ScreamingBox Technology & Business Rundown

Dave Erickson 00:32
Welcome to the ScreamingBox Technology and Business Rundown episode number three. Today we're going to be talking about the new Google meet, and cybersecurity and how it affects business and technology. I have Botond and Iman with me today, and we will start this discussion. So what do you guys think? Have you looked at the new Google meet? What do you think? Any opinions?

Iman Kaur 01:02
Yeah, I like this new feature they have with languages and captions. I think that part is pretty interesting, with the different languages.

Dave Erickson 01:16
Yes. I thought one of the things that was really interesting about what they're doing is aiming this service as a hub for planning projects and collaborating with other people. They're doing it with not just business, but even if you have just a standard, normal Google or Gmail account, you can use all the apps and everything that's in the new Google meet on the new Google Apps. So they're really trying to make it so that individuals have the same access as businesses to those types of tools. And I think that's a really neat approach. I think it's going to help them gather a lot of users.

Iman Kaur 02:09
That's right. Everyone can experience that without paying for the subscriptions. They can get experience and can figure out if they would like it. Then they can start, even if they want to use it for their business, for personal meetings, or for family. My family uses Google meet sometimes, because they think it's easy, and because everyone has a Gmail account, it's super easy. They just need to download the app, and they can experience it together.

Dave Erickson 02:43
I mean, my experience with Google has always been with business. You know, Botond as a developer, do you really use Google much in your work or not really.

Botond Seres 02:59
Well as a search engine, of course, but other than that the other products that Google has pages, and I don't even know the names of the products, to be honest with you. I rarely ever use them. Since I am mainly a .net developer, we are locked into a contract with Microsoft and they have all these products that do essentially the same thing only a bit worse.

Dave Erickson 3:32
Yeah, there's a real competition at this point between Google and Microsoft; Google kind of had an advantage. Then Microsoft came out with teams, where they put a lot of Microsoft products like Excel, Outlook, and Word into teams. Google has it for their version of those as well. The Google version of those apps are kind of watered down versions. Google Sheets is the same as Excel, but Excel obviously has a lot more power and a lot more functionality than Google Sheets. As far as business is concerned, we use Google sheets for all of our internal business documents, and talk to people about that. My daughter, now eight years old, has a Google account and she knows how to put data into a spreadsheet. It's very simplified. I haven't taught her how to make formulas because I don't want her to cheat on her homework, but she puts in names and other things that go in a spreadsheet. She understands it and she'll share it with me and I can look at it, and same with Docs, Google Docs, which is the same as Microsoft Word in many ways. So, even I can see from a personal standpoint, that I guess people will use it on a consumer level, but my experience has always been in business. I think it's going in an interesting direction with Google's new update. They really wanted to focus on Gmail, and they really updated Gmail to get in line with Slack and Microsoft Teams by adding some of those features. Slack has a pretty big following, for that application. I don't know if people are going to switch over to the Gmail version of slack but you never know. There are a lot of companies who are committed to Google Apps and they may or they may not do that. But they're definitely using Gmail as their command center per se.

Botond Seres 05:59
Well, you know, the interesting thing about slack is it feels like they had the whole market cornered. It started about 10 years ago and now, where are they? Everyone uses Facebook Messenger, Viber, WhatsApp, and all of these different things, Microsoft Teams, Google meets all of those. I feel that slack is a great experience and I hear that it has a cult following officially with certain agencies and companies. It's really strange to see, it's very similar to how Skype had complete dominance on the video and audio call markets, and they just lost it.

