Privacy | Crafting a Private Life

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I want to just give a

little bit of context for the listener of who you are and your background. I

mean, when I read your bio, it says that you have led thousands of investigations into fraud, money laundering,

embezzlement, and trafficking networks. Um, so I would love to hear a story

if there's something that you can share um of, you know, a specific case. But I

guess before we get to that, I am curious to just hear like what got you into this world of privacy and security

and like tracking down bad guys. What really drew you to this work, Mark, if that really is your real name.

Uh, I have other aliases out there, but um that is my true name here. So, um,

thanks for not doxing me. Um, so yeah, um, you know, my my career kind of took

Um, and my whole trajectory was trending towards being a prosecutor. Um, I had

the internships for that really cool spots where I was actually in like the the rackets bureau in Brooklyn working

all these organized crime cases, human trafficking, um, kind of these, you know, big

interesting cases. And then there was one day um at the end of you know one of

my internships at the DOJ actually where um it just hit me that I didn't want to be the person to say you should go to

jail in front of a jury or anything like that. So um you know a lot of my

background um going through law school was based a lot on the investigative process and you know how to build cases

and things like that. Um once I graduated, I ended up working at a um at

a bank doing anti-moneylaundering investigations. Um so I did that for a couple years and

um you know that kind of gave me that background. Um where you know I kind of

married a little bit of what you kind of bring from law to the investigative side even though that wasn't necessarily like

a lawyerly job or anything like that. From there, um, that's just been a big

focus and, you know, it's kind of one of those things that you land in a certain place. So, from there,

you know, I did some some solo practice and then I went back in the investigative world where a previous

place I interned for, um, my CEO, who's also a great friend, was starting a

new business and he's like, "Hey, I'm trying to get the band back together. Are you interested in joining up?" So

I joined and um became the director of investigations there. Um did that for

about five years and through that process um seen thousands of of cases um

you know some are small some are bigger but you know um seeing the gamut of kind

of the complexities that come across um in that world. Um and then you know over

the the past few years I've kind of been working um you know I've been with Bespoke been doing my own law practice

as well and the focus has been a lot of high net worth individuals and a lot of

people who are in the Bitcoin world who you know the intersection of those two

really care about privacy. So, a lot of the privacy stuff that I, you know, talk about and deal with is, you know, not

only kind of helping them, but also it's backed by all the investigations that I've done knowing like, okay, here's how

you can connect the dots to find someone this way or that way. So, it's, you know, it's pretty useful. It's a

practical knowledge and now it's just a little bit more of the advanced level stuff. And you know right now both with

Bespoke and private practice and as an adviser for the security firm I I've been working with

you know that's almost like 75% of my day-to-day. What percentage of your work is focused

on preventative measures and then what percentage of your work is focused on

kind of picking up the pieces after an incident? Yeah, it's a mix. I'm less involved

with after there's an incident. um you know there's um a team dedicated to that

that can actually work to remediate who are a little bit more techsavvy even um

you know I know my way around tech but not as much as some other people so you kind of get the specialists in each area

to work on the things so most of the work I do is preventative um especially

as you know um you know uh do a lot of estate planning these days right so it's

building trust LLC structures to help kind of mask where people might live and

give privacy not only where they live but also their day-to-day business and interactions and how to live their life

in a privacy focused mindset. Okay. So maybe we can save a story

from your from your background a little bit later cuz I think there's a good segue right now to kind of talk about

the current landscape of privacy for wealth builders and kind of get into more of the specific work that you're doing um

to help protect families at Bespoke. And I mean really to position this

conversation like we I think what p what privacy and privacy protocol looks like now has probably changed so rapidly to

kind of keep up with just the tech revolution that we're that we're in and AI. And so we know that about 78% of

family office leaders are now ranking cyber as their top concern. Um and so I

do want to explore kind of like how we're staying ahead of that or approaching the realities of of privacy

in a tech world. I mean, I even wanted to just ask you like, does privacy even exist anymore? Like, aren't our phones

listening to us? Is privacy possible? Uh, privacy is possible. You know, one

of the problems is um privacy, you know, one of the the quotes I've I've heard is

privacy is a privilege and it's a job in of itself. So, you know, to the extent that you

want to be private, you can do it. And it takes a number of things, right? So, if you're starting fresh, it's the

easiest place to start a privacy focused mindset, right? Because nobody knows where you are. If you can start a new

phone number or whatever, if you want to live off the grid, go to, you know, the mountains in Wyoming and live off the

grid or something like that, we can make you a lifestyle of that. No

one will ever know where you are. Um but um the reality is most people have

complexities and they've actually set up their lives in a certain way. They have their iPhones. They might not have the

top security settings on those. Yeah. I'm like is there even a fresh start cl like is that even like are you

actually getting people coming to you who don't have accounts set up that are actually starting from a f that are

starting fresh? No. But there are some clients that do say I want to start fresh. Um they've

recently Yeah. So they've recently, you know, sold the house. Um willing to change

phone numbers, willing to, you know, change aspects of their life in every way to stay completely private. Um the

most recent one I'll I'll admit to you is probably a little too paranoid and

isn't um you know isn't at the risk factor that he thinks he is. Um but

nonetheless um you know if that's going to make them more comfortable with their day-to-day ops then you know it's

something that we provide for them. Um but you know it's one of those things that there's a balance right? Uh, can

you become completely anonymous and disappear from the world? Yes. Do you

want to? Probably not. Um, and especially why why not?

