If the market completely comes to a real, you know, the start market really crashes or something and something really bad happens, I'll pick up the phone and start acquiring more market share like we were talking about. I think a lot of people make the mistake of calling the market good or bad. Yeah. There's no such thing as a good or bad market. There's up markets and down markets. Whether it's good or bad or not is all in your head. Like people need to buy and sell when prices are going down. They're going up and you seem to get that early on and take advantage of that.  So walk us through that a little, what that looked like back then, 2010. I assume maybe you were picking up some really great investment opportunities as well with the volume you were doing. Dude, I love that you said market share because there's a lot going on with the word market share, right? There's the fact that I believe market share is not how many transactions or listings or business you have. It's what agent has the most real lifelong relationships with property owners in the area. Whoever has the most of those owns the entire market, period. And in the down market, one of the 100 books I read was called Shift by Gary Keller. And it's an excellent book. Have you read it? Yeah, I read it six or seven years ago. Dude, I read that at the bottom of the market, man. And I was like, oh my gosh, did it really?  And it's an incredible, but one of the things in that book talks about exactly what you said and you might have got it from the book. When the market's down and all the agents leave, there's so much market share just laying on the table there for you. If you'll put the work in to talk to the people, create the relationships, and build a rapport, even if they don't do anything right now, when the market rebounds, they are going to do something. And if you create as many of those as you can when the market rebounds, your business explodes, explodes. So when I got back in the business in 2008, that was the stock market crash. And everybody wants to associate the stock market crash with the real estate crash. It's not the same thing. The real estate started to come down in 2005 in my area. Maybe 2006 or 2007 in other areas is different per area, but it was before 2008 is when real estate started to go down. And I got back in 2008. Now the market, the real estate market was coming down and 2008 happened and then it continued to go down from there. And I did exactly what you're talking about. 2008, I made about 90 grand and I was happy. I was twice as much as I made on the oil rig, risking my life the year before. In 2010, I make 100,000 and I'm like ecstatic at this point. And I'm still not really to where I really want to pony up and buy a property yet. But 2011, when I made that money during the oil spill, I made more money and it gave me all that confidence. I did pick up a couple properties and really glad I did. I still own those properties right now and they've actually doubled in price. And I rent them out and it's just been a great situation. But here's the thing about markets crashing. Closing, what I learned is the bottom line, regardless of what the market does, closings continue to happen every single day. There's not a day that goes by, there's not a closing. It might go down to from 100 to 10, but there's still 10 closings. That's 20 opportunities to represent a buyer or seller in one day. 30 days, sometimes 31 or 28 days in a month. All you need is one, two, three, four deals a month to really excel. To be honest with you, I do too. Now, I'll just jump in real quick. If you do four deals out of 20 as opposed to four deals out of 100, you've got 20% of the market share versus 4%. The same amount of work. Exactly, exactly. If you're putting the pieces of the puzzle together when the market is down and less agents are in the business and you're the one doing all that business, then you have more past clients. Whenever the market comes back and these agents come back in the business, well, they're late to the game now. You've already established all these clients and all this business and you have all this market share in the palm of your hands. And that's what happened to me. In 2008, I really hit it hard. 2009, 2010, all the way. I'm still hitting hard. The market is still crashing me, Dan. It's still falling.  But closings happen every day. Another thing I want to shed a little light on is the fact that business is unlimited for every single agent. Nobody, the competition does not exist at all. People are so concerned with the competition and there's this agent doing that and this agent dominates that area and all this stuff. It doesn't exist. What if 15 agents are calling expires? Well, they haven't talked to you yet. You have a unique personality that no one else on the face of the planet has. You have certain ways about you, the way that you talk, walk, act, move, the way you look, everything is different. And until that prospect experiences who you are, you don't know if there's a connection or not. It doesn't matter about all the other agents. It matters about you and the prospect, which is a human that we have to connect with and do our best and our job is people. You know, we're not in the real estate business. We're in the people business. You cannot lose if you understand these principles. It doesn't matter where you get your leads from. I'm a big circle prospector. I like picking out a subdivision, calling them and connecting with them voice to voice. I think voice to voice is the reason why technology will not replace real estate agents. But I don't care if it's Facebook leads or Zillow or for sale by owners expires or wherever your leads come from. To me, it doesn't matter. It's all the same stuff. It's unlimited for each and every agent. There's a process and there's more than you can handle. Go get yours. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. What does your business look like today? You've been at 100 plus sales since 2014, so almost five years or what we're going on five. How much of that business is buyer business versus listing business? Walk us through that for a little bit. About, let's see, two years ago, 2017, it's always been about 80-20 listings over buyers. Forever. It's been 80% listings. But last year, when the market flattened out, we all had to make big adjustments. I don't refer to myself as a listing or a buyer's agent. I'm a real estate agent who really enjoys helping anyone buy or sell. It doesn't matter to me what you want to do. I'm going to show property. I show all my properties. All listing appointments, all closings, all inspections. I do all of that. And now, last year, it was 50-50. 50% buyer, 50% listings. This year, so far, it's been 50-50. So it just kind of flows with the market. Whatever the market kind of does. Right now, I'm not making near as many phone calls as I used to make, but I've put my time in. I've made those calls. I've created those relationships. I'm doing those. I'm staying in touch. And I've built that database. And I have such a large client database of people that are never going to use another agent that I can afford. It's all I can do to keep up with people I have to follow up with every day. So if the market crashes tomorrow and goes to two deals a day, then it really slows down. Which, by the way, today I did my weekly email. Last year, up to this point, I had 243 condos closed. This year, 184 so far this year. Huge drop in number of transactions. Are you seeing prices go down, or is it just less transactions? They have went down just a little bit. And I don't know. I've seen a couple lower sales. I haven't really seen maybe the trend. I've seen a couple lower sales, but I don't know if... You always have a fluctuate... I don't think sell for different prices. Only time will tell if it's an actual trend or not. But yeah, man, definitely... Houses were the same. Houses in my area were the same number of transactions as last year. So if the market completely comes to a real... The stock market really crashes or something and something really bad happens, I'll pick up the phone and start acquiring more market share. That would actually make me happy because I'll have time to do what I love to do, which is call. I love calling. I'm going to do live calls tomorrow on YouTube. I do calls now live for the coaching students.


