without further ado, here are the speakers on APT. Hi, it's something go wrong since because of the shot, right? Okay, I'm Sergio Dos Santos, I come from Spain, head of security and lab in 11 parts, which is the telephonic cyber security unit. And Sheila, and I work as security researcher as well in 11 parts, I'm 23 years old and I came from Argentina. Thank you, well, let's start. In the world of threat intelligence, determining the attacker geographical location of is one of the most valuable data for attribution techniques. However, in some cases, tracking a malware developer can turn into a pretty difficult thing and our researchers start getting mad and even feels a little bit frustrated. That's why we are always paying attention to new techniques that might help to track malware developers and reach the potential origin of a malware campaign. In this presentation, we'll focus on Android. First, talking about two new techniques that we found to track Android malware developers by getting the time zone of them. The first thing it has to do with a bag inside the Android SDK, controlling the package. This bag makes a time zone disclosure of the computer where the developers have compiled a malware. And the second technique is related to a calculation of creation times between the certificate of the APK and some files inside it. So at our talk, we'll get deep in these two new techniques. And finally, we'll talk about how we can do an accurate from the time zone that we got to a specific country. So let's start talking about the Android bag. When we download the Android SDK, it comes with a tool named APT. We can find this tool inside the SDK folder and the build tools API version. And if we run APT, we can observe in the first line that this is the Android asset package tool. So we can use this program from command line to add some files to an APK, dump the file, see the information among others related to APK's management. Due to an APK shares the PKC standard, every file inside it has a date and time of last modified. However, when we use APT for adding some files to an APK, we notice something strange in these date and time fields. They are not the real ones. Instead, the right date and time information, we usually saw something like 010180, an hour, and 00. That three in the hour field cuts our tension because if we change the time zone of the computer to, for example, CMT plus eight, that three turn into an eight. And if we change the time zone to CMT plus four, the hour, what four? So what the hell is happening here? Is this a kind of CMT offset? Well, after we notice that, we started to analyze the source code of APT. It is published on Google Git, and inside the path of APT, there are several files that convolve the source code of this program. So we put our attention in those files related to sipping process. Inside the zip file dot C++, there is a method named add common that is invoked for every file that we be added to an APK. As we can observe, this method receives a parameter, the file name, the size and some other scene related to the file being stored into an APK. So, analyzing the code of this method, we observe that there is a code to another method named setMode1, using a parameter, the mod1 variable. As we look for this variable, we find that it's a time t type, and it's initialized to zero. It should be used inside the setMode1 method, so let's check this code. SetMode1 is located into the zip entry dot C++ file of the source code of APT. There we have the method and its parameter. Remember that when is equal to zero. And inside this method, there is another variable of time t type, its name even, and the value of even is the value of one. So, even is equal to zero too. But the question here is, is the even variable used for anything at all? But immediately after the lines that we saw before, even is used as parameter for local time function. PTM is a TM structure where local time will save its result. And after that, the result is used for assign the last modifier field for every file that will be added to an APK. So, at this moment, we have a problem identified. In APT, local time function is receiving as parameter the even value that is zero. When the expected argument for local time function is a real time stone. So, let's analyze it in runtime. Here we are attached to APT. We have run the debugger with parameters for adding a file. We put a rate point on the subroutine that we were analyzing in the source code. And at this moment, we can observe the even variable with value zero being passed to local time function as an admin. The result of this source code is the one that we were seeing for. Times on disclosure of the computer. But what will happen if we pass to local time function the expected argument? That means a real timestamp. Well, now we have altered the value of even putting a timestamp of Unix epoch as surprise. The date and time of last modified was the correct one.  The computer is in GMT plus three. We have run the debugger with two parameters for adding two files. We put a rate point, we reach the rate point for the first file. But this time we won't fix anything just we will leave in the even value to zero as normal execution. But for the second file, we will fix this bug. We'll put a real timestamp, Unix epoch of Gordon XS1. We are changing the value of even from zero to the real timestamp. We continue the process and it will finish. So, we can use now APT for extracting the dates of any APK. So, now we can see this APK with the first file with this bug making the time on disclosure and the second file with this bug fixed. Yes, showing the right date and time information. At this moment, we are convinced that there is a bug inside APT, but why does this ends in a time from the disclosure of the computer? Well, local time function makes a calculation to put the correct hour in the hours field. It takes the Unix epoch coming from the parameter that is UTC 3.0 and makes a sum or substration with the time sum of the computer. For example, if the time sum of the computer is g and t plus three, it makes the Unix epoch plus three hours. And if the time sum is g and t minus three, it makes the substration, the Unix epoch minus three hours. With that, local time function gets the correct hour in the local computer. But in APT, where we found this bug, local time is making a sum or substration over zero. So g and t plus three is just zero plus three. That's why we will see in the hour fields, the three number. In the case of g and t minus three is the substration zero minus three, but this substration affects the date too. Now we'll see December 31 of 79 and at 21 in the hour. That 21 is the result of the substration 24 minus three. So those g and t offset of g and t minus whatever might look a little bit confused. So for that, we made an offset table that we'll show you later. And there's a little detail when we use APT instead of seeing December 31 of 79, we see an 80 in the year field. That is because of a correction factor in the method that we were analyzing in the source code. There we have an if, which says that if the year is less than 80, the year is 80. So it's a little detail, but let us know that we are analyzing it correctly. So here we have the opposite table. In the case of g and t plus something is very easy because it's the same number. So for example, g and t plus five will put a five in the hour field. In the case of g and t minus something we have to do the substration. 