WEBVTT - Tech Glossary: From DLL to GPS 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.240 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.239 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.200 and I love all things tech, and we are continuing 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.919 our episodes that give a sort of glossary overview of 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:30.160 some common acronyms and initialisms within tech and include a 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.319 little bit of backstory for each one. And because I'm 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.360 a chatty feller, in the first episode, we started off 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:40.279 with two f A or two factor authentication, and we 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:44.239 ended with d l C or downloadable content. So we're 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.320 gonna pick up right where we left off and continue 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:51.680 on down the alphabet. So next up is d l L. 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:56.440 This is Microsoft's approach to what is called a shared library, 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.560 and by that I mean that it's a file that 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.840 contain means non volatile resources that can be used by 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:07.759 different computer programs. Volatile in this case refers to whether 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:10.840 or not the information is changeable or or it gets 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.119 wiped out when the device is powered off. So these 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:18.080 libraries remain unchanged when the computer power is off, and 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.320 they are right back when the computer power is back on, 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:24.520 and that information persists even after the machine shuts down. 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.760 These libraries hold assets that other programs might need to 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.400 access in the process of, you know, the programs doing 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.960 whatever it is they're supposed to do. So, if you've 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.600 ever seen a file that has the d l L extension, 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.440 that's a dynamic link library and it means you're on 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.920 a PC that's running on Windows. Getting into more detail 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.480 would pretty much require a dedicated episode. So just think 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:52.560 of d l L files as being a resource cash 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.280 for programs running on a Windows computer. And if you've 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.400 ever had any sort of program give you an error 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.800 because it couldn't find a DLL file, that's what it's 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:09.920 looking for. Next is d n S or domain name system, 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.840 so you know how you can type in addresses in 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:15.919 a web browser to go to specific web pages, like 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.640 you know, YouTube dot com takes you to YouTube, and 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:24.000 Netflix dot com takes you to Netflix, and Facebook dot 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.960 com takes you to a wretched hive of scum and villainy. 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:32.079 Might be tiny bit of editorializing that made its way 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.920 in there, My apologies. Well, anyway, d n S is 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:40.200 the underlying system that makes all that possible. It's this 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.720 system that acts kind of like a massive address book 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.440 for all things Internet, not just the Web, but the 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:51.320 web stuff is probably the easiest to explain, typically because 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:54.840 it's how a lot of us interact with the Internet. Now, 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.520 every machine on the Internet has a numerical address in 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.920 the form of an I P address. But as we 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.920 established with binary language and machine code in the previous episode, 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:10.239 we humans do not handle tons of numbers super well, 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.440 so it would be really hard for us to remember 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.760 specific I P addresses if we had to rely purely 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:21.000 on putting in those numerical addresses. And by the way, 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.520 that's just for I p v four addresses, which is 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.480 outdated these days. You would really need to learn I 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:30.960 p v six addresses. Those are even longer strings of characters, 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.400 and they include not only numbers, but some letters as well. 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.520 More on that in a later entry. So the DNS 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:43.440 establishes which domain names relate to which IP addresses, and 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.080 it makes it way easier to navigate the Internet for 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:49.680 those of us incapable of committing strings of seemingly random 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.960 letters and numbers to memory. There's a lot more to 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:56.240 be said about d n s, including the various attacks 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.840 that hackers sometimes launch against the d n s, but 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.360 we can save that for other episodes. Next is DOSS 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:09.000 or d O S. That stands for disc Operating System, 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.640 and more often than not it refers to an operating 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:15.760 system that was derived from IBM S personal computers. There 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:19.400 have been many different flavors of DOSS, which share a 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:23.800 few elements in common. They are text based operating systems, 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:26.599 so in other words, you navigate these by typing out 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.480 various commands in a in a prompt, and you do 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.200 that to move through directories and folders. There's no Windows, 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.440 there's no know icons to click on. You're typing these 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.719 commands out, and you also type in commands to execute 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.960 specific files, so to run a program that's stored on 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.800 a computer. Before Windows, this was how people would interact 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.080 with computers that had hard drive storage. Prior to that, 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.520 your average user would typically just insert a disk into 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:56.800 a disk drive and the computer's boot process would launch 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:01.000 directly into that disks associated program. Although you would actually 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.000 navigate to a disk drive and executed program that way. 