In a candid conversation with Leigh Honeywell on the ITSPmagazine Podcast, Marco Ciappelli talk about the intertwining worlds of cybersecurity, societal shifts, and the digital landscape's impact on families and individuals.
Guest: ✨ Leigh Honeywell, CEO, Tall Poppy [@tallpoppyhq]
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/hypatia/
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Host: Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast
On ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli
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Episode Introduction
The Digital Evolution: Reflecting Society's Redefinition through Cybersecurity
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to our show where we unpack the most insightful conversations happening in the intersection of technology and modern society. Today, let's take a deeper look at a particularly evocative episode of the ITSPmagazine Podcast, "Redefining Society," featuring cybersecurity expert Leigh Honeywell and host Marco Ciappelli.
Cybersecurity: A Foundation of Digital Society
The discussion kicked off on an interesting note, with Marco examining the runaway pace of technological evolution and its societal implications. Leigh Honeywell, co-founder and CEO of Tallpoppy, brought not only her rich experience from the front lines of cybersecurity but also an encompassing view of its role outside corporate firewalls. They underscored the importance of personal and executive cyber protection, emphasizing security beyond the corporate landscape.
Empowering Generations in the Digital Arena
A pivotal part of their dialogue centered on how different generations engage with technology. With the advent of smartphones and smart devices, the need for educating young users and their guardians has never been more critical. Leigh and Marco touch on the importance of mentoring over monitoring, advocating for a holistic approach to digital literacy that spans generations.
Online Harassment and the Quest for Safety in Cyberspace
Leigh shed light on the grim realities of online harassment and doxing, sharing insights into how individuals and communities can protect themselves. From advocating for robust personal cyber hygiene practices like the use of password managers and understanding one's digital footprint, Leigh provided actionable advice to bolster online safety.
Harnessing Tech Wisdom Across Ages
The conversation naturally veered towards the generational gaps in tech adoption and understanding. Both Leigh and Marco lamented how certain generations jumped straight from no computers to smartphones, missing out on the intermediate stages of digital literacy. This jump, as they discussed, has implications for how we teach and learn about cybersecurity.
Conclusion: It’s All Just Life
In wrapping up, Leigh offered sage advice for both the young and the old navigating the digital world: when technology makes you feel uneasy or unsafe, talk about it. This simple yet profound tip draws a line under the idea that the digital realm is an integral part of our lives, needing the same care and understanding as any other aspect.
As we continue to explore the dynamics between technology and society, episodes like these remind us of the collective journey we're on. Despite the challenges, there's hope and guidance available to navigate our increasingly digital lives.
Sharing these candid, in-depth conversations is essential in crafting a safer, more inclusive digital future. If you found value in this post or the episode, don't hesitate to reach out or comment with your thoughts. Together, let's redefine society for the better, one podcast episode at a time.
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Resources
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https://www.itspmagazine.com/redefining-society-podcast
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Bridging Generations: A Dialogue on Cybersecurity, Online Harassment, and Digital Wisdom | A Conversation with Leigh Honeywell | Redefining Society with Marco Ciappelli
Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
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[00:00:00] Marco Ciappelli: Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Redefining Society podcast where we talk about technology and society. And there is, of course, a lot to talk about these days. There's always been a lot to talk about, but now it's, uh, it's out of control. Every day it's Uh, 10 years of, uh, what would have been technology maybe 50 years ago.
I don't know. I'm just making numbers. Don't quote me on that one. But what do you can quote me on is that, uh, today I have a very, very exciting guest on the show, which if you're watching the video, you already see is Leigh Honeywell. How are you doing, Leigh? You can say hello to everybody.
[00:00:40] Leigh Honeywell: Doing great, happy to be here.
Yeah, thank you very much for inviting me to be on the show. I'm really looking forward to the conversation.
[00:00:46] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. And this was to prove to the people listening and not watching that I wasn't pretending to have a guest. So, uh, yeah. So today I was saying we're going to talk about, and I've done it a little bit more lately.
I kind of fished back in the cybersecurity side of ITSP Magazine as We're getting ready for the season and we were talking before recording of the season of conference of Infosecurity and, uh, cybersecurity. And of course, on, on this show, we don't dive deep into the technology of things or the, the whole acronyms in the industry.