24 minus the local time of the computer. For example, 24 minus three for g and t minus three. That is 21 and 21 will be the offset in the hour field. What we have done here is mapping the g and t that we guess it is with the file date in the APK itself. So you can check the file and then get back to the g and t and the local time some of the one that compiled it. After all, a good question is should local time retard this? Well, in several documentations we can see that local time should return annual in this case instead this information disclosure because zero is not a valid argument. So however we can see in the idea screenshot the return of this function to be sure that it's local time the one that is not handling the arrows correctly. There in red we can see the g and t offset three in this case was g and t plus three. We have to know that this bag is present on Windows, Linux and Austin. So Android developers using APT will be leaking their time zone regardless of the platform on the ART-BLP. Okay, once we know a technique based on a bag in APT let's talk about another technique that has nothing to do with a bag but with the way attackers or creators of applications usually work. As we have said APKs are basically seed files and every seed file has a date inside, a date and hour. They take it from the last modified field in the local system of the user and it gets permanently inside the seed file. On the other hand, an application in APK has to be signed by a certificate. Most of the times the certificates are created with no CA, they're self-sealed so there's no CA and you create it just a few minutes before, a few seconds before you can pilot or yeah or in other words you create this possible certificates for signing this APK you're creating. Certificates are in x.509 format that means that for the creation time field in their own certificate, they take the time from the file system as well. So if you compile it in this date, the certificate will take the date from the file system but they do it in UTC time without no time zone at all. So let's think about it. If there's a signature file inside the APK files that is the last ones to get in the seed file or the APK. It's the last one and it takes the last modified field from the local system or from the file system. And we have this certificate that if we think or we assume that this certificate is being created basically in the same moment a few seconds before the compilation, you get the time in UTC, the same time but in UTC. And in the files, they have time zone included. So in these samples, you can see that if you think that the certificate has been created 15 seconds, the certificate has been created 50 seconds before the compilation because dates are the same, hours are the same. And minutes are basically a few seconds. Here you can do the math between both dates and times and you will have a possible TMT or local time zone. For example, here is TMT minus seven. Let's have another example. Imagine that this certificate has been created four seconds before the compilation. So the last file in the APK gets the date on the left and the certificate has the date on the right. You have UTC on one side and the local time with the time zone of the person in the left side. So that means that this person is maybe in TMT plus one. So in a natural, assuming minutes and seconds are closing time when you create the certificate and you compile the application and the application are created together, we have information enough to reduce the TMT or time zone of the person compiling it because we can do the math between the UTC in the certificate and the time in the file that is last created when you compile. For example, here it would be eight hours or whatever. So it works. We have created a little Python tool that checks from one hand, checks the certificate creation date and UTC time and on the other hand checks the signature file date. If we assume they were created at the same moment, the developed time zone would be UTC plus three because signature file was created one second after the certificate. So the result seems quite accurate. We thought this is a fun example because in the email you can check that is dot er which is 83 and this is UTC plus three but this is basically a coincidence and as you can check in the certificate, it seems to come from Ratcha which is UTC plus three as well. So now we have these two techniques to check by a book and by a bag in AAPT and this certificate technique to know the TMT or time zone of the person compiling the applications. Let's do some statistics. We have a million, a 10 million application set or database that we have to get for both techniques. The time zone leakage by AAPT but we have 2,000 more or less APKs with this and the time zone leakage by date and some certificates we have almost half a million of them in our database. As you can check, as you can imagine, many of them will share results. So for example with UTC plus seven we have like 3,000 applications that has both problems and they leak the same UTC plus seven. So this confirm more or less these techniques and complement each other. Once we have all this information what we did is taking 1,000 samples with each leak, 1,000 of UTC plus zero, 1,000 of UTC plus one with the AAPT time zone disclosure back. Some of them we didn't have enough. For example, UTC minus seven, we only had six of them because this is America Samoa in the middle of the Pacific and we think there are not too many applications created there. So we check it out against different antiviruses, one, two, plus three antiviruses and check how many malware was there. This is what we got. We got that GMT plus four which is Russian, well, Russia is usually plus three but a part of Russia is plus four. GMT plus eight, plus eight which is China and GMT minus seven which is USA West Coast. GMT plus 11 and GMT minus eight are not good enough because we didn't have enough samples. We did the same again with the file certificate day times disclosure technique. We took 1,000 samples with every time zone, different time zones with 1,000 of them and checked against different engines with antiviruses. And this is what we got. We got that GMT plus five, GMT plus eight and GMT minus six were the ones with more malware in there. Why this little difference with the other technique here? Well, we think that this is because the DST time, they like saving time, that this technique is released on the local time of the computer so it may change. But if you think about it, GMT plus eight which is China and do not use DST changes remains the same. So we can conclude that we should have done this better. We should have taken into account the period of the year when you just changed the DSTs, okay? But basically what we can conclude is that Russia, this is GMT plus four, GMT plus three, and five, GMT plus eight which is China and West, Middle USA or West Coast are the ones creating more malware. And with this technique, they're creating disposable certificates as well. You have to take this into account. They're creating disposable certificates. So this makes sense because maybe we think, it's just a theory that the cloud is too many computers in the USA, in the West Coast and they create certificates in there disposable and that's why we have so many malware in there. We didn't hear the other way around. But we should be sold the malware we had with these leakages and check for the UTC or GMT time zone. This is what we got. Again, with one technique, the file certificate daytime technique, we got that UTC minus six and UTC plus eight were the ones with more malware. And with the other technique, the AAPK back time zone disclosure, we have basically the same UTC plus eight and UTC plus four. And what is it useful for? What we did as well is check our database. We have 10 million of them and we have