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 is time for
Speaker 1: the tech news for Thursday, January twenty Twin D two,
Speaker 1: the Journal of Public Health recently posted a study that
Speaker 1: shows anti vaccination groups on Facebook we're sewing the seeds
Speaker 1: of mistrust regarding COVID Night teen and COVID Night Team
Speaker 1: vaccines before there was even an organized vaccine development program
Speaker 1: from the United States government. According to the study, the
Speaker 1: groups were circulating misinformation about COVID nineteen and vaccines for
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen as early as February twenty twenty. And heck,
Speaker 1: that's before we started seeing lockdowns in various cities around
Speaker 1: the world and in the United States. I was still
Speaker 1: on vacation in February at the point where these stories
Speaker 1: were starting to circulate, and in fact, I was starting
Speaker 1: to wonder if I would ever get back home. But um,
Speaker 1: but I did. Anyway. The researchers identified the anti vax
Speaker 1: groups that were most active on Facebook at that time,
Speaker 1: and they have some pretty remarkable names. You know, names
Speaker 1: like National Vaccine Information Center, which makes it sound like
Speaker 1: it's some sort of official agency that focuses on vaccines,
Speaker 1: but in fact, it was a disinformation campaign designed to
Speaker 1: promote conspiracy theories and anti vaxx messaging and undermine confidence
Speaker 1: in vaccinations in general. Two of the other four anti
Speaker 1: vax groups that the research report named have similar names
Speaker 1: to that. One is a Vaccination Information Network and the
Speaker 1: other is Vaccine Machine. And the four groups that the
Speaker 1: researchers identified had posted around two thousand sixty times on
Speaker 1: Facebook from February twenty to May, and about half of
Speaker 1: those posts mentioned COVID nineteen. Uh, presumably the other half
Speaker 1: were just kind of more generally anti vacs. The study
Speaker 1: really pulls back the curtain on some important things. One
Speaker 1: is that misinformation campaigns really got the jump on US
Speaker 1: public health officials. Uh. Those deceptive posts came out well
Speaker 1: before we started getting you know, reliable information from organizations
Speaker 1: like the c d C, for example. Another is that
Speaker 1: this is yet more proof of how Facebook facilitates the
Speaker 1: spread of harmful information. I'm not saying that the platform
Speaker 1: creates harmful information, but definitely facilitates the spread of it,
Speaker 1: and I know I'm beating a dead horse here. I
Speaker 1: know I've talked about this countless times, but Facebook's entire
Speaker 1: business model depends upon people spreading and engaging with content
Speaker 1: on face Book. I mean that engagement is a commodity
Speaker 1: that Facebook sells to advertisers, so it financially benefits Facebook
Speaker 1: when these things happen, and it was really only after
Speaker 1: massive pressure that the company indicated it would do anything
Speaker 1: about it. In fact, that's what a lot of those
Speaker 1: internal papers that Francis Hogan leaked to the authorities and
Speaker 1: pressed indicated that when there were voices inside Facebook that
Speaker 1: we're warning about stuff like misinformation campaigns, they were often
Speaker 1: ignored or silenced. Anyway. The study is titled Faster than
Speaker 1: warp Speed Early attention to COVID nineteen by anti vaccine
Speaker 1: groups on Facebook. Warp Speed is a reference not to
Speaker 1: star Trek, although I mean indirectly yes, but more directly
Speaker 1: to the United States government's uh project to fast track
Speaker 1: vaccine development for COVID nineteen. The big news and activision
Speaker 1: blizzard this month has mostly been about how Microsoft announced
Speaker 1: it was going to acquire the company by the end
Speaker 1: of fiscal year twenty twenty three, assuming regulatory bodies around
Speaker 1: the world don't throw the deal off track. But there's
Speaker 1: more going on at that company than a big acquisition.
Speaker 1: Employees at Raven Software, which is a division within Activision Blizzard,
Speaker 1: have formed a union. Specifically, the employees I'm talking about
Speaker 1: our thirty four quality assurance or q A testers within
Speaker 1: Raven Software. They are the ones who have unionized. Now.
