Tech WatchRadio keeps you plugged into the ever-evolving world of technology so you don’t have to do the heavy lifting. Hosted by Sam Bushman and Jay Harrison, this episode dives deep into the modern challenges of media monetization, debating the growing trend of digital paywalls. The hosts unpack how services like CNN, New York Times, and even streaming platforms like Hulu and Roku are changing their business models, weighing whether the shift toward subscription and tier-based systems is worth the cost—or simply alienating audiences.
The show also tackles practical tech tips, including an in-depth guide on spotting phishing scams using the innovative SECURE method. Learn how to protect yourself and your company by evaluating suspicious emails step-by-step, from checking the subject line to unpacking attachments safely. Whether you're looking to stay ahead in cybersecurity or gain clarity on tech’s impact on everyday life, this episode equips you with valuable insights to navigate the digital age confidently.
[00:00:18] All right, happy to have you along, my fellow Americans, to another incredible edition of Tech Watch Radio.
[00:00:24] We're talking tech, baby. We keep an eye on tech so you don't have to.
[00:00:28] This is Tech Watch Radio, brought to you by npitechguys.com.
[00:00:32] That's npitechguys.com.
[00:00:35] And the folks that support this broadcast, networkprovidersinc.com.
[00:00:40] And they take care of security and all kinds of things.
[00:00:43] Anything you need when it comes to IT, networkprovidersinc.com has your back.
[00:00:49] Without further ado, Jay Harrison's with me. Welcome, sir.
[00:00:52] Howdy, Sam. How are you?
[00:00:53] I'm disappointed in CNN. I'm not talking political either. I'm talking about paywalls.
[00:00:59] Everybody's adding them.
[00:01:01] Digital paywall. Not everybody, Jay.
[00:01:04] We don't have a paywall.
[00:01:05] They created digital paywall charging $3.99 per month. That's $4 a month, I guess.
[00:01:12] Or $30 a year for, what, most of its articles?
[00:01:15] That's right.
[00:01:16] And I guess the big executive over there, VP Digital Products and Services, Alex McCallum.
[00:01:23] Is that how you say it?
[00:01:24] I think so, yep.
[00:01:26] I guess he launched this as the first step, and they're on a journey, Jay.
[00:01:30] They are journeying. That's for sure.
[00:01:32] Where that journey's going to end up, we shall see.
[00:01:35] Well, CNN's kind of melting down.
[00:01:38] Certainly they're tanking.
[00:01:39] They came up, I think, third as far as the election results for viewership.
[00:01:45] They had like $5 million, I think.
[00:01:47] MSNBC even beat them out.
[00:01:48] Fox was double that.
[00:01:51] They're not doing well, I don't think.
[00:01:53] I don't see how this is going to be better for them to put up a paywall.
[00:01:56] I mean, we've seen this with other companies.
[00:02:00] Maybe it's with bail them out.
[00:02:02] Maybe it's what makes them profitable.
[00:02:03] I don't know. We'll see.
[00:02:04] Advertising is getting harder and harder online, though.
[00:02:07] Hey, man. The New York Times, though, believe it or not, they've been managing to get all these online subscribers and put up a paywall.
[00:02:14] And they've been growing, growing, growing, growing.
[00:02:16] So time will tell what the American people support.
[00:02:19] I don't really believe in paywalls, Jay.
[00:02:21] Yeah, well, we know that CNN has talked about cutting jobs or cutting jobs.
[00:02:25] They just cut Chris Wallace.
[00:02:26] Or maybe he's like, hey, I bailed out first or whatever.
[00:02:29] But, you know, he's a big salary, and that's going to save him a pile of money right there.
[00:02:34] That might save him more money than a paywall would make.
[00:02:36] I don't know.
[00:02:37] You know?
[00:02:38] Well, and to me, the reason that you don't have a paywall, this is just my opinion.
[00:02:41] You want people to have content and education for free.
[00:02:45] And you want people to know what's going on for free.
[00:02:48] You want to charge us for goods and services above and beyond that.
[00:02:51] And so if you say, hey, Sam Bushman's articles are free, but if you want to go behind the scenes and spend more time with Sam Bushman, then here's value-added content.
