EP 077 Dr Stacy Thayer, Cyberpsychologist: The study of how humans are interacting with technology

Dr. Stacy Thayer, a seasoned Cyberpsychologist with over two decades of experience, brings a wealth of expertise to the intersection of psychology and cybersecurity. With a Ph.D. in Clinical and Organizational/Business Psychology, Dr. Thayer's research delves into the intricate dynamics of business, cybersecurity, and human behavior.

Dr. Thayer has worked closely with security professionals in technology and education and as part of various security companies, gaining invaluable insights into the challenges and nuances of cybersecurity. Her research portfolio includes extensive exploration of topics such as job satisfaction in the education and technology sectors, creating neurodivergent-friendly work environments, effective leadership, and addressing burnout within the security industry.

As the host of the Cyberpsych podcast and the manager of the Cyberpsych and Human Factors Slack Channel, Dr. Thayer is dedicated to fostering dialogue and knowledge-sharing within the cybersecurity community. Her commitment to advancing the understanding of how humans interact with technology is evident in both her academic pursuits and her practical applications.

Currently serving as the Chief Strategy Officer at Hilltop Technologies and as an Adjunct Professor of Cyberpsychology at William Jewell College, Dr. Thayer is actively shaping the future of human factors in cybersecurity education and practice.

Security Circle ⭕️  is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:01

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Yoyo 0:44

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome, welcome to the Security Circle Podcast. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference to our members mental health and well being. Our listeners are global. Thank you for your company. And if you love the podcast, we are on all podcast platforms. Don't forget to give us five stars and share on LinkedIn. Thank you so much. Okay. So today I have a very special guest. She is from the other side of the Atlantic ocean. Her name is Stacey Thayer. She's the chief strategy officer for Hilltop Technologies, working alongside the Security Circle alumni, Nick Jacinto himself. She is a cyber psychologist and an adjunct professor of cyber psychology. Let's find out, Stacey, what cyber psychology is all about. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast.

Stacy 1:44

Hello. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here and to talk about everything. Everything. Everything. All the things cyber psychology. All the things.

Yoyo 1:54

Yeah. Listen, that really did pique my interest, Stacey. What is cyber psychology and how do you even begin to teach something like that?

Stacy 2:02

So, uh, it's a question that I get asked a lot, right? So whenever I give a presentation or I'm giving a talk somewhere, I always say, you know, cyber psychology. And by the way, this is what it is. And so really what it is, is it's the study of the way that humans interact with technology and that's, that's boiling it down to its, its basics. And the funny thing is, I mean, I started studying, uh, In the late 1990s, early 2000, I had my first publication in 2002, and I had to find people that were online, and I was looking at their communication style, and I had to find people that spent more than six hours a day online, and it was so hard to do back then. And now my minimum population was they had to spend two hours or less online, and Now, if I were to do that study again, I wouldn't be able to do it at all to find some remote island in the Pacific or something to find people that spend less than than two hours a day online. But, um, but that's the crux of it. So what I look at is how technology specifically for me, the Internet, um, cyber security, um, And how do people interact with it? What does it do to communication, to our works, lives, to our relationships, to everything? At this point, you know, technology is touching everything that we do. And so cyber psychologists study the human aspect of that.

Yoyo 3:22

So we are hearing a lot, certainly in radio chat shows and TV programs, that technology is becoming more and more addictive. Would you say it's not the technology that's becoming addictive, but the way we're using technology is becoming addictive? What's your take on it?

Stacy 3:39

I, I do, I do. I do think that's the way that we use things. There is a poem by William Wordsworth and he actually talks about how bad books are for you. And he talks about that, that people should not be reading books because they take you away from nature. And then back in the Victorian era, women were not allowed to read books alone. That's why they read books in groups. And so everybody was all afraid that women reading books alone would, you know, start having thoughts and ideas. And we don't want that happening. And then of course God forbid. Yeah. So books are terrible. We thought when they first started coming out, uh, then when the TV came out, I'm a child of the eighties. So there was always the TV will rot your brain. Yeah. Now, you know, nevermind how many hours I spend, you know, binging Netflix now, but yeah. And don't

Yoyo 4:21

sit so close. Cause it'll make you go square ride.

Stacy 4:23

You'll go blind. Right. If you cross your eye, I mean, I don't know anyone that did go blind. Did you so far? No. So I think we're good. Um, And then now we have the internet and screen time. And what does this all mean? And that's not to say that it doesn't have, you know, there, there aren't concerns and that there's not valid reasons to want to be aware and want to better understand the way that we use technology, but we have as a, as a species have a history of when we don't understand something or we don't know the impact saying, okay, bad things could happen. And it was interesting because. Pre pandemic, it was all, don't let your kids use screen time, you know, minimize it. And it still is, but it all of a sudden became, well, now that they all have to use the internet to get online for school, it's what they do, not, not the screen itself. It's how we're using the internet. And I think that's how it is with anything. It's how you use it. It's what do you use it for? Are you watching engaging TV? information. You know, I have kids and I say, well, what are you learning from that? You're watching a YouTube video. Okay. What did you learn from it? Are they being kind? Are they, you know, and I asked the right questions to try and at least get them thinking about what it is they're watching and what information they're taking in.

Yoyo 5:37

I have just recently rather late, actually watched a British produced box set called it's a sin. And it's, it's so famously popular here. And I, and I hope. It certainly across the pond, you get to watch it. It's basically a look, but it's a flashback to the eighties, uh, but specifically to a period of time where, gay men really struggled and were. really ridiculed and treated really badly. And it was the emergence and the big scare of AIDS and HIV. And it sounds like an awfully dark subject to have a box set around, but it was a stunning five episodes. And there were all these flashbacks. And there's this scene where all of the main characters,, in all of their different gaynesses are all sitting around the table. And one of them says, we have just got to get a phone because they're living in an era. Without a phone and I, I don't know about you, but I, I mean, I don't remember living without it, but I remember like queuing up to use one in rented accommodation and waiting for someone to get off the phone so I could use it and just using, uh, What we call using phone boxes and how the way we communicate with each other is so different now. Like if I'm sending somebody a message now, already my head is like, Oh, do you know what? I can't be bothered to type all this out into a text. I'm just going to send a voice note. So already we are speeding up so much the way we communicate. What are you seeing? What are you teaching?

