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Tech CEO Exposes the Diabolical Plan to ENSLAVE Us Through Smartphones · Man in America Podcast

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Welcome to man in America, a voice of reason in a world gone mad. I'm your host, Seth Holehouse. As we witness what's happening under Trump, there's a lot of questions. There's a lot to there's a lot to comment on. Obviously, we've got this the insanity of what's happening in The Middle East, which will not be the focus of today's show.
• 0:35
  But there are a lot of things that people expected to be happening under Trump that they're kinda waiting for, like the Epstein files or, you know, pardons of people like Tina Peters or some help with Mike Lindell for everything he did or Giuliani. There's often there's been a lot of great things happening, like, we're you know, I'm seeing videos of Pete Hagsteth talking about how they're removing the transgenders from the army, and there's there's there's positive things that are happening. I don't wanna take away from that. However, I do want to highlight what I've been kind of signing the alarm on for a long time now, but now I'm seeing happening is that I'm seeing a great increase in the surveillance state. If you look at Palantir, just as one example of this, we're seeing that there is a much closer alignment between big tech companies, AI, and the government.
• 1:26
  You could say that there's it is a public private partnership where you have these big tech companies, which in my humble opinion, are government run tech companies. It just have been reskinned to be some unicorn, tech miracle. Wow. Look what Mike Zuckerberg built in his college dorm room. It's like, no.
• 1:43
  That was a DARPA, you know, life log that was built to be a mass data harvesting and social engineering platform that was then released, as Facebook with this genius Mark Zuckerberg behind it. So I think a lot of Silicon Valley is really a front for the military industrial complex, which is being used against us. The surveillance state in this country is is growing and expanding. And if you look at what's happening with ICE and with the illegals and, with Palantir working together with ICE, and you've got Palantir that got a program called Gotham, which is already being used by a lot of police forces in our own nation, that it's obvious that they are using technology at this stage against the bad people in our country. But the problem is the single question of how long is it before that technology is used against us?
• 2:33
  And so, you know, I am actively within my lifestyle. I'm looking for ways to be more resilient and more protected from the, you know, the the kinda growing threat of global tyranny. Right? The threat of a new world order. That's why I live in the country, and I raise chickens, and I and I garden.
• 2:51
  I've got food, and I've got ammo, and the things that I need to protect my family, you know, multiple water sources and generators. However, I really believe that the greatest threat that we're facing here in America, is the surveillance state. It it is this, Palantir. It is this AI driven database of all this information is being assembled on us. And what we have to understand is that the more data that they can feed into this database, the more they can control us.
• 3:22
  And, again, if you look back at what happened during COVID when Apple and Google had this magical partnership to release all these contract contact tracing apps where they literally were trying to use our phones and where we're going with these phones in our pockets. They're always in there to use that as a way to trace our activities so they could then come back to us and say, look. You're gonna need to go into this little quarantine camp because, missus Sue Smith, who you walked past at the grocery store, we discovered she's a super spreader. So, Seth, you're gonna be in quarantine for the next three months. That's possible.
• 3:57
  Right? So a lot of people, they feel like, oh, okay. Hey. You know, that was the old administration. We're under Trump now.
• 4:02
  We're gonna be fine. Well, I wouldn't jump that far, to say that. I there's still even if Trump is in in his own right is purely has the best intentions for the American people, he's surrounded by all these big tech CEOs, and he's controlled by there's a lot of foreign lobbies that have major influence over our country. And so he's got his hands tied. And what I'm seeing with this is from really the the very beginning of his presidency, and and it really actually was late last year, and, you know, as we headed headed into the election, all these big tech CEOs are lying themselves around Trump.
• 4:34
  And you can see that there is a there's some sort of massive digital Trojan horse that has been marched into, the center of our government. Right? And that is AI, Palantir, etcetera. And if you're looking at this and you're trying to break down, okay, what are the ways that this mechanism can be used to control us? What makes us most, susceptible susceptible to being controlled?
• 4:57
  I I would say honestly that the single greatest digital weapon that's being used against us to build a potential digital prison, surveillance state, Palantir run surveillance state or social credit system is the thing that we all carry in our pockets. Now I've been considering for a long time, okay, how can I get rid of this phone? Do I go back to a flip phone or an old BlackBerry? And I haven't figured that out because there hasn't really been an easy solution. And and so joining us today is a guy named Hakim Anwar, and he's someone that used to work in big tech.
• 5:32
  He worked, you know, with a lot of, like, very, very key projects. And he saw, especially around the COVID time, that the this technology was actually being built as a a cage, and he couldn't it didn't sit right with him. So he left and got into much more mission based, you know, kind of projects. And so he has been a kind of on the front line of sounding the alarm of how dangerous this technology is and how we could take back our tech. He actually has a sub sack about that.
• 5:57
  Right? Actually, I'll pull the sub sack up for you real quick here. Yes. And I'll make sure I put the link in the description. Just this is his sub sec, take back our tech.
• 6:06
  He says, let's use technology that doesn't use us. He says, we're an educational movement and community. Together, we'll learn about friendly technology and how to use it effectively across many areas, desktop, web, mobile, hardware, communications, and much more. And so, this is gonna be our discussion today is looking at how are these phones used against us. Why is it that these these phones are at the center of this this massive digital mechanism that, really, whether they're using it right now or not, the potential is there.
• 6:40
  The potential of creating a CCP style social credit system in America, the groundwork is laid. And so we're gonna be focusing on that and a lot more in this interview. Before we jump in, I wanna encourage you that if you're, you know, regular watching the show, also give it a listen. If you prefer to listen or say you put a podcast on commonly while you're cooking or cleaning or whatever it is you're doing, make sure you go to your favorite podcast app, search for Man in America, and subscribe on there. And that way, you can have every show that we do is done as an audio, podcast, so you can listen to it as well.
• 7:11
  Alright. Let's go ahead and dive into this interview. I think you're gonna find it very fascinating, a little bit frightening, but still full of hope. Enjoy. Hakeem, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 7:21
  It's great to have you on the show today.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to be here, Seth. Glad to be men in America just talking about life.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: It's it's good, actually. It's it's important. I think, these days, especially having these conversations is really, really important because a lot of what we'll be talking about, you'll see maybe kind of mainstream media is kinda dipping its toe in a little bit, but what we're gonna be covering is just much more in-depth and much more information people won't really find, very easily. And so, before we dive into our discussion and and, you know, kinda keeping in mind that our discussion today is really about digital privacy, the digital surveillance state, Palantir. You know, the fact that Palantir, a name that even a lot of, you know, kind of with it conservatives or influencers a year ago weren't familiar with, it's now become somewhat of a household name.
• 8:14
  Like, my mom's asking Seth, like, what's this Palantir stuff? This sounds scary. Right? So there's a lot of stuff there for us to really kinda dive into. But let's start with just with your background.
• 8:22
  Like, your kind of background in tech, you know, kinda leading into, what you do what you're doing with, you know, phone security and everything. But I'll let you just kinda introduce your own self.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Sure. So my name is Hakeem Anwar. It's almost ten years ago today that I started my career in technology, and I started off building web and mobile applications as a software engineer for big tech companies. But by that time I was already awake to a lot of what was going on. So I always felt like the black sheep and I was always wondering, hey, is what we're building actually good for the world?
• 8:58
  And of course it wasn't. And then things really took a shift in my life when the pandemic happened in 2020. I was working in New York City. So it was really funny to hear the company say, Hey, engineers, go ahead and build this prison around you. I was one of the only people that didn't worship the big tech companies, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, all of them, everyone wanted to work from them.
• 9:24
  But I said, Nope, I'm done. This is too serious now. So I moved back home and I started working with social movements at the time, decentralized movements just of people wanting to be more self reliant. And I did that, with a huge pay cut. And then one thing I realized in this movement is that people were doing all the right things in physical.
• 9:46
  They're growing their own food, pulling their children out of the schools, taking care of their own health. But when it comes to their technology, they were very naive about how they were going about it. And they didn't even know about all the other options. So that's what I started to do. I started to educate.
