WEBVTT - Tech News: Is ChatGPT Talking About You Behind Your Back? 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:12.319 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.079 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:19.119 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.239 are you. It's time for the tech news for Tuesday, 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:26.520 April fourth, twenty twenty three, and we've got more AI 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:30.600 news to get us started today. Big Surprise. The Handel's 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.800 Black newspaper in Germany reports that the German government is 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:39.839 debating blocking chat GPT in the country out of a 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:44.320 concern for data security. This would follow a similar ban 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:48.040 that has been issued in Italy. This doesn't have anything 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:51.040 to do with how reliable the chatbot can be, or 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:54.200 it's an ability to tell the difference between legitimate information 0:00:54.560 --> 0:01:00.840 and misinformation or satire or you know, otherwise unreliable sources. Instead, 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.800 this has to do with how chat GPT handles privacy. 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.880 Italian regulators said that open ai failed to follow EU 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.800 rules regarding a measure that would prevent minors from being 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.520 able to use the chatbot service. There should be some 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:20.839 sort of age gate keeping methodology in there. On top 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:25.480 of a concern about how open ai collects user data 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:27.679 and then makes use of it, and of course, we 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:32.840 know that last month a glitch revealed user chatbot conversation 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:37.039 histories inadvertently, where people were suddenly able to see how 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:41.560 other folks had been using chat GPT. Whether this will 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.880 become a trend in the EU at large remains to 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:49.280 be seen, and I suspect Microsoft, which is heavily invested 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:53.680 in open AI in chat GPT, will start taking measures 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.840 to create a version of the chatbot that is more 0:01:56.840 --> 0:02:01.080 in compliance with EU rules and regulations. It would shock 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.200 me if that were not the case. Now it's not 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:09.320 just countries clamping down on chat GPT, Samsung Semiconductor is 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.720 tweaking its approach to the tool as well. So until recently, 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.720 Samsung allowed engineers to kind of have unfettered use of 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:22.320 chat GPT in an effort to assist in the fabrication process. 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.240 So engineers were using chat GPT to do things like 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:30.760 look for errors and source code, or to take notes 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.119 from a meeting and convert it into graphics or even 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:36.760 a presentation, that kind of stuff. But the use of 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:41.800 chat GPT led to three prominent data leaks in the 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.000 span of twenty days, which is a big concern. Now, 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.800 I don't mean that chat GPT got all loose lipped 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.320 about it and leaked the information to the outside world. Rather, 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.960 this was an internal problem that engineers, in their eagerness 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.520 to leverage the tool, made their you know, to make 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.480 their jobs like you know, easy and efficient and error free, 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.680 they began to share a bit more than what Samsung 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:13.399 was comfortable with, including proprietary and top secret code and information, 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:18.640 stuff that is really important to Samsung Semiconductor, and they 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:20.360 don't want to share it with the outside world. And 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.040 you might think, well, sure, but you're you're just sharing 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.720 it with a chatbot. Was the chatbot going to do 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.480 with that information? But then you also have to remember, 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:33.040 wait a second, this chatbot comes from another company, right, 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:35.160 It comes from a company that also happens to be 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.920 tightly tied to Microsoft, And you start to worry about 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.920 who might be able to access that data, Like could 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:47.800 Microsoft see how people at Samsung Semiconductor were using chat GPT? 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:53.280 If so, then Microsoft could see some of this top 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.080 secret information, which would be a big no no. So 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:59.040 now Samsung has cracked down a bit and limited the 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.280 amount of information that employees are allowed to share when 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.480 they use chat GPT. They can still use it, but 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:10.480 they have strict limitations on it, and they're simultaneously developing 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:14.320 their own version of the tool that they can administer themselves, 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.479 So that way the creepy AI presence will be an 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:20.880 in house creepy AI presence, not one that has ties 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:25.239 to potential competitors. This is a fairly high profile case, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.960 right Samsung Semiconductor. That's a big company. But it makes 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.480 me wonder if we're going to start seeing other companies 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:36.600 have second thoughts about letting employees use AI enabled tools 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.600 out of similar concerns. It is not difficult for me 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:45.000 to imagine executives deciding that these nifty AI tools that 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:49.920 are incorporated into say Microsoft office could pose as a 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:54.760 potential risk to data security. It's possible that Microsoft and 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.960 other companies, by jumping into the AI games so enthusiastically 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.680 right now, they could be setting themselves up for a fall. 