this is a worldwide for i'm schooling with my mom so let's go
so my son has been talking about roblox and what has been going on on this platform for the last
couple of weeks i mean he doesn't he's not into gaming uh the roblox thing but in the
overall gaming community this was a huge topic and this is why i'm so happy to have you here
Tom Arnold. You're a cybersecurity expert. And you had an incident when your grandson was
approached on Roblox by a creep. And you made the best of it. You wrote a book about cybersecurity
to teach kids about what is going on out there. Thank you so much for being on my show.
You're very welcome. Thank you for having me today. And hopefully the message gets out to a
few of the parents and others. That would be good. That would be a win.
That would be really good because I think it's getting out of hand.
I'm not really up to date what is happening right now.
But the last thing I heard about Roblox is being sued by not only one party,
but there are a lot of people now going against that platform.
And I think for good reasons.
Maybe we can deep dive into that a little bit later.
First of all, I really want to know more about your background.
Because you have an impressive background, it's hard for me to summarize it.
So maybe you want to tell me a little bit about what you've been doing all your life.
Well, you know, I started my career years ago as a policeman, you know, for 12 years,
which was wonderful and got very much into computers and technology and the like.
I have founded four companies in the past.
Some of them were some of the very first companies involved with payment processing online.
and it's where my law enforcement background suddenly came back at me because people were
committing fraud online by stealing credit cards and using those credit cards to buy digital
products and so having to come up with methods to try to identify are you really who you claim to be
and do you actually have a right to do what you're trying to do was really the beginning of things
And during that period of time, I think we put seven people in jail for committing fraud online in a variety of ways.
And that was really the beginning of cybercrime.
I then founded a security company and was a head of forensic investigations.
So I was doing for many years, probably close to 20, digital forensic investigations ranging from criminal forensics to large hacks of computer systems and other similar sort of cases that came out.
Nice.
And then you brought up the incident with my grandson.
Yeah.
which really sort of started things.
I had for years been involved in creative writing and other areas
that were involving authorship and the like.
And this would be now about two and a half years ago.
He was seven years old.
And his family, you have to realize,
both the parents are very adept at cybersecurity.
The dad actually is the director of cybersecurity for one of the large Washington firms, as a matter of fact.
So they knew that they had to introduce their kids to technology, and he was playing on his iPad.
All the parental controls were activated, everything that could be activated.
And the one thing that they did, which I think is very significant for parents to understand,
is they created a safe harbor for anything that was cybersecurity related. So no matter how much
trouble the kids might be in, you know, they didn't clean up, they broke stuff, they, you know,
you know, raided the pantry for all the sweets, whatever, okay, no matter what level of trouble
they were in, if there was a cybersecurity issue, the temperature immediately dropped
on everything and they're very good at it and the kids know that they can bring things to their
parents when things happen. So he was playing the game Roblox and in you know doing whatever it was
he was doing and an avatar controlled by another player approached him and held up a sign
held up a sign that said, what's your name and where do you live? And, you know, he immediately
went, wow, this isn't right. And so he went directly to his mom and reported it immediately
to the mom. For me, I started thinking, wait a minute, I've been teaching now at the University
of Nevada, Las Vegas and at California State Universities in the past, the subjects of
cybersecurity and digital evidence and digital forensics. And I would always speak about cyber
hygiene, cyber safety, because a lot of times I had freshmen in the class, I had, you know,
they're young kids, they're doing things on their phones and all that sort of stuff.
Excuse me. And I felt like I was speaking to a wall, no matter what I said, okay, no matter what
stories I told. And the reality is, I think kids learn in different ways. And that's why
wildlife, you know, unschooling is really sort of interesting. It's being out in the wildlife.
It's learning things in the wildlife. It's interacting with the wildlife. Those are how
they're actually learning. And that sort of theme I took to heart. And I said, that's what caused
me to write the first novel. The second one's about to be released. And so I wrote the first
novel, and it's about two 14-year-olds who basically take on cyberterrorism. And all of
the cases that are described in the book are actually all real. They've been fictionalized.
Okay. So the techniques that they use and everything else they do is all very, very real.
