AS HEARD ON: WGAN Mornings News with Matt Gagnon: Facebook Moderators Sue Over PTSD, Firewalls and antivirus

Good morning everybody!

I was on with Matt this morning and we had a good discussion about Facebook and their contract moderators who just won a suit for PTSD due to the content they were exposed to and also about Firewalls and Anti-virus in re: the newer attacks being perpetrated by cybercriminals. 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 Peterson: Let's say that you were using an email address at Yahoo. You use the same one at your bank account. Credential stuffing is where they've got your Yahoo email and password. They'll try it at banks, and then finally they find one where it works. That's credential stuffing and it is really, really grown.

[00:00:22] Wow. Can you believe it's going to be in the nineties today in Southern Maine? Southern Maine. It's hotter than Kentucky, which is where I am right now. And I'm out here for a wedding. But you know, the whole social distancing thing, there's only gonna be 10 of us there. It's, it was just weird. But Hey, that's the COVID world and that's where you're hearing me on my laptop today.

[00:00:49] I was on with Matt and, here was that conversation.

[00:00:54] Matt Gagnon: Seven 36 WGAN morning news Wednesday morning time to talk to Craig Peterson our tech guru. He joins us at this time every Wednesday, Craig. how are you this morning?

[00:01:03] Craig Peterson: Hey, that's me doing well. I can't believe it's going to be almost 90 degrees today.

[00:01:09] Matt Gagnon: I know, right?

[00:01:10] The complaints about it being too cold or about to turn into complaints about it being too hot.

[00:01:15] Craig Peterson: It's always something.

[00:01:16] Matt Gagnon: It's the way we roll. Right. Well, speaking of, complaints, I have a firewall, Craig, and it makes me feel very secure and my antivirus system is just top-notch, or is it?

[00:01:28] Craig Peterson: Well then you are all set.

[00:01:30] Matt Gagnon: Or is it?

[00:01:32] Craig Peterson: Exactly.

[00:01:33] Well, here's the big problem we're having right now, and that is our firewalls are being used against us, at least. If you're using one of those firewalls, but maybe you bought it a couple of years ago and installed it in your home, these firewalls are now being hacked. Directly. Many of them are running completely unpatched software.

[00:01:56] And that unpatched software now means that there are ways in. So we've got to remember that we don't. Just update our windows machines or Macs or our phones. We have to make sure we're updating our firewalls. And then when it comes to antivirus, and I said this many times on these webinars that I've been giving.

[00:02:16] But antivirus today is 0% effective against modern threats. So the question is where they're not really worth your money. Well, yes it is, but if you're going to get a firewall, get some form of a commercial-grade firewall. There are some consumer firewalls that are pretty decent, and if you want to drop me a line, I can certainly send you a little special report on that and not trying to sell you anything unless you want to buy.

[00:02:42] But I want to get the information out there. Matt, it is a dangerous world out there. And with Coronavirus, it's gotten even more dangerous on the tech side.

[00:02:54] Matt Gagnon: Indeed. Craig Peterson, our tech guru, talks to us about some of those dangers out there every Wednesday at this time. And Craig, interestingly enough, there's a story that, that, that you've been reporting on here a little bit about the people who are moderating our contents.

[00:03:07] And I remember seeing. Maybe a couple of years ago now. maybe it was a story in the post or the times. It was a pretty big expose on exactly what it's like to be one of these people in Facebook or Google or, you know, places that have to moderate content a lot. You would expect it to be kind of just a regular old job, right?

[00:03:26] You know, somebody. Post something racist and you get it, you know, you take it down and all those types of things. Maybe like a moderator of a, of a chat board or something. But some of these people see some really messed up stuff and they're the ones that are, that are charged with getting rid of it so that we don't, and there there's payments for PTSD happening and people are asking for more of these moderators to do content curation.

[00:03:49] So tell us about this.

[00:03:51] Craig Peterson: Yeah, and that's kind of the bottom line here, that the problem is that we've been trying to move over to automated systems to moderate the content. But what we found is that if they just don't work. So there are human moderators there who are looking at it. Now, Facebook and most of these other companies are using third-party contractors to do much of this work. And that lets them go with the ebbs and flows and over all of the other advantages of having some contractors in place. But these contractors just won a judgment against Facebook, $52 million in PTSD payments. Now, this is, of course, the same sorts of things that can happen to anyone that sees something horrific.

