So did you end up seeing the Dark sky update that dropped this morning? Nope. I mean, if it auto updated, great, but I haven't got looking for it. Okay, well, they rewrote the app from the ground up, so it got a 6.0 refresh.
And, you know, I mean, I'm not gonna say it's like earth shattering. It's definitely not like that great. But it's. It's new lipstick on old app and, you know, kind of changing with the times.
I mean, that's what these apps do, right? They have to kind of evolve. And so it looks better. I'm happier with it.
I don't know that it's something. I'm just, like, going to make it my main thing now. But it's a step in the right direction. I do like the fact that you can kind of see everything on one screen now instead of tabbing between multiple things along the bottom.
So I was kind of curious if you had seen it. And granted, it's summertime in California, so this means Adam hasn't opened his weather app at all, right? Nope, I just updated it and I just opened it for the first time. So, yeah, it looks nice.
Like I said, putting everything in one place where I could just, you know, scroll up little bit or scroll down a little bit, however you want to look at that. It's nice. But, yeah, I didn't use the weather at all this morning. It was a little bit cold this morning, but still wore my shorts and sandals and dropped off the kids at school and rode my bike to the bus stop and went on with the rest of my life.
Awesome. Well, you know, I mean, it's always good to get these first impressions out of the way while you're recording the show, so that's always fun. But, yeah, I mean, yeah, Real live review. Yeah, looks good.
It's a weather app. I mean, I don't know who would do a whole podcast episode about this. Oh, wait, that's right, we did. No Dark sky, in addition to all these other weather apps that you.
You have, because you like Cara Weather, Dark sky, your weather line. So you got Darksite as well? Yeah, yeah, of course I do. Oh, my gosh, man.
You throw money at just the weirdest things. Don't understand. I don't know. I think actually Darkseid was kind of like the first paid one I went towards.
You know, it's something that was, like, definitely, like, number one. That was. It has that very, like, nice design to it, and so I was happy with it, and I Don't really use the widget screen, I think is what they're called, where you're on your home screen and you swipe to the right and therefore you see, like, what used to be the notification center, I think is what I called it. But anyway, the new rewritten app, or like the piece of dark sky for that is really nice.
It's like, minimalistic. Gives me just enough information, like, kind of like you were talking about when you were talking about the watch, where it gives you, like, condition and temperature. The only thing I need to know. And it just updates so fast, which is so nice to be able to scroll over and be like, condition, temperature.
I'm done. So I don't know. I. I'll play with it over the next couple weeks.
I don't know that it'll become my favorite again, but for the moment, it's nice. That's for sure. Yeah. See, I use the stock, the widget that you're talking about.
So I'm like, oh, you know, it has the location and then the weather condition, which is mostly cloudy, has a chance of rain. So precipitation percentage and then high and low in the current temp. So that's a lot. Man.
I don't know. I guess I've never really looked at it. Yeah, I mean, hey, teach your own. That's.
That's okay. I. Maybe if we do another weather app episode in 200 episodes, I'll have like four more to go for, like eight more at this rate. We're not even tabs above 100 yet.
So if you say, okay, we're like at 50, right? Just multiply whatever you have ever now by four. It compounds exponentially, I guess. I mean, with you, definitely.
Right. Especially if they, you know, have this exploding, you know, weather app market. You're like, oh, I gotta try all of them now. Select all download.
Maybe you'll run out of money in the subscription, though. And they'll be like, oh, no, you have to pick and choose which one. Or maybe you just have ads in your weather app. Lou is like the one guy holding up the entire weather app subscription market.
Well, when you buy multiple subscriptions for multiple apps. Yeah, you kind of are. So we talked about my router pick and we talked about that. You know, I ended up getting the velop routers, and you promptly sent me a message this week that berating me, which is, you know, par for the course with Adam.
So do you want to comment on this? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So we kind of glossed over this fact, right?
And I've already given you, you know, crap for spending too much on. On weather apps of all things. You know, I, I should have known better than to just like assume that you would have gone, you know, just the middle of the road route with WI fi. So you told me you got your links to this and I was, you know, out back to school shopping because, you know, kids gotta get their school supplies.
Okay, hold on, Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. Pump the brakes. Middle of the road.
What is middle of the road in the router market? Middle of the road in the router market is like. Okay, I have, you know, the. Okay, let's say WI fi base station ranges.
What would you say the price between the market is? Low end is like 50 bucks, right? High end is like 500, right? Yeah.
Okay. I mean, I would say the middle of the road at that point would be $200 to $250, right? That would be middle of the road for me. That's right.
And you're talking for like a single unit there. I'm talking for a solution, man. I'm not saying you pay for per unit. I'm saying you're paying for the solution, right?
Like the whole end game. The end goal is to get WI fi in your house. And WI fi, singular is one thing. So yeah, if you have to buy 18 things to get wifi in your house, sure, I consider that one solution.
You know, if you have to buy 18 things, you need a smaller house. Well, yeah, or you're just not doing it right, which is what I'm getting to. So you mentioned the other sling system. I was out, like I said, doing back to school shopping.
And I was at the wifi router section. I was like, oh, okay, look at all these riders and look at all the latest models, like the Nighthawk, you know, and all these fancy names. So then I saw your develop ones and I was like, oh, you said I got a three pack. And then looked down at the price.
And then you kind of have this ticker shock moment where you're just like, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute. Is that correct? Is there like some special, like bonus accounts? Like this does come up, like eight years of cloud storage for free.
