Google’s Dark Web Push | Europe’s Sovereignty Play | The New Cybersecurity Reality

Hey everyone, welcome to TekStrong Gang. We are live at RSAC. We're in Moscone Center West on Broadcast Alley, and I've got a unique lineup for the gang for you all today.

Let me introduce you to our gang members. We're going to jump right into it. I'm going to start at my extreme left.

If you don't know this man, you're not a security insider or a Security Weekly person, but he's my friend Matt Alderman. Matt is a security insider. He's been in this business as long as I have, and Mitchell has, and Tom, and we're lucky to have him here.

Matt, welcome to the gang, man. Thank you. Oh, it's a pleasure.

It's so much fun to do stuff down there with the Security Weekly crew. I've always admired TekStrong, so to sit here with the gang, come on, I'm honored. You're in.

It's been Jonesing. Come on. We're going to get you a gang leather jacket.

Awesome. I love it. Next on the gang.

Next to Matt, you've seen us on the Security Boulevard podcast with him. He's from Tech Field Day as well, our friend Tom Hollingsworth. Tom, it's good to have-- This is your first gang appearance, isn't it?

First in-person gang appearance. I've been on a couple of the ones- Of the virtuals ... where we're all talking heads, but it's good to be in person to argue with you today.

There's no-- Oh. Ooh, argue? He came feisty.

Wow. Be careful what you wish for. Sitting next to me, though, he needs no introduction to our gang.

It's Mitch Ashley. Hey, Mitch. I'm simply here as the referee.

You're the buffer. Boop. All right.

Guys, let's jump into it. Good news, we can all sleep easy. Mm.

Google's on the job. Ooh. Google is on the job.

They are scouring the dark web to find corporate secrets to let us know and put an end to that. Leaping tall buildings and- All of that ... sleeping babies.

Well, I don't know, but they're scouring the dark web. And the dark web needed a scouring. But Mitch, talk to us about this one.

Can we sleep easy? Can we? Well, supposedly this is more than just keyword-type search that's being done, and it also has some people that are helping directing who the company or who the groups are that it's looking at.

So it's interesting. Are they going after Norton to protect your identity service here, and this is part of the dark web? I don't know if I need another service to tell me my name is everywhere on the dark web.

Isn't that already true? It's, yes, it comes back again. What am I supposed to do?

It's from a password from 10 years ago, but I still use it today. No, I'm just kidding. I don't.

I get the Experian- But ... alert every month for that. Yeah, exactly.

But no, there's an AI element. Yes, there's an AI element, and it's Gemini, right? Right.

It's not just Google that's- Yep ... doing that. So I think that's- Whoa, that's- ...

important to know. That makes me feel better. There, Gemini's on the job.

Google's already doing parts of this, though. No, they are. Google already had a dark web scan- Mm ...

looking for your email and credentials. Have you paid for it? No.

Thank God, because let me tell you what they said with this release. Their dark web scan here produced 80 to 90% false positive rates. Oh, lovely.

And so they've decided they're going to get real now. So for all of you who've been paying for any Google dark web scanning all these years, God bless you. Thank you.

God bless you. Yeah, 80 to 90%. Right.

No, they offered a free capability to do it. I was actually doing research for a lawsuit around a breach, and that's how I ran across it, and I was like, all right. So it gives you data, but to your point, it's old data.

Mm. Right? It's my password from 10 years ago.

Okay, great. And I have Life Lock, so it's interesting to see how this is going to morph all of these services, because that's what a lot of these guys are making bank on right now. They're looking for all this stuff.

They're sending you your monthly alerts and stuff. You're paying, what, 10, 12 bucks a month for it. Does this disrupt all of that?

Could be interesting. Absolutely. Could be.

I think it also plays into the quantum thing, the post-quantum thing of harvest now- Oh, decrypt later ... decrypt later. Right.

I think a lot of it, and obviously Google's not seeing that data, but to me, that data is sort of radioactive. It has a half-life. Yeah.

Every X months, more and more of it decays into- Some of it does, and some of it doesn't, right? There'll be some. There are certain data elements that don't decay that fast, and they're tied to you personally, personal health records.

Some of that information doesn't have as much of a half-life as some of the other things do, but a lot of the other things do, right? And so it depends on the data they're pulling out of the dark web and which ones are going to be more important for the decrypt later discussion. Okay, so I've got to call a timeout on the field here.

Go ahead. Right? We've had this before.

We have services that do this. Maybe this is a better version, more accurate. It's AI.

It's AI. Ooh. That does answer a lot of questions.

