220: Anthropic Watermarking AI ?, North Koreans worked for US Government, Google PIxel 11

ep 216
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[00:00:00] Henri: All right, welcome back. Welcome back, everyone. Let me make sure I got the right audio selected. Yep, we good But, uh, welcome back everybody. If you're here, go ahead and put a one in the chat. Uh, sorry for the issues we ran into, but hey, that's life. Uh, let me turn my stuff up some

[00:00:23] Henri: All right. All right. Cool, cool. But, um, so I don't think we seen Cyber Shorty last week. Do we want you to kind of just talk to the people that know what you've been up to?

[00:00:35] Cybershortieee: Literally, no.

[00:00:39] Cybershortieee: I'm just kidding. I just been... Life been life-ing. My dog had some issues going on. She had to have emergency surgery. And this echo-ing is killing me. Life is fine, though.

[00:00:54] Henri: Quick question, is the echo coming through both he- ears or just one?

[00:00:58] Cybershortieee: Both. [00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Henri: Dang, that sucks. Okay. If somebody knows how to fix the echo and that's watching, let us know.

[00:01:06] Henri: I've been trying to troubleshoot it the whole time, and I have not been able to figure this out, and I think I hear it a little bit on my end, too. Uh, let me see if I can do anything on mine

[00:01:20] Henri: All right. So, um, we will try to make do with the echo on if it gets too bad. We'll see. But while we are here, let me go ahead and welcome y'all in real quick.

[00:01:36] podcast sounds: You are now watching The Tessa Lou Talk hosted by IC and Silly Shorty.

[00:01:43] Cybershortieee: Hit

[00:01:44] podcast sounds: the like

[00:01:46] Henri: button. Now, if y'all see my shirt, y'all can't really... Let me go solo real quick.

[00:01:51] Henri: Let me go solo real quick. I got a Spider-Man shirt on for y'all, uh, Spider-Man fans. Uh, I did go see the new movie. [00:02:00] Some people still have not seen it, so I won't do no spoilers, but I'll really say I enjoyed it as long as it was, and I actually would go see it again if I got the chance to go see it. But I definitely like the cameos.

[00:02:11] Henri: I like how it was able to put, um, some people you know of that, that'll be in some movies that'll be coming, um, coming on the end of the year and stuff like that. And, uh, now I think, I'll just say I think now Tom is probably on par with Toby as far as strength-wise for his Spider-Man. That's what I'll say without trying to, like, do spoilers for, for certain people.

[00:02:35] Henri: But, um, other than that, I, I think everything has been cool. Um, kids started back to school, so that's a blessing. And, um, yeah, I'm gonna try to put Destiny back up here. She's really been kind of, you know, irritated with all this echoin' she got going on in her ear. Let me see. You can see it in her face, y'all.

[00:02:55] Cybershortieee: I'm trying not to be, uh, real. I- it's, it's still going. [00:03:00]

[00:03:00] Henri: Yeah. I, I think I know what it is, but at the same time, I really just don't know how to rectify it, to be quite honest

[00:03:10] Henri: But, um What was I thinking about? Like a good, um, a good icebreaker. Oh, uh, I got it on my, my phone. I, I- The whole thing about certain schools and stuff people should go to is back on the timeline on X, and it's a couple of them. Uh, let me see if I bookmarked both of them or just one Okay, so one, one of my followers who is a tech recruiter made a post saying, "Nobody wants to believe that many companies are shifting back to only hiring people from a select list of schools.

[00:03:49] Henri: They just aren't admitting it publicly." And the other one is from Bs, [00:04:00] uh, this was today. She said, "If you say on the internet that hiring teams prefer talent that went to pipeline universities, they act like you said their degree is worthless. People hate the truth, but just because you hate it doesn't change reality.

[00:04:13] Henri: Move to the best of your abilities with what you have." And so I figured I'd just open that up because we were always, uh, some of the few people talking about WGU. Not in a bad way, but the same... I don't know if you remember, Destiny, but we were co- we covered a-- She's actually more than a recruiter. She's a woman that has a business that hires, help hires, um, I forgot what type of talent it is.

[00:04:35] Henri: Health talent. I don't wanna butcher it 'cause she go back and see this, she gonna be mad at me. But we actually had a conversation in my DMs because she saw a snippet we did, and she thought we were going against her, and I was like, "No, no, no, we were agreeing with you." 'Cause she was talking about in that thread how she's had to push for certain candidates to kinda get looked at just because they didn't come from certain schools or whatever, and just pretty much adding on to [00:05:00] the fact that where you go does matter.

[00:05:03] Henri: There are outliers, but most of the outliers that went to the WGUs or any of the other schools, most of the time already had experience, so they don't count. S- And then you don't wanna count... The exception don't make the rule, so other people who just went strictly to WGU or any other school that's not, like, has the best, like, uh, alumni base or is prestigious based on their curriculum, they're exceptions to the rule too.

[00:05:30] Henri: But this is not to talk about bad. Like, try to get your degree whatever way you can. But it is getting back to how it used to be. Everything is more competitive. There has been so much faking and shaking through hiring and everything else, and a lot of times this is where now people are starting to exercise, "Okay, hmm, this person is the CFO of whatever.

[00:05:51] Henri: They went to this school, and this school has produced 1,000 CFOs. Maybe that's not where I need to go." So maybe try to look at it like that. Try to [00:06:00] reverse engineer your way back to maybe what, what some of your school decisions may be. And I know it also could be pricey, so sometimes that's why I advise for y'all to go get an help next to someone in the beginning, get somebody to pay for your schooling, and then go to a better school like that if you can.

[00:06:15] Henri: So that's what I would say with that. You got anything to add with that, Des?

[00:06:25] Cybershortieee: Can you hear me?

[00:06:26] Henri: Yeah

[00:06:29] Cybershortieee: Um, I was just gonna say, I think that that's the whole point of going to Ivy League schools is to reap the benefits. So if you think that, that-- If you think that that has went anywhere and it's still not relevant, then I think that's kind of on you. But that's always been the point in why folks try to go to the top 10, top five schools, because usually when you are a graduate of those schools, that comes with some notoriety, and that allows you to be able to tap folks on the shoulders [00:07:00] and maybe get hand walked in as opposed to having to come in As someone that is, um, completely external to the company and you don't have any connections.

[00:07:13] Cybershortieee: So I don't know, I just think that that is what it's always been like and I'm not, I'm not shocked that they're going back to it. I think that maybe it died down a little bit. Maybe DE&I had a lot to do with that, opening things up to other cultures and, uh, other folks. But other than that, I don't know.

[00:07:33] Henri: I want you to go ahead and get into, I guess, 'cause you added some stuff, and we definitely had a lot of good news today.

[00:07:38] Henri: Briefly, we have, what is it? Anthropic with the AI watermarks, and then right after that, they tried to do GitHubs to release the watermarks, and now you have, uh, Gemini. I think Google said they'll remove the watermarks. So it's like a, it's a nasty game when it's coming to all the watermark stuff. And then we also have, [00:08:00] uh, where are we at?

[00:08:04] Henri: Oh, North Koreans. Like, it's in the title, but North Koreans were working remotely for the US government, which is crazy. Uh, Iranian at- uh, attacks, Delta Wi-Fi blunder. Also, hackers are trying to steal your nudes and a bunch, bunch more. So which one do you wanna get into first, Destiny? I mean, Cyber Shorty.

[00:08:24] Henri: Oops, I'm saying your government name.

[00:08:27] Cybershortieee: We can do, um, the Anthropic. Um, if I stop talking, I'm trying to get it together. It's a lot going on. Um, but Anthropic is the first one I think we should get into- Okay ... to get, get folks hot on the hot topic. So Anthropic, if you're not familiar, is the company behind the Claude AI models.

[00:08:46] Cybershortieee: They have announced how water ma- watermarking protects its AI rights. Not just images, not just files, the actual words. Every model they've released since August 2nd automatically stamps a [00:09:00] visible mark into the text, and they say it travels with the text when you copy and paste it, and it can survive some editing.

[00:09:07] Cybershortieee: They're doing it across the apps, the APIs, the coding tools, all of it. Now why would they do this? One word, it's gonna be Europe. Um, the EU passed something called the AI Act, and a piece of that act, it consists of the transparency rules. Now the transparency rules kicked in on August 2nd, and it says, if AI made or edited the content, you have to mark it so other systems can recognize it.

[00:09:35] Cybershortieee: And the penalty for not doing it is up to 15 million euros, or 3% of a company's global revenue. So this isn't Anthropic feeling generous. It's really compliance, and they're not the only ones. You have Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, they all signed onto the same code And now where things can get a little bit spicy are within days of the announcement, [00:10:00] an entire cottage industry of watermark removers flooded the internet.

[00:10:06] Cybershortieee: So GitHub projects with thousands of stars, websites with names I won't be saying on here, um, paid services promising being able to un-- to produce undetectable output, basically. Um, and so one tool blew up with over two million views on social media. Now, can any of them prove they work? And that's kind of the piece and the wild part about why not.

[00:10:30] Cybershortieee: So Anthropic hasn't released the detector, so there's no way to test whether a cleaned, quote-unquote, "document" still carries the mark. Everybody sells a lockpick for a lock nobody is allowed to look at yet. Now, because this is the part that actually matters, a lot of these tools strip hidden characters and file metadata, um, and so it will genuinely remove, but it also disappears on its own the second you screenshot it, resave, or convert a file.

[00:10:58] Cybershortieee: So the real, [00:11:00] quote-unquote, "watermark" doesn't live in hidden characters. It lives in which words the model chose. So the only way to remove that is to run the whole thing through a second AI to rewrite it, which, as one of the tool developers admitted himself, swaps a premium model's writing for a cheaper model's writing.

[00:11:21] Cybershortieee: So you're paying basically good money to make your output worse. Um, independent testing already caught one popular, quote-unquote, "cleaner" that left the hidden payload fully intact. Um, they decoded it right back out after it's supposedly wiped over. Um, the sharper take of this story is coming from a developer, though, who didn't call-- or who called watermarking a compliance quick fix, not a real defense.

[00:11:45] Cybershortieee: Even the guy who built the biggest remover agreed it's pure compliance to stay in the EU market. So the takeaway for you here is really watermarking isn't a lie detector. Anthropic themselves say a mark only means the text was processed by Claude, [00:12:00] not necessarily written by it. Um, so run your own writing through it for a grammar check.

[00:12:05] Cybershortieee: It's gonna be marked. Um, and the only way that that mark falls off is under heavy editing or translation anyway. So it's just giving you a signal, not proof, um, because that's kind of what it's focused in on. So I think

[00:12:24] Cybershortieee: It's disappointing, but I'm not shocked. And I do think that we should be able to understand when something is written by AI, composed, created, whatever it may be.

[00:12:37] Henri: No, I agree, I agree. Um, let me see something, 'cause I thought I had it in the, in my notes

[00:12:46] Henri: Um, but now, won't it typically fall off if you copy it from Claude or wherever you're working on and then put it in like Notepad? Like you do plain text?

[00:12:59] Cybershortieee: [00:13:00] Well, you don't even have to put it in Notepad. It's saying if you copy it from Claude and for example, put it in chat, it's gonna produce different... I don't know.

[00:13:09] Cybershortieee: To me it's They're wanting you to mark that AI is, uh, that it's AI content, and it seems like that process m- is moving a lot faster than the technology that we have to prove that it is AI.

[00:13:26] Henri: Oh, so actually I got the right thing, but I had the wrong thing. Google Gemini was not about, um- In

[00:13:34] Cybershortieee: that list.

[00:13:35] Henri: Yeah, in our actuality, they are going to let users remove the visible watermark from its AI generations.

[00:13:42] Henri: And you know me, Gemini good for giving you a watermark on the bottom right of a photo, so I'm always trying to throw my logo over it 'cause it's like this is... Yes, this is created by AI, but some of the stuff isn't, like, strictly generated all from, like, AI, like when it comes to the art [00:14:00] pictures and stuff like that.

[00:14:01] Henri: So I thought that's pretty interesting. I wonder how that's gonna be. And like they said, it's just a compliance checkbox. It's n- it doesn't really mean anything. That's

[00:14:11] Cybershortieee: gonna get real muddy.

[00:14:13] Henri: And then some of the other stuff I had on my notes was that, um, the security risk, where it said the security researchers flagged several free web utilities and browser extensions as malware vectors, and then multiple sites act as a credit harvester, collecting sensitive corporate prompts or embedding remote access trojans, RATs, inside downloadable exe- executable cleaners.

[00:14:39] Henri: So that's the other thing too. Everybody's so quick to be an early adopter. You go and try to use this thing on your company network, and now y'all in more trouble than y'all was when y'all started off on the day. And that is the whole reason why companies are hiring the people who are skilled in, of course, you got AI governance, but the AI security, uh, AI [00:15:00] DLP, all that stuff.

[00:15:01] Henri: 'Cause now, it used to be, okay, cool, we're just trying to solve for, like, click fixing, people putting stuff in command prompts. Now we're trying to stop people from just putting prompts that they found on the internet into whether it's your internal LLM or if they let you access outside things and how it could possibly, uh, compromise your environment.

