S2EP38-Tom Arnold-How a Roblox Scare Inspired a Mission for Digital Safety!

Herb: 00:00:20

I now have the pleasure of introducing Tom Arnold. Tom is a cybersecurity expert, digital forensics investigator and educator.

He lectures on digital forensics and incident response at San Jose State University and the University of Nevada Las Vegas where he is also helping to develop a new digital evidence and forensics degree program.

A co founder of payment software company now part of NCC Group, Arnold has led large scale breach investigations, some involving more than 7,000 servers and served as the lead investigator in complex threat hunting operations.

He has testified before the US Senate and House on cybersecurity legislation and sits on the steering committee for the Las Vegas breach of or for the Las Vegas branch of of the USSS Cyber Fraud Task Force.

He also serves as operations manager at Cloud 10 Studios, a full service animation studio that creates original series, long form content and commercial projects.

His novel the Digital Detective First Intervention was inspired by a real life cyber security scare when Arnold's grandson was approached by a stranger on Roblox.

Despite parental controls, that moment launched Arnold's mission to help families and schools recognize hidden online dangers and to give the tools they need to stay safe in the digital world. And all of that long words, hard to say things in combination is just to say that Mr. Arnold knows what he is talking about.

He is one of the world's leading experts on this. So parents, folks, this man knows what he's talking about. Let's pay attention and listen today. Welcome Tom. It is a pleasure to have you here.

Tom Arnold: 00:02:11

Thank you so much for having me on today.

Kristina: 00:02:14

Yeah, and you know, cyber security to technical digital age stuff is something that I am passionate about as well.

As the tech leader in my school for 15 years, I did my best to make sure that we were teaching security, teaching citizenship, teaching all the digital stuff to our kids. But unfortunately the school district still didn't go through and put it in place. And even now, so many years later, they're still lacking.

And so this is important. Parents, please, please, please stay here, listen in. Let's make sure our children are safe online.

So with that, Tom, the question is why is this your passion and what was that pivotal point? I think we got a little bit of it in your bio. What was that pivotal point?

That said, you know what, I really need to get out here and talk to more parents.

Tom Arnold: 00:03:03

So a couple pieces of background to sort of help you. I was teaching undergraduates and had two courses with 95 students each in them. And yes, the topic was digital evidence, forensics and cybersecurity.

But in the classes with the undergrads, I Would spend time talking about cyber safety and what I call cyber hygiene. And I really felt like with the students in there, and I had about a third of each class were first term freshmen.

So they were right there at the 18 to 19 years of age. I felt like I was talking to the bricks in the back of the room.

No matter what story I told, no matter how we had a tried to have a discussion, they were one sided, just me talking. It was extremely frustrating. That was one piece of experience. But the other major one was at the time my seven year old grandson. Now his family.

You talk about cybersecurity expertise. Both the mom and dad are very familiar with cybersecurity.

The dad is actually a director of cybersecurity for one of the large Washington corporations. Yes, they had all the parental controls set up.

You know, the kid was playing in Roblox specifically and you know, he's, you know, playing his game in there. An avatar of another player approached him and held up a sign that said, what is your name and where do you live? And that was sort of a shocker.

Now the parents, and you'll hear me talk about this later on, created a safe harbor for anything cybersecurity for any of the three boys specifically. So even if they were in trouble, they broke something, they did, you know, they beat up on their brother, you know, something like that.

If something cyber was taking place, that was a safe harbor. And it's hard as a parent to bring the temperature down, to bring the emotions down. That's a safe place and the kids know that it's a safe place.

So my 7 year old grandson runs to mom and, and says, look at this and shows it to her and you know, how do I react? What do I do inside the game basically. And so he joined forces with his mom to handle the problem for me. I was sitting there going, hold on a second.

As I did a little more research both on the game, the use of the game, the number of kids playing the game, I began to feel like, wait a second, parental controls are really important. Yes, they had all the parental controls set up.

But this is a game where I as someone, a senior citizen could actually create an account and claim to be a 13 year old. And there were no checks, no balances, no situation where a parent had to approve creation of the account or boom, I was in.

you're a dog. And that was a: 1993

It's more true today with cell phones, mobile devices. I mean, just let's go on and on and on and on. That's the absolute truth of the matter.

And that's something that really has to be understood both by parents and by the kids. So that caused me to sit back and say, wait a second. I've got a lot of experience with forensic investigations. I've seen a lot of cases.

I've done child sexual exploitation cases. The reality was I was sitting. There's got to be a better way to sort of communicate with the kids.

That led me to the development of the novel the Digital Detective. First Intervention. Digital Detective. My speech problem came out First Intervention. I created the novel.

Now everything, all the cases inside there, the individual cases are actually all real. They're cases I actually worked on. The techniques and tools that are used are actually real.

Now the story's fictionalized and my hero and the Heroine are both 14 year olds and they actually inadvertently fight cyber terrorism in the story. But all of the little steps, every chapter, those are all real cases that I basically laid out.

