The Cybersecurity Vault Min Kyriannis

Welcome to the Cybersecurity Vault. I'm your host, Matthew Rosenquist, cybersecurity strategist and CISO at Eclipse. Today, we're going to talk about discerning misinformation in the cyber world. And I'm going to be talking with Min Kereanas. Min is the CEO and founder of Amina. Systems, and she's been in the industry for more than 25 years. We won't get into exactly how long, but wears many, many hats. She's on the board of directors for the Women in International Security, where she also chairs their Futures of Technology program, Curious Minds, Drive Foundation, Moms in Security, and a whole other bunch of different things. It's, it's absolutely my pleasure to have her today. And today's podcast is created in part by Eclipse, which secures data in transit through any cloud, network, or device. Welcome, man. It's been a long time since we've chatted. Thank you for coming and talking with us.

Thank you for having me, and, um, I can't wait to see what happens here.

Yes, well, you know, disinformation, misinformation, it seems like we just constantly bombarded, you know, with it in our digital world. Let's kind of start by give us a definition of misinformation and disinformation and, and how it affects our ability to trust this wonderful digital world that we're all a part of.

Oh my goodness, I think the best word to put this in is propaganda, right? I think this is what we were taught when we're in elementary school. Um, now again, that takes me back to how old I am, uh, which is a little scary. Thanks, Matthew, for putting a light on that. But really, if you think about it, it's propaganda. How do you spread news to create rumors? Because rumors is the worst thing there is, and especially in this digital world when there's really no walls. If you think about it, the internet has taken down those walls on how we interconnect with each other. So information is spread very, very rapidly, and especially if disinformation or misinformation, it's very, very difficult to figure out what's fact from fiction. Especially if someone is trained really professionally to spread false information about an individual or an organization or a group of people. So I think this is what's very challenging about being in this digital world that we're in. And if we want to take it to the next level, the meta, metaverse, how do we discern reality from this made-up stuff that we have to deal with day in and day out? So hopefully that explains it, but reality is propaganda. It really is propaganda. Gee, I don't even know what your character's gonna look like in a metaverse, Matt.

I'll be very curious. But you bring up an interesting point that, you know, there's a lot of things that we do online that is intentionally not, you know, accurate or real or whatnot, whether it be online gaming or things of that sort. But we are more and more as a society and, you know, getting our actual news and use that word news, right? Something that's factual out there, that's relevant. But it seems like there's a, a commingling and blending. And even as you had mentioned, kind of a malicious intent to warp that. And I mean, you and I grew up when there were still newspapers, right? Paper to touch and newsreels even. Well, okay, maybe not that old, but you know, it was much easier to identify news from the Saturday morning cartoons that wasn't, real, right? Um, we came from a different generation. How are the generations, do you think, dealing with this? Because my children, all they've known is the internet, and I have to keep telling them what you see on the internet isn't necessarily real. It isn't, it isn't. But it's also tough to delineate, well, what is real and what isn't. So, I mean, what are the dangers here in how we perceive our world across generations?

I mean, it's very interesting, but I mean, it's one— first and foremost is we've become very complacent with technology, right? Our kids, my kids have grown up knowing how to swipe left and right to do what they want. I mean, at less than a year old, but they've, you know, my oldest when she was first born, um, she's 9 now, so that gives you an idea. At less than a year old, she knows how to go to a monitor and start touching it. Because she watched us as parents on this digital world, you know, constantly using an iPad and the phone and everything else. So you're accustomed to that. And I think what's challenging about that is, again, they're so ingrained with technology that it's very difficult for them to figure out reality from, you know, a made-up world. I think that's the first thing. And two, with social media the way it is, especially if you look at TikTok, I don't, I don't condone TikTok for certain reasons. I'll leave it at that. There can be an offline conversation about TikTok, But it's shortened attention span of the younger generation. They don't want to sit for more than what, 10 minutes, 5 minutes looking at a video. It's a few seconds and then they go to the next one, a few seconds and it goes to the next one. And if you think about that psychologically, the brain development is now, I mean, we talk about ADD all the time.

We're feeding that. Yes. The attention span, you know, short attention spans and we're reinforcing it. Is that really what we want with our kids?

You know, I'm trying to encourage my kids to step away from the technology that we're accustomed to right now, going out, you know, taking that— I'd rather take them out shopping, to be honest, just to get them away from the digital world because their friends are always connected, they're always yapping, they're always chatting, they're looking at social media, they're looking at YouTube, they're looking at all these various platforms and they can't figure out what's right and wrong. Then you look at marketing, you know, if you want to take a step further, YouTube, how do they market to kids? They're making these videos that are short and catching, very, very catchy for kids to look at. And what messages are they imprinting inside that they're thinking about subliminally that we're not realizing? Because I think this topic is— we have to get to the root of the cause here. And developmentally, I don't think kids know how to discern information now anymore, especially now with an additional metaverse. And look, I think it's great, it's innovative and everything, but for us it's a reality check. Where are we leading here? And, you know, if you, if you think about all the movies like Total Recall, I feel like with We're gonna become living in that world where we can't figure out what's real and what's not. It's a little scary, but I may be going way into science fiction at that point, but that's what I'm getting. That's the feel I'm getting. Like kids can't figure it out what's real and what's not anymore.

