Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'mint executive producer with I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: how the tech are you. It's time for the tech
Speaker 1: news for Thursday, August eleven, twenty twenty two. Cisco, company
Speaker 1: that primarily focuses on networking hardware and telecommunications equipment, as
Speaker 1: well as some I T security products, has admitted that
Speaker 1: it was hit by a ransomware attack that, as they say,
Speaker 1: is a tough pill to swallow, but it also illustrates
Speaker 1: how there's no such thing as a bulletproof defense when
Speaker 1: it comes to data security. Fortunately, according to Cisco reps,
Speaker 1: the attackers only gained access to some non critical information.
Speaker 1: The company released a statement that says, quote Cisco did
Speaker 1: not identify any impact to our business as a result
Speaker 1: of the incident, including Cisco products or services, sensitive customer
Speaker 1: data or sensitive employee information, intellectual property, or supply chain
Speaker 1: operations end quote. The statement did recognize that the hackers
Speaker 1: released on the dark web a list of files that
Speaker 1: they were able to access, and it included stuff like
Speaker 1: nondisclosure agreements and some sketches and stuff. The attack actually
Speaker 1: happened back in May, we're just hearing about it now,
Speaker 1: and Cisco reps say the company has already taken action
Speaker 1: to limit access to any other file systems, and that
Speaker 1: the attackers got access by compromising and employee's account. Apparently,
Speaker 1: they first were able to gain control of the employee's
Speaker 1: personal Google account and that allowed them to use the
Speaker 1: SINC credentials in Chrome to access Cisco systems. They also
Speaker 1: tricked the employee into revealing a multi factor authentication code.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the kind of thing that when you
Speaker 1: put in your password, it says, all right, we're sending
Speaker 1: a a code to your cell phone. That sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: And that just goes to show that you can employ
Speaker 1: very secure processes, but they only work if people, you know,
Speaker 1: follow them. And that's really why we can't have bulletproof defenses. So,
Speaker 1: for one thing, creating something that has no vulnerabilities, that's
Speaker 1: pretty darn hard. They are creating a system that has
Speaker 1: no footholds for hackers, very difficult to do. But another
Speaker 1: is that people are frequently the weakest link in the
Speaker 1: security chain, as was in this case, So you don't
Speaker 1: have to be the most leait hacker in the world
Speaker 1: if you can convince someone to hand you the keys
Speaker 1: to the kingdom. The attackers then used various tools to
Speaker 1: create backdoor access points within the system, so that even
Speaker 1: when the Cisco security team detected them and gave them
Speaker 1: the boot, they could worm their way back in, and
Speaker 1: it took some time to weed out all those issues.
Speaker 1: The attackers did, not, however, encrypt Cisco's files, which is
Speaker 1: something we typically see with somewhere attacks. The attackers were
Speaker 1: identified as being part of the Jan Lua Wong gang.
Speaker 1: Yon Lua Wong is the name of a particular type
Speaker 1: of ransomware, so Cisco reps say they suspect that the
Speaker 1: group were likely planning on deploying ransomware, but had not
Speaker 1: actually gone that far before they got weeded out. Over
Speaker 1: at Google, employees are feeling a quote unquote real vibe change.
Speaker 1: At least according to one unnamed source who talked with
Speaker 1: Business Insider, Google has extended its hiring freeze, which began
Speaker 1: in late July and continues on today, and there are
Speaker 1: growing concerns that Google could initiate layoffs or institute tougher
Speaker 1: performance measures that employees will have to meet, and if
Speaker 1: they don't meet them, they might be considered for termination.
Speaker 1: Sindar pach I, the CEO of Google, has said that
Speaker 1: the company's head count and its productivity don't seem to
Speaker 1: match up, so essentially suggesting that Google has two many
Speaker 1: employees for the amount of work that's actually being done.
Speaker 1: So the worry is that the tougher performance measures could
Speaker 1: be a way to judge which employees are pulling more
Speaker 1: weight than others, and then the company might move to
Speaker 1: eliminate the employees who are seen to be falling behind.
Speaker 1: This kind of echoes something that met US CEO Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg said a couple of months back about Meta, namely
Speaker 1: that quote there are probably a bunch of people at
Speaker 1: the company who shouldn't be here end quote. Now, in
Speaker 1: Meta's case, the strategy appears to be to turn up
Speaker 1: the pressure on employees and then see who sticks around.
Speaker 1: The idea being that the folks who aren't best suited
Speaker 1: for the company will drop off first. You know, if
Speaker 1: you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Now, personally, I don't think that's the
Speaker 1: best strategy because you could end up alienating some of
Speaker 1: your best employees who figure they can just go somewhere
Speaker 1: else and have be treated better. Right. That's getting increasingly
Speaker 1: difficult during these tough economic times. So maybe you could
Speaker 1: amble with that, but you can really end up with
Speaker 1: a lower head count without a guarantee that the people
Speaker 1: who stuck around are you know, the best ones. But
Speaker 1: what do I know? Anyway, We're seeing these sort of
Speaker 1: attitudes across the entire tech sector, particularly in these larger organizations.
