife was a war reporter, and she would talk down to a warlord in in in Congo. She'd be like, You are not gonna

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kill any more people. And he'd be like, Yes, mama. And she was like, You've been a bad man. She's like, I know, mama. And you know, that kind of stuff. It's just a different relationship. And I think it's better for journalism.

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Yeah.

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Yeah. Mean, the other piece there is

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like, yeah, obviously, money is important. You need money to survive and do things of value.

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But the recognition is incredibly important. I like that you've you've realized that, like, a key thing

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that you can do at Stringer is the recognition piece.

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I mean, I can't tell you people are writing in after that New York Times page was published, they were like, you know, praise the heavens, and my eyes are welling up and really, really emotional messages because they just don't get recognition.

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The recognition

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is often reserved for, say, the Pulitzer Prize, but to be eligible for the Pulitzer, you have to work for a US organization.

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And many of them, these journalists on our list and myself, I'm not eligible for the Pulitzer or the MacArthur or many of these global prizes, the Orwell, you have to publish in The UK. I have horror stories of trying to work, you know, gain the eligibility and trying to make myself eligible, it's super hard. And

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myself, my own story, and I think this is reflecting many of the journalists, you know, I studied math, I went to Yale, I had this job as a quant at Goldman Sachs on job offer. I turned it down, went to Congo, bought a one way ticket, became a reporter. And I think that's representative of many of the journalists around the world. They all could be working comfortable corporate jobs,

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and they chose to do this work. They chose to serve the public at a huge pay cut. And I think they don't do it for the money clearly, and they do it for the recognition.

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So my hypothesis,

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I've, you know, validated with journalists around the world is that if I had a million dollars,

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I could give a 100 journalists

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10 ks each. Now that would have certain impact, but I think you could take that same 1,000,000 invested in a global transformative prize and you will inspire generations of journalists around the world. Like, you know, tens of thousands of journalists will vie to get that prize because that's what matters to them. Of course, the money is important, our prizes are funded, you can't, you know, recognition doesn't put food on the table. I've received many, many prizes where I have there's no prize money attached, and I'm wondering how do you how do I sustain this work? You get like fancy plate or something. Exactly. Or, you know, yeah, a fancy plate. They buy me a ticket somewhere,

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you know, put me in front of their donors, raise money,

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but I go back without any material support, and again I think the answer there is you don't need to give huge amounts of money, these journalists will

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give, you know, make limited amounts of money go a long way. The other the other thing that we're innovating is that unlike other prizes,

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we ask our winners

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to do what I'm doing, open up their networks to the other journalists, younger journalists, and multiply out what I'm doing so that in three to five years, this whole organization isn't dependent on my

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admittedly extensive networks. I have good networks, and I built this because I am able to, you know, do draw on those. But the idea is three to five years down the line.

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It should be independent of me. Each winner will bring to bring to bear and bring to our organization their own. Yeah. I mean, that's the hard part. Mean, the whole thing is hard, but that's very hard. But recognition is important. And I'm glad you bring that up because that's what we work for. We want recognition for society that the risks we take are worth it, that the work we're doing is serving society. And that's more important than money is important, but that's kind of what we're aiming for. Yeah.

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I mean, just think people discount.

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First of all, I think people discount that you can just do things. And that's why it's incredibly impressive how much you've done and accomplished in six months.

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But then the second piece is like,

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people really discount how few people do things. Like, mean, I it's,

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it's you need good people to push push the ball forward. And so finding good people,

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expanding momentum,

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de risking

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in certain individuals

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from these types of operations is incredibly,

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incredibly difficult.

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And all it takes is like,

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I don't know, it's kind of like,

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same same, but different with like,

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multi generational family wealth, where you have like, the guy who made the thing. And then like three generations later, it's like completely gone.

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Right? Like everything is like completely gone. And it's because

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it's easier to break things than it is to make things.

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Entropy, So you have to be very deliberate.

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The law of entropy always

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increases, unless you fight to keep something organized.

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But yeah, 100%.

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And to that end, you know, yeah, we're building out our board. You know, I mentioned we have people from the New York Times, Time Magazine, we have a family office CIO who's handling all our finances,

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we have

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AllianceBernstein

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offering to, you know, host the fund Goldman Sachs, know, all the usual suspects, Morgan Lewis, the law firm, all these folks have chipped in pro bono

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you know, help us build what we're building. It's really, you know, I've been really

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aggressive

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single-minded about that, you know, getting good people who care and are in this for the right reasons and will,

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you know,

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help us amplify. We're speaking to the CEO on Friday of a major global

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advertising firm that wants to help us pro bono elevate these journalists, and like you said, de risking these journalists work is

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incredibly hard, but it's it's there's a lot of goodwill out there for people who wanna do that. And getting a mention in the New York Times, a full page,

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getting, you know, we're we're building partnerships with psychologists,

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a network of 75 psychologists,

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you know, getting free support, mental health support, the safety app, we're rolling that out. So there's a free version that will protect the journalists physically. Yeah. Just providing that base infrastructure that allows them to do what they do so well. And I'm sure we'll 10x and 100x what they do because they're so passionate and motivated

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that, you know, there's a community out there that's backing them and supporting them. There's an institutional home for them. I think this means a lot.

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Yeah. Mean, for example, know this audio only,

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but just to, like, visualize

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what Anjan means when he says recognition in the New York Times, they they put together, like, really nice full page,

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like big red letters, truth has a cost, no journalist should bear it alone. And then it's got all their it's got their pictures and their names and like a little brief description of each person, each of the 25.

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It's incredibly well done

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in terms of,

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like, just appearance and recognition. So so you so you have the 25 finalists, then you say there's gonna be 10 winners for the this is the first year winners. Right? Exactly. And then those 10 winners will then also

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be even more highlighted in another full page.

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And then they get they get a financial

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reward with that as well? Exactly. So we're building a pot. We're building a pot of money, building it three years at a time so that we can give, you know, stay stable and give stable

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amounts of money. But the big goal, I mean, we're right now we're proving the concept in this inaugural year, right? We're basically

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showing the kind of impact that we can have. We've secured certain funds. Hopefully by November when we hand out the funds, we'll have secured more and we can announce a, you know, a serious amount of money. And the real goal here is So you don't know how much you don't know how much you're getting We them we set out no. We can guarantee 50 k

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to the 10 journalists of e no. Total price pool Okay. For the next three years. So we've raised for the journalists,

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set aside a total of $1.50.

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That's guaranteed.

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We have another, I don't know, 500 k that's been promised, and that's yet to hit the bank account. So once that hits the bank account, we will be able to It's not real. It's not real until it's end. That's that's all what I always feel. Like a lot of people promising us money and making commitments and in email in writing. So it's has an equal standing, but, you know, once only once it hits the bank account, will I, you know, raise the funds. I'm hoping we can give out

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if if we're lucky, we can give out 200 k this year and guarantee that for the for the next two years as well. So for three years guaranteed.

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And with that

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That would be 20 ks each.

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So the winners would get more. So we'd give the

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grant the grant winners would get 25 k.

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The winner, the senior journalists, the fellows would get 50 k and the winner would get a 150 ks. So

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wait, wait, wait, wait, I thought there's 10 winners.

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There's right now we've guaranteed eight winners.

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So it's one prize winner, two fellows and five grantees.

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Got it. So there's gonna be a single winner. You're you took 770

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applications, and you're gonna pick one person. Yeah.

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Yeah. And, know, this is where what we can guarantee today as we're talking over the summer as money hits our account, we the board will choose to extend that, you know, do you have any concern that there's going to be 769

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people that resent you for not choosing them?

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Everybody

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who's applied, you know, that is important. I think we're an equitable partner. So they've invested, you know, the time to fill out We the application

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have to give them stuff in return.

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And so just for applying, we're giving them free access to the safety app. We're giving them

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access to the mental health resources.

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So everybody will get something for being part of our journey. And yes, I think, you know, prize winners,

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there's, there's always that risk that you reward one person, but hopefully, you know, my sense from the applicant pool,

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when we announced the finalists,

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many of the folks who didn't make it to the list wrote in and said, we're just grateful that you're doing this important work. Hope I can make it next year. I think that's the spirit that we want to, you know, encourage.

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Yeah, I'm being mostly provocative. I think the majority of

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them will still appreciate you and be graceful.

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And they get something material for it. No. So I want to I want to make sure they get. Yeah, just be prepared. There are going to be a subset.

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We will have seen them. Yeah, they won't say they won't say I don't like on John because he didn't approve me for the prize. They're gonna make up like other bullshit.

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And they're gonna say that's the reason they don't like you.

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It has it's a it's a human condition. It's a small subset of people. It'll be a small subset people, of but just be prepared for it is something I wasn't really prepared for with open sets.

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The mental Yeah, health

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go on. Yeah. No, guess, you know, to your question about money, I think this is the proof of concept, you know, this year, next year. The goal is to raise an open sets, right? We're raising an open sets. We're raising a $50,000,000

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fund

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that at 4%

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will provide a $2,000,000 annual budget.

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And that will a million dollars of that will go straight to the journalists. Another half 1,000,000 will go for programmatic support and only 20% will go for overheads for the team. 80% goes straight to the journalists.

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So that's the goal. That's what we're pitching.

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That's what we're building towards. Obviously

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we need to prove it. And that's what we're doing this year. We're proving it, and we're proving that the whole media establishment is behind us and believes in this, and understands and agrees that we're filling the gap.

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And what we're offering, we built the infrastructure, we built the program, we're offering the legacy for whoever wants to take it. So people can name a prize, name it after their families, and we're in discussions with a small group of families who are interested in that.

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Yeah, that's the

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journey. That's the final vision for making this sustainable,

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that it lasts in perpetuity to your point about the third generation. How do how do you how do you make sure this lasts and creating a a really strong board that manages its fund in a responsible way and efficient way. So it's not dependent

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your million, right? Like Yeah. How many people on the planet do you trust with $50,000,000

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not to fuck it, fuck it up? Exactly.

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Exactly. There's not many people. That's the hard part. So

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the mental health piece is interesting. How are you guys thinking about that? Because that's something I mean, we see it on the open source developer side all the time. Just they feel they're loners, they're oftentimes their work makes them loners,

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right? They're like up against the world on their own.

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And it's not an easy it's like, it's not an easy problem. So how do you think about the mental health piece? Cause that's cool. I like that you guys are at least thinking about it. 100%.

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You know, mental health support has helped me in my work and helped me build this. Know, it's not easy building something like this. You have all these conversations,

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you know, you know, a lot of support, but also rejections and, all kinds of stuff. It's not now, it's too early, whatever it is. And you need to be have some mental fortitude to like power through that and build build anything.

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I think, yes, we share a lot of spiritual

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connection with, you know, folks that you're supporting on the front lines of the world. Bitcoin, I think like our work, a lot of it is most valuable

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and most relevant on the margins of the world. Not in The US that where you have a functioning financial system that Bitcoin is valuable. It's it's it's some authoritarian regime where they're gonna shut down your bank account and change the name on your bank account, which has happened to some of the journalists I've worked with. And that's where Bitcoin becomes makes you unassailable and, and, you know, sovereign.

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And so, how do we how are we thinking about it? That's the need. How are we thinking about it? I've

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I'm developing a program. I should have a concrete proposal this week with a network of 75 journalists,

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a psychologist, trauma psychologist,

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who are spread out around the world and are willing to, you know, do three month

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targeted three month weekly

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programs with these journalists. Wow. And and we basically get that they're willing to work on a cost efficient basis. Most of the psychologists are outside The US, so we're safe from regulatory

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kind of

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constraints,

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you know, licensing approvals. Many psychologists in The US can't practice outside their state, licensed state, and stuff it gets more expensive, yeah. Exactly, it's more expensive. So by relying on psychologists in Colombia or India, where there isn't such a complex regulatory

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framework,

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we're able to match,

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basically match journalists with psychologists in the region and at an affordable price that we fundraise, the journalist doesn't pay anything. And we fundraise with donors and say, Hey, for X amount of dollars, you know, for a thousand dollars, you can basically fund three months or two and a half months of support for journalists that can get them out of a hole. And

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beyond that, if the donor wants to pay for extended support, that's great. Or more journalists, that's great. But beyond that, the journalist is free to negotiate with the psychologist and, you know, many of our psychologists are willing to work on a pay as you can basis.

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And so really encouraging that. And obviously we want the psychologists to do well as well. So as much as we can raise to pay them properly,

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know, we will.

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And the psychologists internal will pay it forward and help our journalists at a reduced cost or sometimes even for free if they can. So that's kind of how we're doing it. This is a matching network of psychologists to journalists around the world. That's wild. That's a significant undertaking.

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Yes.

