Craig Peterson - Secure Your Business, Your Privacy, and Save Your Sanity

Welcome!

Craig discusses the disinformation campaigns by Russia and China and how they can interfere with our electoral process. 

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

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Read More:

Window Swap Lets You Enjoy the View From Other People's Windows Around the World

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

Researcher Finds New Office Macro Attacks for MacOS

New cars can stay in their lane—but might not stop for parked cars

Here’s why Apple believes it’s an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China

Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All

Information Operations Spotlighted at Black Hat as Election Worries Rise

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Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] You've heard about Tik Tok and all of the problems there did, there are hundreds of apps that are tracking you and your data.

Hey, it's Craig Peterson. Thanks for joining us here on the radio, online on my website, all over the place. I really appreciate it. And yeah. I love it. If you would subscribe to my podcast, you can do that. Of course, by going to your favorite podcast platform, there's many out there and I'm on pretty much all of them would love to have you join me there.

Tik Tok is a real problem right now, many people just aren't aware of what's really been going on. Tik Tok is a Chinese built and run piece of software that has been caught multiple times grabbing our personal information. Things like who our contacts are, who we are contacting frequently, even things like phone numbers, it addresses the whole shooting match check top basically is.

Kind of evil. And in fact, what Tik Tok has been doing is sending out and information to China, where it's now available to the socialist government over in China, the Chinese communist party, which is of course an issue of a very big issue. At least it should be for all of us. Is that data that you have been sharing.

Maybe unbeknownst to you with Tik Tok is in their hands forever. This means the rest of your life. So think about it. If you've got on tick-tock a few years ago, maybe you were younger than right now, you're in your twenties. You're off of work. Many of these people, these young kids that are now out in the job field in the job world are where.

some of them might be security specialists. Some of them might be working for the federal government or they're sensitive businesses. Just think of all of the manufacturers that are selling to the DOD. So now these same kids that were kids just a few years ago are now adults out there in the real world.

And Tik Tok has all of this information about them that they can steal. They can sell it. They can use to figure out how can I get into that company? Hey, I want to get into Boeing and their jet engine division. And once I'm in the jet engine division, I can poke around a little bit. I can get information on some of the jet engines that are used by the military and then take all of that and put it together.

Have you noticed how so many of these Chinese military jets, even their aircraft carriers look a lot like ours? Some of them actually have plug and play replacement Smiths that can be used for some of our US military equipment. Now they're carriers, not so much. The carriers have some of our techs acknowledging in fact, a lot of them in there, but they still haven't mastered a few things like the catapult, et cetera.

Hey, there's another opportunity to steal from us. Think about the whole idea behind socialism. The bottom line is everybody is equal except for the people at the top. There they're more equal, right? Read animal farm, great books, or George Orwell, but they are more equal than everybody else. So the rules don't really apply to them.

Actually that's been happening here too. Hasn't it? But the rules, I don't apply to them. And for the rest of the population, they're pushing down your ability to start businesses. They control what you say, what you think, who you are associate with. All of the stuff is controlled. if it's controlled, if I can't just go out and create a new product, go out and hire who I want and do whatever I might want to do.

Guess what? There's no innovation. So in a socialist country, how do you innovate? the bottom line is theft, right? That's exactly what China is doing right now. They don't have the innovation. They don't have the motivation for innovation because unless you are high up inside the party apparatus, you are not going to get a chance to do anything.

We could get into a lot of other stuff here, wild way, why there are problems with them and what has been doing, the Chinese government has given Huawei more money. Then the entire world's five G implementation is going to cost. In other words, the Chinese government went and gave Huawei enough money to equip the entire world for free with Chinese five G technologies.

How do you think that works? Where do you think that comes from? it comes from the fact that. They want to get the fingers into everything, know what's going on, have all of this technology available to them. Everything. Yeah. Internet. I see ICM bees, the Intercontinental ballistic missiles. We gave them the technology to launch missiles against the US.

If you can believe that, right? That's a real problem. If he asked me, let's get into this app story here. It is absolutely fascinating. And the bottom line is, Oh my gosh. There is so much of they're doing that we don't know about now. I'm not just talking about the Chinese here. But I'm talking about our government.

there are restrictions in place for the US government. They do not allow them to do certain things. One of those things is to track us as civilians. Now here's where the problem comes in. How can they track us if they're not allowed to track us? they've got to work around. So I want to go to this article from all of all places travel, excuse me, Android authority.

We got it up on the screen right now, so you can check it out yourself and they have a report out that talks about hundreds of apps. That has hidden tracking software that's being used by the government. how does this work? if the government, if our government can track us, how are they going to track us?

The bottom line, they want to, we know already about the five eyes, the seven eyes, the. What is it? 14 eyes or 11 eyes. I'm trying to remember. These are countries that spy on each other citizens for the other country. So for instance, the US federal government cannot spy on us as individuals, unless we are suspects in a case bottom line.

And so then they can go to the court, they can get court orders, they can examine what's going on. You can't just blanket, grab all of our information, funnel it into some database based somewhere, and then use it for whatever they want to ultimately write, which can obviously be a problem. It goes back to show me the man I'll show you the crime.

what they're pointing out in this secular article is something that is very. Concerning because there's a new report that came out from the wall street journal here in the last week and exposes that apparently there has been a new development in mobile phone tracking. it's legal for businesses to keep information on us.

We've known that I've had data brokers on my show as many as 10 years ago, frankly, where I was talking with them about, okay, what data can you gather? Where's the legality here. Basically a private company can gather almost any information they want on this. Look at Equifax. What happened there, where we had all of these data breaches, right?

We had over a hundred million people's personally identifiable information stolen, and it wasn't just from the US, it was stolen on Canadian citizens and many other citizens that were here in the US that were there in Canada. So they were collecting the data. The federal government cannot collect the data.

Do you see where I'm going? can you see that the mix here? You're here. It's coming. Here's coming. So what does the federal government do? It buys the data from data brokers. So what are the, what they've exposed this last week is that apparently there is at least one federal contractor that has been putting in government tracking software in more than 500 mobile applications?

Now, if that's not something that kind of blows your mind and should frankly, so in this case, I, again, you'll find this on Android authority. You'll find it and more about it on the wall street journal. But the contractor, in this case, is a Virginia based company called and normally six LLC. And it's pain, mobile app developers to include it's.

In house tracking code within their apps. Now the app developers don't have to disclose that this tracking code is in there. They don't have to disclose that this data is then being sold to the federal government. no. They just aggregate the data and they sell it to the US government. It's happening and it's illegal, absolutely legal.

The wall street journal story goes on more and more. And although this company anomaly six would not disclose the apps that their code is embedded in and where it has the partnerships, the wall street journal could not figure out the details through other methods. At least at the time, they published the article.

This is a bit of an issue here. Okay. App developers don't need to disclose that there is this data, broker technology built into it. So you could have one or even dozens of apps with this government tracking code. Right there on your mobile device and you would have no idea. Absolutely amazing.

Absolutely amazing. What's going on here. So that's the basics of what you need to know, By the way, anomaly six says all of this data is actually anonymized. So there's nothing to worry about. Nothing. Ignore the man behind the curtain, but as the best and brightest listening to my show for years, there's something called de-anonymizing that allows you to pretty easily take any data set and figure out who the people really are within that data set, even if it is supposedly anonymous.

Hey, when we come back, I got to tell you about this cool new app that I found. It's actually a website and we're going to talk about new Microsoft office attacks.

You're listening to Craig Peterson. Thanks for joining us.

Stick around. We've got a lot more coming up here or right after the break.

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More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Welcome!

Craig discusses these new macro attacks from MS Office against MacOS and why it is not as big a deal as the media are making it out to be.

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

---

Read More:

Window Swap Lets You Enjoy the View From Other People's Windows Around the World

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

Researcher Finds New Office Macro Attacks for MacOS

New cars can stay in their lane—but might not stop for parked cars

Here's why Apple believes it's an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China

Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All

Information Operations Spotlighted at Black Hat as Election Worries Rise

---

Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] We've got a resurrection of a problem we've had for many years. Thanks. Microsoft looks like macros are hitting max now.

Yes indeed. You thought you were safe by using a Mac. You usually are. Okay. The bottom line, Apple Macintoshes are great pieces of equipment. They were developed on software. That was developed at universities, that Unix operating system. It is the operating system. The internet was designed on. It's still the operating system that is used to run the backbone of the internet.

So if you're a school and you have a lot of people, students, and others, who would. Kind of like to do the Ferris Bueller thing and change their grade. You better have a secure operating system and you better make sure your internet stack is secure. So we know over the years, the software that Microsoft is using, they started with software from a company called Spider.

And I actually. Hope to port that way back when, to the Microsoft operating system, Windows operating system, when Mt. 1.0 was coming out. Yeah. I've been in it for a very, very long time and it wasn't a great implementation and I did some implementations. For digital equipment corporation as well, so that they had something that was smooth.

And I fixed problems with the stack over the years. So we know that yeah. You know, Unix was designed with security in mind from day one, not the type of security we need today. Mind you, but it has a lot of security in it. And windows were designed as kind of an afterthought. They, they took a big crowbar and, and they put.

And to the windows and internet, that's kind of basically what they did. And you probably remember some of the others know Val, which almost won that battle. At least in the Windows world, they had a great little stack going and the different protocols and everything. We won't get into all that right now.

