Speaker 1: International authorities, bust a major hacking group. Why rice might
Speaker 1: not be the best way to dry out a wet smartphone,
Speaker 1: Don't fall for a funeral scam. Plus your tech questions answered?
Speaker 1: What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is rich
Speaker 1: on Tech broadcasting live from Los Angeles, coast to coast.
Speaker 1: This is the show where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
Speaker 1: that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open
Speaker 1: up those phone lines. Give me a call triple eight
Speaker 1: rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. That is a direct
Speaker 1: line right to this show. Give me a call. If
Speaker 1: you have a question about technology. Email also an option.
Speaker 1: Just go to rich on tech dot tv. Hit content
Speaker 1: act that will make its way right to my inbox.
Speaker 1: And of course, if you comment about the show, we'll
Speaker 1: read it in the feedbag segment later on. Feedbag, of course,
Speaker 1: is a mix of feedback and mail bag. Yes, now
Speaker 1: you know. Guests this week Arthur Edelstein of Privacy tests
Speaker 1: dot org. He can tests. He conducts open source tests
Speaker 1: of web browser privacy that's going to be an interesting conversation.
Speaker 1: Neil O'Farrell, founder of the Center for AI Crime, will
Speaker 1: share the ways that AI is accelerating all kinds of
Speaker 1: scams and frauds. Well, this week got me thinking. We've
Speaker 1: had a couple of major things that happened this week.
Speaker 1: First off, if you have AT and T, maybe you
Speaker 1: didn't have a signal for a while. AT and T
Speaker 1: had a network outage impacting wireless customers in the US.
Speaker 1: You know they have about two hundred million of them.
Speaker 1: This outage went on for hours, and of course people
Speaker 1: wondered why it was happening. They woke up to an
Speaker 1: SOS signal on their iPhone or their Samsung or their
Speaker 1: Pixel or their Android and didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 1: People were restarting their phones. They thought it was a
Speaker 1: problem with their house. Who knows. It's confusing when you
Speaker 1: wake up and you just don't have a signal. But
Speaker 1: it came out later on that it wasn't outage. This
Speaker 1: was pretty widespread. It was caused by a software update
Speaker 1: that went wrong during a network expansion, and of course
Speaker 1: people wondered if it was a cyber attack. That's always
Speaker 1: a consideration Now that was not but this was Change Healthcare,
Speaker 1: part of United Health's Optium business, suffered a cyber attack
Speaker 1: suspected to be by a nation state. The company was
Speaker 1: forced to disconnect services, which caused outages to prescription processing
Speaker 1: systems for over sixty seven thousand pharmacies. So if you
Speaker 1: needed a prescription that day, you probably couldn't get it.
Speaker 1: So this got me thinking, with all this stuff happening,
Speaker 1: and as these companies get bigger, and as we get
Speaker 1: more connected, and as we become more nationwide with everything.
Speaker 1: Remember everything used to be local. Now everything is nationwide.
Speaker 1: When I first moved to California, there was not a
Speaker 1: bank that you could go to that was both in
Speaker 1: New York City and in Los Angeles. There wasn't any
Speaker 1: It wasn't heard of. Now banks are everywhere. It's the
Speaker 1: same chain across the entire United States, across the entire world.
Speaker 1: The question is, as these issues get bigger, things are
Speaker 1: going to have more of an impact. Right when we
Speaker 1: have an issue, when there's an interruption, where there's a
Speaker 1: something goes wrong, more people are impacted. So do you
Speaker 1: have a plan. That is my question for you today.
Speaker 1: What if you woke up and you had zero signal
Speaker 1: on your cell phone. Now you might say, Rich, I've
Speaker 1: got WiFi. I'm okay, okay, Well what if the Wi
Speaker 1: Fi didn't work? So, first off, a lot of people
Speaker 1: were confused when they looked at their iPhone when this
Speaker 1: thing had happen, because there is an SOS icon on
Speaker 1: the iPhone and there's also a satellite icon. Only the
Speaker 1: iPhone fourteen and fifteen have that satellite icon. That means
Speaker 1: that you can get satellite service for an emergency. So
Speaker 1: if you have an emergency, you're still covered as long
Speaker 1: as you can see the sky. That's called SOS Emergency
Speaker 1: over Satellite. The SOS icon means that your phone can
Speaker 1: dial nine one one, and one thing to note here
Speaker 1: in the US, your phone, whether it has service or not,
Speaker 1: can still dial on nine one one. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily just dial nine one one on your carrier. It
Speaker 1: can also reach out to the other carriers. Here in
Speaker 1: the US, we have three major carriers. We have T Mobile,
Speaker 1: we have AT and T, and we have Verizon. Your
Speaker 1: phone can dial nine one one on all three of those.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you're not in a place where all three of
Speaker 1: those are gone, but some places are so AT and
Speaker 1: T during this outage said to turn on Wi Fi calling,
Speaker 1: So if you haven't set that up on your phone,
Speaker 1: it's probably a good idea to do that before you
Speaker 1: need it. So when cellulars on a vail, your phone
Speaker 1: can use Wi Fi for both calls and texts, which
Speaker 1: is really nice. And that also works overseas, so if
Speaker 1: you ever go overseas and you have a Wi Fi signal,
Speaker 1: you can still use your phone without charging roaming fees.
Speaker 1: Just make sure that roaming is turned off. Now. When
Speaker 1: it comes to the backups in your home, so you
Speaker 1: might have a hot spot from work, you could use
Speaker 1: that perhaps if your cellular isn't working on your main
Speaker 1: account on your phone. Ring also has something called Backup Cellular,
Speaker 1: so they offer a subscription where you can get twenty
Speaker 1: four to seven backup Internet, which means if the Internet
Speaker 1: goes out in your home, you can still use cellular
Speaker 1: data through their router and it will send it. If
Speaker 1: you have eros in your house. You know that's also
Speaker 1: owned by Amazon, which also owns Ring, you would be
Speaker 1: able to use their cellular signal throughout your house. Now
Speaker 1: it's only a small amount, it's three gigs, but it's
Speaker 1: mostly for the fact that if you don't have a
Speaker 1: Wi Fi signal, which is what your alarm system typically uses,
Speaker 1: it would fall back to cellular and then if you
Speaker 1: had an emergency, it would still be able to get
Speaker 1: that signal out, but you'd also be able to surf
Speaker 1: on your devices as you typically would in that time
Speaker 1: period where the cellular doesn't work. Do you have one
Speaker 1: of these a portable power station? Because I do, and
Speaker 1: my father in law actually texted me a picture of his.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm prepared for anything. Companies like Jackerie anchor
Speaker 1: Blue Eddy, they all make these things. They cost anywhere
Speaker 1: from one hundred and fifty to up to thousands of
Speaker 1: dollars depending on how much power they hold. But I
Speaker 1: think this is something that you should absolutely have. It's
Speaker 1: something like a portable battery pack for your phone, but
Speaker 1: it's for all of your gadgets in your house, so
Speaker 1: you can plug things in, you know, emergency stuff, whatever
Speaker 1: you need. Some of them even have built in lights
Speaker 1: on them so you can use it as a light
Speaker 1: as well. But I highly recommend you get one of
Speaker 1: these things. Also, a whole house battery is also becoming
Speaker 1: very popular. This is something you install in the garage.
Speaker 1: You could work off solar, or it could just be
Speaker 1: plugged in and it powers your entire house. Now, if
Speaker 1: you have an electric car, a lot of these cars
Speaker 1: are coming with something called bidirectional charging. So if you
Speaker 1: have an electric car, a lot of them can plug
Speaker 1: you can plug your house into the car, and then
Speaker 1: that car would provide power for your home, and an
Speaker 1: average of seventy kilowatt hours of energy in a average
Speaker 1: electric car might provide backup power for about two days
Speaker 1: to your house. So that's another option you've probably seen
Speaker 1: the commercials Ford was advertising that heavily where you can
Speaker 1: plug your whole house into the F one fifty lightning.
Speaker 1: Now I mentioned the iPhone SOS over satellite. This is
Speaker 1: if you have the iPhone fourteen or fifteen models, get
Speaker 1: to know this service. You can go into your settings
Speaker 1: and try a demo. Basically, if your phone has a
Speaker 1: clear view of the sky, you'll be able to call
Speaker 1: for help, and it goes through a relay center. It
Speaker 1: doesn't dial directly, but you can also send your location
Speaker 1: via satellite. So if you're going on a hike or
Speaker 1: something and you're in a place where there's no cellular
Speaker 1: you can update your friends where you are via the
Speaker 1: find My app on the iPhone. Now, this is a
Speaker 1: feature that's really really handy. It's built into the iPhones.
Speaker 1: We're still waiting for that to come to Android, but
Speaker 1: in the meantime, you can get a third party device.
Speaker 1: So there's a device called the Moto DeFi and this
Speaker 1: is a small satellite messenger device and you can use
Speaker 1: it on its own, or you can link it to
Speaker 1: a phone where it will send and receive messages and
Speaker 1: all kinds of updates through satellite. And that's about one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty bucks. And then another one that a
Speaker 1: lot of the rescue folks like is the Garment in
Speaker 1: Reach and this works on its own. I think the
Speaker 1: Motorola DeFi needs to be linked up with Bluetooth on
Speaker 1: your phone. It runs through that. But the Garment in Reach,
Speaker 1: I believe will work all by itself. And then the
Speaker 1: SOS features on your phone, you should really make sure
Speaker 1: they're set up before you need to use them. So
Speaker 1: I'm Samsung. They have the Emergency SOS. You can press
Speaker 1: the side button five times after you set it up
Speaker 1: and that will send it alert to your emergency contacts.
Speaker 1: Attach a five second audio recording and also pictures from
Speaker 1: both the front and rear cameras. Be very careful when
Speaker 1: you set this up. Don't make the mistake I did
Speaker 1: where I sent a picture of my legs to my
Speaker 1: mother in law because it took a picture and sent
Speaker 1: it when I was setting it up. So be careful.
Speaker 1: Look at those settings very carefully. Apple Watch has fall detection,
Speaker 1: The iPhone has crash detection. Make sure that's turned on.
Speaker 1: The pixel phones have crash detection. Make sure that's turned on.
Speaker 1: You do need a simcard in your phone for that
Speaker 1: to work. And then taking it a step further. You
Speaker 1: know my kids, and you know we always I don't
Speaker 1: know why my kids are so morbid, but they always
Speaker 1: talk about what happens when I'm not around anymore. But
Speaker 1: you have to think about this stuff as morbid as
Speaker 1: it is. Apple has the ability to set up a
Speaker 1: legacy contact, someone who can get access to your data
Speaker 1: after your death. This can include photos, messages, notes, files,
Speaker 1: all kinds of things. Google has something called Inactive Account Manager.
Speaker 1: This lets you share parts your account or notify someone
Speaker 1: if you've been inactive for a long time, so it
Speaker 1: kicks in after I think it's like ninety days or
Speaker 1: six months of not using your account, it will send
Speaker 1: a message to a loved one that you set up
Speaker 1: in advance, saying Okay, here's my account. And then Facebook
Speaker 1: has something called a legacy contact. You can set that
Speaker 1: up and let someone post on your behalf in the
Speaker 1: unlikely event of your demise. Oh, I say unlikely, but
Speaker 1: I guess it is not unlikely. It's going to happen,
Speaker 1: just a matter of when. But they can't read your messages.
Speaker 1: I think that's important to know. And they can't log
Speaker 1: into your account, and they can't friend and unfriend people,
Speaker 1: so they can't act like a ghost on your behalf,
Speaker 1: but they can post something on your page. And then finally,
Speaker 1: if you're using one of these password apps, this is
Speaker 1: kind of tricky because you do need to if you
Speaker 1: want someone to have access to all of your accounts,
Speaker 1: you need to let them know how to get into
Speaker 1: your password manager. And so I looked up one password
Speaker 1: actually has kind of a cool thing. It's called emergency kit.
Speaker 1: This is a PDF document that lists out all the
Speaker 1: details on how to get into your account. Fill it out,
Speaker 1: and that's a physical piece of paper that you would
Speaker 1: keep up in a safe place. Other password apps might
Speaker 1: have something like a recovery key. But again I'm telling
Speaker 1: you all of this not to be morbid, but we
Speaker 1: need to plan ahead. We need to think ahead. The
Speaker 1: digital world presents new complications for our data, for our information.
Speaker 1: And if you have something like a photo collection, it
Speaker 1: used to be in a box that maybe your kids
Speaker 1: would find in the garage, but nowadays that's all locked
Speaker 1: up online. And could you imagine not letting them have
Speaker 1: access to that after you pass? That would not be
Speaker 1: a good thing. So think about this stuff in advance.
Speaker 1: I gave you some ideas here. I hope you run
Speaker 1: with them, and I don't want to be morbid, but
Speaker 1: I just think like it's better to be prepared for
Speaker 1: this stuff than to not be prepared. All right, Coming
Speaker 1: up on today's show, Authorities Bust a major ransomware hacking group.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why you might be able to get
Speaker 1: your files back if they were locked up. But first
Speaker 1: it is your turn. Give me a call triple eight
Speaker 1: Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Give me a call if
Speaker 1: you have a question about technology. My name is Rich
Speaker 1: d'muro and you are listening to rich on tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you, talking technology at triple eight Rich one oh
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Give me a call if you have a
Speaker 1: question about technology. This week, international authorities busted a major
Speaker 1: ransomware hacking group. This involved arrests, indictments, seizures of their infrastructure,
Speaker 1: and they also developed a free decryption tool to help
Speaker 1: victims recover their files. This is the lock Bit ransomware group.
