WEBVTT - Tech News: Signal Flares and Police Errors 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.960 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:17.959 Jonathan Strickland. I am an executive producer with I Heart 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:20.840 Radio and a love of all things tech. And this 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:27.520 is the news episode for Tuesday, January nineteen one. And 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:32.640 let's just dive right into it. Parlor or Parley, the 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.920 social networking platform that aims to be a place where 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.840 free speeches held above all else, has a new home, 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.120 at least for its u r L. You might remember 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:47.400 that Parlor saw Apple, Google, and Amazon all close off 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:51.120 support for the service, removing apps from stores, and, in 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:54.640 the case of Amazon, shutting down the servers that actually 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:57.920 hosted the site. All of this was done due to 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.760 the content being posted to Parlor, much of it from 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:07.280 extremists advocating for violence. When the site proved either unwilling 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:11.160 or unable to rein in the user base and moderate 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.440 such things, the other companies started to pull the plug 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.160 on the service. The site now has a registered domain 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.600 on EPIC servers. That's e p i K founded in 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:29.520 two thousand nine. Epic says it quote offers cheap domain names, hosting, domaining, 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:33.440 and more end quote, but it might be better known 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:36.280 as the hosting service that is home to many far 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:40.240 right extremist sites and services. It's the home for the 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:44.840 social network gab, which is associated with far right extremist groups, 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:51.320 neo Nazis, and white supremacists. So yikes, Parlor is not 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.240 really back, at least not yet. It has its domain, 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:58.440 but the homepage is just a landing page with a 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.880 message on it. It will take time to transfer Parlor's 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:05.040 data to new servers, and it isn't clear how much 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.280 needs to be actually rebuilt from the ground up. There 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.200 are conflicting messages on that front. Some of those messages 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.040 suggest that the code used for Parlor wasn't dependent upon 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:20.280 Amazon's proprietary tools, which would make it easier to port 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:22.680 over to a new home, but there are other messages 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:26.080 that indicate that much of Parlor did depend on Amazon's tools, 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.320 and since those tools won't be present at Epic, it 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.880 will require rebuilding Moreover, the process of moving a service 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:38.120 from one hosting company to another is time consuming and expensive. 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.080 It can take years, even if you are planning it 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:45.440 in advance, to migrate to different servers, and, as The 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:49.000 Atlantic pointed out in a recent piece titled what comes 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.440 after Parlor. A lot of companies that offer tools to 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:56.639 help with migration are refusing to work with Parlor because 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.639 the association with that platform is pretty darn and toxic, 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.760 to say the least. Parlor has also been in the 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:08.440 news for having truly atrocious privacy and security measures in place, 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:12.440 which means the service effectively exposed users to a great 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:17.000 deal of scrutiny. That's something that can benefit organizations like 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:21.720 the FBI, as agents are conducting investigations regarding the siege 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:26.160 at the Capitol on January six, but it's not necessarily 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:30.440 a selling point for users. Here's my ultimate take on 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.360 the subject. I understand the call for free speech. It 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:38.440 is incredibly important. I mean, that's why it is the 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:43.800 first Amendment to the United States Constitution. But Parlor wasn't 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.520 some sort of equal platform for all speech, as much 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.400 as it was touting itself to be. It was funded 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:54.120 by people who had previously funded Cambridge Analytica, and it 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:56.480 was used by people who were employing the type of 0:03:56.560 --> 0:04:00.920 language that's used in white supremacist rhetoric. It's all designed 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:05.160 to recruit new members. It wasn't a town square, it 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:09.560 was a radicalization engine. Now, this is a complex problem, 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.920 one that holds up conflicting and foundational values, and it 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.960 shows us that life is complicated. There are times when 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.000 we as a society have to make a call whether 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:24.320 to lean more on protecting free speech or more on 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:29.080 protecting the underpinnings of democracy itself. As for Parlor's return, 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.839 there's still no published timeline for that as of this recording. 