WEBVTT - Tech News: Twitter's Board Won't Be Musky 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.680 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.239 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio. 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:20.840 And how the tech are you. It's time for the 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:25.120 tech news for Tuesday, April twelve, twenty twenty two. Let's 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:28.360 get to it. And what a difference just a few 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:32.479 days make. So last week I talked about how Elon 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:37.040 Musk had purchased a significant steak in Twitter and had 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:41.519 subsequently been invited to join Twitter's board of directors. This 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.760 was after Musk had started posting polls about stuff like 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:48.360 Twitter's approach to freedom of speech, since the platform tends 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:52.280 to push back on stuff like misinformation campaigns, something that 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.440 Musk himself has been you know, kind of accused of 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:00.960 spreading in the past. And Musk also needed a poll 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:05.560 about including an edit button in in Twitter, and Twitter 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:08.880 then said it was soon going to announce a button 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.199 and and unveil it, which I'll also suggests that Twitter 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:14.000 had been working on that for a while, that it 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:19.479 was not you know, prompted necessarily by Musk himself. Then 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.800 Twitter was arranging and asked me anything session with Elon 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:29.119 Musk so that Twitter employees could get more information about 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.080 where things were going next. There were a lot of 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.759 people who had some pretty massive concerns about Elon Musk 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.920 potentially joining the board of directors. But today things look 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.480 a lot different. Musk is no longer going to be 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:43.600 part of the board of directors. He has turned that down, 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.640 according to reports on Bloomberg, and Twitter has subsequently canceled 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.080 the Asked Me Anything session because it's moot, So instead 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.080 employees were given the day off, which is probably a 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:56.720 pretty nice gesture because the impression I get is that 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.880 a significant number of Twitter employees were feeling uneasy about 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:06.000 Musk's involvement. So why would Musk decline the invitation to 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:08.560 join the board of directors. Well, there's a lot of 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.600 speculation on that one possibility, though again I have to say, 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:15.520 this isn't something that Musk himself as confirmed, at least 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:18.720 as I'm recording this episode. But one possibility is that 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.680 must decline the offer because to become a board member 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.040 would mean that he would have to agree and then 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:29.040 adhere to Twitter's code of conduct, which doesn't seem very 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:32.079 musky to me. So that might have played a part. 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.600 But Another potentially huge factor could be that the members 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.560 of the board of directors are restricted from purchasing more 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:45.079 than fourteen point nine percent of Twitter stock. Musk currently 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.000 owns a little more than nine percent. Now, it could 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:51.040 be that Musk just doesn't want to be confined to 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.440 less than fifteen percent ownership in the long run um, 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:57.440 and it might not be that much of a long run. 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:01.959 Aaron Solomon, who is Esquire's did Agital's chief legal analyst, 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:06.480 has suggested that perhaps Musk is actually positioning himself to 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.160 hold a hostile takeover of Twitter. Now, for those of 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.480 y'all who didn't grow up in the eighties when hostile 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.919 takeovers were all the rage, the idea behind a hostile 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.440 takeover goes like this. So typically, if you wanted to 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:23.320 acquire a company, you would deal with that company's board 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.359 of directors and set it all up. You would do 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.560 all your negotiations with them, and they would set up 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:34.400 the the plan, potentially putting it to a vote among stakeholders, 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.320 uh in order to have it actually become a thing. 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:42.760 But if the board isn't, you know, in the mood 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.080 to sell, you have to take another pathway. So one 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:48.800 way to do that as you buy up a lot 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.640 of shares in the company. UH, if you buy up 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.960 enough shares, like more than half of the company, then 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.680 you your votes matter more than anyone else's, right. If 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.080 you have fifty one percent of the vote, no one 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.360 can outvote you on anything, and then you can vote 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:09.000 to sell the company, to say Elon Musk. Another way 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:11.920 of doing it is to convince other big shareholders to 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:17.479 join with you in UH in an effort to pressure 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:20.040 the sale or to force the sale. Like, it's not 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:25.360 even pressure if you have enough votes. Now, the board 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.680 of directors, even if this were to happen, would have 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:32.240 some potential options to follow, some of which are kind 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.440 of the nuclear extreme. There's a thing called a poison 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.679 pill that could take place. All of that's just pure speculation, however, 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:42.360 right like, we're nowhere close to that yet, at least 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:44.360 not as I'm recording this episode. Maybe by the time 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:46.640 it goes out at will, but right now it's not. 