Is it just kids?

Well, and adults.

How can misinformation and disinformation be used to do the same thing for adults?

Well, the voting, you know, spreading rumors about women who are in elections, political figures, That kind of information, deepfakes, we haven't been talking about deepfakes, how realistic they're looking now. And it's getting harder and harder to discern what's real, a real video versus a deepfake video now. And I honestly, I'm not sure even how we do that until we start looking at regulations and guidelines and ethics. Where do we draw the line? I really can't say until we all band together and start talking about this and really force people to face reality and talk about it. It's a little surreal. I think we're going to be labeled as conspiracy theorists at this point.

I mean, I personally believe if you can take over somebody's entire kind of views on the world and craft them, you can pretty much make them believe anything you want.

Oh, I agree.

And, you know, we're seeing that play out on the global scale with, you know, Russia-Ukraine war and things like that. But if that's the power of it, and whether it's to that extreme, right, global war versus just trying to get somebody to buy a certain brand of shoes, right? If misinformation, disinformation, if amplification on social media and everything else can warp people's minds, how dangerous is that, do you think, for that next generation that will only be looking at online sources.

It's— I mean, if you think about it, it's very, very dangerous, right? Um, let's take for a few years ago with— and I, you know, I want to bring race into this, but this whole anti-Asian sentiments that's there just because of one phrase from our ex-president, you know, really shed the light about with this anti-hate, you know, this anti-Asian sentiments that's out there. And it's— and, and look, granted People have to understand that, you know, we're all human at the end of the day. But the minute you start brainwashing and providing information like this where you have masses now believing, you know, a falsehood and, you know, you have the other one, the other one I always talk about, anti-vaccination crowd. I mean, how do you, how do you go about talking about it? I have friends on both sides, so I allow them the ability to speak openly without judgment and I let the facts take over. But the reality is, you know, we all talk about science. We all talk about facts. We all talk about data. And unfortunately, data can be construed in some ways, you know, twisted to fit the message that's going out. I mean, look at how many— take a look at how many scientists have, you know, adjusted their matrix. Not saying it's true. People, don't call me out on that. But there are stories about that where scientists have been called out and, you know, the reports and things that they've written about have been pretty much reneged because they found that they falsely, you know, doctored their numbers for the Matrix. And it's a little scary. So the thing I always urge people is like, read everything between the lines. Not everything, but read the left, read the right, read the middle, read everything you can get your hands on about that topic, and then discern that information yourself. Because if you have— if you're just following one news source or one source, forget it. You're not getting an accurate picture of what's going on around the world. You have to kind of take a look at everything that's out there and really discern it. And some of them are a little frustrating because you're looking at the news, you know, the news reports and everything else, and it's like you see a lot of personal feelings that go into it, and it's just garbage at that point.

Well, you know, let me take a different point of view at misinformation and disinformation. Not necessarily that I agree with it, but from an argument perspective, is it potentially the lesser of two evils? And The primary evil being lack of any information at all. I mean, we grew up in an age where we did have newspapers. Yeah, it was a day or a couple of days old. The generation before us got most of their news from newsreels when they went to the movie theater, right? And we have rapidly evolved to adopt and embrace instantaneous or near-instantaneous news, events, video from millions of different sources. Everybody that has a phone, in fact, probably billions of different sources available to all of us if we wanted it. Um, is this just something that we have to address and go, no, it's, it's, it's part of something we have to live with?

You know, I think what you brought up is very interesting, right? We're so attached to our technology, we're so attached to the latest and newest news that's out there, but the thing that we don't think about is the old history history that's out there, right? I think Ray Dalio's book, um, said it the most, is that for people to be advanced and for the nation to be advanced, you have to educate everybody. So you really cannot hide information from folks. So what better way is one, you know, learn about the history that's out there, not repeat it hopefully, but we're looking— I feel like we're repeating history again. Um, that's number one, is learn from our history. Don't erase history. I think this is the problem with all this, all this stuff that's out there, is that we're trying to erase history that we've experienced throughout, God, centuries, millenniums. We can't erase that.

Well, they could try, and that's misinformation and disinformation campaigns. There you go. Uh, and we've seen that, right? We've seen complete denials of doing X, Y, or Z in, in throughout history.

So Look at World War II, you know, burning the books so that way it's a recent part of history. And it's— you can't do that. Look, the way I see it is like, let people read, let people know, just give people the facts, but present it in a way where it is factual versus personal. Um, there's so much agenda embedded in all the information that's out there. I mean, if you look at it, there's so much agenda in there. And you know, look, we— us talking here, we have an agenda too, I admit it. Um, but at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is educate and say, look, you don't have to listen to us. I'm not looking for you to believe everything, and I can say I'm not the Messiah, but what I'm saying is learn, listen, read, learn, listen, read. It's, it's this whole cycle that's very easy. Ask questions. Um, and I'm encouraging my kids to do that, and I'm encouraging a lot of people, young kids that I talk to, to do that, because without that, I don't think we're gonna be evolving anymore. We maybe look at the end of something, not in a good way.

