The top of a human tower in Barcelona. There are four levels that you don’t see in the photo.
Castellers build human towers of intricate design, topped by little children—called angels—who scamper up five or more levels of adults, raise a hand to the sky, then slither down the other side of the tower. Human tower-building is a 200-year-old Catalan tradition, and one the Catalans are particularly proud of.
Can you even imagine standing on someone’s shoulders? Without holding on? And while fighting to maintain your balance, allowing another adult to climb up your body and stand on your shoulders? And again, and again? Castellers are not professional acrobats. They’re ordinary people of all ages, all sizes, and they’re all members of human tower-building social clubs based on neighborhood.
A small child scampers up the strong base of a human tower.
Two or more clubs meet up and take turns building their towers, each carefully designed and rehearsed. Members of one club help strengthen the base of the other club’s tower. Tower-building is a collaboration, not a competition. Human tower-building clubs are built on teamwork, integration, solidarity, and democracy—values the Catalans hold dear.
Catalonians celebrating the declaration of independence (however temporary).
Our thiefhunting mission in Barcelona coincided with the confusion, protests, demonstrations, and celebrations over Catalonian independence. We were smack in the middle of it, our hotel being opposite the national police building. The tiny, one-lane street our hotel was on was flanked by armed officers 24 hours a day, probably the safest hotel in the city. During demonstrations the street was blocked off and we couldn’t easily get into our hotel.
One day, Bob and I were rushing across town to pick up our translator (for interviewing pickpockets) just as independence was declared. Plaça de Sant Jaume, usually empty, was mobbed with joyous, singing people. We didn’t realize just how mobbed it was, how tight the pack, and how far into the feeder streets it reached. We dove in. I mean, we had to get across! Bob was carrying multiple camera bags and an ungainly camera sprouting a microphone and accessories. I was toting a large tripod. We burrowed and tunneled and pushed our way through the crowd. It took about 40 minutes instead of three. Half way through I realized just how stupid it had been to press forward, and got in a panic about the potential of a stampede. A single firecracker could start it. Headline in my head: “86 trampled to death, 2,000 injured!”
Castellers, the human towers
Castellers de Badalona logo
As always, I checked for Casteller events and was thrilled to find one happening during our stay. I’d only been to one long ago, in Plaça de Sant Jaume, which was as crowded as on the recent independence celebration day. I couldn’t get close to the towers. Now, on our second to last day in Barcelona, we trekked across town and arrived in time to see two Castell clubs gathering, members twisting into their black sashes, tying on their bandanas, and finally organizing a strong, jigsaw-like base for the first tower to be built.
I was excited, but the Castellers seemed nonchalant. Probably due to their constant rehearsals. This was to be an exhibition of what they’d designed and practiced. Each club would build three towers of increasing complexity. Watch in my video (below) how the first human tower morphs into a “pillar” as it is dismantled, and how three Castellers per level, way up there, gracefully step down, backwards and blindly, without using their hands. Incredible!
Castellers del Poble Sec logo
I interviewed a team member, who explained the Casteller’s long Catalonian history, lull, and recent surge in activity. The tradition of Castellers is now considered an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
I asked my Barcelona-based friends once, would you let your 6-year-old climb way up there? Sure, they said. All the people forming the base make a soft mattress if the child should fall.
The music, too, is unique, and I can’t get it out of my head. High-pitched wind instruments and drums play specific tunes at different stages of the tower-building, and set the pace for its construction.
Only 3% of human towers collapse and fall, but a fall is spectacular.
I was right there, at the edge of the base, as the towers rose. So close I couldn’t capture the entire height of them. So close I actually stepped back when one tower appeared to be unstable, its members shaking, intense, trying desperately to keep the structure together.
The informative Castells website explains that only about 3% of attempted towers fall. I didn’t know that as I watched, but I knew that this tower was doomed. The three smallest children managed to slither down; then seven layers, or levels, or flights, or stories of humans came tumbling down. You have to see it in the video posted here. See it on the biggest screen possible. Look at their faces, their concentration, their sweat.
This photo is a crime! (yeah, right). Security checkpoint at Nairobi airport.
My sister had the most terrifying experience in Nairobi a few weeks ago.
“As you know,” she said to her jet-setting family members, “flying out of Nairobi there’s a security checkpoint where all passengers have to get out of the cars in the middle of a five-lane road and walk through a security inspection. Meanwhile, the drivers of the cars go through their own check. It’s a confusing mess and takes time to identify your car and driver after you have been cleared.”
That alone freaks me out. I usually refuse to be separated from my luggage, though sometimes during international travel there is simply no choice.
