Smashing Security podcast #080: Country bans Facebook, eavesdropping Alexa, and PornHub VPN

Industry veterans, chatting about computer security and online privacy.

Smashing Security #080: Country bans Facebook, eavesdropping Alexa, and PornHub VPN

The country of Papua New Guinea is planning a month-long nationwide ban of Facebook, PornHub wants to keep your online activities more private, and Amazon Alexa forwards a married couple’s private conversation to a random contact.

All this and much much more is discussed in the latest 100% GDPR-compliant edition of the “Smashing Security” podcast by cybersecurity veterans Graham Cluley and Carole Theriault, joined this week by ESET’s Tommi Uhlemann.

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Carole Theriault

Right?

Unknown

Let me just do a charity single. We are the world, we are the people, we wanna hear Carole back on the show, let's have her back again. Graham, sorry what he said to Mrs. Cluley in bed about his annoying Canadian co-host the other day. Smashing Security, Episode 80. Country Bands Facebook, Eavesdropping Alexa, and Pornhub VPN with Carole Theriault and Graham Cluley. Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Smashing Security, episode 80. My name is Graham Cluley.

Carole Theriault

I'm Carole Theriault.

Graham Cluley

Hi, Carole.

Carole Theriault

Hi, Graham.

Graham Cluley

And we are joined this week by a special guest. He's new to the show. It's Tommi Uhlemann from ESET. Hello, Tommi Uhlemann.

Tommi Uhlemann

Guten Tag. Hallo.

Carole Theriault

What are you barfing on his name for?

Graham Cluley

What if that's how you say it, Carole?

Carole Theriault

Uhlemann. How do you say it, Tommi?

Tommi Uhlemann

Guys, we've been practicing for 30 minutes. It's Uhlemann.

Graham Cluley

Uhlemann.

Tommi Uhlemann

Uhlemann. That's quite nice, yeah.

Graham Cluley

And Tommi, you work for ESET, of course, a world-famous security company. You're based out in Germany, aren't you? What sort of things do you get up to out there?

Tommi Uhlemann

Well, basically any new things come up, I have to talk about it. Sometimes I even know things about it. And so writing articles, security presentations, pretty much the things you do, but in a much smaller scope, I think.

Graham Cluley

Now I haven't already quizzed you about this, but I'm going to make a shot in the dark here. I'm guessing you might, in recent weeks or maybe even months, spoken about something called GDPR. Is that something that German people care about at all?

Tommi Uhlemann

Yes. Do they really care about it though? Or are they sick to the back teeth about it like we are?

Graham Cluley

Well, data protection was invented in Germany, wasn't it?

Carole Theriault

Right.

Tommi Uhlemann

OK, Tommi, if you were standing outside a Lidl, a German supermarket, and people were walking in and you would say, GDPR, do you know what it is? Was ist das?

Graham Cluley

Right?

Carole Theriault

What would most of them know, or would most of them not know, do you think?

Tommi Uhlemann

Most of them wouldn't know because we've got another acronym for it.

Graham Cluley

Well, the truth is Germans don't actually have four words for anything, do they? They stick all four words together. You'd have some word which is 67 letters long.

Carole Theriault

Is that where supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

Tommi Uhlemann

Hold on. GDPR is exactly one word in German.

Graham Cluley

Of course.

Tommi Uhlemann

It's short. DSGVO, and it's short for Datenschutzgrundverordnung. Nice, isn't it?

Graham Cluley

This week's episode of Smashing Security is sponsored by VirusTotal. Now, you probably know VirusTotal as a malware research tool. Over 1 million files are uploaded every day by folks analyzing malware and attempting to determine what different antivirus products call a sample. But you can do much more than that with VirusTotal Intelligence, which helps you get more context about your alerts through advanced malware threat hunting, relationship and behavioral visualization, as well as historical analysis on billions of malware samples. To learn more about how VirusTotal Intelligence can help you, visit virustotal.com/learn or email the team at . And be sure to say you heard about them on the Smashing Security podcast. And welcome back. Well, as normal, we've been looking back over the computer security stories of the last week, and my story involves the letters PNG. Now, Tommi, Carole, could it be Portable Network Graphics? PNG, what could it stand for? Persona non grata, maybe? Pencil-necked geek?

