Dad and Company
Join hosts Jacob Espinoza and Dylan Schmidt as they explore the joys and challenges of modern fatherhood. Each episode features candid conversations about parenting, work-life balance, and personal growth. Dylan and Jacob share their own experiences as dads and welcome guests to discuss topics like bedtime routines, discipline strategies, and building strong family bonds. Expect honest talk, practical advice, and a supportive community for dads at all stages of the parenting journey.
Dad and Company
The Modern Dad's Guide to Online Safety With Andy Murphy
Welcome to this week's episode of Dad and Company!
In this episode, Dylan and Jacob are talking with special guest Andy Murphy about:
- The recent massive data breach and steps to protect your family's personal information
- How to freeze your credit and your children's credit for enhanced security
- Key warning signs to watch for in your children's online interactions
- Strategies for setting boundaries and having open conversations about internet safety
- And much more!
Learn more about Andy:
How to freeze your child’s credit: https://www.thesecuredad.com/creditfreeze
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesecuredad/
Website: https://www.thesecuredad.com/
I think it's interesting because we're so like in the creator economy and like we use social media as a tool for so many like productive things that I think sometimes we forget about, like the potential dangers of just having an online presence right and talking with strangers A hundred percent Like what could happen if yeah.
Speaker 1:I think as a parent just kind of amplifies it because, like as a person, I'm like, eh, I'll figure it out. But then I start thinking like what if my kids are impacted? Like, okay, that creates a little more urgency of me making changes and taking steps to make sure people are safe and protected. And he gives so many, so much valuable advice. Like in the 25 minutes we talked with him, I think I have like four things. I'm like all right, I gotta start doing that a little bit different. I gotta start doing that a little bit different. I need to make sure I implement this. And they're all simple things but like important things as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we think about kids. We also obviously got to think of ourselves. You, good sir, you have been blowing up what's happened in Salem and I was like, oh, I'm going to experiment with a couple of posts on a local community page I had started like a year ago. I was like, actually, I'll just mess around and post a couple things just to experiment with it. And the immediate feeling I got when I did that was like, oh shoot, this is way close to home. Now, when I go to the grocery store or something like I just kind of aware like people can see me, but I can't see them as much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you feel that when you're posting stuff, I'm not really.
Speaker 1:I think I I've been pretty involved in the community for a while. I think what prepared me for it was the when I was making music and I was like actively, like trying to promote it to people, getting in front of people and like asking people to show up to shows or buy a cd, and there was. So there was a and want to be known, right kind of in that capacity, because if people knew me, that means they hopefully would want to support my music. But I think I don't really think of myself when I'm making the clips. I really think I'm pretty focused on what's valuable to the person that's watching this.
Speaker 1:So, in that sense it's, I feel like I remove myself from it. But there have been moments, right, people at the coffee shop are like, hey, I saw the page, I love it, it's awesome, and that's becoming more frequent, which is kind of fun and exciting. I do think there are right now, while everything is positive, it's great, but when at some point I make a certain group upset because of something that I said, then it probably won't be as fun. I know that that's going to be kind of part of the process as well. But, um, I also feel like I am just putting out positive energy. You know like I'm not like turning people down.
Speaker 1:I really am focusing on positive things and even when there are negative things that's happening, like trying to really take a healthy perspective on it. So I I feel like a lot of times you get the energy back that you put out into the world. So I know it's a little bit of a tangent of the original question you asked, but when I think about like putting myself out there and, you know, understanding, there's an audience that's seeing it and I can't see all of them, like that's that's kind of how I think about it yeah, I'd say I'm optimistic guy, but it's like that proactive approach to making sure that you are secure without because it's a balance of being like secure and making sure that you're safe without being so paranoid where you're sacrificing your quality of life.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean for sure, and it's.
Speaker 1:It is challenging, I think. The like, the, even the idea of like where do I focus my attention? Like there's so much beauty, there's so much beauty in the world, there's so much incredible things we can enjoy, but there are also all these injustices as well that are ugly and we can like work towards, and people that are experiencing terrible situations, and so it's like where do I spend my time and attention? I? Do I just want to enjoy my life and ignore all that, or do I want to focus there and like help a lot of people, and I think they're like overall, like most people, I think product.