Stacy 7:14

So one of the things that. That I always give people moment to think about is how much information can the brain handle? Really? I mean, we're given all of this information about news that's going on. I mean, think back 30 years ago, if you and I had met. Somewhere we probably say, Oh, great. You know, it would cost a bazillion dollars to call each other on the phone. Maybe we'd write a letter, but more often than not, I don't know how many failed pen pals you have, but I had a lot. And, and that would be a and you wouldn't necessarily hear about what was going on in somebody's life and certainly not their political opinions or, you know, I mean, or, you know, everybody has that platform now and so we're given all of this information. And. One of the things that I love, especially when I teach undergrads is what I call the digital native aha moment. And so for these, these, these, you know, students that have grown up with phones, with all of this, with Facebook, with all these things that, that I didn't have growing up. And when I, um, show them things like the social dilemma, or we start talking about targeted advertisement and they realize like, wait a minute. So my phone and everything that, you know, this content is curated towards me. It's designed to get, give me dopamine rushes. It's, it's designed for my youth. And it's like, Yes, we are manipulated essentially by these devices. It's Pavlovian. It's, you hear that dingle off and you know, I know if I hear my text go, well, I have to change my text, my slack, my text because. And, um, you know, there, if you've seen that meme, it says, I wish, uh, someone would tell my fight or flight response that it's just an email. I'm not being chased by bears anymore. You know, like, it's not, we're not hunting in the woods, our, our fight or flight, but we respond. Yeah. Have you, have you ever had

Yoyo 9:00

like, um, a breakup in a relationship and you've assigned them a special ringtone or a special? Text tone. And then, then you're out and you hear that somewhere else and it just makes your heart sink. Yes. So it can be opposite to dopamine, right? It can literally stimulate fear. And it's just a little second of a sound. Yeah.

Stacy 9:22

Yeah. I mean, yeah, Pavlov was around now and heard, you know, okay, what, what, what are these sounds doing? I mean, we, we visibly respond when we hear these sounds and what we do. And, and when you get the message or the email or the, the notifications, I mean, sometimes I'll be on my phone and I'm just randomly, uh, opening up apps. There's no messages. I'm just like, okay, here we go. Lemme open up Facebook, Instagram, email, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And there's nothing going on. Done. Yeah, I'm doing it.

Yoyo 9:50

Yeah. Yeah. We just do it. And then in fact, I got ki I got kicked off LinkedIn once for a couple of weeks. I still don't know what I did, but I wasn't really that naughty. Most people who know me caned to me not really being naughty. Um, and um, the amount of times I picked up my phone and opened the LinkedIn app, even though. There was a part of me that knew I could never access it because it was habitual. It would have been at least 25 times in an evening just because it was habitual. So, really, we're all turning into crazy tech monsters.

Stacy 10:24

Well, we're all, I mean, we're all changing. Right. And I mean, this is one of the things I think is so interesting as cyber psychology grows, because here is something that, yeah, we're all practically, I mean, I guarantee most people listening to this, their phone is within hand reach, right? Like, your phone is not within an arm's length away from most people right now, as you're listening or watching this, I'm pretty sure. Um, and so what does that mean? Yeah. For how we understand people, and I know, especially with the with the bringing on of of AI. I hear a lot of fear about AI. They're going to take our jobs. They're going to take this. And, you know, the fact of the matter is it's it's coming right? And and just we've had little pockets in history of these things. You know, when taxi drivers when Uber first came out, They're going to get destroyed. Uh, when the internet first came out, I knew my, my parents had friends that were travel agents. Well, then the internet came out and people started booking their own travel. So travel agents started, okay. That replaced their jobs. I mean, there's, there's precedents for that.

Yoyo 11:29

Yeah. Like you still, you still see very occasionally like a travel agent in the high street, and you're like, Whoa, does anybody like really go

Stacy 11:37

in there. Right. Right. Yeah. Do they do people still you, but things normalize and they evolve. I mean, that's, that's, let's go back to our Darwin, right? Like we evolve into what it is. And so, okay, so now a travel agent. That still exists. Maybe they do it for corporate travel when it's big groups or they help navigate online thing. It's not, you know, my, when my parents would get a trip and they would get, you know, the, the, the pamphlets, you'd get a brochure. Okay. So maybe we don't use brochures anymore, but you adapt to the technology that exists. we're made to do that. Um, but the piece. That really I see over and over again is the ability to think critically and evaluate and process all the information that we're given and all the interactions, because so much of communication is nonverbal. It turns out that that it's a 93 percent of communication is read from tone of voice from facial expressions from everything and when you're texting or you're, you're messaging so much can get lost. Transcribed in the process because it's like, okay, I'm, I'm hearing what you're saying in my voices, in my tones, the way I imagine you're saying, and it may not be in a way that when you're actually seeing somebody or communicating with them, you get a lot more data points and a lot more information. And so we might see, oh, okay, this person that I trust, you know, an old high school teacher that I really liked posted a link. Okay. That must be correct because I trust them. I believe him. And then we find out they have a totally different opinion than we thought they had. It's like, oh, now what do I do? And we get this cognitive dissonance of what's real and what's not. How do I, do I disagree with my family members? But I, but we're still close. Like we never used to know this much about people. I, I, I'm friends with Facebook on people I went to high school with that I didn't even talk to in high school. I don't know why we're friends now, but we are. And okay, that's fine. I see their kids. It's cool. But I always have to kind of laugh and be like, weird.

