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'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: And how the tech are you. It's time for the
Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, April twelve, twenty twenty two. Let's
Speaker 1: get to it. And what a difference just a few
Speaker 1: days make. So last week I talked about how Elon
Speaker 1: Musk had purchased a significant steak in Twitter and had
Speaker 1: subsequently been invited to join Twitter's board of directors. This
Speaker 1: was after Musk had started posting polls about stuff like
Speaker 1: Twitter's approach to freedom of speech, since the platform tends
Speaker 1: to push back on stuff like misinformation campaigns, something that
Speaker 1: Musk himself has been you know, kind of accused of
Speaker 1: spreading in the past. And Musk also needed a poll
Speaker 1: about including an edit button in in Twitter, and Twitter
Speaker 1: then said it was soon going to announce a button
Speaker 1: and and unveil it, which I'll also suggests that Twitter
Speaker 1: had been working on that for a while, that it
Speaker 1: was not you know, prompted necessarily by Musk himself. Then
Speaker 1: Twitter was arranging and asked me anything session with Elon
Speaker 1: Musk so that Twitter employees could get more information about
Speaker 1: where things were going next. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: people who had some pretty massive concerns about Elon Musk
Speaker 1: potentially joining the board of directors. But today things look
Speaker 1: a lot different. Musk is no longer going to be
Speaker 1: part of the board of directors. He has turned that down,
Speaker 1: according to reports on Bloomberg, and Twitter has subsequently canceled
Speaker 1: the Asked Me Anything session because it's moot, So instead
Speaker 1: employees were given the day off, which is probably a
Speaker 1: pretty nice gesture because the impression I get is that
Speaker 1: a significant number of Twitter employees were feeling uneasy about
Speaker 1: Musk's involvement. So why would Musk decline the invitation to
Speaker 1: join the board of directors. Well, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: speculation on that one possibility, though again I have to say,
Speaker 1: this isn't something that Musk himself as confirmed, at least
Speaker 1: as I'm recording this episode. But one possibility is that
Speaker 1: must decline the offer because to become a board member
Speaker 1: would mean that he would have to agree and then
Speaker 1: adhere to Twitter's code of conduct, which doesn't seem very
Speaker 1: musky to me. So that might have played a part.
Speaker 1: But Another potentially huge factor could be that the members
Speaker 1: of the board of directors are restricted from purchasing more
Speaker 1: than fourteen point nine percent of Twitter stock. Musk currently
Speaker 1: owns a little more than nine percent. Now, it could
Speaker 1: be that Musk just doesn't want to be confined to
Speaker 1: less than fifteen percent ownership in the long run um,
Speaker 1: and it might not be that much of a long run.
Speaker 1: Aaron Solomon, who is Esquire's did Agital's chief legal analyst,
Speaker 1: has suggested that perhaps Musk is actually positioning himself to
Speaker 1: hold a hostile takeover of Twitter. Now, for those of
Speaker 1: y'all who didn't grow up in the eighties when hostile
Speaker 1: takeovers were all the rage, the idea behind a hostile
Speaker 1: takeover goes like this. So typically, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: acquire a company, you would deal with that company's board
Speaker 1: of directors and set it all up. You would do
Speaker 1: all your negotiations with them, and they would set up
Speaker 1: the the plan, potentially putting it to a vote among stakeholders,
Speaker 1: uh in order to have it actually become a thing.
Speaker 1: But if the board isn't, you know, in the mood
Speaker 1: to sell, you have to take another pathway. So one
Speaker 1: way to do that as you buy up a lot
Speaker 1: of shares in the company. UH, if you buy up
Speaker 1: enough shares, like more than half of the company, then
Speaker 1: you your votes matter more than anyone else's, right. If
Speaker 1: you have fifty one percent of the vote, no one
Speaker 1: can outvote you on anything, and then you can vote
Speaker 1: to sell the company, to say Elon Musk. Another way
Speaker 1: of doing it is to convince other big shareholders to
Speaker 1: join with you in UH in an effort to pressure
Speaker 1: the sale or to force the sale. Like, it's not
Speaker 1: even pressure if you have enough votes. Now, the board
Speaker 1: of directors, even if this were to happen, would have
Speaker 1: some potential options to follow, some of which are kind
Speaker 1: of the nuclear extreme. There's a thing called a poison
Speaker 1: pill that could take place. All of that's just pure speculation, however,
Speaker 1: right like, we're nowhere close to that yet, at least
Speaker 1: not as I'm recording this episode. Maybe by the time
Speaker 1: it goes out at will, but right now it's not.