So I thought it was a way to sort of sensitize kids to the topic of cybersecurity and how bad
things can be. The next book takes on two very dark topics and I'm trying to do it in a lighthearted
way so that kids can read it. It deals with sextortion and human trafficking, which is really
the super evil side of things when, you know, creeps start grooming kids on platforms like
Roblox is a good example. So that is a very long answer to your very straightforward question,
Who the heck are you?
No, I love it.
I really love it.
Yes.
So I think as a parent, my parents always told me about stranger danger.
And there was a time in Germany, I remember that kids were stolen from their homes because
they were like crazy people ringing on your doorbell.
And if a kid would open, they would grab the kid and run away.
So I was for a couple of years, I wasn't allowed to open the door.
And I didn't understand it back then.
But as I had my son, I was like, hold on, hold on.
This was already topic when I was a little kid.
And it didn't change.
It got worse and worse and worse because now we have stranger danger offline and online.
And I mean, offline, we know the drill, I would say.
But online, I think a lot of parents are in the void because they don't want to take away the, I don't know, the fun of gaming and being online and experiencing this world.
But at the same time, you cannot leave them alone.
It's like leaving them in the mall at, I don't know, three o'clock when everyone is in the mall and just let things happen.
so when I was when I'm sorry to talk over you but when I was a kid um my mom would drop me off at the
park uh you know and say look I'm going shopping you stay here when the street lights come on
you come home that's the way it was okay that's the way it was would any parent do that today
And so today, parents go into a restaurant with their kids.
The teen daughter is fighting with the younger brother, and they're in a restaurant, and all the parents want is to have a nice, quiet meal.
So they pass out the iPad to the kid and say, play your iPad and shut up.
And they tell the teen daughter, just do things on your phone.
okay and the reality is they're actually dropping the kids off at that park right now and letting
them go uh sort of shot is is really what's happening when they do that and i see that
all the time you know and it's and i even see cases where oh wait my ipad's not logged on mom
mom will log it onto the wireless network in the restaurant and pass it back to the kid
you know and i'm just like ah hold on a second here you know what's going on you know so yeah
i i do think you know i had one parent come to me and say that you know she felt it was a lot
easier to talk to her kids about sex than it was to talk to them about cyber security because she
was scared she was scared they knew more than she did and she would look stupid yeah really what it
life and you know which is just one of those themes and you know the so yeah i think parents
have to largely get over that and they've got to stay close to their kids when they're online
and gaming and everything else so true yeah we have a strict rule here at home that is not i mean
I basically live the way so I don't have to talk about too many creepy, strange things,
because I don't really want to take the fun away of living because it's already hard for kids.
I mean, I had a childhood where I could just go out and do things that's impossible for my son.
I always have to be with him. I have to drop him off. And there is no independency at the moment
for him in these kind of things. So how we do it online, he's always with me in the room when he's
online and doing things. And we have this open door policy where we really, we talk about everything
that he consumes online. I want to see it. And I'm not like behind his back, like, oh, what are you
doing? Can I have a look? But it's more or less like sharing, look at what I'm doing online. And
And this is how I creep into what he is doing online.
So it's never about I control him, but we share things.
So when I'm open and I tell him, look, this is how I keep my computer safe.
This is why I don't answer this email, why I put this into the spam folder and all these things.
It is a little bit harder because I have no clue about gaming whatsoever, especially the gaming of today.
I mean, in my childhood, you had Sims.
It was offline.
You downloaded it for 1,700 hours, and that was it.
And now everything is online.
It has no end.
There's no limit.
Right.
So how do we do it without taking the fun away?
I think one of the major items, we have to go back in time a little bit on this.
But in 1993, a gentleman named Peter Steiner did a cartoon in The New Yorker that has stuck with us forever.
and that is it's a cartoon that shows a dog sitting at a computer and it says on the internet
nobody knows you're a dog yes and that is the absolute reality of things okay if you look at
roblox for instance one of the biggest defects i think with the tool is that there's no age
verification as to who you are and what you are so any creepy person can sit there and claim to
be a nine-year-old and behave like a nine-year-old online to try to convince others that they're okay,
if you would. And there's nothing that stops them from doing that at all. Okay. So there's,
you know, some very significant pitfalls and some very significant things that I think parents need
to sort of understand.
