Latest / Brian Thomas / Tech Friday w/ Dave Hatter - Sponsored by Intrust IT - 3/27/2026

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Tech Friday w/ Dave Hatter - Sponsored by Intrust IT - 3/27/2026 · Brian Thomas

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Speaker 1: Set Ingram fifty five KRC Deep Talk station.
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Speaker 2: Six thirty on a Friday. That means it's time for
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Speaker 2: Tech Friday with Dave how It brought to you by
0:08
Speaker 2: his company intrust It and final Online at intrust it
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Speaker 2: dot com. And you want to find him. If you're
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Speaker 2: a business and you have computers, which I think is
0:16
Speaker 2: all of them, you may need Dave's help get you
0:18
Speaker 2: out of trouble or maybe even to set your systems
0:20
Speaker 2: up engaging best practices. Bottom line is, when it comes
0:23
Speaker 2: to business computing, intrust It are the best. You know,
0:25
Speaker 2: take my word for a business courier says, are the best.
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Speaker 2: Welcome back, Dave. Had to appreciate your willingness to come
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Speaker 2: on the program and wake us all up every Friday.
0:33
Speaker 2: And good to hear from you, brother.
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Speaker 1: Oh it's my pleasure, Brian. I look forward to it.
0:37
Speaker 1: And as I always say, hopefully we're doing some good
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Speaker 1: out there helping people avoid the scams that are rampant.
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Speaker 2: Indeed, well, there's this company Striker, and I think we
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Speaker 2: talked about this a little bit a little a little
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Speaker 2: bit a week or so ago. Reportedly an Iranian threat
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Speaker 2: group called Handala had hacked into this Striker system wreaking
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Speaker 2: havoc across the blood of the globe. So terrorist actions
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Speaker 2: don't have to be in the form of bombs or
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Speaker 2: you know, driving through crowds of people. When they can
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Speaker 2: do this kind of damage, let's talk about it, Dave.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, Brian, Well, that's exactly right. And this is the
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Speaker 1: point I've been trying to make to businesses and really
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Speaker 1: organizations of any sort for a long time. Especially a
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Speaker 1: lot of smaller organizations think, well, this will never happen
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Speaker 1: to me. I don't have anything we're stealing. You know,
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Speaker 1: they're going to go after the Kroger's and the P
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Speaker 1: and G's and the fifth thirds of the world. And
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Speaker 1: that's that's true to an extent. But you also have
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Speaker 1: to understand, and you'll see how I'm going to connect
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Speaker 1: this to this Striker story. These large companies have deep pockets,
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Speaker 1: lots of resources. They'll typically have cybersecurity experts on staff.
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Speaker 1: They have all the resources to hire as many nerds
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Speaker 1: like me as they want, right, Yeah, And they often,
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Speaker 1: typically because they've got these experts, understand the risks that
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Speaker 1: they're up against. Many medium and small organizations, businesses, nonprofits,
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Speaker 1: local governments just this past week, another city in California
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Speaker 1: was hit thirty three thousand residents, much of the city
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Speaker 1: down through a devastating ransomware attack. These smaller organizations don't
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Speaker 1: understand the risk, and the point I'm always trying to
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Speaker 1: make is, first off, honestly, there is nothing you can
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Speaker 1: do to make your organization completely impurposed. I don't care
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Speaker 1: how much you spend, I don't care what you do.
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Speaker 1: If someone is telling you they can make you completely
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Speaker 1: impurpose to an attack, unless you just completely get off
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Speaker 1: all technology, it's not possible. But what you can do
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Speaker 1: is make yourself a much more difficult target, and this
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Speaker 1: has never been more important. The second part of this
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Speaker 1: improve your defenses and build systems that are resilient so
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Speaker 1: that you can recover quickly in the event of an
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Speaker 1: outage for whatever reason. It doesn't have to be a
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Speaker 1: cyber attack. Systems fail right, things go down. So Striker
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Speaker 1: huge company, according to the reporting I've seen, somewhere around
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Speaker 1: fifty six thousand employees in sixty one countries, they get
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Speaker 1: hit with this Wiper attack. So Wiper is kind of
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Speaker 1: like ransomware, but instead of just encrypting your data and
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Speaker 1: then saying I'll let you decrypt it so you can
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Speaker 1: use your systems again. And as a reminder, folks, if
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Speaker 1: I encrypt your systems, right, they won't run. Data is
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Speaker 1: still there, but it's all scrambled up computers, systems won't operate, okay, right.