We try to make it understandable for everybody, and we were thinking about. What could be a good topic and uh, we're probably going to talk something about Online harassment and tips and for kids and family and parents and and all of that, but we don't have a plan so I Based on the conversation we had before hit recording.
This is going to be a good one So I want you guys to stay tuned and pay attention And to start we're going to hear from lee a little bit about her and why she is an expert in all of this Awesome.
[00:01:56] Leigh Honeywell: Well, thanks again. Um, my name is Lee Honeywell. I'm the co founder and CEO of Tallpoppy. Uh, my company does personal and executive cybersecurity for high profile organizations and individuals.
Um, I like to think of what we do as being sort of security outside the firewall. Personal cyber, privacy, um, all of those things that aren't the corporate network, but still have an impact on the security of an organization. Um, I've been doing this for well over a decade, but prior to starting Tall Poppy, I spent a year at the American Civil Liberties Union as a technology fellow.
Um, I like to explain that job as, uh, I explained computers to lawyers so that we could sue the government over civil liberties issues. Um, but that's actually like a pretty accurate explanation of the job. It was a policy kind of, yeah, um, it was really neat, you know, getting to work on policy issues around privacy, security, civil liberties.
Um, and before that I had like a relatively standard cybersecurity career working at companies like Slack, uh, Salesforce, Microsoft, and Symantec. Um. The most sort of, uh, high profile role I think I had was at, uh, at Microsoft. I was on the Patch Tuesday team. So sorry about rebooting your computer a couple of times in the early 20, 2010s.
Um, that was, uh, we needed to, um, but I feel like that job is also very easy to explain to, uh, to non security people as, uh, you know, coordinating the cybersecurity bugs and updates and all of that different moving parts, uh, to keep desktop software secure. And, uh, so I really have been on that journey from , boxed software to the cloud, keeping both of those secure, secure software development processes.
And, uh, yeah, uh, during that time I was living in the States, I'm now back in Canada. Canadian born and raised, um, but I lived in the States for a decade. And, um, now I'm back in my hometown, Ottawa, uh, John Oliver, the comedian, once called Ottawa, the town that fun forgot, but I like to think it's actually pretty fun.
So yeah,
[00:03:58] Marco Ciappelli: never been there, but it's Canada is actually on my, uh, On my list of places to go, both sides, like the Vancouver side and the Ontario side. I think I'm going to fly through Canada on one of my upcoming trips, but I'm probably just touching the airport, really.
[00:04:17] Leigh Honeywell: Well, Toronto airport, it's it, they, they redid it in the early two thousands and, uh, We haven't done much with it since, but it's still pretty, pretty, you know, I think I can at least every time you go to LA, they're still doing it.
The big, the big thing that's changed is there's now a train that goes straight from the Toronto airport to downtown. So even if you have like a six hour layover, you can totally like go to the CN tower. Like it's awesome. Okay. Yeah. That's cool. That's cool. Got a bit of time. Do a little detour.
[00:04:46] Marco Ciappelli: on the on the list of things to do.
Excellent. So looking at your looking at your background, um, we we don't go all the way back to just close the office door and the computer is safe, but you know, you've seen it. You've seen a lot of it. Yeah. And, uh, and for people being in the industry like this, it's it's easy to relatively easy to say, okay, we went from a to whatever we are now are.
Um, TM, whatever the alphabet letter is, but for people that are not in the industry and especially people that are, um, even the native generation, they don't, they don't understand that, that, that steps they've been going through from the analog to digital for a lot of things. And, you know, to, to even understanding that.
You know, we used to open computer and put our hands inside it and now you can't like No idea how it works And sometimes that may be a big problem because I think when you don't know how things work, you don't really know how to Protect yourself in the case of cyber security. You just don't see the problem.
Is that just something that I think from a psychological perspective?
[00:06:03] Leigh Honeywell: That's such an interesting question and I feel like there's, there are really real trade offs. there between, you know, the sort of walled garden ecosystem, you think about, you know, I'm holding up my iPhone and this is like the most secure computing device that consumers have ever been able to get.
If you want to hack into somebody's iPhone, it's like a million dollars to buy a zero day vulnerability. Like that's, that is, is revolutionary compared to the crap that people used to get just from like browsing the internet. Right. So there's, There's that security trade off of the walled garden. Um, but I think there's, I think that's really real that like, we've lost something of not, you know, get how many times I like cut my fingers, like digging around in a computer and getting poked by some little metal pin.