And you're right, we all have agendas. I have an agenda, right? I mean, my agenda is to make it so that we're communicating and collaborating. But on this particular topic, I would add another. I would say we need to teach critical thinking because I don't think it's enough just to look and to read and to listen and keep You know, unfortunately, I believe that we have failed the next generation in making sure that they have the skills to look at something with a critical eye and apply that critical thinking to understand what are the source, what is their bias, right? Let's get rid of false arguments and bias and everything else so that I can make a good assessment. It's one thing just to read, but if you can't call or, you know, see the BS from what's probably true, it doesn't matter how much you read, right?

Well, I'm gonna add another one into that mix then. It's the repercussions. Unless you have a popular consensus, people will write you off and then you're kind of denounced as conspiracy theorists or crazy, a lunatic.

So what do you think? But a publicist. Right. Yeah.

There you go. Or, you know, Galileo is another one.

Yeah.

You know, but I think, I think you brought up a really, really good point here, right? Critical thinking without— and the question I have is, where does it emanate from? And it's not just the next generation, it's the educational system. If you think about it, right, our kids are going into a school system that had— that's not really teaching anymore about critical theory. Critical, you know, critical thinking. And it's— they're looking at it from perspective of, all right, here's a curriculum. And if you look at the curriculum, I hate to say it, and I'm not trying to really bash the education system, but we're going to quote you right here, right now.

Go ahead.

But it's like, come on, people, my kids are better than this. You gotta teach them more than just common sense. Well, you know what, let's go bring this common sense. What the hell is common sense? There's days, and maybe this is our generation, or maybe I'm older than you, that I look at the generation after me or the generation, two generations after me, and I'm thinking like, holy, where is your common sense? I can't believe that came out of your mouth. So I don't know, maybe critical thinking is common sense. I don't know.

I think it should be a part of it. Definitely.

Can you teach common sense?

Seeing something and just believing it. Right.

Well, and this is a problem. Yeah.

I see adults doing that. It's not just children. I see adults doing that. They'll see a blog post or a headline that, you know, maybe talking about something medical from somebody that has nothing to do with the medical field, right? Or something about space and from somebody that knows nothing about astrophysics or space or anything like that. And it's just opinion. It's not even an informed opinion. It's But they take it and they run. Well, that's got to be true. I just read it.

Well, and I think this is— yeah, I think this is, this is where the digital side is causing this, because it's at their fingertips right now, and everybody is so easily access— you know, accessing all this information now. It's like, oh, it's got— it's not like news. We have to wait till 8 PM primetime news, if you remember those days, to wait for the newscaster to come out.

Nightly news show. Yes.

Book. Um, and, and it's not like that now. You just pick up your phone, you look at it like, oh, question is, do you know where the news source is coming from? Because I can create a webpage very quickly and put all this information and look at realistic. And what are you getting at?

There may be unethical sites that are looking to sensationalize and do other things, right? And it could be an individual author, it could be a department, it could be an entire, you know, company that's doing that for whatever reasons— political, financial, whatever, right?

Matthew has a lot of scandals out there. Google his name, people.

Yes, please look my name up on Google. Yes, yes, you'll find lots.

It'll be the people behind the scenes, just saying.

But you know, we've got all these platforms, whether they're search engines or social media, and you know, free speech has always been the, you know, that's you know, don't touch that. You can say anything, you can do anything, especially here in the United States. And it seems like even that is now— there's more focus on that to say, wait a second, if it's misinformation or disinformation, let's mark it as such. Let's not propagate it. Let's try and identify it as that or provide informed warnings, right? Or something like that. Do you see that trend continuing to progress, or how do you see that playing out?

We're going backwards because of— I won't name countries, but sovereign nations have, you know, censored quite a bit if you think about it, right? So instead of actually putting disclaimers on some of these, these videos, um, they're touting it as true because they need their people to believe in what they're doing. There's actions involved, you know, control. And I think I think this is interesting. This is mostly all control if you think about it. Technology being utilized as a controlling tool for the rest of the population and folks that reside in certain countries. What's interesting about the internet is they're always touting the free net, free net, free net. This is why they don't want regulatory bodies touching the internet. But then the minute you step foot outside of the US, what happens? There is no free net. It's controlled, it's censored. So really, the news media that you're pulling from other countries, is it really factual? And that's another question that needs to be asked. And so to your point, I feel like we're— I don't think we're going backwards. Let me take it back. In a position where I think people are struggling with the next emergence of where we're civilization is supposed to be. I think, let me think this through a little bit, and I'm gonna speak openly about that. Because if you think about it, we're living in an age where everything is all technology. And I'm not trying to bring up Skynet, but that's the reality, right? We're all digitized in a sense. Um, you and I live in this digital world, otherwise we won't be doing this recording. Um, but what we say may be censored in other countries that aren't, you know, don't like what we say, if you think about it. So realistically, you know, we're talking about discerning information. They really— the people there who are looking at these videos can't discern information. They're just going to take what we say as factual because, quote unquote, we're deemed as experts. But if you're taking a step back from a control point of where the nations are looking at it, right, they need their support from the population, the citizens of the nation. And what better way than to do it is to spread media, let the people watch it. It's a form of brainwashing, really. And it's a little scary if you think about it, is that is harder to disconnect and untangle, unfortunately, because people are now embedded with these views subconsciously about the belief system and what the world needs to be. Um, perfect example is if you look at the Olympics, some of the ice skating, ice skating, um, champions that were there. Um, I think there was one U.S. citizen that was overseas, I'm gonna name the country, and then there's another one that was representing United States. And the nation just called the one that was representing the US a traitor because, quote unquote, she looked like them, but she wasn't representing them. And so you have this type of, I would say, disinformation, misinformation, and the citizens not realizing it and just attacking these people.

