Good morning everybody!

I was on with Matt this morning and we had a good discussion about Doom Scrolling and how it is affecting the mental health of people and society in general.  We also discussed Mark Zuckerberg's view on censorship on Facebook.  Let's get into my conversation with Matt on WGAN.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

[00:00:00] Craig Peterson: So we put on some more software because they had been using Malware Bytes, which is something I really like, but it's not a panacea. They switched over to the stuff that we had that we've been providing and we found a Chinese backdoor.

Hey, good morning, everybody. I am planning on doing a show this weekend, even though it is on the 4th of July.

So we'll see how it goes today. But that was me with Matt. This morning, doing voice impersonations as well, which I usually don't do. It was kind of fun. Anyhow, we covered, I think, three of the best topics of the week,

Matt Gagnon: Seven 30, six WGAN morning news on Wednesday morning. It is 64 degrees in Portland, and we're joined now by Craig Peterson, our tech guru, who joins us at this time every Wednesday to go over the world of technology and the fascinating world it is.

Is it not Craig?

Craig Peterson: It is each end every Wednesday, as well as Saturdays at one.

[00:01:00]Matt Gagnon: Now that also is radio professionalism. He's teasing and previewing. The fact that he has a show on Saturday at one. To make sure you hear it here on this fine station WGAN which you can listen to by telling your Alexa to listen to news radio WGAN at any time, any place anywhere for any reason.

Now, Craig, I want to start at the bottom of the list that you sent me every Wednesday. There's usually a good nugget or two, and I'm going to start right at the bottom here today because there's a very interesting story that you had sent me about doom scrolling and how it's slowly eroding your mental health. It's screwing everyone up.

[00:02:00] And I know that this is sort of tied to Coronavirus. But I gotta tell ya, several people that I know I'm not gonna name names or anything here, but, they, they do that like, and they have done that for years. It doesn't, it isn't just. It isn't just coronavirus, although that's certainly amplified it.

Craig Peterson: Yeah, not to name names, but I have someone that I've been married to for.

Matt Gagnon: Well, okay. You dimed out your wife. I'm going to do the same then because my, my wife and I constantly fight over things that she reads and, you know, she's trying to be an informed person and, you know, check out the world around her and stuff and it just emotionally manipulates her all the time.

And then we get into the. You know, uncomfortable conversations about stuff like that. And it just, it, it becomes a problem, particularly with, you know, she's not terribly bad at it, but even if you're sitting there all day in the morning, and then in the evening before you go to bed and you're just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and checking out all these things.

[00:03:00] Craig Peterson: Well, then it didn't, didn't use to be so bad, man. You know what? It was bad enough. Right. But now what's all of the news about the news is about this old COVID-19 the worlds about to come to but it's been about all, you know, news consumption, generally speaking, you know, you see all the, just horrible things in the world and all the things that, you know, cause you emotional distress or whatever, and then you just can't stop and you get into a rabbit hole and your aunt. So tell me a little bit about doom scrolling and why an end. And if it's not COVID-19 it's the riots in the streets and really a lot of bad news out. There's still a lot.

There's a lot of talk about this so much so that, as you mentioned here, there's a name for it, which is called doom scrolling and the signs of it includes, you know you're not only doing it to every spare minute, but you're not going to sleep at night. You're sitting there going through this reading again and again, and you end up in these what the New York times, Kevin Rose is calling a doom surfing or falling into deep morbid rabbit holes.

Filled with coronavirus content. One of the things I thought we would get out of the internet, this was a long time ago was that you know, we, we would have this wonderful new town square where we could all talk and engage.

Matt Gagnon: We had that for a time and now it's gone.

[00:04:00] Craig Peterson: We did. Absolutely. And now what's happened is that the internet is figured out, Hey, wait a minute. Now we can make bucks off of you if we can keep your eyeballs on us. And what're some of the better ways to keep your eyeballs on it? And of course the doom and gloom or some of the things that can be very, very addictive.

To all of us. And then you add in all of the psychology that the gaming community has helped over the years to keep you involved. It's so bad that there are people mostly in South Korea. Yeah. But so bad that people have died rather than eat or use the bathroom. Okay. Just to be able to play a game online. So we, we've gotta be very, very careful with this because it's a psychological cycle we're getting into right now.

Matt Gagnon: That's going to be very hard to get out. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's amazing how much of your life is lost with doing nothing? Just scrolling around looking and reading and things that only manipulate you emotionally and make you miserable all the time. And yet people can't stop doing it. It's, it's a fascinating, fascinating thing, that I've, I've noticed over the years.

[00:05:00]And isn't it amazing Craig, anytime the power goes out or something, have you ever noticed this about, about yourself? I certainly have like, whatever you no longer have access to these things, your, your phone died. Cause he didn't charge it and all that kind of stuff. You know, you go to bed at like nine o'clock and it just doesn't sit there and preoccupy yourself with this stuff over and over again forever.

And I think you're a happier person for it.

Craig Peterson: I agree. And why would you need to just tune in to WGAN and you'll get all of the news you need.

