Feb 18, 2020
Welcome!
Good morning, everybody. I was on with Mr. Jim Polito this morning and as you know today is Primary Day in New Hampshire it is the Big Day for our State Sport - Politics. That means it is the day to address voter manipulation, voter fraud, low tech solutions and why apps are not the answer. So, here we go with Mr. Polito.
For more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com
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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:
Craig
You've got this free little cute little game, isn't this fun to
play? Well, that game is tracking you everywhere you're going. They
sell that information to Marketers. Now the Department of Homeland
Security is even buying that data of where you are which apps
you're using. Just because you have these apps installed on your
phone.
Craig
Good morning, Craig Peterson, here. That's me with Danny, and it
was pretty much all about voting technologies, the new stuff that's
coming out the problems we have right now. And my predictions for
not just this election, but frankly for the next two or three
presidential cycles.
Danny
Yes, it is Tuesday. 840 You know what time that is? It is time for
tech talk guru Craig Peterson. Hi Craig.
Craig
Hey, good morning, Danny.
Craig
I've got a little clarification about info from one of your former
guests this morning. An earlier guest, I should say this morning.
He was talking quite rightly by the about all of these apps and
what's been in the news, in fact, just this week about apps and how
dangerous they can be how they've been tracking, Google just
removed a whole bunch of extensions from the Google Chrome Store. I
want to go into slightly more detail if you want it to be secure.
Don't download an app you don't need.
Another thing I've said forever, Danny, is that you should go
through your phone, at least every month, and delete apps you're
not using. You know, most of us have a lot of apps. I think the
last stat I SAW said that about 95% of the apps that we've
downloaded only get used once. It's like we're never using them.
Delete them off of your phone, off of your tablet, whatever it is
you have. I want to add one more thing from a safety standpoint.
Even if you are using an app fairly regularly, go ahead and delete
it anyway, and then reinstall it. When you reinstall it now, it's
going to ask for permission. You're going to be able to have a
closer look at that app that again. It may be one you use every day
like Google Maps. Believe that when you reinstall it and pay close
attention to the permissions that it wants to access. By the way,
just because it doesn't ask for permission to share some of your
information doesn't mean it's not going to, all right. But as a
general rule, those permissions are correct. It's more confusing on
Android than it is iOS. Android kind of pushes you on to you the
decision about whether or not you should be installing that app. On
the iOS side, it's a lot more straightforward than Apple's a little
bit better about it. He had some super points. But I go one step
further. Just delete the silly things, mainly if you're not using
them, as you mentioned, bringing up the app and permitting it.
Danny
So what kind of permission should people be looking for Craig to
allow it not to?
Craig
Yeah, there you go. Well, let's have a look at the most costly
divorce in history, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago.
Right. So you have Bezos. Yeah, exactly. Billions of dollars in a
divorce settlement. How did that all start? Well, that started
because he was using WhatsApp, which is an app that is now part of
Facebook's family. What WhatsApp had done here is accepted a video,
and Jeff Bezos had allowed WhatsApp access to his photos and his
videos. Even though you might think, oh, what's the harm and giving
it access to my pictures or videos, maybe you're not going to get
the virus the Jeff Besos got, but the app has access to your
photos, your videos or other things. If there's a bug in the app,
if there's something malicious going on, you're going to lose that
data. What should you give an app permission to do? That? I think
one of the worse things you can do is to permit access to know your
location. That data is used and sold. You know, you've got this
free little cute little game. Isn't this fun to play? And that game
is tracking you everywhere you're going it's been sold to
Marketers. Now the Department of Homeland Security is even buying
that data of where you are which apps you're using, just because
you have these apps installed on your phone. In answer directly to
your question, do not give them access to your location unless you
absolutely want to. I'm even reluctant to give Google Maps access
to my location. Right? But slightly paranoid on that front. As far
as photos and videos and things, again, just don't give them
access. I think we're at the point now, where the bottom line is,
you should only have a half a dozen apps on your phone on your
tablet. And they should be apps from the big guys. You know Apple's
apps, Microsoft apps, Google's apps, they are moderately
trustworthy. And pretty much everything else. I think you shouldn't
say bye-bye to them. ya know,
Danny
Ya know, that's kind of it sounds like a good plan. We are talking
with Tech Talk Guru Craig Peterson, all about apps, and the
security behind apps and then allowing permissions and them using
your data to sell, and basically, you become the client. Correct.