When I see especially government acts in regards to controlling narratives and so forth. I see, especially, you know, given some of the things that are going on in Europe and whatnot, we've seen some countries in the past for several decades have great firewalls that not only block traffic but block content. And often it is simply saying a certain type of content is not welcome and they're blocking that. And a lot of stuff still goes through. It's— there's still a lot of information and information sources. Then we see this next tier where governments actually write the narrative and feed their media outlets to say, this is the only narrative that will be on your platform, that your people will talk about, that you can share. That's it. This is the story. I am going to write history before it even happens, right? And this is what you're going to report and how you're going to report it. And to me, that is a— that's a big step beyond. I mean, I don't much care for kind of the big firewalls filtering out, you know, lots of different views. But, you know, when you get down to authoring history and saying this is the only view, and I'm going to block all other potential avenues of any discerning different opinions. Even, I mean, you know, I'll say because I don't care if they, you know, you know, in, in Ukraine-Russia war here, in Russia they can't even call it a war. It has to be called a police action. You can't call it a war. And, you know, you can't see the videos. They've shut down all the media sites that would instantly record and play you know, what's going on in country to show that, yeah, absolutely, it's a war, right? There are lots of civilians and people in uniforms running around shooting at it and killing each other. It's a war, but they can't even say it. They're writing the narrative.

Of course they are. And I think the narrative that was written was wrong initially. So anyway, but anyway, sorry.

But, you know, it's intentional. It's purposeful. It's crafted and in a way it's masterful. I am going to master this whole narrative and make people believe one thing versus allowing them to even learn the truth in some other manner. And that is—

propaganda—

to me is greatly—

scary.

I mean, that's, to me, that's mind-blowing. That is mind control because even a rational person even with critical thinking, if the only thing they have access to is that narrative.

Exactly right. It's a little, it's a little surreal if you think about it. So it is, it's a— so to ask if it's, it's moving forward or moving back, I think for countries that have control like that, they're moving forward one way or another. For countries who actually have free thinkers, I think it's causing a little chaos. Um, so I feel like we're stepping back in that regards. Um, and I— where's the perfect medium is a question I ask. Where do you feel the perfect medium should be, um, in how reporting needs to be done and how news media and how the media is providing this information to the public is another key thing. And it's not just a narrative, right? It's these videos, people talking, crying on screen. How do you edit this? It's, it's, I think it's a very interesting world that we're, we're in. I think so. Bringing that up, one of the interesting conversations I had with my husband was with the Grammys. The president of Ukraine, Zelensky, was talking at the Grammys. What better way to expose yourself to the world than being at the most popular global event in the world, the Grammys? I mean, what kind of message does that send out? And so I asked my husband what his thoughts on, he's like, it's not a good platform for a politician to be at, but he understood why he did it, right? So I think this is— it's, it's, um, it's a tough, it's a tough, it's a tough place to be in right now, especially with the next generation trying to filter out reality from non-reality.

Um, and then you have reality TV or reality shows that really aren't reality either, right? Yeah. Um, and you start following these super celebrities or super elite and think, well, that's the the normal world.

And it's not.

It's tough. So how do we as individuals, because it sounds like we've got a couple of problems here, discerning fact from fiction, right? Especially when it's trying to masquerade as fiction is trying to masquerade as fact. And the other thing is making sure we've got a broad enough scope of sources to be able to get that well-rounded view, right? There's always two sides to a story.

There's always two sides.

Whether you agree to it or not, there's always two sides to a story. But how do we tackle those two things? Misinformation masquerading as truth and having the ability for all of us to be able to see both sides.

I think, and this is, that's very, this is a tough one, right? It's really education of the public, number one, and two, and I'm just I'm talking locally here in the US. I'm not talking overseas because there's just too much to tackle at that point. You can't boil the ocean. But I think here is really getting the right players, the shakers and movers together into a room to start talking. And maybe it's policies, maybe it's not, maybe it's enforcement, maybe it's not. But I think we have to all sit together. And this is why I got you involved, was really to pull this group of really movers and shakers together into an arena to chat. About what's really necessary and fill the gap. And it's just, it's interesting because people don't think like that. And if you look at certain market sectors or areas, they all think very differently. But we have to get together and start talking about this in a way where it's uniform and working towards ways of changing the educational system also to get in sync with technology. I mean, my kids are in elementary school right now. I looked at the technology program. It's horrible. It's horrible. I mean, I'm looking at some of the, the, the, the, the, the things that they want me to sign to teach my kids, and I'm looking at this and I said, yeah, no, I think we have to go a little further than this. But, but we really have to sit down and really start talking at a forum and start looking at outcomes that's really necessary for us to change. And it's not just us as adults, it's also the educational system in the US. How do we get children Access, learning, learning how to discern this information, learning what the right word, the tools necessary to discern information, creating policies that are really necessary to ensure that companies are doing what they're supposed to be doing. And it's not just local policies, US policies, it's also foreign policies because you're going to have foreign government entities that are endorsing certain products in the US. So we have to really, really stand together in a way, especially, you know, people who have the ability to maneuver in this field and understand the world. And even if you don't understand the world and you're a policymaker or something else, you need to sit here and talk so we can educate you. So I think that's really, really critical. Otherwise, we've got a problem.