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.760 If we see companies at large say, well, what happens 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:10.839 if I use Microsoft to take notes from an important 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:14.400 internal meeting and turn them into a presentation that we 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.680 can show other departments. But still internally, what happens if 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.280 Microsoft is able to actually access information because of this 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.520 connection with the AI enabled tools in their productivity suite. 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.120 As we've had more and more of our operations moved 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.640 to the cloud, this has become a non trivial concern, 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.080 and I imagine we're going to see companies start to 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:45.680 really reconsider how they go about handling top secret proprietary information. 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.719 I mean, I just see companies saying, all right, well, 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.520 for this, we can't use any of those tools because 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.560 the possibility even if it's you know, even if the 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:57.600 companies are saying no, no, no, we're not doing that, 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:02.159 the possibility of that being leaked might be too much. 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.760 It actually is making me think a lot about TikTok, right, Like, 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.960 the big argument against TikTok, or at least one of 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:12.560 the big arguments, is that it could serve as a 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:18.080 data siphon, pulling, you know, information that's important out of 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.440 the US and siphoning it off to China, and that 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:24.839 potentially that could impact national security. Well, I could see 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:28.119 companies looking at AI enabled tools and saying similar things 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:32.120 that how can we trust that the productivity stuff where 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:37.520 we're using isn't just sending our data to Microsoft, for example, 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:41.000 And that's a tough question. So I'll be curious to 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.760 see if this becomes a bigger thing throughout this year 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:49.040 and into next. Jeffrey Fowler of the Washington Post has 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:53.559 an interesting piece about chat GPT and education. The piece 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:58.159 is titled we tested a new chat GPT detector for teachers. 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:02.080 It flagged an innocent student, and yeah, the headline gives 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:04.839 you a strong idea about what the story is all about. 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.000 So the deal is Fowler was testing software from a 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:13.560 company called Turnatin. Turnatin, according to Fowler, provides more than 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:18.600 two million teachers, a tool that's meant to detect instances 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.360 of plagiarism. So if it turns out that there's a 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:27.200 passage in a student's essay that was lifted directly from 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.600 some other source, it's supposed to be able to flag that. 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:32.880 But it's also supposed to be able to detect if 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.720 a student has made use of a tool like chat 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:40.920 GPT to generate all or part of a work. Unfortunately, 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:44.800 just like chat GPT itself, it seems as though this 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:50.080 tool isn't totally reliable. Now. I've warned folks repeatedly that 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:54.000 chat GPT's responses are really only as good as the 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:58.400 source material it used to generate those responses, and often 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.880 you have no way of knowing what that source material was. 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.320 But I should also point out that the tools meant 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:10.920 to detect chat GPT aren't perfect either. So in Fowler's experiment, 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.680 a student submitted an essay that she wrote without the 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.600 help of chat GPT or any other AI, and yet 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:23.640 the software flagged her work as being AI augmented. Now 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:28.000 this concerns me for lots of different reasons. So first off, 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.680 understandably there are a lot of teachers who are concerned 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:36.199 about chat GPT. If students use chat GPT without putting 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.680 forth any real effort of their own, they won't really 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.240 learn anything except how to use AI so that they 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.480 can avoid thinking about stuff. Right, they might get really 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:48.720 good at gaming the system, but that's all they learned. 