[00:02:59] Now we can charge for that.
[00:03:01] The VIP Sam Pass.
[00:03:02] I get those kind of things.
[00:03:04] I don't get charging for the base service that you are.
[00:03:08] In other words, hey, if you're a news service.
[00:03:10] Okay?
[00:03:11] And the reason why is because you used to have commercials promote your news.
[00:03:14] Now what you're trying to do is get commercials and a paywall.
[00:03:17] And it reminds me of like satellite radio.
[00:03:19] They claimed satellite radio.
[00:03:22] Hey, you're going to be able to listen to the radio, no commercials, but you're going to pay a fee.
[00:03:25] Now what you've got on satellite radio is a fee and commercials.
[00:03:29] And you're starting to see this with all kinds of things.
[00:03:31] Hulu.
[00:03:31] Netflix.
[00:03:32] Amazon.
[00:03:33] If you sign up for Hulu, you don't have any fees.
[00:03:35] And then it's like, oh, well, now you sign up and now you've got commercials.
[00:03:38] And then it's like, well, if you want the premium, there's no commercials.
[00:03:40] And then pretty soon it'll be like, you can get the premium plus with no commercials.
[00:03:44] And it's like at some point you're paying on both sides of the coin.
[00:03:47] And I feel like at some point it's wrong, Jay.
[00:03:49] At some point it doesn't make any sense.
[00:03:51] I know.
[00:03:51] And CNN's not the only one doing it.
[00:03:54] Even Thompson Reuters has done the same thing.
[00:03:56] They say that they're going to have a subscription for $1 a week, so $52 a year.
[00:04:01] And this may be the way.
[00:04:03] This may be the future, Sam.
[00:04:04] Everybody's just going to be microtransactions or minimal software as a service.
[00:04:11] No, what you're going to get is instead of me using 50 news services and having me check those news services against each other.
[00:04:17] So I read three stories on a topic and I get information from each of the three or I find out the uniqueness or whatever.
[00:04:23] I'm just going to basically decide who my news service is.
[00:04:26] And I'll pay for that one and the rest I'll just start to ignore because they all have paywalls.
[00:04:29] And what they're going to do is just get their own user base, preach to their tiny base.
[00:04:33] Yep.
[00:04:33] And eventually all it's going to do is divide America, though.
[00:04:37] I'm not going to go to CNN.
[00:04:38] I'm not going to pay for CNN.
[00:04:39] If I'm going to pay for any services, I'd probably pay for, I don't know, World Net Daily or I might pay for the Epoch Times.
[00:04:45] I don't know what I'd pay for, but maybe The Blaze, maybe Western Journal.
[00:04:51] Maybe, you know, I don't know.
[00:04:53] But I wouldn't pay for CNN for sure.
[00:04:55] But I used to go there on occasion for information.
[00:04:58] And if they want to go ahead and drive folks like me away, they can do that.
[00:05:00] I use CNN all the time to check domains.
[00:05:03] Like if the Internet's up and I want a browser really quickly, just because it's a recognizable three-letter domain that usually is pretty content heavy.
[00:05:11] You know, you load videos and all kinds of stuff on there.
[00:05:14] So if I just quickly want to check somebody's browser, CNN.com is where I've usually gone.
[00:05:19] But if they block it with a paywall, maybe I won't.
[00:05:21] All you'll do is get the login screen and know that it's still up, though.
[00:05:24] Yeah, that'll probably still work.
[00:05:26] But my point is, though, at some point they're making a mistake.
[00:05:29] Because, you know, in the beginning it was like, hey, these TV services are charging way too much money.
[00:05:34] I don't want 250 channels, Jay, and pay $130 a year for satellite TV or cable TV.
[00:05:40] Or cable TV.
[00:05:41] I mean, I just want my few channels.
[00:05:43] And then they came out and they said, okay, fine.
[00:05:44] You can't cord cut.
[00:05:46] You can't this.
[00:05:46] And so then what they did is they added packages.
[00:05:48] You get the base cable or the base satellite for $50.
[00:05:51] And then, well, shoot, I need this channel from this package and that channel.
[00:05:55] So I add three or four packages on.
[00:05:56] Now I'm still at $100.