Like there's, there's something real about like knowing how the innards are connected together and how the behavior of the computer changes when you upgrade the memory or stuff like that. Um, There's a, uh, I'll have to send you the link, but, um, there was a dad who, uh, let his kids play computer games only sequentially through the history.
So he started out on an Atari when the kid was like three and then worked through like Game Boy and all the different generations of consoles to see the sort of evolution and, um, You know, get this kid on board to playing with technology at like a developmentally appropriate way. I just thought that was like a really neat way of sort of exploring the history of technology through games.
[00:07:33] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like what I was thinking. I mean, I mean, I play Pong. So that's gotta start with Pong. But But the point is, I love that because it's gonna like see how things got better. Yeah, more complex and kind of like understanding it also maybe appreciate how real the video games are now compared with, you know, but, but at the time a stick was fun.
Still fun. Still fun. Right? I still like to play pinball. So yeah. There you go. Yeah. Um, so maybe not much about breaking stuff or the right to repair all that kind of stuff, but. The idea of really understanding what could happen to you when, uh, when you use this device, I feel like, you know, from data sharing and, and biometrics.
And I, I mean, we can talk about very crazy stuff now with AI, but to bring it down, when you, when you advocate for online harassment and kid safety, and I don't know you to talk to parents or what you do, but where do you even start?
[00:08:44] Leigh Honeywell: I think the biggest, like, if we look at that again, sort of zooming back out to the history of computing, um, you know, when I started using technology nineties, like you had to worry about, is this floppy disk going to have a virus on it?
And then you get online and it's like this program that I've downloaded. Is it going to infect me? Um, or am I going to get infected just by like drive, like, clicking on a link, and my browser's got a vulnerability in it. And the biggest shift that I've seen in terms of that, like, sort of historical understanding is that instead of worrying as, you know, we still have to worry to a certain degree about our endpoints getting hacked, whether it's mobile or, you know, stuff like Pegasus, the sort of nation state malware.
targeting mobile, or on desktop, whether it's Windows with ransomware and all this stuff, or on Macs, tends to be more like crappy browser extensions. Um, what we see today, when, you know, when I'm working one on one with folks, um, is really a focus on accounts, consumer accounts, online accounts, your Gmail, your Facebook, all of these, like, You know, it's not about the computer itself getting hacked.
It's about somebody reusing passwords or having other poor security practices. Or the websites themselves, the online services getting hacked, versus it used to be about the end point getting compromised. I think that's the biggest shift conceptually as we think about security. And how that translates, if you're a parent or maybe you're an adult who has a parent who's aging or another vulnerable adult in your life, how do you keep them safe?
It's not just about running antivirus. It hasn't been about running antivirus for a long time, but it's about how are they securing the different pieces of their digital life, their sort of personal digital infrastructure, using things like password managers, two factor authentication, and, and good general cyber hygiene.
Versus just securing that individual computer or phone. So I think that's when, again, when I'm talking to individuals about what they can do to protect themselves, it really is that like cyber hygiene piece, more so than like, is their antivirus up to date.
[00:10:59] Marco Ciappelli: So we're kind of like to the point where like driving a car, which is also a computer on wheel.
But it's more like, yeah, I'm now worried about fixing it myself if it breaks, but I do need to worry about respecting the role, the rule of the road and be alert and be smart. Another parallel there could be in what you said is that you can drive a car that is very safe because it brakes on his own and but it still needs to pay attention because someone can still do something.
[00:11:32] Leigh Honeywell: Other people, other people on the road. I really like, I really like that analogy because I think one of the other. One of the other pieces around that sort of personal digital hygiene thing is like, I never want to be like, don't click on links like be perfect every time. Don't make any mistakes. It's much more about how do we put systems in place?
How do we use tools in our personal ecosystem? That make it impossible to get hacked or significantly harder. And if you're having a bad day and you're really tired, you're not going to accidentally put your password in the wrong place because you're going to rely on your password manager to only auto fill your Google password on google.
com. Right? You have these tools that protect you from kind of protect you from yourself when needed. Um, and I always do the little like makeup influencer, like show off my, uh, YubiKey, um, that is attached to my AirPods. So I can find my, to find my YubiKey. But I think the YubiKey and, you know, U2F keys in general are a really good example where, um, the key cryptographically authenticates.
to google. com. If I go to evilfakegoogle. com, Key's going to be like, this isn't the real Google, right? So I, I, I'm protected from malicious action, but I'm also protected from human error because the technology is there to support me. Um, cause nobody's perfect. We all have a bad day. Yeah. Everybody, everybody's susceptible to think about the, um, The recent, uh, ZX bug where this, like, open source maintainer was basically, like, tricked into adding a bad actor to their open source project, who then put a backdoor in a bunch of Linux distributions, right?
