AS HEARD ON: WGAN Mornings with Ken and Matt: SMS, Text Messages, Encryption and Chinese Automated War Robots and more

Good morning everybody!

I was on with Ken and Matt. We talked about the dangers of SMS texts as well as some new scary technology from China that will change how we fight wars.

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson
Good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here, Man. I don't know if you got snow where you live. We ended up with snow here in the northeast, and my kids took a yardstick out and stuck it in the snow. Now, the way you usually measure snow is they melt the snow and see how many inches of water is present. If it had been raining, how much would it be? Well, a local guy here has a weather station, and it came out to 1.7 inches of rainwater or precipitation. And typically, what happens is you take it, and you say one inch of melted precipitation equals one foot of snow. So if they say, Hey, we're going to get, or we had a foot of snow, it doesn't really mean that you had a foot in your yard. You know, it means that well, heck, it could be six inches. It depends on how fluffy that snow is. So we took a yardstick out, and I remember 1.7 inches of rain is what they said here, the guy who lives about two blocks away from me. And what we measured was drumroll, please. We got about 22 inches of snow. Now you can undoubtedly have a band that would account for more snow, you know, we might have had more water, but it's pretty close because that'd be 1.7 feet of snow according to his measurements. So we got a lot of snow out there that wasn't windy or anything, so we didn't get a lot of drafts or blowing snow. But it just came down. It snowed here for about two days. It was so pretty, and it's kind of pretty out there right now is no fun cleaning at all. But thank goodness that kids are still at home, some of them anyway. And they cleaned it up for me. Anyways, this morning. I was on with Ken and Matt, and we had two topics that I think are extremely important. I'm glad they picked these. They have to do with some of the killer technology that China's selling to Iran in case you're not aware of what's happening in Iran right now. You might want to look it up. They are killing protesters in Iran. I mean, like snipers from rooftops and governments shooting them. It's incredible. And SMS man, that's a technology that needs to go so here we go. tech guru

Ken Altschuler
Our Tech Guru, Craig Peterson, is on right now on the WGAN Morning News with Ken and Matt.

Matt Gagnon
Back again at 738 on the WGAN Morning News with Ken and Matt Craig Peterson. Our tech guru joins us at this time every week this week is no exception. Craig, welcome back to the program.

Craig Peterson
Hey, good morning, gentlemen, and everybody else out there. I hope you're having a great day enjoying this snow.

Ken Altschuler
Well, I saw this story on your website about SMS. No SMS and why you shouldn't use it anymore. Do I? Do I use SMS things?

Matt Gagnon
Yes, you do.

Ken Altschuler
Hey, why should I not use texting, right? I mean, just basic text is SMS, right?

Craig Peterson
Yeah, exactly what it's been around for a long time.

Ken Altschuler
Why should I use it?

Craig Peterson
It was quite a stretch for a Segway I'm afraid. Well, here's what's going on. SMS is something that we've been using for a very long time. Now not all the time when you're quote texting, unquote. Are you using SMS, but it started way back when we first had cellular phones, and the phones themselves had to have a little data channel so they could communicate with the towers. And then they realized, you know, there's more bandwidth here than we need. And so they came up with this simple messaging service. So that's what you were sending texts on with that little, what did they use to call that Matt, you might remember, but then you had your phone, all it had on it was a keypad. You'd push you to know the button to three times or to get a C, and then you go to the next one, to get the following letter that there was a standard was called t something or that can't remember what it is now. Anyways, we send about 6 billion SMS messages. That's a lot of messages. They were never the system was never really designed. Keep any of that safe or so. Because of that, we have gotten us, shooters, very cheap. Nowadays. SMS is are free and 6 billion that day tells you a lot of people are using that's us alone, by the way, 180 billion each month and you know, almost 3 trillion a year more than that when you get worldwide. So here's the problem with SMS, which is the short message surface and MMS, which is a multimedia messaging service that is both sent absolutely in the clear. And as we found from Lisa Page and Peter Strock, those messages can be recalled, stored, and easily monitored. There are some new standards out there. And the best measure to use just generally speaking is called OTP, which stands for over the top. Now, if you have an iPhone and oh you do, can you use messages I assume on your iPad.

Ken Altschuler
Um, no, I don't do the I do texting. But I don't do messaging. I didn't excuse me yesterday. I do texting but not messenger.

Matt Gagnon
You don't? Excuse me. You texted me yesterday.

Ken Altschuler
But not on messenger.

Craig Peterson
So do you use messages? The Apple Messages app on your phone or your Mac?

Ken Altschuler
Yes, I did. Yes.

Craig Peterson
And have you noticed there are two different colors, particularly if you send a message to someone?

Ken Altschuler
Okay, let me check. Here are the messages. Okay. Yeah. One is green, and one's blue?

Craig Peterson
Exactly. So, for instance, when you text Matt, it's going to be green. Did you notice that? Because you know, he uses a Samsung device. You have to be careful.

Ken Altschuler
Yes. Why? Why? Why is it green when I text them?