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:51.240 That's not the case. So maybe by the next news 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.280 episode will have a little bit more firm news and 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:58.400 less speculation. Uh. I don't know if this is like 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:01.880 an accurate read what's going on or not. It's hard 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:03.800 to say a lot of people are playing kind of 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.760 armchair psychologists and saying, well, of course Elon Musk wants 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:12.160 to have access to his own social platform, and it's 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:15.279 one that's already very well established, so it makes sense 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.600 from that perspective. I don't know if it's that simple. Um, 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:21.480 it probably is not. It probably is more complicated than that. 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.720 But we'll have to follow up on this story as 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:29.080 it develops. Now, let's get some Meta slash Facebook news 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.920 out of the way. One bit of good news is 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.240 that the company announced it had removed a disinformation network 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:38.880 located out of Brazil that focused on climate change denial. 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:44.360 Reuter's reports that Meta removed fourteen Facebook accounts, thirty nine 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:48.880 Instagram accounts, and nine Facebook pages all related to this 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:53.800 disinformation campaign. Now, apparently these groups were in some way 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:58.920 connected to Brazil's military, although whether or not it was 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.320 a military anctioned campaign remains to be seen. Like that 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:07.640 that's not that's not firm as of right now. Uh, 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:09.960 it may just be that it's a coincidence that these 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:14.120 are connected, and you might wonder how big a deal 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:19.680 this was. Well, based on Facebook's adversarial report, this particular 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:24.080 group hasn't made a huge impact on the platform. Apparently 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:29.120 the campaign had a fairly restricted reach and much maybe 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.240 not all, but but you know, a significant amount of 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:35.120 the engagement on the various profiles appeared to be essentially 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.480 manufactured by the group itself, right, it was boosting itself 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.960 in order to get more visibility. So it could have 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:44.280 been that this was a campaign that was kind of 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:49.400 in fairly early development. It sounds like not that many 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.240 people outside the campaign it self encountered the material. I mean, 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:56.640 there were some. It wasn't like it was completely internal, 0:06:57.640 --> 0:06:59.760 but it wasn't as widespread as it could have been. 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:02.680 As for the kind of stuff that the group was posting, 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.400 it was messaging that related to stuff like DeForest station 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:11.040 and how according to this disinformation campaign, DeForest station really 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.840 isn't all that bad. It goes without saying that deforestation 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.720 is pretty darn bad for lots of different reasons, including 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.520 the reduction of habitat and the destruction of biodiversity in 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:27.440 the Amazon region. Another Facebook note, meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.480 spent quite a few zuckbucks in one on flights and security, 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:36.880 or rather, the company spent nearly twenties seven million dollars 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.360 to pay for Zuckerberg's travel as well as a security 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.120 detail for Zuckerberg and his family. Now, in case you're 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.760 wondering if this is an outlier, like if one was 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:52.640 really unusual, not really. Back in twenty nineteen, the company 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:58.240 spent twenty three million dollars UH and in twenty which 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:00.440 you would think you would see a reduction in that 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:04.840 mount because it includes travel, right, and most of us 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.440 were sitting at home for much of the year and 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:11.000 not going anywhere. But the cost went from twenty three 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:14.400 million to twenty five million, and then one went up 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:19.280 to twenty seven million. Even during a pandemic, when you'd 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:23.560 suspect there'll be less travel, the amount spent was increased. 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.840 Meta's sec filings reveals the company spent more than fifteen 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.720 million dollars on Zuckerberg's personal security. So of that twenty 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:36.040 seven million, fifteen of it was security for Zuckerberg. That 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:40.840 includes stuff like seven bodyguards and an office with bulletproof glass, 0:08:40.840 --> 0:08:43.520 among other things. And on the one hand, that might 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:46.600 sound like it's excessive, but then again, Zuck, as they 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.400 would say in the movies, made an awful lot of enemies. Uh, 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.120 there's no shortage of folks out there and organizations out 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.480 there and governments out there that aren't too keen on 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.720 Zuckerberg and his company. Fifteen million dollars is a lot 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.360 of money, and you might actually question whether you really 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.080 need to spend fifteen million dollars to keep Zuckerberg alive 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.600 and safe. But really there's only one way to find 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.079 out if it isn't enough, and that way is, you know, 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:17.360 not not appropriate. Like I don't like Zuckerberg, but I 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:22.080 would never wish him physical harm. The online marketplace Etsy 0:09:22.160 --> 0:09:23.920 is hit hitting a bit of a rough patch. A 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:27.160 group of merchants on the platform have decided to hold 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.679 a week long quote unquote strike. Now strike is a 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.000 weird word because the people who are using etc as 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.240 a storefront, they aren't employed by Etsy. They're making you 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:39.599 they're actually customers of etc. Because they're making use of 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.559 Etsy's service. But at the heart of their complaint is 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.280 Etsy's recent decision to increase transaction fees by thirty percent. 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:52.240 So transaction fees are really the way that Ets makes revenue. 