So I thought if I can create something entertaining that a young one or a young adult or a teen might read, I'm going to be, you know, successful.

And I did have one review where a parent put a review online on Amazon and made a comment with regards to their 12 year old and some of the discussions after with the 12 year old. So I've had at least one win. So I'm like over the moon.

Kristina: 00:08:19

Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. If we can just change the life of one child. Right.

And then the ripple effects from that, because that one child then go out and share with their friends, et cetera, et cetera. So the ripple effect of all of that, you know, as well as the friends and family and things, it's all worth it.

Herb: 00:08:33

And if you think about it, how many books have you read on Amazon, how many things have you got on Amazon and how many times have you left a review? So to actually feel strong enough to, to go back onto the platform and leave a review. Very high praise. Congratulations.

Tom Arnold: 00:08:49

Yeah, thank you.

Tom Arnold: 00:08:50

Now, like I said, I was so happy, it brought tears to my eyes. As a matter of fact, reading it, because I was going, I got one, I got one.

Kristina: 00:08:57

Yeah.

Tom Arnold: 00:08:58

Maybe I got more than one.

Kristina: 00:08:59

Right, yeah. And hopefully we stopped a couple bad guys in the process.

Tom Arnold: 00:09:03

Right, well, that would be nice.

Kristina: 00:09:05

Now they can't read. Yeah, exactly.

Herb: 00:09:06

Now, it might not be quite as true in this day and age, but when I was growing up and even for, like, the first couple of generations, it was like the kids knew way more than the parents did. And so any kind of security or intervention the parents did. The kids already had, like, ways around them before you even got started.

But now the young parents actually have a lot more computer savvy. But how easy is it for. For kids to bypass or. Or is that what we're talking about? Or parental control?

Or are we talking about more educating the children so that they're safer?

Tom Arnold: 00:09:44

I think we're covering both topics.

Tom Arnold: 00:09:46

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:09:47

You know, it was interesting.

Soon after the book came out, I met a parent and she said to me, hey, you know, I feel more comfortable talking to my kids about sex than I do cybersecurity.

Tom Arnold: 00:10:00

Okay?

Tom Arnold: 00:10:01

And that's a reality the kids today especially, and over the last decade, a lot of parents have this sort of fear that they actually know more than them, that they're going to lose face if they try to have a conversation on one of these technical topics specifically. And. And so that becomes a real fear for the parents. And.

And my point is there's really techniques that can be used to open that conversation, to have that conversation. And the main thing I tell parents is don't give up. You know, don't sit there and surrender and go, oh, they know more than me. Oh, I'm looking stupid.

You know, oh, we'll talk about this later, honey. Or whatever. New. Okay, don't give up.

Herb: 00:10:56

You know, the hope of every generation is that their kids will be smarter, stronger, better, faster than they are.

But as soon as they are like, oh, wait, they're smarter, better, stronger, they're like, oh, wait, I can't talk about that because that makes me uncomfortable. If they're smarter than you about that, celebrate it. Wow, you're so much better at this than I am. But we still have to talk about security.

Tom Arnold: 00:11:17

Yeah, right now that's absolutely true. Now, you brought up kind of another point in there that I think is also really important.

When I was growing up and I was a young one, my mom would say, I'm going to the store. She would drop me off at a playground and say, honey, okay, I'm going to the store. When the street lights come on, you come home, right?

Gen X. I mean, that's the way it was.

And now I go into a restaurant, especially a family restaurant, and there's families in there, and I'll see a couple of siblings, you know, goofing off or, you know, bothering each other, and mom's real quick to pull out the iPads and the cell phones and say, okay, you play with your cell phone here, you play with your iPad and you know, everything's good. And they settle down and they're sitting there waiting for their meal to be served, playing on the machines.

And I have to think about my, you know, the situation with the seven year old grandson and say, hmm, what if they start to get in trouble?

Tom Arnold: 00:12:24

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:12:25

Are they even going to be able to recognize the problems that are coming at them in there? And we can talk about some of the issues if you'd like to. I mean, I can certainly go fairly deep.

Kristina: 00:12:38

Yeah, I would.

Tom Arnold: 00:12:39

We can talk about prevention as well. I mean, it's important to give parents the tools. I'm not trying to create fear.

Tom Arnold: 00:12:46

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:12:46

The objective here is really to give tools.

Herb: 00:12:49

Well, so from all of your tools, we have prevention, we have talking. Which one do you think? Let's go top three. Top three. Let's start with one.

Things that are going to make the biggest difference because it's like there's so many things we could talk about. Let's go for like the biggest hitters right off the top because then we cover the most ground with the most.

Kristina: 00:13:09

Amount of parents for our parents.

Tom Arnold: 00:13:11

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I think one of the main areas, and you heard me talk about this earlier, is to realize that creating that safe harbor that says no matter what the level of emotion is, no matter what the problems are surrounding it, no matter what's going on in the environment, anything related to cyber safety or cyber hygiene or cybersecurity is within the safe harbor. So I think one of the major items that I see is the safe harbor.

