In this episode of the IT Business Podcast, Uncle Marv welcomes Shanna Utgard, a cybersecurity ambassador with a remarkable story of resilience. The conversation covers the ongoing dispute between Microsoft, CrowdStrike, and Delta Airlines regarding a significant IT outage, along with a lighthearted discussion about the rise of Zoom as a remote support tool. Shanna also shares her experiences and insights, making this episode both informative and entertaining.
Uncle Marv and Shanna Utgard kick off the episode with a lively exchange, reminiscing about Shanna's journey from nearly falling victim to a ransom attack to becoming a respected figure in cybersecurity. The discussion quickly shifts to a pressing news story involving a dispute between Microsoft, CrowdStrike, and Delta Airlines. Delta has accused these tech giants of contributing to a recent IT outage that reportedly cost the airline over $500 million. Both Microsoft and CrowdStrike have denied these claims, suggesting that Delta's own delayed monetization efforts were to blame. Shanna emphasizes the complexities of third-party losses in cybersecurity, highlighting how such disputes often lead to finger-pointing and legal entanglements.
The episode also explores the unexpected dominance of Zoom as the go-to remote support tool, with Uncle Marv sharing personal anecdotes about his experiences with various vendors. The conversation touches on the shift in support dynamics since the pandemic, leading to Zoom's widespread adoption for technical assistance. The episode wraps up with a humorous nod to Star Trek Picard, showcasing the fun and engaging rapport between Uncle Marv and Shanna.
Key Takeaways:
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=== Show Information
Website: https://www.itbusinesspodcast.com/
Host: Marvin Bee
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=== Music:
Song: Upbeat & Fun Sports Rock Logo
Author: AlexanderRufire
License Code: 7X9F52DNML - Date: January 1st, 2024
[Uncle Marv]
Hello everyone, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IIT Business Podcast powered by NetAlly. This is the Wednesday live show. Welcome, thank you for joining us and hanging out.
In just a moment we are going to be joined by my good friend Shanna Utgard and you may remember her as the woman that almost sent two million dollars out in a ransom attack, but no she didn't. She survived that and became a great, great ambassador for cybersecurity in the channel. She was also the first person to do a live show here in studio at my office in Studio B and she's joining us here this evening.
I want to make sure that I let everybody know that I'm first going to call out Blackpoint Cyber. I had them on the show last week and I gave them good ravings about their swag. They of course won Best Swag for 2023 and after I talked about the pen, I took it to my office, tried to write with it and it did not work and that is always one of the reasons why when I do try to evaluate swag, that's why I don't do it at the conference.
I come back to my office, play with the swag, check and make sure it works. So very disappointed in the fact that we had just talked about it. It's a nice pen, it's a nice hefty pen, but Mackenzie Brown was gracious to come on the show and hope that this doesn't ding the reputation with them.
But tonight, we're going to talk about some swag that I did not have until just over a week ago. When I was on the show with Coach, he was showing his swag in the background and he had one of these and I did not. So I had to make a comment that yeah, I didn't get that and it mysteriously showed up at my office, courtesy of our guest this evening, Shanna Utgard in the house.
Shanna, how are you?
[Shanna Utgard]
If I was any better, there'd be two of me.
[Uncle Marv]
Are you sure?
[Shanna Utgard]
Terrifying.
[Uncle Marv]
All right, so first I want to say thank you for sending me the Datto Alien.
[Shanna Utgard]
Yes, a small alien in a burlap sack.
[Uncle Marv]
Yes, and of course, questions abound. First of all, do you have a stash of these that you just had one extra to spare or did you send me your one and only?
[Shanna Utgard]
I send you my one and only.
[Uncle Marv]
Oh, I appreciate that. Did you pick it up at a conference?
[Shanna Utgard]
I did. I think it was one of the ones that was out in Vegas. I'm pretty sure it was like around Halloween several years ago.
I don't remember. All the shows are a blur at this point. I've been to so many of them.
[Uncle Marv]
They are. They are. All right, so it's been a while since you've been on the show.
I know some things behind the scenes, but we're not going to share all of that with the listeners. But real quick, how have things been going?
[Shanna Utgard]
Pretty good. I got engaged back in February.
[Uncle Marv]
I wasn't even going to share that one, but there you go. Bling bling.
[Shanna Utgard]
That was exciting news. I've got something in the universe that's really looking out for me. I've had trees almost fall on my house.
My neighbor's house caught on fire. Like it's been all kinds of craziness there. And I've been super obsessed with playing with AI.