The first suturing which I am going to demonstrate will be, the knot tying technique I will show you where I put the sutures. Then we will come to that. We will do four suturing techniques. There are many of them written here or essential ones. The simple interrupt it. That is the first one you will learn. So let us do the whole thing now. We are going to hold the needle holder, the needle with the needle holder. We will use the thumb forces. Let us say I am going to do a suturing here. The first one, the simple, interrupted one. It is really not very difficult at all. So like I told you, you can hold it either this way or this way. I prefer to hold it this way because I get more control. You should be able to hear the clicks. Then you know how much pressure you will apply. Now it is stable. Note that no dacces. Note everything. Watch. So suppose I am doing the suturing with the tooth force. Hold one end of the place where you want to put the suture. Here for your guidance, they have only put dots here. In an actual situation you will not have these dots. So we have to determine approximately half a centimeter of the side to half a centimeter of that side. So take a good grip of the skin. It is a good grip so that you can lift it up. Take the first bite through full thickness. With a slight curving motion so that, as you can see in the lower picture, less of the epidermis and more of the dermis is taken. There is a meaning behind that. Because we want the edges to be slightly diverted. Inversion is not a good thing. Iversion is required that only gives a good healing. Epidermis to dermis, epidermis and dermis to dermis. And it produces a good helix. So that's why we have curved needles. Of course we do use straight needles for various situations but here curved is the... So a slight more of the epidermis, a little less of the dermis. Full thickness. If you find difficulty you can take it out and you can take the next one. Or you can do it both in one shot. It doesn't matter. It depends on how big the needle is and how deep the suture on the skin is. I've just removed it. So one bite. Next bite. Again take a good grip on the opposite side. Give a slight push and you can see the tip of the needle pushing. So I know approximately this is the place I want to come out. Once you release it, catch hold of the tip and pull it out with the curving motion. Keep pulling till you reach an approximate reasonable size. Don't keep this too long because remember you'll be cutting it off. This will be a waste. We have to conserve material. At least if you don't, your assistant is going to jump at you. So keep it a sufficient length so that we can afford to... Now, the previous slide where the knot tying technique is shown. Watch this. Another thing which I forgot to tell you about the suture material was when I was talking about is the knot holding characteristics of suture materials. These monofilament materials, synthetic non-absorbable monofilament material, they tend to slip. You can try it. You can take a piece of nylon and you try to make a loop. You make two throws of a knot and it will slip off. If you take a cotton, two throws, or your shoelace for example, you don't put ten knots. It holds. Nylon synthetic material, they tend to slip. So we have to use multiple throws, otherwise they will slip. Now how to tie the knot? Long end. Two loops clockwise. Tip. Hold the tip. Give it sufficient pull to make it a little tight. But it is not sufficiently tight yet because it will slip off. See, it is already slipping out. Now with my hand like this, anticlockwise two loops. Again hold the tip. And same direction. My hand will come back to the left. Tighten a little bit. Four throws. Two-two. I usually like to put six or eight. Because anything less than that tends to slip. Again two loops. Catch hold of the tip. Again cross. Again two loops. Anticlockwise, catch hold of the tip.  So that the knot goes away from the suture line. Either this side or this side. Never keep the knot on the suture line because it will give a very painful and bad scar. Once this is over, don't remove it. Keep the tension. Take the scissor. Apex below the knot. Cut it approximately half a centimeter away. Why do we keep this much length? Two reasons. Reason number one. Seven days later you have to remove it. If you keep it too small, you will not get a good grip to remove it. I'm going to show you how to cut it. The second reason is, as I told you, they tend to slip. Even after the 48 throws, if I keep that end very small, it might slip off. So I'm going to do one another one fast. And then I'm going to cut towards the knot and then you will start doing your own. So this is the technique. I'm going to do the next one one more. Just so that you can see it. Good grip. Full thickness. Little more of the epidermis. Opposite side. Full thickness. Coming out. Double clockwise. Hold the tip. Anti-clockwise. Hold the tip. Clockwise. Hold the tip. Anti-clockwise. Hold the tip. Flip. The full technique. Seven days later, the patient comes to you. You are going to remove this. That slide is also there. How many days later to remove the sutures? Most times it's seven days. Sometimes it's five days. Sometimes it's nine days. Sometimes it's ten days. We will take the average figure. Seven days. Catch hold of a grip with the tooth force. Catch hold of the knot. Get a good grip. Not on the suture line, but away from the suture line, put the pointed portion under the loop. And when you're pulling out the knot, don't pull this way. Because I have experienced it. Sometimes the suture line is still not fully healed. When you pull this way, it pops open. So pull like this. Next one. Get a good grip. Put the pointed end under the loop. Away from the suture line. Cut with the tip. Pull. Pull procedure is done. Please go back to your specter stations and start over the first suturing.


Hello. I'm an OS and I work in hardware security. I'm an engineer who likes to defend stuff.  So that's my perspective. That's my view on the topic that we're representing today. I've never been in a black hat just the same. The only crime that I like to commit very often and way too often is to put cream into my carbonara and my pizza is something to kill for. I'm an expert on hardware security and engineering. I know stuff about networks as well. Level one, level two communications, not only using TCP IP, but also other protocols. My confidence stops on the higher levels, especially on the web levels, but I'm an expert on the lower levels. I believe that in the context of this talk, that's enough about me. I just know what I'm talking about here. I have to trust me. There's plenty of other resources on ATMs and truly fantastic talks about ATMs. However, they tend to focus on malware, on jackpotting, so basically software side. That's very much not my view. So I will only touch on the subject for completeness, but you have to look elsewhere if you want to find out about malware and jackpotting specifically. I would instead like to focus on some views on how it works, how the ATM attacks works from the view of person who works with the staff day to day. I will only present, so I will be presenting YouTube videos. I would like to present it in a way that is relevant to what I'm talking about instead of just linking you to the videos. It would be much easier for me to get you to my crime lab and just show you around, show you the stuff that we're working on, but you should probably understand this is not possible. So instead, I will just link and show the videos that I know are actually relevant and real. As I mentioned also in the abstract of this talk, this talk of this presentation is not for criminals, so I will not be dropping any zero days. There will be nothing to lead you on how to do ATM attack, how to get money from an ATM. If you want to do this, you have to do your own research. If you want to waste your life on crime, fine by me. However, you will not find it from me. Also, I have European perspective on the topic. The difference between European and American markets is that, especially the US market, the US has a lot more old ADMs, which means the attacks, obviously the US also has a new ADMs, but there's a very, very, very much of the old stuff still hanging around, which means the attacks are less sophisticated because the criminals will go after the long-hugging fruit. They will not be attacking the new ones. They will be attacking the old ones. In Europe, it's quite different because most of the ADMs are failing you or spanking you, so the attacks by definition have to be more sophisticated. And also in the US, you can buy an ATM and do a research on it. In Europe, not so much, so that's just the difference. So again, my perspective is just European perspective on the topic. Who is the stock for then, if not for criminals? My personal goal in life is to have a farm and herd goats, and make goats cheese. However, before that happens, I want to help and bring a change into security of normal people because one of the reasons why I'm working in this field is because ATM crime hurts poorest people the most. So I want to make it more secure for people who want or have to use ATMs for cash. For me, ATMs have very interesting pieces of equipment because they combine a lot of aspects of engineering, security engineering. So you start from physical security. You go through hardware security, window security, network security. Many things that have to fall in place for this device to work properly and in a secure manner. Change happens at the bottom, not at the top. So if you work in an organization or you work in law enforcement and want to help with this, maybe you could try and move yourself into this area that works with ATMs because honestly, the more people work on this, the better. Not many organizations, not many law enforcement groups even have specialized cells that work on this problem. So I think this is what's behind the stock. I want to convince you or maybe just try to push you in the right direction on the ATM research. ATM security is hard because it tends to be kept under wraps by vendors. So many times it's a case of security by obscurity or security by making it someone else's problem basically. I have to say that I'm not a fan of it. It's not saying nearly enough, but this is just a reality in the common practice, especially in the industries that deal with money or secret stuff in general. Normally you cannot get an access to an ATM, much as you cannot get an access to a commercial or financial rate hardware security module. Unless of course you are a criminal, but I will get to that in a second. I know about buying ATMs and I know that some people, even Europe, they have their own ATMs to play with. However, I want to stress out that it's also very important to have an ATM that's connected to an actual network. It's working. The vendor keeps it updated. The operator, you as an operator are also keeping it updated because also in terms of hardware security, many of the problems that researchers are discovering have