Garret (00:03.161)

Hello, investors and my community. This is Garrett Wong, your host of the Investing to Win podcast. Have a really intriguing episode today. I have a guest on, we'll find out about his background later. We've obviously kept his identity anonymous for his own reasons, which he may or may not explain, but I thought the information and the subject matter was intriguing enough and important enough that we're gonna be doing this podcast anyway. So if you're watching long on YouTube,

You might see a blurred face there and an altered voice. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple podcasts, then yeah, you'll be able to catch up there. So Wyatt, I'd like to welcome you to the podcast. How are you?

“Wyatt” (00:47.174)

Well, thank you for having me.

Garret (00:49.569)

Absolutely. So let's just start with some background of whatever you're comfortable with and we'll get your background and then we can get into the topic at hand.

“Wyatt” (00:59.822)

Sure. My background is primarily counter-terrorism, intelligence, and protective security. I've been a government contractor, defense contractor, since around 2006, primarily in the private sector, working in protective security and intelligence for a variety of organizations, such as NGOs, in addition to the United States federal government.

And that's my background in a nutshell. I have a number of certifications in protective security as well as human behavior and nonverbal communication, hostage negotiation, and a few other areas with a diploma in counter-terrorism and tactical emergency medicine.

Garret (01:45.717)

Okay, that's fascinating. Are you comfortable sort of telling the audience why we've chosen to agreeably mask your identity?

“Wyatt” (01:59.514)

Sure, yeah. My background is in the private sector, but today we'll be discussing technical surveillance countermeasures. And it's my intent to be completely open whether or not my employer and clients like it or not. So just for personal safety and security, as well as the security of the protectees, we'll keep my identity confidential.

Garret (02:27.209)

Excellent. Well, I do appreciate you making the effort. And, you know, like I said in the pre-show, this is really all about educating the public and our listeners. And I think it's going to be a great episode and we're going to unpack a lot. So let me get to my first question, because really this topic is about surveillance. And I'm in the property management space. And I know when we spoke a few weeks ago, you kind of just blew my mind with.

the way things are going, and we'll get into some stories, but why don't we start off with just providing maybe an overview of the latest developments in audio and video surveillance tech, especially in how small and discreet these things are now becoming.

“Wyatt” (03:10.218)

Sure, well I wish I could provide an update, but as we're talking it's probably changing. It's similar to computer systems. You go to Best Buy, you buy a new computer, and by the time you get home there's a newer model out that, or when you buy a new car you get it off the lot and all of a sudden there's something better. The government has been developing these types of devices since way before you or I were born. And many of the devices that we see today...

are ones that we think are modern, but were actually developed way back in the 70s or even as far back as the 50s. What really changed is when the Bush administration and the Cheney administration started to offer the opportunity for outside sources to develop these products. And that's the kind of the birth of the defense contractor and private military contractor.

What ended up happening is you ended up seeing companies competing for bids. And so you started to get smaller and more discrete products. The issue is that these contractors are actually the biggest threat to our safety and our security. And that's because they are NGOs, they're private organizations. And while they may have government contracts and oversight, the fact is they can sell it just to anybody they want.

And every country, every continent has different laws, every jurisdiction is slightly different, and there are ways for them to get around that. And so a lot of the devices that we're seeing available in private sectors, some of you can buy right on Amazon or from Walmart, those devices are ones that in the past number of years were used by government. And they're getting smaller and smaller each day, but the real issue

What's really scary is where we'll be 10 years from now and the devices that are currently being developed for the intelligence community as well as for military and law enforcement capabilities.

“Wyatt” (05:21.882)

I can't hear you. Sorry, you're muted.

Garret (05:28.865)

Wow, okay, so if I can summarize this in my own head, you've got, obviously the governments in the world are only being able to award one supplier, one company, whatever it's going to be for these contracts, but of course there's a tender, there's a bid, so these companies are developing these products. It gets smaller and smaller, there's a competition, but one contractor happens to win that competition with that particular government, and now you've got these other companies that have all this...

R&D invested and they can't make the money. And yet there was some kind of restriction you were saying with the administration. When did that change?

“Wyatt” (06:05.934)

Well.

“Wyatt” (06:09.362)

Well, it's actually not that. The issue is that there is not one tender, and there is not one contract being facilitated. For many contracts there are, but when it comes to this, the government will offer money to any organization that wants to attempt, and if they have a product that's good, they'll buy it. So as an example, right now we've got universities that are developing these snake rovers that are capable of slithering, just like a little rattlesnake or a garter snake.

Garret (06:11.714)

Okay.

“Wyatt” (06:36.222)

up and down into vents, they can climb a leg. We've got modular robots that are able to be kicked apart and then automatically start reforming together, which gives us the ability to put modular parts of these robots in different sectors, have them come together and have them build upon each other to develop a full spectrum of analysis or to be able to monitor a larger area. But on top of that, you've got organizations like UC Berkeley.

which has been working in Singapore to develop things called micro-modes and dust particles where a computer is so small that you can sit it on the top of a dime. I don't mean a dime laying flat, I mean a dime standing up. You've got products that are the size of dust that are capable of being able to take on a payload of cameras of

sensors, tracking software, whatever it may be. And that's where we're going, that's where the future is. Right now, those products aren't available. Those products are soon, hopefully, gonna be available for government. But that's where the issue comes in. When the government's no longer buying stuff, we start seeing it trickle into the private sector. So a good example of that is, in the 90s, we were watching movies where spies were breaking into houses and then they went,

uh... go and put a smoke detector in place of the actual one and it had a little camera in it or they'd switch a light bulb and that would have a camera and these are items that we always thought were only available to government to intelligence agencies but the fact is they're not anymore the intelligence agencies don't need a camera put into a home to be able to monitor us and edward snowden made that very clear a few years back the fact of the matter

is that because those aren't being bought anymore, they're not being sold, those companies still have them. They're still being produced, or perhaps the patents gone bad, and so they're being produced by other companies. So now, if you go on Amazon, for $100, you can buy a kid's smoke detector, replace your actual one, this one still works, but it also happens to have a 360 degree HD camera that's able to monitor you, and it's hardwired, so nobody needs to change that.