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:52.120 They don't learn to think critically. They don't learn to 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:56.760 think analytically. They can't start to think laterally. Like there's 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.600 when you really break it down. Education, at least it 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:03.880 should be all about learning how to think and to 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.920 think effectively and to think critically. So if they're just 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:10.640 using chat GPT to do their work, you might as 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.319 well not assign them anything at all, because the net 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.040 effect is going to be much the same. If the 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:20.320 students are not using chat GPT, but there's no way 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.960 to verify whether they are or not. Well, you have 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:27.560 a situation where teachers are suspicious of their students, and 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.479 that's not good either, right for teachers to just constantly 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:34.280 be wondering if their students are cheating because they have 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:36.560 no way of verifying. And then it could be that 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.880 the students are all legitimately submitting their own work, but 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:42.839 you've got this suspicion there. That's not good. That's not 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:45.920 conducive to a learning environment either. And then if you 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:48.840 have a tool that's meant to detect chat GPT, but 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.720 it's not a very good tool or it's not accurate 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:55.800 enough to be fully reliable, then that means two things. One, 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.160 it's going to miss some instances where students were essentially 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:03.000 cheating and they're just gonna submit their stuff and it 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.640 won't pick up on the chat GPTs thing at all, 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.640 and the students will be coasting through without really learning 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:13.960 anything and ultimately become terrible citizens or potentially become terrible citizens. 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.200 I can't pretend like that's going to be the case 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.080 every time, but you know, I get head up about 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.800 this because both of my parents are teachers, or it 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:27.199 will be a poorly made tool where it falsely accuses 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.480 a student and says that their legitimate work was ai 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:35.640 augmented when it wasn't. That's not good either, right, Like, 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:40.079 this is just a bad kind of situation all around, 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.840 And you know, the Pandora's box has been opened. There's 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.480 no getting the evils of the world back in there. 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.040 But figuring out the best way forward is going to 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:53.800 be really important if we are to have good supportive 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:58.240 education systems in place that give people the resources they 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:03.800 need to become good people right to learn how to think, 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:07.840 and to encourage that. We often get stuck in the 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.640 weeds anyway with education. We can't see the forest for 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:15.160 the trees because we're looking at the specific instance of 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:20.840 learning as opposed to the overall approach to learning how 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.080 to learn and learning how to think, and we end 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.880 up getting really hyper focused on the specifics, right Like, 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.200 I need to write this essay about how Shakespeare used 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:35.400 the fool to speak truth to power, that kind of thing, 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.240 and I'm really focused on that as opposed to know, 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:41.520 this is about more than that. This is about learning 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.680 how to take in information and analyze it and create 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.400 your own response to it, and use critical thinking in 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.080 the whole process. All of these things, with chat GPT 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:56.200 and the tools meant to detect chat GPT, they make 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.960 me worry because I feel like we're going to get 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:03.000 more and more hyper focused on particulars and lose sight 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:08.040 of the overall goal of education. Maybe I should write 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.880 a book about that. No one will read it, but 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:12.360 at least I can get it out on my system 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:13.800 and you won't have to hear it in tech stuff 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.600 news episodes anymore. Okay, one other AI story before we 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:22.160 go to Break. According to a cybersecurity firm called dark Trace, 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:28.040 Generative AI may be partly responsible for a massive surge 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:33.800 in novel social engineering attacks this year. Dark Trace calculates 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.440 that in January and February of twenty twenty three, there 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.079 was a one hundred thirty five percent jump in social 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.679 engineering attacks. Social engineering is when you attempt to penetrate 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.240 a security system, not by sitting down at a dark 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.559 computer screen and typing in password guesses. Instead, you trick 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.240 someone into handing over access to you. It's way easier 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.600 than trying to break the tech side of a security system. 