already been fixed. So I'm not trying to say this to discourage you unless you work for low enforcement or work for an ATM operator. You cannot do this. You can, but you have to be aware that being connected to the network and being connected to the backend is also important. It's very important and it sometimes does change a lot in the research that researchers are presenting. And I'm not trying to discourage you. I'm just trying to make you aware that this is how it works. And sometimes it just may be a waste of time to try to do this, not knowing the full context of where the ATM works and how the ATM operates. Also, ATM security is hard because it's sometimes hard to push for a change word because this is a hardware device. If you have a hardware problem, if a hardware fault of hardware vulnerabilities being detected in an ATM, even though you don't have to replace the whole part, the whole ATM, you still have to make the vendor change something in the factory or the new parts, create a new piece, a new element of the ATM has to be shipped, has to be replaced. It all costs money. So those changes, I mean, first of all, the devices as they are, they are very well designed from the start. However, if there is a problem like this, it will take a very long time for the physical patch to be applied. But that's also true in many other areas of security, right? It's not our role to be manufacturing. It's our role to be in trying to defend stuff, to try to detect stuff. So again, this is not discouraging. This is not me trying to discourage you, but you just have to be aware that there's a lot of lag between detecting a problem. And actually being able to fix it. So in the beginning, there was nothing, but then something happened. And from no space in no time, the universe started and long story short, blah, blah, blah, we have ATMs. I'm saying this because I don't want to bore you about the history of ATMs because you can read up on this. What happened 20, 30, 40 years ago, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that we now have ATMs and we just have to live with them. And this is the only boring statistics that I will show you on this talk. But actually, I think it's very important. Yes, this is from 2018. Obviously, the virus has changed a lot of stuff, but still I think quite surprising that in 2018, 87% of payments in Spain was made in cash. I mean, obviously, there are many reasons behind it. And we know some of some do it from privacy. Some of this is just criminals because obviously the cash is better for crime. So that's not the issue. The issue is that cash is still king and I myself haven't used an ATM since late 2018. Not because I work with ATMs, not because I think they are insecure, unsecured, not secure. I just don't have a use for cash anywhere and virus or not, it's just what it is. But I understand that ATMs and we all have to understand that ATMs are here to stay and they are not going anywhere anytime soon. I think that would be just about enough of rambling and then talking about boring stuff. Let's get to something more interesting. Well, first of all, ATM is much more than just a PC, but at its core it's just a Windows PC. And luckily it's not Windows 98. You probably will be able to find some Windows 98 based ATMs, but not the majority definitely. So yes, Windows PC and a lot of peripherals. Those peripherals in modern ATMs are connected by USB. In the older ones there was like UAD based protocols RS232 or 485 or something else. I will talk about how they communicate a bit later when I will be mentioning jackpotting. However, what's actually inside, right? I was looking for a good diagram or a block chart of what's inside the ATM, but everyone is getting hit wrong. And it's just clouding the issue here. So I just want to talk to you about what's important for us and what's boring. So first the boring part, receipt printer, display, security camera, all the sensors, all the trip switches. This is important, but not as much. I mean, the least important part is the receipt printer, obviously, because you cannot get much from it anyway. To think that matter, the bottom part of the ATM, the bottom part of the ATM is the dispenser, which is getting the cash to you. And sometimes there's a deposit machine, which is getting the cash from you to put into your bank account. And those two, one or two devices represent one angle of attack where the criminals will go after bank's money, bank's operator's money. And sometimes it's between the bank's money and you right at the moment when you want to take your cash. So this is one group of attacks. And the other set of interesting things is the card reader and the pin pad. Those types of attacks go after your card number. And that's what I want to present to you later.  But first, I mentioned earlier that it's hard for you to get a hold of an ATM in Europe again, unless you are a criminal. How do criminals get their ATMs then? Well, they just don't mess about. I'm talking here about two types of attacks. One of them is blowing up an ATM and taking it home. I won't spend much time here on this vector because the prevention is very much up to vendors. And honestly newer ATMs are much more protected against those types of attacks than the old ones. But obviously criminals will always go after the low hanging fruit. So yeah, they will just pump the ATM with gas.  The safe will pop open. And if they're lucky, they will get money from the cassettes from the dispenser. Sometimes it works. Most times it doesn't.  Sometimes they kill themselves. But you know, that's criminals for you, right? So that's one way. And yeah, mostly they are after cash. But obviously if you have an ATM open like that, you can take other parts and work them home. And later I will explain why this is important for them. So that's one way, blowing it up. The other way is kind of like hold my beer situation when people just take the initiative and work from home. So yeah, they will just get a digger.  And usually they get caught. However, if they don't get caught, you know, they will probably go after cash again. They will try to drill the safe, take the money out. But the parts will learn somewhere, right? Eventually they will find a way to people who actually need it. But if all fails, you can just go online and buy stuff from China obviously, because that's where they're made anyway. Big gangs have the money, have the facilities to do this. And this is obviously a big business. So this is why they are doing this. So as I say, if you are a criminal gang who's doing this professionally, you just buy stuff online and have it at your place and you'll be able to work it on a known good part. So there's no way of preventing that. And also last but not least, there's also insider threat where just criminals convince employees one way or the other to do up the documentation or just to take the parts out of the factory. Long story short, criminals have more or less free access to ATM parts. And really there isn't any point in trying to pretend that it isn't. A lot of security about around the DMs relies on stopping secret. The reality is that if you are a researcher, especially independent researcher, you have no way to get this.  So we have to assume that criminals get access to an ATM, working ATM. They have either the drive or the whole PC that's running the ATM. If they get a drive, it's most likely full disencrypted. So it's like end of the year out. If you just have a drive, even if it still works, you're not getting anywhere. If you have a Windows PC, you can hack into this. There are plenty of ways to do this. Especially if it happens that the PC that you took was a Windows XP, it's very unlikely. However, again, criminals will go after the low-hanging fruit. So it doesn't matter that you have a million ATMs running Windows 10, but if you have 10 running Windows XP, they have the same cash in them. So they will just go after them. Again, I have to remind you that malware is not my area, so I would just briefly touch on that. But what's interesting for me in this type of attack, which is jackpotting, is the initial attack vector because you have to connect to a USB cable. You have to just find the USB cable, connect to it, and pretend you're on an HD keyboard. And when you have an HD keyboard, you're probably very well aware that from this, depending on the security on the ATM, it's very easy to very hard to upload malware. After you upload your malware, you hook up to a process that's controlling the dispenser, and you have a jackpot. The screen is one of my favorite ATM families, and it's only my favorite family because it references food. That's all there is. I don't like it in particular. I said hook up to a process that controls the dispenser, so here's a short version of it. Again, find yourself a talk about ATM malware, they will be better at this than me. The protocol used to control financial devices is open. It's basically available. You can look it up, you can see all the calls, you can see all the procedures. It's not as simple as just sniffing the USB line and finding the right commands, mostly because they have vendor extensions to it. The devices have to be able to communicate between themselves using this protocol, and the ATM talks to the backend using this protocol. However, different vendors use their own L1 lowest layer of communication. But long story short, if you have the spec which is public, if you have your Windows PC that is running, you can find your software, the part of software that's controlling the dispenser, you can find the right procedure call and develop your malware just like you develop any other malware. Apart from the initial attack vector, it's just or as much as any other malware in terms of developing this and in terms of trying to prevent from this happening. I said USB, I said local attack vector because this is the most common attack vector because it's just the easiest one. Incidentally, a few days ago, Europol has tweeted about a resting gang of criminals who were able to remotely access the ATM and after looking at this, I knew exactly that it was no remote access because when I saw remote access, I was very jumpy because that's something new. Actually, it wasn't a remote access, it was just... Even in the tweet, you can see that the tool they're using, this is just a local tool to cut a hole in the ATM. Get to USB, same MO as every other, almost every other malware. Get to USB, connect to USB, profit. Assuming you have your ATM, you manage to open the safe, which is where the dispenser sits and the dispenser still works. What can you do with it? First of all, you have to marvel its beauty and complexity to quote the famous movie. I love this piece of equipment because it's so well engineered. Obviously, it has to be well engineered, but the mechanical complexity and the number of sensors on it, it's just amazing. I really love this, this is my favorite part of an ATM, however, going back to criminals. The dispenser and its counterpart, which is the deposit machine, this dispenser takes the money out, the deposit, obviously, does it the other way. The attacks are about trapping the cash between the cash cassette at the bottom and yourself. So those devices are being called cash trapping devices.  