Carole Theriault

Oh, you Googled this, did you? Just to look impressive? Of course you did.

Graham Cluley

It is in fact Papua New Guinea. Have any of us been to Papua New Guinea?

Carole Theriault

I don't think I've ever said it that way. Is it Papa New Guinea? Papua?

Graham Cluley

What, you say Papa New Guinea?

Carole Theriault

I do. I think I always have.

Graham Cluley

Papa New Guinea. Well, maybe you're right. Maybe it's actually Papa New Guinea. Who knows? Silent U. I don't know.

Carole Theriault

Okay, well, no offense to anyone, but please inform us.

Graham Cluley

Okay, I'm going to just have to say PNG from now on. Well, PNG, I'll give you some fascinating facts about PNG other than the fact that I don't know how to say it. They have 3 official languages: English, Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin. Oh, please, please. This isn't the kind of podcast where we make fun of foreign words, right?

Tommi Uhlemann

Well, but I can say I'm fluent in the latter one.

Graham Cluley

You're fluent. Talking of which, the average rainfall is 80 to 160 inches per year, and as of last year, there were 7 points—

Carole Theriault

That's not fascinating.

Graham Cluley

Is that not fascinating?

Carole Theriault

Well, not to me. Is it to you?

Graham Cluley

54th largest country in the world.

Tommi Uhlemann

Any Scottish listener would say, bah.

Graham Cluley

Well, I'll tell you what actually makes Papua, or maybe Papua— oh, for goodness' sake, I don't know.

Carole Theriault

PNG.

Graham Cluley

PNG. I'll tell you what makes them more fascinating for me right now is they say they are going to ban Facebook for a month. Hurrah!

Carole Theriault

Are you kidding? Okay, wait, rewind.

Tommi Uhlemann

Election's coming up.

Carole Theriault

The entire country is going to ban Facebook?

Graham Cluley

Well, according to press reports from PNG, Papua New Guinea. Their government is saying that they are going to do this as a month-long experiment nationwide. They don't say exactly when they're going to do this, but their intention is to find out and research the impact that Facebook is having on their population and to root out fake users.

Carole Theriault

Ooh.

Tommi Uhlemann

So it's no punishment, but a test.

Graham Cluley

Well, I don't know if it would be a punishment. It might be a treat. Good news, everybody! You don't have to worry about Facebook anymore. I mean, it's good news maybe for people who might be addicted to it, because maybe this is the push that they need to separate them from their addiction. It's maybe bad news for any company or organization which may use Facebook for a positive purpose. But Communications Minister Sam Basil said that the shutdown would enable his department to conduct research into the social network. And what they want to do is find out who hides behind fake accounts, who are the users that upload pornographic images, who's posting false and misleading information. Now, I don't understand why you have to close down Facebook or prevent people from accessing it to work out who might be behind a fake account. I don't see how that actually helps the government.

Carole Theriault

That's interesting. And also, there's two messages here. One is we want to see what social networking does to a population as almost a scientific experiment. But then there's this other kind of we want to weed out— they're not trying to block user accounts. We want to know who is behind these accounts. So it looks a bit like a witch hunt.

Graham Cluley

Well, it's unclear how the ban is actually going to work. Are they going to do this with local ISPs blocking access to Facebook? And if so, how's that going to prevent people with VPNs from accessing Facebook because they'll be able to pretend that they're going somewhere else entirely. So unclear how that's going to work. Are they going to block VPNs as well?

Carole Theriault

Yeah, this would cause a riot, I think, in the UK if Theresa May came out and said, "Guess what, dudes, we're blocking Facebook." So how are they being able to pull this off with their population?

Graham Cluley

Well, you say that it would cause a riot in the UK. The truth is that this is an apathetic population who are on Facebook. What are they going to do? They're just going to switch over to Instagram and post up a non-smiley selfie or something. They're hardly going to storm the streets, are they, with placards?