[Uncle Marv]
Super obsessed. Well, let me go back and first ask. The neighbor's house burned down, but no damage to yours?
No embers blowing in the wind over to your place?
[Shanna Utgard]
Well, there were. So there was a tree right next to his garage, because I'm up in Maine, so there's trees everywhere. And there were a bunch of burnt leaves that were all along the side of my house, but nothing fell on my house.
The first responders up here were incredible. They got here so fast. It started in the garage and then it moved to an SUV in between the garage and the house and then over to the house as well.
And they were able to contain it before it got way too crazy and out of control. So no damage over here, thankfully.
[Uncle Marv]
It's not going to be one of those forensic files or dateline episodes where insurance is involved?
[Shanna Utgard]
No, it's just one of those things where like when I bought my house, it had all that old like 1950s knob and tube electrical wiring and no ground in it. So they're pretty sure it was an electrical fire. I ripped all that crap out of my house and replaced it with modern wrapped, grounded electrical wire.
But I have nightmares about my own house burning down, so that definitely didn't help.
[Uncle Marv]
All right. Well, glad you are okay and congratulations on the bling. And I think I deserve an invitation.
[Shanna Utgard]
Absolutely. If you want to come up to Maine. You were so close recently.
Oh, you knew.
[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, I was. It wasn't that close, was it?
[Shanna Utgard]
I'm driving to Boston tomorrow, so it's an hour and- That's it? 20 minutes or so to downtown Boston.
[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Well, all right. Then I apologize.
I actually sent a shout out to two friends that I was already booked, so I didn't have time to see you on this trip. Maybe another trip or maybe the wedding.
[Shanna Utgard]
Exactly.
[Uncle Marv]
Now, the wedding is going to be like in the summer when it's warm, right?
[Shanna Utgard]
Oh, yeah. I mean, we've got like eight whole weeks where it's good weather here to do it, so hopefully it just won't rain that day. Although I've heard it's good luck, but I still don't want that.
[Uncle Marv]
All right. So let's do this. I know that people will be joining to hear my thoughts on Star Trek Picard, but I actually want to do a quick update on a news story that has been dominating the headlines.
And there was an update that came out today that I started to do a blog on, but I did not get it published in time. But there is a big growing dispute between Microsoft, CrowdStrike, and Delta. And according to reports from CNBC and The Verge, Microsoft and CrowdStrike have publicly refuted Delta Airlines' accusations regarding the recent IT outage, instead pointing the finger back to the airline's delayed monetization efforts as the root cause of its prolonged recovery.
So basically, Delta sent a letter. Delta is, I don't know if they're suing them, but they are basically blaming Microsoft and CrowdStrike. Let's see.
It looks like the airline estimates the disruption at over $500 million, including tens of millions per day in compensation and hotels during the five-day period. To this end, Delta has hired prominent attorney David Boies to explore potential damages claims. However, the airline's aggressive approach has been met with skepticism, as both Microsoft and CrowdStrike assert that Delta declined their offers of assistance during the crisis.
So I'll have a link to all of that. That seems like it is going to be quite interesting. Shanna, any thoughts on Microsoft and CrowdStrike as part of that outage?
[Shanna Utgard]
Oh, my gosh. I had friends and family members and everyone would be like, did we get hacked? Like calls left and right about it.
People that I don't even really do business with, just friends, family acquaintances. But I think that that's also... I spent a lot of time working with and consulting with organizations around cyber liability insurance.
And I think that that's a really good point to make about third-party losses. Because a lot of that stuff is kind of outside of your control. And Delta says, we lost this much money.
And then you start to get into that kind of finger pointing game. And then the attorneys get involved. And it just never really looks good.
[Uncle Marv]
No, it doesn't. So I think I might put a little bad signal out to Bradley Gross to see. Because here's what it boils down to for us, I think.
This is one of those issues where we as MSPs are always worried about, what if one of our vendors has an issue that affects the clients? And the clients look at us, we look at the vendor. And then what if that vendor points to somebody else?
Especially if you're doing an integration. Because a lot of our vendors, they partner together. So our RMM might be using an AV or EDR product through another provider.
And the instant that I thought of was, if I'm doing... I'm going to throw out names here, so don't get upset. Don't email me.
But if I'm using Sentinel-1 through Enable, and there's an issue, but yet Sentinel-1 says, nope, there's no issue with us. It's the Enable integration, blah, blah, blah. That could be an issue.
So I wonder how our friend Bradley Gross will comment on that. So Bradley, if you're listening to my show, which I don't think you do anymore. But if you are, or if somebody wants to get this message to them, we need to chat.
