Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And it's another week
Speaker 1: and another billionaire going to space. Earlier this month, Richard
Speaker 1: Branson took a very short jaunt out to the edge
Speaker 1: of space board Virgin Galactics space Ship two, which is
Speaker 1: a single rocket engine vehicle that actually piggybacks on a mothership,
Speaker 1: a larger air vehicle called White Night too, so then
Speaker 1: it detaches from White Knight to ignites its rocket engine
Speaker 1: and thus does not have to take off from the
Speaker 1: surface of the Earth. Now this morning, as I was
Speaker 1: writing this, I was writing it just as Amazon founder
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos had finished his similarly short trail in the
Speaker 1: New Shepherd Blue Origin space vehicle, which is a capsule
Speaker 1: that sits on top of a launch vehicle. He was
Speaker 1: part of the first crew to ride that vehicle to space,
Speaker 1: so the first people to actually be in a Blue
Speaker 1: Origin space vehicle. He went along with his brother Mark
Speaker 1: and an aviation legend, Wally Funk. She has now become
Speaker 1: the oldest astronaut to go to space, and Oliver Damon,
Speaker 1: the eighteen year old who took the spot of some
Speaker 1: anonymous person who purchased a twenty eight million dollar ticket
Speaker 1: to go to space but then had to back out
Speaker 1: due to what we're called scheduling difficulties, which is pretty wild, right,
Speaker 1: kind of wonder what's in your schedule where you're like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: I can't go to space today. I gotta go buy
Speaker 1: milk or whatever it is. Anyway, Damon is now the
Speaker 1: youngest person to have gone to space. So in the
Speaker 1: same little space capsule, they had the oldest astronaut and
Speaker 1: the youngest astronaut to ever go to space. And Damon's father,
Speaker 1: by the way, runs a private equity firm in the Netherlands.
Speaker 1: So this is not the case of some like Ragamuffin
Speaker 1: finding a golden ticket and a Wonka bar or something. No,
Speaker 1: because space, it turns out it's not just trying to
Speaker 1: kill you. It's also freaking expensive. Most of us will
Speaker 1: never be able to afford to go. Now, you could
Speaker 1: say that I've got a case of sour grapes, and
Speaker 1: I admit it, You're right, I do have a case
Speaker 1: of sour grapes. I'm absolutely grouchy about this. But moreover,
Speaker 1: there has been a growing backlash against Branson, Bezos and
Speaker 1: Elon Musk as well, because the billionaires were publicly racing
Speaker 1: toward getting into space, and meanwhile we have these massive
Speaker 1: problems that continue to balloon out of control back here
Speaker 1: on the ground. This is led some to say, you know,
Speaker 1: why are you seemingly running away? Even though they were
Speaker 1: only up in space for like a minute and less
Speaker 1: than a minute in some cases, it's not like it's
Speaker 1: them saying peace out and flying off to some luxury
Speaker 1: planet in the Solar System. But a lot of the
Speaker 1: critics say, why not use some of that money, the
Speaker 1: enormous amounts of money it took to send you to
Speaker 1: space to address critical problems like, you know, the pandemic,
Speaker 1: or income inequality, or poor working conditions or the exploitation
Speaker 1: of the poor. Why spend all that money on an
Speaker 1: endeavor that contributes to enormous amounts of carbon emissions. The
Speaker 1: aviation industry in general is a really big source of
Speaker 1: carbon emissions, and it means that a very small percentage
Speaker 1: of people are responsible, either directly or indirectly, for a
Speaker 1: large percentage of carbon emissions. These and other questions have
Speaker 1: been asked many times over the past few days. They
Speaker 1: also point out that these billionaires often have an association
Speaker 1: with some of those problems. I mean, Amazon in particular
Speaker 1: has been in the news quite a bit about things
Speaker 1: like unfair working conditions with Elon Musk. His other company, Tesla,
Speaker 1: has been in the news about pushing to open up
Speaker 1: manufacturing facilities, even as the states that those facilities were
Speaker 1: in we're ordering lockdowns. Like there have been some pretty
Speaker 1: negative news reports about these companies that are are run
Speaker 1: by these billionaires. Now, on the other hand, there is
Speaker 1: a lot of good things to be said with regard
Speaker 1: to human ingenuity and engineering and the countless hours that
Speaker 1: thousands of people put into making this achievement a possibility.