But back then, you remember when. Microsoft introduced macros Mac crows are available in word and Excel and some of the other software packages and it's to make your life just. That much easier, at least that's their goal. Let's make everybody's life easier. So off they go, trying to make life easier for everybody.

And what ends up happening? Well, uh, yeah, not so easy. What they were doing with Matt with macros is basically allowing you to do programming. They had eventually visual basic in, and you could do a whole bunch of stuff with the visual basic, but. That's where the creeps started. Right in the side. All of a sudden you have the ability with these macros to do programming.

And when that happens, what are the bad guys do? Well, the bad guys use that to kind of create, been from this height and. Do malicious things like write files, they shouldn't have been writing or read-files. They shouldn't have been reading or cross execute things that just shouldn't have happened.

Putting links in Microsoft has thank goodness. I removed a lot of that functionality. Uh, internet Explorer was. Terrible at some of this stuff, what internet Explorer was doing was frankly, kind of criminal, allowing you to have a website run code on your machine, not, not within the browser, but actually run code on your machine.

And that's part of the problem seen with other implementations as well. So now we're finding out from a researcher. His name is Patrick Wartell. He's a principal security researcher, GMF. You might want to check them out. Jam J M F has some great software for managing your devices, pulling it all together.

Having one centralized management system works great for max works great for windows, et cetera, et cetera. So. He has come up with a real problem. And it's, it's kinda sad to see after all these years. How, how long are these macros been around 20 years? I think it is. It's been a long time. So. Microsoft office, no strangers you'd have vulnerabilities.

They haven't fixed all of these vulnerabilities, you know, pros and cons to some of this stuff. But I turn off macros. Okay. Just get rid of them. They are nothing but trouble. Okay. That's the bottom line here. If you need to do some Grammy, do some programming, use real tools to do it that have really great controls on it.

Don't put any macros into the Microsoft office software. It's just always been a problem. So most of the vulnerabilities over the years have led from Microsoft office over to Microsoft windows, but now it turns out there is a potential path for Mac Wes as well. And it's kind of scary. It was discussed a week ago here, over at the black hat conference.

Now, if you're not familiar with BlackHat, it happens every year. This is the first year that I'm aware of that it's been virtual. I'm pretty sure it's the first year it's been virtual. Usually, everybody gets together in Vegas. Uh, you, you take your phone, you turn it off. You should not feel a laptop. You're never use anything electronic.

If you were in BlackHat or if you're in Vegas during BlackHat, it's going to be hacked. And there are some real fun sessions there at BlackHat like spotting the fed where the Hill they'll have everybody who's in a session. Uh, just say who's the fan to here, right? Cause there's always federal guy, IT officers.

There's FBI there's secret service, NSA, CIA. Everybody goes to this thing, right? Because it's not necessary. Sarah Lee all dark black arts from a negative standpoint, but it. Is about how you could do hacking how hacking works. And so they share a lot of information back and forth. Well, this was shared at black hat this year, about a week and a half ago.

Now in most of the macro-based attacks, human enter intervention on the part of the victim is required. If you are on a Mac and there is one of these macro hacks that is with the tube downloaded, right. Mistake one, you haven't turned off macro execution, mistake two, and you've gone even further than that.

And it pops up saying, there's a macro, do you want to run it? And you say, yeah, go ahead and run it. Okay. You've made at least three mistakes. These macros on the Mac must be given explicit permission to be able to run. And if they run, they can cause nothing but trouble for you. Okay. Now, Mac has a special privileged mode now that has really saved the goose of many people out there.

And I think that's a very, very good thing, frankly, because people need to understand that what they're doing. And of course, people don't understand it most of the time. So on the Mac, there are some special privileges that you need in order to get files that might cause problems. Okay. But. It's the second stage payload here that really starts causing you some problem.

And it can be really, really huge problems. Now, this is from dark reading, a site that I follow all the time and a few words, our security person, or maybe just responsible for the security in your business. You might want to kind of keep an eye on it. It's kind of like the FBI InfraGard feed that I get from the FBI.

BI InfraGard program, uh, daily with multiple other alerts. It just can be overwhelming if there's it's your full-time job. But this second stage payload is doing some nastiness here. It is actually trying to skim your credentials, create a bot, or even encrypt your data as part of a ransomware scheme.

And all of this is happening. On Mac OS now that's really happened in front of me. All of these machines here that are I'm using are all Macs. Yes, indeed. And so I know a fair amount about them. You probably know that already, right? I helped to write some of the code that's the basis of today's MacOS but.

The modern malware writers that are trying to do this through macros through Microsoft office are in a bit more of a bind because of what's called sandboxes. This is a kind of a Waldorf environment that helps to protect everything. So be very careful, write down, download this stuff. Don't run macros, turn macros off.

It's our new. Attack against MacOS but it's been around for a very long time in the windows world. Hey, if, if you're looking for that great new car, one that drives itself down the road. I got some big news for you. I'm afraid it's more dangerous than we thought. Visit me online. Craig, Peterson dot com

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Welcome!

Craig discusses these new macro attacks from MS Office against MacOS and why it is not as big a deal as the media are making it out to be.

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

---

Read More:

Window Swap Lets You Enjoy the View From Other People's Windows Around the World

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

Researcher Finds New Office Macro Attacks for MacOS

New cars can stay in their lane—but might not stop for parked cars

Here’s why Apple believes it’s an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China

Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All

Information Operations Spotlighted at Black Hat as Election Worries Rise

---

Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] We've got a resurrection of a problem we've had for many years. Thanks. Microsoft looks like macros are hitting max now.

Yes indeed. You thought you were safe by using a Mac. You usually are. Okay. The bottom line, Apple Macintoshes are great pieces of equipment. They were developed on software. That was developed at universities, that Unix operating system. It is the operating system. The internet was designed on. It's still the operating system that is used to run the backbone of the internet.

So if you're a school and you have a lot of people, students, and others, who would. Kind of like to do the Ferris Bueller thing and change their grade. You better have a secure operating system and you better make sure your internet stack is secure. So we know over the years, the software that Microsoft is using, they started with software from a company called Spider.

And I actually. Hope to port that way back when, to the Microsoft operating system, Windows operating system, when Mt. 1.0 was coming out. Yeah. I've been in it for a very, very long time and it wasn't a great implementation and I did some implementations. For digital equipment corporation as well, so that they had something that was smooth.

And I fixed problems with the stack over the years. So we know that yeah. You know, Unix was designed with security in mind from day one, not the type of security we need today. Mind you, but it has a lot of security in it. And windows were designed as kind of an afterthought. They, they took a big crowbar and, and they put.

And to the windows and internet, that's kind of basically what they did. And you probably remember some of the others know Val, which almost won that battle. At least in the Windows world, they had a great little stack going and the different protocols and everything. We won't get into all that right now.

But back then, you remember when. Microsoft introduced macros Mac crows are available in word and Excel and some of the other software packages and it's to make your life just. That much easier, at least that's their goal. Let's make everybody's life easier. So off they go, trying to make life easier for everybody.

And what ends up happening? Well, uh, yeah, not so easy. What they were doing with Matt with macros is basically allowing you to do programming. They had eventually visual basic in, and you could do a whole bunch of stuff with the visual basic, but. That's where the creeps started. Right in the side. All of a sudden you have the ability with these macros to do programming.

And when that happens, what are the bad guys do? Well, the bad guys use that to kind of create, been from this height and. Do malicious things like write files, they shouldn't have been writing or read-files. They shouldn't have been reading or cross execute things that just shouldn't have happened.

Putting links in Microsoft has thank goodness. I removed a lot of that functionality. Uh, internet Explorer was. Terrible at some of this stuff, what internet Explorer was doing was frankly, kind of criminal, allowing you to have a website run code on your machine, not, not within the browser, but actually run code on your machine.

And that's part of the problem seen with other implementations as well. So now we're finding out from a researcher. His name is Patrick Wartell. He's a principal security researcher, GMF. You might want to check them out. Jam J M F has some great software for managing your devices, pulling it all together.

Having one centralized management system works great for max works great for windows, et cetera, et cetera. So. He has come up with a real problem. And it's, it's kinda sad to see after all these years. How, how long are these macros been around 20 years? I think it is. It's been a long time. So. Microsoft office, no strangers you'd have vulnerabilities.

They haven't fixed all of these vulnerabilities, you know, pros and cons to some of this stuff. But I turn off macros. Okay. Just get rid of them. They are nothing but trouble. Okay. That's the bottom line here. If you need to do some Grammy, do some programming, use real tools to do it that have really great controls on it.

Don't put any macros into the Microsoft office software. It's just always been a problem. So most of the vulnerabilities over the years have led from Microsoft office over to Microsoft windows, but now it turns out there is a potential path for Mac Wes as well. And it's kind of scary. It was discussed a week ago here, over at the black hat conference.

Now, if you're not familiar with BlackHat, it happens every year. This is the first year that I'm aware of that it's been virtual. I'm pretty sure it's the first year it's been virtual. Usually, everybody gets together in Vegas. Uh, you, you take your phone, you turn it off. You should not feel a laptop. You're never use anything electronic.

If you were in BlackHat or if you're in Vegas during BlackHat,  it's going to be hacked. And there are some real fun sessions there at BlackHat like spotting the fed where the Hill they'll have everybody who's in a session. Uh, just say who's the fan to here, right? Cause there's always federal guy, IT officers.

