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1:24

It's a UNIX

1:25

system. I know this. It's how the files of the whole

1:27

park. It tells you everything. Sir, he's uploading the virus.

1:29

Eagle One, the package is being delivered. I

1:36

said, I realized the, I realized

1:38

a couple of weeks

1:41

ago that like none

1:44

of the podcasts I

1:53

like or listen to have

1:55

an opening that sounds like it's from the Dick Cavett

1:57

show.

1:59

Buh buh duh buh, buh

2:02

buh duh buh, buh buh duh

2:04

buh I love that you know the theme

2:06

song to the Dick Cavett show I

2:09

was just making that up as I was going along, I don't think

2:11

that's the theme song of anything I was just

2:13

going with like generic opening talk

2:15

show, like a 70s talk show theme

2:18

vibes From my exclusive

2:20

knowledge and watch history of such programs There's

2:23

a lot of Dick Cavett clips on YouTube actually For

2:26

whatever reason, there's a lot of Dick Cavett, there's a lot of William

2:28

F. Buckley Oh good, thank

2:31

god that's been preserved Yeah,

2:36

for a while, don't ask me why I know this With

2:38

a Prime subscription, you

2:41

could watch the entire run

2:43

of the William F. Buckley talk

2:46

show Like the whole thing was up there,

2:48

all 20-30 years of it, or whatever

2:50

it was Did it come with

2:53

like a free subscription to National

2:55

Review or something?

2:58

Yeah, but only, but

3:00

they made you read like his denunciation

3:02

of the John versus me first Before

3:05

you got into the modern national review Imaging

3:11

this podcast

3:13

even more as we go along We're

3:15

a youth media company Let's talk

3:17

more about William F. Buckley

3:24

This is cyber,

3:26

I'm Matthew Galt

3:27

And I'm Emily Lipstein We're

3:29

here with Erin Gordon, we're

3:31

going to talk about ostensibly crime

3:34

But I don't know, I think we need to get

3:36

some energy out first With

3:39

some more William F. Buckley jokes We

3:41

could talk about crime and William F. Buckley

3:44

Are the two related, that's what I want to know,

3:46

that's what America wants to know

3:49

Is William F. Buckley doing the crime? William

3:51

F. Buckley has been stealing thousands of

3:53

cars in Milwaukee in 2021

3:55

You know, crazier things have happened

3:59

I'm trying to like, I don't have the inner, I have a William F.

4:02

Buckley impression. I don't have the inner

4:04

G-D. You kind

4:06

of like, you have to jut your jaw a little bit and

4:08

kind of lean back. It

4:10

helps if you have a clipboard. You also

4:12

have to do the accent that absolutely

4:15

no human being has unless

4:17

he's trying to act extra pretentious.

4:19

That kind of fake

4:22

patrician accent that

4:24

he did, yes. Yeah, dude's from Maryland,

4:27

isn't he?

4:28

Mm-hmm, yeah.

4:29

It's like, it's great

4:32

because he

4:33

talks like a character from a movie,

4:35

he's got like a weird transatlantic accent

4:37

which is like not a real accent. No.

4:40

Right, it's one that Hollywood invented

4:43

for people to have. For

4:45

evil people to have, for evil people to

4:47

have. Anybody who's trying

4:49

to exploit

4:50

child, you know, laborers, hey,

4:52

Sonny. Uh. Uh.

4:56

But I'm bringing

4:58

a different energy to the show today. I'm full of cold

5:00

medicine. My

5:02

allergies are wrecking me. I've got no

5:05

idea what temperature it is outside because I'm both hot

5:07

and cold. Damn. Are you

5:09

sure you have allergies and not like

5:11

an actual virus of some kind?

5:14

No, this is the

5:16

first year I moved here, South Carolina from

5:19

Texas. I straight

5:21

up thought, like when fall

5:23

rolled around, I was like, oh, I've got the flu. I

5:26

feel terrible and

5:29

I started taking allergy meds and

5:31

it cleared up pretty good. Now

5:33

I'm used to the allergy meds. So

5:36

the pain of the fall season is just creeping in

5:38

a little bit more every year. That's

5:41

what big zer-tech will do to you. That

5:43

is indeed what big zer-tech

5:45

will do to you. Maybe I should switch back because

5:48

I'm on a leg right now. Maybe that's what I need to do, start

5:51

titrating off of one and go on to the other.

5:55

That's what I've heard. You have to kind of like switch back

5:57

and forth in order for them to like continue

5:59

being.

5:59

effective. That may

6:02

be what I need to do. I was also on for

6:04

a while, I know this is riveting podcast audio.

6:07

Do you know what like Dimista is?

6:09

No. It's

6:12

like an over, it's a prescription

6:15

hardcore nasal spray that

6:18

just like it's the way

6:20

that I'm sure this is not accurate but the way the doctor

6:22

described it to me is it was like we

6:25

just took up all of the antihistamines

6:28

we put them together in one bottle and had a

6:30

little steroid. Oh yeah

6:34

it's real good it works works like a charm.

6:37

The super came over this morning and had

6:39

to like fix a light fixture

6:41

in my apartment and when

6:44

he left I realized I was still wearing my nasal

6:46

strip that I put on at night in

6:49

order to be able to breathe so

6:52

that was that was a very very fun

6:54

interaction.

6:55

So that does work the nasal strip I've always thought about

6:58

that. They work great because I definitely

7:00

have a deviated septum but

7:02

I

7:03

am not currently trying to pay thousands

7:05

of dollars to breathe potentially martinarily better.

7:08

Yeah

7:09

yeah.

7:10

One of the fun things about a surgery

7:12

right is like there's always a chance

7:15

that you go through all the body trauma and then nothing

7:17

is better. Hell yeah baby.

7:22

How's your fall Aaron?

7:23

What fall? Oh you mean the season.

7:26

Oh I mean

7:29

it's been nice out you know seeing

7:31

some good birds but uh. Well

7:34

we were having you on the show

7:36

today to talk about this. Have

7:38

you done how many stories have you done on this now? It's been

7:40

four or five right? Yeah it's been been

7:42

a handful. It's a classic

7:45

crime caper in the motherboard mode

7:48

about the Kia boys which

7:50

is just I keep I

7:52

know that this is like a stay-home meme now

7:55

but every time I read that I think about the island

7:57

boys. jar,

8:00

you know, delightful and terrible and

8:02

horrifying miscreants that annoyed

8:05

us all on Instagram and TikTok. Not

8:08

unlike the Kia boys. What

8:10

is going on here? What is a Kia boy? Exactly.

8:13

Yeah, I wish they had a different name because it's

8:15

kind of annoying to

8:18

refer to them as Kia boys in

8:20

like official news articles when it's just

8:22

like a moniker that they've kind of unofficially

8:25

given themselves through their account names on social

8:28

media. But like we've just all accepted that

8:30

that is what they're called because we don't feel like typing

8:33

out the whole explanation every single time. But

8:36

yeah, so the Kia boys refers

8:39

to a combination

8:42

of in real life and online

8:44

subculture dedicated to

8:47

stealing and then posting videos

8:50

showing off the stolen

8:53

cars of Kia

8:55

and also Hyundai. There

8:58

isn't really a Hyundai boys trend,

9:00

but they also steal Hyundai's. Kia

9:03

and Hyundai are owned by the same parent

9:05

company. So

9:08

they're essentially the same cars in almost every

9:11

respect just with different brands. And

9:15

yeah, the trends started because

9:17

someone, some enterprising

9:19

individual, discovered that

9:24

a high percentage of Kia's and Hyundai's,

9:26

especially the lower end models manufactured

9:29

from 2010 through 2021,

9:32

are incredibly easy to steal. You

9:35

can do it very quickly and with no

9:39

more tools than a

9:41

screwdriver and a USB cord

9:44

and people who are adept at it

9:46

can steal these cars in well under

9:48

a minute, sometimes in about 30 seconds.

