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Sep 5, 2018

Did you see that the Internet Speeds in the US have doubled?  Yes, it is true -- Listen in as I talk with Ken and Matt about what caused this growth.

Do you own a small business?  If so, you'll be interested in what I have to say to Ken and Matt about the dangers you may be facing.

Been to Dulles lately? They have some new technology in place.  This morning with Ken and Matt I will discuss it and the impacts it will have in the future.

Craig is putting up a new membership site (Yes, it is free, but you have to sign up)  On it will have all his special reports that he puts out and you will be the first to get them.

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

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Related Articles:


The End Of Net Neutrality Has Doubled Our Internet Speed Ranking!

With The End Of Net-Neutrality AT&T Invests Nearly $120 Million To Boost Local Networks In Iowa

Half Of Small-Businesses Believe They’re Not Cybercrime Targets

New Facial Recognition System Catches First Imposter At US Airport

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Transcript:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.

Airing date: 09/05/2018

Internet Speeds have doubled in the US due to Net Neutrality Repeal. Small Businesses are the targets of Hackers.  Facial Recognition at Airport's first Imposter.  

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] Hey, Good Morning. Craig Peterson, Here on in Maine. I talked a little bit this morning, again, just like I did yesterday with Jim. I guess this is a big story about the U.S. Internet speed where our ranking has doubled, which is just absolutely amazing just how much faster we've gotten. And, also a little bit about AT&T and their investments into the Internet. This new facial recognition system, catching our first imposter at the airport, and we talk about how many airports it's in place. It's surprising we caught one, Half of all small businesses believe they are not Cybercrime targets, and frankly that's not a good thing. So, that's what we talked about this morning stick around here we go. 

[00:00:49] Well it's that time of the week again, Craig Peterson joins us, once again, to go over what's happening in the world of technology. Craig, how are you this morning? Hey, Good Morning. Doing well.

[00:00:59] So, when I went in and looked at your Web site, Craig Peterson dot com,  my internet speed is just so much better. Is this a result of the end of net neutrality?

[00:01:11] Craig, Yeah well for those who don't remember, of course, net neutrality was an Obama era FCC thing, where they were trying to bring the Internet into the same rules and regulations that have been in place since the 1930s for the telephone companies. And as you know for, jeepers since the early 70s, really, what became the Internet had been pretty much unregulated and had been completely unregulated since 1991. Other than of course the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC, was regulating it and has been regulating it pretty heavily. So, we had net neutrality in place for a while, and there are a lot of people who were out there yelling and screaming that we needed it because we needed fairness, we need equal access. In other words, the kid sitting there with me in front of their computer who is playing video games streaming live all day long. Plus they've got Netflix playing over on the side and maybe they've got music playing as well and this happens and it happens quite frequently. So, they use a lot of bandwidth. They wanted it to be fair. So, he would pay the same price as the grandma who was sitting at home hoping to get an e-mail from the grandkids. You know which is of course totally crazy. And to top it all off we had you know businesses out there who wanted to get some money back from their investments into network infrastructure. So they put it in place in the very first thing that came in front of the FCC net neutrality the very first time and this was terrible.

[00:02:56] That's not a good thing. It was in place because what they were doing is the FCC denied a company that wanted to give away free streaming video because it would be unfair to their competition. You know, heaven forbid you've got a startup company that wants to go up against Verizon and offer a better deal, right. So, net neutrality, absolute failure and we have the Trump administration with the new chairman of the FCC who got rid of this net neutrality thing and when they got rid of it, of course, we still had people who were out there screaming hey, we've got to we've got to put it back in place its terrible the world we're going to come to an end. The Internet never existed without the FCC regulations, of course, you know I'm kind of going a little overboard here to come up with a point, but that's basically what is happening. In fact, it has gotten so bad that the chairman of the FCC has had to get armed protection for himself because of the death threats and armed protection for his kids. So, now we've got people like Ken out there who are we have noticed something which is since the repeal of net neutrality took effect just this spring.

[00:04:14] The internet has a ranking of the U.S. and the Internet has changed. The Internet has sped up in the U.S. and the U.S. has gone from being the twelfth fastest Internet in the world, average, average speed to people's homes so, we were 12th. And since this spring since net neutrality went away we're now the six fastest Internet in the world. We've basically halved our rank which is a very good thing. AT&T is investing nearly 120 million dollars just in Iowa to improve their network. So, now the businesses know they can get their money back out of it. That they can charge the kid sitting there using up all of their bandwidth. That they can charge Netflix, that's using half of the Internet bandwidth, at times, in the U.S. That the backbone carriers who have paid for the infrastructure can say hey Netflix you owe money, in order for us to carry all of these movies for everyone. Now, that's in place, we've got companies reinvesting in the Internet. We're seeing internet speeds improving and we're also seeing improvements for consumers. I just switched my mobile phone plan, my cell plan. I've had the same company for about 20 years now and I switched it because I'm now getting twice the speed for half of the cost. 