It's not just as one story, and this is a lady I work with now and as a teen, I mean, she's in her 20s now, but as a teen she was told she couldn't go to the beach with her friends. And she was terribly upset at this.

So she went to her room, she put on a string bikini and she took some photographs of herself and shared those with the friends. Within two days, the photograph came back to her and the bikini had been removed and she was naked.

And you know, at that point she went to her mom and said, okay, this is what I did, this is what happened. Which is really good that she went to her mom. Now the mom's reaction was fairly vicious. Unfortunately, they're still very close.

Okay, you know, you stupid idiot, you know, that's out there forever, okay? And, but you know, that's sort of an example of the safe harbor. A safe harbor in there.

It's hard as a parent to suddenly take that emotional reaction down a couple of notches and say, I got to get below the fear, I got to get below the insecurity. I got to be calm. Because if I'm calm, we can handle this situation no matter what it is. And so that would be the number one item.

I would say the next one.

Kristina: 00:15:12

I love that because we talk a lot with our families about building that communication platform. What does it look like when you're truly communicating with your young ones?

What does it look like when they feel safe to come and talk with you about anything? Right. And so making sure that safe harbor is there, so, so important.

Tom Arnold: 00:15:31

Yeah, yeah. And it's not just them. I mean, the parent might discover something.

You know, the next one, I would say is watching for behavioral changes within the kids.

Tom Arnold: 00:15:41

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:15:42

Is really important to see if they've somehow gotten, you know, into something.

It can be as simple as a phishing email where they clicked on something and they, you know, got a virus now in their system or their malware's attack their system. That's pretty simple stuff to deal with it.

But in the situation of the teen that I described, now if the person presenting that photo back said, hey, here's the deal, lady, you know, you're gonna owe me. You're gonna have to now, you know, go out and give me money.

You're going to have to go out and plug something into your dad's machine so I can find out what the next stock transaction should be. You're going to have to do all these things and that becomes sextortion.

Tom Arnold: 00:16:29

Okay?

Tom Arnold: 00:16:30

Which is really, really bad.

And a lot of kids are suddenly terrified by this and their minds, they try to, you know, process everything and figure out how they can get out of it. What do they have to do? Well, I guess I have to do a deal with this guy, you know, and that's really not the choice.

You know, the reality is there's a point in time when you have to talk to the parents, you have to talk to a school official, and hopefully the school official understands how to take some react and react to something. And by goodness, in that situation, you better be going into the police at that point.

It needs to go all the way there because you can't solve it alone is the point for that type of a case. And those can have real tragic implications associated with them.

Kristina: 00:17:21

Well, I have a question there because, I mean, it's been back and forth, you know, I've been in the schools, districts, the school system and things like that. And for a while the schools kind of want to be hands off, like oh no, that's outside of school, don't want to deal with that kind of thing.

But then they kind of went, oh well, it is inside school because they're classmates, etc. Etc. Where's kind of the landscape right now, do you know, for schools and school districts and parents?

Tom Arnold: 00:17:43

Well, you know, it's sort of all over the board. I mean the, what you expressed there, as far as the, you know, denial is what I'll call it, is still pervasive, no question.

Tom Arnold: 00:17:56

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:17:57

And I do believe there's a discussion that should happen in sort of like PTA meetings with the school with regards to if these things sort of happen, what are you going to do? Do you have a plan? If my daughter brings something to you, what's your plan for reacting to it?

Now granted, you're going to bring me into the equation, but what's your plan basically for dealing with this? And then, you know, preventative and all of those sorts of aspects come into this as well. So it's been all over the board.

So it really is important, I think in this situation in my belief that the family together has to take the lead. Kids will learn from other kids as well.

I do have a small story for you of another parent that talked to me after the book came out and she came up and said, well, we have a policy that our kids are isolated from all technology. No phones, no watches, no cell, no laptops, no Apple TVs.

And she said, you know, what really was bad that happened is I suddenly discovered that my son had a Facebook page and he had done this with another one of his friends who had one and was showing it to him and the friend let him use his credentials and helped him create his own Facebook page is what happened. So isolation doesn't work. You know, surrender now, okay, it doesn't work.

They are going to be exposed to technology either because you're helping them learn about technology and how to use it, or they're going to be exposed to technology through their friends later on. And that is actually kind of a really bad thing to have happen. So I think beginning to teach at the younger ages.

And yeah, I am talking about the seven year old here. I'm not just talking about the team.

Tom Arnold: 00:20:00

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:20:00

I'm talking about the seven year old. So I think having a plan.

If my third item is if they're going to play games and they're going to do games online, join in with them at the start, guide them through it, even if it's just a local game on the machine, play it with them.

Tom Arnold: 00:20:18

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:20:19

And then take them into, you know, online games and how to behave in online games. And yes, set the parental controls. You can step back a little bit. As they get older, you still have that safe harbor that you can work with.

