Welcome to the show. Today we're joined by a guest who turned a simple community-focused vision into one of the most enduring platforms on the web and spent years personally answering customer service tickets on the way. Craig Newmark, I'm really excited to be here in your beautiful home in San Francisco. Craig founded Craigslist with the public utility at its core and today he acts like a practical digital defense secretary. Through Craig Newmark Philanthropies, he is actively backing our collective work at the Global Signal Exchange to track threat signals and shut down scams targeting everyday users across the web. He's an avid Simpsons superfan, an urban pigeon advocate, and a hands-on partner in the fight against scams and fraud. Craig, welcome to Cyber Everything. Um, before we talk to you, Craig, I just wanted to say I want to ask you a question out there. With online fraud increasingly targeting all of us, everyday users in their normal routines, can upstream data sharing between the tech platforms and public interest groups curb these scams before they reach our inboxes and our phones. Welcome to Cyber Everything, our weekly podcast for AI geeks, scam busters, and the tech obsessed.
I'm Lucen Taylor. I'm normally in Oxford, but here today I've got the privilege of being in San Francisco in Haight-Ashbury, which is the Cole Valley district of San Francisco. I'm an engineer by background, but I do more and more of this sort of thing, and I'm so excited to be talking with the great Craig Newmark today.
Thank you very much. Um, Craig, great to have you on the show. I'm Emily Taylor. I'm also here in San Francisco, a wonderful place. We're attending the Global Anti-Scam Summit. And as part of that, we've had the opportunity to sit down with you. Uh, welcome to Cyber Everything. Craig, I just wanted to start with your work as a philanthropist. You know, for many people this is something they can't even imagine, you know. Um, and I wondered why did you choose why did you become a philanthropist and why did you choose your special subjects of interest, veterans, journalism and the fight against fraud?
Um towards the end of my time at Craigslist, as I realized that I had grown useless at the company, I realized that there was an enormous amount of need in the world and that I had become way too fortunate and I had a lot of well I my net worth had increased substantially and I really live very modestly. So I figured I should do something with that money that might actually get some results in the world. So I started looking at areas where maybe I could help where I felt some emotional or intellectual affinity areas which weren't receiving much attention. So, I decided to get involved in those areas. And as I learned more about philanthropy, I got more and more involved. I'm still not what I would consider a professional level philanthropist, but that's just as well because it means that I delegate and outsource. I do so to individuals and groups who are really good at doing something. And that way I could be much more effective than someone operating alone or with a large organization where I really didn't know what I was doing.
Thank you. And thinking about the veterans, you know, you said just now that you wanted to do some things that were emotionally meaningful to you. Can you talk a little bit more about why veterans, why journalism, and why scams?
Um, briefly I realized even growing up that a lot of people volunteer and sacrifice a great deal. They risk themselves, but also they subject their families. Uh, when they possibly go overseas to defend us all, so I should help out in whatever manner I could. I also realized when I took a as a result of taking a US history and civics class in 1970 that as I like to put it a trustworthy press is the immune system of democracy. And uh 10 years ago or more I realized that journalism in the US needed some help in that role. So I started getting involved in those areas. And running Craigslist, I saw that there was an enormous need for the companies, especially those doing user generated content, needed to do their part to play some role in fighting crime online, particularly scams. So I decided to do what I could along those lines.
I've stolen this question off Emily because I want to hear it from you. I'm fascinated by this. But what changes are you hoping to create in the world through your philanthropy? Have you already started getting those changes what you want?
Well, in some areas I think we are having a meaningful effect by operating through people who are good at the job. Uh, for example, to support vets in a big way, I work with the Bob Woodruff Foundation. They run the Got Your 6 network of nearly 500 nonprofits in the US. And, uh, what they're about is they're actually good at helping vets with problems, including housing and jobs. And to a growing amount scam fighting. Similarly realizing that military families also serve, I work with Blue Star Families which provide support networks for families in US bases in the US and outside and they run a network of neighborhood support groups they call chapters and outposts. One relatively new development is that they're now extending that support to British active service members who are deployed in the US. So they'll now support the families of those British service members. So those are some of the networks of networks that I'm supporting in this philanthropy which I hear firsthand are really helping out.
Fantastic stuff. Thank you. I just just building on that conversation, Craig, you know, Lucen mentioned in the introduction that you spent a lot of time manning the phones when you were at Craigslist and talking to people about their experiences. I wonder whether that impetus in you because a lot of people who are founders and who do very well as you did become very detached from reality is my perception and I wonder if that connection kept you current with what people are experiencing and how they're experiencing your platform. I wonder if that was part of what led you to philanthropy.
Well, in Craigslist and now in philanthropy, I spend a lot of time talking directly to people and I spend a lot of time too. I put a lot of energy in using email but also social media in many forms. I can see what people are talking about. Sometimes addressing me directly, sometimes just venting. But because I am hands-on with customer service and just paying attention, that helps anchor me. Uh in reality, there are no layers of people in front of me and everyone else which is mostly upside. Occasionally there's some downside, but I just deal with it.