Yoyo 13:36

I I think. It's the psychology is around humans need to connect and I think this way of connecting even remotely with people from high school who we don't even talk to very often or visit at all in decades, maybe there's that need to still feel connected. to something in your past. And, and it's not even voyeuristic. It's not even all I like to check in and see how they're doing. It's like stuff pops up, it pops up. Sometimes I've done comparisons and I'm like, see all these guys. I said to my brother, they're all like the same age as me. They look like old men, right? They all got like gray beards. Like what the hell? Um, but look, looking at, um, social media, there's some really great stuff around how generations are using bones, for example, some really good interpretations that if you're of a certain age, maybe what we call a baby boomer, you're say above 65, 67, then, and, and you're waiting for a text, you get those three dots flashing and then the dots go away. Then you get three more dots flashing and then the dots go away. And then, and the funny thing was, I saw that sketch. On social media. And then I was texting somebody who was a lot older and they were doing exactly the same thing. I'm like, waiting for the message. Um, but what else are you seeing between the generations that's of note? So,

Stacy 15:05

um, a lot of, well, I mean, when I was 13, I talked all the time on the phone with, with my friends and I mean, But it was like a big deal when call waiting came out and maybe you got three way calling. And that was really cool. Um, my, my kids have, um, they're on their own phones, but they have access to old phones that I had in my, my husband had. So they each get one and, and I've 28 year olds. And so, um, And they do use it to keep in touch. And actually what we've used for is it helped them with their reading and writing because it was a big motivation for them. They can only text certain people. Um, it's great. They keep in touch with their cousin, which is like the cutest thing. Their, their cousin's five days younger than them. So like, it, it really does, um, become a tool and a resource. For them, but it's a little scary when I see, you know, one of my kids, she tried to join a group and it was her and four of her friends. It was best friends forever. And it was very sweet. And I read all the messages and I stay on it and we talk about it because there's times where I'm like, okay, now you're, you're only, you know, you're eight, you're acting like a teenager before your time. Let's, let's have a little bit more moderation. I know you want to go and, you know, talk about Taylor Swift and, you know, with your, with your best friends and you're calling each other and all this stuff, but I have to be very much. Yeah. On top of her in terms of kind of negotiating it. The other one just wants to to play games and is like a mastermind in Minecraft and she's Got her own thing going on, but socially with, with one of my daughters, I really see her, um, where I have to be very on top of her interactions online because she's learning, she's putting it through with my, the older generation, I have to keep an eye on my parents. We were kind of in this sandwich generation where I'm like, mom, no matter how many times they promise you money, I swear they are not going to give you money. Stop. Because she'll get it, she'll get the message from a friend of hers. And she'll be like, oh, but they said that they were giving senior citizens 500, so I signed up. And I'm like, no. Never gonna happen. Stop. Um, so, you know, the difference in, um, I think just comfort and acuity. But, um, You know, my grandmother, I remember having a teacher. I don't know if this was the same in the UK, but in the US, if you want to have your VCR, you had to put it on channel 3. And if you changed it from channel 3, the whole thing got all screwed up. And I remember my dad having to tell her how to do that practically every day. So there's always some kind of new technology that we're interacting with. That we need to understand and above all think about because it's going to be a different role for everybody. And yeah, there's those people, um, that we do connect with that. It's wonderful to connect with that. We would have lost touch with that. We, you know, would have been an absentee pen pal to that. We can just reach out and stay in touch with, um, but keeping an eye on yourself as well.

Yoyo 17:52

happen with the next generation though? Let's do a little bit of future scanning now. We know that Gen A are the next generation to come out. We know that they've grown up with technology. I know that a very stereotypical observation is, and I'm hearing this in lots of different ways, i. e. You know, boys are able to communicate really well through tech and they can put great photos up, have great social media content and presence. But when it comes down to chatting to a girl. There's a real deficit there. They don't know how to have those kinds of conversations. I've also experienced it myself, where I've spoken to somebody who is an absolute dream gold star on social media. But when you talk in person, there's a real deficit of real articulation. So is this what we need to expect from Gen A? And if that's the case, how do employers and employers figure out how to engage, you know, This generation coming.

Stacy 18:53

Yeah, yeah. It's understanding the way that people represent themselves online. I always think that that is such an ongoing conversation, um, because you're yourself, but now these generations are, are putting together, like, well, who is my digital self? And especially when you're looking at filters, when you're looking at things that can modify your body and make you look completely different. And I hate them. I, when I see them on other people, even I'm like, please don't like just be you be wonderfully you what gray hairs I got, uh, you know, and all there's some, some scary pictures, you know, it's like, you can always tell the pictures someone took of you versus the ones you take of yourself, right? Like, right. Like, don't take any photos of me. Let me do it. Let me do. Yeah. Yeah. I've got the angle, you know, and, um, I think being very aware of, okay, so what is the difference? And especially as parents, also, how are your kids putting themselves out online? What is their digital identity? And that's a conversation to have. That, that's one thing I do believe is that no conversation should be taboo with, with, um, Your kids and with parents, um, with employers, there's some taking it with a grain of salt. Um, I know, you know, I was so, so one of the awesome parts about working at Hilltops, I get to work with a lot of college students. And so naturally, you know, they are online. There's a big, you know, it's Insta now, um, Snapchat, but also when I, when I teach, and there are certain parts that actually I say, you guys are going to have to teach me. I've never been on Snapchat. I've never done a dating app. The way you guys, you know, so swipe left, right, like, you know, I'm thankful for that. So, but, um, we had to take it with a grain of salt because we didn't have our picture, at least for me, my pictures of the things that I did in my twenties are not online. Not when I was 15, not when I was 16. So thank goodness for that. All the pictures that pretty much exist for me or somewhere in a drawer. Cause they, you know, they were Polaroids printed out or, you know, I went right. Printed at the shop, but I remember my friend and I taking selfies, you know, we set the digital, or it wasn't, we had the regular camera up, timed it for 30 seconds and then we made goofy poses and we would get them developed a week later. Um, It's

Yoyo 21:11

crazy, isn't it? And yet those photographs that I used to take when I was much younger seems so much more precious now. Because we didn't have thousands of them and like, I've got 52, 000 photographs in my, on my iPhone, right? 52, 000. I thought 40, 000 was a lot and yet, there's only a handful from when I was in school and those are very rare, you know? And starting to age and yellow around the corners. with sellotape marks, look like they're from the 1900s. Oh, they are. Um, yeah, I have never been good at math. Um, but, uh, but yeah, I think, I think the way we, we look at digital imagery, it's a whole new thing. Um, what is it that shocks your students the most when you sit down with them? First of all,

