Dr. John Johnson describes why he created the wildly popular cybersecurity conference, CornCon! It was first held in 2015, in Davenport, Iowa on the banks of the Mississippi River. He also describes the goals for the conference, how it is unique from others in offering a children’s hacking bootcamp, and a hacking contest for teens, along with two days of sessions and activities for professionals. Rebecca is also excited to be a speaker with her talk, “It’s Not Always a Rattlesnake Just Because It Rattles: Everything I Learned About Risk Management I Learned on the Farm,” and picks John’s brain ..read more

April describes the horrific harms that romance scammers caused her mother while terminally ill with cancer, and Kathy describes the upcoming World Romance Scam Prevention Day that her organization established. A must-listen-to episode ..read more

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has been in effect for 5 years now. What have been the impacts to organizations who must comply? What have been the penalties applied? And for what specific non-compliance issues? Which EU country has been most active in applying GDPR non-compliance penalties? Have there been any countries where no fines/penalties have been applied? What is the largest GDPR fine/penalty to date and to what entity was it applied? What was it for; which GDPR Article(s) were violated? Rebecca speaks with Tara Taubmann-Bassirian, a well-known GDPR expert and Privacy ..read more

Everyone is at risk of cybercrime, privacy breaches, and associated physical risks. Individuals in their personal lives, as well as businesses and their employees within work areas…which are often in homes, and other locations outside of physical business facilities…are at risk. Each and every one of them needs to understand how to recognize information security and privacy risks, and basic ways to mitigate those identified risks. But most folks don’t know how to do this. More needs to be done to raise awareness of these important life-encompassing risks if we have any chance at all of slowing ..read more

In this episode Rebecca continues answering a few more of the hundreds of questions she has received from listeners and readers throughout the past few months, covering a wide range of topics. Some of the questions include: • What happened to those men, bar owners, who were arrested for stalking a woman by using digital tracking devices there in Des Moines, Iowa? Did they go to prison? What laws apply? Hear Rebecca’s answers, in addition to other associated news and points about IoT trackers, and how to identify if they are stalking you. • The FBI and FCC recently warned that those free USB ch ..read more

AI has quickly become pervasive in all our lives. But, how can it impact us? Consider a couple of examples. Lensa is an app that takes real photos and uses AI to make art images from them. Millions have used it. Others are concerned about the related privacy and intellectual property rights problems it creates. Lensa uses a huge open-source collection of data to train its AI that contains than 5 billion publicly accessible images that it categorizes as “research.” However, it not only includes copyrighted work, but also personal medical records and images, as well as disturbing images of viole ..read more

Bryan Denny served as an officer in the U.S. Army for 26 years. In 2016, Bryan’s photos were stolen and used to build thousands of fake profiles. Kathy Waters has logged over 4,000 volunteer hours helping those like Bryan Denny whose identity has been stolen, as well as the women and men who have fallen victim to the scammers. Each day new headlines report the financial and emotional destruction that romance scammers wreak on their victims’ lives, who include both the targeted victims of the scams, and those whose images are used by the criminals to commit the crimes. Listen in to hear my rive ..read more

It has been almost three years since Rebecca has done a show answering listener questions; it is time she did another one! In this episode she answers a wide range of questions. Some of the questions include: • Why are location trackers (Apple Airtag, Tile, etc.) bad from a privacy perspective? They aren’t even sending any personal information; just location. Should they be outlawed if they are actually bad? Listen in to hear not only her answer, but how she explains what engineers need to consider in the design of these, and other types of, IoT products. • How do you think the Dobbs decision ..read more

Everyone is a target for identity thieves. Even the most brilliant cybersecurity and privacy experts. Why? One significant reason is because when those organizations and individuals who possess and use your personal data do not effectively secure that data, they leave it vulnerable, leaving YOU at the mercy of cybercrooks. Listen in to hear my riveting conversation with Christine Abruzzi, cybersecurity expert with 30 years of experience, and owner of Cacapon Cyber Solutions describe her current real-life experiences in helping a family member who is an identity theft victim. • What tipped them ..read more

Are you armed with the privacy and security knowledge and awareness necessary to identify all the holiday scams and cybercrooks that emerge and try not only new scams and crimes, but also all the same scams and crimes that have proven to be effective year after year for decades? Are you prepared to help those to whom you give tech gifts so that they use them in the most secure and privacy-protecting way possible? Can you secure those tech gadgets that you receive as gifts to keep the hackers from accessing them and using them to steal your money or commit identity fraud to basically steal your ..read more