699: When Hackers ATTACK - Are You Prepared?

Brian Nichols  0:00  
Live your life online again with zero fear. Yeah, let's talk about that. Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Oil. Hey there, folks, Brian Nichols, here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on a force. Another fun filled episode. I am as always your humble host joining you live from our Brian Nichols show, consulting studios. That's right, figure out how to get your prospecting in messaging. So it wins. Find out more at Brian Nichols show.com forward slash b. N. C. Folks, when we're talking about cybersecurity, we're talking about online privacy is something that doesn't just impact businesses, but actually impacts you. Yes, you Mr. and Ms. Listener. So joining us today from the Privacy Act, a privacy action plan, we're going to talk all about how you can protect yourself online, the one and only Glenn meter. Welcome The Brian Nichols Show. Hi, how

Glenn Meder  1:03  
you doing, Brian? Doing good. Glenn, thank

Brian Nichols  1:05  
you for joining us. And by the way, folks, this is a sneak peek, because Glenn is going to be doing a special sit down with members of The Brian Nichols Show audience who want to learn how to protect their privacy here. In a few short weeks. We're talking about that as we get towards the end of the episode by wanting to tease that as we get towards that. But Glenn, welcome to the show. Do us a favor, introduce yourself to the The Brian Nichols Show audience.

Glenn Meder  1:25  
Yeah, thank you very much, Brian, my name is Glen meter. I am an entrepreneur, I started the privacy action plan. I also have a newsletter that I write about freedom stuff. And so this my privacy Action Plan business kind of evolved out of that, where I teach people how to be private and secure online.

Brian Nichols  1:42  
Awesome. And let's talk about privacy action plan, because what you guys are doing over there is a huge, huge service to where there's been an absolute void in the marketplace, right where you see there was an approach in more recent years. And as we've seen a more uptick in cyber attacks. For small and medium businesses to start taking cybersecurity seriously. A lot of compliancy is put in place. You go down the list, cmmc, FINRA, or frameworks NIST, whatever it may be folks trying to get their companies into some type of framework. That makes sense. But when you look at your average person, I mean, they're kind of like just like floating out there. They don't really know what's, what's the threats online, sometimes it just seems like at what happened to me. So Glen, help address the elephant in the room. That won't happen to me, could it?

Glenn Meder  2:30  
Absolutely no, there's online threats are a huge, huge danger right now. I mean, we live in a world that is everything is online now, and that creates so many different threats for us. And then these are threats that we don't really have any instinctual ability to defend against all we do is trust, the services that we use, but those services are really also against us. I mean, you can't trust big tech, you can't trust government, you can't trust hackers. I mean, you've got to take care of this yourself. And you've got to I look at this as being self defense. Now, you This is modern day self defense, you have to know how to protect yourself, and how to be safe and secure online. Otherwise, you're going to really put yourself and everything that you own in jeopardy. And there's a lot of people that lose everything for to these online hackers. And it's, it's a very real threat right now. And we have to take this seriously. And we have to do the steps that we need to do to get private

Brian Nichols  3:39  
Glenn, where is the most of these threats coming from? Is it actual hackers? You know, you see the traditional guy on TV where he's got like the hoodie up, and he's in a big, like, 14 screen command center, and he's got code going across the screen, or is it actually, you know, just some 14 year old kid sitting in his mom's basement?

Glenn Meder  3:59  
Well, okay, so that's a great, great point. The the way I look at it is there's three primary threats. So there's big tech, there's big brother, and then there's hackers. And so if you want to look at just the hacker side of things, hackers have turned into organized crime. So actually organized crime has come into the hacking space, where they make they make a ridiculous amount of money by scamming people and hacking people. And so it's, it's really very organized, and they know what they're doing. And what they do is they they have hackers and scammers that work together in conjunction with each other. So it's not just a single, a single thing. It's, let's say for example, if you get a ransomware notice on your computer, it's going to it's going to flash it might not even be a real ransomware thing. It might just be a notice that scares you. And it says you know your your computer's locked down or We're accessing your bank account call call this number called Apple support right now. But that Apple support number is not Apple, right? That is a, that's a hack or that's a scammer. So the hacker is, is the person that's doing the computer based attacks, but then they want to draw you in to a hacker or scammer, where you they get you on the phone. And once they get you on the phone, they can really manipulate you. And actually, there's a great video on YouTube now. It's like a 32nd thing where this one guy is walking down the streets of New York, and he's got a $1 bill. And he walks up to a woman and he says, Tell me the name of a woman right now, tell me the name of the woman, and I'll give you this dollar and, and he just keeps asking me, tell me the name of a woman, any woman, any woman in the world, and this lady is just like, I can't believe I can't think of a woman's name. I can't think of any woman's name right now. And it's because they keep the pressure on. And if they keep the pressure on, you can't think and that's how the scammers do it so that they can, you might think, Oh, I would never fall for that. But if if you get into their system, and they start they start putting the pressure on, it's very difficult to avoid that. And a lot of people lose hundreds of 1000s of dollars that way.