Stacy 22:08

Usually that that sense of vulnerability of I am not in control of my phone that that that things can be listening to me that they're collecting data on me that, um, this this concept that they're a product that so I will every semester. I have had at least like 2 or 3 students say I'm I'm I'm. Turning off all my social media i'm going to try and not do social media and i think they always go back but then we kind of talk about that experience because i don't ask them to i just present them the information and let them process it and there's always that like aha moment of oh. All of my data is being shared. I'm a commodity. It's not that this is this free thing to use. I'm being sold to, I'm being advertised to the articles. There's it's strategic. It's all strategic based on what they know about me and private. And I really don't have much privacy. My phone can listen to me. Alexa can listen to me, you know, all of this is going on and that privacy can be an illusion.

Yoyo 23:15

Yeah. Or if you're in China, the government can listen to me.

Stacy 23:19

Right. People know what I'm doing. And, you know, a lot of people say, well, who cares? I'm not doing anything bad, evil, you know, anything like that. And I get it. And then you've got, was it, um, I want to say it was a Kingsman was the movie that they were going to blow everybody up with their phones. Like, right. And it was a worst case scenario nightmare, you know, like, okay. But I mean, At the same time, that's, let's face it, everybody has a phone and there's one way of getting that information. And, um, you know, it's, it's, it's hard. I think the concept also of cyber security and protecting privacy, um, there's, I think most people that I've talked to have that at least one moment when they realize, okay, what's on the internet stays on the internet, or that there is stuff or that I am vulnerable. And then, and even if they're. Taking all the responsibility in the world, you can still be a victim. There's still deep fakes. There's still people make false images of you. There's still cyber bullying. And I think as the generations that come up above, they'll become more educated to it. But, uh, I remember I was talking and there was, uh, three girls, and so I was the oldest, and there was, let's see, on my 40s, there was one who was in their 30s, and one who was in their 20s, give or take, and we were talking about our different perception of how the internet was introduced, and so I grew up, so by the time, like, meeting people online was a thing, um, I was beyond that, like, I was wise to it, like, okay, I'm not gonna just go meet some random people, from the internet. The 20 year old had been educated about it in school, so she knew by the time she got online that not to do that because she had been warned about what happens, the 30 year old had said, yeah, I fell for it a couple of times. I went and met some people online. It was super sketchy, and it was like she just had fallen into this kind of gap between my generation that was like, Oh, this is a thing. We need to do something about it because it's happening to kids. And then the next generation, which was educated to it. And so I think that's what we have to consistently do is figure out where the gaps are so that we can quickly educate people on what to do with it. Like, Oh, okay. what to do if, if you are a victim of revenge porn, like here are the options or what to do if somebody does do a deep, deep fake. With you in it. Here's how to handle it because once we're given the tools to defend ourselves and equip ourselves and protect ourselves, we're then equipped to be able to handle these things as unfortunate and frustrating as it may be. We know what to do with it and how to handle it better than we did if we never addressed it.

Yoyo 25:50

from your perspective, do you think that the technology our young, younger people are using today is, giving them greater anxiety than a generation that didn't have this type of technology? And how do you think the anxiety is perpetuated?

Stacy 26:09

I think it's giving us, for one, greater awareness of anxiety. We have more resources, we have the words for it, we understand there are other people who feel the way that we do, so there, I think it's surfacing more, I think it's again, to the point of, it's giving us more things to think about, we've got information coming at every single moment, and we're not giving our brains time to rest, because I don't know about you, but I mean, I will be answering emails at 11 o'clock at night, and unread emails, Email my inbox stresses me out, right? Like, and I really get it's hard for me to not respond. And so then I find myself always responding. And so at any given time, I could be having a conversation with five different people. And this could be text, this could be my kids talking to me, my husband talking to me at the same time. And eventually I hit what's critical mass and I'm like, And I just, it's all over versus I think things were slower. You, you by force had a conversation with one person. I mean, okay. If you had a lot of kids, you, I don't know how people with like seven kids do it. Cause mine never, I've got two and I'm already like, but um, They're juggling so much more so much more information. And so I think that that does trigger more anxiety because it's hard to stay on top of it all. Every time I turn around, there's a new social media. There's a new thing that's happening. There's a new trend, a new filter, a new this, and how do you possibly stay on top of that? The brains are tricky because we, I believe as humans, we find a way to be anxious, whether it was back in say the, you know, the 1940s. And, and, you know, if I would say a housewife, I'm worried about, okay, did I, did I make my meatloaf correctly? And that's giving me anxiety. Like I would probably knowing me find a way to, to, to be anxious about something. I've just got more to choose from, uh, thanks to technology. But, um,

Yoyo 27:57

I think the very fact that everybody would have had, uh, buildings lit by candlelight would have given me anxiety.

Stacy 28:04

Yes, right? Like, like, am I, you know, is somebody get this, gonna get this disease? Is the smallpox gonna get me? What's gonna happen? Yes, the stable boy is coughing. Right? Like, oh, no, I'm going to get a sword run through me as my, you know, like, wars.

Yoyo 28:20

Impale myself whilst horse

Stacy 28:23

riding. We've always had stuff to worry about. So there's that. As, as technology comes along, there's less stuff. I'm less worried about being impaled by a sword. Then, you know, I am about my, you know, did I respond to that Slack message? So that's nice. But, uh,

Yoyo 28:39

What sort of questions do you ask your students? When you're sitting in front of them.

