August 17, 2025 • 29 mins
On this Sunday Aug 17, 2025 episode of CAROLINA Focus with Sharon Thorsland, Jim Szoke and Ed Billick
Tom Arnold, a cybersecurity expert and author focused on keeping kids safe online with Sharon
Theresa Payton our cyber security expert joins Bo and Beth to talk about Reddit blocking the internet archive from “A.I. scraping”, as well as medical professionals raising concerns after an A.I. bot reportedly referenced body parts that didn’t exist when attempting to diagnose a patient
Nick Craig, host, Carolina Journal News Hour on WBT shares that North Carolina has received a $4 million grant to expand workforce re-entry training programs
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Carolina as you're listening to Carolina Focus on
News Talk eleven ten, ninety nine to three WBT mixed
one oh seven nine in Sports Radio ninety two to
seven WFNZ here in the middle of August. Carolina Focus
is our public affairs show heard every Sunday on these stations.
It's a combination of original interviews and choice encorese segments
(00:21):
from the past week along with Sharon Thorsland. I'm Ed Billick,
and if you have a topic for us that you'd
love to air on Carolina Focus, you can reach us
at Carolina Focus at WBT dot com. That's Carolina Focus
at WBT dot com. We'd happy to entertain whether it's
a fundraiser or a special event here locally in the Carolinas,
(00:44):
we'd be honored to air that for you and talk
with you on that topic. All right, let's get started.
Hot topic always cybersecurity. Most of the show will be
dedicated to this interview, conducted by Sharon Thorsland. Let's take
a listen right here on Carolina Focus.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Good morning, everyone, and thanks so much for joining us
here on Carolina Focus. I'm Sharon Thorsland. Well, cybersecurity is
a term that you've probably been hearing a lot over
the past couple of years, and it certainly is a
big issue right now on so many different levels. But
today we're going to focus on keeping kids safe online.
A lot of you have kids out there, and you
know that they are getting smartphones at a young age,
(01:24):
They're on video games or on computers at school. That
just seems like technology is everywhere and that is opening
them up to some dangerous situations. Well, joining me today
is Tom Arnold. He is a cybersecurity expert and author
of the Digital Detective series for books to help parents
keep their kids safe online. Tom, thanks so much for
joining me. We're really excited to have you on to
(01:45):
talk about this topic. And I know that you've got
quite a background in cybersecurity. Could you first give us
some information about your background and how you got into
this area of cybersecurity.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
No, that's fabulous. You know, I've got close to thirty
ar years experience in the cybersecurity field, and a large
amount of that in digital forensic investigations, which you can
let your mind wander. It goes from some of the
largest security breaches right down to in the early days
helping the FBI and other agencies with crimes against children,
(02:21):
which is sort of a heartbreaker. Okay, And so that's me.
My daughter and her husband are both very adept at cybersecurity.
Is a little bit of background. He's a director of
one of the large corporations in Washington State in cybersecurity.
They have three boys, and it all actually started right now,
(02:47):
about a year and a half ago, a little longer,
when the middle child, the seven year old, was playing
a very popular game and you know, the parents have
all the parental controls, all the security controls out there.
He's playing a game. He comes running into his mom
and says, look at this. Another player's avatar approached him
(03:13):
and held up a sign that said what's your name
and where do you live? Oh boy? Yep, that started it,
and you know, completely bypassed any possible parental controls that
sort of thing in there as well, which was quite
an eye opener, if you would, largely when that story
(03:34):
hit me. The second one, just a few months after that,
was I was speaking to a neighbor and they have
two boys and a girl, so three kids again, and
the parent made a statement to me in a social
gathering that she felt more comfortable talking to her kids
about sex than cybersecurity. Oh wow, cyber safety online, which
(04:00):
really started me thinking, because you know, now I currently
lecture at UNLV, I constantly am pressing the question of
cyber hygiene and cyber safety, and sometimes, you know, when
I was teaching undergraduate students, I really felt like I
was shouting at a wall. You know, they just didn't
(04:20):
understand basically, And I sat back and I started thinking,
you know, maybe letting the kids sort of learn on
their own to some extent would be fun. And I
created the characters that you see in the Digital Detective
First Intervention, which is the first book that's out. Second
one should be out by the end of the year.
(04:43):
And the whole real purpose there was to expose them
to not just the bad things that can happen, but
from an investigative standpoint, because my young fourteen year old's
quite a sleuth, if you would. The text mee and
the methods and sort of where data gets left laying
(05:03):
around is really what you know, I started with. And
a lot of the reviews they almost bring tears to
my eyes largely right now, because a lot of the
parents reviewing it say, you know, this is great. It's
helping my kid. My kid and I are having conversations
now about this topic basically, and I've been trying to
stress to people that cybersecurity and cyber safety has to
(05:29):
be a safe zone. Whether it's a teenager who's you know,
sixteen and a half going on twenty five. You know,
that teenager might be in trouble for something. They could
be grounded, the parents could be upset at them. But
if they bring you a cybersecurity problem, that's a safe space,
absolute safe space. They're not going to get in trouble, okay.