We need to chat about a bunch of stuff. I still haven't gotten my book. That's another thing.
So before I forget, I see up in the screen here in the chat, I need to let listeners and watchers know. If you are on YouTube or the Facebook and you enter a response or a comment in the chat, we see it. For some reason though, in LinkedIn, if you're watching on LinkedIn and you put something in the chat, we do get the message, but we don't always get the name of the person.
So there were two comments and I don't know if they're the same person, but one was directed at you or actually at me. I missed you in Boston, boo, next time. And if I knew who you were, I'll probably see it after the fact, because I can go to LinkedIn and see the name there, but I cannot see it on the screen now.
But then here's one to Shanna, New Hampshire here, we should grab coffee.
[Shanna Utgard]
New Hampshire let's do it. I'm like 15 minutes from the border.
[Uncle Marv]
Those states are those, okay, that just must be like a little, I try, Tim, go Timmy. All right. There we go.
Tim probably had fun with the CrowdStrike outage there, even though it's not, cybersecurity or anything. So, all right. So let's see here.
Speaking of support, I wanted, this is a rhetorical question that I'm going to throw out there, but I'm going to ask, when did Zoom become the remote support tool of choice? And here's why I asked this question. I'm going to mention names, I'm calling out vendors, and these are vendors that I use.
And yes, one of them is a sponsor of the show, but I had an issue that started a couple of weeks ago where ThreatLocker stopped working on my phone. They have an app that if somebody has to send a request to get a program installed, you can either do it in the web or you can, from your phone, open it up, select yes, approve, blah, blah, blah. Well, two weeks ago, it stopped working and sent in a request to ThreatLocker.
And of course, they're asking me, well, did you, you know, reinstall the app? Did you reset your phone? Blah, blah, blah.
And I said, yeah, I did all that. Come on now. So, as soon as I said that they're like, well, can we do a Zoom meeting?
So, my comment at the time was, what is a Zoom meeting going to do on my phone? So, that was the first thing that happened. Short answer to the ThreatLocker situation, they released an update on Monday.
I removed the app, put the new one on, works just fine now. So, thank you, ThreatLocker. A second issue was today, and again, a vendor that I use, and this is not a call out to the vendor to say how bad something was, but I had an issue uploading users to the TrueGrid portal from Azure AD.
I had everything set up and the computers were reporting, the domain was set up, Azure AD was registered and synced, but for some reason, the users were not showing up, and if somebody tried to log in, it would say invalid email. So, I opened up the chat, say, hey, I'm having an issue. They asked me two questions.
I answered the questions, and immediately, hey, are you available for a Zoom chat? And my whole thought was, when did Zoom become this remote support tool for everybody, which really, all they're doing is doing a meeting and asking to share the screen so they could watch and say, click here, click here, click here. I don't know what to say about it.
I just want to ask the question. Are all the vendors going to Zoom for remote support? So, let's see.
Yes, Tim Golden, yes, we can see you on the Facebook. We didn't actually have to see you. I just was commenting, but of course, if I have my phone and I'm following on the LinkedIn, the chats show up on my phone, so I had seen you in the phone.
I just wasn't looking at it. So, and then, of course, Tim has answered the question, Zoom versus Teams for screen share. You know, listen, I don't even like Teams.
That's all I'm going to say. That's all I'm going to say with that. I use it.
I support Microsoft, but I hate Teams. Teams sucks, in my opinion. The opinions of the host do not necessarily represent the opinions of the listeners of the show.
[Shanna Utgard]
No, everybody agrees, Teams is horrible.
[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, and even the new Teams. I mean, the only thing that they did, let me rephrase that. The one thing that they made better was they added this little speaker view to where, like Zoom, when, you know, if you do certain things, the person that's speaking becomes the primary screen and everybody else becomes small.
They did do that, but it still sucks. All right, we'll just let that sit there.
[Shanna Utgard]
I'm going to blame the pandemic for that because it went from, like, went to everybody all of a sudden now has Zoom. So, that's probably when it became the remote support.
[Uncle Marv]
That probably makes sense. Zoom became the video conferencing of choice. It is fairly inexpensive, and if you're not actually doing remote support, why not?
I mean, you're just doing a screen share. You don't have to share video. You can just, you know, turn off the camera and share the screen.
So, sounds good. And, well, looky here. People in the chat are popping up.
Giles, I like Teams. Of course you do, you 365 guru. And, Tim, let's go back to Skype or Webex or GoToMeeting.