“Wyatt” (08:57.838)

No one needs to go in and change a battery or update it. And that's where the risk is. That's where the creep down the hall sees that there's a cute girl that just moved in down the hall from him and decides he wants to be able to watch her. He uses something like this called a pick gun. And in under two seconds, he's in her home. Now all he has to do is unplug that smoke detector, put the new one in, which looks exactly like the one that was.

And now he's got unfiltered access to watch her every move.

Garret (09:32.117)

Yeah, it sounds like something out of a Marvel movie with nanotech and a spy movie, right? But we're here, I mean, in our lifetime. Why don't we, I mean, when I first met you, you mentioned something, an acronym, TCSM, and specifically sweeping, a TCSM sweep. Why don't you tell the audience what it stands for and what are the basics of it?

“Wyatt” (09:33.368)

BWAH!

“Wyatt” (09:37.102)

Yeah.

“Wyatt” (09:59.95)

Sure. So it's actually a TSCF, stands for Technical Surveillance Camper Measures, and it's the process, the art and science of utilizing technology and experience to be able to determine whether or not they're hitting covert cameras or audio recording devices, or as we often hear them referred to as bugs. And it's the process of walking through a residence or an office building or

uh... you know vehicle trying to determine whether or not the uh... whether or not there are bugs that are either actively or inactively monitoring whether it might be using video recording it might be audio or it might be other sensors such as GPS locators on vehicles and so this process utilizes both technological equipment

as well as the experience of the individual that's operating it to basically go through almost with a fine-tooth comb and determine whether or not there are devices in that home or in that area.

Garret (11:12.629)

Okay, so how long does the sweep typically take when you're going through?

“Wyatt” (11:15.534)

Thanks for watching!

So to properly conduct it can take a while. I mean, thankfully now we have detectors that can kind of go through Wi-Fi signals and other frequencies to determine what's being utilized on it. And that's a little bit easier. Those get picked up almost regardless. But really it's going floor to ceiling from wall to wall and checking everything. Checking light bulbs, smoke detectors, scanning even outlets.

We used these Phillips head screws and they look like a normal screw. They function like a normal screw. You can use it to plug an outlet into your wall or to put an Ikea chair together if you wanted to. But the problem is, is that right in the middle of it, there's a pinpoint camera. And some of these cameras are so small that you can't see them with the naked eye. You need an infrared sensor, an infrared lens to be able to view them.

and without that it's almost impossible. So if you imagine yourself looking through a small lens, an infrared lens, at every spot, every little part of your property, well depending on the square footage and how many rooms and how tall the ceilings are and how many vents, how many smoke detectors, how many lights, you know, no matter what there is, and that doesn't even include furnishings, well it can take uh

It can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days, depending on how thorough you are.

Garret (12:54.816)

I'm astounded. You said the size of a Phillips screw head. So did I hear you right?

“Wyatt” (12:59.746)

Correct. That's right. It's not even the size. It's a normal Phillips screw head, but it has a pinpoint camera that's right inside that. So you can't even see the camera size, but what's really interesting about that is, and this is where you can kind of tell that it's a camera, is if you pull, if you unscrew that screw, it's going to have a wire that comes up at the very back of it. So a normal screw, you unscrew it, it just pulls out. This one has a wire, so you can connect it.

Garret (13:30.113)

Okay, so, and you're saying this is not in development, this is not used by some shadowy government organizations, this is available basically on Amazon today?

“Wyatt” (13:40.27)

I'm not sure if the screws are available on Amazon, but they are certainly available to individuals that want to access them. You have to understand as well that a big part of my job, especially as social engineering or human intelligence, and so if you can buy a gun or you can buy drugs or you can buy people from a black market, you can also buy these devices.

Garret (13:42.57)

Okay, fair enough.

“Wyatt” (14:06.062)

There are many governments out there, many of those governments have access to it. A great example would be the Israeli Pegasus project, which is possibly one of the scariest projects that's out there right now.

Garret (14:20.185)

So you had sent me, and I'll throw these up as we're speaking here, a bunch of pictures of different types. Like I'm just gonna read here, because I do see the Phillips screw head cam. I saw the working smoke detector. I've also got here socket cameras, pipe transmitters, letter extractor, ceiling fan camera.

adjustable bathroom fan, adapter cables that you might find at the back of your computer. I mean, this is crazy.

“Wyatt” (14:55.978)

And these are all things that we see day to day, even in homes. I mean, we were just talking before less than two months ago, there was a property manager, a landlord that was arrested. There was a 12-year-old girl in one of those properties in the units, and she just happened to download an app on her phone, which really aren't, these are, and I want to be very clear, these apps are available. They can detect.

devices, but they're not good at it and they will miss more than they detect. So think of these apps more as a toy or a gimmick rather than anything else. But the fact of the matter is she did detect them. She detected a camera in her bedroom and we're talking about a property manager that was immediately confused and went to the media and went to the public eye, placing this camera in her bedroom so that he could watch her.

Garret (15:28.034)

Right.

“Wyatt” (15:49.718)

The issue is, as well, that these property managers are the ones held accountable. These landlords, these owners, are the ones held accountable. But it's very difficult to prove who actually put it in. Whether it was the property manager, whether it was the owner, whether it was a guy down the street who happened to notice her once and broke in, or whether it was her mom's ex-boyfriend who just happened to be a creep and wanted to know what she was up to.

We see all different types of things, but unfortunately, in the end, when it's a rental unit, it always falls back on the property manager.

