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With everything going on on the internet, navigating the digital waters of the internet with your children can be a real challenge. You want to may sure they are safe and that they don't get hacked, but how?
In this episode, we give you practical tips and tricks to help keep your kids (and their devices) safe from hackers!
Hosts: Craig, Erin and Blake
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin (00:00):
Welcome everybody to another episode of the PTG
podcast today.
It is myself and Craig and ofcourse Blake,
Craig (00:13):
the one and only
Erin (00:14):
the one and only Blake.
Blake (00:15):
That's right.
Erin (00:17):
Yup.
I've never met another Blake.
yeah.
So today we're going to talkabout.
Your kids, but not really yourkids, like in a creepy way.
What more, more we're going totalk about your kids and how you
can teach them aboutcybersecurity and make it fun.
Blake (00:33):
I think this is going to be a good one.
I don't think anyone's evertalked about this.
Erin (00:38):
I think we've discussed it.
Craig (00:39):
Yeah.
I think we broached the topic acouple of times.
Really it depends on the type ofschool that your kids go to as
well.
I think that private schools areahead of public schools in
regards to technology.
Obviously busy households thathave a lot of technology and a
lot of devices, a lot of endpoints maybe Amazon Alexa or
(01:00):
Google or whatever devices onthe network.
Depending on the age of the kidsor children in your house will
depend on a lot of differentangles and factors.
But I would start off withproper training I think a lot of
kids like to tinker andexperiment maybe it's the drive
to play a new video game orboredom to try to find something
(01:23):
to do I think there's a coupleof different angles around this
topic, but I would start withsecurity awareness training.
We have various curriculum thatwe've built for all types of
scenarios and situations on ourcompliance, armour.com website.
It's very inexpensive, butproven audited and effective
training, not only for kids andchildren and families, but also
(01:46):
for consumers and for businessesalike.
Obviously at the household levelthere's probably not any really
regulations or anything likethat, but good hygiene, best
practices with passwords neverwrite your passwords down on
sticky notes and keep themaround the computer.
But you know, I would startwith, or start from the end
(02:10):
point level.
A lot of families havetechnology.
That's a various age andquality.
And obviously withcybersecurity, the older, the
end point, the older device isreally, as it.
ages, it becomes less secure.
And the reason for that is themanufacturer.
(02:33):
After a period of time calledend of life, the manufacturer is
no longer going to patch andupdate and provide security
updates, which is why it's avery bad idea to have old
devices on your network becausethat's how people get hacked.
Moving on from there there's akind of a, I guess, a myth
around people thinking thatapple devices are more secure
(02:57):
than windows devices.
There are viruses and malwarethat exists for Mac as well as
PC.
Of course, I think that it'sreally just a matter of.
The hackers are targeting bymarket share.
They are going to write virusesand malware and various threats
for Microsoft first and thenadapt to other platforms like
(03:19):
Linux and Mac.
So I would start off with if youhave an old computer, now's the
time better to, than ever toupgrade that device.
If it can be upgraded whichmeans the software, you can load
new software on it, that's anoption, but if it's really over
five years old, it's not usuallyworth fixing or doing anything
(03:45):
to you're better off getting anew device.
The recommendations are reallypersonal preference around that
whether you are a Mac or anapple fan or a Microsoft fan, or
maybe a Linux fan just reallydepends, but getting modern
devices that are supported andmaking sure that they're patched
and up to date, because even ifyou get a brand new computer, if
you go down the road, you pickone up if you have an insecure
(04:08):
network and you plug that thingto your internet and it's
unpatched, it can right out ofthe styrofoam get infected.
So you have to follow a processfor making sure that all updates
are applied and just really becareful with that period of time
as it's brand new until it'sfully patched up.
And then obviously enablesecurity software in the
(04:31):
Microsoft world.
There's windows defender.
You can choose other productsthat are out there like
Malwarebytes, for example.
Those are some options as well.
Blake (04:41):
So guess probably most parents, what they do is they
hand down their devices to theirchildren.
I'm assuming that's probablythem smartest ideas, maybe.
Craig (04:54):
Again, I think it depends on the age window.
so if if a parent wants a newcomputer and the device that
they're, the parent is usingit's within the warranty or
support period, then that's okayto do that.
But if the device is five yearsold already, and then they hand
it down to their kids.
Erin (05:13):
just asking for trouble.
Blake (05:15):
Right.
Craig (05:15):
Yeah.
Because, here's the thing likeyou as a parent are probably not
going to the same website, sayskid might go to and sadly, the
reality is that a lot ofhackers.
Prey on kids and they injectmalware and video games and
social media sites and differentthings that kids would search
for, or navigate to may differfrom what you may have navigate
(05:40):
to.
So my point is that if it's notsupported and it's not in
warranty, You're asking fortrouble.
by handing it down at if, andonly if, and I'll say this with
a caveat maybe the kid is ofolder age and is quite
technically savvy and canformat.
(06:02):
And re-install a modernoperating system on it, like
windows 11 or Linux, or if yourkid can do something like that
and modernize the software, thenthat's okay to repurpose.
But most people and most kids.
That's a lot of trouble andthat's a technical path that
opens a whole new can of worms.
So my point is that if you'vegot windows XP, just take hard,
(06:25):
drive out beat it up with ahammer and throw the rest of it
away,
Blake (06:29):
Yeah,
Craig (06:30):
or use it for target practice
Blake (06:32):
take it to Goodwill the local recycling bin.
so, what age do you think is theprime target to start
conditioning your children?
And the best cybersecuritypractices
Craig (06:46):
So I think if your kids are actively needing to use
Google, like the free Googleservices and G suites, or if
Google is the choice of theschool and that starts with
Second grade then that's thetie.
Like I would say the timing isreally dependent on when they go
(07:07):
online.
If they're going online beforeschool and they're going online
because the parents are busy andthey need to work or they need
to get stuff done.
And it's kind of a here playedthis game kind of thing.
While there should be someparameters set around what
device they should be given andwhat access they should be
allowed and what they should beable to do.
(07:28):
And it should be supervised ifit can't be supervised, then
there needs to be some duediligence on The parent's side
to make sure that the device isproperly secured, patched up and
supported before just handing itover to the kid because
otherwise what'll happen isthere could be nasty malware or
infection that could happen.
(07:48):
that just takes seconds.
So going back to our eat, yourvegetables, eat more onions.
It's all about the layershardware layers, software
layers, human layers
Blake (07:57):
I heard a rumor and I don't know if this is true, your
man, probably you could vouchfor this, but a lot of schools
are starting getting kidsinvolved in technology and
they're putting them into theChrome oh, S ecosystem.
I don't know if that's true.
That's what I heard her that along time ago.
Craig (08:14):
for schools, you said?
Blake (08:16):
Yeah.
But like public schools likelittle Johnny has got to do this
or that or something.
We need a laptop as a part ofthe checklist.
Craig (08:25):
So I, think that's true.
I think that some schools haveadopted the Google Chromebook
model, but I also heard.
And maybe some schools do itbetter than others, but I heard
that they caused a lot oftrouble too.
And what I mean by that isChromebooks are kind of like
thin clients they're reallystripped down
Blake (08:46):
Right.
Craig (08:47):
And optimized for Google and Google's ecosystem.
They're just really basicdevices typically with low CPU.
They're just really juststripped down to use Google G
suite and Google, like Gmail andother types of services, I think
once you and it's fine for that.
(09:08):
I think once you get out of thatecosystem though, and maybe want
to play a game or want to dosomething, that's more
multimedia driven.
think that's where those devicesstruggle.
Like for example, like runningzoom on a Chromebook by.
Really have best amount ofresources to properly do video
(09:29):
and audio as well as maybe a afull-fledged laptop, for example
Blake (09:36):
I remember I was at best buy and this is unrelated, but
still I was going through andthey have like a section for
Chromebooks.
And I literally look over inGoogle somehow some way you
probably know exactly where I'mgoing with this.
Somehow some way they thought itwas a good idea to make a
(09:56):
thousand dollar Chromebook.
And I'm like, What like this iscrazy.
It's like, trying to like, takelike apple market.
I don't know.
It looks like a little applelaptop.
a thousand dollars, but thereason why I'm just kinda like
balking here is promo S is likesuper, is a super light
operating system.
Like you said, it's like a thinclient.
(10:17):
it takes nothing to run.
Like most of the Chromebooks,they have four gigs of Ram or
gigs of state or EMC
Craig (10:25):
it's, optimized for an always online connected
experience.
So if you use it within thebrackets or parameters of what
it was designed to do, then itworks great.
But once you try to go outsideof that, where you're stuck in
an airport, or you're stuck in aremote location and you don't
(10:47):
have stable internet, then thatdevice is no longer a great
tool.
You don't have the ability orthe it's not very easy.
I mean, there are some featuresthat allow you to work offline.
But my point is that it'soptimized for an always
connected, always onlineinternet.
Experience and like withinclients, then clients are great
(11:10):
devices for businesses.
They have usually nowadays thesolid state hard drive, they
have minimal CPU and Ram they'rereally built for the long haul.
They don't have a lot of movingparts.
Some of them don't have anymoving parts.
So they're solid state.
The whole thing is solid state.
Oftentimes they're fan lists, soreally not much to fail or die
(11:32):
on it.
So when you connect a thinclient properly to a private
cloud or a public cloud,example, a terminal server,
remote desktop services orvirtual desktop infrastructure
powered by VMware or Citrix ifyou connect to those cloud
properties, you're getting allof the compute power from the
(11:53):
cloud.
Again, it's reliant upon analways on line connected
experience.
By itself, it's pretty barebones and minimal.
I can't really do much, but whenyou connect it to the cloud, it
opens the door and makes it agreat tool for certain
situations.
(12:14):
So I think that's what wastrying to be done with the
Chromebook experience withGoogle Google was like, okay,
we'll give our online tools andour online experience, Gmail G
suites collaboration aroundediting documents at the same
time all the great stuff thatGoogle has produced in that
(12:34):
fashion.
But once you, again, you stepout of that box and now you want
to load some other kind ofsoftware or you want to do more
audio visual work.
Now that device, or that toolmay not be the best tool for the
job.
It depends on a deep study andassessment on what are you using
(12:55):
the tool for?
And what's the best tool for thejob?
Blake (12:58):
Yeah, I think probably the coolest part.
I mean, again, this isn't aplug, but this is a good segue
point.
Like it does have the built-inparental controls, which is
probably advantageous to, mostparents.
And I think that's probablyeasier to set up.
But it probably has itsadvantages internally versus
(13:19):
let's just say you have a childand they're running windows 10,
11 Mac like I think out of thebox, correct?
I mean, so what would be analternative there for people for
parents who want to monitortheir kids' online activity,
Craig (13:37):
yeah, and I that's a good point with the parental controls
and the built-in functionality Ithink that functionality is
good.
Oftentimes I feel like dependingon the ecosystem, whether it's
Google or Amazon Alexa orwhatever it is I think that they
give parents a decent set oftools, but of them are perfect
(13:58):
in my opinion.
I mean, nothing's perfectnowadays, but I mean, I guess
none of them are very granular.
And what I mean by that, likefor my own experience with
Amazon devices and Kindles, forexample apple seems to, in my
opinion, do a better job of theparental control side of things.
(14:19):
But it kind of goes back to theright tool for the job.
think it also puts a lot ofpressure on parents too, because
now the parents have to havecrash course on how do they
configure this thing properly sothat their kid could do what
they need to do if theyauthorize it, but then not be
troublesome.
And I know for me, at least forpersonal experience that I'm
technical the Amazon Kindle man,that thing is it was a bit of a
(14:42):
learning curve even for me.
And I guess my point is that ifyou have access to parental
controls, definitely as aparent, studied them and see
what you can and cannot do withthem.