But that theme that on the internet,
nobody knows you a dog really has to stick with us Because you only know what someone willing to tell you is really all you know about them And this goes back to the teenager the teenager on the phone
as a good example. My students as an example. The University of California had a big thing about
doing group projects and sort of doing them online and would create sort of chat environments
for the students to use, which was, okay, fine.
So they're in this chat room,
they're working on a project together.
But the reality is you're not too certain,
even with them in those situations
as to who's actually online with you.
Is it truly your friends or is it someone else
because someone took someone's account
and is just masquerading as them as a good example,
which brings up sort of two topics
that I think parents need to understand.
There's a distinction between friends online and online friends.
They're two completely different things.
Okay.
Friends online is like the group of students who are in a chat room together.
They're friends.
You know them outside the network pretty much.
Okay.
Now things can go sideways there too.
That's why we have cyber bullying, harassment, and those sorts of things happen because that best friend for life suddenly turns into worst enemy for life in there as well.
But that's friends online.
And it's a limited group who's in the chat room, you know, having the conversation.
It's not a general posting sort of situation.
But you still have to be cautious as to what you talk about when you're in there.
So it's one of the biggest things that sort of teens have to begin to understand.
And teens largely will make mistakes and they'll learn from their mistakes.
They'll out there, you know, oh, wow, what's this cute three-leaf green plant in the wildlife area?
Oh, my God, it's poison oak and I've got crap all over my body now, you know.
So, you know, they learn.
Avoid that little three-leaf plant.
That's a good example.
Uh, now the subject of online friends is when the youngins happen to be on that game and there's other people in the game who they believe to be their friends.
It could be a tournament area and they're in a tournament area and they're all working on the same objective, but you don't actually know who these people are that you're with.
Now it really is that stranger danger problem that has to come up.
So the reality is it's really a distinction.
So we always talk about keeping your personal information private.
What exactly is personal information?
What is that?
Okay.
All right.
Hey, kid, I need to know your name and your address.
Is that personal information?
Hmm.
Yeah, maybe.
Okay.
And anything else that is asked.
So if it's outside the scope of the game itself for the young kids,
no answer should be given. Because what we do in forensics, when we're hunting for a hacker,
as a good example, we do a lot of work with open source intelligence, which is opening up and
taking little tiny tidbits of information to begin to build a profile of someone. Now, in our case,
we're profiling someone who's done something very evil. But that's basically the same tradecraft
that's actually used by a creep inside of a game.
They will amass information to make themselves more believable
with regards to your, their target situation is what they'll do.
So the more things you give them, the more they will take and learn.
It's sort of a simple technique that says,
I'll ask you something really simple, like what's the weather where you're at?
Now, is that private personal information?
Does it have anything to do with the game Roblox?
No.
But if you give them an answer, you've given them something,
which means to them that you're open to communicating.
Yeah.
And now I'll ask you something more.
What's your favorite food?
What's the name of your cat?
Especially a black cat.
I just don't happen to see it.
So you follow me.
And then they get to giving them more and more information.
Now, for the teen, it really is a matter of you may be in a room with your friends online,
but still be very careful what you post, especially if emotion is involved.
If you're upset that you're at that family dinner on vacation,
you really want to be doing something else, okay?
Your kid brother is just driving you nuts, okay?
All of those things.
All right. Be careful what you post online. It stays there forever. I will give you an example.
And it's a pretty bad example in a case. I work with people now in the studio that, you know,
it's a large group. It's worldwide that we work with. And I work with a lady out of Latin America.
And she related a story to me where she wanted to go to the beach with her friends,
really, really wanted to go to the beach with her friends. And her parents said,
no can't go nope nope nope so she went to a room she was very upset she dressed into her bikini
she started taking selfies of her in her bikini saying i'm having fun here like i'm at the beach
with all of you guys and within a matter of a few weeks the picture came back and the bikini had been
removed oh god yep you starting to feel this now she went to my mom okay which was the right thing
to do absolutely the right thing to do and everything got sort of settled down you know
if you would but you can imagine with artificial intelligence now what they're capable of actually
doing now they can use that to try to drive extortion they can use or extortion of any kind
it can be financial extortion it can be any type so that's just another little tidbit uh if you would
on the subject itself.
