I didn't want to come here, but I couldn't ask Mrs. Washburn to drive all the way back into town just to hear more bad news. Her daughter suggested meeting them halfway, and this place was it. The stock they sold you is basically worthless. Either the companies don't exist or they've never heard a low on Michael's investments. Oh, I should have known better. I started getting these investment offers in the mail shortly after my husband died. Yes, I should have done my due diligence before sending them any money at all. These crooks are very slick, Mrs. Washburn. They target seniors with mailing lists, lottery sweepstakes.  Have you arrested these criminals yet? I mean, even if you can't recover any of my money, I would like the satisfaction of knowing that they're going to pay for their actions. It's a bit more complicated than that. Low on Michael's is what we call a boiler room. It's basically a bank of phones and con men. They've set up shop in Canada to make it harder to prosecute. It would be very helpful if we could get access to your phone records. Sure, I don't have any problem with that. However, I have caller ID on all the phones at home, and I don't remember ever seeing a call that came from outside the country. Usually the calls are routed through switchers here in the US. Or they use prepaid cell phones or calling cards. They do the same with the mail, so you never see foreign postmarks. I see how clever of them. My husband always handled all of our investments. Perhaps I should have hired somebody after the investments were so small, especially in the beginning. And I guess I wanted to think that I could do it on my own. It's difficult watching someone when they realize that they've been taken. I could imagine Doris Washburn sitting alone in her house, just starting to realize that her husband was really gone. Then the phone rings, and it's a nice young man asking if she'd had a chance to read the prospectus that she'd received in the mail. She probably explained that she hadn't had time since her husband had only recently passed away. The con man would have then stopped talking about investments altogether. He'd spend some story about losing his aunt or sister. They might have talked for an hour or more without him ever once asking for money. By the time they'd hung up, Doris Washburn might have thought she'd made a new friend. The next time he called, she'd be happy to make a small investment. Is there anything else you can recall that might help us? Do you speak to anyone else besides Matthew Reigns? Yes, I spoke to his supervisor on at least two occasions. And if anything, it was even more charming than Mr. Reigns. I remember he always asked how my daughter was holding up. Oh, all right, honey. I believe his first name was Richards or Richardson, something like that. I know I haven't written down at home. I'm very careful about taking good notes. I believe his first name was Park. Park Richards? Park Richards. Park Richardson. Park Richardson. I'll need to get your notes today, Doris. All right. We're going to get to the bottom of this, I promise. It couldn't be. We busted a boiler room operator named Park Richardson just before my father died three years ago. This was exactly the type of scam he used to run. Well, now when George, didn't I tell you I have my own mother in that stock, George? Got her. Hey, Alan. Hey, what's up? Park Richardson is still locked up. Richardson? Isn't that the guy that was running that investment scam? The, uh, when your father's friend was mixed up in? Yeah, that's him. I'm working a US-Canadian cross-border case. If it is him, it might make extradition easier. Let me check with the marshals. Great. Give me about 20 minutes, OK? Great. Great. It didn't take long to find out Park Richardson was released from prison four months ago. Miley was inside the joint. He must have picked up some new tricks. We've gotten good at finding and busting boiler rooms in the US. So their newest wrinkle is taking their operations across the border, sometimes to Canada, Latin America, Hornoffshire Island. But as fast as they can change their tactics, so can we. The Phone Busters National Call Center is a Canadian telemarketing fraud complaint organization. We now routinely work with Canada on cross-border fraud schemes. I called one of my contacts there and gave them all I had on Loan Michaels and my suspicions about Park Richardson. Two days later, an email brings me a passport photo of a man named Park Richards, who's in Canada on a tourist visa. Photo confirms that's our guy. Knowing the city he's in helps, and within a few days, Canadian law enforcement has tracked down the location of the boiler room in Montreal. Takes time for the Canadians to build their case, get the warrants, make the arrest. But I don't mind waiting. The look on Park Richardson's face is going to make it all worthwhile. I'm an American citizen. I demand to speak to someone with the US Embassy, like Ponto. This is all just a big mistake. Misunderstanding of the French-English thing you guys have. Park Richardson, remember me? At your trial, I told you you should try a new line of work. This one has too many occupational hazards. Listen, no matter what they think I've done here, it happened in Canada. So it's none of your business. Except your victims are in the US, and you use the US mail to get to them. That makes it my business. Look, this is all just a big mistake. I just came to help a friend of mine start up a small company. And none of this is even in my name. We're extraditing you to the US to face mail fraud charges. Well, plenty of time to sort it all out. About 10 years. Let's go for it. See you in court. Thanks to our partnerships with Canada, Park Richardson is now serving a 10-year sentence for mail fraud. Effective law enforcement within the US has driven these criminals across borders in an effort to hide their crimes. While US-Canadian cross-border task forces are helping to stop these crimes, prevention is still the best medicine. Consumers should be aware that there's an increasing trend for fraud schemes to operate outside the US. Modern travel, communications, and the internet make it even easier for these crooks to prey on you. You can help protect yourself with some simple steps. One, if an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is. Beware of anything that promises large sums of money, sweepstakes, or lottery winnings in exchange for your advance payment, donation, or investment. Two, don't allow yourself to be pressured into making a decision. Consult with your financial advisor, Better Business Bureau, family member, or trusted friend, or your Consumer Protection Bureau before deciding to act. Three, remember that legitimate businesses will never object to you asking questions. They're also happy to provide references. Beware of anyone who tries to conceal their mailing address, telephone number, or evades questions about their operations. Four, be aware that if you respond to even one of these offers, your name will likely be added to a mooch list by these criminals. These are mailing lists similar to those used by legitimate businesses that track people who've fallen for these scams in the past. They're bought and sold as part of these underground enterprises. Be cautious if a company insists on using a commercial wire transfer service to send money. It's often impossible to verify the actual destination where the money will be picked up, making the receiver of the money difficult to trace. Always pay by credit card or postal money order. And if you think you've been the victim of fraud, you need to report it. These reports are vital in helping to track down these criminal operations, especially if they're operating outside the United States. You can contact your local postal inspector in the phone book or on our website at usps.com slash postal inspectors. Cross-border fraud can be a world of trouble for its victims. Make sure that you're not one of them. The United States Postal Inspection Service would like to recognize our partners in law enforcement for their efforts in combating cross-border frauds. These include Project Cult in Montreal, the Toronto Strategic Partnership, Project MTOR in Vancouver, the Alberta Partnership Against Cross-border fraud in Calgary, the Vancouver Strategic Alliance, and the Atlantic Partnership in Halifax. These task forces target criminals in Canada who operate fraudulent foreign lotteries, price promotions, sweepstakes, advance payment loans, credit card, and internet scams. The Phone Busters National Call Center assists these partnerships in investigating and prosecuting criminals who commit cross-border and telemarketing fraud. Our ability to protect U.S. consumers is greatly enhanced by these partnerships, and we are grateful for their cooperation.


