Change your passwords! Also, ban Tik Tok. (06-20-2025--Hour1)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio and Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeteclendarshow dot com make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Happy Friday or is it news Talk eleven ten ninety nine three WBT Welcome to the show. Pete Calendar here and the phone number is always seven oh four five seven zero eleven ten. Email is Pete at the peteclendarshow dot com on Twitter at Pete Calendar and the last name is spelled ka l I n E R. But all of the dark web already knows that. I don't know why this isn't getting more attention. Apparently cyber news broke this story two days ago. I saw it yesterday afternoon, and here's the write up from tech Digest. A staggering sixteen billion login credentials have been exposed in a series of previously unreported data breaches. Collectively forming one of the largest data compromises in history. I'm no expert, but that sounds bad. It was discovered by Cybernews and their research team tech Digests. The piece by Chris Price says these super massive data sets, comprising thirty distinct collections ranging from tens of millions to over three point five billion records each pose an unprecedented risk to online security. Now. I have seen some people saying things like, how could there be sixteen billion login credentials when there's only eight billion people on Earth. I'm not kidding. I have seen this argument. Do you know why? Well, how many logins do you use? You don't just have one. The exposed data likely originating from various infosteeler malware, credential stuffing sets, and repackaged leaks, none of which I know anything about. I have no idea what those things are. Infosteeler malware, credential stuffing sets and repackaged leaks. But the data contains structured information, including URLs which is your website, log in details, as well as passwords. And that's really that's the key there. They've got the log in credentials and your password and the connected site. So, for example, if you use Facebook or the Facebook, whichever you prefer. If you're using the Facebook and you log in and it says do you want us to remember you know, remember me on this device whatever, and you're not logging in every single time, doesn't even matter because they've got Facebook dot com. They've got your login detail, and they have your password. And so if you're using Facebook, log in on any other site. Remember when this was all of the craze, when Facebook was like, now you can log in using your Facebook account and then they would track everything that you looked at and clicked on and then market to you. Right, So it's not just Facebook. The trove of sensitive information grants potential access to virtually any online service imaginable, from major platforms like Apple, Facebook, Google, to developer portals VPNs, and even government services. Researchers emphasize the extreme danger posed by this breach. So what can you do? Glad you asked? Well? According to Tech Digest users, so basically everybody are strongly urged advised to immediately adopt strong, unique passwords. I myself, I changed mine from one two three four to one two three four five, and I feel like that that's now way stronger. You want strong unique passwords. I'm just kidding, by the way, if anybody doesn't know anything about passwords, that's you can't even do that password anymore. I mean, that's the kind of thing you put on your luggage. You know, unique passwords, strong passwords for every online account. And use multi factor authentication multi factor authentication wherever possible. So when you when you are offered it on a website where they're like, you know, would you like to sign up for you know, uh, two factor authentication or multi factor authentication, whatever it might be, you should do that. I know it takes an extra step, but a lot of a lot of platforms once you sign up, once you do it the first time, and then then you're you're golden. You can also look into those password management systems. A lot of them charge money, you know, sometimes like four or five bucks a month or something like that, but it auto generates these, you know, crazy passwords that nobody can crack, just like various number numbers and symbols and that sort of thing, and then it just stores it into this place and then you're able to pull it out. Now, my concern with those things, it's always been well, what happens if that gets hacked? You know, that's always you can only be so secure, you know, and if you put all of your stuff into this one like wallet or whatever, and then somebody hacks that platform, now they got your wallet, and they've got all of the passwords to everything that you that you use. So again that's why I use one, two, three, four five. So if you can do the multi factor, this is you know, you get the text message, we want to make sure it's you. We're gonna send you a code, and then you have to get open up your text message and copy the code and put it in there. But the idea there is that you've got something that you can also do fingerprints, retinal scans, I think, DNA, cheek swabs I think are coming