Is Your Fridge a Spy? The Alarming Truth About Smart Devices

And we're live. Okay, I messed up. So, Chris, I'm gonna just tell everyone because I need to be accountable. I was— I, I got so caught into doing a proposal that I forgot, and I'm sitting in a different room, so Alexa was not helping me, and Siri just— I had to fire Siri, which I think I turned on Chris's Siri. But anyway, so welcome to Chris Carter. Okay, so Chris is brave because he's doing a live with me and he has no clue who I am. He's bold, obviously, and he's bald. I finally got the bald person. I could say it. I love it. So Chris, this is a question I have to ask everyone because I did zero prep. Zero. Who are you? Where do you live? What you do?

Tell me. I'm Chris Carter. I actually live on a lake here in northern Wisconsin. And it's beautifully 77 degrees today. So I'll say that I sit in this beautiful office with Bret Michaels' guitar over my shoulder and his hat that smells like him. And I work on AI and SAP and cloud and technology all day long for companies around the globe.

Whoa. Okay, let's first talk about Bret Michaels, right? Because I didn't know anything about him. But I saw him and really liked him on The Apprentice.

Yes, yes.

And that was what I was like, oh my God, he— like, we have to not see these celebrities just as like, you know, I don't like their music, so I don't like him. Um, but I, I never did not like his music, but I really fell for him and The Apprentice.

Yes. So I'm very fortunate. Um, I invited myself and 9 friends for a New Year's Eve celebration in northern Wisconsin at the Wisconsin Dells. To do a meet and greet. And as part of that, I got the guitar. And when he found out I was the one that gave that gift to all my friends, he gave me his hat. And everybody got to spend time with him— and too much time, because we made the concert start late because we were all having fun with him in the back room. And it was so much fun, and he couldn't have been a nicer person.

Oh, I love that story! The hat right off his head?

Right off his head.

Oh my God, that's what you mean? It smells a little like him. I love that.

Yes, it still does all these years later.

Oh my— who is he married to?

Uh, it's some— it's a woman that they've got two children with, I believe.

I— yeah, I really haven't followed him. I haven't heard a lot about him since, uh, The Apprentice.

Yeah, I love his music, and, uh, I've seen him now several times in concert, and he's We just love him. It's '80s hair band.

I feel like— I'm sorry, I don't know if it's me or not. Let me— I love that. All right, let me get rid of my, uh, Outlook. So, Chris, all right, I—

Claude and Well, since it's just me in the world—

there we go.

I was going to tell a funny joke to the rest of the world. There you are, you're back.

I love that. I want to hear a funny joke.

Uh, hi.

So, so I use those. I do, um, host a true crime and, uh, and I debate the news. I run the Sunshine Scoop, so I use Grok for the research. But what do you do? Because I heard AI and I'm curious, what are you building? Because I love the idea of your building something.

Yeah, I'm working on building the AI Internet of Things. So using AI and its predictive analytics for the Internet of Things and grabbing data from all these connected devices to be able to help people either in a positive way or in a cost-efficient way, which is positive as well, and bring that all together in one nice, neat, clean package. But then on top of that, companies can use that data to benefit the applications and to benefit the machine. So say you're— let's look at your house. You've got an IoT-based refrigerator, you got an IoT-based microwave, you got an Alexa or a Siri in there. Oh, and there it just said again. And you've got all these tools that get connected together. Now you take all that information and companies can use that to help better your cost controls, your electric bills, etc., etc. And it just brings it all together in one nice clean package.

Wow. So is this like using an AI agent?

Yes, you would use agents on each device from a predictive analytics standpoint, bring that data all together into one single repository, and then being able to understand what's the consumption usage of each, what are you utilizing each, be able to monitor each to make sure that those devices can get scanned from a cybersecurity standpoint. So you need to monitor those because they're Wi-Fi connected. And so you're taking all those IoT devices, and you're bringing them all together in one nice clean dashboard. And our tool is called Overwatch, kind of like the Overlord, but the Overwatch, and it protects everything, but yet it monitors and understands what it's all— what's all happening with it.