Like, what's going on? Like, maybe there's a sale, you know, that he got. But if this is what the MSRP is, that's too much. And let me just say that the MSRP at a place like Office Max, which is where I was at, this isn't a shameless plug for Office Max.
I mean, like they say office supplies, so good for them. But it was. Retail was $499 for a three pack of this Wi Fi. And that's what you got, if I'm not mistaken.
Correct? Yeah, that's the retail price. And again, I promptly, you know, replied right back to you and said I did not pay the retail price. But you still paid more than my median 250 price.
Yeah, and I mean, I definitely was a lot closer to the median price than I was to the $500 retail price. But no, no, no. Was that out the door? Was that with tax and everything too?
No, that was. That was the non tax. No, no, you were. You were closer to.
You were about the same spread. If we call it $150, you're pretty much dead on in terms of the spread. But yeah, man, so you bought all of this fancy tech for. For this house.
I have to ask, how big is the house? Yeah, so that's a good question, because you said, and that's something that we talked about is like, hey, you know, if the house is like, you know, 2,000 square feet, then like, one router should be able to cover that safely, no problems. Right. And the house is definitely not 2,000 square feet.
Um, to be honest, I don't know the exact size, but I know it's well over 3, so it's like 32 to 3400, I think, if I'm not mistaken. So, I mean, it's a sizable house for sure. Yeah. So the graphic that I saw was, you know, oh, you know, one base station, 2,000 square feet, just fine.
You know, over 2,000, two base station should have. You covered. Three base stations covered 6,000 square feet. And I'm like, 6,000 square feet.
Like, man, I, you know, humble little Adam here doesn't have a 6,000 square foot house, you know, let alone a third of that. So one base station has always worked fine for me, like maybe losing some mansion somewhere, and he needs all of this crazy WI Fi, but holy crap, man, I'm like, you put a base station in the middle of the house, you could probably reach, you know, pretty far and get where you are. And I know we mentioned placements, everything, but, dude, I just. Then I started looking and I started questioning my decisions in life, and I was like, what am I doing?
Am I not spending enough on wifi? Am I not. Am I not doing this right? Like, am I missing out on all these glorious speeds, you know, of data transfers and stuff like that?
Am I missing out on these Things, but I lowered my Internet plan to, like, the lowest that they'll give me. I'm like, you know what? No, if you, like, seven 30 bucks a month, I don't need 250 megabits per second. Like, I can deal with 60.
So I'm just like, on the total opposite end of the spectrum, man, where it's like, give me the cheapest stuff that I can get to get Internet. Because really, the bottleneck is always going to be about going out. Like, I'm never going to hit those speeds, you know, Anyway, it's. It's not worth it, man.
It's not worth it. You. You have spent more on your setup than I have in every single house I live in put together. Well, I mean, the antenna can, you know, approach the.
What do you call it? Cantana or something like that. You know, that approach was pretty cheap. But then you get the job done just fine.
I didn't pay $500 for that Pringles can. This is also. I got some bomb ass Pringles out of it. So, you know, like, that's a win, win, win, win, right?
Like every, like, couple months, you just go get a. Another, you know, box of Pringles just so you can, you know, justify like, oh, box of Pringles. No, no, no. You know, they don't come in.
I know what you mean, but like, the, the can of them just so you can be like, yeah, I have to eat them and then I can, you know, replace my antenna. I want that too, you know? Yeah. I found that the barbecue, you know, has some weird things with the signal.
You know, just some of the. The barbecue flavoring seems to interfere a little bit with those spices, man. The spices just get to the antennas, waves. It's all about the pizza ones, man.
Remember those pizza Pringles? No, not really, because I didn't eat them. You didn't get any Pringles? No, I didn't ever really do Pringles.
But you pop. The fun don't stop. Oh, yes. Oh, too much.
Yeah. So I know I could have probably gotten away with a two pack. Probably just fine. You know, like, in theory, they're 4,000 square foot.
You know, advertising is definitely under the size of the house. The question was then just like, hey, the difference between the three pack and the two pack and what I paid, it was like, all right, for like a really nominal amount more, I was gonna get a third one. So I went three pack, and I was like, I was gonna do it. I was gonna do it on top of that all I had a gift card.
So do I buy another pair of shorts or do I buy another base station? Another pair of shorts? I had a gift card. So, yeah, it was a piece of that.
But, yeah, anyway, so, yes, you had a small heart attack. Let's just hope that you've been continually bathed in WI fi and will continue to be bathed in wifi. And if stuff ever drops out and it's, you know, not my Internet, then. Oh, boy.
Just when that day comes to the end of it, that's too funny. And I said when that day comes, because it's inevitable, man. Like anyone, it's going to happen. It's just a matter of time.
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I understand that none of this is perfect and that, you know, all it takes is, you know, there are so many things that are out of my control. Even. Even, you know, like buying the best hardware and the best thing and trying to make everything, like, you know, buy the best speeds and do everything.
It's still all out of your control. At the end of the day, Skype can fail, the ISP can fail. Everybody on my street can browse. At the same time, there could be a million things that could cause it.
So, you know, it's. There's a lot of things that go on beyond just my. My router. But when it happens, I.
I'm well aware that you are going to jump all over that and seize every second of it. Yep. Everything you can do, I can do with a 50 airport express. Everything you can do, I can do.
Better for less. Yes. Thank you, Lou. That was the joke.