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:36.280 There are other tools out there that extremists have been 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:40.839 using for communication and organizing, some that predated Parlor, but 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.279 most of them don't have the same amount of visibility 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:47.240 that Parlor did, and so right now they're not necessarily 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.640 as heavily trafficked. We'll have to wait to see if 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:57.599 anything happens on inauguration day, that being January, and even 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:01.080 more sobering is the thought that moving for Word will 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.880 have to be vigilant in an effort to counteract the radicalization. 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.839 Otherwise we're going to see more acts of violence and terrorism, 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.960 and we'll likely see reactions to that grow more extreme 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:16.880 as well, from surveillance to enforcement. In other words, right 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.359 now we are on the precipice of things getting a 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:24.280 whole lot worse if we don't make very good decisions 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:29.680 moving forward, and in the meantime, their entire vulnerable populations 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.800 that are depending on the rest of us making those decisions. 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:36.480 So it creates even more responsibility for all of us 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:41.840 to employ those two things I constantly call for compassion 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:45.520 and critical thinking. We've got to make use of those 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.160 to make sure that we forge a good path forward 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.799 and we don't just sweep things under the rug where 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:55.960 it can fester and grow worse and the status quo 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.280 is maintained. Because the status quo is not it's not 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.880 good enough eyes And getting back to Parlor and security, 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.599 that security was so poor that in the hours leading 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:10.520 up to Amazon giving Parlor the boot, numerous hackers scraped 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.760 the service to archive as much information as possible. And 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.760 when I say hackers, it could be anyone. It could 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.320 be Independence, it could be people working on behalf of 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.800 the United States government. It could be people working on 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:26.640 behalf of other governments. The list goes on, and the 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.120 content included not just the stuff that was posted publicly 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.000 to Parlor, but also the locations and sometimes the identities 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.000 of thousands of people on the service, and by linking 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:40.680 locations to posts, people have found potential links to the 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:44.520 riots and d C showing how participating on parlor could 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.800 create a digital trail that agencies like the FBI could 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:52.480 find particularly interesting, and it's a reminder that security and 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.960 privacy are really important. While I think it is also 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:00.160 important for people who are subverting the democratic process US 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:03.880 to be held accountable, I kind of find it disturbing 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:08.400 to think about how a total failure in privacy for 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:13.680 a social network like this leads to abuse anyway. One 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.440 group that archived a lot of information, and it did 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.520 so without needing to hack anything was Pro Publica, the 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:26.120 nonprofit news organization. Pro Publica employees copied videos that were 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:29.720 publicly uploaded to parlors, so they weren't, you know, scraping 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:32.680 data or anything. They were literally grabbing the stuff that 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.000 was available for anyone to look at, and collectively, Pro 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:39.720 Publica preserved more than five hundred videos that the news 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:43.600 organization determined had been taken during the riots on January six, 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:49.200 creating a thorough record of how those events unfolded. I 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:54.880 don't recommend watching them if you are easily affected by 0:07:55.560 --> 0:08:00.200 scenes of violence and violent rhetoric. It is hard stuff 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:04.160 to watch, but it's also incredibly important to maintain that 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:08.880 as a record of what happened, and to remind people 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.080 of again what happens if we sweep things under the 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.960 rug and we try to pretend like nothing is wrong, 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.160 this stuff just gets worse. And sticking with the riots 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:23.400 for a bit longer, the FBI filed an affidavit against 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:28.120 a woman named Riley June Williams of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.840 participated in the riots at the US Capital. There are 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:34.560 images of her up online, so she was there on 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:39.400 January six, and according to the affidavit, Williams had planned 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:44.280 to steal the House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi's laptop, 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.200 so the Speaker of the House