• 10:02
  I started a foundation called The Take Back Our Tech and we started publishing content on friendly technology you can use on your phone and laptop. And then there was so much demand for this and we also wanted a solution that our team of volunteers could feel really good about collaborating and communicating on that we spent about half a year researching. And then today, we have a company called Above, which we have these privacy phones, is built on top of all that research, without laptops, all those types of things. So that's a little bit about me.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: It's really helpful. And I have to say, I'm I'm hyper aware of a lot of these agendas. Right? So we we live in the country. We're on a small homestead.
• 10:46
  I got rid of my smart meter on the house. We've got solar. I've got a well for water. We're we're gardening. We're raising animals.
• 10:53
  And we're doing a lot of the things that you would think kinda fall into the bucket of someone who is really kinda safeguarding from government overreach. Right? So it's like, okay. Well, yeah. If they wanna put on some sort of, you know, kind of vaccine ID that you need to have, you know, to get the in the bread lines in case there's food shortages, well, we've got enough food and enough ways to produce our own food that we're not gonna be reliant on that.
• 11:15
  Right? So we've done a lot of steps. But, you know, one thing, as I mentioned in in the intro here, the the news of of Palantir, and not just Palantir, but even I think it was, like, what, day two when Trump got up on stage of his presidency, and he's got Sam Altman and Larry Ellison and a few others. But they're talking about building this half a trillion dollar Stargate project, AI, you know, massive database and servers. They start looking into Palantir, and it it almost, like, all this stuff kinda clicked for me.
• 11:48
  And it is, like, as much time as I've spent analyzing, say, China and their social credit system. And I know exactly, you know, the the main mechanisms they use and how everyone's using these particular apps for their finance. And I just saw how x they just announced that they're doing x's finance, and, like, you know, Elon wants x to be in a lot of ways, it's like Elon wants x wants x to be what WeChat is in China. Right? It's the central app that you use for your banking, hotel reservations, social media, chatting with friends, reserving an Airbnb type thing.
• 12:19
  Like, it's this centralization. And that's the one thing that I say I have seen under president Trump is a central centralization of big tech, and a a much deeper integration of big tech into our own government. I think that the whole Doge operation, everything, part of me suspects it was just an operation to get big tech plugged into all these federal databases and everything, which is kind of, like, the next step. But, I know that you're quite familiar with Palantir and a lot of these things. So from your perspective, what are you thinking when you see, oh, wow.
• 12:57
  You know, there's the Trump administration just handed Palantir another giant, budget, or Palantir's developing stuff for ICE for, you know, tracking illegals. And, like, where where does your mind go with this kind of stuff?
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think Palantir has over a billion dollars in government contracts, since since May where they got I mean, one contract alone was, I wanna say, 795,000,000 that was for Project Maven. And so just the scope of that and kind of how quickly they've grown since 2020 makes them the most important tech company when it comes to the government, when it comes to the military. And as you were pointing out, yes, they have all these engagements with every government agency, whether it's law enforcement or whether they're in talks with agencies like the IRS. Their hands are everywhere and it makes a lot of sense because Palantir is a big data company.
• 13:55
  This is something that big tech companies were on to five or ten years ago. They had all these stratified sources of data and no way to learn from them together. So we had big data, the movement of big data come together where you would start to glue all these different sources of data together. And now with AI progressing so fast in the past few years, now there's an actual way to learn from this huge amount of data. So I think it has been building on each other.
• 14:24
  Maybe it's like a kind of an opportunistic thing where the technology was finally in place. But for Trump to do the executive order in March, which is removing the data silos. And then this past month, there was a new ai.gov website, which got leaked, which is making AI tools available for all these different agencies. Is, that project is being run by a former Tesla engineer. Right?
• 14:49
  So it was a step by step approach to to shoehorn this everywhere. And government employees don't even like this. They think it's a bad idea. So, what's the point of it? Well
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• 16:19
  Speaker 2: One one really interesting thing is, like, when I researched into Palantir, I really wanted to know how the software works because you can't really understand anything unless you actually use it hands on. And so the closest I got to that was looking at these documents given to the LAPD. LAPD is one of the police departments in the country that use Palantir's Gotham, and there are some leaked documents from a Freedom of Information Act showing them how they could use Gotham. Now what the crazy part is is half the officers in the LAPD already use this on a day to day. I think that's like, you know, around 8,000 officers.
• 16:54
  Now, why do they use it? Is because, you can you can essentially type out the type of person you're looking for. You could say six foot white male, black hair, skull tattoo, and it will pull you up all of the results, for that type of person. Not only that, but you can drill into them and see who they're related to, who their acquaintances are. You could see what types of cars they drive.
• 17:22
  You can see when those cars were spotted in the city from the traffic cameras. Right? So this is really a new paradigm for surveillance where before you had to worry about Google or Apple. Now you have to worry about all of them.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: What's crazy is this is this is Palantir's website. This is their, their their kind of landing page for Gotham. It tells you right here, your software is the weapons system. And that's I mean, it's okay. Your software is a weapon system.
• 17:53
  I mean, it's a little bit frightening. But one question I have for you is, obviously, you're someone that saw the writing on the wall in big tech, and you chose to really kinda take a pretty harsh turn in your career, as I'm I'm sure that you had a lot of opportunity ahead of you. You know, you know, kinda talented people in the tech world are making a lot of money. But you stepped away from that because you saw a threat. And so as you're looking at this information that's coming out, Palantir's involvement and everything like that, are you like, are you genuinely concerned that there could be some sort of kinda Chinese style social credit system digital prison set up in America?
• 18:42
  Or is that just the kind of tinfoil hat people like myself, you know, kind of becoming a little too over worried and and and everything, and kind of blowing this out of proportion? Because that that's kind of the the the argument against it. It's like, oh, look. This is gonna help us, and you're you're so you know, you're such a, you know, kind of a conspiracy theorist, think that everything the government does is is all about building a prison and all this new war order stuff. So how do you feel about it?
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think it's it's the most real and and pressing threat of of probably this decade. Definitely, the the biggest story in 2025 by by far now that, you know, Palantir is is getting so many contracts. And I think at first, you can kinda stand from the sidelines, and you can try and make a case for this, you know, for the LAPD. Oh, well they're using that to help quell the rioters and illegal immigrants. Well, it always starts with your enemies, whoever those people are, and then it gets used on everyone else.
• 19:45
  This is just kind of the staging ground. Palantir is still being tested and developed. And so I think the end result is because there is so much investment in these big data centers, which require tremendous amounts of power. You know, there's whole nuclear plants being, I think, Meta's new plant, is getting a nuclear plant to run their data center. Power, the water, and taking this from the American people, I'm American, I think that is going, we're all going to suffer at the expense of these systems, and we're all going to be enrolled in these systems.
• 20:23
  And one of the things that was very interesting was in the past week or two, some of the biggest big tech executives, CTO of Palantir, the CTO of Meta, the CPO of OpenAI, and another person from OpenAI. They all got drafted into the US military. Drafted is not the right word. They got sworn in to the Army Reserves as lieutenant colonels. It's a rank that takes twenty years to get into the military.
• 20:52
  And so you could ask the question, well, are they there to speed up our military or are they there to integrate their technologies into one package? And like, you know, look at something like Meta where millions of people use it everywhere on Earth. So that's obviously a strategic advantage of Meta's data gets incorporated into this Detachment one hundred one collaboration. But also our data is on there too. And so if you end up disagreeing with the establishment, you know, you could easily be made an enemy.
• 21:24
  So I think that's why it's so scary. And I think that's why this privacy this whole concept of privacy is now going to be incredibly important because they're they don't seem to be stopping with these types of loss.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: So what's interesting with this is as I've dug more into their tools, you know, one thing, for instance, is, you know, smart meters. You know, like, I I you know, the last couple of houses that I've I've been in, I've, you know, contacted the the, you know, power companies and look. I wanna go back to a, a a manual read meter instead of these smart meters. Because the smart meters are, a, they they put off an insane amount of EMFs, but they can also be turned off remotely. I don't like that.
• 22:05
  Right? I don't like anything like that. Like, I'll buy myself a Tesla car. Like, I just I don't like the I don't like somebody else being able to turn my car off remotely or to be able to track me remotely. And I know there's also a lot of a lot of the car manufacturers now are putting in all the tracking software and everything anyway, so it's hard to get, you know, get out get out from under that.