Carole Theriault

I don't know. If they spend 2 hours plus on Facebook a day, they've got a lot of time on their hands. Carry on, sorry.

Graham Cluley

I want to know how PNG, or Papua New Guinea perhaps, how they're going to measure the impact of this. A month doesn't sound a very long time to me anyway.

Carole Theriault

Maybe they're planning never to turn it back on because they're going to find so much corruption in it.

Graham Cluley

Interesting, isn't it?

Carole Theriault

They're going to protect their population.

Graham Cluley

So what interests me is this — I find it all a bit baffling. So I read a little bit more about this communications minister was saying. Sam Basil has said we're going to look into this, what the impact is and how PNG citizens could use Facebook with genuine profiles. And he says if need be, maybe we need to get some of our local population and developers, or 7.8 million people who live there, to create their own version of Facebook which is more conducive to us and the people who live on our island. So what he's actually saying is maybe we should have our own Facebook and not use that one.

Carole Theriault

He's not saying that. He's saying let's have a closed network just for PNG people, right?

Graham Cluley

But built by them with real—

Carole Theriault

Built by them. And because no one else will be able to connect, I wouldn't be able to connect into it. I wouldn't be welcome to have an account, I guess.

Graham Cluley

I doubt there's much incentive, to be honest. But the fact is that you would need a real confirmed identity to do so. And that's what makes me a little bit suspicious about this, because they're worried about people posting false and misleading information. It's hang on, the government are worried about what people are posting and how it could be false and misleading, and then they're beginning to say, well, maybe we need our own Facebook with confirmed identities. That presumably is going to make it harder for someone who has something to say which is critical of those in authority in PNG to post those messages on a new network.

Tommi Uhlemann

Even worse, organized criticism, right?

Carole Theriault

Because, okay, but Graham, Graham, Graham, you're basically saying do you want to trust a private corporation with your most personal data, or do you want to trust the government who already has all your real personal information, your tax records, etc., etc.?

Graham Cluley

I am the last person in the world who would really sort of say, "Oh well, I'm going to put all my trust in Mark Zuckerberg wearing his hoodie, downloading ringtones onto his mobile." It's just vile that I would put any trust—

Carole Theriault

He has a really beautiful dog. Oh, whatever. Just don't go on social networks, folks. Unplug your phone now, throw it into the sea.

Graham Cluley

It's not that far if you live there.

Carole Theriault

Goodbye all, goodbye.

Graham Cluley

Tommi, what have you got for us this week?

Tommi Uhlemann

Something for maybe the people of P&G, because it's a VPN solution. And also it fits the upcoming holiday seasons. I think, because we always advise people not to log into public Wi-Fi.

Carole Theriault

Yeah, it can be a bad idea to log into public Wi-Fi. We often say try to avoid that.

Tommi Uhlemann

A couple of years back, I was guessing that VPNs would grow mushrooms. A VPN here, a VPN there. So it's no surprise that there is a new VPN provider. The surprise is actually the ones who are providing the VPN service.

Carole Theriault

Okay.

Graham Cluley

Is it a trustworthy, respectable organization?

Tommi Uhlemann

I'd say for their users, probably so, because they got a large user base, the ones creating the VPN service.

Carole Theriault

Okay.

Tommi Uhlemann

And maybe we can have a little drum roll here.

Graham Cluley

That was a drum roll, wasn't it? There wasn't anything else going on.

Carole Theriault

It sounded a little poop.

Graham Cluley

I heard some throbbing coming from Germany. But anyway, okay.

Tommi Uhlemann

No, the app is called VPN Hub. And actually, yes, you might guess right. It's Pornhub providing the VPN service. Oh, with all the encryption, everything you dreamed of, with apps for iOS, for Android.

Graham Cluley

Just one moment, Tommi. Did you say that this is a VPN being launched by Pornhub? So Pornhub is a website about... Oh, I've never even heard of it.

Tommi Uhlemann

Adult entertainment services, maybe?