Garret (16:25.365)

Right. And we, I mean, we use the term property manager, but again, just because we're a licensed property management firm, we could be talking about landlord owner of the property. I mean, nobody wants to get their name in the paper. That would be like the best case scenario you're, you're talking about actually being arrested your life being, I mean, nobody really, you know, how headlines are right. All you have to do is be accused. Even if you're deemed innocent later, the reputation still stays around. Right.

“Wyatt” (16:35.373)

Yeah.

“Wyatt” (16:46.179)

Mm-hmm.

“Wyatt” (16:52.278)

You know, and when we talk about stuff like this, just think about the impact that it's going to have not only on your life but on your family's life. If you have children, you drive them to school, what the other parents are thinking, what the other parents are saying in front of their kids, and what your kids are going to hear. And these little cameras have such a huge impact.

Can these cameras be used for good? Absolutely. I mean, I worked for many years on surveillance teams and we use them in order to prosecute. We use them in order to deter, in order to detect. But the fact is that when we see them in a private unit and we see these types of cameras, we're not talking government surveillance. We're not talking law enforcement where there's a warrant. We're not even talking on the intelligence side of the physical warrant.

We're talking the creep next door, we're talking the ex-boyfriend, we're talking about the guy that wants to rob the place, or we're talking about the owner or the property manager that simply shouldn't be there. And unfortunately, when you're in a large property company, you have employees, and those employees, everything ends up back on you.

Garret (18:14.861)

Well, and that's the danger here is what I'm seeing as the risk, right? Because as property managers, as landlords, fine, we're on the up and up. You have a tenant that's been living there for years and years and years, they move out. We just do a standard move out. It's a condition good, yes, no, okay. Smoke detectors are still working. Don't know whether they swapped it out. I mean...

“Wyatt” (18:25.921)

Thank you.

Garret (18:41.065)

In pre-show, all of the, I think you sent me 15 or 20 pictures and again, I'll throw them up throughout the show here just for visuals, but you said some of this stuff is already obsolete. I mean, these are big things. So, you know.

“Wyatt” (18:50.454)

Absolutely. Well, prime example is the. Sorry. Go ahead.

Garret (18:56.725)

No, go ahead, please.

“Wyatt” (18:57.874)

I was going to say a prime example is the Acoustic Kitty project. It was a project in the, I think it was the season of the 70s if I'm not mistaken. And CIA and House developed a program where they decided they could train house cats and they could implant them with recording devices and battery batteries. So they did this. They ended up scrapping it simply because they had one cat that they had done this to. It was their success story, but I got to buy a car.

They lost $25 million in research. But this is also why it goes back now to the defense law drafters who started to develop these things in private companies. We've got even companies like there's a brand called Lawmen where they started out developing the surveillance equipment for law enforcement and now they primarily sell to private investigators or to just the general public online. We have a company like DSG or Schomertek.

where they originally have contracts for NSA, CIA, and other three letter agencies. And now they have websites where you can go online and purchase variations of the products that they make for government. And so you end up in a scenario where anybody with a credit card or crime account can go online at 11 o'clock at night and buy the product.

that they can install anywhere they want. And some of these products don't even need to be installed. I mean, you know, I remember as a kid watching, you know, spy movies where they were using parabolic microphones and those are completely outdated, but they're still used today and they're still available.

Garret (20:45.665)

Yeah, you know, we're talking about property management. I think it's fairly obvious the risks and the liabilities. You know, you move a brand new tenant in, the old one who knows what they were doing. They discover it through whatever means and you're either arrested in the paper, your license is yanked. But let's just talk about, I mean, a lot of our listeners in this audience might not be necessarily a property investor. Let's just talk about a homeowner. You move into your dream home.

You go, you look at the property, it's been on the MLS for only a few weeks, you overbid on it, your happy possession day comes, you move your stuff in. How many people even have a thought in their head that there are devices that have been planted by the previous owner? I mean, it's blowing my mind. I don't think anybody would have that thought. Yeah, let's change the locks. That's about as far as it goes.

“Wyatt” (21:30.245)

Not... Not at... Well...

“Wyatt” (21:36.154)

And the other thing you need to remember is most of these devices, once the individual that implanted them is done with them, they usually just leave them where they are. They don't take the risk to remove them. So if I'm going to put a smoke detector in your property and I don't live there, or I don't remember it, or it's just a waste of my time to pull it, I'm not going to bother with it. It's an elevated risk to go back into the property to remove it. But you're right, there is huge risk.

So let's talk about this. You have children, yes. You had a baby monitor when they were babies, I'm assuming. Okay. Okay, so I'm sure you have friends or employees with young kids and they probably have baby monitors. How many of those people do you think use a password specifically on the baby monitor? Probably not.

Garret (22:08.289)

Yes, yes, of course.

Garret (22:12.913)

Yep. I mean, they're 19 and 21. So back then it wasn't, I can't even imagine what it is now, but yes, we had a baby monitor with the speaker that plugged in.

Garret (22:31.897)

Yeah, probably none, right? One, two, three, four, five.

“Wyatt” (22:34.626)

So, you know, exactly. And this is kind of a prime example because, you know, baby cries at night and that baby monitor picks everything up. It picks up playtime, it picks up cuddle time, it picks up change time. But it also picks up at 2 o'clock in the morning when the baby's crying and your wife is half dead and exhausted and walks into the room half naked and takes her shirt off to feed the baby.

And there is an entire search engine dedicated to providing these unprotected, unprotected baby monitor feeds to any lawyer that wants to log on.

Garret (23:18.985)

Yeah, there's a lot of sick people out there and that's not gonna change. It's just frightening. I was even thinking, and let's just dive in here through a slight rabbit hole. So let's say that you're a homeowner that is not perverted and you don't have any criminal intent. However, you wanna protect your home. So you have your standard cameras though, but of course you're gonna want covert devices. I mean, actually this is something we can talk about after the show, but three days ago, my office.