her laptop, and the 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:51.520 goal was to ultimately sell this laptop to a contact 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:55.040 in Russia. And the plan from there, presumably was to 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:59.920 then sell the laptop to the Russian government, to an 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.320 intelligence agency in Russia. So this was to be a 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:07.520 monetary transaction, so effectively, she would be selling out the 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.559 United States to Russia. Now, as I'm recording this, Williams 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:14.000 remains at large. I do not know if by the 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:16.079 time you hear this, if that will have changed, but 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.520 as I'm recording that is the case, she has deleted 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:24.560 her accounts with various social media platforms. She discontinued her 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.480 phone number as well. I imagine the FBI is using 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.200 a lot of different resources to track her down. I'm 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:33.160 sure they have a lot of questions for her. I 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.839 have a quick update on this story. It turns out 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:41.199 that Williams turned herself into local police Monday evening after 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.760 I had already finished recording that episode, but wanted to 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.600 update it with the most recent news I had. Moving on, 0:09:49.160 --> 0:09:51.880 and my last story for this section is that on 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:57.239 January eighth, twenty twenty one, get hub fired an employee. 0:09:57.400 --> 0:09:59.920 And obviously there's more to the story than just that 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.160 companies fire employees all the time. But get hub is 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.719 in the business of offering a software development environment with 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.480 version control features. In case you're not familiar with what 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.480 they do, they sort of help other companies do the 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.000 things they need to do in order to develop the 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:20.040 software they either depend upon internally or that they incorporate 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:24.080 into external products. The get hub employee, who is Jewish, 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:28.160 had posted an internal message on January six two colleagues 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:32.000 located in Washington, d C. And said that they need 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:36.360 to stay safe from Nazis. Now, the term Nazi is 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:40.040 definitely a loaded one that is obvious, it really goes 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:44.560 without saying, but it also happened to be appropriate, as 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:46.880 a number of people at the riots and d C 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:52.560 belonged to neo Nazi organizations. However, a fellow get hub 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.760 employee complained to HR about the use of the term Nazi, 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:01.120 finding it objectionable, and HR first rep remanded, but then 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.880 later fired the employee two days later. Following this action, 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.360 around two d gethub employees demanded to know the reasons 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:12.440 for the firing, and they also began to use the 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:16.199 word Nazi to describe rioters in these various slack channels 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.400 at get hub. So essentially they said, if this is 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:21.560 why you let that person go, we're all going to 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.840 end up doing the same sort of thing, because it's 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.960 calling something by its name. And this escalated, and on 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.720 January six, the CEO of get hub, Nat Friedman, sent 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:36.520 an internal message saying the company acted in the wrong 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:39.480 and that he would extend a public apology to the 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:43.080 fired employee and that that person's job would be offered 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.720 back to him should he want to return. Freedman also 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:51.400 committed to keeping internal communications open allowing for a discussion 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.240 of sensitive topics, provided that they are done in a 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:57.840 professional manner. So in other words, you're not trying to 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.360 use this freedom in a way to site, intimidate, or 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:06.280 harass other people. Assuming you're not doing that, then they 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.719 are allowing for the discussion of these sensitive topics, particularly 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:17.040 with regard of making maintaining a safe environment for their employees. Well, 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.400 that is all of the news I have that relates 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:25.800 to parlor and to the riots on January six. I 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.160 certainly hope that on Thursday I won't have to talk 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:33.000 about riots that relate to the inauguration, and when we 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:36.800 come back, we will cover totally different stories. Have nothing 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.040 to do with the rest of that, I promise. But first, 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:49.440 let's take a quick break. Our first story after the 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:55.000 break is about Samsung and problems with corruption and leadership. 