1069 – A New Way To Log In: Tom talks Passkeys

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

In this episode of Screw the Commute, Tom Antion and IT expert Larry discuss passkeys, why passwords are increasingly broken, and how passkeys improve both security and convenience for logging into websites.
Why Passwords Are a Problem
• People have hundreds of passwords, leading to password fatigue.
• Reusing passwords is common but extremely insecure.
• Passwords are vulnerable to hacking, phishing, and social engineering.
• Even password managers, while helpful, still rely on a master password.
What Passkeys Are
• Passkeys are a passwordless login method.
• They use public/private key cryptography, not something you type or remember.
• Typically set up using a smartphone, often via scanning a QR code.
• No password is exchanged or stored that a hacker can steal.
How Passkeys Work (Simply)
1. A website shows a QR code or prompts for passkey login.
2. Your smartphone authenticates you securely.
3. A cryptographic exchange happens between your device and the website.
4. You’re logged in — no password involved.
5. Each login uses fresh cryptographic data, making reuse impossible.
Security Benefits
• Immune to phishing and social engineering attacks.
• Nothing to “give away” — no username or password.
• Biometrics (Face ID / fingerprint) are not stored or shared.
• Hackers can’t intercept anything useful.
Convenience Benefits
• Faster logins after initial setup.
• No need to remember, reset, or rotate passwords.
• Works across devices via systems like:
o Apple iCloud Keychain
o Google Password Manager
Where Passkeys Fit in the Security Hierarchy
From weakest to strongest:
1. Simple passwords
2. Strong, complex passwords
3. Password managers (RoboForm, 1Password, etc.)
4. Passkeys (best option currently available)
Practical Advice
• Start small: enable passkeys on your most critical account (email or banking).
• Gradually expand as you get comfortable.
• Not all websites support passkeys yet — expect a mix for now.
• Continue using password managers for:
o Sites without passkey support
o Secure notes (SSNs, safe combos, recovery info)
Additional Security Tips
• Avoid logging into sensitive accounts on public Wi-Fi.
• Use a VPN when traveling or on unsecured networks.
• Consider dedicated devices for banking if possible.
• Avoid “Sign in with Google/Facebook/Apple” when possible — losing one account can lock you out of many.
Bottom Line
Passkeys represent a rare case where security and convenience both improve. They eliminate passwords, block phishing, and simplify logins. While still rolling out, they are clearly the future of authentication and worth adopting gradually—especially for high-risk accounts.

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Episode 1069 - Passkeys
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1069 of Screw the Commute podcast. And today we're going to talk about a crazy thing that's been bugging the crap out of me called Passkeys and bringing on my right hand, left hand head, top man, low man. I don't know what you call him, Larry. It's good to tell you and help you figure this stuff out. I know you're seeing more of these all the time. All right. I hope you didn't miss episode 1068. That was, uh, business mistake. That cost me five years of low, low fees. So you don't want to make that mistake. All right. Pick up a copy of our automation book. screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Make sure you pick up version 3.0. That's the latest. And check out my mentor program. Greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. And my school at IMTCVA.org, certified to operate by the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning and you get a scholarship to it. If you're in my mentor program.

[00:01:33] All right. Let's talk about Passkeys. Now, this has been bugging the heck out of me. I go to log into a site or go to a new site that I want to get an account at, and they say, well, go ahead and generate a passkey. And I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. Passkey. And so when this happened enough, I called up Larry and I said, Larry, we got if I don't know this somebody you know. And I'm here all day, every day logging in to sites and stuff. I'm sure the folks out there need to know about this. So, Larry, take it away and tell us about passkeys.