Dave Erickson 06:53
Yeah, my experience with Skype was actually through gaming. A lot of the gamers were using Skype around 15 to 10 years ago and then suddenly, it went to another platform, right? It's a real challenge for everybody. In business. The biggest challenge we're finding is that everybody's on a different communication platform. I don't use Skype at all. If people want to talk to me, they have to send me an email. Maybe I'll send a text message. I don't even have a preference or text message. But, if somebody uses WhatsApp, I happen to have it on my phone and I get a notification, Facebook Messenger, old people use Facebook, so I use it and I get messages from people for business on my personal Facebook because they're connected somehow. As a company, we don't have a single communication platform. It's like, try to contact me here and if I don't answer contact me on this one, if I don't answer there contact me on this one. I think it's going to be a big business challenge in the future for companies to have a unified communication platform. I think Google's going in the right direction. They're trying to make a unified communication platform. As to whether people will accept it or not. That's a different question.

Botond Seres 08:31
Are you familiar with Discord at all?

Dave Erickson 08:36
No.

Botond Seres 08:39
It's a small application that's been growing over the past couple of years. It feels like a new platform, kind of. So it does essentially the same thing as Skype, but with a new twist. So it's sort of a merge between Teamspeak, Skype, and Slack, with maybe a bit of Microsoft Teams sprinkled in. So on one platform, you have the ability to create servers where you can invite people, approve, or ban them, or just invite an entire slew of people into an organizational server. The amazing thing is that on the same server, you have the ability to create as many chat rooms as you want, provided you want to pay for it, of course. Just the sheer fact that you're able to do this for other possibilities and you can also just join ad hoc calls as well. So I'm seeing it grow from this niche thing and now, pretty much every YouTuber has their own Discord server. So I feel like companies are really sleeping on this. It is an amazing platform, and I've yet to see a single company utilize it.

Dave Erickson 09:58
Interesting. Yeah. It's definitely something to look at. You know, there are so many different platforms out there to solve these kinds of communication challenges that companies have and businesses have and it's always different. Clearly, even with us or in my experience, the developers are using one communication platform and the business side is using a different one. The only reason that we're using Google, in all honesty, is because when I was doing business and traveling overseas. Skype's video quality was awful and even the calls were awful. Google's quality was much better. So we just happened to use Google meets, for calls and conference calls now and was 10 years ago simply because the quality was better, the lines wouldn't drop, and people wouldn't break up. so we abandoned Skype because of that and stuck with Google, not because it's the best or not because it had everything, but it worked better than Skype. Then Skype disappeared. I'm sure there's some people who still use it, but we don't.

Iman Kaur 11:21
I think I have four different Skype accounts because every time I remember they offered a desktop app it would take a while to load. Then you have to put your username and everything. and then it's gonna take another while to load the whole app. It was so awful. I always forgot my password, because I didn't use it. I stopped using it after a year, then someone asked me to join so I had to make a new account that I will never use again. I think you're right for sure about Google meet. Another thing, you were talking about Slack, if Google would offer something similar to Slack, I feel that people would like it. Seeing notifications, from every single person if they have a Gmail account. If you can access everything on one account with one email ID, I think that's very convenient for everyone. It's good for communication, like you were saying, with WhatsApp you can see everything on your phone. Even though WhatsApp wasn't offering a lot in the past, people happen to use it a lot. Even in my school, everyone was using it. I think now even if Google would offer something a little better, it would not be better than Slack, but even something similar to it where we can access it through a Gmail account, I think everyone would love it, but, it might take a while because Slack is a very well established platform. People have been using it for a very long time, but I think people would still prefer to go towards Google because it's more convenient for everyone.

Dave Erickson 12:59
Yeah, I agree. I think that there's going to be a consolidation at some point. The major businesses are all going to say to their people, look, this is the platform we're going to work with. Don't use any other platform. It's starting to happen a little bit in large enterprises. I know that they insist, when they bring on Microsoft Teams, or Google as the platform. That's what you use for all business communications. But there are 500 or 600 enterprise companies around the world. All the small businesses are the ones that are really all over the place. I think that those smaller businesses with 100 million a year and below businesses, they're just randomly trying things, and their employees use one thing for that, then they integrate it into the business. The business ends up using eight communication platforms for all of its business. I think it's going to be really confusing. Obviously Google sees the same thing. Google is thinking, how do we make Google meets into a single communication platform for documents and other things? They're a company with a lot of resources. I remember we worked on a project, eight or nine years ago, which was a part of Google Hangouts. I guess it was Google Hangouts back then, where they put in location information, where you can see what people are on meet and hook up with them and that was an old tool. That was one of the first things they bought, the company we were working with, and integrated them into Hangouts. That feature didn't seem to last long in hangouts, but now it's just part of the Google meets platform. Right? I don't know Iman, how do you use Google meets for what you do? Maybe you can give a little background and what you're kind of doing and how you use Google meets.