0:12:55.880 --> 0:13:00.440 Lee J Young, otherwise known as j y Lee, is 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:05.200 facing a thirty month prison sentence in South Korea. Lee 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:09.920 is a vice chairman of the mega corporation Samsung. Again 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.400 out of South Korea. Lee has already served some of 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:15.920 that time for a previous day in prison. This is 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.880 actually an order for him to return to prison, not 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.000 just go to prison, and at the heart of all 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:25.840 this are charges that Lee was bribing a close friend 0:13:26.000 --> 0:13:30.120 of the then president of South Korea, Park Gunner. The 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.520 reason for the bribe Well j Y Lee was trying 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.440 to grease the wheels to get government support for his 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:41.520 ascension to the head of Samsung. Park herself was ousted 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.840 as president and found guilty on charges of grafting, so 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.200 all this tracks. She is currently serving a sentence in 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.840 the same prison where Lee is headed. Lee, for his part, 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:56.200 served about a year a little less than a year 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.720 of a five year long sentence at that prison previously 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.840 from two thousand seventeen into two thousand eighteen UH but 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:09.679 then an appeals court overturned part of those charges and 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:14.000 suspended his sentence. But then the Korean Supreme Court reinstated 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:17.240 that sentence and as demanding that Lee returned to prison 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.880 to serve out those two and a half years. He 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:23.400 also faces a separate trial relating to charges that he 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:28.280 engaged in stock manipulation and other illegal activities while overseeing 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:32.480 a merger in two thousand and fifteen. His father, Lee Kunhi, 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:36.200 had been chairman of Samsung, but he passed away in 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:40.720 twenty twenty. J y Lee had in effect been leading 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.960 the company since, but you know, not officially, and there's 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:49.200 been no formal restructuring at Samsung yet. The company has 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:53.440 had other high level legal issues in the board chairman 0:14:53.640 --> 0:14:58.600 Lee Sang Hun resigned after being convicted for violating labor 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:03.200 laws and under my a labor unions. Samsung is a 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:07.240 conglomerate under the control of the Lee family, and in Korea, 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:13.520 these families likely wield enormous influence in business and politics. 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.080 Uh the the all of it is wrapped up together 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.320 and has been a big concern for people who are 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:25.120 on the lookout for corruption. Last week, I talked about 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:29.160 how WhatsApp users were abandoning the platform for other messaging 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:34.080 services after Facebook updated the terms of service for WhatsApp, 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.160 and in case you missed it, the big change is 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.640 that Facebook will be mining WhatsApp for data to share 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.480 it with Facebook proper. Now. Facebook has since said that 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.240 it would not be reading the content of messages. It 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:50.040 said it can't there's no way for WhatsApp to know 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:56.040 what is inside the messages sent between users. According to Facebook, Instead, 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.360 the data would be more meta in nature rather than 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.840 the content of the messages themselves, more like, who is 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.600 it that you're messaging at? What time of day? And 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.600 where did the two of you happen to be? Still 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.040 kind of on the creepy side, And anyway, Facebook's messaging 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:14.680 was too little, too late, and a lot of folks 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:18.800 found the news upsetting enough to jump ship. One ship 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:23.280 to which they jumped was the messaging service Signal. Signals 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.840 saw such a huge boost in numbers that the service 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:30.520 couldn't handle the jump. For more than a day, Signal 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.600 was offline, having collapsed under the weight of new users. 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.240 This is almost a good problem to have because it 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.280 shows a real enthusiasm for a product, but it's also 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.640 a serious problem because people would be frustrated with the 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.440 lack of service, and then they might migrate to a 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.800 competing messaging service instead. So this is a classic example 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.720 of the challenges of scale. Creating a service that works 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:58.360 for a relatively modest number of users is one thing, 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.560 but building it out so that it can handle millions 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:06.639 of new users that is entirely different. That being said. 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.760 Signal has recovered it is back online as I am 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.720 recording this, and the company says it has expanded its capacity, 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:17.080 which typically means adding more servers to run the service, 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.560 but the company wasn't really specific, so it should be 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.920 back up and running now. But the question is did 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.240 this harm signals momentum? We're gonna have to wait a 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:29.640 little bit longer to find out the answer to that. 