WEBVTT
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Welcome to Let's talk about scams. I'm your host, Joyce Petrowski,
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founder of Rose Resources Outreach to Safeguard the Elderly, and
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I'm glad you've joined me today. You can find more
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resources on our website at Roseadvocacy dot org. You can
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sign up for our email and or our mailed newsletter.
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You'll find our social media links, and you'll find the
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links from Apple and Spotify for this podcast. So today
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we're going to talk to a guest, Paige Hansen with
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Secure Labs, about scams involving hijacking your bluetooth. Well, hi, Page,
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thank you for joining me today.
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Thanks for having me, Joyce.
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Yeah, absolutely so. In the last couple of weeks a
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friend of mine sent me a news article or not article.
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It was actually on the news here in Phoenix about
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They called it blue jacking, blue snow thing in blue bugging.
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Guessing it has something to do with bluetooth, because they
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all do.
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They all have a theme.
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Yes, anyways, so let's get started. I don't know which
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one you want to tackle first. Do they all kind
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of mean the same thing?
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Well, you know, they all mean it's with your bluetooth,
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and you know the Bluetooth can be extremely helpful, right,
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So you usually have it on because you've got maybe
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a watch connected or maybe your headphone set connected, and
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so you want it to be you know, discoverable because
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you want to connect certain things or you know, for me,
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I use the Bluetooth in my TV to cast you know,
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if I'm doing a workout or something, I want to
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cast it. And so there's there's meaningful ways that we're
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using Bluetooth, and you know, we want the convenience that
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it's just on, so as convenient as that is. Fraudsters
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pick up on that, you know, and they say, this
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is a discoverable that we can essentially infiltrate a device.
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And so I'll give you tips here at the end.
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But there are some terms that have come come up.
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So like you said, there's blue snarfing, blue bugging, blue jacking,
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blue snack smacking, all of them. I know all of
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them have to do with blue tooth. So at the
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end of the day, the cyber criminals are using your
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connection to your Bluetooth. They're getting into your device via
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your bluetooth. So it's easy we can disable your Bluetooth.
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But let me walk through exactly what these criminals are doing.
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So the first one is blue snarfing, So that is
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when it's a certain type of cyber attack that steals
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your information. So it includes let's say your photos, text messages, emails,
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but it does it via the bluetooth. So it could
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often lead to identity theft because imagine you know, somebody's
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taking your photos and your text messages and your emails.
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They can pretend to be you, right, yeah, and so
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they're able to get in via bluetooth because it's you
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typically usually have it indiscoverable mode. So again where we
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talk about the convenience, so your watch can connect right
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right exactly, yeah, yeah, So that's called blue snarfing. Then
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there is a term called blue jacking, so that's when
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another device sends unsolicited phishing messages through bluetooth. So this
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can contain usually malicious links. Sounds complicated, it kind of
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is in a way, but at the end of the day,
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what they're doing is they're just using your device to
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send out these phishing messages, but it's through your bluetooth.
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So it actually looks like it's coming from you.
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These links can be malicious, meaning that if if you
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or someone else clicks on them, it's going to make
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it so their device could be potentially have malware or
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some sort of virus, and so that can be not
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great because they're using you to do that. So that's
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called blue jacking.
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So a hacker gets into your let's say phone, through
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your bluetooth, they can send emails and text messages, and
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it's going to say like, I did that through your Bluetooth.
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Then I could send emails and text messages to your
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contacts and have it look like it's coming from you.
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No, usually it's they're they're taking that information. Now they
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can easily create an account and pretend to be you.
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But it's now they can they know your photos. So
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for instance, they could send a photo like Joyce and I.
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You know, we took a picture last week together at
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a networking event. I could easily somebody could take that
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and text you and say, hey, it's page I got
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a new number. But here's the picture that we took
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last week. It was so great seeing you. Well, I
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click on the picture, it can now include a malicious
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link in that photo. So when I open the photo attachment,
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then now I'm compromised.
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Okay, got it.
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It's almost like they gain credibility because they know how
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you talk, they know who your contacts are, and then
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they have emails but back and forth, so they know
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they can just reply from that.
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So so they can scour through all that and kind
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of see who you talk to all the time, and
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like you said, what your voices and all that exactly
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that's scary.
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And now with AI, all I have to do is
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copy paste all your emails, put them in AI and say, okay,
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you know, create a you know, a greeting or an
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email to so and so based off of how I've
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interacted with them, and so it'll even spit out the
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same tone and sentiments that you use. You know, if
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you use you know, if you write all the words out,
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or if you use abbreviations, it'll you know, do that
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as well happen. Ok, yeah, all right, we'll pick up.
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There is a term it's called blue bugging. So that's
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when a cyber criminal gains access to your device using
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a secret Bluetooth connection to access private data. And so
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that makes them this is what you're talking about, is
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blue bugging. So that helps them impersonate the user because
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they've gained access to your device with a secret Bluetooth.
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So just as easy as it is to connect your watch,
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they have now connected something else, some other sort of device,
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and now they can impersonate you.
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So that's where they can get in to your email
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and send emails pretending to be you.
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Right, because they're essentially taking over your device.
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Okay, so that's that's blue bugging, blue bugging.
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I know it's hard to keep all these straight, right,
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So well you just remember there's there's a bug in
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your device. Yes, that is exactly right, yes, all right, yes.