Craig Peterson
Now, if you were to text me, it would be blue. Here's what's going on. It's warning you in green is the standard for SMS, and that's why Apple uses green. But, if you have sent a message to somebody and it's green and means it's not safe, it's the opposite. It isn't normal. It means that Matt, you and Matt just had shared a standard SMS message. It is not encrypted. The carrier saves it. It is not a safe message. If you're using messages and you send a message to me, for instance, on my iPhone or someone else on their iPhone is going to be blue, which means it was encrypted end to end, it is a relatively safe message. And if you're using iCloud storage and you tell it to use it for your messages, then it is stored by Apple, but it's still encrypted. So that's called Ott over the top. Now, there are others out there that you could use to communicate with Matt, there's WhatsApp Facebook Messenger, which I don't use. We chat. There's a few others out there signal is probably one of the best ones you could use. And with those apps, it doesn't matter if you're on Android or Apple. It is end to end encrypted. And it is considered to be generally safe in Facebook Messenger I'd be a little more concerned about, but it is using these highly encrypted protocols. There's more that is coming our way. But here is a big deal. That's happening again. And it started back in the Clinton administration. We had the "clipper chip." The FBI now is out annually, for the last, what, 30 years, 20 something years. They come out, and they say, Hey, listen, we don't like this encryption. We want back doors. As of yet, pretty much nobody has complied with us in recent years. So we're relatively safe for monitoring. We know if the FBI wants to get in that and they can't, that that means the bad guys probably can't get in either. And that's a good thing, keeping the bad guys out. But there's hope the answers your question about snow there. Can don't Use SMS if you can avoid it use one of these apps, which I just mentioned as I message on your Apple equipment Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, we chat and particularly signal si G and Al. Very, very good, very secure. And most of these also let you do video chats as well, which texting does not allow you do but if

Ken Altschuler,
it's blue, so it's okay to send it.

Craig Peterson
Yes, if it's blue, you're safe because that means the other person has Imessage, and it is encrypted. If you want to send an encrypted message to Matt, you could use something called Signal. It is an app that works for both Apple and Android.

Ken Altschuler
But, don't you both have to have the app on your phone?

Craig Peterson
Yes, they would, And the same thing is true with WhatsApp, and we chat and messenger Facebook Messenger. You have to both have that application. On your device, and obviously, you have to set it and be logged in. I tend to use I message because most people I work with are using that they've got Apple gear. But if I'm not using iMessage, I use Signal. Again, it's one of these over the top (OTP) messaging services, if you will, and, and most of these are free-ish. There is the problem when it comes to Facebook, that you're their product, right? Remember that. So, that's why I don't trust Facebook Messenger that much, but at least it is encrypted.

Matt Gagnon
Craig Peterson, our tech guru, joins us at this time every Wednesday to go over the world of technology. Craig, my question to you revolves around killer robots once you tell us a little bit more about what China is doing to kill us all.

Craig Peterson
Oh my gosh, this is something I'd hoped you guys talk about this. Well, you hope right, my friend because I saw killer robots and I couldn't resist. Yeah. It is a scary thing, frankly. Here's what's happening. Did you see the latest movie with Gerald Butler? Where he's protecting the president? Edward Butler?

Matt Gagnon
Yeah. Was that was the, you know, like Olympus Has Fallen kind of movie.

Craig Peterson
Yeah, exactly. And you saw what happened in there, and there was a swarm of drones that came and attacked. And it was really, really bad because like their drones could explode. And of course, if you have thousands of these silly things, they're going to be hard to defend against these. We saw an attempt a coup attempt, apparently but least attempt on the life of a president South America here within the last 12 months as well. Well, what China is selling is something that several countries have said they would never, ever do. The United States is not one of those, unfortunately, but that is to have a ton of self-autonomous robots that can kill through the use of explosives or maybe guns. They have the fully autonomous ability to be able to make decisions as to who to kill, or what to bomb. China has started selling drones outfitted with, with machine guns here, small machine guns, small arms. They are selling these drones to these Middle Eastern countries. And they are fully autonomous. And this is their most advanced military, aerial drone technology. And what it means mad is kind of what you were saying, You release these onto a battlefield. And let's say that you've trained the artificial intelligence in the drone to recognize the uniform of your opponent, and he just left these silly things loose, they could be killing hundreds, thousands of people on the battlefield. Look at what's happening there. Wrong right now, where they have snipers' shooting demonstrators dead in the street. Iran could send in one of these programmed drones in to kill anyone in these blocks downtown. Anyone that's not in a police uniform let's say and let them loose and off they go. Now China has this technology is we know we're selling it right. And they're not using it in Hong Kong right now. But Iran, China, some of these countries are barbaric. We do not have any fully autonomous equipment or drones on the battlefield. So I guess that's good news. The United States has said although it's not an official policy near as I can tell, it has said we would not allow the use of lethal force unless a person authorizes a specific into them. So I guess that's good, but as far as the Middle East goes and China. And by the way, the Middle East here means Iran, who is killing their citizens who are demonstrating right now. It is a very, very scary technology man.

Ken Altschuler
Craig Peterson, our Tech Talk Guru joins us every Wednesday at 738. Craig, thank you. Have a great weekend. We'll talk to you next Wednesday.

Craig Peterson
Gentlemen, take care. Bye.

Matt Gagnon
Alright, thanks a lot, Craig. So we're going to take a quick break. All right,

Craig Peterson
Everybody, if you would take a minute to read up more on this. And I know there's a couple of online petitions. I think it changed.org, but visit me online, Craig peterson.com. There is lots of great information right there. And we have some changes coming to the website come January. Hopefully, you also have been watching some of my Facebook Lives, and sharing them with your friends. I have been delving in more deeply into a few of these topics. Then you can get that by just going right now. To Craig Peterson, dot com slash Facebook and make sure you follow me like my page. I'd appreciate it and have a look at some of those Facebook Lives. We've been doing some awesome pieces of training over there. Take care, everybody, and we'll be back on Saturday. Bye-bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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