Speaker 1: They arrested a bunch of people in Poland, Ukraine and
Speaker 1: some other places, retrieved over one thousand decryption keys to
Speaker 1: help them create this free software. They seized over two
Speaker 1: hundred crypto wallets with a bunch of money in them,
Speaker 1: probably money from victims, I'm guessing, and took down thirty
Speaker 1: four servers, identified over fourteen thousand rogue accounts used in attacks.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, this is just a lot. But I
Speaker 1: tell you this because if you, you know, were affected
Speaker 1: by this, maybe you run a small business or any
Speaker 1: kind of business and you just want more information. There
Speaker 1: is a website that they set up, no more ransom
Speaker 1: dot org, No more ransom dot org. That is where
Speaker 1: you can find the free decryption tool. So if you
Speaker 1: had your files locked up by this lockbit ransomware group,
Speaker 1: you might be able to unlock them for free. Again,
Speaker 1: I'll put that on the website website Rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot TV. Thurman in Winchester, Massachusetts. You're on with Rich.
Speaker 2: Yes, I had you some problems with the Thunderburl. It
Speaker 2: crashes but maybe once every other day. And what I
Speaker 2: like about it is that it does separate. I have
Speaker 2: many email accounts and off of my my various r
Speaker 2: r ls, so it nicely separates the the scent, the trash,
Speaker 2: and so forth sub sub boxes by your your email account.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I've looked at some other alternatives, but they all seem
Speaker 2: to collapse all the in all the input inboxes over
Speaker 2: in one place. I don't wonder if you might know
Speaker 2: of a Windows based email client that can can can
Speaker 2: be either does or can be made to us separate
Speaker 2: out the various activities within the email account.
Speaker 1: Okay, so instead of having all like a unified inbox,
Speaker 1: you want them separate. Okay, got it. Well, I'm going
Speaker 1: to direct you to a website that I like that
Speaker 1: helps me find some of these software alternatives, And you know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned Thunderbird, which obviously is a very popular free
Speaker 1: email app for I think it works on various platforms.
Speaker 1: But the website that I like to look at for
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff is called Alternative two dot net.
Speaker 1: Alternative two dot net, and so if you have an
Speaker 1: app that you like and you're kind of curious what
Speaker 1: else is out there, this is where you can pop
Speaker 1: in the name of that app and it will give
Speaker 1: you the alternatives to that app. And so, for instance, Thunderbird,
Speaker 1: if you type that in, it also separates it by platform,
Speaker 1: So you can look at iPhone, Android, Windows, Open Source
Speaker 1: iPad and you just tap that I tapped Windows, and
Speaker 1: then it comes up with some of the other alternatives.
Speaker 1: And so the alternative that it likes the most is
Speaker 1: clause Mail claws Mail, and then there's one after that
Speaker 1: called cea Monkey, and then there's of course Microsoft Outlook,
Speaker 1: which sounds like I'm sure you've tried. And then there's
Speaker 1: mail Bird, which is clearly play on Thunderbird, and so
Speaker 1: that's kind of probably similar to what Thunderbird offers, but
Speaker 1: maybe they'd looked at some of the things that people
Speaker 1: don't like about it and they made those features better.
Speaker 1: And then there's one called mail Spring and postbox, spark Mail.
Speaker 1: I mean it goes on and on. I've used spark Mail.
Speaker 1: Actually that's a pretty good one. But there's so many
Speaker 1: of these, and I think that that's the best way,
Speaker 1: because when it comes to recommending software, it's really tough
Speaker 1: to know what you like and what you specifically want.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the different inboxes, separating them out, so I
Speaker 1: would go through and kind of see what which one
Speaker 1: of these works for you. It's kind of like me
Speaker 1: with my note taking app situation. I've been using, you know,
Speaker 1: for the past year, every single note taking app. I
Speaker 1: downloaded every single one you can think of, because I
Speaker 1: was using ever note and it was like one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty bucks a year to renew, and I was
Speaker 1: just like, I'm not going to do that, and so
Speaker 1: of course I downloaded every single other app. And what
Speaker 1: did I do after all these months, I've come back
Speaker 1: to ever note And by the way, I talked about this,
Speaker 1: sent out a new newsletter this week for the first
Speaker 1: time in a while. So if you want to get
Speaker 1: on the newsletter list, go to rich on tech dot
Speaker 1: tv on the homepage. It says, sign up for the
Speaker 1: newsletter rich on Tech Newsletter. It is free. All you
Speaker 1: have to do is put in your email address and
Speaker 1: you'll get the newsletter. I'm gonna try to do it
Speaker 1: weekly this week. For the first one, I kind of
Speaker 1: talked about my journey with all the different apps and
Speaker 1: things that I currently like. So Thurman, hopefully you find
Speaker 1: something on that website again. It's called Alternative two dot net,
Speaker 1: Triple eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you,
Speaker 1: talking technology at Triple eight rich one O one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Email Just go to rich on Tech dot tv hit contact.
Speaker 1: Of course, that is the website and the way to
Speaker 1: follow me online at rich on Tech. Coming up in
Speaker 1: the show, we've got Arthur Edelstein. He runs a website
Speaker 1: called Privacy tests dot org where he conducts open source
Speaker 1: tests of web browser privacy. So you're gonna find out
Speaker 1: which web browser is the most private, which one protects
Speaker 1: your information the most, And we're gonna ask him about
Speaker 1: incognito browsing to find out where your info's going when
Speaker 1: you do that. Let's go to Bill in San Diego. Bill,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Got to go into a canyon. But maybe I'll listen
Speaker 4: off the air. My sister passed away and she has
Speaker 4: a bunch of messages on her Soul eight and I'd
Speaker 4: like to save.
Speaker 1: Oh we lost you. Okay. Sounds like you want to
Speaker 1: save the messages from the iPhone, the text messages. So
Speaker 1: the way to do this now, you have to have
Speaker 1: access to the phone. So I'm not sure if you
Speaker 1: have access to the phone or not, but if you
Speaker 1: have access to the phone, it's quite easy. Actually, the
Speaker 1: app I recommend is called I Amazing mazng Oh. I
Speaker 1: just got a word from Kim that he does have
Speaker 1: access to the phone, okay, and that case is pretty easy.
Speaker 1: There is an app called Imazing I Mazing, and this
Speaker 1: is sort of like the app that Apple should have
Speaker 1: put out with the iPhone, but they never did. Apple
Speaker 1: made it very, very convoluted to get files on and
Speaker 1: off the iPhone and to get data on and off
Speaker 1: the iPhone. There might be a reason for that, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. It just seems very, very unnecessarily complicated.
Speaker 1: But this app does it a lot easier because you
Speaker 1: can drag and drop stuff on or off. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people when they had like an iPod or
Speaker 1: an iPhone, they realized after a certain period of time
Speaker 1: that getting music on that device was very easy. Getting
Speaker 1: music off that device not so easy. Getting your own
Speaker 1: files onto that device not so easy. So this app
Speaker 1: amazing makes it much easier. Imazig dot com. You will
Speaker 1: have to pay for it, but you can at least
Speaker 1: test it out. I think there's like a free level
Speaker 1: of service before you have to pay, and let me
Speaker 1: see how much this thing is. But I use this
Speaker 1: the other day to kind of test the I get
Speaker 1: a lot of questions about text message extraction from the
Speaker 1: iPhone because you would think you'd be able to do
Speaker 1: it in an easy way, but no, you can't. Device
Speaker 1: license one device is forty bucks. So for forty bucks,
Speaker 1: you plug this device. You plug your iPhone into your computer.
Speaker 1: It will scan the iPhone. It does take a while
Speaker 1: to do that initial scan, but once you scan it,
Speaker 1: you can download all of the text messages, some of
Speaker 1: the text messages, whatever you want, but it will make
Speaker 1: them all into a nice, easy to understand file. You
Speaker 1: can export that as a PDF, comma separated value whatever
Speaker 1: you want. This does it all. So I will put
Speaker 1: the link on the website in the show notes rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot tv. Keep in mind, if you go
Speaker 1: to the website rich on tech dot tv, right at
Speaker 1: the top, there is a big red banner it says
Speaker 1: heard it mentioned on the radio. Links here. You can
Speaker 1: tap there to get links in real time to anything
Speaker 1: I mentioned on the show. So if I mentioned a
Speaker 1: good website like before the alternative to dot net, you
Speaker 1: can find a link right there. Great question. Sorry for
Speaker 1: you're a loss. Thank you so much, Bill and San Diego.
Speaker 1: Sorry that you want to do a canyon right as
Speaker 1: we came to you. Let's go to Rose in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Rose in Los Angeles. You're on with Rich.
Speaker 5: Hi, Rich, thanks Lord for taking my call. When we
Speaker 5: want to remove our name and information like data bird
Speaker 5: as is from Google, when we go to results about
Speaker 5: you goog he'll ask whether you want to remove information
Speaker 5: you see in Google Search or events content from the
Speaker 5: show in in Google Search. So what is the difference
Speaker 5: which one should we click? Makes sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, actually I haven't seen the option where it
Speaker 1: says do you want to prevent it from showing up
Speaker 1: in Google Search. That's interesting. Usually it just it just
Speaker 1: shows you results that are already out there. So well,
Speaker 1: I mean to bring your question kind of a little
Speaker 1: bit bigger here. So there's two things you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Your information is floating out there online, no matter what
Speaker 1: it is, out there in a million different ways. Any
Speaker 1: sort of public record that you're ever involved in, or
Speaker 1: database that gets breached. All this information makes its way
Speaker 1: to the web. And then there's companies that scoop it
Speaker 1: all up and make it easy to find and it
Speaker 1: comes up in search results. So when you search for
Speaker 1: someone's name or address or whatever, it will say, oh,
Speaker 1: we've got their information, and sometimes it is there. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's kind of you know, like these Spochio sites and
Speaker 1: all that, they make you jump through hoops to kind
Speaker 1: of see some of it, and they want you to
Speaker 1: pay to unlock it. But Google, what you're referring to,
Speaker 1: Google results about you lets you see if your personal
Speaker 1: contact information, including your home address, phone number, and email address,
Speaker 1: is in search results, and you have the option to
Speaker 1: ask Google to take that out of search results when
Speaker 1: you say that. So basically the way this works is
Speaker 1: you go on Google, you sign up for this service.
Speaker 1: It is free. Google will ask you for your name,
Speaker 1: your address, your phone number, your email address. You could
Speaker 1: put a bunch of women in there, and then when
Speaker 1: it goes out on the web and it searches for
Speaker 1: that information in search results. When it finds that, it says, hey,
Speaker 1: we noticed that your information is on this search result.
Speaker 1: Would you like us to take down that search result.
Speaker 1: It does not take down the original information from that website.
Speaker 1: It only takes down Google's link to that website when
Speaker 1: people search. If you want the information to be removed completely,
Speaker 1: and I think the results about you is a good
Speaker 1: first step because most people are just going to do
Speaker 1: a quick casual search and find the information on Google
Speaker 1: and then click. But some people will go directly to
Speaker 1: an information broker to find information on you. If you
Speaker 1: want to do that, there are ways of doing it.
Speaker 1: There are many many services that will do this. But
Speaker 1: if you want to do this yourself, there is a website.
Speaker 1: Let's see if I can find it. Diy. I think
Speaker 1: it's called delete me. Okay, here it is so delete
Speaker 1: me is a service that does this for a couple
Speaker 1: bucks a month. I think it's like ten dollars a month,
Speaker 1: where they will go out and actually delete requests that
Speaker 1: you that your information is deleted from these broker websites.
Speaker 1: But they also have free guides that can help you
Speaker 1: do it yourself. So it has a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: guides that will you can request to remove yourself from
Speaker 1: all of these different places. And so they have basically
Speaker 1: DIY guides for all these things and tell us been
Speaker 1: verified spokio and it gives you a step by step
Speaker 1: way of how to request removal from those websites. And
Speaker 1: they're actually pretty good now I will tell you it is.
Speaker 1: It's a game of whack a mole. So you can
Speaker 1: take this down from one website and it's going to
Speaker 1: pop up on an and another and another. So there
Speaker 1: are services I mentioned one last week like Mozilla Monitor
Speaker 1: and Norton has one Experience has one where they will
Speaker 1: and this delete me where they will constantly monitor for
Speaker 1: your information and try to get it off these websites.
Speaker 1: So I've been using this Mozilla Monitor as a way
Speaker 1: to test it and it has taken my information off
Speaker 1: of a couple of websites so far. Spokio, id True
Speaker 1: dot com, Background Alert dot com, peoplewin dot com. But
Speaker 1: there are still so many more. I mean, there's just
Speaker 1: a list of ninety that they still have my information
Speaker 1: on that they're trying to get taken down. But again,
Speaker 1: these services are going to cost you money each month,
Speaker 1: and whether they work or not is you know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of up in the air. Sometimes they work, sometimes
Speaker 1: they don't. But most of the websites, if you find
Speaker 1: your information on a website, you can ask to have
Speaker 1: that information taken down. But these these sites are so
Speaker 1: shady that a lot of times they don't even do it,
Speaker 1: or they don't you know, it takes so long, or
Speaker 1: you can't get someone on the phone, or sorry, not
Speaker 1: on the phone. But you know, it's tough to make
Speaker 1: these requests. So that's the best way that I know of.
Speaker 1: I'll put those two links on the show notes so
Speaker 1: you can look up Google results about me or results
Speaker 1: about you, and then also the other websites that have
Speaker 1: this stuff. But it's it's really it's a lot. It's
Speaker 1: there's so much information. The other website I talk about
Speaker 1: is have I Been pooned? H a ve e I
Speaker 1: beIN pwned dot com? Have I been poned? Pwned? Like
Speaker 1: owned but with a P and you can put in
Speaker 1: your email address and it will tell you if that
Speaker 1: email address has been available on a website. So my
Speaker 1: email address has been in twenty seven data breaches and
Speaker 1: three pastes and pastes are when they just take all
Speaker 1: this information and they compile it and hackers just use
Speaker 1: that to kind of figure out email addresses and passwords.
Speaker 1: So it is it's a lot when you start searching
Speaker 1: for yourself online. Believe me, you're gonna find a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, and it is not easy to take it down.
