Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Johnan Strickland. I'm an executive producer for I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you. It's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Thursday, July seven, two thousand twenty two.
Speaker 1: And while the biggest news today is about a world
Speaker 1: leader resigning, that's not directly related to text. So we'll
Speaker 1: just have to settle on some runners up and this
Speaker 1: will be a fairly quick episode, I think. Now. Our
Speaker 1: first story is about a man named Brennan Lawson who
Speaker 1: has sued his former employer, which happens to be Meta,
Speaker 1: you know, Facebook. Lawslin was part of Facebook's escalations team.
Speaker 1: For those who are not in the know, and I
Speaker 1: count myself among them because I learned about this today.
Speaker 1: The escalations team is part of Facebook's content moderation strategy. UH.
Speaker 1: The escalation team typically handles higher profile content moderation instances,
Speaker 1: such as when someone in a government position flags content
Speaker 1: on Facebook, so it's kind of the fast lane for
Speaker 1: content review and moderation. Anyway, Lawson claims that while he
Speaker 1: was working in that department, he saw that Facebook employees
Speaker 1: could retrieve information that users had deleted, such as messages
Speaker 1: that were sent between different users on Facebook Messenger. That
Speaker 1: actually contradicts Facebook's claims that once a user deletes content
Speaker 1: off the platform, Facebook subsequently wipes that content off its
Speaker 1: own servers. Lawson said that there were cases in which
Speaker 1: law enforcement would demand access to user information during investigations,
Speaker 1: for example, and that Facebook employees would regularly retrieve information,
Speaker 1: including the deleted stuff, and then review it before deciding
Speaker 1: what to pass on to law enforcement. Lawson objected to
Speaker 1: this practice, saying that Facebook was, you know, being disingenuous,
Speaker 1: is being dishonest with its users. Lawson claims he was
Speaker 1: subsequently fired in a retaliatory action, one that Facebook masked
Speaker 1: by saying that it was actually because Lawson had mishandled
Speaker 1: a situation in which he attempted to help his grandmother,
Speaker 1: who said her account had been hacked. According to Business Insider,
Speaker 1: Facebook said Lawson failed to fill out a field in
Speaker 1: an online form with his grandmother's email address. Now, I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that was such a terrible mistake that it
Speaker 1: would warrant termination anyway. If Lawson's claims are true, then
Speaker 1: I expect we'll see a lot more pressure applied to Facebook.
Speaker 1: Presumably this capability to look at deleted material wouldn't work
Speaker 1: if you were to enable end to end encryption in
Speaker 1: your Facebook messenger app, assuming that it really is true
Speaker 1: end to end encryption, because if it is is, then
Speaker 1: no other parties besides the ones actually in the conversation
Speaker 1: should be able to see the contents of that conversation.
Speaker 1: So I guess this is really me saying that if
Speaker 1: you want your private messages to remain private, you should
Speaker 1: switch to end to end encryption, because that's not on
Speaker 1: by default. We've got a couple of stories about law
Speaker 1: enforcement agencies and intelligence operations issuing warnings about hackers, and
Speaker 1: first up, it's all about China. The US FBI and
Speaker 1: the u k m I five issued a joint statement
Speaker 1: warning the world about Chinese hackers and the country's increased
Speaker 1: online activity. The warning largely focused on two different kinds
Speaker 1: of threats. One involves attempts to interfere in political and
Speaker 1: democratic processes in various countries. The two agencies indicated that
Speaker 1: Chinese hackers had been actively attempting to disrupt elections in
Speaker 1: various countries, really in an effort to shape global politics. Uh,
Speaker 1: most lee in a way that benefits China, which is
Speaker 1: pretty you know, that's that's pretty obvious. I guess The
Speaker 1: other big branch involves technological espionage, namely that Chinese hackers
Speaker 1: are attempting to steal technology and information, and that China
Speaker 1: poses as a huge threat to Western businesses. In fact,
Speaker 1: FBI Director Christopher Ray said that China's hacking department is
Speaker 1: quote bigger than that of every other major country combined
Speaker 1: end quote. Representatives from China were quick to dismiss the claims,
Speaker 1: saying that they are untrue and it's an example of
Speaker 1: Western countries demonizing China. The FBI also issued another warning
Speaker 1: about hackers, this time regarding North Korean state sponsored hacking groups.
