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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from coast to coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: What does VPN stand for?

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Speaker 3: Virtual Private network? What is? And that is so that

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Speaker 3: you can communicate in privacy, but it's not full proof,

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Speaker 3: so they say, for example, you go to an airport,

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Speaker 3: don't log into their network because it's easily you know,

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Speaker 3: hacked for example. So a VPN it encrypts your Internet connection,

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Speaker 3: protecting your personal information from hackers, especially on public Wi

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Speaker 3: Fi networks, and people should remember that in an emergency

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Speaker 3: if they are, say, taken to a shelter or a

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Speaker 3: public space for a prolonged period of time and need

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Speaker 3: to access their personal data through their cell phone or

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Speaker 3: their laptop if they brought it with them, a VPN

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Speaker 3: ensures that your data is private and secure. However, on

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Speaker 3: the downside, it can reduce Internet speed because the data

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Speaker 3: has to be encrypted and routed through a remote server.

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Speaker 3: Some of them quality VPN services you should pay for,

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Speaker 3: don't get a free one, and that can be expensive.

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Speaker 3: Not all VPNs are created equal. Those less reputable options,

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Speaker 3: which is why you need to research them, may not

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Speaker 3: give adequate security and they could even log user data

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Speaker 3: compatibility issues. They some of them may not work seamlessly

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Speaker 3: with all of your devices or apps. And while they

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Speaker 3: are good for protecting your IP address, they can prevent

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Speaker 3: all forms of online tracking. And they can't protect obviously

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Speaker 3: against fishing scams.

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Speaker 2: And fishing is not the throwing a line in water

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Speaker 2: to get a fish.

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Speaker 3: It's something else, not that fun habit. It's when a stranger,

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Speaker 3: a third party, sends you an email that's worded to

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Speaker 3: make it seem friendly, and maybe you know them or

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Speaker 3: you've had a conversation with them, and they have an attachment.

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Speaker 3: Never open any email with detachment if you do not

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Speaker 3: know the sender. And then what they do is they

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Speaker 3: have access to your or your personal information.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, how does that happen?

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Speaker 3: You up?

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Speaker 2: And then what happens you.

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Speaker 3: Open it up? And that's you know, we're getting very

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Speaker 3: technical here, George. They then are able to get into

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Speaker 3: your your email, They can you know, look through for

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Speaker 3: personal information. I'm not really exactly sure how they do that.

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Speaker 2: It saw an email today from a lady who converses

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Speaker 2: with people who live in the city that she lives in,

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Speaker 2: and she got a call from her bank that said

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Speaker 2: that you just authorize a five hundred dollars amount, and

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Speaker 2: she said no, and the bank said to her, well,

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Speaker 2: can you verify your personal information for me? She decided

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Speaker 2: not to and hung up called her bank. They never called.

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Speaker 3: Her, of course not.

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Speaker 2: It was a scam. It was a scam. What do

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Speaker 2: these people want?

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Speaker 3: Well, you know, George, I think she's in the minority

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Speaker 3: because a good friend of mine, who is actually very

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Speaker 3: tech savvy, had the same experience a few weeks ago,

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Speaker 3: and she gave her social Security number and then that

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Speaker 3: of course, lets someone set up new accounts in your name,

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Speaker 3: they have your personal identifying information. I also have been

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Speaker 3: getting a lot of messages on PayPal from fictitious people

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Speaker 3: all around the world or scammers charging me one thousand

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Speaker 3: dollars for something, and I just don't open those up

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Speaker 3: and delete them. People have to be very, very suspicious,

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Speaker 3: healthy skepticism about everything that comes into their inbox or

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Speaker 3: their cell phone alerts through different apps. Banks will never

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Speaker 3: ask for that information over the phone.

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Speaker 2: Most post offices have done away with their drive through mailboxes.

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Speaker 3: Have you noticed that, I've never heard of a drive

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Speaker 3: through a mailbox.

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Speaker 2: Will you just drive up, open your car window and

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Speaker 2: drop it in the mailbox?

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Speaker 3: Oh?

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Speaker 2: That?

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Speaker 3: Oh? Sending it out. Yes, I well, I'm from New Hampshire,

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Speaker 3: so I've seen them up there. We don't really have

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Speaker 3: them in New York City. But that's fascinating. Yes, I know,

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Speaker 3: because I had a work check for five thousand dollars stolen.

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Speaker 3: There's an uptick according to the Postal Service in stealing

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Speaker 3: checks from mailboxes.

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Speaker 2: What do they do with a check?