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.800 The Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon is the target 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:36.920 of a new lawsuit that claims the company was colluding 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.560 with five major book publishers in the US to fix 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.800 prices on e books. The lawsuit alleges that Amazon and 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:48.240 the publishers have worked out a deal in which Amazon 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.800 charges a high commission to carry the publishers books, and 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.800 that in turn determines the price of the e books 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:58.520 in the Amazon Store, so the prices are higher than 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.640 they might otherwise be because that commission price, and then 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:06.359 the publishers charge other retail organizations the Amazon price, which 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.919 means those retailers can't offer the titles at a lower 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.520 price point than Amazon does, or they would be doing 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.760 so at a loss. And since those five publishers are 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:19.120 the major publishing companies in the United States, they account 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:23.000 for more than of all the books published in the country. 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.240 Considering that Amazon is one of the big companies under 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:31.960 investigation for anti competitive and monopolistic practices. Along with Google, Facebook, 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.400 and Apple, this is probably going to be a bit 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.360 rough for the company. Apple faced a similar lawsuit back 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:43.639 in and they ultimately decided to settle out of court. 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:46.960 They weren't given much choice in that. Actually, it was 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.840 a pretty big settlement too. It remains to be seen 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:54.679 what Amazon will do across the pond. The constabulary have 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.919 a big blunder to answer for. The UK Home Office 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:02.440 recently revealed that n dreds of thousands of lease records, 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.800 including stuff like DNA records, are gone records that could 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.840 be instrumental in linking suspects with crime scenes. So we're 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:15.399 talking active files here, not just archives. Stuff puff vanished, 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:19.400 maybe as many as four hundred thousand as of this recording, 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:21.720 that number might be higher by the time you hear this. 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:28.000 And that includes two offense records, one thousand arrest records 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.600 and fifteen thousand person records. Some of the data links 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:35.360 to serious offenses and was too intended to indicate individuals 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.600 who had perpetrated some pretty nasty crimes in the past, 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:42.200 and a lot of that is gone now. And how 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:45.359 how is that possible? What what actually happened? Was it 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:50.200 a hack. Was it some sort of massive equipment failure, Well, 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:53.879 it seems as though human error caused it as and 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:58.560 someone accidentally deleted all that stuff during what the Home 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:03.359 Office calls quote unquote housekeeping. The Home Office Digital Data 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:05.800 and Technology division is working to see if it can 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:09.639 restore any or maybe all of those files. It's a 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.160 little difficult for me to get a handle on exactly 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:16.399 how serious this is, apart from, you know, extremely serious. 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.119 It's also amazing to me that there was apparently no 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:22.800 secure backup system in place, and that these files were 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.320 all on the type of centralized storage and not siloed out. 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:29.679 That so many files could be wiped out through error 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:34.200 is staggering. Hopefully the engineers at Home Office will figure 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:36.760 out how to restore the data, but in the meantime 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:42.200 it will almost certainly have a negative effect on ongoing cases. Meanwhile, 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:47.239 the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency or SIPA, has been the 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:51.800 target of a ransomware attack, something that SIPA revealed right 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:56.359 around Christmas time last year. According to reports, the attackers 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.640 were able to steal around one point to gigabytes of data, 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:05.320 which SIPA says included quote limited sensitive information end quote 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.360 meaning most of the information was a lot of publicly 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.280 available stuff. There wasn't a whole lot of you know, 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.960 really important data. They're important in the sense of secret 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:17.919 or anything like that. It's all important, it's just a 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:20.720 lot of it was also, you know, public stuff, not 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:26.120 particularly precious data. The organization is working to recover its capabilities. 