I need a case study because a lot of that went right over my head. Flying away. I'm like, come back. So, buddy, would you mind like just putting it into like, uh, layman terms? Or like, I'm 6 foot— no, like some kind of case study so I can understand.

Um, so most of the time it's companies that sell these products, like Kenmore or Sony or LG. They want, if you connect everything together, protect them. So when you, when you attach your refrigerator to an internet, it becomes an Internet of Things. So now you're part of the IoT network. So that needs to be protected, first of all, because it's a, it's a device, and it can get cybersecurity hammered. You don't want a virus on your refrigerator that's going to then go into your network in your house.

Really? I had no idea. So oh my gosh, wait, so, so how long have you been doing this for?

So I've been playing in technology since the 1980s. And I started digging into the IoT activities about 10 years ago. And then I built the AI tool wrapped around it to have it monitor and manage and bring all that data together about 3 years ago now.

Wow. So I can imagine, like, so a lot of these smart homes, where would it fit with a smart home or a company or builder?

Literally sit on top of the home. It would be your protective dome for all the bad things coming in, it would get rid of them. And it would keep all the goodness of the internet-connected devices all safe, understanding what data is being utilized, and then being able to support you for energy efficiencies and trackability and traceability.

I love that. And baby monitors too.

Oh yes. Oh yes. As a matter of fact, I did an interview on Newsmax TV about 2 years ago. About how people were getting into baby monitors and how our tool would be able to support them. It's crazy how they share.

Can you share? I will share that with you.

You got it. I'll send that to you.

No, but I mean, right now, can you share? Because some people don't think they're like, it's a baby monitor. I can monitor my child. What bad can happen?

So a baby monitor uses Wi-Fi networks or RFID, which is radio communications. People have devices called a hacking tool that will literally go into a baby monitor. So imagine you have a camera sitting there on top of your, your room, and it's watching the entire room for your child. People can hack it. If it can get to the internet, it can be hacked. And there were multiple cases because individuals typically do not and this is a big strong term, they do not change the passwords when they come from the factory. When they undo it, they just deploy it. Everybody knows what those passwords are. 123456. If you're on a NetServe, if you're on one of the NetGears, it's usually 123, or it's 0000. Or there's even one that says— it comes from the factory, says password.

And people just don't even— what about Ring cameras? What about the Ring cameras?

So Ring cameras are a little bit more secured because you have to go through an authentication process with your, with your phones and with your apps. Now the nice thing with that is because you're running an authentication program, you have to literally either use your face or you have to use a secondary code User ID, password, and then an authentication code. That is much more difficult to break into.

Well, hold on, my kids, stop it, guys. My dog and cat are fighting. Oh, who would think they'd fight? Wait, okay, so smart, smart, okay, so smart products, so smart home products. I love that you went into that niche. What made you go into this particular niche?

So it was interesting, I was reading an article about the Netgear Wi-Fi, and they got hacked about 5 years ago. And I'm a technologist by trade, I play with cloud computing, and SAP software and others. And I started looking at it, I thought, there's a lot more behind this. And so I started developing some tools on how you could monitor for companies who literally just deploy these systems out into the world. And they don't change the passwords, they don't do anything, there's no 23-bit encryption, there's no 12-letter passwords. And I thought, okay, there's got to be more people getting hacked than what we know about. Well, then there was some major hacks that happened that same year, where tens of thousands of people's systems got hacked. And I said, okay, got to figure out a way how we can protect this. And so the IoT was the format. And I just said, we are going to support the Internet of Things, and we're going to make it happen. And that's what we started doing.

I, I really can't wait to go down like the rabbit hole later. So what about cars? Smart cars? Smart NEV, like what they call NEVs?

So you absolutely could go in there. We don't have any deployments with any of the smart cars as of yet, but I did buy a Tesla just so we could play with it. And I love being able to— oh, the fur babies are good. I got two of them over there.

Thank you. I'm yelling at him.