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And I have you know, again,

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I'm not reinventing the wheel. I'm finding the psychologists, good people

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who have

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helped me in a personal capacity and are care about these journalists in the frontline care about the cause, and they're willing to take on the administrative burden. And so we

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reinvent the wheel, we manage it, we run the network, we build the community, we elevate the journalists, but anything programmatic,

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we outsource that to people who know what they're doing, and we pay them for it, and that's, you know, that's our MO. There are great people who know how to build these operations,

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and we don't want to take on that, do something we're not experts at, you know, we want to fill gaps.

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As we're filling the gaps, as we, you know,

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discover the need for more resources, we'll build out those programs and take on more of the burden.

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But right now we're keeping our operations really lean. And who is that who is that open to? Is that open to all 700 plus applicants or

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a subset? We

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will make it open to all the all the journalists in our who applied. I guess you have the benefit that most of them aren't taking you up on the offer. Right? Exactly.

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I think, you know, that's a reality of mental health. And, you know, I know this from personal experience and other journalists have told me as well, you know, when you're in a dark place, it's not like the first instinct to reach out for help to be vulnerable, you know? And so

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we're counting on yeah. Not not everybody's gonna apply. Not everybody's gonna stick through the three and a half months. It's uncomfortable.

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Yeah. Confronting your demons and getting to a better place. And so

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we're counting on a progressive

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annual, you know, as journalists spread by word-of-mouth. You can scale into it. Yeah. Yeah.

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It's not like you're just like, all of a sudden have 700 people that need therapy.

355
00:36:19.625 --> 00:36:35.660
No. We could with the 75 journalists, psychologists, I think they could do 10 journalists at a time each. So we have the capacity already. But we're not counting on that. Just not gonna happen, you know? Yeah, I mean, I think that's fair too. Like, if you don't want help, like, it's not gonna be productive anyway, so.

356
00:36:36.140 --> 00:36:47.925
Yeah, makes sense. You need to be open. You need to feel like your problems are, you know, a big problem, you know, a big concern that many friends I've tried to convince or talk to about mental health support has been they

357
00:36:48.644 --> 00:36:53.765
feel that their problems are not worthy. They're too small compared to other people's problems, you know?

358
00:36:54.280 --> 00:37:13.435
My Yeah. Girlfriend broke up with me. How is that like a big deal? And it is a big deal because it's triggering, it's like a doorway, it's a portal into all this other stuff that's in your psyche, but you don't see it that way. And so you're like, you know, I don't want to ask for help. I'm going to be, I'm going to be made fun of or something or diminished by my psychologist.

359
00:37:13.675 --> 00:37:19.835
You know, that's rarely the case. And so that's why that's, I would encourage people, especially those who are serving society

360
00:37:20.315 --> 00:37:28.260
to get help because we all need help. We need all of you to be stronger and to do the work that you're doing on behalf of everybody else. Yeah.

361
00:37:28.740 --> 00:37:29.780
Love it. Okay.

362
00:37:31.780 --> 00:37:34.740
I mean, I think let's just change gears a tiny bit here.

363
00:37:35.835 --> 00:37:43.195
So one of the things that I've been spending a lot more time with is all this new AI stuff. And I mean, everyone's heard

364
00:37:43.355 --> 00:37:48.875
the doom and gloom. I think there is some credence to it. You know, like the robots are taking our jobs.

365
00:37:49.035 --> 00:37:50.715
They're making certain jobs obsolete.

366
00:37:53.300 --> 00:38:01.060
You know, I think the truth is probably somewhere I mean, and also, like, I think AI empowers individuals. So I think there's it's the reality is somewhere in the middle.

367
00:38:02.260 --> 00:38:05.460
But journalism is an interesting one, specifically independent

368
00:38:05.460 --> 00:38:06.100
journalism.

369
00:38:07.434 --> 00:38:10.635
I mean, in the beginning of the show, I mentioned this

370
00:38:11.115 --> 00:38:27.510
clanker news desk that I created. And I mean, I was mostly just scratching my own itch. And I'm just I'm spending a decent amount of money on it and time on it. So I figured I might as well make it open to other people if they wanted to use it. But it's mostly just for me. It's like, okay, I have a growing family, I have a bunch of different projects.

371
00:38:27.750 --> 00:38:37.345
I want to know what the hell is going on in the world. And I don't want to doom scroll. And I don't want to be fed ads. And the, know, like, I don't think I have to tell you that like the current

372
00:38:38.385 --> 00:38:39.345
mainstream

373
00:38:39.345 --> 00:38:40.865
news situation

374
00:38:40.945 --> 00:38:42.545
is is is

375
00:38:42.704 --> 00:38:44.945
very predatory and and not

376
00:38:45.185 --> 00:38:46.464
very productive. Like it's it's,

377
00:38:47.330 --> 00:38:50.850
oftentimes a waste of time. Like, just want to know what the hell is going on.

378
00:38:51.890 --> 00:38:57.570
On the independent journalist side, a lot of times, I think what we see is

379
00:38:58.690 --> 00:39:00.210
very well researched,

380
00:39:00.385 --> 00:39:02.465
long form non,

381
00:39:02.945 --> 00:39:11.105
this is like not breaking news, right? So I mean, this is not something like sizzle wires, supposed to be like more breaking news stuff, right? Like new open source software release,

382
00:39:11.425 --> 00:39:17.110
you know, The US bomb someone, you know, there's a major hack or something like that, that's not really like,

383
00:39:17.670 --> 00:39:21.990
the purview necessarily of, of the types of journalists you support.

384
00:39:22.150 --> 00:39:25.750
But I do see like, just on the most basic level,

385
00:39:26.465 --> 00:39:28.705
as an example, you

386
00:39:30.145 --> 00:39:34.625
know, one of the fellows you support or maybe even yourself, I mean, obviously, you have your own

387
00:39:34.945 --> 00:39:36.465
journalism career,

388
00:39:37.105 --> 00:39:41.745
spends eight months, ten months, five years researching something,

389
00:39:42.609 --> 00:39:45.010
writes a nice 20 pages,

390
00:39:45.170 --> 00:39:47.170
you know, about the thing,

391
00:39:47.410 --> 00:39:51.090
gets it peer reviewed and edited and does all this different stuff.

392
00:39:51.570 --> 00:39:54.609
And then the majority of people are just like Claude summarize this link.

393
00:39:55.855 --> 00:40:01.935
And so and and that's very it's we're very early days on this stuff. So, like, how do you think about that?

394
00:40:02.975 --> 00:40:03.695
I

395
00:40:03.855 --> 00:40:05.775
think, you know, yeah, it's it's a it's a

396
00:40:06.335 --> 00:40:09.615
the world is shifting in how it consumes information,

397
00:40:09.615 --> 00:40:10.815
how it consumes

398
00:40:10.790 --> 00:40:11.910
news. The,

399
00:40:12.630 --> 00:40:15.350
you know, huge influx of

400
00:40:15.510 --> 00:40:17.110
AI generated content

401
00:40:17.349 --> 00:40:18.710
and misinformation

402
00:40:18.710 --> 00:40:19.430
also

403
00:40:19.670 --> 00:40:30.845
means that, a, our sources of truth are more valuable than ever. The production of truth, that infrastructure is collapsing. That's what we're trying to hear hear to solve. That's what we're solving. We're,

404
00:40:31.245 --> 00:40:34.125
you know, building and staining that frontline

405
00:40:34.605 --> 00:40:42.050
of journalists. And, you know, this is something you know, there's so many thoughts sparked by your question, but it's something I researched in my PhD.

406
00:40:42.290 --> 00:40:49.810
The international news system, to your point, your instinct that it's, you know, hugely problematic is also built into structure.

407
00:40:50.290 --> 00:40:51.330
A lot of the

408
00:40:51.810 --> 00:40:53.490
most high profile journalists

409
00:40:53.875 --> 00:40:57.475
were reporting during these long reports they're relying

410
00:40:57.475 --> 00:41:00.755
on the work of frontline local journalists

411
00:41:00.915 --> 00:41:06.355
wherever they are in Nigeria and Congo wherever they are. The international news structure

412
00:41:06.650 --> 00:41:11.450
is such that those local journalists don't get much of the economic benefit,

413
00:41:11.610 --> 00:41:17.610
the pay, they don't get much of the reward, the credit, they don't get in the Pulitzers and whatever, they don't get the prizes,

414
00:41:17.930 --> 00:41:21.370
and that means that there's an obfuscation of how news is produced.

415
00:41:22.095 --> 00:41:28.575
And we tend to think, or we're led to believe looking at, you know, CNN, you'd be led to believe that, you know,

416
00:41:29.135 --> 00:41:37.280
the journalist you're watching on screen is producing that information. They're giving it to you on screen. But actually the whole infrastructure producing that truth is

417
00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:41.520
invisible. And so that's what we're trying we're we're redressing

418
00:41:41.520 --> 00:41:43.360
through the courage index,

419
00:41:43.440 --> 00:41:45.680
you know, weighting everybody equally

420
00:41:45.840 --> 00:41:49.280
and sustaining these people on the front line. So that's that's important to mention.

421
00:41:51.835 --> 00:41:58.075
Well, just to drill into that real quick. So, like, basically, what you're saying is even before the AI tools existed,

422
00:41:58.714 --> 00:42:04.954
it's like you had a team you had, like, an editorial team at CNN or something that is reading the 20 pages,

423
00:42:05.530 --> 00:42:22.705
and then they're summarizing it or whatever, and repackaging it, and then shipping it with ads and clickbait on top of it or whatever. A 100%, a 100%. And the local journalists who produce that truth, the 20 pages report or whatever it was, and I have examples, you know, there were a friend of mine in Cambodia

424
00:42:22.705 --> 00:42:27.105
reported on these human trafficking call centers, these call centers that are perpetrating

425
00:42:27.105 --> 00:42:27.825
fraud,

426
00:42:27.905 --> 00:42:44.780
you know, calling elderly people in The US and cheating them out of their savings. A lot of people working in those call centers are human trafficked and through illicit networks. And my friend reported on these call centers, lost every job that he had. Every newspaper he was reporting for was shut down in Cambodia.

427
00:42:44.780 --> 00:42:48.940
And his reporting was taken up by international news organizations.

428
00:42:49.615 --> 00:42:53.055
Huge spreads about these call centers that you've heard of now.

429
00:42:53.295 --> 00:42:54.495
Based on his reporting,

430
00:42:54.975 --> 00:42:56.575
he's still broke.

431
00:42:56.975 --> 00:43:07.870
Still broke. He's posting on Facebook about how he can't take a girlfriend out on a date. It's heartbreaking. You know? He can't afford a dinner to take a girl out. He he's not in a healthy space mentally.

432
00:43:08.109 --> 00:43:13.150
How is that fair? How is that just? And he doesn't even get any recognition. It's not even just financial.

433
00:43:13.550 --> 00:43:22.025
Yep. It's just like it all got distilled to a CNN headline or whatever. Exactly. And nobody cited him because he's not powerful enough in the news hierarchy,

434
00:43:22.185 --> 00:43:37.599
you know, in the chain of power. He's not powerful enough to cite him because he can't he won't sue anybody if they don't cite him. He won't be able to make a fuss, but he's doing the hard journalism on the ground. And so, yeah, that, that, that structural inequality is something that AI maybe exacerbates,

435
00:43:37.599 --> 00:43:43.599
but we, we can fix it. We're fixing it. We're elevating these journalists, putting them on the front pages, recognizing

436
00:43:43.599 --> 00:43:58.445
the worth of doing. And it's not again, like, you know, it's not like people in the journalism hierarchies or CNN, the editorial team, it's not like they're bad people. It's not like they want to do this. They know sitting there and they're evil lair. Like, how do we fuck over this guy? Exactly.

437
00:43:58.445 --> 00:44:33.890
It's just the system is broken and has been broken for a long time. And somebody needs to come along and build a new system. That's fair. And that's what we are. And that's it, you know, and when we present this to the editorial teams at all these, you know, global news organizations, they're like, yes, we wanted this. Thank you. It's like to your point about it's so important to have people do things. And now we're doing it. And they're like, thank you. And we'll work with you. But it took a lot to get somebody to do it. And they, know, yeah, it was hard to do. It's hard to do. And so somebody needs to do this hard work. Yeah. Then AI,

438
00:44:33.970 --> 00:44:38.530
the bigger questions about, you know, the other feeling I have about AI is

439
00:44:38.770 --> 00:44:40.210
in this environment

440
00:44:40.530 --> 00:44:43.490
of AI shop, AI generated content,

441
00:44:43.650 --> 00:44:44.609
a couple of trends.

442
00:44:45.315 --> 00:44:46.195
Institutions

443
00:44:46.195 --> 00:44:46.835
are,

444
00:44:47.395 --> 00:44:48.995
you know, less trusted,

445
00:44:49.234 --> 00:44:51.235
and individuals are more trusted.

