The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Keeping the Internet Safe: The Global Cyber Alliance Mission

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Keeping the Internet Safe: The Global Cyber Alliance Mission Globalcyberalliance.org About the Guest(s): Komal Bazaz Smith is the Chief Business Officer at Global Cyber Alliance, a nonprofit organization with a focus on making the digital world safer and more secure for individuals and organizations globally. She has over 20 years of experience in business strategy, particularly in social impact, international development, and innovation. Komal has a unique background, not rooted in technology, but in strategy and development, which brings a fresh perspective to cyber safety advocacy. Episode Summary: Join host Chris Voss in a riveting conversation with Komal Bazaz Smith, an influential figure at the Global Cyber Alliance, as they delve into the intricacies of cyber safety and security in today's digital world. In this episode, Chris and Komal explore various challenges and solutions associated with making the internet a safer place, discussing the vital role cybersecurity plays in protecting not just personal information but also global infrastructures. The episode dives deeply into how the Global Cyber Alliance endeavors to safeguard online spaces, advocating for internet safety as a fundamental right. Komal elaborates on initiatives such as the Cyber Flex toolkits and community collaborations that aim to reduce online risks. They touch upon pressing issues like AI-enhanced cyber threats and the evolving nature of online safety, emphasizing the need for increased awareness and the importance of a collaborative effort in mitigating digital vulnerabilities. Key Takeaways: Internet Safety as a Right: The Global Cyber Alliance views being safe online as a fundamental right and is working towards making this a reality through its various partnerships and initiatives. Evolving Cyber Threats: As cyber threats become more sophisticated, driven by factors such as AI, it becomes increasingly crucial for individuals and organizations to stay informed and protected. Community-Driven Solutions: The organization emphasizes collaboration with end users, infrastructure operators, and governments to collectively strengthen cybersecurity measures. Importance of Awareness and Education: Educating the public about how to protect themselves online is essential, with a focus on practical tools like Cyber Flex for small businesses and individuals. The Interconnected Nature of the Internet: Highlighted is the fact that internet disruptions can have global consequences, underlining the need for robust cybersecurity. Notable Quotes: "Being safe online is a fundamental right." "The internet is not magic; it's actually held up by tons of folks in the shadows." "One small mistake on the internet can make everything you do online go away." "Cyber threats are evolving and becoming more sophisticated." "The internet is our lives; it's not a separate thing."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

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chrisvoss1 on the TikTokity, and all those crazy places on the internet. Today we'll be talking to a wonderful young lady. Komal Bazaaz-Smith is the Chief Business Officer of Global Cyber Alliance. We'll be talking to her today. Did I get that right, Ms. Smith? Yeah, you did. Komal Bazaaz-Smith. So good. As long as you don't call me camel, I'm good. I'm learning all the new stuff. Give us a 30,000 overview and a dot com for you of what you do

there. Yeah. So I'm, as you said, I'm the chief business officer, but really what we are is we're an international nonprofit and we view being safe online as a fundamental right. And yeah, I mean, it's one of those things. If you're going to be online, you should be able to be safe. You should feel comfortable engaging with the internet in a way that it makes it a lot less fun. I'll be honest with you. I like living on the edge. Yeah, we live on the edge on an everyday basis. So we're trying to reduce that risk just a teeny bit for you. But yeah, that's basically what we're trying to do. We're trying to, you know, we work with a ton of different kinds of communities. We're trying to keep the

internet a little bit safe as much as we can. And we try to help people and organizations be more safe online. That's really at the end of the day, what we're trying to get done. And you need to be safe online. There's a lot of dangerous stuff online, a lot of dangerous stuff coming through the emails, clickbait, all sorts of different things. You click the wrong thing, man, and suddenly your computer's taken over. You could go down a rabbit hole. I mean, I keep thinking about it with my mom or with my kids. Before I gave my kids a phone, I had to really think about that.

