The journalism industry is in trouble and has been for most of the 21st century. But the advent of AI generated content has made professional journalists absolutely crucial not just to democracies but to business success.

One of the most prolific and successful technology journalists is Bolaji Ojo. He has headed editorial efforts for the EETimes, AspenCore Media, the recently closed Ojo-Yoshida Report and the now-defunct EBN. Some of those titles may be foreign to people in the cybersecurity world, but not to executives in the electronics world that cybersecurity rests upon.

This brief conversation is packed with information that most people don’t think about including how technology impacts all industries, expanding scope of coverage. Traditional ad revenue has shifted to platforms like Google and Met allowing companiesto reach customers directly, but this now creates credibility challenges for companies. AI-generated content is causing markets to distrust marketing message more than ever before. That has established the need for experienced journalists to provide context, analysis, and trusted perspectives.

Ojo describes how his new ventures are getting financial support from companies like Microchip, NXP, Infineon, Siemens, ST Microelectronics not to drive sales but to establish credibility. The challenge is justifying sponsorship to CFOs/boards vs. SEO.

The value proposition of tech journalism, he said, is providing context and "what it means and offering trusted, independent analysis and future insights.

This episode may be the most important we’ve had this year. It provides a roadmap to effective marketing for cybersecurity companies in the near future.

Our expanded coverage of the viability of the AI industry, and how it could affect the cybersecurity industry, continues with this episode. We've blown out our time limit of 30 minutes because we are talking with three entrepreneurs with less dependence on AI as a product feature. We talk with Tony Garcia, CISO of Infineo; Luigi Caramico, CEO of the innovative encryption company DataKrypto; and Chris Schueler, CEO of Cyderes, an automated MSSP. TL;DL they are all sanguine about the success or failure of AI.

Full story can be found at CPM

We've been having a lively debate at Cyber Protection Magazine about the potential, dangers, and chances AI is going to survive in its current form. Co-editor Patrick Boch likes to say I'm something of a Luddite about it, and it's true (Luddites were not against technology, but were adamant about protecting workers using it). I like to say that Patrick is overly optimistic. But, then, He's a lot younger than me, so optimism comes more easily to him. Plus, he's not living in the dystopian hell-hole that the US has become. Lucky dog.

That being said, this is the first of several discussion Patrick and I will be having on this subject, along with several other interviews and articles to come.

I was attending the AI Infra Summit recently and was handed a book with an interesting title : AI Made Easy for Parents and was intrigued by the title. It is an easy read, but ultimately disappointing, at least from an educator's view.

More often than not, when I'm interviewing a corporate leader about the news they are presenting to me, I find a bit of news in their own content that they didn't see, That was the case when I interviewed Mike Wiacek, founder and CTO of Stairwell. The company is in a very competitive market with almost 250 companies dedicated to identifying malware before it can mess up your system, The report was about the rise of malware variants in the world, but their own report showed that, at least this year, the technology niche they are in is actually knocking that number down. He was surprised, but it made for a good discussion.

When it comes to the implementation of AI in a corporation, the question is not if or when. It’s more like, “How much if a disaster are we willing to accept?” A whole new industry niche is arising to help companies determine just how mediocre and unsafe they want to be. Tumeryk is one of those companies helping provide that insight.

The first of September began with a bang. I've got a lot to write and talk about, but barely had time to do this much. There is an AI infrastructure conference coming next week, along with a special issue on AI economics. But companies really need to start learning how to tell a story all over again. Generative AI and marketese is killing a lot of really good technology. Listen in and find out how to fix that.

A few weeks ago I talked with Paul Valente, CEO of VISO TRUST. In the excitement of Agentic AI adoption, a massive security hole has opened and Valente's goal is plugging that hole. Our conversation adds a needed reality check to the AI euphoria/

I got a pitch from Reality Defender (deepfake video detection) about a partnership with ValidSoft (deepfake voice) last week. We don’t generally cover partnership agreements because, well, we get a handful every week and they just aren’t news. But the pitch threw out a few statistics that seemed a bit off. After some research, I found out how off they were.

See, fraud can be divided into two types: Criminal fraud, which companies like these are dedicated to stopping, and legally protected fraud like advertising and political speech (First Amendment and all that). As far as impacts go, the latter is much more dangerous and prevalent, but security companies can’t relly do anything about that. And that is what I discussed with Reality Defender CEO, Ben Colman discussed.

Key Takeaways and Links

Deepfake fraud attempts are low in percentage but high in potential impact, especially for high-value clients in regulated industries

There's a critical need for national regulation to address AI-generated content on consumer platforms, as current measures are insufficient.

Reality Defender and Validsoft claim to lead in deepfake detection, focusing on inference-based and provenance-based approaches respectively

The "David Act" (Deepfake Audio Video Image Detection Act) has been proposed to require platforms to flag AI-generated content.

We are starting out the 11th season of Crucial Tech is a bang. I am completing an article on a significant security hole in AI agents that shows how the tech industry makes security an afterthought every, damn, time. One of the companies pitching a solution is Teleport, which manages identity access and I had a friendly but contentious conversation about it with their CEO, Ev Kontsevoy who insisted that identity is NOT a security issue. OK, then.