Ep. 1251: Where we find the cypher in the sound

-All right. Wednesday, April 17th, 2013. This is the 404 show. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Ariel Nunez. -Welcome to the program everybody. Thank you very much for tuning in to our wonderful program-- -Uh-huh. -that we deliver each and everyday just for you. -Yeah. -Just for you. -Ooh, I'm excited about what we're gonna be talking about today. -Very interesting things. -Uh-huh. -Absolutely. -Very serious topics today, so-- at least for the first half of the show. -Yeah. -We're gonna talk a little bit about the media coverage that's going on right now in Boston and the way that the internet is reacting to it, right. So, you wanted to mention something about some of the photos that you saw in the coverage itself, right Jeff? -I just think-- And like, yes, before we go-- Yes, we are talking about this event. This is what's happening, but I think, you know-- I think the most interesting thing that I've seen since Monday since it all started happening. -Uh-huh. -And maybe it's more like a social examination of where we're going as a culture. -Uh-huh. -I think the news outlets, the ones on the internet, the ones on television, the ones that, you know, we sort of go to as like this knee jerk reaction,-- -Uh-huh. -I think they're getting more aggressive and really not censoring themselves to the point where it's sort of just like you're on the internet and you're just rummaging through photos and you come across things that aren't really safe for work or-- -Okay. -very graphic. -Are you talking about like the grisly-- -Yeah, you know-- -horrible images that came out that were published. -And I just wanna take a step back and like I'll try to understand like when did it happen-- when did it start happening where it was like, okay, the news is just gonna show whatever. -Uh-huh. -You know what I mean? -Yeah. -I don't-- -I think-- I think the problem is that there just wasn't a lot of news coverage that came out. I think the only video that was being shown on Monday evening was the stuff from the Boston Globe and that clip just kept running-- -Right. -over and over-- -Over and over. -at least in PIX 11, which-- -Yeah. -was the network that I was watching it on. -I think, you know, it's just-- At some point, there was like a line that was crossed where it's like we're just gonna show this. -Uh-huh. -It's awful and a lot of people will get upset seeing it. -Right. -And I really think it's like the internet that's turned us into that sort of culture where it's like there's no censor on anything anymore-- -Uh-huh. -because-- and I don't wanna turn it into like a business sort of thing, but the news outlets are competing with Twitter now. -Right. Uh-huh. -And there's no filter on Twitter. And there's nothing, you know-- It's basically just like this is all out in the open for everyone to see right away. -Right. -But if you want-- Like right after this terrible thing happened, you could see the gory, disgusting things in the world-- -Uh-huh. -right away and no one was really-- I'm not saying it's like something that should have been censored-- -Right. -because I do believe ultimately everyone has the right to see whatever they do want, but I do think it is the responsibility of certain news outlets to sort of curate that-- -I-- -and present it in a way that is logical and most importantly respectful-- -Right. -of the people, you know, who are-- who are victimized. -I think like the nature of the story is obviously brutal and the interviews with everybody and some of the aerial video shots showed the terror of it all. -Uh-huh. -But showing the grisly images online 'cause none of that stuff was on TV, thank god-- -But-- -But showing online-- -it was graphic on TV. -Do you think that was crucial to the story? -No. -Did it communicate more? I think that's really what these photo editors should be asking themselves, is whether or not it enriches the story and communicates the feeling of it more so than not showing it. If it doesn't, then you don't need to publicize it. And you can censor it or you can-- or you can just not show that photo at all. -I think we just have-- I think we being the bystanders-- -Uh-huh. -have a tough time putting it into words and dealing with it because it's just out there and there's nothing we can really do about it. -Right. -And we can just sort of like be these onlookers and comment because we have this little soapbox. -Yeah. -I think, you know, people have been taking photos of awful things since photography was invented, right? -Uh-huh. -Wars, whatever it is. So, I-- But, you know-- And it's always been-- It hasn't always been as successful as it is now. -Right. -I dunno. I just-- Like some of the photos that I've been that are posted on reputable websites-- -Uh-huh. -that all they have is like a little blurry thing and then when you hover over it, it shows you gore. -Right. -To me, it's just like-- -That's not a choice. -I don't-- I don't know. -The one that obviously comes to mind is Jeff Bauman, Jr. who's in that wheelchair and he's being wheeled off by 2 