Brian Nichols  6:21  
Do you ever watch political candidates and think I can do better than this. Or maybe you're curious about how to get involved for local and state offices, but you just don't know where to start? Well, I have no fear because the Libertarian Party of Illinois is holding a four hour online candidate training course this Saturday, March 11, split into two two hour sessions. This course is perfect for those new to running for office, as well as experienced candidates who want to brush up on their skills. And the course is covering everything from planning your campaign to getting out to vote. And the two expert trainers are Ross Clark and yours truly, who are teaching you about your campaign mechanics and messaging. And the training is designed to be fun and engaging. Because guys, we want you to get the most out of it. So if you're interested in sessions, again, our Saturday, March 11 was session one starting at 10am. Central and Session Two at 4pm. Central, both sessions should be attended and experienced by new candidates and old candidates alike. And the cost to attend is a $25 donation to the Libertarian Party of Illinois. So register now and take the first steps towards running a Winning Campaign at Brian Nichols show.com forward slash LP I L what's really scary, I'm not sure how much you've been paying attention. There's a website or rather a YouTube channel I'm particularly fond of called corridor crew. And it's a bunch of guys out in, I think they're right out of Hollywood. And they're basically like the CGI CGI artists. And what they've been doing is fiddling around with AI. And when you look at how advanced some of the AI has gotten, there's one app in particular where they basically stole one of their their co workers identities for the video for the gag. But all it took was a couple of podcast episodes that this guy appeared on, to be able to then get his voice to make a fake reading of consent. So in order to do this voice training for the app, you have to read a reading of consent for the app, right. So they were able to take enough podcast words that he had said to make it so it read him saying the actual reading of consent. And then they could go in upload as many podcast episodes as they want made almost identical voice clone and had him play a character in a show. Just think all it takes is 1/5 of that amount of technology to just get some grandma to go ahead and be like, Oh, that's definitely my grandson, Jimmy calling me Of course, that's him. And just a few phrases here and there because they're on the phone, it's gonna be garbled as it is. So just as things get more and more advanced in the technology, it gets more and more democratized, just inevitably is going to open up more and more threats. So I guess I say all that. Well, what do we do? What I mean, there's so many vulnerabilities out there for your average person, it seems impossible to try to patch them all up. What do you recommend?

Glenn Meder  8:59  
Well, okay, so let me change that perspective a little bit. There are a lot of things to do. And yes, and I would say the number one thing is overwhelm, you kind of get into this space, and you look at all the things I've got to do, and you start getting overwhelmed, but there's some core things that you need to do Password Manager, two, factor authentication, all of these things. There's some core things that you can do. And it's kind of like that analogy of, if a bear is chasing you, you don't have to run faster than the bear, you just have to run faster than the guy next to you. Right. And so that's kind of how it is. There's so many people out there that are that are absolutely vulnerable. Actually, if you look on the list of like the top passwords that are used, even to this day, the top password is 123456. And then this the next most common one is 1234567. And then the I think the third is password. I mean it's it's just ridiculous how many people don't know enough to just do the bay. Basics. And so my point is, if you do a little bit, and maybe more than a little bit, if you get some, if you get the fundamentals in place, then you make yourself so much more of a harder target. There's so many more easy targets out there, that there that you're going to really protect yourself. Make yourself much more protected than you think you are.

Brian Nichols  10:25  
It's like you're going to the gym, to work out and get fit, to avoid having to go to the doctor and get the prescriptions to deal with the issues that you have now accumulated over the years for living an unhealthy lifestyle. So yeah, there's, there's little things you can start to do. Let's talk about those, Glenn, what would you say to just your average person out there who's like, Glenn, I have no idea where to even start, what are just like one or two things I can focus on right now to be in better online digital hygiene, I would have been otherwise.