9:52

And so yeah, so the

9:54

Kia boys trend is basically referring

9:56

to the accounts and the people

9:58

behind it. the accounts who

10:01

post videos showing them

10:03

like driving around very erratically in

10:05

these stolen cars. It's usually

10:07

set to rap music. There's actually

10:10

a Kia Boys song that

10:12

has that they often set the music to. Yeah, it's

10:14

true. And

10:17

sometimes the videos show how to steal the cars

10:19

and sometimes the videos show the actual

10:22

actors stealing the cars. Yeah,

10:24

my favorite variation on the meme that I saw

10:27

today when I was looking on Instagram

10:29

is Kia owners. Kia owners

10:31

hate this one weird trick. It's just like

10:33

a picture of someone holding a screwdriver in

10:35

a USB cord. And that's it. Yeah,

10:39

there's like a spin off

10:41

sub genre of social media posts of people

10:44

just like trying to get the Kia Boys traffic

10:46

without actually stealing any cars, where

10:48

they just like kind of explain what's

10:51

happening. Even though like

10:53

the entire thing that's happening is you can just

10:55

go on other accounts and watch it happening.

10:58

So I don't it's all

11:00

very it's all very bizarre.

11:02

But I guess it's better to watch videos

11:05

of people not stealing cars

11:07

than videos of people stealing cars. Is

11:11

it I mean, we'll get into that whole social media

11:13

phenomenon, in general. But I

11:16

kind of want some more of like the basic stuff, the

11:18

basic juice here. So like, what

11:20

does it look like to steal one

11:23

of these cars? Like, you know, without giving me

11:25

a tutorial, I was gonna say, do you want

11:27

me to demonstrate there's a Kia parked on my block

11:29

outside? I could just I mean, that would be great.

11:32

I would love that personally. We can

11:35

record you doing exactly. Yes.

11:37

motherboard does crimes

11:39

is the new series. What

11:42

it I mean, what it looks like

11:44

in practices, I

11:46

think it would probably be safest to describe this from

11:48

a from the perspective of someone

11:50

who has their car stolen, which one of my articles

11:53

was about. Because ultimately,

11:55

they're that they're the real people suffering

11:57

from this and the victims and and it's you know, we're

12:00

joking around, but it's very, very

12:02

serious to have your car stolen, no

12:05

less multiple times. And because

12:07

it's happening in such huge numbers, a

12:09

lot of people can't have their cars like repaired

12:11

and fixed and given back to them in a timely fashion

12:14

because there's a backlog of the broken parts or

12:17

the replacement parts. So, you

12:19

know, they end up being without cars for months at

12:21

a time and having to pay thousands of dollars, which some

12:23

people can't afford, you know, so it's like, it's

12:26

no joke. It is a very serious problem.

12:28

What it actually looks like is people usually go

12:31

to get in their car in the morning

12:33

and find it's gone. They find broken

12:36

glass on the ground. And then

12:39

either the car will be recovered, you know,

12:42

within the next couple of days, out

12:45

of gas, vandalized

12:48

with the steering column ripped open. And

12:51

there being like, usually some

12:53

degree of cosmetic damage that

12:55

varies from like light scratches

12:58

to being like absolutely just, just

13:01

battered and totaled. And

13:05

the rear window is almost always broken, the

13:07

rear window on the driver's side. And the reason for

13:09

that is these cars do have an anti

13:12

theft system, but like

13:15

a car alarm, the car alarm will only go off

13:17

if someone breaks the

13:19

driver's window. If you break the rear

13:22

window right behind it, the alarm does not go off.

13:24

So, yes, really.

13:27

So that's why they break the rear windows.

13:29

At first, I've talked to a bunch of people who had their

13:32

cars stolen and the cops are like, very odd

13:34

that they broke your rear window. And

13:36

it's like, well, that's why they

13:39

know that the if you break the front window, the alarm

13:41

goes off. But if you break the rear window, it doesn't. And

13:45

yeah, that's that's pretty much just steering the

13:47

car looks like I mean, when you watch the tutorial

13:50

videos, it's pretty

13:52

straightforward. Like they just they use a

13:54

screwdriver, they use the USB cord

13:57

is to basically

14:01

act as a temporary

14:03

key to turn the ignition the

14:06

same way you would with an actual key. That's what the USB

14:08

cord is for. And that's it.

14:11

If you know what you're doing, it really does take

14:13

like 10, 20, or 30 seconds for sure. So

14:18

are they using a USB stick

14:20

that they're uploading into the car? No.

14:25

It's just literally leverage. It's

14:27

just literally mechanical leverage and a USB

14:30

cord is something that everybody has. So

14:32

it's just a very easy thing to use.

14:34

But yeah,

14:37

there's no hacking or digital

14:40

element to this. It

14:43

is as unsophisticated a hot wiring

14:45

as you can possibly imagine. It's

14:48

just shattering a window, brute

14:50

force breaking over this open the steering column

14:53

and using a thing to

14:55

leverage the ignition switch on.

14:57

That's

14:58

it. So why is it just

15:01

like Kia and Hyundai's that are seeing

15:03

or are

15:04

Kia and Hyundai's specifically seeing

15:06

this increase or is it just like an increase

15:08

in car thefts across the board? Because

15:11

you're making it very clear that it's like,

15:13

you know, specifically these car brands. Yes,

15:15

great question. The answer is it is almost

15:18

just these two car brands. And

15:20

there's a very clear reason for it,

15:22

which I'll get to in a second. But first, I want to say how we

15:24

know this. So I've filed more

15:27

than 130 public records requests with

15:29

police departments around the country. And

15:32

I've gotten back data from more than 50 of

15:35

them at this point. And I get more every

15:37

week I update my original story

15:39

every Friday with new data. And

15:42

so, you know, I have a pretty decent

15:44

and increasingly better picture

15:47

of Kia Hyundai thefts

15:50

per city per month, and

15:52

then also total vehicle thefts per

15:54

city per month.

15:55

And

15:56

what I've seen almost across the board

15:59

with very, very few examples. exceptions is

16:01

that for a while starting,

16:03

you know, I asked for data starting in December 2019, so

16:06

like just before the pandemic started,

16:08

and for a while you see vehicle

16:10

thefts like relatively stable. And

16:13

then all of a sudden, there will be

16:15

an increase in Kia Hyundai

16:18

thefts and in overall vehicle thefts.

16:20

But when you remove Kia Hyundai's from

16:22

the data, and you so you're looking at vehicle thefts

16:25

from all other manufacturers, thefts

16:28

remain pretty much stable. Like within

16:30

a pretty narrow band of thefts. So

16:32

for example, in Milwaukee, which

16:34

is the first city to get hit really,

16:37

really hard by the Kia boys trend. They

16:41

had on like,

16:44

usually between 20 and 40 stolen

16:47

Kia's reported per month. And

16:51

until late 2020. And

16:55

then in late 2020, November,

16:58

November of 2020, they had 206 stolen Kia's by January of

17:05

that year, they have 500 a month. And

17:09

by July of 2021,

17:11

so about a year,

17:13

a little under a year after it started, that 824

17:16

stolen Kia's

17:18

that month. So they went from like, literally

17:21

between 20 and 40 stolen Kia's

17:23

a month to 800 in less than

17:25

a year. And during

17:27

that time, vehicle thefts for all

17:29

other vehicles stayed between

17:32

a pretty consistent band of 200 to 300 stolen vehicles a month.

17:36

So this isn't a case, like just

17:38

to put that in perspective, like Kia's,

17:42

I know it's a lot of numbers I'm throwing out here. But

17:44

like Kia's went from being an absolutely

17:47

tiny proportion of stolen

17:49

vehicles in Milwaukee, to

17:52

making up almost three

17:54

quarters of all stolen vehicles in

17:56

Milwaukee.

18:00

How

18:01

do I, I'm trying to put

18:03

this math into words that make sense. Not

18:06

only did they become three quarters

18:08

of all stolen vehicles in Milwaukee, but

18:10

there were also more than

18:13

twice as many stolen Kia's and Hyundai's

18:15

in July of 2021 in Milwaukee

18:19

that they would have expected of all still

18:22

have all got a mechanic explain this. Your

18:27

piece said something like there's 7%

18:29

of the population of cars, but

18:33

an overwhelming majority

18:35

of all stolen cars. Yeah. So

18:38

like what I'm trying to get across is that like not only

18:40

are they, did they become a majority of stolen

18:42

cars, but because the overall number

18:44

of stolen cars increased so much because

18:47

of the increase in Kia Hyundai thefts,

18:49

there were more Kia's and Hyundai's

18:52

stolen in July 2021 in

18:55

Milwaukee than we would have expected

18:57

there to be of all

18:59

stolen cars in Milwaukee that year by any

19:02

manufacturer under normal circumstances.