[00:02:11] Okay. So before anybody starts freaking out and thinking there's going to be way over their head, it will not be. I will keep this really simple. What I want you to get out of this episode is what Passkeys are, and how you can implement them in your business, slowly and safely. We don't want to rush this, so I feel your pain. Let me start with this. I've been in the IT field for a very long time, but I still run into the same problems that everybody else does. I forgot my password. This thing wants me to change my password, but I just changed my password. You know what I mean? And sometimes you get into these loops about having to fix your password. Get a new password. The last password you used was no good, and yada, yada, yada. So here's what this is all about. Everybody, anywhere that's on the internet and does any of this stuff for a living knows that passwords are basically broken. Why are they broken? Because you can't remember all of them. Yeah, you can write them down in a little book. You can put them in a, uh, you can put them in a text document on your computer and all that stuff. But for the most part, they're broken, and they are still the top thing that's required when you sign into a website. It is very rare that you can get away without using a password. Now, I have to say that lately in the last few months, I've noticed that certain websites are now sending you an email to the email on record for your account, which contains a special six digit code. What they want you to do is take that code and type it into the screen that you're looking at that substitutes for a password. It's a little bit better because you don't have anything to remember, because the email actually tells you what it is.

[00:03:58] Yeah, I actually like that method.

[00:04:00] It's I certainly from a remembrance standpoint, that's great. As long as you get the email, you're in good shape.

[00:04:06] Yeah. And you know I have those password like roboform I've been using for many, many years that keeps all my encrypted passwords and all that. But still I got to log into it to get it working, and it quits after a couple of minutes so it doesn't so you don't accidentally leave it open.

[00:04:24] Yeah, exactly. Exactly right. Now, what Tom is talking about is what's called a password manager. There's a variety of these things. Roboform is one. One password is another one, and there's a whole bunch of them out there. What they do is try and make your password life easier by managing all the passwords you need for all the websites you visit, and they also make the passwords long and random. So it's much, much more difficult to crack them. At the same time, you're never going to remember them. This is why you need a password manager.

[00:04:56] Now only Chrome and Google and stuff, you know, because it keeps asking me, do you want me to save this into. Yes.

[00:05:02] All modern browsers have their own version of a password manager.

[00:05:07] Seems to me that'd be just begging for somebody to hack it.

[00:05:11] Well, that. That is why I'm glad you mentioned that. That is why I would certainly recommend you get a separate password manager. Chrome just recently had a bug found in their password manager subsystem or whatever they call it in the Chrome browser. So that had to be patched. So it's can see here's what we're trying to do here. There is convenience and then there's security. When you put those two together they don't coexist nicely.

[00:05:40] Right.

[00:05:40] You need to balance that. Do I want convenience or do I want security. Because I can tell you this, folks, we could lock up the internet and make this so secure that nobody could break into it or crack it or anything, and then you would find the internet completely useless. You'd pull your hair out and say, forget it. I don't want this stuff, I give up. On the other hand, though, if we make this very, very convenient for you, then it becomes very convenient for those that wish to do harm, making it much easier for them to crack passwords, break into websites, and you know what happens after that. So we're always looking for a balance. The latest balance is what's called passkeys. So what is Passkeys do for you? It's an extension of what I just mentioned about getting an email with a six digit code. It does security wise. It does about the same thing. So let me just give you a quick example of how this works. I ran into this just the other day, so I know this is spreading more and more on many of the major websites. When you click sign in or log in or whatever it says on the website, it will usually prompt you with another screen that says enter your email address and your password. Sometimes it'll go a little further. It'll say login with Apple or sign in with Google now we have another podcast that we went over that why? That's not a good idea.

[00:07:00] Yeah. What episode was it?

[00:07:02] Yeah. I'll have to go look and see which episode that was.

[00:07:04] We'll put it in the show notes.