Speaker 1:I think being a productive person requires that we spend time on both sides of the aisle, and I'm naturally a very optimistic person, so I do have to work on like all right, let's be critical, think critically here as well. So I don't want to just like jump off this cliff without at least looking to make sure there's a safe landing down there for me, or the water's deep enough and there's nothing in the water that I'm going to hit on the way down. So I do think that it requires, you know, having both, and sometimes we need to have people in our life that can supplement our strengths. So I know I need people that are going to be more critical thinkers in my life, that can talk them through an idea and they'll point out the gaps and the flaws that maybe I'm not seeing because I'm an optimistic person ready to get started, that maybe I'm not seeing because I'm an optimistic person ready to get started. So I think sometimes just that's why you know teams are important as well, to help us kind of find balance in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and something I liked that Andy equips us with is really just knowing what to look for. It's one thing to like have an idea of what could happen, which is not empowering if you're like, oh, my kid could be groomed through this social media and social media video game thing versus. Here's what you should be looking for yeah, if you know some, if your kid plays with this thing yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to see a like a flow chart of the conscious thought we just went to, from like cybersecurity to what's happening in Salem, to like what happens if people know you. Back to the episode. Like that was awesome, I'm ready. I'm ready to go.
Speaker 2:Let's go. Our guest today is Andy Murphy. He founded the Secure Dad. You can find him on all the social media platforms at the Secure Dad. He founded the Secure Dad in 2016 because he realized that every parent is a protector. It's up to us, as protector parents, to make sure our family is safe. Through his book, podcast and online learning, andy works to help educate families on how they can live safer, happier lives. Let's cut to our episode with Andy Murphy, the Secure Dad. Thank you, andy, for joining us on this. Every edition of Dad and Company is a special edition, but thank you for joining us on this special edition of Dad and Company.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. I have listened to your show and I appreciate what you guys are doing and I'm happy to be talking to you.
Speaker 2:The feeling is mutual and we were thinking about what we wanted to talk with you about this episode, because there's a lot we could cover in a short amount of time, the most timely of which. Can you tell us a little bit about what's going on? I've only seen the headlines.
Speaker 1:There's like a social security breach, because that's your back, that's your world. Right, it has become my world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I started actually home security and I started to see how Americans were losing privacy every single day, and so it started to get me upset since I'm a distinguished gentleman of a certain age now that this bothers me. Why isn't anybody else, you know, worried about this thing? So yeah, so it started with home security, but the big news right now is in the privacy area, and that is a company that provides information to businesses for background checks, was has suffered some sort of a data breach. We don't know the full extent yet, we may not ever know and it happened back in April. Now it is August and we found out yesterday because somebody sued the company and had public documents come out and fully outline what had gone wrong. What had gone wrong?
Speaker 3:Long story short, somewhere between 2.7 billion and 2.9 billion people's information was compromised.
Speaker 3:We're talking names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, everything that it takes to impersonate you now exists on the dark web and at first, a lot of of times, these, these data broker, these excuse me, I don't want to use data brokers, because that's not right these um people, these hackers who get all these you know, big like terabytes of data. They try to sell it off that sort of thing. Well, somebody leaked all of this information publicly, and so it was no longer for sale. It was no longer hidden, it's just all over the dark web, and I actually was able to go through a surface web site and look up my information and come to find out that my information was leaked in this particular data breach. So I know for sure that my social security number, an old address and my full name have been breached, and that's enough for a lot of companies and a lot of services to impersonate me, to ding my credit score all sorts of stuff, to wreak all sorts of havoc with my life.
Speaker 2:So what can we do? What do we?
Speaker 1:do so. I have the Norton service where I'll go. Let me know if there are things taken out. Is that enough? Is that a good first step?
Speaker 3:That's a good first step. Yeah, having credit monitoring is a good first step. So, yeah, that's great. Don't change that.