Speaker 1: This warning was about ransomware attacks. North Korean hackers have
Speaker 1: been targeting various healthcare institutions with these attacks, attempting to
Speaker 1: lock down computer network systems while demanding ransoms to return
Speaker 1: operations to the healthcare entities. Obviously, any disruption of a
Speaker 1: healthcare company's system is a crisis, which is why hackers
Speaker 1: target these organizations in the first place. It's very difficult
Speaker 1: to tell a hospital to be patient and to not
Speaker 1: pay off a ransom when patients lives could potentially hang
Speaker 1: in the balance. The FBI stresses that paying a ransom
Speaker 1: is never a good idea. For one thing, there's never
Speaker 1: a guarantee that the hackers will actually return access to
Speaker 1: the locked off systems, so you could pay and still
Speaker 1: be locked out. But another reason is because every ransom
Speaker 1: that is paid ends up justifying the attack. If the
Speaker 1: attacks end up being profitable, then there's going to be
Speaker 1: more attacks. If targets refuse to pay ransoms, the attacks
Speaker 1: don't pay off, and you know, the thought goes the
Speaker 1: hackers will turn to something else rather than spending their
Speaker 1: time and effort doing something that nets them no financial gain.
Speaker 1: As for why North Korea sponsoring these attacks, the hypothesis
Speaker 1: is that it's all in an effort to secure more
Speaker 1: funds to pay for weapons such as nuclear weapons, as
Speaker 1: various sanctions around the world have otherwise placed tight restrictions
Speaker 1: on North Korea. One hacking story that we've talked about
Speaker 1: several times on Tech Stuff involves Apple devices. You might
Speaker 1: remember the Israeli company n s O Group famous for
Speaker 1: creating a product called Pegasus. Pegasus is essentially an attack
Speaker 1: that can compromise an iOS device like an iPhone simply
Speaker 1: by sending this attack over I message. The target wouldn't
Speaker 1: even have to open the message for that attack to work,
Speaker 1: at least previously, so their phone would just become a
Speaker 1: surveillance device that was really under the control of the
Speaker 1: person who committed the attack. While Apple would subsequently patch
Speaker 1: out that particular vulnerability, The experience prompted the company to
Speaker 1: create a new feature called lockdown Mode. Now, lockdown mode
Speaker 1: is meant for high profile iPhone users, people like politicians, journalists,
Speaker 1: political activists, that kind of thing, the type of people
Speaker 1: who would frequently become the targets of this type of attack,
Speaker 1: because you know, NSL group sells this this tool to
Speaker 1: various country governments, many of which are, let's say they
Speaker 1: lean heavily authoritarian. And while the claim is that this
Speaker 1: tool is meant to help fight things like terrorism, the
Speaker 1: reality is this tool has been used to attack lots
Speaker 1: of different people, many of whom are not terrorists, but
Speaker 1: do pose a threat to authoritarian regimes. So lockdown mode
Speaker 1: turns off many of the iPhones features in an effort
Speaker 1: to reduce the pathways that a hacker could take to
Speaker 1: compromise an iOS device. So one such feature would be
Speaker 1: the preview function and eye message. You know this, this
Speaker 1: function that would have activated an attack like Pegasus. However,
Speaker 1: there are also a ton of other features that lockdown
Speaker 1: mode disables, including ones that most users would probably want
Speaker 1: to retain access to. Like, you probably don't want to
Speaker 1: put your phone in lockdown mode if you're just a
Speaker 1: typical user. And again, Apple intends lockdown mode for those
Speaker 1: users who are more likely to be targeted by these
Speaker 1: kinds of attacks, you know, like state sponsored attacks. Most
Speaker 1: of us don't warrant that kind of attention. Uh. The
Speaker 1: mode goes into a beta test this week, and from
Speaker 1: what I understand, it will be available to all iPhone
Speaker 1: users later this year. So while you might not have
Speaker 1: a need for this feature, it should be available to
Speaker 1: you if you would want to enable it. Just know
Speaker 1: that if you do enable it, you'll be eliminating a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of the selling points that Apple leans on
Speaker 1: when it's promoting the iPhone. Then again, if you are
Speaker 1: a high profile user, that tradeoff might not be such
Speaker 1: a bad deal. It's been a hot minute since I've
Speaker 1: mentioned Elon Musk in one of these episodes, and really
Speaker 1: it's just gonna be a tangential thing here because this
Speaker 1: is more about how employees who are leaving Tesla are
Speaker 1: getting scooped up in other big tech companies. So Musk
Speaker 1: tweeted a few weeks ago that they were going to
Speaker 1: be cutbacks at Tesla. Then he kind of went back
Speaker 1: and forth about what that actually meant. And he also
Speaker 1: demanded that employees put in a full forty hour work
Speaker 1: week at the office before even thinking about working remotely,
Speaker 1: which you know, some folks interpreted as an attempt to
Speaker 1: encourage employees to resign rather than have to go through layoffs. Well,
Speaker 1: a report from Punks and pen Stripes, which describes itself
Speaker 1: as a quote private network of transformation executives end quote,
Speaker 1: has tracked some four fifty former Tesla employees as they
Speaker 1: moved on and updated their linked in profiles to indicate
Speaker 1: where they had gone to. So, according to those changes
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn, ninety former Tesla employees found work with rival
Speaker 1: electric vehicle companies Rivian and Lucid Motors. Eight former Tesla
Speaker 1: employees listed their new employer as one of the more
Speaker 1: traditional auto manufacturing companies. That is, you know, a company
Speaker 1: that might make electric vehicles, but it's not exclusively in
Speaker 1: that business, so companies like Ford or General Motors. Other
Speaker 1: former Tesla folks moved to companies like Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft,
Speaker 1: and Amazon, some of them going to an Amazon backed
Speaker 1: company called zooks zo o X, which is an autonomous
Speaker 1: vehicle company. A few ten in fact kept it in
Speaker 1: the family then moved on over to SpaceX, a different
Speaker 1: elhon must company. And this report is kind of interesting
Speaker 1: because a lot of news pieces have talked about how
Speaker 1: companies in the tech sector have largely initiated hiring free
Speaker 1: is uh and and these changes make it sound like
Speaker 1: it's not quite at that level. There are companies that
Speaker 1: have put in hiring freezes, but it's not industry wide.