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And the last one, it's it's probably the most sophisticated
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of the crimes. It's called blue smacking, and it's a
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specific denial of service. They call this a d attack
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to force a device to shut down through oversized data packets.
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And what this means is basically, somebody is sending so
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much information to your phone, your phone can't process that,
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so it ends up just shutting down.
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So what would be the benefit of that?
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Then what is the benefit of half the criminals? You know,
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they just do it to cause ruckus half the attack,
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that's true, you know, And so it's then it's causing
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you to say, oh my goodness, what's you know, then
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you don't have access to your phone. So here's an example.
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Maybe maybe you know somebody who has a I'm just
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thinking of like corporate espionage. You know, like you know
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they are having a big investor meeting and they're doing
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it the phone through their phone, and so that you
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do a specific DEDOS attack and you down their phone
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so they're not able to have that or they're scrambling
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to have a call. That's I mean example from like
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a corporate standpoint, but you could insert that sort of
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scenario into anybody maker.
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So it's not necessarily that they might want to take
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over your identity or get your files. It's more of
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they're going to cause you grief because they're going to
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shut your phone down you can't use it.
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Yes, and the same goes. I mean that sort of
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attack happens on companies' websites. You'll get all this traffic.
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And that's why sometimes when you go to a retailer's
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website and it's not working, oftentimes it's some sort of
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attack that the criminals are trying to just either cause
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ruckus or news or you know whatever. Who knows what
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the skill set of the fraudster is and what their
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endgame is but that's just typically a scenario.
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Got it. Okay, well that's interesting. So what's the best thing.
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I know? I use Bluetooth, and I normally use it
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when I'm in my car. You know, I play my
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playlist from my phone on my car radio right to
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listen to it. But the thing is is I don't
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turn it off. I just leave it on.
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It definitely needs to be part of your routine, something
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that that I do. So I have my device here
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and I swipe down and then I have access you know,
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these are all my settings. I can easily just click
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this the bluetooth and turn it off, you know, when
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I'm not and because really what you want to do
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is turn it off when you're in public areas Joyce,
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when you're getting into your car. I would not I
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would not consider that a public area. Same with you know,
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if I were to go just the grocery store and back,
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I'm I'm going to have my bluetooth on. I want
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my watch on tracking my steps because it's not tracking me.
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Am I really walking? I mean I'm not so. But
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that's one thing you can do. You know, if you're
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at the airport and you're not using your Bluetooth, and
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you know that's maybe a scenario. You could just turn
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it off, but there is a setting within your device.
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You can be discoverable or not discoverable. And that's what
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makes it so we can go out and I feel
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more comfortable because I'm not discoverable. When you make yourself discoverable,
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that would be like your TV for instance, that is
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constantly discoverable and I can just cast onto my TV.
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You don't want to be your TV. You don't want
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anybody just to be able to connect with you.
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Well, right, because your TV's in your house, right, it's
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not moving locations, right, But what if someone's sitting out
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in front of your house.
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My neighbor absolutely could cast something through my TV.
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Or I've heard a lot of these smart TVs have
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cameras in them.
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Yes, they could take over. This is an example exactly, Joyce.
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This is an example of why yes should That is
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one area because we have one TV. It's actually the
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TV in my garage, so if something crazy is going
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on in my garage it would be surprise to me.
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But our other TVs you have to have like a
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pin number to be able to access. But the one
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in our garage is discoverable all the time. But this
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would be an example of turning that off. You know,
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if we really wanted to, your phone is a place
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where you should you should turn that off.
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Someone gets into your Bluetooth normally, won't it give you
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a message that says someone another device wants to pair.
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There are safeguards in place. But then also to the
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other side, if it's a certain type of one of
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these scam Bluetooth scams, they can just bypass that because
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they have access to your device, so they're saying okay,
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so if you're not paying attention.
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It'll be like they'll automatically make themselves one of your
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favorite Bluetooth connections or something like that.
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Exactly that.
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And then so what about like I recently when I
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got a new about three months ago, I had had
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some old watches that were still on there. They weren't connected,
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but they were still on there. Yes, my old car
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was still on there but not connected. So it's always
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good I would imagine every now and then to go
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into your Bluetooth settings and if you have items that
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you don't use anymore, like an old car, an old
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you know, watch, whatever it is that you go in
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and tell it to forget this device. I think you
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just click on it or click the eye next to it,
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eye next to it, and then yeah, and then it'll
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come up and you just I think it's down at
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the bottom and you just say forget this device, and
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then it just takes it away. Yeah.
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I mean, because like me, I have, you know, the
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things I normally use, which is my watch, but then
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I have like no number of speakers, you know, so
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it's like I do we have a Bose speaker, we
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have another speaker, we have another speakers, so like just
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different speakers and there's ones I haven't used in a
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long time, but there's still are speakers. I could probably
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just take those off. You know, it's really up to you.
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But yeah, if you have an old watch or you know,
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like I used to have a fitbit, I used to
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be on there. I looked on there, I'm like, I
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don't need to have that on there.
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So definitely no one thing I just thought of, you know,
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because you know, a handful of times throughout the year
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when I'm traveling, will rent a car, right and so
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I know a lot of people and I've been very
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cognizant of it, like if I'm going to connect my Bluetooth,
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I make sure when I'm turning that car in, I
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go in and say forget this connection or whatever it is.