Speaker 3:My suggestion to everyone is to go and put a freeze on your credit, meaning you're going to call Experian and TransUnion and Equifax and tell them that you want to put a freeze on your credit. People do this all the time. Experian makes that really easy to do. They actually have an app where you can just hit one button and freeze and unfreeze your credit. So like, if you know, oh shoot, I need to go buy a car today, I can unfreeze my credit and they can run a credit check on me so I can go buy my car. Once I buy the car, I freeze it back. We're good to go. So that needs to be something that you need to take care of right now and probably for the next little while.
Speaker 3:All of these sites are overwhelmed with the amount of people who are trying to do stuff. As a matter of fact, I'll admit to you I did not have my personal credit frozen until this morning, so I had to work through all three of them and I discovered that the websites were not working properly, and it was actually better to call the 800 numbers and do it that way, through the automated thing. So if you guys are going to freeze your credit, just do it over a touchstone phone uh, like it's, you know, 1995. So you know, that's probably the best thing that you need to do. And also you need to freeze your children's credit as well, because they have social security numbers, names, addresses, that sort of thing. They don't need their credit till they're 18 anyway. My son's credit was already frozen, so I was pretty excited to know that I don't have to deal with that.
Speaker 3:Freezing your credit for an adult you can do over the phone. You can't freeze credit for a child, unless you actually it's weird they want you to claim ownership of the child, so you have to provide a whole lot of documentation. You have to physically mail it in. I have done this process. It can be a little confusing, but I actually created a free guide to help moms and dads through this process that you can go to. I think it's a secure dad dot com slash credit freeze and you can download this guide. It's yours for free and it'll walk you through how you do this for your kids. Because, I hate to say it, what we've seen is the worst data breach in history. Nobody's really talking about it. Nobody really seems to be upset. I don't think people fully understand what this is, but it's hard to think that it's only going to get worse from here, but it really can.
Speaker 1:So at this point it seems like we all just need to assume that our information is available, yes, and operate under that assumption. Our information is out there, our passwords are out there, our social security, everything anybody would need to impersonate us and, you know, make some pretty damaging decisions for us, is out there and we just have to kind of operate under that, that assumption. Right, and it doesn't seem like there's like an end in sight of I.
Speaker 3:You know, I that's a. You've made a great point, I. I don't know what the end is. I don't know when we can actually say, oh, it's all better now. Um, like in the state of South Carolina, they had a breach of several million people in their state and the state went and bought credit monitoring for like 24 months for them. Well, the United States government can't buy credit monitoring for everybody, so I don't know what the solution is. There's going to be a policy change or what's going to happen? By the way, it's not just the united states, it's the united states. Canada and the uk have had their uh important data breached as well. So it's not, it's more than just the united states at this point that's why I'm guessing it's like 2.9 billion, right, because yeah, got it.
Speaker 2:That does it matter about it? Probably doesn it matter about the. Probably doesn't matter about the age, as far as how old your kid is when you should monitor it, or I mean, sorry, freeze it.
Speaker 3:Right, um, they, as soon as they have a social security number, which is like what, within seven days of being born, they can actually be the victim of identity theft. Um, so, born, they can actually be the victim of identity theft, and that's insane. It's insane to think about, because you've just got this brand new baby and you're like I just need to get this thing home and thinking about, oh, I need to freeze their credit. That doesn't actually exist. Yeah, that's an insane thing. But yeah, if you have a social security number, no matter what age you are, you're vulnerable to this. And what I'm also curious about is I've heard this information that goes back 30 years. So I'm actually wondering if there are people who are deceased, who their information has flooded the market and it's going to be a lot harder to stop that sort of stuff, because unbelievably dead people get new credit every day and that's a huge problem with the credit industry, but it happens. So I also expect people who have died recently to their credit is going to be used as well.
Speaker 2:And kind of like Jacob just brought up, but we don't know where this will lead to. Kind of like Jacob just brought up, but you know, we don't know where this will lead to. But having your credit frozen and then like unfreezing it when you buy a car, for example. This I mean, I know it's hard to say, but like, is this just like the normal? Now, If this information is out there, obviously you can't get it back in, Right?
Speaker 3:Right, and that's true no-transcript.