“Wyatt” (23:23.554)

It's not.

“Wyatt” (23:30.211)

Thank you.

“Wyatt” (23:36.985)

Yeah.

Garret (23:48.249)

got broken into and they took their time at 3.30 in the morning for two hours and went through our office with a fine tooth comb and the only reason I know that is because they'd only disabled three out of the seven cameras that I had. So if I'm a homeowner, I'm going to have a couple of cameras available. They're going to, you know, disable those, but I'm going to put a couple of smoke detector and pinhole cameras around. So great. I live in the property for 10 years. Like you said, we move.

“Wyatt” (23:49.509)

Thanks for watching!

Garret (24:17.053)

We just leave them there because now we're going to have to dig these things out and drywall and paint and nobody wants to do that on moving days. So now they're dead. Let's say that I don't have any kind of criminal intent, but the signals might still be there. I mean, it's still is there any kind of basis there where somebody could maybe even know about that or maybe it's a third party contractor and now all of a sudden they can just activate them and they're kind of just, yeah.

“Wyatt” (24:20.763)

Thank you.

“Wyatt” (24:39.022)

Sure, yeah, absolutely. But I mean, it depends on how it's running. So every camera has to have power source, and every device has to have a recording source. And for many of those, it's a DVR, digital video recorder, that's built in or attached. And for a DVR, for a micro SD card, obviously you have to go and you have to be able to retrieve it. But there are many devices.

that work off of Wi-Fi or off Bluetooth. And a great example of that are the doorbell cameras everybody puts up, or the ring cameras everybody puts up. And these are some things that work right off your Wi-Fi. But let me show you this little device here. This is something that you can go on Amazon right now and buy. And you can take over just about any Wi-Fi network you want and gain access to it.

If I walk into a hospital and they happen to be running off a lower Wi-Fi bat, I can take their entire network down in less than 10 seconds, and there's no way for them to figure out who I am. It gets even scarier than that, because you can also get one of these, and it looks just like a normal thumb drill, and it's not. What this is, and sorry, let me back up for a sec. There was a study done where people were dropping

thumb drives in car parks. And one in six people have found them, put them into a computer. But what this is, this isn't a thumb drive. What this is, is it's a keystroke injector. So when you put it in, it mimics a key word. So it looks like there's not a hacker going into it, but it's you, the user, it's the person that owns that computer typing this in. Except it's typing a thousand words a second.

And so in under five seconds, if I give you this and you put it into your computer, I have access to your entire network. I'm back or I can change all your passwords. I can download all of your images and have them sent to an encrypted email. There's no way for you to figure it out. No software that's available to the public that you're, you're really going to be able to use unless you start going after some pretty intensive software because of bypasses every...

“Wyatt” (27:00.902)

I can walk into a bank and claim that I want to open up a new account and this to the manager and say, hey, my financials are on here. And they open it up and to them, it looks like my financials are on there. It mimics that thumb drive. But when I leave that bank, I now have access to everything on that network, including all of their client accounts. So when we do talk about devices left over, that's a huge concern. I...

I travel a ton for work, I always have. But on top of that, when I come home, I do a TSCM sweep all the time. I'm regularly doing that. And the goal is that I never find anything, but if I do find something, that's very alarming and very concerning. When we talk about, you know, other issues, like we talk about kidnapping, like the Ramsey case that happened years ago, that was a contractor that broke in and took the girl.

Garret (27:43.233)

Course.

“Wyatt” (27:59.35)

And the fact is, back then, they didn't have this type of tech. They didn't have these devices that they could have used. But if you hire a contractor to come in and paint or drywall or put in a new alarm system, you really know that that's all they're doing, that they're not inputting another device in. And so it becomes really important to be able to make sure that that's not happening.

And then you've also got exterior sources. You've got people that can take devices and send them in, hobby mode devices, or various devices that mimic little marbles, or mimic a snake that you can just send right in, put it under the door, send it in, retrieve it when you're done, and have access to everything you need in order to watch what you wanna see on that camera.

Garret (28:57.509)

Yeah, you were mentioning Wyatt the marble the other day. Explain that to the audience again, so you can roll this thing underneath the door and you said you can control the movement of it as well.

“Wyatt” (29:08.05)

Yeah, so I'm not going to go into a ton of detail on that one, but effectively it looks like a marble. It's able to be controlled remotely using a remote app, and it rolls just like a marble, so I could park it under a couch or under a table and listen to every conversation that you have and retrieve it at the end of the day.

Garret (29:30.241)

Wow. So really the only way of knowing that you have something in the past, present, or yeah like you said you just came home from a work trip is a TCSM sweep then, right? TCSM.

“Wyatt” (29:44.406)

TSCM sweep, yeah. I mean, well, that's not... A TSCM sweep is just a part of the package. It's just a tool in order to achieve security. It has to be a multilayered process. You need a security alarm, but what is a security alarm in the end? If someone wants to break in, it's just an annoying noise. But that annoying noise is what's going to wake you up at night and let you know that you need to protect your family. You know, the fact is that...

In most places in North America, police response time in a major city on a slow night is 11 minutes. But that's 11 minutes that somebody is in your home with a family. That's 11 minutes before they even get to the home. And that doesn't include if they're stacking up because they're concerned there's a weapon waiting for more units to arrive so that they can go in a group for their officer safety. And so there's a number of techniques.

camera system for a part of it, you know, something like this, which is the security bar you can put in your door Prevents somebody from being able to kick the door and look like this is a tool that you put in your toolbox for protection But for the property manager, you have to do two roles and that role is you have to provide security But you have to provide privacy to them as well and so having a multi-tiered

layered security approach. TSCM absolutely necessary something that should be done every time somebody moves out or should be offered to the tenant whenever the tenant thinks there might be a problem. So the tenant has an ex-boyfriend that they broke up with and is stalking them. That's something you can offer to kind of alleviate some of that concern. But some of that other concern is making sure that there are other parts other aspects

available to them to ensure their security protection. So as an example, exterior security cameras or doorbell cameras, those are great on multi-unit buildings, on homes that have four or five different units in them. But when you have a single family dwelling and they're renting that house, having exterior cameras, you might think that's a great security feature for them, but for them,

“Wyatt” (32:09.686)

you're able to monitor every person who comes and goes. You're able to monitor their routine and that becomes a liability for you. And so for the landlord or the property manager, it's really important to not only be able to assess the liability for support, but to mitigate that risk and develop a plan so that you're able to offer the security and also protect yourself.