[Shanna Utgard]
Skype is the only thing that people use as a verb but don't actually do.
[Uncle Marv]
I don't think I've seen a Skype in years.
[Shanna Utgard]
Yes, but people will still say, let's Skype over it more than they'll FaceTime or they'll Zoom.
[Uncle Marv]
But I did see somebody's bio where they were listing, you know, all of their contact points and their Skype ID was actually listed in the bio. And I said, really? Who uses that?
So, GoToAssist, Tim, was my remote support tool. The first one that I got that was tech-related, GoToAssist. And I used that as my remote support tool until I upgraded to a real RMM in 2014.
And I've been with them since. It's 10 years. Might be time for a new one.
[Shanna Utgard]
Do you know how many people's devices out there still have GoToAssist installed on them even though the provider that used them either no longer uses it anymore or it was like several IT providers before the one that they're currently with but that software is still installed on all of their devices? I used to see it all the time in tech assessments.
[Uncle Marv]
I'd say like at least a million. You know why? Because I don't think there was an uninstall on that.
As a matter of fact, so I was doing a remote session. I was on the phone with a user who was working from home. And before I had switched them over to TrueGrid, we were doing SonicWall VPN.
But anybody that had remote access from their home, we also installed our agent on their home PC. The business said, look, if you're going to remote in, you have to have protection on it the same as the office. And of course, people pitched a fit.
I don't want stuff on my home PC. But nonetheless, it happened, which bumped me up another 30 endpoints. So I was happy for that.
But it was funny because I had, back in the day, a remote support tool called R-Hub. And I've talked about it on the show. I have not used them in years.
But R-Hub was an appliance that I could have in my office. And I could do remote support with unattended access. And it was called TurboMeeting was the actual name of the software.
And that was one that you could install and then set up for one-off support. And I usually would do it for servers. Because that way, if something happened with my primary access, I still had TurboMeeting through my office.
That worked just fine. And then anytime we would do a one-off with a client, I would use that. Because again, I would just send them.
It's a really small file. It installs pretty quickly. And then they would have basically an orange star on their screen.
And the person I was talking to, it had been at least five years since I used that before COVID. And she was on her laptop and she couldn't get TrueGrid to work. And so I was trying to walk her through it.
Well, what's happened? What's changed? And she's like, well, I had a glitch.
I had this happen. And there were some corrupt files. And I said, oh, I don't know if we can get on.
And I sent her the thing. She goes, well, I still have TurboMeeting on my screen. I'm like, I haven't had that box up and running for five years.
I said, no, you can probably get rid of that. So it happens. If there's no uninstall remote feature for that, yeah, there's tons of software out there installed.
Log me in. I find that on systems all the time. So joy.
All right. Shana, did you ever watch Star Trek?
[Shanna Utgard]
Yeah, when I was younger.
[Uncle Marv]
Okay. I'm not sure how to take that. As in like younger watching the cartoon Star Trek or?
[Shanna Utgard]
No, no, no, no. Like OG Star Trek.
[Uncle Marv]
Like in college watching Star Trek.
[Shanna Utgard]
Knee high to a grasshopper.
[Uncle Marv]
All right. So I'm going to guess you watched Star Trek Voyager or Star Trek Deep Space Nine or Next Generation.
[Shanna Utgard]
All I remember is that when you go evil, you grow a goatee.
[Uncle Marv]
Oh, you watched the original series with James T. Kirk, the original James T. Kirk.
[Shanna Utgard]
Okay.
[Uncle Marv]
So you probably don't know much about the series I'm going to mention now, Star Trek Picard.
[Shanna Utgard]
I do not.
[Uncle Marv]
So I had been keeping this under wraps, but I wanted to announce to the listeners that I actually broke down. Breakdown is not the right term. So for those that may not know, I actually started to watch Star Trek Picard when it first came out.
And it was just after I had started watching Star Trek Discovery and I only made it through the first few episodes of each of those series. And I was just like, this, this is horrible in my opinion. I'm like, this is, this sucks.
So I think I watched the first two and a half episodes of Star Trek Picard. So about a month ago, I decided I'm going to go ahead and watch it. I had heard people make comments about it and said it was great.
And I said, all right, let me, let me see if I can muster through. And I did. And once I got through, I believe it was the fourth episode.
I'm like, ooh, this seems pretty interesting. So literally weekend after weekend, I sat and watched all three seasons of Star Trek Picard. And I wanted to let the listeners know, yes, I did watch it.