Speaker 3:Wow, and you probably don't really need to even do you even look yourself up, I mean to see if you're on's why I went and did it for me. You can if you want to. I can't remember the link off the top of my head, but if you go and search for the LA Times, their coverage of this event, their very first story that they broke down, at the bottom there's a link to it. It says here's a free tool to check and see if you're in it. So yeah, I think that's something that you could do, but if you don't see yourself, I would still freeze your credit. I still would do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is definitely one of our most uplifting episodes, for sure sorry guys, my bad yeah, let's listen to this to get yourself going in the morning for sure there's not enough doom and gloom in the world. Yeah, yeah, but it better to be, like you know, 100. Yeah, I'm just trying. There's not enough doom and gloom in the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but it better to be like you know 100. Yeah, I'm just trying there's, I feel, like the day, the day and age we live in, where it's like we're over informed about things we don't choose to be like. I know about pop artists that I don't ask to be, you know, my wife doesn't even tell me about them, I just somehow it seeps its way into my brain and I'm like I didn't ask for that, like why do I know about jojo siwa?
Speaker 1:like why do I? Why do I know about jojo? Yeah, yeah, right, I don't need.
Speaker 2:And then this gets through and it's like this is something I need to know because this could help me protect my family, protect myself, protect things that I'm, you know, protect all sorts of things. Um, and, and it's like, yes, okay, just like when you know I feel all sorts of things and and it's like, yes, okay, just like when you know I feel like, for men especially, they're like when you turn this age, you need to like get a physical done, prostate check. You know like there's this thing, like that. It's like if you're a dad and you're listening to this, it's just like this is not like you should probably. It's like just do what Andy is saying.
Speaker 3:I feel like I'm being compared to a colonoscopy and I don't know how I feel about it.
Speaker 1:That's a really interesting transition, for sure. What were you like? But I think that is true. So much of life is just like do the things you know you're supposed to do. Don't do the things you know you're not supposed to do. And this is one of those things that we should do. And even me to myself, like if I wasn't hosting this podcast I don't know if I would take the advice I might just be like, yeah, see what happens you know, but like I feel like I need to kind of lead by example here and make sure I'm taking these steps.
Speaker 1:There's any good one there?
Speaker 3:that, um, you know, there's this massive amount of people that have been like who's going to pick my name out of this? How am I ever going to know? It may take 5, 10, 15 years, because your social security number isn't going to change. Your address may change, your official name may change, but your social security number is going to stay the same, unless you go through the process of getting another one which is actually a used social security number which is still out there. So you're, it's, yeah, it's, it's a mess.
Speaker 2:And thinking about computers and automation and AI. I'm sure someone's out there, you know, already thinking about how they could automate the whole process of checking the available ones, you know, and so whether it takes five years, five months and they have like, well, this is the active list, you know there's people out there doing all assuming that you know there's always someone doing something crazy out there, crazier than we could imagine.
Speaker 1:Right yeah. So, the question does blockchain fix this?
Speaker 3:Blockchain is interesting, um, and and I am not as well versed on, you know, as, like you know, an engineer would be but I, it's interesting, I think that could be something, but I think the harder thing is is getting the government to embrace blockchain, because that's going to be the bigger the, the bigger issue, you know, um, so yeah, I mean, I think for sure that that was definitely better than what we got going on right now. I think we'd all agree at this point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah, no, I, you make a great point should we start a dad and co crypto and sell that?
Speaker 3:that's what absolutely, we should, we're heading absolutely we should.
Speaker 1:That's the pitch. That's where this was headed, for sure the first 100 buyers.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, don't worry about gold or silver crypto.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, all in um, well, if you have anything else on that, jacob, but I I got more to ask andy, that's, I mean, it's, it's funny security, thinking about our own well-being and protecting our family is such a big topic, but this is obviously a huge issue. Are there any other things that you're seeing come up in the immediacy that people are falling victim to when it comes to whether it's physically or digitally, to when it comes to whether it's like physically or digitally, sure.
Speaker 3:So there is something interesting that happened with me, probably a few months ago. I was doing a podcast about kidnapping, and so, you know, when we were growing up, we had stranger danger and our parents were, you know, afraid that our kids, we, were going to get stolen off the street. Or we were going to go to the mall and somebody is going to be like, hey, you want some candy kid? And then we're never seen again.