Iman Kaur 15:24
I'm a physicist but I'm transitioning to the software industry; I'm working as a software engineer now. About Google meets, in school, they used to provide us with software, which was just like a Google Sheets and Google meet, where we could work, and every school has their own software, because of privacy and that's where they want to keep the material. So we used to use that. I personally never used anything else except Google meet. Whether I'm using it for business or for personal meetings. When we call for family, we use FaceTime, but if you don't have an apple product, you can't use it so I only use Google meet. I don't even really use Zoom that much, because it feels like Skype to me. Sometimes it takes a while to get on there, but with Google you only need one button and you're connected.

Dave Erickson 16:36
Zoom exploded because of the pandemic, but Zoom is very limited because you can't really collaborate in Zoom that much. It's more about talking and video recording. In meets you're able to work on documents together and share stuff. Microsoft Teams, I assume, are similar. Although in all honesty, I just have not used it very much. Botond, does Microsoft Teams have this similar communication aspect to it?

Botond Seres 17:10
Yeah, I think teams is an awesome tool for collaboration. It's like a paid version of discord. So they are taking notes, it is working really well. I use it literally every single day. So if someone is sharing their screen with you and you want to pair a program, it's absolutely seamless. To be perfectly honest, we never use it for video chatting so I cannot attest to it being good or bad. But for collaboration, sharing files for just chatting, it is effortless. So Microsoft has it pinned down, it's a good format.

Dave Erickson 18:04
You raise an interesting topic, Iman, when you're talking about your school's program, that they were using it for some kind of security. Now that people are doing a lot of work on these platforms, that in essence they are not really controlled by the work environment. You know, for enterprise companies, they get a version of teams, their IT department controls every aspect of it. For a regular business or a smaller business, they may not even be using the business version of the platform, just using the personal version. That opens up all kinds of cyber security issues, as well as data privacy issues and other things. That's going to be a real challenge for these companies, even for someone like Google, securing all this data and keeping it confidential is difficult.

Iman Kaur 19:01
So while I was at school, they wouldn't use Google Sheets because of the security issues. So my school had their own program, with their own software, they would edit the sheet and when we had an online exam, my teacher would grade it and make comments about it. They had their own software for purchasing. I think it's because they wanted to keep their software and material secure.

Dave Erickson 19:34
Yeah, schools and businesses are going to have a big challenge. Cybersecurity is built for enterprise and that's why we've had a lot of cyber security issues recently. There was the oil pipeline hack and ransomware situation. A couple of million people got their data stolen from another service. So cyber security is really going to be a big issue going forward. I'm kind of surprised at the number of ransomware attacks that have been happening. It's the new bank robbery. Instead of going in and physically robbing a bank, teams are hacking into enterprise software, taking over the systems, and then saying, pay us millions of dollars, and we'll give you back control. So, I don't know, what are your thoughts on the future of cybersecurity or ransomware? What do you think about the oil pipeline hack?

Iman Kaur 20:48
It's very interesting that they are choosing places to do this type of robbery, where it's least expected

Dave Erickson 20:59
Yeah, I mean, who thought that somebody would turn off an oil pipeline on the East Coast, right?

Iman Kaur 21:05
Yeah, that is so crazy.