Um, I mean, you told me the other day you went to a theater or something like that. I think you probably want to still

do things like that. So, um, you know, you can make yourself a hobbit, live in

the woods, you know, fine. But for most people, especially high net worth people, you know, they They want to

enjoy the fruits of their labor. They want to go out. They want to travel. They want to,

you know, consume. They want to keep running businesses, I think, is a big part of it also cuz, you know, a lot of

our clients aren't done. They're not saying, "Okay, I have money now. I'm going to sit back and do nothing."

They're, "Okay, what's the next?" And then you have to figure out the next thing that they want to do, next

business for them. How do we backs stop it to say, "Okay, this is this is what

you can put out to the public. This is what you hide." Okay. Um, before we get into the process

of achieving anonymity or what whatever level of anonymity that is, you said

something earlier that I had been thinking about, which is that uh there is a case of a a guy who might be

leaning on the paranoid side and thinks that he needs more security or privacy than he might need. And I actually

thought to I would thought to myself that like I would 100% be paranoid leaning. So like how do you how do you

approach or come to an idea of a grounded balanced world of protection? Like how do you

manage the different sides of the of the fear or emotional side of it all that

people kind of come to you with? You know, there are some people who probably should be more more paranoid than they

are or have a little bit more, you know, awareness of the risk that they're having or care about that. And then there's probably some people who are

just like totally on the paranoid side. Yeah. Um, you know, it's it's working

with them from the beginning of letting them know that there's a balance. Um, so

that same client, you know, we're going to do a lot of the same things that we typically would do with clients.

um and just help coach them that hey, you know, um you have these things in place, be confident in them. But if you

know something might happen, if a mistake happens, if one little part of

this kind of complex web that we set up for you for anonymity breaks down, don't worry about it

because the other things are in place. And you know, at the end of the day, you know, like remember this is who you are.

you haven't done any criminal activity. Um you haven't done this, you haven't done that. Um you are not at

risk or on anyone's crosshairs. So it's, you know, kind of looking back and seeing, okay, what, you know, where was

your legitimate concern and what are your legitimate concerns and here's the

plan ahead for you. Okay. I'm going to get into more serious questions, but first I wanted to ask you

about um people changing their name. Yeah. Um I actually

have you seen that like is that some is that a measure that you've ever recommended or that somebody would go to?

So um they have I haven't seen it with any of my clients. I know it happens

often you know is really big in the domestic violence space. Um

so it it certainly meaning the perpetrators of domestic violence would change their name. Um,

probably, but also the victims because they want to disappear and they want, you know, to have a completely different

name. Oh, okay. One of the problems is when you have name changes, sometimes you could trace it to the new name if you have the right

tools to figure that out. So, it's not a foolproof thing. It probably is an okay thing in the case

of, you know, domestic violence or something like that where you're trying to hide from, you know, someone who

might have been abusing you. It's not a foolproof one, but sometimes they might not have the tools or access to them to

actually, you know, trace it. And um, you know, some might, but um, it's it's

a positive step. I think the bigger thing to do, um, which I've worked with some clients on, is creating aliases

and doing a lot of your activity under aliases. So, you might still have your official name on, you know, um maybe

your residence or, you know, this is probably something I think we were probably going to get to down the line, but you could set up different mailing

addresses and things like that and have your real name associated with a particular mailing address where they

actually even forward the mail to another location that might be a UPS box. Um, so there are things that you

could do there that at least your official name is linked to a certain location and that's, you know, that's

also a piece of disinformation that you might put out there like, you know, I'm living in Kansas City. I have my

address in Kansas City and then actually be living somewhere else and you just get your mail forwarded. And where

you're living somewhere else, you can do either, you know, living um you know uh

in a place that an LLC is renting or owns or a trust. And there are different ways where you can mask the ownership of

that. Now, you're not like masking it to avoid taxes and things like that, but it's just to obfuscate who actually

lives there. So, we do that with aliases more so in in those situations because

um again, it's a balance, right? You need to have some stuff in your real name and show who you are and um there

are forums that you know want to know who you are. Yeah. I was going to ask you about um

just how to handle real estate in the case you know because it it creates a huge data trail and so what options a

family might have if they're wanting to purchase a home and and not doing that in their own name and then what do you

do if you've already done it? Yeah. So, if you're purchasing uh a new home, um the the easy answer is you buy

it in the name of a trust that you just established. You get a third party

trustee is the best way to do it. Um and have them be kind of the world facing

name as the person who's associated with that home. One of the issues when you do it that way is sometimes when you trying

to get utilities, you know, they want to know a real person is there to back it. But, um, you

know, I've I've seen people work with utility companies to, um, you know, to

work with them on some workarounds. And sometimes, you know, if the, you know, third party trustee that you have is an

individual, maybe you get them to also put their name down on some of that. um

you're responsible for the bills and everything like that and there would be a long agreement that says you know I

indemnify you if you know um anything happens to you as you're under your

representation as the trustee of of my home trust um and you know there's

there's ways around it. So, it's a little bit of creative um planning and sometimes you have to work with some of

those service providers, but once you're there, as long as you don't associate

your name with that property, you can be good to go. Um leaks happen,

mistakes happen, all that. Um so, you can never say with certainty, but you can put yourself in a good position to

do that. And then, you know, the key to that is packages, letters, everything

goes to these other mailboxes that you can set up as more legitimate addresses.