Graham Cluley

Okay, so this is a porno website which has launched its own VPN, which will be able to protect its users, as it were, shield them as they go online. So if they're in a cyber cafe, yes, they will be able to connect to this site and people won't know where they're going, other than looking over their shoulder, obviously.

Carole Theriault

Hey, sorry, this is Pornhub. Pornhub, the company that had some kind of malvertising attack about a year ago and lost loads of data and basically put their users at huge risk. I'm just looking at an article right now that says could have given masturbators some sleepless nights.

Tommi Uhlemann

I don't know if we should focus on that, but I was trying to close that circle in another way, referencing back to the Mirai attacks back in October 2016. They run this decentralized DNS service or utilizing these instead of relying on just one service. And on several other occasions, their IT infrastructure has been praised. So besides the fact, surprising fact, that a porn website service may launch a VPN service, actually they have proven to me that they might have infrastructure which is reliable.

Graham Cluley

Well, it's often been the way, hasn't it, that the X-rated websites are the ones which have really pushed internet technology to the limit. And—

Carole Theriault

Well, I mean, it kind of had to, right? Because their users would be, if anyone finds out how much time I spend on this porn site—

Graham Cluley

But in terms of— I'm thinking in terms of things streaming video, and now we've got sort of what do they call these things where you see everything in 3D, you know, the augmented reality? And it's the adult entertainment business which is really pushing this technology. So I'm not surprised necessarily that their site stayed up, as it were, during the Mirai attack when others went down. But it's also— so presumably with this VPN, you won't use it simply to go to Pornhub, will you? You could use it to go to BBC News or, you know, iPlayer or any website on the internet, right?

Tommi Uhlemann

Yes, it's not about only naked people. It's about, you know, finding content that you're blocked accessing.

Graham Cluley

So now you will be able to have on your credit card statement a monthly payment to Pornhub in some form or other, and I don't know what holding company—

Tommi Uhlemann

Not necessarily. No, you can use that service completely for free and unlimited. So it's free unlimited bandwidth, and as long as you use a mobile device. Once you want to install it on your Mac, for instance, or your Windows, you need the premium version. That requires a subscription fee, but you also get 24/7 support. But nonetheless, I mean, the graphics itself, they aren't differing from other VPN services. So there's no connection to Pornhub actually in the GUI. I don't know about the bill you get because honestly I didn't use the service yet.

Carole Theriault

Yeah, it might be a way for Pornhub to legitimize its name on such things as credit card statements, right? You go, no, no, no, no, no, that's just my VPN, darling.

Tommi Uhlemann

No, but in—

Carole Theriault

Well, $59.99 a night.

Graham Cluley

Will the app running on your phone— you said there's a free app for your smartphone if you want the free VPN. Will that monetize itself in some fashion, maybe with some advertising, some targeted content?

Tommi Uhlemann

Well, targeted content, I don't know, but it is advertising-based.

Graham Cluley

Yes. How curious. What a strange world we live in. I wonder how also this will fit in with some things which are beginning to be introduced in the UK, where they're really looking for an identity scheme to confirm that people are adults before they access pornographic websites. And this may be part of Pornhub's move attempting to deal with these sort of systems being corporate in different countries, because this would be a way, of course, for them to have your details and say, yes, you've created an account, you've given us your credit card details, you confirmed that you're over 18, for instance.

Carole Theriault

Or you've very successfully duped me into thinking that you're your mom.

Graham Cluley

Yeah, you've stolen your mom's credit card. Exactly.

Carole Theriault

I would just remind everybody, before you jump and think, hey, this is a great idea, check the terms and conditions, especially for the free app used on the phone, to see what, if any, exchange is going on in terms of data.

Graham Cluley

Well, and also, I mean, my feeling is that if you're going to use a VPN, use one which is tried and trusted, maybe comes from a security background. I tend to feel much more comfortable if I'm giving them money because then they have a vested interest in not trying to monetize my data in some fashion.

