WEBVTT - Tech News: Tech Crooks and Cybercrime Stats 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.600 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.600 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.079 and a lot of all things tech. And this is 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:24.759 the tech news for Tuesday, December twenty one, twenty twenty one. 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.120 Before we get into it, the rest of the episodes 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.400 this week will be classic episodes in order for us 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:33.280 to take some time off for the holidays. I hope 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.080 you guys enjoy that we will have a couple of 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.000 new episodes next week. My hope is to have some 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.080 episodes that are the wrap up for the year in 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:45.360 tech one. Those are gonna be some doozies. I'm sure 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:47.000 it's gonna be more than one episode, but I have 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:50.880 not actually written them yet, so we'll see. But let's 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.000 get to the news for today. The trial of Elizabeth Holmes, 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:58.160 the founder of the company Theronos, is now in the 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:01.120 hands of the jury. They will meet for a second 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.280 day of deliberations today to determine a verdict for Holmes, 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.120 who is facing eleven charges of wire fraud and conspiracy 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:12.080 to commit wire fraud. Now, in case you managed to 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.560 miss out on the Tharonis story. Over the last decade, 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:19.520 Holmes founded a medical startup company with the goal of 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.080 producing a device that could run a battery of tests 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:27.000 on a single micro drop of blood. Holmes has said 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.120 that her fear of needles and a desire to democratize 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:34.640 medicine drove her to found Theoris, and if the deck 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:39.240 had worked, it could have truly revolutionized medicine, potentially to 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.840 the point where a household would have its own Theoris device, 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.480 almost like a desktop printer, and they could use it 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.520 to run tests and share that information with a physician. 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:52.880 But unfortunately, as was slowly revealed in a series of 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:57.920 expose s and documentaries and testimonials, the tech just could 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:00.960 not live up to that promise. But didn't stop sarin 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:05.680 Us from raising nearly one billion dollars in investments over 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.400 the years. And that's kind of the nub of the case. 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:14.000 Did Holmes knowingly misrepresent what her technology could do and 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:19.040 how it performed in order to get investors and partnerships 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:24.680 with healthcare companies? Did she intend to mislead them? That's 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.040 what the jury has to determine. She certainly adopted a 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.800 lavish and eccentric lifestyle and there are records of her 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:35.400 interactions with employees who brought up concerns with her. It 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.280 seemed to indicate that she was not keen on accepting 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:41.600 the possibility that the whole endeavor was fruitless. But her 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:45.560 lawyers have argued, essentially that she was just as bought 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:49.280 in to the hype as her investors were, which would 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.359 mean she did not purposefully lie to anyone. Honestly, it's 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.320 a pretty tough call from a legal standpoint, though, I 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.600 think it goes without saying that what the company did 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:02.000 was wrong and an enormous amount of money was wasted 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.680 on this. Not only that, but for people who are 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:10.119 depending upon blood tests to come back from Tharaos, that's 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.119 another matter entirely, right, Like, that's the level of criminality 0:03:13.200 --> 0:03:17.240 that goes beyond just fraud. There are people who you know, 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:20.880 whose health is at stake here. Anyway, We may have 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.680 a verdict later this week, but as I record this episode, 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:27.200 we're still in the deliberation phase. And now to transition 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.280 into the cyber crime part of this episode, buckledown, folks, 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.120 there's a lot to cover first up, According to a 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.920 company called Group or eighty Group a I T e. 