“After we passed through security and were waiting for our car, I started to video the chaos. I should have known better…
“With some difficulty, we finally identified our Uber and got in the car, relieved to be reunited with our stuff. Suddenly, a military police officer with some big-ass machine gun stopped the car and demanded to know why I was videoing the security checkpoint.
“I explained that I had never seen a process like this before and I found it interesting. He replied that it’s a crime to film there and that he is going to charge me with a crime and I will have to go to court on Monday!
“I apologized and said I would delete all photos. He said no—I committed a crime by using a camera at a security checkpoint. He said he is charging me with the crime and I will have to go to court and I will miss my flight.
A still from my sister’s illicit video at the Nairobi airport security checkpoint.
“In the meantime, our driver is whispering to Drew [our nephew] in the front seat that the officer wants 500 shillings ($5) but he was now demanding US $50 to me through the back window. At this point we’d have given him anything. We were even ready to give him our phone! We were also so worried we’d miss our 11 p.m. flight!
“We were literally shaking. I saw my future working in a labor camp in Kenya for the next 12 years!
“We continued to apologize, saying it was a mistake. The officer continued to insist that he had to charge me regardless; he would not let us delete any pictures and we would miss our flight and will have to go to court Monday.
“Of course it was all about the bribe, but when you’re in the moment, in the middle of the situation with a jerk, in a foreign country, you never know how far he’ll take it.
“I asked if I could pay the ‘fine’ now and skip the ‘court’ date so that I could make my plane. He made me delete the video then, and $60.00 later (I wasn’t about to ask him for change!) it was done. But at that moment, I would have paid much more!!!!
“The Uber driver then got out of the car and shook hands with the officer. I’m sure money was exchanged.
“The Nairobi airport security officer put his face in our window again, smiled, and told me to let my friends know what a wonderful time I had in Nairobi!
“And I still had the video, which would stay in my deleted file for a month!”
A wonderful time in Nairobi, duly and publicly reported here!
Glass windows in the floor of the Oslo Central Train Station
What kind of perv built this place?
This is the Central Train Station in Oslo, Norway. The first time I passed through the station I was wearing a dress. The moment you come up the escalator or stairs, you’re confronted with glass windows in the floor. No warning.
Now, glass windows on the floor are a little weird to step on in any case. If you’re a woman in a dress, it’s just creepy.
Why you shouldn’t wear a dress in OsloThe view from below. Dramatic lighting helps.
When the station is busy, you can be swept across those pervert peepshows whether you like it or not.
Upskirt Oslo Central Train Station
Downstairs, under the peephole windows, are walkways, plaza like spaces, a cafe, and possibly an encampment of trolls. Yep, there’s a clear view up through the floor windows. The most expensive cup of coffee in the world comes with crotch shots. Not that Norwegian women are big on dresses—a central train station feature like this would put me off dresses, too, I can relate!—but we’re talking about the main transportation hub in a capitol city. Who designed this “feature”?
The station gets a plus for the public piano anyone can play, and another plus for the upside-down tree out front (when I was there). But these glass peepholes in the floor? Fail!
I was so distracted I searched for perverts instead of pickpockets.
Upside-down tree in front of the train station.Upside-down tree in front of the Oslo Central Train Station
At what point do you say Stop the taxi and let me out! ? If the driver’s really crazy, how might he react to that? Do you dare antagonize him?
This I wonder—trapped in a taxi going 60 miles an hour. Bob and I are sharing a taxi van with a couple of acquaintances and a lot of luggage. Getting in, Bob and I buckle our seatbelt, as we always do. I turn back to our friends and say Hey, seatbelts. They both shrug. They don’t bother.
The taxi merges onto a highway and we’re going full speed. We four passengers are talking shop, past times, future plans, as friends do. Something one of us says catches the driver’s attention. What, exactly, we don’t know. Maybe it was something he imagined. He starts talking to us in an everyday, rational tone. Slowly, we realize that he’s talking about aliens:
I saw them from my parents’ roof in 1969 and they waved to me. They were saying We’ve scanned you and we know you’re okay. Yeah, we’re being watched by aliens so we don’t destroy the planet. The aliens are watching us. They’ve changed the codes on the missile launchers to avert disaster, and they’ve changed all the weather patterns, too. I saw a tornado going sideways. The funnel wasn’t up and down, it was sideways.
We’d like to think our driver is just kidding around, but his face in the mirror is flat. He never looks to us for a reaction. Without taking a breath, he segues to devil-worshippers:
I see them at the airport. There was this guy at the airport who spins his head all the way around. He followed me and I turned around suddenly and saw him. That depressed him. He was thinking, Why did you do that? You weren’t supposed to turn around and see me. But really he was god, who wanted me to see him, and he’s ugly—the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.