And then you can go into more of a monitoring sort of mode. But you have to watch for that behavioral changes in the kids that may be sudden and it may be cyber related. It could be really bad.

Kristina: 00:20:46

Hey, babe, high five. We did it, right?

And the reason I'm saying that is because as a teacher, of course our kids had the online educational games and stuff that we played. Of course we monitored that and stuff as they got into it. Because Herb was an online gaming guy, right.

We wanted to make sure that the kids were doing that respectfully and responsibly. And so as we grew up and they grew up, we had all four computers in the living room.

We were playing the same game, but it was online with other people. And so we were modeling and talking about and you know, group together and doing different things. And so we brought all of that together.

So they learned how to behave online because we were there with them and we were having fun. I mean, we had things to talk about because we were in the same game, same quests, all this kinds of things. So that was really cool.

Tom Arnold: 00:21:33

No, that's excellent and I'm very pleased with that. I will say though, there people a lot of times forget the various functionality within online games.

There are chat, there's voice, there's video that can go with it as well. All right, so there's all of these sort of communications environments.

And one of the main points to sort of teach the kids is when they're in an online game. And there is sort of two constructs here, but you know, I'll talk about the two in a moment.

But when they're in that online game and they are chatting with other people in the game, the chat should be limited to anything that's within the scope of the game. If it's outside the scope of the game, well, I'm sorry, that's irrelevant. And that's where we always get into this whole problem with.

Okay, number one hint is keep your personal information private. Okay, what is personal information? Well, in this case, it's anything outside the scope of the game itself.

It's even somebody asking you what's the weather like where you live is as trivial as you could believe. And the reality is that's outside the scope of the game.

Those breadcrumbs are collected by a bad actor to develop a profile, to begin to exploit the profile.

Tom Arnold: 00:23:11

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:23:12

And it's a common trade graft.

So when someone's grooming a child or get into a situation of extremism where both on the right and the left games to try to recruit like minded people and to begin to indoctrinate like minded people at the time, and they'll start with a very young age to do that. So their major trade craft is to get the other person to give them anything, then give me a little more.

Then I give you something, but you give me something more. And that's how this begins.

Tom Arnold: 00:23:50

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:23:50

Whether we're talking Roblox or we're talking, you know, the latest multi role player.

Kristina: 00:23:57

Game, I think right there that's super important for parents because we teach our children to be polite and kind. Right. If someone's asking, how's your day, what's the weather like that we respond.

But when you're in that digital world, you're right, that's a completely different thing. Especially when, like you said, that person is building those breadcrumbs and gathering more and more information.

Because people can triangulate where you are in the country by the weather, by the, what you're describing, by where you are. Right.

Tom Arnold: 00:24:25

It's like, oh, it goes well beyond the breadcrumbs. Go well beyond. And remember, on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog.

Kristina: 00:24:33

Right.

Tom Arnold: 00:24:34

I can masquerade as anybody I want to on there. If you begin to give me little pieces of information, I can start to compile that information.

In the technical terms of my industry and forensics, we call it open source intelligence.

Kristina: 00:24:49

Right.

Tom Arnold: 00:24:49

It's a method of gathering intelligence information on a target, whatever that target is basically out there.

Herb: 00:24:57

There's this, there's this guy on YouTube that does video cat geocaching on video. He'll like be shown a picture.

I watched him the other day and he was shown a picture for an eighth of a second and he figured, and, and he got to within 100 miles of someplace in Africa from where that picture was taken. Just based on the, the color of the dirt in the, these people that. And now he's teaching other people how to do that. But that stuff is out there.

So very, very little information to be able to get to where you are. Well, for me it'd be incredibly difficult, but for some people who practice that, it's very, very easy.

Tom Arnold: 00:25:37

Yeah, yeah. And, and Photographs. Okay, let's go back to my teen that took a picture of herself with the bikini on the bed.

Tom Arnold: 00:25:46

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:25:48

You take the photograph with the phone and you post it. There's something called metadata, and the metadata is stored within the image itself. It includes the camera.

It tells you what type of device took the picture.

It tells you information about the device itself, but it also gives you the geocoordinates down to within 3ft radius of where that picture was actually taken.

Herb: 00:26:14

Okay, can turn that off. I have that turned off on my.

Tom Arnold: 00:26:18

I do understand that. But you show me a team that's got that switched off and knows how to do it. It's almost zero. Yeah.

Herb: 00:26:27

They actually probably want it turned on. So they'll be taking a picture of their food, smiling, and it'll.

Tom Arnold: 00:26:32

Yeah.

Herb: 00:26:32

Being that they're. Hey, I'm at this restaurant.

Kristina: 00:26:35

Yep.

Herb: 00:26:36

So that their apps designed for that. And again, like I said, I'm weird. I turned all of that stuff off. I don't want my phone.

It's scary that I'm having a conversation and suddenly my phone starts giving me ads for stuff. It's like, I don't like that.