19:05

It's easiest if you, if you go to the article, look at the

19:07

grass and feel like very, very clear. But

19:10

anyways, the point being that like

19:14

these are not vehicles that it's not like

19:16

the people who stole cars before

19:19

are saying, Oh good, we can like go easily

19:22

steal these other cars. And

19:24

so they're just, so like in this, if that was the case,

19:26

you'd expect to see the overall number of stolen

19:28

cars stay relatively flat. Like people

19:30

just stealing different cars. That's not what we're

19:33

seeing at all. We're seeing a huge

19:35

increase in the overall number of stolen cars,

19:38

almost entirely explained by

19:40

the increase in Kia Hyundai thefts. So

19:45

why? Why? Okay.

19:48

Why Kia Hyundai? Right. So

19:50

the reason for that

19:53

is Kia

19:54

and Hyundai are the only

19:56

two manufacturers in the U.S.

20:00

who during this time did

20:02

not put a basic

20:04

anti-theft technology in

20:06

their lower model cars,

20:09

like cheaper cars, even

20:12

though virtually every other automaker

20:15

did this because they're so, because

20:18

they've so reliably proven to reduce

20:21

theft rates. So

20:23

this technology, they're called engine immobilizers,

20:26

and

20:27

they're mandated in Canada, in

20:30

Europe, 100% of Kia and

20:32

Hyundai's cars sold in Canada have engine

20:34

immobilizers. But

20:37

I have a statistic that

20:39

I wanted to share.

20:44

So cars with electronic

20:47

immobilizers, like the kind we're talking about,

20:49

are generally 25 times

20:52

less likely to be stolen than cars

20:55

without them. And this was from a study

20:57

that was taking place before the

20:59

Kia Boys trend started. It's

21:04

an incredibly effective anti-theft

21:07

technology and incredibly cheap to

21:09

install. What it is is basically

21:13

it's an electronic signature inside

21:15

your key that

21:18

gets recognized by

21:24

the drivetrain, by parts within the drivetrain,

21:27

so that if the electronic signature in your key, the

21:29

signature unique

21:31

to that key in that vehicle is not recognized,

21:35

the engine won't start. It'll automatically

21:37

lock it. Without

21:41

that kind of technology, you can

21:43

basically brute force and heart and

21:46

hot wire a car. Hold

21:50

on, let me find this statistic

21:52

I've been looking for. Looking

21:54

for, in 2015...

22:01

96% of vehicles

22:05

sold in the US by other manufacturers

22:07

had engine immobilizers, but only

22:10

about 20% of Kia's and Hyundai's did.

22:12

And so they were

22:14

very much an industry outlier.

22:16

And

22:18

that's essentially why they're easy to steal because

22:20

they're the only vehicles routinely

22:22

sold in the US that don't have

22:25

this basic anti-theft technology.

22:28

So the other part of why is

22:30

why

22:32

these models are being stolen by the people they're being stolen

22:35

by. Because it sounds, what you're making it sound like

22:37

is that it's not as if they're being stolen and

22:39

driven to chop shops, right?

22:43

There's not a robust aftermarket

22:47

for Kia and Hyundai parts. Right.

22:50

So the other aspect

22:52

of why this is happening is it

22:54

gets to like the back to the

22:56

Kia boys element of this, which

22:59

is that it has a kind

23:01

of viral trend situation

23:04

going to it. So as

23:07

far as we know, and I say that

23:09

because arrest

23:12

rates for these types of crimes are extremely

23:15

low, but as far as we know, these

23:18

crimes seem to be committed

23:20

mostly by boys, like

23:23

literal boys, like underage juveniles.

23:29

When people are caught and arrested for this, or

23:32

frankly, more commonly when they commit

23:35

a violent crime while in

23:38

a stolen car. And so we learned later that

23:40

they had stolen the car in order

23:42

to commit these crimes using a car

23:44

that can't be traced to them. Or if they get into

23:47

a terrible crash while driving, trying

23:49

to film these videos and stuff. During

23:52

those times, we learned that like often these drivers,

23:55

these thieves are teenagers,

23:59

teenage boys.

23:59

And it

24:02

seems like the main,

24:04

by and large, the purpose

24:06

of these steps is to steal the car,

24:09

show off stealing the car and driving the car

24:11

around like an idiot and just basically go on joy

24:14

rides in these cars until the car

24:16

runs out of gas and then to abandon it or

24:19

just generally abandon it whenever. And

24:23

then filming

24:26

the whole endeavor, posting videos

24:28

of it online, gaining followers

24:30

and whatnot, that seems to be the

24:32

main purpose of the trend.

24:35

I'm sorry, but I don't

24:38

think... I

24:41

feel like such a boomer even saying

24:44

this, but I'm like, okay, you're

24:46

gonna make a fun, cool video pretending

24:48

that you're in GTA and like a Kia

24:51

Soul. That's your hot rod?

24:54

Yeah, the souls are actually really popular

24:56

to steal. And I can't tell if it's because

24:58

they look weird or

25:00

if... Because they're like a giant box. Everybody

25:03

called the hamster commercial. Yeah, exactly.

25:05

Or if they're just

25:07

very distinctive, so it's

25:09

easy to tell that it's a soul versus

25:12

like, a Kia Forte looks a lot

25:14

like other cars, for example.

25:18

But yeah,

25:20

it is definitely a bit

25:22

ironic that a lot of these cars

25:25

are pretty slow,

25:27

pretty underpowered, pretty goofy.

25:30

And yeah, they're doing

25:33

joy rides on it, gunning down streets

25:35

and trying to do fancy tricks

25:38

on them and stuff and power slides and whatever.

25:40

And it's like, you're

25:43

in a Kia Rio, sir. Yeah,

25:47

but once you knock out that back window and you're

25:50

blaring some music and you and your

25:53

boys are in the cul-de-sac and you're spinning it

25:55

around, there's an energy to that.

25:57

That feels good. Surely

25:59

you must have... done some things that you regret when

26:01

you were a teenage boy? I was just gonna say

26:04

it kind of like, you know, when you think about the weird,

26:07

not, you know, perhaps criminal,

26:09

perhaps not trends that you were into

26:12

as a teen. It's like you think

26:14

about them as adults, and you're like, that was just like

26:16

insanely, like, just stupid,

26:18

like, just silly, just, why did we

26:20

think that was cool? You know, all that, like,

26:22

you ask yourselves all the same questions. And

26:25

I think, I think to some extent, like that, that

26:28

applies here to like, even

26:31

taking out the criminal activity of it is like,

26:33

yeah, like, one of the things you see very

26:36

commonly in the videos is the

26:38

kids just like not even weaving,

26:40

but just like waggling the steering wheel,

26:43

you know, just like doing like

26:45

quarter turns while driving

26:47

at speed. And it's like, one,

26:49

it doesn't even look interesting

26:52

from the outside. If you're an observer, like,

26:54

it just looks like the car is like tipping

26:57

slightly. And if you're in the car,

26:59

it's like, okay, you're waggling the car a little

27:01

bit, like, congratulations. I don't know, it's just

27:03

like, it's very, it very distinctively

27:07

reminds me of like, just the dumb shit

27:09

that teens do, you know, and

27:11

it's like, I'm sure they have some like, some

27:14

like, secret, not secret, but

27:16

some like, some like, uh, how

27:19

do I put this? I'm sure they have some kind of like ranking

27:21

system for like, what makes the best waggle

27:23

of the steering wheel or whatever. But like, I

27:25

don't know, it's all very, it's all very weird.

27:28

This might be a little bit in the weeds. But you were

27:30

saying that these are like mostly

27:33

teens that are doing this.

27:35

Do we know if like, any of them have their

27:37

driver's licenses? Or is it just

27:39

like, like, are these like older teens?

27:42

Or are these younger teens? Or is it hard to

27:44

tell?