True. I really like that
because one of my questions was
related to this. What do we do with deepfakes
and AI? Because at the beginning when
my son started to play Minecraft,
he was like, oh, there's another 10-year-old
boy, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, dude,
let's not be so sure about it.
Maybe it's an 80-year-old or I
don't know what. So his
hack was always to listen to the voices.
And I was like,
he's quite smart, but I don't know. We can do
anything with deepfake and AI nowadays. So don't be too sure about that. I don't know. So how can
kids verify or what is one way to not fall into stupid traps? Because I think kids are quite smart
and they want to make friends online and they want to have this kind of lifestyle where they can
experience this world or this part of our world as well. And I have a question from one of my
listeners. And he was like asking, how can a secure environment for kids look like? Is that even
possible? Well, it's sort of two separate questions here. Let me tackle the first. Where deepfakes
are concerned, whether they're voice or they're visual, either one, it's perfectly acceptable
to modulate a voice and make it sound and make my deep, dark, gravelly voice sound like a 10-year-old.
That is, we have the technology to do that and it's not that difficult per se. To mimic someone's
voice specifically, it's not that difficult is the point. And when you're dealing with visual
deep fakes, that is someone else's picture, picture of mom and mom saying things or mom's
giving instructions, whatever. It's extremely hard to detect. And one has to have almost the
adult sense. And it's very hard even for teens. The brain is still developing. It's going to
triple in mass during those teen years. It's still developing. So trying to work out a mechanism that
you can begin to detect a deep fake is actually pretty difficult for them. The main thing I would
tell parents in this area is understanding and drawing the lines as to where if lines are crossed.
So if the communications goes outside the scope of the game in some way, shape or form, what's the
weather? Okay. Anything like that, you know, caution, the red flags need to be up. Okay.
They're beginning to cross the line. When you get something that looks true, but not true. Okay.
It could be a picture of themselves in a situation like the girl in the bikini.
That was a good example.
All right.
A line's been crossed.
No matter what, all right, we need to have the kids come to the recognition they can't solve this themselves.
Yeah.
They have to get help.
All right.
Whether that help is a school official who's actually willing to do something, okay, or if that help is a parent.
and frequently this is going to evolve into something involving the police largely.
This is not true. This is what's happening. This is where it's coming from.
Now, law enforcement is sensitive to this. They may not have the tools, depending on the size of
city that someone's living in. I happen to live in Las Vegas, and Las Vegas Metro is very well
tool to handle these situations. But if you get out into one of the northern counties of Nevada,
it's a small department and it's going to be the state that is going to be working on something
like this. And it does take time to get things escalated to the state. Hopefully there's enough
sensitivity in those departments to actually begin to move things. But the reality is you have to get
help is the key thing. Second question. Well, a secure space. You could download arcade games and
just not let them online. That's a secure space. Okay. Now we're back to another silly story of
mine, which was another parent right after the book came out that was in Dallas, Texas.
And she says, Hey, you know, what's really strange. And I got a story to tell you. She said,
my husband and I do not allow the kids to have any technology.
We just isolate them.
Okay.
No cell phones,
no watches,
no Apple TVs,
no iPads,
no laptops,
even nothing.
I came to find out my 10 year old has a Facebook page.
Now,
how did that happen?
Okay.
Well,
got with a friend down the street,
use that friend's device,
made himself,
you know,
learned how to make a page and he made himself a page using the French phone.
And so you're back to why I love the name of this podcast,
wildlife.
Okay,
here you go.
All right.
And so that doesn't work.
Okay.
So there one parents,
there's gotta be a reality that you can't totally isolate the kids.
The only secure,
safe space for the kids to play in largely is you download an arcade game.
There is no network connection and they're just playing.
They're happy playing the arcade game,
but that won't last.
That'll last until they're about 11 years old.
Latest later.
You know, and I got to tell you, you know, right now the median age for when kids get cell phone happens to be 11.
That's why I brought it up.
But that number is going down.
I mean, there's extremes in the minimum side that says, you know, I got a five-year-old with a cell phone.
Yeah.
Okay.
So here you go, basically.
And now it's a matter of staying close to them and helping them in that safe harbor.