people and the thing with that is I feel like there's a privacy issue here as well because Jeff-- -Yeah. -I'm not sure-- almost positively didn't give his consent for his-- that photo of his own personal destruction to be put out all over the internet for basically anyone that wants to see it. Now, he's kinda become the visual figurehead for this disaster and he's an unwilling participant. There seems to be a privacy issue there-- -Yeah, for sure. -for himself. That's why I feel like on Monday night-- I just started listening to the radio 'cause I didn't wanna keep seeing that same video clip-- -Uh-huh. -live over and over again. I feel like also like just seeing all these images over and over it just desensitizes a lot of people to the point where it's normal to see this stuff, you know. -Right. -And then you don't get the full impact of like how devastating it really was. -It's like that freaking show on HBO now, the VICE Show. -Uh-huh. -That's what that show is. -What do you mean? -That show, VICE, has a show on HBO now. -Yeah, I know that. -Like a very hardcore documentary. -Right. -They show shit like this. -Okay. -They're showing this stuff. -Yeah. But they're talking-- -And I just-- And I understand it's for mature audiences. -Uh-huh. -I just-- I just don't know. I struggle with it because, you know, movie violence, entertainment violence, like that's one thing, that's fine. And we've all sort of become comfortable with that. -It's fake. -Yeah. -It's fake. -Harder to tell though now. -This stuff, I don't know. It's disturbing. -Yeah. -And I just, you know-- And I wanted to bring up the conversation of like what-- you know, what's okay, what's not okay. This-- Events like this change the world. -Yeah. -And they don't only change, you know, the politics and what we deal with with security and stuff like that,-- -Uh-huh. -but they change us on a social and cultural level too. -Don't you think that there's an ethical dilemma on behalf some of the photographers taking these photos too? I don't know if that story has been reported yet, but it's a lot like what you were saying during the hurricane, that you saw people are just taking pictures of the destruction after Sandy and not helping people out. You know, if you're at Ground Zero when this bomb exploded, maybe you should put down the camera and help somebody. -Yeah. -I don't wanna point fingers, but that was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw these pictures come out. It's like, why are these people pressing buttons? -Yeah. -You know what I mean? Like they should be running towards the disaster if they're in the middle of it. -Yeah. We brought that up again after Sandy and I dunno. It's-- I dunno. -Yeah. -I think you can-- the door swings both ways with that. I think people can say I'm not trained. I don't wanna make the situation worse. -I know those people. -Yeah. I don't know. I'm not-- -I know you're not defending them. -I'm not-- I'm not, you know-- I'm not trying to make excuses for anyone. It's just it's difficult. I think, you know-- And there's nothing positive to take away from this event. It's terrible and it just sucks that we live in a world like this. It does. But I think what we are learning right now and what we have been learning since social media has become such a pervasive element-- -Uh-huh. -of communication in our society is that there is so much misinformation out there. -Yup. -And I think this event specifically will lead to the sort of unraveling or the calling out of these "journalists" and institutions that either made stuff up completely, reposted-- And I don't even wanna repost some of the information. I just wanna talk about things that were said that were just completely inaccurate. -Right. -It's worlds away from the truth. -Uh-huh. -And hopefully, if there's anything to take away from events like these, it's to just not trust certain outlets anymore. I just think like it's so crazy-- -Right. -to have the misinformation spread-- -Uh-huh. -and then like a wildfire, like a freaking wildfire-- -But it wasn't intentional though. The problem is really-- -It doesn't matter-- -major news outlets were lying on-- -I know it's intentional. -unnamed sources. -Right. -Right? And not verifying their facts before putting it on something like Twitter that everyone can read right away. Like, I was following Reuters the entire time and AP around 4 o'clock when it happened and there was so much stuff that seems like fact when you read it online because you see the AP logo next to it. -Right. -But really, they just go it from someone-- -But that's-- -that was in the area at that time. There's no confirmation. Unnamed sources isn't a source. -Right. And it's not just that. I mean, that's always been the case. I think it really just makes everyone need to rethink the way they report news. -See-- -Like Twitter is great. -Yeah. -Right. -Uh-huh. -Twitter is great and the power of Twitter is undeniable. -Uh-huh. -But I think it's sort of like, you know, events like this really show you how volatile and how dangerous it can be. I think it's also the responsibility