AS HEARD ON - The Jim Polito Show - WTAG 580 AM: Passwords, Data Collection, Big Tech and more

Welcome!

Good morning, everybody. I was on with Mr. Jim Polito this morning and we discussed Passwords, huge databases, data collection by Big Tech and our schools, COPPA  and Google. So, here we go with Mr. Polito.

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

--- 

Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig
Now we've got the New Mexico Attorney General, who I'm sure will be joined by other attorneys general to file suit on this. We've got this children's online Privacy Protection Act, which has been around for quite a while that says any personal data for a child under the age of 13. If you collect that data on a child, you have to have explicit permission from the parents.

Craig
Good morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. And that was me chatting with Mr. Jim Polito over in Worcester and Springfield, Mass, two biggest that's the second and third-biggest cities in Mass and we got talking about the new FBI recommendations. Also, a new lawsuit filed against Google. It is going to be the next big thing for governments going after companies like Google and other data aggregators who are collecting data on our kids through programs they sponsor in our schools. I can't believe what the schools are doing to the kids right now when it comes to their privacy. By the way, a bit of a warning. It was kind of scratchy this morning. I'm not sure what was going on. But anyhow, here we go.

Jim
Popular segment here on the show. It happens every Tuesday. At this time. I'm talking about our good friend and Tech Talk guru, who just happens to be from Canada, originally. Craig Peterson. Good morning, sir.

Craig
Good morning, Jim.

Jim
All right, Craig, I want to start with this. You know, we're in the political season now. You know, campaign slogans and phrases and all that but, so maybe that's this is an excellent time to change your password because the FBI is saying, Hey, get rid of that password, and come up with a pass. phrase, you know, like, make America great again, maybe not that one. It might be a little too obvious for some people, but they're saying phrases tell us about this.

Craig
It goes way back to the password came out oh my gosh, Dec, many, many, many decades ago. And it was a way to restrict access to a computer, and very few people were trying to break into them. Most of them didn't have a, you know, external wire. And what's an easy way to do this? Well, let's just have a password, and it was just simple, and it was enough to keep people out. And then we moved to the point where what happened is people had guys who got onto computers can steal the password files, and they had programs that would run through those password files and try and crack the passwords. You know, and that's when they came up with the idea, hey, listen, you got to have uppercase, lowercase digits, special characters, all of this other stuff. And today, it has changed the game. Today, as a result of all of these breaches is we have these large password data files. I have a copy of one of them, as well. I've been using to research these vast troves of data containing billions of actual people's passwords that they have used on a website, anything from their bank through Facebook or Google. It brings up the big problem, Jim, of using the same password on multiple sites, because what the bad guys are doing is they use that password file, passwords, billions of them, and they basically against you, or a cat online to try to break-in. So instead of trying to do something, that's computation, Generally intensive, they just say, Hey, listen, there really, there's about 10% of the people that use somewhere around the top 5% of all the passwords out there. So let's just go ahead, and we'll try those what the FBI is saying. If you use a string of words, as you had mentioned, you know, those bag of things, which by the way, as you pointed out, is a bad word because all people can use it. But if you use a string of words that are at least 15 characters long, it can take a hacker who's trying to make a brute force attack, and it can take that hacker good 100 years to break into your account. So it's simple advice. Most businesses are still aren't following it. It is something that I've been talking about for a few years now since I read some outstanding studies, not passports, I'm looking at how the hackers are working out there, and it goes back to 2015. So it's been about five years since I read some of those first ones. But the FBI his advice now, is it a longer password? Relying on simple words even and no special characters will take a crack and require more computational resources and, and therefore is much safer?

Jim
Wow. We're talking with Craig Peterson, our checkout guru, FBI recommending come up with a phrase. Don't use a password. A at the end of this segment will give you a little word that you can use. That word is going to be Jim, and you're going to get more information from Craig Peterson, but we'll tell you about that at the end of the segment. Okay, so I'm feeling safer. There. All right, now, here's where I'm not feeling safe. And it's for the kiddies. Okay, so Google is being sued. For misusing school kids, private data is this again, one of those cases where Google says I use this product, we have our this software for free. For free. Yeah. And then whenever it's free, you're the product, right?