[00:15:20] Henri: So, um, yeah. I'm interested to see what comes from that, uh, especially with Claude, and I was reading something else about Anthropic, and they were saying how the money that Anthropic was talking about it was valued at, it just was not adding up. And so, I don't know. It's, it's, it's a lot of pretty interesting articles out there once you just really get to looking back.

[00:15:43] Henri: Like, 'cause it's like they really not making money like, like that.

[00:15:50] Henri: Um, since you put this out here, I'll actually talk about it because this is one of the things that a client and I talked about because she actually interviewed with Flock as well, [00:16:00] and it's the Flock Safety-

[00:16:03] Cybershortieee: Flock Safety, Flock that ...

[00:16:04] Henri: mm-hmm, obvious police abuse tool but skimps on technical specs. Um, let me see if I can take a stab at it

[00:16:17] Henri: So

[00:16:21] Henri: Flock Safety, the surveillance vendor behind the nationwide network of solar pounder, solar powered, I wanted to say solar panel, but solar powered automated license plate readers cameras announced a new system feature aimed at preventing police officers from abusing its vehicle tracking database. You know what's funny?

[00:16:37] Henri: When I was interviewing with them, this is something I brought up. Swear to God, I brought up like, "Hey, how do you make sure these people are not using this in the wrong way?" And so at the time, the guy pushed, not pushed back on me, but he was saying, "Well, everybody should have a admin to their access at whatever station or HOA, and they should be enforcing the tools that we already have built into that."

[00:16:58] Henri: And I was just like, "Okay, cool. But who polices the [00:17:00] police?" That type of thing. That was like the whole conversation. But anyways, the announcement follows a series of investigative reports documenting cases where law enforcement personnel misuse Flock's search capabilities for personal reasons, such as tracking ex-partners, stalking acquaintances, or running unauthorized queries on ple- political rivals.

[00:17:18] Henri: Effective January 1st, 2027, Flock software will require officers to input a valid criminal case. Hey, I swear to God, y'all won't believe me. I promise you, I could let you hear this word for word, bar for bar. I said this. I promise you I said this I promise you I said this. I'll let you hear it offline.

[00:17:43] Henri: Executing a license plate lookup in the system Key details and missing controls. Flock's roadside camera network logs billions of license plate captures monthly, enabling real-time location mapping and historical movement tracking shared across thousands of municipal, state, and federal agencies. [00:18:00] Civil liberty groups and technical critics noted that Flock has not explained how a system will validate input case numbers against live court or police department databases.

[00:18:08] Henri: Without real-time API integration into CAD systems, there is nothing stopping a rogue user from typing dummy numbers like one two three four five or zero zero zero zero zero to bypass the search prompt. That's also very true as well. Good points. Flock has not clarified whether search logs will be subjected to mandatory external audits or if access records will remain strictly internal to the police departments.

[00:18:31] Henri: So adding an unvalidated text box to a database search bar isn't a security control, it's a security theater. If an officer can bypass a policy check by typing a fake case number into a prompt, the system remains just as vulnerable to abuse as it was before. Like, I wish, that's the one time I wish I had that Soulja Boy, Drake

[00:18:55] Henri: That's the one time I wish I had that, 'cause y'all, I'm telling y'all, that's word for word, bar for bar. I can [00:19:00] open up my, um, what's the thing called? My transcript right now, and we can look at... I proposed that same thing. So at this point, I'm trying to see, can I get paid?

[00:19:12] Cybershortieee: Right

[00:19:16] Henri: And I'm gonna tell my friend that got on the Flock that too

[00:19:21] Cybershortieee: I think that, um, Flock got a lot going on right now. And, and, and because a lot of people aren't paying attention to it necessarily. If more people knew what about Flock, they... More people would have an issue with

[00:19:40] Henri: this I agree, but like I said, I think we talked about this before.

[00:19:43] Henri: I'll... Some of it, a lot of it's on Flock, but it's not because it's over the people that's doing it. Like, you can get mad at gun makers, but gun makers ain't putting the guns in people hands and telling them to go kill people. They have to have checks and balances in part to the police. But we [00:20:00] all know police places can be crooked.

[00:20:03] Henri: They can finesse whatever they want to, IA, and they union reps and all that kind of stuff so they can justify whatever they did. So that's why I always said, like, who would police them to make sure that they're doing it right? It's hard to do. But tying it, then that's gonna be tough. But if, if they're able to...

[00:20:23] Henri: I just think about the third party breach now, because if they are able to, hey, get access to a API to their police database. Okay, let's say worst case scenario, Flock get hacked. Now people looking at the database and either able to manipulate it or whatever. So it's another fun thing in data security and how to keep that protected as Flock becomes more, more popular.

[00:20:45] Henri: Like I said, all people think about is the negative though when it comes to Flock. They don't think about how they've helped save missing persons or car thieves or stuff like that. They only think about the surveillance. Newsflash, they already listening to everything we say or do anyway. You was talking [00:21:00] about a ice cream cone to somebody earlier, and you get on Facebook and you see a thing for ice cream.

[00:21:06] Henri: So you can get mad at Flock if you want to, but these phones more powerful than what Flock ever did

[00:21:15] Henri: That's what I feel. Let me see if we- Actually

[00:21:17] Cybershortieee: factual ...

[00:21:17] Henri: if we got any comments about this. Um, he's back on the watermark Yeah, Lee, you late with the, um, with the repos and stuff like that, uh

[00:21:35] Henri: I don't think it really even matters though if he had a re- the repos on it or not for like removing the watermarks. Um, I don't know. That's just me. Um, let's see What did you... Let's see, I think the next one we had is the... Well, that one can wait. I feel like it's a short one. I'll let you tackle [00:22:00] this North Korean joint, 'cause we've been talking about North Korea for about the last two years now, if I ain't mistaken.

[00:22:05] Cybershortieee: Okay, let me find her

[00:22:12] Henri: And y'all, if y'all watching right now

[00:22:14] Cybershortieee: I mean the North

[00:22:14] Henri: Korean I was just gonna say, if everybody's watching right now to go ahead and, um, hit the like button and share it out. We are at what? 110 subs. We need to get 1,000 by the end of the year, and so the best thing you can do is just share this out. Uh, for all the people who don't even know that we're currently streaming from this platform now, this is like the new platform for the podcast.

[00:22:35] Henri: So just share this out and say, "Hey, man, if you like the textual talk," uh, do that. If people follow me on my platforms, I have like a daily post that goes out to tell people, "Don't forget to come check us out for the new episodes here." But, um, sorry for the interruption. I'll let you go.

[00:22:50] Cybershortieee: No, no worries. So the North Korean on the government payroll So who's really on the other end of [00:23:00] energy?

[00:23:00] Cybershortieee: The FBI is reportedly investigating how a North Korean worker got hired by a US federal government agency. Not a startup, not some random crypto company, a federal agency. So because if you've never heard of this scheme, it's one of the wildest ongoing operations. So for now-- for years now, North Korea has been running a massive fake remote worker program.

[00:23:25] Cybershortieee: Thousands of their IT workers use stolen or fake American identities to land remote jobs at Western companies. They do the actual job, they're actually skilled, but the paycheck gets funneled back to the regimen. And while they're inside, they're stealing intellectual property and data and extorting the company once they inevi-- once they inevitably, uh, get caught.

[00:23:47] Cybershortieee: CrowdStrike said North Koreans were behind nearly half of US tech industry hacks. Now, what made government different is that strict vetting and security clearances mostly [00:24:00] keep them out. Mostly. Back in 2024, a Maryland man got charged for helping a North Korean pose as an American to land a contractor gig with the FF-- with the FAA.

[00:24:13] Cybershortieee: So obviously from this you can see that the wall has cracks. Now, the new case, it is a rare confirmed instance of a sanctioned North Korean actually working for a government agency. Now, the receipt check is we don't know which agency. We don't know if any data or money was stolen. The FBI declined to comment.

[00:24:33] Cybershortieee: This was first reported by Federal News Network, citing a senior FBI official at a conference. So huge story, real source, but hold the details loosely until more comes out. The key takeaway that kind of hits home here is that the weakest link in this instance was not some sort of piece of technology or a firewall.

[00:24:52] Cybershortieee: It's really the hiring process. Somebody looked at the application, they did an interview, they checked the box. They say, "Yep, this is a real person," and [00:25:00] that check was obviously wrong. The identity in this particular case is the vulnerability. And so in this era where every job or most jobs are remote, um, and every face on the call could be a filter or a deepfake, who do we actually hire is now a valid security question and not just an HR question.

[00:25:19] Cybershortieee: Um, so if you've heard of, um, insider threat, this is now, I guess Pre-hire stage. Um, companies spend a lot of time trying to harden their environment from a perimeter perspective for years and years, and now we have adversaries who are actually in the companies who are able to get these badges. So I think we'll see an, a surge in, um, identity proofing during the onboarding process, so live detectness, uh, detection, excuse me, um, while you're doing interviews, hardware shipping verification, um, and different things like that that they can put into place.

[00:25:55] Cybershortieee: Um, you might be required to randomly take a picture and validate that that [00:26:00] is you according to, you know, your government-issued identification. So I don't know, I thought that was a good one.

[00:26:09] Henri: Yeah. Um, you'd be surprised, like, how many companies will, like, during the onboarding process, set up a call just to talk to you again and make sure you're the same person that was interviewing.

[00:26:21] Henri: That's been a thing- Yep ... that's been going on, like, for years, but it is odd that they were able to do that to the US government. I, I think that's, like, hilarious to me 'cause they're supposed to be so secure, and everybody from the- A little

[00:26:37] Cybershortieee: bit, little bit more harder.

[00:26:39] Henri: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:40] Cybershortieee: Mm-hmm.

[00:26:41] Henri: For sure. So I don't know.

[00:26:43] Henri: Yeah.

[00:26:43] Cybershortieee: And I wonder if, what change is gonna be implemented as a result of that, 'cause obviously something in the process has to change, and I wonder if that will be communicated. Yeah. Um, I

[00:26:52] Henri: don't think it'd be- It's

[00:26:54] Cybershortieee: like a double-edged sword though, 'cause they can't tell too much. Can't give too much [00:27:00] intel on the things that are going down without that being used against them as a disadvantage.

[00:27:09] Henri: Hey, going to the, the next one with the, um, the FBI in the news

[00:27:16] Cybershortieee: Let's get busy. So what you think FBI plus NTAA, the account takeover warning you need to hear. So this is more of a pr- public service segment. Um, so the FBI put out a warning. Criminals are hacking into people's o- into people's social media and online accounts specifically To steal private explicit photos and videos, then using them to blackmail people or selling them on criminal marketplaces.

[00:27:52] Cybershortieee: So saying that, FBI and NCAA put out a joint warning that student athletes [00:28:00] are being targeted in these same schemes. Um, so I wanna kind of keep this one respectful because if it ever touches you or someone you love, shame, um, is the whole weapon in this, you know, type of situation, and information takes that weapon away.

[00:28:15] Cybershortieee: So let's talk about the mechanics, the part that actually protects you. So the FBI said the way in is almost always the same trick. So a text message or a email that says, "Hey, your account will be disabled unless you enter a verification code," or a fake new login detected, reset your password link. So you click, you enter the code, and you just basically handed them the keys to your kingdom.

[00:28:42] Cybershortieee: Now, the rule that the FBI gave itself, and I want you guys to tattoo this on your brain, a legitimate company will never ask you for a verification code, a temporary password, or a PIN co-reset code. Um, so if someone is asking you for the code, the person asking is [00:29:00] the attack. The takeaway is the same receipts theme kind of flipped here.

[00:29:04] Cybershortieee: The attacker is impersonating a trusted service to get you to prove your identity to them. The defense is turning on, um, MFA using passwords that aren't your name or birthday, and never ever pass a code to another human being. Um, so if you are a coach or a parent or a teammate, this is something that you might want to share out with those in your inner circles.

[00:29:29] Cybershortieee: The FBI specifically asked athletic departments to help spread the word, um, for this particular action. So I kind of don't necessarily agree with no one will call you and ask you for a code, 'cause you can call your bank today, and your bank will call and say, "Hey, we're gonna text you a code." You need to give them that code.

[00:29:48] Cybershortieee: Um, but I think you just need to be mindful about what is the use case for that code being provided or who receiving the code and sharing it out. Um, just to share a code out that you just got and [00:30:00] you didn't prompt to get that code, and you didn't initiate that contact, um, to be verified in that way, that is something that you kind of wanna keep in mind.

[00:30:10] Cybershortieee: Um, I think that also turning on obviously MFA, ideally an authenticator app or a passkey. Try to stay away from the text messages, of course, um, on your emails, your socials, and your bankings. I know a lot of the times folks don't even have MFA set up because they maybe set their account up a long time ago, or it's just something that they're avoiding when they get into the app.

[00:30:32] Cybershortieee: It usually will ask you, um, do you wanna set up you know, MFA or protect your account. So when you get those prompts, make sure that you're not suffering from prompt fatigue and you're actually, um, reading what that prompt says and you're taking any necessary steps that you may need to take to protect yourself and your account.

[00:30:50] Cybershortieee: Um, also, don't store, you know, inappropriate pictures, explicit pi-pictures and videos on your social media accounts as well, [00:31:00] um, because it can obviously land into the wrong hands, and then you can wind up feeling embarrassed and not so well in that type of situation. So something else for you to keep in mind.