on behalf of the news consumer to sort of take it with a grain of salt especially when it's coming out 10, 15 minutes after the event has happened. -Right. -You know, even if it's coming from someone like New York Times or AP. You know, not-- We're never gonna know all the details and that yearning for fact in a time of confusion like that can make you believe anything. -Right. -It's important for everyone to keep in mind that no one-- no one has all the facts right away. We should-- We should give it a little bit of time. But on the other side of it is all the citizen journalism that's been coming out and you talk about social media. And I wanted to bring up how citizens are sort of getting a vigilante mindset and using crowd source information like photos and facts-- -Right. -to sort of stitch together a story that might not be founded untrue and that's one of the scariest parts I think is happening right now. -Well, it's-- Look, I mean, it's-- you can do whatever you-- You'll have the information. You can do whatever you want. Everyone wants to be batman. I get it. -Right. -All right? But it is very interesting to see where things go, but it does sort of lead to this ridiculous conspiracy theory sort of, you know, birthing that happens when you give someone who has a disposable amount of time to just-- -Right. -mess around the internet and create a convincing theory. You know, look, there's one to find. You wanna do that. You're well within your right. Enjoy your batmaning-- -Uh-huh. -as [unk] puts it in the-- in the chat room. But, you know, let's leave these things, the final word-- -Yeah. -at least to institutions like the FBI-- -Yeah. -and the CIA. And what we're talking about right now is soon after the bombs went off in Boston, the FBI was calling for as many photos as could be submitted by the public to sort of get a better idea of what was happening in the area at that time. And, you know, obviously a lot of those photos made their way on to the internet. 4chan's /b/ image board ended up pooling all of those images into one big collection, right, and they were, on their forums, were also dissecting the images to find out who could possibly be fingered as a suspect in sort of a Where's Waldo witch hunt type of thing where they were taking the photos and overlaying them with annotations and notes that "oh, this guy looks like a suspect because he's wearing a black backpack that looks similar to the one that was found carrying the bombs." -Now, I think-- Just to interject real quick. When the FBI yesterday released a bunch of photos-- -Uh-huh. -of the-- of what they believe to be the bag or bags containing the explosives. -Right. -That then created this domino effect of these conspiracy theories because people have access to these very high resolution photos-- -Right. -covering the crowds of the scene before when the bombs exploded. -Before and after. -Right. So then you have these like, you know, jigsaw puzzle pieces-- -Uh-huh. -and all of these ideas, and left, and right, and ups, and downs, and different perspectives, and different angles, and different points of reference. -Right. -It's just crazy. -So, what-- So, this is basically-- You know, it-- it's visual anti-justice and it's accusing regular citizens of terrorism. 4chan even went so far to organize a Google Doc as well that you can access online right now. And that Google Doc shows every accuser that they suspect, right. They even named them like backpack guy. There's a guy in a blue sweatshirt that they think might have done it. But these are based on very loose facts like, for example, one guy looks like he's carrying something heavy in a backpack, right. Another accuser looks like he's riffling through a backpack down on his knees for the majority of-- -It's just-- -of the time window-- -Right. -where people have their photo stamped. And stuff like that is so vague that it could be anything. -Right. It's a-- -It should be someone that's lost and maybe their looking off into the crowd doesn't necessarily mean-- -Right, of course. -they're suspecting of-- -Right. -planting a bomb. -So, it's just-- it's just-- I don't know if it's upsetting or I don't know if it's just-- I don't know what it is. -Yeah. -But this is happening and we just wanted to like not make-- you know, not draw too much attention to it, but-- -Uh-huh. -people should know like this thing-- this is what's happening as a result of the accessed information-- -Right. -and the access to this sort of technology. -What is interesting though is the sort of technology that would-- I would assume or it is safe to assume that these institutions are applying to this specific event. Because of the amount of photographs that were taken before and after, there is this sort of technology that I would hope is available to these professionals who are trying to get to the bottom of this-- -Uh-huh. -when you talk about, you know, the meshing of these photos. What is that technology called, the-- that they're-- that they're-- -It's basically photo-- it's Photo Sense. -Right. -So, Photo Sense is an app created by Microsoft