AS HEARD ON NH Today WGIR-AM 610:Leaked personal Facebook data and What is DHS thinking by Having Private Contractors to Compile Watch Lists

Welcome,

Craig Peterson here.  This morning I was on with Chris Ryan on NH Today. We discussed first the big data dump of 533 Million Facebook user accounts available now for free online. Then he hit out of the park with this new news from the DHS who are now going to contract BIG TECH data and private contractors to compile lists of dissidents and create watch lists -- OMG what could possibly go wrong with this?  It is outright dumb! Here we go with Chris. 

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

- CraigPeterson.com

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Automated Machine Generated Transcript:

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] Well, there's another animated Monday morning with Christopher Ryan. We had a chat let's say, you can tone it down a little bit here, about two different things. One, the hackers that leaked the 533 million Facebook users online just posted it up there. We talk about why? What happened? Why aren't they selling it? We talked about, as well as I think Chris understood what I meant when I sent him this article. He hit it out of the park Homeland security. They're going to be using private contractors, big tech, it appears here to help them track down citizens that they feel might be dangerous. What are the repercussions of that? 

We're getting into it all here with Mr. Chris Ryan.

Chris Ryan: [00:00:54] It's right now Craig Peterson. He is the host of Tech Talk, which comes up at 11:30 AM on Saturday. So, I am the opening act for Craig Peterson. 

Craig Peterson: [00:01:05] Wow. I've got to follow you. 

Chris Ryan: [00:01:08] Yeah. Me and Gucci. Yeah. Good luck, pal. 

So let's start with this, Mark Zuckerberg's cell phone number was among leaked personal data for 533 million Facebook users. Hackers were able to get into Facebook and get a hold of Zuckerberg's cell phone, along with personal data from 553 million users. Quite a story there. 

Craig Peterson: [00:01:35] You heard about that? Yeah. Did you see the response from this Facebook spokesman? He said this is old data, we fixed it in 2019, in August 2019?

Yeah. I think is a very, very big deal. It has been sold and resold amongst cybercriminals for quite a while. It's a lot of data. Saturday's leak that happened makes it all essentially free now. That's probably because the hackers just can't sell it anymore. Anybody that wanted your personal information already has it. Right.? 

Chris Ryan: [00:02:13] It also shows the lack of transparency from Facebook. Right? I mean, that answer is wanting to make it seem like, Oh yeah, everything's fixed now. That was two years ago. But they In my view and to my knowledge did not release that they had been hacked in this substantive way in 2019. If memory serves and now it's like, Oh yeah, this has happened a long time ago. Now that the information has been released because of the lack of ability to sell it. Only now, are they making a public correct? 

Craig Peterson: [00:02:42] Yeah. That's exactly right. This is information from people, Facebook users in 106 countries. It includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, that's addresses, by the way, birthdate, and email addresses. 

What this data's been used for, are these phishing scams that we've talked about so many times where people are getting an email, it looks legitimate and it sounds legitimate and it might even be happy birthday from Facebook.  In reality, it's a Nigerian Prince that's behind that kid. 

Chris Ryan: [00:03:17] What do you do if you feel like you've been hacked? You're getting these types of emails. We all get phone calls or text messages, at times, from scammers. What do you do in those circumstances where you feel like you are in jeopardy, but you don't feel like there's a recourse. You call the FBI and you'll be like on hold for eight years and then no one ever gets anything. Local police don't have jurisdiction. Is there any recourse for a person that feels that they're vulnerable and that they've been hacked and that they're getting these types of scams set in their direction?

Craig Peterson: [00:03:51] Well, this is just you and me talking here, Chris. The reality is there's not much you can do. There are apps that you can put on your phone to help stop those calls. Things like, Hiya, H I Y A that's what I use. That has a scammer database. You can go to the internet. Crime complaint center online. This is the FBI's center, and you'll see that at ic3.gov. IC3.gov, again. All you have to do is go there. You can report an internet crime, but the reality is there's not much it's going to happen.  It's very, very upsetting to me. Sometimes I felt like screaming about this and we'd talk about it frequently on my weekend show, but the problem is you have lost your personal private information. 

Most of us, don't move every few months. So, that address that they have of our home, that we may have lived in for years, that's not going to change. Our name's not going to change most likely. 

The social security administration will not give us a new social security number, even when it's been stolen. By the way, probably all of ours have been stolen. Right? 

So, all you can do is grin and bear, keep an eye out, watch out for your privacy. In fact, this week, I'm starting a course on privacy for windows users, what to do to lock down your windows machine. 

All you can really do go to I c 3 dot gov report it.

If you have had money stolen, it'll tell you about this on this FBI site, but you're going to have to file a police report depending on what has happened. 

Overall, almost all of our information is out there and you know what, maybe it's okay because all of those people from Equifax, they're all in prison now, aren't they for like 20 or 30 years?