446
00:44:51.555 --> 00:44:56.435
So again, that's where we elevate individuals. People are more willing to trust a person

447
00:44:56.595 --> 00:45:01.730
rather than an editorial line where they can't see the machinations behind the behind the curtains.

448
00:45:02.050 --> 00:45:02.450
And

449
00:45:02.850 --> 00:45:07.730
that's something that we're pushing. And the third trend is, I think, you know, related to that is

450
00:45:07.970 --> 00:45:11.090
we're elevating these journalists, you know, traditionally in journalism,

451
00:45:11.090 --> 00:45:15.725
the journalist has kind of been behind the scenes and said, I'm the objective journalist.

452
00:45:15.965 --> 00:45:20.365
I think the public is onto us. They know the journalists aren't objective. And I think the better

453
00:45:21.725 --> 00:45:26.765
tech is to say we're subjective and say how we're subjective. In my Own the bias.

454
00:45:27.570 --> 00:45:31.250
Yeah, Jake, what, how am I biased? I'm a man. I'm from India.

455
00:45:31.570 --> 00:45:43.495
I'm, you know, I went to Yale, whatever. I have certain, I'm gonna be drawn to certain things and I'm gonna be blind to certain things. And let me be open about my biases and present that to the audience. And actually that builds trust.

456
00:45:43.735 --> 00:45:46.455
And so we elevate these journalists as

457
00:45:46.775 --> 00:45:57.015
subjective individuals like fact based, we're publishing fact based work, we're very rigorous about our due diligence and about, you know, even going through their social media and making sure they're not saying anything antisemitic

458
00:45:57.015 --> 00:45:57.415
or

459
00:45:58.160 --> 00:46:27.660
misogynist or racist or whatever it is. They're doing fact based work, but they're individuals and we're elevating them as heroes and as people doing their best and working within their constraints to produce what the world needs, which is truth. And, and we're, and I think that's a new, new thing in journalism to elevate these individuals, the reporters themselves as kind of heroic. They won't do it themselves, but we, as an institution, the Stringer Foundation, we can do that. And we think it helps their cause, it protects them, the publicity is protective,

460
00:46:27.980 --> 00:46:31.100
and it helps them build audiences and build loyalty.

461
00:46:31.100 --> 00:46:43.855
And I think that's where we're going to see more and more of the world news consumption move to. It's going to be like kind of tapping into that influencer kind of vibe where these journalists are fact based influencers

462
00:46:43.855 --> 00:46:47.455
and they're people we want to follow and we believe in them and

463
00:46:47.615 --> 00:46:59.680
that's because also the institutions aren't as or we can see through some of the biases of the institutions. And they're not being straight up about it with us. They're not telling us, you know, yeah. Like, I mean, that kind of makes sense to me.

464
00:47:02.960 --> 00:47:07.065
It kind of make I mean, obviously, it makes sense to me on the end of like,

465
00:47:07.865 --> 00:47:10.105
on, like, kind of short form opinions.

466
00:47:10.585 --> 00:47:13.225
But do you do you think, like, it's gonna have

467
00:47:13.625 --> 00:47:13.945
is

468
00:47:14.985 --> 00:47:17.785
so so let me use an example. Right? So, like, okay.

469
00:47:19.020 --> 00:47:22.780
There's a journalist from Congo. You you give him recognition.

470
00:47:23.500 --> 00:47:26.380
He develops an individual brand and trust.

471
00:47:26.860 --> 00:47:32.664
He has an x account now, and his x account or an oster account. His x account has 300,000

472
00:47:32.664 --> 00:47:35.225
followers. Like, people wanna know his opinion

473
00:47:35.305 --> 00:47:42.505
on things. They know it's a biased opinion, but they trust his opinion, and and and they just wanna know his angle on certain things.

474
00:47:43.145 --> 00:47:50.460
And he sends out a tweet about a certain topic and, you know, they press retweet and they're like, that's very interesting to me. And maybe they support him because of that.

475
00:47:51.900 --> 00:48:00.780
That's different than him writing, like, 20 pages of long form that he researched for five years. Even in that situation, I feel like the incentives are

476
00:48:02.095 --> 00:48:03.135
towards the

477
00:48:03.455 --> 00:48:14.735
short form, like, this is my opinion on this situation, boom, done. I'm like a talking head commentator almost. Do you not agree? I agree. I think, you know, even when I write my books or I'm doing my long form articles,

478
00:48:15.200 --> 00:48:22.960
I become, I have to be a talking head, that's the world we live in. Have to summarize that article myself, even if it's not Claude summarized, I have to summarize and

479
00:48:23.360 --> 00:48:30.000
every time I'm on some show or something, I just need to regurgitate the same message, and that's what I'm doing, the five years of work

480
00:48:30.545 --> 00:48:32.865
builds those talking points. And my

481
00:48:32.865 --> 00:48:36.545
sense is, and this is my hypothesis, and this is what I'm

482
00:48:36.545 --> 00:48:37.505
seeing play out,

483
00:48:38.465 --> 00:48:47.620
that the news industry is in crisis, and they're not able to monetize or pay properly for that work. But that work is valuable to society and it is monetizable.

484
00:48:48.100 --> 00:48:49.300
I think I

485
00:48:49.380 --> 00:49:00.205
can see where you're heading. What is the business model? I think that's an open question. It's not solved. Just want to be clear about that. It's also not my expertise. I'm not a publisher. I don't know how to get audiences.

486
00:49:00.285 --> 00:49:25.540
I know how to get great stories and I know how to stay alive. And that's what I'm offering to the journalists. And we're partnering with publishing platforms, whether it's Time Magazine or the New York Times, they're in the business of getting the clicks or evolving. We're partnering with other, you know, we'd partner with Citadel if if we we'd be happy to tell the journalists to publish on Citadel Citadel Wire, and it's up to them. We don't take a cut. That's the Well, no. That's the fucked up part, kinda. I mean,

487
00:49:26.635 --> 00:49:31.755
like, I'm just pulling I'm just pulling sources everywhere. So, like, instead of

488
00:49:33.275 --> 00:49:35.835
someone going to, like, techdirt.com

489
00:49:35.835 --> 00:49:36.715
or whatever,

490
00:49:37.035 --> 00:49:41.275
like, my clanker's checking it every five minutes, and then he's just writing a summary.

491
00:49:42.119 --> 00:49:44.280
And it it gives credit. It's like,

492
00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:47.400
this is tech dirt reported or whatever.

493
00:49:48.760 --> 00:49:54.119
But they're for it flips it all on its head because they're not the the whole thing was like

494
00:49:54.625 --> 00:50:05.425
and it's not necessarily in a bad way, right? Because the whole the whole corporate media landscape turned into clickbait, because they wanted people to go to their page. And then they wanted people to stay on the page,

495
00:50:05.825 --> 00:50:13.940
so that they could get more ad dollars. And so it was prioritized two things get you on the page and get you to stay there. This kind of obviates that

496
00:50:14.100 --> 00:50:19.060
it definitely does not obviate, like individual brand and recognition

497
00:50:19.220 --> 00:50:20.260
and trust.

498
00:50:21.335 --> 00:50:24.535
I do not think donations are necessarily the answer,

499
00:50:24.775 --> 00:50:26.375
but then on the opposite side,

500
00:50:27.895 --> 00:50:31.734
paywalls aren't the answer because then my clanker is going to ignore you.

501
00:50:32.295 --> 00:50:50.595
Like I, a lot of news organizations have open RSS feeds, for instance. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Some don't. If my, if my clanker can't find an open way of getting your content, then it just doesn't exist. Like, I'm just not, it's just not going to happen. So it's just an interesting dynamic to think about.

502
00:50:51.715 --> 00:50:57.875
Yeah. Think I think you've you've just automated like what the Huffington Post did. Right? They just got the free information. Because

503
00:50:58.835 --> 00:51:02.355
I don't I'm just losing money on it. Like, I'm not it's not a money making

504
00:51:02.940 --> 00:51:03.980
endeavor for me.

505
00:51:04.540 --> 00:51:07.500
But what the AI can't do is make up a quote.

506
00:51:07.900 --> 00:51:15.260
And that will always be the ultimate, I think. So you can get a summary. You can get a pen. Right. But if you need a quote

507
00:51:15.740 --> 00:51:35.490
But the client can't afford a quote. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess, yeah. But somebody yeah. Yeah. Somebody has to but you when the client pulls the quote, you have to credit that person because the court is Otherwise, it's useless. Yeah. Yeah. Without saying who got it and what circumstances is that person trustable. And so all that kind of stuff, that's where the value still is in human to human,

508
00:51:35.810 --> 00:51:41.170
a quote, a verifiable quote that can stand But, like, so then on that front, like,

509
00:51:42.609 --> 00:51:43.970
I'm curious of your opinion here.

510
00:51:44.785 --> 00:51:46.385
So I'd like everyone,

511
00:51:46.545 --> 00:51:49.265
most people that are paying attention, like realize,

512
00:51:49.265 --> 00:51:50.065
like, okay,

513
00:51:50.385 --> 00:51:51.105
like,

514
00:51:51.665 --> 00:51:54.705
CNN isn't news anymore. It's more entertainment.

515
00:51:54.865 --> 00:51:55.665
Right? And

516
00:51:56.880 --> 00:52:06.560
they're saying the one liners, and I'm I'm gonna like, I keep we keep using CNN as an example. I'm not trying to like pick on them specifically. I'm sure you have friends over at CNN. Probably not listening to this episode.

517
00:52:07.039 --> 00:52:17.495
The reason we don't pick maybe some of the other outlets is because they're not even qualified as news. You can't you can't call the news outlets. Right? So CNN, you can. Yeah. So so

518
00:52:18.055 --> 00:52:27.580
so and then it's it's dominated with like one liners and clickbaits, and there needs to be like rage. There needs to be like something around it. And so for the longest time, people are like, well,

519
00:52:27.980 --> 00:52:30.220
the age of the influencer will bring

520
00:52:31.020 --> 00:52:40.860
the age of I mean, and people say independent journalists when they talk about this stuff. And I think it's a little bit disrespectful to the work that you and your peers do. Like, you know, they'll

521
00:52:42.275 --> 00:52:45.555
you know, like some podcasters and independent journalists now,

522
00:52:45.795 --> 00:52:47.474
and they're an influencer or whatever.

523
00:52:47.875 --> 00:52:54.355
And they say, Okay, now you have all these different sources, like, instead of having, you know, for news, major news organizations,

524
00:52:54.355 --> 00:52:55.394
you can open up x,

525
00:52:55.860 --> 00:53:01.780
or open up your podcast app. And there's like 1,000 different opinions you can source or

526
00:53:01.940 --> 00:53:09.300
listen to or read. But they all have a lot of the same incentives as the corporate media does. Like if you want to get retweets,

527
00:53:09.635 --> 00:53:12.115
or if you want to get people to listen to your podcast,

528
00:53:13.315 --> 00:53:16.595
you do exact people do exactly the same thing

529
00:53:16.994 --> 00:53:19.235
that CNN has basically

530
00:53:19.635 --> 00:53:21.714
formalized and institutionalized.

531
00:53:21.714 --> 00:53:22.595
It's just

532
00:53:23.130 --> 00:53:24.170
distributed.

533
00:53:24.490 --> 00:53:26.090
Right? Yes.

534
00:53:26.250 --> 00:53:30.250
Yes. And I think, you know, to your answer, to your question, what is the answer?

535
00:53:31.369 --> 00:53:34.250
What philanthropy can do, what donations can do is inspire.

536
00:53:34.825 --> 00:53:40.665
Create a prize, that's a tested model in philanthropy. You create a prize, you endow it, it inspires a generation,

537
00:53:40.985 --> 00:53:43.305
it creates a base of people

538
00:53:43.705 --> 00:53:45.305
who want the recognition,

539
00:53:45.385 --> 00:53:56.710
and, you know, that's what philanthropy can do. Now, is the economic, is the commercial part a world where some journalists run sub stacks, some journalists have side jobs as consultants,

540
00:53:56.950 --> 00:53:59.110
some journalists are eventually

541
00:53:59.430 --> 00:54:06.425
sending, filling up surveys for hedge funds. I don't know, you know, what that, what that menu of options

542
00:54:06.505 --> 00:54:07.145
is.

543
00:54:07.545 --> 00:54:11.465
Is it, you know, people zapping Bitcoin on Noster?

544
00:54:11.705 --> 00:54:15.465
It's probably all of the above some combination and each journalist is gonna,

545
00:54:16.150 --> 00:54:21.190
as an entrepreneurial figure is gonna like figure out what the combination, right combination is for them.

546
00:54:21.670 --> 00:54:46.610
Yeah. It's it's it's an open question what the, what that commercial model looks like. And our strategy is to partner with everybody and just make a menu for the journalists in our community and say, publicize that and say, Hey, Tyme is willing to pay $500 for your article. If it's worth it for you, go for it. Somewhere else you could, you know, fill out the survey, make a little money. That's, that's, you know, at no risk to your credibility or independence.