The thingy opens, or it doesn't open. The machine is saying, you know, pick up your cash because you have 30 seconds, blah, blah, gone. In that moment, most likely what has happened is you have been a victim of cash trapping crime fraud. Hardly ever an ATM breaks in a way that they cannot dispense cash. Most likely when it does this, there's some device there that in a way prevented the cash from appearing outside and from you being able to take it. So what I'm showing here, this is one of the simplest cash trapping devices. Because before to develop that, you don't actually need a dispenser. You can just, if you are a good engineer, you can just work it out on your own. But the principle is the same. The cash is coming out from the dispenser. It's not presented to you, so you cannot take it. The dispenser is trying to take it back, but it cannot because it's trapped, right? In a place that's accessible from the outside, from the person who's operating this cash trapping thingy. Now, obviously, there are far more sophisticated attacks than these. And for those, you actually need the dispenser. So that's why I started talking about getting access to ATM parts. Why is it important for big gangs to have access to those parts? Yes, because you can develop a far more sophisticated device that will not be seen from the outside. It also will prevent the ATM from shutting down because the new ATMs, they can detect this kind of stuff happening. So it can detect that the cash didn't come back. So yes, they would trap one transaction, so at least one note. But then they will say, you know, I'm out of service. Like, please fix me. That's why criminals are trying to get access to those devices and do something to be one step ahead. Because if you can only trap one transaction and the ATM is dead, the service team has to come and fix it. And obviously, that's not just towards the time. So how do you reckon this is being addressed? And it's actually very interesting because this is one of the not so many places when machine learning is being used extensively.  They may be out of order, they may be out of normal sequence of things that are happening on dispensers. As I said, dispensers, ATMs in general have many sensors. Machine learning can learn to distinguish between normal operation and when something like this happens. So this is my ask to you, actually, if you can be bothered, obviously, because sometimes we just don't care, don't care. But if you can be bothered, if it happens to you, there's usually a number of the ATM you can call, please call them and tell them that this happened. Because this helps to prevent this crime. In the long run, obviously, it will take a lot of models, a lot of data to train the models to recognize this pattern properly. However, it starts from this, that people running the ATMs, they know that something happened and they can correlate the moment that someone called them with all the logs, all the data. So yes, this is how, unless you're working in this industry, this is how you can help. Again, if you can be bothered, please, please, please call them and tell them that this happened. So now let's move to my favorite part, stealing card numbers. When I say it's my favorite, it's obviously not because I like stealing card numbers. I just like the most working on this part because this is the most sneaky crime there is in terms of ATM security. And similar to the cash trapping, sometimes it does affect end users, customers. And what pisses me off is that the poorest people will be hit the most because if you are a single mom, put one bank account, one card, and two kids and having to pay some stuff with cash and then suddenly you find out you cannot use your card because it's been blown because you have been, your card number has been stolen and the bank has actually detected it or you get cash trapping happens to you, which means you will not get your cash but the cash doesn't go instantly into your bank account, pretty much screwed. So that's why it makes me so angry at this type of crime and I'm very, very keen to work on trying to fight it.  But this actually, this is important because it's not only the crime itself, but how people will get their card numbers and convert them to cash is what's important. So, and important and easy. So one of the ways they are doing this is they clone your Magstripe, they put it in a different card, they print it, they impose it so it looks legit, and then they will ship it to a country that's predominantly using swipe and signature. So for example, the US, then they will go to a store that's using this type of payment because, you know, they know where to go basically. And they will buy something expensive, semi-expensive, so for example, $1,000 for a laptop and then they will go and sell it for $500. Okay, ex-list or just on the street. That's $500 of cash. So that's one angle. The other angle is obviously using those cards online. And here the problem is that merchants, some merchants, especially the one big merchant that went to space, they're not checking the CVV number. The CVV, the security code that you have at the end of your card number. It's not in plaintext, sold in plaintext on the Magstripe, but it doesn't matter because that mentioned merchant is not checking for it anyway. Neither is checking for a name or address, but that's a different thing. Also, I buy a lot of car parts from the US and I know that many merchants there, when I'm doing this online, they will just ask for my card number, expiry date, name and address, which they check or not. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? Stop doing this because you are living crime. You're just making it easier for them. But anyway, that's a rant and this won't change anytime soon. However, how do they actually do this? So because this is a Magstripe, so you just have to recall the Magstripe and then decode it. There's no encryption on the card number and expiry date anyway.  Basically, what happens, you put the reader, the magnetic head, the reading magnetic head in the path of the Magstripe. So in this case, this reader is being put on the fascia. So on the outside part of the ATM, which is why it was sort of easy to detect it by wiggling parts, seeing if something falls off. And obviously, always accompanied to this reader is a camera somewhere that has visibility on the pin pad. So they correlate, the criminals correlate the data, the time data from the card reader and the time data from the camera. They have the card number and the pin. On this still, you can see how it actually looks inside and the pattern is always the same. So we have your magnetic head here and then you have three elements that always present. So there's a magnetic card decoder. You have the controller, which is usually at mega 32 and you have a flash storage. Flash storage is like gigabytes. Basically, in terms of card numbers, it's unlimited storage. So that was before. Nowadays criminals have moved to something more vicious, I would say. They moved to deep insets. So basically, this whole contraption is being put inside the ATM and the brutal reality is that you as an ATM user have no way of detecting it. The ATM operators, the ATM inventors do have methods against this. And nowadays, they do work, actually. But you as a user have no chance. So this is, as with the other videos, I will obviously link it in the show notes. However, I just want to show the stills from it as the whole newscast is pretty boring. The two important stills is this one. Just show you how the shape has been worked out and you still have the same elements that you had before. On the previous one, you have your magnetic head reader. You have your battery. The battery lasts maybe one, two days. And again, on the PCB, which you don't see it as a PCB, but there's a PCB there that's a magnetic head, magnetic stripe decoder, the controller, and the flash storage. Again, flash storage is like unlimited, pretty much. And on the other one, on the second one, you can see how thin it is. The card is 0.7 millimeters. It's thinner. So they are managing to put all the electronics, the battery, the card, the magnetic head reader on this piece of metal. And the whole thing is actually thinner than the card. So they just have to come in, snap it in, put it inside. And obviously, after some time, they have to take it out. So it's like a two-way operation, but it's the same as with the outside one. So it's no different. How do you actually make this? You know, because the shape is quite complex. And this is where I'm coming back to availability of those parts. I don't think anyone would just go and blow up ATM or take it with a digger to get the card reader because you can just buy them on eBay. And that's the reality. You need the card reader to work out the shape, work out where the things touch, right? You have to work out the actual depth of the device. You cannot do this without having access to a card reader. And again, some would assume that because this is a secret ATM part, you shouldn't be able to have access to it. But as I talked before, many times on this talk, they do. And they actually, they are quite sophisticated in working out those details on those deep insets. So long story short, this is the most advanced hardware attack on an ATM. However, similarly to detecting cash trapping, again, machine learning helps. There are ways to detect those skimmers in time before they actually are being used. So even, you know, even if they managed to put it in because preventing that would require hardware change, however, the ATM would shut down. And this will be a loss to the operator, but obviously saves a lot of trouble to the customer. So, yeah, we are getting better at this. The vendors are getting better at this, but this is still the most, I would say, sophisticated method of attack on the card data. So that's basically all the time I have been allocated for this topic for my talk today. But I did manage to cover the two most interesting things, two most interesting things for me, which is the cash trapping and the card numbers, steering and deep insets. My goal was to try and show you how the problems that you have to work with or against when you're working on ATM security or basically people's security. It's quite similar to any other law enforcement work, but in many respects it's different, but it's also information security. I treated as information security because it crosses many fields, however, at the end of the day we are trying to protect something. And again, not wanting to be cheesy and, you know, playing on emotions, but for me this is trying to help other people and this is trying to make the world a little bit better anyway I can. Thank you very much for watching me. Thank you very much for staying with me for those 40 minutes and yeah, see you around.