Dave Erickson 21:08
I mean, infrastructure is really important and it's worth lots of money. A lot of the infrastructure is run by old software. If you hack into it, you're able to own it and anyone can control the various physical aspects of either a pipeline, electrical grid, who knows what they're gonna get into next. You know, it could be anything.

Iman Kaur 21:40
I watched this new Netflix series. It's called startup. There is a girl who has been writing this software for her whole life. She started her own company. I think it was genius. It was just like Bitcoin. Someone had stolen her code, asked her to pay and made another company. She didn't have the money, so she couldn't do anything. That person became a millionaire in a day or so. So yeah, it's kind of an issue. If I steal it from you, it belongs to both of us. I think it's a very big issue that no one is there even playing it like we can do on physical properties.

Dave Erickson 22:28
There's ransomware to hold something hostage, and then there's IP theft. Botond, I think, by the gaming industry, you mentioned once that, I think it was, AE got broken into or hacked.

Botond Seres 22:54
It's EA games. They got their game engine completely copied over, also the wishes and Frostbite, but then they also had another thing stolen, which was the source code for the new FIFA. So we can expect a lot of new FIFAs coming out of less reputable companies.

Iman Kaur 23:21
This makes sense because there was a time when the game Candy Crush was very popular on App Stores. Now if you go to the App Store, you can find hundreds of similar games like it; there are small differences, but they're are basically the same. Like Botond was saying, there are going to be a lot of duplicate games with a different name and maybe a different load and different graphics. There are a lot of copying issues going on with the security.

Dave Erickson 23:50
It used to be that people would hack into a system and the hackers would leave some kind of funny message or the challenge was to just get into the system, but not destroy anything, or steal anything. But I think now it's become a more organized business. I think that there are hacker teams out there whose sole purpose is to break into systems, to steal and to hold for ransomware whatever they can. It is organized crime at this point and is global. Companies are really going to have to take a close look and not just enterprise companies, but even small companies and small businesses are really going to have to try to figure out how they protect themselves from these hackers. I don't know what things these companies can do to protect themselves from these hacker teams, besides trying to just keep a low profile. Are there some things that they can do for their systems that will help prevent these hacks?

Dave Erickson 24:36
Even smaller companies and I would say local businesses which are very small, or just started, just growing up. I would say, they were not even aware of this issue, because this is the kind of thing which we think happens to other people, not to us. It's that kind of issue, small businesses are not even aware of this problem.

Dave Erickson 25:05
Yeah, I think enterprise is focused on it, but enterprise has a lot of money and big tools. Small businesses, they can try to keep a low profile but, security is kind of like putting locks on a door. If somebody really wants to get in, it doesn't matter how many locks they put on your door, they just drive a bulldozer up to your house and punch a hole in the side of a wall. It's kind of like that with cybersecurity. If somebody really wants into your system, they're just gonna keep working at it until they eventually figure it out.

Iman Kaur 26:07
Yeah, that is true. We do have that kind of team here. We have the FBI, you know, we definitely need that kind of strong cybersecurity team, which I feel like it's going to be the future. We're going to be more scared and fear the things which are online between online access to, like owning property instead of like physical property. People used to keep money at home. Now people can even transfer money from your account to theirs and you're done if they have that kind of access; if they could go that far. I'm sure, again, we do see it in the movies. So I think some hackers, even if they do have the idea now, they're gonna figure out a way to get it, you know?

Dave Erickson 26:56
Yeah, well, I mean, I know there's some hacking rings, where they basically go around and take a look at banking websites and try different names and dictionary password cracks, that find usernames and passwords, and eventually they get into somebody's account. And at that point, they just transfer money, and there's nothing that can be done. Obviously, you could get anyone's usernames and passwords, just go to the dark web. So many of them have been stolen, that you can probably buy a million usernames and passwords, and go through and start going out trying to crack into banks and other things with them to get into people's accounts and send money. I'm sure it happens all the time.