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.800 You just have to convince someone that you know, you're 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.320 just there to install an update on their machine, or 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.040 maybe that their computer has been flagged as being compromised 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.280 so you're there to clean it up, when in reality 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.800 you're actually there to really compromise the machine. Social engineering 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.560 is the tool of the con artist, and it's right 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:20.880 up there with the skills practiced by snake oil salespeople, 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:26.079 mentalists and stage magicians, and these tactics work. They've worked 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.440 for all of human history. I've fallen for them in 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.760 the past multiple times. There's no guarantee that I won't 0:13:32.760 --> 0:13:35.000 fall for it again in the future. All I can 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.760 do is try to be as careful as I can, 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.520 to use critical thinking and to avoid acting on impulse 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.120 or emotion anyway. It sounds like scammers and bad actors 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:48.480 in general are making use of generative AI to craft 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.080 messages that are more likely to convince a target to 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.400 follow through on some kind of action, such as opening 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:57.559 up an attachment or clicking on a link that's going 0:13:57.559 --> 0:13:59.719 to download malware to their machine, or getting them to 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:03.320 fill to form that will send important information to the attackers. 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.800 And chat, GPT and other tools can create all new 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.520 messages that are designed to get these kinds of reactions, 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.040 stuff that attackers haven't necessarily thought of yet, And that 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.800 also means that the targets will not have encountered those 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.480 kinds of attacks in the past, so it makes those 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:24.720 attacks more likely to succeed. Plus, chat GPT can avoid 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.560 some of the tail tale alerts that otherwise we rely 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:31.640 upon when we encounter these malicious emails. You know, stuff 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:34.920 like grammar and spelling mistakes, which are typically a dead 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.880 giveaway that it's an attack not a legitimate email. Well, 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.960 chat GPT won't make those mistakes, so it'll get harder 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:46.320 and harder to tell the scam emails from the legit ones. 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.280 I expect we're going to see this continue unless somehow 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.040 companies like open ai and Microsoft build into their AI 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.360 tools some sort of method for detecting ill intent. But 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.320 to me, that seems like that's a whole nasty bee's 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:01.480 nest of its own that we don't want to get into. 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.400 Right now. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break. When 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:16.560 we come back, we've got some more news stories. All right, 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:23.200 we're back, and Tarique the spy music. Okay, do you 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.680 remember the NSO group that's the Israeli company behind tools 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:30.720 like Pegasus that was a type of malware that could 0:15:30.760 --> 0:15:34.360 compromise iPhones just by sending an eye message to a 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:36.960 targeted device. You just had to know their phone number 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:41.160 and send an eye message using Pegasus, and it would, 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:46.320 without the user's interaction at all, compromise the iPhone due 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:50.280 to a vulnerability. Apple would subsequently patch that vulnerability, but 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.000 it's what gave them the foot in the door in 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:58.440 the first place, and this malware would target phones and 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:03.680 turn them into or valence systems. Essentially, the attacker would 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.440 be able to do stuff like turn on the microphone 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:10.120 and even the camera on the iPhone to be able 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.600 to survey what was going on in the surroundings. They 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:17.320 could access data that was on the device itself. Really 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:22.120 nasty stuff. Now worse than that NSO group allegedly counted 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.720 among its customers some of the most notorious authoritarian leaders 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:30.640 who use this tool to spy on all sorts of people. 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.440 And while the NSO group was marketing this tool as 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.120 a means for governments to keep tabs on terrorist organizations, 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.160 the truth is that these authoritarian leaders were using a 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:46.320 very liberal definition of terrorists to include pretty much anybody 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:51.240 they didn't like, that included political rivals, that included activists, 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:55.440 and included journalists. Anyway, it's this kind of thing that 0:16:55.680 --> 0:17:00.720 democratic societies tend to disapprove of, at least publicly. And 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:03.000 you know, the ability to spy on people and abuse 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.679 power and whatnot doesn't fly so well in democratic societies. 