As her grade five class at Spring Bank Middle School gets ready for their upcoming unit on Patterns and Algebra, Sue uses an anticipation guide to check for prior knowledge and ignite student curiosity. An anticipation guide introduces a new concept or topic to your students. You can take those concepts or topics from the learner outcomes and the key intentions that you want to get the kids to know, so using the vocabulary or specific big ideas. As a strategy to activate prior knowledge, anticipation guides lead students to predict and infer about new ideas. Kids will go through it and I guess it confirms for me the kids that know it. I'm looking to see which kids think they're false and what they're thinking is, and I'm also looking for the kids that leave it blank that have no idea. So do they have no idea because they don't understand the vocabulary or do they have no idea because the math is too difficult or they can't put it into words? They help kind out what she needs to teach us, like she doesn't have to teach us pointless things that we already know. It gave me a really good understanding of words that we don't know and words that we know. Anticipation guides are great for activating prior knowledge, building confidence when learning new concepts and helping students think like experts in their discipline. At the end she kind of like said like, you have your questions about the words, she kind of like tried to explain to without like giving them the answer. And like after every question she would give us some time to think about it and maybe give us a hint. We've learned this word in science or we've done it in experiment. She tried to help us succeed. So when I was planning this anticipation guide I really thought a lot about the language that the kids are going to have to be using through the unit. So what words do they need to know to be successful? I was really happy that one of the kids gave me a prompt and asked can I draw a picture because I usually tell them that at the beginning with explaining their thinking. Words, pictures are fine and numbers they can use any or all of the above so I needed that prompt back. But yeah I'm just looking to see where is my focus going to have to be for the rest of the unit. I used to think algebra was just a bunch of numbers and letters but now I realize it's a little different but yeah I feel a little bit easier now because I kind of started it. I kind of feel like a B now. I was kind of worried. I was going like what is B plus 125. I think that they have that oh I actually do know something and there's always a kid that says I know absolutely nothing and I say that's okay because we haven't learned it yet. So there's you still have that. You're not expected to know everything coming in. It's a really good boost in my house. It feels like you don't get nervous before you're like I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do. It's kind of like helping work into it slowly get used to it. Their confidence I think that they like knowing what's coming. Kids like knowing their intentions, they like having it spelled out for them, they like to know what their day is going to look like. They don't like surprises. It kind of like helps you get a feel for it so it isn't that so it doesn't feel like a whole new thing to you.


These grenades just get better and better. I mean, this one is on another level and guys, it's only an epic. I mean, what is life right now? How's it going guys? My name's D.P. Jen. I'd like to thank you for stopping by and checking out my video. If you do enjoy it leaving a like, it really helps me out and subscribe if you want to see more Borderlands. Also guys, every week I give away copies of this game, so to win one for yourself or a friend, simply subscribe and make sure you have notifications turned on. Drop a like and leave a comment down below. I will state as well, each week's winner, as you can see, is mentioned on stream. If this is you, hit me up on Twitter or Discord, both links within the video description. Previous winners also can be found on my Discord, if you do want to hit them off because I know a lot of people out there are questioning these giveaways, thinking that they might be fake. Let me tell you guys, I'm not one of those typical YouTubers. Okay, so as you might know, the best weapons or items in the game right now don't always have to be illusionaries. If you believe that, you ain't playing this game properly. There are some seriously amazing epics and even rare stuff out there. Now not long ago I uploaded a video showcasing what in my opinion are the top 5 grenades in this game. A couple of them were epic variants. And while this one would have easily made that list, this epic is called the Nuke Cluster F Exploder. I mean, although it doesn't have any elemental effects, it still stands way above most grenades in this game. So looking at these stats, you can see it consumes up to 2 grenades, which increases damage per grenade by 50%. And when you understand how many grenades this thing spawns, each grenade getting 50% additional damage just at the extra cost of one grenade. I mean, it's well. So you can see it states, it spawns 3 morphs upon the first grenade through on its explosion. These 3 morphs spawn 3 additional morphs people. And guys, all of these grenades shown, including the initial one, create nukes. 30 nukes in total from a single grenade show, which consumes 2 grenades. But like I said, each one of these individual grenades has a 50% increased damage buff. Check out this thing guys. 30 nukes from a single grenade. Wow. Now this thing is truly epic. It's amazing. Probably the best in the game for enemy control. When you're being swarmed by those mobs of enemies, chuck a couple of them down and damn, goodbye enemies. Now these grenades, although you can land them under enemies and bosses, which cause like a nuclear fallout, it's a little hard to get it timed. Perfect. Maybe freezing them in place and trying that could work. But I would definitely say they ain't the best against bosses or not. They ain't bad. But because there's no tracking here, there are better against bosses in the game, especially when you want to do single target damage. But all in all of these are my new favourite epic grenades, and it will be kept with me for certain instances this game throws at me. Now this particular grenade mod was obtained via the vending machine within a slaughter shaft by my pal, Trollin Donkey. So if you want these, you know where to look. But yeah, the nuk cluster F Exploder is definitely one you guys should seek out and give it a whirl. I guarantee you guys, you won't be disappointed. It's definitely one of the most powerful grenades in this game. 13 nukes, one grenade throw. Wow. On that note, we have come to the end of the video. If you guys enjoyed it, leave me a like, rule it helps out. If you're new around here and want to see more Borderlands videos, be sure to subscribe. And if you never want to miss a video I upload, you can turn notifications on by hitting that bell button. But guys, thanks as always for stopping by. Hopefully you enjoyed the video and hopefully I will see you on that next one.