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.480 It takes a cut of each transaction made through the 0:09:55.559 --> 0:10:00.240 online store. But an increase in transaction fees me means 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:04.120 that those costs have to get passed on somewhere else. Right. Uh, 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.839 Either the artists and creators have to find ways to 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.920 say more, maybe by buying in bulk and thus in 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.520 the long run saving more money, and they don't have 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.199 to affect their prices at all and their revenue pretty 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.120 much stays the same, or they have to pay out 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.839 a pocket, you know, whatever the differences, or they have 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:25.120 to increase the prices on their goods, which might mean 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.280 it discourages people from buying them. So it's got a 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:31.640 lot of people upset. Not everybody, not everyone on that 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.679 see thinks this is a bad thing or the end 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:36.679 of the world, but there are quite a few who 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.800 have banded together in order to have this quote unquote strike. 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.079 The company also promotes shop listings through ads on other sites, 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.400 so off site ads, and in those cases they charge 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.719 the merchants anywhere between twelve to fift and fees um, 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:54.520 and some of the merchants say, like, we aren't even 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:58.000 given the opportunity to kind of sidestep that. There are 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.240 other factors that have encouraged sellers to go into vacation 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:03.280 mode for a week. Another big one is that there's 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.240 a problem on ets with people copying other artists work 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:11.840 and then selling those copies or reselling original works under 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:15.719 their own name on Etsy, and uh there's been a 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:17.880 lot of people pushing at C to take more action 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.559 against that. Now, for its part, Etsy says that the 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.000 fee increases will actually provide the money for the company 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.760 to market more effectively and to take steps against these 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.559 same resellers and copycats. But if you happen to head 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:32.280 over to Etsy this week and you see that the 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:35.000 story you wanted to order from his offline, it could 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.360 be that that person has become part of this quote 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.280 unquote strike. We've got some more news stories to cover, 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:43.280 but before we get to that, let's take a quick break. 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:52.920 We're back and it's been a little bit since we 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.079 talked about the n s O Group. If you do 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.280 not remember n s O that's the Israeli company that 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:04.199 creates infiltration tool that compromise devices, notably Apple devices. Uh So. 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.400 It is i would think best known for its product 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:12.520 pegasusts that exploited a zero click vulnerability in Apple's eye message. 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.800 It would be a vulnerability that Apple would later patch 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.559 out of iOS. NSO group has long maintained that its 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.800 customers are only to use these tools in connection with 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:26.400 things like law enforcement to fight crime and terrorism. But 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.800 a lot of people have said that those same customers 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:35.439 have been using these tools to target innocent people, including journalists, politicians, activists, 0:12:35.600 --> 0:12:39.600 and more. And since this exploit would turn an iPhone 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:43.319 into a surveillance device, I mean gives the the perpetrators 0:12:43.360 --> 0:12:47.720 practically unlimited access to the target's phone, including the phones camera, 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:50.800 and its microphones, So you can turn the phone into 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.600 a spy device for yourself. That is a huge deal. Well, now, 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.480 Reuter's is reporting that at least five officials in the 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.480 EU were hit by similar or malware attacks on their 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:07.040 devices in late one This also includes the EUSE European 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.959 Justice Commissioners, so we're talking like high ranking officials in 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.680 the European Union. And while there is no smoking gun 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.280 that links these attacks specifically to n s O Groups products, 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:21.760 that appears to be at least a working hypothesis. Now, 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.920 ns O Group denies any involvement of the company or 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:27.959 its products in these attacks. And to be clear, n 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:30.920 s O Group is not the only company that's creating 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.240 tools like this that exploit vulnerabilities. In fact, it's not 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.280 even the only Israeli company doing that. There are a 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:42.480 couple of very secretive surveillance companies in Israel, some of 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:44.559 which you know, like you've heard of n s A 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.480 Group if you listen to this podcast, But there's some 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.200 that get mentioned maybe once or twice, and they don't 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:52.360 get nearly the same notoriety even though they're in the 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:55.760 same business. So it is entirely possible that the EU 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.720 officials fell victim to a hack from a competing company 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:01.800 that it wasn't from an n s O Group product. 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.200 But the really scary thing is that these attacks frequently 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:07.520 take advantage of something that the end user has no 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.200 control over. Right. We often talk about how we're all 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.760 responsible for our Internet safety, and in many ways that 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:19.480 is true, right, that our behaviors can make us safer 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.080 or put us more at risk. But in this case, 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:25.960 the the only safe issue would be if you didn't 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.760 have an iPhone at all, because the way Pegasus worked, 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.560 at least initially, was that you could send an attack 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.360 message through I message. As long as you had the 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.360 target phone's phone number, you could do this, and just 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.280 by receiving the message that would be enough to be 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.880 able to exploit this vulnerability and install the malware on 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:48.160 the phone, so the user didn't have to do anything, 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.040 They didn't have to open the message, they didn't have 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.440 to download something or activate something. It just would happen. 