Speaker 1: But remember back in the day, people had the white
Speaker 1: pages right and you can look up anyone in their address,
Speaker 1: and that was just thrown at everyone's doorsteps. So it's
Speaker 1: just a lot easier to find this stuff these days.
Speaker 1: Triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one coming up. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you about Ring. They are gonna stop selling one
Speaker 1: of their popular items. People are trying to get a
Speaker 1: hold of them, and I guess they can't anymore. You
Speaker 1: are listening to rich on tech.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 1: Ring has confirmed it has stopped selling its Ring carcam.
Speaker 1: This is sort of a dash cam slash security camera
Speaker 1: for cars. It was announced at CS twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: It's been kind of tough to get ever since it's launch.
Speaker 1: I did a review and they actually sent me one
Speaker 1: to review, and uh, I like it. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a really nice little device. There were a couple of
Speaker 1: flaws with it in a design, but overall it works
Speaker 1: like a video doorbell for your car. Ring does not
Speaker 1: give a specific reason for stopping sales, but it's said
Speaker 1: that there were ongoing delays. So does that mean a
Speaker 1: component of this was not working or maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I really I don't see anything that is
Speaker 1: wrong with the device, but it just I don't know.
Speaker 1: People couldn't get them apparently, So it looks like people.
Speaker 1: Emails from Amazon show orders for the ringcarcamp placed in
Speaker 1: recent months are now being canceled. Some people have been
Speaker 1: waiting since January twenty twenty three for the device, with
Speaker 1: delivery pushback multiple times. We do not know if they
Speaker 1: are going to resume Ring Carcam sales. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We'll see Ringcarcam if you want one, It's gonna be
Speaker 1: tough to get, so we're gonna have to look into
Speaker 1: some other car cams that are good. People love dash
Speaker 1: cams nowadays, so we'll have to find when that works.
Speaker 1: Pretty well, let's go to Vivian. Vivian in Menefee, California. Vivian,
Speaker 1: you'r on with Rich.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 7: I am having trouble with passwords and seems like every
Speaker 7: three months, Apple is making me change my password.
Speaker 8: I'd rite it down in the day that I put
Speaker 8: in the new pass words, and they keep knocking me
Speaker 8: out Apple, They.
Speaker 1: Keep locking you out. Well, yeah, I don't think, uh,
Speaker 1: I don't What do you mean they lock you out?
Speaker 1: Are you putting? Are you putting in the wrong past?
Speaker 1: Is it the password to your eye cloud or is
Speaker 1: it the past code on your iPhone?
Speaker 8: Past code.
Speaker 1: Past coode? Okay, well the past code, if you type
Speaker 1: it in wrong a number of times, it will disable
Speaker 1: that phone for a bit before you can try again.
Speaker 1: Is that what's happening?
Speaker 8: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, Well we need a good way to remember
Speaker 1: this passcode.
Speaker 7: Well, I've been writing it down. What I thought I
Speaker 7: heard them say?
Speaker 1: And what you what? Who said?
Speaker 7: What?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 8: Apple?
Speaker 1: Okay? Well, Apple doesn't set the passcode on your phone.
Speaker 1: You set that and I will tell you how to
Speaker 1: do it right now. So if you go into your phone.
Speaker 1: Do you have access to your phone now or is
Speaker 1: it you don't have access?
Speaker 7: I'm on the phone with you, okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's unlocked at this point.
Speaker 8: Now there's still locked.
Speaker 1: It's still locked. Okay, how are you making a phone call?
Speaker 7: I don't know that. To us, we couldn't get into Apples.
Speaker 1: Okay. It sounds like it sounds like there's a little
Speaker 1: confusion here because between the passcode on your phone and
Speaker 1: the iCloud account. So couple things. Number One, if you
Speaker 1: do have access on your phone to face ID, I
Speaker 1: would recommend using that because that's going to be a
Speaker 1: little bit more fail proof. It's you know, it's going
Speaker 1: to recognize your face and it's going to unlock the
Speaker 1: device that way. When it comes to the passcode, it
Speaker 1: sounds like if you're able to make a phone call,
Speaker 1: you're able to unlock the phone. So to me, this
Speaker 1: seems like it's more of an iCloud issue. And yes,
Speaker 1: with iCloud, if you forget your log in, which Apple
Speaker 1: doesn't set by the way, and they don't ask you
Speaker 1: to reset it. Ever, as far as I've seen, you
Speaker 1: can you know, leave that passcode indefinitely or password on
Speaker 1: your account. But what I would do is I would
Speaker 1: get a trusted friend or family member to help you
Speaker 1: set this up. I would ask them to help you
Speaker 1: change your iCloud password to something that you can remember,
Speaker 1: and something that you might write down in a physical
Speaker 1: piece of paper and keep in a safe place that
Speaker 1: you can refer to. And then I would also change
Speaker 1: the passcode on your phone to something that you can remember,
Speaker 1: and I would keep that on a different piece of
Speaker 1: paper and in a different safe place, so that if
Speaker 1: you need to or if this trusted friend, if you say, oh,
Speaker 1: I've gotten locked out of my phone again, this will
Speaker 1: be the way that you can get back into those devices.
Speaker 1: So that's frustrating for sure. I totally get it. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of these things where if you
Speaker 1: lose the passcode to your iPhone, there is really no
Speaker 1: way of getting back in. You have to reset the
Speaker 1: entire phone factory reset it. And that's why I always
Speaker 1: recommend that you also have a backup of your phone.
Speaker 1: So if you do have a backup and you do
Speaker 1: forget the passcode, you should be able to get that
Speaker 1: once you have access to your phone again and you
Speaker 1: get back into your eCloud, you should be able to
Speaker 1: bring that backup of your phone to your phone again.
Speaker 1: So oh man, it's tough to remember this stuff sometimes.
Speaker 1: And this actually happened to me. I set up, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm always setting up something like for you know, testing out,
Speaker 1: and so I set up this tablet and I always
Speaker 1: set up I've got like a couple of passcodes that
Speaker 1: I used, and I set up like kind of a
Speaker 1: test passcode that I used for my test devices, and
Speaker 1: I put it on the tablet and then I didn't
Speaker 1: think about it for a little bit, and then I
Speaker 1: was going to access it again, and I just kept
Speaker 1: putting in the pass code and it would not work.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm like going, you know, in circles,
Speaker 1: like what is going on here? And so I finally
Speaker 1: realized after I started typing in because I have a
Speaker 1: couple of different variations, I realized that the tablet was
Speaker 1: accepting as many like numbers as I typed in, Like
Speaker 1: usually a pass code is either four or six digits. Well,
Speaker 1: at first I was just putting in four, and then
Speaker 1: I put in six, and all of a sudden I
Speaker 1: just started typing more and accepted them. I was like,
Speaker 1: wait a second, and That's when I realized that the
Speaker 1: passcode was longer than the four digits I kept trying
Speaker 1: to type in, and so as soon as I typed
Speaker 1: in the six digit code and unlocked, and I was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: one time I was testing a phone and I forget
Speaker 1: it was T Mobile or someone, but they sent me
Speaker 1: a test phone and I must have set it up
Speaker 1: in my sleep and forgot about it. And so all
Speaker 1: of a sudden one day, I'm trying to use this
Speaker 1: thing to test on air and I cannot unlock it.
Speaker 1: And I email them like, hey, did you guys set
Speaker 1: a passcode on this phone before you sent it to me?
Speaker 1: Like what's going on here? You're like no, we never
Speaker 1: do that. And I was going through all these circles
Speaker 1: and hoops before I finally realized, like, oh, I kept
Speaker 1: putting in my personal passcode instead of the tester one
Speaker 1: and it unlocked, and I was so embarrassed I had
Speaker 1: to like send them an email and be like ooh sorry,
Speaker 1: just kidding. By the way, this week, Google had to
Speaker 1: make an apology for its Gemini image generation. This is
Speaker 1: you know AI image generators or all the buzz right now.
Speaker 1: So Google recently launched one called Gemini that could create
Speaker 1: images of people. Well, it was producing inaccurate or even
Speaker 1: offensive images in some cases. Google said, all right, we're
Speaker 1: going back to the drawing board on this one. We
Speaker 1: have paused image generation of people in Gemini. I guess
Speaker 1: the problem arose from an over correction. They tried to
Speaker 1: tune the model to show a wide range of diverse
Speaker 1: people and it it backfired on them, and the model
Speaker 1: would sometimes just flat out refuse to generate images of
Speaker 1: some people. So Google says, we're going back to the
Speaker 1: drawing board. We're going to bring this thing back out
Speaker 1: when it can actually create the images that people want
Speaker 1: it to create. You know, humans are programming this AI,
Speaker 1: and humans are you know, they're not infallible, so we
Speaker 1: make mistakes, and apparently so does AI. Eighty eight Rich
Speaker 1: one on one eight eight eight seven four two four
Speaker 1: one zero one ZJ in Anaheim, California, ZJ. You're on
Speaker 1: with Rich.
Speaker 9: Good afternoon, Rich, and I Before I start my question,
Speaker 9: I just want to say you are the most patient
Speaker 9: and gracious host on KFI. And I don't know if
Speaker 9: it's because you're still young and fresh. People who have
Speaker 9: been on a long time just don't have the care
Speaker 9: and patience you have, including the previous show that precedes you.
Speaker 9: We've been listening to the Lost show my wife and
Speaker 9: I and two of my kids, and the host gets
Speaker 9: very grouchy at times. So thank you for your patience
Speaker 9: and your care for your listeners.
Speaker 1: Thank you well. I try, and believe me, you know
Speaker 1: it's I try to make this fun and informative and insightful,
Speaker 1: but it is frustrating. It's frustrated. The thing that actually
Speaker 1: frustrates me the most is the fact that we are
Speaker 1: being bombarded from all angles by a million different scams
Speaker 1: and you know, rip offs and all kinds of stuff
Speaker 1: thanks to tech. And as much as I love this stuff,
Speaker 1: it's easy for me to navigate, but it's very complicated
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. And that's why I try
Speaker 1: to remain calm here as much as possible. How can
Speaker 1: I help today's j But here's my issue.
Speaker 9: I called last year, spoke to you on this show.
Speaker 9: I wanted to obscure on Google Maps my home, and
Speaker 9: you told me how to do that. I went in
Speaker 9: and I did that, and I got confirmation that they
Speaker 9: have it. And I'm not on Google Maps all the time.
Speaker 9: You know, maybe three or four times a month. But
Speaker 9: I was on there about ten days ago and I
Speaker 9: noticed my home is not obscured. So I went back
Speaker 9: to what you had told me, and I obscured it
Speaker 9: again ten days ago, and as of yesterday, my home
Speaker 9: and my automobile is a license plate number. Are all
Speaker 9: stills showing on Google Maps street view. I don't know
Speaker 9: what to do to have them accept my request.
Speaker 1: Interesting, so when they when you first did it, they
Speaker 1: took it down. No, oh, they never took it down.
Speaker 9: They never Yeah, we received your request, we're working on it.
Speaker 9: That's the message I got when I completed it correctly
Speaker 9: the first time.
Speaker 1: Okay, so they never actually took it.
Speaker 9: Down and never that should go down. And then I
Speaker 9: repeated those steps ten days ago and I got the
Speaker 9: same message, Okay, we've got your request. You know, we
Speaker 9: have to make sure you are the homeowner whatever and so,
Speaker 9: but still ten days. I guess it would be day
Speaker 9: eleven since I did it last the second time and
Speaker 9: it's still not obscured.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I mean a couple of things going on here.
Speaker 1: Number one, I'm just gonna kind of explain how to
Speaker 1: do this if you want to so that you know,
Speaker 1: people know exactly how to do this if they want. So,
Speaker 1: you know, Google drives these cars around town called street View,
Speaker 1: and they take pictures of things, and it used to
Speaker 1: be you know, once in a while. Now they're happening
Speaker 1: much more often than before, but it does, you know,
Speaker 1: So they're getting a lot of these houses and things,
Speaker 1: and they have systems in place that automatically blur kind
Speaker 1: of information that might be identifying. So think about it
Speaker 1: this way. If someone was driving down your street, they
Speaker 1: can see your house. I mean, it's it's public domain,
Speaker 1: it's right there.
Speaker 10: But the.
Speaker 1: Car that's in your parking lot, or a person that's
Speaker 1: outside your house, they will go through and they will
Speaker 1: blur the license plate and they will blur the person's
Speaker 1: face that's walking by. For privacy, because if you're just
Speaker 1: a you know, you have to think about this stuff.
Speaker 1: You're just a regular person. You could walk down the street.
Speaker 1: You may not memorize every license plate, but with Google,
Speaker 1: you could run that through a software program and get
Speaker 1: every license plate and figure out where they park the
Speaker 1: most or whatever. So they do give you this ability
Speaker 1: to remove your information. And what they do is they
Speaker 1: will blur out your house. So if Google is a
Speaker 1: photo owner, you can report a photo or request it
Speaker 1: to be blurred if it contains your face, your home,
Speaker 1: or other identifying information, or anything that violates the street
Speaker 1: view policy that they have. So that is the only
Speaker 1: ask that Google requires. They don't say you have to
Speaker 1: prove anything that say that you have to say that
Speaker 1: you're under threat or something like that. It just says
Speaker 1: your face, your home, or other identifying information. You can
Speaker 1: report the photo, request it to be blurred. So you
Speaker 1: can do this by going searching your address on Google
Speaker 1: and then clicking little street view, so a little picture,
Speaker 1: not the map. You have to click the actual street view,
Speaker 1: so it brings up the view of your house. And
Speaker 1: then in the lower right hand corner, in tiny, tiny letters,
Speaker 1: it says report a problem, and you click report a problem,
Speaker 1: and now it will give you your street view your address.