(05:53):
They need to know that, and you're there to absolutely
help them basically through what they're experiencing. That's sort of
the key sort of message that I'm really striving to
get out and using the books as a way for
you know, it's said at nine and older readers, so
(06:15):
you know, it's a double space. It's all. It's got
beautiful illustrations from Gary Trousdale in it because I decided
to illustrate all the chapters and have the chapters illustrated,
and so it really its purpose is they can have
fun reading the story, they can become engrossed in the story,
but they're also learning at the same time. And that
(06:39):
was something in the reviews where I think, you know,
you know, the one parent that wrote the review that says,
now they're having discussions. I'm sitting there going good, Maybe
I saved one kid. You know, that's a that's a win. Okay,
I don't care about New York Times bestseller lists. That's
a win. You know the board uh in my book.
(07:02):
So that's that's part of it and one of the
big parts. And so the next next book's actually going
into some much deeper topics.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Okay. So I want to backtrack a little and ask
you a question. You're you said you spent thirty years
in cybersecurity, and now I know you teach at U
n l V. You also taught at San Jose State?
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Correct? Kel State? Yeah, the Forensic Times Department.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Okay. And then so you obviously have seen a lot
of things change. I would assume that in that thirty
year career. How what's the like, the most drastic thing
that you've seen change? And how quickly is everything moving
these days?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, there's two topics here. One is cybercrime and how
cybercrime and the typologies of the cyber crime has absolutely
changed over the years. I mean you have yes computer hacking,
You've got malicious software and automated attacks, and there's been
piracy and theft of intellectual property. There's fraud, but now
(08:11):
there's areas of pornography and image based abuse, which we're
beginning to see more and more of. In the second
major category would be artificial intelligence in this area, which
is starting to raise some havoc. And then there's child
sexual exploitation offenses. Cyber bullying can have an amazing impact
(08:33):
on teams, and it's a sad impact, you know, with
the harassment, the cyber stocking, the bullying from friends. You know,
we've all read about the suicides that have occurred as
a result of that. There is extremism as well, and
now we're seeing things like various video games being used.
(08:55):
And el Kata was actually one of the organizations that
sort of started as a recruiting method to try to
recruit people to their cause. And we see whether you're
on the left or you're on the right, you know,
the far fringe organizations are using these types of cyber
tools to try to recruit people to become like minded
(09:16):
with them. If you would, and you know, then there's
you know, illicit market operations and a variety of things.
This is how it's changed. If I went back twenty years,
you know, most of these typologies didn't exist. They there
were kind of sort of fringe things around them, and
each of the methods that are used are completely different
(09:40):
for each one. Basically, it's not just hacking, it's not
just phishing, email attacks. The methodologies and what we call
the tools, techniques and you know, procedures that the hackers
or the attackers use and the bad actors use has
absolutely changed in how they approach things. That's why it's
(10:03):
becoming really very much once again almost the wild West
out there. You know, it's a it's a condition where
the environment itself is actually very dangerous and more so.
You know, when I was a kid, my mom would
(10:25):
take me to a playground and drop me off at
the playground and say, Okay, I'm going to the store.
You have fun in the playground when the street lights
come on, come home. I mean it's common yeah, common place.
Me and a bunch of other kids would be in
the playground together. Okay that was so common. Okay, Well
(10:48):
nobody do that today. You know, that's that's really a
physical issue, and parents kind of get it. You know,
you're not leaving your kid at a playground unattended, is
basically the point. So you go into a restaurant now,
and you're sitting in a restaurant, you watch a family
come in, especially a family restaurant, and they sit at
the table and the mom passes out iPads as pascifiers
(11:10):
the kids. Okay, and you know the teen is sitting
there totally engrossed in their cell phone. Yeah, what exactly sad?
It is actually a very sad commentary, Okay, And you're potentially,
as a parent, exposing the kids to something that could
be really, really bad in the long run. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I was going to say, you're mentioning the dangers and
exposing the things that can be really bad. I mean,
besides the obvious your kids losing out on how to
like function in society and speak to people and carry
on conversations, but clearly the dangers that they can encounter online,
especially the younger kids that just don't really they don't
know that kind of stuff is even out there. What
(11:59):
is what are some of the biggest dangers or is
there a number one danger or are there just so
many of them.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
You know, it's a variety. Each of those typologies related
to the types of cybercrime, again, can manifest themselves completely differently.
And that's why I said, the parents have to stress
that it's a safe area and if they're carrying on
conversations online, and frankly, I wouldn't take it just the littles. Basically,
(12:27):
where are the little kids? Little? Sorry? And you know
the teens have got this much similar problem. So I
tried to draw a distinction in two categories. There's a
difference between friends online. Friends online. These are people that
you know. Now for the teenager, they still have to
(12:48):
exercise care if they're upset they're posting online. You're basically
educating the friends online and the reality dating back to
nineteen ninety three and a peace your Steiner New Yorker
cartoon that was on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog?
Do you really know that's your friend who's actually online?
(13:10):
Did some one of your friends lose control of their account?
Is it somebody masquerading as the friend online? Even though
you think you're in a chat room where it's only
people you know that are on blind with you And wow,
this is where, you know, pictures being posted. I'm upset
at Dad because we had to go to Winnipeg and
(13:33):
we're just you know, this is the most boring summer
vacation I've ever had. You know, things like that. You know,
suddenly you're telling the friends this. You don't know who
they're going to tell things. You don't know what's going
to be posted, and that could even lead to a
traditional crime of a burglary, because somebody knows your house
is vacant. Ye. Then there's a concept of online friends,
(13:58):
and I do make a distinction. These are people that
are claiming to be friends, but you don't really know them.