Speaker 1: We should not ignore that. And I think it is
Speaker 1: possible to both be critical of the motivations and implications
Speaker 1: of the billionaire space race and also still be able
Speaker 1: to laud the achievements of people who made it all possible.
Speaker 1: But you know, hearing rich people yell woo who on
Speaker 1: a space joy ride does get my dander up. I
Speaker 1: reckon anyway, I guess the ball is now in Elon
Speaker 1: Musk's court, as he's the one billionaire of those three
Speaker 1: who has not yet gone to space, though his car did.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Elon Musk and space, SpaceX tested the enormous
Speaker 1: booster rocket for its Starship spacecraft on Monday night. So
Speaker 1: this is a booster rocket that were part of the
Speaker 1: launch vehicle to get Starship into space. The booster is
Speaker 1: called the Super Heavy and it has several rocket engines.
Speaker 1: They're called raptor engines to be precise, and this particular
Speaker 1: test involved igniting three of those engines in a test burn,
Speaker 1: but the booster was tethered firmly to the ground. This
Speaker 1: wasn't launching. The booster was really testing the engine is
Speaker 1: making sure that everything was working in the future. Assuming
Speaker 1: that everything goes well, a full launch of the Starship,
Speaker 1: for example, if you were to try and send it
Speaker 1: to Mars, could involve more than thirty engines during that process.
Speaker 1: The company has already conducted a suborbital test of Starship
Speaker 1: last May, and the plan was to carry out an
Speaker 1: orbital test during this summer, but you know time is
Speaker 1: starting to run out for that. If it happens, the
Speaker 1: Starship will launch from Texas, it will reach an orbital
Speaker 1: altitude and then it will descend to land near the
Speaker 1: island of Kawaiti, you know as part of Hawaii. And
Speaker 1: the ultimate plan for the starship program is again to
Speaker 1: send astronauts to distant places like the Moon or Mars,
Speaker 1: and that's why you need such powerful engines for a
Speaker 1: full launch. We've still got a long way to go
Speaker 1: before we ever try something like that, and more tests
Speaker 1: will be needed to ensure that the tech is reliable
Speaker 1: and safe. The spy where Pegasus is back in the
Speaker 1: news this week, and in case you're not familiar with this,
Speaker 1: Pegasus is a spyware project headed by an Israeli company
Speaker 1: called the n s O Group. This company makes spyware
Speaker 1: for smartphones and that gives a remote administrator access to
Speaker 1: that device. That actually includes the ability to activate the
Speaker 1: smartphones camera and microphone, so you can use it as
Speaker 1: a surveillance tool. This is the sort of stuff that
Speaker 1: hackers want in order to gain information about targets. It's
Speaker 1: the same stuff that Nations used to keep an eye
Speaker 1: on various people. And the NSL group has sold this
Speaker 1: spyware technology as a weapon. Is classified as a weapon,
Speaker 1: so they actually have to get the consent of the
Speaker 1: Israeli government before they sell it to anyone, but they've
Speaker 1: sold it to various countries in the Middle East, though
Speaker 1: typically not two countries that have an outright antagonistic stance
Speaker 1: against Israel, which makes sense. You wouldn't think that the
Speaker 1: Israeli government would sign off on a sale of a
Speaker 1: surveillance tool that's classified as a weapon two enemies of
Speaker 1: the state. Critics have suggested that the ns A group
Speaker 1: is effectively acting as sort of a vanguard for Israeli diplomacy,
Speaker 1: the idea being that, you know, providing this powerful surveillance
Speaker 1: tool to various governments gives Israel a foot in the
Speaker 1: door for diplomatic negotiations moving forward, and critics have also
Speaker 1: alleged that some of these countries, notably Saudi Arabia, have
Speaker 1: used the Pegasus spyware, not to you know, identify crime
Speaker 1: groups or terrorist groups, which is the stated purpose for
Speaker 1: this surveillance technology, but rather to persecute human rights activists
Speaker 1: or critics of the state and journalists. The NSO group
Speaker 1: cut off Saudi Arabia's access to the tool following the
Speaker 1: murder of Jamal ka Shogi, but later reinstated it upon
Speaker 1: direction by the Israeli government, which raises some pretty ugly questions.