Speaker 1: It will give you a preview of the image, and
Speaker 1: you can actually adjust that image so that you can
Speaker 1: blur out your entire house, and it will say why
Speaker 1: are you reporting this image? Request blurring face, my home,
Speaker 1: my car, my license plate, a different object, what is
Speaker 1: wrong with this image? You can do image quality and
Speaker 1: then you put in your email address, and you put
Speaker 1: in a test that you're not a robot, and you
Speaker 1: press submit, and generally that should work. People usually have
Speaker 1: pretty good success with that. If that is not working,
Speaker 1: in the case of U ZJ, I would just continue
Speaker 1: to submit the request. You did it eleven days ago.
Speaker 1: Google does not give a guarantee of how long it
Speaker 1: will take, but it says it generally, quote will review
Speaker 1: your report as fast as we can. If you entered
Speaker 1: your email address in the form, we may contact you
Speaker 1: to get additional information or to update you on the
Speaker 1: status of your report. So personally, I would just continue
Speaker 1: to submit that, and that would send a signal to
Speaker 1: them that you need business and you want this thing
Speaker 1: figured out quickly. By the way, I will say that
Speaker 1: I did do this for a couple of these other
Speaker 1: sites like redfin and Zilo. They will also allow you
Speaker 1: to take your information off of those sites as well,
Speaker 1: So a lot of times when you sell your house,
Speaker 1: the pictures of that listing will be on these websites
Speaker 1: like a Zillo or a redfin, So if someone knows
Speaker 1: your address, they can just go right into your house
Speaker 1: and take a look at all the rooms and the
Speaker 1: bathrooms and see exactly what's going on in there, so
Speaker 1: that may be an option too to take your information
Speaker 1: down from there as well. Now for me personally, I requested,
Speaker 1: you should be able to do it yourself, but that
Speaker 1: would not work. I kept logging into my home dashboard
Speaker 1: on one of those websites and it just was not working.
Speaker 1: It said delete your pictures. I said delete. I deleted
Speaker 1: them all. They'd be gone for one second and they'd
Speaker 1: all pop up again, and so I just went through
Speaker 1: and I emailed. There's a help link at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the website. I emailed. I said, here's my address,
Speaker 1: here's my house, here's the listing. Can you please take
Speaker 1: these pictures off? And I'm not kidding. Within a couple hours,
Speaker 1: I got an email from someone at was It was
Speaker 1: either redfin or Zillow or one of those, and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: we took your stuff down, thank you for doing business
Speaker 1: with us, And I thought that was pretty good. So
Speaker 1: the reason I tell you this DJ is I don't
Speaker 1: think that they are trying to actively not take this down,
Speaker 1: but I think that they are probably swamped with stuff
Speaker 1: and they just need some more pushing. So I would
Speaker 1: maybe even go to another There are some ways you
Speaker 1: can chat, you know with Google as well, so you
Speaker 1: might try to chat with them to do something. I
Speaker 1: know that in you know, with different services, they have
Speaker 1: some chat applications, So maybe go into Google Maps and
Speaker 1: see if there's any contact info there that you might
Speaker 1: be able to get a chat person on chat. But
Speaker 1: that's I think the only way they're going to take
Speaker 1: that that request is probably through the approval the official channels.
Speaker 1: Let's put it that way. Triple eight rich one o
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. That is the website. Now you got me
Speaker 1: on this whole street view thing, and there's a website
Speaker 1: Google dot Com slash street view. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've seen these little cars going down your street,
Speaker 1: but you can actually see where they're going next. So
Speaker 1: it says where we are mapping this month. We drive
Speaker 1: and trek around the world to bring you imagery that
Speaker 1: enhances your experience and helps you discover the world around you.
Speaker 1: If you want to wave at our team, check out
Speaker 1: below where they'll be coming to a location near you,
Speaker 1: and you can put your state in, so I put
Speaker 1: let's put California, and they'll tell you where they're driving
Speaker 1: these little cars from one, twenty twenty four to twelve,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. And it's basically every county in California,
Speaker 1: so it's not very exact Los Angeles County. Oh, they'll
Speaker 1: be here sometime this year. That's real good information. Maybe
Speaker 1: if you live in a smaller state, let's try Kentucky. Kentucky,
Speaker 1: they'll be in Jefferson, Bullet, Nelson, Spencer, Anderson, Mercer, Boyle, Lincoln. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Google dot Com slash street view and again, if you
Speaker 1: want those directions on how to remove the Google Maps information,
Speaker 1: open up Google Maps. Look for your street view. Bottom
Speaker 1: right hand corner says report a problem. Complete the form,
Speaker 1: click submit, and ZJ keep me posted if they get
Speaker 1: rid of it. I can't believe it's been a year
Speaker 1: since they took that down. Eighty eight rich one on
Speaker 1: one website, richon Tech dot tv. Coming up we will
Speaker 1: talk about Apple's new mission to make I Message even
Speaker 1: more secure and the bone I have to pick with
Speaker 1: I message. Yeah, we'll talk about that coming up. You
Speaker 1: are listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here talking technology with Chris in
Speaker 1: Long Beach. Chris, you're on with Rich.
Speaker 11: I don't really have a specific problem other than not
Speaker 11: remembering all my passwords.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's a common problem.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I think everybody has it. But my question is
Speaker 11: what do you think of these computer generated strong passwords.
Speaker 1: I think they're excellent. How are you generating them?
Speaker 8: I haven't been.
Speaker 11: Okay, I haven't been because I wasn't. I don't know
Speaker 11: about them. I don't know quite how it works. It
Speaker 11: just would be easier so I wouldn't have to remember. Yes,
Speaker 11: I'm currently using a password manager on Google, okay, and
Speaker 11: that for the most part works well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I like that a lot. I think that that.
Speaker 1: So here's what I typically recommend when it comes to passwords.
Speaker 1: Number one, you should absolutely be using a password generator.
Speaker 1: The main thing is that you have to protect that
Speaker 1: password generator with a password that you remember, but also
Speaker 1: two factor authentication. In the case of Google, since it's
Speaker 1: built in, you already have access to your Google account,
Speaker 1: there is a level of you know, it's a little
Speaker 1: dicey because if you lost access to your Google you
Speaker 1: would lose access to these passwords. So that's a consideration.
Speaker 1: But other than that, my recommendation typically is use what's
Speaker 1: built into your apps. So if you have iPhone and
Speaker 1: you're only using iPhone, then iCloud keychain is excellent because
Speaker 1: it works with Apple. They just put in some new
Speaker 1: security restrictions that make that where I can recommend it
Speaker 1: again before I couldn't, now I can, So iCloud Keychain
Speaker 1: is really good there. And then I recommend if you know,
Speaker 1: if you want free, by the way, and if you
Speaker 1: want free and you're using Android or you're using an
Speaker 1: iPhone with Chrome web browser, both on your iPhone and
Speaker 1: or on your desktop, the Google Password Manager works really
Speaker 1: well because they added a feature where Google can fill
Speaker 1: in the passwords across all of your apps on the iPhone,
Speaker 1: not just on Chrome. So that's really nice and you
Speaker 1: can turn that on in your settings. There is an
Speaker 1: option to auto fill with Google Password Manager, so that's
Speaker 1: really easy. Those are two free options. They're very simple,
Speaker 1: they're built into a lot of the things that we
Speaker 1: use today. The other option, if you want free, is
Speaker 1: called Bitwarden, and that will work across all devices. It
Speaker 1: is cross platform, it is open source, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of people like that because they do offer a
Speaker 1: nice free version of that software and people seem to
Speaker 1: like it and then you can get into paid software.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of paid apps that will do this.
Speaker 1: Y the ones that I like, dash Lane is a
Speaker 1: great one. There's also one called one Password that a
Speaker 1: lot of people like that's really good as well. But
Speaker 1: again those are going to cost you money. You're in,
Speaker 1: you're out. So, Chris, the advice I have is if
Speaker 1: it's working for you, that's great. I would just make
Speaker 1: sure that you use it consistently, and that you use
Speaker 1: it across all of your apps and not just you know,
Speaker 1: selected ones. Are you using this thing most of the
Speaker 1: time or just some of.
Speaker 11: The time the same password or the same app?
Speaker 1: No, the same app? I hope you're not using the
Speaker 1: same password.
Speaker 6: Well, I kind of.
Speaker 11: Have a little bit because it's so hard to remember,
Speaker 11: you know, when you've got a lot of places that
Speaker 11: you go, it's it's just so hard to remember. That's
Speaker 11: what I was, and my daughter came over and set
Speaker 11: up the Google Okay password.
Speaker 1: Manage you do you have an iPhone or Android and
Speaker 1: iPhone okay? You have an iPhone okay, So there is
Speaker 1: a setting you need to turn on to make this
Speaker 1: work much better. So if you go into settings on
Speaker 1: the iPhone and I've got to find this. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna take me a second to find this. It's
Speaker 1: it's a feature called autophil and so let's see here.
Speaker 1: I got to remember where this is on the iPhone.
Speaker 1: Let's see autofill. So basically, the way that the iPhone
Speaker 1: is set up, it's typically set up to use iCloud
Speaker 1: keychain to generate this, but you can change it. Okay.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go into settings and then password and
Speaker 1: accounts and so let's find that. So there's passwords, okay,
Speaker 1: So you go into passwords and then there's an option
Speaker 1: where it says password options. There it is, Do you
Speaker 1: see that? So if you go into setting settings passwords,
Speaker 1: do you see that?
Speaker 11: I'm trying to get to passwords.
Speaker 1: It's all the way down. It's passed like all the matings.
Speaker 1: You see it, right? Okay, Now you tap there, and
Speaker 1: now you do Now you tap word says password options.
Speaker 1: Do you see that?
Speaker 11: Okay, I'm still not finding passwords.
Speaker 12: Okay.
Speaker 1: So if you go into settings and scroll down past general,
Speaker 1: past privacy and Security, past the app Store, it's right
Speaker 1: at the top of like where it says mail, contacts, Calendar, notes,
Speaker 1: and it says passwords. So if you tap in there
Speaker 1: and I guess this, you know, even if you don't
Speaker 1: find it right away, you can always look for it later.
Speaker 1: But there is when you go inside there, there's a
Speaker 1: thing called password options, and it says use passwords and
Speaker 1: pass keys from.
Speaker 3: Oh here we go.
Speaker 11: Okay, I password okay, got it?
Speaker 1: Okay. So now when you tap password options, what does
Speaker 1: it say there? Which one is selected?
Speaker 3: Give me?
Speaker 11: It says iPhone unlocked, iTunes, app store, wallet, Apple paste
Speaker 11: password auto fill yep, and I do have that turned on?
Speaker 1: And which one is it turned on with? Does it
Speaker 1: say Chrome or does it say Google or does it
Speaker 1: say iCloud?
Speaker 11: It doesn't say, but I use Google Chrome.
Speaker 1: Okay. So what you want to do is you want
Speaker 1: to make sure that Chrome is selected in the autofill
Speaker 1: in the password options, because that is going to make
Speaker 1: it much more magical for you. So when you go
Speaker 1: to an app to log in, you'll be able to
Speaker 1: use Chrome to autofill that password and to not just
Speaker 1: autofill but also auto generate that password. And so what
Speaker 1: you need to do is just basically get into a
Speaker 1: routine of when you set up a new account you're
Speaker 1: using the Google Password manager to not only create that password,
Speaker 1: but also save that password, and that autofill is going
Speaker 1: to be a key part of that. By the way,
Speaker 1: you can also go Chris to Google has their password
Speaker 1: manager online, So if you want to look at passwords
Speaker 1: dot Google dot com on your Chrome web browser will
Speaker 1: actually show you all of the passwords that you have
Speaker 1: saved with Google. So if you want to access those
Speaker 1: on your computer, you can do that. And then inside
Speaker 1: Google Chrome you can also go into your tools and
Speaker 1: your settings and it says passwords and autofill and you
Speaker 1: can find your password manager in there as well. It's
Speaker 1: a little complicated, but it's one of those things you
Speaker 1: just have to get used to, and once you make
Speaker 1: it a routine, it is much safer. I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you're looking out for this though. Coming up, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk privacy of web browsers. You are listening to
Speaker 1: Rich on tech. Arthur Edelstein runs a website called privacytests
Speaker 1: dot org where he does open source tests of web
Speaker 1: browser privacy. Arthur, thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 12: Thanks for having me so first off.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the website Privacy tests dot org. What
Speaker 1: made you start this.
Speaker 10: Well, I've been working on browser privacy for about ten years,
Speaker 10: since twenty fourteen, and developing new privacy protections for web browsers,
Speaker 10: And after doing it for a few years, I was
Speaker 10: thinking about, well, how can we share this work that
Speaker 10: we're doing, because it's actually really hard for anybody to
Speaker 10: tell which browsers are protecting their privacy or what kinds
Speaker 10: of privacy protections there are in reality. So I thought,
Speaker 10: wouldn't wouldn't it be great if we could objectively evaluate
Speaker 10: browsers to compare them and to look at those privacy protections.
Speaker 10: So my thinking was to create a variety of automated
Speaker 10: open source tests that would basically do leak tests of
Speaker 10: browsers and see what kinds of private information are leaking
Speaker 10: from different browsers and be able to compare those browsers,
Speaker 10: and then I could share those results with everybody with
Speaker 10: the public on a website. So the website that I
Speaker 10: put together has a large number of tests on a
Speaker 10: variety of different kinds of leaks. And if you look
Speaker 10: at the website, you'll see that every column in this
Speaker 10: big table that I put together is representing a different
Speaker 10: web browser, and every row of the table is a
Speaker 10: different leak test, and if a browser is leaking something,
Speaker 10: then it's failed the test and it gets the red X.
Speaker 10: But if the browser is protecting your privacy and prevents
Speaker 10: a particular kind week, then it's going to show a
Speaker 10: green check mark. So at a glance, you can basically
Speaker 10: compare all the browsers and see what the state of
Speaker 10: browser privacy is today and over time. I'm repeatedly running
Speaker 10: these tests every couple of weeks because browsers are working
Speaker 10: on their privacy and things are changing over time, so
Speaker 10: we get also a longitudinal view of what's happening to
Speaker 10: browsers and the privacy on the web.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't something a lot of people thought about,
Speaker 1: and now it's kind of like front and center when
Speaker 1: it comes to browsing the web. So what do you
Speaker 1: think some of the biggest privacy threats are facing the
Speaker 1: typical web surfer.
