You may have heard of quantum computers. You may actually think they are mostly hype. They are. We won't see them come into real use for a decade. In the meantime, people are freaking out over how they can be used to makes us all less safe.  The good news is some companies, like Sectigo, are working on ways to make sure we are all safe when they actually become a reality. So grab a coffee and listen to our take on quantum computer security.

In our last episode we reported on presentations at BlackHat USA 2020 about election interference. In this second part, we look specifically at the Russian and Chinese approaches to disinformation campaigns and how it is less technology hacking and more about strategic use of social media.

Our first re-run of the season is going back to our report on election hacking, a two-parter, that doesn't dwell on the technology of elections as much as how they can be influenced. For several years we have heard about how technologically vulnerable our elections systems are, but it turns out that physically hacking a system is a lot harder and yields insignificant fruit in national elections. It is much easier to sway voters with disinformation.

Are you concerned about how social media seems to know exactly what you are thinking about? Are you’re that they are listening to you and your friends on mobile devices? Well, they don’t and they aren’t. You’ve been freely telling them what your concerns are and what you want to buy. But all that may be coming to an end.  Find out how in the next episode of Crucial Tech.

We thought we would be able to wrap up the last three episodes featuring Tim Bajarin and Matthew Rosenquist, but then life happened and more AI disasters occurred. This is yet another launching point for our coverage of surveillance technology.

Last week, we had @TimBajarin give a fairly pessimistic view of the future of #AI and #facial recognition. This week we bring in the positives (sort of) with security and AI guru @MatthewRosenquist. This technology is probably inevitable but to make it a global issue we are going to either have to give up some freedom and privacy, or we are going to have to work hard to fix the deficiencies. either way, the combination of this and the last two episodes will make you well informed enough to be the expert in most conversations even if you aren't an engineer.

By the time we finished last week's episode on security settings a lot happened. So I started making some calls to those who know what was going on. This week, we talk to the Analyst di tutti Analysts, Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies about ethics, facial recognition and AI, why it's so hard to do any of that well, and how Apple's announcement of iOS 14 is so earth-shaking.

My business partner, Joe Basques called me up and started asking questions about #Facebook security, which morphed into #AI, which moved into #facial_recognition. So we decided to start from the beginning of the conversation and record it. You will find out some tricks about how you can make your Facebook experience safer, what Facebook can actually track even when you think you are secure, and what the future holds for you in a corporate surveillance state.

However, the subject got even more interesting in the days following our talk so this becomes part one of a broader discussion with industry luminaries. So, get ready. It's going to be an interesting ride.