The. The Atom. The Atom line of approval. Too funny.
All right, so I wanted to talk a little bit about phishing and, like, scams, because I feel like in the last couple of years, things have gotten, like, significantly worse, and we used to see more things in the. In the tech world that were like, hey, you know, viruses and so on and so forth. But it's like. It's kind of transformed in the last couple years to, you know, weaponize and say, you know, what we're after really essentially money and not just destroying your system or, you know, something like that.
So it. It is. I feel like growing, but, I mean, I kind of jotted down a couple here, and the main ones I jotted down were, like, IRS scams and then, like, gift card scams. And, like, this one was really close to home for me because I actually just went through a gift card scam where, like, my gift card got stolen from me and somehow used and it was issued by a company to me.
So how did it get stolen when it. It has been in my possession the entire time and, you know, activated by them. So they have to do this whole, like, rigmarole of open an investigation and we'll get back to you. And it's kind of a nightmare.
And at the end of the day, you kind of just like, you're gonna hate this line, Adam. But like, you know, do I roll my eyes and walk away from the fact that, you know, I had a hundred dollar gift card and now I don't have a hundred dollar gift card, or do I like, really try to fight it and say, you know, hey, I mean, I lost $100. At the end of the day, it's worth my time and my effort, you know, which Judging by Adam's $50 to everything approach, I should probably just roll my eyes and keep walking. No, wait, wait.
No $50 approach. You mean you lost $250? I mean you lost $100. That's worth you saying, like, hey, if this is going to take less than two hours of my time total, then, yeah, I should do it.
That's my whole thing is, like, if you paid yourself 50 bucks an hour, right, to do something, is it worth it? And that's what you have to worry about. So my thing is if you lost $100 divided by 50, right, that would be two hours. So if you have to spend more than two hours total of time to get back your investment, if not more in damages or time wasted, then, yeah, it's worth it.
But if you don't get that back, if you're less than $50, like, hey, you know what? It's going to take me three hours to do this thing that would cost me $50 to pay someone to do or $100 to pay someone to do, like, well, that's worth it for me to save the time to not do it. So that's my whole mentality is if you're out 50 bucks an hour, you know, then if it's gonna take less than two hours, do it, man. We're using the $100 as a baseline here.
But no, I think the gift of our thing. I want to hear more about that. But you're getting phishing and scams kind of put together. And I don't think that they should be that closely linked together because I consider them kind of, I guess, on the same level.
But I think phishing, you're phishing for something. In scams, you're trying to, I Don't know, they're different forms of scams. And the gift card thing doesn't really sound like a phishing thing. It sounds more like almost too stump, like fraud, you know, or, or hackery or whatever you want to say.
Yeah, I think the, I mean, behind all of the gift card thing there probably is some degree of fraud or like some degree of a scam or something that went on. But I mean, I said, you want to hear a little bit more about it? So without going into crazy amount of detail, long story short, my, my employer will sometimes give out like a, just like a little like thank you bonus kind of thing. And they gave out a little one and it was just like a quick little thing.
They do this fairly often for employees. And so it's sort of like contracted through a company that allows them to, you know, you go and you put in some code and there's like 100 companies to pick from. And so the gift card at first isn't for any one company, it's for like 100 companies. Well, you go and you put it in.
And I put it in and I redeem my gift card. And I held onto that gift card, that digital gift card that they, you know, send you in, essentially like a PDF for like, I don't know, like six months or something like that. I didn't use it right away, and I went to use it and it says it's been used. And I was like, you know, I mean, I don't, I was like, I don't buy a lot from the place that I, that I read it from, but I was like, all right, I'll check my account.
And I checked my account and sure enough, none of nothing had been used on it. So I was like, okay, hasn't been used. Let me call the company. Call the company.
And they were able to like provide me exactly what it was bought and when it was bought and where it was bought and everything. And it was like nowhere near me. No place I knew that, you know, like I definitely hadn't been there. And the most interesting thing is that the item that was bought, it said, was paid for with like multiple $100, even gift cards, which is exactly what mine was issued for.
So I'm like, it makes me start to think that the. To your point, I don't like the hacker inside of it or something went wrong, like maybe the gift card company got hacked or something, or like somebody with an inside job knew about it or, you know, could get access to the gift card numbers. I don't know, long story short, it's definitely kind of fraud or like, you know, borderline, like there. Someone scammed the company out of some stuff.
I'm not sure. But, you know, I had to do the whole, like, to your point of time investment, I had to call, you know, the company and figure out, okay, where was it used and how much was that? And I had to call a gift card company. And I don't know, I'm probably into it for like 45 minutes to an hour worth of work right now.
And now I'm just waiting. Like, they're like, oh, yeah, you know, we'll open an investigation in 21 days from now. We'll talk to you. So I'm in limo.
So that's one thing where let's say you go to use something and it was taken by someone else, and you have, you know, no interaction with this. And this seems to be like, you know, when your credit card pops up, is being used somewhere else that you've never known, and your credit card number is basically stolen or whatever it is, those kinds of things, which I don't really want to call those scams, per se, because you weren't actually part of the scam, right? You were just the one who got scammed by, you know, by proxy. Right.
But you're just kind of a victim of something else. Now, the way I interpreted this, how you want to talk about it, is like the actual act of said phishing or scamming and what kind of happens in these things. So that's why I was confused when you put this gift card one, which I was like, gift card, like, that doesn't make sense. But let's focus on, like, the fishing part of it, because I think that's the one that you hear, like, toss around all the time these days, is the fishing part.