547
00:54:46.610 --> 00:54:57.410
You know, if that's for you, go for that. Sign up on Noster and, you know, see if people will zap you money. We're, you know, we're we're It's more of an art than a science. Yeah. We're we're in a brazen world. I think, you know, it's like,

548
00:54:58.355 --> 00:55:04.355
I think the business model has been shot. It's been destroyed. I mean, Post cut its foreign bureaus. Everybody's

549
00:55:04.355 --> 00:55:05.075
struggling

550
00:55:05.155 --> 00:55:06.994
with how do you monetize

551
00:55:07.155 --> 00:55:16.540
the news. It's valuable. We all read it. We all need to know, like you said, what the hell is going on in the world. How do you monetize it? How do you make it sustainable? There's clear value.

552
00:55:16.940 --> 00:55:18.380
Yeah. And people are,

553
00:55:18.780 --> 00:55:21.500
you know, exploiting that value. Yeah. People are,

554
00:55:21.900 --> 00:55:30.345
hedge funds and, you know, financial firms and all kinds of people are getting real value from this. It's just, how do we give it back? Like the AI firms

555
00:55:30.505 --> 00:55:32.425
basically scrape the whole internet

556
00:55:32.585 --> 00:55:36.345
and now are selling it in different forms to people. Shouldn't

557
00:55:36.345 --> 00:55:40.745
that be a I mean, there's an argument that the models were literally trained on a bunch all human content.

558
00:55:41.230 --> 00:55:42.190
Exactly.

559
00:55:42.350 --> 00:55:50.190
And to stay relevant, they'll need up to date content from journalists. And so they're relying on these open feeds from news organizations.

560
00:55:50.670 --> 00:55:52.350
But then shouldn't a part of their

561
00:55:52.590 --> 00:55:59.765
revenues be a public good because they've excluded a public good? I don't know. Well, we're in a brave new world. How do you how do you how does society,

562
00:56:00.325 --> 00:56:00.965
you know,

563
00:56:01.765 --> 00:56:06.885
capture some of that value and redistribute it to the people producing the value? The journalists?

564
00:56:07.605 --> 00:56:08.165
Yeah. Question.

565
00:56:08.760 --> 00:56:16.520
Open question. And I think the New York Times is at the forefront. They're pushing back. Some firms have sued the AI firms.

566
00:56:16.520 --> 00:56:34.910
Some news organizations have sued them. Yeah, but those are the big guys, right? Those the big guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I don't know what the answer is for a stringer or independent journalist on frontline in, you know, Myanmar. How do they get paid for what they're doing? I think it's a mix. It's it's some of it is philanthropy and some of it is inspirational

567
00:56:34.910 --> 00:56:37.870
philanthropy, and some of it is building that brand, and some of it is

568
00:56:38.190 --> 00:56:40.990
commercial deals. Think there's something to be said about

569
00:56:42.350 --> 00:56:44.190
it's not like quite donation.

570
00:56:45.150 --> 00:56:47.070
Right? Like, if you

571
00:56:47.375 --> 00:56:50.735
and I think I've seen I've seen a lot of people that,

572
00:56:50.895 --> 00:56:55.455
you know, are independent thinkers or independent journalists, however you wanna put it.

573
00:56:55.775 --> 00:57:00.974
I think it's a little bit broader than just independent journalists, but people whose opinions I respect

574
00:57:01.420 --> 00:57:03.580
that want to ethically monetize,

575
00:57:03.900 --> 00:57:05.900
and they don't want to play the bullshit game.

576
00:57:06.460 --> 00:57:08.220
What they do is they release a book.

577
00:57:09.100 --> 00:57:12.300
Now, most of your supporters won't actually read the book,

578
00:57:12.620 --> 00:57:18.755
they'll still have the clanker summarize the book, but they'll buy it, and they'll put it on their shelf, because they're proud of it.

579
00:57:19.155 --> 00:57:21.635
Right? And that and that situation is not a donation.

580
00:57:22.355 --> 00:57:24.755
Yeah. Right? You're actually buying something physical,

581
00:57:25.075 --> 00:57:28.915
but it's a little bit different. It's a little bit different than actually consuming the content.

582
00:57:29.410 --> 00:57:32.370
Yeah, exactly. It's like a visiting card. It's a glorified

583
00:57:32.370 --> 00:57:35.490
visiting card that opens doors to other

584
00:57:35.810 --> 00:57:37.650
think tank fellowship,

585
00:57:37.730 --> 00:57:39.730
whatever it is. Yeah. It's a

586
00:57:41.250 --> 00:57:47.225
Yeah. I mean, I think we're just living in a time that's very exciting, but also very uncertain for this.

587
00:57:47.945 --> 00:57:51.625
Fair enough. Okay. I'm on to this app, Kin tab.

588
00:57:52.105 --> 00:57:53.385
Yeah. First of all,

589
00:57:54.025 --> 00:57:57.065
what is why the name would KYN

590
00:57:57.065 --> 00:57:57.385
tab?

591
00:57:58.200 --> 00:57:59.480
Yeah, I keep

592
00:58:00.440 --> 00:58:05.880
tabs in your Kim. Keep tabs on your loved ones. That's what it is. Like Kim is spelled with an I usually.

593
00:58:06.200 --> 00:58:06.920
Yes,

594
00:58:07.160 --> 00:58:08.839
I was just the

595
00:58:08.839 --> 00:58:09.800
domain wasn't available.

596
00:58:10.535 --> 00:58:11.415
Fair enough.

597
00:58:12.295 --> 00:58:13.095
Okay.

598
00:58:13.255 --> 00:58:14.935
That actually makes sense then.

599
00:58:15.335 --> 00:58:17.335
Yeah. Keep tabs in your cane.

600
00:58:17.815 --> 00:58:22.055
Yeah. Curious. What are your thoughts? So, like, the key I mean, the key concept is

601
00:58:22.809 --> 00:58:25.930
you're in an adversarial environment, and

602
00:58:27.369 --> 00:58:29.609
the one thing people can't reproduce

603
00:58:29.609 --> 00:58:35.770
digitally is that you have a trusted group of individuals that that loves and cares about you and has your back.

604
00:58:36.414 --> 00:58:44.175
And so this is basically just a very simple app that if shit goes south, you press the SOS button and they get notified of your location.

605
00:58:45.135 --> 00:58:46.255
Yes.

606
00:58:46.255 --> 00:58:55.530
Essentially, it's the simplest form. That's what it is. And you can voice activate it or you can hit a button. You can send your location. It'll send your location by default, but you can also send other information.

607
00:58:56.410 --> 00:59:05.369
Like, what other information would you send? Like, you can upload on a journal on the paid version of the app. You can upload a journal, which is photos, audio, text

608
00:59:05.925 --> 00:59:27.800
of, you know, for myself, a car that followed me. What what was the license plate number? I don't know if it's a risk. I don't know if it was But you're adding to it. And then when shit hits the fan, you just press the single button, and then it sends all of it. Yeah. It's all uploaded passively. And when you hit the button, the trigger goes to release in the cloud all the data to your network. So if you're in a hostile remote place

609
00:59:27.960 --> 00:59:44.615
where the network isn't great, all you need is a couple of bytes to go out and trigger say, okay, I'll release all this information. And that's, that's essentially what it is. It's but it's, it has a lot of use cases. We're starting with journalists. The idea is that journalists prove the content concept.

610
00:59:44.615 --> 00:59:44.934
It's

611
00:59:45.510 --> 00:59:52.470
proved the use case, it's been battle tested on the front lines like a Swiss army knife, you know, that soldiers use, but ideally

612
00:59:52.630 --> 01:00:11.175
it could be used by women who get kidnapped in Mexico, or you have a domestic violence situation where you keep uploading these verbal threats where you're not sure if those threats or whatever, and then one day it explodes and you can just trigger in your friends, your best friends, your girlfriends, whoever it Yeah. Like your daughter's traveling abroad or something.

613
01:00:11.829 --> 01:00:12.630
Totally.

614
01:00:12.630 --> 01:00:14.230
Yes. It's also for travelers,

615
01:00:14.390 --> 01:00:18.630
insurance companies. The idea is that these commercial applications subsidize

616
01:00:18.630 --> 01:00:27.994
the use for journalists and human rights defenders who don't pay for the app or don't pay for the pro version. And it's subsidized by travelers The profits or go to Stringer Foundation or

617
01:00:28.555 --> 01:00:34.395
The profits, the Stringer Foundation is part of like the board that's overseeing how the profits are spent.

618
01:00:34.795 --> 01:00:41.460
Obviously, first profits need to go to the coders, you know. So it's certainly like a separate it's a separate project.

619
01:00:41.940 --> 01:00:47.220
Yes. Separate project where a percentage of the profits will go towards the prize

620
01:00:47.220 --> 01:00:48.820
towards supporting the journalists.

621
01:00:48.900 --> 01:01:12.980
We actually think, you know, a first place the the prize would be the ultimate goal, but the mental health aspect I think is very adjacent to the physical safety. And if the app as a first step could fund those psychologist sessions for journalists on the front lines, that's where we're thinking we can actually even with a couple of thousand dollars, like start to, you know, help journalists concretely in material ways and build out from there.

622
01:01:13.780 --> 01:01:14.900
I like that.

623
01:01:15.460 --> 01:01:19.620
Yeah. I like that. General, I like the model of

624
01:01:20.340 --> 01:01:22.500
it's a completely functional app for free.

625
01:01:23.155 --> 01:01:36.035
And then power users can pay for additional things. And then you don't have to rely on donations, it's actually could be sustainable if it actually has product market fit. What I don't like, which I've said to you privately is,

626
01:01:36.530 --> 01:01:40.450
I, know, I think this is for people in very sensitive situations,

627
01:01:40.530 --> 01:01:42.450
and it has very sensitive information.

628
01:01:42.450 --> 01:01:46.930
And the app is not open source. So there's no way for anyone to verify

629
01:01:47.250 --> 01:01:58.575
that you're not just tracking my location all that all the time. And, like, keep like, what about a journal? Right? Like, how secure is that journal? I'm sure you're gonna say it's very secure, but there's no way anyone can verify it.

630
01:01:58.895 --> 01:02:04.910
So we have yes. So I told you this already, but we have an independent audit from his name is Victor Ventura.

631
01:02:04.910 --> 01:02:06.510
He's a senior cybersecurity

632
01:02:06.510 --> 01:02:25.865
researcher at Cisco at Talos Systems, and he's willing to put his name publicly and say he's he's verified our source code and that it's safe and, you know, it's even safe against Yeah. But or makes it very expensive for Pegasus Zone. Yes. I hear what you're depends on your threat model. It depends on what your threat model is. If the US government is not in your threat model,

633
01:02:26.505 --> 01:02:29.625
then a security researcher from Cisco is probably fine.

634
01:02:30.190 --> 01:02:31.470
But like Snowden,

635
01:02:31.550 --> 01:02:32.830
like the NSA,

636
01:02:32.830 --> 01:02:35.150
Snowden exposed that the NSA was literally

637
01:02:35.310 --> 01:02:37.310
putting back doors and Cisco routers

638
01:02:37.470 --> 01:02:42.270
while they were in the mail on the way on the way to where people were getting them. So

639
01:02:43.155 --> 01:02:54.115
I just this so this yeah. No. I I wanna have an open sort of you know, I think we have stuff to learn here. But I wanna have an open discussion and learn from this from you in this regard.

640
01:02:54.435 --> 01:02:57.795
But first thing is that the Cisco researcher is

641
01:02:58.270 --> 01:03:02.030
in his personal capacity. So Cisco as an entity is not validating.

642
01:03:02.830 --> 01:03:08.670
Validating our things. It's in his personal capacity. It's his personal reputation on the line as somebody who's, you know,

643
01:03:09.390 --> 01:03:11.550
respected in the cybersecurity community.

644
01:03:12.195 --> 01:03:15.635
But here's where I have a question myself

645
01:03:16.115 --> 01:03:21.555
as somebody who's put my own life on the line on front lines around the world, right? There

646
01:03:23.315 --> 01:03:28.349
are secure apps, what does secure mean? That's a question that comes up in my mind. You can secure

647
01:03:28.430 --> 01:03:30.430
apps for secure communication,

648
01:03:30.750 --> 01:03:32.750
you know, to send information securely,

649
01:03:32.910 --> 01:03:36.910
to send information about a $100,000,000 deal securely, commercial security.

650
01:03:37.470 --> 01:03:44.555
What we're talking about here is a very, very different, much higher bar, which is a human's life. Right? So somebody's

651
01:03:44.555 --> 01:03:45.755
life is on the line.