Glenn Meder  10:58  
Okay. Passwords, I mean, so we can talk about privacy, and we talking about security, security, definitely, passwords, you have to be very good with passwords, you have to have two factor authentication. And that might kind of freak people out a little bit. They don't really understand what that is. But two factor authentication is we've all been forced to use two factor authentication in on some sites, where they you put a password in, but that's not enough they want to send you they want to text you a six digit code, right. So that's a, like a forced two factor authentication. So basically, your passwords not enough to get into the site, you need this to this other step. But there's the text message two factor authentication isn't the best way to do it. There's an app based two factor authentication, which is better. So there's steps that you can take to make things better. As far as getting your passwords in shape. bitwarden is the password manager, I recommend, I think password managers are the most, one of the most important things you can do. They're not really easy to set up. And that's what we do. In privacy action plans, we take people through how to actually set it up. But once they're set up, and once you know how to use them, they actually make your online life a lot easier and more secure. Where do

Brian Nichols  12:26  
you find nine times out of 10? I'm just given that number. But where do you find more often than not that people are failing? When you just go and you have the conversations? Like what's the immediate thing you usually recognize?

Glenn Meder  12:40  
Oh, really, it's, it's so first of all, I guess the first thing is, do people care about this? Are they even aware enough to ask the question about privacy? And to think about it? I think there's a lot of people that there's definitely more and more people are becoming aware that they need to do something. So I would say that's the first thing do they need to do they know they need to do something? And then the second thing is, you know, are you actually taking steps if you're if you're doing something? And that's I guess, the hard part. And that's why I created a privacy action plan is it's hard to know what to do. There's a lot of places on the web where there's just an overload of information. But is it the right information. And also, the way that YouTube works, and all these other places work is these these people are, first of all, they're geeks talking to geeks, and they're not really talking to the average person. But then also, they make money by producing content and pushing more and more and more content out. And that's counter to what your goals are, is just Okay, give me a very clear plan of what we need to do to go from here to there. And in the simplest way without getting overwhelmed. And that's what that's what we tried to do with the privacy action plan.

Brian Nichols  14:10  
So talk to us about what your average person can do what they want to get involved with privacy action plan. Now, obviously, we have something we're going to be doing together here in a couple of weeks. But let's say you know, somebody wants to go ahead and get involved with privacy action plan, what would that look like?

Glenn Meder  14:26  
Well, it's just a it's just a course that you sign up for. It's a one time payment, and its lifetime membership. And you just use a course and a community that you sign up for. And like you said, we're going to have a, what I'd like to do and what we're going to do with your audience is have a little introductory free educational webinar that people can sign up for and I think that's probably the best place to start is just let's talk about this and I want to give you a good framework for how to Think about this. And so I think that's what I would recommend is, if people come to the to the webinar that we have set up,

Brian Nichols  15:06  
Glenn, as we're going towards the end of the episode, talk to us, because this is something we've been talking about here more on the show about as technology advances. And while there will be more threats out there, it will help us across the board live a more free lifestyle, right. And I would love for you to maybe outline a little bit about how as things are advancing, that's going to help us and also in the marketplace, live a free lifestyle as well.

Glenn Meder  15:32  
Well, I think, you know, my slogan for privacy action plan is no freedom, no privacy equals no freedom. And, you know, this is something that we don't talk enough about, on the national level, as well as the individual level is, if you desire freedom, privacy and security is is absolutely a key component of that. And whether, like I said, whether you're talking individually, or we're talking nationally, we have to protect our privacy. And I think privacy is a God given right that we have, but if you look at like big tech and big government and and hackers, they don't agree, they don't want you to have your privacy. They they believe that they have the right to infringe on your privacy. And that takes away our freedom.

Brian Nichols  16:26  
And if you could, because this is where we have solutions that when right, just let's talk about how with the free market, because we are a Liberty based show with the free market. This has helped us in the security space, and in the the awareness space, help raise the alarm and actually help build better solutions that are helping address the problems we're talking about here today. Yeah,

Glenn Meder  16:50  
absolutely. There is a huge market. There's a huge number of products coming on the market now that are dret addressing their whole privacy issue on many different levels. I mean, phones, phone, cellular plans, email, messaging, all kinds of things there are, there are free market solutions. And they're very good. And they're getting better because people are showing an interest, and there's a demand for it. But let me give you another example, though, there are some people, we have to always keep an eye on the honesty of these companies, Duck Duck go, I don't recommend DuckDuckGo anymore. They started off, I stopped recommending them when they started censoring their results. But then it came out that they actually were tracking people even when they said that they weren't tracking people. So that was a betrayal of trust. And so I do not recommend Duck Duck go. So anyway, it's an always changing marketplace, as the world is you know, and so we have to stay on top of all of this. Amen.