I had to ask the driver: “You mean god hangs out at the airport?”
“Yeah.”
“Why the Vancouver airport?”
“Because of the energy. They pick up the students. The students have so much energy, it shoots out in a spear 30 feet high and they can see it. That’s what they want, energy. It’s like food for them.”
I guess he’s talking about the devil-worshippers again.
“Anyway, then I started losing my hearing and when it got really bad I went to the doctor who said it was a fungus in my ear. See?”
The lunatic taxi driver turns his head to the side so we get a view of his ear, taking his eyes off the road. Behind me, I hear two seatbelts. Click! Click! Otherwise, stunned silence from all of us passengers. We dared not even look at one another.
“And just last week I was in a Starbucks, upstairs, and I was looking down. I saw a man with black eyes, no whites. Then he went out and came back with sunglasses on. He didn’t want me to see his eyes.”
We made it to the airport. I thought I should call the taxi company and report this incident. I didn’t, but I’m sure I should have. What could this lunatic taxi driver be capable of? Has he done something terrible since that ride? Who might I have saved by reporting him?
I wrote about this ages ago, way back in Hotel Oddity #6, but back then the idiotic installation was in the Miami Radisson Mart Plaza Hotel. I thought it was a unique display of incompetence, a one-off, a singular example of the Peter Principle, combined with management negligence. And look! Here it is again!
Millennium Biltmore security lapse in Los Angeles hotel
This time at the historic Millennium Biltmore Los Angeles, the art deco beauty whose lobby is a show set and whose rooms are pretty ordinary. Our room wasn’t ordinary though. At least I hope not. Could all the rooms have “security” like this?
Need I point out the upside-down installation of the chain receptacle? It doesn’t matter if the door has other security measures, a deadbolt for example, because a guest may choose to use the chain and not the deadbolt, believing himself secure. (No comments on the insufficiency of that particular guest…)
The Millennium Biltmore security lapse does not take away from the beauty and drama of its downstairs lobby and rooms. It’s definitely worth a visit. But management? Would you please fix this?
What do thiefhunters on vacation do to unwind from workdays detecting and preventing crimes against world travelers? We grab a cocktail, and hobnob with the stars! Here’s what happens when Bob Arno and I attempt to get away for a day of fun-n-frolic in Tinsel Town, with our California colleague Dave “Wiggy” Wiggins. (Hint: simply flipping off the workaday switch is not that easy.)
The legendary Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California!Tourist crowds cover the cement handprints in front of the famous Chinese Theater
The costume-clad and the snake-draped, the card-trickers and drum-beaters, the picture-posers and the star-counterfeiters, all are there to grab a tourist buck or two.
While enjoying the summer season in “The Golden Orange,” Bob and I met up with our colleague Dave Wiggins for a day of sight-seeing in Hollywood. Bob was just coming off his latest star turn on a Steve Harvey show, so Hollywood is nothing new. But rarely do we have the time to be simply tourists on the legendary Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Dave Wiggins, tourism safety specialist
Our companion this day is well-known in California (and Hollywood in particular) as one of the world’s leading experts on crimes against tourists and best practices in visitor venue safety and security. Dave Wiggins is a 27-year veteran (retired) of California law enforcement, with deep expertise in preventing, investigating, and prosecuting tourism related crime. He helped develop a variety of different tourism security and service programs which came to be viewed as national role models.
For years “Wiggy” organized the nation’s largest conference on tourism safety and security matters. Today, he leads the first ever professional association dedicated to advancing the cause of better protecting travelers. As president of the California Tourism Safety & Security Association, he continues to conduct security assessments and training programs for tourism businesses, as well as security and law enforcement teams. He has been accredited by the American Hotel & Lodging Association as a Certified Lodging Security Director (CLSD), and is an expert in hospitality security as well.
As a former security director in Hollywood, Wiggy knows the streets of Tinsel Town better than most. When we meet up in front of the famed Dolby Theater (home to the Academy Awards) the order of the day is simply socializing. Strolling over sidewalk stars and cement foot prints, followed by cocktails at Hollywood & Highland.
A rare glimpse of the usually crowd-covered stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.Celebrity handprints and footprints in front of the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.
I doesn’t take long for Plan A to devolve into a Walk of Fame version of thiefhunting.
Never the shy one, Wiggy strips off his professional clothing right in the busy parking garage. Slacks, buttoned down shirt, and Maui Jim sunglasses are quickly replaced with cheap shades, tacky shorts, and a Hollywood souvenir t-shirt. The transformation is swift and amazing. Wiggy now looks like he just stepped off the bus from Topeka.