You named a lot of people that kind of have to come together, right? You've named everything from parents and educators, academia, the systems around that, regulators, politicians. You know, that's a big list. Let's, let's take some of the more controversial ones, right? Let's start with the politicians or regulators. What is in your mind that role, right, that regulations should play in addressing misinformation and disinformation?

Oh, man. That's a loaded question there.

I know this one's going to get you in trouble. I love this question.

It will get me in trouble, but it also opens a lot of questions, right? So many of these politicians and many of these regulators do not have the technical capabilities in, let's see, in actually understanding what this means. And I think there's, it's multifold, right? You gotta get them educated. I mean, look at the cybersecurity regulation that put a year and a half ago, you have to refresh it every 5 years. I mean, I talk about this very briefly, but I don't go into the details of what was inside the law. But if you look at this from a technical standpoint, which cyber, like in technology, who refreshes their, you know, their policies every 5 years? It should be every— it should be a living, living and breathing document that should be really taken a look at every quarter of that year, ensure that it's up to date. And so I think politicians, regulators, they have to get up to speed and they're trying. They're really trying. But the problem also is it's so siloed, it's so bifurcated that no one talks to each other. So that's another problem we've got to do is we've got to bring these regulators and the politicians together. So, you know, to answer that question, I think we have to really start pulling the— looking at the lowest hanging fruit is who's willing to listen? Who can we get to the table? How do we start moving this a little bit? Because that needle has to move a lot more, I hate to say, especially on that side, the government side.

But will it move just begging for the, you know, the low hanging fruit there? Or do we need an overarching comprehensive strategy, strategy that says clearly we are right here, clearly these are the goals, these are the paths to take, you know, let's have an overall plan versus we'll take what we can get today and maybe a little more tomorrow. I mean, what's, what's it going to take?

So here's a challenge with that. You have many think tanks, you have lots of NGOs that all have their specialties. And again, I'm part of one too. And so we're trying to kind of combine and consolidate as much, you know, some of these thought leaders together. It's very, very important that we do that. And then you start peeling back the layers. Because what's going to end up happening is everybody's doing all this stuff. Here's where we are. Here's a strategy. But it's all talk. Where's the outcome? And this is why you need everybody in the room. You don't have people in a room who can make these decisions for you and say, yes, we have to shift if you can't shift the needle, and it's not a big mass of people talking about it, and it's just one single unit, you're not going to get anywhere. And I think this is where big tech, major companies, the private sector, where the money is coming from, right? That's the big one. Then you got the public sectors, the academics, the researchers, the scientists who are doing all this research and studies. You have the philanthropists, you have the venture capitalists, you have— then you have the civic sectors where the the government and the politicians and regulators sit in, they all gotta converge at one point to talk about this. And we're not trying to make a sovereign nation here, but we're trying to get a forum going where people sit there to talk in a civilized manner, not beating each other up, not saying you're wrong or you're right, but really an education for everybody. Because they're going to say stuff that we're not aware of, especially how the government runs. But we're going to say things that our real life, our day-to-day experiences, what companies are doing. And we just got to catch up. They just got to catch up. We got to fill that little, that little big, big, big gap here that we just got to get closer and closer. And the only way to do that is to get these people at the table to talk.

And there is that chasm, right, that has to be overcome. We either fill it, we bridge it, something. And a lot of people view that problem as either the technology companies, right, those big information data warehousing media, whether it be the Facebooks or the Google of the world, they should solve this, it's really their world, or it's no, we need regulation, we need the government to come in and say, be prescriptive on what's allowed. And where is your take on that spectrum? Are you closer to one side than the other? Are you firmly entrenched only on one side? Where are you at and why?

I'm in the middle and here's why. Because in order for this to work, um, big tech, um, private companies are always gonna move a lot faster than the government will, but it's adoption. And as long as you get majority adoption and people listening, that's when the government's gonna move a little faster and says, you know what, this works, let's adopt it. This is typically what happens. Right? Look, Big Tech and all these major companies, they have their goods and their bads. Not everything is bad. Not everything is good. And there's a lot of good things also. So we got to take— we have to peel out the good pieces and leave the bad pieces here. And I think this is where talking collectively is going to work. Collaborative approach is going to work. And it's going to also help with geopolitics also, if you think about it, because these tech companies are global. And they're going to have their say and their stake in some of these entities that's out there. So it's important that I think that we stay in the middle, but we're trying to pull. And this is why I pull it. I don't see them catching up. We have to pull them in. And that's the key thing. We have to ensure that everything that's been discussed is beneficial enough that it benefits the government at the same time. Right? That's the only way this is going to happen. And it's pulling them in. It's not saying you got to chase after us. It's let's pull them in, let's get them in. Let's, you know, if you want to say it better, let's extend an olive branch and say, look, we're going to help you. Very simple. We're going to help you, but we gotta, we gotta— well, let's pull you in. I'm gonna say let's pull you in, not let you chase us.