Matt Gagnon: Indeed. All right. Well, we're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech guru, who is joining us to talk about the world of technology as he always does. Craig, what is the average cost of a data breach?

Craig Peterson: Oh, my gosh, this is something. Yeah. It's been going up and up except you about 20 bucks. I think now $20.

Matt Gagnon: 20 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:06:00] Craig Peterson: The latest statistics it's out there right now is showing that the average cost is 116 million. Dollars, which was just absolutely amazing. This is for companies publicly traded, even on the pink sheets, private companies, of course, don't have to really information.

So we're not sure that those sites are criminals out there going after their usual targets, customer names, addresses, email addresses. And it's very, very costly because of all of the new regulations that are in place, but also because of what it does to your business. We're still seeing most businesses that get breached being out of business within six months.

Matt Gagnon: Wow.

Craig Peterson: What are we doing about it? You know, I, I have another client that we picked up here just about two weeks ago, and we put in some. More advanced malware software and you know me, right. I keep telling people that the stuff you buy from staples, the stuff Microsoft gives you just is not enough, right?

[00:07:00] Norton. Ain't gonna cut it and et cetera, et cetera. So we put on some more software cause they had been using Malwarebytes, which is something I really like, but it's not a panacea. And they switched over to the stuff that we had that we've been providing. And we found a Chinese backdoor. And what that means is that the Chinese now had full access to everything on their network whenever. They wanted it.

Now, this was, or is, I should say a contractor for the department of defense, a subcontractor for the department of defense. It's just, it's insane. What's going on out there? What does that cost them? What does it cost to the company when the Chinese now have access to all of your plans, all of your intellectual property or your production schedules, all of your clients, everything. That means they now can go into competition with you and producing your designs for the 10th of the price.

[00:08:00] And it's all just because most of these companies aren't spending a little bit of time and a little bit of money just to save them this average of $160 million from a single data breach. They're not spending time and money to make sure their networks and systems are secured. And I'm very, very concerned because of what is been happening with working at home.

And this is a trend. We talked about it, right? that these computers that are in our homes, home computers are not secure. And so a lot of businesses are yes. Well, we gave our employees all a laptop to take home and we use the VPN we're safe. That was me quoting.

Matt Gagnon: That's an excellent voice

[00:09:00] Craig Peterson: Yes thank you. In reality, what they just did was make their networks in the business, even less safe because so many VPNs allow the kids gaming computers and  who knows what that teenage boy is looking at online. All of those websites now have access through that VPN to your office. So it's, it's very expensive.

Cybercriminals have tripled their game here in the last three months and we've got to be a lot more cautious going forward.

Matt Gagnon: Really quickly. Craig, before you go, I did want to ask you one last question here and it's about what's going on with Facebook. And this, this boycott the advertiser boycott.

That's going on, they're adapting, you know, a little bit and changing what they're doing with censorship on the platform as a result in response to that. Tell me what's happening.

Craig Peterson: Yeah. We mentioned porous advertising earlier. Great ways to make money online. Well, Facebook, of course, makes money through advertising. And Matt did you notice I was praising Zuckerberg for this, but they're just about two weeks ago. He was saying, Hey, listen, we cannot be online being the arbitrator of who says what on the platform?

[00:10:00] Matt Gagnon: Yeah.

Craig Peterson: Did you?

Matt Gagnon: I did.

Craig Peterson: Okay. So one of those largest advertisers in the world, yeah. Unilever spends eight-point $2 billion, at least that's what they spent last year. So 8.2 billion annually joined Verizon the North face and Ben and Jerry's. Boycotting advertising on Facebook until these are going to be my words here. Okay. Boycotting advertising on Facebook until they started to censor the president. They're very upset that Facebook was not censoring conservative speech and they pulled their advertising.

[00:11:00]Now. Thank goodness. Zuckerberg can be really Neely worded to be because he came out and said that Facebook would remove content. No matter if a politician or a government official says it. If we determine it may lead to violence or deprive people of the right to vote. So it doesn't look like he's going to be doing the types of things that Twitter has been doing, wherein George Orwellian fashion, they came up with a new term where it is so-called fact-checking that is not fact-checking looks like they're going to be blocking things that maybe deprive people of the right to vote or violence.

But again, who's the decider here.

Matt Gagnon: Yeah. Great question. And one that I'm sure you're going to answer on Saturday at one. When you are on this very station to go through these with more depth and detail, Craig Peterson our tech guru. We appreciate it as always. And we'll talk again next week, Sir.

Craig Peterson:  Hey, take care. Thanks, Matt. Bye-bye.

Matt Gagnon: You bet. All right, coming up next.

[00:12:00]Craig Peterson: All right, everybody. So I am planning on doing a show, as I mentioned, make sure you are on my email list. So you find out about all of the free pieces of training, everything else I'm doing. Go to Craig peterson.com/subscribe. Take care. Everybody. I hope you have a  great independence day celebration, and maybe you had a decent Canada day celebration as well, if you're from the Great White North, eh? Take care, everybody. Bye-bye.

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