got several sets of a thousand applications. And we have a rate of 6% of malware in there. And we took a set of a thousand APK samples with these leakages or disclosures and compare each other. And we conclude that the chances, for example, with the comparing our standard rate, a thousand applications, which is 6% of malware. And a random set of applications with UTC plus eight makes it six time more likely to be malware than our standard rate, you know, database. Let's see some examples with real life malware. For example, this death ring reloading some telephones had this file certificate dating problem that it was leaking the time zone. And it was Korea, UTC minus nine. And so did UD malware, which had this AAPT times on disclosure, black, black, and it was Korea as well. This is a malware we found a few years ago. It was a very interesting malware that once the mobile was infected, it took some user and password from the database of the attacker, preloaded the user and password, came to the telephone that was infected, registered with this telephone and email and everything in Google Play, got the token back to the attacker. And with this talking, associated with the telephone, he was able to give five stars and download fake applications. Fake users registered to real telephones, voting and unloading fake applications just to get up high in the Google Play Store. This is called ShuaVan. Well, we found it focusing on this bug, GMT for eight, which is China, and some other things like connecting to a PHP common and control, having this get account permissions and hiding behind wallpapers applications. Focusing on that, we were able to find and define this malware. And we alerted Google Play and they removed it and it was quite nice to research. That's how malware comes from China. Now, we have, for a simple, Hidalp, that we took a few samples from them. We checked, this malware had both techniques. You could check that with both techniques that it came from GMT plus three, which is Russia again. And aside, here you can guess in a way that certificates are always created about two or three minutes before the compilation, which lead us to think that they were like automated. These possible certificates created in an automated way and coming from Russia. Okay, with the technique that we were analyzing, probably we'll get the time zone of the Android malware developer. Now, we see quickly how we can do an accurate from the time zone that we got to an specific country. Inside an APK, there are some files pretty common. One of them are the RTF documents. Usually they are used for agreements, agreements inside Android applications. Related to this kind of file types, we had an inspiration some months ago when Wanakari occurs because this ransomware shows message in multiple languages using several RTF documents. This is a funny thing, a trick, with Word Office and RTF files. When you create an RTF file with Word Office, you get inside the RTF metadata. It's called slash deflang. This is the file language in your Word or text editor. So, every one of us has the file language in our Word, so it leakages through RTF files. And maybe if you have your, it's quite possible that your Word file has the final languages is your native languages. So, it leakages maybe your native language to RTF files that you create with Word. Yeah, we made our research for getting information about Wanakari and among other things, we checked those RTF documents for metadata. And as a result, we found that Korean is the file language configured in the text editor of Wanakari's developer. Well, here we have an example of an Android malware which among each file there is an RTF document. We have to know that either Android Studio nor others IDs remove the metadata from the media files added by the developer to an APK. So, we can check this kind of media file to get some interesting information. In this case, we found that Arabic is the file language in the authors text editor. There is another trick to accurate the country is we can get the strings typed manually by the developer. It's maybe helpful for knowing the native language of her. We can use APT for extracting a string of an APK but there's a problem because even if the APK is extremely simple, there will be lots of strings added automatically by the ID just for translations purposes. So, in the screenshot, we can see those sounds of strings. All of them were added by the ID automatically in a very, very simple APK. So, we can do a little bit of magic using APT for extracting all the resources, filtering by strings, using grid together with records. Pretty nice command. And, in the output of this command, we found a way to differentiate both strings added automatically by the ID from those written by the developer. Basically, we are checking the origin of the strings, removing those coming from resources where strings of translation are. After all, the only thing we had to do is to check what could be the native language of the developer, just seeing the strings type manually by him. And, we created a tool as well, which is our line yet. This is not the best simplest in the world, sorry, but you can drag and drop an application and it will try to reduce the possible GMT and check for another techniques to get the country and the languages. The country, basically, sometimes comes from these techniques, we have explained it, or maybe with the certificate itself, or maybe analyzing the strings.xml that we have shown, or even sometimes maybe from the TLD domains, the dot whatever that the application has inside. So, you can deduce with these different techniques, which is the GMT time zone or the language, the native languages of the person. This tool takes all these techniques together and once you drag and drop whatever APK, you will check different techniques to get in there. Even the RTF that we have just talked about. So, I hope this tool will be online soon. The other one is very online. This one, for example, says that it comes from Russia and has some domains with TLDs, and the certificate is the standard one for the boolean, so it's not useful. So, what are the conclusions here? Is that we present the different ways for not just leaking time zone, but as well as possibly taking automatic malware creation because of this possible certificate that I created a few seconds or minutes before the compilation is done. Possible better machine learning features in detecting APK malware. Remember that we said, some statistics that could be useful once you create a machine learning algorithm is useful to have need features to have a better understanding. So, I think this is a pretty good one for machine learning and detecting malware, the ones that I created with this possible certificate, so it comes from one time, some more and another. And a tool for a quick view of all this information around APK's metadata. Feature work, as we said, should take into account the DST, so it's more accurate these techniques and maybe have a little more sample, more than a thousand samples of each of this disclosure technique or whatever. And this is pretty much all. Thank you. Do you have any questions? Not too difficult, please. Not with Warpath and this stuff, it doesn't work. Just work with War, we checked because it has the foul language defining there. Warpath, for example, you create an RTF file with Warpath, you don't have a language. Taking into account that this language is the one you have defining your text editor to the syntax correction. So, I don't know any other office package, but with War, with office where it happens. Another question? Thank you, hope to see you in some other different.