• 22:25
  But, in terms of, like, understanding, okay, if there is this threat of some sort of social credit system, some sort of digital surveillance state, what are the ways that I can, avoid it? And I feel like I've done a lot of the things that I need to to do. But one thing it's that I've come to is that the single most powerful tool that they have in building their surveillance network and building what could be a a technocratic digital prison is the tool that most of us are so addicted to that we don't wanna give it up. And I and I see these discussions. It's funny because I I've I've been going back and forth for probably a couple of years now, especially with my wife.
• 23:09
  We talk about this all the time. It's like, okay. Should I just get a dumb phone? Should I just get a flip phone again? Right?
• 23:14
  Go back to, you know, life in the early two thousands with, like, a, you know, Motorola Razr or something like that. And it's been interesting because there's part of I I always make these excuses for myself. It's like, well, I I I like the the Apple ecosystem, and, you know, there's iMessage, and I've got all my photos stored on there. And and it's like, as much as I preach, don't trust the government, in my own life, it's like, well, I'm still actually giving all of my data, giving my location data, giving everything over to these same companies that I'm trying so hard to expose and sound the alarm about. And so a question for you is, do you agree with my assessment that that the cell phone is arguably the most powerful tool they have in monitoring and tracking us?
• 24:03
  And whether you agree or not, you maybe do, but I also want to explain how is the like, how are these phones used, against us?
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yes, I I totally agree. And, you know, all of the data that you put into your phone, whether you're on social media or whether you're traveling or whether you're talking at your house can be fed into that social credit score that we were talking about earlier. It's it's absolutely it's absolutely possible. I mean, I would think that Google and Apple both have their own versions of scores but maybe those are consumer scores, right?
• 24:38
  But it doesn't take long to to get to that final destination. And yes, it is the most dangerous threat in many different ways. It's it's not just about the monitoring, which is real time and, you know, there are there are secret geolocation databases. Google's SensorVault is one, which was, used against the January 7 protesters, you know, to go back and figure out who was at the Capitol Building at this time, at the state, let's get all their phones, let's go back and find them, which is similar things are being done in Pakistan now as well, which has a national ID card. And they figured out all the people that were there in 2023 for the Imran Khan protests, and they found them and they turned off their bank accounts.
• 25:22
  Some people were just living nearby, right? They just got caught in dragnet or the Canadian truckers. There are so many ways the phones can be used to put you at risk going against the establishment, whatever the establishment doesn't But more dangerously than the monitoring is the threat to your mind. A lot of people ask about, well, why has this country gotten so weak? Why have the kids gotten so weak?
• 25:48
  Right? Why are we not able to connect with each other? Well, it's these devices too that are so engaging, always have a drip feed of content so you're never bored. And more importantly than that, the algorithms from these social media companies, Facebook, TikTok, all these companies are they're just meant they can influence what you do, how you think, like the things you do. So all of that stuff is it makes the phone a very, very dangerous weapon.
• 26:16
  And I think now people I guess people just need the awareness that there are other options. We're very, very lucky that there are phones out there that can do everything your normal phone can, including things like watching YouTube, going on Facebook if you need that, but to have strong boundaries there so you're not completely sucked in. So, yeah, that's what I hope this next generation is. Most more people learning about that, waking up, and becoming the master of their phone, not vice versa.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting. I I remember, I had read something recently where somebody was oh, no. Actually, funny enough. No. It was, I was, I'm installing a a new kind of air conditioning system, especially in my studio.
• 26:57
  Right? Because I I wanna have a specific, you know, AC and heating unit for my studio to kinda control the temperature and humidity better. And so I'm installing a mini split, and I found a company that, you know, they they kind of specialize in helping people for DIY systems like this, because the the local company was just way too much. And I found out the local companies were all owned by private equity, which is like another kinda kick in the face. So and I was talking to guy.
• 27:21
  I like, hey, guys. I wanna make sure that these units I'm buying aren't smart. Like, I I I know it might sound weird. And, actually, the guy on their phone with the the sales rep or the helper, he was like, actually, he's like, hey. He's like, I'm right there with you, man.
• 27:33
  Was like, oh, really? He's like, oh, yeah. He was like, I was at a dinner party recently. And I was, you know, there he's sitting around with maybe, like, eight or 10 friends. And, you know, they're talking about something with the phones, and he goes, well, you know your phones are always listening to you.
• 27:46
  And and his friends were like, oh, come on. You're one of those guys. Like, our phones are all listening to us. He goes, okay. Give me, like okay.
• 27:53
  Take five minutes. Let's do an experiment. I said, everyone take your phone and set it on the table. He said, okay. He says, now I want us to spend the next five minutes talking about dog food.
• 28:03
  Or maybe maybe it was, John Deere tractors. I think whatever. I think it was John Deere tractors. And and because there was something like that none of them had searched for. He goes, want us all to talk about John Deere tractors.
• 28:12
  Okay? And they're like, okay. And so they all talk about John Deere tractors saying, you know, I've been thinking about buying a John Deere tractor. Right? After a few minutes of that, he said, okay.
• 28:21
  Give it a few more minutes. He goes, now everyone open open up your phone. Go to your Facebook. I started scrolling. Every single one of them saw ads for John Deere tractors.
• 28:30
  And they were they were like, this is insane. Now I I've known this for quite some time. I'm convinced that they have a way of actually monitoring our thoughts, but that's a whole different discussion. Yeah. But that's one thing also.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Do this?
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: It's it's like the the question you might have is is, like, how how are they doing this? And, I mean, it's it's pretty it's pretty simple. Although they won't admit it, but you are giving these apps microphone permission. Right? The operating system, just Apple or Google, they've got the microphone permission.
• 29:00
  But if you're using Facebook Messenger, you know, you're leaving voice messages, they've got that permission. And once they have that, they can they can do whatever they want with it. And so they are constantly listening. I mean, multiple companies are listening.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing is that that's another way is that makes me think, okay, what what am I really giving them? Because one, you know, my wife and I occasionally, like, you know, we'll watch shows in the evening as our way of kind of winding And and it's not easy to find shows, good shows, because most shows, especially, look, like, top rated shows, they're full of sex, like, insane violence. And as much as I wanna watch Game of Thrones, it's like I can't bring myself to watch this show that just kind of glorifies, you know, rape and incest and and, like, extreme violence. And but, you know, we we occasionally will find shows are good, and we just, you know, a couple weeks ago, finished watching a show called Person of Interest. I'm not sure if you've seen it with I haven't.
• 29:54
  Jim Caviezel. And it came out maybe ten years ago, but the entire show is it's like a, you know, five seasons, six seasons, is all about these big AI systems that gain access to NSA surveillance feeds, like, and then how those can be used against people. And it's it's one of the best, I think, examples of showing how powerful AI could be, because if you imagine that right now because, like, you know, I occasionally will use AI for, say, a researcher to help with, like, you know, my wife might use it for, you know, writing code for something. She gets stuck, and she's like, hey. Can you help me with this?
• 30:30
  And there's certain functions that it can be very helpful, but I'm I'm still, like, very cautious with it. But I you know, if you use AI, you know how quickly it can process information. Like, I can drop in an hour long transcript, and instantly, it can give me a summary of that transcript. Like, it's just it's so easy. So you think about if every conversation we have, every search that we have, every and not just, like, the surface stuff, but even our actions.
• 30:55
  Like, this thing, it's tracking our eye movement. It's tracking, like, our geolocation. It's like, imagine it's easy to see how an AI system could take all of that information and build, like, a very detailed profile of me. And the thing is is that I'm giving it all the data it needs to assemble, like, this profile of me that, like, probably knows me better than I I know myself as crazy as it is.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: It can yeah. I mean, it can it it knows that digital representation really well. One thing I always will will hold is that humans are unpredictable. And when the fire meets the metal, who knows what's going to happen? But you're so right, we are pumping our data left and right into these phones and like you mentioned, right, there's these sensors, there's measurements that we don't even know about.
• 31:45
  Like the Apple Watch. It has a heart rate sensor. This is a story that happened earlier this year. Apple came out with their new health study which uses the AirPods and it uses the Apple Watch and it uses questionnaires on your phone. Now the thing is the Apple Watch has an ECG, electrocardiogram, and so if you decide to enroll in their study, I looked through the piracy policy, like this didn't get any press at all, but they send that data directly to the FDA and Health and Human Services.