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:10.000 And here in the United States, the Biden administration issued 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:13.480 a ban on American companies from doing business with the 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:17.159 NSO crew. But now the New York Times reports that 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:22.919 someone disobeyed some federal agency, which one is not clear 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.000 as I record this episode. Apparently worked outside the system 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:31.040 to get access to an NSO group product called Landmark, 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.320 which allows you to keep tabs on a person's physical 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.119 location at all times. It's essentially a bug tracker that 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:43.000 you just install on someone's device. Well, you know, the 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.800 physical location of the infected device is what it really 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.680 tracks it. But to infect the target's device, I am 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.000 not sure what the mechanism is to do this. I 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:53.280 don't know how it works, right, I haven't heard enough 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:57.080 about Landmark to understand. If it's as insidious as Pegasus was. 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.320 It won't even require the target to take any action 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.600 at all. Which makes it really scary, and then you 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:08.120 just monitor that device's location. Apparently, this unknown federal agency 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.280 was using Landmark to keep tabs on targets in Mexico 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:15.240 who I don't know and for what purpose I don't know. 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:18.960 The agency went to some trouble to acquire this tool. 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:24.399 They used a dummy corporation called Cleopatra Holdings, which turned 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.639 out to be a fake company. It was supposedly headed 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:30.680 up by a guy named Bill Malone, a fake CEO. 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.000 But the real go between for this agency and the 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.280 NSO was a company called Riva Networks, which is a 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:42.359 defense contractor located in New Jersey. Reva Networks in turn 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:47.720 did business with a company called Gideon Cyber Systems. This 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.760 company is a holding company, meaning it doesn't actually do 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:55.520 anything on its own, it's just there to hold assets, 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.800 and Gideon cyber Systems is in turn owned by another 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:04.480 company called novol Pina Capital. Novol Pina, it turns out, 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:09.040 is a majority owner of the NSO group. So this 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:15.280 circuitous series of connections is what allowed this federal agency 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:20.280 to get hold of this forbidden product. The Biden administration 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.639 says that it was unaware of this activity, So if 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.480 that's true. That means this federal agency was directly going 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:30.960 against the administration's wishes and was trying to hide their 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.280 tracks in the process, So it means they essentially have 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:39.359 gone rogue. Of course, it could be that this was 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:44.520 a secret but sanctioned acquisition that the administration is saying 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.160 they were unaware of it. But it's possible they were 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:49.880 aware of it. We just don't know, and that all 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.359 this skull duggery was in place just to obfuskate what 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:58.240 was going on and to avoid detection. Only they were detected. 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:00.760 I'm sure I will follow up on a story as 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:05.560 more information becomes available. Jumping over to Twitter and tick removal. 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.040 By that, I mean the check marks on verified Twitter accounts. 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:14.320 I'm not talking about blood sucking arachnids, So to my 0:20:14.359 --> 0:20:18.600 friend Shay, I apologize. I'm talking about checks, not ticks. 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:25.400 Twitter has reportedly started removing the blue ticks on verified 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:29.320 accounts that have yet to subscribe to Twitter. So we've 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.800 been talking about this for a while. That one of 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:36.640 Elon Must's directives was that that little check mark verification 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.840 notice was no longer going to be a sign of 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:43.280 a verified account. It was instead going to be a 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.080 sign of a subscribed account. So if you want that 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.359 check mark then and you're an individual, then you have 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:52.919 to pay eight bucks a month to the Twitter Blue subscription, 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:55.520 and that includes the blue check mark next to your name, 0:20:56.000 --> 0:21:00.400 which just means you're a subscriber. Organizations have to pay 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:02.680 a lot more. They have to cough up a grand 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:05.680 per month for the privilege of having that check mark there, 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:09.600 And a lot of folks, including myself, have already said 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:11.840 that we're not going to pay, and that the whole 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:16.120 darned thing misses the point of verification in the first place. 