to start. Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to VC 214 lecture on developing the human spirit. Oh, there's no mic. Oh, there's no other mic. Yeah. Okay. All right, let's pray and we'll start. Let's pray and start. Father, we thank you for another day, another opportunity to get together and study your word. Consider what you are teaching us in your word. And Lord, we pray that you'll open our hearts and minds and write your word in our hearts, write your word in our minds. Help us to understand and help us to walk in these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. Welcome, everyone. So last week in our course on developing the human spirit, we were talking about living the spirit for life. We did lesson 12, walking in the spirit, how the human spirit should be under the Holy Spirit. And so we considered two main passages from Galatians 5 and Ephesians 5 where the Apostle Paul is teaching us about walking in the spirit, being led by the spirit and living in the spirit, or living the spirit filled life, living a life under the influence of the Holy Spirit. So now let's go to lesson number 13. It's a slight change in what we have been considering. Earlier we talked about the faculties of the human spirit. That means these faculties are things that the human spirit is capable of. Primarily it is a channel through which it can receive information, just like our faculties of seeing, hearing, feeling. So we are receiving information through these. And then we process it and we do something. So the faculties, the spiritual faculties help us to receive and process information primarily from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit or is communicating to us through our spirit through these faculties. Today we want to talk about the seven functions of the human spirit. That means this is what the human spirit does. Now when I say seven functions, I just put them together, meaning I'm not saying the Bible says your spirit has seven functions. It's not like that. But just based on my understanding and then I say, okay, what is the human spirit capable of doing? What can it do? And especially in terms of importance, priority. So then I just put these seven functions down. So it's not necessarily like chapter and verse, seven functions of the spirit or nine gifts of the spirit or nine fruit of the spirit. It's not in that same category where the Bible tells us about the nine gifts of the spirit. The Bible tells us about the nine fruits or nine fruit of the spirit. It's in the scriptures. So like that we don't have a passage saying the functions of the human spirit are this, this, this. It's not like that. But it's more of a reflection, a learning observation that based on which I put this down and said, okay, if somebody says or somebody wants to think, what does my human spirit do? What purpose does it serve? I know it has these faculties. That means this is how it can receive information. And this is how God communicates to me through those faculties. But what purpose does the human spirit serve? What can it do? So then I put these seven functions down saying, in my understanding, these seven seem to be very important. Okay, so it's coming from that perspective. It's not necessarily chapter and verse, right? So let me mention this. And again, we're not, you know, each one of these we could, you know, maybe write a book on it, like conscience, you can write a book on conscience. But I'll just mention this and try to understand what this is, right? So the first function of the human spirit is conscience, which means knowing what's right and wrong. And even the unbeliever has a conscience. Every human person is born with a conscience, right? That means because we are actually spiritual beings, spirit beings. We're born with a conscience. And you see this very, very, very nicely given to us in Romans chapter two, verse 15, where it says that the law of God has been written in our hearts, verse Romans two verse 15, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness. So the law of God written in our hearts, it's already put in your spirit, the law of God, that the right and the wrong. And the conscience is the voice of the spirit. That means it is your human spirit speaking up according to the law that's put in your heart. It's telling you what's right, what's wrong. And so we're all born with this conscience, with this law of God written in our hearts. But over time, the conscience can be suppressed. The conscience can be, the Bible says it can be seared. That means it can be killed.  And the conscience is no longer speaking. It's no longer telling you what's right and wrong. So sometimes you wonder, how could somebody do like that? Doesn't he even have a conscience? How come he has no conscience? That's because over time, the conscience has been suppressed and maybe even silenced. No longer, there's nothing inside him telling him right and wrong because they keep quiet, keep quiet. I don't want to listen to you and that voice is gone. So somebody can come to that state where there is no conscience. There is no, this law of God written in their hearts and the conscience is no longer bearing witness. It is no longer speaking up, telling them what's right and wrong. But the conscience is the voice of the spirit, the human spirit. What is the conscience? It's the human spirit which has the law of God speaking up, telling you this is right and wrong. But keep in mind, the conscience can be suppressed or the conscience can be awakened. It can become better and better. That means you have a very clear conscience and you have a very sensitive conscience that is very sensitive to the things of God right and wrong. So immediately you can say, this is right, this is wrong. It comes like that because your conscience has been sensitized. Especially as we feed our spirit with the word of God, the truth of God, our conscience becomes even more vacant, even more sensitized to right and wrong. So it can go either way. The voice of the conscience can become stronger and clearer. So you clearly understand what's right and wrong or it can be suppressed and silenced.  But that is one function of the human. Question? So I have two questions actually. One is conscience can be taught and also another is can it also be our knowledge can be also from our soul that we have this conscience? Because when we are describing it, the cognization of right and wrong as we grow up, we were taught right what is right, what is wrong. Lying is wrong. Stealing is wrong. That was taught to us. So we know what is right and what is wrong. It was in our minds. So is this the same way our conscience can be taught to the spirit? Yeah. So like we said, our conscience can become more awakened. That is being taught, the truth of God, going into our spirits. It makes our conscience even more aware of what's right and wrong. So we are born, every human person is born with a sense of morality that's already there. So example, even if we go, I'm just trying to think of an example. So let's think of an uneducated person. I mean, he's never gone to school and never learned moral science or has no, it's not been given that kind of teaching. Example, somebody in some village or some tribe or so, the uneducated. Even if you ask that person, example about murder, is it right to kill another human being just like that? He'll say no. There has to be some reason.  Yeah, okay, you're defending yourself. That is different.  You can't murder somebody. He will say wrong. It's wrong. How do you know it's wrong? Nobody taught you from where you say on what basis are you saying? No, no, it is wrong. What is that? That is that sense of morality, the conscience that is inside them already. Now, by feeding them the truth of God's word or somebody is learning the truth of God's word, that becomes stronger. You become to see not only is murder wrong, but even hate is wrong. So why are you saying hate is wrong? Because God's word says or unforgiveness is wrong. So now we're going up to another level. So our spirit is learning the ways of God. I'm becoming more awakened to right and wrong, to truth. So that can happen. What was your second question? Yeah, so it starts with our spirit, but our mind has to be aligned to it. So our mind can suppress the conscience or our mind can be aligned to the conscience. So example, if my conscience is saying don't do that, it is wrong. Example, if I'm thinking about stealing something, taking something from that belongs to somebody else. First, my conscience says no, no, no, it's not right. But my mind can override it. My mind can say no, I want it. I want to take it. And my mind can reason. See, I really need it. He doesn't need it. I need it. And so I will take it. He can get example, you know, if I see a phone over there, I'll just take it away. Why I need it. He doesn't need it. He can buy another phone. My mind may reason, although my conscience saying it's not right, it's not yours. My mind can reason and then slowly what happens, the conscience is suppressed or my mind can align to it and say, yeah, it's not right for me to take it. I won't take it. Then my conscience is becoming more and more stronger. Yes. It will be developed by the word of God or it will definitely do. And it will be developed in a wrong way also, right? And sometimes by the wrong, wrong motives, depending upon their life and the place where they are living and the surroundings, their conscience will be inspired in a wrong way also. Yeah. So what we say about that is the conscience is being suppressed because your conscience is telling you what is right. It's speaking to you the law of God. But if they don't listen to it, that voice becomes weaker and weaker and they have a conscience seared. So for example, if you go to 1 Timothy chapter 4, I'm not looking up all these verses on the conscience, but you can do a full study on conscience. I'll just mention here. 