[00:05:58] So then people said, I want to go a la carte.
[00:05:59] And they said, well, if you go a la carte, it'll be too expensive.
[00:06:02] We demanded a la carte.
[00:06:03] So then you got all these different services now.
[00:06:06] But by the time you pay for the three or four or five services that you need or whatever, you're just as expensive.
[00:06:11] If you go to YouTube TV, it's just as expensive as a cable channel or a satellite feed now.
[00:06:15] That's right.
[00:06:16] $70, $75 a month.
[00:06:19] So then it isn't any cheaper.
[00:06:22] It's just different.
[00:06:23] The only way it's cheaper is if you basically have less channels.
[00:06:26] And the problem is that they still have these bundles.
[00:06:29] And I want, say, 10 channels, but those 10 channels are in 10 bundles.
[00:06:34] Well, in one way it is cheaper because I think that you have so many media outlets and so many things available to people that one person just can't consume at all.
[00:06:43] I mean, you can't get it done.
[00:06:45] So you end up kind of cherry picking what you want.
[00:06:48] And some of that stuff, I mean, you know, the new media is still somewhat free.
[00:06:53] I mean, people are watching TikTok.
[00:06:54] There's no fee to watch that.
[00:06:56] There is advertising.
[00:06:58] They're doing, you know, YouTube.
[00:07:00] There's some videos or advertisements sparse in that if you're not running an ad blocker.
[00:07:05] But people are doing, you know, they're going to watch what they want to watch.
[00:07:08] And if they want to watch whatever, HBO or something, and they'll pay for that a la carte.
[00:07:13] But I think overall, and I haven't seen any studies on this, but I'd like to.
[00:07:16] I think overall, Americans, especially consumers, are probably spending less on TV than they used to.
[00:07:22] I mean, used to be it was kind of accepted that you spent, you know, 80 to 150 or sometimes even I've seen people $200 on dish network or whatever cable package.
[00:07:32] And people aren't doing that anymore so much.
[00:07:34] And, you know, maybe they have maybe it's the same thing when they add up all their Hulus and everything else together.
[00:07:38] But maybe it's not.
[00:07:40] Maybe maybe we are paying less.
[00:07:41] I don't know.
[00:07:42] Well, I find what we've done is we've made it very hard to find.
[00:07:45] If I want to watch this given series, I've got to go hunt for an hour just to figure out where the heck I can watch the dang thing.
[00:07:52] Yeah, no doubt.
[00:07:53] There are services now that just help people find what it is.
[00:07:57] Roku is one of them.
[00:07:58] Roku has a search that you can plug in what you're looking for.
[00:08:01] And if they have it or they know who has it, it might be on Vudu or it might be on Amazon or whatever.
[00:08:07] And they'll tell you what company is hosting it.
[00:08:11] And then they have all these strange tiers that are interesting.
[00:08:14] And some of them you can skip commercials.
[00:08:16] Other ones you have commercials, you can't skip them.
[00:08:19] And when you record and then you can record from this service and watch from this service and do this and that.
[00:08:23] And I mean, it gets to where it's just a hassle and a half, too.
[00:08:26] Yep.
[00:08:27] That is also true.
[00:08:29] So I don't know where this is going.
[00:08:31] It's one of TiVo, doesn't it?
[00:08:33] Well, TiVo started all this.
[00:08:35] Yeah, that's a good point.
[00:08:36] Good point.
[00:08:38] And TiVo really created this kind of world.
[00:08:40] How do you spell TiVo anyway?
[00:08:42] Is it TiVo?
[00:08:43] No, T-I-V-O.
[00:08:45] T-I-V-O.
[00:08:46] Anyway, TiVo kind of developed this idea, too, to where, you know, everything used to be live.
[00:08:51] Now with TiVo mentality, TiVo has kind of gone on steroids to where do people do anything live anymore, Jay?
[00:08:57] We're doing it live.
[00:08:58] You know, we record lots of radio live.
[00:09:00] I mean, this program is going to be somewhat delayed, but, you know, we do live stuff.
[00:09:05] Some people do.
[00:09:06] I know Sam Bushman does a live radio show Monday through Friday.
[00:09:09] Yeah, that's right.