Kristina: 00:26:49

But that's important for parents. Right. They need to know is available. Turn it off. Especially on your young ones.

Tom Arnold: 00:26:55

Yeah. And it gets even worse. As a forensics person, we tend to dive deeply into devices.

Tom Arnold: 00:27:04

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:27:05

So you allow a friend to share your device for any time. If they know where to go, they can get the unified. And from the unified logs, they can get an amazing wealth of information.

They can even get information for when your phone was picked up off of a desk in the office of your house and it was walked into the kitchen, that information is stored in the unified logs.

Tom Arnold: 00:27:31

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:27:33

That's what it does.

Tom Arnold: 00:27:35

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:27:36

And if they know how to get to the logs or they know how to get to information on the device, it can be damning. Extremely damning.

Tom Arnold: 00:27:44

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:27:45

They will have a huge amount of historical information. They'll have behavioral information as well, which gets bad.

Now, there is one point that I need to bring up, which is important for families, I think, and parents to understand.

I'm going to go back a couple of topics that's into the subject of chat, into the subject of, you know, game playing, into the subject of, you know, video conferences sort of things. There's two concepts that really kind of have to be understood. Especially now that schools are saying, okay, we're going to have a group project.

We're going to put five of you into a discord room.

You know, by groups of five, we're putting you in discord rooms and you're going to be able to chat with each other in the discord rooms to complete the project. I mean, this is used so much in both elementary. I've seen it in elementary schools. I've seen it now in high schools almost uniformly.

Tom Arnold: 00:28:40

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:28:41

And I've certainly seen universities. I'm sorry, we do it all the time.

Kristina: 00:28:44

Yeah.

Tom Arnold: 00:28:45

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:28:46

And whether. Whatever tool they use. I'm using discord as an example here for the, for the chat group area.

Kristina: 00:28:53

Yeah.

Tom Arnold: 00:28:54

So there's a couple things that need to be developed educationally to the kids and there's really two concepts that I find is really important. There's the concept of friends online.

Friends online means these are people outside of the technology or chat that you're using that you actually know or you think you know.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:15

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:16

My best friend for life is in the chat with me.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:19

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:20

You know, who now turns into my worst enemy for life while we're in there.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:24

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:25

And we're chatting away.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:27

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:28

That's friends online. And you do have to be a little bit cautious and a little bit leery of things you say. If emotions are high, don't use chat.

Kristina: 00:29:39

Right.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:39

Have a strategy as a parent to say how the people, how your kids should decompress if they need to.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:47

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:29:48

The other category, going back to my 7 year old grandson, I refer to as online friends. This is when you're in a tournament area and you. Do you really know who's in the room in there with you?

Do you really have any idea or concept as to who's in there? And now we have to be very cautious.

And if those two topics can be discussed and be learned and understood and as a part of the discussion with the family at that point, you know, we're lowering the opportunity for somebody to take advantage. So friends online and online friends are the sort of the two concepts that I wanted to bring up.

Kristina: 00:30:33

Yeah, I really like that.

Herb: 00:30:34

So you actually used a term way early in our conversation that might actually help with this too is you talked about online hygiene and what. So that's obviously something that we need to talk about kids with.

And so let's, let's dig into that a little bit because that might, if, because if we can get the hygiene down right, then a lot of this stuff might become easier.

Tom Arnold: 00:30:57

Well, it basically begins with sort of the very basic things that say keep your personal information private.

Tom Arnold: 00:31:06

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:31:06

So that means we have to talk about what exactly is personal information. We kind of talked about that, okay. There is a concept of being careful what you post.

Tom Arnold: 00:31:16

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:31:17

If you don't want it shared, don't post it. If you don't want it there forever, don't post it. There's something called the Wayback Machine.

The Wayback Machine can capture a lot of things on the Internet.

Tom Arnold: 00:31:32

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:31:33

Not so much mobile type items, but it's there.

Tom Arnold: 00:31:37

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:31:39

For parents, I think one of the hygiene points is know the privacy settings, understand what those are. You talked about specifically saying, I don't want the metadata going into the photos.

Now, there's pros and cons to taking that sort of approach that one has to realize and sometimes you want them, sometimes you don't. You know, information wise. The other one is really kind of intriguing.

And we always tell, you know, kids and everyone else, strong passwords are a key. Well, hold on a second here.

When you talk about passwords and password credentials, it becomes really important to realize that it's not good to share those with anyone. They really need to be kept secret and they need to be strong enough that they can't be derived.

You know, I asked the room and I said, I really, I was in a conference and I said, I don't want anybody to answer this question per se. Do not raise your hands.

Tom Arnold: 00:32:52

Okay?

Tom Arnold: 00:32:52

I just want you to think how many of you in the room use your birth date as the passcode to access your cell phone, huh?

Kristina: 00:33:04

I bet a lot of people are.