Garret (32:34.217)

You know, that's a great point. And I find this conversation coming up a lot more recently with my, let's call them potential new landlord investors that are coming on. I just had a conversation, I think a year or two ago with a client in a high-end property. They had their own surveillance cameras there. They moved out and they wanted the outside ones still active because

“Wyatt” (32:58.352)

Thanks for watching.

Garret (33:03.089)

Maybe it wasn't such a great neighborhood. And of course the residents had an issue with that. Well, what about my kids playing in the waiting pool and walking around? So, and again, these conversations are coming up more and more. I had another client last week who has their belongings stored in a basement and he wants it protected by his security camera because he lived there and I'm like, okay, but where is that security camera still going to be?

And we couldn't really agree on that one. Right now he's not renting it, but let's say that we do say, allow him to have that camera behind this locked door. Who's to say he's not monitoring audio? And that's still an invasion of privacy. And what is our duty as landlords and property managers to disclose that to our tenants and residents? So, I mean, this is just a whole big can of worms, nevermind liability, insurance. I mean, we could, that's another five podcasts right there.

“Wyatt” (33:52.699)

Thanks for watching!

“Wyatt” (33:56.562)

Yeah, well, you know, the fact is that there are many other ways to achieve that security without having to use a device. And the regulations surrounding the use of surveillance equipment, whether it be over or covert, changes based on the region. But for most of the regions, if it's an area where privacy is accepted, such as a wall of sugar or a bedroom or anything like that, it's completely illegal.

I mean, even often with a warrant, that can't be done. The fact is that even when law enforcement is surveilling somebody, law enforcement has a very strict set of parameters as to how they can go about doing it. Can they take audio? Can they take video? What can be used? What can't be touched? What can be recorded and what can't be recorded? The only time that we see the gamut of the capability opening up completely is in two ways.

Number one, there's an active threat, an active terrorism threat. The FISA court has approved the NSA or the CIA or the military intelligence or the FBI, whoever it might be, gets that warrant and they have the ability to monitor. But the other time we see this, criminals, they don't have the laws to follow. They don't have to follow the parameters of the warrant. They don't care whether or not...

They're allowed to record both video and audio or just one or where that can go. And if there's one camera, usually there's more. And if there's one system, typically you can piggyback off that. I have never been in a scenario where we put a device in and it was only one device. We always use multiple devices because you never know where that person is going to be. And you never know if something's going to be located or you need to get it.

And the fact of the matter is, is that as the landlord, how are you gonna rent that place if there is a camera in there? Especially when there's so many other viable options to secure it for the owner, but to also protect that tenant at the same time. And yourself.

Garret (36:14.517)

Wow, let's back up a couple steps here because I wanted to ask you about power sources because we talk about the pinhole cameras, Phillips screw head. I understand obviously if you're putting in a smoke detector camera or you're doing those types of things there's gonna be power. What are the power sources look like for some of these small devices?

“Wyatt” (36:20.162)

Thank you.

“Wyatt” (36:38.006)

So, yeah, so power sources, I mean, every device has to have a power source, so you can't get around it. And that's where a lot of the issues come into play over the person that's deploying the device. So if it's a hard-wired power source, then you're kind of good, because you've got it wired in, you're taking power from the property, you don't really have to worry about it, and

it's gonna just gonna record. But then of course you have to worry about what type of recording you're using, whether that is wireless or whether that's ADDR that's up there. So then you have to think about other options. So if I take a button cam like this, this camera, I could plug it in to a USB port, which also charges the battery, or I could use the battery. Now this one,

running is only going to last 45 minutes. So it's very temporary. This is the type of advice that we can steal if I'm following somebody in the shopping mall, if I'm following somebody where we're walking down the street or they're leaving a location and I'm in the chase vehicle and I need to kind of keep an eye on them. But the other vehicles are so far back that we can't piggyback at that point or well, put them.

Or you get a device like this and this device is really cool. It's a little bit bigger But it's one that I almost always recommend when people are looking for something on the private sector It has a magnet you can stick it anywhere and this works off of The stamp so soon as somebody starts to talk or there's noise it automatically starts picking it up But the battery lasts 45 days

So you don't have to worry about retrieving it because when it's in standby mode and nobody's talking, it's just sitting there and that's okay. And so if I have the risk of having to go in to tip something up, I can very easily do that. I can come up with an excuse or I can just break in when I need to, you know, when they're not home. I mean, that's as simple as it is. And these are devices that, you know, as an example, you said that your office was broken into three days ago.

“Wyatt” (39:00.874)

That's a device that I would absolutely recommend having. You can stick those under a cabin edge or behind a fridge or just put them anywhere. People aren't really gonna know what they are. But that's gonna pick it up when your camera systems fail or when their power is cut. And the other power source we're starting to see is the solar panel. We're seeing that quite a bit right now. And we're seeing just like you have those eco cars and you have various other.

power sources that are coming, we're seeing new devices coming out that have batteries that are really able to almost recharge themselves or utilize sunlight or oxygen to be able to recharge them. And these are devices where these batteries can last a few months at some point.

Garret (39:51.777)

Wow, okay. So you've got devices that are being able to be retrieved. I get that. You mentioned DVRs and recording devices as well, because obviously you've got the optical or audio portion of it. Where are these recording devices being stored in some of these houses?