Members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities as well have threatened to embark on another industrial action. This is following a three-week automaton issued by the Union last month. They have ever called on well-meaning Nigerians to prevail on the federal government to honor the agreement reached with the Union. The lecturers made a call on Friday at separate briefings held in the northern and southern parts of Nigeria. At the meetings, the government's action has left them with no other option than to withdraw their services. A bill for an act to provide for establishment of Chartered Institute of Business Educators of Nigeria has killed second reading in the House of Representatives. Sponsor of the bill is Mr Henry Achebon. In a leading debate, he said that the bill seeks to add quality to the qualification of education and business. He said the bill also seeks to regulate the business education sector as obtainable internationally. The Deputy Speaker of the House, Mr Ahmed Wasit, expressed worry whether the functions of the institution will not duplicate already existing institutions. However, Mr Achebon clarified that the institute will not require funding from the government, but contributory funds from members when they get chartered. This bill seeks to regulate, to give a legal backing to the Chartered Institute when established so that they can regulate the activities and the practices of business education so as to meet up with global best practices. Because when established, it will lead to the improvement in business education, it will lead to the training of those involved in business education and encourage global best practice so that we as a country who are offering business education will be at par with our colleagues in other countries. 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.


Two popes for summer, two for ever. Okay, stop. I'm tired. Always. I'm just getting my stopwatch ready. Oh, is it my turn? Oh. My throat looks okay. Welcome back to Spoonsville. Hello. Today is two popes day. The day where we covered two popes. Yeah, 2019 Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Price. And now I'm giving 20 seconds to explain the movie to you. No, it's me. It's my turn. To summarize the two-hour movie in 20 seconds. Good luck. Okay, am I starting now? I'm waiting for you. Yep. And... Go. The movie follows Pope Benedict's attempt to get Pope Francis to take over as Pope. That's it. Only you had 10 seconds. Impressive. That's it. Yeah. What else do you need to say? I suppose. That's the gist. That is a gist. I wanted a gist. You gave a gist. Yeah. It was a good gist. Yeah. Okay. Now we go more in depth. We take the gist and we expand on it. I don't know. We haven't done this in a while. Let's expand on your gist. How did you feel when the credits started rolling? I felt really happy. It was a very fulfilling movie and another reflection piece. Yeah. I feel like we've been watching a lot of reflection piece type of movies. Yeah. They seem drawn to them. Yeah. Like a fly to a flyer. Like a moth to a flyer. Yes, that's what I was saying. I had a fly to a flyer. It was a beautiful movie. I guess Pope Benedict is much more conventional and Pope Francis isn't. He's a very much more, I don't want to say new age. It's kind of like the skateboarding kind of Pope. Yeah. And well, he also doesn't want to be Pope. He wants to resign as a priest of the Catholic church, but Pope Benedict doesn't want him to do that. He actually wants him to take over as Pope. Yeah. And so there are lots of things happening at that time. There's that scandal with Pope Benedict's assistant. Right. I think a sexually harassing or molesting or laundering. Oh yeah. I think it has to be with the Lonnie laundering or something like that. But there was of course also, as everybody knows, there's always been talk or issues with the Catholic church that Pope Benedict is also dealing with. Yeah. Right. And so that's basically it. Like you also get to see these two personalities. And I think in the end it's very interesting because one is quite conventional and the other one is less conventional. Maybe more liberal or more new age. And yet you still, I found for myself that I was still endeared to both of them. I think a lot of the times people have this notion of people who are conventional as maybe being, of course, sticklers for tradition, but also being closed off. Yeah. I don't necessarily think that. That's right. Yeah, living your life conventionally. I don't necessarily think that you're maybe emotionally closed off or less receptive to people that are different to you. I think it's just a matter of potentially like the kind of upbringing you had and also the kind of environment you were socialized in that has, like that dictates a certain kind of life for you and it's difficult to change. I think we all know that if you go up in a certain environment or if you're so socializing a certain environment, it's hard for you to adjust to a different one, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you are someone who's rigid per se. You know what I mean? It's a great part in the scene where they have a pizza at that point. I can't remember. Yeah. They're hanging out. They're having wine or something. They're eating something. I think I remember that. There's pizza. There's pizza. And Rat Singer or the Pope Benedict Anthony Hopkins character is, you know, he's like, oh, it's basically it's nice to have someone around to hang out with. Basically that's what he says. He's like, because he gets lonely at the top. Yeah. Even the Pope, the top of the Pope. Yeah. Sometimes we look at people in certain positions of power and just have this notion that they're very different from us, but they're not. You know, they are human just like we are, and they have the same kind of struggles that we have. A lot of times when you're in leadership, sometimes you're forced or when you're in a position of authority, you know, I think sometimes you're kind of forced to portray this understanding of everything and just the certainty and never show any vulnerability. I think sometimes you're forced to do that, or you feel like you're forced to do that, because a lot of the times people do have to put that kind of pressure on you. In a position of leadership, you expect that someone has all the answers, right? You don't expect, for example, if you go to the doctor, the doctor to say, well, I'm not really sure what's going on here. You know, I think I'm going to have to go read a book and figure out. And realistically, a doctor doesn't know everything. They are going to have to sometimes go back to their books or whatever. And even in leadership as well, like maybe political leadership, you hire certain people because you can't do everything, but it makes people feel secure. The idea of having an authority that all knowing figure, right, brings people, gives people security, Pope Benedict governs in that way with the conventional, in that conventional way of knowing that primarily people want you as a leader to be different, to have something, to seemingly have something much more, you know, to seem to have transcended like the normal human, the level of human interaction, like you know much more.   