" What do we do with-- Now, again, we get notified our stuff's- Yeah, right ... out there. Okay, so what?

What is it doing for me? We're in the age of no more reporting, no more information, no more better information. AI needs to move into the, "And I did something about it.

" Yeah. "I did something to remove it. " Right.

" We don't need more info-- I don't need more alerts. Is it going to blow up the bad guys? Well, yes.

Can we get like a drone? Is that how the war started? With the AI drones from Ukraine?

It's so... Yeah, it's bad. Well, how about Google finds it- No, I'm serious ...

and then they destroy it? Right, if they're- So nobody can use it ... finding it- That's a great idea ...

there's a big crater. There's a digital crater where the data was. Right.

It's the dark web anyways. It's- So why not? It's already underground.

Hey, Google, if you find it, just blow it up for us. But I'm serious. Sure.

Any service that reports more information better, faster, but it's more stuff a human has to do, the human-in-the-loop model is dead. It has to be redefined. Yep.

There are not enough human-in-the-loops, more or less loops and humans- We need humans- ... to do all this ... at the helm.

" So let me throw a monkey wrench into this whole thing, because if you're going to put Gemini's name on it, nobody's going to pay 12 bucks a month for itThis is not, in my mind, targeted at an end user. This is targeted at an organization. This is the compliance people that you're dealing with.

Commvault had a big thing at Tech Field Day yesterday, where they talked about ingesting sources of dark web credentials. Why do I want that? Well, in my risk management platform now that I can show that it was leaked on the dark web, that I've shrunk the dwell time there.

So that means for my auditing purposes, I told you that this was out here, and you didn't go change your password, not on me. So- So let me just get this straight, you're telling me this is all a big cover your a*s thing? It can be- Okay ...

because when Google sells it to somebody as a data source, they're going to get more than $12 a month out of it, times however many- Absolutely ... and that gives them the ability to say, "We saved billions and billions and billions of dollars for these companies by shrinking the dwell time on their risk management platform," so they get to trumpet it and talk about how awesome their AI is at finding this stuff, and they don't even have to have a drone fleet to go nuke the forums where these things are being found. The problem is we're still reporting the wrong metrics to the board.

The board doesn't give a s**t about dwell time, guys. Mm. Mm.

They don't. Yeah. Okay?

They want to know what my risk exposure is in a quantified way. Dwell time's the wrong metric, so- Well, they don't know what dwell time is ... it might drive those kind of metrics, but at the end of the day, boards don't care- Right ...

guys. They just don't. So how do we flip this, right?

If you find it, I'm telling you right now, if you find it, just blow it up, then nobody can use it. And then there's no risk. You- Then there's zero risk.

But Matt, they don't even care about the metrics. What they care about is, what does it do to me? Exactly.

Is this a problem I need dealt with? What's my exposure? What's my exposure?

Well, and are you doing anything about it? Yeah. And that's, again, to my point about I don't need more fricking information.

I don't need more information- I know ... to show to the board to try to... I'm just here- Information or fricking information?

Fricking information. Okay. Yeah.

I just want the quantified- It's a dark web term. It's a dark web term. You're out there in the- I don't want no fricking information.

Like I said, it's the dark web. Just go blow it up. Who cares?

Yeah. I am. I'm deadly serious.

No more useless information. Google should ransomware from the ransomware gang. That doesn't enable us to do anything about it.

And it would make them a lot of- Put AI to work. Yeah. But, Tom- Barking dogs.

Right. I got it. But Tom's point's not lost.

We, in this industry, for too long... And I'm not knocking anyone, and far be it from me to disparage what a man does for a living, as Don Corleone would say. Right?

But- Anyways ... the whole GRC business, when did they ever do anything proactive, other than reporting so that we could lower our risk, theoretically- Theoretical risk, I call it ... and say that.

But you got companies, Archer is of course the granddaddy of them, but the whole GRC industry is built around exactly what Mitchell's saying needs to go. I know. Then reporting it does not lower your risk.

No. Makes you know about it. I built an early GRC.

I spent two and a half years trying to fix Archer. Those legacy players are struggling to find relevancy in an AI-driven world, and it does not come down to reporting. No.

No. It's all about actionability. It's all about driving outcomes.

In today's world, it has to be, man. It has to. Has to.

And they're not in a position to do that. And back to this AI thing, another case of disruption, if Google didn't do this, someone else would- Right ... and would've called them on it.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, there are- At least they patched their own ...

there are firms out there, like SpyCloud does this. There's companies out there that have built business models around going to identify this for you. Sure.

The question is what kind of disruption does Google and Gemini create for security vendors that are just focused on finding the stuff on the dark web? Yeah, yeah. This is super disruptive, by the way.