Iman Kaur 27:48
It actually happened to my dad three years back. So he was here, his bank is here, his debit card is here, credit card is here, but someone back in India got in. We saw the transaction happen there. We had no idea. He has never been to that place. My dad, he's the guy who changes his password every month, just to make sure that it doesn't get copied somewhere, because sometimes we use public Wifi to connect to or something and that happened to him. I mean, we got the money back, but this thing is actually possible, in another country, in another state where you have never even been to.

Dave Erickson 28:31
Yeah, well, I mean, the dark web has, everyone's, I just assume all my passwords and usernames are on the dark web. It's just a matter of time before somebody hits me and does something. All you can do is change your passwords all the time. But, it's a timing thing. If it just doesn't happen, you know, at the right time. I'm not very familiar with what's on the dark web, but I assume you can get anything there. Right? Or I think bolt on, you're talking once. There's like a bunch of dark webs or who knows?

Botond Seres 29:07
Yeah, I'm just saying probably. I would bet a lot of money that there are at least five at the minimum. Like we have Tor, as I was saying, that's originally your honey pot. They are populated by a lot of international agencies. They are mainly monitoring terrorist organizations. So they don't really mind if you or I buy a bunch of passwords, and we try all of them on Venmo and PayPal, it's not the focus of their surveillance. Even then, there must be a bunch of other dark webs which deal with much shadier stuff like if you think that the stuff they sell on Tor is shady, I bet you million bucks that there is much more shady stuff going on in different smaller darkwebs. Just like In the series, you mentioned Iman, like the startup, they, I think in one of the seasons, they started a completely new dark web, which is called arachnids series.

Iman Kaur 30:13
You're right. Yeah, I watched it. I did watch it. They actually build the whole business over there. Did you see that? They're actually shipping and they wouldn't even know, it's actually USPS. They're actually shipping through the normal companies, because they never checked.

Dave Erickson 30:29
Yeah. There's a lot of business that goes through companies, that is probably very illegal. But the amount of transactions that are now happening, it's very hard for these companies to figure out, you know, if they wanted to even find transactions that were not legal, how would they go about it? There's just so much data and so many transactions nowadays. It's really hard. I mean, I remember I did a Hacker's hackathon, like 2001, for the Association of Internet Professionals that I was a part of and we had an FBI agent come in and talk about what the FBI was doing back then and it was very little. And one of the questions was, well, if I get hacked, who do I call? And the FBI agent was like, Oh, we don't know. Don't call us. We're not working on this stuff on a case by case basis, call your local police department. And it's like, well, they have no knowledge back then of anything. Even now, if you call the police and say, hey, I was hacked, and my database was copied or stolen or my IP was stolen, I want to report a theft. I mean, technically, it's a theft, although physically, there was nothing stolen, it was data. I don't think there's a police department that I know of, without it would be like, yeah, we can help you. Right? I mean, so who do people go to once they've stolen information? Who do they call to say, hey, somebody broke into my server and stole my data? But it can be worth millions of dollars, it could have a really big impact on your business and what you're doing. I think from an infrastructure standpoint, at least in America, but in other countries, there's got to be some places focused on cyber security, a cyber security force, that basically can look at all these hacks and try to find the people who are doing the hacking, and try to either retrieve or eliminate the problem.

Botond Seres 32:55
Did you know that Independent Source has actually been Russia is the number one country for cyber security and cyber attacks, they are supposed to be the best in the business, even overshadowing organizations like the NSA.

Dave Erickson 33:12
Oh, you mean as far as doing cyber attacks and hacking?
Botond Seres 33:16
Oh, for sure.

Dave Erickson 33:21
Well, I mean, a lot of the major cyber attacks recently have been by Russian hackers, or the Russian government. You never know. I mean, they probably work together, some of them, but I think it was, what is the government, the US government service that they hacked into? Give me a second here.

Botond Seres 33:57
While you look it up. It's hidden recently, fairly recently, I think in the last year, the press took a small part of a country over just by blocking all communication in the notes and they sent it off.