Speaker 10: Well, most websites that you visit are tracking you, and
Speaker 10: they have invisible trackers embedded in them from a variety
Speaker 10: of companies. Some of them are big tech companies, some
Speaker 10: of them are companies that you've never heard of, but
Speaker 10: they're tracking you around the web. They are recording every
Speaker 10: web page you visit. Sometimes they're recording things you do
Speaker 10: on each web page, super invasive. And when they record
Speaker 10: all this data, then they're using that to build up
Speaker 10: personal profiles of every person. They have, you know, very
Speaker 10: complex databases that include all sorts of information about you,
Speaker 10: often really personal information, including your interests, who you likely
Speaker 10: voted for, who your relationships are, really almost anything you
Speaker 10: can think of. They are holding that data and they're
Speaker 10: using that their goal is to target you with advertising.
Speaker 10: But that's a huge amount of data that's really sensitive
Speaker 10: that nobody really agreed to have held by these companies.
Speaker 10: And what's also quite alarming is that in the past
Speaker 10: year we've heard there's been a couple of revelations about
Speaker 10: the US government has been buying up all this data,
Speaker 10: buying these databases, including a Defense Department and the NSA.
Speaker 10: And so they're collecting this information indirectly through these advertising companies,
Speaker 10: and they get all this without a warrant, And to me,
Speaker 10: that's a very scary thing for our democracy.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's interesting. So they're getting it kind of in
Speaker 1: a roundabout way. If you said, if the government came
Speaker 1: to you and said, hey, do you mind if we
Speaker 1: track all the stuff that you do on the Internet,
Speaker 1: you'd say absolutely not. But if Macy's is doing it
Speaker 1: in Amazon and they're all feeding into this giant database,
Speaker 1: and you're like, okay, well it's fine, it's just for ads,
Speaker 1: but that information could be used in different ways exactly. Wow.
Speaker 1: So what are some of your findings Which browsers I'm
Speaker 1: looking down the list here this Brave browser. I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems to check a lot of the boxes, but
Speaker 1: which browsers tend to have the worst protections out of
Speaker 1: the box and which ones seem to have the best.
Speaker 10: So full disclosure, I currently work for Brave. Oh okay,
Speaker 10: but I run this website independently. I've actually built it
Speaker 10: before I started working for Brave, and I try to
Speaker 10: keep it absolutely objective. So if Brave is doing something wrong,
Speaker 10: I'm going to show it on the in these results.
Speaker 10: But I never recommend any specific browser because I'm focused
Speaker 10: on just providing the impartial data. But what I would
Speaker 10: say is that you do see some clear trends that
Speaker 10: some browsers are making a big effort to hide a
Speaker 10: lot of data that is leaking from from your computer,
Speaker 10: and other other browsers are not and they really have
Speaker 10: a long way to go to protect your privacy. So
Speaker 10: no browser is perfect. There's you know, failures among all browsers,
Speaker 10: but it's it's very clear that some are doing a
Speaker 10: lot more than others.
Speaker 6: Right now.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking at this this little section that says
Speaker 1: which browsers block important known tracking scripts and pixels, and
Speaker 1: it's got Adobe, Adobe Audience Manager, Amazon app Nexus, bing
Speaker 1: ads chart be So these all have nice names that
Speaker 1: you know, seem friendly. Is that really what's tracking us
Speaker 1: the most? All these little trackers, these scripts?
Speaker 10: Yeah, so that list of trackers is just a small
Speaker 10: part of the actual list is many thousands of different companies.
Speaker 10: But those are the biggest companies that track on the
Speaker 10: most websites, and that was found by another study independent
Speaker 10: of me called who Trackstop Me? So I took the
Speaker 10: top twenty trackers from their list and I used that
Speaker 10: to evaluate, Okay, our browsers walking the tracking.
Speaker 12: From the very most important trackers.
Speaker 10: And yeah, they are you know, they're companies often that
Speaker 10: we've heard of. I mean, the biggest tracker is Google,
Speaker 10: and you know Google is of course the search engine,
Speaker 10: but they also build them. By far the most popular browser,
Speaker 10: which is Chrome, and they also are involved in tracking
Speaker 10: users on most websites you visit through a few different services,
Speaker 10: and they do that to show ads and also to
Speaker 10: provide analytics to those websites to see, you know, who's
Speaker 10: who's visiting my website and where did they come from.
Speaker 12: And so on.
Speaker 1: So I guess my question. You know, when you think
Speaker 1: about this privacy situation, you know we want to be
Speaker 1: Let's say you want to just browse everything anonymously. That
Speaker 1: might be ideal, but would the web continue to work.
Speaker 10: Well, it's a difficult challenge. I think the answer is basically, yes,
Speaker 10: you can increase your privacy a lot by choosing a
Speaker 10: browser that protects your privacy. And yeah, you can visit
Speaker 10: most websites anonymously, but you can't do it with the
Speaker 10: default browsers. They are going to leak your identity generally speaking.
Speaker 1: And I've noticed too that a lot of websites, and
Speaker 1: I've heard that more and more websites are making you
Speaker 1: log in so that they can know exactly who you
Speaker 1: are before you, let's say, read an article or do
Speaker 1: something like that, so that they have a better idea
Speaker 1: for not only the advertising, but collecting that data.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's right. And there are a couple of services
Speaker 10: now it's becoming more popular that will allow you to
Speaker 10: generate anonymous email addresses, so you can try to bypath
Speaker 10: that kind of thing. But obviously that's quite a bit
Speaker 10: more effort for people to take.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean some of it's built in. I mean
Speaker 1: to like, you know, like I really feel like Apple
Speaker 1: is doing a nice job of kind of bringing this
Speaker 1: stuff to the forefront and making people at least aware
Speaker 1: of what's happening. You know, when they did that app
Speaker 1: tracking transparency situation, I mean that really changed kind of
Speaker 1: like a huge portion of the web and how we
Speaker 1: were tracked, did it not?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 10: Absolutely? That was that was super interesting because in part
Speaker 10: they asked users, you know, are you okay with being tracked?
Speaker 10: And the answer was was, you know, resoundingly no, We're
Speaker 10: not okay with it.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, who's gonna who's gonna say yes to that answer?
Speaker 1: I mean, I exactly every time I download an app
Speaker 1: on an Apple device, like last night on Apple TV,
Speaker 1: I downloaded something that was like, hey, can we track you?
Speaker 1: And it's like, who's going to say yes to that?
Speaker 12: Yeah?
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's kind of a funny question. But it's good
Speaker 10: to hear the answer. It makes it a little more
Speaker 10: solid that everybody, everybody wants privacy.
Speaker 1: And finally, any advice, anything, any takeaways you wanna you
Speaker 1: want to give before we have to go here about
Speaker 1: privacy on the web.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think you know the most important thing beyond
Speaker 10: choosing a browser that is generally doing everything it can
Speaker 10: to protect your privacy, is you want to pick a
Speaker 10: VPN because your IP address is a big way that
Speaker 10: websites and third party trackers can can follow you around
Speaker 10: the web and collect your browsing history. So a good
Speaker 10: browser isn't quite enough. You also need a VPN.
Speaker 1: Interesting, all right, We're gonna leave it there. Arthur Edelstein
Speaker 1: of Privacy tests dot org. That's the website where you
Speaker 1: can check out the different browsers for desktops, iOS, Android
Speaker 1: and see which ones are sharing the most information about you.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 10: Thank you.
Speaker 1: All right, the website if you want to link to that.
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot TV phone number for the show
Speaker 1: eight eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight
Speaker 1: seven four two four one zero one. Coming up, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about new app from Apple. We'll talk about what
Speaker 1: Samsung's doing with their phones and much more right here
Speaker 1: on rich On Tech. Let's go to Pam in Ventura, California. Pam,
Speaker 1: you're on with rich Hey.
Speaker 6: Thanks for taking my call. So I have concerns about
Speaker 6: my credit card that was compromised. I just saw and
Speaker 6: they already shut it off from the bank. But now
Speaker 6: I have a linked to like my Amazon account, my
Speaker 6: you know, utilities and my I'm wondering should I what
Speaker 6: should I do? Well, change the passwords for everything, or
Speaker 6: just I don't even know how people get that card.
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, it happens, and it's it's odd because it
Speaker 1: does happen quite often. So they got okay, they got
Speaker 1: your credit card or debit card number. Credit card okay,
Speaker 1: so it's a credit card number and they so, how
Speaker 1: did you figure this out? You saw a charge or what?
Speaker 6: I checked my account probably twice a day, and I
Speaker 6: saw a teacher and the bank called me, and then
Speaker 6: I was skeptical about taking the call or even giving
Speaker 6: an information, But then when they verified themselves, I verified me.
Speaker 1: Okay, well that's good. I'm glad you did that, because
Speaker 1: we do need to be concerned about that. So the
Speaker 1: bank called you and said hey, uh, is this a
Speaker 1: transaction that you're trying to make?
Speaker 6: No, they said, did you make this transaction?
Speaker 1: Okay, and you didn't.
Speaker 6: No. Okay, So like to one in Florida, one in
Speaker 6: New York, and somewhere else that of Chipotele.
Speaker 13: Oh wow, I'm like, I never eat at Chipotle.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, someone someone's eating good.
Speaker 6: Yeah, right, but it was like five hundred and five
Speaker 6: hundred and then twelve.
Speaker 1: Five hundred out at Chipotle.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 2: No, at these other places.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, they must have added the
Speaker 1: guacamole on that one, right man. Okay. So I mean,
Speaker 1: here's the thing with a credit card number one your
Speaker 1: your number has been deactivated, so it doesn't really make
Speaker 1: a difference at this point.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 1: So I would say for any account that you have.
Speaker 1: Now here's the interesting little quirk with these credit cards.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when they when they issue a new number, if
Speaker 1: you have let's say on Amazon or something like that,
Speaker 1: sometimes these rely like if you have a subscription on there,
Speaker 1: that subscription may continue to work, so it may just
Speaker 1: follow through without you doing anything. Now, on places that
Speaker 1: you have this card, what I would do is probably
Speaker 1: just go ahead and delete that card. Number from that system.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that they got anything else other
Speaker 1: than your card number. Like I don't think you need
Speaker 1: to like change your Amazon account or anything like that. Like,
Speaker 1: it's just a matter of deleting this card where it's saved,
Speaker 1: and then when you get your new card, put that
Speaker 1: card into the account. And that's basically it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was pretty freaked out. I am really good
Speaker 6: about you know too.
Speaker 10: Yeah, the two factor two factor authentic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, it's it seems to be a mystery
Speaker 1: how these people get these numbers. But I will give
Speaker 1: you a couple of tips from now on whenever possible.
Speaker 1: And I know this seems counterintuitive, but I would add
Speaker 1: your debit card or your card too, or your credit card,
Speaker 1: whatever you use. I would add that to your Apple
Speaker 1: Pay or your Google Pay, Google Wallet or Samsung Pay,
Speaker 1: and use tap to pay as much as possible. Tap
Speaker 1: to Pay does not share your actual credit card number.
Speaker 1: It only shares a one time number, and so that
Speaker 1: will really protect your number from being out there when
Speaker 1: you are out and about. If you don't want to
Speaker 1: do that, you always use the chip when possible. Put
Speaker 1: the chip into the reader instead of swiping. Most of
Speaker 1: the time. You know, when you swipe your credit card,
Speaker 1: your actual card number is being given to that retailer,
Speaker 1: but when you put the chip in or you use
Speaker 1: tap to pay, they're getting a one time number that
Speaker 1: only works for that one transaction, so they really can't
Speaker 1: get your number of your card from there. Otherwise, if
Speaker 1: you are shopping online, when possible, if you can use
Speaker 1: a one time card number, if you're some of the
Speaker 1: credit cards and debit cards allow that they give you
Speaker 1: like a one time number, they'll generate it for you.
Speaker 1: If not, you try to use whether it's Google pay
Speaker 1: or Apple pay or even PayPal on these websites as
Speaker 1: like a third party kind of payment system, so they
Speaker 1: don't actually get your real number. Or there is a
Speaker 1: website called privacy dot com and you can put I
Speaker 1: believe you have to use your debit card or your
Speaker 1: bank accounts, so you do have to have a little
Speaker 1: bit of trust in that to give that information out,
Speaker 1: which I rarely do. But they can generate a one
Speaker 1: time number for you, and that's actually quite handy for
Speaker 1: signing up for subscriptions. So for free you can generate
Speaker 1: up to twelve cards per month. And so let me
Speaker 1: give you an example, let's say you sign up for
Speaker 1: a free trial of Paramount Plus and it says we'll
Speaker 1: give you seven days free and on the eighth day
Speaker 1: we're going to charge you. Well, you can use this
Speaker 1: privacy dot com to generate a one time number that
Speaker 1: they can authorize the transaction, but the number is not
Speaker 1: going to work after that. So when Paramount goes to
Speaker 1: charge you on that eighth day, when you forget, by
Speaker 1: the way, because you inevitably do, that charge will not
Speaker 1: go through and you'll get an email from Paramount saying, hey,
Speaker 1: there's a problem with your card. We can't charge you
Speaker 1: if you're a subscription and you go, oh, let me
Speaker 1: delete that subscription because I really am I'm okay, I
Speaker 1: don't need that. So privacy dot com is a good
Speaker 1: way to do that. It's a it's kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit of a trick, a little bit of a game,
Speaker 1: but it's it's one of those tools to have in
Speaker 1: your back pocket if you want to protect your information.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the call, Pam. I know that is always
Speaker 1: always just the worst when your number is taken and
Speaker 1: it really is not fun. I had this happen to
Speaker 1: me years ago. It was someone made a transaction at
Speaker 1: like a kind of like the Walmart of Spain. I
Speaker 1: forget it's called it Carrie for or something, and I
Speaker 1: was like, what, I'm not in Spain right now, and
Speaker 1: they used, you know, they made a big transaction. Long
Speaker 1: story short, When I went to Spain, I was walking
Speaker 1: down the street and I saw the place like the chain.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's the place where they took
Speaker 1: my number that time. Now it was like a chain store,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't that exact location. Now, if I was
Speaker 1: really wild, I would go to that anyway. Samsung, let's
Speaker 1: give you some Samsung news. Samsung couple of announcements this week.