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Speaker 1: So as part of a ransomware attack, typically it's it's
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Speaker 1: a two pronged attack. I encrypt your data, which shuts
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Speaker 1: your systems down, and I steal slash X filtrate your data.
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Speaker 1: I copy the data so that if you have built
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Speaker 1: resilient systems, if you've listened to some nerd like me,
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Speaker 1: you can wipe the systems, restore your data, get back
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Speaker 1: to work without paying the ransom. I say, well that's nice,
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Speaker 1: but now I'm going to start to release your data
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Speaker 1: on the internet. Could be you know, sensitive employee information,
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Speaker 1: sensitive customer information, trade secrets, information protected by NBA, contractual
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Speaker 1: information with another company who knows what the consequence. You know,
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Speaker 1: information through regular regulation is protected HIPPA for example, Right Striker,
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Speaker 1: big company, deep pockets. The reporting is that over two
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Speaker 1: hundred thousand devices were basically shut down. I think about this,
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Speaker 1: two hundred thousand devices. I know. I said this the
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Speaker 1: last time we talked about it. Even if you have
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Speaker 1: resilient systems and they can be restored, if it took
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Speaker 1: ten minutes to restore each system, I think how long
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Speaker 1: that would do?
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I think that's the point you
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Speaker 2: brought up previously. But you said this is a wiper attack.
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Speaker 2: This isn't what you just described. This is just go
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Speaker 2: in and delete right right.
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Speaker 1: It's even worse than ransomware because there's no intention for
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Speaker 1: you to be able to pay a ransom to get
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Speaker 1: your data back. They've just basically destroyed the data in
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Speaker 1: some form, could be encrypted, could be deleted, whatever. So
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Speaker 1: now at best you have to recover all these systems.
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Speaker 1: So here's the latest reporting, Brian, because I know we'll
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Speaker 1: run out of time. Striker Manufacturing mostly restored after cyber attack.
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Speaker 1: This story is from yesterday. The attack occurred on the eleventh,
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Speaker 1: So for somewhere around fifteen days they've had no or
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Speaker 1: limited capacity. Fifty six What do you think it costs
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Speaker 1: for fifty six thousand employees to sit around doing nothing now?
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Speaker 1: And what do you think it costs to restore all
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Speaker 1: of this? So my bigger point is businesses or organizations
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Speaker 1: of all sides need to be thinking about what would
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Speaker 1: it cost me for extended downtime, and how can I
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Speaker 1: build systems that, if they're down for whatever reason, are
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Speaker 1: resilient and can recover quickly so I don't end up
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Speaker 1: out of business right because I can't recover there's so
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Speaker 1: much damage I can't recover, or it takes so long
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Speaker 1: to recover that I go out of business. And again,
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Speaker 1: this is a company that makes advanced medical devices. Now,
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Speaker 1: apparently none of the devices they make for their customers
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Speaker 1: were impacted. But again, imagine if fifty six thousand employees
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Speaker 1: had nothing to do for fifteen days. Could your organization
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Speaker 1: survive at fifteen day outage? I don't know, maybe, but
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Speaker 1: we've got to get serious about our defense. We've got
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Speaker 1: to get serious about resiliency. It has never been more important.
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Speaker 1: There's going to be more of this, you can count
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Speaker 1: on it, and we have to start thinking about building
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Speaker 1: systems that are robust and resilient because you're going to
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Speaker 1: see more of this and it's only going to cause
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Speaker 1: more societal impact as we get more and more reliant
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Speaker 1: on this digital technology.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, get in trusted interest I T and back up
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Speaker 2: your system. Apparently these are nefarious characters out there. Dave
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Speaker 2: Hadder will continue our conversation, bring it back and talk
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Speaker 2: about this grandmother who is jailed after being improperly identified
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Speaker 2: on artificial intelligence as a fraudser more with Dave Hatter
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Speaker 2: after I mentioned Rhino Shield serving the greater insane community.
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Speaker 1: From talk station.
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Speaker 2: May six, forty one fifty five KARCD talk station Love
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Speaker 2: this time of the week, talking with Dave Hatter intrustit
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Speaker 2: dot com. Thank you for sponsoring a segment and bringing
6:35
Speaker 2: all this great information for us and warning us about
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Speaker 2: the dangers of AI. Got two articles, this one and
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Speaker 2: the next segment. Let's start with a grandma on Tennessee. Dave, Yeah, this.