Yeah. Thank you. Um, so you told me we've talked about veterans, we've talked a little bit about journalism. Let's move to scams and fraud, which is a topic of interest that we both share. You've told me before that, you know, for you scams are a personal thing. They piss you off. Um, can you tell me a bit more about why and also maybe why the online world is so rife with fraud and scam?
Well, running Craigslist, I wasn't prepared for people to use user generated content as a means to lure people into scams. And with my name on the site, with my personal involvement, um, I take that personally and the whole idea of this kind of a crime online I just take as a broad affront and just being offended about it doesn't do any good. So over the last 25 years, I've been speaking with cops at all levels, local cops, all the way to the FBI and sometimes through people in the UK, for example, the cyber support center there. And I've learned a great deal about what can be done. A lot of it has to do with assisting police with digital forensics provided that they are respecting the rights of the accused. There always needs to be judicial oversight or something similar. But for over 20 years, 25 years I've been personally involved in the fight and now I work with cops more and more to find out what dotcoms and other site providers could do. It starts with a commitment to digital forensics and in my case with philanthropy it then goes on to supporting the efforts which are in the fight and I work with them to do more and more to help stop scams before they reach the customer or sometimes trying to help the individual when they're approached by a scammer.
So I've got two numbers for you just to follow up and then I'll hand over to you Lucen. But two numbers: 40% and 1%. 40% of crime in the United Kingdom is fraud and scams. 1% of the policing resource is directed to scams and fraud. And I think I'd just like your reflection on that and also what that means if we're going to get our arms around this as a problem. That means it must mean harnessing the resources of philanthropists, harnessing the resources of business as well because the police are not going to be able to fight that 40% of crime with 1% of the resources alone. Just wondered whether you have a reflection on that.
Um, regarding the prioritization of police resources, I don't really know and I have learned that that's all far more difficult than civilians think because the rules of engagement are very challenging. Finding a proof that can be used in a courtroom is often very difficult. I focus though on what I can do to help out and the people who I can help fund to do something. And currently it looks like a lot of resources should be placed in scam detection and prevention so that if websites or our devices can detect the approach by a potential scammer that's a good use of resources because often when scammers approach people there are signals learned through experience that can be used to advise the consumer or in many cases we can prevent the scam approach from actually reaching people and that's where my resources are going.
Thank you. And they're doing very well Craig. I mean, if you think about it, the Global Signal Exchange with what was identified was an early warning system for police services and industry, the internet industry particularly with inherent weaknesses in the supply chain. Weaknesses that the scammer is exploiting. The ability to purchase domain names, the ability to build a website, the ability to have that hyperscaled across the internet and pay fractions of dollars for these to commit harm against individuals. And here we see, and you'll be attending the Global Anti-Scam Summit in San Francisco, Pier 48, starting tomorrow. Um, we see police brought in and with business together. Do you think that's a valuable relationship to foster to move away from the kind of notice and take down court-based evidence towards proactive identification and shoring up of those weaknesses in the internet supply chain?
It looks like the most effective way to stop scams are to prevent the approaches from reaching people. That means intelligence gathering and sharing. For example, misspelled domain names that look like the real thing. And it also helps if people with experience in the moment can share ranges of IP addresses used by scammers. Those and other measurements can be used as signals of scam approaches. Those can be shared and then people in the industry can stop that before it happens. For example, domain name service providers can take advantage of shared intelligence and just block what they know as a certainty are scamming sites and that can prove fairly effective. For example, the domain services being used by your ISP or even your phones. If they detect an approach from a suspect source, those can either be blocked or the user can be warned against that. I'm looking forward to more subtle signs of scams being involved. For example, stereotypically scammers often speak using the same phrasing or broad techniques like trying to create a sense of urgency when none is needed. So people are starting to use AI and large language models to detect that. What's even better is that they're training small language models which can be run in phones which can detect the scam in progress and advise the consumer in the moment.
And this brings me into my next question for you which is about being pressurized to do things quickly to the scammer is creating this false sense of urgency for the victim. Um, tell us about your Take Nine project.
Well, I'm working with an increasingly large team along the theme of pausing when you're approached by someone that you don't already know is okay. And the idea is that you take a moment, stereotypically 9 seconds or so. And if you stop and think about the approach, that might give you a chance to either just stop the engagement or to ask for some means of credibility of authentication or in some cases to just pause the effort asking them to get back to you later, which gives you a chance to do a little research.
We've got to the end of the first section. It's now time to break up this important conversation. We'll continue it in a minute, but it's a podcast, so we want to have a little bit of fun. Emily, you've got a little quiz.
I've got a quiz for Craig. Okay. It's a quick fire round. I'm going to give you two alternatives and you tell me which is you, which you choose. Okay. So, pigeons or bats?
Homer or Grandpa Simpson?
Journalism or conspiracy theory?