Tom Arnold: 00:33:05

Like, oh, you know, I could tell from the faces. I had about a third of them. You know, I said, do not raise your hands.

Tom Arnold: 00:33:14

Okay?

Tom Arnold: 00:33:15

But I want you to think about that as to what that sort of means and what that implication is, because a lot of the security to the phone itself and access to the device is linked to information like that. Now we can go back to the breadcrumbs now. Oh, breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs can lead us to pass codes.

Kristina: 00:33:34

Yeah, definitely. What was your first pet's name?

Tom Arnold: 00:33:39

Yes. Well, you know. Yeah, that's right.

Kristina: 00:33:43

What month were you born in, by the way?

Tom Arnold: 00:33:45

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Kristina: 00:33:47

Facts, all that stuff.

Herb: 00:33:49

Yeah. Not supposed to say this, but derivatives of Social Security numbers. Social Security number is pretty private. You're not supposed to give that out.

Kristina: 00:34:00

And so everybody anymore.

Herb: 00:34:02

But a derivative of as a Social Security number is a little bit harder to figure out than, than a birthday.

Tom Arnold: 00:34:08

So.

Herb: 00:34:09

But you're. And your Social Security probably, you should never forget that.

Tom Arnold: 00:34:13

True. And you should probably search, do some open source intelligence on yourself and see if you can find Your Social Security number.

May I suggest that when you use a search engine. I shouldn't say this in a, in a podcast, but I will. When you use a search engine, try using Yandex. Yandex is the Russian version of Google.

Herb: 00:34:37

Oh.

Tom Arnold: 00:34:37

It tends to always speak the truth. If you put my name into Google, you're going to get the actor. Yes, a whole bunch of the actor.

Kristina: 00:34:48

Yeah.

Tom Arnold: 00:34:49

You're gonna.

Herb: 00:34:49

I was gonna bring that up earlier, but I figured you got enough of.

Tom Arnold: 00:34:52

That, so I have to weed through all that stuff.

Kristina: 00:34:55

Yeah.

Tom Arnold: 00:34:56

If you put my name in with even one additional fact in the Yandex, you get me, you get my resume, you get my current photos that I've shared and things like press releases, it all comes up.

Tom Arnold: 00:35:11

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:35:11

The Russians are not shy about presenting truthful information on Americans.

Kristina: 00:35:18

Yeah.

Tom Arnold: 00:35:18

And so do a little open source intelligence work. See if you can find that Social Security number.

Kristina: 00:35:25

Yeah.

Herb: 00:35:26

What was that?

Kristina: 00:35:29

Andex Index.

Tom Arnold: 00:35:30

Yandex. Y A, N, D, X.

Kristina: 00:35:34

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:35:35

Beautiful is the name of the search engine.

Kristina: 00:35:37

Oh, my gosh.

Okay, so here is something else that we have to get to before we leave, because one of the things that you like to talk about is how do you approach your child and share this stuff without scaring the bleep out of them? Right. We need them to be careful, we need them to be cautious. But how do we approach it?

How do parents go to their, you know, maybe teen tween and say, hey, you know, I'm really concerned and this is why. Without scaring them to death.

Tom Arnold: 00:36:01

Yes, absolutely. And I think this is a good, good point to reiterate that my, my, I can tell stories all day long, and my job here is not to create, create fear.

Tom Arnold: 00:36:13

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:36:13

That doesn't help at all. I think one of the major items is come to the realization that technology is going to be a part of their lives as they grow up.

And even if they're quite young, you know, as an example, you gave the example of like the land party in your house to play a game.

Tom Arnold: 00:36:33

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:36:34

There's nothing better than when they're very young and, and you're in sort of a teaching mode and you're helping them play a video game so that they, quote, don't get frustrated, okay. And yes, it's a tactic. It's a tactic to begin the communications, to begin the discussion.

Tom Arnold: 00:36:53

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:36:54

And that's going to carry forward. Now, parents largely have schedules that are nightmarish. Both parents work.

A friend picks the kids up from school and brings them home or hangs out with them until such time as the parents get off of work, there's a lot of time problems and challenges. They're tired, hungry, all of that.

This can be done even during a meal, even during anything that is, you know, where you're together as when they're young and you're sort of helping them along and you're kind of educating yourself as well. During your free time.

Instead of, you know, shopping for the latest, you know, whatever on Amazon, contemplate maybe going in and looking at some games that might be appropriate. See if you can find one that might excite or be something different or a little more challenging for the kid to play.

You know, spend a little time in that like we spend time, you know, you know, during our break just shopping through what's Amazon gotten the latest of whatever. Okay, so try that sort of approach early, early on.

If you haven't done that at that point I think it becomes time to say, hey, we kind of need to help out here.

We're gonna do a little chat thing here within the family and we're gonna take and make a, and I'll, I'll use the term WhatsApp, but you know, I'm just picking a tool. Pick your poison. Okay, preferably not telegram, but pick your poison.