So these free apps not necessarily free, buddy.
Craig
No, they're not. And here's another trick, right? If you want to
use something, and the app is available, most of the time, there's
a website you can go to instead. So, for instance, you might
download The let's use Iheart as an example. All right, so IHeart
Radio has an app. I use it all the time, right? I'm, I listened to
it to listen to my favorite radio shows listen to the gym in the
morning. Iheart also has a website that you can visit. Okay, so
rather than having the app, just use the browser that comes with
your phone, use Safari, which is a good browser on iOS, use one of
the Firefox browsers from Mozilla, those are all very good. If
someone's twisting your arm with a gun to your head, use Google
Chrome. Use the browser to get the data you want to you can stream
music from your browser, you can listen to it hard from your
browser, you can do all of the reading of news that you might want
to do from your browser and avoid the cute apps. Aren't they
wonderful? Aren't they fun? But you know what? There are so many
Very few apps that can be classified as safe, that it's just not
worth it.
Danny
Speaking of Google Chrome, speaking of extensions, speaking of
people, basically using your uploading your private information,
the Google Chrome extension, Craig. There were some issues there
aren't there.
Craig
Yeah, absolutely. Now I've got some tutorials coming out starting
next week, and about some extensions that you might want to use,
and they will improve your browsing experience will improve your
security, etc. What I think they're talking about here is a
problem, Danny, where 500 Chrome extensions, Google Chrome
extensions, were identified as secretly uploading people's data,
millions of times. These things get downloaded. It's incredible
what's happened, more than 1.7 million installations. So again, I
still know people who are downloading browser bar extensions for
Google Chrome for all of their different browsers, right. And it's
a little browser bar extension that gives you a feature to search
quickly or watch the stock market, etc. Those are the evilest
things and prone to guys. Don't install, never install these little
browser extensions that are just going to show you one or two
things, because so many of them are sketchy. Many are fraudulent.
Some of them are advertising as a service. Some of them will
automatically, just from your browser, be clicking on ads on other
websites you are not even visiting. Yes, they can click on an
advertisement on a site you're not visiting just to increase their
revenue. The estimate is that 40 to 60% of all paid advertising Non
the internet pay per click advertising 20 60% of that is
fraudulent. It's these. Yeah, these extensions, Danny, that we're
installing that is supposedly giving us some sort of advantage or
some neat little thing. Don't install those. Make sure if you're on
my email list, you'll find out about this next week. But make sure
you are on that list, which is just a Craig Peterson dot com. You
can attend these tutorials for free. I'm not selling anything,
right. It's all about the extensions that are going to make you
safe. Not these 500 identified as making you less safe. You know
what, Danny, some of them are even doing Bitcoin mining using your
computer and slowing down your computer. They're making your
browsing experience horrible because it's so slow. Things are
happening in the background that you don't know are being done.
They're using your electricity. We have some of the highest
electric rates in the nation here in the northeast. And it's all
for their benefit and gain and nothing for you. I'm glad you
brought it up. Danny, don't install an extension unless you have
to. It's kind of like the app thing.
Danny
Yeah, we try to keep yourself as safe as possible. But something
you have to do is make sure it's something that isn't going to come
and backfire on you ultimately. Because we are talking with our
tech expert Craig Peterson. Craig, we only have a few minutes left.
But the one story I did want to get into here, the mobile voting
app. Who would have thought this is ever a good idea?