[00:07:05] Yeah, definitely put it in the show notes, but that bears repeating. The reason why it's not a good idea. Here's the one sentence phrase for it is that if you ever lose the credentials for Apple, Google, Facebook, not only is it going to not allow you to log into Facebook, but it's going to knock you out of any other site that uses Facebook credentials. So you do not want to do that again, I know it's convenient, but we're trying to balance convenience with security, and certainly doing it that way is convenient, but it is not secure. So sometimes you'll be presented with those things on the login screen, but then you'll notice another another option login with passkeys or passkey. What that will do is set up a one time back and forth between you and the website. Actually, it's not you really, it's your smartphone. But let's say it's you between you with your smartphone and the website. In many cases, what they'll do is they'll present a QR code to you. That's that square little code that's got weird looking dots and things in it contains all sorts of groovy information and everything else. In this case, it is sending an encrypted code to your phone. Your phone will then generate a code which will you will then send back to the website, either through, uh, either through a text message email, or you actually type it into the screen. Depends on how they implement it.

[00:08:33] All right. Is this for any cell phone? Or you have to put an app in your phone to make it work.

[00:08:39] They said no, it at one point, if we were talking about this maybe 2 or 3 years ago, I would say, yes, you need an app to do this. But every single smartphone today, with its built in camera, can interpret a QR code and do whatever it has to do. No extra app needed. Once you do this, you have now done what's called an exchange. The website sends you something. You send the website back. This is a one time thing to set this up. Once you set this up, the next time you go in there, you're just going to exchange those same codes again without having to do any setups or anything else. And you can log into the website. Now look what's happened here. I did not mention you had to type in a password. The website will not send you a password. There is nothing that is actually exchanged between you, the human and the website. So a hacker cannot break this because there's nothing exchanged. You can't give up a password because there isn't one. They can't try and social engineer you because you have nothing to give them. It's all done between the website and your smartphone. So that's one of the things that they're pushing for. They want to remove all the different barriers and security risks from logging into a website. And like I said earlier, passwords are broken. They are very hard to remember. You have to change them every so often. It is extremely bad practice to reuse the same password on different accounts. I know we all do it. Believe me, I've done it myself. But it is definitely bad security practice to do it. However, that also reduces the amount of convenience. So again we're back to this balancing act convenience versus security.

[00:10:25] Does it only work on with with smartphones. It can't work on your desktop, your desktop or laptop?

[00:10:34] It could probably work on an iPad or something.

[00:10:36] It will. Well, actually, the reason for the smartphone is because the smartphone can interpret the QR code and generate whatever it needs to do right there on the fly. There are ways to do this with a if you're only on a desktop or a laptop, and what you're going to do is fall back to what Tom mentioned earlier, and that's password management. That is that is the level right below Passkeys at the moment. So we have Passkeys as a way to log in and keep you secure. Password manager, which is right underneath that, that will generate complex random passwords and keep those secure. And then below that are passwords, the passwords we know and love, where it says enter your username or your email address and then a password in order to log in. So if you don't have a smartphone then you would fall back to that to using those in order to log in in your desktop or your laptop. So the whole reason for this thing is to make it more secure, to get onto the websites, and also to make it easier for you. Eventually this becomes much easier. So all of these things synchronize between themselves. You can use Google's password manager, iCloud, if you have an Apple device. Icloud keychain. That's what it's called, syncs all the Passkeys and everything else. So all of these things really synchronize with each other behind the scenes. You don't have to worry about doing that. And the other thing you don't ever have to worry about, you can't accidentally give a passkey away just like a password. So if you tell somebody, hey, my password is 123, 456, well, you just gave it away. If you have it set up as a passkey, there is nothing to give away. You cannot do that. Even if the person begs you and offers you $1 million, you cannot give away your passkey. It just can't happen.

[00:12:34] Okay, so wait a minute. So I kind of remember, uh, you know, every time I see one of these passkey stuffs, it has some verbiage near it, like generate a passkey or I forget other things that it says so. And I'm sitting there thinking, I have no idea. What are you talking about? How do I generate anything?