And we're going to create a little chat group and we're going to play little, you know, chatty things with the family.

And this is going to be our family chat forum where we're going to have a group or we're going to, you know, create a group account and imessage and we're going to chat with each other and just begin the conversation, begin the behavior there in a very non threatening sort of way, you know, and then you can sort of move on to other areas.

I think realizing that children really do learn quickly and they will learn from their peers, whether they're good positive influences or they're negative influences. They will learn from their peers is one of the really, really important things.

So I think it's a matter of picking out and saying, hey, we're going to do these things together. And oh, by the way, at the same time we're also educating mom and dad, you know, as they do this.

A lot of parents, you know, if you, you know, my son works for one Nvidia actually and loves playing the role playing games and is extremely good at it, you know, and if I sit there and try to, I can't even get my fingers to coordinate on the keyboard as quickly as he can. Okay, that's the Reality. So don't be afraid to ask for help from the kid. Hey, show me how to do this.

Tom Arnold: 00:40:01

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:40:02

You wouldn't believe with a teen how that works so well to begin the conversation, okay. As an icebreaker.

Herb: 00:40:11

And if you're bad at first, you will get better.

Like, there's this one war game where like the greatest sniper is this old dude that actually was a sniper and he does online video games of him playing these war games, and he's just amazing at it. So age is not a thing. It's. It's intent and it's enthusiasm, and you will get better.

I played a game with him and I first started and I couldn't shoot where the darn couldn't hit a moving object. After a couple of months, it's like, oh, this was great. And then something happened.

I took a couple of months off, came back and was like, man, I couldn't do anything. It's like I used to. So it's a skill. Develop it. It's. It's fun to play with your kids. It's a great way to connect with them, right?

If it's, even if it's not your full thing, you can start conversations the side by side beyond the game. And you're creating a family relationship, so.

Tom Arnold: 00:41:04

Exactly.

And, and you're keeping in the back of your mind that when they're in chat, when they're on voice, when they're on video, it's nothing but within the scope of the game itself. You know, I hate to say it, but extremism and cyber terror are real.

Tom Arnold: 00:41:20

Okay?

Tom Arnold: 00:41:21

Extremism, especially, whether it's the far left or the far right, it doesn't really matter.

Tom Arnold: 00:41:28

Okay?

Tom Arnold: 00:41:28

They both use video games to recruit like minded kids.

Tom Arnold: 00:41:34

Okay?

Tom Arnold: 00:41:35

And that's where they do it. You know, they help train the kids to become better at something, but then they also begin to try to indoctrinate them into their way of thinking.

So, you know, I'm not trying to rain on that parade because I think you're absolutely right about what you said, but just have that in the back of your mind as well. That that's one of your goals, is to stop them from changing.

Chatting about things outside the scope of the game and getting into that and realizing it's okay to leave a tournament. It's okay. All right? If someone starts asking questions or trying to suggest things to you, it's okay to leave it. It's okay to walk away.

Kristina: 00:42:19

That's a really, really big one as well, right? Because we are so competitive and Our kids are so competitive.

But really to let them know if your safety is in question, if you are uncomfortable, it's better to leave than to stay there. Yeah.

Herb: 00:42:33

Okay, so the nice way to say this is, you know, kids don't have a lot of experience to make long term decisions and they're actually learn better through making mistakes. So the dumb, the not nice kids are dumb. They're going to screw up a lot. They're designed to do that. That's how they learn.

So we are going to have kids that are going to do the wrong thing and have repercussions, come back. What are the different levels that the parents should be aware of and who to go to? Like, oh, this needs to go to the authorities.

Oh, this kind of needs to can be had. What, what kind of levels? Because it's like sometimes you might, oh my God, this is terrible. Got to tell somebody. But that's not so bad.

Where are the kind of the lines drawn? What are the levels?

Tom Arnold: 00:43:29

Remember that a teenager's brain from the teen years is tripling in mass, okay?

The cognitive skills and just everything else that's out there with them is trying to learn and experience things and begin to sort of pave their own way, if you would. That's just sort of a little piece. There's a large number of potential issues.

And today as we look at the topic of cybercrime, we realize that there it's now several different typologies or several different types of cybercrime that are all completely different.

And the reality is, if I looked at the topic of, or I did look at the topic of cybercrime 10, 15 years ago, and the reality is it's evolved a lot and it's evolving even more with artificial intelligence and the development of technologies that are coming along.

So the long winded statement I'm making here is your question is an extremely good one, but there is not really a pat answer to realize that it's evolving. There's conditions that say, I think someone's trying to groom my child.

Okay, well, grooming and those sorts of things that are taking place, whether it's for sexual, you know, exploitation, whether it's for image based abuse, whether it's going into cyber bullying, harassment or cyber stalking, okay, all of those type things, you really can't handle just you and your.

Tom Arnold: 00:45:14

Kid at that point.

Tom Arnold: 00:45:15

You realize now I've got to begin to get more assistance. Largely that means the police.