“Wyatt” (40:11.566)

Well, I mean, if it's a hardwired system like your standard CCTV system at a building or, you know, a home, it's a pretty fit system where the wire goes into a DVR. That DVR is stored in a lock box or in a security office. It's as simple as that. But when you're talking about these other products, when you're talking about devices like I'm showing you or like we've talked about, those DVRs are much smaller. So think of it like the old handicaps, like the old...

Sony video cameras you have, they have a tape in them. And that's exactly what they are. Instead of a tape though, today it's a micro SD card or it's a normal sized SD card and it's recording to that. And so, you know, those, typically those devices are going to have different options, whether you want it to be 4K, 1080p, or, you know, even a 480p and the lower resolution you pick or the lower audio that you pick, the more room...

storage but if I pick up a 32 gigabyte micro SD card I can store a hell of a lot of footage on there before you're ever gonna need to retrieve it.

Garret (41:22.565)

Okay, wow. Hopefully everybody's getting a lot out of this because yeah, like I said, it's like a movie.

“Wyatt” (41:25.755)

So, that.

“Wyatt” (41:31.474)

Well, as an example, I have not recorded into my SIGES, I have a micro SD card in that. It's completely rechargeable. And I can't think of the last time that I had to charge it. I usually regularly do just to make sure. But just on that micro SD card, I can record over 400 hours of footage.

Garret (41:53.005)

Yeah. Um, it's, uh, what about live? I mean, do you, is there any risk of people looking at this stuff like in real time?

“Wyatt” (41:59.87)

Absolutely. Yeah, anything that you have is running off of a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth signal or any other radio frequency That is live. You have the ability to Record but just like you can look at your ring doorbell and see who's at the door Anybody can be watching it and it doesn't mean that it's just one person Anybody with access to that now? Anybody who they want to share it?

They want to take that video of your wife undressing where your child in the waiting pool and put it online on websites that they can do it at. And a lot of this stuff sounds like conspiracy theory, but you can take any of these products and go online and find them. There is a video on YouTube of these snake robots that are being built by NASA that you can go and watch this snake robot climbing up a guy's leg.

you can find photographs of the dust mites, of the micromote, and see just how small they are and how effective they are. And so, you know, this isn't a conspiracy theory. This is groundbreaking technology that's currently being developed and currently in use. And so, when we're talking about these cameras, yeah, most of them these days are.

And if they aren't Wi-Fi and they require DVR, many of them can get an external adapter that you can just plug it in and take Wi-Fi signals so you can watch it remotely. You don't need to be right outside the house most of the time. You can be almost anywhere to access it. And that's the scariest part. And if we want to say the government is going to shut it down, well, no, they're not. They haven't. I mean, look at...

footage sites like Orchand, Reddit, you can post just about anything you want and nothing's ever gonna come of it. There used to be a site, I can't remember the name of it, but it was a gore site. The entire purpose of this website was to show people being mutilated, people dying in the most horrific ways, and none of it was censored, and it was not for years before anyone did anything about it.

Garret (44:17.713)

Yeah, you know, let's look into the future a little bit. I know you touched on it at the very beginning of the podcast What does the future look like? I mean in the last year alone You know open ai chat gpt. I mean, it's crazy. What's happening What do you see? What do you predict on the horizon?

“Wyatt” (44:36.43)

Well, you know, I think it's going to be invisible. You've got companies already, you've got data brokers that find information and sell it. You've got these desks that are being created by universities. And I mean, yeah, there is a doctor or professor that's managing this team that's creating it. But in the end, it's the 22-year-old front where they're chugging a beer keg and doing, you know, keg stands on the weekend that's got access to this.

And so the fact of the matter is, is that I think in the next 10 years, the stuff currently being procured and developed for government use is going to be available to the public. And there's not going to be any hope in us being able to track it. And so we're going to have to start layering security and protection in order to be able to mitigate it rather than try to find it. We want to end up stopping it.

You don't want, you have to think of security from that layered and textured, concentric, you know, realm. We're not trying to stop a terrorist attack as it's happening. We're trying to stop the terrorist attack way before it happens, before it occurs. And the fact is, is that the way we're moving...

You know, just a couple weeks ago there was one project where they created a cyborg beetle. They were able to use electrodes to have an actual beetle move in a certain way and do certain things. And it was a successful test. Who knows how quick it'll be before they start to put a camera or a listening device in that beetle. And if you want to think, oh well, that's only in the movies, think back to the acoustic kitty developed in the 60s and 70s where they successfully did that.

Garret (46:29.493)

Yeah, it's a scary world. Like I said, I have kids that are gonna be growing up in that, my grandchildren. So, I mean, when you say protect ourselves, what comes to mind is one of those boxes that you put your credit cards in, into your wallet. I mean, is that kind of, I mean, that's old technology too. I don't even know what's out there.

“Wyatt” (46:40.61)

Thank you.

“Wyatt” (46:47.003)

Yeah.

Right. So, I mean, you know, a lot of people use the RFID wallets. That's a great idea. If you give me one sec, I'll show you something else.

Garret (47:01.157)

Sure.

“Wyatt” (47:03.842)

So another option is using a Faraday bag or Faraday box. And these are like microwaves. And basically you can put your device in it and it kills all the signals. We use it when we use, when I use that regularly when we do meets or when we're in a public area, if you want to, if you're concerned, somebody's gonna be listening. But I also use a larger case of that. I have contractors that come into my home.

Garret (47:09.986)

Yeah.

“Wyatt” (47:32.362)

You want to work in my house and you want to do something to my property and get paid for it and you need to put your cell phone in this box until you're done. And that's just the way it's going to be. So... Sure.