So what did you want to talk about about those? Well, I guess the biggest thing I wanted to talk about is to start out like one. What are some common forms of fishing that you see today? I mean, you know, people hear the word fishing, of course.
Like, if you're not from the tech world, you have no clue what that means. Like, what do you mean, how do I catch fishing in the Internet? I don't get it. You know, Fish dot com.
Yeah. Very good, Very good. So, you know, I mean, first of all, like, what is it? And is there a common example that, you know, I guess you could point towards that is like, hey, for the layperson, what does it mean to be fished?
So fishing, the reason it's called fishing is because it's very much like the actual act of fishing, right? Where you put some bait on a hook and you say, hey, fishy fish. Look at this. Doesn't look tasty, doesn't look delicious.
You want to take a bite, something bite, and then, boom, you've caught a fish, right? So fishing is a very, you know, literal term, like that metaphor, that analogy. The comparison works very well because essentially what it is is someone giving or putting bait out there for the fish being, you know, people on the Internet to grab onto. So most of the time, that's in the form of credentials, right?
Because that's what people want, is they want your credentials to site, like a social media site or to a bank or something like that. So they'll put up a webpage that looks just like the juicy web page that you go to all the time. Hey, this looks just like my bank's web page. Like, it's got their logo, it's got everything.
So then you put in your username and password, but instead of submitting to your bank, you're submitting it to the person on the other end of the phishing poll. And now they have your real credentials, and they can go to the real website and put that in there. So at a very, like, high level, that's what phishing is basically getting you to take the bait and give something, give away something that you were expecting to give away, most likely credentials to a bank, a social network, what have you. Yeah, I think that's.
That's a pretty decent summary of what phishing is today. And. And I mean, these come, I think it's important to point out, too, is like, phishing can be done via email. It can be done on the web.
You could be browsing and click on the wrong link. And it looks like something that, you know, is legitimate, but it's done in a number of, you know, ways. And it can even, I think, be done through a medium, like over the phone. I mean, it's a little bit more deliberate when it's over the phone.
But, you know, essentially someone calls you and says, oh, we need to verify, you know, this charge or whatever in your bank account. Can you please provide me your social? And you're like, full social or last four? And they're like full social.
And you hand it over, you know, so it can be done through a number of mediums today, but I think it's definitely on the rise. Is that safe to say, Adam? I don't know, to be honest. I think the Phishing itself is not as big as it used to be.
It used to be, you see phishing size come up all the time. And now I think with the way email filters have gone and the way that browsers have kind of, you know, especially modern browsers have implemented kind of like warning security warnings when you're connecting via unsecured connections, which most likely, you know, most phishing places would use, or when the certificate doesn't match the TLD that you're trying to go to. Right. Like, they have all those things kind of built in now.
So I don't think it's as bad as it used to be. I think the phishing kind of like heyday was a couple years ago. Now, if you want to talk about, like, spear phishing or very targeted phishing techniques, I think those are definitely starting to kind of pick up in pace where you're. You're taking, like, not just a general, like, hey, someone come hopefully click on my link, or I'll send this email to a bunch of people and see if, you know, someone takes a bait.
It's more like, hey, I know this email or this person or this individual has access to this bank, or I know that they go to this place and then they try to basically get you just you. Right. They're focusing their efforts, which. Hence, spear phishing.
Yeah, I mean, I haven't really heard that term spear phishing, but I mean, I kind of can pick up on context clues right away exactly what it means. And I mean, I think to a degree, some of that is what's in question, you know, with, you know, a lot of major corporate, you know, issues in America where you hear like, oh, this one CEO was targeted because he has access or she has access to some database or something. So they kind of try to, you know, fake it from someone, you know, or even, like political campaigns. Of course, we've got, you know, major scandals in the United States about that sort of thing.
And so that that level has been, I think, raised in the last couple years of, you know, as you said, spear phishing, where it's a targeted attack of just one person for exploiting a specific thing. They have access to obtain a login to that. Yeah. And I agree with you, that's on the rise.
Right. Where phishing was very much like, well, let's just see if we get any bites. This is, like you said, it's much more targeted. And I think that's why they find more success.
Right. Is if you can focus your attacks and really try to be Convincing rather than putting something that you think everyone will get right, casting a large net. I think that's why they feel more successful. And like you said, it only takes, like, one hit with spear phishing to get someone big and then gets, you know, access to a bunch of things rather than, you know, rolling the dice and, you know, hoping that you get lose fishing credentials instead of atoms, because spending hats are very different.
And if they got like, oh, this guy's, like, broke, like, what the heck? Like, this sucks. They would be like, oh, man, he's buying a lot of stuff. For kids, it seems like it's like, oh, we don't want to attack this guy.
He's got a life and kids and stuff. Like, we thought he was going to be the single, you know, guy living at home, buying, you know, like, 500 routers. Okay, so question then. Where does.
I feel like IRS schemes are kind of on the rise. And for anyone not in the States, irs, you know, is the organization we pay taxes to yearly to, you know, essentially have our, you know, services, our government services run and taken care of. But so IRS schemes, you know, if you're a sane individual, you understand the IRS operates in, like, the 1950s and still sends everything to you via snail mail. But there are plenty of people that don't seem to know that and, you know, get bit by these sort of IRS schemes where the IRS supposedly is calling you and telling you, oh, my God, you owe us two grand or whatever in back taxes, and you haven't paid them, so we're gonna throw you in jail and da, da, da.