Okay. So, these are kind of some steps that you can take. And I'm thinking that this would be for the person who might

be more public than they would then now they're realizing they kind of want to pull it back a little bit. These are some of like those steps that you can

you can take. Are there any others that come to mind for that person who is trying to kind of rein it back?

Yeah. that you haven't mentioned already. You've highlighted some throughout this conversation, but maybe there are others. Yeah, there's there's tons and it's

impossible to kind of go through all of them right now. Um, you know, one of the things is everyone has unique

circumstances. So, you'll see like, okay, they do this or that. But it also involves cyber security. So, you know,

having security networks, firewalls, when you use laptops, you know, the IP

address is always linked to your activity there. So air gapping devices is one one big thing. Um

what is it called? Like air gapping devices. So I have no I don't know what that is. Um it's um you know if you have a new

device that has never been connected to the internet and you only connect to the internet brief times on only trusted

Wi-Fi networks with firewalls, they won't be linked to

various other places that you might live or even um areas. So, you know, um with

a with a VPN, I could be in um you know, let's say Kansas City again, cuz we we

mentioned that before. I could be in Kansas City, but use a VPN that shows that I'm in Europe. So, if I'm, you

know, doing some activity and there's um some little um kind of spec breadcrumb

that ties me to certain activity, someone like, "Oh, this person lives in Kansas City." No, they wouldn't be able

to do that. They'd be like, "This guy lives in Europe." and they'd be like, "Okay, like Europe's a big span, this

country, like, you know, can we even find them there?" Probably not. Um, so just things on everyday basis that you

could do to mask your address. Um, you know, one example that I've seen is

someone will never um deliver GrubHub to their home. They'll always deliver it

maybe five, six houses down the line and they'll track and see, okay, this person's about to arrive. they'll

actually walk over to their house, be like, "Sorry, I put the wrong address in GrubHub. Um, here here's like the, you

know, proof that I ordered it." And then walk it back to their house. Um, so there's little things like that that you

could do. Um, same thing with Uber pickups or drop offs. If you're going from the airport and you get dropped

off, you might want to get dropped off a few houses away or around the corner. Um, you know, depending on what the risk

profile is. Sometimes that's a little bit, you know, a little bit much, but you know, it's definitely one of the

things that you can do if you want to take it to extremes. So, let's talk more about the the um

just with the digitalization of everything and the threats that happen from I mean, I've heard you talk to

before about like not to use a USB port in an Uber. You've talked about not

connecting to public Wi-Fi. you've talked about um you've t you know there's there's certain like can you

just talk about kind of the the very common maybe that seems like maybe more low tech

um um vulnerabilities that people need to be aware of.

Yeah. Um you know so one of the things is um try not to use Bluetooth or have

Bluetooth off when you're not actually using the Bluetooth. Um, that's one way that people can um hack into your phones

and access them. Don't ask me how exactly. I just know that it's something that can be done.

What? So, that's, you know, that's that's one thing. You know, if you're in public places, being in airplane mode as much

as possible is a good thing. Um, Faraday bags. Um, I don't know if

you know Faraday bags, but they um they're a little bag that you can carry around

and you can put devices in it. There's multiple sizes, but it blocks all um

data coming in and out of what's in the bag. So, that's a way to protect yourself if you're in a high-risk

environment or something like that. You know, again, that's something that a lot of people won't necessarily do, but the

biggest things are, you know, avoid public Wi-Fi to the extent that you can. Um, if you're plugging in to charge, um,

don't trust just any, um, any outlet because those can be hacked and, you know, you could actually be, uh,

connecting to a USB port that's exchanging data. Um, and it looks like you're charging,

but it's actually, you know, taking data as well. So, um, you know, those are a

couple of the things. Um I know a lot of um people I work with will carry on their own um Wi-Fi hotspots

um and kind of restrict what they do. And then there's also having multiple numbers and devices. So you know a lot

of people will have their bat phone where that's the phone that only the people that they trust and know have.

And then there's the phone that's more public facing that you might not have more of your um you know risky stuff. So

if you have one phone that you have um you know friends, family, your bank

accounts associated with it and things like that that's just kind of a little bit tighter.

That would be good. Um, and I say bank accounts, but um, as there are so many

leaks, you might not want that phone number associated with your, you know, more personal

secure phone because banks get hacked and info gets released. So, someone

might be able to find out, okay, this number of this JP Morgan client is

associated with this person. And you know, you don't know what information goes out there, but based on

the information, they might be able to piece together and make you a target based on some of that information.

Are these banking hacks common? Um, yeah, they are. And it's not

just banking, it's everything, right? So, utilities get hacked. Um,

everyone's information is out there because there's been so many hacks that if your information is anywhere, it's there. Um, Amazon has gotten hacked and

some customer data has been, you know, released. I can't think of the one that

was just most recently, but I think it was another billion people had their information exposed.

So, it's it's tough, but you know, if you start fresh and kind of gap your links

of personal info to accounts and, you know, it's a mix of using VIP as well.

um for video IP VIP voice is that

voice over internet protocol. So you know Google voice is one but wouldn't

necessarily recommend Google voice for some of this stuff but there's some more privacy focused ones

that yeah like I thought that Google was one of the worst when it comes to people's privacy but Google voice is an example of that.