Um, I've got with it— with the Tesla, Tesla is based on an open-source solution. So being able to get all that information into an open-source application and being able to monitor it— we're still trying to play with some of the things on how you can and can't do, especially once you pull it into your garage and being able to check it. Our hope is that we can validate what's going on in the system before you then back up and start driving it again. That's what we want to try to test.

And because it attaches to your home, and so, and then, okay, so I guess e-bikes too would be another one. But okay, so what, what are some of the, like, the criminal things that do happen that I wouldn't think of?

Oh, so let's start back with those baby monitors. There are thousands of cases of people breaking into the baby monitor through the Wi-Fi connection and monitoring the house and looking at the houses of what's going on in those specific rooms.

Oh, they can see your child, you mean, on the camera?

They can see you. They can see what's going on in those rooms.

They could talk to the child too, right?

People will talk to them. Absolutely correct. So that's the lowest common denominator. That one happens a lot. It's getting better because people are learning that they can change the passwords on these devices. Number 2, anytime you buy a Wi-Fi device from a store, the first thing you need to do is instead of having the user ID and password, the little card that they give you that's on a little sticky, you instantly need to go in and you need to change the password because every single one will come with a standard password for certain models. Other models have better password security with it, but some are still the standard password or 12345, etc. That's 2. Um, 3, I tell people this all the time. If they're going to a grocery store, a, um, a gas station, or if you're going to like a 7-Eleven or some type of a quickie mart type thing, before you put your card into that device with your chip, Take your hand and just kind of pull on the very bottom of it. Just check it because there are so many occasions where snippers— it's a little device that goes into the front where you would put your card in Walmart or wherever, that little, little black box— that people don't realize that they can put a little sniffer there and you wouldn't— you would never know it was there. Just take your hand and just go over the top of where you would put your card in. Just give it a little tug. If it pulls, don't put your card in. If it stays fine and it takes the whole machine and rocks it back and forth, you're 99% good. That's a big one.

That is a big one. What about the people that could walk by you and grab your information from an RFID reader, maybe?

So those are a little bit more difficult. You've got a— you're with people with credit cards nowadays. Most of those credit cards have a chip on it. And if you've got a chip on it, the chip is going to protect you in most cases. Now, if you have a credit card and all it has is the strip in the back, that strip needs to be read. Now, it's, it's a little bit more difficult to just walk past somebody and to get that information. What that RFID reader is doing is it most of the times it's reading devices. Not necessarily your credit card as it goes through, because you would still have to swipe that little magnetic strip in order for all that data to come off of it. So it makes it a little bit more difficult. But RFID readers out there can pull details off of your phones and your iPads and your different readers that you have out there, your laptops as well.

Okay, that's really interesting. Okay, let's go back to gas station, the pump for a second. Why wouldn't the owner of these gas stations say to their staff, hey, every day, let's check our— don't they take— let's check our machines and they do the test.

They don't. And you know what? Plausible deniability. We didn't know. How are we supposed to go out there? We change the paper and that's all we do. 99% of the time they're leasing those machines from a company that monitors and manages them. That's the company that should be doing it. But they should be going out there and just taking their hand and it happens all the time.

Every day before they open, they just double-check. I think that would be a good thing.

I was lucky enough. I found one, one time I literally was about to put my hand in and I just took, kind of took my hand and all of a sudden there it was. It had the device, it was all connected. It was colored up and there was a little Wi-Fi. Um, there was a little antenna inside of it and I was like busted, and I took it into him and he was like, I don't know anything about it.

Oh my God, so you show the owner of the company who just said, what do you want me to do, put it back in?

He didn't care, didn't care.

What did you do? What do people do if they find that? Do they call the police?

I broke it. I just snapped and broke it.

Oh, so do we— but then they're com— so wait, so what, what do they say we should do? I mean, you— so you report it, you report it to police.

Let the police know. If anything, let them know it's at this facility, they've been hacked. You know, by that time they've probably got hundreds if not thousands of credit card details because you do have to punch in the code sometimes, especially if it's a debit card.

