Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio and
Speaker 1: a love of all things tech. And today's episode requires
Speaker 1: a bit of an explanation. You see, this is going
Speaker 1: to be the episode I recorded for yesterday, Thursday, March one.
Speaker 1: It's a news oriented episode, but I did that forgetting
Speaker 1: that I had already agreed to run the trailer for
Speaker 1: the next season of Smart Talks, hosted by Malcolm Gladwell,
Speaker 1: and so I didn't want to get rid of the
Speaker 1: episode I had researched and written and recorded because I
Speaker 1: felt like there was a lot of good information there.
Speaker 1: Even though the news is a little less fresh than
Speaker 1: it would have been yesterday, it's still an important stuff
Speaker 1: because it's really focusing on a lot of stories about
Speaker 1: how tech and governments and companies are using technology to
Speaker 1: track us and to mass huge amounts of data, sometimes
Speaker 1: without our knowledge, sometimes explicitly without our knowledge, and what
Speaker 1: does that mean and is there anything we can do
Speaker 1: about it? I feel like this is an important thing
Speaker 1: to know about, even if you don't really have any
Speaker 1: plans to change things. It's good to at least be
Speaker 1: aware that it's going on. So with that in mind,
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy this slightly stale tech News episode.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's only a day late, and that means
Speaker 1: no classic episode this week. But next week we should
Speaker 1: be pretty much back to normal. And in the coming
Speaker 1: weeks tech stuff is going to change up a little
Speaker 1: bit and that occasionally we will run an episode of
Speaker 1: smart Talks in the tech Stuff feed. And again that's
Speaker 1: going to be hosted by Malcolm Gladwell, not by me.
Speaker 1: That is a big level up, but that's only going
Speaker 1: to be occasionally. Most of the time, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: the regular old tech stuff, so you're stuck with me. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Let's listen to a slightly less fresh tech News episode.
Speaker 1: Take it away, Jonathan from the past. Wikipedia the online
Speaker 1: resource that you're not supposed to cite in your term papers,
Speaker 1: and for good reason. But I won't get off track here.
Speaker 1: I'll just say Wikipedia is a great resource to use
Speaker 1: as a starting point. It just isn't a primary resource
Speaker 1: and was never intended to be anyway. It will soon
Speaker 1: launch a paid for service, but don't worry. This won't
Speaker 1: mean you'll have to cough up cash the next time
Speaker 1: you want to read up on, you know, Michael Bay
Speaker 1: Transformer movie, or you want to learn about medieval villages
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands, or you want to skim articles about
Speaker 1: quantum entanglement or whatever. The paid for service customers will
Speaker 1: actually be really big companies like Google and Amazon and Facebook.
Speaker 1: The service will offer up developer tools, so these companies
Speaker 1: can use those to republish database information on other platforms,
Speaker 1: you know, to repurpose the info that's on Wikipedia for
Speaker 1: their own you know uses, and presumably these customers will
Speaker 1: have access to tools and data that aren't necessarily available
Speaker 1: to the average Wikipedia user. According to Lane Becker, Senior
Speaker 1: director of the Wikimedia Foundation, some companies have been repurposing
Speaker 1: Wikipedia articles on their own sites for years, and often
Speaker 1: they employ people to clean and reformat articles to better
Speaker 1: fit the owned and operated sites design. I see this
Speaker 1: all the time, where I'll be doing research and it
Speaker 1: will send me to a page that looks like it's
Speaker 1: an owned and operated page. But as I read, I
Speaker 1: realized this is literally pulling the article from Wikipedia into
Speaker 1: this page. That's the kind of thing that this paid
Speaker 1: for service will cover. Wikimedia has formed a division called
Speaker 1: Wikimedia Enterprises to develop this tool and to negotiate agreements
Speaker 1: with various customers. Now the company is still working out
Speaker 1: the finer details, and I could see this being used
Speaker 1: in lots of ways, including with Google Smart Home products.
Speaker 1: Asking a Google Home device a question could lead it
Speaker 1: to pull from data that originated from Wikipedia, and it
Speaker 1: would be enabled by this sort of licensing agreement. It's
Speaker 1: also good to remember that the Wikimedia Foundation is a
Speaker 1: nonprofit organization. The money from these projects would presumably go
Speaker 1: back into supporting the hosting and continued development of Wikimedia itself.
