Latest / Brian Thomas / Tech Friday w/ Dave Hatter - Sponsored by Intrust IT - 12/19/2025
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: See the talk station.
- 0:03Speaker 2: Six thirty one on a Friday appointment listening time Tech
- 0:09Speaker 2: Front of Me Dave Hatt. It brought to you by
- 0:10Speaker 2: his company Interest dot Com. Interest it there to help
- 0:13Speaker 2: businesses with their computer related needs across the spectrum doing
- 0:16Speaker 2: a great job. Business Career says they are the best
- 0:18Speaker 2: in the business and of course Dave had to the
- 0:21Speaker 2: go to guy for all local media to contact when
- 0:23Speaker 2: it comes to guess Internet related things and tech things.
- 0:27Speaker 2: Welcome back, Dave hat to appreciate you joining the show
- 0:29Speaker 2: and thanks for sponsoring the segment.
- 0:31Speaker 1: Always my pleasure.
- 0:32Speaker 3: Brian, happy to be here and we're doing some good
- 0:35Speaker 3: out there every Friday.
- 0:36Speaker 2: I've been on a tear for a long long time,
- 0:38Speaker 2: but even more so of late dealing with our energy shortage.
- 0:41Speaker 2: The situation all driven by the idea of eliminating plant
- 0:45Speaker 2: food from our environment. If you get rid of the
- 0:46Speaker 2: word CO two and you quit calling in a pollutant,
- 0:49Speaker 2: everything becomes a lot easier because we've gotten so good
- 0:52Speaker 2: at eliminating genuine pollutants from our energy production. So you
- 0:55Speaker 2: can use natural gas or coal and scrub it. No,
- 0:57Speaker 2: we're not allowed to do that. It's CO two. That's
- 0:59Speaker 2: the problem. So we need a oh, I don't know,
- 1:02Speaker 2: a solar array. We need solar panels. But that has
- 1:07Speaker 2: created a security problem. So in the name of eliminating
- 1:10Speaker 2: plant food from the environment, we've invited the Chinese Communist
- 1:13Speaker 2: Party into our house and affecting our energy grid.
- 1:19Speaker 1: Yep, and we have.
- 1:20Speaker 3: Unfortunately, and to a large extent. You know, most of
- 1:24Speaker 3: the solar panels are maybe not most, many, if not most,
- 1:27Speaker 3: solar panels are not made in the United States. And
- 1:30Speaker 3: this is something we've talked about before, Brian, in a
- 1:33Speaker 3: tertiary way, with the idea that so much of our
- 1:37Speaker 3: society is now using physical things that have digital capabilities, right,
- 1:45Speaker 3: software embedded in Internet of things, smart devices, and so
- 1:49Speaker 3: much of this stuff comes from on shore, much of
- 1:52Speaker 3: it from China. And there's been concern for a long
- 1:55Speaker 3: time from people like SIZA and the FBI, DHS, myself
- 1:58Speaker 3: and others warning oft the provenance of this stuff, right,
- 2:03Speaker 3: it's coming from foreign countries, China in particular.
- 2:05Speaker 1: We know their adversarial I.
- 2:07Speaker 3: Mean, you and I just recently have talked about more
- 2:09Speaker 3: warnings of Chinese hacking and so forth. And you know,
- 2:13Speaker 3: the Chinese Communist Party does not seem to be very
- 2:16Speaker 3: friendly with us at this point. So the idea that
- 2:18Speaker 3: we're going to build our electrical grid and other sectors
- 2:22Speaker 3: of critical infrastructure with devices made in China, with devices
- 2:27Speaker 3: full of software made in China, and we've been doing
- 2:30Speaker 3: this for more than ten years, Brian, how many times
- 2:32Speaker 3: have we talked about software vulnerabilities?
- 2:34Speaker 1: Yeah, the Internet of things.
- 2:36Speaker 3: Software embedded in these things that have problems don't get updated.
- 2:40Speaker 3: So now you have this situation whereas we become more
- 2:42Speaker 3: and more reliant on solar power, and you have these
- 2:45Speaker 3: devices that are made elsewhere, there's the possibility that they
- 2:49Speaker 3: could be manipulated or just outright turned off.
- 2:52Speaker 2: Shocked, shocked? Did that what happen?