So you're in a tournament, you're playing a game, a
little kid is playing a game and there's other people
in the game with them, but they don't really know them,
and they think, okay, these are just like people like
me who are out there playing this game. Do they
(14:20):
really know that? And so that begins to create an
entirely different sort of problem as well. If you follow
you know, that's really common a lot of the games.
You're online with other people and there's chat that can
happen on these games. There's even voice and you know,
(14:42):
voice chat that can happen, video chat can happen. All
of these things can happen within the realm of the
game itself.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Wow, that's just really scary because then you can see
how that could add or lead to, you know, more
in depth conversations or oh, send me your email, hext
offline or something like that, and yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Oh boy, yes, it can get really really bad.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
We're speaking with Tom Arnold. He is a cybersecurity expert
and author focusing on keeping children safe online. Tom, we
were just talking about there with the playing and video games,
how people can try to meet up with your kids.
How do you combat this? I mean, obviously you wrote
this book or a series of books that first one,
The Digital Detective, First Intervention, And how does the book
(15:30):
go into how to protect your kids and how to
educate your kids so they can combat this kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Well, the character Jason Palmer is met first as an
adult working for the National Security Agency, and he's going
through his journals because he's always kept journals, and he's
basically going through his journal of the first case that
made him the digital detective that's inside there, and begin
to see they become, you know, he and his close
(15:59):
friend are even though you know, they do a few
things at the start that are you know, just sort
of general helping some friends, helping some family members out
type thing. At the start of the story, they become
engrossed with a large international gang is what happens inside
(16:20):
the story, and they begin sort of following what this
gang is actually doing, which actually leads to the point
of cyber terrorism and terrorism itself. So and that's what
they combat at the end. But all the methods, all
the techniques, and if you look at the chapters separately,
(16:41):
each of the individual cases are actually real cases. I
just put them together and fictionalize them from my own
personal experience to actually, you know, put the story together.
And I thought, you know, I need to tell it
from you know, a fourteen year old kid's point of
view in the story itself, because I think they'll you know,
(17:03):
maybe relate to that kid in the story. But everything's
real in there. All the techniques, all the how he
does stuff, they're all real in there as well, and
how he begins to intercept messages. Now, the gang itself
is not that slick. They are somewhat slick as far
as what they're doing, but he's a little smarter. It's
(17:26):
to how to intercept them in there. And so they're
beginning to see this is sort of how the data works,
how the data moves on the computers, and not just computers,
the phones as well, and it sort of teaches them
look at all the information that's out there on them,
and it's potentially out there on them. And then at
(17:48):
the end of the book we give some basic prevention,
you know, tips from the digital detective. So that's how
it lays out, you know, and a lot of it
is keep your personal information private and be careful what
you post, even if it's, you know, my family dogs,
here's here's a picture of my family dog, and this
(18:11):
is my dog's name, and it's one of these. You know,
that information can begin to be combined with other things
where somebody can really come at you and act like
they know you. And that's becoming much more challenging with
artificial intelligence as well.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Wow, I didn't think about that.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
So with artificial intelligence, you feed all this information into
a large language model, and you know, this is where
the second book's going. Uh, and suddenly you're producing an
image or picture of someone and maybe you're this image
or picture has them naked in a in a situation
(18:50):
and you're using that to extort them, or the bad guys,
the bad guys using that to extort them, is my point.
Those type of deep fakes are becoming much worse. Deep
fakes with regards to voices, a voice communications chat that
is again a deep fake. All right, it's an artificial
(19:12):
intelligence engine that's actually carrying on the conversation with the kid,
if you would, acting like it's someone they know, and
it has a voice that sounds and has the inflections
and everything else that is like, oh wow, that's cool.
There's an inflection to the voice. There is artificial intelligence
(19:33):
voice engines right now that will do that, and that's
becoming you know, oh boy, let's see how this gets used.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Wow. Now, what is the second book that you said
is getting ready to come out?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah, it's well, the working title is The Dark Web.
Injection is really where we're at in this and the
book I really wanted to take on two topics. I
last year became pretty heavily involved in the subject of
human trafficking and sex stortion, and so it really takes
(20:11):
on those two topics with a nine and older reader. Wow,
so it's actually kind of a big one, is where
it's going, because those are you know, big issues. It
does take on the cyber bullying as well.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Okay, and those are topics that you hate to have
to address, but clearly, clearly you do. Is there like
a you were mentioning, there is the seven year old
who had the iPad and you know that's how you
sort of first got this idea. What is there a
good age to introduce children to technology like that, especially
(20:51):
because the risks are so great? Should you wait until
they're older or do you have any advice on that?
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Well? You know, Okay, again, another anecdotal story from another parent. Okay,
and it's a lady that lives near my daughter basically
that I interacted with and you know, we were having
a conversation and she says, you know, I'm not letting
my kids have anything. Okay, They're completely isolated from phones,
(21:23):
no watches, no iPads, no computers. I have completely isolated them.