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:08.080 That was also possible for PCs. Windows would end up 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:12.440 replacing DOSS, and on Apple computers, the Mac operating System 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:18.800 replaced Apple's version of DOSSDAS was a pretty lightweight operating system, 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:21.360 and that meant you could reserve more of your computer's 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:25.120 resources to store and run the programs that you wanted 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:29.560 to execute, and some old fogies like yours truly got 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:33.520 really salty wind. Windows came along because it demanded way 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.400 more computational resources than Doss did. So while Windows was 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:42.480 inarguably easier to navigate and leagues more intuitive than Doss 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:47.200 ever was, it also encroached on precious computational resources, and 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.680 some folks like me got grouchy about it and held 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:52.560 out for a long time until pretty much all of 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.520 the software that was out there in the world required 0:05:56.080 --> 0:06:00.160 a Windows operating system as the foundation. Not that I'm 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:06.440 still bitter nearly forty years later. Next is d p I. 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.360 This stands for dots per inch and it's typically used 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:14.279 to refer to the resolution of printed or scanned material. 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:19.520 So with displays and screens and monitors, we talk about 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.760 resolution in terms of the number of pixels that are 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.919 on display within a full screen, right, So greater pixel 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.920 density means that you have higher resolution. So another way 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.280 to think of it is to imagine that you are 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.800 tasked with making a yellow smiley face image and you're 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.720 given a frame that frame is one foot square, and 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.360 you're gonna make this image using wooden blocks that are 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:46.120 painted a single color. You're giving a bunch of yellow 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.839 blocks and a bunch of black blocks. Each of these 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:53.400 blocks is one inch square, so you've got a foot 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.440 by a foot, so you can fit twelve squares across 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.880 and twelve squares down and you make your little smiley 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.119 face image. It would be a very blocky smiley face. 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:06.800 But let's say you keep that same frame, so it's 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.720 one ft by one ft, But now you're given blocks 0:07:09.760 --> 0:07:13.640 that are half an inch square, so they're half the size, 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.400 half the width, and half the length, and now you 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:19.680 can fit way more squares in. While it's gonna look 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.160 a little better. Maybe you go down to a quarter 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.320 of an inch for a square, and as those blocks 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.240 get smaller, you can fit more of them into the 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.960 same physical space, and you create smoother lines as a result, 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.240 giving your image a higher resolution. Well, the same is 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.360 true for displays and well for printers. So dots per 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.120 inch is the resolution of the number of dots of 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:47.520 half tone that uh can appear per inch of paper. 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:51.280 Generally speaking, a higher dp I means that you get 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:55.200 a more clear, sharp and detailed print job. But just 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.040 like photo resolution, there is a point of diminishing returns 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:03.400 in which boosting that DPI number even higher might not 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:08.640 lead to a noticeable improvement. It might on paper, to 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.800 use a pun be an improvement, but you might not 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.440 be able to actually see it. It's not unusual to 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.760 have printers with a high dpi in excess of around 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:23.040 two thousand. Next is dr M. This is the dreaded 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:27.800 digital rights management. This refers to copyright holders attempting to 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.680 control the consumption of digital media in some way. So 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.320 let's take a step back for a minute. When I 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.240 was a kid, if I had been anaird, well, which 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:40.839 I wasn't. I was a good kid. But let's say 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.840 that I was a rotten kid. Maybe I might go 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:49.040 down to the local Turtles music store in Gainesville, Georgia, 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:51.200 and I decide I'm going to try and shoplift a 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.480 cassette tape of I don't know Bruce Springsteen's greatest hits. 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.280 If I had done that, well, I mean, first of all, 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:59.360 I would have been a thief, But on top of that, 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.760 I would have deprived that Turtles from being able to 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.360 sell that particular cassette. The store would be unable to 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.800 sell it because it's gone right, I mean, the physical 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:12.040 copy is in my hands. So stores had to come 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:16.080 up with various methods to discourage or prevent shoplifting. But 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.240 then skip ahead a few decades now you're in a 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:22.800 world with digital files, and that world is very different. 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.560 For one thing, it is way easier to make copies 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.160 of digital files than it would be with physical media. 