[00:09:10] Monday through Friday, a lot of times even on Saturday.
[00:09:12] But are people listening live, though?
[00:09:14] The mentality used to be live was best.
[00:09:15] If you can't do live, then we'll do second best and catch it on the rebound.
[00:09:19] That was kind of the mentality.
[00:09:20] Now it's like, why would I watch it live when I can watch it whenever it meets my needs or listen to it or whatever?
[00:09:25] The world has changed because of TiVo, right?
[00:09:27] Or because of that mentality, that idea, that capability?
[00:09:30] It really has.
[00:09:31] And I think one of the contributing factors is people like to speed things up a little bit, myself included.
[00:09:37] My main reason for not watching something live is if you watch it after the fact, you can pitch it up.
[00:09:42] You know, you put it running at 1.5x or maybe even greater.
[00:09:46] And skip the commercials.
[00:09:47] And skip the commercials.
[00:09:48] So then the question is, is it smart to skip commercials?
[00:09:51] I say yes, but is it smart to even put commercials in?
[00:09:54] The modern day would say, I'm not going to put commercials that you can skip.
[00:09:57] So I just want you to know that, hey, if you want to go to PrepStartsNow.com, you can check out preparedness products and all kinds of guides to help you and your family get prepared.
[00:10:06] Now, can you take that out, Jay?
[00:10:09] It'd be hard to.
[00:10:10] I mean, even if you had a 15 or 30-second skip, you'd skip other content.
[00:10:14] I know, but that was, yeah, you'd skip other content because that was like seven seconds, right?
[00:10:18] Yeah.
[00:10:18] Yeah.
[00:10:19] So the smart people are learning to build their kind of commercials into the fly, into their intros, into their outros, into transitions.
[00:10:26] Speaking of transitions, this next transition is brought to you by NetworkProvidersInc.com.
[00:10:31] You want a friend in the IT business?
[00:10:33] NetworkProvidersInc.com.
[00:10:35] Speaking of them, by the way, I guess there's a big battle now.
[00:10:42] The Securities and Exchange Commission wants to help you, what, not get spam email, Jay?
[00:10:46] Not get phished?
[00:10:48] Is that a word, phished?
[00:10:49] Yeah, it's spelled with a P-H.
[00:10:51] Yeah.
[00:10:52] Anyway, the SEC, what do they have?
[00:10:56] What's this thing called?
[00:10:58] URE method?
[00:11:00] Do you know about this?
[00:11:01] Oh, are you talking about the secure method from NetworkProviders?
[00:11:06] Yeah.
[00:11:07] Well, NetworkProviders is telling you about it.
[00:11:08] Yeah.
[00:11:09] So it's an acronym, SECURE, S-E-C-U-R-E method, to keep your employees so they can help identify phishing emails.
[00:11:16] Yeah.
[00:11:17] So the S starts with the subject line.
[00:11:19] Oh, so it's not the SEC, folks.
[00:11:20] It's not the Securities and Exchange Commission.
[00:11:22] No, no, no, no.
[00:11:22] That's just because we're dealing with so many elections, I'm thinking it's the SEC.
[00:11:25] No, no, no.
[00:11:26] It's the SECURE method.
[00:11:28] Yeah, that's right.
[00:11:29] Because when you put S-E-C-U-R-E method, I always think it's the government, Jay.
[00:11:33] Yeah.
[00:11:34] Just like if you started out FBI, right?
[00:11:36] Oh, we're not even talking about government at all.
[00:11:38] We're talking about NetworkProvidersInc.com wants to tell you about the SECURE method.
[00:11:41] Yeah.
[00:11:42] How to deal with phishing, how to prevent it, how to stop it, how to catch it.
[00:11:45] Exactly.
[00:11:46] Exactly.
[00:11:46] Kind of a mnemonic to remember how to keep in mind so that you don't fall prey to these
[00:11:54] phishing emails that come out.
[00:11:56] And S starts with the subject line.
[00:11:57] So this acronym then turns into what you do, right?
[00:11:59] That's right.
[00:12:01] And it ends up being the S-E-C-U-R-E is start with the subject line.
[00:12:06] We'll go through these one at a time, but I'm going to go over them just kind of a high-level
[00:12:11] view so you can understand it.