Garret (47:45.409)

So I've heard of Faraday boxes. I mean, I read a lot of books and watch a lot of movies, not property management. Explain to the audience, that real life example you just said, what are the risks of a contractor coming into your house? Why would you feel the need that they have to not only give you their cell phone, but you have to actually disable or prevent the signal from going into those devices until they leave your property?

“Wyatt” (48:10.806)

Yeah, so let's say that we hire a company to come in and do some work on our house. We know what company we hired, but do you know the names and have you got background checks for every employee they send in? No. So when that employee has a phone and that phone has a camera and audio recording capabilities and they can go live and there's social media and there's the ability to track, not only are you concerned about your family, you're also concerned about that contractor.

So as an example, if they're working in your daughter's room and they happen to be a pedophile and you don't know it, how do you know they're not taking photographs of things in her room? How do you know they're not getting a layout of your house or they're not using an app like, let's say, Magic Plan, which can in a matter of minutes, develop an entire layout and, you know,

blueprint of your entire property furniture and all There's just too many risks that anyone in your home whether you trust them or not But then the other thing is you don't know what they're into you don't know if that contractor Happens to be a drug dealer on the side. You don't know if they have to be in the witness protection program you don't know if they happen to be a

“Wyatt” (49:35.995)

a human trafficking unit. You have no idea what they do. And so then on that end, you don't know who's following them. You don't know who's got their phone bugged. And all of that, they're basically bringing that bug to your home. Obviously my risk is elevated compared to the average person. So for me, it's important that I don't allow those devices into my home or around my children or around-

at my pets or anywhere else, especially around anything that I have that's worth the wait. But for everybody, I mean, you need to protect your family, you need to protect your children and your own family's first responder. So it's really important that you have security founders in the set and that you abide by those. You know, there are a thousand different ways we could have prevented your office from being...

robbed three days ago and we can talk about those but I'll give you one more example. So not to do with cameras and devices but this little device is a smoke grenade and it's perfectly legal for anyone to buy. You can buy them online if you want to but we keep them in the house.

so that if somebody were to actually get in and break in, I can deploy this and fill the entire house with thick black smoke in a matter of seconds, which is gonna deter anybody from coming. We also use something called a fog machine in the house. And this fog machine disperses a huge mist of fog, blur blind their vision, and you can lace those fog machines depending on the law and depending on if you wanna break the law, with anything from gas to pepper spray.

So there's a lot of different options. My kids carry these in their backpack. Their friends don't know about it, but it's there because if there happens to be a shooting and they're in the classroom and that shooter walks in, they can deploy this and hopefully deter that shooter who's gonna leave so he's not choking on thick smoke to go into another room or to leave the building.

Garret (51:56.021)

Amazing, amazing. You know, those are, I know I had, um, I developed my own safe room in my old house because I was renovating and I was able to do so just a few of those little things there. They're so timely and so such good suggestions. I hope the audience is taking notes and I, maybe we should do another whole segment on personal protection. Like you, you just mentioned school shootings. I mean, it's so prevalent right now. And just that, like you said, just a smoke grenade. I never would have even thought.

“Wyatt” (52:15.118)

Thanks for watching.

“Wyatt” (52:21.655)

Yeah.

Garret (52:24.877)

how useful that would be. It's almost like you said, mandatory equipment next to the lunch kit in the pencil bag, right?

“Wyatt” (52:31.742)

Yeah, I mean, my kids also have soft body armor that's built into their backpacks. So you can take, yeah, you can take these pads and put them in. It depends on legislation in your area. But I mean, I want to talk about, sorry, I want to talk about one other real quick thing. And that's when you're in a temporary home, because a lot of property managers, a lot of owners, they do it because it's great passive income and they want the opportunity to travel.

Garret (52:36.533)

I've heard of that too, yeah.

“Wyatt” (52:57.382)

When you go into a hotel or an Airbnb, Airbnb is a worse place as well as hotels. Those are the highest risk area of being bugged. People know that you're there. They typically know how much money you make based on the type of credit card you have. If you happen to have a cash-in-one credit card, chances are you're not going to be a high value target. What if you happen to have a Centurion card from American Express or a Black Mesa card or a MasterCard from the elite?

chances are that front desk agent is being offered extra money from outside sources. If he says, hey, these people just checked in, she has a Louis Vuitton bag, you know, the kids are wearing Prada, they're in this room, they're leaving the hotel right now, they're going to lunch. So a couple of quick things you can do. First of all, whenever I travel, I carry a tactical pen on me. You can't walk into an airline, you can't walk onto an airplane with a gun or a knife.

but you can walk on with a tactical pen. This is just a pen. It has a window break punch, and it has an adjustable window. But it's just a pen, and I've trapped all over the room. I've never had anybody say I can't take it. So this pen can be used as a weapon if I need to. Second thing, the first thing I do when I walk in and I get into the hotel room, is I sit down on the bed, and in almost every basic hotel room, and in any suites as well,

There's one thing that's standard. You have a small area that you can walk that's between the foot of the bed and the dresser where the TV is on. So I sit at the front of the bed, I take my shoes off, I pretend my feet are sore, I take baby powder out of my bag, and I start to pour baby powder on my feet as if my feet are sore. What I'm really doing is I'm creating a layer of baby powder on my feet. And then after I'm done,

I swing my feet over, I stand up, I go to leave my room. I take a little piece of paper and I fold it, but I don't fold it in squares, I fold it in random pattern. And I stick it in the door, right between the frame and the door as I leave. So that if somebody were to go into my room while I'm out there, number one, that paper's gonna fall. And so when I get back to my room, I'm either gonna see it on the ground, or what's gonna happen is that they're smart if they work in intelligence.

“Wyatt” (55:21.966)

they're going to pick that back up. But if they don't know the exact pattern you folded it in, they're going to have a hard time refolding it. And you're going to be able to tell whether or not it was folded by you or by them. The next thing, if they went into the room, that baby powder, is it disturbed? Is there a footprint in it? And these are just ways that you can determine if anybody's entering your room, whether it's hotel staff, whether it's law enforcement, or whether it's just a creep from a gang that wants to rob you.