Like, everybody has a bad day, and we have to have sort of multiple layers of defense, um, in order to be able to stay safe from really a world that is increasingly Increasingly connected and with that comes increased vulnerability.
[00:13:38] Marco Ciappelli: And as much as you get something gets popular, all of a sudden attract the attention of bad actors.
Exactly. And, uh, and that's just the way it goes. So one thing that I often think about, and I go back again to understanding a little bit of this passage is when, when you have, let's say, I'm going to focus on the kid right now. Yeah, for sure. Um, I hear a story, I don't have kids, but I hear a story where kids get their smartphone at three years old and I'm like, uh, okay, seems a little bit, you know, it's like here, you want a car there, take the car, but the problem for me is that oftentimes it comes without education.
Um, and, and, and that's safety, uh, driver license to be able to drive the car, right? You don't have a driver license to drive a smartphone. And, and either you, I don't know, I'm trying to come up with metaphor right now. It's like, all right, you can ride your bike, but only, Inside the house or inside the garden, but you cannot go outside because it gets dangerous there.
So, you know, do you do you lock the internet? You just give the smartphone that is not really a smartphone It's more of a dumb phone I mean, are we just not understanding the power and And the responsibility and the risk that come with this as people Parents or as teacher or I mean, is that a lack of understanding from one generation to another that we haven't really got into safety for for smart devices and social media and how to handle that?
[00:15:21] Leigh Honeywell: I think the, you know, When I think about when I got online, it was, I was like 12 or 13, right? It was like right when, um, I know it was when I was 12 because when the COPPA law, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, I think it is, um, I had to get my mom to send a fax to California, uh, to let me keep my GeoCities page because I had signed up when I was less than 13.
The funniest part of this story is I would later work at slack with one of the people who like received those faxes, which is just like the best sort of tech small world, uh, story. But, um, yeah, you know, 12 is very different developmentally than a three year old getting a smartphone. And I, you know, I have Many friends who have very small kids and the, the allure of the shiny object is very, very strong.
And I think, um, one of, uh, one of the advisors to my company is a lady named, an author named Davora Heitner, who has a couple of books out about keeping kids safe online. I know her, she's been on my show. Oh, amazing, amazing. Yes. Oh, that's so good to hear. Um, her work is like so essential in this space. I, I definitely like anything that I say that's smart about keeping kids safe.
Online almost certainly came from Devorah, but her catchphrase of mentoring over monitoring, I think is really, really important. Um, but to be able to, to do that mentoring, you have to sort of have good boundaries and good practices yourself around technology so that in a, you know, developmentally appropriate way, as the kid starts using technology, you can be there for them and have that like open door policy, you know, walk them through how to deal with interactions online.
And I think You know, sort of to my perception and from my read of the literature, I feel like the answer isn't just locking things down. There are definitely circumstances where something's gone off the rails, where it does make sense to lock things down. But teaching, teaching kids to have healthy boundaries and interactions with technology, like, a parent's not always going to be there to, to be the sort of like eye over the shoulder of the kid.
You have to be able to like, learn how to have your own boundaries with technology. So, um, yeah, I think the, that sort of mentoring frame of, you know, how do you want to deal with this? I think, which applies in so many aspects of life, but I think it really does apply to technology. And, you know, there should be.
Kids need to have privacy to be able to develop into wholly unique human beings, but there has to also be that, that sort of, um, ability to talk to your parent about what you've seen, what you've experienced. And, uh, if that trust isn't there, um, kids are going to find a way, whether it's the school library or other non supervised use of technology.
So when it is supervised, you got to be able to have the like open conversations.
[00:18:23] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah, I think that's that's the key again to reconnect with the real world, right? I mean, even when there wasn't computer kids would do something just because they can't do it That's when they are going to do it except that, you know Now it's a little bit more not just like I don't know go to the place where you're not supposed to go um, which was maybe very risky, but relatively Safe compared with the risk that can be right now going online.
