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Speaker 1: From the morning headlines to late night thoughts. Kpe Talk

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Speaker 1: is where real people talk about real things. Kate during

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Speaker 1: the Conversation.

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Speaker 2: Is our weekly check in with our cybersecurity expert for

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Speaker 2: making cyber sense, boycoc Cobette So also known as mister Fingers,

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Speaker 2: And today we're following boycock Cobett so not only some

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Speaker 2: of your research, some of your investigation, but also in

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Speaker 2: December last year, the FBI in the US, they actually

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Speaker 2: put out an alert. They put out an alert saying

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Speaker 2: criminals using altered proof of life video media to extort

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Speaker 2: victims in virtual kidnapping for ransom scams. You've been warning

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Speaker 2: for the longest time. Don't put images of your kids

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Speaker 2: on the internet. Don't put any videos because why scammers

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Speaker 2: could use the visual like in this make an AI

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Speaker 2: video that could make their voice to make a phone call.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, but Cocovetta, Maketluani, mister Fingers, how are you

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Speaker 2: doing this morning?

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Speaker 1: Hey, lester man, I'm a great man.

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Speaker 2: How you being I'm okay. I'm getting more and more

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Speaker 2: worried with all the scams that you bring us, and

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Speaker 2: that's what we really want to do with this with

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Speaker 2: this feature, you keep your finger on the balls and

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Speaker 2: what scams are out there? So what are you find

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Speaker 2: When it comes to the South African iteration of this scam,

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Speaker 2: the FBI says they do it in the US. Is

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Speaker 2: it happening in South Africa?

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Speaker 1: Look right now currently in South Africa, I wouldn't say

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Speaker 1: it's happening in that sense, but there's a different way

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Speaker 1: how they do it. It's mostly it's used for human trafficking, right,

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Speaker 1: it's also used for targeting particular individuals as well. So

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Speaker 1: for example, a lot of parents would either post their

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Speaker 1: kids school or post their kids with their school uniform,

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Speaker 1: and that can make them a target. Anybody just now knows, okay,

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Speaker 1: this tow goes to this specific school. I can now

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Speaker 1: pretend to become the parent and act as if hey,

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Speaker 1: I'm the parent. I need this child to leave the

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Speaker 1: school immediately or during that time and moment we have

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Speaker 1: an emergency. So it's quite different in terms of how

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Speaker 1: they do this particular scams as well.

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Speaker 2: Maybe explain how impersonation scams actually work. Maybe those few

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Speaker 2: couple of steps here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So within impersonation scams, they're quite different, right, So

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Speaker 1: we have a few where also where we also have

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Speaker 1: where we can collaborate with AI. So with AI, it's

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Speaker 1: basically I can clone either your face your voice as well,

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Speaker 1: so one of them. I'll give you a great examples that. Recently,

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Speaker 1: I was actually investigating a case where somebody who was

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Speaker 1: acting as a particular individual a daughter to the mother,

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Speaker 1: so they cloned her voice and then send the mother

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Speaker 1: a WhatsApp voice note with the daughter's voice which they cloned,

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Speaker 1: which they got online and telling the mother, Hey, listen,

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Speaker 1: I'm in prison right now, you need to pay a

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Speaker 1: particular amount. Please don't try to call me. There's a

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Speaker 1: guy who's going to call you who's going to be

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Speaker 1: a lawyer, so you need to speak to him going forward,

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Speaker 1: and those type of things that we are seeing right

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Speaker 1: now as well. Right we're cloning in terms of the

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Speaker 1: cloning either a person's face and voice as well. And

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Speaker 1: these are the things that we need to be very careful,

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Speaker 1: especially when it comes to AI.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and with the rapid technological advancement of AI, it's

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Speaker 2: becoming harder and harder to tell what is a computer

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Speaker 2: generated video or not.

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Speaker 1: So now, yeah, everything especially right right now, list we

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Speaker 1: have apps where you need to where people are now

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Speaker 1: following the trend, and you need to upload a certain

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Speaker 1: picture and photo as well, and meta data actually takes

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Speaker 1: that particular picture and they sell your data. People don't

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Speaker 1: know that. So these are the terms and conditions that

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Speaker 1: you get and they train the AI models to do

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Speaker 1: that as well. So some of the apps which I've

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Speaker 1: seen scammers actually pay and create those apps to get

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Speaker 1: people to put in their face and their voices so

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Speaker 1: they can actually close some of the states. So we

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Speaker 1: need to be very careful about the apps that we download,

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Speaker 1: even at the website that we visit as well.