[00:12:56] So the generate part of that is what I mentioned earlier, where the website requests that you point your smartphone at the QR code. Now this is one way they're doing it. There could be others that are coming up, uh, during this year or next year as they roll this out further and provide better security. But for right now, this is how we're doing it. The website gives you something to look at on the screen. Your phone will generate the necessary passkeys. It will send the necessary information to the website, either by you typing a code in or automatically sending it, and then the website will log you in and you're all set. And like I said, that's a one time generation because once you set up the passkeys, they automatically keep themselves in sync, and that's how you'll be able to log in in the future once you set it up for the first time.

[00:13:45] Yeah, but the next time you go in, there's it's a different set of keys, right?

[00:13:50] Yes. That's correct. Absolutely. Right. So there are there are always two keys. Uh, let me give you an example. You live in an apartment building. Every single tenant, uh, resident, has a key to their front door. And it's unique to that front. To their to the door of their apartment. However, the super usually has what's called the master key. And that key is set up in such a way. And all the locks are set up in such a way that the super can enter any of the apartments in the event of an emergency, using his one key.

[00:14:24] And he's a and he's definitely a pervert, right? Well, he could be.

[00:14:29] I mean, that's, uh, that's a completely separate issue there.

[00:14:31] That's why you got to get some other kind of locks for the inside of your door. Yeah, right. When you're in.

[00:14:36] So the reason I use that as an example, because that's exactly how the websites work to set up a passkey for you. They have what's called a, uh, a public key and a private key. So the public key would be the master key from the superintendent. The private key is the key to your front door. You're the only one that has that key. Technically you do. I mean, obviously you could have copies of it and all that, but I'm saying the key itself is unique for that lock. So that makes it a private key to you. So you would never just give you a front door key to anybody because it's unique in its private to your lock, unless you absolutely had to. So we're doing the same thing here. Now the difference is when you're doing this digitally and online, it's very easy to change the keys because there's nothing physical. You don't have to worry about going to a locksmith and all that other stuff. So passkeys give you the ability to to generate or regenerate keys to keep you secure. A lot of the stuff that goes on with this is all behind the scenes. You don't have to worry about it. And most many, many, I should say not most, but many of the major websites today that you use for e-commerce like shopping sites, banking sites, and all of those, uh, do allow for the usage of passkeys. Not all, but they're getting there. This takes time to roll out, but it is available for many, many of these sites.

[00:16:09] All right. But so you live you live in New York and. Well, don't don't.

[00:16:15] That's not a bad thing.

[00:16:16] Well, well I was going to say it doesn't your mayor get out. Give the public pass key to everybody so everybody can share the same. All the apartments and stuff.

[00:16:26] Isn't that it hasn't gotten to that point yet?

[00:16:29] Well, yeah, it's it's coming. You're right. It has to roll out a little slow roll out.

[00:16:34] Yes yes yes yes. So, so let's let's look at it this way. And I want everybody really to hear this. Think about the number of passwords that you really use on a regular basis. If you were to write them down, all the sites you visit and all the things you got to type in, whether it's on your desktop, your laptop, your tablet, your phone, all that. It would probably scare you half to death to realize, oh my God, look at all these passwords I have to use. It gets really into what's called password fatigue because you have passwords for your email accounts. You have passwords for your shopping sites, you've got passwords for your banking sites and so on and so on.

[00:17:09] I think I have about 600 in robo.

[00:17:12] I wouldn't surprise me. I'm in the hundreds. Also over the I'm in the hundreds as well.

[00:17:16] Years and years have been doing this, you know.

[00:17:18] Yeah I got that. And I understand people's frustration with all this. On the other side, because I've been there and I'm still there. And since I take care of people that run into trouble like this, I know exactly what can go wrong and how bad it could be.

[00:17:31] So the plus you have to have passwords and stuff for your clients to get in.

[00:17:36] That's right. Exactly. And that's another thing. Remember social what? The term social engineering is used very broadly today and rightfully so because it really is social engineering. What somebody will do who really wants to get access to something, and they know you are the key to this. Quote unquote. No pun intended. Key to this, uh, they will social engineer their way into a network by calling a particular person, employee or whatever it is, pretending to be the IT support guy or gal, and ask you sufficient questions to be able to determine how they get into your network. This happens every single day. It's happening right now.