Um, You So let's talk a little bit about harassment and cyber bullying. I had many episodes even years ago. Talk about this. Yeah. And where I want to go with you is It's technology, cybersecurity, reaching that point where it's really making the difference, even protecting people that don't know much about it, which has always been the cybersecurity goal, at least before, to say, like, the users shouldn't be worried about it.
I am more in between, where I think the users should be worried about it, as the users should be. And, and educate themself a little bit and what you just said about the kids, the parents and everything. But where, where is technology helping now? Because when you hear the news often is about the bad things that cybersecurity is not able to with or, you know, that, that, that just came through big news, but yeah.
Million didn't. A million of attacks have been blocked. Nobody cares, right? Yeah, yeah. Where are we going with that?
[00:20:05] Leigh Honeywell: The old adage of, you know, attackers have to, defenders have to be right millions of times. Attackers only have to be right once kind of thing. I think there is that, there is that fundamental asymmetry.
And I think with, with online harassment, um, It is less asymmetric than thinking about trying to defend a corporate network, just the the surface area of an individual is often a lot smaller than the surface area of like a fortune 100 organization, right? You maybe for all that I have. 500 accounts in my in my password manager.
Um, that's maybe the like the high end of it. And most people are going to have like, you know, you might have half dozen social media things and then your utilities and your online banking, and it might end up being a hundred accounts. Um, but that, you know, that's, that's one person that's, that's very Lockdownable, I think, is the, that's not the technical term, but, uh, Lockdownable, I love it.
It just made up a word. So thinking about, you know, what happens when people are dealing with online harassment, there's really a couple of ways that online harassment plays out and sort of escalates. You get nasty messages. You get threats, you get invasions of privacy in terms of what is out there about you on the internet being magnified, and then you get, um, hacking into accounts.
So when we think about what those different pieces are, the threats, if they are, you know, You know, real threats or like sort of direct, uh, specific time bound. There's like a couple of things that, that take something from like just a nasty message to like, Oh, you might actually want to go to law enforcement with that.
Even though law enforcement is not always amazing, often not amazing at dealing with online harassment. Um, that sort of like real intense threatening content, the, the solution, the, the sort of thing that. is recommended is to talk to law enforcement when it is that real, like, threatening, detailed, specific, particularly if it's identifiable.
I think that's one of the sort of counterintuitive things. People get really freaked out by anonymous threats. But if somebody's being anonymous when they send you a threat, they at least at some level know that what they're doing is wrong, right? It's the, the threats that come from someone's real name, where that's, that's when your radar should be pinging pretty strongly.
So there's the threats piece. And then the other ways that people deal with online, people experience online harassment in terms of the privacy, privacy violations, and the hacking stuff. That, there's a fair amount of stuff that is within an individual's control in terms of both proactive and reactive mitigations.
So privacy wise, think of aggressively Googling yourself, right? If I was mad at Marco, what would I find about you online? And how would I take that out of context and sort of thinking like an adversary would about what your sort of online presence looks like. And I really want to be clear that it's not about, you know, don't post, right?
Don't feed the trolls. I think that's a really negative way of looking at this stuff, but being thoughtful about the stuff that you post online, making sure that it aligns with your values, is what you want to represent. And if you posted stupid things 10 years ago, like, it's okay to just go and delete them.
Right? Like, that stuff doesn't, doesn't need to stick around forever, and maybe it's in archive. org or whatever, but you can, Hey, like, I said some dumb things in the past, and I've changed my mind. I've grown as a person. Like, people do change. So, that's the, like, online footprint piece. And then the sort of account security piece.
What can we do as individuals to protect ourselves? Even when social media sites or whatever other online services may not have the best security. The, I'm such a broken record on this one, but password managers are like such an essential piece of the personal security infrastructure. Um, The amount of issues that we see that fundamentally just boil down to password reuse, um, it's, it's hard to overstate, like, how much of an impact that is on individual security.
So, you know, we have a couple of products we like. We tend to point people at 1Password and Bitwarden, but there's a bunch of good products out there on the market. There's open source stuff that's free. Um, that making sure that that's part of your ecosystem. Number one thing that's going to prevent somebody sending you nasty messages from escalating to somebody hacking into your stuff.
