AS HEARD ON NH Today WGIR-AM 610: Fake People and Dangerous Printers

Welcome,

Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jeff Chidester on NH Today. We hit a number of interesting tech topics this morning. We started off with Fake People and the legitimate uses for them and then we got into how the scammers are using them.  Then we discussed how your office printer can be used as an attack launchpad into your business network and how you can prevent that from happening. Here we go with Jeff. 

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit.

- CraigPeterson.com

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] Hey, good morning, everybody had a good call with Mr. Jeff Chidester on New Hampshire today. And, they still don't have a permanent host thereafter Jack Heath left, but anyhow, we had a good little chat about everything. Printers and what the federal government's warning about from your shopping this year, all the way on, through the basics of some of the privacy that we have, or maybe we don't even have anymore. So here we go with Mr. Chidester.

Jeff Chidester: [00:00:32] 38 past the hour. Jeff Chidester with you. Of course, our next guest Craig Peterson, you can find out more by going to craigpeterson.com. Craig peterson.com. Also, you can hear him on tech talk right here every Saturday. Plus you see them all over the place. So he's just about everywhere, Craig, how are you?

Craig Peterson: [00:00:47] Hey, good morning, that's because I need to lose a few pounds, I think. I'm everywhere.

Jeff Chidester: [00:00:51] I have a great idea for you. you can have a fake person generated. That's actually one of the top news stories you were talking about. This is a really odd dynamic that I've seen over the last few weeks. That is as real, it doesn't seem like it would be nefarious, but there are some implications to this of being able to generate fake people to put up online.

Craig Peterson: [00:01:12] Yeah, there really is it, I have built a website since it was legal to new business on the internet using the web. When that whole protocol came out. One of the biggest problems we've always had is, what faces do we put up there? most of your customers don't want you to take.

It cheers with them. And we've had issues in the passage from people in different phases. And this is all part of this kind of this deep fake that's been going on for quite a while. I have a software impact on doing podcasts and any sort of audio recording. Yeah. That I trained for my voice, Jeff so if I'm there and I'm saying, man, I just love listening to Hampshire every day, but I, it should be on Saturday and Sunday as well.

She could have added that in after I recorded it. Just add in that it should have been on Saturday or Sunday. And it sounds like it was me saying that. We've got deep fakes now for videos. You've probably seen some of those things where people put in have their favorite celebrity, do whatever they want.

Now, what you're talking about is you can go for free, there is a website you can go to for free and have a, get a photo. If you will, of a person that just doesn't exist at all.  You can get them for free. you can buy them for a buck apiece, depending on how many you're buying. These are attractive faces.

They look like they're normal. And this technology over the last three years has gone from you gotta be kidding me that wouldn't fool a soul back in 2017 to today where it is absolutely amazing. Check it out. Check, go to this person does not exist. And get your own free, fake face.

Jeff Chidester: [00:03:03] We're talking to Craig Peterson.

Once again, you can find out more by going to Craig peterson.com. I always, I kid with people that I have a face for radio, so maybe I should hop over there again, really. That's what Jeff looks like. we talked about, this could be a great tool for businesses. As you said, for those who go through testimonials and the picture, people don't want to be pictured and stuff like that.

But, people can actually, there's a, there's something about a face, seeing a face that could lead to a false trust factor. Talk a little bit about that as well.

Craig Peterson: [00:03:31] Yeah, that's that is a very big deal. It's been a problem for a long time. One of my sons is a volunteer on this dating site and what he does is when people submit their, their photos, as well as other stuff, he verifies it.

So you'll take the photo. Google has a reverse lookup. That allows you now to check and see, does this photo exists somewhere on the internet? So you'll take the photo of Jeff Chittister and you'll put it into Google reverse image search. And it'll say this person picture shows up all over the place.

With Jeff Chittister, he's going to be in some newspapers, he is going to be on the iHeart radio site, et cetera. okay. Those are all legitimate. But what if you wanted to cheat someone out of something. This is happening more and more where it's not just our seniors, it's the younger generation now generation Z that is far too trusting of information online.

So you could generate very easily. As I said, go to this free website. This person does not exist.com. They could use that. Photo from there posted somewhere. I have a make a new Instagram profile or Facebook, whatever it might be, and then con people.