soon. Organizations, especially those lacking robust multi factor authentication or credential hygiene practices that's a term I had known about, are at heightened risk of phishing campaigns. That's where they try to get you to click a link and the email looks like it's from you know, the boss or from corporate HR or something like that, they try to get you to click. I just got one yesterday did you all get that one the corporate email account? It was like, oh, there's a calendar, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, I did not agree to a meeting. Why am I on somebody's calendar? But you don't click it? This is why, like people say, Pete, I'm going to send you a link, or people send me links in emails and on Twitter, and I always say, I don't click your links. It's nothing personal. I don't click any links. My stuff's been stolen so many times. Well, I mean, there was a dark web hack like a year ago, and they got like they're like, we're writing to inform you that your your information was part of a data breach, and here's a list of the stuff that they got, and it's basically everything. So it's like you know everything on your W two for example, which is everything, So okay, fantastic. So I don't click links. And by the way, I did not click a link that got me that got all my stuff stolen. That was not my fault. Somebody else got hacked and they got all the stuff that they had on file, which you know probably shouldn't be keeping all this stuff on file everybody, but you're at risk of phishing campaigns. These organizations are at risk heightened risk of account takeovers, ransomware intrusions where they locked down your your site, say you know you got to pay them a bunch of bitcoin or whatever, as well as business email compromise, tax or BC attacks. I don't know what those are. Users should also regularly review their systems for any signs of infostealer malware to prevent further data loss. So obviously I spent my evening changing all of my passwords. I'm not kidding. I spent yeah, changed all the passwords. I have no idea if I've got if any of my stuff got or exfiltrated, I should say, but can't be too sure. You know, if everybody is at risk, then I'm going to go ahead and change my passwords and at least make it harder for the black hats. Also, I have not run this by management, but I have decided to unilaterally implement a two factor authentication for all calls to the radio show. So when you call in, you're going to need to tell us not just your name, but I'm going to need an address. I'm going to need your password for your bank account and your bank and I need your Social Security number before you're allowed to go on the air. You can't be too safe your people, Okay, I gotta protect the station, all right. If you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too. And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground news as they make the media landscape more transparent new Stock eleven ten, ninety nine to three WBT seven oh four five seven oh eleven ten. Now with multi factor authentication, Russ writes into as a direct message actually on Twitter formerly known as X. If you use the same log in for everything, Pete, you don't have to worry about the bad guys stealing multiple passwords. That's true, that's true. You know what the best way to keep your passwords secret is to actually write them down, like write them down with code. Example, if I was going to use say, news talk eleven ten as my password, which I would not do that. But if I were to do that, because it wouldn't have you'd have to put like a like a hashtag in it, or a question mark or something like that. All right, So let's say I do hashtag news talk eleven ten, and I want to write down, Okay, this is my log in at work, so I, you know, write it down. But I don't write down hashtag news talk eleven ten. I write down hashtag work because that's where I work, See what I mean? Got to make codes. I did not look. Okay, when the Internet was invented by Al Gore, I was not expecting to have to be like a freaking spy, Okay. I did not think I was going to have to memorize all of this kind of stuff otherwise, Like I feel like I feel like we got some you know, some protections here, like I understand buyer beware and everything, but I do feel a little bit mislet, a little bait and switch going on. If they told me at the beginning, when I was listening to the dial up in order to connect to the Internet, that somehow I was going to be forced to go through like spy training and memory skills training, I don't know if I would have been as interested in downloading the guitar tabs that I wanted to learn, you know, for the songs I wanted to learn how to play. I don't think I would have made that trade off, Like, Okay, you can learn how to play idiot wind on the guitar. But if you do this, then that means for the rest of your life you're going to be, you know, shackled to password memorization. You're going to have to keep secret you know, papers with your codes written down and passwords you know, secreted away and safety deposit boxes and such. I mean you could not do that, of course, and then just have everything stolen. I