Tesla's Backseat Driver - Israeli Conflict Lies - Pay $5M Ransom Get Nothing

[The following is an automated transcript.]

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] The lies and misinformation that are going on right now over in Israel, between Hamas and of course the Israeli government. This Tesla owner got bulled over sent to jail because he was driving the Tesla from a back seat. And a little bit more about the colonial pipeline with Mr. Matt Gagnon. We joined him of course, this morning.

[00:00:27] Here we go.

[00:00:28] Matt Gagnon: [00:00:28] Good to have you with us. 7:36 on a Wednesday means it's time to talk to Craig Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us at this time every single week. Craig, how are you this week?

[00:00:38]Craig Peterson: [00:00:38] Hey, I am doing quite well. I had a couple of my hives swarm. It's just been such a great day; over winter and a great spring.

[00:00:47] And so I was able to capture them. So I'm up two more hives. I cut two swarms.

[00:00:53] Matt Gagnon: [00:00:53] So I'm what are you talking about? Are you a bee person?

[00:00:56] Craig Peterson: [00:00:56] My honey bees. Yeah. You didn't know that?

[00:00:58] Matt Gagnon: [00:00:58] Well, yeah. Okay. I sort of remember that a little bit, but you wouldn't mean you caught a swarm. I mean, they like you, you go out there with a net, I mean, yeah,

[00:01:06] Craig Peterson: [00:01:06] Well,, the way it works is bees multiply by dividing. So if they're, if they're really, really healthy, they will go ahead and make some new Queens. And then when that queen emerges, the old queen will take about half of the workers and we'll go to try and find a new hive. So she'll go out and she'll just sit on a branch.

[00:01:28] And of course, all of these other workers that had 10 to 15,000 bees will swarm right around her. So they'll all be resting on this poor branch, which is almost always just sagging. So if you can touch them. So what you do is if you can get that queen particularly, and get her into another little hive or a box to begin with, then now you've got a whole new hive. So that's how they have new colonies. That's how the honeybees is started expanding. And I, I often just let them go because it helps with the whole diversity thing and they become wild honey bees, which we need because this year, about half of all of the colonies in the U S died. So that's how it works.

[00:02:14] There's a bigger than a football, but kind of shaped like it. And if you see one call a beekeeper in your area, so they can either go and grab them and help them make sure they're healthy because unfortunately our wild bees are dying at very high rates, but they can make sure they're healthy. They can capture them and they'll be happy.

[00:02:34] And hopefully they won't end up in somebody's Eve's over there that they then have to try and get those beat colony out of.

[00:02:43] Matt Gagnon: [00:02:43] Well, I learned something about bees today. Ladies and gentlemen, Craig Peterson joins us at this time. He also joins the program where we're joins the station, excuse me, on Saturdays at one o'clock where he hosts the show where he goes into many of these topics in more detail.

[00:02:54] I don't know if you're going to hear about bees, but I guess you're probably going to hear about the colonial pipeline. I know that we talked a little bit about this last week, but Craig, they paid a $5 million ransom. And from what I understand, they basically, I mean, what they got back for a key, they didn't even really use any way.

[00:03:09] And they ended up like using a, sort of a backup, uh, uh, of theirs to restore things. Anyway. I mean, first of all, tell me about what actually happened with that payment ransom. And second of all, what's the impact of this? I mean, does this not just incentivize more of this garbage happening? Yeah,

[00:03:24] Craig Peterson: [00:03:24] it really does.

[00:03:25] And that not only incentivizes it generally, but it incentivizes them to go after colonial dam, just like they've done with the city of Atlanta, where they paid a ransom. And of course they got hit again just weeks later. Another ransom. Right? They got hit again. So this is really bad. Under the Trump administration, the department of justice said you are supporting terrorism.

[00:03:51] If you pay ransoms. And we consider that to be a legal. Now under the Biden administration, they said, no, you know, whatever, do whatever you want. It's kind of, you know, up to you. Uh, they paid $5 million. The bad guys gave them the decryption key. And, and in fact, tried to help them decrypt to their data that wasn't successful.

[00:04:14] What colonial ended up doing is two things. One, they switched their pipeline over to manual. Control away from computer control. So they actually had to have people all the way up and down the coast. How long does that? It's like two, 3000 mile pipeline and all of the valves turn them on and off. That's how they had to deal with it.