Carole Theriault

Do you think more expensive is better? Not necessarily, because VPN providers out there, I think you could do a special pricing for Graham offering—

Graham Cluley

Not necessarily— that is not the only criteria by any means.

Carole Theriault

The Black Diamond VPN at $1,000 a day.

Graham Cluley

Can you imagine giving Pornhub $1,000 a day?

Carole Theriault

That's—

Graham Cluley

Carole, what have you got for us today?

Carole Theriault

Okay, one sec. Let me just dust off my privacy drum because I plan to be banging it a lot today.

Graham Cluley

I think that's the Pornhub story.

Carole Theriault

Now, I think we could all agree that each of us have a right to have private conversations. I'm talking about conversations that are definitely not meant to be overheard, let alone shared. Maybe you and your main squeeze are fighting about money, or you're gossiping about a neighbor or colleague, or you're chatting to your kid about a problem at school, or maybe you're just about to get your freak on, if you know what I mean.

Graham Cluley

So no, no, I don't.

Carole Theriault

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Graham. But whatever it is, there are certain situations where you should have the right to assume privacy, right? If you were somewhere public, you'd probably look around first to spot your wiggers. But shouldn't you be able to assume privacy in your own home or in your bedroom? So check this out. An Oregon-based woman named Danielle recently got a serious privacy wake-up call. She and her husband were chatting away in their bedroom.

Tommi Uhlemann

What could go wrong?

Carole Theriault

And her Echo virtual assistant, Alexa, mistakenly interpreted a noise as a command to hit record. Right?

Graham Cluley

Well, are you going to keep on saying the word Alexa, by the way? Because you know what happens when you mention Alexa on a podcast.

Carole Theriault

Graham, we already know we're going to have to censor each mention of Alexa.

Graham Cluley

So anyway, Carole. So Alexa heard a noise. Alexa makes another mistake. It interprets snippets of the couple's bedroom chatter as a command to send the recording to Dave in Seattle. Who is Dave?

Carole Theriault

Well, Dave just happens to be one of the husband's employees, right? So Dave does the right thing and tells Danielle's husband that he received this weird audio recording from them out of the bedroom. Danielle's husband is like, no way. And Dave is like, yes way, you guys were talking about hardwood floors. And husband goes, oh yeah. All the while probably thinking, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, at any point did I call Dave a douche?" Right?

Graham Cluley

Or were we arguing about our Pornhub bill this week? Right. I'm trying to just, "It's a VPN, darling."

Carole Theriault

It's a VPN." Amazon talked about this snafu in a recent statement, and it says, "Echo woke up due to a word in the background conversation sounding like Alexa." Now, I can think of a lot of words that sound like Alexa. No, like what? Did you?

Graham Cluley

Perplexer.

Carole Theriault

Perplexer.

Graham Cluley

It's a perplexer.

Tommi Uhlemann

There are a lot of improper German words that would, but never mind.

Carole Theriault

Okay, so then Amazon carries on, says, then the subsequent conversation was heard as send message request, at which point Alexa said out loud, to whom? Now, this is a big point of contention because Danielle said the device was at 7 out of 10 in terms of volume and she was right next to it and she didn't hear it say anything. Anyway, there was a heck of a lot of coinkydink mistakes here that happened one after another. And I have yet to see one sorry for Amazon. And why is it the big guys never own up and mea culpa when they fuck up? I mean, who else is liable here?

Graham Cluley

Because they're terrified. Their lawyers are terrified. Never apologize for anything.

Carole Theriault

Exactly.

Graham Cluley

It could cost us millions. You know what America's like. As soon as anything happens at all—

Carole Theriault

I'm not talking about America. I'm sure big English companies would, I know, and big companies from all over the world would be exactly the same. But it grosses me out. I mean, just think about it, Graham. You're in bed with Mrs. Cluley bitching about your really annoying Canadian co-host, not for the first time, only for the recording to be sent directly to me. And the message might be so awful that I decide never to do a podcast with you again. And think of the suffering that would cause the world.

Tommi Uhlemann

Oh yeah, dearly, right?