Okay, so devil's advocate here, right? This narrative we've heard before in the privacy world, right? Where we can go back 2 decades, almost 3 decades, and go, there's a big problem, it has to do with data, but it's the companies that own the data, and there's the consumers and the citizens, and bad things are happening to them. They're demanding their government get involved. The government starts to get involved, and you have 20 years later, you have 52 different privacy regulations just in the US, and you know, it, it hasn't worked. It hasn't worked very well, or at least, you know, maybe tomorrow it gets fixed, but it's certainly not fixed today. Are you saying we should follow that same path when it comes to misinformation and disinformation?

No, I don't think we, we need to do that. I think if, you know, once we have a forum going where there are key people sitting there, you start developing some of these require— not requirements, recommendations, I'm gonna say, right? I think, what is it, the NAOCC, the naval, the naval policy that was in place for sailing in open waters. That was the best one that was ever done, and people still follow it, people still abide by it. And what did they do? They wrote it first. They got a group of people that were doing this constantly, day in and day out, and they wrote it. Same thing here. This is why for me, you know, chairing this forum was so important, is that if we can get a group of people to get involved and do something about it, right? Make sure that it's understandable, ensure that it's achievable. I don't want to say sustainable, achievable. People have to be able to achieve it.

I think it needs to be both, doesn't it? I mean, we have to achieve it and then sustain it over time.

But the thing is, we always have it reversed. We talk about sustainability. We don't want to sustain it first. We want to be able to achieve it first, then sustain it.

Fair.

So this is why you use the word achievable first. We got to make sure that's achievable for people. And it's not just, you know, companies, it goes down to the individual themselves. If we can do that, then you're going to get further, further adoption. And now people are going to adopt it and say, you know what, this is right, we got to do it this way. I think the thing that you talked about with privacy is that everybody's writing different ideas, different thoughts, and it's not a collaborative approach. So now you have all these different regulatory bodies out there, and it's not uniform. But if we were to do this in a uniform way, it works very, very differently, especially with folks that actually understand the world better.

I think that'll be interesting because, uh, you know, there's been attempts in the privacy world to do that. And especially when we talk about this ability to manipulate people and entire societies there's a lot of money and power behind that.

Oh yeah, I know that.

You know, and often the financial incentives are not necessarily aligned with limitations, especially when it comes to businesses that own, manage, gather, and share this kind of information.

Don't get me started on that one.

I'm trying to be gentle here because, you know, and as you said, the companies are not 100% bad, they're not 100% good, they're in the middle. And often they can be pulled one way or another, but normally that pull has something to do with financial incentives, right? They can be more competitive, they can expand their market share, they can increase their prices, right? They're companies, they have shareholders.

And this is why we look— and exactly, and this is why, this is why I wore the NGO hat to do this, because even though I do have a for-profit business. The reason I got involved with this was because I want to be as agnostic as possible, um, because I don't want people looking at the integrity of the organization and saying, well, you're doing this for beneficial gains. Yeah, well, you know what, down the line probably, but you know, there's an agenda there again. But the reality is, if we don't educate the population, you know, as— now this is more on the altruistic side— my company is not going to grow. And we're never going to grow as a nation, and that's not a good thing for me either, right? In order for us to actually grow as a nation or as a group of individuals, especially in critical thinking, and also free nation— it's a capitalist work, we work hard for it. But in order to do that, we have to ensure that people are educated what we're doing, because otherwise they're going to live in fear and you're going to be, you know, thought of as, oh, you're one of those people again, so we don't want to touch you. You're untouchable. And that's— I don't think that's the point of that. The point is really to look at it from the perspective, in order to ensure that we start venturing— and this is not just the digital world of technology, we're talking about space colonization now. We're talking about going to space. What does that mean if we can't even, you know, do this and fix the problems we have here? And you're gonna, you know, have governance in space? Like, come on, let's be for real. That's even— that's another bigger can of worms that we got open. So I think to your point, I get it because a lot of companies are looking at the ROI, you know, the bottom line, what's beneficial to them financially. But I'm looking at it from the perspective of if we want to evolve into a better group of people, you know, for my kids to evolve into critical thinkers and not be feeling like entitlement, like I know better than thou, it's really educating the public and just providing that thought process and say, hey, look, look, I'm not trying to be here and tell you what needs to be done. You should be engaged. You should ask questions. I welcome it.

Well, you know, and you bring up a good point because I think the end user, the consumer, every single one of us actually plays a really important role when it comes to aligning those financial incentives. If we're patronizing, you know, sites or companies or vendors or whatever that are maliciously passing misinformation and disinformation, right, and to people's harm and they know it, maybe that's— it's time not to patron them and to patron others.

Right.

And we have seen successes in the privacy world on that. We have seen successes when it comes to cybersecurity from that fact. And the moment it becomes a competitive advantage to do things ethically. Now companies are motivated to do things ethically and everybody wins.