[00:04:36] But pain, your ransom is a bad thing to do. Having a backup is a good thing to do, but you gotta remember. And I cover this in my backup. Of course that when we're talking about backups, something that's attached to your machine is also going to be encrypted as part of the ransom. So make sure your backups are remote and the bad guys can't get it them, but that's the easiest way to get them.

[00:05:01] Pass that first part of the ransom. The second part is what's going to be interesting here mind, because what they will do this group is they'll steal your data and then they will threaten to release the data. And, uh, when Zach shoe going to drop, and then also there are claims out there that the reason they shut the pipeline down, Matt was because their billing systems were offline.

[00:05:28] That was the part of their network that was attached, attacked by ransomware. And they wanted to be paid for the fuel. So they shut it down because they didn't want it to deliver fuel that they couldn't bill for.

[00:05:45] Matt Gagnon: [00:05:45] It's quite a mess, obviously, correct. Peter Sohn joins us at this time, uh, every Wednesday to go over what's happening in the world of technology or the big story besides this colonial pipeline issue, which is really more of a last week thing is what's going on in Israel with, uh, you know, obviously the, uh, the, the rockets being watched back and forth, the potential of a ground invasion, the conflict.

[00:06:04] At its worst point for the last probably eight years or so. Uh, social media has been a part of this story here. And one of the things that's interesting about that is that misinformation lies a bunch of garbage has been skewed around on social media. And there seems to be no stopping it. Craig Peterson.

[00:06:21] Craig Peterson: [00:06:21] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And what we're finding now is really something that's been going on for a long time, all over the world. And that is, they are showing at official press conferences on basically on both sides of this conflict. There's showing videos. Of other past conflicts and representing it as it's happening right now.

[00:06:48] So this is a real big problem, frankly, these, this is a different world. Many of our news organizations are not investigating. They find a video, they use the video, even though it misrepresents it. And of course, a lot of people are familiar. With that at our U S border where they were showing pictures of kids in cages, when they were, those bridges are taken cherry, the Obama administration.

[00:07:15] And yet it is the Trump administration. They're complaining about same thing here. So we are able to do research online, please do the research, and it's disgusting to see the state of Israel. Using videos that are not particularly relevant and misrepresenting them in the same thing on the other side with

[00:07:37] Matt Gagnon: [00:07:37] Tomas.

[00:07:38] Yeah. That's not the first time that's ever happened. We're talking with Craig Peterson, our tech guru who joins us this time every single week. Lastly, just want to ask a little bit about Tesla. Uh, a Tesla owner who drives from the back seat got arrested recently.

[00:07:53] Craig Peterson: [00:07:53] Yeah. You said he apparently told the police officer that, uh, and this was in California highway patrol that he felt safer in the back seat.

[00:08:05] Matt Gagnon: [00:08:05] This is, this is the self-driving car revolution about to happen to us. Right? Do we are going to get a lot more stories like this

[00:08:11] Craig Peterson: [00:08:11] happening soon? It absolutely is traveling eastbound on the IAT or across the San Francisco Oakland Bay bridge. Uh, if you're familiar with it.

[00:08:21] Matt Gagnon: [00:08:21] Oh my God. He drove on that bridge.

[00:08:24] Seriously. Yeah, I know I've spent an awful lot of time out there and I've driven on that bridge more than once. And that's the last place I would be in the backseat, not driving my car. I guess. It's just my I'm terrified of Heights, but now that's insane. Yeah.

[00:08:37] Craig Peterson: [00:08:37] So people were reporting it to the police.

[00:08:40] The police pulled him over. You apparently climbed into the front seat and in order to stop the car and he actually got arrested, put in jail. He was released as is the norm in California. And so what does he do? He does it again. And he's caught again and arrested again. He says, I just feel safer back here than I do.

[00:09:02] Uh, there, uh, this is, yeah, this is what we're in for here. Remember, even though Tesla calls it full self-driving, it is not with autonomous,

[00:09:14] Matt Gagnon: [00:09:14] right. It's meant to be an autopilot while you're sitting there. Behind the wheel, just in case and, and directing things still really. I mean, it's not a full self-driving for real right now, Craig Peterson.

[00:09:25] Thanks for joining us as always good luck on Saturday on this very program one, o'clock make sure you tune in for that. And we'll talk again next week. Hey, take care. All right, we're going to take a quick break here. When we come back.