And so you have dinner on your own because he had dinner. But at the same time, he does want that emotional connection, which is where when Pope Francis is visiting, he's like, he just wants to talk about anything like, I don't know, like music. They talk about sports. Yeah, they talk about sports. They talk about music and things like that. It's a very funny movie. It was a funny movie. It was certainly not a comedy. It was a drama for sure. But there were certain elements there that were nice, you know, and it really presented the complexities of humanity, right? Like being a human being and living within structures. Right. I think the Pope Benedict very much operates as a functioning cog of the machinery that is the Catholic church, which is a massive, which is massive. Maybe your teacher, for example, you follow a certain curriculum. You may not agree to it, right? You may feel like I would prefer, I wish I would be able to do ABC with my kids, but there's an entire system that is beyond you and you cannot afford to change and say, well, you know what? I'm not going to teach my students this because I do not believe in this. I'm going to teach them this. But the problem is when they go and write an exam, they're going to write an exam that is based on that larger educational system. So you have to align your teaching with the system that you are not necessarily in agreement with because it's for the good of your kids. Isn't it? Right. Maybe you have more like better knowledge that you could provide them, but that knowledge that you could provide them, they're not going to be tested on it. So you have to give them the knowledge that isn't really going to help them out. And I think a lot of the times people, when you're looking at a leader, a lot of us were very quick to criticize and vilify leaders without really understanding the complexities of leadership, without really understanding that that person isn't a single entity. It's not like Pope Benedict was here making all of these decisions, right? He's just someone, he's an usher for the Catholic church, and the Catholic church has been in existence for a very long time. And it is not something that you can just all of a sudden decide, okay, well, I'm in leadership that I'm going to change it. It's really difficult.  He's the one in charge of the Catholic church. Like if you're a priest, you're in charge. And that's not the case. Humans always need a face to put, to attack on all the things going on, the policies. You can't memorize everyone's name that's responsible in an institution for making something happen.  It's just easier. It saves time, I guess. It saves brain power. But yeah, and there's so many great themes in the movie. A lot of it's kind of a debate on how much of tradition needs to be upheld because you need certain foundations for humans to function and to make sense of the world and to have a certain sense of truth and reason to base things around.  And that's a lot of their debate is the great scene where Pope Francis is saying, well, we didn't even have angels till what, the 5th century? And we didn't even have the idea that priests had to be celibate till the 12th century. So we're kind of making stuff up too. So we could also always change things like that. It's not static. We like to believe it is. It's also when a machine, a system, an institution is faced with declining membership, for example. What do you do? Do you blame modern society, you know, pop culture on people becoming immoral and decadent and really we don't need to change because it's just other people losing their way?  Well, maybe, you know, maybe it's worth at least allowing for a little more inclusivity, things like that. You know? And that's kind of what people are dealing with all the time in everyone's own life. It's how much do I hold on to how my family did things growing up, how, you know, community did things, how, whatever, the views on your country and everything. How much do you hold on to the things and then what things should be tweaked or completely thrown out. So what the two popes are going through there is what happens in everyone's mind as they go through life. Yeah. And everyone has a slightly different change, compromise, balance of the two. Yeah. The other thing that really stood out for me in the movie is the experience of these two people. Pope Benedict talks about how he, all he did, he was a very studious kid and he never actually, he read a lot, right? He's book smart but he never actually experienced life whereas Pope Francis did experience life. Like he was also, he almost got married. And so he has just that much more, I think I guess more of a tangible understanding of human beings, diversity in human needs, human desires and complexity. Whereas I think Pope Benedict doesn't necessarily have that which doesn't mean that he isn't someone who's available or open to differing views. It just means that he has a weakness, I would say. I think there is a difference between people who are conventional because they are rigid and people who are conventional because they weren't exposed. And I think for me when I'm looking at that I find that Pope Benedict was conventional because he didn't have that kind of exposure. And I say that because I look at when he's interacting with Pope Francis, it looks like he's completely, he's been deprived so long of that emotional and connection that we all want with people because he was just always so focused on achieving a certain goals since he was a kid. And so when you're doing all of those things, a lot of the times you are sacrificing a lot of good, pure human interactions, right? And so you can see that he's starved of it as much as he does, he has that convention that he's kind of imprisoned by still, but he doesn't necessarily like it. He does want that human connection that you see when he does get it with this person who's so rich in life experience and yeah, like emotional connection. I think that guy, that Pope Francis, Pope Francis is when you see, when he meets someone that has that empathy and is that vulnerable and is so open about his vulnerability, that is something that he's like, oh my God, you know, he's attracted to that. And I mean, to be honest, like really when I'm looking at it, I don't feel like Pope Benedict really, I feel endeared to both of these guys, to Pope Benedict because I think he was just a gentle person who was starved of that, just the raw emotional connection that we