Speaker 1: That's not the case. So maybe by the next news
Speaker 1: episode will have a little bit more firm news and
Speaker 1: less speculation. Uh. I don't know if this is like
Speaker 1: an accurate read what's going on or not. It's hard
Speaker 1: to say a lot of people are playing kind of
Speaker 1: armchair psychologists and saying, well, of course Elon Musk wants
Speaker 1: to have access to his own social platform, and it's
Speaker 1: one that's already very well established, so it makes sense
Speaker 1: from that perspective. I don't know if it's that simple. Um,
Speaker 1: it probably is not. It probably is more complicated than that.
Speaker 1: But we'll have to follow up on this story as
Speaker 1: it develops. Now, let's get some Meta slash Facebook news
Speaker 1: out of the way. One bit of good news is
Speaker 1: that the company announced it had removed a disinformation network
Speaker 1: located out of Brazil that focused on climate change denial.
Speaker 1: Reuter's reports that Meta removed fourteen Facebook accounts, thirty nine
Speaker 1: Instagram accounts, and nine Facebook pages all related to this
Speaker 1: disinformation campaign. Now, apparently these groups were in some way
Speaker 1: connected to Brazil's military, although whether or not it was
Speaker 1: a military anctioned campaign remains to be seen. Like that
Speaker 1: that's not that's not firm as of right now. Uh,
Speaker 1: it may just be that it's a coincidence that these
Speaker 1: are connected, and you might wonder how big a deal
Speaker 1: this was. Well, based on Facebook's adversarial report, this particular
Speaker 1: group hasn't made a huge impact on the platform. Apparently
Speaker 1: the campaign had a fairly restricted reach and much maybe
Speaker 1: not all, but but you know, a significant amount of
Speaker 1: the engagement on the various profiles appeared to be essentially
Speaker 1: manufactured by the group itself, right, it was boosting itself
Speaker 1: in order to get more visibility. So it could have
Speaker 1: been that this was a campaign that was kind of
Speaker 1: in fairly early development. It sounds like not that many
Speaker 1: people outside the campaign it self encountered the material. I mean,
Speaker 1: there were some. It wasn't like it was completely internal,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't as widespread as it could have been.
Speaker 1: As for the kind of stuff that the group was posting,
Speaker 1: it was messaging that related to stuff like DeForest station
Speaker 1: and how according to this disinformation campaign, DeForest station really
Speaker 1: isn't all that bad. It goes without saying that deforestation
Speaker 1: is pretty darn bad for lots of different reasons, including
Speaker 1: the reduction of habitat and the destruction of biodiversity in
Speaker 1: the Amazon region. Another Facebook note, meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: spent quite a few zuckbucks in one on flights and security,
Speaker 1: or rather, the company spent nearly twenties seven million dollars
Speaker 1: to pay for Zuckerberg's travel as well as a security
Speaker 1: detail for Zuckerberg and his family. Now, in case you're
Speaker 1: wondering if this is an outlier, like if one was
Speaker 1: really unusual, not really. Back in twenty nineteen, the company
Speaker 1: spent twenty three million dollars UH and in twenty which
Speaker 1: you would think you would see a reduction in that
Speaker 1: mount because it includes travel, right, and most of us
Speaker 1: were sitting at home for much of the year and
Speaker 1: not going anywhere. But the cost went from twenty three
Speaker 1: million to twenty five million, and then one went up
Speaker 1: to twenty seven million. Even during a pandemic, when you'd
Speaker 1: suspect there'll be less travel, the amount spent was increased.