Sometimes there's no controlthat is available to do what the
child needs to do.
So you have to use your profile.
(15:04):
And then you have to beavailable to revoke it.
Like I know, like with myfamily, I've had to change my
pin numbers and have differentthings in place to prevent
accidental purchases, or maybethey said it was an accident,
but there wasn't, but that's awhole nother story, the by a
different video game or whateverit is, or an add on to a video
(15:25):
game.
My point is that as parents, wehave to research and explore the
tools that are available to the,to us like pare parental
control, for example.
But also make sure that thedevice is the best suited for
what she wants your child tohave access to as well.
Like I know for example, I don'tknow if you guys know this, but
(15:46):
a long time ago.
There was an issue with YouTube,Google, and YouTube where
YouTube wasn't properlysegmenting certain content for
kids.
And kids were getting access tocontent.
That was really bad.
Do you guys remember any ofthis?
Blake (16:05):
I heard about it.
Craig (16:07):
Like the tick-tock challenge or something?
It was almost like that only itwas on YouTube And it was like
suicidal kind of stuff.
And it was just Really awfulstuff that was, and it got
passed for them.
So they were the hackers or thebad actors in this case were
exploiting flaws in the taggingor segmentation of what a child
(16:28):
can and cannot see.
Erin (16:29):
that's disgusting.
Blake (16:30):
They were using like hashtags and sand tacks.
because essentially, like itgoes outside the algorithm
apparently of YouTube.
I mean, I could be entirelywrong, but and yeah, so, so
whoever was uploading, thevideos could mark them as
kid-friendly and yeah, I mean,it would be like creepy pasta
stuff or like, yeah, like reallydark.
(16:54):
dark.
Dark dark scary, scary stuff.
Erin (16:57):
messed up the kid.
Craig (16:58):
Yeah.
it's it's as a parent, when yougive technology or a device to
your child, there's someresponsibility that the parent
has to have.
And sadly you can't trust themake model or manufacturer of
the endpoint or device to doThat job for you.
It's really a responsibility atthe parent level to still police
(17:22):
and monitor.
One of the recommendations thatI have is.
have the device in an area whereyou are as a parent so you can
kind of glance over and seewhat's happening.
Cause kids are curious, they'regoing to want to click on stuff
that pops up.
And sometimes those popups arenot necessarily good popups.
So my point is that the parentcan catch things at the human
(17:42):
level that maybe shouldn't havehappened at the techno
technological level because of aparental control, but maybe
there was a flaw in it.
So my point is you can't overlytrust a parental control to do a
human's job.
Erin (17:57):
That makes sense.
Blake (17:58):
Right.
Something, Something, to that, Iguess this is my experience,
right?
Cause I grew up on technology.
Like, I mean, I grew up in theage of computer.
And something that like, myparents never monitored my
internet.
Like I could do whatever.
But something that that neverreally like dawned on me until
now.
And I think maybe becauseobviously, like I grew up in the
(18:21):
computing, like, boom, but atthe time there wasn't a lot of
research about like how damagingcomputers are or technology,
cell phones, tablets, they'reeverywhere.
You know how damaging they areto your eyes you know, laptops
and posture.
I grew up living with thesethings and living on these
things.
(18:42):
And now at 32, I feel like death
Craig (18:45):
well, that's pretty bad,
Erin (18:47):
That's a
Craig (18:48):
Blake.
Stop what you're doing rightnow.
Call 9 1 1, go straight to thehospital.
Blake (18:53):
Yeah no.
I mean, think about it though.
So like posture, right?
I mean, it's really importantphysical, mental wellbeing and
blood flow, blood circulation,yada, yada.
Erin (19:02):
Yeah.
That's a really good point, too.
Blake (19:05):
you know, within The past three to four years they started
figuring out about the bluelight that affects sleep rhythm.
So are things that like, nobodytalks about, unless like Hey
look, little Tammy, like don'tuse your phone an hour before
bed,
Craig (19:18):
That's because what Facebook, for example, in the
social experiments, everybody'sa Guinea pig.
Erin (19:22):
Yeah.
Blake (19:23):
right.
Craig (19:24):
claim they didn't anticipate or know that when
they released their platform,that it would have negative
impacts of depression and allsorts of stuff on kids and
miners.
And you're absolutely right.
I mean back when I started myparents didn't really police it
for TV back when I was growingup, I mean,.
(19:45):
I remember watching all sorts ofstuff.
Erin (19:47):
Well, and Craig, We're a similar ages.
and I know I did not experiencethe internet for the first time
until I was 15.
And I was like, is crazy.
I can talk to people all overthe world, what is going on?
And so, yeah, I mean, my parentsdidn't even know to monitor the
internet
Craig (20:05):
well, they probably didn't know the capabilities of
it.
Erin (20:08):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think that, yeah, thatprobably makes a difference.
Blake (20:12):
think nobody knew.
Yeah.
I mean, it's like thecapabilities, like people just
realized like how powerful thisis like how you can connect
people.
And then, I mean essentiallyyou're inviting intruders into
your home now.
Erin (20:29):
Yeah.
Blake (20:30):
I mean, if you think about it from this perspective,
like everybody who's got acomputer now has like a gateway
into their personal private andtheir home.
Hackers can get in withouthaving to have a key computers,
people had to like physicallybreak in.
But now, mean, you have anaccess point for people with bad
(20:51):
intentions.
Erin (20:52):
Yeah.
Blake (20:53):
But yeah, I mean, I just don't think anybody could have
predicted and how can be sointegrated with everything now.
And especially like, I thinkabout like IOT.
I mean now everything is wificonnected, everything by cars,
right?
Cars have wifi hotspots.
there's a bunch of other stupidthings that wiper hotspots, but
Craig (21:14):
yeah, I think that's a good point.
Like when I was growing up, whenI first was tinkering with at
that time bulletin board systemsor BBSs it was all modem driven,
right?
So it was a one-on-one handshakeconnection now where in seconds
connected to the worldwide weband in the reality is in
(21:40):
seconds, you can connect toanything in the world that's
connected to the same internetyou are.
And I don't think a lot ofpeople stop and think about that
for a minute of how easy it isfor somebody hidden in the world
that wants to do bad things thatcan be anonymous and
unidentified connect to yoursystem.
Blake (22:01):
think about everything, everything that you own,
everything of importance is onyour computer.
what do you think is worse?
getting your wallet stolen orgetting your computer stolen?
I think computer, not because ofthe cost, but because of the
sensitivity and the information.
It's like if you get your creditcard, driver's license, whatever
stolen, like you just cancel ityou can go get another driver's
(22:24):
license.
But, if your computer getsstolen, like, and you've got
thousands of files or terabytesor gigs or whatever whatever you
got on there, your work stuff,your personal stuff.
I mean, the scans maybe you'vegot scans for jobs or scans of
your birth certificate or, Imean, it's all there.
Craig (22:44):
That's right.
Blake (22:46):
Everything's digital.
So yeah, just my 2 cents, but itis scary to think about,
Erin (22:51):
It
Craig (22:52):
Absolutely.
Blake (22:53):
tell us about your growing up in computing.
Aaron.
Erin (22:56):
Oh me.
I mean, kind of, like I said Iremember the first time I ever
used the internet.
I was I mean, I've used acomputer, right?
Like I actually in middleschool, I'm such a nerd.
I used to love wearing the worldis Carmen San Diego.
I lived out in the country.
Blake (23:14):
I played that all.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Erin (23:17):
Like I couldn't like necessarily just go out and
play.
So I would play the computer.
But I never, like, I wasn't likeCraig and I would love to hear
Craig talk about that a littlebit more, but I wasn't like
Craig, like I didn't takeanything apart.
I was really into books.
I did enjoy some games.
I mean, obviously I also playedthe original Oregon trail, so
(23:39):
that was fun.
We took computer classes Iremember I took a typing class
in high school, which I'm sothankful because my boyfriend
love him to death.
He's a pecker, pecks.
And I just can't imagine workinglike that.
You can't really efficiently
Blake (23:58):
No, this is so funny.
Cause remember, so I rememberlike my growing up and computing
experience obviously I grew upin, Pretty connected family.
My mom had like a little VHScamcorder that we used to do
like home movies on likeChristmas and Thanksgiving, them
yada, yada.
I was skateboarding.
So I used that camera to filmskateboard videos.
(24:21):
And then something got damagedor something got stuck in there.
So I took it apart and put itback to you know, my mom like
opened the door and saw thecamera and like,
Erin (24:32):
A little Blake.
Blake (24:33):
yeah, like hundreds of parts or however many parts just
scattered.
I literally would put them inlittle segments and lay them out
into kind of like a little minidiagram,
Erin (24:42):
Huh?
Blake (24:42):
Across my floor.
So there's like no place thatyou could walk on the floor
without stepping on cameraparts.
I think it was my mom.
I was kind of using everybodyelse's computer Mike like I had
friends who had like, w youstarted off with like a family
computer.
Like nobody had personalcomputers.
It was like a family computer.
(25:03):
And me and my brother wouldargue about like, whose time it
was to like, get on thecomputer.
Erin (25:08):
Yes.
Blake (25:09):
and my mom had a computer in, my mom would S would sell
stuff on eBay and like, she washuge on eBay.
So she literally had thiscomputer for just eBay, like
just e-banking stuff.
My mom was an epic eBayer.
And yeah.
Then of course at the same timewould everything kind of went
digital.
(25:30):
And I started editing my skatevideos on her computer and then
eventually, I took a part-timejob, so it wasn't much money as
I could.
I got my first computer and itwas a, I think it was a I book
an apple, I book G three,
Erin (25:48):
Okay.
Blake (25:49):
which at the time was.
Maybe like five or$600, likesix.
I mean, I was like, like I'msaying amount of money to me.
Erin (25:56):
Yeah, that's a big purchase.
Blake (25:57):
yeah, no, I mean, I worked like three summers to get
it.
and then, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I've been rocking itever since.
Erin (26:05):
Nice.
Yeah.
So Craig used to take partcomputers, right?
Because when you're talkingabout when you're lit or when
you're talking about what to dowith old computers, I just got a
flashback or like a flash in myhead of like little tiny Craig
with the his mom's old computer,just like sitting around the
living room in the eighties,like taking apart,
Craig (26:27):
yeah, so actually it's a funny story.
So my sister was going tocollege and she gets this brand
new Dell computer.
And I think at the time it waslike$3,800 or$4,000, like, so
she like financed it.
So it was super expensive.
Erin (26:45):
Wow.
Blake (26:46):
My God.
Craig (26:48):
and I get ahold of it and I take the damn thing apart.
Blake (26:52):
Oh God,
Craig (26:53):
So I have it all apart, all over the floor.
And my sister's like, I am goingto kill you.
Blake (27:01):
I'm surprised.
She said, she's going to tellyou.
Erin (27:03):
I know.
And then just do it.
Craig (27:05):
I said the only killing back together and it doesn't
work.
I put it all back together andit of course worked fine, but I
wanted to about it and figureout how it worked and
everything.
And after my parents saw that Iwas able to disassemble the
whole damn thing and put it allback together,
Erin (27:25):
Maybe we should encourage this.
Craig (27:26):
yeah.
They ended up buying a computerfor the quote unquote family.
And they kind of got ripped off.
I mean, at the time there were alot of companies that were
building computers and like.
Most people, I would think thatdon't know a lot about something
it's easy for that to happen.
I was grateful to have anythingso I took that thing apart and
Erin (27:51):
This is how I show my gratitude.
Craig (27:53):
right.
Yeah.
And learned about how the videocard and all the components
worked and everything, andstarted upgrading the components
to make it more powerful and dowhat I wanted it to do.
And my drive at the time wasreally just to I liked video
games at the time.