Hollywood Walk of Fame
On Hollywood Boulevard, we’re swept up in a swirling sidewalk sea of humanity which rivals New York’s Times Square or the Las Vegas Strip. Millions of visitors every year come to see such landmarks as the Pantages Theater, Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum, the Chinese Theater, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, the El Capitan Theater, Fredericks of Hollywood, the Magic Castle, Hollywood Bowl, Capital Records building, Jimmy Kimmel’s television studio, and the famous home of the Oscars.
But what causes these same visitors to trip over their own feet are the cement stars planted into the glimmering sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard. It was this blocks-long string of inlaid stars that became Hollywood’s first official tourist attraction.
Initiated in the 1950’s, the Walk of Fame today comprises over 2,600 inlaid stars, commemorating a variety of popular performers and entertainment industry leaders.
Lots to look at on the ground.
Wiggy offers us a bit of perspective on the Walk of Fame. “People wanted to come see Hollywood,” he explained, “but the motion picture industry was not a place. The principal studios that make up ‘Hollywood’ were scattered all around, from the Santa Monica mountains to the San Fernando Valley, throughout Hollywood and mid-city areas of Los Angeles. So, creating the Walk of Fame gave a far-flung industry a more centralized attraction for tourists.”
The irony, Bob points out, is that you’ll never see an actual celebrity anywhere along the tourist zone of Hollywood Boulevard. To get a glimpse of living stars in the flesh, you’ll need to slide down to Sunset Boulevard, and head west toward Sunset Plaza.
Sidewalk congestion, attractions, and distractions make an ideal environment for crooks
Nevertheless, a cottage industry of businesses catering solely to tourists has sprung up along the Boulevard. Most recently, a spectacular retail, dining, and entertainment complex has been developed at Hollywood & Highland. A variety of vendors and street performers block the sidewalks with their displays and shows. On a busy summer day, it can be hard to move on the sidewalks, which are even more congested than the area’s infamous freeways. Pedestrians spill into traffic lanes as they navigate the crowds and board buses for tours of the stars’ homes. Pedestrian safety has become a hot button topic.
Bob Arno in a snake Hollywood photo-op.
I pause to admire the stars of Groucho Marx and Tony Curtis. But the boys’ heads spin to gawk at a pair of the street performers nearby, a duo of skin-tight black pleather-wearing Cat Women standing tall in stiletto boots. The male of the human species may be biologically compelled to have a wandering eye, but no one can claim they are especially sly about it!
The curvaceous ladies are in good company. The Boulevard is home to scores of cinematic and cartoony characters. The antics of the many street performers along Hollywood Boulevard serve to satisfy the need of tourists to see Hollywood, while obstructing the already congested sidewalk even more. And as we’re well aware, this clogged sidewalk and its many attractions and distractions make an ideal environment for crooks. Like tourism venues elsewhere, the street performers contribute to a climate of disorder which serves the purposes of opportunistic criminals.
In a flash, Wiggy has Bob posing for a souvenir photo with a lanky Cat Woman. Our R&R is off to a good start, it seems. But just as fast, their pose is suddenly photobombed by Jack Sparrow, Marilyn Monroe, Captain America, and a girl wielding two armfuls of live snakes. Uninvited, they crowd the shot. And once snapped, they all demand payment for the pic.
Cat Woman with Bob Arno and Dave Wiggins on Hollywood Boulevard.
As Bob notes, street performers and related scams are a common problem at tourism venues around the world. From the Colosseum in Rome, to Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, street performers are notorious not only for creating the conditions which facilitate crimes, but sometimes engaging in crimes themselves.
While Wiggy fends off the spurious claims and hands over two dollars to Cat Woman alone, many tourists are intimidated and end up paying all of the photographic interlopers. It goes on all day, every day, all summer, says Wiggy.
And that’s just the tip of the street disorder in this tourist mecca.
An army of career criminals at tourism destinations across the globe work tirelessly at their nefarious trades to make things even tougher for travelers.
—Dave Wiggins
When Bob turns around to continue our stroll along the Walk of Fame, his trained eye instantly catches two locals, their backs planted against a store wall, one leg cocked up, intently observing preoccupied tourists. These are career criminals who prey specifically on tourists—distraction thieves who take advantage of the built-in madness of a place like Hollywood Boulevard.
Bob Arno, Bambi Vincent, and Dave Wiggins in Hollywood. (Thanks, passerby, for the blurry photo.)
Wiggy bumps into a couple of former colleagues and soon Bob is engaged in deep conversation with the local constabulary about current trends impacting tourism. Suddenly our day of leisure is looking like another workday.
To be fair, the issues and problems in Hollywood are no worse than any major tourism destination. But as Wiggy observes, one feature makes Hollywood Boulevard distinct: “Nowhere in the world are more people more focused looking straight down.”