Speaker 1: A lot of companies have been cutting back on hiring,
Speaker 1: but they haven't eliminated it entirely. So just to kind
Speaker 1: of mitigate some of the fear, uncertainty and doubt out there.
Speaker 1: Not to say that things are hunky dory and all rosy,
Speaker 1: but they're not. They're also not as dire as some
Speaker 1: reports tend to make it out to be. Now, there
Speaker 1: are plenty of signs of concern that economic factors are
Speaker 1: going to remain let's say, challenging for the near future,
Speaker 1: so we should keep that in mind as well. We'll
Speaker 1: have some more stories, but first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: Before the break, we were talking electric vehicles, and speaking
Speaker 1: of e vs, Consumer Reports released a survey result that
Speaker 1: indicated that twenty eight percent of Americans who are surveyed
Speaker 1: say they would not buy an electric vehicle. And you
Speaker 1: might wonder, well, what's the reason why did they say that?
Speaker 1: And there are actually several different reasons that people cited.
Speaker 1: One is the concern about driving range. You know, how
Speaker 1: far you can go on a single charge in an
Speaker 1: electric vehicle. There's this continuing fear of becoming stranded, like
Speaker 1: on a highway because your car ran out of juice.
Speaker 1: That fear really isn't an issue for most people under
Speaker 1: normal driving situations. Electric vehicles have ranges well beyond what
Speaker 1: most commutes involved. So like the average commute in the
Speaker 1: United States is between thirty and forty miles round trip,
Speaker 1: and electric vehicles typically have a driving range of more
Speaker 1: than two hundred miles, like two hundred thirty miles. A
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, it was actually higher, it was
Speaker 1: like two fifty miles on a single charge. So assuming
Speaker 1: you were recharging your v hicle at home every day,
Speaker 1: you'd be fine to go to and from work, plus
Speaker 1: run all your errands and not have to worry about
Speaker 1: running out of battery. Road trips would be a different story,
Speaker 1: of course. But another big concern that people cited was
Speaker 1: the lack of charging stations. That there's not the infrastructure
Speaker 1: to support electric vehicles. And it is true that there
Speaker 1: are not nearly as many electric vehicle recharging stations, and
Speaker 1: they're not nearly as accessible as gas stations are, like
Speaker 1: those outnumber electric vehicle charging stations by a huge factor.
Speaker 1: But another reason that people said they wouldn't buy any
Speaker 1: v was because of the cost of electric vehicles. And
Speaker 1: they are pretty darn expensive. And that's even within the
Speaker 1: context of how all cars are pretty darn expensive right now.
Speaker 1: Consumer Reports indicates that a lack of education about electric
Speaker 1: vehicles is one of the reasons for this significant response.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about more than a quarter of
Speaker 1: all those who were surveyed here. It appears that many
Speaker 1: of those survey didn't know about various economic incentives that
Speaker 1: can offset the price of electric vehicles, nor did they
Speaker 1: understand the driving range capability of these vehicles, So it
Speaker 1: could be that more education would mean future surveys would
Speaker 1: show very different results. More education is definitely needed if
Speaker 1: we want to see more states push for moving off
Speaker 1: of internal combustion engine vehicles in favor of electric vehicles. Uh.
Speaker 1: If we don't have education and people are acting on
Speaker 1: a misunderstanding of the capabilities of e vs, then they're
Speaker 1: more likely to you know, vote against it, which when
Speaker 1: you're talking about finding ways to reduce climate impact. Uh,
Speaker 1: we need every single step to go in the right direction,
Speaker 1: and any delay is just gonna make matters worse. The
Speaker 1: Competition and Markets Authority or c m A in the
Speaker 1: UK is investigating Amazon to see if the company is
Speaker 1: unfairly rigging the game on its platform. And I almost
Speaker 1: didn't include this story because I'm certain it's one we've
Speaker 1: talked about before, but apparently this is a more recent investigation.