just like, why can't some to just create something that's unhackable, Like why can't we have a bitcoin like password kind of thing. I know there are people in the tech industry that are like Pete, you know what you're talking about, And that's true. I don't. I shouldn't have to, though, right, So change your passwords everybody. Also, I got an idea, how about we follow the law. Can we follow the law, like the law that bans TikTok? Can we do that? Please? Please? President Donald Trump announced that he will delay, yet again, the executive branch's enforcement of the TikTok ban that Congress passed by PARTI is in fashion. Congress passed this and it required the Chinese company. And when I say Chinese company, I mean the Communist Party of China, because you don't own a company in China, especially one this big, without the C all up in your business, you know. So they're being told the law says you got to sell it or we're going to ban it. Trump signed an executive order that postponed the TikTok ban until September seventeenth, twenty twenty five. That prevents the enforcement of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act or the PAFA c AA or the PATHAK anyway, Yeah, Trump previously extended TikTok's deadline to find a buyer back in April, giving the Chinese company named byte Dance seventy five more days to sell off the video sharing platform. There were rumors about who would buy it, like Elon was supposedly interested, but nothing has happened and byte Dance does not appear to be close to selling TikTok off to a US buyer. And look, there is a reason for that. It's simply because they don't want to sell it. They don't want to sell it. It's making too much money for the Chinese and it's functioning wonderfully as a psyop against an adversary for them. Former President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan legislation last year requiring Byteedance to either divest from TikTok or sell the app by January. Six months ago, this was supposed to have happened. The legislation gained momentum needed to pass due to concerns about China's control over the TikTok algorithm and debility to access user data. Yeah yeah, what do you think they're collecting all of that data for? These are communists, They are our adversaries. Why do you think they want all of your information? Why do you think they want all of your Oh? Just watch videos? Do you think that's all they're getting from you? Did you know? I remember reading this a couple of months or maybe a year or so ago. Before you even create a profile on Facebook, they already know like two dozen vital pieces of information personal information about you. They've already got like a placeholder for you. They're just waiting for you to show up and activate it, basically, because they're constantly scraping the internet and all the data in order to build these profiles. And when you finally create a profile, they just put you into the profile. It's like ready, they're waiting for you. They already know it. What do you think China does with that? What do you o? I just watched the cat videos, But they know that you're watching cat videos, and they know all of this other stuff about you, their track you know how long you're looking at the videos, do you click on any of the links? Do you buy anything? And then they create these profiles and then they know how to market to you. But what they're selling not just the TMU crap they're but they're they're selling you something else. They're selling you confusion, They're selling you hatred of your country. They're selling you love of China. You know, China's got it going on, and they're selling you, well, they're selling a different vision of your life, what it could be like if only the oppressors weren't in charge, and we allow this product into our country. TikTok has faced criticism also for its addictive recommendation algorithm because of its impact on children's mental health. Oh yeah, that's right. It's also selling short attention spans, transgender ideology, the yeah, the inability to focus on things, fake relationships. It's also giving your kids an opportunity to meet all sorts of predators online. A substantial portion of TikTok's one hundred and seventy million US users are millennials or part of gen Z, making the app a dominant force in youth culture. On average, TikTok users spend an hour a day on the platform, and a growing number of Americans are using it for news. Well, what could go wrong there? About forty percent of young adults regularly get their news from TikTok. Maga influencers have exploded in popularity on TikTok as the platform has become a hotbed for short form political commentary and entertainment. And I suspect that's why Trump and the maga influencer crowd has cooled on banning TikTok because Trump, a rich only said we had to ban it, then he got a TikTok account, and now he doesn't want to. Here's a great idea. 