So I actually started on aCommodore 64 that my brother
had, that my family bought.
(28:15):
and you literally had to type inlike load quote and like
commands to make the thing work.
And it was a floppy disk typeset up.
I don't know if you rememberfloppy disks.
Erin (28:24):
Oh, yeah.
not that much younger than
Blake (28:26):
I do too.
Craig (28:28):
So there were five and a quarter inch floppy disks.
And yeah, if you didn't type thecommand the right way, it didn't
load.
And at that time there was justso many things that could go
wrong.
It was really rare actually forsomething not to go wrong and
for things to just work.
So this was like right aroundthe time when Nintendo and Atari
popular and honestly the edgesof those console systems were
(28:53):
really, it just works.
You get the cartridge, you plugit in and it, you turn it on.
And it works at least most ofthe time or more often than the
computer, but the computer gamesat the time were different and
they were more robust and theywere more in depth than the
cartridge systems, which is whyI liked them better.
that was my experience takingthings apart and things back
(29:15):
together then shortly after.
My parents got that computer forme.
And I started upgradingcomponents.
That's when I was like, okay, Iknow how to play pretty much,
most video games, but you knowhow do I take this to the next
level?
And that's when I startedlearning about how to connect my
computer to through a modem.
(29:37):
And it was literally relivingthe movie war games.
I don't know if you ever saw wargames, the movie, but it's great
movie.
So I learned how to use modemand I learned how to install the
modem to my computer and connectthe modem to my dad's fax line
at the time.
And literally took over his faxline and he, I remember many
(29:59):
times he would be like, what thehell?
Why is this thing busy all thetime?
I can't even send a damn fax!
Erin (30:07):
like, I don't I don't know Dad!,
Craig (30:08):
sorry, I'm just waiting for something to finish.
He can't do it yet.
And I was waiting at the timeeverything was all about what's
called parody or little piecesto, to build up one thing.
So what I mean by that is themodems were slow.
Even the fastest ones at thattime, were slow.
(30:29):
So you had to break up gamesthat were large into small
pieces, and sometimes thosepieces might be 2020 files to
build up that one game.
you would send the files in atthe time, the size of a floppy
disc was 720 kilobytes, and thenhigh densities, 1.4, four
megabytes.
So sometimes the video gamemight be 15 or 20 megabytes, so
(30:52):
you'd have to break it upaccordingly.
So anyway, it would take areally long time to, to transmit
over a modem connection.
Like.
that's why the line was busy allthe time.
So would literally run this.
I started at BBS and I started,I learned how to customize it
and get it online and gave it aname and gave it started
(31:14):
marketing it and people to tradegames.
And, yeah, it was just a wholelike hidden underground that
like, nobody, like your averageperson had no clue that it even
existed.
It was like the cool factor forthat time period.
(31:35):
Yeah.
Cause you're talking about theeighties, right?
Late eighties, early nineties.
Erin (31:39):
That was just saying, I remember the first time I was
15.
The first time that I ever sawthe internet.
And yeah, like I was just, I wasabsolutely flabbergasted, but
here's Craig over here.
He's like this old news.
Craig (31:54):
So, what was cool was after I built the we're going
off on a big tangent, but afterI built the computer and started
the BBS and things like that Istarted getting testers would
send me like in beta format andI started to evaluate and games
before they even hit the shelf.
So I would have, I wouldliterally have games three to
(32:16):
six months before the public hadthem.
And I would go to the, the timeit was like electronics
boutique, and I would go throughelectronics boutique and games
were expensive still.
It was like 60 bucks still forgame on computer 50,$60.
And I would literally go downthe wall and I would have most
of the games that were there.
I would have had them formonths.
Blake (32:38):
It's pretty awesome.
Craig (32:39):
Anyway, go it back in.
My parents had no idea about anyof this stuff.
So it goes back to watching yourkids or whatever, and not
necessarily that it was a badthing.
I mean, it was a pricelessexperience to, to go through I
encourage it for children now itjust needs to be supervised.
Erin (33:00):
Yeah.
Craig (33:00):
because now
Erin (33:02):
changed.
Craig (33:03):
yeah.
There's just a lot of differentrisks that didn't exist back
then.
So it's just a different periodof time.
So my point is that they haveeven cool stuff now, though,
that you could do like if you'rea technical parent, you can get
a raspberry PI device and youcan do experiments and you can
get a book and do labs anddifferent kinds of exercises
(33:25):
with your truck, with your childor children.
If they like that tinkering kindof stuff, So there's all
different stuff that didn'texist that help kind of create
that safe environment to do so.
But my point is, now, if youunpolice a device and you just
leave it, it's just just a lotof risks now you really need to
(33:47):
have, training just really aprop or process that's best for
your family on how to make surethat you're being safe online.
I mean, like one of the thingsthat, a lot of people don't know
about, which would probablybenefit a lot of our listeners
is when you go to the internet,you're oftentimes leveraging a
service called DNS or domainname system.
Most people not going toremember the IP address to
(34:10):
Google.
You're going to type in Googleand you're going to get there
because your computer is goingto use DNS to translate it into
the IP address.
And that's how humans surf theinternet or.
If you just change your routersDNS settings to quad nine, is
really nine dot nine.
And I know that's technical andit sounds super complicated, but
(34:31):
it's really not that bad.
If you go into your routersettings and you change your,
DNS address to four nines, ninedot nine dot 9, 9, 9, you
immediately protect yourself andyour kids all of your traffic is
now routed through quad ninesnetwork and quad nine.
If you just Google search quad,none.
(34:53):
I think it's just quad type itout like Q U a D space nine.
If you go there, you'll see thatdo a lot of filtering the DNS
level and it's all for free.
So quad nine.net is actuallythe, a website.
So it's a public and free DNSservice and it has security
(35:14):
baked in it.
It immediately protects you formalware and a lot of threats and
things.
So like right now I'm on theirwebsite it says a hundred a
hundred million with an M ouraverage daily blocks.
So they're blocking a hundredmillion plus malware threats, 20
plus threat intelligenceproviders, 150 resolver clusters
(35:37):
in 90 different countries.
So if you just listen and youdid this one thing, this one
layer as we call it your onions,this is a huge layer to protect
you and your family.
But this is why it's soimportant do training, to stay
on top of this stuff.
Erin (35:53):
Well,
Craig (35:54):
you can get your training at compliance, armor.com.
It's inexpensive, but it'spriceless because you learn
about little things that can bedone oftentimes for free.
And it's just a couple settingschanges and you're off to the
races and you're, you have amuch more secure experience.
Erin (36:12):
That's really good advice
Blake (36:15):
Yeah.
Craig (36:15):
Yup.
Erin (36:16):
and a great way to help protect your family.
Blake (36:19):
That's something too.
Like I was just thinking aboutand we kind of obviously kind of
showed our growing up incomputers, so it felt like a
tangent, but it really wasn't.
In my opinion, and this is letme reel it back in here.
But when we grew up incomputers, it was exciting.
(36:39):
It was an exciting place to be.
It was an exciting space.
It was exciting technology.
It was emerging.
And now it's just scary.
Erin (36:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a really good point.
Like
Craig (36:49):
I think it's only scary to the people that,
Blake (36:53):
don't
Craig (36:53):
Are aware.
I don't think, like if you askyour average kid, I don't do you
think the internet scary?
They'd probably say no
Erin (37:00):
right, just don't.
They don't understand.
Craig (37:03):
That's right.
Blake (37:04):
they don't know, what can happen on the internet.
Erin (37:06):
Yeah.
But you're right.
I mean, it's a lot more andthere's a lot more insidiousness
Blake (37:10):
I bet you, if you ask that one kid or maybe several
kids that stumbled across aYouTube video.
Erin (37:17):
Oh yeah.
Blake (37:18):
That was supposed to be YouTube kids and saw something
like slender man or somethinglike he's, going to say yes,
Erin (37:25):
Not to make it dark or whatever, but did you hear
there's like these middle schoolgirls, they're like 12 or
something
Blake (37:32):
I watched, I watched the film on that.
Yeah.
The documentary.
Yeah.
Erin (37:36):
so terrible.
that girl, she ended up dying.
Blake (37:39):
No, she didn't die.
Erin (37:40):
yeah, they like lured her for slender man or something
like,
Blake (37:44):
Yeah.
I mean, there we go.
These two girls read about astory on the internet, in a dark
place.
And then they lured this girlout into the woods to try and
kill her because the internetsaid, so,
Craig (37:57):
My gosh,
Erin (37:58):
yeah, this is a few years ago too.
Blake (38:01):
like six or seven years ago,
Erin (38:02):
It's just sad.
Craig (38:03):
like that stuff is just, sickening,
Erin (38:07):
It is.
Craig (38:08):
But it's also, a parent really difficult to track that,
you literally would have to bedoing active surveillance to
know that and to be able tointercept like in LA, like your
kid is probably not going totalk to you about all the stuff
that they do on the internet.
(38:28):
So now it's a question of, doyou, and it's not an, I'm not
saying that you shouldn't trustyour kids.
I'm just saying it's not reallyabout that.
Yeah.
It's that you can't trusteveryone else on the internet.
So it's not my point though, isthat there are technologies and
there are solutions that we haveexperience with, to do the
(38:52):
surveillance in a way where youwould know about something like
that.
We're reliant upon the FBI and alot of law enforcement to
intercept these types of things.
But I think we, as parents needto do more too, because if we
are able to intercept somethinglike that and then hand It to
(39:15):
the authorities and say, look,we created a honeypot and they
almost Lord my kid into thissituation, go arrest him.
That would, I think for societybe a good thing.
Erin (39:28):
Yeah.
Blake (39:29):
Yeah.
Craig (39:30):
But I think most people wouldn't even know where to
start with something like that.
Erin (39:34):
I wouldn't.
Blake (39:35):
Yeah.
I mean, I wouldn't either.
Craig (39:36):
I mean, there are, my point is that there are things
like key loggers that we talkabout.
Keyloggers a lot obviously a lotof hackers, like key loggers,
but key loggers can be a a youknow, good to use because now
you can track your child's textmessages and things like that.
You could consider getting ahardened device instead of
(39:57):
giving your kid an iPhone.
You can get them like they havenew devices now where they're
locked down, where they're notallowed to call anybody unless
the parent puts the phone numberin there and authorizes it.
So there's like all thesedifferent things that you can
do.
As a parent to with thissituation.
Erin (40:14):
think about it sometimes just how grateful I am that
social media.
Like I think my space came outwhen I was in my mid twenties.
So in, in cell phones with withcameras, didn't come out until
around that time to rose livingin the Virgin islands at the
time, like this is so cool.
But imagining the pressure thatkids must feel with social media
(40:39):
and everything being able to berecorded.
And, man, I'm just so glad.
I'm so glad I missed that.
And I don't have kids, but I dohave nieces and nephews and just
thinking about ways to keep themsafe.
It's a lot, it's a lot forparents.
I imagine that's a realchallenge and on a regular
basis,
Craig (40:58):
Oh, absolutely.
Erin (41:00):
So are you, do you, what do you teach your kids about the
internet Craig?
Craig (41:04):
Stay away from social media.
Blake (41:07):
I'm curious you've talked about some of our previous
podcasts about like there your,how you limit your children to
the devices that they can useand the frequency at what they
can use that.
So maybe you could
Craig (41:20):
Yeah, I think, I think, every situation is different.
I think every parent and there'sno necessarily right or wrong
way to do it.
It's really personal andindividualized, but for me and
my wife, I mean, we, we allowthem screen time.
we don't even allow it everyday.
(41:40):
Like, like on the weekends,we'll let them watch like a show
on TV or something on theirKindle or on their iPad or
whatever device.
And it's usually no more than anhour.