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 2. It says, it's talking about these people in the last days, they depart from the faith, they listen to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons. So actually, they are paying attention to what? To lying spirits and they're listening to teaching of demons. What happens? Verse 2, they speak lies in hypocrisy. How come they're able to speak lies? Hypocrite. That means they know they are saying lies, but they still speak it. They'll promote their lies. How? Because their own conscience is seared with a hot iron. That means their own conscience is like, it's killed. It's like, it's destroyed. To be seared with a hot iron is like, it's like killed alive. It's destroyed. So they don't mind. They will tell lies. They know they're telling lies, but they'll say this is the truth. Speaking lies in hypocrisy. So that is the condition of that. Whereas like Paul says in Acts 23, he says, I have lived with a clear conscience. I'll just go there. I'll just show you this. So Acts 23 and verse 1, as he is beginning his defense, Paul says, men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day, Acts 23, 1. So Paul is saying, I lived with a good conscience before God. I was listening to my own conscience. I remember he was a Pharisee. He studied the law. So he knew the law. But at the same time, he's paying attention to his conscience. And so I lived with a good conscience. I did not go against my own conscience. So both ways. So conscience and opinion are same or is it different? So opinion is usually our minds are thinking, you know, our rationale, our logic. So you said, that's my opinion. Conscience we usually say, I feel inside, or this is my gut feeling. So that sometimes people call us a gut feeling, or I feel like this inside me, usually is a conscience. So it's like a little, it's a deeper thing from your heart. Whereas opinion is what I think is my perception. It's logic. So that's one function, a very important function of the human spirit. And, you know, as believers, we must learn to live with a good conscience. Sometimes we say, you know, we think so deeply, I'm waiting for the leading of the spirit. Sometimes you don't need the leading of the spirit. Just live by your conscience. Example, I want to take somebody's phone. I'm waiting for the Holy Spirit to tell me, don't take the phone. No, you don't need the Holy Spirit to tell you, don't take the phone. Listen to your own conscience. What is your conscience saying?  Just listen, that's enough. And very interesting, this is in Romans 9, that the conscience agrees, or the spirit and the conscience agree, it's very interesting. I was going to move away from the conscience, but Romans chapter 9 verse 1, well last verse then we go. What Paul is saying here, Romans 9 verse 1, he says, I tell the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit. It's very nice. That means my conscience is actually telling me what the Holy Spirit will tell me. My conscience is bearing witness in the Holy and they're both in the same line. So that is the right way to live where, as a believer, your conscience and the leading of the spirit will be aligned. So even if the Holy Spirit is not speaking, sometimes the Holy Spirit will keep quiet. Your conscience will tell you, Holy Spirit doesn't need to speak. Your own conscience will tell you what's right, what's wrong. So we are praying, oh Lord, reveal your will to me. This is right.  God, I'm going to steal some money. Is it right or wrong or God? Please reveal your will to me. Holy Spirit will be very quiet. Why? Listen to your conscience. Your conscience is already telling and the conscience bears witness in the Holy Spirit, in line with the Holy Spirit. So that's the first function of the second function of the human spirit is to know spiritual things. How are we going to know? So example, how do we know things in this natural world through our eyes, our ears, what we feel, what we taste and smell? All that is giving us knowing of our natural world. If one or more of these faculties are not working fine, to some extent our awareness of this natural world will be affected. But the point is, it is through this that we get to know, similarly in the spiritual things. Through the faculties of the Spirit, your Spirit is gaining knowledge of the unseen realm, of the spiritual realm. But the function of the Spirit is to know, spiritually know. So it's like what you could say, a repository of spiritual revelation, your Spirit, your Spirit knows. And sometimes it is amazing. Example, I was preparing for Good Friday Sermon. So I was thinking about the sacrifice of the animal and then the blood that Jesus shed. And it's like a tube like going on in my, suddenly. So the question, why could not animal sacrifices be sufficient? Why you had to have the sacrifice of Jesus? And those points came. But the most important was suddenly, I never really understood it like this until last week, that death in the Bible is threefold, spiritual, physical, eternal. Animals can only do physical death, not spiritual death, not eternal. But Jesus, he satisfied death in all three levels. Maybe that knowing was there in my Spirit, like maybe we all knew about it. But to see the connection, it was like something, oh, now I see it. So even for me, this was of course before I came to preach, but as I was preparing, oh, now I can see what was the limitation with the animal sacrifice, which the animal sacrifice couldn't do. Of course, there's a lot more. And then after preaching the sermon, my spirit is still meditating. And then, and I'm still understanding. So I was writing notes after I preach the sermon the next day on Saturday. I'm still understanding some more things like about the day of atonement, how some of the things that came to me after the preaching, the message was the con difference between daily sacrifices, the substitution, which is one for one and substitution one for many. How come Jesus died once, but his blood cleanses all of us? Whereas there, each person had to offer his own sacrifice, one for one. But the one for many, or then that's given to us in the day of atonement. Once a year on the day of atonement, one animal is sacrificed and it covers the sin of the whole nation. So one for many. And what was different with those daily sacrifices and this day of atonement? That blood was taken into the most holy place and put on the mercy seat on the day of atonement. So again, that was another new thing. So my spirit continued to meditate on this. So even after preaching the Good Friday Sermon, it's still beginning to understand, it's like connecting the dots. It's still more revelation is coming. And I was writing my notes and putting it. I said, okay, one day I'll release it as a book on the power of the blood of Jesus. And so I was writing these notes. Oh, okay, now I see even more how the blood of one can cleanse many. And then other things about the blood, the power of the blood, the sprinkling of the blood, the blood covenant and so on. So that knowing continued to happen even after preaching the sermon. So the knowing was happening as I was preparing for the sermon. I preached the sermon, but my spirit was like continuing to meditate on that. And then I'm beginning to see more. And then every time I see more, one thing I do is I go and put it down. Like I don't want to forget it. So I write it. I put it in my computer. So I record it. So type it in. Oh, okay. Oh, now I'm understanding even more about the blood of Jesus. So where is that happening? That's happening in the spirit. Your spirit is receiving spiritual understanding. Then of course, your mind has to process it. Then your mind is able to understand it. Then you're able to articulate it. That means you're able to share it with others and then you're able to apply it. So the second function of the human spirit is to know spiritual things. And a good passage for this is in 1 Corinthians 2 verses 9 to 16, 1 Corinthians 2, 9 to 16, where the Apostle Paul tells us, the natural man cannot understand the things of God. But these are spiritually underscored. That means you must understand it by the spirit. The natural man cannot understand.  But the first place of understanding spiritual things or about the spiritual realm is your spirit. So the ability to understand spiritual things takes place in the spirit and that comes with the help of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is our teacher.  Then it's coming to your mind, oh, I'm seeing this, now I'm understanding. So then you can write it down or talk, teach it, share it, whatever. The third function of the human spirit is for communion. So God created us as spiritual beings so that we can commune with God who is spirit. So God is spirit. And then we worship, we must worship in spirit, coming out of your spirit, spirit and truth, right? So if you want to use the term class, so we are in that same class, we are spiritual beings as opposed to animals or trees. So we're not in the same class of trees. We don't, we're not planted in the ground and hold up branches. We're not like that. We're not in the same class as animals.   We are in a class where God is spirit, he created us as spiritual beings. So we are in a class of beings who can operate in the spiritual realm also. And that's very important because to relate to God, we first connect with him in the spirit, right? So communion with God, that's another function. I commune with God. So even if my body doesn't feel like it, so my mind is not up to it, I can still fellowship with God, it's a spiritual thing. So my spirit can enter into fellowship with God and then my soul can join in slowly and my body will feel good about it slowly. But I start off in the spirit. So we ask body, body, do you feel like worshipping God? No, I feel like I'm not in the mind. Do you feel like worshipping God? No, I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling sorry, I'm feeling whatever. But spirit will start, start worshipping in the spirit. Then your soul and your body will join in. They'll also, ah, very nice, enjoy. So sometimes you start in the spirit. So spirit is meant for communion. Number four, another function of the human spirit is it's also a container that means in the spirit, in our spirit, God is filling our spirit with grace, with his nature, his life, his power, what comes from God first comes into our spirit. You receive it in your spirit and then from your spirit it overflows through your soul. For example, the fruit of the spirit, love, where is that love going to come? It comes from God, the love of God is poured into our hearts, into our spirits by the Holy. So in your spirit is giving you the capacity to love. Now that overrides the soul or influences the soul and then guides our actions. So sometimes your soul may be hurt, may be upset, may be angry, but love overrides that and brings that emotion under control and then our actions follow. We express love instead of expressing hate or anger or being irritable or whatever. So the spirit is there, it's a receiver and it's a container.  The fifth function of the spirit is identity, spiritual identity.  