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Speaker 3: Well, they can alter it, you know, depending on how

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Speaker 3: carefully you've made it out. You're supposed to fill out

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Speaker 3: everything on the you know, amount to be paid, you do,

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Speaker 3: and zero, zero, one hundred, you don't leave any room

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Speaker 3: because what they can do is add words. Some use

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Speaker 3: clever ink covers to alter certain words, so that if

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Speaker 3: it's you know, a five to zero, they can add

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Speaker 3: three more zeros. So you need to be mindful of

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Speaker 3: how you make out checks. That's why we're seeing a

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Speaker 3: lot fewer checks being used and sent through the mail.

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Speaker 2: Is your effort primarily because of disasters or scams or

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Speaker 2: both the go kits, Yes.

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Speaker 3: Well, primarily prompted by the idea of we're hearing of

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Speaker 3: so many people who have had to leave their house

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Speaker 3: with no time to take anything with them. So that's

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Speaker 3: what made me think of this because how easy is

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Speaker 3: it to have a small bag that you can grab

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Speaker 3: in two minutes, either near your door or where you

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Speaker 3: keep your keys, that has all this backup information. It

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Speaker 3: seems like a modern necessity quite honestly, for everyone, no

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Speaker 3: matter where you live.

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Speaker 2: We have a sponsor that helps monitor these situations called LifeLock.

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Speaker 2: Every week they have a story about some major data breach.

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Speaker 2: There's fifty million students here, hospitals. It's incredible.

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Speaker 3: I know I've gotten three data breach letters in the

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Speaker 3: last year. I've decided to start keeping them because it's Look,

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Speaker 3: if you live in the modern world and you communicate

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Speaker 3: and do any business digitally, which face it, we all

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Speaker 3: have to your data is going to be compromised.

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Speaker 2: Eventually. It's going to get you, isn't it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, But we can do things to mitigate it by

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Speaker 3: you know, watching out for those phishing scams on email,

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Speaker 3: really taking a defensive posture in all of our online interactions.

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Speaker 2: I'll get emails from people I know who never sent them, well.

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Speaker 3: They were spammed. And when you see a friend asking

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Speaker 3: you for money or you know, something out of character,

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Speaker 3: what I immediately do is email them and say I think

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Speaker 3: you've been packed to check here.

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Speaker 2: What about social media? Are they hacked too? Instagram? Facebook,

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Speaker 2: places like.

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Speaker 3: That, they should be hacked. I try not to use

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Speaker 3: too many apps because think of each app like a

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Speaker 3: social media app that you download, say to your phone.

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Speaker 3: Those look at those as portals into your privacy. Only

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Speaker 3: download apps from reputable from you know, the company that

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Speaker 3: sells it or has created it. Any website that you

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Speaker 3: go to, just be suspicious that it's not. You know,

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Speaker 3: as I was trying to renew my passport, I went

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Speaker 3: online and immediately other services come up other than the

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Speaker 3: government passport office. So you have to really That's what

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Speaker 3: my book Digital Literacy is sort of about cyber citizens.

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Speaker 3: It's about recognizing potential scams as soon as they enter

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Speaker 3: your cell phone, your mailbox, any form of electronic communication

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Speaker 3: you have to be suspect about.

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Speaker 2: We're going to take calls next hour with Heidi, So

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Speaker 2: jump aboard, ask a question or share a story and

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Speaker 2: technology and how it might have affected you. I wonder

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Speaker 2: how many people get hit on a regular basis, Heidi.

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Speaker 3: Oh, millions, George. I don't have the exact statistic, but

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Speaker 3: I for my book, I did a lot of research.

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Speaker 3: I mean the cost. It's not only individuals, it's businesses.

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Speaker 3: Excuse me, as we just discussed when you get a

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Speaker 3: letter saying your data has been breached, often it's because

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Speaker 3: companies are not properly securing your information. School districts across

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Speaker 3: the nation, including in LA, being hacked with you know, ransomware,

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Speaker 3: So hackers will sort of take control of, say a

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Speaker 3: college or a high school system, their administrative systems, and

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Speaker 3: it grinds to a standstill. They can't function. A cost

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Speaker 3: of fortune, the cost of business is being hacked. To

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Speaker 3: recover from from those invasions is astronomical. And of course,

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Speaker 3: as anyone who has been the subject of a breach

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Speaker 3: or a hack or have their identity stolen knows, it's

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Speaker 3: life changing. It up ends your life. It's expensive to fix.