652
01:03:46.635 --> 01:03:47.755
My sense is

653
01:03:48.075 --> 01:03:49.595
in that situation,

654
01:03:49.835 --> 01:03:51.835
if the code is open source,

655
01:03:52.795 --> 01:03:54.875
if you even have like for an hour,

656
01:03:56.049 --> 01:03:56.849
somebody

657
01:03:56.849 --> 01:03:59.090
paid off by a Russian government

658
01:03:59.170 --> 01:04:01.730
who can insert some malicious code into the

659
01:04:02.930 --> 01:04:06.290
app, and it's live for an hour before some other

660
01:04:06.609 --> 01:04:09.250
good coder notices it and then

661
01:04:09.675 --> 01:04:15.035
wipes it out. And that's my understanding of the open source system. Like, you know, if somebody it's everybody's

662
01:04:15.035 --> 01:04:25.140
checking on it. And so, but in that situation, even an hour and I have enemies, you know, from my own reporting, if somebody wanted to take me out, if they could get in our code for even an hour,

663
01:04:25.620 --> 01:04:28.100
wouldn't my life be at risk, at serious risk? Well,

664
01:04:29.460 --> 01:04:30.100
off,

665
01:04:31.300 --> 01:04:34.340
Andre, I know you mean well, like, I'm not questioning

666
01:04:34.340 --> 01:04:35.300
your integrity

667
01:04:36.295 --> 01:04:40.055
your motives or your intent. So I just wanna be absolutely clear here. There's

668
01:04:40.215 --> 01:04:45.575
a reason why open source is the gold standard when it comes to security stuff. And

669
01:04:45.975 --> 01:04:48.695
with the carve out that militaries

670
01:04:48.950 --> 01:04:54.870
probably disagree, because they just they like hiding everything behind, like the cover of darkness. And

671
01:04:54.950 --> 01:04:56.870
there are very proprietary,

672
01:04:56.950 --> 01:04:58.710
you know, closed organizations.

673
01:04:59.750 --> 01:05:02.390
And the reason is, is because

674
01:05:04.135 --> 01:05:06.615
if someone does put a backdoor in,

675
01:05:07.415 --> 01:05:10.135
there is no one to independently verify

676
01:05:10.535 --> 01:05:12.135
that backdoor exists

677
01:05:12.215 --> 01:05:21.990
without being able to look at what they are running. Like, that's why the code needs to be open. Now, concerns about open source code being easier to exploit

678
01:05:23.670 --> 01:05:25.830
has some validity to it.

679
01:05:26.630 --> 01:05:29.670
Because if a threat actor can see what is running,

680
01:05:30.255 --> 01:05:35.135
then they can potentially see holes that they wouldn't be able to see otherwise.

681
01:05:35.454 --> 01:05:39.455
But at the end of the day, the app is either vulnerable or it's not vulnerable.

682
01:05:40.255 --> 01:05:46.570
And the beauty of open source is that you have so many eyes on it that those potential vulnerabilities

683
01:05:46.570 --> 01:05:48.810
can be detected and removed

684
01:05:49.290 --> 01:05:51.290
and obviated from the future.

685
01:05:51.610 --> 01:05:54.490
And then you have a much more secure app at the end of the day.

686
01:05:54.890 --> 01:05:59.210
So to your point of someone could add a backdoor, let's say the app is secure today,

687
01:06:00.015 --> 01:06:04.095
but someone wants to add a back someone adds a backdoor in six months. Right?

688
01:06:06.414 --> 01:06:08.255
Everyone has to update the app.

689
01:06:08.494 --> 01:06:10.734
Like, you have to it's not like they can just

690
01:06:11.850 --> 01:06:18.410
change what's running on your device remotely in an open source world. Now on a closed source world, actually, the reverse is true.

691
01:06:18.970 --> 01:06:25.530
If someone compromises your system, it doesn't even have to be you. If someone compromises your system and ships an update

692
01:06:25.434 --> 01:06:27.355
to all of your users around the world,

693
01:06:27.755 --> 01:06:32.395
and there's no way for any independent researchers to actually look at that code and see what's happening,

694
01:06:33.755 --> 01:06:38.290
then it actually could be way more effective than if it's open source. Especially

695
01:06:38.369 --> 01:06:41.650
in like today's age where we do have the clankers.

696
01:06:41.970 --> 01:06:46.210
Right? So you don't just have humans watching, you have humans with clankers watching

697
01:06:46.690 --> 01:06:50.530
that can be automated Lee running all different types of analysis

698
01:06:50.530 --> 01:06:54.465
on the code base when it's getting shipped. And a perfect example here

699
01:06:54.944 --> 01:06:56.065
is Bitcoin.

700
01:06:57.105 --> 01:06:57.984
Bitcoin,

701
01:06:57.984 --> 01:07:05.920
if you wanna go with the highest level, right, one of the most important things is the 21,000,000 cap. If Bitcoin was closed source, someone could just inflate

702
01:07:05.920 --> 01:07:07.680
the supply, there could be $42,000,000

703
01:07:07.680 --> 01:07:13.040
42,000,000 Bitcoin, nobody would know. And as a result, it's like, okay, so when Bitcoin was

704
01:07:13.120 --> 01:07:16.720
first released, it was open source, maybe people could find vulnerabilities

705
01:07:17.375 --> 01:07:18.495
in the beginning,

706
01:07:18.895 --> 01:07:20.255
because it was open

707
01:07:20.335 --> 01:07:21.055
easier.

708
01:07:21.615 --> 01:07:27.615
But because it's been years and years of eyeballs watching it and, and making reports and whatnot,

709
01:07:28.815 --> 01:07:34.930
that risk is greatly reduced. It is it is a more secure code base as a result fifteen years later.

710
01:07:35.250 --> 01:07:37.250
So some people Yeah, you start,

711
01:07:37.650 --> 01:07:41.410
you start with it closed, and you open it up later, you know, you have,

712
01:07:42.290 --> 01:07:47.825
you know, 10 different independent researchers look at the closed code. So you make sure you're not just like exposing

713
01:07:48.785 --> 01:07:51.665
the super vulnerable shit to the world

714
01:07:51.825 --> 01:07:53.105
right in the beginning.

715
01:07:53.505 --> 01:07:57.025
But the the reason it's a gold standard is because ultimately,

716
01:07:57.360 --> 01:08:02.240
first of all, the app is vulnerable or it's not. And then second of all, if you don't have a bunch of people looking at it,

717
01:08:02.640 --> 01:08:06.160
then ultimately, we're trusting a couple of people that could

718
01:08:06.960 --> 01:08:12.080
backdoor the thing. The thing could be secured today in six months, eight months, ten months. Maybe

719
01:08:12.455 --> 01:08:14.695
maybe you find so much success

720
01:08:15.255 --> 01:08:22.054
that some of, like, the best dissidents in the world are all using this fucking app, and that's when you have the issue.

721
01:08:22.455 --> 01:08:35.010
And that's when all of a sudden people are trying to hack into your systems to compromise, and you don't even know it's happening and shipping it out, and there's there's there's no one to stop it because the code isn't open.

722
01:08:36.690 --> 01:08:38.770
Right. That makes sense. And I think

723
01:08:39.285 --> 01:08:44.405
I think that that all makes sense. And, you know, as a mathematician myself, I I see the beauty of the

724
01:08:44.405 --> 01:08:46.885
Bitcoin system, the open source system,

725
01:08:47.125 --> 01:08:48.885
and why it's so valuable.

726
01:08:49.445 --> 01:08:53.320
My question to myself, and, you know, again, in the spirit of,

727
01:08:53.640 --> 01:09:00.120
you know, an open minded spirit and, like, an honest spirit, is not because I'm trying to defend the app. We're happy to make it open source if that's the answer,

728
01:09:00.600 --> 01:09:02.840
you know, or gradually open it or whatever that is.

729
01:09:06.035 --> 01:09:08.355
Open source the gold standard for

730
01:09:09.635 --> 01:09:11.875
information security, infosec,

731
01:09:11.955 --> 01:09:13.795
but not for life security?

732
01:09:13.955 --> 01:09:15.475
Where there It's is the same thing.

733
01:09:17.555 --> 01:09:18.755
Because my

734
01:09:18.755 --> 01:09:20.195
understanding is It's the same thing.

735
01:09:20.940 --> 01:09:23.179
Let's let's use message encryption,

736
01:09:23.180 --> 01:09:25.659
for instance. Right? Let's use signal.

737
01:09:26.140 --> 01:09:26.860
Uh-huh.

738
01:09:27.180 --> 01:09:31.340
There's a Tucker Carlson can go on air and be like, signal is insecure.

739
01:09:32.219 --> 01:09:32.860
Okay?

740
01:09:33.340 --> 01:09:33.660
Yeah.

741
01:09:34.705 --> 01:09:35.585
I've

742
01:09:35.585 --> 01:09:39.264
been told also, yeah, it's not you can go verify

743
01:09:39.265 --> 01:09:50.909
the because it's open source. The way they get into signal is the closed source phones that you're running, they compromise the phones to access your signal messages. But my point on the signal point is,

744
01:09:51.150 --> 01:09:53.389
yes, someone could use signal to send,

745
01:09:53.869 --> 01:09:55.710
you know, relatively benign

746
01:09:55.710 --> 01:09:57.709
baby photos to their grandma,

747
01:09:58.269 --> 01:10:01.309
or they can use it to fight an authoritarian government.

748
01:10:02.114 --> 01:10:16.034
It's the same app. One is okay, quote unquote, info security. One is life security, but it's the same app. Like it's rabbits all the way down, you know, no matter how you cut it. And it is the gold standard. Like, there's a reason.

749
01:10:16.630 --> 01:10:21.830
There's a reason why Snowden there's a reason why Snowden says use graphene OS.

750
01:10:22.630 --> 01:10:30.070
Yes. He doesn't say use Apple iPhone. Right? Like, you can Apple can tell us that there's no backdoor in the iPhone.

751
01:10:31.595 --> 01:10:33.435
You're you're trusting.

752
01:10:33.755 --> 01:10:40.075
You're trusting Tim Apple that there is no backdoor in the iPhone. There's no way for you to independently verify it.

753
01:10:41.275 --> 01:10:52.890
Yes. And I think the backdoor question is an important one. I guess where I'm coming at is, say there's a problem in the Bitcoin code. Somebody, you know, raises it secretly to or raises it to 42,000,000

754
01:10:53.050 --> 01:10:54.250
instead of 21.

755
01:10:54.730 --> 01:11:03.704
You can discover that and go back. You can you can go back and, you know, go back to the point in the code where that wasn't the case, and you can fix it. Kinda.

756
01:11:04.505 --> 01:11:08.664
Yeah. Yeah. But with a human life, can't. Right? Once somebody is doing Well,

757
01:11:09.304 --> 01:11:10.425
mean, if we're gonna go down this,

758
01:11:11.630 --> 01:11:16.909
Bitcoin would probably fail in that situation, depending on how long it had been undetected.

759
01:11:17.389 --> 01:11:30.905
Bitcoin fail in that situation. And there'd be someone that was living on Bitcoin that could not feed their family, and then someone would die. Like the stakes are incredibly high for a lot of these open source software. And it's it remains the gold standard. And

760
01:11:31.545 --> 01:11:48.150
but could somebody update to 42,000,000 today? And it would be live for half an hour? No. Because just because code is open doesn't mean people are running the new code. Yeah. Right. So it depends on who downloads the code. No one's gonna run code that breaks Bitcoin

761
01:11:48.469 --> 01:11:49.189
intentionally.

762
01:11:49.590 --> 01:11:55.685
Right? And so the question is, do you trust a small few to do the audit? Or do you trust anyone

763
01:11:56.245 --> 01:11:58.165
who has a computer to do the audit,

764
01:11:58.645 --> 01:12:02.965
and be able to independently verify and the problem with trust goes back to the Snowden leaks.

765
01:12:04.010 --> 01:12:06.570
Right? So if you go back to the Snowden leaks,

766
01:12:07.210 --> 01:12:13.929
what did they do? If there's a small few that are trusted with securities of systems, you pressure those people.

767
01:12:14.330 --> 01:12:15.050
Don't have and

768
01:12:15.850 --> 01:12:18.650
then they either comply and they're coerced and they comply,

769
01:12:19.625 --> 01:12:20.184
Or

770
01:12:21.225 --> 01:12:25.065
maybe they're maybe they maybe they don't even comply. Maybe maybe

771
01:12:25.225 --> 01:12:29.465
they are compromised themselves, they get hacked or whatever, and you go in through them.

772
01:12:29.945 --> 01:12:35.699
It can go in both directions, right? This is also why you want to build things in the way that

773
01:12:36.340 --> 01:12:37.780
even if compromise,

774
01:12:37.860 --> 01:12:41.060
even if even if you're malicious, you can't compromise it yourself.