Craig
Absolutely. It's like the free VPNs out there. You know, they're worse than not using a VPN. In this case, what we're talking about, is Google suite right here in Brockton, Mass. We've got a school tool that's using it. But Google has something called a Chromebook. We've talked about this before on the show. It is a Google Chromebook for the average user is the safest device to use out there. Okay, it is not more reliable than a MacBook but is much safer than a Windows laptop. There's a Chromebook, and the real, real exciting thing for schools is Yeah, they can be very cheap. Yeah. Right.

Jim
Like instead of buying an iPad for every kid in the school, which is expensive by the Chromebook,

Craig
450 bucks, yeah. Cheap. They go only up to 1000 depending on what you want. But it's Google we're talking about here. So even though they are secure from a hacker getting into them standpoint, that doesn't mean that Google isn't tracking what you're doing. Enter the problem here. The cost for access to free tools, as we know, is paid for by Google having our data, right. Google's providing low and no-cost hardware and software tools to students and schools. In addition to just statistics nationwide, and now we've got the New Mexico attorney general who I'm sure will be joined by other attorneys general to file suit on this. We've got this children's online Privacy Protection Act, which has been around for quite a while that says any personal data for a child under the age of 13. If you collect that data on a child, you have to have explicit permission from the parents. It applies to websites, apps, any sort of digital platform, and they collected data from the kids. And the New Mexico Attorney General is saying, Wait a minute. Well, you are collecting the data, and it resides in your cloud. So what are you doing with this? You're violating federal law, in this case, also New Mexico law? Yep. And Sue is alleging that Google deliberately is just stealing school districts and Parents about data collection, and how much better Could it be for Google? Right? They want to ask consumers for life, and then they start with you.

Jim
Well, how about that commercial that was so popular and useful that aired during the Super Bowl. It was a gentleman who was a widower. He was talking to Google. He was talking about his wife, who passed away, and it showed how it would remember all these things about her and bring up memories and thoughts. And okay, yeah, what better way to start that is when you're a kid. Google knows your whole life so that when you're dying, and your life is flashing before your eyes, Google will do it for you. They'll insert a couple of advertisements probably. For Funeral Directors, they'll put in you know, an ad in for a funeral during Hey, and you're dying now. Why don't you tell you folks about our services

Craig
Do you want to go to such a funeral home? Google and Apple and Microsoft, etc., all want our private data. They all want to be the repository of all of this information about us over the years. You know you can pick who doesn't go to Dr. Google when they when something goes wrong, right? Or you're trying to figure out what the symptoms mean, what's going on Google does track that, by the way, Google has a flow tracker, on the number of people who are searching for symptoms. Remember now to the federal government is restricted and cannot obtain or gather specific information on illegal under federal law, right? So what is the what are they started to do? Go into these third party companies like the Googles that have the data on us, and the federal government even though they can't track it, also though they can collect it. Our private industry has no restrictions on doing that. And so the federal and state governments they're just bypassing the law and go into these data aggregators to get whatever data they want about it.

Jim
All right. So look, here's what you need to do you need to arm yourself and know all of these things. And the way that you do it is you get on board with Craig Peterson. Craig Peterson will provide you with this information for free, and you are not the product. He does it as a service to members and listeners of the show. So all you do is Text my name, Jim, to this number 855-385-5553 Texting Jim to 855-385-5553 standard data and text rates apply. Craig Peterson will not rip you off. And Craig, thanks so much. We'll talk to you next week.

Craig
All right, Jim. Bye-bye. All right.

Craig 12:17
I'm sorry, that was terrible audio. I don't know I am debating whether or not I should even share that with you. I'm not sure what happened there. But, you know, say lovey like air. Anyhow, have a great day. And we'll be back tomorrow, hopefully with better audio. And then, of course, we got the show this weekend. And we're still working on our man. These tutorials are going to be amazing. By the time you finish these tutorials, you're going to be able to lock down any Windows or Mac computer yourself, and you're going to be able to lock down your small business network so that you're not going to be a victim of the bad guys. Best of all this is free. And if it was wasn't enough. You're going to know how to test everything yourself to make sure they can't get in. How was that for amazing, you guys, man. We're putting a lot of work into this, but you are going to love it. I think this is going to be the turning point in your security. Anyhow, have a great day. We'll be back tomorrow. Bye-bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

--- 

More stories and tech updates at:

www.craigpeterson.com

Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating:

www.craigpeterson.com/itunes

Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at:

www.twitter.com/craigpeterson

For questions, call or text:

855-385-5553