Speaker 1: Meta's sec filings reveals the company spent more than fifteen
Speaker 1: million dollars on Zuckerberg's personal security. So of that twenty
Speaker 1: seven million, fifteen of it was security for Zuckerberg. That
Speaker 1: includes stuff like seven bodyguards and an office with bulletproof glass,
Speaker 1: among other things. And on the one hand, that might
Speaker 1: sound like it's excessive, but then again, Zuck, as they
Speaker 1: would say in the movies, made an awful lot of enemies. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's no shortage of folks out there and organizations out
Speaker 1: there and governments out there that aren't too keen on
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg and his company. Fifteen million dollars is a lot
Speaker 1: of money, and you might actually question whether you really
Speaker 1: need to spend fifteen million dollars to keep Zuckerberg alive
Speaker 1: and safe. But really there's only one way to find
Speaker 1: out if it isn't enough, and that way is, you know,
Speaker 1: not not appropriate. Like I don't like Zuckerberg, but I
Speaker 1: would never wish him physical harm. The online marketplace Etsy
Speaker 1: is hit hitting a bit of a rough patch. A
Speaker 1: group of merchants on the platform have decided to hold
Speaker 1: a week long quote unquote strike. Now strike is a
Speaker 1: weird word because the people who are using etc as
Speaker 1: a storefront, they aren't employed by Etsy. They're making you
Speaker 1: they're actually customers of etc. Because they're making use of
Speaker 1: Etsy's service. But at the heart of their complaint is
Speaker 1: Etsy's recent decision to increase transaction fees by thirty percent.
Speaker 1: So transaction fees are really the way that Ets makes revenue.
Speaker 1: It takes a cut of each transaction made through the
Speaker 1: online store. But an increase in transaction fees me means
Speaker 1: that those costs have to get passed on somewhere else. Right. Uh,
Speaker 1: Either the artists and creators have to find ways to
Speaker 1: say more, maybe by buying in bulk and thus in
Speaker 1: the long run saving more money, and they don't have
Speaker 1: to affect their prices at all and their revenue pretty
Speaker 1: much stays the same, or they have to pay out
Speaker 1: a pocket, you know, whatever the differences, or they have
Speaker 1: to increase the prices on their goods, which might mean
Speaker 1: it discourages people from buying them. So it's got a
Speaker 1: lot of people upset. Not everybody, not everyone on that
Speaker 1: see thinks this is a bad thing or the end
Speaker 1: of the world, but there are quite a few who
Speaker 1: have banded together in order to have this quote unquote strike.
Speaker 1: The company also promotes shop listings through ads on other sites,
Speaker 1: so off site ads, and in those cases they charge
Speaker 1: the merchants anywhere between twelve to fift and fees um,
Speaker 1: and some of the merchants say, like, we aren't even
Speaker 1: given the opportunity to kind of sidestep that. There are
Speaker 1: other factors that have encouraged sellers to go into vacation
Speaker 1: mode for a week. Another big one is that there's
Speaker 1: a problem on ets with people copying other artists work
Speaker 1: and then selling those copies or reselling original works under
Speaker 1: their own name on Etsy, and uh there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of people pushing at C to take more action
Speaker 1: against that. Now, for its part, Etsy says that the
Speaker 1: fee increases will actually provide the money for the company
Speaker 1: to market more effectively and to take steps against these
Speaker 1: same resellers and copycats. But if you happen to head
Speaker 1: over to Etsy this week and you see that the
Speaker 1: story you wanted to order from his offline, it could
Speaker 1: be that that person has become part of this quote
Speaker 1: unquote strike. We've got some more news stories to cover,
Speaker 1: but before we get to that, let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: We're back and it's been a little bit since we
Speaker 1: talked about the n s O Group. If you do
Speaker 1: not remember n s O that's the Israeli company that
Speaker 1: creates infiltration tool that compromise devices, notably Apple devices. Uh So.
Speaker 1: It is i would think best known for its product
Speaker 1: pegasusts that exploited a zero click vulnerability in Apple's eye message.