all want. And I say that because when you, when he's interacting with Pope Francis, you just see him just come to life, you know? And it seems that he's finally getting this thing that he was thirsting for, that depth of engagement with another human being that he's thirsting for and does not feel that he can find or source from other people because he's a leader and he has that idea that as a leader, you have to present in a certain way and you can't show vulnerabilities. You have to show that you're independent and you don't need anything. But then with this guy, he can be that way, especially because I think Pope Francis, just there are certain people that kind of make you feel comfortable enough to be vulnerable and to just allow yourself to melt in that people a lot of the times tend to hide who the parts of themselves that make them more vulnerable and less incredible or profound, you know, in the eyes of other people. Of course, this is also always a lot of the times of perception because I think if people portray their fallibility, as far as I know, as far as in my personal experience, we are all fallible, right? And if someone is okay or portrays that to me, it makes me feel like they're much more confident. I respect someone who owns up to their fallibility more than someone who tries and say and says that they are completely perfect and they never make any mistakes. So I think because Pope Benedict is in this institution, this conventional institution that makes him feel like he has to hide his vulnerabilities or the things that might make people feel like, oh, you're not made cut out to be a leader. Him seeing or experiencing this guy, Pope Francis, who's, he doesn't care about that stuff. Who's like, yeah, I am a human being and I make mistakes and I have, this is what I do.   You shouldn't be doing that. But he's like, yeah, I do do that, right? So when he does these things and interacts with Pope Benedict in that way, it kind of chips away at those walls that Pope Benedict, I think, has been forced to build. Not because he wants to, but because of the nature of his job and the Catholic institution. That's for me. I like the relationship between these two people because they were giving to each other in a way that I think sometimes is, can be really rewarding when you have wanted that kind of connection with people and you haven't been allowed to have it. And then you meet a person who just says, here, I am here, you can be all of that with me. I felt like that was the relationship. Totally. Scenes that stood out to you. Off the top of my chin, there are some really beautiful ones that I can think of, like again, like the one that you reminded me of where at the end when he's leaving, he reluctantly at first gets Pope Benedict to dance with them. He's like, oh, no, I don't dance. They do this. Yeah, yeah, I love that. He leaves and then Pope Benedict's kind of like, I think they have a hug. He comes in for a hug and he's kind of awkwardly kind of, you can see he's like, oh, okay, yeah. He misses him.  He's playing a song. He's like, it's an old German hymn, I think he says, you know, and Pope Francis is listening to it and he's really enjoying it. They talk about the Beatles. He recorded his album on Abbey Road, but he doesn't remember where he's like, Abbey Road, yeah, okay. He didn't even know. Yeah, yeah. I like how that conversation when he, in the flashback, when he approaches the priest saying, you know what, you know, he's like, do you know what you're giving up? And he's like, yeah, I was going to marry a woman and I got the calling to become a priest. Yeah. And you know, that's genuine when it seemed like he was really in love with this person and still decided, no, this, you know, I can't ignore this, you know? And then the last one I'll say is, when Pope Benedict, you know, again, he talks about not being able to hear God anymore and he asks for forgiveness once he has switched the Pope, being a Pope to Pope Francis and Pope Francis does his, he hears his confessions and absolves him, you know, the whole movie is amazing. It was such a beautiful depiction of the stuff that really, that people need to actually, to truly live. I think living it involves having relationships with people and relationships where you can, you're really truly connecting on an emotional level.  These are all just things that we do, but the most important thing, and I think the thing that people really need the most, is an emotional connection and for me that this movie was that. It was just seeing that with these two people. I wonder when people watch these kinds of movies, obviously this is based on a true story, but of course there's also the fictional aspect of things, but I always wonder how other people watch movies. If you're watching this movie, do you reflect on your own self, your own life, or are you just looking at this as something that is distant from you? Because, you know what I mean? I think everyone does it all differently. I believe that 100 people will watch a movie in a theater and there'll be 100 different people watching the movie after. Yeah, the movie in general is, for me, something that, a reminder that when you're assessing people's conduct, to never view them in isolation, like sympathizing with someone else's experience, even if they are, they have a completely different world view or completely different ideology. It takes a lot of energy though to take off your shoes and then find someone else's shoes and see if you can squeeze into them. A lot of people want to put their energy elsewhere, but it's important to be able to switch shoes now and then. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't look like... Beautiful movie, 10 out of 10. Both actors are fantastic. Yeah. What was the other guy's name? Jonathan Price? Jonathan Price, yeah. Yeah, I didn't know his Spanish. Was it Spanish that he was speaking? Yeah. Well, I spoke a couple of languages, yeah. Yeah. Extremely impressed. I wonder if he knew it before, if he learned it from the movie? I don't know, but wow. I was incredibly in awe. Anthony Hopkins. Of course. Of course. That's why we watched it. That's why you watched it. And maybe that's... I don't know, you know, maybe the real Pope Benedict isn't quite as like, well, I think it helps in Anthony Hopkins is just so great it helps wanting to warm up to the rat singer, but... Yeah. Either case. Yeah. Beautiful movie. Fantastic. Yeah. What did you... Very, very fantastic. Have you seen the two Popes? Have any of you seen the two Popes? Are we the only ones? Will anyone ever comment? Will any? Let us know what you think and let us know if we're on the right track. Yeah. If we've got some, if we've got the right idea about them Popes. Yeah. Yeah. So 10 out of 10 ripe tomatoes. Yeah. Until then. Till later. Bye. Till tomorrow. Till next time. Yeah. Bye. Bye.