As it stands right now, I don't know of many school officials that I've talked to that really are expertise is in this and would be able to provide the resources that would be needed to actually to begin to deal with that sort of a situation. Those sorts of situations are definitely over there in. I need police, I need federal assistance here in dealing with it.

And there are places online and there's good places online to begin to make that report, to begin to make that statement that something bad's happening. The teen who took the picture of herself in the bed and the bikini was removed in the image that would have at the time, that was a little old.

But the reality is at the time now there's organizations where that would get reported to, that would pass it to the appropriate federal agency to get a reaction, and that would become a gatekeeper to the federal agency. Local police can also help big time in this area as well. Now we take it down a couple notches and say, you know, it's a.

It's a situation where, huh, you know, Mary's been in my group, she's my best friend for life here. And now Mary's being mean to me, and so I'm being mean back to Mary. Okay, now this can escalate.

And there's a fairly famous case right now of this escalating where Mary's mom discovers this and Mary's mom begins masquerading as Mary and really takes the bullying to another level and it actually causes the victim to commit suicide. All right, that's how bad that got. And at that point, it's really time to bring in, hey, mom and dad, we need to talk about this.

Mom and dad need to talk to Mary's mom or whatever, because I'm getting bullied.

It's now time to include the school officials and yes, you may have to include the police at that point in time as well, you know, for that sort of situation actually taking place. So that's just an example. So there is a bit of a spectrum here.

Somebody asks you for money, somebody asks you a question that's just way out there in left field. You and your mom or parent can handle that.

Tom Arnold: 00:47:44

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:47:45

Is my point. So does that sort of get close to answering your question?

Kristina: 00:47:50

Yeah, I think it really did. Yeah. Thank you. Wow, Tom, this is just absolutely amazing. We keep going on and on and on, but we don't want to, you know, keep.

Keep you in captivity in our podcast, but we also want to make sure parents also have a good time frame and things like that.

So could you make sure that you say right now how parents can get a hold of you and the book again, so they can really share this with their family and friends and get this information out there.

Tom Arnold: 00:48:17

Sure. The, the book is the digital detective first intervention and it's.

You can find information on me and you can find information on the book and how to get the books at the website that is, I think of it like the way Apple does thing with the little I I digitaldetective.com and.

Herb: 00:48:39

Real quick, who, who is that book written for? The ages? Is it because when I first started as, oh, it's for the parents, but is it for the, it's for the kids. Where, where, who is that written for?

Tom Arnold: 00:48:49

It's written to a level of nine and over. So it's really kind of designed to be like a first chapter reader. Although a lot of parents read it, which is great.

Tom Arnold: 00:49:00

Okay.

Tom Arnold: 00:49:01

And I wanted to keep it in the style of the original Sherlock Holmes. So the book is actually illustrated. Each chapter is illustrated by Gary Trousdale who's a friend and a colleague of mine.

He is a three time Oscar award winning director for Disney. So he did the illustration of the book. So it's really trying to target that nine and up category. But like I said, a lot of parents read it as well.

Kristina: 00:49:35

Excellent. Perfect. And of course we'll have everything down in the show notes as well. So you, the parents, audience could find the book, find you, etc.

Tom, thank you so much. One last question. Is there anything that we didn't talk about today that you were like, I really want to say this today.

Tom Arnold: 00:49:50

You know, I think I got through the core concepts and a lot of the suggestions for, you know, parents and I think it's the other thing I only thing I would add is it's realizing that this is a continuous process.

Cybercrime is evolving, technology is evolving and keeping sort of abreast of what's coming and what might need to be chatted about with the kids is really important.

Kristina: 00:50:19

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Herb: 00:50:20

Yep. And don't chalk up, change your behaviors to just being moody teenagers. So investigate if something's going on.

Could be the phone, could be the school, could be relationships might not have anything to do with this. But, but be there for your kids because you know, this is such an important time for them, for their learning and their growth.

So thank you very much. Tom, it is a, it has been a pleasure with your background.

It's like I, I can't help but have you out here, but so many people, again, they just talk about the problems. You actually changed your career based on this to. To help with the children. So. Well, in a way, you still.

You're still doing it at the upper level, too, in college. So thank you. Because so many people, again, they see the problems, they talk about the problems, but they don't do anything about it.

And you're out there, you're fighting the dragon. And not only are you fighting the dragon, you're coming back to town to tell everybody how to do it as well. And that is the hero's journey.

So thank you for being here today. Thank you for being a hero, and thank you for trying to make the world a better. Thank you for making the world a better place every day.

Tom Arnold: 00:51:27

Thank you for having me on, guys. I really appreciate it.

Kristina: 00:51:30

You are very welcome. All right, audience, you know what to do. It's time to, like, share, review all of that stuff. Get this podcast out there.

There are parents and families who need this information and other topics that we've covered. So make sure that you are doing everything in your power to make your children happy, healthy, and successful.

And until next time, we'll see you later. Bye for now.