Speaker 1: It would be a vulnerability that Apple would later patch
Speaker 1: out of iOS. NSO group has long maintained that its
Speaker 1: customers are only to use these tools in connection with
Speaker 1: things like law enforcement to fight crime and terrorism. But
Speaker 1: a lot of people have said that those same customers
Speaker 1: have been using these tools to target innocent people, including journalists, politicians, activists,
Speaker 1: and more. And since this exploit would turn an iPhone
Speaker 1: into a surveillance device, I mean gives the the perpetrators
Speaker 1: practically unlimited access to the target's phone, including the phones camera,
Speaker 1: and its microphones, So you can turn the phone into
Speaker 1: a spy device for yourself. That is a huge deal. Well, now,
Speaker 1: Reuter's is reporting that at least five officials in the
Speaker 1: EU were hit by similar or malware attacks on their
Speaker 1: devices in late one This also includes the EUSE European
Speaker 1: Justice Commissioners, so we're talking like high ranking officials in
Speaker 1: the European Union. And while there is no smoking gun
Speaker 1: that links these attacks specifically to n s O Groups products,
Speaker 1: that appears to be at least a working hypothesis. Now,
Speaker 1: ns O Group denies any involvement of the company or
Speaker 1: its products in these attacks. And to be clear, n
Speaker 1: s O Group is not the only company that's creating
Speaker 1: tools like this that exploit vulnerabilities. In fact, it's not
Speaker 1: even the only Israeli company doing that. There are a
Speaker 1: couple of very secretive surveillance companies in Israel, some of
Speaker 1: which you know, like you've heard of n s A
Speaker 1: Group if you listen to this podcast, But there's some
Speaker 1: that get mentioned maybe once or twice, and they don't
Speaker 1: get nearly the same notoriety even though they're in the
Speaker 1: same business. So it is entirely possible that the EU
Speaker 1: officials fell victim to a hack from a competing company
Speaker 1: that it wasn't from an n s O Group product.
Speaker 1: But the really scary thing is that these attacks frequently
Speaker 1: take advantage of something that the end user has no
Speaker 1: control over. Right. We often talk about how we're all
Speaker 1: responsible for our Internet safety, and in many ways that
Speaker 1: is true, right, that our behaviors can make us safer
Speaker 1: or put us more at risk. But in this case,
Speaker 1: the the only safe issue would be if you didn't
Speaker 1: have an iPhone at all, because the way Pegasus worked,
Speaker 1: at least initially, was that you could send an attack
Speaker 1: message through I message. As long as you had the
Speaker 1: target phone's phone number, you could do this, and just
Speaker 1: by receiving the message that would be enough to be
Speaker 1: able to exploit this vulnerability and install the malware on
Speaker 1: the phone, so the user didn't have to do anything,
Speaker 1: They didn't have to open the message, they didn't have
Speaker 1: to download something or activate something. It just would happen.
Speaker 1: Like in those cases, you know it, there's nothing user
Speaker 1: behavior that you can do to avoid it again, unless
Speaker 1: you're talking about just getting rid of tech. So uh yeah,
Speaker 1: scary world. Next year, South Korea will lean on SpaceX
Speaker 1: to launch the country's first ever spy satellite. Further, South
Speaker 1: Korea announces it intends to have five such satellites in
Speaker 1: service by the end of Traditionally, South Korea has had
Speaker 1: to rely upon allies like the United States to provide
Speaker 1: satellite intelligence to South Korean officials. The country is also
Speaker 1: pursuing the development of its own launch vehicle system. A
Speaker 1: test launch late last year saw the country's solid fuel
Speaker 1: rocket designed lift off successfully. So it has successful takeoff,
Speaker 1: but it failed to get into lower orbit. It wasn't
Speaker 1: able to put its payload into lower thorbit and fell
Speaker 1: back to Earth. The payload in that case was a
Speaker 1: dummy satellite. It was not an actual working satellite, which
Speaker 1: is a good thing, you know, because the mission did
Speaker 1: fall short. But the country has its sites set on
Speaker 1: being another space power on Earth and could potentially end
Speaker 1: up supplying very useful intelligence to its allies in that
Speaker 1: particular part of the world. Like when you think about
Speaker 1: North Korea, China, Russia, Uh, you know, South Korea having
Speaker 1: those capabilities would be a huge strategic benefit to its allies.