It's a safe harbor.
No matter how emotional a situation might get in something, they pushed a button that they really shouldn't have.
They answered a question to somebody online they really shouldn't have.
You know, no matter how emotional it gets, they took a picture of themselves in a bikini on a bed.
Okay.
No matter how emotional it gets.
All right.
You got to sort of bring it down.
You got to be below the problem to solve it is the point.
so it's gonna happen you're not gonna keep them offline very long no it's impossible you're not
gonna keep them in the secure sandbox yeah all the time yeah impossible i tried it to be honest i
tried it for the longest time um but my mom who was so strict with me gave my i think he was seven
at that time my seven-year-old a cell phone and i was like okay what am i gonna do i could take it
away from him that would be very mean so i was like okay now we have to deal with it it is what
it is But I think I don know I thought if he going to another friend place it the same thing He exposed to things I cannot control So why even try to control it Better talk about things be very open And for me the hard part is I tend to
maybe try to not believe how disgusting people are, really. And when we talked about Roblox the
last couple of weeks, I still try to not believe it because it's so disgusting. I mean, a lot of
parents, I think they don't know or they don't want to know what is out there because it's too
creepy even for us as adults. And I think that it's not only grooming, it's the scope is up to
suicide. I mean, there's so much to worry about. Maybe you have some experiences of what kids can
encounter out there. Your question was really straightforward. If I could talk about what sort
risks are actually out there for the kids.
And let me try to explain this.
The various types of cybercrime that occur today are radically different from the way
they were five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
You know, cybercrime as a category dates back to the 1990s specifically.
But now there's multiple typologies.
We all know about computer hacking.
We know about malware and automated attacks.
But there's a couple of others.
One is child sexual exploitation offenses.
One is pornography and image-based abuse, cyber bullying, harassment and stalking.
These are all different.
How they manifest themselves is all radically different.
But the other one that's really intriguing is extremism and cyber terrorism, which also infects kids.
It is one of the primary targets, which is the games.
The games themselves, the conversations themselves for extremist groups, whether they be far on the right or far on the left, it doesn't really matter.
It became actually very popular in the early 2000s when Al-Qaeda started recruiting like-minded people using games, online games.
So extremists will frequently begin to use techniques that are very similar to a sexual abuser who's beginning to groom the kids.
And they're using the games themselves to find like-minded individuals and to begin to develop them, which is really common right now.
There's numerous examples of these types of games that are out there.
And it's a whole variety of games.
It's not just Roblox.
It's a whole variety of games that are out there specifically.
And they may actually be targeting the younger kids as well as the teams themselves
to find those like-minded individuals right in through the college kids.
It can be a problem on the college campuses as well.
So that's one I think a lot of parents, and I'm waving a pin around.
I shouldn't be doing that.
That's something that a lot of parents themselves may not fully understand.
They've heard in the media about cyberbullying, and the parents need to sort of understand what these are, how they manifest themselves.
And when you suddenly have an emotional change in the kid, maybe it's time to begin to investigate.
Don't give up is my point.
All right.
Also, don't become involved.
One of the more famous bullying cases is where the mom took over the daughter's phone, started bullying the other girl, and she committed suicide.
Oh, God.
You follow me?
Okay.
And that's where friends online can become danger, too.
Yes, true.
Okay.
And harassment is another one.
Cyber stalking, somebody following and using technology to try to follow someone or making them believe that they're being followed is actually a pretty big one as well.
All of these require help.
They require someone to come forward and say, look, this is happening.
Okay.
It can't be solved by yourself.
Now, the child sexual exploitation situation, there's, you know, the techniques.
And now we're typically into that same age group that is pretty much, you know, nine and up sort of thing.
But it's even younger, which is really the sad part.
And now the statement is, look, if someone's asking you questions outside the scope of the game, don't answer.
Go tell mom.
Go to that safe space.
Go tell mom.
Image-based abuse.
Well, with AI and deep fakes, let's exactly see where this takes us.
We're certainly seeing it with regards to phishing attacks to break into places and to try to get people to do things that they shouldn't do.
And, you know, as I've always said in cybersecurity for places, you know, the state of Nevada has got great cybersecurity tools, techniques and everything else.
