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Here's a question to ask yourself: If you could get away with just one crime, which would be the one that you would commit?
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If you're smart, then you'd answer: Committing a heist of this building right here in New York City, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
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Why this building in particular?
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Because it's home to the largest amount of gold stored in a single place in the world, about two hundred and fifty billion dollars worth of it.
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Unfortunately for you though, you wouldn't have any chance of getting away with stealing any of this gold,
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because the vault inside this building that stores all of it is arguably the most difficult place in the entire world to break in to.
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And they don't care about my stupid hypothetical rules.
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You see, the Fed operates twelve regional banks across the United States that together decide monetary policy for the United States and serve as the banker of the U.S. government.
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The Fed in New York City, however, which covers all of New York State plus several counties in New Jersey, Connecticut,
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and all of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, is by far the most influential of the twelve regional banks.
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It controls the largest amounts of assets and conducts the most activity, and is located right here on thirty-three Liberty St. in New York in Lower Manhattan.
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This bank is where US monetary policy is actually implemented, and the vault the bank controls is home to the greatest treasure on Earth:
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seven thousand tons of gold bricks that together are worth two hundred fifty billion dollars.
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An amount so enormous, it could instantly pay off the national debt of Saudi Arabia.
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Very little of this gold is actually owned by the United States, however.
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Nearly all of it is owned by a number of foreign central banks and international organizations.
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Private individuals and companies are not allowed to store gold inside.
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The bank charges no fees for storing gold inside the vault and acts as the gold's guardian.
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Fees are only charged when gold is transported to or out of the vault or between accounts inside of the vault.
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So now that you know what's inside, what makes it the most difficult place in the world to break in to?
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Well first of all, the vault that contains all the gold is located in a basement twent-four meters beneath street level.
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The building itself is staffed with armed security twenty-four hours a day and surveillance cameras monitor the building and the outside perimeter at all times as well.
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If you somehow snuck past all of this, and got down to the basement you would find that there is only one entrance into the vault.
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A steel cylinder nearly three meter tall that weighs ninety tons.
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Surrounded by an additional one hundred forty ton steel and concrete frame, this cylinder is usually moved ninety degrees to completely shut off this only entrance.
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Then, four steal rods are inserted into holes that cannot be taken out by anybody until the next business day.
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When the cylinder is closed like this, it creates an air tight and water tight seal that is so extreme that if you were caught inside of it ,you would run out of air and suffocate within three days.
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If you managed to get through the cylinder and into the vault you'll then discover that the inside is also monitored twenty-four hours a day by both surveillance cameras and motion sensors.
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The vault has one hundred twenty-two compartments inside, where the gold is stored where each is a different account holder at the bank.
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Each compartments is lock by a padlock, two different combination locks and an auditor seal.
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Anytime gold is transported to or from the vault or in between these compartments, a minimum of three different authorized people are required to be present:
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Two members of the New York Fed Gold Staff and one member from the New York Fed Internal Audit Staff.
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No one person knows all the combinations required to access these compartments.
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It requires all three members to come together to open any of them.
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If you miraculously avoided all the security up to this point, then there are still more problems that face you.
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First, there's approximately five hundred eight thousand gold bars located inside and each single bar is worth over six hundred thousand dollars.
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The problem is that each bar also weighs twenty-seven pounds.
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So you've better have brought a wheelbarrow or something.
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If you're inside though, the only exit possible is the same way you came in through, which could be dangerous.
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The cylinder could have been rotated ninety degrees which would trap you inside, or the Federal Reserve Police could be waiting for you out on the other side.
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Let's be honest, though.
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If you broke into this and it got found out, the entire New York Police Department would probably be swarming you like you had five stars in Grand Theft Auto.
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If you're thinking you can dig into the vault from above, then forget about it.
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Like the cylinder, the vault is encased in a massive and thick steel and concrete shell, and the security forces inside specifically look for ground vibrations around it.
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Plus, you'd be drilling in the middle of Downtown Manhattan, which would be more than a little suspicious.
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To date, not a single physical break-in has ever been attempted in the New York Fed and for good reason.
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The security prison is extremely intimidating, and practically guarantees that any attempt would immediately fail, but breaking into the bank digitally is apparently a lot easier.
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Back in twenty sixteen, an unknown group of hackers broke into to the central bank of Bangladesh, and sent fake payment orders to the fed in New York.
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They requested nine hundred fifty-one million dollars to be sent to their bank accounts in Sri Lanka and The Philippines.
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And the fed just gave one hundred and one million dollars of that amount before their security realized what was happening.
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If the most inpenetrable bank in the world can lose over one hundred million dollars to hackers on the other side of the world, then you can lose a lot too.
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You should be limiting the amount of information that you're posting about yourself online.
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But the easiest way to protect yourself is to just to use a different password for each account you have.
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Using the same password for everything is dangerous to yourself.
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And if you go the safe route and make a long and complicated password, you'll probably never remember it.
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I used to use the same password across my personal and RealLifeLore accounts until i fell for a phishing scam last month, where a hacker was able to briefly access my YouTube account.
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Learn a lesson from me, and use different passwords for everything.