Stacy 28:47

So I like asking them, a lot about that, the self, uh, the, the way that we represent ourselves. online. so what is different? Uh, what do you put out there? What do you think is something that shouldn't go online? Um, there's debates, you should you, do you post that you're in a relationship? At what point do you post in a relationship? Um, what happens? How much information are you putting out there? And so to be thinking about that, and then And the awareness, there's things like you start putting stuff online. Oh, I had, I went to a birthday party this weekend. Well, now you've announced that so and so had a birthday party. What about other people that, you, see that weren't invited? Like, there's just so much to think about and consider. And so that's one of the things that I always ask them is to what degree are they thinking about the audience? We think about a lot of ourselves online, but are we thinking about who's actually out there? Looking at you and reading what you're saying and do you think about that at all, or who is your ideal viewer? I mean, it's kind of like an exercise companies do, right? Like, who's your target audience? A lot of times when we're on social media, when we're online, we're not thinking about who our target audience is. Who's going to read that? And how is that going to make somebody feel? And that doesn't mean you cater everything to everybody else, but there should, do they have that? And what do they think about when they think about it?

Yoyo 30:08

it's interesting as well, how newer technologies like Strava, when Strava first came out, became a tool to weaponize getting the location of where somebody was, including somebody quite significant. And then Strava, I mean, this is the thing. There are obviously other, uh, lesser known, uh, sports apps around, but surely the makers of Strava should have thought, Somebody could use this in a surreptitious way and maybe we should build in something to give people a little bit more security. No. Because there isn't enough security by design when these things are invented and created. How do you tackle that?

Stacy 30:53

So, A lot of it comes back to that, the, the critical thinking piece and, and playing it, what I call playing it forward. Okay, what is the end result of this? Like, um, I saw an ad for something, it's Apple, it's coming out and it's like, find your friend. So you can find your friend anywhere in a, in a crowd. Um, another one was the, if you tap your phone to each other, you can exchange information. And now Apple is really good about gatekeeping and things like that. But as soon as I see something like, Okay. Oh, okay. You're going to be able to find your friend anywhere in a crowd. It almost gives you like Waze directions or, you know, Google Maps directions to your friend. So go left, go right. So you can like compass your way to your friend. Very useful. I get it. You're in a crowd. My brain though, immediately goes to, okay, what are the security parameters around that? If you could exchange information just by tapping your phone up to somebody, is that always on? Can I go up to somebody at a bar and just tap their phone and get that info? Like I said, I mean, Apple's pretty good about thinking that stuff through, but that's where those are the questions that I start asking are, okay, how can this be used against somebody? And it, at least go through the exercise of asking that question. What is the worst case scenario if this happens? Uh, and I tell people that for everything, what's the worst case scenario and the best case scenario, if you could live with the worst case scenario, go for it.

Yoyo 32:11

Great way to look at it, because to debate your point about Apple, they didn't think about the Apple AirTag and how that was being used by people to stalk girlfriends and wives and things, and to pinpoint their location, uh, or even ex, sorry, ex partners and, and the fact that these are, Juicily small that you can fit them in your luggage, which is why I have one. It was quite funny. Um, I left Abu Dhabi and, um, the app was a bit slow to respond and I thought my luggage was still on the wrong way. Quite funny. We thought maybe it made a run for it. Um, but, and that technology can go against you as well because you can think, Oh my God, they've left my luggage behind and they haven't at all. It was right there. with me the whole time. but I, I definitely, if I could do anything, it would be to say to these organizations, you know, at least when, because it has in a litigious way come to Apple's attention that they have to have some kind of fail safe so that if a woman or a vulnerable person or identified vulnerable person were to contact Apple and say, I've got, um, a situation where I can validate that my ex partner spouse or whatever is. Put an Apple AirTag. I need it deactivated. It's a breach of my privacy. There you go. There's the cause. Breach of privacy. They should be able to override that. It's not like there's a child saying, I don't want my parents to know I'm going to a party tonight. there has to be. A very distinct privacy is really important these days. And if I was working for Apple, I'd be like, right, I want to head this up. I want to find a way to make this safe. Let's have a special line. There's a line people can call, you know, and we'll fix it. We'll sort it. We want to be responsive. We want to make people feel safe. These, we create these great products because we want you to love what they do. We don't want you to hate what they do.

Stacy 33:59

Come on, Apple. Yeah, I mean, it's, and it is cheap. You could put it with the trackers. Like if somebody put a tracker in my purse, it'd be years before I found it. I've got so much crap in there. Right. Like, same with thing with my car. I'd be like, oh, okay. Right. Like, but it doesn't take much. And you know, they, and, and they. have to consider this stuff almost by necessity because it's trial and error because so many things have, have gone wrong or happened. And, you know, other times people willingly, like when, I don't know if Foursquare was a big thing, but people would just check in everywhere they were and you could literally just, Oh, this person went to here and it was gamification of where people were. And then it got like, Oh, wait, everybody knows where I am and can show up and find me. And, You know, there, there does need to be thought put into that and, and awareness and, um, I think for both the users and the makers, with that, with the power of creating technology comes the responsibility for the repercussions of it.

Yoyo 34:59

So let's talk about algorithms now that everybody knows what they are. Because everybody knows how algorithms work against you, in a sense, because there is a motive behind the algorithm being designed the way it is. The motive is to get you to look at more content. So if you, if you've got a lot of shit content, then you're watching shit, because it's just your fault. It's not the algorithm. Yeah, it is the algorithm, but you've got to somehow wonder why stuff comes up on your feed. And that's because that algorithm is thinking, well, normally the people that watch these pictures of dogs falling down steps usually like to see pictures of cats rolling off sofas. You can see what I watch. Um, what do you teach around the algorithm side? And how do you raise awareness about both the darkness and the benefit to having algorithms?