Speaker 1: Comedian and last Week Tonight host John Oliver send a
Speaker 1: message to US Congress, namely that the government needs to
Speaker 1: step up when it comes to protecting citizens against predatory
Speaker 1: data practices. Oliver pointed out that senior citizens are frequently
Speaker 1: the target of insidious data tracking campaigns and that those,
Speaker 1: in turn can lead to even greater exploitation. Right like,
Speaker 1: step one, get all the information you can about someone.
Speaker 1: Step to exploit that information, and in turn that person
Speaker 1: happens all the time. And so Oliver, presumably in an
Speaker 1: effort to really drive home how sensitive the issue can be,
Speaker 1: hired some data brokers to scrape information in and around
Speaker 1: the Washington, d C. Area, And he gave the data
Speaker 1: broker's criteria that would most likely lump in politicians. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, like he specifically crafted his request to
Speaker 1: target people who would potentially also be politicians so instead
Speaker 1: of saying like, can you target politicians, would be like,
Speaker 1: can you target people within this particular age range and
Speaker 1: these other demographics, and knowing that that happens to cover
Speaker 1: most of Congress. Uh. He has indicated that the data
Speaker 1: that the company's provided him were interesting, that they gave
Speaker 1: insights onto how various politicians are using the Internet, as
Speaker 1: well as their search history, which you know, certainly sounds
Speaker 1: like there could be something salacious going on there. And
Speaker 1: his message to the government is that they might want
Speaker 1: to take some steps to protect people in general from
Speaker 1: you know, having their data leve bridget and exploited in
Speaker 1: this way and preventing people from just gobbling up information
Speaker 1: and then making use of that information in various ways.
Speaker 1: The implication here is that if the government does not,
Speaker 1: you know, swing into action on this and address the
Speaker 1: very long standing problem that Oliver might do something with
Speaker 1: that data. Who's to say what he could do with it.
Speaker 1: And his whole point is that he could totally use
Speaker 1: the data because there's just this lack of laws protecting U.
Speaker 1: S citizens from just that. That's his whole point. He's saying.
Speaker 1: It's not that he wants to use the data to
Speaker 1: embarrass someone or compromise someone, but rather he could because
Speaker 1: there aren't any laws preventing that from happening. And it's
Speaker 1: not like Congress could just say don't you dare, because
Speaker 1: you know, without legislation, there's nothing to enforce. And so
Speaker 1: Oliver saying, hey, this is something people have needed for
Speaker 1: a really long time. Now you're one of those people
Speaker 1: who need it, so can we get it please. It's
Speaker 1: really an interesting move. The weather it amounts to anything
Speaker 1: remains to be seen. I tend to get a little
Speaker 1: cynical when it comes to political action and technology. We
Speaker 1: often see that politics moves at a pace that is
Speaker 1: much slower than tech. Then this brings us into problems
Speaker 1: over and over again. It's why we will frequently have
Speaker 1: these giant bills that try to address tons and tons
Speaker 1: of stuff that piled up over the years. And even
Speaker 1: while we're debating that and getting that all hashed out,
Speaker 1: technology continues to change. So even by the time you
Speaker 1: pass that legislation, there at least some points that are
Speaker 1: no longer relevant. Uh this is not news, I mean,
Speaker 1: it happens all the time. But yeah, very interesting that
Speaker 1: Oliver made this point. Obviously, as a history of doing
Speaker 1: some very biting social commentary on all sorts of different topics,
Speaker 1: and this one about protecting senior citizens. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to get behind him, because there is
Speaker 1: no question that there are plenty of organizations and companies
Speaker 1: out there that prey upon senior citizens in particular and
Speaker 1: leverage these kinds of uh data collection agencies in order
Speaker 1: to be as effective as possible. Not great, So, I again,
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical that will see anything kind of really actionable
Speaker 1: happen due to this, But it would be nice to see.
Speaker 1: Not because I have not because I think that Congress
Speaker 1: is going to be scared of it. But my hope
Speaker 1: is that it's a way of really just shaking home
Speaker 1: this idea that millions of people lack that basic protection
Speaker 1: and they could really use it. All Right, we've got
Speaker 1: a few more stories to go before we get to those.
Speaker 1: Let's take another quick break. Hackers have targeted thousands of
Speaker 1: sites running on the word press, Us and Jumla hosting services.