Speaker 1: And this is all according to an article in the Guardian. Recently,
Speaker 1: n S Group shut off Saudi access to the tool
Speaker 1: again after Al Jazeera journalists came forward with Amnesty International
Speaker 1: saying that they had been targeted by the spyware. Amnesty
Speaker 1: International has published several extensive reports about this spyware and
Speaker 1: how various governments have used and abused it. Uh The
Speaker 1: organization has also released a tool kit to help people
Speaker 1: determine if their devices have been compromised and have Pegasus
Speaker 1: spyware on them. The organization also says that Pegasus is
Speaker 1: much easier to detect on iPhones than it is on
Speaker 1: Android phones, as the spyware leaves more traces on iPhones.
Speaker 1: Amnesty also found that the spyware could transfer through a
Speaker 1: zero click attack through I message, meaning it's a particularly
Speaker 1: powerful attack. It doesn't require the target to you know,
Speaker 1: click on a malicious link or download any software. It
Speaker 1: can just be done through I message, which is pretty
Speaker 1: pretty nasty stuff. While we're talking about Apple, the company
Speaker 1: recently decided that it was going to delay a return
Speaker 1: to office they originally were planning on doing it in September,
Speaker 1: but a rise in COVID cases has made them change
Speaker 1: their minds. The idea was that employees would be returning
Speaker 1: to the office for three days a week and then
Speaker 1: remotely work the other two days of the week. But
Speaker 1: now Apple says it's going to hold off to at
Speaker 1: least October. And to be clear, the return to the
Speaker 1: office was not a comeback three days a week if
Speaker 1: you feel like it. It was more like a you
Speaker 1: will come back to the office for three days a week.
Speaker 1: It was a mandate, and it was one that you know,
Speaker 1: some Apple employees were protesting. They were saying that the
Speaker 1: message they received was that they were going to be
Speaker 1: forced to choose between their health and safety and that
Speaker 1: of their families and their careers. Apple CEO Tim Cook
Speaker 1: sent out a memo in June, and a memos said
Speaker 1: that workers really did need to return to offices and
Speaker 1: and get the hum of activity back in the hallways
Speaker 1: of Apple. And just to be clear, while I'm specifically
Speaker 1: talking about Apple here, it is not unique in this
Speaker 1: at all. Google and Amazon have similar planned policies with returns.
Speaker 1: In September. I believe both of those companies also planned
Speaker 1: to do a three days in the office kind of approach.
Speaker 1: We'll see if those companies also adjust their plans in
Speaker 1: the wake of rising COVID cases. The delta variant is
Speaker 1: really wreaking havoc in the United States. Um even vaccinated
Speaker 1: people can catch it, and while their symptoms might be minor,
Speaker 1: in fact they might be asymptomatic, there's still a concern
Speaker 1: about the possibility of them passing that on to unvaccinated people,
Speaker 1: which that could lead to actual disaster, you know, and death,
Speaker 1: the bad things. I'm just coming out and saying it
Speaker 1: that I think people dying from COVID is bad. I
Speaker 1: know it's a controversial thing to say for some reason. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's really at this point that I want to express
Speaker 1: how thankful I am for our leadership. At my heart,
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly fortunate that I am. My co workers are
Speaker 1: all given the freedom to continue working from home with
Speaker 1: no mandate in the foreseeable future right now to return
Speaker 1: to the office. Now, some of us do go into
Speaker 1: the office occasionally. So for example, I will sometimes go
Speaker 1: into the office to record interviews for my show The
Speaker 1: Restless Ones. If you haven't heard The Restless Ones, you
Speaker 1: should go check it out. Uh. And the reason why
Speaker 1: I do that the all the interviews I do are remote,
Speaker 1: but the office is internet connection is much more reliable
Speaker 1: than my home internet connection and I don't want to,
Speaker 1: you know, have a connection dropped during an interview, So
Speaker 1: I go to the office for those occasions. Um, And
Speaker 1: it's pretty rare that I see anyone else in that office.