Stacy 35:50

So having them understand that there's a whole world out there of information that they may not be seen because it's not in their algorithm. So if you look at the advertisements that come up, right, or the conversations, even just the conversations that you're having, what you're searching for, they can tell, and I was teaching, um, Like undergrads right around, you know, 2019, 2020, you know, some of the big years when a lot of that stuff is going on with Cambridge Analytica and a lot of like how it worked. And so going to them and saying, look, and he said, wait, you mean like. So if I was in a different state, uh, I was in California at the time, I would be getting information. I said, 100%. I said, you ever go to like, it's, I mean, and this isn't anything new necessarily. It's like, if you go to Florida and you watch TV, you get completely different commercials for like senior citizens, a lot of times than you do, like when I was, living in Boston, right? Like it's, it is geographic. It Is they know where their people are? Um, but the awareness that you may not be. So let's say you only look at cats and it's just cats and now you're being sold cat items, cat toys, cat shirts, all cats because you've never looked up a dog up. video, you may not know anything about what's out there for dogs. And you know, meanwhile, your, your friend who's a dog is getting all the dog things and, you know, it's see where I'm going with this. And so I think that's always a big awareness for students is like, Oh, so I'm just getting one side of the story. I'm because the algorithm is only is tailored to me. So there could be other items out there. There could be other products. There could be other this, and I think People also who buy things, if they, if you buy things from TikTok and Instagram and all of that, like sometimes I hate it because I'll see something I really want and I've gotten scammed on, on a social media buy before it. Totally happens. And then I'll think I'm being clever and I'll just try and like Google it because I don't want to click the link and then it just ends up even more because they know that I've looked at it before. So I then I'll use DuckDuckGo. But even then, it's just like I am just as soon as I show one interest, it could be like a candle. And then the next thing you know, I'm just full of feeds with that. And it's all tailored.

Yoyo 38:03

Like you, we've all had an Insta, Insta or Facebook product scam, um, and, and I try to catch them out. You know, I do what you do. if I see something, let's just say it's a handbag, right? We've all seen, we've all seen that one where this lovely little old guy's, uh, had to close his business and he's selling everything off 60 percent off and it's a complete and utter shit scam. Right? And all you've got to do is Google that company and it will be all over on, you know, it's All over Google and any other search engine that it's a scam. And there are lots of websites now that identify scam sellers. I think what they're doing now, it's like, you know, when you go to the high street, you want to buy a handbag, you go to a handbag shop, they're, they're hitting you before you've decided what you want. And it's usually something delicious. And there's usually a hook, but. If it's something like, um, what did I see recently, just something like a, like a radiator hook that you hang a towel off of the radiator so you can get more towels on the radiator. I thought that looks great. So I'm not going to click on that link. I'm going to go on to eBay or Timu, and I know what's something about Timu, AliExpress, for example. I'm going to buy that. cheaper than what they're selling it for on Insta and Facebook because I'm getting it from a different location but it's something actually I would love to have one of those and so I will now never buy anything on an Insta ad, Facebook or TikTok and I think We've only got to get pulled once and then your trust is gone and it's going to sort of drive this downward perpetuation of trust in these big social media engines and we will gradually stop using them simply because we don't trust them anymore and they'll have to clean up their acts. I have to clean up their act around what content they're putting out. That shouldn't be there. They can polish up their algorithms to make sure that children aren't getting content they shouldn't be seeing. Because even as an adult, I was getting, you know, you hear about a country dropping bombs on another country, and there's a lot of content, and it's very bloody, and it's on social media, and all, and I only had to look at one to think, crikey, this is awful, to then, and my feed was full of it! And I'm thinking, I'm an adult and I'm capable, as an ex police detective, thank you very much, of looking at bloody bodies. But I didn't, I didn't want to see that in my home, in my bedroom, before I go to bed. So crikey, you know, I feel like we're in the Wild West and this, these, they need to clean up their act a

Stacy 40:38

lot. Well, and the, the news media, I think possibly above all has been the direct, the direct Impact with with the Internet and some of the biggest damage to me. That is the essential dark side of the Internet is what it's done to the news media where they're now on a 24 hour cycle. Um, if you, we had a news person, Ted Koppel, and I had the chance to hear him speak one time and, um, He used to have a well known news show and he would talk about like they would do research you had all day to, you know, do the research to make sure your facts were right. It wasn't this instantaneous have to provide information, the news websites, whether you're CNN or Fox or, or BBC or whatever you have to be changing your front page, your homepage. Basically every hour with some new news story, as it's happening, breaking, and you don't even have time to know if it's right or not, you just have to be sensationalist. And that, and then that's going out, then the links are being shared, and it becomes fact before it's even actually a fact. And that to me is the darkest part of the internet and technology.

Yoyo 41:46

I've stopped looking at clickbait now because I think you just get to a point where you just see through it. And I think I'm relying on our younger generation, certainly our millennials and Gen Z and our Gen A's who are emerging through, I'm relying on them being a little bit smarter and getting to that conclusion before, certainly within a shorter amount of time than I or that my other generation did. There's no doubt about it. We need to get smarter, but then as soon as we get smarter, I think the technology is going to get smarter. What do you see in a, in a cycle, Stacey, that shows you around? our human behaviors and the growth of technology.

Stacy 42:33

Well, I mean, I think it's, it's a pattern like we've seen before. So if you go back to, um, different times in life where we've had huge technology bursts, whether it's the industrial era or, at times when the phone came out, the car, things like that, we've had these big breakthroughs, right. And, and it changes everything. And so with this, it's, From in my lifetime, I can't imagine the internet, but when the air, when airplanes were first invented, you know, whatever it is, it, it changes. And what I, what I think is, is it at the end of the day, it always has to come back to the human. At least until robots take over, which I know some people are worried about, but until then, it comes like, you know, a program is only as good as we can use it as much as, you know, I now just have food delivered to me via DoorDash or whatever the, you know, like, I don't have to go out and I just have it delivered when that app isn't working. I'm pissed, you know, and so I, my ability, you know, and so what do I do? Okay. So the app isn't working. Okay, fine. I go and I, I maybe go out or I make food myself, God forbid, or, you know, whatever, but we adapt and we evolved. And to me, I, that's where. When people say like, Oh, I'm afraid of AI, but I believe in humanity at the end of it, which is that we do evolve. And yeah, so the invention of the car put a lot of horse and buggy carriages out of business, but we figure out a way of, okay, so what's the next job opportunity? And what are we going to do? And how the next generation's like with news, like my parents watch the news every night. Their generation does. They're in their eighties. They grew up with that. I don't so much because I can't stomach it most of the time. I don't know what I'd be interested to see what my kids do, where they get their information. And what it does is they start looking for real. They start looking for. Okay, who am I actually hearing from? Who are the people with the feet on the street? Who's posting to Twitter? Who's in the Ukraine right now who can tell me what's actually happening? Not the news story, but a person because we are connected through the internet and we can take advantage of that knowledge if we're willing to share it and connect through it. And I think the more that we use technology as a tool and less of a weapon, the better prepared we'll be as a species in general as