[00:31:14] Cybershortieee: Now, I do have some career angles to think about from this perspective. So you do have some security and awareness training specialists. Um, you also have digital forensic and incident response analysts, so the people who are responsible for helping people who are a victim, um, trace those accounts. And then you have a trust and safety analyst at a social platform, and they are merely responsible for building the detection and reporting systems on the platform side, so think like Instagram, um, TikTok, and so on.

[00:31:49] Cybershortieee: Um, but just a couple things for you to kinda keep in mind. Let me take a peek and see if we got some comments regarding this one [00:32:00] Moving on. We also have next coming up on our agenda to talk a little bit more about Delta, the evil twin Wi-Fi. Uh, if you've not heard what happened with those airlines, this one is really, really interesting.

[00:32:22] Cybershortieee: So a passenger on a Delta flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta allegedly set up a fake Wi-Fi network mid-flight. Obviously, this was one designed to impersonate the plane's real network. Now, the pilots got wind of this. They radioed air traffic control and shut off the actual in-flight Wi-Fi for about 30 minutes.

[00:32:43] Cybershortieee: Delta says the safety was never in question and that no aircraft systems were touched. And the details that make this so, so good is that the pilots noted that some passengers were coming home from cybersecurity conferences in Vegas that week. I'm not saying, I'm just saying Um, [00:33:00] so if you're not familiar with this type of attack, this is called an evil twin attack.

[00:33:04] Cybershortieee: Um, it happens or it can happen at a airport, a coffee shop, a hotel, anywhere. An evil twin is just a Wi-Fi network that copies the name of a real one. So Delta Wi-Fi, um, Airport Free Wi-Fi, Starbucks. So your phone will actually connect to the attacker instead of the real router. And once you're on their network, they can potentially see or tamper with your traffic.

[00:33:31] Cybershortieee: Um, it's shockingly easy to set up with a cheap device, um, that's built for security testing. Now, the receipts are kind of on theme with this particular episode. The network said that it was the plane's Wi-Fi. It couldn't prove it, and neither can the ones you connect to every day. So the takeaway for this one is really simple and life proof.

[00:33:52] Cybershortieee: Don't blindly trust a network's name. Uh, make sure that you are using some sort of VPN on a, uh, public [00:34:00] Wi-Fi network, and then make sure that any sites that you're using, that you're seeing a HTTPS at the beginning, um, of that, and that you are also turning off au-auto-join, excuse me, on your phone to stop yourself from connecting to random networks that it may think that it may, um, recognize.

[00:34:18] Cybershortieee: So a couple things that you can kinda keep in mind there. Now, if you're interested in this, you can always take a peek at some of the, um, labs that are associated with setting up a evil twin, um, a malicious Wi-Fi access point. Um, and then you also have, um, the Pineapple, um, which is just another tool for authorized security testing that makes spoofing networks kind of a little bit more trivial.

[00:34:47] Cybershortieee: Um, but Delta obviously is investigating this with federal law enforcement. The passenger's intent at this time is unknown. I mean, I can't see or understand how this could be coming [00:35:00] from, um, good intentions. Why would you do that? And you know folks are on the plane trying to connect to Wi-Fi as soon as they get onto that flight.

[00:35:07] Cybershortieee: So I just have questions like, was this set up before they took off? Was it set up as they were in the air? Was this person on the Wi-Fi? Like, I just have a bunch of questions regarding what kind of happened here Um, but this is the perfect illustration of trust on first use being broken by design in everyday technology.

[00:35:27] Cybershortieee: Um, so the reveal isn't that planes are necessarily hackable. Um, it's really that the entire Wi-Fi trust model relies on a name matching, um, and a name is something that is trivial forgeable. Um, so if you think about from an enterprise level, they have certificate-based network authentication. You've got WPA3 enterprise in place, but almost no public networks are actually using it, and that's the gap that we kind of see here.

[00:35:55] Cybershortieee: So if you are interested in a career field in something related to this particular [00:36:00] story, you would be thinking about working on a red team, um, being a penetration tester, um, a network security engineer deploying maybe that certificate that actually stops this from happening. And then you also have a, um, wireless security researcher, so just experts that are studying this exactly.

[00:36:20] Cybershortieee: Um, so in your home lab, maybe you can practice learning how SSIDs work and why a name isn't proof.

[00:36:29] podcast sounds: And, and, and I'm Cyber Shorty.

[00:36:31] Cybershortieee: Are you talking?

[00:36:34] Henri: Oops, I was, I was what's it called? I was muted, so let me try this again A-

[00:36:40] Cybershortieee: a- and I'm Cyber Shortie.

[00:36:41] Henri: There we go. Okay. But yeah, no, I f- um, I know I left off on, I think you was talking about the nudes.

[00:36:48] Henri: What was the synopsis of, like, the, the hackers trying to get the nudes?

[00:36:52] Cybershortieee: So they're trying to log into people's social media accounts, because apparently people have nudes on their social media accounts, and that's how they're [00:37:00] getting them, and then once they get the nudes, they're blackmailing people. So I get into your account, I see your nudes, and now I'm like, "You need to do X, Y, and Z, or I'm gonna expose-"

[00:37:10] Henri: Yeah

[00:37:11] Cybershortieee: further, further expose you.

[00:37:13] Henri: I would just say if your

[00:37:13] Cybershortieee: nudes look- Um, they're mostly targeted by, uh, athletes, so the NCAA put out a message as well saying, like, "If you're an athletic director, can you help us spread this message?"

[00:37:23] Henri: Okay. I was gonna say, if your nudes look good, just say, "Post them then."

[00:37:27] Cybershortieee: I'm screaming that-

[00:37:29] Henri: They can go one of two ways: everybody talk about you or you become real famous.

[00:37:33] Cybershortieee: It could. Might be your Kim K. moment.

[00:37:38] Henri: Remind me of, uh, BedRock, when Tiger said, "Take this photo if you for me." Mm-hmm. Right. What'd he say? I'm too loyal and too hopeless. No, no. What'd he say? I'm too loyal, too focused to be l- losing and be s- I forgot what he said, but he probably had the- He ate it

[00:37:54] Cybershortieee: up though.

[00:37:55] Henri: Yeah. Um, you know what? While we at it- And then the

[00:37:59] Cybershortieee: next one [00:38:00] was Delta. Yeah.

[00:38:02] Henri: The

[00:38:02] Cybershortieee: evil twin on the airplane.

[00:38:04] Henri: Them dudes was lame that did that They wanna show somebody they got a new toy. Um.

[00:38:12] Cybershortieee: I w- I'm more worried about W-what, what was his intentions?

[00:38:21] Henri: Right Where's my Reddit?

[00:38:25] Cybershortieee: And the audacity and the boldness to even do it on the plane, not in the airport.

[00:38:34] Henri: Yeah, I totally agree with you. Um, if nobody has did this yet-

[00:38:41] podcast sounds: Hit the like button ...

[00:38:43] Henri: hit the like button real quick, man. Hit the like button. And so y'all see the lower third that's up there right now is Reddit time, some of y'all favorite times of the, uh, year. Fun fact, shorty, a, a guy reached out to me last week [00:39:00] because he heard the episode we did where we were at the Reddit where the person kept on getting to the final rounds, and they just were not, like, having any traction.

[00:39:09] Cybershortieee: Mm-hmm.

[00:39:09] Henri: And, um, so we've been talking, so I told him who I'ma direct him to talk to, 'cause he has a specific issue that I can't really help with. But I'ma direct him to the people who have more experience in that lane who actually did the same journey he did. So it's cool. You never know who's watching, and I'm just glad, like, it can reach the masses and, and people just reach out to us.

[00:39:33] Henri: So I- hopefully, maybe the person who was the person there in Reddit reach out to us and be like, "Yo, that was me. How can you help me?" But let me see. All right. So this first one is, um, somebody in this, uh, help desk Reddit says, "Service desk managers, team leads, what do you really look for in tier one hires today?"

[00:39:55] Henri: And so he says, "I keep hearing that tier one is mostly about people skills. You can teach the technical side, [00:40:00] but you can't teach soft skills. As a service desk manager in an IT firm, I'm curious how others handle this. Beyond communication and customer service, what technical basics do you expect a tier one candidate to already know?

[00:40:12] Henri: Do they need familiarity with tools like AD, M365, ticketing systems, et cetera, or even a cert? Has the job market changed to the point where companies no longer take chances on training someone from scratch? Do tier one hires now need to hit the ground running with both soft skills and solid technical foundation?"

[00:40:30] Henri: I say yes. I, I know of experiences like in any help desk, help desk is fast-paced. Like, you gonna get your training, hopefully it's decent enough, but you might get at least a month of training, maybe some shadow sessions, and they gonna throw you in there and see if you can sink or swim. Uh, so let's see if we got any good conversa- uh, comments.

[00:40:51] Henri: So one person said, "I look for communication skills, history of client-facing roles, experience with internal systems like ticketing and remote connection, and technical skills. [00:41:00] Are you able to multitask? Are you comfortable talking on the phone? Can you communicate in complete sentences and explain concepts to non-tech users?

[00:41:08] Henri: Those are skills-- Those skills are important when we hire. We have no requirements for certs. I don't need to know your projects." I actually like that last part when he said, "Can you communicate in complete sentences and ex- explain concepts to non-technical users?" Because a lot of people do not do well at that.

[00:41:27] Henri: They overcomplicate the messaging to people who don't understand what you're talking about already. So that's a big one, because in help desk, service desk, whatever you wanna call it, you're gonna be dealing with a lot of non-technical people. And if you are, "Hey, yeah, um, I just did the radius test, and it look like on the domain controller your, your thing hasn't replicated over yet, so we're gonna do this, this, this," they gonna like, "Huh?"

[00:41:54] Henri: When you can simply say, "Uh, give us a second, uh, until we can try to log on with your password," like five minutes. That's [00:42:00] much better than all that extra stuff that they don't know what you're talking about. So here's another one. This is a long one. Dang, it's super long. But let's read it. I worked for six years as a team lead at a college help desk.

[00:42:12] Henri: From the first two years of doing hiring, training, mentoring, and leading, here's what I realized. If someone has good people skills and isn't afraid of technology, then they can learn the technical parts. If someone knows technology very well but has no inherent people skills, they may not be able to develop the people skills needed to be able to do the work well.

[00:42:30] Henri: Then again, just as I stated, my first customer service job with almost crippling social anxiety, I have seen people who I helped hire from help desk come seemingly from behind on social skills and then turn it around to really shine brightly in how they work with customers. They may have needed just the right boost to get them over a hurdle, just as I did so long ago.

[00:42:49] Henri: For instance, I can remember one college student we hired who interviewed well, but in the public facing office we worked in, she seemed to shrink into herself. She was in one of the sororities on campus, is-- was one [00:43:00] of the very few t- female tech support employees there. So when any other sorority girls, not just from her house, needed tech help, they typically came in when she was scheduled.

[00:43:09] Henri: Her comfort with them helped her build her confidence for the work very quickly. The last I knew, she had continued in school to earn a master's degree, and she was in a business leadership type of position When it came to the geekiest tech guys, some could develop at least some people skills while others were eager to move into positions where they could work with the tech that interested them, but preferred tech over people.

[00:43:31] Henri: A few found a way to tap into technical strengths that still made them good con-contributors, such as knowing or researching processes so well that they could write effective knowledge-based articles. They may have been awkward with customers, especially non-technical ones, but they still found another way to help people.

[00:43:47] Henri: But often they didn't even train fellow techies well on the technical aspects that they seemed to have an instinct for. One thing that I did find very satisfying about being a team lead at the help desk was when I could help the members of my [00:44:00] team share what they were learning with the others. I'm sure that it would look good on their resumes to say that they trained their fellow staff members.

[00:44:07] Henri: Peer-led training and job shadowing is often very effective, and honestly, the trainer skills even more. But I'll still piece that beer. I'll still with what N said before. At the help desk level, I think it's more effective to turn someone with good basic soft skills and isn't afraid of technology into a good tech support representative than it is to turn someone who is basically inept at talking to people into a good representative, no matter how great their technical skills were.

[00:44:35] Henri: That was a mouthful, but all in all, for those entry-level roles, especially when you're doing help desk, soft skills reign supreme. And not only help desk, just any role. If you can have some decent soft skills and are likable, you can move up. And if you know how to do your job well, I think that's one as well.

[00:44:55] Henri: And so this next one I think is, is very, I don't know, it could be [00:45:00] clip-worthy. So I'm gonna definitely try to make it like a hook when I read the title and we're gonna burn the midnight oil and get into it. But it says, "Am I being unreasonable by asking for a $45,000 raise? In short, I pay out of pocket for a specialized master's program so I could do this work at a higher level.

[00:45:17] Henri: And the company I work for didn't help with the expenses at all. Over time, I became efficient enough that they're now moving me into my manager's role because he's retiring. But at the same time, they want me to keep handling most of my current responsibilities too. The part that's bothering me is that the raise they offered was only a few thousand dollars, even though I'll practically be handling the work of two positions.