But then I come to find out that my nine
year old has a Facebook page. My gosh, how did
that happen? Well, he got with one of his friends
(21:44):
that had a phone. They used the friend's account and
he created himself a Facebook page. Well, my belief right
now is you can't isolate kids from technolog whether you
have an Apple TV in the house, whether you have
any digital devices, the parents are using smartphones, you can't
(22:08):
isolate them. You can teach them how to use it.
You can expose them to it. And this is why
I said you have to maintain that safe space. It
is a safe space if there's any issues with the
technology or the device itself. You know, there's not a
there's no way to draw a line in the sand
and say, you know, when a kid turns twelve, okay,
(22:30):
then you can have a phone. You know, if you
take that sort of approach, you know, how ready is
that kid to actually have a phone?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Good point, Good point.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
God, the conversations all the way up to that point. Now,
from an economic standpoint, you may not be able to
afford to give them a phone until they're a young teen. Okay,
well that's a different problem. Okay, But having the exposure
basically to help, you know, get them educated as to
(23:01):
how to deal with these devices is really important.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I know that one of the things that you recommend
is having making device use a shared experience like get
online with your kids, especially when they're younger, and like
play the game with them or that type of thing.
Is that something a good way to like start with
younger kids.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
That that really is, And you know, but it is
quite a burden on the parent all the time, but
initially absolutely staying with them and having a shared experience
with the game. Starting them off on games that are
localized to the device and that are not online is
a great way to sort of start and deal with it.
(23:46):
But as knowing that at some point they're going to
be online with their friends because peer pressure is significant.
Oh yeah, all you have to do is log into
this game, okay, and I'll be in there with you.
It's okay, is what the peer says. Okay. And I
think having that experience and doing it with them at
(24:06):
the start and having the ongoing conversation is kind of important.
But then again, you know, as parents, especially from an
economic standpoint, we're really busy. Okay. The kids may get
picked up by a babysitter and the you know, the
babysitter picks them up from school because mom and dad
are both at work, okay, and they're not coming home
(24:29):
until the evening, and they both had a tough day,
and you know, so one has to really sort of
contemplate what's going on here, and you know, the babysitter
themselves might be online. So sometimes I think a parent
may have to like co op the babysitter to some
extent that the babysitter has to supervise as well. Okay,
(24:55):
now that may or may not work. Okay, there's some
risks with that one. She's not too certain what the
babiesitter is doing.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Well, So that's one thing that parents can try to do.
Like you said, how about you were talking about earlier
to the parental controls that like you can set things up,
but then all of that just got bypassed or are
those even worth using anymore or what's the best way
to address those?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Okay? Absolutely, And throughout the cybersecurity field, you know, old
style hacking still exists where somebody makes a phone call
and says, Hi, my name's Mary Jane. I lost my password.
Could you reset my password? I mean, that sort of
social engineering is so old. As far as breaking into
(25:43):
a system type thing, all those threats do still exist, okay,
out there, so they don't just go away over time
and evolve into something else. And then it's only to
something else you have to worry about. Sadly, you have
to worry about all of them, is the point. So
going through you know, in time, it doesn't quite work,
(26:08):
is my point.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Okay, okay, So what are some of the main things
that parents can do with their kids to try to
educate them and keep them safe? Obviously your book goes
into a lot of that. What's the what are the
top things that parents should do as they started at
a young age, but then moving all the up, I've
(26:30):
got to the just graduated high school my twins, and
I've got another them going into ninth grade in high school,
And like I said, it's like an ever evolving process.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Here.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
What are the best things parents can be doing to
and what kinds of things do you recommend them saying
to their kids to work with us?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I think the main main item is making certain that
they understand the scope and nature of personal information. Okay,
what that actually is? All right? That is a huge,
broad and compassing area. It's just anything that can be
led to identifying them. It's anything that might be able
(27:07):
to be used either against them or even against the parents. Okay,
A lot of times the extortions that are pulled against
the kids are to try to get it the parents,
is really what it is. So that sort of statement
that says you can say, well, your personal information. So
if you said that to a team, are even a
(27:30):
young adult team that's graduating high school, what would they
think of? Right, Well, I guess that's my driver's license number.
I guess that's my name. Yeah, maybe my address. I
don't know. I don't know about the city. That's a
big area. I live in Dallas, so it's just this
huge area. But it's all those things that can be
sort of put together, all right, like their own personal
(27:54):
tastes in clothing, their own personal tastes in you know
for girls and boys and boys and girls sort of thing.
You know, those are the types of things that really
are in that scope of personal information. So again it's
the nature of the personal information and what that includes.
(28:18):
And then it's also trying to you know, during their
development period where the brain is actually developing, which is
the teen years, Okay, you know, they're going through hormonal changes,
they're going through all sorts of things are happening to
them physiologically. It's sort of a constant reminder to be
(28:41):
very careful what they post to friends online specifically, And
it's also to be very very careful if they're playing
a game that's got a tournament arena and they've got
online friends that they really don't know, they're just people
who are in the arena with them. To be careful
(29:03):
what they say in chat. Keep their comments down to
what the game is about, you know, like Bobby go right,
you know that sort of thing. Great, Okay, you know,
it's just a matter of not going into anything that
has nothing to do with the game.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Okay, Okay.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
One of the points, okay, it's the careful questions. You
may think you know somebody because maybe this person plays
in your team all the time, but you don't really
know him or her.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Okay, Well, that's just one of the scary things associated
with kids being online. We're speaking with cybersecurity expert and
author Tom Arnold. We've got to take a quick break
right now, but we'll be back in just a few
minutes here on Carolina Focus. Stay with us.