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.400 Not that you couldn't make physical copies. We could, it 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:35.120 was just very time consuming and by the way, big 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:37.920 companies weren't huge fans of even that kind of copying 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.800 back in the day. So various media companies came up 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:45.559 with ways to limit or restrict how users could experience 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:50.280 and more specifically, how they could copy media. So, for example, 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.600 there might be copy protection on a file that only 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.319 allows it to be copied a certain amount of times 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.559 before it's lockdown, so you can only install this file 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.880 on a certain number of machines, and then after that 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.960 the code would not allow you to transfer it to 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.000 a new device. Um Or there might be DRM that 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:14.360 connects to the Internet where it phones home back to 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:18.720 whatever the I P holders system is and keeps them 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:22.960 informed about how that media is being used. The goal 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:27.520 of DRM is mostly to prevent piracy and to stop 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:32.720 the unlicensed sharing of technology, and I frequently think of 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.520 it in terms of media. That's the example that I 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.120 always go to. However, DRM can actually cover all sorts 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.200 of technologies beyond even digital files. That includes hardware, like 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:48.400 physical hardware, including stuff like tractors. So why tractors. Well, 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:51.680 let's say you're a company like John Dear, because John 0:10:51.760 --> 0:10:54.839 Deer does this, and you make tractors, and you know 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.600 that somewhere down the line, people are going to need 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.400 to have those tractors repaired or have some sort of 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.040 maintenance done on them. By including dr M, you can 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.800 make sure that only licensed mechanics, which are people who 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.880 have paid you for the privilege of being able to 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.600 work on these types of machines. They're the only ones 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:19.040 who can legally repair John Dear tractors. Because the Digital 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:22.840 Millennium Copyright Act or d m c A made it 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:27.679 illegal to try and circumvent dr M, So even if 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.360 you were a mechanically savvy farmer and you wanted to 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.520 do your own repairs, you would not be allowed to 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.319 do that legally. You would have to break the law 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.840 because you'd have to get around the DRM to do it, 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:42.480 or I guess you could go through the trouble to 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.800 apply and become a licensed mechanic with John Dear, but 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.960 I think that's probably going too far. So one of 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:52.120 the really big issues with DRM is that it can 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:56.520 have unintended consequences and make it more difficult to legally 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.920 make use of a product that you've actually purchased yourself. 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:04.760 So in many ways, DRM can actually end up encouraging piracy. 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:09.160 And that's because frequently pirates will actually work to strip 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:13.280 DRM out of products. That removes all those restrictions, which 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.520 again affect not just people who are trying to steal stuff, 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:20.160 it affects people who have legitimately purchased things. The moral 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:22.240 of the story, I think is that if you make 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.760 it harder for people to use something legally, they are 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:30.040 far more likely to turn to illegal means to do so. Anyway, 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.160 dr M comes in all different forms, Some are less 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.400 obnoxious than others, and I do want to make this clear. 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:39.760 I get the motivation for using it. I mean, companies 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.920 make revenue off their intellectual property. They don't want to 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.840 see that go away, so it's in their best interests 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:50.480 to try and find ways to protect that. It's just 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:53.319 that a lot of the d r M approaches seem 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:58.160 to not quite achieve that goal and instead just create frustrations. 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.760 Net is DVD and I included this one because I mean, 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.400 I'm pretty sure everyone out there knows what a DVD is, 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.840 but the actual initialism used to trip me up all 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:11.680 the time, because I grew up in the era in 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.720 which compact discs or c d s first debuted and 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.680 they transformed the music industry, and then DVDs came around 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:21.880 to do the same for the home video market and 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:25.880 then beyond, so the humble VHS tape eventually faded away 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.560 as a result, And I always used to think that 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:34.079 DVD stood for digital video disc. But that ain't it, 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:36.160 or at least that's not the whole story. And I'm 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.080 sure a lot of you out there are way smarter 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:40.200 than I am, way more informed than I am, and 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.280 you're all shouting the real name, which is digital versatile 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.160 disc now, to be fair, at least according to some sources, 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:52.480 the original name was digital video disc. But at some 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.080 point the manufacturers who were putting this together figured that 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.880 this could give people the impression that DVDs are only 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:05.000 good for storing video content because people can get very 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.240 narrow focused on this sort of stuff. But of course 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:12.720 DVDs can hold all sorts of different types of digital information, 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.920 so that was why they swapped out video for versatile 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:19.840 that would replace video. Except no one really paid much 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.880 attention to that, and they just still called DVD digital 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.800 video disc or just DVD. They never bothered to call 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:31.520 it the full thing anyway. Light compact discs DVDs are 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:34.600 a type of optical storage, which means we use light 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:38.800 to read and write information on those discs. Companies like 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:42.840 Sony and Phillips started working on DVD technology not long 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:47.360 after releasing the first compact discs. So the c D 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.600 allowed for the storage of large digital files like high 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:55.680 quality audio files, but with a refinement, these companies knew 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.080 that they could cram even more information onto a disk. 