Speaker 1: Part of the unionization process, which I've actually seen firsthand
Speaker 1: now involves the union potentially reaching out to the company
Speaker 1: and asking that the company formally recognized the union, like
Speaker 1: essentially saying, hey, we have a threshold of employees who
Speaker 1: want to unionize. Uh. And here's maybe some union cards
Speaker 1: that people have signed that we were hoping that you
Speaker 1: will recognize this as a union uh. And and this
Speaker 1: can go a couple of ways. The company can choose
Speaker 1: to voluntarily recognize the union uh, and that process isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily straightforward. There's usually some back and forth between the
Speaker 1: company and the union organizers to determine who's actually covered
Speaker 1: by the union, etcetera. Or a company can choose to
Speaker 1: not voluntarily recognize the union, and that's the way Activision
Speaker 1: Blizzard chose. So now those QA testers at Raven are
Speaker 1: going to have to file with the National Labor Relations
Speaker 1: Board are in l RB in order to get permission
Speaker 1: to hold a union election. So the election is a
Speaker 1: more formal process. And ultimately what does is if the
Speaker 1: election passes, If if a majority of employees vote in
Speaker 1: favor of a union, that serves as evidence that they
Speaker 1: do in fact want to unionize. And should the election pass,
Speaker 1: then the n l r B will certify the union,
Speaker 1: and that means that companies are going to have to
Speaker 1: deal with union representatives for the purposes of collective bargaining
Speaker 1: for things like compensation and benefits and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Raven released a statement expressing disappointment that Activision Blizzard did
Speaker 1: not voluntarily recognize their union, but expressed confidence that the
Speaker 1: outcome will still be the same, that in fact, the
Speaker 1: election will show that the employees wish to unionize. As
Speaker 1: for what this means when Microsoft takes control of Activision Blizzard,
Speaker 1: assuming that deal goes through well, Microsoft is also not
Speaker 1: known for being super enthusiastic about unionization. It's a kind
Speaker 1: way of putting it, but anyway, I just want to
Speaker 1: say I stand with the q A testers at Raven
Speaker 1: you know, solidarity. Speaking of unions, organizers at Amazon's JFK
Speaker 1: eight fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York have reached
Speaker 1: the number of signatures they need in order to hold
Speaker 1: a union election vote. The group A previously attempted this
Speaker 1: last year, but they did not get enough signatures to
Speaker 1: merit a vote on whether or not to form a union.
Speaker 1: Organizers need to secure the signatures of thirty percent of
Speaker 1: the overall workforce that express interest in doing so. Unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: Amazon representatives have protested this whole move, and they question
Speaker 1: if the signatures that have been gathered are even legitimate.
Speaker 1: They argue that the previous attempt from last year shows
Speaker 1: that workers at the fulfillment center are not interested in organizing,
Speaker 1: and that besides, you know, quote, our employees have always
Speaker 1: had a choice of whether or not to join a union.
Speaker 1: End quote. Now part of my skepticism here, But Amazon
Speaker 1: is also the company that got a slap on the
Speaker 1: wrist in the wake of a different union vote, one
Speaker 1: that took place at a fulfillment center in Alabama. And
Speaker 1: in that case in which employees voted against forming a union,
Speaker 1: and Amazon was you know, really happy about that. The
Speaker 1: organizers alleged that Amazon reps had interfered with the election process.
Speaker 1: That action was sustained by the National Labor Relations Board
Speaker 1: and they are n l RB authorized a new vote,
Speaker 1: and that new vote has not yet happened. But essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, Amazon has a history that seems to indicate
Speaker 1: that the company is very keen on discouraging unionization. And
Speaker 1: on a related note, Amazon made headlines last year when
Speaker 1: journalists reported that the company had launched an influence campaign
Speaker 1: to make Amazon seemed like a super awesome place to
Speaker 1: work and perhaps maybe as part of that too, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of discourage dangerous ideas like unionization. Essentially, the story
Speaker 1: was that Amazon was paying employees to post on social
Speaker 1: media about how much they lived working at Amazon, and specifically,
Speaker 1: folks at warehouses and fulfillment centers were encouraged monetarily, that is,
Speaker 1: paid to post positive stories about their work experience. This
Speaker 1: program began in two thousand eighteen, during a time when
Speaker 1: folks were kind of scrutinizing Amazon's working conditions, which were
Speaker 1: reported to range from not so great to degrading and inhumane. Like,
Speaker 1: some of the stories were pretty awful. I mean, if
Speaker 1: my employer set performance targets for me that I could
Speaker 1: only meet if I were to pee in a bottle
Speaker 1: rather than take a bathroom break whenever I needed to go.