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Speaker 1: Is a really disturbing story. Brian, grandma and Tennessee is arrested,
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Speaker 1: which is wild because some AI system some facial recognition, right,
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Speaker 1: we're talking facial recognition specifically. You and I have been
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Speaker 1: talking about facial recognition for a long long time and
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Speaker 1: many of the issues with it bias and the algorithms
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Speaker 1: bias and the data problems like this. So this woman,
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Speaker 1: Angela Lips, spent nearly six months in jail. AI saw
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Speaker 1: for Linkder to North Dakota Bank fraud. It's really difficult
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Speaker 1: for me to understand exactly how as you read through
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Speaker 1: the reporting on this, that the police weren't able to
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Speaker 1: do some of the required legwork to see that. Frankly,
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Speaker 1: it could not have been her.
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Speaker 2: There's always that, But.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so, you know, it says. She remained in
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Speaker 1: jail for nearly four months without bail while awaiting extradition,
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Speaker 1: charged with four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying
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Speaker 1: information and four counts of theft. Officers used facial recognition
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Speaker 1: to identify the suspect, is Lips, detective wrote in court
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Speaker 1: documents looked appeared to match the suspect based on facial features,
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Speaker 1: body type, and hairstyle. Lips said no one from the
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Speaker 1: Fargo Police Department contacted her before rest. Yeah, and this
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Speaker 1: is where it gets crazy. So then her attorney, Jay Greenwood, said,
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Speaker 1: but if the only thing you have is facial recognition,
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Speaker 1: I don't want to dig a little deeper. Yeah, I'd say,
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Speaker 1: it's like good, good thinking on her attorney'sad we have
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Speaker 1: so the reporting, says Lips, was later released on Christmas
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Speaker 1: Eve after Greenwood obtained her bank records and presented them
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Speaker 1: to investigators. The record showed Lips was more than twelve
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Speaker 1: hundred miles away in Tennessee at the time. The investigator
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Speaker 1: said the fraud occurred. It's difficult for me to understand
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Speaker 1: how it could take almost six months to get that
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Speaker 1: information and why her attorney would have to do.
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Speaker 2: I am with you one hundredercent. That's exact same question
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Speaker 2: was swirling around my melon when you were talking about this.
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Speaker 1: But the really disturbing part, It goes on to say, worse.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it gets worse. Whips is now back home.
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Speaker 1: Last experience had lasting consequences. While Jail was unable to
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Speaker 1: pay her bills, she lost her home or car and
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Speaker 1: her dog. Oh no, it was not even got an
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Speaker 1: apology from the Fargo police. Now this is not the
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Speaker 1: only time something like this has happened. This story. The
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Speaker 1: same story goes on to say, apparently in October, and
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Speaker 1: AI system apparently mistook a Baltimore High school student's bag
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Speaker 1: of Dorita's for a firearm call. The police. Police show up,
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Speaker 1: pull guns on this kid, make him get on his knees,
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Speaker 1: handcuff him, search him, find nothing, and then Brian, before
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Speaker 1: we run out of time, let me read another headline
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Speaker 1: to you, leaked emails suggests RING plans to expand quote
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Speaker 1: search party surveillance beyond dogs. This is the thing that
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Speaker 1: caused all the controversy on the supuper Bowl, where these
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Speaker 1: awesome ring cameras are going to help you find your
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Speaker 1: lost dog. Right, But here you go leaked emails I'm
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Speaker 1: read quoting from this article, Ring CEO told staff the
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Speaker 1: feature is quote first for finding dogs unquote, indicating plans
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Speaker 1: to expand. Now couple that your neighbor's friendly ring camera
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Speaker 1: drops the dime on you through its bad facial recognition,
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Speaker 1: and next thing you know, you're going to Fargo to
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Speaker 1: jail for some crime you didn't commit because the ring
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Speaker 1: AI thinks it's you. Wow. Yeah, So you know, I'm
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Speaker 1: not a fan of the Internet of Things akas or devices,
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Speaker 1: as you know, Brian. And this is just one more
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Speaker 1: concrete example where I'm trying to help people connect the
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Speaker 1: dots about why we really need to slow down with
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Speaker 1: this stuff. And despite the fact that it may seem
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Speaker 1: like it's good for society, it brings convenience, it's going
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Speaker 1: to catch all these criminals and so forth. We just
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Speaker 1: see example after example. Now I'm sure miss lips will
10:18
Speaker 1: probably end up suing someone and they'll get ye, which
10:22
Speaker 1: which is going to cost the taxpayers. Right, that's gonna
10:24
Speaker 1: the taxpayers are the one that's going to pay her
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Speaker 1: if this happens. And I mean, the whole thing is
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Speaker 1: just sad. Uh. We really need to slow down with
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Speaker 1: the stuff. We need to think about the long term
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Speaker 1: consequences of it. It's nowhere near perfect as we see.