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Okay, that's I don't Yeah, if even if you send me a link, I'm not going to click the link, but you could screenshot a like a reputable investigation on that, Pie'd be happy to take a look at it. But that's news to me. But TikTok is a threat. I've talked about this for years and I've got a whole stack in my file on TikTok. For example, last year January of twenty twenty four, there was a piece by Chris Fenton at Real Clear Politics, who is a COMI Chinese expert guy, and he talks about Hollywood. Remember the influence that the chycoms had in Hollywood, and everybody was getting very concerned about it because you know, they're making all these movies. I think The Hulk was sort of your classic example of this, where like they made the Chinese Army the Saviors at the end of the movie or something. Now, Beijing may have lost theatrical market leverage by this point, but it's more than made up for that in social media presence, it's become an epidemic as media executives, sorry, as a media executive and a storyteller attuned to the intricate dance between creativity, commerce, and geopolitics. He says, I have watched Beijing sway over Hollywood storytelling shift shapes. TikTok, a platform that has rooted itself deep into the fabric of American youth culture, is at the forefront of this transformation. It's not merely a social media app. It's a potent tool of influence, information, data collection, commerce, and creativity, one that has far outpaced traditional broadcast networks in its reach and impact on young Americans. However, unfortunately for the welfare of our great nation, TikTok is under the control of a non allied nation's pernicious government. The app provides Beijing an ability to understand, control, and influence Americans well beyond simply Hollywood content. In fact, the platform is much more damaging in how it shapes the opinions and perspectives of adults under the age of thirty, in other words, the future generations of America. According to Pew Research, a third of those under thirty relies solely on TikTok for news, and Beijing can then throttle, amplify, or completely censor exactly what the app distributes as news. Do you think TikTok's going to report if China invades Taiwan? You think you're going to get that in your news feed on TikTok? Did you know that in America the FCC sidebar love the FCC and everything that they do. I would never say anything bad about the FCC. Okay. In the United States, the FCC prohibits control of American broadcast networks by hostile foreign government and entities beholden to them. How come China doesn't own NBC because they get it for free? Right, Okay? But seriously, if they try if the chi cooms tried to buy CNN or NBC, the Associated Press, whatever, if they tried to buy well, I should say the Assciated Press because that's not FCC regulated. But if they tried to buy an FCC regulated broadcast entity, they would be blocked from doing so. The band. The reason is based on a belief that we have to protect our national narrative and cultural sovereignty from countries that want to weaken us or divide us. I was saying this back in twenty sixteen seventeen when the demons were running around saying the only reason Hillary lost was because of the Russians. You know, they wanted Trump to win. No, they want to sew division. That's why they funded both anti cop and pro cop facebook pages. That's why they did both sides. They play both sides. They don't care about the issue. All they care about is the revolution. All they care about is dividing us. The question, then, is why should TikTok be an exception to this? Why would a foreign known entity with such profound acts given such profound access to the psyches of our youth, the perspectives of our voters, the heart of our creative industries, especially since Beijing, Beijing thinks that the global app isn't even worthy of access in its own nation. You can't even get TikTok in China. Their version of TikTok over there is like child education videos like two plus two is five and that kind of stuff. Banning the app is straightforward, It's with precedents and frankly, extremely necessary. It's not a call for censorship, nor is it an indictment of the vibrant creativity that TikTok has fostered among millions of users. It's a call for consistency in our policies and for the protection of our national interests. And the fact that China said that they would rather the company go out of business then sell it off and make all their shareholders a boatload of money. The fact that they said they'd rather kill it then sell it tells you it's not a business venture. There's something else going on there. Now along those lines, a new report from the NCRII. The NCRII is I mentioned this entity the other day. It's out of Rutgers University. It's called the Network Contagion Research Institute. And they've got a new report out that Russia and Iran have been targeting MAGA why to destabilize it. They're trying to split MAGA. This is why I spend so much time talking about the Tucker Carlson ted Cruz argument. It's because it's part of a larger op. Both rogue states are using tens of thousands of social media bots to amplify untrue and fake voices and opinions that are masquerading as MAGA loyalists, why to cause chaos and confusion and to question US leadership. This is from the New York Post, hardly an anti Trump publication, and they name some names. I'll tell you what they are up next. All right, So spring is here a time of renewal and celebrations. 