[00:45:39] Henri: I calculated what it would be probably cost them if they brought in someone else to take over my old role, and it came out to be about $135,000 when factoring in salary and benefits. I'm planning to ask for a $45,000 raise, which is roughly one-third of the amount I'd be saving the company. In other words, even if they paid me an extra [00:46:00] 45 Gs, they'd still be avoiding about $90,000 in expenses by not hiring someone else.

[00:46:05] Henri: On top of that, handling both roles will probably add six to 12 extra hours of work to my week. Am I thinking about this the right way? Or does this seem completely out of touch with reality? I appreciate any opinions."

[00:46:20] Henri: Interesting. What'd you think about that?

[00:46:24] Cybershortieee: Sorry, I was sneezing.

[00:46:26] Henri: Oh, you good. What'd you think about that?

[00:46:28] Cybershortieee: Um, I think that I don't think they wrong

[00:46:33] Henri: I don't either.

[00:46:35] Cybershortieee: I think, I think that, um, more people need to be asking for more money per- personally

[00:46:44] Henri: So let's see what's gonna come and say. They say, "You can try. Pay bumps like that happen from leaving companies very rarely with something like that what you're looking for actually happening." And he kind of right because a lot of times they'll say, "Well, based on HR policies-" I agree. "... we'll probably only be able to give you $15,000," and [00:47:00] that still ain't gonna be enough.

[00:47:01] Henri: Get that. Right. That's

[00:47:01] Cybershortieee: a lot still too.

[00:47:03] Henri: Right. Now, sometimes you can get tricky. Well, not tricky, but smart. Say, "Okay, cool. Y'all can give me the raise. Well, let's, uh, put it right in how to get a bonus at the beginning of the year for $45,000." Now, you can do that. I've seen... I had a friend who was, who had pretty much, he was trying to leave the company, and he pretty much got them to give him a bonus at the beginning of the year and the middle of the year.

[00:47:26] Henri: So you can try to do that. Let's see what some of these other things say. Uh, somebody said, "Can verify. I went from desktop support to an IT support analyst at another company, 38.68% pay increase. Never looked back. Converted to full-time earlier this year. Even with logic on your side, they probably won't go for it.

[00:47:43] Henri: I think you would be best off taking the promotion to manager and looking for a role with another company. Then you get better pay and workload for one person."

[00:47:53] Henri: Um, let's see, this is the last one I'll read. You can't be out of touch with reality when businesses themselves will do [00:48:00] everything they can to take advantage of their workers. Potentially the most beneficial thing for you to do for your short term-- or for your long term career is to take it on the chin short term and use the title to move elsewhere for arguably even more money.

[00:48:13] Henri: There's something to be said about being forced and fired, as it were. I actually agree. You can still finesse that. Yeah, they might not pay you, but you get six months to a year as that IT manager or whatever, and you can go name your price somewhere else 'cause you did so much. You can play the Hail Mary and try to approach them with a managerial mindset to see if they can bring you up to industry average over two years.

[00:48:34] Henri: Do a market analysis for the role you'll be doing and see what others are paying for it. That is your primary data point. The concept of them consolidating two positions into one doesn't really hold as much weight, unfortunately. Being two times efficient doesn't net two times pay unless you are running a business and just out-competing other businesses.

[00:48:54] Henri: I suppose you could also refuse the promotion unless they're willing to compensate you accordingly, though they may decide to punish you in some [00:49:00] way. You are logically thinking as an individual, but without broader context to help the businesses operating or its budget. You aren't operating with the sufficient information to make a sound judgment call.

[00:49:10] Henri: Hmm, I like that comment

[00:49:14] Henri: I like that comment

[00:49:15] Cybershortieee: I got to read his story A-A-A-A-A down.

[00:49:25] Henri: Let's see. Somebody said, um, Sean Breeze said, "You can try. They don't care though. They have a thing called internal equity. It means people who do similar jobs get similar pay." I agree. Like, I've only one time at work where I got a comp adjustment was because I said, "Hey, assess my comp and make sure it's fair."

[00:49:44] Henri: And they assessed it, and they was like, "Yeah, you know what? We gonna give you a raise." I still ended up leaving a couple of, uh, months after that, but hey, I ain't turning no money down But if you wanna get into your story, Cyber Shawty, go ahead. [00:50:00] Oh, and also, look, we got 16 people watching and we got four likes.

[00:50:03] Henri: I need 16 likes, people. Come on, y'all can do it. Y'all been doing a wonderful job supporting the show. We about to have our first episode hit 1,000 views, so we need all y'all people watching to hit the thumbs up, and that's the only thing I'm asking y'all to do. And y'all can also hit that link that we got pinned to the chat.

[00:50:19] Henri: If y'all wanna donate to the show 'cause y'all rock with us, y'all can do that, too, 'cause we ain't got the ability to super chat right now. But yeah, go for it.

[00:50:26] Cybershortieee: Period. Okay, so, "I keep failing technical interviews because of theoretical questions, not the actual technical work. I always struggle with technical interviews because of the theoretical questions, not the actual hands-on technical part.

[00:50:40] Cybershortieee: If I'm given a practical task, lab, or take-home assessment, I usually do very well and deliver it on time. But when an interviewer starts asking me theoretical questions on the spot, I struggle to explain things properly and sometimes completely blank out. This has honestly become my biggest nightmare when applying for cybersecurity jobs, and I feel like it's [00:51:00] holding me back even though I know I can actually do the work.

[00:51:03] Cybershortieee: I wish interviews focused more on practical technical skills, because in my opinion, that's a much better way to see whether someone can actually perform the job. But until interview culture changes, what can I do to get better at answering theoretical questions? Has anyone else had this problem, and how did you overcome it?"

[00:51:22] Cybershortieee: So someone said in the comments, "Hey friend, this is quite a hard part for technical folks, but it's also a key part of the role. Can you talk the talk? Practice one method of answering questions. I personally hate STAR and recommend something that works for you. For example, I try and explain my algorithmic thinking like it's a TV show, recap of events, the obvious plot line, potential twists, happily ever after.

[00:51:45] Cybershortieee: You need to also figure out where you are going wrong. Are you nervous? Are you over/under explaining? How is this different from when you help a friend by explaining your world to them? Keep practicing, my friend. It will get better." Another [00:52:00] comment says, "Answer depends a lot on what is happening and why.

[00:52:04] Cybershortieee: Is this performance anxiety, blanking like in a test situation? Is this specific kinds of theoretical questions like imaginary scenarios for things outside the job, such as tell me about a time? Or is this theoretical questions on cybersecurity? What is the difference between a virus and a worm? If so, do you know the answers afterwards?

[00:52:23] Cybershortieee: All of these are entirely different things to work with as the root cause is different." Last comment: "I am on-- I am part of the interview panel for our team of engineers. We ask theoretical questions so that we know how you work through issues. We want to be sure you can work without your hand being held, so to speak.

[00:52:42] Cybershortieee: We are a team of self-starters. More often than not, our tasks come from our own minds and then are adjusted by management to fit proper scale and scope. Then we have at it. Hands-on proof is great, but in our minds, anyone can follow a tutorial. We want solutions that no one documented yet. That's [00:53:00] why we are looking-- that's what we are looking for in interviews."

[00:53:03] Cybershortieee: And I thought that that was a good, a good one to post because we have a lot of people who are in a season of searching for jobs, and everybody is not great at interviewing, and you're not the only person. There are a lot of folks who are not good at interviews, and it's just a muscle that you have to work to get more familiar and to feel more confident in showcasing who you are and why you're the ideal candidate for that role.

[00:53:35] Henri: I'm doing that to wake everybody up. But no, I agree. Actually, this is something that a candidate and I-- not a candidate, a client and I were talking about this morning. I was saying that she got a lot of interviews scheduled, so the resume I put out there and her skill set has been attractive. And she was saying, "Yeah, I struggle with explaining the things I've did."

[00:53:59] Henri: [00:54:00] And so I said, "Okay, cool. Let's try this." So I had her leave me some voice memos of some projects she completed for work. And yeah, they were a little rocky, they were a little long, they weren't to the point, so it could be to where you're in an interview with this person and kind of could lose track of what, like, the whole issue was.

[00:54:15] Henri: And so I know one guy said in the comments they don't like STAR, but I said I don't really just say super about a STAR, but you need to lay the foundation of saying like, "Hey, when I worked at company B, this was the issue. We got a lot of false positives and we missed some alerts, which led to some security incidents, which led to some data exfil."

[00:54:36] Henri: How did you fix it? We retooled our detection strategy and we mitigated by removing over, you know, 30% of false positives that let us focus on more high fidelity alerts, which all in all led us to, um, detecting and responding to real cybersecurity threats by 30% or whatever, right? I'm just keeping the show, I'm just BS-ing some stuff.

[00:54:58] Henri: But now you've [00:55:00] explained what the problem was, how y'all solved it, and what the outcome was from said issue. When it comes to the person sitting there s- struggling with the theoretical scenario, "Hey, what if this and this?" This is a good problem to have because so many people focus on memorizing stuff that don't matter.

[00:55:21] Henri: They can't think. They're so cookie cutter, do A, B, C, D, but they don't know how to think out, their way out of a box. If you struggle with that, you should use-- we got AI. Hey, ask me, I'm interviewing for this question. I mean, Lord, I'm interviewing for this role. I'm interviewing for this role. Uh, please review the job description and my resume and come up with some scenario questions that I may face in this role.

[00:55:51] Henri: In the past, I've struggled with these type of questions. Please make sure you give me some of these. Read the scenarios, record yourself answering them, get [00:56:00] AI to check how you did and say, "Hey, be unbiased when you grade me." And go like that. And that's something that I've been doing for my own self and for my clients, and it's worked wonders.

[00:56:11] Henri: Now, with me, we actually do interview prep, so I get to listen and say, "Stop. I don't think you answering, you know, what they are telling you." And the easiest cheat sheet, cheat thing you could do is record your interviews. I got so many interviews I've recorded over the years that I can throw in the AI my transcripts, and I throw in specifically not the ones I do good in, the ones I didn't do too good in, so I could focus on my weaknesses.

[00:56:35] Henri: And that's how you start fortifying, uh, all the things that you've been struggling with over about the last couple, couple of months. So, those are, like, some easy tips that you can do. Hopefully that you, you take away from this, that, um... What's the word I'm looking for? I just lost it. Hopefully you take away some good stuff from that, but I definitely think that was a good one.

[00:56:57] Henri: I'm glad you brought that one up because that's something that I [00:57:00] see people struggle with, and I actually wanna make a, a longer video on how to help people who are struggling with their interviews and what can they do to get better at that. But here's the thing, too. You have to-- I'm putting, doing like this or asterisks, is that you still gotta check AI.

[00:57:16] Henri: Like, even what it's telling you don't mean it's always true, so you gotta go through and fact check what your answers are just to make sure it makes sense. But the other thing it can help you with, it can help you structure your answer. If it's too long-winded, it can help you kinda hit on what you need to hit on, get in and get out, versus talking too long.

[00:57:34] Henri: 'Cause that's what some people do. You only, sometimes you only got 30 minutes, 45 minutes to talk, and you wanna also ask your questions to the interviewer as well. So, um, that would be some of my advice for you when it comes to interviewing and if you're struggling with answering those scenario theoretical questions.

[00:57:52] Cybershortieee: I also think as a neurodivergent hottie that it's just not fair[00:58:00]

[00:58:06] Henri: Right. Uh, let's see. Kate Cool says, "You get better with interviews by interviewing. The more you interview, the better you'll get." Yeah, I agree. Well-

[00:58:13] Cybershortieee: If y- you know you're not good, though.

[00:58:17] Henri: I will say this. I got this one. Yes and no. Let's say, for instance, I compare interviewing to going to the gym, and people j- they just think they're gonna get stronger by going to the gym.

[00:58:27] Henri: If you are not doing the exercises the right way, you will not see the results. So even if you just interviewing after interviewing, if you are not figuring out what you are struggling with, you will continue to struggle. Mm. So some people innately can get better just from interviewing. Other people may need someone to help them out so they get to a baseline of where they understand what a good to bad interview is for them.

[00:58:53] Henri: So I've seen that as well. I could talk to some people and say, "Oh, you already know a lot. You just need to structure it because you ain't talked to nobody." [00:59:00] Like, think about it. Um, a divorced man or woman, they bagged somebody back in the day, so they gonna be trash when they first get into the dating game, but eventually they'll be all right 'cause they done did it before.

[00:59:12] Henri: A person who never been married, sucked at dating, not that good-looking, is broke or fat, whatever, they probably not gonna have a good time dating.

[00:59:21] Cybershortieee: Broke and fat, please. Relax.

[00:59:23] Henri: You gotta pick a struggle. Why would you even say that? You gotta pick a struggle. So in that-

[00:59:27] Cybershortieee: No, I'm saying your, your example.

[00:59:30] Henri: But no, I'm saying in that instance they're gonna have to figure out, "Okay, hmm, I'm gonna have to look, take care of my appearance.

[00:59:35] Henri: I'm gonna have to get my money up. Now I need to figure out where I'm going wrong in this conversation piece. Am I talking too much about me? Am I not caring about him? Am I, am I not doing the eye contact? Are we going to the wrong spot? Do I need somebody to style me?" It's the same thing. Let's see. Do you guys ever think you're gonna do LinkedIn or resume checks?