So in the spiritual realm, they're not looking at our passport size photograph for our identity. That doesn't matter. That passport size photograph only for natural things in this world. Spiritual world, nobody's looking at the physical map. That doesn't matter. In the spiritual world, your spirit is your identity. That's who you are. They recognize you. So your spirit is in Christ, so therefore your identity is based on being in Christ. Your spirit is full of faith, so you recognize as a person of faith. Your spirit is bold, so you recognize as a person who is all in the spiritual realm. So understand, your identity in the spiritual realm is based on your human spirit. So the devils were saying, Jesus, I know, Paul, I know, who are you? I say, okay, in the spiritual realm, you know Jesus? We know Paul. What's your identity in the spiritual realm? In the natural realm, yeah, we know you're the sons of the priest. That doesn't matter to us. We're not afraid of that. In the spiritual realm, what is your identity? Yeah, that identity is carried in our spirit and that's where we must know the truth. As believers, we know in the spirit, we actually have an identity in Jesus Christ and we must walk in that identity spiritually, okay? And six and seven, if we want to do things in the spiritual realm, it is our spirit that takes action. So example, if I see a stone lying on the road, I can use my feet, I can go up to it, I can use my hand, pick it up, and throw it out. But in the spiritual realm, if you see a mountain in your way, you use faith and you can move the mountain. Or the faith in your heart can move a mountain in this natural realm. It can affect both spiritual and natural realm.  That means if you want to do things, it's your spirit that's going to do it. How? Through the means God has given us by the use of faith, by the use of prayer, by the use of our declaration, by the use of our authority, by using the weapons of our warfare. The human spirit is going to take it up and do it. So when Paul says, take the sword of the spirit, it is not some human sword. That's on, I got it on my side. No, no, no, no. Your spirit must take the word of God and fight. So your human spirit is capable of action, of doing things in the spiritual realm and from the spiritual realm also affecting the natural realm. So when Jesus spoke to the storm, peace be still. It is not just his natural voice that calms the storm. 1000 people can stand on that same boat and say, peace be still, nothing will happen. But it was his spirit. That means what is coming out of the spirit, the faith coming out of the spirit is affecting what is in the natural and there's a calm.  He didn't say, where is your voice? So where is your faith? So our spirit can take action. If you want something done, you can do it first in the spirit, by your spirit taking action through faith, through serving, interceding, fighting, using the weapons of our warfare, those things we know. That's how we take action. And the last one is the spirit can keep growing. Part of the functional spirit is to keep growing just like the human body. It's born as a baby, becomes a child, a toddler, a teenager, a young adult, an adult and goes on like that, keeps on growing. So the spirit function is it's also keeps growing, growing into Christ likeness, growing in the things of God. So seven functions. By God has given us the human spirit, seven things, seven functions, the human spirit serves. If you want, you can add to this. I just put this list down as from my understanding as these being very important. Okay. Any questions? All right, I see a question here in the chat. After becoming a child of God and being indwelt and baptized by the Holy Spirit, we are led by the spirit, which will be right. How do we differentiate between the conscience and the leading? Will the conscience still be saying things contrary to the spirit or is the conscience enlightened over a period of time? So the conscience, if it is speaking, it always speaks aligned to the law of God that is written in our heart. So that's the conscience. It's the voice of the human spirit expressing the law of God that's been written there. What could happen? So let's imagine it like this. Okay. Let's say there's a man who's lived a very bad life. He's done all bad things. So in his case, his conscience has been suppressed because we don't say conscience necessarily has become bad. We say our conscience has been suppressed. That means the voice of the conscience has been put out and this man gets saved. Okay. So he's been doing all bad things. He doesn't care. Now he gets saved. Now the Holy Spirit comes and lives in him. He's hearing the word of God. So what happens? Slowly the conscience becomes awakened. It becomes a clear conscience. And the voice of his conscience slowly becomes louder and louder. And that voice, like Paul said in Romans 9-1, is always aligned to the voice of the Holy Spirit. So the conscience, so to answer your question here, how do we differentiate between the conscience and the leading of the Holy Spirit? So the leading, it's hard to differentiate, but the way I would differentiate it is one is just a feeling of what's right and wrong. Whereas the other one, I know it's the Holy Spirit telling me. It's a bedding witness too. And the other one is something, it's just like, hey, this is not right. I don't feel it's right. It's hard to differentiate because it's being expressed through your human spirit. Even the leading of the Holy Spirit comes into your human spirit. So it's really hard to explain or even necessarily know, but the thing is that the conscience will be the voice of what's right and wrong. And the Holy Spirit is giving us information more than just right and wrong. And the conscience will not be speaking contrary to the Holy Spirit. We're talking about a believer. As the conscience awakens, it's hearing the truth of God. It won't speak contrary to the Spirit. It'll speak aligned to the Spirit because the conscience is really the voice of the human spirit expressing the law of God that's written in our hearts. So the word of that law is always aligned to God who gave it, the Holy Spirit who gave it. Yeah, I think that's about how much I can explain. I hope that helps. I hope it gives some light, maybe not full light, but some understanding. Yeah. Any other questions, please? Okay. So the main takeaway, you know, you have another question, go ahead please. Can you hear me faster? Yes. Go ahead. Yeah. So when it is, you mentioned that the conscience is always, I'm talking about an unbeliever. So they would, yeah, it would be different, isn't it? I mean, their sense of right and wrong, it would vary. I mean, depending on what the conscience is exposed to or what has been taught to them as of right and wrong, isn't it? So in that way, the conscience, can we say that the conscience operates according to the standard it's exposed to, or does everybody have that sense of right and wrong, irrespective of whether they are believers or unbelievers? Like just now, yeah, you clarified about as far as the believer is concerned, it is clear because of the presence of the Holy Spirit and the law that is there. And so it should be aligned, it will be aligned. But there also, can we say they could be degrees, like in as much as a person is sensitive to the Word of God or the Spirit or, you know, some things are fine, some things are not fine, that can they be degrees like that? Yes, yeah. So we can, let's say we talk about the believer and the unbeliever. So for a believer whose conscience is being awakened with the Word of God and by the Holy Spirit, the conscience increases and it's awakening and it's because before it was suppressed and like the Bible talks about an evil conscience, meaning the conscience is no longer operative and because it's no longer operative, it's permitting the person to do whatever, right? So that's or yeah, so that's an evil conscience, it's been suppressed, it's been silenced and it's just letting the person, basically the conscience is no longer doing its work, it's no longer expressing the law of God written in the hearts of the person.  But you understand the evil conscience, not like the conscience is making him do evil, but it's a conscience that has just been silenced and there's nothing there. So starting from that place slowly it's increasing and it's a venerence of truth as the believer is feeding his heart and mind with the Word of God and so yes, the degrees of conscience. That's why even in a believer, so you think about this, how can some pastor of a church go and steal money from the church? Now you think like pastor, at least you should have your own conscience, even the Holy Spirit is not talking to you. At least your own conscience will tell you, you should not steal money from the church. What has happened? His conscience has been suppressed or maybe his conscience was speaking but he just silenced it, kept quiet. So the voice of that conscience has become smaller and smaller and been suppressed. So to answer the question, yeah, there are degrees of how strong the voice of the conscience would be and the recognition of truth in the conscience. For an unbeliever, what we can say is the conscience is completely silenced and that is referred to as a seared conscience or a evil conscience, evil in the sense because the conscience is no longer stopping them from doing what's wrong and their minds have become depraved. Like if you read Romans 1, Clara explains this, that God gave them up, he let them go to a depraved mind. So they did all kinds of things to the point. So as the mind became depraved, the conscience just became silenced, became evil, no longer forbidding them from doing what's wrong. So in that sense, it was an evil conscience. But now when we are washed in the blood, this conscience is slowly abakened and we are fed with the truth of God's Word. So the main takeaway is, we talked about the seven functions of the human spirit. So we need to, when we say live by the spirits, we are saying, let your spirit carry out these functions in you. Don't let your spirit be dormant. So example, you think about a man lying sleeping, he sleeps all the time, seven days he's sleeping. His body is not doing any function. I mean, other than maybe whatever his blood is circulating, but he's not walking, running, he's not doing what his body is capable of doing. If our spirit is left like that, then these functions are dormant. It's not doing what it could do. So main takeaway is, operate, let your spirit function. Let it operate, let it do these things. Keep your spirit active. Don't let it be dormant and live by these things, live by the spirit, by a conscience, a knowing God, taking action in the spirit, commune with God, fill your spirit with the things of God, operate out of your spirit. So next week will be our last lesson where we'll talk about how we receive spiritually from others. You can receive inputs to your spirit. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you, everyone. God bless.


A Minnesota lawmaker wants to clamp down on the state's dedicated bike lanes, requiring users to go through a safety program and pay for a permit to use them. Representative Duane Kwam, a Republican from Byron, says he worries that the bikers who use the lanes unsafely will have an accident. His bill would also require users to be at least 15. Biking advocates say the legislation is a step in the wrong direction and angry bicyclists are taking to social media to say the bill is unfair. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.