Dave Erickson 34:11
Ah the solar winds. The solar wind attack, which they feel is done by the Russians, or the Russian government, that went into US government agencies and stole a bunch of data, or tried to steal a bunch of data. That's a really good example of state sponsored hacking. You know, in those situations, the NSA gets involved and a government agency gets involved. But, if you're a US business, even, if you're just a standard company that distributes wine, and you have your mail list, and it has all the email addresses and names and usernames and Social Security numbers or credit card information for your users who buy your wine, and somebody hacks in and gets that, they can sell that that's real money, I would assume people would buy that database They can sell it to your competitors and they'd probably do that, right? The real question is, for small business, for SMBs, how do you protect your data? How do you protect yourself from hacking, and what kind of cyber security? Yeah, you can buy Norton Antivirus for your computer, but that won't prevent a hack, and that will protect your service. You know, a lot of people are using AWS, Amazon Web Services, and maybe using some other places to store their data. And then, the good news is, or the good thing for businesses, in theory, Amazon has a lot of resources to protect the services from hacking, but they can't protect it from things like somebody's finding your username and password, and going into the system through that, and transferring the data that way. That's not technically a hack. It's a social engineering hack or something like that, but it's not breaking in using some other hacking method. I don't know if that gives small businesses any protection. I don't know if AWS is actually something that will help small businesses protect their data.

Iman Kaur 36:39
Yeah, I think many of them have been using it too and if someone wants to hack even if they don't know anything about you, all they need is your Gmail ID and your password. And they're all in. Even a small communication we had with someone, if we have sent a picture of something to someone, even if I applied for something, they asked me for documents, they're like, hey, can you attach the files? I'm like, okay, yeah. So it's all in there, even though it's all deleted, it's just still gonna be there. So I think it's so easy for them to access the whole life of one person, just through their Gmail ID if they get the right one with the right password. All they need is that and even though there was another, I'm not sure if that seems there's much truth into it, but Botond, have you watched the series Facebook, where they explain the whole life of Mark Zuckerberg, how he started. The way he started was, he actually broke into Harvard University's website; he took all the information of all the students from there, got their email and sent out the invitation, that's how he started. So I'm not sure if one of the lawsuits on him was from there. I'm not sure about his lawsuits. But it was a kind of test too, he'd stolen all the email. He was actually mentioning in that too, that it's pretty easy to break into it. Because if we think about it, sometimes in my school, they have sfsu.edu. So when we sign in, we give them the access to merge email ID too and I don't think they actually protect the student's identity or anything that much. So if someone can break into their system, it's so easy for them to break into my other profiles.

Botond Seres 38:23
So, yeah, probably one of the best things we can do is to not really reuse passwords, because that's a big thing. If it's the same person with usernames everywhere, it's enough if one place gets a leak, and you're done, everything is out there. So yeah, this might come as a controversial opinion, but I personally find that cybersecurity is a bit of a moot point because at some point, software has to interface with the real world. So to come back to the analogy of cybersecurity being like adding locks to a door, you can add the most advanced biometric lock, the best in class servers, the best firewalls, and yet, someone comes along with the magnets and just ‘click’, the door is open, and it's done. So as I mentioned this is invaluable.

Iman Kaur 39:24
Like Dave was mentioning, if there's a door, there's always an option to open it. And there's not an option to open it, there's another option to break it.

Dave Erickson 39:33
Exactly, which means that unless you are somehow doing a piece of business with people that doesn't involve the internet, you have no choice. You get to have the door and have to lock it as best you can. I think obviously, the basic username password security stuff is important. I don't know, the problem people have with passwords is nowadays, you need to have so many different platforms and accounts, to work on the web and to do your work. That you're having to remember 10 to 30 passwords. A lot of people do use the same password for a lot of different things. The question is, there are password managers and there are software that will basically remember all the passwords for you so that all you have to do is just remember one password, which is your password manager. I don't know. How good are password managers? Do either of you have any experience with them?