Good morning, Carolina as you're listening to Carolina Focus on
News Talk eleven ten, ninety nine to three WBT mixed
one oh seven nine in Sports Radio ninety two to
seven WFNZ here in the middle of August. Carolina Focus
is our public affairs show heard every Sunday on these stations.
It's a combination of original interviews and choice encorese segments
(00:21):
from the past week along with Sharon Thorsland. I'm Ed Billick,
and if you have a topic for us that you'd
love to air on Carolina Focus, you can reach us
at Carolina Focus at WBT dot com. That's Carolina Focus
at WBT dot com. We'd happy to entertain whether it's
a fundraiser or a special event here locally in the Carolinas,
(00:44):
we'd be honored to air that for you and talk
with you on that topic. All right, let's get started.
Hot topic always cybersecurity. Most of the show will be
dedicated to this interview, conducted by Sharon Thorsland. Let's take
a listen right here on Carolina Focus.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Good morning, everyone, and thanks so much for joining us
here on Carolina Focus. I'm Sharon Thorsland. Well, cybersecurity is
a term that you've probably been hearing a lot over
the past couple of years, and it certainly is a
big issue right now on so many different levels. But
today we're going to focus on keeping kids safe online.
A lot of you have kids out there, and you
know that they are getting smartphones at a young age,
(01:24):
They're on video games or on computers at school. That
just seems like technology is everywhere and that is opening
them up to some dangerous situations. Well, joining me today
is Tom Arnold. He is a cybersecurity expert and author
of the Digital Detective series for books to help parents
keep their kids safe online. Tom, thanks so much for
joining me. We're really excited to have you on to
(01:45):
talk about this topic. And I know that you've got
quite a background in cybersecurity. Could you first give us
some information about your background and how you got into
this area of cybersecurity.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
No, that's fabulous. You know, I've got close to thirty
ar years experience in the cybersecurity field, and a large
amount of that in digital forensic investigations, which you can
let your mind wander. It goes from some of the
largest security breaches right down to in the early days
helping the FBI and other agencies with crimes against children,
(02:21):
which is sort of a heartbreaker. Okay, And so that's me.
My daughter and her husband are both very adept at cybersecurity.
Is a little bit of background. He's a director of
one of the large corporations in Washington State in cybersecurity.
They have three boys, and it all actually started right now,
(02:47):
about a year and a half ago, a little longer,
when the middle child, the seven year old, was playing
a very popular game and you know, the parents have
all the parental controls, all the security controls out there.
He's playing a game. He comes running into his mom
and says, look at this. Another player's avatar approached him
(03:13):
and held up a sign that said what's your name
and where do you live? Oh boy? Yep, that started it,
and you know, completely bypassed any possible parental controls that
sort of thing in there as well, which was quite
an eye opener, if you would, largely when that story
(03:34):
hit me. The second one, just a few months after that,
was I was speaking to a neighbor and they have
two boys and a girl, so three kids again, and
the parent made a statement to me in a social
gathering that she felt more comfortable talking to her kids
about sex than cybersecurity. Oh wow, cyber safety online, which
(04:00):
really started me thinking, because you know, now I currently
lecture at UNLV, I constantly am pressing the question of
cyber hygiene and cyber safety, and sometimes, you know, when
I was teaching undergraduate students, I really felt like I
was shouting at a wall. You know, they just didn't
(04:20):
understand basically, And I sat back and I started thinking,
you know, maybe letting the kids sort of learn on
their own to some extent would be fun. And I
created the characters that you see in the Digital Detective
First Intervention, which is the first book that's out. Second
one should be out by the end of the year.
(04:43):
And the whole real purpose there was to expose them
to not just the bad things that can happen, but
from an investigative standpoint, because my young fourteen year old's
quite a sleuth, if you would. The text mee and
the methods and sort of where data gets left laying
(05:03):
around is really what you know, I started with. And
a lot of the reviews they almost bring tears to
my eyes largely right now, because a lot of the
parents reviewing it say, you know, this is great. It's
helping my kid. My kid and I are having conversations
now about this topic basically, and I've been trying to
stress to people that cybersecurity and cyber safety has to
(05:29):
be a safe zone. Whether it's a teenager who's you know,
sixteen and a half going on twenty five. You know,
that teenager might be in trouble for something. They could
be grounded, the parents could be upset at them. But
if they bring you a cybersecurity problem, that's a safe space,
absolute safe space. They're not going to get in trouble, okay.
(05:53):
They need to know that, and you're there to absolutely
help them basically through what they're experiencing. That's sort of
the key sort of message that I'm really striving to
get out and using the books as a way for
you know, it's said at nine and older readers, so
(06:15):
you know, it's a double space. It's all. It's got
beautiful illustrations from Gary Trousdale in it because I decided
to illustrate all the chapters and have the chapters illustrated,
and so it really its purpose is they can have
fun reading the story, they can become engrossed in the story,
but they're also learning at the same time. And that
(06:39):
was something in the reviews where I think, you know,
you know, the one parent that wrote the review that says,
now they're having discussions. I'm sitting there going good, Maybe
I saved one kid. You know, that's a that's a win. Okay,
I don't care about New York Times bestseller lists. That's
a win. You know the board uh in my book.