Okay. Okay. So, so yeah, I was going to ask you like what the most common

fishing or even social you've used the term social engineering which I thought would be helpful for you to describe

because that's super common like can the what are these really really common

ones and how should somebody be thinking about protecting themselves against that? So, you know, know any any link you're

about to click, any email that you get. um make sure that you're clicking what you

intend to. So, one of the things in the AI age and this higher tech age is these

spoofing websites where you know they make you think that you're clicking the link that you've gone to every time has

one slight variation. If there's an I in the middle of the word, maybe they'll put two eyes and because you're not, you

know, it's something that you might not notice that you're actually clicking a link that isn't the official website

that you're trying to go to. And then with um AI and some of the tools they have now, every the entire experience on

that website you'd be clicking on will look exactly the way that the normal one

does, will operate the same one the same way and all that. And um I think sometimes they might even be able to

mask it where you might be going to their website and they're actually having you go into their actual account.

So, you're going to see the real info come up there, but this entire time they're stealing your password and

everything um and use it for a future day. Um, you

know, how is this link coming through? It could be through an email that looks legitimate. So, one of the things that

you'll want to do if if you think, wait, why why is this email coming from this

source? If you click on the email, you can see some metadata on it. So you

could see um you could see who's actually the true sender if it's coming from who it says it is. And sometimes,

you know, when you open it up, you'll see, you know, it'll be markyahoo.com

will be what appears right on on the mail header that arrives, but when you

click on it, it is actually like, you know, a randomly generated email and

number thing at meaning like when you actually you click on the email and then you go to the sender and you don't recognize like it's

some jumbled email. Okay. Yeah. So, that's one way. And then the

social engineering thing. Um, you know, that's that's a lot of people

playing the long game sometimes. Um, so one social engineering um kind of work I

did. I didn't do any much for the remediation of it beyond helping kind of some of the forensics and dealing with

some GDPR issues, but um it was an exchange, a crypto exchange. Um somebody

had been um had been able to get the password of one employee, a low-level

employee there. um was able to access their Slack and just sit there and watch

listen to you know watch all the communications how people spoke to each other what kind of requests are made how

is this request made and all that they sat there after we did the forensics for 3 months

sat there for 3 months then they saw okay then they saw their opening they

from that one they said okay can you please whitelist this one address for

this client that we're working on to be able to access the system.

Um, and then that was it. Then they got in, got a bunch of information. Luckily,

nothing happened to any of the funds at the exchange, but some of the PII uh

personal personally identifiable information was found um that at least it was found that they

took it. Um, so that's how a social engineering scam

works in many ways. A good example of it. So social engineering, when I hear that,

I initially think like social media, but it it it's more than that. It's it's it's penetrating somebody's life and

then understanding the nuances of it to be able to Yeah. And it starts from social media in

a lot of cases. It starts from other places. So, in this one, it was, you know, someone found out that this was an

employee at this organization and then studied all of their social media, was

able to piece together, you know, where they live, where they were from, um, you

know, all these different things to be able then to figure out what his password was. So, it starts there, but a

lot of the social engineering stuff is actually like you you don't see it because it's been kind of um it all

comes from an angle that you normally expect would work the way it does and you don't notice that people have

infiltrated your system. Okay. So, when it comes to social engineering, like what are some steps

that you can take to prevent this? I mean, I'm assuming having like very strong passwords, two-factor

authentication, like password managers, uh, education on not clicking certain

links, double-checking senders. Are there is there anything else? It's a lot of that stuff. Um, you know,

one of the things when we look at at families, especially high net worth, um, families, is, you know, making sure your

whole family and the whole team is on board with your, um,

privacy plan. Privacy plan. Exactly. Um, you know, um, low hanging

fruit are often kids. Um, yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I was like, I remember you saying that

children are often the weakest link. Can you can you talk about that? Yeah, you know, kids aren't always

thinking that people are out to get them or that they are at risk. Um, and you

know, for rightfully so. You don't necessarily want your kids to kind of grow up being totally paranoid living in

fear. Um, but there are, you know, there are things you could do like make sure their

security settings on phones are, you know, up to date. Um, maybe there's ways

to restrict how they use and access social media. So, one of the biggest things that we always tell all clients

is be careful of kind of um saying where your location is at any given time.

Don't take selfies in front of your house and say, "Oh, I love being here on

whatever street it is." Um try to try to minimize that as much as possible and

get your kids to do it also. And then, you know, if you want to promote some of those things, um, again, the the balance

is where's your life? If you're going to a conference, you want to announce that you're at that conference to kind of

build excitement for being at that conference and opening up conversations,

but you might not want to tell everybody that you're at a Bitcoin conference, for example.

Um, or if it doesn't matter in real time for you to say that you're there, a few

days later, you could say, "It was a great time being at this place and connecting with people." And just keep

those kinds of locations vague. But a big thing with kids is getting them not to tag their locations when they want to

tag things. Avoid them tagging your home and anything that might help identify

people identify two people where you live. So,

I'm just thinking about how, you know, when it comes to like children or bringing your kid to school or like

certain places, certain routes that you take. Um, like sometimes you can even go as far as like changing kind of changing

those so it's not always the same. I mean, how important is it to do that? Are you really recommending that people

like make varied routes to work or school? Depends who it is. But yes,

you know, um, a lot of the clients that we talk to aren't really at the risk

profile that they think they are. So, we wouldn't necessarily recommend that to them. But if you're the CEO of a major

company, that's a step you're going to want to take. Depending on, you know, what your

appetite is for security, you might want to have a secure driver. Take your kids to school.