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.440 I don't know how you say the name, but nearly 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.560 half of all Americans were victims of some form of 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:50.000 financial identity theft in twenty That is a really crazy statistic. Now, 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.280 if I were being flippant, I would suggest that it's 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.080 the other half of all Americans who stole the identities 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.000 of the first half. So if you're not in one group, 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.160 you're in the other. But that's obviously not true. That's 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:05.520 just a bad joke. Losses from those incidents amounted to 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:10.160 more than seven hundred billion dollars, according to this research firm, 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.120 which published its findings in a paper titled US Identity 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:18.440 Theft The Stark Reality. A big slice of that crime 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.560 pie goes to folks who committed some form of unemployment 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:26.320 identity theft, using false information to claim unemployment benefits. So, 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.880 just to be clear, the folks who were abusing unemployment 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:33.960 weren't necessarily people who didn't want to work. That was 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.160 like the common narrative you would hear from certain circles, right, like, 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.360 you can't you can't boost unemployment, it will just encourage 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.800 people not to work. No, it turns out the people 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.960 who were really abusing the system were thieves who are 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:52.720 victimizing other people and stealing from the system in order 0:04:52.800 --> 0:04:58.000 to fund themselves. They weren't like layabouts, they were actually 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:04.920 actively victimizing oaks who deserved unemployment benefits. By the way, 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.239 if you're between the ages of thirty five and forty four, well, congratulations, 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.960 you are in the prime target zone for those kinds 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.640 of attacks, because that age group represented the highest percentage 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.440 of consumers who found themselves victimized in twenty twenty. The 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:23.840 report also found that Kansas, Rhode Island, Illinois, Nevada, and 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.799 Washington were the states with the highest number of identity 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.200 theft reports. Now, when it comes to fraud, the states 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:35.560 the top that list were Nevada again, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.400 and my home state of Georgia. The number one state, 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:42.160 as in the state with the highest number of reported 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:47.280 cyber crimes was Kansas, with one thousand, four hundred eighty 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:52.320 three reports per one hundred thousand people. The safest state 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.760 was South Dakota, which had just seventy two reports per 0:05:55.800 --> 0:06:00.000 one hundred thousand people. However, we take territories into account, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.880 the real prize goes to Puerto Rico, which only had 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:07.480 fifty two reports per one thousand people. But wait, it 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.520 keeps getting worse. The report points out that there have 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.800 been some big data breaches and cases of companies failing 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.560 to secure data over the last year, from a case 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.440 where more than two million records from Microsoft customers was 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.479 found on the web unprotected to the ransomware attack on 0:06:24.520 --> 0:06:28.480 Colonial pipeline that interfered with fuel transportation and distribution earlier 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:33.440 this year. So yeah, bad news. Meanwhile, there are the 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:37.800 robo calls, another branch of scams and crimes. T Mobile 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:40.600 released an end of the year report on scam calls 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.479 and robo calls, saying that the number of calls more 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:48.240 than doubled over the course of so that in January 0:06:48.279 --> 0:06:52.320 there were around one point one billion scam call attempts 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:56.360 and in November there were two point five billion, and 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:59.360 people wonder why I never pick up my phone anymore? 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:02.240 And way. T Mobile says it already blocked more than 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:06.279 twenty one billion scam calls this year through its scam 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.760 Shield service. Even so, scammers were able to siphon away 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.520 nearly thirty billion dollars from targets. Now. According to T Mobile, 0:07:15.920 --> 0:07:18.239 more than half of those calls came in the form 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.360 of a scam vehicle warranty message, and I could say 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.800 I've actually received some of those. Uh, the few times 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:28.080 that a scammer actually bothered to leave a voicemail that 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.520 is because I don't pick up the phone. And you know, 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:34.200 that's actually pretty rich, because there's no car in my name. 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:36.640 I don't have a car in my name, so I 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.400 didn't know what I'd be warranteeing in the first place. 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.720 But following up on that are calls that claim to 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:46.320 be from the Social Security Office, which suggests a focus 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:51.040 on older targets, and the Federal Communications Commission or FCC, 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:54.840 has really been going after robocall operations in the United States, 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.040 levying hefty fines for companies found to engage in the 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:02.040 practice and pushing for tell calm companies to institute systems 0:08:02.080 --> 0:08:05.880 that would eliminate stuff like spoofing. Spoofing is when a 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.320 scammer uses a bit of software to make it seem 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.120 as though the call is coming from a different phone number, 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.680 often one that appears to be local to whatever the 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.680 targets phone number is, in an effort to commence them 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.040 to pick up. Like you're more likely to pick up 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.720 a phone if the phone number looks somewhat familiar. That's 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.920 the thought process. The UK's National Crime Agency and National 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:32.160 Cyber Crime Unit found a database containing two hundred twenty 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:37.920 five million stolen login credentials for various services and websites. 