What does that actually mean? What am I exposing them to? It's great because they have so much opportunity, but there's a whole host of other things you have to think about too. So we're all the same. Yeah. I think I saw one time a thing where when a young person, maybe 12 or 13-year-old kid, as soon as they get on Instagram, I think 13 is the new age or something like that. Or it's supposed to be. Let's put it that way. I mean, you can do whatever you want can get on instagram i think 13 is the new age or something like that or it's supposed to be let's put it that way i mean you can do whatever you want yeah it's

supposedly the rule is supposed to be 13 when wink wink and i think they i think they know that and profit from it that's why i'm being sarcastic the i know tiktok kind of got away with it and then they didn't i think they got fined a bunch of money for underage applications, but no, as soon as they get on within minutes, they have, you know, dudes that are pedos, you know, hitting their DMS. And, you know, parents really have to think about this stuff. They, they really need to fairly you know impressionably young and i think in their low teens and you know he has to explain to them some of the girls and some of the activity on instagram that they see that this isn't normal this isn't what you're supposed to do and this is you know maybe a unique group of people but you know i mean yeah i can see as a father you don't want

your daughter on only fans uh you don't want your a father, you don't want your daughter on OnlyFans. You don't want your daughter on it. You don't want your son on lots of things. There's a whole lot of, you know, education that happens. And we don't really work so, so much with the super young folks. But at the end of the day, you know, we do have tools and platforms that sort of work with younger folks. You know, we have something called CyberFlex. We have toolkits for kind of individuals and small and medium businesses. But at the end of the day, day, how do you keep yourself safe?

What are the kinds of things? How can you make it as easy as possible? Those are just some of the problems we try to tackle over at Go. What I do is I cover myself in tinfoil and then put a tinfoil hat on. I like that scene from Samuels. How does that work out for you, Chris? I don't know. I think

it's working. I can feel a vibration glow, but I might be sitting close to a magnet, so I'm not sure what that's about. So you guys' intent is to work with communities and improve the internet and help people and join and get involved in. Tell us how people can understand that better. I notice there's a download here of your overview and different things you're trying to accomplish. Yeah, no, absolutely. You can go to globalcyberalliance.org and become a partner. We have a lot of different ways that we work. So basically, at the end of the day, we're trying to keep the internet safe. We're trying to do a couple things to make the internet more improved, and we're trying to keep people safe online. But we do that in three different ways. And that's one of the reasons why I loved coming to the Global Cyber Alliance. I came from, I am not a cyber geek. I'm not a tech geek in any way,

shape, or form. And so I came at this with a very, very different background. I have, you know, I've done business strategy work for 20 plus years, especially kind of in the social impact, the international development and the innovation space. And one of the things I loved and why I came to GCA, to Global Cyber Alliance, is because we work at so many different levels. You know, we work with the end users, people like yourselves, small businesses, journalists, to help them kind of keep them safe. We work with those folks that you don't really know all that well, like people that own networks and internet infrastructure operators. But these are the ones that kind of have so much sway in terms of what happens on the internet every day. And then we work even at the ecosystem level where we're really working with like governments and businesses and, you know, philanthropies that have a whole host of incentive to kind of make sure that the internet is safe. That said, there's not that much money

that's going into making sure that the internet is safe. You know, we're trying to create awareness around this issue. We're trying to make sure that people know that there's a lot of vulnerabilities in the internet. We're trying to make people understand sort of what is at stake. You know, you and I are on a podcast, We're on a platform. We're leveraging the fact that the internet is running and it's secure and it's okay and Wi-Fi is working and all that. But if that gets crashed down and all the things that we do online every day, that can get interrupted in any one second. One small mistake can make that go away. And so we're just trying to make sure that's secure. Definitely. I mean, a few months ago, I was checking in on my Bank of America account.

No, what it was is a couple months ago, I got a message on my email. I have an alert when it gets below a certain point to let me know because you don't want anything to bounce. And I have multiple bank accounts for the businesses and for me and so my bank america account sent me an email and said you're you're below your threshold and i'm like that's weird and there's a lot of money in the account yeah i'm like where did all that money go yeah so i i open up the app and it literally it doesn't even have an amount for me on my account. It just has dash dash. Oh God, that's really not good.

And I'm freaking the hell out going, maybe I've been hacked. Maybe I have no idea. Where's my, where's, you know, where's my money? It's not like a mob guy. Where's my money? And so then I looked at my, I started panicking, freaking out because, you know, it's money and so then i looked at my i started panicking freaking out because you know it's money and you need it um and so then i learned america's website dash dash i'm like what the hell and fortunately i kind of went you know there's outages and i'm so used to outages

before i called them i looked on the internet and I Googled Bank of America outage. And sure enough, they were, and if you remember, this was like a month or two ago or something like that. Yeah. But yeah, it's, I was, you know, having some heart palpitations for a little while. You know, it's interesting. I think we don't really think about it every day. I mean, okay. So I'm, I don't know if I'm a sadist or what, but I love working on these big, complex problems, you know, things that really can't be solved at the end of the day. And so this is one of them, right? Like, how do you actually make sure that the internet is secure? Just a small little, small little, you know, tiny problem.

