#the fact that Trent and Ethan very genuinely get confused when the FBI points this out is mostly why they get away with it

[pinkrangerv]

Inevitably it's been investigated by the FBI like five times, because this conversation happens every two minutes:

Trent: "And if you're having trouble finding this show, there's a lot of pirate websites you can get it from."

Ethan: "Yeah! Now, you want to use Firefox, and there's a couple of options for search engines, but you don't really need a VPN unless you're planning on selling your own copies, that's more of a...I mean, what, like for looking up how to hide a corpse? Right, Trent?"

Trent: "Yeah, searches about killing people, gang structures, how to find hitmen, those need to stay in your VPN. If you need to get really into something, like if you've got to start blackmailing, I don't know, a Senator or something?"

Ethan: "Bro. Bro. Hold up. Do not tell them that."

Trent: "Dude. We only blackmailed him because he didn't show up to Dr. O's birthday party. We didn't even technically break any laws."

Ethan: "ANYWAY, and if you TOTALLY WANT TO DO NORMAL THINGS, but they might be slightly illegal, you want to put a Linux OS on a thumbdrive, make sure it's cycling the MAC address, go to some kind of coffeeshop--"

Trent: "That last one's really important. Remember: You don't want to look suspicious. You need to go at least two major cities away from where you started, and then you pick a random shop, go in, buy a coffee, and sit down like you're just answering an email. You're only using the email feature, so no one's gonna realize. The baristas aren't gonna remember you, no one's gonna care, unless you act nervous. Do that, and you're fucked."

Ethan: "Yeah, do all that. Trent knows that stuff better than me. He says I cackle too much. But anyway, when you've got all this, you should already have a fake email account. Which we mentioned how to do that in Episode 3, so basically you just boot up the laptop, stick in the hard drive, get into the email, and send it."

Trent: "You have to plan the blackmail out first, of course. I'd recommend finding something really embarrassing, not just illegal. Screwing a sex worker is great, but you want them to have pictures of wearing a chicken suit or something. And if you have the sex worker, you can make the rest up."

Ethan: "Sex worker?"

Trent: "I mean, that's their job, right? Just because I can get laid whenever I want doesn't mean everyone can. It's really nice of them to make sure people can have a nice, professional one-night stand if they want. But you can use all that prejudice against your target..."

Anyway. Everyone loves the show. The FBI can't prove they're apparently high-level foreign agents, and they want to murder both of them for it.

(Zack did not forget to go to Tommy's birthday party again. It wasn't a sex worker. It was far more embarrassing. Technically legal, but Zack was never letting it see the light of day if he could help it.)

They need a podcast together so I can just see them talking shit about the most random stuff 💙🤍💙🤍