27:44

It's hard to tell. And because the arrest rates are

27:47

so low, like, we just have no idea. I mean,

27:49

like the stories that make the news are usually

27:52

when they're too young to have their

27:54

licenses and they steal the cars. Okay. Which

27:57

definitely, you know, it's happening for

27:59

sure. But like, Like I have no

28:01

idea whether those are exceptions

28:04

or whether we think or whether like it

28:07

is mostly like 14, 15 year olds. My

28:11

guess based on watching these videos

28:14

is I think the majority, I

28:16

think most of them are like probably in the 15 to 17 range.

28:21

Like that would be my

28:23

guess, but it's kind of hard to say, but you

28:25

do see like, you know, in the videos you can see like

28:28

people's general like size, like, you

28:30

know, and I would be shocked if it's like mostly

28:32

like 13 year olds based on that.

28:35

You know what I mean?

28:36

Yeah.

28:37

Yeah, there's definitely a youthful energy

28:40

to all of the videos I've seen.

28:43

It's all, you know, and I certainly haven't

28:45

watched all, but there's a lot of them. It's

28:49

all young, it's all young men. It's all adolescents.

28:51

Boys, I think is a good, is a good

28:53

word. So

28:56

can you tell me about, I mean, there's so many other

28:58

things to talk about here. Let's do the lawsuit first,

29:01

or should I say the several lawsuits?

29:04

Yeah. So I think

29:06

one thing that's important to get across is like the

29:09

scale of these steps is just mind

29:12

boggling. You

29:14

know, when we talk about, I already mentioned

29:16

Milwaukee, but like when we talk about crime surges,

29:19

generally speaking, it's

29:22

a big deal if crimes are going

29:24

up 20, 30, 40%. Like

29:26

that would constitute an epic

29:29

crime surge within a year or two. When

29:33

we were talking about like murder rates surging

29:35

in the US during the pandemic,

29:38

a lot of times that was based on like 20%

29:40

increases in murder rates in specific cities,

29:43

you know, like that kind of thing. What

29:45

we're seeing here with stolen cars

29:47

is the number

29:50

of stolen cars increasing 200, 300, 400%.

29:55

We're seeing the rates of Kias and Hundes being

29:57

stolen increasing by literally thousands

30:00

of percent. I mean,

30:02

the losses here in terms of like insurance

30:04

losses are huge. Chicago

30:08

went from having fewer

30:11

than 100 key is stolen, key is

30:13

in Hyundai stolen per month to

30:15

literally 1400 stolen

30:18

at the in one month at the peak of

30:22

its surge in October 2022. Like the numbers are

30:25

just absolutely staggering.

30:29

So

30:30

yes, this resulted in lawsuits.

30:34

The two main tracks of lawsuits

30:36

are, you know, one is exactly

30:38

who you expect to be from, right? Owners of Kia's

30:41

and Hyundai's filed a class action lawsuit

30:44

against Kia and Hyundai. Basically

30:48

for, you know, negligence

30:50

and damages because they didn't install the mobilizers

30:53

and having the vehicle stolen at higher rates

30:55

was entirely foreseeable as a result

30:57

of that. That was provisionally

31:01

that lawsuit was provisionally settled

31:03

for about $200 million, but it has not

31:07

yet been approved by a judge, partly

31:10

as a result of ongoing

31:12

law of litigation

31:15

that's being partly

31:17

as a result of stuff that's going on in other lawsuits.

31:19

So one of the other lawsuits being

31:22

filed is actually by 17

31:25

cities against Kia and Hyundai.

31:28

And this is, I think, the most interesting

31:30

lawsuit, because what

31:33

these cities are arguing, essentially, is that

31:37

the number of vehicle thefts has

31:39

so overwhelmed the city's

31:42

policing resources, that

31:44

they can effectively

31:47

manage the problem. They can't

31:49

effectively police other things. They have to spend

31:51

too much of their time dealing with this massive

31:55

increase in stolen vehicles. Their

31:57

resources are being overwhelmed. And

31:59

so there's are pursuing under public nuisance

32:01

laws, which covers this,

32:04

which offensively covers this type of thing

32:06

that you can't like essentially create

32:10

that they've created a public nuisance basically, and

32:12

are forcing taxpayers to cover the bills

32:14

for what is essentially a corporate

32:17

mistake. Incidentally,

32:20

it's the same legal argument

32:22

that state departments of health

32:25

have used to sue opioid manufacturers

32:27

for the public health crisis related to opioid

32:30

overdoses. And it's also

32:32

the same legal argument that

32:34

public health authorities have used to sue vaping

32:38

companies because of problems

32:41

associated with underage vaping. So

32:44

both, and I will say that both

32:47

of those other lawsuit tracks have been so far

32:49

successful under public

32:51

nuisance law. So those

32:54

cases are still essentially ongoing

32:56

as a result. And the third lawsuit, which is a bit more

32:58

straightforward is the insurance companies

33:00

have filed a class action

33:02

lawsuit of their own against Kia and Hyundai

33:05

because insurance losses are going through the roof

33:07

as well. The insurance angle is something that we could maybe

33:10

talk about later. So those are the

33:12

main lawsuits against Kia and Hyundai. And

33:16

Kia and Hyundai's arguments, defense

33:19

essentially in these cases, is

33:22

that it's not their fault. They

33:25

say, shocking, I know. They say that

33:28

this is, hold on, I actually

33:31

want to pull up the exact phrase. Cause it's... Yeah,

33:33

I'm sure it's something ridiculous. So

33:36

their first

33:39

major filing in the lawsuit against

33:41

the cities

33:42

had

33:43

a section heading titled,

33:45

social media and intervening third

33:48

party criminals caused an unprecedented

33:51

increase in theft. And then there are

33:53

other statements in there basically saying

33:55

that like, social media incited

33:57

unprecedented rise in thefts. on

34:00

and so forth. So essentially,

34:02

they're blaming social media

34:04

companies, TikTok and Instagram specifically,

34:07

because their argument is this

34:10

would never be a

34:12

massive

34:14

viral trend, if not

34:16

for the social media companies.

34:19

And that is why cities are being overwhelmed

34:22

with the problem.

34:24

So it's not their fault that they didn't

34:26

install this little bit of technology

34:28

that is relatively

34:29

inexpensive

34:32

and in their other models. It's the internet's

34:35

fault. That's

34:36

right. Their

34:38

argument is basically that

34:40

they complied with all regulations

34:44

and laws around anti theft technology.

34:46

They did not violate any of the federal

34:49

federal motor vehicle safety standards.

34:52

And so how can they possibly

34:55

be held responsible for all of this

34:57

stuff going on? You know, and they

34:59

even had a section in their defense that

35:01

like, subtly, but also not

35:04

so subtly, basically blamed

35:06

cities for not being

35:09

able to police themselves properly,

35:11

essentially, the argument

35:13

was basically that, you

35:17

know, you've like some of these cities

35:19

have changed bail

35:22

laws, especially around

35:25

juvenile offenders. And

35:29

they also do not solve most of these

35:31

crimes. And it's surely

35:33

not Kia's and Hyundai's fault

35:36

that, you know, the police in Chicago

35:38

or whatever, can't get their shit together

35:41

and arrest a bunch of teens who are stealing lots of

35:43

cars is essentially

35:45

what their argument was. That's kind of incredible,

35:48

right? That's just like an incredible response

35:50

to a very to a problem that

35:52

seems to have a very simple solution. How much

35:56

do we know how much these engine immobilizers cost?

35:58

It depends on exactly. how they're implemented, but

36:01

it's much less than $100, usually less than $50. To say that they're

36:08

a rounding error in the overall

36:10

cost of a car is, I think, a wild

36:13

overstatement of how much they cost.

36:17

I'm also thinking about like, like,

36:19

okay, looking into the back window of this car, because

36:21

they know that it's not going to be alarmed to

36:23

then do the very easy thing with a USB cable,

36:26

not to even upload anything, but just to like turn

36:28

a switch basically, and it's

36:30

social media's fault.

36:32

Yeah, that's right. I

36:34

mean, it's

36:35

interesting because it does

36:37

make you I mean, I think it's kind of interesting

36:40

from an intellectual standpoint, because it like makes

36:42

you step back and think like, okay,

36:45

let's say social media didn't exist, or

36:47

the internet didn't exist.