[00:59:58] Henri: So on my other [01:00:00] channel, I have a live video where we did a live resume roast and checked some LinkedIns. So you can check that out, um, and kinda compare what you think your resume is to that. Uh, that will be something I may try to do monthly or every couple of months with maybe a couple of my other Career Coast friends, because people enjoy it.

[01:00:19] Henri: So that is something we'll do, but it will not be on this channel. It'll be on my @techsavvychatr channel

[01:00:31] Henri: So that's the channel. If you wanna check that out, check that channel out. And, uh, we have over six years of material on there. Anything you can think of, I've probably covered it or we've covered it in an episode over there. So, um, it's the gift that keeps on giving. Now, um, where were you when it came to whatever last article that you were about to read?

[01:00:55] Cybershortieee: Um, we did FBI and Delta.

[01:00:59] Henri: [01:01:00] Okay, so that means you were on... I'll probably do the, the Google Pixel 11 since, you know, I'm a Android stan. Oh, this is yours, the CISA rolls out the cybersecurity resources. Did you want that?

[01:01:13] Cybershortieee: Yes. So, we know that the education sector has been hit hard, and there are different tools that they use.

[01:01:22] Cybershortieee: Um, so the government cybersecurity agent, agency just dropped a free resource package called the K through 12 Cybersecurity Foundation Foundations Resource Package. It guides a six-part video series, a quick reference material to help schools and districts defend themselves, and it's free. Um, so schools are honestly one of the softest, most targeted, um, organizations out there.

[01:01:52] Cybershortieee: Think about what that district can hold. They have data on thousands of kids and staff. They have different devices, um, tons of [01:02:00] users with different access levels, and almost never enough budget or people to defend it. A cyber attack on a school doesn't just leak data, it can shut down learning entirely.

[01:02:09] Cybershortieee: Um, what I love is how practical this is. It's built around eight clear objectives, and it's basically a starter checklist for cybersecurity anywhere. So protect your login credentials, um, safeguard your devices, test your backups, build an IR plan, um, train your staff, manage sensitive data by putting policies into place.

[01:02:31] Cybershortieee: Um, make sure you're aligning your spending with a recognized framework. Um, and so the key takeaway really is if you've got kids in school, ask your district if they've seen this and if you are trying to break into cyber, this is free official structured material, um, that is a training goldmine. So CISA literally quoted their acting director saying, "School cyber is now a fundamental pillar of school safety."

[01:02:58] Cybershortieee: Um, so [01:03:00] translation, this is potentially a real funded growing space in order for you to build a career in. So, um, think about a GRC analyst, um, working in the public sector as a cybersecurity specialist, um, or a, um, cybersecurity salt consultant for that particular education industry.

[01:03:24] Henri: No, I think that's pretty cool because that's needed, right?

[01:03:30] Henri: These kids, a lot of their life is so digital, and for most of the time, we have been putting them on the internet without the proper guidance on how to be protected Am I wrong?

[01:03:47] Cybershortieee: Y- no, you're right. I think that schools, 'cause I know, like, where I'm from, I think that the district, the school district there, they only have one main person that's over all [01:04:00] the schools, and that's a lot of...

[01:04:02] Cybershortieee: It's a lot to be over one school, let alone all the schools in the district. So I think that there's definitely a, um, a gap.

[01:04:12] Henri: Yeah. Now, I will say- And- Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry ...

[01:04:15] Cybershortieee: just a gap in, like, the availability of the funds to pay people, multiple people. Like, there's money for it, but there's not money for it to be a SOC most times.

[01:04:26] Henri: Yeah.

[01:04:26] Cybershortieee: Most times, it's money for there to be one i- one, um, excuse me, admin.

[01:04:31] Henri: Yeah, a lot of times it's like assist admin and, uh, help this person. But- Yep ... now that you mention it, I see the opportunity for AI here for a agent, so a AI agent in these school districts to help with that. So now, certain detections or whatever it is, the human will review that type of stuff.

[01:04:52] Cybershortieee: Mm-hmm. '

[01:04:52] Henri: Cause that's the only way they'll be able to keep up with, with the threats, and as they keep on- Keep up with the volume ... attacking the, um, school districts. [01:05:00] Um, I remember like, um, was it Power Schools that the hacker hit? I think Power School got hit. Yep, you're right. So I'm very familiar with Power School, so yeah, man, that's, um It's tough.

[01:05:14] Henri: That's tough. But I like it. I like they're thinking in the right direction. Hopefully, um, they can get the funds to do that because, I mean, you know, when you really think about it, like how cool would it be? Like, I wouldn't mind one day, uh, working security for a school district or being over it. Like, 'cause truth be told, if they follow the governance risk and compliance stuff the right way, the controls, it shouldn't cost for too much.

[01:05:37] Henri: Like, 'cause you gotta have network seg-segmentation and just make sure you have adequate rules, um, whether it's schools or they're in the main school district. But it shouldn't be having the amount of traffic that the popular Fortune 50 companies are getting, in my experience.

[01:05:53] podcast sounds: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:54] Henri: In my experience. Um, now let's see.

[01:05:59] Henri: Let's have some [01:06:00] fun real quick. We didn't have some funny fun all day. Well, not fun fun, but like some things. I think this is good. I should've covered this right after we did the Reddit But I think this will be perfect for us. So let me do this. Let me... Oh, I need to bring this in. Give me a second, y'all.

[01:06:22] Henri: You should be able to hear this.

[01:06:23] podcast sounds: One of the worst things that I did in my decade-long corporate career was chase an unnecessary salary increase and leaving a very strong, healthy job environment that was going to allow me to grow. In my opinion, chasing a 10 to 15K salary increase, depending on where you live, ultimately is never worth it, depending on how great your situation already is.

[01:06:44] podcast sounds: I had a goal to become a director by 30, and I talked to my mentor at the time and he was like, "Look, you've been promoted twice, but there isn't any more movement vertically for you at this company, so you might have to go elsewhere." My first job was the perfect environment for me, right? Had a great manager, great [01:07:00] director, great ecosystem, and I traded that for essentially, hindsight, it's 2020, a very chaotic startup, which ended up laying off almost 25 to 30% of their employees within a few months.

[01:07:12] podcast sounds: Now, everything is a learning lesson, and when you're in your 20s and 30s, you should be maximizing your earning potential. But make it make sense. A 10K increase after taxes, and depending on if you live in a big city, you're not really feeling that increase at all. If you can, establish a great foundation at your first company when you're 22, 23 years old.

[01:07:31] podcast sounds: I did. I got promoted twice, senior level sales to procurement to strategic solutions manager, and I had reps under me at the age of 24. I did everything the right way, but I did not need to take on a new role. I was at my first company for two and a half, three years, I think three years, and I'm chasing a new opportunity.

[01:07:50] podcast sounds: Now, it did segue into a different industry, but it was only for a 10K increase. The best number for me to really entertain a salary increase, [01:08:00] at bare minimum is 15K, but I think it's that 20, 25. That's where you're gonna feel it. Anything less, 10, eight, 5K, that is not an increase, right? In your brain, just for the sake of numbers go, you increase, but you really didn't.

[01:08:16] podcast sounds: Don't chase it.

[01:08:18] Henri: No, hang on. Let's, let's do real quick. That was

[01:08:20] Cybershortieee: some real spill.

[01:08:21] Henri: For real. He a- a- a- ate down.

[01:08:25] Cybershortieee: Um, he definitely ate down because money is amazing. It's lovely. It's juicy. We love it. But so is the culture of that company, so is the benefits, so are the things that you can gain. And so if you're trading 15K for none of that in return, you're not gonna be happy.

[01:08:50] Cybershortieee: So was the money actually really worth it if you have to leave again?

[01:08:55] Henri: No, I agree. Like, oh, man, I could talk about this [01:09:00] Like a little bit. Um, no, but you know what? I never chased just, like, a small increase. I think like, uh, I think by the time I left Opto, if I was getting either 105 or 115, I can't remember.

[01:09:18] Henri: Matter of fact, while I was interviewing with Goldman Sachs, I think I was... I knew I was getting 130, 135. But like I said, I knew I was getting a, um, I had negotiated for the, the year following. So the, when January or February of 2022 started, that I was gonna get a bonus of 30K. So I made a strategic move there because one, the name recognition, the salary, and what I thought I was gonna be doing there, I played it p- smart.

[01:09:43] Henri: So I didn't try to just move for anything. 'Cause at the time at Opto I was remote, so I had a... It was a good environment. I was moving around. People knew my name based on my manager bragging on me. The client liked me. I was like one of the only analysts that actually went out to Burbank to the [01:10:00] client because they liked me so much back in 2019.

[01:10:03] Henri: I sh- I wish I could put the pictures up right here of the mountains I saw in Burbank. But a- all things being equal, I probably would've never left there because that's been like one of the few places that I got a chance to grow and, and do things. And I always say a lot of times when it comes to job hopping that people just go through, like he said, you go job hop.

[01:10:24] Henri: Let's say you were making 80,000, so you go job hop to a $90,000 role, but it's the same role. Eventually you'll probably job hop to 100,000, but now you can't make 150 because you've job hopped off to the same role, and you're at places where you're gonna be pegged right there. You don't get a chance to do anything else.

[01:10:43] Henri: Nobody really leaves the company or comes in, so you're just stuck. And that's where a lot of people don't know about. They just chasing the bag. Everybody told them to job hop, but they are not job hopping smartly. They are not job hopping into the roles that... [01:11:00] Well, I have people we, we trying to get... Uh, what I, what my last guy, I think we did like 40K increase for him.

[01:11:06] Henri: So we doing stuff smart. We not going, like, for the same stuff. We're interviewing better. Or I just posted about my guy who was interviewing for like the L1, like CTF analyst role at EY and they said, "Hey, you did so good. We wanna interview you for the senior level role." So most people, he's right. Now, the 10 to 15K will keep up with inflation, but if you got good benefits, you got a, a great manager where, like, they're not micromanaging you if you need to go to the doctor or your kid is sick or something, and they understand that, that's hard to come by.

[01:11:39] Henri: Other people, "Hey, I seen you was orange on Teams. Where you at?" You were like, "What you mean where you was at? Like I, I went to the bathroom."

[01:11:51] Henri: Like, you'll be like, "What's going on here?" And so that's why it's really good to try to be as strategic as you can and not simply chase [01:12:00] money. Look at what you're getting at your current company now and see if maybe you can't get the 15K there, but maybe if you get the experience, you'll get the role that pays you 20, 25, $30,000 at the next juncture So just be strategic and pay attention to that.

[01:12:21] Henri: I know some people may be in the comments or eventually whenever you watch this say, "Hey, everybody ain't able," and, and all that other stuff. But I mean, it's your life. Like at the end of the day, if you're single and stuff like that, it's different. If you're remote, by all means, hey. Like if it's... Now, if it's just a toxic environment, by all means leave.

[01:12:37] Henri: You gonna have to do what you gotta do. You don't need to stay nowhere where they not, uh, treating you the best way that you can be treated. So that's all I'll say with that. Since we on salaries, let's get back to another one that's talking about salaries, this HR chick.

[01:12:53] podcast sounds: Let's do this, Johnny. If the starting salary is high, I can promise you that company is going to show [01:13:00] you why.

[01:13:00] podcast sounds: You are either gonna be working your ass off with no work-life balance or it's gonna be the very expensive fall guy. And a lot of people want these jobs where they have the high starting salary, wanna make a certain amount, 'cause all you see is dollar signs. But what you don't see is the responsibility, the micromanaging, the constant calls, the after-hours, and all the things that comes along with that salary.

[01:13:23] podcast sounds: Please don't be naive to believe that a company is gonna pay you all this money and you not gonna work for it. I promise you they gonna get every cent worth out of your work ethic, I promise. And that's why when I work with my clients for my career strategy sessions, one of the things I ask them is about their work-life balance.

[01:13:41] podcast sounds: What are they looking for? What kind of flexibility do they need, or do they not care about flexibility? 'Cause those are very important questions to ask and to know before you apply for that job or when you go into those interviews. Because if you go in thinking that you're gonna have a high-paying salary and you just gonna be chilling behind the desk, I'm sorry, it's not happening.

[01:13:58] podcast sounds: Especially for my veterans who [01:14:00] feel stressed out in your positions they're in now. If that stresses you out, you ain't seen nothing yet on the civilian side. Trust me, when your job and your life is on the line, you start having a new sense of scared, I promise. But don't shoot the messenger. I'm just your HR girly, and I'm here to help.

[01:14:17] Henri: Nah, I, I agree with her. Speaking of, when the last time people talked about blind? Like, is blind still a thing?

[01:14:23] Cybershortieee: Yeah

[01:14:25] Henri: Is it f-

[01:14:26] Cybershortieee: Mm-hmm. What's the other one?

[01:14:30] Henri: Uh- Fishbowl ... Fishbowl, yeah. I don't even s- I still get messages on Fishbowl, but I don't know, like, uh, I don't know how, like, you know, what Fishbowl is doing right now.

[01:14:42] Henri: But nah, she's right though. That's the other part of it, like, hey, remember we talked about it a while ago, if you're getting a high salary, you're probably not gonna get a lot of training. You're gonna be working pretty fast. And so yeah.