(07:02):
So that's that's part of it and one of the
big parts. And so the next next book's actually going
into some much deeper topics.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Okay. So I want to backtrack a little and ask
you a question. You're you said you spent thirty years
in cybersecurity, and now I know you teach at U
n l V. You also taught at San Jose State?
Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Correct? Kel State? Yeah, the Forensic Times Department.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Okay. And then so you obviously have seen a lot
of things change. I would assume that in that thirty
year career. How what's the like, the most drastic thing
that you've seen change? And how quickly is everything moving
these days?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, there's two topics here. One is cybercrime and how
cybercrime and the typologies of the cyber crime has absolutely
changed over the years. I mean you have yes computer hacking,
You've got malicious software and automated attacks, and there's been
piracy and theft of intellectual property. There's fraud, but now
(08:11):
there's areas of pornography and image based abuse, which we're
beginning to see more and more of. In the second
major category would be artificial intelligence in this area, which
is starting to raise some havoc. And then there's child
sexual exploitation offenses. Cyber bullying can have an amazing impact
(08:33):
on teams, and it's a sad impact, you know, with
the harassment, the cyber stocking, the bullying from friends. You know,
we've all read about the suicides that have occurred as
a result of that. There is extremism as well, and
now we're seeing things like various video games being used.
(08:55):
And el Kata was actually one of the organizations that
sort of started as a recruiting method to try to
recruit people to their cause. And we see whether you're
on the left or you're on the right, you know,
the far fringe organizations are using these types of cyber
tools to try to recruit people to become like minded
(09:16):
with them. If you would, and you know, then there's
you know, illicit market operations and a variety of things.
This is how it's changed. If I went back twenty years,
you know, most of these typologies didn't exist. They there
were kind of sort of fringe things around them, and
each of the methods that are used are completely different
(09:40):
for each one. Basically, it's not just hacking, it's not
just phishing, email attacks. The methodologies and what we call
the tools, techniques and you know, procedures that the hackers
or the attackers use and the bad actors use has
absolutely changed in how they approach things. That's why it's
(10:03):
becoming really very much once again almost the wild West
out there. You know, it's a it's a condition where
the environment itself is actually very dangerous and more so.
You know, when I was a kid, my mom would
(10:25):
take me to a playground and drop me off at
the playground and say, Okay, I'm going to the store.
You have fun in the playground when the street lights
come on, come home. I mean it's common yeah, common place.
Me and a bunch of other kids would be in
the playground together. Okay that was so common. Okay, Well
(10:48):
nobody do that today. You know, that's that's really a
physical issue, and parents kind of get it. You know,
you're not leaving your kid at a playground unattended, is
basically the point. So you go into a restaurant now,
and you're sitting in a restaurant, you watch a family
come in, especially a family restaurant, and they sit at
the table and the mom passes out iPads as pascifiers
(11:10):
the kids. Okay, and you know the teen is sitting
there totally engrossed in their cell phone. Yeah, what exactly sad?
It is actually a very sad commentary, Okay, And you're potentially,
as a parent, exposing the kids to something that could
be really, really bad in the long run. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
I was going to say, you're mentioning the dangers and
exposing the things that can be really bad. I mean,
besides the obvious your kids losing out on how to
like function in society and speak to people and carry
on conversations, but clearly the dangers that they can encounter online,
especially the younger kids that just don't really they don't
know that kind of stuff is even out there. What
(11:59):
is what are some of the biggest dangers or is
there a number one danger or are there just so
many of them.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
You know, it's a variety. Each of those typologies related
to the types of cybercrime, again, can manifest themselves completely differently.
And that's why I said, the parents have to stress
that it's a safe area and if they're carrying on
conversations online, and frankly, I wouldn't take it just the littles. Basically,
(12:27):
where are the little kids? Little? Sorry? And you know
the teens have got this much similar problem. So I
tried to draw a distinction in two categories. There's a
difference between friends online. Friends online. These are people that
you know. Now for the teenager, they still have to
(12:48):
exercise care if they're upset they're posting online. You're basically
educating the friends online and the reality dating back to
nineteen ninety three and a peace your Steiner New Yorker
cartoon that was on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog?
Do you really know that's your friend who's actually online?
(13:10):
Did some one of your friends lose control of their account?
Is it somebody masquerading as the friend online? Even though
you think you're in a chat room where it's only
people you know that are on blind with you And wow,
this is where, you know, pictures being posted. I'm upset
at Dad because we had to go to Winnipeg and
(13:33):
we're just you know, this is the most boring summer
vacation I've ever had. You know, things like that. You know,
suddenly you're telling the friends this. You don't know who
they're going to tell things. You don't know what's going
to be posted, and that could even lead to a
traditional crime of a burglary, because somebody knows your house
is vacant. Ye. Then there's a concept of online friends,
(13:58):
and I do make a distinction. These are people that
are claiming to be friends, but you don't really know them.