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Speaker 1: And you know, here's yet another example of really negative
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Speaker 1: consequences for a person and m.
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Speaker 2: Law enforcement taking the easy way out. I recognition of
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Speaker 2: her or presumption that it is her, that was just
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Speaker 2: the one data point, one element in what might be
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Speaker 2: probable cause. But you know what, maybe we should check
10:57
Speaker 2: and find out where she was. Maybe we should give
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Speaker 2: her a call and see if she's got an alibi.
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Speaker 2: Maybe she's not the person. That's just lazy law enforcement
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Speaker 2: right there, absolutely.
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Speaker 1: Lazy, little hard to understand. Maybe we hit this ring
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Speaker 1: thing next week because I think it's crazy and disturbing.
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Speaker 1: And again, people are buying these devices and plugging them
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Speaker 1: in with little thought to the potential consequences to them
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Speaker 1: and others because they're cool and they bring convenience. And
11:23
Speaker 1: yet we see time and time again these problems that
11:26
Speaker 1: frankly are often not reported on outside the tech press,
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Speaker 1: and I think it's more people start to start to
11:32
Speaker 1: understand the potential risks and consequences. I'm hoping we will
11:36
Speaker 1: slow down with these things.
11:37
Speaker 2: Hey man, I'm going to station six if you want
11:40
Speaker 2: to think about krcdtalkstation interest dot com as we find
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Speaker 2: Dave Hatter, my wife pointed out, our ring camera is
11:48
Speaker 2: called Liam, Liam the perpetually barking doverman. Dave had a
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Speaker 2: real quick here. Maybe you can address it next week.
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Speaker 2: I was kind of freaked out this going back to
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Speaker 2: your Internet of Things device comment. I don't want to
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Speaker 2: take up too much time because they even know the
12:00
Speaker 2: story to talk about. But the FCC earlier this week
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Speaker 2: said wireless routers sold in the United States should be
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Speaker 2: avoided if they contain anything from foreign nations national security determination.
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Speaker 2: Routers produced in a foreign country, regardless of the nationality
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Speaker 2: of the producer, pose an unacceptable risk to the national
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Speaker 2: security the United States of America and to the safety
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Speaker 2: and security of US persons. And of course, the article
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Speaker 2: points out that what all the routers are basically made
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Speaker 2: in foreign countries anyway, so we're left without really a
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Speaker 2: solution to the problem they identified.
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Speaker 1: Dave. It's a tricky problem, Brian, And you know we've
12:32
Speaker 1: talked many times in the past, and yeah, I think
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Speaker 1: we should dig into this more next week because there's
12:36
Speaker 1: something I've been talking about a lot. You know, people
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Speaker 1: work remotely now, right, a lot. So even if your
12:43
Speaker 1: company is doing all the right things, if people are
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Speaker 1: working remotely, you on many cases maybe maybe they've got
12:50
Speaker 1: a corporate issued notebook or something. But the equipment from
12:54
Speaker 1: these remote sites, whether it's a hotel room, it's their
12:56
Speaker 1: home office, it's Panera, you don't know what that is, right.
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Speaker 1: And the point they're making here is so much of
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Speaker 1: this equipment comes from off shore. It could have back
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Speaker 1: doors in it. We've talked many times over the years
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Speaker 1: about warnings of Chinese Communist Party hackers and the telecom
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Speaker 1: system and the potential or chaos and destruction that could cause.
