{"id":1608,"date":"2026-06-06T16:45:50","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=1608"},"modified":"2026-06-06T16:45:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T16:45:50","slug":"benn-jordan-music-gear-cybersecurity-surveillance-questionnaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=1608","title":{"rendered":"Benn Jordan longs for the days of tech that didn\u2019t spy on you"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Benn Jordan may have initially gained notoriety for his music as Flashbulb<\/a> and later, reviewing synths and effects pedals on YouTube under Benn and Gear. But about five years ago, Benn decided to take his YouTube channel<\/a> in a different direction. He didn\u2019t stop covering music gear overnight, but as time progressed, his channel became more focused on science and technology investigations. He even turned the entire enterprise into a nonprofit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

While there will still be the occasional video focused on music or audio \u2014 say, poisoning AI music<\/a> systems or storing data in bird song<\/a> \u2014 lately Benn has been largely focused on the surveillance state. He\u2019s uncovered glaring security flaws in Flock\u2019s<\/a> camera<\/a> systems, demonstrated how easy it is to hack a Ring camera<\/a>, and seemingly confirmed a conspiracy theory that Unitree\u2019s robot dogs<\/a> are secretly sending data back to servers in China<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In short, Benn Jordan has gone from being one of the best music gear YouTubers to one of the best cybersecurity YouTubers. He was kind enough to take some time away from proving all of our worst fears about government and corporate surveillance true, to answer our weekly questionnaire.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

What is the first app you install on a new phone or computer? (Do not count pre-installed software like Gmail)<\/strong>
<\/strong>On a new Windows PC, Ninite<\/a>. Which is basically like you giving me one wish and me wishing for more wishes. Ninite is a free tool that quickly installs a customizable list of things you\u2019d spend the next few hours installing on a new PC.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

What is one thing you wish you could change about your phone?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

That it was easily unlockable and rootable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

What is your happy place online?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Strudel.cc<\/a>. It\u2019s a 100 percent free, powerful, and wonderfully documented musical programming language that runs completely in-browser. It\u2019s an excellent way to procrastinate and even accidentally learn to code.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

What is your favorite gadget you\u2019ve ever owned?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The original Pebble Watch. It didn\u2019t harvest my data or track anything. It told me the time and date, told me when I have a new message, and lasted a week on a single charge. Which happen to be the only three things I desire from a watch.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Which was the most disappointing?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The Amazon Echo Show (3rd gen). I only bought one for pentesting, but it\u2019s an incredibly laggy and awkward-looking device that basically exists to spy on you, show you ads, and ask you to pay for features it was advertised to already have.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

What creation are you most proud of?<\/strong>
<\/strong>At least on YouTube (which is probably what got me an invite to answer random questions for Verge<\/em>): In 2022, a scammer pretending to be Rolling Stone<\/em>\u2019s Andy Greene reached out to me on Instagram, telling me he wanted to write a piece about my music. Knowing the real Andy Greene, I decided to just follow the scam as deep as I could and then tell Andy the story.
I thought it would be a video where I\u2019d scam a scammer, but it ended up being a video about West African oppression, Sakawa culture<\/a>, and at one point, I was literally drinking my own blood on a WhatsApp call with a Ghanaian witch doctor while sitting at Chili\u2019s with my partner\u2019s family.
The video didn\u2019t get many views, but the whole thing kind of defined the structure of what my channel is now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

What is your current obsession?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Spectrometry and interferometry. Particularly relating to using extremely subtle changes in invisible light waves to pick up and demodulate sounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

When was the last time you went somewhere without your phone?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I actually try to do this every day!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

What do you think is worth splurging on?<\/strong>
<\/strong>A tripod. It\u2019s hard to imagine what could possibly justify the huge price difference between a midrange tripod on Amazon and something like a Sachtler. It turns out that it\u2019s extremely justifiable and, over a decade, probably more affordable than all the midrange ones you\u2019ll be replacing or incrementally upgrading to and from.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

What would the tagline for your biopic be?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cIf Jon Hamm were for sale on Temu.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

What\u2019s the last GIF or meme you used?<\/strong>
Not sure if this is a meme, but I always use the triangle diagram with an option for each corner, but you can only have two simultaneously.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\"A<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Image: Benn Jordan<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Follow topics and authors<\/strong> from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.<\/span><\/p>\n