Speaker 1: I want to be clear here, I don't think that
Speaker 1: this is necessarily, uh the fault of WordPress or Jumla.
Speaker 1: I don't want to give that impression, uh that while
Speaker 1: these sites all seem to have that in common. That
Speaker 1: does not mean that WordPress and or jumla is inherently bad. Rather,
Speaker 1: it just looks like the hackers were able to compromise
Speaker 1: numerous sites on these platforms, and that the one thing
Speaker 1: that these had in common, besides the fact that they
Speaker 1: were on these two big publication platforms, is that whomever
Speaker 1: was making those sites were they were using really bad passwords,
Speaker 1: just very weak passwords. And um, I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: the hackers used a classic dictionary attack, it sounds to
Speaker 1: me like that's possibly what they did. Uh. In a
Speaker 1: dictionary attack, hackers use essentially a digital document that just
Speaker 1: contains tens of thousands of common passwords. So when we
Speaker 1: say dictionary, you might think, oh, like a like an
Speaker 1: actual diction neary where it's just every word the English language. Well,
Speaker 1: it can be that, but it's usually also lots of
Speaker 1: common passwords that people have used that like, there are
Speaker 1: a bunch of that people just use all the time,
Speaker 1: like one two three four five or password one two
Speaker 1: three four, that kind of stuff. So these dictionaries typically
Speaker 1: have those kinds of phrases and words in them, and
Speaker 1: then they use that to brute force their way into
Speaker 1: various accounts, and that seems to be at least to
Speaker 1: me what has happened in this case, although um again
Speaker 1: I didn't get confirmation on that, so I could be wrong.
Speaker 1: Once the hackers did get access to these sites, they
Speaker 1: began to insert malware into the sites in an attempt
Speaker 1: to lure visitors into installing that malware on their own devices.
Speaker 1: So the malware would send a message to users that
Speaker 1: would claim that they would need to know update their browser,
Speaker 1: for example, in order to view the content on the
Speaker 1: page due to a recent change in the site. But
Speaker 1: of course it wasn't a browser update at all. It
Speaker 1: was rather a way to convince people to install malicious
Speaker 1: code on their devices so that they would download this
Speaker 1: trojan malware that would then infect their computer. So with
Speaker 1: that in mind, I want to give a double message
Speaker 1: out there for all of you listening to this show. First,
Speaker 1: always be supremely suspicious about any request to upgrade or
Speaker 1: update or download something to your device. If it's not
Speaker 1: coming from your typical you know, um OS company or
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, you need to be triple sure
Speaker 1: that those requests are coming from a trustworthy source like
Speaker 1: it is important to keep things like operating systems and
Speaker 1: browsers up to date because updates can often address vulnerabilities
Speaker 1: and close off pathways for hackers to get access to systems.
Speaker 1: So you are so spposed to keep updating, but you
Speaker 1: want to make sure that those messages are coming from
Speaker 1: the actual official source, not through some third party, because
Speaker 1: that's a red flag that something hainky is going on.
Speaker 1: And then for all the web administrators out there who
Speaker 1: use platforms like WordPress and joom La, for goodness sakes,
Speaker 1: use strong passwords, a unique, strong password to protect your
Speaker 1: your resource. I mean for a lot of these these people,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that those websites are critical to some part
Speaker 1: of their mission, whether it's a company thing or a
Speaker 1: personal thing. So use a strong, unique password, and whenever possible,
Speaker 1: use two factor authentication. These practices will eliminate the vast
Speaker 1: majority of attempts to compromise your site. And you know,
Speaker 1: we've got to keep in mind that premature to call
Speaker 1: any system bulletproof. But yeah, if you want to take
Speaker 1: some basic precautions, then you remove yourself from nearly every
Speaker 1: tard a pool out there, because hackers are going to
Speaker 1: go for the low hanging fruit. If you make sure
Speaker 1: that you even have just just the moderate security practices
Speaker 1: in place, you eliminate like of attacks just by doing that.