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.920 The agencies handed this cash of data over to a 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:46.280 service called Have I Been Poned? That's a have I 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.559 Been pw in e ed. That service gives folks the 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:55.400 chance to search their own email information to see if 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.000 any of the accounts that email is part of have 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.480 been compromised in the past, and if their passwords have 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.160 been exposed. And so it's really a way for people 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:10.560 to to kind of take action and see if their 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.000 loggin credentials are still safe. This is also a good 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:17.120 time to remind you all that it is important to 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:21.280 set strong passwords. Do not use the same password for 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:23.400 multiple accounts. I know you all know this, but I'm 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:26.959 gonna say it anyway. Also, I find that password vault 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.640 programs really help with this because that way you don't 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.000 have to remember two hundred unique strong passwords. I totally 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:37.960 get that that's not really feasible. So password vault's a 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:43.600 good password vault is invaluable. And finally, if a service 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:48.920 that you subscribe to offers two factor authentication, Definitely activate that, 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.040 choose that option. It will really cut back on the 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.880 chance that someone will compromise one of your accounts. We 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.240 have some more stories to cover in this episode, but 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:08.920 before we get to that, let's tay a quick break. Okay, 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.719 we're back and we're still talking about cybersecurity. You might 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.679 remember that I did a recent episode in which I 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:20.319 talked about a zero day vulnerability in apaches logging library 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:25.520 service log for J. Tons of companies, tons of systems 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:29.640 and services all rely on log for J, and as 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:33.920 the name suggests, log for J logs data. It essentially 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.880 is about keeping a record of what's going on within 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:42.480 a system anyway. This particular vulnerability would allow someone like 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:47.000 a hacker to gain access to a system running log 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:52.120 for J and potentially get control where they can execute 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:56.080 whatever code they want and thus execute code that would 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.960 give them full control of that remote server just by 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:05.040 you know, using this vulnerability in this logging service. Apache 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:09.400 issued a patch to fix the vulnerability, but you have 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:12.760 to install patches right Just because the patches there doesn't 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:17.160 magically solve the issue and cure all these systems that 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.000 have logged for J on them, you have to actually 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.440 install that patch, and the problem is that not everyone 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.680 is super responsive. Not everyone jumps on that right away. 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.679 Sometimes it's not necessarily the fault of the company, maybe 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.720 that their system is so huge and diverse that rolling 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.760 out a patch actually takes a lot of time. That 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.800 means that while there are technically fixes to this problem, 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.760 not everyone is actually incorporating them, not to the same 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:49.800 degree in the same speed. So some systems, perhaps tens 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:53.040 of thousands of them, remain vulnerable, and likely some of 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.680 them will remain vulnerable for years to come. Meanwhile, a 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:01.000 hacker group called CONTI, known primarily for in someware attacks, 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.880 has developed an attack chain that leverages the log for 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:10.600 J vulnerability. CONTI is a prolific ransomware hacker gang. They're 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.160 based out of Russia. They're potentially state sponsored or at 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:19.120 least state sanctioned, meaning the Russian authorities have shown very 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:23.559 little interest in shutting down this hacker group, and security 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:29.280 experts at at a dv INTEL say Conte's scale is 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.679 really large, it's a big operation, and that their methods 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:37.320 are very sophisticated, which makes them particularly dangerous and it 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:39.719 sounds to me like two, where's is going to be 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.960 another big year of of big ransomware attacks. It really 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.840 drives home that organizations will need to spend a lot 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.400 of time and resources to patch vulnerable systems, which again 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:55.480 is a process that's laborious and time consuming. So you know, 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:58.960 it's it's a big mess. It's absolutely critical, and it's 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:03.640 also not easy to do a fun combination. Over in Belgium, 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:07.760 the Ministry of Defense recently announced that the department was 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.520 the target of cyber attacks and that yes, the attackers 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:15.640 exploited that log for J vulnerability I was just talking about. 