So what do you kind of make of, like, IRS and social engineering? And then there's like, I've really only heard this term going around a few times in the last couple years, like malvertising, which is, like, the idea that, you know, we pop something up when you go to a website and tell you, God, you have 35 viruses, but call us right now and, you know, for the low, low price of $100, we'll take your money and, you know, basically reset your browser and make you think that everything is good now and you're fine, but they just sink away with 100 bucks. What do you think about some of these other sort of quick ways to make money, if you will? Well, I think those things have been around forever, right?
The IRS scam has been around forever. That's something that predates the Internet, right? You get a call, you know, just a random person, like, hey, you owe this bunch of back taxes. Like, they at least Know your name from some public record somewhere, and they have your phone number and say you owe this much, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And back in the day, you're like, oh, my gosh, like, really? Wow. And the only way you could get them to send that stuff up was over the phone, which no one really felt comfortable about doing. And nowadays it's more like, I don't know.
I don't think. And this is probably just me being. I don't want to say naive, but just kind of like, oblivious to the fact that there are people out there who are more susceptible to kind of fall for these things. People who don't really question as much where the source is coming from.
But I think the IRS has been there for a long time, and any person who doesn't have anything to hide isn't, like, trying to cheat on their taxes or do anything. There usually kind of like, already has a seed of doubt. When someone calls and says, you owe $10,000 in back taxes. Well, that's impossible because I had to pay taxes last year or I got a refund.
I don't think I'm owed a bunch. Or I don't owe a bunch of back taxes. But I think those ones are the classic scams where it's like, hey, there's a word out for your best. You have to call me immediately and, you know, pay me this money.
You know, blah, blah, blah. Like, I think those are just. I'd never seen on the phone. I don't have to go through the whole scam.
You mentioned the malvertizing one or where there's advertising that has malware built in, which is basically what that is. But what I think of when I think of the scam, and this is, I think you were kind of more referring to, was the, like, phone scam, where they say, oh, hey, your Windows computer is, you know, infected with all these things, and, you know, we need to, you know, help you, you know, fix your computer. Right now you just have to pay us $100, and we'll basically screen share with you, run a couple commands and say everything is fine. But really, there was nothing wrong in the first place.
So I think that scam, which I don't know if I mentioned this before, I feel like I have, like, I feel like we've talked about this already once, but there's a podcast called Reply all, and they dig into the scam that I'm talking about there, where they call you and say that your computer is infected and. And you have to do all these things. Like they dig into that really deep to the point where they actually go to. They go to India, I think is where they find.
They like track it down and actually go to India and they find the place where this call center is that's actually sending out and doing all these calls and they talked to like one of the founders of the whole thing. So really interesting. It's a multi part series, but it's from Reply. I'll get the links you can put in the show notes.
But if you're ever curious about that, it's really interesting to see how people kind of go through these ways just to kind of get someone to pay them, you know, 100 bucks to jump on the computer for a little bit when there's nothing wrong with it. They're just taking money from people who are susceptible to falling for these scams. I don't know, I really have a point when I rambled on for the last like two minutes. So I don't know what you wanted to do with that.
Basically, I think these scans have been around for a long time and I think there are certain people who are susceptible to kind of falling into those traps. But I can honestly say, like, maybe it is because I've been around the block, you know, especially on the Internet and you just learn to not trust anybody. And that's just the mentality that we have from now on is like, I go to website. I'm like, I don't really trust this website.
I go here all the time. But if something's off, like the website changes just a little bit, like my radar's already up and I'm like, what's going on? And I start checking certificates and making sure things still valid and making sure it is HTTPs. And yeah, yeah, I think like you said, sometimes, you know, we've been around block, I guess, and the hardest part, man, is we really kind of grew up at the right time, you know, I mean, if you think about it like our parents, they didn't grow up with the Internet and we grew up pretty much in prime of it.
And. And then there is the generation that's after us, which I think we'll talk about a little later, that knows not of a world where the Internet didn't exist. And so they're just always connected. And so, you know, that brings inherent sort of, you know, perspective to the picture.
When we grew up before it and not really having it all the time and it not being kind of what it is today to like what it is today, which is just, you know, Amazing night and day difference in just 15, 20 years. And so we kind of have a little bit of the old and a little bit of what's new and have grown up in it. Whereas I think some of the others are the ones that are preyed upon, if that makes sense. Well, I think there's.
There's always a target, right? The target audience. And I think that's why you see these types of attacks kind of like ebb and flow and rise and fall, right? Is because you're always after this sweet spot of the people that have something to take, right?
Which, let's be honest, the younger generation, let's say, who's already giving all their privacy away for free, because we already mentioned that they love sharing everything. They probably don't have a lot to, you know, kind of give over. They don't. They don't have a lot of, like, I guess, liquid assets that people could, you know, take advantage of.
But the people in our generation who kind of grew up around the Internet, like, we're not that great as artists either, because, yeah, either we're kind of wise to some of the acts or we pay more attention, right? So then you start talking, okay, well, this is really the demographic that we're after, right? And those people are, you know, newer to email, like you said, and they kind of miss the whole boat with learning all about the Internet and how it works and the difference between secure connections and man in the middle attacks and stuff like that. They don't.