There's FBI there's secret service, NSA, CIA. Everybody goes to this thing, right? Because it's not necessary. Sarah Lee all dark black arts from a negative standpoint, but it. Is about how you could do hacking how hacking works. And so they share a lot of information back and forth. Well, this was shared at black hat this year, about a week and a half ago.

Now in most of the macro-based attacks, human enter intervention on the part of the victim is required. If you are on a Mac and there is one of these macro hacks that is with the tube downloaded, right. Mistake one, you haven't turned off macro execution, mistake two, and you've gone even further than that.

And it pops up saying, there's a macro, do you want to run it? And you say, yeah, go ahead and run it. Okay. You've made at least three mistakes. These macros on the Mac must be given explicit permission to be able to run. And if they run, they can cause nothing but trouble for you. Okay. Now, Mac has a special privileged mode now that has really saved the goose of many people out there.

And I think that's a very, very good thing, frankly, because people need to understand that what they're doing. And of course, people don't understand it most of the time. So on the Mac, there are some special privileges that you need in order to get files that might cause problems. Okay. But. It's the second stage payload here that really starts causing you some problem.

And it can be really, really huge problems. Now, this is from dark reading, a site that I follow all the time and a few words, our security person, or maybe just responsible for the security in your business. You might want to kind of keep an eye on it. It's kind of like the FBI InfraGard feed that I get from the FBI.

BI InfraGard program, uh, daily with multiple other alerts. It just can be overwhelming if there's it's your full-time job. But this second stage payload is doing some nastiness here. It is actually trying to skim your credentials, create a bot, or even encrypt your data as part of a ransomware scheme.

And all of this is happening. On Mac OS now that's really happened in front of me. All of these machines here that are I'm using are all Macs. Yes, indeed. And so I know a fair amount about them. You probably know that already, right? I helped to write some of the code that's the basis of today's MacOS but.

The modern malware writers that are trying to do this through macros through Microsoft office are in a bit more of a bind because of what's called sandboxes. This is a kind of a Waldorf environment that helps to protect everything. So be very careful, write down, download this stuff. Don't run macros, turn macros off.

It's our new. Attack against MacOS but it's been around for a very long time in the windows world. Hey, if, if you're looking for that great new car, one that drives itself down the road. I got some big news for you. I'm afraid it's more dangerous than we thought. Visit me online. Craig, Peterson dot com

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Welcome!

Craig discusses the programming logic errors that are wreaking havoc with today's automobiles that employ adaptive cruise control and causing extreme danger to the occupants.

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

---

Read More:

Window Swap Lets You Enjoy the View From Other People's Windows Around the World

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

Researcher Finds New Office Macro Attacks for MacOS

New cars can stay in their lane—but might not stop for parked cars

Here's why Apple believes it's an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China

Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All

Information Operations Spotlighted at Black Hat as Election Worries Rise

---

Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

[00:00:00] Craig Peterson: Hey, if you've got adaptive cruise control or driver assist in your car, I've got some news for you. It may not be what you think it is.

you're listening to Craig Peterson. Thanks for joining me today. Every week we cover some of the top stories in the news that are going to affect. Do you, I try and let you know about things that are coming down the pipe that in this case might kill you and what you can do about it. We talk about security.

We talk about security, in light of both business and I try and make stuff available for home users. Of course, computer network security is what I do for a living. So near and dear to me, I have been on computer networks using them. Being paid for them, configuring them for many decades now.

[00:01:00] And in the security business, on the internet, really since the early nineties, 91 is when I first started doing it, when it became legal to do it on the internet September that year. And, just kept growing and growing from there. So that's where we're at, but that's not what we're going to talk about right now.

Right now we're going to talk about a real problem. And it's something that triple a disclosed. I've told people before about when I was an, in the EMS and we were out on the highway and there had been a collision. Someone had run into the center divider and it was being caused by this the strangest phenomenon.

We had trees along the side of the highway and those trees at the treetops all had snow on them. And then there was the wind blowing. So the wind started blowing. It was blowing the snow off the top of the trees across the highway. And when it was blowing it across the highway, It created ice on the road.

[00:02:00] So people had no idea that yeah, there is snow side of the road who cares. They're driving along. They come around the corner and there is a shaded portion where the snow been blowing on that turned into ice. It was absolute ice. So there we were out on the highway, we had a big fire engine full of water sitting there.

That was the furthest back unit that was sitting there. We had a police car or two, I think that was there with us, with their lights on. So people would hope you notice. Of course, the firetruck had all of its lights on too. And then I was there with the ambulance and we were treating patients. down the highway, come, are there cars, right?

The roads clear. It may be wintertime, but do I need to worry about right clear road? So they're doing 65 mile an hour zone doing so that's 75 80. Who knows what? They come around the corner and right. One of them is a fire truck full of water. Think about how heavy that is talking many tons and no way to stop.

[00:03:00] So we had a car plow right into the rear end of the firetruck and it pushed it forward feet forward. It was just amazing the impact. And then another car came and ran right into the back of that car. And another car came and ran into the back of that. So we had four cars there in this now multi-vehicle accident.

it's one thing to have that happen when the conditions are like that. And you're not really sure. And you're not driving at a safe speed for the road conditions. It's another thing. When you've got a car, a brand new car that has built into it, this adaptive cruise control that's designed to keep you safe, To make your life more valuable, right. And easier and better. But what are people doing? you might've seen the video of these two guys in a Tesla. I think it was a model ass going down the mass pike. Apparently sound asleep. Somebody took a video of, following them for a few minutes there on the pike shooting through their side window and sure enough, they weren't moving, probably were asleep.

[00:04:00] People have gained a lot of confidence in this and there are some misrepresentations. If you ask me from some of these vendors, Where they're saying, yeah, it's not just an adaptive cruise control anymore. It's not lane assist anymore. It's self-driving. We hear that all the time, self-driving, and most of them require you to have your hands on the steering wheel.

Some of them watch your eyes to make sure that you're paying attention to the road. Maybe not a hundred percent, but pretty close. And then. They'll do things like I, I like what Cadillac was doing. They probably still are, but the seat shakes to wake you up. Hey, come on, pay attention here.

[00:05:00] That's a really good idea. But people are doing, 80 miles an hour down some of these big roads, right? Without thinking twice about doing something else at the same time. Here's the problem we're finding it. Isn't just these people in the winter who were rear-ending the firetrucks out on the turnpike what's happened now is we're seeing these self-driving car rear-ending fire engines.

How could you rear-end a fire engine? It does not exalt itself. Little tiny car, right? They'll remember those little Honda roller-skates from back in the seventies, right? It's a big object on the road, in the middle of the lane. So some of these cars have been rear-ending firetrucks.

Some of them have been rear-ending other vehicles like police cars and others. So AAA now has a report out. That's just absolutely amazing published by our friends over at. ARS Technica. You should check them out if you haven't checked them out recently, they've got a lot of great information out there on their website, but Ars Technica was covering this article.

[00:06:00] That was part of this little study. The AAA did. Now, how big a study? they had 800 hours on these cars looking at them. They had cars from a senior was GM Ford, Sue brew, BMW, and KIA. And none of them really pass this test. What was the test? they made a car it's the same size and looks the same as well.

Like a Toyota Prius type car. So it was inflated. So if you were to hit it, nobody would tie, That's always a good idea. And it was, however, providing a visual clue. It looked like a car, it reflected radar. If the device was using radar, they don't really use that nowadays. So there was mimicking the real world conditions.

[00:07:00] It wasn't just sitting off the road, right? It wasn't one of these things that were as one wheel off the road, it was sitting right there in the lane. So they tested these self-driving cars also known as adaptive cruise control, emergency braking. Let's see what happens when that car comes up to my fake car.

Is it going to slow down? Is it going to change lanes? Is it going to emergency brake at the last minute? What's it going to do right. Something you really need to know if he's vehicles so on. Fortunately what they found wasn't good news. The bottom line is they found most of these vehicles rear-ended that fake car sitting on the road.

[00:08:00] That is a very bad thing. And it's not just Tesla's autopilot. That's struggling with parked vehicles. Oh no, it was everybody. All of them. the national transportation safety board has investigated several fatal crashes involving Tesla where the vehicles were using autopilot, something we know.

Okay. Something again, they've got up in the ARS Technica Article. There's a number of other ones that are out there that kind of autopilot type of capabilities, but the USA, or I should say AAA was very disappointed here. So they did some quality, the testing of the five cars it's on public highways. So they did 800 miles of testing.

They had drivers in the BMW, in the Ford, in the Kia, and the Subaru. And they drove them that 800 miles. Wow. If you have the driver there, the whole idea is, does the driver have to intervene? Does he have to grab that steering wheel in kind of jerk it, to avoid something or hit the brakes or do something else in order to stop a crash, right?

[00:09:00] Stop somebody from getting hit or going off the road? according to AAA. They found the drivers in the BMW Ford Kia and Subaru cars had to intervene dozens of times mostly because the vehicles seemed to be drifting out of its lane. When we get back, we're going to be talking about our next advert today, artificial intelligence.

So bottom line people. If your car has adaptive cruise control, that's all it is. Keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the steering wheel and move.

We'll be right back.

Check me out online. Craig peterson.com/subscribe.

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Welcome!

Craig discusses the programming logic errors that are wreaking havoc with today's automobiles that employ adaptive cruise control and causing extreme danger to the occupants.