Speaker 1: I would call that dehumanizing. And I work from home,
Speaker 1: not in a warehouse, and yeah, that's the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that was being reported out of Amazon Fulfillment centers now.
Speaker 1: The program of promoting Amazon as a great place to
Speaker 1: work consisted of more than fifty online accounts on Twitter,
Speaker 1: all using the appended title of Amazon FC Ambassador, and
Speaker 1: many of them using similar or sometimes identical content inside
Speaker 1: their posts, all of which position to Amazon is a
Speaker 1: hunky dory kind of place to work, almost like Willy
Speaker 1: Wonka's chocolate factory. The strategy did not work. Folks called
Speaker 1: it out right away, and it now appears that Amazon
Speaker 1: has completely scrapped the program by the end of last
Speaker 1: year and then got to work essentially wiping away any
Speaker 1: trace that it was ever a thing. On a related
Speaker 1: note and a peek behind the scenes, I recently went
Speaker 1: through some f c C and f TC training here
Speaker 1: at work at I Heart, and that includes learning about
Speaker 1: how the FTC and the FCC set out rules regarding
Speaker 1: things like sponsored posts and and ads like content creators
Speaker 1: were obligated to indicate when something is an ad or
Speaker 1: a sponsored piece of content. We are not supposed to
Speaker 1: pass it off as if it's our genuine thoughts, if
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have done that otherwise. And you've probably seen
Speaker 1: this in online places like YouTube and Instagram and that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, where you're supposed to make it it's
Speaker 1: explicitly clear if the content you're presenting is sponsored or
Speaker 1: is an outright advertisement. Now I would not be surprised
Speaker 1: of Eventually we see similar rules applied to companies that
Speaker 1: are not directly associated with content creation, because what Amazon
Speaker 1: did would be against the rules if it were to
Speaker 1: happen on say a podcast or a radio show or
Speaker 1: television show or online videos. So, in other words, if
Speaker 1: I had done something similar to what was going on
Speaker 1: at Amazon with this promotional program, and I did not
Speaker 1: explicitly make it clear that this was a sponsored message
Speaker 1: I was sending out, I could be reliable. I could
Speaker 1: be fined an enormous amount of money, or my company
Speaker 1: could be fined an enormous amount of money. And I'm
Speaker 1: guessing that we will probably see a point where companies
Speaker 1: in general will be held to that where they are
Speaker 1: not allowed to run these kinds of campaigns without it
Speaker 1: potentially resulting in fines. I wouldn't be surprised to see that.
Speaker 1: And our last Amazon story for this episode is about
Speaker 1: the Companies Sold by Amazon program. In that program, Amazon
Speaker 1: partnered with third party vendors and then would promote and
Speaker 1: sell products from those vendors would be sold by Amazon label.
Speaker 1: So uh, the vendors would enter into an agreement with Amazon,
Speaker 1: and that agreement would include a minimum payment rate for
Speaker 1: stuff sold on Amazon, and then if sales went above
Speaker 1: that minimum, then Amazon would start taking a cut of
Speaker 1: the revenue. But the Attorney General for the state of
Speaker 1: Washington launched an investigation into Amazon and concluded that this
Speaker 1: practice was anti competitive and included illegal price fixing, and
Speaker 1: that the program was meant to push Amazon sales numbers
Speaker 1: up at the expense of independent third party vendors on
Speaker 1: the platform. Amazon subsequently discontinued the program and will pay
Speaker 1: a fee of more than two million dollars to the
Speaker 1: office of the Attorney General, and reportedly that fine will
Speaker 1: go to fund more anti trust enforcement efforts. We've got
Speaker 1: a lot more stories to cover, but before we get
Speaker 1: to that, let's take a quick break. Okay, we just
Speaker 1: came back from ads and LG announced to advertising companies
Speaker 1: this week that it would offer guaranteed outcome AD services
Speaker 1: through its connected televisions. So once you start cutting through
Speaker 1: the marketing speak, it appears that this really indicates the
Speaker 1: LG is going to offer up stuff like targeted advertising
Speaker 1: capabilities through its smart TVs. So if you buy an
Speaker 1: LG television, then you should expect more targeted ads to
Speaker 1: come through. Ads on smart televisions are not a new thing.