- 2:54Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 2:54Speaker 2: Okay, Daves. You always talk about Internet of things devices.
- 2:56Speaker 2: They don't think about privacy and security when they're building them.
- 2:59Speaker 2: They want a device out there to get the revenue
- 3:01Speaker 2: from it. Then like, oh my god, we forgot to
- 3:03Speaker 2: deal with the gaping hole and software which allow people
- 3:06Speaker 2: to use it to remotely hack into somebody's system that
- 3:08Speaker 2: exists because of a failure negligence. Perhaps, are you telling
- 3:13Speaker 2: me that we people don't think like you, Dave? And
- 3:15Speaker 2: I'll ask you directly. Don't you think the Chinese Communist Party,
- 3:18Speaker 2: in selling these devices hooked up to our grid, designed
- 3:22Speaker 2: them to be able to get into and soak updatea
- 3:25Speaker 2: or otherwise shut the system down. That was probably initial
- 3:28Speaker 2: motivation for these gadgets.
- 3:31Speaker 3: I don't think you can rule that out, Brian, right,
- 3:34Speaker 3: because here's the thing. You know, you can make an
- 3:37Speaker 3: argument or any so called Internet of things device that
- 3:40Speaker 3: one of its benefits besides whatever it's specifically designed to do,
- 3:44Speaker 3: is that it can be remotely controlled, remotely updated, and
- 3:47Speaker 3: by updated, additional functionality could potentially be added through the software. Right,
- 3:52Speaker 3: So there's always the potential positive nature of these things,
- 3:57Speaker 3: but you really hit the nail on the head most
- 4:00Speaker 3: of these devices. Now, again, when you get into the
- 4:02Speaker 3: industrial sector, it's a little different than the consumer stuff.
- 4:05Speaker 3: But when you get into these devices, they are not
- 4:08Speaker 3: focused on your privacy and security. You know, I have
- 4:11Speaker 3: been screaming about problems with software security. I mean, that's
- 4:14Speaker 3: really kind of how I got out of software engineering
- 4:16Speaker 3: and into cybersecurity. Is my concerns about in the software industry,
- 4:22Speaker 3: less focus on security, robustness, privacy than speed to market,
- 4:27Speaker 3: ease of use, market share, meeting, my budget, meeting my timeline,
- 4:31Speaker 3: that kind of thing, right, And I mean I used
- 4:33Speaker 3: to be that guy. I was only concerned does it
- 4:36Speaker 3: do what the customer asked for? Did I get it
- 4:38Speaker 3: done on time? And did I get it done on budget?
- 4:41Speaker 3: But over time, as we've become more reliant on this stuff,
- 4:44Speaker 3: it's more critical. Thankfully, folks like Siza out there have
- 4:47Speaker 3: the Secure by Design program trying to get software companies
- 4:50Speaker 3: to focus on security as a fundamental concept, not an
- 4:54Speaker 3: afterthought later. But yeah, you really hit the nail on
- 4:57Speaker 3: the head. Could there be backdoors built in these things
- 5:00Speaker 3: on purpose? You know, we talked recently about robots coming
- 5:04Speaker 3: from China and Chinese Communist Party back doors and the
- 5:07Speaker 3: robots that allow remote control. Again, not necessarily nefarious, but
- 5:11Speaker 3: could be, you know, And I know, before we run
- 5:13Speaker 3: out of time, I just remind folks Stuck's Net. Stuck's
- 5:16Speaker 3: Net was a virus created so that Iranium Uranium CENTERP
- 5:24Speaker 3: would appear to be operating correctly to the operator while
- 5:28Speaker 3: they were basically destroying themselves because the software was sending
- 5:31Speaker 3: bad information to the operators. So if people think this
- 5:35Speaker 3: kind of thing we're talking about here is far fetched,
- 5:37Speaker 3: it's already been done more than ten years ago. So
- 5:41Speaker 3: the idea that someday, if it's Taiwan, if it's let's
- 5:45Speaker 3: just cause chaos in the United States or whatever, that
- 5:48Speaker 3: a switch is going to be flipped and you know,
- 5:51Speaker 3: autonomous cars stop working or become weapons, the grid goes down,
- 5:56Speaker 3: the water turns off.