Unfortunately, cameras are costing us a ton of money. It is crazy. Okay, what about retail stores? What about— our family has art galleries. How do we protect our art gallery, let's say, or anyone who has a retail store?

Well, retail starts with the same thing. They have those devices. If you're using Stripe or if you're using PayPal, make sure you're working with the person or the company that is giving you the device and you monitor that yourself in your organization. From an art gallery perspective, you're probably getting people to write bigger checks or they're going to be POs. Because typically artwork is a little bit more expensive than those activities. So you're going to want to monitor that. Be diligent about fake dollars, fake 20s, fake 100s. If somebody comes in with rolls of $100 bills, starts ripping them up, make sure you take the highlighter pen that's out there and validate that. But it all comes down to just being aware of your surroundings and what you're working with and what you're working on.

So you're saying, so go back to like companies have security cameras, are those mostly protected?

Um, for the most part, yes. Especially if they're hardwired. Um, I know I have multiple here in my office as well as my offices. Those are all hardwired and they go into a specific device that has been hardwired in with our organization and monitored as well. Most people don't do that. They just throw up the Blink cameras or they throw up the Ring doorbells and they hope that that's going to secure them. Most of the time it is because you do have a two-factor authentication. And once you do that and you get to that point, just make sure you have a much stronger password along with it.

Wow. Okay. What have I forgotten? What other, what else have you seen that that we wouldn't think about?

Yeah, one of the things that everybody should be thinking about is just be diligent on what you're doing. We use technology for everything from the websites. I've got websites, we're on our website, right? Make sure that you're changing your passwords. Make sure you're not using the same password over and over and over for every single thing you do. Because once one— oh, I know I'm I was there as well. I hated my CIO for all those activities and making those changes. They can do that every 30 days. But, you know, if you want to be safe, especially your bank accounts, if you're using a computer for your bank accounts, change your passwords every 30 days. I know it can be a pain in the butt. But would you rather have that or hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands of dollars missing all of a sudden out of the blue?

You are so right. I love this. Are we missing anything else? Let me think for a second. What else has— so the Internet of Things, you know, it's funny, I didn't really— I guess when I heard the term Internet of Things, I never thought to really get to define it. So to me it was the internet. I never thought it was more like, you know, these smart pieces or, or the smart refrigerators. What happens if someone hacks a smart— or Roomba? What happens if someone's something like my Roomba or my refrigerator gets attacked.

So what they want to do is they want to be able to store a security breach on that device. So imagine you— so my Roomba is connected to my phone. I know it's connected to the Wi-Fi in my house. So your Roomba has to be connected to Wi-Fi. All an intruder needs to do is be able to get the right access into that device. To store a malicious attack. Now, it may not go off today, tomorrow, next year. But if you've got that Roomba connected to your Wi-Fi in your house, now all of a sudden, everything in your house that's connected to that Wi-Fi can be attacked, just because it's connected to the Roomba. And that's, that's where why the IoT needs to be protected. And that's why an AI tool The AI IoT protection needs to be sitting on there to protect everybody because one little device, one little Roomba can store the criminal capabilities of somebody in a bad player in some other country. We'll just say I'm not going to name it because we all know the country.

But they could actually— could they like—

so first I want to say light bulbs too, because I've gotten those like little Luma light bulbs that change colors and stuff and they're Yeah, anything that is in your home that connects to this device right here, that's on a Wi-Fi connection or a Bluetooth connection.

So crazy that I didn't even think about this. Okay, so now I'm a criminal. I'm go— I've got into your phone, I got into your— I mean, I got into your refrigerator, and I got into your Roomba, and I've noticed that you haven't used it for 2 weeks. You haven't opened up your door in 2 weeks. I could maybe assume that you are on a long vacation or something.

Yes.

So am I thinking the right way, like a true crime?