36:50

Could this theft trend still have taken off?

36:52

And yeah, and to

36:55

me, it seems pretty obvious

36:57

that the answer is yes. And I think

36:59

one of the most compelling

37:01

bits of evidence I have to support

37:03

that is there's really no

37:07

evidence when I look at the data

37:09

that we've gotten on city by city vehicle

37:12

theft. So one of the reasons I really wanted this

37:14

granular data is because I wanted

37:16

to track this trend across

37:19

the country as it spread. And

37:22

one of the interesting things I found is

37:24

that there's not really any great

37:27

evidence that like they're all getting

37:29

it at exactly the same time. It

37:31

really seems like they're pretty

37:34

geographically isolated trends.

37:37

And if that's the case, then I don't see

37:39

why it's necessary

37:42

for social media to exist to fan the

37:44

flames. It seems like this

37:46

is mostly a thing that takes off amongst people

37:48

and their friends, like their local friend

37:50

groups. And so

37:52

if that's the case, like, okay, they're

37:55

spreading the news via the way that they talk

37:57

about everything. this

38:00

is how people communicate, but

38:04

social media didn't exist. They'd be calling

38:06

up each other and telling them how to do it. I think it's

38:08

blaming the medium and not the message and

38:10

not the very technical,

38:18

real world reasons why they're able to do

38:20

this. That's kind of my interpretation of what's

38:23

going

38:25

on here. Right. The way that

38:27

bragging about crime works on social media

38:29

is that there are outside

38:32

viewers, but it's meant for

38:35

regional consumption. You film

38:37

a diss video about

38:41

a rival that lives up to the

38:43

street, not that two cities over.

38:46

Right. Right. Right. And that's

38:49

what we see with these accounts too, because

38:52

a lot

38:54

of them, when they start off

38:56

and they're just sharing, like what's the, what's

38:59

the, sorry, let me back up. That's

39:02

what we're seeing with these accounts too. Like

39:04

one of the ways that they denote themselves

39:07

when they create the accounts is it has

39:10

the term Kia boys in it, but the

39:12

only other piece of information in the account is

39:14

the area code associated with

39:17

that region. So it's like, you

39:19

know, if you're in, if you're in New York, you go with two,

39:21

one, two Kia boys, and then everything

39:24

is like a derivative of that.

39:26

Maybe you add like a period or a dash

39:28

or like another letter or symbol or whatever,

39:31

but it's two, one, two Kia boys. So

39:33

it's like, it's all regional and geographic

39:35

tied. So if, so it's like,

39:37

I don't know if that's the case,

39:40

like how can you really blame social

39:42

media for it if everyone's just, you know,

39:44

talking to their friends and about their friends

39:46

and communicating with their peer groups,

39:49

their, their local peer groups. So

39:52

can we talk a little bit more about the social media angle

39:55

on this? I know that you published something just

39:57

today on this. where

40:00

you talked to, did you talk to a meta?

40:02

I spoke to a meta spokesperson, yes. How

40:06

did that go? What's their response? What does

40:08

the meta spokesperson say when once again

40:10

they are accused of being the vector

40:12

by which crime flows? So

40:15

I will say that generally speaking the approach

40:17

of social media companies when you

40:20

reach out to them as a reporter, they all

40:22

do the exact same thing. You

40:25

email them a detailed list of questions or

40:27

details about your story and

40:29

they send you a very polite email back

40:32

asking to have a phone call on

40:35

background or off the record and

40:38

they usually use these two terms

40:40

interchangeably even though they're not. And

40:44

then you have a phone call with them and I'm

40:47

not going to go into too many details about that because

40:49

I have agreed to go off the record in some circumstances

40:52

with them. Maybe I shouldn't

40:54

but I do anyways. But

40:57

I like to explain the story as

41:00

thoroughly as I can to them because I very

41:02

much believe as a reporter that there

41:05

should be no surprises for the companies

41:07

or the people that you're writing about. They should know

41:09

exactly what you're planning to say so that

41:12

they can provide

41:14

you any information that they think is relevant

41:16

or any statement that they wish to address

41:19

those claims. But

41:22

they tend to always ask the exact same questions.

41:24

I'll just say that like no matter what company you're

41:26

reaching out to like they ask you the exact

41:29

same questions about the story you're

41:31

writing. And so the

41:33

meta spokesperson then sent me a statement

41:35

that basically said he linked

41:39

to a Facebook policy

41:41

against theft

41:44

or depicting theft or encouraging theft

41:47

and said that Kia Boyz

41:49

accounts violate their terms and you

41:51

know that policy and so

41:53

they will take them down if flagged. And

41:56

my response to them which they did not reply

41:59

to before publication.

43:42

rejected,

44:00

not getting taken down. I emailed Meta

44:02

about it on

44:04

Friday

44:06

and over the weekend the account

44:08

was taken down. All right, cyber

44:10

listeners, we're going to take a break. We'll be right

44:12

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47:21

right, welcome back, cyber listeners. We're back on with Aaron

47:24

Gordon. Emily, maybe

47:26

you can give me some insight on this. Maybe

47:29

this is a bigger question than this conversation, but

47:31

why is it that

47:33

if, say, you're an open source intelligence

47:36

investigator with some credibility,

47:39

you're tracking an ongoing conflict zone and you are

47:43

posting about it on Instagram. Often,

47:46

I've got several of these people that are

47:48

my friends. Their flat, their accounts will get automatically flagged

47:51

and will like just kind of be

47:53

destroyed and they'll have to start over. But 15

47:57

year old boys stealing. Kia's

48:01

and bragging about it on Instagram doesn't

48:03

seem to get a lot of quick traction.

48:06

That's an amazing question and

48:09

one that I can only speculate on from both

48:11

working in social media, being a journalist

48:13

and also like using social media in my personal

48:16

life.

48:19

I mean, all of

48:21

these social media companies, for worse,

48:24

are black boxes when it comes to policies

48:27

and the decisions that they make. When

48:30

it comes to harmful content in

48:33

the realm of animal

48:35

torture,

48:36

photos

48:38

of abuse,

48:40

violence, etc., you have people

48:43

whose job it is to watch this content

48:46

and flag it, but

48:49

stuff that's not immediately like, okay,

48:51

this is obviously someone getting murdered

48:55

or something like that. It's

48:58

not going to be flagged immediately.

49:04

It's so hard to say and I know

49:06

that that's such a shitty answer, but

49:10

that's part of what's so frustrating about working

49:12

in social, to go on like a slight tangent

49:15

for a second. I constantly

49:20

have to deal with

49:22

when I make videos for TikTok and for

49:24

Instagram and whatever, making decisions

49:26

about what I need to censor based on a vibe

49:29

check, just like assumptions

49:31

and hoping. Then

49:34

when I will ask TikTok about, hey,

49:36

this video didn't get a lot of views, is

49:38

it because it's about X, Y, and Z? They're

49:41

like, well, we don't have any policies that are specifically

49:44

going to limit the reach

49:46

of certain videos because of topics. Maybe

49:49

your audience just doesn't care. I think

49:55

that

49:55

you're doing something here. You're

49:57

never going to admit to me

49:59

something here. But we're

50:02

all like, let's, let's, let's be

50:04

real for a second. We're

50:07

all smart people here. Like,

50:10

this is it just, it gets ridiculous to the point

50:13

where it feels very, like

50:15

you're looking into the void and nothing is staring back

50:17

at you, which I'm sure that these people, like

50:19

the the woman in your story, absolutely

50:22

have to deal with and like has far more

50:24

serious repercussions than me, which is, you know, this is just

50:26

my job. It's not my car. It's not my

50:28

money. Well, I mean, I think I

50:30

think what you're talking about is quite serious.

50:32

And I'll tell you why I think it's a really

50:35

pernicious force because like,

50:38

when

50:39

when social media companies tell you

50:42

maybe, maybe your audience just doesn't

50:44

care about this. And it's like,

50:47

okay, we we, we suspect

50:50

that is bullshit.

50:51

But there's also nothing we can do about it.