- 5:57Speaker 1: Sadly, this is the reality.
- 5:59Speaker 3: We're in as long as we continue to bury our
- 6:02Speaker 3: heads in the sand to the fact that we have
- 6:04Speaker 3: to stop buying this stuff from countries that are adversarial.
- 6:07Speaker 2: Another reason to not buy AI toys for your kids.
- 6:10Speaker 2: Coming up next with Dave hat or don't go away
- 6:12Speaker 2: experience a comfort and reliability with Zimmer Heating and air
- 6:15Speaker 2: Conditioning six one on a Friday. In round two with
- 6:19Speaker 2: intro dot COM's Dave hat Or get in touch with
- 6:22Speaker 2: interest it for your computer needs you business owners out there.
- 6:25Speaker 2: Dave had Ter, you've been harping on it for a
- 6:27Speaker 2: long time. Don't buy your kids AI toys or Internet
- 6:31Speaker 2: connected toys for Christmas. And here's another warning from NBC
- 6:34Speaker 2: News on the same topic.
- 6:36Speaker 3: Yeah, Brian, you know, every week after the show, I
- 6:40Speaker 3: try to post some notes to the articles that I
- 6:44Speaker 3: used to come up with these topics to discuss with you.
- 6:47Speaker 3: And the one we just talked about that's got a
- 6:50Speaker 3: lot more details in it, you know, the inverters and
- 6:53Speaker 3: the Chinese solar panels and so forth. But this, I
- 6:55Speaker 3: really want every parent and every grandparent to go read
- 6:59Speaker 3: this NBC News article because it's very detailed. It's got
- 7:03Speaker 3: some videos associated with it, and I think people will
- 7:06Speaker 3: literally be shocked. Yeah, I'm not that easy to be
- 7:09Speaker 3: shocked by this stuff anymore. And I mean, this is
- 7:13Speaker 3: so crazy. So yeah, I'm not a fan of the
- 7:16Speaker 3: Internet of things, and anyone that knows me knows that
- 7:18Speaker 3: for all the reasons we just talked about and that
- 7:20Speaker 3: I've been talking about for years now. And now you're
- 7:24Speaker 3: going to take an internet connected toy, something that might
- 7:27Speaker 3: look like a cute little teddy bear or a flower
- 7:29Speaker 3: or some other sort of thing, some popular character, and
- 7:33Speaker 3: you're going to add an interface to some sort of
- 7:36Speaker 3: AI chatbot, think.
- 7:37Speaker 1: Chat EPT, Deep Seek Rock whatever.
- 7:40Speaker 3: Right, So now it's not just connected to the Internet,
- 7:44Speaker 3: perhaps a camera, perhaps a microphone, probably both, possibly recording
- 7:50Speaker 3: conversations your kids are having with the toy, recording conversations
- 7:54Speaker 3: kids are having with their friends, recording conversations you are
- 7:57Speaker 3: having with your kids, you know, much of which you
- 8:00Speaker 3: may not necessarily want recorded and uploaded to some probably
- 8:05Speaker 3: Chinese AI engine that's doing who knows what with that data,
- 8:08Speaker 3: is storing it for who knows how long, selling it
- 8:11Speaker 3: to who knows who. So you know that risk was
- 8:14Speaker 3: there before with the general IoT stuff, but now you're
- 8:17Speaker 3: gonna connect to some kind of chatbot, and then the
- 8:20Speaker 3: list there's just such a laundry list of problems with this, right.
- 8:24Speaker 3: We've seen stories about kids that killed themselves after having
- 8:28Speaker 3: some extended conversation with one of these things. You know,
- 8:31Speaker 3: there's all kinds of recent studies coming out about kids'
- 8:35Speaker 3: mental health and social media and time on screens and
- 8:37Speaker 3: so forth. And when you really dig into this, right,
- 8:41Speaker 3: they talk about how this stuff is all new, it's
- 8:45Speaker 3: poorly tested, you don't understand the privacy policy, you don't
- 8:49Speaker 3: know where the data is going. Now most of these
- 8:51Speaker 3: things come from China. I'm sure that's not a surprise
- 8:54Speaker 3: to anyone that's listening to this, but.
- 8:58Speaker 1: It's just it's crazy.