So you're in a tournament, you're playing a game, a
little kid is playing a game and there's other people
in the game with them, but they don't really know them,
and they think, okay, these are just like people like
me who are out there playing this game. Do they
(14:20):
really know that? And so that begins to create an
entirely different sort of problem as well. If you follow
you know, that's really common a lot of the games.
You're online with other people and there's chat that can
happen on these games. There's even voice and you know,
(14:42):
voice chat that can happen, video chat can happen. All
of these things can happen within the realm of the
game itself.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Wow, that's just really scary because then you can see
how that could add or lead to, you know, more
in depth conversations or oh, send me your email, hext
offline or something like that, and yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
Oh boy, yes, it can get really really bad.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
We're speaking with Tom Arnold. He is a cybersecurity expert
and author focusing on keeping children safe online. Tom, we
were just talking about there with the playing and video games,
how people can try to meet up with your kids.
How do you combat this? I mean, obviously you wrote
this book or a series of books that first one,
The Digital Detective, First Intervention, And how does the book
(15:30):
go into how to protect your kids and how to
educate your kids so they can combat this kind of thing.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Well, the character Jason Palmer is met first as an
adult working for the National Security Agency, and he's going
through his journals because he's always kept journals, and he's
basically going through his journal of the first case that
made him the digital detective that's inside there, and begin
to see they become, you know, he and his close
(15:59):
friend are even though you know, they do a few
things at the start that are you know, just sort
of general helping some friends, helping some family members out
type thing. At the start of the story, they become
engrossed with a large international gang is what happens inside
(16:20):
the story, and they begin sort of following what this
gang is actually doing, which actually leads to the point
of cyber terrorism and terrorism itself. So and that's what
they combat at the end. But all the methods, all
the techniques, and if you look at the chapters separately,
(16:41):
each of the individual cases are actually real cases. I
just put them together and fictionalize them from my own
personal experience to actually, you know, put the story together.
And I thought, you know, I need to tell it
from you know, a fourteen year old kid's point of
view in the story itself, because I think they'll you know,
(17:03):
maybe relate to that kid in the story. But everything's
real in there. All the techniques, all the how he
does stuff, they're all real in there as well, and
how he begins to intercept messages. Now, the gang itself
is not that slick. They are somewhat slick as far
as what they're doing, but he's a little smarter. It's
(17:26):
to how to intercept them in there. And so they're
beginning to see this is sort of how the data works,
how the data moves on the computers, and not just computers,
the phones as well, and it sort of teaches them
look at all the information that's out there on them,
and it's potentially out there on them. And then at
(17:48):
the end of the book we give some basic prevention,
you know, tips from the digital detective. So that's how
it lays out, you know, and a lot of it
is keep your personal information private and be careful what
you post, even if it's, you know, my family dogs,
here's here's a picture of my family dog, and this
(18:11):
is my dog's name, and it's one of these. You know,
that information can begin to be combined with other things
where somebody can really come at you and act like
they know you. And that's becoming much more challenging with
artificial intelligence as well.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Wow, I didn't think about that.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
So with artificial intelligence, you feed all this information into
a large language model, and you know, this is where
the second book's going. Uh, and suddenly you're producing an
image or picture of someone and maybe you're this image
or picture has them naked in a in a situation
(18:50):
and you're using that to extort them, or the bad guys,
the bad guys using that to extort them, is my point.
Those type of deep fakes are becoming much worse. Deep
fakes with regards to voices, a voice communications chat that
is again a deep fake. All right, it's an artificial
(19:12):
intelligence engine that's actually carrying on the conversation with the kid,
if you would, acting like it's someone they know, and
it has a voice that sounds and has the inflections
and everything else that is like, oh wow, that's cool.
There's an inflection to the voice. There is artificial intelligence
(19:33):
voice engines right now that will do that, and that's
becoming you know, oh boy, let's see how this gets used.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Wow. Now, what is the second book that you said
is getting ready to come out?
Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah, it's well, the working title is The Dark Web.
Injection is really where we're at in this and the
book I really wanted to take on two topics. I
last year became pretty heavily involved in the subject of
human trafficking and sex stortion, and so it really takes
(20:11):
on those two topics with a nine and older reader. Wow,
so it's actually kind of a big one, is where
it's going, because those are you know, big issues. It
does take on the cyber bullying as well.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Okay, and those are topics that you hate to have
to address, but clearly, clearly you do. Is there like
a you were mentioning, there is the seven year old
who had the iPad and you know that's how you
sort of first got this idea. What is there a
good age to introduce children to technology like that, especially
(20:51):
because the risks are so great? Should you wait until
they're older or do you have any advice on that?
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Well? You know, Okay, again, another anecdotal story from another parent. Okay,
and it's a lady that lives near my daughter basically
that I interacted with and you know, we were having
a conversation and she says, you know, I'm not letting
my kids have anything. Okay, They're completely isolated from phones,
(21:23):
no watches, no iPads, no computers. I have completely isolated them.
But then I come to find out that my nine
year old has a Facebook page. My gosh, how did
that happen? Well, he got with one of his friends
(21:44):
that had a phone. They used the friend's account and
he created himself a Facebook page. Well, my belief right
now is you can't isolate kids from technolog whether you
have an Apple TV in the house, whether you have
any digital devices, the parents are using smartphones, you can't
(22:08):
isolate them. You can teach them how to use it.