Speaker 1: And you know, just as a rule, I have noticed
Speaker 1: that as organizations grow to gargantuan size, workload can end
Speaker 1: up spreading out over to a point where your average
Speaker 1: employee might not have that much actual work to do
Speaker 1: um And in fact, you see this with government agencies
Speaker 1: a lot, where some government employees spend most of their
Speaker 1: work days trying to look busy to justify the fact
Speaker 1: that they have a position. Now, to be clear, that
Speaker 1: is not the employee's fault. It's more of a sign
Speaker 1: of poor management and planning. And it just stinks when
Speaker 1: you realize that you've reached that point and then you
Speaker 1: have to make moves to correct course, because frequently that
Speaker 1: means you've got to let some folks go, and that's tough.
Speaker 1: On a similar note Microsoft is shutting down a department
Speaker 1: it first established in two thousand eighteen. The group is
Speaker 1: called the Modern Life Experiences Team, which I mean that
Speaker 1: name doesn't give you much of a hint about what
Speaker 1: the heck is going on over there, right Well, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, the role of the Modern Life Experiences
Speaker 1: Team was to win back professional consumers or pro sumers.
Speaker 1: So this was kind of a customer retention group, although
Speaker 1: more than retention, because retention just sounds like you're trying
Speaker 1: to keep folks there. Their job was to convince folks
Speaker 1: who had actively moved away from Microsoft products and services
Speaker 1: to come back into the fold. Anyway, the group consists
Speaker 1: of around two people, and those folks now are being
Speaker 1: told they have to find another position within Microsoft, so
Speaker 1: they can apply to work somewhere else within the company,
Speaker 1: or they can leave and take severance and at least
Speaker 1: they're gonna get several so that's something. So this isn't
Speaker 1: a case of Microsoft turning up the heat to try
Speaker 1: and get people to jump ship, because if they did that,
Speaker 1: then you know, people who are leaving they might not
Speaker 1: be qualified to get a severance package if they're leaving
Speaker 1: on their own. So that's something. It's a pretty tarnished
Speaker 1: silver lining, but it's better than nothing. You know. There's
Speaker 1: been a ton of business news lately because all the
Speaker 1: big public companies have been holding their various earnings calls
Speaker 1: for the end of a quarter. Most of them it's
Speaker 1: Q two, for some it might be Q three. It
Speaker 1: all depends on where they're their UH fiscal year starts,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't always start at the same time as
Speaker 1: the calendar year. And we've learned a lot of things
Speaker 1: in this process. We learned like how Warner Brothers Discovery
Speaker 1: merger has led to the superhero film bat Girl being
Speaker 1: shelved permanently. Reportedly, David Zaslov, who's the CEO of this
Speaker 1: merged company, felt that bat Girl was more valuable as
Speaker 1: a hacks right off than as a film, since it
Speaker 1: was destined really to just go to streaming rather than
Speaker 1: a theatrical release, and reportedly it would need more money
Speaker 1: to finish the film, and it had already gone over
Speaker 1: its initial million dollar budget up to ninety million, and
Speaker 1: so I guess the call was made that rather than
Speaker 1: pour more money into it, they could just write it off. Now,
Speaker 1: the story goes that the company only will receive the
Speaker 1: tax right off if bat Girl never gets a commercial
Speaker 1: release in any form, streaming or otherwise. If that's true,
Speaker 1: that means there's no hope for folks to ever see
Speaker 1: this movie unless the footage got leaked somehow. And there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people who are curious about it,
Speaker 1: some because they love the character back Girl, some because
Speaker 1: Michael Keaton is supposed to be in the movie as Batman,
Speaker 1: and of course he was Batman in the early nineties
Speaker 1: with the Tim Burton films, the the to that Tim
Speaker 1: Burton directed. So they're been a lot of curiosity about
Speaker 1: this movie, but it sounds like there's no chance of
Speaker 1: anyone actually seeing it, and it's caused a lot of
Speaker 1: folks to get angry. And obviously the filmmakers and the
Speaker 1: people involved in the project are disappointed. No one wants
Speaker 1: to work on something only to be told that work
Speaker 1: is never going to be seen. And let me tell
Speaker 1: you has someone who has once worked for David Zaslov.