and Reddit. There's actually an entire subreddit called findbostonbombers.redditt.com, right. And that subreddit is trying to use Photo Sense to basically take all the images that are uploaded on to the internet of the disaster site and put those into a giant panoramic shot to sort of see and get a better feel for a 360-degree view of the disaster site before and after 'cause there are so many photos. -I mean, not to make light of it, but if you're having trouble understanding what that means,-- -Uh-huh. -it's kind of like what they do at the end of the second Batman movie-- -But-- -whether you-- -the photo is not sound. -Not sonar, right? -Yeah. -So, they're basically trying to stitch the collective photographic consciousness-- -Uh-huh. -of that universe that happened in that, you know-- whatever, you know, square footage area that was-- -Right. -and piece it back together in a way that is almost interactive. -Uh-huh. Yeah, they did that with Obama's inauguration and there were-- -Right. -613 photos that were uploaded to Reddit that they use to then stitch together into a panoramic shot and that wasn't for educational purposes. That was just because it is kind of just a cool way to show how many people were at the inauguration. But now, they're using that to sort of do the same thing as 4chan to maybe finger a suspect. -Yeah. Obviously, you know, could they get it right? Of course, yeah. They could get it right. -Uh-huh. -Are the odds in their favor? -I would say no because they're not professional. They're just, you know, jerking around on the internet-- -Yeah. -it would seem. But look, I guess we can leave it at that. -Really quick though. I mean, I wanted to tell a quick history lesson that I think will put it all into perspective. -Okay. -And I wanted to talk about the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. -Right. -And right before that bomb went off, there was a man named Richard Jewell who was working as a security officer there. He discovered the backpack bomb about 13 minutes before the bomb went off and he helped evacuate 100 people from the site before it went off. When it did, it still killed 100 people. But initially, he was-- he was lauded as a hero. -That killed 100 people. -It killed 100 people and people said that he was a hero for saving lives, you know, that would have been lost if they were around the bomb at that time. Soon after though, the media started painting as an FBI suspect when they found out that he was investigated. The FBI was treating him as a possible suspect. They labeled him as a person of interest. Then after that in the weeks following, the media basically painted this guy as a failed cop that might have planted the bomb himself so that he could be a hero, right. So, they were accusing him of all these things and he basically became a pariah in the media after this was all found out. Come to find out after that though that he was eventually exonerated when the guy who planted the bomb himself admitted to it, right. And so, after that, he filed a bunch of lawsuits for libel because he was demonized by the media. He couldn't go outside of his house without getting fingers pointed at him, obscenities shouted in his face, things like that. So, before we start painting a picture of someone that may not exist in these photos, I think we should look back and see the damage that we could be doing to private individuals. -Uh-huh. That's a lot of irresponsibility on the media outlets. -Yeah. -Like I don't know-- Like I think it's-- with news, it's always like a ratings game, you know. When people wanna know-- wanna know the suspects and who gets that news first, you know, I think what ends up happening is a lot of people report false information. -Right. -You know? -Yeah. Definitely. -It's dangerous. Yeah. I just want you to correct ourselves. That bomb only killed 1 person. -I'm sorry. It injured 100 people. -Yeah, injured 100 people. -1 person. -2 people died. One was from actually an indirect heart attack. -Could have killed a lot more people-- -Of course. -if this guy, Richard Jewell-- -In a sense. So, that guy is a hero, but some people might remember him as a possible suspect for bombing. -Right. If they didn't follow the entire-- -They didn't follow it the whole time, which people don't usually do. -No. But you bring up a good point how, you know, our perception-- And now like, you know, it used to just be like this one-way street where you have like a newspaper or the nightly news and that was really it. And now, it's just coming from all these different directions. -Yeah. -It's gonna be the end of us, man. -Yeah. -It's just gonna be the end of us. I wanna take a break so we can sort of switch out of this mode. I thought this was important, right. We all agree that this was something we should discuss-- -Yeah. -respectfully as it were and more right after this break. We will be right back. All right. Welcome back to the 404 Show. Thank you for sticking with us all these years. -People's hearts are in the right place, you know, and I think that should be the end message before we move