I don't know that I can talk accurately about it because again, the first season was all over the place. But the short answer for everybody's question is, if, well, let me say this, if you haven't watched it, shame on you. And spoiler alert, because I'm going to say some stuff and I'm going to talk about the fact that I was quite surprised that they got all seven of the original cast members of the next generation to actually show up for this.
So Picard, Riker, Deanna Troi, Dr. Crusher, Worf, Data, who am I missing? Seven of, no, Seven of Nine wasn't even in that episode, but she was in there. I'm missing somebody.
That's how bad it is. So I was quite surprised. I actually was very happy with the, I was happy with the second and third seasons.
I was a little miffed. So Shanna, if you don't know, Next Generation was like the cool Star Trek where things actually looked legit in terms of space age, the enterprise was cool looking, all of the tricorders and stuff, they weren't that cheesy 1960s computer looking tech and stuff like that. And they did a real good job of progressing the story forward and having the characters age a little out of character in terms of what they were doing.
Dr. Crusher was this, what's the right word to describe her? She was not like a bounty hunter or like a scavenger. It was like she was on this like barge of a ship with her son, wreaking havoc throughout the universe.
So it was kind of out of character for her. Riker was technically a retired admiral or was Picard the retired admiral? I don't know.
But the end of season one, here's what first got my attention. Picard dies. And again, if you haven't listened, watched the show, shame on you because I'm going to take, he dies.
He dies. Really dies. Like not like, you know, Captain Kirk dies, you know, like going off to the ribbon thing and then comes back and then dies again.
But no, he dies. But then he is brought back as a synthetic. Any idea what a synthetic is?
[Shanna Utgard]
Yes.
[Uncle Marv]
Really? So you've watched this? What Fallout?
[Shanna Utgard]
Yeah, there's synths in Fallout.
[Uncle Marv]
All right.
[Shanna Utgard]
It's a video game that a lot of people play like post-nuclear Fallout and there are synths in Fallout as well.
[Uncle Marv]
Okay. All right. So he's a synthetic, which was kind of cool and interesting, you know, and he's programmed to live out his normal life.
Although I thought, well, if he's a synthetic, why can't they make Data synthetic? But I guess that would ruin the storyline of Data because he is central in the way that they come back out of time and Data has all of the stuff inside him to save them and all of that stuff. They of course have to go back in time like every Star Trek series does.
So that was interesting. They had to bring in Q, which if people watch Q, I can say this, Kim watches the show with me sometimes and her first comment is, why does he have to be in it? And for those that don't know, Q is the person that they met in the very first episode, the first and second episode of the Next Generation series.
He of course ends the show because the entire series is this whole thing where humanity is on trial and Q makes a comment to Jean-Luc Picard, the trial never ends. And so they had to find a way to weave him in there. I don't know why.
I mean, it wasn't terribly critical, but I guess they had to find a way to bring back every single component in there. Wesley Crusher made an appearance to save somebody in his heightened existence with the Traveler. I know that you and probably a bunch of people watching and listening are like, what?
But to the Trekkies.
[Shanna Utgard]
I just hear that Q is like the Star Wars Jar Jar Binks, right? A lot of people just don't like him. Okay.
[Uncle Marv]
What else was in there? So it was just, it was a very interesting, I mean, of course, season three was basically all nostalgic. They literally found a way to bring back everything from the original series, or I should say the Next Generation, you know, the first series and bring it all back together.
The entire crew ends up back together. So it was good. Although, like I said, maybe it was a little too cheesy and nostalgic.
The writing, in my sense, I think what gets me is in the beginning, we're so used to movies and shows now, they grab you in that first episode. You know, Jason Bourne grabs you in the beginning and then takes you through the story. A lot of these shows that I've, I don't watch a lot of TV, but the ones I watch, you know, Kim makes me watch some shows.
We just, Tracker is a show we started watching. And the first episode I was like, oh, okay. Enough to get me back to watch another one.
And then after this, okay. And then that was through, we just finally watched Reacher, the television series. We watched the movies, liked the movies, didn't like Tom Cruise as Reacher, but the guy they, you know, put in for Reacher on this TV series, perfect.
And the reason we didn't watch Reacher when it came out in regular TV is we don't have Amazon Prime, which is where Reacher was being played. And the reason we don't have Amazon Prime we did at one time, but if you change your Amazon personal to Amazon business, they take away Amazon video and you can't watch Prime on a business account. So we didn't want to create a separate Prime account just to watch TV because at the time we didn't have anything that we watched Reacher.
So I know I just went all over the place, but any questions, any comments?