[00:05:38] And with net neutrality, in place it would have had to get permission from the FCC to lower their prices or to improve their performance or speed. So, thank goodness it's gone. I predicted this would be the case. if it did go in place and if it was removed. So, it is great. I know there's a lot of people who don't like it, and I want to warn those people who are more on the conservative side, who are now starting to call for more regulation of the Internet, because of what's been happening with Facebook and Twitter and other places where they are apparently censoring some of the conservative speech. So, we've got conservatives now out there saying oh we've got to have this regulation in place including just yesterday the new chairman of the FCC the guy that got rid of net neutrality really seem a kind of a personal statement if you will saying hey listen we may have to regulate the MAGAF companies. You know again Microsoft and Amazon Google Apple and Facebook we may have to regulate those companies because they are not treating all information fairly. So, it is kind of interesting here is the pendulum sways. Maybe, that should be a name of a new soap opera or something guys.

[00:07:02] Craig Peterson, our tech guru, joins us right now to give us an eye on the world of technology and before I move onto the next topic I should mention, speaking of net neutrality and whatnots, Ajit Pai, is going to be here, next Friday, coming to an event at the Maine Heritage Policy Center. So, if anybody's interested in that, Maine policy dot org, ladies and gentlemen Not interested. Yes, I know you're not. But maybe the great crowd out there listening to this might be. So Craig, now that I've done my little disclaimer. 

[00:07:26] Yeah, he's the FCC chairman for those who didn't know who that was.

[00:07:29] Correct. Basically, the one who is responsible for killing it, killing net neutrality, in the first place. So, anyway moving on to other topics. You know, if I were a small business owner right now I may be, I might be a target for cybercrime, but I'm just a small fish, right. So, I'm probably not. Am I wrong about that?

[00:07:50] That's one of the things that you hear all the time isn't it. No. I would say go after me. Why did Willie Sutton rob banks? Because that's where the money was. And, so many people are assuming that the bad guys are going after the big businesses which they are, and they are going after the banks online trying to hack them. They're trying to break into their networks into the computers get all kinds of information. But the big banks and the big businesses can afford to do security and do security right. And, now they are spending money on that. They're spending real money on trying to keep things secure, while small businesses and the home users don't have that money. So, where are they going to go. Well obviously, they're still going to hit some small people and you know in their homes. But, now the FBI is saying that small businesses are the biggest target, right now for the bad guys, for hackers. And, unfortunately, a lot of small business people are thinking that they're really not going to be coming after me. But, when you look at the numbers that are involved here, where an average hack can cost 130,000 dollars. We just picked up a client that had been hacked and they lost 180,000 dollars in cash. So, you know you've got to be careful business owners, just like you were indicating Matt, Don't think they are the target but they are the target. And, you've got to start using real multifactor authentication or two-factor authentication for your business e-mail accounts because that's where they're usually going to ask you, they're using something called a business email compromise. It's something the FBI has been warning a lot about. It's something that's been very effective and very cost effective for them and unfortunately has literally stolen the livelihood and the businesses, that people are working their whole lives for. It's been stolen from them. So, it's a big deal. Don't think that just because you're a small business you're not a target. Because in fact, you are the target. 

[00:10:03] We're talking to our tech guru, who joins us Wednesdays at seven thirty-eight. So, facial-recognition which works on my iPhone really well. Is it becoming more viable for security issues in airports?

[00:10:18] Yeah. What's in your iPhone is really interesting because it's close up. It's able to measure multiple points on your face simultaneously, to figure out if it's really you. And, by the way, Apple's expected to release some more information about their phones coming up here, next week. But, yeah facial recognition is interesting when you're talking about it for a crowd. We've used it at major events, major sporting events for about a decade now. And, we've had a lot of false positives which is OK, because it was new technology and the police understood that. What I'm concerned about is in the future. What happens when people are falsely identified, as well? Well, down in Washington D.C. Their main airport down there which is Washington Dulles is now using an interesting form of facial recognition. What they're doing is the computer looks at their passport photo and is able to use that photo without training like you have to train your iPhone, right.

[00:11:26] Can you see your face Yeah exactly.

[00:11:31] This is just training? So, he presented a French passport as his I.D. the computer scanned it. The computer used a camera that's sitting there. And, they do film all of your interactions at these international airports and was able to identify a man with a fake passport, just using this new facial recognition system. So, you can expect this is going to grow as time goes on is going to be used more and more. There are 14 airports, right now, using facial recognition technology. It is being used to help screen these people and this was the very first one ever caught using facial recognition and it was just a couple of weeks ago. So, it's kind of interesting and we're going to see more of it, as time goes on.

[00:12:17] All right Craig Peterson, our tech guru, joins us at this time every Wednesday to give us technology around the world. Craig, thank you very much, sir. We will talk again next Wednesday.

[00:12:27] Hey, thanks, gentlemen. Take care. All right.

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