Speaker 1: If you have a smart TV, you're probably familiar with this.
Speaker 1: A lot of smart TVs will display an AD on
Speaker 1: say the home screen for the television or within certain menus.
Speaker 1: But LG has been particularly aggressive with ads and now
Speaker 1: is looking to step up into that targeted ad game.
Speaker 1: And according to digit A, LG will quote promise brands
Speaker 1: that their CTV that stands for a connected television video
Speaker 1: ads running on LG smart TVs meet campaign goals across
Speaker 1: multiple kpi s. KPI stands for a key performance indicators
Speaker 1: such as video completion rates. Buyers only pay if videos
Speaker 1: are played in their entirety, demographic targets, reach and frequency
Speaker 1: goals etcetera. Conversion metrics for mobile are also offered, but
Speaker 1: elements including tune in web visits, physical location visits, etcetera,
Speaker 1: won't be available for another few months end quote. And
Speaker 1: that starts to sound a bit scary to me. I
Speaker 1: mean from that, I infer that eventually LG connected televisions
Speaker 1: are going to share information with your smartphone, including any
Speaker 1: location tracking that your phone uses, and share that information
Speaker 1: with advertisers. So that let's say that you've got a
Speaker 1: company that advertises mattresses and that company then sees that
Speaker 1: the targeted customers are actually visiting brick and mortar stores
Speaker 1: that the company operates. Because the LG smart TV is
Speaker 1: sharing that location data between apps on the smartphone, the television,
Speaker 1: and the whole advertising campaign in the first place, starts
Speaker 1: to get a little invasive. Also, if we're talking targeted
Speaker 1: advertising that takes into account stuff like your browsing habits
Speaker 1: that you know it's connected to an account that is
Speaker 1: living on, say your computer or your smartphone, a lot
Speaker 1: of other red flags pop up For me. It could
Speaker 1: be a really big privacy issue. Just imagine for a
Speaker 1: second that you're living in an apartment with a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of roommates, and you might happen to own an
Speaker 1: LG smart TV and you offer to have that be
Speaker 1: the communal television in the living room space. So you're
Speaker 1: living room TV is your smart LG TV. If that
Speaker 1: television is connected to some sort of account on your
Speaker 1: smartphone or laptop, it's possible that the ads that end
Speaker 1: up being displayed are revealing information that you really didn't
Speaker 1: want to share with your roommates. Maybe it's like medical
Speaker 1: information or something. And that's just one hypothetical situation. I
Speaker 1: can imagine where this is not a good thing, but
Speaker 1: we'll have to see how it plays out. Today is
Speaker 1: Holocaust Remembrance Day. It's the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz,
Speaker 1: and today is also when the TikTok platform will begin
Speaker 1: promoting a website called about Holocaust dot org. The World
Speaker 1: Jewish Congress and UNESCO created that site to educate people
Speaker 1: about the Holocaust and to fight back against misinformation and
Speaker 1: denial campaigns, which unfortunately proliferate across the internet. Advocacy groups
Speaker 1: have long complained that TikTok was not taking enough action
Speaker 1: to curtail anti Semitic messaging on the platform, and Holocaust
Speaker 1: denial in videos as well. In addition, several Jewish TikTok
Speaker 1: creators have reported being the target of abuse. Sometimes they've
Speaker 1: had their content mistakenly flagged or removed with no justification.
Speaker 1: And according to see net, there have been some trends
Speaker 1: on TikTok that I'm not even going to describe here
Speaker 1: because I find them deeply upsetting and very sad. But
Speaker 1: I will say they are trends that minimize or even
Speaker 1: celebrate the Holocaust, which is it turns my stomach now.
Speaker 1: I think TikTok is taking the right actions to try
Speaker 1: and push back against these trends on its platform and
Speaker 1: to make sure that people visiting TikTok have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to learn from reputable sources about the Holocaust and not
Speaker 1: allow misinformation to run unchecked. Of course, it will remain
Speaker 1: to be seen about whether or not these efforts are effective.