It builds the thing where your board won't trust random company X that's in- Right ... a corner booth on the south side of Moscone, but Google, we know those guys, and we wouldn't paste this- Well, that's the thing ... because we trust them ...

it's Google. Exactly. I interviewed the CEO of a company called Black Cloak yesterday.

Mm-hmm. This is basically a protection service for high- Yeah ... net worth individuals and corporate execs.

Yeah. Executive protection. I've interviewed them before too.

Yeah. Nice guys. They're all former feds and everything else, but the point is this, though: part of what they offer is keeping these people's stuff, or information, off the dark web.

Yeah. Now, they claim they have a better mousetrap, it's just really expensive because that's their whole- Exactly ... thing.

But I know from my own personal experience, I've paid the Experience and so forth of the world to make sure, let me know. " Not dark websites, but just- Yeah, it's all the data brokers ... USA Infos and other different sites.

Yeah, it's all the data brokers. They're data sites. And you know what?

The next month, it's back on those sites too. It's back on there. Every 30 days, that stuff shows back up.

Why? Because we keep putting our information into all these websites, so. And that's the whole...

" On the target. "They're chasing your stuff over here. They think that's you.

That's not you anymore. " Right. Mitch, I'm trying to create a digital twin to do my podcast for me, so I can just tell it what to say, and then I'm- I thought that was a digital twin of you, Matt.

I'm glad you're still here. Crazy. I'm still here.

But you know what? Again, I'll end this segment with another example of AI disrupting- Yes. Yeah ...

what was someone's sweet little gig. Exactly. Just happened.

Google can do it, anybody else can do it with AI too. Anybody. I don't disagree there at all.

Time to market, the lead time of value for having a new gadget is- Yep. Somebody else can create the same thing. So, oh, by the way, they did claim 98% accuracy now.

Oh. Up from the 80 to 90% false positive rate. Compared to.

So it's a big difference. No, it's a big difference. These models are getting way better, by the way.

Yeah. They definitely are. The stuff we're using for various parts of our product, they're getting a lot more accurate.

They are getting better. You just got to put the right guardrails around them. No doubt.

All right. Hey, let's jump to topic two while we scour the... I love the word scour, though.

We're in the universe. Scour the dark web. So while we're here in, I guess it's sunny San Francisco.

It is. It's warm right now. Techstrong chief content officer Mike Vizard is over in Amsterdam.

Quite frankly, I don't know if he's at the tulips or the red-light district or the Grolsch beer bar. Let's see. So what time over there?

He's in the red-light district right now. He's there at this point. Yeah, it's evening over there.

But he gave us a report on what's going on at KubeCon EU. AI had a big thing. Agentic AI had its day.

But clearly the star of KubeCon Europe this year has been digital sovereignty. Yeah. These guys, I think we're going to see a declaration of independence here.

I think we have, yeah. Tom, what's your take? I think given the situation that's going on globally right now, a lot of people in the EU that have a lot of discomfort with where their data is being stored or processed finally said enough is enough.

Because anytime I hear the term digital sovereignty, I hear it in a German accent because German firms do not like data leaving Germany. And in a lot of cases, they can't. We even had an example yesterday in one of our presentations about how Germany won't let certain data be processed, even in the UK now that they're not a part of the EU.

And so now everyone's turning around and saying, "Hold on. Our data's going where, and it's being processed by whom, and what? " And that, to me, says that Europe is really kind of pulling away and wanting to take a lead in providing protections and ensuring things aren't going to happen.

But in order to do that, they have to make sure that the data stays in Europe in order to have any kind of efficacy on that. And they're using what's going on right now as a great way to say, "We're slamming the door shut. It's not leaving anymore.

If you want it, you have to provide these protections to ensure that. But more importantly, when it comes to the US, we don't want you to be able to scan that data. " So I'm curious to see how this kind of declaration of independence is going to be taken.

Is it going to be the King George version where it's like, "Oh, these peasants, you'll be back," or is it going to be something bigger? So I'll let you guys jump in here. This is not new, by the way.

Before we do, though, I got to say one thing. I have nothing against Germany or the German people. He works for Tech Field Day, not Techstrong.

So please don't hold it against me. And I'm German, darn it. I didn't know you were.

Letters. Cards and letters. One of my really good friends, Jasper Bongertz, who used to work for Airbus Cyber Defense, taught me everything I need to know about digital sovereignty.

I'll take it one step further. They're onto something over there. I think they are a lot more advanced when it comes to- Oh, there's no doubt ...

the security of data. Everybody drives German cars. They should be using German data security, too.