- 9:00Speaker 3: So the Public Interest Research Group was one of the
- 9:02Speaker 3: organizations that tested this, and then NBC did a bunch
- 9:05Speaker 3: of testing. And again this article very well done in
- 9:09Speaker 3: terms of the amount of detail and the shocking shocking
- 9:12Speaker 3: information oh that they're putting out. It's it's nuts.
- 9:16Speaker 2: Well real quick. Here, let's summarize quickly how to light
- 9:19Speaker 2: and match specific instructions in a toys. A toy A
- 9:23Speaker 2: toy for children three years old and older teaches them
- 9:26Speaker 2: how to sharpen a knife. Here's here's here's one enthusiastically
- 9:31Speaker 2: responding to questions about sex and drugs research from some
- 9:34Speaker 2: group called p I r G, most notably the Alilo
- 9:38Speaker 2: Smart Bunny, apparently popular on Amazon. Build is the quote
- 9:42Speaker 2: best gift for little ones. Close kite close quote. They
- 9:45Speaker 2: say it will engage in long and detailed descriptions of
- 9:47Speaker 2: sexual practices, including kink, sexual positions, and sexual preferences. Asked
- 9:52Speaker 2: about impact play, let me know what that is? Described
- 9:55Speaker 2: as where one partner strikes another. The Bundy listed a
- 9:58Speaker 2: variety of tools used in b em leather flogger had
- 10:01Speaker 2: said flogger with multiple se went into a description of
- 10:04Speaker 2: bondage gear. This is a child's toy day.
- 10:08Speaker 1: Yes, a child's toy.
- 10:09Speaker 3: Your child is using it, probably in their own room
- 10:12Speaker 3: without your you know, oversight or knowledge. That is the
- 10:19Speaker 3: most extreme example. But you know, further up in the
- 10:22Speaker 3: same article, they say, you know that the thing I'm
- 10:25Speaker 3: quoting directly from this NBC News article. Melu manufactured by
- 10:29Speaker 3: the Chinese company Myriad and one of the top inexpensive
- 10:32Speaker 3: search results on Ai toys for kids on Amazon What
- 10:34Speaker 3: at times in tests with NBC News indicate it was
- 10:37Speaker 3: programmed to reflect Chinese Communist Party value.
- 10:40Speaker 1: I love this one. Why yeah, as.
- 10:42Speaker 3: Why Chinese president Xijing Ping looks like the cartoon character
- 10:45Speaker 3: Winni Depoo, a comparison that has become an Internet meme
- 10:48Speaker 3: because it's censored in China, and Malu responded that your
- 10:50Speaker 3: quote statement is extremely inappropriate and disrespectful, since malicious remarks
- 10:54Speaker 3: are unacceptable, and then when asked whether Taiwan is a country,
- 10:58Speaker 3: it said, quote, Thai Wane is an analienable part of
- 11:01Speaker 3: China that is an established fact, unquote or some variation
- 11:05Speaker 3: of the sentiment.
- 11:05Speaker 2: Nice propaganda coming from your child's toy.
- 11:09Speaker 3: So yeah, it's it's propaganda. It's you know, dangerous advice.
- 11:12Speaker 3: How to light a match, how to sharpen a knife,
- 11:15Speaker 3: where to find knives? We talked about that one before,
- 11:17Speaker 3: but then you know the kink angle and so forth,
- 11:20Speaker 3: and again you look at these photos, it's like a
- 11:23Speaker 3: cute little bunny. It lights up and this thing, that's
- 11:26Speaker 3: what this thing is exposing your kids to. So, you know,
- 11:29Speaker 3: Internet of things in general, I'm against, but now you
- 11:32Speaker 3: couple this with AI and the idea you're going to
- 11:34Speaker 3: hand this over to a kid think it's some sort
- 11:36Speaker 3: of innocuous little toy that they're going to play and
- 11:39Speaker 3: quote learn from unquote, and I mean again, you just
- 11:43Speaker 3: I can't stress enough how parents and grandparents need to
- 11:46Speaker 3: understand this and do not buy this stuff. Read this article.
- 11:50Speaker 3: It's a shocker. And then I encourage people go share
- 11:52Speaker 3: this article with your kids, your friends, you know, so
- 11:56Speaker 3: that folks realize the potential in danger they're exposing their
- 12:01Speaker 3: children to through these things.