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Speaker 2: With this said, surely if I have some sort of

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Speaker 2: curated or closed social media presence that I decide who

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Speaker 2: gets to see my pictures, I decide who I share information.

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Speaker 2: And let's not also throw the baby out of the

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Speaker 2: Bardward day. Let's be cautious. But we live an interconnected

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Speaker 2: global world. Sending a picture of my daughters onto lives

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Speaker 2: in Norway, I'd love to be still be part of

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Speaker 2: our world, that seems that's also important. But to close

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Speaker 2: and curated social media groups, do they play any difference here?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it all depends as well, right, So how

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Speaker 1: are you posting? That's very important also how open is

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Speaker 1: your social media? Is it private is it public? Because

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Speaker 1: you get that sometimes you've made it private to public.

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Speaker 1: If it's public and you're posting all these things from

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Speaker 1: your family, your daughter, your aunt, all these people, it's

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Speaker 1: available to the public, so anybody can get it. There's

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Speaker 1: something which says you have to be careful of what

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Speaker 1: you share online because once you share it to all

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Speaker 1: the stay on the internet forever. Even if were you deleted,

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Speaker 1: I can still get it. So be very careful in

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Speaker 1: terms of is your account private and also is your

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Speaker 1: account public? Those are the things that we look into

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Speaker 1: as well. What are you posting? Are you posting in

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Speaker 1: real time as well? For example, if your daughter is

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Speaker 1: going to school in that particular location, are you posting

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Speaker 1: the location of the school? Is that in real time?

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Speaker 1: Because there's something that we look into as well.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, can you try and put the genie back

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Speaker 2: into the box. Well, if something is out on social media,

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Speaker 2: if it's out on the internet, how do you then

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Speaker 2: start to scrub. Maybe I'm having a crisis of a

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Speaker 2: consciousness right now. I'm trying to think of whatever picture

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Speaker 2: I've put off my children online. I'm trying to maybe

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Speaker 2: delete all of that, is that possible. What are some

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Speaker 2: of the tools you can use maybe to clear your

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Speaker 2: online media presence.

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Speaker 1: So that's a bit difficult because some of the things,

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Speaker 1: it all depends in terms of where have you placed

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Speaker 1: these things as well. So I always say that obviously

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Speaker 1: you can delete some of the things from of your

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Speaker 1: social media. The most important thing as well is also

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Speaker 1: Google search some of the stuff, right, Google search yourself

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Speaker 1: and you get that some things are linked to you

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Speaker 1: as well, and you can just start scraping off some

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Speaker 1: of your digital footprint as well. Because this as well

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Speaker 1: we call passive digital footprint. So there are apps and

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Speaker 1: there are websites which can try to take off your

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Speaker 1: digital footprint. But unfortunately, once something is out there, it

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Speaker 1: all depends what it is. It's available now to the

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Speaker 1: whole public and to the whole world.

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Speaker 2: There's a message that asks, what if you put in

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Speaker 2: plenty of filters, maybe a watermark over a video that

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Speaker 2: you post online, if you use some faultered sound or

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Speaker 2: music over over say a little bit of speech, would

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Speaker 2: that at all deter a potential scammer from wanting to

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Speaker 2: use that video.

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Speaker 1: So it depends if in terms of if the user

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Speaker 1: the person is talking in that figure, right, I can

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Speaker 1: still clode the voice. The voice can still be cloned.

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Speaker 1: You are apps to actually sync the two together and

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Speaker 1: just close down the sound from the background and just

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Speaker 1: continue with the voice, and I can clone that apps

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Speaker 1: which can actually do that. It's so crazy that the

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Speaker 1: world that we live in it can actually do that.

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Speaker 2: So you're saying that I should be getting myself and

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Speaker 2: all the presenters and DJs in Prime Media going to

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Speaker 2: the bosses and say, look, our voices are out there

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Speaker 2: for download. Maybe we need a little bit of extra

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Speaker 2: pay because we're living in tricky, tricky times. Boycocobetto Makettlowani,

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Speaker 2: also known as Mister Fingers, a cybersecurity analyst and expert.

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Speaker 2: In the next couple of weeks, he's going to be

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Speaker 2: maybe detailing a little bit of how he's been uncovering

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Speaker 2: some of these online scamsy works in the arena of

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Speaker 2: investigations helping public and private sector. Looking forward to chatting

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Speaker 2: to him in the next one of how he's uncovering

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Speaker 2: where some of these scammers are based, what they are doing,

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Speaker 2: maybe even trying to get in touch with one or

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Speaker 2: two on a YO with us on this show, but

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Speaker 2: cocobettso really appreciate your time. Thanks so much for joining us.