[00:04:38] And these moderators are saying they are seeing horrific things dozens, if not hundreds of times a day. And they've been committing suicide, they have to go and see a psychologist, psychiatrists. Their families are breaking up all because of the terrible things that are seen. And you know, Matt, when you get right down to it, it's hard to believe that we as just regular normal people could be so, I don't know if the word is evil, but you know, real evil,

[00:05:12] Matt Gagnon: Awful, and would certainly be a word I would use.

[00:05:14] Craig Peterson: Awful. Yeah. To post stuff that's going to cause people to have post-traumatic stress.

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[00:05:21] Matt Gagnon: Yeah. And, and, and not to interrupt you or anything, Craig, but like the thing is, I think a lot of people who -hear this kind of a story say, Oh yeah, whatever, toughen up.

[00:05:28] It's not about you, you're on the internet theater. You're. You're waiting through content. Yeah. Some of it might not be great, but you know, toughen ups, you know, suck it up, buttercup. Right? But when you read some of the things, I'm not going to repeat a lot of them, but like when you read some of the things that they're actually forced to see so that they can get rid of, I mean, it's truly the worst of humanity. It really, really is.

[00:05:49] Craig Peterson: Yeah, it is. And people might have heard of red rooms and some of these other things that what people are posting and sharing online is just terrible. So my heart goes out to the support people and this $52 million in PTSD payment is only going to the contractors at Facebook. This has nothing to do with the employees who are faced with much the same thing every day.

[00:06:13] Matt Gagnon: Craig Peterson, our tech guru, talks to us every Wednesday at this time about some technical topics. Craig, what is credential stuffing?

[00:06:22] Craig Peterson: Yeah. This is where we had our information stolen from websites. So we, we know, for instance, about the Equifax hack where our name social security numbers, addresses everything was stolen from Equifax.

[00:06:37] And by the way, no one has received a check yet from Equifax for that breach, other than the banks, the banks are getting their money, but we're not. So the bad guys are taking the usernames, the email addresses, and the passwords that they've stolen from Equifax and all these other places now, and they are trying to use them at other websites.

[00:07:01] So if you're using the same email address. And the same password at multiple websites. The bad guys may have gotten you. So let's say that you were using an email address at Yahoo. You use the same one at your bank account. Credential stuffing is where they've got your Yahoo email and password. They'll try it at banks and then.

[00:07:24] Finally, they find one where it works. That's credential stuffing, and it has really, really grown. So the word of caution here, the step for everybody is changing your password and don't use the same password on every website and use multifactor authentication when possible. Have them send you a text message or use an authenticator app of some sort.

[00:07:50] Matt Gagnon: Craig Peterson our tech guru joins us at this time to go over what's happening in the world of technology. A final question for you, Craig. Encryption can help me protect my sensitive data. How do I actually can pull that off?

[00:08:03] Craig Peterson: Yeah. The easiest thing to do, both windows and Macs as well as Android devices and iOS devices, all have the ability to encrypt your data.

[00:08:14] And the advantage there is if your machine is stolen, they cannot get at your data. Now, it's automatic nowadays in the most recent versions of iOS for your phones and Android for your phones. But what we're looking at here now and is how can you get a good password? We just talked about those and use that password for disk encryption on your machines.

[00:08:39] Use a passphrase. We've talked about that before. Multiple words together. Make sure it's at least 15 characters long that's going to help.

[00:08:49] If you are using cloud services. Make sure you have extra encryption on there. You'll have to check, depending on your cloud service, what you should do. Use HTTPS everywhere. It's a plugin for your web browsers and that's going to make you safer than even a VPN is going to do.

[00:09:09] Matt Gagnon: His name is Craig Peterson, and he is also the host of a show that you hear here on WGAN on the weekend. Craig, tell the people when it is. And where it is.

[00:09:19] Craig Peterson: It is right here on Saturdays from one till three. We go through these topics as well as many others, and we have a little bit longer. There were two hours, so we tend to go into a lot more depth to help everybody understand what they should be doing and how to do it.

[00:09:37] Matt Gagnon: Indeed. Well, thanks so much for joining us here today, as always, Craig, and we will talk to you again next week.

[00:09:42] Craig Peterson: All right, take care, Matt.

[00:09:43] Matt Gagnon: You as well, sir. So coming up next, we're going to give you the latest email.

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