Graham Cluley

That needs to do a charity single. We are the world, we are the people, we wanna hear Carole back on the show. Let's have him back again. Graham's sorry what he said to Mrs. Cluley in bed about his annoying Canadian co-host the other day.

Tommi Uhlemann

You should replace annoying in your apology then.

Graham Cluley

Yeah.

Carole Theriault

Apparently, I read this last week, 90% of homes now have a smart device in them. I'm guessing they mean the US, right? And many of those devices are going to have mics. And we have mics on our phones, our tablets, our computers, our televisions, our home assistants, our cars. And you, Graham, you keep accidentally FaceTime videoing me from your bathroom, for God's sake. Video!

Graham Cluley

Accidentally!

Carole Theriault

Yes, exactly. Accidentally.

Graham Cluley

Look, I'm sorry, but it has started doing it again, hasn't it? Just recently, yes. That is true.

Carole Theriault

You called me at 2 in the morning 3 times.

Graham Cluley

Now, if people want to hear more about this, we do cover it in episode 44 of Smashing Security.

Carole Theriault

Well, how do you remember that?

Graham Cluley

I just Googled it. So as you mentioned it, because there's a full explanation, although we tried to— we haven't really got to the bottom of that. It is still happening, isn't it? Only when I get in the shower for some reason.

Tommi Uhlemann

That's convenient, isn't it?

Carole Theriault

But water sounds like raindrops. Shh, Carole. Yeah, it's quite gross. And consider deleting all info recorded on Alexa. Okay, while I don't have a virtual assistant in my house, I have plenty of microphones. So number one, I suggest don't buy a device where you can't mute the microphone on it, right? You can go to the smashingsecurity.com show notes for this episode, and I've got a link to a Verge article on how you can do that. And maybe it's worth not having a listening device in rooms where you want to have a private conversation. So just check that that's something that you can actually toggle on or off. Apparently on these Alexa devices, don't grant access to your contacts and don't enable calling and messaging. I don't know, I'm really seriously thinking about designating a room in my house as almost a safe room, one where smart devices are banned. I'm serious. Apparently if you do and now you wish to disable this, you need to call Amazon on the phone. If we're talking about Echos, this is according to John Gruber.

Graham Cluley

Well, I would like to see these manufacturers come up with a device or an option whereby if you want to say something to the device, you have to press a button at the same time, or you have a little remote or something, you know, which you could have in your pocket if you wanted, and you press it while you're talking, and that actually says, okay, you know, you physically told me that you want me to listen at this point, rather than constantly be listening and making mistakes like this one has.

Carole Theriault

Yeah. And for all of you guys with your devices, why don't you check your settings on your phone? So on my iPhone, for example, you would go to privacy and select microphone and review which apps need to have the microphone turned on and turn off everything you don't trust or don't use regularly.

Graham Cluley

Oh, okay.

Tommi Uhlemann

That's always good advice to regularly check the permissions you gave your apps.

Carole Theriault

Absolutely.

Graham Cluley

It's a bit like how many apps, for instance, will request your location. And you may not realize. And then when you go and have a look, you're like, crap, you know, why does that need my location? You can decide to deny it in future.

Carole Theriault

Yep. There's loads of links on the show notes if you want to look more into this. But I can tell you all these stories. I know there's not a ton of these, but I'm not moved yet from my stand of not having one of these in my house yet.

Graham Cluley

You don't like them, eh? No. Well, Carole, I'll tell you something you do like.

Carole Theriault

Tell me.

Graham Cluley

It's pick of the week time.

Carole Theriault

Graham Cluley.

Graham Cluley

Yay! And thanks once again to VirusTotal for sponsoring this episode of Smashing Security. Over a million files are uploaded to VirusTotal every day for analysis and to determine what different antivirus products call them. But you can do much more than that with VirusTotal Intelligence. VirusTotal Intelligence helps you get more context about alerts through advanced malware threat hunting, behavioral visualization detection, as well as historical analysis of samples. Learn more by visiting virustotal.com/learn, and be sure to let VirusTotal know that you heard about them from the Smashing Security podcast. And welcome back, and you join us at our favorite part of the show, the part of the show that we call Pick of the Week.