But cybersecurity professionals have to be correct 100 percent of the time.
100 percent of the time, they've got to be totally accurate.
But bad guys, if they get 1% that takes the bait, they win.
And you can't have them do that.
And it's going to happen.
So being prepared to respond to things is really what the companies have to do.
But that's not totally what we're talking about here.
So anyway, that sort of gives you an example maybe of how cybercrimes evolve.
And it is all very different.
So it is still largely preying on the young adults to try to get things to happen.
True. And so disgusting.
How can parents help their kids develop this bulletproof mindset of not giving in into this temptation of forming relationships online where they shouldn't and really seeing all the red flags?
I think a lot of kids might be even, I mean, I, yeah, we have been part of a, let's say, free school for a couple of years.
And what I learned is that most of the kids, because the parents have no clue what online life is all about,
they are a little bit ashamed of showing their parents what is going on online.
So I don't know, how can we, maybe this is, these are already two questions,
But how can parents support their kids being bulletproof and at the same time relieve kids from this shame, guilt thing?
Because it has nothing to do with the kid.
We know that.
But I know that a lot of kids are super ashamed to tell their parents what is happening online.
Yeah, my opinion here is, number one, having that safe harbor and having that safe zone where you don't need to be ashamed.
You bring it to me and the parents.
It's really hard on the parents, but you have to maintain that calm to make this work.
That trust has to be there.
Okay. And at that point, the kids should not feel ashamed to bring things up specifically. There's things in Roblox that are just astounding. Okay. As it stands. So don't be shocked and try to explain, you know, and work with the kids on this.
your goal as the parent is to try to draw that line of ethics.
It's really what you're trying to do,
saying, hey, it's really good you brought this to me.
You do know that there are some people
who have lower sets of standards, lower sets of morals,
and they could be playing games to create tricks against you.
It's really good you brought this,
and you should know that this is not a good behavior to actually deal with,
that it leads to other problems.
And then you can go into describing some of the other problems.
As far as making the kids bulletproof,
you've gone right into the corporate cybersecurity thing that says,
oh, by the way, 100% of the time you've got to be perfect.
100% of the time.
You can never not be perfect.
okay and you know i i i really kind of fear for those people who have cyber security jobs and sort
of mid-sized companies because a lot of corporate execs don't understand this okay then it only
takes one little incident to make it bad okay so number one is you've got the safe harbor
you got the trust as a parent you can't make the kids bulletproof bad things are going to happen
be ready to deal with it.
Disgusting.
I hate to say it.
Okay.
It may not even be caused by them.
They could be with their friends
and they're all, you know,
having fun together with their iPads or something
and one of the other people in the room
comes across something that they think is funny
and shows it to everybody else.
Oh, yes.
It could be that.
Okay.
They can't be 100% bulletproof.
But they do need to realize there's a line.
And it's really kind of hard to teach that line between good and bad.
It can be really problematic.
It can be really problematic for parents themselves who can't tell where that line is.
Oh, yes.
I can tell.
Then it's even worse.
okay so then it turns into like i said kind of have a plan for what you're going to talk to the
kids about if they bring you something and if they bring it into the safe harbor into the safe space
and react what are you going to do you know because it's gonna happen it has it's gonna
happen yeah i can relate to that one day my kid came back home and he was talking about naked
people doing things and he saw it online I was like where did you see that online and he was like
at a friend's place in school and they were great parents I don't understand how they could
let this happen but they put an iPad in between the kids and walked away so it happened I don't
blame anyone it is what it is but then I had to have a long talk about birds and bees and all
these things and flowers you know these things and he was way too young yeah he was way too young
and then the next thing was what really hurt me was when we talked about this roblox thing that
is going on right now the main question was why do people do this and i was like dude i have no clue
i'm not disgusting i have no clue why people go out and have fun doing it uh maybe they have
issues in their childhood or whatever rocks their boat is different from what rocks my boat and i
think the hardest part for my kid is to really understand by heart why the fuck are people doing
it and i cannot explain it that is hard it's just i'm just as clueless as he is like i don't know
that we have to deal with it it's out there i was asked by a member of mainstream press
if I could give her a profile of an online creep.
It could be everyone.