[00:24:50] Marco Ciappelli: The other day I was listening to some episode about doxing on NPR, they were talking about it was related to the war with Israel and the Palestinian. But the point wasn't why that happened. It was what doxing is and which is for people that don't know what it is, is that somebody does something, maybe it's taken with a camera and the entire online community or a group of it decided to make public your name, your address, your parents, your phone number and everything.
And they kind of gang on people. And, uh, I'd like to know your opinion on something like that. And is that considered harassment? Or is that considered something completely different? And And again, it seems to me it's inevitable when everything is out there on social media. Um, I don't even know where to go.
That's why I'm asking you.
[00:25:55] Leigh Honeywell: Yeah, the doxing thing is really, is really tricky because I think there's, um, fundamentally, especially in the U. S., but in the world, Some other countries have this sort of public data problem as well, but it is certainly worst in the US. Um, there is a whole ecosystem of companies that just buy and sell, you know, databases from the DMV or from the credit bureaus or all these different sources of information that have your entire, like, address history, who you've lived with, which usually includes your parents at some point, right?
So that sort of. If you become the person that the internet is mad at, all of a sudden, like, your parents are getting crank calls, your parents are having their accounts hacked into. It can really increase the bubble of vulnerability when one individual is targeted to where it's so easy to identify, like, who the people in their life are.
Um, and, um, Trying to get your information taken down from all of these different data broker websites and sort of public information websites is really, it's super tedious. Um, there's a bunch of automated services that'll do some of the takedowns, but your data is still going to be out there. And, you know, when we, when we work with executives, when we work with high profile folks, we've developed a bunch of expertise around taking that data down.
Um, but there are some types of data that are fundamentally just always going to be public. Um, depending on the jurisdiction, this can include stuff like political donations, which, you know, to a certain degree should be public, but maybe it doesn't need to include your home address. Um, and the home address stuff, I think is where it makes people feel really, really vulnerable.
And, um, you know, you, you asked about the sort of doxxing, does it constitute harassment? In many cases, it absolutely does. Um, I think there's some interesting wrinkles around if you're like a neo Nazi or somebody who's operating under a pseudonym in their online presence, and somebody figures out that your real name is XYZ.
and connects it to your like neo Nazi pseudonym. Maybe that's just investigative journalism, but where sort of where the line is between investigative journalism and non consensual doxing that constitutes harassment. Um, there there's stuff that is like very clearly on either side of the line. Um, and sometimes the devil's in the details, uh, between those two.
But, um, Certainly if you're, you know, you're just a random high school teacher who posts on TikTok about LGBTQ issues and you get featured by like a hate account being like, this teacher is grooming your children, right? Like that is very, to me, that feels very clearly like it's harassment. Um, So, yeah, and then the sort of question as a follow up is like, what do you do about it?
And I feel like it really comes back to those basic personal cyber hygiene practices, understanding what is out there about you on the internet, um, getting into that sort of adversarial mindset. If I was mad at Marco, what would I find? And having that good personal cyber hygiene so that even if the haters are yelling at you, they're not going to break into your accounts because you've got good security practices.
[00:29:04] Marco Ciappelli: I
guess it all comes down to that, right? I mean, security practices and kind of passing down to the next generation. But again, I go back to, I think, I think the internet skipped a couple of generations.
[00:29:23] Leigh Honeywell: I think so. Anytime I like try to understand like TikTok or whatever.
[00:29:29] Marco Ciappelli: Somebody got into that and they did all the steps.
And some other just like went from no computer to a smartphone and And everything do I hear, I'm reconnecting the beginning hear
[00:29:42] Leigh Honeywell: candy bar phones. I hear that the, the teens are really into the candy bar phones, like the not smart phones, and they wanna just like text each other. I'm, I'm, I'm actually like, very in favor of this.
Like, let's, let's, I,
[00:29:53] Marco Ciappelli: I saw it go the other day about that . I, I think when I'm gonna go visit my family and my parents in Italy, I still have all my. Oh, I love it. I love it. Start talk and all of them.
[00:30:11] Leigh Honeywell: My most controversial tech opinion. I will say is that windows phone was actually really good. I really loved it. I did at the time I did at the time, but I like, I kept using it even when I had to get it. I had to get an iPhone for work, but I, I, um, I really liked the big yellow Nokia. Yeah. Windows Phones.
[00:30:32] Marco Ciappelli: There's probably people right now that are saying, wait, Window had a phone? I know!