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

---

Read More:

Window Swap Lets You Enjoy the View From Other People's Windows Around the World

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

Researcher Finds New Office Macro Attacks for MacOS

New cars can stay in their lane—but might not stop for parked cars

Here’s why Apple believes it’s an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China

Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All

Information Operations Spotlighted at Black Hat as Election Worries Rise

---

Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

[00:00:00] Craig Peterson: Hey, if you've got adaptive cruise control or driver assist in your car, I've got some news for you. It may not be what you think it is.

you're listening to Craig Peterson. Thanks for joining me today. Every week we cover some of the top stories in the news that are going to affect. Do you, I try and let you know about things that are coming down the pipe that in this case might kill you and what you can do about it. We talk about security.

We talk about security, in light of both business and I try and make stuff available for home users. Of course, computer network security is what I do for a living. So near and dear to me, I have been on computer networks using them. Being paid for them, configuring them for many decades now.

[00:01:00] And in the security business, on the internet, really since the early nineties, 91 is when I first started doing it, when it became legal to do it on the internet September that year. And, just kept growing and growing from there. So that's where we're at, but that's not what we're going to talk about right now.

Right now we're going to talk about a real problem. And it's something that triple a disclosed. I've told people before about when I was an, in the EMS and we were out on the highway and there had been a collision. Someone had run into the center divider and it was being caused by this the strangest phenomenon.

We had trees along the side of the highway and those trees at the treetops all had snow on them. And then there was the wind blowing. So the wind started blowing. It was blowing the snow off the top of the trees across the highway. And when it was blowing it across the highway, It created ice on the road.

[00:02:00] So people had no idea that yeah, there is snow side of the road who cares. They're driving along. They come around the corner and there is a shaded portion where the snow been blowing on that turned into ice. It was absolute ice. So there we were out on the highway, we had a big fire engine full of water sitting there.

That was the furthest back unit that was sitting there. We had a police car or two, I think that was there with us, with their lights on. So people would hope you notice. Of course, the firetruck had all of its lights on too. And then I was there with the ambulance and we were treating patients. down the highway, come, are there cars, right?

The roads clear. It may be wintertime, but do I need to worry about right clear road? So they're doing 65 mile an hour zone doing so that's 75 80. Who knows what? They come around the corner and right. One of them is a fire truck full of water. Think about how heavy that is talking many tons and no way to stop.

[00:03:00] So we had a car plow right into the rear end of the firetruck and it pushed it forward feet forward. It was just amazing the impact. And then another car came and ran right into the back of that car. And another car came and ran into the back of that. So we had four cars there in this now multi-vehicle accident.

it's one thing to have that happen when the conditions are like that. And you're not really sure. And you're not driving at a safe speed for the road conditions. It's another thing. When you've got a car, a brand new car that has built into it, this adaptive cruise control that's designed to keep you safe, To make your life more valuable, right. And easier and better. But what are people doing? you might've seen the video of these two guys in a Tesla. I think it was a model ass going down the mass pike. Apparently sound asleep. Somebody took a video of, following them for a few minutes there on the pike shooting through their side window and sure enough, they weren't moving, probably were asleep.

[00:04:00] People have gained a lot of confidence in this and there are some misrepresentations. If you ask me from some of these vendors, Where they're saying, yeah, it's not just an adaptive cruise control anymore. It's not lane assist anymore. It's self-driving. We hear that all the time, self-driving, and most of them require you to have your hands on the steering wheel.

Some of them watch your eyes to make sure that you're paying attention to the road. Maybe not a hundred percent, but pretty close. And then. They'll do things like I, I like what Cadillac was doing. They probably still are, but the seat shakes to wake you up. Hey, come on, pay attention here.

[00:05:00] That's a really good idea. But people are doing, 80 miles an hour down some of these big roads, right? Without thinking twice about doing something else at the same time. Here's the problem we're finding it. Isn't just these people in the winter who were rear-ending the firetrucks out on the turnpike what's happened now is we're seeing these self-driving car rear-ending fire engines.

How could you rear-end a fire engine? It does not exalt itself. Little tiny car, right? They'll remember those little Honda roller-skates from back in the seventies, right? It's a big object on the road, in the middle of the lane. So some of these cars have been rear-ending firetrucks.

Some of them have been rear-ending other vehicles like police cars and others. So AAA now has a report out. That's just absolutely amazing published by our friends over at. ARS Technica. You should check them out if you haven't checked them out recently, they've got a lot of great information out there on their website, but Ars Technica was covering this article.

[00:06:00] That was part of this little study. The AAA did. Now, how big a study? they had 800 hours on these cars looking at them. They had cars from a senior was GM Ford, Sue brew, BMW, and KIA. And none of them really pass this test. What was the test? they made a car it's the same size and looks the same as well.

Like a Toyota Prius type car. So it was inflated. So if you were to hit it, nobody would tie, That's always a good idea. And it was, however, providing a visual clue. It looked like a car, it reflected radar. If the device was using radar, they don't really use that nowadays. So there was mimicking the real world conditions.

[00:07:00] It wasn't just sitting off the road, right? It wasn't one of these things that were as one wheel off the road, it was sitting right there in the lane. So they tested these self-driving cars also known as adaptive cruise control, emergency braking. Let's see what happens when that car comes up to my fake car.

Is it going to slow down? Is it going to change lanes? Is it going to emergency brake at the last minute? What's it going to do right. Something you really need to know if he's vehicles so on. Fortunately what they found wasn't good news. The bottom line is they found most of these vehicles rear-ended that fake car sitting on the road.

[00:08:00] That is a very bad thing. And it's not just Tesla's autopilot. That's struggling with parked vehicles. Oh no, it was everybody. All of them. the national transportation safety board has investigated several fatal crashes involving Tesla where the vehicles were using autopilot, something we know.

Okay. Something again, they've got up in the ARS Technica Article. There's a number of other ones that are out there that kind of autopilot type of capabilities, but the USA, or I should say AAA was very disappointed here. So they did some quality, the testing of the five cars it's on public highways. So they did 800 miles of testing.

They had drivers in the BMW, in the Ford, in the Kia, and the Subaru. And they drove them that 800 miles. Wow. If you have the driver there, the whole idea is, does the driver have to intervene? Does he have to grab that steering wheel in kind of jerk it, to avoid something or hit the brakes or do something else in order to stop a crash, right?

[00:09:00] Stop somebody from getting hit or going off the road? according to AAA. They found the drivers in the BMW Ford Kia and Subaru cars had to intervene dozens of times mostly because the vehicles seemed to be drifting out of its lane. When we get back, we're going to be talking about our next advert today, artificial intelligence.

So bottom line people. If your car has adaptive cruise control, that's all it is. Keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the steering wheel and move.

We'll be right back.

Check me out online. Craig peterson.com/subscribe.

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Welcome!

Craig discusses the difference between Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and why Apple is Winning the AI Game. Then he tells you about a cool new website that can help us all alleviate a bit of the cabin fever this pandemic has caused.

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

---

Read More:

Window Swap Lets You Enjoy the View From Other People's Windows Around the World

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

Researcher Finds New Office Macro Attacks for MacOS

New cars can stay in their lane—but might not stop for parked cars

Here's why Apple believes it's an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China

Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All

Information Operations Spotlighted at Black Hat as Election Worries Rise

---

Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

[00:00:00] Craig Peterson: Artificial intelligence machine learning. Those terms are incorrectly used interchangeably. We're going to talk about what Apple means by it.

Hey, you're listening to Craig Peterson. Thanks for joining me. I'm on, of course, every weekend at this time on this station. and it is just a gas. I'm so glad that I'm here. You can also listen to me during the weekdays during the morning drive time, glad to meet you there. Of course, most people who listening, subscribe to my newsletter.

So you can get all of these articles updates on what's going on, things about our courses and classes in our lives. Everything that we're doing, and you can get all of that for free. By going to Craig peterson.com/subscribe. In fact, I've got some real. Cool pre stuff for you that I'll be sending to you over the first week.

[00:01:00] So I don't overwhelm you, but some checklists, some cheat sheets, some reboot stuff, you're going to love it. So Craig Peter sohn.com/subscribe. It applies to you as a business, but you know what? Most of that same stuff applies to home users too. So whether you are someone a, an ops person in a business, you're the manager and you need to understand this a little bit or.

You're a home user. I have a lot of business owners, including one. I got a great email from here a week ago and he runs a 500 person plus now. So I guess it's medium business, not small anymore, a business that has various types of security requirements. And, he said he loved the security reboot guide.

And here he is a big, important CEO. So it's available to you to Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe. Now Apple has been at the forefront of something called machine learning for a while. If you have an iPhone that's within the last couple of generations, you might not be aware of it, but it has a machine learning chip, right?

[00:02:00] Built right into it. It's an integral part of that phone now. And it's used for a lot of things, unlike goals. And also this is true of Amazon with their echo, the Alexa devices where. It records something and then sends it up to the cloud where it's analyzed and decides what it is you want. And then it comes back down with the risk.

Want, unlike that well, the way everybody else does it, Apple has been working for years now on having all of those smarts right in your phone. Remember, I talked about Apple all the time and about how they are the only choice when it comes to reasonable security. Part of the reason is they don't make money off of your data and they are trying to keep it private.

[00:03:00] So by having everything on the phone and using it has a secure enclave and it just does so many things. But doing that means they don't even get that data. All handled by your phone locally. And now it's using machine learning for some of the very cool stuff. Since I think the iPhone eight, it's had a special portrait mode that's built-in, we have more fancy mood modes that are coming up here in the future, but those are all via machine.