on to different stories. -Yeah. -When people's hearts are in the right place, they're struggling to find a way to help and this is the way they can do it by using their nerdom to kinda-- You know, they're doing the right thing, but-- -Uh-huh. -not the right way. -All right. You could have said that before the break. -No. I don't know. I mean I just wanted to end on like a slightly positive note. -That's what the break-- to transition out of that. You're like, oh, one more thing. -Sorry. -All right. Let's get into some of the stories of the day that-- We've got-- We've got-- There's a lot of stuff going on. There's a lot of hidden messages possibly in your Facebook. -Yeah. -There's really no hidden messages in my Facebook. -You don't know that. -It just paints a very black and white picture, mostly pale picture, you know. -Yeah. -I'm just a kid who just never got to do anything he wanted. -No. -No. I'm kidding. I'm joking around. So, Secretbook is something that lets you encode hidden messages-- -Uh-huh. -in your friend's Facebook pics, right. -Yeah. -Where were your Facebook pictures? I'm kinda glad that we saved the story for today because it kinda falls in line with our whole cryptography theme that we're going with today. -Yeah. -But Secretbook is a Chrome extension that you can download right now. It was built by a 21-year-old genius. He's an Oxford Computer Science student and a former Google intern. Secretbook basically lets you share hidden messages within JPEG pictures that you can upload to Facebook. -I think now-- How does this work? -So basically, it's a-- it's an extension. You plug in whatever message you want and then the algorithm will-- the Secretbook algorithm will take that and embed it within whatever photo you want and then you can then send that photo to someone if they know there's a secret in it and they can decode it using the extension. -How is the text embedded in a JPEG? -So, this is-- this has been done in the past, but the way Secretbook works is that they basically change 1 pixel in an image to a secret message and then multiply that over like several images and then the algorithm will stitch those images together and the messages beneath them to create the entire secret. Does that make sense? -Sort of. The best way that I'm-- the way my brain is like telling me that it's a thing is like the way they send closed caption signals through television waves the way they send-- the way they send, you know, song information-- -Uh-huh. -over radio waves. -Yeah. -It's sort of like hidden through the frequency. -They're basically hiding images in binary code and then the algorithm decodes the binary and gives you-- -It's really not that big of a deal. -No, it's awesome. I think it's really cool. -I mean, it's awesome, but to anyone that just doesn't care,-- -No. -they'll just see a photo. -Well, it's more of a proof of concept. People can-- -And how-- And how do you even know if the photo has it in there? -You don't. That's the point. -I understand, but like how would you know which photos to check for the code? -If someone gives you the right information because-- -Okay. -But Facebook kind of is the perfect outlet for it because no one's gonna search billions of images. -Right. -Right? Like I don't know. If you're trying to hide something from the FBI, it doesn't know where they can access all of Facebook's servers to riffle through all those pictures-- -Maybe. -to find a code. -I don't know. -It's kinda smart. I'm interested to see how people are gonna use it. It only works for Chrome, but in this Wired article, they interviewed Campbell-Moore who is the student that created it. And he talks about how difficult it was because Facebook, you know, they compress pictures-- -Right. -which then changes the metadata for it. -Yeah. -So, he had to kind of modify the algorithm to analyze compressed images too. It's really cool. -That's wacky. I mean, think about all the thousands and thousands of pixels-- -Uh-huh. -in 1 photo. -Yeah. -In just 1 photo. -Yeah. -And you-- And-- it's nuts. -I don't know. -Did you guys ever do this when you were young? I mean, what are the analogue versions of this? Like you would hide messages and notes or like word searches and stuff. -Oh yeah, there were-- there were like all these word games you can play. I remember, you know, you would have like different letters meaning other letters,-- -Uh-huh. -you know. There was a lot of games you would play with people. You know, we're-- like there were like auditory or gesture based that would like-- Never played that game. It makes me think that game snaps. -Uh-huh. -The trick snaps. -Yeah. -We're like you're-- it's sort of like that killer thing-- -Yeah. -where you're with a group of like 8 people and 2 people are in on it. -Right. -And one person who's not in on it whispers to a friend to someone who is. -Right. -You basically come on here and you say, hey, I'm gonna tell Justin, an actor or actress, without-- just by snapping. -Uh-huh. -Right? And you know, everyone else was not-- And they're like, oh, how do you do that? How do you do that? And