You can expose them to it. And this is why
I said you have to maintain that safe space. It
is a safe space if there's any issues with the
technology or the device itself. You know, there's not a
there's no way to draw a line in the sand
and say, you know, when a kid turns twelve, okay,
(22:30):
then you can have a phone. You know, if you
take that sort of approach, you know, how ready is
that kid to actually have a phone?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Good point, Good point.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
God, the conversations all the way up to that point. Now,
from an economic standpoint, you may not be able to
afford to give them a phone until they're a young teen. Okay,
well that's a different problem. Okay, But having the exposure
basically to help, you know, get them educated as to
(23:01):
how to deal with these devices is really important.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I know that one of the things that you recommend
is having making device use a shared experience like get
online with your kids, especially when they're younger, and like
play the game with them or that type of thing.
Is that something a good way to like start with
younger kids.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
That that really is, And you know, but it is
quite a burden on the parent all the time, but
initially absolutely staying with them and having a shared experience
with the game. Starting them off on games that are
localized to the device and that are not online is
a great way to sort of start and deal with it.
(23:46):
But as knowing that at some point they're going to
be online with their friends because peer pressure is significant.
Oh yeah, all you have to do is log into
this game, okay, and I'll be in there with you.
It's okay, is what the peer says. Okay. And I
think having that experience and doing it with them at
(24:06):
the start and having the ongoing conversation is kind of important.
But then again, you know, as parents, especially from an
economic standpoint, we're really busy. Okay. The kids may get
picked up by a babysitter and the you know, the
babysitter picks them up from school because mom and dad
are both at work, okay, and they're not coming home
(24:29):
until the evening, and they both had a tough day,
and you know, so one has to really sort of
contemplate what's going on here, and you know, the babysitter
themselves might be online. So sometimes I think a parent
may have to like co op the babysitter to some
extent that the babysitter has to supervise as well. Okay,
(24:55):
now that may or may not work. Okay, there's some
risks with that one. She's not too certain what the
babiesitter is doing.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
Well, So that's one thing that parents can try to do.
Like you said, how about you were talking about earlier
to the parental controls that like you can set things up,
but then all of that just got bypassed or are
those even worth using anymore or what's the best way
to address those?
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Okay? Absolutely, And throughout the cybersecurity field, you know, old
style hacking still exists where somebody makes a phone call
and says, Hi, my name's Mary Jane. I lost my password.
Could you reset my password? I mean, that sort of
social engineering is so old. As far as breaking into
(25:43):
a system type thing, all those threats do still exist, okay,
out there, so they don't just go away over time
and evolve into something else. And then it's only to
something else you have to worry about. Sadly, you have
to worry about all of them, is the point. So
going through you know, in time, it doesn't quite work,
(26:08):
is my point.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Okay, okay, So what are some of the main things
that parents can do with their kids to try to
educate them and keep them safe? Obviously your book goes
into a lot of that. What's the what are the
top things that parents should do as they started at
a young age, but then moving all the up, I've
(26:30):
got to the just graduated high school my twins, and
I've got another them going into ninth grade in high school,
And like I said, it's like an ever evolving process.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Here.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
What are the best things parents can be doing to
and what kinds of things do you recommend them saying
to their kids to work with us?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I think the main main item is making certain that
they understand the scope and nature of personal information. Okay,
what that actually is? All right? That is a huge,
broad and compassing area. It's just anything that can be
led to identifying them. It's anything that might be able
(27:07):
to be used either against them or even against the parents. Okay,
A lot of times the extortions that are pulled against
the kids are to try to get it the parents,
is really what it is. So that sort of statement
that says you can say, well, your personal information. So
if you said that to a team, are even a
(27:30):
young adult team that's graduating high school, what would they
think of? Right, Well, I guess that's my driver's license number.
I guess that's my name. Yeah, maybe my address. I
don't know. I don't know about the city. That's a
big area. I live in Dallas, so it's just this
huge area. But it's all those things that can be
sort of put together, all right, like their own personal
(27:54):
tastes in clothing, their own personal tastes in you know
for girls and boys and boys and girls sort of thing.
You know, those are the types of things that really
are in that scope of personal information. So again it's
the nature of the personal information and what that includes.
(28:18):
And then it's also trying to you know, during their
development period where the brain is actually developing, which is
the teen years, Okay, you know, they're going through hormonal changes,
they're going through all sorts of things are happening to
them physiologically. It's sort of a constant reminder to be
(28:41):
very careful what they post to friends online specifically, And
it's also to be very very careful if they're playing
a game that's got a tournament arena and they've got
online friends that they really don't know, they're just people
who are in the arena with them. To be careful
(29:03):
what they say in chat. Keep their comments down to
what the game is about, you know, like Bobby go right,
you know that sort of thing. Great, Okay, you know,
it's just a matter of not going into anything that
has nothing to do with the game.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Okay, Okay.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
One of the points, okay, it's the careful questions. You
may think you know somebody because maybe this person plays
in your team all the time, but you don't really
know him or her.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Okay, Well, that's just one of the scary things associated
with kids being online. We're speaking with cybersecurity expert and
author Tom Arnold. We've got to take a quick break
right now, but we'll be back in just a few
minutes here on Carolina Focus. Stay with us.
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