Speaker 1: Though I was way way, way, way way under his radar,
Speaker 1: I can understand getting a little miffed at some of
Speaker 1: Zaslov's decisions. I got miffed at some of his decisions
Speaker 1: back when I was working for Discovery Communications. Zaslov has
Speaker 1: said that the plan is to cut around three billion
Speaker 1: dollars of costs out from this merged company, and he
Speaker 1: says that that might actually be on the conservative side,
Speaker 1: and that has a lot of folks worried. I can
Speaker 1: actually right now think of an entire company, a content
Speaker 1: company that could be on the chopping block. I would
Speaker 1: think the most likely fate for it would be to
Speaker 1: have gets sold off to some other entity, but it's
Speaker 1: too early to make any actual predictions. Zaslov has also
Speaker 1: indicated that it makes no economic sense to make high
Speaker 1: cost content for streaming platforms because you don't get a
Speaker 1: very big return on that investment. It ends up costing
Speaker 1: you more than you can make. And this is something
Speaker 1: that we see echoed on other streaming platforms, including on Netflix.
Speaker 1: And it's really no secret. I mean, everyone knew that
Speaker 1: Netflix was pouring truckloads of money into producing content in
Speaker 1: an effort to attract subscribers, and once those subscriber numbers
Speaker 1: began flagging a bit, investors got really worried. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk about other streaming services that have also had to
Speaker 1: reckon with the high cost of doing business after we
Speaker 1: come back from the break. Meanwhile, zas Lov has indicated
Speaker 1: that expensive productions really should just be targeted toward theatrical release,
Speaker 1: where a healthy box office could produce a good return.
Speaker 1: How to make streaming work from a profitability standpoint is
Speaker 1: a high priority because cable and satellite TV subscription numbers
Speaker 1: continue to drop, particularly here in the United States, and
Speaker 1: Zaslav is a cable guy through and through. That's the
Speaker 1: world he comes from, and that means he has to
Speaker 1: find a new model before the old one goes completely
Speaker 1: belly up. While he didn't go into detail, the general
Speaker 1: takeaway is that this new company, Warner Brothers Discovery, is
Speaker 1: going to combine HBO Max within the Discovery Plus streaming
Speaker 1: service or perhaps create a new merged one have a
Speaker 1: unified streaming service with different verticals or channels of content.
Speaker 1: So HBO Max isn't gonna go away. In fact, Zaslav
Speaker 1: called it the crown Jewel, but it will be incorporated
Speaker 1: into something bigger. At least that's the assumption right now,
Speaker 1: and also that there are expected layoffs coming from across
Speaker 1: both Discovery and Warner Brothers units in the not too
Speaker 1: distant future. We've got a lot more to talk about today.
Speaker 1: Before we get to it, let's take a quick break. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. Let's talk about Disney, because Disney also held
Speaker 1: an earnings call recently, and there's tons we could talk
Speaker 1: about there, but I'm really gonna look more at streaming services.
Speaker 1: Disney subscriber numbers for its digital streaming services totaled two
Speaker 1: one million people. That means, for the first time, a
Speaker 1: streaming service or collection of them really has posted higher
Speaker 1: subscriber numbers than Netflix. Netflix is behind Disney's services by
Speaker 1: about five hundred thousand subscribers total. But you heard the
Speaker 1: caveat there. This is not a single streaming service from
Speaker 1: Disney we're talking about. It's a collection of them. So
Speaker 1: Disney achieved this by having multiple streaming services. Netflix is
Speaker 1: just Netflix, but at Disney you've got Disney Plus, ESPN Plus,
Speaker 1: and Hulu. Now, out of those three, Disney Plus as
Speaker 1: the greatest number of subscribers at a hundred fifty two million.
Speaker 1: So if we break it down by service, Netflix is
Speaker 1: still way ahead. It's ahead of even Disney Plus. But
Speaker 1: it's not all good news anyway, and at least not
Speaker 1: to customers, because the rising costs of production. You know,
Speaker 1: those Marvel series ain't cheap, even if snarky folks do
Speaker 1: poke fun at the c g I at times. That
Speaker 1: means that Disney is going to pass those costs down
Speaker 1: to you, the viewer. Yep, a Disney Plus subscription is
Speaker 1: going to get more expensive starting December eight. Right now,
Speaker 1: a basic subscription costs seven dollars nine cents per month
Speaker 1: here in the US, and on December eight, that's going
Speaker 1: to increase to ten dollars and nine cents per month,
Speaker 1: which is a thirty eight percent increase. But hey, if
Speaker 1: you want, you could just stick with seven dollars cents
Speaker 1: a month, because Disney is introducing a tier at that
Speaker 1: price that will be including commercials, so it's ads supported,
Speaker 1: So if you don't mind ads in your programming, you
Speaker 1: can just keep paying what you're paying right now, you know,
Speaker 1: for an ad free experience. So in a way you
Speaker 1: get extra content because you get commercials too. Starting to
Speaker 1: sound like as lot who lose prices also going up.