And that's it because I don'tknow if it I've heard other
parents tell me similar things,but it when a kid plays a video
(42:06):
game or watches a show, itactually changes their behavior.
Depending on.
what it is, it sometimes thebrain releases dopamine and that
affects their behavior.
So like, for example, like ifmy, if I give my son 30 minutes
(42:26):
or an hour to play a video gameafter he's done, first of all,
he doesn't want to stop.
So if I ask them, okay, yourtime's up?
Nope.
Just two more minutes.
Just two more minutes.
He doesn't want to stop, butit's almost like an addiction
and then it's withdrawal becausehe's doesn't want to stop.
And then he becomes angry.
(42:47):
And he, his behavior is not.
Good.
Sometimes it's, he's angrybecause he has to get off.
So my point is that we limit theamount of time now, like if
we're doing like a road trip orsomething, we'll give them their
Kindles or whatever, and theycan use them in the car.
(43:08):
And that'll be like the maximumscreen time or altogether in the
car kind of thing.
But Yeah.
we don't like every day, likethey don't come home and play
video games.
We encourage them to go outside.
We encourage them to play withtheir friends.
We encourage them to go in thepool or whatever I mean, there's
different things that they couldbe doing aside from sticking
(43:28):
their phrase in front of a game.
It's not that we're antitechnology obviously or anti
video games.
But it really does.
change their behavior They havefriends that literally will just
stay inside and play video gamesand we would just prefer them to
be playing with friends outsidelike when I was growing up in
(43:49):
and I took stuff apart andthings like that, would still go
outside.
Like I wouldn't be locked in acave, I mean I would like to go
outside and play with my friendsand play basketball or baseball,
whatever it is.
my point is I think the bestadvice I could say is try to
make it as balanced as possible.
And I know that with someparents that are working or
(44:09):
working from home, or maybesingle parents they kind of use
the technology a bit likebabysitter.
And I'm not saying that'snecessarily wrong.
It's just that if you canbalance it and, I think the end
result would be better than withan unbalance..
Erin (44:25):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Blake (44:26):
Yeah, no, that's clear.
And then one thing too, is teachyour children about safety,
obviously physical safety, Ifeel like the hunchback of Notre
dam now,
Erin (44:38):
Oh yeah.
Blake (44:40):
something, take it from me, teach your kid about my
parents said, Hey, like, don'tsit too close to the TV.
They used to say that, but Istill did it anyways.
They never stopped me from doingit.
And now I wear glasses.
Or, I've been working from mycomputer, a laptop and I I was
like, oh it's a laptop is meantto be in my lap or it wasn't
meant to be on a little table.
And I'd be been bending over,like working from a laptop.
(45:04):
And now like probably withinfive years, I'll probably have
carpal tunnel or maybe I have toat least have surgery for it.
Yeah.
I think if I could leave ourlisteners with something, teach
your children about posture thenegative effects that these
devices have.
I mean, we don't even know yet.
We don't even know.
really don't know.
Erin (45:21):
The long-term effects that it could have.
Blake (45:24):
I mean, you're putting radio waves.
I mean, like, if you're talkingon a cell phone, like you're
putting radio wastes your brain,
Craig (45:29):
it's all about balancing too, right?
Blake (45:30):
For sure.
Craig (45:31):
it's hard to say if that really caused you to have to get
glasses, but obviously that itmight not be in anyone's best
interest to stare at a computerfor eight hours straight you
know, it might be a good idea tolook away.
What does that thing that yousaid before.
Blake (45:48):
20, 20,
Craig (45:49):
Yeah.
Blake (45:50):
every 20 minutes look, 20, feet for 20 seconds.
I doctor taught me that.
Craig (45:56):
Yeah.
Like I don't think I even dothat consistently, but it's all
about creating good habits
Blake (46:01):
Yeah.
Or, obviously not using yourcomputer and dark that's another
one.
And now I'm on the, I'm on thetip too.
Cause I went to the doctortoday, neurologist and he, it
was like, dude, like, like what,like how old are you?
you've got all the symptoms nineto five or on the computer and
yeah, I mean, that's how I makea living.
(46:21):
And that's how I provide for myfamily and provide for my dogs
and whatever but anyways yeah,so I went based on a suggestion
and you should never be using alaptop in your lap like that's
the reason why they make thestance, so you're supposed to
elevate your screen to your facelevel, to eye level not be
looking down at it.
Erin (46:41):
Oh man.
Blake (46:42):
So yeah, I mean, I went on like an epic adventure here
in Tbilisi trying to find alaptop holder and now I got on.
and now I'm starting to get intothe phase where like out order,
like I'm like 144 degree, likeex like ergonomical keyboards,
that kinda like they're tiltedin 144 degrees.
So that way, like it doesn'tstrain cause the street
(47:05):
keyboards, like what you know,is not good.
And then they've got theergonomical, like mouses where
you can your hand is sideways.
So it's like, you're holding acop or something or like a
class.
Instead of like the flat mouses,like whoever designed these,
like didn't know, they didn'tconsider those things.
The prolonged use right over thecomputer.
(47:25):
And of course I've got a blueblock of blue light blocker
screen protector.
All my computer.
I got one on my phone now, like,so starting to get there.
Craig (47:39):
Back when I was growing up, it was CRT cathode, Ray
tubes, right?
Big TV, big kind of boxymonitors.
And it was radiation it was likethe, they literally would give
off radiation.
You had a try to pick a modelthat didn't give off too much
radiation, but again all abouthow much time you spend in front
of it.
And I don't think anybody doesit perfectly.
(48:01):
It, my point is that, like youpointed out Blake you don't want
to have a laptop in your lap fora long period of time.
If you can.
Is it, does it mean it, you cannever use it on your lap?
No, it's just not ideal for ahealth situation.
It's you're, you have a warm tosometimes hot laptop device on
that's really close to your skinand your body.
(48:22):
You can get burned if somethinghappens with the battery, which
is most likely lithium ion, itcould catch fire.
And there's all sorts of Googlestories online that you can with
malfunctions of people gettingburned and things like that.
So same thing with your cellphone.
You Don't want to keep your cellphone in your pocket for long
periods of time, if it overheatsor whatever the cell phone could
(48:45):
explode and cause you physicalharm so there's all these
different things that canhappen.
I think as far as our podcastfor today, I think that sure to
track.
know, take the parents take thetraining.
Have your kids take thetraining.
It's not a lot of time.
I mean, we're talking about twohours of your time to get really
(49:05):
good training compliance,armor.com and go through the
testing.
And then you get micro trainingsevery week and every month to
keep you up to date and you andyour children should go through
it.
That's like essential nowadays.
Aside from that patches, updateyour systems, sure you're not
wasting time and old outdatedsystems.
Erin (49:28):
Don't give your kids old computers unless they want to
take it apart.
Craig (49:32):
yeah.
And here's another thing too.
Don't give your kids or don'tgive anyone your old computers
or devices proper sanitization.
And what I mean by that?
You don't want to give yourcomputer that you were maybe
doing banking or financials on,and if you don't know how to
properly sanitize it and formatit and do all the work to prep
(49:52):
it that's how people stealidentity as well.
They'll garage sale it orwhatever.
And so you need to make sure youremove the hard drive or you
physically destroy it, or youpay for a certificate of
destruction from a companythat's well known and reputable
that can give you theattestation that it has been
properly destroyed.
(50:12):
Personally, for me, I justripped the hard drive out keep
it
Blake (50:15):
Something I was just thinking about you and Aaron.
Like if we wind back the clockand this is probably going to be
counter intuitive to what howCraig got into cyber security,
but if you see your child takingapart electronic device stop
immediately.
The reason why I say that isbecause there is, power supplies
in there..
I was looking at one of the, Ifix it tutorials for a Mac book
and some of the Mac books haveor some of the Mac computers,
(50:38):
like the IMAX and stuff.
Like they have like a 280 orsomething watt power supply or
for 400 watt power supply insideof that computer.
So
Erin (50:49):
Oh, wow.
Blake (50:50):
if if a child touches the wrong area, I mean, Hey, you're
going to go to light city.
Erin (50:56):
yeah.
Blake (50:56):
obviously got lucky we're here.
But I mean, just a disclaimer.
So if you see your child takingit apart and an electronic
device, not a good idea.
Craig (51:06):
not necessarily a bad idea.
It just needs to be supervised.
Erin (51:10):
Make sure it's turned up.
Blake (51:11):
Let them take apart and let him, let them get a can of
kit.
Let him get a can a kit thatdoesn't have a power supply.
And let them build a little, araspberry PI there's safe ways
to do it, but yeah.
Yeah, you're right.
So and then yeah, get monitoringsoftware so you can see what's
going on time usage and wherethey're visiting and where
they're spending their time.
Craig (51:31):
I remember back I think it was like 20 years ago now
when I got certified fromWebsense at Websense was
technology was like brand newstuff back then.
And it was surveillancetechnology for businesses to
monitor their employees and makesure they weren't going to
social media or whatever doonline shopping.
(51:52):
I think what it was 20 yearsago, social media wasn't really
a thing yet.
So anyway we would install thisstuff at, and oftentimes a lot
of businesses, they would justinstall it just to kind of
monitor and kind of see do wehave a problem at our company or
not?
And it gives them that depth andvisibility.
And it's just so interestingthat you can, the stuff like the
(52:16):
people that you would thinkwouldn't really do that, that do
it.
And it's it's just an eyeopeningexperience.
So that might be kind of a wayto start with children.
Like I said, it's not that youdon't trust them.
It's just that you want toprotect them and keep them safe
because the deck is prettystacked for things that are bad
(52:40):
to happen and how easy it is forsomething bad to happen.
Erin (52:44):
Yeah.
Craig (52:45):
So in my opinion, I don't think it's a bad idea to.
Have technology like that totell you what's happening, where
people were going or where yourkids are growing or whatever.
But Yeah.
I mean, it's different foreveryone.
It's a personal preference.
It's it's balance it's there's alot to it.
It's but there are solutionslike quad nine like I
(53:06):
recommended earlier that aregood solutions.
Now you don't get any kind ofgranular control with quad nine,
like quad nine is free.
So if you want like granularcontrol over, Hey, I don't want
my kid to go to weapon websites,or I don't want my kids to go to
the websites or whatever.
You can get that granularcontrol with different kinds of
filtering technologies.
(53:28):
but the free stuff is, it iswhat it is.
You don't have any control forit, but it's better than
nothing.
Blake (53:34):
Yeah we had a video too, or a podcast, sorry, where we
mentioned encrypted DNS.
And if you get encrypted DNSfrom us it was like the five
cheapest things you can do tosecure yourself today or
something is around$120 an endpoint per year.
Erin (53:53):
Yeah,
Craig (53:53):
Yeah, it's very inexpensive.
Blake (53:56):
go to compliance, armor.com and choose how many
end points you got.
I mean,
Erin (54:02):
Boom.
Blake (54:04):
boom, 120 bucks a year.
than your coffee.
Erin (54:08):
Yeah.
That's true.
Cheaper than your T
Blake (54:13):
That's right
Erin (54:14):
Turkish tea.
Blake (54:16):
guys.
We've done our hour here, paidour dues for the day.
Erin (54:21):
Yeah that was good.
And I think I think reallyinformative and I think that
could be really helpful forpeople and help to secure the
younger generation.
It's always a good thing.
Craig (54:31):
Yeah.
And we just touched on the onionlayers, but there's many more
layers that could be done thatthese are just kind of easy
tips.
Some of them free that you couldimplement right away, but yeah,
be sure to reach out to us andwe can give you a more
customized approach.
Erin (54:45):
If you have any questions hit us up, you can also email
us.
We do have apodcast@petronellatech.com email
now, too.
So feel free to use that youhave any questions or give us a
call and we'll we help be happyto help you out.