you're essentially are just like spelling out codes to each other through snapping and through like sentences that seemingly have nothing to do-- -Right. -with the actor or the actress that you're trying to-- -That was just complicated. -Just stuff like that. -Yeah. -It kinda was complicated. It's cool, you know. It was like a weird sort of Morse codes sort of thing,-- -Right. -you know. It was like 2 snaps meant, you know, E for the vowel. It was like a, e, i, o, u. -Uh-huh. -And if you did 1 snap, that's A. Two snaps is E. -Yeah. -And then you could like say the other word. It was crazy. -Yeah. -Yeah. -I would just do things like, you know, right out of word using letters that are-- that come 3 letters after-- -Right. -the one you want in the alphabet. -Exactly. -Something like that. -Yeah. -You mean amateur stuff. -Incredibly easy. Yeah. -You mean real amateur stuff. -So easy. Or just use like the invisible pen that came in my last Christmas box. -Yeah. Watch out for this guy. -Yeah. -Carmen freakin' Sandiego over here. Watch out for this guy. -That was the analogue internet. That was before we had snap chat. -You sneaky devil, you. -Yeah. -That's pretty neat. -Cool stuff here. Let's move on. Let's talk about more secrets, but these are secret pictures hidden in music. -What? -Yeah. -Uh-huh. -This is really cool. I didn't bring this up here. Have you guys ever heard about this kind of stuff? -I have-- I have not. No. -So, the story behind this is that we're starting to notice a trend in music specifically electronic music. So, the EDM community, they're starting to unearth all the secrets, right. And these secrets are artists using images and audio files to sort of transmit a message, right. So, this is-- these are people that use something called a spectrograph, right. A spectrograph is a way to add an image to an audio file in secret. -What? -So, they use a spectrograph to sort of visualize the sound spectrum of a song, right. Within that song, they can communicate a message that again mix into the final track. And if you use software like something called MetaSynth, you can reverse that and convert that image-- that audio file back into the image that was placed into it in the first place. -What? -Yeah. So, the best way to show this-- that's gonna explain it-- -Is this gonna give me nightmares? -is showing the first instance of it-- -That's creepy. -which is in a song called Equation by Aphex Twin, right. So, this-- it's crazy how people even unearth this kind of twin and you can read about it on the article we post-- -The is the ultimate sort of-- -on cnet.com/404 -Easter egg. -Yeah. Right. -How does this-- I just don't understand how this works. -Wait. So, they used an image and then turn that into audio and that's how they made their song. -Yeah. So, they used a software called MetaSynth to basically convert an image into a tiny audio file, right, so then they use that audio file and mix it into the final track for the song. -And you can hear-- -And you can hear it because-- -Oh, I see. -it's so tiny. It's just an image file. So, it's less than half a second worth of sound, right, when they mix it in. -I don't know how that work. I just don't know. I can't-- -You know, we've talked about it like 3D printed visualizations of music, right. -I understand like-- I understand-- I'm looking at it right now the way I'm recording the show. -Right. -I get that. But how do you get that to look like an image? -Well, it goes reverse. So, it starts off as an image and they convert-- -Okay. -that into audio files then they mix that into the song. -Huh. -But in order to reverse that, you gotta use all kinds of software and hardware like the spectrograph. -So, it's like why even do it? -Just for stuff like this because it looks so cool when people eventually find out, but that is what is crazy, is that the artist has no idea whether or not people are ever gonna find out the secret. -Am I right in-- So, go down to #3 there. -Yeah. So-- -Continue 'em. Is that from the video game Fez? -Wait. Really quick. This Aphex Twin song Equation came out years ago. This is like, I think, almost a decade ago and this is actually the face of Richard D. James, the guy behind Aphex Twin. -Wow. He looks crazy. -Yeah, he does. I'm terrified of Aphex Twin. -Yeah. So, these are the parameters that you had to set in order to get the proper image; otherwise, it comes out wrong, that Aphex Twin face. Here's another spiral image that was found in Windowlicker, a song by Aphex Twin as well. Yeah. So, this is on the Fez soundtrack, a track called Continuum by Disasterpeace. We're looking at an eye that was decrypted-- -Wow. -using that song. Insane. -This is really crazy. I highly recommend everyone checking out the link in the show that they'll open up-- -Yeah. -at the end of the day here. -Creepy as hell, man. -What do you think this is? This is My Violent Heart by Nine Inch Nails. No surprise that a lot of the genres that have these songs-- -Are creepy. -are more of the industrial EDM-- -Yeah. -Uh-huh. -like weirdo music. -It just looks like a very long creepy hand. -Yeah. -It's