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:20.520 It's not verification at all anymore. And further, this really 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:23.320 is nothing but an attempt for Elon Musk to generate 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:28.080 revenue after having alienated a good chunk of advertisers, and 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:34.560 Twitter had previously depended almost exclusively on advertising revenue for 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.439 its revenue, and verification means nothing if you're just paying 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.200 for it, like, it's not verification anymore. The whole point 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:45.000 of verification was so that users would know that the 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:49.879 account they were following legitimately belonged to whomever it claimed 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:53.720 to be. So if you're following the account of a 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.640 celebrity and there's a check mark there, You're like, Okay, 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:58.840 this is really them. So a lot of people are saying, well, 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:02.560 now on Twitter says it's not going to allow impersonation, 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.640 But how is it really going to enforce that. How 0:22:05.680 --> 0:22:10.040 many people are going to go get that check mark 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:13.280 and then change their user name so that it reflects 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:18.440 a notable public figure. It's a huge mess anyway. One 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:22.359 of the voices that has criticized this move the loudest 0:22:23.560 --> 0:22:27.080 belongs to The New York Times, the newspaper, the New 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:29.520 York Times. So now Twitter has stripped the New York 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.200 Times of its check mark. Now, to be clear, there 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:36.639 will be a big group of heavy hitting Twitter accounts, 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.040 ones that have lots and lots of followers, like the 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:41.640 top accounts on Twitter, that are going to be able 0:22:41.680 --> 0:22:43.920 to keep their check mark without having to pay that 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:47.560 monthly fee. For those, I guess the check mark will 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:52.920 still mean that it's a verified source. You see how 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:57.560 this all gets confusing and muddled. But I would have 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:00.080 imagined that the New York Times would have been on 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.360 that list. It is a prominent news source. I mean, 0:23:03.359 --> 0:23:05.560 there are other news sources that are on that list, 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.560 like CNN and the Washington Post, but Twitter has pulled 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:12.440 the mark off of The New York Times. Musk has 0:23:12.480 --> 0:23:15.520 also been in a rather public snit over The New 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:18.440 York Times in the past few weeks. So it's very 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:23.199 hard to avoid thinking that this is really a personal issue, 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:26.600 not a business one. It feels like this is personal 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:31.080 and I am biased. I have a lot of feelings 0:23:31.119 --> 0:23:34.760 about Elon Musk that are negative, and so like, I 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:37.840 am inclined to think that this is a very petty 0:23:37.920 --> 0:23:41.000 personal move on Musk's part, But I have to say 0:23:41.040 --> 0:23:44.200 I don't know that for sure. It's it's how I feel, 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:47.040 but I have to admit that's just an opinion, and 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:52.920 I could be one hundred percent off the mark. It's 0:23:52.920 --> 0:23:58.480 just it's hard for me to hold back on that thought. Anyway. 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:02.480 Lots of other news outlets still have their marks, including 0:24:02.520 --> 0:24:04.800 news outlets that have already said that they are also 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:09.479 not going to pay the monthly fee, So that raises questions. 0:24:09.480 --> 0:24:12.600 I mean, why was the New York Times singled out 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:16.320 when other news outlets that also said they weren't going 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:20.240 to pay still have that check mark. One reason for 0:24:20.280 --> 0:24:23.440 this could be that, from what I understand, the process 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:26.760 to remove those check marks is a manual one, so 0:24:26.800 --> 0:24:31.800 it's going to very gradually happen across the checked accounts 0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:34.639 that are on Twitter. So if that's the case, if 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:36.960 people manually have to go and review each of these 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:40.480 and then remove ones that are not from subscribers, then yeah, 0:24:40.560 --> 0:24:43.680 it's that kind of explains things, but it does make 0:24:43.680 --> 0:24:46.800 it seem like the New York Times was being held out. 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:49.679 For an example here, I just know that as of 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:52.600 this morning, I still had my check mark. I got 0:24:52.640 --> 0:24:55.840 the verified check mark years ago, but I know it's 0:24:55.840 --> 0:24:58.400 on borrowed time because I am not paying for it, 0:24:58.520 --> 0:25:01.600 and I imagine one day just notice that it's gone, 0:25:01.880 --> 0:25:04.600 and probably by that time it will have been gone 0:25:04.640 --> 0:25:08.600 for ages, because while I check tech Stuff's Twitter account 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:12.320 pretty regularly, I very rarely go into my own these days. 0:25:12.760 --> 0:25:16.200 So yeah, it'll happen, and then maybe like a week 0:25:16.280 --> 0:25:19.480 or two later, I'll figure it out. Pour one out 0:25:19.520 --> 0:25:23.359