Absolutely. All the taxis are Mercedes-Benz, folks, for that reason. You can't go wrong there, yeah.

Right. So this isn't new, by the way. Yeah.

This has been around for a while. When I was at Qualys, we had to put a data center in Germany to support Daimler and companies that were over there. France, the same way.

The challenge has been, and look, from a regulatory perspective, EU leads the world. Mm-hmm. Okay?

GDPR, DORA, NIS2 are going to put more of these kind of controls in place, right? And data sovereignty has been a conversation for a long time. Here's what's changed.

The relationship between Europe- Mm-hmm ... and the United States and the rest of the world is in flux. Mm-hmm.

So the question becomes, who do I trust? Well, I can trust the EU because we're all together in this, regardless of what else happens in the world. And so what I think you're seeing is an interesting kind of political puff up happening a little bit on, hey, we're going to put everything in Europe.

We're going to kind of disconnect ourselves from the United States and all the US players. But look, all the US players are also building data centers over there, too. So there's ways around this, but I think the data sovereignty issue isn't new.

I just think we're going to go through some transitions here of more and more, they want that data in country. They want better protections on it. But DORA, NIS2, and GDPR set precedents well before this came out.

That certainly was the groundwork. I totally agree. Yeah.

I think the conditions on the field are that now any kind of leverage can be taken as far as anybody wants to take it, particularly the US. We can prevent this merger of your acquisitions- Right ... sell of a company, buying property, investing in companies.

All of those things now are a fair game to go after- Yep ... for whatever reason. " Mm-hmm.

It's that kind of pressure and leverage, and people don't want to be subject to that. Yeah. Sovereign entities are like, "Screw that.

I can't live in a world-" Right ... " Now they still have to participate in things, markets, economies- Yes ... yeah.

Exactly. Person- And they have to build infrastructure to support it. We're not talking- That's the key to this ...

it's easy when you can leverage an Amazon data center to build up. Now they have to replicate that. There's some infrastructure expense and cost to get them there.

They have to make a conscious decision they're going to go there. If they are, then they're going to also have to make the investment- The whole thing ... for the infrastructure to support this stuff.

Well, then it's kind of a reverse investment, because if you want to be here, Amazon, build your data center here. Yeah. We'll hire German people to build it.

But you're still a US company. And operate it. Right.

You're still a US company. It's still a US company, and back to the first article. I may have to pay more for it.

I can scour your data. Exactly. And- Across regional zones And I think that one thing you have to understand is that a lot of people are going to back the EU because of the regulations.

Exactly. Because the regulations provide stability. You're not going to have somebody that wakes up one day and says, "I am no longer going to allow anybody in the US to import any networking equipment-" Exactly ...

" Exactly. The EU can't do that, because they have to follow the rules. Let me channel my best Hillary Clinton for you.

Okay. I'm waiting for this. Digital sovereignty is national sovereignty, and national sovereignty is personal sovereignty, and that's what this is about.

It's about national sovereignty. " Yep. And that set them in a tizzy.

Yeah. A tizzy. You're right.

They cannot have this. They want a European cloud. And I don't blame them.

No, I don't either. No, I don't either. But the national sovereignty issue is hand-in-hand with their personal sovereignty, which they've expressed in GDPR- Yes ...

and DORA and all of these things. They take it seriously, much more seriously than the United States. Way more seriously than us.

That's why we have 50 variations of privacy law. Exactly. Because we don't take it seriously as a nation.

We don't. We don't have the political will to do something like this. Right.

But make no mistake, they are talking about building from the ground up- I know ... a total... You're talking infrastructure.

They don't want chips made in the US. Mm-hmm. Not that we make chips here much, but they don't want- Wait, who are you talking to?

I hear we're making chips in the US now. Yeah, no, Intel. Intel.

Yeah. No. Taiwan Semiconductor- Yeah, they- ...

come over and build a plant. Six years ago. Yeah, six years from now.

Lay's Potato Chips. Lay's Potato Chips. Yeah, we have plenty of those chips.

Actually, an interesting story, Arm, which is EU-based- Yeah ... just announced they're going to start making their own chips. " Yeah.

Yeah. They're making their own chips. And here's an interesting thing.

AWS, Google, and Microsoft have, in deference to the EU and that market, have said, "Hey, we're starting an EU digital sovereign division. We're going to have AWS based in Europe," that- Yeah ... and they're partnering with companies like SUSE, where Mitch and I, in a month, will be at SUSE talking about this, that are going to be European.