• 32:14
  I was like, why are they sending this private health study and they're doing it with some university, think it's, I forget the name of it but they're also sending the data to the government, right? And it's not gonna stop. You look at some of their patents with AirPods. They've got electroencephalograms, right? That's the measures of magnetic fields from your brain waves.
• 32:34
  And you can go so, so deep but I would agree with you. I think that they are trying to work on reading our thoughts and our minds and our emotions and feelings, which is really, really scary, right? That's like taking it past 1984. George Orwell couldn't come up with scarier stuff than what is happening now. But the saving grace is it's really just about consent, just the way you turn down all the smart devices in your home, which by the way I love.
• 32:59
  I don't have any EMF at my house. It's all hardwired. My car is over 20 years old. So you've got to take everything in your power while still taking some of the good things because, you know, for all this evil stuff that's inside of it, it has made our lives easier in a lot of ways, like the navigation aspect, the communication aspect. There are certain good things about it.
• 33:20
  I just don't want it to come with all the hidden ingredients that they normally ship it with. And so that's what we try and do on our phones. There are ways to communicate that are completely private, that are sovereign, meaning that you could run the infrastructure yourself at home. They're kind of decentralized like email. And there's also ways to navigate the world like drive around which are open source, which you don't have to use a third party server to.
• 33:48
  And you can use GPS, which is a passive protocol. Normally you will send Google and Apple your local WiFi networks, but you can use GPS. So it's about awareness too that there is ways thing to do these things like old school, while still having these new school features that we all like.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: And also, one thing in terms of just looking at, you know, how these tools could be used against us. Obviously, China's a great example in looking at, you know, how they're able to achieve such a complex social credit system over there. It's all built on technology. Like, that's the thing is that these tech these are technologies that Mao or Stalin could have only dreamed of having, of having, like, this level of control over their own citizens. And but if we look at the examples against, say say, China, you can see how these things are used against us.
• 34:38
  But think one of the greatest examples is what happened during the pandemic. Right? So I'll pull up this here, this little quick thing here.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Apple and Google privacy preserving contact tracing. So I I remember when this happened, actually. It says across the world, governments and health authorities are working together to find solutions to the COVID nineteen pandemic to protect people and get society back up and running. Software developers are contributing by crafting technical tools to help combat the virus and save lives. In the spirit of collaboration, wow.
• 35:10
  Google and Apple are collaborating for the good of humankind? Wow. So for the spirit of collaboration, Google and Apple are announcing a joint effort to enable the use of Bluetooth technology to help governments and health agencies reduce the spread of the virus with user privacy and security central to design. And so, basically, it says as a partnership of, they've released the draft documentation for an exposure notification system in the service of privacy preserving contact tracing. So this to me when I saw this come out, and I saw that you could go into your iPhone and turn it off, I'm I'm who knows if it actually turns it off?
• 35:49
  Like, I've got family over in Australia.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: Wait. So it was it was turned on by default?
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes. Because remember what's happened. As soon as anyone did the update with the your iOS, you had to then go in and actually and turn off the the contact tracing in there.
• 36:04
  Wow. Hey. What That yeah.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: I covered the story in-depth. And one thing I assumed, because I don't have an iPhone, is that you have to turn it on. But now okay. So it's actually opt out. Okay.
• 36:16
  Sorry. Continue.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Well, so so I I have family in Australia. And as most of us know, Australia was very draconian in their response to COVID nineteen. And, you know, they did their lockdowns, but their lockdowns were you can't travel within, say, five kilometers of your location, or you can't cross over to certain regions. Right?
• 36:37
  So so they have their, iconic we have our states. You know, they have, their I think it's territories. Right? New South Wales, etcetera. And in different territories had different strictness.
• 36:46
  So you couldn't cross over into certain territories, but it was all done through the phones. Like, that was their tool. And if you look at what I just pulled up here about the the contract tracing, it's like, oh, well, this is such a brilliant way to control society. Right?
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: It is. And and, you know, this contact tracing is a perfect example of this because it's like, all right, Google and Apple are going to collab. These are these are competitors, but out of the goodness of their hearts, they're gonna work on this together. By the way, it's not out of the goodness of their hearts. This was, it was just an embezzlement scam from our tax dollars because our state government spent, like, I think it was California that spent $40,000,000.
• 37:27
  There's some states in The US that spent a $100,000,000 developing their own contact tracing apps. And guess what? No. Like, almost no one used them in The US. Australia was probably the most successful out of the world.
• 37:39
  I think they had like 20 to 30% people downloaded, but no one used these apps. It's a massive waste of money. And like you said, they are used to track people's locations. So usually it would go to, you know, it would be operating in a state. Each state was responsible for its own contact tracing system.
• 37:58
  It would go to the state's Department of Health and also to Apple and Google. So Apple and Google at the end of the day had enough data. They said that there wouldn't be any personally identifiable information to this contact tracing but of course they have a whole other sea of data. It was so easy for them to tell who you are. They control all the updates on your phone.
• 38:19
  Now this is something interesting you might have known about the contact tracing. So I didn't know about the thing with Apple but I did know in the case of Google, you were supposed to go into your settings and turn it on except for one state, Massachusetts, where people realized one day, this was in like 2022, that a new app was installed on their phone, Massachusetts contract tracing app called Mass Notify, and it was on already. The Bluetooth had been turned on, and they couldn't uninstall it. Like, they would uninstall it. It would come back on.
• 38:53
  And so, know, Google has a lot of history in Massachusetts. Somehow, they agreed, hey. Just go ahead and just force it on everyone. Go ahead and just force it on everyone. And so they did.
• 39:03
  And it was really crazy. There's a there's a lawsuit still still pending for this technology. But it just goes to show you, if you use an Apple or Google phone, you are at their whim. They're just going to roll out a software update to billions of people all at once and you're just going to go along with it. That's how digital payments became popular.
• 39:24
  That's how they tried to push contact tracing. God knows what is next. So this is why people need to use a phone that doesn't have a centralized software service, no forced updates, is open source. You so you can actually tell what your phone is doing. Really scary stuff.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Wait. And it's also it's it's the forced updates that are a big part of that. Like so, our my recording setup here, we we are using I think I have four different computers all running that kind of merge. So I've my main my main, system is is like a a pretty built out kind of like a gaming PC. Right?
• 39:58
  But we build out specifically for the requirements because we run a program. It's a very PC specific, program. And so but I've got multiple, Mac studios that feed information right through NDI or different, you know, SDI, etcetera, that go into the main, you know, PC. But one thing with the PC, and this is a new thing to me, is that it now gets to a point where the updates are automatic. Right?
• 40:20
  Because it used to be that I I you could say say, like, an an Apple iOS or say an Apple OS for, you know, a MacBook that you could say, you know, I'm I'm not gonna upgrade this one yet because I know that the Adobe Suite, they're having some issues with Adobe Suite running, you know, whatever, you know, Sierra or whatever program it was they're running. But with the PC now, it's automatic. And so, like, what it gets to a point where, like, you have to update. Like, if you wanna restart your computer, it'll say restart with update. There's no other option.
• 40:50
  So they're forcing these updates into your your peers. Not to mention, I just did an interview with a guy named Glenn Glenn Meter, who he runs the privacy academy. And the AI on Apple and p computers, they're constantly taking screenshots of everything that you do. So now our laptops it wouldn't surprise if the phones are doing the same, like, behind the scenes, but they're collecting everything that we're doing. All that data is getting fed in, I'm sure, to some sort of centralized system.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's, I when you say PC, you're referring to Windows, and then that's right. Like, Microsoft over the past two iterations, now they just don't give you the choice. Do you wanna update now or later? And then if you keep saying later, sometimes they'll just close down your work while you're in the middle of it and just update for two hours or however long it takes.
• 41:43
  So you really don't have any control of your computer that way either. They don't respect you. They really treat you like a child, You couldn't update your computer on your own accord. So it's freaky to me that, know, and I understand why it happens, but why people subject themselves to the abuse of these big tech companies, which they're not acting in your benefit. They're acting for theirs and for their partners, which unfortunately is our data aggregators.