Bob is an expert on how just such distractions facilitate victimization, so this turns into a lively discussion on tourism crime around the globe. So much for a day of R&R.
The famous pigeon poop pickpocket of Barcelona has been spotted in Marbella, Spain. Is he enjoying a working vacation in the southern coastal resort town? Is he now living there in order to enjoy the richer pickings of Brits with second homes instead of low-budget holiday-makers? More than one pickpocket has complained to us that Barcelona’s tourists don’t yield the wished-for wealth, though they make up for their cash-poor wallets in sheer number.
“Well, I can report he’s still at large some 8 yrs after this blog thread started,” reports Pete, of Bedford, UK. “I got ‘done’ this morning, 22nd July 2017 in Marbella, Spain. And there’s little doubt from your photos it was the very same guy.”
The pigeon poop perpetrator, 2008.Site of the pigeon poop pickpocket ploy with victim Pete. Avenida Mercado, Marbella, Spain.
Pete, Marbella victim of the famous pigeon poop pickpocket of Barcelona. [Photo courtesy of Pete.]Many pickpockets bravely practice the face-to-face pigeon poop ploy. Our man isn’t the only one—but he’s famous because Bob Arno and I documented his M.O. long ago in our book. Also because he’s had a long and prominent career employing this devious method. And he’s famous for his duplicitous smile. His M.O. is tried and true, explained in the posts linked above. Here, faithfully according to script, is how it happened to Pete yesterday in Marbella:
“I’d been walking and was sitting on a wall separating two pavements in a quiet part of town (Avenida Mercado). I saw a little guy with a several day growth, big glasses, baseball hat, and the same features as in the photos, plus a few years, shuffling along on the lower pavement behind me, as if he was lost. He must have been sizing me up.
“Next thing, I felt some sort of liquid stuff hit my head and shoulders, put my hand round and back it came with bits of a sort of brown porridge on it. Initial reaction was to look up to see if someone had chucked something out of a window. But no open windows above. So then I thought bird shit? But was a bit confused when I sniffed the stuff and it smelt of cocoa drink.”
The pigeon poop perp learned long ago that the yuck factor trumps logic. Any old goop will serve, as long as it’s disgusting and the victim wants it off.
“Just then, the little guy suddenly appeared coming back behind me, and called out ‘Bird? Bird’ to me, as if to say he knew it was a bird that got me. I shrugged, still in disgust at the thought, when he motioned me to come across to see him. I hesitated. He insisted, waving a bottle of water and a packet of tissues. So I approached him. He commiserated.”
The pigeon poop pickpocket has his psychology down. He knows how to behave in order to gain his victims’ confidence. (Hence the word con artist.)
“He started brushing me down, then circled around me and said “You’ve got some on your back, take of your rucksack, go on, take it off”. At this stage I was kind of overwhelmed at his concern to help me. He even got me to circle around whilst cleaning me down, which meant of course that my rucksack was behind me and out of my sight for 20 secs or so. Then, he got me to take off my shirt, indicating it was fouled.”
In his Academy-Award-winning role as good samaritan, the pigeon poop pickpocket performs with aplomb. So convincing is his good-guy cameo, his discombobulated victims trust him like obedient children. Just get the yucky stuff off me, please!
“Looking back, my collaboration with this suggestion was pure idiocy because there I was standing with no shirt on when he suddenly took his leave of me, gesturing to keep the water and tissues he’d given me. Even then, I had no idea of the advantage he’d taken of me. After shaking down my shirt, I put it back on and slowly walked on, partly in disgust at, as I imagined, having had a bird score a direct hit on me, and partly full of admiration for this altruistic citizen.”
…And the Oscar goes to…
“Half an hour later I walked into a small store to buy a cheap tee-shirt to replace the fouled one. I took out my wallet from the small pocket on the outside of my rucksack where I normally keep it, to pay. I opened it and to my horror it was completely empty of cash, whereas only an hour ago it most certainly contained two €50 notes and one £50 note. The penny dropped. This ‘kind citizen’ thief had had the damned cheek to remove, open, drain and replace my wallet whilst he was ostensibly brushing down my back. All in 20 seconds, no problem to a skilled operator.
“My first reaction was to go and hunt him down, as he was most likely ‘working’ Marbella old town that day. My second, that a confrontation, in which I might well have grabbed his bag, could have been turned against me as an attempted robbery on him. So, still in a bit of shock, I decided this was just a painful lesson in life that had cost me €150. Then I thought… next time I’m in Marbella, I will hunt him down, track him from a distance, and get some telephoto shots of him working his con trick on some other poor soul, before shouting a warning to the victim. But then I started my Google search for ‘bird dropping con man’ and up came this blog. All I can say is that this smooth operator needs his picture up in every tourist area of Spain. Thanks for your interest on this site!”