[01:14:55] Cybershortieee: And- You're not about to make all this money and do nothing.

[01:14:57] Henri: Oh, yeah.

[01:14:58] Cybershortieee: That's, it's just not happening. [01:15:00] That's out. You're gonna have to work. You're gonna have to have some, a good solid skill set and-

[01:15:06] Henri: Yeah ...

[01:15:06] Cybershortieee: yeah. You might get some training, but it ain't gonna be, like, they're not gonna hold your hand.

[01:15:12] Henri: Right. If you don't wanna work, sell feet pics.

[01:15:18] Cybershortieee: What?

[01:15:18] Henri: No, I seen a couple, they paid for their wedding and everything because, um, I guess somebody said his, uh, fiance had nice feet, so he went in, helped her s- set the business up, and they been getting paid.

[01:15:30] Cybershortieee: It's him helping her set it up for

[01:15:32] Henri: me. I would. Shoot, why not? Just feet.

[01:15:39] Henri: I'm not mad. Any way you gotta survive in the world, do what you gotta do as long as it ain't illegal. That's, that's how I feel about it. 'Cause I-- That's what me and my barber was talking about earlier, though. We was talking about why is, uh, prostitution, um, like viewed as so bad? Like, the people not hurting nobody.

[01:15:55] Henri: I'm like, "Your boss or them, them people that go on them psycho killing sprees, they just pent up and [01:16:00] they need the release." But you done told them it's bad if they go buy some. Let them get that 40, $50 and get out, get on with their life.

[01:16:08] Cybershortieee: I'm dead, please.

[01:16:10] Henri: They know it's true. There's some men that's gonna listen back to this say, "Hey, man, he ain't lying

[01:16:16] Henri: Oh. Little

[01:16:16] Cybershortieee: bitty ball.

[01:16:20] Henri: You so Detroit. I mean Kalamazoo. I mean- I mean Flint ...

[01:16:27] Cybershortieee: Michigan. You meant, you, you never meant Flint.

[01:16:30] Henri: I'm being funny. Oh, speaking of, you know Clarissa fought last night?

[01:16:37] Henri: She did, she knocked the girl out

[01:16:40] Cybershortieee: I saw that the girl put the, put the towel

[01:16:43] Henri: in. Hell yeah, they doing it. You know what I need? Have you ever seen, uh, Rocky IV? I can't hear you. You said the Rock- you ever seen Rocky IV?

[01:16:52] Cybershortieee: That's the big dude boxer

[01:16:54] Henri: Yeah, with Sylvester Stallone.

[01:16:57] Cybershortieee: Yeah.

[01:16:58] Henri: Um, [01:17:00] you know that's a meme when they say, "Just throw in the towel."

[01:17:04] Cybershortieee: Yeah Was it a good fight? Or did you even watch it?

[01:17:08] Henri: Um, I was watching what I could. I was streaming it 'cause I'm like, I'm not paying for ... I only pay for fights that make sense. I don't pay for, um, the stuff that people just want me to pay for just because they say that I should pay for it. Like, that's kinda how I feel about that, so, um,

[01:17:26] podcast sounds: yeah.

[01:17:27] Henri: That, that's pretty much. Um, but let me, let me get into this, this Google Pixel 11 stuff real quick. Let me add another image real quick. So, um, with the Google Pixel 11

[01:17:42] Henri: At the hardware event, Google unveiled its next-generation device ecosystem featuring four new smartphones. The Pixel 11, that's sold at eight hundred and ninety-nine dollars. The Pixel 11 Pro, that's pretty much one thousand dollars. Pixel 11 Pro XL, that's one thousand dollars ninety-nine, one thousand [01:18:00] and ninety-nine dollars.

[01:18:02] Henri: And the foldable Pixel 11 Pro Fold, which is eighteen hundred dollars. Marking a hundred dollar price increase across the lineup, the devices are driven by Google's new Tensor G6 processor, manufactured on a three M node that delivers twenty percent better power efficiency, twenty-five percent faster web browsing, and fifty percent faster Tensor Processing Unit performance for on-device AI workloads.

[01:18:26] Henri: Google also introduced the Pixel Watch 5 and officially launched the Pixel Tag, Google's answer to Apple's AirTag, integrated into the Android Find My Device network with ultra-wideband precision tracking. So here are some of the key hardware and AI features. They have camera upgrades and instant night sight.

[01:18:44] Henri: So the Pixel 11 features a redesigned camera bar with a larger forty-eight megapixel main sensor, uh, one to one fifty-six inch and support for a hundred and twenty times Pro Zoom on the Pro models. Driven by the Tensor G6's [01:19:00] upgraded image signal processor, low light shots render up to four point five times faster using instant night sight.

[01:19:06] Henri: For y'all don't know, night sight is the way you can take pictures on a Pixel, and you don't have to use a flash. So it takes a picture and it uses AI in the background to give you a really good image that will look like you took it with a professional camera. So the upgraded TPU enables faster local AI tasks, including real-time multimodal voice translation with lower latency and local image generation features that operate without routing data through the cloud.

[01:19:31] Henri: Yeah, so they have a function where people who are deaf, if they are talking to you like on, uh, Google Meet or something like that, they can sign. No, no, no. I think it's either through Google Meet or just typical, um, messaging you, and then they can sign through that, and Google can interpret what you're signing and make the sentences for you and read it out to the person.

[01:19:52] Henri: So I thought that was pretty cool. Um, for battery and RAM adjustments, Google promises thirty-plus hours of battery life via adaptive battery [01:20:00] optimization. Base storage has been bumped to two hundred and fifty-six gigabytes on standard models through base Pro models start at twelve gigs of RAM, down from sixteen gigs in previous generations, with sixteen gig offered as a higher tier upgrade.

[01:20:14] Henri: So Google is positioning the Tensor as an AI engine first and a silicon processor second. With the Pixel Tag finally here, Google is trying to build a hardware ecosystem lock-in that directly challenges Apple's device network Which is interesting that they said that because I'm like, I mean, you just left out Samsung like they not a viable player.

[01:20:37] Henri: So, um, I don't know. I, I thought that was pretty cool. I love my Pixel devices. I tell anybody, "If you want to switch to Android but you're coming from iPhone, get a Pixel because it's vanilla Android." Now that means it's basic Android. It's not like Samsung. Back in the day, Samsung had this thing called TouchWiz, and it's pretty much a, a skin that they throw over Android where it's got all these bells and whistles [01:21:00] and stuff.

[01:21:01] Henri: The Google Pixel is pretty much simple. It works. It's fast. It's snappy. It does exactly what it needs to do, and still one of the best phones out. I mean, honestly, I actually probably like my Pixel more than Samsung. I literally just got the Samsung. I got this thing for the freaking privacy, uh, mirror feature that I don't even use.

[01:21:20] Henri: Like, ain't that crazy? I think that's most times, but I definitely do need to get another smartwatch. I don't know And we know Destiny will not get an Android. She almost got a Samsung, but, um, she got scared

[01:21:37] Cybershortieee: You hear me?

[01:21:39] Henri: I can hear you.

[01:21:41] Cybershortieee: Okay. I think my audio went out, but I was talking.

[01:21:44] Henri: Oh, what you saying?

[01:21:45] Henri: And

[01:21:45] Cybershortieee: I was rolling my eyes, 'cause you the biggest spokesperson. You swear, like please re- please.

[01:21:50] Henri: When I met with that, uh-

[01:21:51] Cybershortieee: Yo, he had two iPhones when I met him.

[01:21:54] Henri: N- no I didn't. Or did I?

[01:21:56] Cybershortieee: Yes, you did. You did.

[01:21:59] Henri: I might, I [01:22:00] mighta had, uh... Here go the iPhone right here, y'all

[01:22:04] Henri: So, um-

[01:22:06] Cybershortieee: It would be nice to have one

[01:22:08] Henri: I know. You should get... I think you, I think you would like the like-

[01:22:11] Cybershortieee: iPad.

[01:22:11] Henri: This thing got a lot of cool functions. I just, I'm out of the stage of where I used to really love like phones. Like, I wanted to be just like MKHD. I used to wanna review the phones and all that kind of stuff.

[01:22:23] Henri: I used to wanna do that, what, 16 years ago? But I grew out of that, so it doesn't really matter as much to me anymore. But, um, I do, I do need a smart watch. I don't know. That's what we need to start doing. We need to start saying things that we want so I can figure out, like, 'cause we didn't really exchange gifts, so I gotta figure out now a gift to get you that's not, um-

[01:22:46] Cybershortieee: Oh, gosh

[01:22:47] Cybershortieee: taboo. We should start now the way we get down for sure. Yeah.

[01:22:50] Henri: So I don't know. If I get a watch or before that, that's probably a, a good gift from me.

[01:22:55] Cybershortieee: A what?

[01:22:56] Henri: A, a smart watch. But I don't, but to me, like I used to have a Apple Watch. [01:23:00] I don't know where it's at. I lost it somewhere. I don't know where it's at.

[01:23:03] Henri: Um, I like to wear like real watches too, so I don't know. It's like in between for me. And I really don't need all the bells and whistles of the, whether it's the Galaxy Watch, the Pixel Watch or whatever. That's why sometimes I'll move with like a Fitbit or something, 'cause I, I just need my steps and all this other stuff for fitness purposes.

[01:23:23] Henri: I don't really care about other, the other stuff. As much as I love tech stuff, I don't care that much.

[01:23:29] Cybershortieee: I actually think that not wearing my watch has helped out with my ADHD.

[01:23:34] Henri: It's too much. It's, it's over-stimulation.

[01:23:36] Cybershortieee: Like, seriously. It's like I, every, "Oh my gosh, I need to get up. I need to walk. I need to get up.

[01:23:41] Cybershortieee: I need to walk." Or just can't even enjoy the workout 'cause you keep looking at the watch.

[01:23:45] Henri: The only benefits I found-

[01:23:47] Cybershortieee: And you're like, "Oh my gosh, how many calories have I burned?"

[01:23:48] Henri: The only benefits I found in my watch back in the day was when I used to have meetings, and I would turn my phone like on DND or something like that.

[01:23:56] Henri: I could see, oh, somebody text me, and then I'll go back to doing whatever. That's [01:24:00] truthfully, I used to use my-

[01:24:00] Cybershortieee: That was why I first, that's why I first got the watch so I could text on it at work.

[01:24:05] Henri: Yeah. That's honestly low-key, I used to leave my phone on DND like in the daytime a lot, but like now it be so much going on with the kids and stuff like that, I have to make sure...

[01:24:14] Henri: Well, technically anybody who needs to get through, that's in my favorites, they get through, so that don't really even matter. But it just sometimes be too much going on in your phone. You're like, "Bro, I don't care about all this stuff." Or I like that- Me ... the phones have like work modes now.

[01:24:27] Cybershortieee: Put your DND

[01:24:27] Henri: like.

[01:24:28] Henri: Yeah. Now they got work modes now. I think that's perfect, so.

[01:24:32] Cybershortieee: But- Yeah, where you can turn it, where it only lasts for a certain n- time frame.

[01:24:36] Henri: Yeah. I know you had that, um, Iranian, uh, water supply thing. I think you had that one. You wanna get that one real quick?

[01:24:46] Cybershortieee: Yes.

[01:24:48] podcast sounds: Excuse me

[01:24:51] Cybershortieee: Okay, so Iran in the water utilities. So we're in the cr-critical [01:25:00] infrastructure block now, and this is one that got national attention because it's about the water coming out of our taps. So since late July, water utilities across roughly a dozen US states have been hit by cyber attacks. It started with more than thirty communities in Minnesota getting hit in a coordinated wave on July 28th.

[01:25:18] Cybershortieee: Then the FBI said utilities in at least seven states reported incidents, and in some cases, the attacks degraded water operations. Since then, Arkansas, Georgia, New Jersey, Michigan. Real effects too. One Minnesota town had a take-- it had to take its water plant offline for hours and asked residents to conserve.

[01:25:40] Cybershortieee: A county outside Atlanta briefly told people to boil their water as a precaution. Now, I wanna be extremely careful and precise here because this is really, truly a developing story. Who did it? Officially, we don't know. The US government has not publicly named a culprit. The number one suspect is the Iranian [01:26:00] government, specifically the IRGC, and The Washington Post reported US intelligence agencies are, quote-unquote, "confident it's Iran."

[01:26:09] Cybershortieee: Um, why did this happen? The US has over one hundred and fifty thousand water systems, a lot of them run by small local operators who don't have the budget or the staff for serious cybersecurity. A security firm found over twenty-eight hundred water system controllers just sitting exposed on the open internet.

[01:26:28] Cybershortieee: Experts have literally called these systems low-hanging fruit. That's the vulnerability, not some genius hack, just a critical service that was never resourced to defend itself. Now, the takeaway that's almost more important than the actual attack itself is that the worst effect may be psychological. Even when water was fine, the fear spread.

[01:26:51] Cybershortieee: Making people afraid of something as basic as their own tap water, that might be the actual goal, which means one of your [01:27:00] be-best defenses as a citizen is not panicking and getting your information from real sources. Staying calm is a security posture. Um, so just another incident, um, and just kind of circling back to how our critical infrastructure security is a problem, um, from a financial funding perspective all the way down to a staffing problem

[01:27:25] Henri: Nah.