They don't know about that. So I think, like, like I said, they're always looking at a certain demographic and they're always trying to see what's the best approach we can take to. To get the most amounts, to get the most out of, you know, what we're trying to do. And I think our generation, like I said, since we kind of grew up around this stuff, a lot of times it's our generation who's orchestrating a lot of these attacks too, right?
Because, like, hey, we know that people are, you know, gullible or we know that people don't understand, you know, this, and we take advantage of that. I'm not saying, like, we personally, but I'm just saying, you know, people in our generation kind of tend to do that because they know they can and they know that, hey, you know, this is something that we grew up with. We're very intimately familiar with it, so we can utilize that to our advantage. And like I said, we're just not trying to hurt ourselves.
We're just Trying to go after someone else because we might not have anything to gain from going after our peers. But, hey, I know that Mr. Bitebuy is over there who probably definitely lied on his taxes and is, you know, not paying the full amount that they should. Maybe I can, you know, throw some spearfishing his way and hold that over his head so he gives me a little cut.
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't disagree that. I feel like there's probably a large majority of the people that are doing these attacks are, you know, people of our generation, kind of, sadly. And it's a quick way to make a buck and, you know, beyond to the next person, hopefully, sadly. But that being said, I'm just kind of curious.
Have you ever been bitten by one of these that you know of? I mean, obviously there's the possibility you never knew, but have you ever been bitten by anything in this realm? I can say that I've definitely encountered most of these, right. I've encountered the whole malvertizing thing.
I've encountered spear phishing. I've encountered the IRS scams. I've encountered the, you know, phone scam saying my computer's infected. And each time, like, you kind of know something's up, right?
Like, every time, there's always a little bit that kind of, like throws you off and makes you a little uncomfortable. And to my knowledge, I've never been bitten by anything. Now I'm just putting giant bulls on my head, you know, right now. So.
Great. But not that I know of. Now I definitely know other people who have been affected by this, but myself personally. Nope, not that I know of.
All right, here's the moment when I read Adam's email address and physical home address to the entire Internet. So that way you're the target is pointed at you. No, I'm joking. Okay.
Just look for this WiFi router in this area, and if there's three of them, then you'll find Lou. So because my wife is not broadcasting, actually, like the next street over, you know, hey, man, you know, I'll just make sure I list what ports are open and then you'll be good, right? Yeah, that's too funny. So, I mean, so you said to your knowledge, you've never been bitten.
I can kind of say I think, yeah, I have never really been bitten by something that I know was online scams in the sense of like. I mean, the gift card scam was a thing for sure. I don't. I've never been phished that I'm aware of.
And I have experienced credit card fraud, but I've never been phished specifically or social engineered. I have experienced malvertizing in the sense like something's popped up on my computer because I clicked a link to the site that, you know, wasn't something I should have gone to or whatever. And, you know, thankfully, with what I know about computers, I was able to get myself out of it without needing the assistance of anybody else or calling anybody, giving them my information. But very similar to what you mentioned, I have had more than a handful of people, both friends and family, at different times, get stuck in these sort of scenarios.
And mainly the ones they get stuck in seem to be for me. I think some family members have heard the whole IRS scam where they get the call and some of them get the social engineering or noveltizing stuff. I don't know that I can recall any particular one of them 100% being phished successfully, But a lot of times they kind of do that. Pause.
I'm going to maybe screenshot this and send this to Lou and see what he thinks before I do this. And that's when I'm able to kind of pick it apart and see if it seems like it's real. And, you know, nine times out of 10, it's not, but it's. I definitely have had a couple family members and close friends get stuck in situations.
So I assume, Adam, you kind of are in a similar boat. Yeah. And I think when it comes down to that, it's very much when the family members usually are the ones who contact me. And when they feel uncomfortable about something, like, they're not sure, usually they'll ask me first.
They're like, hey, have you heard of this? I'm like, oh, yeah, don't worry about that. It's not real. Like, okay, great, cool.
Thank you. And that's usually what it gets to. And I guess it kind of comes to, you know, building up this network and letting people know that you are a resource. Like, hey, if you ever feel uncomfortable about something online, then don't go through with it.
Right. Like, don't finish the whole checkout process. And if you want to check beforehand, like, check beforehand, give a second opinion, you know, I think it's. It's very, very easy nowadays to kind of give away a little too much on the Internet.
Right. Like you said, you follow the form the wrong way, and then, boom, you've sent a bunch of stuff over to someone that you didn't mean to send it to. And in the old days, right back in the Old days, before the Internet, it was much harder to do that. You kind of had to.
There are a couple more steps involved. But now that it's so easy, I think people, if you kind of build that kind of. That. How do I say that?
Cautiousness with them, right? Just build that habit of, like, just being hesitant to do something, right? Like taking a breath before you click and, you know, looking at something and reading it twice before you actually hit the submit button. Clicking the submit button only once because, you know, the credit cards tell you to do that, otherwise you get charged twice.
So I think a lot of people now are being conditioned by other members of the families. Like, hey, if you don't feel right or something doesn't sound right, it's probably not right, so just ask me about it. So it only takes, like, that herd mentality or. Right.
Like, that's kind of sharing that knowledge with the people that you care about, the people that you don't care about, selling everything because, like, hey, fuck them. I don't. Doesn't matter, man. You don't want to be on Adam's bad side.
I guess it's just like, hey, click on this. Here, let me send you this link. All right, Click on this. Yeah, I'll send it to you.
Adam's, like, on a revenge where he's just, like, spamming everybody he hates from the past. You asked me the same question three times about some, like, tech thing. Like, hey, Adam, which wifi should I buy? Like, dude, just click the.