Learning. Now I read an article that kind of got me upset a few weeks ago and it got a backward. So I got to explain this to everybody. Artificial intelligence is the highest layer, right? Artificial intelligence is something that would easily pass. What's called the Turing test. You've probably heard of that four.

And so for those of you who know what it is, bear with me for just a minute and we'll help those that don't know what it is. Alan Turing, absolute genius. He is the guy behind the machine that broke the German enigma code in world war II. You might remember seeing the movie, which was really quite good by the way.

[00:04:00] You might want to check it out, but just an amazing man. And he developed this basic, the concept of a machine, an artificial intelligence machine will be considered serious artificial intelligence when. You cannot distinguish whether or not you're talking to a machine, so you can ask your questions, any questions you want and yeah, it will respond appropriately.

And as part of those responses, it says, it's going to try and lead you down a certain road, right? Like you wouldn't have a conversation. And you're not going to be able to tell if it's a real computer or a real person that's behind that. that's the basics of the Turing test. That's the highest level.

[00:05:00] That's artificial intelligence. That's something we, I have not achieved. It learned itself. It figures everything out. It can talk, you can do all kinds of things. Think of the Corbyn project from the early sixties and other sci-fi movies and what that computer did. That's artificial intelligence machine learning is quite a few steps beneath that.

And machine learning means that there is a machine that has been programmed to learn certain things. So it might learn for instance, what, an APL looks like a dog looks like a cat looks like. And so it'll try. Thousands of hundreds of thousands of times to identify something and learn a little bit every time until it gets to the point where it can distinguish by itself.

So basically the last question, it's a cat and you'll say, no, is this a cat? And you'll say, no, boring with the massive database bases that are online, Google that Google has and others, it was able to feed all this information in and the machine. Kinda learned how to identify these different things.

[00:06:00] Now, Google home, a big problem with that. I probably don't want to go into that right now, but it had a real problem with distinguishing some things, particularly when it came to people and, they will just leave it there. And I'll find a kid into a religious ish war right now, but. Apple believes it's a leader in AI.

That doesn't mean it's got AI right now. But in this case, it has that subset known as machine learning. And it is involved in almost every aspect right of your iPhone. You don't even know that it's there. Apple hasn't been touting it like some of them, these other guys have, but that's where they are going now.

[00:07:00] You've heard of course, about the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. And they're always touting about how they've got the AI and they've got the machine learning again at best, in reality, it's machine learning, which is a subset of AI, but Apple's got it in all the iPhones, iPads, even now the Apple watch has that in there.

And later this year, there's going to be two. New max, that'll be out Mac books that are going to be using Apple's own CPU technology, own central processors, Intel out the door. Okay. And because they have now their own technology, their own processes in there, they're going to be able to do some very cool stuff, including pudding.

This machine learning chip into our desktops and laptops. It's absolutely going to be amazing. We'll see what happens here. So all of this, by the way, once you, if you can you follow along, this is again, this is an ARS Technica article. I love these guys. If you're watching on video, of course, I have it up on the screen right now, but ARS Technica goes into a bit of detail about what Apple is trying to do, and they were able to get.

[00:08:00] quite Of Google's AI and search to come over to Apple back in 2018. So he's been very busy working on it. it's kinda cool here. He says, when I joined Apple, I was already an iPad user and I loved the pencil. So I would track down the software teams and I would say, okay, where's the machine learning team that's working on handwriting.

And I couldn't find it. Turns out that there was no handwriting AI team at all, or machine learning team. So here's really surprised I was able to turn Apple around. So now machine learning is a part of absolutely everything inside Apple. So it's a very good thing. I think it is using it today.

They are going to create more machine learning features. You'll see more of them in the iPhone, 12 they're already working on automatically blurring out backgrounds, putting different backgrounds in, even in FaceTime, having multiple people have a look like they are all in this same room, which is just absolutely amazing.

[00:09:00] You take your picture and Tada, there's your whole family, even though they weren't really there absolutely cool stuff. So kudos to Apple for doing all of that. when we get back, we're going to talk about it. Another reason, never to use Android as well. There aren't enough out there, basically the Snapdragon chip that so many of them are using this put more than 1 billion Android devices at risk of data threat in a very big way.

So we'll be talking about that. And before we go, I want to talk about this really quickly. You might want to check this out right now on your, Computer or your phone or wherever it is. Many of us are stuck at home and that can be a big problem, right? Being stuck at home travel and leisure magazine is where I found this article.

[00:10:00] It's called window swap. You'll find it online at window dash, swap.com and it has 10-minute videos from people's windows, all around the world. So if you go to windows, swap.com, you're just going to be absolutely blown away. I think this is the neatest thing ever. You click on open a window, somewhere in the world and that's it.

It's opening up for me right now. And here is a window in Dublin. Ireland is what it's showing me right now. And you can submit your own window. It has to be reviewed and approved. And that can take a little bit because apparently they've been total. Overwhelmed with submissions, Dublin Ireland. Let's see.

[00:11:00] What's next up here for me Amsterdam. The Netherlands. Now they're supposed to, you can probably hear that to include sound and it's supposed to be a fixed. Picture. So what you're hearing is the video from a house that is our apartment, whatever that's sitting right there on the water, and it's watching a boat go along the canal in Amsterdam.

So check this out. I don't think you will be disappointed at all. I've seen now windows from all over. Some of the stuff in Ireland is so cool and the European stuff, it's just like traveling. Some of these airlines right now, by the way, are reporting a 95 decrease in travel, the cruise lines. I just saw a thing from Norwegian this week, they have lost 99% of their business.

Just absolutely amazing. And their revenue is down by a thousandfold. If you complete that, it's just absolutely amazing. So if you're stuck at home, you want to do a little touring. Do this, and what it reminds me of is Marty McFly, his living room and how they had that big wall with the big pictures on it.

[00:12:00] That you could do this with your TV. If you got Apple TV, for instance, or there are other ways to hook it up, but you just throw it up on your TV. And now you get to see all of this cool stuff. Go by window dash, swapped.com. Do you have any questions for me? And he suggestions, by all means, email me and he had Craig peterson.com.

You can also. Post a question right there on Craig peterson.com. we're going to talk about a really bad thing here. Hundreds of apps with hidden software tracking used by the government. When we get back. Listening to Craig Peterson, stick around.

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Welcome!

Craig discusses the difference between Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and why Apple is Winning the AI Game. Then he tells you about a cool new website that can help us all alleviate a bit of the cabin fever this pandemic has caused.

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

---

Read More:

Window Swap Lets You Enjoy the View From Other People's Windows Around the World

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

Researcher Finds New Office Macro Attacks for MacOS

New cars can stay in their lane—but might not stop for parked cars

Here’s why Apple believes it’s an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China

Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All

Information Operations Spotlighted at Black Hat as Election Worries Rise

---

Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

[00:00:00] Craig Peterson: Artificial intelligence machine learning. Those terms are incorrectly used interchangeably. We're going to talk about what Apple means by it.

Hey, you're listening to Craig Peterson. Thanks for joining me. I'm on, of course, every weekend at this time on this station. and it is just a gas. I'm so glad that I'm here. You can also listen to me during the weekdays during the morning drive time, glad to meet you there. Of course, most people who listening, subscribe to my newsletter.

So you can get all of these articles updates on what's going on, things about our courses and classes in our lives. Everything that we're doing, and you can get all of that for free. By going to Craig peterson.com/subscribe. In fact, I've got some real. Cool pre stuff for you that I'll be sending to you over the first week.

[00:01:00] So I don't overwhelm you, but some checklists, some cheat sheets, some reboot stuff, you're going to love it. So Craig Peter sohn.com/subscribe. It applies to you as a business, but you know what? Most of that same stuff applies to home users too. So whether you are someone a, an ops person in a business, you're the manager and you need to understand this a little bit or.

You're a home user. I have a lot of business owners, including one. I got a great email from here a week ago and he runs a 500 person plus now. So I guess it's medium business, not small anymore, a business that has various types of security requirements. And, he said he loved the security reboot guide.

And here he is a big, important CEO. So it's available to you to Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe. Now Apple has been at the forefront of something called machine learning for a while. If you have an iPhone that's within the last couple of generations, you might not be aware of it, but it has a machine learning chip, right?

[00:02:00] Built right into it. It's an integral part of that phone now. And it's used for a lot of things, unlike goals. And also this is true of Amazon with their echo, the Alexa devices where. It records something and then sends it up to the cloud where it's analyzed and decides what it is you want. And then it comes back down with the risk.

Want, unlike that well, the way everybody else does it, Apple has been working for years now on having all of those smarts right in your phone. Remember, I talked about Apple all the time and about how they are the only choice when it comes to reasonable security. Part of the reason is they don't make money off of your data and they are trying to keep it private.

[00:03:00] So by having everything on the phone and using it has a secure enclave and it just does so many things. But doing that means they don't even get that data. All handled by your phone locally. And now it's using machine learning for some of the very cool stuff. Since I think the iPhone eight, it's had a special portrait mode that's built-in, we have more fancy mood modes that are coming up here in the future, but those are all via machine.

Learning. Now I read an article that kind of got me upset a few weeks ago and it got a backward. So I got to explain this to everybody. Artificial intelligence is the highest layer, right? Artificial intelligence is something that would easily pass. What's called the Turing test. You've probably heard of that four.

