Apr 23, 2020
Good morning everybody!
I was on with Matt this morning and we had a good discussion about how big tech is trying to provide a technology standard for tracking pandemics using our smartphones and what this will mean to our privacy. Let's get into my conversation with Matt on WGAN.
These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com
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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:
Craig
There's a lot of people who are concerned about this so-called
Patriot Act response to the COVID-19. We have Apple and Google
working together to come up with a standard to use on our
smartphone. Are you worried about whether or not the government's
going to not only track you as part of this whole COVID-19 response
but also do kind of a patriot act thing? Or they might try and
force not us, our smartphone carriers to track us? Hi, this is
Craig Peterson. Let's get into my conversation with Matt on
WGAN.
Matt
It is 738, which means that it is time to talk to our tech guru
Craig Peterson. He joins us every Wednesday at this time to go over
what's happening in the world of technology. Craig Peterson. How
are you this morning, sir?
Craig
Hey, good morning. I'm doing well.
Matt
Did you hear about this alleged hack of The WHO, the Gates
Foundation, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology?.
Craig
I did, and I was going to ask you about it.
Matt
Well, what did you find out? Well, I mean, I, frankly, I just saw
the headline. I didn't read anything about it. But I did notice
that there was compromised information, a bunch of emails, I
believe, and some data taken. But outside of that, I didn't read
much about it.
Craig
Yeah, we've not verified it at this point. Some anonymous activists
have posted about 25,000 email addresses and passwords that they're
claiming belong to the National Institutes of Health, the World
Health Organization, and the Gates Foundation. These are all
different groups working to battle this Coronavirus pandemic that's
been happening, and they've posted them out on some of these sites,
you know, not quite dark web but like 4chan and, and a few others.
We'll see what ends up happening, and it could be kind of
enlightening to see some of the statistics, some of the numbers,
some of the emails. It reminds me of the global warming hack that
happened where it turned out all of these global warming scientists
had been conspiring to present false information. I wonder what's
going to happen here?
Matt
It's an excellent question, and perhaps we'll get an answer to it
as time goes by. I've got some questions for you here, Mr.
Peterson. My first one and this is significant to me because I've
been watching this one. I've been waiting for this story to
percolate it's way out because it was inevitable, frankly, but the
Coronavirus has inspired a lot of people to want to know where
people are and to track who's sick and where they're going. I've
seen several stories over the last couple weeks of you know about
Apple and the iPhone, and the devices we have in our hands turned
into potentially tracking tools that would help surveil the
American public as we fight the virus and whatnot. What what you
know what truce is there to that? I mean, is there is that
something that's happening now going to happen? Are we being
surveilled? Are we going to be surveilled? What do you think,
Craig?
Craig
Well, there's a lot of truth to that, because we are being
surveilled to various degrees right now when it comes to the
Coronavirus tracking. We've got Google, which has a tracker online.
It's using information, like it does every year, for the spread of
the flu based on the searches people are doing and collects data on
people's searches. How do I solve this? What do I do to get over
this particular illness? There's a lot of people who are concerned
about a Patriot Act type response to the COVID-19. We have Apple
and Google. They are working together to come up with a standard
for use on our smartphones. Our smartphones all have Bluetooth in
the middle. There's a unique software if you will, that runs On
those little Bluetooth chips that can help to determine how far
your device is from the other Bluetooth device. And the software
that Apple and Google have come up with allows you to track whether
or not you have been within six feet of someone else. So the
worries are that the federal government is going to force this to
be on our phones. Will they require us to run an app that allows
them to trackback. Let's say you show up at the hospital, and you
have the symptoms of COVID-19. And they want to find out who you
have spoken to, you know, what have you done in the last two weeks?
And right now, they have to sit there, and they go through your
memory and saying who did you see? Where were you? With who did you
have close contact? But what this will do is it'll allow them to
look at your phone and find out everybody that you being within six
feet of potentially contacts them, test them and quarantine them.
And that's where the significant concerns are coming in.
Matt
We're talking to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us on
Wednesdays at this time to go over what's happening in the world of
technology. I mean, is this thing though, Craig. I mean, the
requirement from the government. It is not the only thing that I'm
afraid of, and I'm also scared these companies will just
voluntarily start doing it. I mean, we're so integrated with Google
and Facebook and everything else that we use in our lives
technologically related that you know, they can, you know, without
government requirements, just say, yeah, we're going to cooperate
with the government here. We're going to track all of our people
and do all these things kind of on our own. And it seems like they
are almost ready to do that kind of stuff already.
Craig
Well, they already are Matt, and they're providing the information
in an anonymized fashion. Now, you and I both know that the data
had might have been anonymized, but it's quite, quite easy to D
anonymize that data. Find out who everybody was. But what the
concern here is with COVID-19 is whether or not you were within six
or 10 feet from someone else. And the type of resolution most of
our phones have won't tell them that because they can use the GPS,
they can use the Wi-Fi signals to try to figure out where you are,
and they can kind of get close. But do they know you're within six
feet of someone at the grocery store? And the answer's no, or at
the office or wherever you might have gone. It kind of rolls on
here and we got warnings about next winters potentially bringing
this back in a big way again, that's where I started getting
concerned because these apps, First of all, I have not been well
accepted they have been available in some Asian countries. At most,
one-third of all people have used them, which makes it basically in
the fact of, but secondly, if you know they decide, hey, this is
something You have to have, are they going to be able to force it
on us? I don't know. Are they going to be able to surveil us like
they did, apparently about the whole Trump Organization, which has
come out this week? That was their goal. I just don't know Matt.
The technology exists to do it, and they are already doing it to
some degree.
Matt
Indeed. All right. Well, Craig Peterson, our tech guru, joins us at
this time every Wednesday to go over what's happening in the world
of technology. Craig, thank you, as always, and we'll talk again
next week.
Craig
Take care, Matt, Bye-bye.
Matt
Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. So coming up...
Craig
Hey, everybody, if you need a little bit of help in this COVID-19
time, we're giving away a little bit of free time, free consulting,
I've set aside some 15-minute blocks where we can chat and help you
out with your home computer, whatever it might be. And if you more
extensive help, we also have some paid plans. It is free. Just go
to Craig Peterson dot com and fill the contact form at the bottom
of my home page. Craig Peterson dot com. We'll be glad to help you
out. Everybody have a great weekend. We'll be back this weekend
with more. Bye-bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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