I mean, that was basically my answer.
You know, I think, you know, the FBI and the Department of Justice,
their profiling team, I'm sure is battling and struggling
with this sort of thing, you know.
But the reality is it could be any age group.
It could be any sort of moral backgrounds.
It could be anything.
And it is just, and I don't know.
And I gave a warning and I said, you really can't try to profile someone.
If you leave your kid in the park, is it the guy wearing the dark hoodie
or the very attractively well-coiffed woman who walks by?
who knows either one
yeah so true
you don know so true so that the thing that it just like oh boy
So fortunately, I won that discussion that you really can't rely on a profile of someone like this
because if we could profile them, well, then as a community, as a culture,
we could begin to deal with them.
Yes.
But we really can't.
We can't profile them.
They're beyond that.
So, yeah, that's a really difficult question.
Yeah, it is.
And I think even my grandma, I think she's 89 now,
even she is now realizing how many predators are out there.
And in every part of society, it's not always this creepy dude on the corner.
this might be the one who helps you if you're in this situation.
So even she is now slowly realizing that our whole society has this problem.
You will find it in every family, basically, and you have to deal with it.
And that was my thing about the cybercrimes.
The typologies have changed so much.
You just don't have a concept as to the bad guys
because they're all different that are in each of the categories.
And there's what?
There's 10 different categories now of crime that can occur online.
And it's just radically different.
And that's why I said that I brought up the topic of friends online and online friends.
Online friends, we automatically know we're in a dangerous situation right now.
We have no clue who these people are.
and what questions they might ask and what they might be doing.
Friends online is a whole other problem,
but then again, it's a potentially dangerous situation
if somebody else has taken over someone else's account
and is online masquerading as them.
True.
Who knows?
It could be a thrill seeker,
somebody who's just out there just to be annoying as a prankster.
It can go at that level all the way up to somebody
who's actually got a malicious intent.
True.
Either way, bad enough.
What do you think?
I mean, maybe you have a better inside view
on what is trending in cybercrime at the moment.
We see Roblox now.
It's everywhere, okay?
In my generation, it was ICQ.
And in between, there were millions of different things.
But maybe there's a next thing on the horizon already trending.
What could be next?
or is it everything?
You know, unfortunately now it's pervasive, is my point.
Roblox, I think there's some basic things they could do
to begin to fix the game.
The problem that Roblox has is largely they're measuring
their performance for their stock against daily average users.
And they're more concerned about having the daily average user number
be monstrously high than they are necessarily taking care of someone's safety.
I think one of the major items right now, you know, just sort of wrap the topic a bit
is you've got to be careful for yourself.
You know, everybody said, oh, it's not the Wild West anymore.
We have firewalls.
We have all these things to protect us out there.
Yeah, you do.
But it's still the Wild West and it's getting even wilder and it's largely wilder.
chat forums in their own right, and the variety of chat forums that are out there.
Some are favored by malicious actors right now, just because of the way they exist, the way they
behave, and the way they try to protect information. You have corporations like Apple,
as a good example, who's doing more and more to try to hide personal information on the phones,
which is obviously making it difficult for law enforcement and everyone else to figure out what's gone on, what's gone wrong.
You know, or, you know, hey, we've got a malicious actor and we're having trouble proving it type things.
Where the corporations themselves, who are good, honest companies,
and just trying to be, you know, a good citizen out there with privacy that are actually helping the problem.
you know your iphone rebooting every few days is a great example of that you know so it is
definitely helping the malicious actors we've got artificial intelligence coming on the horizon as
well and right now we're seeing that abused in things like phishing attacks and email attacks
smishing attacks which are sms attacks i mean we can just go on so there's not a trend to a
specific platform. It's more a trend of the technology's advancement in its own right
that we're beginning to see advancements in cybercrime. Do I believe over the next five years
that the list of types of cybercrimes that we have won't expand? No, I believe it will expand.
Okay. Because as technology begins to expand, they'll expand as well.
True. So, you know, the fact that we've got the virtual world, you know, now we're having
And a lot of corporations, deepfakes in their own right, have caused a lot of the security companies to try to enhance artificial intelligence to defend.
Okay, so we're going to use artificial intelligence for the defenders.