But the fact that it's owned by AWS, an American company, is still not going to sit well with certain, I don't know if it'll just be Germans, it could be the Swedes. The Swiss. Or France.

Swedes, whoever. Yeah. All kidding aside.

Yeah. They want their own thing- Yeah ... that's totally clean, and as you said, is not subject to the whims of some crotchety old man who wakes up in the morning and decides to tweet.

Are you saying, "It takes a village," is kind of passe now? Continuing my Hillary thing. So much for that.

Exactly. Well, they have a village. Yes.

They have a whole bunch of villages. It takes a village, just my own village. Right, just their village, not your village.

And then here's my follow-up to that. Okay, so that's the EU. Now, look, China does their own thing, where you- China already does.

Yeah. They're already sovereign. As a matter of fact, they've put a big push on, also, they don't want to be...

To them, it's not the chips, it's networking gear. Yeah. And design.

So they're developing their own that. But what about the rest of Asia? What about Singapore and India and Malaysia and Indonesia?

We used to just kind of shrug our shoulders because they didn't amount to a hill of beans, as Humphrey Bogart would say. But they do now. They do.

These are big- Especially Singapore. You've got Australia, but they'll align more to the EU than anyone else. Yeah.

Australia is Western. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely Western. But yeah. Japan.

Yeah, Japan. Japan's got... Yeah.

There are other places. You're going to see Vietnam and all these other places, also Turkey. This goes back, we're all old enough.

We're not Gen Z, millennials here. We grew up in a Cold War. Yes.

Yeah. Where there was us and them. Right.

And there were those who were in our sphere of influence, and the Warsaw Pact was their sphere. Bud Nick. Yeah.

Set it all off, right? But this sphere of influence seems to be breaking up now, and it's every man for himself, every nation for themselves. Yeah.

So for me, the question will be, mentioning those other Asian nations is, will the BRICS alliance decide to do their own thing? That's an interesting take, too. China can lead there, and if China can pull in India to be a part of the BRICS cloud- And Brazil.

Don't underestimate Brazil there ... those three countries together are what? Half the population of the planet, or pretty close to?

Absolutely, Doug. Yeah, pretty close. And that could be a big deal.

I think the reason why India hasn't had to confront this yet is because they've pretty much been playing along with what US interest is. China has been opposed for a long time. The EU is starting to be opposed.

I think India plays both sides of the fence. They play along what US interest is, why they buy Russian oil. Right.

Yeah. Right? India plays both sides of the fence here.

They do. But eventually, we know from our experience You're going to have to make a decision sooner or later. And the question is, who's going to put the dollars behind it to make India move to their side?

And that's where I think BRICS is going to be a watch. Yeah, no, you know what? It's an excellent point.

I didn't think of the BRICS- Yeah ... angle topic. Mm-hmm.

Let me give you another angle that's at play here: currency. Mm. Mm.

If we're moving off dollars- Yeah ... to whatever we're going to move in in this world. Are we?

I don't know. I thought we'd already started this. That's what BRICS is all about.

Yeah. I hear you. This changes the whole thing.

Who's going to make Bitcoin and Ethereum on their reserve currency list, right? No one's done it yet. Everybody thought we'd...

We would've done it. No, there's one Caribbean country. Oh, is there one?

Okay. Yeah, I forgot which. Thank God.

One of the countries in the... Not a world- Okay ... power, but yeah.

But- Got to be somebody big, Alan ... I don't know if it'll be Bitcoin or Ethereum. Maybe it'll be the Trump coin.

No. I'm kidding. I'm kidding!

Easy. You had to go there. But I had to go there.

We need one that's quantum safe- Yeah, that's quantum ... otherwise we're all screwed, so. That was yesterday.

But, no kidding around, this is a global thing. You mentioned BRIC, Brazil, and all of Latin America. Africa, this is why China kind of appeals to them because- Mm ...

" They're going to call in these favors. Oh, yeah. They're going to call these in.

Yeah. But, I think over the next five years, in today's world, three years, we're going to see how this plays out- Mm-hmm ... where countries and trade zones, because that's- Yeah ...

really what the world's devolved into now- Uh-huh ... trade zones, are going to make their choice. Do they want to go it alone?

They're going to watch what the EU's doing and how successful the EU is. And I'm sorry to say this, it could spell trouble for America- Oh, absolutely ... or the US.

Yeah. Well, this leads into your third article we're going to cover. Absolutely.

Matt, you're very perceptive. He's done this before. I can see why you've done so well over there.

Yeah. That leads to our- We all have to wind together. No, that's the thread we call- There's a thread ...

business. Yeah. Yeah, we've got to weave the articles together.