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:57.760 Like in those cases, you know it, there's nothing user 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.360 behavior that you can do to avoid it again, unless 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:04.720 you're talking about just getting rid of tech. So uh yeah, 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.760 scary world. Next year, South Korea will lean on SpaceX 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:13.560 to launch the country's first ever spy satellite. Further, South 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.840 Korea announces it intends to have five such satellites in 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:21.440 service by the end of Traditionally, South Korea has had 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.040 to rely upon allies like the United States to provide 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:28.200 satellite intelligence to South Korean officials. The country is also 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.320 pursuing the development of its own launch vehicle system. A 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.920 test launch late last year saw the country's solid fuel 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.800 rocket designed lift off successfully. So it has successful takeoff, 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.400 but it failed to get into lower orbit. It wasn't 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:47.440 able to put its payload into lower thorbit and fell 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.240 back to Earth. The payload in that case was a 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.200 dummy satellite. It was not an actual working satellite, which 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:54.840 is a good thing, you know, because the mission did 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.880 fall short. But the country has its sites set on 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:02.760 being another space power on Earth and could potentially end 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:08.240 up supplying very useful intelligence to its allies in that 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.480 particular part of the world. Like when you think about 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:16.000 North Korea, China, Russia, Uh, you know, South Korea having 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:21.040 those capabilities would be a huge strategic benefit to its allies. 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:25.120 Comedian and last Week Tonight host John Oliver send a 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:27.760 message to US Congress, namely that the government needs to 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.680 step up when it comes to protecting citizens against predatory 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:35.040 data practices. Oliver pointed out that senior citizens are frequently 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:39.280 the target of insidious data tracking campaigns and that those, 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.640 in turn can lead to even greater exploitation. Right like, 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:46.640 step one, get all the information you can about someone. 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.720 Step to exploit that information, and in turn that person 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:54.960 happens all the time. And so Oliver, presumably in an 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.800 effort to really drive home how sensitive the issue can be, 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:02.400 hired some data brokers to scrape information in and around 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:05.520 the Washington, d C. Area, And he gave the data 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:09.879 broker's criteria that would most likely lump in politicians. So, 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.399 in other words, like he specifically crafted his request to 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:19.919 target people who would potentially also be politicians so instead 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:21.879 of saying like, can you target politicians, would be like, 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.680 can you target people within this particular age range and 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.920 these other demographics, and knowing that that happens to cover 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:34.200 most of Congress. Uh. He has indicated that the data 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.480 that the company's provided him were interesting, that they gave 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:43.080 insights onto how various politicians are using the Internet, as 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:47.080 well as their search history, which you know, certainly sounds 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.040 like there could be something salacious going on there. And 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.040 his message to the government is that they might want 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.400 to take some steps to protect people in general from 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.080 you know, having their data leve bridget and exploited in 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:06.359 this way and preventing people from just gobbling up information 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.800 and then making use of that information in various ways. 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:12.960 The implication here is that if the government does not, 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:16.720 you know, swing into action on this and address the 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.080 very long standing problem that Oliver might do something with 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:23.240 that data. Who's to say what he could do with it. 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.479 And his whole point is that he could totally use 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:30.000 the data because there's just this lack of laws protecting U. 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:32.840 S citizens from just that. That's his whole point. He's saying. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:35.720 It's not that he wants to use the data to 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:41.199 embarrass someone or compromise someone, but rather he could because 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.200 there aren't any laws preventing that from happening. And it's 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.600 not like Congress could just say don't you dare, because 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.080 you know, without legislation, there's nothing to enforce. And so 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.720 Oliver saying, hey, this is something people have needed for 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.600 a really long time. Now you're one of those people 0:18:56.600 --> 0:19:00.760 who need it, so can we get it please. It's 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.639 really an interesting move. The weather it amounts to anything 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.120 remains to be seen. I tend to get a little 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:11.080 cynical when it comes to political action and technology. We 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.520 often see that politics moves at a pace that is 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.679 much slower than tech. Then this brings us into problems 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.920 over and over again. It's why we will frequently have 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.840 these giant bills