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:20.119 According to the department quote, some of the Ministry's activities 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.880 were paralyzed for several days end quote. Now, it sounds 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:28.080 as though staff detected the attack fairly early on, and 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.680 they were able to sequester the infected systems and thus 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:36.040 compartmentalize their computer systems so that the ministry could mostly 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.920 continue doing what it does while simultaneously containing the threat 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:43.440 to the affected systems. Now, as I record this, no 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:46.760 one has yet to identify the attackers, so we don't 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:51.400 know who was responsible. It is a pretty scary story, right, 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:58.080 and countries defense ministry being effectively targeted by hackers. It's 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.440 not out of the ordinary. I mean, we know that 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.840 cyber warfare is raging all the time, we just don't 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.880 necessarily know about it most of the time. But to 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:12.559 see something like that UH is incredibly sobering because obviously 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:18.840 you could have hostile countries really disabling the functionality of 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:24.640 massive and critical infrastructure in other countries. Very scary stuff. 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.720 But while I'm talking about Belgium, I should also mention 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:31.440 that back in June, the government of Belgium proposed a 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:35.320 law that would require companies that run encrypted messaging services 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.680 like WhatsApp and Signal to include a tool that would 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:44.120 decrypt communications upon request by authorities in the course of 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:49.960 criminal investigations. Of course, doing that would completely invalidate encryption 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.320 in the first place. I mean, the whole point of 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:55.800 the system is that no one other than the parties 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.800 involved in that communication are able to decrypt the messages, 0:14:59.840 --> 0:15:03.240 not not even the service provider. Like that's that's got 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.280 to be key to an encrypted messaging service, that the 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:10.760 service itself cannot decrypt the messages. To incorporate a work 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:13.640 around would negate all of that. It would also require 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.400 an entirely different approach to providing the service, but that's 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:21.200 another matter anyway. Once the public learned of this this 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:26.040 part of the law, criticism followed. Many rightly pointed out 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:29.600 that creating a back door in a secure system means 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.800 that you've just removed any security from that system. A backdoor, 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:37.520 when you really break it down, is a vulnerability, and 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.960 people can learn about and exploit vulnerabilities. So generally speaking, 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:46.720 you want to identify and eliminate vulnerabilities, not introduce new ones. 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.000 What analogy I was used is that you can have 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:51.880 like a bank vault and you have like one of 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:56.720 those big, massive vault doors that totally locks in place 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.880 and has time locks and all this stuff, and it's 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:01.240 really hard to break through. But if you install a 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:02.880 screen door in the back of the vault so that 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.040 you could just you know, come in and out more easily, 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.480 then you've just invalidated that that giant door. Right, it 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.640 doesn't matter, same sort of thing when we talk about 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:16.600 back doors and secure systems. It is a terrible idea. Fortunately, 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.120 the Belgian government listened to the criticism and has subsequently 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:24.640 removed the decryption requirement from that law. Now it's time 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:29.320 for a couple of Bitcoin stories. Bitcoin the choice for 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:33.880 money launderers around the world. So an employee of Sony's 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:38.000 life insurance company allegedly embezzled around a hundred fifty four 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:44.200 million dollars during a financial transfer transaction between two Sony 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:48.920 company accounts. So essentially the job was to move money 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.400 from one Sony account to another Sony account. It's just 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.760 that along the way, a measly hundred fifty four million 0:16:55.800 --> 0:17:00.680 dollars worth of Sony's resources found their way into the 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:04.959 personal account of this particular Sony employee. That is a 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:09.320 heck of a dip into the corporate piggy bank. Then 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:13.160 that employee allegedly converted all of that money into bitcoin, 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.679 around three thousand, eight hundred seventy nine bitcoin, and the 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.840 FBI got on the case and seized the bitcoin in question. 