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Speaker 1: If you know, if you turn off the telecom system,
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Speaker 1: you might as well just turn off the power grid too,
13:19
Speaker 1: because all this stuff runs over the telecom systems, right, yes,
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Speaker 1: it does. So the point they're making here is, you know,
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Speaker 1: we've we've got to get serious about building stuff that
13:29
Speaker 1: is secured by design, that is coming from trusted manufacturers,
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Speaker 1: where you don't have soft doors with back door and
13:35
Speaker 1: it's back doors in it where it not only would
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Speaker 1: allow spying, but could be remotely shut off. I mean,
13:40
Speaker 1: imagine if a foreign adversary could just suddenly shut off
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Speaker 1: all of the routers that came from their country, or
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Speaker 1: all of the cars made from their country, or whatever
13:51
Speaker 1: it is. Right, we've got reshoring critical, you know, advanced
13:55
Speaker 1: manufacturing critical. We gotta gotta think critical infrastructure. We got
13:59
Speaker 1: to think national security. And because everything is digital, because
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Speaker 1: this stuff is embedded and everything. Now, you know, we've
14:06
Speaker 1: got to get focused on this stuff. You know, this
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Speaker 1: has been a concern of mine for a long time.
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Speaker 1: I'm glad that we're starting to try to raise awareness
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Speaker 1: on this. You know, the Biden administration had come out
14:16
Speaker 1: with a program similar to Energy Star, and I'm drawing
14:18
Speaker 1: a blank on what it is. We talked about it.
14:20
Speaker 1: I can't think of the name. But the idea is
14:22
Speaker 1: that American manufacturers would start to build things and they
14:26
Speaker 1: would get a sense of a certification like Energy Star
14:29
Speaker 1: telling you that it's safe. Yeah, as opposed to buying
14:32
Speaker 1: you know, something you found at best Buy or Walmart
14:34
Speaker 1: or whatever that has who knows what in it. So
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Speaker 1: this is going to be costly to fix this problem.
14:42
Speaker 1: But you know, again we have gotten addicted in America
14:44
Speaker 1: to cheap garbage. Yes, and we've got to start thinking.
14:49
Speaker 1: Is now that everything is smart quote unquote hahaha. Everything
14:52
Speaker 1: is an Internet of Things device. It's all hackable, it's
14:55
Speaker 1: all got software, and the software can have vulnerabilities. The
14:59
Speaker 1: hardware can have vulnerable abilities by design, Brian, by design
15:02
Speaker 1: to spy on you and to frankly, at some future point,
15:06
Speaker 1: have a have a kill switch that could be flipped remotely,
15:09
Speaker 1: and then what you know, imagine if I don't know
15:13
Speaker 1: how many routers, Wi Fi routers, switches that sort of
15:17
Speaker 1: thing there are out there. It non enterprise great stuff
15:21
Speaker 1: that small businesses are using, individuals are using, but obviously
15:25
Speaker 1: it's in the tens to hundreds of millions. Imagine if
15:28
Speaker 1: all of those were just remotely shut off one day.
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Speaker 2: It's certainly a possibility. You've identified this as a real
15:34
Speaker 2: threat for years now, Dave, and you know I'm sitting
15:37
Speaker 2: here looking at this article about you know, we need
15:39
Speaker 2: to reshure this and get safe routers manufactured here so
15:41
Speaker 2: they're not loaded up with back doors. As you point out,
15:44
Speaker 2: where's Elon Musk. The man's got a trillion dollars if
15:46
Speaker 2: he had he has a guaranteed money making business here
15:50
Speaker 2: because he's got the money to create a US manufacturer
15:53
Speaker 2: of routers company that could be declared safe, and everyone
15:56
Speaker 2: and his brother will wine up to buy one because
15:58
Speaker 2: of this.
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Speaker 1: In my mind, Brian, one of the single most important
16:02
Speaker 1: things we have to do as a country is resure
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Speaker 1: advanced manufacturing so that anything that has software in it
16:09
Speaker 1: can and is made in the United States by trusted manufacturers.
16:14
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean it won't be hacked, doesn't mean it can't
16:16
Speaker 1: be hacked, but at least you don't have to have
16:19
Speaker 1: the fear that is there a back door built into
16:22
Speaker 1: this that would allow it foreign adversary to control it,
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Speaker 1: including turn it off at some an opportune time for you.
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Speaker 2: Maybe we got to get serious about this, gets serious
16:32
Speaker 2: about it critical. Maybe we can dive onto this more detail.
16:34
Speaker 2: Maybe we have a recommendation on a router that we
16:36
Speaker 2: might have that in the world that's safe. Right now,
16:38
Speaker 2: Dave had her real quick, all right, I'm sorry, brother.
16:43
Speaker 2: Next week thanks Signal ninety nine and Corey Bowman coming
16:46
Speaker 2: up next violence in downtown Cincinnati on opening day, Dave
16:49
Speaker 2: had her God bless you, sir. Interest it dot com
16:51
Speaker 2: right back.
16:52
Speaker 1: We put the app