that try to address tons and tons 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:27.640 of stuff that piled up over the years. And even 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:31.480 while we're debating that and getting that all hashed out, 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:34.840 technology continues to change. So even by the time you 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:37.840 pass that legislation, there at least some points that are 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:41.000 no longer relevant. Uh this is not news, I mean, 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.359 it happens all the time. But yeah, very interesting that 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.440 Oliver made this point. Obviously, as a history of doing 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.040 some very biting social commentary on all sorts of different topics, 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.880 and this one about protecting senior citizens. You know, it's 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.760 it's pretty easy to get behind him, because there is 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:03.000 no question that there are plenty of organizations and companies 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:07.080 out there that prey upon senior citizens in particular and 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:12.800 leverage these kinds of uh data collection agencies in order 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:18.960 to be as effective as possible. Not great, So, I again, 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:22.639 I'm skeptical that will see anything kind of really actionable 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.560 happen due to this, But it would be nice to see. 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:31.000 Not because I have not because I think that Congress 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:32.639 is going to be scared of it. But my hope 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:36.960 is that it's a way of really just shaking home 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:41.960 this idea that millions of people lack that basic protection 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.159 and they could really use it. All Right, we've got 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.040 a few more stories to go before we get to those. 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:58.000 Let's take another quick break. Hackers have targeted thousands of 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:02.120 sites running on the word press, Us and Jumla hosting services. 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.200 I want to be clear here, I don't think that 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:09.880 this is necessarily, uh the fault of WordPress or Jumla. 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.000 I don't want to give that impression, uh that while 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.200 these sites all seem to have that in common. That 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:21.360 does not mean that WordPress and or jumla is inherently bad. Rather, 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:23.720 it just looks like the hackers were able to compromise 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:27.000 numerous sites on these platforms, and that the one thing 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:28.919 that these had in common, besides the fact that they 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:33.320 were on these two big publication platforms, is that whomever 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:37.440 was making those sites were they were using really bad passwords, 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:42.719 just very weak passwords. And um, I'm not sure if 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.840 the hackers used a classic dictionary attack, it sounds to 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:49.119 me like that's possibly what they did. Uh. In a 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:52.879 dictionary attack, hackers use essentially a digital document that just 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.760 contains tens of thousands of common passwords. So when we 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.320 say dictionary, you might think, oh, like a like an 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.560 actual diction neary where it's just every word the English language. Well, 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.399 it can be that, but it's usually also lots of 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:08.080 common passwords that people have used that like, there are 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:10.600 a bunch of that people just use all the time, 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.080 like one two three four five or password one two 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:17.399 three four, that kind of stuff. So these dictionaries typically 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:20.960 have those kinds of phrases and words in them, and 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:23.359 then they use that to brute force their way into 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:28.280 various accounts, and that seems to be at least to 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:33.520 me what has happened in this case, although um again 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:35.680 I didn't get confirmation on that, so I could be wrong. 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.879 Once the hackers did get access to these sites, they 0:22:40.040 --> 0:22:43.920 began to insert malware into the sites in an attempt 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:48.680 to lure visitors into installing that malware on their own devices. 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.040 So the malware would send a message to users that 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:55.560 would claim that they would need to know update their browser, 0:22:55.800 --> 0:22:58.440 for example, in order to view the content on the 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:02.040 page due to a recent change in the site. But 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.520 of course it wasn't a browser update at all. It 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:08.600 was rather a way to convince people to install malicious 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:12.040 code on their devices so that they would download this 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:18.119 trojan malware that would then infect their computer. So with 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:19.959 that in mind, I want to give a double message 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:22.679 out there for all of you listening to this show. First, 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:28.000 always be supremely suspicious about any request to upgrade or 0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:31.600 update or download something to your device. If it's not 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:38.280 coming from your typical you know, um OS company or 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:41.320 whatever it may be, you need to be triple sure 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:44.800 that those requests are coming from a trustworthy source like 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:47.920 it is important to keep things like operating systems and 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:54.240 browsers up to date because updates can often address vulnerabilities 0:23:54.840 --> 0:23:58.840 and close off pathways for hackers to get access to systems. 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:01.520 So you are so spposed to keep updating, but you 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:05.000 want to make sure that those messages are coming from 0:24:05.160 --> 0:24:09.320 the actual official source, not through some third party, because 0:24:09.400 --> 0:24:11.920 that's a red flag that something hainky is going on. 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:16.000 And then for all the web administrators out there who 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:19.840 use platforms like WordPress and joom La, for goodness sakes, 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:26.160 use strong passwords, a unique, strong password to protect your 0:24:26.760 --> 0:24:29.960 your resource. I mean for a lot of these these people, 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:34.520