Thank you Father Dave After you get so old you don't remember how many conferences you've attended, but we have a student on the bio conference We've had it now for this our 10th year and There's a there's a promotion going on on the on the Facebook saying how many student conferences has the Bishop attended and I was looking at the other day they're up to 34 And it's true. I think I've been at 35 34 35 conferences over my years as a priest and Bishop Not only here, but youth conferences and charismatic conferences and etc So always it's been it's always good to come home to come here and to just give thanks and praise to God for what God has done Blessed to be God and father of Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens as He chose us in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world to be holy to be without blemish In love he destined us for adoption in himself to Jesus Christ in a court of the favor of his will For the praise and glory of his grace that he granted us and his beloved Ephesians 1 3 to 6 That's one of my favorite passages in all of the scriptures It is God's plan and Will that we are to be his adopted sons But because of original sin, we don't come into life as adopted sons of the father only as creatures Only through Jesus our Lord and Savior is this relationship restored by virtue of his obedience to the father Even to the death of the cross From all eternity The father chose his own divine son by nature The word to become man and to demonstrate how in his own humanity man could be the son of the father Let me take a little pause here When I read that passage from Ephesians some time ago, I guess about four or five years ago It struck me that it says before the world began God chose us in Christ Jesus But Christ Jesus Was not a reality before the world began So why does Paul say before the world began God chose us in Christ Jesus? It is my speculation. It's not it's it's not a Theological statement, but a speculation of my port that even if for some reason Original sin never happened The son of God would become man to show us to teach us How to be sons of the father How to be real sons of the father? And so even though we experienced Original sin and even though Jesus has come to redeem us and save us and and show us the father Reveal the face of the father to us. I believe even that had not taken place. He would still become man The son of God became man to reconcile us back to to God to heal the father wound caused by sin to restore us in To his grace and our grace inheritance as adopted sons of the father There was a point That Jesus in his humanity became and was so in love with God the father But he desired to do only the father's will nothing else As he came to realize the father's love and the father's call to him to be the anointed prophesy Messiah he desired to publicly commit his whole being and life to the father. He loved passionately So he went to the Jordan to publicly acknowledge his yes to the father that the father's call To plunge himself totally in doing the will of the father Being immersed in the Jordan with his yes to the father at this moment and in this event Jesus was sustained by one single experience in his life after his baptism in the Jordan while in prayer he experienced a theophany the Father with great joy said you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased and The spirit filled Jesus in his humanity with a fresh outpouring of anointing and power The fathers of the church along with st. John Paul the second said that this was the kiss of the father That sustained Jesus throughout his life even on the cross Have you been kissed by the father? Have you been kissed by the father? The answer is yes We may not know it. We may not remember it But just as when we were infants Probably our father kissed us We don't know it. We don't remember it, but we were kissed by the father as Priest deacons and seminarians the father has said to us and says it again tonight in this week You are my beloved sons in whom I am well pleased and the spirit has anointed and powered us and desires to do It again this week Let's just take a moment And let's reflect on that God saying to you personally Just as he said to his son Jesus in a different capacity But the same intentionality You are my son my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased Sit with that at a moment You are my beloved son you You are My beloved son in Whom I'm well pleased as our dain priests. We are all to Christie The priest is by grace a son of God and a spiritual father those God gives him The priest shares as an instrument of God in the spiritual rebirth of his sons and daughters in the waters of baptism The priest shares in the person of Christ the head in the nourishing of his sons and daughters to the Eucharistic banquet The priest shares in the spokesman of God in the discipline of his sons and daughters through the sacrament of reconciliation As deacons and seminarians you share in the ministry of Christ as priests prophet and king because of the your baptism in confirmation Every man is a father naturally or spiritually as a deacon You are married you who are married or both as seminarians You are potential fathers Striving at this point of your discernment to be future spiritual fathers But before being a father Every man must recognize the that he is first a son Not only of his biological father But for foremost his the son of his heavenly father it is this primary relationship between God the father and We or us his adoptive sons that is at the heart of the fatherhood of the human father Biological or spiritual our image of God his father and our image of ourselves as beloved sons May not reflect the reality of God and the reality of our true identity Our image of God his father is sometimes colored And is determined and blurred by our image of our earthly father If our human father was kind loving encouraging caring patient Outreaching person for personally intimate correcting but accepting then we see God the father similarly but if our human father was distant Uncaring disapproving Unemotional never hugged us or said verbally nor physically that he loved us too busy for us never close hard to talk to made us fearful of him punish us unreasonably Then we see the heavenly father with the same understanding The same may be said of your relationship with the bishop and his relationship with you Like the heavenly father the bishop is called to be a father to his priests Deacons and seminarians and you as loving sons to him But Francis said to a group of bishops recently I would ask you in a special way to be close to your priests Supporting them as fathers easing their burdens and leading them with tenderness At another time he said this closeness of the bishop is not only fraternal, but also paternal as they carry out their pastoral ministry Priests often need it Bishops must not be distant from their priests or worse unapproachable Jesus came to reveal the true picture of his father who is our father Jesus was a reflection and an instrument of the father's love I do what the father shows me to see me is to see the father the father and I are one If you know me you would know the father and he promised to send the spirit whom the father poured out upon us out of his great love for us Jesus told us that the spirit would teach us to remind us all that he Jesus taught us The spirit who is loved the bond of father of the father and the son's mutual love will enable us to come to know the father's love revealed in and through Jesus To know this love not only intellectually in our head, but emotionally in our heart and through our personal experience God the father loves his son The son receives the love in thanksgiving and receiving the father's love thus the son acknowledges the father's love and Validates it Knowing that the son receives his love is sufficient for the father who delights in loving his son The father doesn't look for love in return However, the son loves the father and therefore responds to the father in love in turn Jesus fathered the apostles through love His love was manifested in acceptance of each one and Directing each to reach his full potential and forgiveness and healing and Challenging each and providing the best for each and laying down his life for each It is in the context of that love each finds self understanding and self-worth The self-worth is a gift that does not come from the outside, but is already a given within them But that self-worth can only be discovered and acknowledged in a context of love and acceptance how often in dealing with people especially men They don't feel loved you I asked the question. Are you loved? Yeah, sure. No Do you know that your love down deep in your heart? Well, yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, I know no no Do you really believe? That you are This is silence and the response is no I Really don't believe I love How unfortunate that is And yet that's the reality that we sometime experience in our own lives and we have to encounter in the lives of others Jesus reveals and the Spirit confirms a father who cares for us Jesus does this in his teaching and his actions the image of the good shepherd who goes after the lost sheep and when he finds it He rejoices the parable of the lost coin with the rejoicing upon finding it Jesus reveals the father who's merciful and forgiving as Jesus reached out to the sinners and outcasts. He was saying I am doing my father's will Who sins me to show you his love and his mercy his forgiveness and his Reconciliation when he healed the sick cast out the demons raised the dead to life He was showing the mercy compassion and love of the father The most beautiful depiction of the father's love and mercy Compassion and true desire for us is that told to us in the protocol in the parable of the father and his two sons I Call it the parable of the foolish father The younger one runs away physically from home Symbolizing his total alienation from the father and the elder stays home Symbolizing obligation, but not commitment to the father The father loves both of them and ministers each as they are The younger son couldn't wait for the father to die There's no indication the father had done anything against the son. It was what the father had that motivated the son He was a man of means Once he died his two sons was shared the inheritance the older would get two-thirds in the younger one-third The younger son couldn't wait for this old man as far as I am concerned You are dead, and I want nothing more to do with you. I want my future inheritance now The father loved the son and gave him what was not his yet, but will still belong to the father The father frees him to wish him dead and to be alienated from the father He loves him so much. He frees him to make his choice even at the expense of the father This is what God does for us He gives us the freedom of will to choose to love him in a relationship or to reject him through sin Having seen the result of his decision now destitute He lost more than his material inheritance. He lost his self identity his self-worth his self-acceptance He was a nobody not even good enough to eat the slop of the pigs His return to the father's house was out of hunger and self-preservation. I don't deserve to be your son Let me be at least a hard-hand a slave His shame and guilt remained within him even though he said I've sinned against God and you He called him father not as a son, but possibly as a servant would call The father loves his son He never stopped loving his son. He longs for the day. He will see his son again He looks for him daily his prayers go out to him son return home.  Jesus saying that his father Reacts the same way when one of us returns to him after we ran away because of sin But something is wrong with this picture The father so joyful and the son is cold and unresponsive to the father Remember the painting of the of the prodigal son that that in the father hugging the son What is the son doing? Nothing He's passive the father has his arms around him and the son is just passively there The father so joyful and the son so cold and unresponsive to the father He can't even look at the father eye to eye. He can't embrace the father and kiss him on the cheek He's almost lifeless and the father's embrace There's something he is holding on to Something that prevents him from experiencing the healing love and freeing mercy then conditional acceptance of the father He feels so full of self-condemning guilt and shame. He feels so totally unworthy. Don't father I don't deserve this. I have sinned against God and you I'm a loser You don't know what I've done and how low I have fallen You don't know how abused I have been by others and who used me for their pleasure as I use them I've lost my right to sonship May I be a hard hand or at least can get something to eat and a place to sleep The father wouldn't hear any of this nonsense.   