Speaker 1: So at issue here is how Amazon promotes Amazon owned
Speaker 1: brands to consumers, and the argument is that Amazon will
Speaker 1: display its own brands ahead of competitors, which pushes customers
Speaker 1: to buy more Amazon products, and those might not be
Speaker 1: the best version of you know, whatever the product is,
Speaker 1: or it might not be the least expensive or whatever,
Speaker 1: so customers could be sent to purchase a quote unquote
Speaker 1: bad deal, and that Amazon is profiting over its competitors
Speaker 1: because it's not giving the competitors a fair shake for
Speaker 1: customers to even see the products. And we've seen this
Speaker 1: sort of case pop up several times, like including in
Speaker 1: the EU and here in America, and not just targeting Amazon,
Speaker 1: although that is a frequent target of this particular criticism.
Speaker 1: Lots of companies have been accused of promoting their own
Speaker 1: products on their own platforms and then subsequently kind of
Speaker 1: burying the competition in the process. If we were to
Speaker 1: use an analogy, imagine that you go to a grocery
Speaker 1: store and all the store branded products are in prominent
Speaker 1: locations on shelves. They're organized, they're shiny, they're lovely, and
Speaker 1: then all the name brand stuff, which is not owned
Speaker 1: by the store is hidden off in corners or high
Speaker 1: up on shelves where they're hard to reach, or maybe
Speaker 1: on the bottom shelf where it's hard to see. That's
Speaker 1: kind of what the c m A is looking into
Speaker 1: with Amazon. Company reps say that Amazon will work with
Speaker 1: the c m A during this investigation and that the
Speaker 1: company has quote always worked hard to help small businesses
Speaker 1: selling on Amazon to succeed, which is both in their
Speaker 1: and our best interests end quote. I suppose the investigation
Speaker 1: will determine if that claim is in fact accurate. Finally,
Speaker 1: research firm Ampere Analysis predicts that we're gonna see a
Speaker 1: dip in video game sales this year, to the tune
Speaker 1: of a one decline. Now, to put that in perspective,
Speaker 1: we should acknowledge that the video game sector had some
Speaker 1: pretty impressive growth over the last two years. From the
Speaker 1: industry saw a growth of and ultimately grew to a
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollar industry. This little dip would mean that
Speaker 1: by the end of this year, we're looking more at
Speaker 1: a one eight billion dollar industry that's still bookoos of buckos. Right.
Speaker 1: As for an explanation of these changes, well, there are
Speaker 1: a couple right. The first, and perhaps most obviously, the
Speaker 1: pandemic created a bit of a boom for video games sales,
Speaker 1: even as we saw numerous titles experienced production delays due
Speaker 1: to COVID. Now we've got more folks going out and
Speaker 1: abountain fewer of them are staying home all day every day.
Speaker 1: Plus you know, the concern over economic recession has a
Speaker 1: lot of people easing off on their purchases, and then
Speaker 1: there are the continuing issues around supply. It still hard
Speaker 1: to find the most recent consoles on the market. It's
Speaker 1: still hard to find like the top end video game cards,
Speaker 1: which are slowly becoming less scarce and less expensive, but
Speaker 1: they're still not widely available, nor are they backed down
Speaker 1: to m s r P levels. So you could think
Speaker 1: of this dip as a type of market adjustment and
Speaker 1: not some sort of omen that the video game sector
Speaker 1: is in trouble as a whole. Though. You know, some
Speaker 1: companies like Activision Blizzard are still in the hot seat
Speaker 1: for multiple reasons, but that's another story. That's it for
Speaker 1: today's news on tech Stuff. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics, please reach out to me. You can do
Speaker 1: that in a couple of ways. One way is just
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Our handle is tech stuff hs W. The
Speaker 1: other way is to download the I Heart radio app
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Speaker 1: a little microphone icon on that page you can click
Speaker 1: on that leave a voice message up to thirty seconds
Speaker 1: in length if you would like us to use that
Speaker 1: in a future episode. You can let us know within
Speaker 1: that message, because I'm all about opt in, not opt out,
Speaker 1: and yeah, that's that's a couple of different ways to
Speaker 1: get in touch with me. As for all of you,
Speaker 1: I hope you're all well. I am slowly getting back
Speaker 1: to where I was pre COVID, so I keep hoping
Speaker 1: that the next time I record, I'll be back to
Speaker 1: pre COVID levels of Jonathan. Not quite there yet, but
Speaker 1: getting there, and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Y Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For
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