And, you know, in, I don't know if you remember, but in July, there was a huge outage all across the globe. It just was this big huge internet disruption and you know about a month later and in the Atlantic the Atlantic Monthly magazine there was a guy named Mateo Wong and he wrote he wrote one line which I'll say is a single company aired a single time the web buckled and the globe shuttered and that's it at the end of the, that's kind of where what we're talking about. We're talking about one internet disruption, which, you know, just demonstrates the vulnerabilities that we're dealing with every single day. It can cost millions of dollars.

It can shut down hospitals. It can result in preventable deaths because of the shutting down of the hospital. It disrupts critical services. So we're just trying to make sure that people think about how do you invest in something so that you can make sure that what we are using every single day to live our everyday lives is safe and secure. I believe it was a CDN provider, a content delivery network that caused that outage. We're friends with them and anybody can make a mistake. So it was crowd-strike, but it was a big, big out strike but it was uh it was a it was a big big outage and and you know they do amazing work but it can happen to anyone yeah and i mean it

just it's it's wild you know we've we've done promotions for south by southwest and we'll be promoting i don't know some website or something and somebody will be like hey we're gonna push some cool things for south by southwest and somebody will push something that was supposed to stay in the sandbox as a test case to the public side. We're recruiting people to go to their website and we're like, did you know your website's down? Because the people were telling, they're like,

they can't sign up. I can't actually do the thing. We're at South by Southwest and they're like, somebody push something. You never know. I mean, and look, at the end of the day, I mean, you know, some of this is just window dressing. I mean, sure, it's fun to be able to access a podcast and things like that.

But many people rely on this for their everyday livelihoods, you know. This is a big deal. Yeah. I mean, the Chris Voss Show is a business online. You can't go to an office on you know fourth to see us and you know it didn't used to be that way i built most of my companies in the brick and mortar you know i know the severe difference when did it turn for you where where did where did when did you become totally digital chris i we adopted early on i mean i had i was

on during the days of prodigy and CompuServe. Oh, wow. CompuServe, right. I just dated myself as how old I was. Hey, I remember CompuServe. I'll never forget when we graduated from 300 baud to 1,200 baud. And that's download speed, folks. But that was like, it's very different than what you would think of 1,200 now, I think.

I don't know. I always tell my kids, I date myself because so when my husband and I first met each other, this was back in the days of the, it was in the 90s. And I was the first class to get email, to get email, you know, automatically. And, you know, people get gape at that. They're like, what do you mean you didn't have email before and that's how you know that's how people started communicating you'd have the internet you'd have to dial it up and you'd have the little telnet godzilla screaming

that's right that's right exactly but we're you know but it's funny i mean nowadays we think of it as so seamless and and some of the threats that we're starting to see in this in these in these coming years is you know know, the threats are evolving. They're becoming more sophisticated. We're seeing that, you know, the things that I used to tell my mom and my kids to watch out for, I can't even tell them to watch out for anymore because it's so advanced and sophisticated. You know, the Internet is it's evolving. It's becoming even more seamless. It's becoming even more seamless. It's becoming even more intricate.

And folks are using things like AI to make it even harder to catch criminals and cybercrime. That was the next thing I was going to run by you. You know, it's funny. Just a few minutes before the show, I was checking my emails before we came on. And I had an email from Walt Disney, which is weird because, you know, I think there's Disney Plus or something, right? And so I got this thing and it says My Disney on it. Please review your payment information. And you're like, I'm not subscribed to Disney. I don't subscribe to Disney Plus because, you know, I mean,

I don't have any jokes for that. Just because. Just because you don't. That's fine. I'm traumatized every time i look at disney or mickey mouse i don't know why it's just a scar it's a big mouse clowns you know mice can be scary it is a big mouse not even more terrorized thanks for people so i got this message and i was like what the hell and of course I looked at it and it has like about, I've got it pulled up here.