Blake (55:02):
We're here.
Erin (55:03):
We're all here because we're not all there.
All right, Have a good one guys.
Craig (55:10):
Alright.
Take care.
Welcome everybody to another episode of the PTG
podcast today.
It is myself and Craig and ofcourse Blake,
Craig (00:13):
the one and only
Erin (00:14):
the one and only Blake.
Blake (00:15):
That's right.
Erin (00:17):
Yup.
I've never met another Blake.
yeah.
So today we're going to talkabout.
Your kids, but not really yourkids, like in a creepy way.
What more, more we're going totalk about your kids and how you
can teach them aboutcybersecurity and make it fun.
Blake (00:33):
I think this is going to be a good one.
I don't think anyone's evertalked about this.
Erin (00:38):
I think we've discussed it.
Craig (00:39):
Yeah.
I think we broached the topic acouple of times.
Really it depends on the type ofschool that your kids go to as
well.
I think that private schools areahead of public schools in
regards to technology.
Obviously busy households thathave a lot of technology and a
lot of devices, a lot of endpoints maybe Amazon Alexa or
(01:00):
Google or whatever devices onthe network.
Depending on the age of the kidsor children in your house will
depend on a lot of differentangles and factors.
But I would start off withproper training I think a lot of
kids like to tinker andexperiment maybe it's the drive
to play a new video game orboredom to try to find something
(01:23):
to do I think there's a coupleof different angles around this
topic, but I would start withsecurity awareness training.
We have various curriculum thatwe've built for all types of
scenarios and situations on ourcompliance, armour.com website.
It's very inexpensive, butproven audited and effective
training, not only for kids andchildren and families, but also
(01:46):
for consumers and for businessesalike.
Obviously at the household levelthere's probably not any really
regulations or anything likethat, but good hygiene, best
practices with passwords neverwrite your passwords down on
sticky notes and keep themaround the computer.
But you know, I would startwith, or start from the end
(02:10):
point level.
A lot of families havetechnology.
That's a various age andquality.
And obviously withcybersecurity, the older, the
end point, the older device isreally, as it.
ages, it becomes less secure.
And the reason for that is themanufacturer.
(02:33):
After a period of time calledend of life, the manufacturer is
no longer going to patch andupdate and provide security
updates, which is why it's avery bad idea to have old
devices on your network becausethat's how people get hacked.
Moving on from there there's akind of a, I guess, a myth
around people thinking thatapple devices are more secure
(02:57):
than windows devices.
There are viruses and malwarethat exists for Mac as well as
PC.
Of course, I think that it'sreally just a matter of.
The hackers are targeting bymarket share.
They are going to write virusesand malware and various threats
for Microsoft first and thenadapt to other platforms like
(03:19):
Linux and Mac.
So I would start off with if youhave an old computer, now's the
time better to, than ever toupgrade that device.
If it can be upgraded whichmeans the software, you can load
new software on it, that's anoption, but if it's really over
five years old, it's not usuallyworth fixing or doing anything
(03:45):
to you're better off getting anew device.
The recommendations are reallypersonal preference around that
whether you are a Mac or anapple fan or a Microsoft fan, or
maybe a Linux fan just reallydepends, but getting modern
devices that are supported andmaking sure that they're patched
and up to date, because even ifyou get a brand new computer, if
you go down the road, you pickone up if you have an insecure
(04:08):
network and you plug that thingto your internet and it's
unpatched, it can right out ofthe styrofoam get infected.
So you have to follow a processfor making sure that all updates
are applied and just really becareful with that period of time
as it's brand new until it'sfully patched up.
And then obviously enablesecurity software in the
(04:31):
Microsoft world.
There's windows defender.
You can choose other productsthat are out there like
Malwarebytes, for example.
Those are some options as well.
Blake (04:41):
So guess probably most parents, what they do is they
hand down their devices to theirchildren.
I'm assuming that's probablythem smartest ideas, maybe.
Craig (04:54):
Again, I think it depends on the age window.
so if if a parent wants a newcomputer and the device that
they're, the parent is usingit's within the warranty or
support period, then that's okayto do that.
But if the device is five yearsold already, and then they hand
it down to their kids.
Erin (05:13):
just asking for trouble.
Blake (05:15):
Right.
Craig (05:15):
Yeah.
Because, here's the thing likeyou as a parent are probably not
going to the same website, sayskid might go to and sadly, the
reality is that a lot ofhackers.
Prey on kids and they injectmalware and video games and
social media sites and differentthings that kids would search
for, or navigate to may differfrom what you may have navigate
(05:40):
to.
So my point is that if it's notsupported and it's not in
warranty, You're asking fortrouble.
by handing it down at if, andonly if, and I'll say this with
a caveat maybe the kid is ofolder age and is quite
technically savvy and canformat.
(06:02):
And re-install a modernoperating system on it, like
windows 11 or Linux, or if yourkid can do something like that
and modernize the software, thenthat's okay to repurpose.
But most people and most kids.
That's a lot of trouble andthat's a technical path that
opens a whole new can of worms.
So my point is that if you'vegot windows XP, just take hard,
(06:25):
drive out beat it up with ahammer and throw the rest of it
away,
Blake (06:29):
Yeah,
Craig (06:30):
or use it for target practice
Blake (06:32):
take it to Goodwill the local recycling bin.
so, what age do you think is theprime target to start
conditioning your children?
And the best cybersecuritypractices
Craig (06:46):
So I think if your kids are actively needing to use
Google, like the free Googleservices and G suites, or if
Google is the choice of theschool and that starts with
Second grade then that's thetie.
Like I would say the timing isreally dependent on when they go
(07:07):
online.
If they're going online beforeschool and they're going online
because the parents are busy andthey need to work or they need
to get stuff done.
And it's kind of a here playedthis game kind of thing.
While there should be someparameters set around what
device they should be given andwhat access they should be
allowed and what they should beable to do.
(07:28):
And it should be supervised ifit can't be supervised, then
there needs to be some duediligence on The parent's side
to make sure that the device isproperly secured, patched up and
supported before just handing itover to the kid because
otherwise what'll happen isthere could be nasty malware or
infection that could happen.
(07:48):
that just takes seconds.
So going back to our eat, yourvegetables, eat more onions.
It's all about the layershardware layers, software
layers, human layers
Blake (07:57):
I heard a rumor and I don't know if this is true, your
man, probably you could vouchfor this, but a lot of schools
are starting getting kidsinvolved in technology and
they're putting them into theChrome oh, S ecosystem.
I don't know if that's true.
That's what I heard her that along time ago.
Craig (08:14):
for schools, you said?
Blake (08:16):
Yeah.
But like public schools likelittle Johnny has got to do this
or that or something.
We need a laptop as a part ofthe checklist.
Craig (08:25):
So I, think that's true.
I think that some schools haveadopted the Google Chromebook
model, but I also heard.
And maybe some schools do itbetter than others, but I heard
that they caused a lot oftrouble too.
And what I mean by that isChromebooks are kind of like
thin clients they're reallystripped down
Blake (08:46):
Right.
Craig (08:47):
And optimized for Google and Google's ecosystem.
They're just really basicdevices typically with low CPU.
They're just really juststripped down to use Google G
suite and Google, like Gmail andother types of services, I think
once you and it's fine for that.
(09:08):
I think once you get out of thatecosystem though, and maybe want
to play a game or want to dosomething, that's more
multimedia driven.
think that's where those devicesstruggle.
Like for example, like runningzoom on a Chromebook by.
Really have best amount ofresources to properly do video
(09:29):
and audio as well as maybe a afull-fledged laptop, for example
Blake (09:36):
I remember I was at best buy and this is unrelated, but
still I was going through andthey have like a section for
Chromebooks.
And I literally look over inGoogle somehow some way you
probably know exactly where I'mgoing with this.
Somehow some way they thought itwas a good idea to make a
(09:56):
thousand dollar Chromebook.
And I'm like, What like this iscrazy.
It's like, trying to like, takelike apple market.
I don't know.
It looks like a little applelaptop.
a thousand dollars, but thereason why I'm just kinda like
balking here is promo S is likesuper, is a super light
operating system.
Like you said, it's like a thinclient.
(10:17):
it takes nothing to run.
Like most of the Chromebooks,they have four gigs of Ram or
gigs of state or EMC
Craig (10:25):
it's, optimized for an always online connected
experience.
So if you use it within thebrackets or parameters of what
it was designed to do, then itworks great.
But once you try to go outsideof that, where you're stuck in
an airport, or you're stuck in aremote location and you don't
(10:47):
have stable internet, then thatdevice is no longer a great
tool.
You don't have the ability orthe it's not very easy.
I mean, there are some featuresthat allow you to work offline.
But my point is that it'soptimized for an always
connected, always onlineinternet.
Experience and like withinclients, then clients are great
(11:10):
devices for businesses.
They have usually nowadays thesolid state hard drive, they
have minimal CPU and Ram they'rereally built for the long haul.
They don't have a lot of movingparts.
Some of them don't have anymoving parts.
So they're solid state.
The whole thing is solid state.
Oftentimes they're fan lists, soreally not much to fail or die
(11:32):
on it.
So when you connect a thinclient properly to a private
cloud or a public cloud,example, a terminal server,
remote desktop services orvirtual desktop infrastructure
powered by VMware or Citrix ifyou connect to those cloud
properties, you're getting allof the compute power from the
(11:53):
cloud.
Again, it's reliant upon analways on line connected
experience.
By itself, it's pretty barebones and minimal.
I can't really do much, but whenyou connect it to the cloud, it
opens the door and makes it agreat tool for certain
situations.
(12:14):
So I think that's what wastrying to be done with the
Chromebook experience withGoogle Google was like, okay,
we'll give our online tools andour online experience, Gmail G
suites collaboration aroundediting documents at the same
time all the great stuff thatGoogle has produced in that
(12:34):
fashion.
But once you, again, you stepout of that box and now you want
to load some other kind ofsoftware or you want to do more
audio visual work.
Now that device, or that toolmay not be the best tool for the
job.
It depends on a deep study andassessment on what are you using
(12:55):
the tool for?
And what's the best tool for thejob?
Blake (12:58):
Yeah, I think probably the coolest part.
I mean, again, this isn't aplug, but this is a good segue
point.
Like it does have the built-inparental controls, which is
probably advantageous to, mostparents.
And I think that's probablyeasier to set up.
But it probably has itsadvantages internally versus
(13:19):
let's just say you have a childand they're running windows 10,
11 Mac like I think out of thebox, correct?
I mean, so what would be analternative there for people for
parents who want to monitortheir kids' online activity,
Craig (13:37):
yeah, and I that's a good point with the parental controls
and the built-in functionality Ithink that functionality is
good.
Oftentimes I feel like dependingon the ecosystem, whether it's
Google or Amazon Alexa orwhatever it is I think that they
give parents a decent set oftools, but of them are perfect
(13:58):
in my opinion.
I mean, nothing's perfectnowadays, but I mean, I guess
none of them are very granular.
And what I mean by that, likefor my own experience with
Amazon devices and Kindles, forexample apple seems to, in my
opinion, do a better job of theparental control side of things.
(14:19):
But it kind of goes back to theright tool for the job.
think it also puts a lot ofpressure on parents too, because
now the parents have to havecrash course on how do they
configure this thing properly sothat their kid could do what
they need to do if theyauthorize it, but then not be
troublesome.
And I know for me, at least forpersonal experience that I'm
technical the Amazon Kindle man,that thing is it was a bit of a
(14:42):
learning curve even for me.
And I guess my point is that ifyou have access to parental
controls, definitely as aparent, studied them and see
what you can and cannot do withthem.
Sometimes there's no controlthat is available to do what the
child needs to do.
So you have to use your profile.
(15:04):
And then you have to beavailable to revoke it.