Carole Theriault

Pick of the Week.

Tommi Uhlemann

Pick of the Week.

Graham Cluley

Pick of the Week is the part of the show where everyone chooses something they like. Could be a funny story, book that they've read, a TV show, a movie, a record, an app, a website, a podcast, whatever they like. Doesn't have to be security-related necessarily, and it could be. And you know what, mine this week is a little bit security-related.

Carole Theriault

Mine's a bit security-related. Oh, I wonder what Tommi will come up with. We shall see. Okay, you're not Rickrolling me, right?

Graham Cluley

No, no Rickroll. And PAP is the Passive Aggressive Password Machine. And you're all familiar with those little widgets when you select a password on a website which gives you some indication. It says, oh, this is a rubbish password, this is a weak password, this is an okay password, this is average, or that's really fantastic. Well, the Passive Aggressive Password Machine basically takes the mickey out of the quality of your password in fine style. Now, I would not recommend entering your real password there. You should never enter—

Carole Theriault

Oops!

Graham Cluley

Too late!

Carole Theriault

Oh no, darn it! I gave it my master password to my password save.

Graham Cluley

So don't do that.

Tommi Uhlemann

Tell me, tell me, so I can check if I got the same result.

Graham Cluley

So for instance, if I enter— oh, I'm going to enter one right now. It says, my God, have mercy on your email account. For the quality of the password which I just entered. Another one says, "You're joking, right?" And it just tickled me a little bit when I came across this. It's not going to set the world on fire, unlike most of my picks of the week, which frankly do change the future of civilization and set the world on a whole new axis.

Carole Theriault

Always for the better. Always for the better.

Graham Cluley

Let's not forget when I recommended Paddington 2 or the Phoenix and other things, or lots of chess-related stuff. This is simply the passive-aggressive password machine, and it will entertain you for approximately 20 seconds. And that is why it is my pick of the week. Tommi, over to you. What's your pick of the week?

Tommi Uhlemann

My pick of the week is a website run by Tae In Ahn. I hope I pronounced it correctly. She calls herself collection specialist at the Costume Institute at— and now we come to my pick of the week— instagram.com/eBayBay. eBay before anything else. You may wonder what you find there. Quite entertaining content, all coming from eBay.

Tommi Uhlemann

Oh, I've already seen something wonderful there. Yes, me too. Oh, it's not only that you would think of, yeah, oh, these offerings have been made by some LSD speed crackheads, whatever.

Carole Theriault

So yes, so this is a curated— it is weird curation of random stuff available on eBay, such as life-size wolf boy display sideshow freak gaff. For $149. And basically it's a mannequin with lots of hair all over its face.

Graham Cluley

Exactly. I'm looking at the tropical parrot toilet paper holder, Carole.

Tommi Uhlemann

That's also a nice one. Also nice.

Graham Cluley

Which I'm thinking your birthday's coming up. So that's a possibility.

Carole Theriault

Should we make a deal and buy one thing from this page for each of our birthdays?

Graham Cluley

So these are just loads of links to crazy stuff on eBay with crazy, crazy prices. Oh my goodness, yes, I didn't look at the prices.

Tommi Uhlemann

Look at the prices. For instance, the USA-shaped sunglasses for just $320.45. Who else did not want these? I mean, I ask you sincerely.

Carole Theriault

It has here 100% authentic Christiania and your Rasta Bob Marley bustier thong set for $1,690. Oh, it's for a Barbie.

Graham Cluley

Oh, so it wouldn't fit me.

Carole Theriault

Okay. Interesting pick of the week.

Graham Cluley

Yes.

Carole Theriault

You could spend a lot of time on here.

Graham Cluley

I am wondering, so how did you find this exactly?

Tommi Uhlemann

I'm not allowed to tell you.

Graham Cluley

It's classified.

Carole Theriault

It's classified. It's his, isn't it?