Brian Nichols  17:59  
Agreed. Well, folks, if you're getting some value from today's episode, this is just the tip of the iceberg because yes, we're gonna be having a more deep dive conversation. March 15, am I correct there? Oh, my goodness, I'm getting my own days wrong. I think that's what we said, Yeah, march 15. If I'm wrong, I'll correct it in the post. So the magic of editing works. But that being said, those, yes, if you are interested, we'll go ahead and have a free training session for you. And the link will be here in the show notes. But if you're one of the members who are joining us here on the audio version of the show, just do The Brian Nichols Show forward slash p a p, and that is for the privacy action plan. With that being said, we are heading towards the tail end of the episode, which means it's time for final thoughts. I'll kick things off here, Glenn, if you're cool that and that is I think it's important not only to talk about this, but actually to put the things we're talking about now into action, right? If you're listening to the show, and you're nodding in agreement, in shame, saying yeah, this is me, I'm not taking this seriously. I just kind of thought, yeah, you know, the companies I work with, they're taking care of this wrong. They're not taking care of this. In many cases, they're actually helping perpetuate the problem. As Glenn mentioned, duck, duck go, someone who we thought was supposed to be a bastion of liberty and freedom. Nope. They were just as much as the bad guys as they are pretending not to be. So yes, it is important for us to actually pay attention, find solutions that are out there and actually use them but support real as a Liberty based solutions that are actually doing what they say they're going to do. So that's my final thoughts. But also, please go ahead. If you're interested, head over to our show notes and sign up for our awesome course here with a Glenn and privacy action plan. That's my thoughts. Glenn, what do you have for us as we wrap things up today?

Glenn Meder  19:37  
No, I agree. I think my two things would be keep learning. You have to really have an interest in this. And so learn what you can learn. But then I really want this to be a rallying cry to actually take action and to do the things that you need to do to get private and you don't have to be totally overwhelmed. You don't have to go down every rabbit hole, just put the fundamentals in place. And then you'll be lightyears ahead of most people out there and you'll be much safer than what you are now.

Brian Nichols  20:10  
All right, folks. And by the way, it's March 14. See, I knew I was close. But make sure include those links there in the show notes. And by the way, folks, if you enjoyed today's episode, well do me a favor, go ahead and give it a share. And when you do tag yours truly at B nickels, liberty, glad working folks, go ahead and continue the conversation should they so choose?

Glenn Meder  20:30  
Well, you can just go to privacy action plan.com. And that's probably the best place already. I have a Twitter too. But yeah, but now. I have a Twitter account. But But privacy action plan is is where you where you can find us. Awesome. Perfect.

Brian Nichols  20:51  
And if we're going to talk some Liberty stuff in the future, don't worry, Glenn, we'll have you on. And we'll dig all things into it. I know there's a lot of stuff that we were itching to talk about. But unfortunately, yeah, we are unfortunately hard pressed for time. So folks, yes, if you did, in fact, get some value from today's episode beyond giving a shared also do me a favor, support the show, dollar 99 A month over on our Patreon, we have a lot of awesome goodies behind the scenes, plus some bonus episodes heading your way, we got some changes coming here in The Brian Nichols Show folks with some big, big changes in my life. Namely, I'm gonna be a dad. So getting ready for that. Yeah, big changes coming down the pike very, very soon there. But also, we're really excited to bring you guys a lot of really cool content over on our Patreon. So one more time $1.99 A month, head over to Brian Nichols show.com forward slash support, and you can sign up there otherwise, folks, if you're joining us in the podcast version of the show, number one, hit the artwork in your podcast catcher, it'll bring you over to Brian Nichols show.com, where you can find today's episode, the entire transcript from today's episode. And also you can find all like 695 Some of the other episodes of the program but also you will find the video version of the show which is available by the way over on Odyssey on rumble and on YouTube. If you are over on YouTube, do me a favor hit that little notification bell and subscribe button so you don't miss a single time we go live but alas the conversation is not done there. I will see you guys over on the next episode of the show, which will start right here on YouTube. And otherwise if you're on the podcast version, I'll go ahead and see you whenever we have a new episode coming live to your podcast feed. So with that being said Brian Nichols signing off. You're on The Brian Nichols Show for Glenn meter. We'll see you tomorrow.

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