775
01:12:41.380 --> 01:12:42.260
Right? Exactly.

776
01:12:42.900 --> 01:12:45.140
The operators of Kintab, for instance,

777
01:12:45.994 --> 01:12:46.715
like,

778
01:12:47.034 --> 01:12:50.715
even if you wanted to, you shouldn't be able to read their journals.

779
01:12:50.954 --> 01:12:53.994
That's how I'm sure that's how we've structured it. Yeah, it's allegedly,

780
01:12:53.994 --> 01:12:57.195
right? There's no way for us to verify that. Right?

781
01:12:57.915 --> 01:13:03.179
Now, have to trust Victor, right? The Yeah. There's group of people against him. And also,

782
01:13:03.580 --> 01:13:07.340
I I don't have to necessarily trust his intentions. I have to trust his competence.

783
01:13:08.060 --> 01:13:17.915
Yeah. Maybe he missed it. Yeah. Right? And that's why you would have a group. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And but the the group of people that think Snowden is a traitor to the country or whatever

784
01:13:18.715 --> 01:13:25.035
might have the opposite opinion to me. Right? And that that that's I I I respect I respect that.

785
01:13:26.540 --> 01:13:29.340
That's like an, you know, inherent bias.

786
01:13:30.140 --> 01:13:31.900
But there's a reason why

787
01:13:33.260 --> 01:13:36.940
if you want to really empower individuals and you wanna protect them,

788
01:13:38.140 --> 01:13:43.254
you need trust minimized solutions. You need to reduce trust because anywhere there's human trust

789
01:13:43.974 --> 01:13:50.695
is a point of compromise. That's where the vulnerability lies. The weakest point of any piece of software is the humans that are trusted to run it.

790
01:13:52.295 --> 01:13:53.655
And you also operate

791
01:13:53.655 --> 01:13:55.894
on the assumption that no software

792
01:13:56.614 --> 01:13:57.414
is

793
01:13:57.739 --> 01:14:01.820
fully secure or always secure. Of course. Yep. So the question is,

794
01:14:02.300 --> 01:14:10.699
do you how can you increase the cost of of infiltrating the code? Right? Yeah. And and and making it so I'm telling you, by making it open source.

795
01:14:11.835 --> 01:14:15.594
Make it that you're it's the wrong way of thinking about it, in my opinion,

796
01:14:16.395 --> 01:14:19.114
is is actually cheaper if it's closed source.

797
01:14:19.995 --> 01:14:24.235
I mean, the fact is, like, almost all our journalists, nobody's running graphene.

798
01:14:24.710 --> 01:14:31.430
Everybody's on Android or Apple. Yeah. Which has a risk of a backdoor. Of course. Yeah. Of course. That's supposed to be out of world.

799
01:14:32.070 --> 01:14:32.630
Yeah.

800
01:14:34.550 --> 01:14:35.510
Why compound it?

801
01:14:36.945 --> 01:14:51.025
You need to work within that environment. Otherwise, you're asking all these journalists to be to move to a new system. Right? No. But that's not what I'm saying. Just because their setup isn't perfect doesn't mean you add additional trusted central censors. Centralized third parties are security holes.

802
01:14:51.930 --> 01:14:54.090
Yeah. So each one you add

803
01:14:54.730 --> 01:14:59.930
Yeah. Is another security hole. So just because they trust Apple doesn't mean they should also trust

804
01:15:00.330 --> 01:15:12.925
you guys. So what we are what we do sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I see what you're saying. I mean, what we do is we make sure that Apple and and Google only have encrypted data. Right? And that's what Vitra has certified.

805
01:15:12.925 --> 01:15:16.285
Yes. But not allegedly, according to x person.

806
01:15:16.765 --> 01:15:19.565
Allegedly. There's

807
01:15:19.565 --> 01:15:22.765
no way to verify it. This is it's the reality of the situation.

808
01:15:25.320 --> 01:15:26.280
Let

809
01:15:26.440 --> 01:15:28.440
me put it this way. Yeah.

810
01:15:30.040 --> 01:15:38.360
There's a reason why Bitcoin wallets first, we were talk we were originally talking about, like, Bitcoin protocol network code or whatnot, which is open source, but also Bitcoin wallets.

811
01:15:38.440 --> 01:15:38.840
Yeah.

812
01:15:40.925 --> 01:15:42.445
There's a reason why

813
01:15:42.844 --> 01:15:44.604
I have never recommended

814
01:15:44.764 --> 01:15:46.844
a closed source Bitcoin wallet.

815
01:15:47.085 --> 01:15:48.604
And it's because ultimately

816
01:15:48.844 --> 01:15:50.124
you're trusting

817
01:15:50.764 --> 01:15:52.844
whoever is running that Bitcoin wallet

818
01:15:53.430 --> 01:15:59.270
with your life's wealth. And once again, they don't have to be malicious. They can be compromised or coerced themselves.

819
01:16:00.310 --> 01:16:01.350
They become a

820
01:16:01.830 --> 01:16:07.030
trusted third party and they become a security hole in your life savings. And there's a reason why it's the gold standard.

821
01:16:07.605 --> 01:16:12.085
And that's the reason, because you're just adding additional you're adding additional risk.

822
01:16:12.805 --> 01:16:19.365
And so I yeah. I have a question for you. So say, we have a journalist in Ukraine. Right? With all this sensitive information about what Russia's doing.

823
01:16:19.845 --> 01:16:21.045
We open source the code.

824
01:16:21.750 --> 01:16:24.790
Yeah. Russia, with all its significant

825
01:16:24.790 --> 01:16:25.670
resources,

826
01:16:25.750 --> 01:16:28.310
you know Yeah. In in in its FSB,

827
01:16:29.350 --> 01:16:32.310
is able to change our code and,

828
01:16:33.590 --> 01:16:38.754
you know, have it updated What are they on that journalist's phone. How are they doing that?

829
01:16:41.235 --> 01:16:45.554
Because they're changing the open source code. Right? And it's which is open source.

830
01:16:45.954 --> 01:16:48.994
Yeah. But you still so this journalist, presumably.

831
01:16:49.235 --> 01:16:50.195
Right? Yep.

832
01:16:50.835 --> 01:16:51.474
Has

833
01:16:52.060 --> 01:16:56.619
they download from they they're they're opening they're not using graphemes.

834
01:16:56.780 --> 01:17:00.460
Yeah. They're on the app store. Say. Right? So they they have their iPhone.

835
01:17:00.860 --> 01:17:04.445
They're downloading your app from the Apple App Store. Yep.

836
01:17:05.325 --> 01:17:07.804
Do you have an app store developer account

837
01:17:08.045 --> 01:17:10.925
where you're shipping updates to every update

838
01:17:11.165 --> 01:17:23.419
you ship is signed by you guys saying that we shipped it, not a malicious actor, not someone else. Apple's verifying that. It is a trusted third party. There's no way for me to verify it. But Apple's doing that verification.

839
01:17:24.699 --> 01:17:29.739
They'd have to go out and download a different app, or your flows would have to be compromised,

840
01:17:29.980 --> 01:17:32.139
where you are shipping the malicious app.

841
01:17:32.665 --> 01:17:33.545
Otherwise,

842
01:17:33.705 --> 01:17:36.025
they're not able to change, like just

843
01:17:36.025 --> 01:17:40.905
because the code is open doesn't mean that a third party can just change the app.

844
01:17:41.545 --> 01:17:47.784
But sophisticated state actors are hiding malicious code within benign and very positive

845
01:17:48.560 --> 01:17:49.599
and helpful

846
01:17:49.680 --> 01:17:56.000
changes, right? That's a known way in which they're infiltrating open source systems, right? No, and closed sources.

847
01:17:56.160 --> 01:18:00.800
That is completely tangential. I mean, closed sources pressure, no? It's pressure, through pressure. What do you mean?

848
01:18:01.485 --> 01:18:02.764
No, it's completely

849
01:18:03.005 --> 01:18:03.885
tangential.

850
01:18:04.205 --> 01:18:05.164
If they are

851
01:18:06.445 --> 01:18:11.244
getting a malicious update into your software package that you're shipping to your customers,

852
01:18:11.565 --> 01:18:14.685
then that is irrelevant of closed source or open source.

853
01:18:15.570 --> 01:18:22.130
But with closed source because they have gotten into your supply chain. They're in your supply chain shipping malicious code to your users.

854
01:18:22.770 --> 01:18:26.369
Have to have your access to your developer account and be shipping updates.

855
01:18:27.745 --> 01:18:37.824
Yes. So that usually is through coercion. But in the open source case, you're opening up and allowing a lot of people to contribute to your code. Obviously, you're Wait. No. There's two different things. There's two different things.

856
01:18:38.465 --> 01:18:41.690
You can have open source code that people can go verify,

857
01:18:41.770 --> 01:18:43.929
and you're not taking outside contributors.

858
01:18:44.010 --> 01:18:45.769
Like you don't have to necessarily

859
01:18:46.570 --> 01:18:50.170
you don't necessarily have to take a random a nonce

860
01:18:50.330 --> 01:18:59.024
pull request where they're like, trying to update, you know, trying to make a change to your app. You don't have to do that piece. There's plenty of there's plenty of open source projects,

861
01:18:59.344 --> 01:18:59.905
like

862
01:19:01.264 --> 01:19:04.945
signals not just taking like completely random contributors,

863
01:19:05.025 --> 01:19:05.905
updates,

864
01:19:05.905 --> 01:19:07.824
they have their process.

865
01:19:07.824 --> 01:19:20.159
Those contributors might be might be there might be malicious code within snuck into their their code. But it's two different things. Right? It's two different things. It's whether or not you have open contributions.

866
01:19:21.120 --> 01:19:26.640
Uh-huh. Where you're like taking community contributions and community updates versus

867
01:19:28.284 --> 01:19:32.124
is can I verify what's running on my device? Can anyone,

868
01:19:32.764 --> 01:19:35.324
if they want to verify what's running on your device?

869
01:19:35.645 --> 01:19:38.124
Yeah, and I think the It's two different things. Yeah,

870
01:19:38.525 --> 01:19:47.439
my sense is at the end of the day, this is something the market will have to tell us. Like I, as a journalist, obviously, have my biases, I'm worried about

871
01:19:47.920 --> 01:19:52.320
open code being compromised by some well meaning but infiltrated

872
01:19:52.320 --> 01:19:52.960
contributor.

873
01:19:53.685 --> 01:19:56.405
And if the journalists on the ground, you know,

874
01:19:56.804 --> 01:19:59.044
prefer to trust a journalistic

875
01:19:59.284 --> 01:20:00.084
creator,

876
01:20:00.085 --> 01:20:04.885
like, like Stringer Foundation with our board and, you know, our network of, of

877
01:20:05.364 --> 01:20:12.739
auditors who are being public about their auditing and putting their repetitions to the line, That's one method. And we'll kind of have to see what

878
01:20:13.060 --> 01:20:17.620
those journalists prefer. If they prefer that or if they prefer anybody

879
01:20:17.940 --> 01:20:26.455
could be, or where like a large group of people could be contributing to the code and yeah. You know, that being the gold standard for information,

880
01:20:27.255 --> 01:20:37.415
but what makes them feel more safe is the question. I guess the military in your example feels more safe with the other way. That's Well, military doesn't want other militaries to know what they're running.

881
01:20:39.790 --> 01:20:42.190
It's a it's a different threat model. But

882
01:20:42.830 --> 01:20:47.710
I think this is an important discussion and sort of question. I mean, the military like,

883
01:20:48.110 --> 01:20:51.790
what they have special iPhones that like don't have cameras on them.

884
01:20:53.185 --> 01:21:00.545
You know, because because they can go to Tim Apple, and be like, okay, let's let's build a closed source proprietary thing for us.

885
01:21:00.945 --> 01:21:03.185
The average the average person,

886
01:21:03.505 --> 01:21:03.905
I mean,

887
01:21:05.239 --> 01:21:11.400
look, I mean, you'll never you'll never have a perfect situation. Like I said, you have to trust regardless.

888
01:21:11.880 --> 01:21:18.199
Yeah. But one of the cool parts about having like proper open source project is

889
01:21:18.440 --> 01:21:25.155
you could those people that are maybe super high risk could be running graphing. They could

890
01:21:25.954 --> 01:21:27.234
build from source.

891
01:21:27.554 --> 01:21:29.315
They could have a reproducible

892
01:21:29.315 --> 01:21:38.119
separate app that they're able to pull from outside of an app store, not have to trust Google, not have to trust Apple. I mean, if you want to talk about threat modeling,

893
01:21:38.840 --> 01:21:43.159
at the end of the day, any user who's using the Apple App Store, Apple

894
01:21:43.639 --> 01:21:51.664
can Apple's obviously a trusted third party in that supply chain, right? They can ship a malicious update of kin tab just to one of your journalists.