Like 70-80% of pickpocket victims, Pete did not file a police report. I don’t blame him at all—there are many reasons not to. He did complete my survey though, which is extremely helpful in enabling me tally incidences and frequency of reporting. [Thank you so much Pete!]
As I said in my second story of the pigeon poop pickpocket (this is my third):
This is a perfect con. (Con comes from confidence, right?) He plays the good Samaritan. He gains your confidence. He creates a strategy to touch your body wherever he wants to, wherever the disgusting mess supposedly is. A pickpocket can’t steal without touching, right? Why wait for an opportunity? That’s for amateurs. Create one! I call these thieves strategists and they are devious. Look, he makes you grateful to him. He desensitizes you to his touch. And he employs the yuck factor, taking advantage of the truth that bird shit directly triggers the ick region of the brain, a highly effective distraction.
He’s still out there, I’m sure. And he’ll find unsuspecting victims every day. All we can do is spread the word.
They know who you are. They know what you buy, where you live, where you work, where you go in between. They know your most intimate secrets, not because you told anyone; they simply put the clues together and joined seemingly unrelated tidbits. Your shopping history, your online searches, words used in your email, the cell phone towers your phone used, even how fast or slowly you type. Combined, it all points to you. You leave data dribbles like greasy fingerprints to be dusted, collected, identified, and assembled.
By now we’re all used to being tracked and spied upon. We pretty much accept it, most of us. We know our web-browsers act as spies and report our every move. Our credit cards and loyalty cards provide a treasure trove to someone (but who?), and our cell phones even more. We’re spied upon even with the cameras and microphones built into our own computers and cell phones. What can we do but shrug our shoulders and give up?
We’re vigilant about not clicking on spammers’ links, we’ve learned to look for “https” URLs when we make online payments, even to recognize spoof emails. But enough is enough, right? We have to live life! Today’s technology is as vital as food and water and we have to use it. Who can spend time worrying about all this info-gathering, especially since it’s invisible, and does not present an inconvenience. Forget it. That’s life. Move on…
Or…?
Trade-offs
We constantly and willingly give up our data for something in return. And it seems like a fair exchange: handing over data is painless; the benefit is all ours! We get free stuff, convenience, points, discounts, rewards, elite status, the privilege of using a “free” app… [Warning: rant coming…
WhatsApp is my pet peeve. Many, many of my friends and colleagues, even those in the security business, use it. And what’s the first thing the app does after you download it? “WhatsApp would like to access your contacts.” “OK,” you say and—whoops!—there they go, all your contacts, including my info if I’m in your address book (and I’m not even a user!), against my will, handed over so WhatsApp and facebook can “share information with third-party providers,” in other words, so they can sell my personal info. Thanks, friends. Yet, prominently, ironically, WhatsApp proclaims on its site “Privacy and Security is in our DNA.” Okay, its messages are encrypted, but what’s private or secure (or honest) about sucking up all the contacts of a naive user? True, WhatsApp is not the only app that commits this surreptitious theft of information. Uber is another. But, I digress. …Whew. Okay, end of tirade.]
Where was I? Trade-offs. Security is a trade-off which costs us in convenience, simplicity, expense, dignity, time, and much more. Wouldn’t it be swell if we didn’t need passwords, locks, or TSA? But we do need these, obviously. Luckily, the average person can deal with the minimum required amount of security.
Privacy is another matter though. We can shut our curtains but… do you have tape over your webcam? Put your birthday on facebook? Unknowingly hand over all your contacts’ info to What’sApp or some other software company? Use a credit card, loyalty card, agree to “our terms and conditions”? Yeah, privacy is pretty hopeless nowadays. If you browse the internet or use a cell phone, you’re being tracked. Not only tracked, but micro-tracked. Data about you is collected at every turn, codified, traded, bought, sold, and used to build a scarily detailed dossier—which is also bought and sold. It’s your data shadow; it sticks to you and grows as the minutes pass, like the setting sun’s lengthening silhouette attached to your feet.
To avoid being tracked, to stay under the radar and off the grid, to be invisible, is a huge trade-off. A Sisyphean task. Kevin Mitnick lays it out in his book, The Art of Invisibility, step by step. And he should know, having evaded the FBI for two and a half years before he was arrested and imprisoned for five years. Remember “Free Kevin”? I highly recommend Kevin’s entertaining and page-turner previous book, Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker.