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:26.560 And today that bitcoin amount is worth around a hundred 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:30.879 eighty million dollars. That's not not bad amount of interest, 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.119 right It started off with a hundred fifty four million, 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.720 Now you're at a hundred eighty million, like cow. So 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:41.800 the Sony employee, now former employee, is under arrest in Japan. 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.600 No big surprise there. I'm not sure if this means 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.199 Sony will actually end up with more money than what 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.399 was stolen from it, thanks to the appreciation and value 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.600 of bitcoin between May, when the theft happened and when 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.280 the FBI was able to seize the bitcoin. That's a 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.960 question I can't answer. Pretty curious stuff, But yeah, bitcoin 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.800 continues to be associated with people who are doing some 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.000 pretty shady stuff. Again, like I've said, with a lot 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.680 of other technologies, there's nothing about bitcoin that inherently makes 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:17.000 it bad. It's just that a lot of bitcoins features 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.520 are ones that also become really useful if you want 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:24.520 to do shady things, So the tool itself not necessarily bad, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:30.400 although I have other very obvious feelings about bitcoin. But yeah, 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:35.240 you see a lot of folks running some unethical operations 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:39.439 relying on bitcoin. Speaking of bitcoin, and a report that 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.960 probably didn't surprise that many people, the Wall Street Journal 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.439 says that the top ten thousand bitcoin accounts hold five 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:50.840 million bitcoins. That's equal to more than two hundred thirty 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.919 billion dollars. That would be about ten thousand out of 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.680 around a hundred fourteen million people, and the Wall Street 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:03.240 Journal points out this means the top point zero one 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:09.080 percent of bitcoin holders control nearly of all bitcoin in circulation, 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:12.040 so this would be the tippy tippy top of a 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.720 pyramid if you were to compare bitcoin to a pyramid scheme. 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:18.399 Some folks have tried to do that, although I think 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.840 it's more of a speculation engine than a pyramid scheme. 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:25.760 This is a greater disparity than we see in the 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:28.879 United States in general, where the top one percent of 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.440 the wealthiest people control around a third of all wealth 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.720 in the US. But one percent is a whole lot 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:40.080 more than point zero one. Anyway, in the crypto community, 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.760 the accounts that control a lot of bitcoin are referred 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.720 to as whales, and I'm not sure if the researchers 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.119 who looked into this differentiated between accounts that belong to, say, 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:53.960 a single individual, and those that belong to crypto pools 0:19:54.080 --> 0:19:58.159 or exchanges and that kind of thing. Moving on, let's 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:00.960 talk about Amazon on because there are a couple of 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:05.280 big stories. They're One is that Reuter's reports that Amazon 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:10.439 scrubbed negative reviews of Chi Jinping's book The Governance of China. 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:15.920 Chi Jinping is the president of China. Now, apparently Amazon 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.240 was told to strike any review that wasn't five stars 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.879 from its Chinese operated sites like the sites that operate 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:27.000 within China, and the company subsequently removed and disabled reviews 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:30.600 for that book. This happened about two years ago, and 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.680 the report drives home how big tech companies will often 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:38.320 enable authoritarian regimes if it means getting access to their 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:42.400 very huge markets. China has more than one point four 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:46.720 billion people in it, and so big companies naturally really 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:50.000 want access to the money those people may or may 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.600 not have. And if that means the company has to 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:57.119 engage in a little censorship or perhaps enable a propaganda 0:20:57.240 --> 0:21:00.880 arm of authoritarian regime, well in many cases that's kind 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:03.760 of waved away as the price of doing business. It's 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.320 never framed that way, by the way, no one would 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:08.159 