Let's celebrate and rejoice Here are the symbols of your sons yet the robes this ring the shoes the status of son Tonight and every day God says to us the same message You are my son God the father wants to embrace each one of us each day with the same abandoned Abandoned love unconditional love unmerciful love Each of us needs to know that we are love for who we are and not for some other motive in spite of our shortcomings and our failures When Michelangelo saw the flawed block of marble. He saw the statue the shepherd boy David within Everyone saw the external flawed object the artist saw the interior treasure within This is how God sees us When he looks at our hearts He sees his image in us He sees the good That he has already implanted in each of our hearts He sees our sonship The father believes in the prodigal son and when the son doesn't believe in himself Even when he purifies us and strips us God has the vision of himself in us and seeks for our sake to bring it about and Not for his sake The father doesn't possess his son, but frees him to respond or not There's always the question. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing what you're doing? the father says simply Because I love you Whether you accept or respond or reject or refuse I Love you That's my rule as a father To love you we can't equate or duplicate God's love for us But we can imitate his love be a reflection of his love to others we can receive his love and We can be love Yes, the priest is a spiritual son of God by grace and a son of the human father by nature His relationship with the natural fathers learn and experience through the tangible and a tactical as well as verbal and nonverbal statements and actions of his human father Unfortunately, but true Everyone else has father wounds no matter what degree of love and affection we receive from the human father For the human father has his own wounds coming from the imperfection of our human nature Which has been further damaged by original and personal sin If the priest and deacon as father and seminarian as potential father Doesn't realize that he is an adoptive son of God the father if he doesn't know how to receive the love of the father the kiss of the father Then he would find it hard to fully and properly father his own children in accord to the pattern of the heavenly father These father wounds in us hold us back from receiving this outpouring gift of love in mercy It is fear guilt unworthiness shame sin past failures things done to us feelings We don't understand anger resentment failed relationships unanswered needs you name it Yes name it But don't own it any longer all these created wall insulating and Isolating us from the father even though we cry for all the father wants to give us Though our heart wants it our self understanding our scars and our hurt memories prevent us from experiencing it Until we let go the junk within us. We can't know the fullness of the father's love in mercy He wants to embrace us with his love He wants to heal us and restore us to our full inheritance as sons Many times because our father wounds we resist any of the times God reaches out to love us We can't accept his love because we wrongly believe that we are not worthy We are so conscious of our sinfulness that we don't have a we have a hard time to be open to the loving mercy and forgiveness of the father The father of the product of son rush to embrace and kiss his son when he returns home But the son initially holds the father's embrace resist the father's embrace and love since the son knows what he has done And thus it's not deserving of such lavish affection But the father's persistent for he sees his son not the runaway He is more happy that the son has chosen to return and is not interested in the sordid details during his alienation from the father The son seeks only to be a hard hand, but the father refuses anything less than full sonship So when God seeks to break through the resisting walls of our darkened tomb Instead of initially welcoming the embracing arms, we try to push him away We try to run we try to deny or question why and how God could or would enter into myself imposed darkness with his dazzling light But in spite of our efforts of resistance God persists in love to speak words of love and words of life and freedom and ewness and wholeness we fight We struggle, but God will not withdraw It's almost like we know if we Resist long enough God will give up and prove what we fear was real That he doesn't love us no matter what he says to the contrary Some of us prefer to settle for the hug rather than the embrace A hug is one sided and embraces recently is received and mutually and freely responded to A hug says something from the one hugging But it's not received fully by the one hugged who is also making a statement but in embrace An embrace is welcome Received responded to and a gift of love is exchange In an embrace you're included And enclosed in the arms of the other and the other in your arms Let me share your a story Many years ago at a stewville south conference. It was on the theme of the conference was father And I was called to to give the the keynote address saturday night As I was praying to god, what does he want me to say? I heard god in my heart says i don't want you to say too much I want you to show my love.   Am I am I trying to imagine something? They said no do it Say thank you And so I said okay god, I will do it. I if that's what you want me to do I will do it And so I had talked to a young man that I was I was doing spiritual Direction with and a young lady that I was doing spiritual director with and I was fathering them on the journey And I said if I would call you up Would you come up to the stage and allow me to tell you how much I love you and to embrace you in the father's love? They said yeah And so I gave a short introduction as few words no mat no longer than five five ten minutes And then I said I told them the story And then I said I'd like Josh and kelly to come up And they both came up to the stage And I I looked at josh and I had my microphone on and I looked right into his eyes and josh I love you as a spiritual son I love you very much josh And I want you to know how much I love you And I gave him a bear a bear hug And I just held him in my arms And he just just held me in his arms And then I went to kelly and I said the exact same thing and I held her in my arms and she held me in her arms I couldn't see the reaction of the the congregation in the crowd because I was in light and they were in darkness But the staff said bishop It was not a dry eye in The group of young people They all wanted To know that they're loved They all wanted that embrace They wanted that tangible touch That says that they're worth something and that they are loved And I can't tell you after each of the conferences The the student conferences that I've been part of Over the years since then how many young people when I'm standing outside on sunday morning After the mass how many young people just come up right to me just throw their arms and hug me And they just want to be hugged they want to be loved they want to know that someone someone loves them And we represent god We are the the christ They're looking for us To show them that love and I know it's dangerous And I know it would some people say this goes against the charter But my my recommendation to my priest Was this I want you to be a father a spiritual father.  Or are you willing? To be sons again But there's another son in the picture He has been angry over the fact that his father has been looking for this no good kid That anger explodes when he finds out the the younger brother's home That the father has joyfully welcomed him back and restored him fully to sonship without question asked or punishment Exacted and that the father is actually throwing a party for him What a foolish and stupid old man The anger intensifies when he thinks of how faithful he has been to the father and has never received any signs of gratitude Like a party in his honor He has acted out of obligation Hoping for some reward He wanted to do the same with his younger son, but was afraid that his father would disown him He was more the servant than the son He is angry at the brother and angry at the father and may be angry at himself What a fool I have been all these years Working to please my father For what? The father loves both He goes out to his son and shows him how much he loves him and accepts him He asked him to let go his anger jealousy resentment superiority Arrogance and allow the loving father to embrace him as well Jesus doesn't tell us what the younger son's response to the father was Nor that of the older son He only tells us of the loving father Who reveals the love and mercy the acceptance and joy of the heavenly father When one lost son or daughter comes home To his embrace God wants to hold us in that embrace of his loving arms tonight but first We need to let go our past hurts and scars What are those hurts and scars? in your relationship to your father in relationship to Your bishop in relationship to superiors What are those scars? What are those hurts? Why are you hanging on to them? Didn't paul say don't let the son go down on your anger? Don't give the devil a chance So what are those scars? And what are those angers? And what does god want to do for us? I want to talk very quickly about a scar that i've experienced It wasn't directly from my father, but it's a wound It was from my mother That my father was part of the scar Over the years as as a priest as I was growing going into my ministry There was it was always A major stumbling block that I would that I would experience and that was When a dominating woman would somehow another come against me What happened was we were having a preparation for a conference and as we were preparing for this conference This lady was part of the conference team and she was my thorn in my side You ever had one of those people that always was a thorn in your side where she was that thorn in my side? and so After after we had this little confrontation at the during the meeting. She says I want to talk to you Well, I didn't want to talk to her But as a nice guy I said, okay, let's go to my office So in my office and she reamed me down one up one side and down the other side I was the worst person that could ever exist in the world and how could I ever be a priest? Well, she pushed the wrong button When she starts attacking me this way all of a sudden my throat became very tight And and the rage began to Come from the bottom of my toes and I finally said Get out of here. I don't want to talk to you And she says I don't want to talk to you either slam bang out. She went I was embarrassed Because there's a group of people right outside the other side of the door that heard this whole explosion And I knew I had to go from the here to there to get outside and I didn't want to talk to anybody You know what charismatic do when they have situations? Can we pray with you father? I didn't want anybody to touch me pray with me do anything I want out So I said, yeah sure fine pray with me. Oh I left I'm boiling The next day I began my annual retreat And as I began the retreat I said to god god, what is this rage? What is the situation that that I have no control over? And god in his mercy Revealed to me. He says it's always been a woman. Yes, I know I said, what is the root? And it's in my heart.   And god said forgive Forgive And I said mom's dead. It doesn't make a difference.  I forgave myself And I just took all that junk and I put it at the foot of the cross and he says now Let's go over your history and one woman after the other after the other after the other after the other He would show me And I do the same process And finally when I finally got to the thorn in my side You know, I was I was felt such a release as a relief that I was free now I didn't have this this this burden that was holding me back and causing such great pain The week after I came back from retreat I'm brought ready to go to bed and I get a phone call 11 o'clock at night and guess who? The thorn in my side And she just begins again Rean me up one side and down the other because I didn't do x y and z or I did it wrong And I'm sitting in my chair internally laughing And after 20 minutes, she didn't take a break, but after 20 minutes when she took a break. I said are you finished? Yes Good night I was free Whatever that score was God in his mercy and his in his love freed me And so I could see my father and talk to my father I had a great relationship with my father in the last six years of his life. He lived with me And I wasn't sure if I was the pastor.  What does he want to heal in your heart in your life? So that he can truly be the father Ask forgiveness forgive and ask forgiveness Ask god's forgiveness Give away and place at the foot of the cross all the junk Let it go So that god can be god in our lives He wants to embrace us Open your heart to that embrace And respond to that embrace In a short while We will have the opportunity to receive the sacrament of reconciliation It's this is that moment that god wants to break through No matter what our past was And has been god wants to break through Because he has so much love to give us And so the sacrament of reconciliation Here is the moment in which he wants to pour out his love In you in a fresh new way and tomorrow when we celebrate the Eucharist If we if we have opened our hearts Even a little bit more to his love than he can pour more love into us And so get in touch Get in touch Let this night truly be a night Of new life That you will hear again You are my beloved sons In whom I'm well pleased You are my beloved son In whom I'm well pleased