I hope you're getting all this at home because this was not scripted. This is... I don't know.

This is what happens when you have a few of us just do this for a daily- Yeah, and it's not even late enough to say we've been drinking. I know. Well, I gave up drinking for Lent, so- Okay, there you go ...

my first sober RSA. So I said the good news about that is I don't forget anything. Well.

I still forget. Anyway, I want to talk about something called Pax Silica. Not Pax Romana, not Pax Americana, Pax- The latest- Silica ...

vaccination? Is that what that is, Pax Silica? I don't believe in vaccinations.

Oh, okay. That's not an issue. All right.

Okay. Matt, what do you have on this one? So this is to create this supply chain capability, $4 trillion in voluntary investment.

Okay, we're $39 trillion in debt. Where's all this money going to come from? 6 trillion to do some of these relationships now.

So this is over double of anything we've attempted to do. Yeah. But here's the drivers: Strait of Hormuz, right?

Yeah. When you shut down 20% of the world's oil supply, everybody starts freaking out. Oh, yeah.

And they're like, "Whoa, how do we not only protect the supply chain from a chips perspective or any commerce? " The physical supply chain. Physical supply chain.

Yeah. And getting ships safely through a very difficult passage right now. And so it's an interesting concept.

The question is, who's all going to sign up? And this ties back into the previous conversation a little bit on the previous article is, look, we've gotten some pushback from our allies to open up the Strait of Hormuz. However, it's the Europeans, and the Indians, and a few others that are actually facing more of the brunt of the issue of the slowdown of hormone supply.

That's the case, yeah. So can they really sit on the sidelines? I don't know.

They can for a while, but can they for long, right? So it'll be interesting to see who all comes together. Now, I could see the GCC coming together, right, to protect the interests of the Gulf countries, Oman, and you've got- UAE ...

UAE, and Bahrain, and- Yeah ... and Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, because they want to get their oil out. So those, I think they're in, but then who else in the world really gets interested in wanting to secure the supply chain?

Well, Matt, I think it comes down to, it's a bit of a tipping point, and then the cards fall. Yeah. There's FOMO, right?

Once enough or the right people are in, everybody else says, "Well, I have to be there- Yeah ... too. " Exactly.

Because I don't want to be the country that the next time this happens, I can't get access to that supply chain. I'm subject to whatever happened. Exactly.

I'm out of the picture. Right. Exactly.

So I got a few thoughts on this. What a uniquely American knee-jerk response. We got a problem?

Let me throw a whole bunch of money at it. That'll be- They want a bunch of people to throw a bunch of money now. Well, but who was the first one?

Yeah, us. $250 million. Nah, now we're following.

Well, we create the market. " Collectively. " Right?

But money doesn't buy love, happiness, or peace. That's true. And money is not going to open the Strait of Hormuz.

No. Money isn't going to stop some of these hacktivists, religious extremists-And everyone else who's responsible, it's all digital terrorism is not economically related or have an economic payoff. People do it for political statements and just because they're terrorists.

Yeah. And you're not going to solve-- Even if you could raise $4 trillion, and I agree with you, Matt, to me the dead giveaway is when it said voluntary. Voluntary to me always means optional.

Right. It's like when you swipe your card now, you want to give them a 22% tip, 25% custom tip, no tip. How many people are swiping 20% or 25?

It's voluntary. So, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, guys. But throwing money at the problem is not the solution.

The other thing is, this is a retread. This Pax Silicon idea was originally just digital- Right ... supply chain, networking gear, infrastructure, chips, what have you.

AI chips. Yeah. All of that.

We were going to make sure that, and let's call a spade a spade. This grew out of the fear of China invades Taiwan- Right ... we're all screwed.

Right. Mm-hmm. Right?

That's what this was originally supposed to be, a hedge against losing Taiwan. Now, as Matt said, we got a new flashpoint, a new kind of most urgent thing. And so, well, we got to worry about our oil and energy supply.

Right. And so let's take this from $2 trillion to $4 trillion. But I don't think money's the answer without teeth, without- I hear what you're saying, but at risk of angering the great Shimi- No, don't.

When did you ever see me get angry? It's slow to anger, but- Yeah. Think about it this way, like in for a penny, in for a pound, right?

Uh-huh. This is like, I just need you to be in, you need to be part of this. You need to be investing in it.

Once you're in, I can keep asking for more money, right? You want to stay in? Okay, great.

You're out if you don't keep contributing more in, right? It is a laundering scheme- You know what I'm afraid- ... of building up this- You know what I'm afraid money is means?

momentum of money. You give me the money, I'm going to send my boys over there- That's exactly what it is ... to keep the Strait open.