Speaker 3:So today, in 2024, kidnappings start online. They start on Roblox, they start on Facebook, they start in Snapchat. So that's where people are trying to, and I'm going to use a word that's overused here, it's groom. They're going to groom your kid to try to want to go with the predator, because stealing a kid off the street is going to cause one. There's too many cameras these days. That crime really doesn't work anymore, so they've had to evolve.
Speaker 3:So these predators today are going to go on Snapchat or they're going to, you know, hit up some, you know, 15, 16 year old girl, whatever their thing is, and they're going to say, hey, you look pretty, blah, blah, blah, develop a conversation. And the next thing is hey, what school do you go to? Where do you live? Oh hey, I'm going to be at this park. Come meet me, and so they don't have to go to the kid the kids are going to come to and it's going to be. I'm going to stop by your house, I'm going to pick you up and we're going to start our lives together and the next thing you know, they're a victim of human trafficking. So that sort of stuff that is online does follow you into reality, and that is why paying attention to what your kids are doing online and protecting them online is so important. There's tons more stuff there that we can talk about if you guys want to stuff there that we can talk about if you guys want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was part of a roundtable that had a couple of our local police officers, and somebody asked about something that was on Facebook, where this woman was running and like somebody that grabbed her and put her in the car, and the officer pretty much said, like, that sort of thing just doesn't really happen.
Speaker 1:What does happen, though, or is exactly what you're talking about, where it's either a family member or it's some sort of a conversation that starts online. So what do we do when we're thinking of our kids that are entering middle school, high school, where they're, like digital media is part of their life? You know, like removing them from all social media probably isn't what's happening in most cases. We don't really have like a standard protocol for you know what's expected for for kids and social media, like we would with like alcohol as an example. We all as a society, we've kind of agreed 21 years old is when you start drinking, right and other exceptions, but we don't really have that sort of you know guide, guideline for social media, right? How should we handle this? How should we be aware of what's going on?
Speaker 3:sure, the, the people on the, the cutting edge of this, the people at Bark Technologies, over at Trumi and even at Protect Young Eyes, are trying to create this narrative that we don't need to let kids have social media until they're at least 16 years old. And Titania Jordan over at Bark Technologies said if you would call a babysitter to come watch your kid while you're gone, they don't need social media. And I thought that was a huge thing and also kind of funny. It was like well, how would my kids set the house on fire with social media? Because that's my biggest worry, but just kidding.
Speaker 3:But yeah, it's really yeah, we need to understand as parents kind of like we just talked about a second ago that when your kid turns on a smartphone, they can see the whole world, but the whole world can look back at them, and while you may trust your kid online, you absolutely cannot trust the people who are already online. That's not good. That's not what's going on. If you look at a typical predator-prey relationship the lions they stalk the antelope near the waterhole. They don't just go out into the plain, they know where to go, and so today's watering hole for kids is Roblox, it's social media, it's all these different things, and so that's where our predators have ended up now, because they know that they can have some sort of anonymity there. But that's where the kids are, and so that's where they're going. We, as parents, need to understand that our kids are going to make mistakes. They're not really ready to see the whole internet on their own. So whether or not you get them a phone that is geared towards kids, that will definitely help. Like in our house for YouTube. My son can only watch YouTube on our smart TV, so it is seen by everybody on the first floor of the house. There's no headphones with that or anything. We're seeing what he's seeing. He has YouTubers that he can watch and not watch. We have conversations about what's good and what's bad and all those sorts of things. So getting in front of this will definitely help you.
Speaker 3:I know there's a lot of parents who are out there. They don't understand. This is important to. All of a sudden, something really regretful has happened to their kid. Have open conversations, set boundaries as to what they're supposed to do, set consequences. You know, as you know, hey, if you go to Twitter and you use this kind of language or if you follow this kind of creator who doesn't match the values of our home, your account is going to be suspended for 48 hours, whatever that sort of thing. So just kind of set those things up and that will set up your kid for success.