[00:18:16] Yeah, but you'd be easy. You'd just call up and say, hey, Larry, uh, if you give me all Tom's passwords, uh, we'll lower your taxes. Yeah. Okay. Sure.

[00:18:27] Here you go. Uh, but unfortunately, as of right now, this is 2026. As of right now, passwords still remain the weakest link. So you need to look at new things that you can use to help you make it not the weakest link in your case. So why do we do this? We do this, as I said at the beginning, to keep you, help you keep yourself more secure and also provide a little bit more convenience. Because once you set this up, you will see that it is more convenient. You don't have to remember anything. You don't really have to scribble anything down. You don't have to keep track of all this stuff because it's all being taken care of in the background. So where do you start? That's usually the question that I get. Where do you start? So let me give you two situations. Actually they're both pretty much the same. So let me provide you with one scenario. You this is you're a private you're a private person. You've got a couple of bank accounts, and you want to make sure that when you access those bank accounts, you're secure as possible. I know people that will not touch any of the computer, but one specific computer in their house, either a laptop or desktop, let's say, to do all of their banking, And I know at first that sounds kind of crazy. You think, oh, these people may be paranoid, but I have news for you. That is exactly how you should be thinking. I only have one computer that I do all my banking on, and I've got a lot of computers, as you might imagine, as an IT guy. I've got a bunch of desktops, I've got virtual computers, I've got iPads, I've got laptops, I've got MacBooks. There's only one computer I do all my banking on.

[00:20:09] And also also, well, also the it's probably not a great idea to do it on public Wi-Fi.

[00:20:17] Do not under any circum unless you're.

[00:20:20] Using a VPN.

[00:20:21] And all that stuff. But you know that that just takes it to a whole new level. If you're doing it on your smartphone, uh, either an either an Apple or an Android device, if you're doing it on your smartphone, you do have a better layer of protection on the phones, but it is not the it's just not fully protected like that. If you absolutely, positively have to use banking on your phone than doing the things that we're talking about here using Passkeys. Using a password manager and all that stuff.

[00:20:52] Can you do will help keep.

[00:20:54] You.

[00:20:54] Secure. What if you use the.

[00:20:55] Okay, so using a VPN. Yes. That is a.

[00:20:58] Much better.

[00:20:58] Way to protect yourself.

[00:20:59] Virtual virtual private.

[00:21:01] Network. Okay. What that does very simply, it hides you from the internet. It creates what's called a tunnel. And you are in that tunnel doing all your transactions. The tunnel is fully encrypted from end to end between your phone and wherever you're doing your banking to. For example.

[00:21:20] We should do a whole episode on VPNs.

[00:21:23] Yeah, VPN, there's a lot of information on that, and it does deserve a full episode.

[00:21:27] And this isn't hard, folks. This is something you just buy a service and you click a button and you tell, I want to look like I'm in China. And then.

[00:21:36] That's basically.

[00:21:37] It.

[00:21:37] That is it. Now, it used to be not so long ago that VPNs were just a royal pain in the butt. They really were. They did do what we say they do. But to set them up, you had to have a PhD in internet technology. It's just absolutely ridiculous.

[00:21:51] Not anymore.

[00:21:52] Now you download an app from either the Apple, Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. You enter in a couple of pieces of information. You click a button or two and you are connected via a VPN.

[00:22:04] Yeah, but also you don't want a free one and you don't want a sleazy one that's going to take your information anyway.

[00:22:11] There are plenty of reputable, reputable VPN companies that we could use to to do that, but yes, there are plenty of free ones.

[00:22:18] We'll do an episode on that. All right.

[00:22:20] And just so you know, if you go to China, don't even think about a VPN.

