Airing date: 08/08/2018

Uber Privacy – Smart TV Surprises – Russian Grid Hacking

Craig Peterson: [00:00:00] Hi guys. Craig Peterson here I was talking with some Maine as this morning up in Maine. Actually the stations cover mostly southern Maine but I guess are some repeaters that go up to the center of the state. So if you’re listening from Maine here to my podcast send me a shout on shambled. I’d love to know how far north it ends up going. So this morning I spoke with Ken and Matt we talked about Uber and the problem with drivers videotaping you while you are in your uber smart TVs some of the problems behind those and a couple of things more included something I think they found very surprised. I think you will too and it will change the way you look at some of the technology out there. So here we go.

Matt Gagnon: [00:00:46] We’re back again and this time on a Wednesday 738 means it’s time to talk to Craig Peterson our tech guru joins us now. Craig are you okay. Good morning. Doing good. How are you guys.

Ken Altschuler: [00:00:57] No complaints at all you know every day we talk about the Russians the Russians turn off our electricity now.

Craig Peterson: [00:01:05] Oh man maybe that’s what happened last year. My father went out of my house and storms. Did you guys have that boy crazy last night. Yeah. All of this is from a story from the Wall Street Journal here last week. And what they’re saying is that yes indeed apparently hundreds of rhetoric’s station. You know these guys that control the grids the various grid points have been hacked by the Russians and it’s kind of interesting when you look at it and look at what’s happening right now with Iran and the potential of them trying to hack cash and what are they trying to do. What’s the ultimate goal and obviously the goal is kind of similar to what they were doing during the election that is just really kind of confuse everybody and everything that’s going on. But they could shut down our power grid and we’ve seen problems with that before. But I’ve got some good news here gentlemen that is you first of all you know I work with the FBI the infrared guard program I run their webinars. And the good news is that our power grid nationally is improving their security quite substantially. There’s been a big effort in trying to get the Russians out of the grid out of our water supply because we remember those are all computer controlled as well. They’re called it controls but really tighten it all up. So hopefully knock on wood we’re not going to know that the Russians are coming for us because all of a sudden we all lose power. But I have my strong suspicions that last night it was probably more due to some sort of a storm that might have come by than the Russians.

Matt Gagnon: [00:02:53] We’re talking to Craig Peterson our tech guru who joins us at this time every Wednesday to talk about the world of technology and Craig I’ve got a smart TV, am I smart though I don’t know how smart it is it might be a little too smart if you know what I’m saying. So is it tracking what I watch and is it telling anybody what it is that I watch?

Craig Peterson: [00:03:10] Yeah it’s interesting because it’s not that it’s not just smart in that way a lot of these smart TVs are crazy smart. And when I say crazy smart I think you’re about to be very surprised because first of all these smart TV’s most of them are running a version of the Android operating system and Matt. You know what I think about Android. I do. OK. They’re running a version of Android and they have built into them things like they might have Netflix Hulu etc. and I assume your TV has something like that as well?

Matt Gagnon: [00:03:46] He does. Yeah.

Craig Peterson: [00:03:48] And the idea is pretty obvious I think to everybody that if you’re using your smart TV you’ve connected to the Internet so that you can stream the programming and the TV monitors that you’re on Netflix for instance. And that’s kind of a given. Obviously you can know you’re on Netflix because it’s running Netflix for you right? But these smart TVs are using some specialized software that goes further than that and it can monitor what you’re watching on TV. Now it’s interesting how it does because these smart TVs can be hooked up to gaming systems and Matt you’re of the age. You probably got some sort of an x box or something right?

Matt Gagnon: [00:04:30] I do. Mostly for my son. Oh yeah I got time to play video games good.

Craig Peterson: [00:04:36] Come on. What was interesting about it is that it monitors not just what channel you’re on or what inputs like that but it actually watches what you’re watching. So some of these TVs can tell that you’re playing as certain video game how long you’re playing it for. We talked before about some of this Martini’s having cameras built two of them and they have facial recognition software so they can see who’s watching the TV. They know what games you’re playing up there on the TV and it’s used for marketing and you know that it’s probably OK. Right. If I’m going to buy a car I don’t mind seeing car commercials because I like to figure out what’s going on. It’s annoying when i get car commercials when I’m not going to buy a car for another ten years. So from that standpoint it’s all pretty reasonable from a marketing standpoint. But where it gets really really concerned is you know a week doesn’t go by we’re not talking about some hack or another. Right. So what happens when our TVs are hacked and they have been hacked and they’re hacks going on right now and the TVs have all this information about us and let’s say those hackers might want to know when you’re on vacation when you’re not home when the kids are home alone so that they can come in and burgle your home or even worse we’re putting these smart TVs into our businesses into the lobbies into the cafeteria areas and they are being hacked.