Speaker 1: Now cast your memory back to the summer of twenty twenty, which,
Speaker 1: by my reckoning, was approximately a lifetime ago. One of
Speaker 1: the many news stories that summer is how the Twitter
Speaker 1: accounts for several prominent people, including Bill Gates, Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: and Joe Biden all got hijacked by hackers, and they
Speaker 1: used those accounts to perpetuate a scam. Now, basically, the
Speaker 1: scam promised a big return on investments in a supposed
Speaker 1: money making strategy. In fact, that scam claimed that participants
Speaker 1: would double their money. They would give a certain amount
Speaker 1: in bitcoin, and they would get twice that back, and
Speaker 1: of course some folks fell for it and handed their
Speaker 1: hard earned cryptocurrency cash over to the hackers to the
Speaker 1: tune of more than a hundred fifteen thousand dollars. Well.
Speaker 1: One of those hackers, Graham Ivan Clark, was caught and
Speaker 1: charged and he pled guilty to charge as a fraud.
Speaker 1: In return, he received a sentence of three years in
Speaker 1: prison or a junile boot camp type thing, followed by
Speaker 1: three years of probation. And during that probation he's not
Speaker 1: supposed to use a computer without actual permission and supervision.
Speaker 1: At the time of the crime, Clark was seventeen. He
Speaker 1: has since turned eighteen, so he was sentenced as a
Speaker 1: youthful offender. Otherwise he would be looking at a mandatory
Speaker 1: sentence of ten years in prison. He and the other
Speaker 1: two hackers used social engineering to get administrative access to
Speaker 1: various Twitter handles. So, according to investigators, what they did
Speaker 1: was they scoured linked in to find profiles of Twitter
Speaker 1: employees who could have you know, like administrative access to
Speaker 1: the back end. Then they did deep dives to find
Speaker 1: how to contact their marks, typically by phone, and then
Speaker 1: convinced those Twitter employees that the hackers were in fact
Speaker 1: authorized to access Twitter systems for the purposes of maintenance.
Speaker 1: They tricked the Twitter employees to go to a mocked
Speaker 1: up log in page, which was really just a means
Speaker 1: to fish those login credentials in order to get access
Speaker 1: to the back end of Twitter, and then they moved
Speaker 1: on from there. The two of or hackers, Nema Fazelli
Speaker 1: and Mason Shepherd, are older than Clark and will likely
Speaker 1: face more serious sentences for their part in the crime.
Speaker 1: And I just want to point out social engineering is
Speaker 1: a major tool in the hacker tool set. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things where you know, you don't have to
Speaker 1: figure out how to crack a security system or find
Speaker 1: a vulnerability if in fact you just leverage the people
Speaker 1: who have access to that system and you go into
Speaker 1: it through there. That's a very effective means. And you know,
Speaker 1: with COVID nineteen making a lot of people have to
Speaker 1: work from home, it created a lot of and still
Speaker 1: does creates a lot of opportunities for hackers to go
Speaker 1: after that social engineering point of attack. So just be
Speaker 1: aware of that, and you know, use critical thinking whenever
Speaker 1: you get requests to perhaps sign into something that you
Speaker 1: know you didn't anticipate. It's not to say that every
Speaker 1: case of that is, you know, not legit, but it's something.
Speaker 1: It's a red flag, so you know, just be wary.
Speaker 1: Another big tech story in twenty twenty was how companies
Speaker 1: like Uber campaigned really hard to defeat a proposition in
Speaker 1: California that would have forced the company like Uber in
Speaker 1: this case, but also companies like Lift to classify drivers
Speaker 1: as employees rather than as contract workers as as sort
Speaker 1: of independent contractors. Such a classification would require Uber to
Speaker 1: provide additional compensation and benefits to drivers, and that's something
Speaker 1: that the company is not too keen on doing. While
Speaker 1: Uber was successful in convincing enough voters to oppose the
Speaker 1: proposition in California, things are different across the pond. The
Speaker 1: courts in the United Kingdom, after five year legal battle,
Speaker 1: ruled that Uber drivers are effectively employees, and Uber says
Speaker 1: now that drivers will earn at least the UK's national
Speaker 1: living wage, which is currently set at eight pounds seventy
Speaker 1: two pence per hour. It will also offer holiday pay
Speaker 1: and pensions to drivers. Uber already offered free insurance to
Speaker 1: cover cases of sickness or injury. Those will remain in place.