Speaker 1: The ads supported tier will go from six dollars cents
Speaker 1: to seven dollars nine cents per month, and the ad
Speaker 1: free version will go from twelve to four that is
Speaker 1: effective October tenth. Disney previously had already announced that ESPN
Speaker 1: plus rates would increase by so they're all going up.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely grumpy about this, you know, just to keep
Speaker 1: it in the Disney family. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to protest this move. I mean,
Speaker 1: Disney's numbers reveal that the streaming divisions have been losing
Speaker 1: money collectively across all three platforms. They have lost one
Speaker 1: point one billion dollars in this most recent quarter. That's
Speaker 1: more than three million dollars over what analysts had predicted,
Speaker 1: and it shows that these services have really gone all
Speaker 1: out in an effort to attract subscribers by funding this
Speaker 1: very expensive programming that's on the services. Unfortunately, the number
Speaker 1: of incoming subscribers is not offsetting the investment being made
Speaker 1: to get them in the first place. So that only
Speaker 1: opens up a few options. Right, You could scale way
Speaker 1: back on production, which is what Zaslov is doing over
Speaker 1: at Warner Brothers Discovery, or you could hike up prices
Speaker 1: to your customers, which is what we're seeing at Disney.
Speaker 1: Or you might do a combination of both. This may
Speaker 1: mean that we will eventually enter into an era of
Speaker 1: fewer prestige productions for streaming platforms that the business just
Speaker 1: won't support it. And that's gonna be rough for creators
Speaker 1: and for audiences, but it might also be necessary. The
Speaker 1: balance of art and commerce is never an easy one,
Speaker 1: and often we'll see the scales tipe direction or the other,
Speaker 1: and then things will eventually level out, and then we
Speaker 1: typically started up all over again. Under the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: the Federal Communications Commission held an auction for companies to
Speaker 1: win a bid that would give them a portion of
Speaker 1: the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, and that funds purpose is
Speaker 1: to provide money for Internet service providers to extend connectivity
Speaker 1: service to unserved and underserved communities, primarily rural communities that
Speaker 1: have limited or no access to Internet service providers. As
Speaker 1: it stands, one company that one a bid was Starlink,
Speaker 1: the space X unit that uses a network of tiny
Speaker 1: satellites to provide Internet connectivity to customers. But now the
Speaker 1: FCC has effectively changed its mind now. To be fair,
Speaker 1: the FCC changes dramatically from one presidential administration to the next,
Speaker 1: and it's a very different organization under Biden than it
Speaker 1: was under Trump. The f C C has now rejected
Speaker 1: Starlinks bid, which would have seen the unit of SpaceX
Speaker 1: received more than eight hundred eighty million dollars in government
Speaker 1: aid to flesh out its broadband offerings. So why the
Speaker 1: change of mind, Well, the FCC chair Jessica Rosenworzel said
Speaker 1: that Starlink wasn't really a proven entity and that's relying
Speaker 1: on quote developing technology end quote, meaning that the company
Speaker 1: cannot assure the f c C that it will live
Speaker 1: up to its part of the deal. Specifically, she said, quote,
Speaker 1: we cannot afford to subsidize ventures that are not delivering
Speaker 1: the promise speeds or are not likely to meet program
Speaker 1: requirements end quote. She also pointed out that starlinks model
Speaker 1: requires customers to purchase a six hundred dollar dish that
Speaker 1: definitely prices out a large number of households. And if
Speaker 1: your goal is to extend internet connectivity to unserved or
Speaker 1: underserved communities, part of that usually includes making sure that
Speaker 1: the solutions are going to be affordable to lower income households.
Speaker 1: It would be a bad look, as they say, to
Speaker 1: subsidize a company that had a really high initial price
Speaker 1: for customers, and that's before you start factoring in things
Speaker 1: like monthly service fees. The FCC also denied a bid
Speaker 1: from a company called lt D Broadband, which had won
Speaker 1: a one point three billion dollar bid back in the
Speaker 1: reason for the fccs rejection of that bid was that
Speaker 1: lt D failed to receive eligible telecommunications carrier status in
Speaker 1: seven of the fifteen states where it bid, and the
Speaker 1: FCC determined that lt D would be unable to actually
Speaker 1: deploy a network on the scale that the winning bids
Speaker 1: had been based upon. As the FCC pointed out, there
Speaker 1: is a limited amount of government money set aside to
Speaker 1: help extend broadband access, and so it's of chief importance
Speaker 1: that what little money there is be spent effectively. Though
Speaker 1: how you do that in the country where there are
Speaker 1: so few viable options for I sp S is beyond me.
Speaker 1: And that's all the news I have for today, Thursday,
Speaker 1: August eleven two. I hope that you are all well.
Speaker 1: Reach out to me if you have any suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics on tech Stuff, and I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Yes, tex Stuff is an I Heart
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