And Senator representing Kano South, Suleiman Kauu, is questioned in the premature removal of the substantive executive director of the Meadstream Downstream Gas Infrastructure Fund, Manso Kulia. According to Senator Kauu, the second of Kulia as executive director of their agency is unlawful as he was not allowed to complete his five-year term, which began in 2022. His outburst was in response to President Balatinibu's letter asking the Senate to confirm Oluwale Adama's ED of the MDGIF on Tuesday in the plenary. Appabio also had the committees to look into senior Senator Kauu's claims and make recommendations to the Senate for further legislative action. In a similar development, President Chinabu wants the Senate to confirm the disengagement of Babatunde Irukera as the executive vice chairman and CEO of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, FCCPC. His request is contained in the letter read by the president of the Senate, gots with Appabio on Tuesday at the resumption of plenary after a four-week Christmas and New Year break. Senate President Appabio thereafter referred the matter to the committee of the whole for further action. Request for a combination of appointments of executive director for the Nigerian midstream and downstream petroleum regulatory authority, NMDPRA. In accordance with the provisions of section four, 41, subsection two, or the Petroleum Industry Act 2021, I am pleased to present for confirmation by the Senate the appointment of Oluwale Adama as the executive director, midstream and downstream gas infrastructure phone in the Petroleum Regulatory Authority. Well, I hope that the Senate will consider and confirm the nominee in a suspicious manner. Please accept the single Senate president and the single senators, the assurances of my highest regards. This is signed by Borla Amitunibu, President-Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria. I am growing the attention of the Senate that the appointment, okay, all the gentlemen who is serving his term was not served with any letter of disengagement so there was no correspondent from anybody but he was just a heart that he has been removed. Therefore, I think we are the one who made this law. It is the responsibility of the National Assembly to respect its own laws. That is the reason why I grow the attention of the Senate and of course Nigerians on the constitutional bridge which I believe it is an oversight from the executive. Hello. Hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


Today, I'm going to be giving you a checklist that has absolutely everything that you need in order to start a successful dropshipping business in 2024. Not only that, but if you comment down below the hashtag checklist and let me know what your takeaway is from this video, I'll also be giving you an actual checklist that you can reference and actually check off with all of these different things so that way you can make sure you don't miss anything. Run checklist protocol. All right, so the first thing that we need to check off is learning the basics of the dropshipping business model. And this begins with what exactly is dropshipping? Well, simply put, dropshipping is a fulfillment business model, meaning all you have to do is simply fulfill orders, but not necessarily in the same way as a conventional or traditional business or a traditional brick and mortar business. So with dropshipping, you're never touching any inventory. What happens here is somebody's going to place an order for your store for a pair of sneakers that cost them $120. You're sourcing those sneakers or you're getting those sneakers for $60.  So you're going to place an order with your supplier and have them ship it out to your customer. So that way you're never touching any inventory. You're pretty much doing everything from the comfort of your chair. So you sold those sneakers for $120. You sourced them for 60. Those remaining $60 are your profit. Now, some of the advantages and some of the disadvantages.  So pretty much anybody can get started in the business, but that also kind of contributes to one of the disadvantages, which is that there's a lot of competition. But don't worry because I do not want that to deter you from getting started. There is a lot of ways to be able to stand out, a lot of which we cover in this video, not just sourcing some of the best products, but also having some of the best customer service and some of the most creative ways to market your products. So remember, while there is a lot of competition, that doesn't mean that you can't be successful. You just need to think outside the box a little bit. But if you want more information on that, or if you want to learn more about how you can actually succeed in dropshipping, then make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future videos. Remember on this channel, we cover pretty much anything and everything dropshipping related to help you succeed. Now, when it comes to understanding dropshipping, you also have to understand the legality of it. Is dropshipping legal? Yeah, 100% legal. The dropshipping business model, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, and there's nothing illegal about it. It can get illegal when you start dropshipping the wrong items, some of which being copyright items and things like weapons. So there's tons of different types of items that you're not supposed to dropship. If you want a little bit more information on that, then just make sure you check out the cheat sheet. On there, I'm going to have links to pretty much every single one of these points that I'm making that can actually help you out in understanding a bit more. So I'm going to have different links in that cheat sheet to elaborate on each one of these points. Now, is dropshipping profitable? That's probably one of the most important questions, right? Well, it can be. So if you do things right, if you set your pricing right, if you have the right suppliers and you have the right products, and you market your products right, you can be very profitable. When it comes to dropshipping, typical profits average between 15 to about 60%. Some items you can sell for a little bit more, some could sell for a little bit less, even though I wouldn't recommend going anything less than 20%. But on average, you are going to be seeing profits of about 15 to 60%. All right, so understanding dropshipping, check.  Although you can start for completely free, depending on the platform that you're selling on, it is recommended that you start with some sort of budget anywhere between $1 to $500 can get you through. But again, this is going to be dependent on the platform that you're selling on. And ultimately, starting off with a budget is going to help you scale a bit faster than starting off for completely free. So with some of the most popular dropshipping platforms, starting with Facebook Marketplace, you can start dropshipping on there with a budget of about $0 to $200. You can start for completely free because you don't need anything to list on there. You can list on there for free, and you can start promoting your products on different Facebook groups. But you can go into paid advertising with a budget and anywhere between $1 to about $200 should be enough to get you off the floor. Next is probably the most popular dropshipping platform, and that's going to be Shopify. Now with Shopify, you can start with less than about $100 given you choose the right plan. But if you really want to start speeding up your profits and getting a bit more sales a bit quicker, then you can set a budget of anywhere between $500 to $1,000. Now this budget is going to be contributing to things like your monthly payment plan, or your yearly plan. It really depends on which one you go with. And most importantly, one of the biggest chunks of your budget is going to go to your marketing. And that marketing is going to be specifically through Facebook or TikTok ads. Now if you don't know much about running ads, then I don't blame you. It can get very complicated, which is why we have a completely free ebook. This ebook teaches you absolutely everything that you need to know about Facebook ads. And if you want access to that, just check out the cheat sheet. It's going to be in there for you. Next we have eBay. And on eBay, you can get started for totally free because you don't have to pay to list absolutely anything. But you can also start with a budget of about $100. Now when it comes to advertising on eBay, there are two different ways to do this. The first one is the promoter listing standard, which is where eBay is going to take a percentage that you set from the final sale of whatever item you're selling. So you can choose to sell a particular item, and you can promote it in exchange for a percentage of it. But then there's also the promoted listings advanced, in which case you are going to be setting aside a budget for. Aside from marketing though, there are a few other things that you need to take into consideration when you're setting a budget. One of those is going to be simply your actual product cost. So typically with dropshipping, you're not going to have to pay anything until you actually make a sale. And that's when you're going to have to purchase the item that you're selling. So you get a sale, you make that purchase from your supplier, and you have it shipped to your customer. A couple days pass by, then you get your payment. Now when you get started, typically speaking, it is going to be a bit easier on the wallet to get started shipping on orders, simply because unless you're really good at marketing, you're going to start off somewhat slow. So you're going to get an order here, an order there, which is going to be a lot easier to process those because it's going to be cheaper. You're only going to have to put down the money for one, two, maybe five, maybe 10 items. But at that point, whenever you start scaling, instead of setting a budget aside from your wallet, what you can do is just take the profits from the sales that you're already getting and set those aside for your product budget. And just a few other fees to keep in mind that can vary are going to be for one, international selling fees, two payment processing fees and three, your taxes and your customs. All right, setting a budget check. The next item on this checklist is going to be product research and finding best sellers. So if you don't know when it comes to drop shipping, one of the most crucial aspects is going to be product research. If you don't have the right products, you're not going to get any sales. You need to have products that have either a wall factor or provide some sort of value to your customer's life. Now, product research can be pretty daunting if you don't know what you're doing or if you don't know what you're looking for. But luckily for you, you're watching the AutoDS YouTube channel where we help you out with absolutely everything. So when it comes to product research, there's a few things that you need to keep in mind. One, don't sell just anything. Yes, I've seen a lot of stores that sell literally anything and try to be the next target or the next Wal-Mart or even the next AliExpress. But while sometimes it works, for the most part, it doesn't. What you want to do is you want to try to niche down. You want to try to niche down to a particular niche that actually has demand. Some of the best niches in my book are always going to be baby products, pets and dogs, and home and DIY. Now, when you're looking through your different suppliers, which we're going to get to a little bit later on in this video, how to find some of the best suppliers, when you're looking through their different product catalogs, there's a few things you want to keep a lookout for. For one, when you find a product that stands out to you, make sure it has good reviews. Make sure it has at least a 4.5 star review and then it has multiple reviews, not just one or two. Look for one that has at least 50. Also, look for reviews that are actually specific to this item and even better have pictures. There's a lot of times where people or suppliers are going to fake reviews, in which case these reviews are going to be very, very generic. They're going to