[00:12:12] E is examine the email address.
[00:12:14] C is consider the greeting.
[00:12:15] U is unpack the message.
[00:12:17] R is review for errors.
[00:12:18] And E is evaluate links and attachments.
[00:12:21] That's where they get secure from.
[00:12:22] And it's kind of a way to put these, maybe put them on your monitor or put them somewhere
[00:12:27] where you can review.
[00:12:28] If something seems a little fishy, these are the kind of steps that you can use to evaluate
[00:12:33] that and weigh it against and see what you think.
[00:12:36] And that's ph fishy, by the way.
[00:12:38] And just so you know, this secure term can be used for training.
[00:12:41] As you train employees too, you can help them think about it through these different examples
[00:12:44] or these different acronyms.
[00:12:46] So start with the subject line, Jay.
[00:12:47] You look at the subject line and?
[00:12:48] And see if it's odd.
[00:12:49] Like sometimes you'll see a lot of forwards or you'll see review immediately or things
[00:12:54] that try to push you into immediate action.
[00:12:57] You know, your bank account's been hacked or your shipment is held up in customs or whatever
[00:13:02] it is.
[00:13:03] Look at the subject line and see if it's kind of odd.
[00:13:05] Then the next is E, examine the email address.
[00:13:07] Yeah.
[00:13:08] So if you're thinking my shipment's held up in customs, what shipment?
[00:13:12] Yeah.
[00:13:12] But you know what?
[00:13:13] Then you're going, okay.
[00:13:14] What really nails people is the person who happens to coincidentally have something that
[00:13:19] they're expecting to come through customs and they're like, oh crap, I got it.
[00:13:22] What is this?
[00:13:23] You know, it applies to them.
[00:13:23] So then what you need to do is laser-like focus though.
[00:13:26] Even if you've got something coming through shippings and customs, you say, okay, this is
[00:13:29] possibly an email for me.
[00:13:31] Now let's vet the rest of secure to determine if it really is.
[00:13:35] Yeah.
[00:13:35] So then next is examine the email address.
[00:13:37] Do you recognize the person?
[00:13:38] Is the email unusual?
[00:13:39] Make sure you're not just looking at the reply to or that the displayed email address.
[00:13:44] Yeah.
[00:13:45] The email address is Sam Bushman at techwatchradio.ripmeoff.com.
[00:13:51] Yeah.
[00:13:52] Exactly.
[00:13:52] That's probably not the right one there.
[00:13:54] Yeah.
[00:13:54] I've seen ones like this from the USPS and it'll have USPS in the beginning of the address,
[00:13:59] but then there's other things after that.
[00:14:02] And you can tell that the domain is fake when you examine it carefully.
[00:14:05] So examine the email address.
[00:14:06] Make sure that you know them.
[00:14:07] Is their spell different?
[00:14:08] Is it unknown?
[00:14:10] Next is see, consider the greeting.
[00:14:12] And is the salutation unique or generic?
[00:14:14] Is it like, hello, ma'am?
[00:14:16] Or is it, you know, addressing you by name?
[00:14:19] You know, just because it addresses you by your first name, that's not a given, but it
[00:14:23] can be a clue if the greeting, like if it says, hello, ma'am, and it's coming to you,
[00:14:27] Sam Bushman, you might go, okay, something a little off here.
[00:14:31] I'll give you an example.
[00:14:31] There's a friend of mine named Kurt Crosby, and he always says to people, greetings and
[00:14:36] salutations.
[00:14:37] Right.
[00:14:37] And then he says, howdy, howdy, howdy.
[00:14:39] If I saw that and it said, Kurt, I'd think it's very likely.
[00:14:41] If I saw that from anybody else, anybody else, by the way, I'd say it's not likely.
[00:14:46] Exactly.
[00:14:47] That's exactly right.
[00:14:48] So you want to consider the salutation, see how it's opening up and review that.
[00:14:53] The next is you is unpack the message.
[00:14:55] Is there extreme urgency to get you to click a link or download an attachment or act on some kind
[00:15:00] of too good to be true offer?
[00:15:02] Anything that you, which is unpack the message, also you can think of urgency for that.