Craig Peterson: [00:06:11] So the bad guys can watch to see when there’s someone there in that building and businesses have been broken into and have things stolen because the hackers knew what was there because of these cameras in them so you might want to opt out of this viewing information service that’s on your TVs. They’re in. It’s in their Samsung. That’s in your Sony is algae’s videos all of these TVs many others. You can turn them off and even if you have a Roku and external Roku there can be problems. My general advice and what I do is I use Guess what an Apple TV but I also have a Roku on one of my TVs but I use an Apple TV it’s the safest. Apple is not selling any of this information. I make sure it’s all turned off on my smart TV. And in fact I do not connect the TV to the Internet. So there is no way for it to get hacked and there’s no way for that information to get out of it. So if you’re if you’re really concerned you might want to do what I do and I don’t know maybe I’m a little paranoid but I’ve just seen these hacks happen just too frequently.

Matt Gagnon: [00:07:22] You’re never going to get me to care about that. I’m going to do it anyway. I’m going to go home today. I’m going to put Netflix on the wall streaming from my phone.

Craig Peterson: [00:07:30] Yeah. It’s a matter of days it’s just so easy to do. Right? But I got to tell you I picked up another client last week a small business. They had two hundred thousand dollars stolen from them and it had to do with this type of stuff where the information is just too easily available and the bad guys found it and used it again. And it’s a small business. They don’t have a whole lot of money I think they have 10 employees. And the business is probably going to go under. Now this is a guy that 10 in my age and he’s been building this business his whole life his businesses his retirement. That’s what he’s counting on. And now it looks like they’re going completely out of business. So you know there are concerns about it but you’re right man. You know who’s going to make a change. It’s just it’s so darn convenient.

Ken Altschuler: [00:08:23] We’re talking to Craig Peterson our tech guru by the way you can go to Craig Peterson dot com. You want to get all his vital information on a newsletter and e-mails and all that kind of stuff. So before we let you go right cheers I’m still a fan of Uber but I don’t really have any. I mean people live streaming me when I’m riding in the back of the Uber?

Craig Peterson: [00:08:44] Well it’s mainly two party consent state. When it comes to recording No I don’t I don’t remember. OK.

Ken Altschuler: [00:08:50] It’s just one party. It’s one party.

Craig Peterson: [00:08:53] So here’s the trick. Here’s what’s been happening Uber drivers many of them have been live streaming because they’ve they’ve got their phone up on the dashboard. They’re using it in order to get the directions to pick up rides et cetera et cetera. Right. Well some of these guys and gals are also live streaming now. They’re saying that it’s for their safety. And I can see that right. You’re picking up who knows. This is true for taxi drivers as well. Who knows who’s getting into the back of your taxi or your Uber. So they’re live streaming streaming and then some of these people are using the service called twitch which is designed exactly for that for live streaming and they are going one step further than just having their wife husband significant other whoever it may be wanting for safety purposes. Right. I can kind of understand that. So it’s on in the background on some TV in the House and we’re making sure everything’s OK. Or maybe it’s being recorded for playback in case something nasty happens later on. But apparently some of these Uber drivers according to the St. Louis Post Dispatch have been broadcasting hundreds of trips on Twitter Twitter I should say they have now been explicitly obtaining consent from the passengers and they are charging for the Twitter feed. One of these guys is reportedly making 500 bucks a month extra by people paying him to watch the live streams. So this this is a little weird that this is a problem with single party state where only one person has to give consent in order to have a recording occur. I personally think that any public servant in the line of their duty should be recordable even in a two party state. But this is a matter of concern that some of these guys are putting stickers on their window like in Missouri. They are. Most of them have a little sticker saying that this may be monitored for safety for passenger and driver safety but it’s announced just a little creepy to me. And you should be aware of it. So don’t do anything in the back of the Uber seat. You see that too. Maybe wouldn’t want broadcast.

Matt Gagnon: [00:11:18] Good advice for all. Thanks. Craig Peterson our tech guru joins us at this time every Wednesday to give us an eye on technology. Craig appreciated again we’ll talk to next week.

Craig Peterson: [00:11:27] Hey, gentlemen. Take care. Bye bye.

Matt Gagnon: [00:11:30] All right. Break time.

Craig Peterson: [00:11:31] Hey thanks again to everybody that listens to this podcast. I’ve got finally everything in place. Almost four for the security packages we’ve been talking about for the last year. We’ve been working with some of our vendors with the client to get the business class the authority of business class security together and make it affordable for the small medium business marketplace and we’re getting close on that. So make sure you are on my mailing list or you find out about it. We’re going to have some free classes on security associated with this and this offer I think is going to be fantastic. Everybody that we’ve offered it to so far has gone for Solloway it’s going to be good. It’s going to be great. Well let me tell you it’s going to be huge. So make sure you’re my mailing list you can find that. Craig Peterson dot com. Have a great day. We will be back on Saturday as we have my weekly radio show when we post on that as well usually goes up Saturday about the same time that the radio show airs. So you can listen to it in the same place listening here which is of course iTunes or SoundCloud or Tune In or almost anywhere except I heart. I don’t get that. I Heart Radio stations and they still don’t have me on their streams. Anyhow, have a great day. Talk to you later. Bye bye.