Graham Cluley

It's his. Carole, I hope you're going to raise the tone at this point with a quality pick of the week. I think you may well win this week.

Carole Theriault

Yes.

Graham Cluley

Let's hear what it is.

Carole Theriault

Yes, I'm definitely going to win this week. So I would like to showcase a pretty kick-ass browsing app called Brave.

Graham Cluley

Oh yeah. It's— oh, you used it? You already know everything about it?

Tommi Uhlemann

Second name is Brave.

Carole Theriault

Jeez, can you just pretend?

Graham Cluley

Oh, what's Brave? Carole Theriault, what's Brave?

Carole Theriault

Tommi runs the Thank you. God, so much to ask. It's designed to be an alternative to free browsers powered by advertising revenue. Now, it relies on Google's open source Chromium project. And at the moment, this is how it plans to make money. So it's beta testing a system to reward publishers called Brave Payments. This system would allow a user to set a budget that they're willing to donate to websites they spend time on. Brave would effectively calculate the percentage assigned to each website through an algorithm that maybe says how often you go there, how long you stay there, how many services you use. And then the publisher of the website would receive a transfer in cryptocurrencies should they choose to opt into the system. So apparently all this is going to be optional. site. Tommi frickin' And I kind of like this idea. Now on top of that, it's really quick. I noticed a difference with the VPN turned on compared to other browsers I've used, other browsing apps. You can assign it to a variety of different search engines. So it's a nice big list from things like Bing and Google all the way to DuckDuckGo and Startpage. runs the site. And there's a whole host of privacy and security features that you can toggle on and off to stop tracking and ads. And I suggest maybe if you want to learn more about the security features, you go to another security podcast called The Complete Security and Privacy Podcast, episode 63.

Graham Cluley

Yeah, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's another security podcast?

Carole Theriault

Yes, there is. There's a few of them out there. That's why we're not numero uno. Anyway, this is an interesting episode. If you want to learn more about, you know, a deep dive into the security features of Brave, check it out. And I've been using it for a few weeks and I love it. And my backend guru of a brother, an Android user, also gave it a thumbs up. Mind, he is a bit annoyed about being the butt end of all our jokes last week.

Graham Cluley

There it is again. So juvenile. Well, on that bombshell, it's just about wrapped it up, hasn't it? Tommi, if people want to follow you online, where's the best way for them to do that?

Tommi Uhlemann

Oh, probably if it's security related, it might be Twitter, and the address is quite easy. It's SecureTommi.

Graham Cluley

Oh, nice. And Tommi is with an I, not a Y, correct? Yes. Okay. And you can follow us on Twitter @SmashingSecurity. That's Smashing Security without a G. No G. Twitter wouldn't allow us to have a G. And you can go and buy stickers and t-shirts and all kinds of goodies at smashingsecurity.com/store as well. And until next time, I guess all I have to— oh, one thing we have to ask you to do, if you like the show, rate us on Apple Podcasts. It does help new listeners discover the show. It does. It's lovely getting them. I particularly like the ones who leave comments about Kroll. Those are the ones I like to read the most.

Carole Theriault

They haven't all. They haven't always, but normally they're quite nice. Until next time, cheerio, bye-bye. Toodle-oo. Hey, Graham, we didn't talk about the Secure Tour, our big live tour.

Graham Cluley

We're doing a big live tour which we're going up and down the country— Cambridge, London, Manchester, Edinburgh.

Carole Theriault

That one, that one, we didn't bring it up at all because we're so modest. That was very good of us. But if people wanted to see us, they could probably find all the details out on our website, right?

Graham Cluley

Yeah, smashingsecurity.com/live.

Carole Theriault

But— Okay, but let's not bore them with the details.

Graham Cluley

I'd be surprised if there are any tickets left, to be honest.

Hosts:

Graham Cluley:

Carole Theriault:

Guest:

Tommi Uhlemann – @SecureTommi

Show notes:

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Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and hosts the popular "Smashing Security" podcast. Follow him on TikTok, LinkedIn, Bluesky and Mastodon, or drop him an email.

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