• 42:08
  They're governments that they collaborate with. They're foreign governments. I mean, whoever they need to they have allegiances to other countries, too. You know, like a good example of this is the China Apple App Store will look different in China. It will look different in Israel.
• 42:23
  I think there's like a 140 different versions based on which country you're in. And so we we as a it's it's really, really important for people to understand that it's not just an individual thing. It's also a network thing. The more people that are using Google and Apple and Microsoft products, the more powerful that surveillance network will become, but also the more useful it'll be to people on those systems, making it harder for you to leave. The more people that are using decentralized alternative open source solutions, you'll have the same effects.
• 42:56
  It'll be easier to use, there'll be more people on them. That's why this is really one of the most important things we can do in this day and age. And I mean, some of the best things about switching over or transitioning is you won't get those forced updates, you'll have control of your updates for one. You're going to have a lot more peace on your phone because there's not any ads. You can actually say what's on your mind without having to worry about someone listening to you and you have control over the apps on your phone.
• 43:22
  Even if you wanted to install something like Instagram or WhatsApp, you can actually pick what permissions. You can even cut it off from the Internet. You could give it a subset of your contacts. And and that's what's really cool about, deGoogle phones and, and this privacy technology.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: It's and that's what it is because I I wanna kinda shift into that kind of specifically talking about the technology. Because the one thing that was always such a hang up for me like, I've known for a long time. It's like, just need to get rid of this thing. Right? And someone I follow quite often, amazing Polly, she's a great researcher, and and she's constantly she she went to a dumb phone a long time ago.
• 44:01
  And she's constantly saying, and I I agree with her. It's like, if it like, literally, if if hypothetically, if every American got rid of their Google and Apple smartphones or sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Google and Apple, whatever, you know, kind of mainstream smartphones, and let's just say move to a dumb phone, right, or an old an old BlackBerry or something, the surveillance system would probably it would be crippled overnight if that happened.
• 44:25
  Because, again, if you look at the contact tracing, you look at China, you look at Australia, you can see how that system requires these phones. Right? Even all the, like, the the kind of vaccine passport ideas, everything, it was all based upon the phones. So if enough people got rid of their phones, they wouldn't be able to actually implement this surveillance system. Because even looking at the, contact tracing, right, It's like, you think about it.
• 44:54
  Let's just say that they they they wanted to target me as a political prisoner. And then they wanted to say, look, this guy, he's really kinda getting too far out there. He's he's threatening the system. He's, you know, kinda questioning the government. It'd be so easy for them to say, oh, well, sorry, Seth.
• 45:08
  We saw that, you know, when you were at the local, you know, grocery store that you walked past this person that now we know is a known super spreader. And so we're gonna have to come and put you into a quarantine. And we saw that. Like, we saw that in Australia. We saw it in America even, definitely in China, that they were literally building camps.
• 45:27
  Like, they were building quarantine And that they could under the guise of just because you walked past somebody. It's like, how do I know if that's actually true? It'd be so easy for them to use that as a as an excuse to put me into some sort of quarantine camp for three months until I was kind of acceptable for society again. Hey, folks. I've got a quick but really important update.
• 45:50
  So right now, DC politicians are trying to kill the very tax credits that are helping bring manufacturing back from China and putting American workers on the job. These credits are fueling US energy independence, rebuilding our supply chains, and hitting the Chinese Communist Party where it hurts. And look. This isn't theory. It's actually happening.
• 46:09
  We're talking real factories, real jobs right here on American soil. But if they repeal these credits, we're gonna lose millions of jobs. We got over a trillion dollars from our economy, and we hand China a massive win. So here's the deal. President Trump, don't let congress pull the plug on America's comeback.
• 46:29
  Stam firm. Protect the energy tax credits. Keep putting America first.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: Well, most definitely. The the only thing I would add to that is, yes. So so dumb phones will get rid of a lot of the surveillance, but then all of your communication needs will will shift over to phone calls and SMS, which is not a secure system legally or technically it's not a secure system. It's required by law that all the major telecoms hand over your phone calls and text messages when they get a legal warrant or request. And then there's also secret databases like Hemisphere which is, you know, it's publicly known.
• 47:09
  You can look it up on Wikipedia, which collects 40,000,000,000 call detail records every year and has been since 02/2008. That's a DEA program but essentially was made to figure out to look through drug dealers. Remember like the whole the cliche drug dealer do a drug deal, break his phone and then they're on to a new phone? No, it doesn't work. They had figured that out a really long time ago.
• 47:36
  So phone calls and SMS aren't protected by US laws, but internet communications for now are. You are able to encrypt your Internet communication. So that's one of what's been my major recommendation is people actually stop using their phone numbers and find different ways to communicate. Now, some people like Signal and WhatsApp and all that kind of stuff, which are Internet messengers. But then you have to look into what those companies are tied into.
• 48:03
  Signal is funded through the US Department of Media, so it's another government agency. It's also got some shadowy founders that have previously worked for the US government and military. And WhatsApp, you know, I don't need to talk about WhatsApp, it's Facebook. So it's there there are open source decentralized messaging solutions we can use like XMPP, which I'll just show show off what that looks like right here. So this XMPP app is a is a server that anyone can run at home.
• 48:34
  It's messaging protocol. So the same things you could do on WhatsApp message people, call people, and then you have something that looks like an email. So if I click on this thing here, you can actually see that you have this address that looks like an email. And what's really cool about it is it does not only lets you message people on XMPP and XMPP is free. It's easy to sign up for an account, but it lets you dial out to phone numbers with an additional service.
• 49:05
  So it's kind of the best of both worlds. You can have your privacy communications and then you can also have your phone calls and text messages using the solution that we've developed as part of our suite. So XMPP is something I think everyone should check out. There are other Privacy messengers out there. You might have preferences, but I recommend that people shift their communications over to this or at least their inner circles or who they're close to.
• 49:29
  So yeah, you get to pick a U. S. Phone number for this and you're getting more privacy because normally when they collect these phone calls, they're also collecting the nearest radio tower. There are things with being able to geolocate you based off of the radio tower. And so when you use an Internet phone number, it's going on to the cell network from the Internet.
• 49:50
  You're creating a layer of separation between you and your cell communications, which I think every little bit helps. It's also very convenient to do this because then now you can have two numbers on your phone. Now I don't expect people to to ditch phone numbers overnight, but here's a solution that works and can kind of be that bridge in between worlds. You can have your cake and you can eat it too.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And this is so this is one one of the big things that I wanna kinda really dig into your your brain about is that because when I was looking at switching, I thought the only solution was a dumb phone. Right? And so I was thinking, well because, like, I I use my phone for a lot of my work, whether it's responding to messages. Or if I'm out say, I'm out with the goats, I'm gonna take a video of myself.
• 50:31
  Right? Or, and so, you know, for me to kinda go back to carrying, okay. Here's my pocket camera. Here's my pocket GPS. I'm gonna, you know, use all these different devices.
• 50:41
  Exactly. So it was hard for me to wrap my head around making that shift, and it always stopped me. Now I I'd always heard about degoogled phones, but that also sounded like, do I do I wanna kinda dive down that rabbit hole? Right? You know, I I I do wanna try to get, know, figure out, like, a Linux solution to kinda set up a computer for my secure work for Linux and stuff like that.
• 51:02
  But in terms of the phones, I I I didn't really find a solution that made sense to me. So it just I I again, here I am with with my brand new iPhone. So walk me through go ahead. Yeah.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was like, can I show you some of the cool things you can you can do on this phone?
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so before we do that, let let me first let me pull up your website, because I'm gonna show. So basically, if I understand correctly, what you've done and let me find your, your website here, is, so what you've done, if I understand correctly, is you've taken, the kind of de Googled phone approach. Right? And and you've taken it, and you've thought through all the things that we need to think about, for us.
• 51:44
  Right? Because you've because I know that when you get into, say, Linux or de Googling, there's tons of different operating systems. There are so many choices. I found it a little bit overwhelming, and I didn't know which route to go. So I end up doing nothing.
• 51:57
  Right? So if if I'm if I'm correct, what you do so with with above phone, you've taken, these Android phones. Right? You know, Google Pixel, etcetera. But you've then stripped them of all of the software could be spying on us, and you've then pre installed a an operating system that is completely private.