Patriot Prime Reviews is a channel for adult collectors and may not be suitable for children under 13 years of age. Viewer discretion is advised. Now, onto the decals. The set we're looking at in this video is for the exclusive War for Cybertron Siege Refractor Reconnaissance Team. This is the refractor set that features the figures in the Generation 1 toy collars. So let's go ahead and take a look at the set. You get one sheet of decals on this silver backing. You get one sheet of decals on this glorious chrome backing. I love me some chrome. And the final sheet features textured decals. I have a few sets that have these and these are really, really cool. So without further ado, let's take a look at the Siege Refractor Reconnaissance Team both before and after toy hacks decals. And welcome to Patriot Prime Reviews. Straight out of the packaging, the Reconnaissance Team camera mode looks amazing and is a great homage to the original Generation 1 toy thanks to those collars and fantastic accessories that this set comes with. Spyglass gets this really cool flash cube. Viewfinder gets this top section right here. And Spectro gets this handle with some fantastic molded details. You've got dials, buttons, selector switches. Really, really cool looking. The lens itself has some great paint applications all the way around. Inside is translucent plastic. So if you look, you can see the pegs for the shield mode. There is some fairly decent paint applications. You've got the yellow here on the bottom, some red up top. There's some green on the inside of the translucent plastic there. Decepticon logo here on top and refractor right across the front of the camera. More details on the back include special details on Viewfinder. So you've got some molded details there, but other on the back, it's folded up robots.  There you have camera mode or what camera mode would look like with the retail versions in the Generation 1 collar. And there you go guys, one final look at the reconnaissance team camera mode before and after. Camera mode looks amazing now. Toyhacks knocked it out of the park adding so many little details to what I thought was already an impressive looking camera. First off, check out the texture decals here on both sides. It really gives the camera that leather look that the old cameras back in the day had. On the lens itself, you've got these red decals on the side, these new silver squares, which go all the way around. Those were kind of a pain to line up along with these. Oh, they're numbers on the dial. If you can see on the red, there's little settings, you know, when you twist the camera to get the focus in and out. There's settings on there now. So when you go to put the lens on, you have to line up the right numbers. Also on the inside, the lens is now chromed out. The translucent plastic is gone and there's also some worded details on the inside. Really, really cool. On top of the camera, you have a readout. The on off switch is now labeled and this dial here is labeled as well. I've got mine set on Decepticon. I don't know what Decepticon setting does, but there you go. Also, there's some green right there for the viewfinder. Turn the camera around. You'll see that refractor has been replaced with the proper name Reflector. And back here, the translucent green has that more generation one inspired decal. Now let's take a look at camera mode with its generation one counterpart. And for the record, my generation one reflector also has an upgrade set from Toyhacks. So there you go guys, one final look at the refractor reconnaissance team in camera mode after. The reconnaissance team robot mode straight out of the packaging still amaze those original generation one figures. And just like the generation one figures, these three have their own individual names. The red one is Spectro. The one in the middle with the green chest is viewfinder. And the one here with the yellow is spyglass. Now each one of these figures have the exact same mold. It's just different paint applications. And aside from the major color differences you see, each one has some minor differences as well. You've got Spectro with this silver Decepticon logo. You've got spyglass with a purple Decepticon logo. And his paint seems to be a little bit more metallic than the other two. And then you have viewfinder here. Now viewfinder, he has this center dial, but this is removable. Each figure comes with one of these. I have the dial actually attached to the back of the other two. But in the generation one cartoon, viewfinder, the leader always had a dial in the middle. Now you'll also notice that he has no Decepticon logo. And that's because this piece, this top piece he came with, you can actually separate this. And there's little tabs on the inside. You want to flip around and you can attach these to his shoulder. This gives him more of a generation one toy look. And his Decepticon logo is now up top on his shoulder. So there you go guys, there is the war for Cybertron Siege Refractor Reconnaissance Team in robot mode before and after. Each individual robot gets quite a few extra added decals thanks to toy hacks. Let's start with viewfinder. Now first off, each robot's weapon has these nice silver and red decals applied. So that really breaks up all that black that was originally on the guns. His shoulder pauldrons, as you can see now say reflector. The transparent chest now has this green striped decal with a chrome outline. He also has chrome decals right there on this centerpiece. Now there is enough decals for all three of those little discs. But since I only use one, that's all the decals I applied. I just did the one. Moving down here on these legs, he has new decals on his shins. And these green decals right there below the knee. And that's pretty much it for viewfinder. Now let's take a look at Spectro. Spectro gets this big red decal that covers up his transparent chest and that Decepticon logo. But he gets a new Decepticon logo right there on his shoulder. He also gets this triangle shaped chrome emblem right there on his forehead. Which is a nice throwback to his original generation one figure. Down here on the legs, he has that great texture. I love that. I love those textured decals that Toyax gives us. He also gets these silver chrome looking decals right there below the knee. And that's pretty much all there is for Spectro. And finally, taking a look at Spyglass. Spyglass gets this nice blue decal that covers up that transparent chest. And he also gets a new Decepticon logo on his shoulder. Spyglass is the only one that gets a brand new belt buckle. So he's got that cool design right there. Yellow decals right below the knees. And he also carries over that great texture look. Now another nice throwback that Toyax gave Spyglass is his little flash cube weapon. In the original generation one toy, he was able to hold the flash cube. And it was a missile launcher. With this one, he just held it so it looked like he had a flashlight.  