That's a very interesting line. Ethics, what is right and what's wrong? But look, we're not here to say what's right, what's wrong, right? I think it's just really for the— and I think you said it, the individual to develop, figure out what's right and what's wrong, what they're comfortable with, what they're not comfortable with, but provide them with the information so they're comfortable in deciding what they want to do. Um, it is a free world.

Yep.

We just got to make sure that it— everybody has that access.

Okay, so we've got the big problem of misinformation and disinformation. We understand how it can impact potentially all of us, but to a severe detriment. Um, you're a woman with a strategy here, so break out your crystal ball, right, and give me some realistic predictions on how you think the world is going to progress— realistic, realistic— progress in addressing misinformation and disinformation moving forward.

People use misinformation and disinformation to their advantages, especially when it's people are looking for power. We all know that, right? The problem, the challenge with that is that government, how governments keep people under control is by keeping them ignorant. I think that's, you know, ignorance is bliss. It is because people don't know any better. They don't know that they're living in, I can't say the S word, um, really a bad situation. So, uh, so the reality is you have to allow them the ability to do that. And how do you do that? I think it's really getting adoption and people at the right table to actually go back and say, look, this has to change, right? If you want your government to grow, if you want your government to flourish, if you want your people to flourish, you need to provide them access to think about this stuff. And it's a lot. It is a lot. You can't— and I've been told this— you can't boil the ocean, even though I want to. I want to wave a magic wand and make everything go away. But looking at the geopolitical system that's out there right now, especially in Asia, especially in Europe right now, I think It's a little difficult because we're starting to create walls again that wasn't there previously when things were a lot peaceful. So looking at this from that standpoint, I think we have to take a look and take a step back and really, you know, if it was up to me, look at it from the perspective of the population, the citizens of those nations to have the ability to not take control and that becomes a democracy. And I don't think many of these countries are gonna be allowed to do that. However, NGOs, innovative companies may have a sway or a way to do this. They've tasted finer things in life, they see what it looks like. And there may be a way to do this in a civilized manner at table, pulling all the egos aside and saying, "I know better than you because I'm a superpower," or et cetera. I think it really comes down to how do we make this beneficial for everybody around us, regardless of what nation you come from, how you run your government, you know, companies, same thing. And taking a look from that perspective, and it can't be the government. I hate to say this because governments are going to go in guns a-blazing, fists up, ready to fight. I think we have to look from it as an ambassador of the government, whether it's an NGO. I actually encourage for an NGO to do that, to go and sit at the table and start talking, negotiating in a way that makes sense with all the facts. What makes it mutually beneficial for everybody around? And how do we, how do we achieve that? And how do we develop a strategy around that is going to be important. I feel like the people who are empowered, especially the ones that can push the nice big red button that should not be pushed, needs to take a step back and really think about that a little bit and breathe a little bit and take that ego aside to to see what is going to help them flourish. So it's either you want to be hailed as a hero or you want to be hailed as a demon down the line. And I think that's where it's going to be interesting to see. And so to your point, as a woman with a strategy, my strategy has always been to get people at the table and talk. Let's talk this out. Let's figure it out. Where's the medium ground? What's going to be beneficial to you and what's going to be beneficial to me? Enemy, right? And how do we ensure that the nation-state grows in a way that we wanted to grow and we're seen as saviors and not, you know, the demon or the enemy? I, I, it's, it's a hard thing, especially in the geopolitical world and for big businesses also.

So how far do you think we'll get on this hard thing in closing this chasm in a year from now or 3 years from now? Where will we be in the war against misinformation and disinformation?

I think this is— I think if we can start taking, you know, stripping away and getting people together, I think makes things a lot easier. I mean, looking at how the US pulled out of Afghanistan, nothing swept underneath the rugs. And I'm working with folks who are still trying to ensure the safety of certain individuals to get out. It's To be honest, a year from now, I think we're still behind. I think there's too much ego in this. You know, people still saying we have a lot of power. I think we all have to strip that away, really, and figure out how to deal with that in a proper manner so that way it's for the safety of the population that's there and for the people. So that way, you know, if you're going out for an election, How do we ensure that misinformation is not harmful to the individual, even their families? And that's tough, especially when people are looking for power. And power is a cruel, cruel thing out there.

It is, especially if you're willing to do something ethically, but if your opponent, who doesn't have that level of scruples or ethics, is willing to do underhanded things for their benefit, right? That puts you at a disadvantage. So it sounds like we're still a year from now, we're still going to, as you phrased it, still stripping the egos from people, trying to get them at the table, seeing the holistic problem and how it potentially benefits everybody if we all take a step forward.

Look, I think we're repeating history as we're speaking right now. And there will always be egos there. We all have egos. But I think we just have to take a breather to see what's best for everyone. And I don't think that vision or those lens are even viewed upon in those kind of strategic thinking at that point, especially in that kind of world, especially if, you know, there's nefarious gains for a group spread disinformation. Right. You nailed it right there. It, it, I think there's a balance, right? You can't get rid of everything, but you have to maintain that balance. And the question is, where is that balance? And I'm not sure I can answer that right now.

All right. Well, it sounds like we're still gonna have misinformation and disinformation in, in, in the future here. My last question is kind of practical in nature. Right? What tips can you give me, you know, the people listening, everybody out there to help them navigate, to help them identify misinformation or disinformation? How do they protect themselves from the day-to-day potential flood of falsehoods?

