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Speaker 2: Do countries including ours, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, the
Speaker 2: United States, do we have cybersecurity divisions within government that
Speaker 2: do nothing but try to hack other countries?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean, if you really, if you look
Speaker 3: at it, and I happen to be of the thought
Speaker 3: process that we are already in World War three and
Speaker 3: it's a cyber war and it's been going on for
Speaker 3: a long time. The first shots fired really in this
Speaker 3: cyber war in the modern era, really was the stucksonet
Speaker 3: attack from the United States against Iran, against their nuclear facilities.
Speaker 3: And this happened I believe it was about twenty ten
Speaker 3: or twenty eleven. But to me, we initiated it in
Speaker 3: a sense, you know, we're going after the Iranian nuclear
Speaker 3: program back then, and countries, yes, are going back and
Speaker 3: forth initiating attacks against each other. It's a constant thing.
Speaker 3: We have what's referred to as advanced persistent threat groups
Speaker 3: from different countries. The four main belligerents that we find,
Speaker 3: you know, attacking Western countries Western democracies are Russia, China,
Speaker 3: North Korea, and Iran. Those are the names that generally
Speaker 3: pop up whenever we talk about this sort of international hacking.
Speaker 3: But within the United States, we do have agencies like
Speaker 3: you know, sees and different agencies within the sub agencies
Speaker 3: within the intelligence community that yeah, this is sort of
Speaker 3: their job, you know, and and a lot of it is,
Speaker 3: you know, not necessarily to be offensive, but you know,
Speaker 3: kind of to be defensive. They're they're being proactive in
Speaker 3: terms of trying to figure out what are the best
Speaker 3: defenses against emerging.
Speaker 2: Threat Give us an initial refresher on technology, Julio, if
Speaker 2: you can specifically the Internet. It works, but how does
Speaker 2: it work? I mean, where is the central brain? If
Speaker 2: there is one where everything goes to around the planet,
Speaker 2: I mean, how does it work?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that's kind of like a broad question.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that the World Wide Web was created.
Speaker 3: I think at this point the basic idea and then
Speaker 3: the way that it works is like that sort of
Speaker 3: technology was developed, you know, initially back in the sixties,
Speaker 3: and it's sort of improved and then I guess that's
Speaker 3: the way that it's known now. It sort of existed
Speaker 3: since the nineteen eighties. But I mean it basically we're
Speaker 3: all interconnected through that internationally, and data is transferred you know,
Speaker 3: through whatquote unquote Worldwide Web that as it exists today.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm sorry, I just that's kind of a
Speaker 3: really kind of a broad question. I don't want to
Speaker 3: come off sounding like Kamala Harris or something explanation of it,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: But you know, well, if somebody pulls the plug on
Speaker 2: the Internet, can you do that? Can that be done?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Theoretically a lot of things can happen. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I think it would be more or less like
Speaker 3: let's say, if we had like an EMP attack. Let's say,
Speaker 3: like a North Korean you know, satellite up in space
Speaker 3: has aimed at the American power grid and hits the
Speaker 3: American power grid. A lot of things are going to
Speaker 3: go out, partially obviously within the United States. You know,
Speaker 3: we're gonna have issues with digital communications like the Internet.
Speaker 3: That's part of it, you know, part of what could
Speaker 3: be affected potentially.
Speaker 1: As as well as other things.
Speaker 3: You know, and you know that that's there's a lot
Speaker 3: of I would say right now, there's a lot of danger, uh,
Speaker 3: in terms of the way that we can be hit
Speaker 3: or compromised by smaller countries. The way I look at
Speaker 3: it is that you know, I think digitally with whether
Speaker 3: you want to call it hacking or through the Internet
Speaker 3: or anything like that, it's the great equalizer of military powers.
Speaker 3: So if you're let's say, a smaller country, you don't
Speaker 3: have to be one of the big four, like I
Speaker 3: pointed out before, between Russia and China, North Korea and Iran.
Speaker 3: Let's say you're a smaller country, but you want to
Speaker 3: you know, attack another country that's bigger and more powerful
Speaker 3: and has like a military that that can destroy you
Speaker 3: and wipe your country out. You can you can get
Speaker 3: pretty much, you know, a strong offensive front via cybersecurity
Speaker 3: and hacking. You know, it's I think cybersecurity and hacking
Speaker 3: is the great equalizer between military powers in terms of
Speaker 3: you know, smaller countries being able to go on the
Speaker 3: offensive against larger countries. That's one way I think I
Speaker 3: would kind of praise it in terms of, you know,
Speaker 3: the dangers that exist on that quote unquote internet.
Speaker 2: Ironically, we're talking about the power grid tomorrow night on
Speaker 2: Coast to Coast with our friend Bill Forstin. Now, let's
Speaker 2: talk a little bit about election hacking. What's all this
Speaker 2: what's all this talk about Russia meddling with twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: What do you think they're doing.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like twenty twenty six. I mean, they did
Speaker 3: kind of interfere in a sense attacking. I don't know
Speaker 3: if you remember, in the Wiki Leaks dumped a lot
Speaker 3: of information that had been acquired via Russian hacking.