So I really dig that little throwback. Let me see if I can get that in his hand. So there you go. And now here's a quick comparison of the Refractor Reconnaissance Team with their generation one counterparts. And there you have one final look at the Refractor Reconnaissance Team in Robot Mode after. Straight out of the packaging, the Trio's Cybertronian Tattoo Gun Modes really don't offer that much difference from their Robot Mode. The real standout of course is the camera pieces that make up the rear of the vehicle. Now each individual vehicle does have different paint applications here on top of the cockpit. You've got viewfinder with yellow, spyglass with green, and spectro with black. But other than that, there's really not much to go over in these quote unquote vehicle modes. I do like the translucent windows that are supposed to represent cockpits. So you got that going on. But other than the different colors for the individual figures, there's really not much to go over with the specific modes. Now granted, I don't think there's any collectors that actually display these figures in these modes. But anyway, there is one final look at the Trio in their vehicle modes before and after. Vehicle modes do get a little bit of help thanks to toy hacks. The first thing you'll notice is the cell shaded windows on the cockpits. And each individual vehicle gets its own color coded windows. You've got red for spectro, green for viewfinder, and yellow for spyglass. There's also some details right here on the front of each vehicle. Also color coded, red, green, and also red. And the front of the vehicle where those decals are on the weapon looks really, really good. There's also decals that you can put right here on top of the vehicle, two different versions. You can put like a inverted triangle that actually splits apart or a Decepticon logo. I put one of each on there so you can see what they look like. Of course, you've got the options red and green. Now on the back, you do have the decals carry over from camera mode. You've got the red triangle here, but the vehicle now has camera settings across the back. So there you go guys, there is the vehicle modes with Toy Hacks decals after. When I picked up the war for Cybertron Siege Refractor Reconnaissance Team a few months ago, I thought the set was fantastic. Other than the fact it said Refractor across the top instead of Reflector, I thought the set was perfect. But Toy Hacks has just shown that you can improve upon perfection. This decal set is great. It adds so many more details to this set that I thought it really didn't need, but has really impressed me. Now guys, if you enjoyed the video, don't forget to like, don't forget to subscribe, and don't forget to hit that bell icon to get notified when I upload new videos. Once again, this is Patriot Prime, signing out. Hoorah!


Well this weekend was Earth Day and on Saturday people both celebrated the holiday and marched to raise awareness for climate change. A.J. Feldman takes us there in this week's Northwoods Adventure. People marched their downtown brainered on Saturday both to celebrate Earth Day and to raise awareness for climate change and encourage people to make a difference year round. Well we want them to think about climate change, we want them to think about making that transition from fossil fuel to renewables and on clean energy. Marches are very important too and it's good to see people enthusiastic about the earth issues. Earth Day is a great way to celebrate that but it's a year round thing. I mean just don't stop the one day. The response was, everyone was positive. In fact I didn't hear a single negative response. People honking, thumbs up, you know and in fact one person here who was at last year's climate march said that the response was even better this year. After marching through downtown brainered everyone gathered in Gregory Park to hear speakers discuss how important it is to keep our environment safe. Sustainable changes aren't a choice that the passionate make anymore but are a necessary step for all citizens. We should all seek to make changes in our daily lives that will benefit our neighbors, our descendants and ourselves. We can do solar, we can do wind, we can do energy and development in a way that is sustainable that supports our community, that builds jobs in our community. There was a demonstration on how people can make their own rain barrels. A rain barrel collects water off of a roof so you can use that water for your garden or yard. It's one of those things where everybody does one or two and does their part, you're going to make a significant difference. So yeah it's a way of just kind of like you know keeping your own backyard, your own campfire clean, just taking care of things for yourself. There was also face painting, other activities for children, gardening demonstrations and a musical performance all to celebrate the earth and to encourage people to take action to keep it as beautiful as possible. We're hoping that with this event today we can raise awareness about those issues and get people to mobilize and hopefully persuade our elected representatives to change course. For this week's Northwoods Adventure in Brainerd, A.J. Feldman, Lakeland News. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.