It has about 30 to 50. It's like I dash one zero zero. The. Very odd. Yeah. Very, very often. And it's from salesforce.com in the end,

which is probably somebody's database. And I was just like, yeah, that's going to delete that. But you know, nowadays you can't necessarily do that. So that one was just like, yeah, that's not good. I'm going to delete that. But you know, nowadays you can't necessarily do that. So that one was really obvious, but there are lots of times where I get emails and, and you know,

one of the things that I, that we try to focus on in, in our nonprofit, because again, we're trying to help those that are super vulnerable. There are, there's folks that like big organizations or even profitable ones like yourselves that can handle maybe one hack or one small scam or something like that. But there's so many tiny mom and pop shores that just literally would be wiped out. They would be bankrupt if something happened to them. So it's scary stuff because you just don't know what you're clicking on half the time. Yeah. We've talked about a lot on the show where we have, we have people that are getting ransomware and it's, you know, it's not just the, it's just not the big agencies that

can pay money. It's the small mom and pops and they can't afford to, and they can't afford to have their shit backed up. I mean, there was a long time where we lived on the edge and every now and then we lose something and we'd have to call up, go daddy and go, please, can you figure it back up? We even pay them for please, can you figure out a backup? We even pay them for it, but yeah. But I mean, you're talking about, you know, back in the day in my previous job, I was doing international development and, you know, I'd work with places like the World Bank

or U.S. Agency for International Development. And we're talking like tiny two-person shops in a village in India. They've got no disposable income. They've got no backup. They've got no GoDaddy. The minute a scam comes in or a misinformation rumor hits them and they are targeted, they can lose their livelihood. They can lose all of their savings and they can lose their reputation, which is horrible in a tiny community. You don't want to lose your reputation.

No, nobody wants to lose their reputation. Yeah, it can happen. And AI, I think, is going to make everything worse, isn't it, when it comes to these scammers and these different techniques they can use? It's interesting. So everybody talks about AI. I mean, all of our funders are like, AI is the next big thing. And it is.

I mean, it absolutely is. But at the end of the day, it's run by the internet. If the internet shuts down, there's no AI. And so one of the things that I've been trying to talk about with some of our stakeholders and some of our communities is how do you think about the internet? How do you make that more safe? And then maybe if we can make it more safe, then AI can actually be used for good rather than just, you know, leveraged by cyber criminals and folks that want to do bad things on the internet. So how do people get involved with you? Is the idea behind this that, you know, everyone should get involved?

I mean, who's your targeted client base? Well, hey, tell me you know a lot of billionaires. So I don't know. That didn't turn out too well for Twitter so I know it didn't I mean you know there's a jack was a piece of shit too so that's my opinion there are so many so many paths but but yeah no there's lots of ways to get involved I mean you know come to global cyber alliance.org click on the link of getting engaged there's you know there's a partners and and how to work with us part of our website. We welcome emails to kind of come and talk to us. There's folks that we

really love to have people come where they either have a solution that they can help support the keeping of the internet safe, or there might be people that have funds that really want to help donate towards addressing this issue. But, you know, in any way, shape or form, if you're engaged in this work in any space, I would love to talk to you. And, you know, at the end of the day, the internet's not magic. I mean, we think of it as just, you know, you click a button and all of a sudden I can speak to Chris Voss

and, you know, we can talk to people all across the globe. I remember the time when, you know, you used to have to write in the blue letter in the mail and send it to Port Paravion and you never know when it's going to get there. But it's actually, the internet is magical, but it is not magic. And it's actually held up by tons of folks in the shadows. There's like the underbelly of the internet where people are working every day to keep it safe and they they need funding, and they need sustainable ways to keep doing what they're doing. And I just signed up with your Mastodon.

I think it's your Mastodon community. Oh, fantastic. Excellent. I appreciate that. Pretty cool. And so people can sign up with that. They can get involved in the community that's on there. You can sign up via LinkedIn.

You can come to us through Twitter. You can come to us through Mastodon, Blue Sky. I think we also have an Instagram account. So please come join us at any time. We welcome it. Yeah. And I mean, basically, this is one of those things where if you want to influence what's going on on your Internet and the importance of it, you know, you've got to have a vote. You've got to get in there.