[Shanna Utgard]
No, I think the has to grab you right away, says a lot about attention spans nowadays. I think that's a big reflection on like, you know, it was got to get you right away and get something interested or otherwise you're going to squirrel off to another show and write it off.
[Uncle Marv]
Well, yeah. I mean, there's tons of shows on TV.
[Shanna Utgard]
Yeah.
[Uncle Marv]
I mean, there's Beat Bobby Flay. You don't watch that?
[Shanna Utgard]
I actually, I looked up. Well, yeah, because I feel like Bobby Flay wins so many of those. And we actually looked it up the other day, what his overall win percentage was on Beat Bobby Flay.
And it was like in the 60%.
[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, 60. It fluctuates between 66 and 68%.
[Shanna Utgard]
Yeah. Which I feel like it's, I feel like he wins a lot more than that. Maybe not.
[Uncle Marv]
Well, you know what's funny is that's a really good percentage based on the fact that half the time he doesn't really know what he's cooking. And if these, okay, let's go back for listeners if they're interested. Beat Bobby Flay is a show with Bobby who was an iron chef, one of the original iron chefs on Food TV.
And it's this competition where he challenges chefs to a food challenge where- Well, it's a culinary showdown that shakes down in two rounds. Two rounds, yes. So the two contestants, they go against each other and the winner goes against Bobby Flay, but they go against him with what they call a signature dish.
So something that if they are the executive chef of a restaurant or they own a chain of restaurants, they are proclaimed chefs and they have what is their dish that is supposed to be what they're known for and something that they've cooked hundreds if not thousands of times. And it's amazing how if these are the dishes that you're so used to cooking, how do you not beat Bobby Flay more who half the time doesn't even know what the dish is? Which goes to show how great a chef he is where he'll just be like, I don't know, it looks like it.
I mean, he won the other night with one that was like, I forget what it was called, but it was something and he said, okay, well, it's not that, it looks like a pot pie. And he won, but that is interesting.
[Shanna Utgard]
Except tacos. Most of the people that make tacos beat Bobby Flay.
[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, because come on, tacos really shouldn't even be allowed in that competition.
[Shanna Utgard]
I agree.
[Uncle Marv]
I mean, a taco, how hard is it to make a taco?
[Shanna Utgard]
I mean, for Bobby Flay, harder to beat his contestants on those.
[Uncle Marv]
Tacos and sweets, like he's not a big bakery type person. Yeah. All right.
So I don't know how much, and obviously not a lot of trekkers live in the chat here because I'm not getting comments, which is good. Your dog is piping up now.
[Shanna Utgard]
Oh, I know.
[Uncle Marv]
Maybe he's questioning the character and plot development of Picard.
[Shanna Utgard]
No, the other half just got home. So they're freaking out right now.
[Uncle Marv]
Okay.
[Shanna Utgard]
There's two of them now.
[Uncle Marv]
Two of them.
[Shanna Utgard]
Yeah.
[Uncle Marv]
All right. Let's see. What else about Star Trek?
I was quite surprised that, where was it? Those shows cost between eight to $9 million per episode to make. Which, first of all, I don't know if it's a lot of money, but it sounds like a lot of money.
So it took place in California. Although it was $8 to $9 million to make per episode, it benefited from large tax credits. I mean, yeah, I mean, it cost $8 million to make, but I got $100 grand in tax credits, right?
All right. So I watched Star Trek Picard. I'm now slowly making my way through Star Trek Discovery, and then I will turn back to the Star Wars sagas.
I know I have to go back and watch Rogue One, Attack of the Clones, and some other things. Oh, what's the Mandalorian? That's the one that everybody liked?
So I may have to watch that. Oh, you know.
[Shanna Utgard]
Yes. My other half watches all of those. A lot of that stuff is like, to me.
[Uncle Marv]
Okay.
[Shanna Utgard]
But yeah, I don't watch any of the superhero stuff, although we did go see Deadpool and Wolverine, because that's like, Deadpool is my kind of, you know, comic book character.
[Uncle Marv]
Is that the latest one?
[Shanna Utgard]
Yes.
[Uncle Marv]
All right.
[Shanna Utgard]
Yeah, I'm a really bad nerd.
[Uncle Marv]
I am too. I am. I have no gadgets.
I have no, you know, anything like that. So, all right. Well, let's go ahead and start ending off the show.
I want to make sure that I pitch the sponsors of the show. I mentioned at the top NetAlly, basically networking, testing, and analyst experts. Whether you're deploying, managing, or troubleshooting wired and wireless networks, NetAlly has the tools to get the job done.