Yoyo 44:53

well. And so you leaned very nicely there into influencership because where you can trust an individual and like I trust the narrative of a radio show host I listened to that does a talk show and it's James O'Brien on LBC. There's no, I'm shameless. I mean, I feel like where has he been all my liberalist life? Uh, but I think we all have to find our source of truth. And I think this is where our intimate connection with other humans is going to be very important going forward. It's going to be, uh, amplifying individuals who have got truthful, top voices, I think. Because. As long as they haven't got six fingers and their eyes are looking funny and the eyelashes are too big, whatever, that was an indication to a very poor AI generation. I think we're going to trust the people rather than the tech for now. And I think there's an opportunity for people to emerge as great sources of truth and be authentic. What do you think?

Stacy 46:02

No, I, I agree with that. I mean, even if we turn into like with VR, if you've seen ready player one, right, you know, where they're, they're completely VR world, let's say it goes that route. Right? There's still an authenticity to self. Once you get past. Yes. They were their avatars. Yes. You know, there's their psychology and avatars and who we put forward online, but we, we still have that humanity to us. We still have that, that piece that, that makes us what we. What we are, however, that goes. And I think that, you know, it's, it's not necessarily a competition of, okay, can we be smarter than the AI? Is the AI smarter than us? But, you know, how does that work in synergy? Is it, is it like the Jetsons? Is it, is it complimentary? Or do we, or do we, you know, a hundred years from now, are they looking at the Jetsons and say, well, that robot was a, was a, uh, that the maid of the house, you know, what, you know, however, however it will be. But, um,

Yoyo 47:02

I think, um, Seth does this really well in, um, The Orville, as well as June Boddenberry, obviously, we all know Star Trek. For those who haven't yet come across The Orville, I would recommend it. There is an amazing storyline where a planet of robots, Very intelligent species, created by humanoid species, literally obliterated the humans because the humans were mean, treated them badly, beat them, destroyed them, and they got a sense, a sense of, this is Seth basically saying, We have to be very careful. I'm kind of nice to Alexa all the time. I think we're going to build up tech credit. And, and I think the technology will look at us and say, Hey, no, they're always really nice and respectful. They do have BA as their sat navigator. Turn right, fool! Do you know what I mean? But they've got obviously a sense of humor. We should keep them alive.

Stacy 48:02

I pity the fool who turns left. It's like my self driving car driving nicely. See you later.

Yoyo 48:10

Like, you know, Johnny Cab in, in, Total Recall. Do you remember, um, Arnold Schwarzenegger gets in the car and goes drive like this and Johnny Cab goes, where is the destination? Try anywhere. So I think our relationship with technology is definitely funny in the movies, it's scary, it's thought provoking, it gives us an insight to how dangerous humanity can be, as well as how amazing humanity can be. But what are the youngsters saying Stacy,

Stacy 48:44

they, they love VR. VR is a, is a big one. That's, um, but again, you know, it's, it's, they're going to embrace technologies. And I think what's important for us as a species also is not to fear with it. Right? Like, um, you know, I'm going to quote an old star, you know, fear leads to, you know, fear leads to fear. To hate, to anger. Anger leads to hate, you know, leads to the dark side. Don't be afraid of it. And if you are, stop and take a second because that's your humanity of reflecting. Okay, what's, what am I really afraid of? Am I afraid that my kid is going to get into trouble? Am I afraid they're going to get caught up with a bad crowd? Am I afraid they're going to post a nude online? Am I afraid, you know, what am I afraid of? Because your fears are valid. There's not to invalidate anybody's concern, but what's your plan of action for it? You know, anything can be a tool or a weapon. It's all on how you use it. And those are the questions we need to ask ourselves, are how are we using these things? How are we using these technologies? Because kids are born, you know, and I really think like I hand them the technology, I watched my kids and their devices, and they're not, they're just using it for either entertainment or learning. And I watch them as they will do this VR simulator. One is doing a VR simulator and it was a, um, it was school basically. And so it's like you go to a VR school environment and you learn within that VR school environment. Great. She wants to go to school and then she wants to come home and do more school in the VR environment because the novelty of VR. Well, that's great. There's another one that is a job simulator and there's different jobs and she can be a, you know, so she's having fun doing the cashier checkout thing or bagging things. And it's all just kind of fun where I'm like, Oh, that was it. She told an actual job and I'm going to have to, you know, be driving you to work and telling you to go do it.

Yoyo 50:26

I remember when I was a kid and I saw my mom and dad, like, Filling out forms and I was like, oh, I'd love to fill out forms

Stacy 50:34

Right, right. Like

Yoyo 50:36

by the time I'm 19, no more forms.

Stacy 50:39

Yeah. I, I was 14. I was begging for a job. I wanted to work in a bookstore. Right. Yes. I just work in the and, and I was too young. I was too young. And I remember my dad telling me, you were gonna have your entire life to work. Just be a kid now. And I was like, you're right, you're so right. And you know, it's the same. I think that's what we have to be careful about is kids growing up too quickly because they are exposed to a lot more and it's, and that's okay. It's okay that they're exposed to it. It's again, it's, it's the conversations you have with it. It's okay. These are the tools here that you're being exposed to things that you weren't exposed. You're exposed to a lot more that you may be my, like I'm as exposed to more than my mom was. My kids are exposed to more than I am. But that doesn't make it bad. That doesn't make it dangerous. You just equip them. You train them. You help them. Yeah. So you

Yoyo 51:25

tapped into something there. So I come from a fishing village. So this is where this analogy is going to come from. And I think a lot of parents, uh, respectfully to parents will sort of view a technology like the sea and say, listen, don't go near it. Just be careful. All the cautions are there, but the best thing to do surely is to equip a child with why the sea can be dangerous because the sea isn't dangerous all the time. Sometimes the sea is beautiful. And I I think it's about teaching the child how to save a life for somebody who's fallen in the sea. How to find the lifesaver, how to throw it out, how to call for help, how to stand in a place of safety when the sea is rough. Right? So I think the whole thing is around, it's a great analogy, right? because that's how I think in analogies, and I, obviously people

Stacy 52:17

who don't, don't get me at all. My husband always says he's going to threaten to call the bad analogy police on me because I think in analogies, don't make me call the bad analogy police, Stacy.