[00:30:37] Leigh Honeywell: Like, 3 percent market share, oh yeah! Not too bad, not too bad. Oh man.
[00:30:43] Marco Ciappelli: No, you know, there is a tendency to go back, and I love if you haven't figured out how to connect. the, the vintage and the analog technology to the new one, because there's always something to learn about it from it.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you mentioned Fox, but, but, you know, it's kind of like, I, I just see cultures and, and, and certain generation to kind of repeat maybe in a different way, but certain either mistakes or there is certain ways that come out. Yeah. Absolutely. It's kind of like the 80s are coming back.
Then the 60s are coming back and vintage modern and mid century furniture. I don't know. It's from a sociological perspective. It's really, really interesting to see it, all of this. So I'm not surprised that we're going to go, I don't know. I'm tempted to get.
[00:31:37] Leigh Honeywell: And I think there's a, I think there's a version of that with cybersecurity too, where we You know, we think about cyber security is a very young profession.
Um, but if you look at stuff like, uh, the history of financial crimes and fraud, and then you look at how. In the past, like 10, 15 years, the blockchain cryptocurrency, there's almost this like replay attack of all of the different kinds of financial fraud, except that now they're on the blockchain. And so people are having to like rediscover how to deal with specific types of fraud in this new technical field.
And then I suspect, and I think we're starting to see the early days of it. With generative AI and now that AI is like really hitting the mainstream in a way that it hasn't in previous, previous iterations of what people called AI, we're going to start to see that same. What is the history of hacking and different crimes and fraud?
And how are people using these new technologies to do old kinds of crime, but in a new way? And that's I think there's a cycle cyclicalness cyclicality to it. Um, that I find really, really interesting.
[00:32:48] Marco Ciappelli: Absolutely. And it, it, it comes down to social engineering, right? I mean, A lot of it. Yeah. It goes to the Spanish prisoner and then became the Nigerian prince.
That thing worked in the 1800s. Absolutely.
[00:33:05] Leigh Honeywell: My, my grandparents would get postal letters of the same with the same script as you would you now see in your email spam box.
[00:33:13] Marco Ciappelli: Yep. Yeah. And that and it goes back to you can lock your house as much as you want, but then you put the keys under the mat. Yeah, it's gonna be a problem.
Yeah. Um, all right, so this, this is fun. And I knew it was gonna be hard to contain on something specific, because it's really exciting. And I did just a little, little spark flame in my head. And I'm like, Oh, I'm gonna ask her about this and that. But we'll call it off for here. Now, maybe with, I don't know, maybe with one advice for, for the young kids that could be very useful.
I know they could probably, at long least, Devorah had it. Talk to other people. They also it's a tough generation when you are dealing with all of this. And I sometimes I'm like, I don't know how I don't know if I would have want to have a childhood or being a teenager with all of these. It was just better to kick the ball around.
and play soccer and go on a bike all day. I was very bad at soccer. You'll break a knee or scratch yourself, but at least I didn't have to worry about data, personal data and doxing.
[00:34:26] Leigh Honeywell: I think the biggest thing, um, when I think about both adults and kids, but especially kids, is that When you, if you're interacting with technology and it's making you feel bad, talk to somebody about it.
Whether it's like, I don't know if this is the right thing or this person has sent me something that makes me feel bad or I'm not sure what to do here or I'm confused. Talk to somebody, whether it's a peer, a parent, somebody in your school, like that, that like noticing that this is a bad experience, talking to somebody about it.
I like it. Nobody, nobody emerges from the womb knowing how to use computers like it. We got it. We got to figure it all out together. So.
[00:35:13] Marco Ciappelli: And that applies to everything else. Absolutely. Yeah. And so the, the, the, the line that divide the digital life and, and the real life, it's really not there anymore.
Everything is, there's no IRL versus online. It's all just life. Yeah, it was just life. And, uh, yeah, so something to think about for everybody listening and, uh, If you want to have more information, you want to, you have some questions, just post a comment if you're looking at this on social media, and yeah, let me, let me know.
I'll be happy to have Lee back and talk more about these things. And in the meantime, I'm looking forward to running to you in some of the conference. Absolutely. Conference season. Yeah. All right. Lee, thank you so much. They'll be on the notes, all the, all the links for people to get in touch with you. And, uh, and again, subscribe, stay tuned and we'll come up with more.
So thank you again.
Thanks a lot. Awesome.