50:54

And then when our bosses or our bosses

50:56

bosses are looking at metrics on our stories

50:59

or social videos or whatever, and

51:00

they're seeing that these particular

51:03

videos just do dogshit traffic

51:05

or get get absolutely no views.

51:08

Like, Emily, what, what, what

51:10

topics are these videos about?

51:12

Oh, well, let's take a quick look.

51:15

While we're here. So recent Tim Ballard stories

51:18

has been getting very low traffic, probably because it's

51:20

about lawsuits about him allegedly being a creep.

51:22

Okay, well, that's a great example. I mean, so let's

51:24

say,

51:26

look,

51:28

these stories are about a guy who

51:30

was they made a movie about this

51:33

guy about you know, a

51:35

fictionalized version about the movie about this guy, about how

51:37

how what a basic basically what a what

51:44

a basic basically what a saint he is, I guess,

51:46

like, or whatever. And it's like,

51:49

we have colleagues who have been doing

51:52

absolutely incredible reporting about

51:54

how not only did that movie depict

51:57

an essentially fictionalized version of him, but that

52:00

that he and his organization have

52:03

been credibly accused of being

52:06

sex traffickers themselves.

52:08

And it's like

52:10

now our bosses are looking at the

52:13

views that these stories get

52:15

and being like nobody cares.

52:17

And it's like, well, is it true that nobody cares

52:19

that this incredibly famous and popular guy

52:22

is being credibly

52:24

accused of running an organization that

52:27

does the exact

52:29

things that they're supposedly trying to fight?

52:32

Like, is that what people don't care about? Or

52:34

is it that, you know, there's some kind of

52:37

hidden content moderation going on? These

52:40

are important questions. No,

52:41

they are important questions. And that's not even to

52:44

mention like the throttling we're experienced over

52:46

on TikTok regarding a reporting

52:49

on, you know, the conflict in Gaza. So

52:51

it's like, that's also receiving no views.

52:54

And it's hard to tell it's like, is this being flagged because

52:56

it is graphic content, which it is, or

52:58

is it being, you know, and they

53:01

will never say it's being flagged or not being

53:03

shown to people. But then you'll say, huh, this

53:05

isn't eligible for the for you page.

53:08

Yeah. No explanation. And it's like,

53:10

there's just no, there's no

53:12

credible line of argument

53:15

that says people don't care about this. Like it

53:17

is literally the most, the most

53:20

important.

53:21

And like,

53:24

I don't know, you go to the homepage of

53:27

any major newspaper in the world right now. And

53:29

the major stories are all

53:31

about the gods, the Israel Hamas

53:34

war. That's literally, that's like it. That's

53:36

the homepage on every single major newspaper

53:38

in the country. And yet when you

53:41

try and like publish your stories on social

53:43

media, they don't get the

53:45

views. And it's like,

53:47

it's just not credible to argue that maybe your audience

53:49

doesn't care about this.

53:51

Yeah. The thing that I used to joke about is like,

53:53

you know, my boss isn't my boss. Jack Dorsey

53:55

is my boss. Mark Zuckerberg is my boss, et

53:57

cetera. So I guess, you know, congratulations.

54:00

to Elon Musk, who is now my boss,

54:03

and you know, all those guys.

54:06

I mean, and to bring it back to Kia Hyundai for a

54:08

bit, like, you know, we published a story

54:10

today that like, you know, if you look

54:12

at the headlines related to this trend,

54:15

they're always associated with TikTok.

54:17

TikTok is the social media

54:20

brand that was getting blamed for this, first

54:22

and foremost. Usually the news

54:24

stories don't even mention Instagram. But

54:27

if you go on the two social platforms

54:29

today and you try and find Kia, Kia

54:32

Boys

54:33

accounts,

54:34

it's pretty, it's not like they exist

54:36

on TikTok, but they tend to have

54:38

very few followers because the Kia

54:41

Boys have to cycle through accounts constantly

54:43

because they're getting shut down pretty easily.

54:46

Part of this is there's a very easy way to report

54:48

those accounts. And it's very

54:50

easy to tell if these accounts are Kia Boys accounts

54:52

because they're literally called Kia Boys. Because

54:55

you try and do this on Instagram and

54:57

it's impossible. You report the story,

55:00

there's no fitting, there's no category that

55:02

you can report it under, and it

55:04

almost never actually gets to

55:06

a human review. It's usually rejected

55:09

by some algorithm that's

55:11

doing God knows what kind of review

55:14

automatically. And it is basically instantly rejected.

55:17

And so if you go on Instagram now, you can, you

55:19

can immediately find dozens

55:22

and dozens of Kia Boys accounts with

55:24

thousands of followers each that have been

55:26

around for a really, you know, for months,

55:28

if not years. And that's where

55:30

it's mostly, it mostly exists now.

55:33

It's not really on TikTok anymore, to be honest.

55:36

And I mean, to be perfectly frank,

55:38

I haven't, I've been reporting on this for the last

55:40

like three, four

55:43

months. So I don't really

55:45

know what it was like in 2021. It could

55:47

have been that it was mainly on TikTok then

55:49

and they migrated over to Instagram recently.

55:52

It also could be that it was on both places

55:55

and TikTok started moderating it when it

55:57

became bigger news, which I think is probably

55:59

likely. But it's

56:01

like one of these platforms at

56:03

least appears to be taking this more seriously

56:06

than the other and it's not the one that's always

56:08

getting associated with the trend. Because

56:12

there is the perception in older adults that TikTok

56:14

is the brain rotting social media platform

56:17

because everyone else is on Instagram

56:20

and Facebook and those are the ones that they use

56:22

so TikTok must be bad, my kids

56:24

are on it all day. And also TikTok

56:27

is like I think it probably first became

56:29

like famous famous for

56:31

like the challenges that proliferated

56:33

on there. Like the Passout

56:36

challenge which like first terrorized or

56:38

boomer adults or whatever. And

56:42

so like part and part of the reason

56:44

TikTok I think is probably so aggressive

56:46

towards Kiam boys moderation

56:48

now is they have like they

56:50

have been burned by this before getting

56:53

all the negative publicity for like being the place

56:56

where dumb challenges take off

56:59

and they have specific rules against this stuff. Like

57:02

you don't even have to be doing anything illegal

57:04

in these challenges but if the dares are

57:06

considered like potentially harmful

57:08

to health or property they're banned.

57:11

And so that's another rule that they have

57:14

that Instagram doesn't. Can

57:16

you tell me a little bit more about

57:18

I think you've interviewed

57:20

how many people have you interviewed that they've

57:23

had their car stolen? I've

57:26

like gotten emails or heard stories from probably

57:29

about 50 ish at this point.

57:32

I've also been like trolling the you know

57:34

sub reddits where this stuff is always talked about for

57:36

a really long time and I've

57:38

like you know done in-depth interviews with

57:40

like about a dozen so far.

57:44

Okay. What happens? I

57:46

know we talked about it a little bit but I'm curious

57:48

about like do you do you get your car back?

57:51

How long does it take to get it fixed? Because

57:54

apparently like you know like we said it's not being sold

57:57

at a chop shop it's being joy ridden

57:59

and then abandoned. presumably there

58:01

is a pathway for you to recover your car,

58:04

right? Yeah, most people, their cars

58:06

are recovered. A lot of times

58:08

very close to their houses, like within a couple

58:11

of miles. It's pretty

58:13

rare, I think, for someone to have their car

58:15

stolen for a Kia Boyz stunt

58:18

to never have their car found.

58:22

The instances where that happens is

58:24

when I think the Kia Boyz steal the

58:26

cars, do their joyriding, have

58:29

their fun, and then

58:30

sell it for like 20 bucks to

58:32

some random dude.

58:33

And then that person does

58:36

like, maybe they take it to a chop shop,

58:38

maybe they end up living out of it, which I did

58:40

hear from one person, like their

58:42

car was essentially turned into like someone's

58:45

home and completely trashed

58:48

to the bone, picked a part.

58:51

But that's pretty rare. Most of the time, their

58:54

car is recovered within a couple

58:56

of days, within a couple of miles

58:59

next town over, something like that.