Speaker 1: So do it. A driverless car in San Francisco went
Speaker 1: on the run from the cops. Sort of, not really,
Speaker 1: but it's fun to say so. A company called Cruise
Speaker 1: has got these driverless vehicles in San Francisco, and one
Speaker 1: of its vehicles, which had no one in it at all,
Speaker 1: was roaming the streets of San Francisco when a cop
Speaker 1: car pulled up behind it to pull it over. And
Speaker 1: it turns out this autonomous vehicle didn't have its lights on.
Speaker 1: It was after dark and the cars lights weren't on.
Speaker 1: So the car came to a stop at an intersection,
Speaker 1: at which point a cop got out in order to
Speaker 1: talk to the driver of the vehicle. But there was
Speaker 1: no driver of the vehicle. There was no one in
Speaker 1: the car. And there's actually a video of this. A
Speaker 1: bystander took video of it. The cop tried the door,
Speaker 1: but the door must have been locked, and then the
Speaker 1: cop turns back to their own squad car, and from
Speaker 1: that perspective of the bystander, uh, the light at the
Speaker 1: intersection changed and the autonomous car just kind of drove away.
Speaker 1: So like the feeling I got, and I might have
Speaker 1: just seen a short clip of this video, but the
Speaker 1: video I saw hit like the cars like CIA and
Speaker 1: just ditches the cops. That is not what happened. And
Speaker 1: it turns out that the cruise vehicle cleared the intersection
Speaker 1: because that's what's supposed to do in order to make
Speaker 1: sure that traffic is safe, then pulled over out of
Speaker 1: the way to allow the cops to come up to
Speaker 1: the car, and the cops contacted the company explained what
Speaker 1: had happened, that the car didn't have its lights on. Uh.
Speaker 1: The company rep explained that this was due to human error,
Speaker 1: it was not the car's fault. They addressed it. They
Speaker 1: essentially turned on the lights, and the cops did not
Speaker 1: choose to issue a citage in the matter. Uh. So
Speaker 1: it is kind of funny. I mean that a lot
Speaker 1: of people have made jokes about it. It's made the
Speaker 1: rounds on Twitter. But it also reminds us that there
Speaker 1: are still several questions that we haven't really officially answered
Speaker 1: yet when it comes to accountability and autonomous systems. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this particular case is kind of like quirky and fun,
Speaker 1: but it does. It does really drive home, no pun
Speaker 1: intended that we need to think about these things and
Speaker 1: make sure that there are sufficient laws in place so
Speaker 1: that when something happens where you know, you would typically
Speaker 1: cite a driver, for example, for failing to do something,
Speaker 1: that there's an actual legal process to follow to make
Speaker 1: sure that accountability still is maintained and that we don't
Speaker 1: just have you know, untouchable driverless cars out there that
Speaker 1: are above the law. That's that's just that's just one
Speaker 1: pathway to the eventual robot uprising. We all know that.
Speaker 1: And finally, I'm sure the parents among you out there
Speaker 1: know the kind of struggle there is to trying to
Speaker 1: limit kids screen time because, on the one hand, sometimes
Speaker 1: you just need to get stuff done or just a
Speaker 1: moment's peace, and a distraction is exactly how you need
Speaker 1: to do it, you know, giving giving the kid a
Speaker 1: tablet with a video on it or a simple game
Speaker 1: that just might give you a chance to recapture your sanity. Now,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, obviously you don't want your kids
Speaker 1: to become glued to a screen and develop a lifelong
Speaker 1: habit of doing so that could end up being really
Speaker 1: destructive for a child. So it turns out that human
Speaker 1: parents aren't the only ones worried about this um or
Speaker 1: at least parents of human children aren't the only ones
Speaker 1: worried about this because in the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago,
Speaker 1: zookeepers are going through a similar struggle with m R.
Speaker 1: A A a gorilla. This gorilla as a teenager, and
Speaker 1: this teenage guerrilla has become fascinated with smartphones. Now Amari
Speaker 1: is not allowed to have uh their own smartphone, but um,
Speaker 1: but the gorilla does eagerly check out smartphones when visitors
Speaker 1: show them off through the glass window of his enclosure.
Speaker 1: He's particularly fond of hanging out next to the window.