And so for those of you who know what it is, bear with me for just a minute and we'll help those that don't know what it is. Alan Turing, absolute genius. He is the guy behind the machine that broke the German enigma code in world war II. You might remember seeing the movie, which was really quite good by the way.

[00:04:00] You might want to check it out, but just an amazing man. And he developed this basic, the concept of a machine, an artificial intelligence machine will be considered serious artificial intelligence when. You cannot distinguish whether or not you're talking to a machine, so you can ask your questions, any questions you want and yeah, it will respond appropriately.

And as part of those responses, it says, it's going to try and lead you down a certain road, right? Like you wouldn't have a conversation. And you're not going to be able to tell if it's a real computer or a real person that's behind that. that's the basics of the Turing test. That's the highest level.

[00:05:00] That's artificial intelligence. That's something we, I have not achieved. It learned itself. It figures everything out. It can talk, you can do all kinds of things. Think of the Corbyn project from the early sixties and other sci-fi movies and what that computer did. That's artificial intelligence machine learning is quite a few steps beneath that.

And machine learning means that there is a machine that has been programmed to learn certain things. So it might learn for instance, what, an APL looks like a dog looks like a cat looks like. And so it'll try. Thousands of hundreds of thousands of times to identify something and learn a little bit every time until it gets to the point where it can distinguish by itself.

So basically the last question, it's a cat and you'll say, no, is this a cat? And you'll say, no, boring with the massive database bases that are online, Google that Google has and others, it was able to feed all this information in and the machine. Kinda learned how to identify these different things.

[00:06:00] Now, Google home, a big problem with that. I probably don't want to go into that right now, but it had a real problem with distinguishing some things, particularly when it came to people and, they will just leave it there. And I'll find a kid into a religious ish war right now, but. Apple believes it's a leader in AI.

That doesn't mean it's got AI right now. But in this case, it has that subset known as machine learning. And it is involved in almost every aspect right of your iPhone. You don't even know that it's there. Apple hasn't been touting it like some of them, these other guys have, but that's where they are going now.

[00:07:00] You've heard of course, about the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. And they're always touting about how they've got the AI and they've got the machine learning again at best, in reality, it's machine learning, which is a subset of AI, but Apple's got it in all the iPhones, iPads, even now the Apple watch has that in there.

And later this year, there's going to be two. New max, that'll be out Mac books that are going to be using Apple's own CPU technology, own central processors, Intel out the door. Okay. And because they have now their own technology, their own processes in there, they're going to be able to do some very cool stuff, including pudding.

This machine learning chip into our desktops and laptops. It's absolutely going to be amazing. We'll see what happens here. So all of this, by the way, once you, if you can you follow along, this is again, this is an ARS Technica article. I love these guys. If you're watching on video, of course, I have it up on the screen right now, but ARS Technica goes into a bit of detail about what Apple is trying to do, and they were able to get.

[00:08:00] quite Of Google's AI and search to come over to Apple back in 2018. So he's been very busy working on it. it's kinda cool here. He says, when I joined Apple, I was already an iPad user and I loved the pencil. So I would track down the software teams and I would say, okay, where's the machine learning team that's working on handwriting.

And I couldn't find it. Turns out that there was no handwriting AI team at all, or machine learning team. So here's really surprised I was able to turn Apple around. So now machine learning is a part of absolutely everything inside Apple. So it's a very good thing. I think it is using it today.

They are going to create more machine learning features. You'll see more of them in the iPhone, 12 they're already working on automatically blurring out backgrounds, putting different backgrounds in, even in FaceTime, having multiple people have a look like they are all in this same room, which is just absolutely amazing.

[00:09:00] You take your picture and Tada, there's your whole family, even though they weren't really there absolutely cool stuff. So kudos to Apple for doing all of that. when we get back, we're going to talk about it. Another reason, never to use Android as well. There aren't enough out there, basically the Snapdragon chip that so many of them are using this put more than 1 billion Android devices at risk of data threat in a very big way.

So we'll be talking about that. And before we go, I want to talk about this really quickly. You might want to check this out right now on your, Computer or your phone or wherever it is. Many of us are stuck at home and that can be a big problem, right? Being stuck at home travel and leisure magazine is where I found this article.

[00:10:00] It's called window swap. You'll find it online at window dash, swap.com and it has 10-minute videos from people's windows, all around the world. So if you go to windows, swap.com, you're just going to be absolutely blown away. I think this is the neatest thing ever. You click on open a window, somewhere in the world and that's it.

It's opening up for me right now. And here is a window in Dublin. Ireland is what it's showing me right now. And you can submit your own window. It has to be reviewed and approved. And that can take a little bit because apparently they've been total. Overwhelmed with submissions, Dublin Ireland. Let's see.

[00:11:00] What's next up here for me Amsterdam. The Netherlands. Now they're supposed to, you can probably hear that to include sound and it's supposed to be a fixed. Picture. So what you're hearing is the video from a house that is our apartment, whatever that's sitting right there on the water, and it's watching a boat go along the canal in Amsterdam.

So check this out. I don't think you will be disappointed at all. I've seen now windows from all over. Some of the stuff in Ireland is so cool and the European stuff, it's just like traveling. Some of these airlines right now, by the way, are reporting a 95 decrease in travel, the cruise lines. I just saw a thing from Norwegian this week, they have lost 99% of their business.

Just absolutely amazing. And their revenue is down by a thousandfold. If you complete that, it's just absolutely amazing. So if you're stuck at home, you want to do a little touring. Do this, and what it reminds me of is Marty McFly, his living room and how they had that big wall with the big pictures on it.

[00:12:00] That you could do this with your TV. If you got Apple TV, for instance, or there are other ways to hook it up, but you just throw it up on your TV. And now you get to see all of this cool stuff. Go by window dash, swapped.com. Do you have any questions for me? And he suggestions, by all means, email me and he had Craig peterson.com.

You can also. Post a question right there on Craig peterson.com. we're going to talk about a really bad thing here. Hundreds of apps with hidden software tracking used by the government. When we get back. Listening to Craig Peterson, stick around.

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Welcome!

Craig discusses the flaw in the Snapdragon chip architecture and how has put 1 Billion Android devices at risk.

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

---

Read More:

Window Swap Lets You Enjoy the View From Other People's Windows Around the World

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

Researcher Finds New Office Macro Attacks for MacOS

New cars can stay in their lane—but might not stop for parked cars

Here's why Apple believes it's an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China

Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All

Information Operations Spotlighted at Black Hat as Election Worries Rise

---

Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

[00:00:00] Craig Peterson: As if I needed another reason to tell you not to buy Android, we've got a very big one right now. Stick around. Here we go.

Hey everybody. Thanks for sticking around. Of course, this is Craig Peterson on WGAN online. Craig peterson.com/subscribe. I really appreciate everybody being with us today. There is always a lot of news to understand and know, and it's confusing. Hey, I get it a lot of people get very confused, trying to figure out what's what, and particularly when I start getting into the reasons you should not be using these VPN services that are constantly being sold to you, in various.

[00:01:00] Places online and elsewhere. that's what I'm here for. I go through the articles every week and of course there are probably tens of thousands of them, but I always look at a thousand or more. I look at these things every day and try and find the top ones for the week. The things I think you might be interested in, but most particularly the things I think you need to know, and I put them together.

And then I'll send some of that out to the radio stations that I'm on to talk about what it is, what's going on, all of that sort of thing. I enjoy doing this obviously, and I enjoy helping you out, but there's only one way that you can get these things directly. If you want to follow along on the radio show, You need to go to Craig Peterson.com/subscribe.

We had a record number of subscribers last week, new subscribers to our weekly newsletter. You get all of that. Plus new subscribers. Get a plethora of some of my special reports. So they come over, every couple of days after you sign up. I really am trying to help everybody out here. So make sure you are on that list.

[00:02:00] Craig peterson.com/subscribe. I've been teasing something here. That's very concerning to me. If much about most of these smart devices nowadays, they are all more or less based around what's called an arm architecture. By the way, there is some crazy stuff happening in China right now, because this arm architecture is owned by a US company.

I think it's actually called arm inc. This is an architecture that use to design an implant, the central processing unit of many computers, including Apple iPhones, et cetera. That's very important stuff. Now Apple took the designs and what we in the industry called forked it so that they had their own version and they left the main line stuff.

[00:03:00] Behind, but many other companies have continued to license it and get there the core really of the CPU, that core stuff from the arm group. Now, Qualcomm is one of those companies that uses it. There are many others and China has been licensing this technology, various Chinese firms. Again. From the U S arm inc.

From now you remember, and we'll talk about this in a few minutes or the segment. I think it is a Tik Tok and we chat and this escalation with president Trump. We'll talk about what my feelings on that are. The problem is that China will no longer have the right to manufacture factor these chips based on the arm technology.

[00:04:00] So that's a huge blow to China, frankly. I don't know that they'll be able to recover from this, I guess what could happen? Is China could say, forget about it. we're not going to follow those intellectual property laws. We already know they don't follow a lot of the intellectual property laws.

They don't seem to care. so just keep making them, let them try and come after us nothing's going to happen. so that might well happen. But this is going to be quite a poke in the eye for China. No question about it. Now, the chip that we're talking and about here now is Qualcomm's snap, dragon chip.

That's what it's called. There's a billion or more Android devices that are using this chip that's based on an industry standard, but using this Snapdragon chip, a billion or more. it turns out that there are more than 400 vulnerabilities known in Qualcomm Snapdragon chip that can turn the CPU in your Android device.