say things like this product is great. This is a very awesome product. I loved it. So things like that. So what you want to do is you want to look for comments or reviews that are a lot more specific, some that actually mention the product or a use case or again, even better have a picture. Also, you want to make sure you check out the best seller sections on any marketplace. So if you're on Amazon, if you're on eBay, if you're on AliExpress, if you're on Costco's website, if you're on any marketplace or anywhere where you can buy anything, look at their best seller section and look to see what's selling, see what's trending and see if you can find products either that are the same thing or similar to it or similar to it with a unique twist. Those are usually the best ones. The ones that are similar to the best sellers, but have one particular unique feature or some twist to it. A hugely valuable resource you have at your fingertips that's totally free is going to be Google Trends. So if there's a particular niche that you're thinking of starting, check it out on Google Trends. So right now we're actually on Google Trends and let's say we want to do swimsuits. So I want to start a swimsuit business or a swimsuit drop shipping business. So I'm going to look up that keyword on Google Trends and I'm going to switch over here the timeframe from the past day to the past five years. This is going to give us a more accurate representation of when the trends start to rise. And as you can see, it's pretty much as clear as day when we should start. So we want to get in right here, right before it starts to take off. And each and every year you can see it's about in the middle of October to November. Same thing here, October to November. Same thing here, October to November. And it starts to rise around December, January. October to November at its bottom starts to rise around January. So in January is when I would expect to start seeing sales for my swimsuit business. Because statistically speaking, that's when people start to look for them. In January, people start to look for their different swimsuits so that way they can be ready for the summer. Another extremely valuable resource that you have is the AutoDS handpicked product section. So this is full of different products that are currently trending and have market demand. But not just that. Let's go ahead and click into one of these. You also have tons of information that can actually help you make a decision on whether or not one of these products is worth selling. So for one, you have an engagement score. I've never seen this on pretty much any other platform. This tells you how much engagement this product has on social media. So how many videos are there? How many likes are there? How much engagement are these videos getting? How many comments are they getting? All of that is put together and displayed for you right here. Then there's also a saturation score. This saturation score tells you how saturated the market is with this product. So how many people are selling this product right now? Is there too many people selling it? Are you not going to be able to get a chance to show yours off? Or is it just getting started? And you can step foot into this product right now and actually have a chance at getting noticed. All of that information is available to you here and more, such as a profit analysis, a target audience. So this can help you find out who your target audience is for this product's for ads. And if you need help constructing these ads, we also have different ads on here that you can check out that are actually promoting this product. So that way you can more or less get inspiration to structure yours. Also, the last resource I'm going to leave you with right now is probably one of the most valuable ones. And that's going to be the AutoDS YouTube channel. Every single month we come out with monthly product videos that are best sellers. Aside from that, we also have different videos that are the top sellers in particular niches. So we're going to have the best electronic products to sell, the best Valentine's Day products to sell, the best products you should sell in March, the best products you sell in June. So these are full of valuable information and all the best products for you to drop ship. So again, make sure you hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any of these. And once this video is done, just go ahead and check out our playlists and look for the sell these now playlist. On there, you're going to find every video that you need with the best sellers on there. Product research, check. Next up, we need to find a reliable drop shipping supplier. Now, there's tons of suppliers out there, but which ones are the best ones? This is what every single person asks themselves, where should you source your products from? Well, again, there's tons of different factors that go into this. But for one, just like with product research, look for suppliers that have good reviews. Look for suppliers that have multiple reviews. Go with a supplier that has at a minimum 4.5 stars. Also, you want to take it a step further and reach out to the suppliers. You want to ask them what their shipping policies are, how long does it take them to ship out their items? What kind of shipping options do they have? Also, do they have multiple warehouses or are they only shipping from their one warehouse in, let's say China? These are all questions that you want to ask. So that way for one, you can see what their actual answers are. You want to make sure that, yeah, your supplier has multiple warehouses around the world. So that way they can ship to multiple countries a lot faster. You want to make sure that they do have a return policy, a good one. And the second thing that you're looking out for with this is how their communication is. So remember, a lot of our suppliers are going to be overseas. Typically, for the most part, they're going to be in China. So because of this communication can be an issue. So you want to use this email as sort of a judge to see how they communicate with you. Are they understandable? Do they get back to you quickly? How quickly are they getting back to you? Remember that our customer service is essentially going to be a reflection of our supplier's customer service. If it takes our suppliers, let's say two days to get back to us, if a customer has a question about a particular product, then we're going to have to reach out to our suppliers if we don't have that answer. And if it takes our suppliers two days to get back to us, then it's going to take us two days and a little bit of extra time to get back to our customers. And that's unacceptable. If it takes you more than one day to get back to your customer, they're either going to one, forget that they ever messaged you in the first place, or two, they're going to go to somebody else and they're going to ask them. And right there, you just lost out on a sale and a potential repetitive customer. Now, just to give you a quick idea, some of the best dropshipping suppliers are going to include AliExpress, Amazon, Etsy, Costco, Walmart, I absolutely love Walmart, Costway, Banggood, CJ dropshipping, Alibaba and DHgate.  All right, selecting a dropshipping supplier, check. Next up, we need to choose a selling marketplace. So where are we going to sell our products? Now, there's a few different places to do this, but these are going to be some of the best ones. For one, you're going to have Shopify. Shopify has to be one of the most popular ones, but there's a few things you need to take into consideration when you're doing this. For one, the biggest difference between Shopify and any other marketplace I'm going to talk about right now is going to be the fact that you need to market your products yourself. So because you have your own website, you need to bring in the traffic to that website by yourself. There's nobody that's going to be helping you do this, except for AutoDS, of course. But aside from that, you are going to need to be running ads, whether that be on Facebook or TikTok. You also want to do organic marketing. That's going to include things like making videos, making different types of content, doing different types of posts on Instagram or Facebook, influencer marketing, writing blogs, things like that. So you are going to have to take that into consideration because for one, all of this is going to take a little bit of extra time. Two, some of these like running ads are going to have an extra cost as well. Now, aside from that, you also have the other types of marketplaces, which are the ones that actually bring the traffic to you. Those marketplaces are going to include Etsy, eBay, Facebook, and Amazon. And the reason for this is because these are selling marketplaces. People are going to these websites specifically to make a purchase. Anybody who goes to Etsy is already thinking, I'm going to buy something. They already have something in mind that they're going to be looking for.  So you don't really have to market your products that much if you're selling on eBay or Etsy or any of these marketplaces. Even though it can help you, it's not going to be fully necessary. Now, there are two more that I didn't mention, and that's going to be Wix and WooCommerce. Now, these are also similar to Shopify, where you get to create your own website. These are going to be two different options, but in my opinion, they're going to be a little bit more advanced. And honestly, with Shopify, you have absolutely everything that you need. So when it comes to starting up your website, my suggestion to you is always going to be go with Shopify. Selecting your selling channel. Check. Now that you know where you're going to sell, the next part is pretty crucial. And honestly, this can be the point where you really start to scale. And this is connecting to a drop shipping automation service. So what happens here is you're going to connect to a drop shipping automation service, such as AutoDS, where whenever you get an order, it's going to be pretty much fulfilled for you. So one of the biggest features when it comes to connecting to a service like AutoDS is going to be order fulfillment, which is where somebody places an order in your store. And instead of you having to go to your supplier, signing on, going to look for that item, adding it to your cart, putting in your customer's details, having it shipped to them, taking that tracking number once it's available and updating your marketplace with it, it's all going to be done for you through AutoDS. AutoDS is going to do the entire thing for you. Now, even though everyone has checked out before and everyone knows how to make a purchase online, it's perfectly fine if you want to do it yourself. But think of it this way. It can take a couple of minutes to order one item. Imagine if you have 20 orders that you have to fulfill in one day, and you have to place 20 different orders. While it might not sound like a lot, because it's a pretty easy process, it's very time consuming. And it's going to ultimately keep adding up the more and more you scale. A drop shipping automation service like AutoDS is going to completely take this out of the equation for you. So you don't even have to think about order fulfillment. Aside from that, you also have automated product importing. So what happens here is pretty much the same thing. Instead of you having to go to your supplier's website, let's say on AliExpress right now, and going to each and every one of these different variations, right clicking, saving the image, copying over the title, making any adjustments to it, copying over the description, optimizing everything. It's going to take a long time, especially if you want to upload multiple products to your store. And speaking about uploading multiple products to your store, AutoDS will take care of that for you as well. So you can upload either just one product or multiple products. So check this out. So let's say I want to import this product. So I'm just going to go ahead and take the link. I'm going to cut it or copy it, go to add products, and I'm going to choose either single or multiple products. I like to use the multiple products one because I do this all the time. So I'll look for one item, I'll paste it on here, I'll look for the second item, I'll paste it right under it, and so on. Now when this is done, all I have to do is click on add as draft, and everything is going to go to my draft section. On here, you can make any necessary adjustments to any one of these products. So let's say this one, for example, I can go ahead and change the title, I can change the category, I can change the shipping policy, I can change the description as well. If you're not good with actually writing up these titles or descriptions, don't worry about it, because there's even an AI rewrite tool built into AutoDS. This will rewrite your description and your title as well. So that way, you don't have to worry about