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.160 So for about a decade uh two different big groups 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.520 of companies began to work on the next generation of 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.720 optical discs, and it came down to two competing formats. 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.280 So in this corna you had Sony and Phillips that 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.120 had developed a technology that they called the Multimedia c 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.320 D or m M c D, and in this corna 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.440 you had Tashiba and Time Warner a couple of other companies, 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.800 and they had really led the development on a format 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:32.680 called super Density discs or s D. Seeing how two 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.760 competing formats could ultimately hurt the market. As anyone who 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.560 has been a consumer during a format war can tell you, 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.560 the group's ultimately decided that it would make way more 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.080 sense for them to collaborate and make a common format 0:15:46.480 --> 0:15:49.680 that combined elements of both s D and m M 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:55.080 c D. That is what became DVD. DVD players went 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.840 on sale in Japan in n took another year for 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.120 them to come out over in the United States. And 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.280 the DVD could really hold way more information than a 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:06.640 c D. In fact, if you had a dual layer, 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.520 double sided DVD, you can store more than ten times 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:14.520 the amount of information that could fit on a compact disc. Well, 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.800 we are finally through the d s. Everyone and when 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:21.200 we come back will jump on those ease. But I 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:23.560 only have a couple of them, so stay tuned. We're 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:35.200 gonna take a quick break, and our first e goes 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.200 to e f F. So in technology, this stands for 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:44.760 the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Back in a trio of guys 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:48.960 decided to form a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending civil 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:53.400 liberties in the digital world. And these founders included a 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.000 programmer who was perhaps best known for his role in 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:00.160 developing the spreadsheet software Lotus one, two three. That was 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:04.399 Mitch Kapor. Then there's an activist and developer named John 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:08.320 Gilmour who worked on many different types of software, including 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:12.840 tons of software under the GANOW license, so more about 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:17.520 GNU in the future. And then there was John Perry Barlow, 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:22.480 who was, among many many other things, a lyricist for 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:26.159 the band The Grateful Dead. Now, those three men shared 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.280 a common passion for the defense of civil liberties, and 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.679 they saw technology as being both a great enabler of 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.080 liberty as well as a potential threat to it depending 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.560 on how it's used. The inciting incident that led to 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.119 the formation of the e f F revolved around a 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:46.280 games publisher called Steve Jackson Games. And when I say 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.480 games publisher, I mean hard copy stuff like board games 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:53.600 and role playing games and card games, not video games 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:57.159 or computer games. So some famous ones include shay Geek, 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:00.280 which is sort of a comedy card game, or money Skin, 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:05.919 another comedy card game, This one fantasy oriented. There's Illuminati, 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.440 which is a game of various conspiracies competing against each 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.880 other in a way. And then there's girp's the Generic 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.280 Universal role Playing System and their tons of other ones. 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.320 So what does a company that makes board games and 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.000 RPGs and card games have to do with the e 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:27.040 f FF. Well, back in nine Steve Jackson had his 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:30.960 company headquarters in Austin, Texas, and they were raided by 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:36.840 the Secret Service. What all, right, now, stay with me. So, 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:41.399 in the late eighties, someone got hold of a proprietary 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.320 document that belonged to Bell South. They were able to 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.600 get hold of this and then they shared it. That 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:52.840 document pertained to the nine one one emergency system, and 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.080 the fear was that if hackers were able to exploit 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.280 that system, they might come up the works and thus 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.000 people who actually had to report emergencies would have no 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.720 way of doing it. So it represented sort of a 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.920 major threat. The Secret Service got involved to find out 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:10.959 who was at fault, who had who was responsible, and 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.240 to to go after them, and they found that the 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:19.320 document had been posted on a bulletin board system or BBS. Now, 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.879 I guess I could have included BBS in our tech glossary, 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:27.560 but BBS is a pretty outdated term these days. It's 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:31.200 essentially a predecessor to the kind of stuff you would 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:34.720 see with the Internet, where someone would have special software 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.800 that would allow other people to dial into their computer 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:40.040 so their computer could host all sorts of stuff like 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.240 message boards and games and files and that kind of thing. 