[01:27:26] Henri: Yeah, I agree. I definitely gotta get Gabe on for, for this stuff. And if you guys are listening to what we've been talking about, we've brought up water and everything else the last couple of weeks. It's a good time to get into energy and utilities I have a client that is about to do that. He's about to get-- He got- Get to that as they do.

[01:27:49] Henri: Yeah, he got offered a role with a utilities company in Houston, and he's gonna be on more on the security IT side, but- Mm-hmm ... he will get some [01:28:00] experience learning the OT side. So he probably eventually wanna move to that OT side, because once you do that, you straight, you can go work anywhere. Everybody don't have OT experience, and it sucks because there's a lot of people that wanna do it, but how to train them and all the other stuff.

[01:28:13] Henri: And I know I got another guy who did an internship and did stuff in the OT environment. So, um, yeah, man, it'll get scary though. People doing stuff to your water. Yeah. And, um, I know in my notes, which by the way, y'all don't know that me and her always go back and forth about Claude and Gemini, but Gemini be, as she say, be eating down on these thumbnails I've been putting out for y'all, by the way.

[01:28:40] Henri: Um- So some of the operational impacts it was talking about was con- when it's connected to the exposed control panels, the attackers wipe operational configs and alter sensor reporting readouts and force several facilities to shut down automated processing, requiring operators to switch to manual [01:29:00] chemical processing and issue temporary boil water advisories, which is crazy.

[01:29:04] Henri: Let's take it a step further. Let's say they messed up all the readers, and so you normally pay $50 for your water, now your bill say

[01:29:11] Cybershortieee: 1,500. 15,000.

[01:29:15] Henri: Right. And do they have something automatically say, "Hey, that's what it say you owe. If you don't do this, we can come to turn your water off"?

[01:29:23] Cybershortieee: And they will come turn your water off.

[01:29:24] Henri: Exactly. And so think about what type of... And this is a physical DDoS. Imagine everybody calling in now of like, "Hey, what's going on with my bill? Why it shoot up 1000%?" So the root cause is like basic network hygiene failures, including unsegmented operational technology networks, legacy remote access systems left unmonitored, and administrator credentials remaining set to factory defaults were some of the main issues of how this stuff is happening.

[01:29:55] Henri: And so yeah, man, I'm, um, I don't know. Side note, [01:30:00] this is random. Did you see in my story when I posted, uh, what AJ wish he could've posted on, um, LinkedIn?

[01:30:08] Cybershortieee: Mm-mm. I haven't been on IG.

[01:30:11] Henri: You didn't see it?

[01:30:12] Cybershortieee: Mm-mm.

[01:30:14] Henri: Man, I have to show it to you, but pretty much, uh, I don't know if Lee still in here watching, but Lee had sent me a, a Reddit where people was pretty much hating on AJ.

[01:30:21] Henri: So AJ had this post- A

[01:30:22] Cybershortieee: Reddit is crazy, please. AJ

[01:30:25] Henri: had this post of like, "Yo, okay, y'all trying to hate on me. Let me tell you," or, "Let me show you what I've did." But what I took a step further is I screenshot that post and then I put on my story and said, "This what AJ... If LinkedIn could let you make posts with music, this what he would've posted," and it was Ice Cube, No Vaseline.

[01:30:46] Henri: So I'm like, I definitely would've said that too on, on people like... I don't know what they say on folks now.

[01:30:51] Cybershortieee: A Reddit is crazy.

[01:30:53] Henri: They do that, but you know what though? While we are already here on that type of stuff, they only do that when it's us doing it. Like anybody [01:31:00] else wanna go out and start something and help people, I don't care if they charging a dollar or $10,000, they only gonna talk about us, nobody else.

[01:31:09] Henri: 'Cause it, it, it happened to Boy, they doing a... Mind you, AJ, the G- GRC Engineering Club is only $10 a month $10 a month. Matter of fact, you know what? Let me... I gotta give my guy like, this is free promo. Let me, let me go find that, the thing. Or did I, uh... Let me see something real quick

[01:31:32] Henri: You ever heard of no Vaseline?

[01:31:35] Cybershortieee: Nope.

[01:31:36] Henri: Have you ever seen Straight Outta Compton?

[01:31:39] Cybershortieee: Straight Outta Compton, yeah.

[01:31:41] Henri: So do you remember when, uh, Ice Cube, he got away from, um, everybody? And let me see. I'm gonna save this image[01:32:00]

[01:32:00] Cybershortieee: Do you eat cr- you do eat crab, right?

[01:32:03] Henri: Mm-hmm. You

[01:32:05] Cybershortieee: don't? You know, the little mini ones? Quit playing. You know I love me some crab legs.

[01:32:11] Henri: No, I don't. You a, uh, you the type of people that like them crabs from like Maryland with the, with the old bay and stuff on them

[01:32:20] Cybershortieee: And you the type of person that wants some of them nasty red things, right?

[01:32:23] Henri: No, I don't. I li- yeah, I love to see roaches, but I don't... Honestly, I don't, I didn't even eat none this time. Like, I don't eat them that much. So you can see this, right?

[01:32:33] Cybershortieee: You burned out on them?

[01:32:34] Henri: Yeah.

[01:32:35] Cybershortieee: No, I don't see anything. Hold on.

[01:32:38] Henri: You sure? You should be able to see it on the back end.

[01:32:42] Cybershortieee: No.

[01:32:43] Henri: Inside of, uh, StreamYard.

[01:32:46] Cybershortieee: Nothing.

[01:32:47] Henri: You gotta be able to see this So it don't show you nothing? Well, if you go on, if you go on YouTube, you'll be able to see what I'm showing, but everybody can see it, so. AJ says, "Somebody called me a fraud, so I pulled the receipts." [01:33:00] D1 a- hang on. Dang it, I ain't gonna be able to do this the way I want to.

[01:33:04] Henri: But it says, "D1 athlete, three degrees, two masters, one from Georgetown, a captain in the US Army, ranked number one officer of my battalion as a captain, helped build Coal Fire SOC 2 practice from just nine of us, built the GRC startup to 1.5 million, sold it to a top 20 CPA firm, made partner at that firm, led GRC engineering at one of the largest federal agencies in the country, SANS instructor, wrote a bestseller in GRC that still sells 100 copies a month, built the GRC community for under $10 a month, passed 1,000 members, shared that revenue with the people putting in the work, published my first-- published my thinking under my own name and defended it in public, taught 250,000 people GRC on LinkedIn, helped dozens of them get hired.

[01:33:49] Henri: Oh yeah, a L8 GRC engineer at Rippling. Roosevelt gave credit to the man in the arena marred by dust and sweat and blood [01:34:00] So I was mad 'cause I wanted to do this after every take, every time he said something

[01:34:13] Henri: So I know they felt that way. 'Cause I like that. I like-

[01:34:17] Cybershortieee: I'm so stuck on Reddit ...

[01:34:19] Henri: I like when people talk like spicy and then you clap back. 'Cause I, like people do that occasionally sometimes people will come through my stuff and say something dumb to me, and then I'll be like, "Well, you can just go look me up.

[01:34:31] Henri: Like Google me." Like for real. Like now I'm at the point where I can say, "Hey, Google me."

[01:34:37] Cybershortieee: No, literally.

[01:34:39] Henri: Um, I think we got through most of the topics, but, um, something about a seesaw hiring I found, but I wanna go back into some more of the stuff that we were doing with the Windows captures and the TikToks, 'cause we didn't have many.

[01:34:55] Henri: Um- One of our favorite [01:35:00] guys. I need to bring him on

[01:35:03] podcast sounds: With working in tech, there always comes a small chance that you can get laid off, whether it be to budget cuts or company restructuring or overall just not making quota. There's always a chance that you will get laid off. And being laid off sucks. It truly does, which is why you always have to have something in your back pocket, whether it's a group of recruiters that you know or just an application that's been sitting there and you haven't been ready to send it off.

[01:35:30] podcast sounds: Overall, having something in the back pocket just in case because just like that, they can let you go. And just like that, you could leave, whether it's to, you know, have a better skill set somewhere else or just a better opportunity opened up. And in my mind, I've done it before. I've had a job where I really, really love what I do, but they just weren't given enough.

[01:35:56] podcast sounds: And I'm like, you know what? A better opportunity opened up. I love this job. I [01:36:00] love where I am. But at the same time, charge it to the game. I'm not going to stick around. And a lot of people say that the job market isn't good enough for that. And I honestly believe it is because when you have a job, people want you.

[01:36:13] podcast sounds: But when you don't have a job, people don't want you. It's weird. I don't know. It all depends on what side of the job market you're on.

[01:36:24] Cybershortieee: He ate down.

[01:36:30] Henri: But nah, in all seriousness though, T-Wrek

[01:36:37] Henri: He right

[01:36:37] Cybershortieee: When you got a job everybody wants you. When you don't got a job they don't want you.

[01:36:41] Henri: Yeah. I mean, think about it. You know, everything... It's a lot of parallels to, like, being single, but let you pop out right now, and I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about generally to whoever's watching. Let you say you got a new boo.

[01:36:56] Henri: How many people gonna DM you? How many women or [01:37:00] men gonna be like, "Oh, you know, I had a crush on you, I always liked you"? Like, did, did you watch OG Power?

[01:37:08] Cybershortieee: Yeah.

[01:37:09] Henri: You know, when Rashad Tate on that GIF, and he say, "Nigga, what?" When Tariq ask him for that money. Like, you be like, "Huh?" But it's true. Like, people want what they can't have.

[01:37:22] Henri: So in the job sense, this is the reason why I tell people I don't agree with having open to work on your profile.

[01:37:32] Cybershortieee: Yep.

[01:37:32] Henri: A job wants to feel like they have the candidate, the candidate everybody want, else wants. Similar to women or men, they want whoever they feel like everybody else want. Yeah. Like, yeah, this me.

[01:37:43] Henri: Look. Like Eric Bellinger got a song that say, uh, "If they ain't looking I don't want her." If they ain't looking, I don't want that girl. That's literally the hook he said on the song. That's literally what he's saying. So having said all that, if they ain't poaching, they don't want you[01:38:00]

[01:38:03] Henri: When you are in a position of needing a role, it's always hard to get a role. When you have a role, everybody's saying, "Hey, I see that you're doing the work at whatever company. Let me tell you what we're doing over here and see if you'd be interested." No, or they say, "If you're interested, hey, click my link and schedule a 30-minute call

[01:38:24] Henri: And most of the time in those situations, the real recruiters will post the range so you know if it's gonna even be worth your, worth your time or not. Now granted, I wanna let y'all know this is not a one-to-one to your real life when it comes to dating, 'cause if you got a good thing, hold on to it. When it come to your job, your job could be a good thing turns to a bad thing.

[01:38:45] Henri: So it ain't the same. I just wanna make that delineation clear, all right? But all in all, he's right. And you start feeling jaded once you've been laid off. Like last, um, time I was laid off [01:39:00] was, what It was how many years ago? Eight years ago. That's the last time I was laid off, and I'm still-

[01:39:08] Cybershortieee: How long was your stint?

[01:39:10] Henri: Four to five months. I got texted. They let me all know in January I was getting laid off, but they said, "Hey, we're gonna keep you on payroll till about February, so that's when you're gonna be laid off." So we go February, March, April, May. I got the offer late May. And you

[01:39:26] Cybershortieee: started in June.

[01:39:27] Henri: And I started in June, and then we started the contract for the actual company in July, so...

[01:39:33] Henri: But-

[01:39:33] Cybershortieee: Is that with the one where you were saying, like, you was about to crash out?

[01:39:36] Henri: For sure. I'm, I'm telling- Yeah ... like, people, all right, go. Well,

[01:39:40] Cybershortieee: no, like when, with the recruiter.

[01:39:41] Henri: Yeah. I'll tell people. I, I- The one that

[01:39:43] Cybershortieee: had like, went ghost.

[01:39:45] Henri: Yeah, I made that video, like, twice about on my old channel, on the other channel about when I got laid off and things not to do and what to do about, hey, make sure you got a gym membership.

[01:39:54] Henri: You can get unemployment and you can go do dr- uh, rideshare, so you can just make ends meet, 'cause [01:40:00] truth be told, I think... I don't know. I think I got deep on that one. I was just talking about how, like, a lot of us, if we, like, first-gen graduates, a lot of times we might've been the person who was helping out a lot of the immediate family, but there's really not nobody there to help you when you got laid off and- Nope

[01:40:16] Henri: where you didn't prepare for a layoff, where that your money start getting funny. Like, I looked up, 'cause I was at UD at the time, so, like, when I got laid off, I got, like, six weeks of a severance, plus I got my bonus paid out 100%. But like I said, if I go back in time, I'm like, "Look, I need three months' severance."

[01:40:33] Henri: So I had to start getting to where I made the hard choices like, "Hey, do I pay rent with this unemployment or do I pay my car note?" And to the point where I had to choose rent, and I was like, "I will eventually catch up on the car." And I never got too bad. I think I might've been a month or two behind, but I caught that up pretty fast once I got the new job.

[01:40:50] Henri: But I had to make some tough decisions. You're looking at, you're looking- But I

[01:40:55] Cybershortieee: think that's, I think it's important too, though.