Speaker 1: Occasionally I do, like on a on a really busy day,
Speaker 1: I might see as many as for other people. But
Speaker 1: most days I'm the only one there. And considering that
Speaker 1: at least one of my co workers has announced that
Speaker 1: they were diagnosed with COVID not too long ago, this
Speaker 1: is a pretty big deal to me. Now. To be clear,
Speaker 1: my co worker announced this on a public forum, but
Speaker 1: in respect for their privacy, I'm just gonna leave it
Speaker 1: at that. I'm not gonna say who it was. If
Speaker 1: you know, you know, if you don't know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter. The point is that because of my company's policy,
Speaker 1: I feel pretty safe, and I feel a lot of
Speaker 1: empathy for the people who are working for Apple and
Speaker 1: Google and Amazon who might not have that same reassurance. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we'll keep our eyes on these stories as they continue
Speaker 1: to develop. Ideally, I would just like to see the
Speaker 1: COVID numbers come down, people go back to the office
Speaker 1: and everything be fine. That's just not the reality we're
Speaker 1: working with right now. Next year, the three major cellular
Speaker 1: service providers in the United States, those being Verizon, Team
Speaker 1: of and A T and T, will all preload Android
Speaker 1: Messages as the default texting app on all Android phones. Now.
Speaker 1: This marks a shift to the RCS chat standard, which
Speaker 1: Android Messages uses. Our RCS stands for Rich Communications Services,
Speaker 1: and it's a replacement for the antiquated SMS, or Short
Speaker 1: Messaging Service standard that we've relied on for years. We
Speaker 1: typically think of SMSs text messages. So why are we upgrading? Well,
Speaker 1: SMS has some pretty major drawbacks. It does not support
Speaker 1: end to end encryption. For example, it doesn't support group messaging.
Speaker 1: It doesn't support red receipts, so that means you never
Speaker 1: know if someone actually saw the text message you sent them.
Speaker 1: Though on the flip side, that also gives me plausible
Speaker 1: deniability that you know, I ever even saw the text message,
Speaker 1: because I'm notorious or not answering them anyway. RCS also
Speaker 1: supports features like video and audio, something that SMS can't
Speaker 1: really handle. But there's a big drawback, and that is
Speaker 1: you have to make sure that the r r c
Speaker 1: S implementations of each of these carriers are compatible with
Speaker 1: one another. Otherwise you could end up with services that
Speaker 1: would allow for communication within one carrier but not beyond it,
Speaker 1: or within one handset manufacturer but not beyond that. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you could find yourself able to communicate
Speaker 1: with anyone else who was on the same carrier or
Speaker 1: was using the same phone that you were using, but
Speaker 1: you couldn't do it with anyone else. Now, the carriers
Speaker 1: in the US say that they are working to ensure compatibility,
Speaker 1: and the fact that they're defaulting to Google's Android Messages
Speaker 1: really falls in line with that. Now, the only major
Speaker 1: player in the space that hasn't announced a move to
Speaker 1: r CS is Apple. Apple's Eye Message is a different
Speaker 1: kettle of fish, being far more feature rich and secure
Speaker 1: than old SMS. It also supports end to end encryption,
Speaker 1: but if you need a message someone who isn't on
Speaker 1: an Apple device, then you have to fall back to
Speaker 1: SMS messages. Android is rolling out into end encryption for
Speaker 1: Android messages, and I message, like I said, hast end
Speaker 1: encryption in place as well, but any messages that would
Speaker 1: be sent between an Android device and an Apple device
Speaker 1: would have to revert to SMS and thus be less secure,
Speaker 1: so it represents a weak link. It's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: Apple inviting rcs to occupy a space on the iPhone,
Speaker 1: and similarly, Apple doesn't appear to be keen to allow