Click this link and click buy. That'll get you the best one, hands down. That's too funny. Well, you know, I think I kind of.
I mean, yeah, it's tough. It's. It's tough to get that herd mentality, though, because I feel like a lot of people do kind of feel like they're nagging you, they're bugging you by going out of their way to do it. But most of the time, I think you and I can look at something in a matter of a minute or two and quickly just pick it apart and go, you know, real or fake, you know, which is a couple things.
And I don't think they often realize that. But one of the things that I think is so hard is sort of training future populations or the older population, or when I say future population, I mean the kids and people of tomorrow to recognize this stuff. How do we get them to be able to have a keen eye and look at something and say, you know what? This email redirects to somewhere that doesn't look, right?
Or the links there in this email are redirecting to a site that doesn't have a certificate or whatever. And so, red flag, red flag. You know, look. Look at these things.
And, you know, I dropped a link in the show notes here that I thought was really interesting because, you know, at first I kind of. I don't know, I didn't believe this, to be honest. And I. I definitely, like, Googled it a little bit because I was so shocked by this.
But basically, the link says that it's an AARP article, but it says that millennials are actually getting, you know, basically scammed or phished more than anybody, basically, over the age of 70, is what they're saying. And this study was done, like, this year. And I remember I saw it earlier this year, and it was just really hard for me to kind of wrap my mind around it. Like, you know, even we're at a point now where kids are giving away information so fast and so often that they just basically go around the Internet and just sign up for everything.
And they sign up for not everything. Once they sign up for it three times or five times. Can't tell you how many kids I met that have, like, you know, five Facebook accounts or whatever. And so what does that do?
You know, I mean, it makes, you know, the attack surface bigger, but the fact that they're also getting scammed more often tells me that they're just. They're kind of reckless, where they're actually crossing the point of the, you know, older crowd that used to be a little more willing to give it up, but the older crowd's getting a little wiser and a little smarter and say, you know what? I've heard enough that this is all too common. I need to pump the brakes and talk to somebody.
Or maybe I'm just gonna say no altogether. And so I thought it was interesting, and I kind of curious, what are your thoughts in terms of the future? How do we sort of offload this burden from us for the herd mentality, people come to us and say, hey, I don't know if this is real. I don't want to get scammed.
How do we train people to have a keen eye or be smart? Or do you think we are there? Is it even possible? Well, I think you're constantly balancing education with the tools that we currently have.
Right. So how can we prevent this from ever even showing up so I don't have to use our education and knowing whether this is a scam or not. Right. Like, I mentioned that phishing has kind of gone way, way down in terms of business because of modern browser technologies and the push for everything to go secure with HTTPs and certificate validation and everything there.
Now there are to of, you know, other loopholes and other cracks in that facade in terms of security. But I think nowadays, right, when you go to a website and it tells you if that website is trusted or not, that simple little thing right there is enough to give people an assurance to know that they're putting something in the right place. And if they do that, let's say 50 times a day, right, they log into a bank, they log into social place, they log into whatever and it always has this green, you know, little padlock or whatever it is. And then the one time that they try to, or they click on something and the pops and says this is insecure, you know, I think that right there is more of a tool to prevent this stuff from happening.
Now I say you're going to run this balancing act because yes, we want to educate everyone and say, hey, no one should ever run into this. You should know that you shouldn't have to get this information out. Or if you encounter something like this, you should know how to look up where this email actually came from, where this form is actually being submitted to, et cetera, et cetera. But I think that's what we can do is just build better tools, right?
Like we know the ways all these things happen and we're kind of playing like this, whack a mole, right? Where this new exploit comes up or this new method of fiction comes up and then we whack that one down and then, you know, bad actors will find another way to surface something and then we whack that. So we're constantly going to play this, whack a mole to kind of, you know, prevent this stuff from ever showing up. So I think the only way for us to kind of nip this in the bud, right, and make sure that we take care of both problems at once is keep building the tools that we are.
Because that's great, right? When something, you know, comes up or build better technologies to prevent this kind of these kind of exploits or kind of things from happening is one thing I think we need to be doing that. But also it's just telling people, like, hey, I, I know you're not familiar with this, like if I give you a trust index, right, where I can give you three simple rules to follow. If you're ever unsure about something, you follow these three simple rules.
And if it fails two of them, then they're out, right? So it's looking at something like, hey, does this actually look like the website? If I hover over a link or if I Look at the URL, is it actually going to whatever.com, the.com that I expect? And if it's not okay, boom, like, that one's done.
You've already lost one point of credibility. It's like, okay, then move on to next thing. Like, is it a secure connection? If it's a nice connection, like, get the fuck out.
Like, no. Like, we're done. So I think if you can just build, like, a basic kind of workflow for your family friends to go through, I think it's the best thing, that it's more of an education thing. So it's just teaching them, like, hey, if it's not secure, bigger flag.
If it's not the right domain, huge red flag, right? And there's yorl masking things that you can do, but it's pretty easy to do. And like I said, browsers are already doing it. So I'd say if you're not sure, follow these three rules.
And then based off of that, if you're still unsure, call me and I'll say yes or no. Yeah, I think your idea about, like, teaching people, like, one or two or three rules, I mean, really can stop a lot of it. And that's where I think it's so key that if you can sit with our parents and our kids and those that are around us and just say, you know, hey, like, even people of our generation just don't use our technology a whole lot and just say, like, hey, look for this, look for this, and look for this. And, you know, I mean, you know, one of the common ones I look for too, is just, you know, when an email is sent to somebody, like, hey, where did you know, come from?