Because look at— think of the true crime, because there are doors with automatic locks. My daughter has an automated lock system that she can hit a button on her phone and she can open up her front door. And that door, if it's not open for multiple days, a criminal could be monitoring just that app. I think she's gone. That door hasn't been open for 3, 4 days. Now they start to watch and they start watching your home. Now they may not do it that day, they may not do it that week, but all of a sudden they're going to notice that you're gone for multiple days. Like my daughter is a paramedic EMT nurse, she goes out for 72 hours at a crack. All of a sudden somebody knows that she's gone 24 hours, she's gone, and then all of a sudden they can open up your pattern.

Exactly, get the pattern. I never even thought about that. The scammers are so bad. It is crazy. I'm fascinated by this. This is really—

that's why I love doing this.

So, so are your clients like Fortune 500? Are like—

yes, most of them are, because we work with companies to help them understand, put a piece of protection over each of the houses that you're going to be deploying all these IoT apps with, and being able to do the Internet of Things for these smart homes. I work with housing developments that are going to put in these devices, from your solar panels on your roof down to every refrigerator, freezer, microwave oven, to Roombas, whatever you're going to put in there. If you're going to greenify your home and you're going to start using these types of devices to monitor them, let's monitor everything all the way out to your swimming pool. We can monitor how often you heat or cool your swimming pool depending upon if you turn it off at night, if you turn it on during the day, all those things can be tracked and supported.

No, keep going. I'm just so curious. What about— okay, so what about, uh, retail like Walmart? So they've got all their refrigerators in there and they are kept at the right temperature, so they're using the Internet of Things. They have— they're all smart, but someone could go in and turn them all off in the middle of the night. Would they get— would they be Would they be notified? Do people put alarms?

There would be notifications that would go out of systems being shut down or activities, an activity that falls outside of the parameters of the applications. These are all of a sudden gone. We need to have somebody manually come in. What's going on? We call it the green, red, yellow, just like a stop sign signals. It should always be green. If all of a sudden something kicks in the yellow, that's when a human being gets involved and starts monitoring and looking at the devices. If it's red, that means it's been shut off. Something has happened, either power outages there or some type of activities or connection has gone bad, and it helps with monitoring that.

Well, sometimes it's so funny. I think back in the day, growing up in a family business, we had the IT person on staff that was like, oh my God, they could handle any of the problems on our internet. But this is so far gone. So how many people in your company?

173.

Is this your business?

Yes.

Whoa, you're employing 100 in Wisconsin or all over?

Well, all over the globe. All over the globe. We have to be global because there are organizations that we run, help, and support in all over Europe and North America. I started the company out of my basement and then moved it to my attic, and we just continue to grow and grow and grow.

Oh my God, I love this. And so why are you— why are you on my podcast? What is your goal to get on people's podcasts?

I just want people to understand that they need to be prepared. You know, just like this is a no prep needed. They do need to be prepared for the internet and for the failures and for the security and for the activities. Be mindful and be secure. So be prepared for the technology that's out there. It is changing, it's evolving. And you need to be safe.

Is there something that I'm missing? So I have a daughter who's 19, lovely. Do, um, what, what are the young teens or tell, or the young adults, what, what, what would they be? Is there something else that we haven't thought of that they may possibly have in their—

off of TikTok. Do not go on TikTok.

I've been on a lot. I hear that. She, she got herself off TikTok a year or so ago. Why? It's so bad.

Oh, it's horrible. I've been on multiple TV shows where I've talked about the security aspects of what's being gathered and what's being sent to a foreign country, and they now have all of your information. Now they keep coming back and they say, oh, we're not doing it. Well, if you've got my facial profile or you've got your facial profile and they start going into and they're using— I— so do you remember the, the movie with Tom Cruise, Minority Report?

Yes.

Bingo. Thank you very much. They can use that data to be able to do other bad things against you, against maybe some activity that you get going. It takes my face to open up my phone. Okay, well, if they have my face, and they can utilize that in some way, shape, or form, and they're tracking every minutia of data against against you and they're filing that in a repository, imagine what they have. They have got so much data on us, it is incredible. People don't think that they do, but they do. There are bad actor activities wrapped around that all the time.