That loses a little bit of the touch, right? I think there's something that parents want to drop their kids off at

school and watch them walk up to the steps and everything like that. So sometimes you don't want to take that

away from the parents but if they are high risk then you know you present it

as an option and say that this is something that we'd recommend. Um and then you know a major thing um every

client that we go through this with one of the things we encourage is setting up proper monitors. So, going back to the

case of a CEO, you set up a monitor um you know, link to their name, emails,

activity, just so if someone's talking about them online, if there's negative sentiment,

if there's anything like that, you could flag it in advance and say, you know what, um sentiment towards you has

shifted a little bit in the past month. You might want to be on a slightly higher alert, and you might want to do

X, Y, and Z to protect your family. Wow. So,

you mean like moderate monitoring what's what people are saying? Yeah. Reputation.

How do you help people think about like the others in their potentially in their inner circle? Uh whether it could

be friends, family members, or maybe people that they work with like

h how do you think about that? So, you know, we we tend to advise

clients to keep their circles tight and have, I guess, different like eccentric circles of

um concentric circles of who they allow into different parts of their life. Um,

so, you know, obviously your family is your family. There are business associates that you might not want in on

some of those things, but there are some business associates that you would want in on there. Um,

vetting them all is a great idea. So, you know, if you're

ever going to enter and this is all, you know, kind of going forward. Sometimes you could do it looking past, but by

then a lot of the damage is done and relationships are built and access has been provided. So, it's hard to curtail

that. But um you know prospectively going forward people who you allow in

you should do some level of background search one of the biggest things that we see with you know high the high net

worth crowd is household staff and service providers. Um so we encourage

doing backgrounds on those folks and it includes you know getting you know

credit scores if they're willing to give a release to get that but also just looking at their overall picture. Have

they recently gotten fired from other jobs? Are they in the middle of a divorce? Um, do they have financial

strain? There are ways to find out if they have financial strain without actually doing a credit check. You could

check bankruptcy records. Those are public. Um, so you see, are these people at risk? Do they have a reason to be an

access point for bad actors? They might not be bad actors themselves, but might they get bribed and say, "Hey, we want

to do a hit on this house. give us all the access, we'll give you 10%.

Very interesting. So, you're saying that a lot of times the motive behind this is financial strain.

Sometimes, yeah, for household staff, um, a lot of times would be because um, you know, that's one of the things

that a lot of Americans, a lot of people struggle with. You know, there's,

you know, you might be someone who doesn't have much who got invited to be a housekeeper.

um you're in a home that's worth $40 million, let's say. Um you're going to

say, you know, this isn't fair. Why does this person have so much? I'm going to go tell this other person from a

neighborhood I was once in that I knew like, hey, I have an idea. Why don't we do this? Or they can get approached and

say, you know, someone that they know might be like, hey, I know you work at this house. um just give me three pieces of

information and you know let me know when they're away. I think one of the

things that we've seen recently, which is really wild to me, is there's been a slate of robberies at athletes homes

while they're playing in games. And I just feel like, you know, once

you're an athlete on that stage, at least the ones that we've heard, they're bigger players. So, like, you

know, how do they not have a little bit better security to Yeah, I know. You know, you're at a game.

I know. I know. our team is is passionate about you know getting athletes the right support because I

mean that is a huge a huge problem also I mean a lot of these athletes are are are hitting like their career peak at

such a young age like ensuring that they have the right people around them helping them not only protect like their

financial earnings but protecting their you know their safety their home like having the right people around them to

do that proper planning is so important. Yeah. Um, and a lot of times when they're young, it's hard to convince

them, but you can. I mean, that's our job to do. So,

yeah. And how many people do you think really need to be like when we're talking about, you know, maybe an an

early athlete or or a professional athlete, sorry. Like, how many people do you think are necessary to be like on a

privacy privacy and security team? If I mean, for people with public public who are public?

Yeah. I mean, if you're public, you should have at least some level of privacy set up. And, you know, the the

degree varies, you know, taking the athlete example, um, you know, if you're

a a walk-on who might only be with the team, you know, for a short period of

time, if you're on the practice squad, you have less risk.

Um, and, you know, the more famous you are, the bigger at risk you are.

That's just the unfortunate reality. Okay. Can we talk specifically about cryptonative and Bitcoin Bitcoin heavy

folks whether it's a family or an individual? I remember reading about, you know, well, we all have like

kidnappings that have happened because somebody is has a target on their back because that it's public knowledge that

they have uh significant holdings in cryptocurrency or Bitcoin. Um, how are

we thinking about that? And how do you become as much of a go? like how do you become a ghost? Uh if in this case

Yeah. Um you know a lot of that goes back to some of that balance. Um a lot of the you know people who have made a

lot in crypto need to be loud about it and need to be active in the community

and space. How do you find that balance? A lot of it is I think disinformation.

So, some of the tough stuff that we're talking about homes and where your public address would be is is some of

that. Uh, some of that is not announcing where you'll be. So, if you're going to speak at a conference, it's a little

tough because people will know you're going to be at that conference and they promote that. Yeah.