Speaker 2: They hit Paul.
Speaker 3: Podesta's or ale. Yeah, John Podesta, Sorry, John Pedesta's email.
Speaker 2: You mentioned me, You meant you mentioned the year twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six.
Speaker 3: We're not there yet, I'm sorry twenty sixteen. I meant
Speaker 3: sorry twenty six Yeah, I'm not coming from the future. Actually,
Speaker 3: you know, not yet exactly. Yeah, no, But in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: they hit the DNC emails. They hit John Podesta's emails.
Speaker 3: If you remember, WEEKI Leaks dumped out a lot of
Speaker 3: embarrassing information regarding DMC communications. They were some of the
Speaker 3: stuff that they was in there was pretty funny, not funny,
Speaker 3: actually unfortunate and kind of sad. But they were talking about,
Speaker 3: like you know, from the perspective of myself as a
Speaker 3: Hispanic voter, they were talking about how they could better
Speaker 3: reach Hispanics, and they were referring to it as Tackle
Speaker 3: Bowl engagement, which is, you know, kind of pretty racist
Speaker 3: and offensive in a sense. But they they they were
Speaker 3: looking for something that they can put out there that
Speaker 3: I believe damaging to one of one of the other campaigns,
Speaker 3: whoever it is, or just to sow discord and you know,
Speaker 3: in anyway, just to cause confusion, spread disinformation. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of things going on right now. One of the
Speaker 3: things actually it was there's now what AI. There was
Speaker 3: recently an AI robo call campaign that was going on,
Speaker 3: which is another version of like let's say election interference.
Speaker 3: You know, they the social media apps have gotten or
Speaker 3: tried to get a little bit better in terms of
Speaker 3: who they're allowing to purchase ads during the election cycle,
Speaker 3: Like you have to go through a little bit more
Speaker 3: stringent supposedly betting before they'll allow you to post a
Speaker 3: political ad, whereas it was a little bit more of
Speaker 3: the wild West and twenty up to like through twenty
Speaker 3: sixteen and twenty twenty and in the last few cycles.
Speaker 3: But I think like in this most recent case, right
Speaker 3: you had like Iran and this was confirmed by the
Speaker 3: FBI that they they did actually hack both campaigns, the
Speaker 3: Trump campaign and the Harris campaign specifically, like somebody like
Speaker 3: that that we all know the name of Roger Stone.
Speaker 3: He had his hack, and they were trying to hit
Speaker 3: other high ranking members and operatives between both campaigns. I
Speaker 3: think it's along the lines of, you know, a country
Speaker 3: like Iran is gonna sit there and think, all right,
Speaker 3: from a geopolitics position, you know which campaign favors us,
Speaker 3: you know which one would be. You know, how are
Speaker 3: we better off we better off with Trump as president
Speaker 3: or we better off with Harris's president. So they may
Speaker 3: be looking for the same level of let's say, embarrassing
Speaker 3: communications like what you had in like twenty sixteen emerge
Speaker 3: and see if they're maybe that can have some sort
Speaker 3: of an effect on who actually wins the campaign. I
Speaker 3: don't think that, you know, based on just that alone,
Speaker 3: whether it would have that much sway within a campaign.
Speaker 3: But it's just another thing to distract it. You know,
Speaker 3: then there's another distraction. It's another thing.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: This sort of just makes the process a little bit
Speaker 3: more difficult for I guess the campaign they would prefer
Speaker 3: to see lose.
Speaker 2: Whistle blower Edward Snowden, who went public from the National
Speaker 2: Security Agency, did he really do that badly.
Speaker 3: No, I mean I think he actually, I would go
Speaker 3: so far as to probably use words like heroic in
Speaker 3: terms of what he was doing, you know, because we
Speaker 3: have I think that that's a direct violation of the
Speaker 3: Fourth Amendment, going ahead and taking all this information, seizing
Speaker 3: all these because in a sense, I mean, it's not
Speaker 3: physical papers, you know, like the way that it used
Speaker 3: to be, because we store information in a different way.
Speaker 3: But just go ahead, and how's our information take it
Speaker 3: without our explicit permission or knowledge that it's even going on.
Speaker 3: All that, you know, volumes and volumes of metadata being stored,
Speaker 3: being stored by the National Security Agency. I think it's
Speaker 3: a threat. I mean, that's something that an attack against
Speaker 3: the citizenry. And you know, as a political activist myself,
Speaker 3: one of the points that I always make is that,
Speaker 3: you know, we talk about parties, we talk about Republicans
Speaker 3: versus Democrats, it's not Republicans versus Democrats. That's a sham, George.