Oh, well, nothing happened to them. There were no teeth behind these laws. Our lives are getting just upturned, and then not to add one more thing to this. Chris, we are now looking at some of the use of other ways of authentication. Right? They're talking about having these passes for the Coronavirus vaccine. They're looking to use things like our eye scans, retinal scans, face scans, fingerprint scans.

Look at the people at the airports. You might remember that from a year plus ago would go through them, the super-fast lane. Right. Just go up and it would scan their eyes. Well, you think it's hard to change your social security number? How hard is it to get new eyes? Right? 

We're now in Tom cruise territory here where you can't change your eyes. You can't change your fingerprints. You can't change your face. And yet we're going to use those as identifiers. We should have learned just by having our social security numbers, et cetera, stolen and no real consequences, not just for the people that stole it, but from the people that weren't protecting it.

Chris Ryan: [00:06:52] Right. I want to get to a huge story that NBC News is reporting on, but we have not really seen a rise to the forefront of the public consciousness. That is the US Department of Homeland Security. Is getting set to hire public companies and individual contractors outside of government to get data and information on individuals to compile new terrorist watch lists.  DHS is going to pay big tech, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, the contracts to hire and organize internal monitoring teams to assist the government by sending information on citizens, they deemed to be Quote dangerous.

NBC says that the developments are taking place. The US intelligence apparatus is preparing to go live with the assembly of lists of Americans who could be potential threats to the government and need to be watched. Again, the question here is in regards to where the line is drawn. Are you a dissident, if you use language that is in opposition to the government? The current administration? The past administration? In regards to the president, if you don't like the way the government operates or if you are vociferous in regards to that? Where does the line get drawn? To me, this is a significant piece that the US Department of Homeland Security is engaged in. 

Craig Peterson: [00:08:14] You hit it out of the park, absolutely. As you're out of the park. The red Sox couldn't hit it out. You just did. 

The problem here is where is that line? You know what that line of, Oh my gosh, you're obviously a dissident cause you're planning on bombing the world trade center using an airplane. Okay, that's an obvious line, but as it continues to slide, that's a matter of interpretation.

So if you have somebody making the decision about something that someone else said, and deciding, well I'm, I'm the decider and I think this is hurtful. This person might be a terrorist. This doesn't work. 

Look at what we've already had for proof. Some of these horrific things where there have been shootings at school, et cetera, where that shooter, that murderer had been on the police radar. It had been reported. They were threatening to kill people and nothing happened. 

So now we're going to take an action here that we've never before really done much with and we're going to apply it to the entire nation. We're going to use algorithms that are going to look at what people are saying and classify them as to the degree of risk and then what are we going to do with those people? Are people gonna end up like the Uighurs in China and end up in camps? 

This is absolutely huge. 

Chris Ryan: [00:09:41] We got to run, but, I look at this from my perspective as an individual that is often critical of the government. I also am an individual that will use social media and Google in order to do research. So, if there's a pipe bomb that is laid outside of the RNC or the DNC after the insurrection of the US capital during, or actually before, I'm going to research that well. What is a pipe bomb? How does it go about being assembled? What's its lethality? So, now I am a potential dissident who is doing research online about pipe bombs. See what I'm saying, see where this is going. 

I am Chris Ryan. This is New Hampshire today. Craig Peterson is with us. Thank you so much. 

Craig Peterson: [00:10:16] There's a hard cut. Hey, you should check your email box. If you haven't already. If you are interested in Improving Your Windows, privacy, and security, I have a course we've been working on it for months. We've gone through multiple iterations. We wanted to make this the best course you have ever had. If you're on my email list, you already know. If you were on it before this whole thing started that I am, in fact, giving you guys a great, great, great, great, great deal. So, check your email box. If you haven't already. 

Let me know, respond to me, this isn't a click-through autoresponder type thing. This is Karen and I that write these. I want to make these things personal, and I have a communication with you guys, right? 

I'm tired of all of this tech stuff and trying to twist people's arms and fool them into buying things. So, that will not happen. It does not happen with me. In fact, we were already working on what are we going to do next? We've got some great ideas in place, but right now it's Improving Windows Security. Of course, privacy is the emphasis here in this first set. It is five modules we're releasing over the course of about a month and you can get all of that.  I'm even going to throw in, and I haven't told anybody yet, but I'm going to have a couple of live Q&Acalls too, for people if you are a member of this course. If you've bought it you can be on those calls and I'll answer your personal computer questions that is live and on a webinar, you can call in on your phone too. If you're not into the whole, how do I use my camera? I don't even want to use my camera. Isn't this a privacy course? Why are you making me use my camera? You can just go on your phone as well. 

All right. Everybody keep an eye out for that.  If you are not on my email list, if you don't know about this, you can just go to Craig peterson.com/subscribe.

You'll get on my list and you'll get some follow-up emails. But this is going to be a busy week for me and I am going to be out for almost two weeks coming up the week after. So busy, busy, busy times.

All right, everybody, take care and we'll talk again soon.