Crucial Tech
Unraveling the technology that affects us all but that few of us understand, in a format to give you a basic understanding in the time it takes to drive to and from the grocery store.
- Update frequency
- every 8 days
- Average duration
- 24 minutes
- Episodes
- 235
- Years Active
- 2019 - 2025
Episode 4:23a - Mozilla Foundation lets you know when "privacy not included"
For the past five years, the Mozilla Foundation has published reviews of products rated on their relative privacy aspects. The least private products are labelled "Very, Very creepy. We interviewed J…
Episode 4:22 - Quantum computing is not really here, yet. But companies are getting ready for it
Quantum computing is one of those technologies that causes hyperbole, confusion, and concern. A lot of the discussion is not much more than wishful thinking or uninformed fear. For most people, it wi…
Episode 4:21 – Upheaval's Ironweave might actually fix data security with blockchain
It is a rare thing when a company claims to be the first to do something and actually is the first. Rarer still is when that company is actually solving a significant problem with their product. Uphe…
Episode 4:20 -- Why does bad marketing happen to good products?
The tech world sees marketing as a necessary “evil” and does it poorly. The cybersecurity industry sees it as a mystery but duplicates what the tech world does, so their efforts are generally poor an…
Episode 4:19--Phishing, smishing. Only you can stop it because Facebook sure ain't gonna
Had a fun conversation with Tim Callan, chief compliance officer at Sectigo on the un-fun topic of phishing, smishing and whether social media platforms even want to stop allowing criminals to scam t…
Episode 4:18 - Convincing Real Estate Luddites to adopt good security
I've spent some long, frustrating hours trying to convince realtors to adopt proven technology. I can't imagine how difficult it must be, then, to convince them to practice good digital hygiene. Davi…
Episode 4.17 - Modern vehicles, especially EVs, are rife with security holes
I few weeks ago I was mercilessly cajoled by a PR firm to talk to the chief marketing officer of Sepio Systems, Bentsi ben Atar about their products and services. I don't do product announcements but…
Episode 4.16 - Apple's porn scan is bad, unless you think it is good
The term “slippery slope” is applied to a lot of hypothetical outcomes of everything from legislation to technology. In the case of Apple monitoring the use of products and services for distributing …
Episode 4:16 - How security researchers are fueling cybercrime, and more from Black Hat 2021
I attended Black Hat 2021 virtually again this year and wrap it up in this grab bag of issues including #AI ethics, #cybercrime legislation, #ransomware growth and control, and building #cybersecurit…
Have we reached Peak ransomware? George Finney says, probably not
I interviewed George Finney, chief information security officer for Southern Methodist University, a couple of weeks ago for a Cyber Protection Magazine article about the state of ransomware. It wasn…
Episode 4.14 -- How marketing makes it harder to buy products intelligently: A rant
I'm being bombarded with companies trying to get me to interview them about product announcements. If I can figure out a theme to put them in context I will do it. The past couple of weeks though, it…
Episode 4:13 - Search for the Holy Grail in Security: Penetration Testing with Ronin-Pentest
This episode of Crucial Tech is the beginning of a search for Holy Grail of cybersecurity: Products and services that actually make us safer without breaking the budget. There is no one company that …
Ep. 4-12: To pay the ransom or not to pay? That is one of the questions
For a journalist to decide what to cover and when takes some discussion and this week we decided to do our editorial meeting in a public setting so you can see how we pick what to report. In this epi…
Episode 4:11 - That time when the business world got serious about cybercrime
Cybercrime has been with us for a while, but the business world saw it as a minor annoyance. Luckily, the criminal world kept the cost low, requiring small ransom amounts and cash cards as a delivery…
Special episode: Revital Libfrand of OdiX on tech opportunities for women
This week the WomenTech Global Conference ( #WTGC2021 ) is happening on the web and we thought it would be a good idea to interview a leader in the security industry, Revital Libfran of OdiX about he…
Episode 4:10--Truth in marketing: It doesn't have to be that hard
After several decades working in and with marketing professionals we've learned a couple of things about how marketing is done. One of the more important lessons is that marketers make their jobs muc…
Episode 4:9--Hacking is not spoofing, plus a case study
Episode 4:8 -- How I learned to fear my computer and ignore the bomb
The potential of nuclear warfare is being eclipsed by the potential of cyber warfare as the ender of civilization, so I guess their is that upside. No, seriously, it's becoming apparent to rogue nati…
Ep. 4:7 -- The massive upside of Apple's transparent tracking feature
When you peel back all the layers, digital marketing and consumer tracking on social media apps presents the most significant security flaw in our digital world. Apple's giving individual IoS users c…
Ep. 4:6 -- It's Earth Day. Are your batteries exploding?
Lithium-ion batteries are in almost all electronics, all electric vehicles and are expanding through the power grids worldwide to store energy during system outages. They are crucial to continued ope…