[00:15:08] Is there something that's trying to push your buttons and get you to act maybe before you
[00:15:13] think?
[00:15:14] That's kind of a red flag right there.
[00:15:15] And I always wonder, is there, think about motive for a second.
[00:15:20] What would be the motive for somebody to email me?
[00:15:22] Do they want money from me?
[00:15:24] Do they want me to take action quickly?
[00:15:26] Is it something that would be self-serving or beneficial to them?
[00:15:30] If it is, I want to think twice.
[00:15:32] If it's something that's just informative or something that relates to what I'm doing or
[00:15:35] it furthers what I'm doing in a meaningful way, then that's different.
[00:15:38] But you always want to think about it that way.
[00:15:40] Think about it.
[00:15:40] Who benefits?
[00:15:42] Yeah.
[00:15:42] Cui bono is the term that, you know, the founding fathers used to use for this.
[00:15:45] The question is who benefits?
[00:15:47] And you can see in the subject message, if it's like, do this for me.
[00:15:50] Can you go do this for me?
[00:15:51] Can I have a favor?
[00:15:52] Can I, will you do this?
[00:15:53] Or if it has to do with money or if it has to do with urgency or if it has to do with anything that clearly benefits whoever's emailing you, you've got to say, do I want to be part of that?
[00:16:03] Exactly.
[00:16:05] Next up is R, insecure.
[00:16:07] Review for errors.
[00:16:08] Are there grammatical mistakes or odd misspellings?
[00:16:10] Now, unfortunately, AI is making this better because people can use AI and it spells out things perfectly.
[00:16:16] It can write a really good convincing scam letter for you.
[00:16:19] But in the past, you know, the broken English and that maybe English is not your first language to show through oftentimes in some of these emails.
[00:16:27] And so it would be kind of a giveaway or at least a clue that this isn't necessarily the same.
[00:16:31] But also, like you were saying, if it comes from somebody you know, is this the phraseology?
[00:16:36] If this is coming from your boss saying, hey, we need to transfer this stuff in here, but it doesn't sound like him and it's kind of out of character.
[00:16:42] It probably is.
[00:16:43] There's probably a reason for that.
[00:16:44] Let me give you a simple example to make the point.
[00:16:46] If it said, hey, Sam, this is Steve, your boss.
[00:16:50] I need you to do this for me or whatever.
[00:16:52] I might know the language.
[00:16:53] But if it said, hey, Samuel.
[00:16:56] Yeah.
[00:16:56] My real name is Samuel.
[00:16:57] It's not Sam.
[00:16:58] OK.
[00:16:59] However, I never use Samuel unless it's like a legal document.
[00:17:02] OK.
[00:17:02] OK.
[00:17:03] So if it said Samuel, I know that that person does not know me.
[00:17:06] Guaranteed.
[00:17:06] Right.
[00:17:07] So the little nuances like that are when we say unpack a message and look at some of the the review for errors and grammatical mistakes.
[00:17:15] If they spell your name wrong or they spell your company name wrong or they spell a common.
[00:17:19] Like if we live in a city and they spell the city wrong or whatever.
[00:17:22] These nuances can be a dead giveaway that, hey, they called me Samuel and they spelled this wrong.
[00:17:27] I don't think this.
[00:17:28] These people know.
[00:17:29] Yep.
[00:17:30] Think about it that way.
[00:17:31] That's right.
[00:17:32] E is for evaluate links and attachments.
[00:17:35] And almost never should you open attachments or the links directly from there.
[00:17:39] I mean, for example, you get a message from PayPal that says there's a problem with your account.
[00:17:42] Open a new browser.
[00:17:44] Navigate to PayPal.com and check.
[00:17:46] Or even better, use your Bitwarden or whatever password manager you're using to launch that website so you know it's secure.
[00:17:54] And then when it plugs in the credentials, you know you're at the right place.
[00:17:57] Right.
[00:17:57] You're not being spoofed or something.
[00:17:59] But evaluate the links and attachments.
[00:18:01] Hover over links before you click on them because sometimes the link can say one thing.
[00:18:05] It could say you're going to eBay.com, but if you hover over it, you may be going to ePay.com or somewhere else.
[00:18:11] So look for that stuff.