Speaker 1: Do you remember way back in November two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: when Tesla unveiled its design for the cyber truck. The
Speaker 1: reaction to that unveiling was, I'll be kind, I'll say
Speaker 1: it was mixed. Maybe part of that is because during
Speaker 1: a demonstration to show how unbreakable. The truck's windows were
Speaker 1: the windows broke? What sie? It also has a pretty
Speaker 1: funky design, do it like? Some people just absolutely hated it.
Speaker 1: A few people thought it was weird but kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting, but not It doesn't look practical
Speaker 1: to me, But what do I know. I don't drive anyway. Um,
Speaker 1: and we got reports late last year that an updated
Speaker 1: design of the cyber truck was spotted driving around test
Speaker 1: tracks in Fremont. Well, the cyber truck was supposed to
Speaker 1: come out by the end of this year. Actually, I
Speaker 1: think they were supposed to start shipping late last year.
Speaker 1: That didn't happen, and now it looks like it's not
Speaker 1: gonna happen this year either, because in an earnings call yesterday,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk revealed that the production of the truck has
Speaker 1: been delayed until twenty three. He also said that the
Speaker 1: company would not be introducing any new models this year,
Speaker 1: and he also dismissed the idea that Tesla would pursue
Speaker 1: producing a low cost vehicle in the near future. He
Speaker 1: said there were no plans to design a twenty five
Speaker 1: dollar car, and he essentially said that the company doesn't
Speaker 1: really need to make a low cost car, at least
Speaker 1: not yet, because they'll end up selling every car they're
Speaker 1: able to produce. Now, you could interpret that as being boastful, right,
Speaker 1: Let's say like, oh, we don't need to have a
Speaker 1: budget car in our lineup. We don't. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what we charge, We're gonna sell every single car off
Speaker 1: the line, which is kind of how Musk said it.
Speaker 1: I guess, so we wouldn't be unfair to frame it
Speaker 1: that way. However, I don't really think of it as boasting.
Speaker 1: I think of it more as an indication that Tesla
Speaker 1: doesn't produce nearly as many vehicles as some of its
Speaker 1: competitors do. For example, in one Tesla said that it
Speaker 1: delivered nine thirty six thousand vehicles, so below one million,
Speaker 1: but ninety six thousand. Toyota meanwhile produced seven point six
Speaker 1: million vehicles at the end of their last fiscal year,
Speaker 1: which was at the end of last March. So if
Speaker 1: you're looking at that level of scale, to me, it
Speaker 1: makes sense that that Tesla is not focusing on low
Speaker 1: cost vehicles yet because it has not reached a scale
Speaker 1: of production where it would merit. The move to making
Speaker 1: low cost vehicles in fact, it might not even be
Speaker 1: financially feasible to make low cost vehicles right now because
Speaker 1: of those issues of the scale of production. Now as
Speaker 1: Tesla grows, that can very much change. But I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of what Well, that was my interpretation of
Speaker 1: what Elon Musk was getting at. I could be totally
Speaker 1: off base. Now here's a question. If a self driving
Speaker 1: vehicle gets into an accident, whom do you find at fault?
Speaker 1: Is it the car's owner, was it the person who
Speaker 1: was in the vehicle? Was it the car maker? Well,
Speaker 1: the Law Commission of England and Wales as well as
Speaker 1: the Scottish Law Commission released a joint report that suggests
Speaker 1: people who are you know, in an autonomous vehicle should
Speaker 1: not be held responsible for road safety issues. Instead, the
Speaker 1: car maker should be held accountable for any road safety
Speaker 1: issues that that occur because of that car. And this
Speaker 1: has been one of those areas of debate as engineers
Speaker 1: get closer to producing what we might actually call a
Speaker 1: truly autonomous vehicle. But the commissions also point out quite
Speaker 1: correctly that there is massive confusion among the general public
Speaker 1: as to what is and what is not a truly
Speaker 1: self driving car. And we were just talking about Tesla,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to use them as an example of
Speaker 1: how the public can get confused. Tesla refers to its
Speaker 1: you know, basic driver assist suite of features as auto pilot,
Speaker 1: and I would argue that sets an expectation that isn't
Speaker 1: very realistic because the word autopilot seems to suggest, at
Speaker 1: least to me, that the driver doesn't have to worry
Speaker 1: about anything because the car is an autopilot. But arguably
Speaker 1: worse than that, the company has uh the full self
Speaker 1: driving mode, which is in beta. It's not a full
Speaker 1: release yet, but I would say that's not really a
Speaker 1: full self driving mode. Even though it's called full self driving.