Speaker 1: That's like his favorite spot, and people would hold up
Speaker 1: pictures like they might take a picture of him, and
Speaker 1: then hold it up, and he was really interested. It
Speaker 1: was shiny and interesting to him, and so he would
Speaker 1: really stare at it, and that would encourage other people
Speaker 1: to show their phones to him, and he would pay
Speaker 1: attention to those and ultimately started to get really fixated
Speaker 1: kind of on these screens, to the point where apparently
Speaker 1: he didn't even notice when another young gorilla practiced certain
Speaker 1: social behaviors such as a demonstration of aggression, which is
Speaker 1: a way that you know, gorillas used to kind of
Speaker 1: figure out their pecking order within a social group. Um
Speaker 1: And because he wasn't noticing, he wasn't engaging this behavior
Speaker 1: that could potentially, with enough time, lead to problems down
Speaker 1: the road. Now we're not at that phase yet, but
Speaker 1: zookeepers were concerned. They wanted to make sure that everyone
Speaker 1: was able to enjoy being able to see m R. A,
Speaker 1: that Amory was still having a positive experience in his enclosure,
Speaker 1: but also to limit this behavior of showing off these
Speaker 1: the smartphones to the gorilla. So now they have put
Speaker 1: up a rope that's a small distance away from the
Speaker 1: window in an effort to discourage people from holding up
Speaker 1: their phones and distracting the gorilla. Then, you know, just
Speaker 1: kind of kind of letting people know, hey, let's let's
Speaker 1: enjoy this, but let's not don't don't create distractions because
Speaker 1: potentially that could be harmful to the animal. And UM,
Speaker 1: hopefully they will take that into consideration and take it
Speaker 1: to heart because certainly we we wouldn't want to see
Speaker 1: an animal come to harm because of this. I'm actually
Speaker 1: reminded of a gorilla that lived at the Atlanta Zoo.
Speaker 1: So you know, sit down, I'm gonna tell you all
Speaker 1: the story. Many many years ago. Um, there was a
Speaker 1: gorilla at the Atlanta Zoo named Willie Be. This gorilla
Speaker 1: was named after former Atlanta Mayor William B. Hartsfield, also
Speaker 1: known for giving the Atlanta airport it's name, Hartsfield International Airport. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: Willie Be the gorilla was back when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: lived in a small like concrete enclosure. It was, you know,
Speaker 1: the old school, nineteen seventies era zoo enclosures, back before
Speaker 1: a lot of zoos had really moved beyond that and
Speaker 1: created large enclosures for animals to wander around. So Willie
Speaker 1: Be was in a fairly small like a cell essentially,
Speaker 1: and had a tire swing and an old TV in
Speaker 1: there and would just watch television. And it was really sad.
Speaker 1: And eventually the Atlanta Zoo expanded dramatically and created a
Speaker 1: much better outdoor enclosure for Willie B. Took him a
Speaker 1: while to get used to it. He was so used
Speaker 1: to being in his concrete enclosure that it took him
Speaker 1: a little while to get used to being outside. But
Speaker 1: once he did. Uh, he was able to acclimate to it.
Speaker 1: He eventually ended up being introduced to other guerrillas. He
Speaker 1: became a father. Uh. He was a beloved, beloved representative
Speaker 1: of the of the zoo. Passed away back in two thousand.
Speaker 1: He was forty two years old when he passed away.
Speaker 1: So uh, when I think of the story about him,
Speaker 1: are a I think back to Willie B. And I
Speaker 1: think back to how Willie B was. You know, he
Speaker 1: was in an indoor environment till he was almost thirty,
Speaker 1: I want to say, and and and just seeing clearly
Speaker 1: this quality of life increased so much once they got
Speaker 1: him away from that. Uh. It's it's what kind of
Speaker 1: Ryan drives at home for me with this story. So
Speaker 1: again it becomes one of those that's a little cute
Speaker 1: on the surface, but um, I feel pretty strongly about
Speaker 1: it when you really get down to it. Anyway. That
Speaker 1: is the news for Tuesday, April twelve, two thousand twenty two.
Speaker 1: If you have suggestions for topics I should cover on
Speaker 1: future episodes of Tech Stuff, please reach out to me
Speaker 1: and let me know. The handle for the show on
Speaker 1: Twitter is text stuff hs W and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I heart
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