that, or even go to a different website to get this done. It's all done for you right on the same platform. Now these are just some of the benefits that you get with dropshipping automation. There's tons more. And again, if you want to see any more details on this, if you want to find out more, just check out the cheat sheet. On there, you're going to have a lot more information that you can go through. And remember that for access to the cheat sheet, just go ahead and comment down below the hashtag checklist and let me know what your takeaway is from this video. So connecting to a dropshipping automation service, check. The next one is one that actually we just covered and that's going to be importing products to your store. So after you connect to your service, you do want to make sure that you start importing these different products to your store. Because of course, if we don't have any products in the store, then we're not going to be able to make any sales. Now I did show you one way to be able to import your products, but check this out. This is the second way. So I showed you earlier handpicked product section at AutoDS, but we also have a marketplace. So both of these have trending products that are all currently in demand. And to make things even easier for you, you can import these products straight from these screens. So let's say this Rubik's Cube is one that I want to import to my store. Instead of having to copy the link or any of that stuff, since it's right on the AutoDS platform, all I have to do is click on import draft. And from there, it'll automatically go to my draft section. Importing products, check. Next up, we need to start marketing these products. Now, how are we going to market these products? Well, that's going to depend on the platform that you're selling on. Remember, if we're selling on Shopify, we're going to go ahead and start running Facebook ads. On top of that, we also want to run TikTok ads. And we want to start making content. We want to start writing blogs. These blogs are going to include different pain points that our products can solve. We want to try to go viral on TikTok. TikTok is probably one of the best resources that you have to be able to market your products. Dropshipping on TikTok right now is the biggest thing that you can start doing. It has so much potential because you have so much possibility to just simply go viral. One video can make you a ton of money. And best thing is that that video can be completely free to make. Then you also have the other selling platforms like Etsy, eBay, Amazon, and Facebook. In which case, all of these, you can follow some of the same roles that you do with Shopify. You can market them the same way. But these platforms also have their own ways to market their products. Etsy has their promoted listings where you can promote a certain listing and set a daily budget. eBay has the promoted listing standard and advanced, each of which work in their own specific way. The standard way is going to be by taking a percentage that you set from your final sale. The advanced is a bit more complicated.  But with the advanced, you are going to have to set a budget for it. Amazon also has their own way of marketing their products through their own promoted listings. And another way that you can market your products, regardless of the platform that you're selling on, is going to be with one of my favorites, influencer marketing. So you're going to want to find an influencer in your niche. So find an influencer that could use your product and whose audience is going to be interested in that same product. Reach out to them, talk to them, strike up a deal that can either be a monetary deal where you pay them to promote your product, or you could just give them a free product and they'll promote it for you to their audience. To make things even sweeter, give them their own discount code. That discount code can be used by their followers to get a discount when they place an order. This can also help you track your sales through an influencer to see which ones are working and which ones aren't. So who do you want to keep working with and which ones are going to be better to just cut off? Marketing check. Next up, let's fulfill our orders. Now when it comes to fulfilling orders, there's three ways to do this. The first one is going to be the manual way. The manual way is going to be the most time consuming way, but it's also free. So we already went over this. When it comes to placing your order, you're going to have to do everything manually from getting that order, signing onto your supplier, adding the item to your cart and everything else. But if you implement a dropshipping automation service, such as AutoDS, then you have two extra options. One of those is going to be fulfilled by AutoDS and the other one is going to be automatic orders. My personal favorite and the one that I always use is fulfilled by AutoDS. But with automatic orders, this is how it works. Somebody's going to come to your store, they're going to place an order. And what's going to happen is that AutoDS is going to sign on to your buyer account. Whether that be through AliExpress, Amazon, or any other supplier that you're using, that's compatible with AutoDS. You can link it to your AutoDS account. So that way AutoDS can sign on on your behalf to your account and make a purchase using your credentials, whether that be your credit card or your banking details. Now the other one is my personal favorite, which is fulfilled by AutoDS, where pretty much the same thing is going to happen. Except instead of signing on with your credentials, AutoDS is going to sign on with its own credentials. So AutoDS has tons of buyer accounts for marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, and all of these other suppliers. So it's going to sign on using its own account and place that order on your behalf with a balance that you set. So you don't even have to put in your credit card details. All you have to do is top up the balance whenever it gets low. So that way you can keep automatically ordering with fulfilled by AutoDS. Now the biggest way that fulfilled by AutoDS shines is going to be with Amazon. So if you're using your buyer account on Amazon to drop ship and send items to a ton of different addresses, Amazon's going to block they're going to restrict your account. But if you're using the fulfilled by AutoDS service, you're never going to have that issue. AutoDS is going to use its own buyer accounts. And if one of those gets locked out, there's tons more. Don't worry, your account is always going to be safe. So you're never going to have any issues with it. As long as you're using fulfilled by AutoDS, fulfilling your drop shipping orders, check. Now, this next one is probably going to be one of the most crucial ones in order to get repetitive sales. And that's going to be to provide the best possible customer service. If a customer sees that you're caring to them, and they see that you do care about their business and them as a customer, they're most likely to come back to you, even if they have a bad experience with a product. A lot of the times customers will think that's just the one off, which most of the times, hopefully it is, hopefully you have a good supplier and that was just an accident. But a lot of the times customers are actually willing to oversee a bad item, if they know that you're trying to take care of them. Customer service is crucial. And it can really outweigh a bad product. Of course, if you have multiple bad products, and you have the best possible customer service, customers are going to stop coming to you because they're just going to have bad products over and over. If you have bad customer service, even if you have the best products, then a lot of the times a customer won't go back to your store, especially if they reach out to you and you're either really rude to them, you sound like you don't care, or you take a long time to get back to them and reply back to their email. Trust me, it's happened to me. I've purchased some amazing quality items from certain places, but they just give me such bad customer service that I say I'm not going back there. Customer service is extremely important, whether that be before a sale, during a sale, or after a sale. You always want to make sure that you provide the best possible customer service and that you get back to your customers at a max of one day. And with that, we officially check off the last item on this list. What did you think of this video? What did you think of this checklist? Let me know down in the comments below and let me know if this was helpful to you. Remember, if you want access to the cheat sheet, I mean the checklist, then just go ahead and comment down below the hashtag checklist and let me know what your takeaway was from this video. Do you like dropshipping? Do you think it's worth it? Is it something that you've been trying to start? Is it something that you've been dipping your toes in? Let me know down in the comments below. Huge thank you to everyone for watching, especially if you made it all the way to the end. As always, if you made it this far, then that means you obviously, you enjoyed the video. So make sure you smash that like button. Make sure you hit that subscribe button and ring that little bell notification so you don't miss out on any future videos. With that, my name is Mario with AutoDS, wishing you all nothing but the best in your dropshipping business and I'll catch you all next time.


There is something called as a biennial gland. Various aspects of yoga or sadhana of yoga is to move it little down south, it's called moving it south. This is the symbolism of Shiva turning south because his third eye moved south. What was up here came down between the two eyes. The moment it came here, he saw things that nobody had ever seen. Now, if this happens in a certain way, the secretions of the pineal, which in yoga is referred to as amrit or amrita or amritam in probably in Sanskrit, this amritam either can be taken into the system to strengthen the system and increase or extend the longevity of the system.  Or you can use this amrita to enhance your perception that you can become like thin air because everything that is here passes through you. Right now air passes only through your nostrils and you know if it doesn't pass, you're gone. If this air can pass through right across you, some of you might at some moment felt when you're very carefree and joyful, you stood in the breeze, it feels like breeze is passing through you. And you become hundred percent transparent. That is because you've used your amrita to bring sensitivity to the system. So these are three fundamental ways. One is to strengthen the body to make it like a rock which will give a certain longevity to that person, which is considered superhuman by most people. Or to bring such a level of drunkenness and blissfulness within you that you don't care how long you live. Or to make yourself like thin air that your perception is super hyped because there is absolutely no resistance in the system. The same secretions of the pineal gland can be used in three different ways. This amrita or this secretion of the pineal gland will play the right kind of role in the system. And I say right in my perception only if it enhances your perception, it is right. Because if you do not enhance your perception, your life doesn't get enhanced in any way. It only gets enhanced in somebody else's eyes. If you become like a rock, your experience of life may not change. It is just other people think you're fantastic. Well, we could have made a statue out of you and you would have been a rock. Anyway, we didn't need a human being to become like a rock. If you have a rock for a brain, this will be the problem.  Your entire life goes into this as to which is superior, which is inferior, which is better, which is worse. Endlessly, you will be comparing yourself because this is the nature of a rock. This is the nature of physical reality. Once you identify yourself with physical reality, which is better, which is worse is a natural process of thought. Only if you transcend that, can you be free from this as to which is better and which is worse. When one masters one's muladhara, which got referred to as kaya kalpa, you become like a rock. You want to make the body last for a millennia or more. When swadhisthana sadhana is done, the burst of energy happens. One can deliver a god, but you may lose your body. If you bring any sound to manipuraj, without opening your mouth, the very body reverberates the sound. When one is dominant in their anahata, they start hearing things. A reasonably stable person can go crazy. The moment Vishuddhi is active, you become occult competent. Disembodied beings will naturally move towards you. Agna means there is clarity. The level of freedom it gives you is tremendous. The sahasrar is total madness. The moment energies touch sahasrar, you drip ecstasy.