Speaker 1: The change only applies to those who are driving passengers around. However,
Speaker 1: Uber drivers who are delivering food as part of Uber
Speaker 1: Eats still classified as being self employed. Also, that hourly
Speaker 1: rate only applies to the times when Uber drivers are
Speaker 1: actually transporting customers. Once someone has dropped off, that clock
Speaker 1: effectively stops until another fare enters the car. That's something
Speaker 1: that unions say is inadequate. But still this may mark
Speaker 1: a change in direction for the gig economy in general,
Speaker 1: and possibly will see further measures in the future. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: over here in the United States, the Washington Post had
Speaker 1: a pretty critical piece about Uber, saying that while the
Speaker 1: company was seeing huge boosts to its stock, you so,
Speaker 1: the value of the company was going through the stratosphere
Speaker 1: back in especially after it helped get that California proposition
Speaker 1: off the table. It also wasn't really helping out when
Speaker 1: it came to things like unemployment benefits for drivers. That
Speaker 1: left a lot of drivers in a very tough economic position.
Speaker 1: So those drivers instead largely depended upon government assistance. Around
Speaker 1: eighty million dollars of it all told, they received funds
Speaker 1: from the Economic Injury Disaster Loans Program. Now, as the
Speaker 1: name suggests, that program gives out loans and grants two
Speaker 1: small businesses in times of economic upheaval to help those
Speaker 1: businesses survive as well as you know, the people who
Speaker 1: run those businesses. That's really what's important here. So you've
Speaker 1: got a multibillion dollar company with Uber, which I should
Speaker 1: add has never once turned a profit by the end
Speaker 1: of a fiscal year in its entire existence, and meanwhile
Speaker 1: it has workers who have qualified for a small business
Speaker 1: government assistance program. Again, because Uber was able to maintain
Speaker 1: that arrangement that these workers are independent contractors, they're they're
Speaker 1: self employed, they're not employees according to the law. So
Speaker 1: Uber saw its value increase while the US government took
Speaker 1: over the job of helping Uber's drivers make ends meet. Now,
Speaker 1: this experience really points to how people in the gig
Speaker 1: economy are particularly vulnerable to economic disruption, which I know
Speaker 1: is kind of like me telling you that water is wet.
Speaker 1: These are people who have to hustle constantly just to
Speaker 1: make ends meet. So if you are someone who works
Speaker 1: in the gig economy, my hat is off to you,
Speaker 1: and I really hope things are going well for you
Speaker 1: right now and that they just keep getting better. Joseph
Speaker 1: cox Over at Vice Media has written a piece titled
Speaker 1: cars Have Your Location. This spy firm wants to sell
Speaker 1: it to the US military, which is a heck of
Speaker 1: a headline. I mean it made me click on the story.
Speaker 1: So what's going on here? Well, it really kind of
Speaker 1: boils down to telematics. Telematics is a kind of portmanteau
Speaker 1: of telecommunications and informatics. So modern cars have numerous sensors
Speaker 1: to monitor car performance and safety parameters. You know, that's
Speaker 1: when you get that check engine light or whatever. Someone
Speaker 1: always has to plug your car up to a computer
Speaker 1: to read what is actually going on. Well, that's kind
Speaker 1: of what I'm talking about here, But these sensors are
Speaker 1: doing more than just keeping an eye on how things
Speaker 1: are handling while you're driving the vehicle. Many of these
Speaker 1: systems pair with communications devices essentially like a simcard and
Speaker 1: a modem, and it sends data back to automotive companies.