But I think about that a lot. What do you do? I mean, is that just that's just a risk that you accept?

That's Yeah, that's a risk you accept, but you treat it accordingly. It might be having private security. It might be,

you know, announcing that you're at a particular hotel and be at a different hotel.

Um, it could be using aliases when you're traveling in those situations. So, when you actually show up to speak,

that's the first time someone realizes you are who you are. So, some of those things, um, you know,

for the less famous people, you know, if if no one knows you're

wealthy, keep it that way. as much as possible and you know that's the best client we can have because we can put

things in place that no one will ever know you're as wealthy as you are. We can add you know security protocols for

any kind of transfer. So if you do get kidnapped um there's a certain code that you would say during a call if you're

trying to authorize a transaction. You could also say look my hands are tied. I don't have any of this. it's a two of

three or three of five sort of signature um protocol that we have um and that

might be able to help or they might say no like initiate it and get it done and then you can have a certain certain code

that you can have there. I have a question about this actually because I think that you know um

more intelligent custody measures have been brought forward. I think you know we've seen a ton of development in that

space especially from the genesis of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency like do you think that there is less of an incentive

now for bad actors when it comes to Bitcoin and crypto because there are more custody solutions like it is

becoming more common to not have like a single point of failure when it comes to holding your Bitcoin.

It's harder for bad actors to be successful now because people are understanding and becoming more intelligent in in protecting their

digital asset. Yes and no. Um, yes, because of that a

little bit. And I would say no because two reasons. One is a lot of Bitcoiners

are not my keys, not my not my coins. So, they're not going to set that up. They want to be the only key holder.

And, you know, that's their prerogative, but that's, you know, still in existence. And a lot of people, you

know, a lot of people still espouse that as much as possible. So, if you're one of those Bitcoiners who say that, then

when you say, "Look, I don't have control." They'd be like, "This is what you say on a daily basis. What are you

talking about?" Um, and the other reason I say no is, you know, um, they're not,

these kidnappings haven't been so common. They or maybe they are and you just don't see all of them. I know hacks

are common, so there are way more hacks than you would think that say semi- Bitcoin. The kidnappings, um, you only

see when they're reported. So, there might be some kidnappings that maybe haven't been reported yet.

Probably not. But even a few months ago, there was a kidnapping that was famous. So, the reason I say no, it hasn't

thwarted them is because it has still happened. And I haven't been able to read it yet, but there was an article in

the New York Times today exactly on this and what you might be able to do if

um you get kidnapped. Um at least that's what the headline made it sound like. I have it open on my browser. Read it

later. Send it to me. I will. Um but that's one of those, you know, that's one of those things. Um and

then really situational awareness. So, what you look like um if you're loud

about being wealthy or a Bitcoiner or anything like that, you might want to

have private security or you might want to do a lot of the disinformation so people don't know where you are when.

Can you talk a little bit more specifically about this case of because and and look, maybe it's just my

perspective that I feel like the the industry and landscape is shifting a bit where people are kind of having a more expanded view on uh not your keys, not

your coins. uh and maybe maybe that's just because of the work that we're doing that I have that sense or that

perception but um for that person who is ready to kind of take a step forward

or expand their view of like what sovereignty is and like maybe I do need to have some protective measures and maybe I do care about privacy and maybe

I am worried about kidnapping like can you talk a little bit about expanding their view on not your keys not your coins so that they can have some privacy

benefits? Yeah. So, um, you know, there's a mix of ways. It's effectively

communicating all the benefits you get from estate planning and say, "Look, all of this is worth it." depending on their

level of wealth and what they have. Um, a starter might be, okay, why don't you

just take a little bit and put it in this protected structure, see how it works, see all the benefits you might

get, and then we can talk about doing more and more if it makes sense. Um,

you know, if someone has significant holdings, absolutely they should keep some in cold storage. Um, but have, you

know, have something put away in a in a safer safer thing where you can, you

know, if you do get kidnapped, you can even use that as a plausible thing and say, "Hey, look, I have this app for my

custodian. This shows you that I can't I don't have full control."

Maybe they'll be maybe they'll believe you that you put all of it in there. Maybe they won't. But it's, you know,

one of the things that can help. But yeah, the benefits I think the benefits far outweigh

um the cons of giving up some of your keys, just the access to the things that make life easier. You know, Bitcoin is

great, but sometimes it's not the easiest thing to transact with. So, if you have the intermediary, if you have

the rails to go directly into the banking system, that's great. One of the

things that um doesn't get talked about often is, you know, what if you do pass away and it's all cold storage Bitcoin?

Even if you left the breadcrumbs for your heirs to receive it, how are they going to use it? Um, banks will look at

that and be like, "We don't know where this came from. We don't have, you know, we don't have that trail. We can't take

your Bitcoin money." That might be an issue. So creating that

story in your estate plan and showing the proof and evidence and the trail and starting that relationship with

potential custodians that could help your heirs is also a valuable piece of it.