But then I use little device like this one.

“Wyatt” (55:58.802)

and you can buy it on Amazon or from Walmart for probably about $5 or $10. But it just hangs on your hotel door, and I even use these at home. They hang on the door, and this little end here goes in between the door frames. So if the door opens up, siren goes off. And that acts as your personal alarm so that in the event you are in bed and somebody does a walk in,

time to react. The fact is that there are constantly devices that are implanted in hotel rooms. There are hotel chains that have contracts with federal agencies that allow them to place devices permanently in the rooms. There are cheap motels that law enforcement utilizes for prostitution stings, for drug stings, and often they leave these devices in the rooms.

So you have to keep in mind that it's not just in your own home. It's not just in a home you're renting. It's also in places that you send people to. So if you have a tenant, for example, and there is a disaster at their home, there's a flood, there's a fire, air can, heat goes out, something like that, and all of a sudden you have to pay for them to stay at a hotel, you want to be doing a conduct in a sweep at that hotel as well.

You want to make sure you educate your tenant so that if they go to that hotel, you're not accused of planting the device there to watch them.

Garret (57:35.049)

Well, I mean, to your point, and now I'm starting to freak out a little bit. I mean, next, next week, going on a vacation, uh, renting an Airbnb. Now, I mean, personal security aside, who's to say that the whole place isn't full of bugs and visual detection equipment, right? Um,

“Wyatt” (57:52.446)

Well, I'll tell you what, when we sit down after, I will provide you with a device you can take with you tomorrow, and we'll talk a little bit about your family security while you're there.

Garret (58:00.613)

Okay.

Garret (58:05.037)

Perfect. All right. Well, that's a great place to stop. I'm sure everybody is going, no, we want more, but I like to keep these to about an hour. Why? I can't thank you enough. Why? In the air quotes, of course. But I do ask every guest this question and I would like to hear what you have to say. So this is called the Investing to Win podcast. How do you define success and what does winning look like for you?

“Wyatt” (58:30.694)

Yeah, so my stance on that has changed considerably over the years. I was kind of that typical workaholic who, you know, I've got this to do, I've got that to do, get that done. Today, my most valuable commodity is time. And I think for me, the biggest win, the biggest way to invest is in that time with your loved one. Your kids are never going to remember whether or not you...

went to that meeting or got that raise, but they will remember if instead of working at the dining room table you were playing with them in their room or you were you know watching a video game with them that they were interested in or hanging out with them. And so for me when I die I don't care if I'm I mean I'm not going to be remembered for what I do for a living if I am it's because something went really wrong.

But I am going to be remembered by my children and my family for the time I spend with them. And so for me, that's the ultimate way. Sorry, I know you're probably looking for a financial answer, but I just don't have one for you.

Garret (59:39.909)

No, you know what? I'm not actually I am not. You may or may not know, but I had my own life scares. I think we mentioned this in the pre show and last week when we spoke. But I won't go into that right now because I've already gone over it. But you know, just this morning, I was speaking to my snow removal contractor. And you know, he's doing the right thing. Great business guy. And he's telling me that, you know, next week, he's going away. You know, and he's taken his entire family. And I said, Okay, well,

“Wyatt” (59:45.23)

Thank you.

“Wyatt” (59:52.503)

Thanks for watching!

Garret (01:00:08.773)

Who do you have as a backup that I can get in touch with in case we have a blizzard? You go, oh no, I'm taking my phone, don't worry about it. And I said, and you know where I'm coming from this, because I've already had that, I said, if I could give you any advice, don't be the guy that's on the beach, on your phone, and sort of half distracted because the kids are having a great time building sandcastles. You don't wanna do that, your wife's not gonna appreciate it, but you know.

They might not remember, but you're gonna remember that for the rest of your life. Those are experiences that you can't pay for. They're one time only, you know, and he really appreciated that, you know, and he's gonna be making some changes.

“Wyatt” (01:00:48.034)

Yeah. So let me very quickly before we stop, give you a quick security briefing here, just based on what you said, because this is totally normal. People talk like this. But to me, here's what I heard. You run a very, very successful, and your firm has many, many properties and you have a snow removal.

contractor which means he probably manages all of your properties or a big chunk of it. You just said that he's leaving town next week. You probably have a number of employees I'm gonna guess over 20 probably, maybe not, but you also probably have a number of other people that know who your contractor is or have access to know who he is. Maybe they're short on money and now they know he's leaving the house for a week next week or for more than a week next week.

They're able to figure out where he lives. And now they go in and they rob him. They take, they plant a device. And so it's these little talks, these little conversations. We call them restaurant conversations. You know, you think that it's a private conversation or you think that it's nothing, it's just a minor detail. But to the person that's looking at it as a criminal and that's looking to achieve something, those tiny little things, my snow removal guide.

going on vacation next week gives me enough to know, well, hey, I need a new snow blower. He's not gonna be home. Chances are he probably has a pretty good one and he's probably got pretty good insurance on it. Right.

Garret (01:02:29.653)

Yeah, or several of them. Yeah, a wealth of information. Can't thank you enough again for you willing to do this. Yeah, we'll end it there, but I'll normally say I'll leave your contact information in the show notes. We won't do that for this, but I, again, just thanks. And I think everybody's gonna get a lot out of this.

“Wyatt” (01:02:38.706)

My pleasure.

“Wyatt” (01:02:50.527)

I can give you.

“Wyatt” (01:02:54.262)

I appreciate that. I can give you a burner number as well as an email address that I can be reached.

Garret (01:03:02.337)

Okay, perfect. All right, Wyatt, thank you very much and good luck in your future endeavors.

“Wyatt” (01:03:08.391)

Thank you.

Garret (01:03:16.953)

All right.