[00:22:24] Well, I thought some of my students, that's how they get around the, um, uh, to be able to access sites that they aren't normally allowed to.

[00:22:33] The official policy of the government of China is that VPNs are illegal and prohibited. Does that mean you can't get around the Great Firewall of China.

[00:22:42] Of course not for US citizens that apply.

[00:22:45] Well, if you're a US citizen, then we probably have more options than a lot of other people because there are ways to penetrate through those firewalls as well. But getting through that firewall is that's an extra step. The biggest step, though, is making absolutely sure that you are protected when you're logging into a given website to either get email banking information, do an e-commerce transaction, or any of those things. So in order of importance, leaving you with this. Passwords A complex and long password is better than something real simple like monkey 1234. So don't use that one or the word password. Don't use that one. The next level above that is using a password manager like one password roboform. And there's a whole bunch of others that you can use that are usable on mobile devices Tablets, desktops, laptops and all that. The industry has gotten really, really good at this and being able to use it on a variety of devices. So it's not like you're locked into one particular computer. You can use it on all the things you have, and the next level above that, which is where we are now is generating and using Passkeys. So going back to my example, think about this. You are a business and there are certain things you've got to protect for your business. You cannot you cannot handle being hacked, having your bank account drained.

[00:24:17] You know what that is? You just don't you just can't do that. So my suggestion, my strong suggestion would be if you want to dip your toe into using Passkeys, find that one account that if you lost control of that account or couldn't get access to it, that would be near disaster for you and your business. Start there. Find that one account set up Passkeys for that one. See how that works? Get used to that process. Once you get comfortable with that, then you can start moving on to other websites that are critical for your business or for your personal life for that matter email, banking, shopping, all of that stuff. Start with one, get used to it, and then move on to others so you get gradually acclimated to the way this is supposed to work. Now, granted, this is not a substitute for everything because not all websites are doing passkeys. Not all websites will accept passkeys as a way to log in. You're still going to be stuck with those websites that want either an email address or username, followed by a password. So just be prepared for that. This is not every single website. You can't jump on the internet right now after this episode finishes and start setting up Passkeys for all your sites.

[00:25:34] They're just not ready yet. This is relatively, and I say relatively new technology. It's probably been in the works for maybe at least ten years, but it was not ready for prime time until just recently. That's why you're going to see more and more sites offer Passkeys as an option to log in. And I believe once you do that, there is definitely a security benefit, but you will see convenience benefits. This is one time where security and convenience can both both be raised. So on the convenience side it's going to be faster to log in. You won't need anything about passwords because you're doing it via passkeys. No passwords required and it works across all your devices. The security side of this, you are immune to phishing attacks. So if somebody calls up and says they're from your bank, we need to log into your account because there's a problem. Give us your username and password. Well, you can honestly say to them, I have no idea what to give you because I don't have a username and password and that will end the conversation right there. So many of the things that happened today to try and get access to your account will no longer exist because honestly, you can't give them that information. You have no idea what's in that QR code. You have no idea what's in that passkey.

[00:26:48] You can't give it to them. So their ability to hack you or to fish, do a fishing expedition on you to get access to your accounts will fail miserably. They won't be able to do it. The last part of that, just for peace of mind, some people would think, well, if they use biometrics like a fingerprint or a face ID or any of that stuff, I don't want to have anything to do with that. None of these things are stored anywhere. They're not stored in a database. They're not stored in a database that can be stolen. None of that stuff. What you're seeing is a transaction between your device and the website. Nothing gets put somewhere. That's why you need to log in again the next time you go visit that site. But you've already set it up, so it's a simple matter of exchanging, hey, I'm really who I say you are. I am, please let me in and the website will go ahead and do that. But nothing exchanges hands. There's no fingerprints, there's no face, there's no nothing. Does all of that without storing anything or compromising your privacy? So it really is a win win. And as more of this rolls out, it's going to be better and better for all of us that use the internet.