Speaker 1: I would say it's not full self driving. You still
Speaker 1: have to have an owner prepared to intervene and to
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to take your hands off the wheel,
Speaker 1: You're supposed to maintain your attention. That to me does
Speaker 1: not mean full self driving. So there's no wonder that
Speaker 1: the average person might have an unrealistic expectation as to
Speaker 1: what a self driving car can and cannot do. Anyway,
Speaker 1: should the UK adopt the recommendations these commissions have suggested
Speaker 1: and hold car makers accountable for any accidents that happened
Speaker 1: with their their vehicles. We could see a precedent set
Speaker 1: in which governments around the world agree that car makers
Speaker 1: are the responsible ones if self driving vehicles get into accidents. Now, personally,
Speaker 1: I think that's the most reasonable approach. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: you can even get more granular than that, if you
Speaker 1: want to argue that the department in charge of whatever
Speaker 1: part of the the self driving system was at fault
Speaker 1: really takes the blame. But I think that the car
Speaker 1: maker is the one that makes the most sense. And
Speaker 1: I think when we start talking about stuff like insurance,
Speaker 1: that's going to have to play a factor as well.
Speaker 1: Assuming we do get to a world where you know,
Speaker 1: you might own a self driving car, keeping in mind
Speaker 1: that most models I see suggest that self driving cars
Speaker 1: will actually be owned by companies that are essentially right
Speaker 1: hailing companies, not necessarily sold to individual customers. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: this could really set a legal precedent that we could
Speaker 1: see spread around the world. And unless we're talking about
Speaker 1: a case where a human is interfering with the autonomous
Speaker 1: operations of a car, I think that that just makes
Speaker 1: sense if you are talking about something where somebody I
Speaker 1: don't know, rests control of the car from the system. Uh,
Speaker 1: then obviously you would be in a different case, and
Speaker 1: I don't think the car maker should be held accountable
Speaker 1: in those instances. That's why I think a lot of
Speaker 1: car companies that have been kind of playing with the
Speaker 1: idea of autonomous cars have also floated the concept of
Speaker 1: vehicles that don't have controls in them, right, because then
Speaker 1: you take away at least human accessible controls them. You
Speaker 1: take away the ability for a human to like turn
Speaker 1: the wheels suddenly when it should be under the control
Speaker 1: of the car itself. Okay, we've got a few more
Speaker 1: stories to cover, but before we get to those, let's
Speaker 1: take another quick break. Block Incorporated CEO Jack Dorsey is
Speaker 1: probably sweating a little bit right now. Block inc Used
Speaker 1: to be known as Square, which is its famous product
Speaker 1: and service. You probably have encountered a Square dongle at
Speaker 1: some point. These are typically it's a device that you
Speaker 1: plug into something like an iOS device like an iPhone
Speaker 1: or tablet iPad, and it allows you to process credit
Speaker 1: card payments, and the tablet or phone acts as the
Speaker 1: communications node that then works with the back end of
Speaker 1: the credit card companies and you can use the iOS
Speaker 1: device as a point of sale, and it's very useful
Speaker 1: for small business owners. Well, Apple has recently announced that
Speaker 1: it is working on a service that will allow those
Speaker 1: small business owners to accept payments directly through their iOS
Speaker 1: devices without the need for an additional piece of hardware
Speaker 1: like a Square dongle. And so it's just saying, well,
Speaker 1: we're going to offer that as a native capability in
Speaker 1: our devices, so if you want, you can use our
Speaker 1: payment system and you don't even have to have like
Speaker 1: a Square account or anything like that. And uh, there
Speaker 1: aren't a whole lot of details here, but Bloomberg suggests
Speaker 1: that Apple is going to use NFC technology as the foundation.