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.439 Some of its systems were still inaccessible as of the 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:33.840 time of my recording due to that ransomware attack. Investigators 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.879 are also looking into the matter, although you know, figuring 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.560 out who did this doesn't necessarily make much of a difference. 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:44.280 Frequently we're talking about organizations that get targeted from outside 0:21:44.320 --> 0:21:48.600 the country, so jurisdiction becomes really tricky. And SIPA has 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:53.359 reassured UK citizens stating that the organization is not going 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:56.680 to be using any public funds to pay off the ransom, 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:01.600 and that is for the best because as paying off 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:05.760 a ransom sends a message to those who would carry 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:09.960 out ransomware attacks. For the record, that messages, hey, y'all, 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:13.320 this totally works, so you don't you don't want to 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:15.720 do that, you know, not paying the ransom is the 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:18.720 right move because that sends the message that the attackers 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.919 are going through the effort of compromising a system, but 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:24.960 are not going to receive any sort of ransom in return. 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.840 Now that doesn't necessarily mean that all ransomware attacks are 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:32.280 going to stop. I mean you can steal data, as 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:35.320 is the case with this particular instance, and then try 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:39.320 to sell that information, perhaps on the black market, but 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:44.040 typically the information doesn't command a very high price. Like 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:47.280 in in aggregate, you can get a lot of money 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:51.760 for it, but data actually is is fairly cheap on 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:55.199 the individual level, so there's not a huge return of 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:59.560 investment for time and effort if you're not getting that ransom. 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:03.000 So long story short, if you are hit with ransomware, 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:06.600 don't pay the ransom. In fact, there's no guarantee that 0:23:06.680 --> 0:23:10.840 the attackers will return any stolen data, or not keep 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:13.199 a copy of it if they do return it, or 0:23:13.240 --> 0:23:16.040 that they will actually decrypt your hard drive if that's 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:19.719 what they've done, or anything like that, So don't pay it. 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:23.840 All it does is encourage further attacks, and it doesn't 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.360 guarantee that any damage that was done to you will 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:30.760 be reversed. So bad idea. All right, well, that wraps 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:33.639 up this segment. When we come back After this break, 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:37.199 we'll have a few odds and ends to cover, but 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:47.919 first let's take that quick break. Our first story in 0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:52.680 this segment is about an app and the more security breaches. 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:56.760 So Amazon's Ring Team revealed that there was a security 0:23:56.800 --> 0:24:00.879 bug in the Ring Neighbor's app. The Neighbors app is 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:04.439 a neighborhood watch tool allowing users to post about public 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:08.440 safety concerns or neighborhood crime. That reminds me a lot 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:13.119 of what next door tends to become, although in my 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:17.399 neighborhood it gets way worse than that. But that's of 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:20.560 soapbox I can get on on some other podcast. The 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:23.280 security bug in this case revealed that the app was 0:24:23.320 --> 0:24:29.080 pulling personal data off of neighbors, so it was revealing 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:33.320 stuff like the home addresses of users, which really it 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:36.119 shouldn't have been able to do. The Ring team changed 0:24:36.160 --> 0:24:38.760 the app so that it will only pull the city, state, 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:42.240 and ZIP code of users, but not their actual street address. 0:24:42.760 --> 0:24:46.280 As far as security failures go, this one appears to 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:49.680 be fairly mild. The Ring Team claims that there are 0:24:49.720 --> 0:24:52.800 no signs that anyone was misusing the data or that 0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:55.720 any other party had access to it. It's more of 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:57.879 a case of an app pulling more information than it 0:24:57.960 --> 0:25:00.760 needs to in order to operate, then that has now 0:25:00.800 --> 0:25:05.000 been resolved. If you have been following app news for 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:08.640 a long time, you know that this was something that 0:25:08.880 --> 0:25:12.920 companies used to do on purpose. They would actually request 0:25:13.040 --> 0:25:16.760 more information than the app required in order to operate, 0:25:17.480 --> 0:25:20.400 and often users were unaware of that. In fact, that 0:25:20.560 --> 0:25:26.920 was at its heart the working principle behind Cambridge Analytica. Uh. 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:29.520 The app that was used was pulling a lot more 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:33.600 information than people were aware of. And it wasn't until 0:25:33.640 --> 0:25:38.520 Facebook went and made major changes to its approach that 0:25:39.160 --> 0:25:44.360 things like that were harder to do and ideally impossible 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:48.040 to do. But as we see, sometimes it happens. Anyway, 0:25:48.119 --> 0:25:52.280 let's talk about food, because it's almost lunchtime for me. 0:25:52.640 --> 0:25:55.639 So a group of researchers with the Florida Institute of 0:25:55.680 --> 0:25:59.600