Speaker 1: So what do these companies do with that data? Well,
Speaker 1: they do a lot of things. They might use that
Speaker 1: information to help design the next generation of vehicles based
Speaker 1: on how people are using their cars today, or they
Speaker 1: might have deals with major insurance companies which then use
Speaker 1: those telematics to figure out what kind of driver you are,
Speaker 1: how big a risk you pose, and that in turn
Speaker 1: affects the rates you pay for car insurance. Or they
Speaker 1: might sell data to other parties, which is probably where
Speaker 1: the company mentioned in the Vice article comes in. That
Speaker 1: company is called the Ulysses Group. It's a company that
Speaker 1: has worked in various surveillance related products and services for
Speaker 1: several years. Ulysses has proposed a deal with US government
Speaker 1: to provide data that could give real time location information
Speaker 1: about more than fifteen billion vehicles around the world in
Speaker 1: pretty much every country except North Korea and Cuba Gali. Now,
Speaker 1: according to ulysses own document about this proposal, quote, the
Speaker 1: data can be used to geolocate, track and target time
Speaker 1: sensitive mobile targets, tip and que sensors, developed patterns of life,
Speaker 1: identified networks and relationships, and enhance situational awareness, among many
Speaker 1: other applications end quote. See this is the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that makes me long for the old days of cars,
Speaker 1: where the systems were really more just like mechanical devices
Speaker 1: and they were less like computers. Now I should add
Speaker 1: that Ulysses doesn't have some sort of magic bug or
Speaker 1: tracker that's installed in every car. The company would be
Speaker 1: relying on data provided by those telematics systems. It's just
Speaker 1: a question of how they get hold of that data.
Speaker 1: So in a way, ulysses could be sort of a
Speaker 1: resale business in that regard. Now, I presume the company
Speaker 1: would first purchase the data from some other party and
Speaker 1: then package it specifically for the US government, should the
Speaker 1: government want to pursue this opportunity. I should also add
Speaker 1: that not every vehicle out there actually has onboard telematics systems.
Speaker 1: They are really common in the commercial vehicle markets, so
Speaker 1: play you know, businesses that have fleets of cars frequently
Speaker 1: have this just so that they can keep an eye
Speaker 1: on how all those cars are doing in order to
Speaker 1: you know, maintain the proper efficiencies. And some automakers have
Speaker 1: embraced telematics more passionately I suppose than others like BMED
Speaker 1: you and GM are are leaders in the space. Now,
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot you can do about this
Speaker 1: as a as a driver, apart from maybe buying and
Speaker 1: maintaining older vehicles that don't have onboard telematic systems. But
Speaker 1: those have their own issues. For example, they might not
Speaker 1: be terribly efficient, they could have some emissions problems. Getting
Speaker 1: them repaired can sometimes be a bigger bit of a
Speaker 1: pain because it may be hard to find parts for them,
Speaker 1: So there is definitely a trade off there. But I
Speaker 1: did want to cover the story because it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that people just should be aware of. Ours
Speaker 1: technical reports that TikTok parent company Bite dances investigating ways
Speaker 1: to track iPhone users with the intent of serving those
Speaker 1: users targeted advertisements. But see that happens to be against
Speaker 1: Apple's privacy rules, which now state that apps have to
Speaker 1: alert users before they can track those users, and they
Speaker 1: have to give users the option to opt out of tracking.
Speaker 1: But that's something that companies in general aren't too keen
Speaker 1: on because targeted advertising is really a cash cow in
Speaker 1: revenue terms. It's an incredibly valuable tool for companies like Facebook,
Speaker 1: for example. It's very valuable to sell that capability to advertisers. However,
Speaker 1: these companies worry that if you give people the choice,
Speaker 1: they're gonna opt out of being tracked, because hey, you
Speaker 1: know what, most folks aren't super keen on feeling like
Speaker 1: they're in a song by the police. You know that song.
Speaker 1: Every little thing she does is magic. Wait, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm sorry man, every breath you take. Anyway.
Speaker 1: The China Advertising Association, which I'm sure you will not
Speaker 1: be surprised to hear, is a state backed institution in China,
Speaker 1: is now trying an alternative way to track iPhone users
Speaker 1: that bypasses the methods that apps are using right now now. Essentially,
Speaker 1: this group is looking to sidestep the process and keep
Speaker 1: tracking people without having to them know about it and
Speaker 1: potentially opt out of it. Apple says it is going
Speaker 1: to ban any app that tries to circumvent the privacy rules.
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, if most of China's apps
Speaker 1: are actually using this alternative method, it would be very
Speaker 1: weird to see Apple actually take advance action against all
Speaker 1: of them, because doing so would essentially open up the
Speaker 1: opportunity for the Chinese government to just outright ban Apple
Speaker 1: from operating in the country. They could say, hey, you
Speaker 1: need us more than we need you. You're out of here,
Speaker 1: And you know, China's got a lot of people over there. Anyway.
Speaker 1: While TikTok tries to downplay its connection to its Chinese
Speaker 1: parent company, it is worth remembering Byte Dance is definitely
Speaker 1: one of the companies that is pursuing this, and we're
Speaker 1: not done with stories about companies and governments tracking people.