So, hello. Thank you for coming to our presentation. We're going to talk about exploiting the IoT Hub, which includes attacking the smart phone by compromising IoT devices and some countermeasures for this attack. And I know that the IoT Village is also running the Android Track and the CDL Track. And maybe this talk is helpful for those who are participating in the tracks. So, my name is Huon Lee, and I'm a graduate student of HCL Lab at Korean University. And I like to play in CDF, and I'm currently participating in DEF CON CDL Final as DEF Corp. And I've been researching on open-source software targeted forging and contributing to security by reporting the found bugs, and I got some CVS. And I'm also interested in embedded security such as IoT and SCADA and so forth. And we're also meant to best of the best, also known as BoB program, which is a cyber security expert educating platform in Korea. Hello. My name is Changhyun. I'm working in a cyber security consulting team at the company UI Korea. I'm a graduate student of Songyong-gun University, and I'm so excited. But also a little nervous, giving my first overseas presentation. Thank you. So, now we'll introduce our agenda of this presentation. We briefly explained the structure of smart-tone after the introduction of this over a talk. And we'll analyze real-world case study of threats that may arise in the smart-tone environment. Next, we'll conduct vulnerability analysis for different IoT devices. We found 20 vulnerabilities, and we'll describe their types. And we'll suggest feasible tech scenarios by changing these vulnerabilities. Then we'll briefly outline the countermeasures required to prevent these attacks and conclude this talk. So, now let's get started. In 2016, there were mental infections targeting IP cameras and home routers. The attack targeted against a large number of internet-connected devices to form a bond network, which was used for large-scale dose attack. In fact, the vulnerability used for this attack is quite simple, but fairly critical. Attackers can easily compromise those devices just by processing the password for talent, which means that there was no secret consideration in IoT devices. In 2017, a new internet-connected network called Perciri has been discovered targeting over 1,000 IP current models. The use of vulnerability for this attack was command injection with authentication bypass, and approximately 120,000 IP cameras were found vulnerable. However, the worst is many of these vulnerable users didn't recognize that their IP cameras were exposed to the internet. There was a case of attacks on different routers, which are used widely in the world. Even the exploit codes were released on the exploitative website. This attack consists of only two vulnerabilities as well, command injection and authentication bypass where you needed to compromise the routers. Likewise, attackers can download and execute the model on the device and build up sensible network to fully take control of the devices remotely. So, now let's focus on the secret of smart home. You know, the IoT Hub which connects all the smart things to the same network area and communicate with remote server for management is considered as vital element in the smart home environment. The Hub device is also connected to the internet, which means it can be attacked as the previous IoT exploit cases. If an externally accessible port is open, or the routers can access the same network area. In fact, Cisco tells intelligence recently released vulnerability analysis results on Samsung SmartThings Hub device. The found vulnerabilities include command injection, workflow, information leakage. And these vulnerabilities can be chained together to form a fully split code compromising the Hub device. So, as you know, the IoT threats are still ongoing and countermeasures for these threats should be considered urgently, I think. So, we have conducted trial analysis and found many vulnerabilities for the Hub devices made from different manufacturers. And we want to share the results from now on. Yes, next I will talk about the structure of smart home. According to this diagram, smart home services can be broken down into application platform server IoT Hub IoT Things. There are times when there is no need for IoT Hub, but it is present in most smart homes. I will now explain more about the IoT Hub in detail. IoT Hub manages small devices in the smart home. It supports wireless protocol like the Z-Wave, ZGB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Zera. Also, to connect to a platform server, it uses diverse provisioning protocols. These protocols include DR069, MQTT, COAP, HTTP, 1M12, and custom protocols. Yeah, next is the process of IoT Hub. The IoT Hub process is composed for steps. First, the smart home service app will register the IoT Hub with the server. And second, the IoT Hub performs a user authentication through the server. Third, the IoT Hub and the Things goes through the process of pairing. Finally, the user is able to access the Things through the application. So far, we have covered the functions of the IoT Hub in smart homes. Now we will frame why we chose the IoT Hub as our target. Our first listen is that once the IoT Hub is taken over, it would be very possible to take over everything connected to the IoT Hub. Because of this, there would be many possible scenarios are like louder exploitation. Furthermore, we imagine that through the exploitation of the IoT Hub, we would be able to hack difficult wireless protocol such as the Z-Wave. Lastly, our most important reason for choosing our target as the IoT Hub was for money. And we are both. Now we will find out more about the smart home and IoT Hub and the various threat. This picture shows a threat that exists in smart home services. I have separated the threat into two graphs, the external part which is outside the home and the internal part which is inside the home. I have only included points that were important in my opinion. In the external section, the primary threat, the supply chain attack of formula server and the user aspect pass and many the middle. And the internal section, there are memory corruption, command injection, LPE, many the middle. And very important threat is remote control of things. And now we will consider real example of a threat in each section. This case is a mobile application, an example of a threat that cannot go outside the home. One is able to control another devices using once on application. There are two examples in the internal section. We will first examine the one concerning the IoT Hub. Recently, many vulnerabilities have been discovered in the Samsung IoT Hub. This including threat is RCE, dust, information disclosure and injection. This one was discovered in the Z-wave which is a wireless protocol. It is using the default encryption key, many the middle attack was possible and now the first has been patched. Let us take a cruiser look at the IoT Hub to learn more precisely and carefully into potential threat of the IoT Hub. We drew a threat model based on stride. As you can see in the flow diagram, the IoT Hub indicated by red dot line is connected to the other section including the platform server and things. The IoT Hub was many processes and flows. Process is a circle, just line is flows. A lot of stride and other vectors is just because of this. Yes, in the table below which threat is explained now, we will talk about this in detail. So number 32 is the potential lack of info validation or poor pairing. We will now present a specific example of an instance when this threat was properly exploited. My partner we will take it from here. So from now on, I'm going to talk about vulnerability analysis for IoT Hub. We analyzed total four products. For each product, the MC architecture is classified as ARM and MIPS. Also a jet wave, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and RF are used for wireless communication between IoT Hub and smart devices. And the IoT Hub transmits the threat status information of the device such as phone information, certificates and secret keys and so on to the server via provisioning so that the remote server can't manage the device such as automatic updates, device registration, connection and communication with mobile application. So company A uses TR-069 as provisioning that is customer premises equipment, wide area network management protocol also known as CWMP. And this will be explained more detail later on on our slide. And company C uses the MQTT protocol. MQTT is a machine to machine and Internet of Things connectivity protocol and it was designed as an extremely lightweight public subscribed messaging transport. To manage IoT Hub devices, there are management services in the form of web application or something else. And web applications are usually developed based on open source such as, well, go ahead for web server and light HDPD, but nowadays it seems to be a trend to customize the source or develop the service directly from the manufacturer. In addition, we confirmed whether it can access to the debugging shell from remote or you are at the debugging port. As you can see, we can get a debugging shell by you are for all of the target devices. So there are six steps to analyze IoT devices. First of all, instruct the firmware because the functions need to be analyzed are usually embedded in the firmware. Second, acquire a command shell for debugging. When you access the shell, you will notice which processes are running as a key role. Those requests, once the main binary is extracted, we can analyze the vulnerabilities and finally exploit them. There are roughly three ways to extract the firmware through the provisioning. The remote server checks the firmware version of the Hub device and performs automatic update when the version is not up to date. At the same time, the updated firmware URL information can be obtained and the firmware can be downloaded. Another way to get the firmware is using the UR debugging port. As you can run all commands in the debugging shell, we can extract the desired binary through commands like TFTP, FTPGa, CoralNC, and so on. Also, we can use JTAG instead of the UR, but we'll skip it because it's too expensive. So if both methods are impossible, there is a way to dump the flash memory directly. There are many ways to dump the flash memory, but in our case, we used Arduino equipment. In addition, we can also remove the flash memory chip through the disordering for memory dump. Next, we need to acquire a debugging shell usually using the UR method. Sometimes it's easy to get a shell if Telet or SS40 is open and it says it's set as a default account, which can be easily cracked. And the UR attack exploited this type of vulnerability. And usually a login account is required, as you know, when assessing via UR or Telet. Then how to log into the shell? Let's suppose the firmware is extracted already obtained in a different way. Then we can search the hard-core password or check the password routine by reversing the relevant binary containing the login-related functions. Sometimes the password is written in the config file and we can find it easily. Now, what if you cannot get the firmware or do not know the password? Is there a way to log in even if UBoot's boot delay option is set to zero? You know, UBoot is a bootloader handling lots of tasks such as system initialization, current loading and execution. Normally if the boot delay option is set to enough, we can get it to bootload the prompt and change the kernel image booting option. But otherwise, we'll have to short the NAND flash chip. It's the principle that connects between groundpeat and the particular pin of the NAND chip because it's a current loading error and can bootload the prompt. After entering bootload the prompt, we can set boot ARGS options by adding entity call pin as a string and then reboot. Then we can get the UR debugging shell with root account. Next, identify main process. Since the program startup commands are usually defined in the startup script file, we can easily find the main process. The network status check command tells you which ports are open and which processes are running. There are five categories of vulnerabilities we have found. Let's take a closer look at each one. When sending a payload to a web application, it