• 52:20
  Right? Is so is that a correct understanding of of kind of, like, what you've done?
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's a that's a that's a good summary of it. And so, yes, we we take existing phones, and we flash a special operating system on it called GrapheneOS which we have our own custom image on just to make it a little bit more easier and user friendly and have all the right settings set up for you. What you end up getting is a phone that's ready to go out of the box. You can see we have phones, we also have a tablet that runs the same operating system.
• 52:53
  Why this phone is so special is because it makes it incredibly easy to switch. For one, it'll work with any cell service in the world. So you could be in The US, you could be overseas, and you could either plug in a SIM card or you can scan an eSIM and it'll be connected and ready to go. And then there's also these alternative app stores which I'll share with you what those look like. So if you've used an Android phone, this will look a little bit familiar to you.
• 53:21
  Swipe down from the bottom and you can see all your apps. Swipe down from the top, you can see your notifications and your little quick tiles, then these are the app stores that you can use. Now, this is an app store called Aurora Store, which will let you download apps from the Google Play Store privately. Why that's so awesome is because now you have more visibility into what your apps are doing and you don't need that singular identity. You don't need that Google account.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, the Apple ID that's tracking everything you're doing.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly, my man. And so what's really cool is this will give you informed consent of what is going on in your app. So let's look at an app that probably everyone uses, a PDF reader, right? Just wanted to read documents. What's the harm in a PDF reader?
• 54:09
  Then you can look down here and then you can see the section privacy in the middle there. You actually see the third party companies that are involved in that app. Now the scary part is if you give a permission to that PDF reader, Hey, go ahead and read all the files on my phone. All of these third party trackers, I mean, these are software libraries people include in their apps for different reasons, but also to make money. So you see Facebook's in here, a lot of Facebook, a lot of Google, a company called Branch.
• 54:39
  And now this is very, very common in this ecosystem, right? So you're getting to read the ingredients before you install it on your phone. Now what you might end up doing is instead of getting an app from the Aurora store, which is the Play Store, you could get it from F Droid. Now this is an open source app catalog which there's no code in it that is hidden. Normal apps, the old code is hidden.
• 55:04
  You can't see what it does. On F Droid, all of it is transparent. So if I wanted to find a PDF reader on here, PDF, there is new PDF and then there's Libreira Reader which is really good and it's actually already on the phone. So, it's not too different from how you use a normal phone. There's just different apps for different things, and we already have all of the apps you would need already with the above phone.
• 55:31
  So there's apps for Office, you've got a calendar, you've got the PDF reader, there's apps for media, you have an app to listen to podcasts from, you have an app to watch YouTube in. So what's really cool about this too here, I'm gonna do a video that isn't so terrible because it's the front page of YouTube. Okay. Minecraft. We'll we'll do that.
• 55:52
  So what's really cool about this is you can actually download the videos. So notice here that I can download the video, or or I could download the audio. So this makes it really easy. If I wanted to watch in fact, I should have gone to Man in America. What am I doing?
• 56:08
  Man in America. If I wanted to download your videos here we are. I could subscribe to it without a Google account, and then I could go in and I could download your videos. This way, I could also play them in the background, which is a feature that people can't do on normal phones. You have to pay, like, $9 a month for that with YouTube Red or whatever it is.
• 56:31
  So you're getting your power back from these open source apps. And what what our company does is we find the best ones. We support those apps. We support those operating systems, and we give you a unified experience, and we help you learn it and educate you.
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: Okay. So, basically, this this what what you're showing right now, is it's Yes. You have the you have all these online ecosystems. Right? So say Google, Apple, Facebook.
• 57:00
  And in almost every interaction with these systems, it is, it's kind of forcing you to do it through their login. So that that way, you know and and, like, admittedly, like, I use Google single sign on for a handful of things. Right? It's it's convenient. And I'm moving away from it as I learned, like, oh, that's actually really bad.
• 57:19
  But it's so easy. You go to a website. It's like, oh, you can sign in with your Google account. Like, oh, okay. That's easy.
• 57:23
  You do it. But that allows them to track every single thing that you're doing. So, basically, if I understand correctly that this, you know, these phones and and the OS that they're running, they allow you to access these apps privately. Right? Because if you download a lot of these apps, you can't even open them without first logging in.
• 57:42
  Yep. They they they forced you. But so it sounds like what this is doing is it's giving you almost a backdoor to all of these different places. Right?
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Yes. And and let's define privacy too. For for me, that means not connecting to these big tech companies. So when you get this phone, when you start using it, by default, there are zero connections to big tech. No Google, no Apple, no Facebook.
• 58:07
  And we verify this on a regular basis. We verify the apps on this phone. And so now there are apps that, like for instance, for this app that's a new pipe, this is connecting to YouTube for the video servers, but it is not connecting to YouTube's algorithms to like you would normally find on the YouTube apps or their analytics. So you'll notice there this concept of an algorithm here. It'll show you related videos, but it's not tuning to your behavior, which is really, really important.
• 58:38
  So you have all of these apps that can either be used offline or just don't make any connections to these big tech companies, which is important. Now, one of the other cool things about the phone too is you have control over your permissions. So this is the global way you can turn off your mic and camera. Right? This is kind of like the microphone or camera switch.
• 59:01
  Camera access. Turn it off just like that and then you won't, you know, it's completely shut off for the entire phone. You could also do the following. You could go into a specific app, and then you already have so much more control over the permissions. Again, these features don't exist on Apple.
• 59:19
  They don't exist on Google. There's no way to get them. The only thing the only people who cared enough to give you this feature were these were these nonprofit projects like Graphene OS. And so you can control these permissions like music and audio. You can control if it has access to the phone itself like the call logs and photos and videos.
• 59:38
  And what's really cool is you can drill down. So if I wanted to give this app, Telegram, access to my contacts, I don't just give it my entire contact book like you would on a normal phone. I can pick which contacts I want to give it to. So let's see, do Henry and Bob, and those are the only contacts I use on this app, right? So you're already taking back your power in so many ways while using the apps that you want to use.
• 1:00:03
  So if you wanted to use WhatsApp, you could, but you have a lot more well, you have a lot more tools in your tool belt to protect your privacy.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, so basically, you can, you can use these same apps. So say, like, hypothetically, you know, Twitter, like, you know, or x. Right? If that's something that's like, okay. Look.
• 1:00:22
  It's really helpful to have that on my phone, because it's how I stay on top of things, and I'm engaging with people and everything. You can still install that, but you can do it, like, in a way that like, you're not allowing it to be a Trojan horse, basically. Where it's like, oh, by by just installing it, you're giving it access to everything. Like, it's almost like you can take that that app and kinda put it into this little box. And you're saying, I'm gonna control everything you're doing on this phone, and I'm gonna I'm gonna limit what you have access to.
• 1:00:50
  So you can still use these these apps without sacrificing giving up all your personal data.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah. There's a a many different layers on this phone kind of built into your defenses. So, like, taking in mind something like X, which is it's a scary big tech app, and Elon Musk is running it. So he's obviously trying to get his fingers into as many things as possible.
• 1:01:14
  So what you do first is you can use your VPN. Now this VPN is very, very important. This VPN allows you to spoof where you were actually connecting from. Let's say you're in Minnesota or something and normally with your IP address, I can tell what town you're in. I can just tell a pretty close degree of where you are.
• 1:01:36
  What this does is it lets you spoof that you're coming from a different place. You might be coming from the Central US. You might be coming from the East Coast. You might be coming from the West Coast. We have a VPN that we provide as a suite of privacy services.
• 1:01:50
  This is a very important factor in your Internet privacy and security for that matter. There is that layer that you can use. The second layer is having the permissions like you mentioned. Instead of giving apps the entirety of your phone, give access to one folder. Notice here I have two folders figured out for Telegram.
• 1:02:12
  I only wanted to give it access to pictures. I can even like drill down from that and create a folder specifically for Telegram. It doesn't have access to the entire phone which is really important. Now if I wanted to go even farther because normally apps can detect what other apps are installed in the same profile, if I didn't want X to have that ability what I can do is actually I can create a phone within my phone. And so I'll show you how this works.