[00:27:58] Beautiful. Now brings up two two issues before we cut it off here. One is I still find a lot of value in Roboform, and I don't know about one password or whatever, but Roboform has a highly encrypted notes function, so I have notes on all kinds of stuff, like safe combinations and and Social Security numbers and, you know, all kinds of stuff that are, you know, military grade encryption. So it's just a repository for highly sensitive information that I want to keep safe. Right. So that's one thing. Second thing is you mentioned the Great Wall of China, and I remember a comedian one time, you know, when all this hoopla about us building a wall on the southern border, he said, did.

[00:28:48] You say hoopla?

[00:28:49] Yeah.

[00:28:49] Hoopla. Technical term. Hoopla.

[00:28:50] Hoopla is a technical term. Yeah. He said he said, yeah, that Great Wall of China is kind of a good example of why we should be building a wall, because he says, you know, not one Mexicans ever tried to sneak into the Great Wall of China. So, so so he's right. Uh, okay. Well, Larry, that's, uh, that was great. Um, you know, it's not.

[00:29:15] Before we finished, let me address the one the one thing you mentioned about the secure notes. Uh, it is true that if you use Passkeys for stuff like that, there is no real mechanism to do that. At least not yet. However, in on most actually on an iPhone and on an Android phone, there are methods by which you can have secure and encrypted notes on your device. It would be separate from the passkey, but you can do that now. This points out why you may want to choose something like Roboform, or one password, or any of the password managers over one of the other options because, as Tom mentioned, you can have secure notes that tell you exactly what this is all about. You may need some additional information for the particular website you're going to and so on. So it might be worth to explore that as well, to provide you with a secure and fully encrypted method of saving notes and being able to remind yourself of what this was all about before you fully dive into Passkeys. So that would be my suggestion.

[00:30:16] Yeah, and I was able to carry Roboform on a thumb drive. Those of you that seen me at years and years ago at events, I had a thumb drive on a necklace around my neck, and it had every, every possible thing I had with me. And unless you knew the one password, You cannot encrypt or you can't break into that thing. There's even thumb drives now. Larry, that you try to break into them. Three. You know, ten times they it's like the old, um, Mission impossible. Like. That's right. Just disintegrates itself. It doesn't.

[00:30:53] Well, your iPhone can do that. You can set your iPhone that if you type in the password ten times wrong, all the stuff on the phone just disappears and disintegrates.

[00:31:02] That'd be bad if you had little kids and you're always handing the phone to them to play with.

[00:31:06] Yeah, yeah, but but these these flash, these thumb drives. Flash drives you're talking about. Those are definite, uh, military grade. These are Department of Defense type encryption and everything else. But if you try, uh, if you try cracking them, they will wipe themselves out and you'll get absolutely nothing.

[00:31:25] And it's not a bad thing to use as a backup every month or so just to put all your important stuff on it. And.

[00:31:31] Yeah, absolutely hide it. Now was the chain the chain that it was hanging from. Was it gold? Silver? Platinum? Did you specify a diamond? Diamond?

[00:31:40] No, no, because they would say, heck with the thumb drive. I want the diamonds and they'd strangle me and take them. Yeah.

[00:31:47] You see, folks, Tom is high class. We go right to diamonds.

[00:31:51] Okie dokie. So, um, thanks so much, Larry, for coming on. I know.

[00:31:56] My.

[00:31:56] Pleasure. You've got to work hard to pay those taxes, and. But you'll have free buses pretty soon, so.

[00:32:01] Yeah, that would be fun.

[00:32:02] Yeah. And, uh. Uh, but anyway, folks, we wanted to come on here and we will do another episode. Maybe we did one a long time ago, but it's probably time to update it on VPNs. They're very handy and very easy to use and can help you along your way to stay. Stay secure. So. So thanks a lot, Larry.

[00:32:22] My pleasure. It was great being here.

[00:32:23] Okie dokie folks, we'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.