[00:05:00] Into a spine tool. Isn't that absolutely amazing. Not all 400. We'll let them do that, but there's plenty that will, so they can exploit these in different ways. So the vulnerabilities can be exploited very easily. You might remember the whole thing with Jeff Bezos and his divorce and the Saudi Prince, supposedly sending the video.

these vulnerabilities in the Snapdragon chip, which may be what were used. I'm trying to remember if Bezos had an iPhone or not back then, but, these vulnerabilities can be exploited. By simply downloading a video or any other content, like a graphic, a steel frame, a graphic that's embedded in an email.

[00:06:00] Any time there's content that's rendered by the Snapdragon chip, it can be exploited. The targets can also be attacked by installing malicious apps that require no permission from the Android device owner at all. Then from there, attackers can monitor locations, listened to. Listen to nearby audio in real time, they can take photos and videos off of your device.

They can upload them and it's possible to render the phone completely unresponsive. If they want to. These infections can also be hidden from the operating system in such a way that it makes disinfecting it reloading the operating system. Pretty difficult, if possible at all. So we've got some bad news for you.

[00:07:00] If you're running an Android, still get rid of it. I keep telling people and they don't do it. I don't know if they don't believe me or what. so let's dig into this a little bit more Snapchat again. Dragon is. A system on a chip. if you had some of the older PCs, you can think of the original IBM PC or the PCX T or the a T all the way on until just maybe 10 years ago, five years ago, even you open up a computer and you'd see in there a bunch of discreet.

Chips, you might see an Intel chip on that motherboard or maybe a power PC chip, if it was a Mac. Then there'd be a bunch of support chips nowadays. There's GPS that are on that, motherboard or on that board anyways. Then you have you're, you are to your serial ports and your parallel port. All of those were discrete.

[00:08:00] Processes or chips. Why fi everything? Snapdragon is a system on a chip that has basically all of that on one chip. It's got a CPU, it's got a graphics processor. It does Dignitas digital signal processing. It has charging abilities controlled by the main chip video audio, augmented reality, all of your multimedia functions.

Absolutely. Everything. With the di digital signal processor, that's on the chip that allows apps to really that understand how to use that DSP, how to really speed things up. But unfortunately, it's also created these 400 attack surfaces, just absolutely crazy. This is from security point from checkpoint.

They've been around a very long time. They have a rapport to these vulnerabilities. They're being quoted here in ARS Technica saying, the DSP chips provide a relatively economical solution that allows mobile phones to provide the end users with more functionality and enable innovative features.

[00:09:00] They do come at a cost chips, introduced new attack surfaces, and we. Points to the mobile devices. DSP chips are much more vulnerable to risks as they are being managed as black boxes, since it can be very complex or anyone other than the manufacturer reviewed the design, the functionality or their code.

So call has a release out that is a fix for some of these flaws, but. It has not been included in the Android operating system or any Android device nears. Anyone can tell that uses the snap point, or Snapdragon, I should say. That's according to checkpoint, there you go. Are sent, Nicole went in as Google when they're going to include those Qualcomm patches.

[00:10:00] And the company spokesman said to check with Qualcomm and Qualcomm wouldn't respond or didn't respond. these are some serious CVS for those of you who are. More technical in the security side and the Qualcomm compute DSP vulnerability is absolutely crazy. Okay. Now they are saying, Qualcomm is saying that they have no evidence as being currently exploited, but I can think of a few cases where it really smells like maybe that's what was exploited, make sure this is, common sense.

You only. Download apps from the Google play store. The official store never used an alternative store. Never route your phone, right? No jailbreak your phone because all of those things make you even more vulnerable. You keep asking Craig, Greg, Android's fine. In fact, I got on the phone with. the gentleman who used to be the chief technology officer for the state of New Hampshire, did a lot of work for him, my company, over the years, setting up all of the stuff for the state.

[00:11:00] And, he assumed I had an Android phone. Cause you can play with it. You can take it apart. You can route it. You can do all of this stuff. No, I don't. I had one way back one, but not since never since the biggest problem with Android. Is what was just disclosed here. Patches don't make it out to the devices.

And this is more proof of that. Hey, you're listening to Craig Peterson. Make sure you get all of this in your mailbox. Craig peterson.com/subscribe. We're talking about President Trump. When we get back right here on WGAN and [email protected].

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Welcome!

Craig discusses the flaw in the Snapdragon chip architecture and how has put 1 Billion Android devices at risk.

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

---

Read More:

Window Swap Lets You Enjoy the View From Other People's Windows Around the World

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

Researcher Finds New Office Macro Attacks for MacOS

New cars can stay in their lane—but might not stop for parked cars

Here’s why Apple believes it’s an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China

Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All

Information Operations Spotlighted at Black Hat as Election Worries Rise

---

Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

[00:00:00] Craig Peterson: As if I needed another reason to tell you not to buy Android, we've got a very big one right now. Stick around. Here we go.

Hey everybody. Thanks for sticking around. Of course, this is Craig Peterson on WGAN online. Craig peterson.com/subscribe. I really appreciate everybody being with us today. There is always a lot of news to understand and know, and it's confusing. Hey, I get it a lot of people get very confused, trying to figure out what's what, and particularly when I start getting into the reasons you should not be using these VPN services that are constantly being sold to you, in various.

[00:01:00] Places online and elsewhere. that's what I'm here for. I go through the articles every week and of course there are probably tens of thousands of them, but I always look at a thousand or more. I look at these things every day and try and find the top ones for the week. The things I think you might be interested in, but most particularly the things I think you need to know, and I put them together.

And then I'll send some of that out to the radio stations that I'm on to talk about what it is, what's going on, all of that sort of thing. I enjoy doing this obviously, and I enjoy helping you out, but there's only one way that you can get these things directly. If you want to follow along on the radio show, You need to go to Craig Peterson.com/subscribe.

We had a record number of subscribers last week, new subscribers to our weekly newsletter. You get all of that. Plus new subscribers. Get a plethora of some of my special reports. So they come over, every couple of days after you sign up. I really am trying to help everybody out here. So make sure you are on that list.

[00:02:00] Craig peterson.com/subscribe. I've been teasing something here. That's very concerning to me. If much about most of these smart devices nowadays, they are all more or less based around what's called an arm architecture. By the way, there is some crazy stuff happening in China right now, because this arm architecture is owned by a US company.

I think it's actually called arm inc. This is an architecture that use to design an implant, the central processing unit of many computers, including Apple iPhones, et cetera. That's very important stuff. Now Apple took the designs and what we in the industry called forked it so that they had their own version and they left the main line stuff.

[00:03:00] Behind, but many other companies have continued to license it and get there the core really of the CPU, that core stuff from the arm group. Now, Qualcomm is one of those companies that uses it. There are many others and China has been licensing this technology, various Chinese firms. Again. From the U S arm inc.

From now you remember, and we'll talk about this in a few minutes or the segment. I think it is a Tik Tok and we chat and this escalation with president Trump. We'll talk about what my feelings on that are. The problem is that China will no longer have the right to manufacture factor these chips based on the arm technology.

[00:04:00] So that's a huge blow to China, frankly. I don't know that they'll be able to recover from this, I guess what could happen? Is China could say, forget about it. we're not going to follow those intellectual property laws. We already know they don't follow a lot of the intellectual property laws.

They don't seem to care. so just keep making them, let them try and come after us nothing's going to happen. so that might well happen. But this is going to be quite a poke in the eye for China. No question about it. Now, the chip that we're talking and about here now is Qualcomm's snap, dragon chip.

That's what it's called. There's a billion or more Android devices that are using this chip that's based on an industry standard, but using this Snapdragon chip, a billion or more. it turns out that there are more than 400 vulnerabilities known in Qualcomm Snapdragon chip that can turn the CPU in your Android device.

[00:05:00] Into a spine tool. Isn't that absolutely amazing. Not all 400. We'll let them do that, but there's plenty that will, so they can exploit these in different ways. So the vulnerabilities can be exploited very easily. You might remember the whole thing with Jeff Bezos and his divorce and the Saudi Prince, supposedly sending the video.

these vulnerabilities in the Snapdragon chip, which may be what were used. I'm trying to remember if Bezos had an iPhone or not back then, but, these vulnerabilities can be exploited. By simply downloading a video or any other content, like a graphic, a steel frame, a graphic that's embedded in an email.

[00:06:00] Any time there's content that's rendered by the Snapdragon chip, it can be exploited. The targets can also be attacked by installing malicious apps that require no permission from the Android device owner at all. Then from there, attackers can monitor locations, listened to. Listen to nearby audio in real time, they can take photos and videos off of your device.

They can upload them and it's possible to render the phone completely unresponsive. If they want to. These infections can also be hidden from the operating system in such a way that it makes disinfecting it reloading the operating system. Pretty difficult, if possible at all. So we've got some bad news for you.

[00:07:00] If you're running an Android, still get rid of it. I keep telling people and they don't do it. I don't know if they don't believe me or what. so let's dig into this a little bit more Snapchat again. Dragon is. A system on a chip. if you had some of the older PCs, you can think of the original IBM PC or the PCX T or the a T all the way on until just maybe 10 years ago, five years ago, even you open up a computer and you'd see in there a bunch of discreet.