895
01:21:51.824 --> 01:21:53.025
Not to everybody.

896
01:21:53.185 --> 01:21:53.584
Right?

897
01:21:54.145 --> 01:21:54.624
But

898
01:21:57.264 --> 01:22:04.520
anyway, I would like to see this app open source. I'm not I'm not. I appreciate the friendly debate. I'm not questioning

899
01:22:04.520 --> 01:22:06.280
your motives or your integrity.

900
01:22:08.040 --> 01:22:11.880
There's a reason why open sets does not fund any closed source projects.

901
01:22:12.935 --> 01:22:16.614
Interesting. That's part of the reason. And it's not just security.

902
01:22:16.855 --> 01:22:20.855
It's also just like, it's good for the commons as well.

903
01:22:21.335 --> 01:22:22.934
Like, if you guys disappear,

904
01:22:23.975 --> 01:22:28.375
it'd be good if some other development team, some random guys in Indonesia or whatever could just

905
01:22:28.930 --> 01:22:30.449
pick up where you left off,

906
01:22:30.850 --> 01:22:33.250
and still ship can tab they could arrest you.

907
01:22:34.610 --> 01:22:35.489
You know, they're

908
01:22:35.890 --> 01:22:41.570
good. They're gonna be still a team maintaining it. That's more important for something like Bitcoin, I think than something like this.

909
01:22:42.695 --> 01:22:52.855
But just just things to consider. Yes, 100%. And we're working on enterprise versions of the app as well, for, you know, The New York Times and other news organizations.

910
01:22:53.575 --> 01:22:57.429
I think, yeah, this is a question that we'll be asking everybody.

911
01:22:59.270 --> 01:23:15.814
So do you made this in a hackathon. I think that part's cool. Like not to dismiss. I think it's cool that you recognize there was a problem and presumably using AI tools, you were able to like rapidly iterate and produce this thing, which is pretty cool. Percent. Yeah. We've been vibrating this whole thing using AI. And

912
01:23:16.375 --> 01:23:19.094
and, obviously, you know, the coders,

913
01:23:19.415 --> 01:23:20.934
you know, services is

914
01:23:21.255 --> 01:23:22.534
very experienced

915
01:23:22.695 --> 01:23:24.454
and, you know, checking the

916
01:23:24.934 --> 01:23:25.574
the

917
01:23:25.895 --> 01:23:26.695
the Output.

918
01:23:27.310 --> 01:23:44.184
Yeah. The code. You know? Just, yeah, just making sure that it's it's built in a secure way. And, yeah, and and the researchers security researchers who audited our code, like, gave us a very technical kind of blurb at the part how why it's secure. It's like every piece of of information is independently,

919
01:23:44.184 --> 01:23:51.224
I think, encrypted or something like that. Allegedly. It uses, yeah, a secure enclave and things like that. Yeah. Allegedly.

920
01:23:51.304 --> 01:24:00.289
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and just to be clear here, the reason I'm being, like, a little bit more aggressive about it is because this is the exact type of software that

921
01:24:01.250 --> 01:24:03.329
evil people would want to compromise.

922
01:24:04.050 --> 01:24:06.690
I understand. The user base is

923
01:24:07.250 --> 01:24:10.850
like the is is our targeted people. Right? 100%.

924
01:24:11.115 --> 01:24:17.595
And and yeah. Yeah. 100%. And, you know, I I think I mentioned this. We have a a Western intelligence

925
01:24:17.595 --> 01:24:20.875
agent, a security chief, who hasn't doesn't have access to our code,

926
01:24:21.275 --> 01:24:21.755
but

927
01:24:22.315 --> 01:24:25.835
his job is his agency's job is to hack

928
01:24:26.489 --> 01:24:31.530
journalists and human rights defenders and other people every day. And so he's been advising us on

929
01:24:31.929 --> 01:24:32.809
the latest

930
01:24:33.050 --> 01:24:34.809
techniques that they're using.

931
01:24:35.530 --> 01:24:37.129
For example, we don't broadcast

932
01:24:37.289 --> 01:24:39.610
GSM locations. He's like, that's the number one

933
01:24:40.225 --> 01:24:43.425
easiest way that they compromise journalists location.

934
01:24:43.585 --> 01:24:45.185
They look for GSM

935
01:24:45.185 --> 01:24:46.065
broadcast.

936
01:24:47.265 --> 01:24:49.185
And so we don't do that. It's all encrypted.

937
01:24:49.345 --> 01:24:51.105
And so we're

938
01:24:51.265 --> 01:24:58.820
trying to stay it's a, it's a, it's an arms race, right? It's a, you know, you're in an active arms race against very well funded,

939
01:24:59.220 --> 01:25:01.060
very capable governments.

940
01:25:01.060 --> 01:25:08.740
Yeah. That are that are constantly trying to compromise these kinds of apps. And yeah, I hear you on the open source being, and maybe, you know,

941
01:25:10.685 --> 01:25:17.885
exposing or open sourcing parts of the code or, you know, as a way to start and yeah, but but I guess, you know, for the kind of thing just like

942
01:25:20.045 --> 01:25:22.205
Leroy Jenkins it and just,

943
01:25:22.525 --> 01:25:27.219
like, just release, like, have it go through a bunch of different audits first. If,

944
01:25:28.099 --> 01:25:34.260
if your auditors are saying this, if your auditors are actually truly confident that this code

945
01:25:35.699 --> 01:25:36.739
is secure,

946
01:25:37.780 --> 01:25:43.175
then people viewing it shouldn't add vulnerability to it. Yeah, you understand that concept?

947
01:25:43.335 --> 01:25:45.814
Yeah, makes sense to you. Well, yes.

948
01:25:46.454 --> 01:25:50.054
The the one thing is the act of showing the code to the world

949
01:25:50.534 --> 01:25:52.934
should never make an app vulnerable.

950
01:25:53.350 --> 01:25:57.909
If the app was already quote unquote perfectly secure before you released it.

951
01:25:59.030 --> 01:26:01.350
What the situation what the vulnerability

952
01:26:01.350 --> 01:26:05.270
showing code to the world could potentially do is people could see

953
01:26:05.845 --> 01:26:08.565
vulnerabilities that they maybe they didn't see previously.

954
01:26:08.645 --> 01:26:12.005
But those vulnerabilities already existed before you open the code up.

955
01:26:13.125 --> 01:26:22.090
Yes. And so let's just start with the assumption that no code is safe. Right? Every code is vulnerable. So let's start with that. The code is vulnerable. You expose it.

956
01:26:23.050 --> 01:26:26.730
The risk here is that a very well resourced

957
01:26:26.730 --> 01:26:27.530
adversary

958
01:26:27.930 --> 01:26:32.170
will then be able to exploit it faster than your network can can

959
01:26:32.570 --> 01:26:33.450
protect it, secure.

960
01:26:34.125 --> 01:26:35.324
But that's the problem.

961
01:26:35.565 --> 01:26:39.564
So the problem is the this is and this is not like fiction.

962
01:26:41.085 --> 01:26:43.484
This is what the well resourced actors,

963
01:26:43.485 --> 01:26:45.484
namely the main security services,

964
01:26:46.045 --> 01:26:46.764
NSA,

965
01:26:47.244 --> 01:26:47.724
you know,

966
01:26:48.520 --> 01:26:49.559
Massad, whatnot.

967
01:26:50.520 --> 01:26:53.959
What they do is they find when they find zero days,

968
01:26:54.760 --> 01:26:57.079
they don't tell the rest of the world. They use them.

969
01:26:57.480 --> 01:27:01.800
Yeah. Right? And so Yeah. How does the rest of the world find the backdoor

970
01:27:03.195 --> 01:27:04.315
to fix it?

971
01:27:05.115 --> 01:27:07.515
If it's closed, they won't. Right?

972
01:27:08.075 --> 01:27:09.035
That's why.

973
01:27:09.595 --> 01:27:14.554
If you have a private GitHub repo that's hosting your code and is closed source,

974
01:27:14.715 --> 01:27:16.315
Microsoft has access to it.

975
01:27:17.950 --> 01:27:22.750
Only the most retarded people in the world don't think NSA has access to Microsoft servers.

976
01:27:23.790 --> 01:27:27.470
But you're a random person who cares in Indonesia

977
01:27:27.470 --> 01:27:28.750
that's like a whiz kid.

978
01:27:29.325 --> 01:27:43.245
Yeah. He doesn't have access to the code base. He can't analyze it. He can't try and verify it. He can't try and fix it. Yep. And I think what you're saying is is gonna be an active issue that more and more of an issue as we become more successful.

979
01:27:43.680 --> 01:27:57.920
A 100%. I'm not gonna be the first person who brings this up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think this is gonna be it's gonna be more of a liability more for risks to some, you know, as as we become more successful. So that's something that we need to just think about it. Yep.

980
01:27:58.975 --> 01:28:04.335
But congratulations on the app. Anyway, I feel like we've been going for a while. Before we finish, I just want to

981
01:28:06.655 --> 01:28:08.895
you've been writing a book. What's the deal with that?

982
01:28:09.535 --> 01:28:15.119
So I've started the book before I started the Stringer Foundation. It's about environmental defenders in Mexico,

983
01:28:15.120 --> 01:28:16.320
mostly indigenous,

984
01:28:16.800 --> 01:28:18.160
you know, frontline

985
01:28:18.160 --> 01:28:21.440
individuals who are protecting mountains, rivers, forests,

986
01:28:21.840 --> 01:28:23.280
and who are incredibly,

987
01:28:23.520 --> 01:28:25.520
you know, unresourced,

988
01:28:25.600 --> 01:28:27.760
don't have much institutional

989
01:28:27.760 --> 01:28:28.239
support,

990
01:28:28.925 --> 01:28:35.565
And yet they're putting their bodies in the line to protect what everybody seems to be saying that we need to protect the environment for future generations.

991
01:28:35.565 --> 01:28:43.165
So why aren't they getting help? And so the book kind of tells their stories. You know, I traveled to a bunch of places where they got assassinated, where they got killed

992
01:28:43.340 --> 01:28:46.940
and where their communities are still fighting back. And I'm telling those stories.

993
01:28:47.740 --> 01:28:50.460
You know, it's really a book about different

994
01:28:50.460 --> 01:28:52.060
ways of, you know, asking,

995
01:28:52.540 --> 01:28:55.820
is it worth protecting nature? Is it worth protecting

996
01:28:56.265 --> 01:29:06.505
our is it worth protecting the people who put their bodies on the line? It's a bit like a story. I see it like the 300 Spartans who were fighting for a noble cause. And I'm trying to tell their stories and

997
01:29:06.745 --> 01:29:07.624
have their

998
01:29:07.945 --> 01:29:15.590
battles inspire other people around the world to protect nature and maybe spur some of the global institutions to actually provide them the support that they need.

999
01:29:16.949 --> 01:29:18.309
I love that. Are

1000
01:29:19.350 --> 01:29:30.895
you almost done with it? I'm almost done. Final revisions, it'll be out next year. Publishing is very slow. I'm sure somebody's gonna ask Claude to summarize it, but you know, to be honest, can summarize Yeah, you

1001
01:29:31.855 --> 01:29:45.040
need to, you don't need to ask Claude. I can summarize it, but I think the value here is the individual human stories of each of these figures and the inspirational value of it, you know, that, you know, these people in very dire circumstances

1002
01:29:45.040 --> 01:29:48.079
chose to protect higher cause, you know, and

1003
01:29:48.560 --> 01:29:51.760
I think that's something Claude can't really summarize. You

1004
01:29:53.200 --> 01:29:54.880
read these stories and you, I mean,

1005
01:29:56.160 --> 01:30:01.405
need to learn from their learn from their sacrifices and their, you know, humanity.

1006
01:30:01.405 --> 01:30:02.364
And that's something

1007
01:30:02.845 --> 01:30:05.645
we need more and more to preserve in this age of AI.

1008
01:30:06.285 --> 01:30:09.565
What are the so is it like is it specifically

1009
01:30:09.645 --> 01:30:11.885
was like pollution, deforestation?

1010
01:30:12.670 --> 01:30:14.510
It's a lot of mining companies,

1011
01:30:14.670 --> 01:30:17.869
industrial zones producing all kinds of stuff that we use.

1012
01:30:18.110 --> 01:30:21.070
Mines for lithium, for electric vehicles,

1013
01:30:21.389 --> 01:30:22.589
steel

1014
01:30:22.989 --> 01:30:31.764
circuit boards, every piece of technology that we're producing needs mineral resources and those mineral resources are more and more accessible and available in

1015
01:30:32.085 --> 01:30:33.285
indigenous territories.