Speaker 1: I message apps on the Android platform, so we're kind
Speaker 1: of at a bit of an impass. Well, we have
Speaker 1: a couple more stories to cover, but before I get
Speaker 1: to that, let's take a quick break. We're back. A
Speaker 1: T and T is reportedly in talks to offload and
Speaker 1: add division that has been hemorrhaging money for a few
Speaker 1: years and is not looking any better right now. And
Speaker 1: this is all according to Axios. So back in two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen, A T and T acquired an ad exchange
Speaker 1: company called app Nexus for one point six billion dollars
Speaker 1: that's billion with a B, and it also purchased a
Speaker 1: TV ad company called Clipped. Not sure how much that
Speaker 1: acquisition was for, but it was significantly lower than one
Speaker 1: point six billion. But the idea was to combine these
Speaker 1: two things and create an automation solution for television advertising
Speaker 1: and pair that with Warner Media. The media division within
Speaker 1: A T and T, the ad division was renamed zander
Speaker 1: x A N d R. Now, in my fanciful brain,
Speaker 1: and automation solution for television advertising means that we would
Speaker 1: get ads with robots selling us stuff, which at first
Speaker 1: I'm totally into. But then I remember those terrifying Dura
Speaker 1: cell commercials from decades ago where you had these plastic
Speaker 1: robot people. Do you guys remember those? They were the
Speaker 1: stuff of nightmares. Go to YouTube and search Dura sell
Speaker 1: robot people. If you don't know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry, but halloweens around the corner. It's a
Speaker 1: great costume anyway. No, that's not what this is about.
Speaker 1: I was like totally off based on that. The plan
Speaker 1: was to incorporate the automated ad division with Warner Media
Speaker 1: and to have these two work together and to optimize
Speaker 1: advertising and just generate revenue out the wazoo. Really, But
Speaker 1: now A T and T is famously ditching Warner Media,
Speaker 1: or rather spinning it off, and Warner Media is scheduled
Speaker 1: to merge with Discovery Communications and become a new media
Speaker 1: company again and without the media side of the business.
Speaker 1: Then Zander's kind of a hammer, but there are no nails,
Speaker 1: right There's it's a tool, but there's nothing to use
Speaker 1: it with because now A T. T doesn't have the
Speaker 1: media arm that would go hand in hand with the
Speaker 1: advertising arm, so it's missing inventory side of the ad business.
Speaker 1: So it has no real place with a T and T.
Speaker 1: And apparently there have been some major mismanagement issues with
Speaker 1: the division from the get go, with annual losses somewhere
Speaker 1: in the fifty to ninety million dollar range. Again, this
Speaker 1: is according to AXIOSS sources. At the moment, an Indian
Speaker 1: company called in Mobi, which is another big AD technology company,
Speaker 1: is in talks to potentially acquire the division, but it's
Speaker 1: early days. We don't know if that's actually going to
Speaker 1: move forward. An organization called Common Cause and a union
Speaker 1: called the Communications Workers of America recently released a joint
Speaker 1: report titled Broadband Gatekeepers. How i SP lobbying and political
Speaker 1: influence shapes the Digital Divide. The report examines the telecommunications
Speaker 1: industry in the United States, the political power that that
Speaker 1: industry wields, and the consequences that create an uneven and
Speaker 1: unfair broadband distribution here in the US. The report opens
Speaker 1: by pointing out how the pandemic really highlighted the necessity
Speaker 1: of having broadband access in the US just for being
Speaker 1: able to carry out like simple daily functions. You really
Speaker 1: benefited if you have access to a broadband connection all
Speaker 1: the way to participating in the democratic process. The election
Speaker 1: was a big deal. You know, it was going on
Speaker 1: during a pandemic, and the internet access was playing a
Speaker 1: big part in being able to participate in that process.