Speaker 1: Number one, if you have the Galaxy S twenty four,
Speaker 1: it got a major update, So go into your settings
Speaker 1: and update the software for the Galaxy S twenty four series,
Speaker 1: whether you got the S twenty four, the S twenty
Speaker 1: four Plus, or the S twenty four Ultra. Samsung was
Speaker 1: promising this first major update. They said, yes, we listened
Speaker 1: to user feedback. We updated the screen. So they added
Speaker 1: a vividness slider, so if you want to make your
Speaker 1: screen look more vivid, you can, And they did a
Speaker 1: lot of fixes for the camera. And I told you
Speaker 1: that there was a lot of issues with the camera.
Speaker 1: It's a great camera, but they needed to polish it
Speaker 1: up a little bit, and they did do that, and
Speaker 1: I've been using the update. Seems to be better, but
Speaker 1: I'll have to use it for a little bit to
Speaker 1: kind of see. But if you have an S twenty
Speaker 1: four series, definitely check your settings uh. If you want
Speaker 1: to check your software updates, you go into UH, let's see,
Speaker 1: I'll do this right now. Go into settings, go into
Speaker 1: software Update, download and Install and it will be there.
Speaker 1: So it should be there. It was there on the
Speaker 1: first day they said it would be. Now. If you
Speaker 1: have an older Samsung device, the S twenty three series,
Speaker 1: S twenty three FE and one of the new foldables,
Speaker 1: the z Fold five, the z Flip five, or even
Speaker 1: some of their recent tablets, you are getting the new
Speaker 1: AI features. So that will come out in a software update,
Speaker 1: and that is coming out in March, so sometime in March.
Speaker 1: That gives them you know, March is just around the corner,
Speaker 1: but that gives them a whole couple of weeks here.
Speaker 1: But you will get all of those AI features that
Speaker 1: came to the new phone. They are coming to your phone,
Speaker 1: so are you happy you did an upgrade, because you're
Speaker 1: getting the upgrade anyway. Eighty to eight rich one oh
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two, four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. This is rich on Tech. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech, rich DeMuro. Here the website for
Speaker 1: the show rich on Tech dot TV. I did send
Speaker 1: out a newsletter this week, So if you want to
Speaker 1: sign up for the newsletter, it is free. You can
Speaker 1: go to the website rich on Tech dot TV, pop
Speaker 1: in your email address, you'll get the newsletter, could read
Speaker 1: the current one, and if you don't like it, you
Speaker 1: can on subscribe. It's not like one of these things
Speaker 1: where it's impossible you just we don't share the email
Speaker 1: or anything, and just you just get my thoughts once
Speaker 1: a week and you get all the stuff I talk about.
Speaker 1: You get a link to the show, you get the
Speaker 1: TV segments I do, uh, you know, the little websites
Speaker 1: that I think are interesting, or the tools, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I'll just put it all in there. It's like basically
Speaker 1: me talking to you the way it is here, except
Speaker 1: in a newsletter. So rich on Tech dot TV, put
Speaker 1: your email address in, you can get the newsletter, and
Speaker 1: while you're at the website. You can also prese past
Speaker 1: segments see what I do for TV, and there's just
Speaker 1: a lot there. Let's go to Elsa in Plia del Rey, California. Elsa.
Speaker 1: You're on with Wretch Hi Rich.
Speaker 3: I would listening to the segment about the credit card
Speaker 3: being compromised.
Speaker 1: Yes, So in the.
Speaker 3: Past month, I had two credit cards compromised. One was
Speaker 3: a Visa Costco card which I only used to shop
Speaker 3: at Costco or get gaffs, and that would compromise about
Speaker 3: two days.
Speaker 9: I got word two days later.
Speaker 3: But my son check an account from a credit union
Speaker 3: also got compromised, and he got a call from them saying,
Speaker 3: you know you got compromised. Well, come to find out
Speaker 3: it was not the credit union. So my point is
Speaker 3: that the bank won't call you. They'll email you or
Speaker 3: text you and tell you what's going on, but they
Speaker 3: won't call you. The caller is that the bank called her. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they don't do that for that reason. As you say,
Speaker 3: you suggest get your card and call the bank directly.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I actually wondered about that when she said that.
Speaker 1: I was curious because most of the time, like for me,
Speaker 1: like what's happening, and I've traveled like all over the place,
Speaker 1: and ninety nine percent of the time, either my card
Speaker 1: is declined just like straight out like the other day,
Speaker 1: my card was declined. I was using it at Target,
Speaker 1: and my card was declined when I used it for
Speaker 1: my phone on tap to pay. But then when I
Speaker 1: actually put my card in as a chip, like I
Speaker 1: took the physical card out of my wallet and put
Speaker 1: it in, it went through no problem. Other times I'll
Speaker 1: notice I'll get a text immediately for my bank and
Speaker 1: they'll say, hey, was this you that just tried to
Speaker 1: make this transaction, and it'll give the transaction and the
Speaker 1: number and the amount and all that stuff, and you press,
Speaker 1: you know, say why or no, or you know, you'd
Speaker 1: reply with a Y or an N. But calling I
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember if I have ever gotten a call.
Speaker 1: Maybe banks did that in the past, and maybe there
Speaker 1: are still some banks that do that. But also, you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right, your your red flag scam alert should go
Speaker 1: up and say hold on, is this really my bank?
Speaker 1: Because what they're gonna do is they're gonna say, hey,
Speaker 1: can you confirm your card number, can you confirm your
Speaker 1: social oh, can you confirm your data? Birth now You've
Speaker 1: just given someone three identifying pieces of information that they
Speaker 1: can really use against you. And by the way, in
Speaker 1: real time as you're telling them that, they're probably using
Speaker 1: that number instantly before it gets turned off. So good reminder, Elsa.
Speaker 1: And have you have you had any issues since?
Speaker 3: No, what I was going to say, also with the
Speaker 3: next day, he went to the credit union and they
Speaker 3: have wiped out his checking account. Oh yeah, So what
Speaker 3: we ended up doing is I went to the three
Speaker 3: credit bureaus and sproze his accounts so they couldn't open
Speaker 3: anything new. That was the other thing we did.
Speaker 1: And did he ever get his money back from the
Speaker 1: credit union?
Speaker 9: Yes?
Speaker 1: Oh well that's good. Now interesting, Okay, well, I'm glad
Speaker 1: to hear that.
Speaker 3: I think they have to. I think they have to
Speaker 3: guarantee your phone through I think it's two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars if they are the FDIC, So you
Speaker 3: normally do get your money back.
Speaker 1: Wow, it might take a while. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: with credit card versus debit card. Debit card, it's your
Speaker 1: money that you're trying to get back. Credit card it's
Speaker 1: you know, you just dispute it and you got to wait.
Speaker 1: But good advice, Elsa, thanks for calling in today. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Sure it helped to listen to you Rich, So thank you.
Speaker 1: Oh well, thank you. Well, look at we're teaching each
Speaker 1: other today. It's this is like a group effort today. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, Elsa, have a great day. Thank you. Let's
Speaker 1: go to Alan Alan in West La Alan. You're on with.
Speaker 4: Rich Hie Rich.
Speaker 13: Thanks for taking my call. My parents, who are seniors
Speaker 13: ninety five and eighty eight, are about to lose their
Speaker 13: favorite cable slash satellite channel. It's going to go streaming only.
Speaker 13: What I don't know is I don't think all their
Speaker 13: TV sets are smart TVs. Is there any way for
Speaker 13: me to easily allow them to still watch those stream
Speaker 13: channels on those TV sets? Or do we need to
Speaker 13: buy new sets?
Speaker 1: No, you don't need to buy a new set. I
Speaker 1: think the easiest way would be a stick like a Well,
Speaker 1: did you say they're smart TVs or not?
Speaker 13: I'm not sure if all their TVs are smart teas.
Speaker 13: I think they have one or two smart TVs, but
Speaker 13: the other ones, I'm not so sure.
Speaker 1: And even if they are, if this channel, is this
Speaker 1: channel going to an app?
Speaker 13: Yeah, we're going to go it has.
Speaker 4: Well, I take it back.
Speaker 13: I think it's just gonna stream online, but I'm not positive.
Speaker 1: Oh well, okay, that makes a difference because if it's
Speaker 1: just streaming online, that's gonna be trickier to get on
Speaker 1: your TV set, especially for your parents. You said they
Speaker 1: were how old eighty eight? Wow?
Speaker 13: Good for you, healthy, still doing well, but not exactly
Speaker 13: tech savvy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean so, I because here's the thing.
Speaker 1: If this if this uh TV channel is going to
Speaker 1: streaming only, which is like on a website, that would
Speaker 1: require them to go to that website and press the stream,
Speaker 1: which would be very complicated. Now, Amazon and some other
Speaker 1: devices do have a web browser built in, but and
Speaker 1: you could do that, but it's not easy. I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's definitely not something that's like simple to do.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that if this channel is going streaming only,
Speaker 1: they're probably gonna come out with an app that would
Speaker 1: be available on all the major platforms. So what I
Speaker 1: would do is I would go on to this whatever
Speaker 1: this channel is, and I would see where it's going
Speaker 1: to be streaming, So are they coming out with an app?
Speaker 1: And I would check to see what platform that app
Speaker 1: is going to be available on there's three major streaming platforms.
Speaker 1: You've got you got a couple, maybe more than three.
Speaker 1: You've got Roku, you've got Fire TV, You've got Google TV,
Speaker 1: and you've got Apple TV. Those are kind of the
Speaker 1: main four. So I think for your parents, the easiest
Speaker 1: is probably going to be the Fire TV stick and
Speaker 1: that you can get for about thirty five dollars or
Speaker 1: cheaper on Amazon. You plug it into the back of
Speaker 1: the TV. It comes with the remote and you can
Speaker 1: easily just install this app on there and your parents
Speaker 1: will have it in Is this TV Japan that you're
Speaker 1: talking about or No.
Speaker 13: That's exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say because I I remember reading an
Speaker 1: article about this, and all of the articles, by the way,
Speaker 1: they all the headline was like the first network to
Speaker 1: go streaming only, and I was like, what network is this?
Speaker 1: And so I was remembering that I read something, but
Speaker 1: it took me a second to find it and remember.
Speaker 1: But yeah, TV Japan, So it's okay. It says the
Speaker 1: company's going to move its offerings to a new streaming
Speaker 1: service called JM. It's going to cost twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: a month before taxes. Wow. That's interesting.
Speaker 13: How much they pay for cable though, so it's basically
Speaker 13: about the same price.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, and look and if this is something they
Speaker 1: like and something they watch, then I mean it's gonna
Speaker 1: be just fine. But I'm looking at this to see
Speaker 1: what it's going to say. It says to go to
Speaker 1: watch dot JM dot TV. It doesn't give details. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be available on internet connected devices, So I
Speaker 1: have a feeling it's going to be on all the
Speaker 1: main platforms that you can get, you know, like the
Speaker 1: Roku's and the firetvs and all that. So I think
Speaker 1: the easiest way is just going to be just going
Speaker 1: with like a fireTV stick. Roku also makes a stick
Speaker 1: that could be easy. But the bottom line is you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to just, you know, teach your parents once
Speaker 1: or twice how to get and open this app. And
Speaker 1: once you figure that out, you know, with them, it'll
Speaker 1: be pretty pretty smooth sailing from there. Are they ready
Speaker 1: for this? What's that?
Speaker 13: That can be even done on a non smart TV set?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you just get as long as it has
Speaker 1: an HDMI connector on the back, you'll just plug. You'll
Speaker 1: plug the little it looks like they call it a dongle.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a really it's just a small little
Speaker 1: device that everything is all in this little tiny device
Speaker 1: that plugs into the back of the TV. You'll just
Speaker 1: need to plug that into HDMI and then there's one
Speaker 1: more cable that you'll plug into a power outlet that
Speaker 1: will latch onto Wi Fi. Now that's the question. Do
Speaker 1: they have Wi Fi?
Speaker 7: They do?
Speaker 1: Okay, So there you go, good Son, this is what happens.
Speaker 1: I'm providing tech support for the masses. You are providing
Speaker 1: it for the one on one family members we do weekend.
Speaker 13: Thank you so much, Rich I really appreciate.
Speaker 1: All right, Alan, have a great day there. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for calling today. Triple eight rich one on
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. I talked about it last week. My mom
Speaker 1: recently switched from fire TV to the Roku and she
Speaker 1: actually likes the Roku better. So, and here's the thing.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people are not necessarily tech savvy,
Speaker 1: but they can be taught how to do what they
Speaker 1: need to do, especially when they're trying to access something
Speaker 1: like streaming TV network or you know, music on a
Speaker 1: you know, smart speaker, whatever it is, give them the instructions.
Speaker 1: Maybe they have to write it down, but they will
Speaker 1: figure it out. And just check in with them once
Speaker 1: in a while. Some people are too embarrassed to say
Speaker 1: that they can't figure it out, and they'll go like
Speaker 1: six weeks without watching TV. Literally just ask, just say, hey,
Speaker 1: is everything okay with your streaming setup? Is everything working?
Speaker 1: And they might say, now, I haven't gotten into work
Speaker 1: for two weeks. Now, well give me a call. Just
Speaker 1: let them know that, not me, but you if you're
Speaker 1: helping them, but they can call me too. If you're
Speaker 1: into sports, Apple has a new sports app called Apple Sports.