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.440 People could dial into that computer or BBS and access 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:52.199 those things anyway. The guy who ran this particular BBS, 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:56.040 but again not necessarily the actual person responsible for posting 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.920 the file there, was an employee of Steve Jackson Game. 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.480 So the Secret Service decided they would seize all of 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.359 this guy's computers, but they would also seize all of 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.280 the computers of his employer to make certain that this 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:15.040 proprietary document wasn't getting spread around. This was a crushing 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.720 blow to Steve Jackson Games and Steve Jackson himself. His 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.960 company just couldn't conduct business while the computers were in 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:26.400 Secret Service custody, and eventually Steve Jackson Games got their 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.399 computers back, but it was clear that the Secret Service 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.960 had really combed through the internal emails inside the company, 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.800 and Steve Jackson wanted to pursue civil action against the 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.199 Secret Service for damages and wanted to lean on a 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:44.920 civil rights organization to help with that lawsuit, but there 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:49.120 really wasn't such any organization in existence that would really 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.240 fit the bill. That's what precipitated the formation of the 0:20:53.280 --> 0:20:58.439 Electronic Frontier Foundation. Today, the e f F helps in 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.919 similar legal cases that revolve around civil liberties and technology. 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:07.320 The e f F sometimes helps fund lawsuits or supplies 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:11.920 expertise in technical and digital matters, and the organization isn't 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:14.560 without critics. There's some people who argue that the e 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:17.920 f F has really helped tech companies kind of entrenched 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:22.760 themselves and protect themselves against regulation and other matters that 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:27.399 maybe didn't lead to the right outcome. But you know, 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.600 it's it's kind of like anything with humans. There's stuff 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.879 that is good and stuff that's not so good. Next, 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.439 we have e O L. So in the movie Tron, 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.560 e O L was the Master Control programs way of 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:43.080 ending a line of communication. I mean it literally meant 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.040 end of line. There's the end of Line club in 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:49.440 the Tron Legacy film. But in this case, I actually 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:53.119 mean e O L as end of life, meaning the 0:21:53.160 --> 0:21:55.600 stage of a products life cycle. In which it's just 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:59.120 gonna get worse from here on out. So, for example, 0:21:59.520 --> 0:22:02.919 let's take Windows XP, which is a very or was 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.160 a very popular operating system. There's still people out there 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:08.719 who are using it today, despite the fact that it's 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:12.520 sadly outdated. Microsoft released Windows XP way back in two 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.480 thousand one, and that system dominated the market share for 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:19.360 operating systems on personal computers at the time. And while 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:23.120 Microsoft would release the successor to Windows XP in two 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:26.639 thousand and seven, it actually continued to release service packs 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:30.200 for Windows XP up through two thousand eight, and even 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:34.280 provided extended support until two thousand fourteen. But by then 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:37.520 Microsoft was really pushing people to please, for the love 0:22:37.560 --> 0:22:41.880 of technology, update to a more recent operating system. Companies 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:46.520 can't continue to support old software indefinitely and still dedicate 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:51.359 resources to making new stuff. Plus, fewer pieces of current 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:55.119 software were actually compatible with this older Windows operating system, 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.280 and so really, by two thousand eight, Windows XP was 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:02.160 entering its e o L phase. Microsoft would stop updating 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.840 it and the product would grow increasingly obsolete over time. 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:09.880 Another example of e o L is easy to see 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:13.760 with smartphones. Smartphones depend upon the interaction of hardware, that 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:18.200 being the actual smartphone mobile device and software that being 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:21.120 the operating system for that device, on top of which 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:24.800 all the apps live. So with Apple, we are now 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:28.520 on IO S Sport Team, and the oldest iPhone capable 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:32.439 of running that version of iOS is the iPhone six S. 0:23:32.680 --> 0:23:34.680 That one is the one that originally launched in two 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:38.959 thousand fifteen. Older iPhones before the success, even if they 0:23:38.960 --> 0:23:42.000 are still operational, are firmly in the e o L 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:44.399 phase because they can no longer keep pace with the 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:47.480 latest operating systems, which means fewer apps are going to 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:51.360 run on them and they will become increasingly useless as 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:55.440 time goes on. For companies, e OL might arrive much 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:59.120 earlier than for customers, so a company will end sales 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:01.960 and marketing effort around a product that it designates as 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:04.720 being in e o L. Essentially, the company says, we're 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:06.719 no longer going to sell this stuff. We're going to 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:09.440 sell the next version of this or you know, some 0:24:09.560 --> 0:24:12.920 improved version of this, and they focus on that instead. 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:16.600 So they say we're done dedicating resources to supporting this 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:20.280 so that we can sell more stuff, more new stuff. 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:23.160 So a company could actually start stop selling a product 0:24:23.600 --> 0:24:26.280 but continue supporting it for a while longer. In the 0:24:26.280 --> 0:24:30.200 case of Microsoft, for example, they stopped selling XP long 0:24:30.280 --> 0:24:34.919 before they stopped actually providing support for it. Next is 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:37.760