Entertaining, The Art of Invisibility is not. Page-turner…uh-uh. But it is fascinating, and after a good primer on the basics, goes into technical detail that might be more interesting than useful for many of us ordinary people. For every scary spy technique revealed, Mitnick tells us how to avoid that particular trap. They’re not easy to thwart—short of living in a cave secluded and self-sufficient, it’s a lot of work. As in, huge trade-off. And Mitnick tells us repeatedly: we will make a mistake. We will trip ourselves up. That’s how hackers and leakers are discovered. They make some tiny mistake that allows them to be traced and their identities revealed. But most of us don’t really want or need invisibility. We just want to avoid the obvious pitfalls and take, at least, the easy precautions.
Mitnick tells us there’s much we can do easily, and tests we can run to see just how vulnerable we are online. We should do as much as our tolerance allows, up to our own personal trade-off limit. You lock your car, right? Do you use a LoJack? You lock your home. Do you have a security system? Do you use it? Do you have iron bars on your windows? We’ll each go to a certain level, then hit our quitting point.
Simple, important steps include turning off location-sharing, blocking pop-up windows, deleting cookies, killing super-cookies, using end-to-end encrypted messaging, and many, many more.
But to truly reach online invisibility, Mitnick addresses three large categories: hide your real IP address; shield your hardware and software; and defend your anonymity. The hoops one must clamber through for each of these are many and challenging.
You can hide but you’ll still be seen
Offline is another matter. How many times per day is your photo captured by surveillance video or someone’s ordinary camera? What might they do with it? Are people flying drones over your house? Retailers can now capture the identity of your cell phone when you enter their store, and look up all kinds of details about you. So can law enforcement, in large crowds of protestors, for example.
Facial recognition software is in use in some places, namely churches, to log your attendance, and not necessarily with your knowledge or permission. (Fix: wearing special, light-emitting glasses.)
You’re tracked in multiple ways and recognized using almost every form of transportation (bus, train, subway, taxi, your own car). Uber maintains your ride history; and that’s nothing compared to what Tesla knows about its car owners. And get this: if you take a subway train, the accelerometer log on your own cell phone can be matched to the subway line you took and exactly where you boarded and debarked. Is that creepy, or what? (Fix: drop out of life entirely?)
Have a voice activated TV? It’s listening for your command; what else does it hear, and where does the speech it records go for recognition? Use Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, or one of those voice-recognizing gizmos? They’re always on and listening; how secure are they, and who’s eavesdropping? Where does the recording go for artificial intelligence interpretation and how long is it stored?
What do you have connected to your home network? Lighting, doorbell, thermostat, baby monitor, pool control, security system, door lock, webcam, refrigerator? The Internet-of-Things (IoT) is most troublesome, because most of these peripherals you control with your phone or tablet are not built for security and are not patched or updated. A hacker can use these convenient connected systems to gain access to your entire home network. (Fix: live in a cave?)
“To master the art of invisibility, you have to prevent yourself from doing private things in public.”
Need to conduct personal business while at work? If you want it to be private, don’t use company computers, printers, or company issued cell phones. Use your own, personal device, and use your own personal cellular data network, not the company wifi. Actually, don’t use any other wifi, devices, or printers, including the library’s or the copy shop’s. They all save logs and PDFs of documents you print that you can’t delete. Your data crumbs are dribbled everywhere by default; actively preventing the leakage is not easy.
(A top secret foreign military unit recently hired Bob and me for training. But because of the insecurity of communications, and because Bob and I, mere civilians, did not have access to a “cone of silence,” the group flew us overseas without even telling us about our assignment. That’s military-grade security.)
I got a special kick out of the beginning of Chapter Fourteen. Mitnick describes a harrowing incident in which he was detained for hours by customs agents upon flying into Atlanta from Bogatá. Bob and I had also flown into Atlanta at the same time, and were to speak at the same security conference, the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS). We were waiting for Mitnick at the airport… and waiting, and waiting. We finally left without him, and learned late that night what had happened to him, which you’ll have to read the book to find out. He was cool but shaken, if one can be both of those at once, and angry because he was unable to prepare properly for the panel he’d be moderating in the morning.
Mitnick lays out the pitfalls and tricks of returning to the U.S. from abroad, and how to keep your data out of the hands of curious Customs and Immigration officials. He explains in great detail how to use a Tor browser, a VPN, and Bitcoin to set up anonymous browsing; oh, and first turn off your home network, use a separate computer (which you purchased anonymously with cash), change your MAC address, use a personal hotspot on a burner phone (purchased anonymously), stay on the move, and remember not to check Facebook or your personal email. I skipped some steps, but you get the idea.
Know the difference between the Surface Web, the Deep Web, and the Dark Web? Mitnick explains all that, and why a law-abiding citizen might have a legitimate need to browse anonymously. If you really want to do it, all the steps are detailed. It’s a lot of work. And, as Mitnick emphasizes, a nanosecond of lapse will blow it all completely.