And, you know, I think we're all stewart you know i always say we're stewards of our democracy all of us as human as americans you know that's why we're all giving a vote that's right and so much of democracy is happening online at this time so use that vote right yeah use that vote but you need to also care about what's going on the internet because it's you know there's there's there's evil players that want to dominate it or take it over or use it for real will and you know there's constantly you know with bitcoin and and different cryptocurrencies there's different ways that you know people are moving money that maybe is illicit and and all that good stuff yeah i know and one of the things i i always try to tell people i mean especially you know like i said

my mom or my grandparents or somebody that just says, what is all this computer stuff you're doing? And the thing is, nowadays, the internet is our lives, right? It's not a separate thing. It's not, oh, I have an online life and I have an IRL. It's one and the same. And so what I really try to tell folks is, it isn't just up to those computer geeks over there and their hoodies and their sneakers and their sweatpants. You know, they're not solving all the problems. I mean, they might be solving some of the problems. You just like shame to how I dress.

You have a button-down shirt, Chris. You're all good. You know, normally I'm in a t-shirt. I just do this for the show. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I am casual all the way. But, yeah, it's up to all of us to kind of make sure that it's not just the strongest that keep ourselves safe, but all of us.

Definitely. Tell us about the thing that you have is the Common Good Cyber Initiative. What does that mean and why is it critical in securing digital future? So it's a lot about what we were just talking about. You know, the Internet is not magic, right? So there's all these folks that are kind of working in the shadows to make sure that the internet is safe. There's nonprofits that are working on it. There's civil society organizations. There's individuals like people in universities, two people shops that are kind of making sure that the time on the internet that you see on your screen is always kept up. These are folks that just do it out of the goodness of their heart because they want to make sure the internet remains the way it is currently. But none of us have funds.

We're all doing it on our volunteer time. We're trying to kind of hustle and get as much money as we can so that we can kind of keep doing what we're doing and so that the internet doesn't buckle. And the common good initiative is really trying to help sustain all of those organizations that are doing those everyday things to keep the internet secure. Yeah, definitely important because security is everything. I mean, if you're not safe, then how do you live life? We talk about it physically, but it's, you know, physically and internet wise, it's, it internet-wise, it's pretty tough to live life.

And our brands are online. Everyone's a brand now. Everybody is a brand. I'm not a brand. You're a bit more of a brand than I am. I'm already. I sell myself for money online. Go to OnlyFans.com for a check.

I sell myself online. No, online no you google that there's something wrong with you i'm not no one wants to see my only fans but no i mean there's so much business that transacts now most people's businesses are set up online that's right and and their placard to you know put out for you know what they do and how they do it i mean you have a global wipe out of an economy if the internet ever went down it literally is so i remember you know, what they do and how they do it. I mean, you'd have a global wipe out of an economy if the internet ever went down. It literally is. So I remember, you know, back in my previous job, as I said, I was doing international development.

And, you know, I've been in the digital space and we were trying to kind of get everybody across the U.S. Agency for International Development and other groups that work in the international development space to think, oh, why should I care about this digital stuff? You know, again, computer hackers over there, it doesn't really matter. And then COVID hit.

And when COVID hit, and I know we talk a lot about COVID, about how it was such so much loss and so much, you know, mental breakdowns and things like this. But actually, what also happened was a lot of stuff was gained. All of a sudden, folks had to learn how to access healthcare online. All of a sudden, people had to figure out how to access schooling online. All of a sudden, people had to figure out how to access finances online and build their businesses online. And I mean, you'll see a huge, huge increase in people that are online using it for everyday things after COVID. And I think that just made it very, very clear how integral the world is

in terms of dependency on the internet. Yeah. I mean, we're dependent. I wake up in the morning and then I'm like, okay. What's the first thing you do? You check your email. Yeah. Even my phone is based on Google Voice.

So, you know, it's all internet. My phone, my calling, my calls that come in. Yeah, it's based on Google Voice. It's all internet. My phone, my calling, my calls that come in. Yeah, it's all on the internet. If that internet goes down, you're kind of just sitting on your computer looking at it going, you're not worth much. And you're looking at your phone, which is even more valuable sometimes. It's not nothing. If it's able to get on.