ever frame it that way, because that would just be 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:10.920 a pr nightmare to it to say the quiet part 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.720 out loud. They always frame it in a way where 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:18.080 they claim that they're giving access to more information. But 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:21.960 if it's information that only goes through a government filter 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:24.800 before it gets to people, I don't really buy that 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:29.600 argument anyway. Considering China's record on stuff like human rights violations, 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.000 this is pretty darn insidious, but it's also not surprising, 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:37.320 which is incredibly sad. All Right, we have several more 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.600 stories that we need to finish out before we close 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:43.800 this episode. But before we do that, let's take another 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:54.480 quick break. Boeing and Airbus have issued warnings that five 0:21:54.560 --> 0:21:58.720 G technology rollouts could create problems for the aviation industry. 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:01.840 The warning says that five G radio waves could interfere 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:07.160 with aircraft electronics like radio altimeters. This follows awarding from 0:22:07.160 --> 0:22:10.879 the Federal Aviation Ministration or f a A that also 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:15.040 said five G interference could cause flight diversions, which obviously 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.159 is a pretty serious problem. Companies like A, T and 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.359 T and Verizon have delayed their activation of five G 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:25.880 networks while working on this issue, looking to adopt precautionary 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:30.080 measures to limit five G interference, but Boeing and Airbus 0:22:30.200 --> 0:22:33.000 claim that these proposals don't go far enough, and they 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.480 want to see a commitment to limiting five G so 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:39.320 that it doesn't operate within range of like forty of 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:43.480 the world's major airports. The US wireless industry is pushing 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:48.200 back against this, saying that the aviation industry is distorting 0:22:48.200 --> 0:22:51.880 the truth that they are essentially saying that this problem 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:54.560 is way worse than any actual problem that might exist, 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:57.760 and they argue that delays in five G rollouts cause 0:22:57.840 --> 0:23:01.000 harm to the companies and consumers alike. I may have 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:02.959 to do a full episode about this in the future 0:23:03.119 --> 0:23:06.040 and really look into what's going on at a technical level, 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:10.280 because I honestly don't know what argument here is. The 0:23:10.320 --> 0:23:15.480 most realistic musician Brian Eno has a pretty skeptical perspective 0:23:15.480 --> 0:23:17.639 on n f T s, which means he and I 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:21.280 share that in common. Also, I used to record in 0:23:21.280 --> 0:23:25.040 a podcasting studio named after him. All our podcasting studios 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:29.600 at the office are named after musicians like Eno, Bowie, Prince, 0:23:29.640 --> 0:23:33.159 and York. Anyway, Eno says he feels n f T 0:23:33.320 --> 0:23:35.879 s are being peddled by the equivalent of snake oil 0:23:36.000 --> 0:23:40.120 salespeople and marketed to suckers, hucksters and suckers I think 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:42.119 is how he put it, which sounds like p T. 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:45.159 Barnum would be all over the n f T market 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:48.639 if you are alive today. I happen to agree with 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:52.639 Eno on this. Should we actually build a metaverse and 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:55.720 you can listen to yesterday's episode to hear my thoughts 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.720 about that, then n f T S could arguably be 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.960 is full if you wanted to port digital goods from 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:06.840 one environment into another, though that process would also require 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:09.719 that a lot of other pieces fall into place, and 0:24:09.760 --> 0:24:12.600 it's by no means a guarantee that it would actually happen. 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:15.240 But right now, n f t s are really just 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:18.280 a digital record of a transaction, and you don't actually 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:21.919 end up owning anything tangible, at least not in the 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:24.720 sense that we typically think of. I've often said it's 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:27.920 kind of like buying a star. If you've ever seen 0:24:27.920 --> 0:24:31.320 one of those commercials, you don't really actually own anything, 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:33.639 and there's no way to say, hey, that's my star, 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:37.040 so no one else can buy it, Like there's nothing 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:40.320 stopping some other companies saying, well, we're selling stars, and 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:42.560 that same star is owned by like eight different people. 0:24:43.000 --> 0:24:45.399 I mean, not that anyone would really care or do 0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:48.399 anything about it. It's just it's it's meaningless, is what 0:24:48.440 --> 0:24:51.280 I'm saying. Anyway, One thing n f T s can 0:24:51.320 --> 0:24:54.000 do is allow fans of an artist or creator a 0:24:54.080 --> 0:24:57.200 chance to support that person's work and show their enthusiasm 0:24:57.280 --> 0:25:00.240 for it. So if an artist works primary le in 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:03.920 web based media, it can be difficult to monetize that work. 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:06.600 You might create a Patreon account or something like that, 0:25:06.640 --> 0:25:09.600 But there are fundamental differences between an artist who works 0:25:09.640 --> 0:25:12.520 in the digital realm versus someone who works in a 0:25:12.520 --> 0:25:15.000 physical form of media. N f T s can be 0:25:15.160 --> 0:25:18.560