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Speaker 3: That's why I recommend that everyone have some sort of

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Speaker 3: credit monitoring software and that you check your online accounts

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Speaker 3: very regularly. You look at your credit card charges. You

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Speaker 3: know a lot of scammers will take a dollar out

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Speaker 3: or ninety nine cents or two dollars to sort of

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Speaker 3: test and see if you're watching, and any suspicious charge

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Speaker 3: you should immediately call your bank.

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Speaker 2: What is this Nigerian scam where you get an email

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Speaker 2: that says, we have five million US dollars to put

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Speaker 2: in your account, please help us. What do they want?

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Speaker 2: What do they really expect people to reply to that, because,

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Speaker 2: by the way, I'm still waiting for my deposit.

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Speaker 3: People do respond, George, that's the problem. You know, human

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Speaker 3: beings are trusting by nature, and that's a good thing.

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Speaker 2: Well, how do they make money on that? It's kind

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Speaker 2: of a scam.

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Speaker 3: Well, for example, they will One thing that we're seeing

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Speaker 3: is they'll do things like with call money flipping, where

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Speaker 3: we the mark are promised a large amount of money

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Speaker 3: in exchanging in exchange for sending a small amount of money.

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Speaker 3: So they'll say, you know, they might say by mistake

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Speaker 3: some of your money was.

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Speaker 2: You know, we need to verify your account to send

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Speaker 2: you the money.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they will say something to get you to believe

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Speaker 3: it's in your best interest to send them a smaller

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Speaker 3: money amount of money. And we see a lot of

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Speaker 3: love scams on social media where I know of two

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Speaker 3: cases where someone's mother wanted to date someone and met

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Speaker 3: someone on Facebook and he told her that he had

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Speaker 3: invested and made a lot of money in a bitcoin

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Speaker 3: or something, you know, a cryptocurrency and that. So she

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Speaker 3: gave him fifty dollars, a small amount. He said, give

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Speaker 3: me a small amount, I'll show you, and then he

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Speaker 3: gave her, you know, one hundred backs, saying he doubled

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Speaker 3: her money. So then he asked for a few thousand,

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Speaker 3: and she gave it to him.

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Speaker 4: And then it was only when her children happened to

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Speaker 4: notice it that she was taking money out of her

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Speaker 4: life savings, and they intervened.

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Speaker 3: But it had gotten to a bad stage where she lost,

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Speaker 3: you know, half of her savings.

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Speaker 2: And that happens a lot to elderly people, doesn't it.

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Speaker 3: Yes, it does.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're lonely.

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Speaker 3: They're lonely, and they're trusting. And if someone called you

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Speaker 3: on the phone and impersonates, you know, maybe a life

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Speaker 3: insurance company or something, they're they're.

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Speaker 2: Gullible, word to the wise.

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Speaker 3: Word to the why. It's a lovely character trait to

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Speaker 3: be trusting. But you have to look out for yourself first,

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Speaker 3: and you have to know that for every wonderful several

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Speaker 3: people online that you interact with, there's going to be

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Speaker 3: one out of ten could be a scammer. So don't

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Speaker 3: ever ever give personal information over the phone on email.

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Speaker 3: Never give credit card numbers. Tell them to the person.

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Speaker 3: If you're dealing, for example, with a vendor, and you've

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Speaker 3: called them, you know that it's a certain store. Give

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Speaker 3: them your information or make sure if you put it

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Speaker 3: online to purchase something, that you they are a legitimate site.

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Speaker 3: You just have to be diligent.

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Speaker 2: If we go to com we go to digital money

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Speaker 2: instead of cash, isn't this going to run even more rampant?

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Speaker 3: Well, I wanted to if I could insert a note,

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Speaker 3: President Trump just partned a pardoned Ross Olbrich, the founder

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Speaker 3: of the Silk Road website. Some of your listeners may

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Speaker 3: be familiar with him. He was a real champion, one

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Speaker 3: of the first people. He's just been pardoned after ten

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Speaker 3: years in prison. His case was very harsh in that

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Speaker 3: the judge gave him two life sentences in forty years.

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Speaker 3: And I think the reason why was because he ran

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Speaker 3: a website where some you know, illegal drugs were sold,

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Speaker 3: but they were reviewed by other customers, and he's a

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Speaker 3: libertarian and felt this was a safer way to do

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Speaker 3: that kind of commerce. But he really was one of

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Speaker 3: the successes using cryptocurrency, and I think that along with

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Speaker 3: the fact that the site was on the dark web

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Speaker 3: made the government and target him.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast am every weeknight at

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