Ask questions, look at other sources, look at sources that are opposite what you're reading. For specific reasons. You want to do that. Um, it— one of the things I always tell my kids is if someone says something to you, ask for the facts, write those facts down, and do a little research on it. It takes time, but it helps you develop that critical thinking that you're talking about and, and really start discerning information, because you're going to start figuring out what's factual, what's emotional, and what's propaganda or an agenda that's being set in place. Um, and you know, it takes some time to do that, but I, I'm a cynical person. I don't believe everything people tell me just for specific reasons. They figure that out. That's why, you know, that's why we get along.

Come on.

But, but the way I see the world is give me facts and let me, let me make sure I can back up those facts so you can back up those facts. And I'm going to ask you to you back up those facts. And if you can back up those facts, then I'll take, you know, take what you say for a fact. If you can't back up the facts and say, well, the scientist said that, I'm like, okay, who's the scientist? Well, where does the scientist come from? How did he become a scientist? And who is he accredited with? I'm gonna look at you and say, yeah, you know, let me do a little research and let me get back to you. I mean, that's the best thing I can say. The other thing is like, I'll take COVID as an example. Before my kids got vaccinated, I talked to immunologists. I talked to a virologist, I talked to the pediatrician before I let them get the vaccination because I wanted to understand this. And it's not because I was looking at the news. I'm not looking for the news for that. I'm talking to real scientists and real medical practitioners to say, all right, give me the intel on this. Like, what do I need to know? What do I need to know? Is this really necessary? And after I got the validation, they got vaccinated immediately, no questions asked. But it's questions like that, talking to the right sources, figuring out where the sources has come from. You said it earlier. And then making a really, really critical decision for yourself whether you want to do it or not and believe in it. Yeah.

So, and I like what you're kind of talking about sources, right? Because we don't have time. COVID's a big, important thing. You should absolutely spend the time there.

Right.

For every news story, no, you know, but understanding the sources, if you do go down that road and you fact check, right, people's story and you realize 9 out of 10 times they don't have the facts, they're not backing it up, they're making this stuff up, it's not true. Maybe that source, maybe that source is one I shouldn't pay attention to from now on. Maybe I pull that out of my sphere and replace it with a different source and go through that process again. And on the converse, if there is a source, and it could be a news site, it could be family friend, whatever it is, but if 9 out of 10 times, wow, they're actually giving the facts, pro and con, right? And it's trustworthy. Maybe you do keep them a little closer and maybe you start giving them a little bit more of the benefit of the doubt. If it is something very severe or a lot of risk on the line, absolutely still dive into all the details. But again, managing that just from a sources perspective is also, you know, a good way to approach it, at least in my mind.

And no, very, very— no, you're 100% right. That's exactly it. You, you know, what was it? There was a, um, a picture, um, of news media sources. One is very, very far left, and you have ones in a very, very far right, then you have one in the middle, then you have one in between the left and the right, the middle, and they have another one right now. So when I look at media source, I look at all of them for specific reasons, and then I click, click and pluck everything in between to figure out what I feel is fact. Um, there's fact in everything. It's just you got to pluck it out and figure it out for yourself versus this is how the world should be or this is what's going on. So yeah, no, it's, um, it's a hard thing right now in this day and age, but we'll hopefully get there, I think. I hope.

You know, one other thing is the amplification of potential falsehoods. Um, you know, and it's human nature to gossip, and if something's sensational or a news story, to pass it on. Is that something we need to be more cognizant of? And us unknowingly amplifying stories without having the fact and having it be false and burning our own credibility. Is that something we should be thinking about or teaching our kids?

We should, because it's not just, um, that portion of it. It's also liability now, right? If you look at Yelp, Yelp is a perfect example, right? With people posting negative reviews because they're pissed. There are people being sued for it. So I think, you know, we're at a stage where we're getting to a point with legal lawsuits in, I would say, in the internet world. But I think that's going to shift very quickly once the metaverse and everything else comes into play.

Yeah, metaverse adds the super nuts to it. I was hoping we were on a trend for more accountability like that.. But you throw the metaverse in, it's like a reset button. Let's all start from the beginning again and just do everything wild. And with that, I want to thank you, Min, for joining us and talking and sharing your insights. And it's great sharing with what's going on with your NGO because it potentially, it will affect everybody, especially as we try and figure out, you know, this information and making sure that it's trustworthy and we're being able to make good decisions based on the information that we're provided that we believe are news. So thank you very much for coming in. Did you want to say anything about the NGO?

Oh my goodness. Well, look, the NGO is Women in National Security. Talk about it really quickly. And we're really pushing the diversity, equity, inclusion, especially in any field. Not just security and peacekeeping. So for folks that's out there that's interested, please take a look at us. It's wiiisglobal.org. We are a global organization, and we're trying to really just spread fact and goodwill out there. So yeah, if anyone's interested, reach out.

Outstanding.

Including—

no, thank you again, Min, and I'm sure we will talk in the future. Thank you all for watching. Be sure to subscribe and catch all the Cybersecurity Vault episodes. Where we chat with industry leaders like Min to dive into the most relevant and interesting cybersecurity challenges, perspectives, and best practices. Thank you much.

Great, thank you.