what that is. -Yeah. -Walking along. -Here's another one from this Fez soundtrack. This is a guy's profile. It's kind of like a side shot of his face. -Yeah. -You can see that and beyond another-- -So weird. Oh my god, this is freaking. -And this one is crystal clear too. So, if you use very specific signal parameters, you can get very detailed shots, right. -Yeah. -Because the frequency spectrum is so wide that the detail really comes through like in this song Transitions by DJ Sonix. -Freaking me out. -This is-- You can even tell the race of this guy. This is an Asian guy, right,-- -Yeah. -with slick back hair. He's got headphones on. He sort of has a very like-- I'm looking at this face. It's kind of like a resting image. -I can't keep looking at these. I'm getting nightmares just thinking about it. -Here's another road sign [unk] also off the Fez soundtrack. And there's more being discovered everyday too. So, think about-- these are just, you know, a collection of 10 images that we found in songs. -Wow. -Think about how many more exist out there that we don't know about. -Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. -Here's an animated-- -Ooh. -Really scary. -You will never sleep sound again. -You know what this reminds me off is in that shot in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when they're going through that tunnel-- -Yeah. -and there's all of those holographic images-- -All right. -displayed on the side of his face? It's a lot like that. -Scariest thing imaginable. -Uh-huh. -Yup. You've narrowed it down. -Stuff out of nightmare. -Thank you very much. Let's get to something else before we have to all cry ourselves to sleep. -We should start doing that in our audio. -I guess we could. -Right? It'll be really easy. -Like I wanna hear-- So, I get it. I understand that those images are formed through these tiny, tiny little-- -Uh-huh. -sound signatures. -Yea. -I wanna hear those. -Yeah. -You should be able to hear that. -Just isolate that tiny-- -Just isolate. I wanna-- -Yeah. I'm sure you can before you mix it in. -First, it's like-- Yeah, something like that. -Are these images something that just pop up really quick and go away? -Well, if you use a machine like this, it will isolate and then you can just save it like this. -How do you know where in the song to look? -Gotta analyze the whole thing. -And so you just-- Imagine you're just like-- Oh, that's freaking me out. You're an audio engineer and you're like you got the final mix of the-- of the-- Okay, guys,-- -Right. -I'm just gonna take a look at it. -What the hell is that? You're just like-- Comes out in his computer and just like a demon face. -Yeah. -The entire-- Freak me out, why don't you? Let's get to some e-mails. Gonna butcher this gentleman's name here. Gegan? Is that right? Gagan, Gogan. I'm just like Gugan. -There's no "o" in this name. It's G-A-G-A-N. -Right and it goes or Gogan depending on how you pronounce my name. -Okay. -Right. -Gagan. -I'm just gonna call him G from Toronto. I recently went on my first trip to New York to watch WrestleMania. I'm sorry. Did you know WrestleMania was at MetLife Stadium the other day? -Cool. I've kept them on my WrestleMania News. -[unk] big deal out of it. -[unk] went down with Reuter. -I stopped watching wrestling in high school. Anyway, it was awesome and I went with some close friends of mine. We drove from Toronto with 5 guys in a mini van. I probably smelled awesome in there. I was lucky enough to drive all way to and from New York. Needless to say, I had a few hours to catch up on some podcast, which I did. It was a great time because I got some of my buddies hooked on the show. -Oh sick. -Nice. -Right? That's all-- Well, that's a great way to spend a drive like that. Drove from Toronto, dude? That is like 8 hours, right? -Uh-huh. -It's like-- -It's about 4 episodes. -A lot of gas is what that is. Man oh man. Well, thanks. Appreciate that, G. A beautiful name 'cause I actually pronounced it. You have any e-mails you wanna read or just go right to call some public? -Let's just do calls. -All right. -Yup. -Time to show the love. 866-404-cnet. -404. -Continuing the trend here, weird places that you listened to our show. What's the weirdest-- What's the weirdest place you've ever listened to a podcast? -I thought you were gonna ask our podcast and I would say never. -Right. -Nowhere because I don't listen to our show. -Right. Right. That's understandable. -Where do I listen to podcasts? I don't really consume podcast. -No? -It's a boring answer, but I don't listen to podcast. -Yeah, I don't have anything special. You know, maybe [unk] I mean, do you listen to any podcast? -Yeah. On the train I guess. -Yeah. -Nowhere here. -Yeah. We are terribly interesting people. -Then why did you ask that question? -Because I don't know. You're like you know-- -Really how boring we are. -Yeah. -And if there's ever been like a whack that do play like I know my buddy, Bobby, listens to our show while he's like working on his art and stuff like that-- -Yeah. -and he's-- and doing his printing and stuff like