That's what I'm saying. Right Right? Yeah.

Until our boys start coming home in boxes. This is why we need to fund protection around Congress, potentially. I'm just saying.

Yeah, no. It's good. Part of this is to identify who your true alliances- Yep ...

and allies are in the world, I think. When you notice the term, there's never the term fully funded. No.

No. This is an ongoing- And it's voluntary and it starts ... group.

Pulling in money. But it's American blood- Yeah. Well ...

and our lives that are going to be on the front line there. You mentioned our friends in the Gulf Coast. Throughout history, they've always been very happy to give a couple shekels- Yep ...

and not have to actually fight themselves. Yeah. That's their MO.

The Saudis have done it too. Until one of their neighbors starts firing upon them. Well, yeah.

Isn't it? But you don't see them? They haven't yet.

You don't see them? I know. Not yet.

There's been talk about some of them entering. But you're right, they haven't. Talk's cheap.

I know. I agree. They'd much rather pay.

What we need to do is we need to get an organization together that can police itself and make sure that we never have to deal with these supply chains disruptions. Can you get Woodrow Wilson on the phone? 19...

The League of Nations. Because I feel like we've done this concept before, and I know exactly how it ends, and that means that one of the countries that's participating in this alliance eventually gets pushed to a point where they can't do anything anymore, and they make a decision. And then you realize that if there's nothing in this system that allows you to punish aggressors, then it is a system- It's a paper tiger ...

it's a boys club that you have to write a check to every month. Yeah. My point exactly.

True story. So political science history major here. The US never approved the League of Nations.

You're right. Wilson failed. He had a stroke and he couldn't push it over the edge, and that's why it failed.

We recircled it after World War II as the United Nations. Yeah. Right.

But it didn't have the teeth that Wilson wanted to put into the League of Nations. But at the same time, we're still facing that problem with the United Nations today- Oh, it's the same. It's the same issue ...

because five people can shut down the United Nations. And there's no teeth. And let's look at the thing.

The Strait of Hormuz is currently closed. There's a possibility that Taiwan could be invaded. Countries in Europe are being invaded.

Oh, look, three of the five people who have veto power on the United Nations- Are involved in that ... Security Council are involved in all of those things. Yeah.

And two of the other people are aligned with one of the people doing that, more or less. So, this is what I'm worried about is, great, digital sovereignty, supply chain restrictions, those kinds of things, I'm all for that. Let's try to prevent people from wrecking software or doing that with chips, because companies and insurance companies will pay into the fund to prevent that from happening.

But as soon as you get to the point where a nation state is the one that's causing these problems, where a country shuts down all imports of networking gear because, well, I don't like things that aren't made here, or I'm just going to close a geopolitical area of the world because I can park enough boats in it, or insurance companies won't let boats sail through it because, well, I'm not going to take that risk. Too much risk. Right.

Then you have a bigger problem, and I agree with you, there is no amount of money you can throw at that to make it go away, because the last time I checked, drones are cheap. Yeah. And that also is the lesson of the day that- Yeah ...

AI, I wrote an article on this this week about, have we had the first AI war? So a war that AI actually-Affected. And, some say it's the Ukrainian-Russian conflict.

Some say it was the Iranian-Israeli 12-day war in June. Some say it's what went on this time in Iran. Yeah.

But it changes the game. You don't need billion-dollar F-35s anymore. No.

You got $10,000 drones. We found out that one of those billion-dollar F-35s- Got shot down by an- ... wasn't as effective as we wanted it to be.

Yeah. Yeah. Asymmetric warfare.

Asymmetric war. It's a game-changing thing there. And it impacts...

So put that in our position as cybersecurity professionals. Right. Yeah.

It's an asymmetric war as well. It absolutely is. What was the old IRA quote?

"I only have to get lucky once. " Every time. Yeah.

So you're saying OpenClaw is the new drone of cyber- OpenClaw? Mm. Alan, can I slap him?

Yeah. Waiting for the right point to bring up OpenClaw. All right, you got OpenClaw.

Got to get the- Wait, he said OpenClaw, we got to drink. But- Drink. We're not drinking.

It's early. But no, this is a real problem, and $4 trillion, what they say- It is nothing to sneeze at And it just doesn't buy you love, happiness, and peace. And that's- But the number.

You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of the speculation market for used video games or Pokemon cards or whatever. What is this thing worth?

What somebody is going to pay for it. And if nobody's willing to put money into packed silica or whatever we're going to call it next week, then it's worth nothing to anybody. And that's one of the things that we're starting to see with people, is they're starting to question what the actual value of something is.