[01:40:57] Henri: Yeah, for sure. You look in the fridge [01:41:00] and-

[01:41:00] Cybershortieee: Give people this... Well, no, just even having this discu- Oh my God, I can't even talk. From just having this discussion, like, we talk a lot about how good it can be, but we don't really talk about the difficulties and how challenging it can be and how to maneuver in that season and in those spaces and, and how vulnerable it is-

[01:41:24] Henri: Yeah

[01:41:24] Cybershortieee: truly.

[01:41:25] Henri: For sure, for sure. And that's when, like, I'm just gonna keep it a, a straight being. That's when you see who really rock with you. You- That

[01:41:33] Cybershortieee: part ...

[01:41:34] Henri: you see who really rock with you. It's like, "Hey, uh, shoot, you want me to bring you some food?" Or something like that. Like, a person say that, like, this is a... I did the episode with Chris, and I was telling him it was, like, little stuff like that be hard for me to let go.

[01:41:45] Henri: Because if I feel like something I really needed at a time I didn't have, and you did something for me, like, no matter what happens between us, I still feel like a, like you was, you was there for me when I needed it. Which I said-

[01:41:57] Cybershortieee: Somebody showed up to you in a time of need.

[01:41:59] Henri: Right. [01:42:00] Which I said could be a good or a bad thing depending on how you're looking at it, 'cause sometimes it could be to a fault.

[01:42:04] Henri: But at the same time, like, that's the... You don't ever forget it. Like, I... So when I'm working with people and we having calls about they've been unemployed for a long time, I say, "Look, I get it." Wake up in the morning, I used to wake up, like, at 7 or 8, 'cause it's best to a- apply either late at night or early in the morning so you show up first so they can, like, hopefully select you or not.

[01:42:25] Henri: I'm doing my outreach on LinkedIn, and if don't nothing happen by, like, 12:00 or 1:00, I'm like, "Okay, I'm ready for the day to end so it can be the new day." And so I, I understand what everything people going through. That's why, like, you gotta go to the gym, you gotta go out and walk. Like, I'm thinking when I was-- we was talking about the, the, uh, Texas Instruments role, I'm out for my birthday like, "Yeah, I'm finna get a job offer."

[01:42:49] Henri: I'm, I'm, I'm out there spending money that I needed 'cause I'm thinking I'm finna get a job 'cause they told me, "Hey-"

[01:42:54] Cybershortieee: I'm about to crash out, bye.

[01:42:56] Henri: Listen, you see I'm, I'm having a good time. Like, no,

[01:42:58] Cybershortieee: like I'm crashing. [01:43:00]

[01:43:00] Henri: I'm going to Topgolf, we out in Uptown. I'm like, "Oh yeah, I'm straight." This money I need. This is money I need.

[01:43:08] Henri: And so a lot of people, you know, and I'm saying this too because, like, most of the time all you hear about is, like, get into tech, get into tech, but we don't never really have these authentic conversations of like, hey, when you hit rock bottom, you hit rock bottom. Of like-

[01:43:24] Cybershortieee: We should talk, we should maybe talk about that next episode.

[01:43:26] Henri: For sure. I, I mean, I can,

[01:43:28] Cybershortieee: I can- Like, a deeper dive into, like... Like, be- 'cause I mean, you know I've been vulnerable about-

[01:43:32] Henri: Yeah ...

[01:43:34] Cybershortieee: how long it took me to get a job.

[01:43:36] Henri: Yeah. If we ever, um, if we ever had, like, a Patreon episode where I can actually talk about some stuff I probably wouldn't wanna share on YouTube- Real

[01:43:43] Henri: where I'll be like-

[01:43:44] Cybershortieee: Exactly ...

[01:43:45] Henri: depression and some stuff like- Mm-hmm ... "Hey, dog, you would, like..." A person who I don't never be depressed, I'm like, "Dang, I was low-key depressed but didn't know it." Or the fact that where what happens after you get a job after a layoff, you're always looking over your [01:44:00] shoulder hoping like, dang, anytime you hear a Teams message or a, a email you weren't expecting, you're like, "Dang, they finna, like, let me know I'm about to go?"

[01:44:07] Henri: You go through that for a long time, and sh- it's, it's a lot. So I definitely, I understand. That's the part no- nobody understand. So when-

[01:44:17] Cybershortieee: And also, too- Mm-hmm ... everybody, everybody has, like, a different ceiling.

[01:44:21] Henri: Mm-hmm.

[01:44:22] Cybershortieee: Like a... And when I say that, like, every, that, like, I, I'm not even necessarily dollar amount, but let's just say dollar amount.

[01:44:29] Cybershortieee: Like, some folks who have experienced more traumatic things in their lives, like maybe they have been displaced from their homes or- Mm-hmm ... um, their vehicles or their family, and so their ceiling is gonna be different from somebody who has never experienced that. And so your ceiling also plays a play in that as well.

[01:44:48] Cybershortieee: Like, what do you consider to be rock bottom?

[01:44:51] Henri: Oh, yeah. For sure. I agree. I agree. Like I said, for me, it was like that little... Like, and then this is why I feel [01:45:00] like, um, unemployment is trash. Unemployment should be, "Hey, whatever you was getting paid or, like, we're gonna give you, like, 80% of whatever you was getting paid."

[01:45:10] Henri: It shouldn't be, like, so low. Like, it reminds me of when COVID happened, where people who were high earners took a L. Like, even if they got the extra $600, it wasn't enough because they was getting paid way more than that. And that's why I think, like, unemployment should be changed. Hey, make it... You got the IRS documents.

[01:45:29] Henri: Make them joints be related to what they had so people ain't out here struggling and stuff when they got families, people finna lose they mind. Like, in my instance, I was having people like, "Hey, you was the most qualified, but we gonna go with somebody else." What? What, how am I the most qualified- Where the hell?

[01:45:43] Henri: you gonna go with somebody else?

[01:45:47] Cybershortieee: About to say something, it just slipped my mind

[01:45:48] Henri: You were gonna say what about what, uh, the something

[01:45:51] Cybershortieee: Um

[01:45:57] Cybershortieee: Oh, I'm annoyed. I just forgot

[01:45:58] Henri: This was literally me when I was reading [01:46:00] them emails.

[01:46:01] podcast sounds: Come on now, dog. Come on, man.

[01:46:06] Henri: I could catch a break. But the crazy thing is- No, for real ... it always works like this, and if you just tuning in or you been rocking with us, if you've been through this or going through it, when you get the first offer, for whatever reason, everybody wanna start getting with you.

[01:46:20] Henri: You start getting hit up from everything and all that. Similar to, like I was talking about, if I reverse it back what we was talking about, when you are, have a job and people want you, when you announce that job, the recruiters instantly start messaging you. When you pop out with that check, everybody start getting at you.

[01:46:37] Henri: Man, please. Please. It's the same way. Like, you be like, "Bro, this ain't it, fam." And don't even talk about all the... We ain't even talking about the messy stuff where they just go out their way to just let somebody know they was talking to you at one point in time You be like, "Go touch grass, dog."

[01:46:55] Cybershortieee: Girl, what was I about to say?

[01:46:57] Henri: If you remember it, let me know. Um [01:47:00] I think the last one I wanna touch on is this, um, these guys, I have not... I gotta get on this show. I really, I tune into their content from time to time, but I do like 'em. Um, Cold Nowhere Podcast. That's them. Cold Nowhere Podcast. And, um, they were reading, like, a CIS admin story.

[01:47:20] podcast sounds: This is from r/sysadmin. Hey, that's what I am. At my last job, instead of sending out a large update package with forced reboot to our pilot group, I accidentally selected the wrong group in the dropdown and went out to production. This was done through daily tasks, and I pretty much caught myself immediately.

[01:47:31] podcast sounds: Of course, my stomach sank unfor- sunk. Unfortunately, there was no way to roll back this deployment. How'd I get out of it? I immediately gave my manager a call, let him know what I did. He was upset, but understood mistakes happen. I told him, "I made this mistake. I'm gonna own this immediately and not play clueless once the calls start rolling in."

[01:47:41] podcast sounds: Shit happens. I never made that mistake again, and my behavior in the face of a bad situation saved myself and management a lot of headache. See that sound? That's, that's, that's good. Accountability is good. Yeah. That's the kind of you wanna tell in a job interview, like- Yeah, I was about to say, that's like a good- That's, that's a perfect-

[01:47:50] podcast sounds: good example ... job interview shit. Like, that's one of those questions they usually

[01:47:52] Henri: ask. I actually gotta pause it 'cause he's right because w- and I was struggling at this too. They'll ask you, "Hey, tell me about a [01:48:00] time you made a mistake or you failed." That's a perfect thing right there of how you owned up and you learn from it.

[01:48:07] Henri: So one thing you need to prepare, 'cause I was telling my client this, "Hey, have your five to 10 stories ready for your scenario questions. Make sure you get stuff where you either disappointed leadership or you messed up or you got feedback you didn't like. Write them down because they may ask that."

[01:48:23] podcast sounds: Situation where something went wrong and how- Yeah. How did you handle it? Exactly. Yeah. I mean, they probably won't like the part that you forced everyone's PCs across the entire organization to reboot, but- Yeah, that's- ... kinda saved it last minute, you know? ... probably a good million in, uh, revenue just, you know, down the drain.

[01:48:34] podcast sounds: But, you know, don't, maybe don't tell them that part, but tell the part where you fixed it. Maybe replace your name with someone else and then be like, "Oh, yeah, but I fixed it." You know what I'm saying? I fixed it. It's just stretching the truth.

[01:48:44] Henri: That's pretty quick. That actually remind me too of, like, um, the...

[01:48:49] Henri: I, I don't know. I'll probably talk about that offline. But nah, man, I don't know. I started get- I start, really started getting fired up talking about that unemployment stuff 'cause that really still made me... I still be hot to this day about some of that stuff that I [01:49:00] went through in that situation. It's eight years ago I still be hot

[01:49:05] Cybershortieee: I think that'll be a good, a good, uh, subject.

[01:49:09] Henri: Oh yeah, for sure. It's, it's, it'll be a good panel for people who do that 'cause, so I know like me and Bryson gonna do a part two pretty soon, and we can talk about some of that stuff and, and unpack it and how it probably makes you feel at every job you take after being laid off, if you've been laid off multiple times.

[01:49:27] Henri: So I don't know. It, uh, yeah, like I said, it would make me feel a way. Feel like RIP Rich Homie. Um, let me see. What else we got left? Uh, I think we made it to the end, guys. We've been talking about for what, two years now about a live thing, but I don't know. I'm gonna get with Destiny and maybe where she had her book signing, we can do some type of event there before year end.

[01:49:54] Henri: Like, that'll be the goal. Like, if we can just do that, that'll be so fun, uh, to do it there and, and get [01:50:00] people to come fly in and rock with us.

[01:50:02] Cybershortieee: Good

[01:50:03] Henri: space. Good space, and we can have good fun. Uh, I know some chefs or you can do the chef.

[01:50:09] Cybershortieee: Yeah. You not call my guy?

[01:50:11] Henri: It depends though. We gotta see where- Did he eat?

[01:50:13] Henri: Where we... I ate a little bit. I didn't eat a lot. I didn't wanna be doggish. I ate towards the end. But Mary, you said you had a lot of food left over.

[01:50:20] Cybershortieee: Yeah, we did. I was like, "Throw that away. I'm not taking potatoes home please." '

[01:50:23] Henri: Cause like I'm like- Now

[01:50:24] Cybershortieee: they ate all the meat.

[01:50:26] Henri: I'm thinking like, you know, some grilled chicken.

[01:50:30] Henri: I know we gotta also have both-

[01:50:32] Cybershortieee: Salmon ...

[01:50:33] Henri: salmon, that's fine. We can have shrimp. We can have shrimp. Some, some al- what they call au gratin potatoes. You know what I'm saying?

[01:50:44] Henri: Um, yeah. We, we can do that then. That, that punch was good too. The punch that y'all had was good.

[01:50:51] Cybershortieee: I can get some of that too.

[01:50:52] Henri: Yeah, we can do that. Oh, and I got, um, Harold hit me up today. He was like, "Yo, what else y'all need out of shirts?" I was like, "Shoot, we need some hats." So [01:51:00] be on the lookout for that. I'ma figure out how we can replicate some of that stuff, uh, 'cause my, my guy Harold is the dog.

[01:51:07] Henri: And, um, but yeah, I appreciate y'all for rocking with us. We almost two hours in. I appreciate we got 17 people in here. Like I said, y'all don't know, but, uh, it's meant a lot to me the fact that the numbers that we've been hitting on the individual episodes are in comparison to what we were doing on a 40,000, 46,000, 47,000 subscriber channel.

[01:51:28] Henri: So I have no doubt in my mind that as we keep on getting more popular, that we are going to do better numbers. Like, for example, some, one of our best episodes, I think we might've hit like three or 4K, but that was an episode that probably should've been 10K, but because of the channel it was on, it was limited.

[01:51:44] Henri: I feel like we won't have that problem on here 'cause it's, it's gonna be to the right audience. So that's why. But yeah, man, appreciate y'all. Y'all pray for, uh, Shorty's mic and make sure it's not echoing next time. But [01:52:00] until next time, stay tension. We out. Peace