You know what's crazy to me is sometimes I don't even recognize myself in the morning, but yet Siri does. I'm like, I'll wake up looking horrible and then I'll do my face and I'm like, how does it even know? Me. It's so crazy. Um, okay, so we tried— I had something else I wanted to ask you. Oh, body parts. So prosthetics, is there anything— because we were talking last night, um, I'm on Chatter Social, one of my favorite places to play. It's a social audio, it's a video, so it's all real conversations with real people, a lot of real professionals. But we're talking about how, like, what years ago what sci-fi looked like, and I, I just did not like sci-fi. The Six Million Dollar Man, which, by the way, everyone in the room was fairly young because when I mentioned that, they didn't know what I was talking about. They were like, Robot Man? And I'm like, no, Six Million— they didn't— they don't remember who Lindsay Wagner is. That crazy.

But anyways, Bionic Woman.

Yeah, right. But oh, that was the name of the show, Bionic Woman. But are they doing anything now, or is there like, uh, um, chips that are being used in body parts? I know it's crazy to ask, but—

well, actually, if you look at, um, Elon Musk just planted a chip, um, into his third ALS patient and that ALS patient took the ability with his brain chip and was able to edit and create audio for a video. It was crazy.

Oh, I gotta look that up. Okay, we have to look that up and Google that. Maybe we'll find it on X.

Yes, you should be able to. They were talking about it. Let's see, I just read about it 2 days ago. Yeah, I think it was 2 days ago where I read about how this third individual who's got the chip in his brain has literally been able to edit a video with using his brain because he's an ALS patient.

You mean, um, ALS, amyotrophic, like the ALS, like a muscular dystrophy?

Yeah, ALS.

Wow, wow. No, I have not read that. That is really interesting. Okay, I gotta— oh, I'm gonna use that tonight for the Sunshine Scoop. I deliver the The Daily News, a little dose of fun. I love this. I've really enjoyed our conversation. I had no idea, but this is cool.

Thank you so much. I've had a great time. I love hanging out with you.

Oh my gosh, I think this should be turned into a podcast, but I really am just so— and 173, I think you said, employees. That's pretty amazing. Is anyone else in your family involved?

No, they don't like technology at all. I'm their, I'm their, uh, technology worker in the house. I fix everything for them.

That is so funny. Oh my gosh. All right, so I'll get your website, I'll get all your information so I can share it all. And, uh, and thank you for spreading the word. It sounds like your real goal is to just spread the word on like what it's about. Um, and so, and by the way, you guys, if you are living in a home that is a smart home Definitely. Who would they contact to make sure— contact you to make sure everything is protected. Wow, I love this, Chris. Thank you. I'm so— thank you so much for waiting for me. I apologize, I, I need a chip in my brain, right?

You and me both. I want one. I actually applied for that and I didn't get it because I didn't have a major illness like ALS.

Applied for it?

You did?

Yeah, there was an application process.

Application process. They, they're working with individuals with ALS first and foremost to try to help bring them a better life, and I love that. And I was like, okay, I'm not going to complain.

I love that too. I worked for Muscular Dystrophy Association for 12 years. I did meet Jerry Lewis. I made him so mad at me a couple times because I— one time he was playing tennis and I kept touching— I kept like getting his ball. I'm thinking I'm doing a good thing, like, here's your tennis balls. I throw back. Finally He stood there in his Jerry Lewis voice and told me to leave his balls alone.

Jerry could—

uh, exactly, exactly. But I love, love, love MDA. So I love that they're doing that because so many great ALS patients that really just need something like this. All right, thank you so much, Chris. Have a great rest of the day. You're awesome. Ah, I look forward to it. You'll, you'll be airing in about 4 weeks and I'll tag you on LinkedIn.

Let me know. I'll make sure we promote Oh, you're awesome.

Thank you so much. Fantastic.

Talk to you soon.

You too. Thank you for being brave and bold and bald.