Speaker 3: You know, at the end of the day, both parties,
Speaker 3: even though I mean I may be registered as one
Speaker 3: and I may support the candidates generally of one party
Speaker 3: over the other, but they're both doing sort of the
Speaker 3: same bidding, and it's anti citizen. I mean, it's not
Speaker 3: really Republicans versus Democrats, more or less government versus the
Speaker 3: private citizen. And I think that Edward Snowden went a
Speaker 3: long ways in sort of exposing that and bringing that
Speaker 3: reality to the American people, whether or not a lot
Speaker 3: of people want to accept it, whether or not it
Speaker 3: was covered by the media in a way where it
Speaker 3: was explained, you know, because you have to. You know,
Speaker 3: the American people, it's a sound bite society. You know,
Speaker 3: they read headlines, but they don't go ahead and do
Speaker 3: critical thinking for their own private research. You know, I
Speaker 3: have to explain it to people sometimes like they're a
Speaker 3: two year old, so they can fully get it. But
Speaker 3: I think that Edward Snowden really tried to kind of
Speaker 3: show the American people where the government and where this
Speaker 3: you know, data collection apparatus is at this point. And
Speaker 3: you know this happened years ago. Think about how further
Speaker 3: advanced we are since then. And it's not even the
Speaker 3: government just collected this information anymore. We willingly give it
Speaker 3: up when we go ahead and interact with the website.
Speaker 3: We don't read terms in conditions when we download an app.
Speaker 3: We don't do any of those sorts of things. We
Speaker 3: just click go ahead, you know, we move along to
Speaker 3: this because it's more convenient to just you know, click
Speaker 3: all the boxes and say yep to everything, so you
Speaker 3: can go ahead and use something. So no, I mean,
Speaker 3: I would happen to think, you know, I happen to
Speaker 3: have a I would say, a favorable opinion of Edward Snowden.
Speaker 2: He's stored away in Russia right now, is any still.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean guys like him and the songe. I mean,
Speaker 3: the songs is another one where it's a difficult kind
Speaker 3: of like you know, I wrote a piece for the
Speaker 3: Epic Times a couple of years ago. It's like, you know,
Speaker 3: is he a hero or is he a troublemaker? You know,
Speaker 3: and it's a little bit sort of in a sense
Speaker 3: of both. But I mean, I think that you've got
Speaker 3: to have balance, you know, we need the American people
Speaker 3: need to know the truth of what's going on. You know,
Speaker 3: that's the biggest issue is the governments lie to their citizens.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I don't think that that's you know,
Speaker 3: that's not something that should come as a shock to
Speaker 3: anyone who's been actually paying attention.
Speaker 1: It's just a.
Speaker 3: Matter of you know, a lot of times it's people
Speaker 3: don't want to accept that. You know, we live in
Speaker 3: a sense too, in a kind of a bread and
Speaker 3: circuses board of society. You know, people are so numb
Speaker 3: to you know, because of social media. They sit there
Speaker 3: on their phones, staring up their phones all day, not
Speaker 3: knowing that they're giving up all their information to all
Speaker 3: these private companies, and a lot of them are you know,
Speaker 3: foreign and collecting information from us, and we have no
Speaker 3: there's no accountability to what they do with that information.
Speaker 3: That's why like the issue with TikTok, you know, TikTok,
Speaker 3: which is a Chinese application, you know, and then you
Speaker 3: have like security applications like Kasperski, you know, they're a
Speaker 3: Russian base. That's actually, as at the end of this month,
Speaker 3: you can't buy Casperski any longer. If you have if
Speaker 3: you're trying to do it from an American IP address,
Speaker 3: it's not allowed anymore. But these countries like China and
Speaker 3: Russia have laws in place that at any time, at
Speaker 3: any moment, the whim, at the whim of the government,
Speaker 3: they can go ahead and seize the data that these
Speaker 3: these companies these applications, these websites or whatnot have collected,
Speaker 3: you know. And I wrote a piece for Human Events
Speaker 3: last year about how there were thirty two members of Congress,
Speaker 3: thirty one of them happened to be Democrats that were
Speaker 3: still on TikTok. And these are people that had really important,
Speaker 3: you know, committee assignments where they were handling information regularly
Speaker 3: that was you know, of national security interest, you know,
Speaker 3: beyond classified you know sort of information. If they're having
Speaker 3: any sort of communications on their cell phones. You know,
Speaker 3: think about the permissions that we allow whenever we download
Speaker 3: one of these apps. You know, they have access to
Speaker 3: our files whatever, you know, our contact information, our text communication,
Speaker 3: you know, all sorts of things that we keep on
Speaker 3: our cell phones. There's so many people that operate, you know,
Speaker 3: people that operate their business and just have all their
Speaker 3: communications strictly limited to their cell phones. You know, China
Speaker 3: can go ahead and go, hey, you know, let's tap
Speaker 3: into you know, Corey Booker cell phone or somebody a
Speaker 3: member of Congress that's on like an important you know,
Speaker 3: military or national security based committee and wind up having
Speaker 3: access to all this information. It also opens up the
Speaker 3: door to potential blackmail. You know, if they're looking at
Speaker 3: your text messages and they can ascertain that you're in
Speaker 3: an affair or something, they could potentially compromise a high
Speaker 3: ranking member of you know, the US government into giving
Speaker 3: them information or into providing or in trying to influence,
Speaker 3: you know, favorable diplomacy for them, because they're because they
Speaker 3: have access to their information, they're able to blackmail them.
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