So just to kind of pull it all together like your work is an integration of

legal structures, asset protection, digital hygiene, travel protocols and reputation management. And that is all

kind of like the pieces of this privacy planning and system. Yeah. Um it all goes together. Um and

it's you know one of the things I enjoy is kind of um having an imprint on each piece of that. Um so you feel like

you're getting the holistic um you know the holistic solution that

kind of can keep you safe but nothing is 100% foolproof. Yeah. you've said before that if there's

a will, there's a way. And so I think I guess part of it is just there's also like an acceptance that has to come to

it as well is like okay, I've done these things. I've I've implemented smart, you

know, privacy planning and then like you have to kind of like leave it up to the greater forces of nature.

Yeah. And you have to be proactive about it. You have to, you know, you keep seeing it. So there's,

you know, there's different protocols that work today that didn't 5 years ago, and there's ones that will work in 5

years that don't today. Um, AI is changing a lot of that stuff. And, you know, we referenced how that's helping

mimic websites a lot better and can dupe you and things like that, but there's also, you know, the, you know, the

voices and images and things like that, you know, you can't really tell apart. Um, one thing I saw this past

week is the number one country song in the country is AI generated,

fully AI generated. And I I played it to a couple people who like crypto uh who

like country the other day and I was like, "What do you think of the song?" They're like, "I like it. I like it." I didn't tell them it was AI

until there was maybe 30 seconds left. I'm like, you know, I was just AI and they were like, I don't like it

anymore. Oh my god. So, it's it's just going to get better

and better. Um, and then, you know, I don't know how much time we have left, but one of the parting shots is go back

to the basics. So, sometimes flip phones help, right? If if you want to

communicate and all that and you know, you see that trend with Gen Z happening that it's actually kind of encouraging

because that is a more secure way to do things. Um, but continuously monitor

what your presence is. So the monitoring that we talk about gives you a good picture of what information is out there

on you. So once you have the baseline um set, it takes a little while to tweak it

and make sure that you're capturing everything, but once you're there, you still have to tweak it, you know, every

here and there and, you know, kind of think like, okay, I just bought this other place. Um I want to make sure that

that doesn't ever get associated with me. So you, you know, you fidget around the search terms and and the program

that you have to make sure that it's constantly up to date with what your real risk profile is.

It's a lot of work. Yeah. I'm like, you know, I'm just thinking about how all this is a privilege, you know.

Yeah, absolutely. So, we've focused I I want to kind of in the last minutes of

this um talk a bit about what happens after you know private it's privacy or

or tech or whatever whatever it is has been compromised when something's been breached like what happens next I know

you said you focus more on the preventive me measures but I think you do have you know you you have a team or you have at least an understanding on

what happens after can you kind of talk about that piece yeah so you know at the very basic level

um you know there are things that are you know you do PII removal so remove certain pieces of information from there

depending on what get compromised you have to take a different approach to

how you remediate it you know if it's your your devices and all that you need

to get all new devices and set them up again if it's your home that got doxed

in a place that you can't remove it you know if it's the dark web or you know certain places that's a little bit more

difficult. You have to come up with a Bespoke solution. Um disinformation is a

big big thing. Sometimes you own it. Um so like if you own a a side home that

gets doxed as yours, you can own it and just make it that you're going to be

turning it into an Airbnb or renting it out actively. So to the public, it's not

your home anymore. It's just an investment piece. Um sometimes it would be just selling that place and starting

fresh again. So it depends on what the situation is

and if there's a real risk to your health. Um you know, bring in security,

change protocols. There's a number of things you do, but just depends on what the the situation is and some of it is

the whole cyber thing. So, you want to nip that as quick as possible. So, if you get hacked or

intrusion or if someone's been living on your on your devices, you need to end that immediately. Uh do do a scan. Um

get those viruses off. And the biggest work is finding out what they actually

might have. And there's ways that you can kind of funnel through the the logs of the computers to see what information

was accessed. And then you need to remediate. You might have to tell some people. You might have to, you know, you

might have to change accounts. U there's a number of things that you need to do and, you know, it's it's work, but

unfortunate part of what we do. I imagine that this type of work if it

hasn't been done yet for a family or an individual can be like something that you really just want to avoid or pretend

or like kind of ignore because you know even to like even to you know right when

you do these searches like you're going to find you you you learn kind of like what the weak spots are and I imagine

that could be very stressful. Yeah. Yeah. It's stressful. Um but

you know it's life is stressful right? Yeah and I guess like at least for me

sometimes you can I know that when I feel paralyzed by something the like only thing that helps is actually just taking an action even if it's just like

one small step like you know acting kind of helps. Um okay so what are the

most common questions or fears that you hear from clients and prospects like

right now? Um, and maybe they're not clients or prospects, maybe it's just like within the com within the world of privacy, you know, what are what are the

most common questions and concerns? Um, a lot of them come from, you know,

from the high net worth group, especially the crypto ones, um, about

becoming the ghost. That's the number one request that we get. How do I become a ghost? So, it's a

lot of the conversations that we've been having now. Um

and it's yeah just kind of worried that their home would get exposed.

Um thankfully also a lot of our clients are very quiet

about what they are and you know what they have and that's a privilege to work

with them because it's more you know preventative of like we don't want anyone knowing this. what are the steps

we take to make sure some of it is doing charitable contributions that they don't want tied to their own name. So, you

know, what's the solution for that? There are a couple ways to do it and you have, you know, kind of third parties

that you can trust to kind of be the face of those transactions and um you know, just figuring out what

what they need. How do you I'm even thinking now like how do you even trust somebody like why

would I trust you? Look at me.