Speaker 1: Also signing up for COVID vaccinations that is largely an
Speaker 1: online process in a lot of places as well. So
Speaker 1: having broadband access is pivotal to playing a part in
Speaker 1: being a part of society in the United States. The
Speaker 1: report lays out that the industry spends hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of dollars every day to lobby politicians and an effort
Speaker 1: to more or less maintain an advantageous position in regional marketplaces.
Speaker 1: So the report pretty much spells out stuff that I
Speaker 1: think most people know just through their own experience that
Speaker 1: big companies frequently have a near monopoly on specific regions,
Speaker 1: which means the average person is fortunate if they have
Speaker 1: even a second option when it comes to choosing a
Speaker 1: broadband service. And it also points out that a lot
Speaker 1: of people, particularly people in vulnerable or poor populations, often
Speaker 1: lack any broadband options at all, and so there are
Speaker 1: these massive gaps in connectivity in the US. And the
Speaker 1: report is essentially saying these companies are behaving as companies do, right.
Speaker 1: These companies are capitalistic organizations. That's there, you know, raison d'tre,
Speaker 1: and that as a result, if a company identifies a
Speaker 1: particular region as being unprofitable, then there's no financial incentive
Speaker 1: for that company to extend services out to that area.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the gist of the reports saying that
Speaker 1: without any other influence in here, these populations are going
Speaker 1: to continue to be underserved compared to areas that are
Speaker 1: deemed to be profitable by these companies. And again, like
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of making the companies out to be
Speaker 1: the bad guy, but to be fair, you could argue
Speaker 1: that it's the system that enables this, that that facilitates
Speaker 1: this kind of behavior, these kind of choices that it
Speaker 1: would be antithetical to the corporate uh philosophy to do otherwise.
Speaker 1: And the report also explains how the FCC went from
Speaker 1: an organization that was laying out rules and regulations under
Speaker 1: the Obama administration that would have really made broadband a utility.
Speaker 1: In fact, that did happen, and that this would help
Speaker 1: address things by creating mandates that the companies would have
Speaker 1: to follow, thus removing that decision from the companies themselves.
Speaker 1: But then all of that flipped when Trump became president
Speaker 1: and the FCC leadership completely changed. Now, I would say
Speaker 1: it pretty much confirms a lot of common beliefs about
Speaker 1: the telecommunications industry, and I'll also point out it clearly
Speaker 1: has its own bias that is evident upon reading just
Speaker 1: the executive summary for this report. Now, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: the report is wrong. I'm just saying that the report
Speaker 1: does not attempt to present itself as being, you know,
Speaker 1: objective and unbiased. But it's pretty upfront about that. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's trying to be something it's not. Anyway,
Speaker 1: if you are curious about why broadband access is the
Speaker 1: way it is in the United States and you want
Speaker 1: to know more about the links that companies will go
Speaker 1: to in order to maintain the status quo, I recommend
Speaker 1: reading the report. It's free to read at common Cause
Speaker 1: dot org. And again, the title of that is broadband gatekeepers,
Speaker 1: how I sp lobbying and political influence shapes the digital divide.
Speaker 1: I might have to do a full episode about that
Speaker 1: at some point. Finally, last week, a cryptocurrency mining operation
Speaker 1: was rated by the Ukraine's Security Service, and the reason
Speaker 1: for the raid was that this group was allegedly using
Speaker 1: devices to mine cryptocurrency, specifically bitcoin, and in the process
Speaker 1: they were stealing electricity from the power grid, so they're
Speaker 1: taking electricity without paying for it. Obviously, one of the
Speaker 1: things that is a barrier to entry and cryptocurrency mining
Speaker 1: is that you have to have a super powerful computer
Speaker 1: computer system, like multiple super powerful computers in order to
Speaker 1: stand a chance at being successful at at mining cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: which means you have to consume a lot of electricity,
Speaker 1: which means your operations are expensive unless you steal that electricity.
Speaker 1: If the electricity is free, well then it's not as
Speaker 1: big a deal and you've got more profit for yourself.