- 12:03Speaker 2: Just go to LinkedIn dot com and search for Dave Hatt.
- 12:05Speaker 2: That's where he'll post this article. Six forty fifty five
- 12:08Speaker 2: KRCD talk station and finally Webster's word of the Year,
- 12:11Speaker 2: What's slop.
- 12:12Speaker 1: Not what you meant? Station six?
- 12:15Speaker 2: If you want pif youbo CARCD talk station, Happy Friday,
- 12:18Speaker 2: Tech Briddy, Dave Hat or interest it dot com Dave
- 12:21Speaker 2: real quick, Eric reminded me yesterday was your birthday, So
- 12:23Speaker 2: happy belated birthday from specifically Eric, who FB Facebook messaged
- 12:27Speaker 2: me instantly, and from the listening audience, I hope you
- 12:30Speaker 2: had a really nice one, and of course from behalf
- 12:32Speaker 2: of all of us, all of us, Joe, Me, all
- 12:35Speaker 2: my listening audience, thank you for what you do here
- 12:37Speaker 2: on the Morning show, and a very merry Christmas to
- 12:39Speaker 2: you and your family. So I just wanted to get
- 12:42Speaker 2: that out. The other thing I want you to do
- 12:43Speaker 2: for me. I saw that there's a lawsuit that was
- 12:46Speaker 2: filed against the state of Indiana, or rather against porn sites,
- 12:50Speaker 2: most notably porn Hub. I've got billions of people log
- 12:54Speaker 2: into that site anyway, They outright banned it as an
- 12:56Speaker 2: accessible site in the state of Indiana under the new
- 12:59Speaker 2: legislation seek to keep children protected from pornography, a notable
- 13:02Speaker 2: goal and a laudable goal. But now because of the
- 13:05Speaker 2: use of a VPN, people are getting around it just
- 13:07Speaker 2: by acting like they're in some other states. So the
- 13:10Speaker 2: age verification law doesn't come in Indiana says you can't
- 13:13Speaker 2: do that. You must use porn hub, and it's soon
- 13:15Speaker 2: to be every other provider of services must flag VPNs
- 13:20Speaker 2: and prevent VPNs from accessing porn in the state of Indiana.
- 13:23Speaker 2: That doesn't sound like a positive direction for privacy purposes day,
- 13:26Speaker 2: But maybe you can look into that and maybe commented
- 13:28Speaker 2: on it when we get back to the Tech Friday
- 13:31Speaker 2: segment after the first of the year.
- 13:33Speaker 3: So, okay, look, we can look into that, but yeah,
- 13:36Speaker 3: in general, I understand what.
- 13:38Speaker 1: They're trying to do.
- 13:39Speaker 3: Took the idea that you would ban the use of
- 13:41Speaker 3: VPNs is not a good thing.
- 13:45Speaker 2: Indeed, that was my conclusion immediately Slop Merriam Webster's new
- 13:50Speaker 2: Art of the Year Dave obviously tech related.
- 13:53Speaker 3: Yeah, so I thought this was kind of funny. So
- 13:57Speaker 3: there's there's been this talk of SLOP that AI feeds
- 14:01Speaker 3: off of the AI and that over time you go
- 14:04Speaker 3: towards something known in the business think of it as
- 14:06Speaker 3: entropy model collapse. You know, if essentially all the human
- 14:11Speaker 3: content has already been sucked up by these things, and
- 14:14Speaker 3: now people are using these tools to generate new content,
- 14:18Speaker 3: and this tool sucks down the content from that tool
- 14:22Speaker 3: generates some new content, and you get into this sort
- 14:25Speaker 3: of endless loop of now everything is just AI generated,
- 14:29Speaker 3: you just sort of slowly go down. And you know,
- 14:31Speaker 3: there have been lots of people talking about this for
- 14:33Speaker 3: some time. One of the concerns about these generative AI
- 14:37Speaker 3: models where we started out, you know, the chat GPTs
- 14:40Speaker 3: of the world, large language model based things, is that
- 14:43Speaker 3: over time, as they feed off of themselves, the quality
- 14:47Speaker 3: continues to go down because you have hallucinations, you have bias,
- 14:51Speaker 3: all these things we've talked about over the years. So
- 14:54Speaker 3: and there have been a lot of people pointing out
- 14:56Speaker 3: the sheer volume of videos and memes and so forth,
- 15:00Speaker 3: and how the Internet is now full of this stuff, right,
- 15:04Speaker 3: and it's just sort of taken over social media, and
- 15:08Speaker 3: again you get this thing feeding that thing. Here's something
- 15:11Speaker 3: that's not correct. Over time, you just go down. And
- 15:16Speaker 3: that's where this idea of slop come is in. So
- 15:18Speaker 3: someone I'm not sure who coined the term, someone coined
- 15:21Speaker 3: the term AI slop and it's kind of stuck. And
- 15:25Speaker 3: I think it's pretty relevant where we're at with all
- 15:28Speaker 3: of this stuff. And that's the word of the year.