Speaker 1: This is a free iPhone app that provides real time
Speaker 1: score stats and more. It's very very easy to use.
Speaker 1: You download it for the iPhone. It is free. It's
Speaker 1: available now. It supports a bunch of leagues MLS and
Speaker 1: NBA college basketball, NHL, a bunch of international leagues. The
Speaker 1: first question I got from all the people that saw
Speaker 1: this app when I announced that they came out with
Speaker 1: this this week, they said, rich, where's football? Where's hockey?
Speaker 1: I said, don't worry, it's going to come in time
Speaker 1: for the season. So when you look at this app.
Speaker 1: It is very simple to use. You choose your favorite
Speaker 1: sports teams. It says yesterday, today, and tomorrow or upcoming,
Speaker 1: and it just shows you when your teams are playing,
Speaker 1: what time. It gives you all the stats you need.
Speaker 1: It gives you the final scores, give you the live scores.
Speaker 1: There is one controversial feature, or I guess I should
Speaker 1: say somewhat controversial, but it does have live betting odds,
Speaker 1: and some people were taken aback and said, there's no
Speaker 1: way that Steve Jobs were to put this in an
Speaker 1: Apple app. We don't know. But you can turn off
Speaker 1: the betting odds in the setting, So if you are
Speaker 1: don't want that to show up, go ahead, you can
Speaker 1: turn that off now. Because I saw this on the iPhone,
Speaker 1: it's so easy to use, I was looking on Android
Speaker 1: to see if there is something similar, and there are
Speaker 1: many apps that you can get sports scores from. I
Speaker 1: think one of the biggest is Yahoo Sports. You can
Speaker 1: install that, pick your favorite teams. It will show you
Speaker 1: all those, but so will Google. If you just type
Speaker 1: in sports on Google, it will give you all of
Speaker 1: your favorite sports teams, and if you're in the Google app,
Speaker 1: it will give you a link a shortcut that you
Speaker 1: can then put on your homepage. And for me, I've
Speaker 1: got my favorite teams and it does basically the same thing.
Speaker 1: And I think one thing that Google does really well
Speaker 1: when you look up a game is it gives you
Speaker 1: where it's playing. So, for instance, tonight, there will be
Speaker 1: a game that I'm watching it says TV and streaming,
Speaker 1: and so I just tap there and I could see
Speaker 1: exactly where it's streaming, which is ESPN and Fubo. So
Speaker 1: I feel like Google does a really good job of this.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's Google Apple. It's just simple. It's on
Speaker 1: your phone, it's in an app. But it's kind of
Speaker 1: cool that they came out with this because when they
Speaker 1: met with me to tell me about it, which you know,
Speaker 1: the way Apple works, they say, hey, Rich, we'd love
Speaker 1: to meet with you. What about we can't tell you?
Speaker 1: So I drive over there, I get into this room
Speaker 1: and they have all, you know, their big executives sitting
Speaker 1: there just talking sports. I'm like, who talks sports at Apple?
Speaker 1: And so it was all to kind of set me
Speaker 1: up for the fact that they were setting up this
Speaker 1: sports app, and I was like, good thing. I just
Speaker 1: started watching some sports with my kids. Because I kind
Speaker 1: of was able to hold my own most of the time.
Speaker 1: I'm just talking technology, but I know a little bit
Speaker 1: about sports here and there. But anyway, Apple Sports is
Speaker 1: the app. If you want to link to it, go
Speaker 1: to the website. Rich On Tech dot TV. All right,
Speaker 1: coming up, I told you the good about Apple. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you the bad. I told you I have
Speaker 1: a bone to pick with Apple about I Message. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you about that coming up, plus more of your calls,
Speaker 1: your messages, and we've got an interview coming up about
Speaker 1: AI crimes. You are listening to rich on Tech told
Speaker 1: you have a bone to pick with Apple, and first
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the good, then I'll tell you the bad.
Speaker 1: So first off, Apple is making I Message even more secure.
Speaker 1: They're launching post quantum encryption in I message through some
Speaker 1: updates on iOS and mac os. And what is post
Speaker 1: quantum encryption, you ask, Well, here's the answer. It's algorithms
Speaker 1: that will protect against potential future attacks from quantum computers.
Speaker 1: So quantum computers they're expecting to be so powerful that
Speaker 1: they could crack current encryption methods. So we have a
Speaker 1: form of encryption right now that is pretty good. But
Speaker 1: the computers in the future that are going to be
Speaker 1: so high powered they could potentially crack this encryption that
Speaker 1: we already have. So that's coming to I Message, which
Speaker 1: means that you know, Apple has been on this march
Speaker 1: with their phones to make them very privacy centric, and
Speaker 1: I do like that. I do appreciate that about Apple.
Speaker 1: I think they've pushed the envelope in so many ways,
Speaker 1: whether it is Safari, which is not really taken off
Speaker 1: in a big way on the desktop, but on iPhone
Speaker 1: that's the default, and it is a more private web
Speaker 1: browser when you look at you know, you look at
Speaker 1: those privacy tests that I was looking at earlier, and
Speaker 1: there's just so many things that these browsers are getting
Speaker 1: access to, not to mention, you know, things even like
Speaker 1: your microphone and camera. So if the web browser is
Speaker 1: not doing a good job protecting you from cookies and
Speaker 1: all that stuff, you know, it could be a problem.
Speaker 1: And you know, these marketers love it, but there could
Speaker 1: also be more security issues there too, So I'm glad
Speaker 1: that I Message is becoming more secure. I think that
Speaker 1: messaging in general is a mess. There are ten thousand
Speaker 1: different ways to message people, and that is not a
Speaker 1: good thing. It's it's I mean, it's a good thing
Speaker 1: that there's choice, but it's a bad thing that and
Speaker 1: this is my bone to pick with Apple. I Message
Speaker 1: has become such a force in the messaging industry. Right
Speaker 1: every single person that has an iPhone has I Message.
Speaker 1: It is pretty much turned on by default, and it's
Speaker 1: an amazing thing. It makes your messages secure. It's end
Speaker 1: to end encrypted from iPhone to iPhone. It lets you
Speaker 1: send big pictures back in the day when you couldn't
Speaker 1: send full resolution across SMS, full videos, lets you do
Speaker 1: as little tap back things. That is all really nice.
Speaker 1: The bad part is about I Message is that they
Speaker 1: have made I Message such a proprietary thing for Apple
Speaker 1: and the Apple ecosystem that when people that are outside
Speaker 1: try to text an iPhone, people with iPhones snub their
Speaker 1: nose and they really give these people a hard time.
Speaker 1: And I was hearing a story the other day of
Speaker 1: how this happens in the real world at high schools,
Speaker 1: and we've heard the stories. I've actually talked to students
Speaker 1: before how they will say with no problem that they
Speaker 1: feel that people that haven't Android are lesser than the
Speaker 1: people with an iPhone. And this happens across America. Blue
Speaker 1: bubble versus Green bubble. We've heard of this before, and
Speaker 1: so it's really heartbreaking to me when I hear of
Speaker 1: actual stories of students being ostracized in their schools by
Speaker 1: other students because they don't have an iPhone. There is
Speaker 1: no reason why you need to have an iPhone. Android
Speaker 1: is just fine. It used to be people thought they
Speaker 1: were cheaper. They weren't as good. People say, oh, are
Speaker 1: you going to get an iPhone so you can actually
Speaker 1: text me properly. Let's not forget about the fact that
Speaker 1: Apple has made I Message incompatible with other platforms out there.
Speaker 1: Apple tomorrow could come out with an I message app
Speaker 1: that works on Android or works on Windows computers. That
Speaker 1: would immediately be the number one messaging app in America
Speaker 1: and it would work across all things. People on Android
Speaker 1: did pay ninety nine cents a month for access to
Speaker 1: that maybe more. Apple don't do this. I asked people
Speaker 1: on my Instagram. I said, hey, have you ever heard
Speaker 1: of anything like this? One person said, it's awful. High
Speaker 1: school teacher here, They purposely leave kids out when they
Speaker 1: don't have an iPhone. Another person said it happens with adults.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised, it's so sad. Someone else said, that's absurd,
Speaker 1: not unexpected. Kids can be terrible. An adult said, I've
Speaker 1: been excluded from my entire first grade parent group because
Speaker 1: I have an Android, so mature. Another person said, I
Speaker 1: get that as an adult. Bullies will always be bullies
Speaker 1: must be kids that don't have Snapchat, because that's the
Speaker 1: only way kids communicate. That is true. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech. Joining me now is Neil O'Farrell, founder
Speaker 1: of the Center for AI Crime. He's been looking into
Speaker 1: ways AI is accelerating all kinds of scams and frauds. Neil,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 12: Hey, great to be rich.
Speaker 1: Let's explain first off, what the Center for AI Crime is.
Speaker 1: What's that all about.
Speaker 12: Yeah, this is the thing that messed up my retirement.
Speaker 12: So I've been in cybersecurity and fought for forty years
Speaker 12: and decided i'd retire a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 12: then AI and chat GPT came along, and suddenly it
Speaker 12: looked like fraud was going to just turn into an
Speaker 12: entirely different beast. So I thought I would found this
Speaker 12: to try and focus people's attention on what I think
Speaker 12: is a coming info and crime epidemic.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that? What do you think AI
Speaker 1: is going to do for the threats we already experience.
Speaker 12: I think it's going to mean more criminals, more crimes,
Speaker 12: and more victims. And I call it SAP, SAP scalability,
Speaker 12: accuracy and plausibility. It's going to scale crimes at a
Speaker 12: level we've never seen before. The accuracy accuracy will be
Speaker 12: almost pinpoint, and the plausibility of the attacks will be
Speaker 12: so hard to detect from from the real things. They
Speaker 12: will claim more.
Speaker 1: Victims, So the accuracy part. So one of the big
Speaker 1: telltale signs of some sort of like phishing scam is
Speaker 1: misspellings and you know, a poor use of English. So
Speaker 1: you're saying with AI that stuff is going to be
Speaker 1: a thing of the past.
Speaker 12: Oh, absolutely, it already is. I mean, in the twelve
Speaker 12: months after the arrival of chat GBT, phishing emails searched
Speaker 12: about close to thirteen hundred percent. But more than that,
Speaker 12: the quality was incredible. So the English is perfect, the
Speaker 12: grammar is perfect. If you don't speak English, whatever language
Speaker 12: you speak or they expect you to speak, will be perfect.
Speaker 12: It will it will have so few of the giveaway
Speaker 12: tell tales that we knew from before. And if it
Speaker 12: mixes in good social engineering, like with spearfishing, so it
Speaker 12: sounds familiar, it mentions something about your family, or your job,
Speaker 12: or your social connections, it's going to be very easy
Speaker 12: to draw you in.
Speaker 1: Okay, so spear phishing, I mean, what types of AI
Speaker 1: scams do you think will be the biggest threat to
Speaker 1: consumers over the next couple of years?
Speaker 12: Gosh, I mean, so we look, we look at at
Speaker 12: how AI is changing crime, and so far we've come
Speaker 12: up with more than twenty one different ways. So it's
Speaker 12: going to to touch everything. It's going to accelerate bang fraud,
Speaker 12: check fraud. You'll be able to print your own checks
Speaker 12: that will be indistinguishable from the real thing. AI has
Speaker 12: proven itself already capable of forging drivers, licenses, utility bills,
Speaker 12: PERSH certificates so well that even government biometric systems can
Speaker 12: tell the difference.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, we talked about that. By the way, there's
Speaker 1: like a you know, it used to be when you
Speaker 1: wanted a fake ID, people you know, you get one
Speaker 1: when you're you know, under twenty one or whatever. Some
Speaker 1: people would you know, you'd go somewhere and it would
Speaker 1: look horrible. Now, we saw online a report the other
Speaker 1: day that you know, they could generate these things in
Speaker 1: seconds online and use them for online verification systems.
Speaker 12: Yeah, and for no more than fifteen bucks. And that
Speaker 12: was the first version. You know, once competition kicks in,
Speaker 12: it could be five books, it could be fifty cents.
Speaker 12: Who knows. So everywhere you look at crime AI has
Speaker 12: got a sticky little fingers already.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned this spear phishing attack, So this is
Speaker 1: and this is where it all comes into play. The
Speaker 1: information that's available about you online. You know, when there's
Speaker 1: a data breach and you're let's say your social or
Speaker 1: your address, like, there's so much there's a whole picture
Speaker 1: of people available online. The spearfishing will use some of
Speaker 1: that data to kind of target you specifically explain that.
Speaker 12: Yeah. So I remember having a conversation with a pretty
Speaker 12: notorious identity thief a while ago, and I said, look,
Speaker 12: there are hundreds of millions of our stolen personal files
Speaker 12: on the internet, right, he said, absolutely, five times of
Speaker 12: many humans, five times as many data records as there
Speaker 12: are humans. And so why haven't we all been victim
Speaker 12: of identity theft many times over, and he said, simply,
Speaker 12: there aren't enough identity theves that thieves don't have the
Speaker 12: time to get to all this data and make use
Speaker 12: of it. AI is now changing that. So if I
Speaker 12: want to mass market spear phishing emails, AI can be
Speaker 12: used to pick out all the pieces of information about
Speaker 12: you specifically or your family and craft that into the
Speaker 12: phishing email so that the language is right, the cues,
Speaker 12: the comfort cues, the social engineering feels right. It will
Speaker 12: pick up on something in your past, your favorite teacher,
Speaker 12: your first power, your first dog, and that makes the
Speaker 12: spear phishing email or phone call or text message so
Speaker 12: much more believable. You'll drop your guard for that precious moment.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the other ways you identify
Speaker 1: that we're going to be hit with this stuff?