What is a trillion dollars? Or what am I signing up for, right? Yeah.

Yeah. But let me give you a little irony. Again, we grew up in an era where global trade was good.

Right? Yeah. Let's lower barriers, let's all trade more.

Let's make the world... What's the Disney song? It's a small world.

Yeah, after. Let's make a small world here and bring it together. Over the last 10 or more years, we've seen a huge rebound from that saying, "Hey, no, we need barriers.

" And everyone else does, and so we've seen barriers coming up to inhibit free trade. Now, all of a sudden, you close up the oil gap for a bit, just for a week or two- Yeah ... " "Whoa.

" "We need trade again. " Can't have it both ways. Right.

Yeah. So I think we would've seen the same thing had something happened to Taiwan. Now all of a sudden, the discussion changes because one of the critical resources that we have is unavailable to us.

We saw this during the pandemic, right? Where suddenly- Yeah. Supply chain ...

we couldn't get chips over here, and everything got more expensive. Why is my washing machine- We couldn't get masks- Right ... let alone chips.

Which is possibly one of the easiest things to manufacture, except it's not because we don't make that here. We don't make it here. And that was one of the arguments against the free trade thing- Yeah ...

was what is going to happen when you run the global economy like a business? Some actor in the business is going to figure out the cheapest way to make something to make as much money as possible to drive all of the other companies out of business. What did you expect was going to happen?

I agree with you. Welcome to capitalism. Ah.

Good- So I have a solution for the Strait of Hormuz, by the way. That's what we wanted to hear. Okay.

Here it is. You've been saving it all this time. All this time.

You've been sandbagging on us. UAE needs to build a canal that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz. Goes to the Red Sea where the Houthis can get it.

No, comes straight down. If you know the geography of the Strait of Hormuz- I do. UAE comes up into the- Into the- Into the strait.

Into the Gulf. But if you put a canal like the Suez Canal or the Panama Canal, if you put a canal right along the border of UAE, you can bypass the Strait of Hormuz and bypass all of this. Come down like behind Oman.

And there is where you make your investment. Not even kidding, I know exactly how we can make that happen. All of that construction equipment that was on the west side of Saudi Arabia building the Line, that's not building the Line anymore, just move it over there and have them start digging again.

Probably get it done in two or three years, and it'll probably still cost less than the Line. For 4 trillion? I'm telling you- Four trillion?

It's cheap for 4 trillion. It's cheap. Oh, yeah.

I'm telling you. Oh, yeah. You bypass the Strait of Hormuz, this issue goes away completely.

All you need is UAE to build a canal through there. So let me just rain on your parade. Why?

Come on. No, let me rain on your parade a second. The fact of the matter is, Saudi Arabia was getting hit by missiles in Iran off of the Gulf Coast.

Yeah. Right. They have a pipeline to another one of their cities- Right.

Over to the Red Sea ... on the Red Sea. Yeah.

Uh-huh. Sure do. They started doing that, and what did Iran do?

They hit that oil processor facility. They hit the oil processor on the Red Sea. Yeah.

Of course. What makes you think they shot a missile going towards Diego Garcia? They could get to the Gulf Coast of Oman.

It's not that they can't get to it. Right now we're in a conflict, but if we want to create a zone of protection- A stable ... a stable way to bypass this issue in the future, UAE should put a canal through, right where it connects to Oman.

I'm telling you, that would bypass a lot of these issues in the future. Then you put defenses around it to protect it, and now we don't have an issue with 20% of the world's oil. I'm just saying.

And look, Matt's end of quarter fundraising goal is coming on really soon. So send $5 for Matt Alderman for president- ... and put an end to the Strait of Hormuz issue.

Oh, he doesn't want to be president. He doesn't have any power. He wants to be in charge of the canal.

That's it. He's the canal man. Yeah, I want to be in charge of the canal.

20% of the world's oil? Come on, baby. The Robert Moses of canals.

That's way more than 4 trillion. Absolutely. Guys, we are about out of time, though.

What a great... Who knew we were going to have this as our last segment? Who knew I was going to come on and have so much fun?

Yeah. " Yeah. Carefully walked by.

You never know. But I hope you've enjoyed this at home. Of course, if you're not watching this live, it'll be on TekStrong TV.

You can check it out. But Matt, Tom, Mitchell, thank you. Thank you for watching.

Hey, we've got a full day of RSA coverage live coming at you in just a bit, so stay tuned for that. But for now, enjoy the rest of your day. On behalf of all of us and TekStrong and everyone else, enjoy.

We'll see you soon