AS HEARD ON: WGAN Mornings News with Matt Gagnon: Surveillance, Big Tech and the Covid-19 Pandemic and more

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

---

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

---

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