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Unlike legacy solutions, TrueGrid eliminates firewall exposure and internet latency. And as I always say, don't run your RDP naked. And you can always head over to itbusinesspodcast.com slash sponsors and see those ones I mentioned, as well as others that are supporting the show, just not being represented here today, but they are still friends of the show. You should go check them out. Check that sponsor page. And I have to say, I was looking at the stats and I think some bot must have hit the NetAlly page because they had 267 clicks in the last seven days.
So I don't know what's happened. I don't think I said anything super... Oh, I showed the CyberScope last week.
That probably could be it. So fantastic. Thank you all for supporting the sponsors of the show.
And of course, I also need to say thank you. If you head over to IT Business Podcast and click on the Amazon link at the top of the page, save that as your homepage. If you do any shopping on Amazon, start there and nothing changes for you.
You go through and search and click all your stuff and check out, no price surcharge or anything like that. In the back end, Amazon gives us a little commission. So I want to thank you all for using the link.
I'm going to ask you to continue doing so. If you have friends and family that you know by on Amazon, maybe send them a link and help the show out. And I should also mention that in the future, when we do the Black Friday preview, it might be coming with an Amazon Live special.
So we'll see how that goes. All right. Shauna, Shauna Na, do you have a story that you think would challenge Florida Man or would you like to answer a random question?
[Shanna Utgard]
I can try a Florida Man challenger. We don't have a whole lot that goes on up here in Maine, but we'll give it a shot. I found one.
[Uncle Marv]
All right.
[Shanna Utgard]
All right. You want me to read it? Yes.
Okay. The whole story or just the headline?
[Uncle Marv]
Let's start with the headline and see if it actually grabs our attention.
[Shanna Utgard]
Okay. A Maine man was arrested for shooting at a group of teens playing ding-dong ditch.
[Uncle Marv]
Okay. Let's hear that.
[Shanna Utgard]
A Harrison man was arrested after shooting at a group of teens playing ding-dong ditch. Police arrived around 1 a.m. Saturday after numerous reports of gunshots and screaming. As deputies arrived on the scene to find blood on the roadway, one of the teens walked into Bridgeton Hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound.
An investigation found that after the teens rang the doorbell at 91 Waterford Road, 30-year-old Vincent Martin of Harrison produced a 9mm handgun and shot 14 rounds at the teens, hitting one victim in the right calf. Martin was arrested on multiple charges, including aggravated assault and reckless conduct. He's being held on a $5,000 cash bail and has been ordered not to have contact with any of the kids and is not allowed to purchase firearms or ammunition.
Wow.
[Uncle Marv]
So of course, while you're reading, I'm like, okay, ding-dong ditch. What is that? And of course, it's just a regular prank game where you run up to a doorbell and run away.
So here's the thing. If they were a group of kids, I'm assuming that they rang his doorbell and he was chasing after them and shooting, which works fine down here in Florida, but apparently not up there in Maine.
[Shanna Utgard]
Yeah. I think you're only allowed to shoot people if they come into your house. So, I grew up with a redneck dad and a bunch of uncles who used to say, if somebody was trying to rob your house and you shoot them and they run out of your house, grab them by the ankle and drag them inside.
[Uncle Marv]
Yeah.
[Shanna Utgard]
Yeah.
[Uncle Marv]
As long as they end up inside and you can't have visible blood drag marks. All right. So that sounds like a good story.
Here is my story. Florida man charged with lassoing aggressive nine foot gator. So it doesn't sound...
[Shanna Utgard]
Isn't that what you're supposed to do?
[Uncle Marv]
So the story starts with a 71 year old Florida man. Robert Collin was arrested and charged with a felony after lassoing a nine foot alligator in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where the space shuttles go off, claiming he was trying to protect local turtles from what he perceived as an aggressive reptile. So Collin used a nylon clothesline to capture the gator, tie it to a handrail before 30 authorities arrived and charged him for illegally capturing wildlife without proper permits.
So this all happened back on August 1st. And very interesting. So let's see.
[Shanna Utgard]
I personally think that he deserves a gold medal for gator rassling. That's, you know.
[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, but it's funny is his intention was to protect the turtles that he and others in the community enjoyed feeding, highlighting a misguided attempt to address perceived wildlife conflict in urban areas. So I don't know that gators in Florida actually go after turtles, but here's the legal consequences. So what you cannot do is kill, injure, or possess an alligator without authorization.