Speaker 1: NFC stands for near field communication that allows for the
Speaker 1: wireless data transfer a very small packets of information across
Speaker 1: small physical distances. Like you know, you hold two phones
Speaker 1: up next to each other and they exchange contact information,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing that's that typically uses NFC, and
Speaker 1: modern credit cards typically have a chip that uses NFC
Speaker 1: for contact list payments, So for those where you can
Speaker 1: tap the card against a point of sale, those kind
Speaker 1: of things, it'll work with that, at least according to Blueberg,
Speaker 1: And it will be interesting to see how block Inc
Speaker 1: responds to this. I imagine there's going to be a
Speaker 1: battle of of his fees to try and stay competitive
Speaker 1: because usually on the back end of this, if you're
Speaker 1: a small business owner, you're having to pay a certain
Speaker 1: amount of money or surrender a certain amount per sale
Speaker 1: to fund these services. Right, So, if block inc is
Speaker 1: able to offer a more competitive fee versus Apple, then
Speaker 1: it might be able to go toe to toe, but
Speaker 1: it's too early to say here. In the United States,
Speaker 1: the Internal Revenue Service or i r S, which is
Speaker 1: already a super popular agency in this country, is poised
Speaker 1: to require taxpayers who want to use certain i r
Speaker 1: S online services to first use a third party company
Speaker 1: called i d dot me to verify their identity. And
Speaker 1: you know, it makes sense that the i r S
Speaker 1: wants a way to authenticate that a person is whom
Speaker 1: they claim to be, particularly when you're talking about stuff
Speaker 1: that relates to taxes or accessing sensitive documents that relate
Speaker 1: to a person's income. Um, you know it makes sense
Speaker 1: you want to make sure you protect all that well.
Speaker 1: I D dot me is going to require users to
Speaker 1: submit some documents to prove they are who they say
Speaker 1: they are, as well as to submit a video selfie
Speaker 1: as part of that verification process. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: facial recognition technology at play here, and for several reasons,
Speaker 1: many security and privacy advocates have criticized this announcement. For
Speaker 1: one thing, it brings a private company into the citizens
Speaker 1: interaction with the i r S, and there are worries
Speaker 1: that that alone compromises security as soon as the i
Speaker 1: r S chose to offload verification to a private, third
Speaker 1: party company. Then there are many of the same general
Speaker 1: issues we've seen with facial recognition software that we should consider.
Speaker 1: For example, we've seen time and again through various different
Speaker 1: facial recognition systems that many of them have a bias
Speaker 1: to them, and that this bias often makes them unreliable
Speaker 1: when used with people of color, or with women, or
Speaker 1: with people who are gender nonconforming uh. The critics also
Speaker 1: point out that this can create a deeper digital divide
Speaker 1: because it means that users who want to access those
Speaker 1: online services will have to have a web camera or
Speaker 1: a smartphone with a camera on it in order to
Speaker 1: be able to do the video selfie thing and to
Speaker 1: use facial recognition to prove they are who they say
Speaker 1: they are, and not everyone can afford that. Not everyone
Speaker 1: has that at their disposal, but everyone has to deal
Speaker 1: with the I R s Now. All that being said,
Speaker 1: I d dot me has claimed that it's technology has
Speaker 1: shown no bias or inherent unreliability based on skin color. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's any independent research into that,
Speaker 1: but I d dot me says it's not the case. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they also point out that the online services where
Speaker 1: this will apply limited to just a couple of features.
Speaker 1: But um, you know one of those features is checking
Speaker 1: your account online. That sounds like a really basic action
Speaker 1: to me. Maybe I'm missing something here now. I RIS
Speaker 1: has said you can still file and pay taxes without
Speaker 1: going through the online route at all. And if you're
Speaker 1: doing that, like if you're doing it in the old
Speaker 1: fashioned paper and pencil way or paper and pen way,
Speaker 1: I guess you don't even have to worry about any
Speaker 1: of this, right. I d dot me is not at
Speaker 1: all involved with any of that side of things, and
Speaker 1: it's not a gatekeeper. Still, privacy advocates are concerned about
Speaker 1: where this is headed. And finally, let's talk about secret
Speaker 1: government agencies and how to uncover them. A researcher in
Speaker 1: Germany named Lilith Whitman says that she used an Apple
Speaker 1: air tag to prove that a German government agency called
Speaker 1: the Federal Telecommunications Service is actually a cover organization for
Speaker 1: a secret branch of the German in Terior Intelligence Agency.
Speaker 1: Whitman was working on a computer program to evaluate this
Speaker 1: telecommunication services work, and presumably that work is to help
Speaker 1: telecommunications companies in Germany, but that department turns out to
Speaker 1: have no official budget and that kind of sounds sus right. Well,
Speaker 1: Whitman looked into it further, trying to get to the
Speaker 1: real story of what the supposed department really was all about.