Speaker 1: Apple's new privacy rules also meant that companies had to
Speaker 1: disclose more information about how they track and use personal
Speaker 1: data from users, and that includes Google, a company that
Speaker 1: has built its entire empire around the aggregation and exploitation
Speaker 1: of data, personal and otherwise. Google took a long time
Speaker 1: to comply with Apple's new rules, but once it did,
Speaker 1: it became clear that the company collects a lot of
Speaker 1: data for lots of different reasons. Uh. Sometimes it's to
Speaker 1: provide a personalized experience through an app. Sometimes it's just
Speaker 1: a monitor app functionality. Make sure that if an app
Speaker 1: keeps crashing, figure out why it's doing that. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: general analytics. But it prompted duct duct Go, a web
Speaker 1: browser and search engine, to take to Twitter and fire
Speaker 1: a few shots at Google. The company posted quote. After
Speaker 1: months of stalling, Google finally revealed how much personal data
Speaker 1: they collect in Chrome and the Google App. No wonder
Speaker 1: they wanted to hide it. Spying on users has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with building a great web browser research engine.
Speaker 1: We should know our app is both. In one end, quote,
Speaker 1: some serious shade there, duc duct go. Meanwhile, Google is
Speaker 1: also facing a class action lawsuit brought against the company
Speaker 1: by users who allege the Google violated their privacy by
Speaker 1: collecting data while the users were using Chrome in in
Speaker 1: incognito mode. The claim is that Google was collecting info
Speaker 1: on browser history even when people are in private mode.
Speaker 1: Google has moved to have the case dismissed, but a
Speaker 1: judge then denied that request, so it's going to go
Speaker 1: to court. Google representatives have pointed out that when you
Speaker 1: open an incognito window and Chrome, you're greeted with a
Speaker 1: page that says Chrome doesn't say browsing history, but the
Speaker 1: activity could still be visible to other websites that you
Speaker 1: visit and moral on those lines. So I suppose this
Speaker 1: case we'll try to determine if Google is being a
Speaker 1: bit coy about that whole browser history thing or not.
Speaker 1: And finally, do y'all remember the Apple commercials in which
Speaker 1: Justin Long would come on screen he announced that he's
Speaker 1: a Mac, and then John Hodgman would come on screen
Speaker 1: and announced that he's a PC. And Austin Long was
Speaker 1: always portrayed as kind of a hip, young, cool guy
Speaker 1: with a lot of creative ideas, and Hodgment always came
Speaker 1: across as outdated and out of touch and a bit
Speaker 1: of a fuddy duddy. Well, now how the turns have
Speaker 1: tabled or whatever, because Justin Long is now appearing in
Speaker 1: a series of commercials for Intel in which he's kind
Speaker 1: of slagging off on his old Mac buddies. The ads
Speaker 1: show Long comparing Max, which now sport the Apple designed CPUs,
Speaker 1: not the Intel processors, and he compares them against PCs
Speaker 1: that do have Intel chips inside them. And I guess
Speaker 1: you can figure out where this is going over and
Speaker 1: over in each of these ads. Justin Long's job is
Speaker 1: to suggest that Apple is really a hassle and that
Speaker 1: Max limit what users can do with their machines, and
Speaker 1: he's particularly brutal when it comes to gaming. Now, I
Speaker 1: normally wouldn't report on ads, but this was just one
Speaker 1: of those things I found kind of amusing for those
Speaker 1: of us who have been subjected to tech company adver
Speaker 1: tisements for a few decades. So if you remember the
Speaker 1: I'm a Mac, I'm a PC ads, maybe you watch
Speaker 1: a couple of the new Intel ones just to see
Speaker 1: how they are leaning hard on that history. And it
Speaker 1: just makes me think, as someone who has read plenty
Speaker 1: of ads himself, how awkward that initial conversation must have been. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, granted, Apple's very different company now than it
Speaker 1: was when Justin Long was doing ads for it, but
Speaker 1: even so awkward. That wraps up the news for Thursday,
Speaker 1: March one. If you have any suggestions for topics I
Speaker 1: should tackle in future episodes of tech Stuff, let me know.
Speaker 1: The Best way to get in touch with me is
Speaker 1: over on Twitter. The handle for the show is text
Speaker 1: Stuff H. S W and I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i
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