Like I know, like with myfamily, I've had to change my
pin numbers and have differentthings in place to prevent
accidental purchases, or maybethey said it was an accident,
but there wasn't, but that's awhole nother story, the by a
different video game or whateverit is, or an add on to a video
(15:25):
game.
My point is that as parents, wehave to research and explore the
tools that are available to the,to us like pare parental
control, for example.
But also make sure that thedevice is the best suited for
what she wants your child tohave access to as well.
Like I know for example, I don'tknow if you guys know this, but
(15:46):
a long time ago.
There was an issue with YouTube,Google, and YouTube where
YouTube wasn't properlysegmenting certain content for
kids.
And kids were getting access tocontent.
That was really bad.
Do you guys remember any ofthis?
Blake (16:05):
I heard about it.
Craig (16:07):
Like the tick-tock challenge or something?
It was almost like that only itwas on YouTube And it was like
suicidal kind of stuff.
And it was just Really awfulstuff that was, and it got
passed for them.
So they were the hackers or thebad actors in this case were
exploiting flaws in the taggingor segmentation of what a child
(16:28):
can and cannot see.
Erin (16:29):
that's disgusting.
Blake (16:30):
They were using like hashtags and sand tacks.
because essentially, like itgoes outside the algorithm
apparently of YouTube.
I mean, I could be entirelywrong, but and yeah, so, so
whoever was uploading, thevideos could mark them as
kid-friendly and yeah, I mean,it would be like creepy pasta
stuff or like, yeah, like reallydark.
(16:54):
dark.
Dark dark scary, scary stuff.
Erin (16:57):
messed up the kid.
Craig (16:58):
Yeah.
it's it's as a parent, when yougive technology or a device to
your child, there's someresponsibility that the parent
has to have.
And sadly you can't trust themake model or manufacturer of
the endpoint or device to doThat job for you.
It's really a responsibility atthe parent level to still police
(17:22):
and monitor.
One of the recommendations thatI have is.
have the device in an area whereyou are as a parent so you can
kind of glance over and seewhat's happening.
Cause kids are curious, they'regoing to want to click on stuff
that pops up.
And sometimes those popups arenot necessarily good popups.
So my point is that the parentcan catch things at the human
(17:42):
level that maybe shouldn't havehappened at the techno
technological level because of aparental control, but maybe
there was a flaw in it.
So my point is you can't overlytrust a parental control to do a
human's job.
Erin (17:57):
That makes sense.
Blake (17:58):
Right.
Something, Something, to that, Iguess this is my experience,
right?
Cause I grew up on technology.
Like, I mean, I grew up in theage of computer.
And something that like, myparents never monitored my
internet.
Like I could do whatever.
But something that that neverreally like dawned on me until
now.
And I think maybe becauseobviously, like I grew up in the
(18:21):
computing, like, boom, but atthe time there wasn't a lot of
research about like how damagingcomputers are or technology,
cell phones, tablets, they'reeverywhere.
You know how damaging they areto your eyes you know, laptops
and posture.
I grew up living with thesethings and living on these
things.
(18:42):
And now at 32, I feel like death
Craig (18:45):
well, that's pretty bad,
Erin (18:47):
That's a
Craig (18:48):
Blake.
Stop what you're doing rightnow.
Call 9 1 1, go straight to thehospital.
Blake (18:53):
Yeah no.
I mean, think about it though.
So like posture, right?
I mean, it's really importantphysical, mental wellbeing and
blood flow, blood circulation,yada, yada.
Erin (19:02):
Yeah.
That's a really good point, too.
Blake (19:05):
you know, within The past three to four years they started
figuring out about the bluelight that affects sleep rhythm.
So are things that like, nobodytalks about, unless like Hey
look, little Tammy, like don'tuse your phone an hour before
bed,
Craig (19:18):
That's because what Facebook, for example, in the
social experiments, everybody'sa Guinea pig.
Erin (19:22):
Yeah.
Blake (19:23):
right.
Craig (19:24):
claim they didn't anticipate or know that when
they released their platform,that it would have negative
impacts of depression and allsorts of stuff on kids and
miners.
And you're absolutely right.
I mean back when I started myparents didn't really police it
for TV back when I was growingup, I mean,.
(19:45):
I remember watching all sorts ofstuff.
Erin (19:47):
Well, and Craig, We're a similar ages.
and I know I did not experiencethe internet for the first time
until I was 15.
And I was like, is crazy.
I can talk to people all overthe world, what is going on?
And so, yeah, I mean, my parentsdidn't even know to monitor the
internet
Craig (20:05):
well, they probably didn't know the capabilities of
it.
Erin (20:08):
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think that, yeah, thatprobably makes a difference.
Blake (20:12):
think nobody knew.
Yeah.
I mean, it's like thecapabilities, like people just
realized like how powerful thisis like how you can connect
people.
And then, I mean essentiallyyou're inviting intruders into
your home now.
Erin (20:29):
Yeah.
Blake (20:30):
I mean, if you think about it from this perspective,
like everybody who's got acomputer now has like a gateway
into their personal private andtheir home.
Hackers can get in withouthaving to have a key computers,
people had to like physicallybreak in.
But now, mean, you have anaccess point for people with bad
(20:51):
intentions.
Erin (20:52):
Yeah.
Blake (20:53):
But yeah, I mean, I just don't think anybody could have
predicted and how can be sointegrated with everything now.
And especially like, I thinkabout like IOT.
I mean now everything is wificonnected, everything by cars,
right?
Cars have wifi hotspots.
there's a bunch of other stupidthings that wiper hotspots, but
Craig (21:14):
yeah, I think that's a good point.
Like when I was growing up, whenI first was tinkering with at
that time bulletin board systemsor BBSs it was all modem driven,
right?
So it was a one-on-one handshakeconnection now where in seconds
connected to the worldwide weband in the reality is in
(21:40):
seconds, you can connect toanything in the world that's
connected to the same internetyou are.
And I don't think a lot ofpeople stop and think about that
for a minute of how easy it isfor somebody hidden in the world
that wants to do bad things thatcan be anonymous and
unidentified connect to yoursystem.
Blake (22:01):
think about everything, everything that you own,
everything of importance is onyour computer.
what do you think is worse?
getting your wallet stolen orgetting your computer stolen?
I think computer, not because ofthe cost, but because of the
sensitivity and the information.
It's like if you get your creditcard, driver's license, whatever
stolen, like you just cancel ityou can go get another driver's
(22:24):
license.
But, if your computer getsstolen, like, and you've got
thousands of files or terabytesor gigs or whatever whatever you
got on there, your work stuff,your personal stuff.
I mean, the scans maybe you'vegot scans for jobs or scans of
your birth certificate or, Imean, it's all there.
Craig (22:44):
That's right.
Blake (22:46):
Everything's digital.
So yeah, just my 2 cents, but itis scary to think about,
Erin (22:51):
It
Craig (22:52):
Absolutely.
Blake (22:53):
tell us about your growing up in computing.
Aaron.
Erin (22:56):
Oh me.
I mean, kind of, like I said Iremember the first time I ever
used the internet.
I was I mean, I've used acomputer, right?
Like I actually in middleschool, I'm such a nerd.
I used to love wearing the worldis Carmen San Diego.
I lived out in the country.
Blake (23:14):
I played that all.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Erin (23:17):
Like I couldn't like necessarily just go out and
play.
So I would play the computer.
But I never, like, I wasn't likeCraig and I would love to hear
Craig talk about that a littlebit more, but I wasn't like
Craig, like I didn't takeanything apart.
I was really into books.
I did enjoy some games.
I mean, obviously I also playedthe original Oregon trail, so
(23:39):
that was fun.
We took computer classes Iremember I took a typing class
in high school, which I'm sothankful because my boyfriend
love him to death.
He's a pecker, pecks.
And I just can't imagine workinglike that.
You can't really efficiently
Blake (23:58):
No, this is so funny.
Cause remember, so I rememberlike my growing up and computing
experience obviously I grew upin, Pretty connected family.
My mom had like a little VHScamcorder that we used to do
like home movies on likeChristmas and Thanksgiving, them
yada, yada.
I was skateboarding.
So I used that camera to filmskateboard videos.
(24:21):
And then something got damagedor something got stuck in there.
So I took it apart and put itback to you know, my mom like
opened the door and saw thecamera and like,
Erin (24:32):
A little Blake.
Blake (24:33):
yeah, like hundreds of parts or however many parts just
scattered.
I literally would put them inlittle segments and lay them out
into kind of like a little minidiagram,
Erin (24:42):
Huh?
Blake (24:42):
Across my floor.
So there's like no place thatyou could walk on the floor
without stepping on cameraparts.
I think it was my mom.
I was kind of using everybodyelse's computer Mike like I had
friends who had like, w youstarted off with like a family
computer.
Like nobody had personalcomputers.
It was like a family computer.
(25:03):
And me and my brother wouldargue about like, whose time it
was to like, get on thecomputer.
Erin (25:08):
Yes.
Blake (25:09):
and my mom had a computer in, my mom would S would sell
stuff on eBay and like, she washuge on eBay.
So she literally had thiscomputer for just eBay, like
just e-banking stuff.
My mom was an epic eBayer.
And yeah.
Then of course at the same timewould everything kind of went
digital.
(25:30):
And I started editing my skatevideos on her computer and then
eventually, I took a part-timejob, so it wasn't much money as
I could.
I got my first computer and itwas a, I think it was a I book
an apple, I book G three,
Erin (25:48):
Okay.
Blake (25:49):
which at the time was.
Maybe like five or$600, likesix.
I mean, I was like, like I'msaying amount of money to me.
Erin (25:56):
Yeah, that's a big purchase.
Blake (25:57):
yeah, no, I mean, I worked like three summers to get
it.
and then, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I've been rocking itever since.
Erin (26:05):
Nice.
Yeah.
So Craig used to take partcomputers, right?
Because when you're talkingabout when you're lit or when
you're talking about what to dowith old computers, I just got a
flashback or like a flash in myhead of like little tiny Craig
with the his mom's old computer,just like sitting around the
living room in the eighties,like taking apart,
Craig (26:27):
yeah, so actually it's a funny story.
So my sister was going tocollege and she gets this brand
new Dell computer.
And I think at the time it waslike$3,800 or$4,000, like, so
she like financed it.
So it was super expensive.
Erin (26:45):
Wow.
Blake (26:46):
My God.
Craig (26:48):
and I get ahold of it and I take the damn thing apart.
Blake (26:52):
Oh God,
Craig (26:53):
So I have it all apart, all over the floor.
And my sister's like, I am goingto kill you.
Blake (27:01):
I'm surprised.
She said, she's going to tellyou.
Erin (27:03):
I know.
And then just do it.
Craig (27:05):
I said the only killing back together and it doesn't
work.
I put it all back together andit of course worked fine, but I
wanted to about it and figureout how it worked and
everything.
And after my parents saw that Iwas able to disassemble the
whole damn thing and put it allback together,
Erin (27:25):
Maybe we should encourage this.
Craig (27:26):
yeah.
They ended up buying a computerfor the quote unquote family.
And they kind of got ripped off.
I mean, at the time there were alot of companies that were
building computers and like.
Most people, I would think thatdon't know a lot about something
it's easy for that to happen.
I was grateful to have anythingso I took that thing apart and
Erin (27:51):
This is how I show my gratitude.
Craig (27:53):
right.
Yeah.
And learned about how the videocard and all the components
worked and everything, andstarted upgrading the components
to make it more powerful and dowhat I wanted it to do.
And my drive at the time wasreally just to I liked video
games at the time.
So I actually started on aCommodore 64 that my brother
had, that my family bought.
(28:15):
and you literally had to type inlike load quote and like
commands to make the thing work.
And it was a floppy disk typeset up.
