In the first half, one of the top keynote speakers on cybersecurity, Kevin Mitnick, discussed the latest in technology and how to protect assets and identity in the sophisticated and evolving world of cybercrime. Regarding the recent announcement that Marriott International's Starwood reservation system had been hacked, it appears that "bad actors" or criminals were interested in the database, he suggested, or possibly a nation state was behind it in order to track the whereabouts of given individuals. A lot of companies were hacked starting with an email—a method he calls "spear phishing," in which employees are tricked into opening a link that unleashes a malicious payload allowing access into the computer system.
The "dark web" which uses the Tor browser is designed for people who want to maintain anonymity while browsing the Internet, and while it's associated with criminal enterprises, Mitnick said it could have some positive uses such as for online shopping without being tracked. He also talked about how leaked passwords have been used for blackmail scams, as well as "ransomware" encryptions, where a user has to pay a fee to have their data unfrozen. For added security, Mitnick recommended using two-factor authentication when possible, especially for banking and financial sites.
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In the latter half, MIT and Princeton trained physicist Dr. Claude Swanson discussed the science of the paranormal, and evidence for the continuation of existence after death. When people die, something leaves the body-- "an energy form is often seen by nurses, [and] it's been measured and photographed by scientists," he noted, adding that it's the same ball of energy that leaves a person during out-of-body experiences. Experiments indicate that this ball is a type of "torsion" energy, he reported. One of the ways people often communicate from the Other Side is through electronic voice phenomena (EVP)-- they may appear as orbs and release high-pitched sounds, he stated.
Swanson also cited the work of mediums like Allison DuBois, as well as the late Leslie Flint from Britain, who in séances, contacted the deceased and manifested their voices. Some of the mediums while in a trance were said to produce ectoplasm from out of their bodies which landed on the ground. "Then a spirit can crawl into this little pile on the floor," he detailed, "and you can watch it rise up off the floor and take the shape of a person." This phenomenon was well-known and well-researched 100 years ago, Swanson commented. Explaining his "synchronized universe" model, he said that every particle of space-time interacts with each other over vast distances. A web forms from all those interactions, and functions like an intelligent neural network.
News segment guests: Catherine Austin Fitts, Steve Kates