that, like that's so much cooler. -Uh-huh. -I always-- Like I dunno, it's-- I only listen to podcast when I have like a half-hour block of time to just not do anything else or something mundane. So, it's always like washing dishes. -Yeah. -Or on an airplane. -Little known fact. -Ooh. -You know what commercial we all hate with a woman climbing out up the rock? Somebody let the gate open. -You know, what's in [unk]? -What? -For abortion. -Oh! -She gets up there and, you know, listening actually forces her to jump, but anyway, we've got another guy who works in a really interesting place and he brings our show with him everyday to work. -Hey, 404 crew, [unk] and I listen to the 404 at work. I work at a water treatment plant, the graveyard shirt. -Ooh. -From 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. -Wow. -Actually, I'm out working out at 3 o'clock in the morning and I'm here all by myself as I am much every night. So, 404 keeps me company. I love listening to you guys. You make me laugh. You make me think if you could believe that. -Right. -You make me smile and you make the hours go by quick. So, thank you for everything that you do. Much love. Give it for REL. -Yes. -All right, take care guys. -Thank you. -Bye. -Even for REL-- -Yeah. -like your some sort of redheaded-- -Yeah. -Even that little guy in the corner. -Nobody's in love. -Nobody puts REL on the corner. -Yeah. -Yeah. -That's awesome, man. Man, you know, we've talked about it with the sleep doctor before about graveyard shifts and what that must do to you. -Yeah. -I'm like what's it's like being a vampire like that? -It-- I imagine it to be really boring, right, like you probably spend all your life at like Circle Ks and 7/11s that are open 24 hours, right. -I'm just-- -Like what do you do? -I mean, he's working at a water treatment plant. So, he's got some-- What do you mean eww? -Probably smells. -No. What do you-- It's a water treatment plant. It's not like a sewage factory or something. -Yeah. -Out a factory, they make sewage? No, I don't know. But it's nice. He sounds like he's got an important job-- -Yeah definitely. -above all else. -Definitely. -Buddy's paying attention. -Yeah, absolutely. Just keep it safe. -I like hearing these though. -They're cool. -Keep 'em coming if you have something really crazy. -Finally, the last call of the day referring to the Emily Dreyfuss episode here. -Hey guys, it's Doug from Pittsburgh. Just wanted to say thank you Emily Dreyfuss for reiterating [unk], not a gift. I say, again, it's a gift, not a gift. Thank you very much. -So, he's wrong, right? -I mean, he doesn't give any reason for what-- -Yeah. -He's just like I knew it. -Yeah. -It's a gift. -I said so. -No. It's wrong. -Okay. You probably shouldn't ever say the word in public anymore. -Yeah. -Right? -I know. You could say-- See, you can say-- -Referring-- like describing a gift is never as good as looking at it. -Right. -So, why would you even say it? -You can say gift in public, but when you say gift, people just turn around-- -What did you say? What's wrong with you? -[unk], sir. -A lot of people getting back to us about Emily's appearance on the show. A lot of positive feedback and she's gonna back as much as she can in the New York office so that's very exciting. -Cool. -So, she'll be on with some regularity-- -Yeah. -beginning whenever she comes back. -Yeah. -All right? -I like how she laughs at our stupid jokes. -And I got Mark back on Wednesday. -Oh yeah, that's right. -Hey Mark, how's it's going? -[unk] -I think he's gonna start doing every other. -Okay. So then after his next appearance it will be every other. -It will be like once a year. -And then once a month. -Ramon, I'm just writing this down right now. And he was even here before and started appearing in like-- -He probably knew, but then since you didn't say anything, he just left. -Yeah. -Maybe. -Crap. -Definitely. -All right, we're gonna go find out. -We want him anyway. -Yeah. You know what? I kinda want him to be here. Anyway, we'll continue things tomorrow on the program. I can't 100% confirm it yet, but Ben Hoffman has told us that he wants to be on the show and I think we're gonna tape it tomorrow. If we do tape it tomorrow, we won't do it live because it will be on Skype and there's too many variables with that. So, we'll let you know. Follow us on Twitter for the absolute latest about when Mr. Ben Hoffman is gonna be on the program. The season finale of The Ben Show starring Ben Hoffman is on Comedy Central tomorrow night at 10. So, make sure you check that out as well even if he don't-- Even if he's not on the program, go watch that. It's a funny show. And we'll be back tomorrow 866-404-cnet. That's the number to call and reach us through e-mail, the404@cnet.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit. Participate in the conversation on Reddit. That's the-- That's my favorite spot right now for interactivity. All right. We'll see you guys tomorrow. I'm Jeff Bakalar. -I'm Justin Yu. -I'm Ariel Nunez. -This has been the 404 Show high tech low brow. Have a great Wednesday, guys. We'll see ya.