We've got artificial intelligence for the offensive bad guys.
You know, so to some extent, the bad guys create a brand new marketplace.
They create a new industry and people make money.
I mean, you know, it's hard to understand that cycle, but it is really what it is.
And unfortunately, the young adults are sort of caught in between.
Yes.
And I think it's a good motivation for parents to stay close to technology because I know a lot of parents who are like, oh, that's not my thing.
It should be your thing.
If your kid is into it, if your kid is online, you should be online and you should check out what is happening online.
and it's not an excuse that i'm not tech savvy or anything it is what it is if you hand over a
device to your child and it has access to the internet you should be tech savvy enough to
understand what is happening over there and i think there are a lot of beautiful initiatives
out there to create safe harbors online offline whatever it is so i think we should be participants
rather than ignoring the problem.
The children learn quickly on their own
and many times from friends
who do not share necessarily
the level of ethical values of others.
We've talked about that here.
Speak to them regularly about chat and voice sessions.
Don't give up on that 17-year-old teen daughter.
Yes.
Is my point.
She doesn't want to hear it.
She needs to hear it.
Yes, that's true.
Constantly explain what personal information is.
And that it has to be.
It's anything outside the scope of the game or the chat session itself is personal information.
It is so hard for teens to understand that.
Well, why does it matter?
You know, I'm pissed off.
It just doesn't matter.
And for teens, trying to talk to them a little bit about cyber tradecraft would be the last thing I would suggest, which is actually really difficult.
You know, parents in their own rights know exactly how to manipulate their kids.
They figure it out pretty damn quick.
OK, have that conversation.
You are experts.
Yes, true.
You are experts.
So just explain it.
Keep having that conversation.
See what I did to you there, kid?
See what I did, son?
This is what I'm talking about.
True.
Okay.
That's cute.
I mean, I don't know how else to explain the tradecraft to him
because old guy got you.
True.
You know, so that's what I would say.
That's Tom's tips for parents.
maybe we could start a business with people who can you can order them to harass your kids online
and then you can tell your kids ha gotcha yeah i told you yeah happened to you i told you so
yeah that's right that's right for sure yeah so i have one last question when can we read your
next book? Because your digital detective, the book that you already wrote, is on my to-read list
with my son. I already started to read it, and then I thought, oh, this might be something my son
would be interested in as well. So now it's on hold. And when is the next book ready?
So I will tell you that I'm about two-thirds of the way with the editorial side of the draft.
to complete that. I do know what the schedule looks like for the editorial side of the house.
I do know that the publisher wants to release it on the end of October. I don't know that it'll
happen. I'm going to do my best to get it out before Christmas. Oh, nice. That's good. Awesome.
It's a lot of work. Yes, I can tell. I can tell writing books is a lot of work,
but it's important work because I really think learning through stories is a good thing to
sneak information into your kid's life. It is fun and it's entertaining and it's all of this
and the same, I mean, what I really like is if I'm not the preacher of, you know, you have to
and this and that. So having a story that sneaks this information into their brains,
I think it's a lovely way to do so.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
There's one review on Amazon, which I really took as a win, where a parent wrote down something similar that you were saying that, hey, I started reading it, but I read it.
My son read it.
And then he started asking me questions about wireless networks, communications, and all sorts of technology things.
Nice.
And we began having conversations on these.
and I sat there and said, right, I got one win.
That's a win.
Because that really is sort of what I'm thinking in here.
This stuff's actually real.
I can put it into a computer and it'll really do it.
Yeah, it will.
Nice.
Yeah.
No, I think you're doing a great job.
I really like that way of teaching kids
because it's a lovely way.
It's nice to not blur the lines between mom and being the bad guy all the time.
So this is a helping medium of teaching.
I really like that.
Tom, thank you so, so much for talking to me about all these things,
all my millions of questions you asked, you answered them, all of them.
Really like that.
Thank you so, so, so much, really.
I learned a lot and I hope everyone who was listening to this learned a lot as well.
And let's see what the next cyber crime trend will be.
Not excited to hear.
Yeah, absolutely.
And thank you very much for having me on today.
Very lovely to have you here, really.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Thank you so much for listening.
Oh, my fress.
Thank you so much for listening.
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