One thing Mitnick does not address in The Art of Invisibility is healthcare. I wonder how he would get medical treatment if he were trying for invisibility today? How did he do it when he was on the lam in the 90s (though things were much different way back then)?
The gang in 2014. The youngest pickpocket called for a group photo. They posed and clowned, but none of them took photos of their own—or Bob’s wallet.
“I know you!” the girl said when she turned around and got a glimpse of Bob Arno. He and I had followed the girl and her friend because, though we only saw them from behind, their posture and behavior told us they were hardworking Paris pickpockets.
We’d been ready to head home after a long day of thiefhunting in Paris when the sky broke loose and rain fell in buckets. Bob and I dove into the first Metro station we could find, drenched.
And there on the platform, two thieves; a girl-pair of pickpockets. I got my video running as we pushed onto the rush-hour train behind them. The train doors smacked close on my shoulder and opened again. I pressed closer behind Bob and the doors closed. The girls were smashed up against us.
Gh____, a Paris pickpocket, boards a Metro train.Paris pickpockets Gh____ and V___ squashed beside us on a rush-hour Metro train.Paris pickpockets Gh____, in corner, and V___, at right, treat Bob Arno and Bambi to dinner.A paris pickpocket displays her wad of at least $1,300 U.S.
Crowds are ideal for thievery, but this train might have been too sardiney for the pickpockets to plunge their hands downward. Unable to work, they got off at the next stop.
Paris pickpocket pursuit
We followed, which is when the younger one turned and recognized Bob—just as she did in October of 2014. Back then, two and a half years ago, she was part of a swarm of child pickpockets. I thought the youngest boy must have been about ten. She had recognized Bob from the film National Geographic made about us, Pickpocket King, which is on Youtube. Of its millions of views (almost 8,000,000 for the English language version alone), many viewers are criminal pickpockets.
This time, when the girl-thief recognized Bob, her face lit up and she reminded us that we’d met two and a half years ago. She tried to assuage her jittery older partner while dragging us off to dinner at a large pizza joint.
Dinner conversation was jolly, despite the elementary French and occasional phone app-translations. The partner slowly warmed up. Turns out the girl, Gh____, is a woman of 28. She still tells police that she’s 17 in order to avoid jail. Good trick. Common trick. And in her case, pretty believable if you don’t know her from previous arrests.
Our official Paris police source, the Mysterious Monsieur F, tells us that arrestees often claim to be under 18, and of course they often use aliases. When the police doubt the perp’s age, they can ask to do a bone scan, which may corroborate the under-18 claim. But the Paris pickpockets don’t have to give consent. That recently happened, the Mysterious Monsieur F. told me, with a 92-year-old male pickpocket. If they’re lucky, police can match these perps to previous arrest records. (If that 92-year-old has arrests spanning more than 18 years—poof!—busted!)
Portrait of a pickpocket
Gh____ has six children! Right, I wonder why. Police can’t jail perps who are pregnant or carrying an infant. So the pickpockets have lots of babies and share them around. But Gh___ said she truly loves having many children, loves coming home to the commotion with them all swarming around her, and wants to have many more. She’s a Gypsy, and the Gypsy culture truly does revere its children.
Gh____ was first married at 13 and had her first child soon after. Which makes me wonder: were any of the children in the gang we met in 2014 Gh____’s children? They could have been. I regret that I didn’t think to ask her.
We are connected to Gh____ on facebook, but she is completely illiterate. She started pickpocketing at a very young age and didn’t go to school. All her family are thieves, she told us. I wonder now if that includes her kids.
Gh____’s partner that day was V___, who seemed older, and can write. V___ wrote down Gh____’s contact info for us. She has five children and doesn’t want any more.
Gh____ told us that she recognizes all the civilian police officers, and they know her. They can even recognize each other from behind. They also know her distinctive tattoos, which she got in jail. [Aha! So she has spent time in jail!]
Gh____ claims she only takes cash, not credit cards. (We find that hard to believe, given the incredible potential for exploiting cards. But credit card fraud is a higher level crime than cash-stealing, and why should she trust us with all her secrets?) She’s saving up to join other family members in the U.S. She needs two million dollars for a visa, she said. Her family in the U.S. make a lot of money with credit cards, and she wants to join them.
She then displayed her hefty wad: at least $1,300 in fresh U.S. hundred-dollar bills and a few 50s. (All the bills looked new; had she just exchanged a collection of foreign currency? Or was she stalking marks she spotted at cash machines?)
Gh____ insisted on paying for dinner, then got antsy to get back to work. It looks like she’ll get that two million!