Because even if you're smart enough to know that you should do a reverse photo lookup on that person, it's not going to show up anywhere. And that seems a little bit illegitimate. I don't know. Maybe in this day and age, if the person's photo doesn't show up anywhere, maybe it really is a fake, but this is incredible because they can also take that face and they can make them talk.

They can turn it into videos. They can become now your product. Person. And Hollywood's really worried about this because what it has the ability to do is take someone completely unknown person/Actor have basically put them in a green suit, have them do all of the physical stuff, and then they can paste in whoever they want, saying whatever they want.

And the actor in 10 years from now, are going to be second class citizens.

Jeff Chidester: [00:05:42] Oh, yeah. and just completely destroyed those wages as well. I want to go to talking to Craig Peterson, Craig peterson.com. You can find out more.

So more people are working remotely. One of the other interesting stories you were talking about more people are moving remotely, and we always think about the computer as the actual laptop or the desktop it's choosing from home for your office work as the issue of the greatest susceptibility to cybersecurity.

But now we have to look beyond that computer don't we when we're talking about remote employees?

Craig Peterson: [00:06:12] Yeah, you do. There's there are so many things that are on people's networks and so many devices that are there now. And so many of them have been compromised and, I'm always beating my drum out the Android devices, and don't use them, Because the biggest problem is that they don't get the updates. They don't get those software updates at the rate that Apple does.

Apple will release a security fix and it'll be installed on 70% of the phones in two weeks. Versus Android, where many phones won't get the updates. And right now I thought that I saw that 60% of Android phones are three major releases behind. So you know that you've gotta be very careful. If you're a business person, you have to extend the security that hopefully, you have in the office out to all of your homes are people's homes and their mobile devices, whatever they are.

When we're talking about updates, that's another thing that's come out in that great article by the people who are providing the cybersecurity and infrastructure protection. There's this security agency about that. They're warning us now with this gift-giving season coming that we have to keep everything up to date, including remember our appliances, all of our electronic devices, and nowadays, more and more our children's toys.

It turns out even some voting machines are connected to the internet and they're running Windows Seven. If you can believe that,

Jeff Chidester: [00:07:51] I will tell you the story I had about a few weeks ago about a guy who's still running Excel 97. I don't even know how you do that. but clearly, that's something to think about, and it's you're right, because a lot of these businesses too, Craig only have one or two, IT people, and they have been just inundated with moving people into a remote office and then trying to manage that most officers weren't ready for that.

So even like the printer, becomes an area of susceptibility, because they're not printing in the office anymore. They're going out and buying one or giving them a generic one to use at home.

Craig Peterson: [00:08:23] All of those, again, attached to the network. Have you ever updated the firmware in your printer? That's now on your network or your light bulb that comes in the roof above you?

And now we've got the children's toys that are coming our way. All of those, especially for using a VPN. Can now get through the VPN to the offices called piggybacking. And what happens is that the VPN is running on your machine. Whatever it might be, a mobile device and other devices that are on your network can potentially. Use that it's just like having a roadway. Almost anybody can get on unless things are configured properly.

Printers. When we go into facilities, businesses, even bigger ones, even DOD department of defense contractors, we're finding printers that have never, ever been updated. That has major security problems and is, in fact, the source of this security vulnerability and loss of all of their data and intellectual property. It all started with a printer.

Jeff Chidester: [00:09:27] There's so much to think about once again, that's why I need to follow Craig. Once again, Craig peterson.com Craig peterson.com.

Here we are worried about the Terminator when we should've been worried about Teddy Ruxpin. I'm looking down the hallway to see this thing marching down, cause he's been connected to the internet as well.

Hey Craig, we've actually run out of time. We've got to remind everybody who wants to Craig peterson.com Craigpeterson.com.

I'll see you heard on this radio station and other radio stations this weekend as well.

Craig Peterson: [00:09:50] All right. Take care, everybody. Thanks

Jeff Chidester: [00:09:52] You as well, Craig, once again, all that great stuff.

I would highly suggest that you go ahead and, make Craig part of your, one of your bookmarks or favorites. Cause he keeps you up to date on all the things you heard here, plus other interviews and other podcasts he duds does are all located up on Craig peterson.com.

What we'll do is go and take a break right back, catch you up, up to date on the markets on this first day after the Thanksgiving holiday.

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