Speaker 1: She did online research, she made phone calls, she drove
Speaker 1: to offices or at least to what was claimed to
Speaker 1: be an office to check it out in person, and
Speaker 1: lots of other actions, uh, some of which just led
Speaker 1: to dead ends, And ultimately she deduced that the Federal
Speaker 1: Telecommunications Service is really part of Germany's Ministry of the Interior,
Speaker 1: specifically the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,
Speaker 1: which is kind of similar to the FBI here in
Speaker 1: the United States, with some pretty major differences. But you know,
Speaker 1: that's kind of the realm this agency works in, and
Speaker 1: Whitman was told repeatedly that she was on the wrong track,
Speaker 1: which obviously she would be right. If she was on
Speaker 1: the right track, she would still get that message. And
Speaker 1: if she was on the wrong track, then she would
Speaker 1: also get that message. So no matter what, she would
Speaker 1: be told, you're not on the right track. So she
Speaker 1: decided to try and experiment. She mailed a package containing
Speaker 1: an Apple air tag to the supposed telecommunication agency's postal address. Now,
Speaker 1: air tags lets you track something right like, you can
Speaker 1: connect it to pretty much anything. You can attach it
Speaker 1: to a bag. And let's say that you're going through
Speaker 1: an airport and you're gonna check your luggage. You might
Speaker 1: have an air tag in your luggage so that you
Speaker 1: can make sure you know where your luggage is when
Speaker 1: you get to your destination. Maybe it doesn't pop up
Speaker 1: at at baggage retrieval and you want to find out
Speaker 1: where it is. Air tag can help you track it down.
Speaker 1: So she puts one of these inside a package, and
Speaker 1: she tracks it as it goes through the postal system,
Speaker 1: and she says that the tag went not to the
Speaker 1: supposed address of the Federal Telecommunication Service, but rather ended
Speaker 1: up being delivered to the Office for the Protection of
Speaker 1: the Constitution in Cologne, Germany, and that seems to support
Speaker 1: her assertion that the Federal Telecommunication Service is just a
Speaker 1: front for the intelligence gathering agency. Now you might wonder
Speaker 1: why would she do this, Like, why would she do
Speaker 1: uncover the secrets? Why would she share that information? Well,
Speaker 1: you can bet that if a security researcher has figured
Speaker 1: this out, the quote unquote bad guys also know about it.
Speaker 1: And if the bad guys know your cover story, then
Speaker 1: you don't have a cover story, right, Like it's like
Speaker 1: you're wearing wearing a Groucho Marx glasses and calling it
Speaker 1: a disguise. So this is one of those functions that
Speaker 1: hackers fill that can easily be misinterpreted. You might say, well,
Speaker 1: why is this hacker pointing out this big gap in security?
Speaker 1: Isn't that dangerous? If the hacker says, hey, here's how
Speaker 1: I hacked into the system, isn't that dangerous? Well, for
Speaker 1: one thing, when a hacker does this, it sends the
Speaker 1: message that there is a gap insecurity, which really means
Speaker 1: there's no security at all, because you can sure as
Speaker 1: heck bet the bad guys are not going to let
Speaker 1: on that the system has flaws in it until it's
Speaker 1: too late to do anything about it. And for another thing,
Speaker 1: it really is a message to whatever the agency or
Speaker 1: organization or company or whatever it is. It's a message
Speaker 1: to them to say, hey, you're doing a bad job
Speaker 1: with your security, and if you want to do what
Speaker 1: you're doing, you've gotta do it better. So you could
Speaker 1: say that this is a way of doing quality control
Speaker 1: when it comes to gathering intelligence. Anyway, I thought it
Speaker 1: was an interesting story. I wanted to conclude with that one.
Speaker 1: Hope you are all doing well. If you have suggestions
Speaker 1: for topics that I should cover tech stuff, whether it's
Speaker 1: a company, uh, technology trend in general, a specific kind
Speaker 1: of technology and how it works, maybe it's one of
Speaker 1: the tech stuff tidbits you would like me to cover.
Speaker 1: Let me know the best way to do that is
Speaker 1: to reach out on Twitter. The handle for the show
Speaker 1: is text stuff hs W and I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: again really soon. Y Tech Stuff is an I Heart
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