usually validates the session value and we can bypass the authentication with a simple URL trick. As you can see, if the request URL ends in .css, .gif, .jpg and et cetera, the function of validation for a session is not called, which means we can bypass authentication routine. In some cases, the program itself creates a session value with non-random. In this case, we can bypass the authentication by generating our forward session value. In fact, this is one of the vulnerabilities used in the recently released Router exploit. As you can see, the first vulnerability is authentication bypass. This was done by putting question mark images strings at the end of the URL. Attackers could easily bypass authentication by inserting certain keywords into the end of the URL and succeed in remote code execution with a second vulnerability command ejection. The most common but fatal vulnerability is command ejection. The vulnerabilities could be implemented literally by inserting arbitrary commands into certain headers or parameters. This can reliably execute code without the need for bypassing mitigations like DP and AS at all. As you can see in the image, if you inject a command into a certain parameter, it passes an argument of the system function without sanitization resulting command ejection. As you can see, one simple command ejection makes it possible to access to the system remotely. This is the most attractive vulnerability for attackers. Now, this is the very typical vulnerability, workflow. In fact, many of the IT devices we had analyzed didn't have secure coding applied. So we focused on the vulnerable functions like searching copy, espring tab, mem copy and so on to find workflow. As you can see from the image below, the functions are used quite a lot. Now, on some devices, we could find functions that simply execute commands. This function is assumed to be used for debugging from the perspective of developer. However, it is considered as a backdoor from attackers point of view. Unlike most cases, in this picture, the name of the function is too clear that it is a backdoor. However, the function is usually hidden and some constraints should be met to execute commands. Likewise, you can control the device very easily. As you can see, we inserted command creating directory on command parameter. Then we can create the directory successfully. Lastly, local privilege escalation vulnerability. There are many ways to elevate privileges on Linux embedded systems. Sometimes in an embedded system, the privileges are separated as root and user so that certain processes run with normal user account. In the account accessed through talent is a normal user account. Elevation privilege is required to execute work commands. Instead of Linux current exploitation, we'll show you privilege escalation by using a logical file, which is user-owned script file executed as root account. As you can see, the user account is linear. It's a normal account. And the rc.local file is a startup script that is executed with root permission. And it executes serial.sh file as a command. However, the serial.sh is a user-owned file and can be modified as normal user account. If we insert a command to change the password of the root account into the serial.sh file, then we can access to the system with root account successfully. Based on the found vulnerabilities, we can develop a final exploit. Profile flow can be exploited to remote code execution. To do this, our apetecity and shellcode development are needed. So you can run shellcode by chaining three gadgets that control specific registers, get the address of the shellcode on the stack, and jump to the shellcode. This code is a reverse TCP connection for architecture that allows you to execute commands from a remotely connected server. So we have developed a complete exploit for company A hub product. And we will demonstrate that we can fully take control of the hub device by combining the authentication bypass with buffer flow. So in first demo, we'll show you the company A's hub device is fully compromised by buffer flow and authentication bypass. So the left side is attacker side. So we have to open the port, a listening port from remote reverse TCP connection. And the right side is a tele-session for checking our exploit's success. And this is the UART debugging shell. Also checking the exploit's success. And the middle side is attacker side and execute the exploit code by setting target IP. The target IP is a web service of the hub device. And we can get a remote shell. For proof of concept, we create a flag pile as contents point. And as you can see, the flag file is created successfully and the content is the same. And also in the UART debugging shell. So as you can see, we can execute any commands as we want. So we compromise the hub device successfully. So now let's look at which attack scenarios are possible with the identify vulnerabilities. First, it is the scenario that controls the things. If an attacker gains control of the hub device, all IoT devices connected to the hub can be controlled. Usually hubs and devices communicate wirelessly by jet wave, GCP and RIF, but there is no authentication between them. So we can leverage these points to manipulate command packets to control devices or for status information. As you can see, the hub device recognizes the specific file of the packet as control code. And based on this, it gives a certain command to the relevant devices. Also, if the main process is implemented as Java application, you can see that the payload is also sent in a specific format. So by delivering packets based on these formats, we can control the devices as we want. So this is a second demo. This is a door open sensor. In this demo, we will show that we can forge status information of the smart things and it can lead to false information on mobile application. Because the company only service for Korean customers, so the mobile application supports only Korean. So please understand that. And we have subtitle as English. So as you can see, the application tells the door open sensor is open. However, if we send the packet that includes closed information for the sensor, then you can see that the application status information is just forced. But still, the door open sensor is open. And the next demo, we can disconnect the smart things by sending this package to the hub device. So, yeah, as I said before demo, we can disconnect the device. And we can also control the smart bulbs. It's the PLX hub bridge and the smart light. If you compromise the hub device, you can analyze many command packets and send counter packet to the connected smart things. For the proof of concept, we developed a Python script, yeah, to control the light bulb. At first, we can turn on the light. So, and also we can adjust the brightness of the light bulb. And so if you set, oh, sorry. Sorry. If you set the brightness as middle, the brightness will be dim. And also we can turn off the light. And we can flash the light bulb also. So this means you can control the device as you want if you compromise the hub device. Then let's look at the cases of encrypted communication between the server and the hub. Since the updated devices are communicating with servers as encrypted as SSL or TLS, there is no useful information to be extracted in the case of many in the middle. However, one of the devices we have analyzed uses a scheme that the IoT hub itself generates as toward the encryption key in the device. Which means that the packet can be decrypted if the hub is compromised. So we analyzed the encryption algorithm and found that it is Ace128 ECB mode. This is a symmetric key. Cypher, so the server and the hub share the same key. Coincidentally, there was a peripheral vulnerability in the hub device which we could take over the system and extract the 16-byte encryption key. So as you can see the data area of the packet is encrypted. For peripheral set, Ace AES128 ECB mode encryption algorithm was written in C code. And corresponding message is decrypted by entering the extracted key values. This can be used as a scenario for disconnecting a hub device by sending a first information to the server. So my partner Chang-yeon will continuously. Hi, I'm back. This scenario is the man in the middle. Some IoT hubs use TR069 protocol for visiting with the server. When the server and IoT hub communicate, the HTTP response message is changed and exposing the hub's critical information. We will show the admin web password in the next demo. Oh, sorry. The TR069 protocol is authenticated via two HTTP list guests with the server. After authentication, change the HTTP list guests, this point, yeah, change. Just as the server asks for information, this hub is disclosed the admin web password and the string is small. Sorry. This is the web admin password and we dropped the packet. It's a simple man in the middle demo. These vulnerabilities may be used in Burnet because its IoT devices are connected to internet, which means that those can be used for Burnet. A lot of Burnet have a code since the Mirai Burnet case. Yes, let me take a cruiser, look at the IoT Burnet in detail. First, IoT Burnet is increasing. Burnet such as Mirai, Hajime, and Moon continue to be found. Last year many IoT malware were discovered. Second, the IoT attack method includes Saturday on the admin web, one day on the open source and misconfiguration like the same password, default password. And third, the attack purpose is evolving. In the beginning, IoT Burnet used the DOS, but today used as PDoS, ransomware, and mining pool. Finally, many countries are causing damage like the Mirai Burnet. So how about the IoT Hub we found? We searched, we searched through Shodan. We haven't found much, but 70,000 devices has been exposed. Also, the vulnerabilities of IoT Hub can be used as a mining pool. There are cases where Bitcoin was mined through OpenWRT. Of course, you need hardware support for mining. It is just one of the many scenarios. Two weeks ago, the article came out. It was mining through micro-thick devices. According to this article, there was a mining code on the admin web page of micro-thick devices. Like this example, mining pools can damage devices or users. Maybe the IoT Hub is also possible. The final part of our presentation, we did IoT security. How should we secure IoT? I think there are three necessary steps to follow. Device security and compliance and detect anomalies and threats. The first is device security. Each device needs each unique password, share, admin web, and Wi-Fi password. Most always different each following password rules. Debugging ports like UART, JTA must be disabled. For calls developed individually, secure coding is absolutely necessary. And if we have an open source, it must always be updated to its latest version. We are able to easily carry out our analysis because three out of the four corporations had not encrypted in their respective partners. Then, even if the hacker obtained the partner, the file system will not easily be obtained. Second about compliance, IoT security guideline made by international organization must be followed. It is good to keep this guideline as a reference because they explain the security of the IoT ecosystem. A good guideline to follow it is this IR-A200 made by NIST. But we should not stop here. There are the guidelines of minimum. And security must constantly be maintained. Third, one must be ready to deal with anomalies and threat detection. To detect anomalies and threat, one must do the following, data collection, intelligence analysis, automated response, and visualization. So, it's conclusion of our target, our talk, sorry, our talk, to level our presentation. We found many different threats, the IoT hub, and smart home services increasing due to technology like the voice recognition, AI, and machine learning. Furthermore, the IoT hub is evolving to the forms of AI speakers and work paths. This is good news for us. We have plenty of research to do in the IoT security. We will threaten more findings and research about security in the future. Here are the reference and special thanks to Anastasia, Singi, Bongi, and Boombom Park. Thank you for listening to our presentation. If you have any questions, we are happy to take them. When you come to us, please, we are always open. Thank you.