Speaker 1:Are there things we should be looking for as we're navigating a Roblox chat or something, or hearing our kids say if they're chatting with a friend or what we think is a friend right, when we're observing them play? Are there things we should be looking for?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Great question Number one telling them their real name, telling them where they live, what school they go to. Those are all red flags Now granted to you and me. That sounds like you know conversation, that you're just like, hey, where are you from? That sort of thing. But when they start talking specifically about, oh, I go to this middle school, I do this, blah, blah, blah, that's a big thing. When you see people message your kid and say, hey, you're mature for your age, or I would have never guessed that you were 16 years old, that sort of stuff, those are those red flags.
Speaker 3:Generally, when people see that stuff, they get it. It makes sense. When it's talking about romantic things, when people are compressing time to rush your kid through the process of building a relationship, it's like, hey, how you doing? Well, let's meet up, let's go to this chat. Hey, by the way, I know we're on Xbox right now, but let's take this over to Discord. And another big one is do your parents monitor Discord? Do your parents monitor Snapchat? Those are the questions as well. So just a myriad of those things there will help you really understand that person they're chatting with doesn't have good intentions.
Speaker 1:That's great. And even talking to your kids, if they are on these platforms, like if you hear these things, don't, don't be naive, like there's probably somebody with negative intentions that's going to, or else they want to be asking these kinds of questions.
Speaker 3:Right. Another big one is digital gifting. You know people give gifts to try to win favor, like you might try to give your boss a set of golf clubs, you know, to try to get that next big raise, whatever it is, um. So what predators do is they will buy, you know, skins on fortnight. They'll buy expansion packs and games. They'll buy a streaming service for a kid that maybe you've said no to as a parent. So any sort of like digital gift giving like that. You know nothing's nothing's for free, okay wow, that's yeah fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fascinating it seems like the. The signs are there, though, because when I hear about a lot of this stuff, it makes it almost seem like you have no control over it, even if you're looking for it. It's like this will happen right in front of your eyes, but if you're looking for it, it sounds like, based on what you've described, you'll really know it's happening, because there'll be signs.
Speaker 3:Right. There will be signs for you as a parent and you can bring your kid along and tell them what's going on, whatever is good enough for their age and their maturity level. So they will see the signs. And you have to have that open communication with your kid of like, hey, somebody offered to buy me, you know this, you know new thing in a game, and it's like I didn't feel comfortable with that. Praise your kid for coming to you and saying, hey, this made me feel uncomfortable, that sort of stuff. Those are the kinds of conversations that save lives.
Speaker 1:Not so super helpful. I mean, my kids are kind of getting to that age where these things are like a very real part of their life. You know, and it's just important for me as a dad to equip myself with the right tools and knowledge to understand how to protect them in this area of their life and, I think, even more importantly, help them understand, like what to look for as part of their growth and development. And you know, just, I mean you always want kids to have like a positive outlook and I think it's good to assume the best intentions in people but also be aware of like what's happening, like I don't. I don't think we definitely want to raise kids who just feel like everybody's a threat and like you can't trust anybody. But I also feel like they need to understand like here's what you can look for, to understand somebody's intentions, and when people show us who they are, we should believe them.
Speaker 3:Right, you know we are in, in a lot of ways, uncharted territory. You know, for us all three as dads, because we didn't have the Internet like this when we were our kids age, you know, and even if you look at just the honestly, the Internet has kind of been the Wild West for the last 10 years. So we're finally starting to see some traction on hauling it in, especially for kids. So, yeah, this is, this is new, and if you're listening to this and you're like man, I'd never thought of that, it's okay, because this is not something that our generation has had to deal with yet. So don't, don't be down on yourself. Just know that there are things that you can do and you can absolutely take over.
Speaker 2:Thank you, andy. I'll make sure to include a link to where we can stay in the know. One thing that Andy does so great at is some people that talk about the subjects that Andy talks about is they lead from this place of fear and it's like everything's fear driven of. You know you're going to die if you don't click through this link, and Andy does it in a professional, calm way where you're informed without being like frightened you know, and so I appreciate that I strive very hard for that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the work you're doing.
Speaker 3:Appreciate it. Thank you guys.