Yeah, but yeah, definitely waking up one day and looking at your bank and seeing all your money gone definitely wakes you up to the fact. Definitely wakes you up, exactly. I mean, you know. Thank God it was only like two or three hours and everybody was reporting it. So I'm like, okay, just calm down. Just calm down. Wait for the outage to react. Somebody in the bank had to restart a computer system

and then all of a sudden everything came back online you tried turning it on and off again you try turning it off always the solution to everything do we still do we still control the internet does the u.s still control it i know there was no the internet is this you know multi-stakeholder vast interconnected network and that's part of the problem, right? If one government owned it, then we could maybe solve this problem, but no government owns it. So it's everybody's responsibility, which means it's nobody's responsibility. You know, we're trying to solve this very, very large problem, but we're working at it little by little, trying to talk

to lots of governments, trying to talk to people like yourselves, trying to get everybody to understand sort of the thing that we're trying to do and what's at stake. And so hopefully more and more people will join the fight. Definitely, because if you don't, we're all stewards of it. So if we don't have a plan or stake in it and make sure that we try and influence what it should be to protect stuff. I mean, do we need to, you know, I've always joked that we need to have, we need to maybe have a death penalty or maybe one of those Iran extreme punishment sort of things for people who are hackers and cybersecurity violators, people that, you know. You know, the folks that pray, especially on the super young or the super old, there's

a, there's a, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what happened. I don't know where they went wrong but the fact that they are okay you know okay with doing that is horrible yeah i think we need stronger laws yeah i think i think you know maybe maybe if you're a hacker and you steal a couple million from people we get to take your hands so you can't hack anymore move to move to you know move to a different country and maybe you can kind of get those those laws going yeah but you know i mean some of it can be regulated some of it can be laws some

of it can be regulated but i mean at the end of the day nobody really like i said nobody really owns it so what laws do you put in and how do you how do you enforce it and who are the thing you know how do you do how do you do all that so i think that's the kind of stuff i mean there are there are folks that focus on cybercrime and they find these criminals and they do stuff with them. I don't really know what they do, but hopefully we can catch more and more of them. Yeah. I just think there needs to be stricter laws. The other thing I think there needs to be, I think there needs to be stricter criminal or civil punishment of companies that are really reckless with people's privacy things Like it used to be like I get some sort of email every now and then from this company that

pound p p w Ed or something and they tell you when your password or your personal information has been discovered on the internet as being in hacker databases because You know Walmart got hacked or or what was the other one it was the big which one of the big three credit bureaus got hacked equifax oh i remember that yeah yeah yeah like and i mean actually the government got hacked a number of years ago i don't remember i don't know if you remember that but in 2014 it was a huge scandal where so much security data got leaked but you you know, I mean, there are there

are like privacy regimes. So I don't you know, I don't know if you know the GDPR in Europe. There's actually one in the US called CBPR. So there are rules, but it's hard to enforce them. And I think, you know, there's we need better laws. We need better laws. We need better regulatory systems. But I think that's part of the whole point about the internet is it was this wild, wild west for so many years. It was just this thing that grew and it was organic and beautiful and people were building things and innovating and it's been fantastic. But I think we've reached that nadir where we're kind of like, okay, now we actually might need some norms and some rules and some, some structure around all of this stuff. Copyright stuff. You know, AI is has got lots of lawsuits going against it where people are like,

Hey, you scraped the internet. You, you stole our music. You stole their art. You know, you, you stole, you know, they're scraping books and scraping everything. They probably scraped the Chris Voss show. And they put a deep fake on you. So now it it doesn't even it doesn't even look like it anymore it probably looks better anyway that's why i've let it slide but you know i'll hear about these companies that they're like yeah we had everyone's passwords and private data and a text file that was openly available on the internet yeah i'm like what why was it openly available on the internet? Somebody should go to jail for 30 days.

Somebody should get a million dollar fine. There should be penalties. And the reason it keeps happening is because there's no of these enforceable penalties. And so I really think there needs to be something like that. I think they're growing. I think that there's more and more recognition across government. And these are things that are sort of people know that this is an issue people are seeing that this is an issue and i think they're just kind of catching

up to the fact of what exactly do we do about this how do we handle social media companies what are the kinds of things we can do to to you know what where should we regulate where should we not regulate how do we enforce enforce and versus how do we incentivize better behavior you know all of that's just getting started. Yeah. And pedophiles too. Like I've been just shocked when I'll see some giant busts of these pedophile rings. And they'll have like huge communities and you'll hear about them in databases.

And you're just like, what the effing, you know? It's mind boggling. It's mind boggling. I It's mind-boggling. I don't even know how they all exist. All I got to do is figure out how to make sure my kids don't get on there somehow. Exactly. And there's things you don't want your kids to learn. Like I always tell kids, pace yourself.