• 1:02:38
  I've got another they call this a sandbox and this is another phone within your phone. It's encrypted with a different key. It's got a different passcode and it also lets you put in different apps. So you'll notice there's things like Uber, American Airlines, whatever you would normally travel with. I don't trust apps like that.
• 1:02:57
  So I'll put them in a specific sandbox and only use them when I need them. So that way, you know, Uber is not tracking my location in the background. So you could put things like Twitter, Airbnb, Facebook, all of the apps that are very big tech and just keep them isolated from the rest of your phone so you have that added protection.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: So it's almost like how you how you'd, like, partition a hard drive. Right? You take a part you take a hard drive, a one terabyte hard drive, and you you create two partitions. And now you've got two separate kinda sandboxes. Right?
• 1:03:30
  So let's just say that I wanted to keep some you know, I wanted to run some social media on there. I could create a whole other login to that phone, which is like Seth's social. And I only will use those programs or those social media plat you know, apps when I'm logged into that profile. And that way, say my main, you profile, which maybe I use for communication, I use for GPS, I use for the things that are kinda more every everyday use, I can keep that separate from that profile. So one I do I I wanna ask you about GPS, because that's one that's one of the other things that I use my phone all the time for GPS.
• 1:04:06
  And, really, because, you know, I have GPS in my truck, but it's never gonna be as as kind of updated as accurately as, say, Google. Like, my truck's not showing me, hey. There's traffic here. I'm gonna reroute you this way. So I typically will go to my phone, and I'm just using my, like, you know, Google app, Google Maps on there, which I know is collecting all kinds of data.
• 1:04:26
  So you can even is there there's GPS you can use that's not tracking you? I mean, is that one thing that you can do here?
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: Yes. And you've got two options. One is one is less private, but more convenient because it's got the traffic. It's got the maps that update all the time. That one is called Magic Earth.
• 1:04:45
  So that one's right there. And the other one is this this app called OpenStreetMaps. Now OpenStreetMaps is really, really cool. You'll notice I'm over Tennessee and Tennessee is highlighted in green. That's because I've downloaded the entire map of Tennessee to my phone locally.
• 1:05:05
  And so I could do that with the entire US and once I've done that, I can pick any point on the map and I can navigate to it completely offline. So my phone can be on airplane mode, could literally not be connecting to anything. And since GPS is a passive protocol, it's your phone listening to other signals, not your phone sending out signals. You can navigate without anyone knowing about it, which makes it really, really cool. And then there are ways you can find the address of where you're going to and plug it in on this map, then you'll get turn by turn directions.
• 1:05:38
  I might set it up here to see if we can get get something here and then simulate this. Here we go. So the the turn by turn directions work directions work as you would normally experience it in like your Google Maps app. Now the only thing is with this one, because it's completely offline, it doesn't connect to traffic. It you don't get that.
• 1:06:03
  So it'll give you the straight shot. It'll give you the the shortest distance. And you end up I mean, you know, if you're staying within your state, you end up learning it to a degree where you have a knowledge of the route and you you kind of know where to go next time. But this this works really well for people. And then if you want something that's more plug and play, you can use Magic Earth.
• 1:06:26
  What's Magic Earth?
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Even with with Magic Earth though, you're using it anonymously. That's that's well, it's one of the keys. Right? Is you're not logged into your Google account, and it's not all feeding into some central database.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: There's nothing you have to sign up for. There's nothing you have to sign up for. There's no personal information you put in. So I'd say it's anonymous in that sense. But, because it's using a third party server, you can look into the Magic Root's private privacy policy.
• 1:06:53
  I think it's like they keep your saved searches and what your points of interest were for up to a year. So for some people, that's not good enough for them. For other people, it is. We just wanted to give you the options and let you decide. If you wanna be completely private, OpenStreetMaps is great, but Magic Earth is more convenient.
• 1:07:13
  And for sure, they're both better than Google Maps.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. And so, walk us through, basically, how to how to get these. Right? Now I wanna say one thing is that I never like when, you know, we we kind of you know, I have a guest on. We talk about things.
• 1:07:30
  It's like, oh, okay. Hey. This is the only solution to this, is you must buy this one product. Otherwise, you're screwed. So I love the idea that, like, no one has to get an above phone.
• 1:07:40
  Right? People can go on their own, and they can get a d you know, on eBay, where you can get a degoogled phone. You can install graph, you know, BMP. You can do this on your own. You still gotta pay for the phone.
• 1:07:51
  Right? So people, you know, they're not bound to only you're not the only person that can do this for them. However, what you've done is you've made it really easy. Even someone like me that I'm pretty technologically savvy. For me, it's like, oh, this is so much easier than trying to figure out on my own.
• 1:08:04
  Actually, we're I'm in the process of kind of finalizing. I'm getting one of these above phones for myself and for my wife. We're we're both gonna ditch the iPhones. I'm gonna finally make the move, kinda ditch, like, like, you know, kind of really practice what I preach. Right?
• 1:08:17
  And so we're gonna get these, you know, the above phones because I believe in it. And and you we've had some great conversations offline as well. But so if someone wants to go through above phone, and it's like, okay. Makes it easy. There's a few questions I have.
• 1:08:30
  Okay? One is, can I use my existing phone number? Right? As because I I have my phone number I've had since, I think, I was, like, probably 13 years old. I've got contacts that might call me from, you know, 23 ago that I still wanna have them give them the ability to reach me.
• 1:08:45
  That's one thing. I'm on I'm on a plane with AT and T right now, which it just it it is what it is. So, because I know that for a lot of people, like, you say, okay. You have to change providers. You have to change your phone number.
• 1:08:58
  It's like, oh, that that's just too much. Right? So, can I keep my phone number, keep my current service, you know, still get the best of both worlds? And what does the process look like to do that?
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: Yes. It's it's a very simple process. So if you're using an existing provider like AT and T and your existing phone, there's a little card in there and we will walk you through how to take that card out and you can put it in the above phone. Chances are it's going to be the same size and then you just plug it into the above phone and the above phone will be your next phone. It'll get activated with your cell service.
• 1:09:36
  Now all of your phone calls and text messages will go to It's really it's like a five minute process to do that. And what we have done for our company that differentiates it if you're getting it off of eBay or even if you're getting it from another company is that we have a setup call with a real live person, not an AI. So we'll sit on call with you just like this and we'll help you migrate everything from your old phone to your new phone, including the SIM card. So short answer, yes, you can keep your number. Yes, you can keep your cell service.
• 1:10:06
  We also have our own cell service. Some people like to, you know, some people are very attached to iMessage and FaceTime, right? You know, they're just super used to it and they might decide, okay, I'm going to keep my old phone just for family things and I'm going to keep this new phone for privacy related things to research, to explore, and they have that separation. And so for them, they could get a new cell service. They can use this phone with Wi Fi only.
• 1:10:34
  They can even use this phone on Ethernet so it's not generating radiation, which is really, really cool. So there's a lot of options to play around with it.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. And so I'll pull up your your website. If somebody wants to to get this, what is the what's the process look like? So your phone so I'll put make sure these links are in the descriptions. Just above phone.com.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: Above phone.com/seth, because we've got some special deals for for y'all. And, yeah, you can go on, that page or or the front page. And, if you hit shop, it'll take you down to or sorry. It's that purple button in
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Okay. Here we go. Yep.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: Yes. So okay. Cool. So you can click shop on this page, which will take you down to the phones. So we've got phones, we've got laptops, which I'd love to show you another time.
• 1:11:23
  So and then we have several different models of phones. Right now, the most popular one is the 9a. This phone will get updates till 02/1932. It's got amazing specifications. It's really one of the phones you can the best phones you can buy on the market today.
• 1:11:37
  And we have it heavily discounted for Man in America Community so check that out. And then below that too, we have some other different options. The Pixel nine Pro XL. This will give you more storage space if you need it. I know we've talked about that a little bit.
• 1:11:53
  If you need more than 128 gigabytes of storage, you can expand the storage on those models there. And then also the phones, you can also get an additional storage drive which will increase the ability of the storage onto them when you plug it in. There's also the seven a which is a it's a phone that's one or two years old now and it's more of a budget model and then the six a. So those every single phone, all the features are gonna be the same. They all have a camera.