Iman Kaur 40:42
I mean, I'm actually very dependent on them. I don't remember any password, but I do use my iCloud, I save them all in there so every time I need to look, I can take a look or I would just forget the password and go all over again. But yeah, I am not sure how secure they are, which is a big issue. I need to think about it now, but I think I'm very dependent on it. Because it is the easiest thing to do.

Dave Erickson 41:11
Yeah. Botond, what do you think of password managers?

Botond Seres 41:18
Well, they are an integral part of my life. So I think Google has most of my passwords, which is a bit worrisome since they removed their original Moto, which was Don't be evil, like three years ago. But I tried to keep the more important stuff, right here, the only place I can actually protect, like, maybe three important passwords in my life. Like, you know, banking, PayPal, stuff like that, those, I do not write down anywhere, under any circumstances. One of the worst things I did was, I had a bunch of passwords in Gmail, not Gmail, Google Password Manager, Chrome, that's it. Also, there's this app, one password, and also used LastPass for a while; none of them really worked out. To be honest, I feel the great advantage of password managers is, you have one password, which I tend to use most is that it can generate passwords for you.

Iman Kaur 42:31
I was about to ask you how you feel about it? Do you think it's a safe way to do it? I mean, I wouldn't do it. I never take whatever the password is that they give because it's so confusing. I would never be able to remember it.

Botond Seres 42:44
Well, it depends. The setting usually uses four words, the minimum of like 15 to 20 characters, so then it's reasonably easy to remember, like a great password. I usually make this recommendation to friends, like they're struggling to keep track of passwords. So I tell them to look at four things on their table, any four things and then the author. So I would say let's say charger, hairbrush, microphone, and camera. And then I just string these four words together with a dash and boom, we have secure passwords that cannot be cracked for millions of years.

Iman Kaur 43:27
Yeah, you're right.

Botond Seres 43:29
And all of that, "replace something with a special character, replace something with a number". It just doesn't work and it makes me so furious when a website is like, oh no mate, you have 40 characters but you need to add one number and one special character, it's very important. Yeah, I've actually met those guys.

Iman Kaur 43:56
But think about it, it's just like the lottery. Dave, we have the super lotto and stuff, right? Some people just buy one number and keep it for years. Let's say they're the one hacker keeping one number keeping it for years, you didn't change the same numbers, and he gets to you. I'm just saying you might not even think, but there's always a possibility, because they're not gonna think about it. They might generate it with random numbers or so. Yeah, I feel like if they have a lot of them, and they are just using that combination on you, it's still gonna work. But yeah, you're right. I think the best thing to do is, a very good thing I like is whenever someone tries to use my Gmail or even tries to log into it, I would get the notification, Hey, someone is trying to login into your account from this particular location on this browser, will you allow it? So I think that's the best thing I like about Gmail or Facebook or Instagram or any other thing you can actually check from where someone tried to login into it.

Dave Erickson 44:56
Yeah, you know, two step authentication also is popular, getting it sent to your phone. A bunch of services I recently signed up for, it's not an option, they demand that you stop, you don't even have the option. That way they can make sure it's you who's getting in. It's a pain in the ass, because then you have to go to your phone, you have to copy their email address, or however they're doing it and type in their code. On the other hand, it's a little bit of a hassle, but it's definitely more secure. Right? It makes it harder. I'm sure there's ways that hackers can get around it.

Iman Kaur 45:37
Dave, do you remember like a couple of years back there was an app, where someone could use your number and message through your phone to your family or something? I think they actually, do remember Botond? I don't remember the name of it. I never use it. But it was there on Astra for a while. People were sending messages to every other person. Like on the app. Dave, I'm gonna put your number in there, and I can use your number on my phone. I will get all the messages. I can send all the messages and people would think of you.

Dave Erickson 46:11
Yeah, I remember. I remember hearing about that.