[00:18:13] Yeah.
[00:18:13] And if Jay's involved, it might be like EJ.com.
[00:18:15] You know?
[00:18:15] It could be.
[00:18:16] That's right.
[00:18:17] I don't have that domain.
[00:18:17] You've got to look out for that kind of stuff.
[00:18:19] But the point is what you want to do is you want to think through it and say to yourself this.
[00:18:22] Hey, do I want to take the road they're giving me to get there?
[00:18:25] Right.
[00:18:26] Or do I want to take the road that I know gets me to a stable place?
[00:18:30] Think about it that way.
[00:18:31] If I'm going to PayPal, I already have a bookmark to PayPal or I already know how to get to PayPal to log in to see my account.
[00:18:37] I don't need to click on the link and take the road they want me to go to get there.
[00:18:39] That's right.
[00:18:40] Never take their road is the point.
[00:18:42] Yep.
[00:18:42] And with attachments, don't open or download attachments.
[00:18:45] If you're using, for example, if you use Gmail and you're using it across the web, you're not running Outlook or something natively on your system where it's already really downloaded the attachment.
[00:18:54] It's often a lot safer.
[00:18:55] Let's say you get a PDF to preview that PDF in the Gmail browser with just an image versus downloading it and executing and opening that with the interpreter of Adobe.
[00:19:07] So if you're not sure or whatever, you know, that's kind of one step.
[00:19:10] You can always download it, scan it.
[00:19:12] You can run it through VirusTotal is a good one.
[00:19:14] And there's a lot of different things that you can do, but just be super cautious.
[00:19:18] And if you're ever in doubt, just forward it to your IT guy.
[00:19:20] Say, hey, is this look cool?
[00:19:22] Because this doesn't seem right to me.
[00:19:24] And they'll help you out.
[00:19:24] One of the things that I always recommend doing too is this.
[00:19:26] Are you expecting a link from somebody or expecting an attachment from somebody?
[00:19:31] Right.
[00:19:32] Because if you're expecting a link from Sam or an attachment from Sam because I talked to you two hours ago and everything else in the SECURE acronym looks fine, then you're probably fine.
[00:19:42] I'm not saying you've got to be so crazy you can't function.
[00:19:44] But if you're not expecting an attachment from me, why would you open one?
[00:19:48] Yeah.
[00:19:48] And if you kind of think, man, is Sam sending me an attachment?
[00:19:52] You need to pick up the phone or jump on like an instant messenger or a chat or something and say, hey, Sam, did you send me an attachment?
[00:19:59] Especially if he never does.
[00:20:00] Right.
[00:20:00] It's out of the blue.
[00:20:01] Right.
[00:20:02] Right.
[00:20:03] Yeah.
[00:20:03] So you've got to put all those parameters together.
[00:20:06] And it just takes – I believe humans can be the biggest problem for security, Jay, and they can also be the greatest protection.
[00:20:11] If you use the SECURE acronym, you become the greatest protection very quickly.
[00:20:15] Yep.
[00:20:15] And this SECURE method, this comes from network providers, Jay Hill.
[00:20:18] They have a newsletter that comes out.
[00:20:21] This was just one of them that we thought we'd touch on.
[00:20:23] And tell them how to get the newsletter if they want to sign up, Sam.
[00:20:25] You can go to networkprovidersinc.com or npitechguys.com.
[00:20:29] And you just simply sign up, give your email address, and they'll start firing these tips out to you.
[00:20:33] And there's a ton of them.
[00:20:33] We get them all the time.
[00:20:35] We cover a lot of them here because we believe that they kind of relate to you and your life.
[00:20:38] And we hope that they're helpful.
[00:20:40] We don't want to be just geeks in tech to where it's like boring.
[00:20:43] But at the same time, if people can learn this simple SECURE acronym and kind of think through it, when you get an email, just look at it and just say, hey, I want to use the SECURE method on this sucker.
[00:20:55] A, is the subject line cool?
[00:20:58] Is the email address cool?
[00:21:01] Is the greeting normal?
[00:21:03] In that message, is there weird stuff in it?
[00:21:05] Is it, you know, you want to look to that review for errors, evaluate links and attachments?