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Mail orders are accepted to get all the details at createavideo dot com, News Talk eleven ten in ninety nine three WBT seven oh four five seven zero eleven ten email ispt at the Pete Kalanarshow dot com. So according to the Network Contagion Research Institute, a politically neutral nonprofit that studies extremism on the Web, Russia and Iran have been using bot farms to target MAGA users and influencers. The bots are automated software applications that mimic human activity on social media. They are used to amplify real life influencers who post untrue quote unquote false flag narratives designed to discredit President Donald Trump and his conservative stalwarts. According to this new report, New York Post goes on to say the purpose of the purpose of the psychological operation is to destabilize people's perceptions of institutions that are supposed to protect us. The bots make it look like extreme posters. The original people, real people who post stuff like false flag and Trump has abandoned us, and then the bots swarm on that, and so It makes it look like these people have way more support than they actually have, which helps to persuade other real life viewers that what they are posting is legitimate. The bots use innocuous average names and have profiles which make them appear as average Americans, usually a couple of American flags thrown into the profiles. The group point. The NCRI points to Dravin Nactus. That's a real person, a US veteran who frequently contributes to Russian state media and has a potential reach of two point four million people with another one hundred and eighty thousand followers on Twitter. Quote it's so expensive in the US and Canada that even refugees can't understand how we make it. That was one of his posts in a twenty twenty four TikTok video while describing the United States as a slave system designed to impoverish its own citizens. And then that got amplified foreign linked cedars. They're called cedars. One who plants the seed. Cedars like this guy Nactus inject crisis narratives within minutes of any breaking news. Their content is then mass republished by clusters of inauthentic accounts, domestic personalities with large but unstable followings like Jackson Hinkel. He became a big one against the Jews. They supply this veneer of grassroots legitimacy, completing an asset adjacency model in which fringe US influencers ride the same engagement farms that propel Kremlin messaging. Here's another one. A tweet from red Pill Media, which identifies itself as quote exposing Zionist terrorism, has eighty one thousand followers on Twitter, claims to be based in the US. However, they were recently exposed as actually belonging to Abdula Bas located in Karachi, Pakistan, Sorry Pakistan. Working through firebrand right wing social media influencers, Kremlin affiliated propagandists also conducted a coordinated assault against Trump. It's a combination of an artificial voice with a real voice. It destroyed the Democratic Party and now they are going after MAGA and I suspect that's what we saw influencing Tucker Carlson. So these are identified as real accounts belonging to real people, but then you see the engagement boosts that they get and they're followed by thousands of users that all arrived on like the same day, which is weird that all of a sudden they go from you know, one hundred thousand followers to two hundred thousand followers literally overnight, all amplifying one message. So the worst eight offenders Dravin Nactus, as I already mentioned, adame Media, Jackson Hinkle, Amy Meck, Mirabel tweets one Jake Shields that raging anti Semite it's Julian's rum. I've never heard of that one. And Nick Fouentes. Nick Fouentes. Yeah, if you follow me or you ever send me something with Nick Fouentes or Jake Shields or Jackson Hinkle, I don't look at it. I don't care to see it. I don't give them any engagement, and I will probably if I'm following you, you are unfollowed, and I might even block you, because that's how I deal with these types of actors. And they are actors. They may very well believe what it is that they are spewing out. Maybe they're doing it for the money, Maybe they're doing it because they're psychopaths. They're doing it for the love bombing or whatever. They do it for the engagement and the clicks and the little microdoses of dopamine. I don't know, but it's pretty clear what the pattern is at this point. And it was easy for MAGA world to say, oh yeah, Russia cost Hillary the election ah haha, which I don't believe, by the way. I think she did that quite well on her own. But recognize what is occurring inside your own movement. Mega. There are foreign actors that are trying to divide MAGA, and this Iran thing is a perfect example of it. Because eighty percent of MAGA do not believe that Iran should get a nuke. Yet you would think that MAGA is evenly split on it and it's not. That's not real life. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecalanarshow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.