- 15:31Speaker 3: So I think in light of the sheer volume of
- 15:35Speaker 3: Internet produced garbage, these cat memes and all this stuff
- 15:39Speaker 3: you just see everywhere now it's like, Yeah, this is
- 15:42Speaker 3: I think a pretty good indication of where we are
- 15:45Speaker 3: with this stuff at this point. So when you hear
- 15:48Speaker 3: someone say slop and obviously AI slop, sometimes people will
- 15:53Speaker 3: just throw out the term slop.
- 15:55Speaker 1: That's what they're talking.
- 15:56Speaker 3: About, and it'll be interesting because there's been so much
- 16:00Speaker 3: hype around this stuff, and I think a lot of
- 16:02Speaker 3: the hype has started to wear off and people are
- 16:06Speaker 3: starting to see that while these tools can provide a
- 16:09Speaker 3: lot of value, again, I'm not saying they can. I
- 16:13Speaker 3: think it's been way over hyped. I think the capabilities
- 16:16Speaker 3: are way over hyped, and there are concerns by people
- 16:18Speaker 3: way smarter than me that work in this field about
- 16:21Speaker 3: things like this idea of model collapse and SLOP and
- 16:24Speaker 3: the hallucinations, and you know, are these tools going to
- 16:28Speaker 3: suddenly replace all of us? I think the answer is no. Now,
- 16:33Speaker 3: as I've said many times, Brian, I don't know what's
- 16:35Speaker 3: in some lab somewhere. I only know what I see.
- 16:37Speaker 3: I mean, we use this stuff, but we understand how
- 16:41Speaker 3: to use it within the guardrails. We know what it
- 16:43Speaker 3: does and what it can't do, and where it makes
- 16:45Speaker 3: sense and where it doesn't make sense. So yeah, I
- 16:48Speaker 3: think this is an appropriate term, and it just kind
- 16:50Speaker 3: of makes me laugh a little because I've heard people
- 16:52Speaker 3: in the industry say it. But it's interesting that it's
- 16:55Speaker 3: now sort of caught on and bubbled up to the surface.
- 16:57Speaker 2: Well good, more people understand the concept, more people will
- 16:59Speaker 2: preppreciate the limitations of AI just based upon that term
- 17:03Speaker 2: in and of itself. And you thank you so much, Dave.
- 17:07Speaker 2: Had to looking forward to count of your twenty twenty
- 17:08Speaker 2: six and return of this segment, assuming you're going to
- 17:11Speaker 2: continue doing it with us. I consider it to be
- 17:13Speaker 2: so valuable what you do here on the fifty five
- 17:16Speaker 2: case mornings and of course throughout your career helping companies
- 17:20Speaker 2: avoid these types of problems interest it dot com. Thanks again, Dave,
- 17:24Speaker 2: and you up you up for next year?
- 17:27Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, you know, Brian, I always appreciate the opportunity
- 17:30Speaker 3: you guys give me to hopefully do some good out
- 17:32Speaker 3: there and enjoy chatting with you and Joe and appreciate
- 17:36Speaker 3: you and Joe and all your listeners. Merry Christmas, Happy
- 17:38Speaker 3: New Year, and I look forward to talking to you
- 17:41Speaker 3: in January.
- 17:42Speaker 2: That's welcome news, my friend. Merry Christmas to you, and
- 17:44Speaker 2: yours God bless you, sir. We'll get back