Speaker 12: I think senior scams are going to soar and again
Speaker 12: because of the plausibility. I mean, if you think about it,
Speaker 12: half of the phone scams that you that we see
Speaker 12: today come from one city in India and it's near
Speaker 12: the Bangladesh border. The the the accents are very distinct,
Speaker 12: the way of speaking is very distinctive. You've heard these
Speaker 12: calls every sentence begins with the word sir, which is
Speaker 12: not typical of how you would speak in America. AI
Speaker 12: will change all that, and that the recipient will will
Speaker 12: get a phone call from someone with an accent identical
Speaker 12: to theirs. We'll talk about the weather, we'll talk about
Speaker 12: what their favorite team has to be doing at that time.
Speaker 12: And for seniors who are a little bit more trusting,
Speaker 12: who maybe are a little bit lonely or a little
Speaker 12: bit bored, they're much more likely to be drawn into that.
Speaker 12: And that romance scam can morph into an investment scam
Speaker 12: and all kinds of things. So and that's part of
Speaker 12: the problem too. We will see these combo scams right
Speaker 12: where once they have the hook in, it might start
Speaker 12: as a romance scam and send me money because you
Speaker 12: care for me. Then as the trust is built, is well,
Speaker 12: instead of sending me money, let's make money together so
Speaker 12: I don't have to depend on you. And then finally
Speaker 12: when they shut it down and say I have no
Speaker 12: more money. As well, remember those racy photos that you
Speaker 12: said of me, send me more money or everyone sees
Speaker 12: those again. AI is capable of mixing and matching all
Speaker 12: different attacks into the one.
Speaker 1: So at the end of the day, Are we Is
Speaker 1: it hopeless for humans?
Speaker 12: You know what? I don't. I've never been this stumped.
Speaker 12: I really haven't. And and this is just it's just
Speaker 12: a little over a year since the arrival of chet GPT,
Speaker 12: so we've all we're only were this is only the
Speaker 12: tip of the iceberg, and yet we're seeing and so
Speaker 12: many of the experts I talked to say they're stumped
Speaker 12: as well. But we're no, we're not helpless. Obviously, we
Speaker 12: should be doing everything we've been screaming about for years.
Speaker 12: You know, shields up, be smart about passwords, be smart
Speaker 12: about what you click on. Use multi factor authentication absolutely
Speaker 12: everywhere it's offered, freeze your credit, all those things. Do them?
Speaker 12: Do them now? Do them often. You've also got to
Speaker 12: be skeptical and vigilant. But also the best defense is
Speaker 12: the context. It's not who you think is asking you
Speaker 12: to do something, it's what they're asking you to do,
Speaker 12: and that's the Does that sound normal? You know that?
Speaker 12: Does that person that you just met really do you
Speaker 12: really believe they've fallen so head over heels in love
Speaker 12: with you that they want you to send money for
Speaker 12: a ticket to bring the family over if that, you know,
Speaker 12: crypto investment scheme is so good, Why is this stranger
Speaker 12: offering to bring you in on it? You know, since
Speaker 12: when does your local police department accept zell Or a
Speaker 12: gift card to pay a fine to make it go away.
Speaker 1: We just had that. We just had that story at
Speaker 1: the TV station I work at. They you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's happening in other places, but you know, in
Speaker 1: southern California, they they had, you know, the law enforcement
Speaker 1: quote unquote was calling businesses and saying, hey, we got
Speaker 1: a warrant for you. You gotta come and you gotta
Speaker 1: pay this, but don't come to the station. Just pay
Speaker 1: us via you know bitcoiner. I mean, that sense a
Speaker 1: red flag to me. But clearly it must work if
Speaker 1: they're trying this.
Speaker 12: Yeah, and again it's the social engineering part of it.
Speaker 12: It's fear and panic, and they're they they they're they're
Speaker 12: topping into the understandable human nature. Well, it's it's it's
Speaker 12: it's from law enforcement. It's quote it sounds legitimate. I
Speaker 12: really need to take take care of it first and
Speaker 12: investigate it afterwards. And you have to flip that. It's
Speaker 12: let me take a deep breath, let me just hang
Speaker 12: up and verify this some other way. And that is
Speaker 12: by far. I mean I always say that the most
Speaker 12: powerful crime fighting technology of them all is wedged right
Speaker 12: between your ears. Just switch the thing on.
Speaker 1: I get sad about this, though, when you tell me
Speaker 1: that we have to be so skeptical, because I am
Speaker 1: very skeptical of everything. Like my ask my kids, they
Speaker 1: will I don't believe anyone. I don't believe anything. I've
Speaker 1: got a girl scout that comes to my door selling cookies,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering what the scam is now getting. But
Speaker 1: we need to be you know, you've got to be
Speaker 1: aware of this stuff. And you know I talk about
Speaker 1: it all the time, so I hear about it. But
Speaker 1: the reality is what you just said is that sometimes
Speaker 1: they catch you and it's something that's quick. It's something
Speaker 1: that's hasty. And of course we've all heard haste makes waste.
Speaker 1: That is very true when it comes to these scams
Speaker 1: as well. People are just acting very quickly, and then
Speaker 1: when you think about it, you're like, wait a second.
Speaker 1: You saw that article with the woman the scammed out
Speaker 1: of the fifty thousand dollars the financial columnist, I mean
Speaker 1: that was a wild story, and every second of the
Speaker 1: way you're like, how would someone fall for this? But
Speaker 1: yet she did. All right, Neil, we're gonna leave it there.
Speaker 1: I love this list that you came up with on
Speaker 1: your website, the website Center for AI Crime dot org.
Speaker 1: You've got twenty different ways that AI is going or
Speaker 1: more than twenty actually that AI is accelerating all kinds
Speaker 1: of scams and frauds. So thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: me today, Neil.
Speaker 12: Thanks ch appreciate it.
Speaker 1: All right again, website Center for AI crime dot org.
Speaker 1: Educate yourself, Educate yourself, educate your friends and family. I'll
Speaker 1: put the link on the website. Rich on Tech dot TV,
Speaker 1: all right, coming up, we'll have a couple more stories.
Speaker 1: Here'll tell you about the Facebook funeral scams and we'll
Speaker 1: do the feedback segment you are listening to on tech
Speaker 1: Have you heard about this latest scam? We were just
Speaker 1: talking scams four or four media reporting. Facebook funeral scams
Speaker 1: are now a thing. Scammers create fake Facebook accounts announcing
Speaker 1: funeral live streams for recently deceased people. They use real
Speaker 1: names and photos from legitimate funeral announcements, and when you
Speaker 1: go there to watch the funeral, it asks you to
Speaker 1: put in credit card information to watch the live stream,
Speaker 1: and this is when they steal your financial data. So
Speaker 1: obviously these scams prey on grieving friends and family when
Speaker 1: of course they are emotionally vulnerable, and it causes a
Speaker 1: lot of stress and confusion because people are wondering what's
Speaker 1: happening here. Facebook has a policy that says this violates
Speaker 1: the policy, but four or four Media found dozens of
Speaker 1: active scam funeral live stream pages on the platform. By
Speaker 1: the way, this also happens with sports and music events.
Speaker 1: I actually heard about this with sports events like Little
Speaker 1: League sports, I think, where you try to watch your kids'
Speaker 1: sports on Facebook and they try to get you to
Speaker 1: do this as well. So again one more thing to
Speaker 1: be concerned with. Apple this week says putting your wet
Speaker 1: iPhone in rice to dry it out is not a
Speaker 1: good idea. Remember all the years we've heard how great
Speaker 1: rice is for drying out your phone, and once you're
Speaker 1: done drying out your phone, you can cook up the
Speaker 1: rice and eat it. It's like a two and one.
Speaker 1: Not yet, don't want to do that. But Apple now
Speaker 1: officially advises against using rice to dry out a wet iPhone.
Speaker 1: Why because rice particles can get into the charging port
Speaker 1: and damage the phone. I've talked about this before. It
Speaker 1: is Apple's goal to get rid of every single port
Speaker 1: on the phone. They are down to just one, that
Speaker 1: charging port. It will be gone. One of these days.
Speaker 1: We will not have any sort of port. Remember when
Speaker 1: you first got a phone, it had, you know, a
Speaker 1: simcard slot, It had a earphone, you know, a headphone.
Speaker 1: It had you know, the cable connector at the bottom
Speaker 1: which was huge speaker grill, all that stuff. They want
Speaker 1: to get rid of everything. So that's happening, but not
Speaker 1: just yet. The last one is the port. Anyway, So
Speaker 1: how do you dry out your phone? Tap the phone
Speaker 1: gently against your hand to remove excess liquid. So point
Speaker 1: the port down and then tap it. Get rid of
Speaker 1: that excess liquid. Let the phone dry out for half
Speaker 1: an hour. Plug it in. If you see a message
Speaker 1: on your phone that says the charging port is wet,
Speaker 1: take the plug back out. Let it dry out for
Speaker 1: up to twenty four hours. Try again. Do not use
Speaker 1: a hair dryer, Do not use a can of air.
Speaker 1: Do not use a cotton swab or a paper towel
Speaker 1: to dry the iPhone. You know, newer iPhones and pretty
Speaker 1: much every smartphone is water resistant. They're not water proof,
Speaker 1: and liquid damage can still occur. You just need to
Speaker 1: make sure that you're drying this thing out if it
Speaker 1: does get wet. But these are not underwater cameras. Let's
Speaker 1: be real here, these things are not underwater cameras. All right, now,
Speaker 1: time for the feedbacks feedback segment. These are the emails,
Speaker 1: the comments, and the questions I get from you. If
Speaker 1: you want to submit yours, go to Rich on tech
Speaker 1: dot TV hit contact. We got a bunch about the
Speaker 1: whole credit card situation here. While Anett writes in about
Speaker 1: the I message I teach at the high school level,
Speaker 1: kids bully for everything, not just iPhones. All the anti
Speaker 1: bullying rhetoric does nothing. It's so difficult to be around
Speaker 1: them as everything is driven by social media and what
Speaker 1: others think about them. They are so addicted to their
Speaker 1: phones and that's all they think about constantly, and they
Speaker 1: cannot stop a net. I am not at a school,
Speaker 1: but I agree and I hear it from my kids.
Speaker 1: It is insane. The level of influence social media has
Speaker 1: on children today absolutely insane. The stuff they do, the
Speaker 1: things they do, the things they want the things, they'll
Speaker 1: try the challenges. Everything is driven by social media. Now,
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, we had the same pressures.
Speaker 1: Believe me, I bought Zeke Cavalrici's. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I had to have the parachute pants. But it was
Speaker 1: a different way. It was his mainstream media that really
Speaker 1: led the way. And so it was MTV and all
Speaker 1: these things, and you watch the cool kids on there
Speaker 1: and you want to what they had. Now it's anyone
Speaker 1: that has a TikTok account that could influence your kids,
Speaker 1: whether what they're saying is true or not. Bosmo says,
Speaker 1: great bumper tunes today, Adam, look at that producer, Adam
Speaker 1: playing some good tunes. They say. They agree with the caller.
Speaker 1: That appreciates your tone and patience. We are learning together,
Speaker 1: he mentions another radio person. They're not about patients, but
Speaker 1: that's why we listen to them. Keep up the good work.
Speaker 1: Let's see. PJ says about stolen credit card numbers. My
Speaker 1: credit card issuers send an email notification for every transaction. Wow,
Speaker 1: really that might get annoying. I check every notice. Twice.
Speaker 1: I've had the number used fraudulently and have had to
Speaker 1: get a new card. In one case, I was able
Speaker 1: to stop the thief from getting their merchandise. Strongly suggests
Speaker 1: not using a debit card for any type of purchase.
Speaker 1: PJ the debit card. I love debit cards, and I
Speaker 1: actually use my debit card by default. And I actually,
Speaker 1: now that I think about it, I do have a
Speaker 1: notification on my phone. Every time I use my debit card,
Speaker 1: I get a notification from my bank that tells me
Speaker 1: about the transaction. Percent of the time it's someone in
Speaker 1: my house ordering something off Amazon. I'm like, now, what's
Speaker 1: that for. But I do like debit cards because I
Speaker 1: like to know the whole not going into debt thing.
Speaker 1: But I get it. Credit card definitely feels like it
Speaker 1: protects you more, for sure, Vicky says, listening to Today's
Speaker 1: show and calls on identities of cards. In the past
Speaker 1: ten days, I've had four credit cards opened in my name,
Speaker 1: not only in my name, but in my social Security number.
Speaker 1: I was notified by a credit monitoring service about hard inquiries,
Speaker 1: and my credit scores started falling. I've spent over thirty
Speaker 1: hours so far notifying the credit bureaus, calling the credit
Speaker 1: card companies, reporting to the FTC and reporting to my
Speaker 1: local sheriff and Social Security administration. I've had card theft
Speaker 1: identity several times, so that was easy to fix. My
Speaker 1: social Security number is a different matter. I've asked for freezes.
Speaker 1: I got a new inquiry last night. Oh thanks, Vicky, Ah, Vicky.
Speaker 1: I know this is the tough part. Once the information's
Speaker 1: out there, it's really tough to recall it, and that
Speaker 1: is a struggle for sure. And Shelby says, someone with
Speaker 1: an older TV can buy you a smart DVD player.
Speaker 1: The DVD player will be able to stream the channels.
Speaker 1: The DVD basically turns the TV into a smart TV.
Speaker 1: Don't be needing to use a DVD for it to work? Yes,
Speaker 1: but I don't think the app will be on this
Speaker 1: smart DVD player for sure. I don't. I don't really
Speaker 1: think it would be there. So I think the the
Speaker 1: fire sticks probably gonna be better. And finally, let's see here,
Speaker 1: I had one more here. Rich sounds like you have
Speaker 1: a great topic outdoor TVs. Oh well, we'll save that
Speaker 1: for next week. But they say they use an now TV.
Speaker 1: No problem, all right, if you can believe it, that's
Speaker 1: gonna do it. For this episode of the show. You
Speaker 1: can find links on the website richon Tech dot TV.
Speaker 1: Find me there at richon Tech next week how AI
Speaker 1: is being used to fight food allergies. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. There are so many ways you can spend
Speaker 1: your time. I do appreciate you spending it right here
Speaker 1: with me.