• 1:12:22
  They all have they all have Bluetooth. They all have WiFi. They all have hotspots. All of those are the same, but then the quality of it, right? Like the the finish, how fast it is, how how nice the camera is, how long the battery life is.
• 1:12:36
  Those are the main differences. So the 9a and the nine Pro XL are the best. And then if you have any questions specifically about phone models, you'll notice that chat with us button at the bottom right. So just chat with us anytime Monday to Wednesday Monday to Friday, 9AM to 6PM, and we'll answer any of your questions. Then if you go if you keep scrolling down, Seth, we also have laptops.
• 1:12:59
  So I know you were looking at a new privacy laptop. These are Linux laptops. They're using a Lenovo hardware which are really we chose them because they're very reliable, they're solid, we tested them well, and then we actually developed our own operating system based off of a version of Linux that is typically advanced. But what our goal was for this one was to make a computer that you don't have to use the terminal at all. I think that's some people's greatest fears when they use Linux.
• 1:13:27
  Am I going have to tinker with it? So this computer, all of the things like installing updates, installing the program, it's literally just point and click. That was our goal with this one. And the Aluminum six is a really, really cool computer. It can fold three sixty degrees and turn into a tablet.
• 1:13:44
  There's even a stylus that comes with it. It's got a eleventh Gen processor. And then we also have an older version of aluminum. And then we've got the starter for those who like the budget. So these are really, really nice machines.
• 1:13:56
  They come with full disk encryption, they're highly secure, way more secure than a laptop you get at the store. They're also very private. There's zero connections to big tech, and you can actually install all the software that you would normally use. Pretty much all the software you'd normally use. Not the Adobe stuff, but you can get things like Spotify, Zoom, even stuff like Microsoft Teams, which is crazy, but you can you can get that stuff if you need it for work.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: So that's how so it's nice to know that there's just kinda highlighting this this there are budget options. You know, $600 for a budget p you know, computer. And, you know, from the phones, you know, the 6 a because I know we we've got discount, you know, if you above phone.com/seth, or I think if we if you use Seth in the, checkout as a promo code.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: But $25 off. Yes.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And so six a's, you know, it's it's, you know, $4.99. So $500. Look. Inflation, you know you know, for some people, it's a stretch.
• 1:14:49
  However, this is one of the most important things that can be done for our own privacy. So for someone that is more on a budget, you know, $500, you're there. And actually, you know, lot of the phones anyway, you're paying it's like, oh, you get a free a free iPhone or whatever. It's like, oh, actually, what you realize you're paying extra $15 a month for the next two years to pay to pay off that phone that they gave you. You bring up a
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: you bring up a good thing too. If you could click into one of those phones, just any of them, and I just wanna walk you through the options too. And like like like you said, Seth, it's you get locked in to your provider. That's why they they give you that phone for $50 a month or whatever it is because they know they can charge you. They're gonna charge you for two years.
• 1:15:30
  You won't be able to switch that phone over. So this phone is unlocked, meaning you could use it with any carrier. And then we also offer payment plans too. So you could break it up into four payments. You can make the cost even more affordable.
• 1:15:41
  Check that out on checkout. With the phone, you can get the case and screen protector. You can get that additional storage drive, and you can also get the Ethernet adapter which will let you plug it into the hardwire. And then this is what I wanted to mention above suite, which is this is our private email, calendar, encrypted chat, Internet phone number, video conferencing, search engine and VPN. You get all of those services for $100 a year.
• 1:16:05
  It's a very affordable solution, all running on open source software, running on our own data center. There are no third parties in this website and all of the things we use to run our company. There are literally no third parties. So we run a massive mountain of infrastructure just to keep strong to our principles and to protect your data. There's also a new file sharing service we released.
• 1:16:28
  So this service is a $100 a year. It's called AboveSuite. Make sure to check it out on, checkout.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, so basically, AboveSuite is instead of having you know, being using Google Drive and and, say, a Gmail, the above suite basically gives you all that stuff. Right? It gives you highly encrypted and and and private chat, Internet phone, Internet based phone, VPN and DNS, which is important, right, to to you know, for more security. Private email. Right?
• 1:16:56
  Like, file sharing, video conferencing, search. Okay.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: And and Seth, you know what our goal is? Is is that people start using these services to build the counter economy. Right now, the economy is not getting any better and we all need to think of these side hustles or ways to exchange with each other directly. Some people have started farming. Other people are doing a holistic modality.
• 1:17:21
  So it's our hope with these services, people can start their own businesses and we can start shifting society in a more positive direction, not the centralized top down tyrannical direction these big tech companies wanna take us. So I just wanna thank you for for giving us this opportunity to share, and I I can't wait to get you and your wife, set up on the phones. I know you're gonna love them.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: No. It's great. I appreciate you giving us your time, and and I'm I'm looking forward to it. Like, I genuine as much as in the past, I I was kinda, you know, hoeing and humming. It's like, I don't wanna get I don't wanna get rid of my phone because it has a good camera and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:17:53
  But, anyway, the the fact that you just you've kinda thought this all through to these packages, I'm I'm very impressed with it. And I've been I've been looking at different like, there's there's I know Eric Prince has a phone that he's doing, but I know he's tied into a lot of the military industrial complex. And, you know, there's certain hesitancy that I there. Didn't to
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: talk about Trump phone. But yeah.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: Well well, why don't you give us, like like, the sixty second on Trump because Trump phone, it's also I saw it's being made in China. Is that correct? Like, initially, I saw it was made in The USA, but I saw another report saying it was gonna be made in China.
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know how you can, you know, you can misrepresent your product so boldly, but, yes, that's that's what happened. There's a press release saying, hey. It's made in America. It's impossible to make a phone in America. We don't make any processors in America.
• 1:18:37
  The closest thing would be in Taiwan. And then someone on Twitter found that the, Trump phone was just a, it was a t t mobile revel phone that was just painted gold. It's got like the exact same specs. It looks the exact same. So I don't know.
• 1:18:51
  I don't know where the wires cross there, but you're not going to get a phone made in America, which is unfortunate. Maybe one day, not today. The other thing too is I looked into Trump's mobile service, and if you look at the privacy policy, it says you will interact with AI systems that will learn from your behavior. Even read your GPS coordinates, like, it literally says that in the privacy policy. So, hey.
• 1:19:17
  Like, I don't know where Trump's going for it. I know he's really embracing AI, but maybe he's taking it too far.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: I have to say that maybe a a year ago, I maybe would've got a Trump phone. But after Palantir and after a lot of these developments and and, you know, Larry Ellison and Oracle, I I can't say that I've got a lot of faith in Trump protecting us from the digital prison. Like, as much I think he's trying to protect our nation for a lot of things, and and it's a whole different conversation. When it comes to data and and privacy, I can't say I'm I'm that confident in things that he's doing. So, anyway, I'm I'm glad that you mentioned it because it's worth worth discussing.
• 1:19:58
  But
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: All that glitters is not gold, and thank you for for sticking up for your principles and no. Not just blindly following a leader because that's really what we need.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: It is. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Akim, it's been great speaking to you. I'm we'll do an update.
• 1:20:14
  Once I get our phones set up and we're using them for a couple of weeks, we'll do another show and and kinda talk more about this. Because I honestly, I think that you you've solved a really important issue. And and I I mentioned at the beginning, and and I and I really I I I really believe this. I I really believe that these phones are the most powerful tool that the deep state or whatever you wanna refer them as, it's the most powerful tool they have to enslave us, is is is the convenience of this phone and all the tracking. And right now, it feels like it's okay.
• 1:20:44
  But what happens when there's pandemic two point o that comes out? And now they're gonna say, hey. We're gonna mandate everyone that has these phones, you know, like, it's no longer an option through Google and Apple. I just I see there's so many, there's so many potential bad outcomes through this. So I I really appreciate what you're doing.
• 1:21:01
  I thank you for giving us, your time. I thank you for I know we got a discount from the Man in America audience. So I'll make sure all those links are in the in the description, and I look forward to having this discussion again.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Seth. Yep. Thanks for having me on, and, I look forward to connect more.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: Perfect.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: Thanks everyone for watching.