I don't know if you rememberfloppy disks.
Erin (28:24):
Oh, yeah.
not that much younger than
Blake (28:26):
I do too.
Craig (28:28):
So there were five and a quarter inch floppy disks.
And yeah, if you didn't type thecommand the right way, it didn't
load.
And at that time there was justso many things that could go
wrong.
It was really rare actually forsomething not to go wrong and
for things to just work.
So this was like right aroundthe time when Nintendo and Atari
popular and honestly the edgesof those console systems were
(28:53):
really, it just works.
You get the cartridge, you plugit in and it, you turn it on.
And it works at least most ofthe time or more often than the
computer, but the computer gamesat the time were different and
they were more robust and theywere more in depth than the
cartridge systems, which is whyI liked them better.
that was my experience takingthings apart and things back
(29:15):
together then shortly after.
My parents got that computer forme.
And I started upgradingcomponents.
That's when I was like, okay, Iknow how to play pretty much,
most video games, but you knowhow do I take this to the next
level?
And that's when I startedlearning about how to connect my
computer to through a modem.
(29:37):
And it was literally relivingthe movie war games.
I don't know if you ever saw wargames, the movie, but it's great
movie.
So I learned how to use modemand I learned how to install the
modem to my computer and connectthe modem to my dad's fax line
at the time.
And literally took over his faxline and he, I remember many
(29:59):
times he would be like, what thehell?
Why is this thing busy all thetime?
I can't even send a damn fax!
Erin (30:07):
like, I don't I don't know Dad!,
Craig (30:08):
sorry, I'm just waiting for something to finish.
He can't do it yet.
And I was waiting at the timeeverything was all about what's
called parody or little piecesto, to build up one thing.
So what I mean by that is themodems were slow.
Even the fastest ones at thattime, were slow.
(30:29):
So you had to break up gamesthat were large into small
pieces, and sometimes thosepieces might be 2020 files to
build up that one game.
you would send the files in atthe time, the size of a floppy
disc was 720 kilobytes, and thenhigh densities, 1.4, four
megabytes.
So sometimes the video gamemight be 15 or 20 megabytes, so
(30:52):
you'd have to break it upaccordingly.
So anyway, it would take areally long time to, to transmit
over a modem connection.
Like.
that's why the line was busy allthe time.
So would literally run this.
I started at BBS and I started,I learned how to customize it
and get it online and gave it aname and gave it started
(31:14):
marketing it and people to tradegames.
And, yeah, it was just a wholelike hidden underground that
like, nobody, like your averageperson had no clue that it even
existed.
It was like the cool factor forthat time period.
(31:35):
Yeah.
Cause you're talking about theeighties, right?
Late eighties, early nineties.
Erin (31:39):
That was just saying, I remember the first time I was
15.
The first time that I ever sawthe internet.
And yeah, like I was just, I wasabsolutely flabbergasted, but
here's Craig over here.
He's like this old news.
Craig (31:54):
So, what was cool was after I built the we're going
off on a big tangent, but afterI built the computer and started
the BBS and things like that Istarted getting testers would
send me like in beta format andI started to evaluate and games
before they even hit the shelf.
So I would have, I wouldliterally have games three to
(32:16):
six months before the public hadthem.
And I would go to the, the timeit was like electronics
boutique, and I would go throughelectronics boutique and games
were expensive still.
It was like 60 bucks still forgame on computer 50,$60.
And I would literally go downthe wall and I would have most
of the games that were there.
I would have had them formonths.
Blake (32:38):
It's pretty awesome.
Craig (32:39):
Anyway, go it back in.
My parents had no idea about anyof this stuff.
So it goes back to watching yourkids or whatever, and not
necessarily that it was a badthing.
I mean, it was a pricelessexperience to, to go through I
encourage it for children now itjust needs to be supervised.
Erin (33:00):
Yeah.
Craig (33:00):
because now
Erin (33:02):
changed.
Craig (33:03):
yeah.
There's just a lot of differentrisks that didn't exist back
then.
So it's just a different periodof time.
So my point is that they haveeven cool stuff now, though,
that you could do like if you'rea technical parent, you can get
a raspberry PI device and youcan do experiments and you can
get a book and do labs anddifferent kinds of exercises
(33:25):
with your truck, with your childor children.
If they like that tinkering kindof stuff, So there's all
different stuff that didn'texist that help kind of create
that safe environment to do so.
But my point is, now, if youunpolice a device and you just
leave it, it's just just a lotof risks now you really need to
(33:47):
have, training just really aprop or process that's best for
your family on how to make surethat you're being safe online.
I mean, like one of the thingsthat, a lot of people don't know
about, which would probablybenefit a lot of our listeners
is when you go to the internet,you're oftentimes leveraging a
service called DNS or domainname system.
Most people not going toremember the IP address to
(34:10):
Google.
You're going to type in Googleand you're going to get there
because your computer is goingto use DNS to translate it into
the IP address.
And that's how humans surf theinternet or.
If you just change your routersDNS settings to quad nine, is
really nine dot nine.
And I know that's technical andit sounds super complicated, but
(34:31):
it's really not that bad.
If you go into your routersettings and you change your,
DNS address to four nines, ninedot nine dot 9, 9, 9, you
immediately protect yourself andyour kids all of your traffic is
now routed through quad ninesnetwork and quad nine.
If you just Google search quad,none.
(34:53):
I think it's just quad type itout like Q U a D space nine.
If you go there, you'll see thatdo a lot of filtering the DNS
level and it's all for free.
So quad nine.net is actuallythe, a website.
So it's a public and free DNSservice and it has security
(35:14):
baked in it.
It immediately protects you formalware and a lot of threats and
things.
So like right now I'm on theirwebsite it says a hundred a
hundred million with an M ouraverage daily blocks.
So they're blocking a hundredmillion plus malware threats, 20
plus threat intelligenceproviders, 150 resolver clusters
(35:37):
in 90 different countries.
So if you just listen and youdid this one thing, this one
layer as we call it your onions,this is a huge layer to protect
you and your family.
But this is why it's soimportant do training, to stay
on top of this stuff.
Erin (35:53):
Well,
Craig (35:54):
you can get your training at compliance, armor.com.
It's inexpensive, but it'spriceless because you learn
about little things that can bedone oftentimes for free.
And it's just a couple settingschanges and you're off to the
races and you're, you have amuch more secure experience.
Erin (36:12):
That's really good advice
Blake (36:15):
Yeah.
Craig (36:15):
Yup.
Erin (36:16):
and a great way to help protect your family.
Blake (36:19):
That's something too.
Like I was just thinking aboutand we kind of obviously kind of
showed our growing up incomputers, so it felt like a
tangent, but it really wasn't.
In my opinion, and this is letme reel it back in here.
But when we grew up incomputers, it was exciting.
(36:39):
It was an exciting place to be.
It was an exciting space.
It was exciting technology.
It was emerging.
And now it's just scary.
Erin (36:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a really good point.
Like
Craig (36:49):
I think it's only scary to the people that,
Blake (36:53):
don't
Craig (36:53):
Are aware.
I don't think, like if you askyour average kid, I don't do you
think the internet scary?
They'd probably say no
Erin (37:00):
right, just don't.
They don't understand.
Craig (37:03):
That's right.
Blake (37:04):
they don't know, what can happen on the internet.
Erin (37:06):
Yeah.
But you're right.
I mean, it's a lot more andthere's a lot more insidiousness
Blake (37:10):
I bet you, if you ask that one kid or maybe several
kids that stumbled across aYouTube video.
Erin (37:17):
Oh yeah.
Blake (37:18):
That was supposed to be YouTube kids and saw something
like slender man or somethinglike he's, going to say yes,
Erin (37:25):
Not to make it dark or whatever, but did you hear
there's like these middle schoolgirls, they're like 12 or
something
Blake (37:32):
I watched, I watched the film on that.
Yeah.
The documentary.
Yeah.
Erin (37:36):
so terrible.
that girl, she ended up dying.
Blake (37:39):
No, she didn't die.
Erin (37:40):
yeah, they like lured her for slender man or something
like,
Blake (37:44):
Yeah.
I mean, there we go.
These two girls read about astory on the internet, in a dark
place.
And then they lured this girlout into the woods to try and
kill her because the internetsaid, so,
Craig (37:57):
My gosh,
Erin (37:58):
yeah, this is a few years ago too.
Blake (38:01):
like six or seven years ago,
Erin (38:02):
It's just sad.
Craig (38:03):
like that stuff is just, sickening,
Erin (38:07):
It is.
Craig (38:08):
But it's also, a parent really difficult to track that,
you literally would have to bedoing active surveillance to
know that and to be able tointercept like in LA, like your
kid is probably not going totalk to you about all the stuff
that they do on the internet.
(38:28):
So now it's a question of, doyou, and it's not an, I'm not
saying that you shouldn't trustyour kids.
I'm just saying it's not reallyabout that.
Yeah.
It's that you can't trusteveryone else on the internet.
So it's not my point though, isthat there are technologies and
there are solutions that we haveexperience with, to do the
(38:52):
surveillance in a way where youwould know about something like
that.
We're reliant upon the FBI and alot of law enforcement to
intercept these types of things.
But I think we, as parents needto do more too, because if we
are able to intercept somethinglike that and then hand It to
(39:15):
the authorities and say, look,we created a honeypot and they
almost Lord my kid into thissituation, go arrest him.
That would, I think for societybe a good thing.
Erin (39:28):
Yeah.
Blake (39:29):
Yeah.
Craig (39:30):
But I think most people wouldn't even know where to
start with something like that.
Erin (39:34):
I wouldn't.
Blake (39:35):
Yeah.
I mean, I wouldn't either.
Craig (39:36):
I mean, there are, my point is that there are things
like key loggers that we talkabout.
Keyloggers a lot obviously a lotof hackers, like key loggers,
but key loggers can be a a youknow, good to use because now
you can track your child's textmessages and things like that.
You could consider getting ahardened device instead of
(39:57):
giving your kid an iPhone.
You can get them like they havenew devices now where they're
locked down, where they're notallowed to call anybody unless
the parent puts the phone numberin there and authorizes it.
So there's like all thesedifferent things that you can
do.
As a parent to with thissituation.
Erin (40:14):
think about it sometimes just how grateful I am that
social media.
Like I think my space came outwhen I was in my mid twenties.
So in, in cell phones with withcameras, didn't come out until
around that time to rose livingin the Virgin islands at the
time, like this is so cool.
But imagining the pressure thatkids must feel with social media
(40:39):
and everything being able to berecorded.
And, man, I'm just so glad.
I'm so glad I missed that.
And I don't have kids, but I dohave nieces and nephews and just
thinking about ways to keep themsafe.
It's a lot, it's a lot forparents.
I imagine that's a realchallenge and on a regular
basis,
Craig (40:58):
Oh, absolutely.
Erin (41:00):
So are you, do you, what do you teach your kids about the
internet Craig?
Craig (41:04):
Stay away from social media.
Blake (41:07):
I'm curious you've talked about some of our previous
podcasts about like there your,how you limit your children to
the devices that they can useand the frequency at what they
can use that.
So maybe you could
Craig (41:20):
Yeah, I think, I think, every situation is different.
I think every parent and there'sno necessarily right or wrong
way to do it.
It's really personal andindividualized, but for me and
my wife, I mean, we, we allowthem screen time.
we don't even allow it everyday.
(41:40):
Like, like on the weekends,we'll let them watch like a show
on TV or something on theirKindle or on their iPad or
whatever device.
And it's usually no more than anhour.
And that's it because I don'tknow if it I've heard other
parents tell me similar things,but it when a kid plays a video
(42:06):
game or watches a show, itactually changes their behavior.
Depending on.
what it is, it sometimes thebrain releases dopamine and that
affects their behavior.