59:02

At that point,

59:04

it depends how extensive the damage

59:06

is. So

59:11

once you get the car back, you kind of enter

59:14

this new vector of aggravation,

59:17

which is the insurance

59:19

slash dealership slash

59:23

repair shop world, which

59:26

has really screwed some people over. I've

59:29

talked to a bunch of people who have had a lot

59:31

of trouble getting timely and accurate estimates

59:33

for the damage cost. Because

59:36

as anyone who's had their car, even if

59:38

it's stolen, even if you've been in a crash, an

59:41

appraiser has to come from your insurance company

59:44

to determine the extent of the damage. And

59:46

they determine whether the insurance company is going

59:48

to pay for it to be fixed or consider

59:51

it a total loss and write

59:53

you a check for you to go buy a new car

59:56

with. And

59:58

what especially kind of of troublesome

1:00:00

about this trend

1:00:02

is

1:00:03

some insurance companies,

1:00:05

because they've seen cars stolen two,

1:00:08

three, four times in a year period,

1:00:11

they just

1:00:14

want to write these cars off, even

1:00:16

if the damage isn't that extensive. Just

1:00:20

so that they don't keep going in the

1:00:22

cycle and their customer buys a different car.

1:00:27

What we've also seen is that sometimes

1:00:30

the repair shops, actually quite commonly,

1:00:33

the dealerships of the repair shops

1:00:35

can't get the replacement parts in a

1:00:37

timely fashion. This is because

1:00:39

they're all having their ignition

1:00:42

ripped open, they're all

1:00:44

being stolen in

1:00:47

the same way, they're all having the same rear window broken.

1:00:50

It's all the same parts that have to be replaced. It's

1:00:53

not like some people are coming in with a busted

1:00:55

transmission and other people are coming in. Side

1:00:58

panel damage is really common from

1:01:00

people scraping against walls and

1:01:03

alleys and parked cars and stuff. There's

1:01:06

a parts backlog. If

1:01:09

you have comprehensive insurance, which

1:01:11

a lot of people don't, I should say, but even

1:01:14

if you do have comprehensive insurance, it usually only

1:01:16

pays for 30 to 45 days of a rental car.

1:01:20

Then after that, you're paying out of pocket for a replacement

1:01:24

vehicle while you wait for the parts to come in

1:01:26

or you wait for the shop to be able

1:01:28

to actually do the repairs. Another

1:01:30

common thing that's happened is, let

1:01:33

me put it this way, if you're a Kia

1:01:35

boy and you're looking for Kias to steal, where

1:01:37

do you go to find some Kias? You

1:01:39

go to the Kia dealer. What

1:01:43

happens a lot is people have

1:01:45

their cars further damaged, broken

1:01:48

into, or stolen from the Kia

1:01:50

dealer while it's waiting to have

1:01:52

its parts taken. A

1:01:55

thing about dealerships

1:01:57

is they don't have

1:01:59

the best security systems I'm

1:02:02

learning. They're big, huge parking

1:02:04

lots and they might have a couple of cameras

1:02:07

on the main building. I

1:02:10

talked to multiple people, even

1:02:13

when I wasn't even looking for these anecdotes, it

1:02:15

just came up that,

1:02:18

oh yeah, and my car was stolen while it

1:02:20

was waiting at the dealer. And the dealer didn't

1:02:22

even know I got a call

1:02:25

or a letter from the... A letter from...

1:02:27

They get notified by the local

1:02:30

impound lot that if they don't come

1:02:32

pick up their car within the next week, it's going

1:02:34

to be sold off or at an auction.

1:02:36

And so then they call the dealer and it's like, hey,

1:02:39

can you check on my car? And they're like, oh, your car

1:02:41

is gone. So that's

1:02:44

another thing that owners have been dealing with from

1:02:46

time to time. Yeah,

1:02:49

it's a whole thing. I mean, it's

1:02:52

at minimum costing people a couple

1:02:55

of grand, sometimes more

1:02:57

to go through this whole thing.

1:02:59

And that's assuming they get their car back. And

1:03:01

a lot... It's not uncommon

1:03:04

to then have their car broken into and stolen

1:03:07

very soon after getting it back. Because if

1:03:10

the trend is taking off in your city, it's

1:03:14

likely that if your car looks like

1:03:17

on the street, it's going to be targeted again.

1:03:19

So yeah,

1:03:21

that's what owners are going through. That's kind

1:03:23

of like the whole rigmarole. And

1:03:28

it sounds like it's really weighing on people. And I totally

1:03:30

get why. If your car is your main

1:03:33

only source of transportation, and

1:03:35

every time you park it, you have to have anxiety

1:03:37

about whether it's still going to be there when you get back,

1:03:41

it's a real nightmare. Yeah,

1:03:43

not all of us live in the public transit paradise

1:03:45

of New York City. Can't wait to get

1:03:47

New York City's data. New York is one

1:03:49

of the city's suing. Oh, really? Yeah,

1:03:53

it's definitely a problem here. No question.

1:03:55

I mean, especially if you go to Queens

1:03:59

and South Bro... Brooklyn and stuff, like the public

1:04:01

transportation doesn't exist there. I mean,

1:04:03

it exists, it exists, but like, you know, it's

1:04:06

not extensive. It much

1:04:08

more like South Brooklyn

1:04:11

and Eastern Queens is much more reminiscent

1:04:13

of like any sprawl city

1:04:16

in the US than it is what people think of

1:04:18

with New York City. So out there, yeah, I'm

1:04:20

sure it's definitely a thing there. I know

1:04:22

New York has reported a huge surge in Kiahunde

1:04:25

thefts. So it's a

1:04:27

thing here too.

1:04:28

718 Kiahunde boys really, really

1:04:30

doing their thing.

1:04:31

Yeah. And another

1:04:33

thing I've noticed, and I haven't like totally

1:04:36

dug into the data extensively enough for

1:04:39

this, but I have noticed anecdotally

1:04:41

that like, okay, so Chicago

1:04:44

gets hit, then Chicago's numbers

1:04:46

start to decline a little bit. And then

1:04:48

that's when you notice some of the suburb

1:04:50

communities around Chicago, their numbers

1:04:52

spike. And you know, a spike in

1:04:55

Kia thefts in the suburbs is

1:04:58

still not as significant

1:05:00

in them. Like, you know, it's not as many

1:05:03

cars as like in Chicago. But what I

1:05:05

kind of hypothesized is going on is some

1:05:08

groups decide they're going to be enterprising

1:05:10

and like, you know, go into the suburbs to steal some

1:05:12

cars one night, you know, they hit

1:05:14

it for about a week. And that makes the numbers

1:05:16

spike up, you know?

1:05:18

Yes, like someone's cousin lives right outside the city,

1:05:20

let's all go over to his house and have

1:05:23

a little time.

1:05:25

Exactly, exactly.

1:05:27

So I

1:05:29

would imagine that if you are

1:05:31

Kiahunde, this is bad for business.

1:05:34

Yeah, I think so. So

1:05:37

how are they, are they going to be

1:05:39

using engine immobilizers going forward? Is there

1:05:41

anything they can do to prevent

1:05:44

the theft of the extant Kiahundes? Yeah,

1:05:46

so they've had a kind of like,

1:05:48

you know, escalating response to this as

1:05:51

the thing has gone on. Their

1:05:53

first their first move was to be like,

1:05:56

okay, we'll put engine immobilizers in all

1:05:58

of our future cars like done. You

1:06:00

got it. It

1:06:02

turns out that doesn't help with the cars already

1:06:05

on the road though. And just, I mean,

1:06:07

I probably should have said this earlier, but to put

1:06:09

a hard number on it, it's about 9 million

1:06:11

cars that don't have engine immobilizers

1:06:13

on the road. And there are some

1:06:16

like 200 some odd million cars

1:06:19

in

1:06:19

the US.

1:06:21

So not a huge overall

1:06:23

percentage, but still 9 million

1:06:25

is a large number.