Speaker 1: So this particular operation was very odd because it wasn't
Speaker 1: full of super powerful mining rigs using various like parallel
Speaker 1: processing components. It was using thousands of PS four consoles
Speaker 1: PlayStation four. This raises some questions. I mean PS four
Speaker 1: consoles are cool and all. I've got one myself. I
Speaker 1: like it. But they're not exactly the most sophisticated computers
Speaker 1: out there, and they are not optimized for mining cryptocurrency. Now,
Speaker 1: you could argue that using free electricity would mean that
Speaker 1: they don't have to be that good, but if they
Speaker 1: never are successful, then there's not much point to it.
Speaker 1: Right now, there was a time back with the PS three,
Speaker 1: which had a totally different semiconductor processor architecture, where you
Speaker 1: could network a ton of PS three's together and you
Speaker 1: could create the equivalent of a supercomputer, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: not necessarily is better at cryptocurrency mining. But that's a
Speaker 1: very different thing than the PS four, which has a
Speaker 1: less I guess ambition is processor architecture. It's more like
Speaker 1: a typical computers processor. So what gives why would you
Speaker 1: use PS four consoles to mine cryptocurrency because they surely
Speaker 1: are not very effective. Well, new report suggests that the
Speaker 1: consoles were not mining cryptocurrency at all. They were doing
Speaker 1: something that I thought was far more ludicrous. They were
Speaker 1: farming in game currency in a FIFA video game. And
Speaker 1: here's where the ignorant American that that being me I'm
Speaker 1: the ignorant American here is reminded that the FIFA video
Speaker 1: game franchise is truly enormous. In fact, the Guinness Book
Speaker 1: of World Records lists it as the best selling sports
Speaker 1: video game franchise in the world. And um, for fellow
Speaker 1: Americans who might not play FIFA might not be aware
Speaker 1: of what it is. It's a soccer game. Wait, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry everybody else, it's a football game, but you
Speaker 1: know it's that foreign football which we call soccer. Just
Speaker 1: keep it on the down low, Americans. Anyway, the people
Speaker 1: who are running the operation, apparently we're using these consoles
Speaker 1: to farm in game items. In FIFA twenty ones Ultimate
Speaker 1: Team Mode, Allegedly they had created these programs that would
Speaker 1: allow bots to play in game games and just generate
Speaker 1: tons of in game currency, which the group then could
Speaker 1: sell on the black market to other players. And all
Speaker 1: of this just blows my mind. I mean, I understand
Speaker 1: that in game stuff can have real world value. It
Speaker 1: has to, like otherwise, downloadable content wouldn't be a thing.
Speaker 1: And I've purchased in game stuff on occasion for some titles,
Speaker 1: but it always surprises me to hear about the scope
Speaker 1: of these kinds of things and an operation that used
Speaker 1: like three thousand, eight hundred PS four consoles to do
Speaker 1: this is just hard for me to visualize. I might
Speaker 1: have to do a full episode about this story in
Speaker 1: the future to kind of talk about what got us
Speaker 1: to this point, because it's more than just a group
Speaker 1: of hackers exploiting a system. It's really also about the
Speaker 1: system itself and how that system facilitated the scenario that
Speaker 1: allowed this crime to even be a possibility. In a way,
Speaker 1: it's similar to what I was talking about with the
Speaker 1: I s p s and the broadband gatekeepers, right, because
Speaker 1: there you have a capitalist system that kind of creates
Speaker 1: the environment that enables this disparity to happen, and here
Speaker 1: we have a video game monetization strategy that also facilitates
Speaker 1: bad behavior. So I think that I may need to
Speaker 1: do some episodes about kind of like the underlying business
Speaker 1: strategies behind some big tech companies and how that, as
Speaker 1: a consequence, leads to negative outcomes that don't necessarily depend
Speaker 1: upon the tech. The tech is just a component here,
Speaker 1: but it means that when we look at these things,
Speaker 1: were like, oh, that's not totally cool anyway, that's for
Speaker 1: a future episode. This episode is now concluded, so thank
Speaker 1: you very much for listening. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: topics you would like me to cover on future episodes
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, do what several of your fellow listeners
Speaker 1: have done and reach out to me on Twitter. The
Speaker 1: handle to use is tech stuff H s W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.