Yeah. You can't unlearn things. You've got 40 years to pick up some weird fetishes. Just stick with the normal stuff. Just don't do them yet. Just use yourself. You're right. You don't want to go right to something crazy from the get-go.

I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'll let people fill in the blank. What have we talked about about what you guys do there that maybe we should make sure people are aware of? I mean, I think, you know, we've talked about a lot of it. At the end of the day, you know, every single person, we all have a role to play. You know, make sure you use multi-factor authentication. Make sure you have strong passwords.

Like all the things that you're, you know, your people say all the time, keep your software up to date and make sure to run the devices, the security patches and things like that. But, you know, at the end of the day, what we're really trying to do is change behavior and bring all these communities together to really do something big. You know, at the end of the day, what we're really trying to do is change behavior

and bring all these communities together to really do something big. You know, all of those things are important and they're important for each of us to do on an everyday basis, but we're only one person each. So if we want to do something on a broad collective basis, we've got to work with a broad collective number of people. And I, you. And I hope that we can get more and more folks to join our cause. And I think Common Good is one example. We do a whole host of other things, but we're trying to address the internet safety in a wide variety of ways. And I think there's lots of different ways to join up in that.

So if you're interested in end user communities, we have a program for that. If you're interested in helping support internet infrastructure owners and network operators, we have a program for that. Or if you're interested in supporting the Internet, you know, the ecosystem of that, we have a program for that. So there's lots of different ways to get engaged. People like now I got to manage the Internet, too. I'm still trying to put out forest fires. Add it to your to-do list, you know. Smoking the bear guilted me about how it's my fault for forest fires. I'm still trying to put up forest fires. I don't see your to-do list. Smokey the Bear guilted me about how it's my fault for forest fires.

I'm still trying to put those out. Now I've got to put up the internet? No. You know what? You don't. Just engage with us and we can help you out. There you go. Just be a part of the team.

Yeah. I spend most of my weekends and nights out in the forest trying to keep- Do you? Chris, where are you located? I try to keep Smokey the Bear happy because when he was a child, he's only you can prevent forest fires. I remember those commercials.

I'm eight. What the hell? How am I responsible for all of this? I'm going to live with this guilt for the rest of my life. Smokey the Bear. I love Smokey the Bear. He's a wonderful guy. Are you close to lots of forests?

No, I'm just doing a bit. I'm in Utah and Vegas. That's beautiful. Yeah, I just let it burn. I don't care. I give up. I'm going to pretend that I didn't hear that. F that Smokey the Bear dude.

Freaking gaslighting me that only I'm in charge of forest fires. Hey, it lit a fire under your butt, didn't it? It did, yeah. You know, the ad worked. You still remember it 40 years later. You needed a punchline on that one. Get a fire under your butt, folks, and join the Global Cyber Alliance.

Give us the dot coms as we go out and tell people how they can onboard with you guys and reach out for more information. Please come join us, globalcyberalliance.org. We welcome you. We welcome lots and lots of folks to kind Please come join us, GlobalCyberAlliance.org. We welcome you. We welcome lots and lots of folks to kind of engage with us, donate to us. We have lots of different programs that you can engage with and help us build up all of the different things we're trying to do to make the internet safer.

Make the internet safe, especially. Make the internet safe. No small feat. I can't imagine. My brother had a beautiful young daughter and son and he, for the longest time, he wouldn't let them on the internet. And I'm like, you know, you almost, I mean, this is the age of these, these kids grow up on the internet. You almost have to let them have it. Yeah. It's a tough balancing act, Chris. It's, you know, you want to get them engaged. You want

them to know how to do it effectively. But at the same time, the minute you open that door, you can't close it again. So it's a tough balancing act that we all struggle with every day. It definitely is. It's pretty crazy how all of it is out there. Thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Have a wonderful rest of your day. You got it. And thanks for tuning in. Go check out Global Cyber Alliance. Get involved with what's going on on the internet. Because if you don't, the bad people will.

So you have to care. That's how the world works. We all have to be stewards of making a better world, a better community, and a safer place for everybody. Thanks, Manas, for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortuness, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortuness, Chris Foss, Chris Foss1 on the TikTokity, and Chris FossFacebook.com. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.