So he was booked into jail with a $2,500 bond. And then he also, let's see, he also could, let's see, nope. So the Brevard Sheriff's Office emphasized that there are proper channels for addressing nuisance alligators, including contacting local law enforcement or the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which has licensed trappers to relocate animals.
[Shanna Utgard]
I wouldn't say that he was possessing this gator. I would call it detaining. It's like a citizen's arrest for gators.
[Uncle Marv]
It's like what you see on Cops or Live PD. You're not under arrest, you're just detained. Exactly.
But here's the bad part. So because the alligator was captured, it was later classified as a nuisance and then euthanized.
[Shanna Utgard]
I think he was just misunderstood. Yeah.
[Uncle Marv]
Well, it's too late now, it's dead. But Colin, 71 years old, got to go to court later. So, all right.
So Shana, thanks for hanging out. It's been a while.
[Shanna Utgard]
It has been.
[Uncle Marv]
We're going to have to, I don't know when you're going to get married, but I just was up there. So I hope it's not too soon.
[Shanna Utgard]
No, I'm thinking Thursday of next year sounds good.
[Uncle Marv]
Yeah, but next year could be in January and that's too cold. No.
[Shanna Utgard]
September is the most beautiful month in Maine.
[Uncle Marv]
Really?
[Shanna Utgard]
If anybody disagrees, they can come at me.
[Uncle Marv]
Is that your end of summer, beginning of fall time?
[Shanna Utgard]
Yeah. It's when it's still really nice. And every year I feel like it's getting warmer, like into late September, October.
But you've got nice warm days and then really cool nights where you open up all the windows, the temperature drops 20 degrees from the daytime. You can get a nice breeze in the house. It's just beautiful.
And then the leaves start turning and- Okay.
[Uncle Marv]
And this is going to turn non-technical, but have you already started thinking about the logistics of the wedding? Is it going to be indoors? Is it going to be outdoors?
[Shanna Utgard]
I think we're just going to do something here at the yard and get one of those big, giant white tents and just do something right here at the house. Because why am I going to go out and spend $10,000, $15,000 on a wedding venue when I bought a house on a lake? So I figure we'll just probably do something here.
[Uncle Marv]
Are there mosquitoes on the lake?
[Shanna Utgard]
We spray for mosquitoes, but the main state bird is the black fly.
[Uncle Marv]
So be wary of the black fly and not the mosquitoes.
[Shanna Utgard]
We actually surprisingly don't have a lot of black flies here on my property. I've never seen a tick in the three and a half years that I've lived here either. So that's really good.
We just spray for mosquitoes every couple of weeks or every eight weeks or so. I can't help standing water. There's a lake.
[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. We'll chat about that after the show here. But Shana, thank you for coming out and we'll be chatting down the road, I think a lot more than before because I have to plan if I got to go up to the Northeast.
I mean, I've traveled up to the Northeast, I think once a decade. So this might have to accelerate the schedule.
[Shanna Utgard]
Well, it doesn't count if it's for work.
[Uncle Marv]
Sure it does. A trip's a trip. That's how I see it.
[Shanna Utgard]
You've been traveling like crazy lately. You've been on all the shows.
[Uncle Marv]
Yeah. That's part of it.
[Shanna Utgard]
So yeah.
[Uncle Marv]
Well, actually we'll be... No, we'll be in DC. So that's not close.
[Shanna Utgard]
It's a 10-hour drive. I went to college down there. All right.
[Uncle Marv]
All right, Shana. Well, thank you for hanging out. Thank you all for hanging out with us.
Tim and Giles and I forget who else. There's a couple of other LinkedIn no-names I saw. But thank you.
Looks like Kerri Rosa had popped in. Jeremy McSpadden. Thank you all.
That's going to do it for this episode of the podcast. We'll be back with another show next week. Of course, be sure to head over to itbusinesspodcast.com to see what other shows are released. We've got a bunch of audio still coming out, some vendor profiles. What you could do is subscribe to us in your favorite pod catcher, and that way you'll get all the shows when they're released and just don't end up like Jason Miller and fall behind by two or three months because these shows are good. That's it, folks.
We'll see you next week. And until then, holla.
Senior Cybersecurity Advocate
Shanna Utgard is the Senior Cybersecurity Advocate at Defendify, the all-in-one cybersecurity platform that makes cybersecurity possible for ALL businesses. Shanna is an award winning channel manager and a frequent speaker on how organizations can develop a comprehensive program that is simple, affordable, and works around-the-clock on multiple levels. Email her at sutgard@defendify.com.