1016
01:30:33.285 --> 01:30:36.965
And the interesting thing is across Latin America, Bolivia,

1017
01:30:37.364 --> 01:30:38.725
Mexico, other countries,

1018
01:30:39.320 --> 01:30:45.080
there are very progressive laws that protect the rights and ability of these local communities to protect their land.

1019
01:30:45.800 --> 01:30:47.400
But unfortunately,

1020
01:30:47.480 --> 01:30:58.355
when when the communities use those laws and kick the companies out or the governments out or the industrial developments out, the mines or whatever it increasingly organized crime is being used against these communities.

1021
01:30:58.755 --> 01:31:00.275
And so extrajudicial,

1022
01:31:00.275 --> 01:31:12.840
the law doesn't matter anymore. Extrajudicial They just a bring in mafia tactics basically. Yeah. And they try to clear the communities off the land. And then they have done that in many cases. Then they build a mine or an industrial zone or whatever they want.

1023
01:31:13.239 --> 01:31:18.599
And that's how, you know, more and more, we're going to need to rely on people and on movements

1024
01:31:18.680 --> 01:31:20.840
to protect our public goods.

1025
01:31:21.080 --> 01:31:39.465
It's not going to be the laws. We can't rely on them. And we're seeing that laws can be as beautiful as you want, but there are no use when the economic interests are so high that people find ways around them. There are always organized crime groups in Latin America or in India or wherever you want, who are willing to play that role as mercenaries for

1026
01:31:40.410 --> 01:31:41.369
these, you

1027
01:31:41.850 --> 01:31:43.369
know, industrial interests.

1028
01:31:43.850 --> 01:31:49.530
So it's a question like, are we heading in the right direction as a society? Are we destroying nature?

1029
01:31:50.170 --> 01:31:57.875
And instead of asking the academics who are, you know, in their ivory towers, why not ask the people who are putting their bodies in the line,

1030
01:31:58.275 --> 01:32:07.235
what their convictions are, why they're doing this and what they think the world needs, how they think the world needs to act in order to build a better and more sustainable future.

1031
01:32:07.849 --> 01:32:12.489
Love that somehow. Going to ask that question a lot. Always comes down to people.

1032
01:32:12.809 --> 01:32:13.449
Yeah.

1033
01:32:15.050 --> 01:32:18.809
What I just real quick, what is what is publishing that look like for you?

1034
01:32:20.295 --> 01:32:21.175
I

1035
01:32:21.175 --> 01:32:22.855
mean, I'm aware that

1036
01:32:23.175 --> 01:32:32.935
the road between now and the publishing is a road of increasing risk for me personally. I'm putting out information about the perpetrators of each of these assassinations

1037
01:32:32.935 --> 01:32:34.054
in the public domain.

1038
01:32:34.660 --> 01:32:37.380
They're very powerful actors. And as that risk,

1039
01:32:37.620 --> 01:32:48.500
you know, threat goes up for me, yeah, I just some something I need to I need to build the systems, and that's also why why I built the app to protect myself. Do you know what a do you know what a dead man switch is, by the way?

1040
01:32:49.315 --> 01:33:01.235
Yes. Yes. Yes. And we're building that in as well into the You're gonna Like, if you don't open the app for, a week or something, then it automatically sends You us can program. If you're on a trip, you need to every three hours, you need to check-in.

1041
01:33:01.395 --> 01:33:20.914
And if you're, you know, in a passive situation, it could be a week or Yeah. Couple that's a good idea for a future. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's it's it's it's it's on our feature list for, you know, programming that in. And it's also useful for elderly people or, you know, other people like that. So that's a commercial application in that case, you know. I've fallen and I can't get up. Right? Elderly Yeah. Person living

1042
01:33:22.275 --> 01:33:27.074
And then and then it it triggers the and one thing that we've been given by Apple,

1043
01:33:27.235 --> 01:33:31.315
which is rare, is a critical alert. So we can we have the ability to

1044
01:33:32.050 --> 01:33:33.889
override silent settings.

1045
01:33:34.130 --> 01:33:39.489
So it's like an earthquake alert or a flood. And so Apple's recognized that, yeah, that our app is

1046
01:33:39.969 --> 01:33:41.329
That's like in that situation.

1047
01:33:41.489 --> 01:33:41.969
So,

1048
01:33:42.290 --> 01:33:53.264
yeah, you could be at your desk in silent mode in the meeting, or you could be sleeping, and it'll it'll it'll the alarm, the siren will ring, and you'll know that you need to act. And, yeah, dead man's switch is an important one.

1049
01:33:53.745 --> 01:33:59.105
You know, it's we try to make it as simple as possible, just sort of encrypted the whole way, zero knowledge,

1050
01:33:59.660 --> 01:34:07.739
a very simple to use. And the idea is that, yeah, this can hopefully start to save lives. So we're starting to test I like that. Simple thing. Building

1051
01:34:08.620 --> 01:34:11.820
user user stories for people who are using this, including myself.

1052
01:34:12.405 --> 01:34:12.965
And

1053
01:34:13.365 --> 01:34:17.445
then socializing that and seeing where we can go. Which

1054
01:34:18.965 --> 01:34:20.645
sectors are more

1055
01:34:20.645 --> 01:34:21.685
likely to uptake?

1056
01:34:22.085 --> 01:34:26.165
Yeah, and you'll see how users use it, then you can make changes, improvements.

1057
01:34:27.060 --> 01:34:44.184
But I distracted you a little bit. But, like, I on like, from a practical point of view in publishing, like, this is gonna be a physical book. Right? Yes. Physical book. Yeah. Traditional publishing. That's how I started. Do you have, like but you have, like, a publisher that you work with that is like cool with sensitive information being published and

1058
01:34:44.824 --> 01:34:51.624
Yeah. A 100%. I mean, publish The US is I mean, each jurisdiction has its own legal quagmire.

1059
01:34:51.864 --> 01:35:01.340
The US is a bit better. If you're going after public figures in The US for powerful figures, you are protected from legal action and the publishers as well. Other countries are less protective.

1060
01:35:01.500 --> 01:35:23.165
The UK for instance, right? Like has like very bad libel laws or whatever. Exactly. And that's why Me Too happened in The US and you know, where you could the perpetrator and they can't sue you back. It's harder because they're public figures. And so in The UK, sometimes my publishers have to do an extensive legal review at great cost. And so it's its own beast, but yeah, my publisher is

1061
01:35:22.660 --> 01:35:26.579
kind of it's called Chelsea Green. They've published like frontline

1062
01:35:26.820 --> 01:35:27.699
environmental

1063
01:35:28.020 --> 01:35:28.579
works,

1064
01:35:28.980 --> 01:35:32.659
and they're kind of on the edge movements and supported movements,

1065
01:35:32.900 --> 01:35:37.060
they published, you know, the reason I went with them in this case was they published a memoir

1066
01:35:37.315 --> 01:35:55.889
of this Brazilian, very important Brazilian journalist who got assassinated with his indigenous Brazilian reporter friend, colleague. His name is Dom Phillips, they published his memoir. He was halfway through it, and they got his friends to complete the memoir and they published it. That outed that book outed a lot of similar themes, similar frontline except in Brazil.

1067
01:35:56.130 --> 01:35:58.290
And it outed a lot of powerful players.

1068
01:35:58.450 --> 01:36:05.489
And so I feel I trust them that they will have my back and have that they have the movements back when publishing this book.

1069
01:36:06.050 --> 01:36:10.025
So that's kind of why I went with them. I thought they had a publicity

1070
01:36:10.025 --> 01:36:12.665
base and a, you know, readership

1071
01:36:12.825 --> 01:36:16.985
and the ethos within the publishing house to push this book in the right way.

1072
01:36:18.105 --> 01:36:26.400
Got it. Very important. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, that whole world is very foreign to me. So, like, you're, like, sending them you send them

1073
01:36:27.360 --> 01:36:29.200
you send them to them

1074
01:36:29.200 --> 01:36:46.374
digitally. Right? Or you're just like, are you just sending them a are you sending them, like, a word document, and then they handle everything else for you? Yes. The reality is, I mean, I always have to be involved at every stage of the publicity of getting the word out of getting movements behind it, but they have credibility.

1075
01:36:46.614 --> 01:37:04.985
They have a distribution network. But yes, it is. I mean, in terms of info sec, if that's what you're getting at, it's it is a it's a word file that sent over email to their offices. Email them a word file. Right? Yeah. In this case, I might be a bit more careful. I might send it to them over, you know, tour or something, you know, a safe network.

1076
01:37:06.105 --> 01:37:19.239
But, but yeah, I mean, the end, the book is it's meant to be public. And the only advantage of doing that of securing security, sending it is to prevent your adversary from having time to discredit you, which has happened. Or like to respond,

1077
01:37:19.560 --> 01:37:25.880
yeah. Yeah, like I published a book about Rwanda, the dictator there tried to kill me, and you know,

1078
01:37:26.760 --> 01:37:27.400
they

1079
01:37:27.560 --> 01:37:36.735
got ahold of the book before it was published, but right at the end, like couple of weeks before. So I was able to delay it the maximum I could. And when they published rebuttals

1080
01:37:36.735 --> 01:37:38.494
of my book or criticisms,

1081
01:37:38.495 --> 01:37:44.335
it was very silly. They pop one of their ministers published in the Lancet said my whole book was a fabrication.

1082
01:37:44.495 --> 01:37:50.269
And it's just it's just like they didn't know what to go out with. They just like responded liar or whatever. Exactly.

1083
01:37:50.429 --> 01:37:53.469
And that's just the stupidest way and everybody any any sane,

1084
01:37:53.630 --> 01:37:56.669
you know, thinking person would can could see that that was

1085
01:37:57.309 --> 01:38:07.215
that was, you know, desperate last ditch attempt. And so, yeah, again, it's an arms race. As much as you can, you're trying to prevent them from getting the information, prevent them from seeing the

1086
01:38:07.614 --> 01:38:10.334
preparing and launching a campaign against you.

1087
01:38:11.935 --> 01:38:12.735
Fair enough.

1088
01:38:12.895 --> 01:38:18.179
I'm John. Always a pleasure. I appreciate all the work you're doing. You fucking Christian.

1089
01:38:18.500 --> 01:38:19.619
Thank you, Odell.

1090
01:38:20.100 --> 01:38:21.619
We're moving at light speed.

1091
01:38:22.100 --> 01:38:30.085
Yeah, maybe we'll do another update in six months. We'll see where you're at. I mean, you can just text me when you think another update is worthy.

1092
01:38:30.405 --> 01:38:37.045
Sounds great. We'll have announced our winners. So we'll I'm sure we'll have updates around that will be interesting to discuss all the

1093
01:38:37.925 --> 01:38:52.430
all the decision of the the impact of that. And also, yeah, we'll have updates from user stories of the app in the field. So we'll we can share more and riff more on that as well. I mean, I'm sure you know, but your work has never been more important than it is today.

1094
01:38:53.265 --> 01:39:07.104
So thank you again. Thank you for the advice and the encouragement and support. Mean, we need Open man. Open source, Yeah. Need community people to help us. Yeah. I Do you have any final thoughts for the audience before we wrap? No. No. This has been great. I really appreciate,

1095
01:39:07.344 --> 01:39:08.145
you know, having

1096
01:39:11.050 --> 01:39:17.050
useful, encouraging, supportive, forthright discussions. So, yeah, grateful to be here and for your friendship.

1097
01:39:17.850 --> 01:39:21.530
Likewise. Likewise. Freaks, I'll put all relevant links in

1098
01:39:22.010 --> 01:39:22.970
the show notes.

1099
01:39:23.735 --> 01:39:28.614
I guess I should just say it out loud. What is it the stringerfoundation.com?

1100
01:39:28.935 --> 01:39:31.735
It's stringerjournalism.org.

1101
01:39:31.975 --> 01:39:33.815
Stringerjournalism.org

1102
01:39:33.815 --> 01:39:34.534
and

1103
01:39:34.695 --> 01:39:36.295
kintab.com.

1104
01:39:36.535 --> 01:39:38.055
Correct. With a y.

1105
01:39:38.659 --> 01:39:46.739
Yes. And I'll put all relevant links in the show notes. Huge shout out to all the freaks who continue to support the show. Thank you guys. It really does mean a lot.

1106
01:39:47.860 --> 01:39:50.979
Keeps me going. Next Tuesday, next Tuesday,

1107
01:39:51.219 --> 01:39:52.420
June 9

1108
01:39:52.625 --> 01:39:58.144
is when I will have Tondo on to talk Bitcoin in Kenya. Pretty excited about that.

1109
01:39:59.185 --> 01:40:01.425
All relevant links at salesdispatch.com.

1110
01:40:01.425 --> 01:40:02.864
Share with your friends and family.

1111
01:40:03.425 --> 01:40:05.585
Love y'all. Stay humble StackSats.

1112
01:40:05.585 --> 01:40:05.985
Peace.