Craig
heard off and on about what's going to happen Saturday in Nevada
with their caucuses. They paid I think it was $60,000 to the same
company that completely messed up the Iowa caucuses and they're
saying yeah, we're going to do it. No, we're not going to do it.
You're going to do it with the latest I heard yesterday was there
not going to do it again. But there is an app called a vote to VOA
t z. And this is something that supposedly allows you to vote from
home vote from overseas. They've been trying to sell this to the
military, for our military personnel stationed overseas. And this
is crazy. The election is promoting its use of blockchain
technology, which is like a vast buzzword nowadays. And people
associate blockchain technology with absolutely safe, nothing could
go wrong. They ignore the man behind the curtain. It is not secure.
There are four states right now that are still planning on using
this votes app that is being used in West Virginia. And it has some
of the most basic security flaws in it. It allows other people to
Steve votes intercept votes change votes, as they're being
transmitted from the mobile phones to the company's voting server.
If you can This is absolutely crazy. MIT put together a research
paper that was released last Thursday. We're not there yet. Don't
use these things. You know, the only thing that's really safe is a
pencil or maybe a felt tip pen. Because you can't hack, a felt tip
pen and a piece of paper. Right, much harder to do, obviously, this
imbalance studying before, but you can do it on a wholesale basis
like you can with some of these voting apps.
Danny
Yeah, what's this one right here? Just say someone to be able just
to change votes like that. It seems as though the security and some
of the features and noted have a voting type app. They have far
away from Craig.
Craig
Oh, yeah, end up partner of Homeland Security's warning against it
New York Times, even covered on it. They were the first ones to
report this research out of MIT. We're going to see a lot of
problems of voting over the next few cycles, maybe ten plus years,
frankly, as you know, You know, the idiocy tends to tie down in the
money, right? Who owns the company, for instance, with the backhoe
debacle that happened overnight Iowa, the disaster that was going
to happen this weekend in Nevada and still may have been that
company that made that software to tally the votes was owned and
operated by Hillary Clinton staffers. Okay. So, yeah, accurately.
And now the democratic Democratic Party says, Oh, it's great. We
know you, Hey, buddy. Yeah, we're going to do it for you, right?
Until we can get rid of this phony crony capitalism stuff, which
exists all over the place, and we make real decisions. This voting
stuff just isn't going to work. Right. And you know, Danny, I hold
a zero trust. The government's going to be able to get this right.
But you know, another five to 10 years, I think, maybe we will have
a reasonably smooth roll road ahead of us. There's a $10 million
funding project that came out of the Department of Defense to make
an unhackable voting system. So I got my fingers crossed because I
know these guys are on the right track.
Danny
Well, I'm sure when they come up with something, you'll have a
forest Craig Craig is always some great stuff, unfortunately, to
get to everything. If somebody wants to hear more, how do they do
so?
Craig
Well, you can go to Craig Peterson, dot com or they can text Danny,
to me at 855-385-5553. That's 855-385-5553.
Danny
As always, data rates do apply. Craig, thank you so much for the
time. We'll talk to you next week.
Craig
Take care, Danny, bye-bye.
Danny
It's Craig, always with some great stuff can be scary. But Craig
gets us through it. As he said, watch out for your extensions.
Watch out for the app to clean up the apps, and yeah, what's the
make you think that Hillary Clinton can get a voting app? Right?
But yeah, our servers were secured in New York. Yeah, okay.
Everyone believes that one. Anyways, I'll take one last time out.
Well.
Craig
We've been working on this now for six weeks, eight weeks, we've
got some fantastic free tutorials coming up. Frankly, these are
going to improve your security posture. By what at least 90%. I'm
serious about that when you are online, so it's going to help with
security transformation plus a course and everything else. So free
stuff, and some paid material, but you are going to love it all. I
guarantee it. I've never been so excited about something before.
Anyhow, keep an eye out. Make sure you're signed up. Craig
Peterson, dot com slash subscribe. We'll be back tomorrow.
Bye-bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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