Iman Kaur 46:14
Yeah. There were a few incidents which happened in my family too in New York. Someone called my sister in law and said that my brother's in jail, and they need this much amount of money and give me a credit card or something. They were asking for the money and SSN and all that stuff. I mean, I'm glad she didn't do it, because she saw this app on something, somewhere so she kind of figured it out. But if someone would panic, then anything could happen.

Dave Erickson 46:40
Yeah, I know that that scam has been done with people. I remember an app that had a controversy like that. I guess that's what it was. But I don't remember the name of the app.

Iman Kaur 46:49
Yeah, me neither. But it was there for a while.

Botond Seres 46:52
I do so enjoy the videos where the people are scamming the scammers.

Dave Erickson 47:02
Yeah, there were a couple of YouTube videos about that.

Iman Kaur 47:05
Yeah.

Dave Erickson 47:07
But at that point, it's like, you know, all this data from people. There's a matrix of data. So one organization or one person or whoever has some data, and then another house, some other people's data or the same people just different data, they can all be linked. I think a lot of data can be linked together and people do that with, I think IDs, right?

Botond Seres 47:39
All right, yeah, we discussed this earlier. So the trick is that you have one ID for Facebook, one ID at Google and one ID. The problem starts when all of these IDs can be linked, and they can be linked reliably and consistently. As long as your banking details don't get mixed in there, it's fine-ish. As soon as all of your purchases can be linked, then we are done. That's like 99% of humanity these days. So, everyone has this huge amount of data, which is taken from, their activities, their purchases, their everything. So it has gotten to the point where AI can better predict what we are going to do, than us. So, there was this big, big debacle with Target many years ago.

Dave Erickson 48:41
Yeah, when they stole all of the data.

Botond Seres 48:47
They had this AI, this very rudimentary AI imagined like 10 to 20 years ago, but by today's standards, it's not even an AI. So there was this young woman, who went shopping at Target quite often, it was the only place she went to shop. And Target has this loyalty card as I hear because there's no Target here. Excuse all the guesses. So we have Tescos, pretty much the same thing. So Target used to track all the purchases and then based on that they would send you coupons for things they thought you might need. So Target sent to her mailing address, coupons for I think diapers and some of their, like child related stuff. The big thing was that since she was still living with her very, very religious family and didn't tell anyone about the pregnancy, they had to hear it from Target.

Dave Erickson 50:00
I remember something about that.

Botond Seres 50:02
That was decades ago and you see what we have now.

Dave Erickson 50:07
Yeah, there's that and there was another incident with Target in which Target was doing business with Amazon. And Amazon was using AI to basically copy a lot of Target's processes and sales stuff, and Target found out and basically stopped using Amazon for their business and had to build it up themselves because Amazon was basically copying and taking all their data and using it for building up Amazon. So, that in itself is kind of a different form of hacking in a way, because it's accessing and taking IP and using it. But yeah, the linking of data, I mean, you know, I got a microchip embedded in me when I got vaccinated, so the government's tracking me. Oh, wait, I have a cell phone. They're tracking me anyways. Now they're tracking me twice and they're using this data to find out all about me, because I'm the most interesting person in the universe.

Botond Seres 51:19
Oh, yeah. But now I have such an excellent 5g connection whenever I hold my phone in my hands.

Dave Erickson 51:28
Yeah. That's kind of a strange thing. Well, I think we had a good discussion about cyber security, and I'm sure it will be a topic in the future as well. So it was a great conversation, and next month, we will have a different topic on ScreamingBox technology and business rundown. Well, thank you very much for taking this journey with us. Join us for our next exciting exploration of technology and business in the first week of every month. And for our next podcast. Please subscribe, like and follow us on whichever platform you're listening or watching us on. We hope you enjoyed this podcast, and please let us know any subjects, topics, or anything else you'd like us to discuss in the next podcast on the comment sections or in a Twitter dm. Till next month. Please stay happy and healthy.