Did it come from something that ends in the domain of the. The provider? You know, you. You actually receive it from?
And a lot of times it's like, not even remotely close, and it's like, okay, cool. Well, yeah, that's. That's red flag. You know, that's.
And all of these methods are not, like, perfect, like, surefire methods, but, you know, to your point, Adam, like, you know, if. If it doesn't have a secure connection, big eyebrow race. You know, it's like, why is that, you know, that way, you know, if it doesn't look like it's the right domain, big eyebrow race. These are the things that should, you know, put the hair on back Your back up or in the back of your neck and just stand up and you go, okay, cool.
I'm not going to do this right now. You know, there are plenty other ways to obtain whatever the hell you're trying to get to on the Internet. If you're trying to buy something, if you're trying to, you know, research something, there's plenty of other stuff. So, you know, I think in the long run, spending a few minutes teaching those around you, you know, hey, look for this, look for this, and look for this.
And like you said, if they fail those, then don't even call me. Just don't do it. If you're not sure after that, call me. It's probably worth, you know, my two minutes of time to answer your question so that, you know, I don't get stuck trying to, in the future fix whatever went wrong or try to help you fix it.
That makes sense. There's that saying, right? You. What is it?
You catch a man a fish or give me a fish you'll eat for a day, or you teach man a fish and you'll eat for life type thing. Same. Same goes for this. Very, very true.
That's a TLDR for this episode. Tldr. Teach a man to fish. Yeah, exactly.
Teach a man to fish. And not, as Adam said, you know, just how he teaches people to fish by just. Adam is the fisher. You know, he's just, like, sending all people.
He hates phishing emails. Don't get on Adam's bad side, because you're just gonna get spammed with phishing emails. Oh, what's your email address again? Okay, I'm just going to willingly give that to this place that is dying to have email addresses.
One last thing before I rid you from my life. Can I have your email? Can I have your email? It's like, how do you feel about timeshares?
Oh, dear. You just automatically you go to haveibeenpwned.com or whatever, and just all of a sudden you're just. You search your email, you're like, yep, I've been pwned a hundred times because of Adam. I'm telling you.
That's why you got to be careful, because the more you know about people, especially when you like their dog's name and, like their first car, and the more you get to know someone, the more you know those security questions, which thank God they're finally getting rid of. Security questions, right? Most of the times. Like, dude, if I know email and I don't know enough about you, I could probably hit the forgot password thing and, like, fill out the security questions and be done, you know?
Yep. No, it's pretty crazy. I mean, so much of that stuff is, like, online now. You know, it's like, we think about, like, oh, you know, I mean, you think about a today who's like, I don't know, 16, 20 years old somewhere in that area.
It's like. And he grew up in the age. Or she. Or she grew up in age of Facebook.
So it's like they posted about their car, they posted about their dog, they posted about their high school mascot. They posted about, you know, the street they grew up on or whatever. Like, you can find all that crap. It's like, listen to the.
Well, public, too. Yeah, it's like, everything's public. Oh, yeah. This is why they moved away from it because, like, stupid millennials sharing all their stuff.
Like. Yeah, I know. You just throw up in your mouth a little bit. I know, Adam.
So honestly, we're everything wrong with the world today. You know, just. It all points back to us. Well, it's funny because I have, like, all the social networks that I don't, like.
I'm pretty, like, in the dark. Like, I don't post, and it's been like, six months since I posted, like, Facebook or anything. I post, like, once, twice a year. It's mainly just a look, and that's about it.
But even that is questionable at this point. That's creepy too, man. Being the social foyer. I did that for a while, and I was like, you know, I just need to stop.
Like, if I'm not contributing to this, like, there's no more for me to be here. I'm just like, that creeper in a van, you know, like, driving by. Like, look at all the fun that they're having. I wish I could be having that fun.
I know. I'm definitely having those, like, revelations. Like, I'm getting to the point where I'm like, man, why do I have this? I mean, all I do is just, like, open it, like, once every couple days and, like, scroll for, like, five minutes and then go, oh, God, this is crap.
And just, you know, exit the app. So, you know, it's really, really something. I'm, like, questioning my logic on that. So maybe something that'll change.
But anyway, anything else you want to add on fishing before we move to wrap up? If it looks fishy, it's probably fishing. I like it. I like it.
I can get down with that. All right, so wrap up, Adam, short shorts, question mark. Yeah, let Me send you something. Okay.
Sorry, I'm kind of curious. That was, like, the most awkward transition ever. Like, hey, Adam, short shorts, let me send you something. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Well, you know, it's fishing. Just click the link. Just don't, don't. Don't worry about it.
Just click the link and watch the video. Okay. We talked about me, you know, wearing short shorts at some point in time, and let's just say I found a way. I.
I watched the video, and so I probably need to watch this again, but I. Because it is extremely loud. But I don't know. Are you on a bike?
Yeah. So that's me on the cycle, and I'm wearing your little three inch shorts, you know, just. Just for you. Just to show you that I can pull it off.
It works. All right, so three inch shorts is what you're wearing on this thing, because holy crap, those things are tiny. Oh, yeah, that's the three inch right there. Where did you get these?
Did you. Where did you come across 3 inch shorts? So funny story. They're my wife's.