But like how does somebody how does somebody who feels that they are in such a vulnerable position like what are the

kind of initial questions that they can help them vet and that you know that

they can kind of take as they're interviewing or kind of starting to talk to people. What are like those

questions that can help them feel like they you know can move towards a place of trust?

Um, a a lot of it is is based on relationships, how they make you feel,

but a lot of it is, you know, um, seeing what their track record is.

Um, I think that's the biggest thing when you can talk about stories of this is what we did for this client or that

client without giving names or actual details that would be able to to track

them. But just knowing what you're doing and sounding like you can help them goes

a long way. Um, but trust is built over time. I know I've, you know, um, I've

dealt with a lot of people. It took two years of conversations to actually get them to a place to actually work with

each other. And that's how it goes. A lot of it is reputation. 95%

of clients I ever have are referrals from trusted people. So, that helps a

whole lot. Um, most people, you know, say, "Hey, this is someone I trust. You

should go to them." And those people are their trusted people, which is a nice place to sit.

I was going to say, I guess a green flag would be that some that the person you're speaking to isn't rushing you.

Like, it sounds like, you know, in your approach, you're incredibly patient. If it takes two years for somebody to feel

comfortable moving the needle, like, then it takes two years. I was going to ask too, you know, you mentioned how social engineering like cuz in my mind

I'm like now the time frame, right? Like people are investing time into achieving something. Somebody's going into a

company and learning the nuances of their language and spending 3 months or like even getting hired to execute a

mission. And I was going to ask you like can you talk about kind of time like how much time is an okay time for

vetting and um in this case? That's a hard one to answer that as long as it

takes for the person to feel comfortable is a quick answer. Sometimes you're

thrust into acting when you don't have the time to actually get to that point. And that's one thing. You know, I think

the way I kind of talk to clients about this kind of stuff is um you know, do

your research. um talk to other companies and competitors

and you know make sure you're comfortable with me or us over them. I

you know if you find someone else that you want to work with go ahead please um I want you to be happy with what you

have. That conversation helps to certain extent and you know a lot of times

they'll go out there. And I know there's a lot of security companies that do the same stuff that we did at Polaris.

And I look at them and they're like, you know, they'll be like, "Oh, this guy has XCIA or X this or X that." And

like that's impressive. And you look at it and like we have the same. Everyone has the same. Every every company

reporting to do the same thing has the same except for the ones that might be fraud or or lying. So, you have to do

extra vetting on some of those kinds of providers. Um,

but yeah, um, I've I've even in some instances told clients to go to a

competitor because maybe there was just, you know, either a bandwidth thing or

just they needed someone to act immediately. And I a lot of times don't want to act immediately on some of these

situations. You know, when you're talking about privacy, there's a long intake. So if you're if you're the

person who's demanding I want to be a race tomorrow, um we might not be the right fit because

we need to take our time, make the right choices, put the right things in place rather than, you know, doing something

like half-hazardly that doesn't actually work. Not only work immediately, it

might work immediately, but back to the lifestyle issue and it's a trade-off. You know, you you know, we might put

something in place that you're just not going to follow because it's too onerous. So, let's really, you know, understand what your day-to-day is, you

know, what do your kids go to school? How do they go to school? Um, who are

their friends? What do they know about your personal wealth? What do they know about what you do? What do they know

about some of your business dealings and things like that? And you you need to know that kind of stuff to really help

someone, especially if they're interested in solutions for the long term. and create a totally tailored plan

because everyone's circumstances are different and meeting those specific needs. Exactly. And you know, there's some

clients that do some stuff I'm like, I wouldn't do that and like it's not worth it. Like that's you're not getting much benefit from it and you're

just making your life a little harder. One what's one story real quick I wanted to kind of talk about you're talking

about social engineering and how long some of this can take. Um there's there's one case it was um a tech

company that hired engineers um in the COVID world um remote

engineers. They thought that they were in Texas, but actually they were in North Korea.

And you know, these two people worked diligently, um, attended all the

meetings, had good English accents, got their work done, were actually

productive for the company, and helped the bottom line. They waited, waited, waited, and then at

one point pulled the plug. Um so it's you know um one parting thing

on that is to again to reiterate to continually look at what plan you have

and where you are. So um cyber security is a big part of that. You you know if

you have your own servers you're going to want to do some pen testing. um you're going to want to just have, you

know, annual reviews, face to face sort of things with employees and um just

constantly be vigilant, but not too vigilant that it really puts a damper on your life is how I would put it.

How can we end this episode on on a

not a low low note? I mean, that sounds like really worst case scenario. Yeah. Well, on on the high point, you

know, most people are okay. kind of going back to what we started with. If you have no reason to be in in someone's

crosshairs, then you're safe. If you have reasons to be in either you did

something bad or you did something great. If you did the great thing to get

yourself in that public view, take that as a a privilege and an honor and, you

know, you can, you know, still benefit from it and, you know, kind of live your

life the way you need and, you know, kind of do the same stuff that you want to do. Whether it's, you know, providing

to charities, whether it's taking care of your family, whether it's espousing good morals and ideals throughout

society, you could still do that. Um, just a little couple tweaks in your lifestyle

will go a long way. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, Mark, thank you so much for answering all of my

questions. I know we kind of bopped around and thank you. We can go on for days about all this stuff, but I appreciate you

doing this.