1:06:28

So after that, and the trend

1:06:30

was still taking off, and Kia

1:06:33

started to get sued, they became

1:06:35

a bit more aggressive about their response. And

1:06:38

they have kind of, I would say they've offered two

1:06:41

main measures for owners

1:06:43

of existing cars that are on the road

1:06:45

and there's nothing they can do about putting

1:06:48

an immobilizer in it retroactively. The

1:06:50

first is

1:06:52

they've,

1:06:54

many of the cars are eligible for

1:06:56

a software update that

1:07:00

doesn't add an engine

1:07:03

immobilizer, but it kind

1:07:05

of mimics what an engine

1:07:07

immobilizer does through a workaround.

1:07:10

I'm not going to get into the whole technical details,

1:07:13

but like, basically if someone tries to

1:07:15

steal a car with the software

1:07:17

update in the exact same manner,

1:07:21

they can't do it, the engine won't start. So

1:07:24

it does seem to be effective for

1:07:27

cars that have the software update. Other

1:07:30

thing that they're doing is they

1:07:32

have partnered with local

1:07:35

police departments around the country to give

1:07:37

out free steering wheel locks, you

1:07:39

know, the clubs that you probably

1:07:41

remember from your childhood. I was going to ask about that. Yeah.

1:07:45

So owners of the impacted

1:07:47

vehicles, I say impacted

1:07:49

vehicles, like something happened to them. Nothing's

1:07:52

happened to them. They're exactly as they were when they were sold

1:07:54

to these people. The owners of the

1:07:56

cars that can be easily stolen can go

1:07:59

to their local police department. police departments and

1:08:02

get a club for free in theory. Now

1:08:04

I've heard from some people that like they go to

1:08:06

their local police department, their local police department is

1:08:08

like the fuck are you talking about? There's

1:08:11

also a website you can go to and also

1:08:13

like these clubs aren't that expensive. I think

1:08:15

they're like a hundred bucks or so. So like

1:08:17

a lot of people just bought their own. So

1:08:21

those are like the two things basically

1:08:23

that Kia and Hyundai are doing. With

1:08:25

the software update in particular, I

1:08:28

want to highlight kind of two things. One

1:08:31

is not all of the vehicles are

1:08:33

eligible for the software update, meaning that like

1:08:36

the software update doesn't

1:08:38

work for them. So they can't get it. I

1:08:41

think it's somewhere on the order of like 3 million

1:08:43

vehicles can't get the software update. So

1:08:46

not an insignificant number, like about

1:08:48

a third of the overall

1:08:50

pool of vehicles that can be easily sold.

1:08:55

If you own a car that can't get the software update,

1:08:57

you're basically told like here's a club and

1:08:59

good luck. And the thing about clubs

1:09:02

are, they are not

1:09:04

that huge of a deterrent. Like

1:09:07

you can saw through them pretty easily.

1:09:09

If you have an angle grinder, which

1:09:12

you can go buy a portable angle grinder

1:09:14

at Home Depot for like 40 or 50 bucks,

1:09:17

which I know because I own a bike in New

1:09:19

York and angle grinders are how you cut

1:09:22

through basically any bike lock in New York

1:09:24

in under two minutes. It's

1:09:29

usually easier to cut through the wheel crime tips

1:09:31

on cyber. Usually

1:09:34

you cut through the wheel and then kind of slip it out. Yeah,

1:09:37

so there's that too. The wheel is the

1:09:39

other cutting the wheel is the other method.

1:09:42

Basically the club is like, it's an effective

1:09:45

deterrent if you're the only car

1:09:48

in the parking lot with a club. But

1:09:51

because these cars are being specifically

1:09:53

targeted for a reason, the

1:09:56

club doesn't seem to be like that

1:09:58

great of a deterrent mechanism. because like,

1:10:00

okay, so you just cut the club and

1:10:02

then you'll do what you got to do otherwise. So

1:10:06

that's what's going on with, Kia's

1:10:09

kind of reaction to this. And then like what we

1:10:11

talked about with them just like saying, what

1:10:13

else do you expect of us? This is social

1:10:15

media's fault.

1:10:18

Can I ask a slightly broader picture

1:10:21

question that has to do with like right to repair?

1:10:24

Cause when you're talking about software update, I'm thinking

1:10:26

about like the fact that we now, car

1:10:29

owners frequently only can take their cars

1:10:31

to the dealership to be repaired

1:10:34

because it's either proprietary parts or proprietary

1:10:36

software. And okay, we

1:10:38

now know that taking your car to the dealership basically

1:10:40

makes it a sitting deck. Like

1:10:43

that seems like a lot of, you know, levels of

1:10:45

wrong.

1:10:50

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely

1:10:52

not ideal that like

1:10:55

taking your car to the dealership, gives

1:10:57

it a increased

1:11:00

risk of being stolen for sure. The

1:11:03

other thing is that while they do picture

1:11:07

decals on the cars that

1:11:09

get the software update, that say

1:11:11

something like this car has gotten in it,

1:11:13

like anti theft software installed or

1:11:16

something like that. A

1:11:19

thing about teenage boys trying

1:11:21

to steal cars is that like they

1:11:25

don't take these decals very seriously. Not

1:11:29

big sticker readers. Yeah, yeah. Especially

1:11:31

since they're on the driver's side door or

1:11:34

driver side window and like guess

1:11:37

which window they don't smash, right?

1:11:40

They're not looking at that window. And

1:11:43

also I think they don't believe the stickers

1:11:45

because you can buy the stickers on Etsy or

1:11:48

at least like mimic stickers that mimic them

1:11:50

on Etsy. So like they're gonna

1:11:52

try whether it has a sticker or not.

1:11:54

Cause it's not like if you bust

1:11:57

into the car, try to steal it and fail.

1:12:00

an alarm goes off and like you know the

1:12:02

car start flashing it makes no noise it's

1:12:05

just you can't start the car. So

1:12:07

you leave you know it's like no big deal and so

1:12:10

i say no big deal for that for the potential

1:12:12

fee it's a very big deal for the owner

1:12:15

of the car, because you come to your come

1:12:17

back to your in a positive people for whom this is happening

1:12:20

it's like they have the car stolen once they

1:12:22

get a software update. And then the car

1:12:24

gets broken into a second or third

1:12:26

time. It's not stolen

1:12:28

because i got the software update but

1:12:30

it's still not drivable you can't put

1:12:32

the key into the ignition

1:12:35

switch which has been completely

1:12:37

decimated. In the act

1:12:40

of ripping open the steering

1:12:42

wheel column. So you

1:12:45

still can't start the car you still can't drive the car

1:12:47

you still have to bring the you know get the car to do

1:12:49

a dealership get it repaired and go

1:12:51

through like all of the same motions you

1:12:54

would if the car got stolen and recovered.

1:12:56

Erin Gordon thank you so much for coming on the cyber

1:12:58

and walking us through this. Yeah

1:13:00

of course thanks as always for having me on my microphone

1:13:03

was dusty that's how long i've been it's been

1:13:05

since i was last on here so. It's

1:13:08

funny i was thinking that we need an

1:13:11

errand specific jingle. A

1:13:13

defined like a there

1:13:15

are like discrete jingle houses in the

1:13:18

midwest that i could reach out to

1:13:20

and have them construct a jingle

1:13:23

for us for when you come on. This

1:13:26

specifically about you

1:13:29

writing about the suburbs yeah

1:13:32

i was gonna say we need a we need a gault

1:13:34

and erin do america jingle. Exactly

1:13:37

i'll browse jingle punks and see what we can

1:13:39

find you know open source fish.

1:13:42

This feels like a thing i should be

1:13:44

able to do like i

1:13:46

don't like i don't

1:13:48

want more in my life but like all

1:13:50

the things i would think you should be able

1:13:53

to plug it like a couple of

1:13:55

you know some mad lib style

1:13:57

pronouns and then.

1:14:00

Nouns and verbs and then have

1:14:02

it just make you a jingle like that feels

1:14:04

like a thing.

1:14:05

I feel that we just forget

1:14:08

exactly what you're asking for it would just be

1:14:10

like a sad trombone noise. Nouns

1:14:30

and verbs and then have it just make you a jingle like

1:14:32

that feels

1:14:35

like a thing.

1:15:00

Nouns and verbs and then have

1:15:03

it just make you a jingle like that

1:15:05

feels like a jingle like a jingle. Nouns

1:15:33

and verbs and then have it just make you a jingle

1:15:35

like a jingle.

1:15:44

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