[00:21:10] If I kind of go through that really quick in my mind after a while and I practice it, pretty soon it's kind of easy to go, all right, look, subject, body, email address, just the different components of a message.
[00:21:19] Is it all looking good?
[00:21:20] Are there attachments?
[00:21:21] Are there links?
[00:21:22] Look at the components of a message and just walk through in that SECURE mode and go.
[00:21:26] And once you get good at it, Jay, it doesn't even take very long.
[00:21:28] That's right.
[00:21:29] You'll learn this stuff as you get better and you do more email.
[00:21:33] And especially when you see the ones and you haven't pointed out, like, yeah, this is a scam.
[00:21:36] Here's why.
[00:21:37] Here's some of the red flags that tip you off to this.
[00:21:40] The more experience you get with that, the better you'll be.
[00:21:42] But it's hard for new users and people that just aren't used to it.
[00:21:46] I mean, these guys are purposely out trying to trick you.
[00:21:49] And so the fact that they actually do trick some people is not surprising.
[00:21:53] It's their goal.
[00:21:55] Absolutely.
[00:21:55] And the thing is, they're getting better at it.
[00:21:57] And as you pointed out with AIJ, they're only going to get even better.
[00:22:01] Because even the people that don't know English very well now can use AI.
[00:22:03] Pop that in there and say, hey, create me a scam letter with this and this and this.
[00:22:07] And pretty soon it'll write a spam letter probably better than I can write one.
[00:22:10] Oh, yeah.
[00:22:11] And that is a valid concern because with AI, especially if you can put into the training of the AI what spam filters are looking for and what things trigger those spam filters,
[00:22:23] it knows how to write all around it.
[00:22:25] And so we can get past a lot of that stuff and still seem very legitimate.
[00:22:29] I mean, for example, the AI learns the secure method, and it's a nefarious AI.
[00:22:34] It will know exactly what not to do, how to make it more convincing, how to make the subject line look like it applies,
[00:22:42] how to start with the proper greeting, to not have spelling errors.
[00:22:49] AI can be weaponized just like anything.
[00:22:51] And so you've got to be careful out there because you're representing your company.
[00:22:55] All right.
[00:22:55] For a company that I work for now, I'm writing an email, Jay, and I'm putting in this.
[00:23:01] This would be great for our next newsletter.
[00:23:08] Right?
[00:23:09] And then I'm basically putting this thing, and it's this secure thing we just taught you guys all.
[00:23:15] And NetworkProvidersInc.com is where you can sign up and get these,
[00:23:18] and I'm just telling you they're great for people to memorize that acronym and learn to use it.
[00:23:23] I'm telling you right now with a little bit of practice, it will not take you very long.
[00:23:26] And I'm telling you right now, the effort is minimal.
[00:23:30] The practice is great.
[00:23:32] The payback, though, of protection is huge, Jay.
[00:23:36] I mean, you can have an employee that's caught up on this and uses this method and stop thousands of dollars of crises in an instant with this knowledge.
[00:23:44] I mean, this is really important knowledge.
[00:23:47] Absolutely.
[00:23:48] This is even something that you might be able to condense this down.
[00:23:51] It's only like a paragraph or so, and maybe put it on a sticky note or something and put it on people's monitors or something,
[00:23:58] just to kind of remind them from here time to time that this is something to check and look at it because you do not want to get scammed.
[00:24:05] You don't want to be the one that lets somebody get a beachhead into your network.
[00:24:10] And even if you're not a super IT person, you can take this and you can train your company on it.
[00:24:15] All you got to do is kind of follow the acronym and then say, hey, does anybody, you know, we need to use the secure method.
[00:24:21] Does anybody, you know, know of a subject where you just go, that's a problem?
[00:24:27] Or how about a sender from message, you know, and you can kind of walk through this with people.
[00:24:31] It's just brilliant.
[00:24:32] Anyway, this is all brought to you by NetworkProvidersInc.com.
[00:24:36] NPITechGuys.com.
[00:24:37] We keep an eye on tech so you don't have to.
[00:24:40] For Jay Harrison and Sam Bushman, thanks so much.
[00:24:42] And hey, make it a great tech day, will you?
[00:24:45] Thanks.