So like, for example, like ifmy, if I give my son 30 minutes
(42:26):
or an hour to play a video gameafter he's done, first of all,
he doesn't want to stop.
So if I ask them, okay, yourtime's up?
Nope.
Just two more minutes.
Just two more minutes.
He doesn't want to stop, butit's almost like an addiction
and then it's withdrawal becausehe's doesn't want to stop.
And then he becomes angry.
(42:47):
And he, his behavior is not.
Good.
Sometimes it's, he's angrybecause he has to get off.
So my point is that we limit theamount of time now, like if
we're doing like a road trip orsomething, we'll give them their
Kindles or whatever, and theycan use them in the car.
(43:08):
And that'll be like the maximumscreen time or altogether in the
car kind of thing.
But Yeah.
we don't like every day, likethey don't come home and play
video games.
We encourage them to go outside.
We encourage them to play withtheir friends.
We encourage them to go in thepool or whatever I mean, there's
different things that they couldbe doing aside from sticking
(43:28):
their phrase in front of a game.
It's not that we're antitechnology obviously or anti
video games.
But it really does.
change their behavior They havefriends that literally will just
stay inside and play video gamesand we would just prefer them to
be playing with friends outsidelike when I was growing up in
(43:49):
and I took stuff apart andthings like that, would still go
outside.
Like I wouldn't be locked in acave, I mean I would like to go
outside and play with my friendsand play basketball or baseball,
whatever it is.
my point is I think the bestadvice I could say is try to
make it as balanced as possible.
And I know that with someparents that are working or
(44:09):
working from home, or maybesingle parents they kind of use
the technology a bit likebabysitter.
And I'm not saying that'snecessarily wrong.
It's just that if you canbalance it and, I think the end
result would be better than withan unbalance..
Erin (44:25):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Blake (44:26):
Yeah, no, that's clear.
And then one thing too, is teachyour children about safety,
obviously physical safety, Ifeel like the hunchback of Notre
dam now,
Erin (44:38):
Oh yeah.
Blake (44:40):
something, take it from me, teach your kid about my
parents said, Hey, like, don'tsit too close to the TV.
They used to say that, but Istill did it anyways.
They never stopped me from doingit.
And now I wear glasses.
Or, I've been working from mycomputer, a laptop and I I was
like, oh it's a laptop is meantto be in my lap or it wasn't
meant to be on a little table.
And I'd be been bending over,like working from a laptop.
(45:04):
And now like probably withinfive years, I'll probably have
carpal tunnel or maybe I have toat least have surgery for it.
Yeah.
I think if I could leave ourlisteners with something, teach
your children about posture thenegative effects that these
devices have.
I mean, we don't even know yet.
We don't even know.
really don't know.
Erin (45:21):
The long-term effects that it could have.
Blake (45:24):
I mean, you're putting radio waves.
I mean, like, if you're talkingon a cell phone, like you're
putting radio wastes your brain,
Craig (45:29):
it's all about balancing too, right?
Blake (45:30):
For sure.
Craig (45:31):
it's hard to say if that really caused you to have to get
glasses, but obviously that itmight not be in anyone's best
interest to stare at a computerfor eight hours straight you
know, it might be a good idea tolook away.
What does that thing that yousaid before.
Blake (45:48):
20, 20,
Craig (45:49):
Yeah.
Blake (45:50):
every 20 minutes look, 20, feet for 20 seconds.
I doctor taught me that.
Craig (45:56):
Yeah.
Like I don't think I even dothat consistently, but it's all
about creating good habits
Blake (46:01):
Yeah.
Or, obviously not using yourcomputer and dark that's another
one.
And now I'm on the, I'm on thetip too.
Cause I went to the doctortoday, neurologist and he, it
was like, dude, like, like what,like how old are you?
you've got all the symptoms nineto five or on the computer and
yeah, I mean, that's how I makea living.
(46:21):
And that's how I provide for myfamily and provide for my dogs
and whatever but anyways yeah,so I went based on a suggestion
and you should never be using alaptop in your lap like that's
the reason why they make thestance, so you're supposed to
elevate your screen to your facelevel, to eye level not be
looking down at it.
Erin (46:41):
Oh man.
Blake (46:42):
So yeah, I mean, I went on like an epic adventure here
in Tbilisi trying to find alaptop holder and now I got on.
and now I'm starting to get intothe phase where like out order,
like I'm like 144 degree, likeex like ergonomical keyboards,
that kinda like they're tiltedin 144 degrees.
So that way, like it doesn'tstrain cause the street
(47:05):
keyboards, like what you know,is not good.
And then they've got theergonomical, like mouses where
you can your hand is sideways.
So it's like, you're holding acop or something or like a
class.
Instead of like the flat mouses,like whoever designed these,
like didn't know, they didn'tconsider those things.
The prolonged use right over thecomputer.
(47:25):
And of course I've got a blueblock of blue light blocker
screen protector.
All my computer.
I got one on my phone now, like,so starting to get there.
Craig (47:39):
Back when I was growing up, it was CRT cathode, Ray
tubes, right?
Big TV, big kind of boxymonitors.
And it was radiation it was likethe, they literally would give
off radiation.
You had a try to pick a modelthat didn't give off too much
radiation, but again all abouthow much time you spend in front
of it.
And I don't think anybody doesit perfectly.
(48:01):
It, my point is that, like youpointed out Blake you don't want
to have a laptop in your lap fora long period of time.
If you can.
Is it, does it mean it, you cannever use it on your lap?
No, it's just not ideal for ahealth situation.
It's you're, you have a warm tosometimes hot laptop device on
that's really close to your skinand your body.
(48:22):
You can get burned if somethinghappens with the battery, which
is most likely lithium ion, itcould catch fire.
And there's all sorts of Googlestories online that you can with
malfunctions of people gettingburned and things like that.
So same thing with your cellphone.
You Don't want to keep your cellphone in your pocket for long
periods of time, if it overheatsor whatever the cell phone could
(48:45):
explode and cause you physicalharm so there's all these
different things that canhappen.
I think as far as our podcastfor today, I think that sure to
track.
know, take the parents take thetraining.
Have your kids take thetraining.
It's not a lot of time.
I mean, we're talking about twohours of your time to get really
(49:05):
good training compliance,armor.com and go through the
testing.
And then you get micro trainingsevery week and every month to
keep you up to date and you andyour children should go through
it.
That's like essential nowadays.
Aside from that patches, updateyour systems, sure you're not
wasting time and old outdatedsystems.
Erin (49:28):
Don't give your kids old computers unless they want to
take it apart.
Craig (49:32):
yeah.
And here's another thing too.
Don't give your kids or don'tgive anyone your old computers
or devices proper sanitization.
And what I mean by that?
You don't want to give yourcomputer that you were maybe
doing banking or financials on,and if you don't know how to
properly sanitize it and formatit and do all the work to prep
(49:52):
it that's how people stealidentity as well.
They'll garage sale it orwhatever.
And so you need to make sure youremove the hard drive or you
physically destroy it, or youpay for a certificate of
destruction from a companythat's well known and reputable
that can give you theattestation that it has been
properly destroyed.
(50:12):
Personally, for me, I justripped the hard drive out keep
it
Blake (50:15):
Something I was just thinking about you and Aaron.
Like if we wind back the clockand this is probably going to be
counter intuitive to what howCraig got into cyber security,
but if you see your child takingapart electronic device stop
immediately.
The reason why I say that isbecause there is, power supplies
in there..
I was looking at one of the, Ifix it tutorials for a Mac book
and some of the Mac books haveor some of the Mac computers,
(50:38):
like the IMAX and stuff.
Like they have like a 280 orsomething watt power supply or
for 400 watt power supply insideof that computer.
So
Erin (50:49):
Oh, wow.
Blake (50:50):
if if a child touches the wrong area, I mean, Hey, you're
going to go to light city.
Erin (50:56):
yeah.
Blake (50:56):
obviously got lucky we're here.
But I mean, just a disclaimer.
So if you see your child takingit apart and an electronic
device, not a good idea.
Craig (51:06):
not necessarily a bad idea.
It just needs to be supervised.
Erin (51:10):
Make sure it's turned up.
Blake (51:11):
Let them take apart and let him, let them get a can of
kit.
Let him get a can a kit thatdoesn't have a power supply.
And let them build a little, araspberry PI there's safe ways
to do it, but yeah.
Yeah, you're right.
So and then yeah, get monitoringsoftware so you can see what's
going on time usage and wherethey're visiting and where
they're spending their time.
Craig (51:31):
I remember back I think it was like 20 years ago now
when I got certified fromWebsense at Websense was
technology was like brand newstuff back then.
And it was surveillancetechnology for businesses to
monitor their employees and makesure they weren't going to
social media or whatever doonline shopping.
(51:52):
I think what it was 20 yearsago, social media wasn't really
a thing yet.
So anyway we would install thisstuff at, and oftentimes a lot
of businesses, they would justinstall it just to kind of
monitor and kind of see do wehave a problem at our company or
not?
And it gives them that depth andvisibility.
And it's just so interestingthat you can, the stuff like the
(52:16):
people that you would thinkwouldn't really do that, that do
it.
And it's it's just an eyeopeningexperience.
So that might be kind of a wayto start with children.
Like I said, it's not that youdon't trust them.
It's just that you want toprotect them and keep them safe
because the deck is prettystacked for things that are bad
(52:40):
to happen and how easy it is forsomething bad to happen.
Erin (52:44):
Yeah.
Craig (52:45):
So in my opinion, I don't think it's a bad idea to.
Have technology like that totell you what's happening, where
people were going or where yourkids are growing or whatever.
But Yeah.
I mean, it's different foreveryone.
It's a personal preference.
It's it's balance it's there's alot to it.
It's but there are solutionslike quad nine like I
(53:06):
recommended earlier that aregood solutions.
Now you don't get any kind ofgranular control with quad nine,
like quad nine is free.
So if you want like granularcontrol over, Hey, I don't want
my kid to go to weapon websites,or I don't want my kids to go to
the websites or whatever.
You can get that granularcontrol with different kinds of
filtering technologies.
(53:28):
but the free stuff is, it iswhat it is.
You don't have any control forit, but it's better than
nothing.
Blake (53:34):
Yeah we had a video too, or a podcast, sorry, where we
mentioned encrypted DNS.
And if you get encrypted DNSfrom us it was like the five
cheapest things you can do tosecure yourself today or
something is around$120 an endpoint per year.
Erin (53:53):
Yeah,
Craig (53:53):
Yeah, it's very inexpensive.
Blake (53:56):
go to compliance, armor.com and choose how many
end points you got.
I mean,
Erin (54:02):
Boom.
Blake (54:04):
boom, 120 bucks a year.
than your coffee.
Erin (54:08):
Yeah.
That's true.
Cheaper than your T
Blake (54:13):
That's right
Erin (54:14):
Turkish tea.
Blake (54:16):
guys.
We've done our hour here, paidour dues for the day.
Erin (54:21):
Yeah that was good.
And I think I think reallyinformative and I think that
could be really helpful forpeople and help to secure the
younger generation.
It's always a good thing.
Craig (54:31):
Yeah.
And we just touched on the onionlayers, but there's many more
layers that could be done thatthese are just kind of easy
tips.
Some of them free that you couldimplement right away, but yeah,
be sure to reach out to us andwe can give you a more
customized approach.
Erin (54:45):
If you have any questions hit us up, you can also email
us.
We do have apodcast@petronellatech.com email
now, too.
So feel free to use that youhave any questions or give us a
call and we'll we help be happyto help you out.
Blake (55:02):
We're here.
Erin (55:03):
We're all here because we're not all there.
All right, Have a good one guys.
Craig (55:10):
Alright.
Take care.
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