Yoyo 52:28

Yeah. Um, but I'm thinking the key there is education. The key is in the, the what, the why, the when, the how. It's not about just saying it's dangerous. I think kids have got to be able to go to school. And if they're into gaming and VR, they've got to be able to understand the downsides to what they're doing as well. And that doesn't mean sheltering them. It doesn't mean protecting them. It means making them safe by giving them knowledge. How easy is that?

Stacy 52:56

Well, and schools that are embracing it. So, so like, you know, William Jewell College, where I'm teaching, they have an eSports program because there are so many students that it's a, it's a big, it's got good, a good sports program. So also let's be inclusive of those who like eSports and that's a whole new generation or teaching cyber security or cyber psychology, like, let's not just pretend it doesn't exist. I think every program should have some class that talks about humans and technology. How can you not? If you're in the field of psychology and you're not addressing the role of technology, That blows my mind that that wouldn't necessarily be something that would be part of a core curriculum.

Yoyo 53:36

What three things, before we finish, would you say are top security considerations around cyber psychology that you're teaching? Top three things.

Stacy 53:49

So, um, one, when it comes to cyber security is looking at what's the psychology between why people become relaxed in their cyber security, right? So that that's one. But when, when did they say, I just don't want to make a new password. Please stop. I can't do it anymore. Uh, two, what would cause somebody to attack somebody else online. So, so not just, we talk a lot about victims of cyber bullies. What if your kid is a cyber bully? What if they are a hacker? What if they are somebody who's run a breach or they're being manipulated and they are doing dangerous things online to hurt other people? Yep.'cause that, that goes into the workplace. I talk a lot about the workplace and the health of psychology and the workplace to mitigate insider threats. Um, so that's another big one. And then the other one is making security, um, accessible and easy for, for people to use, like even senior citizens to be able to understand. There's so many, you know, I have to go through these security trainings and. There are videos and you watch it on 2. 0 speed. You check out the questions and it's not engaging. And then you're like, why is this relevant to me? And it's important to everybody. And if you can connect technology to the human and the humanity, then you get the person so that they feel it like, Oh, right. I don't want my company hacked. I don't want this going wrong. Why does it matter to me? Because we are human, but we're inherently, I don't like to use the word selfish, but we're self involved because we're, we're looking at our own survival. Yeah. And how we navigate the world. So you have to help them survive by making them understand where it can help them.

Yoyo 55:26

Three amazing tips. I've got a friend who's 75 and she, I've just, I've managed to successively drum it into her that she has to do her Apple updates when they come up on her phone. Yes. Right. Um. And she even had a phone where Apple didn't support security anymore. And then we had a conversation about why that phone model is not great because those security updates are important, but I still think a number of older people still think, eh, so what someone steals my data while they steal your money. You're going to have a different kind of. Do you know what I mean? So it's like, it's like it's almost not being able to comprehend the cause and effect, I think, with older people, and they are seeing a lot of hassle. And I just think sometimes And this is one of my biggest learnings that I share watching older people is that we certainly Gen X, we've grown with the technology we've been without it, we've grown with it, and we've adapted to it and our generation is the best at adapting because we've come from without to with. And I say this to the older people. They think that if they get a phone, do their passwords, set it all up, it's all good to go. Everything's safe. They don't realize the maintenance of that is about being agile. It's about changing with it, upgrading, doing the upgrades, doing the security checks, changing your passwords, following those nudges. It's about Not staying static. It's about changing with the technology, and I think our generation does that the best. Yes, I think so.

Stacy 57:10

I like to think so. I like to think we understand we're the, we're the bridge gappers.

Yoyo 57:16

We are the bridge gappers. It's

Stacy 57:18

really, yeah, yeah. Like, when I tell my kids that I didn't have a phone growing up, they're like, what? Um, they just don't, they don't even under understand. Uh, when they were really little, they asked my mom if she had color because they had seen black and white movies and they were like, did you have color growing up? And I was like, what do I do with that question? But

Yoyo 57:37

I deliberately watch black and white movies now. There's something very innocent about that age.

Stacy 57:43

Well, I got attention on that because it's like you see remakes. Oh, it was Shogun, the new Shogun that's on, um, Disney plus. And I read the book and I saw it as in the 70s with Richard Chamberlain and John Rhys Davies and everything, but it's now modernized and seeing the difference between the two. It's so much edgier than it was in the 70s. And I was Talking with my, my mom about this, you know, it's like, this is the difference in generations. Now there's more violence and there's more sharpness to things. It's edgier. It's darker and all of that is different from how it was in the seventies when it first came out, like. when the book and the novel first came out. So

Yoyo 58:21

I I remember my niece knocking a movie that came out in the nineties. And I'm like, it's not old. And this was like probably about, you know, 10 years ago. And I was like, Oh yes, it's an old movie. Auntie Yoko. I said, to them, if they were born in 1999.

Stacy 58:40

Yeah. I got Ferris Bueller's day off as a client, you know, might as well be. Humphrey Bogart, for all they know, you know.

Yoyo 58:47

Right. Exactly. Oh my God. So, Stacey Thayer, thank you so much for being the most awesome guest on the Security Circle Podcast. Oh, thank

Stacy 58:57

you. This was so much fun. Thank you for having me. It was great conversation. Great fun.