Chips, you might see an Intel chip on that motherboard or maybe a power PC chip, if it was a Mac. Then there'd be a bunch of support chips nowadays. There's GPS that are on that, motherboard or on that board anyways. Then you have you're, you are to your serial ports and your parallel port. All of those were discrete.

[00:08:00] Processes or chips. Why fi everything? Snapdragon is a system on a chip that has basically all of that on one chip. It's got a CPU, it's got a graphics processor. It does Dignitas digital signal processing. It has charging abilities controlled by the main chip video audio, augmented reality, all of your multimedia functions.

Absolutely. Everything. With the di digital signal processor, that's on the chip that allows apps to really that understand how to use that DSP, how to really speed things up. But unfortunately, it's also created these 400 attack surfaces, just absolutely crazy. This is from security point from checkpoint.

They've been around a very long time. They have a rapport to these vulnerabilities. They're being quoted here in ARS Technica saying, the DSP chips provide a relatively economical solution that allows mobile phones to provide the end users with more functionality and enable innovative features.

[00:09:00] They do come at a cost chips, introduced new attack surfaces, and we. Points to the mobile devices. DSP chips are much more vulnerable to risks as they are being managed as black boxes, since it can be very complex or anyone other than the manufacturer reviewed the design, the functionality or their code.

So call has a release out that is a fix for some of these flaws, but. It has not been included in the Android operating system or any Android device nears. Anyone can tell that uses the snap point, or Snapdragon, I should say. That's according to checkpoint, there you go. Are sent, Nicole went in as Google when they're going to include those Qualcomm patches.

[00:10:00] And the company spokesman said to check with Qualcomm and Qualcomm wouldn't respond or didn't respond. these are some serious CVS for those of you who are. More technical in the security side and the Qualcomm compute DSP vulnerability is absolutely crazy. Okay. Now they are saying, Qualcomm is saying that they have no evidence as being currently exploited, but I can think of a few cases where it really smells like maybe that's what was exploited, make sure this is, common sense.

You only. Download apps from the Google play store. The official store never used an alternative store. Never route your phone, right? No jailbreak your phone because all of those things make you even more vulnerable. You keep asking Craig, Greg, Android's fine. In fact, I got on the phone with. the gentleman who used to be the chief technology officer for the state of New Hampshire, did a lot of work for him, my company, over the years, setting up all of the stuff for the state.

[00:11:00] And, he assumed I had an Android phone. Cause you can play with it. You can take it apart. You can route it. You can do all of this stuff. No, I don't. I had one way back one, but not since never since the biggest problem with Android. Is what was just disclosed here. Patches don't make it out to the devices.

And this is more proof of that. Hey, you're listening to Craig Peterson. Make sure you get all of this in your mailbox. Craig peterson.com/subscribe. We're talking about President Trump. When we get back right here on WGAN and [email protected].

---

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553

Welcome!

Craig discusses why he thinks that Tik Tok, WeChat, and Huawei bans don't go far enough.

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

---

Read More:

Window Swap Lets You Enjoy the View From Other People's Windows Around the World

Report: Hundreds of apps have hidden tracking software used by the government

Researcher Finds New Office Macro Attacks for MacOS

New cars can stay in their lane—but might not stop for parked cars

Here's why Apple believes it's an AI leader—and why it says critics have it all wrong

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

Trump Targets WeChat and TikTok, in Sharp Escalation With China

Pen Testers Who Got Arrested Doing Their Jobs Tell All

Information Operations Spotlighted at Black Hat as Election Worries Rise

---

Automated Machine-Generated Transcript:

[00:00:00] The misinformation is mind-boggling. We're going to talk right now about Tik Tok. What's really going on. What have I seen that they've done?

Yes. Craig Peterson, here. I am your host I have seen some major nastiness coming from China with my own eyes. We have unfortunately picked up some clients who have been the victim. In terms of the Chinese and what their social discovery is doing to try and steal information from regular users, individuals, and corporations.

And I've talked about some of these over a lot the last few years because I've been seeing more and more where they have active back doors, they break into networks, they get in through different types of apps. They get in through bad firewalls, through bad VPN and on. Now we've got President Trump out there saying we've got to restrict the owners here of Tik Tok and we chat Tencent and bite dance.

[00:01:00] And it's a kind of a concerning thing for China in a very big way. So the Trump administration apparently has been working with Microsoft to potentially buy it. There are some other bidders that are there trying to buy Tik Tok I am very concerned because I don't think this is just a problem with WeChat or with Tik Tok.

I think this is a systemic problem. With any, and all of these Chinese, these companies who remember if you've got a socialist nation as China does, and they are trying to have everybody be equal, except the course, people at the top, they're more or equal than everybody else they completely discouraged any sort of individuality.

[00:02:00] And that means unless you, you are in the upper echelon of the Chinese communist party. Don't forget that's a socialist party. That's a branch of socialism unless you are high up inside the CCP, you cannot go out and start businesses. Do various things that you just take for granted here in the US.

You can't do any of that. You can't have the international transactions. You can't take your software and sell it overseas or your goods or whatever else. You have to go through Alibaba. If you had permission to start the business and hire people in the first place, because remember, again, it's the socialist government that's actually hiring them.

[00:03:00] It is the military that most people are working for over there. So it is a very big problem. All of this stuff, dealing with China, they really do want to control the world's markets we've seen them again and again, doing that and because they don't have them anywhere near the innovation that we have here in the US yes, through, constructive really demolition, The whole process of what's called capitalism, but really is free trade that humankind has had since we had opposable thumbs. It's the only thing that works. It's Adam, Smith's a hand, that's the ID and all of this stuff, The invisible hand. So if they can't innovate, if they don't have people innovating, if they don't have people who are regular people that are brilliant people innovating, what are they going to do?

they only have one thing to do. They turn to, I left to steal ideas from other countries. To steal processes from businesses to steal their intellectual property, to go after companies like Equifax and try and get all of the data on everyone in the US buying companies like Lenovo from IBM and getting along with that Lenovo deal.

[00:04:00] The name, address, and title of everyone in the federal government that had a Lenovo computer on their desktop. I fought against that way back when that was happening, but no, they'd let it happen. Intercontinental ballistic missiles. We gave them the technology, look at their jet fighters. Look at their aircraft carriers, et cetera.

They look on an awful lot like ours in many cases, those parts are interchangeable. We have a China problem. A very big China problem, because if we want our economy to keep growing, we have to be the country that is innovating that's ahead of everyone else where people come because they want that great job.

[00:05:00] They want that great opportunity because socialist nations cannot provide that. They never have been able to, they never will be able to, you can only get so far at the point of a gun is the bottom line here. So this Tik Tok talk ban is going to affect a lot of people, but I don't think it goes far enough.

And I meant shouldn't that on WGAN on Wednesday morning. This week when I was on with Matt. seven 30 by the way, every week I don't think it really goes far enough because these companies that we're talking about here, byte dance, and Tencent have already proven themselves to be unworthy of our use by stealing our information.

[00:06:00] Look at Tencent. I mentioned this to Matt. Here's a company that has some amazing investment in various types of video games. So for instance, League of legends, a very popular video game, and they're just made by riot games. Guess who owns it? China's Tim scent owns it Tencent's latest video game release has code in it.

That gives it complete control of your operating system and computer. Can you believe that? They say, yeah, let's just stop cheating. Oh, yeah, really fast to stop cheating. You need complete control of my computer so I can read all my files. You can log all my keystrokes so you can take screenshots to see what I'm looking at, what I'm doing.

[00:07:00] You can upload all of my documents, my spreadsheets. Yeah. You need that. So again, we're looking at a company, these are the guys that make we'd chat, which is absolutely used to spy on people in China. The Chinese government admits that and is being used to spy on us here. They've been caught before too.

And then I look at stuff like in the New York times I was reading this article. I know I should never look at the here New York times and this Kevin Roose guy completely mixes everything up. I can't believe the links. They will go to bending over backward to misinform people, misinformed them entirely.

It's just incredible. He says I'll be honest. what does that tell you? First off? Bam. He's been lying and now he's going to be honest. Okay. Don't ever say that don't ever say I'll be honest or to be honest, right? That is a really bad thing to say because that's a dead giveaway that you haven't been fully honest before.

[00:08:00] So what does he do? I'll be honest. I don't buy the argument that Tik Tok is an urgent threat to America's national security. okay. So two weeks ago we caught them grabbing everything in our copy buffers, which includes things like passwords, bank, account information, anything that you would copy and paste.

they're not an urgent threat really. It is just absolutely amazing to me, a couple of other things, VPN booms as countries around the world, mole Tik Tok band. So people are getting VPN. So this is by the way. I'm a moderately legitimate reason to use a VPN. Now you shouldn't be he's super Tik Tok, but it allows you to look like you're coming from another country.

And so a lot of people are doing that and you should attend my webinar on VPNs. If you haven't. A Tik Tok, by the way, is starting to fund its top creators as they try and get more and more people involved apparently they are putting a $200 million US creator fund together. A little bit of good PR for them there themselves.

[00:09:00] They so do I think we should be banning Tik Tok and we chat? Absolutely. I think it's far too late and I think we should seriously consider banning pretty much everything to do. Technology-wise with China. We didn't even talk about the five G stuff that's been going on with China. Anyhow. All right.

Stick around. We're going to be back here in just a minute, and we're going to talk about these penetration testers and how they got arrested. You're listening to Craig Peterson on WGAN and online Craig peterson.com.

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